Yeah.
50 seconds.
Is that over over here?
Or for that either way?
50 seconds.
We have 24 seconds.
You got something?
Okay.
50 seconds.
Is that over over here?
Or for that either way?
50 seconds.
We have 24 seconds.
You got something?
We have 24 seconds.
You got something?
We have 24 seconds.
You can give us a good service by singing song number 23,
Davis Power of Love.
["Pomp and Circumstance"]
In the life, in the blood of a man,
there is one power in the world.
In the righteous one and the God of love,
would you be free from your passion fire?
There's power in the blood, there's
power in the blood.
When your heart is full, your mind
seems to be out of this town.
There's hope in the world.
There's love in the blood, there's
power in the blood of a man.
In the blood of a man, there's power in the blood.
In the righteous one and the God of love,
would you be free from your passion fire?
There's power in the blood, power in the blood.
In the righteous one and the God of love,
would you be free from your passion fire?
There's power in the blood, there's
power in the blood, power in the blood.
There's power in the blood, power in the blood.
In the righteous one and the God of love,
would you be free from your passion fire?
There's power in the blood, power in the blood.
Those praises I sing, there's one new power in the blood.
There's power YahOwah in the blood by the blood.
There is one God, one and only one, with the grace of God.
Amen.
Thank you, Lord, for this.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity
to be gathered in your house, Lord.
Praise you and fill us all with your spirit.
We pray that you pray for the Lord God.
We pray that you build deep in with your spirit.
We pray that you hold it, Lord.
And that we'll be able to receive it.
We love you.
It's something we pray.
Amen.
Let's turn to him.
It's a song of a five.
Why don't you lead the witness class?
The one and only, one and only, one and only, one and only,
one and only, one and only, one and only, one
and only, one and only, one and only, one and only, one
and only, one and only, one and only, one and only,
one and only, one and only, one and only, one and only,
When I see the blood, when I see the blood When I see the blood, I will pass out my soul
When I see the blood, when I see the blood, I will pass out my soul
This is a very, you know, wicked group of people that we're talking about here.
False prophets.
And what's one of the things that they're guilty of?
Speaking evil of dignities.
You know, a dignity is somebody who's in authority.
Right?
Somebody who has, you know, maybe some kind of a position, some kind of authority.
Look at verse nine.
Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body
of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation that said, the Lord rebuke thee.
And he's saying, look, these guys are so brazen and so quick to just blow off their
mouth and so quick to just criticize dignities when Michael the archangel won't even bring
a railing accusation against Satan himself, but leaves it up to God.
And that's a pretty, I mean, if anybody has any right to get mouthy, it's Michael
the archangel.
And if there's anybody that's worthy of being criticized, it's Satan.
But he's saying, but even he didn't do that.
And yet these people, these false prophets, they have no problem just blowing off their
mouth and what are they really doing at the end of the day?
Being critical.
I mean, that's an understatement, of course.
But that's really, it's the attitude that's there.
We don't want to be guilty of having this attitude.
For example, in Romans 1, it talks about the things that the reprobate is filled with.
All the iniquity.
And one of the things it lists is disobedient to parents.
Disobedient to parents.
That's an end times attitude that's out there.
People are disobedient to parents.
We might not be a lot of the other things that the sodomite is, praise God.
But you know, I don't want to share anything in common with them.
And what am I, why am I bringing up disobedient to parents?
It's a rebellious attitude.
It's a criticism of authority.
That's not something we want to be a part of our lives.
That's not something, that's not a trait I want to share in common with the reprobate.
Okay?
And obviously that's something we're all capable of doing.
It's just that the reprobate is filled with all those things and one of them being disobedient
to parents.
I mean, of all the things that a reprobate is and does, it almost feels like that could
just be left off the list.
Like, we get it.
They're bad.
But it's like, hey, and they're disobedient to parents, by the way.
It's like, I don't know why, why that was brought up.
But you know what?
It's a, it's a good point that we don't want to share anything in common with those people.
So let's not be disobedient to our parents.
Let's respect the authorities in our lives and not develop this overly critical spirit.
Go to 2 Peter chapter number two.
It's a parallel passage to Jude.
We'll see something similar there.
2 Peter chapter number two and verse nine.
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to reserve the unjust
unto judgment unto the, excuse me, the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.
But chiefly then that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise government.
Okay?
And they despise authority.
They despise rule.
Isn't that the exact same kind of, isn't that the same kind of thing that's kind of going
on in Numbers with Miriam and Aaron?
And Moses.
Because Moses was the leader.
He was the one that was in charge.
And they're getting bitter.
They're getting angry.
And they're despising him.
Right?
Look, we might not be all the things that these people are in Jude in 2 Peter chapter
number two.
But that doesn't mean we're not capable of sharing some of their qualities.
And one thing that people need to be on guard about is rebellion in their hearts.
And the way rebellion manifests itself sometimes is not in, you know, just quitting church
and growing your hair out and doing all the things you're not supposed to do.
Right?
I mean, that's, you kind of laugh at the hair growing thing.
It's kind of a silly example.
But, you know, that's what that was all about.
Sixties and the seventies.
That's how they rebelled.
It was a counter cultural to grow your hair out.
Because back, you know, leading up to that, everyone kind of knew, look clean cut.
Get a haircut.
You know, men should look like men.
So, when they rebelled, when they had their revolution, you know, the great enlightenment
that was the sixties, a bunch of dope smoking idiots, one of the things that they did is
they, you know, they let their hair grow long.
And then by the time the seventies came around, they let their shorts get really short.
You know, they had a bunch of dudes running around in Daisy Dukes.
Bunch of weirdos.
Bunch of long haired hippies.
Right?
But here's the thing.
That's not, you know, that's an obvious manifestation of rebellion that we saw in
our culture.
But, you know, you can have rebellion inside of a church.
And it doesn't show up in people just growing out their hair and doing all these things
that the world would do.
The way it manifests itself is through criticism.
Through tearing down leadership, tearing down other people, and just having a bad attitude.
And really just being bitter and being angry and being upset.
You know, some people get addicted to being angry.
You can get addicted to negative emotions.
Did you know that?
Some people are, they're just so used to just being bitter and angry and upset that
it's like they don't know how to live any other way.
That's a scary thing, isn't it?
To be somebody who's just so used to negative emotions that if you ever got away from it
you wouldn't know what to do with yourself.
And some people, they're so used to it and it's so subtle that they'll actually make
it that way.
Even if everything's fine.
Even if there are no problems.
They will go out of their way to make a problem just so they can feel normal.
It's out there.
I know it sounds crazy, but the human mind is a very complex thing and that kind of thing
happens.
People grow up in hard situations, they have hard childhoods, and they have hard upbringings,
and they're just so used to turmoil and chaos and just, you know, trauma and negativity
that they can actually become so accustomed they think that's baseline, that's normal.
And then when life actually gets good, when there actually is some peace, when some things
start to get better, it's so foreign to them, it's so out of the ordinary, it's
like they have to find a way to make things worse.
You know, this is something I've thought a lot about and this is, you know, one way
the analogy that I use for myself is that, you know, sometimes we grow up in life and
it's just like life is just so, there's just so much turmoil going on, right?
Maybe we had a real hard childhood, maybe some things were really difficult in childhood,
you know, that just creates a lot of turmoil.
And it's like you're in this, you're kind of drowning in this water and there's
just all this murkiness and you can't see clearly.
You know, that eventually, you know, life kind of settles down, you grow, you mature,
you start to understand things, and that sediment starts to, you know, drift towards the bottom
and life gets a little clearer.
And then you realize you're drowning, then you realize you're underwater, and you
can see the top, you can see that surface, and you can surface, and you see the light
up there, but you know what, some people are so used to drowning and some people are just
so used to the murkiness, instead of going towards the surface, of heading towards the
light and getting some air, they just kick up the sediment again and just cloud everything.
Because that's what they're used to.
And people live their whole lives like this.
And we've got to be on guard against that.
Because we'll carry that from relationship to relationship, from ministry to ministry,
if we're not careful.
Because that's how bitterness and anger and resentment and rebellion manifest, even
in God's own people.
You know, people can get rebellious and get an attitude in church, they're not going
to come in here and, you know, just light up or something and start smoking in the back.
Just eh, see what you're going to do, you know what I mean, just do some exterior thing
that's real obvious.
It's all internal, they'll do it inwardly.
That it will manifest eventually.
I don't even know if we read 2 Peter, let's just move along before I rant too much tonight.
Go back to Romans chapter number 14.
And again, you know, what's the antidote to all this?
It's humility.
How do you become a more careful person when it comes to criticism?
To not be an overly critical person, it's humility.
That's the key.
I should have gone to Deuteronomy 17, but I'll just read to you.
So the question is, you know, how do you get humility?
Well, think about Moses' case.
Moses was the meekest man, right?
Why was he so quick to just forgive Miriam?
Why did he beseech God on her behalf to show mercy?
Because of his meekness. What made him so meek?
The fact that he was close to God.
And obviously, you and I, we're not going to see the similitude of God.
We're not going to dwell in a literal tabernacle
upon which the fire comes down by night and the cloud by the day.
We're not going to be that close to God.
We're never going to be put in the cleft of the rock and all of that.
But you know what? We have a more sure word of prophecy,
where until you do well, they take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place.
We've been given this.
And really, when you think about it, Moses was given the same thing.
He was given the commandments.
He was with the Lord. He was with the word of God.
You know, this book will humble you, folks.
That's why a lot of people don't like reading it.
Because it's a very humbling book.
And when we read it and God begins to speak to us out of it,
we might not like what we find sometimes.
You know, but James tells us, you know, that there's times in our life,
if necessary, if it's appropriate, to let our joy be turned into mourning.
You know, life isn't always about happiness.
I know I kind of preached about this recently.
But you know, more important than your happiness is your holiness.
I would rather be holy than happy.
If me being holy meant I was unhappy, so be it.
Because happy is fleeting.
Happy comes and goes.
I mean, people get happy about something, and then the next minute they're not.
You know, we're happy when we're handed the burgers at In-N-Out.
We're all happy, driving home like I was this afternoon,
thinking about the double-double.
Those delicious French fries, amen, that they have In-N-Out.
Delicious.
And the Coke, very happy.
You know, when I was gone, I wasn't as happy anymore.
Because it was gone.
And I started eyeing everybody else's food, right?
And then my kids started bringing me fries, and I was happy again.
But if all I cared about being happy, that means if all that was important to me was happy,
it's like, well, backed In-N-Out, backed In-N-Out, backed In-N-Out.
I know it's a very carnal example.
But you know, I thought, well, I'll be happy about something else later.
What's more important is that I'm holy.
Okay?
I'm ranting, I know, but here's the thing.
How are we going to guard against being overly critical of people,
of tearing down leadership, humility?
Deuteronomy 17, I'll just read to you in verse 18.
This course is talking about giving some of the rules for the king of Israel when the king would reign.
And one of the things that he had to do, it says in verse 18,
was when he saideth upon the throne of his kingdom,
He shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests and the Levites.
So he was literally to sit down and copy out himself,
sit down and write out the word of God, take a copy of the law from before the priests,
and write it out, and get it right.
Perfect.
Have a perfect copy of the law.
Why?
Verse 19, and it shall be with him, and he shall read.
According to God, there's a purpose behind having the written word,
so that it will be read.
And he shall read therein all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord as God.
You know what that tells me?
Is that if we're not reading, we will not fear the Lord the way we ought to.
If you're not reading the word of God, you will not fear God the way you ought to.
And you can sit there and tell yourself, no, I fear God, I would never do this and that.
If you're not reading the book, if you're not reading the Bible, you do not fear God the way you ought to.
I mean, isn't that what it's saying?
Wasn't that the whole purpose of him writing it so that he would read it?
Isn't the whole purpose of him reading it so that he would learn to fear the Lord as God?
Because you start to read the things he would have written down in the Old Testament,
and you go, yeah, God's scary.
Because God's holy.
And he said, be holy even as I am holy.
That he may learn to fear the Lord as God to keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them.
But notice, and I know I'm just reading to you, in verse 20 it says also,
one of the purposes behind the king writing out the word of God and reading it was not just to fear God,
but also it says in verse 20 that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren.
That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren.
Look, when you see people get lifted up with pride and people become overly critical
and start to tear down other people,
a lot of times it's coming from the fact that their heart has been lifted up above their brethren.
The word of God is a very humbling thing.
I had you in Romans chapter 14.
So, you know, again, what are we talking about this evening?
It's not being overly critical.
Being careful in criticism.
I'm not saying don't ever criticize.
Don't ever have a judgment.
Don't ever have an opinion.
But I've said this before and I'll say it again.
It was a great day when I realized I didn't have to have an opinion about everything.
And we're living in a day and age where everyone thinks they have to have an opinion about everything,
and not only that, they feel the responsibility and they have the opportunity to express that opinion
on social media or wherever else.
It's a great day when I realized I don't have to have an opinion about everything.
I don't have to have an opinion about what's going on in everybody else's churches.
I don't have to have an opinion what's going on in other people's homes.
You know, but I will deal with it when it starts to spill over into this church.
When it starts to affect the body.
Yeah, then I'm going to have something to say.
I'm going to have an opinion and I'm going to preach it.
When it starts to affect this church, when it starts to affect my home, yeah, I'm going to get up and preach a sermon
and you know what, it might be a little critical.
But that's because my hand's been forced.
Because that's my job, to reprove, to rebuke, to exhort, to comfort, all of that.
The other way in which people, the other group that gets criticized is just people in general.
Okay, and I want to preach about this for a minute. Romans chapter 14, if you look at verse 1.
Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not doubtful disputations.
You know, some people, you know, they've got, they're starting out, we all start out as babes in Christ.
Right, we all start out having to grow.
They're weak in the faith, right.
And the Bible says don't, it says to be careful that we ought to receive those people.
But obviously not to doubtful disputations.
You know, we're not going to sit there and entertain every foolish thing, you know, and just put up with a bunch of nonsense, right.
But we also ought to be, open our arms and receive people.
And he gets real specific, you know, about eating herbs and other things.
For one that believeth, verse 2, one believeth that he may eat all things, another who is weak eateth herbs.
Let not him that eateth despiseth him that eateth not.
And let not him which eateth judge not him, judge not him that eateth.
For God hath received him.
And then he says in verse 4, who art thou that judgest another man's servant?
And that judging there, he's talking about having a critical spirit, I believe.
And picking apart other people for things that they do, for preferences that they might have.
Or maybe they're just weak in the faith in some way.
You know, one area that I've really reigned this in for myself is in soul winning.
You know, and I even look back at some of the things I've preached and sermons that I've preached,
and I've said to myself, I'll never preach another soul winning sermon like that again.
Where I, you know, just insist on all my personal preferences, you know, that people do things exactly the way I do.
Because what it ends up doing is just discouraging people.
You know, and honestly, it's overly critical.
Right? And that discourages people.
Look, if someone who's weak in the faith comes in here and we just start picking them apart,
say, don't you know how to dress?
Don't you know what the proper hair length is?
Do you know, you know, and just start tearing people apart about all the standards that we have.
You know, that's not going to just, that's not going to light them on fire for God.
That's going to send them running out the door.
You know, we don't want to receive people to doubtful disputations.
You know, heretics, people who just want to come in and talk foolishness,
and bring in, you know, stupid false doctrine.
Yeah, we're not going to put up with that.
But people who are just new to the faith, you know, have some growing to do,
let's not pick them apart. Let's not be over critically of those people.
Over critical of those people, is what I'm trying to say.
And he's saying, who art thou that judgest another man's servant?
His own master, he standeth the fault.
Yea, he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand.
But why, it says in verse 10, dost thou judge thy brother?
Or dost thou set it not thy brother?
For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
What's he saying? You know, we ought to be more concerned with our own walk than that of everybody else's.
Look, I'm all for encouraging people and helping them,
but it has to be done in the right spirit and to bring them along,
you know, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Bring them up gently, I understand that.
But we don't want to cross over into this where we're becoming overly critical of people
and criticizing people unnecessarily.
And the one thing that I'm using as an example is soul winning.
You know, I go soul winning with people, and look, this isn't any one person.
This is something, multiple times I've gone soul winning and thought this to myself.
And thought, you know, and seen people kind of struggling with certain points,
and I've just said to myself, you know, I'm not going to say anything,
because I'm just glad they're there.
I'm just glad that they're out there preaching the gospel.
You know the best way to learn soul winning?
It's not necessarily to just sit here and listen to what I have to say about it.
It's to go do it.
Because I can sit here and give you all the points and tell you exactly how to conduct yourself
and all these things and all the preferences that I have,
but it's not going to help you until you actually go out there and do it.
The most helpful thing in soul winning is for you to just go do it.
And that's why I've learned to just back off of people in soul winning.
Just say, hey, if they're out there doing it, they're on their way to success.
All I got to do is, you know, just encourage them to keep going
and just be a support and just let them be consistent.
They'll get there.
That's how it was for me, and I'm not trying to lift myself up as some great soul winner,
but, you know, I'd like to think after doing it for ten years consistently
that I'm better than when I started at least.
You know, hopefully that's the trajectory we're all on, right?
But, you know, wherever I am today to whatever level of a soul winner I am,
that's not where I started.
You know, I stuttered and stammered and had a hard time and missed points
and, you know, made things and made mistakes.
You know, if you can call it a mistake, I don't know.
You know, but I didn't have the picture perfect textbook method of soul winning
that some people might insist on when I started.
You know what got me where I am?
To whatever level I've gotten to today, you know what helped me improve?
Just kept going.
And obviously there were sermons that helped me along the way,
things that helped me, you know, shore up some things
and nail some things down and learn how to correct some things, obviously.
You know, since I'm on the subject of soul winning,
you know, the one thing that I think if I were to offer criticism for people,
and I think this is the one thing you see that most people struggle with when it comes to soul winning,
is to, and it's not them, it's not the soul winner's fault,
it's the person they're preaching to's fault.
It's the concept that they have a hard time grasping,
the concept of the fact that salvation's a gift and that it's eternal.
I mean, those are the two things that we need to make sure we have nailed down in our gospel presentation
more than anything else.
Again, for the people that we're preaching to's sake, okay,
and I don't want to turn this into a soul winning sermon, okay,
but if I were to offer advice to people, you know, what I've seen most consistently
is that those are the two areas that we need to focus on the most in our soul winning,
because most people get sin.
It's very rare, if ever, that you have to convince somebody that they're a sinner.
You don't have to go back to Genesis and explain where sin came from and yada, yada, yada.
People pick that up pretty quick, right,
but it's the concepts of the fact that it's a gift and it's eternal,
that's where people struggle the most. I'm turning this into another sermon.
Go over to James, chapter number four,
and I'm just using it as an example of not being overly critical,
and being careful in my criticism.
You know, if someone came to me and said, hey, what could I do better?
You know, would you have any recommendations?
You know, I may or may not have something to suggest.
A lot of times I just say, I don't, I don't have anything,
because I know the only thing they need to work on is being consistent,
and they'll figure it out.
You know, it reminds me of how my dad taught me to swim.
My mom, you know, took me to the pool at the YMCA,
when we decided we were going to move to,
I don't know if we were moving to Michigan or visiting Michigan,
this was back when we were living in South Dakota,
and she got me as a young boy to take swimming lessons.
You know, and I had to learn how to dive off the diving platform,
I mean the little one, you know, not the diving platform, right, the little one.
How to tread water and do all that, how to get over my fear of the water,
all of that, right?
And I did that, you know, but I can't say that I knew how to swim really well,
or knew that, you know, that I didn't have any fear about it.
But I remember the day I really learned to swim.
It was when we were, I was with my dad and we were visiting his friend in Chicago,
and we walked into a backyard and his friend had an above-ground pool.
And we had just flown in, he picked us up at the airport, my dad's friend,
and we went to his house.
I haven't even changed, I'm in the same clothes I flew in.
And my dad's behind me, we're just walking there, no mention of swimming.
No towels have gotten, we haven't gotten out any towels.
You know, we're not talking about swimming at all.
And all of a sudden I'm airborne.
And I'm just cascading through the air and then splash.
And my dad said, swim.
You know what happened?
I swam, right?
Swum swam, I swam.
Right? I mean I had all the lessons, I had all the instruction,
I had somebody tell me this and tell me that and watched every move that I made.
Mom had paid the fee and got, take me down to the Y and I got all that.
But you know what I really learned to swim is when someone just threw me in the deep end
and said, figure it out.
You know, and that's, a lot of times that's the best way to learn things.
That's the best way to learn soul winning.
Sometimes it's just like, this door's yours, boom.
Go get them.
Well what if I mess up? Well they're not any less saved than when you got there.
You know, what if I do something wrong?
Well, you know, they were unsaved when you got here.
What if I give them a false sense of salvation?
You know, it's such a dumb argument.
Don't preach the gospel, you wouldn't want to give them a false sense of salvation.
Like they're going to go through the rest of their life thinking they're saved if they don't get it.
What harm could there be in preaching somebody the gospel even if it's not done to the,
if you weren't Jesus when you did it?
No harm.
I've completely gone off the rails in the sermon.
What are we talking about? Being overly critical of leadership, being over critical of people.
That's the point I was making.
We want to be over critical of people that maybe are new to soul winning, new to church.
Did I have you go to James?
Chapter 4, look at verse 11.
Speak not evil one of another, brethren.
He that speaketh evil of his brother and judgeth his brother speaketh evil of the law and judgeth the law.
But if thou judgeth law, thou art not a doer law but a judge.
There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy who art thou that judgeth another.
And it's kind of like what he was saying in Romans, like, you know, God is able to make him stand.
Who art thou that judgeth another man's servant?
This is what we have to understand when we're judging brethren, being overly critical of brethren.
Even if they're in another church.
You know, you can have, you know, we're not the only saved people in the world in this room tonight.
You know, there's saved people outside of Faith Word Baptist Church.
And I dare say there's even saved people outside of the new YFB.
There's even saved people that don't even identify as Baptists.
And if they're saved, you know what that makes them?
A brother. And if they're a brother, that means they're God's child.
And that means they already have a lawgiver.
They already have, they're already our servant to God.
They already have someone that's going to judge them and deal with them.
God doesn't need my help.
I mean, isn't that what happened in Numbers 11 when he showed up?
God just showed up and took care of it for Moses.
Moses is just like, hey, God's got this.
He'll deal with the bad attitude. He'll deal with the bad spirit.
He'll deal with the criticism and the rebellion all on his own.
He doesn't need my help.
I've already kind of touched on this.
So I'm going to move on past the other thing that people get critical about.
Practices and standards.
But if you would, let's just close in 1 Peter 5.
I do need to wrap this up.
The Bible says in Ephesians 5, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
You know, we ought to submit to one another in the fear of God.
Obviously that's within the context of authority and what's appropriate.
Whatever it is we're endeavoring to do, whoever's in charge, that's who we submit to.
That's why it says wives submit to your own husbands as under the Lord.
Therefore the church is subject unto Christ.
It doesn't mean that we all are constantly submitting one to another,
but it's that we submit one to another as we ought to, as is appropriate.
1 Peter 5, it says in verse 5, likewise ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder.
Yea, all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility.
For God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble.
It all comes back to that again, doesn't it?
You know, pride and humility.
These things are, you know, at odds.
You either have one or the other.
And if, you know, rather than being critical, rather than tearing people down,
what we should be doing is submitting and lifting up our brethren
and helping them and praying for them and loving them
and being, you know, as is appropriate, being subject one to another
and being clothed with humility.
That's really the last point I'm trying to make.
How are you going to avoid being an overly critical person?
Humility.
It takes humility to recognize your own faults and your own shortcomings.
And the more we just think about our own faults and our own shortcomings,
you know what, the other people's shortcomings and other people's faults
are going to get smaller and smaller and more and more inconsequential to us.
And then what we'll realize at some point is that it doesn't even matter
because there's nothing we can do about it anyway.
You know, if I had the power to change people, believe me,
I would have started a long time ago.
But I don't.
That's why I don't get hung up on, you know, other people's shortcomings.
That's something they have to work on.
That's something they have to deal with.
I can't change people.
Believe me, I've tried.
There's some things that I'm just like,
well, I don't even know if there's a point in preaching on that anymore.
Maybe a gentle reminder every so often,
but there's no point in harping on some things
because some people like to just dig their heels in is what I've noticed.
The more you preach on it, the more they're like, oh, yeah, bring it on, preacher.
Let's see what you got.
And I just say, you know what?
Why not just focus on me, the one person I can control?
Why don't I exert the most influence where I can in my own home
and just let everybody else work, let God work on everybody else,
let God work it out with other people,
let him do the work that he needs to do
and not live the rest of my life criticizing and tearing down other people
and just, you know, and having that kind of an attitude.
It's not right.
And it'll turn us into bitter people.
It really will.
Because you'll find out, you know, if we just get so hell-bent
on just trying to just make people change and you find out they don't,
it's just, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.
You're just setting yourself up to be embittered.
I'd rather just, you know, put on the cloak of humility,
just be clothed in humility, just let humility envelop me
and let it be, just cover me and hide all my own shortcomings
and hide all my own, you know, faults under humility,
under that clothing so that God would have grace with me.
We all need God's grace.
You know, we all need God's mercy.
And he said, under the merciful, thou wilt show thyself merciful.
That's why it's better to be a merciful, gracious, loving, patient,
kind, forgiving person rather than a bitter, harsh, critical, judgmental.
And Lord, I pray to help us to not harbor bitterness and anger
towards others, that we would not be envious
and that we would not bite and devour one another, Lord,
but that we would be clothed with humility, Lord,
and that we would, you know, think more on our own faults
and our own shortcomings, necessarily, than that of others.
And Lord, help us to have discretion and discernment
and know when it's appropriate, Lord, to deal with something
and when we can just let things go.
And Lord, help us to understand that we don't have to have an opinion
about everything and we don't need to express it all the time, Lord,
that we can just be content in knowing that we have peace with you
and, Lord, that you will show us mercy and help when we need it, Lord,
if we do the same for others.
We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen.
All right, we'll go ahead and sing one more song before we go.
Amen.
Tippin' up our hymnals, this is song number 44.
Song number 44, we'll work two pieces.
We'll go ahead and sing one more song.
Jesus Christ, I pray for praise to you
Jesus Christ, I pray for praise
to you