There's Nothing New Under the Sun
This week, Pastor Gene finished up our walk through Ecclesiastes as we looked at some other works attributed to Solomon, and how there's nothing new under the sun.
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good morning welcome if you're new here among us my name is gene i serve here at c3 church as your lead pastor and i have kind of a little pre-announcement kind of special today it's not what you think it's special to me so i told you about the turkeys right and we found them found a whole bunch of turkeys for thanksgiving so there was no need to panic we didn't need to have fear about not being able to get a turkey and here's what happens in my household my wife's turkey is so good and so guys learn something here it's so good that i have to have it every thanksgiving it's not thanksgiving if i don't have her turkey the way she does it it's very important to me so if i go to your house let's say for thanksgiving and i eat your turkey a redo has nothing to do with you it's not about you maybe you made a good turkey she just makes it a certain very special way and the stuffing is really really good so we did that yesterday and we had a whole bunch of extra i had a hard time buttoning my shirt today but there's a whole bunch of extra it's upstairs so after the service we normally have fellowship we break bread but you gotta try this turkey they were eating it yesterday with no gravy that's how like soft it was yeah we're going to talk about edible birds today too which is going to be interesting i'll get there and then you'll go oh that's what he's doing with that but not right away so i wonder speaking of highly edible birds if you remember the story of chicken little remember that story not like the new disney version but like the original version or like maybe it was grimm's fairy tales i looked it up because it came to mind during this message during the week and i said let me look up the story maybe i'll tell it it was really difficult because there are many different versions of that story and the farther back you go the more violent it gets it seems which is kind of interesting so i'm going to tell you a cross-section of that story the basics the basics are this you have henny penny and she's in the yard and an acorn drops on her head presumably from a tree but henny penny just jumps to conclusions automatically assumes that the sky is falling the world is going to end so she sets out to tell the king another point of arrogance here she knows so much she's got to inform the king so she sets out and on her way she runs in a ducky lucky what's going on the sky's falling the earth is going to end we got to go tell the king well ducky lucky is gullible so yeah we do falls for it so now you have henny penny and ducky lucky going to tell the king that the world is going to end they run into goosey lucy what's up world's going to end sky is falling we got to tell the king yeah let's go goosey loosey's gullible too so now you have henny penny ducky lucky and goosey lucy going to see the king tell him that the sky is falling they run into turkey lurky also very gullible wow what's going on we gotta tell the king handy penny ducky lucky lucy and turkey lurkey now are going to see the king the sky is falling well they run into foxy loxy foxy loxy has two things not in common with the four highly edible birds foxy loxie's not a bird he's not gullible he doesn't fall for it he sees an opportunity here so he says oh i know where the king is let me show you now depending on what version it changes in the milder versions it's just turkey lurkey who goes in i guess it's thanksgiving and gets killed turkey lurkey gets it and they all run away in other versions the other three birds they die they get gobbled up and what's funny is henny penny actually gets away and forgets about the whole thing interesting so the one who started it all came to assumptions got everybody riled up is the only one who gets away and forgets all about it doesn't even tell the king so in this story we learn a lesson about the dangers of listening to and being led by the wrong leaders we're going to talk about that today so we're in the rest of the story we looked at ecclesiastes when we saw that there was about two main themes we looked at one theme all is vanity all is vanity habel like abel it's all smoke goes away anyway so fear god that was the important takeaway we looked at that teaching about fear in the bible if you didn't watch it or weren't here go watch it it's an example of a very very common false teaching spread by even very famous teachers the bible does not say fear not 365 times a fraction of that it says fear the lord way more we look at the importance of that and how it can keep us from sin fear of the lord so today we're going to look at the other side of the coin what not to fear we saw a little bit of it in jesus's teaching but i'm going to take you to more teachings about it what not to fear and what not to get riled up about that's what we're going to look at today first let's go back to ecclesiastes and get the other main theme ecclesiastes 1 9 history merely repeats itself it has all been done before nothing new is under the sun or there's nothing new under the sun and whatever i have my own version you get the point that's an nlt there we have been looking at wisdom literature proverbs ecclesiastes both attributed to solomon but some scholars argued that ecclesiastes was not written by him it's often attributed to him but he's not exactly named in that book like he is in others so if we go to the very next book of the bible song of songs or song of solomon we see that he is mentioned in that book now to summarize briefly we're not going to go there today we're going to concentrate on something you didn't expect but it's like love poetry eight chapters a female voice and a male voice going back and forth gets kind of interesting check it out in your spare time it's an easy read it's kind of short he's mentioned there but scholars say no i don't think he wrote it and so depending on what copy of the bible you have it'll say song of solomon and some will say song of songs so there's some debate about this now if you're on the side that solomon didn't write it then you're calling this pseudopographical it's fun to say it just means that it's attributed it's a book attributed to someone who didn't write it a lot of people don't understand this shouldn't scare you because this is very common in ancient literature people would do it in the voice of someone or the inspiration of someone very very common back then i'm going to show you some things here so most scholars today believe that song of songs and ecclesiastes are in that category now what a lot of people don't know is that we see this in the new testament as well it gets interesting so we're going to do show and tell today and we'll pull up a pic of hebrews is that the next one we got yeah but this is the special thing now i was going to bring in all my bibles but my wife wouldn't let me and then i thought well what if i pass them around and one of you picks your nose and touches my bible ew yeah that would be you you have so anyway this is much lighter than bringing in the boxes of bibles and you can all see it very easily so this is from a 1526 tyndale bible it's not original it's like a photocopy type thing but you'll notice something here and it may be different from your bible this is from paul to the hebrews that's interesting most modern bibles don't say that why well may have been pseudographical back in the day it's attributed to paul some think ah somebody else writing down one of paul's sermons but if you're very familiar with paul's letters and you read them a lot it reads very very differently and it doesn't have any of his signatures normally he signs at the beginning of the letter paul an apostle or slave of christ jesus appointed by the will of god not by men right none of that is there he also often signs off at the end of the letter doesn't do that there either it lacks some of the phrases he very very commonly uses none of them are there either so after a while scholars are like yeah let's not add that paul thing in there also a lot of people don't know that these headers are not in the originals they don't exist so it's really not that important this is someone adding something to the text and giving you an idea that paul wrote it but it's very very very common now this is interesting tyndale bible is the first copy from the greek or translation from the greek into the english language or the english language we would recognize why cliff or wycliffe was in the late 1300s technically the first but that comes from latin and it is middle english it's very very hard to read so that's what you're looking at there kind of ornate and beautiful first english non-authorized translation got him in a little bit of trouble he got killed actually for doing it long story we can discuss that at bible study now as far as solomon is concerned we're going to look at other books attributed to him today same way ecclesiastes is no it's worth mentioning here psalm 72 is attributed to him but the early church had a book we still have it today psalms of solomon clearly attributed to him and i'll explain why it's not there today or i'll tell you that it's not there today but today we'll be looking at two different books that you may not have in your bible you may depending on how old it is or other things sirac and wisdom of solomon a lot of christians don't know what those books are but these fall into a totally different category today than they did in the early church this is really interesting stuff so we're looking at the rest of the story in the series and we've noticed that there are parts of the story that have been redacted and taken out whether it's just in church they just don't say certain things they leave things out but there are also whole books of the bible that have been redacted by scholars so they don't realize and here's a table of contents i want to show you something here it's a little hard to read but i'll give you the basic gist and you can look at it online later if you're over there i have to do it backwards from what i can see here that is the bible of the early church give or take a few books here and there depending on where you're at all right so those are the books you're reading from and they did for the first 300-ish years so about 405 until a fellow named jerome came along and he decided ooh i want to make a copy in latin so that was all in greek i want to do it in latin people are speaking latin now so then middle column around 405 that's the latin bible it gets a little bit shorter but that is the authorized version of the church i want you to understand something this is before denominations in 405. you don't have them yet it doesn't happen until the big split great schism in 1054 the orthodox and catholic church split off and then you have all these other branches later on way before so these are the books that they're reading from and this goes all the way into the mid-1800s the king james contains all of these books and if you're saying mine doesn't you got the redacted one the original the 1611 king james has all of them in there including to up until the mid 1800s or so then modern scholarship comes along and says now we're going to take a bunch out and that's our bible over there or most of us so we'll get into that at bible study a little more but i want you to understand this because a lot of people rail against reading from any of those extra books but think think that's what we do here at c3 think for the first 1800 years of christianity the majority of it they're reading from those books think so it's only the last like 100 150 years have they decided nah we're not going to read from them anymore so they got it wrong and all of a sudden we got it right by the way this is the old testament this is the old testament so it's not the new testament the new testament all these bibles looks pretty much the same so today i want to concentrate on two of those redacted books sirach first first i want to do something interesting a little more show-and-tell just to show you i will show you what i'm saying don't believe me check it out for yourself we're going to look at a 16-11 king james that's my 16-11 king james i didn't write in red in it i just wanted to point that out that is a reference if you have references in your bible what it's doing is it's pointing to other places in the bible that that author is probably thinking about referencing or directly quoting if we zoom in we see that right there in romans that was romans it's saying this is a reference to the book of wisdom qualifies it kind of interesting if we keep going this is even more interesting that is a 1560 geneva bible oh yes there's an english version way before the king james this is the bible this is wisdom in that bible this is the bible that the puritans came over on the mayflower with they didn't like the king james because they felt well he was kind of arrogant think about it you name a bible after yourself i like the king jesus version better right so and they had problems because they felt he wasn't authorized to do it should have went through parliament and all that stuff 1560 geneva and here you can see in wisdom of solomon it has reference going back to books like romans or forward to books like romans and wisdom and we're going to take a look at today first we'll look at sirac and so i think that's going to be the next thing there you go this is interesting we're going to keep that up this is in very interesting a 1536 matthews bible 1537. it's a little harder to read it's going back further and further to get closer to that middle english period so sirac is also called ecclesiasticus you know here's what's really interesting i'll give you a little bit more we're going to do a little teaching today but then i'll get to the preaching this is really interesting there's a council of hippo hungry hungry hippos this place in northern africa in 393 a.d and that is where they came up with the canon of scripture really one of the first times and so all these books including ben sierra sirach are listed and here's the interesting thing at this council they didn't delineate and call them what some bibles will today apocrypha or deutero canonical which is like second scripture they did not delineate they verified this book as scripture in the early church i didn't make it up this is what happens look up that council of hippo so it's very very important because it shows us what the very very early church considered scripture that's what they thought of it as now they also validated this book a second time i believe it's the council of carthage in 397 so it's really validated everywhere all around christianity super interesting along with wisdom of solomon and remember this is before any of the denominational divisions that we have today it's just christianity in its purest form they're all basically on the same page here now it's also worth noting is why i kept it up if you have good eyesight you see the word jesus there that's kind of interesting because that's the guy's name his grandfather's name that he's translating from ben sirak jesus ben sira so like jesus the son of sirach so not the same jesus not the jesus god so basically the book starts with a prologue that's what you're seeing there and he's talking about like we talked about in the series the difficulty of making translations from one language to another but the main theme here it's 51 chapters is fear god it's huge it's just the theme of the book really and it ends with this prayer of thanks but for the most part it's walking in his commands leads up fear god then yeah walk in his commands good idea and that pretty much summarizes it a good summary verse actually syriac 34 14 fear the lord and you'll have nothing else to fear if your trust is in him you'll never act like a coward like kenny penny right so today i want to focus on wisdom i'm going to give you a little survey a tour of wisdom and then we'll we'll get to my point here now it's worth noting that many early church fathers saint augustine included quoted from this book regarded it as scripture interesting and we're gonna see today so did paul probably in the new testament i'll show you some verses so there are three main sections and if we look within them we see this wisdom one one love righteousness you rulers of the earth think of the lord in goodness and seek him with sincerity of heart because he is found by those who do not put him to the test and manifests himself to those who do not distrust him for perverse thoughts separate people from god and when his power is tested it exposes the foolish because wisdom will not enter a deceitful soul or dwell in a body enslaved to sin sounds kind of familiar to a lot of other scriptures or if you don't believe they are other parts of the bible that we read worth noting that we see some in chapter one some verses that are really similar and in some of these older bibles they're saying that they're quoting it when the people mock jesus on the cross so he's talking about how fools think it highlights chapter two how the evil people see the godly that's what's going on there when jesus is on the cross chapters three four and five hope for the godly verses peril for the ungodly chapter four sounds just like isaiah 57 1-2 it explains why these innocent people die young what's going on here so it gives us that same frame of references chapter six instructions to kings and rulers you're going to be judged more harshly by god for what you do and that sounds a lot like james 3 1 dear brothers and sisters not many of you should become teachers in the church for we who teach will be judged more strictly they're being judged again we talked about that topic too this is going to christians christian teachers so a lot of people don't realize that there are a lot of references to this book and oftentimes it'll sound just like james james is probably quoting from it or has it in mind it will sound a lot like jesus jesus uses a lot of this or probably has it in mind then wisdom is personified as a wood as a woman now this sounds just like proverbs 8. i'll read some of it to you wisdom 612 wisdom is radiant and unfading and she is easily discerned by those who love her and is found by those who seek her she hastens to make herself known to those who desire her one who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty for she will be found sitting at the gate if you read proverbs a lot that sounds familiar chapter 7 and 8 it's about it's king solomon's love for wisdom again personified as a woman he prays for women interestingly he also calls the temple that he built a copy of the heavenly tent sounds exactly like hebrews 8 5. then towards the end 10 through 19 it's wisdom found from adam to moses from genesis to exodus special points on denouncing idol worship anything other than god or specifically making these idols and praying to them like they did back then now on idol worship i want to read something to you and to those of you who read the new testament a lot i want you to try to think of what it sounds like what does this remind me of now as we read it and keep in mind this is an rsv it's at a much higher reading level so i don't use it on a sunday all right so they didn't have like a easy to read version of these things so it's going to be technically different because you're looking at different translations and i just want you to look at the broad point if you know your new testament especially paul give you a hint really well it should bring something to mind wisdom 3 1 for all people who were ignorant of god were foolish by nature and they were unable from the good things that are seen to know the one who exists nor do they recognize the artisan while paying heed to his works but they suppose that either fire or wind or swift air or the circle of the stars or turbulent water or the luminaries of heaven were gods that ruled the world if through delight in the beauty of these things people assumed them to be gods let them know how much better than these is their lord for the author of beauty created them and if people were amazed at their power and working let them perceive from them how much more powerful is the one who formed them for from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their creator so the truth about god should be obvious by the observation of his creation remind you of anything yeah you got it check this out romans 1 18 but god shows his anger from heaven against all sinful wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness now they know the truth about god because he has made it obvious to them forever since the world was created people have seen the earth in the sky through everything god made they can clearly see his invisible qualities his eternal power and divine nature so they have no excuse for not knowing god yes they knew god but they wouldn't worship him as god or even give him thanks and they began to think up foolish ideas of what god was like as a result their minds became dark and confused claiming to be wise they instead became utter fools so paul here probably has wisdom in mind or maybe quoting a little bit of it and this is why the older bibles reference him there it is so in romans they're saying reference this is what paul is referencing interesting that's not in our bibles anymore but it was then so they had this understanding about it if we keep reading we're going to see some more similarities so i'll go the other way romans 1 23 and instead of worshiping the glorious ever living god they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles so god abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired as a result they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies and instead of worshiping the glorious ever living god they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles so god abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired as a result they did violent degrading things with each other's bodies they traded the truth about god for a lie so they worshiped and served the things god created instead of the creator himself who is worthy of eternal praise amen now if we go back and hop around wisdom a bit and we put it together here's what happens wisdom 11 15 in return for their foolish and wicked thoughts which lead them astray to worship irrational serpents and worthless animals you sent upon them a multitude of irrational creatures to punish them wisdom 12 27. for when in their suffering they became incensed that those creatures that they had thought to be gods being punished by means of them they saw and recognized as the true god the one that whom they had before refused to know told you a little harder to read therefore the utmost condemnation came upon them hop to wisdom 14 12 for the idea of making idols was the beginning of fornication and the invention of them was the corruption of life paul continues in romans romans 1 26 that is why god abandoned them to their shameful desires even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulge with sex with each other and the men instead of having normal sexual relations with women burn with lust for each other men did shameful things with other men and as a result of this sin they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved since they thought it was foolish to acknowledge god he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done their lives became full of every kind of wickedness sin greed hate envy murder quarreling deception malicious behavior and gossip they are backstabbers haters of god insolent proud and boastful they invent new ways of sinning and they disobey their parents they refuse to understand break their promises are heartless have no mercy they know god's justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die yet they do them anyway worse yet they encourage others to do them too does that remind you of anything today reminds me of today every time i read it i want you to think again with me we're going to do some thinking it's going to hurt a little bit but that's okay think paul is writing this 2 000-ish years ago about things that happened 2 000 years before him past tense but it sounds like he's talking about today why because there is nothing new under the sun ecclesiastes 1 9 history merely repeats itself it has all been done before nothing under the sun is truly new sometimes people say here's something new but actually it is old nothing is ever truly new we don't remember what happened in the past and in future generations no one will remember what we are doing now talking about behaviors let's be clear about that because right we have laptops they're new not talking about that what we do what human nature is all about so again the bible tells us there's nothing new under the sun about our human nature what people are doing what people are doing to each other to themselves not new we learn this from the word of god history simply repeats itself and here's the problem if we're christians we should know this it's all over the bible the point is made and if you know the bible well you know the old testament i mean we're reading through it together you're seeing it it's crazy some of the stuff happening in there is nuts if we're being honest crazy yet here's the problem so many people calling themselves christians are fear-mongers they're fear-mongers it's unbelievable trying to get everybody all riled up yes we should fear god but they're not saying that i can't remember the last time i saw that posted on the internet fear god that's the meme that's it no what so it's interesting but they're posting all these things getting people all like the turkeys and me right watching the news and i'm worried i can't even get a turkey so my wife proves it to me buys like 10. that's unbelievable fear-mongering like chicken little prideful gossips assuming that they can even inform our king yet our king has told us exactly what he's going to do we know what's going to happen we know justice will be done jesus is the justice that's it but yet they say what are we going to do read your bible love everybody and wait for jesus to come back and take care of everything else pretty simple i saw an uh internet modern adaptation of the chicken little story it was pretty good now in this one danny penny has a laptop what happens is reading the laptop reads a news story that tells her the sky is falling the world's going to end sky's falling so same sequence happens not going to go through the names again it's kind of hard but same sequence ends up happening in this version i was surprised because the modern version i was like they went there they all get gobbled up they all get gobbled up it's going to get canceled watch but they all get gobbled up and then it cuts away when you turn the page to foxy lock locksie sitting against a tree got a big old belly he's got all those birds in there he has a laptop on his lap and he says i got him they fell for it interesting you see those spreading all these rumors and speculations with this fear trying to get you all riled up they're predators they're predators and the people continuing the gossip the other birds spreading it around they're working for those predators there's nothing true except what's in here that's the only thing you should be spreading fear they're afraid they're afraid no anger it's just a symptom of fear they're afraid and they want to drag you down with them they want to steal your joy can't let them do that so just to be clear we are to fear the lord let's look at jesus here let's but pay attention now in this light to the verses we looked at him last week for your god but look at him the other way now luke 12 4 dear friends don't don't be afraid of those who want to kill your body they cannot do any more to you after that but i'll tell you whom to fear fear god who has the power to kill you and then throw you into hell yes he's the one to fear not these people and all this stuff that's been going on forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever no stop and stop getting everybody riled up about it because here's the thing and it's a question we have to ask ourselves don't answer just think do i believe this do i believe in god sounds kind of funny right like of course no i i'm a pastor i'm going to tell you something that's not of course i know a lot of people they don't believe it they've been coming to church their whole lives and they don't really believe it really believe it i can tell what you do says more about what you believe than anything you can ever say i can tell by what people are doing what they really believe because if you have fear of the lord that's scary i know like the nanny cam i know he can see me all the time and if i believe that that's really going to change everything it's also going to change my response to these fools running around fear-mongering whatever what are we gonna do love people go die and be with jesus like the apostles the disciples everybody before us the saints what do you think they did what was their response like thomas says we're going to go and die with jesus before he goes to jerusalem so if you believe it though don't you trust him don't you trust in his word he's got it not us we don't got anything if you trust him i'll just obey his commands i don't know how many times i say if you love me it's oliver john if you love me you will obey my commands if you don't obey my commands be afraid i want to give you context i've done this before recently first peter we read it all the way through a bible study five chapters not a big commitment took maybe a half hour but there were a lot of lifelong christians in the room who were like it says that yeah it says that this is the context first peter written to christians under heavy persecution nero was around that time the emperor we know about nero probably really more second peter but because of what first peter says we get a clue they are literally being burned alive burned alive they're not using like religious exemptions to get out of doing things they're using it to get into things like fire they're not denying christ whole families women children babies everybody what are we going to do first peter 4 12. dear friends don't be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through as if something strange were happening to you instead be very glad as if something strange very glad for these trials make you partners with christ in suffering these trials are making you more like him because that's what he did he died on a cross so yeah you should expect that too jesus says that too deny yourself pick up your cross then follow me they're prerequisites be ready there's no bait and switch going on here so that you will have wonderful joy the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world so what if we're all getting burned alive right oh my pastor gene they burned my family well they're going to get a crown of righteousness for that and because they were martyred they're going to get to raise with jesus first and reign with him for the first thousand years that's what it says and so you did heather noted a song or about a lot of the history of the early martyrs polycarp all these people well you're martyred it's like they're having like a death contest yeah they're writing back and forth about these guys he died a glorious death for christ it was glorious the joy awaiting us in heaven don't let the world steal that joy even unto death that's what this says no matter how bad things seem and here's the thing satan second corinthians 4 4 is the god of this world that's what it says satan's the ruler of this world he's a liar and he's a thief and you cannot let him steal your joy mention hebrews earlier i want to give you some context i went through it a few times over the past maybe a few months but it's good to know so hebrews we don't know who wrote it it's probably a sermon it reads like that so when you read hebrews i know it's 13 chapters you really should read it all the way through you should also be familiar with the old testament so basically what's happening here is you have jewish christians jewish christians right so at first it's a jewish sect jesus and all the apostles jewish well they decide to believe in jesus and they start getting persecuted for it so the whole point of hebrews if you want to summarize it jesus is superior to all of the old testament things he's the fulfillment of all these things the jewish people used to do he's fulfilled it he's replaced it that's it it's all about jesus so don't go away don't go back to judaism stay in christianity i want you to think about this for a second modernize this in your mind let's say that's you hebrews 10 32 think back to those early days when you first learned about christ remember how you remained faithful even though it meant terrible suffering sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule somebody made fun of you on the net and you were beaten and sometimes you helped others who were also suffering the same things you suffered along with those who were thrown into jail and when all you owned was taken from you you accepted it with joy read that again i checked the greek too it's pretty accurate it's an nlt but it's where they kind of nail it it's that our pogman word it actually if you know greek it should make you think of the action of adam stealing from the cross thought it not robbery also in philippians chapter 2 that word is used so it's it's robbery when they robbed from you so it actually the connotation in the greek is even better because it's unjust it's robbery they took your stuff doesn't belong to them and he took it all of it all your stuff and you accepted it with joy but it sounds like jesus doesn't it if someone sues you for what your shirt give him your coat sounds just like jesus it's consistent here you accepted it with joy why you knew there are better things waiting for you that will last forever i hear what are we going to do gene what are we going to do well christians christians the word of god applies to us christians if you get all your stuff taken away except to enjoy because you know what's waiting for you i'm just reading the word of god that's it unfortunately it doesn't sound normal right you won't hear that in church a lot on sunday been a christian for a while now i've never heard that verse in church that's sad because it gives us the key to enduring in our suffering keep your mind on jesus that's the key so there's the word versus the world and you can't let the world get you hyped up these people are working for the world who's the god of the world they're trying to get you to forget about your joyful anticipation in christ that's everything that's it that's it none of the other stuff should be important if we're truly in christ the more in the word i am the more time i spend with jesus the more time i'm in prayer the less and less unless i care about my stuff i got it in perspective not perfect not perfect i care about my family but the key is i'm not worshiping it my joy is in jesus so real quickly how do we tell who belongs to the word or the world well what you do says everything about what you believe we judge a tree by its true fruit galatians 5 19 when you follow the desires of your sinful nature the results are very clear sexual immorality impurity lustful pleasures idolatry sorcery but listen to this hostility quarreling jealousy outbursts of anger selfish ambition dissension division nobody talks about that envy drunkenness wild parties and other sins like these let me tell you again as i have before that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of god what this is the word of god here i did not make this up so let's just take the ones that we do and then not point at the ones that we point other people for doing and put them on an even playing field like it does right here in the word of god it doesn't say first right the sexually immoral people they're going to hell first they're worse it does not say that so those quarreling creating division i would add in the church anything like that outbursts of anger anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of god but check this out the holy spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and another one we don't like self-control peace love joy that's what's important this tells us who we should be listening to and who we should not be listening to so if someone is coming at you with anger in a divisive tone who cares about stuff like that get behind me satan get behind me i'm not going to let you steal my joy jesus is able he is more powerful he's at the top of my priority list and clearly at the bottom of yours so get behind me satan done with it turn it off real quick how do we do this though some people like gene that's really hard well i told you colossians 3 starting at verse 1 says we should have our minds always not like some of the time on sunday always fixed on jesus always fixed on heavenly things so perspective we get some tools god gives us tools i want to go back to wisdom really quick tell me if this sounds like something and then we'll close wisdom 5 15 but the righteous live forever and their reward is with the lord the most high takes care of them therefore they will receive a glorious crown and a beautiful diadem from the hand of the lord like a crown with jewels on it because with his right hand he will cover them and with his right arm he will shield them the lord will take his zeal and his whole armor and will arm all creation to repel his enemies he will put on righteousness as a breastplate and wear impartial justice as a helmet he will take holiness as an invincible shield and sharpen stern wrath for a sword and creation will join with him to fight against his frenzied foes that one's too easy the armor of god all variations paul's talking about fighting spiritual battles spiritual battles nothing but fighting ephesians 6 13 therefore put on every piece of god's armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil then after the battle you will still be standing firm stand your ground putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of god's righteousness for shoes put on the peace that comes from the good news so that you will be fully prepared in addition to all these hold up the shield of shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil put on salvation as your helmet and take the sword of the spirit which is the word of god that's how the armor of god helps us guard the fruit of the spirit guards our love guards our joy guards our peace our kindness our goodness our self-control only jesus can bring true joy let me pray for you lord i pray for everyone who came in here today fill them with your holy spirit completely convince them that your word is true jesus is coming back and he's going to take care of everything put on the armor of god protect against all these schemes of the devil lord protect this flock be with this flag bring them peace bring them joy this week show them your love so that they can extend it to others i ask this in jesus name amen so you