verse. No condemnation. Now I dread. That's amazing, isn't it? Amazing love. But you sing
that fourth verse. Really lift it up. No condemnation. Now I dread. Sing it out.
afternoon everybody or good morning sorry and welcome to Steadfast Baptist
Church it's great to see everybody here this morning we go and grab our hymenal
or actually we're gonna start this morning in our binders our black
binders mine is white y'all's are black laminated handouts in which should be he
is mine he is mine it's toward the back of the binder
somewhat of a newer song to us
If you know it well, sing it out loudly.
It's meant to be sung that way.
He is mine.
I think we'll all enjoy it once we get the hang of it.
So, he is mine in our binder.
Thank you so much for this church.
Thank you for the ability to gather here
and the opportunity to hear your word
and sing your songs.
Oh, we love you.
And we just ask you to bless this church
and fill it with your spirit.
And in Jesus' name we pray.
All right, for our next song,
let's go to song number seven in our hymnals.
Song number seven.
Another somewhat newer song to us.
Song number seven.
I gave my life for thee.
You know what?
I gave my life for the
Good morning. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you didn't already get a bulletin, you would like one.
Just lift your hand nice and high.
On the front, we have our Bible memory passage,
and we're still working on Matthew 28.
We're getting really close to ending this one.
On the inside, we have our service and soul winning times,
as well as our church stats.
Please make sure you're updating our group chats and our soul winning maps.
On the right, we have a list of expecting ladies.
Please be in prayer for them.
Upcoming events our kids choir practice on Sundays at 2 we only have a couple more
And also my wife was going to ask for those kids to come early for one quick practice on the next
or on the Easter Sunday morning because that's where they're going to be singing.
She'll give some detailed instructions about that at practice today.
Spring Swap is going to be April the 13th.
Mrs. Nyeem has been helping organize that.
If you have questions, you can bring things today or Wednesday.
It's going to be next Sunday.
The Mansfield Sewing Marathon is April 19th and
Some church friends of ours and even just anybody that wants to participate is kind of doing a like a mega marathon style event
So and we're gonna be participating in the Mansfield area. So we're excited to do that
We have cards over here on our cabinet that have an Easter invitation
So if you would like to hand out Easter invitations, we have those as well
So you can grab some we have a baby shower in honor of the Scots on May 3rd
And then there's a Mother's Day brunch May 10th
Down below is some church reminders on the back.
We have the baby shower for Miss Scott and her baby boy.
It's from 12 to two on the third.
If you'd like to get them a gift,
they're registered on Amazon.
It is nursing's only preferred.
And if you can, please RSVP to Ms. Milstead.
She's helping with this baby shower.
She usually helps with most of them.
Down below is our prayer list.
Please make sure you're in prayer for our church.
And that's really pretty much all I have
as far as announcements.
Go ahead and sing our third song.
It's gonna be Psalm 119, Psalm 119
in our special Psalm Binders.
All right, that was Psalm 119.
Psalm 119, let's all sing it out together.
감사합니다!
Bibles to Matthew chapter 18. That's the book of Matthew chapter number 18.
reads, at the same time came the disciples unto Jesus saying, who is the greatest in the kingdom of
heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him and set him in the midst of them and said, verily,
I say unto you, accept ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the
kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest
and whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me,
it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck,
and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
Woe unto the world because of offenses, must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that
man by whom the offense cometh, wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them
off and cast them from thee.
It is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed rather than having two hands or
two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.
It is better for thee to enter into life with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into hellfire.
Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you,
that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father, which is in heaven.
For the Son of Man is come to save that which was lost.
How think ye, if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray,
doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?
And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, He rejoiceth more of that sheep
than of the ninety and nine which were not astray.
Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little
ones should perish.
Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee
and him alone.
If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother."
But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more than in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church, but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
Verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching
anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
Then came Peter to him and said,
Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven.
Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants,
and when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents.
But for as much as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children,
and all that he had, and payment to be made.
The servant therefore fell down and worshiped him, saying,
Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
Then the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion
and loosed him and forgave him the debt.
But the same servant went out and found one of his fellow
servants, which owed him a hundred pence,
and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat,
saying, pay me that thou o'est.
And his fellow servant fell down at his feet and besought him,
saying, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.
And he would not, but went and cast him into prison till he should pay the debt.
So when his fellow servant saw what was done, they were very sorry and came and told unto their Lord all that was done.
Then his Lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desirest me.
Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee?
And his Lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.
So likewise, shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother, their trespasses.
Let's pray
Father in heaven, we thank you for this day for our church
I pray that you fill pastor Shelley with your spirit now and just enable him to preach the sermon
You've laid on his heart with boldness with clarity of mind and help us Lord
God to apply this message to our lives so that we could be better Christians and more zealous for you in Jesus name
I pray amen amen
The title of my sermon this morning is Conflict Resolution.
Conflict Resolution.
And in Matthew 18, it brings up a pretty famous passage
dealing with conflict and kind of steps
that you would go through.
If you look at verse 15 again,
it says, moreover thy brethren trespass against thee,
go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone,
and if he shall hear thee, thou's gain thy brother.
But if he will not hear thee,
then take with the one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be
established. And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the church, but if he neglect to
hear the church let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican." Now
This particular passage is brought up often by a lot of different people and so
I think it's important to just take the time to really think about this passage and
Talk about conflict resolution as a whole now
I primarily want to address the situation that's being described here in Matthew 18
And we're talking about someone in church having a problem with someone else in church
But I also think that there's a lot of things
we're gonna learn today that we can just apply
to every situation or lots of different situations
when there is conflict in general.
Now, I also wanna make it clear
that there's so much on this topic
about just conflict in general
that we don't wanna take this particular passage
and think that this is just how we handle every dispute,
every situation.
And we don't think about even the first part of this.
It says at the very beginning,
more of thy brother shall trespass against thee.
Not everything in the Bible is describing,
or I'm sorry, this passage is not describing
just every situation you could ever think of.
The Bible is just bringing up a particular scenario.
Well, you have to do, in any doctrine of the Bible, or any idea in the Bible,
you have to take all the different verses that talk about a similar topic,
and you have to kind of balance them together, and you have to kind of figure out
what the Bible is really teaching, and what the context is really trying to describe here.
This is not saying every single fault you could possibly think of.
This is not just...
every single situation falls into this particular category.
And before we really dive in, I want to address something
that's an important point to Convict Resolution is,
number one, if you can let something go, you should just let it go.
Okay, just because someone does you wrong or you don't like something
does not mean you can't just let things go.
This is obviously dealing with something where you can't let it go.
It's crossed a certain boundary, a certain threshold, and you have to deal with it.
But point number one is that you need to just let things go, and I'm going to come back to this passage.
But let's look at a lot of verses on this. Go to Ecclesiastes chapter 7 for a moment.
Go to Ecclesiastes chapter 7.
Because we have to balance the Bible.
We can't just take Matthew 18 and then just apply it
to every situation, every scenario,
every single opportunity,
because there's plenty of situations where the Bible
is saying to do something completely different
than what Matthew 18 is saying.
One of those ideas is just let things go.
You don't have to address every issue, every problem,
everything you don't like about people.
And some people have this attitude.
Some people have an attitude where anything they perceive
is a wrong or a slight or an issue.
They have to tell people.
They have to act like it's a big deal.
And you know, we as God's people should have a lot of grace.
We should have a lot of mercy.
We should be long suffering with people.
And even when someone does you wrong,
you can just let things go.
Now, Ecclesiastes 7, verse 21, the Bible says,
also take no heed unto all words that are spoken,
lest thou hear thy servant curse thee,
for often times also thine own heart knoweth
that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others.
What is the Bible saying?
If someone says something about you
or they say something you don't like,
you don't always have to deal with it.
many times you can just let it go.
If they said something and you're just kind of like,
yeah, that wasn't something they should have said,
or I don't really like what they said,
or that was kind of mean,
you can just say, you know what?
They're having a bad day.
Maybe they didn't really mean it that way.
You know, if you feel like it's not that big a deal,
you should just try to let things go in general.
And again, most things aren't that big a deal.
And if someone's just a little bit rude,
if someone's a kind of a jerk,
if someone makes a joke and you didn't like their joke,
if someone says something insensitive to you,
if somebody says something that, you know,
maybe you find personally offensive,
but it's not that big a deal.
In many cases, we should just try our best to just let these things go.
And, you know, if you're going to try and hold your own servants or people under your authority,
they're feet to the fire for every single thing they say.
Well, essentially God's going to then try to flip the script on you and start judging you in the same way.
And we don't really want, I mean, I don't want everybody to hold
everything I've ever said against me, because sometimes I say things that are rude, insensitive,
you know, can be taken the wrong way,
could be just outright offensive.
And I just wouldn't want people to just hold me
accountable for every single thing I say.
So if I don't want that, I should, in return,
not hold everything against everybody else.
You know, if you pay attention to what people say
on social media, especially,
people just say dumb things all the time.
People say things that are just kind of being a jerk,
mean, rude, shocking,
Whatever, I sometimes myself have made this mistake.
I say things that aren't right.
And generally speaking, we should try our best
to just give people grace,
just not harken to all the words that are spoken,
let things go.
And again, I'm using this example.
because I think the Bible is pretty clear.
This is an example of just letting things go,
but it's not limited to words.
You know, just in general,
if someone does something that you don't really like
or they cut you off in traffic or something like that,
you know, you could just be like, whatever,
not a big deal.
They, you're at a food fellowship
and they cut in line in front of you.
Right? I mean there's all kinds of different scenarios where people could do something that's a little bit offensive or you don't like or there's a slight fall.
We don't need to bring in Matthew 18 because someone cut you off in the food fellowship line.
And this is what some people don't get, is if you think that every situation's Matthew 18, you're wrong.
And I will not go down a Matthew 18 situation
for every single slight offense or slight wrong.
You know, there's all kinds of different scenarios
people could think of.
Like, we were coming in the parking lot
and I was about to get this spot
and then they just kind of zoomed in
and just took that spot.
I'm not gonna do Matthew 18 on that.
Okay, now if you say, hey, we were in the parking lot
and after they took my spot, I got out and I keyed their car.
Okay, well now maybe it's crossed that threshold, right?
Maybe at that point that's something
that's kind of egregious.
Or they say, hey, they said something to my kid
or one of their kids said something to my kids
and it kind of hurt their feelings.
Probably not going to ever be a Matthew 18.
I mean, it had to be an extreme statement
or something over the top for us to even consider
something like that.
But let's say they intentionally harmed your child
and no one's apologizing for it or fixing it.
Yeah, maybe it's again, cross the threshold.
You know, sticks and stones may break my bones,
but words will never hurt me.
Like in many cases, we need to just,
in a lot of situations, just let things go,
not make a big deal about every single little scenario.
every little inconvenience, every trivial matter.
Hey, someone does something you don't like.
Okay, try your best to just let things go.
Give them grace.
We all have bad days.
Sometimes people can be rude.
Mistakes happen.
Accidents happen.
Sometimes people just say things
and they're not really intending to harm you or hurt you,
but it can and they're just not aware of it, okay?
And again, most of the time
we should just let these things go.
We shouldn't care about them.
Go to 1st John chapter number five.
That is this is kind of a general principle that we should try to like give our brethren
an opportunity to make mistakes and not have to deal with every single issue. Now again like
obviously if if something let's say it's something that you're going to let go but you just still
want to alert their attention that's okay like hey I was trying to park there but it's not a big deal.
I mean, you say like, hey, they took your spot
and you kind of got there, not a big deal.
Or they say something that you don't like
and you're kind of offended and you just say like,
yeah, I don't think that that comes across well.
That sounds like, you know, that's a little bit wrong.
And they say, but it's not a big deal.
You know, you're just like, hey,
you're just kind of alerting them like, hey, this was wrong
or you didn't like it or you're a little offended, whatever.
But at the end of the day,
you're not seeking for them to make restoration.
You're just simply just letting them know and letting it go.
If it's honestly not that big a deal,
a lot of times you just keep your mouth shut anyways, right?
You know, hey, your zipper's down, not a big deal, right?
You just let them know.
Hey, I just want to let you know,
your kid said something mean to my kids,
just in case you wanted to know, not a big deal, right?
Like it's okay to alert people that there was issues,
or hey, you know, sometimes,
and this is what I'm guilty of,
and I don't think it's necessarily a problem,
it's just people don't respond well,
but this is the idea of the rebuke of humor.
And like, if someone kind of makes a criticism at you,
but in a joking way, you should try to take it serious,
because most of the time what they're doing
is they're trying to help you a little bit,
but they just don't want to make it awkward,
so they make a slight joke about it.
Like you know you cut them off in line in the food fellowship and they're just like man
You must be really hungry today or something
You know and it's just it's their way of just kind of letting you know like hey
You kind of made a mistake here, but I'm not trying to be a jerk about it
And so they kind of just make a little bit of a joke about it
And, you know, if your boss does this to you,
or other people do this to you,
you know, sometimes you should realize like,
oh, hey, yes, sorry.
Or hey, yeah, I should fix that, or whatever.
Because often people just don't want to cause problems.
And so they kind of make a little bit of a joke out of it.
And sometimes we need to make sure
that we're responding correctly to the joke.
And we're realizing, hey, this person's actually trying
to help us a little bit.
This is the rebuke of humor.
You know, Job says in the book of Job
that when he laughed, people would cover their mouth.
So like if someone said something kind of dumb
and they kind of laughed, you know,
because it's so stupid, then he would,
they would just be like, oh man, I shouldn't say that.
Or that was kind of like embarrassing to have said that.
And you know, that's what church does is
church helps you become more normal.
Because when you say a bunch of dumb things and everybody's kind of laughing at you, you know, they're actually helping you
And I'm not saying that we should try to be jerks
I'm not saying they should be mean but at the end of the day
We needed to have a two-way a two-way street to conflict resolution in the sense that we should often let things go
But also when people are offering us subtle hints, we should pick up on those and accept them
Hey, if they give us a little bit. Hey, your zippers down. Hey, you cut me off in traffic. Hey, you cut me in the line
Or they make a little bit of a joke about things have a good attitude about it and just say hey, cool
Thanks, no problem. Sorry, you know just apologize. We should be friendly
general and not try to be a jerk about it. You can go to other parts of the
country or other parts of the world and people don't really have these niceties
they don't you know when someone cuts them off they're just mad about it or
they're a jerk or they'll they'll swear at you or something or they'll just say
something negative about you or they'll they'll be mad at you and it's just like
we don't want to have that attitude as a church we want to be friendly, gracious,
we want to receive correction well.
and this is important in just general.
So we don't have to take everything
as a Matthew 18 situation.
You understand what I'm trying to say?
First, John chapter five,
here's another passage I want to bring up in this context.
It says in verse 16,
If any man sees his brother sin and sin,
which is not under death,
he shall ask and he should give him life for him
that sin not under death.
There is a sin and a death,
I do not say he should pray for it.
The Bible gives this concept of
when you see your brother doing something wrong,
It doesn't even bring up like going and like approaching them it actually just says like just pray for them
And so, another thing we can do is if you feel like your brother is making mistakes or has issues or does something that's wrong,
you know, one of the attitudes could be to just ask God to help them with that.
Just say, hey, God, will you help this person just maybe have a better attitude or have a better idea or more discernment
or not cause problems in this area and just pray for them.
You know sin unto death or something there is like extreme sins that the Bible says you know
We can't really ask God to be gracious of this person, but hey when someone makes some mistakes
They cause problems. They're causing issues. You know our heart and our attitude should be empathy for that person
It offering grace under that person praying that Jesus will do good under this person not trying to harm them
to talk bad about them,
not telling other people.
Think about this,
when this person sees a problem with someone,
the first person they tell is Jesus,
not their best friend.
Not their gossip gals,
not other people,
but rather they're asking Jesus to help this person
and they want good for this person.
If it was an extreme sin,
you know, and again, what is a sin in the death?
I don't think the Bible is explicit.
I don't think, I think people have different interpretations.
My personal interpretation is it's essentially kind of
in the long lines of just capital punishment type sins.
So just things like serious adultery or murder
or obviously like reprobate type sins, things like that.
You know, we're not asking God to just be gracious
under these people.
You know, that thing needs to be dealt with.
Okay, that's something that, you know,
law enforcement in many cases needs to deal with,
and we need to just trust God
to execute the right kind of punishment
under these people.
And what we don't wanna do is we don't have a society
where there's no accountability at all.
Like there is accountability for extreme sins,
like murder and rape and kidnapping
and all this kind of extreme stuff.
You know, if someone kidnaps your kid,
I'm not gonna be putting them on the prayer list
and say let's all pray for the kidnapper.
I mean, we might be, but it's gonna different type of prayer.
You know what I mean?
Because that's evil.
We're not praying for God to be gracious
under kidnappers, under rapists, under murderers.
You know, these extreme sins under death.
You know, the Bible's clear.
And again, if you think it's something different,
well, then tell me what it is.
But that's my interpretation.
That's my understanding.
I think it matches a lot of things that we see in the Bible.
Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 13.
And let's look at a couple more verses on this subject.
But again, conflict resolution, what is step one?
Can I let it go?
And that's for you to decide.
And look, no one's perfect.
No one knows for sure all the different scenarios that
should be let go or not.
But the more you practice this and the more you just
are trying to do the right thing, you'll figure it out.
You try to address situations that aren't that big a deal.
Many times people help you figure out eventually hey that wasn't really a big deal and again the more life experience
You have you'll have more discretion more discernment and that'll help you to realize hey
These are things that we should just let go these are the category of let-go things
Here's the category of things that we need to really kind of address and again
That's sometimes also a personal thing because
The goal in all conflict is that you don't grow bitter towards this person
that you don't have bitterness and resentment
and that you have bad feelings towards this person.
So if it's not something that you can let go,
we have to deal with it.
But if it's something you can let go,
that's the best move.
And people that can let things go
are really great people to be around.
People that can't let things go are irritating. They're not fun. They don't feel safe
It's hard to have a lot of intimacy with people that just are just offended by almost anything and this is what you think of like leftists
Okay, leftists today are offended by about almost anything and then they complain about never having meaningful relationships
Have you ever noticed the correlation?
And it's because they just don't let anything go.
They hold everybody accountable
for every little nitpicky thing.
They're always complaining and murmuring
and they just don't have this attitude of grace
and forgiveness and mercy and empathy.
And so because of that,
they just don't have good relationships.
You'll notice people, even the spiritual leftists,
the spiritual Democrats that come into our churches
and they leave and they get offended about everything,
they have the same attitude.
They're always just offended about everything.
No one was gracious enough to me.
Nobody's charitable enough to me.
I didn't get invited to enough parties,
you know, just all these different things.
And it's just, people don't even know about it.
And you can tell they were just growing in bitterness, right?
They just weren't letting things go.
And if it was something that they couldn't let go,
they needed to deal with it.
We just don't want to be sitting here
with just all these little grievances,
all these petty little issues
that were constantly harboring against other people.
We need to realize, hey, if it's in the category
of let it go, let it go.
Just like what Moses is saying to Pharaoh,
let my people go.
And in many cases, you need to just let this grievance go.
Let it just just just forget about it
You know get rid of it ask God to forgive them and move on with your life
And again, this is what the essence of 1st Corinthians 13 is about is about charity
Now what does the Bible say in verse 4 charity suffereth long
If you're holding someone accountable for every little thing it shows you don't really have any charity
Charity is suffering long, meaning they've done things against you or to harm you in many ways.
You know, this is not just a, hey, as soon as they do something, I'm going to attack them, go after them, deal with them.
No, no, it's suffering long. And you know what? Praise God that God is charitable.
Praise God that God does not hold me accountable for every little grievance that I have, every little sin, every little statement that I make.
Because if he did, no one would be standing.
And you got to think about it from your children's perspective.
If you have especially little children,
you have to realize they're gonna make a lot of mistakes often.
They constantly transgress, they constantly disappoint,
they're constantly causing issues.
And you know, as a parent, you have to have a lot of grace.
You have to be long suffering with your children in general,
because children need that grace.
If you hold your children accountable
for every little trespass,
boy, they're just gonna have a miserable childhood.
And in the same way, it's more like a military context.
You know, the drill instructor doesn't often
extend much grace and he's not loved that much for it.
You know, he's kind of, he's just kind of looked at
as a harsh task master.
And we don't want to have a military style home.
We, yeah, we need rules and we need boundaries
and we should encourage our children
to be the best version of themselves.
We also need some grace and we need some mercy
and we need to let a lot of things go.
And you know what, we need some charity.
Notice this and his kind.
not only should we
When we have to deal with issues or have to talk to people we should be kind to them and and what does this really look like?
Charity we have to get this context the charity is not just like reciprocating good for good think about this
Someone says something that's kind of mean to you and then you're nice back
Someone cuts you off and then you're nice back
Someone wants to cut in line, you know someone wants to cut in line. No problem
Hey, can you know when we get up to the food line and they're struggling hey help them get them another plate or something
Don't think like well if you hadn't cut me in line. I'd probably help you or something, you know
What is kindness? It's hey, they did you a little wrong, but then I'm gonna do good back under you
I'm gonna be kind unto you and it says charity envy if not
Charity vaunted not itself is not puffed up. I mean we could preach old sermon on this. It's just such great advice
Right, we're not envying other people,
we're not mad at other people,
we're not trying to lift ourselves up,
we're not telling everybody how wonderful we are.
Look at me, look at what I did for the church,
look at the soul winning that I lead
and all the things that I do.
You know, it's not lifting yourself up.
That's not charitable.
Charity is not, look at all the good things
I did for other people.
That's not charitable.
It's not puffed up, thinking that you're better
than other people.
Oh, I'm better than every church.
I'm better than the old IPE church that I went to.
And then I'm better than the new IPE church I went to.
And then I'm better than my pastor.
And then I'm better than all the other soul winners.
In fact, I do all the soul winning.
You know, there's a guy that said he's basically better
than every soul winner in our church
and does 75% of the soul winning.
Look, this is a puffed up attitude.
And even if that was true, okay, great,
you're a wonderful soul winner.
But you know, it's usually coming from people
that what they're saying is not true.
And they're just puffed up.
It's inflated, it's an inflated sense of ego.
It's an inflated self-importance.
And when we do this, other people come along
and pop our little balloon.
They'll say, yeah, you're not that great.
Notice five, does not behave itself unseemly.
So again, this is using discretion people aren't going to look at your attitude and your behavior and say well
You kind of are wrong too
Charity is going to do what's right even if the other person did not handle themselves correctly seek it not our own is not
Easily provoked
This is just a clear verse on what I'm trying to say
Let it go. What is not easily provoked meaning they did something to provoke you and you didn't get provoked
They made a comment that provokes you and you're like
No, no problem. I don't really care. It doesn't really bother me. That's their problem. That's their fault
That's their issue. So so like being easily provoked means every little comment every little action every little
Trespass you're just constantly just getting so irritated and on fire and upset
Now, you've worked with people like this, you go to the job site, and of course it's
usually women that are easily provoked, and it's just so annoying how this everything
provokes them.
Everything the boss does, everything the boss says, every company policy, and look, men
can be this way too, where they're complaining about what time they have to show up at work,
they have to complain about what kind of work they have to do, they're complaining about
every little issue, and they're just easily provoked, and you're just thinking like, why
are you here?
You know, they're not hiring you to just check Facebook all day.
They're hiring here to do work.
That's right.
And you know, some people have this attitude about church,
where just everything about church just provokes them.
You know, if you're coming here and you're just a little bit irritated
about just like every little thing, you're the problem.
Because there's no one that can just go to a church
and they're just gonna like everything.
Why just don't like how the seats are arranged?
Not everybody greeted me and said hello when I showed up.
I haven't been invited back from everybody
that I've ever invited to come to my house.
In fact, actually, I've been taking a tally.
I've taken more people out soul-winning
than they've taken me out, and I've used more gas mileage.
And actually, last week when we went soul-winning,
we went five miles from the building when they drove,
but we went 15 miles when I drove.
It's evil, and it'll destroy you.
You know, you don't want to have this attitude
where you're just constantly just being provoked
about every little thing.
I've seen people just say weird stuff to me.
Someone's like, hey, I noticed this lady one time,
go and get a water bottle from the fridge,
and she did not go so wanting that day.
I'm like, okay?
What do you want me to do about it?
Matthew 18 right get up here did you take a water bottle we have it on
camera where's your soul winning you know I mean like what kind of hey this
person didn't didn't stick to the mat they went somewhere else you know like
and you know you think I'm being hyperbolic I'm not
People get mad about everything you could think of.
And it's just kind of crazy how people react.
This is gonna cause a lot of problems in church
if we all feel this way, isn't it?
If we're all just upset about how everybody dressed
and everybody talked and, hey, I was going to get coffee
and they took the last coffee and didn't refill it.
Or they took the last thing in the bathroom
or they, you know, I was walking up to the door
and they didn't hold the door open for me.
You know what I mean?
You can be mad about everything and somehow women have a special ability to do this, you know
If they want to they can start telling you about every little issue if they want to it's a special gift
They have and you're just thinking like I didn't even know you could be mad about that, but you can
You can compliment them right you just saying this meal is great. What about last night? You didn't say it was great last night
It's like I thought I complimented you
And, you know, again, is it fun to be around people
that are easily provoked?
No!
So, what about confidence?
Most of the time we just need to let things go.
You don't have this mentality where we're just
on default, gracious, kind, long suffering,
not being easily provoked.
Just saying, hey, it doesn't matter, not a big deal.
Because if we have to do this,
we're gonna all walk on eggshells around each other.
We're never gonna grow close.
We're never gonna grow like a family.
We're never gonna feel like a brotherhood.
safety among church. We're always just going to be so afraid to do anything,
say anything. We're all mad at each other. There's always issues. You know, this is
just not Christianity and it's not charity at all.
Charity is one where we're very long-suffering.
We give people a lot of grace.
We give a lot of people just room to have mistakes,
have issues, not be perfect.
And none of us are perfect.
None of us ever will be perfect.
No situation will be perfect.
No church will be perfect.
No husband's perfect.
No wife's perfect.
No kid's perfect.
Nothing is perfect.
You know, we should strive for it,
but we should just realize people aren't perfect.
And you know what?
Verse five says,
Our defaults are to give people the benefit of the doubt in every situation.
Hey, they probably didn't see me when they parked here or cut me off,
or hey, they probably didn't mean anything bad when they said this,
or hey, they probably weren't trying to hurt my feelings
when they didn't invite me to their birthday party, okay?
And, you know, don't always think evil of everybody.
Hey, when they made this comment, I bet they were thinking about me.
You know and again like I get this comment a lot about like hey, this sermon's about me and
You know, okay, let's think about it two different ways. Let's say it is
Well, then that just means I'm trying to help you so then it's not a problem
Or here's another thing just realize that out of 300 people that come to our church. It's probably not always about you
And so you could just not think evil of the preaching
and not think it's like me just sitting up here.
It's pretty impressive that I can preach against
literally everyone every single time.
How does that even work?
You know why people constantly feel like my preaching
is attacking them or about them?
It's because I use a lot of Bible
and I bring up a lot about the Bible about sins
and the Holy Ghost convicts you often
because you're causing problems.
If you feel really convicted about a sermon,
let me tell you something, it's because you're guilty.
You know, when I get up and like rip on fags or something,
I don't have a bunch of guys coming up to me like,
man, that felt like you were attacking me.
If they did, I'd be like, you should probably leave
and never come back.
Think about it.
But it's like, you preach this whole sermon
about gossips and railers and backbiders,
and then like, man, he was preaching all about me.
I'm thinking like, they'll say us it.
You know if I preach Old Sermon about Judas and only talk about him someone's like man. He was talking about me. It's like I
Was just talking about Judas. Hey, he was talking about bad husbands. I feel like it's about me
Okay. Hey, he was talking about bad soul winning and it's not about me. Okay
But you know what don't sit here and think like that's a problem
Just hear what the Bible saying and change and look if I say something amiss if I say something that doesn't apply to you
Then allow it to not apply to you
Right, but don't just constantly dream up evil
and think evil of people and think evil of church.
Look, I'm not perfect, no one's perfect,
but I get up here and try to preach the Bible.
And hey, when the Bible's convicting you,
you're wrong and you need to change.
And you need to give as much grace to the pastor
as you want him to in turn give grace unto you.
And boy, if you want to sit here and just trash me
for months and months and months and say evil about me
for months and months and months,
You know six months is a lot of grace six months is a long a lot of suffering and look
There's a lot of people that just say trash about me and attack me and do threes and I'm just like whatever move on
But boy you can't just do it forever
You can't just think that I'm just gonna sit here and not deal with it and look there's a time for charity
And there's a time to deal with issues. Okay, sometimes it crosses a threshold and then it has to be dealt with go back to Matthew
Go back to Matthew
So again, in most cases, we should just let things go.
We don't need to harken into all words that are spoken.
Hey, we see our brother sin of sin, which is not under death.
We'll ask God to give them life,
and He'll give them life under them that sin not under death.
We need to have a charitable attitude.
That should be our default.
We should not be easily provoked.
We shouldn't be thinking evil.
We should be constantly being kind.
We should be helpful.
Like, this is the attitude of a Christian.
But sometimes it crosses a line.
Sometimes it crosses a threshold.
And we have to deal with issues.
We have to deal with conflict.
I just want to just read.
You don't have to go to this verse, but Matthew 7, 12,
says, therefore, all things whatsoever you would do
that men should do to you,
do ye even so to them
for this is the law and the prophets.
So kind of what we have is the idea of the golden rule.
Here's a great way any time you're evaluating a situation
Just think about it this way if I was them and they were me
What would I do and that often will help you?
It's like hey if I had said that I would kind of just hope they would just kind of let it go
Or if they had done this to me, I would kind of wish they had just moved on and not made a big deal about it
So again
It's a great way to really evaluate stuff just think about it
If I was the one that did that or I was the one that said that or I was the one that was involved in this situation
What would I want other people to do for me? And then basically that can usually help you figure out
Okay, but even myself included if I do something bad enough
I would think, hey, this needs to be addressed.
People should address with me.
Then it's like, okay, then I need to address it with them.
That's where we pick up here
in Matthew chapter number 18, verse 15.
Moreover thy brother shall trespass against thee,
go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.
So step one, let it go.
Step two, private confrontation.
If it's something that can't be let go,
if it's something that crosses a certain threshold with you
and you have to tell them,
you should be telling them privately.
You should not make a big deal about it.
You should not be telling other people about it.
It shouldn't be something that you have to embarrass them about.
You should just tell them privately,
hey, you said this, hey, you did this, hey, I'm mad at you.
You know, I really appreciate people that are mad at me
just saying I'm mad at you.
You know, it's frustrating to kind of tell
that someone's upset with you and to say,
hey, are you mad at me?
No, we're good.
Are you mad at the church?
No, fine.
Then a couple of weeks go later
and you confront the same person
because you can tell there's something off and say,
hey, are you mad at me?
No.
Hey, is there some kind of an issue?
No, not at all.
Then like a few more weeks later,
that same person demands a meeting with you
and then you go and talk to that person
and they're like, hey, I just want to make it clear.
I have no problems with you.
I want to make it clear that there's no issue.
I want to be fully restored.
I want there to be no squabble whatsoever.
Unprovoked, they're just telling you this
and you're like, great.
And then they leave and they say,
this person's evil and a narcissist and malignant
and just a piece of trash and just trash.
You just think like, why couldn't you just tell me that?
Why can't you just say, hey, I'm mad at you?
Hey, I'm upset, hey, you said this, hey, you did this.
And look, there are people in this room,
not just one, not just two, many people in this room
that have confronted me, talked to me,
and said, hey, I'm mad about this,
hey, I'm upset with this, hey, I don't like this.
Hey, you know, a lot of times I apologize.
A lot of times I've said, hey, you're right,
I can see your position.
Sometimes I try to explain to them how, you know,
I hear you.
And I don't want you to be upset,
but I just maybe don't completely agree still.
And you know, at least it gives me a chance
to try and deal with an issue.
I'm not saying that I'm always right or always wrong,
but you know what I do like?
I do like people just being honest with me.
Yeah, yeah.
If you're mad at me, if you don't like me,
whatever, just tell me.
That's okay.
I don't have this attitude where I just,
everybody has to be my best friend,
or everybody has to like everything I say,
or everybody has to agree with every single little doctrine,
or every little opinion, or every life choice.
In fact, some of my closest friends,
we disagree on stuff vehemently.
I mean, I did a live stream last night,
and Pastor Anderson's telling me
that he likes in and out fries.
I'm just telling you there's something wrong with that opinion like like I said
I was willing to just end the stream right then and there
Because it's just like that that's just such a bad opinion
But you know at the end of the day like we shouldn't be sitting here and just getting so mad
About little petty things like this, you know getting mad about stuff, you know, that's really doesn't matter
Doesn't change anything. Obviously. I'm a very picky eater like if you know me
I'm extremely picky and that's my problem.
You know, that's my fault,
but at the end of the day,
don't get offended when I have strong opinions
and don't like certain things because of my problem, right?
You know, just like you are probably picky about stuff.
I'm picky about stuff.
We shouldn't necessarily get super mad
about these type of things.
But at the end of the day,
if someone does do something that you don't like,
just tell them.
If they offend you, tell them.
You know, my brother was often very embarrassed about me
because I'm a picky eater.
And so like when we would go to other people's houses
or we would eat with friends or something like that,
pretty much everything I did embarrassed him.
And admittedly like it was embarrassing
and he would give me a lot of correction
and you know, I could kind of appreciate it.
He would, because you know,
they would get, they would set food in front of you
and I just be like, oh, that's gross.
I don't like it.
That's a bad attitude, right?
But you know, as a kid, I didn't really know any better,
and so I'm just saying,
or like they would prepare something,
and I'd be like, oh, that's not how we make it.
This isn't as good as the way we make it.
You know, this is just bad manners, bad attitude.
Or, you know, like as a kid, it's like,
hey, I don't eat crust on my sandwiches.
Cut the crust off.
You know, and I had to learn like,
hey, if they put crust on the bread,
just choke it down and don't say anything.
Hey, if you're in public and you don't like the food or you don't like someone's stuff,
you know, just try to be nice about it.
Just try to be kind about it.
We don't want to always just make people mad about these issues.
Now, when it crosses a certain threshold, again, though, what's the context?
Sometimes we have to go to this person.
We have to tell them there's an issue, you know, not the minor grievances, serious issues.
Hey.
Your kid punched my kid in the face, you know and hurt them on purpose. I like I want to deal with this
You know, I need it. We need to deal with this something needs to be done. Hey, you rip me off for a couple hundred bucks
This needs to happen. Hey, you said this horrible thing about me, you know and again a lot of times
When I have to approach the situation, I don't necessarily just directly accuse them. I'll just kind of ask them about it
I've heard that you said this is it true
Hey, is this what happened? I'm pretty sure this happened. Is this what happened? Give them an opportunity to just you know
Because sometimes you think something happened. It didn't really happen
We don't want to just come in just guns of blazing and accusing people of stuff that we don't even know is verified
Just go to the person say hey, are you mad at me? Hey, did you do this?
What's the problem and try to talk with that person? Hopefully God willing that person will just say hey, yeah, I did
I'm sorry. Yeah, that is kind of what happened
I apologize.
And then of course, what are we always supposed to do?
Just forgive.
And the Bible says this.
Look at Matthew chapter number 18.
It says, verse number 21, then came Peter to him and said,
Lord, how off shall my brother sin against me
and I forgive him till seven times?
Jesus say that I say none of these until seven times,
but until 70 times seven.
So at any point that someone apologizes
or tries to get something right,
we're obligated to let it go.
Now, again, step one, you can just let things go just because they're not a big deal.
They didn't even have to apologize.
If it is a big enough deal and you address it with them, at any point that you address
something with them and they apologize, we are obligated as Christians to let it go again
and forgive and forget, not bring it up, not hold it against them, give them the benefit
of that again.
33, should it not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity
on thee?
And his Lord has wroth and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that
was due unto him.
So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not
everyone his brother their trespasses.
Now in the parable that we had in the later part of this chapter, he's talking about somebody
and a great debt, then he's unwilling to forgive
his servant for a lesser debt.
And it ends up kind of being an illustration
of how God forgave us of a big debt.
And we go to get heaven when we deserved hell.
And then when we hold these minor trespasses in comparison
against our brethren, how we have a bad attitude,
how we're not right.
And if we don't want God to hold our feet to the fire,
we shouldn't hold other people's feet to the fire
when they apologize, when they ask forgiveness,
when they say they want to make it right.
So again, if any time someone apologizes, we are obligated, just let it go.
Forgive, forget, move on.
But when we confront them, let it be private.
Keep your, no, you don't have to keep your finger here.
Just go to Proverbs 25 for a moment.
So point one, let it go.
Point two, if you have to, do a private confrontation.
Private confrontation.
And again, we're talking about Matthew 18 situations.
This is just great advice, almost in every context though.
Whether we talk about the workplace,
hey, there's an issue at the workplace,
even with your boss or anybody, try to be private.
As a boss, if you have employees,
try to do it privately to your employees
and not embarrass them in front of other employees
or other people.
If you're married, this is great advice.
Please do not confront your spouse in public about anything.
You should do this as much as possible in private
and not embarrass them.
Now, again, not everything just fits what I'm saying.
Ideally, that's always the case.
But look, obviously if a wife mouth off
about her husband in public,
I think it might need a public correction.
Okay. So, you know, as a wife, don't embarrass your husband in public because I do believe
he has the right to correct his wife in public and to make it clear, like, no, you're in
the wrong here and to assert his authority. But again, as the husband, if your wife is
not just publicly embarrassing you and causing a scene, you should probably deal with her
issues privately too. You don't want to just have this situation where you're constantly
Wives if you're upset with what your husband did if you think your husband did something wrong
He embarrassed you did something wrong. You should try to tell him privately as well
You know when you're alone or whatever happened saying hey
I didn't like what you said what you said embarrassed me this you shouldn't do this
Whatever try to help him in private as well. Look, I'm not above being corrected by my wife
But at the end of the day, I don't want it. It should never be a public thing
It shouldn't be to embarrass me or anything like that. Plus my wife could be wrong
You know, sometimes when we offer correction to people,
they can be wrong about it.
They can say, hey, you shouldn't do this.
And then you're like, well, actually, that is what we should do.
That's what the Bible says.
So sorry, I'm going to still do that.
And again, a bit, there's plenty of times.
There's been so many times in my life and my relationship
where my wife has offered me correction and she was right.
And I need to do what she said.
And I appreciated her giving me that correction
or giving me some advice.
But at the end of the day, you know, I'm hoping
that we don't have to do these things in public
because it's just not, it's not a seemly,
it's not appropriate, it's not something we should be doing.
We want to do it in private.
And look what the Bible says in Proverbs 25 verse 9.
Proverbs 5 verse 29.
Debate thy cause with thy neighbor himself and discover not a secret to another.
Lest he that heareth it, put thee to shame, and thine infamy turn not away."
So when there's a problem, when there's a conflict, tell them alone.
Tell them in private. Don't discover a secret unto another.
You know, he that revealeth secrets is one that's a tail-bearer
and he's going to cause wounds, he's going to hurt people's feelings.
We don't want to have this behavior
where we're constantly telling about everybody else's secrets, issues, problems.
And again, when the Bible uses secret, it's just saying something that nobody else is aware of.
And we're not going around whispering about each other
and making secrets.
It's just simply saying,
you observe something that no one else observed.
It's kind of secret between you.
You know, they rip you off.
Just keep it between y'all.
You don't need to tell everybody else about it.
You don't need to cause problems.
You don't have to discover a secret to other people.
Go to them.
And if you can resolve it, great.
If you can't, then we might have to escalate.
Go to Matthew five, go to Matthew chapter number five.
And, of course, Matthew 18 gives us steps for escalation and we're going to kind of talk about that here.
I just want to make it clear that we've got to take some other verses in the Bible in context before we just jump to Matthew 18.
So many people just want to jump to that passage or think that that passage applies to every situation, every context.
I also believe there's issues that could escalate above Matthew 18 instantly.
Just like, hey, this person commits a serious crime.
Like, they commit murder.
We're not pulling Matthew 18.
We're going to just straight to the cops, okay?
Someone's teaching heresy, like rank heresy in the church.
It just goes straight to the authority.
It just goes straight to the pastor,
straight to the leadership, whoever's in charge.
Like, there's gonna be serious issues
that just need to be immediately resolved.
They just go way above a Matthew 18.
You know, there's passages in the Bible that talk about the pastor, you know, identifying
people that are causing division and sowing discord in the church.
You know, that's not going to go through Matthew 18.
That's just going to be immediately called out and dealt with in a different context.
So we're mostly talking about just petty issues or issues that happen, not necessarily
petty, but just, you know, minor issues that cross that threshold, maybe moderate, slightly
But what should our attitude be every time?
What should be our attitude when we approach this person?
What should be how we talk to them?
Well, look at Matthew 5 and look at verse number 23.
Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar,
and there, rememberous, that thy brother hath
ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar
and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother,
and then come and offer thy gift,
agree with thine adversary quickly,
while those are in the way with him,
lest any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge,
and the judge deliver thee to the officer,
and thou be cast into prison.
Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means
come out thence, till thou hast paid the most farthing.
Our attitude should be to reconcile.
And when we've done wrong,
We should try to reconcile.
You know, the Bible is just saying,
we don't want to just have unresolved conflict.
We want to be in a situation where we're always seeking peace.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
What is it saying in verse nine?
Blessed are the peacemakers for they should be called
the children of God.
People like peacemakers.
That should be your attitude.
We're going to people seeking resolution.
We're seeking restoration.
We're seeking to be reconciled.
Sometimes people come to me or come to other people
where there's an issue.
And they don't have an attitude where they want it to be fixed.
They just want to complain.
They just want to say, this is bad.
And you're like, okay, how can I solve it?
They don't have an opportunity to solve it.
They don't want it to be solved.
They just simply want to hold a grudge against you,
and they're not willing for it to be reconciled.
They're not willing for it to be resolved.
They're not willing it to be forgiven.
They just simply want to complain about the person.
And after what they're doing,
they just want me to throw them out.
I'll just be honest a lot of people when they have issues
They're just simply just like this person says mean something mean to me throw them out
Get rid of them. It's just like well. Have you approached them? No
Have you asked them to say sorry? No, just get rid of them
And it's just like, that's not the right attitude.
The right attitude is you want reconciliation,
you want this person to fix it,
you want this person to apologize,
you want to move on,
you want to continue being friends as much as possible.
You know, but we shouldn't have this attitude
of just hoping for people to be bad,
wanting them to be bad, to stay bad.
We should want them to fix it and to get right.
Go to Ephesians chapter four, go to Ephesians chapter four.
So point one is this in a conflict. We need to just let most things go especially little things number two when there is an issue
We need to have private confrontation number three our attitude when we do this should be to seek resolution
We want things to be fixed number four is this when they have been resolved. We don't want to grow better
Okay, and we don't want to leave things out there that we didn't resolve and get better
So if you don't deal with it you can get better
If you deal with it and then don't actually forgive
or actually let it go, you can also grow bitter.
We need to make sure that we don't allow bitterness
in any way.
So again, if you can let it go, let it go, no bitterness.
If you've dealt with it and they repented,
then you forgive and there's no bitterness.
If you've dealt with it and they won't repent,
but it's come to its conclusion,
there's nothing left for you to do,
you also need to then let it go
so that you don't grow bitter.
Okay, we cannot allow bitterness to exist in our lives, it'll destroy us.
Ephesians chapter 4 verse 26, be angry and sin not.
Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
Neither give place to the devil.
Notice that unresolved anger is giving place to who?
The devil. It's satanic.
It's satanic to allow issues to go unresolved.
To allow grievances or problems.
We don't want to do this because we can allow the devil to destroy us.
The Bible says let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamoring, evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.
There is no room for bitterness in the house of God.
We have to resolve issues.
And when you don't resolve issues, you cause major problems.
There there's kind of like two sides of this coin in a sense
There's some people that you you have this terminology called a doormat
Where they don't really struggle with confronting people. They never confront
They never deal with issues.
But here's the problem.
They often store bitterness.
And you can sometimes see people that were really calm,
really kind, always letting things go.
Just for years or for days,
just letting go, letting go.
In theory, you think that's what's happening,
but inside, they're just getting angrier and angrier
and madder and just...
That's inside.
But to your face, you're like,
hi, how's it going?
But inside, there's...
If you're like that towards someone, you're the problem.
And then what happens is usually it reaches critical mass and then they just explode and they just like you're like what happened or
Like there's just this minor thing
There's this minor issue and then they just act like you just killed their favorite puppy or something
And you're just thinking like man, what did I do?
Because they just had all this bitterness. There's just growing decided
And they're just ready to just pop, you know, this is a problem
Okay, there's the other side of the coin where just it doesn't matter what you do. It's wrong
and they're just attacking you and mad at you
and they're just so easily provoked and just causing you.
You know, we don't want to be either of those, right?
So that's why we have to be honest with ourselves
and just say, hey, have I let this go?
If you haven't let it go, you have to deal with it.
If it's something, and then if you think about it long enough,
you say, well, I haven't let it go,
but I should have, then let it go.
Put it back in the, say, all right, gone.
Pray, ask God to forgive you.
Ask God to bless that person.
Life is too short to just constantly dwell on little issues that are meaningless and
You can see people that just allow the tiniest grievances the tiniest little trespasses end up just destroying them mentally
Destroying their attitude destroying their heart destroying their charity
You know don't allow this to happen. Don't let bitterness destroy you let all bitterness all bitterness
All bitterness and anger be put away from you
All of it, if you have bitterness towards people,
get rid of it.
If you're mad at me, you need to resolve that.
If you're mad at this church, you need to resolve it.
You say, hey, if it's minor, let it go.
If it's not, let's deal with it.
But do not just sit on bitterness.
If you have a bitterness towards someone on staff,
someone in leadership, resolve it.
If you have bitterness towards another person in this room, resolve it.
If you have bitterness towards your spouse, resolve it.
Do not allow bitterness to make something a bigger issue than it actually is.
We need to resolve issues, okay?
So we have to have comfort, resolution.
Now when we do it, we want to do it healthily.
We want to do it with the right attitude.
We want to be gracious.
We want to come to them with kindness.
We want to approach this issue.
to just destroy our church and destroy people.
If we're constantly dealing with things
and getting back to a status quo
and having new mercies every morning,
you know what?
Usually you don't have as big of problems.
But when you allow just all this bitterness
and all this anger and all these issues,
then you could have just like major civil wars,
major church splits, major grievances.
And often what bitterness does
is it leads people to commit worse sins.
like all kinds of gossip, railing, attacking people,
you know, being a secret informant, a double agent,
just trying to just do all kinds of crazy things
and you're just thinking like, bro,
where did this come from?
How did you turn into this person?
It's because they just had this bitterness
that they weren't letting it go.
or they weren't dealing with it or they weren't resolving it.
Now again, you're not going to like everything about somebody.
You're not going to agree with everything about somebody,
but you shouldn't just be allowing bitterness to eat at you.
It is an evil cancer, it is an evil disease,
and it will destroy you, and it will destroy your church,
and it will destroy your family, it will destroy your workplace.
It's a cancer that we have to get rid of.
We don't want to give place to the devil.
You're giving place to the devil to mess with you
when you allow bitterness in your life.
Please, please deal with conflict.
So let's go through Matthew 18.
I'm gonna use the board here for a moment
and let's just kind of just chart
what we talked about this morning, okay?
Because I'm a visual learner, I don't know about you,
but I'm not the best at just hearing things.
I kind of have to see them.
And this board, forgive me, I'm gonna try my best
to draw on here to where it kind of fits,
but we have conflict, okay?
This is the this is the problem. There's the trespass. There's the conflict, okay?
We have a couple options here number one in this bottom side
Let's let's yeah, let's do the bottom side is the good side, okay? In a sense. We could just let it go, okay?
And we're gonna call it league. All right, just let it go, okay?
We just want to let it go. Hey, there's a minor grievance
We let it go.
They said something I didn't like, let it go.
That's always an option, isn't it?
And we should be hitting this button a lot.
In our lies, we just be like bam, bam, bam, bam.
Let's say it's they kill your neighbor, all right?
Okay?
It's unto death.
Then we just immediately go to the authorities.
Okay, it's immediate escalation to authority.
So this is a sin that's unto death.
Okay, I'm gonna put it on the line actually probably help to be more helpful. This is like death
This is like petty
Okay, so if it's petty let it go if it's death cops right or whatever the authority is
Someone's taking money out of the cash register at work boss. It is immediately boss. You're not just like let it go
Don't let those things go. Okay
What about something in the middle? That's what we've been talking about. That's what we're dealing with, okay?
It's a big enough issue. You can't just let it go
Well, then you kind of now have a situation where it's just it needs to be dealt with, okay?
And I don't even know what to write here because there's not enough room, but just it needs resolution, okay?
We need some kind of a resolution here because it's not big enough to go here
It's not under death, but it's something that's also crosses a boundary. It's not just petty. They keyed your car
They ripped you off for a thousand bucks. They hurt your child physically or something like that
You know like it's something that you're just like I can't just let this one go
We need some resolution here. Hey, they lied about me and I kind of need some resolution here
You know, they're causing me some kind of an issue. They're doing something to harm me. So we need a resolution here, okay?
Well again, I'm gonna say this
It could be that even though it's it's it's like a grievance
We don't necessarily have to keep it private.
So like most of the time we're just going to say,
hey, private, I'm just going to go to them alone.
I need a resolution, I'm going to go to them.
But if it crosses a certain boundary again,
it may not be under death,
but it's something that still needs to be alerted
to the authority that's involved.
Hey, they slandered me.
Well, that's not gonna be a private thing
between you two necessarily always.
It could also need to involve the authority
or it deals with somebody else,
it deals with the church issue,
it deals with heresy.
Like it's costing some boundary
where other people are involved
or need to be involved than tell them.
I tell people, hey,
is someone's going out soul winning in our church?
And they say, you don't have to call upon
the name of the Lord to be saved.
That comes to me immediately.
Cause that is not allowed here.
ever that person's an idiot and I want nothing to do with them
Now obviously they could be wrong they're new and we'll explain it to them
We'll be gracious unto them if they repent we're moving on we don't care
But we're not gonna tolerate that nonsense
We are a soul-winning church and I take offense to anything attacking so many things attacking soul winning right here
Okay, things attacking the church right here
But again, we're saying they did something to you personally
or there's some kind of issue.
We're just going straight to them.
We're kind of going private, right?
Now, again, let's say you go to them and they say, I'm sorry.
OK?
We forgive.
And look, anytime we get to this section, it's done.
Hey.
Think about it. Conflict. It was too big for me to let it go. It's not in the death
It doesn't necessarily involve anybody else or the church issues. I just went to them. They said sorry
We forgave it. Isn't that what Matthew 18 says?
Now let's read a little bit more here. What happens when we're now we're stuck because it's not it didn't fit any of these
They didn't do that
Okay, so we still need resolution
We still need some kind of resolution.
Matthew, sorry, give me a second to turn there.
Matthew 18, he says,
if he shall hear thee thou's gain thy brother, bam.
But if he will not hear thee,
then take with thee one or two more
that in the mouth of two or three witnesses,
every word may be established.
So if he didn't apologize, didn't get it right,
and we need more resolution,
What do we do? Well, we need to get two more involved. Okay, and and I'm just for sake of space
I'm just gonna write on here two more
Now again the two more is not necessarily people that had to be involved in the situation
It's not necessarily people that saw the situation. It's not saying they were witnesses to the issue
It's just saying they're two more witnesses to the conflict resolution
These two people don't have to be the pastor or the leadership now. It could be doesn't have to be
It's just two other people in the church. Okay, so if me and brother Sam have an issue and
Sam comes to me and says Pastor Shelley you did wrong
Okay, and I'm like I don't care like I'm right
I'm not gonna apologize then he could get two more people
Involved and say hey, I have an issue with this person
I need a couple more people to hear us out, okay?
Now, this is the benefit of having two more people.
It could be that Sam gets two more people in the church
and we all get together,
and this is, okay, let me just say it this way.
I believe personally, this is my personal opinion,
I believe when you do this situation,
you don't go to them and tell them the situation.
You simply say, there's a conflict
between me and this person,
I need two more people to hear us out.
That's it you don't tell them what's going on and when we're all together then we discuss this you these two people often
Could end up helping you realize like who's right or wrong?
Because let's say he thinks he's still right he gets two more people we get together and they're like actually you're wrong Sam
And it's three on one well then it's just like okay
It just ends because you just your your issue wasn't even a legitimate issue, but let's say the flip Sam's right
I won't get it, he gets two more people,
now it's three on one to me and it's just like,
hey, sorry, like this is, you're in the wrong,
you need to fix this, you need to apologize,
you need to make this right.
And I say, nuts to you, I don't care.
Well then, what do we do, okay?
Well, again, this is, if they get it right,
we just go back to forgive.
They got it wrong, okay?
This is a big deal.
The pastor and the church. Okay
Let's read this in the Bible
He says in verse 16
But if you will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses
Every word may be established and if he shall neglect to hear them tell it under the church
But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as in heathen man and a public it
So again, if they won't hear it to or more then we just say hey, we're gonna bring it before the whole church
Now, let's say it's brought up for the church, and the church is in agreement, and he doesn't
repent.
Well, that's when we have church discipline, okay?
We have discipline or separation.
If he repents, then again, we're back to forgive, okay?
Like getting someone to this point takes a lot of steps doesn't it? I mean if you really think about it
It's like number one. What can we just let it go?
That's just a resolve ton. This is to be like the most issues and just bam bam bam if there's an issue
Hey, I went to him and you know what they said sorry bam
We got more people involved, they said, sorry, bam.
We got here, bam.
It's just like after it, it's just like, no, no, no, no.
So again, think about it.
Someone in the church just rips you off for $5,000
and it's just provable.
And then you tell them and they say,
no, I'm not gonna make it right, I'm not even sorry.
And then you get two people who are like,
hey, you gotta say sorry at least,
you gotta fix this or something, they're like, no.
and then you tell the whole church and we're like,
hey, we're just not gonna let this person stay in our church
when they won't say sorry or make this issue right
because we know what would happen if we didn't deal with it.
Well, then someone's gonna have a lot of bitterness
towards the other person.
And we can't allow bitterness in the church
because we're giving place to the devil
and it can destroy the church.
So we have to deal with issues, we have to deal.
Now again, let's say we get to this point.
Now that we've reached this point, what do I do towards this person?
I let it go. It's now up to God.
They're in God's hands. I've dealt with it.
We've completely resolved it. It's over.
And sometimes there is separation involved in a conflict situation.
But once the separation's occurred, you've dealt with it.
There's nothing left for you to do. We move on.
And we need to move on from these kind of issues.
Hey, if someone gets disciplined, they've been dealt with,
we move on, we're not gonna dwell on anymore,
we don't care anymore, that's their problem,
that's between them and God,
I don't have to deal with it anymore, okay?
So, you know, this is just try to help you understand
Matthew 18 and how that works.
There's gonna be some issues though again
that go straight here.
You know, right?
There's just some issues that go straight here,
straight here.
Some people think like, on this issue,
they're like, well, why didn't you go down this path?
Because it was one of these issues.
They're preaching that salvation's by works.
We're not gonna go through this process.
We're already good.
We're just like fast forward, gone.
You know, fast forward.
Hey, you're worshiping idols?
Here.
You know, and that's where first Corinthians five comes into play, you know
When you get to this situation and it's first Corinthians five you just tell the pastor they're a drunk
They're a rail or they're extortion or they're whatever and we just deal with it and we move on
Hey, they're trying to sew discord. They're causing problems here. Hey, they're a murderer here
You know what I mean? That was just like bam. Just like cops whatever
If it's really petty, okay, here,
if it's something that has to be dealt with,
then we deal with it, okay.
This, I think this just kind of helps people
just kind of identify all these different pathways
and problems that are going on in the church
or could go on because again, people get confused.
And what often happens is someone that's a railer,
someone that's in this category,
they're always like, well, they did it on biblical.
They never went down this path.
Didn't have to, don't need to, you're wrong.
Okay, that's not what the Bible was saying and then also again
You have a lot of issues where people are trying to go down that path when it should be kind of one of these
And you know why it would have been one of these because if they actually got a couple people involved
They'd be like, bro, you were back here
Okay, this just wasn't a big enough issue wasn't a big enough problem and look people that have come to me with problems
People that are seeking my counsel. They'll notice I often do this
I often walk them through this board.
I often say this, hey, is this something you could let go?
Is this something, and this is what's even more frustrating
is people come to me and they say,
I've heard that so-and-so is talking bad about me.
And they're like, what are you gonna do about it?
And I'm thinking like, well, I have nothing.
Do you have more, do you have multiple witnesses?
No.
Have you confronted the person?
No.
What am I supposed to do about it?
They think that they like want me to be a detective and take down an incident number
Like here's your incident number, and I'm gonna investigate whether or not this person said something about you that I have no idea
Like that is not a good use of the passers-time to investigate a hypothetical gossip issue
Okay. Now again, it's this is another thing that just frustrates me is
It's it's it's gone here. Hey, there was a problem and you know about it
And I say, okay, did you talk to them about it?
And they say, no.
You know what I'm gonna tell you?
Tell them.
So many people come to me and they say,
hey, this person did this awkward thing at soul winning.
And I'm like, okay, what did you say?
Well, nothing.
Like say something, right?
Tell them, tell them the problem.
Don't just feel like you, you know, again,
if it's super bad, tell both of us, right?
Hey, pastor doesn't allow people to do that
and I'm gonna tell them.
Okay, that's a great way to handle it.
Or if it's just between y'all,
just say like, hey, I don't think you should say that,
hey, I don't think you should do this,
hey, I didn't like this, whatever.
Because this is what I would appreciate.
When someone comes to me with a problem,
they say, look, there was a problem,
I went to them in private, they didn't hear me.
I got.
Two other people, I just said, hey, we all come here.
We need to deal with this issue.
They didn't hear them.
So I'm telling you about the situation.
Then I'm gonna be like, okay,
sounds like you went through all the steps.
Sounds like everything's legit.
I'm gonna talk to the person.
I'm gonna notify them where they're at
and that we might have to bring this before the church
unless they're gonna get it right.
If they're still like on this crash course,
then we will bring it to the church
and then we will deal with it.
Here's another thing that people get mad about that leave our churches. They'll claim like oh, we didn't do a Matthew 18
Because we never brought it before the church. Okay, but this is what a pastor often do it gets to this step
it's here and
I go to you and I say hey, this is where we're at and
I already know for a fact where the church is going to land on this issue
So if you show up
We're gonna do it
And then they don't show up and they're like,
you didn't do it.
It's like, no, no, no.
You just realized that you were in the wrong
and you didn't want to have to go to this painful process
and then you just claim like they're unbiblical,
they're not handling situations or whatever.
It's like, no, no, no, we will deal with it,
but we didn't have to because you cast yourself out.
You just went ahead and left
because you realized you didn't want to have to deal
with that issue.
I mean, it takes a certain level of brazenness to do that.
But look, I've been in church where it happened.
at faithful word Baptist Church,
someone had gone through this entire path,
was confronted by Pastor Anderson in the parking lot,
saying, if you come in there,
I will call you out in front of everyone in the parking lot.
In the park, I'm sorry,
I'll call you out in front of the church.
He was like saying in the parking lot,
I'll tell you this, right?
Person still walks in.
Don't call his bluff.
Okay, I'll just tell you this, right?
And don't call my bluff.
But then like the guy is getting called out and look it was not fun
It was super uncomfortable
And he has his family with him and he's making his wife and his children cry and sob
Because he's just causing this huge issue
There was multiple witnesses to him just railing and attacking people in the church
It was just a clear-cut issue and he just forced us to just basically
Physically remove him and his family from the church while they're crying like what an evil person to do something like that
But you know, it will happen.
You know, if you mess with church,
you know, church will eventually get to this point
if we have to.
We don't want to, we want to resolve issues,
we want to get things right,
we don't want to have this kind of situation happen often,
but if it happens, it happens, okay?
Go to James 3, we're pretty much done, we'll finish.
I want to reiterate my points.
Number one, when there's issues,
we need to just let them go if we can.
Number two, if there's a big enough issue,
Number three, we should have an attitude to seek restoration.
And number four, we should not allow ourselves to get bitter.
You could apply this to other contexts, even marriage.
Hey, in marriage, you should just be letting a lot of things go.
Most of the issues between husband and wife need to be let go.
Number two, if there is an issue in marriage that needs to be dealt with, do it privately.
Talk to each other privately about it.
Number three, though, this is a little bit different
because marriage is a different relationship than church.
We also have to admit that a husband and a wife situation is not a brother and brother in church. The wife has to submit.
So in a conflict the husband is always right.
And if you ever come to me and you want marriage counseling or marriage advice,
I'm gonna tell you the exact same thing. Sorry your husband's right.
You say like what about this scenario? He was right.
But what about this situation? He was right. Now again,
Internally, I might think like he was a jerk.
I might think he was being insensitive.
I might think it's even a bad course of action
for their family.
But he's still right because he's in charge.
Okay, and again, does that mean
that every decision he makes is right?
No, but he's just right because he's in charge.
And we need to allow the husbands to be in charge.
The husbands, whatever they want, goes.
They are the king of their castle.
They are in charge.
And so if you think that you're gonna ever get me
to tell your husband that he was wrong and you were right,
don't ever ask for my marriage advice.
Okay, now again, I might tell people and I've confronted people say like hey, this is kind of insensitive
You might be a jerk here. You should consider being more sacrificial me more loving like hey
That's true
And if people ask me if I think something's right or wrong if a husband says hey
Is this a good choice or a bad choice? I might tell him that's a bad choice
But it's your choice to make because you're in charge
And you know what that would solve a lot of problems. I mean if the wife was just always saying you're right
We don't need to fight
That should be the phrase the husband's always right. No need to fight
Number four in a conflict even in marriage you need to both admit faults
So even as a love even if you're in charge that doesn't mean you were acted correctly
And and this is this is what'll help you because look no one's perfect
Sometimes your wife does things that's not right sometimes you do things that are right if there is conflict in the marriage
It's always helpful even though you're in charge to still admit fault
Hey, you're right. I shouldn't have said that. Hey, I wasn't being sensitive to your feelings. Hey, I apologize for being rude
Hey, I was I was mean to you. Hey, you know, I did make this decision and it probably wasn't the best decision
You know, there's nothing wrong with that that doesn't make you lesser of a man
We should also admit fault and tell them they're wrong, but then we should still say but I'm still in charge
But we're still going to make these decisions and make these rules.
And again, our attitude should be to seek for peace again and any conflict and any issue.
In a marriage, please don't allow bitterness to be in your marriage.
Ladies, do not grow bitterness towards your husband.
Husbands do not grow bitterness towards your wife.
Resolve conflict.
Don't let the sun go down upon your wrath.
You know, I'd rather go to bed late than us be angry.
And I'm not saying that I've always done the right thing here, but you know what?
It's always just best if we can just squash it before we go to bed.
And you don't want to wake up already in a bad spot.
Now, if you do that and you wake up, try to fix it right away, you know?
Give them new mercies every morning, try to fix things, try to resolve things.
Sometimes as the leader, you have to be the bigger person and go to them first and apologize first.
And you know that sometimes works, women are women, man.
Okay, I'll just tell you.
But at the end of the day, you know what?
We're supposed to lead by example.
And if you want your wife to apologize,
why don't you apologize first?
James 3, look at verse 13.
and lie not against the truth.
Look, you know, what would be the most shameful thing to do
is brag about bitterness.
Would it be go on Facebook
and just brag about how you're bitter
at things that happen at church?
What does the Bible say?
Glory not and lie not against the truth.
This wisdom descended not from above,
but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
It's actually a devilish attitude.
It's a devilish action.
says, for where you're envying and strife is there is confusion in every evil work.
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to
be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
Let us be peacemakers.
Let us be seeking to make peace.
Peace, let us not be envying one another.
Let us not be angry at one another.
Let us not let bitterness come and destroy our hearts
and our minds and our lives and our church.
Let us endeavor to keep the unity,
is what the Bible says in Ephesians chapter number four.
Our goal should be to be friends.
Our goal should to be kind one to another.
Our goal should to be have some feeling of safety
around the brethren.
Not like, oh man, if I make a mistake,
everyone's gonna get mad at me.
Everybody's gonna crucify me over this.
You know, it feels good to feel like people can allow you to make mistakes.
You know, if you go to work, what if you went to work and your boss just said,
hey, if you do anything wrong today, you're fired?
Wouldn't you feel pretty like under a lot of pressure, a lot of tenseness in your relationship?
What if that happened in marriage? What if you said in marriage,
hey, if you do anything I don't like, I'm divorcing, I'm putting you away as a wife?
That would be really stressful. What if you did that to your kids? Hey kids if you don't get an A plus on every single assignment
You're not my kid anymore
Isn't this like the the Asian stereotype? I don't know if it's true or not
But it's like the Asian stereotype is just kind of you know, that's not the right attitude. I got a witness. So I don't know
But you know, we don't want to have this like this tense feeling of like I can't make a mistake
I can't be perfect. You know praise God that God's not like that with us
He's not like hey as soon as you have a foolish thought gone
Then we're all gone him that knows to do good and do the knot to him and it sent gone
Praise God that he didn't just take us to hell as soon as we sin the first time
Didn't he give us a lot of grace and a lot of mercy and a lot of long suffering and isn't he kind to us
And didn't even do good unto us when he didn't deserve it
That's the attitude of Christ
and we shouldn't be holding petty grievances
against one another.
Just let them go.
If they have to be dealt with,
please deal with them biblically.
Have a spirit of grace and meekness when you do it.
And look, if it crosses a big boundary,
we'll deal with those.
But let us all learn to grow in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Let us figure out how to resolve conflict.
Let us not be a church where we can't handle conflict.
You know, the mature thing in the adult thing
is to be able to handle conflict.
in a mature, gracious approach.
People that can't handle conflict are immature and childish,
and we don't wanna be like that spiritually.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us this advice.
Thank you for giving us ways to handle problems.
Thank you for being an example of how to forgive problems
and how to give grace and how to be long suffering.
I pray that we'd look to your example.
I pray that we could have the attitude of Christ
where we don't just harbor bitterness and anger.
and just unresolved tension towards the brethren.
I pray that we would work on resolving issues,
that we would let a lot of things go.
I pray that in marriages, when there's tension or issues,
if there's problems that you would help both parties
to have a heart that's softened towards one another,
I pray that you could help them to work on the relationship.
I pray that you would help our church
to have a tender heart towards one another,
that we could be kind one to another,
that when we have to deal with issues,
that we can have the right attitude.
And I pray that if there is unresolved issues,
that you would help everyone to just either let them go
or fix them and move on.
And that you would allow us to continue to be unified
for the work of Christ.
It's in his name we pray in Jesus' name.
All right, in closing, let's go to 374.
Song number 374.
Sin the light
Song number
Stand the light, the blessed gospel light,
may it shine from shore to shore.
Stand the light, the blessed gospel light,
may it shine forevermore.
We have heard the mass and only called you today.
Stand the light, stand the light, and uphold it.
Send the line, send the line, send the line