Conflict-02-01-22

The speaker starts by greeting his audience and giving a brief update on his day. He mentions a podcast he is doing and recommends that his audience reach out to someone named Brother Brian for a beneficial opportunity. He then begins discussing a personal incident involving his car and a mechanic. He talks about how conflict is normal but must be handled properly. He shares a conversation he had with a young man who was disappointed in him and how he defended his actions. The young man expressed his hurt and the speaker felt convicted. Hey man, good morning on this beautiful Tuesday, praise God. So hopefully we're using my iPad, I hope it doesn't glitch out, let me know if it sort of slows or whatever the case may be, but please. But good morning, Brother Brian, it's good to see you, good to see you. Love it. Oh, Lambriel, good morning, how are we doing? It's good to see you all. Well, I'm in a podcast live, I've got the podcast underway right now. Good morning on podcast, it is Tuesday morning, it is, if I'm correct, I think it's what, February 1st, am I correct? And amen, praise God. I tell you what, I'm just so blessed to see you another day. Got my coffee ready. Of course, we start our day off with good morning, Brother Dan, it's good to see you. We start our day off, without a doubt, with prayer. But number two and priority is some coffee. That is good. I hope everybody had a wonderful weekend. Hey, real quick, I want to share something with you. My friends, the crew that we get to meet together on Saturdays, Brother Brian shared something with me that took me about six days to really digest, to dissect, to investigate. And once I did, I'm very pleased. So if you guys are looking for a wonderful opportunity, and I'm not trying to plug anything anybody else, this is the crew, please listen to Brother Brian. He's got something that he's getting involved in, I think that is going to be very beneficial. And I'll say this, I think it's gonna be very beneficial to the kingdom. And I think it's going to help enrich your lives. So with that being said, reach out to Brother Brian and definitely get some information about something that he's getting involved in, that I think is going to be very beneficial, very beneficial. But we'll leave that there. I was out this morning, good morning, good morning. We said we're going to do a podcast, have a podcast ready to roll. And I decided this is going to be the podcast. I took that suggestion from Brother Joshua. We'll, as they say, hit two birds with one stone. So we've got the podcast on the left, we've got the iPad in front, and we're going to do a podcast, but in alignment with our live this morning. I promised that I would be speaking to spiritual warfare, and to a degree I will. But I want to share something that happened to me this weekend. And I want you to listen. And some of it might apply to your life, but all of it can be applied in one or some aspects of your life. So before we get started, let me start with prayer. Father God, we thank you, we praise you, we honor you. We lift you up in every circumstance, every situation, Father God. We pray that you just would keep us and watch over us and bless us. And Lord, I pray for those that are requesting prayer, the individual regarding his girlfriend, the individual dealing with financial situations, family issues, employment, illness, whatever the case may be, Lord. We call upon your name. We ask you in faith, the faith the size of a mustard seed. Lord, we come to you, our Lord, our God, our creator. And Lord, I pray that you would just bless us as we look and teach your word this morning. Father God, we thank you, we praise you, we honor you. We ask this in the name of Jesus, amen. Let me reiterate good morning on this beautiful Tuesday morning. Let's turn our Bibles to the book of Matthew, chapter 18, looking at verse 15. The book of Matthew, chapter 18, verse 15. Now this is really important for us as Christians to really understand what we are about to read. But what is more important, more than anything, and I want to make sure you hear this, is that application of the word of God in our lives. See, it's not enough just to be a hearer, but according to the word, we must be a doer also. All right. The book of Matthew, chapter 18, starting with verse 15, we'll read all the way to verse 20, and then we'll give an example and an application. It says in Matthew, chapter 18, starting with verse 15, it says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. Remember that. Verse 16, but if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. See I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. Wow. That is a powerful scripture that we gloss by so many times, and if we do read it, a lot of times we don't apply it in our lives. Why? Because most of us, let's be sincere, we don't like conflict. Let's be sincere, I don't like conflict. The conflict is something to me that I will avoid at all costs. Why? Because historically, conflict has always led to bringing out the worst in me. Maybe it might have been not such nice words, maybe it might have been a physical interaction, but whatever the case, historically, conflict with me has always brought out the worst in me. And me may be different from you, so conflict has always been something that I have shrunk from. Conflict. However, conflict is absolutely normal. But it's how we handle conflict, how we show up for the conflict, how we react to the conflict. I said on Sunday that when we start getting into the Word, we understand how to deal with conflict. And conflict is absolutely normal. As a matter of fact, God's creation speaks to conflict. If you look at the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon, it has been historically and over the century based on what? Conflict. Water versus the rock. It continuously is in conflict, but in harmonious coexistence. But conflict is there. The same way with our lives as Christians, there's going to be conflict, but how do we show up for the conflict? How do we deal with the conflict? And based on this verse, this verse went from black and white to color this weekend. Let me share. Hang on. Let me share this real quick. And those of you who are listening on my podcast, we're going to be talking about conflict at the same time we're doing this live. All right. As you all know, I have a Ford Bronco that is one of my prized possessions, if you will. And this Ford Bronco is a beautiful Bronco. I bought it from the original owner. It's immaculate. It's a gorgeous 93 Eddie Bauer edition Ford Bronco. Well, about two years ago, I decided I was going to be Mr. Mechanic and do some things in the motor. Well, some events took place and I had to leave it by the wayside and never got the opportunity to finish it. Well, as time took its course, it just never got put back together properly the way it should. As a matter of fact, I even got somewhat discouraged and I said, I decided that, OK, I'm never going to be able to do this. I need to probably have somebody fix it for me, a professional. Well, I ended up through a my wife's cousin, they started attending our church. Her boyfriend shared with me about a mechanic. He spoke highly of this mechanic. And basically, I was really excited because he's a great mechanic and he doesn't look too far from me. He says, what I recommend you do is go ahead and take your car to him. And he goes, I guarantee you, he's busy, but he'll get it fixed the right way and it won't cost you arm and a leg. So I called him up and went over there to meet him and super nice guy, wonderful guy. We had a long conversation. As a matter of fact, our conversation was about everything but the Bronco. We talked about family, we talked about his father, his father passed away. We talked about just a lot of things and I felt really good about this young man receiving my Bronco. So we made arrangements that my Bronco would be delivered to him. And so we delivered it to him. And that was last year that we got the Bronco to him. I want to say around October of last year. And I said, no rush. It's not my everyday driver, but I sure wanted to be running properly so that, you know, it's done, it's done, but I don't want you to rush. So we were under that impression, but he said, well, I want to have it done in about a month. I said, okay, that's, that's fine. That's fine. Well, days went by and weeks went by and, and basically I didn't get a lot of feedback or communication regarding the Bronco. So periodically I would call him and just check in and, you know, the response was usually, oh, I'm doing good. How are you? And then finally I'd say, well, what about the Bronco? Well, you know, I'm, I'm in the process of finding some parts and this and that. It almost turned into almost eight months later, seven months later, that the Bronco wasn't finished yet. And so I was a little, a little bummed out, you know I'm sorry, that was March that he received it. I was a little bummed out it hadn't been finished yet. So finally I made a command decision that I would give him a call and just see where he was at with the Bronco. Well, I'm not, I'm not going to give the nuances regarding some of the things, you know, the Bronco on the field, some of the parts on the seat and all that stuff. That's not, neither here nor there. But those are the things that led up to my decision. Finally I called up the young man and I said, hey, I'm going to pick up my Bronco. Obviously I think you're, you're pretty busy. You don't have time to work on my car. And he said, well, I'm sorry you feel that way, but absolutely. So I got AAA. And to my surprise, he had, someone had left my window open and it rained the night before my Bronco got, the seats got wet. And you know, the, the, when it rains here in Arizona, we've got the dust, the dust and the rain covered the dashboard. And I was just really upset. I was upset. And I, I started texting him. I was like, hey, you know, I'm, I'm really disappointed in you. I'm really disappointed in, in what you did. You left my, you know, my window open and he says, well, I can, I can, I can, you know, pay to have it cleaned up. I said, well, no, I don't want you to pay to have it cleaned up. I'll have my own people clean it up. I'll send you the bill. And, you know, and, and it was just a lot of text, but in the process, I, I, in my, in my anger and don't, there was no profanity, but my words were firm. They were stern and they were to the point. And I said to the young man, you know, I'm really surprised. I'm sure if your father was alive, he would have been disappointed in your action. Now I didn't mean that to hurt him. That wasn't the intention because there's a lot of times in my life that maybe I made a decision at church when my dad, I made a decision at the church and maybe the decision didn't turn out the way I would like it to turn out. Well, someone might've said, you know, your dad would have really been disappointed in that decision that you made. You should have really seek counsel or pray about it. And when that happens, I take that to heart. Now, is it fair or not fair? Well, I really use my father, my earthly father, my dad, James Abram, as that benchmark. And when someone tells me that, I know they don't mean it in a harmful way, but they mean it in a, in a, in a way to instruct and, and it really gets my attention. Well, I use this same standard to this young man and said, Hey, I know the way you conducted business that you didn't finish my car, you, you did this, this, this, this. Your father would be disappointed, be disappointed in you. And I didn't think much of it. I didn't think much of it. So I got my Bronco home and that was, as you know, I made that post a few weeks ago. It was history. All right. So let's get to the point of the story as I lost a lot of you. And I think this is a great lesson, but let's get to the point of the story now. So the young man that recommended his cousin to work on my Bronco was at church on Sunday with his girlfriend, which is my wife's cousin. So we had a great service guys, a beautiful service. Church was just wonderful. And it was just so, the Holy Spirit was using me and, and it was just a wonderful, wonderful service. And I was happy to see everybody there. And at the end of service, the young man comes up to me and says, Hey, can I speak to you? I said, I'll tell you what, why don't you come to my office? And I'll be there in just a minute. Now mind you guys, I wasn't thinking about the Bronco. I wasn't thinking about the conversation I had with his cousin, but he wanted to speak to me. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault. Did you see that scripture right there in the book of Matthew chapter 18, verse 15. If your brother offends you, if your sister offends you, don't get mad. Don't get angry. Don't go gossip. Don't get on the phone. Don't get on Facebook. Don't get on TikTok. Go to that brother and go to that sister and you need to communicate what was done. Back to the young man. He says, I'll be in your office waiting for you. I said, absolutely. I ended up speaking to a lot of people that were leaving and greeting them a good week and God bless and praying over individuals and finally I made it to my office and there he was sitting. I closed the door and I sat down. As a matter of fact, we weren't in my office. We were in my wife's office because some of the guys were in my other office. I sat down in the chair and I looked across from him and he looks at me. He says, pastor. I said, yeah. He goes, I've got to get something off my chest. I said, yes. He goes, I'm disappointed in you. Oh, why are you disappointed? He said, well, I recommended my cousin to work on your Bronco. He goes, and because of circumstances out of his control, there are certain pieces and equipment that he couldn't get that you just railed him and he goes on top of that, you brought his deceased father in the subject. So he talked to me for about 20 minutes and I listened to him and I have to be honest with each one of you. I had to really control myself because I really wanted to interject and give my side of the story. But I knew, I know this young man, when I say young man, he's about 44 years old. He's very strong willed. He's strong hearted. He's that kind of guy that's going to expedite his point quickly. He's going to do it. I knew that. We're the two that, this could have went a different way. So I was going to give him his time because I knew when my time came, I was going to just light him up. That was my mindset. I wasn't going to light him up because he didn't understand nor did he comprehend. So methodically, I listened to everything he said and he let me know, he goes, you didn't have to bring that up. He goes, I get it. When it comes to business, I get it. My cousin dropped the ball. I get it that he didn't do your car. As a matter of fact, I even went over there and I saw it and I asked him about a couple of things and he goes, I didn't understand that. He goes, but when you brought my cousin's dad, deceased dad, who just passed away in the last two years, he goes, that hurt me. That hurt my girlfriend, which is my wife's cousin, that hurt my family and that hurt all of us. He goes, because we all follow you on TikTok. He goes, not only did you hurt us by doing it, he goes, you talked about it at church. He goes, you didn't mention names. He goes, we knew who you were talking about. He goes, you talked about it on TikTok. He goes, and you took your platform, the very thing that you proclaim, I choose love, you took that platform to really put my cousin in a bad light. Now folks, I'm steaming now. I'm steaming now because the accusations are, while they are correct, the intention or the context was not how he was presenting it. So finally, my opportunity came, let me read something real quick. If your brother sins against you, go to tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. This is what the scripture says. This is conflict resolution. This is an issue, or this is what you do when you have an issue with your brother or sister. Matter of fact, you don't even have to be a Christian to apply these principles. If you have a problem with somebody at work, I need you to go to them and tell them their fault. You might have an issue with your spouse, go to him or her and tell them their fault. Don't get angry, get mad, suppress it, go to bed all upset. You find yourself so angry and so upset that when it comes time to talk about it, you start talking about everything else but the subject. But the scripture says, go to your brother or sister and tell them their fault. Well, this young man did it, and now I'm going to respond. I looked at him, I said, young man, let's get one thing straight. I don't randomly just say things. I am methodical about everything I say. I just don't say things. I choose my words in every aspect of my life wisely. If you meet me on the streets, trust you me, I just don't randomly say things. I'm not a babbling fool. But I methodically pick my words so that you are able to understand what I'm saying. Number two, that I may not offend you. Number three, that I may present Christ and never diminish the opportunity to witness to you. I'm very methodical about my words. My kids rarely have they heard me say something that was off-key, off-color, foul, rarely. So I told the young man, I, because he asked me, he goes, I was disappointed, Pastor Paul. He goes, I believed in my heart that you were going to apologize to my cousin. He goes, I understood what you did and what you text. He goes, but I thought after a period of time that you were going to apologize to my cousin. He goes, I even told my cousin, he goes, Pastor Paul is going to cool down, realize what he did wrong, and he's going to apologize. He goes, and when you didn't do it, he goes, days went by, weeks went, a few weeks went by, and he goes, and you did it, he goes, and I was so disappointed in you. And he says, you get in the pulpit, you say I choose love, he goes, you're a ticker. And so I told him as I responded, I said, sir, I am very selective about my words, and I will not apologize. I stand by my words. And he looked at me, and I reiterated. As a matter of fact, I put on my Marine Corps hat at that moment, and I said, look at my eyes, young man, understand this, I will apologize to you, but I will not apologize to your cousin, because my words, I meant, and I meant every bit of it. And he leaned back, he goes, Pastor Paul, you bringing his father into this, what was your objective, and did that help get your car fixed? I go, it was irrelevant, young man. The business he did was wrong, and he did not fulfill the mission. He should have never accepted my Bronco if he was too busy to work on it. He should have never accepted it, and that's what I said to him. He said, well, Pastor Paul, can I ask you something else? Is this pride talking, or is this the man of God talking? I said, young man, do not take my title, or don't take that. I go, it's not about pride. I go, I'm trying to help him do a better job. He goes, well, how does that help, Pastor Paul? I said, it helps that he will make a better decision in the future. So my point is this, I held my ground. I decided I'm not going to apologize. I didn't need to apologize. And then I looked into his eyes, and he said, and I reiterate, he goes, I was really hurt. He goes, you teach and preach. I choose love. He goes, and when I saw the text, he goes, I go, but I didn't use foul words. But you could see the anger in your text and your words. He goes, and I was so hurt. And do you know, folks, at that very moment when I was sitting there, a pressure, a pressure that I had felt before, we call it conviction. But a pressure that was upon me, that moved upon me, the Lord was using this young man to minister to me. Let me explain, folks, about grace and mercy. Sometimes you and I can justify in doing a thing. Hear me out. How many of you have been in an argument with somebody, and you knew in your heart of hearts that you were right? You knew. You knew that there was no ifs, ands, or buts. You evaluated it. You understood it. Without a doubt, you were ready to fight the fight because you knew you were right. And in that, you might have said some things, but you justified what you said. And in all reality, they weren't bad, but they were to the point. It's not what you said. It's how you said it. But they were to the point. And you believed in your heart of hearts that you had done right by the individual that you had the conflict with. But then God comes over and gives you a gentle nudge. Okay? Okay. Because, folks, when I was speaking to the young man, I told him point blank, I will not apologize. I do not believe I deserve to give this young man an apology. I was not wrong. And I will not apologize. I will not apologize. I will not apologize. I will not apologize. I will not apologize. I will not apologize. I will not apologize. I will not apologize. I will not apologize. I will not apologize. And I gave him a list of orderly events that took place that justified why I wasn't going to say sorry. But God was showing me grace and mercy by saying, young man, I am sending this young man to expose the attitude that you took in the event of a situation which could have been done completely different. In my mind, I thought I was fine. But what God was doing through his grace and mercy was saying, I do not want this thing to interfere in your ministry. I do not want this event to get in the way of what God is doing. I do not want this conflict to define a potential to progress the gospel. I have to let my puppy out. Those of you who are listening on this podcast, I have to let my puppy out. So hang on. Come on, Missy. Come on. Do you want God? Come on. Let's go. Come on. Let's go inside. Come on. Come on. Go inside. Go to the front door when you want to come back. Those of you listening on the podcast, that was a little commercial break to let our puppy out. So God was nudging me, using this young man who was showing me grace and mercy, saying this thing that happened, that you justified what you said. Mind you, I believed and I still believe what I said and what I meant was okay. But what wasn't okay is God revealed to me through His grace and mercy, because He did not want this to define me, the ministry, I choose love. And He wanted me to understand that don't let your pride get in the way. I'm trying to show you something here, Paul. I'm trying to show you something. That it's not necessarily what I said, but it's how I said it and how I could have chose at least two to three different ways to handle this to get a wonderful outcome. It didn't necessarily mean the Bronco had to be fixed, but an outcome. Because remember, we should always be about the Father's business. We should always be about the kingdom work. Remember, I choose love is a beautiful statement. I choose love is easy when it's waving hi to your neighbor. That's easy. I choose love is easy to give someone your parking spot. Oh, you take the spot or you go ahead of me. That's easy. I choose love is easy when someone comes to you and says, hey, I'm short $5. Can you loan me $5? That's easy. I choose love, picking up a phone, calling somebody to check on them. That's easy. That's easy. All those events, while beautiful, they're easy. But I choose love gets hard when God is calling you out on something you've done wrong. You've done wrong. And in your pride, you're about to deny God's nudge and say, I refuse to apologize. See, I choose love becomes hard when someone calls you out on your wrong. When someone says, wait a minute, what you did hurt me. Not only what you did hurt me, it hurt my family. And while you preach your I choose love, you didn't display it. See, that's hard. And do you know as the weight of conviction by way of the Holy Spirit. Now, this young man is, he grew up in church, but was never plugged in. Him meeting my wife's cousin is a reboot or restart for him. He's come back in the last six months and he's hyper alert and critiquing, analyzing, serving the actions of Christian folks. But I wasn't thinking of this at the time. It wasn't until after our conversation that God revealed this to me. And as the heaviness and the nudge of the Holy Spirit started getting heavier on me and God is moving in my spirit, you will apologize. And I'm thinking to almost some degree, I want to disagree. But in the heaviness of the Holy Spirit, this young man has executed biblical principles. This young man has executed biblical principles. He's come to me about a thing that has offended him. He's come to me. He's executing biblical principles and God is showing me grace and mercy that he was bold enough to do it, to come to me. We have another lesson here. Free will. A lot of us argue free will, debate. What is free will? Do we have free will? Yes, we do have free will. Because while the heaviness on my chest was there and the conviction was there, God was going to allow me to decide, was I going to apologize or was I not? Because just 10 minutes prior to that, I said, I'm not apologizing. I'm not apologizing. Because just 10 minutes prior to that, I said, I'm not apologizing. I do not owe anyone an apology. I was right in my words. I was right in my decision and I stand on my words. I will not apologize. But free will had to be executed because God was moving upon me by the Holy Spirit. You will apologize because it's not necessarily what you said, but how you said it and who you included by what you said. Because it could have been handled many different ways. And just like that, as the heaviness was so or too much for me to bear, I looked at him and I said, do you have your cell phone? He said, I do. I said, would you please call your cousin? He picked up the phone, he dialed it, it rang for about five or six times. And then it was a machine. I thought I was off the hook. For a brief moment, I said, well, God, and internally, I didn't do it externally, but internally, I said, well, God, I try. I try. And then he dialed another number. And then he dialed another number. So, I guess he dialed the work number, then he dialed the home number. I guess, I'm not sure. And he answered. And the young man said, hey, JR, I'm going to put you on speaker. I've got Pastor Paul here. He wants to talk to you. And I didn't hear the response, but I knew he was resistant. I almost, to another degree, said, oh, okay, he doesn't want to talk to me. I tried. I tried. I thought I was out again. I still had that heaviness in my heart. I thought I was, I thought I executed my part of free will, but God, I'm sorry, he doesn't want to talk to me. I'm free again. And the young man that brought this to my attention, being the strong-willed individual he was and speaking to his cousin, his cousin was listening, he said, no. I got Pastor Paul here. You're going to talk to him. You're on speaker. And he laid the phone down to me. And I said right there, if I offended you or if I hurt you, please forgive me. Please forgive me. It has been brought to my attention that bringing your father in this was hurtful. And I please beg for your forgiveness. And he said, and there was a slight delay for about a second, 1,001. He said, I forgive you. I said, I love you. I don't expect you to reciprocate that love, but I love you. And please have a good day. The young man who brought this to my attention got the phone back. He goes, hey, man, I'll call you later. I said, okay. He hung up. I'm going to read the scripture again. If you, if your brother sins against you and go, if your brother sins against you in the book of Matthew chapter 18, verse 15, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. I can't say, I don't know what came over me. I know what came over me. God was showing me grace and mercy to bring something to my attention that needed to be resolved because he cared for me and he cared for that brother and he cared for that family. And God, hang on. My dog wants to come in. Please forgive me. Y'all in power class, please forgive me. God weighed down so heavy that I knew in my free will, I was going to apologize. But do you know, when he hung up that phone, something happened in that room. Let me read the scripture again for where I'm going to read verse 20 now for two or three are gathered in my name. There am I among them. There was the presence of God in the room. There was the presence of God in the room because two men, strong willed alpha males dismissing anything that defines them and operating in the spirit of God, you could feel the presence of God in the room. When I looked at that young man's face, there was something. I could see God using this young man trying to find his way into faith, the doctrine of I could see it right in front of me take place, but little did I know that God was going to be there for me. I could see God using this young man, trying to find his way into faith, the doctrine of faith. Little did I know, I spoke to my wife's cousin, his girlfriend the next day, and she said, Pastor Paul, his name is Mondo. Mondo was so elated, overjoyed. She said, he said, when he looked at you, he could literally see the power of God convict you right in front of him. He said, I saw the movement of God. Now, this is a guy that is like one of those folks that are like, well, I want to see God first. I want to see a revelation. I want to see because my track record with so-called Christians hasn't been legit. But he said, and it wasn't me, folks. I'm the one that was being convicted. He saw the power of God moving on me, which was creating conviction. It had nothing to do with me. I happened to be the student and God was being the teacher. Praise be to God. And she said, Pastor Paul, he saw the presence of God working in you, on you, and through you. Watch this. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens, you have gained your brother. I believe we gained each other. Not because he's familia or I'm his pastor, but we have dismissed the titles and we became brothers in Christ. See, what Satan wanted to do was to create division. But God in his grace and his mercy said, wait a minute. I'm going to bring these two together. And free will is going to be executed. Matter of fact, his girlfriend told me, she said he was almost to the point that he didn't want to come back to the church. What if in his free will, he made that decision? He made that decision. What if in my free will, I said, no, I'm not going to apologize. What if in our free will, we executed not to do the right thing, but to do what we felt was the prideful thing? Folks, that's an example of God's word being applied in a situation of conflict. And the outcome gives God all the glory and all the praise. What is the point then? Don't ever be so prideful. Don't ever be so prideful that you don't want to do God's will. Don't ever be above instruction. I don't care if your name is pastor, minister, deacon, bishop, elder, whatever it is they call you or whatever is that title that you have, even if it's at the job. I don't care if you're the manager, the boss, the regional manager, the vice president, the president, the owner, whatever it is. I don't care if you're the president of the United States. Do not be above instruction when God is ready to teach. And last but not least, we should always decrease that God may increase. Not everything is about you. Not everything is about me. All of this regarding life is about God. It's about God. And God gave me a valuable lesson yesterday. Oh, we had a good church service. I felt the power of the Holy Spirit moving on me as I preached to the church. But that happened at the end of church. Real church. Because at the end of the verse, it says where two or more are gathered. That verse right there in the book of Matthew. When people ask me, do you ever speak to God? God was speaking to me through that young man, through his word. God's word is true. But while we did have church, and it was good, it was the post-church event where God really showed up on a personal level for me. Is the Bronco fixed yet? Not yet. Just a material thing. It doesn't matter. I don't know if it will be fixed. Maybe, maybe not. I have another individual in line, but I've got to save my little pennies to do it. But most importantly, I have restored a friendship. I have renewed a relationship. I have a Father in heaven who cares about me. Enough to give me a gentle reminder. I love you so much, son, that I'm going to send somebody your way that's going to minister to you. I love you so much, son, that I'm going to give you an opportunity to repent from that thing that you did. While you might think you're okay, and matter of fact, you probably could line up 100 people that could justify it. But if we're going to decide to be right over doing what is right, that might be conflict within ourself if we are going to make that decision based on emotion. In my free will, praise be to God, He gave me the ability and the strength to choose what is right. I thank God. I thank God. I'll share this with you, too. The girlfriend told me that her boyfriend, Mondo, said that he was overjoyed of the outcome of the divorce. Her boyfriend, Mondo, said that he was overjoyed of the outcome, but he, also, suffers with pride. Matter of fact, he can completely relate to me when I said, I would not apologize. I'll apologize to you, but I won't apologize. He said, I could completely relate to that. I saw where if he could do it, meaning me, maybe I need to do that. My point is, people are watching us as Christians, watching us as followers of Christ. They're looking at our actions, our reactions. They're watching us. By you applying God's Word in your life, it might help somebody think, well, if Joshua can do that, I'm using another example, if Joshua can do that, I can do it. If Mercy or Brian or Dan or Ray or Lambriel, if they can do it, I surely can do it. If the God they proclaim and believe and trust and faithful to, if they have the ability to humble themselves, then I surely can do the same thing. My family, my crew, if I left anyone out, please forgive me. Miss Jennifer, if Brian could do it, then maybe I can, too. Sometimes. I should say, always share the gospel. If necessary, sometimes you might have to use words. Praise God. All right, everybody, that's our live for this morning. I wanted to share that with you. I'm going to elaborate on that sermon on Sunday a little bit more. We're going to change names, protect innocent, of course. God really taught me a lot this Sunday. Guys, I have such a faithful and loving God that he would take the time to be concerned with me, to teach me, to teach me. That's the kind of God we serve, folks. Anybody who says, how do you know God's real, you take a moment like that and you say, God, it's got to be real. How do you know the scripture is legit? You apply God's scripture. You see God's scripture. You're living God's scripture. You don't know it. In your free will, you reciprocate God's word. That man came to me. I heard him. I repented. I was obedient. The outcome is we are closer than we were before. When you see God's word materialized right in front of you, you say, God's word is true. And you want to know something about it all? I had lost my joy of my salvation prior to that. Hear me out. Hear me out. I didn't lose the joy of my salvation, but I can truly say I feel more joy in my salvation as an obedient child. Free will. Don't let anybody fool you. You have a choice to do the right thing every day. Every day. I'm going to close out the podcast, but I'm going to answer some questions. Real quick. So those of you on podcasts, I hope this is helpful. I hope this has been beneficial. Please know this. Always look for an opportunity to honor God and never believe you are too big to be instructed. Let your free will be executed to give God all the glory and all the praise. And I choose love is more than a gesture of love. It's responding in love to the hardest things. Of love. It's responding in love to the hardest things. That demands. That you make it right. God bless you. May the Lord keep you. Watch over you. I choose love.