Good morning. If you can turn your Bibles with me to Hebrews chapter 12. And I'm going to be reading from verse 14 to 17. And I'm going to give you a heads up. Something funny happened right before I came up. I was praying and my mom came up to me and she tapped me on my shoulder and then she opened up a packet and she said, "Eat it." So as a good son, I just ate it.

And then she opened up another one and then, so I just ate it. And I said, "What is this?" And she said, "It's good for you. Don't worry about it. Just eat it." So I ate it. And I said, "So what is this?" And she said, "It's supposed to help you to sleep." And I didn't think about it until middle of the worship.

It's like, I'm getting drowsy. So I don't think it's supposed to affect me immediately. It's just probably psychological. But anyway, that's the love of mom and my obedience. If I slur my words as to reason, and I had two of it before I came up. Okay. Anyway. So if I make, if it's complete nonsense, it's not the Holy Spirit.

Whatever it is, I eat. Okay. So let's go to 12 verses 14 through 17. Pursue peace with all men and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled.

That there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessings, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord God, for your grace that sustains us, renews us, strengthens us, Lord God. I pray that you would give us soberness of mind, heart, ears to listen, and desire and will, Father, God, to apply all that you teach. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Let me start by asking you this question. If you were to turn the clock back 10, possibly 20 years, I say 10 because some of you guys may not have been alive 20 years ago, but some of you guys are older, maybe 20 years, okay, or to 10 years.

If you were able to turn the clock back, what would you tell yourself 10, 20 years younger? Maybe financially you'd tell yourself, "Buy some Bitcoin." You know, you have no idea, right? Buy several thousand dollars worth of Bitcoin and you'll become a multimillionaire, right? Maybe financially that's something you might be telling yourself.

Physically, I would tell myself to take care of my knees. You know, when you're young, you don't think much about it because you get injured, you get right back up, but, you know, like once you mess up your knees, it's over, right? So I'm envious of people who can run.

Not that I want to run, but the possibility that you can run, right? If you ask people who are older, and I thought this was interesting because somebody asked me this question, like, "What period of your life would you want to try to like get back or experience again?" And without thinking, it's probably in my 30s and the reason why is because that's when the children were young.

And so I think most parents, when you think about this, like, yeah, that's the period. As hard as that period was, right, financially, church, in every way it was a very difficult period, but it's also the period that I have the fondest memory of because the children were young, you know?

And I know that some of the parents who are, you know, huffing and puffing with small children right now, they think, it's like, "Oh, I just can't wait until they are older and you can get out of the house." But as soon as they get out of the house, you're like, "Oh, it was great when they were young.

They were attached to us," right? But our tendency is when time passes, we always look back and our memory and what we value at that period of time is very different than, you know, when we're experiencing it. So it's good time to time for us to look back and say, "Well, those are things that..." And it causes us to see the future differently.

So I have another question. If you were 30, 40, 50 years, depending on how old you are, on your deathbed, and you were to talk to yourself now, who you are now, however old you are, what would you tell yourself now? Just give it a minute, right? On your deathbed, what is happening now that if you were able to come back and talk to you now on your deathbed, what would you tell yourself?

Maybe physically, financially, you'll have some other thoughts. We don't know what's coming on in the future. But I know one thing for sure, if you are a believer, genuine believer, on your deathbed, that you're not gonna tell yourself, "Hey, maybe you should have gone to LA and tasted that new boba that came from Taiwan." You know what I mean?

I don't think that you're not gonna be regretting that. You'll say, "Oh, man, that was a bucket list. I wanted to go travel there, and I forgot. I didn't get to see that." You know, you may have some of those regrets, but on your deathbed, you're gonna cut through all of that clutter, and you're gonna get to what's gonna matter the most, which is eternity.

And most likely, you will say this, "See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God." In one form or another, you'll probably tell yourself this, "Make sure as we are facing eternity that no one comes short of the grace of God." What we're gonna regret, if we regret anything, is that we didn't live to the fullest in this short period of time that we have to love Christ and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

We're not gonna regret that we didn't put enough money in retirement, not on our deathbed. We're not gonna regret that we didn't get to travel as much as we did, or that we didn't invest in Bitcoin early enough. Those are all things that we have concerns during this life.

But as we face eternity, none of those things are gonna matter. And so, verse 15 is an accumulation of everything that he's been really trying to say to the readers of Hebrews, that you're drifting because you've forgotten what it is that you have in Christ, to have an eternal perspective that Christ is worth whatever it is that you're suffering.

Christ is worth whatever it is that you're sacrificing, and to make sure that no one comes short of the grace of God. What does it mean to come short of the grace of God? I mean, grace means a free gift. So how do you come short of this? So I wanna take a few minutes this morning to talk about, like, who is he referring to?

I think there's three different categories of people that needs to take heed of what he is saying. One, unbelievers. If there's anyone in this room or on the internet who is kind of on the fence, and you're here because you're just curious, or maybe your friend has brought you here, and you're coming because you think something is there, there's gotta be more to life than this, but you haven't come fully to Christ.

Maybe you're telling yourself you're busy. Maybe sometime down the line, maybe when the kids are older, maybe when my business is more established, maybe when I find my job or finish my school, then I'll give my full attention to this, but right now I'm just too busy. Well, Mark chapter 8, 36, Jesus addresses this thinking, "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?" If eternity is real, if God is real, if what the Bible says is real, there is nothing more important for every human being to not only make a decision of what this is, but do our best to follow Christ with all our might.

There is no in between. If Christ is real, then everything that we do is a preparation for eternity. It doesn't matter, even if you were successful in your wildest dream, that you bought $100,000 worth of Bitcoin 15 years ago, and now you're a multi, multimillionaire, as you face eternity, it means absolutely nothing.

Maybe if you're young, your fantasy is to become a professional baseball player or an NBA professional athlete. Even if your most wildest dreams came true, as we face eternity, it will mean absolutely nothing if this is true. If it is not true, there is no bigger lie that has been told in human history.

There's nothing in between. Jesus didn't just say he's a good moral teacher, gave us a good example of how we ought to live to make mankind a better place during this lifetime. He claimed to be God. He said he has power to forgive sins. He resurrected from the dead, and his followers gave their life telling this lie, if it's a lie.

Not tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people have forfeited the benefit of this world in order to proclaim this truth. So there is no lie that has done more damage to mankind than this lie if this is not true. There is no in between. If he is God, that means everything in this world is temporary, and all of it should be forfeited so that we can have eternity.

Or you deny him, these bunch of crazy people, that this is probably one of the worst things that has happened to humanity. Where do you stand with this? The Bible says in Hebrews 9, 27, "Inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment." Death is imminent, and it is absolute.

I've never had a conversation with a non-Christian where we said, "Inasmuch as it is appointed for all men to die once," and somebody said, "No, not all men, some men, most men." But not all men. I've never had that discussion because it's not debated. We all know whether you are a multimillionaire or whether you are poor and homeless, we all die the same way.

And we know it's coming. We know that our life is temporary. And the question is, what's after that? But most people live as if this is it. We occasionally think about eternity. But if eternity is real, shouldn't that be the greatest question that we wrestle with? Even more than Bitcoin, how much money we have in retirement, even more than any other question that we wrestle with, shouldn't that be the greatest question?

The Bible says, "Inasmuch as it is appointed for all men to die once, after this will come judgment." To come into the judgment seat of Christ simply because we didn't have time, simply because I was just too busy. What a tragedy to come into judgment when the Word of God says that we will have to give account for every careless word, every sinful thought, to stand before a holy judge, everything that you and I think that we got away with because the government didn't catch us, the police didn't catch us.

Maybe my wife didn't catch us. But a holy God who sees all things, knows all things, who is all powerful, he said, "We're going to stand before this holy judge," and he said, "We're going to have to give account for every sin, every lustful thought." To go into eternity to meet this holy God simply because we were too busy.

There's no greater question that a non-Christian should be asking and to be affirmed. This is true, and to give my life to make him my king, or this is the biggest lie that's been ever told, but to be in the middle is not safe. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God.

The second group of people that this is a warning and encouragement to is professing believers but maybe in danger of drifting into damnation themselves. You notice I said professing believers. These are people that probably are not Christians. We live in a post-Christian culture where people are born into Christianity, or you are shamed into Christianity.

If you are a Christian, they're in one of these campus ministries, it's hard not to be a Christian. They persecute you. You get persecuted for not coming to Bible study. You get persecuted for not joining small group. You get persecuted for not serving. You get persecuted for not going to church.

There's heavy persecution. You have to pick up your cross, almost not to be a Christian. So in a post-Christian culture with so much pressure, during that period, now that begins to die down after you graduate, but during college where there's so much pressure, especially if you grew up in the church from the home, from your friends, from your environment, and so you end up just kind of going and then not really giving it serious thought.

And so you learn to play the game. You know what to say. You know what you're supposed to do. You know the doctrines to profess, but it was always superficially from a distance in order to be accepted by whatever church or whatever group that you belong to. You know what the sociologists call that contagion norm theory.

Contagion norm theory is anything that you do repetitively, you become blind to. That's why when we're young, we're blind to the love of parents because they just do it all the time. And then when your friends do it, it's like, "Oh my gosh, he's the best friend in the world," but your parents do that every single day.

And then you get a little bit older, then the things that you value the most, sometimes we are blind to until they're gone. And then you realize, "Wow, that had the biggest impact in my life." And again, that's what they call the contagion norm theory. If you are an individual who grew up in the church and just kind of affiliated yourself with Christianity, so you came and you did all of that, but you've become blind to what it means to be a true follower of Christ.

You just enculturated yourself to Christianity, but you're not really a follower of Christ. It's a warning to those people who just kind of accepted superficially. And then when the test came and when it became difficult, when the persecution to become Christian starts to die out, and then the real persecution to bring you away from Christ, all of a sudden, now the tide is going the other way.

Now you're riding the tide the other way. It's a warning to them, again, not to drift, not to neglect. In Matthew 7, 21 to 23, it says, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven. But he who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven, will enter." Not everybody who professes and says the right things are genuine Christians.

Verse 22, "Many will say to me on that day," many, not a few, "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?'" Even prophesying is not evidence of genuine faith. That's what he says. "And in your name cast out demons." They cast out demons.

It wasn't evidence of genuine faith. "And in your name perform miracles." They are prophesying, casting out demons, performing miracles, calling him Lord, Lord, in verse 23, "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.'" I remember the first time I came across this text as a young Christian, and it shook me to my boots, to the core.

How do I know this is not me? How do I know this is not me? How do I know that my faith is just cultural? I came from a Christian home, surrounded by Christians. I was part of a campus ministry, went to a Christian school. How do I know this is not me?

And I wanted to make sure that this was not me. And that was part of the motivation behind why I wanted to pursue. I was asking questions. How do I know the Trinity is real? How can I believe that this Bible is really God's inerrant word, simply because somebody told me so?

Because my dad was a pastor? How do I know this? How do I know I'm not a Christian simply because I'm surrounded by other Christians? Would I believe this? Would I follow Christ, even if I was the only one left? If I was living in Iran, would I be a Christian?

If I was living in the villages in India, where they're hostile toward Christianity, would I be a Christian there? And so I wrestled, and that's part of the reason why I pursued and I asked questions. When he says, "See to it no one comes short of the grace of God," he's referring also to people who are professing Christians, but the faith that they have is just being around other Christians.

They grew up, and that's the right thing to say. Sometimes just being around and hearing the gospel and hearing the word of God preached, and again, being so much around that we become blind. You know, recently I've been trying to exercise, so we bought a bike, and I've been trying to bike back and forth, you know?

And I've lived in the same street, right, for the last maybe about 12, 13 years on a cul-de-sac, and right behind us we have this nice trail that people walk on and bike along. For the first 10 years, I didn't think anything about it, because nobody's on that trail, you know?

And then the pandemic hit, and all of a sudden there's so much noise back there, it's annoying, because there's a little hill, and kids go skateboarding there. So I hear them, you know, with music on, and they're playing, and I want to be one of those old guys saying, "Keep it down out there!" So they started using that, and then now, because I started to bike and we started to walk, I said, "Man, that'd be awesome!" But it was there all along, all along, it was right behind us, but because we weren't using it, I didn't appreciate it.

Now I'm thinking, like, we have a wall, you know, between that trail and our house, so like I'm thinking of ways to knock the wall down without HOA knowing about it, right? All along, we've been there for over 10, 12 years, you know? And all I was, it's like, there's a train track right there, just annoyed with the train track, but not realizing there's this great trail right behind the house.

There are so many people who are in the church, around the gospel, preaching, small groups, mission work, and being around all of this all your life, and never fully coming to Christ. Those people will miss and come short of the grace of God if they do not stop and ask themselves, "Am I a cultural Christian, or do I really believe this Jesus?" The author says in Hebrews 6, 4-8, this is a passage that we looked at many months ago, and he's referring to these very people, these cultural Christians.

He says, "For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come." Now if you just look at verse 4 and 5, he's saying, "I mean, clearly this must be a Christian." I mean, he was enlightened.

He's not talking about a Christian, he's talking about somebody who has understood. He's been enlightened. He didn't know before, but now he knows. Tasted the heavenly gift. I mean, he's been around the church, the benefit of being in a covenant community, partakers of the Holy Spirit. They had first row seats of the work of the Holy Spirit with other people, hearing testimonies, baptism, going out to summer mission trips, and he was around all of that.

And then yet, in verse 6, "And then they have fallen away. It is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucified to themselves the Son of God and put him to open shame." Now, some people have interpreted this as saying, like, it seems like they're Christian, and if they fall, God won't allow them to repent again.

Now, you have to make sure that Scripture has to interpret Scripture. The Bible clearly says that our salvation is a gift that God has given to us freely. Right? Everybody knows Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. So if it's a free gift, we didn't earn it, so we can't lose it.

But then what does it mean here? He's talking about an individual who's in the church, who's been fed, and had every opportunity to come to Christ. That you were so close, you had all the benefits that any human being could possibly have to come to Christ, and you choose to drift away to the world.

So when he says "fallen away," he's not talking about somebody who is Christian and falls away from faith. He's talking about somebody who's so near and chooses to go the other path. And when he says "there is no repentance," he's talking about if you do not receive the grace of God, there is no other path.

There isn't two, three, four different ways to get to God. There's only one. And so if you drift away from that, if you drift away from the grace of God, there is no other way that an individual can repent. And so that's what he means in verse 7, "For the ground that drinks the rain, which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it has also been tilled, receives a blessing from God." In other words, the other fruits that actually come to Christ, they receive the feeding, the teaching, the church, and then they bear fruit.

But then in verse 8, "But if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed and ends up being burned." He's talking about an individual who's in the church, knows the vocabulary, knows the culture, meets the minimum standard, and yet with all their heart pursuing the world.

He's giving warning to them that they will miss the grace of God, being so close and yet so far. It is a warning. In fact, you know, some people say, "You know, Pastor Peter, why do you speak so much about this?" Because I think where you and I are, this is the greatest problem.

My concern, I am more concerned about people who hear the gospel, who are in the church, and then they say, "I'm good." Every once in a while I'll meet somebody who gets hostile after you preach the gospel. How can you be so arrogant to think that Jesus is the only way?

It's ridiculous that you would think that the Son of God had come and He forgave us of our sins, He was resurrected, and that if we don't believe Him that we're going to have eternal damnation. How dare you say that to me? To me that makes sense because that's an unbeliever.

That's a reasonable response from an unbeliever because what I said was very offensive. In fact, that's what the Bible says. In fact, if you hear Jesus preaching, either they loved Him or hated Him. There's very few people who are just like, "Yeah, yeah, you know, I think He kind of might be the Messiah." Who knows?

And then they just walk away. My biggest concern are people who are in the church who may have deceived themselves to be believers. I've heard people say in the past years that the greatest mistake that a preacher can make is to cause a genuine child of God to question God's love for them.

So therefore, our preaching has to be affirming. That we need to constantly remind people God loves you. That even in your sins, God loves you. So it is the greatest tragedy that someone would come to church and leave questioning the love of God. Now there is some truth to that, but I don't think that that's the greatest tragedy.

The greatest tragedy is to have people who are in the church headed toward eternal damnation and constantly giving them false assurance that they're okay. An individual who is shaken of maybe a genuine believer in Christ, maybe wrestling with the love of Christ, will have an uncomfortable path to eternity.

So when they die, they're going to look back and say, "You know what? That was uncomfortable." But they're in eternity with Christ. And an individual who has falsely believed that he is a believer in Christ may have had a nice, easy path to eternal damnation. Which is the greatest tragedy?

I think you will all agree with me that the greatest tragedy, especially in our generation where you and I live, is that many who profess to be Christians will meet Christ in his judgment seat. "I never knew you." They miss the grace of God. Around it, talked about it, memorized scripture, recited it to one another, but never really knew the Lord.

That's why I think one of the greatest mistakes, if you want to call it a mistake, that we've seen in our generation is the seeker-friendly movement. It sounds great, seeker-friendly. We're trying to be friendly to the seekers. In and of itself, it doesn't sound that bad. But the problem is we're trying to make the seekers comfortable, non-Christians comfortable with our music, with our culture, with the way we talk, the way we bring them to church.

We want them to feel comfortable. We don't want them to have a bumpy ride once they come in. If someone is genuinely seeking God, you know what they need more than anything else? To hear the voice of Jesus Christ. Because the Bible says, "My sheep will hear my voice and follow me." They're not going to follow Christ because you're nice.

They're not going to follow Christ because the community here is good. They're not going to follow Christ because they like the music. They're not going to follow Christ because the pastor is funny. They're going to follow Christ because they hear the truth. And they get convicted with the truth.

And that truth causes them to be set free. I'm not gifted enough. I'm not talented enough. We don't have enough money. There's no amount of money, no amount of talent, no amount of experience can get somebody who is condemned for eternity to change their mind and say, "I'm going to follow Christ because I like their music.

Because this pastor is interesting to listen to." The only power to save a non-Christian is the voice of Christ. And so the greatest challenge, calling for every church is to make that clear, even if it makes them feel uncomfortable. To build a church filled with nominal Christians who feel safe on the way to eternal damnation is the greatest mistake, greatest sin.

There's no different than being on the sinking ship, the Titanic, and your biggest concern is not that they're going to die, but your biggest concern is to not to disturb their peace. If their peace is not disturbed, how will they know that they're in danger? You know, I hear people every once in a while say, "Who am I to judge?

Who am I to judge?" If they say, if you think, "I want to be gracious. I want to be loving." Is it loving to tell somebody that you believe is headed to hell that, "I don't want you to be mad at me"? Is that for them or is that for you?

If you really believe that damnation is coming, to have them feel comfortable near you, is that really for them or is that for you? Now it doesn't mean that we need to be jerks. It doesn't mean that we need to be offensive for no reason. But the gospel itself is offensive.

If we actually love them, we have to make sure that our greatest goal is that they come to Christ. And that's what he means. That make sure that no one falls short of the grace of God. But there's also the third group. The third group are genuine believers who have become fatigued and tired.

And you may be asking yourself, "Is this really worth it?" And at time to time, even genuine Christians will ask that question. And then that's what he was referring to, someone who is drooping hands and weak knees to make straight path for the Lord, to persevere. First Corinthians 15.58, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable." Immovable means don't change.

Don't change. Always abounding in the work of the Lord. Always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. Let's look at this passage. When we are fatigued and we're tired, our first inclination is, "I want to take a break.

I want to change the circumstance, change the group, change this. I'm going to stop doing that. Stop doing this." I've rarely found somebody who said, "I need to take a break." And then after the break, they came back more rejuvenated. "I'm going to take a break. I'm not going to serve.

I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to participate in the church. I'm just going to come to church and do nothing." And at the year end of that, they come back and say, "I'm ready. I'm rejuvenated." Most of the times at the end of the year, they're more tired.

They're more fatigued. They're more bitter. They're more angry. So they weren't really resting in Christ. They were just tired and they just wanted to just be on their own. I'm tired of following Christ. For the time being, I'm going to take a break." You notice here the encouragement is to continue, to be steadfast, to be immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.

When I'm tired, usually I'm tired not because I had a long day. Those days are true. Most of us feel tired because we haven't moved enough. You know what I mean? You have to go to the gym and exercise. And so we've been relaxed for too long. And I think most people who feel tired may be tired for that reason.

And so he's encouraging them. Is it worth it? And the answer is resounding emphatically, "Yes." And that's where the fatigue comes from. The fatigue comes from, for most of us, is not because we've been working so hard, but it's because we've forgotten that Christ is worth it. And so he reminds us.

That's why he spends 10 chapters. Christ is better than anything that you're tempted by. Christ is better than Judaism. Christ is better than the temple. Christ is better than anything that this world can offer you. And when we can say emphatically, "Yes, he is better than all of that," all of a sudden we gain strength, energy to persevere and to continue.

It's worth the sacrifice. It's worth the fatigue. It's worth the suffering. Christ is worth whatever we wrestle with, because in the end, the reward is in Christ. Have we forgotten what it is that we profess? What is it exactly that we have in Christ? Think about it. Think about what we have in Christ.

Think about how often we are so frustrated because we didn't get the job we wanted or somebody said something to us that we didn't like. It's how fixated we are on that, and then we easily forget God sent his only begotten Son to take our place so that we would have eternity, and then to call him our Abba Father.

Think about how mind-blowing that is. When that becomes contagion norm, that's when fatigue comes in. That's when we want to quit. I told you our family immigrated to the United States in 1975. I was seven going on eight at that time. Korea was a third world country at that time.

It was very poor. I remember the first time Halloween came. In Korea, it wasn't just us. The whole country was poor. In fact, I think our family was probably better off than most people because my grandfather was a pretty wealthy man. But I don't remember that many times just eating candy.

The way that my mom would motivate me to take medicine was she would put sugar in water. That was our candy. She would say, "Oh, if you eat this medicine, I'll give you some sugar water." So this yes, right? Most of you guys, that sounds ridiculous, but that's what we ate.

When we came to the United States, our cousin who was born and raised in the United States said, "Hey, what are you going to do for Halloween?" I said, "What's Halloween?" He said, "This is a day where you go and knock on strangers' doors and they give you candy." What?

Imagine hearing that. Some of you guys probably know exactly what I'm talking about, but imagine hearing that for the first time from the first seven, eight years of my life. I'm like, "What?" That's just like me telling you, go to the neighbor, just any door down the street, they're going to give you some money.

How many of you actually would believe that? I said, "No, I'm serious. Once a year, just knock on strangers' door and they're going to have a pile of money ready for you and just going to give it to you." That's what it sounded like to me. And I said, "Okay." I didn't believe her, but we went.

Me and Phillip went because my older brother, I don't think he believed it. So we went and I said, "Oh, before you go, there is a thing you had to do. You have to wear a costume." I said, "What's a costume?" "Well, you have to put on something." I said, "We didn't have anything, so we weren't prepared." And it was already Halloween, so we drew a face on a paper bag and put two holes in it.

And we actually only had one bag. So Phillip and I took turns. So we would be walking to the door and I would put the hat on and then, you know, we didn't speak English, so we just knocked on the door and just looked at them. And they would put candy in the bag and then said, "They gave us candy." Because we only had one bag, so now it's Phillip's turn.

So I would take it off and he would wear it. He would go back and knock on the door and say, "Hey, weren't you the same kid?" I said, "No, it's the other guy with the paper bag." So we came home that night, probably about hour and a half, two hours of knocking on the door, and I remember the bag of candy that we poured onto the dining room table.

And I remember thinking, "We've made it." This is why everybody wants to come to the United States. To this day, if you ask me what's my favorite childhood memory, it was that day. Free candy. And this happens every year. Crazy. I mean, it may sound ridiculous to you now.

You know, now you offer a lollipop to kids, it's like, "Nah." Like what? It's free. I mean, you know why I'm telling this story. Even this simple offering of candy, I couldn't believe it. For free? Candy. That rotted all my teeth. Think about what it is that you and I have in Christ.

We sing these songs, we memorize scripture, we go out evangelizing, we sing all this stuff, and it's become mundane. That's the reason why we're fatigued. That's why we're tired. That's why we're discouraged. That's why we're so fixated. That's why we're tempted. Because we have forgotten what it is that we have in Christ.

The scripture says He has given us everything that we need for a life of godliness in the knowledge of His Son, Jesus Christ. If He gave all things, if He was willing to give His only begotten Son, how will He not, along with Him, give Him all things? Even your suffering.

You think that He doesn't have any power to prevent that suffering in your life? If He didn't think that that was what's necessary for you? It is worth it. It is more than worth it. And so the encouragement to not to miss the grace of God to the believers is to persevere, continue, be immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.

He says, "So that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled." The root of bitterness, the way that you and I typically understand it is like not being able to let go or forgive of somebody, and then you have bitterness and it grows up to animosity and hatred and slander.

That's true. It's not a false way to understand it, but again, we need to understand biblical terms. In the biblical language, what do they mean by that? Well that term, bitter roots, comes from Deuteronomy 29, 18-19. So if you look at that, as Israel is getting ready to get into the promised land, God warns the nation of Israel, and this is what He says, that there will not be among you a man or a woman or family or tribe whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God.

So again, this bitter root ultimately has to do with relationship with God more than relationship with each other. To go and to serve gods of those nations, not to backslide, that there will not be among you a root bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood. So what is He referring to?

In our relationship with God, everything that I've taught you, instead of continuing to worship me, that you allow these bitter roots, meaning that this thing that's going to grow up to become useless fruit, that you do not allow this to happen. And then verse 19, He says, "It shall be when he hears the words of this curse, that if you turn away from him, that he will boast, saying, 'I have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart, in order to destroy the watered land with the dry.'" So what is He referring to?

He's warned the nation of Israel, after all the instructions, all the commandments, all the warnings that have been given to you, and then you enter the promised land and you drift to where everybody else is and you begin to worship idols. And then you say, after all the warnings have been given, you say, "I'm good.

I'm at peace because nobody's trying to cut my throat. We're not in the middle of war." So because the curse and the judgment is not today, He's like, "I'm at peace. I'm good." So what He is saying is that you are watering this root. You are tilling this root.

You're paying attention. And then the more you pay attention, the more you allow this to happen, what's going to come from that is dead fruit. So what He means by, if you are not right with Christ, if you're a nominal Christian, you've never fully surrendered your life to Christ, watering that life is only going to bear dead fruit.

That's what He means. To let no root of bitterness spring up that causes trouble. So a lukewarm life, a half-hearted pursuit, a nominal Christianity that has not surrendered to Christ, the fruit that it will bear is going to be bitterness. The reasons why churches split is because the fruit of bitterness, because they cultivated nominal Christianity.

The reason why there's turmoil, the reason why so many pastors are falling now is because they've allowed the root of bitterness. Because He was talented, He was gifted, the church was growing, He was articulate. And so we've allowed things that we shouldn't allow in the church, and the fruit that's coming out of that is because the root of bitterness was cultivated in the church.

That's what He's referring to. More than our horizontal relationship, He's talking about the vertical relationship. Because without peace with God, you can't have peace with mankind. Hebrews 2.3, "How will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" The greatest concern in our generation where you and I live are not people who've heard the gospel and were hostile and hated us, because they knowingly rejected the gospel.

I think the greatest tragedy are people who are going to stand in front of the judgment seat simply because they neglected such a great salvation. Simply because they didn't have time. They were too busy. They postponed it till later, and they just drifted into the world. The temptation when we're young is to think that we are billionaires with our time.

When we're young, we know we're not going to live forever, but we live like we're going to live forever. If you're a billionaire, you're not going to sweat it if you get in a car accident, or you lose $10,000, because you're a billionaire. You spend money freely because you have all this reserve in the bank account.

When we're young, our temptation is to think you can spend 10 hours watching Netflix, and watching three, four hours of video games every single day, because you have all the time in the world. There's a reason why the Bible says to teach us to number our days. Ask anybody who's a bit older how quickly time passes.

It's quick. In my mind, I'm 20. In my mind. I remember the first time, because we love basketball so much when we're young. Think about it. I'm a committed Christian. Internet wasn't created then. TV turned off at 1 p.m. What is a committed Christian going to do outside of ...

We play basketball. I remember playing basketball, and I reached a certain age. In my mind, I can go around this guy easily. I'm not the biggest guy, but I'm quick. I can dribble around him, and I can lay up. I was a decent outside shooter. I was shooting. I remember one day, in my mind, I went around him, but physically, I went right through him.

I said, "Shoot. That never happened before." I'm playing softball. I always played right field. For 15, 16 years, I played right field. The ball was hit. Just a little lob to the right field. I was casually running there, because I knew I caught this 1,000 times. I missed it by 20 feet, because my legs were going to get me there.

My body was telling me, "It's up. That's it. Go to the infield." Then, from the infield, I had to pitch. It goes by quick. Literally, it feels like a mist. The danger is, when you're young, you don't see time as something valuable. Instead of investing your time, you just spend your time.

Next thing you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 years go by, and then you're trying to tell your kids, "Don't do that. Don't make the mistake that I made." Be wise. Listen to counsel early. At your deathbed, what would you tell yourself? When you're in your 30s and 40s, you're so busy taking care of kids.

You can't wait until the next day. "Oh, the kids. Once they go to school, I would have some free time." You're so busy. That's when the rat race really is full force. It's interesting that, whenever we compare morality, we always compare with people who are worse than us. It's like, "Yeah, Ian, I know I cheat, but at least I didn't kill anybody." You know what I mean?

Whenever we compare morality, we always choose somebody who's worse than us. "At least I'm not like them. I know I'm not the best Christian, but at least I go to church." For whatever reason, when it comes to money, we always compare with people above us. We're all filthy rich.

We're just like, "Man, I have more than them." Usually, it's like, "I don't have as much as that guy." For morality, we compare with people worse than us because it makes us feel better. When it comes to finances, we're always comparing with people who have more than us. Even if we're filthy rich, we never feel rich.

That's a tendency during that period of 30, 40, where we use the excuse of, "Well, it's for my children. It's for our families. It's for our security. It's for safety." You invest all that time pursuing worldly things, convinced that it's for godliness. Then that time passes. You know what happens?

Bitter roots. It was not founded upon Christ. Christian and non-Christian use the same reasoning to pursue the world. Then, when you get older, the temptation is, "I'm old now. About to retire, or I am retired." Those are for kids, college kids, passionately. Street evangelism, that's for kids. Passionately making disciples, going on missions.

That's what young people do. So we have a tendency to kind of have a retired mindset, and then just enjoy life, talk about what we used to do. Esther always says my favorite word is "used to." "I used to do that. I used to do this." That's the temptation when we get older, as if the race is already over, and we're just waiting to get to heaven.

In every stage of life, our enemy plants seeds in our heads, to ultimately to do what? To stop passionately pursuing this grace of God. That's what he means when he says, "Let no one fall short of the grace of God." This is a command not to treat the grace of God lightly.

Take seriously that this period of time that we have, in light of eternity, there's nothing more important that we must do than to give all our attention for God's glory. That the lost in Christ may come to Christ. That those who do not know Christ may hear the voice of God, and they also would come.

Those who have given themselves to false Christianity in the church, that they would be waken up from their slumber, and to meet the God of life. Those of you who are fatigued, to persevere, to re-examine the glory that opened your eyes, that caused you to come to him. That we would continue to strive, wherever we are, to see Christ, and to Christ alone.

Fix your eyes upon Christ, the author and the perfecter of our faith. Let's pray. Again, as our worship team comes, I want to invite you to take some time to pray, examine, and if you are an unbeliever, at least ask and seek. Maybe at the end of this, you might come to the conclusion that this is the biggest lie.

But to pursue, to seek, to ask. And if all this is true, that God is offering salvation to you, and all he asks is that you recognize that you have fallen, that you are in desperate need of his forgiveness. To confess your sins, ask God for forgiveness, receive this grace.

Those of you who are nominal Christians, and you committed, you committed to have the best of this world, and to the best of God, knowing full well the Bible says it is impossible. You cannot serve mammon and God at the same time. To take a step back, examine, where is my faith, what do I believe?

And to pursue Christ with all our might. And those of you who are fatigued, have you forgotten what it is that you have in Christ? When was the last time you truly celebrated your salvation, the son of God? When was the last time you closed your eyes just to thank God for what he's done already?

Let's take some time to pray as our worship team leads us. Let's pray.