In this episode, Pastor Jason and Pastor Seth talk about their family and how life has been going this past week. Pastor Jason shares points on his sermon from Sunday about Daniel, his faith and how we should all strive to have Daniels faith regardless of our circumstances. Pastor Seth talks about his message from Sunday on the man born blind. Although he never asked to be healed, Jesus saw a need and met it. Some things happen in your life only so God can show up to heal you and get the Glory. The main discussion is on how scripture urges us to guard our gates. This includes our responses on social media, what we like, what we look at and the thoughts that we have.
In this episode, Pastor Jason and Pastor Seth talk about their family and how life has been going this past week. Pastor Jason shares points on his sermon from Sunday about Daniel, his faith and how we should all strive to have Daniels faith regardless of our circumstances. Pastor Seth talks about his message from Sunday on the man born blind. Although he never asked to be healed, Jesus saw a need and met it. Some things happen in your life only so God can show up to heal you and get the Glory. The main discussion is on how scripture urges us to guard our gates. This includes our responses on social media, what we like, what we look at and the thoughts that we have.
Why should married people be liking selfies of the opposite sex on social media? Let's talk about it. Hey, welcome to another episode of Pastor, the Pastor. Pastor said, I've got Pastor Jason in the house. What's up Pastor Jason? Hey, how's everybody doing? Hey, we're so excited to have you listening. What ever outlet your own today. Thank you so much for taking time to supporting us. And what we'd like to do here is we like to just have a little bit of family talk to Pastor Jason. How's the family? How's the week been? Let's hear it. The family is great. Oh, I started a new job this week. So excited about that. And in fact, you can you notice if your own YouTube, you probably see this little scruffy, scruffy stuff I'm growing out, right? I haven't had a job since I was 18. And I'm a little bit higher than that right now under age skill, double that right. And then some, I've never had a job since I was 18. That would allow me to have a beard. But now this new job that I've got, I can have a beard. So I'm interested to see what it's going to look like. And a lot of other people are interested in seeing what is going to give it a little try. I'm gonna give it a try. And now I got to figure out how to how to trim it and cut and stuff because I've never had to do it. So I'm going to be trying to learn all the things. That is beard. So got it, man, don't be trying to figure it out. But I tell you one thing I didn't notice though, because I gotta have a whole lot of hair on my head to tell. But I could tell there's some gray in there. So you get no but we were doing well man doing extremely well. We're getting ready to hit DC this coming weekend. And so just to kind of get away for a little bit. Have a trip with Kobe and Kayla before Kobe goes off into basic training for the National Guard. So other than that, man, it's just the busy you know, the new the new job trying to figure all of the ins and outs for it. Trying to get on this new schedule that I'm working. But hey, we're blessed man. How about you guys? Yeah, we're doing great man. My in laws are on vacation. They lived yesterday and they are on a cruise. Now. We talked about us planning one. Well, we can play him one day gonna go with us again. Cruise twice this year. Him lucky jokers. Yeah, but we got their dog. So here's the problem. Pastor Jason. I don't mind watching their dog. We got a little puppy. So he's hot. You know, he wants to have fun. So we don't mind having them over. But they have a very high energy dog. Okay, so he needs to be outside. He's like a hunting dog. So he needs to run. We have a form he needs to run. But the problem is you just can't let him run because he runs away. They lost they have lost him twice. So thank God they have a tracking one of those collars that that beep to get you to come back home. And if it beeps too long, you end up getting shot. Oh. So we're real quick. Yeah, but unfortunately, we don't have that call. You gotta it's a whole ordeal, man. But life is good. Other than that, I think I'm gonna be super busy with them dogs this week, too. But yeah, life is good man. No complaints. T ball is in full swing. Levi is crushing it making daddy proud. At a good news. I haven't had the choke slam nobody out there for popping off on the mouth. So yeah, it's good. Yeah. So our Sunday How was the message how was serviceman? So Sunday, Sunday, you know, today this morning, it was awesome. God was moving blessing people. He was definitely in the house and I preached on you last week, I talked about the faithful tank of Daniel him being really his superhero gift was faith. Like if we were talking about the superheroes. And so his gift, his his awesome power of faith that he had even facing trials and tribulations. Regardless of the kings that he served, he always served God the most he was always he was always found faithful in every situation. And as he grew older, the test that he was involved in grew grew stronger, really and deeper and harder. And so the to watch him in his faithfulness, and going to the den was an encouragement to me. And so I wanted to share that with the people how our faith may make us uncomfortable, but eat but we should never even in even though we're uncomfortable, we should never conform. We should never conform to the world. And I pulled out of Romans 12 two talks about how the renewing of our wish should be renewed in our mind and not conformed to the world. And I said even though culture had changed, even though the law had changed, which I think we can agree with, in this day in time, laws are constantly shifting and changing. We're legislating sin. We're doing all kinds of crazy things. But regardless of what the law is, regardless of what culture is like, we should never compromise our faith. And we should never compromise who God has called us to try. We should be the beacon we should be the light we should be showing people what right looks like. And we should never be conforming to the world but being transformed by the renewing of our mind. And so that's really what I'm talking about today. Really was just trying to be A straightforward, steadfast in our faith and never wavering and never faltering. And you know one thing that was interesting that stuck out to me while I was reading this, a Daniel six, I think it was 16th or 17th. That was the main scripture I used today was how even a pagan king encouraged Daniel right before he went down. He said right before he put him into the lion's den, he's like, let the God you serve continuously. He will, they didn't say that he might or that he should. He said he will deliver you. And what an encouragement I talked about there being power of life and death in the tongue, how we should be speaking life into people, and not allowing them to wallow in death, or wallow in shame or in pity or in or in dirt, but bringing them up lifting them up speaking life, into their, into their life and into their situations in the world. So that's really in a nutshell man, kind of what I preached on the day. I love that man, it's such a good word to hear. Because just because it's okay in the world doesn't mean it's lawful in the kingdom. Yeah. And when we become Kingdom citizens, we adhere to the kingdom rules. And, you know, that's such a good reminder that, you know, we've got to align ourselves with the world, we got to align ourselves with God with our with our Creator. And so it's good. Even in Second Corinthians six, I pulled out 17 through 18, it says, Come out from among them, like you are separate. You are a, a unique, peculiar people, right? That's not that particular scripture. But that's basically what he's saying. We are, we are meant to be different. We're not meant to look like the world. We can't dress like the world, we can't act like the world, we can't go party and in clubbing with the world, like we need to be in places to reach them and meet them and their needs. But we can't go and sin with them. And so they basically man in a nutshell, that's what it was all about, like, and it's in our difference in our indifference that draws people to Christ. Yeah, the world proves every single day was spent. I shared this with him too. So I started this new job. And my boss, he likes to have business lunch, lunch business, right? So we, we sit down and we eat our lunch meetings. And so we sit down and we discuss business. Well, in the room, there was a FoxNews was playing. And it was 20 minutes, we were sitting there eating talking about business. And I kept looking at the headlines. And I'm like, you realize we've been sitting here for 20 minutes. And there hadn't been one good thing shared on that new station. And I don't care, man, if it's a, b, and c, or ABC, CNN, CBS, they don't matter what the new station is. There. It's never anything good. It's never anything uplifting and inspiring. And I'm like, in order to inspire people, we've got to be different. We cannot be like the world and expect the world to want something different man. So that's where we need. We need that Pastor Jason. Yeah, that's what we talked about. So tell me about you, man. What do you guys do today? Yeah, so today, we are just like you on Fifth Sundays. No, this this month for you guys are a little different. Because you kind of combined it for Easter's. That's right. Yeah. So we did our family day for fifth Sunday. And man, it was just tremendous. Our goal for fifth Sunday is that it would be a time where it's easy to invite somebody to church, because church is different on these days. I mean, we still preach, we still do worship, but afterwards, we really give them a glimpse of what our community looks like. We play games we eat, we get to get to know each other and stuff like that. And with it being raining outside, we were up, we were inside together. But man, it couldn't have been any better man. And it was a great day I preached on John Chapter Nine, where the man that was born blind. And Jesus came in, he spit in the mud. We've talked about this on here a little bit, he spits and it makes mud and he puts it on him, tells him to go wash in the water. And so I talked about because we're in this journey series is oftentimes God will show up in your life in on an opportune times when you least expect it. So I talked about, you know, this miracle where Jesus shows up, what you notice is this man didn't even ask to be healed passages. He didn't even say, Hey, is that Jesus, let me be healed. No, Jesus saw a need and he made it. And that's what he does show into disciples that today when we have an opportunity, so I said knights come and where nobody can work. So while I'm here, I should now fulfill what God has called me to fulfill it to relate that to us is when there's an opportunity to bless someone, or to use what God's given you the spiritual gifts we've been talking about. Use those, take them and use them when you get a chance. Because one day you might not be able to. And so that's why he went and he healed. And, you know, one of the things that I realized is that the disciples were very smart, but they had no common sense. I mean, you think about it, right? We think it's funny, but how could the man have seen it's what he said? He said, Who seen him or his parents to make him blind? Because what they believed back in those times was if you were sick or you had a disease or you or you had a mess in your life, is the result of your sin is a result of your mistake. So to say was it him or was it his pain? errors and well comments. It says it can't be him. He was born blind. You can't see in when you're not born yet. Yeah. And so Jesus says it's not him. And it's not as parents, it's actually so that God can be seen through him. And it's a beautiful perspective, that means that sometimes we go through things only because God just wants to get something out of it. God just wants to get glory. Now, understand, we all go through things that we called, and we had to pay the penalty. But sometimes God allows us to go through some things only so that he can get the glory. Sometimes he allows us to go through things so that he can come in and pull us out. God allows us things for him to get the glory. It's a good encouragement. I remember when Taylor, we had leave our very early 28 weeks, he was born one pound nine ounces, and he was in the NICU. And we were in the Ronald McDonald we had just moved to we were maybe two months in Goldsboro. And you know, we pastor so we walk people through these things all the time, but I've never walked through it myself. So I was struggling, because I can tell somebody how to get through such a hectic, chaotic moment. But walking through it yourself. It's kind of tough. And I remember we were laying in bed, man, and Taylor is crying, and she's upset. And she says this Pastor Jason, she says, Why us? Why are we going through this? Because we literally gave up our whole life to move. Here we are. We submitted everything to Christ, we living for Him, we're serving for him, you Pastor full time, I left my family, and why does he have us in the situation? I don't get it. And something rose up in me. And I responded, and I said, why not? Us? Yeah. And what I've learned is that oftentimes things happen to us, just for God to get the glory. And if you don't go through anything, Pastor Jason, you won't ever have a story to tell. Yeah, that's right. And so we talked about how we can take what God's done for us and use it to bring Him glory, and people closer to him. And I talked about the parallels with between chapter nine and chapter 10, where chapter nine, you can't just stay at chapter nine. And leave it by itself. Chapter 10 is part of it, where Jesus is talking about the good shepherd. And he uses this blond man to be the foundation of what he's teaching the disciples in chapter 10, about how he brings those who have been cast out, if you continue to read the story, you'll see where because he said, Jesus, he would him, they cast him out of the synagogue, and he told him he couldn't come to the church. No more ever been there, man. And so Jesus comes in, finds him and brings him into the sheep fold. Chapter 10 picks up and he's talking about how the Good Shepherd takes care of the sheep, those that have been lost, he goes to find, he talks about this. So our message, it's really man about how one what do you do when God shows up to change your story? And then here's the reality here. Are you ready for this? Are you sure? Go ahead. Okay. Because many of us are just like this, this blind man, we feel like we've been born with conditions. That because my father was an alcoholic, I have to be an alcoholic, because my mother was addicted to things. And I have to be addicted to these things. And because they didn't get through this struggle, I had to I had to carry this struggle in this way with me, because it's just me. We live in a time where people will have an identity crisis, that they feel that they've been born a certain way, no matter what the human anatomy tells you, you still feel like I was born a different way. But the scripture says is that you must be born again. And so what this is good news Pastor Jason, that you don't have to stay bound what you think you were born with, because of your parents. Because of what your mind is telling you. You can be born again be set free you can be you can be made new as First Corinthians Second Corinthians tells you, you can be made new you can be made whole. And so now we talked about all that good stuff, how God shows up on your journey, and He changes your life forever. Yeah, it sets you free. And actually, I shared some some similar to that too. I was like, Could God have delivered Shadrach Meshach and Abednego from even go into the furnace? Absolutely. But what glory would he have gotten in that from from them looking in and saying, oh, there's a fourth went in there with them? Did we not just put three in there? Yeah, but I see four. And then the lion's den Could God have made it so that so that Daniel never went to the lions den? Absolutely. But then what would have happened the next day? Right? We would have never seen that. Hey God because of Daniels faith Kip, and because of his glory, kept Daniel from even getting a scratch on him. Yep, these hard times opportunities and that's how we need to see them is that even go out even though I'm going through this. I'm going to give God the glory for it. Because on the other end of it, this you will be able to minister to people now in ways when it comes to having kids prematurely that you will have never been able to minister to them before had leave on not being born early and until And you say what you want? You can tell he was born early now. Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's right. That was anointed. He's got a call on his life. Yeah. And you better watch out. Hey, come on. Bad already as big as you are. Hey, and I love that I that is very true. That is very true. I love this about the story too. I know we're gonna move on. But I love this about the story is what you notice is if you continue to encourage you to reach chapter nine, all the way through through through, especially verses 35 through 41, where Jesus finds out, he's been cast out, and the Bible says Jesus goes to find him. Remember, the shepherd will leave to go find the sheep. And that's where he's making that parallel. And so he goes, and he finds him and he says, Hey, do you believe and he said, Well, I've heard him. He said, Well, who you here is who stand in front of you. It is me, Jesus. Do you believe yes, I believe will come on, you're with me. Yeah. Notice, he hears he hears Jesus. He never sees him. You don't see who he is, until after Jesus comes and finds him. So he hears him and then he sees him? How are many times how long are we gonna wait to where we just hear and know about Jesus, but never received him receiving? Many times? Are you just gonna go to church and just go to Bible study, just hear that know about Christ, but never received him for yourself? It wasn't until he really received him for himself that he actually got a true relationship with Him, which is what matters most. Not the miracle is that he want a relationship with Jesus Christ through it, which is in the case that we miss so often, is the fact that the greatest miracle we will ever experience is being born again, young to the family of God into the kingdom of God, that we're no longer we're no longer orphans come home, but we have a heavenly Father. And that is the greatest miracle that we won't understand until we get on the other side. And I'm so grateful. We keep looking for healings. And we keep looking for people shouting in tongues when we keep looking for people doing Jericho marches. And we keep, we keep looking for all that emotional stuff, and, and for that physical kind of stuff. But I'm telling you, man to be born again. To be I shared this, I've shared this so much. So many times, the lifecycle of an average Senator, is that, firstly, you're born, and then you live, and then you die. Yep. But the lifespan of a Christian is different. The life cycle of a Christian is different. You see, we're born dead. And then we experience birth, and we live forever and life eternal life. And so that is the different life cycle, if you will, of a Christian we we live a different cycle. Now. Here's what most people don't. And we are, we are 17 minutes, and we're still talking about the opening. But that's fine. Let's just enjoy this. Let me enjoy it anyway. Is that the greatest thing, the greatest miracle is no one our Heavenly Father, here's the truth, we are going to live again. Everybody. Make no mistake, we all are going to live for eternity. Yep. But now where you live is the difference. Jesus in this this can kind of be if you don't understand in Scripture, John 316, For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son who ever believed him should not perish but have everlasting life. Well, everlasting life can be a little misleading if you don't understand exactly what Jesus is talking about which he he clarifies in another piece of scripture, when he says, This is life eternal. It you will know that our Heavenly Father who sent Me, yeah, so you're going to live for eternal eternity. But are you going to live eternally with God? Now that decision is up to you. That decision is who you serve that decision is who your Savior is. And if you accept Him as your Savior, that is the greatest miracle we will ever experience. Because you can go, you can go to hell with a healed body. And sorry, I was gonna say the exact same thing. You can be healed and still go to hell. Yeah. Tell him Nikita. Fox. Yeah. But no, I mean, that's awesome. We had a great it was great day, man. Great message. And we had a great order, bro. We the Lord just moved. And it's a great day. Yeah, that's great, man. So, all right. So you opened up with a question? What are you gonna do what you want you to read that question again? And then let's go right into that time. Yeah. So man, let's talk about it. This is something that, you know, I don't think we ever really think about should married people, like selfies of the opposite sex on social media. Okay, so let's give it a little bit of background. Alright. So you posted this question this this week on social media. And then I have seen and then I quit, I don't I don't stay on social media. In fact, I challenged our people this week with staying off of social media. this coming week, starting from Monday to Sunday, I challenged them to stay off social media, to live a different life and to see what controlling what they allow in how it would change their view of their opinion to perspective. And so really, that is kind of what we're talking about today. We're talking about guarding your gates. Yeah. And so that question as simple as it is created a roar yeah did on social media about whether they agree or do disagree. Yeah. And so let's open up with proverbs 423 through 27. And this is kind of what we're guarding OR gates comes from. It's kind of the base group. So we're gonna talk about in Proverbs 423 through 27 says, Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it spring, the issues of life. Verse 24, says, Put away from your deceitful mouth and put perverse lips far from you. Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you ponder the path of your feet and let all your ways be established in verse 27, says, Do not turn to the right or to the left, remove your foot from evil. And so go into that question, man, should should married people be liking other people's selfies? Is that was exported? Yeah, yeah, that's right. And you know, I had to really kind of clarify a little bit because people were really making an uproar and where I stand I'm firm on where I stand, bro. And, and I wanted all the smoke like you can justify all you won't, I did not mind. You know what I found out in this quarter. Pastor Jason, anytime you talk about boundaries. Anytime you talk about showing respect to your spouse, or your significant other, people love to throw out your controlling or you're throwing out like, you'd have trust issues. But when did respect become trust issues? I think that you look at even scripture, and that you have to guard your yourself. And so you know, really, this conversation was birthed after seeing Christian married men, consistently on social media. So here's the thing is people see what you do? You may not know it, but we see we see what you do. Consistently liking, say, my provocative selfies of younger women, older women, no matter the age. And so we pose this question, and a lot of the feedback was against it was that there's no there's nothing wrong with it, because they're family, friends, or they go to our church and all this kind of stuff. And so my point of view is this is that a lot of that stuff seems innocent, but the majority of most infidelity start with conversations just like that. They were friend of the family, they were co worker, they were somebody close, and the way to divorce rates are Pastor Jason, I would rather guard my family more than anything. Yeah. And what happens is, is when I potentially like a photo, love a photo or comment on when it's basically a single female, it could give an image or a thought that I didn't mean to give to someone. Yeah. And create a conversation, you might end up sliding in the DM. And then we might end up having a coffee, you know, you never know what happens. Yeah, go from like, and a comment to doing some things you shouldn't be doing. That's right. And so we we have an encourage you go look at the state bed, if you follow me on social media, go look at his thing, because people have a lot of perspectives. There's a lot of thoughts on this. And, you know, people say that, in marriage, there's got to be trust, and I believe it Pastor Jason, I believe it but I believe there has to be some gates that you've got to guard. Yeah. And you know, beyond just liking a photo, where are your thoughts? Where are your thoughts on this? Do you think it's okay? I'm very, very personally, I'm very, very cautious. I even have congregants who post photos or post selfies and things like that. And I love the person and they know that I love them, but in a cross like way and then if they if they've got it typically if it's just especially a female, if it's a single female, I'm not liking the post, if it's a selfie of her now if it's her and her kids, or an unwritten rule just because of the opposite gender right? I believe we as leaders don't even meet with members of the office right it's by ourselves because I'm not leaving no foothold for the enemies right if you want to see the enemy operate your life Give him give him a foothold give him giving it just a little small opportunity to make something so small so big and he will promise you Yeah, I don't even I don't like those photos I don't love those photos and things for simple fact that I don't want to give the opportunity to the enemy now in context if it were your wife and she just posted a photo of own the farm or something and I would probably like something like that yeah, but some you're right some photos I've seen that I'm like yours no way you bet the title Christian and you have naked like posting a photo right? Because I'm sorry, I don't care and you cannot follow me if you won't. If the word just because the world does it doesn't mean that you should be doing it. That's right. Just because the world dresses like that wears thongs and things does not mean people of God should be wearing those kinds of things. I'm gonna tell you the old school had it right and we can look at him as old school, whatever it can get whatever they had her right see they didn't dabble in sin. That's why they said absolutely no drinkin absolutely no, this and no, they can lead to something because of the possibility of it leading to something why? Why play with something you know is going to hurt you. I was praying this the other day, man, and it caught me. I didn't even realize what I was saying. And you say it, it sounds crazy. But I was praying to God, let your enemies be my enemies. And immediately sin as my enemy is sin my enemy, or am I trying to hold on to the world and hold on to God at the same time, because Scripture is clear, you can't serve two masters, you have to make a decision. And I'm not trying to play with the world and play with sin, something that sent my savior to the cross, I should not be playing with something like this, right? Because a little bit 11 leavens the whole bunch, meaning a little bit of sin, your life can lead to a whole lot more, we've heard this before. And it rings true, that sin will take you further than you ever wanted to go keep you longer than you ever wanted to say, don't play with something that God's already given you victory over about that take up and we'll pass it around. I don't even know these buttons over here to let you know. And that's so true with the blending of quarters, you cannot blend quarters and and I'm gonna say one thing, I don't this, the society we live in today is so corrupt. I don't trust anything I don't. I rarely say it's trust issues or whatever. But the people, you just can't really trust their intentions all the time. And this is one side Pastor Jason that we don't consider, you know, I mentioned that you know, you don't, you don't consider what your action, how it affects the other person is on the other end. But think about your spouse who's scrolling and sees us a single female or male depending on your gender, and you see them that they've liked and another single person, as photo, think about the thoughts that you could put in their head. I just I love my wife enough to not put any preconceived thoughts in there. Even though there's nothing there, I want to guard her, I want to protect her. And that's one way we do it. Now, a lot of people are okay with that, because they don't see any problem with it. But you find out that a lot of those relationships ended up getting really wavy and rocky down the road. A lot of people that were owned that have experienced that type of relationship that were against this. And I look at this Pastor Jason as a preventative. Why would I Why would I wait until something happens to stop doing something that has potential to be something that's right. And scripture says even the estate, if you consider it to be a doubt, but still do it still you're sinning? And so if I if I question something, but still do it, I'm sending. Let's be honest, people don't want to be corrected anymore. They want to do what they want to do when they want to do it with no debt with nothing holding them accountable. And there's that word again, accountability, I can't tell you this. If this isn't holding you accountable, then you are not a Christian. That's right. I'm just telling you the bottom line, if you're not allowing this thing hurts, it hurts because it cuts off things that separate is sharper than a two edged sword separating bone marrow, like this thing hurts. Yeah, if you're reading it and applying it in your life, it hurts because it cuts off things that are of the flesh and not of the Spirit. It cuts off things that are not of God. And so if you shouldn't be offended when we say things like this, because it's trimming the fat, it's making you more and more like Jesus. And you know, we're not live by feelings. And by the word that's right. And so when, when truth shows up in the lie that you're living, or the sin that you're living, we you always reject it, but but truth will always remain the same. And so there's truth to this. Rather you want to believe it, you want to receive it, you want to justify it. There's truth in this that this is the best preventative if you know there's potential for it to create something. Don't do it. What does that say in that ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure or something like that? I don't know. I'm not old enough to know that one, man. Okay, well, that's why they come through today. Hallelujah. But let's look though, okay, so we talked about this, this simple thing of like, but but scripture goes even deeper. Like what you watch. Yeah. Well, you what you listen to you talk about guarding your gates. Yeah. The thoughts that you have that Paul says, take those thoughts that are contrary to the Word that are contrary to God, take them captive. Yep. and cast them out. Don't even don't even dwell on those things. That's right. We're getting into Jeremiah 17. Nine and it says that, go ahead and read it for him. Yeah. He says The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it? Yeah, but we think we know who we are. We think we know our heart. That's right. But it's clear scripture is deceitful. Above all things. Your flesh doesn't want the things that God wants for you. It doesn't want the same thing that God wants for you all the time. You have got to be careful and Can I tell you this, I've experienced this in my life, even by allowing the opportunity for a seed to be planted by the enemy, as simple and as innocent. And as, as as simple as it is you can allow a seed to be planted, and then not even think about it. And then before you know it, you got some alone time. And all of a sudden, that little seed that was planted popped up, hey, remember me remember this image you shouldn't have been looking at, hey, remember this, this DM that you got that you should have deleted when you got it, right. So last year, right, if you should block out those little things, man, those little things, plant seeds, just like the opposite, were good plant seeds. Like we should be the farmer scattering See, we should be the one scattering hope and scattering the gospel and we shouldn't be the one planting the seeds of life, not allowing the enemies to the enemy to plant the seed of death. Like we shouldn't allow to allow that to even happen in our life. And in our situations. Yeah, and if there's something that makes you you know, the scripture in Proverbs we read like, don't make it turn you left or turn your right. So if there's something that draws your attention off of where you should be and what you should be doing, it's those things you've got to cut out of your life that keeps you on that straight and narrow because there's gonna be a lot pester Jason that tried to pull us away from that path that that straight in there. That's why he says let your eyes look straight ahead. That's why I try not to stroll to scroll on social media, bro. Because you talk about this world. You talk about how social media is progressing. You gotta guard every thing in this in a relationship podcast, but we just trying to help you today especially leaders, especially leaders, because you're gonna have some really beautiful women. You got some beautiful men come into your your church that you've got to be able to guard yourself. Yeah, I remember when we were at a church in Fayetteville. We weren't we planted and was pastoring. And the average age was like 23, bro. There's very pretty girls that will come around. And a lot of them had daddy issues. A lot of them were young and single. But I made a point to make sure my wife was with me that we were even talking about baptisms, bro. And one woman showed up late and I couldn't find Taylor. So I had to pull my brother in his I can't be Alana into my baptism with her but I can't be alone with her. Because I have to guard I have to guard Listen to me, pastors and leaders. Guard your heart guard your eyes guard yourself because this word is evil man is so evil people have terrible intentions. You have good intentions. But the enemy will send somebody with evil at that Python spear. We talked about that. We're following the disciples, man they come in to just get close enough just to mess you up. And so don't be mad at us. We trying to help you? Yeah, if you just don't worry. If you stay away from it, you don't have to worry about it. That's right. If you protect yourself, you don't have to worry about it. But I've got a sneaking suspicion that most of the people who are against that are probably people who shouldn't be doing things they shouldn't That's right. Anyway, that's right. I mean, let's just be honest about it, shall I my wife I I'm just the only people mad at you is the people that you that you call them out on? Well, it is what it is. And trust me the word calls me out all the time. It's always yelling things out to me that that I've got to work on. Yeah, I mean, nobody's perfect. They can well you know, our sermons hit us first before it hits anybody else man what we are we are preaching wounded. Pre I'm mean that we're preaching wounded to my church. It hit me it comes off strong to you. But man, I feel even stronger it. It's just reality. We've got to guard our hearts. Man is deceitful. We got to guard our eyes and stay focused on the Lord. I challenge. I don't know if I shared this in the podcast or not. But I challenged our people to know Blake Shelton this week. Like even when I was preaching, I was like, well, we got to be people of faith and we should look different, act different, speak different dress different. We are different. We are not the world. We were bought and paid for by price. And we do not belong to ourselves. We belong to God. And so I challenged him this week. I said, Hey, if it ain't glorifying God, don't listen to why don't you tell him not to turn off? If it ain't? No, Blake Shelton this week, and I said if it ain't, if it ain't glorifying God, don't watch it. Come on, man. And I said try to stay off social media just for a week, seven days. Now here's the funny thing is that it's almost like people would who are trying to quit smoking hanging around smokers, right? You trying to quit smoking? Why are you gonna go back and hang around people who are smoking when you ain't even got strong enough yet to resist it? But what is interesting is is when you try not to do those things, and you start feeling the urge and the warmth and desire to do a scratch and you start I got these cheeseburgers, right? So you start you start when you start feeling that it's to do something like that when you try not to do it that just shows you how dependent upon it you are. Yeah, so anyway, this has been an interesting topic is one that we just decided to cover and I'm gonna tell you, I think it's well needed, because we're not trying to call you out We're trying to call you up. The word does that God does that the leaders of God, you know, the men and women of God who got used to preach and teach and apostle and evangelize. And they shouldn't be calling you in the same direction. They shouldn't be calling you up out of your sin not teaching you how to cope with your sin. Yeah, like anyway. And you know, Pastor Jason, the more you dabble in sin, the greater that appetite grows, the more you eat it, the more you live in it, the greater it becomes. And you think it's just a little bit you think it's just a like, you think it's just a DM you think it's just something small. But those things become a lot greater in the long run. If you don't stop it. Yeah. And I'll be honest with you, man, over over the years, and, uh, my wife and I, we've been married 16 years, we've been together longer, but I've had to address some people that slide into her DM box before and be like, hey, even even even as an associate pastor, I'm just talking to one guy. Hey, I don't know them. googly eyes. You were sending dude. They might be okay with other people. But it's not okay with my wife. Googly. They might be blacked. out now. Now we just you know, just but you just cut it off. Destroy it start man. It's right. And but anyway, and it's not something. It's not like I was searching her inbox. She came to me. She said, I want you to see this. And I'm like, okay, cool. So I'll address it. And we that's how we should be. That's how we should be with our spouses that should look, she keeps me accountable. Absolutely. I'll promise she keeps. She keeps she keeps me accountable. And I keep her accountable. And hey, you know, we grow in the Lord. But now here's what I say to what you what you feed yourself in the flesh will grow you stronger in the flesh, but what you feed yourself in the spirit. Are you stronger in the spirit, right? So depends on how you want to grow. If you want to grow stronger in God and stronger in the gifts that we just come off of. And if if you want to grow stronger in your faith, if you want to grow stronger in God, feed yourself, God. Feed yourself the word feed yourself some worship, and you'll you'll see a shift. I promise you that's what I challenged him with this week. I said, you're gonna see you're gonna see growth in your spirit, man, and it's gonna change the way you view things. Yeah, absolutely. But anyway, hey, we've hooked me they encouraged you. If you're mad at something I said, Just give Jason an email and he'll respond to you. No, I'm just kidding. Listen, we just want to encourage you equip you challenge you and edify you. Just like scripters Tez. Before we get done, you got anything you want to say. I'm good, bro. I'm gonna go ahead and bless you. It's Numbers chapter six. It is the priestly blessing. We love to do this because this is our prayer for you. May the Lord bless you and protect you may the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you his favor and give you peace. Thank you so much for listening. Share it with someone who can be encouraged by these forests. We'll see you here next week. God bless you Hey,