12-28-25 - See To It That No One Comes Short Of The Grace Of God

I

really like the book of Ecclesiastes. I was describing it as sandpaper taking the shine off of life so you can get down to the real substance of it. And so I we had to pick a new book, and I thought we should read Ecclesiastes. I really like it. It's kinda depressing in the same way that, like, sandpaper is, like, having to strip something down to it.

Like, to strip all the shine off of it is kinda hard work. But then you can then you have something real to start with again. And so it's the wisdom of an old man who spent his life, thinking and doing a lot of stupid stuff. He really did. He thought a lot and he did a lot of dumb things.

And at the end of his life, he tells us not to follow in his train. So, I encourage you to read the book and to to meditate on it. It's very helpful, in growing in godliness and having a good perspective. So let's pray. Heavenly father, I pray that you would be with us as we this morning.

We pray for those who are away from us, who are sick, who are suffering, who are traveling. We pray, Father, that you would minister to them where they're at this morning, and that you would heal them and bring them safely back, home in your time. We look into this, new year that you would guide us and make straight paths that we might walk in them. Each of us has weak knees and has, frailty and feebleness. Some of us feel it more than others are aware of it.

And yet, we are like the grass who's here today and gone tomorrow. And we're in need of your guidance and your protection and your sustaining grace to bear us through our days. We pray not only that you'd bear that you'd sustain us, but that you'd make us fruitful. And that the fruit would be sweet and plentiful. And that the fruit would be sweet and plentiful.

We pray that as we live and work and love in our homes and in our workplaces and in our communities, that your truth would that your truth would be evident in us by the things we say and the things we prioritize and things we do. I pray that your love would, would shine through. And that you'd give us peace and rest. As we come to your word this morning, we pray that you'd give us, your spirit to guide us. That he would dwell richly and deeply within us.

And that he would, convict us of our sins. That he would give us humility and a teachable heart. We pray that you'd make us as fertile soil. That as your word is planted in us, that it would bear fruit and not be choked out by the cares of the world or our own lust, by suffering or by any sort of fear. We pray that your word would stand and grow and become as a mighty oak in our hearts, providing shelter and and, shade and protection to us.

We pray that you give us faith to trust you, to take you at your word, and to lay aside our own our own thoughts. Your thoughts are not our thoughts and your ways are not our ways. And so help us to forsake our ways and thoughts and take up yours. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

Take some time this morning, to work through how to evaluate our lives. It's a natural thing that goes on. For a lot of years, I've sort of wondered about New Year's resolutions and and all this kind of stuff. It all felt kind of silly to me, but I think I was the one who was silly. I think that reflection I know that reflection and examination of our lives is something that scripture commends to us.

Paul commends it to us. And we read every time we take the Lord's supper that we ought to examine ourselves, the mirror and see what there is to see. Not to be distracted. Not to glance at it. Not to see it and then forget it.

But to see it and to remember it and to, do business with the reality of of of our hearts. And so we've come to a time of year, one year's ending, another starting, where it makes sense for us to do this sort of thing. Did you get done in 2025 what you wanted to get done? What do you wanna get done in 2026? Do you wanna just I mean, these are the questions we're asking ourselves.

Do you wanna just be where you're at today in twelve months? I don't think any of us would say, yeah. Yeah. I hope everything just stays just like it is. It's all thing.

There's things that we would like to see change. That's natural and good, and I think that, that sort of evaluation is helpful to us. I think that we ought to be ambitious in our desire to grow and to change and to improve in ways that honor God. So when you evaluate your life, what sorts of things are you evaluating? Are you evaluating your health?

I'd like to be healthier. Are you evaluating your finances? Are you evaluating your, happiness? How about your productivity? I need to be more productive.

Twenty twenty six. I need to get my homework done earlier. I need to become more efficient. How about spiritually? How often where do you need to grow there?

It's easy to set goals. It's easy to talk about what we'd like to see change. Goals are not much more than a dream. It's like it's a I hope this will happen, or change, or stop, or start. And, or change or stop or start.

I hope I'm able to do this. But hoping to change is not how God actually changes us. If we want to change, scripture commends the pursuit of change to us. Meaning that we're not just supposed to sit and wait, but we're to pursue. And so our text, this morning is Hebrews chapter 12.

It's a play, verses 14 to 18 where we're told to pursue sanctification among other things. And so my hope is that this sermon will help us to stop talking about what we'd like to see change and stop, blaming other people or even our own weakness, our own brokenness. And actually, simply pursue the thing that we would like to see. And so when another year goes by and we're here in another twelve months, we can say I actually pursued that. Right?

If we don't want to be where we're at today, then the question comes to us this morning from the word of God. Well, what are you going to do? See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God. That no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble and by it many be defiled. That there be no immoral or godless person like Esau who sold his own birthright for a single meal.

For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. For he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated.

I remember pastor Bailey, some of you guys know know pastor Tim, saying what his dad used to say which was that American evangelicalism back in like the sixties and seventies was only concerned with getting you saved. And then after you saved, you you just might as well die because there was nothing left for you to do. Like, the whole goal was get you to believe in Jesus and after that, you're done. And it was a grief to him that there was no, there's nothing more. No no more substance to Christianity or believing in Jesus than simply, saying you believed in him.

But there is much more to Christianity than simply believing in Jesus. That's the beginning of, of a perpetual discomfort called sanctification. Okay? Sanctification is a change of of heart and mind and life aimed at conforming you to Jesus Christ. A life of pursuit.

It's not a life of idleness. It's not a life of of of saying, well, I hope I don't do that again. That's not repentance. That's not pursuit. That is accommodation.

One thing we can know that is true is that if we just go, I really don't want to do

this again. I really hope I don't do it again. I really hope I don't do it again. I really hope I don't do it again. I really hope I don't do it again.

I really hope I

don't do it again. I really hope I

don't do it again. I'm a

But there's no plan, and there's no sorrow, and there's no accountability. We can rest assured we will do it again, Because we haven't repented. We haven't pursued sanctification. We've Sat And so the Christian life is a life of pursuit. And so when Hebrews tells us to pursue peace with all men and sanctification, it's only telling us what is said in so many other places.

In Matthew six thirty three in the sermon on the mount, Jesus said, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. All those things that were to be added to you were the things that fill up your heart and your mind and your time and your energy so that you don't have any left to pursue the Lord and his kingdom. You say, I don't have time. I'm so consumed with these other things. And so Jesus tells us, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.

In Luke twelve nine, Jesus says, I ask I say to you, ask and you will be given. It will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened. I think we typically get the first third of that.

If we get any of it, we get the first third of it. We ask, meaning we pray. But as far as seeking and and narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter. It will not be This idea of striving, seeking, pursuing, activity.

Do you think that seeking after God is beneficial? I mean, we're all going to say, yes, I think it's beneficial. But if someone were to look at our lives and and like grade how our our seeking of the Lord, would that testify to us believing that he's worthy of our pursuit? I think if you were if I if I were to grade my own life, I would I would not get an a. Hebrews eleven six says, and without faith it's impossible to please him.

For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he's the rewarder of those who seek him. So do you think there's any benefit to you in seeking God? New Testament, let alone the Old Testament, that talk about seeking the Lord. But these ones I've mentioned from Hebrews and then, Matthew and Luke are sufficient to show us that the Christian life is meant to be a life spent seeking after God. And I wanna say to you, every one of you is a seeker.

Every one of us is a seeker. We all seek things. The question is not whether we seek, but what we will If we don't pursue God, if we don't seek after him, it's not because we're not seeking anything. It's just that we're seeking something else. Another way of saying it is, twelve months from now, I guarantee you, you won't be the same person you are today.

You won't be. You will be different. The question is just how? Will you be more mature? Will you be more godly?

Will you be more bitter? Will you be more angry? Will you be more proud? Will you be more lazy? Will you be more humble?

Will you be more teachable? What will it What what constellation of change

classes in school, does he does he fail to pursue

gets bad grades and fails his classes in school, does he does he fail to pursue? Does he have no pursuits? I bet if you asked his parents what he pursues, they could tell you. They'd say this is what he does when he gets home. This is all he does.

He locks himself in his room and he he he plays his guitar. He locks himself in his room and he listens to music. He locks himself in his room and he plays video games. He he goes out with his friends and has broken his arm three times trying to get better at riding his skateboard. And these are all people that I've known, that I've ministered to when I was a with was a youth leader.

And they failed their classes and they were miserable to their parents and they were generally unpleasant. And I would say they weren't, those particular young men I'm thinking of weren't Christians, but they certainly were seekers. Because if you took that one kid's guitar away from him, and his parents did one time, they took it and broke it. They just snapped it. Oh, he cared.

Cause he was a seeker. He he was wanting to get better at something. And so for the first question to ask yourself as you evaluate is what have I sought after this last year? What have I what have I pursued? What have I grown in?

Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing? What have I gone after? What do you mean progress in? I said earlier, you don't want to be the same person a year from now that you are today. But I'll ask you, are you the same person today that you were twelve months ago?

How has you changed? And was it for the better or for the worse? Is your view of Christianity or being a Christian to just hunker down and hope that you can stay right where you're at forever? Have to take refuge in the Lord, but if your whole goal in life is to not change and just to stay where you're at and hope you don't lose any ground, you will So what should we seek as Christians? This passage gives us two things.

Peace with all men and sanctification. Now are these the only two things you should seek as a Christian? No. There's a whole host of things you should seek, right? But we're limiting ourselves to these two this morning.

It says that we ought to pursue peace with all men and sanctification. I think that these are given to us because they're the things that we most easily neglect. Do we have any peaceful people here? Nathan's trying to more peaceful than most, perhaps. Yeah.

But some of you are very quiet, very retiring at least in public. Some of you young children, you come to you come to church and you're like, but I know you're not that way at home. Are we peaceful? Are your homes peaceful? What did you say?

Our home is a home that's filled with peace. And you realize it's not a it is or it isn't. It's like, well, that depends. It depends on if we're both home. It depends on how when if we've eaten, it depends on all whole host of things.

Whether we're sick or tired, stressed out from work, or have or pregnant, or had to have a baby, or haven't slept right. There's all these things. But seeking peacefulness with all men is an easy thing to neglect, so is sanctification. Did you notice here in this passage that Esau was given as an example? Was Esau a seeker?

Yes. What did Esau seek? Food, right? Yeah. To satisfy his appetite.

A single meal, right? And Jacob, his brother, the deceiver I'll give you some food. And so Esau has given to us in this passage as an example of the consequences of not pursuing peace and sanctification. He didn't pursue those things. Instead, he pursued a meal.

And he sold his birthright for that. His hunger ruled over him. And so he pursued it, and it cost him his soul. He fell short of the grace of God, and he didn't see the Lord. It's a few lessons we can learn from that.

The first is that, simple things, necessary things, food, can carry danger with them depending on what we trade for them. Have you ever thought, well, I'll do this now and I'll be sorry for it later. Better to ask for what's the saying? Better to ask for forgiveness than permission. My question to you is, how'd that work out for Esau?

You read it? Wow. Consequence to us. Now, you may want to look at this and say, well, Esau was rejected. And we he wasn't rejected ultimately because of what he did here, but he was rejected because the Bible says, the Jacob I loved and Esau I hated.

And I'd say, okay. So which are you? Do you want to be Esau? Do you want to live a life and have I mean, as we're earthly speaking, Esau, though he lost his birthright here, he lived a good life. His life wasn't fraught with all kinds of terrible things in in this world.

He went off. He got married. He had children. He built wealth. He had life.

By a lot of standards, probably a good life. So we ought to be careful when we when we look at, repenting later as though it will always be available to us. It was not available to Esau. And so the question is not, whether repentance is possible later for God's people. Repentance is always an option.

But we have to step back and say, if I care so little about the things I give myself to, and if I act as though the things I pursue have no consequence, is that sort of thought and behavior true of a Christian? Do Christians think that way? Do Christians say, I don't care what the consequences are later. I want my bowl of food now. We don't know what Esau was thinking in the moment.

We don't know if he thought, well, this is wrong, but I'm really hungry. We don't know if he had any thought to the future. We do know is that he was rejected by God over a single meal, it seems. And as a result, because of the things he pursued, he's gone on to hell. Now is this meant to paralyze you and keep you from being able to do anything and feeling like hell is always right around the corner?

That's not actually my goal in saying these things to you. My goal in saying these things to you is to get you to see that there's no sec section of your life where the things you pursue have no consequence. Everything you pursue has a consequence. And what's commended to us here is pursuit of peace with all men and then sanctification. And so we'll take these things in turn.

What is pursuit of peace with all men actually mean? What does it actually look like to live at peace with all men? Does it mean passivity? Does it mean tolerance? Does it mean indifference?

No. Not exactly. But sometimes it does. And oftentimes when it feels the the most offensive or inappropriate to us. Does peace with all men require passivity of us?

I if we were to take Jesus as an example, he went in and flipped up over the the money changers tables and cleared out the temple with a whip twice. That was not passive, now was it? But was he pursuing peace? It was. Passive?

As a sheep before his shears, he was silent. So which is it? Wouldn't we like to know? Which is it? Just am I supposed to, am I just supposed to carry a whip, or am I just supposed to whatever's fine.

It's not so easy. How about How about tolerance? To maintain the peace, I just have to tolerate everything that that goes on. Some of you have had family events recently, conflicts, sins, and what's been preached by the family is tolerance. We all have to tolerate.

We all have to just bite our lips and swallow and accept, because we're a family. Is there a piece in that just not peace in that but if you were to be would anyone consider you pursuing Would anyone consider you pursuing peace? But would you be could you be pursuing peace? Potentially, I mean, I suppose you could just be a jerk and just run-in your mouth. But I mean, if you decided you were going to say something, to actually try to pursue peace and say, actually, the reason that we have conflict in our house is not because I'm a Christian or because I think that that's sin, but because they're given to it.

And I think as Christians, we should say so. And we shouldn't tolerate it and pull it into our laps like it won't have any consequence on us. But does tolerance ever have a place in the pursuit of peace with all men? Oh, yes. It does.

It would be nice if peace meant that we didn't have any conflicts or disagreements, but that's not the way life works in this world. Not in a fallen world, not with fallen men. And so when there are disagreements that arise amongst us, we have to make a judgment as to whether it's something that can be tolerated or something that needs to be addressed, which which is aiming at peace. Our church is an example of, you know, as an example of this, the credo Baptists and the pedo Baptists tolerate each other. We actually disagree.

We actually disagree. Right? Like, it's not we're not indifferent about it. We actually disagree. And yet, our disagreement doesn't rise to the level of disfellowship.

And so, our disagreement doesn't rise to the level of disfellowship. And so, by faith and with grace, we tolerate each other's differences. While maintaining, we think the other person is wrong. So tolerance does have a place, but not all the time in the pursuit of peace with all men. How about indifference?

Indifference meaning you just don't care. You're just like, yeah. I just don't care. Is that the way you pursue peace with all men? You're just like, yeah, I just don't care about anything.

It doesn't matter. I had a guy tell me one time years and years ago in our church, when we were first getting started, we were talking about the issue of baptism and he said, he was talking to me and to Joseph Bailey and he said, you know, I I just don't think it matters which you do. As long as as long as you just do it by faith, I think it's probably okay and fine, and God's alright with it. And I was like, buddy, that is not gonna make you any friends anywhere, because neither one of us are indifferent to the question. And for you to just act like the way forward is to care about less, that's not the way forward.

And so he got it from both sides. Both the credo and the pedo saying, no. No. No. That's not the way forward.

So how do we know whether to speak up or to keep silent? Whether to accept or whether to fight? Whether to care or whether to forget about it. If you don't know when to stand and fight or when to be quiet, one thing I'm sure will happen is you'll live a life full of conflict. Because you won't know what's worth fighting about.

And if you do know what's worth fighting about, you won't know how to fight about it. And the reason is that your fighting will not be aimed at peace. You ever been in an argument in your house about who's right and who's wrong? The kids ever get in an argument about that? Did you know that it doesn't matter who's right and who's wrong?

But seriously, it doesn't act like that is not the supreme question as to who's right and who's wrong about how the thing got broken or taken or cheated on. The biggest goal is not actually whether you're right or whether you're wrong. Because we can take an argument, you know, with little kids, they can take an argument over Legos, completely inconsequential to life, but not to them. And it can it can take over the entire house for a long time. Hours.

So what's more important? Who had it first? Or the fact that this this silly thing has taken over the house? Isn't it more important that the that conflict has just has just whipped up into a a storm. It's more important that the that the conflict has gotten to such a significant level.

No one is pursuing peace. One One of the things we often ask our kids at the house is not we say, okay, what happened? And they tell us what happened and and we get down the story, the line of of, you know, was it blatant and obvious one person just completely but it's it's rarely the case that one person just like one, you know, was playing Chiappeland quietly and someone else just walked over, shoved him over and took the toy. There's usually more to the story than that. Like, five minutes ago, it was the other way.

Right? And so one of the things we ask our kids is, what could you have done to prevent it getting this bad? And what I'm asking them is, what could you have done to pursue peace? Well, but he no. I don't want to hear a word about what he could have done.

What could you have done to keep it from getting like this? Because in the moment, you all say, nothing, because it's not my fault. But scripture commends to us that we pursue peace with all men, even if they sin against us. So that's no excuse. Prove it from getting this serious?

The whole family is now engaged in your conflict and can't have dinner or do whatever because of this problem. What could you have done to prove it? This? And then you turn to the other child, and you say, and what could you have done to prevent this? And then you turn to the kid that was sitting idly by, watching the older kids, sitting idly by, watching the problem spin up and they were silent.

You say, what could you have done to prove this? They're younger than you. Why did you let them do this? Right? Because we're trying to get into our brains and into our hearts this idea that pursuing peace with all men is not a passive thing.

You don't just hope you have peace. But to pursue it, you have to prioritize it. Important than right and wrong here.

And so

if you're going to fight or get in an argument or have a conflict, your aim should be to produce peace. Paul argues in first Corinthians 13, if I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but have not love. You your argument can be flawless, and you can be right. And who cares? Have you ever thought or heard somebody say, quote this scripture, I'm for peace, but when I speak, they're for war.

I'm for peace, but they're for war.

It's a som one, two, three, four, four, five,

six, seven, eight, seven, eight, nine, nine, ten, ten, eleven No. But you are engaged in it. And that that verse in context is the end of a psalm where the psalmist is crying out for deliverance from his captivity, Which means he wasn't initiating, he wasn't engaging, he wasn't perpetuating the conflict. The psalmist had poured out his soul to the Lord in pursuit of peace. Peace.

And so before we blame shift to the other person, before we act like we're the victim in the situation, and it's it's a very, common thing nowadays for us without even doing it on purpose. This is the hard part. Is we don't even realize the ways that we paint ourselves as the victim. But if you find that it's never your fault or if someone corrects you, there's always an excuse. You are painting yourself as a victim.

You're not taking responsibility for your actions. It's possible for someone to sin against you and for you not to use their sin as a as a justification for your behavior. You're responsible for your actions. You're not responsible for the one who sinned against you, but you are responsible for how you behave in the future. That really is on you.

And the fact that you were sinned against doesn't make it okay. You don't get a get out of jail free card. You don't get a pass to be grumpy or angry or frustrated for a period

of time. You don't get a trump

card to play in the future. You don't get a trump card to play in the future. Are you for peace? Do you pursue it against those who's who sin against you? Of peace could be described in this way.

You're pursuing peace with all men if you are concerned with their well-being above your own in every circumstance. Philippians two three through five says, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. And do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but for the interest of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus.

Do you

know how much conflict you kids could could prevent in your house if you cared more about pleasing your parents than you do about getting your stuff? If you put your parents happiness and joy above yours, your houses would be so much more peaceful. This isn't just a sermon for your parents, it's a sermon for you. How much conflict do you bring into your house because you don't care about peace? Moms worked hard all day.

Dads worked hard all day. And now they get to deal with you arguing over not doing your chores. It's it's it's kind of pathetic when you think about it. And yet it's very common. And so we as children ought to consider our parents as those we ought to put, ahead of us.

It's one way we can pursue peace. I think Jesus gives us the best example of all of this on the cross when he was praying. What did he say? Father, forgive them. Father, forgive them for they do not know what they're doing.

Is it that nailed him to the cross? I mean, in real time, physically, it was soldiers. But it was our sins that nailed him to the cross. Father forgive them. For they do not know what they're doing.

Pursuing peace with all men means seeking their good, not your comfort. And there is no circumstance where there's a more important pursuit. Pursuing peace with all men is not conditional. It's not conditional upon you not having to suffer, or you not having to sacrifice, or you not being thought poor. It's just given to us as a pursuit.

Pursue peace with all men. Even when being unjustly murdered, Jesus was seeking peace, and so we should as well. Come to the second pursuit, sanctification. What does the pursuit of sanctification look like? Well, first, it means that you want to grow spiritually.

That there has to be a desire to grow. I do want you to know that a desire to grow is is entirely insufficient to actually grow. If I wanted to plant a garden and I said, I I want to plant a garden. Great. A is just the very first But it by itself, it's, it's, it's worth Did you grow in it willingly?

I hate that question. Was I happy when growth was the order of the day? Nope. Sure wasn't. Sure.

I like it was it was a struggle. And the way that scripture just describes it is is that our sanctification is like gold being refined, like that being heated up in the refiners fire so that it will release its impurities. That's a that's a that's a a violent process for the gold. We know gold in a solid state. But for that to happen, it has to be liquefied and beyond liquefied heated to the point where it it releases its impurities.

Sometimes willingly after a time after a few days or a few weeks or a few months. And not as willingly as I would have liked. Not as quickly as I would have liked. Have you resisted growing in sanctification? Have you said things like, I've grown enough in that area?

I'm I've forgiven enough. I am patient enough. I've submitted enough. Do your kids ever say to you things like, I've been working all day for you. I shouldn't have to anymore.

Oh. Said every kid, at least in his heart, if not out loud, says we says our hearts. I've done enough. I've come enough. For us to grow spiritually, we have to identify where we're weak and what we actually need to grow in.

This is something that should be on our minds and our hearts as the year changes over. Where do you want to be next? Like, what do you want to have grown in? You won't arrive in twelve months. You won't arrive in twelve years.

But you will grow and can grow by the grace of by the grace of God. And so what do you wanna grow in? Where are you weak? You know what's interesting? If we're left to ourselves to decide what we wanna grow in, do you know what we tend to choose?

The things we're already pretty good at. If we were to take it out of the spiritual realm and is to to take a a a kid that plays sports and he says, what do you do you wanna become a better basketball player? Like, yeah. I wanna become a better yeah. Well, he's already pretty good basketball player.

What if you said, hey, do you wanna learn to play the piano? What would he be like? No. No. I don't wanna learn to play the piano.

Why would I wanna learn to I don't know how to play the piano. So left to our own devices, if we're if we're to choose what we want to grow in, we'll probably pick things we've already got a pretty good start on. Not that we've arrived and not that we don't need to grow in those areas, but we sort of have a a pension to to leave aside the things that we don't wanna grow in and say, yeah, I it's okay if that stays just where it's at. And so in identifying where we need to grow, we we have to look for what we're weak in. We have to look at the things that we're like, I don't wanna talk about that.

Let's take patience as a case study. What is the opposite of patience? Right? You probably say, impatience. Right?

And what's impatience normally look like? Anger. Right? So I'll I'll submit to you that that the opposite of patience in terms of its expression, if if we were to if you were to say what does patience look like it lived out, it looks like what? If someone is being patient, they're being So I'm I'm not your person.

What did you say? Peaceable. Peaceable. What did you say? Long suffering.

Long suffering. Right? They're it's like they're they're they're not angry. Right? It's almost like we do we can only define it by what it's not because it's such a foreign thing to us.

They're gracious. They're they're quick to listen. Good listeners. Even with the the stuff that's being said or done, they're they're they're slow to anger. They're very kind.

Right? Impatience lived out looks a lot like anger. Get over that? I already told you what to do. Why'd you do that again?

Don't you know any better? You're gonna have to figure that out yourself. And you can go on and on and on with what anger sounds like, couldn't we? Because we've said it. When do you get angry?

What circumstances tempt you toward it? It may be as simple as being tired or hungry. Those things do make it very hard not to be angry. Sickness. How patient are you when you're sick?

They're incompatible it seems. Maybe you're tempted to get angry when there's a repeated offense. The first time you'll talk about it, but you're quick to throw your hands up in the air and say, well, you're just gonna do it again. You just done it again. We've already covered this.

Maybe you're you're you get angry when people don't listen to you, when they dismiss you, when they ignore you, when they don't do what you tell them. Maybe that's when you get angry. Maybe that's when you lack patience. First Thessalonians five fourteen says, we urge you brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Patient toward the unruly?

Are you patient toward your unruly children? All of you parents, if you've got more than one child or if, you know, they're they've they've grown up enough. You know who the unruly one is or who the unruly ones are. And sometimes it's like hot potato, like the unruliness. It's like it gets it gets passed from one kid to to another.

It's not always the same one, but you could say who it is this week. Admonished the unruly how with patience. Is that possible? Is it even possible to admonish someone with patience? Very hard.

That's right. Patient toward the faint hearted. That seems like a strange thing. Who wouldn't be patient toward the faint hearted? I don't know.

Those who get sick and tired of talking about the same thing over and over again. A weak conscience. You need to you need to toughen them up. The way to toughen them up is to be a jerk. Right?

I mean, not right, but It's what we do. It's what we do. Who wouldn't be patient with the week? You know who's not patient with the week? Those who have to slow down and move at the pace of the week.

They're never patient with the week. Like we have all these sayings, you know, Replace it, right? Cut it out. Well, the new one in. But that's really the rub, isn't it?

You don't want to slow down. Someone's weak, someone's tired, someone's sick, someone's hurt, someone's scared, someone's fearful, someone's anxious, and we just go, no, you are not allowed to be weak, because I don't want to slow down. Your weakness, I will be angry. In all those situations, we look to the condition of the other person as the cause of our impatience, but it's not their fault. If you'll take responsibility and remember, patience is just a this is just one example.

We could pick any number of things and go through. Once you look into your own heart and you go, why why do I get so angry so quickly, so often? What's wrong with me? If I leave aside and I'm not saying other people don't have problems. They do.

But if we leave that aside for a moment, we just look in our own mirror and say, what's wrong with me that I can't bear with? Well, all of this has just been I it's been removing the blame from other people as to why you're impatient or angry and saying, what what about me? You say, okay. So I'm supposed to pursue pursue patience. What does patience look like?

We said earlier it it it looks like long suffering. It looks like being peaceable, like listening. How often are you willing to accept patience or or or call avoidance patience? I'm being patient with you. I'll just avoid the situation so I'm not angry.

When I get angry, I tend to yell at people so I I'll be patient. I'll just be silent. I mean, patient. Don't you know? Does patience require that you leave the situation or that you not talk?

It's funny in that example from first Thessalonians, there's there's all this talking that has to go on. If you're gonna admonish the unruly, you have to speak. If you're going to encourage the faint hearted, you have to be with them. Certainly, if you're going to help the weak. So avoidance and silence are not patience.

If that's your answer, if that's how you want to define patience, you should know that your you've you've you've gone off the path. You're not pursuing patience. You're pursuing care for them. And so not only are you not being patient, you're being selfish. I think sometimes we fall into this because we go, oh, I don't know what to do.

I don't know how to fix it. So in despair, we go, well, I just hope God will change my heart. I can't do anything other than this until God changes my heart. And it's true that God does have to change our hearts. That's absolutely true.

I'm not here to tell you that's not true. That is that is essential. But you do have to ask yourself when you're feeling that despair. Do you actually in the in the midst of all of it, do you actually wants to become more patient or not? The way you can tell by was by is by looking at what you pursue.

Are you going to pursue patience still? Are you going to try and fail or you're just going to settle for avoidance and silence? Are you just going to go do something that that is more a more productive use of your time? This is a waste of time. It's going nowhere.

So what I will do is go do something that is a more productive use of my time. See to that yourself. That's not the path toward growing impatience.

It is

it may be the path to being a little more productive in things that don't matter. You won't be sanctified in this area. You won't grow in patience if you don't pursue it. And so you have to ask yourself, am I pursuing patience when you're all out of ideas as to how to be patient? Will you pursue it or not?

For a little more than a year now, I've been going to the gym mostly with Joseph and and Canaan. And I I did it because I want I've I've been doing it because I wanted to lose weight and because my joints have started to really ache. I'm 43, so things I just don't sleep as well as I used to. And I know some of you are older than me probably. Wish you were 43 or felt like you were 43 again.

But I've never been older than 43, so this is the most frail I felt, and I know there's more to come. But those are tomorrow's troubles. And so I've gone to the gym and I said, you know, I wanna lose some weight. I don't care about having big muscles. I don't care about lifting big heavy things anymore.

My joints aren't for that. I just would like to lose some weight, and I have lost some weight. But I didn't it wasn't a steady loss. Right? I like I lost you have the initial like, oh, I look at this.

And then it kinda plateaus, and then it kinda slows down. Eventually, there was like almost two months where I just didn't lose any weight. And I still in the gym, still doing all all the same stuff with regard to what I was eating and what I was doing, and it just it just stopped working.

What do

you wanna do when that happens? Quit. Right? Daniel's got this scowl on his face because he's like, it's so wretched. He just wanna quit.

It just doesn't work. I'm just destined to be just like I am. So you're gonna pursue it once it's not immediately and continually bearing the fruit you want. Will you continue to pursue it? I kept pursuing and I did start to lose weight again.

I I asked someone a simple question like, well, you should just change up something you're doing a little bit. Just kinda shock your body a little bit. And so I changed up some of the exercises I was doing and started losing weight again after, like, it was, like, six or eight weeks. I just was kinda plateaued. But the temptation to quit was and to not pursue it anymore because it got hard and it wasn't doing the way I wanted it to.

It was real. And our spiritual lives are the same way. Do we demand that growth happen immediately and constantly and quickly and big? Will we pursue it if we tried and failed? It should.

So how do you pursue sanctification? By making a plan with an accountable with accountable goals. Right? I hope I become more patient will never happen. I'm going to pursue becoming more patient by recognizing if I'm tired or hungry, which aren't necessarily sinful things, right, or sick.

By by by realizing I'm more weak in those moments, and I'm gonna before I get angry, I'm gonna say, honey, kids, whatever. I'm weak right now. I'm having a hard time. Just so you know. You'll need to identify things that you say when you're angry.

All of us have things we say when we're angry. Right? And we don't we wanna say we don't mean them, but in our anger we do mean them. We shouldn't mean them. That's really what we think.

I shouldn't mean that. And you have to set up these these these account of these this accountability that says I'm not going to do that. And if I've done that, then I have failed at it. And I'm not gonna it's not gonna be your fault. And tiredness isn't gonna be the excuse.

I failed at it. And the person I set it to is gonna know that I set the goal so they can call me out and say you did the thing you weren't supposed to do that you said you weren't gonna do. You went and did it. If you find that you're always tired and getting in fights, maybe you need to make a better sleep habit so you're not always tired. You need to be able to see yourself from the outside, how you're behaving, what's going on in your heart.

You need to be able to examine and observe yourself and not make excuses for Well, I had a hard week at work. I had a hard week at school. They were mean to me. Well, it wasn't fair. Well, I've been trying and it hasn't been producing any fruit.

All of that gets set aside. You need to decide what you're going to do instead. I think part of the reason change is so difficult and sanctification is we resist it so much is that it means we have to do things we're not accustomed to doing. We're all accustomed to doing things the way we do them. Vanessa often says to me, when she's have had enough of our of the change in our life, she's like, what if I just came into your workplace and I just I just went on your computer and I just just just did it all, you know?

And I was like, don't do that. I won't know how to have to call Timothy and I I have to, like, I won't know what to do. Right? But it's every day. Like, she's forced.

Change is just thrust upon her. Puke. Blah. When planning on that. Change.

Right? We like things to be the way they are, but if we're going to grow, we have to pursue changing those things, making ourselves uncomfortable for the sake of growing. You have to decide what you're going to do instead of what you're accustomed to doing. If you're if you want to grow impatience with your wife, I remember someone telling me. I don't I mean, that's maybe you can remember.

Someone said was talking about anger, fighting, and a spa with a spouse. And they said, you know what I do is if my wife and I are having a problem, I go and I hold her hand. Because it's a lot harder to yell and say mean nasty hurtful things if I'm holding her hand. It's not what you wanna do when you're angry, is it? Might be good discipline.

I remember years ago and and I think it was your mom. It's a story about Gail's mom. That when she would get irritated with her husband for whatever reason, she knew that he liked desserts. And you can tell me if I'm right or wrong about this. But I remember the story that if she was frustrated or upset at something he had said or done or was worried, she knew he liked desserts.

And so she would discipline herself to make a dessert that night. Do you remember that? Did you know that? Yes. Well, okay.

Well, there is something about your parents that I was told. Is that am I remembering that? My wife tells me I'm remembering correctly. She would discipline herself. She'd say, I'm irritated with that man.

I'm gonna discipline myself to do something he loves.

It's the

last thing you'd wanna do. Right? But it's so good. So you have to make a plan of what you're going to do to fight it. You won't do it perfectly.

You'll set the bar way too high. But if you continue to pursue it, you will find that in time to come, you will be patient. You will grow impatient. Do you know how parents become more patients? Patient with their kids?

A lot of it is just time and multiplication. You'll be more patient with subsequent babies than you were with your first baby because you've just had time and more practice. If you say, I don't wanna be upset at my baby. Okay. Good.

That's a great thing to want. And as your babies get older and as more of them come along, you will have more occasion to exercise, pursue patience toward them. And you'll actually grow in it. To where they're screaming and they're crying and they're fussiness, and all the things that your young parents get really really bent out of shape about. It'll be okay.

You'll and you'll just you'll get the good babies then that just don't cry as much. And it's it's a mystery. It's a mystery as to why later children aren't as fussy. Or if they are fussy, they're they're not it's not as bad. What changed?

Mom and dad changed. We always think it's the baby's fault or the spouse's fault or the whoever's fault. Somebody other than me.

About

what you're going to do. I'd commence to you that you go home and you think about and talk with your family about what you want to grow in. One thing other thing I'll tell you about plans, plans aren't worth the paper they're written on or the app that they're recorded in if you don't ever revisit them. The best the best regiments in the world are useless if you don't and stick to pay attention to it, instead of making this, like, beautiful formatted thing. I'm talking to you, Paige, because I you're like, I know how you are.

But then it's so overwhelming. It's like you spent all your energy making the plan. It's like, well, I don't have any energy left to follow it. I spent all my stuff, all my zeal, simple. You want to grow in reading your bible?

I commend Abram's plan to you. Abram's plan for reading your bible is to get up and read it for ten minutes in the morning. Right? And it's not sufficient. It's not and you don't do it every day.

It's what works. It's what works. And it's better than the the the more elaborate plan. And there's room for improvement. And it's better than it would be if he hadn't made that plan and disciplined himself to do it.

So make a plan make a plan, follow the plan, be reasonable in your plan. And when you fail, don't quit. When you stop when you stop losing weight, don't stop going to the gym. When you get angry, that doesn't mean that the whole plan is worthless. It means that you're weaker than you thought, and God is gracious.

So get back on the horse. This is the mystery to growing in Godliness. It's to try. It's to identify a problem and to seek by the by the grace of God to to change in that area. And ask him to bless your efforts so that it's not in vain.

Let's pray.