Jesus Is Lord

And it is my privilege to get to minister God's word to you tonight.

Tonight we're going to be talking, and I've talked different times.

I've come up here and pointed out that there's a lot of different names for Jesus in the Bible.

You know I'm a Savior and the Messiah, the Lamb of God, our soon-coming kings, the Prince of Peace the long list of them.

I preached on Jesus the Rock at one point, and then you've got names of God mentioned in the Old Testament.

There's El Shaddai, the Almighty.

Jehovah Nisi he's our banner.

Jehovah Rawa, our shepherd.

Jehovah Rafa, our healer.

Jehovah Jireh, our provider.

Jehovah Sittkanu, our righteousness.

So we've got all these names in here, but the one I haven't talked about is the one most frequently used and that is Lord, and so tonight we're talking about Jesus is Lord.

It was used over 6,000 times in the Old Testament and over 700 times in the New Testament, so it must be important to know that Jesus is Lord and to recognize what that means.

So there's a couple of different words that we'll talk about tonight.

Old Testament the Hebrew word for Lord, or the word that's translated Lord in the Hebrew, is Jehovah, and that means eternal one, and it's a very simple definition.

There's another word used in the Hebrew, it's Adonai.

That one means it's kind of a my possessive thing, it's my Lord, but it's also divine sovereignty and authority.

It's a term of reverence and respect, and so those two words could be translated Lord in the Old Testament.

An example of that is in the 23rd Psalm.

How many remember the 23rd Psalm?

The Lord.

It starts out the Lord is my shepherd.

And so the Lord is Jehovah right there.

He's my shepherd.

He's there to feed, to guide and to shield me.

And so there it is in Psalm 23,.

But it really it's all.

It's 6,000 times in the Old Testament and over 700 times in the New Testament.

The New Testament word is Curios.

It's a Greek word and it means supreme authority, but it's also used in a respectful manner.

It's kind of like a title.

You might call somebody sir, in the same way that you would call somebody Lord or master.

It's also translated master there, and so it's a respectful term used in the New Testament.

So you kind of have to look at the context to how that's used.

You know, around our house I prefer that Claire calls me my Lord.

Why is that so funny?

Nobody else does that.

Am I the only one, or Lord of the Manor or something you know, something, master, any of those will do at home.

That's good.

Okay, let's get over that.

Go ahead and get the rest of them out.

So when Jesus and His disciples were, they were walking through a cornfield.

This is not a joke.

This is really in the New Testament, jesus and His disciples walking through a cornfield.

And as they walked, the disciples started plucking some of the ears of corn.

They hadn't eaten and they were hungry.

But it was the Sabbath day and Jesus was criticized for allowing His disciples to harvest corn on the Sabbath, on the Sabbath.

And that was a violation, apparently.

And Jesus' response to them was that the Son of man is the Lord of the Sabbath.

So that was not a risk.

He was not giving Himself respect in that moment and saying you know, I am sir or mister.

He's saying I am Lord in charge of, I have full authority over the Sabbath, and so he was declaring something about Himself right there In John 13, 13,.

So I'm going to just set this up a little bit.

In John 13, this is where Jesus is washing the disciples' feet, and he washed their feet.

And then Peter protested and he said why are you washing my feet.

You should never wash my feet.

And Jesus answered Him if I do not wash your feet.

So this is John 13, verse 8.

John 13:8

Peter said you shall never wash my feet.

And Jesus answered Him if I do not wash your feet, you have no part of me.

And then Peter very quickly flips on that and he said oh well, wash my head and everything in between, head to toe.

Wash all of me.

And Jesus said he who is bathed needs to only wash his feet, because if you're bathed you're clean, except you've been walking somewhere and so you've got a little dirt on your feet.

So he who is bathed needs to only wash his feet, and then he's completely clean.

But not all of you are clean, he said, for he knew in advance that somebody was going to betray him.

He said you were not all clean.

So in verse 12, so then he washed.

When he had washed their feet and had taken his garments, he sat down again and he said to them do you know what I have done to you?

And in verse 13, you call me teacher or master.

The King James says and you call me Lord, you call me master and Lord.

And you say well, for I am.

So I am both your master or teacher.

The Greek word there is teacher and Lord.

I'm both of those things to you guys, and both of those words have some significance, and we'll touch on that some more later.

In John 14, 15, jesus said if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.

You know, if he's your Lord, you ought to obey him.

If you love me, you're going to obey me.

He says so.

My background is engineering and I have a real hard time making a decision about much of anything unless I have seen a full set of drawings for it and I have built an extensive spreadsheet of all the pluses and minuses, the risk factors, the reward factor.

I need to know what this is going to cost, and so what are the materials?

I need a full material list.

I need all the resources that it's gonna take to do this plan that's in front of me.

I need to total all that.

How much time is this gonna take?

You know time is money.

So my background is engineering and project management and I would bid jobs that way, and so I have a hard time.

Just in life in general, I over-evaluate plans.

In life, I'm slow to make a decision, and that's a weakness on my side, because when God gives you something to do, we ought not be evaluating it for so long.

And yet I wanna see that plan, because if God would just take that plan and lay it out in front of me, I could see it.

I could make a few corrections.

I've got a red pen here.

I could mark through some stuff, I could straighten out the curves, fill in some potholes, take some more direct routes to things.

I mean, you ever look at how God has led us in our own lives and you just, if you just self-evaluate a little bit and you look in the rear view mirror and you see where you are today and where you came from and what it took for you to get there.

It is such a strange and convoluted route and I'll just tell you today that that wasn't God's plan.

That was because we're veering off of it and he's gotta get you back on course so much of the time.

But if he laid that plan out in front of me, if I see that I laid it out in front of me, I don't think I would ever do it.

It would be too intimidating for me to just take in this whole plan and just launch on it.

And so he doesn't do that for us.

He doesn't give us the opportunity to see the whole plan out in front of us.

He might give you a big picture or an end result, but how to get there.

He doesn't always get you, but he does give us a way to get there.

Proverbs 16, nine says a man plans his way.

That's me.

I plan my way to the nth degree.

But the Lord directs his steps, and so we can walk in our plan, or we can just let God direct our steps, and if we follow the direction, we'll end up fulfilling the plan that he had for us.

It won't look like the one that got me from where I used to be to where I am today.

It'll be a little bit more clean, cut than that.

And it's not that we don't get to know some stuff.

We do get to know things.

Psalm 119, 105,.

Your word is a lamp into my feet and it's a light into my path.

It's a lamp to my feet.

So if you're walking down a trail at night, you've got a path in front of you and I can't see the path because it's dark and it's got some turns in there.

And so what do you need.

You need a lamp, and so you carry a lantern or you carry a flashlight and it only goes so far and so you can only see maybe the next few steps as you're walking along.

But as you keep moving you can see the next few steps and if there is a hole you can avoid it, and if there's a snake in the path you can step on it, and I mean like crush its head, step on it or tiptoe around it.

But you can see the dangers in front of you and know how to avoid those things, because his word is a lamp into our feet and a light into our path.

It does not reveal the whole plan to us, but you can know some stuff by knowing his word, and I'll give you an example, a recent example here.

We've talked a lot about my God votes and we started really it's just three words, my God votes and we put it on some signs and some t-shirts because really it was just a message, because we wanted people to understand that God has a side and people better get on God's side.

It's not that God gets on our side, we gotta get on his side.

So it was just a message and we put it out around election time because it carries some significance with issues and with particular candidates.

But we didn't know the plan for that and I still can't tell you the whole plan for that.

But I can tell you what's happened and recognize that God had a plan and that we walked it out.

And it was amazing.

So what happened and I've told this recently but I'll tell it again Tara came to us and said I'm gonna be spending a lot more time in Austin this legislative session and I'm adjusting my work schedule so that I can be flexible.

I'm planning on doing some work from there.

And I just thought okay, why is she telling me this?

I don't know, maybe she's working for a legislative, I don't know.

I didn't dive into it, but she just made that statement and then, not long after that, she was in an event where our state rep from Montgomery County up that way Steve Toth was there and it was almost in a passing moment at the end said I'd like to start having church services at the Capitol.

And so she raised her hand, said I wanna help with that.

And so about a week or two later, the three of us are on a phone call talking about how can we have church services at the Capitol and, before you know it, we're having church services at the Capitol.

We didn't really have a vision for that, except that it'd be kind of neat to have church services in the Capitol, and wouldn't it be great to bring the presence of God in that place, and it certainly would make a difference.

But I didn't think through it far enough to recognize that there would be some pastors that would be excited to come and have never been to the Capitol.

And so they're excited to come to their Capitol, never having been before.

And then they come in there asking questions like well, how do I get in the Capitol?

Do I need a pass?

Do I like?

No, this is your state house, this is your house, you don't need a pass, you can just come in.

Well, what about the separation of church and state?

Shouldn't we be careful about something?

No, you should not.

You should preach God's word.

And so they come in there and before they get to minister that night they walked around the Capitol and got a tour by Representative Toath and Tara, who kind of worked on this together.

They one would talk about the historical side of the Capitol or the functioning side of the Capitol and the other one would talk about the scriptural significance of that and why it is the way it is.

And so these pastors' eyes are getting kind of lit up, they're becoming enlightened, they're having a revelation moment here that they should be here, that they should be doing this, and they're starting to recognize that we haven't done enough of this.

And so then they minister that service that night.

And then the follow-up questions back to us were things like gosh, we don't even know what to do.

How can we get our congregation more involved?

We haven't done enough.

I recognize that.

So what do we do?

How do we talk about legislation?

How do we test?

You talked about testifying.

How do we testify on this stuff?

And so then we follow back up with them and help them take some next steps as a church.

So now you've activated an entire church, but you do that 19 times because there were 19 weeks in the regular session.

So 19 different churches came in there and ministered God's word and had some kind of waking up experience to what they need to be doing, and they learned some ways that they can do more.

And so how many years ago did God tell pastor to wake up the church?

That's been 20 years.

And then it just kind of dawned on us oh, that's what he meant, oh, that's like I should have had a V8 moment.

That's what he meant.

Didn't have the plan, but we walked it out.

And it was so neat to see some of those puzzle pieces fit together, because there was another gentleman at the Capitol on the first church service maybe the second one, I don't know and he just showed up there and he met Tara and he said I'm here and God told me to be at the Capitol on Tuesdays and so I'm gonna be here.

That's the night of the church services.

He said so I'm gonna be here Tuesdays and I don't really have a purpose.

I'm not sure why I'm here, but I'm just here, just make myself available.

So he was part of the puzzle piece to make that happen.

And then other people fell into place that we had no real connection with.

So people just came, their steps were ordered of the Lord, they walked it out, they didn't have to see the big plan, they didn't have to approve it, they just let God order their steps and all ended up at the same place doing the same thing and the end result was amazing.

And so that's an example of a walking God's plan out step by step.

Now there was another church that we did get to meet with.

It was in Austin and I didn't know that Representative Tooth had tried for some time to get this concept off the ground of having church services at the Capitol.

So we meet with this pastor and his team They've already been at the Capitol and administered and then it comes out in that conversation that Representative Tooth had come to them about a year ago and they were a local church in Austin and he thought that they'd be a good fit to kind of get this kicked off.

And they just hymned and hawed about it and thought about it and considered that and what would their congregation think?

And what about the separation of church and state?

And should we be doing this?

And this is politics?

And they thought about it for a whole year.

So there was one church that thought about it for a whole year and then one believer, tara, who in a meeting heard church at the Capitol.

She said I want to help.

So if you're going to obey God, I'm going to encourage you to do it promptly, because God's plan is going to happen with or without you, and if you don't do it, there's a dozen replacements lined up to take your place and to enjoy the blessing that goes along with that obedience, and that church kind of recognized it dawned on them in that meeting.

We were thinking about this for a year and you guys just did it.

You could just kind of see that washing over them.

They missed out on something that God was doing, and it's not too late to get plugged back in.

They're going to get plugged back in and become a part of what they need to be doing.

They're going to be doing there in Austin.

But they missed an opportunity a year ago and so God's plan will happen, with or without you.

Just be quick to obey.

I don't want somebody doing my job.

You know we are the temple of the Holy Ghost and we are not our own.

We've been bought with a price, which means that we don't get to decide stuff about our service to our Lord.

We've been bought with, we were paid for.

He gave his life for us.

That was the payment for all of our failures and we got to enjoy everything he had.

It was a pretty good deal.

I don't want to go backwards on that, and so just remember you are not your own.

You've been bought with a price.

Therefore, glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are God's.

He owns the whole of you.

So how do you know what commands to obey?

How do you know if it's coming from Jesus?

Is that really a Jesus command?

Is that my Lord commanding me to do something, or is that another voice?

We've got the Holy Spirit that dwells on the inside of us.

Jesus, talking about this in John 16, 13, says however, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth and he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will tell you things to come.

He's talking about the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit dwells on the inside of us, our body.

Pastor talked about it this morning.

We are a body, we have a spirit and I am a spirit and I live in this body.

You know who else is in that body the Holy Spirit.

My spirit and the Holy Spirit live in the same place.

They're tent mates, they're cabin buddies, they're roommates.

They're in the same place and they talk to each other.

And the Holy Spirit doesn't talk to my brain and he doesn't talk to my flesh.

He talks to my spirit.

That's who I am, and so the Holy Spirit relates to your spirit and he's there to lead you and guide you and show you things to come.

He's your helper, your comforter, but it's on us to follow, and so the Holy Spirit's there, right with our spirit.

They're talking to each other and you can get revelation, knowledge from your spirit.

Your spirit has perceptions about things.

Paul had perceptions about stuff.

He said I perceive that this trip is going to end in peril and that was a shipwreck.

At the end of that, waiting for him, he perceived rightly, because his brain didn't know that.

He didn't know the things that were going to happen in front of him.

God didn't just lay all that out, but he knew something's going to happen.

How many have had a perception about something in your life?

That's your spirit.

It gets to know some stuff and you ought to pay attention to that.

God will never lead you in a pathway that's not consistent with the plan for your life.

You won't be led in a direction that's inconsistent with the plan.

You won't be led in a direction that's inconsistent with God's word.

So you can always judge it by God's word.

You might have some specific knowledge about stuff.

But this word is going to ring true to you about that situation when you read, the Holy Spirit and God's word works together and you get to know some things.

So I'll give you another example.

When Claire and I bought our first house, our kids were very little, actually they weren't even born yet when we bought our house.

They weren't quite with us yet, but Claire was out to hear.

So we bought a house and we knew we were going to have kids and so we bought a house with room for kids and it was a good house and a good neighborhood and a good part of town and it was super convenient.

Everything we needed was right around us.

Well, it wasn't too long before both Claire and myself independently just kind of recognized we needed to get out of this house.

That wasn't my brain planning something, and I didn't do a spreadsheet, I didn't do a drawing, I didn't look at the market, the real estate market.

I didn't look at any of that.

It was just a gut feeling.

My spirit knew something, my brain didn't know.

My brain had to play catch up.

Why am I having this feeling?

Why is she having that feeling independently?

The Holy Ghost was talking to our spirits independently and we knew we had to get out of that house.

So we thought about putting it up for sale.

My spirit knew that wasn't the right way.

I didn't know the right way, but the thought of putting it up for sale just kind of was a gut punch.

Oh, that doesn't feel right.

And she kind of felt the same way.

We ended up putting it out on the rental market.

We had never been landlords there's that Lord word again.

We were lords.

We'd never been landlords before, really even considered that.

But we became a landlord when we put our house on the market for rent and there was another pastor in the neighborhood who was renting a house he and his family and that house the landlord did not pay the mortgage and so it was foreclosed on.

There was a good renter there and their home, the building that the house was foreclosed on because the landlord didn't pay the mortgage and so they had to get out of there and move.

Now it was a parsonage for them In their denomination.

Their church government structure provided a place for their pastor, their minister, and so that was a parsonage that was paid for by the church.

They never missed rent and they were desperate for a place to move.

They moved right into our house and we got to be a blessing to the kingdom of God, to that family that was serving their Lord, our Lord.

It was a blessing to them.

They had prayed for a house in our neighborhood and it wasn't available until we felt the urgency to put it up on the market for rent and we had to find a house to get into.

And that was.

The other side of the story was that we got into a great house.

That was a great place for us, even better than we thought.

We weren't looking, we didn't need something, but God blessed us and we had something even better, and those tenants were great tenants for the time that they were there for a long time and it was a great income for us, and so it was just a blessing.

The Holy Ghost wants to bless you and he wants to show you some things.

He wants to teach you, he wants to guide you.

If you'll follow His steps, let your steps be ordered.

And again, he doesn't talk to your emotions.

People get emotional about stuff.

They blame all kinds of things on God and it's really just their emotion.

It's just the flesh wanting something or not wanting something or being scared about something.

Fear will get you to make a decision, and it'll never be the right one.

And so be a spirit-led person.

It's the same way that you were saved.

When you were born again, your spirit recognized and witnessed the Holy Spirit witnessed with your spirit.

And when you were growing on the inside, you recognized I am born again, I'm a new creature.

That's how you knew you were saved.

The same way that we knew to put one house on the market and buy another house is the same way that we knew we were saved the inward witness.

And so that takes faith to live that way.

But your faith grows and so listen to that.

Never discount that inward witness.

And there's a lot of voices out there, and so, like I would encourage you to not listen to voices or to be spirit-led people.

That there's an inward witness, I mean sometimes there's a spectacular thing you can hear from God.

You can hear audible things.

You can have voices in your life.

Your pastor is a good voice.

He's never going to micromanage your life, but sometimes you know it comes through other people.

But most of the time you live by that inward witness.

So don't be looking for other voices.

There's plenty of voices to find.

If you're looking for them, you're going to hear voices and they're not all going to be from God and then you're going to end up with a crazy pattern because you're always going to be having to get back on track because you're not having your steps ordered to the Lord.

How many know Facebook has a voice?

Facebook has a voice and it wants to guide you, and Twitter and Instagram and all social media wants to guide you.

They want to guide you out of something and into something.

And here's something you may not know about Facebook how many of you experience hands up, how many people are on Facebook?

Okay, there's a lot of people on Facebook.

So how many your Facebook feed?

You can sit there and scroll through your Facebook feed and you see all kinds of stuff that you relate to, that you sympathize with, that you agree with, or the same things that make your friends angry.

On Facebook.

You know the same things that elicit that same emotion from you.

So it's just kind of feeding you stuff that you really like to see, and if you don't like something, you don't spend any time looking at that and sometimes you can find a little place to click on there where you can agree to.

I want to see less of this kind of stuff, and so Facebook builds a feed for you that you enjoy to look at, so that you'll look at it more and longer and spend more time scrolling through there, because they want to monetize that, because there's advertisements, and advertisers want to know what it is you like, and so they take that information of what you like and they feed that to companies that want to sell you stuff.

There's money to be made on Facebook and you are the product.

Facebook is selling something.

If you're not paying for it and you think you're getting something but you're not paying for it you're the product.

You are the product that Facebook is selling.

I just want you to know that, and they have refined their technology and they have artificial intelligence, ai intelligence working on it.

They know, or it knows I'll call it an it.

It knows how long you look at a particular image or meme or thing on Facebook and it knows what part of the image you're looking at and what part caught your eye initially.

They have this down, or it has this down to an extremely accurate and precise science, and you are the product.

So there's a whole other.

So we're talking about you and your friends, and then there's this whole other world over here.

That's them and their friends, and they're seeing something different than what you're seeing, because they like different stuff than you and they want to see different things, and Facebook wants to feed them stuff that keeps them on there longer and longer, and then we end up with basically two different worlds out there that hate each other and are completely divided because this group here likes that and this group here likes this.

And now you're in an echo chamber where all you hear are people that agree with you and things that you like, and you think you know I'm changing the world.

I'm going to really give it to them.

I'm going to write a Facebook post and it's going to be a doozy and it's going to say some stuff and it's going to have a lot of punch and it might even have a scripture in there and it's going to be full of truth and I'm going to turn some people around you're not because they don't want to hear that.

They're in the other group over here where they see some stuff that they want to see, and Facebook ensures that they're not going to see what it is that you put out there because what you put out your group likes, but it would be offensive to this one over here.

So I just want you to know that there's voices out there that will lead you if you let them.

And now that you know that much about Facebook, spend a little less time staring at that stuff and scrolling through that.

Spend a little more time staring at this right here and let this one lead you, and not your Facebook and not your whatever social media.

There's lots of voices out there and all of them are significant, but not all of them are true.

The one sure thing we have is the witness of the Holy Spirit.

It's always an operation, it never sleeps, it always works.

So we'll shift gears a little bit.

Ones chapter 1, verse 16, says this for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.

As it is written, the just shall live by faith, but the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, due to the power of God unto salvation and the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.

The just shall live by faith.

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress truth and unrighteousness.

There are people out there that want to suppress the truth.

Call them fact checkers or whatever you want to call them.

There's a world out there that wants to suppress the truth and the wrath of God is revealed against them.

But on our side, we cannot be ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

You ought to say that a few times a day, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

It is the power of God unto salvation, for I am not ashamed.

I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

You ought to just say that multiple times a day.

I am not ashamed.

So the disciples called Jesus master or teacher, and they called him Lord.

And I said we are going to get back to this Master.

If he is going to be your teacher, you have got to believe him.

You have got to believe what he says.

First of all, you have got to believe that your teacher is teaching you something good.

And so if he is your master or your teacher, you have got to believe him, and if he is your Lord, that is the eternal and supreme authority.

You have got to obey your Lord.

You have got to believe and you have got to obey Two simple things believe and obey.

Now, pastor mentioned this this morning and I am going to read some of these quotes that I looked up, but the Blue Jays relief picture, anthony Bass.

He put out a post I think it was an Instagram post and it wasn't even something.

It was a video of somebody who said some stuff and he just posted it with no further comment, because I guess he thought that this post said everything it needed to say and he couldn't say it any better and he thought it was pretty good and he put it out there.

He believed in it, and in that post was a guy talking about Target and their swimsuit line that they had put out for men.

I said these are female swimsuits for men to wear and Target was carrying these things, and you have seen the stuff about Target and their pride display.

If we have that photo, you can go ahead and put that photo up.

By the way, we haven't shopped at Target for a while now, but I was just curious.

I had walked in there at one point and seen their pride display.

I wish I got a picture of it, but it was all geared towards kids and it was front and center and it was pretty big.

As soon as you walk down the main aisle of Target, this is in Tombaul on 2920.

Walked in there and there's this giant LGBTQ, trans kids, this trans, that display of all kinds of kids stuff and clothing and bags and everything.

And so I know Target has got some pushback.

They had this plan in place for a long time and they implemented their plan, even though they saw the failure in it, because you saw what happened to Bud Light when they put the training on the Bud Light can and Bud Light lost all their profits and their tanking.

Well, target was already on that path and when they launched this, they've lost, I think, 12 billion in stock value here recently.

There's probably more than that by now.

So they had a giant display and so I walked in a couple of weeks after that and the giant display is gone.

But this is the display that's there.

It's down the main aisle and you kind of have to go pretty far back in the store to get to it, but I'd like to point out some things that are on there.

There's some kid books up here.

See the little box, the purple box with the rainbow flag on there.

Those are Rice Krispie treats.

It's a kid dessert with food coloring.

There's all kinds of stuff on here that are geared towards kids.

This is not grown-up stuff, this is kid stuff.

They are grooming, they want to groom your kids.

That's not okay, and so Toronto Blue Jays Relief Pitcher, anthony Bass, thought that that's not okay.

So he liked this video and he put this out on Instagram.

Within that video on Instagram, it quotes Ephesians 5, 11, and 12, which says and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them, for it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.

That whole context of that is talking about this mess right here, and the Bible addresses that.

And he says have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.

Well, his whole world came crashing down because I don't know what threatenings were made against him.

Maybe it's out there.

I haven't looked so far as to see that, but this is a little excerpt from one article I read.

It says Bass posted a video to his Instagram story that promoted the boycott of Target and Bud Light for each company's recent support of the LGBTQIA Plus community.

The video contained within it anti-LGBTQIA Plus rhetoric, harmful stereotypes of the community and described how the LGBTQIA Plus pride campaigns run by each business as evil and demonic.

Well, it is Evil and, like it's just obvious, it's evil and demonic and my Bible calls it that.

And so he didn't do anything wrong by putting this out there.

He thought he was doing something good.

By exposing, I'm putting light on something.

I'm a believer, I love God, I call Jesus my Lord and I'm going to put some light on it and I'm going to change the world and give it to him really good by putting it on Instagram.

And he did, and they gave it back to him Because now he had to make an apology.

Well, he didn't have to do that, but he chose to do that.

I want you to listen to the apology that was given.

This is Anthony Bass quote.

I recognize yesterday that I made a post that was hurtful to the pride community, which includes friends of mine and close family members of mine, and I'm truly sorry for that I just spoke with my teammates and shared with them my actions yesterday.

I apologize to them and as of right now, I'm using Blue Jays resources to better educate myself to make better decisions going forward.

That to me sounds like somebody who was caught behind enemy lines and arrested and Put on camera and they created a propaganda video of somebody under duress making an apologetic statement like that.

Like you might as Well be somebody who tried to escape North Korea and now you have to be on video saying I love North Korea.

North Korea is a great place, it's the best place in the world and there's no corruption here and everybody's happy.

It's just it's.

It's absolute propaganda and it's stupid.

And, what's worse, that he is a Christian who took back what he said and apologized for it.

He apologized for God's word.

Don't let the devil back you down Not ever.

If you back down to the devil, he'll never start.

Stop coming after you.

That poor guy is gonna have the devil coming after him for the rest of his life or for as long as he continues to back down to him.

Don't ever back down to the devil.

The word says that we should resist the devil and that he would flee.

And now I can imagine this guy going to God and saying well, god, you don't understand.

I've got a twelve point six million dollar contract to pitch for the blue jays and if I say this, then I'm gonna be responsible for I don't know what he's gonna have to explain to God.

There are all kinds of people that justify their actions or inactions in some way Because they have to explain something to God.

If you ever find yourself explaining something to God, just stop.

You know, this church has a 501c3 or a 501c3 nonprofit and there are certain rules that go with that, according to the IRS, of what a 501c3 nonprofit can do and can't do, and one of those things that says what we shouldn't get involved in partisan politics and we can't use church resources for, and it gives a list of things that you can and can't do.

I couldn't care anything less about that stinking letter, because we've got a freedom of speech in this country and that requirement violates that freedom of speech.

What it's saying is we're gonna give you a tax benefit, so you're selling your freedom of speech to us for a tax benefit for your donors.

So I've got to, you know, stand before God one day in heaven and God's gonna be like well, why didn't you tell my people about these issues?

Why didn't you help wake up the church and say what you want to do?

God, you don't understand.

You see, we've got this letter from the IRS.

It's a 501c3, it's a.

It's a tax benefit for our donors and if I had said those things, we would have lost the tax benefit, probably lost her.

Just stop.

God, you don't understand.

No, we're here to be salt and light or not.

We're here to be salt and light or not.

You're here to expose evil and darkness or not.

There's no in between on this.

There's no gray area in God's word on this.

It's either one way or it's the other.

You're either for me or you're against me.

He's either Lord of all or he's not Lord at all, and it's up to us to decide.

Is he Lord of all of our life?

Does he have all of us?

Am I gonna hold something back?

Am I gonna make a lame excuse?

Am I gonna have to apologize for a scripture?

Never apologize for God's word.

You don't have to defend God's word.

It's up to him to defend it.

It's up to us to speak it For.

I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

I am not ashamed of the gospel.

Say it with me.

I am not ashamed of the gospel.

Jesus said blessed are those who are not offended because of me.

In other words, he recognized there were gonna be some people that were gonna be offended because of him.

He's called a rock of offense in one, in one place, a stone of stumbling.

He's known, as I thought, on Jesus the rock.

Jesus the rock is our foundation.

I'm planted on that rock.

I am not gonna be moved.

But the same rock that I'm not gonna be moved from is a stone of stumbling for others when they're, when you're on the wrong side of Jesus, you're gonna stumble, you're gonna trip, you're gonna fall, you're gonna get hurt.

You don't want to be on the wrong side of Jesus, you want to be on the right side of Jesus, and he's my Lord.

So he asked his disciples in Luke, chapter 6 why do you call me Lord, lord?

Luke 6 · chapter mention

And then you don't do the things that I say?

He said whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them.

You hear my words and you do them.

You're a doer of the word.

I'll tell you who he is like.

He's like the man, the wise man, who built his house on the rock, who dug deep and put that foundation on the rock and when the storms came and beat against that house and the floods rose, when all that settled, the house was still there.

It was not shaken.

But the ones who hear what Jesus says and then don't do it because it's a choice, the ones who don't do it, the storms are gonna come beat against that house.

And it says, the ruin of that house will be great.

And I feel really sorry for this Toronto Blue Jays pitcher, anthony Bass, because as soon as he said something and the storms came against him, the ruin of that house was great and he hadn't seen the the the significance of the ruin of that house yet.

I hope he still has time to repent.

I'm not against him.

We're not against the LGBTQIA plus people.

They're deceived.

It's a mental illness.

The trans community thinks that to treat that condition of gender dysphoria, they have to change their bodies to match what they feel about themselves.

Would you ever consider?

And they call that gender affirming care, because they believe themselves to be a gender that they've identified and that they have to affirm that gender to themselves by changing the appearance of their body, by cutting on themselves by introducing hormones or things that change their bodies permanently.

It's a permanent thing.

It disrupts their body permanently, and so they call that gender affirming care.

Would anyone think that it would be okay to have anorexic affirming care?

With the same logic, to have a 14 year old girl that sees herself one way as being overweight and I have to stop eating, I have to not eat so that I can make my body look skinnier, and that we affirm that care by saying, oh yes, sweetie, you're fat and you're going to have to stop eating for weeks at a time.

We're going to help you stop eating so that you can feel better.

That's insanity.

It's a mental illness what they have, and it's been introduced by people and companies that are grooming them for that.

Target is a company and there are other companies that think that this is okay and the blood of these people, these, these kids, is on their head Because they're grooming them for that.

They're setting them up social media.

It pours in on them.

If they are curious about that, it'll start pouring in on their Facebook feed, on their whatever social media feeds.

It'll just start pouring in on their phones and they'll stare at that and mull that over and meditate on that and look at themselves and consider.

And meanwhile they're listening to a demonic voice that says that there's something that they're not and they start listening to that.

And one guy was brave enough to stand up and say something good or put something out there, and then he backed down to the devil.

God help him.

Don't back down to the devil.

Matthew, chapter 10 this is where Jesus is sending out the twelve disciples and in verse 16 Jesus says behold, I send you out of sheep in the midst of wolves.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

Therefore, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

You know, I'm not saying that we need to go attack something for the sake of attacking something, so that we can be attacked back Like I don't want you to feel an attack, but we ought not be afraid of one.

You know we're saying some songs here at the beginning of this service.

This is my testimony.

How many have a testimony?

You know what a testimony is.

It's a verbal acknowledgement.

You're acknowledging what God did for you.

You're acknowledging a truth about God's word and you express that verbally.

You have a testimony and you're free to speak that testimony and you ought to speak it.

And they overcame them by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

You have a testimony.

Don't be silent about your testimony.

Another song there's nothing in this world that my God can't do.

We sang the blessing tonight.

He is with us, he's for us, he's alongside us, he's in us.

What are we afraid of?

We have a testimony and we need to speak it.

So here Jesus is warning his disciples beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in the synagogues.

You'll be brought before governors and kings for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.

He's requiring that they give a testimony to the ones that are coming against them and causing them trouble.

But they will deliver you up.

But do not worry about that, how or what you should speak, for it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak.

The Holy Ghost is gonna give you something to say.

Don't worry about what you're gonna say.

Where is not you who speak, but the spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

So don't be worried about what's gonna come against you.

In verse 24, let's see, jesus makes this point a disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.

It is enough for a disciple that he should be like his teacher and a servant like his master.

But if they've called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household?

You know, beelzebub means Lord of the Flies, but Jesus used that as a reference to the devil there.

Therefore, do not fear them, for there is nothing covered that will not be revealed or hidden, that will not be known.

Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light.

That means you don't hold back.

And whatever you hear in the ear, preach on the house.

Tops, that means you're not quiet about it.

That means you might keep your neighbors up at night.

And do not fear those who will kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Fear God and not man.

Fear your Lord and not man.

Hebrews 13,.

Beginning in middle of verse five and onto six, he said for he himself has said I will never leave you nor forsake you, so that you can boldly say I will not fear.

What can man do to me?

There's another one you ought to repeat to yourself.

You could put those two together.

You could say for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

It is the power of God unto salvation.

He said he would never leave me nor forsake me.

So I can boldly say I will not fear what can man do to me.

And just go ahead and build your courage up before you start your day and go out there.

And then, when you're out there, remember those things that God said to you in secret and put them out there in the broad day light.

Remember what you heard, preached, what you heard, said what God spoke to you, and shout it from the rooftop, because I will not fear.

What can man do to me?

The Lord is my helper, I will not fear.

So we started with a verse out of Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd.

The Lord is my shepherd.

The word shepherd there means to feed, to guide and to shield.

The Lord feeds me, he guides me and he protects me.

I shall not want, I shall not decrease or lack or fail.

It says the Lord is my shepherd.

So now that we've talked about Jesus is my Lord.

He's either Lord of all or not.

So you gotta make that decision is he Lord or not?

These are some benefits I want you to recognize of what you have with Jesus, our Lord.

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

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake.

Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

Yay, though I put a video out on Instagram that causes all hell to break loose and the devil to come after me, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

The Lord is with me.

I will fear no evil.

I do not care what they will say when I put that video out there.

I do not care what they say when I say something in the workplace.

I do not care what they will say what they will do to me.

I do not care what I say in public.

If it steps on somebody's toes, I'm so sorry they were offended because of Jesus that I represent my Lord.

I didn't say I wasn't trying to offend them, but they were on the wrong side of the rock and I couldn't help it.

I'm standing on the rock.

He's my Lord.

He goes where I go.

I say what he says.

I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ and I don't care how dark or how ugly or how dangerous, it gets out there.

Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear, for you are with me, your rod and your staff.

They comfort me and you prepare a table before me in the presence of all my enemies.

I don't care how big a threat, a big financial threat, they make against me or my job, or my career or my family.

I don't care what threat they make.

I'm gonna sit down at a banquet table right there in the presence of them, and I'm gonna eat of the finest dinner, the finest meal, the biggest banquet, the best thing you have ever seen, and they're gonna have to sit and watch me eat it and enjoy it.

Cause he prepared a table before me in the presence of my enemy.

He noits my head with oil and my cup runs over.

Surely, goodness and mercy, not evil, not threatenings, not trouble, it says.

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Those are the benefits of calling him Lord.

So now that you know that he's, I know, you know this, I know I'm preaching to people that know this stuff, but I don't know what to do.

I don't know this stuff.

But if he's Lord, you gotta obey, and you gotta be quick to obey, because if you don't, somebody else will jump up and take your place and you can get back on course.

He's merciful, he doesn't throw people away.

If you had a hard time, he'll help you get back on track.

But isn't it better to stay on track?

Isn't it better to not listen to the voices of this world but instead listen to his voice, the inward witness on the inside?

I could listen to Facebook and see all that, but his voice is better.

And Facebook's gonna lead me somewhere if I let it, but my Lord's gonna lead me somewhere if I let him.

And so you gotta let him be Lord of your whole life, of all of it your finances, your marriage, your kids, your home, your every resource.

You gotta let Jesus be Lord of that, and the blessings of that are extraordinary.

And there's gonna be people that hate you because Jesus is your Lord.

They're gonna come against you, they're gonna say some stuff, they're gonna threaten some things, but I will not fear.

The Lord is my helper.

I will not fear.

What can man do to me?

And so when you wake up tomorrow morning, I want you to say those things.

I want you to say I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

Wake up saying that, say it during the day and then, when fear starts to come on you, what's my boss gonna think?

What's my family member gonna think?

What's so and so gonna make Whoever?

What are they gonna think?

What are they gonna say?

What are they gonna do?

I will not fear.

I'm here to speak the truth, to do it in love.

I will not defend God's word and I will never apologize for it and I will never back down to the devil.

Amen.