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

But I want to preach a sermon this evening that will show you how you can apply what Jesus says to Peter here. The title of the sermon is How to Reverse Engineer Your Problems. How to look at your life and issues that you're having with your life and be able to identify what the root cause is of those issues that you are having. So I want to show you what Jesus says here. We're going to have to do a little bit of a Bible study so I can lay the foundation here before I can apply this to the reverse engineering of yourself. But let's go ahead and just do a Bible study and lay the foundation so you'll know what I'm talking about. Look down at verse number one of John chapter 18. The Bible says, so Jesus is in the garden here. It says, When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Kedron, where there was a garden in which he entered and his disciples. And Judas also, which betrayed him, knew the place, for Jesus oft times resorted thither with his disciples. Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons. Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth and said unto them, Whom seek ye? So Jesus stands up and meets these soldiers and Judas and the high priests coming, the Pharisees and priests coming towards him. And they answered him, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus saith unto them, I am he. So he says, I am he one time and Judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them. Now look at verse number six. As soon then, this is an account that is only in the account of, the garden account is in Matthew and Mark as well as John. But this is a detail right here that is only in the book of John. As soon then, as he said unto them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground. So that's an interesting little tidbit right there, especially what's about to happen here. But Jesus literally says, one time he says, Who are you looking for? They said, Jesus of Nazareth, and he says, I am he, and it knocks them all over. Like just him saying, I am he, literally knocks everyone, the soldiers, the Pharisees and the priests down to the ground. I mean, just a literal proof that the word of God has actual power. All right. I mean, obviously another literal proof of that is Jesus being the word of God, God speaking the world, the creation into existence, you know, and God said is another proof in the Bible of the word of God having a literal power to create. All right. And to, you know, knock people down or whatever. So it's an interesting point, though, that that happens right before Peter tries to defend Jesus. All right. Let's keep reading here. Look at verse number seven. Then asked he them again, whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he. If therefore you seek me, let these go their way. So he's basically saying like, let everybody else go and just take me. And then he quotes one thing that he said in John 17, 12, where he says that the saying might be fulfilled, which he spake of them, which thou gave us me, I have lost none. Back at John chapter 17, verse number 12, this isn't like a prophecy being fulfilled. It's like a saying that Jesus just said, being fulfilled, all right, in John 17, verse 12. So if you want to put that reference in your Bible there, that's what he's referring to. When Jesus says that in John 17, in his prayer to God, the father that we went over last week. Now look at verse number 10. Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and smote the high priest servant and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus. So we get the servant's name, not that that's really relevant, but that's another detail that we get in the book of John. Then said Jesus unto Peter, put up thy sword into thy sheath. The cup which thy father hath given me, shall I not drink it. Turn to Matthew chapter 26. So Jesus says something here to Peter. So let's get the story here, the whole context of what's happening. Jesus is in the garden praying. Judas comes with the soldiers, the priests and the Pharisees to arrest Jesus. Jesus says, you know, who are you looking for? He says, I am he, and he knocks them all down with just the words that come out of his mouth. Then he says, let everybody else go. But Peter doesn't go. Peter pulls out his sword and he cuts off the ear of one of the soldiers that was probably, you know, one of the soldiers in front, I would assume. And Jesus says, look, he says to him, you know, the cup which my father hath given me, shall I not drink it. He's saying, I have to go through this. This is why I'm here. This is what I'm here to do. But this is not the only thing that Jesus said to Peter. And if you look at Matthew chapter 26, we get the other things that Jesus said to Peter in this moment. Look at John or Matthew chapter 26 and look at verse 53. This is a nice thing about the gospels that you just get all this different detail. None of it contradicts. It's just more detail in each gospel. Look at verse number 53. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my father and he shall presently give me more than 12 legions of angels. But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be? And then, you know, I assume that after that he says, the cup which my father hath given me, shall I not drink it? He's basically saying to Peter and it's, you know, I mean, look, I'm not faulting Peter here. I mean, he's defending his friend. He's defending the Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus is just kind of correcting him. He's saying, look, it's not that I can't defend myself here. You know, Jesus literally, the words that he just spoke knocked everybody down just to prove that, you know, that he does have that power and he was willingly letting them take him. Jesus willingly went to the cross. He could have called down angels. He could have just destroyed them with just the words out of his mouth. He wouldn't even have had to call down angels because the words coming out of his mouth, look, you know, he's going to destroy them with the sword of his mouth in the end times. All right. So Jesus is just explaining to Peter, he's like, look, I get it. You know, you're trying to defend your friend, but this is something that needs to happen. Now look back at verse number 52 of Matthew chapter 26. I mean, Jesus demonstrated his power of his words at the beginning of this whole scenario when they first walked up in John 18. But look at Matthew chapter 26 in verse number 52. This is what Jesus says to Peter before he says, I have to do this. But he says to Peter in verse 52, he says, then Jesus said unto him, put up again thy sword into its place for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Now I've preached on this verse before, all right. I've preached on this verse within the context of self-defense. I preached on this in the context of, you know, it's simply what he is saying here is exactly what he was saying to James and John when they went into a city and people weren't receptive and James and John are like, let's call down fire and just burn this place up. He's saying, you know not what spirit you're supposed to be. He's like, that's not why you're here. And that's what he says to Peter here. He says, look, it is not your calling is what he's trying to explain to Peter. And I've preached on that. That is not our calling. It is not our calling to go out and, you know, start a church that's really a church so we can just make an army and then we can fight the government. That's not our calling. Our calling is to go do what we do several times a week. We go out and we preach the gospel. We're ambassadors of the word of God. I've preached on this before but I want to give another application of this comment tonight in verse number 52. So yes, I get that, look, that's a waste of your life. That's what he's telling Peter. He's like, you go out, raise an army, start an insurrection. It's not that you would be wrong, you know, fighting against, you know, wicked people that are murdering babies and all these different things. He's just saying that's not your calling. That's not what Christians are supposed to do, all right? He's like that wouldn't be the greatest, you know, use of your life. He's like the greatest use of your life is to go out and get as many people saved, passed from death to everlasting life as possible in your life. That's the use. And he's saying if you go, you start a war, he's like they're just going to kill you. And then how many people are you going to get saved when you're dead? You know, when you've died by the sword. But I want to make another application to this tonight. And tonight I want to apply this to reverse engineering your flaws, all right? Because another thing that Jesus says to Peter is he's saying this wouldn't be the best use of your life. But he also says that if you take up the sword, you're going to die by the sword. He's saying that if you do this thing, you're going to suffer in the same way. And that's what I want to show you tonight. Turn to Matthew chapter 7. I want to show you that all of your problems, all of the things that you are suffering from in your life or a lot of the things that you're suffering from in your life have the same nature or the same form of the things that you are doing wrong in your life. So you should be able to look at the problems that you're having and reverse engineer those things to figure out the cause of those problems. And I believe this is why God does it this way. So we can figure out our problems. All problems, like, I mean, even from just an engineering perspective, trying to figure out what's wrong with the machine or wrong with the system or whatever, all problems are trying to show you something that tells you what the cause of that problem is. You say, well, what do you mean? Every problem with your car, every problem with any complicated control system, any problem with any, you know, system in a super complex power plant or whatever it is has signs that is pointing the person to what the cause of those problems are. The issue is, is that not many people know what signs to look for. Not many people out there can recognize the signs to see that point you to the cause of those problems. But the Bible is telling us here, Jesus is telling Peter here, he's like, hey, your problems, you can trace your problems back to find the root cause. Let me give you some examples. Look at Matthew chapter seven in verse number one. Matthew chapter seven, verse number one. The Bible says, judge not that ye be not judged for with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged. And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. Here this is saying, this is talking about the magnitude of your problems. This isn't talking necessarily about the type of your problems, but it's saying the amount of criticism that you have and the lack of mercy that you have is going to be measured to you. That's what the Bible is talking. Then he goes into hypocrisy and all these different things. Like basically it's telling you that if you don't have any mercy to people, you're not going to receive mercy. The amount of judgment that you have on other people is the amount of judgment God is going to have on you. Just talking about it from a magnitude perspective, all right? I mean, it's not saying don't ever judge or don't ever have any judgment. In John 7, 24, the Bible literally says, judge righteous judgment. The Bible here is just defining and it's kind of warning you against being super judgmental on things where you could not handle that same measure of judgment on yourself. Talking about the magnitude of judgment. So the point I'm trying to get you to see here, and I'm going to prove to you with several examples, is that your character flaws, and we all have them, your character flaws will define the method that brings you down. And that's how you will be able to figure out what your character flaws are, by just working that problem backwards. Because look, a lot of people are pretty good at figuring out the things they struggle with, but a lot of people are not. A lot of people are no good at understanding the things that they lack, the character problems that they have. A lot of people can't get to that first step of identifying that they have a problem and where it is. And the Bible is telling us here that literally your flaws will be the exact same thing that brings you down. Thus, everyone should be able to find their flaws. And that's what I want to get you to see tonight. Turn to Proverbs chapter 20. Let me just give you some examples. If you don't, you're like, what are you talking about, pastor? This sounds really complicated. It's not that complicated. Let me give you some examples. Look at Proverbs chapter 20 and look at verse number 19. Let's talk about the character flaw. I'll just throw out a few character flaws as examples here. Let's talk about the character flaw of gossiping or backbiting. You know, the character flaw of people that go behind other people's back and just talk trash about people behind their back. That's a huge character flaw. And unfortunately, it's a very common character flaw today. It's something that I believe personally, I have seen go from kind of not really normal 20 years ago to just almost completely accepted today. Out in the world, out in the workforce, wherever it is, it's something that people don't even bat an eye at. But we should. We should not engage in it. Look at Proverbs chapter 20, verse number 19. Proverbs 20, verse number 19. The Bible says this. It says, he that goeth about as a tailbearer reveals secrets. Therefore, meddle not with him that flattereth with his lips. Turn to 2 Timothy chapter number 2. So the Bible here is saying there's these tailbearers, these people that go around behind people's back just like talking about secrets and just revealing things that they have no business revealing, telling gossipy, backbiting things about people behind their back. Maybe they're true. Maybe they're not. But the Bible's saying don't meddle with them. The Bible is saying do not, look, there's this type of person, it's saying, do not be involved with that type of person. So the Bible is saying, the Bible isn't saying like, hey, don't do that. The Bible's saying don't even be around that. Okay, look at 2 Timothy chapter 2, in verse number 16. The Bible says, but shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness. So what is this saying? This is saying, you know, stay away from people that are profane, people that are speaking profane language, people that are saying, you know, nonsense and just bad things. The Bible is saying stay away from that thing. Why? Because that's just going to get worse and worse and worse. It's going to increase anyone that hears it, it's going to increase ungodliness amongst the people that hear that. And I mean, isn't that true? Isn't that true that if all you listen to was just profanity and just perversion and all this kind of, wouldn't that vex you? Wouldn't that vex you and wouldn't that harm you? I mean, would that strengthen your faith? Would that make you a more godly person? No, the Bible is saying that will affect you. That's why you need to stay away from it. Shun it, all right? It's harmful. It will come back to you. Turn to Psalm chapter 15. Psalm chapter number 15. Psalm chapter number 15. Now this is the real key right here. What am I trying to do? I'm trying to prove to you that getting involved, you know, having character flaws in certain areas will literally define your downfall. It will be the nature of your downfall. Look at Psalm chapter 15 and verse number 1. The Bible says, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? So the Bible is saying, like, who's righteous? Who should be in church, in the tabernacle? It says, he that walketh uprightly worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart. This is what God wants. Now look at verse number 3. He that backbiteth, he that backbiteth not with his tongue. It's saying this person that should be in the tabernacle doesn't do these things. Do what? Backbite with his tongue. Talk about people, talk trash behind people's back. Nor, look at this, doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor. In whose eyes a vile person is condemned. So verse number 3 is really the key verse here. And here's what you need to understand with my example that I'm giving you. Getting involved in gossip and backbiting will come back to bite you because the people that you are gossiping and backbiting with will eventually gossip and backbite you. In Psalm chapter 15 and verse number 3, that's exactly what the Bible is saying. The gossip, the backbiter, who does he do it to? He does it to his friends too. He does it to his neighbor. I think about this all the time. Whenever I hear somebody that is like trashing somebody that's not in the room, I'm just talking about like in life in general, you know, not here. But I mean whenever you hear somebody that's trashing somebody that's not in the room, I mark that person. Because I'm like, hey, when I'm not here, they're doing the same thing to me. And that's what you need to understand is that if you engage in that, if you feed that, not only will you become a gossip and a backbiter, but people will gossip and backbite you. And look, with all of these examples, folks, there's just bad people that do stuff that you didn't necessarily deserve. But you should do this check on yourself. Like if people, you know, this stuff will all come back on you in the same way. Turn to Proverbs chapter 22. I'll give you another example. I'll give you another example. Look at Proverbs chapter 22 and look at verse number 24. Let's talk about just anger and just being an angry person, all right? Look at Proverbs chapter 22 and verse number 24. Proverbs chapter 22, look at verse number 24. Anger is very similar to gossip and backbiting. Look at the Bible. Make no friendship with an angry man. And with a furious man, thou shalt not go. Turn to Proverbs chapter 14. Why should you have no friendship with an angry man? Or you shouldn't be around angry people, people that are just upset all the time. They just go from zero to angry in like a second. Why should you not be around that? Because you will become that. You will become that just like you will become a gossip and a backbiter if all you're doing is hanging around people that are gossiping and backbiting. Look at Proverbs 14 verse 17. The Bible says, he that is soon angry dealeth foolishly and a man of wicked devices is hated. So let's talk about somebody that just goes, they're just in a good mood and they're just like angry all of a sudden. One little thing goes wrong and they're just mad immediately. The Bible says be slow to wrath, right? Slow to speak. You want, look at Proverbs chapter 15, one chapter over. Proverbs chapter 15, look at verse number 18. Now here's gonna be the consequences. Let's say that you're hanging around angry people, you become an angry person. Here's the consequences. Look at Proverbs 15 verse 18. The Bible says this. It says a wrathful man, this is that angry person, that person that struggles with anger. A wrathful man stirreth up strife. But he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife. The Bible here is saying is being angry, hanging around angry people will make you angry and then being angry will cause you strife in your life. Just think about this for a second. Just think about, picture the easiest going person that you know. Let's just test this from the Bible. Think in your mind, don't say any names, but think in your mind the friendliest person, the most easy to get along with person that you know, whether it be in the church, whether it be at work or whatever. Do you have a person in mind? Now are they an angry person? They're not. Because strife is the end result of being an angry person. No strife. Someone that's easy to get along with, that seems to be happy most of the time. Find someone that you're just not going to see angry probably ever. That's why. Because they don't have that strife that comes from being angry. That's a perfect example. So strife? I've got all kinds of strife in my life. Well, we're going to get to the reverse engineering part here in just a couple of minutes. Here's another one. Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 5. Hopefully you see the Bible is clearly pointing out, take up the sword, die with the sword. If you have a bunch of strife, you're angry. The Bible is saying, go out and gossip, you're going to be destroyed by gossip. Go out and be a back biter, you're going to have people back bite you. Are you seeing a pattern here? God is trying to show us how we can find out what our own flaws are. If we're not good at finding out what our flaws are. Here's another one, greed. That's a huge character flaw. If you're a greedy person, if you're a covetous person, you just lust after more and more and more. Ecclesiastes chapter 5 and verse number 10. The Bible says this, here's the result if you love money. Here's the result if you just love things in your life. The Bible says, he that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance with increase. This is also vanity. The Bible clearly is saying here, if you're greedy, the end result is that you will never be satisfied by anything that that money can buy ever. It doesn't matter how much you ever have, that is going to be the end result. So look, the lesson here is this. The lesson here is this, toxic behavior in general of all kinds, I just gave you three examples, but toxic behavior of all kinds will spread to you and it will come back on you. That is what the Bible is teaching. So whatever form of toxic character problems that you have, whatever magnet, look, it's also, Matthew 7 is saying it'll spread to you, it'll come back on you, but Matthew 7 is saying in the magnitude that you have the problem. So maybe you're just a little bit greedy and you just suffer a little bit from that and the Bible is saying that it's not going to completely crush you, but if you just let it take over your life, it's going to completely crush you, you won't be satisfied with anything. So look, there's a magnitude level there as well. I mean, God wants to give you a chance to adjust and take care of your problems. Turn to Hosea chapter 8, turn to Hosea chapter number 8. The Bible says in Hosea 8 verse number 7, the Bible says, for they have sown the wind. So you turn to Luke chapter 6, I'll just read for you Hosea chapter 8, turn to Luke chapter 6. They have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind. This is an overall explanation of this concept that I'm talking to you. Whatever you sow to the wind, that's going to come back around and get you. That same thing, that same seed that you sow is going to come back and get you. Look at Luke chapter number 6 and guess what? It's not just all negative tonight because it works in a good way too. It works on the good side of things too. Look at Luke chapter 6 and verse 38. The Bible says give and it shall be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over. There's that magnitude. There's that magnitude. However much you give, it's going to be given back to you. Running over shall men give into your bosom for with the same measure that ye meet with all, it shall be measured to you again. The good thing is that it works both ways. It works both ways. Look, folks, this is how the universe works. This is how the world works. Even the secular world has recognized this concept that I'm teaching you from the Bible tonight. This is where the idea of karma comes from. You'll hear people, they're not Buddhist. They're not Buddhist. They're not any kind of religion. They're just like, oh, karma. If you do good things, good things are going to come back to you. If you do bad things, those bad things are going to come back to you. You'll see the idea of poetic justice. Some murderer or something gets murdered by a murderer in jail or something like that. It's poetic justice. But that's exactly what the Bible is teaching here. Basically what comes around goes around is what we're talking about. So the application is you should be able to reverse engineer your life. You should be able to look at the things that are coming around or that are going around and hitting you and figuring out where they're coming from by what the Bible is teaching us here. I mean, look, just go back to the examples that I used, the gossip and the backbiting. You're just like, well, there's constantly people trashing me and there's constantly people backbiting me. Well, guess what? You're probably involved with the wrong people. You're probably involved with the wrong people and maybe you're even engaged in the wrong things. So you should do a check on that. Now, look, is there just going to be bad people that constantly trash good things as far as maybe even because you're a Christian or whatever? Sure. But the answer there is to just, you know, disengage from those type of people. You know, I mean, shut the screen, log out, because a lot of this stuff happens online, unfortunately, today. So if you're dealing with problems from gossiping and backbiting, just make sure you're not doing it yourself. Make sure that you're exiting from anybody that is involved in that type of activity. Look, don't be somebody that's jumping on the dog pile when somebody's getting gossiped and backbitten and all these things and you jump on the dog pile and then be upset when somebody dogpiles you, is what I'm trying to say. All right, look. Look at the anger part. You have strife in your life? Do you have strife in your life? Why? Reverse engineer it. Are you quick to anger? Are you quick to anger? Are you in just certain areas? Are you starting to be a person that just snaps on people? You just get angry right away? Are you hanging out with people that are quick to anger? These are questions that you should ask if you just have strife all the time in your life. Do you have anger problems? Are you fellowshipping or being around people that have anger problems? Look, this is where strife comes from. Calm down. Don't hang out with angry people. It's pretty simple. If you have strife, do those checks on yourself. Just calm down. My dad used to always say, when my dad was dealing with somebody who was just a crazy person at work or whatever, my dad would always say, he'd always tell me, he'd be like, it takes so much energy to be a jerk. He didn't use the word jerk, but he'd say, it takes so much energy to be a jerk, I can't understand why people want to do it. He would say that all the time, because there would just be people that seem like they just get out of bed, they kick their dog, yell at their wife, and go and have a miserable day. Look, if you're around people like that, they're going to turn you into that, and they're going to create what? You're going to have strife. You're going to have strife. So if you have strife, reverse engineer that thing backwards and find out if you have something like that going on in your life. How about this one? Never satisfied? The third example. How do you reverse engineer if I have a greed problem or a covetousness problem? Are you never satisfied? Look, folks, there's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong with buying a new car. There's nothing wrong with buying a new house. There is nothing wrong with getting a better job. There is nothing wrong with any of that. The problem is if you start to love those things. If those things start to take the pedestals in your life, you say, how can I know, if those things are taking over and they're taking too much priority in my life? Look, go out. I hope you all go out and make more money. I really do. I hope you all go out and make more money. I hope you all better your situation. I hope you all go out there and just work hard. You get promoted. You get those credentials or whatever it is that your goals are set for. These are all good things. You say, but how do I know if it's a problem? Well, guess what? It takes some maturity to understand where this line falls. And the Bible is telling us here is that if you start to realize that you are not satisfied once you start meeting your goals, you go out and you saved up for years and years and years and you bought that home or whatever it is you were saving up for. And then two months later, you're like, oh man, I could live in that neighborhood over there. This is a problem. That's a problem. Because he that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver. If that's happening to you, it'll start to happen slowly. And God is showing you. He's showing you. As you stop being satisfied with those things, and look, that's when it'll also start to take over your spiritual life as well. There's nothing wrong inherently with those things. It's the love of money that is the root of all evil. Money is necessary. Good luck having no money. Money is necessary. It's loving it that is the problem. And you can tell if you're just starting to not be satisfied with the things that you have. The things that God has provided you. You go out and you get that new car that you were hoping you could get for your family and you don't have to take it to the shop every four weeks or whatever and you finally get that car and then you're looking at your neighbor who just got a new car and you're all like, oh man, he's got a better one. That's a problem. That's a problem. So never being satisfied is the sign. Now you can see your issues. If you understand that the character flaws that you have are going to come back and it's going to be the nature of your problems that you have. You can reverse engineer and find the flaws in the first place. Turn to Proverbs chapter number 26. And then guess what? Once you find the problem, you can fix it. You can make it go away. Look at Proverbs chapter number 26. So look, reverse engineer yourself. That's a lesson from what Jesus was telling Peter with his sword. What are your issues? Walk them backwards and you will find the problem. Look at Proverbs 26 and verse number 27. This basically sums up exactly what I've been telling you tonight. Proverbs 26, 27, it says, who so diggeth the pit shall fall therein. He that rolleth the stone, it will what? It will return upon him. Right, that's such a great verse in the Bible right there. Look, you find yourself in a hole, start looking at the shovel that got you there. You find yourself in a pit, start looking at the shovel. Where did I get this thing? Who gave me this shovel? Who told me to start digging? Who said this was a good idea? You know, what location is the hole in? Start figuring out where the problem came from. It's the same nature guaranteed that got you in the hole in the first place. The rock rolls over you, start looking back at who started rolling it or where it came from. You know, you rolled it on yourself, but figure out, you know, where, you know, it started rolling and it will be revealed to you the root cause of the problem. All problems that you have in your life are screaming solutions. They are screaming at you, this is the problem and all you have to do is look just a little bit. The Bible here is showing you that you'll be able to find where those problems are coming from. All right, now look, this is the test that you should perform first. You should do this. Whenever you're having problems, strife, issues in your life, in your marriage, in your relationships, in your friendships, whatever it is. Any kind of conflict, you should perform this type of test, right? But this is not to say that problems are all just gonna be caused just because, you know, you're a jerk or whatever, or you have issues. Look, what Jesus is saying, he's not saying to Peter that you're never gonna have trouble. What he's saying is, hey, don't cause your own trouble. Cuz look, there is trouble that will be coming to you just because of the fact that you were a Christian and that you were following what Jesus wants you to do. It's called persecution. It's called tribulation. We've been talking about it for weeks on end. The Bible says all that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But look, persecution, what Jesus is telling Peter is persecution for the word of God is the only kind of trouble that is worthy. That's the trouble that is worth your time. That's the trouble that is worth your life. Not all these troubles that you're just gonna bring down upon yourselves. Unfortunately, we cause much of our own problems. And it's a poor person of poor character that looks at every single problem in their life and tries to point it to some kind of persecution. It's like, oh, they got fired from that sixth job this year because they just don't like Christians. You know, well, okay, maybe you were going around and you were like, you know, beating the Bible in everyone's face at work when you should have been working. Or maybe, you know, you come in late and you leave early and, you know, you know, but yeah, you're persecuted because you're a Christian. I mean, don't spiritualize. If you spiritualize the character flaws that you do have and you don't actually honestly reverse engineer the problems that the Bible is trying to show you, you're not gonna change. You're not gonna get better at anything. But God designed it this way so we can take, you know, we can take the trouble to its source. We can trace it back and we can see. We can find, you know, where the strife is coming from. We can find where the anxiety is coming from. We can find where the depression is coming from. We can find where the pain and the stress and the suffering and all the different things that we deal with in our lives. We can find if those things are being caused by me, I would like to know. But look, if all that comes from, if we do that check and we're good and it's coming because of persecution, you know, because we're following the word of God, so be it. But that's what Jesus is telling Peter. He's saying that's the only thing that's worthy. Don't cause yourself a bunch of problems. But if you get persecuted for the word of God, it's worthy. Everything else, though, is a waste. Unfortunately, we don't have time to waste in this life. So we want to get as much right as we possibly can. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.