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You can have all of me

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Every single little peace

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You can have it all

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Welcome to Hub City Vineyard.

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To get connected or to give online,

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go to hcv.church or give.htv.church.

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If at any point during this message

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you feel called to make a change in your life,

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text change me to 970-00.

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Thank you and enjoy the message.

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So if you are here for the first time,

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we want to say good morning and welcome.

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Carl Hartman and myself, my name is Rhett Troxel.

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We actually are part of the worship team

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here at Hub City Vineyard.

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So this is a bit out of our comfort zone.

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I'm going to tell you now,

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the thing that we are the most nervous about today

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is having this microphone that I can't pull away from my face.

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So that's my most nerve-racking thing about this morning.

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But we just want to say good morning to you and God bless you.

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We're just so happy and thankful to have this opportunity

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to bring the message that we hope is going to be impactful

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to your hearts, to your minds, to your souls.

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I had the great privilege of being here yesterday.

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Tracy and Christy put me at the front door to welcome,

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which I think was a really good thing.

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But I also said hi and was goofing and laughing around

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with my buddy Nathan to about 500 people.

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So I'm hoping that my voice holds out for today

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given this message.

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But if you were part of that,

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we just want to say sincerely from the bottom of our heart,

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thank you so much.

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You have no idea the impact that that has

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on the kingdom of heaven.

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You have no idea the reach that that has to giving people.

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I got to see girls and boys walk out of here

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with smiles on their faces, holding book bags

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that they otherwise would not be able to have.

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And just what a blessing.

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What a blessing.

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I had a memory pop up on my Facebook memories this week.

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From exactly 10 years ago.

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And it was Chris and he was celebrating the fact

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that he couldn't believe that we were able to give away

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115 backpacks 10 years ago.

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Yesterday we gave away 1,115 backpacks.

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Come on.

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Yeah.

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So and that's not to like shine light on the number of backpacks,

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but it's really to shine light on just the reach

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that we are having in our community.

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So thank you so much.

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Thank you so much.

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We appreciate you.

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We love you.

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We're grateful for that.

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So as we kick off the second week of one on one

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conversations on the couch, if you were here last week,

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you heard our associate pastor Rudy give mention that two years ago,

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Chris came to me and asked me to give a message and I thought,

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Chris, what do you think if we switch it up a bit

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and I can ask my best friend Carl Hartman to come up here

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and we can just sit down and have a casual conversation.

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And Chris was like, that would be interesting,

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but yeah, let's give it a shot.

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We didn't really know if it would take,

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but the feedback was largely popular.

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So we're really excited to be able to give a whole sermon series

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during the month of August where we're just going to flip the script

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a little bit, we're going to change things up

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and we're going to just have a seat on the couch.

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And I want to tell you the reason that this series has come to fruition

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is because this man here is my best friend.

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And one of my favorite things to do in this life

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is just to sit down with him and have a conversation.

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And that's what prompted this sermon series two years ago.

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And so Carl, I just want to thank you for your friendship

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and tell you what you mean to me.

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And I'm excited that you and I are just going to have a seat.

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And these people are going to benefit from a conversation

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that we're going to have tonight.

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I cannot wait.

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The Bible says as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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And that's really an embodiment of our relationship.

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I think we've been through so much together.

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We've shared so many ups and downs just in each other's personal lives

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and with our ministry and everything.

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And I want to encourage you that if you haven't found somebody

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within this community to grow close to, to allow them to sharpen you,

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I think about like sharpening a kitchen knife.

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You know, when you're sharpening a kitchen knife, if knives had feelings,

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it probably wouldn't be very comfortable to sharpen a kitchen knife.

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It probably hurt, yeah.

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But I think for some of us, you know, we struggle with in this day and age

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just with how shallow things are, we find friends that polish us.

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They don't really sharpen our edge.

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And so a dull, polished knife isn't any better at doing its job.

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And I just want to encourage you that if you haven't found that relationship

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with people that you can be close with, that you can be honest with,

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that can really help you to grow, go out and do that.

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That's part of what this message series is really about,

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encouraging this type of relationship and conversations.

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Absolutely, absolutely.

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So what do you say we have a seat and jump into this thing?

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Let's do it.

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All right, cool.

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So Carl, to kick off today's message, I want to tell you a story.

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And the story might not make a whole lot of sense to you right now in this moment,

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but we're going to bring it back later, okay?

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So I want to tell you a story.

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So there's this guy, let's give him the name of Dave, just for the sake of conversation.

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So Dave is searching for a new hobby in his life.

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And Dave, he's a single guy, and he's just looking for something to fill up some

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of his time, and so he decides that he wants to get into the world of motorcycles.

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So he sees like some commercial on TV, and it's this guy who owned a motorcycle,

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and he's like, maybe that's what I need to do to fill my life.

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So he says, okay, there's a couple different types of motorcycles out there.

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What kind do I get?

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So he starts to do his research, and he figures out that he thinks he either wants

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to go the Harley-Davidson route on a big old sports cruiser.

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He's also looking at the dual sport, where you can ride him on the road,

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but you can ride him on the dirt as well.

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Or he's thinking about, man, maybe I want to be like a full-fledged dirt bike racer.

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So first place he goes is Harley-Davidson and Williamsport, and he's like,

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hey, I'm thinking about getting into the motorcycle world.

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I'm not sure if I want to be a cruiser, if I want to do the dual sport,

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if I want to be a motocrosser.

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And so without hesitation, they got the Harley-Davidson dealership,

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says, well, let me tell you what you don't want to do.

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Do not go the dual sport route, because that's kind of like this medium ground

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where you're not really on a sport, on a dirt bike, you're not really on a Harley-Davidson.

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You're just kind of in this middle.

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You're always going to be wanting one or the other,

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and definitely don't go the route of motocross, because you're going to find that,

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yeah, it might fill you up for a minute, and you have your thrills and your jumps,

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but I'm telling you, the thing you want to do is you want to get on a cruiser.

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But he really put down the other two areas.

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So Dave leaves, and he's like, OK, well, maybe I don't want to do that.

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So he goes to the dual sport dealership, and he asks the guy the same question,

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and that guy says, well, definitely don't go the Harley-Davidson route,

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because those things are big, and they're heavy, and they're loud, and they're obnoxious.

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Dual sport is what you want to do.

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It's the best of both worlds.

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Definitely don't go the motocross route, because you're going to be locked into that box,

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and you're going to wish that you were able to drive on the road at one point.

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So he leaves there, and he's like, man, OK.

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So last place, he goes to Twig Cycles up in Hagerstown, and that's more of the motocross world.

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So he goes there, and he asks the same question, and guess what the feedback is.

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That guy up there says, well, definitely don't get a Harley-Davidson.

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They're big, and they're slow.

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You're not going to have fun.

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Don't get a dual sport, because if you're on a dual sport,

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you're going to wish that you could take this thing to Tomahawk in West Virginia and do jumps.

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Motocross is the way to go, because you can fly high.

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You can hear the zing of the YZ.

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Motocross is the way to go.

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So the guy leaves, and he's just completely conflicted, and he's thinking, what in the world?

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What am I going to do?

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That's where I'm going to stop the story.

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So I know that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to you right now, but that's where I'm going to stop.

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Intriguing.

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And before we get going today, I want to tell you guys that Carl and I are uncomfortably comfortable in this conversation day, and here's why.

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We purposely came into this message not scripting out our talk.

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Two years ago, when we sat down, we had our bullet points ironed out,

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and we kind of knew who was going to take the lead and who we were going to kick it to.

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Purposefully today, and hopefully for the benefit of you, we want you to know that this conversation is authentic, it's organic, and it's raw.

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He did not tell me all the points that he's going to share.

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I did not tell him all the points that I'm going to share.

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We have a rough outline.

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We prepared for you.

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I don't want you to think that we didn't put any time and effort into this message,

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but we purposefully didn't tell each other what we're going to say.

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So the interaction that you see, it's real today.

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I want you to know that.

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Okay?

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I'm so excited to be able to have this conversation with you and to share this message.

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I know the concept of this message is something that I think really started taking shape probably about a year ago.

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You and I were both in this weird period of our life where we were seeing this increase in conflict,

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and it was in the culture around us, in our community,

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and a lot of this conflict seemed like it was taking place in the digital arena of social media.

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And one day I was reading through James chapter 3,

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and in this part of the Bible, James is talking about the power of our words and how we communicate with one another.

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And I was struck by the number of times that James references the tongue,

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which of course is the part of our body that we use to form words.

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The thought occurred to me that in this digital age and for our generation,

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you could easily replace the word tongue with the word thumb or thumbs.

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We've really diversified how we communicate with one another.

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So we post things online, we text one another, we email one another.

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And so the title of our message for this morning is Thumb Wars.

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And this is a reference to the game you may have played as a child with one another.

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The word thumb is referencing that digital style of communication that we're primarily talking about this morning.

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The word wars is indicative of conflict,

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but we're not really talking about conflict, you know, interpersonal conflict between two people.

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We're talking about more the internal conflict that we feel as we attempt to exercise self-control over our words,

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over how we speak to one another.

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So this morning I want to take a look at this passage of scripture from James.

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I want to hit on these points that you and I have, you know, what we've extracted from this passage of scripture.

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And then I think at the end we're going to talk about how to reset our hearts and reset our minds.

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Does that sound good to you guys?

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Okay. So God, I just thank you for this time.

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I thank you for this opportunity that we have just to have a conversation, Lord.

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God, we thank you that you're a relational God,

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that you want nothing more than for us to just look you in the eyes, to speak to you, to worship you, to engage with you.

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You're not far off. You're right here with us right now, God.

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And we thank you for that.

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I just ask that you would bless this message.

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I ask that your words would flow out of Rhett and I,

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and that we would bless your people with what you have to say this morning.

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In your name we pray. Amen. Amen.

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All right. So the passage of scripture for this morning is from James chapter three.

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And the book of James is written by, as you may have guessed, James, who is thought to be the half brother of Jesus.

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And his audience is the converted Jewish church.

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So these would have been Jews by heritage who had converted to Christianity.

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And the book of James as a whole is just a really practical study in godly living.

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So James chapter three, verse one says,

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Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers,

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because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

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We all stumble in many ways.

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Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.

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When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us,

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we can turn the whole animal or take ships as an example.

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Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds,

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they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go.

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Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts.

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Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.

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And moving on to verse nine, with the tongue we praise our Lord and father,

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and with it we curse human beings who have been made in God's likeness.

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Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing.

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My brothers and sisters, this should not be.

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So our first point for this morning is platforms are designed to elevate.

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When we think about physical platforms, when you put something up on a physical platform,

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your intention is to create greater visibility and to draw attention to it.

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Digital platforms work the same way, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

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What digital platforms do is they draw attention to our thoughts through our words.

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Sometimes too many thoughts.

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Yes, sometimes too many thoughts.

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But they draw attention to our thoughts through our words.

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And I think with the wide variety of platforms that we have available today,

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it's never been easier to share all of our thoughts with so many people.

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Quickly, too.

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Yeah, in such a fast-paced environment without thinking.

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I think you could easily make the case that our platforms are growing.

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And right off the bat, James addresses this in verse one.

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He says, not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers,

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because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

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Now, many of you this morning may be thinking to yourself,

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Carl, I'm not a teacher in a classroom.

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I don't speak or preach from a stage.

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I certainly don't have thousands of followers in social media.

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But I want to challenge you with this thought.

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We live in a broken and hurting world that is desperately searching for answers.

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As followers of Christ, every time that we interact with the world around us,

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whether it's verbally or digitally, we're teaching them something about the character of Christ.

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We are. If you're sitting in this auditorium this morning or if you're watching online,

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hello to our online community, you are a leader.

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I want you to know that. You are a leader.

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Because as Carl mentioned, if you are in this place today,

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it's because you are trying to further your relationship with Jesus

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or you are trying to better yourself in your relationship with Jesus.

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Because of that, you are spot on.

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Sometimes we think that if we're not serving or if we're not in a position of leadership,

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then we're not a leader.

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The words that come out of your mouth in the various functions of your life

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make you a leader.

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I want to empower you. I want to empower you with that this morning.

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Take that away this morning. You are a leader.

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Yep. It's not a question of whether you're a leader.

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It's a question of where are you leading the people around you?

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Where is it that you're leading them to?

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There's a fundamental truth about platforms that I've found

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that what we place upon a platform, what we elevate,

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tends to become the object of our worship.

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We see this in political parties.

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We see it in our own personal ideals.

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We see it in religion itself.

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What we elevate tends to become the object of our worship.

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We see this really early on in Israel's history.

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As Israel was getting ready to take over the promised land,

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God gave them this specific command.

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He said, I want you to go into the surrounding nations

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and I want you to tear down the high places.

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These high places, they were literal elevated areas

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where these other nations were worshiping false gods.

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God knew that if Israel didn't tear down these high places,

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they would become a snare.

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That Israel, when things got tough,

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they would be tempted to worship false gods.

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That's unfortunately exactly what happened.

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I think there's a powerful truth there that what we elevate

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tends to become the object of our worship.

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I know that's something that we're both passionate about

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as we serve in the worship ministry.

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Yeah, it's something you and I, as key leaders on our worship team,

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it's something that you and I do a good job, in my estimation,

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keeping each other in check.

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Because what we never want to create here at Hub City Vineyard

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is a culture where we worship the worship.

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Yeah.

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What I mean by that is so many times,

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and no disrespect or no fault to you guys,

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you guys will come up to me and you'll say,

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hey man, the worship was awesome today.

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Are you saying that your tangible connection with Jesus was awesome

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or are you telling me that things sounded and looked good?

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Yeah.

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Because we can create, if we're not careful,

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we can create an environment where we put things up on platforms

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and we start to worship the wrong things.

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Right.

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If you and I come up here and our goal is to produce sound

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that sounds good on a Sunday, we are missing the mark.

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That is exactly right.

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I would rather have a team who, and I love this team so much

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because I believe that our hearts are pure and we do well in this area,

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I would have a team of unskilled musicians who are passionately

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seeking out the goodness of God through worship

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than a team of polis musicians where everything sounds perfect

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but they're up here because they think they play and sound good.

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Absolutely. Absolutely.

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And I wonder how many times in our life can you take that example

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and extrapolate it out where we're not just talking about worship

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but the question for you today is what's on your platform?

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What is on that shelf in your life where you may be elevated

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to an unhealthy level of worship?

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It's good to want to do good at your job,

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but if you're going about it in the wrong way

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and you're undercutting people to get to the top,

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that's an area where you really have to check your heart

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and you have to understand what am I worshiping?

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What is on that platform?

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Absolutely. Absolutely.

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And I think that ties into my next thought here,

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that platforms can be a pathway to pride if we're not careful.

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And this is true, I think, not just for physical platforms,

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like what we're sitting on right now, but also digital platforms.

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When you think about social media,

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it's just built on this concept of self-promotion.

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We take pictures of ourselves, we post updates about ourselves,

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we talk about ourselves on and on and on,

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what we're thinking, what we're feeling, what we're eating.

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And I think that that ultimately can lead us,

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that focus on self-promotion can lead us towards pride.

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And followers of Christ, as compared to that,

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followers of Christ are called to live in humility,

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because I think if you look further on in the book of James,

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chapter four, he says,

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God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble.

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Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.

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So when you think about elevation,

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it's not just the fact that we are elevated,

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it's the nature of our elevation.

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Are we elevating ourselves, or are we humbling ourselves before God

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and allowing God to elevate us?

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Yeah, there's a verse in the Bible that's coming to my mind,

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and it's money is the root of all evil.

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I think pride's a close second.

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Absolutely.

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Because I think, and we're going to talk a lot today about social media,

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but we want you to know this is not just pertinent to those who have Facebook

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and Instagram and Twitter.

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If you don't have a social media platform in here,

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this is still for you because social media tweets and posts and everything else,

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it's the same thing that comes out of it.

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We all have a platform.

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But I think if you look at a lot of the things that come out of our mouth

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that get us in trouble, you can trace back to the root of pride.

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Absolutely.

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If somebody says something that you don't agree with,

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our first instinct is usually to respond back.

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Why is that?

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Because we want to be right.

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We want to get people to see our side of things.

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And sometimes we do that at all costs.

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We will sever a relationship with somebody.

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We will use inflammatory words because we want them to see our point of view.

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Why do you want them to see your point of view?

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Because you want to be right.

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Why do you want to be right?

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Because you want to feel good about yourself.

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And what is that?

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That is pride.

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That is pride.

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So I want to read this verse again.

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God opposes the proud.

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So if you are prideful in here, this verse is telling us that God opposes that.

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God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.

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Humble.

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Humility I think is one of the most attractive features in mankind.

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And maybe it's because I'm so against pride.

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But I think humility is such a beautiful thing.

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When you see somebody considering others as greater than themselves,

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those are attractive people.

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Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.

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So platforms are designed to elevate.

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What's thought two, Carl?

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Thought two, our words have weight.

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Look at your neighbor and tell them, I'm watching my weight.

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Oh, what if it's not true?

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Can I still say it?

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Say it anyway.

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I'm watching my weight.

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Continuing on in James chapter three, James compares the tongue to a small bit

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that guides a large horse.

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He compares it to a small rudder that guides a large ship.

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And he compares it to a small spark that starts a large fire.

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And I think clearly James is trying to draw our attention to the power that we have in our words.

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The fact that our words have weight.

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Proverbs 18, 21 puts it this way.

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The tongue has the power of life and death.

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And those who love it will eat its fruit.

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Now, I don't think the message here is that, you know, the tongue has the power of Jesus or John Wick.

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I think a better way to frame it is that every time that we communicate with other human beings,

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every time that we talk to other people, it's like we're giving them a set of directions.

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And we're either leading them towards Jesus or away from Jesus.

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And, you know, I think I've seen this trend that's, I think, started online

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and has now become part of our everyday speech where somebody will post something

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that's a little bit controversial, a little bit edgy.

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And at the end of their post, they'll tag it with hashtag just saying.

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I knew you were going to say that.

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And, you know, it's something that we do in our speech too.

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It's completely insulting or offensive to somebody else.

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And we think that we can get by and we'll say, just saying, you know.

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And I think as followers of Christ, I know I'm probably going to step on some toes this morning,

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but knowing that our words have weight, that the tongue has the incredible power of life and death,

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we should never be just saying.

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We should always be seeking to honor God with our words.

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And I think sometimes that we miss the mark here because we're not always aware

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of the impact of what we're saying until after the fact.

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Yeah, that's good.

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And I think as the hashtag just saying comes at the end, I am guilty of this too.

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I'll engage in conversations even if it's just with my wife, Katie, or some of our best friends.

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I'll say something at the front to try to offset it like, hey, I don't mean to be controversial,

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but and then the thing that comes out of my mouth is controversial.

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Or, hey, I'm really not trying to start drama here, but and then I'll start drama.

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Or, hey, I'm really not trying to be disrespectful, but.

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That's exactly what you're doing.

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It's like we think if we use this hashtag just saying, or if we give the disclaimer up front

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that we're not trying to be, but then we are that it cancels each other out.

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And you're right, as followers of Jesus, we're not afforded that opportunity

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because everything that comes out of our mouth has to be something that is producing life,

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something that is producing fruit in people.

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There's no disclaimers in the Bible.

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There's no, never once did you see Jesus say something that didn't align with the way that he believed

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or the way that he lived and then say, oh, I was just saying.

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Everything that came out of Jesus' mouth was pure, was holy, was rich.

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And that's because he knew his time on this earth was short and every syllable counted.

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Yep, Jesus never wasted his words.

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Because he understood that his words have weight.

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And again, I think sometimes we miss this because we don't always understand the impact

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of what we're saying until after the fact.

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A couple months ago, my son Jake had surgery and he was just recently cleared for physical activity.

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And one of the first things that he asked for, he wanted us to take him to a local playground.

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So we all got together, we went to the playground,

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and I got the bright idea that I was going to join him on the playground.

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So I was swinging on the swings and I was hanging on the monkey bars and doing flips over the pull-up bar.

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Tell me we have video.

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No, I'll cast you my, but I don't have one, not one prepared.

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But I didn't think much about it.

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I got home that night, went to bed, woke up the next morning, and I realized that my neck was stiff

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and my back was aching.

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And I said to my wife, I said, babe, did I miss something?

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Did I like black out on the way home when we got in a car wreck?

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Good grief, I think I got whiplash from the playground.

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And the thing is like I didn't understand the impact of my decision until after the fact.

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And while you may not get physical whiplash from something that you have posted online,

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you can definitely get the verbal equivalent.

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You can get word whiplash or as I call it, word lash.

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You know what I'm talking about.

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Word lash.

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Yeah.

473
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:19,000
You know you're dealing with a bad case of word lash when you post something online

474
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:26,000
and you spend the next six hours of your life with your time spread equally between responding to angry comments,

475
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:34,000
leaving voicemails for your therapist, and binge eating an entire bag of tater tots.

476
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:40,000
Our words have weight and we have to understand the impact because number three,

477
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:44,000
culture invites us to fight on the wrong level.

478
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:45,000
That's good.

479
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:49,000
I'm going to take a quick poll here this morning and I want you to be honest with me.

480
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:56,000
How many people here today legitimately thought that you would see the day when the two CEOs

481
00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:00,000
from the top two social media global companies in the world,

482
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:05,000
we're going to challenge one another to a cage match?

483
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:06,000
I got to be honest.

484
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:12,000
I did not see, I did not have, you know, Musk versus Zuckerberg on my bingo card of notable events for 2023.

485
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:13,000
No.

486
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:14,000
No.

487
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:17,000
But culture is inviting us to fight on the wrong level.

488
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:22,000
And I think we need to be aware that we live every day simultaneously between two kingdoms.

489
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:26,000
We live in the current present kingdom of the here and now.

490
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:27,000
Yep.

491
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:33,000
And because of our relationship with Christ, we live connected to the perfect eternal kingdom of heaven.

492
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,000
These two kingdoms are in constant conflict.

493
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:42,000
And because of this, it's so important for us to understand who the enemy is.

494
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:48,000
Ephesians chapter six says, our struggle is not against flesh and blood,

495
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:54,000
but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world,

496
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:59,000
and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

497
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:04,000
What this means is that if the first thing that comes to your mind,

498
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:09,000
when I say the word enemy, is another human being,

499
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:15,000
then you need to recalibrate your internal targeting system because you are aiming for the wrong thing.

500
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:19,000
Our enemy is not other human beings that are made in God's image.

501
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:24,000
Our enemy is the powers of darkness that are seeking to upend the kingdom of heaven.

502
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:30,000
And when we look at these verses from James chapter three, he really hits on this in verse nine.

503
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:34,000
He says, with the tongue, we praise our Lord and Father.

504
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:39,000
And with it, we curse human beings who have been made in God's likeness.

505
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:43,000
Now, I'm going to put on my biblical scholar hat here for a second.

506
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:50,000
The word that James uses for the word curse is found elsewhere in scripture.

507
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:55,000
So in the gospels, there's an account where Jesus is traveling between Jerusalem and Bethany,

508
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:58,000
and he comes across a fig tree.

509
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:01,000
And this fig tree had leaves out, it was blossoming,

510
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:05,000
and by every visual indicator, it should have been bearing fruit.

511
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:11,000
The Bible says that Jesus was hungry, so he went up to the tree, but he found no fruit.

512
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:15,000
And so he cursed it. He said, may you never bear fruit again.

513
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:20,000
The word that's used to describe Jesus' interaction with the tree

514
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:26,000
is the same word that James uses to describe our interaction with other human beings.

515
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:29,000
And I want to draw this connection between these two passages of scripture.

516
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:34,000
When we speak maliciously against other people, when we curse them,

517
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:39,000
we can unintentionally limit their ability to bear fruit.

518
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:42,000
Amen. Amen.

519
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:47,000
And I think we need to take this even further into how we quote scripture,

520
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:50,000
whether it's verbally or on social media.

521
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:56,000
How we use scripture should be similar to how we would use a flare gun.

522
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:58,000
So when you think about how we use a flare gun,

523
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:02,000
you point a flare gun straight up to draw attention for rescue.

524
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:03,000
You shoot it straight in the air.

525
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,000
You wouldn't take a flare gun and shoot it into a crowd of people

526
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,000
because you would seriously injure someone.

527
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:14,000
How we quote scripture works the same way.

528
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:19,000
When we quote scripture, we should always be doing it to point back to a loving father

529
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:22,000
who loved us so much that he gave his only son for us.

530
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:26,000
The problem is when we weaponize scripture, whether it's verbally or on social media,

531
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:29,000
and we point it towards other people, we weaponize it,

532
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:34,000
we can seriously cause damage to other people and their walk with God.

533
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:37,000
That's good.

534
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,000
Pesticides or miracle grow?

535
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:41,000
You get to spray one of them on a tree.

536
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:43,000
The tree is the people in your life,

537
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:47,000
and your words are either the pesticide or the miracle grow that goes on it.

538
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:48,000
One is going to produce life.

539
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:50,000
One is going to produce brilliant foliage.

540
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:51,000
One is going to produce growth,

541
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:55,000
and the other one is going to kill the root structure and end up killing the person.

542
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,000
And while that seems a bit extreme, it seems a bit dramatic,

543
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:04,000
I believe that our words literally can send people down one of those two paths.

544
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:05,000
Absolutely.

545
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:08,000
I have had numerous people in my life, whether it was something that I said

546
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:10,000
or whether it was a story they were telling me,

547
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:14,000
say that they're up here on this stage because of a single word that someone told them.

548
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:16,000
And one day someone said, I believe in you.

549
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:18,000
I think you're going to be successful in this.

550
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:19,000
And that was enough to propel them.

551
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:23,000
What if that person, there's someone in my life who spoke

552
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,000
that I was going to be a powerful worship leader years and years and years ago.

553
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:29,000
If that person wouldn't have spoken at the end of my life, I might not be here today.

554
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,000
But because that person literally came up to me without knowing me and said,

555
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:35,000
I feel that there's a special gift on your life to lead worship.

556
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:37,000
I did lead worship at the time.

557
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:41,000
I played guitar and sang, but singing on a stage was foreign to me.

558
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:44,000
But because that person believed in me, because that person told me that,

559
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:46,000
here I am living out the fruits of those words.

560
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:50,000
If she wouldn't have said that to me, if she would have decided to keep her mouth quiet on that day,

561
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:51,000
I might not be here today.

562
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:53,000
And this is one of my greatest privileges in life.

563
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:54,000
Thank God.

564
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,000
So, what are you praying?

565
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:59,000
I'm praying for the outside or miracle girl.

566
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:00,000
What are you spraying?

567
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:01,000
What are you spraying?

568
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:04,000
There's something that you and I were texting and getting ready for this week

569
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:06,000
that I want to give to people because I think it's a good thought.

570
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:08,000
I texted Carl and I said,

571
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:16,000
social media provokes us to have deep conversations on a platform that is extremely shallow.

572
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:18,000
I'm going to say it again.

573
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:23,000
Social media provokes us to have deep conversations on a platform that is extremely shallow.

574
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:29,000
And what that means is so many times, I've done it in my past, I'm not here judging, I've been that person.

575
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:36,000
I've engaged in conversations that I know are dead ends because you can't get deep enough with the person

576
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:42,000
to have a meaningful conversation because the Facebook and Twitter and Instagram platforms are this deep.

577
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:45,000
What you're trying to talk to somebody is this deep.

578
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:51,000
And what happens if you jump in a pool head first in the shallow end?

579
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:52,000
You're going to get hurt.

580
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:54,000
You're going to get hurt.

581
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:58,000
So for those of you that do have social media in here today, I want to issue a challenge.

582
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:03,000
Watch what you post because true as I'm sitting here today,

583
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:07,000
I know that there are people in this room who claim to be followers of Jesus.

584
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:15,000
But I see engaging in dialogue on social media that is not doing anything good for the Christian church.

585
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:17,000
That is not doing anything good for the kingdom.

586
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:21,000
A couple years ago when the whole political rate, I mean, not that it's died down any now,

587
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:25,000
but when it was Trump versus Biden and they had all those celebrities that were saying,

588
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:28,000
well, if Trump gets reelected, I'm leaving the country.

589
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:32,000
There was literally people in our church, Carl, who were applauding and saying, get out of here.

590
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,000
We don't want you in our country. We don't need you here.

591
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,000
And then inviting people to church the next day.

592
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:39,000
So if you're telling someone that they don't believe in your political views,

593
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:42,000
you're OK with them leaving the country, but yet you're saving them a seat in church.

594
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:43,000
Those two messages don't align.

595
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:49,000
When you look at the gospel, Jesus was inherently non-political.

596
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:54,000
The only kingdom that he was interested in elevating was the kingdom of heaven,

597
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:58,000
even though all of the people around him, all of the Jewish culture around him,

598
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:02,000
they were trying to bring up Israel as its own state.

599
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:06,000
And the Romans around them were trying to advocate for their emperor.

600
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:10,000
Everybody around him was political and even his disciples failed to get that.

601
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:13,000
You see some of the things that they said to him towards the end.

602
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:17,000
They were really encouraging him to try to kind of overthrow the establishment.

603
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:19,000
And that just wasn't what he was here to do.

604
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,000
And it's not part of what we're here to do either.

605
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:26,000
You know, we're here to love and to offer grace and to bring people to Jesus.

606
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:30,000
Yeah. So why do we say the things that we do?

607
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:31,000
Why do we post things to do?

608
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:36,000
Our thought for today is intake impacts outflow.

609
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:37,000
Yeah.

610
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:39,000
Intake impacts outflow.

611
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:42,000
So the question for you today is what are you ingesting on a daily basis?

612
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:44,000
What are you allowing to have hold in your life?

613
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:46,000
What are you allowing yourself to be subjected to?

614
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:52,000
You see, we are inundated with things that produce anxiety in our lives.

615
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:57,000
We live in the age of social media and 24-7 news coverage

616
00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:02,000
and always feeling like we need to be only up and up with every little thing that's happening in the world.

617
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:07,000
And we have most likely been subjected to these anxious thoughts.

618
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:12,000
And if we allow the wrong stuff to get in our body, what is the result of that?

619
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:15,000
We're going to output the wrong stuff as well.

620
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:18,000
If you're ingesting good stuff, let's just look at it from a health perspective.

621
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:21,000
If you're eating your fruits and vegetables and your vitamins and you have a healthy diet,

622
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:26,000
your body is going to be better ready to face the challenge of the day and be in a better physical state.

623
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:29,000
If all you're doing is going to McDonald's for three times a day,

624
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:32,000
you are going to see the effects of that in your physical health.

625
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:36,000
It's same relationally. It's same spiritually. It's same emotionally.

626
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:43,000
If you allow yourself to be subjected with just the wrong stuff, you are going to produce the wrong stuff.

627
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:49,000
Matthew 15 10 17 through 20 says, And he called the people to him and said to them,

628
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:55,000
Hear and understand it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth.

629
00:33:55,000 --> 00:34:02,000
This defiles a person. Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?

630
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:07,000
But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart.

631
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:17,000
And this defiles a person for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

632
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:24,000
These are what defile a person. So what are you allowing to get into your heart?

633
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:31,000
Facebook posts, 24 7 news coverage, the next conspiracy theory.

634
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:41,000
Do we really need to know about every detail of life that is going on in obscure places of the globe that could possibly potentially one day interconnect with our way of life?

635
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:46,000
No, I don't think we do. Carl, this is an illustration that I thought about.

636
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:54,000
You know, as we all go to the gas pumps, sheets and BP in particular have made it extremely difficult to realize which one is diesel and which one is regular.

637
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:56,000
Thirty seven options for gas.

638
00:34:56,000 --> 00:35:03,000
Yeah, they have their their advertisement at the BP that I go to is anything in diesel is green, like it's all like it's green.

639
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:08,000
But the pump has a black handle. The diesel pump has a black handle on it and the regular one has a green handle on it.

640
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:16,000
And I filled up there 4200 times in my life. And every time I go to get gas, I go, OK, it is this.

641
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:19,000
I have to like recalibrate my brain. And here's the point.

642
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:25,000
If I would put diesel fuel in my gas powered engine, I'm going to have a catastrophic effect on my car.

643
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,000
You see, diesel fuel in itself is not bad. No. Right.

644
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:36,000
There's nothing wrong with diesel fuel, but inserted, injected into the wrong system can cause a massive departure from intended use.

645
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:46,000
Yeah. And something I can tell you about the situation is that if you would accidentally grab the wrong handle and fill your gas engine with diesel and you want to remedy that situation,

646
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:50,000
the first thing that you'd have to do is you would have to drain the diesel out.

647
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:57,000
But in some industrial applications, when you put the wrong fluid in the right system, you might have to take an extra step.

648
00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:00,000
You may need to flush the system. Oh, you're getting deep.

649
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:10,000
And for some of us here today, as we recognize that we've adopted wrong attitudes or wrong mindsets, wrong thought patterns, we need to allow the Holy Spirit to flush the system.

650
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:16,000
What's your flushing mechanism? Exactly. Word of God. Exactly. Yep. That's good.

651
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:22,000
OK, so let's watch and watch in the time here. Let's transition onto the used to be called the backside of the back.

652
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:32,000
Back when we had that. But in order to control the words that come out of our mouth, in order to control the things that we say to people, in order to control the things that we post online,

653
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:38,000
I believe that we need to learn how to reset our hearts.

654
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:42,000
Anyone younger than the age of 19 probably won't understand what I'm getting ready to say.

655
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:50,000
But how many of you old people in here, including myself, used to remember the famous keystroke control on delete on the computer? Right. Yep. Right.

656
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:57,000
There you are on Napster or LimeWire downloading the illegal stuff and retroxels early albums.

657
00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:03,000
You don't want to hear that. And what happens? You get you get the circle of death. Right. So start spinning.

658
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:08,000
You click on Excel and it comes up, but it freezes. And shoot, man, here you are. Now you're stuck.

659
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:15,000
So what do you do? Control, delete. The task manager pops up and you can find the program that says in parentheses not responding.

660
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:23,000
You click on it, hit end task and what happens? Man, you're back. Right. You're back and running because you killed the program that was taking up all the bandwidth here.

661
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:31,000
Here in this day and age, sometimes we just turn it off and turn it back on. Right. So if my phone's acting up and I just this is this is a cool feature.

662
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:35,000
I don't know if you guys know this, but if you hold these top two buttons on your phone, you get this prompt that comes up.

663
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:41,000
You can actually turn these things off. Did you know that? Did you know that? Yes. You can turn these things off.

664
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:46,000
So you need to learn how to turn your phone off. But anyway, sometimes I'll tip my wife is famous for that.

665
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:50,000
She'll be like, babe, my phone's not working. I can't send a picture when I call you. It's cutting out.

666
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:54,000
I'm like, just turn it turn it off and turn it back on. And 10 seconds later, hey, it worked. Thanks.

667
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:59,000
It's a magical thing. It's a reset, right? It's a system reset. She's resetting her phone.

668
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:04,000
Sometimes we control off, delete and we reset the programming on our computers. I don't think our lives are any different.

669
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:12,000
No. So our action steps today are going to be around controlling our thoughts, controlling our conscious, altering our approach and deleting.

670
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:18,000
I'm not going to give away your teaser at the end. But how the question for you guys today is how often are you resetting your hearts?

671
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:22,000
Yeah. Sometimes it can just be a quick 30 second minute with God.

672
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:27,000
Sometimes it may be a Bible study that you need to get in with a group of friends who are going to challenge you in a certain area of your life.

673
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:31,000
Sometimes it's joining a small group. We do a really good job of encouraging small groups here at church.

674
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:37,000
That can be a life reset for you to get involved with people who are going to speak life into you.

675
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:44,000
How many remember the infomercial set it and forget it? Forget it. Forget it. Right. I remember that was like this like rotisserie. Ronco. Ronco.

676
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:52,000
Rotisserie chicken. You know, you put it in there. I have four of them. Do you know? Wow. I eat tater tots. Come on. Tater tots. Yeah.

677
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:57,000
Don't do this on a rotisserie. But anyway, that was the famous tag. He put this thing in there and he'd say, set it.

678
00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:02,000
And the whole audience would say, and forget it. Yeah. Friends, that's got to be a thing of the past.

679
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:06,000
OK, it might work for cooking, but it doesn't work for daily life. It doesn't work for communicating.

680
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:13,000
We can't adopt a singular way of thinking and acting and pretend like it's going to be perpetually sufficient for the rest of our life.

681
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:24,000
We can't set our thoughts and forget our thoughts. You see, controlling our tongues, Carl, I believe is directly linked to being able to constantly reset our heart.

682
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:33,000
Yes. Controlling our tongues is linked to resetting our heart. So our first action step today, control your conscious.

683
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:39,000
Control your conscious. You can control your conscious when your conscious is the things that you actively think about.

684
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:45,000
Right. Not conscience. Conscious is the right word. Conscious means what you are actively thinking about in the moment.

685
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:52,000
We can learn to control those things. Remember, we just talked about intake impacts our outflow.

686
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:59,000
So if we allow ourselves to ingest the right things, we are going to have a byproduct of being able to control our conscious.

687
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:06,000
We need to actively monitor our thoughts and be aware of things in our life that are directly contradicting scripture.

688
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:12,000
You and I lead this worship team. If we would live our lives in a way that didn't align with being a worship leader, that would be a problem.

689
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:18,000
Absolutely. You and I are constantly controlling our conscious and making sure that we are speaking life into the team.

690
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:26,000
The words 423 says, above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it.

691
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:29,000
Letting your mind wander is kind of like driving without steering.

692
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:33,000
If you just put your mind on the set it and forget it, Ronco, Rotisserie Chicken autopilot,

693
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:37,000
eventually that car that you are driving is going to veer off the road at some point.

694
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:43,000
The road is going to shift and you need to be consciously aware of what it is that you are allowing yourself to ingest.

695
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:48,000
There is a Latin word that is called maramnate.

696
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:52,000
Maramnate. Maramnate. What does that word sound like to you?

697
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:55,000
Marinate. Marinate.

698
00:40:55,000 --> 00:41:02,000
So, Latin word maramnate is a Latin word for anxiety, believe it or not.

699
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:06,000
Marinate, here in the American culture, is a cooking technique.

700
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:13,000
Let's use the cooking technique of being able to take, let's say, a steak or chicken, whatever it will be, a piece of meat,

701
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:16,000
and you put it in a bag and you inject flavors into it.

702
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:21,000
That maramnate is what that steak or that piece of meat then takes the flavor of.

703
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:29,000
You take an entity, you allow it to maramnate in a substance, and the hope is that you use things that taste good and that way your steak is better.

704
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:33,000
So, the question is, what are you maramnating yourself in?

705
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:38,000
What bag are you in and what are you allowing yourself to pour in that bag?

706
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:40,000
What are you soaking yourself in?

707
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:46,000
Because, as I just mentioned, the goal of marination of steak is to produce a delicious tasting entity.

708
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:50,000
So, if we want our lives to be delicious, if we want people to love the things that we're saying,

709
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:53,000
we have to challenge ourselves with what are we marinating in?

710
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:58,000
And I want to look at a story to show how easy it is for the world that we live in today

711
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:05,000
to produce things that come out of our mouth that shouldn't be, and we're going to take it back to Mark 4, 35 through 40, 35.

712
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:07,000
You guys should all know this story, hopefully in the Bible.

713
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:09,000
The day one evening came, he said to his disciples,

714
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:12,000
let us go over to the other side, leaving the crowd behind.

715
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:14,000
They took him along just as he was in the boat.

716
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:16,000
There was also other boats with him.

717
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:23,000
A furious squall storm came up and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped.

718
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:24,000
Okay, so imagine this, right?

719
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:29,000
So imagine this, the disciples are on the boat and this is like a bad storm.

720
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:33,000
So it says furious squall, the waves are crashing, they're throwing stuff overboard,

721
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:36,000
they're up on the top deck running around, they're scared for their life.

722
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:40,000
Jesus is downstairs in the stern of the boat taking a nap.

723
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:46,000
So they run down and one of the disciples says, sorry, Jesus was in the stern sleeping on a cushion.

724
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:48,000
One of the disciples runs down all in capital.

725
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:50,000
Teacher, don't you care.

726
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:53,000
Don't you care if we drown.

727
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:56,000
You can tell that he's not casually talking to his creator.

728
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:59,000
He's not casually talking to Jesus here.

729
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:03,000
He is so marinating in the anxiety of the storm that he's in.

730
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:06,000
He runs down and he says, teacher, don't you care.

731
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:08,000
Don't you care if we drown?

732
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:14,000
And Jesus casually gets up, rebuked the winds and the waves and says, quiet, be still.

733
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:16,000
Then the wind died down and was completely calm.

734
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:18,000
He said to his disciples, why are you so afraid?

735
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:20,000
Do you still have no faith?

736
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:23,000
The disciples were on a boat with Jesus.

737
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:27,000
The one who created the storm itself, the one who created the storm itself,

738
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:30,000
the one who had the power to say, quiet, be still.

739
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:31,000
They knew who Jesus was.

740
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:33,000
They knew of his power.

741
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:38,000
Yet they were so ridden with anxiety in their lives that they forgot to remember that the storm

742
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:43,000
that they were in was able to be turned off by the one who created it himself.

743
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:47,000
And I wonder how many times in our life we forget that,

744
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:51,000
or we give more power to the storm that we are in thinking that the one who created it

745
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:53,000
isn't good enough to solve it for us.

746
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:55,000
They were so ridden with anxiety.

747
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:59,000
They were so marinating in their anxiety that the thing that came out of their mouth was,

748
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:02,000
teacher, don't you care.

749
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:04,000
Do you think the disciples knew that Jesus cared about them?

750
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:05,000
I think they did.

751
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:06,000
I think they did. I think they knew that.

752
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,000
But what came out of their mouth in the moment was a reaction

753
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:11,000
because they were marinating in the wrong stuff.

754
00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:12,000
They were so scared.

755
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:15,000
How many times do the things that come out of our mouth sound like that

756
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:19,000
when we know we have the one in the stern of our boat?

757
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:20,000
That's with us.

758
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:23,000
I am by no means a grill master.

759
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:26,000
My daughter would probably say otherwise because she loves when I cook on the grill.

760
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:31,000
But when I marinate something in a piece of meat,

761
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:34,000
and when I pick the herbs and the spices and the fluid that I'm going to use,

762
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:40,000
my intention is to bring out the full potential of that piece of meat.

763
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:42,000
And just like you talked about, you know,

764
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:46,000
what we consume and what we marinate in can cause us to have anxiety.

765
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:48,000
The reverse is true as well.

766
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:52,000
So as followers of Christ, if we're willing to marinate in

767
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:55,000
or to focus on Scripture,

768
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:58,000
it can allow God to bring out the full potential of our lives.

769
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:01,000
Just like I'm trying to bring out that full potential in that piece of meat.

770
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:02,000
That's what God wants to do.

771
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:05,000
That's why he gave us his word so that he can bring out everything

772
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:07,000
that he has for us in our lives.

773
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:08,000
Amen.

774
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:11,000
All right, so as we move on today, thought number two is alter your approach.

775
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:13,000
So I'm going to take it back to the story we just talked about.

776
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:15,000
Remember the story about Dave and the motorcycle?

777
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:18,000
Dave ended up walking away from motorcycles, remember,

778
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:22,000
because the three places that he went turned him off to the other two areas

779
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:24,000
that he thought surely there's no good option out there.

780
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:29,000
Because no matter where I go, no matter what I do, no matter what I choose,

781
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:34,000
I'm going to be missing something in the other areas.

782
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:38,000
I read a Facebook post years and years and years and years and years ago,

783
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:41,000
and it was about a guy who was leaving a church.

784
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:45,000
And when he left the church, he thought that the proper thing to do

785
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:49,000
was to go on Facebook and air out all the church's dirty laundry.

786
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:57,000
And when I read that, I was so disheartened because that person used his platform,

787
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:01,000
which elevated him, and he didn't choose the weight of his words carefully.

788
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:06,000
And I read that article and I wondered to myself, how many nonbelievers

789
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:10,000
or how many people who are thinking about getting into the Christian faith

790
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:12,000
are going to read this and think,

791
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:16,000
this guy's just going on here and just dragging this church and the pastor

792
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:19,000
and the way that they manage their finances and everything else through the mud.

793
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:22,000
Why would I want anything to do with that?

794
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:27,000
And I wonder how many times as Christians is that the life that we embody on Facebook?

795
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:31,000
We get on there and even talking to people at the water cooler at work as well.

796
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:34,000
You see, all of those people at the motorcycle stores

797
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:36,000
didn't really talk about how good one thing was,

798
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:38,000
but they talked about how bad something else was.

799
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:42,000
And I feel like as Christians, we need to do better at pointing glory to God

800
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:44,000
and not taking the glory away from God.

801
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:45,000
Amen.

802
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:49,000
Because I forget, it was either Steven, thank you.

803
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:51,000
It was either Steven or Rudy, forgive me.

804
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:53,000
One of you guys put up a quote and I forget the prophet,

805
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,000
but it said, I like your Christ, but not your Christians.

806
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:56,000
Is that you?

807
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:57,000
Gandhi.

808
00:46:57,000 --> 00:46:59,000
That, man, I've never heard that before.

809
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:00,000
That broke me.

810
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:01,000
That broke me.

811
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:03,000
I love your Christ, but I don't like your Christians.

812
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:04,000
Yeah.

813
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:06,000
Guys, we don't want to be in that camp.

814
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:08,000
We don't want to be in that camp.

815
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:11,000
And I wonder how many of us are the people at the motorcycle store

816
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:14,000
airing out all the dirty laundry on the Christian church or God himself.

817
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:15,000
We got to be better.

818
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:16,000
Alter your approach.

819
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:18,000
Resetting our minds requires renewal.

820
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:20,000
Ephesians 4, 22, 24 says,

821
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:22,000
You were taught with regard to your formal way of life

822
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:26,000
to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires,

823
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:28,000
to be made new in the attitude of your minds

824
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:31,000
and to put on the new self, created to be like God

825
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:34,000
in true righteousness and holiness.

826
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:39,000
The power of your words is a reflection of the position of your heart.

827
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:42,000
If you are speaking life, you are going to be full of life.

828
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:45,000
What do you need to alter in your life this morning?

829
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:48,000
What gets your first fruits when you wake up in the morning?

830
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:51,000
Are you checking your Facebook status that you posted last night

831
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:52,000
to see how many likes you get?

832
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:55,000
Are you looking at how many people double tapped your Instagram photo

833
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:56,000
to say that they loved it?

834
00:47:56,000 --> 00:48:00,000
Are you checking the most recent tweet from Zuckerberg

835
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:01,000
or Twitter or whatever?

836
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:02,000
I don't do Twitter.

837
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:04,000
I think saying tweet is ridiculous.

838
00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:07,000
But anyway, so what and then the second thing,

839
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:09,000
what do you need to alter in your response mechanism?

840
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:12,000
Do you respond or do you react?

841
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:15,000
Do you respond or do you react?

842
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:18,000
So whether it's on a social media post or whether it's just in your everyday life,

843
00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:20,000
do you respond or do you react?

844
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:21,000
There's a difference.

845
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:26,000
Response is to provide a calculated, well thought out reply.

846
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:30,000
But to react is to give an impulsive rebuttal.

847
00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:35,000
And I think a lot of the times our first option is to react.

848
00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:39,000
We want to tell somebody why they're wrong and why we're right.

849
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:42,000
So we need to control our conscious, alter our approach.

850
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:47,000
And one of the things that determines whether we're responding or reacting

851
00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:50,000
is really our level of spiritual preparedness.

852
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:52,000
Colossians chapter four says,

853
00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:57,000
let your conversation be always full of grace,

854
00:48:57,000 --> 00:49:01,000
seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone.

855
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:08,000
So we're called to be prepared to respond so that we don't fall back on reacting.

856
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:12,000
And you know, we've talked about altering our approach in the way that we communicate.

857
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:15,000
But I think I want to take it a step further and even talk about how we alter,

858
00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:19,000
how we can alter our approach spiritually.

859
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:23,000
Growing up, one of my favorite books was If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

860
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:28,000
And for those of you who haven't read this book,

861
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:30,000
I'm just going to give you a brief overview.

862
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:35,000
So basically it follows the story of this young man who he goes out to do one act of kindness

863
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:37,000
and he gives a mouse a cookie.

864
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:41,000
And then the mouse asks for a glass of milk.

865
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:44,000
And then it snowballs from there until at the end of the book,

866
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:49,000
this young boy has spent his entire afternoon entertaining this mouse

867
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:52,000
and they've gotten into all kinds of trouble.

868
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:54,000
And I was thinking that for one of our next projects,

869
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:57,000
we could write a children's book that's on a spiritual level.

870
00:49:57,000 --> 00:50:02,000
We could call it If You Give the Enemy an Egg Sandwich.

871
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:04,000
And I can imagine the first couple pages, all right?

872
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:10,000
So if you give the enemy an egg sandwich, he's going to ask for a glass of orange juice.

873
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:14,000
And when you're pouring the orange juice, the sound of the fluid in the cup

874
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:16,000
is going to make him think of bacon.

875
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:18,000
And so he's going to ask for you to make a plate of bacon.

876
00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:21,000
And as you're warming the oven to make a plate of bacon,

877
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:26,000
it's going to remind him that he wants a side of tater tots.

878
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:31,000
And, you know, I can see we've got sequels in the future.

879
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:37,000
If this takes off, if you give a priest a pancake, if you give an apostle a waffle,

880
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:41,000
I mean, come on, we could go all kinds of places here.

881
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:45,000
And it's a cute idea, but the reality is that for many of us,

882
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:50,000
we spend way too much time entertaining the enemy.

883
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:56,000
We spend way too much time allowing the enemy to influence our thought processes and our attitudes.

884
00:50:56,000 --> 00:51:00,000
And as followers of Christ, we're not called to entertain the enemy.

885
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:05,000
We're called to evict the enemy, which brings us to our final thought.

886
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:10,000
Number three, delete the deceit. We got to delete the deceit.

887
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:15,000
We need to eliminate thoughts that don't align with God's will for our life.

888
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:19,000
And in order to do this, we have to be familiar with scripture.

889
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:23,000
If we don't know the truth of what God says about us,

890
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:28,000
we're going to be that much more susceptible to believing the lies of the enemy.

891
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:34,000
A couple of years ago, during the workday, I received a call from our corporate office,

892
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:40,000
they said, we need you to log off all the computers, power everything down, and wait for our call.

893
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:43,000
And I think it was maybe 48 hours later, they called me back and they said,

894
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:46,000
okay, you have the green light to get back on your computers.

895
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:50,000
And I found out through conversation a little bit later what had happened.

896
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:56,000
So during a routine scan of our company's operating system,

897
00:51:56,000 --> 00:52:01,000
they had determined that somebody had hacked into our server,

898
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:04,000
and they were using it as a Bitcoin farm.

899
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:09,000
Now, I'm not super technologically savvy, so I don't totally understand what this means,

900
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:19,000
but the gist of what I understood is that an outside entity gained access, unauthorized access, to our server.

901
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:26,000
They were using the processing power that was supposed to be available for us to do our jobs for a different purpose.

902
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:33,000
And this had all gone unnoticed for several weeks because it was happening in the background.

903
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:37,000
And this morning, I want to challenge you with this question.

904
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:44,000
What's running in your background as you seek to honor God with your thoughts and your actions, as you go about your day?

905
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:47,000
What is it that's running in your background?

906
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:52,000
Because we need to eliminate the thoughts and the emotions that are driving us away from God,

907
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:55,000
the things that are sabotaging our success.

908
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:57,000
Colossians chapter three says,

909
00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:27,000
Control, alt, delete.

910
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:34,000
These are the actions that we need to take to reset our hearts and our minds.

911
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:38,000
We're going to get ready and close out this morning, so I want to invite you guys to stand with me.

912
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:52,000
You know, as I was preparing for this week,

913
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:57,000
I had a completely different direction in mind with how I wanted to close out this service.

914
00:53:57,000 --> 00:54:01,000
But I felt like God was challenging me to change things up.

915
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:06,000
And I believe that somebody here this morning is going to experience freedom.

916
00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:10,000
We just got done talking about what's running in your background,

917
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:14,000
the thoughts and the emotions that are running in your background.

918
00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:19,000
And I believe that for many of us, we're being distracted by the enemy.

919
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:25,000
We're being distracted by thoughts and emotions that are running in our background.

920
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:36,000
Anger, anxiety, guilt, pride, perfectionism.

921
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:43,000
So this morning, I want to give you an opportunity to respond to what the Holy Spirit is doing here right now.

922
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:47,000
I'm going to invite you to bow your heads and close your eyes.

923
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:53,000
With every head bowed and with every eye closed,

924
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:57,000
if that's you, if you're struggling with feeling distracted,

925
00:54:57,000 --> 00:55:01,000
I want to take this opportunity to pray with you. Would you just slip your hand up?

926
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:07,000
Yes. Yes, God. Yes.

927
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:12,000
Holy Spirit, come.

928
00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:17,000
God, quiet our hearts.

929
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:21,000
Quiet our minds.

930
00:55:21,000 --> 00:55:26,000
Father, one of your names is the Prince of Peace.

931
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:31,000
You knew, you knew that as we walked through this life,

932
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:35,000
as we sought to honor you with everything, with every thought, with every word,

933
00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:38,000
that we would come up against distractions.

934
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:44,000
You knew that, God, and you provided your Holy Spirit so that we could live undistracted.

935
00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:47,000
We could live focused on you.

936
00:55:47,000 --> 00:55:51,000
God, I ask right now for anybody in this room, whether the hand is raised or not,

937
00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:55,000
if there are distractions in their life that they're living with on a regular basis,

938
00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:59,000
God, I pray freedom over anybody here this morning.

939
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:02,000
God, that needs to be set free.

940
00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:06,000
We thank you, Father, that you're consistently here with us,

941
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:11,000
even through the distractions. You're here with us in every moment.

942
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:15,000
We thank you, God. In your name we pray. Amen.

943
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:19,000
Now, we're not done here this morning because as I was preparing this week,

944
00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:26,000
I got this strong feeling that there were going to be some people who were coming here this morning

945
00:56:26,000 --> 00:56:33,000
who were tired and weary, worn out,

946
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:36,000
and just sick of the struggle.

947
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:42,000
And God laid this word on my heart for you today.

948
00:56:42,000 --> 00:56:48,000
You need to surrender. Don't surrender to the struggle.

949
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:51,000
Surrender to the Savior.

950
00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:55,000
So in just a minute we're going to have an opportunity here to surrender through worship.

951
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:59,000
And for some of you, you may need to get on your knees before God.

952
00:56:59,000 --> 00:57:08,000
You may need to allow your physical posture to match your spiritual intent to surrender to God.

953
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:10,000
So I'm going to throw it over to the worship team here,

954
00:57:10,000 --> 00:57:15,000
and I just want to invite you to sing out in worship.

955
00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:23,000
You can have all of me, every single little piece.

956
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:29,000
You can have it all, you can have it.

957
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:37,000
Here I am at your feet. I surrender everything.

958
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:50,000
You can have it all, you can have, you can have all of me, every single little piece.

959
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:55,000
Oh, you can have it all.

960
00:57:55,000 --> 00:58:00,000
Oh, here I am, here I am at your feet.

961
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:04,000
I surrender everything.

962
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:16,000
You can have it all, you can have, oh, you can have it all.

963
00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:21,000
Oh, you can have it all.

964
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:25,000
Yeah.

965
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:31,000
For some of you, your act of surrender may look like turning back around

966
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:38,000
and running back towards the perfect arms of a loving Father who loves you so much.

967
00:58:38,000 --> 00:58:41,000
He's calling you back home this morning.

968
00:58:41,000 --> 00:58:46,000
And if that's you, if you haven't responded to that call,

969
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:50,000
if you haven't chosen to make Jesus your personal Lord and Savior,

970
00:58:50,000 --> 00:58:54,000
I want to give you that opportunity right here and right now.

971
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:59,000
I have good news for you. Today is your day.

972
00:58:59,000 --> 00:59:04,000
So here at the Hub City Vineyard, we pray this prayer all together.

973
00:59:04,000 --> 00:59:09,000
Jesus, I'm broken.

974
00:59:09,000 --> 00:59:14,000
Distracted. Full of doubt.

975
00:59:14,000 --> 00:59:19,000
Fear. Shame. Regret.

976
00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:26,000
Today, as an act of my will,

977
00:59:26,000 --> 00:59:33,000
I choose to make you the Lord of my life.

978
00:59:33,000 --> 00:59:37,000
I receive the Holy Spirit

979
00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:41,000
and all that you have for me.

980
00:59:41,000 --> 00:59:44,000
In Jesus' name I pray.

981
00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:48,000
Amen. Come on. Come on.

982
00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:51,000
God bless you guys. Thank you so much for coming here this morning.

983
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:54,000
I'm going to head to that door. Carl's going to head to that door.

984
00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:57,000
Don't forget, team up in the family room right after the service.

985
00:59:57,000 --> 01:00:07,000
We love you. Have an awesome rest of your Sunday. Online, we love you guys.

986
01:00:27,000 --> 01:00:29,000
We love you.