First Be Reconciled to Your Brother
First B Jackson
2024-09-22

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Good morning, Very glad to see you this morning. Hey. Would you would you stand with me? I'd love to worship in song together. And here's an encouraging word from Psalm one zero seven to lead us into worship.

It's thank the Lord for his steadfast love, his continuous steadfast love. He satisfies the longing soul. I like that one. He satisfies our longing souls. Would you join us in singing?

There's a song in my soul. You a symphony singing I hold.

Amen. Y'all can have a seat. I've got a few announcements here this morning, and let's see what they are. Awana. Awana.

Tell us about Awana, Carl.

We're on tomorrow night, and we we had a strong start last week with over 70 registered kids on the first night. So would you keep Lana in your prayers? Would you please? It

is. It's good.

Good. It's it's growing.

70 kids and a lot of volunteers. So A lot of volunteers.

At least 30 volunteers. So Yep. Tomorrow at 05:45.

05:45 tomorrow night. It's a great kids club. Starts right here. You see the circle down on the floor, the game circle. They start out in this room and then spread out all over the church.

Children's church is available this morning 09:30 to ten, lower elementary, k through second grade. There's upper elementary, third through fifth grade. Middle school and high school, sixth through twelfth. If you wanna go downstairs, there's a class for you down there. And there is in the nursery, a preschool class too that has just started.

That's good. Men's lunch time study on Thursdays at 11:55 in the Fellowship Hall. If you want lunch, bring it. Come and go as you need. But this, we're studying second Peter together right now, and it is so so so good.

So I can't say enough good things about this. I love this group. It's really really good. So 11:55 in the fellowship hall, Thursday is men's lunchtime study. There is a preset Bible study going on.

They're studying through the book of Mark on Thursdays at 9AM in the fellowship halls. Thursday is pretty busy around here. Every day is pretty busy around here, honestly. Thursdays at 9AM in the fellowship hall, you can contact Heidi Groesch if you wanna know anything more about that. Sunday school group for adults, so 11:00 folks that wanna come to church at 11:00, there is a a meeting of a small group, Sunday school group that meets in the fellowship hall during this 9AM service.

If you didn't know that, that is what's happening down there. On Wednesdays, there's a women's Bible study that is going on. It starts out in this room and then spreads out all over the church too. 10AM to noon on Wednesdays up through October 30. It's here, but it's the JH women's Bible study.

So it's sort of a community deal with a lot of people from a lot of churches gathered together. It's wonderful. Youth group, middle school and high school meets two to 4PM on Sundays right here at First B. Mike will have something for you. I guarantee it.

It's a fun time. And then, what we've all been waiting for, Small group Jamboreeapalooza. It's happening today in between services down the hall. And I said last week, it would be really great if everybody in this room would just stand up, greet each other warmly, and then wander down the hall and go to the small group, Vampiria Palooza. Okay?

Really, we are hoping to equip and encourage people to get together in small groups, not just this big group, but in smaller groups of people. So if you host one, if you lead one, if you attend one, if you just want to know more about it or honestly, even if you don't, would you still go down there? Please. And you can kind of mill in. Whenever we have a big event here, weddings, funerals, that sort of stuff, we often have food down the hall and there will be food down there.

And sometimes there's just sort of a long kind of a trail of people heading down that hall and don't worry about that. Take your time, we'll be there. There's an hour in between, just wander your way down there. And then when we start the second service, I'll get out of there, but y'all don't have to. You can hang around.

It's fine. So small group Jamboreeapalooza, we're trying to encourage the body of Christ to be the body of Christ in a tighter group. Connect hour is still happening in between services every week. And Monday night, there we're making meals for the Awana volunteers. So we could always use volunteers to sign up for that.

And I think that we're fine on that today, so I'm gonna scoot up. Anybody else have anything that I've forgotten that you'd like to correct? No. Would you stand up then and we'll just join together in song, singing praises to God in Christ alone.

I wanna share a word of encouragement here from first John four, and it says this, God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only son into the world that we might have eternal life through him. Just wanna let this soak in. I'm gonna slow down just a little bit. This is real love. It's not that we love God, but that he loved us first.

That he loved us and he sent his son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Lord, we don't wanna race through these songs. We wanna soak in them and the meaning of them that it shares the gospel, your perfect life, your sacrificial death, your resurrection, your ascension, your power made perfect in our weakness. God, thank you. Thank you for your spirit.

God, would you rest on each each one today. God, would you stir us to love and good works. God, would we not just hear of your love, but feel it. To understand it, that it soaks in, that it sets in deep, Lord, that we feel it in our the seed of our emotions, our heart, our soul, in our gut, we would know that we are loved by you, God, as we draw near to you, you draw near to us. In Jesus' name.

Amen. I thank you that we can know you. Just this came to mind as we're singing this song that we can know you not just in a in a at a head level, but at a heart level. God, that you speak to our heart, our inmost being. He's saying Psalm one zero seven, give thanks to the Lord.

He is good. Your steadfast love, it endures forever. And it goes on to say, let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Mhmm. God, if we have been redeemed, may we say so in word, in deed, in this case, in song.

In Jesus name, amen. Promise there. You are my deliverer. You

are my

Boy, that sounded like a trash can rolling downhill at the end, didn't it? You can have a seat for a moment. This is a worship worship through giving part of the service. Yes. I make mistakes sometimes, many times.

But boy, I do love Jesus. We're gonna sing another song. Before we do, Ray, would you pray? Yeah.

Sure. So

step 10 is next week. When I find out I was wrong, I promptly admit it. Lord God, thank you for good humor. Thank you for the laughs we've already had this morning together. Thank you that the redeemed of the Lord can have confidence to say so, Lord, because it's based on who you are and who are the life that you're bringing us into.

You've removed us from the kingdom of darkness, and you are allowing us in and allowing us to thrive in the kingdom of marvelous light. In Jesus' name, I pray, Lord, that we wouldn't resist, that we wouldn't resist your movement, we wouldn't quench your spirit, we wouldn't keep you from doing in us what it is that you wanna do for our good and for your glory. Lord God almighty, may we carry the message forward, the message of freedom in Christ. In Jesus' name. In Jesus' name, may we carry this message forward.

We wanna be doing your will, Lord, in your way. Would you would you do that? Would you direct us and give us the power? That same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power that is at work in us. Lord, may we not inhibit it.

In Jesus name, I pray that you'd use us to do your will in this community and to the very uttermost parts. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Would you bless this offering?

Amen. I think the trash can rolling downhill was my fault honestly, Carl. It's time for children's church downstairs. Every once in a while, there's a lyric that I think, oh, I've got the bass and I can do this. I can do this.

It's gonna say something about the lion roaring and I've got a bow and I go roar like that, and it's in the wrong key. It happens almost every time. I just try to lay back and say, nope, that's not what it's about, Ray. This morning, we're gonna kinda have a trio of speakers. Okay?

So last couple of Sundays, you know, we had Dave who spoke and spoke and spoke. Hey, for a pretty good while. And it was so good. And then last week, you heard from Steve and Brit. And this week, I've got a friend in town that he just happens to be in town.

And so, I'm gonna ask him to come up. And then Nick is gonna give some instructions for the small group Jamboreepalooza at the end. Alright? So that's where we're going. But last week, we went through step eight of the 12 steps and this hey, I see people out here I haven't seen in a while.

That's cool. Step nine, today. So step eight, it's one of those where I don't want you to linger long in step eight. You got to get to step nine and then get to step 10 and keep moving. Keep moving.

I'm going to start over again. Repetition is the key to learning. How many of you all did not know anything about the 12 steps? You knew they existed but didn't know what they were before we started this. How many of you feel like you could preach this sermon right now up to at least step seven?

Right? So we're gonna go through it. It's really really important and they are ultra biblical. All of the steps are very very biblical. We're going to start at step one.

Good place to start. We admitted that we were powerless over whatever our problem is. In Alcoholics Anonymous, they'd say, admitted we were powerless over alcohol. That there is this thing that we are just powerless over it and that our lives had become unmanageable. If you get to the point of recognizing that your life has become unmanageable for whatever your problem is, it's really, really, really good if you realize that that it's beyond you, that you move on from deflation at depth.

The early literature of Alcoholics Anonymous called this step, deflation at depth. It gets you and it's depressing and it's really difficult and it's hard. But step two is we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves and I know that that doesn't say God right there and I know that that power is God. I do know that. But if you just are figuring out that you've got a problem that you can't bootstrap yourself and get yourself out of this problem, all you need to know is that there is a power that's greater than yourself that could restore you to sanity.

And like I said, I know that that's God and I know that I also know that church hurt exist, that Christians have hurt people in the past. Some people are blaming God or blaming the church or blaming their Christian ancestry or whatever for their problems. And so, where they realize they can't do anything about it, just a power greater than ourselves is the next step. It's a willingness and a belief and a seeking after whatever it is that is bigger than me. Whatever it is that could restore me to wholeness and sanity.

A willingness, belief, and seeking. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Step three is making the decision. I know I can't. I know there's this power that can.

I'm going to let this power that is in some ways unknown to me at this point, and I say that this decision to surrender decision to surrender is making a decision to turn our will in our lives over to the care of God. It says it. God. Okay? Making a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

This is a statement of utter humility. It's recognizing that I've got a problem I can't figure out. And I realized there's a power greater than my stuff that I cannot really completely understand. If this power is greater than me, how am I gonna understand it? I'm a finite being.

This is an infinite power. We made a decision to turn our will in our lives. If you all I don't It's not just by rote. It's not just by memorization, it's not just something that in the prayer for the offering every week, it's that we do God's will in his way. And it's a it's a recognition that I don't always know what that is.

I'm not certain what it's gonna be this week. I don't know which of y'all is gonna walk in the door. I don't know which outsider is gonna walk in the door. Y'all don't know who's gonna come into your life. We don't know what it is that God has in store for us today or tomorrow.

And so, we're living our lives day by day, one day at a time. First things first, we made a decision to turn our will and our lives. God's will done in God's way. Would you show me what that is Lord today? Just right now, show me what you would have me do and give me the power to do it.

That's step 11.

Sorry.

We made a decision to turn our will in our lives over to care of God. As we understood him, it's a statement of humility. Step four, we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. This is a daunting step. It's a really daunting step because to look at yourself and not like what you see, you do have, all of us do have an enemy.

He's called the accuser of the brethren. He's called the father of lies. He's called the deceiver. So you've got a devil who's trying to convince you you're guilty of absolutely everything since the JFK assassination. You've got everything on you if you listen to the devil.

But if a searching and fearless moral inventory is a sober look at your life in the light of God's word. Okay? And I have been calling this self examination. That was what was in the early literature. A lot of AA groups, if there are any If they if they go to the Bible for their points, they usually take the book of James which says to take a look at yourself as in a mirror and examine who you are, and it puts a high standard on self examination and we should do that.

Self examination, making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. If you are just judging yourself though by other people, that's a bad system. You're going to look around and you're to say, there's no way I'm as good as that guy and but I'm so much better than them. Both of those things will come up. So we need an objective standard.

Scripture is that objective standard. I have taken from the letters of Paul mainly. These are from the letters of Paul. These are all the vice lists in the New Testament and a lot of y'all have asked for them. I made 15 copies before the service.

They're available if you want them. Diane has some, we'll make more if we need to. I know you can't read it from the back row, but this list is a good place to start with examining your heart. Now, later on in the sermon, we're gonna hear from Jesus about some of them. We see some of these things up here, but Jesus is gonna make it even more difficult to to ignore.

Okay? Step five. When we find whatever we find in step four, don't stop there. It's depressing. It's really really really hard if you stay wallowing in that.

Don't wallow in it. I heard a guy say this week, there are a thousand steps. You can wander away from God for a thousand steps, but to get back to him, it's only one step back. You know? Admitting whatever that is on that step four.

Admit that to God, which you will be admitting it to yourself too. Admit it to God to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. It helps. It helps. Now, if you got the whole Protestant versus Catholic thing going on in your mind and you're going, oh, we don't need to confess to a man.

There's no way he can absolve us anyway. I know. Oh, okay. Don't go theological on me. It really helps.

Confession helps. Did I leave it in here? Yes. If we confess our sins to God, this is to God. Now we're admitting it to ourselves when we do that.

If we homologueo say the same thing as God about our sin, he's faithful and he's just and he will forgive us of our sins and he will purify us from all unrighteousness. What a promise that is. Hold on to that one. First John one nine. It's primarily about agreeing with God, confess homo logeo, to speak the same, to say the same thing.

I think when we think of confession, it's always like, oh, you got me copper. You know, put the cuffs on me. Like, I did it. I did it. Stop the light.

I can't take it anymore. No, it's it's not that. It's like we just see that, oh, I've been wrong. I'm trash can rolling down a hill. It's one chord in the whole song, Carl.

Come on. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and he'll purify us from all unrighteousness. Praise God. And then there's this from James five. Therefore, progressive action present tense verb, be confessing your sins to each other.

Be doing it. Just be confessing your sins to each other and be praying for each other so that y'all may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. How do we get to be righteous people? Only by God imputing the righteousness of Christ to us and that takes humility.

So if you are humble before God and say, I've got a problem. I can't do anything about. I believe you can help me. I'm gonna let you. This is what it is.

I confess it. Can you help me to a guy or girl that's nearby? Small group helps tremendously for that. It helps tremendously to live in community with other believers that know what's going on in your life and you know what's going on in their life. As as transient a community as this is, we have people coming and going all the time.

You know, the town I'm from, everybody that was there when I got here in 1971, you know, when I got there, It's still there pretty much. That's not the way this place is. We're constantly swirling. We're trying to make a case for biblical community being together and recognizing that the family of God is closer than any other family, and we need to be there. Confessing our sins to one another is good for us.

We were entirely ready to have God remove all of these defects of character. This one, I like the text for this one a few weeks ago from John five, where the guy at the Pool Of Bethesda had been there for thirty eight years and Jesus said to him, do you want to get well? Do you he he was clear he was clarifying. Do you want to be made well? And the guy gave him excuses which Jesus took as a yes.

Thank God. He did want to get well, but he said, I don't have anybody that'll put me in the water after it gets stirred. He's recognizing that he lacks community. Are you entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character? If you want to hold on to the defect, recognizing that it's sin in chapter four and asking God to forgive you in chapter five, and then you get to chapter six and say, but I want to hold on to it because it's too important.

It's a big part of who I am. You're going to stop the process right there. That's going to stop the process right there. In humility, here it is Lord. If the Lord says, arise, take up your pallet and walk.

If he says, go forward and apologize. If he says, go forward from here in any direction he might direct and I don't presume to know what it is for you, even for me for the next week. Whatever it is Lord, I'll do it. I'm ready for you to remove these defects of character. Conviction and a readiness to change.

I don't want to be the way that I am. In our society and in our times, we have a lot of people that are arguing for Jesus loves me just the way I am. Yes, he does, but it's a half truth. Yes, he loves you just the way that you are and he loves you too much to leave you there. He wants to change your life.

He wants to transform your life. He wants to take pride which he resists and allow you the chance to humble yourself and with humility, he can do amazing things. Step seven. Oh, there it is, humility. We humbly asked for him to remove our shortcomings.

The sermon on this one was from John three with Nicodemus, and it's about humble submission and rebirth. It really does require a complete rebirth to the whole thing. It's a clean slate if you will. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He made the way that we could be made right with God and he will lead the way, but he does require that we humbly submit that daily we pick up our cross and we follow him.

He's not asking us to do anything that he didn't do by leaving the glory of heaven and coming down and walking it out. Step eight, we hit this one last week, made a list of all the persons we had harmed and we became willing to make amends to the mall. Did anybody really take a piece of paper and a pen out this week and really make a list? Don't. I'm not looking.

Did you do it? I I've been I've been I've been hesitating, not hesitating. I've been dreading preaching this one because I thought of the people in the list growing and growing and growing. It's like, oh, yeah, that teacher in the first grade when I said such and such. So after the after the service last week, there's a good friend who is a who is a 12 stepper, who's helped a lot of people get sober that came forward and said, hey, I can shorten that list for them.

I said, okay. How do you do we want to shorten the list? Do we want it to be a long list or short list? She says, just generalize it and say, everybody you've ever loved and everybody who's ever loved you. That's the people that you've harmed.

Oh, boy. I would have thought of enemies first, probably. Nope. She's saying the people that you hurt, you always hurt, the ones you love, the ones that you're closest to. The more intimate a relationship is, the more potential danger that can be incurred.

The more we have a chance to hurt the other, the more they have a chance to hurt us. Making a list of the persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. The willingness there is really really important. The next step, the willingness to make amends is really important. The next step has a little caveat to it.

Now, I went through these last week. I left that over from last week. If you're looking at the list and you find yourself on it and you start circling those things on the list, it's easier to tell who you've hurt by what you know your your main problem is. Right? I said love has to have an object and these sins often have a relational fallout.

So if you are crafty, let's say that's not one that I've listed before. If craftiness is your deal, then your power to manipulate people, you probably hurt the people you manipulated. And so you might come up with a list of names there. But becoming willing, I think that the everybody you've ever loved and everybody who's ever loved you is pretty good. Step eight, we made a list of all the persons we harmed.

It's also recognizing that it's not a victimless crime, that our own sin is not a victimless crime. It hurts us and it hurts other people and it's easy to see with some sins, it's easy to see with alcohol, like we can see the relational problems with that from even from functional alcoholism to absolute off the off the rails. We can see the damage that that's caused, but we don't always see it for some of the other sins. And as church folk, we really need to be honest that maybe we're not in the licentious ditch, but we are in the legalistic ditch and we might have hurt some people that way. We made a list of all the persons that we had harmed, became willing to make amends to the mall and we're starting the sermon with five minutes left for me.

We made direct amends to such people wherever it's possible. Now, sometimes the people you hurt, you can't do anything about it. I heard a horrible story this morning, horrible story from a friend this morning, and he found himself in a situation where he took on the blame for the death of another. It was not his fault, but he took on himself the blame for the death of another person, and there's no way that he can make that up to them. The parents, how can you make that up?

You never can. When I'm doing marital counseling, premarital counseling, I always use ridiculous examples. I would never hope that this never happens. But if I say, you know, he wakes up one morning and has a bad evening sleeping and he's thinking and dwelling on stuff at work and he walks out and he just hauls off and kicks your dog. So this is a husband and wife potential.

Right? Premarital session, bride to be, groom to be, and I say to the if the groom just hauls off and kicks your dog to the bride and the bride's face, even mentioning the possibility of it, will just drop and like, you kicked my dog? Like there's no way to pay back for dog kicking. Okay? It's just there's no way to pay back for it.

I have had folks come to me and say, I did this and I'm afraid that if I admit this, it would cause so much damage and you're right. It probably would. You've admitted it to God, you've admitted it to yourself, you've admitted it to another person, and the relational fallout, let's pray that the spirit would direct on how you're supposed to reconcile, how you're supposed to make that right. You make it right if you can. We may direct amends to such people where possible except when to do so would injure them or others.

And that's something to consider. It has to be spirit led. I cannot tell you which is right. We're gonna see this in Jesus' personal relationships, Matthew five. This is Sermon on the Mount stuff 21 to 26.

You have heard that the ancients were told, you shall not murder and whoever commits murder shall be answerable to the court. But I say to you, it's more difficult than that. That everyone who's angry with his brother shall be answerable to the court. The court. God, the court.

And whoever says to his brother, you're good for nothing, shall be answerable to the supreme court, the highest court, the one who judges rightly. And whoever says, you fool, shall be guilty enough to go into a fiery hell. Oh my goodness. Jesus. Really?

Therefore, because of that, relationships are this important. If you are presenting your offering at the altar, you're doing all the religious stuff and there you remember, oh gosh, I hurt that person. They have a legitimate right to be upset with me because I damaged them. Step eight, that your brother has something against you. I remember that my brother has something against me.

Then leave your offering right there and at once there, just leave it right there before the altar and you go and you go first be actually, I did this first be, sorry. First be, first be, first be reconciled to your brother. Relationships are this important. If you are my people, you're called by my name, I really want for you as much as it's possible for you. I want you to live at peace with all.

You admit you're wrong even if even if it's hard to do that. And then you come and present your offer and don't skip what it is that you're already doing, but first be reconciled to your brother. Come to good terms with your accuser quickly while you're with him on the way. It says to hang out with him, not to separate from him. Small group.

Hey, you get hurt in community, but you also get healed in community. It's the best way. While you still have the chance, come to good terms while you're with him on the way. To court was added. It's in italics in the in ASP, it was added.

But just while you're with him on the way, so that your accuser will not hand you over to the judge. Come to good terms and the judge, the officer and you'll be thrown into prison and it sounds like hyperbole, but truly I say to you, you're not going to get out of this by ignoring it. You're not going to get out of it until you've paid the very last quadrants and couldn't go a whole sermon without Greek, so that is 1 fortieth of a day's wage. That's the last slide that I have, but I'm gonna invite Ken Sandy if you would come up. Ken Sandy is not selling anything.

He is a missionary to his own people. Anybody who needs relational wisdom, he's the he and Corlette are relational wisdom three sixty. He wrote the peacemaker. A lot of good small group material too, but he happened to be here this weekend and he was willing to stand up and tell some stories. And he was watching his watch for the last three minutes.

You never wanna give a attorney the pulpit. I've I've been doing peacemaking for forty two years, lawsuits, divorces, church splits, you name it, I've seen it. And one time not long ago well, actually quite a while ago, I was preaching on this very passage in a small small rural church in Montana. And one of the ways I look at verses twenty three and twenty four, if you're offering your gift to the altar and they'll remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift, first go and be reconciled. Literally, it it says we cannot worship God in an acceptable way if we know there's a broken relationship out there that we've not made every reasonable effort to to heal.

And it often makes me think, what would happen if we modified one of those metal detectors at the airport and put it in the back of the church? Instead of detecting metal in your pockets, it could tell if there was an unreconciled relationship in your life. And you were walking into church. There's a lot of us that sort of walk up to that thing, you know, oh, is it gonna go off? Because we realize, if we really pray about, there is, and there are.

And so I was preaching on that passage about how we need to go and be reconciled. And after the the worship service, the pastor took me out to the one restaurant in town for lunch. And we were just finishing lunch, and I and a a rancher walked through the door. I recognized him from this small church. He looked around, saw us, came over to me and said, thank you for your sermon.

I was so convicted this morning. My next door neighbor and I got in a fight twenty years ago over a fence that he wouldn't help pay half the fees on. I haven't spoken to him in twenty years, and I drove out there right after church today, and I walked up and knocked on his door and said, I need to ask your forgiveness. He said, that guy broke down and started to cry. And we hugged, and we made up, and we're reconciled.

He said, thank you for that. And I've I've experienced this same passage myself, the benefit of it. Number one, I get convicted. There was one Sunday that my wife and I got into a disagreement just before church started that morning. I was supposed to leave the worship service.

And I was thinking, should I go on and just pretend like things are okay when they're not? And I finally called one of the other elders and said, I can't I can't lead worship this morning. Corlette and I need to work some things through because I thought there is this metal detector. It's called the Holy Spirit. He's the one that knows.

But I experienced that in an even more dramatic way some years later. I was involved in the merger of a couple of nonprofits, and one of the people involved in it was really upset about the way it had happened. He wrote a very, very nasty letter. He's an attorney too to one of the organizations involved and accused me of manipulating the process, doing a lot of unethical things. And because I'm an attorney, I can write a pretty good defense brief, and I had all the minutes and the the emails and everything to prove my innocence.

So I wrote long brief, basically a letter, but it was a brief, justifying myself, proving myself right, proving that his allegations were were unfair and inaccurate. Sent it to the board of directors of this organization. They looked into it, and they completely exonerated me. Said there's no indication you did something unethical. So I thought, well, good.

I'm I'm justified. But this other attorney and I, Matt, we both felt sort of bad about how intense we got. And so a couple weeks later, we actually got together, and we had a good conversation. We both admitted some of our attitudes and things we did and practiced some peacemaking. We were reconciled.

So I thought, Five years later, I was going through some files, I came across that letter, and I read it again. Every word in that letter was true, every letter was accurate, there was no falsehood in it whatsoever, And yet I just began to cry. My letter was steeped in sin and self righteousness and a total lack of love for the other person. And I finally, five years later, saw the depth of my sin. We can speak the truth in a very sinful way.

And I picked up the phone and I called Matt. I said, Matt, this is Ken. I need to ask your forgiveness for that letter I wrote five years ago. And he said, we got together. We resolved all that.

That's all behind us. And I said, no, Matt. I didn't begin to see the depth of my sin five years ago. I was so proud. I had so little concern for you, so much of a lack of love for what you were going through, so little effort to really understand your perspective.

I sinned against you so deeply. And I heard Matt start crying on the end of the phone. He said, I can't tell you how much this means to me. Thank you so much. Then we were really reconciled.

Reconciled. And And I think most of us, if we ask the Holy Spirit to really bring to mind some of those relationships, we may think that's five years ago, he's probably forgotten about it. That rancher was twenty years ago that they were unreconciled. And that rancher began to cry, and Matt began to cry. And there's people out there right now that if you went to them with a humble, sincere heart, you could really, really touch their lives.

And I would say don't wait because Matt, the guy in my second story, he died three months after I called him up. I was reconciled. You don't know if those other people are gonna be alive a week from now. So go, and you'll find that in most cases, the Holy Spirit has been preparing a heart for you. Thanks.

And Ken is gonna be down the hall too. What else is gonna be down the hall? It's the the small group Jamboreepalooza. We wanna get you guys really excited about it. And there's been a lot of personal stories here about forgiveness and being accountable people, and you need to be in a small group.

19 ago, I was a very bitter person. I reluctantly was told to go to a small group at a church back home in Ohio because nobody was helping me with my projects, and I was just tight inside. And slowly, those guys met every week, and that started to melt, and God just kinda pulled me back into forgiveness and love. If you don't wanna be in a small group, you probably really need to be in a small group. And they happen really organically here at First Bee.

We don't demand that you're in one. We don't check, but we wanna offer them to you in the best way possible by saying everybody who's about to be in that room wants to be in a small group, is curious about it, or should be in a small group. So if you don't find something down there that already fits what you're looking for, talk to somebody else and form it or or tell us and see how we can do it ourselves. So I'm gonna give you some instructions. The connect hour is still happening down the hall.

So if you can, if you're just down there for grabbing a snack, that's great. But would you keep the door open so people who wanna come in can come in? There are some tables down there for connect hour. Now if you already are a part of a study or you wanna start one, there are these leader name tags. These are just for leaders.

Anybody wearing one of these name tags will be a leader, and you can talk to them and you'll see that they have something to offer. The leaders also on the back of these white pieces of paper are instructions of how to fill this out. It's super easy. Just your group name, target audience, contact person, all that stuff. If you're looking for a small group, see this.

If it if it's yellow, that group is active, and you can look on it and see what they're offering. And then the small group leaders are gonna ask you to fill out this piece of paper just with your contact information. Leaders, at the end of this this event, would you make a copy of this and give it to us, and then keep one for yourself to contact those people. If after all of this, you're frustrated and you have not found a small group, you wanna be in a small group, you're not here, you're watching online, and you've got a group that you want us to know about, there's a QR code on the wall down the hall. You can come talk to me and I'll fill out your information or you can go to the link on the website.

You can also talk to Diane, Mike, or any of us and we'll get you signed up for that. It it's it's one survey where you can let us know that, hey, I don't have a small group. I'd like to be in a small group. I have a small group that I wasn't able to advertise and like to get advertised, or you just wanna complain. That's fine.

You can also do that to me too. It's we're only gonna have it up there for two weeks, though. So if you're watching this in perpetuity in the future, that link won't be there, so don't get frustrated. And now if you are small group leader, would you stand up and go down the hall and fill out this form so that everybody's ready for you? If you're not if you're if you're just everybody else, just sit tight.

I'm gonna turn it back over to Ray. We just wanna get a head start to beat you down there. Thank you so much. Please come down.

Alright. We're gonna sing another song. Yet not I, but but through Christ in me, would you stand? We're gonna sing sing us out down the hall. And thank you, Ken.

I'm so thankful you were here. I had no idea how to end that. Thank you. That was perfect.

I, but through Christ in me.

Amen. And as a benediction this morning, you listen from first John one three. That which we have seen and we have heard, we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us. And truly, our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit. Amen.

That was fun.