See To It That No One Comes Short Of The Grace Of God

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 we had to pick a new book and I thought we should read Ecclesiastes. I really like it. It's kind of 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 kind of 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 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 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 pray as we look into this new year that you would guide us and make straight paths that we might walk in them. 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 sustain us, but that you'd make us fruitful 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 be evident in us by the things we say and the things we prioritize and the things we do. I pray that your love would shine through and that you'd give us peace and rest. As we come to your word this morning, we pray that you would 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 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 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. So as we approach a new year, we're going to 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 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 it every time we take the Lord's Supper, that we ought to examine ourselves.

That we ought to look in 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 our hearts. And so we've come to a time of year, one year's ending, another's 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 want to get done in 2026? Do you want to just, I mean, these are the questions we're asking ourselves. Do you want to just be where you're at today in 12 months? I don't think any of us would say, yeah, yeah, I hope everything just stays just like it is. 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 in 2026. I need to get my homework done earlier. I need to become more efficient. How about spiritually? 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. But I'm afraid too often, at least for me, and I think probably for you as well, you'd agree that too often your goals are not much more than a dream. It's like, I hope this will happen 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, 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 happen. So that when another year goes by and we're here in another 12 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 about it? Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord from Hebrews chapter 12. This is verses 14 through 17. Pursue peace with all men in the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. 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. You may be seated. I remember Pastor Bailey, some of you guys know Pastor Tim. saying what his dad used to say, which was that American evangelicalism back in like the 60s and 70s was only concerned with getting you saved. And that after you saved, 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 nothing more, 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 a perpetual discomfort called sanctification. Sanctification is a change of heart and mind and life. aimed at conforming you to Jesus Christ. And Hebrews commends to us that we pursue peace with all men and sanctification. And so the Christian life is a life of pursuit. It's not a life of idleness. It's not a life 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's 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'm going to try real hard not to do it again, 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 idle. 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 6, 33, 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, oh, 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 12, 9, Jesus says, I ask,

I say to you, ask and you will be given. It'll 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 knocking, there's room to improve. In Luke 13, 24, Jesus says, strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. This idea of striving, seeking, pursuing activity. Do you think that seeking after God is beneficial? I mean, we're all gonna say, yes, I think it's beneficial. But if someone were to look at our lives and like grade how our seeking of the Lord, would that testify to us believing that he's worthy of our pursuit? I think if I were to grade my own life, I would not get an A. Hebrews 11, 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.

So do you think there's any benefit to you in seeking God? There are many, many more verses just in the 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 want to say to you, every one of you is a seeker. Every one of us is a seeker. We all seek things. The question's not, whether we seek, but what we will seek. Meaning 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 12 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 constellation of change will you pursue this year? To the kid that gets bad grades and fails his classes in school, 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 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 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 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 because he was a seeker. He was wanting to get better at something. And so 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 have you made 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 12 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. That's a deficient view of Christianity and one that doesn't work long-term. There are times where you 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 lose. 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 kind of more peaceful than most, perhaps. But some of you are very quiet, very retiring, at least in public. Some of you young children.

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 if we've eaten. It depends on a whole host of things, whether we're sick or tired or stressed out from work or have... or pregnant, or 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 is 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 meal. 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? 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. Wow. So what that teaches us is that our pursuits are not indifferent. They affect us. They change us. They have eternal consequence. Now, you may want to look at this and say, well, Esau was rejected. And he wasn't rejected ultimately because of what he did here, but he was rejected because the Bible says that Jacob I loved and Esau I've 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 birth right 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 but he lost something that he saw it with tears and couldn't find so we ought to be careful when we when we look at um repenting later as though it will always be available to us it was not available to esau and so the question is not uh 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. What 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 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 does 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 most offensive or inappropriate to us. Does peace with all men require passivity of us? If we were to take Jesus as an example, he went in and flipped over 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? He was. But then when he was brought before Pilate, was he passive? As a sheep before his shearers, 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 tolerance? To maintain the peace, I just have to tolerate everything 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 peace in that home? There's not peace in that home. But if you were to speak up, 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 is aiming at peace? Our church, as an example of this, the Credo Baptists and the Paedo Baptists tolerate each other. We actually disagree. We actually disagree, right? Like we're not indifferent about it. We actually disagree. And yet 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 just don't think it matters which you do. As long as you just do it by faith, I think it's probably okay and fine and God's all right 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? Your 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 take over. The entire house for a long time. Hours. So what's more important? Who had it first or the fact that this silly thing has taken over the house? Isn't it more important that conflict has just whipped up into a storm? It's more important that the conflict has gotten to such a significant level. No one is pursuing peace.

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 we get down the story, the line of, you know, was it blatant and obvious one person just completely, but it's rarely the case that one person just like, you know, was playing chaplain 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. So son or daughter, what could you have done to prevent?

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 prevent it? And then you turn to the other child and you say, and what could you have done to prevent it? And then you turn to the kid that was sitting idly by watching the older kid sitting idly by watching the problem spin up and they were silent. And you say, what could you have done to prevent 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. You pursue it. But to pursue it, you have to prioritize it. And you have to say there's something more 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, not to win the fight or to prove that you're right.

Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 13, if I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I'm nothing. Your argument can be flawless and you can be right. And who cares if you don't love and pursue peace with those you're around? 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. This is Psalm 120 verse 7. And it's like, wash my hands of it. It's not me who's causing the problem. It's not me. No, but you are engaged in it. And that verse in context is the end of a psalm where the psalmist is crying out for deliverance from his captivity, from the lying lips and wickedness of those who are around him. He is for peace, but they are for war.

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. And so before we blame shift to the other person, before we act like we're the victim in the situation, and 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 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. Are you for peace? Do you pursue it against those who sin against you? I think when we boil it down, the pursuit 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 2, 3 through 5 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 interests, but for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. Do you know how much conflict you kids 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? Mom's worked hard all day. Dad's worked hard all day. And now they get to deal with you arguing over not doing your chores. 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. Who is he talking about? The ones who nailed him to the cross. But who 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 is 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 poorly of. 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. Now we 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 entirely insufficient to actually grow. If I wanted to plant a garden and I said, I want to plant a garden, great. If that's where it stops, What happens? Nothing. No garden, right? Nothing. Because I didn't go buy seeds and I didn't go buy starts and I didn't till up the ground and I did nothing. And so my desire is just the very first part. But by itself, it's worthless. So what did you want to grow in spiritually this last year? What did you grow in? 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. It was a struggle. And the way that scripture describes it is that our sanctification is like gold being refined, like being heated up in the refiner's fire so that it will release its impurities. That's 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 releases its impurities. Sometimes willingly. After a few days or a few weeks or a few months. But 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've forgiven enough. I'm 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 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? What do you want to have grown in? You won't arrive in 12 months. You won't arrive in 12 years. But you will grow and can grow by the grace of God. And so what do you want to grow in? Where are you weak? You know what's interesting? If we're left to ourselves to decide what we want to 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 it's to take a kid that plays sports and he says, do you want to become a better basketball player? I'm like, yeah, I want to become a better, yeah. Well, he's already a pretty good basketball player. What if you said, hey, do you want to learn to play the piano? What would he be like? No, no, I don't want to learn to play the piano. Why would I want to learn? I don't know how to play the piano. So left to our own devices, 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 penchant to leave aside the things that we don't want to grow in and say, yeah, it's okay if that stays just where it's at. And so in identifying where we need to grow, we have to look for what we're weak in. We have to look at the things that we're like, I don't want to talk about that.

Let's take patience as a case study. What is the opposite of patience, right? You probably say, well, impatience, right? And what's impatience normally look like? Anger, right? So I'll submit to you that the opposite of patience in terms of its expression, 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... I'm not patient, so I'm not your person. What'd you say? Peaceable, what'd you say? Long-suffering, right? It's like they're not angry, right? It's almost like we can only define it by what it's not because it's such a foreign thing to us. They're gracious. They're quick to listen, good listeners. Even with the stuff that's being said or done, they're slow to anger. They're very kind, right?

impatience lived out looks a lot like anger. I don't want to talk about this anymore. Why can't you 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 it could 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 going to do it again. You've just done it again. We've already covered this. Maybe 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.

1 Thessalonians 5.14 says, We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the faint-hearted, 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 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 passed from one kid to... To another. It's not always the same one, but you could say who it is this week. Admonish 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. Their conscience is too tender. It's a weak conscience. They need to toughen them up.

And the way to toughen them up is to be a jerk, right? I mean, not right, but it's what we do. Who wouldn't be patient with the weak? You know who's not patient with the weak? Those who have to slow down and move at the pace of the weak. They're never patient with the weak. Like we have these sayings, you know, change only as strong as its weakest link. So what do you do with a weak link? Replace it, right? Cut it out, weld a new one in. Right? Throw the whole chain away and go get a new one. Just break the chain and then be angry about it. What are we supposed to do with those who are weak? Make straight paths for the weak so that they'll be strengthened. Say it. Huh? Bind them up. Come alongside them. Slow down. 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. And if you persist in 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 case, this is just one example. We could pick any number of things and go through this. Once you look into your own heart and you go, why do I get so angry so quickly, so often? What's wrong with me? If I leave aside, and I'm not saying the 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, be patient toward, can't listen to? Do you want to grow in patience? How do you grow in patience? Well, all of this has just been removing the blame from other people as to why you're impatient or angry and saying, what?

What about me? They say, okay, so I'm supposed to pursue patience. What does patience look like? We said earlier, it looks like long suffering. It looks like being peaceable, like listening. How often are you willing to accept patience 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'll be patient. I'll just be silent. I'm being 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 1 Thessalonians, there's all this talking that has to go on. If you're going to 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. Cheap counterfeits. If that's your answer, if that's how you want to define patience, you should know that you've gone off the path.

You're not pursuing patience. You're pursuing comfort, your own comfort. And you're willing for those that you should be patient with to go on suffering because you don't want to lift the hands to care for them. And so not only are you not being patient, you're being selfish and perhaps lazy and proud and a whole host of other things. But I think sometimes we fall into this because we go, well, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to fix it. And there are things in life that you can't fix. And 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 essential. But you do have to ask yourself when you're feeling that despair, do you actually, in the midst of all of it, do you actually want to become more patient or not?

The way you can tell is by looking at what you pursue. Are you going to pursue patience still? Are you going to try and fail? Or are you just going to settle for avoidance and silence? Are you just going to go do something that is 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 in patience. 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 Canaan.

I did it because I wanted, 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've 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 want to 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? Like I lost, you have the initial like, oh, look at this. And then it kind of plateaus and then it kind of slows down. Eventually there was like almost two months where I just didn't lose any weight. And I'm still in the gym, still doing 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 want to do when that happens?

Quit, right? Daniel's got this scowl on his face because he's like, it's so wretched. He doesn't want to quit. It just doesn't work. I'm just destined to be just like I am. So you're going to 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 asked someone a simple question like, well, you should just change up something you're doing a little bit. Just kind of shock your body a little bit. And so I changed up some of the exercises I was doing. Started losing weight again after like, it was like six or eight weeks. I just was kind of 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, 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? We should. So how do you pursue sanctification? By making a plan with,

and 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. But by realizing I'm more weak in those moments and I'm going to, before I get angry, I'm going to 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 want to 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 this accountability that says, I'm not going to do that. And if I've done that, then I have failed at it. And it's not going to be your fault. And tiredness isn't going to be the excuse. I failed at it.

And the person I said it to is going to 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 going to 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 it. 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 had enough,

of the change in our life. She's like, what if I just came into your workplace, and I just went on your computer, and I just did it all, you know? And I was like, don't do that. I won't know how to, I'll have to call Timothy, and 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. Wasn't 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 want to grow in patience with your wife, I remember someone telling me, I don't know if maybe you can remember, someone was talking about fighting 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 want to do when you're angry, is it? This might be good discipline. I remember years ago, 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? Okay, well, there's something about your parents that I was told. 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 going to discipline myself to do something he loves. It's the last thing you'd want to 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 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 want to 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 you young parents get really, really bent out of shape about, they'll be okay. And you'll get the good babies then that just don't cry as much. And it's a mystery.

It's a mystery as to why later children aren't as fussy. Or if they are fussy, 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. So if you're going to pursue sanctification, if you want to see the Lord, You have to make a plan about what you're going to do. I commence to you that you go home and you think about and talk with your family about what you want to grow in. One 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 regiments in the world are useless if you don't do it. So don't waste, like make a mediocre plan.

and stick to, pay attention to it. Instead of making this like beautiful formatted thing, I'm talking to you, Paige, because 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, 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 10 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, and it's better than 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, follow the plan, be reasonable in your plan, and when you fail, don't quit.

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 grace of God to change in that area and to ask him to bless your efforts so that it's not in vain. Let's pray.