Not One Degree Off Course - Defense of The Sermon of the Mount. PART 5 Non-resistance, Pacifism.

Non-resistance. Today we're going to just look at what the early Christians, uh, how they practiced non-resistance. I put a lot of the Bible, so there should be about half scripture and half what they believe. So you could see that they just believe such a literal view of it that, um, they don't leave any degree of waiver. It is what Jesus said.

And, um, so it's woven throughout every aspect of our lives. And so, forgive me, Kevin.

So yesterday, he doesn't like any picture that I put up of him, so I just didn't even ask. Um, yesterday when I sent him something, he—he, I was just kind of explaining what I was going to be talking about, and he summed it up very well. Non-resistance is a bigger concept than just not going to war. It's bigger than not just not fighting our neighbor. That's a part of it, a big part of it. It's the way of life and our—and our response to our children, our spouses, our brothers and sisters, and just everyone. Non-resistance is basically all of Jesus's teachings coming together and working together, and you can't separate it. And the early Christians really did see it this way.

I hope you'll be able to see it and that we—that, well, let's just—we'll first start with some scripture.

Uh, Matthew 5:7 and 9. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. So this is—this seems very important that if we don't have mercy, if we're not merciful, we're not going to have mercy. And this is one of the foundational parts of non-resistance, of Christianity, of following Jesus.

And then the other one is, blessed are the peacemakers. Why?

For they shall be called sons of God. If we are peacemakers, two critical attributes of non-resistance: mercy and peace. And we're going to be going over more than mercy and peace. We're going to go over lots more, but we have to be merciful peacemakers to be sons of God and to have mercy.

Um, let's continue in Matthew for a minute. You have heard that it is said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you not to resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also.

If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away.

You have heard that it is said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies. Bless those who curse you, and do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you, spitefully use you and persecute you.

Why? That you may be sons of your Father in heaven. I'm going to go back.

But I say to you, love your enemies. Why? Bless those who curse you. Why? Do good to those who hate you. Why? And pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. That you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For he makes his Son rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even tax collectors do so. Therefore, you shall be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect. I'm going back to this. But I say to you, love your enemies.

Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. So we are to love our enemies. And the question is, how do we love our enemies? And what does it mean to love our enemies?

And what is love? The early Christians literally, I could show you in multiple places where they basically just took First Corinthians 13 and they applied it to this, love your enemies. And so we'll try to do that. Love suffers long in his kind. So we are to suffer long and be kind to our enemies.

Love does not envy. We're not to envy our enemies. Love does not parade itself and be puffed. It's not puffed up. It's not prideful. Uh, we think of our enemies as better than ourselves. It does not behave rudely to our enemies. We do not behave rudely to our enemies. We cannot seek our own, but seek the benefit of them. Love is not—we are not provoked by our enemies because we love them. And we think no evil. And one of the, um, translations I really like is we keep no records of wrong. If you keep records of wrong of people, you're thinking evil of them. You're not forgiving them. You're being bitter. When an enemy does anything to us, we're not to keep any records of wrong.

And I've heard it so many times in my life that you forgive, but you'll never forget. And that is not how the early Christians saw it. They saw it. You forgive and you forget. And if you don't forget, you're not forgiving, basically, kind of. We'll see. Does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. Bears all things, believes all things, and hopes all things, and endures all things. We should hope that our enemies will become our friends. We should bear the things we—these are all part of loving our enemy.

Tertullian. Christ plainly teaches a new kind of patience when he actually prohibits the act of vengeance, which the Creator permitted in requiring an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And bids us on the contrary to him who strikes us on one cheek to offer the other also and to give up our coat to him who takes our cloak.

He who counseled that an injury should be forgotten was still more likely to counsel the patient endurance of it. So we're to forget the injury. And when we're experiencing an injury, we should endure it patiently. But when he said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay," he thereby teaches that patience calmly waits for infliction of vengeance. Vengeance is God's. It really is God's. And when we're getting hurt, whatever way, especially by an enemy, and not—I'm not talking about between us, like brother. If we can't forgive our brothers and sisters instantly, uh, it's going to be very hard when someone's beating you or killing you or whatever the thing may be or stealing your stuff. In return for an injury, he forbids not only all—he forbids not only all retaliation, but even the revengeful thought or the recollection of the injury.

Christ, as the Lord of the Sabbath and of the law, commanded that the other cheek should be offered to the smiter in order that he might more effectively extinguish all retaliations of an injury, both by prohibiting the memory of the wrong and referring the vengeance thereof to God.

Clement of Alexandria.

But they are not yet obedient.

Listen to that. They are not yet obedient if they do not, having become entirely free of resentment, pray even for their enemies. It's saying that we're—if we're not entirely free from resentment. I know this isn't scripture, but this is how they are seeing that you'll see that he's talking about the Sermon on the Mount.

That the way the early Christians saw this is that we need to be entirely free from it, that we have to learn. And he talks about, well, we'll see. For God makes his Son shine to shine on the just and the unjust and sent the Lord himself to the just and the unjust. And he that earnestly strives to be assimilated to God, it's something that is not automatic. We don't become a Christ follower and just suddenly, uh, have the absence of resentment. We earnestly strive to be assimilated to God and the exercise of great absence of resentment forgives 70 times 7 times.

So this is something that we have to put into practice all the time. And it doesn't start with the key that I'm trying to—the when we think of non-resistance and enemy love, we often do think of being tortured to death or, you know, Dirk Willems or whoever, Stephen getting stoned.

But this is something that if—if we can't be patient and be absent of resentment and anger to especially our brothers and our loved ones, and we—we have outbursts of anger or we, um, hold right down records of wrongs and we have bitterness and we argue and complain about things, if we think, I think we're lying to ourself, if we actually believe that we're going to get to the end or get to a point if someone were to torture us or to kill us, if we didn't renounce Jesus or something like that, that we would actually take it patiently, not fight back and endure to the end. I think that it has to begin in all the small places that when our children are irritating us, when someone bothers us in church, we need to learn to completely and quickly forgive and forget and not hold on to those resentments.

And unity will come. I mean, like to actually love and to do all the things that love says with our brethren and then our children, and then can consider everybody our neighbors, which we'll see here in a minute.

Um, that we can change the world this way, that pacifism, a lot of people put us in the pacifist category. And Kevin said yesterday that we're not pacifists. Pacifists are often people who just don't fight or avoid some kind of thing. But we—we don't only not fight, but we put ourself in the way of evil to protect someone, and we will die for them on their behalf, and/or we'll do good to them if we have the opportunity and help them to see what is right.

And concerning our being patient of injuries and ready to serve all. So we got to be patient of injuries, ready to serve all. He's not talking—he's talking about enemies here. You can see people taken from you that we're to serve them and free from anger.

That is what he said. To him who smites you on the one cheek, offer also the other cheek. And him that takes away your cloak or coat, do not forbid. And whosoever shall be angry is in danger of hellfire or fire. When he's talking about serving all, he's not talking about serving all these people you like. It's talking about serving all and people who strike you and be free from anger and patient when we're being injured, either by someone saying harmful things or physical harm, whatever it may be. Math the effect. So this is something that I heard in Matthew Miliani's sermon a long time ago, and I literally thought he was making some kind of principle or effect that was named after him.

Then I realized that he was talking about a verse later on in the sermon. Um, but it's true. This verse is for Christians who everything about their life is about following Jesus, and it's for the world. Uh, for example, um, Elon Musk, this is something I heard. I don't know if it's true.

Uh, so this is advantage begets advantage and disadvantage begets disadvantage or gives birth to. And it's kind of a snowball effect. If you start having advantages, they add to other advantages, and you just keep going one way or the other way. And Elon Musk is a good example. He bought some cryptocurrency that was not very well known. It wasn't very popular. And he bought it. He spent a lot of money, but to him, not very much money. Bought a lot of it because it was very cheap at the time. And then he tweeted about it. And then it went from very a cheap cryptocurrency to a very well-known cryptocurrency and gained in value overnight. And he, I don't know how much, if he doubled, tripled, or whatever his money, but using his fame and his advantage, he's able to create more advantage.

And it goes financially, it goes the other way with poor people. I don't have to give that much of an example, but for example, if you don't have much money and your child breaks his leg and you can't afford it or whatever, and you spend money on a credit card, and because your credit's bad and you have 29% interest, you can never pay it off, and you're always just paying interest, and then something else bad happens, and then suddenly you're just dead head over heels, and you end up homeless, and it just keeps going and going, and it's hard to get out of those places. So before I go to the degree off course, in the spiritual realm, which when I say spiritual realm, I'm saying that us Christians are in the spiritual realm, that we are being, I'm not separating like our actions.

Some people will take the flesh and they can, they say they're carnal and they can do all this sinful stuff, but they're spiritual and they put them apart. We're not, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that when we are Christians, we are walking in the spirit and walking in the light. And so in the spiritual realm, if you start to resent someone, and like Kevin said, it could be small details, start remembering wrongs, like, oh, he left his coffee cup there, or, oh, he did this, and you just, these little bitty things and you never forgive, and you just write the things down, and then it builds more resentment, and then you're not kind to that person, you're not good to that person, and every single, if you think of the fruit of the spirits, you start to do the opposite thing, and it just snowballs, and problems get bigger and bigger, and they started small.

Or the opposite is true. If you have love, which is all those things we talked about before, then you have joy. And then when you have joy, it's easier to be peaceful. And when you are peaceful, it's easier to be patient with someone, someone who's being rude or obnoxious, or you're waiting in a long line, or they cut you off, you're at peace, so it's easy to be patient. And then when you're patient, it's easy to be good to them and kind to them, and it just snowballs in another way. And all of these aspects of our lives, all of the the idea of non-resistance really could just be saying following Christ.

But they all go together. And you, and if you get off of one degree on one of them, it can snowball into tragedy. And so one degree off course, if you cut a foot long board, one degree off course, by the end of the board, it's 0.2 inches off. That's not terrible. I mean, people who, for me, it's not terrible.

After 100 yards, you will be off 5.2 feet, still not that far. After a mile, you'll be off 92 feet, which is getting pretty far. I'm not talking about cutting boards anymore. If you veer off course one degree while flying around the equator, you'll land 500 miles off target.

And flying to the moon, one degree off course is like 470 miles off. And the longer you stay off course without correcting, the harder it is to correct, and the more problems you have. So if you, if you, we're going to get off course, like someone's going to say something that hurts me, and I'm going to have a moment of resentment. And if I don't shut it down right then, it will just fester and grow and be terrible. And so we have to, we have to take caution. We have to use this Matthew. This is where the Matthew principle comes from. For to everyone who has more, more will be given, and he will have abundance.

But from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.

And so the early Christians saw this as well. Charity is the bond of brotherhood. So he's obviously talking about charity, love in the Bible. The chapter 13, you can see just below it says, um, hope and faith, greater than hope and faith. But he goes through it. So charity is the bond of brotherhood, the foundation of peace, the hold fast of security of unity, which is greater than both hope and faith. Take from it patience, take patience from charity, and deprived of it, it does not endure. Take from it substance of bearing and of enduring, and it continues with no roots nor strength.

Like the things of love have to be all together. We can't get rid of one. It loses its function, its foundation. What shall we say of anger and of discord and of strife, which things ought not to be found in a Christian? So this list gets longer and longer, and it will continue to get longer. We're not to have discord or disagreements of people and strife and anger.

And we're not to be proud or we're to see others as better than ourselves. All of these are things that we have to practice and strive for so that when time comes, when push comes to such of, when someone smacks you in the face, it'll be just instant. You'll just not even think about it. It'll just be like, oh, turn another cheek. Um, we have to practice in the small things or the big. If we don't, we're going to end up punching the guy back in the face. So let there be patience in the breast. And these things cannot have place there. Or should they try to enter, they are quickly excluded and depart. That a peaceful abode may continue in the heart where it delights the God of of peace to dwell.

So we have to cut it off right away. Finally, the apostle warns us and teaches us, saying, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, anger and wrath and clamor and blasphemy be put away from you.

And it may be just be my old roots, but those were things that we can have it. We all allowed ourself to have a degree of in my old churches. And that was the problem. We can let ourself have a little bit of it, but we can't have any of it. We got to get rid of it.

For if the Christian have departed from rage and carnal contention, as if from the hurricanes of the sea, and have already begun to be tranquil and meek in the harbor of Christ, he ought to admit neither anger nor discord within his breast, since he must neither return evil for evil nor bear hatred. Going back to the Bible.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of service.

And his comment right here reminded me of this.

Many are the martyrdoms which are made without shedding of blood. The first time I read it, I was like, what was he talking about? But he's talking about we're to be living sacrifices. Not to desire other men's goods, to wish to have the benefit of martyrdom, to bridle the tongue. You ought to make yourself humble, not willing to use force, nor return force against you, force used against you. Be patient-minded. So patience comes up over and over and over and over. And understand that you are a martyr.

Like if you know if you're told you're going to die, there is power in that. Like if you're in a war and it's like, you're going to go and you're going to die, but you got to get XYZ done.

Well, we are going to die. We don't know if we're going to be martyred, but we should live. Later you'll see that we're told not to have fear. Um, and it goes along with the Bible with the early Christians make it, uh, expound on it.

For since we, a numerous band of men, as we are, have learned from his teaching and his laws that evil ought not to be returned with evil, that it is better to suffer wrong than to inflict it, that we should rather shed our own blood, no blood but our own, than stain our hands with the conscience, with that of another, and that we may more fully understand, and that we may more fully understand, beloved brethren, that patience is a thing of God, and that whoever is gentle and patient and meek is the imitator of the Father.

When the Lord and his gospel, listen to this, this is crazy to me, and the Lord's gospel was giving, he was giving us precepts of salvation. So we can see in a second what he was calling the Lord's gospel. When the Lord and his gospel was giving precepts for salvation and bringing forth divine warnings, was instructing his disciples to perfection, he laid it down and said, You have heard that it is said, Love your neighbor and have your enemy in hatred. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for them which persecute you, that you may be children of their Father, which is in heaven, who makes the sun rise on the good and on the evil and reigns upon the just and the unjust.

He's quoting the Sermon on the Mountain. He's calling it the precepts of salvation and the gospel, the rules of salvation. And that we may more fully understand, beloved brethren, that patience is a thing of God. This is something I already read. And that whoever is gentle and patient and meek is imitator of the Father. Bless those who persecute you, Romans 12, 14 and 17 through 20. Bless and do not curse.

Repay no evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as it depends on you and me, live peaceable with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.

Therefore, if an enemy is hungry, shoot him. I mean, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. Yeah, it's, I don't know where people see that. Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.

So here's some more practices that I, there's so many. I didn't, I have a bunch on here that I'm not going to read, and I'm sure you'll thank me for that, but there's so many things that they practiced that we maybe don't, or that we hope that we will, or that we don't think of it in that way. We have learned not only not to return blow for blow, nor to go to the law with those who plunder and rob us, but to those who smite us on one side of the face, to offer the other also.

And to those who take away our coat, give likewise our cloak. But when we have surrendered our property, they plot against our very bodies and souls, pouring upon us wholesale charges of crimes, which are guilt, we are guiltless even in thought.

But among us, you will find uneducated persons and artisans and old women, who if they are unable in word to prove the benefit of our doctrine, yet by their deed exhibit the benefit arising from the persuasion of its truth. So it's saying there's normal people who maybe not be the most educated people and just regular workers, but they understand Christ.

They do not rehearse speeches and exhibit good work, but exhibit good works. When struck, they do not strike again. When robbed, they do not go to the law. They give to those who ask of them and love their neighbors as themselves. You can see it through every early Christian that all of them practice this. They didn't fight back. They did the Sermon on the Mount literally.

If they're robbed, they don't call the police. I'm not sure what we do. I guess we don't. I've never planned on not calling the police or calling the police. I don't think I will now. No longer shall the law say an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, Irenaeus, to him who counts no man his enemy, but all men his neighbors, and therefore cannot stretch out his hand at all for vengeance. We're to love our neighbors as ourselves. And if you have a neighbor that's evil and wanting to kill another neighbor, that we are not to protect. We're not to see him as an enemy and him as a neighbor and attack him.

But we can get in the way of one neighbor and shed our blood and try to plead with the madman to not kill the person not trying to kill the other person, I guess. So we are not at all, cannot stretch out our hand at all for vengeance.

Above all, Christians are not allowed to correct with violence the delinquencies of sin, for it is not those who abstain from wickedness, from compulsion, but those who abstain from choice that God crowns. It is impossible for a man to be steadily good except by his own choice. So I'll put this in here in the next part to show that this is not something that's automatically done, that our life for Christ is a choice that we have to make daily. And we have to make sure that we don't get off a degree. And every time we get off a degree or a 10, that we instantly get back before we get way off course.

And that, let me read it again. All Christian, above all Christians are not allowed to correct with violence the delinquencies of sin, for it is not those who abstain from wickedness and from compulsion, but those that abstain from choice that God crowns. It is impossible for man to be steadily good except by his own choice. For he that is made good by compulsion of another is not good, for he is not what he is by his own choice. For it is the freedom of each one that makes true goodness and reveals real wickedness. And so through these dispositions, God contrives to make his own disposition manifest. This is what I strive for. Christians cannot be conquered, but they can die.

And by this very fact, they are invincible, that they do not fear death. They do not in turn attack their attackers, since it is not lawful for the innocent even to be killed by the guilty. These kinds of things from my background were absurd.

But they readily deliver up both their lives and their blood. The Christians readily give up their lives and their blood. That since malice and cruelty rages in the world, they may the more quickly withdraw from evil and cruel. They may more quickly die and go to heaven and be depart.

None of us Christians, this is almost over if you're worried about it. None of us Christians, when he is apprehended, makes resistance, nor avenges himself against your unrighteous violence. Although our people are numerous and plentiful, our certainty of a vengeance to follow makes us patient. The innocent give place to the guilty. That we are to be the innocent, we step in the way for the guilty.

The harmless permit punishments and tortures, sure and confident that whoever, whatsoever we suffer, will not remain unavenged. And that in proportion to the greatness of the injustice of persecution, so will be the justice and the severity of vengeance exacted for the persecutions. Okay, sheep. This is the last little section.

Pay attention to the sheep and the shepherd.

Therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to him and doing good as to a faithful creator. For what credit is it if when you're beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.

For to this you were called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow in his steps. He suffered, leaving us an example to follow in his steps. Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth.

Who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously. So we could see he was silent. We'll see a prophecy of him saying he was silent. When he was reviled, he didn't revile, he didn't threaten back.

Who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sin, might live for righteousness, by whose stripes we are healed. For you are like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the shepherd, the overseer of your soul.

So this is Jesus. He says, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. So when Jesus speaks, we need to hear him and follow him. We know his voice, and we follow him. And if we don't follow him, I'm convinced we're not sheep.

This is the prophecy I talked about. So we're to follow him, and now it says what he did, which we've seen him do. In Acts 8:32, it's referring to the Old Testament prophecy of Jesus' death. The place in the scripture which he read was this: He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shears is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

And then this is a prophecy of this going to happen to Jesus' disciples. Behold, I send you out a sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. And then this is proof that it happened and happens. As it is written, for your sake, we are killed all the day long and are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Tertullian, no one gives the name of sheep to those who fall in battle with arms in hand and while repelling force with force, but only to those who are slain, yielding themselves up in their own place of duty and with patience rather than fighting in self-defense.

Jesus nowhere teaches that it is right for his own disciples to offer violence to anyone, however wicked, having adopted the laws of so exceedingly mild a character as not to allow them, Jesus' disciples, when it was their fate to be slain as sheep on any occasion to resist their persecutors. So that's it. We're going to basically what I wanted you to take home from this is that the early Christians were extreme, and since they were just obeying literally the teachings of Jesus in every way.

And I believe they were right. And I think that it all starts on the small things. If you take away peace or if you take away anything out of our lives, or if we get degrees off, we're not going to be able to make it to the end. We're not going to be able to endure. And if we do those things, if we make sure we shut down, this is the biggest one. If we shut down all resentment and all hurt from each other, especially starting here, then unity will just exist. If you get hurt, just don't even let it for a second. I mean, if it's possible, just let it go by, forgive. And if it's something that just continues by someone, I'm not saying just get run over.

You know, say, hey, this hurts when you do this. You've done it a lot. And I don't want to have resentments and work it out with your brothers. But we are to take all the teachings of Jesus and not let us not give a degree, like literally work on forgetting and being free of all resentment all the time. And if we can be free of resentment, then we don't have to worry about church splits. We don't have to, people are going to see our forgiveness flow into people outside.

These are things, these are exercises and trainings that we have to start with the things that annoy you now. When you have a headache or when you're sick, we can't let it rob our joy. Because the second our joy is robbed, then our peace gets robbed, and then our patience gets robbed, and we get angry. And then we let this, we give ourself excuse, oh, we're sick, so it's okay. I can be a bully, I can be mean, like whatever, I'm sick. But we can't do that. We have to learn when we're most uncomfortable to remain in the spirit and the fruits of the spirit so that if something were to happen to this world, and what just happened in the past, there is some reason we get tortured, that we can be in a prison and sing, and be in a prison and live the way the apostles lived in Acts and Jesus lived.

And when we're getting stoned, we're able to instantly say, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they're doing. I don't think those things just happen automatically. I don't think that if we're not practicing it in the small things, we're going to make it in the big things. And so let's work on that together. Any comments or questions? I know that there was a lot of reading.

But Daniel, would you share the Matthew principle in that light? That's something that shivers down my back because the Matthew principle is just something that has inspired me, and Jesus uses it in the context of understanding the kingdom.

And so I've always been like, the more you grow, the little knowledge that you have, you're going to grow. And you see that in the Bible. When you start understanding the story of the Bible, it all gets together and grows exponentially. But I've never thought of it in the way of life. And understanding how we understand the kingdom of God, it's not just the seed, it's the thought, it's how we live our life. And I'm actually really excited. I'm really excited because it grows exponentially.

The seed that I plant by being patient now, that can grow exponentially to the point where I can forgive my enemies when I'm being tortured. And so thank you so much for that because I'm really excited about that.

And we got to be careful the other way to not let the snowball go the wrong way. Yep. Yeah, that's a very powerful message. All those quotes you put on, I love to repeat them because they're very, very powerful. The concept, I think what I'm going to be thinking about is the whole thing of being put three off and what we consider as normal.

I remember being in a meeting and the topic, the subject of gossip was being talked about. And a brother, someone that I would consider a Christian brother, he said, well, I mean, his comment about gossip was, well, it's just normal in our community. It's just the way it is.

And I realized that to him, gossip was normal. And it was okay. And then I think about my whole life, what have I allowed to be off under my two degrees? And it's okay to see how I'm still being okay.

So that's very challenging. Yeah, it also shows in weight gain. I'll just have a little bit. And then that little bit becomes this habit. And that little bit just, oh yeah, it's only 0.1 pounds or 0.2 pounds every few weeks, but then it just keeps going and going and going and going. And that little bit might become a little bit more. And then so it's like we got to, and it works in every aspect. But in our eating is part of our spirituality.

I mean, our bodies and what we do with our choices, we have to make those right decisions and try not to be a degree off. And go ahead. I don't consider myself an activist. I consider myself an activist.

What I mean by that, I actively participate when somebody comes to me with anger. No, I use these words to be careful. I don't back down. I stand there and I say, I understand what you're going to do. But if you're going to do it, go ahead and listen to the response. I will not call the police on you.

And I've seen people who had anger and hate walk away and they don't talk to me because they don't know what to do with that. So I actively participate in not confronting, but not fighting there. I'm brave in my attempt to show Christ. Now, I fall short in 50 other things to be talked about, but one of the least that we can take that.

I know what that feels like.

I'm going to make a comment about the forgiveness. Again, we're doing a big summer talk to a lot of people.

I think there's something to that. I think in the context of tonight, it's interesting to talk about the Apostle Paul saying this guy who's sick, he came out of church. They make a decision to go to hospices and hate for examples. It doesn't just because they come back and try to remember some of the things that happened. I think that means they have to continue.

However all this starts and stops. I think in scripture, I don't believe in the publicity of sin, really. Like sin is sin, but it does seem like there's differences. And I think especially in the small things of life, if there's things that just are all of us remembering, you have something that's big and dramatic, or like a colossal brother. Does something that's just one of these things.

Those who do these things should not care to hear God saying things.

We still forgive. We earn control power remembering. But I definitely think that on the small of today things that remembering is only. Little thing to do is that I think that statement sounds worse for the guests. It has a very graphic purpose, but. And it's hard. It's not natural to forget.

With someone in my life, I was constantly fighting that battle. Forgive, forgive, forgive. And we were living in the camper. I didn't know any of you yet. And we were at the Kingdom Fellowship. And I went to David's thing, and I saw a thing on bitterness. And that one person in particular always comes to my head when I think of forgiveness. I'm like, how can I completely get over this? It's like they keep coming back. And after I listened to that CD, I don't remember which principles it was, but he gave like five or seven. And I was like, I'm doing them all. And it freed me. It was like, finally, there's some relief from this.

And so if you haven't heard the bitterness CD, somewhere in there, he goes through principles of things to do. I don't know if it'll work for everybody, but it sure did help me with that one thing, so. A very conscious effort. Up forward, loving and forgetting.

And another thing on. Those that hear. So I love your level of high quality of goal. In other words, not to become angry, not to become better. How do you get better? But it's more than just the right thing to do. It's what makes you who you are.

If you follow those things, like you said, you heard the forgive, it makes you that person. You can't be the godly person without doing it. You will be shortchanged. And so that's why when you get in difficult situations and you wonder why you fail, it's because you aren't. You have to become that person. And the beautiful thing in this thing is we can all become those people. That's the beautiful thing. You don't have to be like the one quote was, you don't have to be an intellect or a common person. We all can grasp that and have that kind of discipline, that kind of pursuit, become that kind of person. And we meet them. You can meet a simple person that has high-quality character.

And you can meet an intelligent person that just is lousy. But they both can be lousy. And that's the beautiful thing. So it's more than just doing the work. We pursue it not just because it's the right thing to do, but it's because of who we become through it. And I think that's the critical first. So if you find yourself, you know, I always say this whole thing of, whether you forgive or whether you forget. One of my personal commitments tests is, am I repeating myself over and over about something? If I'm talking about it, I'll probably not forget it.

And the modern counselor did talk to me about it and decided to get it out. I actually don't agree with that. I'm interested in accepting that, but not long term, it never works. So yeah, look at who you're becoming, what your conversation is going to be good of, of what your quality of character is. So we have to figure fiction of just doing the right thing. I think it's the first step.

Yeah. And it's in our power. We cannot control what the opposite side does, but we have to do everything in our power. We have to make all efforts to be at peace with everybody. And I don't think that's a little task.

Yeah.