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All right. Amen. Well, we're still in Matthew chapter number 16, and this morning we're going to be going over verses five through 12, and the title of the sermon is called Over Thinking It. Over Thinking It. So basically what this is about is it's going to be about learning from the disciples and what caused their minds to get off track and why they were reading into what Jesus said and not getting anything out of it. Okay. We're going to talk about that this morning. Now, this is interesting because every one of us has been in this position where we swore something was true, where we knew for a fact that something was a certain way and then come to find out it's nothing like what we thought. It's embarrassing. It happens to us all. You know, I often, you know, like to think of myself as being pretty good at reading people, being pretty good at intuition and things like that and being able to call people out. I've been right with a lot of things here, but I've also had some surprises in my life. I've had some things kind of take me by surprise where I thought, you know, maybe somebody was against me and they weren't. I thought somebody was for me and they weren't. You know, those types of things happen. And last week I told the story about how we, it was about two weeks ago when Pastor Shelley was here, we got a couple people saved and they showed up for church. And it's funny because when the girl walked in, she had pink hair. Okay. And a couple of ladies, I won't mention, I won't mention their names, but they didn't say anything at the time, but both of them, not having talked to each other, knew that she wasn't going to last through the service. Okay. Whereas myself and James were like, nah, it'll be fine. You know, they just got saved. They're excited. And of course the ladies were right. We were wrong. So there's, there's things like that, you know, and so I bring that up because I do think that a lot of times that women have a advantage in this area. Whereas guys, sometimes we can maybe easily, it can be easier for us to get thrown off track. Another story here, I've got a friend in Sacramento. His name is Salvador. He sent me this video a while back. It was this guy telling a story about, what was his name? Harry Houdini. Okay. This escape artist, magician from way back in the day. This guy was notorious for escaping, you know, straight jackets, prison cells, doing magic tricks, pulling rabbits out of hats, you know, just goofy things like that. And there was this instance in this video, this guy was telling a story about Houdini, how he challenged a certain prison. I want to say it was somewhere down south where he challenged them that he could escape any of their cells within, I think it was under an hour. And so they agreed to the challenge. They brought him in, they shut the door real tight and Houdini begins to go through his tricks. You know, he takes off his belt, pulls out a piece of steel. He's trying to, you know, get out the door and after an hour, I guess he just collapses. He starts to panic. He's really, you know, just, just filled with anxiety and his foot, I guess, hits the door and somehow it just kind of opens. And the point of the story is the door was never locked, but it was locked in Houdini's mind because they told him that the door was locked, you know, and I felt like that's a perfect analogy of what we're going to be reading this morning in Matthew 16 verses five through 12 because the disciples swore in their minds, they were 100% sure that Jesus was hinting about the fact that they forgot to take bread. Okay. But turns out that's not the case. And we've all been in this situation. We've all sworn that something's true and turns out it's not. And so obviously we're going to go through the context, what this means, what Jesus wants us to get out of this doctrinally, but we're also going to come back and scoop up that application because I believe it's very important that we understand how do our minds play tricks on us. Okay. What are some things, because all of that's in this story here. Okay. Why do our minds play tricks on us and how can we avoid that and overcome those types of things? So if you would keep your place in Matthew 16, but go to Luke chapter number 12, Luke chapter number 12. So you read through Matthew chapter 16, you read through Mark chapter number eight, Jesus is actually warning the disciples against three groups of people. Okay. And Matthew talks about being aware of the Pharisees and the leaven of the Sadducees. When you read Mark chapter eight, the Pharisees come up, but also Mark records being aware of the leaven of Herod. Okay. Now the verse on the bulletin is the verse of the week, which is Galatians five, nine, and it says a little leaven, leaveneth the whole lump. What does that mean? Well, it's very important because that's what we're going to be talking about today. You guys, most of you probably are familiar with what leaven does. Okay. Leaven is a substance that causes bread to rise and to expand. And throughout the Bible, there are several instances where leaven is pictured as sin pictured as something bad. Okay. And so what you have in this passage here in Matthew chapter number 16 verses five through 12 is you have literally a clinic and a warning against pervasive influence, bad behaviors, false doctrines that come into the church. When those things are tolerated and we are not aware of those things, they are like leaven. They expand, they grow, they cling on to other people and those problems begin to fester. And so again, understand it's not just false doctrine, but it's also toxic behaviors that we need to be aware of. And so we're going to take a look at that. Okay. What are the leaven of the Pharisees? What is the leaven of the Sadducees and what is the leaven of Herod? Why is that so important for us to understand? Well, let's just start off with the first group here, which is the Pharisees. And I've covered this before, so I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on it, but I figure it's going to be very good for review. So if you're in Luke chapter number 12 in verse number one, the Bible is going to tell us exactly what the leaven of the Pharisees was. So look at verse number one, the Bible says, in the meantime, when they were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode upon one another, he began to say unto his disciples, first of all, beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Okay, now leave your place there in Luke chapter 12 and go over to Matthew chapter number 23. So this one's easy right out the gate. We understand that the leaven of the Pharisees, and again, there's crossover. Okay, there's overlap to all three groups. Okay. The Sadducees had to deal with this. Herod had to deal with this. You know, they were all hypocrites in some way, shape or form, but the Pharisees by and large, when you're studying the scriptures were notorious hypocrites. Okay. And so we're going to take a look at some examples. And of course, you just know, I mean, going all the way all the way back to the Sermon on the Mount, that the Pharisees were notorious for being concerned with the outside, the outward appearance, not worrying at all, literally about the internal and the word of God and things of that nature. But Matthew 23, we'll get there, obviously here, probably a couple months, you know, and it's a scathing sermon that Jesus just preaches and blasts the scribes, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. But specifically the Pharisees, let's look at some examples here of hypocrisy. Look what Jesus says here in verse number four to the scribes and Pharisees, he says this Matthew 23 verse four, he says, for they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born and lay them upon men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. Okay. What does this mean? And why is this important? Well, there are plenty of teachers in the world today that are very influential, that are very popular, and they preach all these super spiritual standards, but when no one's looking, when the cameras are off and they take their limousine home or they take their private jet home, they're living a double life. Okay. They're not doing any of the things that they're commanding people because they know in their hearts that they're too grievous. Okay. But it makes you sound good. It makes you look good to the untrained eye and to the unsaved person. And that's what Jesus is saying here. They bind heavy burden. They create all these super standards. Oh, you got to have your garment looking a certain way. You got to have certain dress standards. Look, we're all about standards here. I understand that. Okay. But the point is what's inside is far more important. Okay. You have no business worrying about the outside and your outward appearance if you're not saved, if you're not following the word of God, if you don't love the commandments, if you don't love the statutes, if you don't love the word of God, if you're not even following that. Okay. We've got plenty of people, even within our own circles. Okay. We'll get on Facebook, they'll get on social media and they'll start blasting. Oh, well, I heard this person or this pastor said this, this person said that, and I don't do any of that stuff. And then, you know, a few months later you do a little bit of digging around and it's like, whoa, you're into some stuff that's way worse than that. What are you thinking? How could you be so blind? The reason they're so blind is because they have allowed themselves to be put in a, into a position to where their mind is playing tricks on them and they are deceived. And that's basically what you have going on here with the Pharisees. Look at verse number six. It says they love and love the upper most rooms at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues. Okay. They are all about the outward appearance. They're about that status. Okay. They love going to these conferences and, oh, I better have the front row seat. I want to be up high. I want people to be looking and thinking in their hearts. Oh, I wish I could be like this rabbi, like this Pharisee. I've really done some stuff with my life. Look at verse seven and greetings in the markets and to be called of men, rabbi, rabbi, and of course Jesus rebukes that. Just for sake of time, look at, jump down to verse number four, 13. Look at verse 13. So he says this, but woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. So what they were notorious for doing is going around and finding people that are interested in religious subjects, interested in spiritual things. And they would grab them and they would take them and they would say, look at us and look at what we've accomplished here. And we need to clean you up. And in that process, what they would do is literally make people reprobate concerning the faith. Look at verse 14. He says, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayer. Therefore, you shall receive the greater damn nation. I've been criticized before because of the way I pray before we eat and things of that nature. Oh, well it's not long enough. My mind always goes right back here. You know, it's like, I'm not interested in putting on a show. We've got my own prayer time. We've talked about that in the past. We're not doing things to be seen of men here, right? It's all about the inward. The inward is obviously more important than the outward. But here's the thing. Obviously, if you take care of the inward, you're saved, you love the word of God, you wanna follow the word of God, the outward stuff's gonna follow. You know, it's just automatic. It's gonna happen. But the Pharisees would neglect the internal. They would neglect the meteor things of the law. Look at verse 15. He says, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte. Okay, a proselyte is a convert. To make one proselyte. And when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Then he just goes on and on and on about these people. So go back to, actually go to Matthew chapter number 22. Matthew chapter number 22. So, Matthew 16, Jesus says, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Okay, hopefully you're starting to see what that means. It's hypocrisy, okay? We don't want to tolerate hypocrisy even in the local church because what it does is it clings to other people, it spreads, and it grows. So you have one person coming in here and they're preaching like some super crazy standard, you know, you can insert anything. You know, and you might think, wow, that person's really gotta put together, you know. Now they're starting to lead the music and they're starting to do all these things. You know, and then what happens later on, you find out that inwardly, they don't follow the word of God, inwardly, the ravenous wolves inwardly, they have all these other issues and problems, okay? And that attitude, that problem spreads to other people and it has to be ran out of the church, it has to be dealt with, otherwise it does maximum damage. It's just what it is, it's what the Bible teaches. So, and that's not to say that people, because all of us to some degree are hypocrites, okay? So don't think like I'm up here saying I'm not a hypocrite. We all say and do not to a certain degree, but there's a whole nother level, okay? And the Pharisees are a perfect example of that other level. So, leaven of the Pharisees would be hypocrisy, something that we need to be put on notice for, that we need to pay attention to, because obviously the first thing and the first avenue we wanna take in church is to correct it, is to get somebody off of that and into the word of God, into the study, into the preaching, preaching the gospel and things of that nature, so that they can be profitable to the kingdom of God. Now, let's take a look at the second group that Jesus mentions, which is the Sadducees, which are the Sadducees. So you're there in Matthew chapter number 22. We're gonna look at verse 29 for a second here. But basically, theologically, these guys were liberal, okay, they were very liberal. They had a very liberal view of scripture. They viewed scripture as archaic and basically being needed to harmonize with current culture, harmonize with current society, kinda like these freaks that are out here right now, how they think, well, it doesn't matter what the Bible says about the Sodomites, it doesn't matter about any of that. Culture today accepts them. We have science, falsely so-called, and we need to bring the word of God up to the times. That attitude is exactly what the Sadducees had. That's how they were. Matthew chapter number 22, they think that they're gonna put Jesus in a catch-22. The Sadducees, obviously notorious for denying the resurrection, they come up to him with this long story, this made-up parable, this made-up story about a guy who had seven wives, and they're like, well, basically, in heaven, or not seven wives, but seven people had married this woman, and they're just like, you know, in heaven, whose wife's gonna be whose, and who's gonna be married who, and we don't have time to break the whole story down, but they're trying to disprove the resurrection, okay? They're trying to say that it's not true. They don't take a fundamental view on scripture like we do. In Matthew chapter 22, verse 29, Jesus answered, look at what it says. Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do error, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God, okay? So again, we've had people like this even come into our church, right, that have an outward appearance. They can say brother, they can say sister, they can say Christian, they can say the lingo, right? But at the end of the day, in their hearts, they don't believe certain parts of the Bible are true, and it comes out usually very quickly, and it's like, that's a problem, okay? If you can't get over that, and you don't grow from that and you don't get saved, you have no business being a part of this church at all, because we want this church filled with people that believe the word of God, okay? Now there's some doctrines that are out there that we all have different opinions on. People have different opinions on Hebrews six and prophecy and things like that, but when it comes to the gospel and it comes to the preservation of the word of God, we're not compromising, and we're only gonna give you a small window of opportunity to get those things right before you have to go, why? Because those things are described as Jesus, as leaven, meaning toxic, it spreads, it clings to people, it multiplies and it affects other individuals, and it's something that we need to be aware of. So go to 1 Corinthians chapter number five. So obviously, I mean, if you wanna, just the picture perfect example of modern day Sadducees, you'd have to look no further than your new evangelical church, because they are all liberal when it comes to the scriptures. They do not believe that God has preserved every word, every jot and tittle, they don't believe that at all. They'll say they believe certain stories in the Bible, but they'll say, oh, there's errors, there's things that aren't correct, and we need to go to the scholars, and we need to go to the linguists, things like that. You know, what did Jesus say about that attitude? He said, you do err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God. So what does that tell us? We need to be people that know the scriptures, and that the scriptures are the power of God, because they are what command and tell us that the resurrection is true, that Jesus did resurrect, that people have resurrected in the Bible. And of course, what does that lead to? Well, Hosea chapter, what is it, chapter four, somewhere around there. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, I think is what it says. You know, we don't have time to go there, but you get the point, okay? You get a liberal preacher, you get liberal churches, that spreads, but it goes outside of the church walls, and it goes into the community. Next thing you know, you're knocking on people's doors, and their answer, whether they go to church or not, even if they don't go to church, a lot of times is in sync with what these liberal churches believe, and it's crazy. And why is Christianity struggling in today's world? It's because the devil is working overtime to destroy the foundations, the fundamentals, and so God's people are destroyed because they have a lack of knowledge. Now number three, I'm not gonna turn to a lot of places, I'm just gonna explain. Mark chapter eight, Jesus says, beware the leaven of the Pharisees, but also to be aware of the leaven of Herod. You know, Herod is really, he encompasses all three of these. You know, he likes the outward appearance, he definitely is liberal in scriptures, and has other people, what does the Bible say? You know, he's always asking other people, he doesn't wanna go look it up himself. But basically, Herod's leaven is exalting the law of man above the law of God, and that's the problem with Herod. And we have people like that today, who, for example, say, well, because the government's passing hate speech laws, and they're passing laws that say, you know, we have to refer to people in whatever preferred pronouns that they so deem necessary, that we should just go along with that, because that's demonstrating love, so on and so forth. Whereas if you study the Bible, the Bible would tell you, no, we don't do that. We don't compromise, we don't allow other people to molest our minds that way, okay? If someone's born a boy, you're a boy, I don't care if you put female clothes on, or whatever, I'm gonna call you a man, I'm not gonna call you a she, I'm not gonna call you a they, them, that's just not gonna happen. You don't get to molest my mind that way. I have the right to call truth as I see it, and so do we all. But Herod would say otherwise, okay? The leaven of Herod is, well, whatever the government says, we just need to follow that. That goes above God's law, and that's unfortunately the position that a lot of churches are in today. But just to kind of finish up this teaching of leaven here, let's look at 1 Corinthians chapter five. So Paul's rebuking the Corinthian churches for harboring a guy that is a fornicator and an extreme fornicator. This guy is partaking in fornication that is so bad that it's not even heard amongst the Gentiles, okay? And these guys are, instead of kicking this guy out, they are gloating about it. They are proud of it. They're like, man, look at how loving and tolerant we are, you know, we're still having church, we got this guy here even though he's done this. And Paul just comes out and he rebukes these people, but understand that this is a behavior, okay? Everybody knows that this is wrong, even them. Everybody knows that fornication is wrong, but I want you to notice something about this behavior of fornication. Look at 1 Corinthians five and verse six. Paul says, your glorying is not good. Then he says this, know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? It doesn't take a lot. It just takes a little, a little bit of leaven, okay? That's why I'm always on the lookout. What's going on in church? Who believes what? You know, and always trying to put these things together because that's my job, but it's not just my job, it's also your job if you care about this church to do the same thing. Verse seven, he says, purge out therefore the old leaven. And then notice these next three words, that ye may, that ye may. Okay, that ye is plural. So he's saying purge out that old leaven, that ye may. Okay, not so that just the pastor may, but that ye may be a new lump, okay? That's the idea here. The whole church needs to be on board with this process. But the problem is sometimes when you have to go through something like this, you get people that are what I like to call bleeding hearts, sympathizers. And these people are leaven as well. Cause Paul is being very clear here and he says purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye. Okay, so the context here is that you all get on board with this, you all subscribe to this, you all go forth with this. You all back the pastor on this, that ye may be a new lump as ye are on leaven. So that's the idea. That is the position that we want to be in, okay? Again, notice when that happens, you're gonna drop in numbers. But you're a new lump and a new lump without leaven, though it be small is better than a large lump and a congregation that is swelling and seeming to grow, but it's full of toxin, it's full of toxicity, okay? That is going to prohibit the works of God from being pushed forth into the community and obviously bring forth a whole host of issues, personality problems and things of that nature. But look at verse number eight. I'm sorry, let's finish verse seven. He says purge out therefore the old leaven that ye may be a new lump as ye are on leaven. He says for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Verse eight, therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Go back to Matthew 16, okay? So that's the point, okay? All of that in a nutshell, just a very quick summary of what Jesus is talking about to the disciples. He's saying, hey, you know, there's coming a day where you guys will be starting churches, where you guys will be going forth, teaching the things that I have taught you, and he wants them to understand the doctrine of leaven, okay? He wants them to pay attention to people and teachers, obviously of their day, that are hypocritical, teachers that deny the preservation of the word of God and people that exalt the law of man over the law of God. Then he says, you need to be aware of these things, and you need to be able to call these things out and understand this, okay? Now we could spend a whole sermon just on that. The reason why we're not is because we have to get to the rest of it, and I've already kind of covered this, I wanna say just a few months ago we talked about this in great detail, but think about how powerful this teaching is and how useful it is for a church to follow here, okay? Initially, understand this, the disciples missed this whole thing, okay? The disciples are being taught doctrine here, and they're focused on one word and one mistake that they made, okay? And so let's move on and take a look at this. So again, I told you the title of the sermon is Overthinking It. Why do we read into things? Why do we overthink things? What in the world is going on and what causes us to do that? We're gonna see a perfect example in this passage of that very thing. So let's start off here in verse number five, Matthew 16. So the narrator starts off here telling us something. And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Okay, so remember I mentioned this last week that Jesus and the disciples are traveling around the Sea of Galilee and the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the usuals, they're following him and challenging him at each location. Well, they just left Magdala where they were earlier and they forget to take bread, okay? Now understand this, you can't forget something you weren't trying to remember. Now the passage doesn't say that Jesus told them to take bread and they forgot. It doesn't say whether they just decided they needed to take bread and forgot. The point is they forgot. They didn't take bread. So they all know this thing that they don't have enough bread. And according to Mark chapter eight, they have no more than one loaf. So there's a little bit, but they just don't have enough to feed everyone, okay? So when, the question is, when are we vulnerable to our minds playing tricks on us? Okay, when is that? And I would say this, and this is really the first point of the sermon. And it's when we've had some kind of failure to meet expectations. Whether it's an expectation that our boss said, an expectation in the Bible, an expectation that you set for yourself, a promise that you had made to other people. When we fail to meet that, at that moment in time, we are literally putting ourselves into a position to where our minds can be in a situation to play tricks on us. Okay, and so what I'm trying to say here is, basically unfinished business, okay? Unfinished business can put us in that situation. That's why the Bible is telling you here that they had forgotten to take bread, okay? So you move on, and we'll read the rest of verse six here in a minute. But before we do, I just want you to listen to John chapter six, verse 12, okay? So this isn't the first time that they've had to deal with bread. You know, there was two instances in the Bible where Jesus had fed 5,000, 4,000 another time. Now the first time that this miracle happens, you could read about it in John chapter six, you don't have to turn there, but in verse 12, the Bible says this. It says in the people, when the people were filled, it says when they were filled, he said unto his disciples, gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. So in the past, what they had done when there was leftovers and there was extra bread around, is obviously they didn't wanna waste it. And so they remembered to take it up or Jesus told them, hey, take up this bread and take it with you. And so in this situation here, they have already done, gone and seen that miracle again. Jesus just roasted the Pharisees again. And now they're traveling to a new location, they're by themselves and Jesus is trying to teach them doctrine, but the Bible says, hey, there's something going on, there's an elephant in the room here and the disciples forgot to take bread, okay? Now you're gonna see how their minds play tricks on them here in this next verse. So verse six of Matthew 16, truth comes, okay? And understand, Jesus is just trying to teach them some truth. He's just trying to disciple them, just trying to teach them some doctrine. And look what this verse says, verse six. Then Jesus said unto them, take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees, okay? We've already gone over the context, what that actually means for us. We've spent a lot of time on that. In the coming chapters, you're gonna get plenty more examples of their false doctrine here, but Jesus is literally trying to teach them something here, okay? What do their minds do initially? Right off the bat, look at verse seven. And they reason among themselves saying, it is because the Pharisees are hypocrites, the Sadducees don't believe the Bible inherits exalting man's law, right? No, they don't go there, right? They don't do that, what does it say? And they reason among themselves saying, it's because we've taken no bread, okay? So what do you have here? You have a situation here where you have a failure on some level, they forgot to do something. They forgot to take something. And one word triggers that event, okay? So understand that. When do our minds play tricks on us? And I'm telling you what I see here in this passage, one of the ways, and this isn't a therapy session, but one of the ways is when we forget something, when we fail in some way, and we don't resolve that issue. We don't immediately resolve that issue. What would have happened if they got on there, they were on the boat, they're sailing around, let's just say, and they're like immediately, ah, we forgot to take bread, you know? Maybe Jesus would have just said what he's gonna say here in a minute, which, didn't you see what I just did? The 4,000 I fed just recently, or the 5,000 before that? You know, it's not a big deal. Or what if they would have just displayed this great act of faith and said, oh, wait a second, doesn't matter. He's already fed thousands of people with little, it's no big deal that we forgot bread, who cares? They would have gone on to further greatness at that point in time. That's what the Bible is trying to tell you here. But truth comes, they cannot receive it. All they can think about, all they can hone in on is that one word, leaven, right? And so they think in their minds, he's passively, aggressively saying something against me. Right, that's literally what I see here. How many times have we seen that? How many people have come in here and gone to church for tons of times and have gotten it in their mind that everything I say is against them? Happens all the time. Why is that? Because they never confront the issue the first time. Because the first time I say something and they think it's geared towards them, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. And they don't talk. They don't come up and say anything. Right? What happens? Then all of a sudden their mind starts playing tricks on them, and their mind starts telling them that their narrative is true, and they start reasoning among themselves, oh, he said this because I did this five or 10 years ago. Right? And the next thing you know, everything else that we say, do, and teach right over the head, it cannot receive it. Happens all the time. Happens all the time. That is what you are seeing here. They hear the word leaven because it relates to their mistake. Their minds ignore everything else. They make up a story, and in their minds, this story is as true as two plus two equals four. They believe, nope, this is it. Okay, ignore the doctrine, ignore everything, but in their minds, their narrative is true. So what do we see here? The second point that I want to make is that they can't receive this truth because their mind is preoccupied on that mistake at some point, at least at this point. Okay, now they're not sitting around dwelling on it prior to hearing this message. Maybe if they had heard a different message or heard something else, their minds wouldn't have gone there, but because that one word triggered them, we know that it was somewhere on their mind. It might not have been on the forefront of their mind, might have been in the back of their mind, but one thing we know for sure is the fact that they forgot to take bread, all of them know, and all of them are just waiting for something to happen to get called out or what have you. You know, it's kind of funny. Yesterday, so at our house where Kate and I are following us, a strength training program, and we have three lifts that we're doing. We're doing Olympic lifts, and we're trying to move up and wait every single week or do reps and things like that. So Kate, and he adds 10 pounds to his squat, and for a guy who's 6'4 with no shoes on, he has perfect squatting form, okay, and that's kind of hard to do being that tall. Like he's all, like his squat form is just absolutely perfect, okay, but the goal was three sets of five, and the next week you get to add another 10 pounds or whatever it is. Then he gets to the third set and does three reps. That's perfectly fine, okay, for a program. I mean, he's building strength, okay, but he's gonna have to stay there for another week, and as he's taking the weights off so that I could go up there and squat, you know, I'm like, all right, so tomorrow, if I turn to a bunch of verse threes in the Bible, don't say, oh, he's turning to verse three over and over again because I only got three reps on my last set. Okay, you know, that's how people are. You know, he just starts laughing because, you know, it makes sense, you know. Sometimes when we make mistakes, we have failures, and we just dwell on them because we think, you know, whatever, I think we're more important, we're better than that, and we want to cover it up or what have you, you know. It can slow your learning down. It can slow your forward momentum down, and on the Christian side, it's very obvious. Everybody in here knows what that does. It stunts your growth. It stunts your growth. If you got a problem with something I have said, you need to come to me immediately. Okay, you don't wait four years, you don't wait five years, and then have pizza meetings and secret meetings and, you know, go tell all your friends how bad the pastor is. No, that's you being a coward is what that is. You're a pathetic loser is what you are, and it's all because you neglected to deal with your issues to deal with what you thought was true, and turns out wasn't. Turns out wasn't true whatsoever. So what could the apostles have done? Well, they could have, like I said earlier, just exposed the fact right away, oh, you know what, we forgot to take bread. Even if they thought in their minds, okay, he's not gonna multiply it again, or we're gonna be in trouble, or whatever, if they would have just said, Lord, we're sorry we forgot to take bread, they would have been able to receive this truth on the first go around, and they wouldn't have had to waste time, but thankfully they did because we get to learn from this process. Now, go to Matthew chapter number five. Matthew chapter number five. Something we studied several months ago when we were in Matthew 25, is this principle right here. Matthew five, look at verse 25. The Bible says this. So this principle here of when two people have a beef, the idea here is that it's better for you to solve that thing very quickly. Solve that problem as fast as you can, because if not, it's like leaven. It just builds and builds and builds. It affects other people, and the next thing you know, you're having to face the man, and you're gonna do time, and it's just a nightmare. Well, that same attitude, that same principle applies even in a situation like this. If you have left something undone, you have maybe failed somebody in a way, and whether you think that you're gonna notice or not, the best thing to do is to just bring it to light right away, that way it's not a problem, that way it frees you of the anxiety, right? It frees you of the anxiety and the worry of, oh, what if they find out, you know, maybe they won't find out, and you don't have to play that game. You can free the anxiety, get the thing off your back, and what that does is it opens up your mind so that you can then go back and learn, and you can be in a right frame of mind so that you know, hey, my mind isn't just playing tricks on me. That's what you're gonna see. So back to Matthew chapter number 16. Matthew chapter number 16. We're almost done here. Look at verse number eight, and so what this is gonna show us here is gonna show us further problems with leaving things undone. Look at verse number eight. It says, which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, oh ye of little faith. Why reason ye among yourselves? Because ye have brought no bread. So here it is. I mean, once you see in your own life, once we as people, you know, have some kind of forgetful act, or we fail in some kind of way, and that thing is just like hovering through the mind, and it's just on your mind, okay, and you come to church, or you have to deal, you know, within the boundaries of that situation, okay, what does it do? Well, apparently it affects your faith. Okay, it affects your faith. So when you come to church, and you think that the passage against you, like we had this guy come and sit up here in the front row back in, I think it was July. Okay, he came for a service. He's like, oh, I'm glad I'm here. You know, I'm here to help support against the protest, and this and that, and then he comes to another service, and then he sends me like five text messages cussing me out, because apparently everything I said was against him. It's like, I don't even know you. I have no idea anything that's going on in your life. You know, I didn't understand your drug history, and this and that, and it's like, all of that could have been avoided if he would have just said, hey, was that against me? And if it was, I'd be like, yeah, it was. How can we help you? How can we solve this? And he could have still been here, getting truth, and growing in the Lord, but now, what is he doing? Who knows what he's doing? It doesn't matter, you know? Apparently, people, you know, the trash takes itself out. Let's just say that, okay? That's a saying, and it's a true saying here. I'm not applying that to the apostles, of course, but what do you have here in verse eight? Well, when Jesus perceived, okay, so he's looking at him, he knows he's God in the flesh. He knows what they're thinking. He knows what they're saying amongst themselves. What does he say? He rebukes him. He says, oh, ye of little faith. Ye of little faith. Why reason ye among yourselves because ye have brought no bread? So what else this does when we have unfinished business, when we have undone business, is it prohibits and it blocks our faith, and it just blocks everything that God's done for us in the past. You know, it's kinda like, again, I always like to go back to this. Why do we have a praise list? So that we can remember all the great things that God has done for us in our lives. You know, I mean, think about all the great things that God has done for this church. I mean, just even in the last year. You know, you're getting kicked out. You're not getting kicked out. You're getting kicked out. You're not getting kicked out. It's just this pancake of over and over again. Turns out, we're not getting kicked out now. You know, that's a great thing because who knows, another year from now, the situation might come back and that situation might be put on the table and it's like, hey, remember when this happened before, how God saved us, how God rescued us, how God paid the bills, right? And we can trust on that and we don't have to worry. We don't have to be filled with anxiety and we can move on with our lives and keep learning and not let things that are going on that we have no control over bog us down and make it so that we just cannot be productive in the faith. Look at verse number nine. Jesus says this, so not only does it destroy faith because now you can't remember the past. All you can think about is that mistake you made. Look at this, verse nine. Do ye not yet understand? So what does this do? It prohibits your understanding. Neither remember the five loaves of the 5,000 and how many baskets he took up. Look, I mean, it hasn't really been that long since that happened. Jesus is like, do you not understand? Furthermore, do you not remember? I'm God, you're humans, okay? God is telling us like, I can take care of you. You can make mistakes and I can heal them. You can forget things and I can make it right. That's how great our God is. That's what he's trying to say here. Verse 10, neither the seven loaves of the 4,000 and how many baskets he took up. Verse 11, he says, how is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread? And here it is. So Jesus is saying, I'm not passively aggressively preaching against you. If I have something to say to you, I will say it to you. I will teach you about it. I will make it known. He's saying, I'm trying to teach you doctrine, but because you're so fixated on the mistake you made, it ruined your faith, it ruined your understanding and it blocked your mind from being able to remember. And you cannot even understand this truth. So he says, verse 11, how is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees? Okay, so here's why these guys were chosen. Okay, look at this here in verse 12. Then understood they. And that's the difference between these guys and other people that I've had the unfortunate pleasure of being a pastor of, okay? Is that when these guys are told the truth, like no, this wasn't about the fact that you forgot bread. This is doctrine. They were like, oh, okay, yeah, it makes sense, okay? They receive this truth. They're able to comprehend the word of God. Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. So hopefully that there will give you just a little bit of insight on why our minds can play tricks on us. Something to look out for because we're human and we all make mistakes. I tell people all the time, hey, I'll call you back on this day. And then I completely forget, you know? And sometimes I'll remember a few days later and I'm like, man, you know? Like, are they gonna remember? You know, I'll start getting in this situation. I'll start having these mind games and things of that nature. But then I remember, you know, it's better just to make it right. Call the person, hey, sorry about that. Whatever happened happened. You know, these things came up, I'm busy. Things like that. I'll take the chewing, I'll take whatever. You know, it's all good. But you know, when we overthink the physical, we overthink things, we think everything's about us, okay? There's underlying reasons for that. And in this situation, this passage here, you can find all the ingredients to why that happens. And it all boils down to when we don't finish business. When you have unfinished business, you have unfinished beef and you don't squash it, you don't do anything to resolve it, what happens? It affects the way that you think. Your mind will lie to you and you will believe it. Okay, and it causes so many problems. So the way around it is to, hey, make sure you make these things right initially so that you don't have all these looming things that you were supposed to do or that you forgot to do or that you failed or whatever in your mind because all that does is block you from being able to learn. And it's so true and it applies so much in the church setting because I, I mean, there's just, you've all seen it. We've seen countless people come in here and they're bitter for some odd reason. And it's because they think a decision that I made or something you said to them, you know, means a certain thing when it doesn't. They don't have the courage, they don't have the guts to actually confront and make it right. And so what happens is it just builds and it turns into leaven and it affects other people. And the next thing you know, it's just, it's just a tragic situation all around. And that's what Jesus is trying to prevent. But really, again, it all goes back to understanding these three groups, right? We need to understand the leaven of the Pharisees, this hypocrisy. That is something that you and I need to be on the lookout for in ourselves, but in other people. One, so that we can help them, but two, if they can't be helped, they gotta go. And again, the same with the Sadducees. Their leaven is the fact that they don't know the scriptures. They deny the power of God. They're liberal. We don't want that in our church. We don't want that around us because that affects, I mean, you can see how that affects the whole community, how it affects the whole nation. And in turn has affected all the countries of the earth and it's our job to fight against that. It's our job to call that stuff out. It's our job to stand strong and to say, hey, just because that goes against your law, they're Herod, I don't care. I'm gonna preach what I'm gonna preach and we're not backing down and we're not changing anything. And then obviously, going back to the leaven of Herod, I mean, we could spend a whole week on that. Yes, we have to follow certain laws, but you know what? I'm not preaching we take the law into our own hands, but if they pass hate speech laws here and say, well, you have to call a person whatever they desire. If a person identifies as a cat, you gotta refer to them as a cat. I'm not doing it, okay? When it causes me to violate the word of God and it causes you to violate the word of God, then guess what? We go with the word of God because this country, this world is not our home. We're ambassadors here. And we have to live by this book here. And we will live by this book here. And I don't care what Joe Biden and his freak cabinet has to say. I don't care what the mayor here has to say. Oh, you can't say that. I'll say whatever I want. And so will you because at the end of the day, they cannot kill the soul and spirit. They can kill the body. They can change my location, but that is it. They cannot destroy me. They cannot take the new man from you. There is nothing they can do. So at the end of the day, we always follow the word of God. We always go back to that. They say, you can't meet, you can't have church. Oh, well, the Bible says we have to meet. We have to have church. So we're having church somewhere. Oh, he's preaching that against me, oh no. Underground church, oh no. Pathetic. So those three things, okay, is what Jesus wanted the disciples to understand. Saying, guys, you were the ones that are gonna set this world on fire and turn this world upside down. And there's three things right now that I want you to see because we're dealing with it. And then I want you to know and I want you to understand. And in teaching them that, what does it do? It exposes another thing that we all go through, which is the fact that our minds play tricks on us. So if we could just learn to be a people that says, you know what, we've got some unfinished business. I forgot this, I forgot that. You know, this isn't right here between me and this person. Let's try to make it right. Man, the forward momentum that you're gonna get from that and just the mental dump you're gonna have, the clarity, okay, is just gonna be something that is of nothing short of a blessing for you, for all of us. And it's the way we need to conduct ourselves as God's people. So let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, again, for the great truth you bring us week after week. I just pray that you'd bless the fellowship after the service and bring us back safely tonight. In Jesus' name, I pray, amen. Amen.