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

The part of the chapter that I wanted to focus on there was in verse 15 where the Bible reads meditate upon these things, give thyself holy to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. And the title of my sermon tonight is give thyself holy to them. But if we want to understand what he's saying, give thyself holy to them, let's back up just a few verses. Look there at verse 12, let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity, till I come give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine, neglect not the gift that is in thee which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things, give thyself holy to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. Now there's a lot of people, when they look at the book of Timothy, they say well that was just written to Timothy, or that was the book of James was just written to James, or the book of the Hebrews was just written to the Hebrews. Well that's a really foolish way to look at the Bible first of all, because we know Timothy's long gone, he's passed on, so you know a lot of people look at Timmy and they say well this is a pastoral epistle. This is an epistle written just for pastors and those that want to be preachers and that's who it's written to and that's who it's important for. Well yeah a pastoral epistle, that's what a lot of people refer to first Timothy, second Timothy and Titus, that's true, that maybe it's geared that way or it's written in that type of an audience. But another, but it's foolish again to say that it's only for pastors, that it's only for preachers, that it's only for those type of people. You say what? Well prove it, prove it from the Bible, well look there at verse 12, it says, let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers. So he's telling Timothy right there, this is how I want you to be an example to all the believers. Now how silly would it be if he was telling him to do all these things if the believers weren't supposed to do them too. He's saying look, you're supposed to be the example of all these things, in word and conversation and charity and spirit and faith and purity, he's being an example because all believers should be like that. All believers should you know give thyself wholly to the word, to conversation, to charity, to spirit, to faith, to purity, that's not just for pastors, that's for everybody. But he's given a charge to Timothy to say you need to be an example, you need to be an example of someone who's doing this. But it's not just for Timothy, it's for everybody. And we need to also give ourselves wholly to them. You know some people say well I go to church some or well I read my Bible some. You know we don't have a long time on this earth, why not just give yourself wholly to the Lord? Why don't you say I'm going to give it all to you, I want to give you every last bit, every single part of me, I want to just give it wholly to the Lord. Go to 2 Chronicles chapter 20 if you would. I think the Bible makes it clear that giving yourself wholly to the Lord, it's not something that's impossible. It's not something that you know all that's just for the preachers, all that's just for this one guy, no it's for everybody. Anybody can give themselves wholly to the Lord. Go to 2 Chronicles 20, I'm going to read for you from 2 Chronicles 12. The Bible says, so King Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem and reigned. For Rehoboam was one and forty years old when he began to reign and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there. And his mother's name was Naaman and Ammonitis and he did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord. There was a king, King Rehoboam, he was the first king of Israel. He separated the kingdom. He was a very wicked man because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord because he didn't decide in his heart that he was just going to give himself wholly to the Lord. And if you don't prepare your heart, if you're not ready to hear the preaching when you come to church, if you don't decide, hey I want to give myself to God, hey I want to do big things for God, it's never going to happen. The evil's going to come, you're going to fall, you're going to slip, you're going to go back into sin. We need to prepare our hearts. Look at 2 Chronicles 20 verse 33, how be it the high places were not taken away for as yet the people had not prepared their hearts unto the God of their fathers. When we look through the children of Israel, look through the times of the judges and the kings, they're often going back to sin because they just didn't prepare their heart to serve God. And if you don't prepare your heart, if you don't make an active decision, I want to give you all, I want to surrender everything to God. You're never going to do it. You're not going to just wake up one day and accidentally start serving God with your whole life. That's never going to happen. Nobody just accidentally becomes a professional golfer. Nobody accidentally becomes, you know, some really great architect or some great engineer or something. No, it takes a lot of work, takes a lot of dedication. Nobody becomes a great father just by accident. No, they purpose their heart. I love my children. I want to give them a lot of my time and my attention and my focus. If you want to do something great with your life, it's by making a decision. I'm going to, I'm going to give myself all to do this. If you want to be a great man of God, if you want God to be pleased with you to the fullest, if you want to live your life to the fullest, if you want to have all the blessings of God, you got to make a decision. Am I going to give myself holy to the Lord? So as I preach tonight, you know, I think it's important that we try to prepare our hearts. Maybe there's something that I might say that might offend you or you might not like or it's not popular today, but we need to just prepare our hearts. Hey, I want to give my whole life to God. I want to prepare my heart. If God's word says something, maybe I should correct it. Maybe I'm here for a reason. Go to Ephesians chapter four and we'll look at my first point. You know, the Bible's not always popular. It's not always convenient. It's not always comfortable. I think a lot of people, they go to a church where they feel comfortable. They don't want the pastor to get up and preach on anything that makes them feel uncomfortable. But when you talk about giving your whole life to God, it's uncomfortable. It's just uncomfortable because we have a sin nature, because our world's full of sin, because there's so much wickedness and to be taken out of that, to give yourself holy to God, it's a little bit uncomfortable to make that decision. Go to Ephesians four, look at verse 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, they may minister grace unto the hearers and greet not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed into the day of redemption. So when we look at the six points that we had in Timothy, the first one was in word. We need to control our tongue if we're going to give ourselves holy unto God. If you want to be used of God, if you want to be a great man of God, if you want to have God pleased with you, you got to control your tongue. You got to control what comes out of your mouth. He says let no corrupt communication. That doesn't mean while I'm in church I'm going to behave. That means no. When you're on the freeway and someone cuts you off, I'll let no corrupt communication come out of my mouth. Hey, that's a hard thing to do. That's a hard thing to control your tongue when you're in that situation. But God didn't say well just when you're in church, just when you're around your mom. I mean some people they have a mom voice and they have their friends voice. When they're around their mom, they sound completely different than when they're around their friends. But God said look, don't have any corrupt communication come out of your mouth, never. We should control our tongues because when you start speaking perverted things, when you start speaking corrupt things, it's going to change your mind, it's going to change your attitude, it's going to change your heart. You can't give yourself holy to the Lord when corrupt things are coming out of your mouth all the time. You got to get your mouth under control. You say I want to do many things for God. Well clean up your mouth. Clean up the things that are coming out of your mouth. Not just when you're in church, when you're a private, when you're around your friends of the world or something. Get away from them. Get away from somebody that's speaking all these things. Go to James chapter 3 if you would. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13, when I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. You know, a lot of times people pick up a lot of bad habits when they go to school. They go to a public school. I went to public school. Man, I had a filthy mouth going to public school. You just kind of all feed off of one another. You know what? If you want to become a man, why don't you put away the childish things? You know, it's childish to speak, you know, all these perverted things and to speak with cursing constantly. You just sound like an idiot. You just sound like a fool when the only thing that comes out of your mouth is a four-letter word. There's a lot of ugly four-letter words. You say, well, where does the Bible say I shouldn't swear? Well when it talks about not swearing, it's talking about taking an oath, but it says let no communication come out of your mouth. We shouldn't be speaking as children. John 15 says, a wholesome tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness there is a breach in the spirit. You know, it's actually hurting yourself when you let all this filth come out of your mouth, but a wholesome tongue is a tree of life. It's going to bless other people. It's going to bless you. When you go out and preach the gospel, it's a tree of life. It's getting people saved. When perverted things come out of your mouth, nothing good happens. Nothing good comes from that. Jesus said in Matthew 12, but I say to you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an encounter of in the day of judgment. That's a pretty strong thing to say. Every idle word? Do we really think about that when something perverted or something gross comes out of our mouth? Hey, God's going to, you know, he said every idle word would come into the judgment. Man, that's a scary thought. James chapter three, verse nine, therewith blessed we God, even the Father, and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God, out of the same mouth receive blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Do the fountains send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? He said, look, it's common that a lot of people, they'll get up and say praise the Lord, praise Jesus, and then they'll just swear out their brother. They'll just get all mad at him and talk evil. They're a hypocrite. You can't just, you can't just speak out of both sides of your mouth. The Bible says, look, it says a fountains send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter. You're not known by the good things you say, you're known by the evil things you say. You know a guy say, this, I like being on this guy, he never says anything negative. He's never down on anybody. He never says anything mean. He's never swearing. Even when you don't say stuff, people know it. People pay attention. And if you say ten great things and then you let one perverted thing slip out, people are going to pay attention to the perverted thing. People are going to, that's what's going to stick in their mind. They're going to be like, well, did you hear what this one guy said this one time? They're going to forget all the other stuff. But when you say some perverted thing, when you're talking ugly, you know, even your boss, maybe you're a really good employee, you show up to work, but then you didn't pay attention to your boss who's standing right behind you and you say something stupid about your boss. Say, oh man, did you see the boss? I hate that guy. Now all of a sudden you just ruined your entire reputation because you let something stupid, something foolish come out of your mouth. We need to be careful. We should let no corrupt communication come out of our mouth. Why? We should give ourselves holy to the Lord. We need to control our tongue. And if you're not controlling your tongue, you're not going to be able to give yourself holy to the Lord. Go to Ephesians chapter two if you would. Whenever you say something mean, it just hurts. It sticks with people for a really long time. You know, and it's really true. If you have a wife, they can remember all the mean things you said. They're not going to remember every good thing that you said, but man, if you said something wicked or mean, they're going to remember that five years, ten years, twenty, it's going to follow you forever. Because when someone says something mean and it's somebody close to you, it really sticks. It really hurts. I can remember a lot of things that family members or friends or people have said to me that really hurt because it just sticks with you. That's why we should make sure that we keep our tongues under control. We don't want to hurt the brethren. We don't want to destroy relationships. We don't want people to think poorly of us just because we let our tongues slip one time. And if you want to wholly serve God, you want to serve God with your whole life, we need to just keep a blameless reputation. We need to have a clean mouth. And if you're just cussing in private, then it's going to come out in public and it's going to ruin you. That's why you should just keep it in control all the time, even when you think nobody's looking. Look at Ephesians two verse three, among them also we had our conversation in times past and the lust of our flesh, fulfilling desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. So the first point was in word, second point is in conversation. Now the word conversation a lot of times people today think of it as like having a conversation, talking to people. But most of the time when the Bible uses the word conversation, it's talking about lifestyle. It's talking about how you live your life, what your daily actions are like, what's your conversation like. And it says look, in times past we all fulfilled the lust of the flesh. We were all fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind. We were, you know, in sin and living insidious lives, doing bad things. Nobody just came out of the womb perfect. Nobody came out of the womb going to, you know, the perfect church and believed all the perfect things. No, we've all been sinners. We've all been, you know, the lust of our flesh. What does this mean, the lust of our flesh? Well one that's just super obvious that affects most people is television. The fact that people are just constantly, they're just giving themselves over to television. They're giving themselves over to the dumb box, to the idiot box, to the thing that just makes you stupid. If you just watch a bunch of TV, you're going to become stupid. You're going to forget all the things you learned in school. You're going to forget anything of any kind of wisdom, any kind of morality. It's just going to make you an idiot. And you know, all of us have probably watched TV. I mean I don't, I haven't really met anybody in my entire life, well I've never watched a show on TV. I've never watched a movie. But you know, if you want to give yourself holy to the Lord, you can't just sit in front of the TV, in front of Hollywood, in front of the world and expect to serve Christ with your life. You need to just give that up. You need to just get rid of it. Get it out of your life. The Bible says, I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes. I hate the work of them that turn aside, they shall not leave to me. You know, when I was growing up, I was going to a really bad church. I was going to a church that taught that basically nothing was the same. I mean, you could go watch radar movies, you could go drinking, you could do all these things. Not a sin. It's not a big deal. But I knew in my heart that if I ever wanted to serve God, if I ever wanted to be a faithful servant of God, I was going to have to give up a lot of things in my life. I was going to have to give up the TV and give up the movies and give the video games. I knew they were wrong. I knew they were sinful. Whether or not my church would teach it or not. But I realized, I said, you know what, I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can give up the TV. As a kid, I spent hours in front of the TV. I played every video game for hours and days and weeks. That was the only thing I could think about. It was the only thing I ever did. My mom gave me a rule that I could only play video games for three hours a day and I thought it was torture. Like, I was like, what am I going to do with the rest of the day? I was just playing. But then when I became a man and I put away childish things and I just got rid of all those things, I realized that I didn't miss it. I realized that it wasn't a part of my life that I even desired anymore. You know, there's a lot of things in our lives, in our past, that when we give up, it might be kind of a struggle or it might be difficult. And I thought this was going to be horrible. I thought it was going to be like super painful. I'll be honest with you, I don't even desire it anymore. And it's not because I think I'm special or I'm more righteous or I'm so godly. No, it's such a waste. It's so wicked and when you walk away from it, you realize how stupid it is. How wicked it is. How it's constantly all whores and whoremongers, constantly fornication, constantly beer commercials, constantly people dressed indecently, always talking about rape, talking about all these wicked things. You got all kinds of faggots and all kinds of things on the television, perverting the minds of the young people. You know, when I go over to my mother-in-law's house and she'd always have the TV on and it would just be, well, a bunch of whores on the bed. And you walk into the room and there's just a bunch of whores on this huge screen TV. Nobody's saying a word. I mean, I'm pretty sure if you walk into a room with your mother-in-law and there's two literal whores sitting there, she'd probably think of something. She'd probably be like, whoa. But if it's on the screen, it's okay. If it's flat screen, it's okay. What happens when it's a 3D TV? I mean, when people have even greater technology. We need to get that stuff out of our lives, out of our minds because we can't serve God if we're fiddling ourselves with the world. And the only thing that's on TV is trash. Now I'm not saying that owning a TV itself is a sin. I mean, people could watch the exact same things on a phone or on a computer. Is it really a sin to have a computer screen or to have a telephone or to have a TV? No. It's what you're putting on the devices. So just because, well, I don't watch TV, well, are you putting all that filth on your computer? Are you putting all that filth on your phone? I'll set no wicked thing before my eyes. We need to get all that junk out of our life. You know, I think the perfect analogy for me is when I was younger, I always used to drink Dr. Pepper. I loved to drink Dr. Pepper. It was like the only drink that I would drink. But eventually I just realized, like, it wasn't good for me, it didn't really have any value, it's kind of expensive. So I was like, I'm just going to drink water. Why not? I mean, there was no, I just, as a like 12 year old or 13 years old, I'm just going to stop drinking Dr. Pepper. So I just only drink water. And then like several years go by, maybe even months, I don't know, a very long time, I never drink it. But then the next time I got a Dr. Pepper I was like, oh, I love Dr. Pepper, I'm going to have a Dr. Pepper. And I'd take a big swig and it was like, ugh, this is gross. This is yuck. This is disgusting. You know, that's the same way it would be with TV. If I went back and I were to watch some show or watch some movie of the world today, at first you see that horror, horror monger on the screen, you're like, oh, you watch some faggot come on the screen, you're like, oh, see some murder, you see all this perverted junk. It grosses you out. But then if you just sit there, you start, oh, oh, and then you just become a zombie. You just, it just becomes a brain, you just become brainwashed. You know, if I kept drinking that Dr. Pepper, I'd get back to where I liked it. I'd get back to where I loved it. I would start drinking it every day. It's that first reaction when you get back to it and you realize this is junk, this is trash. The same thing with the TV, the same thing with the movies. When you go back to that first time, you realize, whoa, that's wicked, whoa, that's evil. But if you sit there and you just let it sink in, if you just consistently, you know, consume yourself with it, you'll get to a point where you can tolerate it. You'll get to a point where there'll be all the wicked stuff you could all possibly see on the screen and you have your grandkids there standing there looking at it, looking at a bunch of whores and whoremongers and you don't think anything of it. But if you separate yourself from that wickedness, if you separate yourself from all the things on the screen, you can realize that it's just trash. The Bible says for you to be bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. God didn't design us to just look at trash all day, to look at filth all day. No, we have more in our lives to live for. There's so much you can do with your life. It's not all TV. If you give up TV, there's so many things you can do. And if you want to give yourself holy to God, you need to just cut out all the junk, cut out all the trash. Give up all your selfish desires. Give up the ideas for your career. Maybe give up that family member that's keeping you from serving the Lord. Give up sinful habits. Give up your bad habits. The Bible says abstain from all appearance of evil. I wish I had heard that verse a long time ago. The Bible says, look, if there's something even kind of evil, it just seems evil. Get away from it. Abstain from all appearance of evil. If it even just seems like it's wrong, just get away. Because it's not worth it. It's not worth it to surround yourself with the evil and the wickedness of this world. And we should give ourselves holy to the Lord. We should try to get the sin out of our life. We should try to get the junk out of our life. We should just give ourselves holy to the Lord. Why? He bought and paid us. He paid for your life. So you just want to get your oil. He bought and paid me, so I'm just going to go and just live in sin, live in wickedness, even though it's going to harm me, it's going to hurt me, it's going to destroy my relationships, nothing good is going to come of it, and I'm going to get to heaven and have no reward. I'm going to say, well, what do you do? Well, I can quote for you the whole Seinfeld series. Well, you know, I watch every single show of Friends, but I don't have any friends, because all I do is just stare at the TV every day. Go to John chapter 15. You know what? Sometimes you think, like, man, I'm just giving up my time. I'm giving up the things that I love. I'm giving up all that stuff that I just, you know, the music and the TV and Hollywood, all these things. I'm giving them up. It's going to be terrible. No, you'll find greater things to do with your time. You'll find greater ways to entertain yourself. You know, maybe you need to give up some of the traditions of your family that are sinful or wicked. Maybe give up the birth control. God said, be fruitful and multiply. But look at John 15, verse 1. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch of me that beareth not fruit he taketh away. And every branch that beareth fruit, he purges them, that it may bring forth more fruit. The thing I love about this verse is he's talking about soul winners. Talking about people that have already brought forth fruit. They go out and they're preaching the gospel. And he says, look, that's great that you're a soul winner. That's great that you do things for God, but guess what? I want to purge you more. I want to get that other thing out of your life. I want to get the music or the TV or the cell phone. Whatever is distracting you from serving me more, from giving yourself holy to me. Just get rid of it. Get it out of your life. Have nothing to do with it. Why? And get more fruit. You say, oh man, I'm going to have a person to Christ every week. That's great. But maybe God has something in your life that you could purge and you could win five people a week. Or you could win more people a week. Or you could even just win the one person a week. Maybe you don't go so weak. But maybe God has something in your life and you probably know better than I do that, hey, if I give this up, maybe I can serve God more. Maybe I can give myself holy to the Lord and he could purge me. God doesn't want to purge you just because he thinks it's fun. He's not like, well, this guy really loves TV. I just want to take it away from him. He's not like the guy with the magnifying glass just burning the ants' antennas off because he thinks it's fun. No, he wants to purge you so you can bring forth more fruit. And guess what? If you bring forth more fruit, you're going to have more rewards in heaven. He's trying to help you get more rewards in heaven and stop wasting your life and throwing it away and ruining your relationships. Go to 1 Peter chapter 4. So we need to try to give ourselves holy to the Lord because it will only bless us. It will only make us better. It will help us bring forth more fruit. And if you're speaking of reverted things, nothing good is ever going to come of it. You may lose relationships. You may lose, you know, your job. You can lose all kinds of things through the reverted things coming into your mouth. Lose respect of all the people that are around you. If you decide to just live in the flesh, to live of this world, God can't use you as much as he could if you just couldn't give it up. If you give it up, if you let yourself get courage from the world, he can bring forth more fruit. Look at 1 Peter 4 verse 8. And above all things have fervored charity among yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. The Bible says we should love our neighbors ourselves. Charity is one of the greatest things that a Christian can do with his life. It's kind of a higher standard. It's something that's not necessarily at first, but once you start growing in the Lord, having charity, loving your brother, the Bible says, But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother, have need, and shouldeth of his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? Look, if you saw a brother in Christ in need, if you saw somebody that, you know, was lacking, and you had the ability to help them, how could you say that you have the love of God dwelling in you if you don't help him? We need to have charity. Give ourselves holy the Lord. Say, Hey, these goods that I have, God gave them to me. Why can't I just give it to my brother? Why can't I just help somebody out? We need to be loving our neighbor as ourself. And I think it says there at the end, it says, for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Maybe you did live a wicked life. Maybe you did have a bunch of big sins. Maybe you have done a lot of wicked stuff. And the Bible says, be sure that your sins will, you know, find you out. God's not going to just let sin go by, but it says, look, charity shall cover a multitude of sins. Maybe you get right with God, and you're following God's commandments, and you're bestowing charity onto others. God's just going to let a lot of those past sins just go by the wayside. It's going to cover a multitude of the sins that may be causing the past. It can help you get over all that wickedness. And you can just go and kind of get purged. Be a new man. New man of Jesus Christ. Philippians 2 says, look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. The Bible says we shouldn't just be concerned with ourselves, concerned with all the things that we have. No, we should love our brothers so much that we're concerned about their things. How many times have you been concerned with your brother's possessions? With their stuff? Their car? Their house? Their clothes? Have you ever thought, hey, my brother's let me borrow his car. Maybe I should take really good care of it. I shouldn't just care about my stuff. I should care about the things of others. The Bible says, and above all things that fervent charity among yourselves, for charity shall cover a multitude of sins. Go to Philippians chapter 1. So we see, in word, in conversation, in charity, if we want to give ourselves holy unto the Lord, if we want to serve God with our whole lives, we've got to do all these things. But the fourth one he says is in spirit. I'm going to take a minute to really focus on this point because I think this point is really important. What does spirit mean? Look at verse 27. It says, Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ, that whether I come and see you or else I be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, and one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel. Look at chapter 2 verse 1. It says, If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any bowels to the Spirit, any bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy, they be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord of one mind. I believe when the Bible's talking to Timothy about being in spirit, he's talking about your temperament. He's talking about the disposition of the mind. Maybe you've heard people say, He's in good spirits. Or, you know, I feel really good in my spirit. He's talking about standing fast in one spirit, that they have this like-mindedness. That their mind and their temperament is all in the things of God. Having a good joy. But we see today, not people don't have one spirit. They don't have a like-minded spirit of joy. They don't get offended. They have a bad spirit. They let things ruin their spirit. The Bible says in Psalms 119, Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. Nothing. If you have the right spirit, if you have the right mind, nothing's going to offend you. Nothing in this Bible's going to offend you. When there's something wrong in your life, you're just, Hey, I want to get on God's plan. Hey, I want to give myself holy the Lord. When you have that spirit, when you have that mind, nothing's going to offend you from God's Word. Because you're just wanting to do God's Word. You're wanting to fulfill the things. But if you have a bad spirit, if you get easily offended, you're not going to be corrected with God's Word. You're not going to be corrected when the man of God gets up and preaches on your sin. You know, I used to think, in my family, we have a lot of strong personalities. And people would always say about me, they'd say, I like John because he's just easy to get along with. But you know, not everybody has that personality. Some people get offended real easy. Some people, you know, have a hard time getting over things. That's just who they are. That's just their personality. Well, that's a lie. Because I believe getting offended easily is a sin. It's not a personality thing. It's a character flaw. If you decide that you're just going to get upset with every little thing that happens that you don't like, or everything somebody says, or when someone reputes you or rebukes you or says something that you're doing wrong, that's a character flaw. That's not a personality. The Bible makes it very clear. Go to Matthew 15. Matthew 15. They say, well, John doesn't harbor ill will. None of us should harbor ill will. That's not my personality. That's a decision. That's a choice. And I haven't always been like that. It's not like I'm some special great person. There was times when I got offended by literally everything. And I would go as a little kid and I would sit in my room and I would just cry for hours because someone had offended me. Because my brother said something mean to me. And then I realized I was the only person suffering. Nobody cared that I was up there crying and weeping because I was offended. No, I was just hurting myself. But you know, there's so many people today they're easily triggered. Just one little thing goes wrong in their day and they're just in a bad spirit for the rest of the day. Just they're on this whim. If not everything goes perfect today, I'm going to be in a bad spirit. I'm going to be upset. I don't get my way. It's like a child. You know people like this. People you have to walk on eggshells around. You got to be really careful around that guy because he'll just blow his top. Because he'll just get in a bad spirit. He'll just be angry all the rest of the day. You got to walk around on eggshells on that guy. That's a character flaw. That's not a personality. Even in my family we'd always play all these games and hang out. And sometimes it was so tense it was so stressful. It was like if just one little tiny bad thing happens it's going to erupt. Everybody's going to start getting angry and yelling and screaming. It was horrible. We played a game of Pictionary. Maybe you've played the game of Pictionary. You know where you draw and people are guessing? Well it's always an all play. It's like if you ever play that game it's always an all play. And you'd have people and they would draw and you'd be screaming and then they'd get upset. And they'd say you always say you said it first. You know everybody's saying the same thing like you always said it was first. And they were like well we just got to let them win because they can't handle losing. And they're like oh yeah? Well your dad really can't handle losing. Well at least my dad's good at playing the game. And it's just constant fighting and getting offended and people are screaming at each other and yelling because they're just so easily offended so easily triggered. Somebody can't say anything negative to them. Somebody can't get in and say something like oh you said that my dad this sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me. Why don't we just believe that? We don't need to let words get in. It's not like someone's walking up to you and just punching you in the face and you're like that? They go I'm upset about that. You know I'm going to be upset. If someone says something mean and ugly if you love this Bible, if you love God's word this is going to be like water off a duck's back. It's a character flaw if someone reprieves you or says something mean. And a lot of times when someone's rebuking you or rebuking you it's because they're trying to help you. I mean most people they're not just going around telling you mean things because they hate you because they don't like you. Most of the people you don't like you don't talk to. You don't have anything to do with you. Somebody you do care about, that person you're saying hey I don't like that you did this. Hey this was wrong. They're often trying to help you. Look at Matthew 15 look at verse 10 And he called the multitude and said to them hear and understand not that which goeth in the mouth defileth a man but that which cometh out of the mouth misdefileth a man. Then came his disciples and said unto them knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended after they heard this saying. The Pharisees were always easily offended. Why? Not because it's a personality because it's a character flaw. If you get offended easily you're not right. You need to decide hey great peace out there which love thy law and nothing shall offend me. I'm not going to be offended. They didn't have God's word in their heart. They didn't love the Lord Jesus Christ so they were offended at every little thing. Every time Jesus gets up and preaches they're offended because he's correcting them because he's reproving them. He's rebuking them. Are you going to say that because Jesus didn't like them? He actually loved everybody. He was trying to get them saved. He was trying to help them by correcting them. The Bible says in Mark 4 says and these are they likewise which are sown on sony ground who when they heard the word immediately received it with gladness and have no root in themselves and so endure for a time afterward when affliction and persecutor arises for the words sake immediately they are offended. We see the baby Christians the ones that get saved but they don't prepare their heart. They don't decide I want to serve God. I don't care about the things in this world I'm just going to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and give him my everything. When anything bad happens they're immediately offended. Why? Again these people it's not a certain group of people that have a certain personality it's a character flaw. If you decide I'm just going to let my emotions and my circumstances dictate how I feel dictate my spirit you're going to get offended. It's always going to happen. There's always negative stuff going to happen. There's always people going to be reproving you. There's always bad circumstances. You're just going to constantly be offended. What a horrible life to be the Pharisees that you're just offended constantly every single day. And you know if you're like that one of two things is going to happen. Either you're going to drive away every single person in your life that cares about you. Or you're just going to be miserable all the time. You're just going to be constantly miserable because you're always being reproved and you're so upset. Or you're just going to drive all those people out of your life and you're just going to surround yourself with shallow vain people that will just tell you oh you're a great person. Oh you look great. You know and you got like mud all over your shirt and your face is a wreck. You look great brother. No! I mean the guy that loves you says hey let me help you out there. Let me help you out there. Let me get this off of you. That's yucky. That's gross. Let's clean you up a little bit. The Bible says open rebuke is better than seek or love. We should embrace rebuke. We should embrace reproof. That's why if you love the Bible you're not going to be offended. You love it when somebody helps you out. I mean man if my fly's undone I don't want everybody to sit there laughing at me. I'd rather somebody say hey zip your pants. I don't want to be an idiot. I don't want to be a fool. I would love that person. I don't want everybody to sit there and just snicker at me and be like look at this idiot. He's got the kick me sign on the back of his back. No the guy that loves him is the guy that goes over there and rips it off. Says look guy you got an idiot sign on your back. Open rebuke is better than seek or love. The Bible says the rod and reproof give wisdom. I want to be wise. I want to get smarter. From the rod and reproof. How do children get smarter? From their parents giving them the rod. The rod of correction. It'll help you. It'll make you better. It'll give you wisdom. Says when a child left to himself bringing his mother to shame. When the parents don't give the rod. When they don't give the reproof. Their kids are going to be horrible. They're going to be wicked. And then the parents are going to be suffering for it. You need to give the rod and the reproof. But it's just like a toddler who's constantly getting upset at every little thing. You know your kid does something wrong and you say don't do that. And then they're like Dad just said I did something wrong. I mean it's just like a kid. Only toddlers get upset when you just tell them something wrong. Can you imagine your boss at work walking up to one of your coworkers and be like hey you didn't fill this out right. And they're just like I tried really hard on it. Why do you like me? It's like this guy's a kid. This guy's a toddler. It's a child who gets upset at every little thing. At being rebuked. At being reproved. It's not a manly quality. It's not a manly quality to get rebuked and rebuked and you get all offended and you're all upset. It's a man that says thank you. Thanks. I'll do better. I appreciate you helping me there. I didn't realize that. Go to Ephesians chapter 4. But the Pharisees are constantly being offended. And when Jesus was preaching one time he says woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you are the graves which appear not and the men that walk over them are not aware of them. Then answered one of the lawyers and said Master, the saying that reproaches us also. And he said woe unto you also you lawyers for you lay men with burdens grievous to be born and eat yourselves touched not the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe unto you for you build the sepulchres of the prophets and your fathers killed them. So what happened when Jesus was told hey you know what you're offending some people. He just lays into them harder. Jesus Christ wasn't all we need to back... Oh I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Were you offended? I'm so sorry. I didn't mean that. No he just lays in them it's harder. He's like you killed the fathers. You killed the prophets. He's screaming at them. Why? Because he's trying to help them. And if you haven't been humbled by God's word you're going to be offended by everything. The Bible says it's better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and angry woman. I think unfortunately a lot of times women suffer this with harder more than men. The fact that they're just constantly easily offended. And the Bible is saying it's so awful to live with a woman who every time you say something that she did wrong she's just upset. She's just angry. She can't get over it. It's saying it'd be better just be in the wilderness. Be in the desert. It says the foolish son is the calamity of his father and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping. In Proverbs 27 it says basically the same thing. A continual dropping in a very rainy day and the contentious woman are alike. If God's giving us multiple verses about how a contentious woman is awful we need to learn hey it's not just men. Women also get offended very easily by just their nature. By just how they are. But if they love God's word if they want to get wisdom they'll love her proof. They'll love rebuke. They won't decide I'm just going to get mad when everything doesn't go my way. When my husband says something to me I don't like. When something doesn't go out perfectly. It's horrible when you have a woman that's like that. You know when I'm at work I always tell people just give it to me plain. You know when somebody's in there and they notice you're not doing something right or it's not really great but they're just like really tiptoeing around saying what they want to really say. They're like well you're working on this piece of software and it's really good and you worked really hard on it and it was pretty great but you know it wasn't exactly the greatest and maybe you could do a little I'm like just give it to me plain. You're not going to hurt my feelings. Tell me it sucks. Tell me it was terrible. Tell me it was wrong. But don't sit there and tiptoe around. Just give it to me plain. That's what we should be like. I want God to give it to me plain. You know the NIV is like well sexual immorality. No the Bible says fornication. You know sexuality is like trying to tiptoe around it and you don't even know what it means. You're like just give it to me plain. Fornication. It's a wicked sin. We need to have an even temperament. That's how you're going to get characters by reading God's word and becoming an even temperament. Where no matter what happens in your circumstances you can always praise God. You can always be of a joyful spirit. You can be like Joe when he loses his whole family. He loses all of his possessions and he praises God. That's a lot of character. It's not a personality. It's character. It's the fact that he prepared his heart. He was giving himself holy to the Lord. You don't see Jesus getting offended all the time. Look at Ephesians 4. I had to turn there a while ago. It says, Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down in your wrath and neither give place to the devil. When we just give ourselves over to be offended every single little thing that happens, we're just giving ourselves under the devil. Jesus Christ had his closest friends forsaken. They denied him. They lied about knowing him. Some of them ran away naked before they would stand with him. What did Jesus do when he rose from the dead? I need to find some better friends. These guys are terrible. Did he get offended? No, he went right back to his friends. And then he cooked them dinner. He didn't get easily offended when they did something wrong. When they did something bad to him. No, he loved him more. He went out and he loved him even greater. Can you believe she said that about me? I'm not going to hang around that person. No, we should love him more. Oh, this guy said something mean. Love him more. Have a great spirit. Look at Luke 9. I want to look at one other place on this point. We need to be in the right spirit. We need to give ourselves holy to the spirit of joy. Be of one spirit. Of one mind. Of joy in the Lord Jesus Christ. Having an even temperament. And I think it's such an important point because when you're in the right spirit, it's going to help you decide to get your mouth under control. It's going to help you decide hey, I don't want to live in that lifestyle anymore. In the conversation of the wicked. And the desire to lust in the flesh. If you have the right spirit, you're going to want to be charitable. Look at Luke 9 verse 53. And they did not receive him because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, we'll bow that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them. Even as Elias did. But he turned and rebuked them. And said, ye know not what manner of spirit ye are. We see the disciples were really easily offended. They go to the Samaritans. The Samaritans reject them. And they're like, well, let's just burn them to the ground. Let's just kill them all. And Jesus Christ says, you don't know what spirit you are of. You're of the devil. And you know what? When you just get so easily offended, it's not the right spirit. You're getting placed under the devil. We shouldn't just get, oh, this person did something wrong to me. No, we should have the right spirit of God's word. We won't be offended. Go to 2 Timothy chapter 1. So we see a lot of important points. I think the Spirit's so important. Because if you have the right attitude, that's just going to help you do all the right things. If you have a bad attitude, it's going to be almost impossible for you to be charitable. For you to have the right conversation of your lifestyle. For you to be faithful in your words. And the fifth point's in faith. He said in 2 Timothy verse 1, We need a lot more faith today. We need mothers that decide they're going to give themselves holy to the Bible. Why? Because when a mother decides to give herself holy to God, holy to the faith, big things happen for God. Big things happen. You want your children to do big things for God? Give yourself holy to the Bible. We see that when women give themselves holy to the Bible, their kids come out and do great things for God. We see with Timothy, it went from the grandmother down to the mother down to the grandson, and he was a great preacher of God. Why? Because the mother decided, hey, you know what, my life's important. What I do is important. It's important for me to have a Bible so I can instruct my children, so I can teach them. I need to give myself holy to the Bible so that I can instruct my children all the ways of the Lord so they can give themselves holy to God. So I can be that perfect example. And when a mother gives herself holy to the Bible, big things happen for God. The Bible says train up a child the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Pastor Anderson, a man that was greatly affected by his mother, who had great faith, is doing big things for God. Why? Because the mother that gives herself holy to the Bible, it's going to just rub off on those kids. They have the ability to go out and do great things for God because they gave themselves holy to the Bible. It's not just for the pastors. It's not just for the men. It's for the women. It's for the children. It's for everybody. And there's never the wrong age of living for God. Josiah, he became king at age 8. At 8 years old, he was the king of the nation of Judah. But the Bible says he did right in the sight of the Lord. You can decide at 8 years old, hey, I want to give myself holy to God. I want to just purge out all the wicked sin in my life. I don't want to ever go down. I don't ever want to try the Dr. Pepper. It just sounds terrible. I'm not saying it's a sin to dream Dr. Pepper, but why fill yourself with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the mind? As a kid, I didn't gain anything from that. I wish that my parents had been instructing me in the King James Bible, have been instilling their faith into me so that I could be further along in my faith. If I instill the Bible in my children, they're going to be great. Big things will happen for God. What does that mean practically? How do you say this? What does that even mean? It means sitting your child down and reading them the Bible. It means opening your Bible and literally teaching them the words, teaching them how to read, teaching them doctrine, teaching them what it says. It's a no brainer, but families never do it. Families so many times, they just, well, we'll let the church teach the kids, or we'll let school teach the kids. No, it's the parents' job to sit down with the kids and open the Bible and show them the Word of God. Give them the Gospel. That should just be a no brainer, but there's so many parents, they never give their kids the Gospel. They let some Sunday school teacher, or some church, or somebody else. We should be the ones that are trying to give our kids the Gospel. We should make them memorize Scripture. We should make them get the words of God into their hearts. That's what it means practically to give yourself wholly to God. It's not just saying, oh, I really love God a lot, giving lip service. No, it's sitting them down, showing them the Bible, making them read it, making them memorize it, get it in their heart. Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. They may not even want it, but when they're old, they're going to love you and appreciate you for it, and they're going to do big things for God. My last point, if you go to 1 Timothy chapter 5, the last point is that he said impurity. Now the only way you're going to be pure is if you're removing yourself from all this wicked stuff. If you're keeping your tongue under control. If you're removing yourself from the conversation of the wicked, of this world, of all the things of the lusts of the flesh, if you're being charitable, if you have the right spirit, if you decide to have the faith to trust God's word, then you can be pure. And impurity today is scarce. It's rare. There's not a lot of people today that are pure. You know, I grew up in a household where that wasn't really emphasized. And I filled myself with all the world's junk and all the filth, and I hate it. It's wicked. What does pure mean? It means unmixed with any other matter. Free from any contamination. We should have saved even the appearance of evil. We want to be pure. 1 Timothy 5, 22 says lay hands suddenly on no man. Neither be retaker of other men's sins. Keep thyself pure. Matthew 5, I'll read for you, says blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 2 Timothy 1 says I thank God whom I serve with my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day. Go to 1 John chapter 3. The Bible says in Titus chapter 1 unto the pure all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and their conscience is defiled. When you live of the world, when you like the world's jokes, when you like the world's filth, every time someone speaks, you think of it in a perverted way. Someone says something innocent and you think it's funny in a crude way, but the Bible says unto the pure all things are pure. When you're pure, when you're focused on God's word, when you're getting all that wicked sin out of your life, you're going to think differently. Things are going to be less funny to you than were funny when you were a younger kid, or when you were in the world, or when you were doing the seriousness. But the people that don't have God's word, nothing's pure. Nothing's righteous. You're not going to think good things when you're filling your mind with wicked sin. When you're just constantly watching the TV, nothing's going to be pure to you. 2 Peter 3 says, this second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you and both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. Look at 1 John chapter 3 verse 3, and every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure. I don't feel that pure. I lived a wicked life. I was the same way. I did all kinds of wicked stuff. But we can be purified through Jesus Christ, through the blood of Jesus Christ. We can be sanctified and renewed in our mind by reading God's word, by giving ourselves wholly unto God's word. When we get our mouth under control, when we get our spirit under control, when we get away from the conversation of the wicked, the conversation of the lust of the flesh, when we have the faith to follow God's word, when we're being charitable, we can become pure again. We can be washed white as snow through God's word. The Bible says every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure. Obviously, the first connotation is that we can be saved because we're purified by Jesus Christ's perfect sacrifice, by His blood. But even in your lifestyle, you can be renewed, you can renew your mind by God's word. I'm going to go to 1 Thessalonians 5, that's when we're closed. But the Bible makes it clear that if you want to serve God, you've got to make a decision. I'll read for you a couple of places. When it's talking about the children of Israel, there's two guys that have purpose in their heart that are going to serve God, Caleb and Joshua. In Deuteronomy 1, the Bible says, Save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, he shall see it. And to him will I give the land that he hath trodden upon, and to his children. Because he hath wholly followed the Lord. Joshua 14, the Bible says, Nevertheless, my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. And he also said, And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land wherein thou feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children's forever. Because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God. The children of Israel may have done a lot of things right, but they also did a lot of things wrong. They didn't wholly follow the Lord. They couldn't enter into the promised land. And the promised land was a physical place on the earth. It was a place that flowed with milk and honey. Why should we wholly follow God? Because you want to have all the blessings of God in this life. If you decide not to follow him in some area, you're going to struggle in that area. You're going to have bad things happen to you in that area. It's not just, well, I'm 70% on the right path. No, we should try to wholly follow the Lord in every single way. Because God wants to bless us in every area of our life. And if you just decide to give him half of it, well, I'm just going to give him a little bit. You're going to suffer a lot of affliction. You're not going to be able to enter into the promised land. You're not going to get into the fullness of the blessings that God has prepared for you. God has prepared for you blessings that you can't even imagine in this life and the next. But you've got to give yourself wholly to him. God does not want the full blessing of God. Well, you know, my Father in Heaven, he's infinitely rich. I just don't want all of the inheritance. I just want some of it. Just don't squander it. Look at 1 Thessalonians 5. Look at 16. The Bible says, Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing, and everything give thanks. For this is the will of God and Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit. Hold fast to all things. Hold fast to that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil. And the very God of peace, sanctify you wholly. And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body who reserve blameless under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible doesn't preach a half in half out Christianity. It preaches an all in. I want to give myself wholly to the Lord. And he wants to sanctify every single part of you. Your mouth, your lifestyle, how you interact with other people, your charity, your spirit, your faith and then ultimately being pure. Being right before God. When you're pure, you're in perfect fellowship with God when you're doing all those things. He's going to bless you wholly. And it's going to bless you. You can do great things for God. You can do great service for God and give yourself wholly. You can have rewards on this earth. You can have rewards in Heaven. You can have peace. You can have peace that comes from God. So we need to give ourselves wholly in word, wholly in conversation, wholly in charity, wholly in spirit, wholly in faith, wholly in purity. We should just give ourselves wholly to God and hold nothing back. Let's close in prayer. Thank you God for your word. Thank you that you give us the opportunity to become pure again through your word. I pray that everyone in this room that we could just make a decision I want my whole life to God. Not just part of it. I want all the blessings of God in my life. I want all the peace. I want all the sanctification. I want it all. I was bought and paid for. I want to give you it all Lord. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.