All in the Family - Part 1 (Hebrews 12:3-11)

Hebrews chapter 12 is where we're at tonight, everybody. Hebrews chapter 12. And I trust you know God is good in his timing and all things. And, uh, we're going to be looking at Hebrews 12. We've been, uh, studying the first, uh, two verses of that and we completed that. And, uh, now we commence this section. The next section is Hebrews 12:3-11. We're looking at a message series titled "All in the Family." "All in the Family."

And if you are a child of God, now listen carefully. A lot of people like to consider themselves automatically children of God, uh, but Jesus and the Bible, of course, is very specific regarding the definition of that. But if you are an actual, uh, follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, now listen carefully, because if I have to convince you of this, then you're not in the family. People who are in the family, they know they're in the family. It's possible that you're in the family, but you need encouragement. That's possible. But people who do not know if they're in the family of God, it's probably because they're not in the family of God. That you've made an assumption that you are a follower of Christ, or you've made an assumption that you're a Christian, when in reality, the Holy Spirit, um, is telling you otherwise. And that's why you have this dogged type of, "Oh no," uh, about things because you believe in God, you might talk about Jesus sometimes, you own a Bible, but there is this hollow, gaunt emptiness inside. And that's not the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. He, the Bible tells us, confirms our relationship with God. He makes it sure. The Bible tells us that our spirit bears witness with His Spirit that we are the children of God. Uh, the Bible tells us that, uh, we actually can know the fact that He dwells within us. Uh, we may not hear an audible voice in our head. Most often, we hear our voice in our head, but a completely different structure of language and sentence, and it's often either, uh, scripture or paraphrase scripture, uh, and it'll be in our head. It will pop up, and that's God speaking to us. Somebody will say, "You know, do you think God speaks to you?" God speaks to me through the Word of God. If I, if you're asking me, do I hear the rumbling sound of thunder and His voice in that? I don't hear that. I don't have to. Oh, this is a wonderful thing to say. I don't have to hear that. I don't need that because if I am remotely willing to be hearing from the Lord, the word that has, that has been consumed by me over the years, and that's true for you if you've been a Christian for a week, the word that's in you will come out. And it's supernatural, and it's a great thing because there'll be great comfort even in a very trying or difficult situation. That's what we're going to learn about, uh, tonight and in this, um, the next, uh, several weeks in this chapter.

So I'll read it for time's sake, uh, but we'll read it from the screen. Verse three, we pick it up and it says there, uh, "For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself." In other words, Jesus was just attacked by sinners all the time when he was here on Earth, "lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: 'My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.' If you endure chastening, God deals with you, uh, deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be subject, or subjection, to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed, for a few days, chastened us as seemed best to them, but He, that is the Lord, for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."

Father God, bless the going forth of Your Word. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

So, uh, we start with this, and it's by way of introduction. And I want to put this up on the screen for you. When you and I, when we fail, when we fail, listen, to recognize that the very issues of our lives are somehow sometimes out of God's reach or watchful eye, that's what we're thinking. We will inevitably descend into a dark place where we feel that all is lost. Listen, when we fail to recognize God's good hand upon our life, when we don't think God is involved, He's not watching, He's not listening, you know what? When we begin to adopt the belief system of an agnostic, or agnosticism, uh, that the agnostic means that there could be a God, there probably is a God, but He's so far away, removed from us, you can't know Him. Think about what kind of a God you're trying to describe. A God who makes daffodils and daisies and puppies and kitties, cute little things, beautiful sunrise, beautiful sunset, walks out on it all, goes and heads off to some other part of the universe to hide from it. No, agnostic. Which is amazing. I don't want, if you're an agnostic tonight, I don't think you should tell anybody because you should go look up the origin of the word, the etymology of the word agnostic. The word agnostic means ignoramus. Did you know that? That's what you said. I don't believe it. Go look it up later, not now. I'm trying to teach you something right now. You can look it up later, but it's, it's the base of, of someone who's an ignoramus. Is somebody who is saying, "Well, something's out there to be known. I just don't think it can be." Well, we need to be careful about that because the fact of the matter is, God is to be known. And, and listen, God is best known in His correction of us. God is, you're not, you're not going to run out of here tonight maybe smiling. I, I hope hopefully you do if I do my job. We think for a moment, we think maybe more than a moment, that God is somewhat kind of grumpy, even with His children. And, uh, He's, and if you act up, He might let you have it. And, um, you know, it all depends on what, what day of the week it is with God. That's not the God of the Bible, folks. And that's not how He treats His kids.

We're going to unpack these words tonight. And you might, I think, be happy about how this goes. But God uses to such a great power, suffering. And He also uses such a great power, correction and rebuke in our lives to do what? To make us more like His Son. This started out by saying Jesus received hostility from sinners. What do we know about Jesus? Come on, everybody, let's think about this. Jesus, I said it on Sunday, Jesus, John said in John 1:29, John the Baptist said, Jesus is the what? The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The Lamb of God. But the Lamb of God for the temple sacrifice would have to be scrutinized and tested by the priesthood before it could ever be qualified to be the Passover Lamb. It couldn't have, I'm not kidding, one black hair or brown hair on it. It had to be perfectly white. It had to be a male. It could have no broken bones and no blemishes whatsoever. It had to be a lamb that was perfect. John the Baptist said, and I'm now, uh, paraphrasing or elaborating, John the Baptist would have said, "There goes Jesus. He's the Lamb. The Lamb of lambs compared to all the other lambs, starting with Moses from Egypt all the way forward." Nope, they were just prototypes. That's the one. He's the one. He doesn't have any broken bones. He doesn't have any blemishes. He doesn't have one black hair or brown hair. As an offering, He's perfect. He's the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. And everybody heard that and they all understood that 2,000 years ago. They got it. They didn't have to go read some books to figure that out. They said, "My goodness, did you hear what John said? John said that Jesus is the ultimate Passover." Then that's exactly what he was announcing.

But why did Jesus have to suffer? Because, listen, Jesus had to be proven to us. When Jesus was crucified on at the cross, on the cross, Jesus says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." You never, listen, we would not have said that. I would have said, "Father, fry them. They know exactly what they're doing." He's being tested. Listen, the week that Jesus entered Jerusalem, starting with Palm Sunday, all week long, He went into the temple and He was questioned by the scribes and the Pharisees, and they tried to catch Him in words. They tried to catch Him in all kinds of situations. There was a man who had a wife, and he died, died, and then she married another guy, and then he died, then she married a third guy, and then he died. I mean, they actually said this to Him, and they did it like seven times. And then they said, "Jesus," and they thought they had Him. It says in the Bible, they thought they would catch Him in, in, in these words. "Jesus, in the resurrection, who whose, uh, husband will she have, seeing how she had all these guys?" And Jesus said, "You greatly err in your thinking." And He answered them. What was going on? The Lamb of God was being tested. And in many ways, for His 33 and a quarter years on Earth, He was being examined by all people, all the time, including Satan. Didn't Satan take Him to the pinnacle of the temple? Didn't Satan tempt Him in the wilderness? What was that all about? The Lamb of God was being proven. Are you with me? Are you, are you tracking? This is our Savior. This is our Lord. This is the one who's got you and I tonight. Listen, this is the one who actually has got the, He, listen, He's reaching out tonight to LA, to Palisades, to Altadena, Pasadena. He's the one with all that's going up in your life or in the Hills. Jesus is the answer. Amen.

I heard tonight on the news some City Council members said, "We're going to rebuild. We're going to build better than before." That's just junk. That's junk. That's junk. Listen, the country's completely broke. They can't do it. If it happens, it's going to happen because of generous citizens. But the, but listen, government is not your God. Well, maybe government is your God. Isn't it interesting? Government with a lowercase G, God with an uppercase G. Isn't it interesting? You can willfully give to God of your resources to make sure you keep your heart in the right place because you know what? If we start to accumulate stuff, we get weird. Every single one of us. If we start to accumulate things, we get weird. Did you know that? God wants you to give because it keeps your heart right. But if you don't give to God, you'll wind up giving to the little god in taxes. Now, don't get me wrong, pay your taxes because a couple of those taxes go to good things. You say, "What about the taxes that go to bad things?" Don't worry, pay those taxes because those people who invented those bad ideas with your tax money, they'll answer to God in the end. But don't you ever evade your taxes. That's one thing. Man, my dad taught me from the beginning. If anything, I'll pay extra taxes, but I ain't going to pay lesser taxes because Satan is very unforgiving. Are you calling IRS? Yes, there's got to be an IRS department in hell somewhere. There all, but I think you know what I'm saying is Jesus suffered to show us what the man of God and the Savior, our Savior, and the sacrifice was treated like. He was the best. He was the most loving. He was God in skin. And yet, He was greatly betrayed and greatly injured. And God is going to work that in your life and in my life.

One more thing before we dive into this. In fact, I'm going to put on the screen. I read this today. It's so cool. I'm quoting Michelangelo right now. Or my grandson says, "Papa, it's not Michelangelo, it's Michael Angelo." Isn't that great? That's not his name. It's Michelangelo. He said, "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." Think about that. And the commentator went on to say, "And as the famed Italian artist sculptor once said, 'I saw the angel in the marble and carved him until I set him free.' This quote beautifully captures the essence of Michelangelo's artistry and approach to his craft. He speaks to the transformative power of the artist's vision and his relentless pursuit to bring that vision to life." I like that. Michelangelo, uh, saw, uh, the reality of the finished creation hidden within a block of marble. And through his masterful hands, he chiseled away the, listen, chiseled away the excess until the angel that he envisioned within the stone was finally set free. We are going to be learning about how you are going to be chiseled and have been chiseled on by God, using His Word, to set free the Son of God that resides in your life. The Holy Spirit is going to exalt Jesus Christ up and out of your life. We want people in this world to mistake us for Jesus. Do you remember when the disciples in the book of Acts got in trouble? Why did they get in trouble? Because they were preaching, they were raising the dead, they were cleansing people from leprosy. And all of the religious hierarchy said, "You know what? How can this be happening? You guys are a bunch of Galileans. You don't even go to school up there." And then it said, and then they realized that they had been with Jesus. Man, that's what you want to be like in life. You want people to be able to say, "What are you? You know, yeah, this about you and that about you. Oh, but wait a minute. You're talking just like Jesus. You're acting just like Jesus." By the way, that definition is called Christian. Little Christ. That's what it means. Look at you Christians, they would say to us. I'd love to have that ridicule brought back in our 21st century, that we act so much like Jesus. Because through suffering and hardship and the chipping away of God working in our lives with all the issues of life, that people begin to mistake us in what we say and what we do for Jesus. I love it.

So here we go. Number one is this. It's in verses 3 to 5. And "All in the Family" means, uh, this, that you are welcome to the family of God. Welcome to the family of God. "For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls." That's the third verse that sets this all up. And I would say this right from the get-go, uh, why do we need to suffer? Because we need to become like Jesus. And so, church, I'm going to give you six things. I'm going to want you to write down, or you can take a picture of that. And it's going to define, uh, the reasons, uh, in suffering. Now, this is not exhaustive, but, uh, it's important for us right now. I'll explain briefly in between these.

Number one: Throughout the scripture, number one, there's the general order of suffering because you and I live in a fallen world. You guys all understand that. We live in a fallen world, the world of sin, the world of death and mayhem, the world of confusion, the world of wrong. It is not the world that God created. This is the world that has fallen because it is a world that rejected God. And there is a general order of suffering, meaning this, there is suffering in all of the world, in every way, in every way, even in areas where you think, uh, it doesn't matter, but it does. In the areas of science, the sciences, each of them specialize in a certain area, but all of them have this one thing in common. All the sciences record the diminishing power of the science that is their discipline. If it's, if it's, uh, aerodynamics, if it's medicine, if it's biology, chemistry, physics, it doesn't matter. All of the disciplines are diminishing in, in their strength. They're, they're dying off. Why? Well, the Bible tells us that that general order of, of sin is our origin of suffering. And, uh, believers suffer, and non-believers suffer.

Number two: The individual order of suffering, meaning personal sin of rebellion. Watch, everybody, believer and unbeliever alike suffer when they disobey God. So, but here's the thing. If you say, "Well, that, if that's true, then why should I become a believer?" Good question. The unbeliever suffers in this world because of the general order of suffering. But they'll, they'll do stuff wrong in their life. They'll do something, and they will suffer, or, or something will come to their life, they will suffer. They'll make a wrong decision, they will suffer. The same is true for the Christian. But the Christian can, listen, the Christian can get right again. The Christian can start over again. The Christian can ask for forgiveness. The Christian can, can learn from their suffering. The, the, the world cannot learn from their suffering. They, they don't do that.

Number three: Is the national order of suffering, meaning this, cultural or societal, leading to captivity or illness. Listen, as a nation, look, you may be a wonderful believer following Jesus, and your heart's for God, but you live in a nation that is not walking with God. So God could cause this nation to be judged tonight. But guess what? He'll judge the nation because of its sins, and you and I will suffer. But God's got nothing personally against you. Do you hear what I'm saying? You said, "Well, why doesn't He protect me in the midst of national suffering?" He doesn't do that. See, why doesn't He do that? Why can't everybody else suffer but me? The, the believer, not suffer? Here's the reason why. First of all, that would be very, very wrong. And you might be shocked at the answer. You're not going to like this answer. When the unbeliever suffers, and when the believer suffers alongside the unbeliever, the unbeliever has got nowhere to go with any questions or has no way to relate to anybody else unless they're suffering the same thing. Do people, oh boy, do people in your life who are not Christians, they're lost. Do they, don't say anything out loud? Do they matter to you? Do you care where they spend eternity? If you do, then you're okay with suffering for your life, life, so you can be an example and a witness to them, to bring them into the relationship of hope with God. That's the way God has set up this universe. He didn't ask you and I if we liked it or not. The good suffer with the evil. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. Right now, there are people, there are believers' homes burning down, and there's unbelievers' homes burning down. You say, "Well, what's, I don't like that." He doesn't. He's not going to ask if you like it or not. He wants to use you. If you are in the midst right now of absolute suffering, are you in a hospital bed and you've got cancer, and the person next to you, they've got cancer, but you're the believer and they're not? You are there on mission. You are there on target. God wants to use you to reach them. Yeah, but I've got cancer. Yeah, you got cancer. Why? Because there's the general order of suffering. Does that make sense? We're all going to suffer. Cheer up. No one's going to be left out. We're all going to get it. But for the believer, there's purpose to our suffering, and God does a great work. And so, if we really want to reach those that are around us in life with the gospel, many times it will be that He'll use you and I as we suffer, just like Jesus suffered to go to the cross, to be our Lord and Savior. What an amazing thing. We suffer to point people to Christ. It's really, I know what I just said is kind of shocking, but it's, it's actually, you know, the early church understood. In fact, the early church would tell me right now, "You don't even, that's so weak. Your sermon is so weak. Tell them, tell them people that are getting skinned alive in the first century because they're Christians caused many other people to come to Christ." Did you know that? People, people who were beheaded, people who were imprisoned, in the, in the first century, persecution causes people to come to Christ. Do you, you guys all know church history? You should know this. Everybody should read, should be required. Fox's Book of Martyrs. Everybody should own it. You should read it. Third most sold book in the world. Fox's Book of Martyrs. You should read it. Why? Because they'll be taking one Christian out of some village or some city, or maybe it's in London, and they're, and they're going to, uh, burn him at the stake because he wants everybody to read the Bible. And they kill him. Guess what happens? That one guy yielding his life up because he can't compromise the truth, thousands of people come to Christ. Is the salvation of people that important to you that you're willing to say, "Lord, here I am. Use me"? That's a huge prayer. But listen, the more you realize that the God who gets you through these troubles is faithful. And if you're going to have trouble in this world, with or without God, look, we may be ugly, but we're not stupid. I want to go on this journey with God.

See, one of the, one of the horrific manifestations of us having no faith is when we get sick, or our computer seizes up, and we say, "God, how could you?" We don't even understand the one we claim to know anything about. What pushes our buttons? God wants to use as a point of victory. Does that make some sense? You are inspired by people who have gone through tremendous difficulties. Oh, I'm torn. I wanted to, I want to tell you an illustration, but I don't have time, and it's beautiful. Okay, okay. [Applause] Um, there was this guy, uh, I don't know names. I don't know names. Uh, this was in the '50s. He was a football player on a college team. Um, and he made, he made varsity in his freshman year, but he didn't play much. In fact, he didn't, he didn't play in a game at all. In a game. And his father would come and visit him on campus all the time. And students would make fun of him because when he, he walked around with his father on campus, he would hold his father's hand. This guy's in college, he's a freshman in a university. He'd hold, he would hold his father's hand. Many times, he'd put his arm around each other's shoulders like that and walk like that. This went on for four years. Last week of the football season, senior, he's never played a game. His father never missed a practice. His father never missed a game. The kid never played. And so at the start of that last week of football, the coach got called into, uh, administration office, and they told him, they said, "Listen, this, this young man, his, his dad died. You got to tell him. Nobody else can tell him, but you." And he said, "This is going to kill this kid. It's going to devastate him." So he goes and he tells the kid, "Your, your dad passed away." And the guy wept, of course. He cried and immediately flew back home. But as the week approached the game, the kid showed back up at school, went to practice. The coach said, "What is wrong with you, man? You got to grieve. You got to grieve." And he said, "Well, coach, listen, my dad was a strong believer. I'm a believer. And he said, can you, can you possibly put me in the game? I need to be in this game." And the coach said, "Sure, son." And so the coach honestly thought, "I'm going to get this pain over with. I'll put him in right at the start and then pull him out." The, the coach puts him in, and the, the kid starts making these incredible plays. The coach wound up leaving him through the entire game. When the game was over, the coach grabbed him by the shoulder pads and said, "You need to, you need to give me an explanation right now. You have been the single worst football player I've ever seen in my life, and today you played better than any player I've ever seen in my career. What in the world is going on?" And he said, "Well," he said, "I, it didn't matter to me if I played or not all these years because my dad, my dad's blind. But he said, my dad died. He loved the Lord. And now my dad could see. And I wanted him to see me at least in one game. So I played. So I played for my dad." And, um, I told you that was good. And I just love that whole thing of suffering, but for great purpose. You, you don't know until it's over, folks. And God tells you that it's going to end well.

There's the specific order to suffering in the Christian's persecution. When you're mocked, ridiculed, made fun of, belittled because of your association with Jesus Christ, that's the greatest thing that could possibly have. If you're persecuted because you're a lunatic and you have a cross around your neck, you deserve it. But if you're walking and and standing on the things of God and you're being a witness in a light, and the world hates you, blessed are you. Blessed are you. Listen, listen, we need to put our feelings away and put our faith forward. Well, if I say this, if I stand for this, people are going to mock me. Listen, so what? Who are they? In five minutes, their words won't even matter. Do you understand that? Our faith in the Lord, and faith itself, Christianity is incredibly tough. I say it's tough. One, it's invincible. We just don't live like it, but it is. It's amazing. You know what? If we took time to interview you to find out who your enemies are, it would tell us more about you than what we'd ever need to know. Because your enemies, listen, if your enemies are weird, bad, ugly, mean people, then you must be a great, wonderful witness. If the world loves you, Jesus said, then you're no friend of God. Ouch.

Number five: There's the restorative order to suffering, that is the believer's individual growth. What do we mean by that? That means that there's that suffering where you're suffering, I'm suffering, you're going through whatever it may be. Listen up, everybody. And there's no, uh, there's no, um, there's no persecution involved in it. There's no, there's no sin involved in it. There's no rebellion involved in it. Listen, you may find yourself tonight, you're suffering, and it's, it's absolutely God's perfect plan for your life because He's doing something. You say, "I don't like that." That's why He's doing it. No, think, think, if you liked it, you wouldn't grow. If it was easy, it wouldn't mean anything. So, do you remember, right? We, we signed on to Team Jesus, right? Well, that being the case, if you're going to associate with Jesus, then He's going to kind of put you through boot camp while everybody's watching to see if they should sign up too. That's why I, this is just my theology right now, right here, right now. I think this is why God uses the foolish people of the world to confound the wise. Because if the foolish people are used by God, and something impressive happens, that gives glory to God, but it couldn't have been the foolish person's doing. God gets all the glory. So you might be here tonight, say, "You might be here tonight saying, 'I'm just a nobody. God loves nobodies. I can't do anything.'" You're the one. Seriously. And then look. Yeah. You. Hey, church, listen. Believers suffer, and they individually grow spiritually. And, uh, it may not have anything to do with the previous four issues. I had a lady tell me just during the holidays, "How was your holiday?" "We were all to, how was your, how was the?" And I said, "Uh, we were, we were sick." And she goes, "Oh, your family was sick?" I said, "My family was sick. I was sick. We're all sick. And this is awesome." She just goes, "Oh, I didn't know pastors got sick." And then I thought, "What is she thinking?" Because her association was, "If you're sick, you must have sinned." Yeah. Gee, that theology's been around a long time. It's just heretical. I mean, it could happen, but not everybody who's sick is sick because they've sinned. Some people are sick because they've sinned. If God says, "Listen, don't drink, don't be a drunk, and your liver falls off," that's the ramifications of sin, people, okay? But a Christian can be sick and suffer because God wants to work in them spiritual growth. And, uh, many of us know that to be true. Amazing.

And then number six: Is the appointed order to suffering, that is to develop ultimately holiness. Did you know that Jesus Christ was proven to be the Lamb of God and tested by His opponents? And by that, He was witnessed in their face as being holy. That's why they had to conjure up things against Him to get Him crucified. You see that? They had to hire people to lie at His trial. Sounds like our court systems today, doesn't it? Proverbs chapter 3:5 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones. Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first fruits of your increase, so your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine." "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord." I'll come back to that word in a moment, "chastening, nor detest His correction. For whom the Lord loves, He corrects, just as a father the son in which He delights." Isn't that, listen, that's awesome. "Happy is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding." This is beautiful. Welcome to the family. If you're in the family of God, God sees you as His daughter or His son. And in doing that, He will develop you and I more and more into the likeness of His Son.

And when you read the words, unfortunately, in English, "chastening," in our 21st century mind, we hear the word "chastening," and for us, it's like, "Oh my gosh, God's going to beat me." No. And when we hear the word "correction," is He going to spank us? No. That's not what He's talking about. It is the whole relationship in this family that we have with God, where it is all from the moment you came to Christ, predicated upon one single attribute of God. In fact, before you say it, there are only a handful of things that God is. Watch this. The Bible says God is holy. The Bible says God is light. And the Bible says God is spirit. And here it comes. The Bible says that God is, anybody know? Thank you. Yes, you got it. Love. When you come to Christ, it should be fundamental that the decision you're making to come to this Lord and Savior is, is the fact that He's inviting you into His family. It's a love offer. He loves you. Your, listen, God's love for you, you should never doubt because, listen, even when we do doubt, His love doesn't change. Even when we're ugly, He still loves us. He's not a human. His love never changes. Wow. He loves you. And so when the Bible tells us that He corrects and He chastens His own children, why? Why would He do that? Because He loves us. What does it mean to be corrected? What does it mean to be chastened by the Lord? It means that God will not let you get away with anything that displeases Him. Well, Pastor, I've been getting away with a lot of stuff that displeases Him. Goes back to our introduction. Not too sure if you're actually a Christian.

I cannot explain this, but you would think after walking with Jesus for four decades plus that I would have a very long leash that God can let me meander out in the fields and I can skip along the hills and I got a long leash because I earned it. It seems to me the more you walk with Jesus, yeah, I don't know if I'd use the word tighter, but that's true. It is tighter. I would say this, it's, He may have loosened the leash. I refuse to. I don't want it. I don't want the long leash. He might say, "Jack, you can go over there and play over there." I don't want to play over there. Where are you going to be standing? I'm going to be standing right here. Okay, that's where I'm going to. I want to be here too. You can go run over there and play. I'm fine. Just here right now. I used to play over there, but I now I want to be right here. I don't want to be anywhere else. You know what? I, I may flub this up. You know, Billy Graham said it one way. Billy Graham said, "I can choose to live any kind of life I want to choose as a believer, but I choose to live for Christ." You see that? I think it says, uh, St. Francis of Assisi said, "I, I can live as I please as a believer. I can, I can live as I please." Doesn't that sound kind of threatening? Right? It's kind of scary. As a believer, I can live as I please. And then he says, "But I want to live to please God." That is the long leash, short leash image. And when God corrects us, it's, watch this, everybody. When God corrects us, see my hand? Pretend I'm God for a moment. Here's my hand, and here's you. When God is upset with us, He does not go like this. He doesn't do that. He takes His hand, and He's going to correct me. He's going to rebuke me. He's going to chastise me. How does He do it? He does it like this. He goes this way. Notice the direction. Notice the difference. When He corrects you and I, it's always a pick-me-up. Oh, it hurts. Oh, He gets your attention. It could be a zinger, but He'll never condemn you. He will let you have it, and then He'll grab your shoulders and He'll say, "Now, listen, I know what's in your heart. I can see it. Your flesh got in the way because you led it. Next time around, fight it harder. Next time around, call upon Me sooner. Jack, you got that?" "Yes, sir." "All right, go on out there." That's love. Love says, "Listen, I told you not to do that. You went and did it. You got yourself in a truckload of trouble, and now you can't have the car. Case for a week." Do kids drive cars anymore? In my day, that was a big deal. I'd rather just be shot than to lose the car privilege. I don't know what it is today. No, no, no. Yeah, no, no device for you. That's correction. That's a rebuke. And the chastening is the punishment. You see, wait a minute. I thought, I thought my sins were punished at the cross. They were punished at the cross. We're not talking about salvation. This word is to the saved. These are people in the family. You're not going to be aborted. You're not going to be ejected. You're in the family already. You're not going anywhere. He's, what He's saying to you is this. He's saying, "This is how we walk in these days in which we live. And because I love you, I'm not going to let you get away with anything."

You know, listen, listen, I have to end this. You know, these, these, you drive by these churches all the time and it says, I, it says on the marquee on the billboard, "All are welcome." And some of you are like, "Well, no," you're rolling your eyes. "We know what that means. All are welcome." It goes in this genre. How about this? "All are welcome. Come as you are." It sounds really good on the surface. Um, "We accept you." Okay, that sounds all really nice. That just sounds all cuddly, woke-y, cool, you know? I, I've never read that in the Bible about God. God says, "You need to repent of your sins, you little wretch. Your heart's desperately wicked. You don't know it. You're a child." He, listen, Jesus said, "Apart from Christ, you're a child of the devil." It's like, "Oh my goodness." You know, Jesus, maybe that's why Jesus was a pastor of a church of only 12 people, and one of them was Satan. Golly, no, I'm kidding, of course. But notice that He never lowered the bar to get people in the, uh, the rich young ruler said, "Jesus, what, what must I do to be saved?" And Jesus put up every obstacle to that man because Jesus was knocking on his heart, and he was in love with his youth, he was in love with his money, and he was in love with his influence, and he wouldn't part with it. Here's the funny thing. If he would have just given Jesus top shelf, he could have had all those things and more because they would have mattered nothing to him anymore. But Jesus said, "You know what? You love these things." When you come to Christ, His announcement to you is this: "You need Me to save you, and you need Me to lead you every day of your life." I don't, you know what? Was that Siri or Alexa? Siri. Listen, sir, it's from Satan. If you know what questions to ask her, she fails every theological test. If you're ever, if you ever have time to kill, ask Siri all kinds of Bible questions. You'll see how woke she is. She's a mess. Her Alexa, her, and Alexa, they're just a terrible duo.

But suffering people, some Christians, some of us are going through it now, some of us have, some of us will go through it again, some of us, it will actually be all of us at some point in time. And here's the hope in it all. God's preparing us for heaven. There's going to be a day, according to God's time clock, wow. Every human being, God has set the day of their death. Every day. The Bible says He's numbered the days. Every, think about it. Every day, believer and unbeliever, the calendar, the day is turning, counting down the days. Can you imagine? You could be here right now, or you could be listening right now, or watching right now, and you could be, today could be your 11th day, and tomorrow's your 10th day, and then you're nine days away from eternity, and then you're three days away from eternity. You don't even know it. You don't even know it. And then you're one day away from eternity. And somebody could come up to you and say, "Hey, if you were to die, would God let you into heaven?" And they might say, "Oh, I haven't thought about that." And you could, you could talk with them and maybe even lead them to Christ. They could see that Jesus is the Lord. And then they wake up tomorrow, dead in heaven. Or the person says, "Don't talk to me about this stuff. I'm my own person. I do whatever I want. Nobody tells me what to do." And then tomorrow, they wake up in hell. The day, your day, my day, your day is marked. Listen, if it was a board game we were playing, accept Christ before you get to the end. If you don't, it's bad for you. It's down the tube. It's out. You go. You don't want to end like that. So we'll do this sermon completely over next week.

Yeah. Father God, Lord, we thank You so much that we don't, we don't suffer without hope. We don't suffer without purpose and meaning. We don't go through our ailments and issues and dynamics of life without any cause or without any lesson to be learned in it. You take the things that we have probably written off as coincidence or happens to everybody, and we've taken holy things and made them common. Lord, forgive us for that. If You are so into forming a snowflake to be so different than the next, then Lord, forgive us for thinking small thoughts about You. We thank You so much, Lord. We, we will forever thank You for going to the cross for our sins and dying there and paying the price that we could never pay. We thank You, Lord, for being risen from the dead that we might never, ever taste of death. We'll never see it. All those who believe in You, trust You, we'll never see it. Our sure, our body will be, uh, in the grave, but we won't be with our body for, for until the resurrection. We'll simply say, "See you later, old body." No wonder why You said, "To live is Christ, to die is gain," said the Apostle. But You also said, Jesus, "If a man dies believing in Me, yet shall he live." To blink in this world and to wake up in the next, bypasses death for the soul and for the spirit altogether. Glory to God. Glory to You, oh Lord. We praise You.

Church, let's stand together. Let's praise Him in closing. Let's worship Him in this closing song. Give God praise for the fact that if you are a follower of Jesus tonight, you will never see the grave. You know that. Your, listen, you need to remember. You'll be separated from your body. Your body is going to be buried at Forest Lawn or wherever we put you. You won't be there. We'll be there. You'll be in heaven. Jesus said, "If you believe Me, you'll never die." He was talking about the real you that lasts forever. Trust Christ tonight. Trust Him and be free. God bless you in Jesus' name. Let's worship Him.