Morgan Teruel: Thanks for tuning in to the Sandals Church podcast. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. We're glad you're here, and we hope you enjoy this message.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown: Hi, guys, and welcome to Sandals Church. We're in this series called Old Rules for New Life. And today, if you're just joining us, there's gonna be an extraordinary challenging rule, but it's one that if you apply to your life, it will bless your life. Whenever you talk about honor in our culture, it's a very, very difficult thing because we do not live in a culture of honor. But I want you to be thinking about and praying about the effect of honor on your life.
Because if you do this, man, you are literally inviting the blessings of heaven to your life on earth. So here's rule number 5, a culture of honor, listen to this, blesses everyone who lives in it. A culture of honor blesses everyone who lives in it. Now think about the reverse. What would happen if we had a culture of cursing?
Right? Kinda like your neighborhood. Amen. Right? It curses everyone in it.
And so that's what's happening in our culture. We we don't bless one another. We don't honor one another. We're cursing one another and it's cursing our culture. So this is gonna be a challenging challenging, verse and rule for many of us, but it's one that God wants you to learn to master so that ultimately he can bless you with all kinds of blessings.
So remember last week the principle of the Sabbath, this long long almost tedious specific command. This week is really really short. It's Exodus 2012. It's only 1 verse. Honor your father and mother that your days may be long in the land that the lord your god is giving you.
That's it. One sentence. So here's what I wanna challenge you to do today. I don't want you to worry about anybody else. I don't want you to focus on anybody else.
I want you to let god speak to you through his holy spirit. So here's my challenge. Number 1, I must strive to be a person who is honorable, wait for it, in a world with despicable people. K? Not everyone is despicable, but some people are.
You know, Proverbs talks about the fool. Man, we gotta deal with foolish people all the time. But there are wicked people, and we should stay away from those people. So how can I be honorable as a person in a world with dishonorable and and and just horrible, despicable people? Right?
We oftentimes overfocus on them, and we fail to see ourselves. So here's what the apostle Paul says in 2nd Corinthians chapter 8 verse 21. He said, we are careful. Stop there. Listen to this.
We are careful, he says, to be honorable before the Lord. You know what he's talking about? He's talking about the collections of offerings. Don't you wish more churches were careful to be honorable with the money that they received? K.
We we wanna do that at Sandals Church. We wanna be careful with the money that we received. We wanna do that, and here's one of the things I love about Sandals Church. Sandals Church is 25 years old, scandal free. You've never heard about us in the news.
You've never heard anything about that. We bring in outside auditors. Why? Because we are careful to handle the money that we receive. Now not everyone is careful, but here's the good news.
We, you, me, we're not responsible for everyone. K? Whenever I see a church in the news, I just say, thank god that ain't my church. Amen? Because listen to me.
God doesn't hold me accountable for all churches. He holds me accountable for this church. Now listen to me. God's not gonna hold you accountable for everyone else's finances, but he is gonna hold you accountable for yours. So we are careful, he says, to be honorable before the Lord.
But we also want everyone else to see that we are honorable. So sometimes people say this. Well, it's just I just care what God says. Well, God says he cares what everyone else says about your life. So if everyone's criticizing criticizing your life and, like, oh, I just live for God.
God's going, no. You need to listen to these other people because they think you're a jerk. So we need to live our lives not just caring about God. Right? Was that why?
I just live for an audience of 1. Okay. But if everyone else in the audience thinks you got a problem, maybe god does too. So listen to both. Listen to what James says.
James says, if you are wise, and I don't know if you are, I pray that you are, and you understand god's ways and you may not, he says prove it. That's tough. Right? Prove it by living an honorable life, by doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. Listen, I don't know when you're gonna die.
I don't know how much time you have, but I know this. When you die, the reputation you have is the one you've earned, and I want that to be an honorable reputation. I want you to live an honorable life. Listen, I cannot control how wealthy I am. I cannot control how famous I am.
I can control my integrity. That's one thing that's totally in my in in my in in my control. I can't control what other people do to me or say about me, but I can control how I respond to them when they say bad things about me. You see, so many of us today, we are overwhelmed with life because we are overwhelmed with what everyone else is doing, and we fail to take in account. What am I doing?
What am I doing? Proverbs 224 says this. Humility and the fear of the Lord bring wealth and honor and life. God wants to bless you, but you gotta say, you know what? I wanna be an honorable person.
I mean, think about it in school. Everyone asks kids what they wanna be, but nobody says, do you wanna be honorable? So you can have influence and be despicable. Oftentimes, people of wealth, power, and influence are not good people. God wants you to be a good person.
God wants you to be an honorable person. And so that's what this command is all about. In God's house, in God's family, we honor one another. We're building a culture of honor. Number 2, I can become a person of honor by honoring, listen to this, those that are closest to me.
I wonder why you think God said honor your father and mother. You see, it's the most difficult to honor those who are closest to us. Look, if you're single, let me just help you out with marriage is. Here's what marriage is. Because I know you're curious.
You know, tell me, pastor, what is marriage? Marriage is going through life experiencing the very best of someone and the very worst of someone. Okay? You are more aware of your spouse's breath than you are anyone else. Right?
Proximity gives you an upfront seat to the very best and the very worst of people. So why would God say why of all the things that God chooses for you to honor, why why would he start with your parents? Because they're the closest to you. And if you can't honor your parents, you can't honor anyone, including yourself. You ever wondered why Jesus said this in Matthew 1357?
And they took offense at him, but Jesus said to them, listen to this, only in his hometown and in his own house, this is Jesus, is a prophet without honor. You see, the closer we are to someone, the easier it is to criticize them. My wife has a favorite pastor. It's not me. She likes this guy.
She listens to this. When this guy speaks, my wife hears god. She doesn't hear from god when I speak, but when this guy speaks and we're at a conference. Right? And she said she said this is what my wife said.
She said, I don't wanna meet him. I don't wanna talk to him. I don't want you to make me meet him. I don't want you to make me talk to him. Guess who invited us to their table for lunch?
This pastor. I turn around. Tammy was gone. Just gone. And here's why.
She was afraid that he's not everything she believes him to be. Right? So when we keep somebody on a pedestal, we have to keep them far away from us. That's what we do. But as soon as you get close to somebody, like if you and I meet for the first time, it's always awkward.
You, like, might cry. You might shout. It's weird. You know, the 3rd time you met me, you're like, what's up? Right?
It's just it's just you don't care anymore. That's the way it goes. You see, what happens is if you and I get to know each other, I'm not on stage anymore. I'm just normal. And then you begin to notice, oh, well, you know, he doesn't always have a snazzy jacket.
Right? You know? I mean, some of you guys see me in the grocery store, like, what happened to pastor Matt? You know? But what happens is the closer we get, we we begin to see people's flaws.
And then all of a sudden we we disrespect them and we dishonor them. You see, the reason it's hard for you to honor your mother and father is you've experienced the very best of them, and you remember every promise they broke. You remember everything that they were a hypocrite about. You may not remember all the times they said they loved you, but boy, you can remember when they said they hate you or they're angry at you. Isn't that amazing?
And so that's why honor starts with honoring your mother your mother and father. Because they are deeply flawed people, and they had an incredibly difficult job. You think it was easy to raise you? The Holy Spirit's going, it wasn't. So, listen.
You need to begin by honoring your father and mother, because if you can't do that, you won't be able to honor Jesus if he preached in our church. Right? Who are the people? Isn't this the same Jesus? Right?
We saw him walk. We we saw him learn to read. Like, we we saw him. This can't be God's one and only son, because he's too close to us. And sometimes when we're super close to someone, we fail to see the beauty and power of God.
That's why I think we cry so much at funerals, because I think funerals remind us we miss some things, and we say things at funerals we should have said when they were alive. Exodus 2012. Honor your your father and mother that your days may be long. Listen to me. God is warning you.
God is warning you. He will not tolerate dishonor in the land that the Lord your God has given you. So you have to decide, is your house, is your home, is it the land that God has given you or not? Now let me say this. Some of you grew up in homes with abusive parents.
Some of you were raised by wolves. Some of you were not raised at all. Amen? Honor is not pretending someone was good. That's what my mama used to say.
If you don't have something good to say, then don't say anything. Listen, you can say this. My mother or my father was not honorable. You can say that. Honor is not pretending, listen to me, that someone is safe.
Someone asked me this question last week. They said my dad is dying. He's very sick, but he was abusive to me. Do I need to go visit him in the hospital? What what do you think I said?
I said you need to pray about it. You shouldn't be guilted. You shouldn't have to go. You shouldn't be forced to go. Here's what she said.
She said, but my 2 brothers are going. I said, were they abused? You see, her father was different to her as a daughter than he was to his boys as young men. Honor is not getting into the cage with a gorilla. That is not honor.
That's foolishness. And so I told her, pray about it. Ask God about what you should do. We gotta be careful in what we tell people to do. Some of you are too quick to tell people to reconcile if it wasn't your pain, if it wasn't your suffering, if you didn't go through the abuse.
Sometimes as the church, we're too flippant with grace. We're too flippant with forgiveness, and we need to give people time to process that. So here's the thing is, if your parents were just everyday normal parents, honor them, honor them, honor them because God has called you to that. And if your parents were abusive or awful, just just be quiet about it. And just say if somebody probes or somebody asks, my father or my mother was not honorable in the way they raised me, and stop.
Number 3, I can become a person of honor by honoring those who are around me. Right? So we start with those who are closest to me. My mother, my father. Listen to this.
My brother, my sister, my cousins. Some of you come from blended families. My stepsister, my stepbrother, I honor them. And then I move out, and I honor those around me, those at work. First Peter 217, show proper respect to who?
Everyone. So when everybody's at the coffee pot slaughtering the one person who's not present, what do you do? You don't jump in. You don't talk about them. And let me tell you something I'm learning.
If people will talk about somebody when they're not there, when you leave, guess who they're talking about? You. You. Don't be a part of that. Listen to me.
You are dishonoring God when you gossip about someone else. Stop it. Romans 12:10. Be devoted to one another. Think about that.
We live in a culture that's not devoted to anyone or anything but themselves. Be devoted to one another. How? In brotherly love. You see, that's what we're trying to build here at Sandals Church.
We're trying to build a culture where we honor one another. And some of you well, I wasn't raised in a family that honored. Okay. Well, God wants to raise you in a new family where he teaches you how to honor. And one of the things you need to understand, you some of you've never understood this.
The reason Jesus Christ died for you on the cross is there's something honorable about you you cannot see. There was something worthy about you, about about the blood of Jesus in your life. Now you may not know what that is. I may not know what that is, but God knows what it is. And let me say this.
There's something honorable about that person that you can't stand. You don't know their story. You don't know their brokenness. You don't know their wounds. You don't know their struggles.
You're not their therapist, so quit acting like it. Ain't it amazing how smart we all are for everyone else's lives? What let me just ask you. What if all this wisdom that you have in abundance for everyone else? Like, you're you're a wisdom dispensary.
Right? You're just like, you get wisdom, you get wisdom, and you get wisdom. What if you took all that wisdom that's overflowing for everyone else and you applied it to yourself? It'd be amazing. Listen, honor one another above yourselves.
Here's the thing I've learned. It's always better to talk with a person than about a person. Always. It's part of the reason I think our our our country is so vile. It's so easy to tear someone apart on Twitter.
It's so difficult to do that in person. People are so brave online. So brave online. I've run into some of you that have said some things about me on social media, and we're in the grocery store and I said, hey. I'd like to talk to you about that comment.
And you're like, what comment? Oh, did your did your page get hacked too? Oh, okay. Okay. Right.
But it's amazing how brave and bold we are from the safety of our own house with our fingers. But then when you actually sit down with somebody and you say, hey. Let's talk this through. It's amazing how people are like, oh, you misunderstood. I misunderstood that I'm a total absolute 100% moron?
Explain explain that to me because I thought a 100% meant 100%. So we need to be really, really careful. Number 4, I can become a person of honor by honoring those who have authority over me. Now this is really hard for many of you, but let me say this. If no one has authority over you, then Jesus doesn't have any part of you.
I'm gonna say that again because some of you, you just I just knocked all the wind out of you as an American. I'm American. If no one has authority over you, then Jesus doesn't have any part of you. The kingdom of Satan has no authority. The kingdom of God has authority.
And we all are under authority. Matter of fact, Jesus says this, the greatest faith he ever saw was from a non Jewish general who said, you didn't have to come to my house. Just say it, and it will be so. And Jesus said this. He said, I have not seen faith like this in all of Israel.
Why? Because this general understood authority. He understood it. 1st Timothy 31, this is a trustworthy saying. If someone aspires, think about this, to be a church leader, He desires an honorable position.
Now let me just share this with you as your pastor. There's an epidemic of of young people who do not want to serve as pastors and teachers in the church. This is happening everywhere in every church. Young people do not want to serve god as full time pastors, teachers, and ministers. And do you know why I believe that is partially?
Because we have not treated it as an honorable position. Some of you parents, if your child said, I think I'm called the full time ministry, you would try to talk them out of it. That breaks the heart of God. There was a time in our culture where we referred to pastors as reverence, which comes from the English word reverence. Let me just ask you this.
Where where are the leaders going to come from? Where are the pastors going to come from? And let me just ask you, why would someone step into a job that pays less and has more stress? That's what young people are saying. That's what young people are saying.
And let me say this to many of you who are in our church, and I say this in love. I know that you're sad your kids don't come to church anymore. Maybe it has something to do with how you spoke about the pastor and the church. Remember last week? Our kids know what we talk about.
So we tell them on the one hand, they should go to church, and they should honor pastors, and on the other hand, we criticize the church, and we tear down our pastors. What are our kids going to do? They're not going to listen to what we say. They're watching what we do. And so I've been convicted about this, super convicted about this.
When I was a kid and I went to church, they used to give invitations to follow Christ, which, you know, we still do at Sandals Church. They also gave invitations to full time ministry. The Holy Spirit has convicted me on this. We as a church have to honor pastors and call kids to full time ministry. Because they're only gonna know it's an option when we let them know it is.
And then as a church, we all need to clap and cheer when people say, you know what? I'm gonna say no to myself. I literally just tried to recruit somebody yesterday, just yesterday, and they work for Microsoft. Yeah. You know what that means?
I got nothing. And here's what I said. Look, I can promise you about half the pay, But twice the love, baby. Come on now. Come on.
That was my pitch. And they said no. Because because other jobs and not not all jobs. I know some of you I know some of you have very difficult jobs. But most jobs, you get to go home.
Ministry is not a job. It's a lifestyle. And it goes with you everywhere you are. When I'm at the gym, people always interrupt my workout with these words. I don't want to interrupt your workout but Which is okay.
It's okay. Right? Because I'm not just a minister when I clock in. I became a minister when I answered the call. And it's hard on my wife, it's hard on my kids, but we are in desperate need of ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ in America.
And it's terrifying. It's terrifying what's happening to the local church. First Timothy 5 17. The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy, listen to this, of what? Do you see it?
Double honor. As a church, we just need to confess. We've given them double criticism. I was in, the gym the other day, and somebody was criticizing their pastor. And I think they thought they would find some some welcoming ears, and I said, you just need to stop right now because that is a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he is anointed by god, and I need you to stop.
And what he said was, oh, I didn't mean to be dishonoring. I said, but you are. So stop. So stop. Now that's not to say that we just turn a blind eye to some of the hypocrisy, some of the abuse.
I mean, those things need to be dealt with, but we need to have honor. I recently had an encounter with a pastor that was not good. It was not good. I don't believe this person should be in ministry. I don't I don't I wouldn't let this person watch my dog.
K? But you know what? It's not my church. It's not my problem, and I had to step out. And here's what I told our executive pastor because it it got pretty ugly.
Here's what I said. I said, we will not be accountable for his leadership or that church. I said, but he is the lord's anointed. So I will not take him out. God can.
And I had to step back. I just step back because I I have to honor him. Why is that? Listen to me. This is this is this is hard but true.
I must honor the position when I cannot honor the person. This is what our culture's lost. We honor the position even if we can't honor the person. This is how we treat police, doctors, politicians, and ministers. You wanna know what's wrong with our country?
Listen. People blow it. People make mistakes. Some people are evil and despicable. As Christians, we create a culture of honor.
So do I agree with that pastor? Do I think he should be in charge? Absolutely not. I will not harm the lord's anointed, and I stepped out. I had to step out.
Listen to me. Sometimes, you gotta step out. Here's what our world loves to do. They love to step in and criticize everyone and everything. God's called you to a different calling.
He's called you to a different level. He wants you to be an honorable person. Listen, if he wanted you to be like everybody else, he never would have called you to be holy because that means separate. That means different. Sometimes, man, it's it's really hard to honor positions, isn't it?
Because people are so despicable and so bad. We're in this series in Exodus. I wonder if we could take a survey. How many of us thought pharaoh was honorable? I don't think he was.
He was a terrible leader that put his own pride over the safety of his people. He slaughtered. He intentionally murdered little Jewish baby boys. He said, drown them in the river. This is the kind of person we're talking about.
He doesn't care what happens to his people. They lose their their their finances. They lose their family. They lose their animals. They lose everything.
But pharaoh's pride made him a terrible leader. This is one of the funniest passages you'll ever read in scripture, and that's saying something because there's some funny stuff. But in Exodus chapter 8 verse 9, listen listen to these words. So pharaoh's despicable. Pharaoh has acted dishonorably.
Pharaoh is is is is a pathetic human being. Listen to what Moses said to pharaoh. Moses said to pharaoh listen to this. I leave to you the honor of setting the time for me to pray for you and your officials and your people that your houses may be rid of the frogs. This right?
Moses says, you're still the king, And I'm going to let you choose to tell me when to ask God to remove the curse. Ain't that interesting? Who's calling the shots? God. Whose messengers is God?
Moses is? What does Moses do? He still honors the position even though the person is dishonorable. You wanna know how dishonorable, how foolish, how lame pharaoh was? When do you want me to remove the curse?
Listen to his answer. It's right there in front of you. Do it tomorrow. What? What?
You're a bad leader. You're terrible. You're awful. You're incompetent. Right?
Kinda like some of the leaders that lead us. Amen? When do you want me to fix all your problems? Tomorrow. Right?
What is going on? Listen. I can have any opinion I want. You can have any opinion you want. Everybody's got one, but I cannot express my opinions however I want.
Opinions don't make you dishonorable. Expressions make you dishonorable. Man, I know some of you are concerned about the leadership of our country and the direction of our country, as am I. Exodus 2228. You shall not revile god nor curse the ruler of your people.
I let's back that up. You shall not revile god nor curse the rule of your people. I wonder why that's one sentence. It's not 2 verses. It's 1 verse.
It's one thought. You can translate that. You may not blaspheme the lord your God nor curse the ruler of your people. After all that Moses did, do you think he was popular? His own sister tried to take the throne.
I mean, everybody came after him. Nobody appreciated him. I mean, they had manna for cereal. Have you ever had manna? Can you imagine you wake up every day as as your pastor, and I'm like, today we're having manna.
And it just shows up on your front lawn. They complained about that. They complained about everything. They hated Moses. They blamed Moses.
But Moses was the leader. And here's the thing you need to understand. When Moses' own sister went against God's anointed, she learned the hard way. It did not end well for her. So we have a president who's very old.
It's very clear. Even if you voted for him, he's old. He's passed his prime. First Timothy 51, never speak harshly to an older man. Never.
Never. But appeal to him respectfully as you would to your own father. You see, that's the problem. Some of you don't know how to honor your father, so you don't know how to honor the president. Listen to me.
God will deal with Joe Biden, and God will deal with you. On judgment day, you're not gonna be, what happened to Joe? I'm just gonna be looking over at you. It's just gonna be like because on judgment day, it's you and the Lord. Joe's in his own line.
He's got his own problems. You got enough on your own plate. Talk to younger men, he says, as you would to your own brothers. You see, there's the problem. You need to learn how to speak to your brothers.
Listen to me, parents. If I could encourage you to do anything while you raise your kids, it's just to be honest. The chances of them all being equal brains, equal talent, making equal money is almost nil. You're gonna have to teach them how to honor each other when one is more successful than the other. That's just life.
And some of you, you are not receiving the blessings of god because you do not honor your brother. You do not honor your sister. You constantly criticize and are critical of them. Now I'm gonna say something that's really, really hard, and you're not gonna believe me, but it's okay because I'm right and you're wrong. It's okay.
Pray about it. Pray about it. Listen, this is gonna be really controversial, but this is really true. Tone is just as important as truth to God. Pray about it.
I know you don't believe me. That's why I came ready. I don't have a gun. I don't know why I did that. Yeah.
So God tells Moses to speak to a rock because the people need water. Moses is angry with the people. Listen to what Moses says. This is in Numbers 2:10. He speaks to the people of God, and he says, you rebels.
And in anger, he takes the staff of God, and he smashes it against the rock twice. That may have been like your conversation on the way to church today. I want you to hear what Moses did. He accused the people of God of being rebellious, and in his own rebellion against God, he mocked them. And in anger, he hit the rock.
And God said, listen to me, because tone is just as important as truth. God said you will not enter the promised land. You say, well, that seems harsh. That's because god cares about tone. He cares about tone.
So I I I see all these people with their signs. You know, you're going to hell. Oh, thanks. I didn't know. You know?
Wow. How do I get there and become joy filled just like you? Listen. Tone is just as important as truth. I'm not saying truth is not important.
Don't misquote me. It's not just what you say, it's how you say Like, it man, I wish I could just get a resounding amen from all of the married couples. How many of you are fighting over nothing more than tone? Like, you ever had a fight and you don't even know what you're fighting about, but you don't like your spouse's attitude. Right?
I bet 90% of the arguments Tammy and I have are about tone. And sometimes I'm not even aware of it. You know, she's like, hey, babe. Can you I'm like, what? Just have the love of Jesus in my heart.
We need to learn to speak in the right tone. Parents, that's why your kids, when they speak to you, need to have the right tone. I I hear kids all the time speak to their parents. You know, Like, it it it makes me so angry. I mean, maybe, parents, you can't even you can't even deal with how your kids speak to you.
Let's start with how they speak to Alexa. Right? You know? Alexa, you moron. That computer knows more than you'll ever know in your whole life.
Isn't it funny? We we we call supercomputers stupid. Okay. How do we how do we speak? Ephesians 4:15.
Instead, we will speak the truth how? In love. In love. You know, during the whole COVID thing, things were very, very difficult. And let me just say this as your pastor.
I know some of you are critical of me in the decisions I made. I'm critical of me, and many of the decisions I made never led through a pandemic before. Forgot to read your book on how to do it. Amen? But listen.
But listen. If you go back and you watch me confront our governor, I challenge you to find anything I said that was disrespectful to him or the position that he held. I disagree passionately with his policy, but I will not disparage his person. K? And let me just say this.
So I was I was at a leadership conference, last week, and one of the most fantastic leaders in the world, he's a pastor, the one that my wife likes listening to. And I just straight up asked him. I said, why don't you run for president? He'd be fantastic. Fantastic.
You know what he said? Why would you ever want to do something like that to my family? Maybe we'd get better politicians if we stop slandering the ones that run. I'm telling you, I would attack the gates of hell with this dude with a squirt gun. Let's go.
And he he is saying, I don't want that job. He said, I love my family too much. Maybe that's why we keep getting 80 year olds running. They can't remember they got families. Right?
They're like, what? I know that was borderline. Okay, okay. I can't help it. God made me this funny.
Give me grace. All right, last point, last point. Listen up here, focus. Number 5, I can become a person of honor by honoring God. Why?
Because of all He has done for me. Listen, I don't know what's happened to you. I don't know what your parents did to you, but I know what Jesus did for you. And I know this. You can live your life in woundedness and hurt and pain and suffering because of what people did to you, or you can live your life in response to what Jesus did for you.
The choice is yours. I'm not minimizing your pain. I just wanna maximize Christ's pain. 1st Corinthians 620, you were bought at a price. Think about the decisions you make financially all the time.
Like, I saw a car I really liked this week, so I looked it up on AutoTrader. I don't like it that much. I was like, and that's a nice car to look at. I had no idea how much it was, but I made a decision that that car isn't worth that much to me. I wonder what you would look at in this life, and you would say, I have to have that so much.
I'm gonna sacrifice my one and only son for that. Because when God looked at you, that's what he said. He thought you were worth Jesus. So what do we do? You were bought with a price.
Therefore, honor your God with your with your body. So let's start with our mouth, our words, our actions. You see, everything I do either represents God or disrespects God. Honor is about respecting God. 1st Peter 212, be careful to live properly amongst unbelieving neighbors.
Then even if they accuse you for doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world. Let let me just pause there. On judgment day, some of your neighbors in judgment will look at your life and say, I should've listened. I should've paid attention. Yeah.
You were good. And some of your neighbors will look at your life and never know that you knew god at all. You need to live a different life, a life that is honorable. You see, one of the things that we're trying to do here at Sandals is honor God. We're trying to live differently because we are gods.
I'm gonna close by challenging you to do something today. This is one of the most difficult ways in which we honor God. But Proverbs 39 says this, honor God, honor the Lord with your wealth. I think we have an opportunity today to make a great statement to the world about how we honor God with our wealth. Each and every week, we have an offering where you guys give money.
I know many of you give it online. Thank you so much for honoring God. We we can't do Sandals Church without your generosity. So thank you for what you do. But there's another thing we do at Sandals Church.
It's called benevolence. It's money that we set aside as Christians. We don't take away from the church. Right? We we don't we don't take away from the church, but we add to it through benevolence to give to special needs and special circumstances.
And I want you to know that I I think that this thing that's happening in Turkey is a special circumstance that we need to rally around together. Think about this. 30,000 of us at Sandals Church that watch on a weekend. Think about 30,000 of us. What could we do if we set aside a little extra money and we sent it to Turkey to say that we love you, that we care for you, that you matter?
I heard a report this week that some of the kids that were rescued, I heard this report, saw a man dressed in white who fed them and took care of them until they were rescued. I believe His name is Jesus, and He loves those kids. He died for those kids. And He as a church wants us to care for them. Listen, I've been to that area of the world.
I've stayed in those buildings. When I go to bed every night, I just pray because I know they're not made with metal. And when those buildings shake, they turn to sand. That's not the kids fault. It's not the parents fault.
And what we can do as a church is we can step up and say, you know what? We're gonna give an offering. And so here's what I want you to do. I want you to join me. I want to raise an extra 150,000.
That's nothing if all 30,000 of us participate. And we just send it to them, and we say, listen, we care for you. And this is why we do it through Convoy of Hope because the Red Cross no longer represents the cross. I'm sorry, it doesn't. But convoy of hope represents the hope of Jesus, and I want those kids to know I want those mothers to know I want those fathers to know that they are being fed and cared for and loved in Jesus' name.
Because I don't just care about their life on earth. I care about their life in heaven, and I want them to know Jesus. So we're gonna end with a time of offering. And, again, please don't take away from the church to give to this. That doesn't help us.
But be generous to both. Honor God with your wealth. And if you have a little extra, give a little extra, and we're gonna be able to do that. So let's pray and ask God to bless our lives in such a way so that we can honor our parents, and we can honor him with our wealth, and we can honor him with our bodies. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we pray in the powerful, mighty name of Jesus that we would live lives of honor. God, that we would be so different in this culture, in the way that we speak, in the way that we live, in the way that we act, in the way that we give. Our neighbors would beg to know what makes us different. God, help us to be men and women of honor. God, bless this offering for the church, and bless this offering in Jesus' name for the people of Turkey who are hurting so bad.
Bless it and multiply it and change the world with this humble gift. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you so much for taking time to watch this content. It is my prayer and and really my mission in life to help you further your relationship with God, building an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ and ultimately yourself, and I pray with other people around you.
If this content is doing that, I wanna invite you to move from being someone who watches content to someone who becomes a partner with us in developing this content, and the primary primary way you can do that from where you are is to donate today. You can go to donate dotsc, And here's you know, if you're like me, I wonder where does my money go. Well, here's the one thing I want you to know about us. We're not just an online platform. We actually have 14 physical campuses that are all across California that meet in in just a myriad of different socioeconomic cities.
And in some of these cities, there's somebody that's struggling, single moms, kids that can't afford to go to camp, kids that can't have an opportunity to get a backpack or something like that for school, and your money helps us to meet those needs right where they are. So what I would encourage you to do today is just pray about and say, god, what do you want me to do? And whatever god says, that's what I would encourage you to do because the Bible says God loves a hilarious giver, somebody who wants to give, somebody who's encouraged to give, and that's my prayer for you. And so I just wanna thank you for praying. And for those who pray and feel led by God to give, I wanna thank you for giving because here's the thing.
If there are no givers, there's no Sandals Church ministry. We we can't do ministry without the generosity of the people who are blessed by this ministry. So I just wanna say thank you so much, and god bless everybody who's furthering their authentic relationship with Jesus.