Dealing with Grumbling, Complaining, Contention, and Rebellion

did you mean that there's always got to be one loudmouth so i get the pleasure doing this week's tour thought this week's torah portion was in numbers uh it was i haven't read it yet so i'm glad you're telling me it's numbers 13 through 15 like they said there is a lot in this torah portion it's pretty awesome there's a lot to pay attention to um one of the things i'm going to point out first since i don't have a whole lot of time is uh is i'm going to go let me grab my notes real quick as you know i like to have notes but then i normally don't go off of them in numbers 14 they're starting at verse 20. i'm just going to go ahead and read it adam i answered i have so this i'll give you a little bit of back story in case you didn't read the torah portion um so they uh they came back they came back with a bad report right they went and looked at the land said let's go and spy on it they came back with a bad report and um and they didn't just come back with a bad report they went and they spread it around the camp then everybody was was coming against moses and aaron and without i don't know if they realized or maybe they did or didn't but they were also coming against god by what they were doing in their own tents right they were sitting there murmuring against god which which isn't the first time that they did this obviously which we're going to come to see here in just a second but this is the this is the precursor to to he he said he was he was pretty much fed up with them and he was going to get rid of him moses started started asking for forgiveness for him pretty much said said don't do that or or um you know all these people will see that you brought them out of the land of egypt and um and that that you couldn't bring them into your promised land so don't do that so that you can be glorified moses was saying that so that so that god could be glorified that was his whole purpose messiah behind saying forgive israel for what they did and this is how this is how god answered him adam i answered i have forgiven them just as you have spoken but as certainly as i live and as certainly as the glory of adonai fills the entire earth none of the people who saw my glory and my miracles i'm sorry my miraculous signs i performed in egypt and in the wilderness yet test to me these ten times and i and did not obey my voice not one of them will see the land i promise to their forefathers none of those who treated me with contempt will see it however my servant caleb because a different spirit is with him and he is wholeheartedly behind me i will bring him into the land where he went his offspring will inherit it so caleb was the one that was like no god's behind us we we can go in there he told us we're going to take this land that's what he was he was just saying there because caleb has a different heart and he was behind me no matter what he he sees that if i'm in control and he trusts in me in my words one of the things that stood out to me right here was it i never caught it before but where it says yet you tested me this ten times and did not obey my voice my mind instantly went to the 10 plagues of egypt where they had just come out of go when you get a chance go back and read the 10 plagues and then try and find the 10 times where they disobeyed god the first time they just or the first time they tempted him was at the red sea right when they came out of egypt what's interesting about that plague is the the first plague was they turned water into blood god turned water into blood and then the first place where they tempted him was at the red sea was that the water the last plague was the death of the firstborn the last time they tempted him before he said this right here was the was the death of the firstborn the last time they tempted him he said okay but bear with me the firstborn that came out of egypt these first people that came out they will not see it they're going to die in the wilderness so essentially he killed the first people that came out of egypt that would have inherited the land because they tested him i believe that's a that's a parallel that i i never really never really attached before that i think is is pretty interesting um where that ties into which is um whatever you want to call yourself when we start walking this way hebrew roots messianic the way followers whatever whatever you want to call yourself out of the 50 million different things there are um there's there's a couple different scriptures that we like to point out especially for those of us that came out of the christian church and says that there is one torah for for the natural born and for those that are not of of natural and i believe that what he does right here is he he shows that he is a just and caring god and he punished the egyptians there's there's one part i'll go ahead and read it um it's right before right before the the plague of hell i think it's the seventh plague in egypt and he tells moses to go and talk to pharaoh and he tells them to to say this then ad and i said to moses i'm sorry i'll tell you where it's at first it's in exodus 9 13-16 um if you want to look at it then adonai said to moses rise up early in the morning and stand before pharaoh and say to him this is what adonai the god of the hebrews said let my people go so that they may serve me for this time i will send all my plagues to your heart and your servants and your people so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth surely by now i could have stretched out my hand and struck you and you and your people with the plague that would have wiped you off the earth however i will i have let you stand for this reason to show my power and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the earth that's exactly what moses was asking god whenever whenever he said he was going to put the israelites to death after this after they came out of egypt he said don't do that or your name won't be proclaimed in all the earth forgive them so that your name can be proclaimed um and then i'll i'll quit there i'll let you guys go study that a little more but i'll move on to a couple other things that stood out to me too um after after their rebellion uh one thing to point out to is they tried to they tried to make up for it on their own um they uh aft after they heard that god said that that you're gonna die in the wilderness and nobody is gonna that that's over the age of 20 is going to inherit the land then they were sorrowful and they said well we're going to go up to the mountain and moses came to him said hey big dummies don't do that god's not with you you know but there's a lot of times that i mean i know i'm guilty of that like i felt like god said hey go pray with this person or go and say a word to him or something like that and for whatever reason i didn't do it and then the next time like i see somebody over in the in the corner struggling i'm like hey i'm gonna go talk to that person but i didn't necessarily get that word and it was all awkward when i went and did it this was a little bit more more uh i guess more powerful because all those people died and he didn't kill me but that's essentially that's that's the same thing like we need to we need to hear his voice and act this is what he's saying whenever you hear my voice and i give you orders go and do them have faith that i said i'm going to do what i'm going to do that's that's where we need to uh i guess that's where we need to put our put our focus and then at the end of this tour portion um i'll go ahead and read starting in uh 15 37. ed and i spoke to moses saying speak to the night israel say to them that they were to make for themselves on the corner of their their garments throughout their generations and they are to put blue cord on each z or tassel it will be your own z z so whenever you look at them you remember all the mitzvoth of adonai and do them and not not go spying out after your own hearts and your own eyes prostituting yourselves this way you will remember and obey my mitzvot and you will be holy to your god i am adonai your god i brought you out of the land of egypt to be your god i am adonai your god that's uh that like that jumped out at me when he said i brought you out of the land of egypt so when somebody asked why he brought us out of the land of egypt that he just gives them the answer right there i brought you out so that i can be your god um let let him be your god obey him and be his mitzvot obey his commands don't be rebellious if you guys would pray with me father i thank you for this day i thank you for your shabbat i thank you for your word i thank you father for allowing me to understand i pray for that you would forgive me where i've misunderstood or have said something wrong i pray father that you would that you would correct me when i'm when i am wrong correct me my errors father i pray that i would have a humble spirit and i would be approachable by by those that love you i just uh i thank you for who you are i pray that we would we would all be humble and that we would be able to to hear a voice and you would give us the kazakh to to act on those things that you've commanded us to do father i pray father that we'd be a light as we go out i pray that you would give wisdom and direction and discernment and words that are going to be spoken tonight and i pray that you would you would help us to remove our flesh and allow us to be able to hear your words in yeshua's name i pray amen greg you want me up here so everybody's probably wondering what in the world we're doing with these big chairs in the middle of the floor or we're going to sit in them is what we're doing see how that works yeah the kids kids it's time to go ahead and dismiss the kids for kids class 3 to 13 not 13 to 13. kids go ahead and join these ladies back in the back there by the back door just follow them out they will take you to your class did it just get darker in here my head was too shiny thanks i appreciate that do i need a hat so we're doing something different tonight as you guys can probably see and i know we have some new people here so this isn't normal if you're new um welcome and just know that we don't normally come down here in the front and sit in chairs this is just kind of a different thing we're doing tonight we're approaching some difficult topics and we thought this would be a a good way to talk about it just to have a more relaxed setting and um get a little closer with you guys so that we can connect with you a little bit better but uh the three of us wanted to you know talk about some topics together and so we're gonna do that tonight uh would you go ahead and bow your heads with me and we'll open up in a word of prayer lord we praise you lord we love you lord i pray that our worship was pleasing and exalting to you holy spirit we invite you to come and speak with us lord i pray that you would guide our conversation so that you would go before us that you would speak and that we would listen lord we praise you i would thank you for each person here tonight and we thank you for what wonderful fellowship we have we thank you for all the great friendships we have the ability we have to come and to worship lord more than friendship and fellowship and worship lord we thank you that we are able to come and meet with you lord we praise you we love you in the name of yeshua amen all right who's going first you want me to go first all right so um i want to start off just by talking about what it is to be a shepherd what it is to be a leader we've talked about this before and you think about a shepherd a shepherd feeds the sheep a shepherd leads the sheep and a shepherd protects the sheep right those are the basic principles of being a shepherd lead feed and protect and so everything we do we keep that in mind that's that's the reason we do what we do you know we we want to lead you we want to feed you and we won't protect you we love you guys and and everything we do revolves around that desire to be i don't want to say good shepherds because there's only one good shepherd but we want to be good stewards of the flock that the good shepherd has given us you know and we see in scripture a couple places where it talks about this responsibility this responsibility that's given to the the shepherds and elders and i want to just look at a couple verses real quick first peter 5 1-4 it says the elders who are among you i exhort i who am a fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of christ and also partaker of the glory that will be revealed shepherd the flock of god which is among you serving as overseers not by compulsion but willingly not for dishonest gain but eagerly nor as being lords over those entrusted to you but being examples to the flock and when the chief shepherd appears you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away that's first peter 5 1-4 and so this this responsibility to the elders is um you know peter says you know i'm a fellow elder i'm a fellow shepherd with you and he says that you know that we're to shepherd the flock of god and it's to be done willingly not for any kind of dishonest reason and there were to be examples to the flock right and i just want to reassure you that that's what we are trying to do here we want to do our best to do what peter's saying here we're here because we want to be we're here not by compulsion but willingly we want to be here we're not doing it for dishonest gain we're not getting anything out of this okay none of us are paid by the church uh we're not we're not making a profit off of this we're here because we love you guys okay and you know we we don't intend to be lords over you to lord it over you we're here to serve we're here to to lead to teach to guide and you know we're we're here walking through this life with you the bible also gives us a warning to the shepherds in acts chapter 20. it says therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among which the holy spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of god which he purchased with his own blood for i know this that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock also from among yourselves men will rise up speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after themselves acts 20 verse 28 through 30. and so i just want you to know we don't take this responsibility lightly you know we're trying to [Music] do our best to follow the leading of the lord and we're doing our best to make good decisions and i you know i ask that you would be patient with us we're new to this you know we we've had this congregation's what three and a half years old so we've been shepherding for three and a half years this this is new to all three of us um you know i was involved in some ministry before we started this church but i was not a pastor or not a not a lead pastor anyway i did but you know i i taught some classes and kind of helped lead the youth group and things like that but to actually be the one responsible for a congregation is brand new and you know i i'm trying my best and these guys are trying their best and sometimes we our best isn't good enough sometimes people aren't happy with our best whether it's good enough or not right um but this is a very big responsibility i hope you guys understand that it is a big responsibility um and i hope you also understand how seriously we do take this responsibility that um you know this isn't just fun and games to us we we really do take this role seriously we want to be good leaders we want to uh lead you in the right direction we're very careful with what we teach we don't want to teach in error and we're open to correction i hope you guys understand that too not everyone is like that i you know i've been a part of a church where actually numerous churches you know where the preacher would teach something and i'd be like well wait a minute that's not what the bible says the bible says this and i talked to him about it and he'd get upset at me and you know argue with me or whatever and i'm like well it's right here um but you know not approachable and not wanting to receive correction and you know we we don't want to be that way we want to be approachable we want to be open to correction when we do something wrong and i hope you guys feel welcome to do that i want you guys to feel welcome to do that and i hope that we're not scary i i think something sometimes people are afraid to come talk to us for whatever reason and and i don't want you to be afraid to talk to us i don't think i'm a scary person am i is cory scary maybe i'm the scary one cory and greg aren't scary they're pretty nice guys so if you're scared of me just talk to one of these guys um yeah we want to be here for you guys we love you guys you are family and if you have issues you want to talk about come talk with us if if there's something that's you're bothered by if you have an issue come talk to us but it's here's the thing is we want you to come to us instead of going to other people and giving them your burden giving them your gripe giving them your complaint um sharing your offense with someone else because then that just grows and it multiplies and it becomes worse and worse and worse right and so that's that's kind of the the reason we're here tonight is is we want to address that that kind of topic what's going on there and it's interesting because last week's torah portion was you know about the grumbling and the complaining and then this week's torah portion is about the bad report and the next week's torah portion is about korra and the rebellion i think it's really interesting how those three progress you know starts with grumbling and complaining then it gets into slanderous bad report and then it moves into rebellion and i don't think it's a coincidence that that's the progression of how things happen and that's the progression of how things happen in oftentimes in churches as well and that's usually how you end up with churches having dividing and causing new denominations or church splits or churches just falling apart and crumbling it has that same kind of progression it starts with grumbling and complaining slanderous reports and then rebellion and that's what we we're trying to have foresight to see that so that we can say no no no let's let's stop before we get to that final stage does that make sense all right i've been talking for a while when you guys want to talk for a little bit i'll jump in for a second uh you know i see my role as an elder i'm your servant you know we're here to help you with your spiritual needs we're not your judges you know we can't judge sin i'm a sinner that's that's what we are you know we're just here to to be a servant to you and help lead you closer to the father and that's that's what our aim is or that's what my aim is as my role is to serve you to lead you and that's another reason we'd like you know when you come to us we're not going to judge you in your sin you know that's not what we're here for you know we're here to lead to lead us all together you know as one family as one fellowship closer to the father so thank you um i would say that like this is my tribe and i feel so blessed uh to to walk this walk with each and every one of you guys and so you know i have a simple goal and that's to hear well done good and faithful servant but i don't want that just for me i want everyone in this room and i want all the people that are watching online you know that are that are part of this tribe and even so much more to hear well done good and faithful servant so um the goal here for is not to that we would brag about who we are how great we are because you guys know me like like i've tried to be as real and honest i think we all have about our whole lives with the goal of hearing well done good and faithful servant to encourage each other and to to help bear each other's burdens you know as we go forward i wouldn't say follow me i would say walk with me you know let's all walk together closer to the kingdom let's all walk together and help each other out and and if somebody falls let's let's be there to help them pick them up and and carry them along when they need it and then when they get their strength back they're going to do the same for somebody else down the line um as a family um we're gonna have conflict from time to time right like that's that's normal um and the family i grew up in like we didn't really discuss conflict very much um everything was you know be quiet and just just be okay um i i don't want that for us i want us to be able to talk and and so if there is an issue if if i say something that you disagree with let's talk about it now we may not agree we may agree that we just have different views of that thing but if we are willing to talk and discuss then we can work those things out we can we can work through those things but if i say something you disagree with and then you just hold on to that or worse you you go around to other people and say i can't believe that that he said that or you know all you're doing is is you're spreading a sickness around and and so it's really important that um that we work together um there are so many gifted and talented people in this room right now i'm overwhelmed just the more i've learned to get to know some of you i'm like man i'm blown away and then i'm excited because like hey we're walking this is my tribe how cool are these people um the goal is that we're all walking together toward messiah's example and role or goal everyone in here will will stumble including me so if i do stumble i would appreciate it if somebody would say come on here take my arm i'm gonna i'm gonna help you forward and i want to be that kind of friend and brother to everybody in here as well every burden that we carry in this room we carry that together so when you're hurting we're hurting when you celebrate we want to celebrate um i'm thankful that this is my tribe that this is the family god has blessed me with and so greg's right we're here to serve and to help um that's the goal for for what we're doing or what we're trying to do um but i really if i could just emphasize how much that this is a group effort and um i don't see it as any one of us above the other i see it as a group of people walking toward the kingdom and um sometimes we're gonna go really fast and other times we might stumble around a little bit but if this if we all have that same goal and we can work together to that by myself i can only accomplish so much but i've seen this family come together and do amazing acts of service i've seen this family come together and pray miracles right in front of us i've seen this family bless other people and that's that's what this family should be about like we received that mandate a couple years ago that this would be a family that prays i don't want anything to distract us from that and that that desire to serve our king so again i i reiterate what like i said we are approachable um if you have a question about something i've said or done hey hit me up here and i'll give you my phone number we'll go out and eat dinner one night or something we'll we'll find a way to talk it out and we may not agree at the end but hopefully we see that we're members of the same family with the same goal trying to get to serve our king in a righteous manner does that kind of make sense um you know one thing i've expressed to people before is i'm really good at just letting stuff roll off of my shoulders you know i think from you know just all of the social media stuff where people are just constantly attacking and saying negative things and just being mean in general i remember i had a comment one time on a video somebody said you're fat and you're ugly and you need a shave and i thought what does that have to do with the topic like i was i was teaching on something in the bible you didn't even discuss my teaching it was just a personal attack on the way i look and you know stuff like that is like you know somebody attacks me fine i'll just you know let it roll off my shoulders and keep going but if somebody comes after my family the gloves are coming off you know and i am very protective of my family you know you can you can slap me in the face all you want but if you touch my wife or children i'm coming after you right well you guys are my family also and i'm very protective of you as well and so if someone comes after my family i get very upset and very defensive of my family and i will do what i need to do to protect my family and so when i see someone who is a threat to my family i'm not gonna say come on in and be part of my family let me welcome you into my house okay and we've had to deal with some situations where we've had to ask people to leave and and said you know you're not welcome here anymore and that's why is because they're a danger to our family and we've we've seen the danger we've said okay you're you're not part of our family you're a threat you're an enemy and that's that's really what a shepherd does right a shepherd sees a wolf a shepherd sees a danger something that's going to harm the sheep and the shepherd protects the sheep he says you know what i'm not going to let this danger come near my flock because i don't want them to get harmed by it and so when we make difficult decisions like that that's why we're trying to protect our family but i want to look at a few verses and just because of the seriousness of some of these topics i think a lot of people don't realize um the weightiness of this topic and it's the bible describes what what i'm getting to i haven't actually named it yet for you per se but the bible the way the bible describes this topic is that it is one of the most dangerous and deadly things that can happen and yet most people don't even realize they're doing it they don't think about it it's one of those sins that people forget you know they they're easy to point out all these other sins but they forget about this one and in in hebrew the word is lashon hara have you guys heard that term before and so ra is the hebrew word means evil right so hara is the evil the sean is tongue or speech so it's it's like evil speaking evil language equal evil speech and uh i just want to look at a few verses that deal with this topic because there's there's a the bible has a lot to say about it and we're not going to be able to exhaust all the the verses that deal with it but i just want to hit on a few so proverbs chapter 6 verses 16 through 19 it says these six things the lord hates now we're starting off right here with a really serious i mean like the lord hates this he says yes seven are an abomination to him so we went from bad to worse like hate is pretty strong language but abomination is really the strongest language the bible uses against something you know god hates something that's really bad but if god calls an abomination that's the worst that's the worst label god gives anything in the bible this is an abomination and so there's there's very few things really that are qualified as an abomination in the bible and you know you can go through and find them and there's there's not that many and this is one of them yes seven are an abomination a proud look a lying tongue hands that shed innocent blood a heart that devises wicked plans feet that are swift to running to evil a false witness who speaks lies and one who sows discord among the brethren one who sows discord among the brethren is number seven okay he said seven is an abomination six things the lord hates and seven is an abomination one who says discord among the brethren and if you think about these things so we have a lying tongue a false witness who speaks lies and one who says discord all three of those deal with your tongue they deal with your speech and so three out of the seven are dealing with with what is being said um and now i want to jump down to the new testament to james james has a lot to say about this as well james chapter 3 it says for we all stumble in many things if anyone does not stumble in word he is a perfect man able also to bridle the whole body indeed we put bits in horses mouths that they may obey us and we turn their whole body look also at ships although although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds they are turned by a very small rudder whenever the pilot desires even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things see how great a forest a little fire kindles and the tongue is a fire a world of iniquity the tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature and it is set on fire it is set on fire by hell for every kind of beast and bird and reptile and creature of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by mankind but no man can tame the tongue it is an unruly evil full of deadly poison with it we bless our god and father and with it we curse men who have been made in the similitude of god out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing my brethren these things ought not be so and so he's talking about how wicked the tongue is and how much evil it can produce and you know you i i've mentioned this before you know when you're kids you you say this silly little song you know like sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me and in all reality that's it's the exact opposite words are some of the most dangerous things you can do to anybody you can destroy their character you can destroy their reputation you can destroy their marriage you can destroy their you know their self-worth you can destroy somebody just by what you say to them you talk about you know when kids what do kids always like to do to each other they tease each other they make fun of each other they call each other names you know they they speak evil towards each other right you're stupid you're ugly right i mean just always making fun of and picking at and tearing down and destroying and that's that's from a little age they start doing that and it's something that's just naturally in us and we have to fight against that we have to train ourselves not to do that and learning that that's not okay i don't like it when you do it to me so i'm not going to do it to you you know do unto others as you would have them do unto you but it says that uh you know we're we're able to to tame all these animals and you know you can you can put a bid in a horse's mouth and guide it wherever you want to go and you think about how big a horse is and how strong a horse is they're very powerful animal you know how horses weigh what two or three thousand pounds two thousand pounds a thousand pounds thousand pounds pat i'm looking to pack because she she knows horses better than i do they're big animals thousand pounds 1300 and then they're different heights right you know summer clydesdales how big is the clydesdale 18 hands how big is a hand [Laughter] was that like eight feet okay um but you know you think about this a horse you turn it that you put a bin in its mouth and then that's how you can turn it you don't you know pull its hair you don't pull its ears you you put a bit in his mouth and you just pull and you turn it you can guide this giant beast and you know he's talking about a sail or a rudder on a ship right you have these massive ships and this small little rudder but you get that rudder to turn and it'll just guide that entire ship and he says the tongue is the same way that however you speak whatever you say you can guide the direction of this massive ship you can guide the direction of this wild beast and he describes it like a forest fire too he says just a small spark will burn a forest down he's saying how powerful the tongue is for good or for evil it can be a great good and do wonderful things and it could be a terrible destructive evil that can demolish people and communities families and then i want to turn to the next chapter james chapter 4 and i just want to this is kind of like the the nail in the coffin i think for what james is arguing he says do not speak evil of one another brethren he who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law but if you judge the law you are not a doer of the law but a judge he says so if you are speaking evil of someone else you are acting as a judge and not just a judge of that person but a judge of god's law and that's a serious thing all right so i've been talking for a little bit when you guys want to jump in you guys you guys are going to have to just step up and take the microphone away from me once in a while because you know me i get long-winded um you know we all know the verses in first corinthians 13 and 4 it says love is patient love is kind it does not envy it does not brag it is not puffed up it does not behave inappropriately it does not seek its own way it is not provoked it keeps no account of wrong it does not rejoice over injustice but rejoices in truth you know one thing that if somebody comes to you and says you won't believe what this person said or did the question you need to ask is is this going to cause me to love my brother more or is it going to cause me to look down upon my brother and even before we say things like that am i am i causing am i am i esteeming my brother and wanting to see him lifted up and and drawing closer to god or am i wanting to to see him push down um you know it's real easy to make yourself look better by making all the other people around you lower but everything we say especially if we're talking about our family needs to come from a point of love and respect and and trying to to see those people honored and built up and draw closer to god and and you may say well that you know how does that reconcile with going to somebody and saying hey i got to talk to you about this thing i think you're wrong well that's because you went to the person and said hey i've got to talk about this with you and we're going to talk more about that because scripture is really clear but if we're talking to every other person but the person that you need to talk to we're gossiping if our goal is not to to see our family built up and strengthened but to make ourselves look good and feel good we are acting not out of love at all um so if you've got something to say about somebody else of the family you need to consider does it meet the criteria of how i should talk about somebody that i love and before somebody's you you receive that bit of information hey you know what if you're going to tell me something that's going to make me look down upon my brother or my sister i want you to stop because i don't want you to just honor them to me that's bringing shame upon all of us um we you know these these verses about how powerful the tongue is like they should really hit home to all of us because how easy and how many times i know personally that i've been careless with my speech and the damage that it's done i don't want to do that i don't want to do that to my brothers and sisters i don't want to do that to the people that i call family and so we've really got to weigh out what we say and how we say it again if if if i'm wrong about something if you see me doing something wrong i expect my brothers to come to me and say hey corey i think there's something to miss here in your walk like that's an act of love to to do that kind of thing even though it might be really uncomfortable right but if you go to somebody else and say ah did you see what he did that's not an act of love in fact i would say it's an act of hate um these the power of the tongue that we can we can praise god in james um you know it says that we can speak blessings and curses but they shouldn't come shouldn't come out of the same mouth you know so i want to speak blessings and i want to try to see um how much we can bless each other instead of how much we can curse each other i want to just give a silly little example all right and you you identify to me which is the more appropriate way for me to address this topic hey greg do you see that corey doesn't wear boots he's wearing shoes sneakers sneakers with laces see that but you see we we like to wear boots right i've got issues with him wearing sneakers i'll have you talk to him about it no i don't want to talk to him about that that's why i'm talking to you oh okay i don't want to embarrass the guy or something or you know i just don't like confrontation you know so so i'll just talk to you about it because he might get mad i'm gonna go tell billy too yeah we should billy likes boots [Laughter] billy's billy's a good guy he likes boots too all right so is that the right way to approach the situation and see how it spreads yeah all right so now here's another example this is is this gonna be a better one or not cory i noticed you wore tennis shoes today they're brand new man i just bought these did you yes i i have an issue with you wearing laces so they don't fall off but but you need to be wearing boots you see these are these are boots they're they're more appropriate i know what boots are yeah i just i have issues with you wearing sneakers all right we'll get over it i'm not sure that we worked it out but at least i could at least i talked to him about it right you have boots with laces that's a that's a whole other genre we'll talk about that later so even even though me and corey maybe we didn't work out the issue at least i went to him about it and you know if we continue to have the conversation eventually we probably would work out the issue and i'd be like okay well maybe the shoes aren't that bad after all or maybe he'd come to his senses and say you know what maybe you're right i should wear boots i don't know we'll finish that conversation later but uh you know that's that's a silly example but that's that's what happens a lot of times right is we have an offense with a brother and instead of going to the brother about it and say brother you you know i have a fence i have a fence with you let's talk about this instead of going to him about it i go to somebody else about it and what i've done is i've just handed my offense over to him and now that offense has doubled now we have two people offended with corey and then he goes to billy and so now three people are offended with corey and courtney may not even know because we haven't talked to corey about it and so you know we keep going and talking to other people spreading this offense and it just keeps growing and building and multiplying and getting worse and have you ever played the uh the game where you like whisper something in somebody's ear telephone and then they whispered to somebody else and they whispered to somebody else what happens by the time you get to the end of the line it doesn't sound anything like what you started does it you know and so i mean depending on how many people you go through as to how bad it gets too if if you know you only have three or four people it may not be that bad but if you go through like 15 or 20 people by the end of it you're like that's not even close to what i said and that's that's oftentimes what happens with gossip and slander as well as you know i tell him and then he tells somebody else but he doesn't tell it exactly the way i did so then it changes and then he tells somebody else and it changes again and then pretty soon it's it's not that corey has ugly shoes is that now they're ugly okay it's not that cory's wearing sneakers it's the cory has ugly shoes see how quickly that changes that's that's the telephone there ugly no your shoes are fine i'm just just giving that as a silly example you know i would like to say the size of those i might take what i did when i told billy that was gossip and you know that's a trap that's set for us you know look at our human nature we always want to know you know what did he say what did he do you know that's a trap that's set for us and though there's a thin line between gossip and slander and that's where we always have to be on guard about that because that's part of our human nature that's you know we're always looking for that and so that's just something you know you know gossip is telling something that's that's true and spreading it to other people without the original person knowing that slander is making up false stuff and spreading it about other people so one jumps to the other very easily so we need to be really aware of that so do you guys remember i think it was probably a year ago i did a teaching on the tongues of devils do you guys remember that those of you who are here so what's interesting about the word satan right satan means accuser and the bible says that he is standing and making accusations against us right the word devil is is connected to the word slander and so devils are going around slandering and so when you're speaking slanderous things about people you are speaking in the tongues of devils does that make sense you know and so paul in first corinthians he talks about speaking in the tongues of angels though i speak the tongues of men and of angels but have not love you know what if we're speaking in the tongues of devils you know we're speaking slander and making accusations against other people you know we're we're we're acting on the enemy's behalf when we do those things we've got to be careful not to participate in that kind of stuff because we're just helping the enemy come against the church okay and that's not good you know i will say too is it it actually doesn't matter if your allegation is true so even if you're oh i'm just telling the truth but if you're telling that truth to everybody but the one person that you need to tell it to you've changed that truth into a weapon against them and not just a weapon against that person but a weapon against the whole family because you're dragging everybody into that and you're making them accomplices with you so it doesn't matter because i know that would be the first thing but what i'm telling you is the truth but if if that's still damaging a priest you know a member of our family it's it's not okay you still have to go to the person and say hey can we talk this out and i'll be honest i'm not great at confrontation i'm actually trying to learn how to be better at it i'll teach you um because i don't i need a lot of practice i don't want to be defensive i don't want to react out of emotion i want to be logical and and spirit led and and guided by the words in our bibles that takes effort and energy and practice i'm trying i highly encourage everyone in this room or listening it's a skill to be to be practiced and to learn um you know i i don't want to say well you should trust me just because i'm a good guy what's the bible say about the heart that's in me you know that i was stumbled on the scripture and i forgot to write it down but it said like you know if if any good teaching has come it's from the spirit it's not for man so if the three of us get up there and we have we say a good teaching it's not to our credit it's always to god's credit i'm not a good teacher i want to be i want to be a faithful servant but if something i say resonates that's the holy spirit working through me and through you and the holy spirit should always get the credit if we say something good it's the holy spirit the holy spirit should get the credit and and you know sometimes like we'll give a message and somebody will come up and say great job good message and that's always so awkward to hear you know it's like oh well thanks god was good you know he should always get the credit um if i say something that's true it's because of him if i say something that edifies and builds up or corrects correctly it's because of him it's because of the holy spirit we're all i hope just trying to be submitted to the holy spirit i mean that should be our goal right and to follow again to follow the example of our messiah the bible talks about the church being the body of messiah and i think that's part of why this sin is so dangerous because what you're doing is you are coming against the body of messiah and so you're coming against messiah by trying to attack part of his body and separate his body and cause division cause problems in the body you're basically acting like a cancer attacking the body and trying to do damage and trying to destroy because that's what cancer does right cancer is a foreign object that comes into your body and tries to do damage tries to make you sick tries to make you weak tries to tear you apart and you know i've watched my dad die of cancer and i've watched both of amanda's parents die of cancer my grandfather my uncle numerous people in my life have died of cancer and so i i don't like cancer and that's but that's what this amounts to is someone coming against the body of messiah and trying to attack and dismantle and cause division cause problems cause chaos it's acting like a cancer so i wanna read a couple verses in relation with that in mind romans 16 verse 17 and 18. now i urge you brethren note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learned and avoid them for those who are such do not serve our lord jesus christ but their own belly okay right what is cancer is not serving your body it's not serving you it's feeding itself right it's feeding on your body they do not serve christ but their own belly and by smooth words and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the simple and that's that's one i want to emphasize here smooth words and flattering speech that's often times how this type of thing takes place right someone comes to you and man you know i really trust you with this you're you're the only person i can come to about this i'm really concerned about this situation let me share with you i have a prayer request i need to share with you you know whatever it might be like they're they have smooth words they have flattering words they have smooth speech they try to make you feel like you're helping right i need your advice on this situation let me tell you about this you know there's there's always some kind of a hook and it's easy to take the bait but be cautious because it's really easy to get caught up in that and i want to jump over ii corinthians and this is uh the reason i bring this up is because you know what paul said there in romans he said you know that they have smooth words and flattering speech second corinthians 11 14 to 15 it says and no wonder for satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness whose end will be according to their works and i point that out because when the enemy comes in he doesn't come in looking like an enemy you know as i mentioned before that false prophets don't come in telling you hey i'm a false prophet false teachers don't come in telling you hey i'm a false teacher wolves don't come in with their fangs showing the bible says they come in like sheep in wolves or wolves in sheep clothing right wolves in sheep's clothing they look like sheep they're deceiving they're deceptive even their speech is deceptive they seem like they have good motives they seem like they are being kind and generous they seem like they're good people but there's poison in there and they they weave it in so so well sometimes that you don't even notice it you know i had a conversation with a guy that where he was arguing with me and he was quoting my book back to me out of context and he was doing such a good job of it that i almost believed him like that's how deceptive it was i was like wait that's not what i wrote that's not what i meant how is it that you got that out of what i said but the way he was using it he was twisting it and that's the way so many people do is they'll take even scripture and they'll twist it and that's what would it that's what satan did right when he was tempting yeshua in the wilderness he was quote he'd quote scripture to yeshua but he was using it out of context he was twisting it and that's what his that's what his workers do too false teachers false prophets wolves people who come in to bring destruction they don't come in saying hey guys i'm here to rip you to shreds they say hey i just want to help but then what they end up doing is causing division and contention and striving slander accusations gossip all kinds of harm people get attacked reputations get attacked marriages get attacked all kinds of things can happen and it's all under the guise of oh i'm i'm just here to help because they come as an angel of light ooh that storm's getting close didn't it maybe we should wrap up pretty soon i've only got six more pages of notes oh we'll just wait it out it's a small storm okay okay you guys are good and i want to in in the same note though so they come as angels of light right they they disguise themselves their wolves and sheep's clothing i want to listen to what jude says these are grump this jute 116 these are grumblers complainers walking according to their own lust and they mouth great swelling words flattering people to gain advantage so grumbling and complaining but they use flattery to gain the advantage have you ever have you ever been around somebody like that it's i have they you know they come they come and they they say oh you're such a good guy or you're so smart or you know the word so well or whatever whatever it might be and they puff you up and they build you up with compliments and make you feel like you're you're something special and then they bring their complaints and they twist your ear they bend your ear through their flattery to try to get you to listen to what they have to say they bring their complaint they bring their accusation they bring their whatever but they do it through that method they try to get you on their side and then once they have you on their side then they can share their complaint with you and you share in their sin you share their complaint you share in their lashon hara their evil speech and you take on their offense and you become offended and then you become an advocate for their cause and you well this is this is a righteous cause i'm gonna go fight for this cause why did you all the sudden take up that cause you weren't offended prior to the conversation with him you had no idea that that cause even existed and now all of a sudden you're you're all riled up and you're ready to go to bat and you don't even know the full story all you know is what that person whispered in your ear and that's how easy it happens and happens all the time and i'm sure everybody in here is it's happened to you at some point you've been on one side or the other of it either somebody's done that to you about you where they they're gossiping about you and going and getting other people rallied up against you or you're the person gossiping about somebody or you're the person somebody's gossiped too and you've taken on that offense we've all done it it happens and we've just got to be aware of it repent of it and try our best not to do it in the future what do you guys want to jump in or do you may keep just a couple verses to tag on there uh from ephesians 4 25 uh therefore putting away lying but each one of you speak truth with his neighbor for we all for we are members of one another so there again that's that we're that one where that family and then uh down ephesians 4 29 let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth but what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers well um you better take it while you got it so let's i mean if it's all right let's go ahead and talk about matthew 18. um so when dealing with one another yeshua gives us this pattern in matthew 18 starting at verse 15. now i want to point out that that's a pattern for dealing with each other right brothers and sisters but there's other patterns of church discipline in the bible what comes to mind is you know we just read a few weeks ago about the priest in dealing with zara rod or leprosy right he had to make a decision you have to go outside the camp and the goal is not to just banish people outside the camp but for the protection of everybody you've got to go outside the camp and when this clears up we'll get you back in there's a process for that and we see that even with miriam when she you know again talking about the grumbling when she complained and challenged moses authority and god's call on his life she immediately got leprosy and she she was immediately healed because they you know moses prayed for her but she still had to go for that protocol where she had to go outside the camp for seven days now i didn't establish the protocol but that's a pattern that god put in place that if somebody is dangerous if somebody comes through those doors waving a gun there's a protocol that has been established for how that's going to get dealt with and i'm not saying that it's the perfect protocol hopefully we never have to find that out but it is our best effort to say this is how we're going to deal with this dangerous situation or this this dangerous thing that might happen and i would think you would expect nothing less of us as leadership as to have considered those type of events i mean the world we live in is pretty sketchy and it's going to get worse we know so there are protocols think of the levites that guarded the tabernacle think of phineas there was no trial a man tried to approach the holy things of god and phineas killed them outright right there on the spot and was rewarded with a everlasting eternal covenant of peace and i'm not saying like we need to all pick up spears and start looking for who we can you know gun down but there are multiple patterns of church discipline there are multiple things that we need to figure out which is right sometimes if somebody is is harming the body i think it's fully appropriate to say hey i need you to stay home for a week until we can figure out what's going on because maybe something's you know maybe they're just we don't know the whole story yet and so it's it's up to us to do our due diligence to search those things out but if you're coming in here and and you're you're going to harm people i i don't want to see that i don't want to see you get harmed in reaction to that so there may may be times where we say uh look i don't know what's going on but you need to stay home this week and we'll figure out where to go from there um and the goal should hopefully always be that that person would be healed restored and come back because we don't want to see people just hanging out we know what it's like to just to be a lone wolf outside the camp is a very dangerous place to be lone sheep alone sheep sorry right [Music] so again i should be there multiple ways of dealing with things sometimes but how we deal with each other i i look at this pattern in matthew and say this is a good thing so it's all right i'd like to read that and i'm starting at verse 15 it says if your brother sins against you go and show him his fault while you're with him alone if he listens to you you have won your brother but if he does not listen take with you one or two more so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand so the first thing there it says like you're supposed to go to that person and talk to them and it says if he listens it doesn't even necessarily imply that you guys all agree on the same thing it's more of a matter of can we talk to each other can we communicate as brothers and sisters that love each other or are we going to talk bad about each other behind our backs because i guarantee you we all have some different ideas and thoughts about different parts of scripture but do we love each other enough to say i know that this is my brother that he loves god he loves yeshua and he's trying to get there just the same as i am so whether he's wearing tennis shoes or boots doesn't matter so much now lex and i may never agree on the value of tennis shoes and boots and that's okay boots are worth more maybe so just look at the price tag so the the the goal here is that we communicate it's not necessarily that we're going to agree on every single topic because the bible's huge in topics and there's a lot of things that we're all wrestling to try to understand but do i love you and respect you enough to say i don't agree with that thought but i love you and i know you love jesus i see that fruit in your life and so then the next step after you talk to him it says you take two or three more and it says witnesses so here's the question are those witnesses to the original event or are these new witnesses that are going to witness the conversation so if these are people that are going to witness the conversation are they going to be a good witness if you've already laid out the whole evil thing that you're offended by and you expect them to go to that brother and not not carry out every word you just said yeah that's that's leading the witness right right so if you if you're gonna ask and say hey i need i've confronted my brother about this um hey would you come and witness this conversation so he'll hear me yeah you don't have to get into details right just say i've got an issue between a brother i've already talked to him about it can you come with me and witness you know i'm going to go talk to him again and i just want somebody with me as a second witness just to you know make sure everything goes well or whatever they don't have to know all the details you you would want an impartial witness right if somebody's going to be a witness to something you've done you would want them not to come in and have already judged you at fault have already judged that you're the one that's in the wrong and i'm going to come and i'm going to agree with my brother here and and we're going to make sure you understand how wrong you are i mean even in a modern court we would call that jury tampering right like you've already planted the seeds so if you're going to call a brother or sister into this kind of conversation say hey i've got an issue would you just be a witness i don't want to tell you anything because i don't want to prejudice you against my brother or sister because i might very well be the one in the wrong and and do we have enough humility to say that sometimes like you know this thing you said i don't agree with but maybe i'm the one that's in the wrong but the goal should always be that we talk well the goal of matthew 18 is for restoration of relationship so you have an offense with a brother whether your brother whether you're you're justified and being offended to him he needs to repent or whether you have an offense for no real good reason and you need to repent for being offended the the goal is that restoration takes place right and that you gain your brother and that you're able to come back to fellowship together so the goal is not to get you know it's not for me to get greg on my team to come against corey for wearing shoes right that's the goal should be that me and corey have restoration of relationship and so it's it's not that i have to gain some you know take somebody as my teammate and say hey you know take my side so i can come against him it's just come with me so that you can help mediate this conversation so that i kind of restoration with my brother does that make sense i need i need somebody else to come along and mediate that's why you bring somebody with you because you know maybe i'm not approaching cory the right way you know maybe i shouldn't tell him sneakers are dumb maybe i should tell him something else well you know may you know i need somebody to help me mediate and they can come along and say hey lex that's not very nice of you you shouldn't say the sneakers are dumb you know you just say i like boots better like you know and maybe that's what would happen and then you know the second witness comes along and says you know what you guys are both in the wrong sandals are the best you know but whatever the case may be having that that person come along with you is not so that you can gang up on the person that's not the goal having that other person with you is so that mediation could take place so that restoration could take place so that the friendship can be restored um what is you mentioned court case when a uh i'm not real familiar with all the terms i just know that you know i've watched a few movies and tv shows where the the lawyer does something and he gets in trouble for it and i know what it's called so the lawyer will get up and he'll say something and uh huh content no i don't know so he'll say something to the jury to get the jury to um have a bad thought towards the person who's being on trial and you know the the other person the other lawyer will will say i object that's something is it leading or leading the jury i don't know but anyway and then the judge will say you need to strike that from the record right and whatever it is the thing is the jury heard it and has planted a seed and has caused them to already have a distorted view of that person whether it's admissible in court or not whether it's allowable that's why that's why lawyers do it right they know i can never prove this but i can just say it and get the jury to think there might be a chance that that's true and i've planted a seed right and that's what happened so many times with with lashan hara right it's not that there's any proof it's not that there's any evidence it's just that somebody's just planting a seed of doubt i'm just gonna say something just to get you to wonder if that might be true just plant that little seed of doubt and that's enough to to separate close friends you know i've had people try that with with some of my really close friends in this situation that's been happening over the couple last couple months people have come to my very close friends and tried to turn them against me and it's like wow you know it's one thing if you know if you're somebody who doesn't know me very well and you know it's it's easy to to say oh yeah i don't know him you know maybe maybe it's true maybe it's not but to be able to come to a close friend and a close friend say wow is there truth to that statement that's that's dangerous if if a close friend can be led astray like that but what does the bible say it says the gospel gossip separates close friends i want to i'm going to read another verse for you this is titus 3 it says reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition knowing that such a person is warped and sinning being self-condemned a divisive person after the first and second admission so you go to them you know we're talking about discipline right so he's talking about matthew 18. everybody thinks that's the only discipline in the bible is matthew 18. no there's other things that the bible talks about as well matthew 18 is if your brother's offended you you go to him okay this says reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition so if someone's causing division you go to them and you say you need to stop you need to repent they keep doing it you go to them again you say this is i already talked to you about this you need to stop this is not good you need to repent stop doing this and if they continue on it says reject them that's the situation that we've had to deal with the last but two or three months starting it was around passover around passover we asked three men to leave and it was because of that they were causing division and contention and strife and i don't need to get into all the details because then i'm going to be a tail bearer i'm going to be a gossip i'm going to be a slanderer i don't want to do that that's the reason we haven't come out until now even is because of the fear of being called a gossip or a slander because we've talked about it i don't need to give you all the details but i do need to tell you we have asked three men to leave for that purpose because we've addressed it multiple times and they didn't repent and so we've asked them to leave and they're screaming oh we need a matthew 18. no what you did wasn't matthew 18. what you did was titus iii and even even using the protocol of matthew 18 um we've spoken at length to these men we've made ourselves available we've had conversation after conversation so there's no claim that somehow we didn't have the talks or that they were blindsided by any of this we we've made ourselves available for very lengthy and hard discussions um so it it's like oh we're gonna we're gonna claim this but they're not the and this is that thing about you know we uh when we want people to be on our side in an argument we don't tell them quite the whole truth um i i was actually listening to a book on um on dealing with people and conversations and challenges and and it said you know i was talking about that um whenever we're offended we immediately tell ourselves two stories and the first story is that we're the victim and that the other person is the villain and he said we don't even have to think about it we do it just like that we're very quick at it and so now when i'm talking to you about this situation and i say well i'm the victim this guy's the villain but we won't tell the whole story and so the example he gave is like if you're at work and you're on a project and your boss calls you in and says hey i gotta pull you off this project you're two months behind deadline i got to get you off this and put somebody else in and so you walk out offended and you go to one of your co-workers and say that guy is such a jerk he pulled me off this project for no reason there was a reason but we don't ever want to tell the parts of the story that make us look bad so that's that's some deception there and some dishonesty and we don't want to tell the part that the boss's hands are tied because his bosses you wanted him to get the thing done right he's just a monster and we have to be very guarded against one participating in that kind of speech even even if i offend you are you going to make me out to be a villain and yourself the victim or are you going to come to me and say man i'm offended and i'll say all right brother let's talk let's figure this out because i don't want you offended at me i don't want offense between any of us but we have to be so guarded when we're hearing those stories that make the one person sound like an innocent victim an innocent bystander that was you know harmed for no reason and makes the other side of the story look like a monster that's just out to kill and destroy everybody he comes into contact with and i had to agree with what this book was saying because i'm like you know what i've done the same thing i've gotten myself in trouble i've gotten myself offended about something and so i made up the story i mean i'm a good guy after all right and that other person who has offended me they're they're the monster and we have to be so careful about participating in that kind of mentality or receiving that from somebody else really this this brother or sister that we've been walking with for years is now all of a sudden a monster this person that you were just praying with the other day or prayed for you or the person that helped pay for your gas tank when you were down they're all of a sudden the monster now that's why we've got to be able to talk to each other i'm human so if you come to me and say corey you messed up i would be like you're probably right let's talk about it because in my humanness i know that i make mistakes but i'm i'm not trying to harm any of any anybody let alone my family so if i say something stupid sorry we don't say stupid or my grandkids no they're out of here i'm gonna say that frequently but i shouldn't if i say something wrong i'd really appreciate it if my brothers would come to me and say i think you messed that up you know why are you wearing tennis shoes i'm we're all approachable we should all be approachable we should all be able to talk to one another and and pray for one another i've seen that in action with this family so many times somebody comes in and they're broken and they're hurting and it's just like that rally around you know to lift up that brother or sister and to pray for them and to help them and you know i don't got much but here's here's what i got in my wallet you need something fixed at your house i i don't know how to do that but some of these other men do and i'll hold you know i'll hold the nails in the wood for them but now all of a sudden you got offended by something and you know the same person that was serving alongside of you a week ago you've now turned that person into a monster and you're telling everybody you can talk to about it and we have to see the damage and the deception that that's playing out in that narrative again i'm man if you tell me i did something wrong i'll be like oh uh what is it let's i would like to get that reconciled and figured out we all should be that humble right um but if i come to you and say did you know what this guy did and your words to me should be shut up i don't want to know it's appropriate you know shut up and stupid are like the extent of my vulgarity like if i say shut up or if i say stupid that is the worst thing i'm i'm allowed to say like i don't say more than that hey what's this little guy doing in here this is an adult-only conversation i don't know there's little ears in here he's got boots on though so he's okay but that it but that's the thing is if i say one of those two things i'm at i'm up here you know like that is i'm heated and you know like one of the things i'm hearing is that i've been accused of cussing somebody up up and down cussing somebody out and i'm like i don't cuss i say shut up oh yeah sorry see and they get upset that i said that the bad man will stop soon but you know it's like that level of stuff and it's like come on why why am i being accused of this i don't get that um so if you if you you have a problem come to me let's talk about it don't talk to everybody else okay please if you have a problem with me come to me if you have a problem with corey go to corey if you have a problem with greg go to greg it should be easy i don't i don't see what the big tough difficult thing is with that and i'm sure everybody has a problem with me saying shh [Laughter] all the parents have a problem with me saying that be quiet but yeah you know it's it's funny because not funny i guess but just sometimes you know even yeshua used very abrupt language when it was called for and and like i'm remembering paul when he was speaking about speaking out against men that were trying to use circumcision improperly and he said i wish they were all castrated i mean that's that's pretty severe language you know yeshua called the pharisees a brood of vipers he referred to them as whitewashed tombs full of dead men's bones like occasionally occasionally we have to be very um severe and it's not like that's something we would want to be or or we would we would want to have to use that kind of language even i i mean well here's the thing um so if i think you're a wolf i'm gonna call you a wolf that's not me going around telling everybody else you're a wolf that's me telling you whoever that might be i go to you and i say i think you're a wolf i'm not slandering you i'm doing what yeshua did he turned to the pharisees and he said you're you're wolves in sheep's clothing you're a brood of vipers you know he just told them what they were you know this is what i'm seeing in you you're speaking with the tongue of a serpent you're a serpent i'm not gossiping about you you're not slandering you i'm speaking to you face to face and telling you this is what you are okay that is another one of those accusations that's coming back to me is that oh he's gossiping and slandering about no i went to the person themself and told them what i thought of them i'm not slandering them but again that's how things get spread around the rumor mill one person talks to somebody else who talks to somebody else i don't want to belabor this much longer i think we've kind of covered the topic but there have been accusations made against basically everybody in the leadership by one of these three men uh all three of them have made accusations against somebody and so it covered all of us because of all you know so there's been accumulations made against all of us and again i don't want to get into all the details but the the issue is that there's no la there's a lack of respect for god's appointed leadership and that's a very serious thing and so you know we talked about the contention last week that lashon hara the torah portion this week and then there's korra is next week what is korra korra is coming against leadership korra is the rebellion korah came against moses and aaron and said who who appointed you leader aren't we all able to hear from god's spirit aren't we all able to do this i mean quarter was a levite and he was already in the in the appointed leadership but he just wasn't the leader and he saw moses as you know moses and aaron well they're above me and i don't like that so i'm going to go against them and that was the issue with korah right so he challenged moses and aaron made accusations against them and god came to moses's aid and the earth swallowed up gorham he disappeared but the thing is that that attitude of coming against god's appointed leadership is very dangerous and you think about what what did david do with saul saul was king but god had already removed his spirit from saul and anointed david king but saul still had the crown and david had a chance to kill saul and he didn't do it he cut off the corner of saul's garment and then later he repented for it because he came against the king okay and he said i you know i who am i to come against god's anointed and so he recognized that even though saul was a wicked king even though saul had already the spirit of god was taken from saul saul still had the authority that god had given him and he said i who am i to come against the authority that god has given even though david himself had been anointed king he was still not willing to come against god's authority and he's praised for that and then we look in the new testament in peter and jude both talk about angels not making accusations against satan and it says that you know michael the archangel wouldn't even bring an accusation against satan okay so what is the what is what is the deal with why do we think we need to go around making accusations against people you know and romans 13 talks about how all authority has been established by god but jude and first peter and titus all talk about these wicked men bringing reviling accusations against leadership and it's considered wicked they're called wicked men to do that and it's because you're coming against god's authority structure god has established authority he's established order and the enemy wants to create chaos it's the same thing when a woman comes against the authority of her husband she's trying to undo the order that god has created in the house that's the problem with feminism is because it's it's rooted in in an attack against god's established authority okay and so god has established the man to be that the husband the man the father to be the leader of the house and feminism comes in and says no no no i'm not going to submit to god's authority and so it creates chaos in the home it's the same kind of thing if satan is trying to attack god's authority when you attack the husband when the wife attacks the husband she is attacking god's authority when you attack the leadership in a congregation you're attacking god's authority whatever kind of authority you're attacking you're attacking god's authority because all authority was established by god that's why korah was swallowed up by the desert because korah came against moses but what he was doing was coming against god's authority because god has established moses and so when korah came against moses he was coming against god he was coming against god's authority does that make sense and so that's what's so dangerous about that kind of thing is is you're not just attacking a person you're attacking god and so you've got to be really careful and the bible says when when you participate when you hear a slanderous accusation when you hear lashana when you hear gossip it says you become a participant in that and you are guilty of the sin as well and so that's why we've got to guard ourselves against allowing someone to speak evil of someone else to us because what it does is it plants that seed in you if i listen to gossip from you then that's plants to see to me if if you have an offense against somebody and i listen to that offense i take on that offense and so i share in your sin by taking on that offense does that make sense and i know this is a heavy topic and i know this is not necessarily a fun topic so i'm going to pick on corey shoes again just so you guys can end with a smile on your face i actually like cory shoes those are pretty nice i'm winning you over already yep see i came to my brother and and now i'm i'm converted i'm gonna get me some shoes with a big in on them what is the end for yeah it's new balance visual advertising are you are you old is your old balance not any good sometimes he's got old balance so he needs to get some new balance shoes so you can walk right okay so i'm old today i had a birthday i'm turned old plus two so if you guys don't know what old plus two is you'll figure out when you get there and some days i feel old plus more than two but uh um i i want to just so that the situation doesn't perpetuate anymore i we we have to at least tell you who the three men were and let me explain why because what i found out is if you don't tell people who the the person is that you've told not to come back they call them and they say hey brother i haven't seen you in a few weeks what's going on and then the guy says oh let me tell you about it and i'm i learned this the hard way because when it happened i thought okay we'll just ask him to leave no big deal i don't have to i don't have to name names i can just say hey we've asked some people to leave and it'll be okay and what i've realized is if because i didn't tell you who the person was you're calling them and saying hey where you been brother and i've had several people come to me with that exact thing is man i i was looking for him and i called him and asked him where he's been and and then he he shared this with me and now i'm i'm not sure what to do with this because i've taken on this offense and so in a way because i didn't tell you who they were two months ago we're still having to deal with the situation because we didn't deal with it the right way the first time and so can i just apologize to you for that because if we had had this conversation two months ago we wouldn't have to have this conversation today and so like i said at the beginning we're new to this we've only been pastoring for three and a half years and we make mistakes and we're trying our best to learn as we go and not make the same mistake twice and so just so that this doesn't continue happening we're having this conversation tonight so that maybe this whole situation can be put to rest and so the the three men if you don't already know because i know some of you already do so there's a man named brad there's a man named mikel and there's a man named neil and we've had to ask all three of them not to come back now if they repent we may have a different conversation but right now they have no interest in repenting for what they've said and done and so we've told them you're not welcome here and i know some of you have reached out to them i know some of you are friends with them and it's okay you can still be friends with them i'm not telling you don't be friends with them i'm just explaining to you that they were saying and doing some things that we saw were dangerous to the congregation and we've asked them to stop multiple times they didn't stop and so we've asked them not to come back and so now it's all out on the table and you guys know who and why and one thing i want to say about the importance of this conversation is that i look out in this room and i see future leaders not only are you leading your families or but i see also men and women that you know you you might be taking our place one day maybe god will put you in another place where you lead another group of people to messiah and so again well these are pretty heavy topics and they're maybe not the funnest things to talk about but um if you do end up leading a group of people because people are people these type of conflicts are going to come up and so part of this whole thing was that we could help equip and say this is how we're trying to figure out how to deal with this so that hopefully you can learn how to deal with it as well um i see so much gifting in this room and the people that we talk to you know that watch us online that have joined us for feast and things like that and um it you know should the lord tarry should yeshua not come back you know who's going to pick up and and be the leader when i'm gone or when lex or greg who's gonna who's gonna be that who's gonna get that call from in this room and i see a lot of people that i think and trust would do their very best at that at that role none of us are perfect so hopefully you're not putting that expectation on me there was the one man and so if you expect perfection out of me you're actually lowering him he is so much better and and he he walked a perfect life as an example for us um i i have my discipleship group read the book of nehemiah and nehemiah had a call on his life to rebuild the walls of jerusalem but throughout the book there were people that were challenging him cursing him telling him don't do this you're you know for every kind of reason and even finds out you know that there were people within his own circles that were in alignment with these men but he kept himself focused on the job at hand which was to build the walls of jerusalem may we all have that kind of focus towards building the kingdom of our king here on earth and being his representatives don't allow people with their speech to pull you off that track don't entertain them if i come to you with that kind of speech i would expect you to tell me to be quiet better thank you and not engage in that just say shh is that what you say shhh and and to kind of tag on uh what corey was talking about you know we're a family a fellowship a diverse family and fellowship there's going to be conflicts you know and it's going to be our attitude on how we approach those things are we going to take them as obstacles or we're going to take them as opportunities we always want to try to make it an opportunity to glorify the father right that's that's what we do one of the things i found this week this is an unknown quote and you know i think it kind it pertains to us you know we're a fellowship of forgiven sinners you know we're not a fellowship of sinless people and i think we need to remember that in our daily walk so i know that was a kind of a heavy topic tonight thank you guys for sticking with us through it um it's not a fun topic to talk about and like i said you know we've all at some point in our life been somewhere in in the mix of that and you know i think the goal is to learn to learn and not to do it not to do it again you know learn from your mistakes and move on you know i hope the hope the men that we've asked to leave will repent and i hope that one day we can bring them back in and welcome them back in as part of the con as part of the community um i don't know that that will happen but you know we'll see um let's go ahead and just end it's been a long night i know it's a little longer than normal but you know there's three of us so and i talk a lot all on my own so um let's go and end here corey would you like to close this in prayer father our king i thank you for your patience with us and father i had i had asked that we would all be humble and submitted to your spirit that we would seek to study a matter out that we would seek to to go to you in prayer as our first reaction father help us to have that mindset that that you're our authority father where we fall short i ask that you would teach and encourage us but father i'm i'm just so grateful for who you are and the many blessings i'm grateful for this family of believers um i'm overwhelmed by your generosity and how you've used them to to bless me and to bless my family um father your your kingdom is truly eternal and forever and father you were worthy of all the praise of all the the praise we could even begin to muster wouldn't be enough but help us to try father help us to love one another as you've commanded us and to encourage and and and to strengthen up our brothers and sisters so that we we can all hear well done good and faithful servant father we love you father we thank you for your anointed salvation yeshua meshiach amen

Channel: The Grafted Church

Views: 1,295

Rating: 4.8095236 out of 5

Keywords: church online, sermon, Bible Teaching, Grafted Church, yeshua, messianic, hebrew roots, sabbath, torah, Lex Meyer, live sabbath service, sabbath church, Bible teaching, bible prophecy, Corey Haynes, Greg Stuart, Korah, korrah, contention, grumbling, rebellion

Id: VoxaiEi2n2c

Length: 113min 29sec (6809 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 05 2021