0:11 Okay, there's a slight delay on my end. Can uh if you guys can see a winter scene with a date, give me a thumbs up. Can somebody give me a thumbs up if you can see a winter scene and a date? Not yet. Okay, I got a I got a thumbs 0:26 up. So, there's a slight delay, I think, between my voice and the slide. So, that's some of the some of the challenges with technology, but I think we'll be okay. All right. I think I got the slides ready. So, if 0:45 you guys uh you guys will allow me, I'd like to pray again. Our heavenly father, we just come to you through the blood of Jesus. And Lord, I I tried to prepare as best I can of the things that you've taught me. And Lord, 1:04 I just pray that you would anoint the things that you want my brothers and sisters to hear. And Lord, help me forget or minimize anything that isn't from you. And Lord, we need to hear from you this morning. So speak to our 1:16 hearts. We love you and praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Okay. All right. So, you should see a scene of 1:36 a a barn and a with a flag on it. So, um when I joined the military when I was 18 years old, one of the uh one of the things that I had to do was give up my freedom. uh to be able to to serve in that way and you know freedom is very 1:55 precious to an American. So suddenly I had to allow uh you know people over me to tell me what to do and tell me where to live and tell me how to dress and you give up a lot of freedom when you do that and it comes at a cost but I 2:10 accepted the cost of that and so I I accepted the the responsibility of it and then years later when I became an elder I had to give up something else that was a in a way a little more um in a little little more difficult I had to give up 2:28 some privacy. And if you look at these scriptures um in Timothy, it tells us the conditions of an of an elder. And now that I have uh two boys that are uh you know, no longer living at home and 2:45 no longer attending Austin CFC, you know, one of the probably the most important things I tell them about finding a church is, hey, you need to examine those elders. You need to examine who's leading the church. You need to pay close attention uh to 2:59 certain things in their life. And you can go to these scriptures. You can go to these verses or you can go to Titus 1 if you need more uh to see what I'm talking about. And if I'm going to do that, if I'm going to tell my boys to 3:12 examine leaders, I have to be open to it myself. And that was one of the challenges for me. Honestly, I'm a very private person. I don't like uh you know, a lot being known about me. just like you know introverted like to keep 3:25 it to myself but I recognize that this is right and you guys are right to examine the lives of your elders and so in a way it comes at a cost but I also wanted to share with you how I was able to reconcile that and again it's not 3:41 just elders that need to deal with um you know sometimes being under a microscope I put a microscope here to to symbolize that it's not just us it's it's any of us as a a Christian or as an ambassador of Christ. There will be 3:53 times where we're under the micro microscope. And just some of the verses that help me kind of work through that, I'll share with you is knowing and there's there's more than this, but these were a few that I I thought of 4:05 that one day the Lord is going to bring everything to light. And so that really helped me as an elder like so what if I fall short now? You know, if there's something, you know, not in the light now, it will be. And so the last verse in Ecclesiastes is one of 4:22 those verses. It says that God will bring everything every act into judgment whether which is everything which is hidden whether it is good or evil. So God is one day going to bring light on everything. Okay, that really kind of 4:34 gave me a peace and helped me settle a lot of things. And here's a verse in the in the new c covenant, the New Testament. It says, "Therefore, don't go in passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will bring 4:45 to light the things hidden in darkness." And listen to this. And disclose the motives of men's hearts. And then each ma each man's praise will come from God. That in other words, one day all of you will know exactly what's in my heart. 5:02 You will know my motivation for for uh for sharing a message this morning. You'll know if Josh was just doing it to get attention for himself. You'll know uh what Josh was thinking. You'll know all of it. you'll know why I do what I 5:17 do, everything. Not just I I use this because it's what I'm doing right now, but you'll know everything and it's going to be all exposed. And that's something to think about and to come to grips with. And you know, especially if 5:29 you're a very private person, you know, kind of settling that like if somebody knows something bad about you, right? If somebody, you know, is aware of maybe a secret or something you thought was a secret, they were going to know it 5:42 eventually one day anyway. And so that was a that was a helpful thing. Here's one more I'll share from the book of Luke. This is Jesus talking and the context was you know the the Pharisees and their hypocrisy. And Jesus preached very strongly against 6:00 hypocrisy and and brothers and sisters I that's scary when for somebody that you know shares messages you know uh I take this very seriously. I don't want to present you know I don't want to present myself in a way that's simply not true. 6:14 And when I look at Jesus's words here, it says, "There is nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known." It says, "Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and 6:26 what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops." And so, if there's hypocrisy in me, then you're going to know it one day. It may there may be a delay, but you're going to know it. And again, 6:38 these are these are challenging verses, but they help me settle things. um you know so if something's exposed now fine if something's not exposed now fine you know that one day a lot of things are going to be revealed and so that gave me 6:51 some peace of just the different responsibilities and and things the Lord uh the Lord's done and again there's this is just a sampling of the verses but that's one thing to keep in mind is that the Lord will expose everything 7:03 that dark eventually light's going to hit all darkness and that's a good thing I'm thankful for that so that's the first thing I wanted to kind of to to kind of build on. Everything's going to kind of build. I got three things that 7:15 are going to build into the main thing. So, that's the first thing. The second thing is something that you probably know the answer to. You know, what are the three most important things in the Christian life? I learned this from 7:25 brother Zach and uh I believe that. So, that does anybody know what the first thing is? I know you can't. You can shout it out in your living room. I'm not going to be able to hear you, but I'm going to trust. What is the first 7:35 most important thing? Okay. I think Mike actually did this. So I think Mike actually shouted it out. So So the first thing is humility. Okay. So what is the second thing? Who knows the second thing? Go ahead and say it out 7:50 loud if you know it. Correct. If you had humility then you you got it correct. The second thing and second most important thing in the Christian life is humility as well. And then what's the third most important thing? Humility. You got did you get it? 8:05 Anybody get all three right? You can raise your hand if you got all three right. Okay. Good. All right. So, we know that these are the three most important things in in the in the Christian life. Now, here's the deal, and this is what I'm discovering. It's 8:17 not enough just to get that answer correct. When you stand before the Lord in judgment and he ask he's not going to ask you, okay, what were the three most important things? You go, ah, I got this. I learned this. I was taught this 8:27 humility, humility, humility. It's it's a way of life. It's so important that there are levels and depths of humility that we probably haven't reached yet. And the best example of this of what do you mean Josh? Um I would use the example of Jesus that 8:45 when Jesus was God and he became a human being when he became something that he created that was an incredible step in humility, right? That's like the first step was it's just amazing. I mean it it blows people's mind. Some people don't 9:01 even believe it. It's so unbelievable but it's true. So that was an incredible step. But not only that, he became a man that was not the most intelligent, was not the the wealthiest, was not the most powerful, that the scripture tells us 9:17 there was nothing about him that men should desire him. And so, wow, a second step of humility. He went down another step of humility. And then there's a third step. The third step is, and this is remarkable, and I think that, you know, this is worth 9:35 spending more time meditating on. It's not the focus of my message. It's kind of a building block on it, but I encourage you to go think about this. He was willing to go down even further than just being a poor carpenter. He was 9:47 willing to be crucified in a completely misunderstood way um as a criminal, right? He was willing to suffer with everybody thinking that he deserved the 10:04 suffering when in fact he deserved none of it. I deserved it. And so when you look at the humility, the layers that you just keep going. And so my point is that in going through different situations, especially what we're going 10:18 to talk about, you may be able to say in a good way like okay, I I I've humbled myself and I I've done what you what you're talking about. And the Lord may show you as you walk with him different levels where you're going to have to 10:32 take even further steps down. And that's a good thing. It won't feel like a good thing because it'll sometimes be difficult, but there's there's steps down even beyond where we think we are where we think we've humbled oursel as 10:45 much as possible. Lord may be showing us additional steps and being willing to take that. So that's another background I want you to keep in mind. Here's the third thing that I want you to keep in mind. We heard this on Friday night. 10:57 What is sin? You know, when you think of sin, what is it? And the best definition we find in in this verse in Romans in 3:23, it says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And so, Zack Punin on Friday in our Bible 11:16 study, uh, and I encourage you guys if I encourage you guys to go to Friday Bible study that you will there's depths of teaching that you will get if you go to Friday Bible study. And if you can't, and I get it all, we all have different 11:29 circumstances and we're not able to uh, our schedules are different, our work schedule different, but I would encourage you if you're not able to attend, then go back and listen to the messages. They're all recorded and 11:38 they're all posted. So, I would encourage you to do that. But on Friday night, the last Friday night, we got the this definition of sin, to fall short of the glory of God. And what does that mean? And from from John uh you know, 11:53 the first chapter verse 14, we see what that is. It's Jesus. It's the life of Jesus is the glory of God. And when we fall short of Jesus, in other words, when we fall short of our Christlikkeness, we've sinned if we if we put that together. And so 12:11 and and this was uh this was kind of a revelation for me. I I thought sin was where I you know broke a commandment. Um but the Lord uh showed me one time I was asking like Lord what did I do wrong? You know like there was a situation that 12:28 came up and I mean this may have happened more than once. Maybe I'm summarizing a few memories but like I couldn't figure out like Lord there's some tension here. I you know something's off. I don't feel good in my conscience, but I don't know what I did. 12:42 And the Lord showed me like it was your attitude. Like, you didn't have a Christlike attitude. You know, Jesus wouldn't have had that attitude that you you held on to so tight, Josh. Oh, I see it. So, it was it wasn't something that maybe 12:56 somebody could have brought a verse to me and show me wrong, but there was something in me that fell short of God's glory, and I recognized I had sinned and had to repent of my attitude. And so, you know, there's a uh, you know, 13:08 there's a as we grow and walk more with the Lord, we start to see more and more of this uncristlikeness in us. And it's a good thing because the Lord doesn't leave us where we are. He wants us to to become more like him. And so, these are 13:22 the three foundations that we when I when we go into this next thing, I want us to keep in mind. Um, the just to recap them. Um the first one was uh you know kind of the um I forgot what the first one was. I remember the second one was the humility 13:41 humility humility. Oh the first one was just uh you know kind of being under that microscope and letting things come into the light. That was the first one. So letting things come into the light is the first thing. The humility humility 13:53 humility was the second thing. And that having a a definition of sin that's beyond just you disobeyed this commandment and recognizing our standard is Christlikeness. That's the third thing. So the thing I want to talk about 14:05 today is how do we handle in a church body among brothers and sisters? How do we handle uncristlikeness in someone else and in each other? How do we do that? How do we handle in ourselves? How do we handle with other people? What do 14:20 we do? What's that look like? And the scriptures tell us, they give us some, you know, uh, really good guidance. Uh, if we if we study it and and meditate on it, the Lord will tell us how to deal with it because we I think we'd all 14:34 agree. Uh, and again, you could raise your hand if you're perfectly like Christ right now. Is anybody perfectly Christlike right now? We would all agree to that. We all, you know, agree that we're not that no, no one is. I think, you know, let me know, 14:53 send me a text if you think you're perfectly Christlike and we can talk about it because if you are, I want to know how I can be more like you. Um, but I think we're all humble enough to admit we're not there. And so that means, you 15:05 know, we have to deal with that. That if our goal is to be Christlike and we're not, then how do we get there? And what do we do when we see it in each other? How do we handle it that, you know, is there any in guidance in 15:18 scripture? And there is. And so I want to kind of think through it um this morning. So I've discovered in my life that the best um option to deal with uncristlikeness is fellowship. What we're doing right now is the best way to deal with uh to 15:37 deal with uncristlikeness in us. But it requires coming with an attitude of humility. Right? where we come to a meeting and we say and again when I say meeting I don't just mean like a Sunday morning meeting I mean it could be a 15:50 meeting with uh with different with you know just a it could be a meeting with one other brother or one other sister and so when there's fellowship there when God's in their the presence um things will be revealed to you I 16:04 remember years ago attending a men's group and uh a brother was given a testimony just what the Lord was doing in his life and he was sharing praying uh you know that some of his failure as a husband and what I appreciate about 16:19 the brother like the wife was not put in a bad light at all in his testimony he was sharing his struggle he was saying here's how I'm feeling and I remember driving home from that meeting and the Lord you know pointing that out to me he 16:33 goes did you hear what that brother said I felt the Lord you know he wasn't speaking audibly to me but I felt him speaking in my spirit he said did you hear what that brother said And I was like, "Yes, you know, I did." And he 16:45 said, "You're doing, you know, you did the same thing to Amber. You know, you need to repent." In other words, through a brother sharing a testimony. You know, I was convicted of my sin. He wasn't he didn't go into that testimony 17:01 because he had a word for Josh. He had a word from his own life and it brought conviction in me and I had to go set some things right with my wife. And I've discovered that many I use that as an example. I've discovered that many times 17:13 that when we come to a meeting, when something's shared, the Lord speaks directly to me and says, I need you. Do you see that in yourself? Yes, Lord, I do see that in myself. Thank you. And I've been corrected many times by having this attitude. Lord, I 17:28 come to a meeting or I come into fellowship like speak to me, Lord. I, you know, I I don't I don't want, you know, I want I agree with the mission. I agree with what my brothers that committed and sisters today that committed shared. I agree with them when 17:43 they say that the destination is Christ Christ likeness. I want to get there, Lord. I fall short. Help me. And so the Lord answers that prayer and says, "Okay, you're going to go to this meeting. You're going to hear this 17:54 testimony and it's going to speak directly to you. Or you're going to hear this message and it's going to speak directly to you." I'm thankful for my other three elders. I listen to their messages and I'm convicted by their 18:04 messages. I'm thankful for the things they share from their life because it it hits me and see and I see some areas of unknownness in me and I think that is the best. Now I want to show you a verse. I don't want to just give you 18:18 know my opinion. I want to show you something from scripture when I go to first Corinthians 14. You can turn there if you're not familiar with these verses and read through them carefully. But this ver this chapter chapter 14 starts 18:30 out of pursu it says pursue love. It sets the course of your your heart. It sets the course of your life. It says you need to pursue love. And in order to do that, you need to earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of 18:47 prophecy. And so we're continue as we come to these verses, we're continuing with that introduction and it's saying that okay, it says, you know, if if everybody's prophesying, I'm paraphrasing a little bit, you guys can 19:02 read the scriptures. says if everybody's prophesying in an a meeting, if the Lord is is in that his presence is in the meeting and the gift of prophecy is being um is is being manifested being revealed and you know kids are sharing 19:19 memory verses and it's speaking to people's hearts and and the you know uh the um the songs and that are sung and the the the main message and everything that's going on in that meeting is is prophetic. It says that um that if 19:35 somebody comes into that meeting and it uses two terms here that I want to kind of slow down a little bit and ask this question. Is it I am I the one that's coming to me? Because I think oftentimes I read this verse real quick and I'd be like, "Oh, 19:53 that's talking about a visitor coming to the meeting. It's a visitor." But it doesn't say visitor. It says an unbeliever in this translation and then uh in the NASB it also says an ungifted man. So we've got two things. Let's 20:08 let's wrestle with them one at a time. An unbeliever. Brothers and sisters, would you say that you are absolutely faithful to the Lord? That you're full of faith all the time? That you never waver. You never doubt. You never have times where you're crying 20:27 out to the Lord, Lord, I believe. but help my unbelief. I I think I have those times. And so if I have times where I'm crying out to the Lord to help my unbelief, that means I'm an unbeliever, right? So I take this to mean, okay, 20:42 that's me coming to a meeting, right? Again, like, you know, like I don't want to just assume that somebody else like when I come to a meeting of Austin CFC or or a meeting with some brothers or whatever was happening, Lord, I'm the 20:55 one that struggles with my faith. I'm the one that struggles with with unbelief. In other words, it may be, you know, you come to a starting place where you go, Lord, this is me that's coming to that meeting with that desperation. 21:06 So, this didn't exclude me. This is me possibly. And again, we examine ourselves and we face this. And then the rest of it, it says an ungifted man enters. This is the way it's translated in NSB. I think uh the King James uses 21:19 unlearned. You know, brothers and sisters, are are you the unlearned? Are you are you the learned? Are you the educated? Are you the one full of wisdom? So that that's not you either. And so even if you you say, "Okay, I'm not a believer." Because 21:33 you neatly put like to put things in categories either believer or unbeliever. Even if you get past that one, well, how do you approach the second one? You know, are you the gifted one or are you the ungifted one where you come meeting? And so, you know, 21:47 rather than assuming this is always about a visitor or somebody else, what if it's about us? What if we're the ones that come to this meeting and we come and we hear something and we're convicted, right? And the Lord is we're 22:01 acknowledging that the Lord is in our presence. He's speaking directly to me. This is what I needed to hear. This is what Lord, I I told you I'm not you know I'm not Christlike, but I didn't know how. And now you've told me 22:14 how and now I can repent and now you can change me and now you can work in my life. Praise Praise God. And it says they fall down on their face in worship. I'm challenged by this. I I I'll start with me before I ask you. Like when was 22:27 the last time I came away from a meeting and my only response was to hit the ground, right? My only response like, "Lord, I'm so not you. Help me to be you. Be like you. I fall so short of your glory. Lord, 22:46 help me." You know, how often have you come away from a meeting and then you you declare like the Lord is here. Lord, you were you met our our cry. You met with us. You joined us. You are here. That's wonderful. Brothers and sisters, 23:00 this is the best way in my humble opinion of how to to grow in Christ likeness and to overcome uncristlikness, how to deal with uncristlikeness is the fellowship with one with another. And so I continue to seek for that. It's one of the 23:15 reasons I'm here this morning is that I acknowledge my need. I acknowledge that I want to be in God's presence. I want to uh I want to overcome uncristlikeness in my heart and my motives. And so that's why fellowship has become so 23:30 important to me. And I'm one of the biggest recipients of the blessing of fellowship over the time of my life. The Lord sent so many godly brothers and sisters into my life to show me areas of uncristlikeness in me. So I'm very 23:42 grateful for that. So I think this is the first best option and I would encourage all of us to to come to meetings and pray for meetings that that that result in this way. Um but there are other alternatives too. So what if that's not the case? I mean 23:57 what if that's not happening somewhat and uh we come to a meeting and the Lord tells us something that may happen in that meeting. And so if we go to the sermon on the mount and we look at Matthew 5, it tells us that we can come 24:10 to a meeting and we come expecting to serve and you know maybe I prepared a message that day or maybe I you know uh you know wrote a check to put in the offering box or I had some service there some ministry I have in the church or 24:26 something I wanted to give to the Lord. uh whatever I'm presenting on the altar, whatever, you know, and I I think it's right and good for all of us to seek to present things to the Lord on the altar, to put money on the altar, to put um our 24:41 time and energy on the offer. I think this is very good and I I think the Lord agrees with me that that's a wonderful thing. But what I take away from this verse is that it's more important to the Lord that I'm reconciled with my brother 24:58 than that I present even the biggest offering. That it's more important like if I had a million dollars, I don't. If I had a million dollars and I just was going to give it to the Lord and I was going to put it in the offering box 25:11 that's that morning that the Lord would be more concerned that I would have anything against my brother or he would have anything against me. He's more concerned of the reconciliation than he is the offering. And I take it from this verse. And so 25:29 when the Lord shows me something, when I when the Lord says, uh, you know, I know Josh, I know you're wanting to do things for me. I know you're wanting to serve serve me, but this issue, he'll he he'll tell me there's some tension there. 25:46 He'll say, "Okay, but this is really what I want you to focus. This is what I'm focused on. I'm focused on that little bit of tension you caused. You know, maybe, you know, I you know, use your wife. I'm more concerned that on 25:58 Sunday morning you the the way you you know that that uncristlike attit attitude you had towards Amber your wife. I'm more concerned about that than everything you were planning to do for me all day Sunday. That's what I want you to focus on. 26:14 Right? Go be reconciled to Amber first before you, you know, do whatever you plan to share the message that day or whatever. And so I see that. And so when the Lord prompts us, you know, and and I'll tell you sometimes like I've had 26:28 I've sensed the tension with a brother or sister or whatever and I don't clearly know what it is, you know, one of the things that it h happens in that moment is it forces me to prayer and I I go to the Lord and I say, "Father, tell 26:42 me what did it what's going on here? I'm not as clever and smart or gifted to understand every bit of communication. help me, you know, tell me what I did. And, you know, he's not a father that, you know, is is not going to tell you. 26:57 He'll he'll tell you. And, you know, it it drives us closer to prayer. You know, one of the songs we sang was, "What a friend we have in Jesus." And, you know, it will deepen the fellowship with our Lord sometimes when he allows these 27:10 things to happen because it'll force us to go to him and say, "How do I set this right, Lord? How do I reconcile?" And there's a verse that kind of goes along with it in Romans where it says, you know, as much as depends on you, 27:25 as much as depends on you, be at peace with all men, everybody. And so if there's some unrest with any relationship, it could be a brother, it could even be beyond, you know, one of the things that will happen if as we're 27:38 trying to do this, we're asking the Lord, Lord, is there anything else that I haven't done to make peace? Is there anything on my end? And sometimes I've had situations, brothers and sisters, where I I tried to do something to make 27:51 peace and I made the situation worse. I was trying to bring peace to a situ. I was trying to reconcile and I I created more more tension. And then I go to my father and I say, "What did I do or what did you know what happened there?" But 28:08 the point of this is like each step I'm going back to my father and I'm building that relationship with him. the one that loves me so much, the one that gave his son for me. These tensions that he allows in my life are forcing me back to 28:22 him because I don't know what to do. And so I'm asking him, "Father, is there a step of peace that I'm neglecting? What is it? Help me. You know, the the peace hasn't been restored yet. Is it on me?" And so, it's deepening my fellowship 28:38 with him, which is so precious. We sang about the preciousness of that this morning. So if there's anything, you know, u in me where where the Lord reveals it, then I need to go set that right and be reconciled to them. But 28:54 what if it's the other end? So I want to go uh to ma uh to Matthew 18. That was in Matthew 5 where you know there's a situation where uh the Lord reveals I did something that brother has something against me. I created that or there's 29:09 some tension there. Maybe maybe it is it's one of us but I need to go reconcile. But what if I'm facing a situation like this? It says that if your brother sins, go and show him his faults in private. If he listens to you, you have won your 29:24 brother. And so if it's a obvious sin, this is easy. This is pretty easy. If if I have a brother uh that stole something and I know it, then I need to go tell him, "Brother, you sinned. you you that is wrong and you need to you need to fix 29:42 it. And so, you know, those things um are pretty clear. You know, it's when we talk start talking about the higher standard that maybe it's a little more challenging where you think you saw something uncristlike in a brother. What 29:59 do you do in that situation? You know, should you go uh is this applicable here? And again, this is a principle. This isn't a a law where you know we live by the letter law like if you think you even remotely see a sin in somebody 30:11 you go to them right away. That's not the heart of this right there. It is whenever the sin is very clear. But what if it's just an attitude or something you think you saw? So I want to I want to go through that a little bit. I want 30:25 to go to the other side of it first. What if you're the brother at fault? You know, years ago when I was in the military, I was a I was a young Christian um and I was a young sergeant. And I remember I had a boss, a higher ranking 30:41 guy that was the boss of like 30 of us mechanics. And I remember he was um he would pick on this guy in our flight. He would just tear him apart. He would use all kinds of profan profanity, all kinds of vulgarity, put this guy down and just 30:56 rip him into pieces. It was wrong. It was totally wrong. And I was a news sergeant and I was like,"Wh isn't anybody doing anything?" Like, "Why doesn't anybody like we know he's like this, why does nobody speak up?" And not 31:09 only that, here's here's the other complication. He considered himself to be a Christian. He said he was a Christian. And as a new, you know, as a new Christian myself, I was like, I got to do something. And this guy was very 31:23 difficult. He was a difficult person. Like, I knew correcting him would be tough. And so I remember the night before going over it in my mind over and over again how you know what I'm going to say. What if he says this? What if he argues with 31:35 me? Remember it's a big deal to go correct a superior in the military. You know I had to knock once on the door. I had to you know report or you know stand at his desk at you know there's rules for this. And I was I remember being so 31:49 emotional that all the conversations in my mind I rehearsed probably every scenario you can think of. Uh and I I gave it to him. I was so worked up by the time I got in the office. I The Lord has changed me. He's He's made me a lot 32:02 more gentle. But at the time, you know, if I'm going to do it, I got to go all in. So, I was so worked up that I was pretty harsh in telling him his mistakes. And so, um, I told him and he his reaction was something like, "Okay, 32:21 like that was it. I I I didn't prepare for that reaction, right? He it's not not okay like he received it but okay like you you you said what you need to say. Okay. And then I realized like I'd gone over the scenario all in my mind 32:35 many times but I didn't go over the scenario of how to leave the room. And so we just said we just stood there standing staring at each other awkwardly uh until I finally figured out some way to leave and walk out. But what I 32:50 remember about this was how difficult it was to correct him. And I don't want to do that. I don't want even if it's Balum's donkey that has to to speak to me. Uh I don't want it to be difficult for that person. So being on that this side of it and I 33:09 remember how difficult that was and how uh complex that was. And remember this was a guy claimed to be a Christian. And so when I brought this up, you know, it it was so difficult. I want to be correctable. I've been corrected by everybody in my 33:24 family, in my immediate family. All three of my children have corrected me. I've been corrected by elders. I've been corrected by one of the most vulgar military guys in our unit. I've been corrected by him. I don't want it to be 33:37 difficult. But the the truth is in this church there are some that are are very easy to correct and some that are more difficult to correct. And this is a good time to examine ourselves and and ask how we view correction. 33:53 And this psalm, you know, says that, you know, this is the New Living uh the New Living Translation. It says uh to learn, if you're going to learn, you must uh love discipline. And it says it's stupid to hate corruption. 34:09 And if you're one of those that are very difficult to correct because you're going to argue or you're going to try to justify your uh behavior and and people are going to know it, the ones around you will know whether you're you're open 34:21 to correction or not. And I'll tell you like you know that night I told you with that guy, you know, I had to wrestle with it like do should I even do this? This is going to be difficult. Brothers and sisters, I want to be a I want to be 34:34 a brother that you know it's not difficult. So, I'm not saying, you know, you're going to I'm going to take the correction perfectly and not go weigh it before the Lord. I will. I'll go take it to the Lord and say, "Hey, this brother 34:44 or sister said this, Lord, what do you think?" I try I tried to develop this habit with everything, praise or correction, to go to my father and say, "What do you think?" And so, I'd encourage you to do the same thing. Receive the correction and then go to 34:56 your father with it. They they can be wrong. I've been corrected where people were wrong. Okay? But I welcomed it. And then I went and took it to my father and said, 'What do you think? What's your opinion of this? So that's one side 35:09 being on this. So let's go back to the other side. And I put that same verse in Matthew 18 up again. And this time I bolded two things and did the same thing. And this is the heart of our father. Is do you view that person as your 35:25 brother? Is there love in your heart for your brother? Right? If there's not, then maybe you don't want to correct. Maybe you should go talk to the Lord your father about this some more until that love develops and there's love in 35:41 your heart before you go correct. And then here's what you don't do. You don't gossip about it. I've I found my own testimony, my own flesh would rather go talk to to somebody I like about a difficult brother that I need to 35:58 correct. I'd rather just gossip about it. You know, you know how that brother's like this? Have you ever noticed that this brother does this or he did this? It's easier to gossip about it than to go confront that brother 36:11 often, isn't it? I mean, if we're honest with oursel, it's easier to talk to somebody we like about the situation than to go confront it directly. But the scriptures say in multiple places, I just put a few of them up here, don't gossip. 36:26 Don't go talk about it. And if you put yourself in that situation and remember I went back to the privacy. There was a time in my life where it was very important to me to have privacy where I didn't want everything aired in front of 36:37 everybody. I it took me a long time to to come to the place that I opened up with. And so I want to give my brothers and sisters that same respect. So this is not how you handle a situation where you have a brother in sin where you just 36:49 go tell the people you like about that. That's not the option. So what so what is the option or what what's first of all what's the goal? What's the goal? You get it from this this verse. The whole point of of going and telling a brother his sin is to win 37:09 him, right? The goal is your brother. It's not even your irritation. Maybe you don't like that your brother acts that way or your sister acts that way, you know, but you God has to spend time in prayer, you know, through all of 37:22 this. it it should increase your prayer life. But the goal of a correcting anybody should be to win them. You win a little more Christlikkeness in them. That's the goal. It's not to uh, you know, to point out to be critical. It's not any other 37:41 heart than just to to to get, you know, to to advance some territory against Satan for your brother or sister. That's the heart of it. And it's in love. and take some time until the love develops, until the Lord makes this clear that 37:54 this is going to this is going to reach that goal. And wait on him to give you the the action, the final order to say, "Okay, now you can go confront that brother or go talk to that brother." But there's a little more how, you know, 38:07 what should you consider? You know, what should you think about? And I I I use this example. You know, in every situation, what we thought we saw as sin, we could be completely wrong. 38:24 And so, there's humility here. So, if you feel the Lord pressing on you to go correct a brother or sister for their sin, you need to humble yourself and admit it's possible that you're wrong, that you don't quite have the full 38:38 picture, that you don't know all the circumstances, that you don't really know what happened. And the best story I can give you is the story of Jesus's birth. That Joseph would have been 100% right to think that that baby was not, you 38:53 know, was was some other man. And he would have been 100% wrong. And so, brothers and sisters, when we're talking about correcting each other, we need to have this humility. I maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I don't see it right. As an 39:07 elder, I can tell you in investigating matters, you know, I I'll I'll talk to somebody or I'll get some information and realize then I think I have a pretty good picture of what happened and then I'll go talk to somebody uh the brother 39:19 or sister and realize like, oh, I don't my information wasn't perfect. And so, it's important to have that attitude of humility. Look, Lord, I I don't have all wisdom. You do. I don't. Lord, maybe I'm wrong. So you you go 39:32 into the correction even listening and maybe maybe there's something I missed. Don't go in it, you know, all fired up the way I was as a young sergeant thinking that I'm 100% right. Have the humility to say maybe I'm wrong in what 39:47 happened. Maybe I'm wrong in what my brother or sister reacted. Maybe I'm wrong in the way I'm handling it right now. Humility. Humility. Humility. And so that should always be a consideration. And then how 40:05 how do I correct? And there's uh scripture that tells how to correct in every situation. Every person in your life is either older or younger than you. Right? There's not a single human being that you're ever going to come across 40:20 who's not either older or younger than you. And so Paul tells Timothy, "Here's how we correct one another. If we're going to correct somebody older, then we're going to appeal. We're never going to be harsh. That's not our goal. 40:36 Our goal is to win them. It's never to tear them down. It's never to humiliate them. The goal is to win some territory against Satan for them, to help them overcome sin, to help them overcome uncristlikeness. That's our goal. And so if they're 40:54 older, then we need to appeal to them as if if they're a father. And if they're younger, we need to treat them like brothers. And again, I put that heart up again. There's a love that comes when it's your family. I correct my children 41:07 because I love them. If I see them going a certain way, I'm talking about my biological children first. If I see them going some way that's dangerous for them, I I because I love them, I don't care. I don't care what they think. if 41:19 I'm too harsh, if I'm too uh too this or I I harp on the same things, I say the same things over and over again, I don't care because the the love is there and the same thing should be with my my my church family, my spiritual family. If 41:34 the love is there, then Lord, you know, I don't care with all the other considerations before that, but it's done in love that they're they're either a father or brother to me depending on the where they fall in terms of age. 41:49 But that is what I'm doing. I'm doing everything I do in love. Let all that you be done do be done in love. And so that's the heart that we do it with. And that's the attitude that we do it with with respect and care and concern. 42:08 Not just as a task, a checkbox, something you have to do. And then what if he doesn't listen? And I hope this is the rare things in the church. You know, if this person doesn't listening, if you know, if you if you go talk to them and they they see the sin 42:27 and they don't they don't care, for example, or whatever, it says to take take a witness or two with you. And again, it's very important, you know, that it's a it's a witness, you know, it's not just you grab your buddy who 42:39 you like who sees things the same way that you do. Like even once we get to this level, you know, we need wisdom. It's not just like, "Okay, I know that that brother thinks the exact way I think. We're a lot alike, so we're going 42:50 to go confront this brother now." No, no, no. Needs to be somebody that's a witness of that situation, that has an understanding, and they may be completely opposite your personality, and they may not see things like you do, 42:59 but the goal, remember, the goal is to win that brother. So, you take one or two witnesses. And then the third step, and I'll go through these pretty fast because I don't think you know that uh we get there very often. I hope this is a rare thing. But 43:14 finally, even after taking a witness or two, you know, then you take it to all the elders, you know, then you take it to them and they deal with it, you know, they they have it, they confront at that point, but there's a step, there's a pro 43:28 process and then and the process is, you know, is the Lord set this up and he wants it done a certain way. And one thing I'll say, you know, like I've had this uh I've had people come to me with the situation, they just come straight 43:44 to the elder. And you're always welcome to do that. I mean, you got you got four elders, and I think we're always here to to advise you and to do anything we can to help you understand these situations and to work through it. And so, I've had 43:57 situations like this where people come to me with a attention with somebody else. And and then and again, this isn't a law where we must do it exactly, you know, to a letter of law. There's a heart behind everything we do. And so, 44:08 you can always do that. You can go talk to an elder. But I have sent people back to that person, you know, because I didn't see what happened. They come and tell me like, "This happened." And I say, "Did you go talk to them? Did you 44:19 follow uh the steps in Matthew 18? Did you did you confront them?" And I had one person tell me, "I I figured you were going to say that." You know, they just didn't want to do it. They didn't want to go confront that pro person. And 44:33 I said, and I told them, "Go do that. And then after you've done that, let me know how it goes and we can take further steps." Well, go do that step. And it's not that we're going to give that advice every time. It depends on the 44:44 circumstances. But I want to make it clear, you're always welcome to come talk to an elder for advice and through your struggle with it. But this but this these steps uh that the Lord's laid out for sin, you know, we need to have the boldness to be 44:59 to take when the time comes and to be willing to in love confront our brothers and sisters, you know, if the because we care about them and because we want to overcome. So, let's recap. Here's what we here's what we walked 45:14 through uh here's the things that we walked through this morning. We said that all things are going to come to the light anyway, right? And that should give us a peace and security, not an unrest. There should be a security in 45:27 that. And that's what I found over many years. I didn't get there right away. I want to make it very clear. It took me a long time in my Christian life to get get here. I was an elder by the time I got here. So that just this fact that 45:37 everything's going to be revealed. And then we talked about the three most important things in the Christian life that humility. Even as we're talking about these things that you know, this isn't a conclusive step by step. The 45:48 goal is that we're looking at Jesus and figuring out how we can take steps down and and and grow in that humility. And so that was a principle, too. And then the third thing that I built on is just that definition of sin. We're not just 46:00 talking about the guy that commits adultery or the guy that robs banks. We're talking about a standard of of falling short of the glory of God. And that we're all help trying to help each other on this path. And so then we we 46:14 faced the issue of, you know, uh of how we deal with, you know, when there's something in us. And we saw in those verses that reconciliation is more important to God than any type of service or offering. And so we want to 46:28 take that seriously. And as much as depends on us, we want to find that path of peace with our brother or sister. As much as depends on us, with God's help, going to him and asking, "What did I miss? What did I not get the first 46:41 time?" And then finally we looked at what do we do when a brother or sister sends. How do we handle that? And we said that we don't go tell it to our best buddy or the person that uh we you know that we want to talk about it with. We need to 46:58 go to that person directly. And again it's not a a simple checkbox. There's a heart of love that must be there. There's a gentleness that must become. We treat them the way that we would want to be treated. we treat them as a father 47:10 or brother depending on where they we're older or younger than that. So there's principles that we need to to follow and brothers and sisters that you know we grow in these things but we want to take them seriously and we want to do them to 47:23 the best of our ability as the Lord guides us and gives us strength to do them. That's what's on my heart this morning brothers and sisters. So I'll turn it over to David. Can you hear me? Awesome. Thank you. 47:42 Yeah. Thank you uh for the brothers and and sisters who take the responsibility seriously of the building body of Christ 48:00 as the functioning members not just the elders alone. And um as we heard all things will come to the light. Yeah. 48:21 The best Sunday school story in this principal helped me was there was a Sunday school teacher who gave a banana to all the students. She said 48:40 go and eat. Make sure that no one is watching you while you are eating. After some time all the students resumed back to the class 48:58 there only one student still holding the banana in her hand. Teacher asked, "Hey, why didn't you finish it?" And other students were super excited that we made sure no one watched while 49:17 we finished. This student said who hasn't finished the eating banana teacher God is watching always. How can I hide this from God? 49:36 I was a principal teacher trying to put in these little hearts. As we heard three testimonies, all three of them came from three different backgrounds. The four elders came from different 49:56 backgrounds. But one thing, God's word will never change. His love and care for the church will never change. For this church, 50:14 loving heavenly father was decided to sacrifice his only son. Son, our Lord Jesus Christ had to go through many sacrifices as we heard. He came down from heaven to earth, not just 50:31 start. He died on the cross. He went through many humili situations. People called him all kind of names. He went through that for this church and finally he died on the cross and he 50:53 rose again. That was the foundation we are building the church here. So what I want to tell you is take it seriously. If anyone tries to mess this plan, 51:11 I'm afraid to say that you are you're grieving knowingly or unknowingly by your loose tongue knowing that nobody is watching. But dear brother and sister, God is 51:29 watching for this church. He shut till very drop last drop of his blood. Learned what his sin is. 51:48 You may be wondering like we are not in this position to correct. I'm I'm that personality. I may not be a confrontational person but gently you can say sister 52:06 please stop dumping your trash brother I don't want to hear about that may the Lord give us the boldness to say that discussed about the fellowship 52:24 after a message is over. We have a lunch fellowship. Praise God for his provision. We are not time bound. We have good amount of time to share. Be careful what you speak there also. Especially when you are talking to the the 52:43 newcomers are like who are learning who got attracted to these wonderful teachings via YouTube or the CFC teachings. Please 52:59 be that big brother or sister role. Not always the parents. You all have a responsibility to protect the dignity and the testimony of the church. If you are 53:19 like my personality or like things you are afraid of confronting them, you are most welcome to bring it to the elders. But gently, but also if others keep coming into your personal space 53:38 and asking you questions which you are uncomfortable of, please gently tell them, "Sister, brother, I'm not comfortable sharing that with you." If they're still coming to you, please bring it to the elders. 53:56 Please don't go. God loved us so much. He gave his son to us. May all be careful. 54:18 We learned in Sunday school last Sunday. How do you listen? How do you see? Careful about how do you speak? tongue is very small but it can lit a fire. It can put the whole forest into a flame, a blaze. 54:35 With the same tongue we can prophecy, we can encourage, edify, exalt, rebuke and build the body and also you can burn. Let us be careful how do you use our tongue. May the Lord help us throughout 54:55 this week to remain humble and reconcileable, gentle and especially when you are talking about the church and the church matters about the elders 55:12 be very careful how we use it. No one is perfect. We are working towards the perfection. Let us be the builders, builders of his body, winning each other's trust, confidentiality, 55:31 winning the confidence. Yes, this sister can pray for me. This brother can pray for me, they love me. Let them come to you. Don't intervene in other private matters. It is not your especially if you are not an elder. You don't need to 55:47 know May the Lord help us. Let us pray. Dear heavenly father, we thank you so much for the love and care you have for your body. Thank you for 56:04 sending your son. We're all in different ways finding the God but only we can come to you Lord through the blood of Jesus Christ. Father, thank you for accepting us. We are not worthy to be called as your children, 56:24 but Lord, you've been so kind to us. Thank you, Father, for the wonderful plans you have for us and for our families. We pray for sister Esther 56:45 and brother Finey and Josea and sister Rama. You trusted four of us and Austin CFC and you entrusted them under this church's care. 57:04 Father, we pray for all our members. Lord, protect us. Protect us from the dangers in the world and spiritual battles. Our fight is not with flesh and 57:25 blood, with the spirit, evil forces. Thank you so much for the gift of the Holy Spirit you have given to us. Protect our gods. Protect on our hearts. 57:41 Lord Father, thank you for your grace. Loving father, we commit throughout this week into your hands. help us to please you 57:57 make us the builders of your kingdom. In Jesus precious name we pray. Amen. Thank you uh for everyone who joined.
