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

Amen. Amen. All right. Amen. So we'll get into the second segment of three here in a moment. The title of the sermon this morning is You're Not My Boss. You are not my boss, you guessed it. So we're going to be dealing with people, not necessarily bullies, not necessarily people that are trying to manipulate you, but people that basically are maybe even underneath you that try to control the situation all the time, try to tell you how things are going to be, try to tell you what to do. In fact, if you were here last year, or when this church first started, you may know, we had a person in here that would do that. Just being a regular member of the church asserted himself as some great one. For example, anytime somebody you knew would come in or we'd get a visitor, he'd be the first in line to go, hey, let me get your email address, let me get your phone number, let me teach you, let me tell you how things work around here. And that was basically his big deal, that big run. That's how he was starting to assert himself as a faux leader in the church. And another thing that he would do is he would pit certain people against other people. He'd say, well, look, I'm not trying to start trouble, but I just really need to have a conversation because I noticed somebody who's doing something in their personal life over here, and then he'd cast shade on somebody over here, and then he would just continuously do that around the church. I need to have a meeting with you. You need to want to have a meeting. Hey, this person's being mean, this person's doing this stuff to me when no one else is looking. I want to set something up. Knowing those people don't want to talk to him, that he's just completely out of control. He would do that with other people's wives, especially. He would try to boss the ladies in the church around when the husbands weren't around, or that didn't have husbands. Another thing that he would do is he would often, he'd try to provide marriage counseling and stuff like this for other people. And the dudes haven't even been married. And it's like, what are you doing? Who do you think you are? And what he was doing is he was trying to boss people around, trying to boss other people's children around all the time. You could just, I'd be preaching to a certain, and I could just see him steaming. And somebody would tell me, the reason why he's upset is because the little kids are just being little kids, right? They can't always pay attention. So they're like, John Sticker is on paper, do whatever the little kids do. And he'd just be so upset, but they're not paying attention. So that's why I had to tell them how it was. Well, it's not your place, right? You don't have that authority. You don't have that position. Now, obviously, if the kid's doing something, trying to light fire, cart a hole in the wall, you know, yeah, yeah, look, his hand's stopping him, right? There's nothing wrong with that. And that's not what I'm talking about today. But look, everybody in here has been in this position before. So maybe you've had a coworker, a child, a team, right? An in-law, a spouse, somebody tried to tell you how things are gonna be. Or maybe you feel like, hey, why is it that people just seem to walk all over me? If that's how you feel, if you've ever been in that position, I'm gonna give you some tips this morning that will help you completely overturn that, and you'll never have to worry about that ever again. Now, we're gonna get into 2 Samuel 3 here real quick. We're gonna take a look at the relationship that Ishmael has with Abner. So going back to chapter number two, you'll learn that Abner, so after the death of Saul, right, the nation of Israel, basically they're kind of fractured at this point, right? They're not completely split 100% yet, like you read about in the book of Kings. But Saul is dead, and in chapter two, the Bible says that Abner, who was Saul's uncle, who was also a mighty man of valor, a great warrior, a great leader, he decides that he's gonna make Ish-bosheth, which is Saul's son, king over Israel. And then the Bible says that the house of Judah followed David and Hebron, so you kind of have this fractured state, if you will, of the nation of Israel. And so we're gonna pick this story up here in verse number six, and I wanna show you something about Ish-bosheth. So look at verse number six. It says this, and it came to pass while there was war between the house of Saul and the house of David that Abner made himself strong for the house of Saul. Now look, I get it. If you've been studying with us through 1 Samuel on Sunday evenings, one thing that is definitely and abundantly clear, besides the fact that God did not want them to have a king, he wanted them to just remain in the system of the judges, was that if they were gonna have a king, it's God who was supposed to appoint the king, right? Abner has no right to do that, but nonetheless, Ish-bosheth is in the position of a king. Right, but what is the Bible telling us here? Well, Abner's the one making himself strong. Verse seven, it says this, and Saul had a concubine whose name was Riz-ba, the daughter of Aiah, and Ish-bosheth said to Abner, wherefore hast thou gone into my father's concubine? Now, you gotta imagine yourself real quickly in Ish-bosheth's position, right? He can see that, well, okay, Abner's the one that has made him strong, Abner's the one doing this, Abner made Ish-bosheth king, and now all of a sudden, he's gone and taken Saul's concubine, which, if you start to study the kings out of you, you'll notice there's probably like an unwritten rule, like you had to have concubines. It doesn't say that, but you all seem to start to follow that trend, and so you can see how Ish-bosheth would look at that and be like, that's kind of a slap in my face, because it's basically you showing yourself that you're king, so you can see that he's starting to feel insecure here. Now, look at verse number eight, and it says, Then was Abner very wrong for the words of Ish-bosheth, and said, Am I a dog's head, which against Judah do show kindness this day into the house of Saul thy father, to his brethren and to his friends, and have not delivered thee into the hand of David, that thou chargest me today with a fault concerning this month? So he's trying to justify his action. Now, it doesn't say that Abner married this concubine, it says he went into it. That's the Holy Ghost making that statement there, wherefore hast thou gone into my father's concubine? So what Abner's doing here is wrong. Fortication is wrong, so it's the way it reads. It's not a correct thing that he's doing here, and what is he trying to do? He tries to take control of this situation by putting the blame and basically casting the problem onto Ish-bosheth, and that's a lot of times what you'll see these people do. You'll call them and say, hey, look, what you're doing is wrong, it's not right, you're trying to get me to violate this process, we set up these guidelines or whatever, and instead of taking ownership for their wrongdoings, they'll try to put it on you. Well, what are they trying to do? They're trying to boss you around, they're trying to control you, and that's exactly what Abner is doing here. Verse number nine, it says, So God due to Abner and more also, except as the Lord hath sworn to David, even so I do to him, to translate the kingdom from the house of Saul and to set up the throne of David over Israel, over Judah, from Dan even to Beersheba, and he could not answer Abner a word again because he feared him. Now turn to Matthew chapter number five. Now, like I said, it's not right that the kingdom is in the state that it's in. God is supposed to appoint the king, they were supposed to remain quiet, remain silent, until God did that, and he's going to do that, he's going to set David up over this kingdom, but in the meantime, Ish-bosheth has found himself in a leadership position. And what's going on? He's getting walked all over by Abner, right? And you know what? Sometimes we kind of feel like Ish-bosheth, right? You know, we get ourselves into a position and maybe we're appointed and people make us feel like we don't deserve it. You know, when I first came to this church, there were certain people that tried to make me feel like I didn't deserve to be here, like I should have gone somewhere else. You know, saying little things, making little comments here and there, you know? But I learned a long time ago, I can't let stuff like that bog me down. You can't let stuff like that bog you down, right? You're a king and a priest, you're a Bible-believing Christian. You know, you start getting on fire for God, you start showing up in the church, you start going sowing, and you start doing all these things for God. And you know what? Guess what? The Abner in your life is going to come up to you and say, hey, guess what? I remember five months ago when you were doing this, I remember 10 months ago when you were doing this, I remember when you were a little kid and you were doing all these sins. You know what they're trying to do? They're trying to bring you down. They're trying to control you and trying to be your boss, but you know what? You have to put your past aside, you have to put all of that stuff aside and realize you need to be secure in your position. That's good. And that's the bottom line for this entire sermon. We are bothered by bossy people when we're not secure in our position. Let me say that again. We are bothered by bossy people when we are not secure in our position. You say, why was this Boshet so troubled by Abner? Why does it say that he feared him? Because he wasn't secure in his position. Even though it was wrong, even though David was supposed to be the king, even though the king was supposed to be appointed by God. If you know, it would have just been much better off if you would have said, you know what? I get all that, but for the time being, I'm here and I'm going to use leadership skills. I'm going to be strong. I'm going to run the show until God says otherwise. That would have been a much better position for him. And you can see how we can learn from that behavior, right? Because if we're not secure in our position, guess what? We're going to get trampled on. We're going to get steamrolled. And that's exactly what we don't want. Now, Matthew chapter five, I'm going to have you keep something here because we're going to come back to it. But before we leave, look at verse number 37. Matthew chapter five, look at verse number 37. It says this, but let your communication be yay, yay, nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. What is he saying? What is saying, you know, don't be swearing. Obviously we've talked about this before. You know, when you ask somebody a question, they just start running off at the mouth. There's probably evil there. There's probably something not true going on, right? And you know, it would require further investigation. But here's the point that I want to make. Here's the first point. You need to be direct with people, okay? Go to Matthew chapter 25. If you run into somebody who's trying to boss you around, who's trying to take control of your life or take control of your situation, you can't get away from them because maybe they're a family member or whatever. Look, you need to learn right now to be direct with these kinds of people, right? Let your yes be yes and your nay be nay. You know, Ish-Bosheth would have done himself a great service if he would have learned that. And that's not a new doctrine. I mean, we could spend a whole hour talking about that principle, even in the Old Testament. Be direct with people. Because look, I'm telling you, one thing that bossy people do is they look for people who they think they can pull one over on. And the first thing that they're gonna look for is are you direct? Are you able to say things like they are? Are you able to say yes and mean yes? Are you able to say no and mean no? And if not, they're gonna trample you so bad, you're gonna feel terrible, okay? Now look at this here, Matthew chapter 25. We're gonna take a look at this parable. And I want you to notice the bossy people inside of this parable. Look at verse number one. It says this. Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto 10 virgins, which took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. That, it says, they that were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, verse four. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps, while the bridegroom tarry. They all slumbered and slept. Verse number six, it says that at midnight there was a cry made. Behold, the bridegroom come. Go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps, and the foolish said unto the wise, give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out. Now, what does that sound like? Somebody who's being bossy, right? They're not like, oh hey, you know, we messed up. We're weak. We're lazy. We, you know, we're wrong. Can you help us out? Did you bring extra? They're like, no, hey, give me some of your what? Give me some of what you have. Isn't that what bossy people do? I'm your boss. I realize that you're the one that was prepared. I realize you're the one that's wise. I realize you're the one that has a reputation, but I don't care. Give me my oil. Now, that's their attitude here. Look at verse number nine. But the wise answered, saying, not so, lest there be not enough for us and you, but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. So what did the wise people say? They said, hey, no, we're not going to allow this to happen. I don't care if I offend you. Did you see that? What are they doing here? They're being direct. That is one way that you deal with bossy people is that you have to be direct. Unless you have to be a complete jerk or be rude, because look, sometimes bossy people, they just grew up that way. They've just realized, you know what, this is the way we get a headline. They're not, they didn't set out maybe to bully you. It's just their personality and the way to deal with them, the first thing that you need to realize is you have to be direct. Nay, this is wrong. Go get your own stuff, right? You know, we can't be a people that's just worried constantly about offending other people, okay? It's going to happen naturally. But I'll tell you what, you are much better off just being direct, not placating these people and just telling them, no, guess what, I'm not going to do that. No, guess what, I'm not going to skip church for your birthday party on Sunday. I'm sorry, but I've already decided in my mind that that's not right. The Bible tells me that that's not right. Guess what, it's a done deal. You know, just be direct with them. This is how it's going to be. And guess what, you will begin to see these people take a step back and reassess, is this a person that I can play games with, right? You see, because that's the key. That is what these people set out to do. They look for people that they can take advantage of, okay? Now, go to Exodus chapter number 19. Like I said, you already got your place in Matthew, so we're going to go back to the book of Matthew here shortly. But Exodus, chapter number 19. So point number one, be direct with people. And I'm going to start to look at point number two. Now, Exodus chapter 19, God is getting ready to give Moses some commandments, okay? Now, something very interesting here. You know, when God is doing, this is the first time He's going to do this, going to take Moses, going to be a big show. He's going to speak to Moses in a cloud. I mean, this is a big deal, right? And the reason why I'm bringing that up is because what you're doing in your life for God is a big deal, okay? And the second point has a lot to do with that, but I want you to see something here in verse number nine. It says this, Exodus chapter 19, look at verse nine. It says, and the Lord said unto Moses, lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud that the people may hear when I speak with thee and believe thee forever. And Moses told the words of the people unto the Lord. Now, I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but God is telling Moses, hey, I'm going to give you words that the people would believe forever. They'll believe you forever, meaning your words that you're going to speak that I tell you. Well, what is that? Well, that's Bible preservation. That is a big deal, right? We talk about that all the time. Say, prove to me that God established the doctrine of Bible preservation. Well, it's right here, because guess what? Moses is not physically alive, right? But what does it say there? It says, and believe thee forever. Now, look at verse 10, and the Lord said unto Moses, go unto the people and sanctify them today and tomorrow and let them wash their clothes and be ready against the third day, for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai. So he's getting the whole nation ready to receive the word of God. Everybody following me, right? Very big deal here. Now, look at verse number 12. It says this, and thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about saying, take heed to yourselves that ye go not up into the mountain or touch the border of it, whosoever toucheth the mount shall surely be put to death. What does it mean when it says, and thou shalt set bounds? Boundaries, okay, that's what God is talking about. He's saying, hey, I don't want anybody coming to this mountain. I don't want anybody coming up here. And if they do, in verse 13, you'll read that there are consequences, okay? There are consequences. Well, guess what point number two is? We need to learn how to set up boundaries. And here's an easy way to remember that. Boundaries ease burdens. Boundaries ease burdens, okay? We're gonna talk a lot about this. Turn to Matthew chapter number 12. Matthew chapter number 12. Boundaries eat, oh, I'm sorry, boundaries eat boundaries, ease burdens. Is it working now? Okay, sorry, a little microphone issue there. So just remember, okay, boundaries ease burdens. Now, here's the deal. If you haven't learned how to be direct with people, how in the world are you going to be able to set up boundaries to people, right? It's not gonna happen. Look, a lot of you guys know that we have caretakers that come in and out a couple times during the week, especially Sunday mornings now, to help take care of my dad. And we've already gone through a couple of them. And there's one lady, particularly, she was caretaken for him for like, what, a month? Two months, maybe? Maybe even longer, more, right? I don't know, we'll say four months, okay? That's a conservative number, four months. And she just decided to quit. She got wore out. And we're kinda looking at some of these other ones that they come in and they're like, well, I don't really wanna take that job or whatever. And I start to study this sermon out and start to ask myself, what is it that are causing these caregivers that's their job to wear out? And you know what, what we found out is that they have failed to be direct, right? They don't wanna tell these people no. But the biggest thing is they don't want to give them boundaries. They don't wanna establish any kind of boundaries because it's hard work. You know, when you tell somebody like my dad, hey, don't touch that. Hey, don't pull the Christmas tree down. Hey, don't pull all that stuff off the counter. Hey, don't eat that shoe, okay? It's not good for you, it's not food, right? He gets upset, you know? And these caretakers are like, it just wears on them. But you know, they look at us, right? Because we have, if you come to our house while you've been there, we have gates set up. We have him quarantined, basically. We have him, there's certain places he can go and certain places he can't go. And I'll tell you right now, if we did not have that stuff set up, we would go insane. Look, you guys deal with him on a weekly basis and you know, you don't live with him. And you know, you go insane. Boundaries ease burdens because we have boundaries for him, because we have this gate set up, because we have child locks on all the doors, because there's only certain places that he can go, right? It eases our stress and we're able to move forward. We're able to continue to do these things and it is what it is, right? Everybody who has toddlers, you can look, you ladies and you dads, you guys know this, right? Don't you put up gates, right? But I had this company call me and they're like, well, you know, this caregiver, she's just kind of concerned because he's not allowed to go and live in there. I'm like, look, you don't live with this guy. You see him for maybe three or four hours a week. You have no idea what it's like, you know, telltale. It'd be like this. You go grab a mule and put him in your living room and then go shopping. What do you think is gonna happen? Is he just gonna sit down and be like, well, I'll just wait till they get back. I'll just post up right here. No, the mule, the horse, have no understanding. He would tear your house apart. That is how my dad is. But you know what, that's how bossy people are. If you don't learn to set up boundaries, they will smash you every single time. They will walk all over you. Look, if you don't set up boundaries for your children, guess what, you're gonna get steamrolled. You don't set up boundaries for these teenagers, guess what, you're gonna get steamrolled. You got a bossy wife and you don't set up these boundaries, guess what, you're gonna get steamrolled. We have that relationship. We can make fun of each other, it's all good, right? So just keep that in mind, we have a different dynamic. All right, so let me get off that for a second here. All right, so you're in Matthew chapter 12, okay? No, I'm not done yet, here's another one. Here's another one, all right? We set up boundaries for our children a long time ago, when they were growing up, and we're like, hey, look, you know, when in-laws wanna watch them, we'd be like, hey, look, we don't want them eating all the sugar, and we don't want them watching Disney, we don't want them watching certain shows, right, we had these boundaries. We were very direct about that. And you know what, from time to time, certain individuals in the family would be like, well, you know what, I think that's too restrictive. I'm going to go ahead and proceed and let them watch whatever, right? And we'd hear about this, and you know what we'd have to do? We'd have to go tell them, hey, look, if you do that again, guess what, you're done. We're not coming over anymore, and our relationship is off. How do you think they took that? Not too well, but guess what happened? They wanted to comply, because they are my children, I'm going to raise them according to the statutes in the Bible, and if anybody, anybody else wants to try to thwart that, then guess what, we're done. And we have that right, we have that authority. Because why, wouldn't we rather please God than man? Right, I thought that was the goal. We live by a different standard, we live by a different set of rules than the world does. And you need, if you're going to be successful at doing that, you need to establish boundaries. And you know what, you guys, you're at work, right? And you got that guy that's trying to run the crew, he's trying to show himself who's the boss and all of this stuff, you know, hey, come here. You know, let's sleep a little bit earlier. Let's do this, let's do that. Let's violate a process here, right? Everybody's job here, everybody who works here, you have somebody like that at your work. You know what you need to do? You need to tell that person, no, I don't do that. And you need to be willing to lose that friend, because if not, he's gonna drag you down. That is what they do. They want to be in charge, okay? You say, show me that in the Bible. I'm gonna show you that in the Bible. I'm gonna show you that Jesus set up boundaries. And you know what, that's not very popular today, is it? It's divisive, isn't it? A lot of people are like, he wouldn't do that. He never set up boundaries, he never told people no. He just loved everybody, and everything's cool. That's what that stupid Methodist church on five mile and victory has in their sign, isn't it? Love is love. Well, that's not what I read in the Bible. So the first thing I want you to see here in Matthew chapter 12, is that Jesus set up boundaries against people that had this entitlement issue. And that's what a lot of times these bosses do. Isn't that kind of what we saw with Abner? Didn't he kind of feel entitled? He's like, well, I made you king. Don't you forget that. You tell his folks, hey, guess what? Even God wants David to be king, and I haven't led you into his hand yet. Right, so he had this entitlement issue, and oftentimes this is what you'll see with these people. But you know what? We create people like this when we're not correct and we don't establish boundaries. Matthew 12, look at verse number 46. It says this, while he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without desiring to speak with him. Verse 47, then one sentence, behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak with him. I said, here you have Jesus teaching and he's preaching, and people are like, hey, your mom and your brothers, you know, they're outside and they wanna talk with you. Verse 48, look what Jesus does, right? Because he's got a mission. What is his mission? He is preaching, he is teaching. Verse 48, but he answered and said unto him that told him, who is my mother and who are my brethren? What is he doing right here? He's setting a boundary, and he's justifying that boundary. Who is my mother and who are my brethren? Verse 49, and he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and said, behold, my mother and my brethren. Verse 50, for whosoever shall do the will of my father, which is in heaven, the same as my brother, my sister, and my mother. See this, how did Jesus react to people that had a little bit of entitlement issue? He set boundaries, right? And he did it very cleverly in a direct way that taught everybody a lesson. Hey, the word of God is more important than somebody who thinks that they're entitled to what you have. This is very important because you will have people in your life say, hey, don't forget when I bailed you out five years ago. Hey, don't forget when you and I used to do this together. That's what they're gonna do to you, right? They're gonna try to make you feel like dirt. But you know what, you're gonna have to be like Jesus. And you're gonna have to say, you know what, the word of God and what I am doing is more important than that situation five, 10, 15 years ago, five months ago, five days ago, whatever it is. Say this is more important than that. And you know what, I'm not gonna skip, you know what, I'm not gonna skip so long. You know what, I'm not gonna skip my bibranium. I'm going to serve God. But I'm telling you, you have to set up boundaries. If you don't, you will fail. Now turn to Luke chapter number four, and we'll take a look at the next one. Here's the first one with the title, man. And next we're gonna see that Jesus set up boundaries towards people that were abusive. Oh, he would never do that, I don't believe. Well, Luke chapter number four, look at verse number 29. So the first sermon that Jesus ever preached, you guys already know what was the end result. People wanted to kill him. It's kind of like some of these people out in town. Luke four, look at verse 29. It says this, and rose up. So these people hear this message. It says, and they rose up and thrust him out of the city and led him onto the brow of the hill wherein their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. Look at verse 30. But he passing through the midst of them went his way. Now, if that's not abuse, I don't know what is. Okay, but here's the thing. Why didn't Jesus turn around and walk away? Well, because he would have gone off the cliff. But he says he went through the midst of them. Let me just tell you something right now. When somebody comes at you aggressively, especially out someone, don't you ever, don't you ever, ever turn your back on somebody. You understand me? Don't you ever turn your back on somebody who's aggressive because they might stomp you. Is that clear? That is not okay. It's, I mean, I'm not saying not to walk through the midst or to start a fight or anything like that, but you need to be careful because cowards love nothing more than to attack somebody when they turn their back. I'm serious. Why do you think a cougar, oftentimes the wounds will stop when you turn around and face it? Because that's what predators do. They're always looking for an easy meal. So you're better off just circling around like you do. Right? Just say, hey, you know, we don't want any trouble, right? You keep your eye on that person and you try to diffuse it and you try to get away from them that way. But don't ever turn your back on somebody because you have no idea what could happen to you. They hit you off the head, you might wake up and not remember anything. You say, well, that doesn't happen. Well, you know what? People are getting pretty darn weird lately in this world. If you have no, yeah. And you need to have some situational awareness. You need to be smart out there. It's good. And one of the ways to do that is to never, ever turn your back on somebody who's aggressive. Now, if you're, you know, you know somebody and you know, you're just arguing or whatever, fine, whatever. Just be like, I'm out of here, right? But you already have to have some level of trust. When we're out soloing and somebody is preying upon women and children, and then they come after you aggressively, don't ever turn your back on a person, ever. I'm telling you, don't do that. Turn to Luke chapter number five. So again, with abusive people, what do you need to do? You need to be direct instead of boundless. Right, don't ever let somebody get too close to you either. Right, I have a rule. And I mean, I know how long my arms are. And when somebody violates that, I realize, you know what? Something's probably gonna have to happen because I can't let you, you should never let somebody get that close. You need to tell them, hey, back up. Hey, look, I don't want any trouble, but you need to back up. You need to maintain distance from these people. Because look, the attitudes I'm seeing out there from some of these people, I don't trust them. I do not trust them. I don't know what it is about this community, but there must be a goldmine of people about to get saved around here because it seems like the devil just wants our church out of here and send in some absolutely crazy people to disrupt us. So first one, what did we see Jesus do? He set up boundaries in regards to people that had entitlement issues, right? Now he's setting up boundaries against people that are abusive. Now, look at Luke chapter number five, and you'll see that he sets up boundaries towards demanding people, the demands of these people. Here, look at verse 14. Luke 5, 14 says this, and he charged him to tell no man, so after he does anything, he says, I'm charging him to tell no man, but go and show thyself to the priests and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded for a testimony of them. Verse 15, but so much the more went there a fame abroad of him and great multitudes came to hear and to be healed by him of their infirmities. Not the most tragic thing in the world. These people wanna be healed. We all get that. We all understand that. But you know what? Sometimes people in our lives, they just want so much of your attention, so much of your time and so much of this and so much of that that you have to set up boundaries and you have to just get away. Verse number 16, and he withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed. Right, you have to make time to serve God. You need to make time for your prayer. You need to make time for your studies. You need to make time for God's people, all these things. But what is Jesus teaching us here is that we need to find balance. You gotta have balance. You will never have balance in your life if you do not learn how to set up boundaries. Mom, dad, you gotta set up boundaries with these kids. It's imperative. You have to do this. If not, they will walk all over you, right? I mean, why do you think that God has the church structure set up the way that he does? To set boundaries so that we don't have these just loser-type people coming in here and, oh, I've got a Psalm today. Oh, I've got him. Oh, I've got a doctor. Oh, I've got this, right? Did you read about that in First Corinthians? Right? A church who obviously tossed boundaries and directness and doctrine and all sorts of stuff right out the window. How did that work out for them? It didn't work out at all, did it? Not one single bit. Now go back to Matthew chapter number five. One number one is, look, you need to be direct with people. The reason why you need to be direct is because you're gonna learn to set up boundaries with people. You're working with somebody who's, you know, always trying to be the boss. They don't have the authority. You need to set up some boundaries with that person. You need to let them know it's not okay for you to tell me what to do, especially when it's contrary to process and it's contrary to what your boss said, right? Because a lot of times they'll spit it on you. They'll come up to you and be like, oh, well, you know, I just want you to sweep over here real quick. But maybe your boss told you to do something else. And then the guy's gonna be like, well, you know what? This is gonna make him happy. But really what's going on is he's gonna take credit for pulling you off your job and doing that. That's what's gonna happen. And then guess what? You're going to suffer the consequences. But if you learn, you know what? I'm not here to please people. I'm here to get a job done. I'm here to work. I'm here to do a job. And I'm going to establish a boundary. You know what? Those people are going to have to leave you alone. And you know what? They're probably gonna respect you for it in the end anyways, because people need direct instructions. People need boundaries, especially these people. They need boundaries. Now I'm sure if you could put my dad back into his right frame of mind, I'll bet you anything. He would say, you know what? Thanks for setting up those boundaries. Because now I realize you did that so that I wouldn't get hurt. You know what? If he was able to understand my speech, I would say, hey, thanks a lot for setting up boundaries for me when I was a child. You know, so that I didn't get hurt. Now their boundaries were pretty liberal, but they were still there. They were still there. So let's move on here to point number three. And this here, there's a little bit of a secret. Look at verse 38. Matthew chapter five, look at verse number 38. So Jesus says this, "'Ye have heard that it hath been said, "'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. "'But I say to you that ye resist not evil, "'but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, "'turn to him the other also.'" Okay, let's stop right here for a second. People will often come here and say, see, Jesus abolished the entire law. He just abolished the whole testament. That's not applicable anymore. But really what's going on here is you have to understand the situation here. The nation of Judah during this time, were they, I'm gonna use the word sovereign, were they independent? No, they were under Roman control. They did not any longer have the right to carry out certain duties of the law. They could not carry out Leviticus 2013, for example, because they had to go through a process established by the Roman government. So Jesus is like, hey, there's certain things, you blew it. I told you, you broke the covenant. That's what he's telling him. And now you can't live the way that I've established for you through the words of Moses. And so now I'm gonna give you a further recipe in addition to that, because you can't do that, to have success, even though these people are oppressing you. Because ideally, right, the Romans shouldn't have been over this nation. Ideally, they should have just kept doing the word of God, but that just wasn't the case. Obviously, look at verse 40, it says this. And if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coke, let him have thy cloak also. So you see, hey, look, don't hang on to your materialistic goods. There's things of more value, especially in regards to eternal rewards and things of that nature. Now look at verse 41. He says this, and whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. So what are you saying here? If somebody asks you to go a mile with me, go to. Okay, that's what twain means. Now, if you've been in church any length of time, you've probably heard people get up and they love to talk about this. And they'll say, you know what? Back during this time, the Romans could come by and say, hey, I need you to carry this for a mile, but they could only do it for a mile. That's probably true, because we see that when Jesus is carrying this cross and he's struggling with it. They say, hey, you, Cyrene, why don't you carry this cross? Right, and so you can see that later on in Matthew. We're not gonna turn there for time, so there's probably some truth to that. You know, and the Jews during this time are probably like, hey, you know, if you're the king, aren't you gonna change all this? Why do we have to pay these taxes? Why do we have to listen to these Roman soldiers? Why do we have to do what they say? They're not our boss, basically, is what they're saying. And Jesus is saying, no, things are changing, okay? But that doesn't mean that you can't have success. What he's telling them, hey, there is a secret in this second mile. There is a secret in the second mile, and you're gonna see what that is here in a moment, but that second mile, guess what it does? It's gonna force you to be humble. Gonna force you to be humble. And what's the bottom line? Bossy people burden us, basically, because of what? Because we're insecure in our position, right? We let people walk all over us because we're not secure in who we are. Everybody understand that? And they're not secure in their position, right? They don't like it, and you can't really blame them. You know, if we got taken over by China or Russia, we wouldn't like that even. When I was in Japan, you know, it was clear that we were in charge of that nation, and you could tell that the citizens, they didn't like us there, okay? I get it, I totally understand this. But he's saying, hey, if they compel you to go a mile, don't necessarily, you know, don't take up arms, don't, you know, don't do anything like that. Go with them twice. And you put yourself in this situation. I mean, maybe you'd be like, what the heck? You're telling me you want me to just enjoy this, you know? I don't like that. I wanna fight these guys. I mean, can we like throw them in the jail, or can we just do something about it? But Jesus is like, you can, but not the way that you think. So he says, and whosoever shall compel you to go a mile, go to the 20, verse 42, give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow thee, turn not thou away. And here's the thing. The first mile is the obligation. The second mile is an opportunity. That's the secret. The first mile is the obligation. Okay, but the second mile is an opportunity. And guess what that means for us? What Jesus is saying, hey, I want you to be a people that doesn't demand, but that offers. I don't want you to be a people that compels, but a people that invites. That's what separates us from like the Jehovah's Witnesses, because they're notorious for putting the foot in the door. The guy that I was talking about at the beginning of the sermon, guess what he used to do? Put right in the door. We don't want that perception. We want to offer people a chance to hear the gospel. We want to invite them to church. We want to make this inviting, right? And look, you go so in it, you're going that extra mile. You are doing that, and it provides you an opportunity. So that opportunity is an opportunity for growth. It's an opportunity to show your testimony to the world. It's an opportunity to make a friend. It's an opportunity for so much. It's an opportunity for you to be humble, right? It's an opportunity for you to teach them that, hey, guess what, I'm not in exposure. I'm in control. So Jesus is still teaching these people how to be in control when it seems like they're not in control. So I don't like this. I don't like this. You know what? I'm gonna preach a whole sermon about this, but it is not cool. It is not okay to be a minimalist when it comes to tasks, okay? You want to be a minimalist and live that way, you know, a tiny house, that's cool. We did that for a while. Lived in a trailer, and it sucked. And you know what, the way things are going in this world, we might all be minimalists here pretty soon. I don't know. But look, when it comes to tasks and procedures and doing chores, don't be a minimalist, right? Somebody says, hey, you know, especially you teens and you kids, your parents ask you to do something. Hey, could you go sweep the bathroom floor? Don't just sweep where it's dirty. Sweep the whole thing. But you know what? Maybe you should do something in addition to that. Maybe you should get the mop out and mop the thing as well, right? Because here's the thing. I know you teens and I know you kids. You're trying to show that you're in control. That's what you're doing, right? You're just sitting there, well, you didn't tell me to do all that. That's the wrong way to behave. That's the wrong way to be a worker, by the way, too. You got people that have jobs, right? If you want to get that promotion, you want to get that raise, you will never do it by being a workman minimalist. It's never gonna happen. When your boss says, hey, I need these tasks done. You need to do those according to the process, but you know what else you should do? What's gonna set you free? Is to do an additional task above and beyond that. To go that extra mile. Where do you think that statement came from? Well, that's the world's was, no. That came from Matthew chapter five verse 41. To go the extra mile. There is a secret in the second mile. In fact, there are tons of secrets. The secret is success. The secret is that it puts you in control, right? Because these teens, they want me in control. They're approaching adulthood, right? And it's like, you know, they want to show that they've got some authority. They want to show that, you know, hey, I can handle things. Well, guess what? The way that you're gonna do that is by going the extra mile. Not by just doing the minimum. That is not the way that God wants us people to be. And really, if you think about it, that's what sets you free. I've seen this so many times in the workforce where people are like, you know, the boss tells them to do something and they're just like irritated by it, right? That is pride. And Jesus is saying, hey, you can still be in control. You can still have success in this. All you have to do though is just go the extra mile. Because you know what? It's gonna make that first mile a lot easier when you set your mind that, hey, I'm gonna do double. And don't worry about getting burned out like these caretakers. You can rest when you're done. It's good. But you can rest when you're done. You know what? Anyway, I was thinking about this earlier. You know, people like, you know, oh, you're a pastor and you're working all these hours. Ain't that hard? Yeah. Well, you're gonna get burned out. No. You know, someday I'll die and then I'll be able to rest. The best rest is always the unexpected rest, right? When your mouth's like, hey, you know, we're just gonna leave early today, right? That's much better than when you put in a slip to take time off. It is. It's like a treat, right? So that's the way I look at it. Don't rest. It'll come soon enough. But until then, you know what? We need to be a people that are willing to go the extra mile because that shows these boxy people, hey, guess what? This dude means business. My attitude towards them and my games are not working. And they will leave you alone. I mean, I had this guy that would try to do that that I worked with a lot of times. And one day we were in Japan, we got tasked to do this big job on this aircraft carrier was setting up all this vent for some job I came here or what it was. And, you know, he wanted to make the show. It was a Saturday. He wanted to start the job at like the right time to where like, he knew we'd get to a certain point where we needed a signature on something. And then it would be three o'clock and one at three o'clock. You know, we still, we only have an hour left in the day and we still got to do all this stuff. And, you know, Saturday, so it's expected that we leave early, right, and all this stuff. And he would do stuff like that. He'd be like, hey, come here. Right, he pulls me. And I outranked him. So I just said, yeah, hey, what's up? I did everything he told him, but I completely took over his job. And you know what? That wound up going real well for me later on because, you know, he had three o'clock. He's like, well, I'm going home, man. I'm out of here. He's like, I'm done. Bosses are gone. You know, there was nobody around looking. I actually finished the entire job. So I applied this situation. I went the extra mile and I got rewarded for it because some officer saw me doing that and was like, wow, there's somebody that just got my service done for me on time. And he went and told people back over at our headquarters in Washington, he made a phone call. You know, I wanted to get an award for it. You know, the same thing happened to me two weeks ago on Wednesday. I looked at my job, it was the day before. On Wednesdays, I'm only supposed to get five jobs because I'm supposed to be off between two and five o'clock so I can get to church on time. This was an agreement before I even said yes, you know, I would like to work here. But as you guys know, the world loves to play games. Okay, they hate God's work. And whether knowingly or unknowingly, they want to play games with you. So, I checked my jobs to show Justin looks like this. One thing that they've been doing to me lately is instead of giving me five jobs, they'll give me six, but they give me two, like two 10 to ones. Right, well, you're still getting up. We still didn't give you anything after five o'clock. We still got that agreement, man. Look, there's some appliances that you can go, like show up to a refrigerator and it can take two hours. You can have some crazy thing happen. And so that's why they originally agreed, well, we'll just give you, you know, five jobs and then if you get done early, we'll just give you a couple more or give you another one, whatever you can handle. And you know, Jessica must have been praying for me. I prayed, you know, put on the prayer list or whatever. And I wound up getting done early, wound up getting done at like three o'clock with all six of those jobs. And I messaged her and said, hey, I need another job. Don't you have your thing tonight? Yeah, I do have my thing tonight, homie. But guess what? I'm ready for another job. I would like another job right now, please. And I finished that job at like four o'clock. And I haven't gotten a reward for it yet other than the fact that, hey, I put myself in control of that situation because I followed the wisdom of the Bible. It's good. It was direct. Right, I already established the boundaries, but they found a way to try to violate all two of those first points. Oh, we're gonna get you up here. Right, but with the help of God, it didn't work out well for them. And next Wednesday, you know, it's back to normal. It's like, you don't think I can't count? We'll just give them two 10 to punch. They won't even know us. And by the way, that day, they gave you some hard jobs. Like changing the fireplace valve, we asked the fireplace valve, it is very hard to do that. Very difficult job. Give you like this much room, right, to get tools that are like this big inside there. It's not, so it's not an easy task. But look, all I'm trying to tell you is that if you purpose in your heart to apply this wisdom and go that second mile, there's a secret at the end of that. The secret is you're gonna be in charge. Right, and when I messaged them at three o'clock, guess who was in charge that day? It's me. They thought that they could control my schedule. They thought that they could control you. They're trying to get to you guys through me. They don't even know you guys. You think they're crazy? But that's how commies are. That is how communists think. This is why I can't stand commies. Why would I have those bracelets back there? Slave commies. Now the way to slave is by soloing and making it impossible for them to be. But, you know. So turn to Ephesians chapter six real quick. We're gonna wrap this thing up. Ephesians chapter six. You go the first mile, you discharge a duty. The second mile, you never know. You might just make a friend or a pest a commie. So point number one, again, we need to be direct with people. If you wanna stop people from walking all over you, learn to be direct. Not that I'm not being a jerk, but be direct. Number two, set boundaries. You know what's important to you. You know what you wanna do. You know what you have to do. Now you need to set in place boundaries to stop people from coming in and violating those agendas and those goals that you have. And number three is go the extra mile. Just remember, go the extra mile. There is a secret in the second mile. Easy way to remember that. Easy way to remember point number two. Remember, boundaries ease burdens. You say, how does a mom, how does a dad, how does a family stop themselves from wearing out? Well, they do it by setting up boundaries. No, you're not coming in the kitchen and playing with the knives. No, you're not getting into the drawers, right? You have to set up boundaries because it is important for your sanity. It is important for you to be that leader. This is stuff that this fellowship had no clue of. Didn't do it. Didn't do any of these things, right? And remember, we are bothered by bossy people when we're insecure in our position. Well, I've already told you those three points are gonna help you get secure in that position. Look, you're a child of God. You need to just accept that and roll with it. Forget the past. Who cares what you've done in the past? It doesn't matter. What matters is what you do from this day forward for God. That's what matters. And you do these three points here and I promise you people will not be able to walk all over you. And I'm gonna leave you with this verse right here, Ephesians 6, 10. Finally, my brothers, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. And don't you have the tools here? Don't you have the resources from the Bible to implement that in your life? Of course you do. This isn't some scholarly, original, manuscript-only type church. No, we believe every word that is written in this book. It gives you your direction, it gives you your purpose, it gives you your goals, and it tells you exactly how to do those things. It gives you that security that you need to not be bothered by bossy people. Let's go ahead and pray. Thank you so much, Lord, again, for just another week of great wisdom from your truth, from your word. It's pretty helpless to not be a people that's bogged down, Lord, by people who are trying to boss us around and don't have authority. It's pretty blessed with fellowship, Lord. We still want you to come and bring us all back safely tonight. In Jesus' name, I pray.