Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton. Here you'll find practical, relevant, biblical information.
The Bible will be broken down verse by verse so that you get the full context of the scripture to better grow in your relationship with Jesus.
Thank you Pastor Mark. Thank the Lord for the opportunity to stand up here in front of you all today.
So something that I think a lot of us can agree on, a lot of us are seeing, especially in this season with the election season upon us.
And of course a lot of the movements speaking up, trying to get their voices and their opinions heard, right?
The way we talk to each other, the way people express themselves can be quite colorful to say the least.
You know, there's a lot of talk, there's a lot of anger, there's a lot of venom out there being spewed.
And what's heartbreaking is a lot of this is coming from professed Christians.
That's right.
But professed Christians, and let's face it, some of our brothers and sisters, even some of us,
can have some of the loudest voices in the room when it comes to this.
You know, on one hand we're professing love, mercy, grace, and on the other hand we're shunning people, we're slapping people down,
we're passing judgment that isn't necessarily right because of our own feeling and not necessarily because it's the Word of God, right?
Family members becoming estranged from one another, friends stop talking to each other.
You know, just this week I had a friend message me and said, that friend of yours is a nasty person.
It's like, wow.
It's just like when the dog relieves itself on the carpet and your spouse is like, your dog, right?
That's very much how it comes across.
What's worse is this friend introduced me to the other friend.
It's a big disconnect.
People are becoming estranged, division is ensuing.
And unfortunately it's not just here, it's not just in our nation, but we see it all the way around the world.
Just turn on the news, right?
So for those of you who have your Bibles, those of you who are using apps, of course if you're just taking notes, write this down.
Go ahead and turn with me to James chapter 3.
So James chapter 3.
So James 3, we're going to start through, we're going to start with verses 1.
We're going to go through in segments, but we're going to be going through verse 12, all right?
So starting in verse 1, the word says, not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers,
because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.
So before I go into the rest of this, to teach, to be up at the front, your word, what you had to say, what you had to teach, was really up here.
There's a lot of power, there's a lot of authority in what you had to say.
So it was a warning.
This is absolutely a warning. You need to be careful.
Because those of us who teach should know better.
And there's a lot of people who are teaching who should know better, but are leading the parade, right?
So going in from there, we all stumble in many ways.
Anyone who is never a fault on what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.
When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal or take ships as an example.
Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder, whatever the pilot, or excuse me, wherever the pilot wants to go.
So, you know, what we have to say here and what we don't say, it's important.
What we say is very much like our actions. You can do just as much good through your action as you can through inaction.
You steer the ship.
You don't have to have a loud voice to steer the ship. Sometimes it's the smallest voice that makes the biggest impact.
Gravity check.
It's okay.
Right?
I need to get a better stand over there.
That's my fault.
All right. Picking back up at verse five.
Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boast.
Consider what the great forest is set afire by a small spark.
The tongue is also a fire, a word of evil amongst the parts of the body.
It erupts the whole body.
Sets the whole course of one's life on fire and itself set on fire by hell.
So we need to remember that what we say, we need to speak in love.
We need to make sure love is absolutely there at all times.
And when we look at the word, when we look at the commandments, right, what does it say about it?
You know, does the word say love your neighbor unless?
Love your neighbor but, love your neighbor except?
No.
It absolutely does not say that.
Instead, if we go to Leviticus chapter 19 verse 8, it is, you know, this is one of those many places when we look at it.
And we see this where the word tells us, you shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
I am the Lord.
We shouldn't be speaking to people begrudgingly, right?
Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
None of us like to be disrespected.
None of us like to be talked down to, right?
Anybody here like to be belittled?
No?
I don't think so.
I know I don't.
The Christians could be amongst the worst because when we go out and we tell people, it's like, you know, you're going to go to hell for that.
It's not very loving, is it?
Unfortunately, that's the way we talk to a lot of people.
It's like, you know, you come from a bad place, you're going to go to hell because of it.
Things like that.
All the time.
When we look at this, we see that there is no clause here that gets us out of loving others.
That tells us it's okay for us to disrespect others.
In fact, if anything, it's reinforcing that we need to love, right?
And this is actually what Jesus was referring to in Mark 12 verses 29 through 31 when he summed up the greatest commandments.
We also see it again in Matthew 22 verses 33, excuse me, 34 through 40.
And I'll remind you, love is supposed to be a verb, not a noun.
Love is an action.
It's how we treat each other, right?
And how we treat each other, it comes through our words and our actions.
It's not just this meaningless, oh, I love you.
We show it.
Some of you all have heard me talk about this before.
You think back to our elders.
You think back to your grandparents, your grandfather, your father, uncles, that sort of thing.
You know, especially those who are no longer with us, that older generation.
Did they have to say, I love you, for you to know that they loved you?
Matter of fact, if you think about it, a lot of them really didn't say that at all.
If they did, it was on very rare occasions.
But when they passed on, they were gone, when they were called home by the Lord, and you think on it, you think of all the things that they did for you, all the sacrifices that they made, the things that they taught you, the time that they spent with you,
even if it was little time because of how much they had to work.
And when you reflect on it, does it ever leave a question in your mind, did they love me?
Not usually.
For most of us, just thinking back on that is enough, and we know, I was loved.
They loved me.
Love is an action.
When Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, it was an action.
Taking on the action of the lowest, of the low, right?
And we think about it, we think of washing feet, was it just dirt that he was washing?
No, you think of the roads that they walked on, the types of shoes and boots that they wore at that time.
This is the same highways, byways, and roads that all the animals, the carts, and everything else came through.
So when he was washing their feet, he's washing dirt, mud, food, excrements.
It's not a lovely picture, is it?
A big part of why it was seen as the lowest lowest, get that stuff off my feet, right?
So it shouldn't be just this empty vernacular that's used to give somebody a warm fuzzy.
You know, that's not what it is.
You know, just as Jesus showed his compassion in how he treated others.
You know, Matthew 26 verses 36 through 45 at Gethsemane.
Let's take a look at what the word has to say here.
Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane.
And he said to them, sit here while I go over there and pray.
He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him.
And he began to be sorrowful and troubled.
Then he said to them, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.
Stay here and keep watch with me.
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, my father, is it possible?
May this cut be taken from me.
Yet not as I will, but as you will.
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping.
Couldn't you men keep watch with me for one hour, he asked Peter?
Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
He went away a second time and prayed, my father, it is not possible.
Excuse me, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.
When he came back again, he found them sleeping because their eyes were heavy.
So he left them, went away once more and prayed a third time saying the same thing.
When he returned to the disciples and said to them, are you still sleeping and resting?
Look, the hour has come and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners.
Rise, let us go.
Here comes my betrayer.
So when we look at this, we see this is Jesus.
He's about to be handed over, right?
He's about to start that long walk.
He's under duress.
He's going, he's speaking to the Father, your will be done.
He comes back down once.
He comes down twice.
He comes down three times.
You think he wasn't a little frustrated with them?
He was fully manned, right?
There is no one fully manned that would not be frustrated in that situation.
Most of us would come down one time.
What are you doing?
Get up.
I gave you one job, one.
And here you are sleeping.
That's why in the military they have fire watches, right?
Bad things happen when everybody's eyes are closed.
This is a little graphic, a little history from NIMI.
In this story, it's always been broken away.
It's kind of gone apart.
Down there in NIMI, they have a memorial down around their headquarters building.
They have blank faces going all the way around.
And it goes all the way back to the beginning of the school.
The cadets, they were out in the field.
It was nighttime.
Everybody went to sleep.
One person was supposed to stay awake and keep watch.
This is back when we're still fighting with the Native Americans, right?
A scout party comes along.
They see the one cadet who's supposed to be on fire watch keeping alert, sound asleep.
So the scout party goes back, gets the rest of his group.
They come back.
They sneak past this guy.
They let him sleep.
They go into this tent where everybody else is sleeping.
They killed every single person in there and left that one person who they knew was supposed to be keeping watch alive.
To find them and to share their tale.
So up around the building, there is a blank face for each of these people who were killed.
A little graphic, right?
But that's part of what Jesus was alluding to here.
He was using this as a commentary that we need to stay awake.
We need to be vigilant, watching for sin.
Because sin sneaks into our lives where we're not paying attention.
When we let our guard down, we let those walls down.
And these sleeping men added to his dress.
And we look at the picture that's painted here.
He comes down.
Hey, wake up. Really?
You're still asleep?
He didn't berate them.
He didn't call them names.
He didn't do anything that was going to make them feel bad as a human being, right?
He just, hey, you had a job.
Wake up.
What did he say?
He said, let's go.
Which is a prime example of how when we're talking to people and things start to get heated, the emotions are flowing, right?
Anyone who's been married can relate to this.
We all have spouts, right?
Siblings, even some of your friends, you spend a little too much time with them growing up.
You kind of get tired of each other.
You start bickering, right?
The difference was just as Jesus showed here, we cannot let those feelings, that anger, that frustration lead us to sin.
That in itself is one of those barriers.
And the problem is we put that up itself.
You look at veterans, you look at first responders, you look at people in health care and other stressful situations.
Part of the problem a lot of us have is we build up those walls.
We're always on guard to a certain point where we can't talk about things.
But once we build that wall, we kind of turn and walk away.
And what happens?
We end up walking into those sins, drinking, drugs.
I'm not just going to say womanizing because it's also the women, but sex, just meaningless.
One night stands one after another, fighting.
There are plenty of people who go out and they start fights, whether it's verbal or physical, because they let all this stuff build up.
And the difference here is Jesus, he just said, hey, wake up.
You're failing.
We can do better.
Let's go.
And that's the example we all need to follow.
It is the example that Christ set for us.
You can get upset.
You can get frustrated.
It will happen.
We are not guaranteed an easy life, and anyone who preaches otherwise has not actually taken time to read this book.
Life is going to be full of strife.
It's going to be full of hardship.
And much like Jesus, we need to do our absolute best to speak out in love.
And when it's even harder and we're not being we're not able to see the way to do this, it's because we're wrapped up in our storm and we're paying attention to it.
And we need to actually start looking to Jesus.
And we need to pray.
We need to speak to him.
Lord, help me.
Give me the words.
Be the light to my feet.
Right?
You know, politics and other hot topics aside, especially here in this nation, people like to cry about freedom of speech.
Oh, I have the right to say this.
I have the right to say that.
All the way up to a point, right?
And what's that point usually that we're seeing more and more today?
To that point that you disagree with them or you call them out.
Like, no, that's not right.
Especially when we have this book and we pull it out.
Right.
And what happens now at that point where they're like, oh, well, love is love.
You're speaking against me.
So you don't love me.
So I'm going to talk bad about you.
I'm going to slander you.
I'm going to try to cancel you with the terminology that they use.
Right.
And they're going to try to get you out of here.
In some cases, they react to violence.
We just had riots out here just a couple years ago because people didn't agree with certain things.
Right.
A lot of vandalism up and down central, the university and several other, excuse me, other areas because people got caught up in the same thing.
Like, oh, if it feels good, do it.
Really?
No.
That's not right.
That's not how you're supposed to act.
That's chaos.
And if we're acting in the chaos, then we're not following God.
We're not following Jesus because we have a God of peace and order.
Not hate and discontent.
What's worse is people want to get offended for other people.
You can't say that.
You can't do that.
They have no idea what's going on other than just what they heard without actually understanding the background of what's going on, without actually looking at it, doing some research, asking questions.
And part of it comes down to the way people talk to each other.
Different people and different groups have different ways of interacting.
Sometimes what we think we're seeing and what we think we're hearing is not actually the case.
You look at jobs.
We all have jobs that have their own vernacular, their own jargon, right?
If I were to stand up here and I say to you the words port, starboard, chit, right?
Words like this, what's the first thing that's going to come to mind for some people?
Some people are going to think, what was that?
That's right, ship.
And they might be sort of close.
They are nautical terms.
For other people, I might as well be speaking Greek.
But to the sailor or the marine in the house, I'm saying left, right, a piece of paper.
Somebody hears chit alone and they don't have the understanding.
Maybe I'm mispronouncing a word and saying something different.
And all of a sudden they'll say, oh, he's got a potty mouth.
But was that what I was saying?
No.
I was talking about a piece of paper.
And it's no different.
Health care, law enforcement.
The church itself, we have our own vernacular, words that we say that you don't typically
find in other places.
Something to keep in mind with people who are young in their walk.
They come in that door.
They profess Jesus.
Oh, good.
Thanks for joining us.
And suddenly we expect them to understand and know everything.
And that's how some young people or people that are young in their walk turn and walk back out the door.
Because they really don't understand what's happening.
We haven't taken the time to explain things.
Lost my place here.
Give me a second.
Look at my notes here.
You know, Jesus, he died.
And he used this example with the sleep to remind us that we need to be awake.
We need to be on the alert.
We need to be paying attention, asking questions, no matter how hard they are, looking for the answers.
And we're not always going to like the answers we get.
That's a fact.
Everybody in here has asked a question at some point in their life and gotten an answer like, really?
Are you kidding?
That's ridiculous.
Right?
But we have the answers.
We've been given a guide for a reason.
Just because we don't like it doesn't mean we don't follow what Jesus himself said.
I didn't come to do away with the law, right?
There's laws that we have to follow here, whether we accept them or not or believe in them or not.
And let's face it, sometimes we come across things in the Bible that convict us.
And we don't necessarily agree with that because we're being held and chained by the sin in our lives that we need to break free from.
You know, we think of Jesus when he went up.
And he was making that walk when it came to the Pharisees and the Sadducees and everything.
You know, he could have yelled.
He could have screamed.
He could have called them names.
You know, I curse you.
And let's face it, I mean, the power of God, he could have blanked them out of existence, but he didn't do that.
Even when the same people who were just championing him as he came in had turned on him when we're calling for his crucifixion, right?
Calling for his death.
And rather, instead of yelling and turning, what happened?
He showed humility.
He showed love.
Even while he was being nailed to a tree, the most stressful of situations, one of the most horrific deaths imaginable, he still showed humbleness and love, setting that example.
And it's that sacrifice amongst others that set an example in building each other up.
Building each other up.
What's this mean?
Simply put, it's recognizing that everybody has a set of gifts, a set of skills, right?
Different strengths, different potentials that can be used in building up the kingdom.
More often than not, though, we overlook those things.
You know, somebody who plays an instrument and they play it well, they're looking for a place where they can go and they can share this gift.
Maybe they're giving a little upset.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll find you something, sure.
And they're pushed to the side, right?
Maybe you have an idea when you're at work how to improve things.
And you take it, oh, no, no, no, that's not going to work.
We're going to keep doing this because it's the way we've always done it.
Everybody has ideas.
Everybody has potential.
Everybody has certain things that are in them, things that the Lord has spoken into them to share, not just within the body, but to share with the world, to show God's light, to share God's love.
It's like, look what the Lord has done for me.
And if he can do this for me, what can he do for you?
As Proverbs 27, 17 puts it, iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
So we need to acknowledge each other's skills and build each other up so we can learn what each every person has to say.
Let's face it, even here, Pastor Mark is out sick.
What happens?
Somebody else comes in to speak, right?
We don't just shut things down.
It's like, no, we got one person one way.
If it's not him, then we're done.
It's bunk.
We have to acknowledge everybody has something.
I come up here, I can play the bass.
I know a couple things on guitar.
I'm not a guitarist, though.
She can play guitar pretty good.
She sings amazingly.
My singing might come out like a cat in a pillowcase, a bit swung around, you know?
Certain things we have an understanding of.
Doug, he's amazing.
You sit there and you talk with Doug and he can pull out scripture.
I have to look sometimes.
Well, more often than not, I'm not good with names and numbers.
But this man can pull it up on.
It's amazing.
We can't push that stuff to the side.
All of this is meant to work together.
All of us are meant to work together, right?
The Bible speaks of the left hand and the right hand.
But you think about even more than that, you know, your feet.
You go underneath that.
You have muscles.
You have tendons.
All of them act differently.
Your heart, your lungs.
You know, Matthew 5 verses 14 through 16, Jesus says,
You are the light of the world, a town built on a hill cannot be hidden.
Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.
Instead, they put it on a stand and it gives light to everyone in the house.
The same way let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
So you have to ask yourself, what's this look like?
Well, in the context of talking to others, it looks a little different to everybody.
You take into account speaking in tongues, for example, right?
Usually somebody brings up speaking in tongues.
They're talking about speaking in another language, right?
But what I was talking about earlier, jargon, that's another form of tongues.
See, if we break it down a little bit further, it's actually being able to speak to people in a way that they can understand.
That is what it is.
It is the most basic point.
I'll paint you a picture here.
There's a veteran.
He's at work. He's sitting at his desk.
He's kind of down, a little depressed.
A fellow veteran comes by, sees him at his desk.
Hey, dirtbag, how you doing?
See your heart at work doing nothing?
Tell your dog I said hi, and he walks away.
Now, face value, that sounded kind of a little rough, right?
A little gruff.
Guy's boss comes through a little bit later.
Hey, Bob, how you doing?
Well, I got here this morning.
I was a little down in the dumps.
I wasn't feeling too good, a little depressed.
A friend came by and said hi.
Made me feel better.
Everybody has a way to talk to people.
Everybody has a way of talking to their friends, right?
This friend, to the stranger walking by, whoa, that was hideous.
That was horrible.
Why would you say such a thing?
But to his friend, he just said, hey, I see you're sitting there,
you're kind of down in the dumps.
Don't forget, I love you.
I'm here when you're ready to talk if you need me.
And he walked away.
Our friends have a way of lifting us up like that.
That in itself is a gift.
That is also a way of speaking to people.
That is a type of tongue in itself.
It's a language in and of itself.
Which is all the more reason when we hear things being said,
we shouldn't be getting offended for other people.
We shouldn't be jumping the gun because we don't necessarily know
what's going on or what's actually being said.
Politics is enough to get that picture across.
You try to look through some of that paperwork,
some of those laws that are passed.
Kind of feel like you need a decoder ring sometimes, right?
Someone to translate that.
So these are things that we need to keep in mind when we're talking to others.
1 John chapter 3 verse 15, the word says,
whoever hates his brother as a murderer,
you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
So we can't be out there spewing venom and then spewing love.
They don't work hand in hand like that.
They don't exist together the same way.
You don't have God's grace and sin in one place.
They cannot.
God will not tolerate that.
That's why when he calls out certain sins,
he calls them abominations, right?
It's the same thing for us.
We cannot be speaking in hate.
When we get mad and we start slamming somebody and putting them down,
or maybe there's a group of people, right?
There's this thing that's called illusory truth effect.
Illusory truth effect is this phenomenon where you hear something over and over
enough times, you start to believe it.
You take that person that's told they're no good.
They're worthless.
You look at our homeless population out here and how people speak of them.
A bunch of lowlife junkies and drunks prostituting themselves
to make a quick buck so they can get high again.
This is the type of rhetoric that's spoken about them over and over again.
And yet we, as Christians, sit here and wonder,
why aren't they doing more than what they are?
Why aren't they picking themselves up and getting back out there,
trying to find work?
Somebody puts you down enough times, you start to believe what they're saying.
And what's worse is when you're struggling with addiction and the other sins
that you're trying to overcome and you have that on top of it,
you've been turned away from the light.
It's back here and you're facing into the abyss.
How are you supposed to start marching towards the light
if you don't even know where it's at?
For your own shadow.
And when we put people down, even if it's in the heat of the moment,
you can come back later that, oh, I didn't mean it.
The damage has already been done.
You know, I think back, what were we taught growing up?
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
That's not true.
Words have power.
Words absolutely have power, which is my last point.
People get hung up on swearing, foul language.
Should we use it? No, we really shouldn't.
We're going to hear it. Most of us, we're still going to use it.
Should we though? No, we should be striving for something better.
However, often we kind of look in the wrong place when we look at this,
especially when we're looking in the Bible.
Like I said earlier, like the Bible tells us, we should be lifting each other up.
Our foul language swear and swearing are two different things.
Unfortunately, today, our society and our culture uses these words interchangeably.
They've robbed some of the meaning from them.
And I'll point you to it here in just a second.
You know, as Christians, I just want to say this is something we need to be mindful of.
We need to be on the alert for.
Because what I'm going to go into next is one of the least contested parts of the Bible,
but one of the most legalistic parts.
How often are we out there, especially with heated arguments, you hear somebody say, oh, I swear.
I swear to God.
If I hear somebody say this one more time, this person does this one more time, I'm going to.
Right?
It's probably safe to say all of us in this room have said that at least once in our lives.
I know I have. Right?
Turn with me to Genesis chapter 15, verses 8 through 16.
So Genesis 15, verses 8 through 16.
This is one of those places it's great to highlight or to underline, make a note of, you know, in the margins.
This is something great to come back to, to review and to study for yourself.
As is all scripture, you should never just take my word or Pastor Mark's.
We should all be studying the word for ourselves. Right?
Genesis 15, verses 8 through 16.
The word says, but Abram said, Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?
So the Lord said to him, bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.
Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two, arranged the halves opposite of each other.
The birds, however, he did not cut in half.
The birds of prey came down to the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.
Then the Lord said to him, Know for certain that for 400 years your descendants will be strangers in a country, not their own,
and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there, but I will punish the nation they serve as slaves.
And afterwards they will come out with great possessions.
You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.
In the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.
When the sun has set and darkness had fallen, a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.
On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram.
So I want you to keep this in mind, especially the torch passing between the two pieces.
All right, and with that, keep it in mind, because this is a covenant, this is a promise that's being made.
So with that, just to give a little bit more clarity, right, turn to Jeremiah 34.
So Jeremiah 34 verses 17 through 22.
It's Jeremiah 34, 17 through 22.
The word says, this is what the Lord says, you have not obeyed me.
You have not proclaimed freedom to your own people.
So I now proclaim freedom for you, declares the Lord, freedom to fall by the sword, plague and famine.
I will make you abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth.
Those who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me.
I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces.
The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priest and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf.
I will deliver into the hands of the enemies who want to kill them.
Their dead bodies will come for food and the birds, excuse me, for the birds and the wild animals.
So going back, again, this is a promise, right, a covenant, it's a promise.
That flame that was coming through the two pieces, that was the Lord.
See, these days we think of money.
We need to remember back then they didn't use coin the same way we did.
For most people, their livestock, their land, that was their fortune.
Remember Job when he lost all this stuff?
That was his fortune.
So when somebody had a contract, when they were making a promise, when they were giving their word and they brought out a calf.
And in this place, we see three animals, right, and they're told to be at least three years of age.
Why three years? To make sure that they were mature.
So these are good animals that could provide a lot for Abram at this point.
And he's being told, bring me these three, right.
And then what happens?
They're cut in half and separated opposite of each other.
So back in these days, when somebody had a contract, when they made a promise, they would take these beasts, they would cut them in half.
All parties that were involved would walk around, come full circle.
And then they'd walk up and through the two pieces of the animal.
And basically, this is a visual public proclamation saying, if I don't do what I'm supposed to, if I don't hold up my part of the bargain,
if I don't keep my word, may I be killed and torn apart like this animal.
I swear I'm going to do what I'm supposed to, and if I don't, take the life from me.
Let that sink in for a second.
And yet we're out here, oh, I swear to God, Lord is my witness.
This right here, this is the basis of the commandment, you shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain.
For the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
That's what it's coming from, that we shouldn't be swearing,
which makes it all the worse when somebody makes comments like this or they break their promises.
You know, we use different derivatives even, you know, cheese and rice, GD, all that kind of stuff, right?
We hear them out there all the time.
It doesn't matter, the intent is still there and you're still swearing.
And the reason why we were given this commandment is because the Lord is saying, hey, I don't want part in your petty squabbles.
I don't want any part of this ridiculous childish shenanigans.
You keep my name out of your mouth, don't bring me into it, right?
It's like when you're bickering with your siblings, mom, dad, and they're like, knock it off.
That's what the Lord is saying.
So whether you mean it or not, every time you utter these words, when you get upset, oh man, I swear,
you're bringing the Lord into a place he doesn't even want to be in.
There's a lot of darkness there, right? A lot of hate, a lot of discontent, a lot of venom.
Jesus, he went to the cross and he paid that price for us so that we can see the error in our way,
so we can turn from the error of our ways, so we can turn from the world to the light.
He didn't pay that price so we could speak ill of each other and treat each other like dirt.
So we could put politics and celebrities before we put Jesus.
Other idols that are being put before Jesus, that's not why he died for us.
He died to give us that example, to lift us up, to empower us so that we can bring our praise
and to glorify him, to share the gospel and to share the light with the world, right?
So when you leave here today, you need to ask yourself, am I pushing down my neighbor
or am I lifting them up?
Lord, we thank you for bringing us together today.
We thank you for this time in the Word. We thank you for loving us, making the sacrifices for us that you do
and to gently remind us every time we need a reminder, especially when we let our emotions get the best of us.
We ask that you steer us in the directions that we need to go and away from those that we don't,
that you separate us from those petty arguments and the bickerings and all that selfish nonsense that goes on
before we get caught up in it and get carried away.
We ask that you use us so that when we come across this that we can intervene for others to shine your light
and show what you have taught and what you have said and what's right versus what's wrong
to help people no longer have a hardened heart but to soften to one another
and to actually try to work things out in peace as you would have us do.
Guide us all home safely and guide us through the world as only you can.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
Thank you all for joining us here today at Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
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We look forward to hearing from you all. God bless.