Weight | James Kline

I'd like to greet everyone in Jesus' name this morning.

You know I'm not coming to you with anything that you've not heard many times before.

You know, the Word of God is new every morning and I imagine we all kind of have our go-to or our favorite, or I shouldn't even say favorite, but chapters that we just love digging into and that speak to us, and for me that's Hebrews, amongst many others.

But I love the book of Hebrews and I've been reading, studying, delving in, diving in, and there's just so much, oh, that I just had more of a gift to really unpack, in a way that's understandable and clear, what God's trying to tell us through this wonderful book.

And you can hardly talk about Hebrews without chapter 11.

And that's not really where I'm going with this as much.

But I'd like to have you think of verse 6.

Chapter 11, verse 6, where he says and without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he is a rewarder of those who earnestly seek Him.

I don't think I'm talking to anyone here that has any doubt at all that God exists, that he's a loving God, that he cares for us, that we are His and that he dwells within us.

I was really blessed with a devotional this morning about the 90% and the 10%.

Today, speaking to myself, I want to focus on the 90%.

Thank you for that, brad.

But we go down through here and all these heroes of faith and it just struck me it's actually you marvel at who's there and I marvel at who isn't.

There's really an unlikely cast of characters here.

I just want to touch on this, how human they were.

But Abraham lied to the Pharaoh and said that Sarah was his sister.

And you know we think that he got away with that lie because it seemed that he was blessed.

And I haven't gone through the particulars here, but you know, pharaoh came to Abraham and they kind of, they made their peace and he gave Abraham gifts.

And do you know that amongst those gifts was a maid called Hagar?

We know how that story went.

Moses was a murderer, killed an Egyptian struggling with the children of Israel.

Noah might be accused of being a whino.

You could go on and on.

I'm kind of taking liberties here, but you get what I'm getting at.

And then the unlikeliest of all is Rahab.

But keep in mind that it is our human nature to look for the vile amongst the precious, but it is God's heart to look for the precious in the vile.

And I just have to wonder how would we react and what would we say and what would we talk about if we had that hall of fame, that 17 of those hall of faith would fall in here and sit down and we would know their lives, how they lived, how they thought, what they were, who they were.

What would we say and I'm here to tell you this morning that I today am talking to heroes of faith Claim that, seize it.

We are the children of God and we don't have to apologize or take the back seat.

We are a chosen generation and a royal priesthood, and so often I'm so content to settle forever, so much less.

Then I just want to go through what these children of faith endured.

It says who, through faith, conquered kingdoms and forced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions quenched the mighty quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong, out of weakness became mighty and warred, put foreign armies to flight.

Women received back their dead by resurrection.

Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life.

Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with a sword, they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy wondering about, in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.

And all of these, though commended through the faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us that, apart from us, they should not be made perfect.

And now continuing on into chapter 12.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfect of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated on the right hand of the throne of God.

Wow, I'd like to read that in the New Living Translation.

That translation says Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge cloud of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up and let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.

Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame.

Now he is seated in the place of honor besides God's throne.

Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people.

Then you won't become weary and give up.

So this morning I felt led to talk about weight, and I find it so interesting that he doesn't say that we are supposed to discard the sin and then the weight, but he mentions the weight first.

And some of these things that I'm going to be talking about may not be sin in and of itself, but they're just weight.

It's stuff I'm reminded.

There's a young man in our neighborhood that my dad knew growing up and he was a tremendously gifted athlete and he wanted to become a major league baseball player and he could hit for average, he could hit for power, he had a good arm, but he was a very slow runner.

So he would run around with way to choose to train, to create the endurance and, you know, to help him to run faster.

But obviously when the time came for the game.

He took off those shoes and he wore his regular spikes.

See, he didn't want to go into the game and cumbers with unnecessary weight.

In the same way with you might gather I enjoy baseball that before they bat they will put these lead weights on their bats and they'll stand there swinging around.

But how many major leaguers have you ever seen going up to the plate with that lead weight on that bat?

They don't do it.

Why?

Because they couldn't swing precisely or powerfully.

It would weigh them down, and I've just had to look at my life and there's so much that can weigh us down and keep us from becoming what God would have us be buried beneath the waves, as it were.

The other thing, when it's talking about witnesses here that I would like to clarify is that there is some thought and some teaching that these heroes of faith are looking up and looking down on us from heaven and they're cheering us on and clapping.

But I would suggest that that is not the case.

But these have been recorded here and it is a witness to us that God is not going to load anything on us that we will not be able to endure.

God is.

These are witnesses to the fact that, yes, we can abide, we can remain strong, we can remain faithful.

So what are some of the things that can weigh us down, thinking of the rich, young ruler that came to Jesus?

It was just simply possessions.

And I'm reminded there's a woman who dreamed about being raptured and all her friends were going up in the air, where it says that we're all going to go up in the air and be together with Jesus and the Lord.

And she got about 20 feet off the ground and she just could not get any higher.

And so she looks down and she sees a rope tied around her ankles and the rope was tied to her furniture.

And she woke up but recognized that God had told her that her possessions, her things, were keeping her from enjoying the full fellowship and communion that we are to have with Christ.

Possessions, worry, anxiety there again, I don't believe that it is a sin to feel anxious about something.

I don't believe it's a sin to worry about things that rightly should be worried about.

I mean, it would be very convenient sometimes to just skip a month or two of your mortgage payment, but not a very practical way of going about things.

But worry and anxiety can weigh us down and you know, if that is kept on and protracted and it becomes a way of life, does it not become unbelief?

I have a God who is able, well able and more than able to take care of my worries and anxieties.

If I but take him to the foot of the cross and then I have a place, even here on this earth, where I can go and lose some of my worries.

And for those of you who know me, who've been in the same congregation as me, know that that is my little orchard in my garden.

And this morning I went out.

I needed a lone time and I needed to be alone with God and I dug up some potatoes for our new meal and there was a deer standing at the end of our driveway nice little buck, and the birds were singing.

And I go out and my dogs were helping me dig the potatoes with great enthusiasm and much less skill, and it was just such a wonderful time and I would encourage all of you to have a place, wherever that may be, to where, if you are feeling weighed down, where you can go and you can meet with God, and I know that God will meet us anywhere.

Wherever our need is God, is there A lot of wildlife and we even have an endangered species, much to the great delight of Aina.

But I found an endangered snake that shouldn't be any closer to us than Toledo.

Yes, I'm weird.

I even like snakes.

I wouldn't kill it, Just interesting, but those are.

That is my spot.

I'm just exposing myself for who I really am, but that is place of great peace and comfort to me, god, and I want to for sure not lead you to believe that peace comes from a place.

Peace comes from a relationship with God, but it's wonderful to have a place where you feel that connection.

Another thing that can weigh us down, and here again we come into this little problem of unbelief, but it is simply shame.

There's a lot of things in my life that I would be mortally embarrassed to tell you about in my past.

Thank God for the blood and for the forgiveness that we sometimes forget to claim and we forget, we cannot fathom in our little minds that God removes that from us and he cleanses us from all unrighteousness, and it is as if we had never sinned.

Yes, there are consequences of sin.

I'm not, but we are to have peace with God and if we have confessed our sins to Jesus and if we believe in our hearts that that sin is removed from us.

We shouldn't walk around feeling shame.

But that can weigh us down.

I have seen people just weighed down with shame and guilt.

Jesus' blood he has paid for our transgression.

And then this may be the absolute worst one of them all, and that's to simply bitterness.

Things happen in life everyone, whether it be losing loved ones.

It can be so many things.

It can be disagreements.

It can arise from jealousy.

Sometimes it feels like we're going through the mill of life and being ground fine and you look and you see other people and everything comes up roses and sometimes we're tempted to be a little bit.

Bitterness destroys the soul.

There is no one on the face of this earth that's strong enough to harbor any feelings of resentment and bitterness.

It will keep us from enjoying the full fellowship that we are to have with Christ, and a part of that is just an unwillingness to forgive.

All of us need to be forgiven.

All of us have failed, all of us have failed God and all of us have failed family.

Whatever, we are not perfect.

We have to be willing to have a forgiving heart and first forgiveness starts with a decision.

It is not a feeling.

But if we propose and purpose and is determined in our hearts that we have a desire to forgive, the feeling will come and those things that hurt so much and hurt so bad you can talk about without pain, knowing that we have a just judge and that we have released and forgiven.

So don't carry around that weight.

No one is strong enough to bear it.

Another one that you see people and I do want to make a disclaimer.

I am absolutely not directing this at anyone in this room, but when we see people and how they live, then you see that a desire for power and position has derailed many a life.

And the sad thing is that sometimes it's not only their own lives they derail, but others as well.

That is destructive.

We need to be where God has determined in His infinite wisdom and mercy that he can best use us.

We don't always understand, but let God do the anointing position we so desire position and notoriety.

And another thing that weighs us down.

It becomes an unbearable weight, is sometimes just unmet expectation.

I think this is especially true, or can be especially true, in a marriage.

You're young, you fall into love with this most wonderful woman that's ever lived and you get married and then life happens and lo and behold, we're all just human, we're not perfect.

I actually ended up with a woman that was more than I dreamed of.

So I guess I'm not much of one to talk, but if we have unmet expectations, we can let that consume us to where we completely fail to see all the blessings that God has given us, because we expected something else, and I believe Elijah suffered from that after his tremendous victory on Mount Carmel.

So what did he do?

He single-handedly defeated 450 of these wicked prophets and a woman said Lord, do so to me, and more also if the Elijah's not like those prophets are tomorrow morning.

So what did he do?

He turned tail and skedaddled and he had an epic pity party and a pout, and I think a lot of that was.

He had this mountaintop experience and he had struck a blow for the Lord and nothing changed.

Yes, something had changed, but you understand, in Elijah's eyes the very next day he's running for his life and he fell into a depression.

Oh, what a story that is.

I don't have time to get into that, but read that.

And how the angels suckered him under the tree and gave him meat, fed him twice and he was able, on the strength of that meat, to travel 40 days and 40 nights to the mountain of God.

When we're in that state and we are depressed and we feel our expectations have been unmet, we feel disrespected, we feel unheard, we feel unvalued.

God will meet us even there and he gives us meat, but we have to know where to go.

We have to go to the mountain of God and not away from it.

So, moving on, there's many other things that may weigh us down, but all of these, if they're not nipped in the bud when we're experiencing these, if they're not outright sin to begin with, definitely become sin because of unbelief.

And moving on into verses five through nine talks about the chastening of the Lord.

My son, do not lightly, regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.

It is for discipline that you have to endure.

God is treating you as sons, for what son is there whom the Father does not discipline?

If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illiterate children and not sons.

Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them.

Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live For?

They disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness.

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

I would submit to you that God's chastening is never punitive, but it is always corrective.

I trust you know the difference between punitive and corrective.

But what that is saying is simply that when God is chastising us, he is doing it for our benefit and not so many people have this mistaken identity of God the Father.

He is the old man in the sky and he has got this big stick and if you don't behave he is going to whack you.

No, that is not our God, it is not His heart.

So when we are undergoing that chastisement, when things just remember that, god is giving us a corrective action.

One example of this might be how Jesus cleansed the temple and he came in there and he threw out the and he wasn't like one morning waking up and deciding that he was going to go in and he was going to let Him have it, but they had made the house of God a den of thieves and robbers and the holiness of God could not abide.

So he goes in and he drives them out.

But that was corrective.

And if our lives are filled with stinking cattle and bleeding sheep and corrupt money changers, then God has to remove that for us to fulfill the place that he has for us in His kingdom.

So it is corrective.

And God's chasting is very rarely confrontational but it is always consequential.

In Jeremiah 2, in verse 19, he says your evil will chastise you and your apostasy will approve.

You Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord, your God.

The fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord of hosts.

So God's chastising is to correct us and to bring us to a better place, and I can certainly testify that that discipline is painful but it brings us to where we can better serve God.

In 11, he says For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

You know, when we get disciplined we've been healed and we've been comforted.

We can then go farther and faster than we ever did before.

And then, in verses 14 and 15, he says 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 new root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled Again.

It is so important that we deal with these roots that want to cause bitterness in our life, because bitterness is one of the most destructive influences that a church can ever experience.

Jealousy and bitterness go hand in hand and they are destroyers and we need to identify them as unnecessary weight and remove it from us.

And I'm not sure who wrote this, but I like it.

He says we are responsible to show the grace of God to everyone we meet, riding ourselves of unforgiveness, letting go our feelings of resentment, laying down our right to get even and allowing God to deal with a person who has hurt us.

We must fuse forgiveness.

We don't want to lead anyone away from God or build a wall of bitterness and regret between our hearts and the Lord.

We must always fuse to show His mercy to others so we can truly be His representatives in the world, and I would submit that if we have bitterness or hate in our hearts, we can never be a light for God, and never is a very long time.

And then, in verse 28, he says Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire, and that is something that I believe that we need to be mindful of and to keep reminding ourselves that our God is a God of love, for sure, but he is a God of holiness and he demands a level of holiness from His people.

And if we want to enjoy the glories of heaven, we're going to have to be prepared in our heart.

Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people, and without holiness we can't see God.

I think sometimes we misunderstand what holiness is and we're afraid of that word, because we think holiness and perfection are the same thing, and they're not.

If it were, none of us could ever be holy, because we can't be perfect.

But holiness is having a desire in our heart to serve God, humbling ourselves, asking for forgiveness, coming to the foot of the cross, giving everything to God, letting Him cleanse us as he says that he is faithful and just to do from all our unrighteousness through His blood, and that, my friends, is holiness.

But I do think sometimes that I myself am careless as to how I approach God.

We have been brought up in the dispensation of grace and we have a mediator, jesus, and we can come directly to God through the Son.

But our God is a consuming fire and that fire can fill us with warmth and light and it can burn out the dross that is in us and it can burn up the bitterness, the hatred.

But we have to give it to God and let Him work and do His thing.

I cannot stress enough that we have to forgive, that we have to let go, that we cannot cling to bitterness.

I have seen it destroy marriages and lives and I've seen it destroy churches and communities and it is so not necessary and it's hard to sometimes pinpoint, but it always leaves tracks.

It always leaves results, consequences.

But I'm so thankful this morning that we don't have to end on any negative note.

We need to remember that God is a holy God and that we need to approach Him with respect and with reverence and awe.

But I would point you now to 2 Timothy in chapter 1, verses 6 and 7.

Verse 6 says For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

How many of you believe this morning that the gift of God is alive in you this very moment?

I hope everyone can claim that promise of the presence, of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

And if that is in us, then let us fan into flames this gift, this Holy Spirit.

We can be consequential, we can be, we can be oh, the word that I want is just escape.

But we can determine in our minds and we can be deliberate, we can make that decision.

We can fan into flame, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but he has given us a spirit of power and of love and of self-control.

And I love the King James that's how I first learned it where he talks about giving us a sound mind.

All of us in here today have a sound mind and that we have a spirit of power and of love and of self-control.

And I have seen that acted out and that blesses me and I want to give God the honor and glory for that.

But that's what I have.

So let's just remember that God has not given us that spirit.