I will praise Him, I will praise Him, Praise the Lamb who's sinner slain.
Give Him glory all ye people, For His blood can wash away each stain.
Blessed be the name of Jesus, I'm so glad He took me in.
He's forgiven my transgressions, He has cleansed my heart from sin.
I will praise Him, I will praise Him, Praise the Lamb who's sinner slain.
Give Him glory all ye people, For His blood can wash away each stain.
Glory, glory to the Father, Glory, glory to the Son,
Glory, glory to the Spirit, Glory to the three in one.
I will praise Him, I will praise Him, Praise the Lamb who's sinner slain.
Give Him glory all ye people, For His blood can wash away each stain.
Well, judging by the smiles on the kids' faces for that one, I think they like that song.
We might have to sing that one a little more often.
Let's go ahead and open up in a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, thank You for this evening, thank You for Steadfast Baptist Church
and the great honor and privilege that we have to praise Your name.
And thank You for all the blessings that You've bestowed upon our church.
I pray that You'd fill our pastor with the Holy Spirit tonight, give us ears to hear his message.
We love You, in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
All right, for our second song, we'll go ahead and go to 66 at Calvary.
Song number 66 at Calvary.
Song 66 at Calvary.
Years I spent in vanity and fine, Caring God my Lord was crucified,
Knowing God it was for me, He died of Calvary.
Mercy there was great and grace was free, Pardon there was multiply to be,
Where my burden sold out liberty and Calvary.
By God's word and last lesson I learned, Then I trembled at the law I spurred,
Till my guilty soul in glory turned to Calvary.
Mercy there was great and grace was free, Pardon there was multiply to be,
Where my burden sold out liberty and Calvary.
All the love, the truth, salvation's plan, All the grace that brought it down to man,
All the mighty hope that God has made at Calvary.
Mercy there was great and grace was free, Pardon there was multiply to be,
Where my burden sold out liberty and Calvary.
Now I give to Jesus everything, Now I gladly owe Him as my King,
Now my rapture soul can only sing of Calvary.
Mercy there was great and grace was free, Pardon there was multiply to be,
Where my burden sold out liberty and Calvary.
And then on the front we have our Bible memory passage we're on Proverbs 31 verse 5.
If you can quote the entire chapter there will be a prize for those who can quote the entire chapter.
I was telling my son I said it's a big prize and he said oh so you're handing out buildings?
And I was like I said no everybody gets their own planet and he's like well that's just ridiculous.
And so it is gonna be a little bit bigger of a prize but it's just it's probably not a building okay.
But I will memorize it if that's the case all right.
Also service and soul winning times I'm already gonna memorize I was just joking.
And stats if you have any soul winning stats please submit that to your soul winning captains and your lieutenants and everything like that.
Also on the right we have a list of several expecting ladies.
I was messaged by the Holtz I guess she's in labor so just be a prayer for her.
Hopefully everything's going well for them.
Also upcoming events our Texas chili cook-off on the 31st.
If you'd like to participate in the competition please make sure to bring that chili before 6 p.m.
That way we can get all the judges set up.
And then also November 4th Abilene Texas soul winning marathon there is a sign up sheet.
We really really need you to do it tonight if you haven't done already just the way we can anticipate how many people and food and everything like that.
We have the baby shower on the 11th.
Mexico missions trip at the end of November.
There's the ladies Christmas party December 8th.
December 11th caroling and that's that's always a lot of fun.
We just show up and then we go out caroling into different neighborhoods everybody's always really enjoyed it.
It's a lot more fun than you kind of anticipate and if you've never been I really highly encourage you to try and come out there with us.
December 16th is the music recital for the kids.
And so any teenagers can participate in this and preferably Christmas music but you don't have to do Christmas music.
And so in we'd love for you to participate.
We had a great participation in our previous music recital and so we're looking forward to hosting that again.
Also we have the cookie bake off on the 24th and December 31st is an evening party.
There is a conference that Pastor Anderson is hosting from faithful word.
It's in November as well.
I want to make sure I get these dates right.
Yeah it's the 8th through the 12th November 8th to the 12th it's called the missions conference.
He's held one of these in times past.
But essentially it's just where they have different preachers come and talk about different missions trips that they've been involved in.
And I've been invited to at least preach that Friday night on the Bahamas.
And so I really feel honored that I get an opportunity to represent our missions trip that we went on a lot of us went on.
And I'd ask this I just want to remind you again if you have any really good photos please email those to me because they were wanting to decorate with those.
Additionally if you have any of the kids papers that you thought were really impactful or one of the one of the stories that you really liked.
Just take a picture of it or whatever and just email it to me as well because I'd like to include other testimonials from some of the students that we ran into while we were there.
And so it would just it would just help the sermon go better and I'd like to represent your experiences as well.
So if you have that please do that for me on the back is the details about that baby shower and then as our prayer list.
So that's pretty much all I have as far as announcements.
Let's go ahead and sing our third song of the evening Psalm 67.
So it's in your special handouts Psalm 67 or you could just use your Bible King James Bible 6 Psalm 67.
All right.
Psalm number 67.
Oh.
Righteously and governed.
Nations.
Oh God.
The people.
Oh let the nation.
Then shall the earth.
God shall bless us and all the.
Let the people.
Let the nation.
As the offering plates being passed around please turn your Bibles to First Samuel Chapter 24 First Samuel Chapter 24.
Oh.
First Samuel 24 the Bible reads and it came to pass when Saul was returned from following the Philistines that it was told him saying behold David is in the wilderness of and get I then Saul took 3000 chosen men out of all Israel and went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the
wild goats and he came to the sheep coats by the way where it was a cave and Saul went in to cover his feet and David and his men remained in the sides of the cave and when the men of David said unto him behold the day of which the Lord said unto thee behold I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand that thou may is due to him as it shall seem good unto thee then David arose and cut off the skirt of Saul's robe privately and it came to pass afterward that David was
heart smote him because he had cut off Saul's skirt and he said unto his men the Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master the Lord's anointed to stretch forth mine hand against him seeing he is the anointed of the Lord.
So David stayed his servants with these words and suffered them not to rise against Saul but Saul rose up out of the cave and went on his way.
David also arose afterward and went out of the cave and cried after Saul saying my Lord the king and when Saul looked behind him David stooped with his face to the earth and bowed himself and David said to Saul wherefore hearest thou men's words saying behold David seeketh I heard behold this day thine eyes have seen how that the Lord had delivered thee today into mine hand in the cave and some bade me kill thee.
But mine eyes spared thee and I said I will not put forth mine hand against my Lord for he is the Lord's anointed.
Moreover my father see ye see the skirt of thy robe in my hand for in that I cut off the skirt of thy robe and killed thee not know thou and see that there is neither evil nor transgression in mine hand and I have not sinned against thee yet thou huntest my soul to take it.
The Lord judge between me and thee and the Lord avenge me of thee but mine hand shall not be upon thee as sayeth the proverb of the ancients wickedness proceedeth from the wicked but mine hand shall not be upon thee.
After whom is the king of Israel come out after whom does thou pursue after a dead dog after a flea the Lord therefore be judge and judge between me and thee and see and plead my cause and deliver me out of thine hand.
And it came to pass when David had made an end of speaking these words unto Saul that Saul said is this thy voice my son David and Saul lifted up his voice and wept and he said to David thou art more righteous than I for thou hast rewarded me good whereas I have rewarded the evil.
And thou hast showed this day how that thou hast dealt well with me for as much as when the Lord had delivered me into thine hand thou killest me not for if a man find his enemy will he let him go well away wherefore the Lord reward thee good for that thou hast done unto me this day.
And now behold I know well that thou shalt surely be king and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thine hand swear now therefore unto me by the Lord that thou wilt not cut off my seed after me and that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father's house.
And David swear unto Saul and Saul went home but David and his men gat them up unto the hold.
Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Father in heaven we thank you so much Lord for the evening service and I pray Father God that you would just bless Pastor Shelley and all aspects of this sermon and help us to apply the message to our lives Lord so that we may be more complete Christians and I pray this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
I kind of want to go back to verse 12 here in this chapter.
Verse number 12 the Bible said the Lord judge between me and thee and Lord avenge me of thee but mine hand shall not be upon thee as sayeth the proverb of the ancients wickedness proceeded from the wicked but mine hand shall not be upon thee after whom is the king of Israel come out after whom does thou pursue.
After a dead dog after a flea and I kind of draw the sermon title this evening from this here verse 14 and I wanted to call the sermon pursuing fleas pursuing fleas and what's kind of interesting is how in this story David likens himself unto a flea and of course he's kind of using very humbling language to talk about himself.
Obviously David's a very significant person.
David is in fact a leader of several hundred men.
David was one of the most important people militarily.
He kind of rescued the entire nation of Israel.
So he's being pretty humble in what he's trying to say here.
But essentially what he's trying to allude to is look I've left you guys alone.
I'm not trying to do anything to you King Saul and you're just pursuing after something that's kind of meaningless is what he's trying to say.
He's like who am I that you would pursue after me.
You know I'm just kind of like a flea and obviously if you had fleas all over your body or perhaps you had an animal like a pet that you loved and had fleas all over it.
It would be a serious thing you'd want to make sure.
But just one isn't necessarily the biggest deal.
It's not necessarily the most important thing.
And I think that's what David's trying to articulate is you know of all the problems that you have Saul.
Of all the issues that are going on in the kingdom and in the world.
Is David really your biggest problem or am I just kind of like a flea and really just the big picture of all the things that are going on.
And I think sometimes unfortunately Christians they can get focused on a flea in their life.
Instead of focusing on more important matters and focusing on things that really are significant as Christians.
It's kind of a sad life.
If your life is dedicated to destroying one other Christian right like that's kind of weird.
And Saul kind of gets this reputation for the end of his life just basically trying to pursue and attack one of God's people.
And it really is kind of a shame. It's kind of a mockery.
It makes him look bad. He ends his life in ruin.
Because he really kind of lost sight of the big picture and he started pursuing fleas.
Now obviously a flea is a negative thing.
Obviously you don't want a flea. It's bad.
And I'm trying to approach the sermon from the idea of something that's actually bad or actually something that's negative.
But there really wasn't even that justification to pursue David because David didn't do anything wrong.
David's not attacking his master.
David has really pretty much done almost nothing wrong.
The only thing he could technically say he did wrong that I can think of in this is he kind of missed dinner.
Like at one point he kind of skips dinner a couple nights in a row.
And instead of getting grace from Saul, Saul wants to kill him.
And it was just to try to illustrate how Saul felt about David.
And so he goes and he pursues after him and he's hunting him down. He's wanting to kill him.
And it kind of gets to a point where it's obviously King Saul is just envious of David.
And he wants to attack him because he's afraid that David's going to take the throne.
That David's going to become the king.
And it's funny because in a hindsight perspective, his fear of losing the kingdom and David becoming king
ends up being exactly what happens as a result of what he did.
If he had just said, you know what? David's going to be the next king and I'm just going to be a good king until I can.
Or I'll just even step down.
He probably wouldn't have ended his life in ruin.
He probably wouldn't have destroyed his children's lives as well.
He wouldn't have destroyed Jonathan and all of the other sons that he had.
And so the big fear that he has ends up happening as a result of pursuing this fleet.
And you could say it's weird to pursue believers in a negative way.
It's weird to pursue other Christians.
It's weird to waste your life and waste the end of your life on something for envy's sake,
for threatening your position and your influence.
But really, this just happens very often and very regularly.
Now go over to chapter 26 because we see the same language actually employed here in chapter 26.
And look at verse number 20.
Now therefore, let not my blood fall to the earth before the face of the Lord,
for the king of Israel has come out to seek a flee, as when one doth hunt a partridge in the mountains.
Then, since all I have sinned, returned my son David,
for I will no more do thee harm because my soul is precious in thine eyes.
This day, behold, I have played the fool and have erred exceedingly.
It's kind of funny because you read the story and it's kind of the same thing.
It's like Saul throws a spear, a javelin at David and tries to kill him,
and then, you know, somehow they make peace.
And then he does it again, right?
And then he just keeps pursuing him.
The previous two chapters ago, David kind of rebuked him and Saul's like,
okay, I won't pursue you again, but then he's pursuing him again.
And he basically just loses any respect from David in the point that it's like,
this guy's never going to keep his word.
He's just going to keep pursuing me until he dies.
And it's just kind of frustrating.
Verse 22, it says,
And David answered and said, Behold, the king's spear.
Let one of your young men come over and fetch it.
But this is the verse that I think is really important out of this story.
The Lord rendered every man his righteousness and his faithfulness,
for the Lord delivered thee into my hand today.
But I would not stretch forth mine hand against the Lord's anointed.
And behold, as thy life was much set by this day in mine eyes,
so let my life be much set by in the eyes of the Lord,
and let him deliver me out of all tribulation.
Now, here's the thing, from David's perspective,
Saul has for sure made a lot of mistakes towards David.
Even Saul's willing to admit, notice in verse 21,
I've played the fool and have erred exceedingly.
Saul's hunting David down, harming him, pursuing him,
not allowing him to live with his wife, not allowing him to serve the Lord,
not giving him the honor and respect that he is as the general of the army.
And so Saul has literally tried to kill David multiple times.
That's not really a good thing.
So if there's anyone that has the right to basically pursue the other Christian
or get mad at the other Christian, it's David getting mad at Saul.
It's David defending himself against Saul.
It's David destroying Saul.
If there was any justification for one to kill the other,
it would be for David to kill Saul.
And even his own men felt that way.
Even his own men said, look, hey, the Lord's delivered Saul into your hand.
Let's take him out.
And in fact, the first time he was unwilling.
So the second time, Abishai offers.
He says, hey, I'll smite him to the ground.
I won't even have to do it twice.
I will get him on the first hit.
And he said, hey, we're not going to do that.
We're not going to stretch forth our hand.
And what happened is David is saying,
King Saul's life was much set by in the eyes of David,
meaning he had a great respect for Saul's life.
And he says, you know what?
Saul's life is valuable to me.
And it's valuable that I not attack him.
So I hope that the way that I am trying to honor, keep, and preserve Saul's life,
God would then return the favor and try to make sure that I, too,
am very valuable to God and that God doesn't want me to be destroyed
and that God doesn't want me to be easily ensnared.
And so you kind of see David having this mentality of,
hey, how I treat others, God is going to treat me.
And while Saul deserves retribution, I'm sorry,
David deserves retribution against Saul or, you know,
Saul deserves punishment for his sin,
David's not going to be the one to do it.
And David, in fact, wants mercy and grace extended towards Saul.
And you know what? We should have this attitude.
We should have the attitude of even if Saul pursued after us wrongfully,
even if Saul has done us wrong,
that we would set their lives much by and give them honor and grace and mercy
and hope that good happens to them so that the Lord would then return to us
goodness and mercy and grace and not wish evil upon our brothers in Christ.
And of course, you know, we have to understand David.
David had no problem taking Saul's head off.
David had no problem cutting the head of Saul,
I'm sorry, not Saul, Goliath's head off,
running around with it and terrifying the Philistines, killing Philistines.
I mean, think about this.
He said, hey, if you want to marry my daughter,
which is kind of like a message given through his servants,
but you need 100 foreskins.
And then he's just like, next day, 200.
So did he have a problem killing Philistines?
No, it was like this.
I mean, basically, he's going out just like, no problem, I'll take 200, right?
So David has no problem fighting people.
David has no problem, you know, doing things that are necessary,
fighting the Lord's battles.
But notice how he's so quick to destroy the Philistines,
yet he's so long-suffering towards God's people.
And we need to make sure that we have this balance in our life.
And I think, you know, as Christianity has kind of decided to stop fighting
and has decided to essentially just be a coward and hide
and not really be manly anymore,
you know, it's kind of gotten to a point where our church
or churches like ours are kind of emphasized in fighting
and like being kind of rough and hard preaching and all these different things.
But, you know, we also want to make sure that we're balancing that with grace
and compassion and mercy towards our brothers and sisters in Christ.
And not just the ones that we like, even the ones that are wrongfully pursuing us.
And, you know, this is going to be really important when it comes to our children
because if our children are kind of raised to think like just fight, fight, fight,
no mercy, no mercy, no mercy, then they could end up, you know,
bringing that into adulthood and not necessarily having a good balance in life.
And we want to make sure that our children also are people that are compassionate,
loving people, merciful to people, can have a good balance in their mind, okay?
And so it's important that we don't pursue the fleas in our life
and we don't become, here's a word that I think also summarizes the sermon this evening, pedantic, okay?
We don't want to become pedantic.
What is pedantic?
It's annoying to correct everyone's issues and that's what pedantic is, right?
It's someone that's just annoyingly constantly fixated on fixing everyone's problems,
no matter how minute, no matter how small, it's just frustrating.
Now if you go to 1 John, chapter number 2, 1 John, chapter number 2,
we as God's people should not be so overly fixated on fixing our brother, on fixing other people.
You know, if you have such a great energy about yourself, if you're so, you know,
I just notice every error and every problem and I always, it just always irritates me.
You know, put all that energy into yourself.
There's nothing wrong with working on yourself, okay?
There's nothing wrong with wanting to fix every little issue with your life.
But you know what?
We shouldn't employ such energy onto our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, okay?
And what can happen is you end up having bitterness, anger, malintent towards your brothers and sisters in Christ
as the Bible describes it, hatred.
And it says in 1 John, chapter number 2, look at verse number 10,
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there's none occasion of stumbling in him,
but he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness,
and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
Now I always use this verse when I think of Saul and David because we didn't read it necessarily,
but if you've read the whole story, you'd know that when Saul was pursuing David, he just couldn't find him.
You know, Saul's on one side of the mountain, David's on the other.
And what's always so funny to me is it's telling you how Saul is just like everywhere trying to find David,
and then it's like Jonathan just walks straight to David.
And it's like, it always just kind of makes me think of this verse about how it's like,
hey, Jonathan has perfect vision, he just knows how to find David like that because he's in love,
but the guy that's hating him is a blindness and he can never find where he's wanting to go.
He can't figure out where David is.
And when you have that hatred in your heart, it's a blinding hatred.
It causes you to not see right, it causes you to stumble, it causes you to commit all kinds of grievous errors and sins.
And so it's important not to hate brothers and sisters in Christ.
Now why would this verse even be in the Bible if it was impossible?
You know, some people would suggest like if you hate anyone, you're not even saved.
It's like that's nonsense. Of course you can hate people. Of course people hate people.
And it's like, of course the N.Y.P. hates people, yeah.
But, you know, at the end of the day, our hatred should be for the 5% reprobate population only.
Okay, we shouldn't hate the unsaved.
We should love the unsaved by preaching the gospel and hoping they get saved.
You know, and it's so funny how people tell me how hateful I am, and they're like, let's nuke all of the Middle East.
I'm like, really? You think that I'm hateful, right?
I mean, it's just funny, and it's like, oh, let's just kill all conservatives. I'm so much more loving.
And it's just like, you know, it's like everybody hates, okay, folks?
I would venture to believe hating only 5% of the world puts you in the top category of lovers, okay?
Because most people pretty much hate way more than that, they just won't be honest with you about it, okay?
They have a very deep, burning hatred.
And even in our country, it's very divided.
You know, people hate half of the country, in many cases maybe even more.
People are very racist by nature.
Racism has been provoked dramatically in the last, you know, five, ten years or so.
And there's just a lot of hatred out there.
There's a lot of division.
And, you know, even amongst God's people, there could be divisions.
And sometimes you have divisions because someone's a Saul, right?
Saul picks out a spear and throws it at you.
It's like, well, I'm not going to hang out with Saul anymore, right?
And that's okay, but what you shouldn't do is then hate Saul.
What you shouldn't do then is desire to pursue after Saul and to try and destroy Saul.
You should still love him, okay?
Now, again, love still can rebuke, you know, rebuke is within love, you know.
What's not within love is lying, false accusation, wishing evil, cursing them, swearing.
And I'm not saying using four-letter words, I'm saying wishing evil upon them, okay, folks?
All right?
Just to get that out of the way.
Go to Matthew chapter 7.
But there are some people, and it's just fascinating to me,
but there's people that will leave a church like ours or one of our friends or they get kicked out,
and then the rest of their life is like dedicated to pursuing fleas.
And it's just like their whole life now is just dedicated to just obsessing over every move that we make,
every sermon that's preached.
I mean, there's dozens and dozens of online trolls that will watch every sermon of mine
just to see if they can catch a flea, right?
Just so they can catch an error that they perceive is out there.
Not because they sincerely care whether or not I preach accurately every time,
but just as a tool to use against me, right?
Just as a tool to try and destroy me and attack our church.
And look, I'm not perfect.
I definitely make mistakes.
There's times where I've listened back to my sermons and I've thought like that wasn't accurate
or I should have said this differently or I stumble over my words
or even at times I've changed my mind a little bit about certain things.
But what's so funny to me is usually when I listen back and I notice errors,
those are the never ones that get really pointed out.
It's always dumb stuff that's not even real.
But what's so funny to me is how there's people out there
that are just dedicating their life to attacking other Christians.
Now, albeit many of these people are probably just bad people.
Like, they might even be just unsaved people.
But even Christians, I think, could get caught into this trap, and I think sometimes do,
where they just start hating on other Christians
and it's like their life's mission to obsess over them.
And, you know, boy, that's not going to benefit your marriage, folks.
If you obsess over people you don't like, your wife's not impressed.
Okay?
Oh, man, I just got to watch this person's sermon that I hate
instead of spending time with you or hanging out.
It's like she's already wanting to spend more time with you than you're giving her.
And when you're taking it away to listen in this hateful troll way,
that's just the worst.
And it really, it just, you've blinded yourself.
It's like, think about it, doesn't Saul have a wife to take care of?
Doesn't Saul have a family to raise?
Doesn't Saul have a kingdom to attend to?
And then he's wasting all of his time trying to find David?
It's like, it just, it's nonsensical.
It doesn't make any sense.
It's a waste of your time.
It's a waste of your effort.
It's a waste of your energy.
And, you know, even us that, you know, are still maybe serving God and going to church,
we also should still not get this attitude.
What if there's this pastor out there that did you wrong
or did your pastor wrong or did something you didn't like?
It's like, should you go obsess over their sermons for the rest of your life?
It's like, no, just leave them alone.
You know, like, it's silly to get mad.
And look, I've had beef with pastors and some of them are even saved pastors.
But you know what I don't do?
I don't listen to every single one of their sermons.
But I know that there are pastors out there that have beef with me
and they listen to every single one of my sermons.
They're like, hey, and they make shorts about them
and they're just so excited.
They're like, when is he going to say another bad word
that I can make a video clip out of?
You know, they're just, they're so excited about it or something like that.
And, you know, they're just going to have to keep watching
because you never know. You never know when, okay?
Matthew 7, look what the Bible says in verse 1.
Judge not that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.
And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye?
But considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote out of thine eye,
and behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye,
and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
So a pretty famous portion of scripture, but what the Bible's trying to say is,
it makes no sense to try and correct somebody, correct their vision,
when you yourself can't even see.
And it's like, Saul is blinded by hatred.
How is he going to fix anything for David?
And in many cases, there may not even be a mote there,
you're just still looking at the beam that's in your own eye.
And once you get the beam out of your own eye, maybe you'll realize,
hey, my brother's vision actually is fine.
He doesn't even have that mote that I thought that he did initially.
Because, again, it's silly when you have a much bigger problem in your life
and you're focused on motes in your brother's eye.
You're focused on the fleas in your brother's life
and you're not focused on the issues that you have.
And if we were to be honest, maybe this is what you need, men.
Just say like, hey, honey, is there anything I can improve on?
And ask for a list.
Because I guarantee the list, if she was honest, would not be blank.
I guarantee there's some issues that you could work on.
I guarantee there's some areas of your life that you could improve in.
I guarantee there's some things that are worthwhile pursuits
that you could employ, right?
You could maybe work a little harder at your job.
You could learn more for your employment.
You could possibly start some kind of a business.
You could learn a foreign language.
You could read your Bible more.
You could learn anything, right?
Just educate yourself better.
You could actually get that honey-do list done.
I need that preaching, okay?
You could work out.
You could maybe show your kids how to throw a ball, right?
Catch a ball.
You could go run.
You could play a game.
Like, isn't there some things in your life that you're thinking,
like, you know what, I'm kind of neglecting this area.
I could probably improve in this area.
But then, for whatever reason, human nature,
we get so fixated on some other dude's problem.
And it's like, how silly is this?
You know, oh, I'm going to listen to this guy's preaching,
and I'm going to try and nitpick his, you know,
one little mistake he made in my sermons.
But my sermons suck so bad, no one even watches them.
There is, Pastor Michael Johnson watches all of my sermons,
and I kid you not, if you go to his channel,
some of his uploads have no views.
Zero.
Which is honestly impressive, because I don't even,
like, I don't think that I could even start,
I could start a brand-new YouTube channel and upload a sermon.
I don't even think I could keep it at zero.
Someone would probably find it and watch it.
Like, I don't even know how you can do that.
Like, that is an impressive level of suckiness.
Maybe it was because he preached, and forgive me,
but it's something like, James or something like this,
he preached, like, a James series,
or some kind of a series like Part 15.
It was like, James 2, Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
It's like, dude, after zero views on Part 7,
why'd you have Part 8?
And it's just like, it's so funny to me.
It's like, hey, instead of nitpicking
every single one of my sermons,
why don't you watch your sermon once
so that you have more than zero views
and figure out maybe some ways
that you could improve your sermon, right?
I mean, wouldn't that make sense?
It's like, you know, I probably, in all honesty,
I listen to my sermons more than anybody else's,
and I don't really listen to hardly anybody else's that much,
and I don't listen to every single one of my sermons.
But you know why I listen to my sermons?
I think, like, hey, what are some ways I can improve?
And I usually get a Bible out,
and while I'm listening to my sermon,
there's sometimes where I remember in my sermon,
like, hey, there was something I wanted to say
or was gonna bring up, and I couldn't do it,
and then I'll figure it out while I'm listening to my sermon,
so then the next time I have that ready.
Or I'll fact-check myself, and sometimes I'm like,
oh, wow, I was a little off on that one, right?
Or, you know, I can't remember what I meant to say here.
Or sometimes I even remember, like, a point in my sermon
where I wanted to use a word, and I was at a loss for words.
So then I'll go look up in a dictionary lots of synonyms,
so I'm like, you know what?
I'm prepared the next time I get to that point
and I want to use a word like this
that I have a lot more in my vocabulary.
I have a lot more words.
But you know what I'm not doing?
I'm not listening to other people's sermons thinking,
like, ah, look at this flea.
I improve as a preacher, right?
And it's like, why would I waste my time
listening to crappy preaching just to get mad about it?
I mean, sometimes I'll listen to bad preachers
just to get a sample from the horse's mouth
so I'm not preaching against a straw man.
But you know what?
I'm not going out and trying to find the worst preachers I can
and just listening to all their sermons.
That's weird.
It's weird, just like Saul pursuing after David.
It makes no sense.
Why pursue after such a flea?
And you know what's even worse than this
is some people, even in our movement,
they obsess and they'll go find online trolls
and watch all of their videos
who have, like, almost no following, no chant.
They're literally a flea.
They're a dead dog.
And they'll go and they'll obsess
and watch all of their content too.
And it's like, bro, just who cares?
Like, of all the things you can do with your life,
quit pursuing fleas.
You know, why don't you just work on yourself?
And in the context of this room,
there are people in this room
that you are more obsessed with someone else in this room
and fixing their problems than you are fixing yours.
And let me tell you something.
You're wrong.
Fix your problems.
And of course, who's the biggest culprit?
Usually it's husband and wife, okay?
Let me tell you something.
Wives, fix your problems.
Husbands, fix your problems.
Stop worrying so much about what the other person is doing.
And, you know, who's really bad at this is children, okay?
I don't know why,
but it's like my children have a special joy in their heart
to get their siblings in trouble, okay?
I mean, we're like driving to church tonight,
and they're like, Mom and Dad, so-and-so is in the backpack.
You know, and it's like, what in the world?
So then we, like, have to do this investigation,
and it's like they're getting in trouble,
and they're not doing things that they should.
And then my mom's, or I'm sorry, my wife,
my wife is correcting one of them,
and they didn't respond correctly,
so the other one's like, oh, they didn't say it right.
And it's just like they have this special desire in their heart
to make sure, like, that their brother is perfect, right?
You have to say it right.
You're in trouble.
Every transgression you make, I want Mom and Dad to know about.
But really, is that how you want to live?
Because when you treat your brother and sister like this,
you know what they're going to do?
They're going to treat you like that, aren't they?
If you tattle on every single one of your brothers and sisters
every time they get in trouble,
be prepared that when you screw up, they're going to tattle on you.
You know, it'd be better is to kind of make a peace treaty
with your brothers and sisters and be like,
hey, I'm not coming after you for everything,
and you're not coming after me for everything, all right?
And look, this is how God wants us as Christians to be,
where we're not constantly going to God the Father and being like,
did you see what Ben did?
He went to McDonald's again, you know.
Lord, please take care of him, you know.
I saw him, he got the boo bucket, you know.
And that's a double sin, because, you know,
celebrating Halloween and it's McDonald's.
Hey, the boo bucket sounds good, you know.
Just grab a couple fries and be like, I won't tell if you don't, okay.
No, I'm just kidding.
But at the end of the day, you know,
why are we so quick to just get on everybody else's issues?
You know, it's that there's something in human nature,
but, you know, we need to not be like this.
We need to have an attitude that says, you know what,
I need to work on me.
I have enough problems to work on,
that I don't need to be focused on what other people are doing.
And you know what will make a healthy church?
When we're all focused on ourselves.
What will make an unhealthy church?
Is when we're focused on all the fleas that everybody else has.
And we're focused on all the little issues.
And look, unfortunately what happens is people usually get this attitude
because of envy or they're threatened or whatever.
So, you know, women get this way,
because they're threatened about who's friends they are.
About who's friends with who, right?
A new lady comes into church
and she starts being friends with your friend
and you're like, well, but she dresses,
she doesn't dress right, you know.
Well, I think that she's, you know,
she puts on too much makeup, you know.
Well, I just think that she's a little bit sassy, you know.
I don't think that she's always sweet to her husband, you know.
Well, I just think that she puts beans in her chili probably.
I don't know, but I just feel like it.
You know, it's like that's what happens.
And you're laughing, but you know it's true, ladies.
And, you know, instead of getting all envious and whatever
and worrying about every other little woman in the world,
you just worry about yourself.
And it's okay if your friends evolve or change over time or whatever.
You know, the Bible says if you want to have friends,
a man that has friends must show him so friendly.
So, you know, if you see that you constantly are losing friends,
it's not other people's fault.
It's you just not being very friendly.
And if you want to, you say like, I want to increase my friends.
Well, increase your friendliness, right.
Invite more people to do things, be sweet.
Sometimes people don't like hanging out with you
because all you do is complain.
Like, ladies, you know, may not like another lady
because it's like, well, every time around, all she does is complain
or talk bad about other people or whatever
and so it's just not somebody I really want to hang out with, you know.
Whereas if you're hanging out with other ladies
and they're constantly complimenting each other,
doing things for each other, engaging in their conversation, helping them,
you know, that's someone that people like to hang out with.
And you'll notice typically the people that have this type of personality,
everybody wants to be their friend.
And then the people that have the other personality,
no one wants to be their friend.
And it's not because, you know, it's not necessarily because of what you think.
It's typically just because you have a bad personality
that needs to be fixed and you have a bad attitude
and you're approaching life in the wrong way.
No one wants to be Saul's friend when he's picking everybody apart
and he's pursuing fleas.
You know who you want to be friends with is the person that's very merciful
and gracious and constantly overlooking problems
and trying to help people.
You know, it's pretty clear.
Like if ladies were hanging out
and they started just saying every negative thing
and every criticism they could think of each other,
they wouldn't be friends very quickly.
Hey, your dress doesn't match your shoes.
That's a little outdated, isn't it?
Do you cut your own hair?
You know, it's like if they just said every little thing that they thought of,
it'd be like pretty soon she's like, I'm never hanging out with her again.
Okay?
And so, you know, you have to be careful how you carry yourself,
what you say, and I'm just trying to give you some advice here just in life, right?
If you want to have a healthy church, you want people to like you,
let us not focus on all the negative.
Let's focus on the positive.
Go to Romans, chapter number 14, Romans, chapter number 14.
You know what? There's a time and a place for correction.
There's a time and place to help people.
But we want to make sure we have a healthy balance
and that we're not just seeking to destroy other people in our church.
Well, I don't like her.
I'm going to run her off from my friends or from my circle or from the church
or, you know, I just want to attack this person.
That's a bad attitude.
And if you genuinely cared about someone,
you would approach them with love and compassion,
do things privately, like you wouldn't necessarily attack this person
like Saul is attacking David.
And even men could do such a thing.
I mean, men sometimes can start attacking other men
or getting mad at other guys or doing things that are pretty ugly
because they just feel threatened or they feel envious
or they're kind of just upset with who they are.
So they start attacking other people to try and make themselves feel better.
And we also need to not fall victim of this trap.
And really, who are we to judge one another?
You know, we shouldn't go around judging every little issue and problem.
If someone comes to me and asks my opinion or asks my advice,
then I'll give it to them.
You know, I know that you know that I don't follow you around
and tell you everything that I think you could probably improve on.
Now, from the pulpit, I'll just generally say stuff,
and people will be like, wow, it's all about me.
And it's like, well, thou sayest it.
But when's the last time I'm sitting here DMing you
and texting you all day telling you everything
that I think you should improve on?
In fact, people do dumb stuff all the time that I notice,
but I don't say anything about it.
And people sometimes want me to police people's lives.
Like, did you see this dumb thing someone posted online?
And I'm like, yeah.
Isn't it dumb?
And I'm like, well, it's not my realm of authority.
I'm not going to go around and be like,
you're not allowed to post that.
Hey, make sure every email and every phone call
and every text message you check with me first,
whether it's good or I like it, you know, in every outfit.
Like, this is silly.
And so some people just don't really have a clue.
They think that the pastor is supposed to be their helicopter parent
to just rule their lives.
And some pastors even try to do this.
It's a bad philosophy.
You know, I'm going to disagree with lots of your life decisions,
like McDonald's, okay?
And look, honestly, I'll eat McDonald's every once in a while,
but Indian food, come on.
I've already made it clear how I feel.
This was a bad decision, okay, on your part.
And there's going to be life decisions that I'm just shaking my head
just thinking like, man, that was dumb.
You know, that wasn't right.
But you know what I'm not going to do is I'm not going to try and pursue after you
and just give you a hard time about it.
And in fact, when you come and ask me about it, you know,
I may tell you, like, hey, I probably wouldn't make the decision,
but I'll try to encourage you and try to help you
and try to make the best of that bad decision that you made, right?
Because it's not my goal to just try and destroy other people's lives.
And it shouldn't be our goal to just go and destroy other people's lives.
Look at Romans chapter 14, verse 4.
Who art thou that judges another man's servant?
To his own master he standeth or falleth.
Yea, he shall be holding up, for God is able to make him stand.
So it's like, look, we're all just servants of God.
He's the one that's really in charge.
He's really the judge.
And we should be careful in judging one another,
especially that we're not hypocrites about it,
especially that it's not unsolicited advice.
And we should always make sure that if we're judging one another
or giving correction, that it's coming from a place of true sincerity and love.
It's not out of a place of malicious intent, envy,
or trying to destroy or attack them.
But rather it's just simply, hey, you know, there's a time and a place.
You're out soul winning.
They say something dumb.
Hey, brother, you know, I feel like you're doing a good job here,
but you probably shouldn't say this.
You probably shouldn't do this.
You know, there's a time and place for that, right?
There's a time and a place for someone to be corrected on certain issues.
But we need to be careful that it's not our life's mission
to just follow people around and just be like,
every negative thing they do I want to let them know about.
It's not healthy.
It doesn't make them feel good.
Nobody really wants that.
Go to John chapter 12.
You know, and it's funny to me how many people are like,
my life's mission is to stop people from being King James only.
What a flee that you're pursuing after.
Of all of the worthy pursuits in life,
pursuing to attack the King James Bible is one of the dumbest things you can do.
Okay?
That's kicking against the pricks, right?
Oh, I just want to stop people from being IFB or new IFB.
It's like these are dumb pursuits in your life.
If your pursuit is to stop people from being a Christian
or being a Baptist or being King James only,
like your life is going to be like Saul and it's going to end in ruin.
You know, it's a bad pursuit.
It's an evil pursuit.
You know, we should make sure that when we're going against something
or we're trying to attack something that it's a worthwhile pursuit.
You know, look, I think attacking false gospels and false preachers is a worthwhile pursuit.
I think attacking the feminism and the atheism and the faggotry in our country is a worthwhile pursuit
because these are doing serious damage to our society and our culture.
You know what?
I don't think it's necessary for me to point out every little microscopic issue with every saved person.
And sometimes there's been preachers that I've had to mention things about
because they have serious enough issues,
but then I don't obsess over their life and their sermons and what they're doing
and just try to nitpick every other thing they're going to do wrong for the rest of their life.
That's not a worthwhile pursuit, even if I did think they were unsaved.
You know, even people that are unsaved and I don't like, I don't even care that much.
I'm not listening to their sermons that much.
I occasionally do research just to make sure that my sermons are accurate and up to date,
but honestly I'm not listening to a lot of that content because it's not a worthwhile pursuit.
You know, God wants us to be simple concerning evil.
It doesn't mean that you're completely unaware, but it's, you know,
we're not necessarily supposed to dedicate our lives to understanding evil.
We're supposed to dedicate our lives to understanding wisdom
and understanding knowledge and things that are good and pleasant and, you know, think on these things.
John chapter 12, look at verse 3.
Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly,
and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair,
and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment.
Then saith one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him,
Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor?
This he said, not that he cared for the poor,
but because he was a thief and he had the bag and bare what was put therein.
Then said Jesus, Let her alone against the day of my bearing, hath she kept this.
Now, I want to go to another place.
Go to Mark 14, where it has a similar story.
I'm not even entirely sure that it's the exact same event.
I think this might have happened twice, actually, based on the timeline,
but it's very similar, could be the same story, and I'm wrong on the timeline,
but it seems like Jesus actually was anointed multiple times before his burial,
and what's interesting is when Judas makes this response of being upset,
and it's fake upset, he's not really upset,
he's pretending to be upset about how this woman chose to spend
this expensive perfume, and instead of selling it and giving it to the poor,
she gave it to Jesus, and she anointed Jesus,
and Judas is acting like he's all upset,
but not because he really wanted poor people to have more money,
it's because he wanted to steal that money.
But this is what I want you to notice.
In Mark, when it tells a very similar story, it's not just Judas that's upset.
Look what it says in verse 4.
And there were some that had indignation within themselves and said,
Why was this waste of the ointment made?
For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence,
and have given to the poor, and they murmured against her,
and Jesus said, Let her alone, why trouble ye her?
She hath wrought a good work on me.
So, in fact, it wasn't just Judas that got upset about this.
Judas' attitude actually affected other people,
and a multitude of people are mad at this woman for this action.
But what I want to point out about this story is,
sometimes we get mad, or we think that a Christian has a problem,
and, in fact, we're the ones that are wrong.
Isn't that kind of interesting?
It's like David is mad, or I'm sorry Saul is mad at David,
but David actually hasn't even done anything wrong.
You know, he said he's pursuing after a flea.
A flea is a negative thing, again, right?
But David isn't worthy of even being pursued.
In fact, David is actually the one on the right.
And kind of in this situation, Judas and some of the other disciples,
they think that this woman has done something wrong,
they're mad at her, they want to criticize her,
they want to attack her, but, in fact,
she hasn't even done anything wrong in the first place.
And sometimes people, they perceive that their brethren
have done something wrong when they actually even haven't.
And this is why it's important to not be very judgmental as a person,
because when you're very highly critical and highly judgmental,
sometimes you're actually even wrong.
You're not even actually helping people.
What you're saying is actually incorrect.
And, you know, I've noticed this.
Sometimes people come to me with criticisms,
and they're like, well, did you see what this person did
or this person did this?
Thinking that they did something wrong,
and I explain, like, what they did is not even wrong.
Well, what they said is within their purview.
They have the freedom to make that decision or do this,
or just because you don't like it or you don't agree
or you have a different standard or whatever
doesn't mean that they're actually wrong.
Maybe you're wrong.
And this really happens a lot in marriage.
In marriage, the wife thinks every action of her husband is wrong,
and in marriage the husband realizes every one of his actions is wrong.
No, I'm just kidding.
The husband also will think that his wife is crazy
and that she doesn't know right from wrong, okay?
So you have this dilemma.
If one person thinks the other person is 100% wrong
and the other person thinks the other one is 100% wrong,
but the reality is usually they're both wrong.
And that's usually when people come to me with marriage advice,
I pretty much just tell them why they're wrong.
I don't really sit here and agree.
I'm like, yeah, they're a bad person, bad husband, bad guy.
That's too bad.
It's like, well, what about what you're doing?
And then they don't really like my marriage advice anymore, you know?
It's like, well, let's talk about you for a second, you know?
But this is the attitude that we should have
is instead of constantly being fixated on other people,
we're fixated on ourselves because we want to be careful
that we're not even falsely accusing our brothers and sisters in Christ
and their intentions and their attitude and their thoughts and their lifestyle.
Did you see how they handled their kids?
Do you even know if that's right or wrong?
Well, did you see how they handled their spouse?
Well, do you know if that was right or wrong?
Do you see how they did the soul-winning?
They're going soul-winning.
You don't like the way they went soul-winning?
Like, what are you talking about?
Or it's like, hey, do you see how they dress?
It's like sometimes people get mad about things
and I'm thinking, like, that's not even wrong.
You have a weird or an altered perception on this, okay?
And so we want to be careful that we don't falsely accuse other Christians,
and what helps is just not being a judgmental person.
Go to Matthew chapter 18. Go to Matthew chapter 18.
Look, David was looking at Saul and saying,
I'm going to take your life and count it precious unto me
so that the Lord will count my life precious unto him.
And this is what we should do,
is I'm not going to judge you for these actions
so that God won't judge me harshly for my actions.
You know, the way that I judge, the way that I measure,
is the way that God will often judge and often measure to me.
So if I'm really gracious with people
and not constantly holding their feet to the fire
and punishing them as they deserve,
then I can hope that God would treat me that way.
Now, there's no guarantee.
It's not like, well, I was really merciful to this one person,
so God's going to be merciful to me.
That's not guaranteed.
But what is almost guaranteed is that when you're really harsh,
that God's going to be extremely harsh with you.
And he gives us kind of a parable here
to kind of illustrate this and to talk about this.
Look at Matthew chapter 18 and look at verse 23.
That's extreme. Think about what he just said.
Not only do you have to pay the debt,
your wife and your children.
That's not a fun life.
Hey, honey, so the boss decided we're all going to be sold into slavery
and we have to pay back this debt.
I mean, notice also that the problems of a husband
affect more than the husband.
If you're a terrible provider,
that affects your wife and your children.
You know, you're the problem, okay?
And your problems roll downhill and they affect other people.
Verse 26.
So not only does he say,
don't just sell us into slavery, I'll pay you back.
He says, you know what?
Instead, how about this?
I'll just forgive all of it.
That's a pretty good day, huh?
Verse 28.
Think about this.
You just got forgiven a huge debt.
What is your first action?
Is it, hey, honey, I'm home.
Let's go out to eat and celebrate
that we're not slaves for the rest of our life,
but rather we've been forgiven a great debt.
No, what's his first action?
Where's the guy that I can squeeze his throat in his neck?
Verse 28.
What?
How is that your first action?
How is that your first response?
I mean, this is your greatest day of your life,
and your first thought was,
where's somebody I can go and squeeze their throat?
That's a pretty bad attitude, isn't it?
What in the world?
He grabs the guy by the throat, throws him into prison.
He was gonna have to be in prison, not just him.
Him, his wife, and his children.
And he just got forgiven, and now all of a sudden,
he's just right on top of this guy.
Verse 31.
Now, boy, honestly, it's like you read the story,
what could be more motivating to forgive people
than this story, right?
I mean, that should be all that we need.
But then for some reason,
that stubborn human nature you have
still causes us to get mad at people
and not forgive them, doesn't it?
And look, you know, to put it in context,
obviously, it's kind of picturing the idea of
you believed in Jesus, and he forgave you all your sin
to where you don't have to go to hell for all of eternity.
And it's like, in comparison to that,
what has someone on this earth done to you?
It's like, it's nothing.
It's a blip on the radar in comparison
to what Jesus has forgiven you.
How can you not forgive people stuff?
And, you know, our attitude should be to let things go,
forgive people, not bring them up, not care.
It's not a big deal.
And, you know, when you hold grudges against your brethren,
it's a scary thing,
because then God might start holding
some really serious grudges against you.
And think about this.
You know, it's kind of like there's this debt
that's forgiven, and then he goes back on it.
Now, I've heard a Catholic,
he gets up and he's like,
oh, this is someone losing their salvation.
You can't lose your salvation, so wrong interpretation.
But obviously that has to mean something.
How can you go from having a debt forgiven
and then it kind of reversing and now it's not forgiven?
But this is what, this is my interpretation.
This is what I think is an application of this.
What if you make a big mistake in your past, okay?
Like you get divorced or you get a tattoo
or you committed fornication or you did something bad,
but for some reason, nothing really bad happened.
Like you didn't, nothing, you know,
you didn't really get caught or nothing really bad happened,
and it's almost like God was just going to kind of let you
get away from the punishment that you deserve for that sin,
but now that you've gone back,
somehow something from that past of yours comes to haunt you.
And now all of a sudden you have this evil coming after you
like it's never happened before.
And it's like maybe you made a mistake
and you got divorced and remarried.
And look, that's a mistake.
But you know what?
Maybe God's just going to say, you know what?
Even though it's a mistake,
I'm going to bless that current marriage that you have.
And you know what?
You're going to have a great marriage
and nothing bad's going to happen.
But let's say you start not forgiving other people.
Maybe God's going to destroy now your marriage
and that thing's going to haunt you from your past,
that mistake that you made,
and he's going to come back and do evil unto you.
You never know what the Lord can do.
There might have been someone in your past that you ripped off,
took advantage of, did something bad to,
and you really didn't get punished for it.
But because you're having this attitude,
now all of a sudden they found you out.
Now all of a sudden the government's like,
hey, three years ago you didn't pay taxes on this.
You know, it's funny.
Gove you into 1 Peter chapter 4,
but Brother Fur, our evangelist in Oklahoma,
he got fired from a job.
And almost the week after or shortly after,
this company then gets audited
and is found out for having not paid a bunch of taxes
on all this stuff.
And they had all this horrible stuff happen to them.
And it was so right on the money
that his former boss was like,
I think that you're God's cursing our company
for having fired you.
And they fired him for what?
Preaching what the Bible says.
And it's like maybe that company
would have gotten away with that forever.
But because they're going to pursue some flee,
it's like now God's going to rain fire and brimstone
on that company.
And what I'm trying to tell you is it's not worth it
to hold grudges against people for silly little things.
And people in this room will do this.
They'll be like, oh, they said something mean to me one time.
Get over it.
They stole my friend.
Did they?
Or were you just a crappy person?
Like, you know, did they really steal your friend
or did your friend run away?
You know, maybe you have a wrong interpretation
of the facts here.
It's like, well, I think that person,
you know, she gave her perfume.
She should have sold that and given it to the poor, you know,
instead of giving it to my friend and stealing my friend.
And it's like, well, maybe you're wrong on that one.
Maybe she was just being friendly
and she was giving out gifts,
and everybody loves a man that gives gifts.
So, you know, and maybe they were just looking for an exit.
They were like, I don't want to be this person's friend anymore
because all they do is complain about how I dress, you know,
and what I do.
And a lot of times, unfortunately,
we blame other people for our own problems.
We blame other...
What is Saul's problem?
Is it David?
No.
Saul's blaming David for his own problems.
Judas is blaming this lady for his own problems.
He's covetous.
He's envious.
Preachers will accuse other preachers
for usually their problems, right?
And Christians, we're so quick to judge other people,
but we need to be quicker to judge ourselves.
Look at 1 Peter 4, verse 8.
The Bible says,
and above all things,
have fervent charity among yourselves,
for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.
You know, charity is what we're supposed to strive for
in Christianity, and it's not...
You don't start there.
We all work towards it.
It's something we're constantly trying to get.
But charity is this attitude of,
hey, when my brother and sister screw up,
I want to cover that.
I don't want to take advantage of that
and use that against them.
I want to make sure that it doesn't hurt them or harm them.
I want to make sure to come alongside them
and make sure that bad things aren't happening.
I'm going to pray that God gives them grace
and God gives them mercy,
and I'm going to pray that good things happen to them.
You know, Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do.
That type of attitude.
At my first answer, no man stood with me,
but all men forsook me.
I prayed God that he might not lay it to their charge.
The apostle Paul is saying,
hey, just because they forsook me,
just because they did bad, just because they did wrong,
I'm praying that God will not lay it to their charge.
I don't want bad things to happen to them.
I want to have fervent charity towards them,
and I want to cover a multitude of sins.
Go to Proverbs, we're going to finish there,
just two more verses I want to look at real quick.
But let us have an attitude of charity in this church.
And look, if you have bitterness in your heart
towards someone in the room, let it go.
If you have been pursuing someone in this room,
stop pursuing them.
If you're pursuing someone not in this room,
if there's an online troll you're pursuing,
stop pursuing him.
If there's a preacher out there,
you're like, I hate this guy's sermons.
Stop listening to them.
Right?
You know, and the people that you maybe don't even,
like if there's a person out there
that you are pretty sure they're saved,
you know, it's not like they're unsaved,
and you kind of have a beef with them, how about this?
How about this?
Challenge yourself tonight to pray for their good.
Pray for God to cover that issue.
Pray for God to help that person.
Pray for God to do good unto that person.
You know, that's the attitude that we should have.
And of course, you know, doing it in private.
Don't, after the sermon, be like,
hey, after the sermon, I'm going to make sure
to pray for you tonight.
Hey, I just want to let you know,
I'm praying for you tonight.
You know, it's like, don't be like that.
That wasn't sincere, okay?
Don't even joke that way, all right?
Just at night, by yourself,
just pray for that person.
Wish good for them.
Proverbs 25, look at verse 2.
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing,
but the honor of kings is the search of the martyrs.
So again, it's glory to conceal a thing.
You know, praise God that he's going to conceal all of my sins.
Boy, I'm so, that's like one of the coolest things ever
about being saved, is that the whole world
doesn't have to find out every bad thing
I've ever thought and done and said, okay?
Because it's bad.
It's a bad list, and it would be really embarrassing.
I would be very embarrassed if even just ten
of the things on my list were mentioned,
let alone all of them.
You know, that's got to be one of the worst parts
of the great white throne judgment,
is every idle word being judged.
I mean, every action, everything's going to be
brought into light.
We're going to find out who's on Hillary Clinton's list, okay?
It's going to happen.
We're going to finally get Jeffrey Epstein's list.
Okay?
It may not happen in this life, but you know what?
It will happen.
Proverbs 11, the last verse I want you to look at.
Look at verse 13.
You know, let us have a church full of faithful spirits
where we're constantly looking to conceal things
that shouldn't be talked about, shouldn't be heard.
We don't need to know.
You know, there's things that need to be known, right?
If someone's preaching false gospel in our church,
you know, we don't conceal that, right?
We don't conceal pedophilia.
We don't conceal serious sins like 1 Corinthians 5.
But, you know, when it's not a serious thing,
let's conceal it.
Let's use charity.
Let's cover it with love.
Let's be gracious.
Let's put on your siblings for every little transgression.
Conceal the matter.
Love your brother and sister.
Do good unto them.
Hope for their good.
Don't rejoice at their discipline, okay?
Don't wish for their demise.
And, you know, us, as God's children,
should take the same attitude.
Let us not despise one another.
Let us not pursue after the Davids of our life,
the Sauls of our life.
Let us consider their lives precious
so that the Lord would consider our lives precious.
Let us be gracious unto them
so that the Lord would be gracious unto us.
And let us be very loving and full of charity towards them
so that God will be very loving
and giving lots of charity unto us.
Let's go to some prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for
how you're willing to be so gracious and merciful to us.
I pray that we would learn from your example,
that we'd learn from your fervent love and charity,
that we would extend that to our brothers and sisters in Christ,
that we'd be reminded of all the things you've forgiven us of
so that we would be willing to forgive our brethren.
I pray that any of us that are struggling in this area,
that we have bitterness or anger or resentment towards one another,
that we would figure out a way to just let it go,
to replace it with love and charity.
I pray that you could heal relationships in this room.
I pray that you'd help people to be more friendly.
And I pray that ultimately we would all reserve our judgment for ourselves
and that we'd work on ourselves and we'd try to improve ourselves
and not worry about so much what other people are doing.
And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right, for our final song this evening,
412 onward Christian soldiers.
Song 412 onward Christian soldiers.
Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the loyal Master, meets against the fall.
Forward into battle, see his better fall.
Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus going on before.
At the sign of triumph, Satan's host the Queen.
On them Christian soldiers, on to victory,
helps the nations giver at the shout of praise.
Brothers lift your voices, loud your rambles raise.
Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus going on before.
Like the mighty army, shows the sins of God.
Brothers we are steady, where the saints have come.
We are God divided, all the body weak.
One in hope and confidence, one in charity.
Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus going on before.
Onward, beneath the earth, join our happy thrall.
Lend with hearts your voices, sing the triumph song.
Glory, honor, honor unto Christ the King.
This through countless ages may an angel sing.
Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus going on before.
Thank you all for coming, God bless, you are dismissed.