A New Commandment

[0:00] Thank you. Brother Seth reminded me of something I said in 2003, 2002?

[0:11] Yeah, 20 years ago. 2002, probably less than six to eight months after the Lord did a miracle in my life. And there's some people in this room that know all about that, not just the ones that went to this church, but the ones that went to the church that I still hold dear.

[0:29] And thank you all for coming tonight. You see, this is not about me, but I will tell you, it blessed my soul that you guys showed up. Everybody in here, but to get to hear one of my favorite worship bands.

[0:44] I've heard some good ones over the years, really good ones. So it used to be my top, but I can't really call it now. I've got a couple ones that I can't call.

[0:55] Kind of like the Bible. You get that favorite verse? They had like 5,000 favorite verses. You know, the whole thing. So thank you all for coming. It does my heart joy.

[1:07] And I don't know. I don't really have a lot of worry or care about it, but I don't know how some things that I say tonight might be received.

[1:18] But I do know who they came from. I do know that he loves us all. I know a couple things.

[1:30] The older I get, the less I know. Isn't that the weirdest thing? I thought I knew it all. Man, I thought there was nothing else to know until I found Jesus.

[1:45] And I know so much more now. Y'all got to give me a minute because, you know, anybody that really knows me, I wore a suit tonight for one reason.

[1:58] Because I was told a long time ago, a man shows up in a suit, he's serious. But it really isn't me.

[2:12] I like them. And I wear them to the functions that, you know, when in Rome. But I just want to let y'all know, Jesus is not about an outfit.

[2:28] Jesus is not about your behavior. Jesus' love is not about your behavior. You believe Jesus loves the whole world? Does your mom and daddy love you when you act bad?

[2:47] Now, that being said, God will love you all day. And everything happens for a reason, but sometimes it's a stupid decision that we make, most of the time.

[3:00] Then we like to blame the devil. Then we want to blame everybody but the person in the mirror. And really, the blame game is not where it's at.

[3:13] But as Chuckie said, the big book in the Bible will get you a long way. The big book being the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I can tell you, mixing that up with Jesus changed my life many years ago.

[3:28] It gave me a whole new understanding. And one of the steps is, you take an inventory. You might have been abused. You might have been hurt. I've got to watch what I say. There's young ones in here.

[3:39] But you might have been abused. You might have been hurt. You might have had everything bad in the world and been straight up a victim. And there was no good to come from it. And you know what?

[3:49] There was no, there's no excuse. There's no, all things work together for God in that situation. There's no, none of that. There's no, none of that I'm going to tell you or, you know, ever tell you.

[4:01] There's only bad things that happen to you. But you still got to look at what became of you from it. Your traumas, whatever that's a buzzword these days, your trauma, your pain, your past, all the stuff that happened to you might not be your fault.

[4:18] But what happened out of it is your responsibility so that you don't bleed out on the people later. You can stuff it under a rug for so long. Believe me, this 46-year-old knows it.

[4:30] Thank you. Amen. Amen. And it's been five years since I've ministered in any pulpit in a formal way. People say, well, you know, what happened to you?

[4:45] Well, you know, a lot. I mean, I got to a place where I didn't even know what I believed. Best place I ever got. Really, best place I ever got.

[4:57] Because if a man can't take care of his own house, he's not fit for the ministry. Not ready. Fit sounds like a word, you know, one of them mean words.

[5:09] But really, it just means you ain't ready. Amen. A bold word. Just means you ain't ready. So, you got to find a way. You know what I found that way is?

[5:20] Just to wake up. Stop striving. Stop forcing it. Just let it come. Yeah. Be here now.

[5:32] Don't be, don't have your head everywhere else. Because, you know, everything that's wrong with us and right with us in a lot of senses is right here. I don't know why I got off on that.

[5:45] But I watched this show a while back and it had some sketchy parts in it. But, it was Ted Lasso and I heard this little statement out of it.

[6:00] He was, he was showing a guy, teaching a guy a lesson. And they were throwing darts. And it was a big bet. It was a soccer team in England that was on the, on the line.

[6:11] And the guy got up, just knew he was and stuff at darts. And old Rupert threw that dart. He got, I think a triple 20 or something. And, then Ted got up there and he threw his three.

[6:27] And every one of them hit a bullseye. Because he told a story that he said, if you'd have been a wise man, you'd have asked, hey Ted, do you ever play darts or are you good at them?

[6:41] He said, and I would have said, yes. My dad and me went every Sunday and we played darts until he died when I was 16. And he said, basically in a nutshell, he said, it taught me to be curious and not judgmental.

[7:03] You're saying, where's that at in the Bible? I hear it. Where's that at in the Bible? It's in there. The concept, the idea. But first, I want to give you another thing I heard.

[7:14] It's from Eleanor Roosevelt. Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. And small minds discuss people.

[7:25] I really believe that. It's great minds discuss ideas.

[7:36] Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people. Thank you, Lord. Wow. Yeah.

[7:48] Well, what was that about? I don't have, so that's about what I got. I love you. I'm going to, I'm not going to unload five years of stuff on you.

[8:03] I promise. Though I could. I've learned so much. Sometimes it's just great. You know, they say sabbatical.

[8:16] I say so bad you got to go. So bad you got to just go, get along with God somewhere. And by alone, does that mean I was just always by myself?

[8:26] No. But in my mind, I was by myself with God. And I knew he was always there, but dark things happened in my mind. So I tell you, mental illness is real.

[8:38] Whatever the cause, the root cause is, whether it's a completely spiritual thing or a completely physical thing, doesn't matter. It's real, and the result is people get sick in the mind and they blow their brains out or they hang their self or they, and there's many of them and I think it's like what?

[8:56] Oh, what is it, Josh? How many veterans is it an hour? Do you know? I thought they said 72. Something, something under 100 but per hour, just veterans.

[9:10] There's many, many people on this earth that are in a spot right now as we sit here in our blessing, as we sit here in our comfort, in our heat, you know, maybe all of us got to, I know all of us are fighting the battle of our lives because every human is.

[9:26] Everybody. And we're all just doing the best we can. I don't want to be a hindrance to you just doing the best you can.

[9:40] I would rather be an exhorter, I would rather be an encourager, and I would rather be somebody that lifts you up and gives you a hand when you're down. Now, does that mean I'm always that way?

[9:52] No. I'm not always curious. But I tell you what, it is a goal to always be curious and not judgmental.

[10:05] Some of the greatest friends I've ever met had lots of things going on in their life. But they'll tell you right now that when they told me it didn't faze me.

[10:18] And I said, so. So what? Jesus loves you. Jesus died for you. That's the good news. The good news is He took the sin of the world.

[10:31] So I didn't have to bear it. Now, does that mean we realize that? No. No. We're going to do some stupid stuff and we're going to get some stupid prizes. I mean, really.

[10:44] Thank you. But in Matthew 7, part of the Beatitudes, I like saying Beatitudes because it's the Beatitudes.

[11:01] This is how your attitude should be. But I'm going to go out of maybe half amplified, half King James, half paraphrased, Jesse version.

[11:14] Who knows? But it says in verse 1, it says, Judge not that you be not judged. Well, I'm going to read the Amphathies.

[11:25] Do not judge and criticize and condemn others unfairly. This is a quotation. It's extrapolating a lot of what the Hebrew and Greek said. It's one person's interpretation.

[11:35] interpretation. As is most of this book. It's someone's interpretation of what God told them. Don't ever forget they were human. Don't ever forget they were fallible.

[11:48] Now, is Scripture God breathed? I believe so. I believe it's all profitable. Like it says in 2 Timothy 3.16. But most of it is telling you what not to do.

[12:03] Most of it is so you learn by someone else's examples. I'll have to throw out a couple glory to God's tonight for Erin. She always used to make it a point to talk about that.

[12:20] But glory to God, folks. Glory to God because you're free. Well, you say I ain't acting free. No, you're free. Do you understand? You've got to believe what He said about you before you can act like it.

[12:33] Right thinking leads to the right believing. So, don't judge nobody else because the only time you're judging somebody else is when you're trying to lift yourself up over them.

[12:47] It's so you can feel better about yourself and how you believe about others. That's small mindedness. And I believe that in the kingdom of God. That's small mindedness.

[12:58] We've got to get above that. Did Jesus criticize? Did He condemn? Did He do anything? Yeah, they say, oh, He flips some tables. That was because those people knew they were robbing God's people of the truth.

[13:12] And they were profiting off their despair. He got on Peter a few times because he had an inroad to Peter.

[13:24] Peter was one of his disciples. He was one of his top three disciples you could say. So, Peter, he might have got on to God. He might have got on to him. But people don't care.

[13:38] Pastor Ron told me this. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Truth. And I know that to be true.

[13:49] Because when people know that you're not speaking out of your best interest, and you're not projecting your thing on them, whatever that is, they know.

[14:05] They know when you're telling them something that's good for them. And they know, you also will know when it's the right time to do that. Because certain truth in the wrong season, well, that could very well kill a person.

[14:27] You say the wrong thing to somebody who's, they might have showed up tonight. It's their last time they're going to try it. They're going to try Jesus one more time. He's going to try him one more time.

[14:40] And they say, if I'm church people look at me, that was me 20 years ago. I hope it's not any of you because I got some good news. You're not going to do it. You're not going to do it.

[14:55] You're going to wake up. You're going to, you want some prophecy. You're going to wake up. You're going to realize who you are. You're going to realize that you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus because of what he did. Not because of any work that you did.

[15:06] Not because of any work that you're doing. But because of what he did. Now you keep on doing dumb stuff, you're going to get some dumb prizes, and bad things are going to happen to you. But it's not going to be for a reason.

[15:18] It's not going to be because God was beating you up to get you somewhere. Dumb Stuff.

[15:29] Hopefully that dumb stuff don't kill you before your time. Amen. It says for what with judgment you judge, you shall be judged.

[15:41] And one of the greatest things that I've ever seen, and he talks about the moat or the speck in your neighbor's eye, when you got a big old beam blocking your view.

[15:57] Most of us, when I'm talking to you, I'm talking to me. It's all projection. Now, the only time that I see it's not is when I see the compassion and the love of Jesus Christ.

[16:14] When I see people say, you know what, I don't care what I got going on today, but somebody needs me. Somebody needs to hear what I got to say.

[16:25] Somebody needs me to hear what they got to say. You say, let me pull your speck out. Let me get your speck out, brother. Can't even see where it's at because of my stuff.

[16:38] Let me just pull it out. Talk about distraction, sister. You're so distracted, you're trying to get the world together when you you might walk in here in a suit, be all fancy and say the best, coolest sermon ever and walk out there and be a mess.

[17:00] Come on, come on now. And guess what? Jesus still loves you. Amen. Jesus still loves you.

[17:12] His love has no end. you didn't know and maybe some of you did.

[17:23] It kind of was one of those reminders or maybe it's the first time I ever seen it. I didn't realize that right after that he talks about ask in seven and it shall be given to you.

[17:36] Seek and it shall you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asks receives. And he that seeks finds.

[17:47] And to him that knocks it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you who asks his son for bread? Will I give you a stone?

[18:00] You ask for a fish, will you give him a serpent? If you being, it says evil, let me just go back right here, evil is not just evil like you're thinking, it's more dysfunctional.

[18:12] He wasn't saying we're all evil and bad. You're not bad, you're not evil, you're not shameful. Even if you do some shameful things, you're not bad, you're not evil, you are a child of God and he loves you as much as he does me or any other pastor or preacher across this planet or anybody.

[18:32] He loves the Hindu as much as he loves the thing. Now, do they believe some weird things? Yeah. But I'm not going to make Christianity weird to them. No, I'm going to listen to what they've got to say.

[18:43] I love listening to people talk about their religions. And there's really no agenda behind it. It used to be, but now I love to hear people, I want to know why they believe what they believe.

[18:55] You know, they was raised in a completely different situation. They were brainwashed in a completely different way than we were brainwashed. Oh, you say, I wasn't brainwashed.

[19:05] Oh, yes, you were. For a moment, you think you wasn't. You were. Now, it might have been some good things, but definitely there were some bad things in there, too.

[19:16] And I got to a point in life where I was going to say, I ain't going to just believe it because Mamaw and them did. I love Mamaw. She taught me a lot of amazing things. They'll never leave me.

[19:27] That's why I feel her in my life all the time. That's why I know Papaw's right here. I know every witness we have that's out there looking at us. It's right here.

[19:39] There's no distance. There's no nothing. They're all right here. You're already the best you're ever going to be when it comes to Jesus. You just got to wake up to it.

[19:49] Thank you, Lord. While you're asleep, you can't do nothing but have nightmares or good dreams. wake up to the truth in you.

[20:04] But if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how many people have talked to Santa on behalf of their children and they're going to make sure they get some good gifts?

[20:19] And how many people are going to get some good gifts for the kids? You're going to do it. So if we can do that for our kids, then man, how much more does God want to do things for us?

[20:31] But we can't see it. All we need to do is wake up. Wake up out of your sleep. Get out of your head for a little while. Realize He's here now.

[20:43] I ain't changed that message have I Chucky? He's here now. It's a personal right now. He's here for you. He's here for me. No matter how you feel, no matter how much you're great, no matter if you tell everyone that I don't believe in God or you tell everyone I do just because you're mad at them.

[21:03] How many times we use little, don't raise your hand, I can, did you say you hate your parents? Oh yeah. Did you really hate them? You just didn't understand all what's going on.

[21:15] Amen. see, that's how God looks at us. But that that seven, you can read it later, but seven one till twelve, I've never seen this before, but the first part is telling you what not to do.

[21:43] The second part is telling you what to do. And I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of people do the here there, here verse, there verse, everywhere verse, verse. I'm not that kind of preacher.

[21:55] I want to know where it came from and if there's a therefore, I want to know why it's therefore. Because that's what was instilled in me by some of the greatest mentors I ever had.

[22:09] I didn't have a dad around, you know, growing up. had a lot of bad examples. But these men, they mentored me.

[22:24] They didn't give up on me. And I always had the questions that was hard. I'd ask them, what about the dinosaurs?

[22:38] What about the dinosaurs? dinosaurs? Why there's so many different types of monkeys if evolution ain't real? Just ask them a hard question.

[22:50] None of them Christians had answers to none of that when I was a kid. They said, oh, God, you know, we don't know what all is true. I said, well, you're telling me you know the truth.

[23:02] If you know the truth, then you need to tell me. So I was pretty cantankerous in heart. I wasn't very nice because I didn't, I hadn't experienced the love of God.

[23:19] I hadn't experienced a place, and that's why I think about many people. The reason they're judgmental is they haven't experienced the true love of Jesus. When you experience the true love of Jesus, there's nothing anybody can do to hurt you.

[23:36] And so I'll be darned if I will do anything to hurt you either. How many people know the greatest two commandments? Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

[23:51] Jesus, by the way, Jesus was quoting from the Old Testament.

[24:04] covenant. And he said, thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul.

[24:16] It's a paraphrase. And love your neighbor as yourself. Well, that's Old Covenant, folks. I just want to let you know that's an Old Covenant command. But Jesus later on, he told his disciples, he said, a new command.

[24:32] A new command. I give you new to the Jews. That was heresy above heresy above heresy. You don't. That was all there was.

[24:43] You didn't come up with a command. That was God's. That was God's supposed to do that. And so he said that you love one another as I have loved you.

[24:54] Because let me tell you something about loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. I don't know any way I could give God the ultimate owner of all things, anything, that he truly, truly, ultimately would delight in, except for treating his kids right.

[25:14] Treat my kids right. You want to get close to me and really be a friend? Treat my kids good. Treat my family right. Treat my friends right. Just treat people right.

[25:25] You'll get close to me real quick as a friend. That's the kind of friends I want. Amen. Amen. Yeah. That's good. Because loving your neighbor as yourself, that's all fine and handy.

[25:41] You know, the first part's vertical, the second part's horizontal. Loving your neighbor as yourself, some days I don't want myself that good. So that gives me an excuse to treat you and you and you bad.

[25:55] So see why I say that's old covenant? Because it is. And it's okay if you don't agree because I'm fine with, I love having discourse. I love being able to, because the disciples, they went to each house and asked and broke bread and they discussed and it actually, the word is actually debated or actually, they actually got probably pretty heated over it to come up because the thing is, we agree always on more than we disagree.

[26:28] You know, I heard this weird thing about marriage. Married couples get divorced for about 10% of what they don't like about the person. Isn't that horrible how blind we are sometimes?

[26:43] How asleep we are? Galatians 5 one says, and this is the new American Standard Bible version, I love it.

[26:56] It was for freedom, and a lot of y'all that know me, know I was a King James only guy years ago. I was straight up King James only, and I still love it.

[27:06] You know why? Because I can quickly get to some words and figure out what they mean and what they could mean, and so I still love it when I study. But I like to hear other points of view about it.

[27:21] And I really love the way the New American Standard Bible put this. It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm and don't be subject again to the yoke of slavery.

[27:33] And a lot of people say, oh, yeah, don't get back into your junk, don't smoke, don't drink, don't cuss, don't go with those who do. No, this is talking about your gluttonies, this is talking about your gossip, this is talking about a little bit of everything.

[27:46] So let's not just throw one thing under the bus just because it's something we don't do. We got to love each other regardless of if we vote different, regardless if we think different, regardless of what we think.

[27:58] You got to love the Hindu, the atheist, you got a big, big thing you got to do. Because they don't know any better. You got to love the Muslim, you got to love all of them because they don't know what they do.

[28:13] Jesus even said when he was on the cross, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. When we say we hate God, we don't know what we're doing. When we say we hate our father, anybody, our mother, we don't really mean that because we don't know what we're saying.

[28:29] that's right. Now, does Jesus want them to believe in it? Absolutely. Jesus is my guy. I mean, you know, they ask me what's going on.

[28:42] I'll talk to them and they'll be like, so what do you think? I'll be like, well, Jesus is still my guy. That's what I think. But I'm glad and I appreciate you shared all that with me.

[28:54] I'm appreciating it. because, you know, I found out from a Hindu one time that a man, I said, so what's up with the hamburgers, man? Why don't you eat meat?

[29:08] Or why don't you eat beef? They eat meat, plenty of it. And he said, well, let me tell you, we don't really worship a cow. Our gods really aren't gods like you think.

[29:23] They're deities. There's things greater than ourselves. And immediately I remember, hey, I came to believe the power greater ourselves to restore us to standing. I remember that out of the big book.

[29:36] And so then out of the big book, they would say, because here's love. People say, oh, they compromise. They should have Jesus all up in it. Well, maybe to some extent.

[29:49] But it's why they compromise. Because they wanted you clean more than they wanted you to believe what they believed. They wanted you whole more than they wanted you to be all you could be.

[30:05] So that if you was ever going to see the truth of the gospel, the good news is that Jesus has set us free. Some people just ain't woke up to it yet, including a lot of people in this room and myself.

[30:16] love. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, y'all might have it all together, but I don't every day. But I know who I am.

[30:26] I know what he did for me. Thank you, Lord. I know. Sometimes you just know. But that yoke of slavery is kind of like going into that judgmental thing.

[30:39] It's more about, you know, we want to blame the devil, like I said, the Satan. I'll say Tom. We want to, we want to, that's what the Greek is.

[30:51] I'll say Tom. The enemy. We want to blame it all on this, this figure. And that's all fine dandy. I believe there's a devil. I believe there's a spiritual realm.

[31:03] I believe there's good and bad spirits. That's all fine dandy. But really, if you want to say it this way, the greatest gift the devil ever gave us was ego, pride.

[31:21] And that's what holds people back. Ego, pride, and fear. But let me go back to the story about the beef. He said, well, most of India is wilderness.

[31:36] And wilderness isn't just like, oh, we would think wilderness, the woods over here. No, wilderness is more of an arid climate with few trees.

[31:48] You know, kind of like over in Israel. water. It's a lot. It's on the verge of being desert. So it gets really hot. It gets really cold.

[31:59] And the cow would give them milk. And keep them alive. And that cow got to be so much part of the family, it would also give them warmth.

[32:11] Because they would take the dung during the warm months and they would put it on the side of the house and let it dry. And then when they didn't have no, because they don't got a lot of wood, it's almost a desert.

[32:23] They would put that in there and burn it and it would keep their family alive during the winter months. And he said, that's why we revere the cow. He would have never thought that.

[32:37] He said, them fools just worship a cow and they're missing out on some good hamburger. He said, no, we revere it. They are missing out on some good hamburger, in my opinion.

[32:49] Because man, we get a half beef about every six months. You ain't convinced me. I got all these vegan friends and stuff and they just want to try to push that stuff down my throat. I said, look, man, if it's killing me, at least I had fun getting there.

[33:05] Because it's good. But it's about being curious. It's about understanding where they're at and why they're there. It's about understanding who you are.

[33:16] Because if you know who you are, there's no reason to be judgmental. What do I got to judge anybody? Because odds are I did worse than most of you.

[33:29] Most sinners live better. There's a lot of people who want to use the word sinner. Let's just use it. Most sinners live better, live more righteous.

[33:40] I've seen people live more righteous and disciplined than most Christians. Come on. Right. Right. Right. On accident.

[33:52] Yeah. Because they don't come to God screaming and squallowing and saying, oh, I'm not worth anything. I'm not worth anything. No, Jesus thought you was worth it. So you're worth it. Quit saying you're not worth it.

[34:03] Quit saying you're not worthy. Because you are. Your deeds aren't worthy. But you are worthy of all the love that God gives you because he said you are. Amen. Amen. Come on.

[34:13] Amen. That's it. We give self righteous statements and this is one just because I got my little Pentecostal upbringing.

[34:25] And it can be a good thing when people say this. But most of the times, a little old lady, if you're doing something, a little old lady says, bless your heart. It's a very judgmental statement.

[34:36] Oh, people said this. I just don't see how that checky can do that.

[34:49] Well, stick around. You don't see. You don't understand. Guess what? The same measure you judge about to be measured back to you. So maybe a situation might arise where you might not do the exact same thing, but ultimately it'll be the same thing.

[35:04] Amen. Yeah. It's dangerous to judge. You become the man, those judges, man. It's dangerous to sit and judge.

[35:15] No, we got to judge one person, us. We judge us. Man, I got plenty of time. I have no time to judge you. Amen.

[35:26] I got plenty of things in me to judge. To judge, make a decision, get over it, and get better. To be better. I've been around charitable organizations, and these people work hard, just as hard as folks in church.

[35:41] And they're Christians, a lot of them, but they work hard and they're dedicated, like in the Boy Scouts. We're all part of the Boy Scout thing now, and somehow I got sacked into it, but anyway, I love it now, and I love the people I'm around.

[35:56] I get to be around people from all walks of life. Same thing with the masons. I get to be around people from all walks of life, and it's all charity. It's all charity. What's charity?

[36:06] Agape. Agape is the God kind of love. It ain't anything else but the God kind of love when you give, no matter what, when you keep giving mercy, when mercy's not due, when grace is not due, and mercy, if you just keep giving mercy, does that mean you don't call people out on their stuff?

[36:27] Sometimes you have to, but you can't just go over Africa. I said this probably 20 years ago. You can't just go over Africa and tell them to put some clothes on.

[36:42] Some of them tribes, that's how they've lived their whole life. They don't know how much you care, or they don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, and you might actually learn something.

[36:55] If you can get over your lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and pride of life, that's all that's in the world system. I won't be much longer.

[37:09] I know everybody's hungry. You're thinking, food, food, be too. That's why I knew that. 1 Corinthians 15, 34 says, Awake to righteousness and sin not.

[37:26] See, if you just start seeing yourself as righteous, even when you're doing unrighteous things, if you just start seeing yourself righteous, then one day you're going to get, if you just get up in that mirror and say, man, I'm the best thing God's ever produced.

[37:42] Because he thinks so. I'm his favorite. We're all his favorite. But all of our experience is different.

[37:55] And we're all just trying to do the best we can. So be kind to one another. Be gentle. I don't agree with a lot of stuff going on in the world.

[38:08] But to go at them the way some people think that you should go at them. It is, there's still people.

[38:21] There's still people Jesus died for. There's still people who let you hear if you got to hear. There's still people that Jesus died for.

[38:36] We make it so hard. We make it so weird and hard. You know, people say, well, they hated him, so they hate me. No, they hate you because you make Christianity weird.

[38:47] A friend of mine said that. You make it weird. It's simple. Love God by loving people. It's simple.

[39:09] It's okay to ask questions. You have permission to ask a question and to not understand why this happened in the Bible or why that didn't happen in the Bible or why in the Old Testament God was this way and why in the New Testament he said my father was the same yesterday.

[39:26] You know, if you see me, you see the father and then it said Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Then you might have some questions about why things happened the way they did because there's some really, really, really horrendous things that people said God told them to do and they did in the name of God and that's been history and it's repeated itself many times and I'm sure it'll repeat itself again doing something in the name of God.

[39:53] Christians included. That's what judgment gets you. Judgment gets you into wars. Judgment gets you to where I can dehumanize that person and because of their lifestyle or whatever, I can dehumanize them to the point that I can believe they're not human so they're not even worth living.

[40:17] All judgment's going to get you. It's going to get you to a place to where everything Jesus said to do, you're not doing. It's going to get you there. That's what judgment will do.

[40:32] Accountability's a whole different thing. Accountability you get with a group or a friend or a trusted confidant. They will call you on your stuff but it's because you know that they love you.

[40:50] it's because you know they love you. There's a few people that come up to me and say some things that I probably would really be judgmental over if anybody else said them to me and by judgmental I'd probably punch them.

[41:10] But not these guys because they did the work to be curious about who I am and to be curious about why I am the way I am. So do the work.

[41:23] Live life with the folks that you think are the worst. Now if you fear that you're going to become like that person then stay in these four walls stay on your face until you can.

[41:38] Amen. You want evangelism? That's evangelism. Showing the love of God when it's not convenient. You say but you got to win them to Jesus.

[41:50] Man you just do the right thing long enough and you'll win them to Jesus. But anytime it can be well you know what that's not your problem. Your problem is to show the love of Christ daily to each person you come in contact with regardless of their lifestyle regardless of what they believe regardless of any of that.

[42:09] do you have to agree with them? No. The great thing is see what I hate what I hate I hate to say I don't like to say hate but what I hate about this world right now is there's not any room anymore to disagree.

[42:32] Everybody's so polarized that you're bad you're bad that's more like a theological issue. That's more like the Muslims fighting the Christians in the Crusades not the Muslims but the Persians.

[42:48] Ephesians 5 verse 14 says for this reason it says awake sleeper rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. It's okay to have questions you don't have to know 100% as long as you believe in him because he believes in you.

[43:07] I fixed most of my IT problems by what I call the library of omniscience I've been hooked up to it for 20 something years that I know of really I've been hooked up the whole time and I did know and when I found out man I had a bank of knowledge that was everything and I can draw off that knowledge anytime and I can do anything I set my mind to maybe not physically but mentally I can do anything I set my mind to I mean who have you ever asked yourself who are you it gets me a little bit because I went through several years of asking myself who are you and have an answer other than I'm the righteousness of God but I'm not going to say I 100% believe that not because I was doing all this big bad sin and whatever sin is sin folks he dictates the whole law yet offends him one point he is guilty of all so yeah if you want to live under old covenant go ahead

[44:15] I'm not mixing it I'm just going to stick with Jesus I don't have to know anything else I put them blinders on Brandy and it's Jesus Jesus coaching me Jesus cheering me on Jesus there in everything I do and Jesus always for me not against me Jesus giving me a kind nudge in my spirit to do do better see as long as you got a breath you got a chance some of the old preachers would say you got a chance to repent repent means change your mind change your mindset change your mindset and all of a sudden guess what when you start believing that you're the righteousness of God believing that you in actually what he said you are if you start believing that you're a son or daughter of God guess what you'll start to live right on accident all of a sudden you just won't have a need for them anymore and I don't get to say what those things are to you there's obvious things you shouldn't hurt people and murder but that's got worldly consequences that's a completely different situation that you love one another as he loved us that means he gave when it wasn't convenient that means he sat with the sinner in public and even though they were doing the thing he shouldn't have did they shouldn't be doing he just was there he was just present that's why king david back in the old testament there was some good things in there there's a few weird things i don't understand and just because i don't understand doesn't mean i don't believe them to be right or wrong that's the means i don't understand i need to understand people people we add we add so much connotation to words yes they're just words folks they mean this or that they're just to communicate some information from one human to another like i said we don't got to make it weird set now that being said some of the psychologists and all them folks they'll have you do all these different weird things like tap shoulders and different things and do somatic shaking is what they call it and i said man i said i like my old church you could have got that for free jumping up and down some of these i had some excuses though to get serious with you over the last five years that caused me to pause my ministry it was first one i could say was my family and that was mostly a good thing because like i said earlier if a man can't take care of his own house he's not fit he's not fit doesn't mean but i might have used it sometimes as a cop out here and there not all the time just being transparent and honest with everybody because guess what i'm just jesse and what you see is what you get ask me a question ask me if your chili is good and if it's a little bad i'm gonna be nice about it but you just asked me you want my opinion on it your chili was a little weird tasting it you know what was that flavor there you put time in that that's weird okay what kind of internet recipe did you get i didn't know

[48:17] what i believed in some areas all of a sudden i mean you know i don't know about you but when covid hit there was a lot of weird things like in my mind it wasn't necessary i did there was never a doubt whether i believed in jesus and what he did for me but there was a i was like what is going on and it just caused me to really look at myself some of that seclusion and different things caused me to look at myself and to ask those questions who are you and to know deep down inside all the things many years that i preach because the message hasn't changed it's love one another as he loved us same message i always preached and it's don't be judging other people this is a simple message i ain't preaching nothing different than last time i stand in the pulpit i'm gonna keep preaching until people start doing it i'm not gonna stop preaching this message and living it to the best of my ability my reason for ministering again when my mom started it but also people need it apparently people need to hear what i gotta say and that's kind of weird for me because i gotta say what he has to say so it ain't about me i'll tell you this when you're helping somebody and you're pouring into somebody else you'll never feel more alive you'll never feel more at home in this body that you're at you won't be waiting on the rapture if when the rapture happens you know that's all fine and dandy but you know what i got a job to do before then and that's love my neighbors i love myself and that is to keep loving them sister shirley shirley is one of the greatest examples of mercy i've ever known she'll straight call them she'll straight tell them you are beautiful and it doesn't matter you are a beautiful person she may not know very much about that person she may know a lot about that person good bad and ugly but she's always merciful that i've ever seen i'm almost done really am i've learned my journey my building of this temple is always a new beginning man it's like when you start looking at life through the eyes of you're already righteous and you start looking and you go back and look at the bible it just changes something changes about it and it causes something to change in you and you know what you get up you look at the guy in the mirror and you like the person you see not just a little bit a lot and then when you like who you see it's so much easier to treat other people like you want to be treated to treat other people like jesus treated you it is so easy to do whenever you start to realize that you are everything god said you are and that means there's no bigger preacher there's no this there's no this god doesn't categorize he doesn't separate he doesn't do any of those things he we jesus really came you want to know what he really one of the things he really came he came to put us all on equal flooring that we're all humans and we all have human problems and that's okay and god bless you if you don't believe what i'm saying because i do and it works for me and it's going to keep working for me so it's just a suggestion i am old what i've learned to endeavor to be curious

[52:18] and not judgmental to endeavor to love as christ loved me to endeavor to be the be the light or you could say be the change you want to see you want something to change in your life or somebody else's start being that change quit sitting back on the sidelines criticizing and start being that challenge i said it earlier i'm gonna say it again to close up to endeavor to realize that all people are fighting a battle of their lives at any given moment just as i am you are and that they're just doing the best they can to make it through it to give grace mercy and to teach people when asked when it's my place rather than criticize somebody's ring keeps going off to give grace and teach others rather than criticize but only when i'm invited to do so because words my harsh words aren't going to save your life me showing you the love of jesus just might and i don't equate the two to be the same thing it's one of my favorite things i've learned i quit fighting i quit striving i don't need no more god i got all of it i might not always act like it but i got all of it i love the her prophecies and thank you earlier for obeying god because that's so awesome when you do but i don't need a prophecy because i have god in me i have him here and you know what i need an encouragement sometimes i need exhortation but i don't have to have a prophecy or a miracle i don't wait around for miracles because i am the miracle you are the miracle prophecy happens and you see the stuff either happen or not i've seen a lot of good prophecies in my life i've seen a lot of bad ones i've seen a lot of projections and i've seen a lot of prophecy let's put it that way to live from a place of righteousness and to awake to that daily because right thinking will always lead you to right believing out of heart what you meditate on that's what you become what you think about over and over that's what you become and the last one to be better today to this world than i was yesterday and to myself by the way that's part of it i was always taught you just give you give you give you don't care about yourself well you know what that doesn't make a lick of sense because why do they tell you on the airplane put your mask on before you put someone else's mask on you gotta take care of yourself you have to be in a state that you're fit and you're ready for the ministry and you're ready to love because otherwise you're gonna stand in judgment over others and you're not gonna be able to be curious because you're going through your own fight and you just want to feel a little better so all you're gonna do is look down on them but i want to tell you tonight if maybe you've been guilty of that guess what need to so you're not you're not by yourself nobody here is alone you can make it and i believe you will make it especially if you believe what jesus said about you check you

[56:18] one day at a time is the best thing that ever happened to me one moment at a time just take a breath everybody just take a breath through your nose you ever heard of box breathing that's where you breathe in your nose for about four seconds you hold it for about four seconds and you let out and you do that for about two minutes and you don't have any problems while you're doing that i mean you can't think of a problem you have because you're just here you're just present which puts you in a state to where you can love like he loves i'm not saying you gotta all do box breathing but take a deep breath chill out have a moon pie it ain't so hard i heard that sheriff said that one time that's why i said it he was talking about people murdering each other in florida and he said everybody chill out have a coke and a moon pie stop killing each other but in all seriousness if you ever need to talk to anybody most people in here have my number and if you know somebody you probably know somebody that has my number so you can call and uh if you just need somebody to listen i'll listen if you just need somebody to pray i'll pray and you can ask chucky i keep the same number don't i 22 years now that same number i don't want to change it because if i do then you know people might know that somebody might need me huh 644 crow 502 644 crow even though i'm a hoosier now and most of the time i can't wait to get back across becoming a hoosier is one of the best things i ever did it is the sunny side of louisville i know i'm getting a lot of hate right now but uh if anybody needs prayer tonight i'm serious whether you want to get down at the altar whether you want to lay on your face or whether you want to come up have some of the men of god here lay hands on you or whether you want to stand up and declare that you're already healed or you're already delivered that's fine however you want to do it just know that it's really already done you just got to accept it and believe it and whatever it takes to get you there i'm here they're here so bless your hearts in a good way and that's pretty much all i got folks anybody got anything testimony want to add anything it was good seeing all y'all tonight amen well brother you want to say a blessing on food!

[59:23]