Worship and Leadership by LifePoint Creative
This podcast was intended to resource our Dream Teamers at LifePoint Church, with biblical fundamentals on worship, life and a variety of leadership principles.
Worship and Leadership by LifePoint Creative
SUNDAY REWIND: Friends Forever
This episode centers around the intersection of friendship, boundaries, and faith, illustrating how significant these elements are in our spiritual journeys. Through shared anecdotes of snow days and discussions of scripture, the hosts reflect on their relationships, accountability, and the necessary boundaries that shape a robust spiritual life. The conversation highlights the importance of placing Jesus at the center of our lives, affecting our relationships with others, both in our homes and communities.
• Exploring childhood memories of snow days
• The impact of weather on church gatherings
• Understanding friendship through the lens of James 4
• Spiritual accountability and its implications
• Prioritizing home ministry and family relationships
• Setting healthy boundaries in friendships and faith
• Encouraging practical steps for maintaining boundaries
• Maintaining a focus on Jesus above all influences
We're back. Hey, is that it?
Speaker 2:Sunday Rewind. Sunday Rewind Yay 2025, new year, new you. I know Another Rewind it is another.
Speaker 3:Rewind All things new.
Speaker 1:I know, but we added a friend.
Speaker 3:There's another chair.
Speaker 2:There's another chair, pastor Elmer. Ladies and gentlemen, yay, hey, hola, thankful for you.
Speaker 3:I'm so grateful to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you guys. This was fun Snow day, weird day, canceled two services, night of worship.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All of the things, all of the things. So I know, whenever it was a snow day, my favorite thing to do was to not do anything. So what were y'all's favorite thing to do?
Speaker 2:What did you do on snow days in California, in LA?
Speaker 3:There was really no snow days. We just watched it on the news and it's like, oh look, no one can do anything.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what about like?
Speaker 3:now. Yes, Now now, um, I guess we, I try to drive on the snow and I, I, I have to get out, Like I get like, like I need to go do something. My wife's like we're just chilling, yeah, but yeah, and then our kids run around the backyard and stuff like that, if they're allowed to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I grew up when we were in Louisiana. We never had snow, um, and then in Tennessee it was always we wanted to be out of school when I play.
Speaker 2:But then at about 11 or 12, my brother and I started trying to monetize snow days by shoveling driveways and that became hustle city. Man, I've talked about it. I've worked since I was 11, doing side jobs, odd jobs, whatever. Snow meant time to work, and so we didn't even own a snow shovel. One year, I think, we borrowed them or used like a spade shovel, like for the house. It was terrible, but we'd clean up, man, go through the neighborhood. You got to sell it like it's snow apocalypse the worst. One year we did it and it all melted that same day. So we just had to get as many done as we could before it all melted anyway. But now I'll tell you as a pastor uh, I don't care if it snows anytime after two o'clock on a sunday until you know morning time saturday.
Speaker 2:But after snowing on the weekend is really frustrating because so many people are making plans to be at church and so many people have volunteered and trained and practiced and done rehearsals, and so it's a consequence to so many people when you have a snow day on the weekend and every weekend this year so far, three weekends in a row we've had bad weather with snow. So there's a group of us pastors, we text every Sunday and especially with bad weather, we're asking what are you doing? What are you doing? What's happening? And I was ready to just call it the devil, I was ready to go into spiritual warfare because I'm like three weekends in a row with snow, are you kidding me? But anyway, praise the Lord.
Speaker 1:My favorite thing to do with snow is not cancel church. It's not cancel church.
Speaker 2:But we had to for two of our services plus our Austin Peay service today.
Speaker 3:They still had church at Bayshore. That's right Now. They laugh at our snow issues. They're probably laughing at us right now.
Speaker 1:They go in feet of snow on Long Island man Well you know what Praise God, we're not in Long Island right now, so I'm like I don't handle the snow y'all. I like heat and humidity. So this is, oh, give me.
Speaker 2:You don't mind being out in the heat and hot, oh no.
Speaker 1:I want to be able to eat the air. It's great.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:I just walk out and just sweat.
Speaker 3:If you get thirsty, you just go Exactly right Like no no dehydration whatsoever.
Speaker 2:As soon as you sweat it out, it just kind of goes right back in, anyways.
Speaker 2:So the reason we're doing this is because we had to change our schedule today and honestly, I mean I have to confess I'm not really disciplined, as you guys know, with always ending on time. I try to end when I'm done. That's what I used to say. We're going to start on time and end when it's over, when God's done. But that's not good for our teams and volunteers and KidPoint and Turnover Church.
Speaker 2:But this particular message I just wrote so much extra. I probably wrote 20% more than I normally do, and if you were reading my manuscript and watching me preach, I was like blazing through my manuscript. There's a lot that I skipped or paraphrased or didn't use, and so I knew that there's more content that I feel like the Lord put in this message. And we were working on it on Tuesday and the whole team was just really excited about the direction of this message. I thought a Sunday Rewind would be a great way to kind of fill in some of those gaps and address some of the challenges. And then a lot of people didn't get to come to service today, so they're watching it on demand. This would be a great supplement for that. That's why we're doing it. Yay, thanks for the audible and the flexibility.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. You know what. Here's the thing I'm not driving in this, so I'm just hanging out anyways, like let's do it.
Speaker 2:You're going to stay here all week right All week, thanks to.
Speaker 1:Jacob Forever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Friends forever man James 4, 1 through 4.
Speaker 2:What a punch. It's a tough text. Even when I read it with our team, everybody's going, wow, this is really hard.
Speaker 1:It's heavy, it's very hard, it's very heavy. So what? Yes, holy Spirit, but what made y'all decide and land on that text, though?
Speaker 2:It's that statement about friendship with the world is enmity with God, which is rooted in the same word as to be an enemy with God. And I think that's not said enough. We say it in other ways, like, hey, you're a Christian, you should live a certain way. But the way James said it, I feel like if you read the whole book of James, he soft-stepped into that severe statement. He talks about letting your faith and your actions line up, and then he talked about hypocrisy and duplicitous mindsets, double-mindedness. Then he just gets really strong and he says look, if you're going to do it the world's way, you're an enemy of God. It's kind of like if you're not his friend, then the only other option is you're his enemy. And if you're doing Christianity, he's writing to Christians. If you're doing Christianity, he's writing to Christians. If you're doing Christianity the world's ways, with the world's habits, you're actually revealing your lack of friendship with God, which makes you an enemy of God. And I don't know.
Speaker 2:I wrestled through that text a lot before I even brought it to the team, thinking this is it's going to take some real teaching and real grace. But then he follows it with grace it's the mercy of God that lets it happen, it fixes it, cleanses it, corrects it. All of that We'll get to that in a minute, but that's I mean. Think about it in your family. If your husband is not being kind to you, if he's not being good to you, if he's not treating you and your home appropriately, or he's then doing it in a worldly way, with abuse, addiction, adultery, then he's proving that he's A not your friend and he's actually proving that he's an enemy of what we're trying to build. And of course, we know that that's your husband's the best, I mean, he's sweetest dude ever. Sometimes I use like personal illustrations on horrible things with people right in front of me and Stephanie's like why are you making me the subject here?
Speaker 2:You know, like anyways, I didn't mean to do that no-transcript, like we had a whole string of that for about two years. You're proving you hate this place and you don't care about the employees here, the other customers that are paying fair share of of of rates. You, you're not only not a friend to us, but but by virtue of what you're doing and James uses really strong language about stealing, coveting, murdering you're proving your enemy status and I just think that's a sobering thought that needed to be said.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I was just going to say a lot of times cause you said it's one or the other and a lot of times, I think, in our culture we think there's this middle ground, right, and because love has become such a like a soft spoken very, you know, I don't, I don't know how to describe it, the way I'm thinking.
Speaker 3:It's an emotion, it's so emotional and so like romantic and stuff. Right, it's so emotional and so like romantic and stuff. It's like it's we, we think, um, like we have to be nice to everyone, friends with everyone, we have to find a way to coexist with everybody, in a sense of like we will make exceptions for people, we'll make exceptions for certain behaviors, and so we can kind of coddle our way of living. But it's one, it's one or the other, and I think that's the hard part and that's the hard truth about this text.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what I was going to bring up was in the first service. You said pick your kingdom.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it was like man, you know, and it's very plain and very simple.
Speaker 2:Well, that's actually the message throughout the scripture, yeah, okay. So let's unpack it in context with the series Moses choose today, life or death, blessing or cursing Joshua, choose to consecrate yourself. Jesus would say leave that and follow me. That's the call of God on your life, right? And then last week is I'm going to live in freedom from yesterday in order to live free for tomorrow. Well, that means I don't want to bring yesterday or the world or culture with me.
Speaker 2:So there's this constant binary I mean to use a buzzword now. There is a binary in the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom, and Jesus would say it like that Nobody who puts his hand to the plow with me and looks back is fit for my kingdom. If you don't love me first, above all things, you're not really my disciple. You might be a believer, you might be in the crowd, but you're not following me. So there's real strong language, but we don't like that stuff, right, we don't like that.
Speaker 2:It's so that it calls us to accountability and it calls us to repentance, or it calls us to just evaluate am I consistent in my confession and my life? And I'm going to tell you, it also kind of presents this idea that somehow some people have this figured out or are perfect, and that's not the case. We're journeying towards choosing Jesus all the time. We're always in this journey of today I'm choosing Christ, today I'm choosing the Lord, but it is pretty, unfortunately, black and white from scripture. I say unfortunately because it's hard. Unfortunately, god's made it very clear. That's when Jesus says nobody comes to the Father but through me. So what we can't do is soften that by going. But I know people of another faith who are just good people. They're moral and they're my friends.
Speaker 2:I can't shove my religion down their face. Okay, well, that's correct. You can't shove it down their throat. But they're wrong and there is no salvation apart from Christ in any other faith system. I was recently talking to somebody who's just believing that following Jewish traditions and covenantal laws is another means of salvation and it's the original relationship with God, and I'm going no, that's not correct. Jesus said he's the way, truth and life. No one comes to the Father but through him. Either that's true or he's a liar, so you can throw any.
Speaker 2:I had an Uber driver who was a really kind and very, very profoundly supportive Muslim and he's from a West African country, and we were talking about his faith and all that stuff and I started asking him questions about Jesus and where Jesus fits in his faith and what he believes about God dying for sin, and it just turned into this whole—he got real heated and I just kept coming back to but what if Jesus said things that would confront that faith? And he said we believe in Jesus. He was a prophet, but he's not the last prophet I go. But Jesus said he's God and he said false prophets would come and he said other prophets would come claiming a way to God and he goes. He didn't say that in the Quran, I go.
Speaker 2:I know he said it in the Bible, so I literally shipped the guy a Bible and trying to just invite him to truth, you know. So, anyway, it can be so easy to go. Well, you know, he's a good guy, he's a nice dude and he's really convinced of what he believes. But the binary is, but God has another way.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So anyway, it comes up in a lot of categories.
Speaker 1:Kind doesn't get you to heaven.
Speaker 3:That's the truth. Yesterday in our men's small group, we were talking about that. We referenced the journey series that we did last year and just discipleship. What is it to be a disciple of Jesus, not just a follower, and I think that kept coming up. You could be a good man, but Jesus didn't call us to be good, he called us to follow him, and there's a lot of things we've got to put down. So, yeah, good is not good enough.
Speaker 1:Well, in the first point of I'm a friend of God, john 15, 14 through 15, it says you are my friends if you do what I command you. And so you did mention of a lot of people hear it as if you do it, I tell you to. So can you unpack that just a little bit?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, okay. So there's the call of God, then there's the assignment of God and then there's the direction of God, right? So Jesus didn't give a lot of commandments. He never said do this, don't do this, wear this, don't eat that. He didn't give commandments. His commandments were love God with all your mind, heart, soul and strength, and love your neighbor. But his invitation to everybody was follow me. Every time he interacted with somebody, he gave them a direction where he was in the lead, even if it wasn't follow me directly, like when he healed the man with a legion of demons. That guy asked Jesus, can I come with you? And he said no, I want you to stay where you are. And he ended up witnessing about Christ to all the people in his town, same with the woman at the well, john 4, right, but ultimately there was an assignment, a command of Jesus to know God. In fact I think it's in the book of Acts.
Speaker 2:When he talks about the Holy Spirit will come to all those whom God has called, it's the call of Acts. When he talks about the Holy Spirit will come to all those whom God has called, it's the call of relationship and intimacy. So when he says if you're my friends if you do what I command. You're my friends if you're doing life with me, if you're following me. There's not a list of 10 commandments, jesus version. Sometimes we treat the Beatitudes that way. Right, blessed are the pure in heart, poor in spirit, all that. Those aren't Beatitude commandments, those are just ways of.
Speaker 2:Actually it's a story, in my opinion, of invitation of different types of people in a crowd, but that's a Dallas Willard quote. But when he says you're my friends if you do what I command, what he's saying is you're my friends if you believe that I am the Son of God, I've come to give you eternal life, and you come follow me. So then you're not my servant, you're my friend. And he says right there everything the Father tells me I'm going to make known to you. So then that's where obedience comes in, because God's speaking to us through his word, through the Son, through the Holy Spirit. The Father is speaking, giving direction, and some things are black and white in scripture Don't murder, don't lust, don't covet, don't steal. Some things are not clear in scripture, but they're clear in you, because you're listening to the Lord, like like, my conviction on alcohol and drug use and tobacco is a conviction from the Lord that God told me specifically.
Speaker 2:I remember, at 23 years old, god speaking to me about never using tobacco products again in my whole life. That's that's because I'm in relationship with him. He can tell me whatever he wants. God could tell me to move to Topeka, kansas, and be a barber at a. You know, whatever God tells me to do, I want to be able to hear I'm not a great barber, by the way, so that ain't going to happen but because we're in relationship with him, as the father directs my life, I'm hearing it from the Lord. Those are still commands, but it's birthed out of following and relationship, and that's where I'm a friend of God out of following and relationship, and that's where I'm a friend of God. I want to be a friend of Jesus.
Speaker 1:And I think it's so cool too, especially because I mean, we are all in community with somebody. The longer you hang out with someone your friends you start picking up their mannerisms, you start picking up how they act and their things. So if you call Jesus a friend, then the byproduct will be that you will start to talk more like him, your will starts to change and things like that, and so what a better friend that we have. It's.
Speaker 2:Psalm 37, 4. If you delight yourself in the Lord, he will give you the desires of your heart. Like, all of a sudden, your desires. They feel like they've been given from the Lord.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's that alignment of your heart with God's heart.
Speaker 1:So, pastor Elmer, on the second point, I'm a friend of my house. We're going to hang out on the second, third and fourth point for a little bit.
Speaker 2:So if you missed the message, please get it on our website first. Absolutely. You know, and maybe go back after this and pursue this message, but it is strong especially.
Speaker 1:this could have been individual sermons. It could have been a whole series, oh my goodness. Well, like I was telling you at the beginning, you actually at the very last, you did do a whole sermon series over boundaries years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, guardrails, guardrails, yes. And then I did a series called Get your House in Order. Yes, it's kind of a similar concept.
Speaker 1:She was kicking it over to you about that, but I was kicking it over to you about that, but I was kicking it over. So I'm a friend to my house. In what ways can we and I'm speaking on the head of the home, you are the head of your home In what ways can you do you know specifically that you can be a friend of your house? I know Pastor Mike gave us some examples and stuff, but what are some like specifics?
Speaker 3:Yeah well, I was just going to say I loved what you said when you said my wife is my best friend. And a lot of times we look at our spouses and we're like, well, they're my spouse, no, they're your best friend. And then even with our children, like there's a relationship with them. You know we have the responsibility to be parents first and then to be their friends. You know seasons change. Our oldest right now, he's about to be 16. So our relationship with him is changing. But yeah, if we're not willing to invest into our own household first, everything from relationally, mentally, spiritually, you know, nothing else matters In the sense of, like the scripture says I don't know the reference that, you know, what good is it to save the whole world? I think is what it says.
Speaker 2:Jesus said what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?
Speaker 3:And lose his soul world and lose his soul and lose his soul. And you know, and I I think of, I think of that, like for me, my family. I want to make sure my kids, my wife and even our closest relatives, like our, you know, my in-laws, my parents, my sister, that they know jesus and that's, I think so, everyone's prayers, that are all our family knows jesus. You know, pastor mike's always sharing stories about your family and we always pray for your mom and your brothers and um, and that's a mission field in itself. And even if we're not there with our extended family members, or even there's people in our church that their kids are not in church, um, you can't just go about not thinking about them and just living life Like they're not there, because everything else is.
Speaker 3:I say all that but I've left home at a very early age, when I was 20.
Speaker 3:And then I traveled a bit during ministry in my 16, 17. I learned to be away from my family at a very young age, meaning like my parents and my sister, and church family became family and that was hard for a lot of people to understand, like, because they became like brothers and sisters and there was some couples that I called the mom and dad, and uh, you know you, you just learn to do community with, with people in church, and so I know your third point was, you know, like I'm a friend of God's house and and so all of these things for me over time have kind of um, become like interwoven, uh, relationships with my own family and church and so like even my kids and my, my wife, like they come to church and they know this is like a second home and um, but that's really important for for for me in the sense of just cultivating that in my own life, how it's been cultivated, and seeing that in my own family as well.
Speaker 2:Family is a. It's a first ministry, right? So we're pastors, we're all in ministry. But before I want to do ministry well here, I need to be healthy and do ministry well at home. And I, you know, I didn't grow up in a ministry family.
Speaker 2:I didn't grow up with two parents. So a lot of this I've had to learn, I've had to be taught, I've had to adapt and make adjustments and I used to pray God, don't let me lead thousands to Jesus and not my own children, my kids we were talking about it actually last night. We pray every night together during the 21 days of fasting and prayer especially. And we were just telling our girls we've always prayed for you that you would know the Lord and love the Lord and love his church, and they all do. I mean thank God. And it is your first place of ministry and it doesn't matter what you do in this life, if you're a doctor, a surgeon, a lawyer, a traffic cop. It doesn't matter If you're a believer. Your house is a place of ministry for you and there is set order to things in scripture. So Ephesians 5 and 6, we didn't have a lot of time. I actually I didn't put the scriptures on because I knew I'd take a long time. You asked me when we were putting the slides together.
Speaker 2:I just put Ephesians 5 and 6. That's it, Just the word Ephesians the number 5 and 6.
Speaker 2:And I said go read it and study it on your own. But it's built out of a home with mutual submission, where Christ is Lord of your house, husbands lead, wives are submitted and respectful and respecting their husbands, and he's leading in a way that's sacrificial of himself to make the house better and there's mutual submission there. Then a father and mother with the children how they lead their kids. One of the verses that never gets preached is parents, don't lead your kids to wrath.
Speaker 2:And how many counselors can tell you these young adults or adults who talk about their childhood trauma, the pain of their parents?
Speaker 2:May I talk to a guy today who was saying I didn't have love for my mother, and I'm just telling you, parenting is hard enough, you know, but if you want to remove Jesus, it'll just get harder.
Speaker 2:So so parents, lead your kids Well, disciple them, direct them, and Stephanie said this for years and I said it in the message today if you won't disciple your kids, the world will. And it's so fast now with screens and social media and YouTube. I saw there was a profile called Screen Free Kids or something like that, and they shared a video about how companies, grown men, are sitting in labs basically figuring out the reactions of children's attention spans and their ability to be persuaded through their marketing of their shows, like colors and saturation levels, and all of that just moves children in a certain way. Parents just give your kids clay and blocks and grass and like be around your kids, like your home. If you just give your kids clay and blocks and grass and be around your kids, you're home. If you won't disciple your kids, the world will. If you won't disciple your marriage, if you won't disciple your house, culture will through every means necessary.
Speaker 3:There's people that invest money and time into so many things but they don't do that in their own marriage, and after time we just you know, we have people that come talk to us and what do I do? And and it's not too late, you know to to make that investment. But, like you said, if if you don't do it, someone's going to take that.
Speaker 2:One of the one of the hardest statements I hear is we've grown apart. Yeah, cause it's an admission. Actually, they think it's an excuse. People think it's an excuse. Well, we've clearly grown apart.
Speaker 2:Okay, everything that grows has to be groomed, tended to, carefully watched, and if you are growing apart, at what point? This is why a small group is so important. This is why having a pastor the scripture is so important, because it'll call out hey, there's some gap here, there's some divergence here. But you get to a point where you see each other as coworkers or roommates, or the kids are just a burden to. Yeah, I can't wait until they turn 18 and get out of here. Man, god has given us this home and that's the place of first ministry.
Speaker 2:When you study the home in the Old Testament especially, it's in Deuteronomy, it's in Exodus maybe they say talk about the word when you're rising up, when you're walking, when you're sitting, when you're going to bed. And in Jewish homes today around the world they put Torah scrolls on their doorpost as a symbol that the word is spoken here, that God oversees this house. I mean, it's the story of the Passover. Put the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of your house and I don't want anybody to go killing goats to make, you know, put a blood stain on your house in Farmington neighborhood. However, what if we symbolically say Christ is head of this house, not Fox News, cnn, youtube or football? Christ's word will be spoken here more than the words of culture. Christ's word and worship and songs to him instead of songs about self or sin.
Speaker 2:So much secular music. If we're honest, it's a form of worship, but it's worship of self. And look, I know I sound like an old school, just purists, just harping on people. I help people on the back end of so many bad decisions that if we can guard our house and lead our home in a way that brings honor to the Lord, brings honor to the sanctity of your marriage, let's have marriage-centered homes and then parents leading your kids well, discipling them, have more meals. I'm just saying you will avoid a bunch of pain and traps on the back end. It seems real practical, but it's actually very spiritual because that is your first ministry.
Speaker 1:If you actually follow the ask for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. If you actually make that a declaration in your, in your family, and stand on it, it has to change your heart and not not just be a picture hanging up on your wall Like if you like listen, I bet have you had that scripture in your house before.
Speaker 2:See, have you had that scripture in your house? Actually, somebody made it for me. It says ask for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. And then in cursive, in orange, it says and cheer for the balls.
Speaker 1:That's right, and cheer for the balls. But yeah, so we keep it in our bedroom closet but you know, if people actually treat scripture like the actual living word of God and stand on it instead of just hanging it up on your walls, and defend it.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, protect its voice there's times I've walked into my basement we have a TV down there and our girls will watch stuff and I'll walk down and they, you know, I'll go what are we watching? What is this? And I'll start investigating and it's like it ain't terrible but it ain't good and I have to decide. Am I going to be that old, grumpy dad who's like you know, sometimes I go fine, it's benign, whatever but I want to protect my house, I want to protect the voices of my house Because, like I said, if I want a disciple in the world will. So there's times where I've said turn that off, get up and go outside and play, turn that off. Or sometimes I don't want the younger two watching that, whatever, because you can filter with your kid's age or whatever.
Speaker 2:During the fast, like I've said it for years, there's no secular music in my house. During the fast I ain't praying and worshiping and trying to and then listening to stuff that doesn't feed my soul and spirit and honestly, we protect from that a lot throughout the year Apps on phones, websites, you know like we just guard against all that stuff. But it's a place of ministry. And again, coming back to families that say we've grown apart, well, if you are at any place feeling like that's beginning to happen or has happened, then become a good gardener, start pruning, tending, watering again. Honestly, a lot of couples that are fighting all the time would do better to fight for each other than fight against each other, cause it's so easy to pick apart how you failed me, how you weren't enough of something for me, instead of saying, hey, I'm going to pray for you to succeed in this area of my life. I'm going to start fighting for you instead of fighting against you.
Speaker 3:Some people prefer to be satisfied than to be satisfied in their marriage. So it's like I need you to do everything that I need, versus like, what do we need as a marriage? And so they're fighting for the wrong things, like you said, they're fighting against their spouse when they should be fighting for each other and stuff and and what you were saying, like I got, as you're talking about gardening, I haven't. I have no clue how even to pull weeds out of the ground, um, without the little machines, um, like I think of a vine that just grows and vines.
Speaker 3:You know, we've had a vine that's grown on um, that grows on our tree in the front and if I let it grow, like it'll just keep going up into branches and everything and it just grows on its own and it just grows on what it is, gets a hold of and I think, marriages, relationships, you know, with our kids and everything. If you just let it grow and not tend to it, it's going to grow on the wrong things potentially. And even if you have a, even if you're playing Christian music and watching the right things, if you pay it no attention and just leave things on automatic, it's going to grow on its own and, like you said, if you're not influencing, something else will, even if you think you're doing all the right things, and so you have to be intentional about I'm going to be involved, and so a word that we don't hear a lot like intentional involved, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's why Back to choice, choosing, decide.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the theme of the series.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and that's why your third point is also so important is to be friends with God's house.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And because in these moments where we're letting the vines go crazy and all of this stuff, if we are just in our own little island, even if it is us and a spouse, we're like cool, we got our house in order, check, but everybody else is crazy. That doesn't help kind of push you once again closer to Christ, because once you brought up, how can you be a friend of Jesus and not be friend of his bride? I'm not going to lie, that checked my spirit because I'm over here like this person done me wrong this last week and it's like, no, but Jesus is their friend, that's their bride and I'm like, anyways, but people can help you, just like you said earlier, can help you say hey, listen, we need to get back, kind of back together with this what's going on in your marriage. That you're involved in the bride to where they can call things out on you, holds you accountable to things. Hey, did you go and follow up with marriage counseling with you and your spouse? Yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 2:Well, I ironically quoted Hebrews 10.25, when he says let us not forsake meeting together. And then we cancel two services, but three services.
Speaker 1:You know what? We're sitting on? 50%. Okay, that's right, Like we're good.
Speaker 2:We tried three services. You know what we're sitting on? 50% okay. Well, we tried, but there is a prevailing mentality within Christian circles and we leverage things like I'm offended, hypocrites in church, a word that I cannot stand. A term that we use is church hurt Because the church didn't hurt you. The church, maybe a person in the church hurt you, but the church did not hurt you. I just don't like that term. Anyway, we can talk about that on another podcast. I have a whole list of terms that I'm just struggling with. But anyway, we leverage reasons like, well, I'm out with my kids, spending quality time with my children on this weekend at the lake, or whatever, like we give all these reasons why in the Christian world, especially in the West, we've decided that I can do Christianity apart from the bride of Christ. And let me just tell you I mean when I go to places like Tanzania, africa, and I preach to a room of 5,000 with people who spent as much as they could and traveled for days to get to a place to sleep in a bunk bed with strangers to hear the word and to worship with the body. I mean when I go to places I'll never forget.
Speaker 2:I preached once in Nicaragua. We landed in Nicaragua to do a mission strip. We were just building a kitchen and when we got from the airport they said by the way, pastor Mike, you're preaching Thursday. It was on a Monday. I said what. I didn't prepare anything. They go. Well, you better be ready in season and out of season.
Speaker 3:I had to be in Spanish too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, I used a Spanish translator, thank God. But I prepared a message and what humbled me the most is people that walked four and five hours to get to this church service that I'm going let me throw something together, whip it up real quick, and I got checked by the Holy Spirit. I was like there are people coming and they told me the day before there will be people that spend the whole day to get there. And yet in the West, where we have the nicest buildings and the nicest accoutrements and all the nice features, we've made church kind of a if I want to do it, if I'm comfortable and then serving in the church, man, that's a real struggle. Or giving to the church. Like, statistically, 50% or more of Christians don't give or serve to their church. But I'm a friend of this church, I'm a friend of this house.
Speaker 2:Somebody was asking me after service today about this part of the message and I just said I've been a Christian for 25, 28 years, whatever it is. I've never not attended a church. I've never church hopped where I just pop around until I find one that fits me. No church I've ever attended to did everything I like, none of them. They just don't and they're not meant to. They're meant to serve the Lord, but I've never not served in a church and I've never not given to a church that I even if I go visit a church on a weekend, like on a vacation I bring an offering, I tithe to my church, but I give an offering to the pastor and the pastor's family or something.
Speaker 2:I just don't understand that it's not even an option for me and we've made I love the church optional and I just I think that's unhealthy and I think it's a very American or you're a Western thing to think that way. But I want us to, I mean, remember the book of revelation. You know we're going to do a series on this seven letters to the churches. Jesus writes letters to the churches, the gatherings of rebuke, and almost every one of them he somehow says you don't love me first anymore and he's telling them I want to show up with you as you gather, but it's a prerequisite that we love him and we do it his way and that's the church we got, to love his church.
Speaker 3:And I think when you're saying the church, I know a lot of times we say I love my church, but we tend to. I've had the privilege of serving at different churches and a lot of times it becomes about my church like this organization, that whenever we see someone else succeeding it's almost like, oh, what are they doing? It can get competitive in certain environments, especially in the Western.
Speaker 2:Which is part of what James confronts in James 4.
Speaker 3:He says you want it.
Speaker 2:So you covet or you murder. You slam people, you trash them out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like you don't really care and you want what's best for you, what's beneficially for you. But, like the way you're talking about it, like Jesus says, love my church, it's, it's the church, the bride. And a lot of times we'll see a lot of things happening on social media, people slandering the church and you have other people chiming in and it's. It's one of those things that it's. It's. If you love the church, his church, you got to look beyond just an organization, beyond a building, you know, and we are the church, capital C and so, and so I tend to look at it from that perspective and a lot of times, because I've been in different organizations, served in different ministries and I've learned to realize this is much bigger than just one location. You know, not that you know we have multi-sites, but it's bigger than just the church in Clarksville.
Speaker 3:It's the church, and not just the church in America.
Speaker 2:It's the church all over the world, you know. And so, yeah, it's his bride. Well, and again, it's trendy to question authority of ministers and I get it Like when ministers make mistakes it doesn't help pastors. Let me tell you something. I'll tell you who never gloats when somebody has a moral failure is this guy, because it makes my job harder. It makes people question leaders. But it's so trendy right now and you can create your own echo chamber, just dissing all of them right or writing about how the church has failed you or hurt you or wasn't meeting your expectations. But then I go. But man, that's the pride of Christ, it is. Could you imagine how would you treat me if I wrote a blog about your wife, lori, and all the things I couldn't stand about her? How would you feel if I wrote a bunch of emails and letters to people writing about Mike and all the things I couldn't stand about him? Would you imagine that we would?
Speaker 3:stay in fellowship, or would that be a hard relationship to maintain? It'd be really hard, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right and so yet we think the Lord doesn't care. I heard a quote recently. It was so good. Pastor Doug Clay is the general superintendent of the AG, the fellowship that I actually belong to, and he made a comment. He said I've just decided I'm not going to let people who don't do ministry Tell me how to do ministry and he goes. I'm going to learn from people in the fight. I'm going to learn from people that I'm working with and serving and going the and go in the same direction as me.
Speaker 2:But I mean, we're in such a critical culture right now. Everybody has a better idea of how Joe Biden should have been president or Donald Trump should be president. Everybody has the right opinions about how plays should be done on a football field or how churches should be ran. And Rod Loy, the mentor of mine, one of our overseers, says critics think they're armed with the facts, but the fact is they're sitting in the stands watching instead of being out on the field with us playing the game. So if you go to a football game like Neyland Stadium, where the University of Tennessee dominates, it's 108,000 seats of fans and 22 guys on the field playing. So the ratio, I mean, it's so much easier to be in the crowd shouting down directions. But could you imagine if any of those 22 players paused the game timeout and went up to section E and goes what do you guys think we should do?
Speaker 2:But we're so tempted because of relationship and we love people and we don't want to hurt anybody or offend that we start listening to that criticism of the church or we start following the people who have left the church and are saying it's better out here or challenging you don't have to go to church to be a Christian. You know, man, it breaks my heart that people are in a position like that. It frustrates me that they would want to influence others because of that position that they're in and draw them away from a place where they're getting life-giving ministry and whatever else and they're in life-giving relationships. But you know how the devil lies. He would always question us to want to be like God and question did God really say that? That's not really what that verse means in Hebrews 10.25.
Speaker 2:Don't forsake the gathering. That's not about going and being a part of a church. Did God really say that? I don't know. I want to be very careful and I want to be very cautious as the church that we just love his bride, that we love the bride of Christ. If you're going to be a friend of Jesus, you're going to be a friend of the Lord, and if you're struggling with that which some people are, I get it, I'm sympathetic to that Then struggle with it appropriately. Struggle with it in prayer first, like really meet with God about it and then meet with somebody that you trust that can help you come through the struggle. Instead of going I'm struggling, I'm just going to pull everybody out with me that I can.
Speaker 3:Like you said, like the term church hurt, like some people haven't been hurt by the church as a whole, but there's people in the church that have hurt us and so some people do need care and follow up and so I do agree that if somebody has experienced pain through an experience in a church, like talk to somebody, find healing and talk first to the Lord. Rod Lloyd again.
Speaker 2:To quote my overseer man, I was really really hurting, probably 12 years ago over an issue, Some really hard relational stuff, and somebody trying to split this church. I was so mad and I was angry and trying to defend and put out fires and go chase down all these people that are listening to this toxic garbage. And Rod said you need to pray more about this than you talk about it. And then he said never vent in print, so never like go chew somebody out on a Facebook thread or on a text. And then he would say God can actually do more about what you're dealing with than you can. So just take it to the Lord, that's right, Pray more about it. And then this is one of the greatest things that we have as Christians is we can cast it all on him and go God, this is your problem actually. So I'm just going to choose to lay that down.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to love the church instead. His people may not be perfect, but I still love them, and as much as he calls us to love the church, God loves them more.
Speaker 1:So who are we to think that-? If he died for them then he can help them, he can walk them through the other side. I will say as a pastor.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I know you were breathing to go a different direction. I'll just hold it.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, just hold your breath.
Speaker 2:I will say, as a pastor of a church where people have left frustrated, hurt, I am terribly sorry. I'll just say it on behalf of LifePoint, from the deepest part of my heart. I didn't get into ministry to hurt people and I certainly didn't get into ministry for other Christians to hurt people. So, on behalf of this entire church, I'll take it, I'll be the leader and take the ownership. I'm sorry and would you please forgive us and let's walk in forgiveness and be the church together again and fall in love with each other again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks for saying that. I know a lot of people that have experienced painful journeys and they need to hear that Sure, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's good, but which kind of segues us to your last point. I'm a friend with boundaries. Yeah, I know that we were talking about church hurt and stuff like that. And yes, there are. There is evil in the world. The world has fallen, right it is. People can hurt other people. That's not God's design and everything.
Speaker 2:And the church isn't heaven.
Speaker 1:No, we're not perfected yet, so we have issues and problems All of us, right, for sure, every single one of us and which is boundaries are one of my absolute favorite things to talk about in the whole wide world, because, uh, yeah, all all, because, uh, and I set a boundary there and, just like you said, people immediately get offended over boundaries.
Speaker 2:Which is super interesting.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, and I'm just like no, it's protecting both of us, this is not it. But if somebody leaves church and gets church hurt or whatever it is, well, hey, what boundaries did you set in place there? Well, hey, what boundaries did you set in place there? You know what you know, and nine times out of 10, once again, a lot of it's internalized because you didn't set up accurate boundaries within the context of just life.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, james starts that text in James 4, and I'll come back to what you're about to ask James 4.
Speaker 2:He says you guys are fighting amongst yourself because of internal things within you individually. If you study it out, the first statement is public. He says why do you have quarrels among you? What causes quarrels and fights among you? And he's talking to a collective, that's you plural. Is it not that the passions are at war within you individually? This is why boundaries like I don't want, religious boundaries I don't want this is the way it has to be if you're going to belong here. But I want to be able to have my own personal convictions and boundaries. And listen, I don't have to first impose boundaries on you. I need to impose boundaries on me. I need to decide those boundaries for my own life. And you may not agree with it, you may not like it, that's okay. One of my friends, aaron Burkett at Radiant Church in Tampa brilliant dude. He has a statement. It's really simple. He goes, you can, but I don't have to and I won't.
Speaker 2:And that's what a boundary is. It's saying you can do whatever you feel convicted of. Okay, let me give some caveats here. It's obviously different when you're in a place of authority and submission to authority. Your parents say and this is what we do as a family, or I'm in a job that requires certain things and I may not agree with it, but that's submission to authority. It's not called agreement with authority, right, but on a bigger level, personal boundaries are like it's the idea of guardrails these are my convictions under the Lordship of Christ, that others may not agree with or even believe in or whatever. But these are my boundaries. That others may not agree with or even believe in or whatever. But these are my boundaries and I'm just going to be a friend to everybody with boundaries right.
Speaker 1:Yes, so what are some boundaries that we can have because we are not Jesus? What are some boundaries we can have with non-believers?
Speaker 2:So I was going to title this part of the sermon. You know I'm a friend of God, I'm a friend of the church, I'm a friend of my house, I'm a friend of sinners and the more I chewed on that I was like man. It feels a little offensive, honestly. You know who hates being called sinners is nonbelievers and sinners. You know so honestly. There's like a whole trope about that. People outside of the church hate being called sinners and it's kind of a it's a Christian term that we use against or about people that aren't followers of Christ. But I'm a friend with boundaries and it starts with we need to have boundaries with non-believers.
Speaker 2:This has just come up a lot in the last probably six weeks. People have asked me in private or even in group settings how do we maintain our Christianity when we have unchristian friends or non-believing friends? And the issue always comes back to the influence which relationship is more influential? So I think, if I don't think any relationship is 50-50. I think everyone is at least 51-49 in the matter of influence. Somebody is the stronger of the two.
Speaker 2:Now let me say here's an example If you have a great friend who's not a believer and they, they made it clear and you've made it clear you are a believer, right, and you're afraid to share your faith in front of them. They're influencing you and we think I'm trying to be respectful, but the fact is they're influencing us to silence our voice of influence with the gospel. I'm trying to be respectful, I don't want to offend them. You have the most life-giving message on the planet, the best news they could ever have. You refuse to share because they would be offended. They're influencing you, right? So that's a check. Nobody ever thinks about it, talks about it like that, there's the obvious.
Speaker 2:Like if you're in a relationship that's causing you to compromise sexually or immorally, or like give into you know you speak a certain way around this friend group and then you're, you let your mouth go and you're real loose, lipped around this group and you say whatever you want and you're real cuss a lot or whatever then that has influence on you. The issue is not can we do life with nonbelievers? It's are we. Are we influencing them? Are they influencing us? And if you have relationships with nonbelievers where they are an influence on you in any way, that's causing you to compromise your values, your faith, your willingness to speak about it, which we've been called by God to tell others about this then there needs to be a boundary.
Speaker 2:And those friends like, hey, I love you, but I'm not going to do life with you like that I'm not going to the bar with you to be your designated driver, while all of y'all just use me as your bailout because you want to get hammered. I'd rather be at my house with my wife and kids. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm just going to put boundaries up. Some of those look like I'm not, I'm not spending. You asked like what are specifics?
Speaker 2:I don't have any close friends that don't love Jesus. I don't have any close friends. I'm talking like we go to eat meals, have them in my home, around my children, or influencing my job, my career, my calling. I don't have friends that don't want to walk with me and I think Jesus was that way. You know he kept James, peter, james and John closer than the other nine disciples, and in that other group of nine we've got Thomas, who doubted him, judas, who betrayed him, thaddeus, who we never heard from again. You know we talk about these 12 disciples but some of them we never even actually interact with again. So he had levels of relationship, relational equity with some of his own disciples. He had boundaries, and so it's really important, first and foremost, like you got to love the Lord at some level.
Speaker 2:What does the scripture say? Can two walk together unless they be in one accord? And so I want to do life with people who are going the same direction. Now you got to be respectful of my wife and family too, my career and calling. I'm not going to be friends with people who are like man, the church is a bunch of garbage and your world of ministry is stupid. I don't believe in that. But let's hang out. Probably not going to do that, definitely not going to be in a relationship with anybody that causes me or encourages me to compromise my faith, my values, my behaviors. And that's where a lot of us get in trouble. We've got friends, especially when I was younger. We just have friends that not only don't care what we care about, but then they entice us to compromise and then what?
Speaker 2:happens is over time, the more comfortable we get with a friend, the more comfortable they get with that invitation. And I just think you, you got to have boundaries.
Speaker 1:So what does that look like, pastor Elmer? To actually implement a boundary Like how do you do that?
Speaker 2:Certified letter. Isn't that how you do it normally?
Speaker 1:Is that certified letter? Is that it Just hanging on the wall?
Speaker 2:Smoke signals maybe, if your name is here, you and I can't be real friends. If your name is here, you and I can't be real friends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know, let's talk to the, you know, unmarried, possibly young singles, or I mean honestly who knows, like single mom, single dad, whatever, and because a lot of times you can catch yourself in these friend groups. I was a single mom for a very long time and sometimes I caught myself in this friend group that I was like eh, but just like you said, you know I'm afraid I'm going to offend my friends. You know some of us are not as type A or type B. You know type A is what we are, so what? Like how can somebody implement a boundary into there?
Speaker 3:I can't help but to think of the wildfires that we've seen happen in California. So shout out to family and friends out there. We've been praying for you guys. But if you've noticed, as the fire spread, the firefighters had to work really hard in creating boundaries. And in order to create boundaries, it wasn't just setting up shop so that once it got there they'll spray it with water. It was. They had to remove vegetation, they had to spray roofs and homes. It took a lot of work just to prepare, to predict the direction of the fire based on the wind, and then go and do the hard labor and you had firefighters from all over the world go and help. People were like but there's no water. But all of that help allowed them to create all of the boundaries needed to be able to contain the fire.
Speaker 2:What do they call them? Fire breaks?
Speaker 3:Fire breaks, yeah. And so then, in order to create these boundaries, it's not when it happens. You have to know it's going to happen Like sin is going to. You're going to be tempted, things are going to come at you in life, and so you have to do the work, you have to decide and, just like a firefighter, you got to go remove vegetation, remove the things that are going to. You know, if it's friendships, if it's things, you see if it's friendships, if it's things you see, if it's online, if it's what you hear, go remove it. And you got to prepare the ground because, even though right now you might be strong, you can't predict the wind and you can't predict what's going to happen on. You know there's these things that we have no control of. So go do the work. And so setting those boundaries means go do them right now.
Speaker 3:As you're listening to this podcast like, what are the things that you can do to prevent. You know you want to have a, you know, a prosperous marriage. You feel called to ministry, you want to have kids, you want to go, do the work that's going to allow you to have a healthy marriage, to be able to be effective in ministry and to live a godly life, you know, and to do that in private, not when you're, you know, promoted into a public position. You know it takes the work now and so those boundaries take a lot of work. It's not when it's happening. That's like pastoral care, like how do we help you get out of that? You know things like that, but that's when I think about it. I can't again. That imagery right now is so fresh that that's I related to that, you know.
Speaker 2:It's intentional and it's proactive and it's your decision.
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 2:If you, if you wait on others to impose their own boundary, it will never happen. So sometimes it looks like for us. I mean, you know, Stephanie and I have very, very, very similar shared values on a lot of things. The stuff that we don't have is what I would say shared values may just be, they're non-consequential things, but in all matters pertaining to faith, convictions, behaviors, parenting, all that, we have shared values on everything. Like I love cologne. She doesn't care about fragrances. That's what I mean by inconsequential things. Like you love the Office.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, right she thinks it's dumb and a waste of time. But anyway, you have to be intentional, you have to be proactive and you don't have to announce a boundary. Sometimes people feel like how do I break up with a friend? You don't have to break up with them, just reappropriate the friendship. So I'll never forget when I got married, I had friends that were out. You know that I had friends before I was married and friends when we were dating. Um, but those friendships changed.
Speaker 2:But I didn't call these people and go okay, from now on, just expect that you're a second rate, third rate person in my life. I just chose Stephanie over them and then I would get to them when I could. You know what I'm saying. Um, and then I, I I chose boundaries when it comes to relationships with women and I'm not scared of women. I know when I talk about this, some people are like what's your deal? And that's so old fashioned. Well, I don't think it's old fashioned, I think it's wise. But I've decided, on boundaries with how I interact with females, that I don't have private conversations, threads I don't meet alone with, and I've just decided that. So I don't like. Did I ever come and tell you Emily, not just to be clear if we're going to be friends and work together, you can never come around me in private without other human. I've never said that to you.
Speaker 1:But I also have shared values, so I think that's why that's so important.
Speaker 2:We do and our team has cultural shared values.
Speaker 1:I think that's why it's important.
Speaker 2:But I think some the the struggle is people think it's going to be so awkward to tell you my boundaries, your boundaries are yours, so enforce them on you and then let them play out with others. So I'll never forget a friend of mine in college, Just you know, we're all young adults getting married, A lot of us, at the same time, and there was a young adult who, uh, female, Stephanie and I were friends with. I sang at her wedding and, um, it was like six months later. I was all, I was about to get married to Stephanie and for some reason that couple came to my mind and I just reached out. I didn't have his number, I had her number. I called him, just left a voicemail hey, just checking on you and Mike, seeing how you're doing. And like a day later he called me and said hey, I heard you called my wife and I just want to know what's up, What'd you need? And it was a hard boundary that he imposed and I read it right.
Speaker 2:I was like, okay, I get what he's doing. And it taught me something. I've never forgotten that that he protected that relationship and he guarded that and he wasn't rude or anything. He wasn't like how dare you ever call her? Don't ever call her again. Never said that. He just said, hey, I heard you were reaching out, what's up. And then he and I had like a 20-minute phone call just checking in on you guys. How's it going? Really pastoring I think I was youth pastoring by that point or about to go into ministry or something like that. But you just have to make those decisions for you. It Think about it practically with sleepovers, with apps on phones, with screen time. These are boundaries you can put in place and other people don't do that. Well, I'm not parenting anybody else's kids.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying. I'm not living in any other marriage but mine and Stephanie's. That's not how I grew up, that's not what I believe. Well, I don't do anything that I did when I grew up. I want to grow out of those things, and so it's your decision to be proactive. I love the illustration of the fire breaks. Go ahead and rip the brush out, get those things out of the way in your own heart, in your own mind, in your own decision.
Speaker 2:For some of the guys that we've dealt with as pastors, they get to the point of they made a mistake, they had a failure, and then they're trying to figure out what do I have to do to fix this? Well, you can't fix what you've broken already, but you can fix the next break. And so specific example you were asking for is like with pornography. A lot of people have made friendship with that. A lot of people have made friendship with movies, with nudity, and we've just decided that's just not stuff we watch in our home and our family. And if you have an issue with pornography, I always encourage guys to get a flip phone or get internet software that watches everything you do. I mean, bark is a great. You talk about high-level security and it watches everything and then give somebody that's not impressed with you the ability to hold you accountable to that.
Speaker 3:I think that's important too, giving someone permission to speak into some of these boundaries, because you could set them up and think, oh, that's the right one, that's the right thing. But then you need an outside voice that's actually caring for you, that can say hey, maybe, knowing your behaviors, you might need to up that a little bit, or you might be all right, you're overreacting, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I can be your friend, but I'm gonna have boundaries and that that's not a problem. That's not a you problem. It's a me wanting to honor you. And that's where I think, too, we need to. We need to have a perspective.
Speaker 2:Boundaries are often like I want to honor you. I don't want to be an excuse for you to stay in not serving Jesus. I don't want to be an excuse. If I make it okay for you to never come to Christ because I'm your friend, then I don't want to offend you. I don't want to be that. I want to honor the fact that God loves you and is after you and with your marriage. I want to honor your marriage, even with somebody who's single right now. Well, if you're going to be married one day, I want to honor your future spouse. The Bible says in Hebrews let marriage be held in honor among everybody. So we should all honor that. So, anyway, I think boundaries a lot of times it's an imposition on me, but it's an honor of you and honor of the Lord, and I'm a friend of God first. So I'm going to do it his way and according to his word and his will.
Speaker 1:But if, for some reason, you are around the people who do not honor boundaries, that do not honor all of these things, if you are the one setting the boundary, it is not up to you to determine how they will react to the boundary. I think that's huge, is that? Oh, I'm afraid that they're going to be upset, they're going to be offended. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. How they react to the boundary is on them, not on you placing the boundary. You place the boundary and you let them deal with whatever they've got going on. Pray for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and I think that's the biggest thing that my husband and I figured out through all of this, because we have some very wild boundaries that I can almost promise you, both of y'all don't have in your homes because of life, from just life, honestly, which is great, right, but y'all will honor the boundaries of me and my husband, right? If I say, hey, like there, there we go, but it is, it takes a process, it takes time of understanding that, hey, I don't have to explain myself of why I put this boundary in, because it all goes back to I want to be a friend of Jesus, I want to do what is good in his sight, no one else's, and so I just—.
Speaker 2:The famous analogy for boundaries is the guardrail on the interstate right. So here's the thing Guardrail is a very dangerous piece of material on its own. We actually, years ago, preached the guardrail series and we rented a guardrail. We got one from like a scrapyard. It was about 20 feet long in our old building and we carried it in and I was risking cutting my hand because it's thin galvanized steel but, it's sharp, it's not buffed, it's not soft at all galvanized steel, but it's sharp, it's not buffed, it's not soft at all.
Speaker 2:But when it sits on the interstate and you drive by it, you never think about it. It ain't a threat to you at all, it doesn't cut your hand, it doesn't hurt your vehicle. It's when you run into it, right, that all of a sudden it causes a pushback, it causes a ding. And that's where I, your boundaries are so important. And if people bump against it, it's a teaching moment, it's a sharing moment, it's a hey, why is that boundary there? Why didn't you? Whatever? Oh, this is my boundary. And then again, it's not the guardrails fault that the car's dented to your point, it's the car ran into it and got a little ding on it.
Speaker 2:Now, what guardrails don't do is have an automated arm where they just slap people all the time. So you don't want to weaponize your guardrails either. Yes, and use those to say I'm better than you, I know more about God than you do, and we? I mean, can you imagine driving down the interstate and just randomly, the Department of Transportation decides with a push of a button, to swing a guardrail in front of a car and just destroy it for fun. Yeah, that would be no good. Yeah, we can't use our faith or our boundaries as an assault on anybody.
Speaker 2:It's in place and then they get stabilized. They're in place. This is my boundary, and if you bump into it, let's talk about it, but I'm not here to slap you in my boundaries. But you're right, it's about you setting it. When people bump into it, how they react, how much damage they receive, could be like how you explain it, but it could also be a great teaching moment where they grow and they learn, and I think it's a great opportunity. As I follow Christ, let me teach you this, and maybe God will give you the same example for your own life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's it's kind of yeah, I think it's kind of safe to say too, but that I mean, obviously the guardrail is there for you too, and if you bump into a guardrail going down the road, you're going to mess your car up too. So you should probably think about moving the guardrail a little bit further, right, like we're going to move it a little bit closer to keep us even closer into the lanes to where, hopefully, then we won't bump into that guardrail. So, pastor Elmer, he's like yeah, I'm ready. What is one final statement that you could say about this whole entire sermon just today? That was the biggest move for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it all goes back to do I really love Jesus? And if I do, then all of these other things my relationship with my family, my spouse, my kids, with others around me, my willingness to set up boundaries, my love for His church all of that is impacted by my love for Christ. Not the church first, not how my family feels about the church, about Jesus. Do I really love Jesus? And if I really love him, then I feel well, if I really love him, I know that all these other things fall into place because I'm willing to do the hard work to pursue Jesus and to live the way he's called me to. But I think it's all on that. Like, do I really love him?
Speaker 1:That's great, pastor Mike.
Speaker 2:What's that quote? People say Jesus plus anything equals.
Speaker 3:Religion.
Speaker 2:Religion and Jesus plus nothing equals everything.
Speaker 2:So I think you're right. If we're honest, the things that we want are often or the things we want rights and privileges to are often in addition to Christ. If you had nothing but the Lord, you have everything, and I think, coming back to that place, I'm a friend of God and I'm a child of God. I'm a son of God. I'm a friend of the Lord and, if I can I just love how clearly you said it If I can start there, that's that, come with me, that come away with me. Jesus would say to us, and as we just do life with him, he'll set all these things in proper order because of our friendship.
Speaker 3:He says, come and I'll give you rest. He's just telling us like he doesn't say, come with everything, your family. No, he says, come, I'll give you rest. And I think, as we learn to rest in our relationship with Christ, just in who he is, as a person, like everything else, like the song we sang today, what a friend we have in Jesus. And I don't know that song very well, but when Brian who led it today, he said you know, sometimes one of the lyrics is that we don't have peace because we don't bring everything to God in prayer Like we. We forfeit that right of peace because we're trying to figure it out on our own. But if we could just come to Jesus before anything else like peace is made available to us and joy and all these other things. So yeah, Yay.
Speaker 2:It all comes back to the first part of the sermon series. Choose life and blessing over death and cursing, and it all is rallied around Jesus. More of him less of me. Honestly, life gets way less complicated as we stay near him. You remember when you had babies, they didn't think about anything, just you and you, and if they get around a parent, their whole world is complete. I think that's the invitation that God gives us Just get around me.
Speaker 1:I think it's important to hang on to you. Just said that because you know God calls us his children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the older I get, the more boring I want my life to be. I say that kind of as a joke, but it's true. Like. I want my life to be more boring around the things of God.
Speaker 1:Yes and yeah anyway, I love it, there's more of him less of us.
Speaker 2:So friends, um. The title of the message again is friends forever, and let's just be friends to Christ, friends to our house, our house, just fix that, Go, repair that and make it better, um, friends to the Lord's house and and friends with boundaries. I think it's a strong message. The text in james was a beat down, but it's so good it's motivated actually by the mercy of god. He wants this for us. He invites us close.
Speaker 1:So yeah, well, thank you guys yeah, thanks for hosting now two things real quick uh that was an abrupt shift.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was. It was really fast.
Speaker 1:It was like I just got to thinking of okay, legit guys. So I was just thinking of why can't we be friends? All right, what's the song about friends that you were singing earlier?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's from. Saved by the Bell.
Speaker 1:It's Friends.
Speaker 2:Forever. It was like in the later years Of that show they had a, a band. Yeah, remember it was the episode when Jesse got On caffeine pills. Yes, I may have watched, saved by the.
Speaker 1:Bell a lot Anyway.
Speaker 2:And then the other one was Is it Steve Green or Sandy Patty? The friends are friends forever.
Speaker 1:Michael Dobie Smith. Yeah, it was Michael Dobie Smith.
Speaker 2:I said Sandy.
Speaker 1:Patty In the sermon, yeah.
Speaker 3:Lord of them.
Speaker 1:Okay, what is the song that you thought of whenever you thought of Friends? I?
Speaker 3:thought that Michael Dolby Smith song. You did think of that one, yeah, and not because I heard it a lot, but I think a lot of people reference it a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:When you say that phrase Friends Forever.
Speaker 1:so yeah, Way to be holy.
Speaker 2:He's the godly one. I'm the nerd watching TV at home, saved by the bell.
Speaker 1:And I'm just. I'm just in, I'm just happy to be here, somebody.
Speaker 3:Somebody in prayer said they thought of what was it? The Toy Story song, oh you got, you got a friend in me, yeah.
Speaker 2:Paul Newman? I think Paul Newman.
Speaker 1:I wish I would have just kept going and then we would have just been like and cut Like, just Y'all just fading out of. You've got a friend in me, you could Well praise the Lord everybody.
