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

All right, amen. Good to see everybody again. So before last Sunday, we started going through a series basically explaining what the Bible teaches about precepts, about rules, about standards, different things like that. And so we're going to continue with that same thought. Now, if you would look down at Numbers chapter 2 verse 2, it says this, Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the instant of their father's house, far off about the tabernacle of the congregation shall they pitch. Now, I'm going to unpack this here in a little while, but I need to get some stuff out of the way before we do that. So again, when you see the word standard in the Bible, like this word here, standard, it's not talking about standards in the way that I'm going to be using the word today, but there is a correlation between the two, and I'm going to explain that here in a little while. And you say, well, why talk about standards? Well, there's an attack today on standards, on rules and things. One of the big complaints that we get about this church or one of the big inquiries that I hear often out in the community is, is your church strict? And it's like, well, what do you mean by that? Right? What do you mean by strict? And when you get down to the point that they're trying to make, it's do you have a lot of standards? You have a lot of rules that we have to follow and blah, blah, blah. And that's so hypocritical because even your liberal nut wing church down the street here, you know, take your pick. They all have standards, don't they? Every single one of them. In fact, the Nazarene denomination has a standard to not use the King James Bible. All right. But they look at us and say, oh, well, you're strict because you only use the King James Bible, right? You're limiting my freedom. But obviously that's not true. You don't have freedom. You have deception in that instance here. And so we're going to talk about what standards are, why God wants us to stand by them and how to assess and grow and increase our own standards and how that can benefit all of us inside of this church. Now I'm going to start off with a definition. So the basic definition of a standard is a level of quality or attainment, right? Now, just think about this, a level of quality or attainment. Just think about everything that's going on in the world today, right? Both of these things, quality and standards are going completely out the window. If you don't believe me, go to Taco Bell on Overland and Cole Road, okay? I'm serious. And just get food for like three people. And there's like, I bet you there's a 95% chance that they will screw that up. And there's a 100% chance that after you get your food, you're probably going to be sick, or you're still going to be hungry, right? So after that, you wait a couple hours, go to Chick-fil-A, okay? And order food for 10 people. And you know what? The chances of them screwing it up are completely like the opposite. I'm serious. They pay their people more. They have higher standards. You can just tell by going through the drive-thru. Look, I'm not advocating you go out and eat a bunch of fast food, whatever, okay? I'm just saying that if you want an example on quality and attainment, you can tell by based off of these fast food restaurants. You know, for the past couple months, you know, we've had people come over and we've had, you know, guest preachers and stuff, and we'll order food to be delivered to the house. And, you know, we've gone to Chili's for this several times. And not one time out of probably six times have they ever gotten the order completely right. Not one time. Is it just me? It can't be just me. It can't be just us. It's because the idea of quality and expectations today are being tossed out the window, right? Because the world looks at that and they say, well, that's judgmental. You know, you shouldn't hold me to this high standard. You shouldn't hold me to this or to that because that's not very nice. That's not very kind. And that's not equal because I can't do what other people can do. And that's the mentality that a lot of people have. And all that mentality is going to do is ruin your life. And I'm going to show you that from the scripture. So here's some more definitions. So a standard is something established by authority, by custom or a general consent as a model. Wherever you work, right, I guarantee that your place of employment, they have standards that they hope you would follow. I know they do at the place where I work, but they have this weird philosophy that a lot of times when you mess up, they're just not going to say anything to you. Seriously, a lot of times, like I'll find out later on that I messed something up and I'm like, well, why don't you tell me? And they're just like, ah, you know, we just don't want to hurt people's feelings. You're not going to hurt my feelings. You're actually going to help me to grow, right, when I realize, oh, you know what? You shouldn't have connected those two wires together because that doesn't work. You know, that would have been nice to know that for future times. You know, but it seems like you got to mess up like 100 times in order for somebody to tell you something. Like seriously, I caused like $12,000 worth of damage and I never really heard a word about it. So instead what they do is they just, you know, mess with my schedule on Wednesdays, you know, so I get off a little bit later and stuff like that. You know, take little digs because, look, this stuff's going to come out one way or the other, you know, and we ought to be a people that just calls it like it is and says, hey, you are in violation of this standard. Here's the measurement and you know the story from there. So I'm going to read another definition here. It says a piece of cloth. So a standard could be a piece of cloth with a special design that is used as an emblem for signaling. Now, just remember that because it's going to come into play here in a moment. Now, the title of my sermon this morning is this substandard bystanders, substandard bystanders. You say, well, what in the world does that mean? Well, the opposite of standards is nonstandard. The opposite of standard is substandard. See, the idea here is you either meet the standard, you either meet the requirement, you can exceed it or you're going to come short of it. And that's the part that people today, they don't want to understand. They don't want to talk about that because it hurts. Nobody likes to be told, hey, you don't quite measure up. You're not doing as much as you could. You're not meeting the quota. You're not meeting the standards. People do not like to have that told to them. And you know what? Think about this, right? You can't even read Genesis Chapter one without coming away with this doctrine because God said, hey, you know, everything that I've made is what? It's good, right? It is well, it's complete. He doesn't make mistakes. He established the world. He established the universe by standards. I mean, think about this. You cannot escape standards in life. It is impossible. And when we don't meet them, it's unacceptable. It's substandard. And a bystander is basically a nonparticipant spectator, which obviously, as God's people, we don't want to be right. We don't want to just be sitting in the sidelines, just kind of watching the work go by, watching everything just pass by us and being like, oh, well, that's great. You know, good job, guys, right? There's enough of those people in the world today. And to be honest with you, the reason why that we are in the situation that we're in is because of the pulpits of America. That is true. Most pulpits this morning are not going to get up and tell their people, hey, we're not meeting the standards. We're not meeting the requirements. Why? Because that hurts the pocketbook. That's why. That is exactly why they will not do that. But the Bible commands us to be instant in season and out of season. That is the standard. And that's what we strive to achieve at this church. Right. We all do that. Yeah, I get up here and I preach every single week. But you guys get up and you preach every single week to people on the community and you tell them things that are not in season all the time. I know because my phone goes off every single week now. And amen. I love it. Praise God. That means we're doing something right. Now, I'm just going to give you the bottom line this morning right off the bat, which is this. When we neglect standards, we become substandard bystanders. It's that simple. If you could just remember that phrase right there, it's going to save you a lot of trouble. And I'll explain that, obviously, in more detail as we go through here. Now, let's just start off by telling you a story because I'm full of stories. But, you know, when I go to work and I have to go, for example, somebody says, oh, you know, my dryer is not operating. You know, it's tumbling, but it's not heating. The first thing that you're supposed to do is check the outlet to make sure that the source, right, to make sure the source has enough power to actually turn the dryer and to actually heat it. Sometimes, you know, I'd see this so often, I'm like, I already know what it is. I got a feeling it's the heating element. You know, I got a feeling it's the fuse that's blown. And so I'll go there. I'll take the thing apart. I'll waste a half an hour. And I'm like, man, all this stuff is good. What in the world's going on? Then I go back and I check the outlet. I'm like, man, I could have saved myself like an hour literally of work if I would have just not neglected the standard, which is you always check the outlet before you begin work. You know, and we all do stuff like that. You know, we all get complacent. We all just start to go through the motions. And, you know, sometimes we can just neglect standards in our life. And oftentimes the first one to go is prayer. I've mentioned this before, right? Sometimes we don't develop, we don't take the time to develop that personal standard that we should pray every morning when we wake up. Look, none of us knows what each day holds. You know, we just get into this monotonous routine. We're like, okay, I'm gonna get up and go to work. I'm gonna deal with the kids. You know, I've got my family stuff here. Everything's gonna be fine. It's just another day. But you really have no idea, do you? None of us do. And so is it really wise that we just wake up and start going about our day? Or should we wake up and go about our day with a personal standard? You know what, I'm gonna thank God that I woke up for one, right? And thank God and ask Him to be with me throughout the rest of the day to keep me safe, to keep me out of harm's way, right? Because when we do that, you know, we avoid and we save ourselves a lot of trouble. The Bible says you have not because you ask not. And a lot of times people have things happen to them. We have things that happen to us. We're like, man, what in the world is going on? You know, sometimes that can be traced back to the Bible verse that says, you know, you have not because you ask not. You know, James told you that. And so it's important to remember that. So again, the bottom line, when we neglect standards, we become substandard bystanders. We become people that just sit by and watch everything go by, right? Everybody in here has probably worked with somebody like that, right? Or at times, you know, your mom's raising the kids and you tell them to go do something and they're like, okay, what do they do? They just start watching the time go by like, hey, it's getting late. I told you to do these chores, told you to do this, told you that. You're going to do it. You're going to get it done. If not, the consequences are coming and like, yeah, I'm going to get it done. I'm going to do it right. And then what happens when they don't? Then, you know, they basically have heaped unto themselves a lot of pain and trouble. Unless you're one of these liberal free thinking parents like, ah, we never discipline our kids. We just let them figure it out on their own, which I know we don't have anybody in here like that. But, you know, I got to bring it up anyways. Another one is I was driving down, what was it, Cloverdale yesterday on my way home from work. And I was watching, you know, there's construction going on there and there happened to be a big, you know, Little League game going on. And I was like, oh, wow, you know, there's a baseball game going on. Kind of looked like normal life. You know, nobody's wearing masks or nothing. Looked kind of cool. I was like, wow. And then I'm looking in the stands, you know, and these kids are just playing baseball. And it seemed like half the parents were just like looking at their phones. I mean, and I started thinking about this sermon. You know, I started thinking about like, man, you're supposed to be there like as an Indian. Nothing wrong with looking at your phone or checking it. But like I'm there for like 10 minutes just waiting. Right. And these people are just the whole time. And this game's going on. You know, they're just scrolling along. And it's like you're supposed to be there as an encouragement, as a coach to your kid. Right. As a help, as support. But literally, you are a substandard bystander because you don't have the personal standard in your life to pay attention to what your children are doing. You've got the standard that says, oh, what I have or what I'm thinking right now or what I want to know in the future or whatever it is, is more important than what my child is doing. And that's the world today. Isn't that crazy? These people neglect standards all day long and it shows in every area of life. Every area of life. You know, a lot of people, they neglect the standard that when a serviceman comes to your house, you should lock your dog up. Right. I went to this house the other day and this dog like this big. And they're like, oh, he just likes to sniff and check stuff out. And the things bite me the whole time I walk into their kitchen. I'm like, man, if I could get away with kicking this dog across the room, man, I definitely, definitely would. Now, keep your place there in numbers. Yeah, I don't know why. And go to Deuteronomy chapter 25. Deuteronomy chapter number 25. Deuteronomy chapter number 25. Deuteronomy chapter number 25. Now, I'm going to read for you a proverb. This Proverbs 20, verse 10, which says this, diverse weights and diverse measures, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord. So what's the diverse weight? Well, it's the weight of deception, the weight of deceit. Right. The Bible says diverse weights, diverse measures, both of them alike are an abomination unto the Lord. So what God is trying to tell us here, and you're going to see this in Deuteronomy, is that false standards or this idea that we're going to toss the standards out the window, right, is wrong. In fact, God says that it's an abomination to him. You know, a lot of these churches that want to point the finger at us and say you're too strict. You have too many rules. Oh, you're just old school. There's no drums. There's no good, you know, there's no electric guitars or whatever. You know, show me in the Bible where that's wrong. Well, I can't. Right. But again, we're not a church that's interested in solely doing the right thing, exactly what the Bible says and doesn't say. Right. We're trying to be wise. We're trying to set up the standard. Right. That signals to the world, hey, we're not like you because your decisions and your actions are not wise. They do not benefit people. Right. And the Proverbs tell us that diverse weights and measurements are an abomination, that they are wrong. I mean, think about this. Anybody who uses a tape measure to measure something understands this. Right. Go to these subdivisions that are being built and go tell the contractor, hey, you know, it's really, you know, just kind of limiting freedom that you use these tape measures and these squares and these rulers. Right. Just get rid of all that stuff. The houses are going to look like something that I would draw on paper, you know, just all jacked up like stick. You know, nothing would be uniform. Nothing would be symmetrical. It wouldn't look decent. And it sure as heck wouldn't be orderly. Right. Right. And so these people that have this idea, well, you should just run your church with whatever everybody wants to do. Yeah. You know who did that? The Corinthian church. And they got smacked hard by the apostle Paul with what? With the word of God, with standards, with rules. Right. Paul said, hey, what you're doing is not good. It's wrong. And you need to measure up to the word of God. That is what you need to do. Right. But we have today a society that is built on this. I this Corinthian catastrophe that says, you know what? We shouldn't allow standards into church. We don't need all that. Right. This should just be an open mike. You should just let whatever music you want to in. You should just let anybody come in. You should let all the pedophiles and all the faggots come in here. You know what? That's disgusting. And all that does is hurt people. That's right. Deuteronomy chapter 25, look at verse number 13. It says this, thou shalt not have in thy bag diverse weights, a great and a small. Look at verse 14. Thou shalt not have in thine house diverse measures, a great and small. And you know what? When I read that, you know, those of you that have multiple children, you know, you ought to understand this. You shouldn't have like now, obviously. So, for example, I got three kids right now. I've got Caden, right? Seventeen years old. We've got Kylan and we've got Kinley. You know, they have different desires in life. They have different things that interest them. They have different personalities. We kind of have to gear towards all three of those. But we don't have a diverse or a false standard like like, oh, you know, everything that Caden does is just always right and perfect and everything Kinley does is always wrong, even though it might be true. I'm just kidding. Right. We should still love all of our children equally and give them all equal opportunity to succeed in life. Right. That's okay. But we shouldn't have, you know, I got this great rule for this child and I've got just this little rule for this child. You know, you can never do anything wrong. That all you're doing is teaching somebody, hey, standards don't matter. Rules don't matter. You can just do whatever you want. And you know what? There's someone else who loves to push that narrative and it's called Satan. Right. Do as thou wilt. That's the law of the world. That is what they are about. That is what they push. That is their doctrine. And you know what? It comes out in a lot of these musicians, doesn't it? Do as thou wilt. Do whatever you want to do. You know, even basic laws that you see every single day. Red light means stop. That is a standard. Green light means go. You can't escape it. That should teach people, you know, hey, guess what? Standards, rules, measurements, balances. Guess what? You're not getting away from them. It is what it is. Look at verse 15. But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have, that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Yeah. How did that work out later on during the time of the judges? Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Yeah. Destruction, turmoil, unnecessary drama, loss of life, right? You drop the standards, you become a substandard bystander, right? And God's just trying to tell us, hey, I've set these things. I've set a perfect standard. I've given you a perfect word, right, that will teach you wisdom, that will give you power. And if you follow these things, you know what? He's like, I'm not saying you're never going to have any trials. I'm not saying you're never going to have any tribulations. But you know what? You're going to have peace and I'm going to lengthen your days because you're profitable. Look at verse 16. For all that do such things and all that do unrighteously are an abomination unto the Lord thy God. This is the mentality here that we are trying to stay away from. God hates that. So when somebody comes up and they're like, I would go to your church, but if you're just seeing him, then I don't want a part of it. I went to that church and all the ladies were wearing skirts. But here's the interesting thing. I've never ever been like, oh, you wear pants in your personal time? You suck. You're weak. I don't have time to audit your personal life. I just preach the Bible and pray to God that wisdom would be the principal thing. And with all thy getting, thou would get wisdom, right? That's what we preach here. That's what we expect. That's what we hope. But as far as like, you know, oh, you had a guest that came in here with pants? Get out. No, that's like an apostolic church. That's something like the Mennonites would do, right? We don't do that here. We give people the option to do whatever they want, so to speak. I mean, you know, you could either hear the word of God and apply it to your life, or you can hear the word of God and say that's not for me and get out the door. I mean, it's that simple. That's the way God set it up. Right? And that's the way it is here. But we don't audit anybody's life. Hey, put a tie on, Vic. We don't say stuff like that. I'm just teasing you, man. You're just right there, so. Now go back to Numbers chapter two. All right. Mauser, I need your help. Oh, yeah. Don't worry. I didn't draw this, but I told you and I promise you we're going to talk about Numbers chapter two and we are going to. All right. Yeah, if you wouldn't mind holding that, just stand up here. Let me get my pointer here real quick. All right. So Numbers chapter two. Look at verse two. I'm gonna read the verse one more time. Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard with the ensign of their father's house far off about the tabernacle of the congregation shall they pitch. Now, again, I told you when you type in the word standard into your Bible software, you look it up through the Bible. It's not talking about standards as I was just talking to you about. It's talking about like a flag, a banner. OK, that's what it's talking about here. Now, I just want to kind of show you basically what we read in Numbers chapter two. So, OK, here's the tabernacle here in the center. Now, you've got north, east, south and west. OK, and so you've got four directions in each four of those directions. You had three tribes of the children of Israel that would pitch by each side. So, for example, in the north, you've got Naftali, Ashur, Dan. On the east, you've got Judah, Issachar, Zebulun. And on the south, you've got Gad, Simeon, Reuben. Obviously, in the middle, you got Aaron, Moses, the Levites. And then in the west, you've got Benjamin, Manasseh and Ephraim. And if you're thinking, well, why is there 13 tribes? Remember, Ephraim and Manasseh count as one. That solves that riddle for you. Now, what did we read there in Numbers chapter two? It says this. It says that every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard. And so Kylen drew little standards here. Hopefully, you can kind of see it. Maybe when we upload it, we can, like, make a digital version. But it's basically a flag. So each group of three tribes had one flag, and it had three banners on it, right? So, for example, you've got the tribes of the north, right? You've got Naftali, Ashur and Dan. So on that one standard, you had three different incense or little flags, okay? And they had the emblem of their father's house, whatever that looked like. And scholars like to debate and, oh, I know exactly what was lying for Judah and it was this. Shut up. You don't know. Those things are gone now, okay? And so you had four standards. Each had three flags on it. Now, why have that? Think about that. What is the purpose? Why do businesses today use standards or use flags? To be seen. Remember the other definition that I read for you? It was an emblem to signal, right? And so if you think about it, all four of these things were to signal to the world, hey, this is the nation that God rescued. This is the nation that God gave the law to, right? And these are the individual tribes. And guess what? They're proud of that. Now, I'm not preaching pride, okay? Don't worry. I'm not preaching pride. But they were to be grateful. They were to be proud of their heritage, of their father's house, right? And in the same way, can you guys see that all right? There we go. Let's do that. That works better, right? So north, east, south, west. And so that's just kind of what we read basically in a nutshell in Numbers Chapter 2. All right, man. Thanks a lot. You can sit down. So this thing is too much fun. So again, right? There's a correlation there with these standards, with these flags that God told the children of Israel to set up. They were to be seen. And guess what? The correlation is we have standards in church that we've been given by God to signal to the world, right? Our music program, and I already mentioned this, is to signal to the world we are not like you. We are different. In the same way that they had their incense, you know, or their insignia, if you will, right, of their father's house to let people know, hey, Judah's different than Asher. Dan's different than Naphtali. But we're all on the same team. We're all in the same nation here. It's to signal, hey, you know, God's got our back. God gave us this for the world to look to and say, you know what? That's a decent setup there. I want part of that. We'll show you that here a little bit later. But you can leave your place there and go to Isaiah chapter number 59. Isaiah chapter 59. But also, you know, you can think about this. What were to happen if, let's say, Simeon's flag falls down, the way it's set up? Well, the people from the south would be able to see that. The people from the north would be able to say, hey, you know, the standards have dropped over here. Let's go see what's going on, right? And it's the same thing with us today. When we run into people and they don't have the same standards, you know, it's very easy to see that, isn't it? So when people come in here, you know, and they've got the two masks and the face shield and the mohawk, right? You know, like, okay, it's possible we're dealing with a communist here. Just kidding. Our standards do kind of help us spot liberals a mile away, though. Right? Keep that in mind. Our standards are to be seen. We're not talking about glorying in works here, right? That's not the idea. But God wants his standards. He wants his perfect and just weights and measurements seen by the world. He really does. And I'm not preaching lifestyle evangelism, so don't worry about that, right? He wants us out there in the community being respectful and knocking on people's doors and trying to tell them the truth. They may not receive that truth, but that standard needs to be set up. But what do we have today? When we knock on people's doors, no matter how we're dressed, it could be winter out and we've got, like, different colored stocking caps. We've got big old coats on. It looks just like everybody else were bundled up. You know, people, oh, I thought you were the Mormons, right? But they don't. It's like, no, I don't have the name tag and the white shirt and the bicycle helmet on. Right? So it's like, why would you think that? You could go up to somebody's door in shorts and a T-shirt and try to preach in the gospel. Oh, I thought you were Mormon at first. I thought you were Jehovah's Witness. Because they've gave that perception in the community, in this country, that that's only for them. And that's what they do. Right? So people have this idea. Well, there's no way, like, a Christian would ever come to my door. Like, a Christian would ever go out and try to preach the gospel. So I just automatically defaulted. Well, it doesn't have the name tag. It doesn't have the helmet. But he has a Bible. And even though it's in a camouflage case, he's still got to be a Mormon. Right? That's that. They just can't put two and two together. Right? I have to tell you guys a story about the person we got saved up in Tacoma, Washington. It was Kayden and I. She'd just been notified that day she had stage four cancer. Less than two months to live. Right? Make a long story short. She gets saved. You know, I say, hey, you know, would you like me to follow up? Maybe you come to church and get baptized and just meet my pastor and stuff. She says, maybe if I'm feeling good, my kids are coming to get me. I'm going to be moving real quick. So I say, OK, I'll give you a call on Saturday night just to see how you're doing. I call her up. And she says this. And you can ask Kayden, are you a real human? I'm like, oh, man, those meds got to her. Right? And she's like, because I've been telling my family members that two men came to my door and got me saved and that I've been wrong all these years. And they told me that there's no way Christians do that because that's just not something that Christians do. And I'm like, we're no angels. I'll tell you that right now. She's like, no, you have to be. I'm like, no, I appreciate a compliment, but we're definitely no angels. OK, you follow me around for a day. You're going to see I got enough problems and we all do. But that's the idea that people have, because that's the standard that's being pushed again by the world in Christianity today. And it's wrong. So let's move on with that in mind here. So Isaiah chapter fifty nine, if you get chance in your own time, read that, because it's another chapter in the Old Testament talks about the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness. Right. A lot of people think, oh, that's just in Ephesians. No, that comes from this chapter here. But I want you to pay attention to something here. Look at verse number 19. So Isaiah is prophesying about the coming savior. He says this. Isaiah fifty nine. Look at verse 19 says this. So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the West and his glory from the rising of the sun? Kind of like that picture we showed. Right. God's got the north covered, the east covered, the south covered and the west covered. Right. The whole world. And someday those standards will be raised again during the millennium and forevermore. But look at the rest of the verse. When the enemy shall come in like a flood. Notice this. The spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. Right. And that standard is the word of God. That standard is the Lord Jesus Christ. That standard is what we use to help our own lives. It's what we use to battle the devil and all of his stupid devices and games that he plays on people out here to get them out of the snare of work. Salvation. Okay. Go one more chat or a couple more chapters over to Isaiah chapter 62. Isaiah chapter 62. So God is all about lifting up these standards to be seen by the world, to be seen by people so that they would know there is a difference between his people and the world's people. Isaiah 62. Look at verse number 10. It says this is on our bulletin. Go through. Prepare ye the way of the people cast up, cast up the highway, gather out the stones, lift up a standard for the people. Obviously, God goes above and beyond just lifting up a physical standard with an, you know, an emblem on it or whatever. He's lifting up his word, his spoken word that has been preserved for us today. This is our flag. This is what we proclaim. And you know what? People really don't like it, do they? But you know what? For every 100 people that don't like it, we tend to find a couple that do. Go to Romans chapter number 12. Romans chapter number 12. I can't believe you have standards. I can't believe you have that banner in the back on your thing. That looks stupid. Well, would you say that to the children of Israel? What do you think God's attitude would be to somebody that would come by back in the Old Testament times and just rip those flags down? You think they'd go over pretty well? I don't think so. I don't think so at all. Romans chapter 12. Look at verse number two. Very familiar verse. We use this all the time. It says this, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. What is a standard? A level of quality or attainment. How do you attain to this level here of Christianity? You have to have a standard that does not conform to the world. If I need a two by four cut at six inches of length, right, I need a tape measure to measure that. Otherwise, the best I can do is get close. And if I need to cut multiples of those, guess what? It's not going to be right. But again, this verse here today, not preached on in churches, not highly looked upon, but it's the word of God. It's the standard, right? And be not conformed to this world. You know, you go down to this create church down here on Fairview, right? Right next to Ace Hardware. And what do they push? They push the fact that their pastor has skinny jeans with holes in it. And I'm not even joking around. They literally are proud of that standard that they have. They flaunt that to the community. In fact, they do have standards. They put them out on Sunday sometimes, flags with, you know, their little logo. And look, I'm not against that, whatever. You know, we got this. That's cool. But ours is better. Because we actually stand behind it, right? We actually use the real standard, which is the word of God. We actually believe that, unlike those people. So how do you do this as a Christian? Turn to Proverbs chapter 11. Proverbs chapter number 11. The Bible says in Psalm 119, Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. Right? That means we are to pay attention. We are to soak in the word of God every single day so that we can continuously cleanse our way, right? Because our ways need to be measured against something so that we can see, oh, okay, our actions, our decisions, our thoughts, whatever the case might be, are not measuring up. This is why these people have no standards today because they don't believe that they have it. Look, if I use a tape measure and I'm trying to cut this wood again, right? And I'm like, man, I know it says, you know, 18 and a half inches, but I just don't believe that. Because in the Greek, it could have been something else, right? Or in the Hebrew, it could have been something else. So how do I know I can trust this tape measure? I think it's off. I just think it is. I'm going to become a substandard bystander is what's going to happen. So just to reiterate this, look at Proverbs 11. Look at verse number one. A false balance is what? An abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. So again, this idea that, hey, we don't need standards. We don't need rules. We don't need measurements. We don't need balances. That idea, that philosophy that's being pushed today, I want you to understand this. That is an abomination to God. And this applies to us on so many different levels. People say, you know what? I'm just going to throw everything out the window. I'm not going to teach my kids right or wrong. I'm going to let them decide whether or not they want to believe in God, right? Who's ever heard that out solely? Oh, I know they said they want to listen to you, but we want them to make up their own mind. Well, I'm here right now. I've got the Bible. Can I just preach it to them so she can make up her mind? And the mom's like, no, we just want her to make up her own mind. Shut up. You hate God is what it is. You don't like the rules. You don't like the expectations because you know what? We serve a God that does want his children to live up to them. And that again today is a bad, bad word. It's a bad idea. Go to Micah chapter six real quick. Micah chapter number six. A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. You see this with the rainbow. Why did God say that he would put the bow in the sky? As a what? As a promise that he would not flood the world again. And you can see this even in the smallest things. Last weekend, we took a walk over at that big park in Meridian off of, what is it? Fairview and like records, you know, they got a big, they got several big ponds out there. And they had like a, this thing shooting out of the water there. And I was just looking at it and I saw like this perfect, like rainbow. And I was like, man, that is so cool. That is so pretty. But what do we have today? We have a group of alphabet munching people, right? That say, you know what? We want to take that standard. We want to take that law. We want to take that rule that God set up and we want to pervert it and proclaim it as a standard of non-judgment. As a standard of peace and acceptance and love for everybody. But that's wicked. Yeah, that's right. That's an abomination to God. That's right. And we get that from the standard that we have given to us by God. But we have a bunch of lily livered, soy milk slopping people today that just can't accept that fact. Hope I'm not making anybody uncomfortable this morning. Micah chapter six, look at verse nine, Micah chapter six, look at verse number eight. It says this, Micah chapter six, look at verse eight. He has showed thee, Oh man, what is good? And what does the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God? Notice that phrase there. What does the Lord require of thee? You know that the Lord requires things of us, that he has expectations for us beyond just salvation. Now, obviously you can't lose your salvation. We hammer that home all the time. There ain't no way you're losing your salvation, right? But don't just take the grace and run. Don't just take the fact, okay, I stepped through the door of faith. I got saved. I got born again. That's it. I'm good to go. No, no, no. He now wants to use you as a vehicle to get that message to other people. And he requires us to do things justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with him. Look at verse nine. The Lord's voice crieth unto the city and the man of wisdom shall see thy name. Hear ye the rod and who hath appointed it? Right, that reminds me of churches like ours that hear the word of God and say, you know what, we ought to humbly walk with God because we fully understand that he is a God of judgment. He is a God of standards. And when they get violated, they get broken, all hell literally breaks loose. Look at verse 10. Are there yet the judgment of the Lord? Verse 10, are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked and the scant measure that is abominable? Verse 11, shall I count them pure with the wicked balances and with a bag of deceitful weights? Obviously that's a rhetorical question there. He's saying, hey, people that have this perverted idea, this perverted doctrine regarding standards, regarding measures, weights, whatever they are, you know, people who want to rip other people off all the time, like these people on TV, you know what, you turn your TV on, you got Joel Osteen, TD Jakes, Paula White, all these crazy, you know, false preachers on the air, you know what you've got? You've got somebody with a bag of diverse measures is what you have, diverse weights. And God says, hey, you yourself are an abomination to me right now. Go back to, I should have told you to keep your place there, but go to Isaiah chapter 40. So we're gonna kind of change gears here. And so the sermon kind of has a long introduction and then really quick points and we will be done. All right, so we're gonna get ready for this first point here. Isaiah chapter 40, look at verse 31, Isaiah chapter number 40. And again, don't forget, we got these charts up here, if you can see them. We got one up here, one up there. If you get lost trying to find a book of the Bible, just reference one of those, it should help you out. Isaiah chapter 40, look at verse 31. It says this, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary and they shall walk and not faint. You see the world and the hallmark Christians, right? They just focus on the eagle, the eagle wings, right? They're like, you know, when we die, we're gonna get these wings and they're gonna be like, why? They're gonna be like silver, they're gonna have gold dust on, you know? And that's all they focus on is that word wings, right? I'm gonna get wings, I'm gonna be able to fly, right? They never actually think about what this verse is really talking about here, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Now, obviously the first application here is for the born again Bible believing Christian, right? You're saved, guess what? You are guaranteed a new body. It's going to be perfect. You will go to heaven. You do have eternal life and you will not lose it. You will someday renew your strength in that sense. But how does this apply for the Christian, right? Read the verse again. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary and they shall walk and not faint. You see, we read that and we're like, man, but I'm weary. I'm tired. I'm struggling right now, right? I've got all these issues in my life and I don't know why these things are happening to me. What is going on? How come I can't achieve what other people can achieve? There's a reason for that. And it's my first point, which is this. Our personal standards are tied to our confidence level. You say, well, what are you doing? Are you preaching that we should be prideful? No, not at all. But we as God's children should have confidence. Those standards that you saw there that the children of Israel were commanded to put up, that was to also give them confidence because that standard, that instruction, that came from God. So when they put those standards up, they were saying, hey, this is from God and this is where we live. This is where we stand. And nobody's going to come in here and tell us any difference. They're not going to tell us any different at all whatsoever. Turn to Psalm chapter number 27. Psalm chapter number 27. And I'll just tell you right now, the reason why we get weary is because we're human. Okay, but there's another reason why. You know, some people say, well, man, you know, I want to learn to give the gospel, right? I want to memorize a lot of the Bible. I want to learn another language so I can get people safe. I want to do this and I want to do that, but I'm weary. I'm faint, I'm tired. And it's because of this reason right here, our personal confidence is tied to our standards. You want all those things? That's great. Do you have the standard to read the soul-winning verses? Do you have the standard to go somebody and practice those? Do you have the standard that says, hey, I'm actually going to show up to soul-winning? I'm actually going to read my Bible every day? I'm going to actually get up in the morning and pray and ask God for help? Is that part of your standards or not? And if not, you need to check yourself and understand that's why you're weary. That's why you faint. And that's why it seems like this verse doesn't apply to you. It's because our personal standards and our confidence are linked together, right? But when we say, hey, like you don't have to turn there, but when we take Philippians 1 six, which says being confident of this very thing that he, which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. You know what? You're born again. God has gifts. He has things that he has installed into you for example, you have the ability to understand the Bible now, right? Right, but it goes beyond that. You need to stir up that gift that was placed inside of you and you got saved. You need to realize the reason why you're struggling with confidence is because you don't have the standard to exercise those gifts. You don't have the standard to read your Bible every day and to meditate upon the word of God night and day, which is a light unto your path. So just to kind of show you what this looks like, I guess, you know, a lot of people, and then this is a big problem. This is, I'm not talking about here, but just in general people, a lot of times, especially younger people, they get this idea like, man, I've got to find somebody like right now, right? Because the world places a lot of pressure on single people to get married and to do this. And you know, you got, you got to start a family. You're getting old. And then, you know, people it's like, man, what's wrong with me, right? Well, you know what? Do you have the standard to wait upon the Lord? Do you have the standard to ask for that kind of help? Because if not, you're going to get weary. You're going to get faint. And you're going to think all this stuff doesn't work. God's got beef with me. He's upset. And then you're going to start to do this backslide. And you're going to start to drop your standards. And then the next thing you know, you're going to wind up with somebody who's a complete psychopath. Uh-oh, that one stings, doesn't it? Look, I'm just trying to save some of you guys some trouble. I'm not talking about anybody here specifically. I'm just saying this is stuff that I've seen since I've become a pastor. You have got to be careful. Don't drop your standards because you don't understand God's timing. So you're there in Psalm chapter number 27. Look at verse number three and I'll show you what we do about this. It says this, though one host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident, right? So in order to raise your confidence level, you have to raise your standards. So you need to take something right now that you're struggling with, that you're not confident about, and take a look at the standards that are tied to that thing. And you need to raise them. You need to be honest with yourself because I'm telling you right now, when you raise your standards, you're going to raise your confidence. But as God's people, obviously we have to do that the right way. We have to do that by still staying humble. And you do that by making the word of God a priority in your life. For example, you know, if I want to raise my confidence as a parent, then I need to raise my standards and what I expect from my children. I need to raise my standards in how I spend time with my children, how I interact with my children. And that stings some people, doesn't it? Look, this doesn't just all automatically fall into place. People get this idea in their head, well, I'm saved now, everything should just come together and be perfect. That's not how this thing works. It takes effort. The Bible says there is profit in all labor. You have to labor at this. There's no way around it. That's a standard that God set up in the universe and in the world. Go to Ecclesiastes chapter number five. And obviously, you know, you say, well, I want to sign up for men's preaching night, right? I want to be a preacher. I want to go out and preach the gospel or whatever it is, right? But I just don't think that I can. You need to raise your standard in Bible knowledge. You need to raise your standard and humble yourself, maybe go get some help. Ask somebody who does men's preaching night, like, hey, how do you study for this? How do you prefer this? Come help me or come ask me and I'll give you tips. I'll help you out, okay? The idea here is to understand that your confidence level is tied to your standards. And if you can just sit down and think, well, what are my standards in this area? And raise them, your confidence is going to go up in that same thing, okay? So that's point number one. Point number two, we're going to take a look at three passages very quickly here to get this second point. And this is just something that I've noticed in human nature. Ecclesiastes chapter number five, look at verse four. It says this, when thou vowest a valent to God, defer not to pay it, for he hath no pleasure in fools, pay that which thou hast vowed. Then he says in verse five, better is it that thou shouldest not vow than thou shouldest vow and not pay. This is very important here. Look at verse six. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin, neither say thou before the angel that it was an error. Wherefore should God be angry at thy voice and destroy the work of thy hands? Now turn to James chapter number five. So what is Solomon telling us here? Well, he's saying, hey, if you vow a vow to God and you don't pay it, you're a fool. Guess what a fool is? Somebody who's not wise. Somebody who's not right. Somebody who is substandard is what it is. And he's saying, you know, you're better off just not saying anything at all. You're better off just leaving your mouth closed than to vow a vow. We live in a world today where people take vows for marriage and they get tossed right out the window three months later, three weeks later because the world pushes this idea. Don't worry. What you say doesn't really matter. You didn't really mean it. It was an error. You didn't know. Right, but God says, uh-uh, you said it. Now I'm gonna hold you to that standard that came out of your trap. So you're there in James five before I have you read verse 12 I'm gonna read for you Matthew five, verse 37. Jesus says this, but let your communication be yay, yay, nay, nay for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. Remember that that's exactly what Solomon said, isn't it? James chapter five. Look at verse number 12. Don't worry, all of these verses here that we're reading, they have something in common that I want you to see. James five, look at verse 12. But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by earth, neither by an other oath, I'm sorry, by any other oath, but let your yay be yay and your nay be nay lest you fall into condemnation. So any other oath he says, okay? What do all three of these passages have in common? If you can't do something, don't say that you can. If there's any doubt, don't do it. It's better for you to just be quiet. That's okay because when you get things right, when you get things figured out, then you can proceed to go on and make a commitment. But here's the second point that I wanna make. Your personal standards are reflected in the promises that you keep or that you don't. Now we're a small church. We don't really deal with this a lot. You guys are always ready to help and to sign up for things, but I've been part of churches where like the pastor will send a signup sheet out for a potluck and you got like a couple of hundred people or more there and people promise to bring, like I'm gonna bring this big dish that's gonna feed people. I'm gonna do this, I'll be there. And then all of a sudden they don't show up. What do you think God says about that? He says, I'm gonna bring this big dish that's gonna feed people. I'm gonna do this. What do you think God says about that? It's not wise. That's a foolish way to behave. I've caught myself doing this in the past. And I try now to make sure, you know, let my ABA, people call them, hey, can you commit to this? Right, like the landlord over here, you know, he sent me an email the other day, hey, do you wanna rent that space plus the one you're renting over there? I was like, he's like, I got a guy who wants to rent one of them just for a year. And I was like, sure, we'll take Bernie's office over here. He can rent that one. And then when he's done in a year, I said, we'll take it back. He says, can you commit to that? And it made me think of this. And I wrote back, yes, we can. Sometimes you gotta step out in faith, right? So, but I think it'll be fine. But what if I were to be like, you know what? I changed my mind, right? You know what, things changed. It was an error. I didn't look well to our going. What do you think he's gonna say? Well, he's gonna be upset for one, but I'm not worried about what he thinks. I'm worried about what God thinks and what he's gonna say about me and what he's gonna possibly even do to me, right? We don't need that unnecessary drama. You know, I see this stuff all the time. People at work, I promise, you know, I'm gonna give 10 bucks to the gift bag we're gonna get the manager and then they never pay it up. I promise I will be there. You know, some of these churches that have like large buildings that need like a full crew, right? And you get like 20 people to sign up and three show up consistently every single week. Look, that's a problem. You know what that does? That tells us a lot about the type of person that you are. That's another part about this subject that stings. You can see that here in a minute. All right, I'm gonna have you guys turn real quickly somewhere and get this figured out. Turn to 1 Kings chapter 10, 1 Kings chapter number 10. So your personal standards are reflected in the promises that you keep or don't keep. Now, because a lot of people will say, well, these verses don't really apply because I don't make vows, right? The only vows you make are when you get married and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, no, a lot of people make commitments and give promises to other people that they're gonna be reliable, trustworthy. Hey, I promise if you give me this job, boss, I'll be there every single day. Right, what do they do? They start calling up. Well, you know what? It's really windy this morning. I was sneezing, so people might perceive that I have the coronavirus, so I don't know if I can come to work today. You know, it looked like my rear right tire was like half empty. I think I'm gonna get a flat tire. I don't know if I can come to work today. Excuses, excuses. That should never be the standard that we set for ourselves as God's people. If we say we're gonna do something, hey, we do it with all of our mind. Whatsoever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord. So when you sign up to do something, you know, especially regarding church, man, follow through with it. Do that and don't do it grudgingly. Do it with like the attitude. You know what? God cares about what I'm doing here. And again, like I said, you know, we don't have that issue here, but you know, as the church grows and stuff, you'll see it. It's just human nature. I'll have to preach this sermon again in a different way and you know how that goes. 1 Kings chapter number 10. This is gonna be my third and final point here. 1 Kings chapter 10. 1 Kings chapter number 10. Let's look at something here. Look at verse number one. So you know, a very famous story here in the Bible when the queen of Sheba comes to visit Solomon, but there's some things I want to highlight here. Look at verse number one. It says this, and when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions. Now it's interesting how she heard that. Obviously back then they didn't have the same means of communication we have today, but people talk word of mouth traveled. And the reason why she heard about that was because of the standards being followed by the nation of Israel during Solomon's watch. Look at verse number two. So what you see here is you see this nation here, how it's being ran, the order that it's being ran in. Not only did she hear about this, right, but she felt safe. She felt comfortable. And you know what? People can come to this church and feel safe and comfortable. Well, you say, well, how? Well, we don't let psychopaths in here. We kick them out very quickly. We don't let the alphabet crew in here because the Bible says that they like to destroy. They're implacable, right? And so we tell people, hey, we're family integrated. Guess what? You can feel safe by coming in here and you can take care of your kids. You can watch them. You don't have to have the stress of putting them in another building like some churches do. Some churches have an entire separate building where you drop your children off and you've got no idea what could possibly go on in there. Verse three, and Solomon told her all questions. There was not anything hid from the king, which he told her not. And when the queen of Sheba seen all of Solomon's wisdom and the house that he had built and the meat at his table and the sitting of his servants and the attendance of his ministers and their apparel, uh-oh, they're talking about clothing here, and his cupbearers and his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her. So when she saw how things were done decently and in order, it literally took her breath away. And she's just like, I got nothing to say. This is insane, right? But what would happen if you were to walk into the opposite of that? Would you feel safe? Would you feel safe in the Corinthian church? They say, hey, we're gonna do the communion. We're gonna have the Lord's table today. And you come in and people are drunk and like one guy's got eight loaves of bread. He's like, nah, you snooze, you lose, baby. You're not getting this, right? You're not gonna feel safe. You're not gonna feel comfortable. You're not gonna pour your heart out unto people like that. And you've all been to churches that are kind of ran like that, where nobody talks to anybody. Nobody knows what's going on. There's no standards. Everything's cool. Just hunky-dory, right? And you go there and you're like, this sucks. I don't even wanna talk to anybody here because people are weird. That's not how it was ran here. Look at verse six. And she said to the king, it was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not the words until I came, and notice this, and mine eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. Thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard. You see, there's a myth today that's being pushed and I've already been talking about it, but it goes like this and a lot of you have heard it. You know, well, Jesus just looks on what's on the inside so we don't have to worry about the outside. Well, that's true. Jesus does look on the inside and does care whether or not you've actually been converted, actually been born again. But you know what? He does have standards and expectations from what we do on the outside. I think that when we come and we assemble together and we meet in the Lord's house, we should try to look our best, right? Because that's a good standard. You raise your standards, you raise your confidence level. Now, here's what my third point is. So I've been doing research on, you know, like the mindset, first impression, stuff like that. So this kind of blends that in. But my third point is this. Within the first 30 seconds of meeting someone, they will create a story about you in their imagination based off how you dress, move and communicate. Within the first 30 seconds. Right, within the first 30 seconds if we knock on someone's door out in this community, what do they automatically think? Here, I'm on it. And so now we have an obstacle that we have to deal with, right? We have to prove to them, hey, wait a second. The half was not yet told you. We are not Mormons. We are not here to preach a false works-based probationary gospel to you, okay? We are here with the real message, the real standard of our Father's house. But I think there's a lot of truth in that. And you know, when you meet somebody, right, and they walk through here, you could just tell right away like what they're about, right? Like we had some visitors about a month and a half ago call up on the phone, hey, we'll give you a chance. We'll give you a try. We'll give you a shot. And like I said, I don't care how you dress. I'll preach the Bible, whatever. Lady comes in here who tells me that wearing pants. I instantly knew what kind of person she was. I put two and two together and I said, okay. But within the first 30 seconds of seeing that, I was like, and then what she said on the phone, I was like, oh, okay. We got us a liberal here. We got us an online listener who just listened online and that's it. That's their standard. Neglect the house of God. Neglect personal Bible reading. Right? Oh, I've read the Bible 10 times. Yeah, but have you applied anything in it 10 times? Look, after my 10th time reading the Bible, you know what I realized? I'm a novice. That's what I realized. I realized, wait a minute, I've got problems. I can remember being through my fourth and fifth time like, man, I'm really starting to get this down because I know where stuff's at. And then by the 10th time I'm starting to preach these sermons. I'm like, man, I'm not doing any of this stuff. I'm like, I'm jacked up. You know what I mean? I'm like, I need to leave Verity. Just kidding. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. Go to 1 Corinthians 14. 1 Corinthians chapter number 14. But I think it's interesting here how the Queen of Sheba says, you know, says when I came, mine eyes had seen it, right? And so what did she see? She just saw the order. She saw the standards that Solomon set up. Now why did he set those things up? Because that's how God told them it should be. Now obviously the tabernacle idea came later, but you get the point. They did things decently and in order. And notice what she noticed. She noticed the details. She noticed what they were wearing. She noticed how they were walking. She noticed the details. And this is why details matter. You know, there's a quote by a famous admiral, named Admiral Rickover, and he says this, the devil is in the details. And I think there's a lot of truth to that, right? Because a lot of times, like we talked about this last week, you go knock on somebody's door and what are we finding around here? They're giving us the right answers. But then you add another question. Do you believe the Bible is perfect? Oh no, it's just stories made up by people around a campfire. No, I don't believe that. Now you gotta be careful of that because some people will say, well, I'm sure there's mistakes and then when they're saying that, they could be saying or printing errors, right? So you just gotta be careful. But when they get that look, like, oh no, there's no way that can be right. You got a problem. You've got a very big problem. You're dealing with somebody who's against standards, right? But she, and she sees all of this stuff and her mind's soaking it in. And she's just like, man, I don't know what to do. That's exactly the message, the standard that we wanna set in God's house when we assemble together. People say, well, the building doesn't matter. It doesn't. But since God gave it to us, we can take care of it. Let's try and make it as decently and in order as possible. In fact, Paul tells the Corinthians this here, 1 Corinthians 14, look at verse 40. Let all things be done decently and in order. Why do that? We'll go read 1 Kings chapter number 10 because it might just take someone's breath away. Someone might just come in here and actually see that and say, wow, you know what? They actually use the Bible and believe that it's a standard and believe that it's true. I've never heard that before. Some of you have been in that position, you know, this is the first time I ever heard anybody just say that that's what it means. Because these people out here they just wanna tap dance around what it means. Oh, you know, you gotta subtract the languages. Chinese plus Aramaic minus Italian gives you the truth. That's the doctrine today. That's what they say. So when people come at us and say, hey, I don't like your church. It's too strict. Why you got that bottom line thing up there? Why you got this piano up here? Why are you wearing a tie? Because we want things done decently and in order and first impressions count, right? In that same chapter, doesn't Paul say, hey, you know, somebody comes in here who's unlearned or not saved and you guys are just babbling in this false idea of speaking in tongues. Aren't they gonna say you're crazy? Aren't they gonna say you're mad, right? We don't want people walking in here saying that because we are actually crazy and mad. We want them to come in here and let this be the standard. This is the line drawn. We have the service set up the way that we have it to be pleasing unto the Lord and to signify to people we are different. Our message is different than your message. Our message is better than your message. The instant on our father's standard on his flag is better than the instant on your father's flag, who is the devil. What's up with the music? What do you think's up with the music? What's up with the skinny jeans? I went into a church. I went into this church for this, this celebration of life ceremony in Washington. I don't even know what this was, man, but they had this big like cage booth thing, like where the musicians go in there. I'm like, what in the heck is that? It's got like purple lights and stuff. I'm like, man, what is this? They have mosh pits and throw stuff? That's the first thing that came to my mind. They'll say, well, prove that it's wrong. I don't have to, but I can prove it's not wise because your music service looks just like the world's. We're almost done here. We're almost done here. People say, well, why do you read the whole chapter? Because most people don't read a whole chapter. Bible says, give attendance unto reading. That's the standard that we're trying to set. We're trying to tell people, hey, we believe our flag. We believe our standard, right? We believe in personal standards. We believe in first impressions as much as possible. That's why when we go out and we go soul-winding, we knock on somebody's door and answer, we try to right away, hey, establish some kind of camaraderie with them, some kind of, hey, how are you doing today? You know, I'm from, we introduce ourselves, right? Cause we want them to know, hey, I'm not here to sell anything, right? You're soliciting, get out. But everything that we do in the church service, right? Everything, the way this whole thing is ran is a standard. It's to let people know, hey, we are interested in following the standards that God has set up, that our father has. And you know what? It does turn some people away. In fact, I'll tell you, it turns a lot of people away, but that's okay. Those are the type of people we don't want here anyways. Until they changed, until they say, you know what? I want to be like that. I want to actually serve God. I want to actually grow. I want to actually hear the truth, no matter how much it stings and pricks my heart. Cause that's what the word of God is. It's a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And that's the standard that we use here. That's the standard that you use when you go out and you preach somebody the gospel, you try to disciple them, you try to tell them, hey, what you're not doing or what you're doing right now is not wise. It hurts, but you know what? I'd rather do that than to try to give you some kind of a fluff, some kind of a watered down, oh, don't worry about it. We could grow this church very quickly, numerically if we did that, right? But all you're doing is you're taking your standard and you're breaking it over your knee and saying, I don't need it. Thanks for telling me to do that God, but no thanks. So I'm just going to leave you with this. So the bottom line again is when we neglect standards, we become substandard bystanders. When we drop our personal standards, guess what? We're just being bystander. Non-participant in those events, right? That's not what we want. We want to be participants. We want to be like the disciples were. We want to be like the churches in the Bible that did the right things. We want to be like the children of Israel during Solomon's watch, during the beginning of Joshua's reign, during the beginning of Numbers, right? Right there, that's pretty cool how they, you know, for a while they did what was right. They assembled properly before they dropped the standard, before they dropped the flags, before they decided, you know what, we don't need these standards. We're going to do what's right in our own eyes, right? Going through judges is an emotional rollercoaster, isn't it? It hurts. And it all rests on dropping the standard. That's what it all rests upon. And so I would just leave you with this, you know, do a self-assessment. Just pick one thing this week that you know you're not confident about. And just, if you have to write down the standards involved with that thing and just make a commitment to yourself. If you, you know, if you think you can do it, follow through with it and raise those standards, right? Read the Bible for 30 minutes instead of 30 seconds, right? Instead of just your only Bible reading being the little notification from your Bible app, right? At the first of the day, right? You can actually read that whole chapter. Start there and then progress. But whatever it is, parenting, being a good wife, a good husband, all of these different things, stop and just be quiet for a minute and think of the standards involved in that and raise those standards are tied to your personal confidence, to your success as a Christian, as a husband, as a father, as a mentor, as a church member, everything, as a worker, right, it's all about standards. And we need to be a people that has and maintain standards. We're not changing them for anything. We're not changing for anyone. They get messages sometimes. Hey, you need to change your view on this. Nope, not happening, not doing it. You can't make me, I won't do it because I'm proud of the standard, right, that God has given us. I'm proud of this. I'm proud of the King James Bible. Hey, I'm proud to be King James only. I'm proud of these hymns. I'm proud of us going out and knocking on people's doors and getting them saved. That's what I'm proud of. And we should be proud of that, right? If you're gonna have pride, make it on the right things. Amen, let's have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, for allowing us to be able to meet here, Lord, that we have a group of people that are fired up about your standards and are not afraid to fly them, Lord, in the face of the world. We just pray that we would never drop them and pray that you'd be with us. And we pray, Lord, that you would bless the food that we're gonna eat after the service and the fellowship and the soul winning, everything we have going on today, Lord, in Jesus' name I pray, amen.