The Means of Grace | How God Cares for Our Souls - Hebrews 12:12-13 (Oct 30) Roger Freeman

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Well, that's great to be here with you.

Let's get right into it.

We're in Hebrews chapter 12, verses 12 through 17.

Hebrews 12:12–17

And so get your Bibles open or your phone into that passage, Hebrews 12, 12 to 17.

Therefore, lift up your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled, that no one is sexually immoral or unholy, like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.

For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.

This message is a soul care message.

Are you surprised?

You shouldn't be.

You shouldn't be.

So the focus of soul care is to bring healing to the soul.

In the church, we do that by helping people apply the work of Christ to themselves in salvation.

Right?

We need to be saved.

And then walk out their identity in Christ.

When you're saved, you become united with Christ, and that is your new identity.

You're in Christ.

And we uh soul care helps to walk out our identity in Christ as a child of the living God who indwells us.

God is with us, he indwells us.

I want to share with you today a surprising means of grace that God uses to care for your soul.

But more importantly, I want to encourage you to respond in ways that bring healing.

So we start with that question.

Do you want to be healed?

We'll need to define what we're talking about here, but um let's consider that.

In John chapter 5, we're told of a time when Jesus went to the pool of Siloam, or the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath and found a man who was an invalid.

John 5 · chapter mention

He was with a multitude of invalids, and they were all there for the same reason to be healed.

This man had been an invalid for 38 years.

I don't know how old he was, but he had been at the pool for a long time.

Now the idea was that sometimes the water in the pool would be stirred up, apparently by an angel, and it's like the lottery.

The first one in gets healed.

Now, I don't know if that was a thing, but this man certainly hoped so, and everyone else there hoped so.

And uh they believed in it and they were desperately hoping that it could help.

When Jesus engaged this man, he asked him a question.

Our question.

Do you want to be healed?

Now, far be it from me to criticize God the Son.

But do you not think that's a bit of an unnecessary question?

Don't you?

Do it like what are you doing here?

Do you want to be healed?

Now, do you ever remember, if you were old to hear, do you remember the book uh Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions?

Don't remember that?

You know, stupid question, like, you know, now they just go, well, duh.

Yeah, right?

But back then we used to have snappy answers.

So if my snappy answer would have been, uh no, I'm just here to work on my tan, right?

I know maybe my answer would have been no.

What do you mean, do I want to be healed?

I've been dragging my sorry body around for 38 years.

I've been at this pool hoping to get in the water when it's stirred up.

But I'm all alone.

I have nobody to help me.

And I'm not fast enough.

Somebody is always faster and gets in before me.

This man's answer is the epitome of hopelessness.

I have nobody.

Ever feel like that?

There's nobody in my corner.

I'm not fast enough.

There's always somebody bigger, stronger, faster, better.

My thirty-eight years of reality are just gonna become thirty-nine and forty.

Now Jesus' question, do you want to be healed?

It becomes everything in the moment as he tells the man to get up and walk.

And he did.

He did.

He let go of everything he was hoping for and trusted Jesus and got up and walked.

And now we are being asked, do you want to be healed?

What is the point of hopelessness for your soul, for your inner spirit?

What is the thing that you just say, uh this thing's just gonna keep on going?

I don't think there's any hope for me, at least in this thing.

Do you want to be healed?

Now the danger at this point is to get hung up on kind of physical healing.

Um, when I was preaching this in uh Barry, I practiced on them so that I could come and do a good job for you.

But uh in Barry, we have Janet in her wheelchair.

Well, of course she would love to be healed.

And Jeff belongs to us, he's blind, feels like he's on the sidelines of his family growing up, unable to really um shepherd them the way he wants to.

All things being equal, of course, they would like to be healed.

But Jeff also told me he would not be where he is with the Lord if he could still see.

Because what we're talking about is healing of the soul.

And if we're going to have healing of our soul, we're going to at some point have to deal directly with Jesus.

So, do you want to be healed?

Well, we are talking about um healing coming through the from God through the means of grace.

And usually we think of means of grace as things like the word of God.

That's a means of grace.

That's how God's grace comes to us.

Or through observing communion, sharing the bread and the wine, or through the communion of the saints, being together.

And how much how often has God's grace come to me through somebody?

And I hope that's true of you too, or through uh rest, or serving, or giving, or the other side of giving, receiving.

There's a grace in receiving.

These are the means of grace, but I want to speak to you about one uh trials.

And so as we begin our passage here, uh it begins with this word, therefore.

Therefore, lift up your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees.

And uh I'm sure you've heard it said, whenever you see therefore in the Bible, look what it's therefore.

So he's referring to what he's been talking about.

And what has he been talking about?

Well, uh chapter 12, just let's stick with the chapter that we're in, verses 1 and 2.

He says, there's a great multitude of believers who are witnessing to us about living faithfully.

They're not watching us, they're speaking to us.

They've gone before and they live faithfully, and they're an example for us.

In uh in verse 3, consider Jesus' example in faithful living, so that you remain strong and courageous.

Um, how about this one, verse four?

In struggling against sin, you have not yet died trying.

Is that encouraging to you?

Well, you haven't died trying.

Saying no to sin hasn't killed you yet.

You're still here, still alive.

Oh, wow, that's encouraging.

Yeah.

So I'll just have another go at her and see if it kills me.

So say no.

Say no to sin.

Hang in there.

That's encouraging.

So in struggling against sin, you haven't died trying.

How about this?

Almost the rest of the passage up to where our passage begins.

As God's children, we are being trained in holiness and righteousness.

We're being trained.

It says this it is for discipline that you have to endure.

God is treating you as his children.

He loves you.

You're his child.

So he's disciplining you.

Um, it says about our earthly fathers, for they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them.

I'm convinced that my dad's discipline was not always the best.

He was a little confused.

However, it seemed best to him, and he disciplined me for my good.

They disciplined us for our good that we may, oh, he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.

God has a purpose.

He wants us to be holy and righteous.

For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

We often think of discipline as only corrective, and much of it is.

That's because we're prone to self-centeredness and selfishness and sinfulness and fleshless.

We need correction.

But it also has this positive ideal of training.

The reality is that God saves us in time and space.

And he doesn't suspend time or stop the world from turning when he saves us.

He doesn't remove us from this fallen world or the effects of sin or the influence of sinful people, or just the ongoing troubles and trials of life lived under the curse while we wait for the redemption of all things.

But he uses all of it to train us in righteousness.

Therefore, strengthen yourselves.

Alistair Begg said this in a quote by Jason Keith Allen Christianity is not about how to escape from the difficulties of life, it is about how to face the difficulties of life.

And so much of Christianity, honestly, does seem to be, hey, we have a ticket out.

When Jesus says, no, no, I saved you in it.

And this is where I want to do my work in you.

The world calls this resilience.

But it belongs to us as followers of Jesus Christ.

God is training us in holiness and righteousness right in the middle of life's trials.

This is where he does it.

And so healing is found in life's trials.

That's where healing comes.

It's not something outside of our life that we're hoping all of a sudden one day it'll happen.

Healing is going to happen here.

I'm sure you don't want to hear that.

I don't want to hear that.

I do want to take it out.

I don't want to suffer.

I don't want hard things.

But that's where God is going to work.

Because He doesn't take us out of it, He comes to us in it.

I will never leave you or forsake you.

So the healing we're really talking about is a healing of the rift between us and God and living our lives in light of the ultimate goal of dwelling with Him forever.

Each of us has to decide if this is in fact a worthy goal and our ultimate purpose.

So let me ask you: do you fit into this narrative of sonship or being a child of God, where he has saved you and is living in you and is now conforming you through all the things that are happening to you, conforming you to the image of his son.

Is that the narrative of your life?

Or do you have another narrative?

Do you have some other storyline that you're trying to live by?

Because the storyline that God has for you is he unites you with his son by faith and then begins to conform you to be like his son in the middle of where you are, so that one day you can be with him where he is.

And now I have to decide, is that really where my life is going?

I remember when I faced that choice.

I was 18 years old and I had just moved away.

My parents were in British Columbia and I was in Ontario.

And I was 17 years old, and I could do anything I wanted now.

And so I started.

And one day my cousin was coming to pick me up because we were gonna go drinking and picking up girls and things.

That never happened.

The drinking happened.

The other stuff, no, it never happened.

And I was waiting for him to pick me up, and I stepped out on the doorstep, and God was waiting for me there.

Because I belonged to him.

I had committed my life to him as a young person.

I knew he was my savior, and I was standing on the doorstep, and God tapped me on the shoulder.

And I thought, you know what?

If I'm gonna go drinking with my cousin and live in this style, I should just stop saying I believe all that Jesus stuff.

But I do believe.

I do believe that God saved me.

And if I really believe that, then I should stop living this way.

So when my cousin pulled up, I jumped in his car and I said, Hey, I gotta tell you something.

You know, years ago I gave my life to Christ and I need to live for him, and so I can't go drinking with you anymore.

And he said, Wow, that's great.

Get out.

So I got out of his car, and I didn't ever probably see him again, and I started living for Jesus.

Because he saved me.

I belong to him.

And the narrative of my life has to conform to what God is doing in me.

And we all have that choice actually every day, don't we?

Am I going to live my life today in the narrative that I belong to God and he lives in me?

And all the stuff that's happening to me, he wants to use to train me to be like his son.

That's where we're living.

So healing is found in life's trials.

Healing is found in weakness.

The picture here is of weariness, drooping hands, and weak knees.

A uh feet that are out of joint.

We're told to strengthen ourselves.

The picture here is athletic in nature.

You can almost picture somebody who's just like, maybe they're running, you know, like if I run down the block, this is me.

I can't breathe, I have no air.

As a matter of fact, Awana almost killed me.

They have a thing at Awana called party with the pastors, and the pastors come and they get playing with the kids, and we do their games.

Only, like the pastors had to do every game.

And they have this game where the person runs down and gets the next person and they come back.

Now the game is supposed to be that person, then runs and gets the next one, and then that one gets the next one, and you just like everybody just runs.

Oh no, no.

The pastor is gonna go get that next one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one.

And I'm telling you, after the about the eighth kid, I was not running.

I looked like this, drooping hands, weak knees, uh, no air, gray.

Literally, I was gray.

No, no uh oxygen left in my system.

So they said, Um, maybe you better sit down.

That's all I said, yeah, that's a good idea.

And a nurse came and took my pulse and sat with me.

I said, I think I'm okay now.

You can go.

She goes, Yeah, okay.

And she just stayed there because they were really worried that I was done.

Well, this is the picture that we have here: drooping hands and weak knees.

And the the author of Hebrew says, strengthen yourself, strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.

Get some fresh, uh fresh uh wind in your lungs.

How do you do that?

Well, more on that in a minute.

Has life ever left you feeling like you're just out of energy?

Deflated, circumstances that seem insurmountable, pain of heart and mind that doesn't quit, worries about tomorrow, worries about yesterday, worries about today, more than enough worry to go around.

Guilt and shame, relationships that are drilling holes in your boat.

Life can get pretty weary, can't it?

Do you know somebody that's just weary of life?

Healing happens here because this is where healing is needed.

I need I need some air, Lord.

I need some energy for my arms.

I need some strengthening for my legs to be able to just take another step.

Sometimes our reality looks like it's just gonna get longer.

We need a better plan.

Another picture here is of our own disability.

Make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

What is lame.

We all limp.

If you're young and you don't limp yet, you will.

The author here assumes that we all have some kind of a lameness.

That's kind of disappointing, isn't it?

We all have a crookedness in our character.

We have misbeliefs that would explain our behaviors if I could just figure them out.

Counseling can help with that.

We have traumas that haunt us in the night and sometimes even chase us down during the day.

We have experiences that have shaped us.

Often when we were young and impressionable and moldable, something was pressed into our spirit that has given us a permanent kind of a look.

Or bent or response.

Sometimes we carry shame for what we've done or failed to do.

Sometimes we carry shame for what somebody else did.

Sometimes we just simply face the realities of life that we're not big enough.

We're not strong enough.

We're not fast enough or smart enough or good enough all the time.

Or even some of the time.

And some of us feel like we're never that any of the time.

Do you feel that way?

Well, that's not a bad thing because Jen Pollock Michelle says, when we come to God, the only thing we need is neediness.

Because we really have nothing else that he can use.

So we're needy people.

Healing is found in the midst of weakness because that is where healing is needed.

So let me ask you we ask, do you want healing?

Uh, where do you need healing?

Now, maybe you know exactly where you need healing.

Maybe you're quite upfront with it and you'll tell anybody at all.

This is where I need healing.

I'm just like, this is me.

Take me as you as I am.

Maybe you know you need healing, but it's like a horse fly.

You know it's there, but you can never ever quite catch it.

Or maybe, maybe the healing you need is the monster under your bed, and you're not gonna look at that no way.

So, where do you need healing?

Healing is found in our weakness, because that's where we need it.

So the picture here is related to lameness, so think, you know, broken toe, twisted ankle, pulled hamstring, maybe shattered leg.

How do you treat these ailments?

Well, remember we're talking about the soul, so here is our response of faith to this surprising means of grace in our lives, the trials of life.

Healing is found in our choices.

The author says, make straight paths for your feet.

To stop what is lame from being put out of joint or made worse, we are to make straight paths for our feet.

What is this talking about?

This is again an athletic picture.

And so we're talking about running a race.

Stay in your lane.

Or maybe it's better, like it's not the 440, it's the cross country.

I ran cross country when I was in high school.

They made us.

I had no idea where we were going.

I got lost and went home.

No, that's not what happened.

But when you're running the cross country, it's different than just running around a track.

You have to really be careful where you're putting your feet.

You have to watch what's happening because it would be very easy.

And if you can imagine, if your ankle is already kind of sore, you want to be pretty careful where you're putting that down so that it's not put out of joint.

And so it's talking about physiotherapy for the soul.

It's talking about being careful where you walk.

Now I think it's important to be theologically precise about this point.

This is not about earning your salvation.

The author of Hebrews is talking to the children of God.

It's not about earning brownie points with God so that he'll be happy with you.

You are his child if you're in Christ, and he loves you, and he wants to pour out his favor on you by making you more and more like his son.

We don't make straight paths so that we can get a gold star.

We make straight paths because we have the gold star.

We do it because we've been loved by God and we want to love him back by doing what is most precious to him, which is to be conformed to his son.

Our life isn't about God being active and we're just being manipulated like a ventriloquist doll.

The Christian life is a divine human cooperative.

We cooperate with God.

Here's a good way to say it.

I can't do it without Him.

But He won't do it without me.

I'm involved in this life.

It's actually my life.

But God wants to redeem it.

So what are some straight paths?

How do I make my straight paths?

How do I make my paths straight?

Where do we begin?

Well, Proverbs 4, 26 and 27 says this: ponder, think about the path of your feet.

Then all your ways will be sure.

Do not swerve to the right or to the left.

Turn your foot away from evil.

So a straight path is to turn away from evil.

Well, you'd think you maybe need to recognize what's evil and what's good.

The author of Hebrews has already talked about that in chapter 5, verses 13 and 14.

He says, Mature people feed on God's word so that they have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

You don't start off just like having this.

It takes growth and maturity and practice and training and learning God's word and applying it to life.

So that's what we're doing here.

Romans 12, you know these verses.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

We misuse those verses so much.

If I just memorize God's word, then I'll be transformed.

That is not what that verse says.

You have to know what God's word says.

We know God's will, the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

I have to practice it.

It's through proving it, through living it out, through applying it to my life that I'm transformed.

Now, science knows this.

You do something and your body conforms to it.

You get used to it, it learns it.

You become changed.

God knew this way longer.

He said, You put my word into practice and it will transform you.

And so it's just doing God's word.

So straight paths are distinct.

Here's a couple right from the passage.

What are straight paths?

Let me give you some examples.

Right from the passage.

Strive for peace with everyone.

That's a straight path.

Okay, let me just tell you.

This is a radical departure from how most people live their lives.

Most people are not striving for peace with everyone.

As a matter of fact, most of them are doing the opposite.

In your face.

That's how I live.

And I see it all the time.

I just got off a stint of being a ready-mix cement truck driver.

I loved it.

It was so good.

Man, I love being out in the working world.

I've done that most of my life, other than that stint where I was like pastoring.

But um, man, working people, they're the best until they're not.

Because you go to work, and man, it's a dog eat dog world.

I had a guy stick up for me, though.

Remember that when he stuck up for me?

And he said, Hey, when you pulled in the yard, that other guy was hiding his truck up behind, and uh you took the load that should have been his.

That was really wrong of him.

Until it was his turn to be loaded, and he saw the junior guy come in the yard and he pulled out right away so he could back in and he got the load.

Oh, isn't that what you were complaining about?

That guy did to me, you just did to him.

Strive for peace with everyone.

Oh, let me tell you, that is just gonna be tough.

Can you that is a hard thing to do?

Now I'm not talking about peace at any cost.

I'm not talking about that.

But if it's simply my own stubbornness or pride or unforgiveness that is is bringing a lack of peace, that is not a straight path.

It's not a straight path.

So let me ask you, how would pursuing peace in the various relationships of your life change your responses?

If in the middle of this thing with that guy or that girl, if in the middle of it I was pursuing, striving for peace, how would that change my response?

How would that change the outcome?

How would that change me?

Would I become a more peaceful person?

I think the world needs us to be peaceful people.

So here's another one.

Um strive for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Again, we're to work hard at holiness, not to get salvation or to get God's favor, but because we have it.

This is working out your salvation with fear and trembling.

This is what we do.

This is what this is talking about.

Not getting salvation, but living it out.

And so strive for holiness.

This holiness is a gift from God to us at salvation.

Let's just be clear.

Nobody is going to see God without the holiness that comes from faith in Jesus Christ.

If you're here and you have not received Christ as your Savior, if you've not accepted what He did on the cross, what we were talking about, singing about just moments ago, if you've not received that for yourself, you do not have the holiness of God, and you will never see Him.

It only comes through faith in Christ.

But when it's been given to you, we have an obligation now to live it out.

Your life is not your own, for you have been bought with a price, the precious blood of Christ.

Now, this isn't easy.

We're going against the force of the world system.

We're going against our own propensity to sinfulness and selfishness.

We're going against the devil who has limited balance of power in this world.

He does, Prince of the power of the air.

So it takes a lot of commitment and struggle to walk in straight paths.

It sets us apart.

It means we live differently.

Straight paths kind of stand out from the overgrowth, don't they?

And so it's going to mark you out.

So to summarize, straight paths include loving God and loving others.

Straight paths are distinct, but straight paths are difficult.

There's a couple of reasons for this.

There's active opposition to God's ways.

In Acts, we're told about Elamis.

Elamas, the magician, for that is the meaning of his name, opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, Oh, I would love to say this.

Like, can you imagine?

You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight ways of God?

I'd love to say that to somebody sometime.

Wouldn't you?

Oh, that's not striving for peace.

Wait a minute.

Which is it?

I don't know.

Have you run into that though?

Where literally the straight paths of God are being made crooked, where good is called evil and evil is called good.

Have you run into that?

I have.

There's active influence against God's ways.

Elijah came near to all the people and said, I love this.

How long will you go limping between two opinions?

Isn't that a perfect picture of what we're talking about here?

Be careful because what is lame could be put out of joint.

When you're limping, you have there's two opinions, there's influences.

What's influencing you into the weeds?

Or into the weed?

Or into alcohol or bad attitudes or some sinful practice.

How long are you gonna go limping between two different paths?

There's active influence in our lives against God's ways.

There's our own natural tendency to depart from God's ways.

We looked at these verses from Proverbs.

I love them.

Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure.

Do not swerve to the right or to the left.

Turn your foot away from evil.

Don't go that way.

Crookedness, crooked paths lead to lameness.

Rather than healing, they'll bring further pain, greater disability, just more hurt, shame, sadness, and torment.

Well, here's some examples of crooked paths.

Again, straight from the passage.

See that no one fails to obtain the grace of God.

What is that talking about?

How can I fail to obtain the grace of God?

Well, we need God's grace in our lives.

I need to be seeking it.

I need to be asking Him for it.

We prayed for that.

Said, God, pour out your grace on us.

We desperately need you.

Failing to obtain the grace of God is marked by a lack of humility and a lack of thankfulness.

Essentially, it's a failure to live out our identity in Christ, and it's seeking to find satisfaction in something else.

It's forgetting what God has given us and is focusing on what we think we haven't had or what God owes us.

And out of that, a root of bitterness springs up.

When I'm unthankful to God, I get bitter about what I don't have or what somebody else has, and then it begins to defile everybody around me.

So that's a crooked path.

Oh, here's one.

See to it that no one is sexually immoral.

Sexual purity is a straight path.

Sexual immorality is a crooked path.

This drives directly to our sexual behavior, the expression of ourselves that is often at the root of our identity as individuals.

It's one of the most basic features of our relationship with our Creator.

Why do I say that?

Because the Bible says that God created us, male and female.

That drives to my sexuality.

And so it's a huge area of struggle for everyone, and it's different for everyone.

Everyone struggles with sexuality because it is so basic to who we are.

And it has to be brought into subjection to Jesus Christ.

Not to me, but to Jesus Christ.

The creator.

We often ask, why did you create me this way?

The straight path is, how can I express my sexuality?

Because I'm a sexual person, and so are you.

But how can I express that in a way that in holiness and in honor?

Here's a passage of scripture for you, 1 Thessalonians 4, 3 to 8.

For this is the will of God your sanctification.

That's what we're talking about.

Being trained in righteousness, in sanctification, in holiness.

This is God's will for you, that you abstain from sexual immorality.

Isn't that interesting?

He drives straight to that one.

When he talks about being holy, he drives straight to that.

Why?

That each of you should know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.

That no one transgress and wrong his brother or sister in this matter, because that word brother refers to siblings.

Because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.

For God has not called us to impurity or for impurity, but in holiness.

Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

I am amazed by the fact that when God gives us his Holy Spirit, he says, I'll never leave you or forsake you, and he commits himself to going to places with me that he would never choose to go.

What a concept that is, that I would take a holy God to places and to do things that he would never do.

But he's so committed to me that he won't leave me.

And God says, don't do it that way.

We've been big on the holiness part, haven't we?

Don't do this, don't do that.

But I want to encourage you to think about the honoring part.

Conduct yourself in holiness and in honor.

And the honoring part is the part where the graciousness of God comes through to our lives.

Am I honoring God in how I'm expressing my sexuality right now?

Am I honoring this person in how I'm expressing my sexuality right now?

And here's an important aspect of it.

Am I honoring myself in how I'm expressing my sexuality?

Or am I allowing myself to be co-opted into doing things that I'm not comfortable with, that I are shameful?

And if we would focus on honoring God and the other person and ourselves, let me just tell you, pornography honors nobody.

Pornography does not honor anyone, it doesn't honor the other person, it doesn't honor God, and it does not honor you.

And so let's just be clear about these things.

So uh so a straight path is sexual purity.

Let me tell you, in our world, this is a tough one.

I can't do this on my own.

I need God.

Well, here's another uh crooked path.

Don't be unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal, who counted the sacred to be nothing.

Dr.

J.

Vernon McGee defines profane as this, not in the abuse of language, but rather against God.

Pro is before or against, and fanis is temple, that's the words it comes from.

So it means against the temple or godless.

Esau despised his birthright, counting it only worth a pence, a meal.

We secularize or count as nothing the sacred in many ways.

There's the obvious, our language, right?

We uh we take the Lord's name in vain.

How about this one though?

We demean the normal struggles of life by calling them excrement.

Oh, I should have just used the word, right?

We do that though, don't we?

Now some things are.

Let's not be fooled, some things are just that.

But not everything is.

And we demean what our common struggles of life and make them, we just like make them like it's all the same.

Or how about this?

We take the most intimate act of oneness and make it an insult and a curse.

Our world does that all over the place.

And we demean something that God has made holy and beautiful and intimate, and we make it common.

We see it everywhere, and it becomes meaningless.

Well, these are just examples of a multitude of crooked paths.

Let me say it this way.

Many of our behaviors are coping strategies to deal with pain and shame and fear and control.

Most coping strategies are not straight paths.

They're just not.

We lean on a lot of things that are not going to bring healing.

Alcohol and weed.

It's legal now.

Anyone can do it.

It's great, it calms you down.

Okay.

Cigarettes, nicotine hit, coffee to pick me up.

Guilty.

Having stuff.

We hope that this time the waters will stir and it will be different.

This time.

But crooked paths will never bring healing.

Jesus warned the man he healed about this.

He went and found him in the temple.

Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, See, you are well.

You stood up and you walked.

Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.

What?

This is what we're talking about.

Living in straight paths.

Jesus said to him, Live in a straight path now.

What could be worse than the thirty-eight years this man dragged himself around?

How about this?

Being healed.

And then going back.

What has Jesus delivered you from that you're tempted to go back to?

That would be worse.

That would be worse.

Well, let's close with this.

Healing is found in Jesus.

At some point you have to look into the eyes of Jesus and trust him instead of your own ideas.

His ways are straight paths.

His ways will bring healing.

Any other ways are crooked paths, and they will not.

Let these scriptures wash over you.

2 Samuel 22, 37.

You provide a broad path for my feet so that my ankles do not give way.

We asked, when your arms are hanging down and your knees are weak and shaking, and you have no oxygen left.

How do you strengthen yourself?

2 Samuel 22 20, he brought me into wide paths.

We read this, Psalm 23.

He restores my soul.

My shepherd.

My shepherd restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

I read this this morning in my regular Bible reading, Isaiah 53.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, our lameness.

Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted, but he was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

Peter repeats this, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds, you have been healed.

So our question today is: do you want to be healed?

What is the lameness in your soul?

Healing is the opposite of being put out of joint.

So which way will you go?

Healing is found in our choices.

As we submit ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ, healing is found in Him.

God is working in the circumstances of your life to bring righteousness and holiness, which result in peace.

So don't give up.

Strengthen yourself in Christ to choose straight paths.

Respond to God's training in life's struggles in a way that allows it to be the means of grace in your life that produces healing.

Let's pray.

Father, in some ways this has been a hard word because we have to face up to the fact that we need some healing here.

We've got some crookedness in our souls that needs to be changed.

We need righteousness and holiness that comes from you.

Father, thank you that you've given it to us as a free gift.

Father, the struggle that we have is living it out on a daily basis.

And so we commit ourselves to you and ask, Father, that you help us to look into the eyes of your Son, who is our Savior.

Father, help us to receive the forgiveness of sins that comes from Him alone.

And then, Father, help us to receive the strengthening that comes from your Spirit so that we can make choices to obey your word and walk in holiness and in straight paths.

Father, so that we can experience healing, so that we can leave sin behind.

So we can live for you.

Father, I pray that we would be encouraged by this word.

Pray, Father, that as we leave this place, your spirit will fill us with a fresh wind, fresh fire to do your will.

We pray it in Jesus' name.

Amen.