Children—Marc Debu
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Very good. All right, Well, thank you so much, guys. You guys came prepared. That was great. All right, I want to talk about a couple of verses I think that we're all pretty familiar with. It's like versus that the Lord directs me to quite often because I need to read them again and think about them again and kind of learn the lesson again. And the verses are in Hebrews chapter 12.
If you want to turn to Hebrews chapter 12.
And I read the first couple of verses and then we'll talk about those a little bit.
Hebrews chapter 12 and verse one.
Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every way in the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame.
And is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider him.
And I'm going to talk about these verses a little bit, but there's one word in these verses that I specifically want to talk about, and it's the word weights. Weights. And so maybe before we start, it talks about weights and sin in that verse, right? And before we start, maybe we should say, well, what does it speak of? We all know what a weight is, but what does it speak of? What does it mean in this verse when it speak about weights? We all know what.
Right, and we know we shouldn't sin and we need to really try hard by obeying the Lord and, and and praying and so on, not to fall into sin. But then it speaks about weights too, you know, and the Bible doesn't repeat itself. It's very precise. And if it speaks about weights and sin, they must be different. And So what I think what weights speak of is it's things that we would.
Allow in our lives. That would slow us down, weigh us down.
And our pathway for the Lord. But it's not things that in themselves are wrong, right? There's a lot of things that are not wrong in themselves. But if we're not careful, they can kind of slow us down. And so he talks about with patients running the race that is set before us. And in the New Testament, several times, you know, Paul talks about a race and he talks about a Christian path.
You know, and for example, in First Corinthians he talks about the race.
And we need to run it in such a way that we win. That's kind of interesting, right? And I don't think he means that we should be faster than the person next to us. But I think we all individually should run our race or Christian life in such a way that at the end the Lord can say, well done. That's kind of winning the race in that aspect. And then Timothy talks about a race again, and there he says, you have to run the race. We have to do it lawfully. You have to do it right.
You know you can cheat in a race, and the Lord doesn't want us to do that. And so in our Christian lives, we have the Bible.
That kind of shows us how we should walk our lives. But here he talks about a race again. But what he talks about here is that we should not allow things in our life to take up our time or affections or energy that would slow us down as we want to please the Lord in our lives, right?
And what I did here, while we were singing, I put out some cards and then those cards I wrote certain things that are not bad, but that can become weights in our lives. And so I have two volunteers. I have Anna and Russell, right. Do you guys want to come up?
And I didn't tell them that we were going to talk about weights. I told them to choose a few things that they enjoy that they like. And so let's see what they choose. Russell, what do you have?
The first one that he chose is probably the one I would have chosen first too. It says sports. You like doing sports like playing like baseball and stuff like that. Great. Is there anything wrong with playing baseball? No, Let's see what else you have. Well, you know what, let's let's do this whole different. You know what I have in here? I got a couple of backpacks here and which one do you like?
Like that one? You came with this one. Why don't you put the backpacks on guys?
I'll see if we can make him fit a little bit. We'll have to probably tighten the straps a little bit.
00:05:00
OK, yours looks pretty good. All right, so Russell chose sports. Nothing wrong with sports right now. How much do you like sports? Do you like to do a whole lot or just a little bit? You like to do a lot? You know, I got some more stuff in here. What? What's in the what's in the bucket here?
Weights. Yeah, I got different sizes of weights, different kinds of weights. So let's say you like sports and you like it a lot, right?
Should we put a little weight in your backpack for sports? Let's try that, All right, and see how that works. All right, now again, Russell. Russell didn't know that we're going to talk about weights. He just saw some things that we like. Is that OK? You look pretty strong. You can handle that. All right. What else do you have, Russell?
This one, he's got games, toys, video games, right? How much do you like games and toys and video games like more than sports even or less less. OK, good. Maybe you're catching on to me here. So let's see you know, I got and this is kind of interesting. Look at this here. Let me see.
I got these two here. They're different ones. Which one do you think would be heavier? Which one would you think would be?
Any idea which one? Which one would you want in your backpack? You want this one because it's a little smaller, right? But you know what? Can you read this? What does it say?
2 1/2 right? What is this one? So let's see, what does it say here?
2 1/2 They're the same. Isn't that interesting? And you know what? I just, this is a real lesson for us because we will all admit that we all have weights in our lives, right? And oftentimes you look at other people, other kids and say, well, their weights, they're they're, they're worse than mine and they might, but this one looks heavier than the other one, right?
But it's exactly the same, and we tend to do that. We tend to kind of justify what we allow in our lives.
And think that other people's things are a little worse than ours. OK, what else do you have? He's got friends. And I kind of hesitated to put this one in because, you know, most of your kids, you have good friends and friends are something that the Lord has given us and they can be a tremendous help in our lives. And I got quite a few friends in this room. So my younger than me, some are my age, some are older. And they've been very encouraging.
But you know what, friends, especially as you grow up, you need to be careful with who your friends are because they can be some something that drags you down. And we got examples of that in the Bible.
You know, the story of the prodigal son, remember that story? He went out and then he came back. But at the end of that chapter, it talks about the older son. And he had friends, too. And, you know, his friends didn't help him at all because they kind of pulled him away from the father. And there's examples like that in the Bible of bad friends. I'm thinking about Rehoboam to, you know, Solomon's son. He had to make an important decision and he listened to his friends.
And they gave him bad advice and it didn't turn out very well. So in general, if you have good friends, that's wonderful. But be careful, especially as you get older and maybe in school or at work, people want to be your friends. And they might not be a help. They might be a weight. OK, so how about friends? Should we say a lot or little?
It's a lot, but you know what, I'll give you a little bit of a break because I'm pretty sure your friends are good friends. So we'll put we'll put this in here. OK. OK. Is that still working? Not too heavy yet. OK, let's see how we'll keep this like this. All right, Anna, why don't you come up? What did you choose?
OK, All right. There's some similarities here. So she chose friends, too. And that's very good because you probably have very good friends here, right? A lot of friends here today. That's great. What else did you choose? I'll. I'll give you a way. You won't get that much of a break. She chose books. You know, I got somebody at home, too. Boy, if we don't know where she is, she's in her room with a book.
You have books. All right, well, let's let's see here. So, OK, I'll do the same as I did with Russell for friends. And then you tell me how much do you like books?
A lot. All right, well, you were a little bit bigger, so we'll I got this one here. We'll see if you can do this. Is that OK? All right. Yeah. You're you're used to heavy stuff. Probably. OK, And what's the last one that you chose? Oh, look at that. She chose sports too. How much do you like sports?
00:10:20
Not that much, right?
That's good. All right, we'll just, we'll take him out soon, so don't worry about it. But here's the thing. Now you know all, you know, you guys have literal weights in your backpack, and probably the longer you have him there, the heavier they feel, right? Well, what we're talking about is not literal weights, but things that kind of take up a lot of our time if we're not careful, right? And the problem with these things is.
Their weight's not just when we're occupied with it, but it kind of waits 24 hours a day because if we really like sports or books or whatever it is we tend to like, even when we're not doing it, we think about it, we're occupied with it. They capture our affections. And so they they are with us all the time. And so it tells us to to be careful with them. We'll talk about that a little bit more, but what if I told you now?
You have to just keep these backpacks on for the rest of conference.
That wouldn't be that much fun, right? Because I'm sure if you stay here tomorrow for the picnic, you guys will probably play games and run around. How would that work with whatever you have in there? 20 lbs or so? Would you like that? No. And so we need to be careful because those things really slow us down. And it talks about a race. Let's make one more point before we take the backpacks out here when you come over here.
And I do have the most weight. So why don't you sit down?
OK. And how does that feel better? Feels a lot better, right, Because the chair is kind of holding the weight. So. But if you run a race, are you sitting down? Are you making any progress? You're not. And so sometimes we are like that. We say, well, yeah, I have some things in my life that kind of take up a lot of my time, but they don't feel like weights.
Maybe it's because we're not making any progress in our Christian pathway. We're sitting down or we're lying down.
We're not going anywhere. And so, yes, we might not feel that weight so much, but then we're not going anywhere. And that's not what the Lord wants us to do, right? OK, why don't you guys come, come back here. I'll take the weights out. There's no need here to make you miserable.
But you know what? A few years ago, I was visiting my family in Belgium and I did a Sunday school that was kind of similar like this. And my nephew, who's about 9 or 10 back then, he volunteered. You can sit down, you can keep the backpack. He volunteered and I did the same thing. And I made the mistake of not telling him how many cards to take.
And I think he ended up with seven of them. And he's a very, some people know him, Louis.
He's a very kind of honest, you can keep the backpacking. He's a very kind of open, honest kid. And every time I asked him how much do you like, he's a whole lot. And so when I put the last, I didn't have weights, but I used different sizes of water bottles. When I put the last one in, he was actually toppling over. I had to steady him. I'm like, wow, this is working out better than I thought.
And then I talked for a couple of minutes and, you know, he kind of studied himself.
And I looked at him. And so your case says, no, I need to take it off. It was just too heavy. He was about to, you know, collapse.
And isn't that interesting? I mean, that's it was kind of funny, but you know what? That's sometimes how we are in our Christian lives. We're just, we can't go anywhere because we have so much weights, different things.
That we've allowed in our lives that we're not making any progress. And so I'll show you some of the ones that they didn't choose.
Here's one that maybe some people like music, you know, painting arts, that can be something that takes up a lot of time.
I got a couple of boys at home that are great fans of this here.
Maybe this How about school Oregon work? You know, I never was a huge fan of school, but I know some people are That can be a problem. But here's another thing and.
Yeah, I used to always think that way and I still do. But sometimes we think, you know, when I get a little older, things will get easier.
And I have a few here that may be for you younger kids. It doesn't mean that much. And you know, when I put the cards out, the toys, the friends, the sports, I wrote two of them because I thought there's a good chance that both my volunteers will take those. But I got a few here that I only wrote one, and none of them got taken. But I just want to show you that as you get older.
00:15:24
There's still things that we need to be careful of, you know, How about this?
Is this something that can be a weight in our lives? Social media, anybody? If I would, you know, ask for a show of hands, very general one, but we know what this means. Our phone can put it in your pocket. You'll hardly feel it's there. The boy, can it be await in your life?
Maybe some of us are very interested in all kinds of news. Might be World News, might be business news. Whatever you like, it's there and as much of it as you want. And here's another one.
What about this? Can this be a problem in our lives where we live because we live in a place where we have lots, the good life, you know, all the things that kind of pamper the flesh. Can that slow us down in our lives? I think it sure can. And so, you know, I had Russell and Anna who were volunteers.
And they did very good. But don't think this is just a lesson for kids. You know, Jayden, if I would ask you up here, I would have put a backpack on you. How would you end up? Would you have weights in there? It would be pretty heavy. Yep. I think if I had to do it, and I'm quite a bit older than you guys, I probably need a bigger backpack.
So don't think that as you grow up, those things will kind of just go away and everything will be fine. We need to be very careful in our life. So let's read that verse again. It says wherefore sing. We also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every way and the sin which dot so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. You know, there's a lot in that verse.
And it says, let us you know what that means is that we are responsible. We have control over the things that we allow in our lives.
You know we live in a world today when more than ever.
There's the availability of things that can distract us. You know, everything is available now all the time. And if we don't make a real effort to say that's not going to help me, that's actually going to distract me and slow me down in my life for the Lord, it's there and we might not even notice it. You know, the problem with these weights are they usually start very small. It's just something, oh, that's interesting. And as we go on and we're not careful.
It takes up more and more of our time. You know, maybe I would ask Anna Russell to come back and next year and they might say, well, you know what, I'm actually reading more books than I did last year. I need a heavier weight. And that's how it tends to go in our lives. If we're not careful, those things grow. And I was thinking too, last night, you guys probably were here for the gospel meeting at the very end. Brother Dean said, you know, if we accept the Lord Jesus as our Saviour right away, we get three enemies.
And they, the world, the flesh and Satan, they work together to slow us down in our Christian pathway.
They know, and that's very wonderful that they can do anything about our salvation because our salvation is not based on what we do and what we're occupied with. Our salvation is based on the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, right? And nothing can ever change that. And that's wonderful. But they're going to work really hard to bring all these things in our lives.
That we're not living for the Lord anymore. That we're occupied with all kinds of other interests.
That take our hearts, so it says let us, and then it says let us lay aside every way.
You know what we tend to do sometimes if we realize that we spend too much time with other things, we might pick the thing that interest source the least and say, OK, maybe I'll put that aside. There's certain things that we really like. We don't want to part with that. But here it says, let us lay aside every way. And then it says to that they easily beset us. It's very easy to pick up weights. It's a lot harder to lay them aside so.
How do we do that? Now you know, here we have and probably most of us would have to say, Yep, I got a pretty full heavy backpack when it comes to weights, but so wonderful. The Lord when he wants us to do things, he always gives us instruction as to how to do things. And so the second verse says this, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of.
00:20:25
The throne of God. So in the previous chapter, Chapter 11, we have all these stories about people from the Old Testament that did wonderful things and always says by faith this person did that. And so they're kind of examples or witnesses to us that it's possible to live by faith and that we can do things for the Lord. And that's good. But now it says, look unto Jesus because he's the great object.
He's he's more than an example. He's our object, but it says that he's the author.
And finisher of faith. And where do we read about the Lord Jesus? It's in the Gospels, right? We read about his life there. And if you look at his life from the beginning till the end, everything was characterized by faith. So he was the completer of faith. We have the perfect example of walking by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now you know, we all know the stories and the Gospels. Can you think of anything that the Lord did that was?
A way, as we talked about it today, that kind of slowed them down or hindered them in doing what his father wanted him to do. Does anybody have an example of that?
No hands. That's good because there are no examples. You know the Lord Jesus. Actually, some of the things that were here on the cards, he did them.
You know, I think, you know, we read about the Lord Jesus, he ate, so he was occupied with food. We even read of him providing food for thousands of people. So food was part of his life, but it never became a way. You know, the Lord Jesus, he actually, I think he exercised the law. If you read about his life, he was always on the go, you know, and if you look at a map of Israel, he was in Jerusalem then he went up to.
To the Sea of Galilee even went more north. He went to the coast, He came back.
He was on the go all the time. He didn't have a car. He was, you know, hiking, walking all the time. So that was part of his life, but it wasn't his object. He did that to help him to serve the Lord. And so we can have friends, you know, we can have things in our life. But let's think about, are they helping us and pleasing the Lord or is it the opposite? Do they hinder us? Because if they're helping us and serving the Lord, they're certainly not weights, they're helps.
But if we allow him to take up too much of our time, they become weights. And then there's one more thing here that I want to talk about a little bit. So the Lord Jesus, his whole pathway was characterized by obedience, by faith. But then it says that it was for the joy that was set before him. You know, we can ask the question, why do we sometimes take up with some of those things?
And I think the answer is because we think they're going to make us happy, right? There's going to be joy.
In doing some of those things, and a lot of them, if they're done in moderation, no problem. But the Lord Jesus found his joy.
In serving his father. And sometimes we think, well, I really like this or that, and if I don't do it anymore, I'm not going to be happy.
But if we kind of substitute those things with things that we can do for the Lord Jesus.
We're actually going to be more happy, but it takes faith to do that. It takes faith to do that because naturally we tend to gravitate. We like those things.
And again, in themselves there's nothing wrong, but it takes faith to do that. And so we have a perfect example of somebody who ran the race, the Lord Jesus.
With nothing that would slow him down and he was happy in doing so. Even though, you know, not everything, every day, not everything was was a happy thing in his life. He was happy in doing so and was just thinking to that, you know, we talked about these things of weights.
We could add a lot more to them. You notice things that can slow us down, like difficulties and trials. I didn't put those in, but that's a whole different set of things that can be weights in our lives. And the Lord tells us that we can cast our cares upon him and He cares for us. He takes care for us. And so really it is it's are we living by faith or are we allowing things in our own lives that we think will help us or make us happy?
To really slow us down and to distract us.
So thank you for the volunteers and thank you for listening and just all of us. Let's just be careful that we don't get too occupied, spend too much time on things that are not a help to us. It won't really won't make us happy. We might think it will, but it won't. But doing things for the Lord, those things will make us happy.