Speaker 1: And I had this boss that it seemed like everything I do.
Speaker 1: He was so nitpicky.
Speaker 1: He was so on my case all the time for 10 hours a day.
Speaker 1: And then I got an hour and a half drive home, and so, as I would drive home some evenings, I was like I know, I'm a Christian, but I sure want to hurt this guy.
Speaker 1: I just want to grab him.
Speaker 1: I feel like he wouldn't even see it coming.
Speaker 1: I could break this guy in half.
Speaker 1: This is an old man, dude.
Speaker 1: I can crack this guy right in half, and I knew I shouldn't be thinking that, so I would fight it.
Speaker 1: But every day it would just get worse and worse and worse and worse.
Speaker 1: You ever had somebody like that in your life?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you ever want some kind of retaliation.
Speaker 1: You want to do something to get back at somebody.
Speaker 1: Maybe they've made you feel less than, and so you're going to spend the rest of your days proving that you're not less than and you're more than.
Speaker 1: Or maybe they just hurt you and so you want to hurt them back.
Speaker 1: Maybe they disrespected you and you want to show them.
Speaker 1: Hey, man, you never disrespect me again.
Speaker 1: And so you have these little plots and little fantasies and little things you wish could happen, and really that's true of all of us.
Speaker 1: We all have that.
Speaker 1: Jesus knew that.
Speaker 1: We all had that, and that's why he talks about the principle of retaliation in the Sermon on the Mount, which is where we are in the Sermon on the Mount today.
Speaker 1: Now, jesus has a plan, though.
Speaker 1: Even though we all know what it's like to want to get back at somebody and get even with somebody, jesus wants us to be a sign and a wonder.
Speaker 1: You ever heard that phrase before?
Speaker 1: It's in the Bible A sign and a wonder.
Speaker 1: What it means is it's not just a random miracle.
Speaker 1: God is doing a miracle, but he's doing it to show everybody something about himself that he's attractive, that he's mysterious, that he's big, that he's powerful.
Speaker 1: But he's doing it in such a way it's like, hey, watch how awesome I am, but then draw near, come in, take a step nearer.
Speaker 1: So you think about the parting of the Red Sea.
Speaker 1: Okay, god does this great, awesome miracle, but it's also a sign.
Speaker 1: It's also oner, nobody can do it.
Speaker 1: But it's also a sign God is saying, hey, I'm this big, I'm this powerful.
Speaker 1: You've never heard of a God like me, so take a step toward me.
Speaker 1: Find out what else you can, jesus?
Speaker 1: He turns water into wine.
Speaker 1: That was a sign that he was the Messiah.
Speaker 1: He's bringing new life and new fruit to the nation of Israel.
Speaker 1: It was a sign hey, take a step, draw near, believe in me.
Speaker 1: When he feeds the 5,000, that's another sign.
Speaker 1: He's saying I am the bread from heaven, I'm the one I can do this bread thing.
Speaker 1: But take another look.
Speaker 1: I'm the sign, I'm the wonder.
Speaker 1: You should see me and you should see exactly what God looks like.
Speaker 1: Well, believe it or not, god wants us, instead of just being retaliatory, he wants us to be a little sign and wonder everywhere we go.
Speaker 1: He wants us to be so peculiar on planet earth that people they take another look and they're like, wow, I think maybe God's trying to get my attention.
Speaker 1: I was probably about a junior or senior in high school and this couple they were suddenly just in my life and they were a Christian like I understand a Christian.
Speaker 1: Now, I didn't understand it then.
Speaker 1: All I knew was they were weirdly nice to me and they seemed to like believe in me and be rooting for me and I was like I don't know what this is, but I think that they're kind of I don't know if there's some kind of special or something like that.
Speaker 1: As I look back now I know that they were a sign and a wonder.
Speaker 1: They had the character of Jesus and they're a little knock through the glass from Jesus, being like hello, here I am, pay attention, trying to get your attention through my people.
Speaker 1: A sign and a wonder.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 1: You've all seen negative signs and wonders.
Speaker 1: You've all seen somebody claim to be a Christian and then they do something.
Speaker 1: We've all maybe done it, done something that's like wow, that's sure that was the opposite of what we wanted people to know about God.
Speaker 1: So we all know what that's like.
Speaker 1: But Jesus is asking us to be a sign and a wonder and really it's deep in our hearts.
Speaker 1: Everybody, everybody, everybody wants to be an impact.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants to know that their time on planet earth mattered, even if you're a mob boss.
Speaker 1: Part of why you're doing that is because you want everyone to recognize you, that you were that dope, that you were that good, that you were that amazing.
Speaker 1: And all of us, we can sanctify that we can make that unto God and say I don't want people just to think that I'm amazing.
Speaker 1: I want my life to be a sign in order that points to him I actually want to become.
Speaker 1: This is how we start.
Speaker 1: We kind of want glory, but as we walk closer and closer with Jesus through life, hopefully, where we're getting is I'm jealous for his glory.
Speaker 1: I want everyone else to know, not about me, I want them to know about how awesome and wonderful and what a savior he really is and how kind and how good and how much trouble he's gotten me out of and all the ways he's stuck with me.
Speaker 1: So, jesus, he's talking to his disciples then, and he's talking through them to us right now.
Speaker 1: Here's what he says You've heard that it was said eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth.
Speaker 1: You've heard that it was said eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth.
Speaker 1: This was actually an ancient law.
Speaker 1: It was the law of retaliation, and this was a law because, actually, god was very merciful to the Israelites.
Speaker 1: He said guys, I want, you guys are going to want to get revenge.
Speaker 1: I want that revenge to only be able to go so far, and so we're going to take it to the courts, meaning you can't just do this to one another.
Speaker 1: You can't like go to your neighbor's house and just knock out his tooth, like that's not what it is.
Speaker 1: That means if he comes and knocks out your tooth, you take it to the courts and what they're going to do is they're going to retaliate and they're going to knock out his tooth.
Speaker 1: Now that gives you a little bit of a sense of a worldly fallen justice, but at least it's proportional, because in normal circumstances, if you come, knock out my tooth, dude, I'm walking across the lawn and I'm going to cut off your arm, and then, if I cut off your arm, you're going to burn down my house and all my fields.
Speaker 1: Violence just escalates, retaliation just escalates.
Speaker 1: It doesn't just stay the same.
Speaker 1: And so the law said no, we're not going to have vendettas all the time, it's just going to stop right here.
Speaker 1: This is what the courts are going to say.
Speaker 1: Now, that's really good, maybe for kind of an ancient culture that needs to regulate offenses and punishments and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It's not really good interpersonally.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work between people very well.
Speaker 1: So in Jesus' time even by Jesus' time they didn't really do it physically, they wouldn't really knock out your tooth, because they learned hey, even when you knock out the tooth it's not necessarily fair, because maybe they knocked out your good tooth, but you only got to knock out one of their bad teeth, and they only had two left anyway, and so it wasn't really fair.
Speaker 1: So what they would do is they would just assess damages.
Speaker 1: You would just pay a fee.
Speaker 1: But Jesus didn't want us to treat other people just like the law might or just like a judicial system.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because, remember, we're in the Sermon on the Mount.
Speaker 1: Jesus is trying to fix the heart.
Speaker 1: He's trying to make us more and more like Christ.
Speaker 1: He says that doesn't really represent my heart to people, though.
Speaker 1: I want my people to be transformed in a different way.
Speaker 1: But I tell you, do not resist an evil person.
Speaker 1: If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also, okay.
Speaker 1: So just picture this slaps you on the right cheek.
Speaker 1: What Jesus means is you take someone, takes their right hand, backhands you across the right cheek Oops, sorry, that's not just violence.
Speaker 1: What that was was it was a statement, it was a offense, it was like you are nothing and it was a humiliation.
Speaker 1: Remember, this is a shame and honor culture.
Speaker 1: It's not like so.
Speaker 1: It's not like you and I might be embarrassed or something like that.
Speaker 1: No times 50.
Speaker 1: That, okay, it's humiliating.
Speaker 1: They're saying you are nothing, you are worthless.
Speaker 1: And I'm calling you out in front of everybody you are nothing.
Speaker 1: Meaning.
Speaker 1: It was a diss, it was a disrespect.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the violence that Jesus is talking about.
Speaker 1: Someone has dishonored you.
Speaker 1: That's what happened.
Speaker 1: Well, if that happens, don't resist an evil person.
Speaker 1: If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
Speaker 1: And if anyone wants to sue you, take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.
Speaker 1: And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.
Speaker 1: Give to the one who asks you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
Speaker 1: And here's what we gotta understand, guys as long as we're on planet earth, we're gonna have people diss us.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have people take from us we're People, force us into situations that we don't want to be in.
Speaker 1: And Jesus says you got to get this thing down.
Speaker 1: You got to get this thing down about being a silent sign and wonder wherever you are.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what it takes Four silent signs and wonders.
Speaker 1: Here's the first one unmerited mercy.
Speaker 1: Unmerited mercy.
Speaker 1: Turn to them the other cheek, also Unmerited mercy, meaning we don't do anything to get it.
Speaker 1: The other person doesn't do anything to get it, but they get mercy.
Speaker 1: Remember what mercy is?
Speaker 1: Right, okay?
Speaker 1: So mercy is different than grace, and we see the gospel in here.
Speaker 1: Mercy is I did something bad, but I don't get the full punishment for what I did bad.
Speaker 1: So if a judge is merciful to somebody, okay, they give them less of a punishment than they should have gotten or they give them no punishment at all.
Speaker 1: That's mercy.
Speaker 1: I don't get the bad consequence I was supposed to get.
Speaker 1: Grace is kind of the other side.
Speaker 1: Grace is you didn't do anything good, you're just kind of neutral.
Speaker 1: But I give you anyway, I give you grace, I give you something great so you can see the gospel right here.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we all deserve, we deserve an eternity, apart from God in hell.
Speaker 1: He doesn't give us that.
Speaker 1: That's mercy.
Speaker 1: Now, he could have just left us just like, all right, good luck.
Speaker 1: He could have just deleted us, he could have done anything.
Speaker 1: But instead of that, he goes beyond mercy to grace and he says I'm going to go ahead and give you everything that belongs to Jesus, including his name, including his rights, including all of his treasure in heaven.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you all the stuff that the very son of God gets, even though you weren't even neutral, you were bad, but I'm still going to give you all the best good.
Speaker 1: That's grace and mercy.
Speaker 1: If that's the gospel for us, jesus is saying I know it's hard, but I want you to present that to other people.
Speaker 1: Give them unmerited mercy.
Speaker 1: Don't get back at them.
Speaker 1: That means we turn the other cheek.
Speaker 1: I've been pondering this why?
Speaker 1: Why would God want us to do it?
Speaker 1: What does that do?
Speaker 1: Well, one of the things it does is it breaks the power of evil.
Speaker 1: In a Bible kind of way.
Speaker 1: It crushes the serpent's head.
Speaker 1: It stops it right in its tracks.
Speaker 1: It stops it, maybe, for the other person, because maybe they notice that you didn't seek retaliation and they're like oh, that's interesting, maybe something different about them, but what it definitely does is it does something in us.
Speaker 1: It practices and trains us to be a kingdom citizen.
Speaker 1: This is what a Jesus-y person would do, though, because, you'll notice, that's what Jesus did, and if we're really, jesus is saying hey, sermon on Mount, people, if you want to really be a subject of the kingdom, this is what I do, and this is what I do, and this is how you do it.
Speaker 1: Some of you will remember this Probably most of you won't Pope John Paul II in 1981 said there was an attempted assassination by him, by Mahmoud Ali Aja and we might have there's a picture up there and the Pope went to visit him in prison and they became friends and when the Pope died, this man came and laid flowers on his casket.
Speaker 1: That's the power of the gospel, that's the power of turning the other cheek, and it may not happen for you that exact way.
Speaker 1: Hopefully it won't be assassinated, but it's still a demonstration of the power.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean?
Speaker 1: Well, it means first.
Speaker 1: Okay, so somebody hurts you, somebody dishonors you First.
Speaker 1: Don't dishonor them back.
Speaker 1: That's where it starts.
Speaker 1: That's the first thing.
Speaker 1: If someone is talking about you, let's say you hear that they're gossiping about you and the truth is you're like I got way better stuff than that on them.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna let this out of the bag.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let everybody else know what a crook they are.
Speaker 1: No, don't do it, stay back from it.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've got an adult child and they're raising their kids and you're trying to tell them, like man, that's not the right way and don't do that.
Speaker 1: You could give them a guilt trip about all they're doing wrong as a parent, or you could back up and you could bless them.
Speaker 1: You say I'm not going to get involved, I'm not going to not that you don't get involved, I'm not going to give them a hard time because I'm trying to show them grace, even though they're disrespecting me.
Speaker 1: Maybe you feel that way.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're one of the people in the home or you're one of the people on the team.
Speaker 1: You feel like you do everything and it seems like nobody notices or nobody even chips in at all, and you're like here I go again.
Speaker 1: I'm doing all the stuff.
Speaker 1: I know you are.
Speaker 1: Turn the other cheek and keep a soft heart.
Speaker 1: Just keep going.
Speaker 1: Don't harden your heart.
Speaker 1: Don't let that get on the inside of you, that venom.
Speaker 1: Now what this doesn't mean and we'll talk about this maybe in a little bit it doesn't mean that you don't have boundaries, okay.
Speaker 1: So first thing is get safe.
Speaker 1: We're not literally.
Speaker 1: This wasn't Jesus was asking to literally just sit there and take a beating.
Speaker 1: What he's saying is when you're dishonored, don't dishonor back.
Speaker 1: Four silent signs and wonders.
Speaker 1: The first one was unmerited mercy.
Speaker 1: The second is the untroubled confidence.
Speaker 1: The untroubled confidence oh, I like this one.
Speaker 1: This one's funner for me.
Speaker 1: And if anyone wants to sue, you take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.
Speaker 1: So your shirt was like the inner garment Remember, we're in a time where people don't have a lot of clothes like you do, okay.
Speaker 1: So if someone takes their shirt, that's the inner garment and you could get away with that because if you have your coat, you can still stay warm.
Speaker 1: Your coat was a big deal, man.
Speaker 1: Your coat, that's how you stay warm at night.
Speaker 1: That's how you carry stuff around.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was the law.
Speaker 1: Even if someone sued you to get your coat, they still had to bring it back to you at night and then come get it again the next morning.
Speaker 1: It was so important.
Speaker 1: God's like look, man, don't take their coat.
Speaker 1: They need to sleep with that.
Speaker 1: That needs to keep them warm.
Speaker 1: But Jesus says, even if they do sue you to get their shirt, to get your shirt, go ahead and give them your coat as well.
Speaker 1: And we could say God, why Aren't I just being naive?
Speaker 1: I mean, isn't that stupid?
Speaker 1: Aren't people just going to take advantage of me?
Speaker 1: No, what God's trying to get us to do is I want you to give up on your own vindication.
Speaker 1: I want you to stop trying to solve things for yourself and get back at folks I know.
Speaker 1: Did they take something from you?
Speaker 1: Are you worried?
Speaker 1: They're going to take something from you, possibly.
Speaker 1: Don't give in to fear.
Speaker 1: Don't give in to panic.
Speaker 1: Instead, choose in that very moment.
Speaker 1: I'm going to stay generous.
Speaker 1: I'm going to have a generous heart set.
Speaker 1: You're going to feel like and I felt like this.
Speaker 1: You might feel like this.
Speaker 1: You feel like I'm just being passive, though no, in this case, you're not being passive, you're learning to be unshakable.
Speaker 1: That's what I had to practice on the job site.
Speaker 1: I had to practice being unshakable because old boy would try to shake me with his attitude toward me, with the way he would just impugn all my efforts, with the way he would always be coming down on me, and I had to say to myself oh man, you cannot take what I have in Christ.
Speaker 1: You cannot take my Jesus from me.
Speaker 1: You're trying to get me to act all kinds of weird.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're trying to like blow up my religion or something like that, but you can't have it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to remain unshakable.
Speaker 1: Try to take it as much as you want, you're not going to be able to get it, because what I had to learn in that time was number one, and some of us this is maybe a word for you today God gets me what's mine, but then God can get me back what's mine if somebody takes it.
Speaker 1: Or God can, even if I don't happen to get it back, god might be saying, yeah, because you don't need it.
Speaker 1: Or he might be saying, even if you don't get it, am I enough?
Speaker 1: Are you shakable with that thing?
Speaker 1: If I take that away, does that throw you into a panic?
Speaker 1: Or are you so satisfied in the Lord that, yeah, even when somebody takes something from me, even when someone impugns me, even when someone beats me down, I can still take it?
Speaker 1: Proverbs 20, 22 says I'll pay you back for this wrong.
Speaker 1: Wait for the Lord and he will avenge you.
Speaker 1: Silent sign and wonder Reminds me of Tim Tebow.
Speaker 1: Y'all know about Tim Tebow.
Speaker 1: How could you not know about Tim Tebow?
Speaker 1: He was as you know.
Speaker 1: He was mocked relentlessly in college and in the NFL for his faith in Christ and he was noted as saying this I don't know what my future holds, but I know who holds my future.
Speaker 1: Did you notice Tim Tebow?
Speaker 1: I mean, he's a big guy.
Speaker 1: I feel like he could lay a beat down on some people.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like that wouldn't be hard for him.
Speaker 1: And yet I don't know if you followed him, but dude is kind.
Speaker 1: Dude is generous.
Speaker 1: He never seems to lose his cool.
Speaker 1: He keeps his confidence, he keeps his calm.
Speaker 1: It's like nothing can rattle him why he's keeping a generous spirit.
Speaker 1: He's like oh yeah, okay, you can take my shirt.
Speaker 1: How about my coat too?
Speaker 1: I'm just going to remain the same.
Speaker 1: I'm going to remain kind.
Speaker 1: I'm going to remain gracious.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to allow this to cause me to overreact.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've got a friend that has been really close and now in latter years it seems like they're drifting away or they're even purposely trying to distance themselves from you.
Speaker 1: Well, you can get hurt and you can hold onto that offense and you can just meditate on that thing, or you can say I wish that wasn't happening.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to pray for him, I'm going to bless him, I'm going to trust God that God gets me what's mine, god gets me back what's mine.
Speaker 1: And maybe they're just going through something, maybe they really need my help and they're just not willing to tell me.
Speaker 1: And so I'm just gonna pray for them.
Speaker 1: Are we hearing that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe you feel like something is being taken from you and it's really shaking your life, it's really rattling you, and I just gotta encourage you, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: It might be sad If we were to sit down.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, oh man, I'm so feeling bad for you.
Speaker 1: Even in the midst of that, though, it's time to be steady.
Speaker 1: It's time to say Lord, I want it, I don't want to lose it, but I'm going to be still and chill on the inside, because I've got a face that is untroubled and confident.
Speaker 1: What this doesn't mean?
Speaker 1: Well, it doesn't mean sometimes something is being taken from us and it's because, honestly, dude, we're not working hard enough.
Speaker 1: Okay, so there's a version of this.
Speaker 1: So don't this is an excuse to just like be lazy.
Speaker 1: Okay, sometimes you don't have something because, honestly, god's saying you're not trying hard enough to keep that thing though.
Speaker 1: So, around that same time, when I was working that construction site, god took me on a journey through the book of Proverbs and he was showing me look at Carter, look at all the blessing that is attached to work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, work is cursed after the fall.
Speaker 1: That's still true.
Speaker 1: It's still harder than it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1: But look at all the blessing I've attached to work.
Speaker 1: I funnel good stuff no matter what you do, no matter how you work.
Speaker 1: I funnel good stuff into your life when you work.
Speaker 1: Now, I was an upper middle class kid, okay, so I'd come up with, I believed in hard work, I liked hard work, and yet there was still something in me that resisted it on some level, I would have to admit at the time.
Speaker 1: And these scriptures, they kept challenging me like no, toughen up on the inside.
Speaker 1: No, toughen up on the inside.
Speaker 1: Get to the place where you love and covet this, because God loves it, and do whatever I ask you to do, whether it's on the construction site, whether it's delivering pizzas, whether it's being a ridiculous firewatch in 130 degree factory, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Do it unto my glory and learn to worship me with it.
Speaker 1: And, guys, that was an invaluable lesson, and the lesson wasn't well, I'm just going to sit here in my house and God gets me what's mine.
Speaker 1: Well, he gets you what's yours if you get up and go to work, okay, so sometimes, like we got to think it through what is the natural wisdom God is calling me to do in order to not be losing the thing that I am losing, and some things.
Speaker 1: You guys know this, of course.
Speaker 1: Some things, it's just, it's one of the trials of life, man.
Speaker 1: You're going to have to get through it, but we want to make sure that we're responding the right way.
Speaker 1: And then number three is uncomplaining service.
Speaker 1: Four silent signs and wonders.
Speaker 1: It's a sign and wonder people when you and I demonstrate unmerited mercy, when we demonstrate untroubled confidence and when we demonstrate uncomplaining service, uh-oh.
Speaker 1: Now let's just have a real, honest show of hands.
Speaker 1: Who's got a complaining thing going on in their mouth right now?
Speaker 1: You're complaining.
Speaker 1: Come on, don't be liars too.
Speaker 1: If you're complainers, all right.
Speaker 1: Who's got a complaining thing?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 1: There we go.
Speaker 1: There's some complainers?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a misuse of our mouth, and we all got it.
Speaker 1: We all do it.
Speaker 1: If you just pay attention, you'll notice oh my gosh, here I go complaining again.
Speaker 1: That's the thing that God says.
Speaker 1: That doesn't represent the heart of the King Jesus to the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: Even when you're forced to do something hard, okay, so the law was, a Roman soldier could come along to any Jew and say you're going to carry this thing for a mile Now, they couldn't make you carry it more than a mile, but you had to carry it, whatever they said, up to a mile.
Speaker 1: It might even be you had to go get your donkey because the donkey had to carry it up to a mile.
Speaker 1: And Jesus says even when that inconvenient thing happens, nobody likes that, nobody wants to be bothered that way.
Speaker 1: Jesus says even if you're forced into something, be so gracious, have such a good attitude, Decide I'm going to serve God with this thing and I'm even going to go beyond what they're expecting, meaning I'm going to do the most excellent job that anyone's ever seen.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it better than everybody else.
Speaker 1: Okay, I have to do it.
Speaker 1: So if I have to do it, I'm going to go ahead and rock it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go ahead and make them wish I was always with them, because I do it the very, very best.
Speaker 1: That's what God's asking for.
Speaker 1: He's saying do it, don't get bitter.
Speaker 1: Do it and do it with a great attitude.
Speaker 1: Do it with a chipper.
Speaker 1: Demonstrate what it's like to have the joy of Christ.
Speaker 1: Despite whatever it is you're carrying, keep a generous soul, be generous with your time, be generous with your attitude, be generous with your winsomeness.
Speaker 1: Keep being generous, don't get down and and what's that doing for you?
Speaker 1: Nothing, but who knows what it does for the kingdom of God when you just stay gracious, when you just stay merciful, when you're just a silent sign and wonder.
Speaker 1: Esther, chapter two the king, king Xerxes.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 1: So if you know the story, if you don't know the story, what happens is the king does a really idiot thing to his queen.
Speaker 1: Okay, queen Vashti.
Speaker 1: He essentially fires her because she won't come dance for him and his buddies.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's really what it is.
Speaker 1: So he fires her.
Speaker 1: Now that's a bad deal, like that's a crappy thing that happens in the real world.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that the book of Esther is pointing out is that God works through fallen human systems anyway, even though crappy things are happening there.
Speaker 1: It's not a perfect situation.
Speaker 1: It wasn't good for Queen Vashti.
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, god says well, I'm going to use that and I'm going to raise up Queen Esther because I'm going to use her to save my people from destruction, even when there's something crappy happening in that worldly system.
Speaker 1: God says what do you think I can't get in that?
Speaker 1: You think I don't know about that?
Speaker 1: You think I don't have ways to work in that?
Speaker 1: Why don't you keep an open spirit?
Speaker 1: Why don't you keep an open mind and I'll crawl in that thing and you just wait.
Speaker 1: You just see what I do.
Speaker 1: I might blow your mind.
Speaker 1: So when I had that season under that boss, you know what else I had.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of time with a lot of plain folks, what I would just call plain folks.
Speaker 1: At that time I looked at them, probably when I first started, I was like man, these people don't have a lot of ambition.
Speaker 1: They're not trying to do what I'm trying to do, like they're just super content just working this job.
Speaker 1: And I was slowly humbled.
Speaker 1: I was slowly some of that was beat out of me and what I began to see was the value God had for each and every person around me.
Speaker 1: For some reason, guys, I was so blind, I was so dumb, I was so young.
Speaker 1: I didn't see that there's an entire universe inside every person that Jesus is in love with.
Speaker 1: Even if I believed it, the problem was I didn't love it.
Speaker 1: And see, we gotta take the hard lessons.
Speaker 1: Some things only get beat in, they only get pounded in.
Speaker 1: That was a hard situation.
Speaker 1: It was a worldly deal that this guy was giving me, and yet God was in it.
Speaker 1: God was like no, I'm still doing stuff in here, I'm still bringing redemption to your soul.
Speaker 1: What I want you to do is keep a good attitude.
Speaker 1: What I want you to do is serve.
Speaker 1: And maybe you've served in church and you're like, hey, man, I'm always serving or I'm always serving at the home.
Speaker 1: Always serving or I'm always serving at the home.
Speaker 1: No one's ever reciprocating and you're tempted just to back out.
Speaker 1: Look, I've done my part, I'm done.
Speaker 1: No, don't close up shop, don't jet out of there.
Speaker 1: Instead, say I'm going to go ahead and walk the extra miles.
Speaker 1: You say, carter, I'm old now, so I deserve to be out.
Speaker 1: If you're old now and you're really that old okay, maybe you're only a couple miles from home.
Speaker 1: If you're only a couple miles from home, then, dear heart, you're only a couple miles from home, you're almost there.
Speaker 1: Why not finish?
Speaker 1: Well, why not finish serving the king like he's worthy of every last drop of your life?
Speaker 1: You can't all do it the same way, but you can still do something.
Speaker 1: You can still pray, you can still whatever God opens the door to do.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not going to give up, I'm not going to harden up, I'm not going to get bitter.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to become old and curmudgeonly.
Speaker 1: On the inside, my youth is renewed like the eagle on the inside, I'm going to keep right on going.
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep right on serving.
Speaker 1: I'm stronger and stronger on the inside every day, right way up to the end.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm going to say.
Speaker 1: Are we hearing this?
Speaker 1: Because we don't know.
Speaker 1: We don't know what God's going to do.
Speaker 1: It's easy.
Speaker 1: It's easy to just get resentful.
Speaker 1: It's easy for the little hiccups and cuts of life to just beat us down and just harden us up.
Speaker 1: And you know what I'm going to do I'm going to withdraw.
Speaker 1: Then Fine, people can do it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to pull back.
Speaker 1: They're not going to get my help, they're not going to get my service.
Speaker 1: They're not going to get my prayers, they're not going to get my love.
Speaker 1: No, that's the easy way out.
Speaker 1: That's the non-kingdom way out.
Speaker 1: That's the world's way out.
Speaker 1: That's the enemy's way out.
Speaker 1: You're higher than that.
Speaker 1: You're a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.
Speaker 1: You're well able, filled with the Holy Spirit of God, to go way further than that.
Speaker 1: And then number four uncalculating generosity.
Speaker 1: Uncalculating generosity, uncalculating I don't know if that's a real word, but it sounds real to me.
Speaker 1: Uncalculating meaning you're not keeping a tally, you're generous but you're not keeping tabs on how generous you are.
Speaker 1: You're not like, well, and I'm this awesome and I'm this awesome or I've already been enough generous there so I'm going to pull back.
Speaker 1: No, don't even ask, don't even do it.
Speaker 1: Give to the one who asks you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
Speaker 1: Meaning have a heart set, have a posture, decide to work at it.
Speaker 1: Have a heart set posture with God's help that I'm not keeping score.
Speaker 1: People see I don't know if you guys know this Dude there's mooches in life.
Speaker 1: There's just mooches.
Speaker 1: They just come and they always want something and really what they are is they're bless their hearts, they're takers Like they've somehow they learned in life just go get some, go try to get stuff from people, just be a taker.
Speaker 1: And even if you're around takers, jesus says don't keep tabs, don't keep a record, just keep giving.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because that's what God would do Keep on giving.
Speaker 1: So some of us were like, well, maybe I better pull back, maybe maybe you should.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there's a version where someone is being destructive to their own soul and they're not taking the responsibility God wants them to take.
Speaker 1: And for sure we're not no one's saying pay for someone's rent or anything like that for the next 10 years.
Speaker 1: We're not saying that.
Speaker 1: What we're saying is, as people come to you, as you find little needs, don't just be like, well, I've given enough.
Speaker 1: If you've got more, you've got more.
Speaker 1: And the Lord tends to keep filling you.
Speaker 1: Keep pouring out that oil, dude, he's gonna keep filling it up with more oil, so you just keep on taking care of people.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite heroes in the entire world is Booker T Washington.
Speaker 1: Some of you know about him.
Speaker 1: He was six years old when the slaves were freed.
Speaker 1: All he had was a shirt, didn't have any underpants or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But he took a look around as he grew up and he realized okay, it seems like people are going several different ways here.
Speaker 1: Some of the former slaves are just mad and bitter and they're not really able to be productive because they're just mad.
Speaker 1: Others are looking to the white man.
Speaker 1: They're saying well, we need the white man to help us out, we need him to take care of them.
Speaker 1: And Booker T Washington said I'm going to become an educator, I'm going to do things so well, I'm going to have my character so together that I'm going to help other people succeed.
Speaker 1: I'm going to create a school of industry and I'm going to teach all these folks to keep giving and giving and giving Be useful to the planet.
Speaker 1: Help people.
Speaker 1: If you keep helping people, god will make sure that you keep getting helped.
Speaker 1: So, my friends, that resonated in my heart and it's the kind of guy that I want to be A person who, no matter what odds you're up against, no matter what's coming after you, you're still no, I'm going to go ahead and be a giver.
Speaker 1: So this is the choice we've got.
Speaker 1: You can choose to do the warfare against your own self-life.
Speaker 1: You can choose to do the warfare against your own self-life or you can be transformed on the inside and say I know that it makes sense.
Speaker 1: I know that I feel like saying I'm done.
Speaker 1: I know that if I give myself to this, it's going to cost me margin.
Speaker 1: It's going to cost me energy.
Speaker 1: I know, I know precious hey, you're probably almost home.
Speaker 1: Keep going.
Speaker 1: Don't stop.
Speaker 1: Not saying don't take a vacation.
Speaker 1: Not saying don't watch out for burnout, but what I am saying is the ethic of people keep you, keep seeing needs on planet earth.
Speaker 1: Whatever you can do to fill it, fill it, do it.
Speaker 1: Don't step back, step up.
Speaker 1: We have the opportunity, people of God.
Speaker 1: We have the opportunity to shock the darkness around us.
Speaker 1: We have the opportunity to people of God.
Speaker 1: We have the opportunity to shock the darkness around us.
Speaker 1: We have the opportunity to be the one that people are like wow, what, what?
Speaker 1: Hmm, maybe that was a sign from God, maybe the fact that that person was on that team at that time, maybe the fact that that person was in the Aldi with me at that exact moment.
Speaker 1: Maybe that was God tapping on my door saying I'm here, I'm right here, I'm trying to get your attention because I love you and absorb the hit, whatever it is, whatever it costs, whatever it hurts, whatever it dishonors.
Speaker 1: You just absorb it, because Jesus absorbed it for you.
Speaker 1: He absorbed those lashes of the whip, he absorbed the pressure and the pain of those nails going into his wrists.
Speaker 1: He absorbed all of it and he did it for you.
Speaker 1: He didn't get back at you, he didn't retaliate, he didn't utilize the law of retaliation.
Speaker 1: No, he decided to go with the principle of non-resistance.
Speaker 1: And that's how the head of the enemy was crushed.
Speaker 1: So it's up to us guys.
Speaker 1: Jesus gave us unmerited mercy.
Speaker 1: He did it through uncomplaining service and uncalculating generosity so that you and I could have an untroubled confidence.
Speaker 1: That's the sign and wonder we're supposed to be.
Speaker 1: Let's bow our heads.
Speaker 1: Thank you, lord.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your word, thank you for your examples, thank you for your models throughout the ages.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the models we have in our very own lives right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we want to admit we're going to need your help with this one.
Speaker 1: We want to admit that there are some for us right now, god, we want to admit we're going to need your help with this one.
Speaker 1: We want to admit that there are some for us right now.
Speaker 1: Resentment has built walls up in our hearts and we want to pray right now that you would bring those walls down.
Speaker 1: I pray for a softening of the soul, lord.
Speaker 1: I pray for an open-handedness, lord.
Speaker 1: I pray that, even when people that have hurt us are asking us to help them, help us lower our guard and look to you and follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: God, help us to be ridiculously generous.
Speaker 1: Help us to live like we're going to a kingdom where we'll never have want.
Speaker 1: Help us to live like we serve a savior that takes care of all of our needs and is actually making us unshakable.
Speaker 1: God, help us to see every need that you want us to meet in our lives, and meet it with joy and with cheer, uncomplaining In Jesus' name amen.
Speaker 1: Fierce in your life.
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Speaker 1: We'll see you next time.