Hebrews

Well, we're gonna have 2 bible readings, and, then Pete's gonna come and preach to us.

So the first, if you've got a Bible is in Genesis 25. So if you'd like to turn to Genesis 25, please, and we're gonna read verses 24 to 34. And then after that, Scarlet is gonna come and read Hebrews 12 1 to 17 for us. When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment, so they named him esau.

After this, his brother came out and his hand grasping Esoar's heel was grasping Esoar's heel. So he was named Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when Rebecca gave birth to them. The boys grew up and Esoar became a skilful hunter, a man of the open country. While Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents.

Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved esau, but Rebecca loved Jacob. Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, esau came in from the open country famished. He said to Jacob, quick, let me have some of that red stew. I'm famished. That is why he was also called Eden.

Jacob replied, first, sell me your birthright, Look, I'm about to die, Eesaw said, what good is the birthright to me? But Jacob said, swear to me first. So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave eesaw some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank and then got up and left.

And so eesaw despised his birthright. Hebrews 12 verses 1 2 17. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, scorned in its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of god. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood and have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son It says, my son do not make light of the of the lord's discipline and do not lose heart when he rebukes you because the lord's discipline is the 1 he loves and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son. Enjoy hardship as discipline. God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father. If you are not disciplined and everyone undergoes discipline, then you are not legitimate.

Not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the father of spirits and live? They disciplined us for a little while as they fought best but god disciplines us for our good in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful.

Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees, make level paths for your feet so that the lane may not be disabled but rather healed. Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy without holiness, no 1 will see the lord. See to it that no 1 falls short of the grace of god and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. See that no 1 is sexually immoral or is godless like esau who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.

Afterwards, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done. Well, good morning. My name's, Pete Woodcock. I'm 1 of the ministers of the church here. We're going through this amazing book of Hebrews coming towards the end, and we've learned so many wonderful lessons from, from from this really, really fantastic book.

Let me pray. Father help us again now as we look into this passage, please help us to see the truths that you want us to see but not just on the surface, take it to our hearts, take it to our prayer life, take it to seeking you to change us. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Let me stick this picture up here, see if you, anyone knows who that is. Who knows who that is?

Hands up 1 person. Come on. There must be others. Only 1 person knows who that is. Utter disgrace.

Oh, 2, and my wife, yes, of course you do. 2 pit where's Leonard? Is Leonard here? I've Leonard, you know who he is? You you can't think of his name.

Get out. Call yourself a guitarist. This is Robert Johnson. Yeah. There's only 3 pictures of him, actually.

And there used to be only 1 picture of him, then they found another. And I think in 20 21 of his sisters, produced this third picture, Robert Johnson. He's 1 of the most influential, blues guitarists ever. So if you ever talk to a blues guitarist wherever they come from, they all go back to Robert Johnson. Now do you know the story of Robert Johnson?

Leonard? Yes. Thank you. You can you can take him down. The story is that in 19 30, when he was 19, he was a pretty average guitarist.

But he took his guitar to the crossroads. Do you remember this story, anyone? At docking Plantation in miss miss, Mississippi, at 12 o'clock midnight. And at the crossroads, he met the devil. And the devil retuned his guitar to a blues guitar and gave him supernatural abilities to be able to play the guitar, and he's for his soul.

So Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil, so the devil would retune his guitar, and he would be able to be a great guitarist. The funny thing is about Robert Johnson, he died at 27, 8 years later, and he wasn't famous. He probably was poisoned by a rival, and, he was largely unknown until 20 years or so after his death, then he became famous. That's a story. Now when you read that story, when you know that story, there are stories just like that all the way around the world.

It's called the Faustian Faustian, Bargain, because there's a story of a sixteenth century man called Johan Faust, the German man, who was an intellectual, but he felt limited in his knowledge. He then sold his soul to the devil with his own and and signed it with his own blood, made a contract with the devil with his own blood in exchange for unlimited knowledge, worldly pleasure, and magical powers. And as I was looking into that, those stories, all the way around the world, I have no time to tell them, but there's all the way around the world. There's stories from Poland and China. And even pope Sylvester the second sold his soul to the devil, so it could become pope, supposedly, you've got the story of Italian violinist paganini, who did the, a very same sort of thing that Robert Johnson were supposed to have done.

All those stories are telling us about people, and they are stories, obviously. They want the best life now in exchange for future misery. They're not thinking of future misery. They want the best life now. They want to be the best guitarist.

They want to be the best violinist. They want to be pope. Yeah. Now no matter what the consequences are. Now if you were a Hebrew in the first century, the writer of, the letter of Hebrews knows how what their story is.

And perhaps this story is the inspiration behind all those other stories around the world. Because this is a much older story found in Genesis that we read. Look at verse 16 of Hebrews 12. He says, see to it that no 1 is sexually immoral or is godless like eesau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. See what he's doing?

Now the 1 thing that I think you should notice is that e sword doesn't actually sell his soul to the devil. In 1 sense, and I'll show you at the end, in 1 sense, that's a better thing to do than what Eesaw did. What Eesaw did was a much worse thing. He saw god. For a hungry moment, what's going on here is that he so had such little disregard for him being a child of god that at the point of hunger, He comes in and he's prepared to sell his eternal inheritance, his sonship.

Now it's interesting. There are various versions of those Robert Johnson type stories around the world, the Faustian bargain, as they call it, where people outwit the devil. They trick the devil. And, they both get a good life now, and they get the afterlife as well. But I think here's the case with Esaw.

He's not tricking a devil. He's not selling his soul to the devil. He's doing what Judith did. He's selling Jesus. He's selling god.

And that actually hardens his heart so much so that it gives him the direction in life and death and eternity. In the end, He wants the blessings of god, but he doesn't want the sonship of god. He sold that. And his life is set hard. So that even when he wants to come round to the blessings that god would give in eternity, He can't change.

Look at verse 17 afterwards. As you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done. Now why is the writer of Hebrews putting this story in here? Well, let's just we haven't looked at Hebrews for a little while, so let's just reconnect.

In chapter 11, we're told story after story after story of faithful people, but don't sell god out for stuff in this world. They've lived for god whatever they suffer in this world. And, the great example is in Hebrew's 11 verse 24. This is just 1 of many examples, but it's a good 1. By faith, it says Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of pharaoh's daughter.

Wow. He chose to be ill treated along with the people of god rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward. You see the difference? In chapter 12, the writer goes on and pictures this marathon race.

We were looking at that last time. And all those in chapter 11 that were like Moses that stuck at the race, are now over the finishing line. And they went through many trials. He spells them out in chapter 11, and many hardships and many difficulties, but now they're in glory. Now they're reaping the reward.

That's the picture. So he's encouraging chapter 11 to look at all the good examples. They've been through tough stuff. There's nothing that you're going through, but they haven't. And then in chapter 12, look at Christ.

He's been through this. He's the son of god. And he goes through this, and now, where are they? Where are they now? They didn't sell out.

They stuck at it. And so he gives those good examples, and now he comes to Esaw. And says, now, listen. Here's a negative example. Here's a bloke who, for a single moment of hunger, sold his rights as a son of god.

Here's Judith, in the new testament, for a moment of getting 30 pieces of silver sold the lord Jesus Christ. Now what's the point of that? Well, he's saying don't be like that. That's what's the point of it. Don't be like that.

This is a warning, isn't it? Don't be like that? You're suffering now? Absolutely. You may well be suffering now.

But remember, he said, he's already argued this, and we saw this last time, that god is your father, and he is helping you. He's allowing and sending and bringing suffering and difficulties into your life. Because he loves you, because he's forming you to be like Jesus. And he's maturing you. And he wants you to keep going to get the prize.

Don't sell your birth right because you're going through troubles. Don't be like Robert Johnson or faust or Pope, Silvester the second. Don't be like Esaw. Strengthen your weak knees. That's my first point.

Strength your weak knees. Look at verse 12. Therefore, in the light of all we've just said, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees, make level paths for your feet so that the lane may not be disabled, but rather healed. Imagine a runner. They're running the race, aren't they?

And they're exhausted. Their legs are heavy. Any of which most of us have probably done running in the past, but your legs are heavy, you're wobbly along, you know, you're hard hardly able to keep to the track and you're limping and wobbling and it hurts. And, you know, some of your runners, you know, what it is to go through the wall, you know, the wall, they call it, you know, because it's so painful, and you have to push through the wall, and you're going through hardships and difficulties, and you're on the verge of giving up. No, don't.

Remember the examples, remember he saw. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and your weak knees. We were hearing about Sally Willis. I don't know whether she's tuning in. She just had a knee operation, the second knee operation.

I rang her up the other day, and she was coming home from physio. Because she has to strengthen her knee. Yeah? And the physio would be saying strengthen your knees, strengthen your knees, and then you'll keep going. If you don't do it, you'd be a cripple.

If you do, strengthen your knees, you'll be able to run the race. So Sally, keep going, and here's the text that you need. Now the writer of Hebrews, he gets that illustration from Isaiah 35 in the Old Testament part of the Bible. See how the Bible is always so connected. And in Isaiah 35, what you've got is a faithful group of god's people, and they've been through a lot as a nation.

They had evil kings ruling over them. They had evil false prophets telling them rubbish. They had disobedient and stubborn fellow, you know, country rights, Israelites, They had powerful enemies who threatened them. There was little prospect of them knowing peace in their lives and getting their own land. They're discouraged.

They're despondent as the real people of god They're ready to give up, and long comes the preacher. God sends a preacher. We need a preacher in our lives. We need someone that's not gonna just listen to us. They're gonna preach at us.

They're gonna tell us. Be quiet a moment. Let me preach. And Isaiah comes along, and he preaches, and he tells them about the coming kingdom. And he says, the desert you're in now is gonna blossom.

He tells them that actually the difficulties you're going now now, you're gonna see the splendor of the lord, stick at it. And he encourages them who are faithful, encourage each other in these things. I'm gonna read it to you. This is Isaiah 35. Don't turn to it.

Just listen. Here you are. Dispondent. It's difficult. Life is difficult.

Even fellows around you are giving up. Here you are. Listen. Here comes preacher, Isaiah. He walks in.

My name's Isaiah. Yeah? By the way, I'm gonna get sawn in 2 later on, but forget that. He does. Yeah.

Sure he didn't start off like that, but anyway, forget that bit. Let's move back and and come back. Here I am, Isaiah, 35. This is his sermon to us. The desert, and the parched land will be glad.

The wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it's gonna burst into bloom. It will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it. The splendor of Carmel and Sharon.

They will see the glory of the lord, the splendor of our god strengthen your feeble hands, steady the knees that give way. Say to those who are fearful of heart. Be strong. Do not fear. Your god will come.

He will come with vengeance, with divine retribution. He will come to save you. He will judge those against you. Those injustices. Then, will the eyes of the blind be opened?

At the moment, you can't see what's going on, but they're gonna be opened. And the years of a death unstopped. At the moment, you can't quite understand what's going on, but your ears are gonna be opened, then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy, water will gush forth from the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool. The thirsty ground bubbling springs in the haunts where Jackals once lay, grass and reeds and Pampers will grow.

And our highway will be there. It will be called the way of holiness for it will be those who walk that way. The unclean will not journey on it. Wicked fools will not go about on it. No lion will be there nor any ravenous beast.

They will not be found there, but only the redeemed will walk there. And those the lord has rescued will return. They will enter with singing, everlasting joy will crown their heads, gladness and joy will overtake them and sorrows and sighing will flee away. Don't give up. Don't sell that.

Don't sell that for a moment of hunger. For a moment of looking at other people that aren't righteous and what they have and a desire for that. Don't sell that. That's coming. Brilliant preaching, isn't it?

So are you running? Your arms are drooping? Your knees are going weak. Your hip feels like a, oh, gosh. What's going on there?

Strengthen your feeble arms and strengthen your weak needs and listen to the word of god. It's like a coach, encouraging us, spurring us on, giving us fresh water, giving us that drink. Just before the finishing line, giving you some sugar, giving you some energy food, chucking a banana at you so that you can eat it, giving you that's the word of god to strengthen you. Don't be ruined by your troubles. Remember, but in those moments, the father god is maturing you, and he's making you like the son who's gone through this stuff before.

He's making you like Jesus. He's training you to grow more like Jesus strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. When illnesses or struggles or struggles come, There's 2 ways you can go. Isn't there? You can give up, give in.

You can say these troubles are the reason why I'm giving in. You can become bitter in heart, or you can say, my heavenly father loves me. He's training me. He's brought me these difficulties in life because he loves me for my good, not for my ruin. He's not out to ruin me.

Listen to what he's doing. He's pushing you on to mature you. This is a reason to continue in the race. Look at verse 13, make level paths for your feet so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. In other words, we're not running on our own, you know.

Look out for stragglers, and the funny thing is, as you look out for stragglers that are going through difficulties, you're not thinking of yourself, and you're becoming more like Jesus in your troubles. It's not all about you. Stop running as an individual, he says. Be a coach to each other. Encourage each other.

Where possible, fill in the potholes for other people. Pick up the rocks for other people. There's potential strained ankles here. Help the lame so that they won't be disabled and not able to finish the race. See, the Christian walk is is not a solitary walk.

The Christian race is not a solitary race. We we we can't go into the Christian life without support and without being a supporter. We know need to both be a supporter and support. That's how it works. And when you see brothers and sisters flagging, bolster them up, and that in turn will help you be about the things of god.

Make level paths for your feet. So that the lane may not be disabled, but rather healed. I love spurgeon on this. See at spurgeon, a Victorian preacher, he says this. You cannot heal the man's bad foot.

But you can pick up the stones out of the path that he has to pass over. You can't give him a new leg, but you can make the road as smooth as possible. Let there be no unnecessary stumbling block to cause him pain. Do you see that? We're runners.

Look at the finishing line. Push on. Lift up feeble arms, get those legs going, but look around as well, and help those who are limping, don't sell your birthright. Keep running. Help the lame.

And as I say, I think this is really important. As you're helping the lame, you're making yourself more like Christ, and you'll run the race better. Do you remember back in the 2016, the, the British triathlon brothers. Does it do you remember that story? You you remember it?

And perhaps he will. It's, alastair and Johnny Brownley, Do you remember them? And they were running in Mexico in the world series run. They'd already done Olympics and all of that sort of stuff. And they were they were the British triathlon runners, and Alastair was always winning.

And he was about to win this race, but his brother Johnny had heat stroke and collapsed just before the finishing line. Do you remember this scene? If not, you can get it, can't you? Just before the finishing line, his brother Johnny collapsed. They were gonna get first and second in this race, but Alastair picked up Johnny and put his arm around him.

And they came second and third because another man passed them. Now listen, if he had got a gold medal, Allister, and left his brother, who would care? Would he care about that? In the end, But now this is a this is a very powerful moment in sporting memory. It's much better than getting a gold medal, isn't it?

That is what we are to do. Not about winning. It's not about us. It's not about us getting across the finishing line before other people. It's not about us getting a gold medal.

It's about us putting our around our arm and lifting Johnny up and going across together. And that encourages us. That's the first point. Here's my second point. Make every effort to live in peace.

Verse 14, make every effort to live in peace with everyone and be holy without holiness, no 1 can see the lord. In running, if you know about running, of course, you you have to sometimes put an extra burst on a little sprint, a little extra push, And that's what he's saying here. Make every effort, pursue. It's flat out. Push the running techniques.

When troubles are around you and difficulties are surrounding you, That's the moment to push through the wall, not to stop. That's the moment to push a little bit more, put a little bit more effort, have a bit more determination. Be spurred on. Be advanced by the pain. Make every effort to live in peace with everyone.

The word peace is a Greek word. It means join together. It means wholeness. It's the Greek equivalent of shalom. It doesn't just mean seas fire.

It doesn't mean say we're not at war with each other. It's much more than that. I'm, most of my neighbors in my road, I'm not at war at. With. Some are because they kept they do their dog poo outside my house several times a day for some reason and leave piles of it.

I'm at war with those people. Well, I need to try to make peace. While I'm not at war, I just spray it luminous, orange so it glows at night and everyone can see it and not put their foot in it. But most of my neighbors forget that. Most of my neighbors, I'm not at war at.

I I'm not actually at war at. I'm not I'm not angry at them, but it's not peace. It's just the ceasefire. I'm not I don't love them. I don't serve them.

I'm not the peace word is shalom. It's you love, you feed, you care for, you enjoy. Our world is full of conflict and lawsuits and divorce and protests and racism and terrorism and prejudice and open warfare and dogmuck. Our war is full of that stuff. Churches, unfortunately, not exempt from this, but it mustn't be like this brothers and sisters.

It must not be like this. We are to work hard at peace. Work hard at peace. Worldliness says, kill or be killed. God says, in Romans 12, if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

A sense of rich unity, this type of peace in a local congregation will do more to create a right atmosphere of healing than almost anything else in the world. When a church is shalom, when a church is at peace, when a church loves so that the world can see that their disciples of Jesus because they have love for 1 another, peace with 1 another. They go out of their way for shalom. That atmosphere heals more than anything and and so helpful for people that are going through difficulties. When god sends trouble in your life, use the lesson to develop the qualities of how to live in peace with all people.

See, trials can make you more understanding. Can't they? Trials can make you more tolerant and compassionate and caring and considerate. If you've never suffered pain, it's hard for you to understand how tiring and breaking pain can be. But now if you're suffering pain, you could be more compassionate to someone who suffers pain.

Isn't it? When you're young, it's hard to understand what Earth is it like to be old. Really hard. Why can't that person bend down and do their shoelaces up? What's up with them?

Well, they're old. But when you can't bend down and do your shoelaces up, you suddenly understand? Oh, right. I get it. It makes us better examples it can do.

It can make us better soul winners, better understanders. It makes us much more like Jesus, the high priest who understands exactly what it's like to be human and to suffer. The devil will try to disrupt any group of believers. So be active, be absolutely active, put on a sprint, make effort for peace. Be so, so, so careful, not to sell peace, which is your birthright for selfishness.

It's so easy war, isn't it? We've we're seeing it. Any fool can press a button and take the world into war. Anyone can do that. It's very hard to get you out of it when you've started a war, as we're seeing.

Very hard to stop a war once you've pressed the button. So brothers and sisters, in church, don't press that button. If you've got a grievance against someone, You might write it out, but don't send that email. Don't send that text. Sit on it for 24 hours.

Show it to another brother or sister before you press the button. Hold back. Make every effort for peace. We've got it in this church. But we've seen churches broken by a lack of effort for peace, brothers and sisters work at peace.

And the more diverse we're getting, which is a beauty, beautiful thing. The more different nationalities gonna have to work harder because we gotta understand what it is to be whatever it is you are. How does a Chinese person think? I don't know. Yeah?

How does a British person think? That's hard because I don't know and I'm British. How do we love each other? How do we bring peace? Make every effort.

Thirdly, make every effort to be holy. See it again and be holy without holiness, no 1 can see the lord. When suffering and troubles come, use them to make further advances in the race in the area of holiness. You see very often when you start suffering, you really sometimes see how selfish you are and how much you relied on outside things. It it does that to you.

When difficulties come and persecutions come, you start thinking, how did I treat people? I always remember years ago when we had some trouble with local lads that were booting our wall down in our garden. And I was out there in my pajamas chasing them. And, once when I was out chasing them, I suddenly realized I used to do this. I'm them.

I used to be them. Now, I don't believe in calm or anything like that, but I suddenly understood hold it. They're not that bad. It's only a wall Why am I so angry? You know?

Do you see when trouble comes, when you you start to see, well, what was I like then? How selfish was I? How unholy was I? So here's an opportunity now to work out your holiness. How have I treated people when they were in this situation?

How did I ignore them? How did I was how how was I self possessed? But now I'm going through difficulties, and I want people to love me and and help me out. Holyiness is being set apart for god. Be set apart for god when these troubles and difficulties come.

We wanna be at peace with people where we can. But we're not at peace with the world and its thinking. Romans 12 says, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Then you will be able to test and approve what god's will is. He's good and pleasing and perfect will.

We're not to conform to this world. We are to be set apart. So peace is really important. Make every effort for peace, but it's not peace at the price of holiness with the world. It's not peace that costs holiness.

Don't sell your holiness, the distinct living for god for a pot of compromised peace with the world. Holyness separation difference is important. Fourthly, Make every effort to be full of grace and not bitter. Look at verse 15. It this is such an amazing sentence.

Can you just look at it? If you've been switched off, this this is really, really important brothers and sisters. See to it that no 1 falls short of the grace of god and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. That's that's amazing sentence, isn't it? Isn't it?

No? Well, I'll read it again then. See to it that no 1 falls short of the grace of god, and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. See to it that no 1 falls short of the grace of god. What an extraordinary statement?

Who in their right mind would do that? To fall short of the grace of god. Grace means undeserved, unmerited, kindness, and favor, and love of god. Do you wanna fall short of that? Grace is a massive word.

I remember once when I was I I I was buying 2 airplane tickets for Drew and Rory to come to Ireland. And it was 1 of those sites where when you went back, you know, on the page, it readjusted everything. You know, deliberately, I guess. It readjusted the dates. And, I just wanted to check something, and then I went back, and the dates had changed.

And then I pressed pay. And I paid for flights, and immediately I pressed it. I saw the dates were the wrong dates. So I rang the helpline. I was amazed I got through in 10 minutes.

Yeah. If you knew who this company is, an Irish company and they fly. Begins with r. If you knew, I mean, I was amazed they answered, they answered. And he said, no problem.

I won't go to the shop. I shouldn't get that. He said, we have, a thing called, a grace, a grace, whatever it was, a grace policy here. I thought fantastic. Now what does grace in that situation mean?

Grace is undeserved, unearned, favor kindness, and love. Grace really means, don't worry, sir. We're sort out the wrong date, We'll pay for your ticket at no price whatsoever. We'll return your money. And by the way, you could have some extra going and doing because it's a grace law.

That's what I was thinking when he said grace to me. Well, but Grace Law meant was that I have to pay 90 percent of the original ticket. I get 10 percent off the next ticket I buy with the right date. I said to him, that is not grace. Yeah?

I explained to him what grace was, and he didn't budge an inch. Grace, undeserved, love, to someone who's messed up, to someone who doesn't deserve it. In fact, someone who deserves the opposite, the kindness, the favor of god. God so loved the world, not because the world was lovable, not because he got anything out of the world. Not because we can repay him back.

He loved the world because he's a god of love and a god of grace, and he sends his son to rescue. And the lord Jesus Christ is the very grace of god. God becoming a man coming into this world. God dying on a cross. To pay the price for our sin, to pay the price.

That's grace. Extraordinary grace. And then throughout your life, there's grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. Think of all the acts of grace in your life. Have you ever sat down?

We did it as a home group last week. I've got the best home group. By the way, I'm sorry you're in your home group. My home group's the best. Now from all over the world, it's extraordinary the stories in my home group.

Honestly, We did it, at home grown. Just think back at some of the things you can think of, where now you know it was god working in your life. Here's 1 story. 1 woman in the church, treated pretty badly. Brothers were paid for to go to school on the bus.

She wasn't. Yeah. She wasn't a Christian. She was treated pretty, pretty, pretty badly, and that this isn't the worst story. I mean, you can't tell the story as she tells.

She told us 1 of the stories once, and we were all mouth open. Do you remember that? Mouth open thinking, oh, no 1 had a story that was so horrible as her story, but you can talk to her afterwards if you want to, and she may wanna tell it. But some awful things in her life, but now looking back, she sees in those awful things grace of god, finding the odd coin here and there that made it abled for her to buy some food. Yeah?

And she rejoices in that. It's a wonderful thing. Another woman in the horror of of a national cult North Korea. You wanna hear the stories. You wanna hear the stories, escapes to China.

And there's this story about the police coming, and and she's can't speak because she can't speak Chinese. And someone said, oh, she's deaf and dumb. Yeah? And the policeman then felt sorry for her and gave us some food instead of arresting her. These are stories that when you look back, wow, the grace of god, the grace of god, even in suffering.

Don't you know those stories? I was saved at 19. Maybe if I wasn't saved, I'd be an alcoholic, because I used to drink. Maybe a drug addict. I don't know.

But god saved me before the difficulties came. My friend Kenny Moore and my friend, Alastair Wells, that I would have been in the car with. Just after I became a Christian, were running, driving from the police, who were after them in from slough to Eaton. And Kenny was driving, and he skidded around a corner and smashed into a tree and was instantly killed, and The girlfriend who was in the back seat went crazy. She was put into a mental institute because she had to sit with his dead body on her lap for 4 or 5 hours.

I would have been in that. Who knows? You know what it's like when you're really frustrated at your wife because she forgot a hair dryer or something when you're going on holiday. Who cares about that? You do?

Oh, yeah. Okay. And she has to go back for the hairdryer, and then you get on the M 25, and there's an accident, and you sit there for several hours, cursing everything. Yeah? If only you hadn't got back for that hairdryer would have got through.

But then when you pass the accident, it's fatal. And if you'd been there 1 minute earlier, you would have been in that. How do you know that? Grace of god, and they're the ones we can see. Yeah.

A lot of the ones we can't see. The fall short of the grace of god is nothing but stupidity. Paul talks about people in a feast, Galatians 5. He says, You who are trying to be justified. We just saw what that word meant.

By the law, by doing stuff, have been alienated from Christ. You've fallen away from grace, to turn back to self is madness. To turn back to think that you can run your life better than god's is madness. But you say, but if I wasn't a Christian, I'd be richer. You say, well, if I wasn't a Christian, I wouldn't suffer this stuff.

You're not sure. That would be the case. It might be the case, but it might not be. Are you a better, better guide to your life than god? Do you wanna give up and sell god as your father who knows what you need to mature you and to bring you to glory, all the opportunities in life that god gives us.

If we're thoughtless, if we procrastinate, if we miss the chances of grace, To see grace, we'll be in trouble. In all stages of life, there's 1 constant throughout your life. And if you look back, you'll see them. The grace of god. So to now be so self taken up that you're going to solve your own problems and try and go for the comfortable life and give up on grace is crazy.

See to it that no 1 falls short of grace. The danger of superficiality, the falling short of the grace of god and not applying the gospel into our lives and our situations and understanding those things. When did you last pray things that god had spoken you on into your heart, into your life throughout the week? Isaiah comes and preaches. Do we just hear it and move on?

Back to our troubles and all my leg and all this? We've seen in this series of Hebrews that you start drifting and drifting leads to doubting and then doubting leads to dullness, and dullness leads to desertion, if you're not careful. Every gardener and every farmer knows that if you neglect those sort of weeds in your life, they spread quickly, look at verse 15, see to it that no 1 falls short of the grace of god, and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. Bitter roots. Bitterness defiles many.

Bitterness is a horrible way to live. If you ever met a really bitter person, I can think in in my ministry, Justin Kingston, the 5 extremely bitter people that I had to put up with. They weren't always bitter against me. They were often bitter against someone else. And I can tell you they were horrible people to be around.

And even meeting up with them to hear their bitter complaints felt like I'd caught some kind of horrible disease. In fact, in some of them, I actually went home and took a shower. I felt so dirty. At the bitterness of people. Bitter, defiling themselves.

And each other. Bitter contaminates the church. It corrupts defiles. It spreads like a poison in the pie. The word bitter there, bitter root means poisonous root.

I deserve better than others. Bitter about that. Why haven't I got what they've got? Why is my life like this? Bitter about suffering.

Bitter. It's such a nasty. It's a nasty word, and people are nasty when they're bitter. And they're unpleasant, and they're dirty, and they defile you. Bitterness.

It's a stumbling block on the road. It trips the lame up. You get those people that wanna be holy, don't you? And they think holiness is to be sort of morose and contentious and fault finding, and everybody else has got something wrong, and they're so blinking negative. They're awful to be around, and they drag you down and not to be like that.

Look at the grace of god, see god working, see him working for our good, rejoicing what we've got to come. Lift your eyes up from the bitter root, cut it out. Don't sell your inheritance of grace, forbiddenness. Make every effort to be godly, verse 16. See to it that no 1 is sexually immoral or godless like esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son afterwards, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected.

Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change. I think quickly, the the reference to sexual immorality is there, but is because it's just like hunger. You know, people suddenly commit to sexual, you know, that they're sexually immoral, and they've wrecked their whole family just for a little bit of pleasure. You know that. You know that.

Why would you do that? Don't be like Eisaw. Don't let your appetites for this world, sell your soul. Robert Johnson. Amazing guitarist.

Have a listen to him on Spotify. 40 songs he wrote. This is a biography. I read this back in COVID. It came out in 2020.

That picture was revealed in 2020, the third picture of Robert Johnson. Did he sell his soul to the devil? Don't know. But selling your soul to the devil is not the worst sin, because Jesus is a stronger man than the strong man, the devil. I know this, that the last words he wrote as apparently being in agony of being poisoned, the last words he wrote were these, these very last words in green ink.

Jesus of Nazareth, King of Jerusalem. I know that my redeem is live of my redeemer liveth, and that he will call me from the grave. Brother, Robert Johnson. Whatever he did in his life, he called out for Jesus at the end, and Jesus is a savior. He loves to save.

Robert Johnson, probably playing the best guitar he could ever could, along with all those angels with their stringed instruments, obviously guitars. Someone would have probably given him an electric guitar, because he didn't have 1 of them. I can't wait to hear his praises. Can you? Worth the suffering, isn't it?

But listening to k pop to get to heaven to listen to Robert Johnson. Let's pray. Lord, Jesus, we do thank you for your incredible grace to us. Thank you that we are now sat at your table, though once we were your enemies, and we pray that you would forgive us for that for our declaration of war against you, for the ways in which we chose a sinful life, a life of rebellion against you, but we thank you for the grace of the lord Jesus who came and swapped places with us so that he might bear our curse and that we might get to eat at his table, to feast with you forever and ever. Please, we pray that you would help us not to fall short of the grace of god.

We pray that you'd help us to encourage 1 another. We pray that when our knees and our arms are limp and weary, you would help us to strengthen ourselves with the grace of the lord Jesus and to strengthen others with that grace too. And we ask these things in Jesus name, amen.