Men's Luncheon - Associate Pastor Matt Passmore - March 31, 2026

Okay, guys, if you don't mind, I'm gonna go I'm gonna start a little early.

Pastor likes to go a little later.

I'm gonna get you out of here earlier.

And so I'm gonna go ahead and start.

Keep eating.

If you need a drink, you want a snack.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Hey, glad you're here.

Let me pray and we're gonna dive into it.

Let's pray together.

Dear God, thank you so much for your love.

Thank you for your word.

And Lord, just thank you for the challenge we've had at the church.

Just uh reading through Scripture.

And Lord, as we dive into this last week, something in this last week, Lord, I ask you and I beg that you speak through me.

Use your words.

Um help them hear your words, not my words.

Thank you again for your many blessings.

Use this in a mighty way.

In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

Hey, I am so excited, Pastor.

Just to let you know, his daughter's being induced, so he's gonna be granddad.

He's gonna have two kids, two grandkids, hopefully tonight.

So be praying for them.

And so he's up there with our I say up there, I guess it's sideways, little rock, kind of that way.

So, whatever.

And so he's there with them.

So I'm excited to be with you today.

Um, we have been a couple things before we go, Easter's coming up.

If you do not have a church, we invite you to ours.

But if you have a church, go to your church and invite someone to your church.

Okay, it's a good time.

They need to be going all the time, you need to be inviting all the time, but it is a time during Easter that an invite can go a little bit further just because of history and different things.

So I'll invite someone to that.

Also, just so you know, we are in a Bible recap, which is just reading through the Bible.

And so uh, as we're reading through, uh I'll be honest, I was told I was gonna do this, and um one of my favorite stories is in this, but the Lord just I'll just say this.

All last night and this morning, the Lord has just been messing with me.

And you'll see what I mean as I get started.

Uh because the title, I'll just tell you the title, we got this.

I went, I was fortunate enough, we'd had this planned out.

Uh my family went snow skiing over spring break, so we left out of here heading to a place that had not gotten snow in two and a half weeks.

I don't know if you've ever been skiing before, but that's not a good sign.

In fact, when we pull in the day we were gonna be the day before we were gonna ski, my car said 72 degrees.

So the mixture of that, but I'll say this they had man-made snow, my little eight-year-old had a ball, we had a blast.

But on the way there, we're driving, things are going well, it's about an 11 and a half hour trip.

About 45 minutes before we get to where we're going, I just happen to look down and a light pops up and it says my uh my uh tire pressure light pops up and shows I got low pressure, and I'm like, what that just popped up?

So I pull over on the side of the road, there's nothing there, so I'm on kind of a gravel sideways.

I'm looking at the two tires on this side, I'm like, well, they look okay, and I go around to the other side, and sure enough, it's it's it's almost flat.

And I thought, yeah, Lisa, so I had a little pump, so I'm gonna pump the air up.

Lisa looks it up, everything's closed.

There's no place to fix your tire, it's closed.

And I'm like, I got this.

So we pull into a spot that has a flat concrete, and I'm going to change.

I mean, I'm gonna just put my spare tire on.

Um and my wife looks at me, and this is what's so sad.

She looks at me and she says, Can you do this?

I said, Of course I can do this.

So I go to the back, pop the trunk, I have to load, unload all my luggage.

I get to look, and I can't find the stupid spare tire.

I can change it, I gotta find the tire first.

So humbly, you know, going back to getting out of the car confidently, I got this.

I have to get on YouTube to find the stupid spare tire.

And uh find it's underneath my passenger seat, has a deal you twist and it drops.

Anyway, I find it, I eventually get it done, but my confidence was shattered.

So it was like, man, so we get in it, we go, and we had a great trip.

But have you ever been there?

I got this.

And the next thing you know, the confidence turns into well, maybe uh I was talking a little more than I thought I knew.

So that's kind of where we're headed today.

Here we go.

In Joshua 7.

Remember, uh the Israelites had just won a huge victory.

One of the greatest victories of all times.

They they fought Jericho.

The huge walls, the walls tumbled, the Lord was in it.

I mean, they were celebrating, it was awesome.

So here we go.

We're in now in Joshua 7, starting in verse 1.

But the sons of Israel acted unfaithfully regarding the things designated for the destruction of Achan, the son of Karmah, the son of Zebedee, the son of Zarai.

And if I'm saying these names wrong, just join in with me.

I'm doing my best.

From the tribe of Judah.

Took some of the designated things, therefore the anger the anger of the Lord burned against the sons of Israel.

Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Bethavan, east of Bethel, and said to them, Go up and spy out the land.

So the men went up and spied out Ai.

Whoops, sorry.

Then they returned to Joshua and said to him, Do not have all the people go up, have only about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai.

Do not trouble all the people there, for they are few.

So about three thousand men from the people went up there, but they fled from the men of Ai.

And the men of Ai struck and killed thirty-six of their men, pursued them from the gates as far as Shabrim, and struck them on the mountainside.

And then the heart of the people melted and became like water.

I think the first thing we need to see out of that is sin is serious.

You know, as we see in our world.

Well, look right here when it says, but the Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the devoted things.

Achan took, and I skipped a little bit, but Achan took some of them.

So the Lord's anger burned against Israel.

Now listen to this.

This is what's odd about it.

Right now, the only person we know of sin is Achan, but the Lord's anger burned against who?

Israelites.

The whole group.

And I think sometimes, if we're not careful, we forget that sin is serious.

Why is sin so serious?

Because the Bible says sin is good for a while.

But why is sin serious?

Think about it.

Well, it goes against God.

I think it's even more important than that.

Why is sin so serious?

Because the Bible says sin does what?

It separates us from a holy, just, perfect God.

And I don't think sometimes we've we we it's so easy to say, wow, his sin's worse than my sin.

But we forget that our sin, small as it is, when we deal with our own sin, our own sin does what?

It separates us from God.

And I think the big picture, even though it was just Achan, but the whole Israelite, God had to show them how serious sin was.

Because of all the journey they've done, they haven't learned it yet.

And so, first off, we see in this, sin is serious.

The second one, the danger of overconfidence.

When they returned to Joshua, they said, not all the people will have to go up against Ai, for only a few people are there.

Let me give you some numbers that I've tried to do a little research.

The army of Israel, when they went to fight Jericho, had 40,000 men.

Okay?

When they went and fought, it doesn't talk about any casualties, so I'm assuming they still had 40,000 men or close to it, right?

The city of Ai, men and women, had 12,000.

Do you see why?

Oh, we got this.

But we also see, if you read the chapter before, the whole battle of Jericho was in constant contact with God.

Constant contact.

In fact, think about this.

The guys that went to AI said, we got this, we got a plan.

They had forgotten, they didn't even have a plan for Jericho.

They just did what God told them to do.

In fact, it was one of the weirdest plans probably ever heard about in battle.

I mean, there's some other ones in scripture, but this one here, just real quick, can you think about?

Now, we heard through, we heard through Rahab, the prostitute, that Jericho was stirred.

They knew the Lord was with Israel.

In fact, they were panicked.

And when word got that there was two Israelites in the scoping it out, they panicked and they were looking for them.

But can you imagine the battle they did?

Walk one day around.

Two days, the next day.

The battle plan is crazy.

But what what do we see?

Through their obedience, they won a mighty battle.

But this is where God's listen, they won a mighty battle, but they could not take credit for the battle.

Even though they won it.

Not too many days later, they see AI, a little small town that they're gonna wipe out, and what do they do?

Can of corn.

They got this.

Can of corn.

You're exactly right.

Um, I mean, have you ever just been overconfident?

I mean, it's a scary place to be if you think about it.

I think about though my my walk with the Lord.

Now, this is embarrassing, but when does the Lord, I'm gonna say me, talk to me the most?

It's usually when I'm struggling.

Why is that?

Because I've tried everything that I can do and I don't have anything else to do, and I have to cry out to the Lord.

The problem is when things are going well and I'm getting overconfident, I think Matt Passmore is pretty good.

And I will say this: the Lord loves to humble Matt Passmore.

I remember Brother Dell saying this, and I think, well, let's go into this and I'll tell with this one.

I think then that leads us to the absence of prayer, seeking God's counsel.

And if you notice here, there's not a scripture because it doesn't say anything about them reaching out to the Lord.

Like I said, in the Battle of Jericho, there was all kinds of interaction.

This battle was nothing.

But seeking out the counsel.

And guys, I think this is one area in our lives.

I think every one of us, when we get sinned in our life, we want to deal with it.

I think sometimes we want to fight it a while, but we're willing to deal with it.

I think we're also willing to understand that we're overconfident.

But you know, this is one here, and I would say everyone would want to do this, would want to pray and seek the Lord's counsel.

But when we get to rolling, this is something that we leave off.

We can go without.

I'll say this: there's some days in my life I pray in the morning during my quiet time, and then all of a sudden I'm laying my head back down at night, and I'm like, Lord, I hadn't even prayed to you all day long.

Not because I didn't want to, but why?

Because my busy skill, because I messed up.

I heard a pastor say one time, he said, I know it.

People want to pray.

You've got to remind yourself to pray throughout the day till it becomes a habit again.

I mean, maybe we need to put all in our car, in our desk at work, wherever.

Hey, remember to pray.

I was with a guy one day, we were just walking, his phone kept chiming.

I'm like, golly, can you turn the phone?

I mean, in my mind, I'm like, what?

It's like an alarm keeps going off.

We were together, we were playing golf, and like three times while we were playing golf in three hours, his phone chimed like an alarm.

And I'm thinking, what is alarm?

And he finally said, Hey, I'm sorry, but I've set my alarm to remind myself that I need to pray.

And think about it.

I mean, this is something I want to do.

I just sometimes take it for granted and skip it.

And so when it takes us back to the danger of overconfidence, then it takes us to this: seeking the Lord's counsel.

When was the last time you prayed and you said, Lord, give me wisdom to make the right choices today?

Brother Dell said this.

Now he was way better than this, so don't tell him I said this.

Because I'm, you'll see, he was a lot smoother at saying this.

But he said one day he was he was talking about praying to the Lord, praying without ceasing, praying all the time.

And he said, you know, when you go to the Walmart and you see all the toothpaste, do you think the Lord really cares which toothpaste you get?

Do you think looking at that, and he was kind of making a joke, like, should we pray which toothpaste to get?

And he goes, probably not.

But he did say this.

But if I'm praying in the morning that the Lord gives me wisdom throughout the day, that wisdom will help me pick the right toothpaste.

You see where I'm going with that?

So there are times in our day we do not, as we go through our deal, it's there's there's times of prayer all day long, but when I'm praying for wisdom, each prayer I make, there's a time I can't pray, but my prayer earlier is give me wisdom to make the choice when I need to make the choice.

And so, guys, I want to tell you, we have to get to where we're doing this, not just in the morning, but all day long.

Have you ever been there?

You're just walking through the day, and you can't help but to say, Hey Lord, thank you for this, or you're just in communication.

The other day I get home, I'm working on my riding lawnmower, getting it ready for mowing season.

Unfortunately, I had it out and I thought, you know what, I'm gonna leave it out so I can clean out the shed the next day.

It's not supposed to rain, I didn't think.

And so the next morning I get up, I look at my phone, it's supposed to rain all day long.

And I go out and I'm like, man, I gotta get this in.

I don't want to get all rusty, and I'm panicked, you know, and I'm getting it in there.

And you just in certain times in your life, you I get it in the shed.

And I get off, I walk out, and it starts raining as I walk back to the house.

You know, it was one of those I was like, you know, just that time and where I was at, it was like, Lord, thank you for that.

It was a small thing, but it is a piece of knowing that the Lord is around.

And when we get to the point of praying that we're in the Lord's counsel on that, we're gonna see the Lord doing a lot more in our life than we really realize it.

And so, and then that leads us to the last one: the pain from broken fellowship.

Isn't that what sin is?

When we have broken fellowship, it affects our relationship with the Lord.

What's the greatest picture we see of that was Adam and Eve.

I mean, every day in the even at the cool of the evening they walked with the Lord.

Can you imagine that?

And then after sin, it was like they were doing what?

They were hiding.

Because why?

The fellowship was broken.

Listen to this what it says at the end of verse 5.

The hearts of the people melted and became like water.

Boy, they you talk about a cycle.

After Jericho, they were ready to whip the whole world.

After Ai, they didn't know what they were doing.

But but there's that time in our life when sin is interfering and it's broken our fellowship with the Lord.

But isn't there something good about when we realize that and we take care of the sin?

I've told this story before, but it in my in my house growing up, we had the ceiling fan in the kitchen, and it had, it was not antique, but it kind of looked like an antique bulb, you know, like a anyway.

And we were playing, my parents were away, we're playing uh, we played the sock, uh little sock baseball deal, and we're hitting it, and one of my friends hits it all the way into the kitchen from the living room, and I ran and got it, and I grabbed it, and as I was throwing it, I just nailed that.

I don't want to say chandelier, but that bulb.

And and the side of it just shattered.

And my friends, listen, my dad was a great man, he taught me a lot of things, but he he was for discipline.

Okay, so I knew I was in trouble.

It's like, oh no.

So my friends all leave, because they knew my dad was for discipline too.

So they all leave, and I'm sitting there like, what in the world am I gonna do?

So I clean it up and I take the bulb and I turn it to its face in the wall.

You know what I mean?

To kind of hide it.

I thought I was good.

So that's like two or three o'clock in the afternoon.

Well, at 5:30, guess where my family has dinner?

Right underneath that bulb.

And I sat at the where my normal seat, and I couldn't even look up because I didn't want my dad to look up.

You know what I mean?

Just the if you could feel the whoo! I'm in.

We get through dinner, it was good.

I go get in bed, you know.

Well, guess what?

My family eats breakfast together too.

It was summertime.

My dad came home.

Normally we don't have lunch together, but guess what we had the next day?

Lunch at that table, dinner at that table, breakfast at that table, dinner at that table.

Three days went by.

And I was done.

I mean, when the relationship's broken, you see, I finally went to my dad and I said, Dad, I broke that deal.

I'm so sorry, I'll do whatever I need to do.

And my dad says this I noticed it was broken the day I walked in.

Why didn't you say something?

I mean, you know, I'm like, but I will say this.

When I told him what I had done, I didn't care what he was gonna do to me.

My relationship was restored.

And I was in a great place.

Now I did get disciplined, but it didn't matter.

My point of this is there's consequence for our sin.

I mean, it's just it is what it is.

But when I get it off my chest, the Lord already knows about it.

When I get it off my chest, there's something about my relationship being restored that brings what?

Something we need.

So then that just I saw this quote.

The battle of AI teaches us that spiritual success is never guaranteed by past victories, but by present obedience.

Okay, as we pray, I want to challenge you.

Maybe there's something you got hidden in your tent, like Achan had hidden in his tent.

Maybe there's just that sin you got to deal with, or maybe you're just not right with the Lord right now.

Maybe this is something today you need to just say, you know what, Lord, I've been hiding something.

I need to get it right.

I need to fix it.

And uh, as small as it is, as big as it is, I will say this: sin is sin and sin separates us from God.

Let's pray together.

Dear God, thank you for these guys.

Lord, thank you for the challenge on my own life.

How many times I just want to go through just a regular routine, and you're saying, Matt, just be obedient.

Matt, take care of your sin.

And you want that fully restored relationship with me and with these guys.

And Lord, help us be men that work at having that fully developed relationship with you.

And Lord, just thank you so much.

If there is someone in this room that is dealing with just not even being a believer, Lord, just help them have the guts and courage to ask someone around them.

Lord, we just pray over that.

And Lord, thank you again for all that you do.

Be a pastor as his daughter is about to be induced.

Help her as the pregnancy, just help it go smooth.

And again, thank you for your many blessings and your grace and mercy.

In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

Thanks, guys.

Have a great rest of the day.