Greed & Gratitude
In today's message, we learn lessons in gratitude and greed from 2 Kings 5 - 8 in the accounts of the healing of Naaman, King Ben Haddad & Hazael.
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good morning good morning welcome to our annual 9 a.m service this is usually the day when the lead pastor does not preach youth pastor preaching day but we don't have a youth pastor so it's me if you're new here among us i don't think so my name is gene i serve here at c3 church as your lead pastor and i wonder if anyone here is like me and you've ever been in maybe a group situation where someone says a phrase that you've never heard before never no okay well i'll continue you've never heard this phrase before you have a couple of options let's say it's a funny phrase well one option is you can just pretend that you know the phrase right and do the awkward laugh and hope that maybe there'll be a context you can figure it out and hope that nobody questions you right like don't you understand that and now you're like or you can just do what i do because i'm getting older i don't care anymore i'll just say what what are you talking about so this happened to me recently and i'll tell you the phrase it's kind of funny the phrase was dumpster panda i've never heard this before now maybe you haven't either you're going or you do know it i never heard it and so because i'm getting old i just said what dumpster panda that's really weird well i'll tell you what it means raccoon and now i get it i was like oh yeah that makes total sense right because raccoons they go in your trash and they're like dirty they don't look like clean and white and black like the other good i got it that's fantastic now here's the context some people are scared of dumpster pandas because they're kind of human-ish they exhibit human-like traits and that's really weird unless you're watching guardians of the galaxy right so then it's cool all of a sudden and they can talk we accept that but in normal life situations you run into one of these things they're weird and contrary to popular belief they do not have opposable thumbs but they can manipulate their paws in such a way so that they can pick things up and that's scary now the person who introduced the phrase and i'm not going to say the name i don't want to put anybody on the spot because we never do that at c3 church we'll give the person a different name joni thompson and so you know it just just he's in a kind of line of work i won't mention the job that he does but it involves arresting people and taking them to jail he also gets to carry a gun which is kind of cool but not always anyway he had an encounter with a dumpster panda and he was scared of it if you're not like joni thompson and you want to capture one and have it as a pet or bring it to church and scare this individual you can capture them and i heard there's like an old school method of doing this what you do is you get a cage and you make the bars just narrow enough so that it can get its paw in there and you stake the cage to the ground and you put in like aluminum foil balls in there what it is said that they will do is they'll get their paw in there grab the ball of aluminum foil but it'll reshape the paw making it bigger and they can't get it back out and here's the thing about dumpster pandas they are so greedy that they will risk their freedom and even their life to hold on to just this shiny little aluminum foil ball amazing so today in the rest of the story we're gonna see a theme of greed and it'll be attached to last week's theme we've received this gift maybe we've accepted this gift of grace from god now are we going to be greedy with it we'll talk about that today so we're in the rest of the story second kings last week it was the shunamite woman receiving this gift at first rejecting it then receiving it then having faith to bring the boy back to life which was amazing gaze we got a little preview into his character last week we're gonna look into that a little more this week so there's an interesting thing that comes up today ben haydad we were introduced to this guy in first kings 15. so it's easy to kind of forget we also enter a section probably probably the worst section as far as names are concerned names are already very confusing in the bible but here you'll have overlapping kings with the same exact names or coming in after it was it this guy or that guy and people get confused but here's also what happens there are a lot of these accounts where only one of the people in the account is actually named and the rest ah the king of abram the king of israel and so your head spinning when you're really trying to figure it all out so what i'm going to do is i'm going to insert the names for you here and there try to make it a little bit easier but ben haydad isn't named in this first section of the text and then he is so you run into this whole thing and my wife is going to shoot me a really evil look right now because we've had this conversation it runs into probably clearly or certainly things like that fall into categories in the bible those three categories so you can say if someone isn't named well it's probably this person or it's clearly this person or it's certainly this person if the person is named here we run into the probably clearly section because ben haydad was mentioned as the king of aram we're going to see at the end of this section he dies but there's no other king of aram in the middle so it's pretty clear is it certain he's not named so i'm not sure so we're doing larger sections here that's how we get the context and better applications so second kings 5 1 the king of aram clearly ben hadad had great admiration for naaman the commander of his army because through him the lord had given abram great victories but through though naaman was a mighty warrior he suffered from leprosy at this time aramian raiders had invaded the land of israel and among their captives was a young girl who had been given to naaman's wife as a maid one day the girl said to her mistress i wish my master would go and see the prophet in samaria he would heal him of his leprosy so naaman told the king what the young girl from israel had said go visit the prophet the king of aram told him i will send a letter of introduction for you to take to the king of israel so naaman started out carrying his gifts 750 pounds of silver that's 10 talents talent i believe is 75 pounds of silver it's a lot 150 pounds of gold and 10 sets of clothing the letter to the king of israel said with this letter i present my servant naaman i want you to heal him of his leprosy so i'm going to summarize some of these accounts for you pretty quickly so what ends up happening is the king of israel clearly jehoram or joram if you see that in your bible it's interchangeable so it's just a variant spelling jehoram joram he's like what am i god that i can heal this person of his leprosy he tears his clothes they do that when they're really angry don't do that here if you get angry with me so elisha finds out he says send them to me i'll show you that there's a real prophet here in israel so naaman goes to him goes to elijah's house and elijah doesn't come out he sends a messenger out and he says look he gives them a set of instructions go ahead and dip yourself in the river jordan seven times and he gets upset naaman's like he should have come out to see me himself and he gets mad and he kind of stomps away and he starts talking about the rivers in damascus being better anyway i'll go back and just dip myself over there but his officers go to him and they say wait wait look this was a really easy thing to do jordan's right there just go there dip yourself in if he had given you a hard thing to do wouldn't you have done it yeah okay so he goes down to the jordan river dips himself seven times in the water and when he comes out his skin is new like a child's skin it says he's healed so he goes back to elijah and he offers him gifts thank you so much elisha says surely as the lord lives i won't accept your gifts so naaman says all right well allow me to load up two mules full of dirt from this area and also when i go with my master to worship in roman just you know i'm going to lean on his armor he's going to lean on my arm let me bow with him elijah says go in peace okay then gaze remember the guy with the staff he couldn't heal the boy he's like wait a minute you should have accepted those gifts how do you let this aramean guy go so he catches up with him and he makes up a backstory he says my master told me to get you we have two young prophets here from the land of ephraim we need 75 pounds of silver and two sets of clothing okay i'll give you twice that so hazel takes it brings it back home and hides it elisha says where were you nowhere why don't you realize i was there with you in spirit and then he describes what happened and because you did this you're gonna get gahey's eyes leprosy and then when he left the house he now has leprosy now if you turn the page it seems kind of weird like this displaced little story and so this is why you do larger sections of text because it's not weird when you do it the right way the story of the floating axe head pay attention to details i've seen people teach and preach on this all by itself and they're going to miss what you're going to get today almost every time so now someone's going to be like i had a pastor preached on that and did it exactly the way you did it but anyway they took a chance there that's what you do so so anyway you turn the page and you get to the story and there's some prophets there elisha is back in the story he's there and they say well you know the place we're worshiping at it's too small we got to make a bigger one there's a lot of timber down by the jordan river logs trees we can cut them down make a bigger place come with us elijah says okay like says okay so then there's a prophet chopping the wood and axe head flies off the handle goes into the jordan river sinks down he freaks out it was a borrowed axe so he's gonna be in trouble elisha says where did it fall in he shows him where it fell and he gets a stick and he puts it in the water at that spot and the axe head floats up go grab it elisha says well that's weird and it just kind of goes immediately to another account that we'll see in a minute of elisha trapping the arameans what's that all about think about it where did naaman get healed the jordan river where did the axe head fall in the jordan river these two accounts are a pre-figure of baptism jesus got baptized where the jordan river so as we are burdened with sin we're heavy with sin so is the axe head yet even though we were really heavy with sin and burdened we still come up in baptism and we rise as a new creation that's the symbolism of baptism paul gives it the seed analogy we die and then rise in new creation and christ name it sick goes into the jordan comes up new creation it all goes together perfectly so now you have an account of elijah trapping the arameans and so now it's been hadad back in the account now it's it's very certain that it's him at this point and he's upset because they're warring with israel yet everywhere his army goes there's israel seems like they know where they're going to be then haydad gets really upset with his officers he thinks one of them's a traitor like who's the rat here you know i got to kill no it's elisha he knows everything the lord tells him everything he even knows what you say in your bedroom he's like well let's get him so he sends messengers out to find him he's in a town called dothan so they send out the army the armenians are surrounding the city there's a young man that says an assistant or servant to elisha he sees the army what are we gonna do he's like we have more on our side than they on theirs then he prays to the lord and he says open his eyes so the lord does and he sees chariots of fire on the hillside like the chariot of fire that divided elisha and elijah when he got taken up all goes together then he prays blind the arameans the lord does this blind army out there so elisha goes out and he says these aren't the droids you're looking for no they said they didn't have droids yet so he says no no the guy you're looking for is in another place let me lead you they can't see him right bald guy baldy remember so he leads them to samaria samaria is the capital city then he says open their eyes they see that they're surrounded in this sumerian city the king probably joram jehoram he said should i kill them father father he's like a priest should i kill him no we don't kill prisoners feed them and let them go back to their master so that's exactly what happens the king gives them a feast sends them on their way but here's the thing says there are no more raiding parties but ben haydad is all greedy second king 6 24 sometime later however king ben hayd out of abram mustered his entire army and besieged samaria not very grateful is he as a result there was great famine in the city the siege lasted so long that a donkey's head sold for 80 pieces of silver and a cup of dove's dung sold for five pieces of silver before you go outside and collect dove's dung or the bird poop from the ducks let me explain you're not going to get that much money for it the idea here is that like things that are normally worthless cost a lot of money because there's a great famine and when you're starving to death you'll eat a lot of things that you wouldn't normally eat include this so jorah jehoram he's walking along the wall of the city and a woman calls out to him help he says if the lord couldn't help you what can i do what do you want here's the deal another woman and i agreed to eat our children we agreed to eat our children we ate mine it says i cooked my kid first atem boys now it's her turn and she doesn't want to do it pause that's crazy right so we thought game of thrones was bad that's crazy so it goes back to what i was saying last week when we think about god oh he's so mean in the old testament no he's just and righteous and again read to the end it's the same god jesus is going to come back with the justice right so these are wicked evil people doing unimaginable things and so the king as wicked and evil as he is he tears his clothes again that's what they do don't do it and they notice he's wearing like sackcloth that's something you put on when you mourn or you repent right so he's already in this state gets really really angry and upset about it but here's the thing he blames elisha well may the lord strike me and kill me if this very day elijah doesn't lose his head so go find him second kings 6 32 elisha was sitting in his house with the elders of israel when the king sent a messenger to summon him but before the messenger arrived elisha said to the elders a murderer has sent a man to cut off my head when he arrives shut the door and keep him out we will soon hear his master's steps following him he'll be right behind him while elisha was still saying this the messenger arrived and the king said all this misery is from the lord why should i wait for the lord any longer now this is a really good example of an awkward chapter break there were not numbers in the originals i've told you guys this before because you gotta turn the page and it just continues second king seven one elisha replied listen to this message from the lord this is what the lord says by this time tomorrow in the markets of samaria six quarts of choice flour will cost only one piece of silver and 12 quarts of barley grain will cost only one piece of silver the officer assisting the king said to the man of god that couldn't happen even if the lord opened the windows of heaven but elisha replied you will see it happen with your own eyes but you won't be able to eat any of it remember that so here we get a story of gratitude and greed gratitude versus greed and this is where it's important keep reading because otherwise that doesn't make any sense hold on to what you just heard there are four lepers probably outside the town gate it says at the entrance to the city or at the gate probably outside the town that's where you put the lepers they would have to stay outside the camp and they're like you know what we're gonna starve to death anyway so let's just surrender to the arameans who are besieging samaria so all of this the women eating their kids this what happens with elijah all under the context of being besieged the city samaria under siege so let's just surrender okay so they get to the army in camp but there's just plunder everywhere there's stuff everywhere even like the donkeys and the horses are still tied up the tents are still up great so they begin to eat and drink says eat wine drink wine eat having a great time stash and silver and gold and stuff they're like this is wonderful but here's the interesting thing these lowly lepers go this isn't right we have to share something bad might happen to us if we don't so they go back to the town tell the gatekeepers the gatekeepers let people know the king wakes up in the middle of the night and he thinks it's a trap they're trying to get us to come out of the city when they do they're going to come in he doesn't want to do it he sends messengers they come back they verify the report yeah it's true so then all of a sudden the people start trampling out storming the place remember the officer that elisha said yeah you'll see it but you won't be able to eat any of it well then hey that says hey go do some traffic control you got to manage the situation here so he does but the people trample him fulfilling elisha's privacy so everything he said came true the officer being trampled and by this time tomorrow on the markets of samaria six courts of choice flour will cost one piece of silver and 12 quarts of barley grain will cost one piece of silver so i made another chart not the drawing right we went through this before if i knew how to draw he'd have bigger biceps so anyway almost the same colors today too that's kind of cool can i replicate that i might hurt myself anyway um so if you're not new here among us you know about the parallel accounts we're moving in parallel on some of these this is where it gets very very very complicated because there's a lot of stuff in second kings not in second chronicles so that's basically what it looks like it's in the app yeah it's in the app so we're only going to be doing about half-ish of this a little more than half of this but i want to acknowledge a couple things in these sections in second chronicles it's not in second kings it's kind of a confusing type of account because what's going to happen is elijah writes a letter to king joram or johar of judah now not of israel and you might be thinking wait a minute didn't he get taken up into heaven why did he come back into the story well a lot of people speculate and they'll say well it's kind of out of order isn't it and this that and the other thing they make a lot of excuses you don't have to you just have to have an understanding of what happens in the old testament and then what happens in the new testament and it's kind of easy to follow once you understand it being in the series you might understand it elijah was taken up he did not die remember the transfiguration that i was talking about maybe a couple weeks ago well who showed up elijah and moses and they're hanging out with jesus having a conversation so why can't elijah write a letter or dictate a letter from someone totally possible if we're believing this is true so that's a great possibility perhaps a letter from heaven so if you read that and you're confused that's there we are not going to address that what i want to do is we're going to stay in second kings right now we're only going to go about halfway through chapter 8 because here's what happens again the chapter numbers can just throw you off sometimes especially like we've discussed sermon on the mount 5 6 7 matthew it's one continuous stream when you go chapter 5 and you close it you're interrupting jesus you need to keep reading you walked out of his sermon so it kind of happens here you'll see a theme of greed if you go from one end to another exactly like we are so let's continue that focus gratitude and greed so if you remember the shunamite woman she will enter back into the account second kings 8 1 elisha had told the woman whose son he brought back to life take your family and move to some other place for the lord has called for a famine on israel that will last seven years so the woman did as the man of god instructed she took her family and settled in the land of the philistines for seven years so here's what happens we get a scene where geheza is back in it and he's with the king and the king is asking him about elisha he knows he hung out with him he's like tell me some of the things he did and geheza is telling him about this woman pause button a lot of people again with this account you've got to watch what you listen to on the internet they make up all kinds of excuses why was gehenza there will this happen before the leprosy you're not paying attention if you're speculating like that remember naaman he was what a commander of the armenian army right he was hanging out with ben haydad they had a conversation he had leprosy so kings do on occasion talk to lepers it happens so hazard could have leprosy here so he's telling him stories maybe at a distance right wear a couple masks i don't know whatever works for you and as he's telling him the story sure enough the shunamite woman walks in with the boy gazei stops there they are the one i'm telling the story about right now the king asked woman really she tells him the story and then all of her property is restored right you leave a place for seven years you might lose it plus all of the product that she would have lost by not doing it the proceeds from that gets it all back so that's a story of gratitude and obedience but it goes to the next one second kings 8 7 elisha went to damascus the capital of aram where king ben hadad lay sick when someone told the king that the man of god had come the king said to hazel take a gift to the man of god then tell him to ask the lord will i recover from this illness so haziel loaded down 40 camels with the finest products of damascus as a gift for elisha he went to him and said your servant ben hadad the king of abraham has sent me to ask will i recover from this illness and elisha replied go and tell him you won't surely recover but actually the lord has shown me that he'll surely die elisha stared at hazel with a fixed gaze until he become uneasy then the man of god started weeping elisha started weeping what's the matter hazel asked him i know the terrible things that you're going to do to israel you know burn down their fortified towns kill their young men dash their babies rip open their pregnant women hazel says how could a nobody like me ever do such great things evil people elisha answered the lord has shown me that you're going to be the king of aram so hazel goes back to king ben hayden and he says yeah you'll recover that's what he said but then the next day he gets a wet blanket puts it over ben hayden's face and kills him becoming the next king of haram greed so today we see a theme of greed woven throughout the accounts of the kings we also saw that people who were living humble lives or who had been humbled tended to be the ones that displayed more gratitude right who are generous with their things from the servant girl to the lepers even naaman who was a general but he had leprosy he was very generous he actually gave hazel twice as much stuff he had been humble he knew what it was like to be with nothing and then therefore less greedy more generous or to have this leprosy when we read the gospels we see that jesus even though he was the son of god came as a humble suffering servant lived a humble life and he was very generous even under temptation so if we're reading matthew chapter 4 luke chapter 4 we see just before it jesus is baptized in the jordan right we talked about that then after that chapter 4 chapter 4 we see that jesus is immediately impelled into the wilderness by the holy spirit 40 days to be tempted by satan he's tempted by the devil it says he's hungry i bet and so the devil uses that one first uses the weakness that is clear if you're the son of god turn that stone into bread no man doesn't live off of bread alone but every word that comes from the mouth of god it says in matthew luke every word of god passes the test now think about it he's in the wilderness it says when we're dealing with that region of the world it's not like the wilderness like we think of it with pine trees and maybe dumpster pandas right nothing like that nothing to eat it's like a desert it's horrible real scary awful place first temptation passes the test and in luke we'll go with luke chapter four so he takes him up to a high place takes him up and he shows him all the kingdoms of the world at once and says if you bow down and worship me i'll give all of this to you no we worship the lord god only that's it passes the test then he whisks him up to the pinnacle of the temple the highest point on the temple and he says if you're the son of god jump off you won't even dash your foot on a stone psalm 91. no you don't put the lord god to the test so we see that jesus is completely selfless he's above temptation he's above greed if we look at philippians we did a whole series on it i love philippians it's like a theological thank you note what a beautiful letter from paul to the church in philippi and he's thanking them for this gift that they get he's in prison right so he's very humble he's in prison still with joy in jesus very grateful he's in philippi thanks for sending epaphroditus with the gift guys and keep it up continue being generous be like epaphroditus almost died getting me that gift and then getting the letter back to you be like timothy no one else like him he's great why because they're all being like jesus and kind of at the center-ish of the letter you have a really beautiful poem the carmen christie it's totally beautiful it's about jesus so everything radiates out of this beautiful theological poem wonderful wonderful letter it's letter gratitude and it says this just before this poem philippians 2 3 don't be selfish don't try to impress others be humble thinking of others as better than yourselves don't look out only for your own interest but take an interest in others too you must have the same attitude that christ jesus had who existing in the form of god did not regard equality with god as something to be taken advantage of instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a slave taking on the likeness of man and when he had come as a man in his external form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even to death on a cross for that reason god highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name so that every knee will bend those were in heaven and on earth and below the earth and every tongue should confess that jesus christ is the lord as lord to the glory of god the father amen beautiful amazing he's selfless to the point of death on a cross that's our king ephesians 5 1. imitate god therefore in everything you do because you are his dear children live a life filled with love following the example of christ he loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us a pleasing aroma to god let there be no sexual immorality impurity or greed among you such sins have no place among god's people obscene stories foolish talk and coarse jokes these are not for you instead let there be thankfulness to god you can be sure that no immoral and pure or greedy person will inherit the kingdom of christ and of god for a greedy person is an idolater worshiping the things of this world when we get to passages like this i believe that some people like to focus on one particular sin over another and perhaps deflect what they're guilty of but if we get that back up on the screen again if it's all in one shot did you notice how many times it says greed three what about the sexual immorality right that's what a lot of christians like to pick on especially when it says homosexuality not that it's a good thing that one all right we're going to pick it against that one that's what we're going to choose to do right this weekend but is the picketer greedy so if paul says it three times which one's worse if we're going to make a worse or better i'd say the greed idolater worshiping the things of the world amazing people are really incredible aren't they going to make one worse don't look at me look at that other person over there now some of you may be convicted by this i get convicted by this hi my name is gene i tend to be greedy trying to fix it with god's help and here's the thing a lot of people especially nowadays are hoarding a lot of stuff out of fear maybe they're waiting for the siege to come fear it's unbelievable unbelievable what the world has convinced us of and so out of fear i see people hoarding stuff holding back just in case that's not what the word of god says we should be doing we should be living in faith generosity doesn't stop because we're convinced that there's something crazy going on in the world did you did you see the thing about eating the kids it's always been crazy but jesus doesn't say you know it's crazy right now just hold back some stuff and i'm not talking about saving for like a home improvement project or something response i do that but actually within the midst of that i can share with you a miracle when it all comes to fruition and i got the whole story i'm going to share it because i was saving for a project and god looks like he's going to just fix it free amazing amazing so i'm not talking about being responsible or saving for your kids college whatever it is saving up to buy cars you don't have a payment fine you know what i'm talking about talking about fear hoarding so maybe that's convicting others maybe like the lepers maybe you're sharing it maybe you've come from humble experiences and circumstances and so you're just trying to be as generous as possible maybe you're saying that's not me maybe you're saying i tithe even maybe maybe you're like the pharisee in luke 18. look it up so maybe you're like jesus right you're completely selfless that's great free from all temptation and excess but let's keep reading if we keep reading in luke 4. let's take a look here at how all this comes full circle luke 4. i'll give lonnie a minute luke chapter 4 so remember the temptations of jesus immediately following that jesus is in his own hometown they don't accept him here the prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown he's a handed the isaiah scroll he's going to read some scripture he's going to get up and read scripture for everyone in church or the synagogue isaiah 61 but it's right here in luke luke 14 18 the spirit of the lord is upon me for his anointed me to bring good news to the poor he has sent me to proclaim the captives will be released that the blind will see that the oppressed will be set free and that the time of the lord's favor has come really interesting it is isaiah 61 1-2 but it's the greek version not the hebrew version but jesus says this scripture has been fulfilled right now like how can this be isn't this joseph's son like he's a local kid what it's crazy so jesus says luke 4 23 then he said you will undoubtedly quote me this proverb physician heal yourself meaning do miracles here in your own hometown like those you did in capernaum but i tell you the truth no prophet is accepted in his own hometown certainly there will be many needy widow there were many needy widows in israel in elijah's time when the heavens were closed for three and a half years and a severe famine devastated the land yet elijah was not sent to any of them he was sent instead to a foreigner a gentile a widow of zarephath in the land of sidon and many in israel had leprosy in the time of the prophet elisha here it is but the only one healed was naaman assyrian when they heard this the people and the synagogue were furious jumping up they mobbed him and forced him to the edge of a hill on which the town was built they intended to push him over the cliff but jesus passed right through the crowd and went on his way whoo it all came together there didn't it amazing when you have the whole thing in mind god's word's incredible i get excited about it and i'm not going to apologize for that so here's the point greed hell the jewish people were being greedy with god any time from jesus all the way to paul and acts when they start talking about salvation to the jewish people going to the gentiles they go nuts that's when they want to kill him that's when they want to push jesus over that's the one they want to stone paul gentiles can't have god even though the prophets say so that's what jesus says yeah they can you see unlike elijah who served the widowed zaraphat the gentile woman right unlike the servant girl who led naaman think about it to salvation he then worships god now i know there's no god except in israel sorry if i left that up he comes to god he brings him to salvation now you may have said i'm not greedy pastor gene you're wrong how might we be hoarding that gift we talked about last week talked about receiving and accepting this gift of grace from god that we are saved by how many went cool i'm set it's convicting shouldn't we be sharing it this is the worst day to ask this question so forgive me it's in the sermon notes and i didn't think of this but when's the last time you brought someone to church i you would not do that on daylight spring forward hey come to me to church with me that's a great way to aggravate someone right it's early you see here's the thing there's nothing new under the sun i can promise you that and if you read your bible god's telling you that in these accounts he's telling you that if there's one thing that's clear it has always been crazy correct right especially in this country we kind of have it easy nobody's needing to eat their children okay you know like one person in some remote place nebraska or something if you're from nebraska i'm sorry i just picked the place but anyway right it's not happening a lot i don't hear about that a lot and if it is it's like never this comes up a lot cannibalism a lot you'd be amazed start reading it you're going to read it a lot it's not funny but it's crazy they do it a lot it's always been crazy but here's the difference now this is what i think this is my observation never at any time have we had all the craziness right there in the palm of our own our hands right i don't remember that as a kid not that old but as a kid in the 80s right you got a tune out in the news it only comes on a certain time right and at night time it goes off right they do the american anthem or something it's like you know with all the color lines and that's it so you can't just like go like binge watch the news in the middle of the night they probably had it right go to bed right was it like the star-spangled banner they play at night and that's it go to bed go to bed right we'd be waiting saturday morning watching the color thing like come on come on then the cartoons would come on and you'd watch cartoons nobody watched the news on saturday morning are you crazy why would you watch the news on saturday morning why would you want to aggravate yourself that much wow no all the time we got all our sins in there don't we including the news they're all in there people are totally addicted to it that's new that's new i've never seen that before so for christians what are we thinking right we got to get our stuff straight we do we have to just turn it off turn it off get one of those things put it on the thing make it do that all night i don't know turn it off turn it off on saturdays turn it off right then once we develop a good discipline we need to start encouraging others and here's the thing it's the fear mongering the fear monk we should fear the lord yes been through this but none of this other stuff we should be out there offering an alternative we've got one here so the world fear anger right fear anger everything's angry divide get you nuts about everything all riled up gosh this is what they're feeding you there's worse things in other places in the world it's just what they're feeding you to get you all riled up but we have an altar so we should be saying calm down i got a place you can come with me maybe sunday morning you're going to meet a lot of people who are filled with joy because they know jesus don't worry about that stuff jesus is going to come back and he's going to take care of all of this that's it it's joy we preach the opposite message anger and fear over here that's fruit of the flesh it's not of god it says it read galatians again love joy peace patience kindness self-control that's us there's the alternative come with me if you want to live right so seriously though like literally come with me experience joy experience jesus that's what we have here consistency hope so if we have gratitude for the grace of god we should be generous with it that's what we're here to do worship him and then bring more people into the fold share this life of joy so consider it let's go out this week and be vessels of joy and hope and peace and all the things that christians are supposed to be leave the justice to jesus he'll take care of it and that should be a calming thing for us right he's got it it's okay remember read the old testament it's always been crazy calm down so bring more people in and share it we need to share our message with people the word not the world amen let me pray for you but i thank you for everyone who inconvenienced themselves to so greatly to come here today and we pray for those who did not and we know there are other circumstances people are going through things there are people who are ill and we pray for their illnesses we pray that they get better there are people who are living in fear and we pray for them too to really come to know jesus to come into a full understanding maybe they need to surrender to really receive your holy spirit so they can have peace love joy patience that self-control that only you only you lord can bring i pray for everyone watching online they'll be motivated to come back into the unity of the holy spirit into the body instead of a substitute but until then we're with them we love them we're being patient with them most of all lord i just pray that you make us vehicles of your holy spirit of your love of your patience of your kindness and we just radiate that out let us be generous with all the fruit you have provided us with i ask these things in jesus name amen you