THE ROUND TABLE, Ep. 1 - James 3

Alright, so if you have your Bibles, let's go ahead and get into it. We're going to go to James chapter 3, and we're going to, we're going to go ahead and first let's talk about the context of this.

This was written by James, the half -brother of Jesus. He was the pastor, if you will, at the church of Jerusalem.

And he's speaking to this people, he's speaking to, it says in chapter 1, the dispersion, the

Israelites in dispersion. And if you don't know what that means, that means that the

Jews, the Israelites, they were dispersed among all the lands. They were not centralized, all of them, in Israel.

Throughout the entire Roman Empire, they were spread out. So this letter is a general letter to all of the

Jews throughout the empire. And so this, sometimes people want to say that scripture was written specifically to these people, so you can't apply that to your life.

Okay, well first of all, that's wrong. Second of all, you can't even use that argument with this letter, because it's a general letter to all of those in the dispersion.

Okay? So let's go ahead and read this. Chapter 3, verse 1,

I'm going to go ahead and read past verse 12 for context, but we're only going to go over 1 through 12.

Here we go. Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.

When we put bits into the mouth of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal.

Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go.

Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boast.

Consider a great force is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body.

It corrupts the entire body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no one can tame the tongue.

It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our

Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who have been made in God's likeness.

Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.

Can both fresh water and salt water come from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives or a grapevine bear figs?

Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. Who is wise and understanding among you?

Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.

But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth.

Such wisdom does not come from heaven, but is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic.

For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every kind of evil.

But the wisdom that comes from God is first all -pure, then peace -loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.

Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness. That was a lot. That was a lot and there's a lot in there.

Isn't it amazing? James only wrote one book of the Bible. It's only five chapters long and he spent an entire chapter talking about one part of the body.

That's pretty significant. Let's go ahead and get into it. Let's start with verse one. Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

That is one of the most terrifying, sobering verses in all of Scripture for me personally.

The word many is the scariest verse in the Bible to me. You think of Matthew 7.

On that day, many will come saying, Lord, Lord. He will say, depart from me, you worker of iniquity, for I never knew you.

The first part of this verse, we shouldn't just focus on, yeah, teachers will receive stricter judgment. Therefore, not many of you should be teachers because you won't pass the test.

I always love flipping the wording around. In other words, few of you should be teachers.

Which is why when Paul wrote to Timothy, he told Timothy, you appoint men able to teach.

Right. The pastor appoints people able to teach. Not just anyone. That's under his authority. Yeah. Which I think is forgotten a lot of times.

Jeff told me a story about this very legalistic church he worked, did a job for.

And every Sunday school teacher had complete autonomy and authority over their

Sunday school class. The pastors had no say. They were the final say.

And that's not how it should be. If you teach Scripture in a church, you are teaching under the authority of the pastor.

At least you should be. But the word many there is right in the next verse as well.

We all stumble in many ways. Many ways. It's not singular.

It's not in one area. And I think sometimes, I know

I hear this a lot. Like, oh, where are you struggling right now? How are you doing? Oh, I just need to read my Bible more.

I'm like, hold on now. If your biggest problem in life is that you just don't read

Scripture or you don't do your daily devotional enough, then you need to be teaching because you get things figured out a lot better.

James, the brother of Jesus, said we all stumble in many ways. Right. Yeah, but let's keep going on.

So we all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect.

Aiden will keep their whole body in check. If we could keep our mouth in check, if we could keep our mouth in check, we would be perfect.

How often does what you say get you in trouble? Yeah. How often does, what's the saying, you're making promises that you can't cash?

Your mouth is writing checks that your butt can't cash. Right. But that happens all the time.

All the time. We say things and do things and we make promises that we know we can't keep.

Or we'll have every intention of keeping, but we don't have the power to. I mean, later in James, I think it's chapter 4 or 5, he literally says, who are you to say that tomorrow we'll go to such and such place and do this or that?

He says, you don't know what you're doing tomorrow. He said, you don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow, much less next week, next month, next year.

And so we a lot of times want to say these things and make these plans, which is not always inherently wrong.

But we don't allow God to have the plan. We don't always allow

God to have the say. Right. The passage you just referred to, it goes on to say, you shouldn't even say,

I am going to do this, this, and this. You should say, if the Lord wills. If the Lord gives me the ability,

I will go to the town, buy supplies, and build the thing like you said. But if we're trusting ourselves and what we think we can do, then we're putting

God second. We put a lot of authority in our own mouth. Yes, we do. Well, I said, we put a lot of power and authority in what

I said. Or what he's told me. We do that a lot, and we've got to be careful with that.

If it's not in accordance with scripture, then you need to check how much authority you're giving that over your life.

Just to show you how much trouble, how much evil, like it said, how much evil, vileness comes out of our mouth.

Think about Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah sees the throne room of God.

We get this picture a few times in scripture, the beginning of Revelation. So Isaiah chapter 6, in the year that King Uzziah died, he saw, okay, the seraphim, day and night, never stopped saying,

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. And it says, at the sound of the voice of the seraphim praising

God, the doorways of the temple shook. Now I want you to think about that. Not at God's voice, but at the sound of the created beings created to do nothing, but praise

God 24 -7. The doorways of the temple shook. And then Isaiah said this. Woe is me,

I am undone. I'm coming apart at the seams. I am a man of unclean lips, because my eyes have seen the king.

My eyes have seen the king, and the first thing I realize that's unclean is my mouth. He didn't say his eyes. I would think he'd say his hands.

My mind. Right, right. I'm a man of unclean mind, or unclean heart. Yeah, I'm a man of unclean lips, because my eyes have seen the king.

Remember the angel grabs the coal and puts it on his mouth and purifies it and all that stuff. That was the first thing he realized of the filthiness, because the evil comes from the tongue.

And it says, anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect. That seraphim didn't touch that coal on any other part of his body.

He touched it to his mouth, his lips, and he was purified. And if the chapter didn't go on, you would say, oh, okay, so we can be perfect.

But then it goes on in verse 8 to say, and no human being contained the tongue. Right. And there's never been, and no one can do it.

No human being contained the tongue. So let's move on to verse 3. When we put bids into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal and take ships.

A large ship is driven by such small rudders wherever the pilot wants to go.

Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boats. Consider what a great force is set on fire by a small spark.

I don't think, and this is specific on that last part, what a great fire, what a forest fire, can be started by just such a small spark.

I mean, in a reality example, like the forest fires of California or Australia, like a small thing can literally, in the case of Australia, put an entire country on fire by something so small.

And then he compares that, something, you know, for us, that was very recent, something that massive to the tongue.

That what you say and do has that significant of an impact.

And he took the main vessel of travel in that day, a boat. He took the main vessel of travel and said, as it's controlled by a small rudder to go wherever the pilot wants it to go, so by controlling the tongue, you control where the whole body goes, or not.

And that's even a more impressive example to me nowadays, because we have even larger ships controlled by not that much larger rudders.

I mean, we have huge cities on the water controlled by a tiny rudder.

The old saying, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. The Bible disagrees with that.

Strongly. That's not true. That's not true. Words matter. I want to...

Go ahead. Jeremiah, I always want to point out, because the Bible doesn't just have a bunch of do nots, it also has do's.

Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more. So if our words can produce this much damage, but where sin abounds, grace abounds even more, how much more can we speak life and speak encouragement and build up the body, right?

How much more can we build others up with that? I want to... On that,

I want to go to Ephesians chapter 4 verse 29. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only...

This goes to what you were saying. Only. Only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Did you catch that? According to their needs. According to their needs. Yes. A lot of times when people read this scripture, they want to use it as justification for not cussing.

And I think that completely applies, but I think that's a very narrow view of this verse, of this scripture, of both

James 3 and Ephesians 4 verse 29. That it has less to do with the vocabulary, though that is...

And I'm not belittling that, that is vital. But what is helpful to them?

What do they need to hear? And it's not about your needs or what... What do they need to hear this time?

Do they need love? Do they need grace? Do they need mercy? Do they need encouragement? What is it that they need?

At the very beginning of this passage, I know it's... Yeah, okay.

Ephesians 4, 14 and 15 says, okay, we're not to do this, we're not to lie to each other anymore, but rather speak the truth in love.

So not just don't lie, but speak the truth in love. And sometimes truth hurts.

Of course. Sometimes truth hurts. But once again, it says what they need and what is helpful to them. And here's the other thing, it doesn't say what they want to hear.

No, it says what they need. It says what they need and what is helpful to them. And that's a difference. People think, well, if you're not telling me what

I want to hear, then that's not right. I always like to work verses backwards for a minute.

It says speak the truth in love. So if you're not speaking the truth... Truth, you're not loving. Are you showing that person that love?

Building up others according to their needs, then it may benefit those who listen. I think...

Then it benefits everyone else that's listening. Exactly. It benefits those who listen. And that's part of the other thing.

We talked about a few weeks ago, a few weeks ago now, in youth, we talked about leadership.

And the definition I always love for leadership is influence. So it's like, who are you influencing?

Therefore, you're leading them. It's who is influencing you. So you have people leading you that you've never even met because they're influencing your life and how you...

To those who listen, your words will influence everyone around you.

How are you influencing them? How are you leading them? Just because someone's leading you in a bad way doesn't mean they're not leading you.

They're guiding and help guiding the way you're going. In the same way, you are going to help guide the way others go.

The question is, where are you guiding them? And I think a lot of times we're not purposeful enough in our speech.

A lot of times, especially with me and my cohort, we joke a lot and mess and pick.

But there's a line where that can go too far. It's like, all right, hey, that's funny, but how does that help them?

How does that benefit them? How does that build them up? Because it says here only what is helpful, only what is beneficial.

And I think we look over that way too much. We can go on now.

Verse 6, the tongue is also a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body.

It corrupts the entire body and sets the whole course of one's life on fire. And it itself is set on fire by hell.

Ephesians 2 says, We all too previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens.

Satan does not have lost people on puppet strings. They do whatever they want.

And whatever they want to do is in line with the will of their father, the devil, just like Jesus told the

Pharisees in John chapter 8. Your tongue, you don't have to be playing with Ouija boards and be possessed by a demon to be speaking lives from the pit of hell.

Your tongue, if it's untamed, is a fire, and it is set on fire by hell, just by your natural state of things.

I'll tell you who I think has the most poisonous device of tongue there was are the people when they walked up,

Jesus said, You brood of vipers. The religious people. It was the Pharisees.

I always like to tell people, one time I went to the University of Memphis, and there were these old white dudes out there holding signs, and I'm, only time

I've ever come across these people myself in person. And they were holding signs, you know, repent, you're going to hell, you know.

And I walked up to this dude, I'm like, Who did God have the harshest words for?

The religious people. The religious people are the people

God had the harshest words to. The second harshest words were for his own disciples. And when the prostitutes, and the tax collectors, and the murderers, when they walked in, he always showed the love, and the grace, and the kindness.

And I told that dude, I said, You go into any church and preach this sermon, you're just fine.

But preaching it to those who are ignorant, and have no spiritual understanding, they don't understand what you're saying, man.

They don't understand. Because according to Ephesians 4, 29, that is not what was helpful to those hearers, to those listeners.

Well, you hold your brothers and sisters to a higher standard. You look at 1

Timothy 3 or 2 Timothy 3, where he says, In the last days perilous times will come.

And he lists a whole list of sins people will have in the last days. And the very last one says,

These people have a form of godliness, but deny its power.

Period. Avoid these people. We're not talking about the atheists right now.

They have a form of godliness, but deny its power. We're talking about the people that pretend, that have a form of godliness, a religious form of godliness, but they deny its power.

They don't live like it's real. Yeah. Pastor Jeff talks often about the gossiping tongue.

And I think that goes right in line with what we're talking about here. Yeah, you look at the sins God hates in Proverbs, right? Yeah, that's literally right up there.

When we have a new member. I remember this one young lady. She obviously, you know, is not familiar with religious circles.

Obviously very uncomfortable. I don't believe she wanted. She came to church here one Sunday. I don't believe she wanted to be here.

And a couple people came and was like, Well, what should we do? I said, Just go say hello. I said,

What do you mean? What do we do? Go say hi. So what?

This person, you know, has bluish green hair. I said, So what? When Jesus said,

I did not come for the healthy but the sick. Healthy people don't need a doctor.

Sick people do. So when Jesus said, I did not come for the righteous but the unrighteous.

I did not come for the righteous but the sinners. In the same way, the gossiping, backstabbing tongue when people walk into a church building is some of the most divisive, poisonous speech

I think there is. Yeah, it's ironic that Jesus was talking to the

Pharisees who were sinners but they didn't think they were. So until they realize that they were, well,

I'm not here for you. If you're not even at the repentant state because you don't believe you have anything to repent from, then what can

I do for you? Nicodemus figured it out. That's why I think that whenever you preach the gospel, send us the first subject that needs to come up.

Because if you don't understand your sin, you don't understand your need for Christ, well then what good does talking about the cross do if you don't understand you need

Him? If you don't understand your desperation for God and what place you're really in, then you won't appreciate and understand why you need

Him in the first place. Right, and that's why when we witness or evangelize, it's so important to say we because the example you gave earlier, you're lost, you're going to hell, when really it should be we are all sinners and there is one hope on this planet.

Now the first word out of Jesus' mouth when he started his ministry was repent. Repent, yeah. Repent, right?

So we have to speak the truth of love and tell them the truth. They got to know what they have to repent from so long as they know that we are all in the same boat.

Correct. Right, we're a beggar's chum and then a beggar where to find the bread. All right, let's move on.

Where are we at, verse 7? All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue.

It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. Oof, that's heavy.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who have been made in God's likeness.

All right, let's stop there. I'm going to hit that last part for a second.

Who have been made in God's likeness. I don't think we fully understand that.

Gentlemen, we hit 615, let me know. Ravi Zacharias gave an analogy one time.

It was beautiful. He was talking about when the dude came up to Jesus and said,

Hey man, should we pay taxes to Caesar? And Jesus says, do you have a coin?

He says, yes, so let me see it. Jesus already knew the answer. You get to your left pocket, man.

You have a coin. And so he gave him the coin, and he says, and people look over this, and I looked over this for the longest time.

He's holding the coin. Whose face is on this coin? Well, Caesar's.

So give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. But then Zacharias said, but the dude should ask the next question.

The next question is, what belongs to God? Give to Caesar what is

Caesar's, the coin. Because the image of Caesar is on the coin. And give to God what is

God's. Because the image of God is on us. We bear the image of God.

So he says, give to God what is God's. That means you, all of you. And when Scripture says, like right here, you will curse those who are made in the likeness of God.

We've got to remember, man, that should hit all of us home. When we say we're made in the image of God, it doesn't mean that we believe that God has brown hair and blue eyes and nose.

When he's made in the image of God, so just like God is a trichotomy, so are we, body, mind, soul.

But more than that, the Lord saw all of his creation and said it was good. But only one of his creation can have a personal, intimate relationship, communicative relationship with him.

Let's not forget, all the world was cursed, but only one of his creations sinned.

We say, you know, I feel as low as dirt. Actually, you're worse than dirt. But dirt did what God told it to do.

You didn't. The dirt didn't disobey. The dirt didn't disobey. The reason, but let's be real. Why do animals die?

Sin. Human sin. Why is the ground cursed? God told

Adam, the ground is cursed because of you. Why do stars explode?

Why did Australia go on fire? Sin. Sin. Why is the earthquake tornado? It's the fall of man, not the fall of creation.

Yeah. But all of creation is punished for ours. We're made in his image, and that image is marred, and we still bear that image because we can still call out to him.

But that's what makes us, we can have an intimate, loving relationship with God and the rest of creation can't. And I'm going to tangent on this just for a second more.

If you don't, and this goes into society, into our world. And I really feel like and believe that Christians need to focus on this more.

Because if you don't understand that every single human being bears the image of God, then we don't have intrinsic value.

We don't have, inherently, we don't have that value if we're not in the image of God. And we don't focus on that, we don't talk about that enough.

That is the why every single death of a human is sad.

Every single death. That is why I fight against abortion so much. That is why

I fight, because we are all image bearers. We all bear the image of God, which gives all of us value as a human being.

Why are you valuable? First reason before anything else. You bear the image of God, and he said,

I love you. There doesn't need to be any other conversation or discussion.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you bring to the table. If you take that out, if you take the, and I know

I'm tangenting here. If you take that away, and you go with what the atheists say.

That we're not made in the image of God. What value does humans have other than what you can do?

We're mechanics, that's where our value is found. I'm a history major, so my value is found in what information

I can give. But that's it. The value is not in me, it's what I can do.

Which is completely backwards of how it should be. Which is why, one reason why our society is so jacked up.

Because it's like, what can you do? What do you look like? That's what we find the value in.

Not in the state of being a human being. Anyway.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father. And with it we curse human beings who have been made in God's likeness.

Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.

Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives?

Or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can salt spring produce fresh water.

I've found that sometimes because of the fruits, people get confused on that. It's like, can an orange tree produce apples?

To put it back into our American fruits. Can you go find apples on a grapevine?

On a blueberry bush? You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't go over here to Pickwick and find salt water there.

You can't go to some lake or some river and find salt water. It's not going to happen. And in the same way, we as Christians should not be found with this kind of talk on our mouth.

And you know, working... So now that we've kind of established, it says this should not be so.

This ought not to be. I just signed your mind. How do I do that? How do I do that?

Well, here's where I think it starts. I think it starts at the heart. And here's what I'm saying.

So I'm going to read something out of Matthew. I had this already. I had thought about this before we started.

This is... Let's do Matthew chapter 12.

Matthew chapter 12. I'm going to start in verse 33. Matthew chapter 12.

I'm going to start in verse 33. Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or a tree bad and its fruit bad.

For if the tree is known by its fruit, you brood of vipers, how can you speak good when you are evil?

Now listen to this next sentence, everybody. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

For out of the abundance, the overflow, some of your Bibles will say. Out of the overflow, the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

I would say that 90 % of the words that we say in a day, maybe 95%, are not pre -prepared.

In other words, you don't know that that guy is going to cut you off. You don't know what your boss is going to set on your desk when you walk in in the morning.

You don't know who you're going to see on your lunch break. You don't know who's going to text you. You don't know who's going to call you.

The overwhelming majority of the words that come out of your mouth that day are not prepared. Very little of it is already prepared.

Which means most of the words that are going to come out of your mouth in a day are reactionary.

And most of the time, you can't say, give me 10 days to think about it, I'll come back to you.

Most of the time, you've got to give an answer right then. So that reaction is an overflow of the heart that God holds us responsible for.

You can't say, oh, it just slipped out of my mouth. That's unacceptable. Out of the abundance, the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

You know what that means? You can't even say, oh, I didn't really mean it. Well, in a sense, yes you did. Because it was in your heart.

You may not have wanted for it to come out of your mouth, but it was in your heart. So in one sense, yes, you did mean it.

Okay, so we've got to get to the heart of the matter. Well, how do we do that?

I have treasured, stored up your word in my heart, not so that I can feel better or have a good day, but I have hidden your word in my heart, comma, so that I won't sin against you.

Pathos. So if you do not, pathos, that's right. So if you do not, if you do not store up the word in your heart, you will sin against him.

So again, I have treasured your word in my heart that I might not sin against you, to me implies that if you don't treasure the word in your heart, you will sin against him.

And then I'll let you jump on this. To go on with that,

Philippians 4 verse 8 gives you a list of like eight things to dwell on. Okay? Whatever's true, honest, pure, lovely, these things dwell on these things.

That way, if it's in your heart, whatever's in your heart is going to spill out of your mouth, it says, out of the overflow. So put good in your heart so good can come out.

There we go. But yeah,

I mean, that's exactly what, I mean, it says, make a tree good and its fruit will be good. What you make of it is what's going to come out.

How you prepare yourself. I remember, I remember one time you came to work and you sat there and was like, hey, let's pray before the day gets started.

And like, hey, let's have, God, let's have a productive day, an efficient day, help us to have customers to come. I was working my butt off all day because customers wanted to stop coming in.

It was a great day. What you prepare for is what's going to come out. And if you don't prepare on the front end for what's going to come, then what do you expect?

Psalms chapter 1, Bless the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scornful.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law does he meditate day and night.

In his law does he meditate, not read, meditate day and night. And what do you expect to happen if you do not meditate on the word day and night?

You're going to sit in the seat of scornful, you're going to walk away. Exactly. If you do not prepare on the front end by not sitting in the seat of scornful, by meditating, then by default you are going to end up in this place.

So here's a real practical way that I think is helpful, to me at least. I recently told a young man a couple hours ago,

I want him to read Joshua 1 .8 ten times. Right?

This book of instruction shall not depart from your mouth. You are to recite it day and night, so that you may carefully observe everything written in it, not just the parts you like.

For by doing so, then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do. Then you will prosper and succeed.

Haven't I commanded you to be strong and courageous? Alright, so how do we do that?

Pick one verse. Pick one verse. Dwell on it. Recite it.

All day long. One verse. All day long. All day long.

And by dwelling on that, that means you're not dwelling on other stuff that is unhelpful.

By doing that, by focusing on that, you're not doing something that's unhelpful.

I would encourage everyone, if you're like, alright, I need a verse, Joshua 1 .8. Joshua chapter 1, verse 8.

Memorize that verse. And I would say the other thing that goes hand in hand, and we've kind of shifted on a different topic, but that's fine.

On how do you prepare yourself so that you can have a proper tongue? That's kind of what we're really getting at here.

How do you prepare yourself for what's to come? Going right along with Psalms chapter 1,

Corinthians says, bad company corrupts good morals. And didn't say it might corrupt good morals, or perhaps it could.

If you surround yourself with people who speak evil, people who speak poison, people who are gossipers, what do you expect that you're going to be speaking?

You will start speaking evil gossip and poison. It's not that hard of a thing to figure out.

It's very simple. And when we don't do that, when we don't hang around those people, when we don't hang around those who shouldn't, and we are among the believers, we are among the children of God, and we allow

God's spirit and God's people to be our influence, well, then you're going to see a huge change in your life.

That's why, you know, shocker, public high school teacher,

I don't get the opportunity most days to hang around believers all day long. That's a lot of negativity.

I started every day I dropped to work, without fail. Bible up, play, read the

Bible. Until I get there. Or worship music, but mostly that.

Because I need some spiritual food, or I'm going to fail. I'm going to fall.

Because I'm going to. I'm not strong enough for nine hours out of the day to five days a week.

Right. I'm not strong enough. So, you know, day and night. Okay, if I'm going to take that literally, you know, day and night.

Once again, it's not that hard of a thing to think about. That's all you're around? Man, it's so draining.

Yes. It is so draining when that is the only thing you're around. That's why I'm so grateful for technology where you can at least talk to each other.

I feel horrible for some of my youth who literally have zero godly friends.

Zero. That's why it's so important for us to reach out to them. Yes. That's why this place is family.

And I say youth, but that's not specific to youth.

People want to pretend like when you become an adult, it's less important to have godly friends. Absolutely not.

Absolutely not. I said it's dumb. Okay. If you do not have godly influences around you and godly help and godly support that you can go to in times of need, that you can go to in times of problems, when you need help with something, when you're worried about something, if you don't have that, then you will struggle.

It's said from the pulpit every Sunday, without accountability, you will fall. You will fall. You're going to fall.

I think that's a good note to stop on. I enjoyed this immensely. I hope you all enjoyed that.

I hope you learned something more than anything. My prayer is this. Anytime I teach, preach, whatever, my statement is

I do it for the one. That one person gets converted. That one person repents. That one person is edified.

That one person is encouraged. Any of those. If one of those things happened to one person, then the entire thing was a success.

I hope you all learned something. I hope you were encouraged. Don't let this encouragement only be in word.

Let this turn into action. Let it impact your day today, your day tomorrow, and the rest of your week.

Do you have anything else you want to say? No, sir. We're going to end in a prayer. We'll be done.

Father, God, Lord, we love you. Help us to speak what is pure and holy.

Help us to encourage one another and edify one another, God. Lord, help us to reach out.

God, help Robert, Lord, heal him, God. Lord, heal him and let there be so much glory and honor in your name from that healing,

God. Let so much praise and a testimony in your name become because of that healing,

God. That will happen. Lord, we honor you in all we do in your name we pray.