How to Make Pure Decisions

I'm gonna continue on in a series we're calling uncommon unity.

And if you think of the word community, it's a compound word, which means common unity, those two words together.

And uh the reality is though, communities are often not unified.

And so we're looking at what does it mean to be a community of uncommon unity?

Because here's the reality: we live in a country, but we're citizens of a kingdom.

You know, this country has a government that's great, it's wonderful, uh, that we have the the we're in the country we're in, and thank God for that, um, and we're citizens here, but we are we actually have a higher citizenship, and it's in the body of Christ, in the kingdom of God.

And so within that kingdom and within that body, we function as a community uh in a specific way, or at least we should.

And that's why if we don't, the world's awfully confused that we talk about unity or that we uh you know talk about the gospel, but then they don't see it manifest in relationships.

And so what we're doing is looking within the scripture at some of these elements of community that should be active in our relationships and frankly should start here but not end here.

It really should impact our city and our country.

And so we're looking at those things, all right?

Um let's open up in prayer.

Lord, we open up our hearts to you.

God, I pray that you would give me today the supernatural ability to communicate your word in a way that would be helpful and clear.

Help me to be simple but not oversimplify.

Uh Lord, I pray that you would cause every receptive heart to hear your voice, to see what you want them to see, to learn what you want them to learn.

Lord, if you don't show up and speak through me, this isn't gonna be very good.

You saw my grade in 11th grade speech.

So help me out, Lord.

In Jesus' name.

All God's people said, Amen.

Amen.

I'm gonna start in a scripture, Matthew 15, uh, verse 10.

Jesus called a crowd to come near and to hear him.

Here's what he said, listen and try to understand.

Listen and try to understand.

It's not what goes into your mouth that defiles you.

You are defiled by the words that come out of your mouth.

Uh, we're gonna talk about within the in the context of community, we're gonna actually gonna talk today about purity.

Purity.

Um, purity affects how we see God, how we interact with God.

It definitely affects how we see ourselves, and definitely impacts how we see each other and how we interact with each other.

But we got to know what purity really is.

What does this mean?

Um Jesus makes this statement here that it's not what goes into your mouth, and he's speaking about food, and I'm gonna get into that in a little bit, um, what he's talking about, but he said, no, it's it's not what you're what food you eat that defiles you.

In other words, it's not what's on the outside of you.

He said it's from what comes out of your mouth.

Um he um he says in Matthew 12 and Luke 6, from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

So he's talking to a group of people, frankly, that were working tirelessly to try to create purity by doing the right thing, by the exterior.

They were approaching purity from the outside in instead of the inside out.

And he even he in Matthew 23 is probably some of Jesus' most intense conversation.

If you read Matthew 23, you'll see Jesus in a certain energy that's really intense.

And he's talking to the Pharisees, who frankly were probably the purest in terms of piety and behavior.

Their keeping of the law was meticulous.

Uh he said, you guys tithe even to your herb gardens, like down to the details, like you don't miss your 10%.

You you don't miss the moral law.

He he's like, you know, you got it down.

He said, but he calls him, he says, you're on the outside, you clean the outside of the cup or the dish.

He said, but the inside you're filthy, full of greed and self-indulgence.

He calls them blind.

He says, first wash the inside.

You you gotta understand, he's saying, you gotta wash the inside of the cup, and then the outside will be clean.

But purity is actually on the inside.

It's inside out, not outside in.

Why does he say, hey, listen and try to understand?

Try to understand.

I think he's saying that because Jesus understood the impediments to their learning and how hard it was for them to comprehend what he was talking about.

And here's why.

In the Old Testament, um, God gives the law to the nation.

It starts in the Ten Commandments, and then it morphs and grows into the Torah, which is 613 laws.

God doesn't give them in terms of naming categories, but human beings have looked back at the law and see that they fall into basically three categories.

So you have the moral law: don't lie, don't cheat, don't kill.

Then you have the judicial law.

If you're, you know, if I accidentally kill your cow, I owe you a cow.

And there's more, there's more to it than that.

You go to Leviticus and read it all up on it.

Then the third was the ceremonial law.

This is how we this is how we interface and interact with God.

If you look at the spirit of the law, what was the point?

The law really was about reflecting and demonstrating and teaching and showing and keeping in front of us the character of God.

It helps us understand who God is.

And one of those things is purity, that God is holy.

Well, what does that mean?

Pure, holy.

Because we think of clean and unclean, like clean versus icky.

You know, ooh, that's dirty.

When you if you were to power wash the concept of purity or holy all the way down, you would look, it would actually be about order, things being in order.

Why?

Well, God's created the world.

God is a God of order, and God has created the world in a certain order.

There are things in the world that belong certain places and don't belong other places.

Look at your body.

In your body, in your gut, you have bacteria that's supposed to be there.

If that bacteria wasn't there, it would negatively affect your digestion.

It would actually have massive impact on your brain.

It's supposed to be there.

But there's other bacteria that does not belong in your gut.

And if that gets in your gut, you're gonna get sick very quickly.

God is a God of order.

Why do we have kids wash their hands or adults?

Everybody should wash their hands.

You wash your hands too, okay.

Um that was one good thing that came out of COVID.

People start washing their hands.

You know what I'm saying?

I hope that keeps up.

But um, washing their hands.

Why?

Well, because there's certain bacteria that's okay on your hands, but you're gonna put your hands in your mouth, and then it's gonna end up in your body, it's gonna be out of order.

So think about even within the ceremonial law, the Sabbath.

Okay, the Sabbath, what's the point of the Sabbath?

Remember the Sabbath and keep it what?

Holy.

Keep it in order.

When is the Sabbath?

First day of the week.

First day of the week.

You guys think the week starts Monday.

I got a case of the Mondays.

No, man.

First day of the week's not Monday.

First day of the week's Sunday.

First day.

Keep it in order.

Why?

Order matters.

We give God our first.

Give God our first.

First day of the week goes to God.

We're gonna honor God, we're gonna worship God.

And then what's the whole point of not working on the Sabbath?

Well, there's a lot of points to it.

One is honoring the order in which God has designed you, He's ordered you to need rest.

If you work seven days, 365 days a year, and you know, seven days a week, and you just keep going, going, you're gonna burn out.

God didn't make you to do that.

He didn't expect that from you, He doesn't want that for you.

And so you have to build in first day order.

I'm gonna go into Monday rested.

But then on top of that, it's actually even more to it.

It's even deeper than that.

That the Sabbath is about one day where you're not productive at all.

Why?

Because as human beings, we tend to think that my whole value is based on my productivity.

And if I can make one more or ten more, or if I can get a little bit further.

This is why, even on Sabbath rest days, you have a hard time resting because you there's part of you wants to get up and work.

I want to get up and do this, I gotta get stuff done, I gotta knock out the checklist.

You need a day, even if your body's feeding back, you need a day that you sit there and go, my value in the eyes of God, my identity is not based on my productivity, on my net worth, on the next level, none of that.

It's all based on being a son and daughter of God.

And so I'm not gonna work on this day.

I'm gonna give God my first.

Keeping the Sabbath holy is keeping it in order.

When I talk about purity, when I talk about purity, probably the first thing that you heard when I said that was sexual purity.

Okay, that's usually what we if I'm like, hey, what's up guys, we're gonna talk about purity today, you're like, oh, he's gonna talk about sex today.

That's usually uh what the topic is on.

And so you look actually at the Bible, both the Old and New Testament, that talks about sexual purity, about the way that like sex being in order.

Where does it belong?

Because if it gets out of order, it's tremendously destructive.

Um, why?

Well, the way God designed it.

God designed sex to release a cocktail of chemicals in your brain that's literally designed in order by God to addict you to one person for life.

To addict you to one person.

Now, those same addictive chemicals can addict you to all kinds of people, it can addict you to the schmorgis borg of people on pornography, it can it can addict you, it can create all kinds of dysfunction.

In fact, I I was reading from the Mayo Clinic, the Mayo Clinic estimates six to eight percent, six to eight, not sixty-eight, six to eight percent of American adults have a sexual addiction.

That's about twenty four million people.

24 million adults.

Okay, now when we hear that, often if we have the wrong paradigm, we would go, oh, sexual addiction, that's icky.

But I believe when God sees a sexually addicted person, he sees someone who's out of order.

You took this thing and you put it out of order.

Why is this important?

It's extremely important because I have a whole different level of shame when I think I'm icky than when I think I'm out of order.

How would I get clean?

How would I get my life back in order?

Well, one would be to come before God and come to him and ask him to help me and to give him that he would give me the power of his spirit to empower me to change, but a huge part of it, friend, actually happens in uncommon unity, community.

So, what keeps people from coming forward, and by the way, I throw out sexual addiction because you know your brain can get addicted to anything that has reward, hits the reward center.

So you can be addicted to your phone, you can be addicted to deals, making deals.

There's all kinds of things you can be addicted to.

Of course, the more intense the reward, the more prone your brain is to developing addictions.

So this is why I think we make a big deal out of the sexual side, not because we want to be prude, not because we're being antiquated, but because we're looking and going, no, this is how God's ordered it.

So more isn't more, more is actually less.

You actually, if you you you take this appetite, you blow it out, and you fire off these chemicals, you'll end up addicted, or you'll end up not actually being able to have intimacy with a single person because now the appetite's all blown out.

But by the way, and this is a different message, God is so good, He's made your brain to be able to be redeemed and restored.

And if you'll get things back in order, actually a lot of the dysfunction will clean will clear up.

That's how good God is.

But but the whole idea about purity is things being in order.

And if you see it as out of order versus icky, it will make you more likely to come into a community and say, you know what, I got some things out of order.

And also, if you're on the other side of it and somebody comes into your community, your group, uh, you know, you're you're uh in a relationship with you, and they're they have something out of order, seeing them as out of order and that God wants to help them get in order, and God could use you to help them get in order is a whole lot different than the shame that comes with icky.

God can't look at you, he's holding God wants you in order.

He cares, he loves you so much, he wants to get things in order.

And if you've got something out of order, it's impure.

And when it's impure, we gotta get it pure, not gotta clean all the ick off you.

We gotta get you back in order.

When you get back in order, you'll function the way that God designed.

That's why he set this whole thing up, the way that he did.

So let's let's define purity.

What is purity?

Purity is the right thing at the right time, for the right reason.

The right thing, the right time, the right reason.

It probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway.

It's never the right time for the wrong thing.

So if you something's wrong, it's not the right time for it.

That's not for me.

And the wrong thing could be something that's just toxic, it's just not good, and so don't try to find a good time for it.

But on top of that, there are some things just not the right thing for you.

What do we want?

We want, or we should want, the right thing at the right time for the right reason.

Where often we get we end up contaminated or impure, it often starts with an idol.

Essentially something we want so bad.

We want it more than God, frankly.

It becomes our God, it becomes the thing that we slave for, we work for.

And so what ends up happening often is when you have an idol, that idol introduces confirmation bias into your brain, and you can't believe how much confirmation bias you're capable of.

And how much confirmation bias I'm when you crave something, when you want something like at a deep visceral level, it has captured your heart.

Whoo! You'll start seeing signs everywhere that this is what you're supposed to have.

I was talking to a guy one time, he he was sure he wanted something specific, and he came to me, hey man, I just I think God wants me to have this, and but I could tell, man, this was like he really, really wanted it.

And to be honest, I knew him well.

I didn't really think it was the best thing for him, but I didn't want to control his life.

I don't know, I'm not God.

So I just said, hey man, uh, I started saying, Hey, have you thought about this?

Have you thought about this?

Have you thought about this?

Have you ever tried to give somebody some things to think about and they didn't want to think about it because they'd already decided?

So everything I said, he was just like, he was just shooting it all down.

And so pretty soon I realized, like, well, this isn't going anywhere.

And and um he he got the end, and this was his clincher.

He's like, you know, man, I I had this dream and I was gonna get this thing, and I want it real bad.

And and he said, and then I and then I went to church, and then the pastor preached about this, and then I was listening to a song, and they were singing about this.

He goes, and then I was driving down this road, I drive all the time, and I always hit red lights when I hit the road, but this one time I hit five green lights in a row.

In a row.

I never hit green lights, I always hit red lights, but this one day after the song and the sermon, I hit five green lights.

God's telling me, go, baby, it's green.

I'm like, my dude.

That's confirmation bias.

You gotta know, is it the right thing at the right time?

And if you start out with an idol, you're gonna be prone to confirmation bias.

Is it the right thing at the right time?

You don't want the right thing at the wrong time.

There are some good things that would contaminate you if you got them at the wrong time.

Money at the wrong time, influence at the wrong time, recognition at the wrong time, relationship at the wrong time, decision making, promotion, opportunity, right thing, wrong time.

We we see this actually manifest in Jesus' life in John 7.

Jesus seemed very in tune with timing.

You ever notice that?

His first miracle, his mom, he basically he has to obey his mom.

She's like, you know, you should turn this water into wine.

He's like, Mom, my time is not yet come.

That's what he said.

He's like, Mom, I'm not ready for this.

It's not time for this.

And she's like, do it.

He's like, fine, my mom told me to do it.

So he did it.

Like Jesus kind of didn't want to do it, but he did it because his mom told him to.

He, you know, he didn't want to break the authority chain.

So he goes ahead and obeys.

But he was very aware of timing.

Look at this in John 7, verse 2.

John 7:2

It says, Soon it was time for the Jewish festival of shelters.

This is also called the Feast of Tabernacles.

Just think of it like this: huge party, massive party in the big city.

Everybody's going there.

If you want to be seen in the big place doing the big thing, that's where you would go to the festival of shelters.

And so Jesus' brothers said to him, Look at this.

Leave here and go to Judea.

Go to the big place where your followers can see your miracles.

You can't become famous if you hide like this.

They were in Galilee, they were in a small town, nobody was seeing them.

They're in obscurity.

He says, and then they said to him, This is Jesus, brothers, if you can do such wonderful things, show yourself to the world.

Verse 5, for even his brothers didn't believe in him.

Jesus replied, Now is not the right time for me to go, but you can go anytime.

Now look at this now.

Let's look at right thing, right time, right reason.

Jesus, go to Judea, to the festival of shelters, and make yourself famous.

Is Jesus being famous bad?

No.

I mean, churches, we say this all the time.

Hey, we gotta make Jesus famous.

All of us would put our hands in, like, we want the entire world to know who Jesus is.

And we want to know who Jesus is and what Jesus does.

And what Jesus not just did, but what he still does.

We want Jesus to be as famous as Jesus can be.

We want the gospel out there so it wasn't the wrong thing.

But let's look at reason.

Jesus, go so you can be famous.

Well, famous isn't a sin.

Famous isn't wrong, but the motive could be wrong.

Their motive was about self-aggrandizement.

Their motive was about being seen and being noticed.

About about self-promotion.

Okay?

Or at least that could have been one.

There's another one, actually, by the way.

Motive, it says, they said, hey, if you can do all this great stuff, you ought to go do it.

And then said, for even his brothers didn't believe in him.

Now think about this.

Jesus is a human being, so he's prone to some of the same feelings we are.

There'd be a part of you that would want the validation of being known, although it wasn't the right time for that.

But second, wouldn't you just want to be able to stick it to your brothers for not believing in you?

Come on now.

If anybody's ever had somebody should have believed in you, didn't believe in you, like, oh, you ought to go do the thing.

So everybody knows how big you are.

You're like, yeah, you're darn right I am.

Watch this.

Jesus knew how powerful he was.

Jesus knew he could walk on water, turn water into wine.

Jesus knew he could raise the dead.

Jesus knew he had the power.

You know, again, Paul talks about it.

We looked at it last week in Colossians.

He's the visible image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

For by him all things were created, things in heaven and earth, visible, invisible, thrones, powers, rulers, authorities, all things were created by him and for him.

That was Jesus.

He knew it.

My brothers don't believe in me.

Oh, I'm going, I'm gonna go to the festival of shelters.

I'm about to show out.

I'm gonna say, You believe in me now?

I'm gonna step on all the haters, all the unbelievers, all the people that always doubted me.

My motive now is to prove everybody wrong, to show how great I am.

Now, what would he have done if he had done that?

We're on the subject of purity.

He would have contaminated the right thing.

Because you do the right thing for the wrong reason.

You should be constantly, I should be constantly examining our motives.

Why am I doing this?

Where does my drive come from?

Where does my ambition come from?

Where does this thirst come from?

Where does this, uh, where is this coming from?

And so his brothers tried to get him to do the right thing at the wrong time for the wrong reason.

And Jesus said, I will not make myself impure.

I will not put that into my world.

And so he says, Now is not the right time.

Now is not the right time.

Time, but you can go anytime.

Jesus understood timing.

Think about this: the Matthew 4, the temptation of Jesus.

The temptation of Jesus.

Satan tempts him in three different times in three different ways.

And one of the ways is he shows him the kingdoms of the world.

He shows him all of mankind.

He says, if you just bow to me right here, right now, I'll give you all of this.

He was tempting him to do something impure.

Well, what was impure about it?

It was out of order.

It wasn't time for that, and it wasn't the right way.

If you'll just bow to me, I'll give you all of this.

It wasn't the wrong thing.

Because why did Jesus come?

He came to redeem mankind.

He came for all people.

And so he's looking at a good thing, but to go about it in the wrong way or the wrong time would have been impure.

So Jesus understood order.

He understood timing.

And he refused to contaminate.

So what do we do?

We need to be constantly praying through these three things.

Because here's the reality something that was the right thing in a previous season, in the new time you live in, it might not be the right thing anymore.

Sometimes people actually do something impure or out of order because they hold on to something too long that was theirs in the past.

It was theirs years ago, and it's not yours anymore.

So although it was the right thing at that time, it's the wrong thing now.

And it would be impure of me.

It would be out of order for me to continue to hold on to something that doesn't belong to me anymore.

And so I need to be asking myself, okay, is it still the right thing?

Is it the right thing?

Is this the right thing?

Is this the right thing for me?

Is it still the right thing?

Is it the right time?

And am I doing this for the right reason?

Um let me tell you what this has to do with community.

I mentioned earlier that a large part of us growing in community is iron sharpening iron and us helping us to be in order, accountability.

Think about that.

Like if you just if you just frame accountability as us helping us keep our lives in order instead of icky, icky, icky, nasty ooh, ooh, ooh, you're gross.

Uh, ooh, ooh, you know, it's a whole different community.

I'm way different in terms of how I would respond to accountability of somebody going, Greg, I think you have that out of order, versus Greg, I think you're disgusting.

And so, how do we have a community of uncommon unity?

Well, people don't tend to like to be accountable, and they don't tend to, you know, often these things go sideways because it gets personal and our flesh gets in the way.

But if it's we're gonna see, we're gonna do what it takes to help one another be in order, it actually creates unity.

If you look at the, now I gotta help me, Lord.

If if you look, if you look at the spirit of the New Testament law, and this is what when you read the New Testament, the New Covenant, Jesus comes, he fulfills the law, and now you have Jews and Gentiles who have always done things in their own order.

The Jews have done 613 laws of the Torah.

They did it in order in that way.

Now they're being introduced to a group of people who have totally different traditions of doing everything like eating, how they eat their food, right?

You so we see Jesus saying, Hey, it's not what goes into your mouth, it's not what you eat.

You'll see a lot being made in the New Testament about eating habits.

You're like, what does it matter?

The reason it matters is because it was part of the Old Testament law of order or purity.

So people had a very hard time going, I don't want to be hang out with somebody who's impure.

I don't want to hang out with somebody who's out of order.

So what it was costing these new, the the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers was it was costing them unity and community and connection and bond and relationship because it was actually their customs around food that kept them from sitting at the table.

A couple weeks ago, uh Shane Huey talked about hospitality and sitting at the table, and he talked about the fact that actually to us eating is just get your calories.

Okay, we might even get food really quickly, have it delivered, whatever.

In their day, it was intimacy.

It was community.

This is why it was a big deal that Jesus ate with sinners.

It was like, what?

Who cares?

It's just calories.

No, it's community, it's it's intimacy, it's relationship.

And so what was happening as Jesus ushers in this new covenant, as Jesus pays the penalty for sin, as Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to fill us inside, okay, we you now have people who now have these external customs around eating, and they it's creating division.

So you have in Acts 15, you have all of these Gentile believers that are believing in Jesus, they're becoming part of this community, a diverse community, and the this huge debate comes out.

What do we do with these guys?

Because none of them are circumcised.

They're out of order.

They're breaking our Old Testament laws, they're breaking the old covenant.

What do we do?

And so they have 613 laws, they have this huge council in Jerusalem.

Peter's there, John's there, James is there, they're debating, they're talking, they're praying, they're processing.

What do we do?

And so John finally speaks up and he says, in Acts 15, 19, he says, Well, look, we should not make it difficult for Gentiles who are turning to God.

Instead, we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from meats of strangled animals, and from blood.

For the law of Moses has been preached in every city.

In other words, in every city, they're breaking out the 613 laws.

This is deeply integrated in the culture of certain people.

Okay, we're not gonna make them get circumcised because, you know, we go, hey, I'll give up my rare stake, but I'm not gonna get circumcised.

All right, now I'm a grown man, I ain't about to do that.

He's like, if we create that much friction, all right, this is gonna it's gonna alienate some folks.

But they said, you know what, but we can give on circumcision.

You you guys give on rare stakes.

Okay, why?

Because this is what was a part of the Torah.

So he said it's being read everywhere.

The law of Moses is preached in every city, okay.

So so we're doing this for the point of unity.

Now look at this.

It says in here, of the 613 laws, they come down to Gentile eating customs and sexual immorality.

Why sexual immorality?

We already talked about it.

You don't want that smoke, that will totally complicate your lives.

There's probably not one person in this room or at the sound of my voice that based on sexual sin, sex being out of order in some way, it has affected you.

So they're going, look, do this God's way, trust me, it'll be better for everyone.

Aside from that, they talk about eating.

And in this text, he says, hey, of the 613 laws of the Torah, he goes, I'll tell you what.

Um sexual morality.

And then he said, Don't eat food sacrificed to idols.

Does that remind you of another text?

You remember in 1 Corinthians 10 when they write him, they write Paul about meat sacrificed to idols?

Because it was a big controversy.

They were sacrificing meat to false gods.

And he's like, is it okay to eat meat sacrificed to false gods?

And I'm gonna summarize what Paul says.

He goes, It's just meat, dude.

The earth is the Lord and everything in it.

The earth is the Lord's and everything in it.

So man, if somebody gives you meat, just eat it.

Don't even ask, he says, Don't even ask.

Now, if somebody's like, hey, here's meat and it's sacrificed to idols and it bothers their conscience, I go, okay, I won't eat it.

Why?

Because of the unity at the table.

If meat sacrificed to idols is an issue of their conscience, unity is more important than you just eating the meat.

Dude, eat something else.

Eat different kind of meat because of the value of unity.

He goes like, now you're free to eat meat sacrificed to idols.

It doesn't matter.

They sacrificed it to a false God.

What does it matter to you?

That's a good, that's a good-looking cow right there.

Go ahead and eat that.

So it's not an issue of liberty or freedom.

He goes, it's an issue of unity.

And it makes it such a big deal that here contextually in Acts 15, he puts a restriction on them and says, Don't do that because it's messing up your unity.

That in another place he says, hey, it's not even that big a deal.

So the whole idea of purity, impurity is what's in order, what's not.

And frankly, we've been given quite a bit of freedom by God to look and to go, okay, what is in order?

What's the right thing at the right time for the right reason?

And friend, I think we should pay very special attention as we're praying through these things.

It'd be, by the way, what's crazy is within the New Testament, God has given us so much freedom, the new covenant.

People are so uncomfortable with freedom.

Frankly, most people would rather me get up and teach rules.

Just do this, this, this, this, and then God will bless you.

Do this, this, this, this, and then you're good.

Do this, this.

I mean, and it's like we've actually been given quite a bit of freedom within this, but what it forces us to do is to look at God's word, to pray, to allow God to speak to us about us, about what's the right thing at the right time for the right reason.

I want to encourage you to think deeply about this, to pray deeply about this, to be very receptive to God.

I'm gonna give you one thing and I'll be out of here.

This is my last thing.

I was at I was at an event recently, a pastor was preaching, and he was being very vulnerable.

He was sharing his story about depression and mental health, and and he talked about how a few different times he was suicidal.

And he was, I really appreciated his his openness.

And he said, a couple times almost took my life, and and he said, he started to talk about how toxic social media was in his life.

And he's like, you know, I was get on social.

He goes, and then and and it was actually a trigger for me to where then I would end up really low.

And and then he kind of made a joke, and he was in a room mostly with pastors, and he was like, Hey, how many of you have ever scrolled Instagram for 10 minutes and felt better about your life?

You know, everybody laughed and everything, and and uh it was interesting because it made me think how the day before I saw a friend who was in my wedding, who now lives on the other side of the country, and so we almost never see one another.

But we one time we were really close.

He was in my wedding, and he has a son who's about the same age as my son, and I've never met his son, I've never been in the same room as his son, but I've watched him based on what they post.

I've watched him be born, I've watched him grow up, I'm watching mature as a young man.

He seems like the best kid, and so I'll literally get on because I just want to see Adam's son, and I want to see, I feel really close to him, although I've never met him.

I like to see Adam and how he's developing as a dad and what he's doing.

I would have never seen that.

He'd just be on the other side of the country.

I wouldn't see the dimensions.

So actually, to me, it does bring value to my life.

I feel tremendous connection because right at its worst, it causes jealousy and division and polarization, but at its best, it's communication and connection.

Okay.

So anyway, he's saying this, and then he's like, you know, I just had to get off the apps, man.

I had to delete all my social media, man.

It was just toxic to my soul.

Then I was talking to another pastor, and he's like, same for me, man.

I had to delete social media, man, because it was toxic for my soul.

And as I thought about, hear my heart now.

As I thought about it, yes, there are some who you go, this is not the right thing at the right time, right reason for you, and maybe you need to detox your soul, and maybe you need to fast off of some of these things because you've gotten sucked into it and it's out of order.

But I started thinking about that, I'm like, dude, you do know how social media works, right?

It's just giving you what you're asking of it.

No, these are fine-tuned algorithms that give you what you want.

So if you want nature, it'll give you nature.

If you want inspo, it'll give you inspo.

If you want health and wellness, it'll give you health and wellness.

If you want politics, it will give you all kinds of politics.

If you want hot takes, it'll give you hot takes.

If you want hot tea, it'll give you hot tea.

Whatever you're asking is what it's giving.

So when you hold it up and scroll, you're just looking at your heart in the mirror.

There's my heart.

There's my heart.

Jesus says it's not what goes into your mouth that defiles you, it's what comes out of your heart.

So here's the problem: you delete Instagram because it's toxic, but you have a jealousy issue.

You don't have an Instagram issue, you have a jealousy issue.

Instagram diagnosed it.

Yeah.

You ought to write Instagram a thank you card for diagnosing your jealousy.

Doctor walks in, says you have a heart disease, you don't cancel him, you don't delete him.

He's just he's just reading the chart.

IG's reading the chart of your life.

It's a heart issue, it's a jealousy issue.

Because let me tell you what will happen.

Go ahead, do it your way, delete the app.

Keep the jealousy, delete the app.

That's cool.

False positive.

Because now every time you go to a parking lot and you see cars nicer than yours, you're now jealous.

You're gonna delete the parking lot, you're gonna go to your class reunion.

Somebody's balling better than you.

Somebody's got better looking kids, better looking spouse, they look better.

They look better than they did in high school.

How does this even happen?

They got more money, they're going to better place.

So, what are you gonna do?

Delete the class reunion?

People do that.

Oh, I'm not going there anymore.

Then they go to the family reunion.

Family reunion, you got some cousin better than you, you got some sibling better than you, everywhere you jealousy is in your heart.

So, so how does this affect community?

Listen, dude, if you don't deal with the jealousy in your heart, you're gonna delete everything.

You're gonna end up a hermit in your house all by yourself in no relationship, no healthy community.

So every time you see somebody with more instead of celebrating, you feel jealous.

And when you see somebody with less, it just makes you feel better about your life instead of having compassion.

So there's no uncommon unity, just divided.

That's what the world's doing.

The world needs the church to get our hearts right, allow God to purify our hearts.

I'm not doggone, I'm out of time.

But I got I gotta tell you this.

Last week I was telling you, I get on this bus in Houston, and this guy comes up and he tells me, Pastor, thank you so much.

You pastor me from afar.

You know how he found me and us originally?

Social media.

So if I get jealous because my buddy has a son who's neurotypical, and my son has autism, and I can't celebrate him, and his son is an honor student, and he's doing stuff that I can't with my son because now I'm jealous, so I delete the apps instead of dealing with my jealousy.

I forfeit the opportunity to pastor a man in Tampa.

When something comes out of your heart that's impure or out of order, allow the Lord to deal with your heart that's out of order inside, and then what will flow out of you will be in order and pure.

Before we get out of here, I want to give you an opportunity to just respond.

It would be stupid for us to just talk about all this and that.

Ask the Lord to search our hearts.

Think about King David.

Think about King David, who was a shepherd and was anointed king.

It was the right thing, but it wasn't the right time.

He had to do more than 10 years as a shepherd, anointed king, not enthroned as king.

Right thing at the he waited on his time.

So he had the right thing at the right time and eventually and for the right reason, and so he's there.

But guess what happened?

Over time, his motive changed.

The palace started to affect him, he started to become self-indulgent.

And when he did that, he polluted his heart, he polluted his world, he hurt lots of people, he even killed a man because of the pollution of his heart.

And this is a guy the Bible says was a man after God's heart.

So if it can happen to David, it can happen to us.

The calibration is the right thing at the right time for the right reason.

And you have David when he got out of bounds, even with as good a heart as he had, his heart was off.

He praised this prayer in Psalm 5110.

Created me a clean heart, oh God.

Put me back in order.

Renew a right spirit within me.

Let's take a moment right now.

Let's go to the Lord.

God, what's the right thing at the right time for the right reason?

Purify my heart.

Give me a clean heart today.