 Hebrews chapter 12 beginning at verse 12 reading to verse 17 the writer writes therefore strengthen the hands which hang down and the feeble knees and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be dislocated but rather be healed pursue peace with all men and holiness without which no one will see the Lord looking diligently lest anyone fall short of the grace of God lest any root of bitterness springing up caused trouble and by this many become defiled lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau who for one morsel of food sold his birthright for you know that afterward when he wanted to inherit the blessing he was rejected for he found no place for repentance though he sought it diligently with tears now as we look in chapter 12 here and even as we had begun in verse one and we had studied up to verse 11 the writer had been exhorting his readers to submit to submit to the chastening hand of the Lord that's what he was saying in the first 11 verses and though they were going through a chastening time and it was discouraging for many of them no matter how unjust it might seem he was reminding them that some of what they were enduring was deserved even if it's undeserved they're not to murmur because Jesus was perfect and yet he suffered and so what he did is he reminded them he reminded them of the word of God and how that applies to their situation that's what he had done in verses five and six when he had quoted to them out of the book of Proverbs chapter 3 verses 11 and 12 and his exhortation was don't regard God's chastening lightly lightly don't become discouraged because God is fair when he disciplines and it is his good pleasure to use discipline to conform them into the image of Jesus Christ he is working all things out to conform them and he does so sometimes to chastening now with that scripture agrees if you take notes Romans chapter 8 tells us in verses 28 and 29 we know that all things were for good for those who love the Lord those who've been called according to his purpose for those God for new he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren and so all things work together for good to those who love God to those who are the called according to his purpose and he uses those things to to to conform us into the image of Jesus in other words the things that we go through sometimes even the things that are painful are intended by God to produce a fruit a fruit that is righteous notice verse 11 how he says no chastening seems to be joyful for the present but grieve us nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it when you go through a difficult time when you go through a time of pain when you go through a time of chastening during that time that you're going through that it never feels good it never feels like something you really really wanted to have to endure what you have to do is you have to look at the fruit and from his perspective and the point that he's making to us there is a fruit that is produced and it's the fruit of righteousness see from God's perspective of faith his discipline brings his greatest blessings on his children there's a song that is being sung on you know playing on the radio it's sung by a group called mercy me it's called bring the rain and i've heard this song numerous times and and i like the message that they're presenting and it kind of goes along with with what i'm trying to point out here in these verses as we're introducing chapter 12 verse 12 because in that song it speaks concerning how God works in our lives certain things that only come through trials and troubles that we might endure and and the lyrics of that song i think are worthy of being repeated here to make the point they they sing i count a million times people asking me how can i praise you with all the things i've gone through the question just amazes me can circumstances possibly change who i forever forever am in you maybe since my life was changed long before these rainy days it's never really ever crossed my mind to turn my back on you oh lord my shelter from the storm but instead i draw closer through these times so i pray bring me joy bring me peace bring the chance to be free bring me anything that brings you glory and i know there will be days when this life brings me pain but if that's what it takes to praise you jesus bring the rain i'm yours regardless of the dark clouds that may loom above because you are much greater than my pain you who made a way for me by suffering your destiny so tell me what's a little rain so i i pray bring me joy bring me peace bring the chance to be free bring me anything that brings you glory and i know there'll be days when this life brings me pain but if that's what it takes to praise you jesus bring the rain that's a great great sentiment that's a great understanding because whatever it is that causes me to draw closer to him well that's what i ought to desire and if it's chastening if it's going through difficult times if it produces the peaceable fruit of righteousness well isn't that the best for me anyway to have that relationship with god that fruit that is is revealed in a righteous life through character and faith and and the love of god and so that's what he's speaking about here and that's what he's been speaking of in the first eleven verses when we come to verse 12 he's continuing and so in light of the fact that they're going through chastening he says in verse 12 therefore strengthen the hands which hang down and the feeble knees make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be dislocated but rather be healed you see he's been speaking concerning the fact that we're in a race and there are witnesses uh there's a hall of heroes in chapter 11 that should be our incentive and encouragement to run this race patiently as we pursue the things of the lord and so as they're in this race he's saying you're not to become fatigued how interesting and you're not to become distracted and the reason you're not to become weary and you're not to be distracted is because the lord is in control and god will actually strengthen you as you're running in this race now it's interesting how he quotes scripture to make his point he actually quotes isaia 35 verses 3 and 4 and it seems that this passage would be well known to the Hebrew readers and it says strengthen the weak hands confirm the feeble knees say to those who are fearful of heart be strong fear not behold your god will come with vengeance even god with recompense he will come and he will save you and so he's saying something to them to encourage them to be strengthened he's using an image of a runner in a race it's a long race and so hang in there he's saying strengthen your hands and strengthen your feeble knees there's a twofold application one is when you're running any anybody who's ever run any kind of distance knows this happens after a while your legs begin to feel like like they're on fire your thighs begin to to just burn into ache and and because and you get winded and you get tired and and and I was a young man boy it was a long time ago I used to run and and when I would run you'd get to a certain place where your body says you might as well stop you're hurting yourself for no reason and so you get to that point where your body starts to burn your legs begin to burn and you actually begin to not be able to lift your knees as high as you would like to and there were times when I actually would just let my arms hang in front of me and I would begin to shake them out because you're getting tired as you're running and that's the point that he's making here he's saying you need to strengthen you need to be strengthening your knees you need to strengthen your your hands because they're hanging down you need to lift these things up and he's saying as as a coach would be shouting from the sidelines to the runner you know strengthen get you can do it and encouraging that's what he's doing here so one he's saying you need to strengthen or be strengthened but two he's speaking about the fact that they are not strengthening just their knees and and they're not lifting up just their hands they are encouraging the people alongside of them to do the same thing when we were going through training in the military we ran in formation and as you run in formation you have to run side by side and there'll be either two or three men and then you go several men deep like that and that's how you run and we were to encourage one another as we ran that's what we would do we would encourage one another and help one another and sometimes put our arms around each other and help them to make that or help me to make that extra step because that's what you did because you were running in formation running keeping a pace running a certain distance and you're strengthening each other encouraging one another so how can he encourage them to stay strong and to finish well well he says strengthen the hands which hang down in other words lift up or stand up when it's picturing them hanging down that's a picture of being exhausted when he speaks strengthening the feeble knees these are the knees that are tottering they're weakened and feeble so he says strengthen them be encouraged you can make it in verse 13 make straight pass for your feet in other words make sure your lane is clear of bumps and potholes stay in your own running lane make sure it's clean of obstacles that can trip you up don't become careless don't become distracted don't become discouraged don't become fatigued keep your eyes looking straight ahead and run for the prize in proverbs 4 25 through 27 it says let your eyes look straight ahead fix your gaze directly before you make level paths for your feet take only ways that are firm do not swerve to the right or to the left keep your foot from evil and so he's speaking concerning making your running lanes sure and straight also the paths that he refers to are tracks left by carts or wagons on a dirt road so those who come behind you are going to follow a path of follow they'll follow a path of faith that you have left behind therefore be a good example of somebody who runs with patience the race that is set before them now he continues so that what is lame may not be dislocated but rather be healed as you run your race you serve as an example to weaker brothers and sisters who are running in pain and you are helping to clear the path they will run in that's a powerful picture because sometimes we do run in pain sometimes we do there are times seasons of our spiritual life we are running in pain and we need to be encouraged to make it through there have been a few times in my early christian life especially there have been a few times when i've had to speak to older brothers in the lord to be encouraged that they could encourage me and exhort me to keep moving forward to keep hanging on because there were times when i was ready to quit i remember going to see a pastor uh this is before i was married to see a pastor a friend of mine that and i was asking him for some direction in my life and all and i was going through a season of discouragement and i remember approaching him and and speaking to him and telling him you know what i just want to give up i just i just want to pull out of the race i was only a few years old in the lord at the time maybe three years or four years old at the max in the lord and i said you know just the things i'm going through right now i just heavier than i want to put up with and to be honest with you i want to drop out i just want to stop this race there were times when i would run in the military and i'd run by myself and there was nobody around me to encourage me or to exhort me or anything and i get to the point of pain i got to the point of being just tired and i would just stop and i would just just walk i'd walk by myself and and i would say to myself while i'm redeeming the time i'm really praying and speaking to the lord and sharing with god my heart right now no i just got tired i didn't want to run anymore i hit a certain wall in my life and i said i don't want to go any further if i were with somebody jogging along with me running with me i would have kept running because they would have exhorted me they would have encouraged me they said come on man keep it up that's how it works when you're running teams but when you're run by yourself you know you just if you want to stop you stop and sometimes you can in your christian life especially when you're isolated you can get to a wall where you just finally just say i just want to stop i was talking to a young man today after one of the services a young fellow who's going through certain things in his life and all and he asked me that question he said pastor have you ever gotten to the point where you just want to give up and i said so many times i i want to give up uh every sunday after third service i i i want to give up and i don't know if you know this but a lot of pastors take mondays off i mean that's the day that a lot of my friends take their days off as senior pastors they teach on sunday and they take mondays off i used to take mondays off when i was an assistant pastor as a senior pastor i've always worked on mondays because i discovered something i discovered that after sunday on monday it's actually a low day for me because i pour everything out on sunday and so monday can be a low day so what i do i go into the office the first thing i do is i go into the office because i want to make sure that my pace remains firm and i know that i can have a down a let down and so i don't take that i don't take that time a lot of times of course i wouldn't say this to you but because you don't really care but a lot of times after a sunday night uh and and you see i'm not out there just so that some of you might be interested where i am i'm normally in my room beginning a bible study i'm already looking at a passage i'm already studying when i leave this here and say god bless you and i go into that door right there after i do that tonight i usually go behind my screen i open up my computer i download a message and i begin to work that's what i do because i want to keep my pace solid i've been doing that for years i try to keep my pace solid because you can get to the point where you can hit a wall of pain or discouragement and you want to give up me i want to keep the pace going i want to keep that momentum flowing and so that's what i do i keep that pace moving constantly and i like to run with other people just yesterday i was speaking to a friend of mine poncho we all love him in this fellowship and and he and i were having a conversation and i was saying to him you know punch we need to make sure that we get together we we have several friends that we hang around together with several pastor friends i said we need to make sure that we keep our fellowship strong we need to be keeping each other in accountability we need to be holding each other's hands up that's what the lord would have us to do because god is doing works in our lives that we don't want in any way to short circuit so we should be gathering together going to each other's homes having fellowship taking time to pray for each other and bear one another's burdens because this is going to keep us strong that's what we do as Christians because there are times in our lives that we might become lame or dislocated and so we need to make sure that we're running a smooth path and we need to work with one another in order that we might be able to keep that path clear for each other and run that race with patience and get to the end now in verse 14 continuing he says pursue peace with all men and holiness without which no one will see the lord because we have received peace with god we are positionally holy before him live out the holiness that god has produced in your life so as we run this race of faith we run in formation we must not trip any up we must run in step we must run at the same pace we must encourage each other to do well and to finish we must help each other as we run and we must listen to the one calling cadence so that we can finish together and we keep that pace steady that's what we did again in military we had a sergeant who would be running next to us and he would be calling out the pace and he would be singing cadence and he would sing a certain thing and we would repeat him it was supposed to take our mind off the the experience of running but it also kept us running in formation it kept us running in the same cadence and so that's what's taking place we exhort one another as we run in order that together we may we may finish the race and because we are right with god because we're pursuing the things of god and pursuing peace with all men and meaning that we're working together in all of this as we do that we also are pursuing the holiness of the lord and when you have a relationship with god that our lives will reflect his holiness jesus and matthew five eight said that the pure and hard are going to see god and so if i'm going to run a race in such a way as to win the prize i need to run legally or lawfully i need to run in such a way that i am i'm working within the bounds of the rules and i need to have a pursuit that is in in in with a great desire to to have a relationship with god and so there needs to be that that number one thing in my life pursuing him notice verse 15 he says looking diligently lest anyone fall short of the grace of god now that's an interesting scripture lest anyone fall short of the grace of god what an interesting way to put that when he says looking diligently looking diligently means to look upon or to inspect to care for to look after so he's saying we have a responsibility we have a responsibility not only for our own lives but we have a responsibility for other people this is one of the things that i want to encourage this fellowship to is to have a concern for your life but have a concern for other people too i don't know if it's my children's generation i don't know i i i love i love people my children's ages not children anymore i talk about them as if they're my babies and they're not i mean my youngest is 24 years old i we have three birthdays in one week in our family you know my daughter karin my grandson jaziah and my daughter anna within one week of each other all have their birthdays you know karin is the fifth of july and jaziah is the seventh and anna is the 11th of july so just the last week we celebrated three birthdays three birthdays that that we celebrated together and and so i look at them and and i realize that i'll call them my kids but they're all adults i mean my daughter karin's 30 years old you know the baby's 24 years old david's 28 and joseph's 26 and so they're you know they're not children anymore but their generation is a generation that marie and i actually have a deep affection for i love uh kids their age calm kids but they're really adults and i love the people that age because they're just something in my heart for them there's something i've seen with my own children and i see it with their friends and that is this they don't get involved in other people's lives now they may they may notice things about them but they don't exhort them they don't encourage them necessarily they don't point things out to them they certainly don't ever say you ought to do this or perhaps you ought to do that i've noticed that and and they they will not say anything to them if they're doing something wrong they have a tendency of ignoring it and i've and i for the life of me don't understand and maybe i'm just a meddler i don't know but i i've said you ought to care about them enough to get involved in their lives if there's something going on you ought to care enough to to encourage them there you ought to you ought to care enough to say look at god isn't going to bless your life if you continue doing that because you want to know something we're not being called to be spiritual gestapo's you know gospel gestapo's always you know checking everybody's life out trying to find some fault but on the other hand if i see a brother who's moving in a direction that is not good for him i ought to tell him i ought to say listen i love you enough to tell you the truth and i'm concerned for you now i can understand why they don't because you lose friends when you do that you know i've lost numerous friends over the years and i've thought now why don't they like me anymore they don't like me because i because i told them you know what you're not you're not doing the right thing here and and they didn't want to hear that i remember one of my my friends a young lady named kathy when i was a young man 23 years old and i shared with her you know kathy i have to tell you something i have to tell you that you gossip and i have to tell you that that's not a good thing and i remember her looking me straight in the eye and she was my friend so she could say it she said so when did the holy spirit die and leave you in charge you know and she didn't like that at all and i said you know holy spirit's still alive and that's why i'm telling you you ought not to gossip and secondly you shouldn't be so mean no i didn't say that you know i'm gonna go talk about you to some friends right now as a matter of fact you're going to be an illustration in a church 30 years from now kathy i've never forgotten your meanness no uh she didn't like it and i understand why who here likes it when when your fault is pointed out who likes it nobody likes it but you know what love one another enough to tell them the truth and live in such a way that when they get upset well they really can't say that you're not practicing what you preach see the problem when you confront somebody or when you have to speak to somebody the problem is that sometimes we're doing something ourselves and so we really don't have the right to speak but if we're pursuing the lord and we're doing our best to to to follow him if we're diligently pursuing him then i i believe that you have an ability to confront because because you're sincere because you're living for the lord and doing your best and and if they get angry which i can tell you they do instead of fighting in and getting angry in return all i've all i've ever had to do is i just say you know what i'll i'll take into consideration what you're saying but i only encourage you to take into consideration what i'm saying too because it's the best for you because i want the best for you and that's the reason i'm bringing this up and so we are to encourage one another we're to encourage one another to walk right in the lord now interestingly notice verse 15 again it says looking diligently lest anyone fall short of the grace of god lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble and by this many become defiled there are some who are not saved who are looking to us to show them how they can be saved these may miss the grace of god notice the phrase fall short of the grace of god the words fall short means to arrive too late to be left behind in a race and so fail to reach the goal to fall short of the end to fail to become a partaker or fall back from so falling short of the grace of god just because somebody is in church does not guarantee that they are saved we need to be concerned about the spiritual status of those who know those we are with who have yet to come to a solid knowledge of jesus christ in other words some of our friends and our christians they're only acting as if they are in reality we have been called to be an influence to them that they might convert or come to a true and genuine knowledge of jesus christ i shared this with you i think during the hebrew study but it bears repetition at this point we used to i used to be part of a fellowship that used to have sunday night bible studies that rotated in different homes and we would go to the house of whomever was who is hosting it and we would have food we would have fun and we would have fellowship it was called triath a food fun and fellowship and we'd gather together sing some songs and and have a devotional time and and just enjoy one another's company and we would rotate from home to home and on one occasion we met in my parents home this is when i was still living at home i just recently gotten out of the out of the army and and i had begun attending this particular church that had this triath organization and all and so that's what we did i invited the people to my parents home and i can still remember my parents having a den everybody was in the den except for me and a young lady by the name of gail and gail was seated there in the in the front room at my parents house on the on the couch and and we were talking now gail had been part of the church i was attending for six years and so she was part of the choir and she would go on every every year they would go on a week-long caravan and she'd go on those and she was involved heavily in this church and i can remember as i was speaking to her and just getting to know her asking her the question gail when did you commit your heart to christ when were you born again it was just part of the conversation we actually used to ask each other those questions when were you saved when you were you born again that's kind of how we spoke to one another i wanted to know and so i asked gail when do you when did you get saved when were you born again and i remember as she was seated there that gail looked at me and she said uh i'm not and i and i said you're not and i i thought i misunderstood her i said you're not born again she says no i and i said i'm confused uh gail you're you're in the choir here at the church she goes yeah i sing in the choir i said you're heavily involved you come to the bible studies every thursday and sunday night she goes yeah and all your friends i mean i'm confused all your friends i said how come you're not born again i mean it was amazed at how come you're not born again now i don't this is what she said i i don't i don't want to comment on whether or i or it's accurate or not but this is what she said she said nobody's ever asked me i said nobody's ever asked you if you wanted to receive christ she said nobody's ever asked me i said you've been in the church since when she said since i was 13 i said you're 19 she goes yeah six years she goes yeah all of her friends were christians all of them everybody she hung around with were christians at the church everyone and i was amazed and i said none of your friends have ever asked you if you're born again she says they assumed that i am i said really she goes yeah they think i'm a christian i said do you want to receive the lord she goes yeah so we prayed and and she prayed and asked christ into her life i really believe in getting entangled in people's lives like that i really do asking those questions when did you get saved what's your relationship like with jesus christ what's god doing in you those are good questions those are questions that keep us in the same page moving in the same direction we're caring for one another just because somebody goes to church doesn't mean that they're saved somebody sleeps in the garage it doesn't make them a toyota unless they're japanese and that's their name i don't know but it doesn't work that way and so when he speaks about falling short of the grace of god it's possible to be acquainted with truth but to never embrace it fully and so you never enter into a relationship with god because you come short of god's grace by never receiving it moving on into verse 16 lest there be any fornicator or profane person like isa who for one morsel of food sold his birthright for you know that afterward when he wanted to inherit the blessing he was rejected for he found no place for repentance though he saw it diligently with tears now he speaks concerning isa here but first i want to point out in verse 16 when he says lest there be any fornicator or profane person like isa first he is not calling isa a fornicator he's speaking of a person who is a fornicator that's one category and then secondly he makes reference to a man by the name of isa and we'll look at him in just a moment but we need to be encouraged in our walks with the lord we need to continue moving forward in the things of god because when we encourage one another the first thing that we should encourage when another too is purity and so what he's saying here is there are not to be any promiscuous or godless people who are part of a congregation making an assumption that they're saved now interestingly he speaks of a fornicator you know that word has to be defined because today it's a very common sin i see this quite often as a matter of fact in ministry even amongst the church i encounter this as a very common sin oftentimes when you do ministry you'll be speaking to somebody and and they're in a relationship with somebody they're not married to but as they're saying they're having problems and all you discover that very often they're having sexual intercourse they're not married that's called fornication it's a sin in scripture you see sexual purity and holiness is to be the mark of a believer and god does not allow sexual sin notice chapter 13 verse 4 in Hebrews notice what he writes in Hebrews 13 verse 4 he says marriage is honorable among all and the bed undefiled but fornicators and adulterers god will judge so god nowhere in scripture ever says that it is permissible to have a sexual relationship outside of the covenantal relationship of marriage in the book of Ephesians in chapter five paul writing in verse five says for of this you can be sure no immoral impure or greedy person such a man is an idolater as any inheritance in the kingdom of christ and of god let no one deceive you with empty words for because of such things god's wrath comes on those who are disobedient so fornication is a sexual sin a sin that is an impurity and god would say in his word that he does not allow that to take place let none who call upon the name of christ be found guilty of that sin and it is a sin that actually demonstrates that a person doesn't have a relationship with god and so he says lest there be any fornicator then secondly he says or profane person like isa and now speaks concerning isa who for one morsel of food sold his birthright for you know that afterward when he wanted to inherit the blessing he was rejected for he found no place for repentance though he sought it diligently with tears so the second thing is isa he uses a man named isa as an example of a profane or irreligious man a godless man for a bowl of soup this man isa was willing to part with his birthright the birthright that he was to be given would be god's blessing in his life and his brother actually said to him when when isa had said give me something to eat or i'm going to die his brother jacob said to him well give me your birthright now isa was the oldest of the two they were twins but isa had been born first jacob born second the first born son gets the birthright jacob says to him i want your birthright and so isa says to him in return what good is my birthright going to do me if i starve to death you can have it and so what this picture is here is for a morsel of food he sold his birthright he also speaks concerning his blessing now god had stated that the older would serve the younger and that the blessing of god which would have normally gone to the first born was to be given to jacob but what happens is his father does not want to give his blessing to the second born he wants to give it to the first born and so through some subterfuge that blessing was actually taken and was given to jacob and so the bottom line that he's making here though was that it was a matter of character in the life of isa because isa did not value the blessings of god in his life he did not value the birthright he didn't value any of those spiritual things what he did value was the material blessings because he would have received the material blessings from his father but he didn't care about the spiritual blessings and so because of that he's called a profane person an irreligious or a godless person because he doesn't care about the spiritual realities i believe that we as parents can actually give a blessing if you will to our children not in the identical fashion that you have in the old testament where they actually being from abraham isaac and jacob would continue to give the blessings of abraham to their children and all of that is part of the covenantal promises of god but i believe that we can teach our children to have proper values i can teach my child to value the material or i can teach my child the value the spiritual my kids can long for my death so they can get their inheritance or they can long for my life so they can receive a blessing of having a father who loves them and ministers to them for me i want to leave my children that which is practical and so i have insurance and trust funds and things like that set up for them of course but i especially want to leave them a spiritual blessing i don't want my children to be the kinds of kids when dad dies that they begin to bicker over my possessions i don't want them to go to that the reading of my will and have them arguing amongst themselves as to which should get this or which should get that that isn't something that i want for them what i want for them is the blessings of the lord you know and that's how i was with my father when my dad went home to be with the lord you know none of us argued amongst ourselves we should have this or you should give us that you know i didn't want that what i wanted was my father i didn't want his possessions i wanted him you know i wanted his company i wanted his fellowship i wanted to hear his voice i wanted to be with my dad i wanted the blessing of having a living father not the possessions of my father and when things were were were given away because my dad did have something that set apart for all the kids the only thing that i actually asked for the only thing that i wanted is what i have on my right hand right now what you may not be able to see and it's a ring this ring right here i have a ring and i've had people say it i've seen that ring where you get that ring i got this ring from my father this was the ring that my dad had when he was a young man prior to marrying my mom and my dad gave this ring here to my mom as her engagement ring and then my brother gave this ring to his wife when he asked her to get married and then i took the ring and i gave this to marie when i asked her to marry me and this is the ring that goes to my sons that they'll ask their wife to wear this matters to me not my dad's cars not my dad's house not my dad's clothing not not my dad's bank account none of that mattered to me what mattered to me was a symbol of his life and his love that matters and those are the kinds of things that i've given to my children to value that which has real value not a car that parishes with the using not a home that will fall apart over time and you get to griping over having to mow the lawn and repainting it but the things that really matter and unfortunately for isa he didn't care he didn't care about the spiritual blessings he didn't care about the inheritance that he got from from abraham and isaac those things did not matter to him and when he found out that his brother had actually taken that that blessing he was so upset he began to cry to his father and he said do you not have even a single blessing for me it wasn't that he wanted to have the spiritual blessings that were being passed on it was that he didn't have material blessings and so when it speaks here in verse 17 and it says you know that afterward when he wanted to inherit the blessing he was rejected for he found no place for repentance though he saw it diligently with tears the fact is he never understood the spiritual value of the blessing he wanted the material and the prestige that came along with that so his tears according to the rite of hebrus were not sincere because they were self-centered and they were in ignorance he didn't want god's blessing he only wanted material wealth though he cried he never repented there's a difference between regret and repentance there's a difference between sorrowful tears and tears of repentance the apostle peter denied the lord jesus christ when asked or when it was stated you were with the man the apostle peter on three occasions said i don't know him i have nothing to do with him may god's curses fall upon me i do not know the man you have another man by the name of judas who sold the lord for 30 pieces of silver and yet he came and he threw the money back at the feet of the priest and he said i have i have betrayed innocent blood and he gave the money back to them now he would have an image of somebody who was really repenting but in reality he was only regretting he had sorrowful tears but not repentant tears because the bible says that he went out and promptly hanged himself he committed suicide the apostle peter on the other hand he denied the lord three times and yet jesus christ restored him and he went on to become a stronger leader for it jesus christ brought him to a place of restoration so with the apostle peter you have repentance you have somebody who sees that they have done wrong they have asked god for forgiveness they've been restored by god and they're used by god or you have somebody who regrets somebody has tears of sorrow but no repentance and ultimately his life doesn't end up in the same place that a person repents does because he simply regrets what he did but he never repented from what he did i can't tell you how many times i've spoken to people who regret they regret going out on their wife and getting caught they regret the problems that it caused they regret losing their children they regret losing their family they regret losing everything but they don't repent because they stay with a woman that broke up the marriage in the first place or that was part of the breakup of the marriage at least they don't repent they just regret they feel bad about it because it ruined their life because of sorrow in them i remember a young man approaching me on one occasion and he was saying to me you know i'm considering i'm considering um breaking up with my wife he had three small children at the time less than 10 years old this is years ago now he said you know pastor i'm thinking of leaving my wife just i can't put up with this anymore i'm tired of it and i said really he said yeah i said do you want to stop your relationship with your wife he goes yeah you want to leave her he goes yeah i said really i said have you stopped to think about that for a minute he says what do you mean well i said well you got three kids right and he goes yeah three boys yeah let me ask you a question who's who's going to be their father when you're out of their life who's going to help them to learn because they were small who's going to help them to learn to comb their own hair who's going to help them to learn to choose the clothes to wear who's going to teach them when they get older how to drive and and and who's going to buy them their first razor so they can shave and and when they begin to date who's going to give them the advice about how to treat a lady how to treat a woman how to be a gentleman and when the day comes that they that they want to marry who's going to be the father there at the wedding that's seated there with the mother if you leave your wife then you're going to hand all of those things all of life's lessons and all of those experiences you're going to leave all of that in the hands of somebody else and somebody else will be seated next to your wife when your son gets married somebody else is going to be called grandpa you're not thinking because they're just small right now and you're not aware that time continues to march on it doesn't stop and before you know it this woman whom you say you don't love right now is going to meet somebody who will love her and that man will be the father to your children you had better think before you step out of that relationship because these decisions have consequences and you will pay the price and right now it may not seem like that's a big deal because you're not enjoying your marriage but if you don't work on your marriage if you don't fight for your marriage if you don't work on that relationship i promise you somebody else will and that's the truth you got to pour your heart into these kinds of things you got to move forward in these kinds of things you need to be a blessing you need to know what repentance is you need to turn away from whatever it is that's taking you away and you need to turn to the lord jesus christ and esau didn't do that he didn't turn to god he simply said to himself i didn't get the birthright i didn't get the blessing i really wanted that is there no blessing for me and the bible says that he found no place for the repentance for repentance though he saw it diligently with tears there's a difference between regret and repentance repentance speaks of changing your mind especially concerning your condition before god and how to be right with him regret that speaks of sorrow the heart very often we regret because we got caught or because we're paying the price there's a difference between the two the apostle peter repented and was restored judas regretted committed suicide you could have life or you could have a regret that leads to death an eternal one in the case of esau he had no place of repentance he cried but only for the material things that he missed out on not on the blessings that he missed out on we need to know the difference