 off of what Mark was preaching last week. And in two, in light of several circumstances that we've dealt with and you deal with on a regular basis, we wanted to start tonight I did just wanted to begin addressing this issue of bitterness. And we've seen bitterness, full bitter fruit over last year and even before that. And we see its fruits and we see its effects. And so it's something that we need to be aware of. And tonight really I think we'll be maybe a beginning point for spending some time talking about this subject, learning what it looks like and being able to identify it, being able to biblically and lovingly deal with it. It's something that is critical for us to understand. And it's one of those things that sometimes is for whatever reason elusive. I know when Pastor Charlie probably attested this, you know, and Brother Ben, I just see some of the brothers in the room that we've, you know, been through several circumstances and situations with that when you're dealing with someone and you begin to unpack problems that arise, it becomes obvious pretty quickly. It's like, Oh, there's, there's bitterness involved here. And as bitterness is really making it hard to get anywhere to make any progress. And it's really difficult to maintain peace and unity and really difficult to resolve this issue with your brother and get back to that loving, you know, fellowship that you had before the bitterness crept in just so many issues related to that. And at the same time, sometimes really difficult to define it clearly to diagnose it clearly, like, you know, putting your finger on those issues that give rise to bitterness and then knowing how to specifically address that issue to vet it out and to deal with it. And so I'm sure over the next weeks and months, we'll take opportunity opportunities as they arise to address this subject. And what I think I'd like to ask you to do in this process is to become comfortable yourself with what it looks like, why it is so dangerous and deadly, why it's such a wicked, poisonous thing in a church. And then so that you know also, you can start formulating how best to interact with yourself when you have been, I don't know what that feels like, I've never been bitter, but maybe you guys have, no, we've all had bitterness, right? This is something we all deal with at one time or another. We have those, those tendencies in the flesh. And so you want to be able to properly diagnose that and handle yourself when it comes to that, but also so that you can lovingly interact with your brothers and sisters that may be having difficulty with that too. What we've said this before, and it is very true that often bitterness in the person who is bitter is blinding. They just don't see it and they've got to be led to a diagnosis. And I personally want to be more adept at identifying that and diagnosing it and dealing with it. And I certainly want our church to be more adept at identifying it and dealing with it, diagnosing it. So take this time tonight and then I mean we'll spend a little bit of time next Sunday during the Lord's Supper talking about it. And then as time comes up, becomes available in small group, we may spend some time there talking about it. And so if you will as we go through, just take some notes, be thinking through it, and help us as a family learn to deal with this issue. We're part of a church, right, that is weak and passive when it comes to sin. Right, yeah, no, I would expect a more vehement reaction than that, but yeah, no, our church is not weak and passive when it comes to sin. You guys like, come on, strengthen up a little here. No, we're a church that takes sin very seriously. You know, in a day and age where most churches and most of what would be considered evangelicalism has no, they want to smooth things over to have a sham piece, which is really no piece at all. It's a fake superficial piece, and it's a superficial piece gained at the expense of dealing seriously with sin. This is not a church that's like that. The brothers here, the sisters here, we are serious about living a holy life. We want to obey the Lord, we want to obey scripture, and so when there's sin, we address it at some point or another. It's going to get addressed. We may miss the boat on occasion, or may take a wrong course of action when it comes to something like that. We are all just men at best, and we have clay feet. However, we don't want to be complacent with sin. We want to deal with it. But when you're dealing with sin in that way, and when you are biblically obeying what the scripture says, when it comes to resolving conflict with your brother, in some cases, because again, we're dealing with the flesh, this issue of bitterness can come up. Someone gets hurt or someone gets offended. It may have nothing to do with resolving a conflict. It may have been something that someone said to you in passing. It might have been something that just crept up in conversation. It might have been something that happened at a fellowship. It might be something that someone's doing that somehow you've taken offense at or feel neglected in or feel hurt by. It could have been a comment that was completely innocent in that person's mind that has really rubbed you the wrong way, and now it's just taking root in your heart and causing problems. It may be, and this is what we've seen frequently, it may be that someone else is hurt. Someone else feels mistreated or treated unfairly or they feel neglected somehow or feel hurt somehow, and so you in mulling over their hurt and their offense and their issue, you yourself become offended and you yourself become embittered over that. There are all kinds of ways for bitterness to come up, and we'll talk about some of those, but we've got to know as a church how to deal with it. And the first place I want to go to start talking about this is in Hebrews chapter 12. In Hebrews chapter 12, we have an exhortation here, command from God with how to begin addressing this and taking care of it in the church. And like we've said many times before, we're a family. The church is the body of Christ, and we're all to work together in preserving our peace. That is not the pastor's job or it's not an elder's or a deacon's job or a leader's job. It's everybody's job. It's certainly our job, but it's your job too. We're all in this together. And so where this comes up, the body has to do what the body is supposed to do. Now I praise God for some of the difficulties that we've been through. I can say that unashamedly because they really have matured our church. I see us growing and growing. We've got a long way to go, but I see real growth. I see real changes taking place, real maturity, setting in. And the longer the time goes and the more these types of circumstances that we face, the more biblically mature our church becomes. There was a point in time when we look around our church and the oldest Christian around here, well, Jack, but I've been a Christian for a long time. But most of the people in our church have been a Christian for seven years, five years, three years. And we are in a sense, as a body, growing up in the faith together. We've got godly older men, godly older ladies in the church, but in a lot of respects, a lot of us are younger in the faith. And so these things must come. These things must arise. And, you know, if you're in a church that takes sin lightly or takes peace superficially or doesn't ever deal with things like this, then where are you ever going to learn these valuable lessons, right? They just, they don't get learned. And these kinds of lessons are the means of our growth and maturity in Christ. They're the means of our sanctification. And so we need to praise God for these situations. I can tell you over the last year, and Pastor Charlie, brother, tell me if you'd attest to this that we've learned a lot about how to deal with bitterness and how to deal with conflict and Matthew 18 situations. It's just the Lord grows you up through trial in dealing with those things. And so let's take heed to this and grow up together in this so that we're all working on this together. And it's just going to take some time to understand it. But let's begin with Hebrews chapter 12. And let's start with, let's start with verse 14. This is Hebrews chapter 12, verse 14. And here the Bible says, pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord. And then it says, looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause 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 he, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears. And specifically here, we can talk about some of these other verses, but specifically let's look at verse 15 together. Here the verse begins in the New King James with looking carefully. When we were walking through the passage in 1 Timothy 3 with respect to an elder, we looked at that word Episcopos, right? Episcopos. And that word literally means overseer. It's a compound word, one who watches over an overseer. This word looking carefully that begins verse 15 is the word Episcopo. It's the same root word and it, similar to that word Episcopos, it means to watch over, to watch carefully in the same way that the Episcopos in 1 Timothy 3 watches carefully over the congregation and deals with problems and issues that come up. You as a member of the body of Christ here are commanded in verse 15 to watch carefully over Episcopo, watch carefully over your brothers and sisters in the congregation with respect to this issue of bitterness. You know the question comes up, am I my brother's keeper? Well yes you are your brother's keeper. You're to watch over and carefully watch over. We are too in one translation to see to it. You're to see to it. You look for evidence in your brothers and sisters in Christ in the body. You look carefully for evidence of bitterness, evidence of anyone falling short. We are to have oversight of each other in this. Now this word looking carefully here in the Greek is a part of simple, but this is, maybe you guys will know exactly what we're talking about here, a part of simple of attendant circumstance. If you look at verse 14, it says pursue peace with all people. That word pursue there is an imperative. It's a command, right? It's a command. We're commanded to pursue peace. When you get to verse 15, that looking carefully then picks up, it's an attendant circumstance part of simple. It picks up the force of the command in that verb pursue. So it itself becomes a command. When we think about this now, this is to you, this is to me, it's to everybody here. We're commanded. It's a command of God to look carefully. You know, some folks might think for themselves that they refuse to do this kind of thing because they don't want to be a sin sniffer. Or why am I going to go up and bug my brother, bug my sister over some potential sin issue or some something that I see. Here scripture commands it. You're commanded to look carefully, to watch out for, see to it that no one falls short and there's not any root of bitterness. If you look at it rightly, it's helping each other stay safe. Sin here is a serious problem. This falling short of the grace of God is a serious issue. There should be no one that comes through the doors of our church that we'd let stay here over a period of time without having some assurance that they're genuinely converted. I mean, how many of you in your past experience have been to a church where no one shared the gospel with you? They don't care about your soul. So no one should come in the doors of this church without multiple people sharing the gospel with them, without inquiring about where they are in the faith. Not only that, it should be that person here who is potentially deceived. How many of you know that because of the fruit that you see again, you'll know them by their fruit? You have concerns over whether or not they're genuinely converted. It's loving and it's right to approach a brother or sister with that kind of heart if it's done lovingly, that's the key issue, because we want them to be in heaven. Here in the book of Hebrews, the book of Hebrews was written to offset this potential of apostasy, the people falling away, falling away because of difficulty. In verse 15, we're to watch for it, we're to look carefully, we're to see to it, we're to look for evidence, and then we're to address that lest anyone fall short. That may be falling short because they're never converted, falling short because they're walking around here as a false professing Christian, falling short because they've fallen into some sin now all of a sudden and they've gotten themselves in hot water and they're starting to depart from the living God, another passage in Hebrews, right? So we're to help one another in this, we're to dig out bitterness and we're to dig out all the associated problems with that, but we're to help one another grow up into Christ. This word carefully, you've got looking there, that participle, but we're looking carefully, that carefully speaks to vigilance in this. You got to remember, all of this has to be done with, if you will, soft people skills, wrapped in velvet, wrapped in love, you know, cushy, cushy. You go up to somebody, listen, you've shown up late for the second time in a row, I think you're lost. We all see that extreme how ridiculous that would be, right? There is a loving way to approach someone and you're to approach them lovingly. It's in a spirit of gentleness that we're to entreat a brother, we're to be gentle, but it requires vigilance. Maybe you've seen, I know I have, several times where someone will come and the brothers and sisters talk to them and they'll come and they'll talk to them and they'll come and they'll come and they'll come and they just come and they just keep coming. In over a period of weeks or months, sometimes it's not easy to talk to a professing Christian, right? About their soul. Sometimes out of fear of offending them, or because maybe the last conversation that you had got bristly, there's just, at some point, we fall off that responsibility and they come and they sit and we just stop having those conversations and we stop talking to them and they just continue to stay around and it just becomes easy for them to sort of sit in the back and the brothers and sisters come to understand, well, that's just the way they are and we don't talk to them anymore or more about their soul. Here the scripture is saying vigilance. It requires vigilance. We've got to keep having those conversations and keep talking to them. Again, we're dealing with eternity and dealing with the state of their soul. But specifically here, it says, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, then it goes on to say lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble. We're to talk to someone about their soul and we're to vigilantly and carefully look and watch over them with respect to that and then we're to watch over in order to prevent bitterness. Let me make a note of this with respect to this falling short of salvation. You, so that you understand, do not hold the gavel when it comes to someone's salvation. You can look at a false teacher teaching a false gospel and based on the authority of God's word, you can confidently say that person's lost or teaching a false gospel. You can look at someone who says, you know what, I really don't believe in God, but I think I'm a Christian. Well, based on the authority of God's word, you can say, you don't believe in God, you're lost. When it comes to someone who is making a profession of faith and they are wanting to follow the Lord, they're seeking the Lord, again, that, whether that person is genuinely converted or not, rests in the mind of God and you don't hold the gavel when it comes to that. So your conversation, again, in having these conversations like this in being loving and in being compassionate and in using tact and maturity in talking with someone would approach them in a way that they're not offended with you, but they're hearing what you're saying. And so if you walk up to somebody and say, listen, I think you're lost and we need to talk, there is to use wisdom, there is a better way of approaching that. Listen, I need to talk to you. I'm concerned about you. I love you, I care about you, and I just want to talk about how you're doing, see where you're at. I have some concerns that lead me to possibly believe that you may not be genuinely converted. Have you taken a look at yourself lately or where you are with your spiritual life, you're getting to know them, you're diagnosing the process, if you're helping them walk through it. But oftentimes when it comes to some of those conversations, you know, in the past we've seen patterns every now and then of that gavel coming down, and when the gavel comes down, in many cases you lose, we're not in it to win a point or win an argument, you're in it to win someone's soul, you're in it to win a brother, win a sister. And so you just take tact and care and compassion with the way that we have those conversations, and that is very important. You want to be able to have these, the Scripture commands that we do, but you use love and use compassion in the way that you do that. But secondly here, this, looking carefully, is to prevent bitterness. A root of bitterness, when the Scripture here in verse 15 mentions a root of bitterness, it has the sense of a poisonous plant, right? A poisonous plant. It's here a metaphor, this root of bitterness, really a metaphor for that person who is committing that sin in the church. It's a person in this case spreading 11 of bitterness or spreading 11 of poison. This bitterness is said in verse 15, springs up and causes trouble. Then it goes on to say, and by this many become defiled. In this, you have to see, there is a spreading of an infection. Bitterness is a contagion. It's an infection in the body. There's a bad example that's being set here. There's a bad attitude that is cropped up, and this doubt causing, disruption causing, division causing, bad attitude is now causing trouble for someone else, and defiling it says many. It is a contagion. It's an infection in the body. This causing trouble refers to the effects of taking that poison into your body. So we're going to understand bitterness. It's some, in a lot of cases, right? It's really easy to spot. You can have a couple of minute conversation with someone and come away from that conversation thinking, wow man, that person just seems bitter to me. Really sometimes easy to spot, but sometimes difficult to diagnose, difficult to deal with, and sometimes difficult to protect yourself against. It is a contagious infection in the body, and this causing trouble, when it says springing up causing trouble, that's the effects of taking that poison into your body. If you get near someone with the flu and you kiss them, what are the likelihood of you getting the flu? It's pretty likely, right? You've seen that commercial where the guy is in the dentist's chair, and he's got that thing in his mouth, and his mouth is wide open, and the dentist is working on him, and he sneezes in his mouth. I was like, I know I get grossed out too, but yeah, it's listened. That is like bitterness. It's an infection. It's a poison, and you get involved with to any large degree with a bitter person. You got to understand that's contagious. We'll talk about that more as we go through this. You can become bitter and bittered yourself. The effect here, this trouble, is the effect of that poison of bitterness being taken into your body, and there's no one here that's immune, no one. No one here is immune from bitterness. You get around bitterness, maybe we'll talk about it, you get hurt or offended, and you're understanding you've been unfairly treated or neglected, and now it's really simple for you. The strongest among us can fall to bitterness, and you get around that embittered person. Very easy to go along with the bitterness in that person and get taken up by that infection, and it goes into you. That poison gets inside of you and starts infecting you. We're to cut that off before that happens. You have to understand that this person by definition, the embittered person, cannot have fellowship or the unity that scripture describes because the bitterness prevents it. Now, that's not by declaration of the church, that's by the reality of their heart. They may, someone may be here, maybe one of you right now struggling with this issue, and you're embittered in your heart over something. By nature of that bitterness in your heart, it impacts your fellowship. It impacts your unity. If you're embittered over a hurt, embittered over a fence, it has already destroyed the fellowship and unity with that person that you're embittered against. With the bitterness, it's impossible to have biblical fellowship, biblical unity. The bitterness has to be dug out. Now, when we start walking through bitterness with someone, there are several things that you can look at to diagnose bitterness, but when we start dealing with someone with bitterness, if they act in accord with their bitterness, rather than in accord with the word of God, then by acting in accord with the bitterness that is in their heart, we begin having to separate our fellowship from them, because that bitterness, being the contagion and the infection, the poison that it is, cannot be allowed to continue to spread, cannot leaven the whole lump, cannot, the poison has to be cut out. The cancer has to be cut out of the body, right? So it may eventually, over a period of time, get to the point where we say, listen, if you're going to be embittered, if we can't resolve this bitterness in your heart, if we can't resolve these problems, then we can have fellowship with you. You're not in unity with us, and that bitterness, and we've seen it, haven't we? Time and time and time and time again, an embittered person talks to another person, and they become embittered, and they're embittered together. They have a little embittered club. It's a little bitter click, you know? And that little bitter click talks to another person, and they join the bitter click, and then they're sending out invitations on Facebook to join their bitter click, and they get other people to join their bitter click. And before you know it, you've got this little bitter click that just, they start falling like dominoes, and one leaves after another, bitter. And then their bitter click doesn't break up. They take their bitter click to other places outside the church, outside the peace and unity and fellowship of God's people, and they pretend to sit in other fellowships without their bitterness, but yet the bitter click then graduates into being divisive against our church. You see how this spreads? It's just a, it is a wicked tool of Satan. So by definition, bitterness impacts or prohibits, destroys the fellowship and unity that we have, the unity that Scripture divides, that describes. There's something in bitterness, the nature of bitterness, that is contrary to that fellowship. It's contrary to that peace. So in order for us to labor, to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, like Ephesians tells us to do, we have to deal with and dig out the bitterness. It says that, that bitterness, that root of bitterness springs up, causes trouble. And it says, by this many become defiled. This is because again, bitterness is highly contagious. People become infected. Maybe they pick up the offense of some other bitter person. The bitter person, because bitterness is so contagious, becomes a corrupting influence. That bitterness is a contamination. Again, that's why it has to be so carefully dug out and addressed. Lupriolo says this, if you haven't taken the time to read through Lupriolo's little book on bitterness, really, really insightful, really helpful, I want to encourage everyone to get a copy of that. I really want us as a church, us as the body, to become very well versed in this sin. We need to really understand this, really be able to spot it, really to become mature in the way that we deal with it. Okay? I encourage you to get that book. But he says, this bitter person, speaking of the bitter person of the corrupting influence, he stays in or near the fellowship of the church and spreads wickedness, doubt, and general defilement. That's true of bitterness. He stays in or near the fellowship of the church and spreads wickedness, doubt, and general defilement. When a bitterness, when a bitter person or person engaged in that bitterness in their bitter heart, as being overcome by bitterness, they're not content to leave alone. They're not content to harbor that in themselves in, because of pride, because of connected sins, they've got to, in a sense, save face and spread that, build allies to their case. It goes part and parcel with bitterness. This concept of bitter, the word bitter, has to do with something that has an unpleasant taste. It's also in the Greek word that means sharp or pricking, that it has a sense of something, an internal wound, which is exactly what bitterness is. Bitterness is an internal wound. But it also has a description of something that causes grief or is hard to bear. You've heard the words, bitter defeat. Oh, that was a bitter loss, a bitter failure. They fought to the bitter end. It's something that's difficult. It speaks to an adversary. In that sense, speaking of that, a bitter grief, a bitter loss, a bitter fight, a bitter adversary, bitterness causes a reaction. It causes a reaction. And the person who is bitter, and tell me if this isn't true, it causes animosity. It leads to antagonism, pride, arrogance, haughty, headstrong, implacability. In other words, they're fired up and there's nothing you're going to be able to do to calm them down. Just implacable, unintreatable. They just cannot be reasoned with. Unteachable-ness, sometimes it results in self-pity, results in resentfulness, and all of that from a heart that is unforgiving. Bitterness springs out of an unforgiving. This is why this dovetails with what Mark was preaching. Just that necessity of forgiveness. You must, must forgive. Because of these things, because of that antagonism, that unteachable-ness, that pride, sometimes the resentfulness, the unforgiving attitude, results of bitterness are that that person becomes to be anti-social. They start with drawing. They'll withdraw from the person initially that caused the offense or the hurt, but then in pride or in their offense. They'll start withdrawing only to those with whom they can make allies, make partnerships in this bitterness with. In other words, the person that is their ally in their offense against that person, that's their ally. Everyone else then becomes, or begins to become their enemy. In the beginning, it may be that one person that's the enemy, but then it begins to be the people who sound like that person, or the people who act like that person, or the people who are friends with that, the friend of my enemy is my enemy. It's like that kind of ridiculous attitude in the Lord's Church. It becomes, they start with drawing. They become indifferent or adverse to conformity. When someone is embittered, let's say that it's I'll give you some real examples. It's got someone that's embittered over a fine point of the way that our church deals with church discipline. You know, some issue in the process of church discipline that, you know, I think that's just, that's unfair. That's just a mistreatment of people. It's too harsh or it's, you know, whatever that fine point of the process is. Because they are embittered about that thing, that the church does, their bitterness starts to take aim at the church itself. It's no longer that one point. Now it's the church. Now it's those people you start talking to them. It's not our church. And we really, I'm just praying for our church and so thankful to the Lord for our church and just love the brothers and sisters at our church. Now it's your church or that church. You know, their bitterness starts taking aim at a wider scope. The scope of bitterness always grows. It maybe starts with one person, maybe start with one 10 second conversation. But then after that root springs up and begins to grow, it expands and expands and expands. And now all Baptists are wrong. You know, it's like everything's wrong with the world. You know, it's not content to stay within its tiny little context. It's got to spread. And so in that sense, the bitter person begins to become indifferent about the people that they're around, the church that they're in. They become adverse to conformity in their, and what I mean by that is they, they don't want to go with this status quo. They've got to stand apart. The bitterness in their heart causes that division of themselves and they stand apart from their brothers and sisters. They stand apart from the body. Now it's me and them. You know, it's no longer us. You realize that in that same context then, that is divisive. And when they build an ally, that's being divisive. They are divisive. They're sowing discord in the body. It's unsubmissive because they're no longer going along with what we're doing here. They stand apart. It's rebellion. And it's rebellion against authority. That is, it's pride in many cases. It is arrogance. It's haughty. It's head strong. It's unteachable. It's all those things. And it just divides them. Look real quickly at James 3 and just because it's close here, one book to the right. Look at James chapter 3 and look at verse 13. So James chapter 3 verse 13. Who is wise, James says, and understanding among you, let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness, that humility, right, in the meekness of wisdom. Verse 14. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, and that bitter person that goes right with it, self-seeking in their heart, right, envy, all goes hand in hand with bitterness. If you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom, the wisdom of the bitter person, the wisdom that they think they have, does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy, and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy. The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Bitterness is said to be self-induced misery. If you're bitter, it's self-induced misery. If you read the article in the bulletin this morning, I hope you guys are reading some of that stuff in there, the bulletin. They do such a good job on the bulletin. Please honor, Nikki, by taking a look at the bulletin when you come to church on Sunday. But the article on bitterness, when you are hurt or you're offended or you feel as though you've gotten the short end of the deal, the short end of the stick, the short straw, when you have felt as though, maybe you feel as though you didn't get what you deserve, you weren't treated the way that you should have been treated, and for whatever reason, you've taken an offense or you've been hurt. You've got to understand, it's not if the seed of bitterness is planted in your heart as a result of that, it has been. The seed of bitterness is there. If someone says something to me that I'm hurt by or offended by, the seed of bitterness is there in the heart. It's already there, but you have now a choice of responses to that. You can bend down immediately, pluck that seed of bitterness out of your heart, and immediately forgive your brother, forgive your sister for your perceived hurt, your perceived mistreatment. You just forgive them, you love them, right? Forgiveness and love, or you can sit back with that seed in your heart and you can mull over the hurt. You can mull over the offense, you can review it in your mind. I can't believe that just what happened, that really happened. Did he just say that to me? Wow, man, the arrogance of that. Why would that brother, that was a complete, unloving act that he just, you know what, I think he did that to me once before we were having this conversation. You know, he's not been treating his brother's hate. You know what I mean? You just start reviewing the hurt over and over in your mind, and then it's like the next day. Boy, the look on his face too, when he said it. And there was that little huff, I could tell it. He was just pride, proud, proud. And you start, you know, and it's not beyond us, right? As you're reviewing over and over in your mind, the history of that one offense, that you begin trumping it up in your mind and adding stuff to it. And what is fiction now starts becoming fact in your mind. You know, when he did it, I thought I saw the devil in his eyes, you know, and you start making stuff up. It's, you know, you just review that hurt, review that neglect, review that mistreatment. You just review it over and over and over again in your mind. And you, that seed of bitterness just grows and grows and grows and grows and grows. And so you know what? You get invited over for fellowship. And so you go to fellowship and you knock on the door and you walk in and you sit down at the table to have Christian fellowship and you're like, a loving brother comes up to you and says, was everything okay? And you're like, yeah. So they prompt a little and prompt a little. And so you start talking and you won't talk to Jack in this way because Jack's not going to take it. You know, you won't talk to Ben in this way or Mark in this way or Troy in this way or Mike in this way or Ryan in this way because you know, you're going to get corrected. You're not going to have an ally in them. You got this person and it's, oh, you know, what's your name? You've been here five minutes. Oh, let's talk. You'll talk to the person who's been here five minutes that doesn't know and you build an ally and the bitterness spreads and it becomes that it's that contagion, right? It produces, bitterness produces chain sinning chains. I think that's a lupriola term too. Chain sinning. You just sin. It causes sin after sin after sin, sin piling up on sin, compiling sin is constant. Look back, go back to Deuteronomy chapter 29. Deuteronomy chapter 29, this issue of root of bitterness in Hebrews chapter 12 is, I think, drawn from this passage in Deuteronomy chapter 29. And look beginning at verse 10. This is Deuteronomy 29 verse 10. Here in Deuteronomy 29, the Lord is going to refer to a person who is superficially identified with God's people. If you're not superficially identified with God's people, if you are genuinely identified with God's people, then this issue of bitterness will not, you're not going to allow that to divide you, right? If you're identified with, if you're a Christian, you're identified with God's people, then that bitterness needs to be rooted out, needs to be rooted out of your heart, there needs to be genuine peace. And if you're a genuine Christian, Christians are peacemakers, there will be peace. So this person who entertains bitterness and allows bitterness to fester and brew and boil is the superficial, he's superficially identified with God's people. Listen to what it says, this is verse 10. All of you stayed today before the Lord, your God, your leaders and your tribes and your elders and your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives and also the stranger who is in your camp, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water that you may enter into covenant with the Lord your God and into his oath which the Lord your God makes with you today, that he may establish you today as a people for himself and that he may be God to you just as he has spoken to you and just as he has sworn to your fathers to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I make this covenant and this oath not with you alone but with him who stands here with us today before the Lord our God as well as with him who is not here with us today for you know that we dwelt in the land of Egypt and that we came to the nations which you passed by, you saw their abominations and their idols which were among them wood and stone and silver and gold so that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of these nations and that there may not be among you a root bearing bitterness or wormwood and so it may not happen when he hears the words of this curse that he blesses himself in his heart saying I shall have peace even though I follow the dictates of my own heart as though the drunkard could be included with the sober oftentimes in the case of a bitter person they in their bitterness in their pride in their haughty headstrong arrogant ways thinking that they are pursuing right thinking that they're doing the right thing thinking they give God service right they kill you and think they give God service thinking that they're obeying scripture even or that they're doing the right thing they've made the right decision they follow the dictates of their own heart and think that they have peace ultimately bitterness leads to division and the division is when the bitter person out of their bitterness begins to follow the dictates of their own heart thinking they have peace and they leave and they join themselves to another church which is if it's a true biblical church it's the same church they're just going to another part of the body claiming peace when they're following the dictates of their own heart and God says as though the drunkard would be included with the sober in other words you follow your bitterness far enough you're outside the kingdom you are lost as and you think that you have peace like the drunkard think that he has peace with God the drunkard would be included with the sober you're fooling yourself as this bitterness is a terribly defiling sin that can lead someone to hell and we have these conversations all the time that um you know bitterness is a heart issue you have bitterness in the heart but bitterness manifests itself doesn't it so when that bitterness manifests itself you have to like the scripture says you deal with the conduct you deal with the manifestations of it it's um whenever we see scripture uh that deals with how to where to interact with our brothers and sisters with respect to sin it always deals with conduct my brother did this and so I have to go to him you know it's like uh the brother that says boy I'm really struggling with you know lust in my mind I'm really struggling with pride in my mind well that's something that we need to help a brother with and work on those kinds of things but you don't dis fellowship someone for the problem they're having with sin in their mind it's when that sin manifests itself and causes problems that it incurred and it incurs church discipline that it incurs someone coming to them and so here bitterness manifests itself um you got to be able to diagnose it and let's look at some of these okay um and for lack of time just go through if you want to jot some of these down if you want to add some things to it when you see bitterness what are the outward manifestations of bitterness and what I encourage you to do is if you see someone and granted you know let me say this too this is these are all just delicate things delicate situations they require wisdom and tact often to deal with you show up at church on a sunny morning and you got this loving joyful brother that walks through the door and you know you don't realize it but he just slammed his thumb in the car door and so he comes in with a little bit of a scowl on his on his face and you're like brother I think you're bitter uh use some tact some love some compassion it's when when you deal with sin it's repeated a pad it's a pattern of that that establishes you know it's like man I talked to my brother I encouraged him I loved him you know just had a conversation and he just seemed like someone was bugging him I asked him but he said everything was okay and so didn't press too hard but um I need to follow up with him so you know wheat goes by and you have another conversation and I'm seeing the same the same thing day or two goes by you have a conversation on the phone and I'm hearing the same thing okay brother I need to need to talk to you is that pattern right that tells you what's going on when there is no pattern then love your brother be concerned for your brother but um you don't and I saw you speak an angry word and so this is step two and I've got two brothers with me you know it's um we've got to use wisdom and how we approach these things but um when a person is bitter resolving conflicts with them becomes a monumental and virtually impossible task if you do have a circumstance that comes up and you go to that person to resolve the issue and they become unreasonable with you or they're not forgiving they're not responding to you with love and with patience um there's a possibility that they are bitter resolving conflicts with a bitter person is almost impossible the bitterness has to be dealt with so that the conflict can be resolved um withdrawal when you see some with withdrawal withdrawal is a symptom or a red flag of bitterness um bitterness and this withdrawal causes a breakdown in communication the person just doesn't communicate as well or as often or as loving or as compassionately as they once did there's something going on there and bitterness can cause that a bitter person will keep a record of wrongs a bitter person will take something that in and of itself may be somewhat in the grand scheme of things insignificant but then that seemingly insignificant thing that should be setting on a clean slate and forgiven and written off now becomes a part of a big pile of bitter dung that is lined up with all these other little seemingly insignificant things that um are now not setting on a clean slate they're setting on a whole list of wrongs a whole list of offenses and so they keep a record of wrongs don't remember every one this one time you said this and this other time you said this um you know this other situation when this happened you did this and just a record of wrongs right bitter person a bitter person has a critical heart as a result of that keeping a record of wrongs or or seeing everything is a one list long list of one problem after another they're critical they are easy to they're easy about their criticism they level their criticism all the time in that they're condemning they have a judgmental attitude there is in the in the bitter person a need to react and to spread their bitterness in order to build allies and to save face to protect their ego protect their pride um they just have to do it that's why um you know we don't have time tonight but when you're dealing with sin in the church and you're dealing with divisiveness and bitterness and issues like this and listen it's it's circumstances like the circumstances we've been through over the last year that expose problems like this it exposes it it brings it to the surface and praise the lord we get to deal with it um it brings it up it comes bubbling to the surface when you go through difficulties like this because people get hurt and they wallow in that hurt and that hurt develops into bitterness and then bitterness and all kinds of other sins but um when you get that person that's in that state um everything breaks down with them they become as we've said against the church against being in conformity with their circumstances and so they have to withdraw themselves they begin withdrawing themselves they begin pitting themselves against you or against the church or against the one they're offended at in doing that in pitting themselves against you they have to justify their decision they have to justify their heart justify their actions by now building or getting allies to themselves they can't stop from doing it so bitterness then graduates into division we get accused all the time it's really difficult to leave this church because you can't leave here in sin and it seems like most of the people leaving here are trying to leave in sin but we've been been has brought this up a couple of times we've been bit by this so many times when someone leaves the bitterness doesn't get dealt with so they leave bitter and then they sit outside bitter with their allies casting grenades over the wall um bitterness has to be dealt with otherwise it leads to division leads to more sin and if they're going to a biblical church it's just more sin than the body that's a sin that some other church leadership is going to have to deal with and they don't know and may go hidden for a long period of time may go may never surface again but it doesn't get resolved doesn't get dealt with and it causes division and disruption in our church so it has to be dealt with you can't just leave embittered in that the bitter person has a retaliatory attitude i think one person in particular that is the chief embittered person who was left here in last year under all this difficulty that we went through and man there is that has graduated into complete retaliation vengeance lord says vengeance is mine but they become vengeful they start lashing out trying to destroy you trying to destroy the church that's where bitterness eventually leads to but it's this retaliatory attitude the bitter person will have suspicion and distrust they'll have doubts they'll be suspicious about their brother they'll be suspicious they'll start judging your motives judging the motives of your heart i said this and this is what he meant or they did this and this is how they feel about me right it's a evil suspicion it's a distrust when it used to be that person used to be when that would come up or that thing would be said or that thing would be done that that slip of judgment and you maybe even sin or whatever happens and you would have responded by oh man i love that brother i i've done that very same thing myself right you'd have responded that way um or um i love you brother this is an area that's difficult for me too you know and it just you would have responded that way in love and compassion with your brother knowing that we're all in this together but instead um you might have given them the benefit of the doubt he didn't mean that the way that it came out when i was talking to him i know my brother loves me he didn't mean that the way that that came across i'm just going to forgive that right but you don't you carry that offense carry that hurt the bitter person makes mountains out of molehills makes mountains out of molehills every little issue becomes a flagrant death con for offense um the bitter person um has an intolerance for just about everything it's an intolerance for the way that you look eventually uh the way that you speak um i don't know if you remember we had a small group meeting one night and a couple of the brothers you know we were talking about um uh just and i think if i remember correctly uh pastor charlie was just uh talking about um being faithful to the lord you know faithful and obeying the lord and mentioned the word you know that bad word obedience a couple of times um faithful lord and obedience and obeying the lord's and had a couple of brothers you know say amen and we're talking about resolving conflict we've got to get conflict resolving a couple of brothers amen well i had a conversation after that small group meeting with a brother there's no longer with us because he's been divided from us by his bitterness where you're saying did you hear the way that they were saying amen and you didn't rebuke them for saying it that way that's bitterness that's the effects of bitterness uh you come and bit it in your heart and there's just an intolerance for just about anything you just even the tone of the voice they don't want to hear uh even the sound of your voice just makes me you know cringe that's bitterness it's bitterness um they become they become uh don't like the sound of my voice brother the sound of your voice is music to my ears the bitter person becomes hypersensitive they're hypersensitive um the pinprick becomes a dagger in the heart um that's associated with pride the embittered person is impatient the the bitter person magnifies forgivable offenses and it doesn't forgive they treat those forgivable offenses as unforgivable um you did this in church discipline you know this person was treated this way or said this to and i can't forgive that and this is a wicked church you guys are all disqualified and i'm out of here they treat forgivable things that should be forgivable as unforgivable um and it causes again it causes division the embittered person becomes disrespectful and unsubmissive got someone who is older in the faith and they're irreverent or disrespectful toward that person um someone who comes to entreat them and they're disrespectful or dishonoring irreverent to that person the brother's coming in love in that the embittered person becomes rebellious there's rebellion lupriola in his booklet said this he said rebellion hardly ever happens apart from bitterness so he says that almost all rebellion is a fruit of bitterness um that seed of a hurt or that root of bitterness matures into stubbornness as it matures into stubbornness it bears the fruit of rebellion if you're embittered you can become depressed you can doubt and doubt your salvation you can lose your assurance um having difficulty over bitterness uh and a bitter person remembers and replays every detail of the offense like we said that can blossom over time um so you know in back to Hebrews 12 in looking carefully let's anyone fall short of the grace of god let's any root of bitterness defile them or defile others do you see withdrawal do you see pride do you see self-will do you see division do you see that critical attitude do you see that critical heart that keeping a record of wrong a record of wrongs do you see suspicion and distrust do you see a spreading of doubt do you see making mountains out of molehills do you see unforgiveness for what should be clearly and obviously forgivable offenses offenses that you wouldn't even go to a brother about it would just be an offense that love would cover there's love covers a multitude of sins um and that would be something i mean we all slip right we've all got clay feet and i've done that myself a hundred times before you know but to the bitter person it becomes a mountain the the and we'll talk about this more in the days to come but there's two antidotes to this and as you're sitting down talking to the embittered person um and i'm listen i i want you and i do this together when i want you to go to work on understanding this sin understanding what it looks like understand what causes it understand how it manifests itself in you when you become bitter and then how to lovingly and compassionately and tactfully and maturely and wisely and lovingly and compassionately talk to your brother or sister about it if you see it this is something that we need to become mature in and that's by the lord's design we've faced a lot of these circumstances where bitterness has has come up and so why why would the lord allow bitterness in his church why is that why would the lord in his body allow a conflict to come up yeah like yeah amen yeah yeah so that those who are tested may be approved and so that we're matured in the faith we grow up and we learn how to deal with these things god in many cases isn't as concerned about the offense as he is about your response to it you learn how to deal it's um i was talking with a precious sister earlier and we were talking about joseph um and his brothers and i just you know thought about that with um joseph uh it says i think it's in genesis 42 where he's wailing and pleading with his brother with with his brothers not to do this he didn't have the sovereignty or the providence of god in mind and he's saying to himself i'm going to let this happen because the lord in his providence is going to um preserve many people alive by my he doesn't have that perspective on things at that important time he's like don't do this i don't want to be sold into slavery you know pleading with his brothers it was genesis 50 when he looks back on the circumstance and he says yeah this was what you intended for evil god meant for good many people might be saved alive he saw god sovereignty in that uh you can look oftentimes at the the end or at the other side of a trial or of a difficulty and you look back at that and say i see what the purpose of that was and it was good the lord meant it for good and i've learned from that and i've grown from that um well the lord has allowed certain of these circumstances to come up in our church because we're to learn from them we've had one huge lesson many lessons wrapped up in that one big huge lesson over last year or so here and this is one of them we just need to become mature in this um but one way that you battle is with forgiveness you just forgive i'll be quick here just forgive we don't have time to go in all this we'll do this at another time um forgiveness so you know comes when there's sin involved many times people are bitter over something that god himself wouldn't be offended with god is offended with sin but when you're embittered over something that isn't sin it's uh maybe it's a liberty issue or maybe it's uh a difference in the way that someone talks or says something or addresses something or handles something and you become embittered over that you need repent of that thinking that if it's not sin and god's not offended with it necessarily then why are you taking such offense at it and forgive your brother just forgive forgive forgive your brother um if you're offended you go according to matthew 18 if you've done the offending you go according to matthew 5 verse 23 and if what has been done is not involving sin then stop taking offense and forgive your brother you may decide in wisdom or in love or whatever to have a conversation with your brother about it because you may think there's a wise or loving or more compassionate way or whatever the case may be to deal with it but don't take offense to the point of dividing yourself from your brother and allowing a root of bitterness in your heart forgive your brother um in light of how much god in crisis forgiven you if you do not forgive those who have offended you it is wickedness and that was mark sermon last week there's wickedness it doesn't matter how much it hurt doesn't matter how much you were offended it doesn't matter how you feel about it the debt that you owe god for your sin is incalculable and unpayable so forgive your brother just to forgive your brother i love the story of kori 10 boom and uh it was interesting in mark's story in the sermon that um that forgiveness also is an act of the will you do it not how you feel about it you do it i'm gonna forgive my brother and when those thoughts of unforgiveness come up or those thoughts thoughts of offense you squelch them right back down i have forgiven my brother um but it's interesting that kori 10 boom we remember when she was forgiving the nazi she resolved herself in her will to reach out her hand to take his hand and forgive him and then the emotions came after um that's the way we're to forgive forgiveness begins with an act of the will if you don't resolve yourself in an act of the will to forgive your brother you never will you're waiting on the feelings to come along um you may never forgive them um and in many cases just made this point in many cases it's not the offense that you are to address but it's your response to it we would take you that attitude here's this offense that rises up okay i'm not gonna be offended at that i'm gonna respond to it biblically um in many cases it's not the offense that is the issue that we're we need to respond to it's our response to it um you deal with sin and we deal with sin according to scripture but how do i respond when an offense rises and oftentimes in your sanctification and your spiritual growth and maturity it's how you respond to a circumstance that the Lord is concerned about for you so make sure that you're responding biblically you're responding appropriately and you're responding in love and forgiveness and the other tool is love and love again is an action you forgive and you love you love is an act of your will choose to love um there's stories after stories after story it deals with that where you know the husband and wife have a bitter fight you know and so in his bitterness and his anger he just decides i'm gonna go to the store and i'm gonna buy her flowers just the act of buying flowers softens his heart by the time he gets home he's just loving his wife again and when he presents her with the flowers she's loving him you know it's like just the act of love you know just love um and then we'll we don't have time we'll we'll finish this up at another time and talk about specifics we can use a lot of examples you know over the last year specific circumstances that we can talk about to help you with this but hope this has been helpful we want to keep spending a little bit of time on this until we feel as though we've reached some level of understanding here and i just want to encourage and exhort you to become proficient in this subject this is one of those practical ministry things that the Lord has commanded us in Hebrews 12 to deal with okay