Some Encouraging Words - Fight Today's Battles

Just a couple of encouraging thoughts before the long weekend, actually it's a long weekend for me, probably for many of you it's probably not, but I'm going to visit my father this weekend and so I'm about to get on a plane in a little bit and it's going to be interesting.

It's going to be one of those single propeller prop planes flying out of a very small airport so it's going to be an interesting one.

It's the kind where the cockpit is completely exposed, you know, so anyway. But I wanted to just talk to a few of you.

Well, you know, one of the things that kind of grinds my gears a little bit, but really more just kind of bewilders me is just how often people are just willing to sort of use themselves as a standard for who's in sin and who's not, especially when it comes to tone, especially when it comes to saying things not the way that you would say them and things like that.

I find that so annoying and all of that. I mean, obviously, you know, people have to watch their tone.

I mean, we all we all know this and the scripture talks about, you know, speaking in love and things like that.

But but but I think, you know, too often we're willing to say, well, I wouldn't say that and I wouldn't say it that way.

Therefore, you're in sin and you're an evil person to be avoided like that. That's just that's so it's it's it's preposterous to me, number one.

And number two, it's obviously so subjective. I'm like like I know a lot of you people who watch these videos don't like my tone.

You don't like how I say things. You think I'm like this evil person. But you have to understand that that I also get tons of comments and feedback about how measured my tone is and how

I should be more aggressive and how and thanking me for being fair and balanced and things like that. And obviously, both of those groups can't be right at the same time.

I mean, it's obvious. And, you know, just just so you know, again, I've said this many times. I do take care in watching my tone.

And yes, I will say things directly and aggressively at times, but I don't always do that. It's not always appropriate.

And so here's the thing, guys, like forget about this obsession, this obsession with saying, well,

I wouldn't say that. He said it in a mean way. Therefore, avoid him, ignore him. Look, there are people that say things in a mean way, according to you, that actually have really good things to say.

And so I what I would do is instead of being obsessed with their tone and hey, you don't you don't strike in the right tone with me.

Like it's that refute the ideas, refute the ideas. That's what you should focus on.

Now, the person who's speaking has to answer to God for what he says. The person who's speaking has to answer to God for his tone and the condition of his heart when he's saying it.

That person has to answer for that. But you're not the standard of what is acceptable and what is not. You are not the standard of what is acceptable and what is not.

Because I agree. I saw a thread. I forget who said this thread. But I agree that according to most people's ridiculous standards online,

Jesus would not have been meeting those standards. Paul would not have met those standards. Peter would not have met those standards.

None of the biblical writers and witnesses would have met the standards that some in Big Eva would set for me.

You know what I mean? And so therefore, if Jesus won't even meet your standards of niceness, I can ignore your standards of niceness.

Now, doesn't mean I can't ignore being nice and being kind and all of these things. I still have to answer to God. But let's just forget this obsession with that kind of thing.

Related to that is a topic that we've talked about before. I think the first time I saw this was was

Michael Fosser. He's one of the guys, one of the brothers that does the ministry. It's good to be a man.

Fantastic. You should follow him on Facebook. I always get value out of his tweets. I get convicted a lot with his tweets, just to be perfectly honest with you.

And and I appreciate them. Probably if I could tell you to follow one person on on Twitter that has affected me the most in the last year, it would be

Michael Foster. So follow him. But but I think he's I don't know if he originated this idea, but but I saw it first from him about theological

LARPing. You see, people are very, very courageous about yesterday's battles.

People are extremely courageous about, well, I would if if he was a racist in my church,

I would church discipline him. And I'm like, yeah, that's really way to go out on a limb there.

That battle was fought a long time ago. Everyone agrees with you. If we had a raging racist in our church, we would church discipline.

Everyone would do that. What about today's battles? What about being faithful today? And you see, here's the problem.

When you fight today's battles, no matter what your tone is, people are going to look at you with suspicion. People are going to say, oh, you're jumping the gun.

You're being too mean, things like that. And that's just not the reality. I let me encourage you guys. If you're a pastor, be courageous with today's battles.

Yes, don't forget yesterday's. Look, if someone's coming in and saying, you know, heretical things, you know, that were defined in the

Christian faith a long time ago. Yes, yes. Be courageous with that too. If a racist comes into your church, be courageous with that too.

But let's focus on today's battles. I think the PCA presbytery, the

Carolinas presbytery that just released a report about Revoice said it really, really well. It said, we don't get to choose our battles.

I'd like to be talking about the natures of Christ. I'd like to be talking about the Trinity. I'd like to be talking about all these things.

And we need to still talk about those things. Don't get me wrong. These are foundational to the faith. But at the end of the day, we need to be courageous with today's battles.

And today's battles is human sexuality. Today's battles is this woke church evil that is spreading everywhere.

This social justice thing that's a perversion of justice, an absolutely perversion of justice.

That's what it is. Because justice is good, but the social justice stuff that gets promoted today is a perversion of it.

That's where you need to be courageous. That's where you need to take a stand. So it's not impressive to me when you say, well,

I would excommunicate a racist from my church. Yeah, so would I, you know, so would I, but you know who else

I would excommunicate someone who was pro abortion in my church, someone who voted for pro abortion candidates, the most radical amongst us.

I mean, I mean, there's, there's a lot of Christians in Illinois that support this partial birth abortion nonsense where a baby is, is, is, is pulled out somewhat from the mother's womb and then their brains are sucked out.

And that is vicious. And I'll tell you right now, that's where you need to be courageous.

People that support that nonsense, they should be church disciplined. But you know, a lot of you guys are very courageous with yesterday's battles, but with today's battles, well, you know, we don't want to jump the gun.

Oh yeah. It's okay to have a gay pastor as long as they're, they're celibate and all this kind of stuff. Like, look, it's not okay.

And you need to take some decisive action now. This is today's battles. I, well,

I used to, I used to commute a little over an hour to work when I lived in New York and it was all on a bus, so I didn't have to drive.

I didn't have to focus. So I would either read or I'd listen to podcasts. And I used to listen to apology radio all the time.

In the very beginning of that show, they had a, they had a clip from Doug Wilson. And he said that he was talking about the difference between faithful men and careful men, how we need faithful men right now.

And he said the careful men come later and write the biographies, biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

And that's exactly right. We've got a lot of careful men right now. They're talking about how great Spurgeon was, how courageous

Spurgeon was. And yes, he was very courageous, but then they're acting like they would be like him and no, you wouldn't.

Yeah. You would be like Spurgeon with his days battles, but with today's battles, you're sitting on your hand saying, well, we don't want to jump the gun.

We don't want to get too aggressive. Let's wait and see until Jezebel reveals herself. No, that's not how we do it.

So this is an encouragement for you pastors out there. Find your courage in today's battles and don't worry about what other people say about it.