♪ I will sing the wondrous story of the prize you died for me ♪
♪ I'll be glad with glory as I'll sing the story ♪
♪ Of prize and glory ♪
- Hymn 196.
♪ I was lost, she was found, she went astray ♪
♪ On her friend, the wondrous story ♪
♪ The sated glory of money, free and glory ♪
♪ The pride of God of the party ♪
♪ Our battle, by his hand, safely led ♪
♪ Yes, I was lost, she was found, she went astray ♪
♪ On her friend, the wondrous story ♪
♪ The sated glory of money, free and glory ♪
♪ I was lost, she was found, she went astray ♪
♪ On her friend, the wondrous story ♪
♪ The sated glory of money, free and glory ♪
♪ The wondrous story of the grumpy thing it was ♪
I'll remember that one's a little high.
Oh, dude, I knew it.
All right, today's Sunday, February 22nd.
That's it, next week we're already done
with almost the first quarter of the year.
And Sunday morning service is 10.30 a.m.,
Sunday evening, 4.30 p.m., Wednesday service, 5.30 p.m.
And then our show wedding times are Sunday at 2.00 p.m.
And then we obviously had a really good turnout this weekend.
Our memory chapter of the week is Philippians 1.
I mean, the memory chapter of Philippians 1,
the verse of the week is Philippians 1.19,
for I know that this shall turn for my salvation
through prayer in the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
It's a reminder of our family integrated church.
Obviously, we're excited that everybody's here
and doing all these things,
just a couple of housekeeping roles.
I mentioned it this morning, but I'll mention it again.
I don't know who's doing it, and that's fine.
I don't need to know.
Just please, especially on the boys' restroom,
if they're younger than five, just go in there.
Dads, go with your kids.
Make sure they use the restroom
'cause they keep locking the men out.
And so we need to stop doing that.
Eventually, we'll change those things out.
But in the meantime, I keep running into the hall,
and I'm like, "Why is the guy standing there?"
Well, they're waiting.
They think somebody's in the restroom.
So we just need to get that under control.
And then if the children are being a little bit loud,
mother, baby room is in the back,
and then of course, if they need anything,
then the adults can hand it to them,
whether it's snacks, drinks, anything like that.
Especially in the coffee area,
just 'cause of course that should be common sense.
We don't wanna burn anything or anything like that.
And then just in finality, at the end of the services,
you guys can just help me have your kids pick up
whatever toys, paperwork, crayons,
stuff that they're using, I'd appreciate it.
That being said, we now are tied for last year.
We just had one baptism this year, so that's great.
Brother Theo got baptized.
And then we are at 97 Souls one, so that's updated.
And then I know we had a group go out there.
We knocked one out and then we had,
how many did you guys have?
- Johnny had six.
- What?
Wow.
- Johnny had six.
- I'm not, I know, 'cause I guess you moved over
to that aircraft, 'cause he said,
"Oh, we're gonna be on that one."
I just, with the, I'm not, sorry for my reaction.
We finished the one so quick.
I didn't know how much time you guys would have
so waiting on the next one.
So they had six and then you guys had one.
So seven total, awesome.
So we are now at, what is that, 104?
That's 104, seven sold.
That's awesome, thank you guys.
So brother Matt is doing a good job
'cause he's keeping us in that really receptive area.
We were, and we knocked out a whole apartment complex.
That was great.
I think we were in and out in like 15 minutes.
We've never done that.
We just like flanked the place.
Sister Roger Christian was like,
"Hey, the office manager said they're gonna kick us out."
They can, but we're leaving 'cause we're done.
So that was great.
Then we had the birthdays and anniversaries
right there on the right-hand side.
Upcoming activities, the big one.
Of course, we had the great soul winning numbers yesterday
and then today with everybody going out.
And then we have the soul winning marathon on March 21st.
And then don't forget the big,
we have First Works Baptist Church
with Pastor Bruce McKeon coming March 22nd.
And we're already making plans for that.
So we should, we'll do that.
And in addition to that, we just added April 18th.
I will confirm, regardless of the response,
I think we'll still do it.
So we are gonna do a soul winning marathon
at the University of Houston.
We're shooting for the 18th with the conjunction
with Setfast with that push they're doing.
But if they don't respond, I know Pastor Shelly's busy,
I think we'll just commit to that day
and we'll just go send a group out there.
Oh yeah, oh, thank you.
But I mean, that's why I have somebody else guiding us.
My wife is doing good and reminding me.
I'm trying to go to Mexico City that week
with Brother Diego to go do some missions, soul winning.
And that's why I'm glad I'm delegating.
So regardless, I think we'll still stick to that
'cause we can always have one group do that.
We can never, and that's really the goal, right?
Where we have multiple groups doing
multiple soul winning throughout the week
and everything like that.
And by the way, if you guys don't want
like the numbers during the week,
if you don't wanna announce them during the church service,
just text them to the WhatsApp or text me directly
and we'll keep adding those.
And we have the January challenge.
And then now we have three expecting mothers.
Just pray for the mothers, Haley Malutich,
Christian Rogers, and Marcel Wycliffe.
By the way, congratulations Marcel.
We just found out today.
And then you guys have the housekeeping rules right there.
And then all our prayer requests.
I think we're good on all that.
We're gonna be in Proverbs 18, brother Matt.
Proverbs 18.
So let's turn our handles over to page 379.
379.
Oh wait, one more thing.
This is like official, unofficial.
But what I mean by that is Setfast put together
a documentary they're gonna release on Friday.
And brother Heath and I have been toying with the idea
of just doing something here at the church.
If we did do something, it would be late at night,
like at 8 p.m., that's when they're releasing it.
Just by a show, and I should have done that in the morning,
but a show has who would be willing to come out
Friday evening, you guys do it, you guys do it.
Okay, then I'm not saying we're gonna,
the weeks, sometimes I just gotta plan day by day.
I'm thinking we will do it, but let me talk to brother Heath
and make sure that we just get everything organized
so that we're not just having you guys show up
'cause it's not fun, like we wanna have,
we wanna make it like a little bit of a fun experience,
so we'll see what we put together.
All right, three, what did I say, 379?
Bring it in the sheet, amen, 379.
(upbeat music)
We shall come reach a voice in bringing in the sheath.
Going in the sunshine, snowing in the shadows,
Fearing neither clouds nor winter's chilly breeze.
Lying by the walrus and the lame-a-random,
We shall come reach a voice in bringing in the sheath.
Bringing in the sheath, bringing in the sheath, We shall come reach a voice in bringing in the sheath.
Going forth with me, being the spirit of the dream.
♪ Oh, the goodness of the sheep ♪
♪ Bringing in the sheep ♪
♪ We shall come rejoicing in it ♪
♪ Bringing in the sheep ♪
♪ We shall come rejoicing ♪
- Our Bible number to Proverbs 18, Proverbs 18,
whether you've read the whole chapter or you regularly do.
- Proverbs chapter 18.
Proverbs 18.
Proverbs 18 is where we'll be.
Proverbs chapter 18, verse one, the Bible reads,
"Through desire, a man having separated himself,
"seeketh and intermedaleth all wisdom.
"Fool hath no delight, heart may discover itself.
"Wicked cometh, then cometh also,
"contempt with ignominy reproach.
"Words of a man's mouth as deep waters,
"wellspring of wisdom as a flowing brook.
"It is not good to accept the person
"of the wicked to overthrow the righteous judgment.
"Fool's lips enter into contention,
"his mouth holleth for strokes.
"Fool's mouth is his destruction,
"his lips the snare of insult.
"Words of a tale-bearer's wounds,
"they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.
"He also that is slothful in his work
"is brother to him that is a great waster.
"The name of the Lord is a strong tower,
"righteous runneth into it to save.
"Rich man's wealth is his strong city,
"high wall of his own conceit.
"Before destruction, the heart of man is haughty,
"for honor is humility.
"He that answereth the matter before he heareth it,
"it is folly and shame unto him.
"The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity,
"but a wounded spirit bear.
"Heart of the prudent getteth knowledge,
"in the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge.
"Man's gift maketh room for him,
"bringeth him before great men.
"He that is first in his own cause,
"seemeth just, but his neighbor cometh,
"and searcheth him out.
"Wink, Satan, the lot causeeth contention to cease,
"parteth between the mighty.
"Brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city.
"Their contentions are like the bars of a castle.
"A man's belly shall be satisfied
"with the fruit of his mouth,
"with the increase of his lips shall he be filled.
"And life are in the power of the tongue.
"They that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
"Who so findeth the wife findeth the good thing,
"attaineth favor of more.
"The poor useth in treaties, rich answereth roughly.
"Man that hath friends must show himself friendly.
"There is a friend sticketh closer brother."
Let's bow our heads and go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, thank you once again for gathering us here today.
Thank you for gathering us here this evening
to hear your word preached.
Lord, we pray that you soften our hearts
and allow us to receive your word gladly
and be obedient to it.
And Lord, we also pray that you fill Pastor Reyes
with your Holy Spirit and allow him to preach boldly
from the pulpit, and it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
- Brother Heath, do you know where the lavalier is?
- Put it here.
- We have no lavalier.
All right, well, we're there in chapter 18 of...
- Bible, sorry, that threw me off, guys.
Give me a second, let me just gather my...
- So we're there in the book of Proverbs chapter 18.
We're there in the book of Proverbs chapter 18.
And let's focus there on verses...
Let's focus there, let's start there in verse one.
And it says, "Through a desire,
a man having separated himself,
seeketh and intermetalleth with all wisdom."
And that word intermetalleth is almost a synonym,
not quite, but it's almost a synonym of what?
With the word metal.
So it's another word for metal,
but in this instance, it's to take part in a matter,
especially officially, to metal, to get yourself in.
Whereas metal, technically, or most commonly,
is to interfere officiously or annoyingly, right?
To involve oneself unwarranted.
So there's a little bit of a difference there, right?
One is basically you're being a busybody,
where the other one is you're just taking something,
you're involving yourself seriously in something.
And so that's why we see that there.
And the title of the sermon this afternoon
is Busybody Christianity, Busybody Christianity.
So a couple of things that I love about a church
that's growing like ours is, you know, as a preacher,
my whole purpose, one of the main reasons
that I became a preacher was that I would always
get up there, like go to church,
and I would always hear the preacher,
just like maybe not, and I'm not saying all preachers,
obviously there's some good preachers that I've had under,
that I've been under, that I've learned from,
and that I've, you know, they've expounded the word
and have helped me mature and grow,
so, and of course, Pastor Cobb's been my pastor
here for a long time, so I'm not actually speaking of him,
but most of the time, and this is a true saying,
we are frustrated with the preaching behind the pulpit
because they're not either preaching
the whole council of God, or if they are,
they're kind of circumventing,
or they're walking on eggshells
on certain parts of scripture,
they're not willing to address, you know,
all the things that are found in the Bible,
and I always told myself that if I ever had the opportunity,
I would touch on all subjects,
even the ones that would make me personally uncomfortable.
And this type of subject is a subject that,
I'm not saying it makes me uncomfortable,
but I just know that I'm gonna probably step on more toes
with this one than with a general sermon
like preaching against the queers and the fags,
or the Jews, or a post trip, right?
We all seem to be on the same page about that one.
Usually I'm stepping on someone's toes,
outside of the congregation.
But the minute we start preaching on specific sins,
especially the ones that we're all very capable
of being guilty of, I'm not saying you are,
but I believe that I could say this with a confidence
that at some point in our lives,
probably all of us have been guilty
of being either busy bodies, or tale bearers,
or just meddling, you know, just gossiping.
I mean, that's just life.
Everybody's curious, everybody's nosy,
everybody wants to know everything.
And you say, "Well, I don't know, Pastor,
"maybe I don't think you're talking about me."
I don't think that that's true,
because obviously if that was the case,
nobody would love reality TV, right?
Reality TV is literally a reflection of American society,
and I'm not talking just TV in general,
reality TV in itself is the most,
like it shines the light on what?
The fact that we're so nosy, right?
Reality TV's taken off in the last 30 years,
because everybody wants to just be
in everybody else's business.
I think, I don't know if that show's around anymore,
this is before, I'm kinda telling you guys about my time,
but remember Jerry Springer, and things like that,
or there was a show called The Real World,
I think now, I think, the last I knew,
and I don't know if this is current, I really don't,
is the Kardashians, the O.J. Simpson's indirect family,
like they had a TV show and people follow him around,
but everybody, I think everybody and their mama,
I think some superstars or some basketball players
and wrestlers have had reality TV.
If I'm not mistaken,
I think even Hulk Hogan had a reality TV show.
Everybody wants to be in everybody's business.
Everybody wants to do that.
So, but for us as Christians,
we should not be both Christian and we shouldn't be busybody.
I mean, this is technically an oxymoron right here, right?
And then the only other thing I'll say before I get this,
because I guarantee you,
I will be stepping on some toes tonight.
Like, that's just the way it is.
I'm not even calling anybody out specifically.
I'm not saying anything.
Nobody did anything to trigger it right now.
Usually when I preach on something like this,
just so you guys know,
something happened many, many, many months ago,
and I just put it in the back of my mind,
and then I preached it now.
But here's the challenge.
Even though I wait,
probably somebody else will feel like
it was something that they did now.
So if you think this sermon applies to you, it does.
It probably wasn't you that triggered it,
but since you feel like it applies to you,
you know how you should take it.
It's like I told my son earlier,
cause he was kind of feeling bad.
He's like, man, I feel like all you've done
is correct me today.
Like I've just been, I said, well, look,
what does the Bible say?
For all have sinned and come short of glory of God.
For there's not one righteous, no not one.
I said, you know, what's the purpose of being corrected?
It's so that we don't get fully punished, right?
The Bible says that God chases in us like a son
and not that we are bastards, right?
The whole goal of preaching a sermon like this
is to correct the things that we need to fix
so that we don't get like the actual punishment
or consequences of life from God and from just in general,
from the things that we gotta do.
But let's look at that.
I love the way the verse starts in Proverbs 18.
It says, "Through a desire, a man,
have he separated himself,
seeketh and intermetalleth with all wisdom."
So what is the purpose of man?
How we should have, where should our desire be?
It should be to seek and to get ourselves involved in what?
In wisdom.
That's where we need to be like curious.
That's where we need to just kind of like interject ourselves
and to be trying to find out a matter is in wisdom.
We need to get, I would say this is kind of an oxymoron,
but we should get nosy about the things of God, right?
If I feel like maybe I should get involved in something else,
the very first thing I should do
is that I should seek wisdom.
Let's go right there in verse three.
It says, "When the wicked cometh,
then cometh also contempt,
and with ignominy reproach."
And that word ignominy,
it just means disgrace, dishonor, public contempt.
It's shameful, right?
And so, "When the wicked cometh,"
and this is all in the context.
If you were to read Proverbs 18,
which, by the way, it is my belief.
If you disagree, that's fine.
I'm not gonna argue with you on that,
but I don't think anything's done by accident
or coincidence, right, in the Bible.
And every chapter has specific themes that it's covering,
even though it feels like sometimes there's a bunch
of stuff that's thrown in there.
If you really just take the time to read it,
it's dealing with a very similar subject, right?
And right here, we're talking about someone
who's intermingling with wisdom,
but then if the wicked come, then cometh also what?
Contempt and ignominy, reproach.
In other words, it's the opposite.
These are the things that you shouldn't
involve yourself with.
And then go to verse 17, it says,
"He that is first in his own cause seemeth just,
but his neighbor cometh and searcheth him."
And the reason that verse stands out to me
is because usually, when people become busybodies,
you know what they're really doing?
It's a form of selfishness, right?
It's two things that, this is my personal belief
based on what I've read in the Bible.
Number one, you've got something you don't wanna deal with,
so it's easier to point somebody else out.
The Bible literally describes that, right?
The moat and the beam in someone's eye.
But also, you wanna have this light shine on you,
about how you know something,
or you know how to fix something,
or you just know more than everybody else, right?
You see this a lot in young people
as they start to learn things.
All of a sudden, they start to educate the older people
about how much they're learning
about the things that you already forgot, right?
I'll never forget I had a conversation with my dad one time,
and I corrected him, and I was right.
I was probably 18, 19, 20,
right in that range between 18 and 20.
The age is not so much relevant.
The fact that I was a young man,
I was starting to read more,
I was starting to just get out in the world and do things,
and so I was learning things,
and I thought nobody else had learned that stuff.
I definitely thought my dad didn't know what I knew,
because, of course, how would my dad
know the things that I know?
And I remember I corrected my dad,
and I was like, "Yeah, see, I got you."
I knew something that you didn't know.
And he turned to me, he goes, "Son,"
he goes, "I've forgotten more things
"than you've learned in your lifetime."
I was like, "Oh, you know, you shut me down real quick."
The old dying, put down the little young whelp,
I'm all trying to roar,
and he just showed me what a real roar was.
So these are the things that we need to watch out for.
Then right there in verse 21 says,
"Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
"and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof."
And you know, we also gotta remember,
in the book of James, we'll touch on it a little bit,
but the tongue is very powerful, and what we say and do
can and will have consequences, both positive or negative,
not only for us, but for other people.
And then the final point right there in verse 24 says,
"A man that hath friends must show himself friendly."
And there's a friend that sticketh closer than a brother,
and the way that I always see this is,
our brothers and sisters in Christ,
they're closer than our own family.
Like, we need to esteem them better than ourselves,
and if we want to have friends, not only in church,
but just in life, we also have to be good friends
to other people, right?
And so let's just go to, like I said,
I have a couple points for you this afternoon,
things that I want to touch on,
and really what, but really,
I don't remember the exact thing that made me think about it,
but I've been thinking about this for a while,
but I just think as humans,
one of the things that's really funny
about this type of mentality is,
we, on a big macro level,
we don't want anybody in our business, right?
We're all anti-government, you know,
federal rights versus states rights.
We're an independent, fundamental Baptist church, right?
No other church can tell us what to do.
You know, we're all, and so if I say all this stuff,
most of you will agree with me.
If you're not saying amen,
it's probably 'cause it's late in the afternoon,
but you know, these are things that I know for a fact.
If I say, hey, can I get an amen?
You're gonna give me an amen, right?
Is that most men like love this mentality,
like stay out of my business.
Isn't that what Americans are built on?
Like, hey, don't, you do your thing, I do my thing.
As a matter of fact,
before I was so hardcore doctrine on the Bible,
I've never liked fags, right?
I've never been a fan of queers.
You know, we used to play a game
when we were in school called smear the queer, right?
But when I got older and I wanted to be cool,
I would tell people, hey, what you do in your time
with your family and your house is your business.
You know, leave me alone, laissez faire, remember that?
Just you do you and I do me.
But when we're in the church, it's not like that, right?
We have to do what God says.
You can't do you, you have to do what God says.
And this is the purpose of this preaching today, right?
And so until everybody's all honky-dory
about these big platitudes, right?
Hey, we're independent, we're the United States,
we have small government, we're in, you know,
states rights, even city rights, right?
Houston's better than Dallas, Dallas is better than Houston,
you know, it just depends on how you look at it
and how everybody fights.
So on a macro level, everybody's on board.
But then when it becomes a personal level,
people get all uncomfortable.
It becomes a non-fun conversation, right?
Once we bring it down to the micro, to the personal level,
then people just don't like that same mentality.
It's either one or the other, right?
Go to Deuteronomy 2.
Go to Deuteronomy 2 as a way of introduction,
and then I'll give you the first point.
But in Deuteronomy 2, we'll see this play out,
that this is something that's really important
to the Lord Jesus Christ, to God himself.
There in Deuteronomy 2 and verse 4,
as they're getting ready to go into the Promised Land,
God's finally, in Deuteronomy,
giving these final instructions.
He's kind of rounding this thing out.
And in verse 4 of Deuteronomy 2, the Bible says,
"And command thou the people, saying ye are to pass
"through the coast of your brethren, the children of Esau,
"which dwell in Seir, and they shall be afraid of you.
"Take ye good heed unto yourselves therefore.
"Metal not with them, for I will not give you of their land.
"No, not so much as foot-breadth,
"because I have given Mount Seir unto Esau for possession."
If you were to just read this at its face value,
God says, "Hey, I gave this land to Esau.
"Hey, you're just gonna go through, and don't be what?"
Meddling.
So meddling is not a good thing,
not only because you're a busybody,
but also because God doesn't want you to always
just go after things that he's already given somebody else.
It's a way of covetousness in a way, too, right?
He says, "Hey, don't get involved with these people.
Just go through there."
There's so many reasons in the Bible
not to get involved in other people's business,
but just on the surface here,
what is God protecting them from?
Well, number one, he said,
"Hey, I already gave this to them."
That's not you.
Remember the parable of the talent,
I mean of the laborers,
where he says, "Hey, I'm gonna give you a penny
for a day's work."
And as the day went on, that was the same negotiation.
Why is the first group bad?
Well, because they were busybodies.
If they would have taken their wages
and gone about their business,
they would have never found out
that the last group got the same payment.
Who's ever done that?
I've been guilty of that.
Who's ever done that?
They tell you that every business is different,
but there's some businesses like Whole Foods
where they post in the break room everybody's salary.
Some businesses do that.
That's their prerogative.
That's disclosed.
Everybody knows what everybody makes.
They just wanna avoid it.
But there's other businesses
where they make you sign non-disclosures.
Hey, you cannot be telling anybody else
what they're making.
And what do people do the minute you tell people?
So that happens a lot in like hospital settings, right?
My wife has worked in nursing
and there's all kinds of disclosures
and HIPAA and all that stuff.
And they're like, they'll have this big group meeting
and they're like, hey, you cannot be disclosing,
that's the boss telling you,
you cannot be disclosing your salary to other people
'cause they don't want problems and all that stuff.
And what do people do?
They walk out of the meeting.
They don't even make it to the car.
They're like five minutes out.
They're like, hey, so, you know,
I know I'm not supposed to ask,
but as long as you don't care and I don't care,
how much do you make?
Well, I make $30.
30?
I only make 23.
Like, you know, and then all of a sudden
it's like they go to the boss and they're like,
hey, I want a raise.
Why?
Well, because so-and-so made 30.
Well, how did you find out?
Oh, well, you know, we're not supposed to do that.
And that's biblical, right?
Go to verse 19.
It says, and when thou comest nigh
over against the children of Amon,
distress them not, nor meddle with them,
for I will not give of the land of the children of Amon
any possession, because I have given it
unto the children of Lot for possession.
I think it's interesting the way the Lord has to say it,
because the Lord already knows,
and we know this from even the first books of the Bible,
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, that what he's saying is,
Moses already had told them
that they were gonna fall away.
God's preparing them.
He says, hey, don't do this.
Like, don't get busy with them.
Don't intermingle.
Don't get in their business.
And so far as later on he's like,
don't marry with these people.
Like, don't mix it.
But really what happens is
you start getting into other people's business.
There's so many things that can go wrong
when you start down that road.
And so the first point I have for you today,
go to Proverbs 26.
Go to Proverbs 26.
And we're gonna be in the book of Proverbs a lot.
And actually I have two sermons that are based a lot
in the book of Proverbs.
But here in this sermon today,
the first point I have for you today is,
what is the root of meddling?
Or being a busybody or a tail bearer,
is the idle man, right?
I originally had put the isolated man,
but just 'cause you're isolated,
'cause we're separated as a church,
we're separated as people,
obviously we're not ultra separated,
that's a whole other sermon,
but it's not just separation,
it's separation and idleness.
And idleness can look different to different people.
It doesn't necessarily mean
that you don't have anything to do,
is sometimes you actually have stuff to do,
but when you have nothing to do, you know what?
You just idle.
What do I mean by that?
Well, let's say somebody has an actual job
from just eight to five,
but when they get home,
they don't have any other responsibilities,
men or women, right?
Just depends on the situation.
And so then what do they do?
They just find somebody's business to get involved in,
right?
Instead of being like what?
Intermeddling in the things of God,
like the Bible says in Proverbs 18.1,
in wisdom, the root of meddling
is this idle person.
They have no purpose.
They have no goal.
They're just cocking in and they're clocking out.
And you know what?
Gossip in church or in the fellowship
of the membership of church happens
when church members have no purpose.
You know, what is one of the reasons?
And it's hard.
I'm gonna be honest with you.
One of the hardest things to do is
I know that we have to keep purpose-driven busy as a church.
Because if we don't,
we're gonna fall into the same thing.
And it's hard as a leader,
because you know what all the work falls on?
On the leadership.
And I'm not just talking to me.
Now that we're bigger, there's other people I lean on.
But I'm keeping everybody busy.
But we have to keep busy on the things of God,
'cause otherwise we'll start getting busy
in each other's business, right?
That's why one of the things that we do is,
hey, if we're gonna be soul-winning,
if we're gonna stay here all day,
then hey, let's go soul-winning.
Let's talk about scripture.
Let's talk about things.
'Cause the danger about being here all day
is that if you guys don't have a purpose,
and actually that's not the sermon,
but I might as well just address it.
If you're here all day,
you better be doing something with a purpose
'cause otherwise you're just gonna be
getting into each other's business.
And then we don't have to be around each other that long
to start stepping over each other's toes, right?
I mean, that's just like the premise
of every post-apocalyptic movie.
You get a group of people that ran away
and they're in some bunker and everything's gray
because they were safe from the radiation
and the atomic bomb.
But then a couple weeks later, everybody's trying
to kill everybody because some guy's being sneaky
and the other guy's trying to have all the power
and somebody's eating all the rations.
That's what happens because everybody starts getting
everybody's business.
Proverbs 18, one year later, Proverbs 26, verse 12.
But in Proverbs 18, verse one says,
"The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding
"shall remain in the congregation of the dead."
The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding
shall remain in the congregation of the dead.
What's a dead congregation?
When we wander away from understanding,
from the things of God, from preaching God's word,
and actually not just preaching,
but doing, you know, executing,
actually being active in the word of God.
Remember Moses' father-in-law said,
hey, find you men that are active and make them leaders
so you can delegate the stuff out, right?
You don't want to just find anybody,
you want to find the people that actually get stuff done.
You know, I've heard it said all my life,
if you want something done in a business or in a job
or in an environment where there's other employees,
find the busiest person in the room and give it to them
'cause you know it's gonna get done.
Isn't that funny?
The guy who has the most on his plate
is the guy who actually get it done
'cause the guy who has nothing on his plate
is because he ain't getting anything done.
I mean, that's one of the most frustrating things to me,
running a business is just having employees
'cause I'm just like, what do you guys do all day?
And you know when employees get offended,
they're like, what do you mean?
What do I do all day?
I work.
Dude, I'm like, okay, well, what did we get done?
What do you mean?
Yeah, like, what did we accomplish?
What was accomplished today?
What did we get done?
I'll just stay quiet
and of course it'll just be dead silence
like it is right now
'cause they're not getting anything done.
I hate that, right?
Like, I want results.
You should want results too.
Here's how you do it on a micro level.
You want results in your family.
You want results personally.
You want results from your church.
As a matter of fact,
if we're not producing as leaders,
and I'm talking about those guys
that are involved in leadership,
and if I'm not producing,
then you should expect that, right?
That's when you wanna get involved.
That's when you wanna enter a battle
and be like, hey, why aren't we preaching the word of God?
Why aren't we out sowing?
Why aren't we doing these things?
Why aren't we making improvements?
But if you're just concerned about,
and these are things that I've heard over the years,
obviously this is the most recent one,
but, oh, why did you change this color of that
or move this or take down that flag or put this flag up
or put this mirror down or change that?
Honestly, I'm just probably gonna listen to you,
nod my head and then go about my business.
Because it doesn't produce any results.
The Bible says all of this is wood, hay and stubble.
Doesn't matter at the end of the day.
But the root of meddling is when you just have nothing,
you have no purpose.
Go to Proverbs 26 right there in verse 12.
It says, "Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit?
There's more hope of a fool than of him."
Isn't that interesting?
There's more hope for a fool than someone
who's wise in his own conceit.
He's wise in his own ways.
He knows better than everybody else.
But I thought it was interesting the way
that it's clumped together.
It says, "The slothful man hath sayeth,
there is a line in the way, a line is in the streets.
As the door turneth upon his hinges,
so does the slothful upon his bed.
The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom.
It grieveth him again,
it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth.
The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit,
so it's talking about the same person.
There's seven men that cannot render a reason.
He that passeth by and medalleth with strife,
belonging not to him,
is like one that taketh a dog by the ear."
So what's another attribute of someone who's a busybody?
They're lazy.
You know what I can't stand?
I can't stand lazy people, you know?
I can't stand people that just don't get the job done.
I mean, this guy's so bad,
it says that his hand's in his bosom.
Think about it.
And he's just so lazy, so lazy.
He's like, "I can't even."
That's what it says right there.
I mean, I wish I was exact sure what it says.
It grieving him to bring it again to his mouth.
So what kind of individual are we talking about?
So here we go about the stepping on toes.
The only way it steps on your toes
is if you fit this bill, right?
Someone who's wise in their own conceit, right?
In their own thinking.
They think they know best about how to do everything.
There's a difference between having experience
and running things and giving an opinion
or someone seeking out counsel to you.
Like, you know, I run a consulting business
so I actually deal with this on a regular basis.
I have people that actually pay me monthly
only to sit with me for an hour once a week
for me to tell them everything that's wrong in their life,
in their business.
Not their life, in their business.
They're like, hey, here's all the things that we're doing.
And I'm like, oh yeah, that's wrong.
That sucks.
Get rid of that.
Don't do that.
Fire that person.
Don't fire that person.
This is good.
This is bad.
Like, that stuff, right?
That's different than if I just pick up the phone every day
and I'm telling everybody how bad they are.
You know what this reminds me of in modern society?
Who are we talking about?
The modern Karen, right?
The one who's like, you can't park here.
You know, you shouldn't do this.
You shouldn't do that.
And people get all weird.
I mean, literally, we walked out.
I'm not saying-- well, actually, yeah, that's a form of busybody.
I walk out, and there's a mom.
I think she's a mom.
She was pretty young, but she was a little young Hispanic lady.
And she has two kids right there in the corner of the parking lot.
And I'm like, hey, can we help you?
She's like, oh, no, no, you're on our property.
Like, of course, I'm going to be--
like, she's almost annoyed at me for asking the question.
I'm like, well, you're on our property.
Like, is there something we can help you with?
She's like, oh, no, we're just--
they're just doing the Pokemon thing.
I don't know if you know this, but we're a Pokemon location, pastor.
For the last decade, weirdos just show up, park here for hours.
You go and ask them, what are you doing?
They're like, oh, I'm just playing Pokemon.
I'll be off of your--
well, you're on our property.
Like, what are you--
idle.
Got nothing better to do.
Then I said, hey, well, if you were to die today,
are you 100% sure you're going to hell?
And they're like, ah.
She's like, well, I'm sorry.
It's just they-- they'll answer you.
But they're just really busy with this Pokemon thing.
Busy bodies.
Ain't got nothing better to do.
But you know what's funny?
She was annoyed with me for interrupting her day
while she's on our property.
She was wise in her own conceit.
And you know what she's doing?
She's just lazy.
And it says, but they're the type of people though
that if something were going on,
they would definitely just call it out.
And they'd grab the years of that dog.
And I know I'm not exaggerating
because the Bible tells me that's the personality.
If we would, let's say if my son would have just taken off
and the reason I pick on my son is 'cause he's the man,
he's the male in our family.
I'm not picking on him, he didn't do anything bad.
But let's say my son was gonna cross the street
while she's there.
I guarantee you that if I would've grabbed my son
and said, "Don't be crossing the street,"
and I would've whooped him,
she would've been the first one to try to call me out.
Right?
Got nothing better to do, it's a Sunday afternoon,
she's out there playing Pokemon with two young children,
but the minute she sees this quote unquote injustice,
she'd be the first one to call you out.
Isn't that usually what a Karen does?
Isn't that usually what those people are doing?
And we don't want that type of mentality here in the church.
But now in 1 Peter 4, verse 11,
go to 1 Peter 4, right there in verse 11,
it says, "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God.
If any man minister, let him minister,
let him do it as the ability which God giveth him,
that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ,
through whom be praises and dominion forever and ever.
Amen.
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which
is to trial you, as though some strange thing happened unto you,
but rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's suffering,
that when his glory shall be revealed,
ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
If ye be reproached for the name of Christ,
happier ye for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.
On their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.
But let none of you suffer or allow yourselves to what,
be a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer.
This is pretty serious.
Hey, he says, hey, none of you, look, you should be happy
if you're reproached for Christ.
When you're out soul-winding and somebody says,
we're going to call the cops, excited.
He says, but don't let anybody catch you being what,
a murderer, a thief.
What else did he say there?
An evildoer, those are the first three.
That's pretty serious, right?
And what's the next one?
Because a lot of people don't think that this next one,
it's just as bad as those, but apparently in the Bible,
it's just equal, or a busybody in other men's matters.
Don't be Mr. Nosy.
You know, oh, I am, so-and-so.
And by the way, there's a difference.
There's things we need to address in the church.
But when we address them,
and if we're talking about certain individuals or things,
it should be from a doctrinal-based point.
Meaning, hey, you know what?
I've noticed something.
According to the Bible,
this is what we need to do to address it.
These are the challenges.
And then it's our duty as leadership to decide,
oh yeah, that is a biblical thing we need to address.
Let me pray on it, let me do it.
And then we do it.
But if it's just any willy nilly thing,
then that's not biblical.
And the Bible says it's equal right here.
It says don't suffer as a murderer or as a thief
or as an evil doer or what?
As a busy body in other men's matter.
And it doesn't just apply to the church.
Hey, if you're a church member
and you're not being nosy with other church members,
you know what, you shouldn't be nosy with your family
and your friends and your coworkers either, period.
Sister Sylvia was over here in the corner
talking to her husband 'cause she's married
and they just wanted to, and I walked over
and she's like, "Oh, I'm just talking to my husband."
I said, "You know what, you guys do you."
I just walked away, I was like the other way.
I don't wanna know what's going on, right?
Whatever it is, that's their thing.
It's not my problem, it's none of my business.
I don't care, I don't know what, I don't wanna know.
And I'm not saying they're just having a conversation,
right, as a couple, it's none of my business.
My kids will come and my wife and I will be talking,
they'll be like, "What's going on?"
I'll be like, "None of your business.
Get out of my room.
None of your business."
Oh, okay.
They walk away.
Because, but that's nature, right?
We have to train it out of ourselves.
Now that being said, there's times where I do want
to make it my business.
I'm just like, Lord, move on, right?
We need to do that, right?
But we love that whole like, hey,
the government needs to stay out of our business.
Churches need to mind their own affairs.
All this big stuff, right?
But the minute that we start saying like,
it's so and so, look,
I don't care if you're telling me something biblical,
what I don't want is for me to want you to take,
for me, for you to expect me to take you seriously
on an opinion of yours.
I might or might not listen to all your opinions
and vice versa, but that's your choice,
but we shouldn't want to impose our opinions on you.
As a matter of fact,
I don't even want to impose the biblical doctrines on you.
I'm just preaching truth.
God's the one that says this is how you need to live.
I don't even want to force it on you.
It's your choice.
Nobody has to listen to me.
You don't have to be here tonight.
You don't have to do any of the things that the Bible says.
I'm just telling you what happens
if you don't do what the Bible says.
Plain and simple.
The only people that have to listen to me in this room
after we walk out of here are my wife and my three kids.
That's it.
And I deal with that in my home.
Point number two, go to Proverbs 18 verse two.
Point number two is that, is the opinion over doctrine.
The fool's mouth.
The Bible actually refers to this as a foolish thing.
So we actually need to be careful
because we live in a country that has so brainwashed us
and has done such a great job
to like bring out our opinions.
I mean, literally there's things called opinion polls.
We wanna hear what you think.
They train you in sales.
Like literally I've had this training all my life.
They're like, hey, you wanna find out
how to sell someone really well?
Ask them their opinion.
Don't just ask them a general question.
Ask them what you think.
Hey, what do you like most about this thing?
What do you like least about this thing?
And then they're just going to spew out everything that you need.
They're going to give you all the ammo so that you can close the sale, right?
The easiest way to get someone to do something is just ask them their opinion.
Listen carefully and then just feed it back to them, right?
But what I want to do is give you truth right here in the Bible.
Proverbs 18 verse 2 says, "A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart
may discover itself."
He doesn't care about understanding the things of God.
He doesn't care about the Bible.
He doesn't care about others.
All he cares about is what?
Himself.
We literally live in the most selfish society, I would say, of all history.
Everything is about me, and when you make it about you, then you want everybody to know
what you know, even the things that nobody cares that you know, and if you don't know
anything, because you're not learning understanding, you know what?
You're going to go get information somewhere, because that's our nature.
We want to know things, but if you don't know the things of God, then you're just going
to get involved yourself in other people's matters.
You're going to be a busy body, right?
Like a fool, he doesn't want truth.
He just wants to express himself.
I love this verse, "A fool will have no delight in understanding, but that his heart may
discover itself."
You know, he doesn't want doctrine, he just wants to be heard.
I mean, I didn't think about this when I was writing this sermon, but I just thought about
it right now.
One of the three guys that I made sure that they were kicked out, you know, the one that
quit, but I said, "You can't quit because I'm going to fire you anyways, just to make
sure."
One of the guys was like, "Hey, I just want," he's like, "I want to just still be at the
church."
And I was like, "Well, you can stay at the church, but these are the rules."
And it wasn't the one that's married, it was one of the two single guys.
And literally, this is the verse that stands out because he's like, "Well, yeah, but, you
know, I just want to be able to be heard.
I just want you to listen to me and I just want to be able to tell you everything I'm
learning."
And I was like, "You already heard what you said.
It's dumb.
Like, you're not saying anything worth this biblical, like, you're not wanting to fix
the issue."
That's the problem.
They just want to be heard.
They don't want to tell you what they—they don't want to learn anything.
Right?
If you go to Proverbs 20, verse 18, Proverbs 20, verse 18, it's interesting how these
three—next three verses, they're lumped here in this section.
Right?
In Proverbs 20, verse 18, the Bible says, "Every purpose is established by counsel,
and with good advice make war."
Now, when we talk about the Bible, even though this is literal, obviously, the main purpose
of the entire Bible is spiritual, and we get to the New Testament, it clears that up,
right?
That in a spiritual war, the Bible tells us that we are, you know, that we don't fight
against flesh and blood, but against principalities, right?
That we shouldn't entangle on ourselves with the things of this world, because we're warring
against the spiritual things.
It says, "Every purpose is established by counsel, and with good advice make war.
He that goeth about is a tale-bearer, revealeth secrets.
Therefore, metal not with him, that flattereth with his lips."
And then I think that verse 20 is interesting, if you follow the same concept, it says, "whoso
curseth his father or mother, his lamps shall be put out in obscure darkness."
Hey, why do I keep making these announcements, hey, parents, take care of your children?
It's not just because I want to control the situation of like, we don't want the church
destroyed.
First of all, they're not my kids, but number two, you don't want kids to grow up rebellious
and hate their parents because it's a curse to the kids.
As a matter of fact, if anything, you should be tougher on your children at church because
you want to make sure that they know that there are consequences for being rebellious
against the parents.
The Bible says, "Who so cursed that the father or mother of his lamp shall be put out in
obscure darkness?"
He's not going to succeed in life.
There's a lot of reasons actually that I thought about this, but you know, you think
about this week, I talked about the fact that Pastor Shelley and Steadfast put together
a documentary about, you know, the pastor Anderson, and it's in a way it is in opposition
to the other documentary that his four rebellious children have put together with this rebellious
church member that left, or ex-church member, and it's basically defaming and slandering
their own father, who is a pastor, who leads a ministry, and you say, "Well, what does
the Bible say about that?" Well, what is it? I mean, let's just, let's do this. I wasn't,
you know, planning on talking about this, but let's do this. It says, "Every purpose
is established by counsel, and with good advice make war." Well, they're going to war without
good advice, because they're not seeking the Bible, because obviously they're not following
things that are biblical. It says, "He that goes about is a tale bearer, revealeth secrets,
and sayeth that he is revealing good secrets, or that he is revealing truth." Because a
tale bearer is what? False tales, but he does reveal stuff. "Therefore, metal not with him
that flattereth with his lips." Those people flatter each other. If you listen to the whole
dialogue over the last couple of years, everybody's just like plotting everybody else. It says,
"Who so curseth his mother and father, his lamps shall be put out in the clear darkness."
As a matter of fact, I've told you guys before, and I'll tell you again, whenever you guys
compliment me, like my tingly goes up, and I just keep it in the back of my mind. I know
you guys sometimes are sincere, but other times I'm just like, "Are they flattering
me?" Because if they are, the Bible says I need to watch out. We need to be careful.
And by the way, you should be the same way with me. You should hold me to the same standard
because we need to not let ourselves, bring ourselves down to a level that's not going
to be productive for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Proverbs 24, 21, I'm just going to go through these really quick. It says, "My son, fear
thou the Lord and the King, and meddle not with them that are given to," what, "to change."
Man, if someone's like flip-flopping on you all the time about different things that they
truly say they believe in, be careful. It says, "For their calamity shall rise suddenly,
and who knoweth the ruin of them both?" In other words, if you get involved in that,
now you're caught up in that fiasco. These things also belong to the wise. It is not
good to have respect of persons in judgment. You know, that's probably one of the hardest
things for any preacher, I would say, to do. It eventually just becomes habit, but it's
to get up here and preach the Word of God, knowing that there's people in the congregation
that you might be more friendly with or that you at some point might have known better
or respect. The Bible says, "Hey, you need to put all that out the window when you preach
the Word of God." We just need to preach the truth. Proverbs 18 verse 6 says, "A fool's
lip enter into contention and his mouth calleth for strokes. A fool's mouth is his destruction
and his lips are the snare of his soul." This is a big problem. It's a foolish thing. Proverbs
10 verse 11 says, "The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life, but violence covers
the mouth of the wicked. Hatred stirth up strife, but love coverth all sin. In the lips
of him that hath understanding, wisdom is found, but a rod is for the back of him that
is void of understanding." A fool is void of understanding. What did we read earlier?
That someone who's like a metal's in or his busy body or tail sometimes is worse than
a fool. What's that destruction look like? Proverbs 10 verse 11 says, "The mouth of
a righteous," oh sorry, void of understanding verse 14 of Proverbs 10, "Wise men lay up
knowledge, but the mouth of the foolish is near destruction." Proverbs 14 verse 1 says,
"Every wise woman buildeth her house, but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands."
And we know what that means. She's busy, she's idle, and she's not doing the things
she's supposed to do, because if we were to tie it to the rest of the book of
Proverbs and the rest of the Bible, that's the problem with women that aren't
being submissive to their husbands or to their fathers or to the authority, and if
they don't have that type of authority, to God, right? "He that walketh in his
uprightness feareth the Lord, but he that is perverse in his ways despiseth him.
In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride, but the lips of the wise shall
preserve them. Where no oxen are, the crib is clean, but much increases by the
strength of the ox. A faithful witness will not lie, but a false
witness will utter lies. By the way, this verse is often used where no oxen are,
the crib is clean, but much increases by the strength of an ox. Talking about like
the pastor doing the work, but you know what? Where no oxen are, the crib is
clean is because when you're a busybody, you're not taking care of your stuff at
home. Your house is clean because you're not ever at home, you're just out in
everybody else's business, right? There's a, you know, but much increases by the
strength of an ox. Hey, if you're doing work, you know what? Things are going to
get dirty. If you notice the announcements are, "Help me to clean up," it's never the
assumption to maintain cleanliness, right? Hey, that's a good thing that things are
getting clean, unclean, that things are getting dropped, that, you know, things
are getting broken. That's life. What we don't want is to take advantage of that.
I mean, my kids, I tell them all the time, "Look, I don't expect to clean a
perfect house all the time, but I don't want you to live like pigs and be dirty
either." Right? I mean, if you're working, sometimes my office looks like a
disaster because I'm reading a book here and I printed something there, and you're
putting the paper here, but after a while I'm just like, "You know what? I gotta fix
this stuff up." Right? So, we've got to find that balance. Go to Proverbs 15,
verse 1, the Bible says, "A soft answer turns away wrath, but grievous words stir
up anger. The tongue of the wise uses knowledge of right, but the mouth of
fools poureth out foolishness." Verse 14 says, "The heart of him that hath
understanding takeeth knowledge, but the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness."
Right? And like I said, we're all susceptible to this. Here's the thing
that we need to be careful with. Number one, we obviously, we don't, the best
thing to do is not do it at all. The second best thing is, if you've already
done it, just don't continue down that road. Just move on. Fix it.
Plesiastes 5 2, "Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to
utter anything before God, for God is in heaven and thou upon earth therefore
let thy words be few." I mean, actually, I have like this
admiration of introverts. I was like, I always think they're so much better than
me. I mean, this is a personal thing, in my opinion, but just like there's so much
better than me because they actually think before they speak, because I
actually suffer from a real disease. I'm not documenting anywhere, but I'm
diagnosing myself. It's called foot and mouth disease, something I've worked on
all my life. It gets you in a lot of trouble, and you know, it's something that
we need to...you know what's fixed it for me over the years and what helps? The
Bible, right? Because we all have the tendency to want to just be nosy and
talk about things that don't have anything to do with us. That's just life.
Ecclesiastes, turn verse 12, the Bible says, "The words of a wise man's mouth are
gracious, but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself." The beginning of the
words of his mouth is foolishness and the end of his talk is mischief of his
madness. A fool also is full of words, a man cannot tell what shall be and
what shall be after him. Who can tell him? The labor of the foolish weariest
every one of them because he knoweth not how to go to the city. And a great
example of this is have you ever met the one individual? And by the way, if
your sense of direction sucks, this is not about you because sometimes we just
get lost. But ever met that one person, you know they've been to somewhere
several times and yet they still ask you for direction, right? Like they just or
they're just really annoying about like this thing or they ask you the same
question over and over again. That's what that's talking about, right? You know,
they're not paying attention because they're focused on other things. So don't
be foolish, right? Because what happens is fellowship as we grow will become more
familiar, right? It's appropriate time to preach this now because the church needs
it now more than ever. You say, "Pastor, is there rampant gossip?" I don't know.
Honestly, I don't. But I know that it's been about almost, we're all going on two
years since what I refer to personally, that's just my name, my pet
name for that, the merger. And whenever you get this many people together, that
danger always happens, especially when you start getting familiar with each
other. And with the familiarity comes commentary, but also contempt. Have you
ever heard that term? Familiarity breeds contempt. You know what contempt is? It's
like you kind of look down or you kind of get a bias towards someone that's not
even correct. It's based on, it has no foundation on truth. It's based on your
personal opinion and your comfort and the way you would do things versus the
way they do things. Think about this anytime that you're annoyed with anybody
else in the church or in your life, if you take a step back, 99% of the time I
guarantee you it's probably because they're not doing the things how you
would do it. They're not doing it wrong, they're just not doing them the way you
would do it. I'll give you a good example. I'm gonna tell myself and I've told you
guys this before, Sister Liberty's heard it so much that she actually like
finished the census the other day because I do do that and I've told you
guys that because I know that. I'm a clean freak. I know I'm the pastor of the
church. I know everybody's a book. I don't even know that I'm doing it at a time.
I'm just walking around, I'm picking up stuff, picking up trash. You leave a cup
there I'm already taking and putting in the trash. Somebody turns around, it's like
where's my cup? I was just drinking my cup. Oh, I thought it was trash, right? And
here's what happens. That could breed contempt because that's not how you guys
would function. And then what you could do is turn around and be like, "Man, you know what?
Pastor starts out as a joke, right? He's a little seedy with his cleanliness."
Yeah, he is. Kind of annoying. I just wish he'd stop. Who's like that anyways? Who's
that clean? Who does he think? You know, you just start making stuff up in your
mind, right? And then next thing you know, Pastor comes in and he's like, "Hey
brother so-and-so, how's it going?" Right? I mean, this is a real thing in real
life. It sounds funny. All of a sudden now I come in, I'm like, "Did I do something wrong?"
Like, you know, I just, you just keep going about your business and you just walk
in. You keep getting these sneers. Then you finally confront it and it turns out
it's like something dumb. You know, one of those two is gonna get really annoyed.
When in reality, if you would have just stepped back, you'd have been like, "You
know what? That's the reason I'm annoyed is because I'm not that clean. I'm not
saying you're dirty. You're just not OCD about it." You know, I had a Hispanic mom.
She'd get mad and that's how she cleaned. You know how Mexican women fix
problems in marriage? They clean, right? My mom would get mad and she'd be
like, "We all knew we were in trouble." Everybody's like, "Ooh, mom's
cleaning. Let's go to the other room." But it just became part of life,
right? And I'm just using... That's just one example and it's easier to pick on
myself because honestly, I'm not picking on anybody. I'm just saying these are the
things we need to work on because otherwise, we're not going to focus on
what? The main thing, which is the work of the Lord. Honestly, all the rest of the
stuff doesn't really matter. If you guys are my friends or not my friends, it
doesn't matter. I mean, I'm not saying that to be cold and rude and callous. I
love you guys. The Bible instructs me to do that and I'm sincerely love you guys.
But if we're not doing the work of the Lord, then we can love each other outside
of church and hopefully we can find time to do that. But if you're here, let's get
to work, right? That's the whole point. Let's go to point number three. Proverbs
18, go back to Proverbs 18. And just to close out the previous point, right, we
don't want opinions on things that are serious. We want chapter and verse. Keep
your preferences at home. And what I mean by that, of course, again, I am kind of,
this will be a disclaimer, we have to live in the life where I don't expect
perfection and neither should you. If you expect perfection, and what I mean by
that is that perfection where we're sinless, that's stupid. Oh, that was one
of the things that lady said. I said, "You guys think you're going to, you know,
are you 100% sure you're going to heaven?" She goes, "Well, I think so, you know, they
haven't sinned." I thought to myself, that's about, I said, oh, I immediately got real
tough and said, "Well, the Bible says we all have sin and come short of the glory of God."
And that's where she got uncomfortable, but that's a whole point for another day.
But point number three, the tail bearer, right, it's poison. The meddler, the tail
bearer, the busybody, it's poison, right? The Bible says the words of a tail bearer
are as wounds and they go down into the innermost parts of what the
belly. They actually have consequences. They hurt people. Even if you think you're
tough-skinned, it's gonna affect you. Just don't do it. I have a rule. It's been
maybe, I was in my early 30s, I implemented this rule. I'm not saying I'm
perfect at it, but I have this rule and I'll tell you right now. If you ever
think that I'm talking bad about somebody else, like behind their back,
chances are you're probably reading it wrong because nine times out of ten, if
I'm saying something behind someone's back, like let's say I'm saying
something here, so I'm looking at Sister Sylvia about, I don't know, somebody else.
I've already purposed in my mind that if you were to go to them, I would confirm
that. I don't talk about anybody's behind their back. I don't say anything
behind anybody's back and I'm not willing to say their face. And I've proven this
over and over again. You can ask one of the church members who's been here a long
time. At one point, I ran a dental clinic and I implemented that rule, I don't know,
shortly before or after that. I remember I said something about one of the guys
that was working with me, his name was Javier, and I said, "Man, Javier's kind of
like brass, and he's kind of this and that, and it was all women, most of them
work there." And they went and told this guy, "Javier, this guy came in like a
bull in a china shop, he was an ex, like marine and military, I called him
Tasmanian devil." I did it, I did. He talked like that, "What's going on?"
I'm like, "Alright, calm down." And he's like, "Hey, I heard you were talking about me
behind my back." And I said, "I was." "What?" I said, "Yeah." "Well, somebody said that you
said this, this, this, and this about me." I said, "I did. That's exactly how I feel
about you." After that, he became one of my best friends. Like, he would call me for
advice, broke it down because he knew that I meant it. Like, it just solved all
the problems. I didn't have to apologize or tiptoe about it. I just was like, "Yeah, I
did say that about you." He goes, "So you think I'm that bad?" I was like, "Absolutely, dude.
Like, you need to work on your, you kind of suck at these things." "Ugh. All right." And then
after that, we were like the best of friends. He liked me more than I liked
him, but he liked me a lot. Like, he would call me all the time. Now he lives in
Germany, so that's a whole other thing. But let's go there. Go to Proverbs 26. Go
to Proverbs 26. We're almost done. Like I said, this is just one of those things
where I think it's just the time to address it. I might not even get through
the whole sermon, but these are the things I want to get off my chest. And
you know, we don't want to poison the well. Like, we're in a good spot right
now. We're not in a great spot. I don't know that I'll ever say that
about our church. I'll let God do the deciding. But we're in a good spot. Like,
we're growing. We're out sow winning. We're out doing the things. We don't have
a very big public persona. So the attacks aren't coming from the outside. Well, you
know where you destroy them? From the inside. And these are the things that
destroy a church, right? The Bible says the words of a tail bearer are as wounds.
You're there in Proverbs 26 and they go down into the innermost parts of the
belly. It says it goes down. That means it probably tasted good going down, but then
it just messed you up. Proverbs 26, verse 20 says, "Where no wood is, there the fire
goeth out." So where there is no tail bearer, the strife ceases. As cold are to
burning coals, and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife. The
words of a tail bearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of
the belly. Burning lips and a wicked heart are like a pot shard covered with
silver dross. He that hateth dissembleth with his lips, meaning destroyeth and
layeth up deceit within him. He, when he speaketh fair, believe him not, for there
are seven abominations in his heart." Man, it's crazy. So you know, we should look
at someone that's a teller and be like, "Man, this guy has seven abominations. I don't
even know what they are, but there's seven of them." The Bible says, "Whose hatred is
covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be shewed before the whole congregation.
Whoso diggeth a pit shall father it, and he that rolleth the stone it will return
upon him. A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it, and a flattering
mouth worketh what ruin." We are here to edify, right? That's why we love the book
of Nehemiah, because he's building what? The wall. Like, we're not Donald Trump.
That's not the wall we're building. We're building the wall to heaven, right? We're
building things for the Lord. Build the right things. Leviticus 19 verse 11, the
Bible says, "Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie to one another,
and ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shall thou profane the
name of thy God, I am the Lord. Thou shall not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob
him. The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night into the
morning. Thou shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the
blind, but shall fear thy God, I am the Lord. He shall do no unrighteousness in
judgment. Thou shall not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person
of the mighty, but in righteousness shall thou judge thy neighbor. Thou shall not
go up and down as a tail bearer among thy people, neither shall thou stand
against the blood of thy neighbor, I am the Lord. Thou shall not hate thy
brother in thine heart. Thou shall not in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not
suffer sin upon him. Thou shall not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the
children of thy people, but thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the
Lord." Why does he say I am the Lord when he's telling you all these things?
Because we need to follow the Lord. He says don't do these things because the Lord
said it. And what did all these verses have to do with? With a
personal relationship with other people. James 3 verse 5, the Bible says, "Even so
the tongue is a little member, and boasts its great things. Behold, how great a
matter, a little fire kindleth, and the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. So
is the tongue among our members, that is to file the whole body, and seteth on
fire, the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell. For every kind of beast, and
birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of
mankind. But the tongue no man can tame. It is unruly, evil, full of deadly poison.
Therewith bless we God, even the Father in death we, and therewith curse we men,
which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth
blessings, and cursings, my brethren, these things ought not be. Right? If
someone didn't ask you for counsel, I mean if someone, you know, and you want
to say something about it, you better have Bible in hand, chapter, and verse,
otherwise keep your mouth shut. Is it difficult? Absolutely. I agree. That is a
very difficult thing. The Bible just told you your tongue, my tongue, are unruly.
But is it biblical? Absolutely. Like, it's better to come at someone with the Bible
properly though. You know, especially for husbands, don't just always turn around
and be like, "Honey, let me just, I mean, I think there is a time and a place for
that." And I even have had those conversations like, "Hun, Bible says," but if
you're just using that as a cop-out all the time, then maybe just give it some
time. That's another summer for another day, so I'm not. So what's the right
response? Let's close this thing out. Let's close this thing out. Go over to,
go over to 1 Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 4. Bible says in Proverbs 18,
verse 10, "The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into
it and is safe." You know, instead of inserting ourselves in other people's
affairs, you know what we should do? We should pray, go to church, go soul winning.
Hey, how about you sanctify yourselves? Now, I've heard this argument that people
say, "Oh, those people that go soul winning, they haven't cleaned up their
life." I'd rather have a soul winner than someone who cleans up their life because
I believe soul winning will clean up your life. But, that's not mean I'm gonna, I'm
also not going to like, that I'm gonna defend the fact that you haven't cleaned
up your life. Hey, if you're out soul winning and you haven't cleaned up your
life, go soul winning and clean up your life. Don't, don't leave one undone, do
both, right? Go soul winning, sanctify yourselves. You know what? Especially,
most importantly, the most important thing you want to do is mind your
business, right? Mind your business. It's, it's, it's, and it is a habit. It is
something that you can learn to do. I ran a business where that, it was a culture
to be nosy and be a busybody. So look, I'm preaching to myself at times, but now
I'm so like, I just want to lead my own life. Half the time I don't even know
what's going on in the world. I'm gonna come and be like, did you hear what
happened? So I'm like, no, let me look it up. I don't know what, you know, did you, I
don't know. Unless it's like trending, I don't know about it. You know, like I saw
this thing, I'm probably gonna preach sermon about it, but I saw this thing
trending about this group of people called Therians. You ought to look it up
just so you know Romans 1 is real. Therians are people that identify
themselves as animals and in Mexico it's become such a problem. These people
think they're dogs and they're going to the government asking for special rights
for this subgroup of people, these possessed idiots. But that's another sermon
for another day. But go 1 Thessalonians. Guys, I'm at my hour, just give me
five more minutes. You know I don't preach long, but I really want to get
this off my chest. Thank you. 1 Thessalonians 4. Like we write those
emails, you know, I need you to do this, this, and this for me. Thank you in
advance for your understanding. That's what I'm doing. Thank you in advance in
five minutes for your understanding. 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 9. The Bible says,
"But as touching brotherly love, you need not that I write unto you, for you
yourselves are taught of God to love one another. And indeed, you do it toward all
the brethren, which are all in Macedonia. But we beseech you, brethren, that you
increase more and more, and that you study to be quiet, and to do your own
business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded." Hey, this is the
leadership that said, "Hey, shut up, do your work, and deal with your own
hands." Are you saying, Pastor, are you saying that that's what you're telling us?
Yeah, I'm telling you that. That's what I tell my kids. You know, I'm looking at
you right now, but you have four young kids back there, you've got a couple of
kids. What do you tell your kids? Keep your hands to yourself. Mind your own
business. You're really mad you say mind your own damn business, right? Because
that's how you feel sometimes about the situation. My daughter, you
know, the three-year-old, she's in that three-year-old state, right? All of a
sudden, now she knows everything. She's like, "Daddy, Bubby, bub-bub-bub is doing
this." I'm like, "I don't care what Bubby's doing. I don't need your help running this
house." All right. I don't need her to tell me what Bubby is or isn't doing. I know what's
going on. If I need to correct Bubby, I'll correct Bubby. You don't correct Bubby. Mind
your business. Go do whatever three-year-olds do. Leave your brother alone. Lucy, leave
Bubby alone. Bubby, leave Lucy alone. Stay out of your business. Stay out of your hair.
Go to Romans 14. I'll read for you real quick Proverbs, and then I'll close this. I promise
less than five minutes. Proverbs 20 verse 3. By the way, I mean, I appreciate you guys.
I do try to keep it within an hour. I mean, I can go as long as I need to, right? But
I'm well aware that that would be crazy. But in Proverbs 20 verse 3 says, "It is an honor
for a man to cease from strife, but every fool will be meddling." How does a man show
honor? Hey, when he knows when to stop. That's what I'm saying. Sometimes we're just going
to end up getting sucked into something, but you got to know when to stop, right? What
does it say? "But every fool will be meddling." The sluggard, uh-oh, right next to it already,
the sluggard will now plow by reason of the cold. Therefore, shall he bag and harvest
and have nothing. Council in the heart of a man is like deep water, but a man of understanding
will draw it out. Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness, but a faithful man who
will find here. This is why this is so important to preach, because most men will proclaim
their own goodness. The Bible says a faithful man who can find. See, the problem is most
of you, including me, because I'm part of the most, because we're just a big group,
and if you said most, it didn't say which percentage or who. Most men will what? Proclaim
every one his own goodness. They'll walk around telling you how good they are. And you know
how you do that sometimes? By being a busybody. Because you know when you're gossiping, literally
what you're telling the other person is how much better you are than the person you're
talking about, right? That's really what you're saying is, "Did you know so and so is inferior
to me because of these reasons that I'm about to tell you." That's not how you put it out
there, but that's literally the translation.
Let's go to the last point. We always need to stand on what? Doctrine, not opinion. We
need to learn to draw that line. You know why people don't like us as Baptists? You
know why people won't like you in your family? You know why people won't like you as friends?
And even as church members is if you learn to draw the line. Hey, I say this, I mean,
a lot of you have had those conversations. I'm like, "Oh, that sounds good, but I don't
know if that's biblical. Let me think about that. I don't know if that's the way it's
going to work." And I'm not saying I'm, by the way, I'm by no means am I perfect, but
I will say this, I will try to search scripture to try to give you answers to the things we're
talking about, whatever it is. Right? So we talk about the idle man, and it becomes a
fool's mouth. Maybe, you know, we have to deal with the fact that then they become tailbears.
How do we respond? And here's a dividing line, right? We're going to always preach salvation
by grace. One saved, always saved. We want to talk about biblical roles for men and women.
We want to talk about holiness. We want to talk about separation. We want to talk about
so and so. Hey, so if somebody's like, "Hey, so and so, like, you know, their wife dresses
like a man, all I'll hear is like, 'Okay, great. How about we just preach about women
role?'" You know, like, what I'll do is be like, "Okay, next, I might just preach
next Sunday about women need to dress like women and men need to dress like women, but
I'm not going to talk about it. That's not my wife. I might actually preach the opposite,
which is, 'How about men leave your home so your wife doesn't dress like a man?' Right?
How about you grow a pair so your wife doesn't just be like, "Well, I'm going to do whatever
I want." That's the way we address it, but it won't do me any good to go to him and be
like, "Hey, bro, why does your wife dress like a man? What if he likes it like that
because he doesn't know any better because nobody's preached it from the word of God?
What if he just got here?" And I'm like, "We're going to preach it, but I would rather
preach it and him be uncomfortable from the pulpit than one-on-one because one-on-one
I'm going to lose that battle. We're just going to lose that battle, but I will preach
it." I'm just saying that's the way that I would address it. But what I don't want
is the opinions, right? And I've said this before, but I'll say it again, you know,
parenting styles. Unless it's clear in scripture, like a violation in scripture, I don't care
how you raise your children. I don't. I raise them different than you do. Personal convictions,
right? If you have a personal conviction, I'm going to go there. That's where we need
to go. Go to second Timothy. I'm sorry. Where were we? Romans 14. That's why. Romans 14,
right? Go there. It says, "Let not him that eateth," in verse three, "let not him that eateth despises,
despises him that eateth not. Let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth, for God hath
received him. Who art thou that judges another man's servant? To his own master, he standeth
and falleth." And this is talking about leadership. "Yea, he shall be holding up, for God is able to
make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike. Let
every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth unto the Lord,
and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he does not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the
Lord, for he giveth God thanks, and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God
thanks. For none of us liveth to himself, and no man doth to himself. For whether we live, we live
unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord, whether we live therefore or die, we are
the Lord's. And then I'll have you turn to the last place, Proverbs 17, 4, but so personal
convictions. Hey, stop squabbling over little things. Ministry preferences. Oh, I like this
preacher over that preacher, or this preacher over that preacher, whatever. I mean, there's
plenty of verses to address that. Tone, personality, style, you know, I'm here to preach the word of
God. Some of you might like it, some of you might not. I'm not, I don't live in a bubble where I
don't, I know you guys don't listen. I know you listen to other preachers. Be my guest. Some of
those guys say some stuff that I listen to and I learn from. I've learned a lot from other preachers.
Pastor Cobb this morning, I was edified. I was like, "Man, that was a good sermon. I have no
problem with it." Go to Proverbs 17. This is the last place I'll have you turn right there in verse
four. The Bible says, "A wicked doer giveth heat to false lips, and a liar giveth ear to naughty tongue."
Hey, if you're listening to gossip, it's because you're wicked, right? "Excellent speech," in verse seven,
"becomeeth not a fool, much less do lying lips a prince." Go to verse 14. The Bible says, "The
beginning of strife is when one leadeth out water, therefore leave off contentions before
it meddleeth with. A friend loveth at all times," in verse 17, "and a brother is born of adversity."
I thought these were appropriate because it covers everything, right? "A friend loveth at all times,
but a brother is born of adversity." Let's not be friends, let's be brothers and sisters in Christ.
But verse 14 I love because it's the best way to, I think in my opinion, one of the best ways to
describe what I was just talking about. It's a great close because it says, "One that let out
water." Who's ever done this? I'm going to do it right now because it's just water, but whoever has
done this, you're somewhere public, you're dirty, you're like, "I just need a little bit of water."
You're going to fail miserably just like I'm going to do right now. You're like, "I just need a little
bit of water," and it's always more than you want, right? Because we can't control it. That's exactly
how it is when you gossip, when you're a busybody, when you're a tail bear. Just don't let it out
because once it's out, and it's not like, "What? I'm going to pick this? How am I going to pick
up this water that's in the carpet and put it back in here?" It's out. It's over, right? But you know
where it'll do me good is when I take a sip and nourish myself. Like, let's put the words in the
proper area. So anyways, I hope this was helpful. Like I said, I mean it. I'm not uncomfortable.
Like I just know it makes people uncomfortable. This is I brought it down to our level. Nobody
triggered it. Nobody did anything. If you think you triggered it, well then you did. I'm just
because I don't know how else to say it. You're saying you sound contradictory. No, but I just
know that some people don't believe what you say. Oh, pastor said that I didn't trigger it, but I
know it was me. Okay, I don't know what to tell you. Like I'm if you're going to call me a liar,
then call me a liar. I'm telling you the truth, but I can't control you guys. Let's close in a
word of prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for today. Thank you for your blessings,
Lord, and help us, Lord, to continue to strengthen and become a lean, mean fighting machine, Lord,
that we would just not entangle ourselves with the things of this world so that we can continue to
fight the battles that matter and that we continue to win souls to you, Lord, that we continue to
fight the spiritual battle and raise our families in the admonition and learning and understanding
the wisdom of the Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Turn your hymnals over to page 315. 315.
So weird. It got hot. It was cold this morning and now it's hot. Like, I'm hot up here. Take my life
and let it be. By the way, I'm not blaming your child. I'm capable of doing that. But I know we
had the lavalier here. And I know we have a lot of children coming here. If a child has the lavalier,
please turn it secretly to whoever. If they don't, it's okay. But I'm not saying... I am very... Oh,
the lavalier is the little mic that I put here, the little black mic. The wire, I always leave it
right here. So I'm not... We just need to find another one because it makes the sound better,
but let's go to 315. Take my life and let it... Miss.