All right, are we ready for the Word of God? Y’all ready? I am on part four of a series. What’s the series called? As I am music, tell them what it’s called, please. Please! He’s just showing off! I can do that. Y’all know I’m the backup drummer here. Whenever something happens, I can take over. Uh, good afternoon, everybody. We are in part four of this new series. I’m going back to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1. If you have the ability to stand up without causing harm to yourself, please join me in standing as we read this Word together today. Hopefully, the people who are coming in will see you standing, and they’ll know you have a spot in your row for them. Hebrews chapter 12. While you’re standing, please look around at someone near you, one or two people, and say, «Hey, I’m glad you made it to church today.» Just two people, do that for me. Two people. Glad you made it today! Amen! And also ask them, «Do you have my money? Don’t think I forgot you. You owe me some money!» Hebrews 12, verse 1 says, «Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.» And do what? Let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. That race He set before us includes our walk with Him and our work for Him. That race! But go back; it says, «Let us throw off, strip off every weight.» Everybody say, «Weight.» Weight slows us down. It’s hard to run with endurance the race God has set before me when I’m tired and weighed down. You may be seated. Last week in part three, I focused on a weight called unforgiveness. It’s hard to run light and free when I’m bitter, when I won’t let go of what happened, when I won’t forgive those who let me down. Even if the one who let me down was me, sometimes the person we really need to forgive is ourselves. I want to run light; I want to run free. People will let you down; people will hurt you. People are just people; that’s what people do. They disappoint us; they let us down; they break promises; they betray us. And guess what? We’re in that group too. We let people down; we break promises; we hurt feelings; we betray people; we disappoint people. And the people who get done with God, put them here to get done! Don’t get stuck; you just have to learn to let stuff go! «I forgive it; I forgive you; I forgive me; I’ve got to keep going!» Today, I want to talk about two other weights that I’m combining because they’re like twins. They will jump you! I don’t know if you’ve ever been jumped before, but that means you thought you were fighting one person, but then you start feeling punches coming from in front of you. You’re like, «Man, who just hit me?» These two things, guilt and grief, will jump you. To me, it’s the elephant in the room because a lot of people… I’m gonna pitch. I’m gonna keep running; keep running your race! And some of you’ll be like passed out. «I stopped running when she died, when he died, when they died, when it died. I know I’m still here, but a part of me died too. I can’t believe God would let that happen.» I’ve been start running! Or maybe your thing is in grief; you stop running because of the guilt. You say, «Pastor, man! I ain’t even walking with the Lord; I am so ashamed of what I did. I feel so bad about what I said or what I got in trouble for. You know I’ve been locked up; I’ve been in jail; I’ve been in trouble. I am so ashamed of what I did, what I didn’t do, what I should have done, what I said, what I should have said that I didn’t say. I’ve stopped running. I don’t even feel worthy of walking with God and working for God.» And I know this is deep water I’m going into today, but I’m coming for you today. God, with everything I’ve got, I’m gonna find you today. I’m swimming out to wherever you are today to let you know God sees you, and He loves you, and He doesn’t want you to stay in timeout. You put yourself on that punishment; you put yourself on that punishment. Now let me just say before I go into this content, grief and guilt together will paralyze you. But I understand grief is supposed to slow you down. Whenever you lose something in life, it hurts. Grief hurts. But I want you to understand that if you’re grieving, God’s not picking on you. Everybody loses something. If you live, you’re gonna lose. Loss is a part of life, and all loss hurts. Everybody in here has lost something. We haven’t lost the same thing; even in loss, it’s wrong to say we lost the same thing. I lost my mother. If you lost your mother, I can’t say I know what that’s like for you because my mother was different from yours, and I’m different from you. Don’t try to tell somebody, «I know what it’s like to be you.» No, you don’t! We’re not the same people, and we didn’t have the same situation. Don’t say you’ve been… Well, you can’t be where…
