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

Thank you very much. The Bible says about standards, about precepts, and stuff like that. And not last Sunday, but the Sunday before, we talked about how our outward appearance needs to be a reflection of our inward man. Like Peter said, let the outward adorning be a reflection of your inner man. That's important. And you say, well, why is that important? And you're going to see why as we go through the sermon. So what I want to do today is talk about how we bring glory to God through our outward appearance, okay? Don't get nervous. Oh, this isn't for me. I'm already doing that. There's something in here for everyone. I tailored this just specifically for each person in here. No, I'm just kidding. Keep your place there because we are going to go through the entire passage here. It's not very long. But go to Luke chapter number 11. Luke chapter number 11. And so God's speaking, obviously, through the psalmist here in chapter 4, and he poses this question. And he calls out the world and says, oh, you sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? This is exactly what the world does. We like to think today, okay, well, obviously the world's going to hell in a handbasket. Things are getting worse. But really it's been that way since the beginning of time, okay? It's not like you can go back 2,000 years ago and the whole world was righteous and properly addressing themselves. These battles that we have today about our outward appearance have been going on since the beginning of time. I'm going to show you that here. But what I want to do is I want to introduce the title to you and basically just some concepts about the outward appearance here. So Luke chapter number 11, we're going to start reading here in verse 39. And this is obviously the same old story. You've got the Pharisees. You've got the Sadducees. They're trying to trip Jesus up and they're trying to attack him. And he calls them out on their hypocrisy. So look at verse number 39. It says this, Now, isn't that how a lot of people are today? You know, you go on TV or if you go on the Internet and you just type in, you know, some Baptist sermon, right? You want to watch a sermon. Well, what's going to happen is you're going to get all kinds of recommendations for all these other mega church pastors, Southern Baptists, you know, a whole host of them. And they're always like dressed up, you know, in like skinny jeans or, you know, some of the guys look like they're wearing a blouse and stuff. Or you have somebody who is wearing a suit and tie and you think, OK, well, maybe this is somebody I can listen to. And why is that? And it's because of the way we perceive people. See, this is what nobody wants to talk about today. Everybody thinks, oh, don't judge a book by its cover. And you got people who are simple minded and think, well, you know, I could dress however I want to. I can say whatever I want to and nobody is going to judge me. Well, that's not the case. I've already talked about this before. How you dress, people perceive you to be that way. For example, I remember a few years ago we were out soloing in Tacoma and I walked up to this guy and he had like, you know, longer hair, skateboard, you know, the long claws. I figured, OK, great, this is obviously going to be a hippie here. The guy gave me all the right answers. Was King James only? I was like, what in the world? You know, so you never know. But here you got a situation where Jesus is telling these guys, hey, you might look OK. You might have the right language. He's like, but I know there's something deadly wrong on the inside of you. OK, look at verse 40. He says, Ye fools did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also. And so he's reaffirming what we've already been teaching here, that your outward appearance needs to be a reflection of the inward man. We need to let the new man dictate how we function, how we appear in society. Verse 41, But rather give alms of such things as ye have and behold, all things are clean unto you. But woe unto you, Pharisees, for ye tithe, mint and rue and all manner of herbs and Passover, judgment and the love of God. These ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone. You see what most people today, most Christians, if you will, today, what they'll say is Jesus only cares about what's on the inside. It doesn't matter if I wear the tightest capris that I could possibly find at Abercrombie and Fitch. It doesn't matter. Jesus loves me no matter what. There's no standards. There's no expectations. There's no calling out. And that is a pharisaical attitude. That's exactly what these people were doing here, minus the skinny jeans with the holes. But he says that you pass over judgment and the love of God. Well, guess what? Our God loves standards. He loves precepts. He loves his word. OK, these are things that these people at this time were passing over. And that's exactly what we're dealing with today. A lot of Christians, you know, they'll say stuff like this, like, well, I would go to that Baptist church, but everybody's dressed up. They make, they force the women to wear skirts. Right? A lot of the husbands, they don't allow their women to wear pants. Right? And they just want to pick that one thing and just focus on that. Well, the guys who saw them, they're all wearing suits and ties, so I don't feel like I fit in there. OK? And that's absolutely ridiculous. Look at verse 43. He says, Woe unto you, Pharisees, for you love the uppermost seats in the synagogues and the greetings in the markets. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are as graves which appear not. And the men that walk over them are not aware of them. And this is exactly the appearance that we don't want to give to people. Right? Wouldn't it be terrible if you're just living your life and, you know, you finally you run into somebody that believes like you, but they've known you for a long time and had no idea that you were a Bible believing Christian, that you could give the gospel, that you had, you know, that you agree with these doctrines? That's exactly what we don't want. But with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, we're doing here is they had the long, you know, rabbinical clothing. You know, they had the robes, the colors of the clothing that screamed, hey, I'm religious. I'm above you. I'm better than you. They love to do things in the outward. Right. They were seemingly modest, but were actually immodest. And so here's what you need to understand. You can be modest and still be immodest, if that makes sense. Think about the Mennonites. Right? These Mennonites. What gospel do they preach? Right. They preach works, hardcore works. You go join a Mennonite church, they're going to literally put you on probation. And that leader of that church is going to be your parole officer. And they're going to make sure that you fall right into line or they'll excommunicate you. Right? What are they doing? They're teaching for doctrines, the commandments of men. Let's see here, you could go back to, let's see, go back to Psalm chapter number four. Go back to Psalm chapter number four. And so here we have a group of people that are giving the perception that they're religious, perception that they're on God's side, perception that they don't ever do anything wrong, that they know the law, they know this and blah, blah, blah. And so the title of my sermon this morning is perception is nine tenths of the law. Perception is nine tenths of the law. And it's basically a play on words. Who's ever heard of possession is nine tenths of the law. Right? And basically when you look that up, what that means is that if you own something, somebody else takes it. OK. But you don't have a clear testimony. You don't have clear documentation that that item belongs to you. Well, the court will say, well, he's in possession of it. And so therefore it appears it's perceived that he owns it. OK. And so what I'm doing is I'm just changing that to perception. Perception is nine tenths of the law. Kind of like that skater that I talked to several years ago. Right. You know, I looked at him. I just perceived, well, did I say something wrong? Oh, no, no, me. Oh, I thought you said I said something wrong. OK. So I had something else. But anyways, so just like that skater that I saw, you know, I perceived him as just being some kind of a hippie or some kind of a commie. And I'm like, you know, blown away. You know, it was that one tenth that actually said something different, you know. And that's what I'm talking about today. Right. It does matter how we appear on the outside. It really does matter. Jesus does care about it. That's why he told the Pharisees, hey, you shouldn't have left this other thing undone. Right. He's not just saying, hey, do away with all the outward stuff and just worry about the inward. That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying you need to have both. The outward needs to be a reflection of the inward. And so that's what we're going to be talking about today because we get accused of being strict, of being full of rules and all this garbage all the time. And, you know, once a year you have to you just have to come by and preach these sorts of things. I used to have a boss that would say he would say, you know, perception is everything. You know, he'd say, so when we have down time, you know, and you guys are just sitting around in the office, you've got to make sure you have a regulation book out or some paperwork out so that when somebody comes in you can be like, oh, I'm working on this. And you know what, he was right. That worked all the time. You know, because people come in and, oh, you're reading process instructions. That's great. You know, you guys are busy. And they would have no clue. He was right. Perception really was everything. You know, and it's like, that's obviously the wrong attitude, right? We should just be finding something to do, finding something to go work on. But you know how government workers are. It's the exact opposite of that. They do the minimum and then go sit down until their next shift starts or the next major crisis happens and then they go ahead and get to work. But all of us in here, if you think about it, we all deal with this issue of appearance, right? Because you guys go, we're a church full of people that cares about how we dress, how we look in the community, right? I mean, when people look at us in the community and they're like, oh, you know, they're carrying Bibles and they got, you know, collared shirts on or, you know, you're wearing the church shirt, they know something's different. They know something's not, you know, jiving with their laws, their standards and their ways of thinking. You know, it's kind of like when we went to the trampoline park last weekend. You know, sometimes people will say stuff like, well, how do the girls get away with doing that? You know, how do they go there with, you know, skirts on? Do they play track and field? You know, our daughters used to play, do track and field and people would be like, how come you won't let them wear the spandex? It's because it's immodest. That's why. We'll get into that here. But all of you are going to get these questions and believe it or not, these types of things that we do, right, we don't force them. There's no dress code here. We have women come in here from time to time wearing pants. We're not like, get out. You know, a woman shows up wearing pants and wants to go soloing, guess what? She's going to go soloing. Okay? But here's one thing that you won't see. You won't see somebody who's bitter about the way we dress get right with God. Does that make sense? Like, you're not going to see a woman who comes in here and says, well, back, you know, a thousand years ago, men wore kilts and men wore dresses and men wore skirts and long cloaks and tunics and stuff like that. So it's okay. We can wear whatever we want to. You're not going to see a woman with that attitude stay here for very long. You know what I mean? Isn't that kind of funny? Go to any one of the churches that are like ours, that believe the Bible, that are on fire for God, and look for that person. You won't find them. Because the way that we dress is a heart issue. That's what it boils down to. It's all about the heart. It's all about whether or not you're going to be able to arrest the old man and allow that new man to actually make the decisions to clothe you. That's really what this all boils down to. So again, this is important because our clothing, it's either going to proclaim shame or it's going to proclaim humility. So going back to Psalm chapter 4, look at verse number 1. It says this. Hear me when I call, O God, of my righteousness. Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress. Have mercy upon me and hear my prayer. And now the rest of the verses in this psalm are basically going to give us a formula to make sure that we get our prayers heard, to make sure that we receive God's mercy when we need it. I mean, think about this. Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress. Have mercy upon me. Hear my prayer. See, a lot of people just think, well, I'm saved. God's going to hear my prayer and do whatever I want to. He's like a genie in a bottle. You know, so many people have this attitude and it's disgusting and it's wrong. It is not what the Bible teaches. You can be a saved, born-again, Bible-believing Christian, get bitter, allow that inner man who's the old man take over, and God could say, you know what? I can hear what you're saying, but I'm not going to help you out. I'm going to go ahead and hold some of that mercy back from you until you learn to get right. And that's really what we have going on here. Obviously, you could fill a lot of different things into this psalm. We're going to use our outward appearance to basically prove some things. Now, again, keep your place there, but go to John chapter number 21. John chapter number 21. So John chapter number 21. Look at verse number seven. John 21, verse seven says this, Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved, being John, saith unto Peter, it is the Lord. We'll just stop right there. So what's going on here, right? Obviously, Christ has already been on the cross. The resurrection has happened here. These guys are like, you know what? We're just going to go out fishing. We're going to go back to our old ways, go back to, you know, trying to catch the big one and go back to work. Instead of getting ready, like Jesus said, hey, get ready because I've got a mission for you. Get ready because things are about to change. Like, well, we'll just go fishing until we get word from a prophet or, you know, whatever. And it goes on to say this. Now, when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him. And in parentheses there, it says, For he was naked and did cast himself in the sea. Now, when I read this, what I find interesting here is that he's got no problem. Obviously, this is a different culture, OK? But he's got no problems being naked there with the guys. Just hanging out, fishing, joking around, talking. He's got no issues. But when Jesus shows up, all of a sudden he's like, oh, wait a second. I'm naked. I better get clothed. I better put something on. And he jumps in the water and he's like, well, I'm going to go swim unto him and go catch up to the Lord. See, what does that mean for us and what we're talking about today? And it's really the main concept of my sermon this morning. And it's the Word of God forces us to see our shame. That's it. Jesus is the Word, right? And that's what this is picturing for us. You know, when you open that Bible and you read it for yourself, you decide to memorize a verse. You come to church and you hear the preaching. Don't just discount this as like, OK, this doesn't apply to me. No, this book always applies to you no matter what stage of life that you're in. So if you're thinking, well, I already dress right or I don't agree, you know what? You've got to be ready to allow this book to expose your shame so that you can get right, so that you can grow and improve as a disciple of Christ, because I thought that's what this was all about, about being a disciple, about actually growing. A Christian who is not growing will eventually stop growing and go backwards. That's just the way this thing works. There's no way around it. You could say, oh, I don't believe that. I could just coast. No, you can't. You will wind up getting, especially in a church that's got so much forward momentum like we do. You know, as soon as you decide, you know what? I don't need to hear that. That doesn't apply to me. You know what? That's when Jesus is going to, OK, I'm going to withhold something from you. I'm going to withhold some of that mercy. I'm going to withhold answering and granting your desires in prayer. And that's exactly what we don't want, because we may not even realize at times the things that we're doing wrong or the things that, you know, we need to get right, and that's what the Word of God does. It exposes our shame. It exposes those dark areas in our life that we need to get right, OK? Now go back. Actually, I'm going to have you go to Psalm, chapter 104. Psalm, chapter 104. So the Word of God forces us to see our shame and our nakedness. So Psalm, chapter 4, verse 2, where we first started the sermon, which says, O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? This is what we don't want to do as the children of God. And then he goes on to say, you know, the love of vanity, the seeking after leasing which is lying, that's what the world does, and what that does is it causes the glory of God to be viewed as shame in the sight of men. Abercrombie and Fitch, you know, a lot of these stores that are like that, that Aero Postal, you know, you know, some of these stores in the mall, right, where they've got the mannequin up there and they've painted on, you know, the pants, or they've got, like, cross-dressing, you know, all this kind of garbage, that just turns the glory of God into shame, and it gives our enemies, and it gives the people who aren't even decided yet, it gives them a reason to basically blaspheme God. This is why God was so angry at David, what he did with Uriah the Hittite, is because it gave the enemy a reason to blaspheme. Okay, and this is what we're trying to prevent here, but going back to the glory, right, in order to not turn God's glory into shame, we need to understand what his glory really is. Now, for the purpose of the sermon, look at verse 31. So you're there in Psalm, chapter 104, look at verse 31. It says this, the glory of the Lord shall endure forever. The Lord shall rejoice in his works. Now, go to Deuteronomy chapter 22. So, whether we as the world agree or not, his glory and his statutes, everything that he speaks is going to endure forever. There's just no way around that, but it says that he will rejoice in his works. Well, what are some of his works besides creation? Well, it's us. It's male and female. Everybody kind of following me here? He has created us different. He has created male and he has created female. Everybody understand that? And what do we have in today's society? We have an agenda that's trying to blur the lines of gender. They're trying to bring them together. And this isn't new. This isn't just in the 2000s or the 90s. This didn't start with Three's Company. This has been in motion for a very, very, very long time. Okay? And we'll get into that here in a second. Remember what Jesus quoted in Matthew chapter 10. He said, But from the beginning God created them male and female. And so with that understanding, there's something that we need to be especially aware of as Bible-believing Christians. Right? There's something. I'm going to show you this here. There's something that we need to be aware of here that the world is not aware of. And I'm going to show you that here. Okay? It's pretty simple to understand. Male and female. There's a difference. There's a difference here. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 22, verse 5. It says this. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment. Now notice this. For all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God. So you see, what is the big deal here? Well, here's how we're going to bring glory to God. We're going to keep the distinction between the genders because that brings God the glory. Right? This needs to be a priority in the believer's life. And our church, we don't have an issue with this, but we need to understand these things. We need to be able to explain them to people out in the community. Because sometimes when you get people saved, I hear them ask this question. Oh, do I have to wear a skirt? Some of the ladies get asked this sometimes. Oh, do I have to wear a skirt? And it's like, just come to church and we'll take care of the rest. We're just worried about growing your inner man because then eventually, you know, what's going to happen? They're going to get right and they're going to put those other things away. But God says all the way back in Deuteronomy chapter 22, when the nation of Israel is being solidified, it's being founded, it's being unified, he gives them this law. And why does he give them this law? Because the surrounding nations like the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Hivites and all these Jebusites, right, they were kind of like the world we have today. They didn't really understand the distinction, nor did they really care. They were filthy, they were vile, and the land is beginning to vomit them out. And so God says, I don't ever want you to go down that road. I want you to understand you should never, as a male, put on a female's garment. I want you to make sure as females that you never put on a male's garment. So let's talk about this here. Look at the beginning of the verse. It says, the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man. What does that word pertaineth mean? It means applicable to, it means belongs to. So is there a garment, let's just start this off right now, is there a garment that pertains to women but doesn't pertain to men? Yeah, a dress. I think we would all agree, right? I mean the universal bathroom sign always has the ladies bathroom with a little figure and a skirt. And then the guy's just wearing the pants. And people say, well that's just old fashioned. And there's even an agenda to change that bathroom sign. And I think in some states they actually have changed that sign to be gender inclusive. Whatever you want to be, that's okay. God would beg to differ. It says, pertaineth. So okay, we've got one, right? Clothing that pertains, what about a blouse? Do women still wear blouses? I keep, yeah they do, right? I should have asked you this before, but yeah, a blouse. Right? Obviously certain undergarments, right? Those pertain to women. Now what pertains to men? Yeah, trousers, exactly. So let's talk about this for a second. The woman shall not wear that which pertains unto a man. Obviously this goes both ways. And then here's where the nitpickers will come in and say, well what about t-shirts? Your church bought t-shirts and I see women wear them, I see girls wearing them and guys wearing them, so they're cross-dressing. It's gender neutral. Well no, because a t-shirt applies to both. It doesn't just pertain to one gender or the other. See what I'm saying? Is it socks? Oh, and I've heard, these are things I've heard. Is it socks? Well, guys wear socks, so that means women can't. And that's what they'll say. Well what about gloves? What about mittens? Because they don't know the scriptures, because their heart's black, they want to be like the world, they want to look like the world, they say things like this. But look, there's no getting around the fact that dresses and skirts pertain to women. It's just the way that it is. I saw a picture the other day of a multi-cam skirt being sold at some store somewhere in America in the men's section. It's coming. I remember hearing Pastor Menes say this almost, what, probably six years ago. He said, you know, there's going to come a day where we have to tell young guys to take those skirts off and put on a pair of pants. You know, back then, I was thinking, yeah, it'll probably be like our grandkids. At this rate, it's probably going to be next week. Within the next couple of months, rather. It's disgusting. But this is the world that we live in. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to a man. And again, some churches, they'll go extreme with this, and they'll never talk about the man. But like I said, this principle, it applies to both genders. And why is that? It's because God wants males to look and act a certain way, and he wants females to look and act a certain way. And any kind of mixing or trying to mold that together is an abomination to God. And I don't want to hear this garbage that you keep hearing all over Facebook, you hear this everywhere. It's like, well, transvestites or these trannies, they're not all queers. That's what's being taught today. Like Bruce Jenner, he's not a queer. So stop calling him a fag. Well, he's an abomination. He's an abomination. Look at the verse. Let's read it carefully. The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment. Now stop right there and look at this next word, for. Look at the word after that. All that do so. What are we talking about here? Are we talking about people or just the clothing? The people or the principle? No, we're talking about the people. So people that put on the other gender's clothing are an abomination unto the Lord thy God. People that want to try to clothe themselves in male or female hormones, guess what? That means that individual is presently an abomination to the Lord God. It's disgusting. It is so wrong. But yet you got Christians today, so-called Christians today, trying to defend this. You have people who are saved, independent, fundamental Baptists. Not a whole lot of them, but there are some that will say, you know what? They're just confused. They're not an abomination. If they come in here, we're going to treat them well. We're going to try to get them right and we're going to love them. Hey, you should thank God right now that you don't go to a church that holds that position, because we'll put them to flight. And that's not a prideful statement. That is just the way that God has designed it. They are not welcome into the house of God. We do not want to openly condone and entertain people that are an abomination to the Lord God, because that goes back to Psalm chapter 4, verse 2. When churches do that, they are literally turning God's glory into shame. It's vanity and it's leasing. What is leasing? It's lying, speaking lies. So the churches that bring these people in and entertain them and say, oh, we're just being so loving. No, you're actually lying. Your entire church service, your entire operation is nothing but a big fat leasing ball. That's what it is. It's leasing. It's lying. I'm going to read some stuff for you here real quick. Going back to this deal here, you know, people just love to say this. Well, back in history, males and females, they wore the same tunics. Pants weren't invented. They like to act like pants weren't invented until like the 17th or the 18th century, you know. And that's actually not true. Just listen to this here. So I went to Wikipedia, and I know it's not, you know, you can't completely trust it 100%, but I want to just read this for you because this just cracks me up. So if you type in the word trousers, just go to Wikipedia. You can read the full thing later. Here's the first thing they say about trousers, about the history. It says this. There is some evidence from figurative art of trousers being worn in the Upper Paleolithic Era, as seen on figures found at the Siberian sites, and it goes on from there. Well, Upper Paleolithic Era, it's highlighted in blue, so I clicked on it, and here's what it said. Stone Age. Stone Age. You know, it's talking about, you know, 50,000, 50 million, you know, years ago, and that kind of garbage. So I'm thinking about this, and I'm like, okay, so the people, and we get attacks, obviously, from a lot of ladies. Not so many dudes, but a lot of ladies on the way you ladies in here dress. People attack us. In fact, I bet if I were to ask for a show of hands, a lot of your family members have attacked you for the way you dress, the way you come to church, and maybe deciding to not wear pants anymore because it's clearly a garment that pertains to man, right? And a lot of these ladies, what they'll say is that, well, pants weren't invented until, you know, like I said, just a couple hundred years ago, it seems like, you know, and it's a blessing because now women can ride horses, they can hike, and they can do all this stuff. Well, it's not true. Or they'll say, well, back in Abraham's day, back in Noah's day, they didn't have pants. Well, it's kind of funny because even secular history says that they can find trousers back in the Stone Age. Obviously, we don't believe the Stone Age in the old earth garbage, right? But that does show that if you go to secular history to talk about trousers, apparently they go back to the beginning of time, okay? It says the oldest known trousers were found at the Yangtze cemetery extracted from mummies in western China. Now, that's interesting because, again, the narrative that's being pushed on us today is that, well, pants is a new concept and God doesn't care. He just doesn't care. It goes on to say this, trousers enter recorded history in the sixth century B.C. on the rock carvings and artworks of Iran. Well, that's interesting because that's where the Persians come from. So, it goes on to say this, at this time, Iranian people such as Scythians, Samaritans, you find these words in the Bible, right? And it goes on to say the Sogdians, the Bactrians, among others, along with Armenians and eastern and central Asian peoples are known to have worn trousers. And then they interject this next thought. Trousers are believed to have been worn by both sexes during early users. Well, if you study that statement out, you'll find that's not necessarily true, okay? Do you think a hazardous in that whole kingdom there would be happy with men wearing the same thing as women? As secular and worldly as he was? Absolutely not. You can just tell, but we don't have time to get into that. Listen to this. The ancient Greeks used this term, and I'm not going to read it, but it says, for trousers are worn by eastern nations. So, they had a term in their language that mocked the Persians for wearing trousers, for wearing pants. It says, however, the Greeks did not like to wear the trousers since they thought them to be ridiculous. And they had a slang term for loose trousers, so they used to mock the Persians for wearing pants. Isn't that kind of funny? Maybe that's kind of why the Bible doesn't go into great detail about Alexander the Great and the whole Greek empire. You ever kind of wonder about that? It goes on to say, Republican Rome viewed the draped clothing of Greek and Minoan or Cretan culture as an emblem of civilization and disdain trousers as the mark of barbarians. See, this is where people, you know, because everybody loves to go back to the Greek, right? This is where your new evangelical likes to say, well, see, there you have it. Back in the days of Jesus, right, they all wore a dress. And that's why the picture of Jesus, you know, of him wearing this long, you know, dress is active. That's what they'll say. They'll point you to this time frame in history. They'll never go beyond that like I did. They'll never go beyond that. Then they'll say, see, both genders wore dresses back then. Real quickly, listen to this. As the Roman Empire expanded beyond the Mediterranean basin, however, the greater warmth provided by trousers led to their adoption. And then they had two types of trousers. They were eventually widespread and eventually started off in the military and then they went to civilians. So the soldiers transferred from what they wore, you know, probably a tunic looking thing, to actually wearing trousers because they were more practical and it provided their army better mobility. And then it went to the men is what it says in the society. Now did women probably wear them back then? Of course. We're talking about heathen culture here. That's what we're talking about here, okay. But don't ever just look at, oh, just the time of the Greeks and the Romans because they only wore like a dress like figure, right. Because they'll also say this. They'll say, they'll take a Bible verse and say, well, when the Bible says to gird up your loins, right, what that meant is that they would take their skirt and they would fold it up a certain way and turn it into like shorts and they would tie it like knots like right here and then that way they could run. That's impractical. That doesn't make any sense. I believe they wore pants in the Bible. I believe that David and his army had trousers, right. And we could spend a whole sermon proving that point. But what else is interesting here when you read this history of the Roman Empire, what happened as the Roman Empire progressed? We had guys like the apostle Paul turning the world upside down and probably preaching things like, turning the world upside down and probably preaching things like Deuteronomy chapter 22 verse 5 and really pushing that, right. And they weren't necessarily against Paul when I read the Bible, right. They were like, you need a fair trial, Paul, no problem, right. And he was always preaching righteousness, right. Obviously preaching salvation, but he never just stopped there. And he would preach righteous living and preach how we ought to behave ourselves in the sight of men. And I think that probably, and I don't know, but I think that probably rubbed off on a lot of those people. Now, okay, so it goes on to say this. Both of the garments that the Romans adopted were originally from the Celts of Eastern Europe, although later they blended them in with the Persian type trousers, whatever that means. But, you know, another thing that's always thrown out there is like, oh, well, the Celts only wear skirts, right. And that's okay, that's not feminine or whatever. But here's a question that I have about all of this. You know, these ladies that like to attack us and say, well, it's really, you're really misogynistic. You're, you know, you're really oppressing women by making them wear skirts. You know, the question I have for you is, where were you, where were your ancestors back in the 30s, the 40s, the 50s, and the 60s when all American ladies wore dresses? Where were you back then? Was your family back then in your liberal church saying, hey, back in the Bible days, both genders wore tunics, so that means it's okay that we both wear pants. No, they weren't doing that, were they? They're only doing that now. You see that? And it's because as the world slides farther and farther and farther away from the glory of God, because at one point in time this nation did have more of the glory of God on it. You know, there was a time where even just people who weren't saved had standards, right. You go look back at these old music videos, music from like the 50s, right, even the 60s or the 40s, take your pick. You know, watch a movie from back then. The women wore dresses and the guys wore pants. But the further we get into the Canaanite, you know, view of living, right, the further back we slide from the glory of God, the further back these Christians that just don't like standards have to try to justify it. You know, I mean, it's the same thing. They got to, oh, instead of going back to the Greek, they want to go back to the history. Oh, well, the Greeks, they, you know, they're male and female, wore that, and Jesus never said, right, he never said guys can only wear pants. He never said that, and because he never said that, it must not be true. But he did say that because he is the Word of God. And in Deuteronomy chapter 22 verse 5, we are told that there needs to be a very clear and abundant distinction between male and female. This brings glory to God. So this is why we do what we do. This is why we have dress standards for girls and obviously for me and Kaden, you know. You know, when I wear shorts, I try not to have them up far above my knees so that I'm exposing my thigh. We talked about that a couple Sundays ago. You know, the girls have their standards with their dresses. You know, the same thing. They don't go above their knee. I'm getting that right. You know, and don't start this whole what about leggings and stuff like that. You know, I don't want to fight about that. Again, this is not a church that is just after doing exactly what is right. We want to do what is wise. And when it's 19 degrees outside and you're knocking on doors, ladies, I'll bet the leggings probably provide you some warmth, right? They probably provide you some modesty when the wind is blowing at 30 miles per hour because the last time I checked, ladies don't sew buckshot in the bottom of their skirts to keep them weighted down. But that's what they used to do back in the 1800s. They would have weights in the bottom of those things. Not to mention several, several, several layers of thick, dense wool and material. And you know what? They still climbed mountains. They still gathered firewood. They still cooked. They still chased the kids around. And they didn't seem to have this complaining attitude that a lot of American women have today. I'm not going to that church because I saw all the ladies wearing skirts. Happens all the time. And then again, they've got no Bible verses. And look, if you wear pants, I don't know about it. I wouldn't say anything to you about it either way. That's your business. I just preach the Word of God and you have to make the decision in your heart whether or not you're going to follow it. Just like anything else. We don't have a list of rules that you've got to check off before you can walk into this church. I just know that when the Word of God is opened, our shame is all going to get exposed and we're either going to do one or two things. We're going to do one or we're going to gird ourselves up with our fisher's coat and get right. And so the first concept that I wanted to hammer down this morning is that we need to keep the distinctions between male and female. I believe that males ought to dress as masculine as possible. I believe ladies ought to be as feminine as possible. And I think that when we just have those two precepts in our minds, we're going to make the right choices. And obviously, you know, this applies a lot more to ladies. Guys don't typically have too much of this. We don't have a whole lot to choose from. It's like, you know, shirt, tie, polo, you know, your pants and that's pretty much it. You know, you got your shorts or whatever. The ladies got all sorts of different garments. I can't even name them all. I keep hearing the spaghetti strap stuff and I don't even quite know what that is. It's terrible, right? I've got girls and they're always talking about, oh well, what about this tank top mom? Do I need to wear a jean skirt or not a jean skirt, but do I need to wear like an overcoat or an overlay? I'm like, I'm glad Jessica's got all this stuff down because I got no idea. Just be modest. Don't let me down. That's the motto in our house. Go back to Psalm Chapter 4 if you're not there already. Go back to Psalm Chapter 4 if you are not there already. And by the way, I would also say this. When people want to bring that up, you know, well back then they all wore tunics. I don't care what they wore in Greece. I don't care what they wore in Rome. I don't care what the Chinese wore 5,000 years ago. I don't care what Abraham wore. I don't care what David wore. I care about 2021. That's what I care about. And what you have today in 2021 are a bunch of people that are trying to make the world a bunch of faggots. That's what you have today and that's what we're fighting against. You see these other, oh we're fighting against these automites. No you're not. No you're not. You know one of the ways that we fight against them is by bringing glory to God and making sure that we preach and we live a distinction between the genders. So we're going to move on from that point. Psalm Chapter 4, look at verse number 3. It says this, But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself. The Lord will hear when I call unto him. Interesting concept here. The Lord has sanctified us. He has sanctified the godly unto himself. So here's the second concept that we're going to talk about this morning. We need to keep a distinction between us and the world because that brings God to glory also. So it's not just about the clothing. It's also about our interaction with the world. Remember we are in the world but we're not of the world. So look at verse number 4. It says this, Stand in awe and sin not. Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still. Sometimes really what it takes is for us to just kind of stop and just take 10, 15 minutes and just think about certain things that you know you're not doing right, that you know just aren't quite going well and just commune with yourself upon your bed. Think about the things that I'm saying. Are they correct or am I out of line? Am I wrong? That's actually your responsibility as a church member to judge what I say. You are to commune with your own heart upon your bed the things of God. And you know what? That brings him glory. And it also produces change in the believer which is what we're all after. Look at verse 5. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. Keep your place over. Go to 1 Peter chapter 2. Offer sacrifices of righteousness. Look, you've been given righteousness from God. From the moment you were saved, God imputed unto you that divine righteousness that he paid for. And so that's why the Bible talks over and over and over again about, hey, let the inward man make the decisions. Let the new man shine forth. Because we have that choice. The new man is ready to soak up the Word of God. The new man is ready to offer up spiritual sacrifices, if you will, that are pleasing to God and bring him glory. And I like how the psalm says trust in the Lord. Because one of the big hesitancies is, well, if I go to that Baptist church and I get on board, my family is going to turn against me. My friends are going to leave me. No one's going to like me. And you know what? All of that's true. Right? We don't go around teaching people, hey, now that you're saved, your life is going to be great. Actually, what we should tell them is now that you're saved, you're either going to get chastened by God or you're going to have your family leave you. That's really what's going to happen. And a lot of these people, they wind up getting saved, and they just put God right back on the shelf. They're still saved. They're going to heaven. Praise God. Amen. We get that. We understand that. But it's kind of funny when you go back and talk to them a year later, right? They're like, my life is still in shambles. I feel like ever since I got saved, nothing's gone right. That's what the woman told me over in, what was it, Emmett, right? Got her saved in Caldwell. You saw her a year later, right? She's having to move around and hop around because her life's in shambles. Why is that? Well, now she's a child of God, and he's trying to get her attention. What are the odds that we would come back to her door on a random Saturday, you know, how far is Caldwell from Emmett? I don't even know. Probably 45 minutes, an hour. I mean, what are the odds of that? That's God saying, hey, I'm not done with you. You need to wake up and get right. But a lot of times these people don't do that, and it just brings them hell. But the psalmist says, hey, put your trust in the Lord. Don't worry about losing your family. Don't worry about losing your friends. You can pray for them. You can have that good conversation and maybe possibly win some of them over. It's not a guarantee, but some of them get on board, right? Some of them take liking to it and say, you know what, maybe you're right. But he says, offer up sacrifices of righteousness. And a sacrifice of righteousness is when we say, you know what, we're going to go ahead and make sure we have as much separation between us and the world as possible. So 1 Peter 2, verse 5 says this, Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. See, a lot of people think, oh, well, the sacrifice, that was just Old Testament stuff. I don't need to sacrifice anything today. Are you crazy? Christ already paid the main sacrifice, so all I got to do is just kind of coast. Wrong. Absolutely wrong. We are commanded. We need to offer up spiritual sacrifices. Everybody sitting in this room today, you have offered up a spiritual sacrifice. Think about it. You gave up your time. You could be sleeping in this morning, which I'm sure some of us wanted to, you know? Some of you are probably tired. Some of you have people that are like, why do you keep going to that church? That guy is crazy. The guy's a scumbag. Isn't that what they say? He's a scumbag. He's a dirtbag. Why do you go there? And you say, you know, I'm just going to trust in the Lord. My life's going to go well. That is a spiritual sacrifice, and there's all kinds of things. You know, when you sacrifice your time and you say, you know what? I'm going to give up what I want to do and just spend a half an hour reading the Bible. I'm going to spend five minutes a day trying to memorize some Bible verses. I'm going to spend 15 minutes a day just going over the so many verses and learning how to give somebody the gospel. Look, there's millions. There's all kinds of spiritual sacrifices that we can offer up. But here's the thing. We need to make sure that we're actually offering those up. And I think one of the big ones is when we decide, you know what? Not only are we going to make a distinction between the genders, we're also going to make a distinction between us and the world, which is why we don't have the rock band up here. People, prove to me right now that electric guitars and drums are bad. Right now. Prove it right now. Bible verse. It's like it's not wise because it makes us look like the world. I don't have to prove anything to you. You're weak. You're pathetic. You're a loser. You see what I'm talking about here? It always goes back to this concept. Prove to me right now that it's wrong. I don't have to. It's not wise. And I can prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt. And so here's kind of what this looks like. Mixed swimming. Okay? I believe this is, and I can prove this from the Bible, I believe it's wrong for God's people to go to a public swimming pool. Why? Because there are people there in their undergarments. Like I talked about a couple weeks ago. What happens if you walk, if a young lady decides, you know what? I'm going to go ahead and before I go to the pool, I'm going to walk in front of my room. I'm wearing a bikini. Are they going to get kicked out? They got flip flops on? Probably not. But if that same person goes in there wearing undergarments, they're getting kicked out. And that applies to male and female. Now you're going to get some strange looks either way, but you get what I'm saying, right? Now those, it's funny. It's like the world says, okay, well, if you come in here in your undergarments, we're calling the cops and we're going to ask you to leave. But if you come in here in your swimsuit, ah, we get it. You know, it's hot out. You're going to the beach. It's cool. You're going to the pool. No problem. Totally fine. No, that's not wise either. So when we go to these public swimming places, we're subjecting ourselves. I mean, look, do you guys want to take your sons and your daughters to a place like this where they can drool over the opposite? I mean, come on. You know, we don't want to give provision to the flesh now, do we? And so I think it's a good idea not to go to these types of places. This is why there's things out there like modest swimwear. Well, you're telling me I can never go to Wild Waves or to Wahoo's to the wave pool to watch the Christian walk concert? Do whatever you want. It's not hurting me. But you know what? You're turning the glory of God into shame. That's what you're doing. I think it's wrong. Several years ago, Jessica's sister was like, you know what? We're having a party for my daughter at this big pool. And we were just starting to learn some of these things in our church that we were going to. And we made the decision, you know what? We're not going to subject our kids to that behavior anymore. We're just not going to go to the pool. That's the way it is. We'll teach them to swim in private pools or at the hotel. We'll figure out a way to do it, and we did. But they freaked out on us. Absolutely flipped out. Oh, you're in a cult. You didn't find a problem with it six months ago. Yes, because we didn't know, and we're trying to change. You see, we're trying to put distance between us and the world. The world finds nothing wrong with that. But the world also finds nothing wrong with giving the flesh provision. So we need to make sure that we're on guard, that we be careful about stuff like that. I would be careful about what beach you go to. Around here, I guess you don't really have to worry about it. I haven't been to the lakes, but I would imagine it's not. Especially this time of year. I don't know. It may not be too bad. You just need to have some discretion. And be careful, you know, because there are people dressed immodestly there. And it could be a stumbling block for people. You say, oh, I'm a Baptist. I'm strong, and my kids... You don't know that. And in today's day and age, guess who else is at these places now? Loud and proud. The alphabet people. Look, when Toys R Us was a thing, kids loved to go to Toys R Us. To look at all the toys. Well, guess what these pedophile fag trannies like to do? They like to go where the toys are. And that's at the public pool. It's at the schools. You need to be careful. Okay, because they flock to these things for a reason. Another way that this works is we... Like I said, I'm not trying to tell you what to do. You do whatever you want to. But we try to avoid restaurants that promote the bar over the restaurant. Like I said, I'm not knocking you if you don't. But for me and my household, we're trying to put as much separation between us and the world as possible because we want to bring God the glory with the way that we outwardly live our lives. It goes beyond clothing. See, again, you can be... You've got to understand this. Perception is nine-tenths of the law. But perception a lot of times is deception. So you can still be modest and be immodest, like the Mennonite women. They wear the long dresses and the clothing and they have their long hair and stuff like that. But inwardly, they're full of dead men's bones. Oh, I've got the little hat, though. I've got the Dixie cup, like a Jew, on my head. And you pray with your head uncovered. You're a rotten, wicked sinner. Those are the types of things that they say about us, right? But the world looks at them like, oh, well, that's somebody who separated right there. Well, the Mennonites, man, they've got it right. And the Amish, right? The Amish, right? The Amish guys, you know what? Amish guys are immodest. Oh, but they grow their beards out and they wear the big brim hat. And they eat all their food without using electricity. They cook only on fire. And they always wear, like, the old school bow ties and the vests. Even when they work, they're always dressed up. Yeah, but they're still immodest because they preach a false gospel. Inwardly, they don't have the new man that makes them immodest. So we have to be careful about this. You can go, you can just completely look, you know, skinny jeans, blouse, all that garbage. But then you can be over on the other side, have the long garments, the robes, the fish hat. You can look Amish, like False Nemrod apparently wants to do, and still be immodest. I didn't have that written down, but it just applies. You know, it's just funny. Here's another one. The casinos, right? I'm not going to go into a casino because they have a great deal on a buffet. I'm just there for the crab legs. Okay, you may want to get those crab legs, but the problem is when the world looks at us and they see us do that, what do they think? Oh, they're just like us. Great. Come on in. Perception is nine-tenths of the law. Because at that point in time, I don't have that clear testimony and documentation in front of me. They just assume, oh, they're just like us. Right? And God's looking down like, what are you doing? I want separation. Isn't that what the Psalm said? And by the way, what is that also key? What is that key for? Us getting our prayers answered and having mercy, which is another reason why we do these things. Go to Psalm chapter 96. Psalm chapter 96. You know, saying I go to the bars because they have reverse osmosis water and good juice, and I go to the casinos for the buffet, it's like my dad used to say, hey, I've got these magazines here for the articles. I don't look at the pictures. I just look at the articles. I just read the articles. That's what he used to say. Don't be getting into my stash. Okay? Those are there. I know you saw the cover, but those are just there for the articles. Not only is that wrong, but it's extremely unwise. Psalm 96, look at verse 3. Declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all people. That's not just an optional statement there. That's not just something that we should just glide over. He says declare his glory among the heathen. So we're not doing the things that we do outwardly to say we're better than you. We're doing this to say, hey, your system's broken. You need to listen to the message that we have. We're supposed to be good ambassadors and represent our nation well, and we're not going to meddle in your affairs. But he says declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all the people. Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Well, that strength comes from us when we decide, you know what? I can handle the backlash from my family. I can handle the backlash from my coworkers and from my neighbors and from whoever else decides to disagree with me. Verse number 8. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name. Bring an offering and come unto his courts. You know that glory is due him. Do you know that he is worthy to be praised? Not just vocally, not just verbally, not just inside of your head, but with the way you live your life and the way that you have your appearance. Verse 9. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Fear before him all the earth. So the way that we conduct ourselves outwardly, obviously it needs to be a reflection of the new man, but it has a purpose, right? And the purpose is to show the beauty of holiness to the world because not everybody's, it's not like you're either a reprobate or you're saved, right? That's kind of like a Calvinist ideology, right? There's this whole middle group of people out there that just haven't made up their minds yet. They just don't know. They don't know the gospel. They haven't rejected it and they haven't believed it because nobody's explained it to them. It's like this guy I talked to yesterday. He'd been to the Seventh-day Adventist church. He'd been to all these different types of churches. He went to some church, some love church around here that was trying to teach him budgeting. It's kind of funny because it never taught him how to be saved. Isn't that strange? So you're going to tell me that these churches with their coexist attitude and their lovey-dovey, you know, no standards, no precepts, no rules, you're going to tell me that they're actually showing the world the beauty of holiness? You know, God looks down on a church like this that says, you know what, we want to serve him. We want to have a heart after God like David did. He looks down on a church like that that has that attitude and he says that's a church that's going to get some mercy. That's a church that's going to get their prayers answered. That's a church that will go forward. Not without trials and tribulations because we will have them, but that's a church that's going to get response from God because God looks at holiness as a beautiful thing. So when he sees his church, he sees his children saying, you know what, I don't want to be lined up with the world because I want to bring God the glory and we realize we can trust him for that. He says, you know what, that's the way it ought to be. That is a beautiful thing. But what Francis Chan and David Platterpuss Platt want to teach you is that you kneeling on a bed of rice being sorry for being a white boy, that is what brings glory to God. No, that just means you're an idiot. Because guess what, last time I checked, we couldn't choose your skin color. You can choose whether or not you become a reprobate fag, but you're not choosing your skin color. You're not choosing your gender. It's not going to happen. I heard Francis Chan say this one time. He said, you know, if I had two guys coming to my church holding hands, he's like, that's not the first thing I'm going to address. Yeah, we can tell. That's clearly abundant. You know what, I bet if two trannies walked into the church, he would say, you know what, Deuteronomy 22, verse 5, I'm not going to address that. He's the son of men. Probably the son of Belial, actually. He's the son of the devil. And that philosophy and that doctrine causes the glory of God to be looked at from the world as shame. Go back to, let's see, go to 1 Peter, chapter 5. 1 Peter, chapter 5. We're almost done. 1 Peter, chapter 5. So again, sanctification is a beautiful thing. Keeping distinction between us and the world, it brings God glory. We need to do it. But all this is out the window if it doesn't come from the heart. 1 Peter 5, 5. It says this, Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder, yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. So he says, be subject one to another. Right, this is part of sanctification. This is part of us saying, you know what, we're going to be separate from the world. You know what, if anybody in here, you ever have a question like, is what I'm wearing modest? You could always ask one of the other ladies. We have phones today. You could take pictures. You could send text messages. It's easier in our day than it was 20 years ago. So what he's saying here, Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder, yea, all of you be subject one to another. That's accountability. We should be accountable to one another. We should be willing to talk with one another and say, Hey, you know, I've got this idea. What do you think about that? Bounce things off of each other. That's another reason why we have church. See, a lot of people, when they come to this church, and they stay for a while, and they get plugged in, you know, one of the things that they always say is, it's so great that people don't just leave right after the service. Right, because that's when the real sharpening begins, is when you talk with each other. You have that conversation, and you realize that, you know, we can be subject one to another. But he says, And be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. And that's always the goal of preaching sermons, if you haven't noticed this. It's to get pride away from us. We all struggle with pride. I do, you do, we all do. Right, but we need to try to keep that thing to a minimum. Right, be clothed with humility. Look at verse 6. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him. Go back to Psalm chapter 4. So again, the message that we read in 1 Peter chapter 5 here is the exact same thing that we read in Psalm chapter 4. How do we get mercy? How do we get our prayers answered? Being clothed with humility, not turning the glory of God into shame. And when we follow the pattern of the world, that's exactly what we do. We turn his glory into shame. And do you think, I mean, you know, those of you who have children, you know, when they turn your instructions into shame and don't do them, do you feel like blessing them? No, it's the same thing with him. It's the same thing with God. So real quickly, verse 1. Hear me when I call, O God, of my righteousness. Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress. Have mercy upon me and hear my prayer. Right? It's very simple. We decide, you know, we're not going to be with the people that turn his glory into shame. And by doing that, we're able to trust in him. We're able to cast our care upon him, and he will exalt us in due time. It's the same thing. That's the formula. That's the recipe. Some people will sometimes say, well, aren't you worried, you know, about your church being smaller? How do you guys pay the bills? These are things that people say. You don't have to worry about any of that stuff. How did you survive after you kicked those 20 people out? God. That's how we did it. Because we realized, you know what, we're not going to cater and pander to these people. You either get on board or get the hell out. That's the way it is. That's the way it works. Get on board or get out. So again, the Word of God forces us to see our shame. That's the whole point of this. And you know what? Our shame is when we don't bring glory to God. Inwardly or outwardly with our lives. And that's why I said the first concept that we talked about was keeping the distinction between the genders. I believe in today's day and age it is more important than it ever has been. That we do that. That we promote that. That we don't back down from that whatsoever. And then obviously keeping a distinction between us and the world. You know, because what a lot of churches do, the farther left the world goes, the farther left the churches go. Right? But they still call themselves Christians, still call themselves church. Next thing you know, you're like that Lutheran church up on 5 Mile in Victory. And they eternally have the Sodomite flag on their LED display. Every day. I drive by it every single day. Love is love. Oh, but they're giving a malt-o-meal and ham sandwiches and shoes out to the community. So they must be doing a good thing. They're promoting the glory of God, huh? No, I don't think so. They're trying to portray themselves as being modest and loving. But really, they're immodest. Their perception is deception. Look at verse 6 real quick. We'll just read the rest of these verses and we'll be done. Isn't that what we want? Don't we want the light of God to shine upon our church? Well, we're going to do it by making sure we follow the presets, the principles, and the standards in this book. Not teaching for doctrines the commandments of men, but having all of this stem from the inward man. Verse 7, You see, what he's saying here is no matter the economic state, no matter the political state, no matter the stability of the world's economy at the time, he's going to be glad. And so will we. The world's going to crash and burn, and we're going to be like, where's the next door that we knock? Where's the next person that needs to be saved? Where's the next battle that needs to be fought? We can rejoice because we know that his countenance is shining upon us. He's going to hear our prayers because we bring him glory. Verse 8, It's not the political system. It's not the economic situation. It's not preaching this love-only doctrine. That causes fear because it produces ignorance. You have to understand God's counsel as a whole. And the key to obtaining that mercy and having our prayers heard is very simple. It's making sure that we, as the local body of Christ, understand, perception's only nine-tenths the law. It's that one-tenth, right? It's that one-tenth that'll get you. That's how this thing works. And so don't ever let somebody bully you, tell you, oh, you go to that church? It's a hate church. They force it. We don't force anybody to do anything. Just preach the Bible and pray to God that these words sink through your pride and your arrogance and seep out and produce glory to God. That's the whole point of all this. So let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, for just giving us the reason behind why we do the things that we do. And I just pray that these concepts, Lord, would stay with us so that we could accurately defend our positions out in the community, Lord, and teach people that, you know, these things aren't done to bring attention to us. They're not done to promote the fact or to promote this idea that we're better than other people because that's definitely not the case. We just pray that people would see that we do these things only to bring glory to you, Lord, and to show people that your ways are different than theirs. And we thank you for all that you do for us.