When It's OKAY to Walk Away Sermon

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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 you want to know how to tell if somebody's really your friend go to a restaurant with them and then like just you know get a salad put like a piece of the lettuce on your tooth right just like leave it there for a while if they don't say anything they're not your friend you ever do that i've gone to the bathroom and i'm like really so you like leave it there go back to the table nobody this was your job like this is in the friendship pd position description you're supposed to look out for each other right so if there's ever something wrong you see something like toilet paper on my shoe something like that look you got to say something or go to heather like trust me she has absolutely no problem telling me what to do and people love that too she comes to bible study we have a good time so we've been in the rest of the story and this is where we're looking to the full counsel of god's word all of it and we've seen that there are some disturbing things there's a lot of it that people just don't like but that doesn't mean we don't look at it or we don't listen to it it has been said that the function of good preaching is to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed which one are you this morning maybe a little bit of both if you're anything like me clearly a little disturbed sometimes too comfortable so let's do a little recap because we're pretty deep in the series and if you're new here you can go back and watch all of them it's going to take you a little while but i'll give you like kind of the context what's been happening here and so you have the kingdom divided so think of it like a civil war so right after king david right if you know david and goliath king solomon and king solomon we found out when we read the rest of the story everybody's like oh he was really really smart and rich and that's it that's all you know right but we looked at it and we saw that he broke pretty much every single rule for the king everyone that was the rest of the story on him he really was horrible when you really think about it he builds a palace for himself that's twice the size of the temple right so he's very very arrogant it's bad and so that lands on his son ray obama it's only for david's sake only for your dad's sake that i'm not going to just take you out right now but it happens to ray obama and so then jeroboam rabum there you have the split and you go many generations later that's where we are the kingdom of the north falls that's predicted to assyria and now judah in the south is getting theirs and so we've moved on from any good kings at all they're bad and what you have is the babylonian king king nebuchadnezzar coming in and he's installing these client kings so it's important to remember like a puppet king no good king and so as long as that king pays him tribute they're good he's going to leave him alone what happens is they eventually rebel and then get taken away now a little fact here that a lot of people don't know they're supposed to be paying this even according to god i want you to think about that now it's in the new testament and i've showed you that and nobody likes that where you've got to honor your authorities and pay your taxes and stuff they're like no it doesn't say that yes it does an awful lot people get disturbed but it also says that in the old testament so basically the idea here is whether good or bad if you make a vow to someone you make a deal you have to follow through with it that's it and we see consequences so these kings make a deal and so when they don't follow through with it god doesn't like it either and he's like good take him away and bronze chains and so we're in that cycle so we saw jehoiakim and now we're in the midst of jehoiachin next king there he got taken away and so the last king zedekiah matanaya his name he is going to be there so he hasn't rebelled yet so it gets very confusing we've looked at the bible and so if you've been here for a while you know this but good to recap right so it's not in chronological order they don't write it and just say rip it goes right through on a timeline no they're in sections so just take the old testament because that's what we're dealing with today it's in sections torah first five books genesis through deuteronomy history is next joshua through esther then you have your poetry books i'd put job in there right all the way to song of songs or song of solomon then your prophets isaiah 2 malachi and if you want to put it in chronological order you have to be crazy like me and you have to sit there and kind of move them all around jeremiah jeremiah itself we saw is not in chronological order so you have to take that book apart and all of this is happening in the midst of like right in between like basically like two paragraphs in second kings 24 and second chronicles 36 and so this crazy amount of stuff is going on so we inserted daniel in there the first three chapters we did some of jeremiah today we're going to find ourselves talking about ezekiel now here's what makes it even harder and we can talk about this a little more i'll quiz you at bible study the timeline in jeremiah although it jumps around is actually a little easier because he tells you what king is reigning at that time it seems like ezekiel is but he times everything by the king joha chin that got taken away in exile with them so remember the good figs and bad figs the bad figs were the ones that didn't take the punishment so it's kind of like if you're a parent you're like go to your room and they're like nope i'm not going to do that right so it's worse it's going to get worse for you and so these ones that don't go away they're the bad figs they're refusing to take the punishment they deserve in exile jehoiachin goes with them so probably in ezekiel's mind he's thinking this is the rightful king and he's with us this is the guy that takes the punishment with us he goes with us and well nebuchadnezzar he's installed this client king there that's not the legit king so probably what's happening here but it makes it confusing because in the year of his captivity in the year of his captivity and it's like where are we so here's what i want to acknowledge today i'm not doing exactly chronological now we'd have to go to jeremiah i think for that i'm kind of breaking from that because i want to stay on the train of thought of joyachin right so we've learned about him let's keep learning about things that happen in his time but it's basically the same time-ish just so you know because we do have people checking my work so no lonnie it's not exactly chronological but again you have to kind of know when you have to be completely technical and not we're going to talk about that today too so let's just jump right in ezekiel 1-1 on july 31st of my 13th year well that's confusing already while i was with the judean exiles beside the khabar river in babylon the heavens were opened and i saw visions of god this happened during the fifth year of king jehoiachin's captivity see how he's doing it the lord gave this message to ezekiel son of buzzai a priest beside the khabar river in the land of the babylonians and he felt the hand of the lord take hold of him as i look going back to ezekiel's perspective i saw a great storm coming from the north driving before a huge cloud that flashed with lightning and shone with brilliant light there was a fire inside the cloud and in the middle of the fire glowed something like gleaming amber from the center of the cloud came four living beings that looked human except that each had four faces and four wings their legs were straight and their feet had hooves like those of a calf and shown like burnished bronze under each of their four wings i could see human hands so each of the four beings had four faces and four wings the wings of each living being touched the wings of the beings beside it each moved straight forward in any direction without turning around that's weird so prophetic imagery so i got an old picture here so a lot of artists through the years have tried to like kind of show you what this might have looked like now it's important to kind of pay attention to this stuff because it's a lot of symbolism did you notice the word like it's like that so here you have a prophet a real one he's seeing something that's incredible right he's in the glory of god and it's heavenly right it's this is not earthly but he's gonna try to make it like stuff that we have here so you just even though we have this you have no idea what he might be seeing right so it's this heavenly thing and he's just like i don't know it's kind of like that and that and that but they're all symbols so you know what i'm not going to get too technical here basically what you have here is the mobility suggests that god is everywhere of the wheels right he's everywhere the spirit is guiding it here um the eyes just that he can see everything i was gonna use really fancy terms i'm not gonna do it an elevated uh position omnipotence right so it just means you know he he's better than everything right so you have these different things happening to suggest these characteristics of god that's really what it is um so basically it's crazy the man on the throne it's like blue lapis lazuli now if you play minecraft you know exactly what that is but anyway my daughter knew it i was like how would you know that she's like minecraft dad of course you know all right but anyway where we learn things so this crazy scene and so you know he's hearing it's loud he's hearing all this stuff and basically his reaction is when he sees the face down on the ground he's literally floored and then he hears someone's voice speaking to him so if you turn the page awkward chapter break here it keeps going 2-1 stand up son of man said the voice i want to speak with you he's not going to have a choice the spirit came into me as he spoke and he set me on my feet so now god is literally like controlling him he's in control of him i listen carefully to his words no choice son of man he said i am sending you to the nation of israel a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me they and their ancestors have been rebelling against me to this very day they are stubborn and hard-hearted people but i am sending you to say to them this is what the sovereign lord says and whether they listen or they refuse to listen for remember they're rebels at least they will know they have had a prophet among them so as we continue on he's telling them that again again you must tell them the message completely it's on you to do that but they're not going to listen they're completely rebellious important note in verse 8 tell them or warn them but do not join them in their rebellion don't become like them and then you give this illustration yeah but you're hard-hearted too like your forehead's like as hard as a diamond kind of thing you know you're not listening either so remember in context controlling him then something weird happens again you might have noticed in the picture open your mouth and eat what i give you okay and so what are you going to have me eat scroll comes out on both sides of it or like pronouncements of doom and judgments funeral songs right great i'm going to eat that so three one the voice said to me son of man eat what i'm giving you eat this scroll then go and give its message to the people of israel so i opened my mouth and he fed me the scroll fill your stomach with this he said and when i ate it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth so you know that song about like the honey on the lips it's like almost a little awkward and uncomfortable when we sing it well you kind of get an idea of what that comes from right so like honey in my mouth so it's good for you but here's the thing it's this idea of digesting the word and you're gonna see as he talks more why like what's going on here so we've talked about it in the past in this church right you are what you eat you are what you take in with your eyes and ears so when you surround yourself with a bunch of garbage we see what happens to people right they lose their minds and when you surround yourself with the word of god well naturally more good stuff is going to come out that's the idea here you got to put it in you first before you can go messaging to everybody else right so this is what happens again there are hard-heart people he says listen let my words seep dink deep deep into your heart those are cross words together all the time but listen again listen carefully to them yourself do you remember that there's a step before what we're going to talk about today do your homework you listen carefully to them yourself again do this whether they listen or not so here's what happens ezekiel gets taken away the spirit lifts him up i'll make it short for you just brings him back to the k bar river there total control him he is distressed he's disappointed he doesn't want to do this perhaps like after eating a scroll like that's not fun but perhaps he knows what's going to happen to him we're going to see in the future it's not good i've said this again prophets don't have great retirement plans right so when people don't want to hear the message they do horrible things to them and he's also going to do some pretty crazy stuff so he's back there he's overwhelmed he sits with him for seven days so if we keep reading ezekiel 3 16 after seven days the lord gave me a message he said son of man i have appointed you as a watchman for israel whenever you receive a message from me warn people immediately if i warn the wicked saying you are under the penalty of death but you fail to deliver the warning they will die in their sins and i will hold you responsible for their deaths if you warn them and they refuse to repent and keep on singing sinning they will die in their sins but you will have saved yourself because you obeyed me if righteous people turn away from their righteous behavior and ignore the obstacles i put in the way their way they will die and if you do not warn them they will die in their sins none of their righteous acts will be remembered and i will hold you responsible for their deaths but if you warn righteous people not to sin and they listen to you and do not sin they will live and you have saved yourself too so here is an example of and if you have different bible types of where you need to get a little more literal so people ask me all the time pastor gene what translation of the bible do you like my wife knows the answer all of them so that is in my house all of them i like to read from all of them i want to see all of them it's important but what i've noticed in church is that many pastors are not necessarily great teachers because a great teacher is going to look out and go all right i've got a one-room schoolhouse here this is k through 12. i got to teach everybody right and so some of them would go all right let me go to the most complicated version i can possibly find that even i don't understand yeah that's a great way to teach people you know but it happens right they get prideful about their bibles because you're so smart and then christians do it too right because the pastor taught him how to do it you know the esv is the best yes it reads really choppily it's not the best what makes it the best and here's kind of the funny thing that i'll share with you i'll let you know a little pastor secret when pastors get out of pastor school for the most part they don't really learn how to read greek it's not a thing you don't do that ask any pastor like oh yeah again they say the greek words up here and they sound terrible i don't know why they do it because they can't read it i did not learn how to read it they don't i talk to other pastor friends and it's kind of funny think about it this bothered me so what is the reason for holding the bible like when you come in here what is the reason what's the teaching why do you do that well because we're taught you don't believe anything even a man says you don't believe it right you want to read it for yourself and i tell them all the time if you're new you know i say check my work check my work and i do it a bible study i check my you read it and so i sit there and i do what i do from memory but then they're all looking at it you read it and so that's the idea right so that's the culture where christians have developed okay so let's apply that logic so the pastor's saying this is the best translation of the bible but you can't read greek how do you know it's the best translation of a language you can't read well the scholar told me wait a minute so is that the way you it's not consistent logic so i'm reading this because i'm not supposed to believe the scholars because they're wrong sometimes but i'm going to believe him on the greek that's interesting so this bothered me once i got ordained i knew this and then if you know me like that kind of thing bothers me so i started to apply myself i became a student of the greek i want to say student student of the greek it's complicated i don't know everything there's no i don't know modern greek and the old old attic greek is very difficult for me right so but i'm trying i'm a student my greek teacher theodora shows up once in a while she corrects me at bible study she said last week at bible study i'm watching you know so she really did so yeah i'm watching you you know so so but i hold myself accountable now but i'm learning right so here's the thing i'll tell you what the conclusion i've come to i can read a lot of new testament texts the old testament's harder but this is going to be important so i use the nlt because one room schools what if i have a five-year-old here and a bible scholar well how do you solve that problem you just put the easy to read one up there and you see me do it all the time i make little notes i say then this is where i think it went a little that way you know but it's well intentioned because they're trying to make it easy to understand and that's exactly what happened here so all of you should know that look this is the idea right if you warn them you're good right if you don't it's on you right so that that's the idea i think the nlt did a really good job but there is some imagery that we're missing so i'm going to show you in my opinion the best translation of the bible it is the original that's the best translation right there but it probably looks like a bunch of squiggly lord of the rings lines and stuff like that right so it's hard to understand so i'm just gonna kind of i worked on this this week so just to let you know this is old testament greek really hard greek this is called attic greek it's probably even older than that really old so so think about it new testament greek two thousand years old this hundreds of years before that so it's it's crazy so i went to my greek teacher and we put some work on it we did a translation together and came up with this and so we just leave that there that's what the apostles would have been looking at that's kind of what they were seeing probably even harder to read because it was written by hand in all capital letters which is crazy hard for me to read but anyway let's see if i can kind of just get through this now again again like if i had this in front of me and i had to sight read it no way i can kind of hack through it and then i have to check my work and so that's what i did during the week so there's no way i would do this but basically what it's saying is and after the seven days it came to be it's really interesting to be born so remember we're talking about the genealogies so it's interesting to become the word of the lord came toward me saying son of man and it's interesting here it's actually man is is a different word it's like andres or andras is how you say it or like a th sound on the d it sounds different this is like uh anthropology think about that anthropology so it's like talking about mankind so a little interesting the purpose i gave to the house of israel and hear a word from my mouth and warn them from before me and say to the lawless one so it's like the word there's like a you put in front of it like the anti-law one almost let him be put to death and i will not spare him and you don't speak to the lawless man turn from your ways and let him live that lawless man shall die in his iniquity so we get like bigger words here right and i will require his blood from your hand that's what it says and hand in like kind of like form like the same kind of word there it's why we get confused and if you command the lawless one and do not or remember the context he does not turn away from his iniquity and his path that lawless man shall die in his iniquity and your soul will be saved and when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits a transgression and i put suffering in his face it says he will die because in the context says you didn't warn him i will not forgive him then he will die in his sins because his righteousness which he has wrought will not be avenged and the blood i seek this from your hand but if you compel the righteous not to sin and he does not sin the righteous shall live because i compel him and spare or rescue like recite save your own soul confused yeah that's why you don't use the literal translation it's harder to understand right so the nlt gave us a great idea but we missed something right i will require the blood from your hand so it's very strong imagery here so we would say in our language probably adopted from this the blood is not on my hands so that that's that's where this comes from probably right so you ever hear someone say that well blood's not on my hands and so that's what we missed from the easy to read text right so i'm giving it to you and i went the long way around but it's a good exercise right to see what they were looking at that's what it looked like and it's interesting right so i care i want to really know the stuff and i think it's important before i go this is the best translation that's the best translation so anyway the blood is not on my hands this is the idea or you say the blood's on your hands and so you hear you have the context for this ezekiel there you go it'll come up again in ezekiel 33 if you want to make a note and you're doing that so here's the thing we so here's the application for us what does this mean to us we are obligated as christians to tell the truth in full so step one how do you tell the truth if you don't know it so step one put this inside yourself first do your homework step two tell the truth even if it's difficult so this will be like step one in our process today as it is for ezekiel and as we saw last week just because everybody else is doing it doesn't make it's right make it right we're obligated when we hear things that are wrong to tell the truth and some people oh what's the big deal it's just a verse or it's just that you got to think about it correctly if you read the bible a lot you know that god is really specific about his instructions isn't he and when you don't follow them exactly really bad things happen to you right think about this we did this in the series a lot of you probably know it right strike the rock god says to moses right and the water comes out of the rock they're complaining right so they're doing that all the time so he does it right then and get all the way in numbers and it happens the second time what does he say speak to the rock right strikes it two times like oh second time right and yells it to people god's like moses you ain't gonna see the promised land that's it wow so that's thing one god doesn't change that's thing one that's very specific thing two if we're thinking rightly this is the word of god all of it all of it and so when would it be okay let's just say your regular father you take some instructions from him and then you don't really like what he said or you don't want to deliver it to someone else like tell your sister you know whatever you've been there and so we're like yeah i don't really feel like giving this message in full i'm going to leave some stuff out the blood is going to be on your hands when he finds out right so all of it's really important and so when you twist it when you take it out of context and make it about something else right that didn't say go on time out he said take the car out you know no that's bad so what those people are doing they're twisting god's words there's punishment for that it says a lot about false teachers in the bible no bueno not many of you should want to be teachers friends because we will be judged more harshly james three so when they do that it's bad it's really really bad so just think about that so we talked about this remember if it's mainstream it's probably wrong do you understand that if it's mainstream it's probably wrong and that applies to christianity and we've just seen that over and over i tell these stories about the bible and it's amazing long time christians are like it's yeah it's been right like tucked under your arm when you come into church and tell everybody you read it anyway so here it is the prophets give a warning and likewise we need to give warning even if it's not popular so what i want to do is i want to go through some new testament examples the best commentary that we have on the old testament is the new testament right so it helps trend people will argue they'll use these big words dispensationalism stop it stop it just read hebrews it clarifies read the sermon on the mount you have seen you have heard it said you've seen it written but i say to you right jesus fulfills it that's all right so we're not under the law of moses so you have to understand this you have to look to the new testament what are they saying about the old testament now that we have the fulfillment of it in jesus christ things change so choosing the 12 apostles so here you have jesus he chooses the twelve apostles apostles just means like i send apostello means i send out so they're the sent people right he's gonna send him out and he gives them some instructions this time you're just going to go to the 12 tribes of israel not yet the gentiles and the other people but matthew 10 11 whenever you enter a city or village search for a worthy person and stay in his home until you leave town when you enter the home give it your blessing if it turns out to be a worthy home let your blessing stem if it is not take back the blessing if any household or town refuses to welcome you or listen to your message shake its dust from your feet as you leave i tell you the truth the wicked cities of sodom and gomorrah will be better off than such a town on judgment day what's the idea here right like done so same type of idea here like shake the dust from your feet we do that a lot in southwest florida right the sand yeah exactly but anyway that's it you've warned them we're done now we're going to put some some more stuff on here we see paul does about the same type of thing in acts we look at the book of acts if you're familiar there's a riot acts 19 and ephesus great is artemis of the ephesians right so they're worshiping a false god and what paul's doing is he's convincing the people to get rid of that and so they they do away with like their idols and it specifically talks about like their magic books you know so just whatever spell books they're burning them like you know tens of thousands maybe millions of dollars of books but here's the thing you have these crafts people like alexander the coppersmith or demetrius in this case they're making these idols there's little things like little figurines of artemis and they're worshiping it like crazy but anyway they're doing that but they're making a lot of money doing it and so paul is hurting their economy and so they want to kill this guy right so paul gets out of there but he knows right he's going to go jerusalem he's going to run he's going to go away so he wants to say goodbye to the elders in the church at ephesus but he's not going to go there so he's going to militis and he's going to give like this farewell speech to them he doesn't want to be in danger he's on a mission he needs to go and so basically what he's saying is it gets a little complicated because he's like i'm not sure what's going to happen but the holy spirit tells me that i'm going to get imprisoned right i'm going to get persecuted when i go there right so he's saying goodbye i'm never going to see you guys again but here's what he says acts 20 25. now i know that none of you among whom i have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again therefore i declare to you today that i'm innocent of the blood of any of you for i've not hesitated to proclaim the whole will of god do you see it there paul probably has ezekiel and mine because paul was faithful he told the hard truth he suffers for it even if it means suffering the blood was not on his hands that's what he's saying so let's keep going so i want to kind of get some more application on this like what's it going to mean to us we get there by looking at the instructions he gives to his like proteges the people under him that's why these books are important why do we get you know first timothy second timothy titus this is interesting to see the instructions that paul is passing to them so they're like his his elders his pastors basically just think of it that way to make it really simple and he's giving them all kinds of instructions we've seen some of the stuff remember he told timothy right in the latter times this is where all the false teachers are going to be there they're going to be more false than true and they're going to prosper so this is the backdrop you see those the ones that are prospering those are the fake ones because that sells right that's what we do here in america too you know so because it's mainstream and big usually means it's wrong right so they've been selling a lot of people on stuff so in the last time they're going to be all these false teachers they're terrible so a lot about false teachers in the bible but here's the thing first timothy 4 6 if you explain these things to the brothers and sisters timothy you will be a worthy servant of jesus christ one who is nourished by the message of faith and the good teaching you have followed so the blood won't be on your hands you're good but look at this do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wives tales instead just train yourself to be godly don't waste your time so now if we keep reading second timothy so this is second timothy 2 15. not a mistake in my notes but we have such good people who serve here and they catch my mistakes see like no toilet paper on the shoes no bad scripture verses it's kind of cool second timothy 2 15 work hard so you can present yourself to god and receive his approval be a good worker one who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly explains the word of truth avoid worthless foolish talk that only leads to more godless behavior if we keep reading paul repeats himself again i say don't get involved with foolish ignorant arguments that only start fights the servant of the lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone be able to teach and patient with difficult people i know i'm working on it right okay so we get to we get to titus same situation kind of so timothy is left in ephesus we're just talking about ephesus he's there titus crete i hear it's really nice there so he's left there and he's left there paul says to appoint elders in every town so that's what he's doing he's appointing this is the proper process you get anointed you have the anointing you get appointed right we confirm it it's from god not like the congregation voting so titus goes in there he knows the qualifications paul gives him all the qualifications for elders overseers that kind of thing goes through the list and he starts saying some very important things okay you have good behavior titus tell your people to have good he goes through all these different people groups like the old women the old men the young men the young women he says something interesting that you can slander the gospel if you don't behave well it says blaspheme the gospel in greek you can slander the gospel with your behavior look at me i'm a christian and then you know you do something really bad that's not good they say i don't want to be a christian so that's what he's going through and here's what he says interesting titus 3 9 don't get involved in foolish discussions about spiritual pedigrees and quarrels and fights about obedience to jewish laws these things are useless and a waste of time so see how it clarifies here right if you're in the old testament you'd be arguing about it not now if people are causing divisions among you give a first and second warning after that have nothing more to do with them for people like that have turned away from the truth and their own sins condemned them have nothing to do with them the blood is not on your hands you have warned them that's it just don't get involved look their own sins conde what's he talking about we talked about this in the series right if the person is joy peace love patience kindness self-control gentleness all these are all godly things right but if a person is divisive and says this regulation divisive outburst of anger always argumentative that's not from god you don't want to waste your time talking to satan right like no good and it's very harsh it's hard for people to hear when people are acting like that all the time that's not god that's not god inside that person talking godly people don't they don't have those qualities that's it so what does he say have nothing to do with them bless not on your hands titus so here we have a situation i'll go through this pretty quickly and i want to get to some just real practical application for you guys as you go out we looked at first corinthians 5. i told you the situation it's a situation i try to bring up a lot because it gives us a good example what we're confused about as christians is like wait who do we judge you know what i mean what's going on this just really gives us a nice clear example it's a little gross the guy in the church sleeping with his stepmother i told you about how that could be happening did i do that right stepmother i'm bad at the family tree thingies but anyway gross i told you how it could be happening he's been told paul says i wrote you in a letter before so we know there's a correspondence we don't have paul says i'm there with you in spirit we've warned this guy so they went through the process now that's it kick him out and he gives this example like one lump of lemon and if you don't know what lebanon is it's confusing so i would say like one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch and he's saying you're prideful by letting this happen because you think it's not going to spoil you is the context interesting it says this first corinthians 5 9. when i wrote to you before i told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin but i wasn't talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin or are greedy or cheap people or worship idols you would have to leave the world to avoid people like that they don't know any better so don't you don't start there it's not where you start you start with love you start by loving them okay you have sinned to us anyone comes in my office what do i do about you know these people or this group of people or that group of people i'm gonna get a mirror right so what do you wanna point out their sin publicly that's what you're telling me right who we have to i'm ezekiel really we're going to see what ezekiel does and we're going to see if you still want to be like him right but i want to just do this mirror because that's what jesus does when people complain to him about stuff remember let's start with your pile of sin first just because it's not so outward and obvious right plus paul's saying here they're not christians they don't know any of they don't know the rules that's it like just god will judge them just that's it but here's the thing i meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin or is greedy or worships idols or is abusive or a drunkard or cheats people do you want to stick on like specific sins right a lot more of them some people you should be checking off boxes right don't even eat with such people so let's concentrate on that verse right before we go applying it to people who just don't even know the rules they don't understand any of what i'm saying right now it's not where i'm going to start here's the other thing too paul's worried about also you know even if the problem with people who claim to be believers and do that you can be guilty by association even if you're not going to fall for that sin well people are going to lump you in with that group so you don't want any of it so it's just the practical advice so we've seen in this series what do we do what do we do with this what what are the steps okay we've seen in this series that we must always love and we must always forgive there's no but after that okay no but no but always love always forgive now here is the butt but not on having to do that sometimes it can and sometimes it has to be from afar proximity right sometimes it has to be from over there it needs to be a far from afar we need to warn right then the blood is not on our hands but if they're going to cause us to sin if we're going to be guilty by association whatever the situation is we're turning to a bad apple lovingly do that that's it i've loved them i've done my job so the question today is we're answering it when is it okay to walk away when is it okay to do that practical steps and what i'm gonna do is i'm just gonna build off of what paul probably has in mind jesus teaches matthew 18. it's kind of like the situation's a little different but it gives us a good kind of like simple step guideline right so someone sins against you you go up to them first one on one one-on-one one-on-one and just so think everyone's gotta stay with me do not gossip don't i love this one i'm just gonna talk about this person for accountability first no you're not you have the lord for that go to the lord or go to someone who's going to keep it confidential or perhaps pull a mirror out of their desk so come talk to me right because i know how to keep my mouth shut about your stuff and that would be real accountability and i'm probably still going to tell you go ahead you've got to talk to god i'm not god so that's the first thing go directly to that individual and talk it out why the ultimate thing is reconciliation and if you don't want that check your heart right if for christians we should desire that everyone is reconciled to christ that's what we want and with us too so i want to work this out man like you know like let's solve the problem step one step two they don't listen to you bring some people in for accountability there you go i could be wrong bring them in you need a mediator right something like that so we know this even in a court of law they do that kind of thing bring somebody else in if you can't work it out great three tell it to the church that's probably not so and so is doing this and that you know it's probably not that it's probably more like go to your leadership right and talk to them about it right try to get the church leaders to solve it then if they don't listen like three strikes are out then kick them out of the church treat them like a sinner or tax collector and so this is the thing here so now when is okay to walk away when you've warned them when you've warned them i told you there you go so whether the context is preaching the gospel you know you've warned them i told you the good news about jesus that's it and if you're not going to listen whatever paul says don't argue about it i'm not going to argue about it we get people in the church these little secondary things and these christian easy stuff and they want to argue about it i'm like no i don't want to argue about it you can go believe that if you want let's not fight why do you want to fight so again what's in the heart of that person when they always want to argue enough i hate arguing right no that's not love joy peace patience kind of just like i have enough of that in the world don't bring it into church right so we've warned them so whether it's a sin against us whether it's the gospel context whether whatever it is you know whatever right you've worn them blood's not on your hands when they cause divisions it's more on my end that's like what i gotta watch it's like the worst part of the job is like i gotta watch people are to come in and divide just start causing division so what they're doing is they're bringing all this junk from the world right and they're like what are you a red sheep or a blue sheep you know you got to be a red sheep if you're a christian you know what i mean like stop it that belongs you should be coming here for love joy peace patience kindness self-control like you should be coming here like please you know what i mean like give me the message of joy correction yeah right by trying to make it funny so anyway that you should be coming here to be a part of a family filled with joy and when you get a person who comes in it's like you know it's like no leave that there not even at the door just keep it away from the parking lot like i don't want it anywhere near the church that's garbage the world is garbage this we're talking about the king we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven people like that's what we want to be focusing on not this like keep that away so that's when it's okay to walk away right i've warned you don't do that stop it don't bring that here and then it's okay i'm like blood's not on my hands but you don't let him do it here here's another thing that a lot of people don't think about and it may i do this a lot in pastoral work so i'll kind of share something with you and i've been talking to a lot of other pastors about it and really as i deal with people and i learn about people and typically what they do you want to refine your process or it's insanity right it's doing the same thing so i watched the last two pastors burn out from this church i'm not doing that you know so i'm going to do things a little bit differently right i'm going to make some adjustments if i'm thinking right so this process applies and this may apply to you like pastor why are you telling me about because you can use this you can use this because it's probably happening to a lot of you and it's this idea like time i can't as i get older it becomes the most valuable thing to me a younger gene would have said like my love languages physical touch and words of affirmation those are probably mine now that i'm older i don't care i can't physically touch yet but okay we won't go there but here's the thing i care more about quality time quality time i don't have much left quality time you can't buy time right you can get plenty of money as everywhere right you can't buy time you just that's it it's gone gone go on go on go on i look back and i'm like whoa my daughter's driving you know like how did that happen you know again look in the mirror what you know what i mean like that's not good you know like do something about that right so say what that's happening time time and so here's the thing and you might have this happening and you don't know it people are wasting your time they're wasting your time i get kind of upset about this now i hate having my time wasted and so apply the process talk to them so anything i dealt with the case this week so fine you know help me pay for this pastor do that the other thing okay you know i know i'm being lied to everything whatever but mercy so if it's giving someone you want to know how to do this mercy the first step is always love and mercy i don't care i'm not asking questions you didn't even give me a story here's the money there you go whatever right but two they come back and they have a different story or didn't work out or whatever it is all right well let's go back remind them about step one again let's go back to step one what did i tell you what did you tell me right third time i'm done i'm done what think about like people in your life situations has it ever changed like you've talked about for years with certain people and maybe have a person in your mind they just didn't change when do you think it is going to change when what's the date you know like when is the what now here's what i've learned this is this is what i've learned i talked to pastor friends about like older ones are like i wish i had just applied this years ago look first time you come in identify love mercy gonna give you all the tools you need that's fine we're great whatever it is that you need whether it's a problem a sin this that the other thing and here's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna pray for you and those of you who know me well a lot of you sitting here today you know i pray for you i contact y'all like i pray and so i'm to do it right i might not be doing it in the office of time whatever i pray and i'm going to pray that and this is an interesting prayer not that oh you go and prosper in your sin no i'm going to pray that you hit like the highest bottom possible so that you need to surrender to god that's it and i'm going to pray that you receive his holy spirit because that that is the person who is going to best be able to convince you i'm not god i have never convinced anyone to come out of their sin or whatever and i preach and tell you what you do no the holy spirit does that when i see people change it's because god does it like i'm just the messenger and i gotta go like this okay fine holy spirit now the holy spirit doesn't do it gonna come in a second time you gotta go back to step one like that why do you think there's a different step but here's what we do keep giving people alternatives no no and after three times listen man you know what i mean maybe there's another church for you there's an i don't whatever it is like i can't do it but i'm done over and over and over and over so i'm giving this to you you can learn like a pastoral trick exactly not just allow yourself to do that allow yourself check the boxes in your head have i given this person loving loving sufficient warning loving sufficient warning did i remind the person the next time it came up i said i tried two or three times maybe give a third time but after that the blood's not on your hands let it go right so i'm preaching some freedom today i just feel like this is going on a lot of people's lives let it go you're not god over the situation just let him do what he does best so the other thing too as we close just a good point here don't let the person derail you into sin that's big remember i said that one bad apple one bad apple by association so when can you walk away when you're starting to act like that person you find yourself getting angry or they're baiting you into this proverbs 22 24 don't befriend angry people or associate with hot tempered people or you will learn to be like them and endanger your soul did you know you could do that i'm not saying this is god's word but i said don't don't befriend the angry people don't associate with them it rubs off be really careful don't let them bait you back to ezekiel real quick as we close up ezekiel 2 8 son of man listen to what i say to you don't join them in their rebellion don't join them it's going to make you do that it's okay to walk away so as we go out this week we are assigned to be heralds for christ watchmen on the wall right to the disturbed perhaps we're watchmen but for our own sake sake of our family our church we must not spin our wheels and become like them so in the convincing sometimes when we think we're helping really it's just self-idolatry you're not god you think you're helping you think you're helping they're pulling you under the water with them careful i care about you i love you i don't need to see any more people lost to the world so just please hear me we must retain our citizenship in heaven and the ambassadors for christ now the clothes i want to pray from the word from colossians over you i ask god to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding then the way you live will always honor and please the lord and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit all the while you will grow as you learn to know god better and better i also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have the endurance and patience you need may you be filled with joy always thanking the father he has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people who live in the light for he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his dear son jesus christ who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins all glory to god the father forever and ever amen so you

When It's OKAY To Walk Away

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