Thank you.
This church, good morning. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you could find your seats and grab your bulletins.
In your bulletins, there should be two song handouts.
There should be a handout for angels we have heard on high and a handout for go tell it on the mountain.
If you do not have a bulletin, please raise your hand and the usher can bring you one.
We also have some extra songs back in the sound room if any of the ushers can bring those to people that need them.
We are going to sing angels have we heard on high.
Angels have we heard on high. Handouts in your bulletins.
There are some more handouts there in the sound room.
Give everyone a couple seconds to get those.
Again if you have got your bulletins, there are two handouts in there.
We are going to sing angels we have heard on high.
angels we have heard on high.
Lord thank you so much for this day and thank you for our great church and all the people that made it out today.
I pray that you bless all those that are here and also all those that are at home.
And sick Lord I pray that you just bless the service and help us to praise and worship you.
In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
Alright for our second song, we will go to 433 away in a manger.
433
433 away in a manger
373 away in a manger
tsy
from the hay, the cattle are
lowing the maybe of wings, but
with the Lord Jesus, from crying
he wakes, my lovely Lord Jesus,
look down from the sky and stay
by my cradle till morning is
nigh, be near me, Lord Jesus,
I ask thee to stay, close by
me forever and love me
I pray, lest other dear children
in thy tender care can
take us to heaven to live with
thee there.
Good morning, thank you for being at Steadfast Baptist Church. If you didn't
already get a bulletin, you can slip up your hand real quick and one of our
ushers can come by and get you a bulletin. On the front we have our Bible
memory passage. We're in John chapter 1, so anybody that's able
to quote the entire chapter will receive a special prize.
Also, children have a weekly challenge, if they can quote
the verse of the week at the midweek service, they can get an ice cream
treat on Wednesday during our Bible study, and so I'd really encourage
you to work on that. Obviously John chapter 1 is a
lengthy chapter, so that means that the prize will be worth it, alright?
So, you know, the harder chapter, the better the prize, and there's
a lot of verses that are low-hanging fruit. I feel like the first section of John's, a lot of verses
people are really familiar with. It's going to be that end that you're going to have to
bear through. But, like I said, it's a great chapter to memorize, a lot of good verses
there. On the inside we have our service and soul winning times. Take note,
we have a Spanish service on Sundays at 4.30.
We have a Sunday evening at 5.30, and then we have a Wednesday evening Bible study at 7. We're in the
book of Genesis, and we're getting into the end portion of Genesis, but it's
a lot of great chapters about Joseph and a lot of good symbolism, so I'd really
encourage you to participate in our Bible study. Down below we have our church-wide
soul winning. Those meet here at the building. We also have regional soul winning that meets in
different parts of the city. You can see the respective leaders, brother Jeff Goodwin,
or brother Steve Malton for those times. On the down below
we have the church stats, and then to the right we have
a list of our expecting ladies, so if you
continue to pray for all of them. We also have a prayer
list where anybody can submit a public prayer request, and
we'll try to put that in our bulletin, just so our church family can be in prayer with you.
And so if you have any of those requests, you can either fill out one of our communication
cards, indicate that slip in our offering, or you can
just email us. That's real easy. Just please put a prayer request
in the title of the sermon. That way we make sure we understand
and catch that email. On the back we have our upcoming
events. Today is our makeup yearbook picture, and so
we really want to try and get your picture. If you're here today
especially, and you didn't already, or even if you wanted to
make it up, and Miss Lucy has been gracious enough to
use her time and energy to do that for us, and so please respect
her time. Also down below we have the
list, or our next event is the candlelight service and cookie
bake-off. So that's coming up. It's going to be this Wednesday, and
we're just going to have it immediately following our service, okay? So immediately
following the service we'll have the cookies available, and we'll also have some
milk and stuff like that for everyone, and it is a competition.
You don't have to, I mean you don't have to
make the cookies for the competition. I'll still eat them, okay? It doesn't matter
either way, but essentially every cookie will put out a cup
and then we'll let people vote, and there's going to be three categories
that you could potentially win from. Best tasting, best decorated,
and most creative, okay? So
and basically if you're ten or older we're going to let you vote, alright?
So everybody will get an opportunity to go down the line, take
some notes, you know, physically by eating, and then
you get to come and vote again. Now here's the thing, if you only
provide us like three cookies, you may not get very many votes because nobody
even knew what happened. They're going to show up at an empty plate and think like, how am I going to vote for
this? So that's why you've got to make lots, make batches
of your really famous cookies so that we can all be excited
to vote for them, okay? And so that's going to happen
Wednesday. I'm really excited about that because I love cookies. Some people
have asked, can I make two different kinds of cookies? And of course
the answer is yes, okay? So absolutely.
Someone out there is probably wondering, can I put beans in it?
Sure, okay. I'm not going to like it, you know? I'm not going to eat it.
But at the end of the day, you can do whatever you want, alright? So
be as creative as you want. I may not try it though.
Also on the 31st we're going to have a New Year's Eve party
7pm, and I've heard somebody
ask, you know, can other people attend? And of course all of our events
are always public events, so if you want to invite
your family, your friends, or anybody to any of our events, they're always welcome.
You're always available to invite them, and we'd like to encourage
them to participate. Down below we have the best
announcement. Congratulations to the Johnson family on the birth of Isaac
Elias Johnson. He was born December 14th
at 3.22am. He weighs 5 pounds, 8 ounces, and measured
19 inches long. So congratulations to the Johnson family.
That's exciting for them.
And also, that's pretty much all I have for
announcements. We'll go ahead and go to our third
song. We do still have some of these invites, and I would say hand them out
until the end of the year. So we still have the New Year's Eve party, so just hand them out
liberally. We hand them out on every single door, but we'll just hand those things
out until New Year's Eve, and that point we'll just, if we have any left over, we'll have to
trash them. So that's why we want to get rid of them all before then, alright?
Let's go to our third song for this morning.
We're going to go tell it on the mountain. Again, if you have your bulletins, there's another hand out in there.
If you need one, go ahead and raise your hand and I'll bring you one. Otherwise it should be
in your bulletin. Go tell it on the mountain.
Now most songs, when we sing, we start on that number one on the verse, but this song you
actually start on the chorus, then it goes to the first verse. So be looking for that.
Go ahead and sing, Go Tell It on the Mountain.
Go tell it on the mountain.
Over the hills and everywhere.
Go tell it on the mountain
that Jesus Christ
is born. The shepherds
fit and travel in the
land of the
earth. Ring out the angels
for rest and build our sabers
heard. Go tell it
on the mountain. Over the hills
and everywhere. Go tell it on
the mountain that Jesus Christ is
born. Down in a lonely
manger, the humble Christ was born.
And God sent us salvation
that blessed Christmas
for more. Go tell it on the
mountain. Over the hills and
everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain
that Jesus Christ is born.
As the offering
plates are passed around,
please turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 13.
Matthew chapter number 13.
We're going to read the entire chapter starting in verse 1,
Matthew chapter 13. The Bible reads,
The same day went Jesus out of the house and sat by the seaside.
And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship and
sat, and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And he spake many
things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow.
And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came
and devoured them up. Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much
earth, and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth.
And when the sun was up, they were scorched, and because they had no root,
they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns
sprung up and choked them. But other fell into good ground,
and brought forth fruit, some in a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some
thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. And the disciples came
and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and
said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,
but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given.
And he shall have more abundance. But whosoever hath not, from him shall be
taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables, because
they seeing see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they
understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith,
By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see,
and shall not perceive. But this people's heart is waxed gross,
and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed,
lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should
understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.
For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men
have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them,
and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them. Hear ye therefore
the parable of the sower, when anyone heareth the word of the kingdom, and
understandeth it not? Then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown
in his heart. This is he which received seed by the wayside.
But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth
the word, and anon with joy receiveth it.
Yet hath he not root in himself, but deareth for a while, for when tribulation
or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.
He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word,
and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches. Choke the word,
and he becometh unfruitful. But he that received seed into the good
ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it, which also beareth
fruit, and bringeth forth some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven
is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field. But while men
slept, his enemy came, and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared
the tares also. So the servants of the householder came,
and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou so good
seed in thy field? From whence then hath it tares? He said unto them,
An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then
that we go, and gather them up? But he said, Nay, lest while ye gather
up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow
together until the harvest, and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers,
Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather
the wheat into my barn. Another parable put he forth unto them, saying,
The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took,
and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all seeds. But when it is grown,
it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the
air come and lodge in the branches thereof. Another parable spake he unto
them, The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took,
and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. All these things
spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables, and without a parable spake he
not unto them. That it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet,
saying, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things which have been
kept secret from the foundation of the world. Then Jesus sent the multitude
away, and went into the house. And his disciples came unto him, saying,
Share unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and sent unto them,
He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man. The field is the
world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are
the children of the wicked one. The enemy that sowed them is the devil,
the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels.
As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in
the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall
gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity,
and shall cast them into a furnace of fire. There shall be wailing
and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth at the sun
and the kingdom of their father, who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field, the which when
a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that
he hath, and buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had
found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had,
and bought it. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast
into the sea, and gathered of every kind, which, when it was full,
they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels,
to cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world.
The angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,
and shall cast them into the furnace of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing
of teeth. Jesus saith unto them, Have ye understood all these things?
They say unto him, Yea, Lord, then said he unto them. Therefore,
every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man
that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and
old. And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these parables,
he departed thence. And when he was come into his own country, he taught
them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said,
Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the
carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren
James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas, and his sisters? Are they
not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? And they were
offended in him, that Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor,
save in his own country, and in his own house. And he did not
receive many mighty works there because of their unbelief.
Inspire our heads for a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for our
church, Lord, and I pray that you would fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit
and just enable him to thunder forth his message for us, the message that
you've laid on his heart, and help us to pay attention so that we listen,
learn, and apply the lessons from this sermon this morning to our lives to
make us better Christians. And I pray this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen. Matthew 13 is a long chapter, but I want to just focus there
at the end where the Bible read in verse 54. And when he was come into his
own country, he taught them in their synagogue insomuch
that they were astonished and said, Whence hath this man this
wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son?
Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren James,
and Joses, and Simon, and Judas, and his sisters?
Are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?
They were offended in him. Jesus said unto them,
Prophet is not without honor, save in his own country
and in his own house. And he did not many mighty works there
because of their unbelief. And here
is an interesting concept that Jesus Christ teaches us
about the fact that a prophet is
essentially going to be respected and given honor
amongst people. However, there's an exception.
And he says that he's not going to have honor necessarily
amongst people of his own country or his own house.
And what I want to draw from this passage is the concept
of disrespecting authority. Disrespecting authority.
And that's the title of my sermon this morning is Disrespecting Authority. Really we see
the people of Jesus' own town disrespecting
him, talking down about him, and basically not having
the same reverence that everyone else had for Jesus
because he was too personal for them. And that's my
first point. I have three points this morning, but essentially why do people
disrespect authority? It's because they become too personal.
Basically it's a personal relationship for them, so it's too difficult for them
to end up having respect for that particular person. Now
when Jesus brings us up in verse 57, I want to make something abundantly
clear. He's not saying that it's okay.
He's not saying that it's good that they're not showing honor under the prophet
or that this is the right attitude to have towards a prophet.
He's essentially making it clear that when a prophet
goes to an area that he's not, you know, from or people don't
know him, people are going to have respect to this guy. I mean it's just going to be too obvious,
too manifest, the people are going to give him respect. Really he's saying
that you should expect that this guy is going to have a lot of fear
amongst the people whenever he's in town. But if it happened to be
in his own town, if it happened to be around his own family or his own
kindred essentially, they may not just give him the respect that he deserves automatically
because they know the guy on a personal level. They have a personal
relationship with him, they grew up around him or they know him
and that clouds their judgment. It causes them to actually have
disrespect towards someone because they have a personal relationship
with them, okay? And this is an interesting thing because I feel like
I experience this when I go and we travel and like let's say we go down to Mexico
or we go on these mission trips or whatever, we'll have people just come out of the woodwork
that want to like hang out with us or that want to like go soloing with us or whatever.
And people that have never met me in my entire life, they treat me
with a lot of respect. It's like they're just like really nice
and they're like yes sir and whatever. But the people that you bring on the trip with you
they just, they don't respect you at all. Like they don't really care. Like you're just
one of the guys or something like that. And it's just, it's interesting how you can just
tell the difference between someone that you know has been around
you for a while or gotten to know you or has a personal relationship with you
versus the person that doesn't know you at all. You know this phenomenon
actually happens also in a church setting where
perhaps someone's elevated in a position of authority that wasn't
there before. You know essentially they're just part of the church but then they
start you know getting in a higher position of elevation. Maybe they become
like ordained or they become an assistant pastor or they kind of move up the ranks.
Sometimes that church will have a hard time having respect
under that person because they knew him before as brother so and so
or as the youth minister or you know maybe grew up in the church
or whatever. So because they have that personal relationship with that individual
they end up not showing the same respect or reverence that they really
should. Whereas if that person got sent out and they came
to a new area, a new city, people would show that person a lot more respect and a lot
more dignity for the fact that he has that particular
position. And the goal of the sermon is to help you identify blind
spots where you may disrespect authority when you
shouldn't. And one of those blind spots for every person is when you know
someone on a personal level. Meaning the more close you get to someone
the more you have a personal relationship with someone, the more you know about someone
it'll cause you to not necessarily give them the
respect or essentially the reverence that that
individual deserves or commands. And we don't want to fall victim
of disrespecting authority just because we have a personal
relationship with that individual. Here's another really good example.
How about a husband and wife? And the reality
is over time it's easier for a wife
to start disrespecting her husband because their
personal relationship has continued to grow and they know the person
more, they see the person's faults more, they realize
that the person they're married to isn't perfect, has a lot of problems,
has a lot of issues, does things that are right,
whatever. And because they know more about the person
maybe their brothers and sister tell a lot of stories about that person
they see the yearbook photos of you. As you start learning more
about this person it could cause you to end up disrespecting
your husband or disrespecting a person in your family
because you know so much about them. But that doesn't
make it right. I'm just teaching you that this is a common theme
that's found in the Bible. Go to Numbers chapter 12. Go to Numbers chapter 12.
I'm going to show you a few examples here in Numbers. And I kind of want to get through my first few points
quickly because my last point I think that we have a lot to talk about.
But if it's your family member
it's a lot easier just not to show them respect.
And let's be honest, if you're in a position of authority within a church
your family is going to have the hardest time giving you respect.
Especially, let's say you're the younger sibling
it's going to be really hard for your brother or your
sister who want to show you respect in any kind of setting
especially even within a church setting. Now this is found in the Bible
where we have that exact scenario. Look at Numbers
chapter 12 verse 1. And Miriam and Aaron
spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman
whom he had married for he had married an Ethiopian woman.
Now let's give you a couple facts. Fact number one, Aaron is older
than Moses. Miriam is older. Moses is like the younger
brother. Not only that, Moses grew up in
Egyptian. Whereas Aaron and Miriam kind of grow up with
the right upbringing. They're kind of in the right church since day one in a sense.
So they have their little younger brother who didn't grow up
a Jew and now he's the leader. Now he's the one in charge.
I guarantee it was probably harder for Aaron
and Miriam to give Moses the respect that he deserved. But here's the thing
it's Moses. Like if there's anybody to respect on the planet
it's Moses. But I believe
because of their relationship to Moses it kind of gives them a little bit more
occasion to feel like
he's our younger brother. We can talk about him. We can
not show him the respect or the reverence that he
deserves. And when Moses makes a mistake
notice who's quick to point that out. His older brother and his older sister.
Now I'll submit to you that in verse 1
what Moses did you could speak against.
Because why is Moses marrying an Ethiopian woman?
Is this really who he should be marrying? He is a Levite.
As we get a little bit further in the Bible
or we understand, I don't know when this happened. I don't know exactly when he married
the Ethiopian woman. But some of the commandments have already been given in Leviticus
that the Levites are not to marry just any person.
The Levites have very clear instructions on whom they're supposed to marry.
In fact the Levites are only supposed to marry virgins.
They're only supposed to marry within their own family.
So it's a very specific rules and basically guidelines
as far as who you're supposed to marry. Now perhaps Moses married
this woman before those statutes or these provisions were given
so he didn't know any better. I don't know. All I know is that it's technically wrong.
You could say there's something that he did that was wrong.
I believe that. But here's the question.
Is it okay to just go ahead and point out
all of Moses' errors and all of Moses' problems
and to speak against him because he's not perfect?
Well let's see what the Bible says. Verse 2.
Have you not spoken also by us? And the Lord heard it.
Now the man Moses was very meek above all the men
which were upon the face of the earth. And the Lord spake suddenly
unto Moses, unto Aaron, and unto Miriam. Come out ye three
unto the tabernacle of the congregation. And they three came out. And the Lord came down
in the pillar of the cloud and stood in the door of the tabernacle and called Aaron and Miriam.
And they both came forth and he said, Hear now my words.
A prophet among you, I the Lord, will make myself known
unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.
My servant Moses not so, who is faithful in all mine house.
With him will I speak mouth to mouth,
even apparently, and not in dark speeches, and the
similitude of the Lord shall he behold. Wherefore
then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant
Moses. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them,
and he departed. Now notice, how did God feel when Miriam
and Aaron spake against Moses? He didn't like it.
In fact, he pretty much rubs their face in the comments
that they made. He's like, Hey, let me tell you something. Yeah, yeah, I speak
to some people in visions and stuff, but not Moses. He's extra
special. Moses is like the greatest one here.
You know, Moses is the guy that I speak to, you know, like my buddy,
like my pal, like my friend, and how in the world
are you not afraid to speak against my friend?
To talk negatively about my friend, to criticize my friend,
and the Bible even tells us through the Holy Ghost, Moses is like
the meekest person on the planet, meaning that Moses is
not presumptuous, Moses is not lifting himself up above the
congregation, Moses didn't decide to put himself in charge,
Moses isn't saying like, here am I, I'm the rescuer, or whatever. No, no, no.
Moses didn't even want to do it. Moses was a reluctant servant.
Okay. Moses was just following God's command. Moses had to humble himself
and say, even though I don't really want to do this necessarily, it's the right
thing to do, God's called me, and you know what, I'm going to do it.
And I'm going to follow God's commandments, and you know, he's a real zealous person
for following God's commandments, even when in his flesh
he doesn't really want to do it necessarily, he doesn't necessarily like it. You know, Moses
in his flesh isn't just this tyrant, I have to be in charge,
I want to do it. No, he's only doing it because God's telling him to do it.
That's the reason why Moses is in charge, is because he's a meek person.
Because God knows, hey, Moses is going to do that which is right,
because I commanded him, not because he just has to be
the leader, or has to be the one that's closest to the Lord, or whatever.
I mean, Moses is just out in the wilderness chasing sheep or something, chasing a goat.
This guy is just, you know, doing whatever, and God's like, I'm going to pick this guy.
But notice that it's not okay to just
go around and criticize the servants of God. To go around
and just, hey, if you've got a leader, if you've got a leader in authority, and he makes
a mistake, who are you to correct him?
That's the real question, and it's disrespecting his authority
to go around and talk bad about Moses, to criticize Moses,
to go against Moses, and it's funny that these are the people they're bringing up.
You know why? Because it's probably because they're family. Now let me show you in another place,
keep your finger here, don't, yeah, keep your finger here, go to Exodus 11 for a second.
Go back to Exodus chapter 11. Now what did Jesus say?
He said a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country and his own house.
Now guess what? This is kind of his house, right? It's once
removed in the sense that it's not his immediate family, but it was
still part of his house, you know, Aaron and his brother and his sister
and everything like that. What about people that were not of Moses' house?
How did they feel about Moses? Well, look at Exodus chapter 11
verse 3. And the Lord gave the people
favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man
Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight
of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people.
So how did the Egyptians look at Moses? This guy's
great. This guy is one to be feared. This is not
somebody you want to mess with. This is not somebody you want to attack. This is not someone
you want to criticize, but then his brother and his sister, no problem
because we're just bros this, or whatever. And guess how God
feels about it? He's very angry. Just like he'd be angry if the Egyptians were
talking crap on Moses. It's no different. It's the same Moses
and you know what? Moses commands respect regardless of how
personal you are with him. Now, go if you would back
to Numbers 12, and I want to read a few more verses here.
Let's see how specific God gets in his anger toward speaking
against Moses. And it says in Numbers
chapter number 12, look at verse 11,
Now how did Aaron describe their actions? Sinful, foolish,
stupid. Verse 12,
of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother's womb.
Moses cried on the Lord saying, healer now God, I beseech thee.
Now here's the thing. Moses gets criticized.
Moses does nothing about it.
God comes out of the woodwork. God shows up. God rebukes
them. And then God is going to punish Miriam.
What is Moses' response? Moses asks the healer.
Isn't that pretty nice? We don't even see Miriam saying
forgive me or I'm sorry or whatever. Moses is only asking
hey, forgive her. It's not a big deal.
What does it say? Verse 13,
Notice Moses doesn't even want her to be punished. Moses doesn't
even care. But guess who still cares? God.
So this is what this tells me. If you disrespect
the man of God, even if the man of God doesn't care,
God still cares. Think about that.
So it would be really bad to disrespect
some pastor or disrespect some servant of God
and if they don't get mad about it, think like, oh, it's okay.
Because notice how God didn't say like, oh, you're not
offended? No problem. Oh, you don't want her to be punished? No problem.
No, he says, hey, it's like I'm spitting in her face. And you know what? She should be
ashamed for what she did and it's not right. And here's the thing.
God will avenge. It's not for us to have to worry about it.
And that's why, you know, people will disrespect you when you're in positions of authority.
Okay? It happens all the time in every category,
in every situation. And you know what? I don't have to right every single wrong.
You know, David is criticized really heavily by Shimei at one point in the Bible
and his servants are really incredulous to why David's not just like coming over there and
taking his head off. They want to take Shimei's head off or whatever. But David
does nothing about it. He never touches him. He never hurts him in any way.
But God takes care of it. Shimei ends up dying
eventually through his own pride and his own conceit and rebelling against the
word of the Lord in the future, departing after Solomon told him
never to leave. He leaves and then comes back and then Solomon kills him.
But at the end of the day, you don't have to right every wrong when you're in a position
of authority. But the warning is this. Just because the person
you disrespect isn't mad about it, doesn't mean there's not going to be a punishment.
There could still be a very severe punishment. Go to 1 Timothy 4.
Go to 1 Timothy 4. So what you have to be careful of
is that in every setting where you have someone that's in a position of authority
over you, that no matter how good a personal relationship you have
with them, that you don't let that cloud your judgment and start disrespecting that
individual. You know, maybe you work at a place where
you actually like your boss or your boss becomes your friend or you all start
hanging out or you go have lunch together or you have a pretty good relationship.
Don't let that change how you treat that individual.
You should still call him, yes sir. You should still, you know,
approach him with respect. You should never take anything for granted.
You should never feel entitled to anything because he's your friend or your buddy or your pal.
You should always treat that person with respect and not let your personal
relationship cloud that judgment with that individual.
You don't want that to happen with your mom or dad either.
You know, your mom and dad should always be respected no matter how good a relationship
you have with them. Even if you're an adult, okay, it's not
like, oh I'm 18, I don't have to honor my father and my mother anymore.
No, you honor your father and mother until you die. That's how long you honor your father
and your mother. And even if you're an adult, even if you're 70 years
old and they're 90 years old, you know what, you still respect them.
And I don't care if you all are gal pals or you're all the best friends
ever on the planet, don't let that relationship cloud your judgment
and start disrespecting your mom or your dad or any position
of authority above you. You always show them the respect that they deserve
regardless of the fact that they're your family member. And because Jesus
told us this, we should all realize it's a blind spot for everybody.
It's always going to be hard to respect the people that
you're closest to naturally. Whereas someone that you don't really know,
you don't have that relationship with, it's a lot easier just to respect that person automatically
or to show them the reverence that they deserve. So we have to work at
and we have to exercise ourself in good and proper
behavior towards those that we become friends with.
And there's nothing wrong with becoming friends with your authority, we just want to make sure that we're
still maintaining a high level of respect. First Timothy chapter 4, look at verse 12.
Let no man despise thy youth,
but be thou an example of the believers in word and conversation and charity and spirit and faith
and purity. So, Timothy is given an instruction here
and it's a very important instruction because it's kind of similar in the sense that people often
disrespect someone's authority because they're younger than them.
And this kind of is illustrated with Jesus where they're saying
like, wasn't this guy the carpenter's son? Kind of talking about when he was a lad
or when he was this young child or whatever and he grew up among us and
you know the Pharisees when they're talking to Jesus, thou art not fifty years old.
You know, they're basically kind of rebuking the age of Jesus
as if that somehow has any indication on whether or not
he deserves respect. And here's the thing, what is Jesus' age?
Oh yeah, timeless.
Eternal life. Okay, that was his real age. They actually were
ignorant of what his true age was. But here's a fact,
my age is just a number, my friend. Why is it that
a pastor or an evangelist or a deacon
or your boss, I mean it does not matter what their age is.
You know what, you're going to do yourself a big service if in every scenario
you disregard age whatsoever.
If someone gets hired at your company and they become your boss and they're younger
than you, you should show them the same respect you would as someone that's
twenty years older than you. It does not change. Here's one,
if you're married and you're older than your husband, you still
show him respect regardless of that age.
Here's another thing, if your pastor is younger than you,
you would still show him the same respect as if he was a thousand
years older than you because it does not matter what the age
is. It's the position that commands the respect, not the age.
And notice he's telling Timothy, hey don't let
people get hateful or resentful towards you because of how young you
are. And at the end of the day, do we really just
have to have just the most absolute eldest person be the pastor?
I mean that would be kind of weird, right? I mean we have to get someone that's ninety-nine years old. I mean
this guy's probably not necessarily going to be as active
or have the strength to do all the same work. In fact, the
Levites were basically instructed to be in that position from the
age of twenty-five to fifty. Why would
it end at fifty? Because after fifty, you're going to decline a little
bit, whether that be in your strength or whether that be mentally
or whatever. You know, as you get a little bit older, things change.
And when it's coming to the service of the Lord, God doesn't want
anything to go wrong in the house of God at all. He doesn't want someone to drop something,
forget something, or whatever. So he's basically picking the window
of prime, and what's the prime age? Twenty-five to fifty.
Now, I'm not saying that we take that and run
with it and say like, every pastor should retire at age fifty. Because I don't believe that, okay,
number one. But if you understand the job of the Levites, they
have to literally carry like huge columns and pillars
and all kinds of stuff through the wilderness. Probably not the most
practical job for someone that's over the age of fifty. That could probably hurt
them, and it could also, they could drop God's
holy instruments, and that would be very bad. You're not allowed to just drop
God's Ark of the Covenant or any of these instruments. So it's talking about
a prime there, and at the end of the day, why would I not want a twenty-five
year old to be able to do that? Twenty-five year old men are strong,
they're agile. I mean, when it looks to the people that we praise in the world today,
who do we praise? All the athletes that are twenty and twenty-five
and these young bucks or whatever, you know, we don't really see a lot of athletes
at fifty-five, sixty, seventy, you know, that we're
looking up to, and it would be weird to not show respect to Michael
Jordan at age twenty-five because you're older than him.
How would that make sense? You're like, oh, you're just this
young buck, you probably don't even know how to play ball back in my day. It's like,
actually, he's the best. It doesn't matter the age.
Age is irrelevant. Age has no concern.
It doesn't really matter.
When it comes to spiritual matters, carnal age
means almost nothing. Absolutely nothing.
And we could show you through the Bible, men of God, all ages.
At every stage. Here's an example of someone that suffers
from this. Joseph. Seventeen years old, preaching
visions. His brethren don't want to believe in him because he's the runt.
He's the youngest. He's the little brother. Even his dad doesn't even
have respect for him. And look, talk about someone who's going to have a real hard
time respecting a pastor is his dad.
Why? Because it's your son. It's kind of hard
to have the reverse respect in a sense, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't.
You know, and if you have a son that grows up and becomes a man of God,
you know what? You need to show him respect. You need to show him the reverence that
he deserves. Look at Titus, chapter 2, and look at verse 15.
The Bible says, Titus, chapter 2, verse 15,
These things speak and exhort and rebuke
with all authority, let no man despise him. You know, a person
that's in a position of authority is not supposed to allow people under him
to despise him because it causes mutiny in the ranks.
It causes just a lot of issue underneath. You know, the person
in authority, whenever they have someone that's rebelling or
not respecting that authority, they should deal with it properly. And I'm
talking about in every context. At work, in the home,
at church, wherever you find yourself. And if you want
to be an effective leader, you cannot allow just
respect for the authority. Because as soon as you let one person do it, everybody will do it.
And it'll become commonplace, it'll become normal,
that's why you have to command respect in these positions. Go to Numbers 21,
go back to Numbers, and we're going to look at a lot of stories in Numbers.
You know, one thing that is kind of difficult for me, but I was instructed
to do this, and I agree with it, is that I don't really like
care that much about idols personally, like when it comes to like,
I don't need someone to be like, Pastor Shelley, you know, or whatever.
Like, I don't really care. And when I first started the church or whatever, people would just
call me anything and everything, and I had a pastor tell me, he says like,
no, you correct them, and you say, you're Pastor Jonathan Shelley.
You know, it's not cool to be like, hey, Shell Boy, you know, what's going
on, or Shell Dog, or hey, Shelley Belly,
you know, what's going on, you know, no, you've got to correct people, you've got
to teach them that you should call your pastor a pastor, you know,
you should give them respect, or at the bare minimum, brother, you know, like
brother so and so. But in a church setting, I believe the pastor should
be referred to as pastor in every single area. And you say, why
would you do something like that? Just so that no man despises the pastor.
And you know what I've noticed? People that don't like the pastor, drop that title
real quick. You can usually pick up on the people that have resentment
because they'd be like, oh, that Shelley said so and so, or whatever. And it's like,
it's Pastor Shelley, you know, because you kind of see them dropping
the title, you see them dropping, you know, some kind of a reverent
dignity or whatever, and then you start seeing like
there's something wrong with a person's heart, you know, just like it
would be if you were at home and your brother looks at your dad
and says like, hey, Trey, you know,
you'd be like, dude, it's dad. Like, you know, what are you talking about?
You know, you don't just call people by their first name. That's disrespectful
to call your mom and dad just like they're your friend or something like that.
Or, you know, T-dog or something, you know, like it's
father or dad or whatever. If you have a different colloquialism,
that's fine. But you should show that person respect. You shouldn't treat
them and talk down to them. It always freaked me out when I'd be
around someone and they would address their parents with like their
first name. And I'm thinking like, are y'all sisters or like what's going on?
And like, no, it's my mom. And it's like, we're friends or whatever. And it's like, no, that's bad.
Like, that's not the right way to treat that person. You should
treat that person with respect and use these
identifiers to help show that respect. And so, you know,
it's even an instruction to let no man despise the, if someone's not willing
to give, you know, reverence to the title. It's not that like I'm
special or anything like that. It's the position of pastor special. Okay?
So, whoever it is in that position, we should respect them and call them pastor
so and so. And you know what? I never referred to my pastor as anything other than pastor
in any setting because I just want to show him the respect that he deserves.
Even after becoming a pastor, I still address every pastor
or pastor so and so. Now, if it's like Joel Osteen, I might call him whatever.
But that's just because he's a false prophet. Alright? Don't get confused.
Okay? That would be my only exception.
But that's because he's not a legit pastor. He's a fake pastor. He's, you know,
a whited sepulcher or whatever. And we see Jesus not really showing much respect
to those type of people whenever he's confronting them.
But look, if we have a position that commands respect,
we should give it that respect just so we keep our hearts right. You know, keep our minds
right and we behave ourselves orderly and we teach people how to
have respect. And you know, a great thing you could do is when someone
refers to someone inappropriately, you correct them.
Don't make someone else have to do it. You do it. You know, someone's like,
oh, this one guy, Billy or whatever, it's like it's Pastor Billy.
Or this guy, Joe, it's Pastor Joe. Or it's Pastor so and so.
Or it's whatever the right title or whatever the right nomenclature is.
Help them use the right nomenclature so that they don't
disrespect that position. What does it say
in Numbers chapter 21? Look at verse number 1.
And they utterly destroyed them in their cities.
And what happens? Well,
I first taught you that people will disrespect authority because they get too personal.
It's too personal for them. They know the person too well. There's a second
reason why people disrespect authority and it's because of persecution. It's because of
persecution. Times get tough and then what do they do? They blame the leadership.
They start blaming God and they start blaming Moses
and saying, why are we having to go through all this difficulty and all this
struggle? You know, why are we out here? I don't even like the
food that you're feeding me here. There's not any water out here.
Are you just dragging us out here to die? Notice they're
speaking against Moses. What is Moses doing? All Moses is doing is following
everything that God said. So they're really talking against God if you think about it.
But at the end of the day, they're disrespecting Moses because they
perceive that he's not doing something right. But has he done anything wrong
at this point? No. So what does the Lord do? Verse 6.
I don't think God liked that.
I don't think God likes it when you complain along the way.
And notice, God wanted them to go through something difficult, but they were going to get through it.
You know what they didn't get through? Getting bit by a serpent.
So notice, you can make it through hard times, but you know what, when you complain
when you talk against, I mean think about all the struggles and the difficulties
that God's taken them through, but then they complain and it's just toast.
And I'll tell you something, complaining and murmuring and attacking
the authority, God does not take lightly. God gets really
really angry at this. He gets really frustrated about this.
And he punishes people very severely. And notice he just kills them.
Verse 7. Therefore the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned.
We have spoken against the Lord. And notice this phrase,
and against thee. Notice they didn't just sin by
talking against God. They also sinned by talking against
Moses. He says, pray the Lord that he take away
the serpents from us, and Moses prayed for the people. Moses is a really
gracious guy. When you actually study the Bible, I mean
wouldn't you kind of be like, you talked bad about me.
Enjoy those serpents, buddy. But notice when they ask him, he prays.
He prays for Miriam. People just constantly talk crap on him.
They're constantly disrespectful, constantly doing wrong. And Moses is constantly
interceding for them, doing right. You know, it's a picture of Jesus.
We constantly sin against God. We constantly sin against the Lord.
We constantly violate the commandments. And yet Jesus is constantly making intercession
for us. Jesus is constantly saying, Lord please forgive him for that one,
and this one, and that one. And you know, it would be foolish
to then get mad at Jesus, the one who is actually interceding for you the whole time.
It's also silly to get mad at Moses, the person that's interceding
for you on a regular basis. And a lot of people
just don't realize this. A lot of times your authorities are constantly interceding on your behalf.
They're looking out for you. They're on your team. It makes no sense to bite
the hand that feeds, okay. Well, I don't like this food.
Well, guess what? You're going to die then, you know. You don't like
the food, tough. But if that's the person that's feeding you, don't bite
the hand that's feeding you, because then you're going to get bit.
Look what it says in verse number 8.
So, what's interesting though, God doesn't just pardon everyone.
He says, only the people that look to the serpent on the stake does he pardon,
which kind of illustrates another interesting point for me.
Go to Jude chapter 1 for a second. Go to Jude chapter 1. But it's this.
In a church setting specifically, you're going to always have
complainers, okay. You're going to always have people that murmur, go against
the leadership, and attacking. And the reason why is because there's always going to be
evil people that creep in, okay. But the saved people,
they can look to Jesus and still live
even though they sin. But the people that didn't look to Jesus,
they die, okay. Meaning what? There's going to be
attacks on a church, and when the pastor, you know, corrects
that issue, the good people get it right, but you know what? The bad people
are going to get it wrong. And then the bad people are going to manifest who they
are, and just like they died in the wilderness, we're going to
cast them out, and they're going to be without, okay. They're not going to be a part
of the group. Now the Bible tells us about a group like this. Look at Jude
chapter number 1, and look at verse 16.
These are murmurers, complainers, walking after
their own lusts, and their mouths speak of great swelling words, having men's persons
in admiration because of advantage. Beloved, remember, ye the
words which were spoken before the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how
that they told you there should be mockers in the last time,
who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having
not the Spirit. So what is the Bible saying? The Bible is saying there's people going to try and
creep in to God's house, they're going to complain, they're going to murmur,
they're going to go against the leadership, and they're going to try and separate
themselves. But here's what you have to do. Let them separate themselves.
Don't go and join them. Don't go with
them. You look to Jesus and you stick with Jesus.
Don't be like these reprobates, these false prophets, and these
sons of the devil who are never going to look at Jesus. Let them just go
and get destroyed. You have to realize bad people creep into churches.
Look at 1 John chapter number 2. Just turn to the left, it's just a few pages.
Chapter 2, and we'll see the Bible elaborate on this. Look at verse 18.
Little children, it is the last time, as you've heard, that
Antichrist shall come. Even now are there many Antichrists
whereby we know that it is the last time.
The Bible says there's a coming Antichrist in 1 John.
It says, yet there's still many Antichrists now. It says in verse 19,
they went out from us, but they were not of us.
For if they had been of us, they would no doubt
have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest
that they were not all of us. Now here's the thing.
If you gather with the Lord, then you're with us.
So if someone leaves our church, but they still go
to a good church and are winning souls, they're still with us, my friend.
He's not against us just because he doesn't attend our church or something like that.
Someone that leaves our church and is still saved
but just gets backslidden,
that person is still saved.
Nothing changed. At the end of the day, and still technically
in his heart, in the new man, he's still with us.
But the person that leaves our church and hates all churches
and hates the Lord and hates our doctrine, he was never with us.
He was an infiltrator, just like Judas.
Judas was a devil from the beginning. Judas never believed.
That's why when he went out, he made it manifest who he was.
And the devil inhabited his body
proving he's not saved. The devil influences him
to betray the Lord Jesus Christ. And look, we're all sinful.
None of us would have sold out the Lord Jesus Christ for thirty pieces
of silver. You couldn't do that. There's just certain things you
can't do. There's certain things that a saved Christian is never
going to do. A saved Christian can commit virtually
every sin in the Bible, every common sin for sure. Lying, stealing,
murder, adultery, it's all possible. It's all proven in the Bible
because we see all the saved people doing all of that stuff. You know what?
A saved person is not going to just become a Muslim.
A saved person is not going to join
the Mormons. You might join the bar.
You might go to Hollywood. You might go and
try to make a lot of money. You might join Target.
But guess what? You're not going to join the Mormon church
because you already know it's fake.
Just like you're not going to go work for Santa in the North Pole
because you already know it's fake. No person
is going to go to the North Pole looking for Santa that already realizes
Santa's not real. Just like you're not going to go looking for the truth
in the Mormon church when you're saved because you already have the truth,
my friend. Now, of course, there's a lot
of cheap substitutes of church like the Joel Osteens,
like the Rick Warrens, and of course people can get caught up in that junk and they can
start getting a little backslidden and they can entertain heresy, my friend.
I'm not saying that people that go to a bad church are unsafe.
But if you're going to a completely different religion, that person
wasn't even saved. That person never got the truth. That person
never was born again. That person doesn't have the Holy Spirit inside
of them. They're just not saved whatsoever.
And there's a little bit of tolerance when it comes to heresy and these things where the
Bible teaches you can get pretty off and still be saved.
And it still manifests that that person is saved. Obviously you can never lose your salvation, but I'm just saying
from our outward looking, we could notice someone get really bad
and still recognize the fact that that person is saved. But look, when they're denying
the deity of Jesus Christ, when they're denying the Trinity,
when they're joining a false religion, that person's not saved.
And when I decide that someone's not saved that was originally
claiming to be a brother in Christ, it's always a doctrinal thing for me.
It's not a lifestyle thing. I'm not looking at this person saying like,
oh, you drank a 12-pack? Not saved.
Oh, you committed adultery? Definitely not saved.
To me, it's about your beliefs. It's about what your doctrine
is. Because that's what gets someone saved anyways. It wasn't quitting sinning
that got that person saved. And we go out into the hood
and get people saved that probably have done all that and worse anyways. And I still think
they're saved. I still know that they're saved. Just like they know that they're
saved. Because it's not of works. But I'm telling
you, people are going to come to our church and they're going to make it clear that
they don't believe the doctrines of the church and I'm going to label them unsaved.
And if you don't like that, then you can go to any other church and
they'll probably never warn you about anybody. In fact, they'll let the Damned Little Heretic teach Sunday
school. They'll let the Damned Little Heretic come by in the pulpit sometimes.
They'll let the Damned Little Heretic teach your kids and be in the nursery and do all these
different weird things because they basically just don't believe the Damned Little Heretics exist.
But these verses are in the Bible for a reason, my friend.
And why did so many people die in the wilderness? Because there's that many false prophets.
You're like, oh, your church is full of drama. Well, welcome to the church in the wilderness.
Have you ever read the first five books of the Bible?
You know how many people died with Moses?
Did you see how many sons of Belial were with David? Look, even David's
own sons were wicked. You can't think
that, oh, well, I want to go to the church where there's no bad problems or no evil people
or whatever. There's no issues. Well, guess what? That church
doesn't exist. And even the churches
where you think it doesn't exist, all they're doing is covering it up all the time.
Because it still exists. I remember talking to someone that's not like
us at all. They're like the gracious Baptist or whatever you want to call them.
We'll go to number 16. And he was telling
me about all the problems they'd had in the last few years. And I knew none of them.
And I'm talking problems that make our problems seem like nothing.
Like serious, horrible issues
that you would never want to deal with. But the thing is, is just nobody knows because
they won't ever throw anybody out or make it clear.
They're not going to throw the pedophiles out. They're not going to throw the creepy, weird
things that are going on in the church. They're not going to throw the incest out.
They're not going to throw the damn little heretics out. They're not going to throw all these issues out.
So then you just don't know. And then they stay in the church.
And this causes even more problems and more issues. And the preaching just becomes
this fake preaching because they can't preach any parts of the Bible to offend anybody.
But look, it's there. And it's there in the Bible.
So if you have a real church that's following all the commandments, you know what you should expect?
People are going to get exposed every once in a while. Bad people are going to come into the
churches. You're going to have to deal with issues. You're going to have to deal with drama.
But what happens? People see the persecution and they start criticizing the leadership.
Oh, well, if maybe you preached nicer, people wouldn't leave the church.
Well, I'm not going to preach nice to a damn little heretic. If you're a damn little heretic,
get out. Go to hell already. Like, I'm not interested in
dealing with that kind of nonsense. Oh, well, if you didn't preach, you know,
Genesis 19, then we wouldn't have a bunch of people mad at you, Pastor Shelley.
Well, guess what? People are going to get mad at the Bible, my friend.
I'm going to preach it. I'm not here to please anybody but God.
That's the only person I'm supposed to please. You know, and if the message
makes everyone in this room mad at me but it glorifies God,
praise the Lord. Because I'm not your pal first. I'm your pastor
first. And at the end of the day, you shouldn't criticize your pastor
for preaching the Bible or for the persecution you receive for
preaching the Word of God. Rather, you should respect the man of God for
having the humility and the meekness to follow God's commandments.
Instead of looking at Moses and saying, why are you dragging us out here?
Why do you have to eat this bread? You know, and what the bread
represents is the Word of God. Oh, why do you have to preach Leviticus
again? My soul loatheth this Leviticus.
It's in your Bible. Why is it Genesis again?
It's in the Bible. Romans 1 again. It's in the Bible.
You know, it doesn't matter what they bring up.
Don't get mad at the guy serving you. Don't bite the hand that's feeding you.
God gets mad at that. And you know what?
Don't let persecution, don't let the devil win in persecution
causing you to start disrespecting the people that are leading you
because times get hard. Are they doing something biblical?
Follow them. Help. Get in the fight.
Encourage people. You know, it wouldn't have been nice if when things are going hard
that people came up to Moses and said, hey, I bet it's pretty hard.
I bet your job's really hard. I just want to let you know I'm behind you.
And I like the food. Can I have another?
Can I have some more? You know, hey, I think that you're doing it.
Instead of just being like, ah, we have to go here. We have to do this.
And you know what? When one person complains, a lot more people start complaining.
It takes one. There's a little leaven leaven at the whole lump.
But I'm telling you, it's not right to let persecution dissuade you from serving God
or start disrespecting the authority. Or you know what? Hey, your husband starts
dragging you into church and preaching the Bible and your whole family starts turning
against you, you don't start disrespecting your husband for that.
That's not your husband's fault for following the word of God. That's your family's
fault for basically sinning and doing wickedly.
Don't shift the blame to the person that's doing right.
No, you follow your husband. You do that which is right.
Hey, you are in the workplace and your boss wants to go out and
really put in a new product. You know what will happen? Competition.
You know, persecution is going to follow success.
And when your company is successful, people might start attacking your company
or going against you or doing this. Don't get mad at your company for being successful.
Don't get mad at your company for doing that which is right. Respect the authorities that are
put in your life and follow their leadership.
Here's my third point. Here's why people are really
going to disrespect authority. I think this is the biggest one. It's pride.
Look at Numbers chapter 16. Look at verse number 1.
You get a real famous story here.
Now Korah, the son of Ishar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi,
and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab and On, the son of Peleth,
the sons of Reuben and Tuchman, they rose up before Moses with certain of the children of Israel,
250 princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation men
of renown. They gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron
and said unto them, ye take too much upon you. Seeing all
the congregation are holy, every one of them.
And the Lord is among them. Wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above
the congregation of the Lord.
Now, he is one of the most prideful people on the planet, Korah.
The least prideful is Moses. And notice who's talking against who.
Korah. And who's accusing who of being prideful?
Korah is accusing Moses
of being prideful. And let me give you a little tidbit.
This is a little PSA. The person screaming that
the other one's prideful is pretty much always the prideful person.
And what I've noticed is these really prideful people, they like
to pontificate about how everyone else is so prideful.
And they'll attack people who are being really prideful. They'll attack my sending pastor,
Pastor Anderson, for being prideful. And it's the most ridiculous accusation
I've ever heard, my friend. He's honestly one of the meekest
people I've ever met in my entire life. He treats people
with so much respect that don't deserve it. And he
never, in a personal setting, he's never
exercising his authority in an inappropriate way
or talking down to people. In fact, he usually does the
exact opposite. Very humble, very lowly, yet what
do all these people love to accuse him of? Being the most prideful person ever, attacking.
You know what that tells me? They're the most prideful person ever.
The people that are attacking someone like that. You know, going around and throwing their
weight and whatever. And notice the statements that he makes.
He says, in verse number three, he says
seeing all the congregation are holy. I mean,
when you're reading this chapter, when you're reading the first five books, okay,
this is the thought that I'm thinking. These people suck and are really sinful.
And never follow God's commandments. What does Korah say?
They're all holy. I mean, they're dropping like flies.
I mean, these people, I mean, as Moses went up on the mount, they made a golden
calf and worshipped it. Oh, everybody here is holy.
What are you talking about? You guys are stiff-necked
and hard-hearted. You guys don't want to follow any of the commandments of the Lord, okay?
Talk about flattery. Now, why did he say that, though?
Well, look at verse one again, because notice Korah
is the son of Levi. So, Korah actually has the privileges of being a
Levite and having some level of service in the Lord.
But what about the next guys, Dathan and Abiram? They're sons of Reuben.
They have absolutely no right to the service of God.
They are not the priests of God. They're not qualified. They're not
ordained. They've not been chosen. They're not supposed to do this service
whatsoever. But, of course, because they're men of renown, that
pride has gotten to their head, and so they want to take the service of the priesthood.
And you know what? Moses rebukes Korah, and he's saying, look,
you Levites, why do you have to have the priesthood? The priesthood reserved to Aaron and his descendants.
But you guys still get to serve God.
Think about it. Of all the people on the planet, they're the chosen people.
Then, they're the chosen tribe.
And they get to literally be a part of the function of the government. And guess what? It's still not enough.
Because the prideful person is never satisfied.
The prideful person can never have enough. He can't be second in charge.
He can't be the second most powerful person on the planet. He has to be the number one.
He has to be at the top. And it's just this rat race of pride
that these people have. And you know what? Pride will cause you to disrespect the authorities
that you have in your life.
Now, I have too much to preach in the amount of time that we have.
So, I just want to cover a few things quickly. Go to 1 Timothy chapter 5.
Go to 1 Timothy chapter 5.
But, look, when it comes to disrespecting authority, we need to guard ourselves against letting
personal relationships affect that, letting persecution affect that, and especially
letting pride affect that. Now, the Bible makes it clear
in 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse number 1,
the Bible says, Rebuke not an elder.
Now, some people have tried to pontificate that this is not
meaning a pastor here. They try to say it's just an older person.
And I want to prove that real quick. But the reality is that
this has to be a pastor for a lot of reasons. And I want to teach that to you.
I've always believed it's been a pastor, number 1.
But number 2, if we try to take the application that this is not a pastor,
a lot of things get weird in the Bible. But let me submit to you why this is also important.
You don't want to go around rebuking your authorities.
And this is not just a pastor-only doctrine. This isn't every authority doctrine.
That's why I also believe that. You're not going to go around rebuking your father.
You're not going to go and rebuke your boss. You're not going to rebuke your pastor.
You're not going to rebuke your husband. Whenever you have somebody in authority over you,
you don't rebuke them. That's just a general rule.
And it's exemplified here in the sense that you would not rebuke a pastor.
Now, rebuking is what? Strongly condemning
and correcting. This is not so you can't correct a pastor.
It's saying that you shouldn't do it in harsh terms. Meaning that if
a pastor literally did something that's worthy of being corrected, hey,
you should go to a meekly, and you should say, hey, this happened.
I don't think that that was personally right. I just wanted to let you know.
And I'll be honest with you. I've had church members come to me
and say, you know, I think this might have been wrong, or I didn't appreciate
this, or I was offended at this, or this, you know, whatever it was that they perceived as wrong.
And you know what? They did it in a humble manner, in a meek manner, in a private way.
And you know what I said? Sorry. Because I actually agreed with them.
I actually thought that it was right. It's not that I can't be corrected. You know what? It would be wrong
to stand up and start rebuking a pastor, even if he was wrong.
Even if he did something that you perceived was bad, or you didn't agree
with, or whatever. So it's, yeah, it's okay to correct
a person in a position of leadership, but you know what? You have to do it the right way.
And it's inappropriate to rebuke an elder. Now it says
in the next breath, but entreat him as a father. And the younger
men as brethren, the elder as women as mothers, the younger as sisters
with all purity. Now the word elder could mean two things in your Bible. Be an adjective
describing someone who's older, or it could be describing
a pastor, okay? In the Old Testament, a lot of times
the elders are kind of synonymous with that, with both, in the sense
that they're kind of like the leaders, and they just happen to be older.
A lot of times they're just referred to as elders. Elders could also just
signify the older men that are ruling. A lot of times it's both.
But sometimes it could just be simply a pastor. Sometimes it could be an adjective
describing an older person. Here in the second part, in verse 2, the elder women. That's just saying
older women, okay? That's what that means. But the first elder there, I submit
to you, is a pastor. Let me tell you why. Look at verse 17.
Let the elders that rule well be kind of worthy of double honor, especially they who
labor in the word and doctrine. For the scripture saith, I shall not muzzle the ox that treadeth out
the corn, and the laborer is worthy of his reward.
Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses, them that sin or rebuke
before all, that others also may fear. Now when you get to this section of the same chapter,
you use the word elder multiple times, and it's abundantly clear the context
of a pastor, okay? And it also is describing two
different scenarios, right? You've got an elder who's ruling well.
What would be the opposite of that? An elder that's maybe not ruling well, okay?
You also have another scenario. You have a scenario where an elder is
laboring really hard, and a scenario where an elder is maybe not
laboring as hard, okay? And this makes sense for a lot of reasons,
okay? Let's say you have a pastor who's starting a small church
and he's bivocational, right? He's working a secular
job, he's doing a little church, and you know, he's doing the best that he can.
He's not doing anything wrong, but he can only labor so much, right?
Well, if the church had some money to pay the guy, would you pay him like
a double salary in that scenario? Probably not. You'd probably
maybe have a reduced amount of money that you would pay that particular
individual. But then what about the guy that's just full time
in the ministry, giving it all that he can, and laboring super hard? Then
that guy who's especially laboring in the word of doctrine, let's pay him
the double salary, right? So it's basically saying, you know, you should kind of get out
what you're putting in to some degree, and it's not saying that one's doing
bad and the other one's doing wrong, it's more about practicality. It's more about
one person has the ability to put a lot more in, one's not.
The apostle Paul, he's laboring and paying for all of his own bills,
so he doesn't even take a paycheck. But Paul would have definitely been worthy of double
honor, because that guy is laboring in the word and doctrine and doing a lot of great
exploits for the Lord. So you want to kind of quantify
the person's job responsibilities and the tasks
that they're taking on and the work performance to evaluate, is this guy
getting paid what he should get paid, and it's saying
if the guy is doing full time service, he's laboring
in the word of doctrine, he'd never criticize his pay, even
up to double honor. He wouldn't want to disrespect him and say, like, I can't believe you're
getting double pay. Because the Bible's teaching you that you shouldn't
feel that way about this person. Now is this really the context of just old people?
Did just every old guy just get paid from the church?
You read the Bible a lot, let's pay him a lot of money. You know, that would be silly
interpretation here. It's obviously talking about a pastor, okay?
And I'll give you even more evidence of this. In this
chapter, the word honor is not talking about respect
solely, it's talking about being paid, specifically, okay?
It says in verse 3, honor widows that are widows indeed, right? Well, it defines that in verse 8,
but if any provide not for his own. What is the context?
Paying money, right? Verse 16, if any man or woman that believeth have widows, let
them relieve them, and let not the church be charged, that it may relieve them
that are widows indeed. So, in this chapter, it's
talking about paying for a widow, and it gives really, really specific guidelines
on which widows could be given money.
And then the elders, specifically, when it's saying double order, it's not saying
like double respect, it's saying double payment. Well, guess what? The church
is not a bread factory, it's not a soup kitchen, it's not
to just hand out money to every single yahoo or every kind of bozo.
The only person the Bible allots for the church to give money to
is a widow that's a widow indeed. That's it.
It doesn't say the homeless guy. No, the homeless guy is supposed to get a job.
It doesn't say, you know what also is not in this
chapter? Older men.
Now, some people say, ah, I can't believe your interpretation of 1 Timothy 5, verse 1.
How could elders be pastors because then it doesn't address older men? Let me give you two
reasons why that's the case. Number one, older men command respect, period.
That's kind of more implied. You don't have to necessarily teach that. It's not as
obvious, whereas these other ones maybe need more emphasis.
But here's a second point. Did you notice that it doesn't address widowers?
Why? Because it's obviously a double standard.
You don't need to worry about the widower. The widower can take care of himself.
But widows, they might actually need someone to take care of them.
So we address them. Notice widowers aren't addressed at all.
It doesn't bring them up at all. So why would they have to address old men
in verse number 1 then? It's obviously leaving certain people out because
it doesn't need to address them. It doesn't need to address the widower, so therefore
it also doesn't need to address the older men because there's other Bible verses
like in Leviticus that say to honor the face of the
hoary man or of the old man. So according to the Bible,
yeah, obviously we're supposed to respect older men. That makes sense.
We don't need extra commandments necessarily for that. These are kind of some
newer commandments and it's making it clear to a pastor not to
rebuke another pastor, right? Only to honor the widows
that are widows indeed. So it's not addressing older men. It's not addressing widowers.
Leviticus 19 says honor the face of the old man.
So we have a lot of different commandments there that make a lot of sense.
But I want you to go to Philippians 2 for a second. I also want you to think about the word rebuke.
Anyways, if this is saying
to a pastor that he's not allowed to rebuke someone that's older than him,
you're going to totally make Christianity confusing.
I mean, imagine someone does something wrong and it's like, let me see your ID first.
Or you can, I mean, how does that work?
You know, and does that mean that the pastor has to be older than everybody just to ensure
that he could actually rebuke somebody? Now when you think about the word rebuke in your
Bible, it's only mentioned a few times in the New Testament beyond the Gospels.
Okay? Let's look at every mention, right? Philippians
chapter number 2, let's see who's doing the rebuking
in the Bible. Now obviously we know that God's doing rebuking, right?
The Lord rebukes, Jesus rebukes constantly in the Gospels. But when we get into the
New Testament beyond the Gospels, here's their first mention of rebuke.
Philippians 2 verse 15, that you may be blameless and harmless as sons of God without rebuke
in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation. Who's the rebuke coming from?
Essentially God, right? Okay, go to Hebrews chapter number 12 for a second.
Hebrews chapter number 12, and look at verse number 5.
The Bible says, and ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as
unto children my son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor
fate when thou art rebuked of him. Okay? So again,
the rebuke is coming from whom? God. Go to 2 Peter chapter 2,
2 Peter chapter number 2, and look at verse
number 16, 2 Peter chapter 2. We're doing this quickly.
But was rebuked for his iniquity, the dumbass speaking with man's voice forbade
the madness of the prophet. Who's doing the rebuking in 2 Peter chapter 2? An ass, okay?
A donkey, right? Go to Jude chapter 1
verse 9, and I'm just showing you every mention for a second. Jude
chapter 1 verse 9, Yet Michael the archangel,
when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him
a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. Okay? So we have the Lord and a donkey
so far. Go to Revelation chapter 3 and look at verse 19.
Revelation chapter 3 verse 19. As many as I love,
I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore and repent. So the only
people doing rebuking that I've shown you so far are the
Lord and a donkey, which ultimately the donkey is kind of just a vehicle
of the Lord. Okay? Right? The Lord's giving the rebuke to every
single person. Now that's not the only mentions of rebuke in the New Testament. You know where all the
other rebuke mentions are? In the pastoral abyssals.
So where in the New Testament is it showing like us rebuking people
like just as a congregation or as a random person? It doesn't. Okay?
So who's doing the primary rebuking in the New Testament? It's the
pastor. And what sense would it then make to have this weird caveat to say
but anybody older than you don't rebuke any of those people?
That would just take a huge section of the
people of God that don't get to rebuke. But let's see what the commandments actually say.
1 Timothy chapter number 1 I believe.
I think is where I want you to go. Actually I think the first mention
we're going to see is in verse 5 again.
1 Timothy
chapter 5
verse 20. Them that sin rebuke before all
that others also may fear. Now the word rebuke is mentioned. We already read in verse 1.
Here's the second mention in the pastoral epistles.
Why does it not then have a... Rebuke them that sin unless they're older than you.
Does this mean older people could
raise false accusations against a pastor and you can't rebuke them?
That would be kind of a weird scenario, right? Because then you just let the older person
bring it. Keep your finger here because we're coming right back. Go to Deuteronomy chapter 19.
Why is it saying that them that sin rebuke before all? Because you're not supposed to bring
a false accusation against a pastor. That's really disrespecting him. And the Bible teaches
that when you do something sinful like that, that you should receive the exact same punishment.
Deuteronomy chapter 19. Look at verse number 15.
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any
iniquity or for any sin, and any sin that he sinneth. At the mouth of two witnesses or at the
mouth of three witnesses shall the matter be established. If a false witness
rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong, then both the men
between whom the controversy is shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges
which shall be in those days, and the judges shall make diligent inquisition. And behold, if the witness
be a false witness and have testified falsely against his brother, then he shall do unto
him as he had thought to have done unto his brother, so shall they put the evil
away from among you. If someone comes and brings a false accusation against a pastor,
what should be their punishment? A public rebuke
because that's what they're trying to do is put shade on the pastor and give him a bad rep
and a bad, you know, name or something. So then by doing that, you
get that kind of a punishment by being publicly called out and publicly rebuked
because you're not supposed to disrespect that position.
Especially by bringing a false accusation or one witness testimony, you know,
we never want to hearken unto such foolishness. Go back to 2 Timothy 4.
We have a clear commandment to rebuke people that would bring false
accusations. I don't see why you would have a caveat based on age
for that. Why would I discriminate applying
that principle to someone because they were just older or something? Like, I guess when you get
old, you can just rail on people with no recourse, right? That doesn't make any
sense, right? How about 2 Timothy 4 verse 2?
2 Timothy chapter number 4 verse 2. Preach the word. Be instant,
in season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all in suffering and doctrine.
Unless they're older.
This constantly gets weird. Let me prove to you
beyond any shadow of a doubt that that's not what the Bible is teaching.
Go to Titus chapter 2. Titus chapter number 2. We've already read this verse.
Again, I'm showing you every mention of rebuke again. Verse 15.
Titus chapter 2 verse 15. The Bible says these things speak and exhort
and rebuke with all authority. Let no man
despise thee. First of all, no man means no man.
It's not saying unless they're older. But let me prove it beyond that.
He's saying these things. What are the these things that he brought
up in this chapter? Look at verse number 2.
That the aged men be sober.
Who is he addressing? Old men.
These things that you've spoken to old men, what do you have?
Rebuke with all authority. Notice the Bible actually teaches
that the man of God can rebuke the aged men in this chapter.
The aged women, the young men, and the young women.
What's off limits is in 1 Timothy chapter 5 verse 1. Rebuke not an elder.
You wouldn't rebuke a pastor. Even if you're a pastor,
don't treat that person with respect.
Now, go to Ephesians chapter 5 and I just have a few more verses
that I want to address one other issue.
But again, you know another reason why it cannot be rebuking older people
in 1 Timothy 5.1? Leviticus chapter number 19
says that you're not supposed to suffer sin upon your neighbor, you're supposed to rebuke him.
Thou shalt not in any way hate thy neighbor in thine heart, but thou shalt rebuke
thy neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. So you're not supposed to hate your brother
if they sin against you, you're supposed to rebuke them.
It would be weird to say that unless he's older than you.
No, no, no. If someone does you wrong, you could rebuke him.
What's the caveat to that? The real caveat is that
they're in a position of authority over you. That would be
the only caveat. But notice it's brother and brother is the context.
So if I have someone that's an authority above me like a pastor,
like an elder, like my boss, like if a woman has her husband,
like a children have their parents, you wouldn't rebuke that person.
You wouldn't treat them as a father. You would go to them with meekness
and humbleness and reprove them lightly only when
absolutely necessary. And in fact, most cases you should probably just let it go.
When my boss would screw up at work or do something
wrong, do you know how many times I felt the necessary to go and correct him?
Zero. I didn't go around correcting
my boss. I obviously, it's not like I'm an idiot. It's not like I couldn't observe
those things. It's not like I didn't notice those things. You know what, I've noticed a relationship
in which this is not the case. It's typically
in a marriage where a husband and a wife
don't ever seem to command the same respect as a random servant
and his random boss. Isn't that weird? Because you would think
if you're going to show respect to somebody, you would show respect to the person that married you
and put a ring on your finger and promise to be with you till death do us part rather than
some random stranger that you may quit your job tomorrow or get fired on.
In fact, your boss didn't put a ring on you and say, till death do us part.
He has the right to fire you whatever he wants.
And you're showing that guy more respect. That doesn't make any sense.
And some people say, well marriage is different than
a work relationship. Yeah, except for in Titus chapter number two, it says that
wives are supposed to be obedient to their own husbands and it says, let servants be obedient to their own
masters. So it says the exact same thing. The bold part is because it's the same
scenario. It's the same situation and it should command the same respect. But you know why
wives won't respect their husbands? Because it's too personal.
Because of persecution. And
because of pride. They think that they know more than
their husband. And let me be honest, it's possible.
It's not that you couldn't. It's not that you can't.
It's just that it's improper. And it's you being prideful that says
I have to correct my husband. I have to tell him what to do. The Bible teaches the
opposite. Look what it says in verse 33. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular
so love his wife even as himself and the wife see that she reverents
her husband. You know, wives are supposed to reverence their husband. It's not your
job to correct your husband, to fix your husband.
It's not. You're supposed to be obedient and reverence him.
You know what a lot of pastors are actually called? Reverend.
I don't like that title, but I'm just saying that that is a title that people call
him. This is the same word. To revere someone. You know what to revere?
Great honor and respect. That is how a wife
is supposed to treat her husband. Now go to Esther chapter 5
for a second. Esther chapter 5. Let's see how Esther
treated her husband. And you know why I picked Esther? Because Esther's
husband is not like the greatest guy ever. Because this
is what women think. Well, I'd respect my husband if he was someone that was worthy of respect.
But that's not what the Bible teaches. In fact,
the Bible is teaching that in 1 Peter chapter 3, even if
your husband is disobedient to the word of God, you're still supposed to be
meek and quiet. You're still supposed to be submissive unto him. And in fact,
you're supposed to be like Sarah and call him Lord.
And you know what? People think that that's weird. But you know what
I'll tell you? If you call someone Lord, it's a lot harder to
disrespect them. In our modern vernacular, we don't call each other
Lord. It's Sir. You know what?
If you speak to your boss, yes Sir, it's hard to mouth off when you say
Sir to him. It's easier when you start throwing the
punches or whatever. The way you speak will
alter your attitude and your behavior towards those that are in authority towards you.
And if you speak to your husband in a loving and respectful way, you'll
probably mouth off to him less. You'll probably disrespect him less.
And let me tell you how many times you're allowed to disrespect your husband. Zero.
Never. In fact, I don't even believe you're supposed to correct
him. Now, I'm not saying that you can't make suggestions to your husband.
Don't hear me wrong. I'm not saying if your husband is doing something wrong or foolish
or stupid that you can't come to him and ask him.
Or tell him, hey I think that this is wrong or maybe he should fix this. But it should only be
done with respect. And Esther is your great example of how to do this. Esther chapter
5, look at verse 1. It came to pass on the third day that Esther put on a royal apparel
and stood in the inner court of the court king's house over against the king's house and the king
sat upon his royal throne in the royal house over against the gate of the house. And it was so
when the king saw Esther, the queen, standing in the court that she obtained favor in his sight
and the king held out to Esther, the golden scepter that was in
his hand. So Esther drew near and touched the top of the scepter. Then said the king
unto her, what wilt thou queen Esther and what is thy request and it shall be
given, it shall be even given to thee to the half of thy kingdom. Now I'm not saying
this is all exactly how you're supposed to do it. But isn't it interesting
that Esther is not even allowed to ask him a question unless he wants
to let her ask him a question.
I will teach you that this, I believe this is biblical.
And I'll say this, you know, your husband has a job.
Your husband has work. And I believe it's inappropriate for a
wife to demand her husband's attention when he's at work
unless he wants to give it.
He's a king. He has a really important job here. And if
Esther can't come and bother him at this moment, then she can't.
But notice he's accepting of that request. And in fact my boss used to teach me
he said, you know, it used to be back in the day that if a wife called her
husband at work to bother him and it caused him to stop working
he would often times just get fired.
That it was not respectable. And you know, because of cell phones and text messages and Facebook
whatever, communications exploded and it's caused people to think that they can
just interrupt people. You know what, it shows that you have no respect for your husband's job
when you show no respect to your husband's job. Acting like
you know, I can't, you know, you should always
drop anything and everything. Obviously it's not a competition of
who's more important. My wife's way more important than my job.
Point. Fact. Clear. But at the same time there's realms
of our lives that we have to have boundaries in. We have to
respect. And for Esther, she's not supposed to come and just
bother the king whenever she wants. Only when the king allows her is she coming
and going to speak to him. Now what does she say?
Verse 4, Esther answered, if it seemed good unto the king, let the king
and Haman come this day unto the banquet that I prepared for him.
She doesn't even ask him a question. She makes him a meal first.
Okay, so ladies, you have something you want to ask your husband?
First, make sure he's even willing to listen. Then make him a meal
first. Go to chapter 7. I'm just reading the Bible my friend
okay. Sorry. Sorry if it goes against your feminist
ideal life that you have. You know, in America
this is contrary to a lot of opinions. You know, you go to other countries, they're not as
offended by this kind of preaching. Only the communist states of America
or whatever we live in. Where they have to bring in feminism to destroy our country.
You know what? It destroys a country when women are running it.
I don't see King Ahasuerus being
led by the nose by Miss Esther here. Okay. And
Esther doesn't seem real bothered by it. She's doing it. Look at chapter 7
verse 1. So we finally get the meal, alright. So the king and Haman
came to the banquet with Esther the queen. And the king said again unto Esther, on the second day of the banquet
of wine, what is thy petition, queen Esther? And it shall be granted
thee, and what is thy request? And it shall be performed even to the half of thy kingdom.
Notice ladies, if you want to get a lot of stuff, I mean he's saying you've got 50% of my net
worth at your disposal. Well she came respectfully.
She made him a meal. Now she's got, you know, his full attention, right?
Then Esther the queen answered and
said, if I have found favor in thy side, O king, and if it please the king, let my life
be given me at my petition, and my people at my request. We are sold, I
and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had
been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue, although the enemy could not
countervail the king's damage. Now think about me for this for one second.
Okay. Who is it that officially ordered the decree killing
all the Jews? The king. Okay. Does Queen
Esther like that decision? No. I mean, do you
think it would be a good, if your husband says you and your whole family are going to die,
that's a pretty bad decision. Right? I think you might disagree
with that one. Right? Notice she didn't come and nag him
and complain and get rude or be disrespectful. She's the most
respectful she could possibly be. Only when he's allowing to ask her to talk to her,
making him a meal first, and think about
the sentence that she says here. She says, if we had been sold
for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue.
Meaning, if you had made a decision to make me a slave for the rest of my life,
I would have never even said anything to you. That's a pretty
high threshold for holding your tongue. Wouldn't you say?
I mean, if we're going to say, like, I'm not going to criticize my authority
unless it's my life. I mean, me being a literal
slave, and I guarantee no wife in here is treated like a slave.
Like a literal slave. That almost tells me the
threshold that Queen Esther has is that it doesn't matter what my husband
told me to do or asked me to do, I would do it.
My breaking point is death. And not just my death,
my whole, like a whole group of people's death.
And I will submit to you that I believe when it comes to your authority
that you should hold your tongue as much as humanly possible.
I'm not saying you have to go to this extremity.
Obviously, if your husband flies down, you're like, honey,
let me help you there. I'm not saying if he's got something on his face,
don't wipe it off his face. I'm not saying don't be a help meet under your husband.
What I'm saying is that you should show him respect and not let your personal relationship
get in the way. Don't let persecution get in the way. Don't let your pride of you thinking that you're
smarter and better than your husband get in the way of your relationship.
Just show him all the respect you need.
Now, it's inevitable that your husband will make mistakes, okay ladies?
I know, I know these guys, alright? They got problems.
But let me tell you what I believe is the appropriate
way to handle an issue. This is the person
you should complain to. Jesus.
If you feel like your husband is doing something wrong or you don't like it, this is what you should do.
Get on your knees in the morning and you should pray and tell the Lord
and say, Lord, I'm hoping
that my husband will change in this area or fix this area or fix this
issue, okay? And then never mention again.
And you don't fix the problem. You don't think like, well I need to kind of help
God get this one done. No, you have faith in God that
God can change your husband's heart or fix the problem and you just show him love
and respect and honor and do him good all the days of his life
and don't sit here and try to fix all his problems. Because who's going to be better at fixing his
problems? A nagging wife or God Almighty?
And it really just shows a lack of faith in the Lord
that your husband could be affected by God. Because at the end of the
day, you know what a nagging wife does in the Bible? It drives your husband into the
wilderness, into the corner of the house top. That's what the Bible
says. I'm just teaching a lot of Bible here, okay?
And if you don't like the Bible, you're welcome to leave at any time. But the Bible
is teaching that we should respect the authorities in our life and I'm telling you, you want to have
a happy relationship, you want to have a happy marriage, you want to have a happy church,
we have to show respect to the people that are commanding the respect.
And instead of empowering women to divorce
their husbands, we should be empowering women to get on their knees and pray to God
about the problems they have and then forget them and move on
and let the Lord deal with it and let the Lord avenge and not think that you have to
take everything in your hand, not feel like you have to correct your husband in every single area and every single
issue, because nobody wants that. Nobody wants that kind of relationship.
I don't want that. If every single thing I did that was wrong, if every
misstatement I had in my sermon, afterwards someone came up and was like, you kind of gaffed
here and you said this and this wasn't quite right and you made a mistake here,
your pronunciation on this word wasn't right, Pastor Shelley.
Look, I've had people do that. They come up to me and they just like are nit-picky
about every single thing. It really, you're just kind of like, thanks.
Yeah, great. Wonderful. Because I get it.
I listen back and I cringe too sometimes. I'm thinking like, yeah, I said
that, you know. Okay. Just forgive me. I'm not perfect.
You're not perfect. And if you want to have a great
relationship, if you want God to be pleased with you, don't criticize
the leaders that he's put in your life. Notice
God got really mad at all the people that criticized. Show me a place in the Bible where a wife criticized her husband
and it went well.
Show me a place where someone criticized their boss and it's going
well. You know, the
complaining. You read the book of Numbers and it's just like, ah.
It's like, stop complaining about Moses. Yeah, Moses isn't perfect.
But he's pretty good. Pretty great. Let's just go ahead and give him
respect and realize that no one is ever going to be respected on being perfect
because that's only Jesus and he still gets disrespected. We just show the
respect that people have been put in the positions they've been put in and not
use our own prideful heart to determine if we should be respected with you. Let's close in prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father for the word of God. Thank you for giving us
leaders in the Bible. Thank you for giving us people like Moses.
Thank you for giving us pastors and deacons and evangelists and thank you for giving us
bosses and thank you for giving us husbands and wives and parents
and leaders and rulers. I pray that we wouldn't have this
disrespectful, rebellious attitude, that we wouldn't get so
personal with people that we'd forget the positions of authority. We wouldn't let
the situation cause us to get angry at those that are leading us and we wouldn't let our prideful
hearts control our tongues and cause us
to just speak against the people that have been put in positions of authority above us but
rather we would show them the respect that you have
given them. The position that you've put them in and that rather
we would be pleasing in your sight and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Alright, for our final song we'll go to song
424, O Come All Ye Faithful
284, O Come All Ye Faithful
244, O Come All Ye Faithful
95, O Come All Ye Faithful
Oh God, let us adore him!
The Emperor has adored him!
May his glory bring thee home
For this happy morning
Jesus, to thee we adore him!
Word of the Father,
Now in flesh shall be
Oh, come, let us adore him!
Come, let us adore him!
Oh, come, let us adore him!
In Christ the Lord!
Come, let us adore him!