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

Amen. Amen. The title of my sermon this morning is monomania, monomania. So many times in the Bible we see examples of people who are just obsessed with one thing and everything else can be going perfectly in their life like we see here with Haman where he just has success in every possible area but there's just this one thing that's bothering him and when people in the Bible, Haman and many other examples that we're going to see allow one thing to become their obsession to the point where they lose sight of what's right and wrong. They lose sight of how good they have it. Then it ends up ultimately destroying them. We want to make sure that we don't fall into this trap because it's human nature and that's why there are so many examples of this in the Bible and we will also see so many examples of this in our daily life where people just get their heart fixated on one thing that they can't have and it makes them unhappy or it makes them do something wicked in order to get what they want. In this example with Haman, let's back up to verse 9, it says, then went Haman forth that day joyful and with a glad heart. So Haman is a guy who's in a great mood. Everything's going his way. He's on the top of the world. He's the second in command to the king of the most powerful empire. He's got all kinds of wealth. He's got lots of children. He's got riches. This guy has everything going for him and not only that, he's in a great mood. But when Haman saw Mordecai in the king's gate that he stood not up nor moved for him, he was full of indignation against Mordecai. So when he's walking by, Mordecai refuses to stand up or make obeisance or bow down or show the respect that they're supposed to show. To Haman, Mordecai is just kind of refusing to show him any respect. And so this makes him really mad, but he holds back. He doesn't attack Mordecai or say anything right then and there. He restrains himself, but inside this is just eating him up that this guy Mordecai is not respecting him. Look at verse 10. It says Haman restrained himself and went, or sorry, refrained himself, I should say. And when he came home, he sent and called for his friends and Zirash his wife. And Haman told them of the glory of his riches and the multitude of his children and all the things wherein the king had promoted him and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king. Don't you love it when people invite you over to their house just to tell you how awesome they are and how everything is going so well in their life? This guy's obviously a prideful, arrogant jerk. It says in verse 12, Haman said moreover, yea, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king under the banquet that she had prepared but myself. And tomorrow am I invited under her also with the king. But this is the key verse that I really want to focus on. Verse 13, yet all this availeth me nothing. What a crazy thing to say. When everything's going well, you have all the respect of all these people. You're famous, you're wealthy, you're powerful, you've got a big family, you have all these things going for you. Yet all this availeth me nothing so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate. You know, I see Mordecai just sitting there refusing to bow down, refusing to make obeisance unto me and all this other stuff just goes out the window when I see him. That's the one thing that I want to fix in my life, right? And we as human beings, obviously we look at this story and it's so extreme we can laugh at it and say, oh, what an idiot. Except we'll turn around and do the exact same thing in our life where everything's going well and then we just obsess over the one thing that we can't have, the one thing that goes wrong. And look, a lot of people have this idea that somehow they're going to make their life perfect. They just have a checklist and they're going to fix each thing about their life and eventually their life's going to be perfect. That will never happen because as soon as you fix one thing, another thing will pop up. You are never going to live a perfect life. You are never going to have everything that you want. Everything is not going to be going well for you. There will always be some fly in the ointment 100%. You will have a problem. You will have issues. We as human beings on this earth are appointed to suffering and so we're not going to ever have a perfect life. So if you're just sitting around waiting for your life to be perfect and then you're going to serve God, then you're going to rejoice in the Lord, then you're going to get serious about your Christian life. Well, it's just never going to happen because there's always going to be at least one thing. This is one of the most powerful men in the world, one of the most successful men in the world, but there's one thing bothering him. And guess what? Because he obsesses over that, it ends up destroying him. And by the way, a pattern we're going to see as we look at the next few stories is that people who are like this, people who get obsessed with something and people who end up doing something wicked as a result, there's always that friend or that loved one or that person nearby that's going to bolster you, that's going to tell you what you want to hear and that's going to put these evil ideas into your head of what you can do, right? You know, you start complaining about your husband. There's always going to be that friend telling you, well, you just need to leave your husband. You just need to get a divorce. You just need to stand up to him. You just need to, you know, there's always going to be somebody putting those thoughts in your ear. Or if you're a man, you know, hey, you should just divorce your wife and just, you know, trade up for someone else or whatever. It's always going to be someone that will bolster you in your sinful ideas. So look what the Bible says in verse number 14, then said, zero is his wife and all his friends unto him. Let a gallows be made of 50 cubits high and friend. That's just excessive because that's like 75 feet and tomorrow speak thou under the king that Mordecai may be hanged there on then go thou in merrily with the king under the banquet. You know, there's all this one thing's bother you. Just kill the sucker and then you can be happy. Go in merrily with the king into the banquet and the thing please Taman and he caused the gallows to be made. And of course, ultimately he's going to end up being hanged on those gallows and his kids corpses are going to be hung on those gallows and his whole life is going to be destroyed. He's going to lose everything. Mordecai is going to gain everything and a big moral of the story is, hey, if there's something you can't have, leave it alone. If there's one thing bothering you, leave it alone. Be happy. Be content. Nothing's going to be perfect. Don't be greedy. Quit while you're ahead. Now, if you would flip in your Bible back to first Kings chapter number 21, first Kings chapter 21, I'm going to show you another example of someone who fell prey to this mentality. We're going to look at some examples of some wicked people and then we're going to look at some examples of some good people who fell into this trap of becoming monomaniacal, just obsessed with one thing and they just can't enjoy what they have because there's the one thing that they can't have. Look at first Kings chapter 21. This is about King Ahab, the King of Israel, verse one, and it came to pass after these things that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab, King of Samaria. And Ahab spake unto Naboth saying, give me thy vineyard that I may have it for a garden of herbs because it is near unto my house and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it. Or if it seemed good to thee, I'll give thee the worth of it in money. So he's saying, look, this thing is right next to my palace. I like this vineyard. I want you to sell it to me so I can have a little herb garden. Like, is this really that important? You know, he's the King of Israel. He's got all this power and wealth and prestige, but he just really wants to have this little herb garden. Okay. And first of all, why does he need such a gigantic herb garden anyway? Because if he just wanted to put a little spices on his food or something, how much room is that really going to take up? Because anybody here who's grown herbs, you know, these aren't, you don't necessarily just need rows and rows of, of basil or something, right? Get a few basil plants, get a few oregano plants, whatever. I don't know what he's into, but this is absurd. But he just, it's just his little pet project. He just really wants to do some landscaping and have his little herb garden. And Naboth said to Ahab, verse three, the Lord forbid at me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. So Naboth is saying, well, you know, I'm not supposed to sell this because this is my inheritance. And God says that the land should not be sold forever. You know, it's supposed to stay in the tribe. It's supposed to stay in the family. I don't want to sell it and I don't think I should sell it. I don't think God wants me to sell it. Verse four, Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him. For he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. So this guy's just had this farm, this vineyard in the family for generations. Ahab just has this little caprice that he wants to turn it into an herb garden and he's like, no, this is my ancestral vineyard. I'm going to keep it. And so here's what he did. He laid him down. This is the end of verse four. He laid him down upon his bed and turned away his face. It would eat no bread. This is like when you try to put food in your toddler's mouth and there's like, he's turned their face to the side. He puts his face to the wall. He goes on his bed and his face to the wall being a baby, pouting, whining, crying about it because he can't have his herb garden. Now is this really what it means to be the king of Israel, to be a gardener, right? Because he's supposed to be out there fighting the Lord's battles, judging the people, leading the people. This is just some kind of a hobby or something. You know, apparently Ahab had a green thumb, but this idea of I have to have this vineyard is going to end up destroying him. And of course enter the friend, the loved one who's going to come and tell him what to do. Actually this is his wife again. Last time it was his wife as well, Haman's wife, Zireh. This happens to be his wife as well. It says Jezebel, this is his wife Jezebel, verse five. But Jezebel's wife came to him and said unto him, why is thy spirit so sad that thou eat us no bread? And he said unto her, because I spake an inebot the Jezreelite and said unto him, give me thy vineyard for money, or else if it please thee, I'll give you another vineyard for it. And he answered, I will not give thee my vineyard. And look at what Jezebel says, Jezebel's wife said unto him, dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? Like are you the king of Israel or what? Now what does she mean by that? Now what she should say here is like, dost thou not govern Israel? Shouldn't that be enough for you? Isn't that cool? Isn't that enough? Isn't that exciting? Isn't that meaningful? Doesn't that fulfill your desire to have a meaningful life? But instead she's saying, dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel, arise and eat bread and let that heart be merry. I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. And what she's saying is, well, don't you govern Israel? That just means you should just be able to have whatever you want. Just take whatever you want. So she is just saying that he should just be able to be a dictator and just have just total power and take whatever he wants and whatever. And so the way that she ends up getting him the vineyard, to make a long story short, is that she ends up hiring false witnesses to lie about Naboth and to claim that he was guilty of hate speech and that he had cursed God and the king. And then these two false witnesses testify to that and he ends up being executed. And then once he's executed, then Ahab has no problem purchasing this vineyard for himself. But then of course the man of God comes and confronts him and just for the sake of time we'll just look at verse 19. It says, Thou shalt speak unto him saying, Dost sayeth the Lord, Hast thou killed and also taken possession? And thou shalt say unto him saying, Dost sayeth the Lord, In the place where dogs lick the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine? And of course then judgments pronounced on Jezebel, how she's going to be literally eaten by the dogs and there will just be a few pieces left. I think they found like the palms of the hands, you know, just a few body parts left after the dogs just have chowed down on the corpse of Jezebel. And so this type of a monomania, just obsession with one thing from the outside, it looks stupid, doesn't it? You know, what, why are you, why do you care about Mordecai, some Jew not respecting you? Why do you care about this garden of herbs so much that you're willing to just murder someone or allow your wife to murder someone in order to get it? And we need to make sure that we don't fall into the same trap of, of just obsessing over that one thing we can't have. You know, God has allowed us to have a lot of good things in our life, but there are certain things that God has forbidden us, right? And we shouldn't just obsess over those things that God does not allow. You think back to the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and God provided them with what they needed. He said, of all the trees of the garden now may freely eat, but of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, thou shalt not eat thereof, right? And neither shall you touch it lest ye die, okay? Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And yet what do they end up doing, right? They end up eating of that forbidden fruit. When in reality they had all of these other options and it was just one thing that they weren't allowed to have. And then if you remember when Satan comes and tempts Eve in Genesis chapter three, uh, he says, yea hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden. So he makes it sound like, oh, you can't eat of all the trees. He tries to make it sound like it's this big prohibition. What? What? You can't eat everything. You can't eat all this. What? And she's like, well, yeah, actually we can eat all this. There's just one that we can't eat, right? But yet what do they do? They eat of that one tree. Well guess what? That is a picture of all of us as human beings, right? Adam and Eve are basically our parents, right? That's our ancestors. And so we inherit that same attitude that they have where we will often obsess over that one thing that we're not allowed to do, the one thing we're not allowed to have, the one person we're not allowed to hang around with, the one thing that we're not allowed to do or whatever. And we need to just be happy with all the other stuff that we have in our life and not obsessed on that one thing. Look at second Samuel chapter number 13, second Samuel chapter number 13. There are a lot of stories about this in the Bible where people just get obsessed with, with one thing or one person or one idea on and on. We see this in the Bible. Another example is Samson. You know, Samson is a great, powerful man and God's using him greatly and he just ends up getting obsessed with a certain woman and then later he gets obsessed with another woman and it's just this pattern with him of just getting infatuated with a woman to his own destruction. The most famous is of course ultimately when he becomes infatuated with Delilah. And what does the word infatuation mean? Well infatuation is when you're, you're so quote unquote in love or obsessed with someone of the opposite gender that you end up making a total idiot of yourself, right? You just totally make a fool of yourself. You're being a total idiot, right? Because it comes from the Latin word for fool. Okay. And so, you know, you're infatuated when you're just so set on this one person that is off limits to you or that is the wrong person for you, just somebody who has bad news and you just become just so obsessed or in love with that person, not realizing how many fish there are in the sea, right? And then you're just fixated on that one person that's the wrong person. Maybe they're already married or maybe they're a nonbeliever or whatever, right? All the reasons why that person is off limits or maybe your parents have said, hey, stay away from that person. You know, that person is bad. I don't want you hanging around with his ilk. Look if you would at 2 Samuel chapter 13 verse 1, and it came to pass after this that Absalom, the son of David, had a fair sister whose name was Tamar and Amnon, the son of David, loved her. And Amnon was so vexed that he fell sick for his sister, Tamar, for she was a virgin and Amnon thought it hard for him to do anything to her. But Amnon had a friend. So again, enter the friend that's going to tell you that it's okay and, and lead you into sin, right? Isn't that what we saw with Ahab? It was Jezebel. With Haman, it was Zirash, but it wasn't just Zirash his wife, it was all his friends told him the same thing. His friends were there to tell him the same thing, right? And then here we have Amnon's friend, Jonadab, that tells him what to do here. It says Amnon had a friend, verse three, whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimea, David's brother, and Jonadab was a very subtle man. And he said, and what does subtle mean? It means he was very cunning, shrewd, clever, but this has kind of a negative connotation sometimes. It could be positive in other contexts, but here it's talking about he's kind of a conniving kind of a guy. And he said unto him, why art thou, being the king's son, lean from day to day? Now look, right there from that statement we can see that this guy's got everything going for him. He's a young man, he's the king's son, he's in the royal family, he's got wealth, he's got power, he's got prestige. I mean, think about how many women this guy could marry if he wanted to, right? I mean, I guarantee you there are all kinds of beautiful women lining up to be in the royal family and to marry into David's family and to marry Amnon. But he said unto him at the end of verse 4, Amnon said unto him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister. Okay, when you're talking about the person that you're into and you're using all those family terms, that's a big red flag, okay? Your brother's sister, that means this is his half-sister, okay? Off limits, buddy. That is too close of a relative, right? This is not allowed. This is weird. Don't do it. And Amnon said unto him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister. And John said unto him, hey, idiot, look at all these other beautiful women out there. Why do you got to marry a relative? Nope, because that's what John should have said. What about all these other beautiful babes? You know, why are you just obsessed with this one person? John Adub said, lay down on thy bed and make thyself sick. And when thy father cometh to see thee, say unto him, I pray thee, let my sister Tamar come and give me meat and dress the meat in my sight that I may see it and eat it at her hand. And long story short, he ends up tricking her into coming in the room. He shuts the door. He attacks her, forces himself on her physically. And I mean, this is a horrible thing where he literally commits rape, OK? It's wicked. Every time I read this story, it makes me so mad. It's just so ridiculous. And when he gets killed, you're kind of just you're kind of OK with Absalom smoking this guy, you know, because, you know, in the word of God, that is the punishment for rape. Obviously, Absalom didn't go through the proper channels and so forth. But you know, it's just it's a disgusting act that he commits. And so we see this story where Amnon ends up getting killed. But not only does Amnon end up getting killed, but also Absalom ends up just becoming this hateful, vindictive person that's full of revenge. Because even after Absalom kills Amnon, he's still not satisfied. And so then he wants to take revenge on his dad just because his dad didn't come down hard enough on Amnon. And then he ends up causing a literal civil war. And tons of people are killed. Multitudes of people die. All kinds of horrible things happen. Why? Because Amnon was obsessed with Tamar and got infatuated. Now you say, well, Pastor Anderson, you just don't understand because I mean, when you're in love, you're in love and, you know, there's just nothing you can do about it. You just don't get it, Pastor Anderson. You know, there's just that she's my soulmate. He's my soulmate. OK, let me explain something to you. No. All right. Secondly, no. OK. There. No. This idea of like, oh, you know, we're just meant to be together and you have people that are literally married claiming that someone else is their soulmate or claiming that some married woman is their soulmate or whatever. That's garbage. My friend. First of all, there's no such thing as a soulmate. Let's just put that out there. Soulmate doesn't exist. It's not real. It is a fiction. It's a fairy tale. OK. And by the way, you know, as far as I can tell where this idea seems to come from of the soulmate, OK, it goes back to a work by Plato where he's describing this drinking party where you've got these bunch of famous people there at this drinking party and they're all talking about love and so forth. And this one guy who's a literal professional comedian, a professional comedian tells this really silly outrageous story about how humans used to have like four arms and four legs and two heads and they used to be like the, they used to be kind of round in a circle and they would move by like doing cartwheels on their forearms and forelegs. And they were like, they were like a ball. But then, you know, the gods chopped them in half. And so like people are trying to find their other half. That's like their soulmate, you know, they're trying to reconnect because ever since they got chopped in half, they feel lonely. OK, but here's the thing. It's a it's it's supposed to be funny. It's a joke. It's absurd. It's silly. Right. There's a lot of people out there thinking that there's this person out there that's their long lost other half soulmate, whatever, folks, it's a fiction, OK? Now look, obviously, love is a powerful force. Obviously love is godly, right? Love is of God, the Bible says. We are, you know, we derive great love from having Christ in our hearts and having the Holy Spirit inside of us. And so obviously the love between a man and a woman, the love between a husband and wife is powerful, OK? But this idea that says, well, there's just this one person and it has to be that one person is a dangerous idea for a lot of reasons. Reason number one. Well, it's I mean, it's not in the Bible, OK? Reason number one why this is a dangerous idea is that what happens is you'll you'll get these people that are just single forever because nobody can fit that mold that they're looking for because they're just looking for a unicorn that doesn't exist. And then they just end up just being single for the rest of their lives because they just can't find that perfect soulmate, whatever they're looking for. Other half, whatever. And then they just end up being perpetually single. Number two, people get married. They think they found that person. They get married. And then things after a while maybe aren't as great as they were in the beginning. You go through some rough patches, you go through some low points, maybe you drift apart a little bit. And then it's like, I married the wrong person. That's what's going on. Right. And then they think, well, if I were to get rid of this spouse and go marry the right person, that's going to fix everything. But that's not true, my friend. Listen, nobody in here is married to the wrong person. Okay. Because now that you're married to them, whether they used to be or not, they're the right person now. Okay. So you are married. You are married to the right person. Okay. Everyone turned to your spouse to say, no, I'm just kidding. We're not going to make it weird. But I'm telling you, you're married to the right person. It's garbage. The wrong person. Now look, I do think it's possible to marry the wrong person. I was being a little silly there. You know, marrying an unsaved person is marrying the wrong person, right? Marrying somebody who's rotten or wicked or raunchy or sleazy or whatever, yeah, obviously don't marry that person. But once you're married, you better just decide, hey, this is the right person for me because it's my spouse. Okay. But it's not like you're having problems because you married the wrong person or whatever. You know, that is an attitude that leads people to go out seeking the right person, quote, unquote. There isn't one right person and everybody else is wrong. That's not true. God gives us a choice of who we're going to marry. Okay. God gives you choice. Just like Adam and Eve had a choice of all those fruit trees, you as a young man have a choice of what woman you want to marry. You make that choice. You pick the one that you like. You pick the one that you want to spend the rest of your life with and then it's your job to love her with all of your heart. And you know, you pick that young man that you want to be married to, young ladies, you pick him and you marry him and you give him all your love and you, it's a choice that you make. Now, there are certain criteria because you want to make sure that you marry someone that's not your relative. Okay. That's okay, right? Someone who is not near of kin unto you. You want to pick someone who's a saved Christian, right? You want to pick someone who is not a bad news type of person. But here's the thing, you know, it's really up to you. There could be multiple choices that are okay. There could be good choice number one, good choice number two, good choice number three. You pick, right? Maybe other people around you help you pick or help you veto certain people. But at the end of the day, this is a choice that is made. And once you're married, you know, you're going to have to put effort into obviously cultivating that relationship whether you marry the right one or not. You could marry the most awesome unicorn person in the world and you're still going to have issues after 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years of marriage. It's just life, right? Because people are sinful. I'm flawed. You're flawed. And because we're all flawed, sometimes we're going to get on each other's nerves. Sometimes we're going to clash. Sometimes we're going to have problems because of our flaws. Because we're human. Because we're not perfect. If I'm not perfect and my wife isn't perfect, we're not going to have a perfect relationship. If you think you will, you're kidding yourself. You watched too many Hallmark movies or something. And so you say, well Pastor Anderson, you just don't get it. I mean, you know, Tamar is just his soulmate. He's just in love. And when you're in love, there's nothing you can do about being in love. Except here's the funny thing about this is that he's so in love with Tamar, but after he violates her, then immediately he hates her. And then it says afterward that the hatred wherewith he hated her after was greater than the love wherewith he had initially loved her. So after Amnon violates Tamar, he hates her. He doesn't want to see her. He wants her out of his sight. He wants nothing to do with her. So is that what you call true love? Right? And I know this is a fictional story, but I'm going to bring it up anyway, just because everybody knows it, right? The famous Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet written what, you know, about 400 years ago or whatever. Well guess what? There's nothing new under the sun. In that famous Shakespeare play, who is Romeo obsessed with? Who's he in love with? Juliet. This isn't a trick question. Ultimately it's Juliet and he's just got to have Juliet. He's obsessed with Juliet. He's got to have Juliet, right? And then ultimately they all end up dead. He ends up dead. Juliet ends up dead. They did not live happily ever after. It's a tragedy. Okay. And I asked this before, maybe somebody will know the answer now because I've already prepped to you on this, but does anybody remember that right before Juliet, he was obsessed with a totally different woman and what was her name? All right. You've been prepped. Rosalind. Somebody thinks about Rosalind. You know, Oh, he's just, Oh, it's gotta be Juliet, Juliet, Juliet. Earlier in the same evening, it was Rosalind. So notice how this guy can just turn on a dime. He's obsessed with Rosalind and it's like, Oh, forget Rosalind. It's all about Juliet. Why? Because this kind of infatuation is easy to mistake for true love, but guess what? It's not true love. It's infatuation. It's being stupid. Okay. You can't just get obsessed and infatuated and just throw morality out the window. Throw what your parents are telling you out the window. Throw your Christian virtues out the window because it's just, it's my soulmate. It's just true love. No, it's monomania. You know, you basically are just like Ahab looking for that garden of herbs. You're exactly like a Haman where he just has to have Mordecai submit to him. And the fact that everybody else in the kingdom is bowing down to him and everybody else is respecting him isn't enough. Don't fall prey to this, my friend. Go if you would to second Samuel chapter number 11. I mean, do you notice how just examples of this abound in the Bible, right? Do not get obsessed with that one thing now. It's easy to use examples of romance because there are some good examples of this in the Bible and something that a lot of people can relate to. Talk about Amnon and Tamar, Samson and Delilah, even Romeo and Juliet, right? Just to go into the fictional world. Also in the Bible, we have David and Bathsheba. Another example, right? David and Bathsheba. Look, David is the king of Israel. He's got all kinds of power, wealth, prestige, and he has multiple wives and multiple concubines. It's not like this guy's physical needs are not being met, okay? And by the way, this goes to show you that as a man, you know, even if you have all these wives and concubines, that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be satisfied because David has all these wives and concubines. He's got plenty of action in that area and yet he's not satisfied and he has to do what? Commit adultery with another man's wife, which is super wicked. And then after he commits adultery with another man's wife, then what does he end up doing? He ends up having her husband killed to try to cover up his crime. So he becomes an adulterer and a murderer. Why? Just for some fling, just for a passion. Oh, it's a soulmate. No it isn't. It's just stupidity. It's the lust of the flesh. It's the lust of the eyes. It's a monomania. It's infatuation is what it is. It's not love. It's just him being obsessed with one thing that he can't have. It doesn't make any sense. And if a man like David could fall into this, if a man like Samson, who is filled with the Spirit of God multiple times, you know, if Samson and David and other men of God throughout the Bible, if our ancestors, Adam and Eve, got sucked into this, we're susceptible to this. And we need to make sure that we don't fall into this trap. Now, obviously it's easy, like I said, to focus on these romance or, you know, from rape to romance, you know, everything in between, all these stories of idiots in the Bible ruining their lives, you know, over their obsession with the opposite gender. But there are other examples of this, too, where we could become monomaniacal about something that we covet, like, for example, you just have to have that house. You just have to have that car. You know, you just have to have that new jacket. You just have to have that pair of shoes. And look, people have been murdered for a pair of shoes. How many times? Right? I remember this is the thing that was on the news a lot in the 90s, people being murdered. And we were told by our parents, like, we weren't allowed to wear certain articles of clothing because we were told that you'll be murdered for wearing these, you know. If you're wearing the Air Jordans, you'll be murdered. If you're wearing the starter jacket, murdered. We weren't even supposed to wear a starter cap, murdered. Who knows what I'm talking about? You guys remember those days? You don't wear the starter jacket, you don't wear the starter hat, you don't wear the Air Jordans or, you know, you didn't wear those kind of fancy clothes that a certain segment of society wanted, right? The gang kind of mentality that wanted the certain NFL gear or Major League Baseball gear or the certain brands or whatever, NBA stuff. If you wore that stuff, you were literally risking your life because there were thugs that would beat you or even kill you to take those shoes from you, that jacket from you that I had from you. Why? Because they'll just get obsessed with stupid things and they'll do anything to get it. Now obviously those are extreme examples, but even in our lives, you know, we can sometimes make some stupid purchases, right? Stupid purchases because you just have to have that toy, you know, you just have to have that RV or motorcycle or boat or truck or whatever, and I'm not saying that those things are bad. I'm not saying, you know, never buy a truck or an RV or motorcycle, hey, you know, go ahead and buy a motorcycle or whatever if that's in your budget. But I mean, what about people who are just sacrificing everything to buy something stupid, ruining their finances, ruining their relationships with people because they just have to have some toy. And I guarantee you once you have it, it's not going to fill that void in your heart. It's not going to be like, oh, I've got my toy. I've arrived now. I've got the ultimate four by four. Now the rest of my life is just perfect. It's just going to be something else, my friend. But not only that, people get obsessed about just one problem, right? So there's that one thing you've got to have, that expensive item that you can't afford, that jacket, that skirt, that shirt or whatever that you just obsess over, that Lego set that you must have or whatever. Just get it on ESA and we'll be fine. ESA covers Legos. But anyway, what about people who just, they have that one problem in their life that they just can't stop complaining about? You know, everything's going great in their life, but the financial problem, it just ruins their life. Yeah, but you know what? If you have horrible finances, how's your marriage doing? How are your children? How's your health? Right? Because you know what? I'd rather have a great marriage, great children and great health and just finances in the toilet than to have great finances and my health's in the toilet. Think about it. I mean, would you rather be sick and crippled and ill, but you have a lot of money in the bank? Because guess what? Your life's never going to be perfect. There's always going to be some issue. So don't just obsess over that one thing. Maybe for you, maybe you're healthy, you're able-bodied, you've got a good job and you've got, uh, uh, uh, your finances are fine, but maybe, you know, your marriage is messed up or something. Right? I mean, that's horrible. That's terrible. But you know what though? At the end of the day, you should just be thankful for all those other parts of your life that are going well. You know, and maybe you are physically sick, but at least your finances are good. At least your relationships are good. At least somebody's spooning chicken soup into your mouth or grinding up your steak dinners and you know, feeding them to you as a milkshake or whatever. You know, we all have something to be thankful for and we can either go through life focused on the things that are going well or we can go through life obsessing over that one thing in our life that isn't right. And here's another application for this. How about church? People have a great church and then they just obsess over the one problem at their church or the one thing that's wrong with their church. And look, I hear people complain about their church all the time and some of the things that people complain about their church are really petty and ridiculous. You know, it's like, oh yeah, you know, hey, you know, do you have a church that you go to? Oh yeah, we go to church. You know? Yeah, it's okay. I mean, I mean, yeah, they, yeah, they do a lot of soul winning and you know, yeah, they're right on the gospel and yeah, they got the King James Bible and yeah, you know, there's a, you know, there's a lot of great people there, but you know, it's, you know, they support Israel. It's like, just look, just get, just get over it. Look, we shouldn't be supporting the Christ rejecting, Christ hating fake state of Israel. Right? We should just stay out of that garbage. But at the same time, so what, right? Why don't you just think about all the good things about that church? Learn from, and you know what? It's funny. The pastor will be wrong on one thing. Let's say the pastor's wrong on Israel or he's wrong on Bible prophecy or whatever, and then they'll just act like the pastor's just an idiot because he's wrong on that one thing or they'll just act like, well, I'm so much smarter than the pastor when in reality that pastor might be smarter than you in a whole bunch of other areas and he's just a little weak on certain aspects of Israel or eschatology or whatever, right? But that doesn't just mean that he knows nothing, you know, and most of these churches, you can still go there even if they're wrong on several things. You can still go there and learn a lot week after week of what they're right about. And you know what's funny? These people are always complaining about their church and then they think that faithful word is like this unicorn church, promised land where just everything's perfect and they just can't wait to get here and they're going to move across the country because we're the perfect church. Once they get here, they're going to find things that they don't like about it because guess what? I'm going to stand right up here and tell you right now, there are things that are better about other churches. It's true. There are things that are better about other churches. Now, you know, I think our church is great. I love our church. I love the people here. And to me, that's the most important thing is just that you show up and you like the people and you know, I feel like our church is a great place, but guess what? I've gone to other churches and thought, well, you know, they're a little better at this than we are on this area or that area. And I guarantee you that when people come to our church, if they come here long enough, if they were nitpicking their old church, they're probably going to start nitpicking our church because they're going to find problems with me personally. They're going to find problems with the church. They're going to find problems with my preaching. They're going to find problems with the fellowship or with the staff or with the building or whatever. I don't know how they can find a problem with the building. The building is awesome. We're in the ultimate facility here. What's your problem? Fluorescent lights and drop tile ceiling? Like what's the, what's, what else do you need? Oh, the ceiling's not high enough. What are you, eight feet tall? You're going to bump your head on a sprinkler? Nobody ever bumped their head in here. This place is great. But you know what? You're going to find something wrong with our church. You're going to find something wrong with me personally as your pastor. You're going to find something wrong with my family. You're going to find something wrong with our staff. You're going to find something wrong with our program or, or, or whatever. You're going to find something wrong with the missions that we do. You're going to find something wrong, but look, because none of us is perfect. No church is ever going to be perfect. Your wife's not going to be perfect. Your husband's not going to be perfect. Your job's not going to be perfect. Your life isn't going to be perfect. Nothing's ever going to be perfect. Quit obsessing about everything that's going wrong. Every single one of us has a choice to either be content with such things as we have, to learn in whatsoever state we are therewith to be content, or to find that problem and obsess over it because I promise you, you can find problems because sometimes I've been thinking like, man, I'm doing so good. I feel so good. Everything's so great. I don't even think I have any problems. But then every once in a while I'll be like, I'm going to try to think of what is wrong. And then I think of a lot of stuff. But guess what? Normally I just don't go there. You know, it's, it's funny. I've talked to my pastor friends and they're, they're talking about persecution and stuff. I'm always telling my pastor friends, like I never get persecuted. Like, man, I've, I'm praying for you guys. I'm, you know, I worry about you guys cause you guys are going through so much persecution. And then I'm just like, I don't even go through persecution. And they're just like, yes you do. And I'm like, no, I don't. And they're like, what about that? I'm like, okay, well that there's that. What about that? Well, okay. There's that too. Yeah. Oh yeah. That did. Yeah. Oh yeah. I forgot about it. Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. Fine. But, but here's the thing. I just don't go through life thinking about it. Who cares? Right. I don't care about the countries you banned from. I'm just like, I'm just thinking about all the countries I'm not banned from. I'm just a, I'm just a glass is half full kind of a guy. You know, I haven't even gone to, it's not like I've gone to every single country I'm not banned from. So why do I need more? I haven't even finished my plate. Why do I need seconds? You know, I don't, who, who even wants to go to some of these places, you know? But it's like, oh, I've got to go there. I just have to go to North Korea. You know, it's just like, no dude, go to South Korea. Don't go there. I just have to go. So what do you get? I ran. No, let's go find Iranians who are somewhere else, right? I want, I want an, uh, or sorry, Iranian. I want an Iranian, the Lord in Norway, but I'm not going to Iran. It's just stupid. But you'll, you'll run it. You'll run into some people who get obsessed. Like I must do missions in North Korea. It's like, well, how are you doing on evangelizing South Korea? Wide open, right? I don't think there's any issue with going soul winning in South Korea. You could probably just waltz into South Korea, win a bunch of people to Christ. And I, in fact, I've known a lot of people who've done that very thing. There are a lot of successful Baptist churches and Baptist preachers in South Korea serving God winning souls. But no, no, no. It's gotta be the one place I can't go. It's gotta be the one place that's illegal or going to kill me or something, right? Don't get obsessed with any one thing. Be balanced. Look at everything in life. In fact, go beyond life. Look at eternity. Think about the fact that you're going to go to heaven, that you're in Christ, that you're saved. You have so much to be thankful for. Even if you say no, Pastor, everything about my life is bad. Literally everything, health bad, finances shot. I'm ugly. I'm stupid. Everybody hates me. Okay, well then hey, let's get you saved after the service. Hopefully it doesn't turn out you're a reprobate. Hey, we'll get you saved after the service and then even if literally everything in your life is messed up, you'll be going to heaven and that's literally better than everything else in the whole world. Because what does a man profit if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? And so don't get monomaniacal. Look at the big picture. If you can't have something, just go to the next thing, right? You show up at Chipotle and they're like, hey, we don't have the carne asada. We're out of it. Then you just say, give me the barbacoa. You don't need to melt down. Now, if you go to Panda Express and they don't have the orange chicken, I see where you're coming from, but still there are other things on the menu that are good. All right, let's end on that note. Let's bow our heads now for a prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. Thank you for all these examples that we could look at, Lord, so that we don't have to destroy our lives by being obsessed with someone that our parents have told us is off limits or that you have told us is off limits or help us not to ruin our lives by being obsessed with expensive items we can't afford or picking apart the flaws of our church. Help us to learn from these biblical examples so that we don't make those same mistakes, Lord, and so that we can focus on what we do have and what's going well. Lord God, you've blessed us so much and in two thousand twenty three as a as a church and you bless me and my family personally, Lord, I'm thankful for everything. And I pray that, Lord, you would continue to bless our church into two thousand twenty four and that we would abound in blessings and that we would not sweat the small stuff and and get obsessed with every little thing that doesn't go our way. Lord, we ask for these blessings in Christ's name. Amen.