Oh my goodness. How many of you are at, you know, the Bible talks about milk drinkers versus meat eaters? How many of you would consider yourself carnivores in the spirit already? He got some. You’re ready for the meat? Yeah, that’s usually pretty true. Thank you so much Mister Jim. Y’all give him a big Amarillo Church hand clap. He’s a blessing to our church. One more cheer for Mister Jim. He needs a little love tonight, I think.
He loves attention. Let me tell you. Uh, we are so, I’m so glad that you’re here tonight on a Wednesday night, Wednesday nights. I love Wednesday nights. I’m just a big fan of Wednesday nights. Um, because people that show up to Wednesday nights, man, they are looking for some good stuff from God’s word. They’re looking to study it. They’re looking to dig in. They’re looking to learn more. They’re looking to be students of the word, not just hearers, but doers of the word, right? So I would really like it if you guys would do me a favor tonight and get out your bibles if that, even if that’s on your phone, I want you to get a piece of paper, even if it’s from your neighbor. We are going to study a passage of scripture tonight that has been on my heart and been on my mind for about three weeks now and I got the opportunity to teach this Wednesday night.
And so I’m just going to pass that right along to you. And uh, the, uh, I been going over it for a couple of weeks with our staff. I just keep on doing it because every morning when I wake up, it’s in my heart. Every night when I go to bed, the scripture’s been in my mind and I just feel like if God thinks it’s important enough to keep reminded me of it, it’s important enough to teach and to and to talk about. And so we’re going to do that tonight. But you’re not going to want to hear this message without a pen and without a paper. So I encourage you to do that tonight, even if you’ve never taken any notes. I want you to do that. We’re going to pray over what we’re going to learn tonight. We stand up with the Bible in your hand. Go ahead. Just stand up. If you got your phone in, the Bible’s on it. Just stand up with the Bible, man. Oh Man.
Pastor Bryan and pastor David. We’re away this week going through a Amarillo Church pastor’s training. How many of you think it’s good to continue education in your life? We love getting to be taught ourselves and I love teaching, so we’re going to do that tonight with the word. Let’s honor God’s word tonight. I want you just to say it with me. Say, this is my Bible. It is the word of God. I will make it a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. I will hide its words in my heart that I might not sin against you, God. Father, tonight, I just pray for each and every person here with the word of God in their hands, standing, honoring your word. I pray God that it would come swiftly. It would come like a sore, that it would pierce the dividing of soul and spirit, the thoughts and intents of their heart, what they feel and what is actually true.
Father Today, I pray that the sword of God would come and it would teach us and correct us and build us and make us better than when we came in. We thank you for it. We honor you tonight. God in Jesus Mighty name, I pray. If you agree, just say amen. Amen. There’s just a sweet, sweet presence of God in church tonight. I always know it by faith, but don’t you love it when you feel it? It’s like the last few services that we’ve been in church. I have literally seen a fog in the spirit like I don’t know if anybody else can see it, but it’s almost like there’s just a fog in the room and not from these. I know what those do. I know that we a seam up the room a little bit for the lights to show, but it’s like a just a fog in the spirit and I think God’s really trying to do some good, good work on the inside of us.
And um, I’ve been enjoying it and I hope you have been to our fearless conference was just absolutely awesome. It was just incredible. And then Sunday we got to go over marriages and teach on that. That’s so much fun. That’s bright. And I, we love that. That’s our favorite month of the year that we do marriage teaching. It’s actually one of the most downloaded, um, series that we ever do. And actually when we do it for friends, um, they’ve reported in other churches that it is the number one downloaded podcast that they do have the entire year. That should tell you something. If, if an entire church that has incredible teaching all the time lays down what they’re doing and they let that podcast come into their spirit, we should try to get some friends here on Sunday morning for that marriage teaching and make sure that we help our friends and our coworkers and all that.
You know, people that need marriage help, you know, people that need marriage enrichment and you know, people that need a marriage, nine one one call right now, everybody has those friends, right? And so I just want you to do your best. You can’t make people come, but I’m telling you what, most people are just waiting for one invitation. So I hope you’ll join with me and help us get people here so that we can help them and build them. And also just recommend those, um, all of the Facebook and social media posts, we post all of those sermons. So make sure and recommend it to your friends and family, even if they live in other cities and states, we love to get an opportunity to help them. I want you to turn with me tonight
to proverbs six and
I want to teach out of a passage of scripture that has literally just been over and over and over in my mind, I cannot get it off of my mind and out of my heart. And so I just started digging deeply into it. I’ve taught the staff on it two in a row, they might, I don’t know, maybe my happened to get a third week. They’re just going to have to brace themselves for it, right? Cause I said I’m not going to quit teaching on it until God says that he, that we’ve finished with it. Like I’m just going to keep on bringing it up and bringing it up and bringing it up. I’m going to continue to meditate on it. How many of you believe that the meditation of the word of God is powerful in our life to mutter to utter and to repeat is what meditation means.
So sometimes when we say meditation, you see like a weird Asian gorilla that’s like sitting in some kind of yoga pose and, and that’s what that you know, means in common culture. But they stole that from us. We actually were the where the meditators, Christians, we coined that phrase, right? So the Bible talks about meditation that just means to mutter, to utter and to repeat. And so as we take in the word, we don’t just read it one time because the Bible says that faith comes by actually hearing it, not reading it. So it says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So if we just read the word of God, but we don’t read it aloud or we don’t allow it to be read to us, we’re skipping the part that brings revelation, that actually takes what the word of God is, which is a scrubber.
It’s a mind scrubber, right? People say you’ve been brainwashed. I say, you better believe it. I absolutely have. Thank God. Cause Jessie’s brain off of the word is a bad place to have to dwell. I’m telling you the word of God. It comes in and it washes your mind by the water of the word and every time that you take it in, it doesn’t matter which portion of the word of God it is. When you read it, there actually portions of scripture like revelation that it says that the, just the shear reading of that passage brings a blessing onto your life. I mean that just because you just even tried to read it. Some people say, I don’t like to read revelation because it’s confusing and it’s while I’m like, just read it. There’s a blessing in just the reading of it, just the intake of it.
So as we take in food, uh, we have to be careful what it is that we take in. And a lot of times I think this is why it’s hard to read the Bible all the time because the devil hates when Christians actually read the word and then hates it even more when they read it aloud to themselves are allowed to be heard. There’s this incredible application on youversion where you can click on a verse and in certain translations you can actually push a, like the sound, a icon and it will begin to read it to you out loud. I absolutely love this Amarillo Church application. I use it all the time. In fact, before I preach a sermon, I will read the passage of scripture that I’m going to, that I’m going to be teaching out of multiple times. And then I’ll actually stop and play it and I’ll make myself listen to it out loud.
And then I listened to it out loud and I listened to it out loud and I listened to it out loud until revelation knowledge comes to me. So I want to encourage you not to allow yourself to lackadaisically approached the word of God, but instead to take it like it’s actual food that you have to chew. So when I was a kid, I hated meat because you had to chew it. I didn’t love cows or animals and feel sorry for them and not want to eat them. It was actually, I was just way too lazy to chew. And I also am Super Ocd, which some of you may not know, but I have some OCD tendencies. And so when I was a kid, I would only chew things. I would chew them on one side of my mouth, but then I was afraid that my teeth would wear unevenly.
So I’d actually, if I chewed a certain number of times on one side of my mouth, I would actually have to chew the exact same number on the other side of my mouth. I know. Crazy, right? It was a very, very taxing, I’m just telling you. So it was just easier not to eat meat. And I can remember my parents were constantly like, you need protein, you need to eat some meat. And I wouldn’t chew it. So every time I would eat meat, I would just choke on it and I, and they would be like, oh my gosh, here we go again. You know, it’s like the Heimlich maneuver and the Chinese restaurant and all kinds of things. So I had issues with meat and everybody’s like, oh my gosh, what’s happening with this girl? You know, you talk long enough, people will understand that you’re strange.
I’m okay with it. I’ve been doing this for years. Everyone that knows me already knows I’m weird. All right, but I’m just telling you there was something inside of me they didn’t want to chew because it was just, it was too hard to have to focus on that many things at one time. So I just chose not to eat meat because you had to chew it the most. Well, in doing that, I would make myself choke up. I had it. I want to talk to you about the word of God tonight. The word of God can choke you sometimes when you don’t take enough time to chew it up. And so sometimes when things feel a little bit much to you, it’s not because God was an insensitive, it was because you didn’t choose. So we just have to take the word of God as at face value and then we just chew it.
And if you have to chew it evenly on both sides, you could do that. But I’m just telling you, you have to come up with a plan that works for you because the meat is very important. We can’t just ignore the meat because it’s more difficult to chew and it takes longer to understand, contemplate and process as Christian believers, this is not a sprint guys. We are in a marathon with Jesus and so if you’re new to God and you feel overwhelmed like you’re like drinking out of a fire hose, I want to tell you tonight you’re not drinking out of a fire hose. Just take a little sip, take time to swallow and then come at it again and just let God give you all the stuff that he wants to give you. Then the way that you do that is just you just show up every Sunday and I tell you what would be great for you is if you came on Sunday and he went to two services and then you served in our kids ministry in the elementary age or the preschool age, one of the services because this is what happens in those places.
We all just, excuse me while I helped some people get strong in God for a minute. If you’ve been saved, like for all eternity and Moses disciple choose you, just wait a minute, I’ll get to you. Okay? But if we’re just going to go in to what we’re doing here, if you will come to two services and then you will go and serve in a preschool age class, what’s going to happen is that every week you’re going to learn a Bible story and you’re going to learn a god character. And a, you’re going to have time to process that Bible story in that God character in a way that’s built for children, which is good enough for us. I’m telling you, we’re not that much smarter. I’m telling Ya. And then we take it. So what I would like to encourage you to do is to get a kid’s Bible and actually just take it and read it and just go through the stories you say, Jesse, that seems simple.
It is simple. The word of God can be very simple, but it’s also very in depth. So if we get the simple parts of it in the stories and we understand the concepts and we understand the character traits that God’s trying to build in us, then then we can dive into the word of God and understand it at a new level. But we need those basics. And some of you just didn’t have the luxury of being raised in church and you weren’t in Sunday school, so you didn’t get that background. And I want to encourage you that one of the best ways to do that is to volunteering kids’ ministry, and we always need volunteers and kids’ ministry. So it’s a win win on both sides, right? How many kids volunteers do I have in the room? I love you guys. Let’s give them a huge handclap.
They are doing an incredible, incredible job. Let’s go to proverbs six and verse 16 it says these 1616 nope, not 16 things. Six. These six things the Lord hates. Yes, seven are an abomination to him. A lot of times people say sin is sin is sin is sin, but that’s actually not true. There are levels of sem, there are types of sin, there are different degrees of sem. And so in our culture and in our nation, everybody’s like citizen, you have sinned. I have sinned. We all have send. You just don’t need to label sins. But actually that is not a true statement. According to scripture, there are sins that our sins, their sins that are abominations, there are sins that bring a curse upon your own self, that you’re actually sinning against your own body. There are many, many, many different types of sins, levels of sins.
And I’m not saying that, uh, any sin as a good seven because how many of you know we need Jesus to take, take care of all of them. But it is good to know that there are degrees and levels of things in your spiritual walk. And this one says that seven are an abomination to him. We’re going to look at them today. It’s interesting because when we look at this, I would think like one of the first ones would be something crazy, right? But actually the first one, it says six things that the Lord hates. And seven are an abomination. How many of you just kind of want to steer clear of all the stuff God hates anybody in the room? Like if I’m just going to make a list and just say, I think all avoid these seven things, I’m probably going to start with the things God hates because I’ve been praying for years and years that I would love everything.
God loves, hate everything God hates. So if there is a list of every of all the things that God hates, I kind of want to know what they are so I can steer clear and love Jesus appropriately. Right? So we’re going to start in verse 17 it says a proud look. Now this is interesting because it seems like such a small thing to most human beings. In fact, there’s a portion of scripture that says something to the effect of if you curse your parents with your eyes, the birds of the air will come and pluck them out. That is not on any plaque in the Christian bookstore. That’s not a pretty picture. They don’t just put like an eagle, you know, flying down to the children. So I tease my teenager. I’m like, roll those eyes again. The birds are coming for Ya. I always tease her about that.
But uh, some of the scripture just isn’t pretty, you know, it’s all like anything you want to see on a plaque, but it’s just still true and it’s there and God said it. So we, we reread it, but a proud look. It is really in reference to, um, you know, when James Four six, it says that God, he actually resists the proud. I don’t want to be resisted by God. I want to be embraced by God. I want to be, I want to be helped by God. I want to be seen by God. I want to be heard by God. I don’t want to put my prayers to be hindered. I don’t want any of those things. I want God to have every thing that he can have for me. And in James Four, six, it specifically says that he resists the proud. So there’s something about pride that gets God riled up.
I think it’s because it was a, and maybe just this might be why it was the first sin, but it was the first sin, the sin of pride. The devil came and he wanted to be God. All the glory was going through him and he wanted it to stop with him. He was actually leading people in praising and worshiping, glorifying God, and he was being used as an instrument to exalts God. And in the midst of that, he did that. Now, on a side note, I would like to encourage you not to judge leaders too harshly. Um, I was on social media one day and I saw someone saying, man, this person did this and it was a not a good thing. And I’m not mad at them. I want to call their pastor to repentance and I want to call their pastor to resign and step down.
And I thought, Whoa, whoa. What is happening? We can’t, you know, I mean, I would love to follow Jake all through the night and day and keep him from anything that he might do. But how many of you know Jake has a freewill? And immediately the story came to my mind cause I’m like, you know, God is the most incredible leader of all time and the devil still rebelled. So am I a better leader than God? No. Is any pastor on this earth a better leader than God himself? Not a chance. And yet still a third of the angels chose to rebel with Satan and they fell and it was the sin of pride that got them there. So I think that there’s something to be learned there in that we need to resist pride at all costs with us. And so it says that a proud look is one of those things.
And it’s because that look comes from a heart attitude, right? That look of, I’m better than you are looking down on someone. Like you’ve got it all together and they don’t have what it takes. Or looking at someone as though they can’t teach you something. You know, everyone can learn something from anyone. I want you to write that down today. Everyone can learn something from anyone. Not a single person in the world that I can’t learn something from. Maybe it’s what not to do. Maybe it’s what to do. Maybe it’s a skill, maybe it’s a relational thing. Maybe it’s something wonderful that they’re just good at and they have a talent and ability. And I’m, and I’m not so good at that yet, but a proud look. I think it’s because it’s the sign of what is to come. And God already knows what’s in the heart of man based on the look that they’re giving, thinking of oneself as better than, or higher than others.
That proud. Look, the second thing is allying tongue. False hood is, uh, just, you know, telling a false hood in order to deceive others, to hurt the character of your neighbor. That’s a big one to flatter a friend. And I think that that’s probably because again, the devil is the father of all lies. He’s the father of lies. And, and within him there is no truth. And so when we’re telling lies, we sound like the devil. And that’s something that God is going to not like. It’s something that God hates. And really I think a lot of times we think, ah, it’s not that big of a deal. You know, like it’s just a lie. A lie is just like a white lie. You know, your mom’s like, oh, they told a white lie. There’s no such thing as like a white lie or a black light or a red light or purple.
I, it’s just a lie, right? It’s just something that just isn’t the truth. And the reason that God hates it is because as Christians, as Christ followers, the truth is supposed to dwell in us. And when the untruth begins to dwell and overly dwell on, I’ve seen people, when they began to lie, it goes downhill real quick, right? Because you have to lie to cover up your lie, to cover up the lie that you told to cover up the lie, and then there’s no truth in you. And people’s trust and confidence in who you are, um, can go down. So in my, my life and my personality, I’d like to share, I’m just a personal situation with you. I really overarchingly in my life. I just have a very outgoing sanguine personality. I like people and I, and I, and I like to talk to people and I love to tell stories.
It’s one of my favorite things. And I um, God was sent me through a real season of making myself accurate because I really wanted to tell a story. And how many of you know a story’s a little more fun if you just put a little on it, you know, it’s a little sprinkle of goodness right there. But the Lord was really, and I’m not saying that anyone to hamming up a story when everyone knows what’s happening is wrong, but for me, God just was putting me through a season of restraint with the range. Just like, no, no, we’re not going to tell it just like that. We’re going to tell it exactly accurate. And I would start to tell story. I think it was gonna be so fun to tell the story and then all of a sudden God would pull the reigns in and the story would flop because it wasn’t so great after all.
And that I didn’t like it because I didn’t like the result of the story that wasn’t, didn’t have any of that fun on it. You know? And then I was like, this is terrible God. And he’s like, I’m getting your attention. I’m asking you not to start unless you’re going to be accurate. Like I want you. And I remember being young and that being a hard, a really hard season for my life, but I’m grateful to the Holy Spirit that he corrects us like in a gentle, loving kind, but like a really corrective way that he came to me and was like, no, that’s, that’s not okay. Cause I didn’t know that I was going to have to stand up in front of thousands of people a week and tell stories and really have to be accurate whenever I did that in order to gain people’s trust and the knowledge that they could rely on me.
I didn’t have any idea. I was just young, but God already knew. So sometimes God’s just pulling the reigns in on you so that you can learn to dwell in his goodness and he can promote you to the place that he needs you to be. So don’t ever resist God’s correction. He is doing it for you for a purpose. The third one is hands that shed innocent blood and this is not puppies and whales and all the things that people are raising funds for. I love that a righteous man is good too is beast. I think we should be kind to animals, but when we’re talking about shedding innocent blood, it’s actually in reference to human blood of the innocent,
not someone who’s experienced in capital punishment or different things. It’s actually referring to it and listen to me church, if we do not stand for the innocent right now in this season, we will see the wrath of God unleashed on us. It is one of the things that God absolutely hates and I know why it is. It’s because they are made in the image of God and destroying them is to actually beat destroying something that is the image of Christ himself. He protects them. It’s directly connected to us. God is asking us to stand up. You say, Jesse, what can I do? You cannot back down in the face of a cultural shift that wants to slaughter the unborn and act like it’s okay. We have to stand for righteousness. Did you know that abortion was the number one cause of death last year? Everybody’s working out at the gym trying to protect their heart. What are we doing? What are we doing for the unborn? What are we doing for the innocent? I’m asking you today, Brian’s already preached on this. I won’t go any further. Resisting children is always a sign of evil. Always a sign of the devil. Children are to be drawn to Jesus. Protected, loved, sheltered to harm them as evil. To hate them is evil.
To Shun them is to shun Jesus. If you ever meet somebody that does not like children, you need to have a question mark about their character because children are absolute to be drawn in. Whenever God said, bring the little children to me, didn’t Jesus say bring them all to me? Anyone that’s godly that is Jesus fearing, they’re going to be like, bring the children to me. Why? Because there’s something righteous about loving children and something unrighteous about not caring about their wellbeing. We as the church have to stand for that. A heart that devises evil,
one who devises plans to hurt people, whether it’s hurting someone physically, emotionally, financially, spiritually. Any way that you’re looking, that you’re actually devising a plan to hurt somebody. How many of you have ever had your feelings hurt and you have stood in the shower and devise a plan on how to come against that person and let them know what they’ve done to you? If we’re honest, we know that that has been the case and yet it’s one of the things the Lord hates because he loves his people. They are the apple of his eye and they matter to him. Feet that are swift to do evil. We talk a lot about this with teenagers, but we just refrain with adults feet that are swift to do evil. You know the quick, you know the, when you’re quick to do the wrong thing instead of the right thing. Like there should be just a little bit of pullback whenever you’re making a decision on what you should do. It shouldn’t just be like this is the wrong thing to do.
Yeah,
that’s not how God’s called us to act. And God hates that attitude. He hates that position in life. Why? Because it destroys one of the people that he loves. Sin Brings Death, but righteousness brings life. And so as we learn to dwell in, walk in God as we lead our young people and how to dwell and walk in God, we never want to be harsh. We always want our young people to know that what we’re for. It’s not about what we’re against, it’s about what we’re for. Because when you get kids and you say, this is what we’re for, they’re like, all right, let’s go. So therefore this right. I can always tell that Amarillo Church parents love me when their kids love me.
Why? Because when a parent loves you and they speak well of you and you run into their kids, what are their kids do they run to you? Why? Because they that there will be blessing upon their arrival. They expect that there’s something good there for them. Pastor Jordan has worked with us for a dozen years and I never run to end to his kids that they don’t run to me and and know that they’re going to get so they can have anything they want. I’ll hand it to him. I don’t care because I love them right there. There’s some kids that had been in my life since they were born. I, I love their faces. I love everything. I love him when there any way that they are. I just love him that way. Right. But I know something. I know that their mom and dad loved me because they never are hesitant to come to me.
They run to me and they know that there’s blessing when they get there. I believe that that is how we should be. We’ve cod that we’re constantly running to him knowing that there’s blessing on that side, that when we get there, and now some of you were raised with parents that didn’t exactly give the best example of who God was. Maybe you didn’t have a great father. Maybe you don’t always think that God’s good and that he’s going to bless you and if he’s on your side, but the longer you know God in the more developed you get in your spiritual walk, your feet shoe get quicker and quicker and quicker to get to the father and to the righteous side. Every time you get a chance to run in a direction of righteousness or to sin, your feet should get more swift to go to the right way. And I’m not saying it all happens in one day, but it is a process that God takes us through and overarchingly over time. We should have an openness to the things of God and our feet should be swift to run in that direction. A false witness. This is
interesting because a lot of times people just think, it’s like saying something that isn’t exactly true about somebody, but a false witness according to scripture in the ancient near east, they would have called a false witness. Anyone who reported something about someone that did not see it with their own eyes. So if you ever heard someone say, I didn’t see it, but I have it on good authority, I didn’t see it. I’m not sure, but like this person that I’m talking to, there are legit guys. They are one of the best people that I know. And they said, how many of you have ever heard? They said, and then we turn around and we repeat that information to people around us and in scripture, according to scripture, we would actually be deemed a false witness, a witness that perjured themselves on the stand because we didn’t see it with our own eyes.
What’s the saying? If you didn’t see it with your own eyes and hear it with your own ears, don’t say it with your big mouth, right? They said they say that. Well, if you didn’t see it with your own eyes, hear with your own ears smelling with your own nose, I wouldn’t tell it. And even if you did, I might think twice because how many of you know it’s not always true. What we see, our eyes can deceive us, our ears, they can deceive us. I was convinced the other night that Brian had said, Jessie does nothing for me in life.
Yeah,
we were having a great day. We were all happy. I was standing in the room and I heard him say, Jesse does nothing for me in life to the children of all things. I’m like, what is this guy’s problem? Is he trying to pick a fight? Is it like the fight day of the year? I don’t know what he’s doing right now. So I just, he about that time he came into the room I was in, I said, did you just say Jesse does nothing for me in life? I said guessing and math. I don’t even remember how it goes now, but he said guessing and math does nothing for you in life or something like that. And I just started laughing. I was like, I thought you were trying to pick a fight with me. He said, please don’t let me pick a fight. I don’t want to fight. One day we were walking through Walmart and we saw a couple, we know the man. We live in a town of 50,000 people in Owensboro, Kentucky, guys, everybody’s in that Walmart all day and all night
there’s a man that we know that’s married to a woman. And that woman was walking through Walmart, just hands all over. This other guy hugging him, kissing him, flirting with him. We could all see it. We could see it with our own eyes. We can hear it with our own ears. It was so evident and Brian said, this is crazy. What’s happened? Are they getting a divorce? I said, I have no idea if they’re not. She’s insane cause I mean, she’s just walking down the middle of Walmart, having a full on emotional moment with some man that we have never seen before. So Brian picked up the phone and he said, uh, did sewn sewed, so get a divorce in. The Guy said no. So that’s weird. I just saw her with another guy at Walmart and he said, oh, that’s her twin sister. They’d been married for 30 years,
30 years, married, perfect. Strictly legitimate legal. They can hold hands and kiss each other if they want. I want to. And yet we saw it with our own eyes and we heard it with our own ears and we were a false witness. So we have to be careful in the church that as believers, we don’t purge your ourself on the stand, but that we allow God to use us to believe the best in people. So when people come and tell you something, the best response is, man, I know their heart. And I would absolutely be shocked if that was the case. Let’s go talk to them and see if we can figure something else out. Let’s go talk to them and see what we can do, right? Because the thing is, truth needs to come to the top at any cost. And maybe just maybe you heard it wrong, you saw it wrong.
Maybe it’s something that doesn’t even need to be addressed. You just thought that they said something or did something and your feelings got hurt and yet nothing ever was behind any of it. And so you tried to create something in your mind and you were sure that it happened. But God just wants us to take the second mile and not be a false witness, just not to tell things that we do not personally know as true. How many of you have figured out at this point in your Christian walk that it’s usually better just to not talk about anything that’s going on and help people whenever the time arises? Let me go to the last one. Well, let me, I want to stop there. I want to say one more thing about that. A false witness in first Timothy five 19 and I want to preface this by saying that no one has done this to me or Brian.
So this is, I’m not teaching out of anything that’s happened. Okay? So everybody’s like, what is happened? Nothing’s happened. This is the perfect week to tell it cause it’s probably one of the only weeks that no one’s ever said anything about us. But I A to, I don’t know of anything in the world, but I want to say this to you. While I don’t know of anything in the world, first Timothy Five 19 it says that we should not bring an accusation against an elder without two or three witnesses. So not just that we should be an eye witness and talk about an elder of the church, but that actually according to scripture, we as believers should never bring an accusation of sin or misconduct against an elder of the church unless there are two or God says three. What does that tell us? Unless there’s multiple, and let’s air on the side of caution.
Three people that have, I witnessed, I heard, I smelled, I know that this has taken place and I’m telling you, if we did not get joy out of elders falling, we would be so much more confident in doing this. We would be so much more reserved and bringing accusation. You say, man, I just know that so and so, pastor so and so did this. Or I know the Amarillo Church pastor so and so did this, and I always encourage people, man, did two or three people. I witnessed that account and if not, we should refrain from being accusational against the elders of the church. Amen. Amen. At the point that they’re sure three witnesses and there’s a problem and their sin, there’s a correctional, a ability of people to come in and in our church and to say, hey, you need to be restored. You need to be rebuked, you need to be helped.
But until that actually is the case, we should be the first ones to say, no pastor so and so is a good man of God and I believe that you miss saw that let’s, let’s go ahead and believe the best and not accuse the worst. How many of you would say amen? Amen. It’s easy to do with people you love and your church, but it’s also very easy for us to see things happening out in the world and talk about pastor out there and come against them with accusation. I think we should be the kind of church that loves our pastors and, and upholds them, but that we also love the pastors of the nation and the pastors of the world and the five fold ministry gifts all around the earth. And we don’t rejoice in iniquity, but we rejoice in the truth. Amen. Amen.
The last one is this and you, um, he who sows discord amongst the brethren. Oh six things God hates and a seventh one that’s an abomination to him. He that sows discord amongst the brother and Jessie. What does that mean? It means that you are a trouble maker amongst the brethren that you are trying to get anyone. If you’re anyone that would try to get brothers and sisters to be at odds or in war with one another, brothers and sisters in Christ, anybody that stirs the pot whenever it comes to someone having a disagreement, how many of you have figured out yet if you’re in church long enough, someone’s going to do something stupid to you?
Everybody said, Yep. Do you know why? Because as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. I think this should be a two sided effort in our church that we should never sow discord. But when we sin against our brother, we should be the very first one to go and repent. And we kind of have a rule in the Gibson House that is loud. As you sinned against me, it’s the same volume that you’re going to use to repent to me because sometimes even in family we like to have a deal and it’s loud and it’s obnoxious and it’s so overwhelming. And then we’re like, do you know that you were wrong? Like, yes, I know I was wrong. It’s like, wow, you lost your voice all of a sudden. That’s weird that you need to apologize. You need to repent to your family member. And I’m talking about Jesse too. I’m not just talking about my kids cause like I don’t always do the right thing as a mom. Right? And I know that you’re the perfect mother, but I’ve lifted my voice before, so with the same volume, and not necessarily they want to hear me scream and apology, but with the same public nature that I came unglued they owe. I owe it to them to repent.
Just the other day we had a disagreement in our family and I was very loud about my disapproval and then it came back that I was absolutely wrong and I didn’t know what I was talking about. Do you ever been there? It’s terrible. I like being right,
but I was wrong and so I just called the family member that I had said it so loudly too, and I said, I’d like to repent to you. I was wrong. I didn’t know what I was talking about and I said this to you and that was the wrong thing to say. And they said, I forgive you, but I didn’t just say Lao, what I disagreed with, and then come back in in private with private and say, Hey Brian, I said this to one of her family members. I’m sorry that repentance doesn’t cure the outbursts that happened right there, right? So if we would take it from both sides and we would actually say, I’m not going to sow discord, and when I do, I’m going to repent just as loud as I came in because we all make mistakes. C as one, as iron sharpens iron. So one man sharpens another. If you work in the greeter ministry long enough, you’re going to rub up against somebody that irritates you. You, you run one of those cameras long enough. There’s going to be someone talking in your ear telling you which shots taken. You’re going to be like, they’re a jerk.
I don’t like the way they’re talking to me today. They could’ve said, please. When they called that kid’s ministry, you’re going to be like so and so didn’t show up to their appointed time for two weeks. I had to cover them. God’s given you an opportunity to grow in his church. He’s given you an opportunity to see people through the eyes of God and forgive. He’s giving you one more opportunity to rise up and be better than you were when you came to the church. You see, the teaching doesn’t just happen in these seats. Most of what we learn about Jesus happens as we live amongst the saints. So if we are not supposed to soar, sowed discord amongst the brethren, then what should we be selling? We should be sewing love, forgiveness, joy, peace, help, uh, lifting people, helping people, encouraging people because God hates discord.
I want to give you a Christian hack. Are you ready? Everybody look at your neighbor and say, hack this. The last thing that I’m going to say tonight, lifehack I love them. I want to know all the good stuff. I don’t want you to keep any of it away. So if you know on, please bring it to me. This is my life hack for living in the house of God. Foot free of turmoil, free of strife, free of sowing, discord, free of any of those things. Because sometimes we’re the garbage can for everyone’s complaints. If everyone feels comfortable telling you what so and so did you have got to take a heart check moment because you’ve become the garbage can. So at this moment I realized, cause people like to talk to me. I go to Walmart and like, how are you doing ma’am? She’s like, my husband just left me and I’m there for an hour.
I have a gift. People like to talk to me. I look friendly, I guess I don’t know what it is, but everywhere I go, people love to tell me these things. And so years ago I started doing this in the house of God. You can’t do it in Walmart because they’re not all following Jesus. Okay? But in the house of God, someone comes up to you and they say so and so did this. Wow, I know that guy, man, he has a really good heart. Let’s go help there be no discord amongst us. Take them by the hand and lead them across the sanctuary. They won’t come to you anymore, ever. Totally cure said, cause nobody likes to talk about it out loud. They’re just, the devil just wants there to be an underlying current of discord, just something stern and Bruin all the time so that nobody can be happy with any body.
Exactly. So that whenever they need something or tragedy strikes their family, you’re like, man, we haven’t even really gotten along in five years. We’ve lived amongst the family of God, but I don’t really know what to do right now and make it uncomfortable so that that family that’s going through that tragedy has no one that reaches out to them. So that in that moment of tragic, they get disconnected from the House of God. He takes them and he separates them from the pack and the next thing you know, they’re not in church at all. That’s how the devil does it. So as we live in the family of God, the best thing that we can do is, man, you go over the, I promise you, if you talk to her, she’s going to feel terrible about that. She would have never wanted that to hurt your heart. Please goes, go say something to her. Said, no, I don’t want to talk to Raj edges. I’m going to be upset. I’m hurt. I don’t want to talk to her. Okay. Alright, you’ve left me no choice.
Listen, it will be the last time you ever have to filter through an argument with anybody, but in the process you will have honored God and so no discord amongst the brethren. No sin that God hates will be involved. People get reunited, healing comes and God is able to lift his family higher. How many of you want our church to be a clean place where people love one another? I believe in for that. Will you stand up with me tonight? Was that enough meat for you? All right. I sure do love every face in this place and I’m so glad that God gives us instruction on how to live the real stuff that goes on in church. Aren’t you glad God gives you the instruction for the real stuff? Get you outta here. Get those babies home and in bed. Father, I thank you so much for all that you’re doing in your Amarillo church. We just decide if you’re just going to honor God in these things, man, you’re going to take a special focus and you’re going to implement them in your life. Lift one hand to heaven today, father, empower us to live for you. Empower us to do the things you’ve called us, to empower us to be the people of God called by your name. We humble ourselves. We pray. We turn from our wicked ways. We say, Lord, that you hear from heaven and you heal us. In Jesus’ mighty name we pray. Amen.