Why France? How are we doing friends online? You can scream, man, glad you're here today. My name is Larry. I'm one of the pastors. Here we are having a conversation and we've titled this series kill the spider. And some of you guys are a little sad because you're like low spiders and some of you hate spiders and but we're using spiders in a very specific way. And so to catch you up, for those of you who weren't here last week, and just to kind of make sure you guys understand where we're at. In 2018 I was reading a book. I picked it up, it was called kill this spider by got him Carlos Whittaker . And very quickly on the book he tells a story that his dad shared with him. And the story was about how his dad had done a three day church revival and was the preacher there had taught. At the end of the first night, a woman came up named Ms. Ramirez and she came up to the pastor and said, can you please pray for me and pray that the Lord would remove the cobwebs from my life? So he prayed that the Lord would have removed the cobwebs from her life. And then she went on and day two comes around and he's given his message and he's preaching hard and giving the God's word and afterward and vice people, they need prayer. And up comes Ms. Ramirez again and says, I know you already did this pastor, but could you please again pray that God would remove the cobwebs from my life? And so he was like, man, I've gotta be earnest and hard about this. And so he prayed, God, please give her a break through and break these chains and , and send this stuff away. And the wife has cobwebs that have kind of taken over and obviously, you know, she's struggling and hurting with. And so he sent her on her way and the third day, the last day, he gives his message and he's preaching hard and he's preaching loud. And at the end of the service he sees Ms. Ramirez again and she's walking up front and he's thinking, breakthrough like this be great testimony. We've ended this revival and we're going to hear how God remove these cobwebs from her life. And she walked up to him and said, pastor, I know that you've already done this, but would you please pray that the Lord would remove the cobwebs? And he said, no, I will not pray that the Lord removes the cobwebs from your life. I'm going to pray that he kills the spider that's causing the cop lives. So that was about all I needed from the book. Went on the shelf. I was like, that's killer. All right, got that. It's about how I read. And so I thought, man, this is really great, Carlos. Then on packs , different spiders in his life and how God really worked in him to help him identify and then kill those spiders. And for us, I thought, what a great conversation for us to have as a faith community about the different spiders that come up in our life and some sort of regularity or causes the basically this prison of webs that keeps us in or shuts us in , locks other people out, including God, and really doesn't even give us the ability to receive or give love the way we should. Just constantly causing problems. We're just dealing with the same things over and over again. So how can we get at the root and what are some of the regular routine routes ? And so looking at history and generations and generations of, of literature in movies and books, the seven sins popped up as some commonality of seven spiders that we could specifically talk about. And so that's what we're doing. That's what we began last week. We talked about the carbon monoxide of, of spiders and how it's so detrimental to us and that , and that was pride and I, we all kind of got it handed to us last week, including me the entire week. I've heard so many stories about people fighting these giant spiders of pride and how it comes out and what it masquerades, what it hides itself as, and then how it manifests itself out and around to people and causes more issues. And it's so hard to communicate and to discuss as , as a group of people and 25 minutes in such a large topic. So we really just focused on identifying like this is what pride looks like. Now. Call it out, call it by name, and then tell it you're gonna do something different. And it wasn't until this last week during our podcast that we really unpacked the podcast, how to actually kill it and some life changes that we can make an effort to not just clear that away, but to kill the spider of pride in our life . So you can check that out at some point if you want to. And so today we're going to do something similar. We're going to, I'm going to introduce this spider and we're gonna talk about what it looks like and some ideas and this week as we kind of chew on it and watch God do this transformative work in our life because I really believe he can and I'm watching him do it right in this faith community. So because of that, what we celebrate is what we value. I mean if you think about the things that you celebrate, you value them. And so I want to just to celebrate with you just a couple of things in the past 21 days, just a little bit over that, cause we're coming up on our first group in the past 21 days, we've given out over 200 of these books that people who have made a first time decision for Jesus or are on a journey. This other room was pumped. You guys got to wake up or is on a journey to discover who he is and how he can do his transformer work. Last week I've heard and through this weekend I've heard so many stories about people beginning to identify in to kill as best they can to spider of pride and watched it pop up, including in my life. My goodness. I got taken to the shed like all week long and with people. But it was great. It's good cause I'm getting to call it out and to see transformation happen in me and with you together. Another cool thing that we had a transformation story last week, Scott and Bernadette and um , and we had two people, two couples this last week throughout the week came up to me and said, Hey, we saw that, can we get married this week? Like legitimately, we're like, Hey, let's do this. Like we've been doing this, let's get married. And I was like, Oh my God, the way that he's working, when people take next steps and perceive him, it literally is transforming their homes, our community and the world. So let's continue this crazy conversation about the spiders in our life today. The topic, the big one is one that I believe that everyone actually deals with. But no one admits to it. In the 17 years I've done full time work as a pastor in a church. I feel like I've mostly seen everything, heard everything. I've got stories or days. You'd probably just be entertained if I just told you stories about broken people like myself and you're like, Oh man, that's awful. Yeah, it's you. I'm talking about you and me. That's how it is. And there's one thing though, I've never had someone come up and say, the wake of this issue is causing a huge problem in my life or the lives of the people around me. I've never heard someone themselves admit to this, but they've been quick to admit it of another. That is the topic of greed, of greed. Now I am going to try to do a fairly good job about not talking about money at all today. Hmm Hmm . I want to get to the emotional part of greed and what it is. And so what we're going to use is the actual definition for greed. Greed is the intense and selfish desire for something. Greed is the intense and selfish desire for something. Now it can take place in many forms in our life. You can already start identifying cause already you're going, Oh gosh, all right , you might be able to get me from that angle. This is the definition, an intense and selfish desire for something I'm going to share with you. I started looking through the new Testament and saying like what conversation can we have about a story in the new Testament where involves Jesus, where we can see greed when it comes to our emotions and how greed is not as much of an action as it is an emotion within us and how we can recognize it and then call it out. So I'm going to share you share with you a story from John chapter eight starting in verse one you can read along with me here, says early in the morning he came, this is Jesus. He's, he's, he came to the temple. All the people came to him. That's a really big statement. All the people you know that means like everybody, all the people came to him and sat down. He sat down and taught them. So where he is essentially isn't a church service like this. He came in, everybody showed up for Sunday service for this service. He sat down, which was a form of authority to then teach, and they all sat and they listened. So there's your setup, the scribes and the Pharisees, essentially, I've given this reference before. They're like the mall cops. They're the authority in the area. They're the religious scholars. They have some power. They've , they've really invested into this. They brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and placing her in the midst. They said to him, they said to Jesus teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now the law of Moses, this is in Deuteronomy, tells us to stone commands us to stone such a woman. So what do you say? So what do you say? This is what they said to him, that they thought that they might entrap him or charge him and bring charges against him. It was a trick. Now notice his posture. Jesus then bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. Pause for just a moment. If you've grown up in church, you've heard this story before, much has been discussed and made up . Why did he write right? If we were supposed to know what he wrote in the ground with his finger, we would know it would have told us. What we are supposed to notice though is his posture that he bent down or knelt down and then started doodling in the dirt. Continue on. As they continued to ask him, he didn't stood back up and he said to him, but him who is without sin be the first to throw it so who doesn't have it? You throw it at her at once. He then bent back down and wrote on the ground somewhere, but when they heard it, they went away one by one beginning with the older ones and Jesus was left alone with a woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to the woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She said, no one Lord, and Jesus said, neither do I condemn you. Go and from now on sin no more. It's so emotional. I want to help you and me actually get into the scene to see these emotions. Now remember again, greed is the intense and selfish desire for something. Some of you already go on . How in the heck are you going to attach this story to greed? Hang with me. Live in the emotion of this. Here's the scene. They're having a church service. It's literally right now, so a group of people decided to blow through the back doors, make their way up front. In the midst of us having a conversation like we are now paraded a woman right up here next to me who's naked. This, this is so shocking. The language that they use, who's not wearing it closes now standing in front of us and then says, Hey, this is what the law says. This is what Moses says. Now do you say, what do you say? What do you say? This might be one of the most shocking stories of the new Testament because they talked about how it literally caught her. This is just minutes. I mean, can we just sit there and the emotions for a second? I mean, can you just imagine a scene? I mean, he was sitting down and would think that Jesus might just hop in and be like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, and to be this woman who's dragged in here is standing in front of who knows how many people, all of them exposed naked and it's so fast. It moves so fast. It starts out so calm in . A story happens just so fast. Watch what they're doing. All of a sudden they blow in, they come up, they throw. This girl right in front of me says, this is what the law says. This is what he commands us. We're going to stone her now what do you say? What do you say ? What do you say? It's like the kid who's going , mom, mom, mom, mom, mom. Right now notice his posture as he slows everything down. He doesn't stand up and say anything. He then turns in , kneels down and starts doodling in the dirt. Like everyone's probably watching stunned. He's doodling in the dirt and they're going, Hey, Hey, what do you say? What do you say? What do you say? Asking him, begging him. This is why they make adult coloring books because kids do this and you're like, just doodle. Jesus did it. It's really good because you told her disconnect. You're still with me. It's good. What do you say? What do you say? What do you say? It's so emotional. What is Jesus trying to display in this picture? What does he, what is he showing us in this Fisher ? I think the first thing that we can recognize in the first way to kill the spider of greed is that first we must let go of Swift judgment of Swift judgment. Remember , greeters and intense and selfish desire for something. It's happening so fast. This scene is so fast and he like has to slow it way down by doodling in the dirt. One of our reputations , friends as followers of Jesus is that we are so quick to judge. If you want to remember, there's a few scriptures that I would say like, Hey, this is worth memorizing. One of them. I'll tell you right now, that'll give you great benefit if you can repeat it in your head as often as possible, especially in the midst of situations like this. Hopefully actually only you're not ever in this situation, but theoretically James one 19 be quick to listen. You could just stop right there. I mean just memorize James one 19 a that's what we got . Be quick to listen. Slow to speak and slow to become angry. Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. We're so quick, we're so fast. We're so Swift. We're so greedy at times with our judgment is what's going to happen now. Now, now, now this is shocking. Can we, can we sit there and the emotions of this with a woman that they're essentially immediately trying to execute and talk about it in front of everyone. But you look at Jesus and he slows everything down, doodling in the dirt. They were using her as a bait. They were being greedy in their use of her to get intense and selfish desire for something. So the second way that we should kill the spider is to let go of being right. That's a tough one for a lot of us let go of being right. The reason we're a Swift to judge, well , why would we wait when we're right? Why would we wait when we're right? See, they come flying in here and they're like, look at the scriptures. Tell us the Hebrew scriptures. Tell us the Torah, which they would have had memorized since they're a little boys. They were quoting it line for line. It was the law and Deuteronomy and they said, Moses, this is what the law says. Jesus were sitting in the temple that we should stone her. What do you say? And the thing is, Francis Jesus didn't stand up and say, you're wrong. He didn't say anything because he knew they were right. We can be right according to the letter of the law, but we can completely miss the spirit of the law. Jesus literally summarizes hundreds, hundreds of laws into one commandment, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, body, mind, and soul, and to love one another as yourself. Love. It's the spirit of love. They were right, but they were so wrong, Swift to judge because they were right. I wonder if as believers, we're known for like carrying the truth. We're ambassadors of truth because we have the truth and this is where a spider really revs up work. We're quick to speak because we have the truth and this is the truth and someone needs to tell you the truth and it's my job to tell you the truth because the truth will set you three free. And because we believe in the truth, we believe we can speak to anyone without hesitation, but the Bible teaches is to speak truth in love. If you don't love people, you shouldn't speak. If you don't love anybody, you shouldn't speak. How dare you speak the truth to people you don't love. That's an ugly spider for a of people at different times. How dare you speak the truth to people you don't love for what they only hear as judgment and law . If you don't love, you shouldn't speak Jesus never spoke truth. Anyone that he didn't love, he loves all the stuff . If we're going to walk me and you, if we're going to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. If you cannot love someone, have empathy for someone, have sympathy for someone, have care and concern . Please don't speak. He spoke strong. He spoke truth, but he loved much of what I'm actually trying to do with you right now. There was a rich young ruler who said, Hey, what do I gotta do to get in? Like look at all these things I'm doing. And Jesus says, yeah, yeah , but you need to like sell all your stuff. Speaking of greed , you needed to sell everything you have and he got sad, said , I can't do that. So the way you don't get in, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for you to get in, cause you won't leave your stuff. He spoke hard truth to him that was clarifying. This is what you got to do. You're not willing to do it. You're out. But it said that he looked at him and he loved him. He looked at him and he loved him. He spoke hard truth with love. Also later on in Jesus's journey. Now he's really turned his way towards Jerusalem and he's on this long walk to Jerusalem for us to give himself up. And he sent out his disciples ahead of him . Um , basically, you know, sell tickets to the show cause it's like sweet concert. Everybody wants to come see Jesus and there's healing that's going on and there's food and it's like sweet party and it's the hottest ticket around. I mean like thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people are showing up. Everywhere Jesus is at is legit. And the disciples are like this as well. It's like this is awesome. So they're ahead now. Jesus works his way into this town and nobody shows up. They're like too busy. They're like having coffee, they don't want to go to church. They're do own thing. And James and John see this and they said, we know the truth. How dare you. This is God and person and you don't want to show up. You're not going to show up here. So then he says in Luke nine 54 three 57 James and John, his disciples, they said, Lord, no one's shown up. Do you want us to command fire from heaven down to consume them? They literally like, Hey , no one's showing up. We know the truth. These people don't care who you are looking to turn their back in . There are somewhere else like watching a movie right now. Or they're like saying, I'm an online church and they're not. Let's bring fire . I ask them what's going on like forget them. I mean, these are people who are being taught how to love people, but they're greedy because they have intense and selfish for something of , look at what we can do. We know the truth. We can bring it. What'd Jesus do? He turned around and said, are you kidding me? That's not my spirit. I didn't come here to destroy humans. I came here to save them. Come on. We can get so greedy with being right. So Swift with our judgment. Isn't it so emotional? This is what it is. It's the emotional part of it. It's not just the action part of it. It's that thing that happens in us. They had truth that Jesus was God and we wonder why people say, watch out for those Christians. I don't do church man. They are ruthless. They will tell you the truth and the crazy part is is they're out doing the same dang stuff as me the night before and then they show up to church and they want to give me the truth to kill the spider of greed. The last thing we need to do is to let go of condemnation. The rock that they're holding to you of condemnation are our heart condemns us, my friends. You are condemned. You are a center . I am a simmer . We are condemned. So what do we do? We project. We project that out because we feel perpetually guilty for my air , for my sin. I will now find someone else who I perceive as worse than me and I will condemn them. I will judge them privately, internally, publicly, and I will do that because it will make me feel better. Greed is an intense and selfish desire for something, for me to feel better at the sake. Do you not look at you? I have that problem. I have that issue. I think about it all the time. But you, you are worse. Do you do it worse? You go hard. We need to let go of condemnation. We must let go of using condemnation towards other people and start accepting it and recognizing it in our own hearts. It says that they , um , they continued to ask him. They're like, Hey, stop drawing on the ground. Stop drawing on the ground. What do we , what do you say we do? We've got a stoner right there , which is what we're going to do and we're trying to trap you right here. We're supposing this woman in front of all of these people. What do we do? What do we do? What do we do? And as they continue, he stood up and said to him , let those who are without sin among you be the first to throw at her. He knew that they were condemned and their hearts felt condemned. Cause that's what we do. We think about it all the time, like if you think about it, we are continually thinking about how we're not good enough, what we've done wrong, this issue that we are constantly exposing ourself and the need to expose someone else. And he was exposing nips in the moment because there was also a law in Deuteronomy and in the Hebrew scriptures that said Firestone somewhere to kill someone for their sin, that there needed to be a witness. So they actually caught them specifically in the act. They'd be the first and that they needed to also not struggle with that sin themselves exposed. They're condemned people. So an example would be if , if you're going to persecute or if you're going to expose someone and then make sure there's Penley cared out for someone who stole something, you could not be dealing with the sin or the issue yourself of feeding before you could do that. So he literally gets shocked. Turns, slows it way down. Doodles stands up and says, am which one of you isn't dealing with any of this stuff? Who here is perfect? And then they can throw first and then does rock drop and then just turns and says like, think about that one. Then I love this. Oh , I can connect. Then it says one by one starting with the oldest to the youngest. They left. Check this out. How does it , how does he fix you? How does he fix me? How does he take care of the sin in our life? Because remember working damned one by one from your oldest to your newest, our hearts are condemned and I love this. In first John, it says three 20 if our hearts condemn us, which our hearts will continue friends to condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts. Thank God. And he knows everything, so they're left. So then what's he do? His posture changes again. He stands back up. He stood back up and he said to her woman, where are they? Has no one condemned . Like he's like, Oh, I've been drawing. I missed everything. What happened? It's such a shocking scene where they go, has no one condemned you? She said, no one, no one Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you. Go and from now on sin no more. I um , I was just thinking about this just like last night cause it was kind of getting ready for this and chewing on this and kind of asking God to speak to my heart and about this. And another part little popped up to me of, I don't know if she was actually a follower of God. Did she participate in the temple regularly or was she a person that was hurt anti churched, churched , unchurched. And how often do we project standards on people who don't actually have, they haven't even signed up to live for our standards and judge them that way. And how often do we actually do that to our own the people that are sitting right around us and not use love in the midst of truth and type it out and hide behind a screen and then type it out when politics get real gross and type it out when like we feel like we just know what's right but then so wrong because greed is intense, selfish desire for something pops up in our life. We all have it. We hate talking about it. Here's the deal, here's your truth or centers . You're a sinner and you have got to reconcile that some way and Jesus did this beautiful thing by pointing it out in truth with that statement and he followed up with love. Neither do I continue. It says in Romans eight one says, there is therefore now I love that word. Now I didn't really notice it until now. This last week. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Some of you just need to let that spill over you right now cause you know what happened yesterday and last night and now neither do I. There is therefore right now, not the SAS of the past, but the stuff that the present, no condemnation for you, but it doesn't mean you keep doing it . It doesn't mean you keep letting the spiders Reher their head and keep destroying your life and pushing people out and trapping you in. You go and you said, no more. You work on it. You pursue God because there is therefore now no condemnation. The rest of that verse reads in Romans, therefore is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because, because why? Because through Jesus Christ, the law of the spirit who gives life has set you and me free from the law of sin and death, therefore is now no condemnation. We don't have to let that spider keep winning. Friends, we are aware at a time we'll talk about the podcast. How about that deal? Um , somebody just needed to hear that. So may we kill this spider by stop doing Swift judgment. Stop being right, but being so wrong and stop others, own our own condemnation and reconcile that first and then invite others along the process. Would you stand with me? We say this every week and we'll continue to say it doesn't matter what we've talked about, these things all intertwined together. I have this journal. If you're in here today and you're going, so I feel like the naked person and I feel like you just told me that Jesus is really what I needed in my life, but he's the one who's going to set this example that he's going to show you this, that he's literally going to change everything and I can therefore now not be condemned for whatever's going on and I'm ready for this. So what's next? First, put your clothes back on. Second. Second is your like, what do I do now? We wrote this for you. It's called this changes everything. It's a 21 day journal for someone who's making a first time decision for Jesus and says, I just need to know what's next. Like what? What do I do? Like what's this? What is this? How do I, how do I change? How do I keep killing all these spiders in my life has a shift. This is a gift for you. Someone up front will have it. There's a table out in the lobby that would have it free. Maybe you're hearing , you're like, ah, I'm not really sure like I'm going to buy into the whole thing yet, but I'm coming, keep coming and exploring. I also would offer this to you a 21 day journey that you can just explore and I'll follow up on you and say, Hey, where you at? Well , let me tell you where I struggled too . Let's struggle together. Let's continue to pursue God and walk in faith and let him do transform work in the both of us together. If you're here today and you're like, I just really want the book but I already love Jesus, you can go buy one, but for those of you are making this first time decision or you want to go on this journey, it's a gift. I want to give it to you cause it changes everything because we say this every single week, there's nothing so dead that God cannot resurrect again. We talk about dead in the water. This woman, gosh, just them . It's so emotional. What happened and maybe you're feeling that way. There's nothing so dead. It's never so bad. It's never gotten a point that he can not resident get resident Ray as director again. Cause that's what he does. He makes that things alive. There's nothing so lost that can not be found. If you feel like you've wandered off or you're feeling lost, you don't know what to do, we'll help you find it. You'll give you direction if you allow him to and there's nothing so broken that he can not mend. Even when you keep breaking over and over and over and over again, you can continue to reconcile and repent. I invite you to step into that. If this is one of your first times here, we love you. Um, give us a couple of weeks. Check it out. Tomorrow is gonna be even more fun. I mean tomorrow. Yeah, the podcast will be great, but next week is going to be awesome. Um, give us a couple of weeks. Check it out. Make sure you get our gift from you. Pretty much anybody in here will direct you where to go and help you feel connected and loved. Um , I'm making you all ambassadors right now of that and thank you for allowing us to pray with you. Every Tuesday we gather, we pray for you as a staff, so you write that stuff down or you shoot it through the app. Um , love doing that stuff and your generosity would love to send you off with the blessing. This is a posture of like giving up and also receiving may friends. You'd be blessed this week with letting go of the greed and recognizing what it is. So God does a transformative work in your life. I love you all so very much. I'll see you next week.