Learn From Your Haters: Sideline Haters

This week's sermon focuses on how do deal with haters who attempt to stop you from completing your goals.  We'll show you how to execute a vision, and how to move when opposing forces are moving against you.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 1:03

Hey yo, what it do, what it do, what it do. My name is Christian, and you are listening to sermons from the back porch. Now to give you just a little a bit about myself, I've been in ministry for about say around about 15 years, and I've been preaching off and on about 15 years. And in that 15 years, I have never done a sermon series. So today is a first for me. Today in my professional career of ministry, this is my very first sermon series. So if you're listening, this is going to be in a series of four sermons going back to back to back to back. It was one sermon, but I decided it would be better if I give more in-depth and more inbound to it. So I broke it from one sermon into four sermons. So stay with me and we'll get through it together, cuz. Like I said, it's a first for me. So I'm hoping everything goes well. And you know, like they say, you can't get nothing you never had unless you do something you never do. So if y'all ready and I'm ready, let's get started. Now, the purpose of this sermon series is basically to learn from the people in your life. We always say people are in your life for either a reason or a season. But me, I tend to think it's both. Some people in your life are there for a reason and season. And we often say this about people we love. You know, sometimes they're here to teach us something, sometimes we lose somebody, and that's a lesson that they've taught us along the way. And we also say this about people who we lost. We cherish the memories and we cherish the good times, and we know that that time that we had with them, that moment that we had with them, was golden, was precious. So people in your life are in your life, in my opinion, for either for both reasons and seasons. And we also always say this about people who impact us in a good way. But what about the folks that impact us in a negative way? What about our haters? If we say that the people who impact us in a good way, in a positive way, are in our life for a reason to teach us something, to give us divine insight, can they be to say it the same about our haters? So that's the purpose of this sermon series to break down basically the haters in your life. And from the haters in your life, you can learn lessons and insights about where you're going in your journey and where you're going in your vision. So that's the purpose of this, the next four sermons. They're going to be breaking down what you can learn from your haters. And I'm going to give you the four haters that I'm going to teach about in this sermon series. The first one is going to be sideline haters. The second one is going to be the hater you love. The third one is going to be powerful haters. And the last one is haters at the end of your journey. So keep up with me. If you're subscribed, subscribe to the to the podcast. If you're on the Patreon, make sure you hit the Patreon because you'll definitely get a good insight on the Patreon. So that is the the purpose of the next four sermons. So let's start with the first one. And the first one we're going to start with sideline haters. Now, in order to explain sideline haters, I'm going to get a little bit scientific with y'all. I'm going to go to Isaac Newton's theory of motion. And what Isaac Newton said, what Sir Isaac Newton said, is basically for every reaction, there is an equal equal but opposite reaction. For every action, there is an equal and opposing action. To give you an example, let's say you're sitting down, and you can see it is just sitting down, but truthfully, you're not just sitting down. Your ass is pressing down with force upon the seat that you're sitting on. And with the same amount of force, the seat is holding your ass up. So what seemed like a simple just sitting down is a lot more complex than what it is. Your ass is putting down on a chair with force and your body in your chair is raising your body up with force. Now let's say your ass is so big and your ass is so rotund and heavy that the chair that you're sitting on cannot equate to the amount of pressure that your ass is forcing upon it. In that situation, their chair is going to bend and wobble and fold, and eventually it's going to break and crack under the pressure. And that's the goal of a sideline hater.

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It's basically to put pressure on you to force you to crack.

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Now to give certain characteristics of a sideline hater. You're not offering you help, you're not offering you critiques. They're basically giving you reasons why you shouldn't be doing what you're doing, why you shouldn't go forward and why you shouldn't achieve for greater. And most is usually done behind your back. Most of this is usually done to discredit you. A lot of it will be lies. A lot of it will be false accusations, or they'll try to twist what you're doing to make something mischievous or devious out of it. But sideline haters are usually down talkers. Not only that, they seek an audience. See, us African Americans, we have this saying called crabs in a bucket. Well basically, a person who's a crab in the bucket, or people who are crabs in the bucket, as soon as they see somebody elevating themselves or doing better about themselves, they're gonna do what they can to pull them down. And the thing about that is it's very hard to do it alone. It's hard to do it by yourself. So a sideline hater is always gonna seek a crowd, it's always gonna try to get somebody who agrees with them and try to get somebody to rally on their team and on their side. Because if they can move in a crowd, they have more force and more pressure putting push pushing against you. They'll have more pressure pushing against you, pushing down on you. They'll have more force to do it. It's hard to do it by yourself, but when you have a group trying to push on somebody and trying to stop them from achieving the goal, it's more effective. And one other characteristic, they're often invalid. Like I said, they're on the sidelines, they're not doing anything to help you better yourself, they're not doing anything to guide you in the right direction, they're not even giving you constructive criticism, they're just giving you criticism and reasons why you can't do it. And most likely, all those reasons are really invalid. Because once you have a vision, and once God placed that vision upon your heart, no matter what anybody else says, God's word is finally. If you listen to your haters and you listen to your sideline haters, eventually you're gonna be on the sideline with them. So, to give you a good example of a sideline hater, let me give y'all a little Bible. Now, the book that we're gonna come from is the book of Nehemiah. And we're gonna talk about a good man named Nehemiah. And the thing about Nehemiah is Nehemiah had a vision, and the way he got that vision is perfect, it's perfect for explaining how to go about your vision and how to go about doing something God called you to do. So before we start showing the haters, let me talk to you a little bit about Nehemiah. So to get into me and Nehemiah's world, Nehemiah is with the Israelites as they are in captivity in Babylon. And at this point, they're going back and forth to rebuild Jerusalem, to rebuild Judah. But right now, Nehemiah is in Babylon doing his thing. So they have people going back and forth to Jerusalem and Babylon, and one of them just so happened to be one of his brothers. So he asked his brother about the walls in Jerusalem. And his brother was like, you know, basically, you know, the walls are still down. Ain't nobody did anything with the walls. And this concerned Nehemiah because he cared about Jerusalem. Jerusalem is his hometown, where he was from, he his place. He's an Israelite. So that's where his concern is carries from. And he's hearing that those walls are not up. And as long as those walls are not up, they're unprotected, they're unguarded. So this hit Nehemiah. And this hit Nehemiah so much that he came concerned about it. This turned into a concern for him. And Nehemiah turned that concern into a passion. Nehemiah went before God. And he fasted and prayed before God in regards to this situation, in regards to his concern. The walls weren't up. So in this prayer, in his time of fasting, Nehemiah prayed to God and he said, God, give me favor amongst those who can help me. And the thing about it is at that time, Nehemiah was the king's cupbearer. Now, this may not be us a port and a big extravagant, but basically to put it in ways that we can understand in this day, Nehemiah was basically the guy who brought the king his wine. And since Nehemiah had presence with the king, he wasn't in a professional stance, but he knew the advantage that he had. He brings the king his wine. So every time he brings the king his wine, his king is in a job of a mood. He's in a happy mood. He wants to get lifted. He wants to get lit. He wants to feel excited and happy and exuberant. And to be honest with you, nobody likes a sad bartender. If you've ever been to the bar, you've ever been to the club, you want your bartender to be hopping. You want your butt bartender, your bartender to be about the action, about the life.

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If you go to the bar and he's all, what you want? What kind of drink you want? Let me serve your drink. Yeah, uh, why y'all in the bar like this?

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That's gonna be the last time you go to that bar. So Nehemiah knew to do his job in an uplifting manner. It wasn't just about bringing the king a cup of wine, his favorite wine. It was about bringing him the wine that he needed at the time. It was about knowing the desires and the mood of the king. So he always made sure he put himself up in an uplifting mood. But this thing about the wall, it troubled him so much that it was hard for him to do his job jovial as he'd been doing. And the king started to notice this. The Babylonian king, he noticed it. So he was like, hey, Nehemiah, what's up? What's wrong with you? You're usually up tempo, usually upbeat. Now it seems like something's on your heart. What's weighing on your heart? What's troubling you? So Nehemiah told him basically, you know, I'm troubled because I'm concerned about my hometown. My hometown is not built, it's not fortified like it should be. So with the right tools, with the right hookups, with the right things, I can go down there and take care of this problem. All I need is some lumber, some good lumber, because I know you're the Babylonian king, you got to hook up on the lumber. And also your name rings bells around this area. So I need a a basic, basically a pass from you. So when I go back and forth from Jerusalem to Babylon, anybody in between that could know, hey, I'm doing the job with a Babylonian king. Y'all might not want to fk with me. So the king heard him. The king, you know, he was sitting there sipping, him and his wife. He heard the concerns of his cupbearer. Because his cupbearer was in his heart. So he was like, you know, I got you. I'm gonna hook you up with some wood, I'm gonna hook you up with some tools and labor. Go ahead and go see what you need to do. So Nehemiah, he had a concern. That concern turned into a passion, that passion turned into a vision, and he brought that vision before people who can help him. He didn't bring it just before anybody, he made sure that he utilized the right connections in order to make sure his vision can come to pass. So once he got that part taken care of, he goes over to Jerusalem to see the wall, and he researches it. Now while he's in Jerusalem, he recruits people to help him, but he doesn't give them the plan. He doesn't give them what he's doing. He says, Hey, you know, I need help scouting the area. Y'all help me scout the area, you get a little money. He even sometimes he would even go away from the workers and do a little scouting on his own to see certain areas and how certain areas need to be taken care of. And while he was doing this, the haters caught win. Remember, I told you the king, Babylonian king, he gave basically Nehemiah a governor's letter letting him know, hey, I'm I'm doing work in the in Jerusalem. So once that word got out, the haters started listening. Remember I told you about what Isaac Newton said? There was an action, and here comes the haters, haters, here comes the haters with an equal and opposite reaction. Me and Meyer started moving, and the haters started moving. And this hater in particular goes by the name of San Ballot. The name itself just sounds like a hater. Just hate San Ballot. You can't even say the name with a smile on your face. You gotta scroll in your face up and be like, err, San Ballot. I don't like it. But San Ballot, he hears Jeremiah. He out here trying to rebuild the walls. And being the hater that he is, he don't like it. So he recruits one of his boys, Tobias, and he then they're basically going around spreading false rumors. Basically saying, you know, he's trying to start an uprising and everything else. And that first part is basically the formation of a vision. See, Nehemiah, he had that perfectly thought-out vision. He had a concern, he turned it into a passion. He got with the people who needed to help him and support him, and he did the research. Along that way, the haters started flocking. So there's not going to be a point in your life where there's going to be bam, boom, here come the haters. Once you start moving, your haters are going to start moving. Once you start building yourself up and start putting things in motion and putting pressures in motion, them haters are going to come with the pressure. And basically, what Sam Ballard did. Remember, like I said, haters need a crowd. He recruited Tobias. And they work together in order to stop the progress that Nehemiah has. And the sad thing about the obvious thing about it, obviously sad. I hate that it happens, happen, but in life it happens. The more Nehemiah progress, the more Sanbalit progress, the more they worked on the wall, the more, the closer they got to completing the wall, the more Sanbalit and his boys up the Andy. They went from spreading rumors to making threats. They went from rumors to mockery. They're saying, oh, if a fox brushed up against that wall, it's gonna knock it down. That wall ain't gonna be nothing. The wall is useless. It's trash, that's what it is. But even the mockery and the false accusations didn't stop Nehemiah from completing the wall, finishing the wall, working on the wall. So since the mockery didn't work, they elevated their taxes to threats and violence. Now they're threatening the workers. Since they can't get to Nehemiah directly, they're threatening those who try to come and work against him. They're attacking people who are trying to help him build the wall. And it even got to the point where that wasn't working. Because no matter what happened, what they were doing to try to stop it, the wall was progressing. So since rumors and lies can hit didn't stop him, threats of violence didn't stop him, Sandbal and his boys had to take it a step further. And they took it a step further the way your sideline haters is always gonna take that top line next step level. Eventually they're gonna come emboldened with audacity. And that's just what happened here. Sam Ballot he became so emboldened with audacity that he basically thought he was important enough to get Nehemiah to stop. Like all he had to do was just send a message to Nehemiah to say, hey, stop, come down and talk to me so we can talk about this. The audacity of Sam Ballot just to see somebody progressing and being like, hey, stop what you're doing. Let me talk to you for a second. Second. Let me tell you why what you're progressing and doing right now and everything going along so good. Let me tell you how actually it's not the right thing for you to do. That's a sideline hater for you. Whether you come emboldened with audacity. And it's not even one time that Sambal did this. It's several times. Several times he comes to Nehemiah's people sending him messages saying, hey, come down and talk to me. And how Nehemiah deals with Sinballad is a perfect instruction of how to deal with your haters. Now the first thing Nehemiah did, and first thing and most important thing did, he did, was he stayed in prayer and he stayed in discernment. He was always praying every step of the way. If you read the book of Nehemiah, he'll go through explaining one thing and then he'll say a prayer. He'll go through saying another thing and then he'll say a prayer. But he prays over everybody, even the people that are coming against him. He prays over them, asking God to deal with them so he won't have to. So the most important thing you need to do when dealing with your sideline haters or any kind of haters that we're going to talk about in the next four sermons is always stay in prayer and stay in the sermon. The second thing Nehemiah did, he kept impeccable records. He kept records of everybody who helped him, everybody who came through, the work people did and when they did it and how they did it. And he wasn't keeping these records for like petty reasons. Like, let me see who ain't helped me. Whoever didn't help me, they they excluded. Whoever did help me, you know, they to day one, they gonna they gonna get blessed. Nehemiah wanted everybody to be blessed, but he wanted in record what everybody did. What his haters did, what those who blessed him did, what those who wanted to do the work but couldn't do the work did, those who did a little bit of work, those who did a lot of work. He kept impeccable records. And by doing this, he was aware of everything that goes went on around him. He was aware of the moves that his haters were doing even before the haters got to him. He could see, oh, Sam Bellinem, they f with my workers now. Oh, Sam Bellanim, they're talking shit. They basically spreading lies and rumors. But by keeping impeccable records, and that basically played a part in the discernment, Nehemiah was aware of everything going on around him and was never caught slipping basically. So in prayer, he studied in prayer and discernment, he kept impeccable records. Another thing he did was he kept it professional, and he did it in a gangster way, in my opinion. So he was at this point where Sembalan was emboldened with his dacity, and he kept sending messages to Nehemiah, trying to get him to come down from the wall so he can talk to him. And Nehemiah responds to him, and in my opinion, is one of the most gangsterous verses in the Bible. In Nehemiah chapter 6, verse 3, Nehemiah says to him, says to Sambalit, I am doing an important work and cannot come down. Why should the works, why should the works why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you? So he's basically saying, Why should I come down from what I'm doing to your level just to talk to you? And I want you to visualize that. Keep that visualization in your head, keep those words in your head. So the next time you listen to a hater, next time you listen to somebody trying to prevent you or stop you from doing what God has called you to do or what you feel like God has called you to do, view that picture. View that picture of Nehemiah coming down. Because that's what you're doing if you're listening to your haters. You're basically coming down from a God level to listen to a hater. And I know it doesn't sound logical. No matter who you are, it doesn't sound logical to come down from a place where God has placed you, progressed you, gave you the help and the tools that you need, you come down to reason with a hater. So whatever you're doing, keep your focus, keep it professional, but also keep it gangster. And refuse to come down to the level and stay up on that elevated level God has placed you. And the last and final thing, well, well, one of the last and final things I'm gonna talk about that Nehemiah did, which is another important aspect, was he fought for the vision. Once they started attacking, and once they started bringing the audacity to have him calm down, he set in place a rule where if you're not if you're not currently working on the vision, you need to be fighting for a vision. Fighting for the vision. If you're not currently working on the wall, you need to be fighting to protect the wall. If you ain't got a hammer in your hand, you need to have a sword. And that's what you need to do with your vision, whatever, whatever God's calling you to do. Whatever you're not working on your provision, on your vision, you're not working on your business plan, you're not working on that thing as God has called you to do, you need to be fighting for it. You fight for it by keeping your reputation intact. You fight for it by reassuring yourself that you're doing God's work. You fight for it by going against the false accusations, not by matching energy, but by matching purpose. Yeah, you're saying this won't work. But my purpose is to show you that it will work. We're gonna see which force wins. Because as long as I got God on my side, my force is gonna win. You're just a hater, and you can't stop what God is calling in my life. And it's gonna be a constant thing where you're, if you're not working, you're gonna have to be fighting for your vision. They're gonna come at you in several different ways. This is not the only way Sam Ballet tries to get him. Sam Ballet even hired one of his friends to turn against him to set him up. Nehemiah's friend invite him to his house, and once Nehemiah gets to the house, his friend is like, Oh, this is set up. And here come, boom, Sam Ballot and his boys. So always be prepared to stand on business, as we say, to fight for your vision. And know that there's nothing a sideline hater can do to stop you. Because eventually the walls did get finished, and despite the haters, and despite several other problems, Nehemiah's vision came to pass. He stuck with it, he had faith in God, he researched, he worked, and when the haters came, he stood on business, he made sure his reputation was intact, and he always kept his eyes open. So, what can we learn from a sideline hater? One thing we can learn from a sideline hater is they're relentless. They're gonna be with you from the start all the way until the finish. That's why this one was the first one. You're gonna have to deal with a sideline hater from the moment you come up with a plan, the moment you come up with an idea, until that idea comes into fruition. There's nothing you can do to stop them, there's nothing you can do to turn them away because they're gonna be relentless. No matter how many times they try to stop you and fail, they're gonna keep going. No matter how many lies come against you that fails, they're gonna keep telling lies. No matter how much audacity you slap out of their faces, I mean they spirits, not their faces, they spirits, they're still gonna come.

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And they're still gonna come. They're relentless.

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And their goal is to force you to break, just like that fat ass on that chair. They fat ass got too much pressure on that chair, there is gonna break the chair, and that's the goal of a sideline hater to put so much pressure on you until you finally crack under the pressure and fold and come to the false realization that what God told you to do couldn't be done. So not only are sideline haters relentless, they have audacity. They really think they're important. They really think they're so important that they can come into your life and tell you something that God has placed on your heart is wrong. They have so much audacity that they think they know the plan for you better than God has, or better than God knows the plan for you. And so they're gonna always have that audacity. That audacity is gonna go with them. They're gonna get this false sense of grandeur, false sense of illusion that they're actually important in your life. So not only they're relentless, they have the uh they have audacity, and they're ready to fight. They're not even gonna fight with you fairly, they're gonna fight dirty, they're gonna talk about you behind your back. They're gonna do little things to try to sabotage you, they're gonna try to nitpick, they're gonna make fun of your vision, they're gonna make jokes and laugh about you, they're gonna talk about you to your family, your friends, your kin folks, people who you thought would be there for you. They're gonna eventually turn them against you. And that's what a hater does. A sideline hater does, they build a crowd, they try to bring that crowd against you, and they're ready to fight dirty, and they're ready to do whatever it takes to get you to stop. So, just as forceful as they are in getting you to stop, be as forceful for yourself to keep going. No matter what happens, no matter what sideline physical or spiritual hater comes against you to do, stand on your vision, stand on your purpose, stand on who you are, and you'll be alright.

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And that, my friends, my listeners, and my people is the sermon for this week.

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I thank you all for listening, and like I said, keep and keep listening, follow me on the streaming apps. Make sure you follow me on Patreon also. I'm on Spotify and Amazon Music. Just search for sermon for the back porch. And on Patreon, go to www.com. Sorry, go to www.patreon.com slash bless nation media. It's blessed nation media b-l-e-s-s-ed nation media. And if you want to know more about this show, follow it on Instagram and on Facebook, search for Blessed Nation Media. And if you want to follow me, I'm on Instagram and Facebook as Back Porch Preacher. So I do thank you for listening. Thank you for taking the time out. And if you are subscribed to the Patreon, I thank you so much for doing that. Keep it locked to me. And I will see you next week where we're going to talk about the hater you love. This is Christian. You are listening to Sermons from the Back Porch. And as we close, like always, remember don't get discouraged. Stay focused and don't get distracted. God bless.