Speaker 1 0:40

[inaudible] [inaudible] .

Speaker 2 0:56

I like that. Que applause. Very nice. Good job. You guys did your job and you win. This is really fun for me. I love coming here. I was here last , um, gosh, when was I here? Last couple of months ago? Maybe a couple. Yeah. And I had so much fun that I came back, you know, it takes me an hour and a half to get here. And now I'm like, is that too far to drive for Sunday morning? Cause this is a pretty cool church, you know, like, and I, and I enjoyed. And so I came back and I told my wife and I speak at different churches. And so she'll hear, oh, this is great. And this is, and then , and then we just move on with our day. I'm like, babe , you got to come to this church. This is pretty epic. And so we get here, we leave Santa Cruz early this morning, we come and we think it's going to be super hot. And then I forgot to say that Benicia in Latin means torrential wind. Right? Because she can't even, she can't even, she gets her door open. She can't even close it. And I'm like, what is going on? Y'all are used to this. Right? You just buy a lot of Aquanet and just do the whole thing. We're like going, we're like holding on to each other. Please don't go down the hill. Um, cause , uh, that would be a game changer for us actually that whole wind thing kind of crazy. But we would, we would come here on Sundays. If, if, if, if Larry just happens to fly through the Bermuda triangle and disappears forever, I'd be happy to come back here. Anytime I liked this place anyway, my wife. So I brought my wife this morning. He's at back here in the back end and I snuck back there during worship and she's just like, oh my gosh, they are so good. I'm like, I told you , you gotta listen to me. Um, and then I was listening to the band. I'm like, wow, they really are good. You guys are. I mean, I get to go to a lot of churches, but you guys are really blessed here to have a worship team. That's good. And then I was thinking my mind, yeah, my mind spins a little bit. And I, you know, it's it just, it Marcy a little bit. Uh , my wife spent my mind , my mind spins all the time. And so I'm back and I'm thinking, you know, when we're in heaven and we're worshiping all the time, wouldn't it be cool if it's like, you know, Northgate band gets rotate in one of the sessions right now. They probably are . They probably got a band up there. Maybe . I mean, maybe I don't know, but I mean it's every day it's 24 7. I mean, it's like a whole thing. So, you know , they might need a break. Wouldn't it be cool if the worship band gets to rotate in from time to time? Yes. We forgot the on switch. Yes. There it is. Now watch the game while I'm talking. I'm just like how's the game. Oh, Jeremiah. Okay. Um, so anyway, I don't know . I , I just was sharing that thought in my head and I thought I'd share it with you. Maybe it's not a good idea. Ah , anyway, awesome to be with you. And I, I'm thrilled to be back and encouraging you all. Larry and I met , um, we are at a pastor's gathering and when it was over, we sat for two hours and just built a friendship and a connection. And he's been able to walk with me during difficult times. I've been able to walk with him during difficult times and I love your pastor. He's a good man. And you guys are blessed to have him as well. So take good care of him. Don't let him fly through the Bermuda triangle. He does. You got my number. Um, so , uh, have you been in a situation where you're watching something go down and intuitively you think , I think this is wrong. You ever had that happen? Yeah . Actions or behaviors, maybe of a neighbor or a coworker or just a random person. You come in contact with acting in a way that just violates something inside of you . Yeah . And you, you watch it, you hear it or you see it play out and automatically you think this needs some course, correction never had that happen. Pretty sure you do, because it happens all the time where something inside of you goes this isn't right. Uh, and we either jump into the fray. Well , other times we avoided altogether. And that's what that , that's what I wanted to share about this morning. I have a neighbor , uh, when we first moved to the bay area and we lived in San Jose, we had a neighbor lived across the street. His name was ed. He lived right across the street from us, from our house, grumpy old guy. Yeah. I set in his ways and everyone in the neighborhood saw him that way. And one day, while he was out, he had a tractor mower for his small little lawn and that he would go out and do the tractor mower twice a week. And he , he was out there mowing. And my son who was just five at the time, stands at the curb because my friend , my son is just a very gregarious happy-go-lucky kid. What stand at the curb. And he would say hi to all the neighbors. And he would yell to ed and yell. Hi ed, hi ed. And all of a sudden, my son gets verbally assaulted by ed. And it's like, it wasn't swear words or anything else, but it was something where I'm like, whoa, you just went too far. He's five. And so jumping into a course, correction, verbal attack on my son because he didn't like my son. And so I went over there and I said, I just said, Hey, ed, what's what's going on. And then he started attacking me and it was this weird course of action that took place where I first saw, Hey, this is wrong and I should do something. And then it led to a series of things. So I S I started a third of the conversation with him and I said, is , did my son do something? And he goes, I don't like your son because I don't like his dad. And I'm like, I wasn't sure if he knew I'm his dad. He goes, yeah. I said, have I done something to offend you? And then he goes into a thing and he says, well, I don't like drug dealers on the street. And I'm like, I'm not a drug dealer. And he thought I was a drug dealer. I'm like, I don't even look, I don't know what they look like, but I'm sure I don't look like one. So I'm in this, I'm in this weird conversation that I go to defend my son. And it just takes this weird course where I'm having a dialogue with ed. And he's saying about, I don't like drug dealers. And of course you're dealing with drugs and I'm , I'm like ed, I'm a pastor. And he's like, pastor, you're not doing any pastor. And I'm like, I'm going to be a pastor . That's what I do all day. He says, I see people coming into your house all the time, apparently getting drugs and what had happened and what it was reduced to down to was somebody parked in front of his house because you know, people are pretty possessive of their curb space. And on Mondays we put out our green waste and we didn't have Greenways bins. You just put your green waste on the street. And somebody ran through, it could have been anybody, but apparently it was the drug dealers, people. And he just took that and stewed on it all the time. And I began to ask questions and it turns out ed hated everyone. And no one did anything. They just went along with the neighborhood narrative. Ed's mean he's old, he's grumpy. And the kids keep your distance and ignore him. And it was weird for me. And I just thought about that story as I was asked to teach on this topic this morning , um, because instinctively, I just remember when it happened, there was something instinctively that said, this is wrong. And I stepped into it. I didn't know what I was going to say. I didn't know where I was going to . I certainly didn't know how the conversation was going to play out, but I knew I needed to go inside. And I know it . I knew I needed to do something. I reacted and acted in a certain way. And I can't tell you where I fall. I didn't want to follow the neighborhood narrative and ignore it. And I wanted to do the right thing and address it. But I can't tell you how many times that I've been on the wrong side of that situation, seeing something that's wrong, sensing something that's and then going with the narrative instead, ignoring it. I don't want to get involved or nice . And that your assessment of the situation might be contrary to popular or opinion. And who wants to be in the minority, especially in this time where mob mentality, often rules. I don't want to stand up. I don't want to, I just need to be quiet and keep my peace. And when you , you think about it this morning, we're continuing a series in Jeremiah and coming into this unique story that introduces us to this random guy name , he bed Melik who is fronted with a situation where he can either go with the national narrative and ignore what's going on, or take a stand a lonely soul stand and do what's right. And so this man , if you have your Bible, you can turn to Jeremiah chapter 37, and we're going to unpack this story together, just a couple of chapters. And it's telling Jeremiah's story, but we get this tiny little window of this guy named Ebedmelech. So let's pray and ask the Lord to walk us. As we walk through this and open our eyes to the scriptures and what he has for us this morning. He said, pray with me, father. We thank you for the opportunity to be together and gather in this community to open your word, to be challenged, to be encouraged, to be convicted, to be sensitive to what it is that you want us to see and to know, and to learn to live differently because of your interaction in our lives. And we pray that you eliminate eyes. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. Here's a picture from Jeremiah , uh, in the Sistine chapel right here. So he's important enough to be by Michelangelo in the Sistine chapel. And here here's a little closeup of him, so you can get a better shot of what he actually looks like, but this is him here. So I had to, I always have to get some sort of mental image and picture of what this guy looks like, because I want to begin to understand and get into a story. Whether that really looks like him or not. I need a mental image for me. It really helps me as I study the scriptures, I'll learn about somebody and I'll Google image that person's name and I'll find something. And then I locked into something where I can actually journey with this individual in mind. And I wanted to do, that's just a personal exercise. I want to do that with you guys this morning, Jeremiah was one of the prophets of God. His ministry began back in 6, 627 BC and at sometime around 500 to BC and with his prophecy to the Jews who fled to Egypt and for the majority, I already have a time Jeremiah based his ministry, Jerusalem and the Southern kingdom of Judah had fell during his prophetic ministry. I'm in 5 86 BC, which is a very significant time in Israel's history and having been threatened for many years outside powers first to Syria and Egypt, and then eventually conquered by Babylon. So it was just a real quick summary. Jeremiah is one of those prophets during a critical time in Israel's history, where they found himself addressing a nation that's hurdling, headlong towards a judgment from God. And he's right at that juncture. When it happens that Israelites may have feared the future as outsiders and powers group drew near, but rather than respond as he had called them to with humility and with repentance, the people of Judah primarily lived in these islands unto themselves and disregarded both the Lord's commands and the increasing danger and the result of their disobedience. And so that's where we are in the story. That's just a real big picture, 30,000 foot view of what the book of Jeremiah is in the context and in the narrative of God's story with Israel. And so the chapters that we're going to cover this this week, Jeremiah is bringing his unpopular message to Judah and he's paying the price for it. So we're in chapter 37 and I'm just going to just go, I'm not going to read the whole chapter, just picking verses, and then we'll unpack it a little bit. So Jeremiah chapter 37, starting in verse one, it says Zedekiah son of Josiah was made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar who was king of Babylon. He reigned in the place of Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin the son of Josiah Kim. These are previous Kings before him and was placed there by Nebuchadnezzar. He's like a puppet leader. I'm putting you here, you're going to do this. And so not really groomed to lead, neither he nor his attendance, nor the people of the land paid any attention to the words of the Lord had spoken through the prophet and through Jeremiah the prophet. So that gives you really a nutshell of what's going on. Here's this here's the individuals. Here's the setup. Here's the , uh, the, the propped up by the king of Babylon Nebuchadnezzar. And Jeremiah is coming in and saying, no, no, this is turn. This is, this is wrong. And he's being completely ignored. We jumped down to verse seven and it says, Pharaoh's army. This is Jeremiah speaking, Pharaoh's army, which has marched out to support you as an ally. We'll go back to its own land to Egypt. Then the Babylonians will return and attack this city and they will capture it and they will burn it down. Now, this is a group of people, especially the king and his court, the princes, and all the people that are part of it are saying, we're good. We got this. This is our thing. And he comes in with this very unpopular message. And then he says, in verse nine, he says, do not deceive yourselves and thinking the Babylonians will surely leave us. They will not. Is it Jeremiah speaking? Even if you were to defeat the entire Babylonian army that is attacking you and only wounded were left in their tents, they would come out and burn this city down. It wasn't a hit . He just brought it down. He doubled down. Even if you, even if everybody's wounded, you're still going to be taken down by this group. And so this is the, this is the leadership. And as a prophetic voice speaking into the collective, and they're going, who is this guy? [inaudible] , they're saying, even if everyone's wounded, you're still going to be defeated. So Jeremiah , his message was counter to popular belief and it got him in trouble. He's prophesied in the fall of Jerusalem and speaking to you , king Zedekiah and the officials, the princes of the city, the army officials, anyone who would hear Jeremiah spoke of the impending on the city, super contrary to national narrative and Egypt would sticker that Egypt would even stick around as an ally ally, and they'd be okay. And they weren't. So before all that actual prophecy is fulfilled, then it says this in verse , uh , chapter 38 of verse six, it says this, it says they took Jeremiah. They put him in a sister of Malkia that's , um , the king son, which was in the courtyard of the guard and they lowered Jeremiah by roped into the cistern. It had no water in it, only mud and Jeremiah sank down into the mud. So basically they give Jeremiah the slow death sentence by lowering him into a cistern. And a cistern was a common in ground feature near Eastern ancient, near Eastern culture. It was used as it was a pit that was dug out and it had no, and to collect water rainwater , whatever else for them to draw from. And this particular sister had no water and it was just a Schloss Shashi , neck, deep mud. And basically they sink him into this escapable Meyer only to let them die, either starvation exposure, disease. And that's where the story is inter Ebedmelech. So here's the prophet of God coming in saying what he's saying. And somebody from the side comes in and sees, this is wrong. Here we are in verse seven, but Ebedmelech a Cushite or an Ethiopian official in the Royal palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the sister. And while the king was sitting in the Benjamin gate, Ebedmelech, Ebedmelech went out of the palace and said to him, my Lord, the king, these men have acted wickedly. And all they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have thrown him into a cistern where they will start, where he will starve to death. When there's no longer any bread in the city, verse 10, it says the king commanded. Ebedmelech the crochet take 30 men from , from here with you to live Jeremiah the prophet out of the system before he dies. So verse 11, it says, so Ebedmelech took men with him and went to a room under the treasury and the pallets . He took some old rags and worn out clothes from there and let them down with the ropes to Jeremiah, to the sister, even Malik , the cushy cushy said to Jeremiah, put those old rags and worn out clothes under your arms to pad the ropes. So Jeremiah did, and they pulled him up with the ropes and lifted them out of the sister. And in Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard. There's a picture that I found again, just give you this reference point, Ethiopian lifting him out, the old man out of the sister . It's kind of a weird story. Cause that's all we know, that's it here's something that intuitively everyone else, the national narrative, okay. This is where we're going on. Whether people agreed or disagreed, the narrative was, this is what we're going to do. And one guy says this isn't right. Israel is in a mess. And right in the middle of the story, we see somebody that says, I'm going to do something about it. And that's what we want to focus on today. Becoming a person who does, what is right. What does that mean? I think about the story about bed Malik , and we don't know much beyond what's mentioned here, so I can only make assumptions based on the passages. And I, part of me, I like looking at that because I like looking at it and sitting with it and going, what am I, what do I see here? Because I don't want to conjecture anything or project anything onto the passage that isn't there. But I also want to look at that and be able to say, based on this, how should we live our lives? Because there's nothing in here that says, be like, Ebedmelech, that's not gonna fit really well on a banner , you know, WWE bed. Melik do you know what I mean? It's just not gonna work. Right. And people like who , you know, so we want to take the story and let that story take us into, what does it mean to walk like Jesus today and respond to things that intuitively might, we might feel this doesn't seem right? How do we do that? But I want to first start with what we can, what assumptions and things that we can make about even Melik versus this, he's an outsider. It's not his country. It's not his people. So why should he care? Cultures back then were very tribal. So they show any concern from someone outside of your tribe, demonstrates something about your character. This person's different from a different area, different, maybe economical status. There's something that says I'm jumping in. It doesn't matter. So he's an outsider. Second thing that we see, he's an official. It says that he's in the Royal court. So he has the ability to leverage whatever it has to leverage his position, to question and to act whatever, whatever he has. He doesn't have the position to just do it. But whatever the limit of his position is, and his title is allows him to do something. And he leveraged that right to the edge. So we see he's an outsider. He's an official, he's an influencer, he's an influencer. It says that he went to the king. He told him directly that this was wrong. And he convinced him something needed to be done. You know , something about the king to just straight up the king. Yes. Throwing the pit. Oh, don't throw in the pit. All right . Take them out of the pit. I mean, King's kinda , you know , he's all over the map, but the fact that he used his influence and he didn't say you have to do this. He came to the king and said, this is wrong. And he used his influence to see something. So, so he's an influencer. He's a , he's an outsider. He's an official , uh , he's an influencer. He's also a convener and says that he was assigned 30 men. But then he began to give the men a task. This is what we're going to do. This is how we're going to do it. And he's convening these people that might've been part of the national narrative to rescue the man that he said, this is wrong. And we've got to do something different and he's convening. And he leverages his convening power to pull the people together, do something is a convener. And the last thing that I see just in that little, little tiny bit of the story is he's compassionate, especially about the details. It's just one thing to pull them out. All right, hang on this rope . All right, put those under your arms. But I love the details of this. The story gives details that it's not just pulling them out of the system, but how they did it take these rags. I mean the bulk of the story, this two sentence story, he goes down, gets rags and old clothes. So it's not going to hurt the old man, put these under your arms. So the roads don't hurt you. He thinking of the pain and the discomfort, and that's all we know about it. So I'm not sure that I can develop a message out of that. I just look at it and say, that clicks me into something else that says, how do we react when something's wrong? Went inherently and intuitively. And in, in my mind, I see it. And maybe everyone around me, I might have an advocate. I might have somebody that agrees with me, partially agrees with me. I might be standing alone. What do I do? And how do I respond? And if ever were a time in our culture, in our society that is divided, polarized, and then calling each other out on all kinds of things who the heck wants to stand up for anything that might be right. I'll have my conviction posted anonymously on Facebook or next door. Hope nobody kills me. And then go on as a church. And as followers of Jesus, how do we train ourselves to respond the right way? When things come up, do we jump in the fray or do we avoid it altogether? Think of it this way. And when you see a buoy , if I've got a buoy here, when you see a buoy, you see something floating in the water that moves a bit here and there because of the wind or because of the tides or because maybe , uh , the wake of a boat. But that buoy is tethered to an anchor. It's tethered to an anchor that keeps it from drifting out the sea or Washington shore, or getting lost in some random place in the bay. And the buoy is like our actions. It can shift and it moves some given the circumstances of what's going on, where you're like, man , I'm not really sure I'm not, but this is where this goes and the issues that arise in our life, but it should be tethered to an anchor. Our motivational value that is rooted in who we are in Christ. We actually sang it in a song and we did not plan this, but we , we talked about being, being anchored, right? And our values and formed in us as Christ followers serves as our anchor. And what happens on the surface that everyone can see is our buoy, our actions and our attitudes and how we handle things. When things seems off, things seem often, and maybe, you know, maybe we're , you know , I haven't handled it correctly, but I , but I'm tethered back and we intuitive the think this is wrong when something is in violation of our moral value system as a Christian or when popular opinion or group think is Cron , contrary to your anchor, what do you do when you're in the minority as a Christian, when it's pushed out by group think or dismissed, do you go along with popular opinion, you stand your ground, you stand in the face of opposition and do what is right. Especially when you're the only one. And like Ebedmelech, there's something he knew inherently was wrong with what had happened. Jeremiah, regardless of the national narrative, regardless of the King's position, regardless of being unpopular, he saw what was happening, knew it was wrong, knew it violated something inside of him. And he did something . So what do we do to become a person that does the right thing does what is right. So here's what I came up with. And I just sat with this story. I sat with it and I , I said, okay, what, what is it that, what is it that God wants me to offload you guys? And some of it's just super practical. Some of it has biblical nuggets that are inside of that, but it's certainly not an exposition of this passage in Jeremiah, except for the fact that that's what took us down this road into this topic. So I'm going to give you my explanation. Certainly not exhausted . It works for me. And I call it trained to respond, got seven points within train to respond. You're going to write them down. It's just something to be able to think through of how do I respond? What are the habits that I get into and force myself to get into this mindset? So when these things are , I actually do the right thing. So trained to respond. The first one is this. I start with just an internal. What's the clarity on battle ownership, clarity, battle ownership. There are passages all over the Bible that talk about God's role in standing with us in times of conflict. And so when I get clarity that the battle is not necessarily mine. This is God's battle. I'm just his steward, his ambassador, sometimes his voice person, sometimes the voice of reason, but this is God's battle. The passages say this in Isaiah chapter 41. It says, so do not fear for, I am with you. Do not be dismayed for, I am your God. I will strengthen you. I'll help you all pulled you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah, if you want to look it up later, 41, verse 10, Romans chapter eight, verse 31. It says, if God is Forrest, who can be against us basically saying, God chosen us. Whereas children who were his heirs, God's the judge. And he's for us . No one can condemn us. No one can separate us from his love. And God is a God of justice and righteousness and truth. So the battles , the Lords and an awareness of who owns the bottle actually right-sized is it for me? Am I a bike ? Am I about to fight a battle that is rooted in maybe a personal preference or a bias or as mine battle may be politically driven? Am I ignorantly fighting something that I know very little about? Am I standing up for God's agenda or my own? And those are the that's where I begin to look at it and say, when did they say that line? Choose your battle is this God's battle that violates his law his way for righteousness. That's the first thing, the second thing and trained to respond is what I say. Always grounded, growing and ready, always grounded, always growing, always ready again. This is, this is like pre-work. Before you get to anything that would actually come into your way, see , it's one thing to get into a situation and then go shoot. I don't even really know. I don't even know who I am. And so there should be this constant learning and growing and rooting of who you are in Christ. One of the best ways to stand ready is to be growing and grounded in what is right. And the passage in Psalms chapter one, verse one, two, and three, it speaks directly to the impact of the wrong crowd and indirectly sitting with life , giving crowd and taking on life. Giving word of God. It says this in Psalm one, it says blessed is this man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly or stands in the way of sinners or sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law, he meditates day and night and he shall be, this is the result of that. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth fruit in its right season and its leaves don't wither and whatever he does, he will prosper. There is a beautiful picture of this rooted and grounded tree that is producing fruit and responding the way because it has spent the time meditating on God's word. What does that look like? It looks like different for everybody. And there's all these formulas of how to meditate on God's word and get rooted and grounded. You know what ? Sometimes I do, because I would always here, people do talk about spiritual disciplines and fasting. They get up early in the morning and they would pray for an hour. And I'm like, man, I'm having a hard time, just praying for five minutes without my mind going on monkey brain. And so, and they would light a candle and have a journal. And I'm like, yeah , that's just not me. And so I needed other spiritual disciplines that helped me ground myself. And one of them was taking one passage and reading it over and having the discipline to just read it over 10, 15, 20 times. Just read it back to back to back the back-to-back . And then I take a nap who doesn't love a nap, because what happens is your subconscious has just immersed itself in that verse. And your consciousness has just shut off and say, we're going to take a nap and then God can do all this stuff inside your brain. And he just download all this stuff for me, it works brilliantly. I think God has designed us to take naps. I encourage you to take naps, just not now, but different ways to find yourself to be grounded and strengthened and prepared and producing fruit. Ephesians talks about this. Also meme being prepared or being ready. It says this , uh , Ephesians, it talks about the full armor of God and preparation to take a stand. When you're faced with opposition to do the right thing, the belt of truth, the breasts breastplate of righteousness, the gospel of peace, where we're Shalom or peace bringers, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit allows us to be strong in the Lord and in his power. So this is the , the first two things is clarity on battle ownership, always grounded, growing and ready. The next thing, and this is when it gets a little bit more complicated. Okay. Ask more questions, ask more questions. When something comes your way and you're like, whoa, this and you feel it. Or like, you know, it's wrong or it is like blatantly wrong or you're like, huh? Ask more questions, always ask more questions. When something goes down, I feel something's wrong. And greatest thing I've learned is ask more. Jesus asked 307 questions, gospels, he's the master at asking questions. If we're going to become more like Jesus and do what he did, we must become careful and wise at asking good questions as well. But Jesus uses questions differently than we would commonly do today. Uh , we ask questions for information. Jesus asks his questions to provoke transformation. We ask questions for answers. Jesus asks questions for awareness. Jesus asks questions to confront the listener with their own thought processes and preconceptions and assumptions and beliefs. And so for me, the best way to ask a question to ask a question is to ask this simple question when I'm like, wow, and it's really simple. Help me understand, just start with that. When something seems off to you, help me understand and allow it to take its , I see Ebedmelech saying to the king, Hey, help me. Your reason behind this. It almost disarms the person because I'm not telling you you're wrong. I'm asking you to help me get clarity and oftentimes it right, sizes itself. The next thing, and this one, this one's , one of my favorites is give your gut some credit, give your gut credit. I learned from a Stanford graduate professor about this idea of how our gut has these thousands upon thousands of receptors to see and to sense and to know things that go on that's outside of what's happening in our brain. And he was teaching us to not respond when something happens with our brain or our heart, but with our gut, what's your gut telling you? And it was weird. I actually had to, instead of making decisions this way, I had to make decisions this way, instead of hearing it and deciding, confirming it in my heart and ignoring my gut, I had to sense what my gut was saying, confirming my heart. And then with my brain say, this is what I'm going to do. It was this decision-making process this way, rather than this way. If that makes sense. One of my favorite things to look at, it's interesting because I believe that God has hardwired our physiology to intuitively sense when something is wrong. Cause you've heard the phrases trust your gut. I had a gut feeling I should have gone with my gut. Why do we say those things? Those statements come from our God-given DNA to discern when something seems off and the gut feelings are an actual thing. The gut has the same chemical release as the brain does when it goes through things through its receptors. And the difference is the gut doesn't have the ability to doubt itself like the brain does. So often the discerning feeling you get as part of your hard wiring that God's made you to actually make the right choice to sense the things you sense and to do the right thing. We actually need to learn to train ourselves, to use the useful equipment that God has given us. I don't shy away from the physiology because I think God has designed us uniquely when you, I don't care. What culture are you in ? I don't care what background you have when , uh, when someone sees a ball rolling in the street and a kid chasing after I don't care what I don't care. Any of that, you intuitively know I have to do something because a kid's going to get hurt. You can be of the worst of the worst nation ever, or the best of the best nation. You're still going to do the same thing. It's intuitive. It's God-given and we need to trust it. We need to give it some credit and do it before your brain has a chance to dismiss things based on fear or bias or rationalizing it away. Trust your gut, give your gut some credit. The next one is what I call first objections. First objections. When something seems off to me or is clearly a break from my moral compass, I offer what I call my first objections in a certain way. My first objection is start with a self-reflective statement. So when, so something's , something's going down. And so I'll say, I'll say it this way. I have a check in my mind about this reflective statement or something seems off to me, or this is unsettling in my spirit. When I pause and I pause after I'll say something like that, which invariably prompts the question. Why , which then affords me the opportunity to articulate my convictions rather than going and saying you're wrong. You shouldn't do this. This is bad. This is here's why you, I say this doesn't sit well with me. I'm not sure I have a check about this. My self-reflective objection, disarms the other party from feeling attacked by merely pointing to my own convictions and provides a redemptive window for others to follow your lead first objections. The next one is what I call faith filled action. Faith filled action. Faith filled action. Sometimes when self-reflection objections, fall short of anything, changing that's times when you are required to stand . When things get to this point, it requires movement. It requires action. Even the Bible challenges this way, it says in James chapter four, verse 17, it says if anyone then knows they ought to do good and doesn't do it. That's sin for them. Scriptures teach that Micah six, eight. It says he has shown you a man, what is good? And what the Lord requires of you to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God. There's a Paul talks about it and the individuals are faced with moral and doctrinal issues that they know intuitively are wrong. He says, speak the truth in what in love. And he gives us these stand up and do these things. Faith-filled actually requires us to take a stand, to speak up verbally, to show up physically to pony up economically times the moral imperative calls us not to hide behind our computer screen, but to self identify , physically show up and do the right thing. The last one is commitment to convictions and sometimes the consequences. Sometimes the consequences, the last nothing worse than a half bake commitment to anything, let alone your convictions. The thing about convictions that stand out to me, convictions aren't worth anything. If they don't guide you to act, if they don't prompt you to move, if they're merely opinions or observations, acting on your convictions also can cost you something. So those are just practical thoughts. There's seven thoughts that came to my mind. Some of them have the biblical thing and some are just practical. Wisdom says, this is where I believe God is calling us as Shalom brings us peace, peace bringers , as people that are called to justice and faith to respond in a very specific way. I believe that God is constantly working in us and through us to build his kingdom, to respond to the needs of this world. And the crazy thing is he brings about his justice and conviction and compassion and connection. And we are the light in dark places where the salt and bland pellet places. And so there's opportunities all around us to do the right thing. I want to go back to my neighbor, ed. Um, it was a couple years after that had happened. And I remember , um, driving by and things that just kind of slowly slipped back to where ed was just the grumpy old guy again. And he was marginalized by the neighborhood. And one day I'm driving home and I felt, God prompting me to do the right thing. I felt this prompting to go talk to ed. And it was literally that go talk to ed and he's out there doing his thing. And it happened a couple of different times that week . Go talk to ed. And I even talked to one of my family members about it. I talked to my daughter

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And I said, I feel like God's calling me to go talk to ed. She's like, we probably to talk to head. I say, I should, I shouldn't, I don't do anything. And a week later he dies. I regretted that. Like I didn't, I had the chance and I didn't do anything. I realized that as followers of Christ, we have these gut reactions to respond, to do something, to do the right thing. So a week later I have another prompting because I could see the family and having people come over and um , I thought I need to go over and just say something to them. So I go over and I knock on the door, I'm gonna follow God's prompting. And it really like pushed. I'm going to follow God's prompting. I knock on the door. His son answers the door. Yeah. I just want to wish, you know, our, our , you know, just express our condolences to the family. I'm a neighbor across the street. And he goes, which one? I'm the one who doesn't like, I'm the drug dealer. And he said, come on in. I've never been in that house ever. I'm going, oh my gosh, I'm going in dad's house. And I go in and I meet Mary, his wife and she gives me a hug. And I said, I'm, I'm sorry. I felt like I should have talked to ed earlier. And she goes, it's okay. I , I don't know. He didn't like me. She goes, he didn't like, he didn't like me either. He didn't like anybody, so . Okay. And she said, if you do, would you like to come to Memorial? It's in, it's in an , you know , just an hour. I'm like, I'd be honored. And again, I felt God's prompting go to the Memorial. So I go home and I'm like, I'm all you know, and this is the beauty is that God is redeeming this for me. Right. So I get all ready . And I know it's at the cemetery nearby a really large cemetery there. So I go there, I'm going to, I told them I'm going to be a little bit late, but I'll , I'll get there. I get there. I pull in and I, I, and I'm, I'm

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There in the back. I don't know anybody. So I'm just sitting in the back and I'm praying. I got

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A bulletin if you know , sign a guest book and just praying for the family. I don't recognize anybody, but it's not right. It's present. And it's time for us to leave. And you know, they had an open casket. And so I walk up to the casket and it's not ed I'm in the wrong funeral. And I look at the funeral director and I say, this is an ed. And I looked

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At program and said, Eugene, I just thought maybe, you know, fun fact,

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That was his name. Right? I said, this is an ed . He goes not to Eugene. I'm standing there in front of everybody. And I'm like, where's that? He goes, that's Eugene. I said, I know that Eugene, but where's the head that isn't ed . I know. And then I leave. And those people were like, yeah, that guy was pretty emotionally broken up. You know, I've signed the guest card and everything. I'm like praying for these people. I'm at the wrong funeral. And then I , um , went home and the family was gathered and I walked over and I said, Mary said, oh, you're going to come to the funeral. I said, I did. I was just that Eugene is cruises Eugene. I don't know. But I prayed for him. I told him the story and I've never seen a family laugh so hard at my failure.

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And we sat and we laughed and we enjoy the company of one another. And we ministered to one another. I prayed for the family and God had redemptive,

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Silly, stupid thing where his glory, because he gives us second chances. Even when we make we're , we're called to make the right decision. And we don't, we miss it. He's a God of second chances and another chance and another chance to be able to be his agents of change and to bring something about in this role . And so my challenge to you church is to lean into that, to trust your gut, to speak into it. God is for you. He's not against you. And he is on your side. And he is using us as a church and as individuals to respond to this world that so desperately needs that moral compass, the light to lead people to the light of Jesus. So we stand with me and pray and just pray over you. And then we'll worship. Thank you for the chance to be here with my friends here at north gate . And I pray a blessing over them as we go into a moment of worship that we are encouraged and strengthened, convicted, and moved to be the people that you've designed us to be agents of change in our community, just as we bless you in our worship time of Christ . Amen.