Let The Bodies Hit the Floor

So God be with us. Right now We pray these things in Jesus's name, And all God's people said "Amen" Amen. You may be seated. I'm going to read a passage to you guys. I'm not going to make you stand.

It's a full 10 verses. That sounds crazy, right, I know Cuz if you only read one a year, 10's a lot. I'm just kidding, I was just throwing shade. I didn't mean to throw shade. It's going to be in Philippians chapter, starting in verse one.

This is the second to last installment in our Philippians series. Oh, I know some of y'all like it. The rest of y'all just like: "Hey, that's what the pastor talked about for the last six, six, eight, seven, whatever". Philippians chapter 4, verse one. Just to, so I know that you're alive, awake and paying attention.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

Y'all say the first word with me. Therefore, cool, You're with me. My brothers and sisters, that's men and we women, We men- I guess technically y'all are smaller than anyway We men, women. My brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for my joy and crown. He, likes the Philippian church, Stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends, And he takes a little break here- It's a little kind of hiatus- from his big theological speech, He says something very specific, pragmatic, something that probably, if I were to extrapolate- which I will in a few minutes, - would tell you really about Paul's posture toward the Philippian church and the church in general.

This is going to be helpful for you today. Verse two: I'm going to spend a lot of time here. He says this: I plead with Yuodia and I plead with Cinti to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, And I ask you, my true companion, help these women, since they have contended at my side in the cause of the Gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord.

How often, . Always. I will say it again: rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, or but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds. In Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, if I didn't say it means you didn't hear, but you might have seen it. Sometimes we're we're waiting on someone to tell us something that we can see visibly if we would just look.

Whatever you've learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, Put it into-. Practice. Yeah, See, I'm trying to help you practice today. Put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you.

I know what you're thinking. I know what I'm thinking. You might not actually be thinking this. Those 10 verses are packed full of content that'll be helpful for you in your life. In fact, when I fall in the midst of depression, I'm quoting that passage.

I'm not quoting the NIV version that I just read to you, but I'm quoting my version, my understanding of that passage. I'm thinking on the positive things, . I think often not about what Paul said about unity and division, but I think about, how Paul communicates it to specific situations, Yodia and Cinti. Sometimes I find myself thinking like strangely amounts about Yodia and Cinti. I know it's strange.

Like I'm married, Hannah, I love my wife. I don't know anything about Yodia and Cinti. I just know that they're women who weren't getting along in the Lord. You know, I think about that a lot. What does it look like to be unified?

I remember in 2001, - I'm going to bring my out my, my thing. In 2001, there was a song that came out about unity. That's what it was about, And it was interesting because, when it came out-, because maybe some of the verbiage, maybe some of the tone, some of the sounds, the way that the song sounded, though it was about unity- it came across to some people who are prone to be filled with assumptions about things they don't fully understand. They started to judge this song and say it wasn't about unity, but it was actually about violence. People judged it so hard in 2001 that, when September 11th came around, radio stations actually shelved this song for a season because they thought it was provoking violence.

But I need you to know this song was about unity. I had a phase when I was younger where I would listen to certain types of music and I understood something, about one specific type of music Any of youall heard of. Like rock music, . How about pop, punk music, or just punk music or there's this weird like thing that happened in the early 2000s. We didn't really know what to call it.

It wasn't quite metal, It wasn't quite punk, So we would just call it alternative, which really doesn't fit, because Foo Fighters are radically different than, like, Radio Head. You know, Like, aren't those way, way different? I'm- I'm making some people really happy here today. This song was about unity. Everyone ever been to like a pop punk concert?

Raise your hand. What do they have in those concerts? All the people standing up front. Like I wish you guys would do that during worship. The mosh pit, right.

This song was about unity in the mush pit. So when someone jumps off a stage you got to all hold them up, And when someone falls down you got to lift them up because there's this innate culture in the mosh pit. It's very similar to the church. We have a different culture than the rest of the world And God's called us to unity, not disunityity, Right, Amen, somebody. He's called us, within our specific subset of the wider world culture, to be radically different And sometimes when we operate, people don't fully understand.

And when people come into church and they're new to church, sometimes they look at another person that they're supposed to be unified with and they struggle to comprehend how they would act. It's Halloween this week. Some people celebrate Halloween, Some people don't celebrate Halloween, And I've got some people who don't celebrate Halloween looking at people who do celebrate h Halloween as if they're like demonp possessed. And then we got people who do celebrate Halloween looking at people who don't, looking at them like "Yo, you just immature and don't understand real culture". Right, This is what happens in the world.

So I want you to do something. This song that I was talking about in 2001, . It was not about division and violence, It was about unity. So I want you to turn to your neighbor. Tell them my sermon title: Look at him.

Look at him, Let the bodies hit the floor. Oh, but, but there is a humility. So sometimes in worship, we got to let our bodies just: Hey, Jesus talked about it, Old Testament talked about it. Let angels prostrate fall.

Let the bodies hit the floor. It has nothing to do with my sermon, but, I do think it was an interesting thing that many times, the antidote to your judgment on somebody else is to remove assumption and increase your positive perspective toward that person, . So all you have to do with that song is listen to the lyrics, understand the culture a little bit Takes a little bit of research, because all you hear is: . One, nothing wrong with me. Two, nothing wrong with me.

Three: That's kind of the posture that we have when we go toward other people: Nothing wrong with me. And I need to tell you something else. Something's got to give in your life in order for you to move forward in your faith. I'm just having fun at this point. I didn't plan any of that part, But.

But what happens is we- we, we look at something we don't understand and we have judgment on it. That is, that's the start of division, like we look at somebody we don't understand and that begins for us a process of separation that will eventually turn into division. That's what happens. You look at somebody else, they look a little bit different than you, or they said something that you're not familiar, with in terms of phraseology.

I was in India a couple week, Southeast Asia, a couple weeks ago, and they say: you're not supposed to say it because I don't want to get people in trouble who are over there doing work And, anyway. So I was over there a few weeks ago and what the people who were talking to us would say is: , sometimes they may be speaking the same language, but they're saying something radically different. And so you got to understand how to interpret English is what they would tell us. That just cuz they speak English doesn't mean that they understand what you mean by what you say in English, And vice versa. Cultures are different, People are different, Language is different for different people.

Your personalities are different. Your upbringing is different. Your trauma triggers are different. Everything about each one of you is so drastically and radically different On one side is stressful. On the other side, it causes us to give glory to our creator, because how can things be so complex and there are billions of people on this earth and they're all infinitely different from one another, And so when we look at other people, we're like yo, they're weird, Or, they do this and they shouldn't do this.

Now, there are things you shouldn't do. I say stuff from here all the time, but your assumptions be begin this process of separation that can ultimately cause division in the church, And I think you need to flip the way that you process information if you're going to be in the church? Anyone ever been in a church that had division? Mhm, . If you, if you were to like, like, go back and like rewrite out the history of what happened at that church and the way that you currently understand it, not as a kid or a younger Christian, but as someone who's a little bit more mature now, if you walk back and look at that, you're like you could probably come up with a couple key reasons that that church divided, And I'm willing to bet it started with a difference that was unexplored on the front end.

And so then, when you don't understand something about somebody else, or they don't understand something about you, and you start to separate because, rather than change or understand, you would just rather sit in your position and them in their position, So you're lightly disconnected. Well, that continues to happen. And then at some point they do something else that you don't understand because you've disconnected from them and you don't understand their context in their life, right, And so they do this and then you judge them for that, and then they do this and you judge them for that. They do something else, and then they're, at some point, so distant from you that not only do you not understand each other, but you move from this passive disconnect to this active frustration toward the other person.

Or judgment, That's division, That's division. That's what happened with that song. I think it was interesting, They actually shelved it and it was not at all about violence, Just sounded like it a little bit Apple. Is that what you're playing? Oh, it's about to come.

On, Let's go. That would have been, that would have been a crazy way to finish out the sermon. And in Philippians, chapter 4, Paul has built up this large argument toward the Philippian church. He's been very nice to them, He's talked about his current situation, He's talked about how much he loves them, He's expressed to them how important it is to pursue Christ Jesus, first, to have the same mind as Christ. And when they have the same mind as Christ, it, yes, humbles us, but ultimately it enables God to do with us what he wants to do with us.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

And last week we talked about how Paul said that. Here's what I do: I forget what lies behind, press forward to what's ahead and I press toward the upward calling of God that I have in Christ Jesus. I'm, I'm Jesus centered, Jesus focused. We might say it here. I'm revolving everything around Jesus, But this has practical effects in your life.

Amen, Somebody. If you love Jesus, it doesn't. It have an effect? Some of y it should. I talk all the time up here, It is like one of my soap boxes that it is crazy to me that you understand, that God in heaven, robed himself in flesh, dwelt among men, dealt with our stuff, allowed us to crucify him, pierce his hands and his feet.

Then he was buried and then he rose again 3 days later. And then he didn't just die and rise again and sit at the right hand of the father, He sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in us so that it would convict us of our sin and move us forward toward the upward calling of God that we have in Christ Jesus. And he didn't just send us the Holy Spirit, He sent us a group of people who all house the power and authority of God's spirit. And when each person houses the authority of God's spirit, that means when I'm limited in my flesh, even though the spirit's trying to tell me something, somebody else's spirit can tell me very tangibly and physically how I can improve or how I can be encouraged. When I'm struggling in dysfunction, He continues.

And then sometimes God still performs physical, tangible miracles in this world so that we can look at him and understand him at a deeper level. If you believe any of that, it should radically impact the way that you interact with other people. Amen, . And so Paul says this: "Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you, whom I love and I long for my joy in my crown, stand firm in the Lord in the way that I've just talked about in the last four chapters". And here's a practical impact of following Christ Jesus at an intense level in your life.

He talks to two specific people. It's such a random thing, Like I know, that like at the end of chapter 2, he talks about Apaproditis and coming, like Paul's flowering personal conversation in with theological conversation. But it's an interesting thing that he builds this case and goes to a very specific situation. He says I- I don't just I, I, I would encourage lightly. He says: "I plead with Yodia and I plead with Cinti to be of the same mind in the Lord".

You know, I don't know anything about Yodia. I don't know anything about Cinti. I would probably frustrate you if I were to go further and extrapolate what I think it probably looked like in the Philippian church, Who Yodia was, who Cinti was. I can imagine that, Yodi and Cinti probably had some like real social justice thing that they were concerned about, that they wanted to tell somebody else about frequently, or it might have been something as simple as you know. They both had different sourdough businesses and they were trying to like sell it and they were just frustrated.

I'm trying to, I'm trying to picture- maybe it was, not Yod and Cintica, Cinti, It was like it was Esther and like what. You know, oh, I'm trying to think of, Esther and what, what's the old person's name?. Huh, . Some old person I don't know, .

Sandy, . Sandy. Oh, no, No, that's not what I'm saying, Sandy, But let's Okay, let's just go with Yod and Sandy, because it starts with an S, But that's, I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about S syndicate, Sandy. I'm picturing. This is not intentional.

You can picture whatever scenario it might be that would cause them to be divided in the Lord, but I can't talk to you about that because I it'd be reading into the text and I don't like to do that. But we can, we can make some probably safe assumptions about how that is very similar to today. Amen, somebody. Amen, . I.

I mentioned Halloween a second ago. People have different views on Halloween. I was talking to my small group the other day and you could say I kind of lit them up. No one did anything wrong, but I was just passionate and it was Sunday night and so I was already done preaching and I just got there and I'm really tired. You don't want to see Sunday night, Matt.

It's like really strange and out of out of my- Yeah, It's out of body- experience. I just talked to him and I told him how important it is, that we get along in the Lord. We weren't even talking about this passage. We were talking about the Old Testament when it comes to, the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Israel and how they split, And what you have there is you have a bad king on the south side and a bad king on the north side and neither of them can get along. And though both of them are bad, there was something so significant about the division of the kingdom that the division was what was discussed, not the bad nature or the bad leadership of the two kings that God cares so much about our unity for the sake of our own spirit and for the sake of his, the expansion of his kingdom, that above so many things in Scripture Paul, God lifts up unity.

I've talked about unity before. We sing that song: red, yellow, black and white- they are precious in his sight. I don't know that's really off key, But that that's what like. We sing that all the time, Yet we don't operate in that capacity. I look around the country, I could even look around the city, and I see a bunch of homogeneous churches who are a bunch of people who look the same.

Why? Because when you put people together who don't look the same sound, the same, think the same, division occurs. But here at this church, I want to be so intense about unity that we root out any essence of division. Paul says to a good church. He says: "I urge, I plead with Yuodia and I plead with Cinti, Get along".

. Amen. In the Lord, I have this image of what Yodia and Cinti must have been thinking when they read this letter, assuming they were literate, You know, like there weren't a lot of people who could read, but they would have heard it in church most likely. I know you're thinking I said something negative about people, but I'm not like 10% of people could read back in those days, And so the way that Scripture or Paul's letters would have been read was in the church setting.

In the church setting, And what someone would do- most likely Clement here. Who's kind of the leader, of that grouping of people, he probably takes this letter from Paul, gathers people around- probably a house, church, maybe they were still hanging out down by the river in Philippi- brings them together and he says: "Hey guys, here's a letter from Paul. We're going to read it portion by portion or we're going to read the whole thing today. I think it'll be beneficial, I think it's going to bless you all. This is Clement reading to his people And he gets to chapter four.

He says: "Look what Paul said. It is so good. Y'all should stand firm in that". And then then he's reading and he's like [snorts]. He sees Yod and Cinti right in the front row over here.

He's like " [sighs]: all right, Paul, I Paul says this, Paul, Paul, Paul says this. You know, I, I plead with Yuodia and I plead with Cinti. I don't know if he looked at him like he's reading their mail. He's just reading Paul's mail right here. I be of the same mind in the Lord.

And now he starts reading about it. Yes, And I ask you, my true companion, help these women, since they have contended at my side in the cause of the Gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers whose names are in the book of life Right Like. This is. This is an interesting moment. I'm sure he probably read it beforehand.

I'm I'm sure the leader read it beforehand. But, sometimes you get really busy in life and maybe he's too busy hiding from persecution, Gets this letter and he's like: "I've had time to read it, so I'm reading it to the group right now". How he gets to this point and he has to address- because Paul addresses it- a significant scenario. I found in my life that the biggest frustration each of us have with church is the people. Nobody.

If your biggest frustration with the church historically has been people just say, okay, I got some honest people on this side of it. Maybe some people's thing it's because, they struggled with the proposition of truth that, we read about the Gospel of Jesus. That is a some people and they need, like, a message on the resurrection so they can understand what the resurrection is. I think some people struggle with different theological things and, at the same time, I think most struggles root themselves in a person. Some people don't like how pastors have too much money- I don't, FYI.

Some people don't like that, . Or maybe they have a car that you wanted to get but you didn't because you're in debt. But then the pastor went and got this car cuz he had saved up the money. But you see it and it's, it's. I don't have a Tesla, but it's a Tesla.

And you're like, "Oh, the pastor must be stealing tithe money". That's some people, right, That's a lot of people. I see it on my Instagram quite a bit. Somebody told me I had like three houses one time and I'm like, "Where they at"?.

I'd love some passive income right now, but a lot of people don't go to the church because of leadership. That's people I'll. I'll say to you: if you have a struggle with church leadership, I get it. I've been under church leadership that like is a struggle bus the entire time and I've been way closer to some of that leadership than you guys have And I, I've seen it. I, I know there is a struggle with leadership because people be people sometimes and people- even if, like pastors, are people too right.

And so there are struggles there. And I want to tell you this: , I totally understand some of your frustrations with the church because of the leadership in the church. Goodness gracious, 5 years from now, you might be here 5 years from now and then I do something crazy and stupid. I want you to know: stand firm in the Lord, And when you stand firm in the Lord, when you look at the people, it gives you a little bit more grace and enables you to have unity. And even if you need to check this church- like check another church out, because I did something so crazy and frustrating, The way that you leave is radically impacted by what Paul says here.

If you stand firm in the Lord, he urges us to get along in the Lord. So even if I need to find a different route, I'm going to do so in a way that honors God. That's just leadership. But then some people- I've seen it, We've only been at church for a year and a half and I've seen it- People will leave because somebody said something rude to them and they'll bring it to me after they leave, cuz I asked them "Where you been" And they're like: "We left". I said, "Well, why'd you leave" And they say, "Well, so and so said this" And I'm like: "That's so, and so I mean they've showed up two times".

Number one, Number two: Okay, What did they say? Did you talk to him about your frustration? What do you think? The answer is every time: , No, No, Even in that case where you're completely offended because of, maybe, assumptions that you've held, or you're completely offended because you assumed correctly and they really are struggling and doing things that are negatively impacting you. In either case, I'm going to tell you what Paul says.

I plead with you to have the same mind-, Amen, - That of Christ. Same mind be, because I'm I'm so glad Jesus did not respond like a lot of church members tend to: , Amen, . If he'd responded like that, like every time I said something that frustrated him, . It's like "Nah you done, bro", Like we'd all be in hell by the end of it, Like if Jesus was, as weak as we are in the area of grace, then, we, we would be just like we would still be in the Old Testament like lightning bolting people everywhere.

We'd be struggling. We'd be James and John here. Hey, can we call down fire from heaven on this dude? He says something like lightly offensive and I'd really prefer him not to say that again. This is the way that we respond And like someone does something or says something and we're like completely offended.

It ruins our whole day. But I need you to understand that there are more important things than the interaction you just had. God has a mission that we are all supposed to embark on, a mission to love God and to love others. What does that mean? It means my love for another trumps whatever offense I might have toward the person.

It trumps it And if you can get this into your mind, it's going to give you some grace toward the other people. And you might be thinking: Pastor Matt, you don't know what they did. I'm so offended that the person who set this up did not tighten it. I'm kidding, I'm not offended at all because I know who it was and I love you in Christ Jesus.

. Hey, it's just a second, It's fixable. Kind of like that.

Look at your neighbor, Tell them. Whatever your issue is, y'all ain't doing nothing. Hey, y'all going to offend me? Today I'm going to call down lightning bolts from heaven on some of you. I'm kidding, I would never do that.

I'm just going to call down the conviction of the Holy Spirit on you right now. You should look at your neighbor. Right now You should say, "Hey, whatever your issue, . Whatever your issue is, is fixable". That was an accident, All right, It, it's fixable.

You say: "But, but, but, Pastor Matt, they're a Democrat and I'm a Republican". Well, they're a Republican and they supported Trump and I'm a Democrat. How could they do that? I don't know, on either side.

I don't know, But they could tell you. If you're humble enough to listen and then humble enough to deal with it when it's not what you think. Because guess what? I plead with you to get along. In the Lord, There are a bunch of pastors out there right now saying there's no third way And I'm like I don't know.

They're like that. You kind of got to be Republican if you're going to be a Christian. . Bro, there are more important things than your political party. I'm not saying I.

I want to be so clear, cuz there's going to be someone in here who's going to be completely offended by me saying that, that, like you know, you can be a Christian, and on either side I need you to know that there are just more important things in the world than your political party. I know some do right things, some do wrong things and some annoy me and some I agree with. But I'll set that stuff aside in two seconds, just like Jesus set aside heaven in two seconds, so that I could connect with my brother or sister in Christ, . So, before I go too long- because I think I've already gone too long, I apologize.

I think Paul gives us a solution in this passage, And so, rather than harping on what causes division and our frustrations and kind of lightly hope- hopefully if you got a sense of humor-, hilariously express to you how crazy and dumb some of our offense toward other people is, I want to tell you the solution that Paul gives us right here. And he says in verse four: what's that word in verse four? Toss it up there. Rejoice in the Lord always.

Again, rejoice. Let your gentle spirit be known to all men, Not that your political part is about to win, Not that your political part is the right one, Not that your opinion is solid, Not that your education tells other people that you're an expert and the other person who doesn't have that education is not worthy of telling you what you should do in a specific situation. Not that because they dress a certain way that they're a terrible person. Not because they celebrate a certain holiday that they can't love the Lord. He says: "Let them know, through your gentleness, the Lord is near".

Verse six: Do not be anxious or stressed, Might I say. Offended, which is, causes anxiety and stress. Like offense is stressful on your body. You ever seen someone walk around completely offended- I'm almost stressed- for almost like golly, your blood pressure's got to be high right now. Should I test you right now?

Like you're going to sweat more. You're going to be frustrated with other people. Like there are bodily responses to your offended nature And it's going to cause you to have a heart attack earlier than it should. It's going to cause you to have headaches that you shouldn't have. It's going to cause your bones and joints and everything else to start locking up in ways that it shouldn't.

You're going to have early onset arthritis and depression. I'm not saying this is going to happen, I'm not prophesying this over you, But I am saying, if you live in offense, it is stressful. So the solution to your offense is the peace of God, the recognition that the Lord is near, a posture of gentleness toward the other person and the willingness to understand the thing that you've been assuming incorrectly. And then he says this. He tells us very specifically- It's like Paul knows that in 2025 we're going to struggle with this worse than they did in the Philippian church.

He says: "Think on these things, If, if you're so dense that you miss what I understand by the peace that surpasses all understanding". I'm kidding, You're not dense. This is just Bible. You don't know it. But Paul's saying to the Philippian church: they should know this already.

Yodia and Cinti, they have already striven in the Lord with Paul. They were there probably from an early season, And Paul knows who they are. And he's like: "Come on, ladies, get along". And since he knows he needs to spell it out, he says: "Think on these things", And I'm going to read this because I memorized it from a different translation. He says: "Finally, brothers, verse eight, whatever is true", meaning your assumption, unless it's verified, could be non-true.

Whatever is noble? So whatever fight you're trying to have, if it's selfish in nature, it's what they would say: ignoble or not noble. Whatever is right- a lot of us are incorrect, making assumptions. Whatever is pure: when you start thinking about your frustration toward another person, a lot of us would say we have righteous indignation. But really you just have an internal frustration you don't fully understand And you're operating from that emotional amygdala perspective rather than a reasoned perspective.

Or even if you've reasoned it, you've reasoned it incorrectly because you never once opened the words of life things that are true, right, honorable, pure, lovely and of good repute. He says "Whatever is lovely". I Let me re-ransate that, because this is an adverb he's utilizing to describe how you operate toward another person. Whatever is loving. Amen.

Like is your offense? Loving to another person? You know the answer to that question: It's not. It's not loving Whatever is loving or praiseworthy. Praiseworthy, What does it mean to have something that's praiseworthy, Maybe?

Maybe Paul's reminded of what he said in another passage. He says: "Don't let any unh wholesome word come out of your mouth except that which is useful or beneficial in helping". His focus in helping someone stand firm in the faith, in helping someone understand that the Lord is near. He says: "Think about such things" And then he further clarifies. He says "Whatever".

Say "Whatever, whatever things you've learned from the Bible, whatever you've received from somebody who's in the Lord, whatever you've heard, that's, that's excellent". He says also: whatever, what have you noticed? Whatever you've seen in those people who genuinely follow Jesus? Start mimicking, mocking, imitating those things, and the peace of God will be with you and watch this. When, when the peace of God fills you, the negative things with the other person don't come into your mind.

I'll close with this. I, I've been a manager over the years and, I've led people who are volunteers and, when I was in public accounting, sometimes I would have teams of people that I would have to lead to different-, I was an auditor, so different auditing projects. So I've led many times over the years and I don't do this as frequent, as frequently as I would like to, but what happens when you're leading somebody is immediately, when they do something you don't immediate, like initially understand they like It bugs you to say it from a manager perspective, but you see it in your relationships. They do something you don't fully understand. That just bugs you Like it grates at you, Just like that song.

Let the bodies hit the floor, Like some people like "Oh gosh, that's so angry, I don't want to listen to that stuff, It's just terrible. Who would listen to that? Why would they put that? Why was TRL giving it top 10 back in the day? Like this is terrible".

But they didn't understand what it was about. That happens with me a lot is, I'll assume, something about the other person. What they did, what they thought, like how they cons consistently think, and I just get mad or frustrated, stressed out, even offended. It's like: how dare they not understand what I want? And the Lord has convicted me many times over the years to do what this text says, to make a radical shift in my posture, to not say how do they impact me, but to ask the question: what does God think about them and how do I act in line with what God thinks about them?

Let me say it simply: Turning negative thoughts into positive thoughts, because positivity will shift your reactions and positivity will promote unity way more than negative thinking. So my encouragement to every person in this room as you enter further into this church is this: Have a posture that doesn't assume but seeks to love another person enough to, even if you don't understand what they're doing, to seek to understand it so that then, as you see them continually, through the lens that God sees us, you can help them improve if need be, or learn to love them at a deeper level as you understand how they think. I've learned this about my staff: that the more positive I am toward each of them, the more I love what God has placed in them to do. But they think differently than me And if I default to negative and offense, even the staff would be divided. But if I can think on the right things, you might even need to list it out about your spouse, List all the positive things.

And when you're writing these positive things, I'm willing to bet that a tear will come down from your eye as you're listing those positive things, because you're going to realize in a single moment how little you've even thought about those things because you've been so consumed with thinking about the things they did negatively or to negatively impact you. You thinking about what your kids don't have or how they're not like you. Maybe write the things down that God's given them, Because if we're ever going to work together as a unified body in a household or in this church, it requires us to do this. And there may be some of you in here you're like, "Yeah, I've never been to church, never wanted to go to church, haven't been to church in a long time because, because of some of this division and things that are confusing". I want you to know it exists, but it's not God's desire.

And if you're in here today for the first time and you're you're wondering like, "How do I obtain that peace that surpasses all understanding", I want you to know that the Bible makes clear that anyone who confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in their heart that God raised him from the dead will be saved. And when you are saved, you know what happens: You become the person that now offends all these like consistent Christians. But I'm teaching them Because God's teaching you and he brings you into this process whereby he changes you from the inside out. He gives you a new thought process, He gives you, he gives you some new activities to perform, He, he really, really, really does something in you, to bring you from point A to point B in your faith- And I'm joking about you annoying other people, but you know how. You know how church people can be- You sit in their seat because it's your first time and they're like, "You've been to Baptist church, It happens".

I'm telling you, it happens. There was one time I walked in and I'm like, "They sitting in my seat, That crazy people". Oh Lord, you're right, They deserve it. I need them to sit there, Like there's a shift that Christian church people have to do. But if you're the one who hasn't been in the church for a while, I want you to know that, regardless of what someone might say- the accidental behavior of people who are not yet mature in Christ Jesus- I want you to know God loves you so much that he sent his son to die on the cross for you, And all you have to do is trust in him to receive the grace of Jesus.

Amen, somebody. So here's what I want to do. If that's you, I want you to take the opportunity, if God's leading you, to confess that he's Lord today and see what he does with your life. So if everybody would bow their heads and close their eyes, I'm going pray this prayer. We do it all together at this church, in unity, for the benefit of those who are doing it for the first time, not only to make you feel more comfortable, but, I guess, in some weird indirect way, to show you our posture toward you, because we're trying to have the same mind as Christ.

So, if you're ready to receive Christ today, repeat after me. Well, all of us repeat, Repeat after me for the first time. Say God, I believe. God, I believe.

That Jesus is your son. That Jesus is your son. I believe he died. And rose.

And rose. Father, forgive me of my sin. Father, forgive me of my s.

Make me a new creation, . And I commit to follow you. Follow you.

Help me grow, . Help me grow. Help me know you.

Help me know. It's in Jesus's name that we pray And all God's people celebrate it. Come on, Come on, Hey. If that was you on the count of three, keep celebrating On the count of three.

Shoot your hand up if you just made that decision. One, two, three, Come on, Let us know you made that decision.