Proverbs Week 2 | Whose Voice is Louder?

Sunday, January 14th | Beau Bradberry

"The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked, what is perverse." — Proverbs 10:32

–
Podcast: https://pod.link/willowridgechurch
Website: https://willowridgechurch.org
Instagram: https://instagram.com/willowridgechurch
Facebook: https://facebook.com/willowridgechurch
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@willowridgechurch

Creators and Guests

Host

Beau Bradberry

Senior Pastor

What is Willow Ridge Sermons?

Sermon audio from Sunday services at Willow Ridge Church.

Welcome to the Willow Ridge Sermons podcast.

This is where you can find audio from Sunday morning, messages and more.

Make sure you're subscribed so that you don't miss future episodes.

And thanks for listening.

Well, good morning.

If you have your bibles, and I hope you do, I want to invite you to join me in proverbs, chapter seven.

We're going to be kind of all over that section of proverbs from this week, so we not won't necessarily start there, but that kind of gives us a good point where we can flip really quickly as we read God's word together.

A couple of points of emphasis and then a challenge for you guys, our new members class.

If you're someone that's been here and you're looking into what it would be like to join our church, you've got more questions that you haven't come to us and asked us about these questions.

Wonderful.

We'd love to get you connected with that baptism.

We observe baptism with the Lord's Supper the first Sunday of every month.

And we would invite you.

If you're a follower of Jesus Christ and you've never been baptized, I strongly want to encourage you to be a part of that class that Pastor Dave is going to teach about.

What is baptism?

Why do we do this?

It is a bold profession.

Last week we were here and we saw Sam Nix get baptized.

And it was just one of the sweetest Sundays that we've had.

Just watching this little girl who's a little nervous in front of crowds just walk through and boldly proclaiming her faith in Christ and seeing her church family surround her and encourage her as we glorify God is absolutely beautiful.

And so I just want to challenge you.

I know sometimes with adults that we've talked to, you kind of feel like your season or your time has passed in your life to do something like that.

That baptism is something for little kids.

Let me just ask you, if you're struggling with that in your mind, can I just challenge you to not believe that lie of Satan?

All right.

And instead of using like this is something that kids do as an excuse, can we use them as the example.

Of what faith looks like as it's lived out?

So I just want to challenge you.

If that's where you are, come to the class.

We're going to talk about it.

You're not being forced into baptism.

If you come to the class, it's just an opportunity for us to share and then for you to have that.

And then also we got the men's dinner that's going to be coming up in February.

Now, we really want to challenge our guys.

As we looked at our discipleship model of what we have at our church, we talked about theological discipleship.

We talked about relational discipleship, but we also talked about missional discipleship, of what does it look like to bring someone who's not a follower of Christ into an environment that's different than a worship service?

You may be here and not a follower because your friend invited you, and that's great.

And we love that.

We want to encourage, like, hey, everybody, be asking people who you don't know to come to church with you.

It's a wonderful place to hear about Jesus, but for some lost people, I don't want to go gather in a worship service and get up early, but I know a lot of guys.

Hey, man, for $20, all you can eat shrimp and oysters.

I'm going to be honest with you.

I'm showing up that night.

My pants will have elastic around the waist.

I don't eat before I speak.

My stomach just gets in knots every time that I speak, and so I don't eat before I speak, but I'm not speaking that night.

And so I plan on, like, sweating oysters by the time I'm done.

Gross imagery right there, right?

But I just want to invite you guys.

Just be willing and, hey, do this.

Do this.

Don't charge them like you buy their ticket today.

You go buy your ticket.

Buy them a ticket.

You don't even may know who they are and begin to pray about who God would have you invite to do that.

And I can tell you, if finances are a problem, let me just tell you, we're going to blow out the budget.

All you can eat oysters and shrimp for $20 like that don't happen at.

Captain D's, all right?

And if finances are holding you back, don't let that be a reason to come talk to me.

Tim Scholl would love to have that conversation with you as well, Pastor Dave.

As well, to help you get connected.

Be a wonderful night for our guys.

And I want to echo what Berger said, and Berger and I are going to have a conversation later on about why he's behind in Proverbs.

We're just going to build into that accountability because I love him, and that's what we're gonna do.

But, hey, if you're like burger and you're behind, man, just join us.

Like, get on this journey with us as we're reading through proverbs together and study and it's just wonderful.

And I'm glad that we can do this together as a family.

And burger.

We'll just talk after service.

All right, so here you go.

Here you go.

As we get into this, I want to do this each week because I feel like sometimes, at least in my mind, and this is confession time for me, this is a struggle that when I'm preparing for a message, and rightfully so, it's like I go to God's word within this context, and it's all about, what is the point, God, that you would have me to share?

What's the point?

To teach others that I need to learn myself.

But there is something different when we sit down for our quiet time.

Right.

And for me, that's the case.

And so I'm treating proverbs as we get started in the new year, as my quiet time and what I'm teaching on Sunday morning, I want to keep those two things separately.

And so this is kind of accountability that I get to have with you this morning.

So I'm going to kind of share just some of the proverbs that I'm not necessarily going to teach on this morning, but that stuck out to me as God's working and moving in my life.

And so just bear with me as I kind of have this moment, moment with you guys for accountability sake.

Just me and the Lord this week, three that just set me proverbs nine, four through six.

Whoever is simple, let him turn in here.

I get that.

To him who lacks sense, she says.

Come eat of my bread and drink.

Of the wine I've mixed.

Leave your simple ways and live in the walk and the way of insight.

Right.

How good the wisdom of the Lord is and how it sustains us and nourishes us.

And it is good.

And I think sometimes we think a.

Walk with the Lord is like those.

Fruits and vegetables that we need to get by in life and like, no, the wisdom of the Lord is everything.

It's what we get to nourish us and sustain us.

But scripture even talks about in other areas where it's the sweetness and the goodness.

And so, yes, it is also like the ice cream at the end of it.

You know what I mean?

It's not just what's getting us, Bob, but it's what we're excited about within that as well.

Proverbs 1027 through 28.

The fear of the Lord prolongs life.

But the years of the wicked will.

Be short to fear God.

What it means is that it prolongs life is like your life is better.

Your life is better.

Your marriage is better.

Your relationships are better.

Like, when we submit to the wisdom of the Lord and we live in.

That, the world might look at our.

Circumstances and think differently, and sometimes our.

Circumstances will definitely still be difficult.

This is not one of those places that you come and you hear, like, if you follow Jesus, all your problems go away, because they don't.

But it is that.

That when we walk with Jesus in the midst of the circumstances that are there, we experience the benefit and the beauty of life that comes with life, with Christ.

Proverbs twelve one.

And I feel like if there was, like, a footnote that God could have put there, it had been like, hey, bo, this is for you.

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid, right?

I don't know, but there's times in my life where it's like, maybe I.

Don'T really want to experience discipline right.

Now, but to experience this and to love this is to love knowledge, right?

And that when we hate it, when God blesses us with other individuals in our life that speak into areas of our life that we need to listen to, right?

Like, all of us need people to call us out in the grace and the truth of Jesus Christ.

And it would be really great if I could say up here that every.

Time I'm corrected, I just love it, right?

But I don't.

And when I don't love it, right, I'm just being stupid.

I'm just being stupid.

And that in that, what I need to draw to is the love and the discipline that God has for me, for the knowledge of his word.

And it's just been a beauty just in my quiet times this week, just.

Kind of drawing those out.

Well, how I'm approaching this study as we work through is I'm reading all the week that we have.

I told Dave this week.

I was like, I don't really know what I was signing myself up for when I committed to doing this.

So instead of reading the chapter each day when it comes to study, I have to read all of what we're doing throughout the course of the week.

So every day it's proverbs six through 13.

Proverbs six through 13.

Proverbs six through 13.

As we're working on this message, quiet time, just a chapter, but doing this.

And I tell you that because as I was reading this week, all through all of them, I started highlighting and writing in my journal that I have that there just seemed to be this imagery that continued to jump out to me that God would use through Solomon in his word of talking about the imagery of voice or speaking just over and over and over again.

As I read, there seemed to be a lot of proverbs that refer to, like, voice or that have the word speech or in the illustration that it used.

And so sometimes proverbs paints a picture of something like, this isn't a proverb, but the phrase that we used, like, I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.

That's not literally what we're talking about.

I'm not going to go eat a horse.

But the picture is that I'm extremely hungry.

And as the picture is painted, the words that would use me lips or the word mouth, and I just noticed, like, every single one, as I went through every single day, I would just see this over and over and over again.

Here are just a couple that I saw.

I'll get us kind of going this morning.

Proverbs 813.

The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil, pride, and arrogance in the way of evil and perverted speech.

There it is.

I hate.

That was one.

Proverbs 913, which is painting a picture.

Of Folly and what Folly is in chapter nine, says, the woman, folly is loud, she is seductive and knows nothing.

That's powerful.

The woman Folly is loud, she is seductive and knows nothing.

And so that was kind of the landing point for me this week.

When I read 913 on Tuesday morning, it was like, okay, what are you doing with this?

When we think of proverbs, when we look at this, looking at 913, wisdom, when you're in, fine.

As you read through this, wisdom is always from God and is always positive.

But foolishness is never from God and always negative.

Sometimes we can use words in the english language that mean something different.

And oftentimes being full is connected with negativity.

But sometimes we can look at that as kind of just letting your hair down, just kind of being okay, just kind of going with the flow of things.

But in proverbs, that's never the case here.

When you see Folly is going to be a symbolic character.

In proverbs, that will come up from time to time.

And this figurative symbolic character will be always one to appeal to the desires of the simple, the naive, or the foolish people.

And Folly's desire is to take these people and stray them from the right path, singular, into paths, plural, that lead to death.

When we see Folly written like this, capitalized, this is what we understand.

And what proverbs 913 tells us about Folly is that she is seductive.

So when we think of Folly, when we think of sin wanting to bring us from the path that God has for us onto multiple paths that are there, that are available, the first thing that we see in proverbs is that it's seductive.

Sin is tempting.

And it is tempting because there's something about that sin that appeals to us.

If sin wasn't appealing, we wouldn't struggle.

With it, but doesn't say that sin is a struggle.

It says that sin is seductive, because when we see it, we think, oh, that's good.

That's what I need.

That's what I want.

That's what's right for me.

It's seductive.

It appeals to the flesh.

It appeals to the desires.

Oftentimes, it's gratifying in the moment.

But proverbs says that folly is seductive.

But folly knows nothing literally, like it said before in the one that I read, that she is stupid.

It means that folly is waste.

It's cast out, that it junks up the life, that it's destructive of what's there.

And this is this divide that we wrestle with, that when we see sin, we feel the seductive nature of it.

Oftentimes, we know the foolishness and the destruction that comes with it, but we still fall into the path.

And I love the words that began.

Because she is loud is what the Bible says.

The Bible teaches us that folly is all of these things, but that folly is also loud.

Proverbs nine wasn't the first time that sin is described this way in proverbs seven, verses ten and eleven.

It's specifically the imagery that's being painted here is specifically concerning sexual sin.

It says, and behold, the woman meets.

Him dressed as a prostitute.

Wily of heart.

She is loud and wayward.

Her feet do not stay at home.

And here again, what do we see?

We see the seductive nature of sin.

We see the foolishness of sin.

We see the proactive working of sin.

We see sin working and moving to try to draw those who were onto a different path.

But once again, what we see is the description of sin.

Is loud.

Is loud.

So why would scripture, in all of the things that.

In the ways that it would describe sin, why would it describe it as loud?

Because what's loud is, oftentimes, what we listen to.

Loud is what distracts us.

Loud is what pulls us away.

Loud is what takes us from what.

We'Re fixated on and moves us to something else.

Early on in our marriage, Aaron and I bought a little townhome in Aiken, South Carolina.

When we got married.

We were about five years into our marriage before we had kids.

And so if you're young and married, let me tell you something that you have the ability to do.

It's called sleep, right?

And stay up late.

You could do that.

We did that.

We'd stay up to like one or 02:00 in the morning, like watching dvds.

That's another conversation about how old we are.

And then we'd go to bed and I remember waking up 1112, right?

And I remember sleeping through things.

Now we hear a slight creak in the house and it's like, where are the kids going?

What are they doing?

Who's in our house?

We have an alarm system.

We get it right, but we're there.

I'll never forget, we were in bed.

We were asleep.

Let me back up a little bit.

Y'all know my construction skills aren't the best.

This condo, we had one closet.

One closet, which, let's just say that was a point of tension in our house when we moved, and I'm not putting that on my wife.

All right, do not hear me incorrectly.

When we moved into our most recent house, we had some people that have been small group with us and they came and they were helping us.

And these two ladies drew the bad straw of putting together my closet.

It was remarkable.

We got moved into our house within like 5 hours.

And they drew of unpacking the boxes.

And hanging up my clothes.

And as they were getting ready to.

Leave, one of them looked at me and said this.

I've never seen a man with as.

Many clothes as you.

It that's it.

Here we are.

Here we are.

But we had one closet, so that was a point of tension.

And it just had like one set of racks that went around.

It was enough for like half of mine, but not enough for all of Erin's either.

So I said, hey, babe, one day.

I'm going to put up shelves.

I'll install them.

She said, okay.

So I hung up shelves.

I hung up all of our clothes.

She walked in, I beamed with masculinity.

Look what I built.

Look what I did.

I'm your husband, right?

She was proud of me.

And we hung up all of our clothes.

That night we went to bed.

Then about 03:00 in the morning, we heard boom.

Shelves came down.

All of our stuff came down, holes in the wall.

We laughed.

I felt like one was laughing at me, one was laughing at the situation.

A few weeks ago, I was doing some things in our.

We needed more space in our attic, right?

Because of our 75 Christmas boxes.

So I decided, you know what?

I'm going to hang shelves in our garage.

And so I went out and hung up shelves.

Four different rows of shelves.

All good.

All there.

They're still standing.

Still standing, right.

Four weeks later.

Yay, Bo.

Right.

I appreciate that.

Thank you for that encouragement.

Thank you for that encouragement.

But Erin walked out.

There's all of her Christmas boxes with breakable things on the shelf.

And she looked at me with pride in her eyes, and then she went back to that 21 year old bride that she was some years ago, and she looked at me with kindness and compassion in there, and she goes, these are good, right?

These are good.

They're not going to fall.

Not going to fall?

No.

What's the point of the story?

I don't know at this point what we're even talking about anymore.

No.

Just kidding.

In the dead of sleep, we could sleep through anything.

But the loudness of that crash woke us up.

And oftentimes, what we find is that sometimes, oftentimes, many times, the loudest thing in your life is sin.

And every time it calls out, every time it claps their hands in front of you, every time it screams, you move your focus off of the Lord and onto it.

And we just saw.

It's seductive, it's enticing, it's appealing to the flesh.

God knows this.

What you see in the Old Testament, in deuteronomy six four through five, God.

Speaks to his people.

He says, hear, listen, o Israel.

Let me be loud right now.

The Lord our God is one.

You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might.

Joshua, Joshua 39 says, and Joshua said to the people of Israel, come here and listen.

Listen to the words of the Lord your God.

God says through the prophet Isaiah to.

His people in Isaiah 40 812, listen to me, o Jacob, and Israel, whom I called, I am he, I am the first, I am the last.

Listen, listen.

Let God be this voice in your life.

The parable of the sower.

We're not getting into all of the parable, but Jesus in Matthew 13 nine ends the parable by saying, he who has ears, what?

Let him hear.

Let him hear.

Sin is loud because sin needs you to listen.

And when we listen to sin, when we're tuned in to the seductive nature of sin, when we're listening out for it, we give into it.

So the question for us, as we lead through this, is then, how do you listen?

How do you listen?

Do you listen by the flesh, the sinful nature that you're wrestling with?

Or do you listen by the spirit, the spirit of God that indwells in every believer?

A question that I wrote for myself.

And my life is a question that.

I want to share with you this morning is, in your life whose voice is louder.

It's in your life whose voice is louder when sin's voice is louder?

Here's what proverbs teaches us.

Proverbs 722 through 23.

All at once.

This is in the adultery.

All at once he follows her.

When we listen by the flesh, all at once he follows her.

And then look at the imagery.

As an ox goes to the slaughter or as a stag is caught fast, till an arrow pierces its liver, as a bird rushes into a snare, he does not know that it will cost him his life.

When the flesh is louder than the spirit, whose voice are we listening to?

What?

When it's by the flesh?

What proverbs teaches us.

We're enticed.

We're enticed.

The picture of the ox.

No man.

Is going to go within himself and grab the ox and say, this is where we go.

So why does the ox go?

Because the ox is enticed.

What then happens?

We're controlled by what entices us.

It appeals.

And then we give in.

And like a mindless creature, we then follow.

And then what happens in every single one of these?

Where does it lead them to?

To their destruction.

Over and over and over again.

But God's word's good, God's faithful, God.

Works and gives us his spirit and God's word.

Jesus says, when we listen to the spirit, listen.

John 1613.

When the spirit of truth comes, he.

Will guide you into all the truth.

For he will not speak on his own authority.

Whatever he hears, he will speak.

And he will declare to you the things that are come.

The spirit will guide us.

The spirit will draw us.

The spirit will direct us when we allow it to be the loudest that is in our lives.

And as a Christian, Jesus'promise.

To us, we talked about this, that what we see in scripture.

John 1027.

My sheep.

This picture that we are the sheep.

And that he is the shepherd.

Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

That the spirit of God gives us.

The ability to hear.

And we know the shepherd, and we trust the shepherd because we followed the shepherd.

We know who the shepherd is.

And we know that the shepherd lays down his life, and we know every.

Fiber of who it is.

And he knows us.

He knows us.

And that in this we follow him and the goodness of who he is to the path that he has for us, for the wisdom in our lives.

We said this last week that when we look at proverbs, that proverbs are not promises, they're principles.

But I promise the principle is true.

When we look at what is here and what we find, if we listen to the voice of flesh, of sin that is loud and it is enticing that day, it doesn't cost, but it leads.

Remember, it talked about that?

It leads to a path, and it leads to a path of destruction.

Destruction of joy, destruction of peace, destruction of relationships, and even many times for many different people, the destruction of life, of the path that it'll bring him to.

But Jesus says, no, my path, of what I have, it brings to us as life.

So what happens within this when we look at these concepts of God's word, of what he has for us and implying God's word now to our words.

Because God's word, God's voice, is powerful for us.

And in this imagery of lips and speech, it's what we listen and what we follow.

But God's word calls us then to be the example on the path that we are following.

That's the part of what we do.

That's the part of who we are.

You see, to walk with the Lord is not simply just to do what God has for us to do as we've surrendered him.

There is the obedience of that as well.

But what we see also in proverbs was that in us, as we've experienced the words and the truth of life, of what it does with our words, of what we say, is the other part of what we see in proverbs.

So when we look at these proverbs 1011, the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence, the righteous person in Christ.

Here's what we can do with our mouth.

Here's what we can do with our words.

We speak life to ourselves, and we.

Speak life to others.

That's who we're called to be.

That's the message that we have.

We share the gospel with others, and we remind ourselves of the gospel.

We speak peace to others, and we remind ourselves the peace of God.

We speak joy and hope and love to others, and we're reminded of the joy, the hope and the love that's in our life as well.

The righteous from the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life.

But the mouth of the wicked, it conceals, you see, it's sneaky about it.

It conceals the violence.

The wicked man speaks death or hurt with their words, and then therefore, they take away life.

I just want to ask you this week, what did your words communicate?

What did your words share?

Were you a person of life or were you a person of death?

Proverbs 1021, the lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of sense.

Right?

A reminder here.

The righteous word, what does it bring?

Brings life.

Continuation of this right we talk about.

If you hear something multiple times, there's a reason for that, right?

Extremely important.

But what happens with those who don't listen?

What happens with those who don't heed what they're hearing, what they know to be true, but still choose to do differently anyways, here's what means.

You're accountable.

I'm accountable for the words that we say, for the death that we bring, for the opportunity.

When we have to choose hope and encouragement and love and instead bring pain and death and destruction.

We'Re accountable.

Proverbs 1031 and 32.

The mouth of the Righteous brings forth.

Wisdom, but the perverse tongue will be cut off.

The lips of the righteous know what's acceptable.

But the mouth of the wicked, what is perverse.

A person's heart is revealed in their words.

Right.

You ever had that moment where you've just said something right?

Like, that filter was more of a.

Basketball net than a filter, and in that moment, you say, ooh, I don't know where that came from.

Me too.

Me too.

Came from your heart.

Came from your heart.

This is a person's heart, is often revealed in their words and what we have.

Because we know the shepherd, we know his voice, we've got the spirit of God in us.

We know what is good and is right to say.

And again, the person that uses the ungodly right, God knows their heart also.

Lastly, proverbs 1112, whoever belittles speaks poorly.

Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense.

But a man of understanding remains silent.

The way of wisdom was love and respect.

Let that our hearts.

Let that be our hearts in our words.

I'm not saying we have to agree with.

I'm not saying we have to affirm.

But I am saying that when God calls us into a world, when God places us around people, that we as followers of Christ, our position should be one of love and respect.

We don't have to agree.

We don't have to affirm, but we can love and we can respect.

But a man of understanding remains silent.

And sometimes we need to practice a trait that has been lost.

Have you heard the expression hot take?

I remember there used to be.

I don't remember if it's still a show anymore.

There used to be a tv show.

For those of you who like sports.

Maybe it's still there, or not, I don't know.

Called pardon the interruption.

And the whole point of the tv show was hot takes.

We want to say things that are shocking.

We want to say things that are controversial.

We want to say opinions that are loud and big and will shock everyone.

And it was with the mindset that this.

That everyone wants to know and hear my opinion on everything.

And then now I believe that this is what is predominantly every news channel, talk show, whatever.

Here's the problem.

Sometimes we, as believers, miss the back part of verse twelve.

But a man of understanding remains silent.

And we miss the spiritual gift that God gives us.

Through the power of his holy spirit.

To end moments.

Just bite our tongue and just show love and just show respect.

Don't misinterpret what I'm saying.

We are people of truth.

We know truth.

We've been given truth.

We've been told to go and share truth about who Jesus is, about what Jesus wants to do.

And we're called to share it with people who don't believe it, who don't know it and have never heard it.

And sometimes, when we share it with them.

The truth of the gospel as it works and moves in their life.

Is offensive to their sinful spirit.

And it's good when that happens.

Because what begins to battle in them is the work of what God wants to do.

And they've got to wrestle with that.

But sometimes we can get ourselves into the foolishness of the things of this world.

That just don't matter.

In the escape of eternity.

For that, it's like sometimes we should just bite our tongue.

So that when I do share about who Jesus is, when I do share what God has for them, what have they experienced from me?

The love and respect.

It's the fine line that we see that Jesus walks.

Jesus loves and respects everyone that he encounters.

But you know what Jesus doesn't do?

Never once says, and Jesus walked through the town.

Shouldn't do that.

I know better than you.

Sinner, lost person.

Can't believe you.

Look at you, you moron.

Right?

Like, that's not Jesus.

Now, there were times, right, there were times Jesus with the pharisees, they'd come.

To him and he'd hit him with.

The truth of God.

There were times Jesus even looked at those who were closest to him, I believe.

Peter, get behind me.

Satan is what he says, but all covered in the truth of who he is and his love and his desire that they follow him.

I guess what I'm saying is, make sure in your life what screams louder is the gospel and not your opinion on everything else.

I know that's one for me.

I want to close with this, to go back to the question that we began with at the very beginning of.

This message in your life, whose voice is louder?

The voice of sin and the voice of the spirit.

How do you know what's coming from your mouth?

And what does that say about your heart?

Would you pray with me, God?

I come to you today, Lord, and there's so many distractions.

There's so many opportunities, Lord, for us to be captivated by the loudness, the seductive nature of the folly of the foolishness of the sin of this world.

But, Lord, I pray that we would be people that would walk in the power of your spirit, listening to you seeking and desiring our shepherd, listening to your voice and the guidance of your spirit.

And that, Lord, that in that relationship would be reflective in the words that we say.

That, Lord, we would be people of truth and love, that our words would show not a self righteousness, but your righteousness imparted to us.

That we don't stand as a Pharisee bragging on what we've done.

But, Lord, we stand as a sinner who's been saved by the grace of God and who's now a saint in the family of God.

This would be what marks us, Lord, may we speak from the overflow of the heart for you, for your love and your kindness, your compassion, your truth, Lord, in times, your confrontation, what you give us, Lord, may we not be so fixated on the hot take of our opinion, but, Lord, may we be fixated on the truth of your word.

God, I pray.

I pray for conversations that we're going to have this week.

Every single one of us is going to have an encounter with multiple people who do not know you.

And, Lord, may we listen to you not just in those moments, but in every moment, so that we would speak by the spirit of God, that our words would bring truth and hope and love and peace and kindness and compassion.

And encouragement in proclaiming who Christ is.

And Lord, that's not weakness.

That's strength.

That's strength.

God, in a world looking for an.

Argument, may we bring him a savior.

In a world looking for confrontation, may.

We bring compassion of Christ.

We ask all this in the name of Jesus.

Thanks again for listening, and be sure to check back next week for another episode.

In the meantime, you can [e-mail] or by searching for Willowridge Church on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.