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A heart made of brown, a gun of mention, just over the hilltop, in that bright land where we'll never grow old. And some may utter, they will never more ponder, but off the streets that are pure as gold. Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to me my great salvation, so rich and free. As I travel through the snow, the thunder is a brand new loss with me. Please be safely through the singing, seven is the price of Calvary. This would be my prayer, dear Lord, each day to help me do the best I can. Lord, I need thy light to guide me day and night. Blessed Jesus, hold my hand. Blessed Jesus, hold my hand. Yes, I need thee every hour. Through this land there's been nothing but God. Let me travel in the mighty light that I may see the blessed way. Keep me that I may be holy, that I may see the blessed way. Let me travel in the mighty light that I may see the blessed way. Keep me that I may be holy, that I may sing redemption songs someday. Let me travel in the mighty light that I may see the blessed way. Let me travel in the mighty light that I may see the blessed way. Through this land there's been nothing but God. Let me travel in the mighty light that I may see the blessed way. Let me travel in the mighty light that I may see the blessed way. A wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Lord. A wonderful Savior to be. Be high with my soul in the cleft of the rock where rivers of pleasure I see. Be high with my soul in the cleft of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. Be high with my life in the depths of His love and covers me there with His hand. And covers me there with His hand. A wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Lord. He taketh my burden away. Be low with me a bed I shall not be burned. Be given peace, strength, or restraint. Be high with my soul in the cleft of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. Be high with my life in the depths of His love and covers me there with His hand. And covers me there with His hand. With numberless blessings, He's home between crowds and filled with His fullness divine. I see it in my rapture of glory to God for such a redeemer as mine. Be high with my soul in the cleft of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. Be high with my life in the depths of His love and covers me there with His hand. And covers me there with His hand. When clothed in His brightness, transported I rise to meet Him in clouds of the sky. His perfect salvation, His wonderful love, with the billions on high. Be high with my soul in the cleft of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land. Be high with my life in the depths of His love and covers me there with His hand. And covers me there with His hand. And many that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood Guide me for He who caused His pain. For he who lived to death pursue amazing love. How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me? Amazing love, how can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me? He left His mother strong above, so pleased to live in His grace. If He himself awoke alive and fled for Adam's helpless grace, It is mercy all evicted and free. For, O my God, if thou now be, amazing love, how can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me? O my prison spirit, lay, as thou in sin and nature's light, Thine, I defuse of giving way. I hope the done to faith may find. My dreams belong, my heart was free, My frozen Lord, thank God for me. Amazing love, how can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me? No condemnation, now I dread. That's amazing, isn't it? Amazing love. Would you sing that fourth verse? Really lift it up. No condemnation, now I dread. Sing it out. No condemnation, now I dread. Jesus, stand long within His light. Alive in Him, my living head, With glowing righteousness divine. Oh, I approach the eternal throne, And claim the crown through Christ my God. Good morning, and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. It's great to see everybody here this morning. We can go ahead and grab our hymnal. Actually, we're going to start this morning in our binders, our black binders. Mine is white, y'all's are black. Laminated handouts in which should be, He is mine. He is mine, it's toward the back of the binder. Somewhat of a newer song to us. If you know it well, sing it out loudly. It's meant to be sung that way. He is mine. I think we'll all enjoy it once we get the hang of it. He is mine in our binder. Let's all sing it out together on the first. Long before the fall of man, He signed a master plan, He exchanged the sinner for the sinless one. Jesus left His throne on high, Came to earth to bleed and die. He said, Father, not my will, But mine He does. He is mine. He is mine. I am blessed beyond all measure, He is mine. I have bought it cold and free, Through the blood He shed for me, Staying forever I shall be, He is mine. Through God's mercy and His grace, He's prepared for us some things, Words cannot describe the masters through you. He will raise the perfect man, Be God keeps the greater I am. He has gave the joys of heaven hearts to share. He is mine. He is mine. I am blessed beyond all measure, He is mine. I have bought it cold and free, Through the blood He shed for me, Staying forever I shall be, He is mine. Amen. All right, for our next song, let's go to song number seven in our hymnals. Song number seven. Another somewhat newer song to us. Song number seven, I gave my life for Thee. You know it well, sing it out together. I gave my life for Thee, My precious blood I shed, That now I stand so be, And break it from the dead. I gave my life for Thee, What hast thou did for me? I gave my life for Thee, What hast thou did for me? My Father's house of life, My holy circle throne, I left for earthly night, What hast thou did for me? I left, I left it all for Thee, Hast thou left wrong for me? I left, I left it all for Thee, Hast thou left wrong for me? I suffered much for Thee, More than my love can last, A winner's agony, To rest with me from now on. I'm born, I'm born in all for Thee, What hast thou born for me? I'm born, I'm born in all for Thee, What hast thou born for me? And I have come to be, A winner of my own love, Salvation full and free, Our Lord and then our God. I bring, I bring this gift to Thee, What hast thou brought to me? I bring, I bring this gift to Thee, What hast thou brought to me? Good morning. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you didn't already get a bulletin, you would like one, just lift your hand nice and high. On the front, we have our Bible memory passage, and we're still working on Matthew 28. We're getting really close to ending this one. On the inside, we have our service and soul winning times, as well as our church stats. Please make sure you're updating our group chats and our soul winning maps. On the right, we have a list of expecting ladies. Please be in prayer for them. Upcoming events, our kids' choir practice on Sundays at 2. We only have a couple more, and also my wife was going to ask for those kids to come early for one quick practice on the next, or on Easter Sunday morning, because that's where they're going to be singing. She'll give some detailed instructions about that at practice today. Spring swap is going to be April the 13th. Mrs. Naeem has been helping organize that. If you have questions, you can bring things today or Wednesday. It's going to be next Sunday. The Mansfield Soul Winning Marathon is April 19th, and some church friends of ours and even just anybody that wants to participate We're doing a mega marathon style event, and we're going to be participating in the Mansfield area. So we're excited to do that. We have cards over here on our cabinet that have an Easter invitation. So if you would like to hand out Easter invitations, we have those as well, so you can grab some. We have a baby shower in honor of the Scotts on May 3rd. And then there's a Mother's Day brunch May 10th. Down below is some church reminders. On the back we have the baby shower for Miss Scott and her baby boy. It's from 12 to 2 on the 3rd. If you'd like to get them a gift, they're registered on Amazon. It is nursing's only preferred. And if you can, please RSVP to Miss Milstead. She's helping with this baby shower. She usually helps with most of them. Down below is our prayer list. Please make sure you're in prayer for our church. And that's really pretty much all I have as far as announcements. If you didn't sing our third song, it's going to be Psalm 119. Psalm 119 in our special Psalm Binders. Alright, that was Psalm 119. Psalm 119, let's all sing it out together. Psalm 119. That I would be thy righteous judgments. I am afflicted, very much wicked be. O Lord of glory unto thy word. The wicked have made a step for me. Yet I ere not your own life's recess. I test the movies, have my thinking, and serve their interests forever. I will listen and want to buy the hand of life unto my back. I accept I beseech thee the three well-off brings of my mouth, O Lord, and teach me thy judgments. My soul is continually in mine, and yet you are not, Lord, in thy law. The wicked have made a step for me. Yet I ere not your own life's recess. I test the movies, have my thinking, and serve their interests forever. I will listen and want to buy the hand of life unto my back. For they are the rejoicing of mine. Hard I have in mind, hard to perform. Thy statues await, even unto the end. My faith may be lost, but I love you, my love. The wicked have made a step for me. Yet I ere not your own life's recess. I test the movies, have my thinking, and serve their interests forever. I will listen and want to buy the hand of life. For they are the rejoicing of mine. Great singing, everybody. Now as the operating plates are being passed around, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 18. That's the book of Matthew chapter number 18. piano plays softly piano plays softly Matthew 18, the Bible reads, At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him and set him in the midst of them and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, whether for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh. Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off and cast them from thee. It is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. It is better for thee to enter into life with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. For the Son of Man is come to save that which was lost. How think ye, if a man have an hundred sheep and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine and goeth into the mountains and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep than of the ninety and nine which were not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more than in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you that if two, again I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Then came Peter to him and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Till seven times Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king which would take account of his servants, and when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him which owed him ten thousand talents. But for as much as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold and his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and worshipped them, saying, Lord, have patience with me and I will pay thee all. Then the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion and loosed him and forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out and found one of his fellow servants which owed him a hundred pence, and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his fellow servant fell down at his feet and besought him, saying, Have patience with me and I will pay thee all. And he would not, but went and cast him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very sorry and came and told unto their Lord all that was done. Then his Lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt because thou desirest me. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his Lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother their trespasses. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for this day, for our church. I pray that you fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit now and just enable him to preach the sermon you've laid on his heart with boldness, with clarity of mind, and help us, Lord God, to apply this message to our lives so that we could be better Christians and more zealous for you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. The title of my sermon this morning is Conflict Resolution. Conflict Resolution. And in Matthew 18 it brings up a pretty famous passage dealing with conflict and kind of steps that you would go through. If you look at verse 15 again it says, Moreover thy brother trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone, and if he shall hear thee, thou's gain thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church, but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican. Now, this particular passage is brought up often by a lot of different people and so I think it's important to just take the time to really think about this passage and talk about conflict resolution as a whole. Now, I primarily want to address the situation that's being described here in Matthew 18 and we're talking about someone in church having a problem with someone else in church. But I also think that there's a lot of things we're going to learn today that we can just apply to every situation or lots of different situations when there is conflict in general. Now, I also want to make it clear that there's so much on this topic about just conflict in general that we don't want to take this particular passage and think that this is just how we handle every dispute, every situation, and we don't think about even the first part of this. It says at the very beginning, more of thy brother shall trespass against thee. Not everything in the Bible is describing, or I'm sorry, this passage is not describing just every situation you could ever think of. The Bible is just bringing up a particular scenario. What you have to do in any doctrine of the Bible or any idea in the Bible is you have to take all the different verses that talk about a similar topic and you have to kind of balance them together and you have to kind of figure out what the Bible is really teaching and what the context is really trying to describe here. This is not saying every single fault you could possibly think of. This is not just every single situation falls into this particular category. And before we really dive in, I want to address something that's an important point to conflict resolution is, number one, if you can let something go, you should just let it go. Just because someone does you wrong or you don't like something does not mean you can't just let things go. This is obviously dealing with something where you can't let it go. It's across a certain boundary, a certain threshold, and you have to deal with it. But point number one is that you need to just let things go. And I'm going to come back to this passage, but let's look at a lot of verses on this. Go to Ecclesiastes chapter 7 for a moment. Go to Ecclesiastes chapter 7 because we have to balance the Bible. We can't just take Matthew 18 and then just apply it to every situation, every scenario, every single opportunity because there's plenty of situations where the Bible is saying to do something completely different than what Matthew 18 is saying. One of those ideas is to just let things go. You don't have to address every issue, every problem, everything you don't like about people. And some people have this attitude. Some people have an attitude where anything they perceive as a wrong or a slight or an issue, they have to tell people. They have to act like it's a big deal. And, you know, we as God's people should have a lot of grace. We should have a lot of mercy. We should be long-suffering with people. And even when someone does you wrong, you can just let things go. Now, Ecclesiastes chapter 7, verse 21, the Bible says, Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee. For oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others. What is the Bible saying? If someone says something about you or they say something you don't like, you don't always have to deal with it. Many times you can just let it go. If they said something and you're just kind of like, yeah, that wasn't something they should have said, or I don't really like what they said, or that was kind of mean, you can just say, you know what, they're having a bad day. Maybe they didn't really mean it that way. You know, if you feel like it's not that big a deal, you should just try to let things go in general. And again, most things aren't that big a deal. And if someone's just a little bit rude, if someone's kind of a jerk, if someone makes a joke and you didn't like their joke, if someone says something insensitive to you, if somebody says something that maybe you find personally offensive, but it's not that big a deal, in many cases we should just try our best to just let these things go. And if you're going to try and hold your own servants or people under authority, their feet to the fire for every single thing they say, well, essentially God's going to then try to flip the script on you and start judging you in the same way. I don't want everybody to hold everything I've ever said against me, because sometimes I say things that are rude, insensitive, can be taken the wrong way, could be just outright offensive. And I just wouldn't want people to just hold me accountable for every single thing I say. So if I don't want that, I should in return not hold everything against everybody else. You know, if you pay attention to what people say on social media especially, people just say dumb things all the time. People say things that are just kind of being a jerk, mean, rude, shocking, whatever. I sometimes myself have made this mistake. I say things that aren't right. And generally speaking, we should try our best to just give people grace, just not harken to all the words that are spoken, let things go. And again, I'm using this example because I think the Bible's pretty clear. This is an example of just letting things go. But it's not limited to words. You know, just in general, if someone does something that you don't really like or they cut you off in traffic or something like that, you know, you could just be like whatever, not a big deal, you're at a food fellowship and they cut in line in front of you. Right? I mean, there's all kinds of different scenarios where people could do something that's a little bit offensive or you don't like or there's a slight fault. We don't need to bring in Matthew 18 because someone cut you off in the food fellowship line. And this is what some people don't get is if you think that every situation is Matthew 18, you're wrong. And I will not go down a Matthew 18 situation for every single slight offense or slight wrong. You know, there's all kinds of different scenarios people could think of. Like we were coming in the parking lot and I was about to get this spot and then they just kind of zoomed in and just took that spot. I'm not going to do Matthew 18 on that. Okay? Now if you say, hey, we were in the parking lot and after they took my spot, I got out and I keyed their car. Okay, well now maybe it's crossed that threshold, right? Maybe at that point that's something that's kind of egregious. Or they say, hey, they said something to my kid or one of their kids said something to my kids and it kind of hurt their feelings. Probably not going to ever be a Matthew 18. I mean it happened to be an extreme statement or something over the top for us to even consider something like that. But let's say they intentionally harmed your child and no one's apologizing for it or fixing it. Yeah, maybe it's, again, crossed the threshold. You know, sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Like in many cases we need to just in a lot of situations just let things go, not make a big deal about every single little scenario, every little inconvenience, every trivial matter. Hey, someone does something you don't like, okay, try your best to just let things go. Give them grace. We all have bad days. Sometimes people can be rude. Mistakes happen. Accidents happen. Sometimes people just say things and they're not really intending to harm you or hurt you. But, you know, it can and they're just not aware of it, okay. And, again, most of the time we should just let these things go. We shouldn't care about them. Go to 1 John chapter number 5. Go to 1 John chapter number 5. This is kind of a general principle that we should try to like give our brethren an opportunity to make mistakes and not have to deal with every single issue. Now, again, like obviously if something, let's say it's something that you're going to let go but you just still want to alert their attention, that's okay. Like, hey, I was trying to park there but it's not a big deal, right. I mean you say like, hey, they took your spot and you kind of got there, not a big deal. Or they say something that you don't like and you're kind of offended and you just say like, yeah, I don't think that comes across well. That sounds like, you know, that's a little bit wrong. And then you say, but it's not a big deal. You know, you're just like, hey, you're just kind of alerting them like, hey, this was wrong or you didn't like it or you're a little offended, whatever. But at the end of the day, you're not seeking for them to make restoration. You're just simply just letting them know and letting it go. If it's honestly not that big a deal, a lot of times you just keep your mouth shut anyways, right. You know, hey, your zipper's down, not a big deal, right. You just let them know, hey, I just want to let you know your kid said something mean to my kids just in case you wanted to know, not a big deal, right. Like it's okay to alert people that there was issues or hey, you know, sometimes, and this is what I'm guilty of and I don't think it's necessarily a problem. It's just people don't respond well. But it's this idea of the rebuke of humor. And like if someone kind of makes a criticism at you but in a joking way, you should try to take it serious because most of the time what they're doing is they're trying to help you a little bit but they just don't want to make it awkward so they make a slight joke about it. Like, you know, you cut them off in line in the food fellowship and they're just like, man, you must be really hungry today or something. You know, and it's just, it's their way of just kind of letting you know like, hey, you kind of made a mistake here but I'm not trying to be a jerk about it and so they kind of just make a little bit of a joke about it. And, you know, if your boss does this to you or other people do this to you, you know, sometimes you should realize like, oh, hey, yeah, sorry, or hey, yeah, I should fix that or whatever because often people just don't want to cause problems and so they kind of make a little bit of a joke out of it and sometimes we need to make sure that we're responding correctly to the joke and we're realizing, hey, this person's actually trying to help us a little bit. This is the rebuke of humor. You know, Job says in the book of Job that when he laughed, people would cover their mouth. So like if someone said something kind of dumb and they kind of laughed, you know, because it's so stupid, then they would just be like, oh, man, I shouldn't say that or that was kind of like embarrassing to have said that. And, you know, that's what church does is church helps you become more normal because when you say a bunch of dumb things and everybody's kind of laughing at you, you know, they're actually helping you. And I'm not saying that we should try to be jerks. I'm not saying that we should be mean, but at the end of the day, we need to have a two-way street to conflict resolution in the sense that we should often let things go, but also when people are offering us subtle hints, we should pick up on those and accept them. Hey, if they give us a little bit, hey, your zipper's down, hey, you cut me off in traffic, hey, you cut me in the line, or they make a little bit of a joke about things, have a good attitude about it and just say, hey, cool, thanks, no problem, sorry. You know, just apologize. We should be friendly and general and not try to be a jerk about it. You can go to other parts of the country or other parts of the world and people don't really have these niceties. They don't, you know, when someone cuts them off, they're just mad about it or they're a jerk or they'll swear at you or something or they'll just say something negative about you or they'll be mad at you. And it's just like, we don't want to have that attitude as a church. We want to be friendly, gracious. We want to receive correction well. And this is important and just general. So we don't have to take everything as a Matthew 18 situation. You understand what I'm trying to say? First John chapter five, here's another passage I want to bring up in this context. It says in verse 16, if any man see his brother sin of sin, which is not unto death, he shall ask and he shall give him life for him that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death. I do not say you should pray for it. The Bible gives this concept of when you see your brother doing something wrong, it doesn't even bring up like going and like approaching them. It actually just says, like, just pray for them. And so another thing we can do is if you feel like your brother is making mistakes or has issues or does something that's wrong, you know, one of the attitudes could be to just ask God to help them with that. Just say, hey, God, will you help this person just maybe have a better attitude or have a better idea or more discernment or not cause problems in this area and just pray for them. And again, we're not talking about big issues. We're talking about something that's not a major, you know, sin unto death or something. There is like extreme sins that the Bible says, you know, we can't really ask God to be gracious to this person. But hey, when someone makes some mistakes, they cause problems, they're causing issues. You know, our heart and our attitude should be empathy for that person, offering grace unto that person, praying that Jesus will do good unto this person, not trying to harm them, to talk bad about them, not telling other people. Think about this. When this person sees a problem with someone, the first person they tell is Jesus, not their best friend, not their gossip gals, not other people, but rather they're asking Jesus to help this person and they want good for this person. If it was an extreme sin, you know, and again, what is a sin unto death? I don't think the Bible is explicit. I think people have different interpretations. My personal interpretation is it's essentially kind of along the lines of just capital punishment type sins. So just things like serious adultery or murder or obviously like reprobate type sins, things like that. You know, we're not asking God to just be gracious unto these people. You know, that thing needs to be dealt with. That's something that law enforcement in many cases needs to deal with. And we need to just trust God to execute the right kind of punishment unto these people. And what we don't want to do is we don't have a society where there's no accountability at all. Like there is accountability for extreme sins like murder and rape and kidnapping and all this kind of extreme stuff. You know, if someone kidnaps your kid, I'm not going to be putting them on the prayer list and say, let's all pray for the kidnapper. I mean, we might be, but it's got a different type of prayer. You know what I mean? Because that's evil. That's we're not praying for God to be gracious unto kidnappers, unto rapists, unto murderers. You know, these extreme sins unto death. The Bible's clear. And again, if you think it's something different, well, then tell me what it is. But that's my interpretation. That's my understanding. I think it matches a lot of things that we see in the Bible. Go to First Corinthians, Chapter 13. Go to First Corinthians, Chapter 13. And let's look at a couple more verses on this subject. But again, conflict resolution. What is step one? Can I let it go? And that's for you to decide. And look, no one's perfect. No one knows for sure all the different scenarios that should be let go or not. But the more you practice this and the more you just are trying to do the right thing, you'll figure it out. Right. You try to address situations that aren't that big a deal. Many times people help you figure out eventually, hey, that wasn't really a big deal. And again, the more life experience you have, you'll have more discretion, more discernment. And that'll help you to realize, hey, these are things that we should just let go. These are the category of let go things. Here's the category of things that we need to really kind of address. And again, that's sometimes also a personal thing because the goal in all conflict is that you don't grow bitter towards this person. That you don't have bitterness and resentment and that you have bad feelings towards this person. So if it's not something that you can let go, we have to deal with it. But if it's something you can let go, that's the best move. You know, and people that can let things go are really great people to be around. People that can't let things go are irritating. They're not fun. They don't feel safe. It's hard to have a lot of intimacy with people that just are just offended by almost anything. And this is what you think of like leftists. OK. Leftists today are offended by about almost anything. And then they complain about never having meaningful relationships. Have you ever noticed the correlation? And it's because they just don't let anything go. They hold everybody accountable for every little nitpicky thing. They're always complaining and murmuring and they just don't have this attitude of grace and forgiveness and mercy and empathy. And so because of that, they just don't have good relationships. You'll notice people, even the spiritual leftists, the spiritual Democrats that come into our churches and they leave and they get offended about everything. They have the same attitude. They're always just offended about everything. No one was gracious enough to me. Nobody is charitable enough to me. I didn't get invited to enough parties. You know, just all these different things. And it's just people don't even know about it. And you can tell they were just growing in bitterness. Right. They just weren't letting things go. And it was something that they couldn't let go. They needed to deal with it. We just don't want to be sitting here with just all these little grievances, all these petty little issues that we're constantly harboring against other people. We need to realize, hey, if it's in the category of let it go, let it go. Just like what Moses is saying to Pharaoh, let my people go. And in many cases, you need to just let this grievance go. Let it just just just forget about it. You know, get rid of it. Ask God to forgive them and move on with your life. And again, this is what the essence of First Corinthians 13 is about. It's about charity. Now, what does the Bible say in verse four? Charity suffereth long. If you're holding someone accountable for every little thing, it shows that you don't really have any charity. Charity is suffering long, meaning they've done things, you know, against you or to harm you in many ways. You know, this is not just a hey, as soon as they do something, I'm going to attack them, go after them, deal with them. No, no, it's suffering long. And you know what? Praise God that God is charitable. Praise God that God does not hold me accountable for every little grievance that I have, every little sin, every little statement that I make, because if he did, no one would be standing. And you got to think about it from your children's perspective. If you have especially little children, you have to realize they're going to make a lot of mistakes. Often they constantly transgress. They constantly disappoint. They're constantly causing issues. And, you know, as a parent, you have to have a lot of grace. You have to be long suffering with your children in general, because children need that grace. If you hold your children accountable for every little trespass, boy, they're just going to have a miserable childhood. And in the same way, it's more like a military context. You know, the drill instructor doesn't often extend much grace, and he's not loved that much for it. You know, he's kind of, he's just kind of looked at as a harsh task master. And we don't want to have a military-style home. Yeah, we need rules, and we need boundaries, and we should encourage our children to be the best version of themselves. We also need some grace, and we need some mercy, and we need to let a lot of things go. And you know what? We need some charity. Notice this, and is kind. Not only should we, when we have to deal with issues or have to talk to people, we should be kind to them. And what does this really look like? Charity, we have to get this context. Charity is not just like reciprocating good for good. Think about this. Someone says something that's kind of mean to you, and then you're nice back. Someone cuts you off, and then you're nice back. Someone wants to cut in line, you know, someone wants to cut in line, no problem. Hey, can, you know, when we get up to the food line and they're struggling, hey, help them. Get them another plate or something. Don't think like, well, if you hadn't cut me in line, I'd probably help you or something. You know, what is kindness? It's, hey, they did you a little wrong, but then I'm going to do good back unto you. I'm going to be kind unto you. And it says charity envieth not, charity vaunted not itself is not puffed up. I mean, we could preach a little sermon on this. It's just such great advice, right? We're not envying other people. We're not mad at other people. We're not trying to lift ourselves up. We're not telling everybody how wonderful we are. Look at me. Look what I did for the church. Look at the soul winning that I lead and all the things that I do. You know, it's not, it's not lifting yourself up. That's not charitable. Charity is not, look at all the good things I did for other people. That's not charitable. It's not puffed up thinking that you're better than other people. Oh, I'm better than every church. I'm better than the old IFB church that I went to. And then I'm better than the new IFB church I went to. And then I'm better than my pastor. And then I'm better than all the other soul winners. In fact, I do all the soul winning. You know, there's a guy that said he's basically better than every soul winner in our church and does 75% of the soul winning. But this is a puffed up attitude. And even if that was true, okay, great, you're a wonderful soul winner. But you know, it's usually coming from people that what they're saying is not true. And they're just puffed up. It's inflated. It's an inflated sense of ego. It's an inflated self-importance. And when we do this, other people come along and pop our little balloon. They'll say, yeah, you're not that great. Notice five does not behave itself unseemly. So again, this is using discretion. People aren't going to look at your attitude and your behavior and say, well, you kind of are wrong too. Charity is going to do what's right, even if the other person did not handle themselves correctly. Seeketh not her own is not easily provoked. This is just a clear verse on what I'm trying to say. Let it go. What is not easily provoked? Meaning they did something to provoke you and you didn't get provoked. They made a comment that provokes you and you're like, nope, no problem. I don't really care. Doesn't really bother me. That's their problem. That's their fault. That's their issue. So so like being easily provoked means every little comment, every little action, every little trespass. You're just constantly just getting so irritated and on fire and upset. Now, you've worked with people like this. You go to the job site. And of course, it's usually women that are easily provoked. And it's just so annoying how this everything provokes them. Everything the boss does, everything the boss says, every company policy. And look, men can be this way, too, where they're complaining about what time they have to show up at work. They have to complain about what kind of work they have to do. They're complaining about every little issue. And they're just easily provoked. And you're just thinking, like, why are you here? You know, they're not hiring you to just check Facebook all day. They're hiring here to do work. And, you know, some people have this attitude about church where just everything about church provokes them. You know, if you're coming here and you're just a little bit irritated about just like every little thing, you're the problem. Because there's there's no one that can just go to a church and they're just going to like everything. Why just don't like how the seats are arranged? I don't like the temperature in the room. Not everybody greeted me and said hello when I showed up. I haven't been invited back from everybody that I've ever invited to come to my house. In fact, actually, I've been taking a tally. I've taken more people out. So when they've taken me out and I've used more gas mileage and actually last week when we went so winning, we went five miles from the building when they drove, but we went 15 miles when I drove. Just I mean, this kind of mentality is evil. It's evil and it'll destroy you. You know, you don't want to have this attitude where you're just constantly just being provoked about every little thing. I've seen people just say weird stuff to me. Someone's like, hey, I notice this lady one time go and get a water bottle from the fridge. And she did not go so winning that day. I'm like, OK, what do you want me to do about it? Matthew 18. Right. Get up here. Did you take a water bottle? We have it on camera. Where's your soul winning? You know, I mean, like what kind of hey, this person didn't didn't stick to the map. They went somewhere else, you know, like and you know, you think I'm being hyperbolic. I'm not. People get mad about everything you could think of. And it's just it's just kind of crazy how people react. This is this is going to cause a lot of problems in church if we all feel this way, isn't it? If we're all just upset about how everybody dressed and everybody talked and hey, I was going to get coffee and they took the last coffee and then refill it. Or they took the last thing in the bathroom or they you know, I was walking up to the door and they didn't hold the door open for me. You know, I mean, if you want to, you can be mad about everything. And somehow women have a special ability to do this. You know, if they want to, they can start telling you about every little issue if they want to. It's a special gift they have. And you're just thinking, like, I didn't even know you could be mad about that. But you can you can compliment them, right? You're just saying this meal is great. What about last night? You didn't say it was great last night. It's like, I thought I complimented you. And, you know, again, is it is it fun to be around people that are easily provoked? No. So what about conferences? Most of the time, we just need to let things go. You have this mentality where we're just we're just on default, gracious, kind, long suffering, not being easily provoked. Just saying, hey, it doesn't matter. Not a big deal. Because if we have to do this, we're going to all walk on eggshells around each other. We're never going to grow close. We're never going to grow like a family. We're never going to feel like a brotherhood. We're never going to actually have a safety among church. We're always going to be so afraid to do anything, say anything. We're all mad at each other. There's always issues. You know, this is not Christianity and it's not charity at all. Charity is one where we're very long suffering. We give people a lot of grace. We give a lot of people is room to have mistakes, have issues, not be perfect. And none of us are perfect. None of us ever will be perfect. No situation will be perfect. No church will be perfect. No husband's perfect. No wife's perfect. No kid's perfect. Nothing is perfect. You know, we should strive for it. We should just realize people aren't perfect. And you know what? Verse five says, Think of no evil. Our default should give people the benefit of the doubt in every situation. Hey, they probably didn't see me when they parked here or cut me off. Or, hey, they probably didn't mean anything bad when they said this. Or, hey, they probably weren't trying to hurt my feelings when they didn't invite me to their birthday party. Okay? And, you know, don't always think evil of everybody. Hey, when they made this comment, I bet they were thinking about me. You know, and again, like, I get this comment a lot about, like, hey, this sermon's about me. And, you know, okay, let's think about it two different ways. Let's say it is. Well, then that just means I'm trying to help you, so then it's not a problem. Or, here's another thing, just realize that out of 300 people that come to our church, it's probably not always about you. Okay? And so you could just not think evil of the preaching and not think it's like me just sitting up here. It's pretty impressive that I can preach against literally everyone every single time. How does that even work? You know why people constantly feel like my preaching's attacking them or about them? It's because I use a lot of Bible and I bring up a lot about the Bible, about sins, and the Holy Ghost convicts you often because you're causing problems. If you feel really convicted about a sermon, let me tell you something, it's because you're guilty. You know, when I get up and, like, rip on fags or something, I don't have a bunch of guys coming up to me like, man, that felt like you were attacking me. If they did, I'd be like, you should probably leave and never come back. Think about it. But it's like, you preach this whole sermon about gossips and railers and backbiters, and they're like, man, he was preaching all about me. I'm thinking, like, thou sayest it. You know, if I preach a whole sermon about Judas and only talk about him, someone's like, man, he was talking about me. It's like, I was just talking about Judas. Hey, he was talking about bad husbands. I feel like it was about me. Okay. Hey, he was talking about bad soul winning. He was talking about me. Okay. But you know what? Don't sit here and think, like, that's a problem. Just hear what the Bible's saying and change. And look, if I say something amiss, if I say something that doesn't apply to you, then allow it to not apply to you. Right? But don't just constantly dream up evil and think evil of people and think evil of church. Look, I'm not perfect. No one's perfect. But I get up here and try to preach the Bible. And hey, when the Bible's convicting you, you're wrong and you need to change. And you need to give as much grace to the pastor as you want him to in turn give grace unto you. And boy, if you want to sit here and just trash me for months and months and months and say evil about me for months and months and months, just realize I might punch back eventually. You know, six months is a lot of grace. Six months is a lot of suffering. And look, there's a lot of people that just say trash about me and attack me and do things. And I'm just like, whatever, move on. But boy, you can't just do it forever. You can't just think that I'm just going to sit here and not deal with it. And look, there's a time for charity and then there's a time to deal with issues. Sometimes it crosses a threshold and then it has to be dealt with. Go back to Matthew. Go back to Matthew. So again, in most cases we should just let things go. We don't need to hearken unto all words that are spoken. Hey, we see our brother sin is sin, which is not unto death. We'll ask God to give them life and he'll give them life unto them that sin not unto death. We need to have a charitable attitude that should be our default. We should not be easily provoked. We shouldn't be thinking evil. We should be constantly being kind. We should be helpful. Like this is the attitude of a Christian. But sometimes it crosses a line. Sometimes it crosses a threshold and we have to deal with issues. We have to deal with conflict. I just want to just read, you don't have to go to this verse, but Matthew 7, 12 says, Therefore all things whatsoever you would do that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets. So kind of what we have is the idea of the golden rule. Here's a great way. Anytime you're evaluating a situation, just think about it this way. If I was them and they were me, what would I do? And that often will help you. It's like, hey, if I had said that, I would kind of just hope they would just kind of let it go. Or if they had done this to me, I would kind of wish they had just moved on and not made a big deal about it. So, again, it's a great way to really evaluate stuff. Just think about it. If I was the one that did that or if I was the one that said that or if I was the one that was involved in the situation, what would I want other people to do for me? And then basically that can usually help you figure out, okay. But even myself included, if I do something bad enough, I would think, hey, this needs to be addressed. People should address with me. Then it's like, okay, then I need to address it with them. That's where we pick up here in Matthew chapter number 18, verse 15. Moreover, thy brothers shall trespass against thee. Go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. So step one, let it go. Step two, private confrontation. If it's something that can't be let go, if it's something that crosses a certain threshold with you and you have to tell them, you should be telling them privately. You should not make a big deal about it. You should not be telling other people about it. It shouldn't be something that you have to embarrass them about. You should just tell them privately, hey, you said this. Hey, you did this. Hey, I'm mad at you. You know, I really appreciate people that are mad at me just saying I'm mad at you. You know, it's frustrating to kind of tell that someone's upset with you and to say, hey, are you mad at me? No, we're good. Are you mad at the church? Are you mad at the church? No, fine. Then a couple weeks ago later and you confront the same person because you can tell there's something off and say, hey, are you mad at me? No. Hey, is there some kind of an issue? No, not at all. Then like a few more weeks later, that same person demands a meeting with you and then you go and talk to that person and they're like, hey, I just want to make it clear, I have no problems with you. I want to make it clear that there's no issue. I want to be fully restored. I want there to be no squabble whatsoever, unprovoked. They're just telling you this and you're like, great. And then they leave and they say this person's evil and a narcissist and malignant and, you know, just a piece of trash and just trash it. You're just thinking like why couldn't you just tell me that? Why couldn't you just say, hey, I'm mad at you. Hey, I'm upset. Hey, you said this. Hey, you did this. And look, there are people in this room, not just one, not just two, many people in this room that have confronted me, talked to me and said, hey, I'm mad about this. Hey, I'm upset with this. Hey, I don't like this. And, you know, a lot of times I apologize. A lot of times I've said, hey, you're right, I can see your position. Sometimes I try to explain to them how, you know, I hear you and I don't want you upset but I just maybe don't completely agree still. And, you know, at least give me a chance to try and deal with an issue. I'm not saying that I'm always right or always wrong, but you know what I do like? I do like people just being honest with me. If you're mad at me, if you don't like me, whatever, just tell me. That's okay. I don't have this attitude where everybody has to be my best friend or everybody has to like everything I say or everybody has to agree with every single little doctrine or every little opinion or every life choice. In fact, some of my closest friends, we disagree on stuff vehemently. I mean, I did a live stream last night and Pastor Anderson is telling me that he likes In-N-Out fries. I'm just telling you, there's something wrong with that opinion. Like I said, I was willing to just end the stream right then and there because it's just like that's just such a bad opinion. But, you know, at the end of the day, like we shouldn't be sitting here and just getting so mad about little petty things like this, you know, getting mad about stuff that really doesn't matter, doesn't change anything. Obviously, I'm a very picky eater. Like if you know me, I'm extremely picky and that's my problem. You know, that's my fault. But at the end of the day, don't get offended when I have strong opinions and don't like certain things because of my problem, right? You know, just like you are probably picky about stuff, I'm picky about stuff. We shouldn't necessarily get super mad about these type of things. But at the end of the day, if someone does do something that you don't like, just tell them. If they offend you, tell them. You know, my brother was often very embarrassed about me because I'm a picky eater. And so like when we would go to other people's houses or we would eat with friends or something like that, pretty much everything I did embarrassed him. And admittedly, like it was embarrassing and he would give me a lot of correction and, you know, I could kind of appreciate it. Because, you know, they would set food in front of you and I'd just be like, oh, that's gross. I don't like it. That's a bad attitude, right? But, you know, as a kid, I didn't really know any better and so I'm just saying. Or like they would prepare something and I'd be like, oh, that's not how we make it. This isn't as good as the way we make it. You know, this is just bad manners, bad attitude. Or, you know, like as a kid, it's like, hey, I don't eat crust on my sandwiches. Cut the crust off. You know, and I had to learn like, hey, if they put crust on the bread, just choke it down and don't say anything. Hey, if you're in public and you don't like the food or you don't like someone's stuff, you know, just try to be nice about it. Just try to be kind about it. We don't want to always just make people mad about these issues. Now, when it crosses a certain threshold, again, though, what's the context? Sometimes we have to go to this person. We have to tell them there's an issue. You know, not the minor grievances, serious issues. Hey, your kid punched my kid in the face, you know, and hurt them on purpose. Like, I want to deal with this. You know, we need to deal with this. Something needs to be done. Hey, you ripped me off for a couple hundred bucks. This needs to happen. Hey, you said this horrible thing about me, you know. And again, a lot of times when I have to approach a situation, I don't necessarily just directly accuse them. I'll just kind of ask them about it. I've heard that you said this. Is it true? Hey, is this what happened? I'm pretty sure this happened. Give them an opportunity to just, you know, because sometimes you think something happened. It didn't really happen. We don't want to just come in just guns blazing and accusing people of stuff that we don't even know is verified. Just go to the person and say, hey, are you mad at me? Hey, did you do this? What's the problem? And try to talk to that person. Hopefully, God willing, that person will just say, hey, yeah, I did. I'm sorry. Yeah, that is kind of what happened. I apologize. And then, of course, what are we always supposed to do? Just forgive. And the Bible says this. Look at Matthew chapter number 18. It says, verse number 21, So at any point that someone apologizes or tries to get something right, we are obligated to let it go. Now, again, step one, you can just let things go just because they're not a big deal. They didn't even have to apologize. If it is a big enough deal and you address it with them, at any point that you address something with them and they apologize, we are obligated as Christians to let it go again and forgive and forget, not bring it up, not hold it against them, give them the benefit of the doubt again. Look at the end of this chapter, and it says in verse number 33, Now, in the parable that we had in a later part of this chapter, he's talking about somebody forgave a guy and a great debt, then he's unwilling to forgive his servant for a lesser debt, and it ends up kind of being an illustration of how God forgave us of a big debt, and we go to get heaven when we deserved hell, and then we hold these minor trespasses in comparison against our brethren, how we have a bad attitude, how we're not right, and if we don't want God to hold our feet to the fire, we shouldn't hold other people's feet to the fire when they apologize, when they ask forgiveness, when they say they want to make it right. So, again, if any time someone apologizes, we are obligated to just let it go, forgive, forget, move on, but when we confront them, let it be private. You don't have to keep your finger here. Just go to Proverbs 25 for a moment. So, point one, let it go. Point two, if you have to, do a private confrontation. Private confrontation. And, again, we're talking about Matthew 18 situations. This is just great advice almost in every context, though. Whether we talk about the workplace, hey, there's an issue at the workplace, even with your boss or anybody, try to be private. As a boss, if you have employees, try to do it privately to your employees and not embarrass them in front of other employees or other people. If you're married, this is great advice. Please do not confront your spouse in public about anything. You should do this as much as possible in private and not embarrass them. Now, again, not everything just fits what I'm saying. Ideally, that's always the case. But, look, obviously if a wife mouthed off about her husband in public, I think it might need a public correction. So, as a wife, don't embarrass your husband in public because I do believe he has the right to correct his wife in public and to make it clear, no, you're in the wrong here and to assert his authority. But, again, as the husband, if your wife is not just publicly embarrassing you and causing a scene, you should probably deal with her issues privately, too. You don't want to just have this situation where you're constantly correcting her. And, again, wives, if you're upset with what your husband did, if you think your husband did something wrong, he embarrassed you, did something wrong, you should try to tell him privately, as well. You know, when you're alone or whatever happened, saying, hey, I didn't like what you said, what you said embarrassed me, you shouldn't do this, whatever, try to help him in private, as well. Look, I'm not above being corrected by my wife, but at the end of the day, it should never be a public thing. It shouldn't be to embarrass me or anything like that. Plus, my wife could be wrong. You know, sometimes when we offer correction to people, they can be wrong about it. They can say, hey, you shouldn't do this, and then you're like, well, actually, that is what we should do. That's what the Bible says, so, sorry, I'm going to still do that. And, again, there's plenty of times. There's been so many times in my life, in my relationship, where my wife has offered me correction and she was right and I needed to do what she said, and I appreciated her giving me that correction or giving me some advice, but at the end of the day, you know, I'm hoping that we don't have to do these things in public because it's just not, it's not a seemly, it's not appropriate, it's not something we should be doing. We want to do it in private. And look what the Bible says in Proverbs 25, verse 9. Proverbs 5, verse 29. Debate thy cause with thy neighbor himself, and discover not a secret to another, lest he that heareth it put thee to shame, and thine infamy turn not away. So when there's a problem, when there's a conflict, tell them alone. Tell them in private. Don't discover a secret unto another. You know, he that revealeth secrets is one that's a tail-bearer and he's going to cause wounds, he's going to hurt people's feelings. We don't want to have this behavior where we're constantly telling about everybody else's secrets, issues, problems. And, again, when the Bible uses secret, it's just saying something that nobody else is aware of. And we're not going around whispering about each other and making secrets. It's just simply saying you observe something that no one else observed. It's kind of secret between you. You know, they rip you off. Just keep it between you all. You don't need to tell everybody else about it. You don't need to cause problems. You don't have to discover a secret to other people. Go to them, and if you can resolve it, great. If you can't, then we might have to escalate. Go to Matthew 5. Go to Matthew, chapter number 5. And, of course, Matthew 18 gives us steps for escalation, and we're going to kind of talk about that here. I just want to make it clear that we've got to take some other verses in the Bible in context before we just jump to Matthew 18. So many people just want to jump to that passage or think that that passage applies to every situation, every context. I also believe there's issues that could escalate above Matthew 18 instantly. Just like, hey, this person commits a serious crime? Like, they commit murder? We're not pulling Matthew 18. We're going just straight to the cops, okay? Someone's teaching heresy, like rank heresy in the church? It just should go straight to the authority. It should go straight to the pastor, straight to the leadership, whoever's in charge. These are serious issues that just need to be immediately resolved. They just go way above a Matthew 18. There's passages in the Bible that talk about the pastor identifying people that are causing division and sowing discord in the church. That's not going to go through a Matthew 18. That's just going to be immediately called out and dealt with in a different context. So we're mostly talking about just petty issues or issues that happen, not necessarily petty, but just minor issues that cross that threshold, maybe moderate, slightly severe, those kind of situations between us as a congregation, between brothers. But what should our attitude be every time? What should be our attitude when we approach this person? What should be how we talk to them? Well, look at Matthew 5 and look at verse number 23. Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, while those are on the way with him, lest any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee that thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou is paid the uttermost farthing. Our attitude should be to reconcile. And when we've done wrong, we should try to reconcile. You know, the Bible's just saying we don't want to just have unresolved conflict. We want to be in a situation where we're always seeking peace. Blessed are the peacemakers. What does it say in verse 9? Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. People like peacemakers. That should be your attitude. We're going to people seeking resolution. We're seeking restoration. We're seeking to be reconciled. Sometimes people come to me or come to other people where there's an issue. And they don't have an attitude where they want it to be fixed. They just want a complaint. They just want to say this is bad. And you're like, okay, how can I solve it? They don't have an opportunity to solve it. They don't want it to be solved. They just simply want to hold a grudge against you, and they're not willing for it to be reconciled. They're not willing for it to be resolved. They're not willing for it to be forgiven. They just simply want to complain about the person. And often what they're doing is they just want me to throw them out. I'll just be honest. A lot of people when they have issues, they're just simply just like, this person says something mean to me, throw them out. Get rid of them. It's just like, well, have you approached them? No. Have you asked them to say sorry? No. Just get rid of them. And it's just like, that's not the right attitude. The right attitude is you want reconciliation. You want this person to fix it. You want this person to apologize. You want to move on. You want to continue being friends as much as possible. But we shouldn't have this attitude of just hoping for people to be bad, wanting them to be bad, to stay bad. We should want them to fix it and to get right. Go to Ephesians Chapter 4. Go to Ephesians Chapter 4. So point one is this. In a conflict, we need to just let most things go, especially the little things. Number two, when there is an issue, we need to have private confrontation. Number three, our attitude when we do this should be to seek resolution. We want things to be fixed. Number four is this. When they have been resolved, we don't want to grow bitter. Okay? And we don't want to leave things out there that we didn't resolve and get bitter. So if you don't deal with it, you can get bitter. If you deal with it and then don't actually forgive or actually let it go, you can also grow bitter. We need to make sure that we don't allow bitterness in any way. So again, if you can let it go, let it go. No bitterness. If you've dealt with it and they repented, then you forgive and there's no bitterness. If you've dealt with it and they won't repent, but it's come to its conclusion, there's nothing left for you to do, you also need to then let it go so that you don't grow bitter. We cannot allow bitterness to exist in our lives. It'll destroy us. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 26, be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Neither give place to the devil. Notice that unresolved anger is giving place to who? The devil. It's satanic. It's satanic to allow issues to go unresolved. To allow grievances or problems. We don't want to do this because we could allow the devil to destroy us. Look at verse 31. The Bible says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. There is no room for bitterness in the house of God. We have to resolve issues. And when you don't resolve issues, you cause major problems. There's kind of like two sides of this coin in a sense. There's some people that you have this terminology called a doormat where they don't really struggle with confronting people. They never confront. They never deal with issues. But here's the problem. They often store bitterness and you can sometimes see people that were really calm, really kind, always letting things go just for years or for days, just letting go, letting go. In theory, you think that's what's happening, but inside they're just getting angrier and angrier and madder. That's inside. But to your face, like, hi, how's it going? But inside, if you're like that towards someone, you're the problem. And then what happens is usually it reaches critical mass and then they just explode and they just like you're like, what happened? Or like there's just this minor thing. There's this minor issue. And then they just act like you just killed their favorite puppy or something. And you're just thinking like, man, what did I do? Because they just had all this bitterness. They're just growing and decided. And they're just ready to just pop. You know, this is a problem. OK, there's the other side of the coin where just it doesn't matter what you do is wrong. And they're just attacking you and mad at you. And they're just so easily provoked and just causing, you know, we don't want to be either of those. Right. So that's why we have to be honest with ourselves and just say, hey, have I let this go? If you haven't let it go, you have to deal with it. If it's something and then if you think about it long enough, you say, well, I haven't let it go, but I should have. Let it go. Put it back in the safe. All right. Gone. Pray. Ask God to forgive you. Ask God to bless that person. Move on with your life. Life is too short to just constantly dwell on little issues that are meaningless. And you can see people that just allow the tiniest grievances, the tiniest little trespasses end up just destroying them mentally, destroying their attitude, destroying their heart, destroying their charity. You know, don't allow this to happen. Don't let bitterness destroy you. Let all bitterness, all bitterness, all bitterness and anger be put away from you. All of it. If you have bitterness towards people, get rid of it. If you're mad at me, you need to resolve that. If you're mad at this church, you need to resolve it. You say, hey, if it's minor, let it go. If it's not, let's deal with it. But do not just sit on bitterness. If you have a bitterness towards someone on staff, someone in leadership, resolve it. If you have bitterness towards another person in this room, resolve it. If you have bitterness towards your spouse, resolve it. Do not allow bitterness to make something a bigger issue than it actually is. We need to resolve issues. Okay? So we have to have consequences. Now when we do it, we want to do it healthily. We want to do it with the right attitude. We want to be gracious. We want to come to them with kindness. We want to approach this issue. But, you know, we cannot allow unresolved issues to just destroy our church and destroy people. If we're constantly dealing with things and getting back to a status quo and having new mercies every morning, you know what? Usually you don't have as big of problems. But when you allow just all this bitterness and all this anger and all these issues, then you could have just like major civil wars, major church splits, major grievances. And often what bitterness does is it leads people to commit worse sins, like all kinds of gossip, railing, attacking people, you know, being a secret informant, a double agent, just trying to just do all kinds of crazy things. And you're just thinking like, bro, where did this come from? How did you turn into this person? It's because they just had this bitterness that they weren't letting it go or they weren't dealing with it or they weren't resolving it. Now, again, you're not going to like everything about somebody. You're not going to agree with everything about somebody. But you shouldn't just be allowing bitterness to eat at you. It is an evil cancer. It is an evil disease. And it'll destroy you. It'll destroy your church. It'll destroy your family. It'll destroy your workplace. It's a cancer that we have to get rid of. We don't want to give place to the devil. You're giving place to the devil to mess with you when you allow bitterness in your life. Please, please deal with conflict. So let's go through Matthew 18. I'm going to use the board here for a moment. And let's just kind of let's kind of just chart what we talked about this morning. OK, because I'm a visual learner. I don't know about you, but I'm not the best at just hearing things. I kind of have to see them. And this board. Forgive me. I'm going to try my best to draw on here to where it kind of fits. But we have conflict. OK. This is the this is the problem. There's the trespass. There's the conflict. OK. We have a couple options here. Number one in this bottom side. Let's let's. Yeah, let's do the bottom side is the good side. OK. In a sense, we could just let it go. OK. And we're going to call it leg. All right. Just let it go. OK. We just want to let it go. Hey, there's a minor grievance. We let it go. They said something I didn't like. Let it go. That's always an option, isn't it? And we should be hitting this button a lot, which is in our lives. We just be like, bam, bam, bam, bam. OK. Let's say it's they kill your neighbor. All right. OK. It's under death. Then we just immediately go to the authorities. OK. We just ask its immediate escalation to authority. So this is a sin that's under death. OK, I'm going to put it on the line, actually, probably help be more helpful. This is like death. This is like petty. OK, so if it's petty, let it go. If it's death, cops. Right. Or whatever the authority is. Someone's taking money out of the cash register at work. Boss is immediately boss. You're not just like, let it go. Don't let those things go. OK. What about something in the middle? That's what we've been talking about. That's what we're dealing with. OK. It's a big enough issue. You can't just let it go. Well, then you kind of now have a situation where it's just it needs to be dealt with. OK. And I don't even know what to write here because there's not enough room, but just it needs resolution. OK. We need some kind of a resolution here because it's not big enough to go here. It's not under death, but it's something that's also crosses a boundary. It's not just petty. They keyed your car. They ripped you off for a thousand bucks. They hurt your child physically or something like that. You know, like it's something that you're just like, I can't just let this one go. We need some resolution here. Hey, they lied about me and I kind of need some resolution here. You know, they're causing me some kind of an issue. They're doing something to harm me. So we need a resolution here. OK. Well, again, I'm going to say this. It could be that even though it's like a grievance, we don't necessarily have to keep it private. So like most of the time we're just going to say, hey, private. I'm just going to go to them alone. I need a resolution. I'm gonna go to them. But if it crosses a certain boundary again, it may not be under death, but it's something that still needs to be alerted to the authority that's involved. Hey, they slandered me. Well, that's not going to be a private thing between you two necessarily. Always. It could also need to be involved. The authority deals with somebody else, deals with the church issue, deals with heresy. Like it's crossing some boundary where other people are involved or need to be involved. Then tell them. I tell people, hey, if someone's going out soul winning in our church and they say, you don't have to call upon the Lord to be saved. That comes to me immediately. That is not allowed here ever. That person's an idiot and I want nothing to do with them. Now, obviously, they could be wrong. They're new. And we'll explain it to them. We'll be gracious unto them. If they repent, we're moving on. We don't care. But we're not going to tolerate that nonsense. We are a soul winning church. And I take offense to anything attacking. So things attacking soul winning right here. OK, things attacking the church right here. But again, we're saying they did something to you personally. There's some guys. We're just going straight to them. We're kind of going private right now. Again, let's say you go to them and they say, I'm sorry. OK. We forgive. And look, any time we get to this this section, it's done. Hey, think about it. Conflict. It was too big for me to let it go. It's not under death. It doesn't necessarily involve anybody else or the church issues. I just went to them. They said, sorry. We forgave it. Isn't that what Matthew 18 says? Now, let's read a little bit more here. What happens when we're now we're stuck because it's not it didn't fit in these. They didn't do that. OK, so we still need resolution. We still need some kind of resolution. Matthew. Sorry. Give me a second to turn there. Matthew 18. He says, if he shall hear these, I'll gain my brother. Bam. But if he will not hear thee, then take with me one or two more than in the mouth of two or three witnesses. Every word may be established. So if he didn't apologize, didn't get it right. And we need more resolution. What do we do? Well, we need to get two more involved. OK. And I'm just for sake of space, I'm just going to write on here two more. Now, again, the two more is not necessarily people that had to be involved in the situation. It's not necessarily people that solve the situation. It's not saying they were witnesses to the issue. It's just saying there are two more witnesses to the conflict resolution. These two people don't have to be the pastor or the leadership. Now could be. Doesn't have to be. It's just two other people in the church. OK, so if me and Brother Sam have an issue and Sam comes to me and says, Pastor Shelley, you did wrong. OK. And I'm like, I don't care. Like, I'm right. I'm not going to apologize. Then he could get two more people involved and say, hey, I have an issue with this person. I need a couple more people to hear us out. OK. Now, this is the this is the benefit of having two more people. It could be that Sam gets two more people in the church and we all get together. And this is OK. Let me just say it this way. I believe personally, this is my personal opinion. I believe when you do the situation, you don't go to them and tell them the situation. You simply say there's a conflict between me and this person. I need two more people to hear us out. That's it. You don't tell them what's going on. And when we're all together, then we discuss the issue. These two people often could end up helping you realize, like, who's right or wrong, because let's say he thinks he's still right. He gets two more people. We get together and they're like, actually, you're wrong, Sam. And it's three on one. Well, then it's just like, OK, just ends because you just your your issue wasn't even a legitimate issue. But let's say the flip. Sam's right. I won't get it. He gets two more people. Now it's three on one to me. And it's just like, hey, sorry. Like this is you're in the wrong. You need to fix this. You need to apologize. You need to make this right. And I say next to you, I don't care. Well, then what do we do? OK, well. Again, this is. If they get it right, we just go back to forgive. They got it wrong. This is a big deal. Then we go to. The pastor and the church. OK. Let's read this in the Bible. He says in verse 16. But if you will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more than the mouth of two or three witnesses. Every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as in heathen man and a publican. So, again, if they won't hear two or more, then we just say, hey, we're going to bring it before the whole church. Now, let's say it's brought up for the church and the church is in agreement and he doesn't repent. Well, that's when we have church discipline. OK, we have discipline or separation. If he repents, then again, we're back to forgive. OK, so like getting someone to this point takes a lot of steps, doesn't it? I mean, if you really think about it, it's like, number one, can we just let it go? That should just resolve tons. This should be like the most issues and just bam, bam, bam. If there's an issue, hey, I went to him and you know what? They said sorry. Bam. We got more people involved. They said sorry. Bam. We got here. Bam. It's just like after it's just like, no, no, no, no. So, again, think about it. Someone in the church just rips you off for $5,000 and it's just provable. And then you tell them and they say, no, I'm not going to make it right. I'm not even sorry. And then you get two people like, hey, you got to do that. You got to say sorry, at least you got to fix this. I'm like, no. And then you tell the whole church and we're like, hey, we just we're just not going to let this person stay in our church when they won't say sorry or make this issue right, because we know what would happen if we didn't deal with it. Well, then someone's going to have a lot of bitterness towards the other person and we can't allow bitterness in the church because we're giving place to the devil and it can destroy the church. So we have to deal with issues. We have to deal. Now, again, let's say we get to this point. Now that we've reached this point, what do I do towards this person? I let it go. It's now up to God. They're in God's hands. I've dealt with it. We completely resolved it. It's over. And sometimes there is separation involved in a conflict situation. But once the separations occurred, you've dealt with it. There's nothing left for you to do. We move on and we need to move on from these kind of issues. Hey, if someone gets disciplined, they've been dealt with. We move on. We're not going to dwell anymore. We don't care anymore. That's their problem. That's between them and God. I don't have to deal with it anymore. OK, so, you know, this is just try to help you understand Matthew 18 and how that works. There's going to be some issues, though, again, that go straight here. You know, right. There's just some issues that go straight here, straight here. Some people think like on this issue, they're like, well, why didn't you go down this path? Because it was one of these issues. They're preaching that salvation's by works. We're not going to go through this process. We're already good. We're just like fast forward, gone, you know, fast forward. Hey, you're you're worshipping idols here, you know. And that's where First Corinthians five comes into play. You know, when you get to this situation, it's First Corinthians five, you just tell the pastor they're a drunk, they're a railer, they're extortioner, they're whatever. And we just deal with it and we move on. Hey, they're trying to sow discord. They're causing problems here. Hey, they're a murderer here. You know what I mean? That was just like, bam, just like cops, whatever. If it's really petty. OK, here, if it's something that has to be dealt with, then we deal with it. OK, this I think this is kind of helps people just kind of identify all these different pathways and problems that are going on in the church or could go on because, again, people get confused. And what often happens is someone that's a railer, someone that's in this category, they're always like, well, they did it unbiblical. They never went down this path. Didn't have to. Don't need to. You're wrong. OK, that's not what the Bible is saying. And then also, again, you have a lot of issues where people are trying to go down that path when it should be kind of one of these. And you know why it would have been one of these? Because if they actually got a couple people involved, they'd be like, bro, you were back here. OK, this just wasn't a big enough issue, wasn't a big enough problem. And look, people that have come to me with problems, people that are seeking my counsel, they'll notice I often do this. I often walk them through this board. I often say this. Hey, is this something you could let go? Is this something? And this is what's even more frustrating is people come to me and they say, I've heard that so-and-so is talking bad about me. And they're like, what are you going to do about it? And I'm thinking, like, well, I have nothing. Do you have more? Do you have multiple witnesses? No. Have you confronted the person? No. What am I supposed to do about it? They think that they like want me to be a detective and take down an incident number. Like, here's your incident number and I'm going to investigate whether or not this person said something about you that I have no idea. Like, that is not a good use of the pastor's time to investigate a hypothetical gossip issue. OK, now, again, this is another thing that just frustrates me is it's gone here. Hey, there was a problem and you know about it. And I say, OK, did you talk to them about it? And they say, no. You know what I'm going to tell you? Tell them. So many people come to me, they say, hey, this person did this awkward thing at soul winning. And I'm like, OK, what did you say? Well, nothing. Say something. Right. Tell them. Tell them the problem. Don't just feel like you. You know, again, if it's super bad, tell both of us. Right. Hey, pastor doesn't allow people to do that. And I'm going to tell him, OK, that's a great way to handle it. Or if it's just just between y'all, just say like, hey, I don't think you should say that. Hey, I don't think you should do this. Hey, I didn't like this. Whatever. Because this is what I would appreciate when someone comes to me with a problem. They say, look, there was a problem. I went to them in private. They didn't hear me. I got two other people. I just said, hey, we all come here. We need to deal with this issue. They didn't hear them. So I'm telling you about the situation. Then I'm gonna be like, OK, sounds like you went through all the steps. Sounds like everything's legit. I'm going to talk to the person. I'm going to notify them where they're at and that we might have to bring this before the church unless they're going to get it right. If they're still like on this crash course, then we will bring it toward the church and then we will deal with it. Here's another thing that people get mad about that leave our churches. The claim like, oh, we didn't do a Matthew 18 because we never brought it before the church. OK, but this is what a pastor often do. It gets to this step. It's here. And I go to you and I say, hey, this is where we're at. And I already know for a fact where the church is going to land on this issue. So if you show up, we're going to do it. And then they don't show up. And they're like, you didn't do it. It's like, no, no, no. You just realized that you were in the wrong and you didn't want to go through this painful process. And then you just claim like they're un-biblical, they're not handling situations or whatever. It's like, no, no, no. We will deal with it. But we didn't have to because you cast yourself out. You just went ahead and left because you realized you didn't want to deal with that issue. I mean, it takes a certain level of brazenness to do that. But look, I've been in church where it happened at Faithful Word Baptist Church. Someone had gone through this entire path, was confronted by Pastor Anderson in the parking lot saying, if you come in there, I will call you out in front of everyone in the parking lot, in the parking lot. I'm sorry. I'll call you out in front of the church. He's like saying in the parking lot, I'll tell you this, right? Person still walks in. Don't call his bluff. OK, I'll just tell you this. All right. And don't call my bluff. But then, like the guy is getting called out. And look, it was not fun. It was super uncomfortable. And he has his family with him. And he's making his wife and his children cry and sob because he's just causing this huge issue. There was multiple witnesses to him just railing and attacking people in the church. It was just a clear cut issue. And he just forced us to just basically physically remove him and his family from the church while they're crying. Like what an evil person to do something like that. But, you know, it will happen. You know, if you mess with church, you know, church will eventually get to this point if we have to. We don't want to. We want to resolve issues. We want to get things right. We want to we don't want to have this kind of situation happen often. But if it happens, it happens. OK, go to James three. Pretty much, pretty much done. We'll finish. I want to reiterate my points. Number one, when there's issues, we need to just let them go if we can. Number two, if there's a big enough issue, we need to privately confront them. Number three, we should have an attitude to seek restoration. And number four, we should not allow ourselves to get bitter. You can apply this to other contexts, even marriage. Hey, in marriage, you should just be letting a lot of things go. Most of the issues between husband and wife need to be let go. Number two, if there is an issue in marriage that needs to be dealt with, do it privately. Talk to each other privately about it. Number three, though, this is a little bit different because marriage is a different relationship than church. We also have to admit that a husband and a wife situation is not a brother and brother in church. The wife has to submit. So in a conflict, the husband is always right. And if you ever come to me and you want marriage counseling or marriage advice, I'm going to tell you the exact same thing. Sorry, your husband's right. You say, like, what about this scenario? He was right. But what about this situation? He was right. Now, again, internally, I might think, like, he was a jerk. I might think he was being insensitive. I might think it's even a bad course of action for their family. But he's still right because he's in charge. OK. And again, does that mean that every decision he makes is right? No. But he's just right because he's in charge. And we need to allow the husbands to be in charge. So the husbands, whatever they want goes. They are the king of their castle. They are in charge. And so if you think that you're going to ever get me to tell your husband that he was wrong and you were right, don't ever ask for my marriage advice. OK. Now, again, I might tell people, and I've confronted people and said, like, hey, this is kind of insensitive. You might be a jerk here. You should consider being more sacrificial, be more loving. Like, hey, that's true. And if people ask me if I think something's right or wrong, if a husband says, hey, is this a good choice or a bad choice, I might tell them that's a bad choice. But it's your choice to make because you're in charge. And you know what? That would solve a lot of problems. I mean, if the wife was just always saying you're right, we don't need to fight. That should be the phrase. The husband's always right. No need to fight. Number four, in a conflict, even in marriage, you need to both admit faults. So even if you're in charge, that doesn't mean you were acting correctly. And this is what will help you because, look, no one's perfect. Sometimes your wife does things that's not right. Sometimes you do things that aren't right. If there is conflict in the marriage, it's always helpful, even though you're in charge, to still admit fault. Hey, you're right, I shouldn't have said that. Hey, I wasn't being sensitive to your feelings. Hey, I apologize for being rude. Hey, I was mean to you. Hey, you know, I did make this decision, and it probably wasn't the best decision. You know, there's nothing wrong with that that doesn't make you lesser of a man. We should also admit fault and tell them they're wrong, but then we should still say, but I'm still in charge. But we're still going to make these decisions and make these rules. And again, our attitude should be to seek for peace again in any conflict, any issue. In a marriage, please don't allow bitterness to be in your marriage. Ladies, do not grow bitterness towards your husband. Husbands, do not grow bitterness towards your wife. Resolve conflict. Don't let the sun go down upon your wrath. You know, I'd rather go to bed late than us be angry. And I'm not saying we're perfect in this area. And I'm not saying that I've always done the right thing here. But you know what, it's always just best if we can just squash it before we go to bed. And you don't want to wake up already in a bad spot. Now, if you do that and you wake up, try to fix it right away. You know, give them numeracies every morning, try to fix things, try to resolve things. Sometimes as the leader, you have to be the bigger person and go to them first and apologize first. And you know, that just sometimes works. Women are women, man. Okay, I'll just tell you. But at the end of the day, you know what, we're supposed to lead by example. And if you want your wife to apologize, why don't you apologize first? James 3, look at verse 13. Look, you know, what would be the most shameful thing to do is brag about bitterness. Would it be go online, go on Facebook and just brag about how you're bitter at things that happen at church. What does the Bible say? Glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. It's actually a devilish attitude, it's a devilish action. It says, for where your envying and strife is, there is confusion in every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. Let us be peacemakers. Let us be seeking to make peace. Let us not be envying one another. Let us not be angry at one another. Let us not let bitterness come and destroy our hearts and our minds and our lives and our church. Let us, you know, endeavor to keep the unity, is what the Bible says in Ephesians 4. Our goal should be to be friends. Our goal should be to be kind to one another. Our goal should be to have some feeling of safety around the brethren, not like, oh man, if I make a mistake, everyone's going to get mad at me, everybody's going to crucify me over this. You know, it feels good to feel like people can allow you to make mistakes. You know, if you go to work, what if you went to work and your boss just said, hey, if you do anything wrong today, you're fired. Wouldn't you feel pretty, like, under a lot of pressure, a lot of tenseness in your relationship? What if that happened in marriage? What if you said in marriage, hey, if you do anything I don't like, I'm divorcing you, I'm putting you away as a wife? That would be really stressful. What if you did that to your kids? Hey kids, if you don't get an A plus on every single assignment, you're not my kid anymore. Isn't this like the Asian stereotype? I don't know if it's true or not, but it's like the Asian stereotype is just kind of, you know, that's not the right attitude. I got a witness, so I don't know. But, you know, we don't want to have this tense feeling of like, I can't make a mistake, I can't be perfect. You know, and praise God that God's not like that with us. He's not like, hey, as soon as you have a foolish thought, gone. Then we're all gone. Him that knows to do good and doeth it not, timid to sin, gone. Praise God that he didn't just take us to hell as soon as we sinned the first time. Didn't he give us a lot of grace and a lot of mercy and a lot of long suffering, and isn't he kind to us and didn't even do good unto us when we didn't deserve it? That's the attitude of Christ. And we shouldn't be holding petty grievances against one another. Just let them go. If they have to be dealt with, please deal with them biblically. Have a spirit of grace and meekness when you do it. And look, if it crosses a big boundary, we'll deal with those. But let us all learn to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let us figure out how to resolve conflict. Let us not be a church where we can't handle conflict. You know, the mature thing and the adult thing is to be able to handle conflict in a mature, gracious approach. People that can't handle conflict are immature and childish, and we don't want to be like that spiritually. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father for giving us this advice. Thank you for giving us ways to handle problems. Thank you for being an example of how to forgive problems and how to give grace and how to be long suffering. I pray that we look to your example. I pray that we could have the attitude of Christ where we don't just harbor bitterness and anger and just unresolved tension towards the brethren. I pray that we would work on resolving issues, that we would let a lot of things go. I pray that in marriages when there's tension or issues or there's problems that you would help both parties to have a heart that's softened towards one another. I pray that you could help them to work on the relationship. I pray that you would help our church to have a tender heart towards one another, that we could be kind one to another, that when we have to deal with issues that we would seek immediate restoration, that we can have the right attitude. And I pray that if there is unresolved issues that you would help everyone to just either let them go or fix them and move on and that you would allow us to continue to be unified for the work of Christ. It's in His name we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, in closing, let's go to 374. Song number 374, Send the Light. Song number 374. Let's all sing it out. There's a call come ringing for the restless flame. Send the light, send the light. There are souls to rescue, there are souls to save. Send the light, send the light. Send the light, the blessed gospel light. Let it shine from shore to shore. Send the light, the blessed gospel light. Let it shine forevermore. We have heard the master only call today. Send the light, send the light. And the golden offering at the cross he raised. Send the light, send the light. Send the light, the blessed gospel light. Let it shine from shore to shore. Send the light, the blessed gospel light. Let it shine forevermore. Let us pray that praise be everywhere around. Send the light, send the light. And the Christ-like spirit everywhere he found. Send the light, send the light. Send the light, the blessed gospel light. Let it shine from shore to shore. Send the light, the blessed gospel light. Let it shine forevermore. Let us not grow weary in the work of love. Send the light, send the light. Let us gather fruit from the ground above. Send the light, send the light. Send the light, the blessed gospel light. Let it shine from shore to shore. Send the light, the blessed gospel light. Let it shine forevermore. Great singing, everybody. You were all dismissed.