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

Here on the third, say it's all together At His table we'll sit down, Christ will gird Him south and serve us with His weak manna all around. Let us pray this morning. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for our church and for us to be gathered here this morning. I pray that you would bless our singing, that you would bless the music, that you would bless our preaching and our fellowship. And I pray that you would just use us greatly as we go soul winning this afternoon. Please allow our church services to be a blessing and honor unto you and in your name's son we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. We'll go to 409, song 409, and now that we're warmed up a little bit, we'll sing this one out nice and loud. This is a song to get excited about. The fight is on, and the fight really is on in our country. There is a spiritual battle raging and we need to sing it out nice and loud. 409, the fight is on. There are the first. The fight is on, the trumpet sound is ringing out, the cry to arms is heard afar and near. The Lord of hosts is marching on to victory, the triumph of Christ will soon appear. The fight is on, O Christian soldier, and face to face in eternal faith. With armor gleaming and colors streaming, the right and wrong engage today. The fight is on, but be not weary, be strong and in his might hold fast. Give God before us his manner o'er us, we'll sing the victor's song at last. The fight is on, the mouse of soldiers brave and true, Jehovah leads and victory will assure. The buck will go on, the armor God has given you, and in his strength forever we'll endure. The fight is on, O Christian soldier, and face to face in eternal rain. With armor gleaming and colors streaming, the right and wrong engage today. The fight is on, but be not weary, be strong and in his might hold fast. Give God before us his manner o'er us, we'll sing the victor's song at last. The fight is leaning on to certain victory, the bow of the promise bats the eastern sky. His glorious name in every land shall honor be, but one who will break the dawn of peace is thine. The fight is on, O Christian soldier, and face to face in eternal rain. With armor gleaming and colors streaming, the right and wrong engage today. The fight is on, but be not weary, be strong and in his might hold fast. Give God before us his manner o'er us, we'll sing the victor's song at last. Great singing. If you need a bulletin, you can lift your hand nice and high. One of our ushers will come by and give you guys a bulletin. Our new Bible memory verse of the week is Jonah 2, verse 2. Please be working on that. On the inside, we have our service times, our soul winning times. Make note, we have a Spanish service at 9 a.m. here in the sanctuary, so if you'd like to be a part of that service, all the singing and the preaching is in Spanish, and we highly encourage people to participate. We really appreciate those who are in service for this and are helping this ministry to grow. Also, we have our Sunday morning, 10.30, Sunday evening, 4.30, and Wednesday night at 7 p.m. We also have church-wide soul winning that meets here at the building. All those soul winning times just meet right here. All you have to do is just show up, and we'll help you. Even if you don't want to talk, you can be a silent partner, and we'd love to partner you up with people that are experienced. And so really, all you have to do is have a heartbeat and show up. Also, regional soul winning times, these meet in different parts of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and we have several different leaders here. If you have any questions about soul winning or you're not sure where to go or who to talk to, you can always ask your soul winning captains and lieutenants, and we try to put everybody in a tribe. If you're kind of newer to our church, you might just need to ask me or Brother Jason, and we can help you identify those individuals. He's our head usher over here. And then also, we have our church stats down below. One note as well, there is a ladies' time that my wife leads on Thursdays in the morning, and I believe there's a texting group for that specifically. So if you are interested in going out with the ladies on Thursdays in the morning, you can get with her, and she would love to have more ladies going out. I think as of late, we've actually been having a sizable group, and so it's a great opportunity to join up with other ladies and do some soul winning. Also on the right, we have a list of our expecting ladies. Please be in prayer. Actually, I should have marked out one because we actually have the congratulations to the Villa Reels down below on the birth of Adam Pablo. He was born on the 10th, 3.01 a.m., weighing 7 pounds, 9 ounces, and 20 and a quarter inches long. Congratulations to them. And also, our prayer list. Please, if you have any other additional prayer requests that you would like, you can always email those in. We try to update this weekly, so if you have reoccurring ones, you can just send those back in or give us updates. On the back, we have the upcoming events. The Heritage of the Lord Conference is going to be scheduled from October 4th through the 6th, and then I have kind of just a big picture schedule where we're going to be having some prayer requests. I'm not going to post that publicly, but if you would just like to at least see that, you can have that. Those who are planning on visiting from out of town, they can contact us and we can try to get that information to them as well. But pretty much, we're doing events in the first place, and we're going to be having some prayer requests. We're going to be having some prayer requests. We're going to be having some prayer requests. We're going to be having some prayer requests. We're going to be having some prayer requests. You can go and contact us, and we can try to get that information to them as well. Pretty much, we're doing events on Friday morning and as well as Saturday morning. Pretty much, we're doing events on Friday morning and as well as Saturday morning. So we have our annual spelling bee on that Saturday morning. If you would like to participate the spelling bee words list, So if you want your kids to study, is on our website, SBCKJV.com. Go to the events tab and then down below in the section that is talking about the Heritage of the Lord Conference. It should have a PDF that you can just look at on your computer. computer if you'd like to you can print it out of course and that way you can study it is at least still this year we're still using pretty much just only words found in the King James Bible and so of course we like to emphasize that as years go on maybe we'll incorporate some extra words too but there is a special hidden list that I like to say for anybody that's in the oldest group if they can get through all the words because you know read and I think we had one other last year they actually well maybe it's two years ago they were like what happens if we get all the words right and I was like uh-oh and it was like brother Ben I was like oh you know it's like I need to worry about that and so you know but from now on I have a secret hidden list okay and this secret hidden list doesn't even include words in the Bible it includes all kinds of things so hopefully that would settle any tiebreakers but of course I've always been extremely impressed by the kids in this particular event and even though there can only be one winner I feel like it's very impressive to me to see so many kids participating and doing a good job and spelling words and and being challenged and of course public speaking can be a little bit intimidating so you know I feel like the spelling bee even if your child you don't feel like necessarily they're gonna win I think it's great to at least participate have them participate and join in the into the event because I think it just helps them overall and I think it's just a great activity to get used to and so I highly encourage if you'd like to participate please try to do so also the Texas chili cook-off is October 31st of course this is going to be Texas chili and so there's no beans I feel like I say that and over and over and people get upset but that's just your problem okay so there you go I'll help you even if you don't realize it and then November 16th we actually have a Miami soul winning marathon that we're planning I don't have the exact details of that yet I'll probably get that out there soon I just wanted people to have the date so they could put that on their calendar well most likely it'd be a full day slow money marathon we're gonna kind of meet Saturday morning probably around 9 a.m. somewhere go out solely for a few hours have lunch go back out but I need to wait a little bit longer and get all those details planned exactly I think also Miami's I think it's more Spanish-speaking than English of course that's gonna be every city is highly segregated so I'm sure there's gonna be giant pockets where it's kind of 100% and and then maybe not as much so we're gonna try our best if those who go out there to kind of identify Spanish speaking areas and send a group maybe that wants to target those areas and then just more of like an English section and again you can't ever be sure that it'll be a hundred percent in either category but just trying to identify areas that are more likely going to have those particular demographics and so if you want to participate I would encourage you and pretty much every year we've been taking a mission strip to Mexico in the fall and I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna postpone that to the spring so we'll still make our trip we'll probably postpone that to the spring so if you want to go do some Spanish extra Spanish still winning Miami is your opportunity there so I'll try to get a sign-up sheet here maybe in the next week or so and so if people are interested they can indicate that as well that's really I believe all I have as far as announcements are concerned we're gonna go ahead and sing our third song which is in our special handouts it's where the spirit blows where the spirit blows and it's a really really simple song pretty upbeat and you know the kids really like this one and I wanted to try something with especially with you kiddos okay so at the very at the very end of the song on the last go I want y'all to try and give me kind of a shout go okay so instead of just singing that one we're gonna kind of give a nice little shout so it's at the very end with we will go all right so we're gonna try that on every single time when we go around okay so you can you guys help me with that all right let's go ahead and sing where the spirit blows a little bit let's go a little bit more tempo that was that was that was too slow for us all right we need some more tempo there we go there are the first Jesus told me over land and sea red black and white sweet in his sight where the spirit blows we will go go go go where the spirit blows we will go yellow and brown to every town not just the juice let's go in to where the spirit blows father spirits on these three are one holy trinity always with me where the spirit blows we will go go go go where the spirit blows we will go we bison fell sin tries to have but he grows spirit blows we go go go where the spirit blows he heals the lame call on his name faith alone saves empties the graves where the spirit blows we will go go go go where the spirit blows we will go good singing let's go ahead and turn our Bibles to 1st Corinthians chapter 13 our usters will be coming by to pass the offering plate and we'll be reading the entire chapter 1st Corinthians chapter number 13 if you please turn in your Bibles you 1st Corinthians 13 the Bible reads though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity I am become a sounding brass or a tinkling symbol and though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity I am nothing and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity it profit me nothing charity suffereth long and is kind charity envieth not charity vaunted itself is not puffed up does not behave itself unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh no evil rejoiceth not an iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things charity never fail it but whether there be prophecies they shall fail whether there be tongues they shall cease whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away for we know in part and we prophesy in part but when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away 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 for now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face now I know in part but then shall I know even as also I am known and now abideth faith hope charity these three but the greatest of these is charity let's pray father in heaven we thank you Lord for the services today and I pray that you would enable us to listen closely and pay attention to the message you've laid on pastor Shelley's heart fill in with your spirit now and also Lord just help us to apply the sermon to our lives not just listen to it but apply it and make necessary changes to serve you better we love you and in Jesus name I pray amen amen I want to look at verse 4 again the Bible says charity suffereth long and is kind the Bible tells us that charity is kind and charity is a true love and charity is a mature aspect of Christianity in fact being kind is not something that is automatic it's not even natural and I think that many people don't understand what being kind really is honestly if you're not kind you're not very mature and I think that a lot of people they don't really understand why they're not a kind person but it's really just a an area of pride it's an area of pride where people have a warped sense of reality and they're not really willing to take accountability for their own actions and their own attitude and as a result of that they blame everyone else and if we were to be mature as a Christian we have to understand that the world itself is filled with sinners our world is filled with people that are imperfect and people are going to make mistakes and that every single day you're going to run into people that are going to make mistakes do things that are wrong not treat you right mess up screw up do wrong and the mature Christian will still be kind to that individual will still have a pleasant attitude and will still be a gracious person regardless of the circumstances and I think that most people that are not kind their problem is is the fact that they themselves are too prideful to admit that they're the problem people that are not kind they believe in their heart that if everyone was perfect then they would be a kind person they think well it's actually the reason because you're a bad person that makes me not kind because you screw up that makes me not kind because you do wrong that makes me and not a kind person whereas being kind is not dependent upon other people you are the only person in control of being kind and if that was the right attitude then God would never be kind to us because we never deserve it I mean if if God is going to wait for us to be perfect and then be kind to us then he would never be kind to us so the reality is we must challenge ourselves and recognize that being kind is a difficult thing and that many people that struggle with being kind you're the problem you are the issue you need to change and honestly I think that we all need to work on this more if we really study first Corinthians chapter 13 it's trying to emphasize the fact that we don't exhibit attributes of charity our Christianity is in vain and you know this church is a great church I love you guys I think that we excel in a lot of areas of course we can always improve but one area that our church really excels in is just a desire of knowledge and trying to know what the Bible says and being familiar with it and memorizing it but the Bible warns that knowledge puffeth up and it's very easy because of getting a lot of knowledge and having good doctrine and and maybe having more intelligence or or wisdom or understanding how the world works it can cause us to be a little callous towards others look down upon others feeling like we're superior thinking that we're better and really we should try to have an attitude of kindness and charity towards the world towards our brethren in fact we should be a model of charity and you know I'm not saying that people in this room are not charitable or not kind but but I I believe that if we were to try and be honest with ourselves is this church need more knowledge or does it need more charity it's not even close we need more charity we need more kindness we need to be more mature as a Christian and work on this area and so I think if you're sitting here saying oh I'm good I'm already kind you're probably the person I'm preaching to this morning because you're prideful I want you to understand that there's a direct correlation to being prideful and not being a kind person and if you think you're kind you're probably prideful and not kind the person that is kind is usually humble about it and really thinking about other people what does kind even mean if you look at the dictionary this is what it says generous helpful and here's probably the most important aspect of it thinking about other people's feelings thinking about other people's feelings that's what it means to be kind you're thinking about how you are perceived and this is what often is an excuse of not being kind as you think well in my mind I wasn't trying to be mean in my mind I wasn't trying to be rude I wasn't trying to do these things but the person feels like you were being rude or they feel like you're condescending or you're doing something to hurt harm them and unfortunately perception is reality perception is reality if everybody thinks you're a rude person it's because you're rude whether you think that or not it doesn't really matter if everybody thinks you have a bad attitude it's because you have a bad attitude everybody thinks you're not a kind person it's because you're not a kind person it doesn't really matter how you come across to yourself it matters how you come across to others and the only The only way to really think about this is when you say, I'm thinking about how other people feel. It's not how I feel. If I say, well, I could handle that. I like to be talked about this way, or I like to be criticized in this manner, or I like blah, blah, blah. If you start a sentence with I, you're not kind. Kind is how do you feel? How do you like to be spoken to? How do you like to be corrected? How do you like to be disciplined? All of these different areas, we're thinking about other people. Synonyms of kind are being loving and gentle. Loving and gentle. And this is an important aspect of Christianity that we work on being kind. And that's the title of my sermon this morning is be kind. Rewind, no, I'm just kidding. It's just be kind, okay? That was an old saying back in the day. All you kids have no idea what I'm talking about. There used to be this thing called VHS, okay? And you had to rewind the tapes before you took them back to Blockbuster. Neither of these things exist anymore. Blockbuster or VHS, virtually speaking. I mean, does anybody even have, does anybody have any VHS? Look at all these people, okay? They're holding onto the past, okay, folks? These people can't let go, okay? This is how you know you're a hoarder. Go if you would to Romans chapter number 12, okay? Romans chapter number 12. Now, of course, some people, they have great home films or movies or something that they filmed and they want to hang on to it and I get it. My dad was really into VHS tapes and he would record Kentucky basketball games. But then somehow, I think it was me, I don't know. I think I like recorded over a game one time or something on accident and he did not like that, so. They don't have the read, write, protect, you know? So you gotta get with some new technology. But nothing's meant to last forever and the reality is we need to strive to be kind. Of course, you know, I think that many people that struggle with this, they kind of want a checklist. Like, okay, I rewind the VHS tapes, I put the shopping carts up, you know? Like, they just want like kind of this list of like, I just say an insincere compliment every once in a while. That's not really being kind. Kind is a attitude inside your heart that you have to actually embody because if you don't really feel this way, you won't really be a kind person. You kind of have to just work on your internal attitude and your internal perspective on life. Now, Romans chapter 12, look at verse 10. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in honor, preferring one another. Here's another clear commandment of us to be kindly affectioned. Affection is love, care, desire. And so we're supposed to have a kind love and care for our brothers and sisters in Christ and specifically in honor, preferring one another. We should hope that other brothers and sisters in Christ get honored above us, not that we are the most honored. That's a difficult task. I mean, I want to be clear. What I'm preaching this morning is not an easy thing. And if you think like I've already arrived, you're a very immature person because no one really arrives in this category. It's something that we have to constantly challenge ourselves with. And we really have to subdue the pride in our hearts to say, I really hope that this person succeeds more than me. I really hope that this person gets recognized more than me. And what a wonderful blessing of a church it would be if everybody in here was concerned more with someone else getting recognized for what they're doing than what they're doing. Like, hey, did you hear so-and-so's sermon? I really liked their sermon as opposed to, hey, did you hear my sermon? What'd you think about my sermon? Did you hear my song leading? What'd you think about my song leading? Did you hear my soul winning? What'd you think about my soul winning? Hey, I just want to let you know I cleaned up the church. I did this task. I did this thing. I just want you to know I'm doing this. I mean, that's just how we all are because we all are self-absorbed. We all have a little bit of a narcissistic trait. That's how our flesh is. We're all going to be a little bit focused on self. We pretty much all have social media and it's based on ourselves. Most of us are not running a social media page for someone else, okay? And if you are, you're a troll, all right? But I'm just saying, generally speaking, we're pretty much just obsessed with us and me, whereas a mature Christian, an attitude, would be thinking about other people. Now, of course, someone that's like a Judas will hear this and they'll go over the top and just try to be like, this person's amazing, greatest sermon ever, when they don't even believe it, okay? I'm not saying go around and give people insincere compliments. I'm not saying do things that are awkward. I'm saying that you actually just genuinely like other people, you're thinking about other people, and you're more concerned with other people's promotion, other people's success, than your own. This is what true charity, true kindness really looks like, whereas most of us this morning are typically kind of just thinking about me. Where's my promotion? Where's my recognition? Where's my status? What about us? And even our church as a whole, we can sometimes get too focused in on just our church as opposed to just Christianity in general or the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not really about Steadfast Baptist Church. It's not about Steadfast Baptist Church, Dallas, Fort Worth. We should think about Steadfast OKC. We should think about Pure Words Baptist Church. We should think about other areas of the country and other friends and other Christians and other people and be kind to those people and prefer them to succeed. Hope that their church is growing. Hope that their church is succeeding. Hope that they have good missions trips. Encourage their pastors and their preachers and their brethren. We should be a church that's constantly lifting others up, not just only focused on ourselves. This would be a mature attitude of a church, of a Christian, and even in the family, you siblings praising your brothers and sisters to your parents, which probably never happens. You're probably only ever criticizing your brothers and sisters to your parents, that's just not a very mature attitude. We should focus in on loving one another, being kind, and thinking about each other. One person in my family that really does this, and I really appreciate it, is my son Jackson. There's so many times where I've seen him just care about one of the other siblings. And I think it's mostly because of his birth order a little bit. But typically, not the oldest, maybe the middle child or the second oldest is more of a people pleaser and has a desire to just basically help others. But last night, we were eating at a restaurant, and I gave all the kids, they shared a shake, and the oldest decides to throw away the youngest's shake, and he starts getting upset. And then Jackson just says, why don't you just have mine? And I didn't tell him to do that. He just decided, randomly, he just wants to do that because he just cares about his brother. And I've seen him do this in a lot of ways, a lot of ways where we're picking stuff like cookies or a place to sit or something. And he often is asking the other kids, hey, what do you want? And then he'll pick the other because he doesn't care as much and he just wants them to get what they want. And I just see that attribute, and I'm just saying, wow, that's nice. That's nice to see a kid caring about his brother's and sister's attitude and their feelings and not just their own. That's something that you can't teach always. And you know what, I appreciate that in him. And I appreciate that when I see it in other people. I see that sometimes in our church, when we go soul winning or on missions trips or doing stuff. And you know what, that makes me, as a parent, proud. But you know what, it also makes me, as a pastor, proud when I see people doing that. But unfortunately, I often see the opposite, where people are being a little bit selfish, thinking of themselves, taking first, more concerned with what I get and what I have. And that doesn't make me feel good as a pastor or a leader when I feel like everybody's just self-absorbed, thinking about themselves. And they're not kind. We should be the kindest church. We should be the kindest group of people on the planet. We're the example. We're supposed to be following Christ's example. We're supposed to be kind. He exhibited great charity. Go if you would to Luke chapter 6. Let's look at God's example of charity in the Bible for a moment. And I hope that you teach your children at home that how Pastor Shelley is behind the pulpit is not how he handles himself outside the pulpit, and that there's a time and a place to yell and to scream and to call out sin, but that I'm not necessarily acting that way on one-on-one situations and out in the world. Sometimes when you have to preach the Bible, it gets a little rough. And you can't always be kind behind the pulpit. There's a time and a place for kindness. There's a time and place to call people out for being a whore or for committing fornication or committing adultery or people preaching lies. And of course, I don't show kindness towards reprobates and false teachers and evil workers and dogs. We don't show a lot of kindness to them. And of course, our church has gone through a lot of persecution. We've had just an incredible amount of protests. And maybe you could feel a little bit imbalanced, like, man, you're just always focusing on hating this group of people or being mad about this group of people. And sure, that has its place. But we need to balance ourselves and recognize that for the vast majority of our lives and our attitudes and our words and our actions should be filled with kindness and charity and grace and love. And we're not just hyperjudgmental. We're not just ripping on people. If I meet a woman out in public, and she's just inappropriately, I'm not just being like, you whore. That would be inappropriate. That would not be exhibiting an attribute of kindness and charity. We're going to see people, when we go out in the world, they're going to all be dressed wrong, acting wrong, believing wrong. And we just try to go out there and be kind and be gracious and be sensitive to them and recognize that the world is not going to be like a fundamental Baptist church. And that's OK. It's OK. And Jesus Christ was going around ministering to harlots. Jesus Christ was going around ministering to publicans. Jesus Christ was going around ministering to all kinds of different people. He didn't always sugarcoat the message. But generally speaking, he was still kind to these individuals and desiring them to be saved. And many people have been accused of hanging out with too many rough-looking people and having conversations with rough people. And we should be, you know, I would love to have that accusation. Oh, Pastor Shelley, you're hanging out with two sinful people. Well, here's the thing, Jesus wasn't going to the bar. He wasn't going to a gentleman's club. But he was hanging out with the prostitutes and the harlots. He was hanging out with these individuals. But in a setting that is an honest setting, a sincere setting, and he's ministering to them the word of God and the Bible. And so we should have this attitude of being willing to go out there and minister to the lost and to the sinful and to the wicked and be kind to them. And of course, then when we come together, let's be honest, when he preached to the disciples, it was a harsh message. It was a strict message. He was preaching holiness. He was preaching righteousness. He was calling people to repent of their sins, not for salvation, but in their daily life. And that's what church is. Church is different than the world. And we have to recognize everything has its place. When we're in church, we're going to be rebuked hard for our sin. We're going to be told we're going to be reproved and corrected. But when we're out in the world, we're gracious, and we're kind, and we're loving. And amongst each other, we should be gracious, and we should be kind, and we should be loving one another. We should be long-suffering. We should be exhibiting great attributes of charity. And I would challenge you this way, and this could help you with your children. When is the last time after service I came up and talked to your family and I started pointing out all the sin in your life and rebuking you and screaming at you? Probably never happened. I don't know of it. If it happened, I'd have forgot, OK? You can remind me. But I don't remember that. But again, from the pulpit, yeah, I'm going to preach the Bible. I'm going to preach what God says. He's commanding me to do it, and I have to do whatever he says. I'm subjugated to the Bible. But also, I need to be kind outside of this setting. And I hope that we can challenge our kids to recognize the difference here and recognize that Christian attitude is not going around preaching to everybody behind a pulpit, but rather being kind and gracious in our attitudes and our behaviors. Luke chapter 6, look at verse 35. But love ye your enemies, and do good and lend, hoping for nothing again. And your reward shall be great, and you should be the children of the highest. For he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Did you notice that the Bible is telling us that God is kind to whom? To the unthankful and to the evil. Challenge yourself. When someone is unthankful to you, are you kind to them? When someone does evil unto you, are you kind to them? Or do you blame them and get mad at them? Well, because you're unthankful, I'm going to be rude to you. Because you didn't say thank you, I'm now going to lash out at you. Because you messed up, because you did wrong, I'm going to have a bad attitude towards you. Or could we be like God and say, oh, you were unthankful? Oh, you were evil? I'm still going to be kind unto you. Now, that does not mean there isn't a time and place for correction. That doesn't mean there isn't a time and place for you to express yourself and say, hey, this was wrong. I didn't like this. Hey, you need to make a change here. But generally speaking, we should be kind. And God the Father is kind unto us despite our failings. I mean, we still have the rain. We still have great places to live. We have good weather. We have good food. We have so many blessings and kindnesses shown unto us. Graces and long sufferings shown unto us in our lives despite our sin, despite our failures. And that's an example of how we should be kind to one another. Now, this passage gives us a lot of things to think about. What does it mean to be kind? Well, look at verse 30, the first word here, give. What is being kind? Giving. Look at verse 31. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. So what we call the golden rule. How do you want to be treated? Well, treat other people like that. Verse 32, for if ye love them which love you. Now, again, some of these are kind of in a retrospective statement, but it's saying that we should love. Verse 33, and if ye do good to them which do good to you. And he's saying sinners also do the same. So we're supposed to give. We're supposed to do unto others as we'd have them do unto us. We're supposed to love them. We're supposed to do good. Notice what it says at the end of verse 33 again, for sinners also do even the same. This is what some people think. Well, I'm kind to people that are kind to me. Everyone is. He just said, everyone is kind to the kind people. Everyone is kind to the rich guy giving you money. Everyone is kind to the good boss. Everyone is kind to the good pastor. Everyone is kind to the good church. Everyone is kind to the good brother. But let me challenge you, let me ask you this. Are you kind to the boss that is bad? Are you kind to the pastor that preached something you didn't like? Are you kind to the person in this room that didn't do something good to you, that treated you poorly? Are you kind to that person? Because that's the challenge. The challenge is not, well, I'm nice to all the people in church that are nice to me. Good job. You're just like every unsaved person. Congratulations, you're not spiritual at all. The spiritual person says, this person has done me wrong, and I'm still kind to them. That is a spiritually mature person. And when people go around, look, people in churches like ours and every church, we're no exception. People in this room will say, I will not be nice to this person. They have that attitude. They think, if I see this person, I won't be nice, I won't smile at them, I don't want to talk to them. And it's just like, why don't you just say, I'm not spiritual, I'm not spiritual, I'm not spiritual. And I don't care what the Bible says. That's what you should say. That's what I hear. That's what God thinks. And unfortunately for you, God says the way you treat other people is how he's going to treat you and how he's going to judge you. So when you screw up, he'll say, well, I guess I'm not going to be kind to you, not be kind to you, not be kind to you. But you know what I would like? I would like God for me to be kind to me, gracious to me, long-suffering to me. I need his forgiveness. I need his long-suffering. I need his grace. I need his blessing. Therefore, I should be challenged that when someone else doesn't deserve my kindness, that I would be kind unto them, hoping that God will also be gracious unto me. You know, if doing it for no other reason, just do it so that God will be kind to you. It makes a lot of sense. You say, well, I just don't think it's right. I don't care what you think. I'm just telling you what the Bible says. And you're just not very spiritually mature when you can't be kind to people that don't deserve it, because that's the point. The point is this person doesn't deserve it. And people always tell me, well, how can I be kind to this person when they don't deserve it? I wasn't asking for them to deserve it. Just be kind anyways, because that's your pride again. Your pride is telling you they don't deserve your kindness. Therefore, I'm not going to give it. But that proves that you're not a kind person. If someone deserves your kindness, you're not kind. The person that gets your kindness when they don't deserve it, that is a kind person. So let me ask you this question. Are you even kind? How many people are you extending kindness and grace and mercy to that don't deserve it? Because that's the true measurement of if you're actually a kind person. Because if you say, I can't think of anybody that I don't like that I'm nice to, you're not a kind person. You're not a mature person. You're not being spiritual. Well, but I'm kind to the people that are nice. Good job. Everyone else is like that. You have not separated yourself at all. And in fact, some people, they're not even kind to the people that are kind to them. That's even worse. You know, I make mistakes driving. I don't think I'm a perfect driver. I think I'm decent enough. I'm not going to get a raise of hands, because I don't need that right now. But I know that I make mistakes. So you know what? I have this attitude when someone else makes a mistake on the road, I'm OK with it. I'm like, hey, no problem. Hey, they cut me off, whatever. Hey, they're going to miss their exit and they just dart off or whatever. Typically, I just say, like, that was a good move. You know, I just want to have this attitude of, like, hey, I know I'm not perfect out driving. If they kind of miss their turn, they get in an awkward spot and you kind of have to let them out or let them in. They cut you off a little bit because they maybe didn't pay attention or the lane merged. I mean, look, Dallas-Fort Worth, it can be dicey driving here. Let's just be honest. You're going to miss exits. It gets a little crazy. Construction, you've got women drivers out there, folks. OK. You've got foreign drivers. You've got women foreign drivers. I mean, it's just like, oh, man. OK. It's rough. It's dicey. And look, you should just be kind to those people. Just say, like, whatever. You know, and again, I get mad. I pretty much only get mad when it's just, like, two people that just won't pass each other. You know, you've got someone driving slow in the fast lane and slow in the other lane. That irritates the fire out of me. But you know what I don't do? I don't, like, tailgate them and honk my horn just because I'm mad about it. I'm just going to sit there and, you know, silently make imprecatory, no, I'm just kidding. I'm just going to wait. And it's frustrating. And this is what happens. You're late. And someone's going slow in the fast lane. And you're getting mad. And here's the thing. You know whose problem that is? Your problem because you're late. It's not their problem for being a bad driver. They were already a bad driver. If you're going to go out thinking that people aren't going to be a bad driver, you're going to be very disappointed. You know how you should approach driving anywhere? Everybody's a bad driver. So therefore, I'm just already going to be kind. Hey, when someone needs to be let in, I'm going to let them in. When someone's going to cut me off, instead of kind of, like, revving up and trying to make it hard for them, I'm just going to back off and let them in. And again, driving is not the only thing we're talking about. It's just an easy thing for us to all relate to, to just show, like, hey, I'm not going to go on the road expecting for everybody to be a good driver because I'm going to be disappointed and be angry. And if I say, you know, I'm in a bad mood because of drivers, well, that's stupid because you should have already realized that people aren't very good at driving. Did you realize they give everybody a license? I mean, how could you ever expect driving to be successful? In fact, I'm impressed at how well we even do, considering the fact that they give a license to virtually every single person. Because most people I find are not very intelligent. I mean, lots of people vote for Democrats. I mean, I would think just, like, based on ideology alone, we'd have, like, crashes every five seconds. The fact that we're even surviving is just incredible to me. So you should just go into life just saying, you know what? I expect people to drive poorly. I expect my children to make mistakes. I expect my husband to make mistakes. I expect my wife to make mistakes. I expect my boss to make mistakes. I expect my pastor even to make mistakes. Yes, I've made mistakes. Yeah, I've got a list, pastor. You know what I'm telling you? But you know what? You could still be kind to me. You could still be kind to your spouse. You could still be kind to them. And sometimes, again, it's that expectation. What's your attitude? Well, I'll be nice to them as long as they're perfect. Then you know what? You're going to die an unhappy person. You know that you're going to die as a rude person. You're going to die with a bad attitude. Why can't we just say, you know what? I'm 100% in control of my actions. And I'm going to be challenged with what the Bible says. And I'm going to actually add charity unto my faith. And I'm not just going to know what the Bible says. I'm going to actually add charity. Because the Bible paints this picture. And I want us to be very careful. The Bible paints this picture that a person that doesn't know much in the Bible but is charitable is better than us having all the knowledge we have and not being charitable. And we like to think, oh, man, we're so much better than the evangelicals. We're so much better than the non-denam. We're so much better than the Southern Baptists. We're so much better than all these other groups. You know what? Many people in those churches have a lot of charity, even though they lack knowledge. And any of us that are lacking charity are much worse. We must challenge ourselves to say, we need to balance our knowledge and wisdom with charity. And we need to be kind. We don't want to have this reputation of, oh, man, these fundamental Baptists are so rude and arrogant and prideful and condescending and think they're better than everybody. And again, people can have that attitude regardless of how nice you are sometimes. Don't hear me wrong. But generally speaking, we should not have that as how people describe us. They should be kind of like, man, you're a little bit nicer than I thought. Wow, you didn't really talk down to me the way I was expecting. You didn't yell at me about the sins and the issues that I have in my life. And they're kind of surprised by you actually exhibiting a lot of charity. And you could actually win somebody over. You could give unto them, you could do good unto them, you could love them. Verse 34, if you lend, lending unto them. Verse 35, love again. Verse 36, be therefore merciful as your father also is merciful. God does not expect us to do anything that he himself does not do. In fact, what God wants us to do is just follow his example. And God's example is merciful. God's example is, you know all those sins you committed? I've forgotten and forgiven. I'll never even mention them to you again. But how many Christians have that same attitude of, oh, yeah, you did me wrong? Well, I'm going to keep that in the memory bank forever. I can't let that go. And some people even put people in a category where it's impossible to ever get out of the situation. You did me wrong a long time ago, and I won't tell you even what you did. How do you fix that? That's not fair. What if God did that to you? Hey, you screwed up 10 years ago, and I'm not going to tell you what it is. Fix it. No, I'm so glad that I can even tell God, hey, cleanse me from my secret faults. And just say, hey, I'm sorry. I don't want there to be animosity. I don't want there to be some attitude where we can't be friends anymore. Because, man, do you know how bad this world is? Do you understand how bad Democrats are? Do you realize what communism is being promoted by our government? I mean, Kamala Harris literally just said recently, ban assault weapons. What does that even mean? All I know is it means communism. It's getting bad. If you can't be friendly to the people in here, come on, folks. We should be able to be friends to everybody in this room. Does that mean you have to invite them over to your house? No. Does that mean you have to let your kids be around their kids? Not necessarily. Obviously, we still need to have personal boundaries. Obviously, someone can come into a church and not be a good person. And when you pick up red flags, you might say, I want to distance myself from this person. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Let's be kind and gracious unto them. You can still be kind to that individual and just allow time to do its thing. Some people want to be like this expert detective catching all the Judases, but I think sometimes they end up burning good people in the process. No one's able to catch every bad person before they become bad. Just don't worry about it. If someone's really bad, it'll happen. They'll eventually betray Jesus Christ. Their heresy will eventually start pouring out of their mouth. They'll start showing you the flat earth maps or whatever. They can't contain themselves. It's going to happen. And then for the rest of us, unfortunately, I want to tell you something. Even good people can make some really crappy decisions. Even some people in here, they could do some really bad things. They could make some big mistakes. They could just, you're just kind of baffled. Like, why in the world did you do that? Have you read the Bible? I mean, some of the guys we look up to are just thinking like, what did you do? People are like, we love David and Saul and all these people. I mean, they're just making, you're just like, man, why'd you have to screw up again? You look at Samson, you're like, I really like Samson. You're rooting for him. And then you just can't stop going to the harlots. And then he screws up with Delilah. And you're just holding on like, don't tell her, don't tell her. And you're like, I told her. Why'd you tell her? Why'd you do it, man? And you know, there's going to be people like that in this room that you're just like, they make a bad decision. They hang out with the wrong person. They put themselves in the wrong environment. And sometimes they even know exactly what the Bible says. It's not even like they're ignorant. They just know, I shouldn't do this, and they do it. Like, I shouldn't get divorced, and they get divorced. They shouldn't get remarried, they get remarried. They shouldn't drink, and they drink. They shouldn't go to the bar, they go to the bar. They shouldn't hang out with that family member, they hang out with that family member. They shouldn't take this job, they take that job. People are going to do all those things. And should we just be like, stand back, stand by thyself, for I am holier than thou art. Come not near me, you wicked sinner. Is that the attitude? Or should we just be kind to those people anyways? Man, you screwed up, but if you need something, let me know. Hey, that was a dumb decision, but hey, I'm willing to help you if I can. You know, what kind of attitude should we have? Can we be like God and be merciful? What is mercy? You don't deserve it. Well, I'm nice to people that deserve it. You're not merciful. That's judgment. Look at verse 38 again, give. Notice again, it's just like, give, lend, do good, love, be merciful. Verse 37, judge not. Don't worry about judging everybody else. Condemn not. Forgive. Go back to verse 27. But I say unto you, which here love your enemies, do good to them which hate you. Bless them that curse you and pray for them which despitefully use you. But you don't understand, Pastor Shelley, this person in the church hates me. Bless them. You don't understand, Pastor Shelley, this person has despitefully used me. They took advantage of me. Love them. Do good unto them. That's what the Bible's challenging us to do, folks. And I'm not saying this is easy. I'm not saying this is natural. I'm not saying that everyone's going to do this, because they're not. I'm challenging you to do it. I'm telling you, this is a mature Christian. Hey, you've gotten a lot of milk of the word. Let's get some of the strong meat of the word. Let's be challenged to love people that don't deserve it. Let's be challenged to be good unto people that hate you. Let's be challenged to do good unto people that have despitefully used you, taken advantage of you, lied to you, lied about you, done evil unto you. I don't know. Fill in the blank. That would be a good church. I would love to go to a church where I know that even if I screw up, you're still going to be nice to me. I would love to know that if I screw up, you're just going to forgive me. I would love to know that you're going to be kind to me. If I misspeak or I say something, a miss in a sermon, you're not going to come up and just like, here's everything you said wrong. Now, hey, if you do that, I'll be like, thanks. And I'll try to fix it. You know, I also like it when people can kind of overlook mistakes, overlook problems, you know, charity and love cover the multitude of sins. And what does God do for us? You know, he covers up a lot. Go to Ephesians chapter two. Go to Ephesians chapter number two. You know, even, even my attitude this morning, I want to be clear. You know, I'm not necessarily exhibiting strong attributes of kindness in the sermon. I'm trying to convict us all a little bit to make that change. But we need to make sure and try to be kind to people. Hey, sometimes preaching needs to be convicting. We need to feel uncomfortable. If you feel uncomfortable, you're probably paying attention. If you're just sitting here, happy-go-lucky, you probably aren't paying attention because we all struggle in these areas. We all need improvement in these areas. There's not anybody in this room that I'm just thinking like, man, this person's got it. I'm thinking we all need it. I need it. If you think you've got it, you're the one I'm preaching to the most. Ephesians chapter two, look at verse number four. But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace he are saved. Raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. God has the greatest attribute of kindness. And we deserve hell, we deserve death, we deserve so many punishments. Have you even read what the law says about our sin? And how many times have we been punished according to the law? How many people have been punished according to what God said? I mean, how many people have been put to death according to what the Bible says is required for the death penalty? How many people have received beatings and had to repay? How many of you have stolen and had to pay back fourfold? You don't even realize how much mercy and grace you probably had extended toward you in your life and were so harsh with others, were so quick to judge others, were so quick to hold everybody else's feet to the fire, not recognizing how much kindness God has already shown to us above what is just, above what is the legal situation. He has great kindness towards us. Go to chapter four, and let's be challenged with what we're to do. Ephesians chapter four, verse 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. The Bible challenges us to not allow corrupt communication to proceed out of our mouth. What does that mean? Well, of course it defines itself. What does it say? That which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. What does the word corrupt mean? People don't understand what this means at all. I would guess that most people have no idea what we're talking about when we read this verse. Corrupt simply, if we think about it, is like something rotting or decaying. When the Bible says about the Lord Jesus Christ in Acts chapter number two, that his body, that his flesh, saw no corruption, what are we saying? It's saying that his body didn't rot. It didn't decompose. What is the opposite of decomposition? What is the opposite of rotting? It's building. It's growing. Your children are growing. What is edifying? It's growing. So when we speak to others, we should speak in a way that is trying to build them up and grow them, as opposed to what? Decomposing them and rotting them. We don't wanna speak to them in a manner or in a way that causes them to feel worse about themselves or to harm themselves or to turn away from God. We don't wanna preach things that would cause them or say things that are gonna make them worse or hurt them. We wanna say things that are gonna help them and build them up. That is what this verse is saying. And that we're supposed to minister grace under the years. Grace is not what they deserve. It's what they don't deserve. When you speak to people, are you trying to build them up or are you trying to strip them? Are you trying to tear them down? And that is the context of what this is saying. When you speak to others, are you building them up or are you tearing them down? It's not about what words you use. People, they kinda get, they run away with this verse and they say, this just means don't use bad words. And look, I try my best not to use bad words. Occasionally I do, because I don't really believe in quote bad words. I think all words are just words. And it's how you use them that makes them good or bad. But at the end of the day, many times people use the quote bad words to tear people down, don't they? And that's why it's a very close association. But let us not miss the point and say, well, you're a terrible person and you're an idiot and I don't like you. I didn't use any cuss words, I didn't use any bad words, but I didn't help that person, I tore them down. And many people that don't use bad words, they will tear you apart and tear you down so quick with all their nice words. But you know what, it's not about the word, it's about how you used it. And let us not corrupt people with our words, let us not tear people down with our words. What really hurts people is preaching false doctrine, which is a major component of this, by preaching lies to people, lying to people, deceiving people, flattering people. That's corrupting them, that's destroying them, that's tearing them down, but building them up is speaking the truth in love and with grace. That's what this verse is commanding us to do. It's challenging us. And let me challenge you. When you speak to your brother, when you speak to your father, when you speak to your mother, when you speak to your pastor, when you speak to the lost, are you building them up or are you tearing them down? Are you attacking them for who they are or what they've done, or are you ministering grace unto the ears? And the great adage that we have in our culture, your mom said, if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. And sometimes we need to just say like, I'm gonna bite my tongue for a little bit and wait until I'm gonna start ministering grace unto this person. Because right now I'm not gonna be ministering much grace. And it's better to just keep your mouth shut than it is to just blow it off. Sometimes when I'm angry, I say the dumbest things. When I'm upset, I can tear people down just as much as the next person. I can make people feel small and little and foolish very quickly with my tongue. You know, there's power in the tongue, life and death. We're supposed to be careful how we use our tongue. Hey, you kids out there, you could probably tear your siblings up pretty easy, but why don't you use your tongue for good? And not just always tearing people down. Let's be honest, the best of this is you ladies, okay? You ladies are master communicators. And y'all have an extreme ability to tear people down with your words. This is why a lot of women are not friends with each other. But you know why? It's because you're not being premature. It's because you're not holding your tongue. It's because you're not being careful. When we talk about others, we should build them up. Does gossip build people up? Or is gossip corrupting and tearing people down? And we should be very careful not to be spreading gossip. Hey, let's share information about other ladies. That's good. This person and this baby, I like this about this person. This is a good thing. As opposed to just saying, did you see what so-and-so did? I would never wanna hang out with this person. I would never wanna go and have a meal with that person. I can't believe that they're like this and look like this and act like this and talk like this. And did you see what she said and blah, blah, blah. That's not a good church. It's not a healthy church. If your relationship with other ladies only consists with talking bad about other ladies, you don't even have any friends in this church. You have zero friends. Friends are people that are not gonna allow you to just talk trash on other people. And let me explain something. You're just not a kind person. Look, I could talk so much trash on all the guys in this church. If I wanted to, I could call out so many of them for being ugly and weird and gross and doing dumb things and making mistakes. If I just wanted to be a mean, harsh, rude person, I could just sit here and be like, I don't like this about this person and this person said this thing that was dumb and I can't believe they did this. But what a dumb life to live for me to just tear other people down and that's my life. If my fellowship just consists with tearing down other people in this church, woe to me, shame on me. And you know what, the ladies in this church, you know what, just keep your mouth shut if you can't say anything nice. Because you're just not a kind person. And if your friend's gonna start saying things that aren't kind, just try to be gracious and say, you know what, I like this person. I don't wanna talk about them. And even if you don't like them, just say like, you know, that might not be fair to say, we don't know. Let's just talk about something else. Well, I don't wanna talk to you then. Okay, well, you don't want that person to be your friend anyways. What does it say in verse 30? And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed under the day of redemption. How many ladies are constantly grieving the Holy Spirit with their gossip? The next time you criticize another brother or sister in Christ, just realize that the Holy Spirit grieved a little bit, cringed. The Holy Spirit was just like, ugh, ugh, ugh. Why'd you say that? Ugh, gross. Don't be like that. It's not a pleasant attitude. It's not a lady-like attitude. What a shame it would be if people like, you know, I kinda like steadfast, but man, you just go there and the ladies will just tear you apart when you're not looking. As soon as you turn your back, they'll say everything about you that they could think. And I'm just warning you because, you know what, again, the ladies are better at this than the men. We can't even communicate very well. That's why they start punching pretty soon, you know? They're like, you're dumb, no, you're dumb. No, you're dumb. It's like, and then we just start hitting each other, right? The ladies, they can tell you why you're dumb. You're dumb like your father. You're like, whoa, what? You're like, dang, that one hurt. They're creative about this, okay? You don't even wanna go down that road. And I'm not saying use this superpower you have. Don't do that. Figure out how to harness that power for good. You're smart like your father or whatever. I don't know. Figure out something to say. What does it say in verse 31? Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Let me explain what bitterness is to you guys. Bitterness is someone does you wrong in this church and it's not resolved and you're still mad at them. And this is what I've explained many times. If someone does you wrong, you should have one of two options. Confront the person or let it go. Okay, that's your first step. Step one, confront the person or let it go. Your second step, let's say you chose the option of confronting the person. After you've confronted them, now you have to go to step two and just let it go. But you should only ever get to the, you should finally open the door of let it go and walk through. Otherwise when you don't, you have what's called bitterness. Now here's the thing, can you force someone to apologize and get things right? No, you can't. But you know what you can do? You can always open the door of let it go and walk through it. Now again, we're putting this in the context of us here in church. We're not talking about like this person's a serial killer and we're just letting it go, okay? Please don't get weird. I'm saying, but again, I'm not saying that what they did was good. Hey, this person lied about me, took advantage of me, took money, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. And you just say, you know what? I've confronted the person. If they don't wanna take ownership, I'm gonna open this door called let it go, let it go. And I'm just gonna walk right through it. Otherwise, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna be over here and I'm gonna be a bitter person. Why didn't they get it right? What's wrong with them? They don't love Jesus. They must not read the King James Bible. I have a verse for them. This should be the memory verse for that person. And you know what? All you're doing is just punishing yourself and being a rude, disgruntled person. Just go to the let it go category and just let it go. Just say I'm done. It doesn't matter. Give up. What do you call, do you really think you're gonna get to heaven and be like, I'm so glad you never forgave this person. Congratulations, you are such a great Christian. And you know what? You're actually carrying a weight. It'd be like you're running a marathon and you just have an extra 10 pound weight that you're running with. And it's just like, that's not helping you in the Christian life. You know what helps you? Just be like, bye. Just let it go and then just keep running. It'll be easier on you. It's so much easier when you're just like, you go to church and you say, I'm not mad at anybody. You know it's a burden when you walk in and like, they better not sit in my chair. They better not sit near me. They better not look at me. They better not even say hi. What a burden. What a weird mindset. You know, I wanna come in and think like, I can't wait to sing the song and I hope we get to sing this song and oh, this is a great song. I love this song. Oh man, I can't wait to hear what chapter we're gonna read and that's exciting. And I hope that the sermon applies to me. I'm really interested in this. You know, as opposed to just sitting here just like, eh, you're mad. Well, you're just not a kind person. Go to Colossians chapter three. What does the Bible say? And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake have forgiven you. God's forgiven you more than you could ever forgive anybody in this room. Get over yourself. You immature person. You're immature. When little kids won't forgive each other, when your brothers and sisters won't forgive each other, you're just like, man, they're just so immature. It's childish. And you know what? It can happen in a church. It can happen amongst adults. We can be childish and not let things go and harbor grudges and be bitter. Don't do this in your marriage either. In your marriage. Let it go. Every morning you wake up, let it go. Start fresh with your spouse every day. I mean, and honestly, you know who's most guilty of this? Is men. The Bible says husbands love your wives and be not bitter against them. You know what that implies? That your wife screwed up. You know what it also implies? That she didn't take ownership for it. And I hate for this to be true, but it's just reality that many women struggle with taking ownership for their actions. If you were to ask just like almost every person out there, they would say like this, mom was always right. And she would never, she would never admit that she was wrong. She just kind of had this chip on her shoulder and she couldn't apologize or get things right. And it's just, that's how women can be in general. I'm not excusing it, I'm not saying it's right. If you're not like this, praise God you're not like this. I'm just saying most women can't admit that they're wrong about anything. And so what you as a man have to do is you constantly have to hit this button. I'm just like, let it go. Husbands love your wives and be not bitter against them. Let it go, let it go. She was crazy, she was crazy. She forgets about it anyways. She's so busy remembering all the times you screwed up, she can't remember any time she screwed up. Cause she's got all yours locked down, air tight. It's like a memory verse. She could quote it on Wednesday night for the treat. If you needed it. But boy, if you're like, man, do you remember when you were crazy? She's like, I have no idea, I was never crazy. What are you talking about? And we as men have to just say, hey, you know what? I'm just gonna forget too. Forget, forget, forget, be not bitter. Look, I'm telling you how to have a good life. You know why people have problems? Only by pride cometh contention. Because you're just too prideful to be kind. You're just too prideful to be charitable. And the person that can't be friends with people in this room is a prideful person. And the person that can't forgive their spouse is a prideful person. And the person that can't take ownership for their actions is a prideful person. And if you think, well, I'd be a kind person if everybody else was good, you're prideful. Well, I'm just waiting for everybody else to fix themselves and then I'll be a kind person again. You're gonna die an unkind person. Colossians chapter three, look at verse 12. Put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, notice this, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. Isn't that nice? You know, I want God to look down from heaven and say, hey, he screwed up and he didn't even say sorry and he probably forgot. I'm just gonna let it go. I don't want God to just be up like, hey, I'm still waiting for you to take ownership of this one. That's why a lot of times I'm just praying like God be merciful in my secret faults because I'm sure I've transgressed against Christ, had bad attitudes, had bad imaginations and even done worse sins than that. And I know that I've sinned and I'm like, please be merciful to me. Please be gracious unto me. Please don't take it out on my family. Please don't take it out on my kids. Please don't take it out on my church. Please be kind and gracious unto us. That should be our attitude. Do you ever worry about your sin affecting other people? Sometimes we need to get right with God, not for our sake only, but for the others that are in our lives. You know, if you're a man, you're leading your wife, you're leading your children, how much are your sins affecting them? Are you taking ownership for them? But you know, Christ constantly forgives us for those things. Praise God that he's not holding everything against us. That should motivate us to say, I should not be like that to others. I should be kind unto others and forgiving them. Not having quarrels. I don't want to have a church filled with quarrels. That shows that the church is not spiritual. A church that's filled with quarrels and people are constantly at each other's throats and there's all these people that are mad at each other constantly shows that you don't have a spirit-filled church. Shows that you have a carnal church. And you know, you can have a lot of knowledge still and a lot of, we're really smart, and be a carnal church. And there's some churches that don't have a lot of knowledge but at least they're kind, at least they're gracious, and at least they're charitable. And you know what, that's a better attribute. I would rather us no less and be nicer and more kindness and more charity than for us to just keep getting so smart that we just think we're so much better than everybody else. Well, I came here to learn something cool. Okay, well, you know, stick around. I'm sure you'll learn something new every once in a while. I try my best to teach some new things every once in a while. I'm still learning. But you know what's more important? Let's just have a good attitude and have a kind attitude and have some charity. Right. Verse 13, verse 14. And above all these things put on charity. Hey, above everything else put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts to the which also you're called in one body and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. We need the word of God to dwell in us richly through charity. There's so many verses that I could go to this morning for sake of time. I'm not gonna go to all of them. Go to Proverbs 18. I just wanna go to a couple more. I kind of wanted to just hammer this, but I mean, Titus chapter three tells us to be gentle. Second Peter chapter number one tells us to have kindness and charity towards one another. Why is this so important though? I believe that Proverbs 18 verse 19 is probably one of the most important verses we're gonna look at this morning, but it really explains this. A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city. And their contentions are like the bars of a castle. It's hard to win people over when you've been rude to them. Think about you just go to a restaurant and the staff or the server or the person on the counter is just rude to you. Most people are just instantly put off and unwilling to even complete the transaction or they're asked for a manager or something just because they can't even stand just even a little bit. And we have to be careful that most people are very sensitive. Most people are very childish. Most people are very carnal. And so as soon as you upset them, as soon as you trigger them, they're not gonna listen. And we're supposed to be a bright and shining light into the world. We have the most important truth we could ever give them is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the last thing we wanna do is constantly trigger people unnecessarily. We're gonna trigger people by existing. We're gonna trigger people that we just have a Bible in hand. We're gonna trigger people that we're just Christians. We're gonna trigger people that we just go to steadfast Baptist church, okay? But we shouldn't trigger people because we're a rude person. We shouldn't trigger people because we have lack of charity. We have to be careful. And we need to be kind to our family, to our church, to the saved, to the lost. Give it to Proverbs 31. You know, the Bible describes lacking charity, and we read this earlier this morning in 1 Corinthians 13 before the sermon, is that you're like sounding brass. And think about this. If our church has the best instruments money could buy, which we don't, but we have very nice instruments, but just assume we have the best instruments money could buy yet the people playing them have zero skill. How well is our music program gonna be? I mean, if we just have people over here, we have a great piano. This piano is worth a lot of money. And it's being like. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] That didn't sound very good, even though it's a really nice piano, did it? I mean, how much would you tolerate that? If I just did that, at what point would you get up and leave? You know, and that's like you, with all the knowledge in the world, you could be the best instrument, but if you don't have charity, that's what you sound like. And I'm afraid there's a lot of new IFB people that sound like that, and act like that in the world. And you know what, it makes us look bad. It makes us think like you have no skill, you have no finesse in this world. We need to be charitable. We need to be kind. We need to use the instruments that we have appropriately. Hey, you could have the best sword in the world, but if you don't know how to wield it, you're gonna die in battle. And that's the clashing symbol. It's, hey, this guy's so smart, though I have all understanding, and all knowledge, and all wisdom. Yet I lack charity, you are nothing. You're a sounding brass, and a tinkling cymbal. It's meaningless, it's worthless, is what he's saying. Let us not be a worthless instrument. Let us be meat for the master's use. Let us be prepared. Bible says in Proverbs 31, look at verse 26. She opened her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness. You know what, women, if you actually want to be like the proverbial woman, you want to be like the proverbial wife, you have this thing called the law of kindness, meaning that she's made a rule for herself that she will only be kind. I have a law, as a woman, I will only be kind. How many women have that law? How many women are enforcing that law upon themselves to only be kind, to only be gracious? To be merciful, to give, to lend? How many women in this world are not like this at all? There are a dime a dozen. Who can find a virtuous woman for her price is far above rubies? We should strive to have women that desire to have a law of kindness, saying what? I will not ever be rude. I will not be a gossiper. I will not be a slanderer. I will not have a constant bad attitude. I will be kind. I have a law. There is something holding me accountable. Notice what it says in verse 28. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praises her. Why? Why are the children getting up and saying, mom is just so kind, mom has a good attitude, mom is so happy, mom is a hard worker. You know why this woman is praised? Because she works so hard and she speaks so kindly. This is a challenge. I'm not saying that anybody's perfect, but I'm saying if you say, I want to be the Proverbs 31 woman, okay, work really hard and only ever be kind. That's what you have to try and do. You know, and as men, we should also work really hard and we should also try to be very kind. Obviously, this is meant to talk to women, but it's not like this isn't an attribute we shouldn't share and we should share in this. Go to 2 Timothy chapter two. What does that look like? Not gossiping, not railing, not being a loud person, not intruding into others' businesses. How many women just, they're obsessed with gossip. They're obsessed with going online. Did you hear about this celebrity? Did you hear about that celebrity? Did you hear about this lady? Did you hear about this person? They have to find out all the smut and all the filth and all the details of every bad situation, of every event, every gossip magazine, every drama. Why do women love drama reality TV shows? Because they love to intrude into other people's business. They're so busy listening and hearing about everybody else's lives that they don't have their own life. Stop worrying about other people's lives and live your own life. Be busy working and ministering unto others and say, I have a law of kindness. I'm not gonna worry about what everybody else is doing wrong, I'm gonna worry about me being right. Don't be a Republican. Let me explain something about Republicans. Republicans spend almost all their time telling us why Democrats are terrible and almost never why they're good or what they're gonna do is right. And just because you can point out that Democrats are bad doesn't make you good. And we as Christians, we should spend more of our time talking about the things that we wanna do that are good rather than pointing out how everybody's wrong. And I'll tell you this, and again, I'm not trying to pick on any person individually, but you'll notice a pattern. When a young man gets a chance to preach behind the pulpit, almost always, you know what they preach? A sermon attacking somebody. And it's a sign of immaturity. And I'm not saying there isn't a time and place to preach sermons against people and call certain people out. You know what, we need to balance ourselves and realize that is not the main goal of Christianity is just to only call people out. There's a lot more in the Bible than just calling people out. And look, there's a time and a place. We need to do it, we need both. I'm not against it, but we shouldn't just spend all of our time just attacking people. We should spend more time talking about what we need to do that's right. We need to be more focused on ourselves. We need to be more focused on what we're doing. We need to be more focused on loving Jesus Christ. And we don't wanna be Republicans and just constantly say, well, Joel Osteen's a terrible person. You know, this church will not be a good church if all I do is get up and just say, Joel Osteen's bad. Next week, Kenneth Copeland's bad. Next week, TD Jakes is bad. And you know what I'll run out of false prophets to preach against? Never. There is more people for me to preach against than I could ever preach sermons. But you know what, our church will not be very mature. We won't be very kind, we won't be very gracious, we won't have a great appreciation and love for the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to balance ourselves and say, hey, there's a time and a place to call out Joel Osteen. But let us also talk about charity. Let us also talk about soul winning. Let us also talk about grace. Let us also talk about mercy. I mean, God likes mercy more than judgment anyways. I know this world lacks judgment, but let's just be honest, God likes mercy more than judgment anyways. How much are you talking about mercy? How much are you talking about kindness? One thing that the Bible also says, we should avoid unnecessary name calling in my opinion. We should forgive. But one thing the Bible does clearly say is that you're supposed to salute the brethren. I had a lot of verses, I'm not going there for sake of time. But in fact, it literally says salute all the saints. It says to salute every saint. It just says it over and over, just salute, salute, salute. What does salute mean? Saying hi, being kind, shaking people's hands. You're not a kind person if you refuse to shake the hand or be nice or look somebody in the eye that's a saint. It's not a kind person. Second Timothy chapter two is the last place I wanted to look and turn to. But when we go out into this world, I'm gonna interact with a lot of people and I think that this is what people think. Hey, this person's a Catholic, so Pastor Shelley should just start ripping on them for being a Catholic. Because Catholic doctrine's evil. And it's like, yeah, Catholic doctrine's evil. You know what, I can still be nice to a Catholic person. I can still be nice to a sinful person. I can still be nice to someone that's wrong. I can still be nice to somebody that I preach against their lifestyle and all the things they're doing. And why would I do that? Well, what does second Timothy chapter two verse 24 say? And the servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men at the teach patient. Notice again, but be gentle unto all men, all men. At the teach patient, notice this, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves. You know what's inherent in this? Someone's wrong. They oppose themselves. They're hurting themselves. They're doing something detrimental to themselves. They have major sin in their life. They're doing something really bad. But what should I do? In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves. When we're in church, yeah, I'm gonna get up and rip and scream and yell and shake the pulpit and smash the piano and whatever, right? But when I'm out there in the world in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves. Why? Why would I do such a thing? If God prevent will give their repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, that they may recover themselves of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will. So many people are imprisoned by the devil, by his lies, by the deception of Hollywood, by deception of the media, by deception of false doctrine and heretics and false prophets and bad Bible versions and all the sins and all the evil that's out there from just bad relationships, bad situations that they've found themselves in, bad decisions that they've made. But we should in meekness instruct those that oppose themselves. We should be an example of kindness to this world. People should look to us and say, wow, I may not agree with Steadfast Baptist Church, but they're nice to be around. I may not dress like them, but they're friendly to be around. I may not think like they do, but boy, I like how they build me up every time I'm around them. Hey, I may think that their church is a cult, but it's the nicest cult I've ever met. I may not have that many kids, but man, they have some nice kids. That's what we should strive for. Not to be the know-it-alls, not to be better than everybody else, but to be, hey, they're the kindness people that I've ever met. Let me challenge you this morning to be kind. Let's go some prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for your word and for these challenges. Thank you for setting such a great example unto us. I pray that you would help us as a church and help us as a congregation to be more kind, to be more loving, to humble ourselves and try to eradicate the pride in our hearts, to recognize that if we have harbored ill will or quarrel or ought against anybody, that we just let it go, that we just be merciful, that we show people grace. I pray that when we go out into the world that we could have a good testimony, that we could be kind and gracious unto a lost and dying world, that in meekness we could instruct those that oppose themselves. I pray that you would help us to have the right attitude. I pray if somebody is struggling in this area that they would just be willing to look inward. And I pray that you would just help us to have a heart towards other people that we just, in honor, preferring one another, that we just love other people, that we wish good for other people. We recognize that we're all sinners and that we'd give them as much grace as we can. We thank you so much for your perfect example and in Jesus' name we pray, amen. We're gonna sing our last song, song 172. It's a little bit newer of a song, or maybe not newer but just unfamiliar to a lot of people, but as the song progresses and we go through each verse, try to sing it a little bit better each time, try to pay attention to the notes, try to pay attention to the words. Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, 172. Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, Joy of heaven to earth come down, Fix in us thy humble dwelling, All thy faithful mercies crown, Jesus thou our own compassion, For thine bandit of thou art, Fix in us with thy salvation, Enter every trembling heart, Rehoring thy loving Spirit Into every troubled past, Let us follow thee in error, Let us find that second rest, Take away our bended city, Alpha and Omega Thee, In the faith that is beginning, Send our hearts at liberty, Of almighty to deliver, Let us know that life we see, Suddenly return and never, Never for thy temples leave, Beingly would be always blessing, Sir, be as thy hosts above, Pray and praise thee, without ceasing, Glory in thy perfect love, May it spend thy good creation, Pure and spotless let us be, Let us see thy great salvation, Perfectly restored in me, Change from glory into glory, Till in heaven lived our place, Till we cast our crowds before thee, Lost in wonder, love and praise. Hold your head most for a moment. I want to sing our first verse one more time. And I want us to pay attention to these words. Love divine, all loves excelling, Joy of heaven, earth to come down. Notice this. Fix in us thy humble dwelling, All thy faithful mercies crowned, Jesus, thou art all compassion, Pure unbounded love, thou art. Let us look at His compassion. Let us look at His mercies. Let us sing verse one one more time. It will be dismissed there on the first. Love divine, all loves excelling, Joy of heaven, earth to come down. Fix in us thy humble dwelling, All thy faithful mercies crowned, Jesus, thou art all compassion, Pure unbounded love, thou art. Fix in us with thy salvation, Enter at great trembling heart. God bless you, Artist Nest.