0:22 All right, let's pray again. Our heavenly father, we come to you through Jesus's precious blood. Lord, we just Lord, just help me speak. I want to speak what you want me to say. Lord, speak to our hearts. In your name we pray. Amen. 0:41 All right. I want to start with a a memory ver or a verse, a Bible verse. Hebrews 1:9. Do you guys know this one? This is one of those ones that like I 0:58 wish you know you it just immediately sparks something in you when you when you hear it because it gives you a secret. In this verse it says the secret of Christ when he lived on this earth the secret of his life was that he hated sin 1:16 and loved righteousness and he had the oil of gladness above all his companions. And so if I were to paraphrase it, I would say, I want you to discover, if you haven't already, I hope you've already discovered this, that whenever you determine that you 1:31 will hate sin and love righteousness, that you will discover a joy that you've never experienced. And Satan does not want you to know that. He wants you to think that, you know, hating sin, even thinking about sin, will will just uh it'll lead you in 1:48 a different direction. It'll just be a miserable life where you're like hating sin and it doesn't sound very good. But I'm telling you that that that part was the secret of Jesus's that oil of gladness being upon him. And I want an 1:59 oil of gladness to be upon you. So I want you to hate sin. So I I want to emphasize that or lawlessness or iniquity. There's different translations for it, but basically I just like sin, right? And I've discovered the more I 2:11 hate it, uh, the more joy I have. I can't explain it to you, but I would tell you that that verse is true, and I want you to discover it. So, I want to focus on sin this morning. First, I want to tell you a story. Uh, earlier this 2:27 this past week, my boss's boss invited me to lunch. And, uh, that's kind of kind of nice when a boss takes you to lunch. And, uh, you know, we were talking and he has he's very knowledgeable. So, you know, I'm learning from him as much as he's 2:43 learning from me. And uh the food came food came to our table and I I just instinctively I didn't even think about what to do because you know I'm just suddenly I it just instinctively came out. I turned to him and I go can I 2:56 pray? You know I said that to my boss's boss you know like for the most part he had you know I'd been like yes sir and he had been leading but suddenly I I had a request like can I pray and he said sure and so I bowed my head. I I prayed 3:09 silently. I didn't pray together but I just you know asked the Lord I thanked the Lord for the food and I just prayed for our conversation and when I lifted my head obviously it changed the direction that the conversation was before that you can 3:25 imagine he said he asked me a question he goes oh what faith are you like what's your what's your religion or who are you and I said I'm a Christian and he said oh he said which uh which you know he didn't use the word denomination, but that's what he was 3:42 asking. He's like, "Well, which denomination?" And now like now I'm like, "How do I explain this?" I'm like, "There's no denomination. We're, you know, followed the Bible." And it kind of and then it left a kind of a silence and I felt 3:55 like, okay, I need to explain something about my church, you know? And so what I said next has been kind of a burden for me. Like, what how would you describe the church you go to? How would you describe this church? you know, if 4:06 you're put on the spot like I was, what would you say? How do you describe it? And so what I said was, well, I said, 'We focus on the New Testament of the Bible. You know what Jesus taught, we want to live it. And I said, 4:21 particularly the inside. We focus on the inside. And if I show you this cup here, right? If you came to my house, and if you've never been to the Magguire house, I encourage you to just come over. We would love to serve you a cup, cold cup 4:37 of water. Maybe not in this cup, but a different cup. But what if I didn't? What if I said, "Hey, we just got a cup. I got a cup just for you, and it's this cup, and I'll put some fresh water. It'll be delicious water. I'll put it in there 4:52 and give it to you." Would you drink it? Looking for a single nod. No, you would not drink it, right? Because the inside of the cup is dirty. And so I would distinguish I would say that that's the one thing that coming to 5:08 this church that I want to focus on. I recognize that inside the cup needs to be cleansed. And I don't know how I don't know what other denominations do, but that's that's a similar answer to what I gave him. I didn't show him a 5:22 picture of a cup, but I was trying to tell him our church focuses on the inside. And so if the inside of the cup is clean, we want this to be clean. And Jesus tells us that if we'll make sure this is clean, don't even you don't even 5:36 have to worry about the outside. So that's where we're focused. So now I want to show you a hand. Does everybody see a hand? Yeah. How many fingers on a hand? Five. Good. All right. That's the only 5:54 reason I'm choosing a hand. Five. I want five. I want the number five because in this message today there's 11 things that I want you to remember. That's a big ask right for about 30 35 minutes. I I want you to remember and I expect you 6:08 to remember 11 things. This is the first five things because essentially I've learned that there are five ways that I can I can sin. There's five forums where sin can be produced in me. And the first one's pretty obvious, right? Indeed or 6:23 action. I learned this a long time ago that there are, you know, thou shalt and thou shalt not are sins that I things that I can do, right? Thou shalt not murder. If I murder, it's a sin. Thou shalt not steal. If I steal, it's a sin. 6:40 Thou shalt not commit adultery. If I commit adultery, it's a sin. So, these are actions, deeds, doing. That's the first way that I can say you can use your hand if you want. is if you have a hand, you can pull it out and you can 6:52 point to your thumb because that's what that's the first way you can sin. And I want you to know all these because I want you to think about them. They're important. So, the first way you could sin is if the Bible says, "Thou shalt 7:01 not," and you do it, that's a sin. And then the next one is my speech. And I knew this, too. I I knew this to some degree growing up that I was not allowed to use the Lord's name in vain. And when I heard it, you know, when somebody when one of my 7:20 friends would say it, we do. You guys ever do that? People do that anymore? I would. I mean, like, whoa, what did you just do? And so, there were things that we weren't allowed to say or profanity. You just said the this word, right? So, 7:35 I knew there was sin in some speech and I knew that lying was a sin. If you tell a lie, that comes from your speech. uh that comes from your mouth that that can be a scent. So, those are two areas that I kind of already knew that, but I 7:50 didn't realize that this tongue is a restless evil. It's full of deadly poison. Uh I didn't realize the extent uh that this thing can do damage. I didn't realize that. And so even within just these first two, like maybe I knew one 8:07 and a half, but my speech is a very dangerous thing that can cause a lot of sin. But there's more. Now, the the rest of it, I didn't know growing up in the Bible belt, growing up in Christianity, that I can also sin in my motive, 8:24 right? The reason, the why. In Hebrews 6, it talks about dead works. And I never thought about that. I just thought it was evil works. I just read it. It says dead works, but I was just like, "Okay, yeah, that's doing evil 8:38 things." But a dead work is when you do something good with the wrong motive. And I did this. I remember giving money. I I gave money several times in a wrong way. Like I would I would give the money, but I would do it in such a way 8:56 that I would get some credit for giving the money. Now, maybe you've never did this. I hope you've never done this, but I did it. I'll confess that to you. I gave money in such a way that I wanted recognition because it's my hard-earned 9:08 money. I should get some credit for just handing it off, right? I want some recognition for it. Well, that recognition makes it sinful. It was a good thing to do. It's a good thing to give to the poor. It's a good thing to give to others. But when your 9:22 motive is wrong, when you fast and you want everybody to know, man, I'm starving, right? I'm so hungry. I haven't eaten in 5 hours. I'm famished. If you've ever fasted and you you think, "Okay, I'm going to do 9:41 this for a week." And then you make it to like, you know, 12, 13 hours, you're like, "This is tough." I had one of my kids tell me one time, it's, "Dad, I want to fast, but I just get so hungry." Right? I love the honesty of my 9:54 children. But whenever you do it and you want people to acknowledge, wow, you've got a lot of discipline. You're a very spir spiritual guy, Josh. That's why you're telling everybody so you can you can do a good thing. Fasting and giving 10:09 money to the poor and praying, all good things. getting up here and and sharing a message is a good thing. But if I'm doing it with the wrong motive, it's dead. It's a dead work. So motive, you can sin with your motive, 10:26 even doing a good thing. I I didn't realize that because I didn't know my Bible. And then one day, a pastor pointed out what a dead work is, and I was like, "Oh, that's consistent with the rest of scripture. Now I get it. I don't want to 10:37 sin in that way anymore." And then thoughts. in my thought life. Many of us sin in the in our in and and what goes on in our head, everything around there. There's all kinds of uh sin going on there. There's all kinds of bitterness 10:51 and hatred and unforgiveness and lust and just a so many things going on in our thought life. I didn't I didn't realize this. I thought again I thought we just commit sin. You do sin. But in our our thought life and I want 11:07 to I want to tell you something even in talking about thoughts I want to tell you something very important that I didn't realize until somebody set me free. A thought coming to your head is not sin. It's not sin. It's temptation. And you 11:22 can go read James chapter 1 if you want if you want to see where I get this. I don't I didn't just decide this on my own. The scripture tells me that. So just because a bad thought an impure thought pops into my head, it is not 11:33 sin. Now if I indulge it, it is there has to be a conception. The temptation needs to be indulgent then it can become sin. So I want to say that very clearly because I spent a lot of time especially you know in in the early days of being a 11:48 Christian that I would become so discouraged by these thoughts from my past life that would pop into my head. And so what I've discovered, you know, now that I'm older, it's like I just kept feeling filling the head with good 12:01 things with scripture and everything. So those thoughts have have gradually faded away. But in the early days, they were so fresh and real and I had to constantly fight things in my fight sin in my thought life. So just because a 12:13 temptation comes in your head, don't get discouraged. Fight it. Say, "I'm not indulging that. Yeah, I could get bitter against that person. I'm not going to. I'm going to forgive them." You fight it in your thought life, but it's a perfect 12:27 breeding ground for sin. And you can let everybody else think whatever you whatever you want. You can even give the impression that you're you're very holy and very spiritual. And in your thought life, there can be all kinds of sin and 12:37 impurity. So that's a fourth area that I wow. And again, all this comes from the Bible. And then finally, attitude. Your attitude can be sinful. You can have the wrong attitude. You know, in in Philippians 2, we have the right 12:54 attitude. Jesus Jesus had the right attitude in everything he did, right? But we can have a wrong attitude. And I've had situations in my life, you know, where where something's wrong. I sense the tension with somebody. Maybe it's my 13:08 wife or maybe it's another brother. I sense the tension and I and I I kind of take this attitude. What did I do? What did I do wrong? Where was the sin? or I say what did I say? What? In other words, what came out of my mouth. Did I sin in speech? What did 13:27 I do? And I found that the Lord will tell me, Josh, it's not what you said or did. It's your attitude right now. You have the wrong attitude. And people pick that up. My wife can pick up when I have the wrong attitude. Maybe I didn't do 13:43 anything or I didn't say anything but my attitude is wrong. And if my attitude is wrong, then then I want to fix that. I don't want to sin. Remember, I started with Hebrews 1:9, right? We want to hate sin. So, I want 14:00 to hate any attitude that is sin. Now, I want to focus on these last three. Like I said, I I was kind of familiar with the first two probably my whole life, but these last three are very interesting to me. because they're all 14:13 on the inside. So, out of these five possible ways that I can sin, three of them are on the inside. And this is kind of what maybe I was trying to explain to my boss, that the inside of the cup is where our church focuses. All the filth 14:31 in there that nobody else can see, unless it comes out out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, then people can see it. But for the most part, it's inside. And so, we focus on that. Now, one thing I found interesting 14:46 I want to point out. Remember I said there's 11 things. Here's the next three. There are three situations in scripture that are focused on the inside where a prophet rebukes a man and Satan concurrently. 15:06 Does that make sense? I was actually I was putting these three things together. I said this is very interesting. I used to be confused by it, right? Where who is God talking to? Is he talking to a man or is he talking to Satan? 15:22 And they you might you might be thinking of some of these already, right? But there's three of them and I I want to look at the three of them. And here's how we're going to do it. I'm going to give you the Bible reference. So you can 15:31 look it up. You can look in your Bible and say, "Okay, is Josh just making this up or is this actually in my scripture?" So I'll give you the Bible ramperts. I'll tell you the person. All three of them, the Lord is talking to Satan, but 15:43 he's also talking to a person. And again, I used to be very confused of that. Why Lord, are you talking? Are you rebuking Satan? Are you rebuking this person? What's going on? And then we'll look at the verse. So there's three of 15:53 them, and these are the sixth, seventh, and eighth things that I want you to remember today is these. Think about this. What's going on here in scripture? So here's the first one. I'll show you the examples and you'll see what I mean. 16:07 So the first one is in Isaiah chapter 14:13. So it's in the book of the Isaiah. So Isaiah the prophet is recording this or uh communicating this. The person is actually the king of Babylon. So it's to Satan and it's also to the 16:26 king of Babylon. And here's what we find. Here's the verse. Now remember the prophet or the Lord is speaking through a prophet to both a man and to Satan and says, "But you said in your heart I will ascend to heaven. I will raise my throne 16:44 above the stars of God and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north." Notice the in the heart. Remember the the the five things, three of them are inside. So, Satan here is being rebuked not for what he did, not be because of 17:03 what he said out loud, but what is in his heart and so is the king of Babylon. So, you have a person and Satan being rebuked at the same time. Now, if this was just a unique thing, then we could think, well, maybe the scribes got it 17:17 wrong. You know, maybe uh you know, maybe this is an error in inspired scripture. Maybe it should have just been more clear of who it was talking to. But the Lord is speaking to both at the same time. And I'll come to the my conclusion when 17:32 we get to the end. But let's look at the second one. Second one you find in Ezekiel 28 verse 17. Again, a rebuke to Satan, but this time it's to another king. It's not the king of Babylon this time. It's it's a different king. It's the 17:48 king of Ty. And so again, you got the the rebuke. Look at this. your heart, the inside you, your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. You corrupted your your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground. I 18:07 put you before kings that they may see you. And so what I'm seeing here in both of these is first of all, you know, to the king uh to the king of Babylon and to Satan in Isaiah, it's like you exalting yourself even above God. 18:25 Let me ask you this. Have you ever been around a person in your life where where you thought things like this? Man, all that guy focuses on is himself. If you've never been around this person, then I'm going to tell you lovingly, 18:37 it's you. If you don't know who I'm talking about or you've never had this thought, it may be you, right? Everything is about you. Everything revolves around you. This guy thinks the entire universe revolves around him. when we get in 18:52 conversations, all he wants to talk about is himself. If you're a female, you can say she, she, she, she she. And so, you recognize, it's interesting, we recognize the spirit in others. We're less likely to recognize it in 19:07 oursself, of the spirit of everything about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. But it's interesting the Lord is correcting Satan in that way and the king of Babylon in that way. Look, you're wanting to lift yourself, exalt yourself up, everything 19:22 to be about you, even above God, even above me and it's dealt with and it's corrected. And then in the in Ezekiel, very similar thing. Talks about your heart was lifted up. You became proud. You exalted yourself. 19:40 Why? Because of your beauty. And when I see your beauty, this is what I this is what comes to my mind, right, Josh? I'll use me because remember I said he's rebuking Satan and a person at the same time. And so what the way I take that is Lord, you're 20:00 speaking to me and you're you're examining in me if there's anything of Satan inside of man. Lord, do I have any spirit of Satan in me? Do I have anything that wants everything to be all about Josh? Everything to be focused on me. I want 20:15 me to always have the spotlight and even the things that you give to me. You know, money for example. Has money and the love of money corrupted you, dear brother, sister? These things that are good. Let's just take your beauty. Has anybody ever told 20:32 you that you're good-looking and it's gone to your head? Has anybody ever told you you've got beautiful hair, you've got beautiful eyes, your smile is amazing, and suddenly it corrupts you and puffs you up and you think you're 20:48 somebody. Maybe it's your intelligence. Maybe you're the topper in school. You get the highest marks. You get into the best schools and suddenly you're puffed up. Could be anything. your talents, your gifts, your athletic 21:02 ability, whatever. It all comes now from the Lord. He gives us these things and suddenly it puffs us up. The Lord will speak to Satan. He says, "In you, man, I see the same spirit that I saw in Satan." Satan was the anointed cherub. He had I gave him 21:18 so many things and it corrupted him. It destroyed him. And he tells us when we read the scripture, I'm talking to you. Don't let this happen to you. Let's look at the last one. This one's in the New Testament. This is this was the one that confused 21:35 me. I was a little confused when I was a young Christian. What's going on in this story? And again, Satan and Peter, the man. And look what Jesus the prophet says to Peter. And Satan says he turned. It says, "But he turned 21:54 and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan." And I remember just being so confused at this. Lord, what's going on here? Who are you talking to? Are you talking to Peter or are you talking to Satan? And I think the answer now, I understand 22:08 it, is he's talking to both. And he's telling Peter, giving him a very strong rebuke, saying, "Peter, don't ever let there be anything of Satan inside of you." And so Peter says, "Well, what's inside of me? What is it, Lord, that you're 22:23 exposing inside of me? What is it you want me to see? And Jesus tells the answer. He says, "You are a stumbling block to me. For you're not setting your mind on God's interest, but man's." Brothers and sisters, I don't know your 22:42 heart. I don't know how close you walk with the Lord. But if you've never had the Lord rebuke you in this way in your heart and say, "Josh," you put your name there. I'm using Josh. Josh, right now your problem is that you're so focused on your own 23:01 interest, you're not even thinking about mine. You're focused on maybe your career, you're focused on your family or you're focused on your reputation or you're focused on your comfort or you're focused on what's convenient and easy 23:14 for you. You haven't what my what's my interest has not even crossed your mind. And maybe he does it gently to you. Maybe he says it very nicely to you, very gently, and so you miss it. I mean, I mean, [clears throat] brother, sister, honestly, does he have 23:33 to get to this point with you to get you to see what he's trying to communicate? Does he need to call you Satan? Or is it enough to say, "Look, my child," just like we would we would correct a child. Hey, you're focused on the wrong thing. 23:53 And so this is consistent with what we saw in the Old Testament. Now it it makes more sense to me both. And it leaves me open walking in the light saying, "Lord, if there's anything of Satan in me, 24:10 let's deal with it now. Now. Not in eternity. Now. Please lovingly tell me anything you need to tell me. I want to hear it. But these are very strong words. But he gives the why. He doesn't leave Peter wondering, well, what just happened? He tells him exactly 24:27 what just happened. You're not interested in God's interests. You're interested in your own. And maybe you guys are perfect inside of you. I don't know. Again, I don't know what's inside of you. Maybe you're perfect and nothing 24:40 but God's interest is in you and you never need this correction. Maybe I know for me, I want to love this correction. It is true, Lord. Lord, I get so sidetracked. I get so focused on other things. It's good when you lovingly tell 24:53 me the truth about myself that your focus is off, Josh. All right, those three things. Remember, king of Babylon, King of Ty, and Peter. Three different times that the Lord corrected a man and Satan at the same time. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that's 25:11 not what happened. But it makes you, it's worth searching out and seeking, Lord, what are you doing here? My conclusion is the Lord wants to do the same to me to look at me and correct me whenever I'm more kind of leaning 25:23 towards Satan way of doing things than God's. Romans 3:23, this is a verse that I hope you're all familiar with, right? It says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And it gives us in this verse, it gives us one 25:39 of the best definitions of sin. Remember I told you in the beginning Hebrews 1:9, I want you to hate sin so that you can discover the oil of gladness, a joy in your life. And so this definition of sin 25:56 is simply any area of remember the five things, the five fingers. If in any of those areas you fall short of the glory of God, right, then you've sinned. And I hope that bothers you. You don't want to fall. You fell fallen many times 26:14 in your past. That's why you had to come to the Lord. Lord, I'm a sinner. But I don't want to fall anymore. How do I keep from falling short of your glory in my deeds, in my uh speech, in my motive, in my thoughts, in my uh attitude? Lord, 26:32 when you expose this, how do I do it? And so I have three things um you know that I think help us keep this standard. So I put three balloons. I don't know why three balloons. I could have picked three anything. Could have picked five 26:45 of something else besides fingers. I picked three balloons. So these are the last this is 9, 10, and 11 of things that I want you to uh think about this morning. I want you to know and remember. So these are three areas that 26:59 are both uh kind of analytical like it's a good way to examine oursel because remember sometimes we're like Lord I don't know what I don't know directly what I did I don't know the I didn't do a deed I didn't say something but there's 27:16 something off between us and so these are three things that are uh we can kind of judge oursel by we can say like Lord am I falling falling short in any of these three areas. But here's the thing, too. They also have value to 27:32 help us go forward. In other words, Lord, if I'm doing these three things, then going forward, it will also prevent me from the sin that I hate. So, it's both a tool to examine ourselves like a quality assurance type check. Like, I know there's something 27:49 wrong with this code, but I don't know what it is exactly. These three things help us analyze the code and see if any of these things are off. It's like a QA check. But at the same time, when we do them, it will prevent sin going forward. 28:04 You ready for them? Here's the first one. Is your goal to honor God? There's 68 hours in a week. How many of those is do you have a burden to honor the Lord? 28:23 How often is it your focus? I just want you to be honored. I'm I'm telling you how to prevent sin. And if you look at this verse in Romans 1, Romans 1 is a template of what's wrong with the United States. I know that's a very bold 28:39 statement, but I can read Romans 1 and I can go, that's the problem. I can diagnose it. the the scripture is living and active and it applies 2,000 years ago and it applies today. What's the problem? The problem is when people stop honoring 28:56 God, it's a slippery slope to sin. Go read it. Go read Romans 1 and you'll see what I'm saying. It says they knew God. Brother, sister, you have a knowledge of God, but do you honor him? Because if you don't, it's a downward 29:15 slide. Jesus when the disciples came to Jesus they said Lord teach us to pray Jesus says I'm paraphrasing it but he says okay I'll teach you to pray you have a father in heaven and your first prayer request from for 29:34 from him should be that your name would be hallowed or honored that should be your burden it should be instinctive to you that his name is honored. And again, we're allowing the Lord to shine light on man's interest, right? If 29:52 he wants to correct us, then correct us. So, that's what this verse says. It says that they knew him. And maybe maybe you know him. I hope you know him. I hope you know Jesus. And I hope you know what he did for you on the cross. And I hope 30:06 you know your father and how much he loves you. So, you know him, but do you honor him? Is that your priority? Our father who art in heaven, hallowed or honored or revered or [clears throat] let people be in awe of your name. That 30:23 is the first request I have when I come in prayer. And don't worry if it's not. Don't get discouraged if if your first request is like, "Lord, I need a job right now. Lord, I'm having struggles with my attitude right now." Don't worry about 30:39 it. But take this as a as a redirection, as a a QA analysis. Okay, Lord, I see part of my problem. What's leading to all these areas of sin in my life? What's leading to all these areas of a lack of joy in my life is that I don't 30:52 start right. My priorities are off. I'm focused on Josh's name and not your name. I'm focused on my own honor and not yours. All right, it's good. We could start there. Here's the second thing. Do you thank him? 31:11 Do you thank the Lord? Here's the whole verse. It says, "For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God." So that was the first thing we said, right? That his honor is a priority or give thanks. So look what happens. They become feudal 31:29 in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. Remember we talked we're talking about the inside of the cup. We're talking about three out of the uh five things with areas that we can send or forms that we can send. And 31:46 this verse is clearly telling us what the problem is. Like these people, let's say they're a Christian. Let's use one Christian. Here's a Christian. What happened to this Christian? He used to have a zeal for the Lord. He used to be on fire for 32:01 Christ. He was such an encouragement to me. What happened? Well, if I understand this verse correctly, at some point he quit honoring God and he quit giving thanks to God and then it was a downhill spiral inside of his heart from there. It says 32:20 that his heart became darkened. Brothers and sisters, I don't I'm not looking to judge this guy. That's not my focus. My my focus is like, Lord, you shine some light into this heart, this heart. How can I prevent it from ever 32:37 becoming darkened by sin again? And these first two things tell us exactly how. I remember hearing of a church that went through a trial similar to ours and people left. You know, there was a lot of tension inside the church and 32:54 people eventually, you know, left and went somewhere else. And that that elder of the church said, "But what we noticed is after everybody left, we noticed people were much more thankful. They were expressing their thanks more. They were thankful for this 33:10 and thankful for this and thankful for this." Ah, it sounds like they're on the right track, right? What about you? Are you thankful? Are you thankful for everything the Lord's given you, including the trials, including the testing, including the 33:28 suffering in some cases? Do you understand that momentary light afflictions produce an eternal weight of glory? And even though you can't see it yet, can you say, "Thank you, Lord, for allowing this. Thank you, Lord, that you love this 33:43 church and you want the very best for it. Thank you, Lord, that you love me and you're not going to sit there and allow my heart to be darkened. You love me too much. And so you correct me and you'll tell me where there's 33:58 pride and you'll tell you tell me where there's things that corrupt me inside your heart and nobody else can see it. We can come to the meetings, we can sit there and you know, nobody knows what goes on inside of anybody else but the Lord 34:14 knows. and he'll expose it because he loves us and he'll bring it out. And the reaction, I'm telling you, the reaction from all of it should be these two things that there's a shift in us and that we change and we recognize and if we 34:29 struggle, we invite his light to come in and we say, "Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit." So that what comes out of it is a an appreciation and reverence for you and a thanksgiving. It's one of the fruits of the spirit. 34:42 But if complaining is coming out of you, if a trial is producing more, then something's off. And the scary thing is, if I look at this verse, it's going to get worse and worse and worse. If all you're doing is 34:59 complaining, it's going to spiral down. Go read the end of Romans chapter 1 if you want to know where it'll wind up. All right, the last thing again, it's both a quality check and it's a way forward. I've discovered almost in every situation that what I'm 35:19 looking for is the path of humility. I found almost I I I shared a message like a few years ago that humility can solve any problem. I believe it. I even have it as a static sticker on my window and if I look at my rearview mirror when 35:34 I'm driving my car, it says humility can solve every problem. helps with road rage like like man that guy cut me off. Oh, humility can solve everyone. Ah, he probably, you know, he probably needs to get to the hospital. 35:48 You I'll assume the best. Looking for that path of humility. Here's the verse. It's very simple. If you sinned, then you must not have got grace. If you didn't get grace, it must be because you're proud. I mean, this is just a 36:05 logical conclusion. I hope you know this. I hope you've heard it. So, this is a good check. Lord, I I blew up right there. I got really angry. What happened? Well, maybe maybe he says, "Well, you were proud. You felt entitled. You felt like you 36:22 should have been treated differently, and you weren't, and so you got upset. You thought that the anger of Josh would produce the righteousness of of God, and it didn't." Okay, Lord. I'm sorry. Brothers and sisters, we should be a 36:36 people that are longing to find the path of humility. Jesus was always humble. Even when he was flipping over tables in a temple, it was in humility. Father, what do you want me to do? I'll do whatever you tell me to do. It was in submission to his 36:52 father that he did things. And so, even if somebody speaks a a word of rebuke to you, don't assume that that's pride. Somebody correcting you might be the most humble and gentle thing that they could have done for you. [snorts] Don't 37:08 assume it's pride. You examine your own heart. Okay, this brother or sister just corrected me. What do I do? I'll tell you what to do. Find the path of humility and God's grace will be on your life. I take it from this verse. 37:23 Interestingly, here's the whole verse. Talks about younger men being subject to elders. I find it very fascinating that the way the Lord created life is that for the first two decades, children would submit to their parents, would be 37:38 expected to honor their father and mother. That's the way he set it up. For two decades, submission to authority. But I've noticed like when people think like we've talked so much about submitting to authority in this church 37:54 and people do it until they're corrected, then you find the struggle. Then you see the who are you to correct me? Then you see the justification. Well, you don't understand the full full story. You don't get it. You've obviously misunderstood something. 38:11 Authority. You don't get what's going on. You're obviously clueless. Whatever whatever goes through your mind that is when you are tested and so when brother Zach when we invite him to you know when we we invite brother Zach to share a message 38:27 we don't tell him what to share. We don't say hey say this say this say this we say hey we see God's anointing on your life. We see him backing you up. We see that when you spoke in the past it changed my heart. It changed my life. 38:46 And so we're inviting you to come speak whatever you want to say. And he speaks and he rebukes the elders. And I sit there and I go, "Wow, I'm one of those elders." What do I do? 39:05 I search for the path of humility. Whenever I'm being corrected by brother Zach, I go to my heavenly father and I say, "Show me that path. There must be some pride or I wouldn't be being corrected right now. Show me 39:23 where it is. Father, I know you're not you're a good father. You want to give me the very best. Expose it in me. I don't want it. I hate sin. If it's in me, show me. Let's cleanse it. Let's get rid of it. You're looking for the path of humility. 39:45 But if you want the path of justification, if I want to sit there in my chair and go like, "Well, brother Zach really doesn't know what's going on here. He really, you know, who is he to correct me? He doesn't get it. He's 39:58 getting older. He's like what, in his 80s? He probably he probably, you know, whatever. He probably forgot. doesn't remember. If I want to just justify myself, I can. But I'm going to tell you, I've discovered that whenever I 40:15 submit to that authority and I seek for the path of humility, I've had the grace of God upon my life. And I want it for you. Every one of you, I want this. It says, "Be subject to your elders. I stand here and tell you I am subject to 40:28 brother Sarah and brother David. They are my elders and I've been subject to other elders. The only time I won't subject myself is when I see sin. If I know there's sin, then I will not subject myself to them because I subject myself to a higher 40:43 authority, God. But if it's not sin, if it's just my opinion, if it's just my preference, then I subject myself. I'm seeking that path of humility. Why? Because I want his grace in my life. Because I don't want to sin. 41:02 And I know that sin will not have dominion over me if I'm under grace. If it has if there's if it has control over me, if I'm getting offended or getting my pride poked, then there's something off. 41:19 Father, show me how to humble myself. Show me. And it could be any number of things. Maybe maybe the Lord says, "Why don't you go talk to Brother Zach?" Okay. Or the Lord says, "Here's what I've been trying to show you. I want you 41:35 to apologize." Yes, sir. Then I'll apologize. Or he says, "I want you to just not say anything. I want you to keep quiet. Then I won't then I'll keep quiet. Whatever he says, I want to be under his authority, the Lord's." 41:51 But he'll bring these situations into my life so that I I seek for him and I go, "Show me the path of humility." I can't stress this enough, brother, sister. When you go through these things, do you look for that path because you so 42:04 desperately desire his grace that will keep you from sinning? That will keep you from sinning. All right, let's do a recap. I said there's 11 things. First five, we're on your hand, right? The forums that you can sin, the ways you can sin. You can do it 42:21 in deed, you can do it in speech, it can be in your motive, it can be in your thoughts, and it can be in your attitude. Five different ways. And I hope you hate it and you say, "I want none of it. No way. Not just things external that can affect 42:37 my reputation. I want no sin inside of me." I hope that's how you feel. That's how I feel. And then the three things I talked about three situations. One from Isaiah, one from Ezekiel, and one from Matthew where God I was confused for 42:52 many years. Who are you talking to? Satan or a man? And I feel like the answer is both. That Josh, sometimes when I'm te talking to you, I'm speaking directly to Satan, too. And I don't want any spirit of Satan inside of you. I want the spirit of 43:10 Christ, the Holy Spirit inside of you. And so, I'll correct you if I see something different. And so, it's good to go back and meditate on these passages. Isaiah 14 and Isaiah Ezekiel 28. I encourage you to meditate on often. Go back and read those. Why did 43:26 Satan get thrown out of God's presence? It's good for us as humans to know if our heavenly father decided to record it in scripture. What was in him, Lord? May there never be any of it in me. And then finally, the last three things. We 43:41 looked at three ways to examine in the moment when there's a tension with somebody, when there's something in your conscience that's off and you're not quite sure what it is. You didn't murder anybody. You didn't steal anything. You 43:52 didn't tell a lie. There's something off. Three areas to go back and check. One is your priority to honor the Lord. Is his honor your priority? Two, are you thankful? Is it true that you can find nothing to be thankful for? 44:11 Right? Or or should you be thankful for many things, right? And the slippery slope in Romans 1. Go read that. I don't have time to take you through it. Go read it and see if you see the same things I see. And then the third thing, seek for the path 44:26 of humility. Lord, wh how can I humble myself? Because then I'll have grace and then I won't sin. That's all I have, brothers and sisters. Brother David will come and and recount. I appreciate you brother Josh what you 44:53 have shared and how you um brought it down to these three points those attitudes of the heart uh mostly they are not visible outside. Um maybe when we are thankful we may 45:11 appreciate the people and then uh verbally but the humility and honoring God uh it's deep inside with a natural eye we cannot see them 45:31 but the Lord who sees in secret he will honor that uh in one Corinthians we read that 45:47 uh the wisdom the wisdom of this world is a quite contrast to the wisdom of God. And if you we are living out our 46:06 Christian life in [snorts] public um I think people watch us like as brother uh reminded about his conversation his lunch meet people will ask you which church do you go? I had those conversations 46:29 even with a pastor, one of the pastors too. Um, what what is about your church? If you could boldly say that in this church holiness is taught, sin is condemned. may not be pretty attractive, 46:53 but that's what the Lord Jesus Christ has come for. That's what Paul emphasized in one Corinthians. Um he was away. He was not in physically. 47:11 Here he condemns their attitude. Chapter 5:E2 You have become arrogant and have not mooured instead. He condemned a sin 47:31 because he rebuked and he disciplined because he wants to please the Lord. But that's not settled well with some of them that caused division there. Chapter 5:2 47:52 as I read the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. Verse five, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction 48:10 of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. That is the goal. Brothers and sisters, we preach here the sanctification and self-examination 48:28 inward intentions, motives, thoughts. I'm sure um as brother said these three things are not popular in other churches maybe emphasis maybe external 48:45 speech and deeds. Verse six he writes your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavenvens the whole lump of dao? It's not just enough external testimony. 49:07 He says as the cup he has shown verse seven clean out clean out the old leavenven so that you may be a new lump just you are in fact unleavened. Christ our Passover and has been 49:25 sacrificed. The Lord has sacrificed his life, our Passover lamb to present us as clean both inside and outside. 49:43 So what do we do when this is was taught and emphasized? Inward cleansiness. Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leavenven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of 50:02 sincerity and truth. Dear brothers and sisters, sincerity inside our heart, our loyalty to the Lord, seeking his honor. Such a wonderful challenging question. 50:24 How many times this past week we thought about the honor of our Lord and Savior? How many times are we thankful? Thankful to our Lord. As humble ourself, 50:48 humility can solve many many problems. The one who wrote this epistle 1 Peter 5:5 is the one who humbled himself. He was called by his own Lord. He was the first 51:07 disciple. The Lord has called him to follow him. But when self-interest, something which distracts from the cross has come, his Lord has condemned him. He did not get offended. He humbled himself. That's why he was 51:27 he was with the Lord. He did not leave. We we also know about Judas's career who got offended and left the Lord. May the Lord help us to be found as a 51:43 humble people who seek his honor and who are thankful what he has done for us. As brother Robert has um shared what the memory verse, we have sown many bad seeds and then we 52:00 reap. But he has invited us. He has invited us to his table, his dining table to have fellowship with him. May we treat that with due respect and honor for him. what he has done. We 52:20 deserved hellfire. We deserved death. But through his sacrifice, through our Passover lamb, he has offered life to us. Eternal life, which is very short, what we life what we're going to spend on this earth. Um, but he 52:39 came to offer us the eternity to spend with him and our heavenly father. May the Lord help us to be thankful to him and honor him in every situation what we do, every word we speak, every thought we entertain, knowing that the 52:58 Lord is watching, the fear of God and the reverence for him. Um I was reading proverbs those days. I was looking about the number of references. The more number of references in the whole book of proverbs was given about 53:17 the fear of God. Fear of God. So many references. So may the Lord help us to be the people who pleasing him with holy reverence for what he has done us. Let us pray. Our dear heavenly father, we 53:34 thank you so much for your love and your Jesus, your sacrifice and and your word. Thank you so much. Help us to be meditators of your word day and night and the people found to be praying 53:53 people rather than gossiping and um and being busy body in others matters. Lord help us to be thankful for everything what you have done for us Lord and also forgiving us not just with that 54:10 giving us the power to overcome as we were reminded as Lord you have given this helper Holy Spirit those who are humble and you they receive it. So fill us, fill all of us with your Holy Spirit. 54:28 Lord, share your thoughts. Share your thoughts with us. Your your spirit may open our understanding in everything what you have spoken to us this morning. We thank you and we praise 54:45 you in Jesus precious name. Amen. Brothers and sisters, as you are reminded,
