Reese, Joe: Ozark-2 Conference Turkey Hill-2002-03 ~ The Weights

We'll take our text from Hebrews chapter twelve. Please turn there with me. Hebrews chapter twelve. Some of you know my testimony. I, uh, I was saved just before my twenty fifth birthday, led to the Lord by a total stranger in about fifteen minutes with a four spiritual law gospel tract in a small town in Alabama. Had the opportunity to go with Campus Crusade for Christ for a few months and ended up in a small, a small Bible school in Northern Ontario. You say, how small was it? Well, there were three students, but I was in the top third of the class. Matter of fact, I was the third. I had been to Bible school not too long, when my mom and dad, who had gotten saved after I did, gave me a call. And my mom said, your dad is very sick. He's going to have to have a, an operation. We don't know how long he's going to be off from work. And we can't afford it. And son, we've never asked you to do anything before, but we're wondering if you'd come home and get a job and help us through this tough time. Well, that was a very difficult thing for me because I am very close to my family. I love my mom and dad. I had the privilege of leading them to the Lord. My two sisters, their husbands, and all of the children, they're all in by the grace of God. And my mom and dad were not wealthy people. My dad was a laborer most of his life, but provided for us. We never lacked anything, took good care, and for the first time, now as a believer, they asked me to come home and help them. My mother did not understand it when I said to her, I've got to pray about this, because I believe God had led me to Bible school, and now I was just getting in it, and now I get this phone call. After praying about it, I was very sure that I was to stay, and I didn't know how to tell my mother. I called her back, and I said, Mom, I don't know if you can understand this or not, but I'm not coming home. She began to cry on the phone. She didn't say anything else. She didn't need to say anything else. She was very disappointed. My dad had the operation. It was very successful. He was not off as long as they had anticipated him being off, and the company decided to give him full pay the whole time. I introduced my subject tonight on weights by giving you that story, because I do not believe that anyone in this auditorium tonight would have ever condemned me if I would have gone home. It wouldn't have been wrong to go home, but in my particular case, at that particular time, it would have been a weight. I wasn't very old in the Lord, but I knew by now that if we're going to do what the Lord asks us to do, there's always going to be a cost. And there may be someone here tonight who's facing such a decision as that. And I'm praying tonight that as we look at these weights that we have to lay aside in order to run this race unencumbered, that the Lord may speak to your heart afresh, and that you may lay them aside to go on for him. Let's pray before we begin. Father, these things are too hard for us. We are not very wise or discerning, but we know that thy word and thy spirit are able to work in our hearts and show us, lead us, illumine our minds and lives, and then by the grace of God to have strength to do what we need to do. Lord, what we will talk about tonight will be personal. We wish not that anyone would think that we're prying in, or accusing or judging, but these things might be heard objectively, filtered through the word of God and their own personal experience, and dealt with accordingly by your spirits working in their life. So give us help, we pray. Make it practical, and may it be something that we might not soon forget. Perhaps a marker tonight for some, that they'll look back on in days ahead to say, that was the night I shed that weight for Christ. We pray these things, asking it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Wherefore, seeing we are also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which has so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds. There is always a cost in serving Christ. Some years ago, in a little community, in a, a native community in Northern Ontario, we had some gospel meetings. One night after the gospel meeting, we were gathered in a home of a few believers, and the telephone rang. It was a call from the hospital. There was a man in the hospital, and he asked for the fellow that I was preaching the gospel with that week. He asked for Garnet Cooney. Some of you may know Garnet from Northern Ontario. He's in Ireland now, in the south of Ireland. And he asked Garnet to come and visit him in the hospital. It was ten thirty at night. It was a cold January night in northern Ontario, up in the James Bay area. Garnet had about a mile to walk, and so he bundled up like Eric the Eskimo, and he took off for the hospital. We got on our knees, a little group of us that were there, and we said, Lord, open this man's heart. Something is happening. He's coming Nicodemus time. He's coming at night. He's asking for the gospel. We had visited that man earlier. He was in his seventies, and it was a pretty good visit in the home, but he had taken ill and landed in the hospital. After some time, Garnet came back home and says he's in the fold. He's trusted Christ. The fellow that I was staying with, and the family that I was staying with, he was a male nurse, and he worked in the hospital there, and the next morning he went into the room where this man was and was chatting with him when his wife came in. That is, the man who got saved, his wife came in. She stood at the door, and he said to her, last night I accepted Christ as my savior. She looked at him without any expression and without any comment. She turned around and she left the room. He turned to the nurse, my friend, and said to him, I've heard the gospel for thirty years. I knew it was going to cost me. There is a cost, and I'm wondering tonight how many of us have experienced that cost, or whether we have avoided it, given in to the pressures of the world, given in to the circumstances of life, given in to the urgency of the hour rather than the important things for God, and have not been willing to pay the price that it cost to run this race effectively for Jesus Christ. We read in our text tonight that if we're going to run this race effectively, that we must lay aside the weights and the sins. Now, tomorrow night I will deal with the sin issue. Tonight I would like to speak exclusively on the weights. Even though I believe weights are sin, in a sense, we see them differently. Anything that's not of faith is sin. If you know what is right to do and you don't do it, that's of sin. We have the sins of commission and the sins of omission. Not to do what we know ought to be done is sin. But these weights may take on just a little different flavor, a little different description. And I'd like to share with you tonight that I believe the first thing these Hebrews would think about as they read this letter, as it came to them, remembering that they are in some ways a rejected people. They're hated by their own countrymen because they've turned to Christ. They're hated by the Gentiles because they are Jews. They are persecuted. They have been wrenched from their homes and their families and their, and, and their jobs and, and their geographical locations. Many of them have experienced persecution and loneliness and despair and heartache, and no wonder the writer would remind them in chapter eleven of all of the trials and, and difficult situations that their forefathers and those that have gone before them have gone through to encourage them, that they too can go through it, that there were other little ships that we talked about, that there were others who blazed the trail, who've gone on, bore the cross, and have not given up, and by faith have run the race. The weight that I believe they would first think about is this, the weight of the Mosaic law. They've been freed from that now, haven't they? I mean, Paul takes, uh, a, a whole book in the New Testament, the book to the province of Galatia and the assemblies there, to show that the law was an instrument in the hands of God, a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. It was never intended to save us, it was to show us what sin was about and how guilty we are. Six hundred and thirteen commandments and statutes and judgments and ordinances and laws, of which no man, save Jesus Christ alone, would ever keep perfectly. This law to them was the old system. They'd moved to a new system. They were now under a greater law, the law to Christ. Dear friend, it's about time you and I realize that we've been freed from the law of Moses to a greater law, the law of Christ. This law captivates our hearts, it gets our attention, it moves our souls, it energizes our spirits, it, it gives us a zeal to serve him because we love him now. That's the law to Christ. Does he have to shout in your ear? Does he have to give you a command from heaven? Or is your ear tuned to the voice of the master? You've been freed from the law, free to serve him out of love now. Reminds us of the bond servant, does it not, of the Old Testament, who was taken to the doorpost, all driven through his ear, the mark of the bond servant, freed now, but he stays. He's under a greater law, the law of love, and the law of love for his master and service for him. And so this law of Moses evidently would have been the first thing they would have thought about, and he says to them, lay aside every weight. This legal system, is there application today? Hm. It seems as though we are people of extremes. We're either totally legalistic or we're totally liberalistic. You know, someone says that the pendulum swings from one side to the other, and if it, if it reaches the middle and it stops, the clock is dead, you know? Well, it seems that we can't ever find the balance in life, but weights could be the legalistic system of which some try to promote godly, holy living. It doesn't work, you know. It only makes robots out of people. It only makes clones out of people. God does not judge us by the way we part our hair, or the way we dress, or the way we have our meeting or organize our gatherings around. He looks into our very hearts and sees what motivates us there. Why do we do what we do? Recently, I've been challenged with dress code. Well... from the old school, you know, you dress up when you go to meet the Lord, don't you? And yet there's a new generation coming along, and they don't seem to think you ought to dress up at all. You can wear it to the beach, you can wear it to the meeting. You can wear it to the gym, you can wear it to the meeting. One of the greatest mistakes I think we could ever make is to make a legalistic call on the thing. If you want people to dress appropriate for certain things, win their hearts, not their uniforms. Don't make them be what you think they ought to be. If you can get them to love Jesus, you get them to wear anything. They won't care. They'll love the Lord. They won't care what they wear or what they have to wear or what they should wear. But legalism is a weight. It drags us down, it stumbles us, it hinders us. May we not fall into that as these Jews had to deal with it. They thought it was the only way, and now they're saved. It's new wine and old wine skins, and it doesn't work. These weights would take on various forms. These weights could take on the form of pride. Tradition. We always do it that way. Well, we've done it that way for forty years. Well, guess what? We're not going to do it that way this week. Okay? Well, no, that won't work. It- it- it's just we can't seem to get away from it. The rut is so deep, the tradition is- is so fixed in our mind that it would be sin if we did it some other way. Would it be? Some people think there are a lot of gray areas in scripture which God the Spirit gives us liberty to move. And I thank God for the autonomy of the local assembly because everybody doesn't do it like we do it, you know. But the elders of that assembly are accountable to God, and they need to realize that sometimes pride, prejudice, tradition, culture, and just the old rut can be a weight that needs to be shed and dealt with. When I think of weights, I also think of, um, Lazarus. Uh, you remember Lazarus had died, and the Lord went and spoke to him and, uh, said, Lazarus, come forth. When he came forth, the Bible says that he was bound up in grave clothes. Do you ever wonder how he come forth? Did he hop, you know? Did he float? You know, I mean, how'd he get out of that tomb, see? Nevertheless, he seems to be standing before the servants, and the Lord tells the servants to do what? Loose him and let him go. Why? Well, he couldn't do anything all bound up with those grave clothes. He couldn't see, he couldn't move, he couldn't work, he couldn't live for God. And that reminds me of when the Bible talks about putting off the old man with his deeds. Those grave clothes would represent the things that are carried over from the old life into our new life in Christ. Did, did you ever have to deal with anything like that when you got saved? I can assure you that I had a long list of which the Lord is still working on, thirty two years later. The habits, the ambitions, the motivations, the likes, the lust of the old life. Oh yes, I got saved. Oh yes, the obvious fell off right away. The smoking, the drinking, the language, uh, the immorality, uh, the gambling, all of, all of that. Thank God, within a month, God took care of all of that. But you know what? That wasn't all of it. And those things still haunt me sometimes. And I can tell you that if you lived a lifestyle like I did before you got saved, you get flashbacks. And those flashbacks are not to be dwelt upon or enjoyed. They are to be committed to the, to the Lord. You're to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ and deal with it. That's the only way I've ever been able to get over it, Because the mind has the ability to bring those things up at a most inopportune time. Weights is what they are. It's as though the little voice says to me, you'll never get over that. Look at that. You're still like that. You'll never go on for God. What would you ever do for God? You cannot dwell on that. You must bring that to the foot of the cross. You must shed that weight. You must take off the old man and put on the new man. Um, you might remember a blind Bartimaeus. You remember him, don't you? He's sitting by the wayside, and someone said, Jesus is coming by. Well, he started shouting and calling on the Lord, and they said, be quiet, he doesn't have time for you. And he got louder, and he cried louder, and finally the Lord seemed to hear him and, and call for him, and they said, he called for you, he called for you. They couldn't believe it. Blind Bartimaeus, as recorded in Mark's Gospel chapter ten, blind Bartimaeus did one thing before he got up to see the Lord. The Bible said he took his coat off. Now I'm assuming that this man doesn't have a house. He's, he's, he's begging, he's blind, he's by the wayside, he doesn't have any possessions, somebody's taking mercy on him, he's trying to get enough money to get a little daily food or somebody giving him something that'll help him out. Perhaps the only possession that he's got is this coat. But when he had an opportunity to meet Jesus of Nazareth, he took that coat off, and he laid it aside. He couldn't even see if someone took it. He couldn't see if someone stole it. He may never get it again, but he wasn't going to let anything come between him and Jesus Christ. What a lesson. What a code. Keep you from following the Lord. Our possessions. Did I tell you my canoe story? Let me, oh, this is a good one. I gotta tell you this one. This is, uh, quite a while ago, and I needed a canoe. I really needed. You know when you need a canoe? You know what I mean. I mean, I, I was praying about it. I needed it so bad. Not looking in the paper, and this paper said, canoe for sale, moving, moving sale, canoe for sale, uh, a few scratches, um, hundred dollars, uh, canoe, two paddles, two life jackets. I said, oh yeah, a few scratches. I bet that thing's probably broke in half, you know? Uh, so I very reluctantly, I mean, a hundred dollar canoe, you know, I mean, really. So I went over there to have a look at it. This thing was brand new. I mean, a few scratches, it didn't even have a few. They might have pulled it up on the shore one time, one scratch. Brand new paddle, brand new life jacket. I said, wait just a minute, I'm going to get that hundred dollars, you know, and I'll be right back. So I give him this hundred dollars, and man, I got myself a deal, and I was thanking the Lord for that. And uh, so I went canoeing, you know, and turned over and all that stuff. It wasn't one of them, you know, it was a hundred percent canoe. I mean, it was a hundred percent chance you're going to turn over when you get in it, you know? But I enjoyed that canoe, and I used it for a few years, and a missionary from New Tribes Mission came by. And we had him in our home, and while he was there, he said, I'm up here, he said, um, looking for some canoes. And I got this little boy about this big, and we're sitting at the table, and my little boy Matthew said, Dad, you don't use your canoe anymore. Why don't you give him your canoe? I said, what do you know about canoes, boy? Be quiet. You don't know nothing about canoes. Lord, give me that canoe. I'm not gonna give that canoe away. What are you talking about? So that night, we go to bed. My wife says, you know, you ain't used that canoe in about two years. I said, hon, don't do this to me. The next morning, the missionary left with my canoe. He still got it. I'm keeping up with it. He still got that thing too. And my wife and my son got the blessing. I didn't get the blessing. I didn't really want to give it to him, you know? Someone told me a long time ago, if you want to take an inventory on how much things mean to you, see how easily you let them go. Well, the Lord had a bigger lesson for me. One night at two thirty in the morning, the smoke alarm went off in our home. I walked into the hallway, took the battery out of that smoke alarm, and I said, this dumb battery, the smoke alarm has woke me up in the middle of the night, and I took the battery out of it, and I headed back to the bedroom. I was going back to bed, and I kind of thought, well, I wonder why that thing was beeping, and I couldn't see. There was no smoke, no fire, no anything. We had lived in a bungalow, it was quite long. I went down to the other end of the bungalow. There was a little night light on in the kitchen. There was just a little haze in there, just a little. I walked down the back hallway and looked into the basement, and the whole basement was on fire. I got my wife, and I got the two kids, and we got out of there, and the house burned down. And I stood out on that little knoll of grass, and I watched that house burn down. The volunteer fire department came, hooked up to the fire hydrant out by the house, no water, the fire hydrant. So we lost the house. The Lord taught me something about that then, and I pray to God you don't have to go through this. It's just sticks and bricks, brothers and sisters. That's all it is. Don't drive the tent pegs too deep. You're not going to take it with you. You're just entrusted, just stewards, that's all. The only thing I could think to say as I saw it start caving in was the Lord gave and the Lord took away. It was a good experience for us, and I thank God that we went through it. Because he taught us some lessons we'd not learn any other way. Your house can become a weight for you. I give you a little advice. You should have yourself in a position any given day that if the Lord calls you to move, you ought to be able to move. I don't know how you'll figure that out in your own circumstance, but you need to be in a situation because how many people say it like this? Well, I know what the Lord wants me to do, but I got this house, or I got this lease, or I got this thing that's holding me back. It in itself, it is not bad, but it's a weight. How many people are not on the mission field today because they had something they had to do back here first? And it never got done. And the devil to make sure of that. It's just on and on and on. How many times have I heard men say, when I get that job that I need, when my children get their education, when we get the house paid off, then. I visited a man in a burn unit in a hospital, a Christian man. Everything that he lived for was his, was his retirement. He even went so far as to go to isolation to work the last five years of his job, because that's when they took the average of how much you're going to get in retirement. And it was a horrible place to go to live, but that would really beef up his retirement. Bought a motor home, they're going to go out and explore the world and enjoy themselves, worked hard all their life. The problem was they didn't include the Lord. It's amazing, isn't it? Christians. Great plans, just forgot the Lord. They got this new motor home, and uh, they were in it and enjoying it, and uh, one day there was a malfunction. It was less than three months after retirement. There was a malfunction in the gas furnace, and the whole place filled up with gas about six inches off the floor, and she opened the closet where the little pilot light was in, and it ignited that, blew her right out of the trailer of the motorhome, and they both ended up in the burn unit. He said to me, I don't know what happened, he said. This is what we were living for. I didn't say anything. I prayed with him. He knows. Dear friend, when you leave the Lord out, you're on your own, you know. Don't leave the Lord out. Don't plan for retirement without him. Don't weight yourself down with houses and lands and mortgages and cars and payments, and you couldn't go tomorrow. God called you. They're weights. Deal with them, shed them. Could be people. We heard this morning that Abraham was called out of Ur of the Chaldees. Genesis chapter twelve and verse one is in the past tense. Now God had said to Abram, wow. Get out of your country, get out of your kindred, get out of your father's house. If, if, you know, I know I live in Canada today. If somebody said to me, where are you from? I said, Mississippi. That's my roots, man, that's my roots. That's where I run barefoot in the cotton fields, you know what I mean? Where we go down the creek and catch the mud puppies. You know, I mean, you just can't, you can take the boy out of the country. Where you were raised, the, the old homestead, the, the, the friends, the old bridge over the creek, there's, there's something about it. Get out of your country. Get out of your kindred. That's the, the large family. That's those that love you and know you, but listen, leave your father's house, Abram. Why? Oh, I want you to be totally dependent on me. This is going to be a big job. And if you've got any weights, it's not going to work very well. Well, uh, my father's house, I mean, that's, that's my security blanket, that's my, uh, tradition, that's my responsibility, that's my inheritance. You want me to leave all of that? Yeah. Yeah, I want you to leave all that. Does not the New Testament teach us that we're to leave our father and mother? Not the New Testament tell us that we're to love the Lord more than our family? You say, well, I, I, I know, but you got to balance that. Yes, you do have to balance it, and the Lord Jesus gave a great example on the cross. You remember the third cry from the cross? Woman, behold thy son. He says, Mary, John is your son now, not me. And he says to John, behold thy mother. The Lord Jesus Christ is now renouncing, if you please, the mother-son relationship. He's breaking it off, he's cutting it off, he's making sure he keeps the fifth commandment, honor thy father and mother, but he's he's cutting off that relationship because now he's got to go through with the cross, and he won't even let family tradition or family ties or family devotion stop him at this point. Therefore, he says, woman, behold thy son. Not going to be your son anymore. You're not going to be my mother anymore. You'll be a follower, just like the rest of my disciples. You'll take your place with them. The Lord Jesus would never ask you to do anything that he hasn't done himself. He will set the example for you in every area of your life. Family. I believe with all my heart there are men that God has called, and they haven't been willing to deal with their wives and their families. Ladies, don't ever hinder your husband if God calls him. You'll be accountable for that. You must let God have his way. Let me give you another area that's probably a weight for most of us, I include myself. It's the area of discipline. Turn to First Corinthians chapter nine. The area of discipline. If we're going to have a, an effective race for the Lord, if we're going to serve him in an effective way, there's one thing among many things that ought to characterize our life. It ought to be a life of discipline. Now you're talking to the most undisciplined person. I mean, you, you're looking at a person here who fights with that every day. But by the grace of God, I have learned a few things over the years. And that is the disciplined life is a life that God blesses. Listen to the apostle as he writes in verse twenty four of chapter nine, First Corinthians. Know you not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly. So fight I, not as one that beateth the air, but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest by any means, when I preach to others, I myself should be a castaway or disqualified, put on the shelf, shelved. When it comes to the disciplined life, I want you to notice that he says, I keep under my body, I bring it into subjection. The disciplined life is a life that is effective for God. If there's anything that ought to characterize our life, it ought to be disciplined. Listen, God is a God of order, don't we read? Not the God of confusion. That's the reason the moon doesn't bump into the sun, you know, and these planets don't collide up there. There is order in the universe. There is order in the Godhead. There is order in the church. There ought to be order in our lives. Order. Figure it out. Do what God asks you to do. Discipline your life. Say, I am not going to be a, I- I'm not going to vacillate back and forth. I'm not going to go this way and that way. I'm going to find what God wants me to do, and I'm going to do it by his grace. You ask professional, uh, sports people, do you, do you like to practice? They say, I hate to practice. Do you like to play in the All-Star game? Oh yeah. Do you like to go to the Olympics? Oh yeah. Well, dear friend, we'll never get in the All-Star game. We'll never get in the Olympics unless we practice every day, discipline ourselves every day. Running this race for the Lord Jesus Christ is a marathon, it's not a sprint. We must keep going, we must go on, we must discipline our lives. Let me give you another thing that'll be a weight for you. Philippians chapter three, turn with me there. Philippians chapter three. I spoke of this briefly the other night, but I want to bring it up again. In Philippians chapter three, let me begin reading in verse fourteen— uh, sorry, in verse thirteen. Three and thirteen: Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Forgetting what's behind. A weight, a problem. I stumbled, I fell, I got into sin, I didn't deal with it, I, I was discouraged. Uh, somebody tripped me up. Uh, I was a young Christian. Get over it, man. Don't live in the yesterday. I've got an aunt, if you ask her today to give a testimony, she'll tell you what happened twenty five years ago when her father died. Listen, you can't live on yesterday's victories, and you better not let yesterday's defeats get you down today. You got a new day. You got a new God. Every day he's new. His mercies are new every morning, and he wants you to wake up and say, God, this is a great life. It's a new day, and you start over with me today. I'm willing to go with you all the way, and every day should be a day given to him. Hey, I can learn. They can be stepping stones, but don't let them be stumbling blocks. Forget. Paul would know something about that. He had good memories, he had bad memories. He couldn't live on the good, and he couldn't let the bad discourage him. He had to go on, forgetting what was behind and pressing on to that which is before. Material possessions, family ties, comforts of life. How about luxuries of life, recreation, hobbies, sports, things like that. It's the grace of God. We don't deserve any of that, you know? I mean, how many of us do not enjoy getting out, uh, jogging or golf or tennis or fishing or hunting or, or whatever it is that's a, that's, that's a sport or a hobby or something that we enjoy, but is it a weight? Is it holding me back? Do I spend more time in preparation for that hunting trip than I do in preparation for my soul? That's a weight, man. You can't let it dominate your life. Um, when I was in Bible school and I got to Northern Ontario, I thought it was a childhood dream come true. I thought, I'm going big game hunting when I get up here. And so the moose season came around and bear season and all that, and I informed them at the school, I said, uh, I'll be taking off a week going hunting. They said, no, nobody goes hunting here. I said, I don't think you understand. I said, I, I, uh, I always go hunting. Um, I mean, ever since I was a little boy, my mother said I was born with a twenty two rifle in my hand. I mean, I said, I always go hunting. Well, uh, your grades are not good enough to take a week off, and beside that, nobody's ever taken a week off here to go hunting, and you're not going to be going hunting. I said, I don't think I made myself very clear. I said, I always go hunting. They said, you won't be going hunting if you're a student at this school. And I said, well, I don't have to be a student at this school. I went by the local bookstore that where we got all of our books. I said, have, uh, have you got all the books for the whole four years of the courses here? I said, yeah, I'll take them all, I said. I don't need this dumb. I'm going hunting. If I have to go back to Mississippi to go hunting, I'm going hunting. So I bought all the books I needed, put them in my car, and I'm going hunting. Right down Highway seventy five just as fast as I can go. Goodbye school. I'm driving along there, and I've got my favorite rock singer on the tape, George Beverly Shea. Yeah. The sad part about that is some of these kids don't even know who that is. You ask your daddy and your mama, they'll tell you, okay? And George Beverly Shea was singing this song, I'd Rather Have Jesus Than Houses of Land. It's funny, I kept hearing this, I'd Rather Have Jesus Than Hunting. I thought, man, I never heard that verse before. Turn that thing off. George was getting to me, man. I drove three hundred and fifty miles, about as fast as I could go down there, and the Lord spoke to me. He said, is this it? Is this it? I called you to go up there and study the word of God, and the first time you hit a snag, you go home. Is this it? I tried to explain that to the Lord, but I'm gonna tell you what, I didn't do very good. I wasn't even convinced myself the time after I started trying to explain it to him. Well, I didn't wait for the next, uh, intersection, you know, I mean, when God speaks, you better move. I cut right across the grass, in that medium, right across the grass, right back on the northern route, going right back up, drove all night, got back up there the next morning. It's one of the hardest things I ever had to do is walk back in there and say, I was wrong, can I come back to school? They'd already called customs and said I wasn't a student anymore. I had to go back through that whole rigmarole. You know, when I got back up there, I still couldn't go hunting. I still had to take that dumb Greek class, which I was failing, you know? But there was an attitude in my heart that was different now. I had released a weight in my life, and it was many years later when I really felt the impact of that. I was driving along, and I said to my wife, look at those people over there getting out of that truck, they got these orange hunting vests on. I wonder what they're doing. I said, oh man, this is the opening day of hunting season. I couldn't believe it. God has done a miracle. I totally forgot about it. But it was a weight that I had to deal with in my life. Oh, it wouldn't be a thing we would call a sin, but I can tell you something, God knows what, what things hinder us from serving him, and I had to deal with that. Hobbies, sports, these kind of things. Let me, uh, my time is just up. Let me take you to Luke chapter nine in closing. Luke chapter nine. Some of these things seem humorous. I can tell you I wasn't laughing that evening when the Lord was speaking to me. It was a very serious thing. I'm glad that you can see them in that light, and I'm praying that God would help you to apply it to your own life. Laying aside the weights. If I would ask you tonight, would you like to serve the Lord? Do you love him? Do you want to go on and serve him? Do you want to be a follower of Jesus Christ? I'm assuming that most of you would say, yes, I do, Joe, that's my heart's desire. Well, let me close by sharing with you three guys who said the same thing. Verse fifty seven, Luke chapter nine. It came to pass as they went in the way that a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee wheresoever thou goest. And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head. This man voluntarily, uh, says to the Lord, there was no pressure. He was going through the way. He'd heard about him, heard of the miracles that he had done, uh, saw the gentleness of his countenance and the way that he loved people and healed people, and this man said, that's the man I want to follow. I believe he was absolutely serious. I believe he was honest. But the Lord said to him, are you sure? Where I'm going, there not going to be red carpets rolled out, uh, open arms, smiling faces. He said, matter of fact, the birds of the air and the foxes of the fields have more earthly security than I do. I don't own a home, no place to lay my head, no place to call my own. Are you sure you want to follow me? It's interesting because we have no account that the man ever responded after the Lord said to him. He wanted to go. A certain man. There may be a certain man here tonight like that. It's kind of funny, when I first got saved, I told the Lord I'd go anywhere. I'd do anything. I'd, you know, go to Africa. That's the worst place I could think of, you know. I'd say, well, I'd go to Africa or headhunters, you know, crocodiles, anything. I'd, I'd do anything for God except go to school. I wouldn't go to school, you know. So he sent me to school for seven years. And that's what that was, those were the testing ground. That was the, that was the testing field. Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests. Did you know I don't have anything to offer you in earthly security? Now notice verse fifty nine. Another said unto him, or he, sorry, he said unto another, follow me. But he said, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, let the dead bury the dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. Now, folks, it's all kind of, uh, of an issue here as to whether the man was really dead or not. You know, it doesn't make any difference. The issue here is on one little word. It's found in the word first. First. Somebody was asked a conductor of a great orchestra, said, what's the hardest instrument in this orchestra to play? Without batting an eye, he said, second fiddle. Said, nobody wants to play second fiddle. Well, I can tell you someone who won't play second fiddle, the Lord Jesus. He will have the preeminence, first place. Whether the man's father was actually dead or whether he had to fulfill his own cultural trad- traditional, uh, rights, uh, to to take care of the father till he died, till the estate, et cetera and et cetera. I don't know. The emphasis here is this: let those who take care of the things that are not of God take care of that. You've got a higher calling. Let those spiritually dead take care of that. Let the dead bury the dead. I- I- Jesus Christ cuts across tradition. Do you ever have someone say to you, well, that's just the way I am, you know, I've always been like that. I- excuse me, I thought you got saved. He cuts across personalities. He cuts across bias. He cuts across tradition. Christ brings new life, a new hope, a new way. Let us not hide behind, well, that's just my personality. That's just the way we did it. That's what I've got to do in my culture. That's what I've always had to do at home. Listen, Jesus said, let them that have no concern for spiritual things take care of that. You've got a higher calling. Verse sixty one, another said, Lord, I will follow thee, but let me, same problem, let me first go bid them farewell, which are at my home, at my house. And Jesus said, listen, no man, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. I simply close tonight by telling you these men had weights. Each one had a weight. And I am not told in the scripture that they ever laid it aside. Three men who all said, I'll follow thee. There might be a dozen, there might be more than that tonight that say, Lord, I want to follow thee. Can I tell you something? It will cost you. It'll cost you tonight, it'll cost you tomorrow. You don't make one big stab at the thing and roll on that for years. Every day we take the cross. Every day there is a cost in falling. But Paul reminds us it's only reasonable. It's our reasonable service. And so, dear Christian runner tonight, remember others have done it. You'll not cross the finish line first. Thousands have crossed before you. But they have run the race. They've been marked out as men and women of faith, and now let us lay aside weights. What's your weight? What is keeping you from doing what you know God is calling you to do? What's keeping you from running the race effectively tonight? You know it, I don't know it. I can't guess it. I've tried to hit a few categories here tonight, give you a few scriptures, but God the Spirit can put his finger on it right now. A weight, a hindrance, and you're not where you ought to be in the race because you've never laid it aside. I'm going to ask you tonight, I'm just going to close in prayer. I'm going to ask you tonight, if God has made you aware of a weight in your life, will you give it over to him tonight? Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. The weights have burdened you down, maybe for years, some of you. You need to lay them aside like blind Bartimaeus. Take it off. Who cares who gets the canoe? Who cares who gets the coat or the house or the car? This is a greater calling, a higher calling. We'll go through life, and you'll look back in thirty years and say, oh man, where did it go? It's wasted. I got bogged down. Don't let that be your testimony. Deal with it tonight, please. Let's pray. Father, please. We are so cumbered. Put thy hand on us. Help us to be a runner that will strip ourselves of anything that would hinder us. Oh God, don't let us carry the ball and chain of pride and tradition and legalism and possessions and family and culture. Don't let us try to drag these balls of weights and encumbrance with us as we run. Help us to simply say, oh God, take it from me tonight. I give it to thee. I put it in its proper priority. I, I lower its standard. I take it out of its place. I put it at the bottom of the list. Oh God, please. Do a work in someone's heart. May this be a memorial night for them. May this be the night they say, I dealt with it by the grace of God. May they be able to give that testimony and mean it for Christ's sake.