Evil (Summer Group Day 2024)

You're going to find out that it will change you, and it will help

you, and it will empower you to walk in that freedom that you find

in the altar, so that it's not temporal, but it's long lasting.

Because I believe you can live in God's presence on a regular basis if you

have a good support system around you. Amen. Amen, So happy group

day. Find a group groups, I mean C stone dot church slash groups.

And you're saying, well past Steve, you didn't give us a piece

of paper today. No see stone dot cherch slash groups C S T O

n E. Don't spell dot. It's the little period c h U R

c h slash which one that one down there slash groups g R O U

p S. Find a group and be part of a group. It'll change

your life. Amen. Amen, Our ushers are gonna come around this morning

and receive tithes and off rings. And right there at home you can navigate

able to sea Stone that church slash gift you can give right there. You

can use the church center ap text to give or mail your gift to five

zero zero four Mcgever Road, Oakwood, Georgia, three zero five six six

and thank you for your generosity for all that you do, we just stand

in awe of what God is able to do because of your obedience in giving

to the Lord. We're not a We're not a big church by any stretch

of the imagination. We're not a little church. But we're not a big

church. But we're able to do things that literally make an impact around the

world because of your giving. And I want to thank you for that.

It is h it's an honor to Pastor you because of that core value of

generosity that is buried down deep in your heart. And I love you so

much and I thank you. Listen having the worship. Ben done an excellent

job without Pastor Clay over the last two weeks. I hope he's They're going

nuts, Pastor Clay. Barry's jumping up and spinning around. He says,

what was that. We don't need him to come back. I'm just kidding.

But Pastor Clay will be back next week. And continue to pray,

as you know, those those first few months where the devil really tries to

shake things up when we get married. So I'll be praying that the that

the Lord will put a heade of protection around him and Amber and that it

be uh you know, uh, a marriage a love story of the century.

That's what I pray for every one of you, that your marriage is

a love story of the century, because I believe that's what God wants for

his people. Amen. I want to I want to preach a message to

you today, not a fancy title. I just if you have to title

it some to call it evil, just evil in my mind. You know,

the title of this is said in SpongeBob. You know the way I

hear it is in SpongeBob evil. Uh So, But if you got a

Bible, go to Psalm chapter twenty three, Psalm chapter twenty three, and

we're gonna read the whole twenty third Psalm. It's a pretty familiar passage of

scripture to people that have been around church very long. But I think sometimes

as preachers we want to steer away from the common passages of scripture because we

want y'all to think that we really read the Bible more than you. And

the reality is is the common passages of scripture the common passage of scripture because

they make the biggest impact in our lives. Amen. So I didn't want

to shy away. I wanted to jump right in to one of the most

common and let's read it together. Psalm twenty three, Verse one. The

Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. I could preach the whole

thing, but I'm not going to. We kind of reserve this a lot

of times for funerals. But this is one of the greatest passages of scripture

for prosperity of the believer that we have in all of scripture. But that's

not what the day's message is about. Psalm chapter twenty three, Verse one.

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me

to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his

name's sake. Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of

death, I will fear no evil. Underline that I will fear no evil,

for you, Jesus are with me. Your rod and your staff.

They comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my

enemies. You anoint my head with all My cup runs over. Surely,

goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I

will dwell in the house of the Lord forever I felt that. Let's pray.

Dear Lord, I just ask you to to illuminate our path today.

Bury your word deep at the core of who we are. Change the way

we think today because our thinking is wrong. Shape us and mold us into

who you are with your chain at your word, Lord, we love you

and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. The Psalma says Yea Thol,

I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death. I will fear

no evil. I'm not going to fear it. It's not going to dictate

my actions or my feelings. I'm just simply not going to have it.

But the reality is, when we think of evil, we think of the

scariest things we could possibly think of. We think of the worst possible outcomes

for any situation and any circumstance. But evil, when we really examine evil,

evil is anything contrary to the Word of God. Let me say that

again. Evil is anything contrary to the Word of God. Evil are those

things that are set against God. But do you know that there are a

lot of things that just live in a neutral place. Let me say that

again. Some of you are like what I thought it had to be this

or that. There's a lot of things that are just simply neutral by nature.

For instance, this, it's not inherently evil. It's just a phone.

This has no intrinsic good or evil about It can be used for either

or or it can be used for just something neutral. I could call Dean,

we could talk about college football, and he would be wrong, but

it wouldn't be evil. According to watch team is the best right. He

would be wrong, but it wouldn't be evil. I can post a video

talking about Jesus and this phone becomes an arbiter of good. Or I could

speak hate through it and it could be an instrument of evil. Most everything

is that way, because things in and of themselves are not for or against

God. They're there for God's people to use, to maximize, to influence.

I want to go a step further and say that people are not good

or evil. We live in the neutral sense. Now. People can be

lost in going to hell, but not evil. Let me say that again.

People can be lost and going to hell, but not evil. If

they're not doing anything, if they're not perpetrating anything that's contrary to the word

of God, then they're not evil. A lost person can do good,

come on somebody. But we get so caught up in this good versus evil

that we have a perception of good and evil based on what we've been taught

and what we've seen and what we've heard, that we have these lenses that

we look through that tilt something good or evil. Amen, now listen,

do not send me this is illustrative purposes. Do not send me an email

about what I'm about to talk about. Don't do it because it may challenge

you deep down on the inside, especially Generation X and older. But we

live our lives we were raised. Now some of you younger guys this is

not the case, probably, but we've lived our lives with everything that we've

been taught, everything that we've been heard, everything that we've heard, everything

that we've studied. That Russia is evil. They are the mean, bad

guys. When they're on television, they wear red. Their pictures are always

just color graded a little darker to give it that evil tint. Because they

are bad. Doesn't matter. They're evil, But the reality is Russia is

just a country. Our perception of them is that they're evil, that everything

they do is bad. And juxtaposition against that everything that America does is good.

We're the good guys, they're the bad guys. And it has always

been Rocky, Red Dawn, all the great movies, right, good America

versus bad Russia, good versus bad, evil versus good, and good always

over Trump over Trump. I didn't that was I didn't mean to say Trump.

I didn't know I mean to say Trump. I meant. I meant

to say triumphs good, triumphs over evil. Oh my goodness, let me

gather myself for a second. But the reality is, when we really look

at what evil is anything contrary to God's word. The US certainly has done

some evil things throughout our history. We've done evil things. When you look

at big bad Russia, they've done some good things. Our perception clouds our

judgment of what truly is good or evil, and because society places value in

the perception of good and evil, we then broadcast that in unhealthy ways on

other things and on individuals as well. And we live our lives and we

look at people and we say that person is evil. That person doesn't want

the same thing I want. That person is trying to take something from me,

So that person is evil. In Luke chapter six, verse forty one.

We have this, this famous passage of scripture about the eyes, and

Jesus says, and why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye,

but do not perceive the plank in your own eye? Or how can

you say to your brother brother, let me remove the speck that is in

your eye, when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your

own eye. And then Jesus really ramps it up here, hypocrite. Listen.

It's one thing when somebody calls you a hypocrite, but when Jesus calls

you a hypocrite, that's like what he says, hypocrite, First remove the

plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly. To remove

the speck that is in your brother's eye. Jesus says, when you're looking

at people, see it clearly. That's the reason he talks about the eye.

He says, get your perception right, See things the way I see

things, See things from a biblical, scriptural point of view. And stop

allowing your lens of selfishness, your lens of hurt, your lens whatever lenses

we wear, and we all wear them. I've been transparent in my struggles,

you know. I mean, I struggle with the place where my oldest

daughter lives. I go to California, especially La, and I drive through

that city, and I think those are the most unintelligent people that could ever

be born. Why would you choose to live in a place with that many

people and live in houses that small, that costs that much money. To

me, that does not equate to intelligence. And I know my daughter is

an extremely intelligent person, but some happened to her. Obviously, something got

turned off. I don't know if she ate an extra avocado and it just

shut her brow. I don't know what happened, but there's a prejudice there.

So when I go there, I have to fight hard against that because

I have a lens over my eyes that when somebody tells me something, I

just ignore it. Oh that's got to be that's a good restaurant. I'm

not going there. If you say that's a good restaurant, what that means

to you is overpriced and just mediocre food. But it is a lens that

I see the world through, and we all have those lenses that we see

the world through. Therefore, because we have these lenses of hurt brokenness,

whatever it is. When something happens, we immediately discern something that happens against

us as evil. That is the devil trying to beat me up. It's

evil, and we can't understand that. Yes, today is evil, and

he might even be working through somebody against us, but the person is not

evil. Their actions are, but the person is not. And we form

these resentments. We form these areas in our lives of literal poisonous unforgiveness towards

people because we see them through a lens that is tainted, because we think

that, first of all, we must be the good guy in the story

and they must be the bad guy. Let me just let me share.

You get caught red handed doing something, You get caught red handed doing something,

you actually did it. You're guilty, and you're punished because of it,

and you don't understand why you're being punished. You don't understand why it's

like that for you. Because so and so got away with it. They

didn't get caught. It doesn't make it right, but they didn't get caught.

The reason they're not punished because they didn't get caught or they knew somebody,

Come on, somebody, it's not always what you do. Sometimes it's

who you know. They're in a different situation, in different circumstance, So

don't place validation on the fact that they didn't get what you got. Realized

that, Hey, I got caught. I did the thing. I'm being

punished because of it. There's not some evil working against me. Amen,

I am caught up and I am caught up in the affairs of life.

Or it could be God disciplining me. There's a lot of things that could

be happening. But don't just pull the evil card out because that will always

lead to you having a victim mentality. In Ephesians chapter six, verse eleven,

it says, put on the whole armor of God, that you may

be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not

wrestle against flesh and blood. Our fight is not against people, no matter

what they did. Our fight is not against people. Let me say that

again, no matter what they did, your fight is not against people.

Now, listen, I wish y'all could have my vantage point sometimes because it's

so amazing to preach and look out in that direction. And when you're preaching

something, the way body language changes and the way eye contact changes because right

now, about seventy five percent of the room is refusing to look right here

at me because you're like, oh, you don't know who now. If

you got treated like me, you'd be mad too. The reason that's happening

is because we all live in a place where we feel like we've been treated

unfairly. We feel like we deserve more, that we deserve better. The

difference is how are we going to treat the person that did it? How

are we going to respond? How are we going to allow that to shape

our future and our destiny? Are we going to allow it? Are we

going to allow to imprison us? Are we going to let it empower us

towards walking in more freedom? Because I can choose to be a victim every

time I see through a lens that evil, that evil person has attacked me.

Listen, I want you to know the devil hates you. Everybody in

the bid to raise your hand, if you've got your hand up, the

devil hates you. Whether you're saved or not, the devil hates you.

I don't know when the Church of Satan meets. I don't know if it's

Sunday, I don't know when it is. I've never been to one of

those. If it's on Sunday and they're in church right now, the devil

hates them too. He hates them too. People, though, are not

your enemy. People are the object of the spiritual giftedness and the destiny and

the purpose that lives on the inside of you, And your response back to

them shapes their future and their destiny. And we have to understand that as

much as the enemy hates us, it's him we wrestle with, and not

the vessels, not the object that he uses to hurt us. Your neighbor

that will not cut their grass is not evil, maybe lazy, but not

evil. Right, Yes they are. They're taking something from me. They're

devalueing my home, gin on the lawn more never mind, never mind.

Maybe they're allergic to grass. Maybe they don't have a lawnmower. Maybe they

don't have enough money to buy gas to go in the lawnmower, and they're

not going to tell you that. Maybe they're just waiting for somebody to offer

a little help. Maybe they've been so hurt and so broken that they function

out of a place of such absolute dysfunction and insecurity that they can't even relate

to someone that they see that has a little more than they have. Doesn't

make them evil, It makes them broken. It makes them influenced by the

enemy. And if you don't get your eyes right and you don't start seeing

people for who they are the object of jesus affection, going to live your

life soured and mean and incarcerated by the thoughts and actions of people. You

know, I think that as as people in ministry, I think that whoa.

I think that we have we have a great advantage in this, in

the fact that when you pastor when you when you you live your life in

vocational ministry, you are regularly hurt by the people that are closest to you.

And because of that, you get used to it pretty quick. You

get used to people coming in and hurting you, and as a result,

you just realized that, hey, it's just people. It's just people,

not bad people, not good people, just people. And people respond to

their situations their circumstances out of brokenness, right, And it doesn't matter what

you do, what you say, You just have to realize that that person

is the object of Christ's love, not evil. Just going through life like

we go through life. You know, I I grew up in this church

spiritually. I grew up right here before it was Cornerstone Tabernacle, when it

was ogt with Gospel Tabernacle. However you want to say that this, I

grew up right here, and and and Pastor Gary's been my pastor my whole

life, my whole life. And I watched him walk through so much hurt,

so so so much hurt, and so much brokenness, and he taught

me those lessons. I watched him get hurt and wake up the next day

and smile, and the next day that person need him, that just hurt

him, and he went and helped him. And I began to watch that,

and I began to realize, and I began to figure out that,

Hey, you know what, it's not evil, it's people not seeing clearly,

those people don't they don't hate you. They just don't have the right

perception of life pointed towards you. And the only way it will ever be

corrected is if you point it back to them in a pure loving way.

Because I know you don't want to hear this. This is like the stuff

that's hard to live out. This is like the stuff that's like really there

he says, Listen, we don't put on the whole armor of God that

you'll be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do

not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against

the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual host of wickedness in

heavenly places. The devils a bad dude, but he is a defeated foe.

And then in Romans chapter seven we read these words that we don't want

to talk about. See, we we have that perspective and we look on

the outside of what people do to us. But look what the apostle Paul

says. Now, listen, this is like the man by Apostle Paul,

he's he gives us a lot of the theology we operate our lives by.

Come on, let's face it. I mean he was hearing from Jesus.

And this is what he writes in Romans chapter seven, verse eighteen. For

I know that in me that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells.

For to will is present with me. But how to perform what is good

I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I

do not do, but the evil I will not to do. So he

didn't say I'm evil. He said the evil, the action, the thing

that's contrary to God. But the evil I will not to do that.

I practice, unless you can take that word for what it is. I

mean like practice, he's practicing. He's like, have you ever have you

ever known you were going into a situation where you knew things were not gonna

be good, So like on your whole way there, you're practicing like how

you're gonna respond, And like by the time you get there, you've made

yourself so mad and you're just so jacked up and ready to go that they

say hey, and you like just sto by that out and they're like,

oh, I just want to give you a check. Oh that's not what

I thought was happening. You're so good, I said, listen, I'm

practicing these things like I've gotten good at doing what I don't want to do.

Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no

longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. Literally,

Paul says in Ephesians, we're not wrestling against flesh and blood because he knows

himself and he says, listen, I'm not the object of evil. I'm

the perpetrator of evil. I know me, and I mess it up most

of the time. I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to

judge. I don't want to do all the those things that we talk about,

but I do them. Clinch. You guys can come and get ready

if you want to, but I do them. I don't want to.

It just happens. It happens because the devil's good at what he does.

It happens because most people are set to be offended already. It happens because

I just don't always listen to my brain before my mouth moves. I am

the world's worst. My mouth moves, and then my brain catches up a

lot of times, and I get to the end of a conversation, especially

with telemarketers, and I think, boy, that was not that was a

disaster. That was that was terrible. I was on my way to church

when we were before we marched over in the other building, and I was

turning out on the road and this car kind of cut me off, made

me mad. I blew the horn and I was zoomed around and stared pulled

up to the traffic light, and they were a car behind me, so

I was trying to look into side. I was trying to get my head

so I could see into their car through my side view mirror, you know,

like this is turning around. They got from it. I dropped in

behind him. I got real close. I wanted to know. I was

mad. Right, we go down we past Christ Place, going on down

there, past the restaurant, and their blinker came on. I said,

uh, oh, this ain't good. They got over into the deceleration lane

right in front of the church. They started turning in the driveway and I

started over my about half of my car got over the lay. I just

whipped it back in the lating gun that it went on down by the church,

turned around and came back because I couldn't pull in the church behind this

person I had just yelled at and blew the horn at and stared down.

Now, first of all, I made ic intact like it was gonna matter.

I'm about to be on the stage in front of them. And I

came back and I had no idea which person it was really, you know,

I mean, when you're up here, you just you remember there,

you know, you're uncomfortable, get to the end of the message, make

the altar call if people came to the altar and pray for people surfaces over

and I'm standing at the back and shaking hands and this person came by it

shook my hand and said, hey, I think I cut you off in

traffic this morning. Never seen the person before, And I said, really,

person, I said, yeah, And uh, first of all,

I want to tell you I'm sorry, And uh, second of all,

I can respect the fact that you were human, that you got mad,

that you blew the horn, And I want you to know that what you

said from the state today meant the world because I know you live in the

same place I live, and we all have the same struggles. We all

fight the same influences try to push us to harm humanity. He says,

if I can get you to mess up, if I can get you to

hurt somebody, it means more. If you hurt somebody in this community of

faith or in another community at your job, they know you're a believer.

It means more to the enemy if he can get you to do it,

because that's how all Christians are. If he can get you to respond wrong

when they hurt you, it means more to the enemy, because that's how

all those judgmental Christians are. They're like that, why would you ever need

Jesus? The devil is where our war is not. People, get rid

of that victim lens that you look at life through and understand that you've victimized

people too. We're all in this thing together, fighting against the enemy,

and it's up to us to pick somebody up, to dust somebody off.

I'm gonna make an alter call a second, but this is not the real

call to action. The alter call is not it's this in just a few

minutes when we dismiss. If you know you've hurt somebody's feelings, you know

you've wronged somebody, and they're here today, go to that person apologize.

If they're not here, pick up the phone and call them, write them

a long, heartfelt email, tell them you're sorry. And people are not

used to hearing that. If you have unforgiveness towards somebody because you felt they

wronged you, go to that person and say, listen, I've been harboring

unforgiveness against you, and I want to release that today. I wanted to

let you know. And they may look at you and say, I will

Why why you have unforget? Why what did I do? They don't matter.

You're not looking for I'm sorry from them right, You're setting yourself free

from unforgiveness. Make those things right, don't practice it, let it happen,

unrehearsed when it happens, and then be quick to say I'm sorry.

Everybody's staying with me all over the boot. If you're here today, now

listen, this is gonna call that. This is gonna take some real self

evaluation. This might be the hardest als call some of you ever been faced

to respond to. But if you're here today and you live your life and

you feel like you are always the victim, You feel like you're always the

object of hurt, that people are against you, that everything that happens is

bad, that you are the ultimate victim. If that's you, I'm gonna

count to three in just a moment, i want you to make your way

to the front, and we're going to break that victim mentality that's own your

life, because you'll never achieve anything if you live your life as a victim.

Never, the Bible says that you're more than a conquer or, maybe

you're here and you think, listen, this is not the real world.

People don't forgive, people don't try to do right. And you think that

because you've never asked Jesus to be your Lord and your savior. You've never

asked to forgive you of your sins. But today something just right in this

area. It's just the Lord's just been kind of tugging on your spirit person

and you don't know why. You just feel drawn. You feel like the

Lord's doing something pulling you, urging you. He wants to meet you in

this altar. He wants to wash away your sin and make you a listen

to me, a brand new creation that you can walk out of this place

and not be who you were. I believe somebody came today looking for a

brand new start, and this is your moment. When I count to three,

this is your moment. But remember, God's not moved by your one

two, He's moved by your faith. That's when you step out and you

come. It's on the count of three. I want to break out of

this victim mentality and ask Jesus to save me. I want to ask you

forgive me of my sins. Either of those things when I count to three.

You move immediately one two, three move right Now come on, come

on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come

on, come on, come on.