SPEAKER_07: Good morning, everybody.
SPEAKER_07: Um we'll turn to page uh four ninety three.
SPEAKER_07: I believe two ninety five.
SPEAKER_03: Does anybody have anybody they need to bring to her attention this morning?
SPEAKER_03: For intercessory?
SPEAKER_03: Okay, Jen.
SPEAKER_00: Just keep Miss Hunter in your prayers and carry her daughter.
SPEAKER_00: Keep her in your prayers.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
SPEAKER_07: Anybody else?
SPEAKER_07: Yep, Keith.
SPEAKER_07: Um Pat's brother Chris is in a hospital again.
SPEAKER_07: Uh he went back in last night.
SPEAKER_07: Um apparently, I think they called it um arthritic um pneumonia.
SPEAKER_07: And uh he used to uh used to have a hard doubt with him stuff.
SPEAKER_07: Apparently they had to do more uh behavior dose antiboltics and stuff.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
SPEAKER_07: And uh but he didn't want nobody to even be there, and he just felt so bad and everything that couldn't leave him, so that's where she's at this morning.
SPEAKER_07: Pray for the family uh dealing with that because he was carrying her mama and all that, and uh close Pat and Josh Y'all uh she calls it the crud.
SPEAKER_07: I believe she don't need it to me.
SPEAKER_07: So I hope I don't have it, but every little thing, you know, you think I might have it, you know.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
SPEAKER_07: But I think I'm alright, but yeah.
SPEAKER_07: I guess Tony's family, you know passing the buttons.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: But at least you can't say Pat's not a giving wife.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_03: Anyone else?
SPEAKER_03: Yep, Maryland?
SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm not you pray for me.
SPEAKER_02: I'm just kind of gonna do a part-time.
SPEAKER_02: And also Karen, she's got the flu, I think, this week.
SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of that flu going around.
SPEAKER_03: Probably because it's warmer winter.
SPEAKER_03: Anybody else got anything you want to bring to our attention?
SPEAKER_03: All right.
SPEAKER_03: Well, with that, let's bow our heads.
SPEAKER_03: Father God, we come to you this morning thanking you so much for the opportunity that we can just bring our cares to you, the troubles that that we're enduring and that those that we love are enduring.
SPEAKER_03: And Father, you've heard the request this morning, of course, with uh we just pray that you'd be with our sisters, Karen.
SPEAKER_03: As she's dealing with the flu, and so many other people likewise are dealing with it.
SPEAKER_03: And and Marilyn, please be with her and give her strength and encouragement.
SPEAKER_03: Uh Miss Hunter, we we desperately certainly miss her, seeing her here.
SPEAKER_03: And I'm sure no she misses being here with us.
SPEAKER_03: But we pray that you would be with her and give her peace, and and her daughter Jerry just as she tends to her and helps her.
SPEAKER_03: Just pray that she'd be with both of them.
SPEAKER_03: And then our brother Chris's father, he you know everything he's gone through here recently with his surgery, and uh and now having uh an episode of uh some type of infection.
SPEAKER_03: We just pray, Father, that you would touch him, that you would remove it completely, and heal him completely and restore him, and let him get back up and go into the way that we know that he desperately wants to do.
SPEAKER_03: And uh he never was once every round.
SPEAKER_03: So just pray that you'd be with him, give him healing.
SPEAKER_03: And uh be with our brother Tony and and Val as they continue to just uh go on the passing, the the going home of Buddy, it's uh it is it's it's hard for us, Father, even though we know that whenever we pass, when our loved ones pass, they're they're going on to glory, and we it just it's still the the sting of death that uh that troubles us for a while.
SPEAKER_03: We just pray that you give us comfort, that you would give them comfort as uh as time goes on.
SPEAKER_03: And certainly with uh Pat and Keith and Josh, the uh just the general springtime crud that's going around, just pray that you would give them relief and healing from that.
SPEAKER_03: And um please just be with all of us, Father, and just go with us this week and keep us safe, keep us healthy, and just help us to uh just be encouraged and uh and just um and just have be hopeful of of what this week means to us, Father.
SPEAKER_03: We thank you so much for it, we thank you for all that you do, and we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.
SPEAKER_03: And we'll have Keith come back up for Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_03: I think this might be a conspiracy to keep us walking a lot more.
SPEAKER_03: Well, I guess it's good, first.
SPEAKER_07: Anybody have anything for things that you can crack this morning?
SPEAKER_08: Mike?
SPEAKER_08: Years ago, probably 15, 16 years ago, we had uh had a niece, and she was born with the extreme facial dephora, the cleft pallet thing, I think.
SPEAKER_08: She's really bad, man.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
SPEAKER_08: And uh the church here kicked in right here and all that helped finance the surgery, the correct surgery for that right now.
SPEAKER_08: I just want to let you know.
SPEAKER_08: She graduated this this this last week here now.
SPEAKER_08: She's got her pictures now if you want to see people.
SPEAKER_07: Great, great, great.
SPEAKER_07: I've got uh my cousin, my first cousin, my dad's brother, his wife carried some kind of a gene that you know, a lot of their male uh children had that.
SPEAKER_07: And it's amazing to see the difference and after the after the fact and all the big deal.
SPEAKER_07: Well, that's great.
SPEAKER_07: That's great.
SPEAKER_07: Anybody else?
SPEAKER_07: Well, if you will, bow your heads.
SPEAKER_07: Father, we come to you again on such a beautiful day.
SPEAKER_07: Uh on my trip down, it was just so amazing to see all the many wonders that you give us so freely and uh that are so easily overlooked that uh they're also uh such a natural thing that we just don't even look at them that importantly anymore.
SPEAKER_07: But uh just just so you'll know we do appreciate them, God.
SPEAKER_07: And we appreciate all the many blessings that you give us each and every day.
SPEAKER_07: You uh you take care of uh sad times sometimes, Lord, and you turn them around.
SPEAKER_07: It's such a a wonderful, wonderful blessing.
SPEAKER_07: And thank you for uh thank you for giving the doctors the ability to to uh with your guidance uh change people's lives in a way that uh years and years ago could could not have happened.
SPEAKER_07: And we do appreciate the uh all the everyday daily improvements of all medicine and stuff like that that you do for us, God.
SPEAKER_07: And uh just watch over everybody today and just uh just give us all uh a little real sunshine that uh we so desperately need sometimes.
SPEAKER_07: And thank you most importantly for your most wonderful gift that we've ever received.
SPEAKER_07: Your son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_07: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: The sufferings that you've written seven hundred years before it happened.
SPEAKER_01: I see a fifty-three.
SPEAKER_01: But believe our reports, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed, for he shall for he shall grow up before him as a tender hand in a roof out of the dry ground.
SPEAKER_01: He hath no form nor comeliness, and we need we shall seek him.
SPEAKER_01: There is no beauty that we shall desire him.
SPEAKER_01: He is despised and rejected of me, a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him.
SPEAKER_01: He was despised and we esteemed him.
SPEAKER_01: And we esteem him now.
SPEAKER_01: Surely he had borne our grief and carried our sorrow.
SPEAKER_01: Yet we did esteem him, stricken, dismissed of God and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgression, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his strife we are healed.
SPEAKER_01: Only like sheep had gone astray.
SPEAKER_01: We had turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord had laid on him the iniquity of us all.
SPEAKER_01: He was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.
SPEAKER_01: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter in a sheep before his shearer is down.
SPEAKER_01: So he opened it not his mouth.
SPEAKER_01: He was taken from prison and from judgment who shall declare his generations, for he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was stricken, and he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death.
SPEAKER_01: Because he has done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
SPEAKER_01: Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, he had for him to grieve.
SPEAKER_01: When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his sin, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord's shall prosper, shall prosper in his hand.
SPEAKER_01: He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied by his knowledge shall my righteous servant be justified, meaning, for he shall bear for he shall bear their iniquities.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide a spoiled with the strong, because he had poured out his soul unto the unto death, and he was numbered with a transgressor, and he bare the sins of many and made intercession for the transgression.
SPEAKER_08: Good morning, everyone.
SPEAKER_08: We went up to the service yesterday there for Tony's Tony's dad right there.
SPEAKER_08: And uh it was a very good service.
SPEAKER_08: It was good to see him right there.
SPEAKER_08: And yet when I saw when I saw the obituary and I was reading it there, I realized there's some certain things there that all had had my family tied to their family way back, way far farther back there than even before I started attending church in 1977.
SPEAKER_08: But in 1960, 66 there, my mom and dad opened a business there, and Buddy right there was a truck driver for American Thread.
SPEAKER_08: And he did that for years.
SPEAKER_08: My mom and dad right there was wholesale distributor for American Thread.
SPEAKER_08: So uh we had truck shippers there every week.
SPEAKER_08: And Buddy's probably one of the delivery drivers had it.
SPEAKER_08: We didn't even know about at the time, right there.
SPEAKER_08: And another thing I saw on the bulletin thing was that uh Tony's dad and my dad had the same birthday and born in the same year.
SPEAKER_08: It was just a revelation.
SPEAKER_08: But now far as Tony goes after it all, he's lost his dad.
SPEAKER_08: It doesn't matter how old we get, we've lost a lifeline.
SPEAKER_08: We're all our oldest.
SPEAKER_08: Marilyn's in the same condition right here now.
SPEAKER_08: She's lost her mom.
SPEAKER_08: She's lost lost a lot that you know we can't even understand.
SPEAKER_08: Those of us you have lost our parents' hair, dude, but uh there's a lot of us here that haven't yet.
SPEAKER_08: So yeah, we we've lost all this, and yet we would come back here and we think about all the people here in the church here that we've lost over the last few years.
SPEAKER_08: Uh she lost her mom, Martha.
SPEAKER_08: And Martha was a was a wonderful lady.
SPEAKER_08: And we lost Leona.
SPEAKER_08: And I still think of her, you know, is uh the steadfastness of her faith.
SPEAKER_08: And uh all that she meant to us her, and she's so good to everybody.
SPEAKER_08: We th we thank thank the Lord there for her.
SPEAKER_08: You know, then we could come back over here and all that, and we lost uh like Mary Bolden and Robert told us.
SPEAKER_08: I remember Robert.
SPEAKER_08: But I can't believe you know, it's right the end of the Vietnam War.
SPEAKER_08: Alright, got my got my draft notice there, get ready to go in.
SPEAKER_08: And about that time, Nixon ended the draft, and I didn't have to go.
SPEAKER_08: He said, You don't have to go, just don't worry about it now.
SPEAKER_08: And Robin was with me over in my shop for a day.
SPEAKER_08: We were working on some things.
SPEAKER_08: And he opened up there on something that he rarely ever spoke anything about, a cavalry war or anything like that.
SPEAKER_08: But he was asking me, you know, why I didn't go into the military.
SPEAKER_08: And I said, Well, they ended the draft, and they told me I didn't need it because they're doing a reduction in force with all the military.
SPEAKER_08: Then they're giving people early retirement and all kinds of things there just to get uh get the numbers down and stuff.
SPEAKER_08: He sat there with them for about an hour and he was.
SPEAKER_08: Tell me about his time in World War II.
SPEAKER_08: You know, going in Normandy.
SPEAKER_08: He's telling me about his buddies.
SPEAKER_08: One is right side and one on his left side there.
SPEAKER_08: Got cut in half with mortars and machine gun fire and things there.
SPEAKER_08: He said he always felt guilty because uh he never got a scratch.
SPEAKER_08: These were some amazing people.
SPEAKER_08: They really changed.
SPEAKER_08: Changed my life.
SPEAKER_08: I'm sure they affected a lot of you too.
SPEAKER_08: Because of their steadfastness, their faith, their unwaveringness.
SPEAKER_08: They were really, they were really a good influence on each and every one of us, you know.
SPEAKER_08: And we need to just keep those in our mind.
SPEAKER_08: Even though they're gone, they still have influence.
SPEAKER_08: John Chipa.
SPEAKER_08: Who lost John?
SPEAKER_08: John and I were baptized together.
SPEAKER_08: So that was a big thing for me.
SPEAKER_08: We were at Switzerland's Club together.
SPEAKER_08: Did a lot.
SPEAKER_08: But yeah, we'd be remiss, you know, but even within remembering all these few years, the one there that made everything possible for us.
SPEAKER_08: Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_08: He's been gone a long time.
SPEAKER_08: He's coming back.
SPEAKER_08: And we know that that he is gone out there, but uh he is coming back, and it's probably only pretty soon.
SPEAKER_08: We hope it is anyway.
SPEAKER_08: But anyway, right there, I got a verse here.
SPEAKER_08: I'm gonna read to it there all for some for here to first John.
SPEAKER_08: Go to John 14, verses 1 through 3.
SPEAKER_08: Let your heart not be troubled.
SPEAKER_08: You believe in God, believe also in me.
SPEAKER_08: In my father's house are many mansions.
SPEAKER_08: If it were not so, I would have told you.
SPEAKER_08: I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also.
SPEAKER_08: So we can take comfort in that.
SPEAKER_08: With all of all of them, our loved ones here and all, that there is gonna be a better day.
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
SPEAKER_03: Um today's study takes us to uh Peter's first epistle.
SPEAKER_03: First Peter, we're going to be looking at chapter three, and we're gonna focus on verses eight through twelve.
SPEAKER_03: First Peter chapter three, beginning in verse eight, Peter says, Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another.
SPEAKER_03: Love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous, not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.
SPEAKER_03: For he who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit.
SPEAKER_03: Let him turn away from evil and do good, let him seek peace and pursue it.
SPEAKER_03: For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers.
SPEAKER_03: But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.
SPEAKER_03: Father God, we thank you for your word, and as we come to it today to study, we pray that you would give us what you would have us take from it, that you would feed us spiritually, and that you would equip us for righteousness.
SPEAKER_03: We thank you and praise you.
SPEAKER_03: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Peter wrote, Peter wrote this letter to the persecuted Christians who were living in Asia Minor, what we know today as modern day Turkey.
SPEAKER_03: This included the the cities or the provinces, the towns, whatever you will, of Pontus, Galatia, Capitacea, Asia, and Bithynia, sometime between A.D.
SPEAKER_03: 62 and A.D.
SPEAKER_03: 64.
SPEAKER_03: Now, I think for you and I, as Christians, living in Western North Carolina in the South of the Freest nation ever known to mankind, it's hard for you and I to really internalize persecution because of our faith.
SPEAKER_03: We've been very blessed and very fortunate living where we have.
SPEAKER_03: I don't think anyone in here, regardless of age, has probably ever truly been persecuted by any way, shape, or form where we're living because of their faith.
SPEAKER_03: Now, granted, growing up in the worldwide church of God, some of us got some funny looks, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_03: What do you mean you can't watch a football game tonight?
SPEAKER_03: Well, it's Friday night.
SPEAKER_03: So that's when we play football.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but tomorrow's a Sabbath.
SPEAKER_03: Well, you want to go fishing tomorrow?
SPEAKER_03: No, I can't.
SPEAKER_03: Why not?
SPEAKER_03: Because it's Saturday.
SPEAKER_03: Why can't you go fishing on Saturday?
SPEAKER_03: I can go Sunday morning, you're gonna go there.
SPEAKER_03: No, that's when you're supposed to go to church.
SPEAKER_03: I think we can all um, you know, from that, you know, glean just the way our upbringing.
SPEAKER_03: We never were persecuted.
SPEAKER_03: We might have been mocked, we might have been made fun of, we might have had our grandpappies call us a cult, but so be it.
SPEAKER_03: Never have we ever been persecuted for our faith.
SPEAKER_03: Now, as time goes on, and especially as we see things taking place around us at such a rapid pace, we may see a lot more hostility uh toward those of us who truly, truly believe and follow Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_03: Peter begins chapter three by instructing this an attitude of unity in the home as he addressed wives and husbands.
SPEAKER_03: And now he extends that instruction on to the church itself, the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_03: Peter calls for unity and a harmony in the church, done through compassion, brotherly love, tenderheartedness, and humility.
SPEAKER_03: He urges believers not to respond to persecution with retaliation, but rather with blessing, which we're called to do as followers of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_03: And as Lou read the account in Isaiah, even whenever he was being tortured, whenever he was taking the stripes that belonged to you and I, he never lifted his hand in anger or retaliation or voiced a word of opposition, knowing full well that he had every authority and power to obliterate those who were persecuting him.
SPEAKER_03: But he chose not to.
SPEAKER_03: And with that blessing, we also, when we imitate our Lord and Savior, there's a blessing in it for us.
SPEAKER_03: Verse 8, Peter begins by commanding that we as the body of Christ are to be of one mind.
SPEAKER_03: Psalm 133, verse 1, we read, Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.
SPEAKER_03: Now, one thing that we can't identify with in our country, and we might even question if we look at Christianity today, how in the world could each and every sect, every denomination possibly ever be of one mind.
SPEAKER_03: We have this group over here who says women cannot be pastors.
SPEAKER_03: We have another group that says it's okay if we ordain homosexuals as leaders, as teachers.
SPEAKER_03: We have another group who says, well, you have to attend church on this day before it count.
SPEAKER_03: We have groups who say, you know, if whenever you die, if you expect to be resurrected, then you have to be buried instead of crema.
SPEAKER_03: We argue and bicker as the body of Christ over so many irrelevant things for the most part.
SPEAKER_03: How do we as believers, as followers of Jesus Christ, get so far out in the weeds when it comes to what we believe?
SPEAKER_03: How do we get there?
SPEAKER_03: Well, let me first say that it isn't something new.
SPEAKER_03: It's been going on ever since the beginning of time.
SPEAKER_03: We see when the law was given to the Israelites, God laid out a specific law.
SPEAKER_03: Said, do this, don't do that.
SPEAKER_03: But what did the Jews do?
SPEAKER_03: Well, they made it even better.
SPEAKER_03: If God says that I've got to be in my house at sunset, well, I'm gonna make sure I'm there before 30 in the afternoon and make that a new law.
SPEAKER_03: The same's true in Christianity.
SPEAKER_03: One example that comes to mind, the Bible clearly says that drunkenness is a sin.
SPEAKER_03: We have denominations that take it even further and say that if you even breathe a whiff of alcohol, you have sinned.
SPEAKER_03: Interestingly enough, when the Bible speaks of drunkenness, you know, you can be drunk on a lot of different substances.
SPEAKER_03: Believe it or not, marijuana wasn't invented in the 1970s.
SPEAKER_03: There's actually records dating back as far as Moses' time that marijuana, a weed, literally.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, think about it.
SPEAKER_03: But we get so far out in the weeds, depending on our denominations, by our you know, our thought processes, that we've just made it a habit of screwing everything up royally.
SPEAKER_03: In a nutshell, basically, we most often set the foundation of what we believe based on interpreting scripture, based on how it makes us feel, rather than yielding to the instruction of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03: To understand the things of God, we must learn them from the Spirit of God who dwells in us.
SPEAKER_03: I think we can all admit to that feeling that we get as we mature in our Christian faith and we go to do something that may be a little bit questionable, and you get that, you know, that thing inside of you saying, This probably ain't a good idea.
SPEAKER_03: And thank you, Holy Spirit, that you're the one gouging.
SPEAKER_03: I say, No, you're right, Stu, but it's not a good idea.
SPEAKER_03: Paul alludes to this in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 6 through 10.
SPEAKER_03: Paul says, However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
SPEAKER_03: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew.
SPEAKER_03: For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
SPEAKER_03: But as it's written, I has not seen nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him.
SPEAKER_03: But God has revealed them to us through his spirit.
SPEAKER_03: For the spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
SPEAKER_03: Here Paul points out the hypocrisy of man's wisdom in seeking spiritual maturity and spiritual obedience, apart from the drawing of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03: The Jews thought they were the most elite, the most religious group of all time.
SPEAKER_03: But they crucified Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: Just as in the same way some today proclaim religious piety, by cherry picking scriptures out of the book, and almost always they're out of context to give relevance to their teachings, even though they're in direct contradiction of God's word.
SPEAKER_03: We see that in so many denominations today.
SPEAKER_03: So clearly, the pathway to like-mindedness, as Peter refers to and commands us here, comes to being led in our teachings and our understandings by the Spirit rather than our own desires.
SPEAKER_03: Now the Bible is clear, back in that day, just as it is in this day, there were false teachers.
SPEAKER_03: False teachers, false prophets, false speakers.
SPEAKER_03: Paul even alludes to them, I think it's in Philippians.
SPEAKER_03: Some preach out of vanity, out of conceit, out of selfish desire for gain.
SPEAKER_03: How do we deal with people, with with churches, whatever the case may be, similarly as was done in the times when, you know, we were they were warned back then about false teachers.
SPEAKER_03: The Bible's clear as far as what we should do.
SPEAKER_03: Now, I don't know about you, but I know people who go to different churches that are of other denominations who still identify as Christians.
SPEAKER_03: I've been invited, you know, sometimes with people.
SPEAKER_03: I know one little church, it's a Methodist church.
SPEAKER_03: A friend of mine said, you ought to stop by them, you know, we got a new preacher, whatever her name is.
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, well, you know, I I kind of got my own church I gotta go to, they'll talk about me.
SPEAKER_03: I didn't really say that, but but when we're dealing, I think a lot of these churches, even today, so many of them, we don't see a whole lot of them around here, but we we're starting to.
SPEAKER_03: Certainly when you get down towards Charlotte Hickory.
SPEAKER_03: Whenever we know people who are going to these churches who are being clearly taught false doctrine, false teaching, how do we deal with it?
SPEAKER_03: How do we respond to them?
SPEAKER_03: Well, certainly I.
SPEAKER_03: Love, out of humility.
SPEAKER_03: Scripture's clear whenever we have this situation that one or two confronts a person.
SPEAKER_03: Hey, look, I know you like this church, they got pretty windows, but they're teaching you some bad stuff, which is not biblical.
SPEAKER_03: That's why we see entire denominations moving so far to the left, if you would say.
SPEAKER_03: I would not say to the left, I would say down south, because that's where so much of their teaching is leading people.
SPEAKER_03: Way down south.
SPEAKER_03: So, but I I think there are some sincere people in these congregations who are just so far just oblivious to it.
SPEAKER_03: But they're faithful and but in going each and every week.
SPEAKER_03: So for me personally, when I know someone is in this particular situation, I do try to talk to them.
SPEAKER_03: I do try to talk to them.
SPEAKER_03: Say, look, you know, you might read this section of scripture right here.
SPEAKER_03: You might read this.
SPEAKER_03: What does the Holy Spirit tell you when you read this?
SPEAKER_03: And some they've changed.
SPEAKER_03: Some churches I know and down in Burke County have split over things like this.
SPEAKER_03: But regardless, we are to be humble whenever dealing with these situations.
SPEAKER_03: Peter goes on to instruct us to be compassionate toward each other, to love his brothers, being tender-hearted and courteous, he says.
SPEAKER_03: Obviously, when someone is mixed up in false teachings or is being led by a preacher, a pastor whose desires are of his own rather than desires of God.
SPEAKER_03: In other words, when he's in it for himself, we have to be loving with those people that we know, that we come into contact with.
SPEAKER_03: We get along.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we always have.
SPEAKER_03: I have friends who are pastors, and their churches would split over whether or not put a new roof on the church.
SPEAKER_03: I'm glad we don't have to deal with that.
SPEAKER_03: Churches who split over whether or not we need to build a bigger building.
SPEAKER_03: Churches that have split over, you know, we got red carpet in here.
SPEAKER_03: I think it ought to be brown.
SPEAKER_03: But I ain't coming back, do you understand?
SPEAKER_03: Nonsense.
SPEAKER_03: 1 Peter 5 and verse 5.
SPEAKER_03: Likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to the elders.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility.
SPEAKER_03: For God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
SPEAKER_03: And that's the only thing it is whenever we think our way is better than yours or anyone else's way.
SPEAKER_03: All it is is pride.
SPEAKER_03: Peter says, do away with it.
SPEAKER_03: Let's not be a people that bickers over these things.
SPEAKER_03: I don't think we ought to sing all these old new time, you know, new age hippie songs that y'all have been saying.
SPEAKER_03: We need to get back to the old stuff.
SPEAKER_03: I get so tickled.
SPEAKER_03: I've uh I know some some young people too, and uh, you know, a couple of them work for me.
SPEAKER_03: And that's uh, you know, well, I like to gouge them, they like to gouge me.
SPEAKER_03: They're, you know, Christians, of course, but yeah, we'll we'll do that.
SPEAKER_03: Well, the young people just like this.
SPEAKER_03: I don't care.
SPEAKER_03: I like all of it.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, believe it or not, I had been known that one at times there was even some rap music I could listen to.
SPEAKER_03: Now, granted, it was way old rap music, but and I guess by today's standards, you'd probably call it soul rather than rap.
SPEAKER_03: Anyway, verse 9 here in Peter, 1 Peter 3, Peter goes on to instruct us in not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling.
SPEAKER_03: But instead, when we are presented with insults or abuse, that's what reviling is, it's just insulting somebody.
SPEAKER_03: When we're presented with insults and abuse from another person, we're commanded to respond to them with blessings.
SPEAKER_03: Now, this is not a command to that, you know, we're we're supposed to submit to someone beating us in the head with something.
SPEAKER_03: It's not that we're to submit to abuse, if someone is physically violent, then by all means get the heck away.
SPEAKER_03: That's not what he's talking about here.
SPEAKER_03: What he's suggesting is in submitting to or not returning, not retaliating, what we do is break the cycle of violence, and we respond with love.
SPEAKER_03: When you deal with somebody, maybe you work with them and they never have anything good to say about you.
SPEAKER_03: And there's days you want to just go in and put your hand right straight through their nose.
SPEAKER_03: But rather, you say, Hey man, hope you have a good day.
SPEAKER_03: That stops, that shuts down that bully mentality, if only for a few minutes.
SPEAKER_03: And it replaces it with an act of love and caring.
SPEAKER_03: Matthew 5 and verse 39, Jesus commands us, but I tell you not to resist an evil person.
SPEAKER_03: But whoever slaps your right cheek, turn the other to him also.
SPEAKER_03: Again, is Jesus asking us to take a punch in the face from somebody?
SPEAKER_03: Of course not.
SPEAKER_03: A slap back in is the same thing as a slap is today.
SPEAKER_03: It ain't to harm you, it's to humiliate you.
SPEAKER_03: That's that's what he's talking about here.
SPEAKER_03: When someone humiliates you by slapping you, then have a heart of humble, caring, and turn the other cheek to him as well.
SPEAKER_03: Again, breaking the cycle of persecution.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus is instructing us to those who would persecute us, those who would insult us, those who would mock us, rather than responding harshly, we respond with blessings.
SPEAKER_03: You torment me, but I want to bless you.
SPEAKER_03: Matthew 5, verse 9, Jesus says, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
SPEAKER_03: Peter goes on to remind us that we were called to this, that we might inherit a blessing.
SPEAKER_03: Look with me, if you will, over in Matthew chapter 5, a little further down.
SPEAKER_03: Beginning in verse 43, Jesus says, You have heard that it is was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
SPEAKER_03: But I say to you, Love your enemies.
SPEAKER_03: Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitly use you and persecute you.
SPEAKER_03: Verse 45, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.
SPEAKER_03: For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good, he sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
SPEAKER_03: For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?
SPEAKER_03: It's easy to love everybody in church that you care about.
SPEAKER_03: What reward have you?
SPEAKER_03: Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
SPEAKER_03: And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others?
SPEAKER_03: Do not even the tax collectors do the same.
SPEAKER_03: Therefore, you shall be perfect, just as your father in heaven is perfect.
SPEAKER_03: He puts a lot of weight into our attitude toward other believers and how we react.
SPEAKER_03: He continues on in verses 10 through 12 by quoting Psalm 34, which gives us as Christians the roadmap to a life filled with blessings.
SPEAKER_03: He says, He who would love life and see good days.
SPEAKER_03: Does anybody want to see good life?
SPEAKER_03: Or have love life and see good days?
SPEAKER_03: Why wouldn't anybody desire that?
SPEAKER_03: Turn with me, if you will, over to Psalm 34.
SPEAKER_03: Let's read it in its entirety.
SPEAKER_03: Psalm 34, I will bless the Lord at all times.
SPEAKER_03: His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
SPEAKER_03: My soul shall make its boast in the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: The humble shall hear of it and be glad.
SPEAKER_03: O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.
SPEAKER_03: I sought the Lord and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
SPEAKER_03: They looked to him and were radiant.
SPEAKER_03: Their faces were not ashamed.
SPEAKER_03: The poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all of his troubles.
SPEAKER_03: The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear him, and delivers them.
SPEAKER_03: O taste and see that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed is the man who trust in him.
SPEAKER_03: O fear the Lord you his saints.
SPEAKER_03: There is no want to those who fear him.
SPEAKER_03: The young lions lack and suffer hunger, but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.
SPEAKER_03: Come ye children, listen to me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: And this is what Peter quotes Who is the man who desires life and loves many days that he may see good?
SPEAKER_03: Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit.
SPEAKER_03: Depart from evil and do good.
SPEAKER_03: Seek peace and pursue it.
SPEAKER_03: The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry.
SPEAKER_03: The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
SPEAKER_03: The righteous cry out, the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles.
SPEAKER_03: The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.
SPEAKER_03: Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
SPEAKER_03: He guards all his bones, and not one of them is broken.
SPEAKER_03: Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous shall be condemned.
SPEAKER_03: The Lord redeems the soul of his servants, and none of those who trust in him shall be condemned.
SPEAKER_03: As we said today, today is Palm Sunday, which sets into motion God's ultimate ultimate plan of salvation for those of us who would love life and desire for ourselves the everlasting glories of heaven.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus humbly rode into the city that day, so many years ago, on this very day, in full unity and one-mindedness with God the Father, in order to pay mine of your sin debt.
SPEAKER_03: They struck him, they beat him, but he lifted not a finger.
SPEAKER_03: He spoke nothing harsh to him.
SPEAKER_03: He left us in his word instruction as to be one body with one spirit, actively doing that which he commanded us to do, which is to make disciples of the whole earth.
SPEAKER_03: And yet he goes on and he cautions us in Luke 18 and verse 8.
SPEAKER_03: He says, When he returns, when he returns, will he really find faith on the earth?
SPEAKER_03: The kind of faith that brought you and I here today, the kind of faith that gets us up each and every day to go out into the world and to be the light that he's called us to be, to spread the gospel that he's given us.
SPEAKER_03: Will he, when he comes back, will he find that kind of faith?
SPEAKER_03: And the kind of faith that a bride, as you and I are, as a church, will he find that kind of faith that a bride has for her groom who has gone away yet promised to return?
SPEAKER_03: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_03: Father God, we do thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_03: We pray that you would find us actively diligent each and every day, going about the tasks that you've called us to.
SPEAKER_03: We know, Father, and sometimes it is hard, it is difficult.
SPEAKER_03: When we deal with even our brothers and sisters from other denominations, from other places, we want to be a people of unity.
SPEAKER_03: We want to be that which you desire for us to be.
SPEAKER_03: Help us in our little bitty church here, Father, to be like-minded with the entire body of Christ.
SPEAKER_03: And let those in congregations this morning, Father, who are being led astray by deceitful teachers, by whatever means necessary, Father, we pray that you would revive those areas, revive those congregations, revive those people to flee from those false teachings so that we will be completely unified and humbled as the bride of Christ.
SPEAKER_03: We thank you, we praise you, ask you to bless us this week.
SPEAKER_03: Go with us and protect us and help us to be the light you've called us to be.
SPEAKER_03: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_07: Well, shall take a fifty four.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Sit at one of those tables for me.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's fine.
SPEAKER_00: I was just gonna put the tablecloth on my tomorrow for Thursday.
SPEAKER_06: Oh my god, thank you.
SPEAKER_06: Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_06: I don't shoot.
SPEAKER_03: Let's take a gun there.
unknown: Very good.
unknown: Now what's the water plans as far as radio?
unknown: I don't know.
unknown: So they rubber.
SPEAKER_06: Would you say you have to change my screen?
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
unknown: Yeah, they don't get rid of it.
unknown: Wait.
SPEAKER_05: Actually, just uh I don't even fix it.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_06: I hope so.
SPEAKER_04: Well, it's good.
SPEAKER_06: But I don't think that's just like a picture of what she was on.
unknown: Oh, right.
unknown: Wait.
unknown: Come here.
unknown: Walk down the hallway and smell this.
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_08: And then you know, after this would be this one right here.
SPEAKER_08: Really?
unknown: That's great.
unknown: And the four.
SPEAKER_06: Oh red.
SPEAKER_06: I'm a sixteen, huh?
SPEAKER_05: It's it's I'm so glad you I mean sniff like I find it.
SPEAKER_02: Do you make those cookies like those cookies?
unknown: Yeah.
unknown: Here one.
unknown: Do we have a burnt one out yet?
SPEAKER_04: What if you're going to curve the pan?
unknown: We have cheese.
unknown: That's where it is.