Romans chapter number 16. If it's possible to get just a little bit more in the monitor for me, that would be helpful for me. Thank you so much. It was a busy week, a lot of vocal use. And any little bit helps me, thank you. I do want to make mention of the fact, of course, we've got our CD and book table with us out in the lobby there, and so if our music and materials can be a help to you, that would rejoice our hearts. And then also I want to make mention that every Sunday night I do a live stream at 9.30 Eastern, and so it's about half an hour I play through, got some gospel music, some hymns, different things like that. and just spend some time doing that. So it's on our YouTube channel. We now have three YouTube channels. It might seem a little strange. Why would you do it that way? Well, we discovered that we were getting throttled because YouTube couldn't figure out what kind of music we were in the sense that I would do acapella and then we'd have a family song and then we'd have piano and instrumental and then you know, it was just so it stopped forwarding our channel. So we split it into three different channels. So, but if you look, it's called Sacred Calm. But if you just go to the regular Ben Everson channel, there'll be a link there and you'll see it very clearly. But if that would be a blessing to you, that's 9.30 tonight. And we look forward to that. I had a friend, actually he still is my friend, I think, last time I checked, but he was about six, seven years ahead of me in age, and he told me something about six or seven years ago. He said, you know, Ben, you're going to reach this point in your life where it's going to be the dividing line. I said, what do you mean the dividing line? He said, well, the first half of your life, it's kind of like you've got enough energy and not enough time. He said, but you're going to reach this point where you're going to have enough time, but you're not going to have enough energy. And so I said, okay, that's interesting. I think, I think we've just crossed that threshold a little bit. And because I'm sensing that, and it seems like, okay, I do have enough time pretty much to get the things done that I need to, but I gotta take a nap sometimes. And Jesus did that, by the way. He was in the bottom of the boat, remember, when the storm came up, so it's okay to take a nap sometimes. But I bring this up because I think energy use is something that we don't think a lot about until we run out of it. Energy management. I think as I've traveled around our churches now, I actually started preaching and traveling in revival ministry before we were married, and we've been married now 26 years, so I've been traveling in churches roughly 30 years actually, and I think one of the things that I've noticed over the last three decades is that we really struggle sometimes knowing what to put our energy into. And so what I want to preach to you this morning is something that hopefully will be memorable at least enough to help us decide how much energy do I need to put into this topic? How much energy do I need to expend in order to be faithful to the Lord? Romans chapter 16 beginning in verse number 17 says this, Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. I want you to turn to one more passage, Galatians chapter number one. Galatians chapter number one. It's page 1,538 in my Bible. May not be the same in yours, or maybe you've got electronic version, but Galatians chapter number one, verse number six. Did you know Marvel is mentioned in Scripture? Yeah, not the comics, though. No, what does he say? Verse number six, chapter one. I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto, look at this, another gospel, which is not another. What? Yeah. But there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. Dear Lord, I pray you'd fill me with your spirit. I need you this morning. I rest on the rock of ages, Lord, that cannot move. Lord, I pray that you'd not only fill me with your spirit, but fill all of us with your spirit, that we could understand the words that you wrote. Lord, better than ever, in Jesus' name I pray, amen. I wanna preach to you a message I simply call this, fusses, fights, and funerals. Fusses, fights, and funerals. And I call it this because I believe we need to have a triage system in our Christian lives. Now, any of you know what triage is? Okay, all right. Any of you have gone to the emergency room, you've experienced triage. You come in there with a hangnail. They're not gonna put you at the front of the line, right? You come in there and say, oh man, I hurt right here and it radiates down my left arm and like that, you're going right to the front of the line, amen? Why? Well, it's not fair, I came in first. Well. The guy having a heart attack is gonna go to the front of the line as opposed to you with your hangnail that can sit and wait for a while. That's triage, understanding what is urgent, what's an emergency, and what can wait a little bit. That's kind of what I wanna do. In fact, it's very much what I wanna do this morning. Talk about fusses, fights, and funerals. In fact, we're gonna start with funerals. I'll put them over here. Funerals are issues that we ought to be willing to give our lives for. They're serious issues. Some people might call them fundamentals of the faith, which is fine. I call them funerals because it gives us the idea that yes, I'm going to hold on to this truth even if it requires my life. The passages that we're reading have to do with Paul being convinced in his mind that this is important. The first passage he said, mark them that cause divisions. Look here in Galatians going on, verse number eight rather, he's talking about a gospel which is not another, someone who perverts, that means to twist the gospel of Christ. And he says, but though we, verse eight, or an angel from heaven, "'Preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received. "'Let him be accursed.'" That's strong language. If this was in a blog post form, I mean, this would go viral because, wow, can you believe how unloving Paul is? Actually, he's not unloving. Someone who loves his child will defend that child from a predator, amen? That's what Paul is doing here. He's defending the church from predators. In fact, he says it again in verse number nine. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that you have received, let him be accursed. He's talking about the gospel. Listen, friends, you and I ought to be willing to die and to spend our lives for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You say, well, of course, Brother Ben, this isn't novel information to us, okay. Well, let's talk about what the gospel is. A lot of people think the gospel is basically the plan of salvation. And the gospel certainly includes the plan of salvation. After all, the word gospel, good news, euangelion, right? It's the good news, an evangelist is someone who's bringing good news. Of course, our pastors and preachers bring that good news also. But I wanna submit this to you, that funeral level issues are those things that directly impact the gospel. For example, I believe that you cannot have the plan of salvation unless the Bible is the word of God. Right? That's a fundamental of the faith. We ought to be willing to die over that, give our lives for it. Even though that's not necessarily included in the Roman's road. Do you follow what I'm saying? It is a fundamental building block for what we call the plan of salvation. It's part of the gospel. Because if we can't trust God to write his word, then how can we trust him on anything else? How about the resurrection of Jesus Christ? That is a fundamental of the faith. In fact, Paul says that if Christ be not risen, we're of all men what? Most miserable, we're wasting our time. How about this? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Do you realize, do you realize that without that, you don't have the gospel? Now, follow me here. I'm not saying that someone has to understand all these things in order to trust Christ. But all these things have to be true in order for the plan of salvation to exist. See, God, if he didn't create the heavens and the earth, then what are we doing? Right, it all falls apart. That's why ministries like Ken Ham, Brother Ken Ham's ministry, how many of you have been to the Ark? All right, okay, we haven't gone yet, all right? And we've been through some pretty mighty rainstorms and gotten a little nervous. We haven't been to the Ark. No, I'm just teasing with you. We did go to the Creation Museum years ago, but what a vital ministry. A good friend of ours now, Eric Hovind, Creation Today, does a wonderful job. He's been on my podcast, I've been on his. We've just developed a good friendship. Listen, if you have a problem with the first few words of the Bible, you're gonna have a problem with the rest of it. See, but that's why we ought to take such a strong stand on things such as marriage, being between a man and a woman. We say, well, I don't understand. What does that have to do with the gospel? Ah, see, if God created everything, he has the right to set the rules. That's why we've got to stand firm on that. That's why we've got to stand firm against the transgender movement that is eating alive so many people. Well, that doesn't have anything to do with the gospel. A lot of churches say, we just want to preach love. Okay, well, true love tells the truth. So we've got to tell the truth. And how do we know that? Well, well, it doesn't come from the plan of salvation. That's because the gospel is more than just the plan of salvation. It has to do with all the component parts that make it up. And I really believe we've got a lot of churches, a lot of Christians today who are confused and they don't mean wrong, but they're actually selling us short because they're not understanding these truths. I think it's interesting that he says another gospel, which is not another. In other words, it looks like the gospel, but it's really not. Isn't it interesting that he said an angel from heaven? Where did the Mormons get their doctrine in large part? A guy named Joseph Smith, where did he get it from? He says an angel named Moroni, right? Paul says, you can get your doctrine from a quote unquote angel, but if it goes against the word of God, What? Let him be accursed. Wow. How about those who don't believe that Jesus always was and always will be fully God? Right? Well, you know what, friends? Every time I drive by a Latter-day Saints church, every time I drive by a Jehovah's Witness building, I shouldn't even call them churches, but you understand what I mean. Every time I drive by one of those, this is my prayer. It's almost the same every single time. Lord, would you rescue as many as will be rescued and make the rest of them ineffective? That's what I pray. Why? Because it's serious. I don't go around and pray for the destruction of people, right? That's not a normal thing, but I will go around and pray for the destruction, rescue everyone who can be rescued, but I will pray for the destruction of false teachers. They're wolves. And listen, friends, I think in a lot of our churches, I know not your pastor here, okay, but in our hearts sometimes we can go a little soft because we don't wanna break the 11th commandment. What's the 11th commandment? Thou shalt be nice. Right? Thou shalt be nice. Now listen, I'm not saying that to be obnoxious, you know, I don't witness to people extendedly and have debates with them in drive-throughs with 10 cars behind me, right? And then when they say, excuse me, sir, you need to keep going. You know, I've been persecuted for the cause of Christ. No, you didn't. You were obnoxious. I'm not talking about being obnoxious. I'm talking about, yes, being creative, but standing for truth. Listen, if anything has changed in the last year, well, it's longer than that, but after different events that we've seen, I think the battle lines between good and evil are being drawn ever more clearly. And come and see is not enough. We've got to go and tell. Come and see is great, I love that. In fact, our home church, well, we just got a new home church, because we moved to Dallas, well, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, got a wonderful new home church. They do some of these things as well. My home church that I grew up at up in Michigan, they've got the Upward basketball program. I'm so excited to hear about these things. And when you can have, I love how pastor said it, we've got people coming here, let's not blow it, amen. That's good, that's great, that's wonderful. We also have to have the motivation inside to share that gospel with that longtime gas attendant that we always see, right? That we're friendly with. But have we ever crossed over into asking about their spiritual life? You say, well, how do you do that? Well, I'm not perfect at this, but at the place where we were staying, we were there for a week, and I got to know, her name is Misty. I don't know what her last name is, that's not really relevant, but she had a cast on her leg. And I said, oh, what happened? She said, well, I gotta have surgery, dah, dah, dah, this, and I already had surgery for this, and I gotta have another surgery for this. I said, I am so sorry. That sounds painful. Is it okay if I pray for you? Oh yeah, that'd be wonderful. Did I have a chance to go through the whole plan of salvation? No, but on the last day before we left, I went back in, I gave her, there was a long line, couldn't talk with her, but I was able to give her one of our cards that sends her to our YouTube channel where I have music and different things as well as the message of salvation. See, it's kind of like checking doors, right? Just go through the ones that are open. But if you're not checking, with people, you understand what I'm saying? But if we're not even checking the doors, how are we ever gonna win the loss to Christ? Well, we gotta stand firmly on these funeral-level issues, the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the grave, the fact that salvation, here's a big one, you know what separates us and what we believe primarily from American Catholics? Say, well, you don't like Catholics. Actually, I love Catholics. My grandma was a staunch Roman Catholic all her life. And I'll finish that story in a second, but I have a real burden for Catholics. They get a lot of things right. They do, they get the Trinity, correct? All right, the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. They believe that Jesus did come and became human, right? And that he died on the cross and that he rose again. They get a lot of things right. But here's the key thing that they get wrong, is that salvation is, they believe salvation is a process. And you're never quite sure when you're done. It's kind of like Jesus did some and you've gotta do the rest. And so they confuse justification with sanctification. See, we believe that the moment you trust Christ, boom, that application of your sin debt being paid by Christ on the cross is instantly applied to your account, not incrementally. See, that's the key difference. Are there other differences? Yes, but that's the key one. The problem sometimes is We spend so much time and energy on other things that we don't have much left over to spend on the funeral level issues. I hope we leave from here keeping the main thing the main thing. See, you've got two more, Brother Ben, and we're gonna run out of time. Well, I wanted to spend more time on the funerals, right? Because that's more the main thing. But let's touch on fusses. I mean, excuse me, fights, right? It's fusses, fights, and funerals. We're working our way backwards. Okay, so we got funerals over here. What about fights? Some of you might think, well, Brother Ben, we're not supposed to fight as Christians. That is not right, okay? Turn to Philippians chapter one, and I'm gonna draw your attention as you turn, for sake of time, I'm gonna remind you of a couple. I'll meet you in Philippians one in a moment, verse 14. But first of all, I wanna remind you of a guy by the name of John Mark. How many of you remember a guy named John Mark? You know who I'm talking about. Okay, yeah. So Paul and Barnabas bring John Mark, and John Mark, for whatever reason, we don't know for sure, but he quits halfway through. So when it comes time to re-up and go on the next missionary journey, next mission trip, Barnabas says, hey, I'll text John Mark, tell him to meet us at the boat. You gotta really know the language to understand, you know, the pastor and I know that, but no, I just, Paul says, no way, he's not coming. Why not? Well, he quit on us last time. You know what the Bible says? The Bible says specifically, the contention between them was so sharp. That's the word it uses. What's another word for contention? Fight. And who's this between? Two carnal, carnal Christians who don't love the Lord as much as they should? No, it's between Paul and Barnabas. And the Bible says the contention between, was it about the gospel, by the way? No, of course not. It was about really a methodology. Are we gonna take John Mark or not? The Bible says the fight between them was so sharp that they split up. Now God used it, didn't he? Instead of one mission team, now you get two. That's an excellent example there. Well, look at Philippians. Philippians chapter one. Hopefully you're meeting me there. Verse 14, and many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ, even of envy and strife, and some also of goodwill. Look at this, verse 16. The one preached Christ of what? Contention, what's another word for contention? Fight, right? And some also of goodwill. The one, oh, I just skipped back. The one preached Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds, verse 17, but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel. Verse 17 and a half says, so I go on my blog and I tell everyone about how awful they are. No, that's not what it says. What then, verse 18, notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached. Now that's the key, right? First he said, many of the brethren in the Lord, these are brothers, sisters in Christ. These are true believers and they're preaching Christ. That's the difference. Okay, it's not false doctrine. We already know where Paul stands on that. But they love the Lord. They are preaching the truth. Maybe they don't like Paul. I'll tell you this, this is something that has been very difficult for me to realize. There will be some people who don't like me. I don't understand it. I think I'm nice. But I've had to come to that conclusion. And you know what? In your life, guess what? There's gonna be some people that don't like you. It's just the way it is. And in our churches and our ministries, et cetera, we're not all doing everything the exact same way. Now, Lord willing, we're preaching the same truth, amen? Okay, that's the important part. But not everyone's gonna be the same. Sometimes there can be a contention, there can be even a fight. I call them family squabbles. I'm not saying they're not important, by the way. Be careful of anyone who says, well, only the gospel is important and we shouldn't argue about anything else. Okay, okay, hang on. How about some topics like, we'll start simple here. How about closed versus close communion? How many of you know the difference between the two? Okay, a few of you. Close communion is how I grew up, which meant basically that when it came to the Lord's table, anyone who was walking with the Lord, like if we were visiting, we could participate, okay? That's how I grew up. The church we're at now practices closed communion, where you need to be a member of that particular church in order to partake, and I'm not sure which one you are here. If either of those confuse you, it comes down to the autonomy of the local church. In other words, every church has the right to set that up how they feel is right, okay? So is that a funeral-level issue? Well, absolutely not. But it does touch on the autonomy of the local church, so I think it fits in this category. How about the timing of the rapture? It's tough for me to say, because I'm pre-millennial, pre-trib, and I preach on it and believe it. I'm looking forward to Jesus coming back next. I think that's the next thing on the calendar. And it could be today. There are good men who disagree on the timing. In fact, there was a pastor friend of mine, we went to his church for a while, but he is what would be called pre-wrath. Okay? I call it the yo-yo theory, because we go up and then come right back down. But anyway, it's at the end of the tribulation, right? I said, brother, wouldn't it be great if the Lord just would rapture us in accordance with our view? So all us pre-tribbers, we go up, you gotta stay. And he thought about it for a second. He was like, ah, nice one, right? Why were we able to have a friendly discussion? Neither one of us was gonna convince the other. Well, it's because we agreed on the funeral level issues. Now, a fight issue is not so much about separation as it is about compatibility. There are churches that I will gladly preach in and sing in that I couldn't join their staff. Why? Well, their methodology is just too different from me. I was talking with a brother who has more of an inner city ministry with some specific ethnic groups. And I just wouldn't fit in there very much, but we love Jesus. I'm allowed to come there. It's not like I can't go. But for me to join their church staff just wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. Does that make sense, right? That's not a sin, that's a middle category. It's something that's important, but it's not the end of the world. I've listed a few other things here. How about how long to wait before you're baptized? All right, some churches, they trust Christ, boom, we're dunking you today. Other places, like how I grew up, it's about six months, because you go through, you wanna make sure they understand everything. I even wrote this down, and I wanna be very clear on this, but different people on the view on some of the sign gifts. Now follow me carefully here. I am what is called a cessationist. In other words, I believe that the gifts of healing, the gifts of tongues, those type of things were for a specific time period in order to authenticate that, yes, these are indeed God's men, right? And when the canon of Scripture was closed, we didn't need those things anymore. There's also something called the charismatic movement, which confuses, they don't even overemphasize the Holy Spirit. They misrepresent the Holy Spirit. There's a difference. But I say that to say this, that there are some people that teach, well, you've got to speak in tongues or you're not saved. Well, I'm walking over here because now you're moving into a funeral level category because God's word doesn't teach that. That you have to speak in tongues or do miracles, these sign gifts, et cetera. Some of you are nervous, just stick with me, okay? What I'm saying here is that if you go to particularly mission fields on the dark continent of Africa, One of the biggest threats to the gospel are people who completely misrepresent the Holy Spirit, and they're actually preaching either the word of faith gospel or prosperity gospel, and they're another gospel, both of them. Now you say, well then why did you bring it up? Because there are some old line Pentecostals, let me give you a name, Leonard Ravenhill. Leonard Ravenhill is probably the greatest author on the topic of revival that you'll ever read. How many of you have ever read Leonard Ravenhill? Oh, oh friends, please, there's gotta be more than four. Pick up, pick up any of his books. Your heart will be moved. He was old school Pentecostal. He basically believed that it was still possible for a biblical speaking in tongues. Now, biblical speaking in tongues was always a known language. It was never angelic speech, et cetera, none of that kind of stuff. And he was critical, strongly critical. of what would end up becoming the charismatic movement. You say, well, why are you bringing this up? Okay, there are people who believe that it's possible for God on the mission field to do a miracle in such a way that someone who's speaking a different language can understand the gospel. Now friends, that's a tough one for me because I really believe that all that type of stuff was done. But at the same time, do we believe, we don't believe that there's someone who has the gift of healing, but do we believe God still heals? Well, yes. Is God bound by my understanding? No. So how do I deal with this? Well, I'll tell you this, my great uncle's with the Lord. He pastored an old line Pentecostal church. What does that mean, he's not saved? No, he loved the Lord. I knew it, he had a strong testimony. Could I join his church? Well, no, absolutely not. Why? Because it's still an important issue. But I would share a prison cell with him. Do you follow what I'm saying? I gotta put my glasses on, I can't see anyone's faces. All right. Okay, there you are, all right, good, good, good. I'm trying not to confuse you. I'm trying to give you, this is tough for us sometimes in our churches because we tend to either do one of two things. We either lump everything over here or we put it all over here. In fact, for sake of time, we've got to move over here to this category. What about fusses? Fusses are things we make a lot of noise about that actually aren't that important. Well, like what, Brother Ben? I have a list because I preach this the exact same way everywhere I go. In fact, I have to back up one because I have to add this one in because it's super important. And that is on the fight category, one's view on how the sovereignty of God interacts with the free will of man. That's a big one, isn't it? I used to have it all figured out when I was a sophomore in Bible college. I had that, I had that licked. The more I'm in the ministry and the more I study the word of God, the more I realize I don't understand how this works. I personally balance myself towards man's responsibility because that's how it's preached in the word of God. Like you choose this day whom you will serve, et cetera. But that doesn't mean that there might not be someone over here that's a little bit more, dare I say Calvinistic, right? That still loves the Lord, but they just see things a little bit differently. Now, I also think you can get so Calvinistic that you end up saying God is the author of sin. Now you're in big trouble, because God's word clearly teaches against that. You can run so far on the other way, man's free will, that we kind of teach universalism, and that's not true either. There are ditches we gotta be careful of, but that doesn't mean we have to all be in the same lane. So I don't want anyone to leave here thinking, well, Ben's some kind of five point Calvin. No, no, no, no, no. I actually call myself a zero point Calvinist. Some of you understand what that means. Well, my point here this morning is to get us to think what category, how much energy do I spend here? All right, very quickly, we've got just enough time to get to the fusses. These are all real things that I got from different churches, different people who told me a story for each one of these things. By the way, how many of you have ever thought or heard, wouldn't it be nice if we just went back to the old days when there was just complete unity in our churches and no one ever fought about anything? And like, okay, well, we won't read it, but consider 1 Corinthians chapter eight. The whole chapter. 1 Corinthians chapter nine. The whole chapter. 1 Corinthians chapter 10, the beginning of the chapter. You know what he's dealing with there? Meat offered to idols. That was a first century issue that they were wrestling through. Do you realize, as long as we're on this side of glory, there will always be things that we won't find agreement on. It's just gonna be that way. Well, then how do we know what's in a fuss category? Well, those things that don't deserve our time. How about this, pews versus chairs? I see you have pews here. I'm so glad you're standing in the old paths. Should I look at the choir loft or not? But churches have been split over that. How about screens versus projector screens? Right, like, well, you've got both here. I see, all right, amen. Hey, there was a pastor, he told me this. This just happened a few years ago. Their projector went out. The bulbs used to cost so much money. Maybe they still do, I don't know. But they had a deal at Sam's Club, so he picked up two of those big screen TVs, and they put them up in the church. This was at his own expense, by the way. Well, a family came to him after Sunday morning service. They said, if you don't remove those, we're leaving your church. Now, I would have said, okay. Maybe that's why I'm not a pastor, right? Because you pastors have to deal with so much. He decided in his situation to go ahead and remove them when they went back to the projector bulb that was going out. That's a fuss. That's not even a fight. What about headset mic versus lapel mic? I'm an old school lapel mic person right here, amen? Brother Scott Paulie preached all week with a handheld microphone. I do that sometimes. Then you've got these worldly ones that come in front of your mouth. See? We know, that's a fuss, amen? How about windows in the church? There was a church that bought a building from an old Methodist church that had closed down. They had a bunch of stained glass windows in it. Desperately needed to be replaced. Well, they got in a huge fight over should we replace them or not? How about wallpaper in the nursery? Say, that can't be true. Okay, I'll tell you the story. There was a lady whose husband had passed away, and he left a significant amount of money to the church, and one of the things they used that money for was to put new wallpaper in the nursery. Almost a decade later, she was still alive and in the church, and they had a business meeting, and they needed to replace that wallpaper, because it was falling off the wall. She said, my husband died for that wallpaper. Whoa, that's a fuss. How about what corner of the piano should sit? Right? Well, you know, there was a pastor who wanted to switch it to the other side. I can't remember if it was because they're gonna put other instrumentalists over there or something. And some people said, no, you can't switch that. So instead of arguing about it, every Saturday night he came in. It was set up differently than your platform, obviously. Every Saturday night he moved in an inch. And it got to like here, before the people picked up on it, and then it became a joke, fortunately, and then he was able to move it the rest of the way. You might say, that's not even true. Not only is that story true, but this fall, I preached in the church, the week before I preached this exact message, I'm sorry, the month before I preached this exact message, they had switched the organ and the piano side, and a former organist, who's still in the church, refuses to play the organ because they switched sides. It's a fuss. Well, we would never be like that. Well, what about vacuum cleaners? I'm almost done here. You gotta hear these though. Vacuum cleaners, how could a vacuum, well, we ain't never gonna have a dirt devil in this church. It's even got the little tail on it. How about fake flowers versus real flowers? This is beautiful, by the way, this whole setting here. It's just beautiful, it's so beautiful. I took a picture of it and put it online here this morning. Said, I'm at Maranatha Baptist Church. Look at this beautiful setting here. I don't know how much of it is real or how much is artificial. It's just beautiful here. Some people can get all bent out of shape over whether or not we use real flowers or not. Here's my favorite one. What chicken vendor to buy from? What chicken vendor? See, what? Yeah. I mean, you've got in some places, I don't know what we have here, but I know down where we live, you got Popeye's. You have good old standard KFC. You got Church's Chicken. I mean, that's got like a vote for it already. Chick-fil-A doesn't count because they don't serve on Sundays, so you don't have to deal with that, right? One last one. I was at a church this fall. This fall, pastor said, I got one more for you. said this happened two years ago, the air conditioner went out in a particular place and so he bought out of his own money, he bought a replacement part and please forgive me, I don't understand everything about air conditioning, but he bought a replacement thing for it, but he bought it from the wrong supplier, vendor, yes, and a man in the church, still comes to the church, but won't speak to the pastor for the last two years, yeah. You know, as we close here this morning, I say these things and I'm glad they bring a chuckle to our mouths, right? But if you sit down and you actually start thinking about where our energy goes, it's actually kind of sad. Because we're not keeping the main thing the main thing so many times. Now listen friends, I know the history and the heritage that you have here. with just being faithful to the word of God, amen. But in our hearts, listen, we're coming up to Thanksgiving. We're gonna be around family. We're gonna be around friends. And the odds are that there's gonna be people we don't agree with. Well, choose your battles, right? If it's over here, Okay, think whatever you wanna think, that's okay. I'm not gonna spend the energy to battle over here. If it's here, hey, you know, it might be worth having a good discussion. For, you know, a pre-trip matters. It really does, because who you're looking forward to next influences how you live. If you're looking for Antichrist next, you're gonna live a certain way. If you're looking for Jesus Christ, you're gonna live a certain way. It's important. But then over here, I'll close with this illustration. There's a man that I really respect, even though we have a lot of differences. He actually was a soccer coach up at the former Northland Baptist Bible College back in the day. He gave this illustration. He married into a family that was mostly Muslim. Obviously his wife wasn't Muslim, she trusted Christ, but when they would get together for family reunions, He shared how often the, you know, it could be difficult. Let's just put it that way. But what really grieved him at one particular family reunion was how often his in-laws and his extended family on that side were taking the name of Jesus Christ in vain. They would just use his name over and over again. So he stepped out and did something that was really bold. He started saying, sweet Muhammad. Everything went silent. They came up to him and said, don't say that again. He said, now you understand how I feel. He risked a lot, but what was it for? He couldn't give the gospel. He didn't have much of a platform, but he felt led of the spirit to take a stand over here, even though he risked a lot. I respect him for that. I've not ever had to be in that particular situation. but He chose where to spend His time and His energy. You know what, friends, as we go from here this morning, I want us to be encouraged. Let's triage things correctly so that we can keep the main thing the main thing and keep serving our Lord. Let's pray, shall we? Dear Lord, thank You so much for the truth of Your Word. I pray that I've not been misunderstood this morning. There's so much about Your Word that it's like a weapon. you