(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Praise him, praise him. Jesus, God bless him. Receive her. Sing over this wonderful loveful play. Hail him, hail him. High his power, he knows he will bring. Strength and honor give to his holy name. By the shepherd Jesus will guide his children. In his arms he carries them all day long. Praise him, praise him. Tell of his excellent greatness. Praise him, praise him. Ever a joyful song. Praise him, praise him. Jesus, God bless him. Receive her. For our sins he suffered and bled and died. He our rock, our hope of eternal salvation. Hail him, hail him. Jesus the crucified. Sound his praises. Jesus to more our sorrows. Love unfounded. Wonderful deep and strong. Praise him, praise him. Tell of his excellent greatness. Praise him, praise him. Ever a joyful song. Praise him, praise him. Jesus, our blessed redeemer. Heavenly portals, clap with us in a dream. Jesus, Savior, reign forever and ever. Foul him, crown him. Prophet and priest and king. Christ is coming for the world victorious. Power and glory unto the Lord belong. Praise him, praise him. Tell of his excellent greatness. Praise him, praise him. Ever a joyful song. Amen. Good start to our singing this morning. We want to go before the Lord and ask his blessing on the service. So I ask Father Fidel Gonzalez to come with us. Father in heaven, we thank you for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We ask you to please bless our voices as we lift them up to you in praise. Please fill Pastor Anderson with your Holy Spirit and bless every aspect of the sermon. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Back a few pages. 158, number 158. Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. Hymn number 158. Lift your voice on that verse now. Hymn number 158. Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. My great redeemer's praise. The glories of my God and King. The triumphs of his grace. My gracious Master and my God. Assist me to proclaim. To spread through all the earth above. The honors of thy name. Jesus, the name that charms our fears. That is our sorrow's ease. This music in the sinner's ears. This life and health and peace. He breaks the power of cancel sin. He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the palace clean. His blood availed for shame. Here in the deathless place he died. Your loose and soft employ. He blithely hold your Savior come. And we delay for joy. Amen. Good singing. All right, this time we'll go through our announcements together. If you don't have a bulletin, slip up your hand nice and high. We'll get to you with one. On the inside we have our service time. Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service. Sunday nights at 6. Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study. This week we will not be in Psalm 74. We'll be in Psalm 74 next week. But this week we have a special guest preacher, which is Pastor Corbin Ressel from down at Straight Paths Baptist Church in Tucson. So even if you don't normally come on a Wednesday night, I'd encourage you to show up this Wednesday night to hear Pastor Ressel. And I know many of you are personal friends of Pastor Ressel, so it would probably be good to catch up with him a little bit. Keep him after super late. Keep him out until the middle of the night and everything like that. And spend some time with him because it's probably been a while for you. And then across the page, at the bottom there we have our soul winning times, salvations, baptisms. Across the page, the first Friday event was another success. Five soul winners with 13 salvations. That's pretty receptive for here in town. And so we're thankful to those who participated. Below that, keep praying for our expectant ladies that they'll have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery. On the back, we've got the Mother Daughter Tea Party. This is one of the most beloved ladies events at our church. And so we really need you to RSVP for one of these two days. They're very likely to fill up. Usually we offer three spots. We only had two that worked with the establishment this year. And so therefore, you've got to grab one of these two spots before they're gone. Please take your RSVP seriously. Now, as with all of our church activities, this is 100% free. There's never any cost to participate in a church activity. So it's free, but obviously we're paying for it. So therefore, we only want you to RSVP if you're serious about going. And if something comes up and you have to reschedule, be sure to let us know right away. And don't just flippantly cancel over something tiny. So please RSVP. And when you do RSVP, you can do that either by emailing the church at the email address provided, or you can do it in the members-only Facebook group. Those are the two ways. But when you do RSVP, be sure to let us know how many people and how old they are and stuff like that. And we will get you accommodated. And so again, this is for all ladies and girls. You don't have to be a mother because everybody's a daughter. And so therefore, it's really just for ladies and girls. You don't have to have your mother or daughter with you to go to this. But if you do, then so much the better. And then that is about it for announcements. Let's go ahead and sing our next song. Come lead us. All right. You should find the insert in front of your hymnal with Psalm 67. If you don't have an insert, please raise your hand. And you'll receive them. We'll sing it on that verse together. God be merciful unto us and bless us. God be merciful unto us and bless us. And God's good spaces shine upon us. That thy way may be known upon earth. Thy saving help among all nations. Let the people praise thee, O God. Let all the people praise thee. O, let the nations be glad and sing for joy. For thou shalt judge the people righteously and of earth. The nations of modern earth. The nations of on earth we love. Let the people praise thee, O God. Let all the people praise thee. O, let the nations be glad and sing for joy. Then shall your healer increase. And God in our own God shall bless us. God shall bless us in all the ends. Of the earth shall spear him. Let the people praise thee, O God. Let all the people praise thee. O, let the nations be glad and sing for joy. Amen. Good singing, everybody. If you need the words for doxology, it's number 155. We'll sing it twice. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him, all creatures here below. We'll sing this out the second time through a guacapella. 155. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him, all creatures here below. Praise him above the heavenly lows. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him, all creatures here below. Praise him above the heavenly lows. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. Good singing. All right, this time we'll quickly pass our offering plates around. As the plates go around, let's turn to 1 Peter chapter 2 in our Bibles. 1 Peter chapter number 2, as we always do. We'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1. Follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2, the Bible reads, Wherefore, laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious, to whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believeth he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light, which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, as free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honour all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honour the king. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience towards God, endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently. But if, when ye do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. Amen. Well, today we are continuing with the fruit of the Spirit, and we've gotten to gentleness. Of course, the operative text here is Galatians, chapter 5, verse 22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. And we've already covered love, joy, peace, and longsuffering. Now we're on to gentleness. Now, there are only nine times in Scripture, the entire Bible, that use this term gentle or gentleness. So we're going to be able to look at all nine of them this morning. And remember, the idea with this series is that we need to put on the new man. We need to walk in the Spirit. We need to be filled with the Spirit of God so that we can have these attributes in our lives, so that we can be loving people, so that we can be joyful people, so that we can be peaceful and be at peace within ourselves, so that we can have longsuffering, right, or the ability to be patient and put up with people and be slow to anger, and also today, so that we can have this attribute of gentleness. Okay, now obviously there's a little bit of crossover between some of these things, because really longsuffering and gentleness have a lot in common, right? And we're going to get to that as we get into the sermon, but also meekness. There's a little bit of crossover between gentleness and meekness as well. But the first place we're going to look at is 2 Timothy chapter 2. I'm going to give you three points this morning about gentleness and two caveats about gentleness. And remember, if we don't put on the new man, if we don't walk in the Spirit, if we're just constantly sowing to the flesh and just filling our minds all day with fleshly entertainment or just thinking about carnal, worldly, everyday things and not spending time reading the Bible, not spending time singing hymns, praying, going to church, soul winning, you know, then we're going to fulfill the works of the flesh. And the works of the flesh are all these sinful attributes that we don't want to be characterized by. And as I said in previous sermons, even unsaved people wish that they could be a loving person, a joyful person, a peaceful person. And we as Christians, we actually have access to this great resource of the Holy Ghost living inside of us because every single saved Christian has the Holy Spirit living inside of them. But the question is, are you going to walk in the Spirit or are you going to quench the Spirit? Are you going to ignore the Spirit or are you going to work on yourself spiritually and put on that new man? And it's really something that we need to work on every single day so that we can have these attributes in our lives. But what does it mean when it says gentleness, right? I think we're all somewhat just familiar with the English word gentle. Really it just means the opposite of being harsh or severe or something like that. But let's get kind of a biblical idea of what God has in mind when he's talking about us having gentleness as Spirit-filled Christians. The first point I want to make this morning, number one, is being kind and patient when preaching the Gospel to the lost. This is how the Bible practically applies this idea of gentleness. Being kind and patient when preaching the Gospel to the lost. Look at 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 23. It says, But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes. Okay, let me sort of translate that for you. He's saying, stay away from stupid questions because you just end up getting in a fight with people about something stupid. You end up getting in an argument about something stupid. So he says, foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes. And this is one of the best tips for soul winning. Stay on topic, okay, because it's so easy sometimes when you're out there evangelizing, preaching the Gospel to the lost, to maybe want to show off your knowledge on a certain topic when somebody asks you some wild or obscure question or brings up some wild conspiracy about the Bible. You know, don't take the bait. Don't get off on these rabbit trails. And by the way, this is why I find that door-to-door soul winning or just any kind of soul winning to strangers usually ends up being more effective than witnessing to friends and family simply because friends and family are more likely to interrupt you and take you down a rabbit trail because they're comfortable with you. So they'll take you down all these other topics. And so I remember when I first started trying to win family members to the Lord, I would find myself, you know, getting taken on all these wild goose chases. But then once I had experience going door-to-door, I learned, you know what, I need to do it with my family the way I'm doing it door-to-door, stay on topic. And so what I'll typically say to people is something like, hey, you know, let's talk about that in a minute. That's a great question, but hey, let's talk about that later. I just want to finish this thought with you right now and then we can circle back and deal with that. Or if it's not a great question, then you can just say, hey, you know what, why don't we talk about that in a minute? Let me just finish this one thing and then we can circle back and then hopefully they just forget about it, amen? But it says in verse 24, you know, so you, you know, we want to avoid arguments, strife, contention, because you don't want things to get hostile. Solening is most effective when you can keep things comfortable, friendly. You don't want it to get adversarial. People's guards go up. You want people to be open to receive the message that you're preaching. So step number one is just avoid stupid questions and stay on topic. But the second thing it says, the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient. He's saying, look, the servant of the Lord should not go out getting in arguments with people. That's what it means, strive there. But be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient. So when you're at the door, you don't want to be telling somebody off or getting in an argument with them or being harsh with them. You want to gently and meekly present the gospel to them. And one of the best ways to do that is by staying on topic and being patient with people. It says in meekness, verse 25, instructing those that oppose themselves if God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will. And so people even that are in a religion that is just downright demonic, right? Mormons, you know, just anybody who's in a false religion, whatever it is, whether, you know, Catholics or Muslims or Hindus, right? In many ways, they're a victim, okay? A lot of people, they were just brought up that way. Someone deceived them somewhere along the way. The really wicked person is the person who has taught these things to them. But your average Joe unsaved in many ways is a victim. He's been ensnared by the devil. He has been tricked. He's been duped. He's been bamboozled. You're trying to help him get out of the trap that he's in. And so you're his friend. That's why you don't want it to get adversarial. You don't want it to be me against you. You want it to be, hey, I'm trying to help you out. I'm trying to teach you. Let me break this down for you. And look, whenever I get in a conversation and it starts to descend into an argument like that, then usually what I want to do is just get out of there at that point and just be friendly, just kind of leave them with something to think about and say, all right, well, hey, check that out later. Watch this video later. God bless you. Have a great day. A lot of people just want to keep arguing. Get back here. I'm not done with you. And I'm just like, all right, bye. See you later. The servant of the Lord must not strive. It's not profitable. It's a waste of your time to go out there and argue with heretics. It's a waste of time. You're not going to believe this, but arguing with heretics online is also a waste of time. And so we don't want to spend our time arguing and fighting and fussing with people. And by the way, this is why I'm not into debates. This is why I've never done a debate because I don't like the format. Frankly, I just don't like the format because I feel like a better way to learn is for the person who knows what's up to teach the person who doesn't know what's up. Then, hey, let's listen to an idiot with the wrong opinion for a half hour. And then let's listen to the guy who's right. No, let's just listen to the people that are right. So the thing about that is that when you go out and argue with people, you end up wasting your time. You end up getting emotional. It's annoying. You get upset. And, you know, I'd rather just give someone a few things to think about and leave them on a positive note. Hopefully the next person will come along and water that seed and not be out fighting with people. And so when you're out evangelizing, what does the Bible say? Be gentle unto all men. Be gentle. Okay? So don't knock on the door and be gruff, harsh, rude. And listen to me. When I go out soul-winding with people, I am very non-critical of my soul-winding partner. Like, I don't pick them apart. I'm not taking them aside and telling them all the things that they do wrong. But I'll tell you the number one criticism that I do dish out when I go soul-winding with people, the number one criticism when I'm the silent partner is I will often say to that person, hey, I think you should have been a little bit nicer. I think you should have been a little friendlier. I think you should have been a little kinder. I think you should have been a little gentler. I can't even count how many times I've given that criticism. And in fact, I've probably given that criticism to my soul-winding partner probably more than all other criticisms combined, literally. Probably more than 50% of criticisms I give out are smile, be friendly, be kind, be gentle, be nice. Okay? And then one of the things that people will say when they go soul-winding with me sometimes is, wow, I was surprised by how nice you are to people. Surprised by how kind. You know, because I guess they think I'm just going to be at the door like, hey, you know, you need to get saved! Because that's how I preach. But preaching is not the same as a face-to-face, one-on-one conversation, is it? Obviously when you're up here preaching to hundreds of people and you're being dynamic, you're animated, and look, I'm excited about what I'm saying up here and that's why I yell and preach and stomp and jump around and kick the ball. I'm excited. But, you know, at the door I'm going to curb my enthusiasm a little bit. Okay? Because you can't just go to someone else's house and get all wild. In here I can get as wild as I want. I'm the pastor. That's my, you know, that's my right as the pastor. And so there's a difference between getting up and just preaching to a crowd and getting excited and actually just being like one foot from someone. There's no reason to yell, is there? You know, when you're just right there. And so you need to understand that when we're evangelizing the lost, we need to be gentle about it. We need to be kind about it, not be harsh, rude, severe. We need to be kind, be nice. And here's the other thing. Another reason why the preaching is going to get a little louder and more rambunctious is because I'm always gearing my sermons to saved people. Now look, I'm sure there's one or two people here that aren't saved or something like that. Maybe visitors or people that are new or whatever. Somebody who was dragged here by family. But here's the thing. Ninety-some percent of people here are saved. So I don't gear my sermons toward unsaved people. My sermons are geared toward saved people. And so when you're preaching to the saved, you're going to basically be expecting more of them or expecting them to be able to handle more. And so Christians coming to church to hear preaching, they can handle me getting up and yelling and being really animated. And in fact, sometimes they even like it. Whereas some unsaved person who's unchurched doesn't even know who I am, right? I better be gentle. It's sort of like if I walked into a martial arts studio for the first time and then the instructor said, hey, let me just spar with you and kind of see where you're at. And then you just beat the snot out of me. Right? He's not being gentle. Whereas maybe after I've been training there for years and I get really good or something, then he's not going to hold back. Then he's going to hit me with everything he's got because he knows I can take it. Whereas the beginner can't take it. I remember, you know, I used to do Muay Thai. And I remember one time I sparred with like the scariest Muay Thai instructor that was at our gym. This guy was a monster. And I sparred with him for like two minutes. And I felt like I was doing pretty good. I was like, man, I'm hanging with the master for two minutes. Like I'm actually doing it. Then there's like five seconds left on the clock and he just kicked me absolutely across the room. And I outweighed this guy by like 50 pounds. I was probably 175 and he was 125. But this guy was a monster. And he just kicked me across the room. I just literally went flying. And then he walked up to me and said, yeah, I could have done that at any time. I had to finish the round. Turned out I wasn't hanging with him. You know, he was just, what was he doing? He was being gentle until he wasn't being gentle. But he was being gentle because he's trying to meet me where I'm at. And he was trying to make me feel like I was being challenged. Make me feel like I was doing something. But in reality, he's only giving me what I can handle, right? And so gentleness involves being kind and patient when preaching the gospel to the lost. This goes for door-to-door soul winning. This goes for your family, friends, right? Be nice. Be kind. You catch more flies with honey. And so you don't want to be harsh or severe with unsaved people. Because in many cases, you know, it's like forgive them. They know not what they do. They're not the ones who invented Hinduism. They were just born into that nonsense, right? They didn't, they're not the ones who claim to have found those golden tablets. You know, they're just duped into it. Go if you would to Titus. It should just be like one or two pages to the right in your Bible. Titus chapter 3. And we're going to find this exact same truth reiterated in Titus chapter 3. It says in verse number 1, Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, and watch this, to be no brawlers, but gentle. So notice how being gentle is the opposite of being a brawler. Right? You're not getting in fistfights. You are actually being kind, deferential, etc. So it says, you know, not to be brawlers, but to be gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. Meekness is similar to humility. But then it says this, For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But after that, the kindness and love of God, our Savior toward man, appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. And here's a great verse, verse 7, that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs, according to the hope of eternal life. So the Bible says not by works of righteousness that we've done that we're saved. We're saved by his grace. We're saved by his mercy. And we used to be unsaved. And, you know, we used to be, in many cases, right, foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. You know, we used to be the way that unsaved people are now. Therefore, we should be patient with them. Therefore, we shouldn't be out there getting in fights with people. Rather, we should be gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. So that's number one. Flip over if you went to James chapter 3. We're looking at every single scripture in the Bible that uses the word gentle or gentleness. There are only nine of them. And we're going to pull out three practical truths and two caveats about gentleness. And it's really just based on what the Bible says about gentleness. We saw two examples where we have this idea of being kind and patient to the unsaved. Kind and patient as we seek to reach the lost. As we deal with the unsaved, let's realize, hey, they know not what they do. We used to be the same way before we were saved in many cases and so forth. But number two, another aspect of gentleness that the Bible goes into is being able to disagree with someone kindly and civilly, being approachable in that sense, right, and that someone can come to you and disagree with you without you just automatically flipping out. Look at James 3.16. It says, For where envying and strife is, there is confusion in every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure. Obviously, purity is more important than getting along. But he says it's first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. So the Bible says gentle and easy to be entreated. Now if you would flip back to 1 Timothy, chapter number five. 1 Timothy, chapter number five. And what's interesting is that a lot of these scriptures that we're looking at on gentleness, isn't it interesting how a lot of these things end up happening in the pastoral epistles? You know, like we saw a couple of scriptures in the pastoral epistles because we as pastors, you know, we don't want to be out there getting in arguments or getting in fistfights or getting in, you know, yelling matches with people all the time because of the fact that we need to be able to teach people, be gentle, be patient, meet people where they're at, et cetera. But on the flip side of that, the Bible also says in 1 Timothy, chapter five, verse one, it says, Rebuke not an elder. Right? Now it says, but entreat him as a father. Now the Bible's not saying that you could never come to a pastor with a concern because in this context the elder is synonymous with the bishop or the pastor. What the Bible's saying here is not that you could never come to a pastor with a concern or with a disagreement or with something, but what he's saying is don't rebuke him, rather entreat him. Okay? Now what is the difference between rebuking and entreating is that the entreating is done gently, right? To entreat someone is to come to them humbly asking them to consider what you have to say versus a rebuke is like, you're wrong. It's a harsh thing. And look, there is a time and a place for rebuke. Some people, the Bible says, for example, in Titus, rebuke them sharply in Titus, chapter one. There's a time for sharpness, but you should not rebuke an elder. You should entreat him as a father, as you would a father. He's obviously not your literal dad and you shouldn't call him, you know, Father Anderson or something. But what it's saying is that you would entreat him as a father, the younger men as brethren, the elder women as mothers, the younger as sisters with all purity. So basically if you have to go to someone and correct them in the church, then if it's the pastor, you should entreat him as you would entreat a father. And hopefully you're respectful to your biological dad. And then you would also be, you know, that way when you're approaching a pastor or other authority figures in your life. Okay, also if you need to maybe approach a young man in the church. And I think this is a part that we ignore sometimes because we're so focused on rebuke, not an elder. The Bible is also saying that sometimes we have to correct younger men and we should also entreat them as brothers. And if we have to deal with an elderly lady, we would entreat her as a mother. And then the younger women, we would entreat them as sisters. But the Bible is saying, hey, don't get too cozy with her because she ain't your sister. And so therefore, you know, he says with all purity. With the, you know, he's like, if you're a young man, you know, be careful with obviously getting too cozy. Yes, she's your sister, but obviously she's a sister in Christ. You don't want to be, you know, getting into temptation by getting too comfortable with people that are of the opposite gender, obviously. And so the idea here is that, you know, the pastor should be entreated. And it's funny, we were just talking about this yesterday, but there's kind of two ways to correct someone online. Because we, you know, we live part of our lives online now, don't we? It's just life. It's the way it is. Well, here's what's funny is that if I noticed someone posting something wrong, let's say they had a spelling error, let's say they had a grammar error, let's say that they had a factual error, let's say that they're just doctrinally wrong, right? If that person were my friend and they made, you know, an innocent mistake or something, then am I going to do that as a comment or am I going to do that as a private message? Let's see who understands gentleness. Right? Because here's the thing. If I did it as a private message, you know what that says? Well, I'm actually trying to bring correction to this person versus, hey, I want to point out to the whole world the mistake that they made by doing it in a public comment, you know? And a lot of people will kind of be passive aggressive and leave these obnoxious comments acting all humble and acting all kind of, but really what they're trying to do is they're trying to expose you that you made a mistake or something like that. And it can be rude like that, right? So obviously, gentleness has to do with also going to the person that needs correction directly and not talking about that person behind their back. Or just publicly rebuking them, right? Because look, it'd be like, hey, your fly's unzipped. I'm telling you because I'm your friend, I love you. Now his fly's fine. I'm just using an example. But if I said like, hey, buddy, uh, you're scared of heights because your zipper is, you know, if I said that loudly, I'm not looking out for him. I'm trying to embarrass him. Whereas if I came to him and just kindly, you know, walked up to him and you know, we've all done it, you know, I, you know, and I'm like really meticulous to make sure this never happens to me. But you know, every once in a while it happens to the best of us. And I, you know, I, I, you know, I'm embarrassed to say this, but I was at the airport a couple months ago and you know, a guy came up to me and told me that my fly was down. You know, and he, he, he caught me. But he was helping me and it was, but what was funny about this is that he was so discreet about the way that he told me. Like he came up to me with some other pretense, like he was coming up to tell me something else and then he kind of just put his arm around me and said, hey, you know, your zipper. And I'm like, oh man, I was probably like the first time in a decade that I've, I've, I've been caught with the zipper down. But, but the point is that guy, you know, I just immediately, the way that that guy told me, I just thought, you know, this guy is a standup guy. This guy's a good guy. This guy has some integrity. This guy's cool. This guy's trying to help me out. He's not trying to embarrass me or humiliate me or something like that. And so look, when people need correction, there's a right way to correct people. There's a gentle way to correct people. There's a kind way to correct people. And usually it's going to be privately, right? You know, and look, obviously there are situations that call for sharpness, right? The Bible says in Titus chapter one that there are these Jewish false teachers that are teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake. So in Titus's day, you've got these evil false teachers and they're preaching lies. And Paul says in Titus chapter one verse 13, he says, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth. And if you get the context, he's saying rebuke the false teachers sharply so that the people who are being influenced by them will not be duped so that they will be sound in faith. And so obviously false prophets do need to be publicly called out. People are preaching a wrong gospel or damnable heresy or something like that. Yeah, they do need to be called that publicly, but you think I'm going to call out publicly my pastor friends if they just preach something that I don't agree with, but it's not heresy. It's not damnable. It's not a salvation issue. If it's just a secondary issue, you think I'm just going to start calling out my pastor friends every time they make a mistake behind the pulpit? And do you think I would want them to do that to me? Of course not. That's rude. It's not gentle, right? So we need to be gentle in the way that we correct people, but also gentleness involves the ability for someone to be able to come to you and entreat you and you are gentle and easy to be entreated. So if somebody comes to me and says, hey, pastor Anderson, and this happens to me all the time, believe it or not, I'll preach a sermon and somebody will come up to me after the sermon and say, you know, I didn't agree with this point in your sermon. And I've had this happen a ton of times and, you know, when somebody walked up to me after the service and said, you know what, I actually didn't agree with this point in your sermon and here's why. I didn't just say, how dare you tell me that my sermon was wrong. You know, this is what I typically would say. I would say one of two things. I would either say, A, well, I see what you're saying, I can see where you're coming from, but here's why you're wrong, and let me show you a Bible verse or something. Usually that's not what I do, though, and I'll tell you why. Because I just finished preaching it for an hour and if they weren't convinced by that, they're probably not going to be convinced by this next, like, couple minutes. The only time I'll typically do that is if I didn't really give any proof in my sermon, I just kind of threw something out there and then they challenged me and I'm like, oh, well, let me show you where this is coming from, let me show you how I'm backing this up. But the other thing that I'll typically do when someone comes up to me and says, hey, what you preached is wrong, is I'll often just say to them, like, hey, you know what, it's okay, we can agree to disagree, that's kind of a secondary point, not that big of a deal, not important. That's typically my answer a lot of times. And then a third option is that sometimes I really was wrong and then my option is like, oh, wow, where were you like 90 minutes ago so that I wouldn't have said the wrong thing, man, you should have told me this an hour ago. You know, and I have even jokingly literally said like, man, you should have told me this an hour ago, haha, you know, because obviously, yeah, I do make mistakes and sometimes I've been called out on factual errors or whatever. And, you know, I appreciate that. But here's the thing, it doesn't matter whether I'm right and I want to prove someone wrong, whether I'm right and I don't want to prove someone wrong, I just want to agree to disagree or whether I'm wrong and I'm ready to switch over to the right side. Either way, you know, it should be a civil, kind and friendly conversation. There's no reason for it to be adversarial. You know, the person who's coming at me shouldn't be adversarial and I shouldn't be adversarial when they entreat me. I should be kind and respectful and it should be a two-way street to be able to have these conversations. And look, I guarantee you that there are tons of things that we disagree about doctrinally in this building and that's okay. You don't have to agree with everything I preach. If I said, hey, you got to agree with every single thing I preach, you know, most people wouldn't be here. That's just not the way life works. And I've had a bunch of people say, hey, I disagree with you on the sodomites or something. And I'm just like, okay, all right, you go out and you get all the sodomites saved that you want, just don't bring them here. You know, it's okay. Believe what you want. But then, uh, there is a time for sharpness, right? But amongst God's people in the local church, you know, approaching your pastor about something, there shouldn't be sharpness on either side. You know, and, and, and, you know, if, if somebody, but if somebody comes at me and is rude and disrespectful to me, well then I might put them in their place, but you know, it should be that you're easy to be entreated. It doesn't say necessarily, you know, hey, I'm really easy to be rebuked by bozos who just got here five minutes ago, but I should be easy to be entreated, gentle and easy to be entreated, right? So as an authority figure, you want people even in the workplace, right? You want people to be able to come to you as a manager, as a supervisor and be able to express a concern to you without you just biting their head off and just flipping out, being gentle in that sense in your leadership. And so, as I said, there is a time for sharpness. Paul talked about how he might have to use sharpness with the Corinthians in a chapter 13 verse 10 of second Corinthians. The Bible says a wicked doer giveth heed to false lips and a liar gives ear to a naughty tongue. So if somebody comes to you lying and slandering and gossiping, you know, sometimes that person needs to be rebuked and shut down. You don't have to necessarily be gentle in that situation because the Bible says the north wind driveth away rain, so does an angry countenance, a backbiting tongue. So when somebody comes at you with a backbiting tongue, sometimes you do need to get mad and say, hey, don't talk about him like that. Don't bring me this unsubstantiated garbage. Don't bring me this slander, this gossip. I don't need to know that person's personal business. Get out of my sight, man. You know, oh, you need to be gentle. No, there's a time for sharpness, but guess what? A lot of people use sharpness when it's not appropriate. And if we're filled with the Holy Spirit, we need to be gentle by default. You know, it's just like anything else. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness. Hey, are there going to be times when we're sad? Yes. Are there going to be times when we're legitimately angry? Jesus got sad. Jesus got angry. But here's the thing. What's the default? The default is joy. The joy of the Lord's our strength. The default should be gentleness. We should by default, by nature, be kind, be nice, be patient, be gentle unto all men. That is what the Bible teaches. And so don't just go around being a hothead, quick to anger, blowing up at everybody, always harsh, always severe, always coming down on everyone. That is wrong. Number three, and by the way, it's okay if people disagree with you. You don't have to convince everyone over to your side. Agree to disagree. So number one, we said that, uh, it's, it's being kind and patient when preaching gospel to the lost. Number two, it's being able to disagree with someone kindly and civilly, and it's being approachable when someone comes to you with a disagreement that you don't flip out. You don't blow up just because they disagree. It's okay to hear both sides of things. Uh, and you know, I've, I've sat on airplanes next to left wing liberals for hours and talked about politics the whole time and nobody got angry. Nobody melted down or anything. I didn't, I didn't have to collect all their liberal tears in my little cup and then give it to the stewardess on the way off the plane. But number three, number three, and if you would go to first Thessalonians chapter two, first Thessalonians chapter two, number three, being humble and putting other people first. And what I mean by that is that in a given situation, everything doesn't need to revolve around you. You're being selfless and unassuming. Let's, and, and look, I'm driving these points from scripture. Say, where did you come up with these points? I'm just looking at every verse. They use the word gentleness. Look at first Thessalonians chapter two, verse six. It says, nor of men sought we glory, neither of you nor yet of others when we might have been a burdensome as the apostles of Christ. Here's what the apostle Paul is saying. Look, I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ. I could have walked in like I'm a big shot. I'm important. I'm the apostle of Jesus Christ. I'm the apostle Paul. Pull me up a chair. Serve me now. Everybody else back at the line. Get out of my way. Let me dominate every conversation. I'm the center of attention here. That's what it means here to be burdensome as the apostle Christ. Say, hey, put me in a fancy hotel. Give me what I want. You know, I'm important. Throw my weight around. And so gentleness, on the other hand, is coming in with an attitude of serving other people, meaning you're not just going to have to just always ride shotgun. You can take the backseat sometimes, right? Not like, well, I'm Pastor Anderson. I don't ride in the backseat. I ride shotgun, you know, or like, or like, you know, always having to be in the front of the line. And we can all apply this to our lives. What did Jesus say? When you go to a feast, don't take the highest seat. Take the lowest seat. Don't call shotgun. Sit in the back and let mom say to you, you know, friend, come higher. And the point is that children, they do always want to be first in line and always in the front seat and always getting everything their way. Got to be the center of attention. Being gentle is not being this kind of heavy handed burdensome guy who just kind of walks in and demands that everybody just, hey, everybody get on my program. Look at me. You know, Elvis has entered the building or whatever. Okay. Says verse six, nor men sought we glory, neither of you nor yet of others when we might've been burdensome as the apostles of Christ, but we were gentle among you even as a nurse cherishes her children. And the picture of gentleness here is a breastfeeding mother breastfeeding her baby. You know, what could be a more tender, gentle image than a mother breastfeeding her baby? And that's the picture that we get here. A nurse, cause it's talking about nursing, like giving milk, nurse cherishes her children. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls because you were dear unto us. So gentleness has to do with taking care of other people, not saying, hey everybody care for me, right? It's like Jesus did not come to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many, right? Even Jesus Christ came and took upon himself the form of a servant. And so we as Christians, if we want to have gentleness in our life, we need to follow these principles. Hey, when we're dealing with unsaved people, be kind, be patient, be nice, meet them where they're at. If we disagree with someone, express it kindly, do it privately if possible. That's the best way to do it. And if someone comes to you with a disagreement or a correction, then you know what? Be gentle in the way that you receive the correction as well. Gentleness on both sides of that equation. And then also gentleness means that when you show up somewhere, don't expect everything to revolve around you. Be unassuming, unselfish, and putting other people first. These are three biblical principles on gentleness from the scriptures where this word occurs. And obviously, like I said, we all know what gentle means. Not severe or harsh in our tone. And look, I showed you verses and we talked about verses where it is appropriate to use sharpness. That's not what the sermon's about this morning. But I'm going to give you a couple of caveats to this. First of all, what does the word caveat mean? A caveat is like a warning. It's a Latin word. It means let him beware. So there's a very famous saying, caveat emptor, which means let the buyer beware. We've probably all heard that. Or there was an ancient sign in Rome that said cave canem, which means beware of dog. So this is what caveat means. It's basically like a caution or a warning about how something could be misconstrued or misunderstood. So let's go back to caveat number one in 2 Samuel chapter 22. This is the first time that the word gentleness is used in scripture. And here's the thing about this. I'm not going to look at 2 Samuel 22 and Psalm 18 because they are virtually identical to one another. So 2 Samuel chapter 22 and Psalm 18, there are a few phrases here and there that are different, but in general, these are the same song. And like I said, they're virtually the same. Very minor differences between these two. So we're just going to look at 2 Samuel 22 and that'll cover us for Psalm 18 as well. And this is a very famous verse that I've heard quoted many times. Look at verse 36. It says, thou has also given me the shield of thy salvation and thy gentleness hath made me great. So David is saying to the Lord, your gentleness has made me great. And typically the way that this will be preached is that, you know, as leaders, we need to be gentle in order to make a great follower. And here's the thing, that's a good application from this verse. That is true that we as leaders should be gentle in the sense that we don't want to be too harsh or too severe or impatient. We don't want to dole out punishments that don't fit the crime, right? We don't want to be just blowing up quick to anger and ruling with an iron fist, right? Now sometimes it's appropriate, but a lot of times it isn't. And as a pastor, I'm not supposed to be a lord over God's heritage, but to be an ensemble to the flock. So really heavy-handed leadership isn't appropriate in a pastoral setting. And obviously in our families, at home, we want to be gentle as men with our wives. We don't want to just roll over them, plow over them, and be too harsh or too severe with them, even if they need to be corrected or something. It needs to be done gently, right? And we want to be gentle with our children. That should be the default. Okay, but again, does that mean that we're going to spare the rod? No. The Bible says, withhold not correction from the child, thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die, thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. We know that the Lord chastens every son, he scourges every son whom he receiveth. And so we're not saying that discipline is off the table, but we're saying that we should be gentle leaders in general. Gentleness should be a part of our lives, and so that's what this scripture will typically be used to teach, is to say, God's gentleness makes us great because he is gentle with us, and then therefore, because of his grace, we become better people, better Christians, and so we should have grace with others. You know, he has grace with us, we have grace with our spouse, we have grace with our children, etc. And that's all great preaching, that's all true. But here's the caveat, is that, you know, caveat number one is this, there are two caveats to this. Caveat number one is that being gentle doesn't necessarily mean rolling over and dying before every enemy. Because I'd be like, hey, you need to be gentle, so therefore, you just roll over and die when challenged by an enemy, or if you have some kind of a rebellion, a mutiny, you have a subordinate that rebels against you, you just go, okay, that's okay, anything goes, whatever. Is that what the Bible's teaching? Well, how about this, how about we actually get the context of this actual verse? So we looked at verse 36, the famous verse, thy gentleness hath made me great, wonderful truth, but now let's back up to verse number 23, or 33 and get the whole passage. God is my strength and power, and he maketh my way perfect, he maketh my feet like hinds feet, and setteth me upon my high places. He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by my arms. So right before saying that God's gentleness made him great, he said, you know, God taught me how to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by my arms. Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation, and thy gentleness hath made me great, thou hast enlarged my steps under me so that my feet did not slip. I've pursued my enemies and destroyed them, and turned not again until I had consumed them, and I have consumed them and wounded them that they could not arise. Yea, they are fallen under my feet, for thou hast girded me with strength to battle. Them that rose up against me hast thou subdued under me. Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me. They looked, but there was none to save, even unto the Lord, but he answered them not. Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth. I did stamp them as the mire of the street, and did spread them abroad. Now, is everybody getting the picture here? Boy, God's really gentle, isn't he? Sounds like God's really gentle in this passage. I mean, super gentle. I mean, he's teaching David how to break steel with his bare hands. It says he's giving him his enemies. He's giving them their necks. They're calling out and asking God for help, and God's just ignoring them, and just letting them be destroyed, and mocking them, and wiping them out. So, it doesn't sound to me like gentleness means, oh, you just roll over and die before every enemy in the name of gentleness. Folks, there is a time of war and a time of peace. Okay? There is a good fight to be fought. We are supposed to war a good warfare, the Bible says, and so we don't want to use gentleness as a code word for being weak, or effeminate, or refusing to fight when necessary. Okay? Obviously, we should be kind, we should be patient, we should avoid fighting, we should avoid strife, we should be nice as much as we can, we should be nice even to our people that are under our authority. But, there comes a time not to be nice, according to scripture. God isn't nice to everybody. Okay? And we see here God coming down pretty hard on people, and God's servant David coming down pretty hard on the wicked. And so, the caveat here is that gentleness does not mean just rolling over and dying before every enemy that we're confronted with. We need to get a balanced view from scripture, and put all of it together. And again, none of this cancels out gentleness. God wants us to be gentle. The Holy Spirit is going to make us a gentle person. We should be characterized by love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness. This doesn't contradict that, this balances that and says, hey, there's a time though, you know, when somebody's coming to do evil, when they need to be shut down. And you need to slam the door on some people hard. That's what the Bible is saying. And then, since we didn't cover this verse yet, I'll mention this. 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 1, you don't have to turn there, but it says, Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence abased among you but being absent and bold toward you. But I beseech you that I may not be bold when I'm present with that confidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. And so, I don't really have time to delve into the whole context here, but it's a really great passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. And the apostle Paul is saying, look, I want to be meek and gentle with you like Christ, but don't make me come down there and crack skulls. You want me to come in love or you want me to come with a rod? Which one you want? And so what we need to understand is that, again, there's a time and a place for these things. And then the final caveat is this, just for sake of time, let's go there right now, 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2, and again, quick review, be kind, be nice, be patient when giving the gospel to the lost. Number 2, try to deal with disagreements civilly, kindly, gently, be nice, agree to disagree. You don't have to right every wrong in this world. You don't have to fight every battle. You don't have to die on every hill. If someone comes to you and criticizes something about you, just say, okay, and if they're totally wrong and you're totally right, just say, okay, well, I'll think about what you said. Or just say, well, I disagree, but, you know, thanks for explaining your point of view. Or just, hey, you know, wow, actually you are right. I do need to change that. Thank you for pointing that out. Thank you for showing me that Bible verse. And so, you know, also, when we do want to correct someone else, do it gently. If somebody's fly is down, do it gently. Don't make, don't tell them that, you know, that their zipper's afraid of heights or something, you know, just be nice and be kind and be discreet. And, you know what, when you go to comment on something negative, maybe you should stop and think, should this be a private message? And some things do need to be a public comment, but a lot of things should probably be a private message, especially when you're dealing with your friends, or at least you're claiming that they're your friends. Uh, typically that's, a lot of that stuff's going to be private. But then a couple of caveats. What we're not saying is, hey, don't ever be harsh and severe with anyone for any reason, because even in the most famous verse on gentleness in the whole Bible, it's surrounded by a bunch of warfare and stomping and, and, and beat downs. Okay. That's just the reality of that passage in scripture. But here's a second caveat. We cannot demand that authorities be gentle or else we refuse to obey them. Like, I'm not going to obey authority because my authority is not being gentle. God said to be gentle and you're not being gentle, therefore I'm not going to obey. I'm going to rebel. Well, let's see what the Bible, and again, where did I come up with this sermon? Did I just pull this sermon out of my hat? Did I just look up the word gentle in the dictionary and just start daydreaming about what that looks like? We're literally looking at every passage that uses this word and the points are being derived directly from the passage. Look down at first Peter chapter two verse 18. It says, servants be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. Now I didn't put that in the Bible. I didn't plan. I didn't say, Hey man, I can't wait till March 9th rolls around so I can preach that gentleness sermon so that I can preach first Timothy chapter two 18 in order to shut down all the bozos who think that you only have to obey your authority when they're being gentle. No, in reality, I sat down to write a gentleness sermon. I looked up every verse that said gentle. I thought about other verses that don't use the word gentle but talk about the concept of being gentle and I put together the sermon and you're not going to believe this, but this verse came up in the search. And what does it say? It says, servants be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also the froward. Well, you know, I'll start obeying the boss at work when he starts treating me right. Is that what the Bible says? I'm going to start obeying the boss at work when he pays me what I'm worth. Is that what the Bible says? Well, if he pays me minimum wage, I'm going to put in minimum effort. You know what? Good job. Enjoy making minimum wage for the rest of your life, loser. Because you know what? If you show up at that minimum wage job and you give maximum effort, guess what? God is going to increase your opportunities and your pay. It's a promise in Ephesians 6 that God will reward every good work that you do, even if your boss on earth doesn't appreciate you. And so the Bible is crystal clear. Servants are to be subject to their own masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle. Now obviously, we as masters or bosses or supervisors or managers or authorities, we should be good and gentle. Amen. But that is not a club for the follower to beat the leader over the head with and say, you need to be gentle. And you know what? Last time I checked, teachers give grades to the students, not vice versa. Isn't that how school works? Somebody help me out. Don't teachers grade the students? Okay. Don't bosses typically evaluate the employees? Okay. And yet today, we live in this world where all of the followers want to sit in judgment of all the leadership all the time and critique them and pick them apart and say, well, you know, I'll obey my husband as soon as he starts loving me the way Christ loved the church. Folks, that's not what the Bible says. Even if your husband is froward, even if your husband is not good, even if your husband is not gentle, even if he is froward, you are to obey him. How do you know that? Because he says right here, servants be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. And then a few verses later in chapter 3, verse 1, he says, likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands. What does likewise mean? In the same way. So he's saying, look, servants need to obey their masters, period. Well, he's not good. Do it. He's not gentle. Do it. He's froward. Obey him. That's what the Bible says. And then he says, likewise, in the same way, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands. And it says, you know, of course, about Sarah as the example, it says, even as Sarah also, right, if we jump down to verse 6, even as Sarah also obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. Now, obviously, husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church. Obviously, husbands should be good, gentle, self-sacrificing, kind, hardworking, but even if they're not, the wives are supposed to be in subjection to their own husbands. Because look what it says in verse 1 there. Are you there in 1 Peter 3, 1? Don't miss this. Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word. Who are we talking about not obeying the word here? The husband or the wife? Husbands. So it says, wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives. Now, this is often used to talk about a woman with an unsaved husband, right, and to say, hey, if your husband's not saved, obey him anyway, and hopefully he'll be won over to Christ by your excellent testimony and excellent behavior. What about a saved husband who just doesn't obey the word? He's just not biblical. He's just doing things contrary to scripture. Well, look, let me give you a little advice, teenage girls and young ladies. You want to marry a godly man. You don't want to be married to some husband who doesn't obey the word. You want him to be saved and you want to be living for God because if he loves Jesus, he's going to love you. If he doesn't love church, he doesn't love the Bible, he doesn't love God, newsflash, he's not going to love you the way he should either. And so you want a godly young man to be your husband. You don't want to marry a bozo. But if you are married to a bozo, you need to submit to that bozo and obey that bozo. And don't say, well, you know, and so what's so funny is whenever you preach what the Bible says that wives should obey their husbands or submit to their husbands, you get all these people coming out, well, you know, I'm not even going to repeat what they say because it's too stupid to even come out of my mouth. They're just like, nyeh. They leave their little comments about nyeh. You need to talk to the men. I'm not talking to the men, I'm talking to the women right now. Talk to the men in another sermon. Like you're not allowed to tell the women to obey their husbands without first like giving a bazillion caveats, your new vocabulary word of the day, or, you know, beating everyone over the head with, you know, with all the things that the husband has to do or whatever. Because here's the thing, the two are independent subjects. Like I could get up and preach a sermon just about loving your wife, loving your wife, and I wouldn't have to say, and you wives, you have to obey and submit. I could just talk about just loving your wife and just drop the mic and go home. Why? Because of the fact that loving your wife has nothing to do with whether she obeys you or not. You love her, period. You love her no matter what. And the wife obeying her husband has nothing to do with how good and gentle and loving he is. You just do it. Okay, these are not reliant, the one upon another. Otherwise, we're going to be in this Mexican standoff trying to figure out, you know, who's going to love or submit first or something, you know. No, man, you just do what you're supposed to do as a husband. You do what you're supposed to do as a wife. You do what you're supposed to do as an employee. And you know what? If your boss is labing, ripping you off, changing your wages seven times, you know, I've had a boss like that. But, you know, in the long run, God blessed me financially and it was fine. I never made it at that job, but then God gave me a different job where I got paid super well and I'm like, whoa, God rewarded me for my diligence. He's going to do it one way or the other. And so back in First Peter chapter two, it says, servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also the froward. I feel like this verse needs to be memorized by everyone on this planet. Like this is such an important verse in scripture. I mean, just First Peter 2.18. It needs to, it needs to just be a part of everybody's thought and mentality. So important, you know, and, and, and, and in the same way, that's how children need to obey their parents. Wives need to obey their husband. Well, but they're not gentle, not your problem. That's between them and God. He says in verse 19, for this is thank worthy if a man for conscience toward God endured grief, suffering wrongfully, for what glory is it when you be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently. But if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. So sometimes you'll have an authority figure punish you for something that you didn't do. Punish you unjustly, punish you wrongfully. And you know what the Bible says? Take it, take it. So if an authority figure wrongfully punishes you, you take your punishment and you move on and God says, wow, I like that. That's thank worthy. I'm going to bless you for that. That is so cool. But here's the thing. When you screw up and get punished and you're like, okay, I screwed up. I'm going to take my punishment. Hey, look at me. Look how godly I am. God's like, nah, that's not godly. That's just a, that's just normal. Right? You sin, you break the rules and then your parents give you a whooping because you broke the rules. Oh man, I'm taking it like a man. So what? That's just called being a normal kid. But you know what's really impressive? The Bible says is when you endure grief, suffering wrongfully and not when you're buffeted for your faults, but when you do well, you suffer for it. You take it patiently. This is acceptable with God. That's what God likes to see. But you know what God really doesn't like to see? You sin and do wrong. You screw up and then whine. Oh, my punishment. Oh, Cain, my punishment's greater than I can bear. It's too much. I got punished. My parents spanked me too hard. My parents whipped me too hard. Oh, do you have any permanent damage? No. No. Any missing teeth? No. Losing an eye? No. Any permanent damage? Where are the medical records from all this? I just got spanked really hard. Then shut up. And you know, everybody's a victim now in 2025. It's cool to be autistic. Autism's cool now. Pee in your pants is cool. You know, having ADD is cool. This is the day we're living in now. Everybody wants to feel important. And so instead of having achievements, they're important by pretending that they're handicapped when there's nothing wrong with them. Right? So it's like everybody's got ADD. Everybody's on the spectrum. And look, I understand these things are real. But guess what? The real autistic people, you're not doing them a favor by pretending to be autistic. You're actually, you know, not helping them. I'm actually being more kind to the really autistic people by calling out all the little trendy autistics. And then you got a bunch of people pretending to be perverts. They're not even perverts. Because it's cool to be a pervert now. So it's like, oh, I'm actually pan, tran, fluid, flam, you know, whatever. Gender, fluid, sexual, you know, whatever. Because it's just cool to be weird and to be damaged and I'm neurologically divergent and I, you know, and I have opposition defiant disorder and dissociative identity disorder and adult ADD. You know, I have PTSD because my mom cut the sandwich in rectangles instead of triangles. You know, and so now everybody's an abuse victim. And then you have women that are going out and whoring around, constantly drunk, constantly in bars, just having, you know, having relations with just dude after dude after dude. Now they're a rape victim. They went out and had sex with 20 men and they're a rape victim because they were too drunk to consent five of the times or something. Folks, everybody's a victim now. Everybody's been abused. And look, I know that people have been legitimately abused. There are sexual abuse victims, there are rape victims out there and I'm not belittling that at all. You're belittling it when you lie and say you were raped, when you lie and say your parents abused you, when you lie and say that these things happen, you're the one that's belittling real victims by pretending that these things happened to you. But everybody's a victim now and everybody, and here's what's funny, now you do wrong and you get punished and then whine about it. God says nah. Even if you did wrong and didn't whine about it, you still haven't done anything. It's when you do right and get punished and take it like a man, that is acceptable with God. And look, this is straight out of the Bible. I love this passage. 1 Peter 2.20. What glory is it when you buffeted for your fault, you shall take it patiently. But if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were you called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow in his steps. Sometimes doing the right thing is painful. Sometimes doing the right thing involves suffering. Sometimes doing the right thing can be embarrassing. Sometimes doing the right thing can be uncomfortable. But if Jesus suffered for us, you know, we should be willing to suffer for him, is what the Bible's saying. And so the idea here is that we need to get rid of this victim mentality where we want to be special by being damaged and we're all just damaged goods. And you know what's so funny? Everybody's attempting suicide now. Five times, twenty times. But they're all alive. They're not dead though. I've attempted suicide four times. I've attempted suicide three times. I've attempted suicide five times. And look, I understand that there are real people that have been through that and I'm not belittling that. I'm belittling every little punk teenager who's just, oh, I attempted suicide. I attempted suicide. Oh, I'm cool too. That's what I'm making fun of. The pretend fake little suicide. Growing up in the first world, growing up with a silver spoon in your mouth, growing up with cake and ice cream and pizza and fun and horseback riding and scuba diving and chess and Latin. And it's like, oh, I attempted suicide six times. Well, it's funny you're still here. Man alive. But you know what it is? It's just a bunch of people trying to be important by, I've got ADD. I've got autism. I'm neurologically divergent. I commit, I attempt suicide on a monthly basis. And look, I know that this hurts, but it's true. So don't use gentleness as a bludgeon about why you want to be rebellious, about why you don't want to take your punishment, about why you don't like your boss at work, why you don't like your husband, why you don't like your parents. We don't want to use gentleness as a bludgeon on other people. You know what we want to do? We want to look at ourselves and ask ourselves, are we being gentle? Not, is my husband gentle, is my wife gentle, are my parents gentle, is my boss gentle. How about this, am I gentle? Isn't that what we should be asking ourselves? And so we need to check ourselves and say, am I kind, am I nice, am I loving, am I patient, am I helpful to other people, or am I just unnecessarily harsh, severe, rude, critical. And you know what, by the way, being rude to strangers doesn't make you cool or bold or confident. It just makes you a jerk and you're not exhibiting the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which is gentleness. You know, look, if somebody cuts you off in traffic, be gentle. Somebody cuts in front of you in line at the store, be gentle. Put them first, let them go first, wait, wait your turn, so what, big deal, let it go, be kind, be friendly, smile. Somebody bumps into you and says, I'm sorry, what do you say? Exactly, you say no problem, yeah, okay, yeah. Have you ever bumped into someone and said, oh, sorry about that, and they just go. Folks, if somebody bumps into you and says they're sorry, you say, no problem, it's okay, it's fine. You don't just get, but how many times have you bumped into somebody, said you were sorry, and they just glared at you. Do you think I'm doing this on purpose? I'm just playing bumper cars in the grocery store or something? You know, it's an accident. And the thing is, be kind. I can sum up the whole sermon, this is not a complicated sermon, not a complicated sermon. Super easy sermon, be nice, be kind, be friendly, be gentle until the time comes when you need to actually come down on someone for a legitimate reason and you have a legitimate reason and authority to do so. And then here's the other thing is, don't always expect other people to be nice to you, especially your authorities. You got to do what's right regardless of whether they're nice or not. So there you go, I gave you the whole sermon in 15 seconds. Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. Thank you for the power of the Holy Spirit that allows us to be patient, kind, and nice as we go through life so that we're not just getting in fights at the gas station, getting in fights at the grocery store. Getting in road rage, constantly at strife with our co-workers, neighbors, family. Lord, help us to be gentle people so that we get along with people at work, get along with people on an airplane, get along with people at school, get along with people. Lord, help us to be gentle, and when we have to correct someone, help us to do it gently. When someone has to correct us, help us to be gentle. And Lord, help us never to use this gentleness as an excuse to make people into victims or to whine about our authority. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. All right, ladies and gentlemen, take your hymnals, please. Go to hymn 256. Hymn number 256, Look to the Lamb of God. Hymn number 256. If you from sin are longing to be free, look to the Lamb of God. Hymn number 256. Sing it out now. If you from sin are longing to be free, look to the Lamb of God. He to redeem you died on Calvary, look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God, look to the Lamb of God. He alone is able to save you, look to the Lamb of God. When saints and tents and doubts and fears assail, look to the Lamb of God. You in the strength shall over all prevail, look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God, look to the Lamb of God. For he alone is able to save you, look to the Lamb of God. Are you a weary, does the wasting bond, look to the Lamb of God. His love will cheer and fill your heart with songs, look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God, look to the Lamb of God. For he alone is able to save you, look to the Lamb of God. Fears not with shadows on your path revolve, look to the Lamb of God. In joyous sorrow Christ is all in awe, look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God, look to the Lamb of God. For he alone is able to save you, look to the Lamb of God. Amen. Good singing this morning. We are dismissed. Thank you.