And then because of my voice, just for those of you that don't know, I have to kind of give the public service announcement every once in a while. I'm not sick. This is what we believe is coming from my central nervous system damage because of all the years of diving in the Navy that I've done. So it happens. And my voice sometimes just goes out. And this is one of those weeks. So, Hebrews chapter 12, verse 12. We left off in verse 11, so we'll read verse 12 through verse 17. Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees. Remember, as all pastors say, and I will be one of them every time you see therefore, or it says wherefore in the King James Version, right? Where? Well, all the stuff preceding it. So therefore, find out what it's there for. All the stuff that's preceding it, we'll kind of touch on that in a moment. Verse 13, And make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint. but rather be healed, verse 14. Strive for peace with everyone and for holiness without which no one will see the Lord, verse 15. 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, verse 16. That no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau. who sold his birthright for a single meal. Verse 17. 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. That's the word of the Lord. And he will most certainly add his abundant blessing to the reading of his holy truth. You'll notice in your notes that we have Jesus, our finisher and perfecter, is what we're calling this section here. Finisher from the... King James Version, verse 2, where it says, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, in the English Standard Version. In the King James Version, it says, Jesus, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. So we're taking that end portion, finisher and perfecter, for this section. And you'll see that we have broken it up into two basic parts. The charge to run the race through the weak and lame. the charge to run the race, though weak and lame in verses 12 and 13, and the challenge to run with holy passion in verses 14 to 17. Or it could be broken up into three places, as you can see right in the middle of your handout on the left-hand side there, or excuse me, on the other side there where your notes are. Right in the middle, it says lift labor, and love. You could divide it up into those three categories, if you will, if that helps you understand it better. Verses 12 and 13 will be lift. That will be prayer. Labor, where it says strive or look, looking, following after in the King James Version in verse 14. So labor. And then finally verses 15 to 17 tells us to love because of God's grace. And that's, you can divide that up into three, into those three ways too. Lift, labor, and love. It's a little easier to remember. So in verse 12 we have that therefore, and last week we took a look at what discipleship really was as it relates to our individual Christianity to our Heavenly Father. That which we have looked at and that's why I kept the notes there Those tiny little hard to see get your magnifying glasses or your reading glasses out to see Jesus our faithful consideration in verses 3 through 11 and we looked at verses 3 and 4 consider the extent of Jesus's sufferings or Christ's sufferings what he did upon the cross and then consider the essence of Christ's gift through suffering, verses 5 through 11, what He accomplished by the cross. In other words, what He did for us. Though it speaks of discipline, the underlying essence of it, as we looked at last week, is that He, Jesus, placed us in a relationship with the Heavenly Father, one that we didn't have before we were saved. And by that essence and essential relationship with the Heavenly Father, we find this discipline of love, this blessing, this beautiful thing. That's why. And just that one point that I will make, this is why sometimes we look at the father and say, why are you doing this to me? Why is this happening to me? It hurts when you discipline me, because we looked at what happens with a little child, even a toddler who even if that child is not walking with the Lord and their parent, his or her parents aren't walking with the Lord, they do something wrong, you do a little tap on the hand and then the lip quivers and the eyes get big and round and they're shocked and then they break into a fit of tears because the one that they love and the one that loves them, they're overwhelmed. How could you do this to me? I'm the child you love, even though they aren't consciously thinking of that. Likewise with us, we see an overwhelming, when we're disciplined, We see the cross. We see how much God loves us. We see the reality of Jeremiah 31 verse 3, that He has loved us with an everlasting love. He sent Jesus to the cross. And by that love, now understanding what love is because we're saved. When we're disciplined, the Father who loves us, the Father we love, we're responding to. Smack my hand. And it hurts. Not the smacking on the hand. It hurts the depths of our heart. And then we need, and by that, we need to reflect. It brings us to, which I didn't mention last week, when Jesus hung upon the cross and he quoted Psalm 22 in Aramaic, Eli, Eli, or Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. In Hebrew, Eli, Eli, Lama as of Tani he Far my god my god. Why have you forsaken me? To hear that we have and know that he is the righteous son whom the father loves my beloved son in whom I am well Pleased it causes us to have to reflect upon. Why was he forsaken? He was forsaken so that we may be forgiven and not forsaken. I And so by that discipline we see in verse 12, he comes back unto a running again in verses 12 to 13. Make straight paths for your feet. Because we learned right away, in chapter 12, that we're running a race in verse one. Verse one. Therefore, since you are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. However, we find out, after all this truth, what Christ has done for us, and He is the example of endurance. Now, the discipline that He has provided for us through His death and sufferings, bringing us a relationship with the Heavenly Father, that discipline so that we can run the race. Now, in verse 12 and 13, we find out that we are lame. How are we to run a race? Because we're crippled. which is the first thing, or the second thing that we see in verse 13. But in verse 12, we have the feeble knees, the weak knees. How could you run a race with weak knees? I, for one, I've had six knee surgeries from all my activity in the Navy, some of it from diving, some of it from other stuff. And my running doesn't look like running, physically, when I try to run. It looks like a, basically, a 64-year-old fat man wobbling forward, with forward momentum. That's what my running looks like. It's like a toddler just learning to walk. That's what my running looks like. And that's with braces on. I got those like copper braces. I didn't put them on today, but I wear them almost every day. And feeble knees. It's two words. The root is, for you Greek scholars back there that are looking on your phones on the Greek, the root word for feeble or weak knees in the English Standard Version is pataluo. To loosen, to come alongside and loosen is the literal, luo means to loosen. But to come alongside and loosen, that's what feeble or weak means. And gnu, gnu is the root word for it. And it means literally sick knees, knees that are palsied or paralyzed. I put it in there, what's conjugated in the actual Greek. Paralleloumena gonata. Gonata, yeah, that's it. But why is that there? Because I believe that because we are lame and the illustration ties in, what do we see most predominantly about knees and lifting up drooping hands? Prayer in the scriptures, especially in the New Testament, but also in the Old Testament. And I gave you two New Testament scriptures there, Philippians 2 verse 10. So that the name of Jesus, so at the name of Jesus, Every knee should bow, quoting Isaiah, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confess in verse 11 that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. But verse 10, most particular, every knee should bow. And then as far as for lifting up the drooping hands, 1 Timothy 2 and verse 8, I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without Anger or quarreling I think in King James Version it says doubting without doubting But anyway lifting up holy hands so our run Take our running to the Lord and running this race, you know And we've had several messages in Nehemiah that we our salvation rests in Christ however at the same time since we're on this earthly sojourn till Jesus returns we run to Christ and we run with Christ and we run for Christ. Running the race as Paul says in 1st Corinthians chapter 9. And we've covered that a little earlier when we were in verses 1 through 3. So we see this prayer, well, I can do that, you can do that. It encourages us because by that picture, we can't run. We recognize, spiritually speaking, we're lame, we're crippled. We still have the corruptions that remain in mortal flesh. This is why we need. to put on the strength of the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of His might in Ephesians 6, verse 10. Because as physically fit as you may be, and I speak to the young people, especially these tall drinks of water up here in front, as physically fit as they may be, you guys, if the Lord should tarry, are going to get old and grown when you wake up. That's just how it is. But as physically fit as you can be also, The strong men, strong young men, how are you going to battle the principalities and powers and the spiritual wickedness in high places and the rulers of darkness of this age that we wrestle with, Ephesians 6.12? How are you going to do that? You can't do that with the strength of your hands. There you, oh, there you go. I thought you were trying to just shadow box there, sister. No, she picked up her word. She goes, the sword of truth. Yeah, the sword of truth and prayer. Prayer without the word is, prayer without the word is weak at best. And the word without prayer is powerless. Prayer, yeah, actually, prayer without the word is fictional. It's fantasy. It comes forth from the flesh. If you're just praying, you know, what's his name? Keith Green has a song where at the end he has a live concert and he says, praying doesn't make you a Christian. People in every religion pray. Praying to Jesus doesn't make you a Christian. So it's those who are using his word and abiding by his word, sanctified by his word. Lame, and moreover he says that we're lame, and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. First we'll cover lame, but make straight paths for your feet. Obviously if we're crippled and now we're lame, we have weak knees, we're not running the race, what does making straight paths for our feet mean? Sticking with the gospel. Because our feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, right? From the King James Version. But lame is a word Cologne, which means limping, it's a Greek word, cologne, which means limping, crippled, halt, or lame. For you Greek scholars back there looking on your phone for that word, the root word is from Strong's Concordance is kolos, or kolos, excuse me, kolos. That brings us to, as far as for understanding what lame is, Matthew 11 verses 4 through 6, when John's disciples came from... John was in prison, in Herod's prison before he was beheaded. And John sent his disciples to ask Jesus, because, well, I pointed to him, I saw the Spirit descend upon him, to ask if he's the one to come or should we look for somebody else? And so his disciples came, Matthew 11, and they asked him the question that John posed to them, and Jesus answered them in Matthew 11. Verse four through six, go and tell John what you hear and see. While this was going on, as they make their way through the crowds and Jesus is healing people, the blind receive their sight and the lame walk. Lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear. The dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me. The lame walk. So that tells us that, in verse 13, that not only do we make straight paths for our feet, stick to the gospel, the truth of the gospel is that though we are lame beggars, we now are rich in walking. We're walking with God. And by staying on the path of the gospel, this actually brings healing to us. Because the last part of it says, so what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. So the process of our salvation, are you perfect once you're saved? Absolutely not. Are you growing in grace? Yes, you are. Yes, I am. And that continues on until the Lord Jesus returns. where it calls us home and we await the resurrection of the glorified body. Isaiah 35 verse 6 says, then shall the lame man leap like a deer, prophesying the truth of the gospel. And the tongue of the mute sing for joy, for waters break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert." I like that, Isaiah 35 verse 6. Then shall the lame man leap like a deer. Not just that he's healed in order to walk, but leap like a deer. That's how powerful the gospel is in your life. and often we take it for granted. Verse 14, strive for peace with everyone and for holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Strive for peace. That striving for peace or following after, I believe it says in the King James Version, Diokote is the Greek word there and it means to pursue, ensue by suffering. And in fact it's translated many times as persecute. So that gives you an idea every time that the Lord Jesus in the Gospels is talking about persecution or that those who persecute you, that they're not just giving you a hard time, they are endeavoring to put the needle to you, as it were. On the contrary, we should do that as if we were persecuting, we're pursuing after the truth of the gospel. The thing that comes to mind using a, you know, it's a different, it's not using this Greek word there, but the thing that comes to mind is remember that when the Lord Jesus was teaching the disciples again how to pray in Luke 11, you know, he taught the model prayer in Matthew chapter six, but in Luke 11, the disciples said, well, teach us how to pray. And so what he does is he gives them the same model, not the exact words, but the same model, because it is a model prayer. as we've examined very superficially, I suppose, for about six months during our Wednesday night devotionals, during our prayer meeting on how to pray. Then he comments upon it, you know, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done. on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation then in Luke 11 he comments on the prayer, and one of the comments was that you should ask for the Holy Spirit. And it's like a man who was traveling and seeking to, or a man who had visitors and he had guests, but he didn't have enough bread to put out for them. So he went to his neighbor and said, hey, wake up, it's the middle of the night, give me some bread. And even though the man didn't want to get up from his bed, I'm asleep with my children. Don't bother me. But he keeps knocking for importunity is the King James Version. He keeps on bugging him. And even though he doesn't want to do it, he does get up in order to stop that knocking. He says, that's how we should approach the Holy Spirit, how we should seek the Holy Spirit from the Heavenly Father. Keep on going. That picture should come to mind with this striving after. Romans 14 verse 19 says, so then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. 1 Corinthians 14, so pursue is that Greek word. 1 Corinthians 14, verse one, it says, pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophecy. Pursue love until it's secured in your heart that you know that you have it. That you know that it is a possession, that not only that you have the love that you receive, but in 1 Corinthians 14, I don't mean to be preaching on that verse, that it is so much yours that you have, since it comes as a gift from the Heavenly Father, it's a grace that you can give. You can also give that love as well. Pursue that which makes peace in Romans 14 verse nine. Pursue it. Because peace, he mentions. Tom McCormick, he just had surgery. I normally don't do this, but I did it to Wayne Bumpus on Wednesday. Hey, Brother Tom. Are you there? Oh, yeah, it's Sunday school. I'm actually teaching the Sunday school lesson. How's your neck? Oh, that's all right. No, I got you on speakerphone. You're stuck. Everybody knows that you called during Sunday school. Now, how are you doing, brother? Did the surgery go okay? Yeah, you sound like the Tin Man. Which would be, since they did it around your neck, that would make sense. Yeah, I'll call you I'll call you back a little bit later today, but we'll be praying for you this morning No problem brother, I'll talk to you later. All right. Love you. Bye. Bye I know. Yeah, I forgot about that. But I knew that he just he just had surgery this week and we've been praying for him. We'll pray for him again. And typically I don't pick up during I turn my phone off, but for some reason I didn't turn my phone off. So I figure I guess I had to answer it. So now you all know. Please pray for Tom McCormick. He's still up in Anchorage, I'm sure. Anyway, where are we? Oh, striving, striving for peace or strive for peace with everyone and for holiness. And we'll talk more about holiness in the in the message today, but strive for peace and hope and and for holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. And, well, peace, eireinon in Greek means peace, quietness, rest. It's eireine for our Greek students back there. And it should bring One of the verse I provided for you was John 20 verse 21, when Jesus appeared to the disciples eight days later, when Thomas was in the room and he said, peace be with you as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. And that word peace is the same one. And so pursue that peace. I chose that verse because that peace works both ways. Peace be with you, as Jesus says to us, so we receive the peace of God. We have peace with God, as Romans 5 says, because we're saved by his grace. But also, as the Father sent me, in order to provide peace for those who do not, bless you, for those who do not have peace, that we should be doing the same thing. So when we pursue peace, it's not just so that we can have peace, but also that we can be peacemakers. As the Sermon on the Mount says in Matthew 5, blessed are the peacemakers. Pursuing that peace. Also holiness. Hagias Mas. Hagias Mas means purity or sanctification. It's the very same root word that's used in the sentence. It wasn't conjugated. And looking at my notes, I see that I gave you the wrong reference. Romans 6, 21. It's not 21, it's 22. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification. That's the English Standard Version, but it's the word hagiasmos, hagiasmos, and that means holiness. The fruit you get that leads to holiness or sanctification and its end eternal life King James Version does translate it holiness, but holiness sanctification two different words means the same thing And that's what and we should pursue that that's what we should labor for but Again, going back to verses 12 and 13, in running the race, and this is what we're pursuing. Do you have the strength to be able to pursue peace? Do you have the strength to be able to pursue holiness? No, not in and of yourself. It's something that is a grace of God, and the strongest of men cannot attain it, except that they receive it by God's grace. So this is how we do it, looking diligently. Chapter 12, verses 15 to 17. Looking diligently, it says in the King James Version, or see to it, in verse 15, this is the key. So, to it, see to it that no one fails, bless you, 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 may become defiled. And then also verse 16. We'll get to verse 16 in a minute. But looking diligently or see to it, I provided it there for you. It's conjugated. It's episkapuntes. Episkapuntes. It's easy to say in Greek, especially with my voice starting to go all different directions. Episkapuntes. It's the Greek root word, episcopeo. Episcopeo. Now that should start sounding familiar to you who have those Bibles with the Greek words in it, or commentaries that talk about the Greek, or even your phone that has the Strong's Concordance and all that in there. It is akin to the word episcope. that is used, that we see used in, as translated, the word bishop or overseer. It means to oversee or beware or take oversight in, as a bishop or overseer in the church would do, episcopate. And since it has that, This is your responsibility. You take leadership in the fact that you have no strength in and of yourself. And the only strength that you have, spiritually speaking, is that which comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. You obtain grace and obtain grace. What does that mean? Well, didn't Christ die for us? Yeah, we saw that from chapter 12 all the way through now, Brother Mike. Looking and seeing the chapter starts out looking at Jesus, and then the lost man is seeing holiness. In other words, our looking at Jesus will cause the lost to see holiness. Very good, that's actually, that's actually spot on right there. For the sake of our folks in the back, Brother Mike was talking about it starts off looking unto Jesus in verse two, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, and it's closing this section out with, see to it that, in other words, though this is a, though it is a pursuit of, Now taking leadership or responsibility, assuming leadership or taking responsibility for all of this, it also plays into the fact that when we look to Jesus, we will see his holiness. We will see his peace. that obtain grace. And I didn't go through the Greek word obtain. However, this obtaining is, Christ has already obtained it for you. Now you, in other words, on our part, we maintain it. We won't lose salvation, but this grace we want to maintain and obtain, or in other words, attain. We don't want to live on yesterday's grace, just like we don't live on yesterday's mercy. Lamentations 3 tells us that His mercies are new every morning. Why are they new every morning? Because yesterday's mercy is not fit for today. Jesus preached that in the Sermon on the Mount. You know, that... Wait a minute, I'm mixing that up with something else. You know, actually, tomorrow. And also don't live off of tomorrow's grace. Tomorrow's grace hasn't come yet. Today is sufficient for the evil thereof. However, we don't live on yesterday. That's in Philippians, actually, what I was thinking of. Paul is mentioning in Philippians chapter 2, don't think of the things that have happened before. not just that he was an unsaved man to becoming a saved man, but even the things he did as an apostle, planting churches, ministering unto thousands, several thousands, even more that he had put to death when he was persecuting the church. He says, I don't stand upon those things, I look forward, I press toward the mark of my high calling of God in Christ Jesus. because His grace that is sufficient, it's sufficient for me today, but I want to abound in grace, in His grace more and more. I want to live by His gospel and know more of His gospel because I want to know more of Christ. The more we know of Christ, the more we love Christ. The more we love Christ, the more we serve Christ. It says that no root of bitterness springs up from this cause of trouble. In other words, there's that love right there opposite of this root of bitterness. When we're not bound to love, when we're not responding to the love that is God, bitterness comes up. Why did God let me go through that? the past. That's not living by the grace of today with abounding grace more than what was yesterday, more tomorrow than what we've had today. Then bitterness comes up. Then he gives examples in verses 16 and 17. So when we abound in grace, when we obtain grace, maintain grace and attain grace day by day, the truth of the gospel, who Christ is and what he has done, praying so that our knees are strengthened, praying so that our hands aren't drooping, there's No root of bitterness will arise, no immorality or unholiness in verse 16, and no repentance in verse... We will have repentance because repentance isn't a one-time, been there, done that, bought the t-shirt thing. Repentance is a continual grace of God. He had no place of repentance in verse 17. Oh, but watch this, in verse 16, that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau who sold his birthright for something to eat. You know what he was saying here is he's, remember, again, and I don't know if I really need to remind you, this is a Jewish audience. Someplace in Asia Minor, there was a group of Jews who's being written to by an unnamed apostle. Some people think it's Paul. The more I read this, the more I study it, the more I believe it wasn't. It was the Holy Spirit. However, he brings to them a picture that allows them to recognize that the peace and holiness that he was talking about in verse 14 that we should strive for is in this illustration of Esau's life in verse 16. The sexually immoral, that's the peace. Esau did not have peace in himself. He did not have peace with his parents. His parents were grieved because he was marrying the Canaanite women and Ishmaelite women. He was marrying women that were that were a grief to his parents. And so he didn't have peace with his parents. He didn't have peace within himself because there was no peace with his parents. There was no peace with God. That's why he didn't have peace with his parents. He had no peace with God. He was an unsaved man. And so that peace was also evident in his life. There was turmoil in his life. He was a mini Solomon, if you will. And we'll read about Solomon again in Nehemiah 13. Solomon had 700 wives. The wisest man in the world had 700 wives, and they never satisfied him. Because he was, though he was so wise, it was an illustration that wisdom isn't the be-all, end-all of things. That if it wasn't taking him to Christ and you're finding satisfaction in anything else, that's not wise. And then he has 700 wives and now he figures, well, let me just take another one and I won't marry this one until I'm sure. And he does that 300 more times. He's got a thousand women. And he has no satisfaction because he was not obtaining, maintaining and attaining grace in his life. And that's what Esau was doing, a little mini picture of that. Well, maybe this one more wife will do it because his satisfaction was not in God, in Christ. So it led to immorality, no peace. And then unholiness. He gave up his birthright. You can't be holy. without salvation, because salvation is holiness. It's honesty about ourselves. One of the things about holiness, which Lord willing, we'll see today, I've mentioned it before, one of the key hallmarks of holiness really is being honest with ourselves about ourselves. He is God and I am not, to put it simply. God is holy. And there's two aspects to that, and we'll cover that a little bit later. Yeah, I'll cover it a little bit later. So you folks in the back, if you're not here for the first service, you'll have to listen to it on sermon audio if I can get around to posting it. And then verse 17, 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. And I didn't put a reference there, but you all know 2 Corinthians 7, verse 10. In the King James Version, it says, a godly sorrow that worketh repentance unto salvation not to be repented of, but the worldly repentance bringeth death. Since he had no grace, since he had no relationship with God, since there was no peace in his life, he could have no repentance. Repentance is a grace of God, and it accompanies faith. There's those people that try to figure out, those theologians that try to figure out, which came first, faith or repentance? Yes, is my answer. It's an eternal truth. There's no timeline. If it's an eternity, how could there be a timeline? There's not. So the... come simultaneously. So that's the easiest way I could figure it out. And so when I open up the systematic theology book and those guys are going over this stuff, or if I'm listening to a message and they go, oh, which came first? Why are you spending time on that? I used to have a forehead that was out to here, but listening to some of those guys, Brother Mike, Trusting Christ is repentance. There's many aspects to repentance. It's turning from the thing that you once loved and turning to the thing that you once hated. That's repentance. It's a change of mind, but it carries with it, you know, there's too many simple definitions of it, but it is far reaching. Too many simple definitions of grace. Because these things encompass, they are to encompass every area of our lives, a simple definition will not do. By keeping the simple thing simple, trust and love the Lord. Love the Lord. Respond because He loves us. We love Him, as 1 John says, and love Him. And in loving Him and trusting Him, that's repentance. But Esau could not. And so these are the warnings. These are the things that we endeavor to do the labor of it. This is how Jesus is the finisher and perfecter of our faith. He was the author in all those things that he had done and these things he had possessed for us. So what do we do? We pray. We stick close to the truth of the gospel. We make a conscious effort to consciously think of Christ in all that we're doing, no matter what area it is that we're doing. Are we intimately involved in our children or our grandchildren's lives and we're holding them and hugging them? I must think of Jesus to love them appropriately. Sadly, I don't always. Sometimes I get caught up in whatever cereal he's eating. And then we have cereal wars. Grandpa, what cereal are you eating? You want to try some? I don't know. You know, and so I'm not thinking consciously of Christ, but it reminds me every time I'm not thinking of him, I should be. And then I sometimes repentance is that simple. Lord, I'm not thinking of you and I should be. I'm glad that you've done it. But then I rejoice at the same time because that's one area that we covered in verse two of chapter 12, imputed righteousness, the cornerstone of our salvation. Christ did it all and walked the righteous life that you and I can't, and it's applied to our lives. And if we forsake that truth, then we'll start trying to justify ourselves with every single method under the sun. And you'll have to, Come back tonight to look at Ecclesiastes chapter 8 to cover those areas. Any questions or comments besides Brother Mike? I'm just kidding. I mean, Brother Mike, if you had another comment or question, that's fine. Anything? So chapter 12, verse 18 next week, Lord willing. Let's pray. Our most blessed and gracious Father in God, in Jesus' name, we thank you, Lord, for the text that was before us. May we endeavor to be prayerful, to commune with Christ, to commune with you, Heavenly Father, and to commune with the Holy Spirit. that we might gain the strength to do all those things, to look at discipline correctly, to be reminded of the cross, to pursue peace and holiness, that we may see you, that those are the things that make a pure heart. We love you, Lord, and thank you for all you've given us, and ask that the lessons that we're learning from the scriptures that you're teaching us, that your Holy Spirit is, showing us Christ from we ask father that that will go with us and Lift us through the entire week in Jesus name and forsake. Amen