Music
Good evening everyone. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you could please find your seats and grab your song books.
We're going to start out with song 160, Crown Him With Many Crowns.
160, Crown Him With Many Crowns.
Song 160, Crown Him With Many Crowns.
Music
Crown Him With Many Crowns. The Lamb upon His throne.
Hark how the heavenly anthems drown. All music but its own.
Awake my soul and sing.
Of Him who died for thee.
And hail Him as thy matchless King. Through all eternity.
Crown Him the Lord of Love. Behold His hands and sign.
Rich wounds yet visible above. In beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky. Can fully bear that sign.
But downward bends His wondering eye. That mystery so bright.
Crown Him the Lord of Life. Who triumphed o'er the grave.
Who rose victorious to the strife. For those He came to save.
His glory now we sing. Who died and rose on high.
Who died eternal life to bring. And lives at death may die.
Crown Him the Lord of Heaven. One with the Father known.
One with the Spirit through Him. Give from yonder glorious hope.
To thee be endless praise. For thou for us has thine.
Be thou the Lord through endless days. Adored and magnified.
Great singing. Let's open up in a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this day in our church and just all the blessings that you've bestowed upon it.
I pray that you bless our pastor tonight as he preaches to us. Give us ears and hearts attentive to your word.
We love you and you see me pray. Amen.
For our next song, let's go to 257, Look and Live.
257, Look and Live. Song 257.
I've a message from the Lord. Hallelujah.
The message unto you I'll give. Tis recorded in His word. Hallelujah.
It is only that you look and live. Look and live my brother live.
Look to Jesus now and live. Tis recorded in His word. Hallelujah.
It is only that you look and live. I've a message from above. Hallelujah.
A message oh my friend for you. Tis a message from above. Hallelujah.
Jesus said and I know it's true. Look and live my brother live.
Look to Jesus now and live. Tis recorded in His word. Hallelujah.
It is only that you look and live. Life is offered unto you. Hallelujah.
Eternal life my soul shall have. If you'll only look to Him. Hallelujah.
Look to Jesus who alone can save. Look and live my brother live.
Look to Jesus now and live. Tis recorded in His word. Hallelujah.
It is only that you look and live. I will tell you how I came. Hallelujah.
To Jesus when He made me whole. Was believing on His name. Hallelujah.
I trusted and He saved my soul. Look and live my brother live.
Look to Jesus now and live. Tis recorded in His word. Hallelujah.
It is only that you look and live.
On the inside we have our service and soul winning times as well as church stats.
Make sure you're submitting that to your soul winning captains for your tribes.
On the right is the list of expecting ladies. We have our prayer list.
Upcoming events this Saturday is our final preaching class.
That Sunday following will be our graduation Sunday.
Someone did ask about this but there is an event in Chicago May 24th and 25th.
It's actually hosted by Shure Foundation Baptist Church.
They have a church plant in Indiana and apparently the Indy 500 disrupts the church service that one weekend.
So they decided to have their services in Hammond, Indiana which is pretty much just basically Chicago.
So in fact I think that it's really Hammond, Indiana is closer to Chicago than Fort Worth is to Dallas.
So they pretty much just run together and it's just the south portion of Chicago area.
So they're going to be over there and that area is very large.
I'm pretty sure it's well over the Dallas-Fort Worth area as far as total population in the Chicago metro.
I can't remember the number off the top of my head but I want to say like 9 million or some big number as far as their metro.
So a lot of people up there and we're excited to have a soul winning event, preaching event.
I'm going to be preaching that Friday May 24th and then there's soul winning on the Saturday following.
I know Pastor Thompson is also planning on preaching a sermon that Friday evening as well.
And so if you're anywhere in that area or you know anybody in that area just try to encourage them to come out there.
There's going to be a large group because most of that church is planning on traveling out there.
I think a few people from our church are planning on going out there.
Also people from Pastor Thompson's church.
And so we're excited to have some soul winning in this windy city.
I'm glad that I'm just visiting. I don't really love wind.
All right. That's just my personal opinion.
But hey, God says, you know, he's going to hold the wind and I like it.
But you can like wind if you want.
Other events, the Josh Garcia and Cynthia Navajar wedding is June 8th.
Excited about that.
And that's really that's really all I have as far as announcements.
We're going to sing our song of the week.
Some one hundred and forty seven.
All right. Let's sing it out together.
Psalm one hundred and forty seven.
The outcast of Israel.
The broken hearted by.
He.
No.
He.
He called it all by.
He is.
And the great.
His understanding is.
The.
He has.
Brown.
He.
And.
He.
As the offering plates being passed around please turn in your Bibles to 1st Corinthians chapter 9 1st Corinthians chapter number 9
1st Corinthians chapter 9
The Bible reads, Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are not ye my work in the Lord?
If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you. For the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord.
Mine answer to them that do examine me is this. Have we not power to eat and to drink? Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?
Or I only and Barnabas? Have we not power to forbear working? Who goeth of warfare at any time of his own charges?
Who planted the vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? Or who feedeth of the flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?
Say I these things as a man? Or sayeth not the law the same also? For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn.
Doth God take care for oxen? Or sayeth he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes no doubt this is written, that he that ploweth should plow in hope, and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope.
If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things? If others be partakers of this power over you, are not we rather?
Nevertheless we have not used this power, but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ.
Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple, and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?
Even so hath the Lord ordained, that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.
But I have used none of these things, neither have I written these things, that it should be so done unto me.
For it were better for me to die, than that any man should make my glorying void.
For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of.
For necessity is laid upon me, yea woe is me if I preach not the gospel.
For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward.
But if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me.
What is my reward then? Verily, that when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.
For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.
And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews.
To them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law.
To them that are without law, as without law.
Being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ, that I might gain them that are without law.
To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak.
I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.
Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.
And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.
Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.
I therefore so run, not as uncertainly. So fight I, not as one that beateth the air.
But I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. I thank you for the salvation's out, soul winning.
And I just thank you that you watch over our every needs. Please bless Pastor Shelley as he preaches your word and apply it to our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen. I want to look back at verse 22 again. The Bible says,
To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak.
I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.
Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize?
So run, that ye may obtain.
And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.
Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.
In this portion of Scripture, the Apostle Paul is bringing up a concept of doing things in a manner as to which to save some.
He's willing to change who he is or his personality in certain contexts and situations in order to win people to Christ.
He's saying, when I'm around Jews, I act like a Jew. And when I'm around non-Jews or the heathen, I act like that.
And when I'm around weak people, I act weak.
And so he's basically just simply saying that he's willing to adjust and to condescend to men of low estate
and to make differences in his life so as to win other people to Christ.
And he's thinking about other people. He's thinking about how other people will perceive him.
And, of course, we want to be careful in everything that we do.
He's not saying that he's trying to sin. He's not doing something sinful, but rather, he's simply just not acting overly righteous.
He doesn't necessarily care about his own personal culture that much.
He's willing to adapt to the environment, adapt to the situation, find common ground with different people all over the world
so that he can get as many people saved as possible, trying to be as least offensive as possible.
He also brings up this concept in verse 25 that when you're striving for anything, it's important to be temperate in all things.
Of course, this context is comparing someone that maybe competes in a professional manner,
whether that be sporting or in business or in a specific race is kind of what he's bringing up.
Someone that's going to win a race is someone that's worked and trained very hard.
And, specifically, when it talks about being temperate in all things, it's talking about having balance in your life.
It's talking about having self-restraint.
Someone that's going to win a race is going to have a lot of temperates in all kinds of areas.
Their lifestyle, making sure they're getting adequate rest, making sure that they're properly hydrated,
making sure that they're eating a nutritious and a healthy diet.
They can't eat too little because then they won't have enough muscle and strength and energy.
They can't eat too much because then they'll be overweight and bloated, so they have to be temperate.
They have to find a balance.
They have to find a balance in their life of training and taking time off so they don't get burnt out.
And so, you know, it's just talking about the concepts necessary here to make sure you actually win.
When you talk about mastering something or becoming an expert or being the chief.
And what I feel like sometimes can happen for Christians and for a lot of people is they take things overboard.
Instead of being temperate, instead of being balanced, they kind of take things overboard.
And this can be applied in a lot of different contexts, but I just wanted to at least explain that the Bible teaches we should be temperate in all things.
It's broad.
And, of course, that just is simply meaning we need to have balance in our lives, we need to have self-control,
that we're not doing things that are not profitable or expedient.
I want to go to another place, go to Luke chapter 9, but I just wanted to give you a sense of what that chapter is talking about
and kind of use that to spearhead the title of my sermon, which is Taking Things Overboard.
Honestly, when I was thinking about this and I was thinking about all the different stuff that applied, I had way too much for the sermon.
So I just tried to cherry pick some of the ones that I thought were important to bring up.
But when it comes to taking things overboard, it's really just a general principle.
You know, we want to make sure that we're not ever taking things overboard.
What does that mean? You're going to an extreme.
And in this world, there's a lot of extreme positions.
Typically, the reason why someone is extreme, from my perspective, is because they don't want the challenge of figuring out balance.
So like when you're driving the car, if you're going to drive the car accurately, you can't just press the gas as hard as you want.
You have to figure out what the speed limit is and you kind of have to use temperates to stay within concordance of the law.
It would be nice sometimes to just, I'm just going to press the gas button as hard as I possibly can, right?
No temperates whatsoever.
And the same would be with food, right?
Oh, I just want to eat as much food as I just possibly want, but that's not being very temperate.
Sometimes you have to find the right balance.
Or what types of foods that you eat.
You know, it would be nice to just say, I'm just going to eat ice cream.
Because I love ice cream, okay?
Chocolate ice cream is delicious.
In fact, I really love mixing.
I love, you know, people are getting mad about mixed races, but I love mixed ice cream, okay?
Give me some chocolate and give me some vanilla.
It's epic, okay?
I even love the Dippin' Dots ones, you know?
I don't even know what it is, but it's just like amazing.
As long as it's cold.
I like my ice cream cold, okay?
I don't like it when it's melting.
But, you know, wouldn't it be nice to just say, I'm done eating other kinds of food?
For me, it's just sugar cereal, ice cream, chocolate cake, and brownies, and that's just all I'm going to eat.
Well, that's not having much temperance in my life, is it?
It's not very much self-control.
And it's easy.
Isn't it easy to just say, I'm just going to do whatever I want, however I want, whenever I want?
But that's not exhibiting temperance, okay?
And this also happens doctrinally, where people become doctrinally lazy.
And they just simply want the easy button, and so they just simply, instead of trying to have balance or some temperance in their viewpoints, they simply just want to go all in on a particular view.
You know, one example would be just saying, love everybody or hate everybody.
And it seems like people love to just hit one of those buttons.
And I would say most churches today, they hit the love everybody button, right?
A lot of churches just want to just hit that button, and they find it easy.
Well, it's just easier if I just decide to just love everyone, no matter what.
You know, that's not providing much temperance. It's not providing self-control.
It's not providing balance in your life.
And, you know, some of our like-minded brethren out there, I feel like they fall into this trap.
They would be like the old IFB.
It's kind of what we talk about.
And they feel like we should literally love everyone to a point where they'll bring in registered sex offenders into their church.
They will bring in sodomites and atheists. Like, really, they just, they really have no person that they won't bring in.
And they'll say, we need to worship a particular country in the world, and we need to put their flag up on the stage, and they'll put up the Israel flag.
And it's like, of all the countries to celebrate, can't we pick any other country to celebrate?
And, I mean, I'm not taking that too extreme because North Korea is not that great either, okay, folks?
But I'm just saying, like, they're not really even picking necessarily one of the best places to pick if you're just going to decide to be really nationalistic or something, right?
But even though they have these problems, and even though they're not exercising temperance, we want to make sure that we aren't guilty of also not having temperance,
where we kind of think, like, hey, if you're not new IFB, you're like a reprobate or something, or you're just bad, or just, like, every church that isn't like our church is just somehow bad.
And, look, are the things I'm bringing up bad? Yes. Are there issues and problems with a lot of churches? Sure.
But we shouldn't just be like, that's a bad church or a horrible church just because they're wrong on a few issues, okay?
And I want to show a few verses here. Look at Luke chapter 9, verse 49.
Luke chapter 9, verse 49.
And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and we forbade him, because he followeth not with us.
I mean, this guy's not new IFB. What is he doing, you know?
And Jesus said on him, forbid him not, for he that is not against us is for us.
Think about how broad that statement is. He that is not against us is for us.
That goes well beyond old IFB. I mean, there's a lot of people that aren't even Christian that aren't against us.
And in a sense, Jesus is basically saying, hey, if someone's not against you, just assume they're on your team.
And, you know, generally speaking, it seems like that. It seems like people that when they find out about us or hear about us and they don't have a visceral reaction immediately, they usually like us.
Because pretty much the only thing they dislike about us is that first introduction period, you know, maybe their first few times Googling us.
But after that, it's usually they like us. The more they get to know us, the more they find out about us.
And they just like the fact that we like truth, that we care about souls, that we're genuine, that we're sincere.
And really, I think that what Jesus is trying to get the message across is, look, people that are actively attacking you are on our team. Leave them alone.
Don't be mad at them. If a church isn't attacking you and against you, well, you know what? They're on our team and we shouldn't be mad at them for whatever they're doing.
We should show them grace. In fact, maybe you could just say, hey, to the weak became I is weak.
You know, that also tells me if I visit an old IFB church, I'm not going to be new IFB. I'm going to be old IFB.
Because under the old IFB became my old IFB.
I mean, aren't we going to apply the Bible?
And again, I'm not saying like when I leave the building, as soon as I leave the building, I'm new IFB again.
OK, as soon as the Apostle Paul's done hanging around with the weak people, he's no longer weak anymore.
But he's just saying, hey, whenever you find yourselves around other people and they're not bad, they're not against Christ, they're not trying to attack you.
You know what? Sometimes you can just kind of find whatever common ground you have and just enjoy them and be with them.
Let's not take things overboard and say, well, you're not as new IFB as me. You can't even be my friend.
Right? Isn't there an idea out there? Isn't there churches out there? They act like you're not new IFB as much as I am, so we need to separate from you.
It's like, what is your problem? That's taking things overboard. If you can't, I mean, of all the freaks and weirdos in this world, you can't even be friends with another fundamental Baptist?
I mean, fundamental Baptists are not our enemies. They are our buddies. They are our friends.
And it's just crazy to me how so many people just kind of, even in our movement, act as if other fundamentalists are just horrible people or bad or enemies, even though they're not attacking us.
Even though they're not against us. And look, there's a time and a place to combat false doctrine. There's a time and a place to say, hey, you shouldn't be lying about me and slandering me and attacking me and things like that.
There's a time for someone to defend themselves against false accusation and evil. But when someone's not attacking you, and they're on our team, we shouldn't go after them.
You know, sometimes I'll name drop, sometimes in my sermons I'll bring up pastors and preachers and things like that.
But I try to be careful to think about, is this person against us or not? And is this person a good person, generally speaking?
Because I don't want to just sit here and attack some fundamental Baptist preacher who's right on the gospel, right on soul winning, right on the King James Bible, but maybe they are pre-trib or something.
It's like, I'll preach against preacher rapture, but I don't want to preach against that individual or that church or try to attack them because I'm not really against them.
And I shouldn't try to be against them. I should be for them and compelling them to change.
And if I hang out with them, I don't have to sit here and berate them about it. In fact, I have friends that are not post-trib pre-wrath.
And when I hang out with them, I'm not sitting here just being like, man, you're so stupid.
Dude, the pre-trib rapture is dumb, man. We're just finding commonality in the things that we do like.
We're enjoying our friendship and our fellowship on the things we do. I don't want to take things overboard and act like, wow, you just must be a horrible person because you're wrong in this one area of life.
Or you have this one issue.
As we keep reading in this passage, it also says this,
And it came to pass when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem and sent messengers before his face.
And they went and entered into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him, and they did not receive him because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.
And when his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them even as Elias did?
But he turned and rebuked them and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of, for the Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.
And they went to another village.
So Jesus is trying to go to Jerusalem. That's his purpose. That's his goal. And it's expressly stated.
Like they know what they're doing, saying, hey, we just need a quick place to lodge, but we're going to Jerusalem. That's our goal. That's our purpose. That's why we're traveling.
And because they're just making a quick, speedy trip through, this specific village just says, well, we don't even want to house you because of the fact that you just want to go straight to Jerusalem.
And for whatever reason, that was why they decided.
Notice what it said in the passage very specifically is it said in verse 53, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.
Were they rejecting him because he's Jesus? Were they rejecting him because of the synagogue of Satan?
Were they rejecting him because of the fact that they're just evil, wicked reprobates? No.
It says the reason they did not receive him was because he wanted to go to Jerusalem.
And for whatever reason, they seem put off by that, don't want to accommodate him.
Maybe they don't see like they're going to make enough money on it or they just don't want someone coming and going that quickly.
So for whatever reason, they decide not to receive him.
And the disciples are just thinking like, man, if you don't want to receive us, let's just nuke them.
Let's just burn them to the ground.
OK. And that's the wrong attitude.
You know, our church is having an event with Pastor Thompson in the Chicago area,
and we were hoping and planning to possibly use some other people's facilities and partner with other churches that were going to be very gracious unto us,
very nice and hospitable unto us, and they canceled.
And I think that some people might think like, well, let's just burn that church to the ground, you know,
or like I hope God strikes you with lightning or something.
You know, that's the wrong attitude.
That's not the right spirit.
And you know, OK, they didn't receive us.
You know what? They're not against us.
So we should just leave them alone and think like it's not that big a deal.
Like we should just move on.
And in fact, let's just pray for their good, in fact.
Let's bless them because the last thing America needs is less fundamental Baptist churches.
Like we don't need less. We need way more.
And we need way more people that are fired up on, you know, having a zeal for God.
Because let's be honest again, you and I are probably not going to go to Chicago a lot and get a lot of people saved.
But there's a lot of people in that area that are going to go and get people saved.
And you know, we want them to be encouraged and have a zeal for God out there,
not for their greatest church to be burned to the ground or something or for God to hate them just because they don't follow us
or they're not with us or they're not new I of B.
You know, we have the right attitude and not take things overboard and say, oh, well, they're bad.
Now look, when a bunch of God hating, reprobate Jews close all of our bank accounts and protest our church,
you better know I'm going to come after them and preach against them and I'm going to pray not for their good.
OK, but those people are literally against us.
There's a huge difference between a church not wanting to have best bud friendship with you
and these reprobates trying to literally destroy you.
OK, that's a major difference.
And so we want to make sure we have balance.
We're temperate and we don't take things overboard, take things out of context and just attack them.
You know, I also think that when it comes to Christians, you know, it extends into evangelicals and Protestants.
There's probably a lot of evangelicals and Protestants that are not against us.
So we should not pray that they're destroyed or God just rains up in clouds on them or just does evil under them.
We should pray for their good.
We don't want to take things overboard.
Well, if you're not new, I'll be you're not even saved.
Look, there's there's probably a lot of evangelicals and Protestants that are saved.
That's what I believe.
I believe there's a lot of Baptists that are probably Southern Baptists and they're saved and missionary Baptists and they're saved.
There's a lot of old people that are saved.
You know, there's going to be a lot of other people out there that love God and are saved.
Now, are they wrong on some things?
Yes. Do they need to get the Baptist bias?
Absolutely. OK, I'm I'm a champion for that.
Hey, I'm all for being a Baptist and being fundamental and going to steadfast Baptist Church and come soul winning with me.
What I'm not going to do is I'm not going to attack this person and go against them and pray that God would destroy them and act as if they're a reprobate just because they're not exactly like me.
We don't want to take things overboard.
Go to Romans Chapter 13.
Here's another group that I feel like, boy, it's easy for everyone to hate on and everyone just dislikes them so much.
And I just don't have this attitude.
OK, and somebody is going to get mad, but hey, I'm just trying to bring some balance in here.
And you think there's this attitude where people just hate police and I don't like it.
OK, it to me, it's the same as when leftists hate guns.
OK, because you think guns in and of themselves are just a tool when they're used by a bad person.
They can cause really evil destruction when they're used by a good person.
They can kill the bad person.
They can bring peace and safety.
OK, they can bring justice.
And I believe the same is with police officers.
Police officers in the hands of a good and righteous government are a good thing.
They can bring peace and safety and justice.
But of course, police officers at the whims of an evil dictator or someone like King Saul.
You know what, Doeg the Edomite did a lot of evil under the authority of King Saul.
But you know what, the problem wasn't the police.
The problem was really the law that was coming down.
The orders and the authority that was given unto them.
Now again, does that mean that every police officer is a good person?
Does that mean that every police officer always makes the right decision?
No. Does that mean that there are some police officers that when they're given an order and it's an unrighteous, ungodly order, they're still going to follow it anyways?
Yeah, there's plenty that are like that.
But that doesn't mean that I should just hate all police.
Just like because there's bad Baptists doesn't mean I hate all Baptists.
Just because there's bad black people doesn't mean I just hate all black people.
Just because 99.9% of Jews are bad doesn't mean I should hate the .1%.
We should make sure, that was a joke, okay folks, sorry.
Y'all got nervous there for a moment.
Just because someone out there is doing something bad doesn't mean, you know, here's another thing, and it's not a point I want to make,
but just because we have bad politicians and we have bad people in the Congress and bad people in the government doesn't mean government's bad.
It doesn't even mean that our specific type of government is bad.
I always hear this lately, it's like, oh man, we need a king, we need a king.
And I'm like thinking, this is what the children of Israel said.
And then God was mad at them for bringing in a king.
And it's like, you really think if we can corrupt hundreds and hundreds of people in our country, you can't corrupt one?
And I'm thinking like, have you ever read history ever?
Like, how about King Nero? Do you want Caesar Nero to be your king?
Like, I'm just thinking like, in your mind, you like this idea of a king, but I'm just thinking like, how many kings in history do you really want?
Do you want King Jung-un? I mean, do you want that guy to be your dictator, your tyrant, your leader?
I mean, it's like, to me, people just don't understand that it's not really the structure that's the problem as much as it is the people that are running that structure.
And the reason why God puts evil people in those positions of power is because the people aren't serving God.
And he uses it a way to punish them for them to turn back to God, and when you turn back to God, then he'll give you righteous leaders.
Oh, it's the leader problem. No, it's a you problem.
Oh, the police are the problem. No, it's probably you.
And almost every time I hear an anecdote about why the police suck, it always starts out with someone describing to me how they're breaking the law.
So I was driving a hundred on the highway the other day.
Well, that's illegal.
And then this cop just decided to pull me over. Man, he was a jerk about it.
You know, it's just like, okay, well, that's your fault. You broke the law.
And then people get mad, people get really mad about how the cops police the street or traffic specifically.
And I'm thinking like, okay, why don't you come with me on a missions trip to Jamaica?
You'll never get pulled over for a ticket, you'll never get pulled over for speeding, but you're very likely to die.
You're very likely to be in a car accident.
You know, it's like people think like, oh, man, it'd be so great if there was literally no rules and nobody enforcing it.
But then it's like, okay, find those countries and drive in them.
And then tell me how wonderful that is.
There's always a balance here.
Now, of course, I'm not saying let's go to the extreme of Australia where there's a camera on every single intersection monitoring your speed every second.
And as soon as you go over the speed limit, you get a $1,300 ticket.
Hey, I'm not really advocating for that.
Okay, but at the end of the day, there's always going to be balance.
There should be a balanced view.
We can't just always go overboard and just say, I hate all cops because they gave me a ticket.
I hate all police because there was this one incidence of police brutality.
I hate all cops because X, Y, and Z.
You know, there's a lot of times where cops do things that are good.
And no one brings those stories up.
I mean, nobody wants to talk about that, how they may have actually rescued someone or killed someone.
I mean, there's been a couple recent mass shootings where the police intervened and probably did save some lives.
Now, again, is law enforcement able to respond to an active shooter in a timely manner where no one's going to die?
Probably never.
I mean, when someone pulls out a gun, it's usually one or two seconds before that thing goes off.
You can't call cops and they show up in less than two seconds, folks.
That's why I think everybody should carry.
And, you know, you probably should even be ready to respond in less than two seconds.
Just to be honest.
Because things happen fast.
Things happen quickly.
But at the same time, there's these areas and these parts where someone goes in and they're shooting.
No one wants to just jeopardize their life necessarily.
And law enforcement has to go in.
You know, in Tennessee, there was a tranny that went in there to shoot in the school.
Cops went in there, ran through the building and shot and killed the tranny.
Hey, I'm not going to sit here and be like, oh, these cops are so terrible that they literally went in and shot a tranny and killed it and stopped it from murdering children randomly.
No, that was a good thing.
Now, again, if cops go and do something bad, let's condemn the wicked.
But you know what? Let's not condemn the righteous with them.
Let's make sure we have a balanced view.
And let's get our view from the Bible on this.
What does Romans chapter 13, verse 1 say?
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God.
The powers that be are ordained of God.
Whosoever therefore resisted the power, resisted the ordinance of God.
And they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil.
Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?
Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same.
For he is the minister of God to thee for good.
All of you cop-hating people out there, why don't you underline, memorize, and highlight this verse.
For he is the minister of God to thee for good.
What does that say?
I didn't write the Bible. I'm just reading to you what the Bible says.
You know what? The Bible is saying that cops, in general, are the ministers of God to thee for good.
Now, does that mean that every cop will always do good? No.
That's not what I'm saying. That's not even what the Bible is saying.
But it's just saying that office, that position, is a minister of God and it's supposed to be for good.
Anybody can pervert anything. Just like a pastor. Sure.
A pastor is a position that is good. He's a minister of God.
Does that mean that there aren't bad pastors? Of course there are.
Does that mean that pastors couldn't do something bad? Of course they can.
But you know what? I'm not going to disrespect the position of a pastor because of a bad pastor.
And I'm not going to disrespect the position of a law enforcement agent just because there's a bad law enforcement agent.
And we want to make sure that we don't take things overboard and just start hating the thing that's being represented because of a bad representative.
And of course restaurant owners and business owners get so frustrated when they have a bad employee ruin the experience for a customer.
You go into a restaurant and just a bad employee on a bad day just gives you a bad service.
And it causes you to think, I don't want to ever eat here again or go here again.
That's frustrating to the business owner because that's not what our restaurant should represent. I'm sorry.
A lot of times if they find out, they'll compensate you, pay your meal, give you a gift card because they want you to return and try it again.
They don't want you to take things overboard and just say, worst restaurant ever, give them a bad review online, slander them and talk negatively about them.
But I see this happening with Christians today where they just take things overboard. Why? Because it's just easy to just say, I just hate all cops.
I hate all authority. But you know what? People that hate authority, they have a spirit of the devil because the devil is the one that hates authority.
And is the chief rebellious officer. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft is what the Bible says.
So we should be careful that we're making sure that we're not just hating the things that God literally established and set up for the wrong reason.
Now again, sometimes there's bad laws and cops go and enforce those bad laws and we all get upset about it and we're frustrated.
But let's make sure we're pointing our anger in the right direction. Not so much at the law enforcement agent, but so much at the person that's calling the dogs in.
The one that's bringing in this bad legislation or these bad rules and holding them accountable, not just getting mad at the enforcer.
Go to Proverbs chapter 14. I'm just bringing up a couple things that just kind of make me angry when I see people taking them overboard.
Now again, what would be the other side? It's when we literally bring up every police officer on the stage and clap and act like they're the greatest person that's ever existed.
Just because they're a police officer. I don't do that either. I'm not bringing in all the police officers and bringing the LGBT liaison officer up on stage and giving them a medal or something.
You know, that doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to worship police. It doesn't make sense to elevate police above other Christians when these people might not even be saved, literally.
It makes no sense to do that, but it also makes no sense to just say, I hate all of you because some of you are bad.
We want to have the balanced view. Saying, hey, we're not going to bring you up on stage and give you a shiny medal, but we're also not going to just slander and rail against you.
And we'll be respectful as long as you're not violating our religious freedom. As long as you're not going against what we're commanded by God to do, we're going to obey and respect your authority.
But at the same time, we're not going to sit here and sing your praises either. We're just going to treat you like we would want to be treated.
Here's another thing that makes me kind of get upset about is people who have a take all or take nothing view on conspiracy theories.
Now, why? Why do people do this? Well, look at Proverbs 14 verse 15. The simple believeth every word.
But the prudent man, look at what was going.
You know, it's kind of exploded from like maybe 20, I'm going to say like, even if you go back as far as like 2005, but maybe even specifically like 2012, 2014.
YouTube didn't have much censorship and there was a lot of conspiracy theories floating on YouTube specifically.
And just, I think a lot of people were simple. They just, they started watching one and they just, they found it fascinating.
And it's almost like a movie series where they're like binge watching. And as soon as they get done with that one, they're like, let's watch the next one.
And then let's just watch the next one. And they just, they kind of just literally believe anything.
And so they just fall hook, line and seeker.
And because there are a lot of legitimate conspiracy theories out there that do have some solid evidence on their side.
And I think it's suckered some people into having this approach where they just kind of, I think every conspiracy theory is true.
Or I think the government's literally lying about everything. Just everything's a lie, everything's a psyop, everything's fake.
And it kind of becomes to this point where they're just denying reality so much that they become a dangerous individual.
Probably one of the worst of these was QAnon.
Okay. And I don't know much about it because I don't want to know. I want to be simple concerning evil.
But there is this idea of QAnon conspiracy theory. And look, I'm sure, I'm sure that some of the claims and some of the things that are said in there were probably true.
But I think there was also just a lot of just lies and crazy things thrown in there.
And it's hard for simple people to discern what was right and what was wrong.
It would be kind of like dissecting a McDonald's McNugget and trying to figure out which parts were meat and which parts were not.
And it's just like, it's just really hard to see that. And I think for some simple people it's sometimes hard for them to discern like all the truth and the lies and some of this stuff.
And so they just kind of get sucked into everything. Especially considering a lot of these people aren't even saved.
And so as a result of that, they're just all over the map.
They'll go into QAnon and they'll start thinking like, oh, the book of Enoch and there's these giants and there's these reptilians and angels are mating with humans.
And I think that all the government are these like reptilian aliens or something. And you're just like, what is wrong with you?
They're like, 9-11 is an inside job. And you're like, yeah. And then you're like, everyone in the government is an alien. You're like, ugh.
Ugh, brother, ugh. It's like, what are you doing? It's like, no.
Yes, there are things that are legitimately bad about our government. But then they just go crazy on all of these ideas.
And what does the Bible say? The prudent man looks as well. We need to have some temperance.
And it's easy to just say, well, I just believe it all. I just think the government's wrong on everything.
But that's just not the right approach. And it also has a couple other, this is kind of a package.
This is kind of the dumb conspiracy trinity where you have geocentrism, the moon landing's fake, and then the Earth is flat.
And they basically all come together. It's like if you deny the heliocentric model, then you also have the flat Earth.
So it's kind of like if you have the sun, you have the father. When they deny the heliocentric model, they have the flat Earth too.
And usually, if you have those, you for sure have the moon landing's fake in there.
And it's just like these three, just for some reason, just attract a lot of people.
A lot of people get sucked into one of these three. And flat Earth is probably the least cool.
So most people will just kind of be like vague about that one. But the cooler ones are like, the moon landing is fake, man.
Or like, hey, geocentrism, you know, that was the real theory, man.
And it's just these like gateway drugs into the more hardcore reality denial.
And when you go down this reality denial, the sky is the limit to how far you can fall.
And I'm just trying to caution you that when it comes to conspiracy theories, there are a lot of conspiracy theories that I believe are legitimate.
You know, 9-11, the official story is the most ridiculous thing imaginable.
Now, I'm not going to get up and say I know exactly what happened, but I will say this, that Building 7 didn't fall due to office fires.
That's just not, that's denying reality. When you watch a building fall like that and then you say it was office fires, you're just saying, I don't believe in reality.
That's the same as looking at a man and saying it's a woman. It's the same as looking at 2 plus 2 equals 4 and saying it's racist.
That's the same as an atheist thinking that nothing exploded and created everything.
That's the same as going to the Natural History Museum today and looking at a monkey and saying that's our ancestor.
It's the same as going to the same museum and looking at a Tyrannosaurus Rex and saying this is where chickens came from.
I mean, it's the same as people that believe in the religion of Islam where they literally follow a pedophile who married a 6-year-old and consummated the marriage at 9 and was illiterate and saying this is the word of God.
And he doesn't even take that, just read any of it and then saying that's the word of God.
It's denying reality. It's such poor literature, they have to sing it. It's like rap music, okay?
It's such poor literature, they have to sing it for anybody to enjoy it.
Because the Quran just read out loud just sounds like garbage, folks.
Oh, something's lost in translation. Why don't want it? It's so bad in the translation, I'm sure the original is even worse.
Look, there's a lot of reality now in the world. Mormons are wearing special underwear.
They won't even drink Coke. They'll walk up to you and say I believe in one God while they know they believe in multiple gods.
The reality denial in our society and our world is vast.
And we as God-fearing people, we don't want to give Christianity a bad name by then subscribing to more reality denial.
And it just makes Christianity look bad. It also makes just conspiracy theories look bad when you are giving lip service to these just obvious dumb things.
People really followed Jim Jones to South America and followed him to his little cult compound.
And I think that there was a lot of coercion. Some people even suggest that people were forced under the pressure of the threat of death, even with guns.
But people injected themselves with poison and drank poison and literally committed mass suicide in Jonestown.
And you say, why bring that up? Because that's where some of these conspiracy theories end.
When you start getting to this weird reality denial, you get to a point where you think you can drink poison and you're going to appear on the other side of some spaceship up in the cosmos.
Reality denial. That's scary. When you say that the earth is flat, you could end up saying later you are Jesus Christ like Tyler Doka literally did.
I mean this guy was a psychopath. Not only did he say he was Jesus, he flat out denied all of history.
He just said, oh yeah, all this stuff about Jesus being born in the year 2024 and all this Christianity, it's all fake, it's all a psyop.
And I noticed that same pattern with this group of people that believe that the flat earth and the moon landing is fake and geocentrism, that they basically just start gaslighting history so much you're just like, what's wrong with you?
And they just flip everything on its head and every fact of history, they just say the exact opposite of it, kind of like the devil.
You should not surely die. So I listened to this one flat earth moron and he said, oh yeah, there's this experiment in 1886 called the Mickelson-Mourey experiment and it proved that the earth is not moving.
It's like you read the first page of the Mickelson-Mourey experiment and it says the earth is moving.
I'm just like, what? But here's the thing, none of you probably even know what I'm talking about.
And many simple people don't know what they're talking about. So they just believe it like, oh man, there was this experiment where they proved that the earth is not moving, man.
You're a retard, okay? But that is what happens because people just want to hit the easy button and say, you know what, I watched this video on YouTube so it must be true.
The government lies about everything but YouTube videos, oh, always the truth, you know. Everything they say, oh man, yeah.
And look, is there good videos that used to be on YouTube? Yeah. Nowadays it's rough. I mean, did you realize that the flat earth is still not censored on YouTube?
That's scary, okay? It's scary when your conspiracy theory didn't get banned, okay? If your conspiracy theory is still in the public eye, you might be in a psyop.
All right? Hey, you can also find videos on how the moon landing is fake on YouTube, okay? And look, I was shown that video when I was in seventh grade.
I was in seventh grade and our science teacher, I guess, was a flat tart or something, I don't know. He thought the moon landing was fake and so he made us watch a video on it and I didn't believe it then.
I don't believe it now, okay? Oh, Pastor Shelley, you're so ignorant on that issue. If you'll do the research.
I love how these people talk down to everyone else. I actually watched a debate between three flat earthers and three scientists and they asked both groups, they asked both groups, they said, do you think the other group is uneducated?
And all the scientists said, no, we don't think any of these people are uneducated. And specifically, one of the flat earthers, when they said, what is your professional career? The lady said, I'm a critical thinker.
That was their professional career, okay? The scientists didn't even say that they thought they were uneducated. All the flat earthers said, we think they're all uneducated.
This was like astrophysicists and data scientists that work in a professional career and they said they're all uneducated.
And then the scientists said, well, we don't think they're necessarily uneducated, we just think that they're wrongly educated. Like they've learned a lot of lies, they've learned a lot of things that aren't true.
And it's just funny how an unsaved scientist has more humility than a flat earther. And that just goes to show you where their mindset and their heart and their head is.
They talk down to these scientists so much in the interview, they're just like, well, if you just actually research it, I'm just thinking like, yeah, these people don't do research.
Like they're doing research for a living. Their life is based on research. They're going to get fired if they don't do research.
But you watched a YouTube video and you think you're smarter than scientists now. And I liked one point that one of the scientists brought up and it was pretty good.
He just said, in every other profession, you trust experts, but in this one you don't.
He's like, if you need your car fixed, you don't go to just some random dude that says, I watched a YouTube video.
When you need a heart surgeon, you're not like, hey, I watched a couple videos online, give me the scalpel.
You know, it's like, but again, it's like, hey, when we want to talk about space and cosmology, it's like, let's not ask experts on this.
Let's not ask people that are literally sending rockets up into space. Let's ask a flat earther that has a camcorder that was zooming in on the ocean and saw something kind of far away.
That's their videos. Okay. That's their evidence. You just don't understand all the evidence.
Well, the symbol believeth every word. There's a lot of liars and grifters out there, folks.
Go to second Peter chapter number one, go to second Peter chapter one. Beware of stupid conspiracy theories.
And in fact, this is my attitude towards the conspiracy theory. I will not believe it at first.
Just on the surface, you should always reject every single one and then do tons of research from both sides and hear their best arguments before even making any kind of decision about it.
Don't just immediately accept it. Do an investigation. And when you do an investigation, don't only listen to one side, always listen to both sides because the truth fears no investigation.
And I guarantee that it becomes very obvious when you listen to both sides. You say, hey, I want to know about the moon.
Okay. Why don't you watch the 10 most convincing videos on why you went to the moon? And then why don't you watch the 10 that are the least?
And again, if you want to waste your time, okay, but I'm just saying if you genuinely thought something had some legitimacy to it, you better evaluate both sides fully.
And it just becomes crystal clear when you actually look at the evidence to anything. It's like, okay, the Holocaust, let's play that game, right?
Let's watch the 10 videos that criticize the Holocaust the most and let's try to find the 10 videos that are the most pro-Holocaust.
And it's funny how the pro-Holocaust side, it's just like, believe it or it'll put you in jail.
And then it's like the anti is like, here's all this evidence and photographs and pictures and documentation and all this stuff. It's like, whoa.
And then it's like, okay, moon landing. It's like, here's a weird shady looking picture that doesn't quite look right.
And then it's like the pro side, it's like, here's just video after video and all of this, you know, information specifically.
We have moon rocks, we have testimonials, we have the video evidence, we have multiple countries that went there.
I mean, it's just like, okay, let's look at 9-11. It's like 9-11 specifically, we were going to try to check that and look at it.
Okay, we have passports that survived a building being demolished and destroyed.
That was a weird evidence. Okay, there was a plane that crashed in the middle of Philadelphia. No parts of the plane were found.
That's awkward. That's weird. Okay, there are literal governments.
There are countries in this world that show up to international meetings and they will say out loud, our country believes that 9-11 was an inside job.
They do polling and they say the vast majority of the citizens of this entire country believe 9-11 was an inside job.
The gold under the 9-11 towers was missing. Larry Silverstein says he luckily was the first person to get terrorist insurance just a few months before his buildings were destroyed by terrorism and said it was just a lucky coincidence.
He also said on public television that they pulled the building, which is a term meaning they demolished it.
It's like, okay, there was investigations into certain high power officials. All the documents were stored in building 7 and then the investigation went away shortly after.
On the exact same day, the government had planned to do a fake plane flying into a building.
It's like this is not the same as the earth being flat. Okay, because the earth being flat, it's like me and my buddy went out to the beach and we got a camcorder and we zoomed in on the horizon and we saw something far away.
Whoa. Whoa. I literally listened to this letter and he said, if the earth was a sphere, we would see live streams of it all the time.
And I'm like, okay, type this into YouTube, live stream of the earth, because the International Space Station has a 24-7 live stream of the earth all the time, every day.
And anybody that's ever done post-production work would recognize how much effort and energy you would have to put into making a fake video all day, every day.
That's insane. I would make up some excuse why we didn't have to do that anymore, because that would be a painstaking labor.
You know what would be easy? Just slapping a camera up there and just posting it all the time, because it's real.
You know, it's just, there's no comparison when you actually look at something that's real and you look at something that's fake.
I heard someone say about the Bible that it was a Roman psyop. The Bible, the New Testament was written as a Roman psyop.
Thinking like, wow, that was a bad job. Rome didn't look very good when you're literally killing the Messiah.
Oops. That's a weird psyop.
It's also a weird psyop considering the fact that immediately afterwards, Rome murdered and massacred and martyred Christians for hundreds of years.
That was a long time to wait to enact the benefits of their psyop.
Let's create a religion that we're not going to believe in and we're just going to massacre people for believing in it.
That doesn't make any sense. No motive, no evidence, nothing to suggest that.
But this is what's happening in our world right now and I think that it's a sign of what's going to happen with the anti-Christ.
Where there is going to be an extreme reality of denial.
I mean the Bible says that God is going to send strong delusion that they should believe a lie.
We need to be careful that we're not just falling victim of strong delusions and obvious lies and stupid ideas.
We need to be wise and we need to make sure that we're discerning the times that we're in.
I had to go to 2 Peter chapter 1, look at verse 16.
For we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
You know what's a cunningly devised fable? That the disciples came and stole the body of Jesus away in the night.
That was a cunningly devised fable.
You know what? That's not what they were expounding.
And why would so many men be willing to die a martyr's death and live a life of suffering to carry forth such a lie?
That's the Achilles hill in a lot of these atheist viewpoint is why the apostles were willing to be martyrs if they just made it all up.
I mean there's a point, I mean you can see if someone's making something up to get a lot of power, money, fame, women.
Oh yeah, what religions are like that? Islam, Mormonism, Catholicism.
You know what, New Testament Christianity, they didn't get the women and the fame and the money.
They got martyrdom.
So you can really see a big contrast between that religion and these other fake religions.
Like Catholicism, Judaism, Hinduism, Mormonism, Islam.
They were all lies from cult leaders.
There was no cult for the New Testament. There was no one to follow. There was no one to get the praise.
And you know what, true religion is never going to be a cult or have a cult leader.
Where someone is getting personal benefit from that particular religion or that ideology.
The apostle Paul's even saying at his own detriment he wasn't even taking a paycheck just to make it clear that he's not doing this for any reason other than caring for the gospel.
But he also wants to make it clear there's nothing wrong with anybody ever getting a paycheck as long as they're not abusing their power.
I don't have time for all the things I was going to bring up but I just want to bring up one more.
Go to Ephesians chapter 5. I'll just briefly mention these and I can preach little sermons on them.
The Jews being every problem in the world.
Look, there is bad people in the world before Jews. In fact, the Bible talks about the world before the flood of men's hearts and their thoughts were only evil continually.
And none of them were Jews.
Romans chapter 3 makes it abundantly clear that the heathen are super wicked and it's contrasting them with Jews saying that they're super wicked.
The Canaanites are not the Jews and they did every abomination according to the Old Testament law.
So just because Jews are bad doesn't mean other people can't be bad too.
And even if you think they're the worst, you can think that all day long, still doesn't mean there aren't really bad people out there.
Bad people exist. The Bible says why do the heathen rage?
Of course, are Jews the synagogue of Satan? Yeah. We're not going to go so far as to worship Israel.
But I also don't want to just say literally every problem is only because of Jews.
That sometimes is an unhealthy balance. Let's have some temperance and say only the vast majority of problems.
That's a lot more balanced for you.
It's important also, you know, I think sometimes people take mental health a little overboard today.
It's like just suck it up buttercup and read the Bible, okay?
Ephesians chapter 5, I want to read verse 25. The Bible says,
Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.
Go to Colossians 3, that's the last place I want to return.
You know, here's one other thing that I see and it kind of is frustrating,
is that men will take over board is having authority over their wives.
Now look, you as a man, biblically speaking, have 100% authority over your wife.
No cap, okay?
But at the end of the day, that does not mean you should take this overboard to where you rule over her with rigor.
You rule over her with hard labor.
What does the Bible say? Husbands love your wives.
It didn't say rule your wives, get them in line.
Make them, you know, be silent and shape up.
I mean it's not a military here, okay?
Your wife is not your fellow comrade.
She's your spouse, okay?
So you need to treat her with love and compassion and with grace and you need to do good under her.
What does love even mean?
Love is showing good and doing good when they don't deserve it.
When they don't deserve it.
It's not, oh, I will love you when you do good.
It's I'm going to love you when you don't do good, when you fall short.
Just like Christ and God loves us when we fall short.
When we do wrong.
It's important to love our wives.
Look at Colossians chapter 3 verse 19.
Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them.
What is bitterness?
Bitterness is the feeling and emotion towards someone when they've done something wrong and you won't let it go.
It's bitterness.
Hey, they've done me wrong and you won't let it go.
You treat them differently, you talk to them differently, you do things differently for them.
As a result, that is bitterness.
Bitterness is when you're treating them differently, acting differently towards them and you can't restore your relationship as a result of bitterness.
Bitterness needs to be let go of and we need to forgive our spouses and do good under our spouses and love our spouses.
And it's so frustrating to see men being told, hey, you're in charge and they take that overboard and treat their wives like property.
They treat their wives like animals.
They treat their wives like children.
You should treat your wife like a precious, loving companion.
That doesn't mean that you don't exercise authority and control at times.
We want the balance, right?
We don't want to be so soft and so weak that we just allow our wives to run over us.
But then we don't want to be so hardcore and such a dictator that we don't show them any kind of grace and love and compassion.
We want to have a blend.
We want to use discretion. We want to be temperate in marriage.
We want to be temperate in all things.
We don't want to go overboard in marriage to where we're just simply these rigid dictators in our homes.
We want to be benevolent dictators.
We want to be loving dictators where we're serving them as well.
Don't look at marriage as I can't wait to get a wife so that she can serve me.
Look at it as a different role.
Look at it as I can't wait to get a wife to serve her.
Now, the serving is in a different way.
How does a husband serve his wife?
Well, he goes out and provides for her.
He provides the income.
That's a part of the service.
You know, because you're physically bigger and stronger, you provide her and serve her with protection.
You provide her with emotional support because you're logical and she's not.
Because she has, she's crazy and you're not, okay?
And sometimes they need that.
They need that stability.
They need a sound mind.
They need someone to guide them.
They need someone to make decisions for them.
And when you're making decisions for them, you're trying to think about what's good for them.
What's going to be a blessing unto them?
How can I help them?
How can I do good unto them?
Just like Christ is making decisions for us, but he's making those decisions for our benefit and for our blessing.
Christ came to serve us.
You know, oh, it's demeaning to serve my wife.
Well, is it demeaning for Christ to come and serve us?
I mean, Jesus Christ literally got on his knees and washed his disciples feet.
Some men would find it just emasculating to ever serve their wife.
But you know, there's nothing wrong with serving your wife.
There's nothing wrong with doing good unto her.
Again, I'm not saying like go home and do her job for her.
I'm not saying do her job at all.
But you can still serve your wife.
You know, no one can really scratch their own back.
You know how you get a good back massage?
From someone else.
Like, if my back hurts, I can't really give myself a good back massage.
You know, in order to get a good back massage, someone else has to do it.
And I'm just using this as a parable.
Don't take this overly literally.
Like, our marriage is great because I give back massages, okay?
But don't take this too metaphorically because back massages are good, okay?
Hey, you should probably incorporate some back massages in your marriage.
But you know what? You need to take that principle and apply it to other areas and recognize,
hey, in a relationship, there are things that only I can give you and you can only give me,
and we should make sure that we're doing so.
You know, in 1 Corinthians 7, the Bible says that the man has not power over his own body but the wife.
So, put that in your authority pipe and smoke it, okay?
The Bible literally even says that women have authority over their husbands in that area.
That's what the Bible says.
But sometimes men get this ego.
Oh, I'm in charge. Let me show you how in charge I am.
Woman, get over here and make me a sandwich.
It's taking things overboard.
You know, don't be so egotistic or just a maniac that you just have to tell everybody how in charge you are.
Because usually the guy that's saying that isn't very in charge anyways.
You know, just love your wife. Don't worry about what other people think about you.
Do good under. When you need to rule, rule.
But at the end of the day, let's not take things overboard.
And I feel like in our churches and our style of churches, we're trying to bring back a lot of masculinity,
trying to empower men again that some men want to just hit this easy button and just be like,
you know, lady, get over here.
Just do whatever I say, whenever I say it, however I say it.
And no complaining. Don't talk back.
This is like this dictator that thinks his every wish and command is going to be obeyed.
And it's like, okay, well let's examine your life and obedience to Christ real quick.
How are you doing?
And if you're going to be a harsh taskmaster to your wife, beware that God might hold you accountable in the same way.
I want to try and give my wife a lot of grace because I want a lot of grace from God.
And I don't want to take things overboard and get too extreme in any of these things.
Let us make sure that we're not hating good Christians, we're not just hating police,
we're not just getting sucked into the dumbest things in the world like flat earth.
And make sure that you're loving your wife.
Don't take the authority and the power you have overboard.
Pastors can do that too.
Taking the power of being a pastor overboard and ruling people's personal lives, I don't want to do that.
Don't let someone do that to you.
We want to make sure we have the right temperance and the right balance.
And yet, are the Jews bad? Sure, but they're not every problem, literally.
Let's close with a prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for giving us the Bible so that we could have discernment in this world.
I pray that you would help give us all better discretion,
that you would help us to try and be temperate in our lives,
and that we wouldn't just fall victim of taking some things overboard,
but rather we would try to always have balance,
that we'd try to make sure that we're exercising the brain that you gave us,
and we're really considering what's right and what's wrong.
And I pray that we wouldn't be so prideful that we couldn't condescend to minimal estate,
that we couldn't sometimes change who we are,
we couldn't just become weak to gain the weak.
But I pray that in our lives that we would care about the decisions we make,
because we know that it impacts the Gospel.
And I pray that you would help us to humble ourselves
so that we could in every area be temperate for the cause of Christ
in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
For our last song we'll sing 258, Christ Receiveth Sinful Men.
258, Christ Receiveth Sinful Men.
Song 258, let's sing it out.
Sinners Jesus will receive
Sound this word of grace to all
Who the heavenly pathway lead
All who think or all who fall
Sing it o'er and o'er again
Christ receiveth sinful men
Make the message clear and plain
Christ receiveth sinful men
Come and He will give you rest
Trust Him for His word is plain
He will take the sinfulness
Christ receiveth sinful men
Sing it o'er and o'er again
Christ receiveth sinful men
Make the message clear and plain
Christ receiveth sinful men
Now my heart condemns me not
Pure before the law I stand
He who cleansed me from all slot
Satisfied His last demand
Sing it o'er and o'er again
Christ receiveth sinful men
Make the message clear and plain
Christ receiveth sinful men
Even me with all my sin
Purge from heaven's modest stain
Heft within my enter in
Sing it o'er and o'er again
Christ receiveth sinful men
Make the message clear and plain
Christ receiveth sinful men
Thank you all for coming. God bless. You are dismissed.