I want to start with a quick story. This happened this is a real thing that happened to me. Actually, I say that like it's epic. It's actually not epic at all, so I shouldn't have said that. This is just a normal thing that could happen to anyone. Several years ago, when my oldest son was about four years old, we took him to visit my family in Missouri. I'm from this place called the Ozarks. That's where I was raised. And we went up to the Ozarks, and we're hanging out at this park that's really well known where I'm from because this park has this massive pond, and people go there to feed ducks. And so you go, you bring bread, you feed ducks, it's cool, you get to do that. And little kids love it, and the ducks, they they've caught on by now, and there's there's a there's a lot of ducks. And so we go there, and I'm hanging out, and I'm standing right behind my four-year-old son, and he's he's so cute. He's breaking off pieces of bread, he's throwing it into the water, and there's this other kid about his age doing the same thing. And so it's like me and my son, and then there's this lady and her son, and and Liam and this other boy, they strike up a conversation. And it's just it's adorable to watch four-year-old children converse. And so my son turns to this other boy and says, I'm not from here, I'm from Georgia. And this this other boy looks and says, I'm not from here, I'm from North Carolina. And my son says, You guys suck. And this mom, this mom looks at me like, did I just hear what I think I heard? And I was like, ma'am, I am so sorry. Um, I can explain. First off, clearly a bad parent. Um, but in my house, we're really big Duke basketball fans. And the only context my son has for the words North Carolina is the North Carolina basketball team, which happens to be the rival of Duke. And so he may have heard me say some things at home about North Carolina, not the state, but the team. And I can tell my words were not impressing this woman. Um, and so I said, I'm also a pastor, and if you're ever in Georgia, feel free to come by and visit our church. And so it's good when you when you get humbled in life. It's good when you learn you have you have room to grow. Something that's been a problem for me much of my life is the lack of a filter in terms of what comes out of my mouth. I have not been known to be a filtered communicator. I've gotten a lot better, though, over the years. And so God has been good and helped me with that. The reality is filters are really important. And we need filters for all kinds of things. We need filters for the way we think, we need filters for what we set in front of our eyes, what we what we take in, what we listen to. We need filters for virtually every aspect of life. And today we're gonna look at a teaching of Jesus where he gives us a powerful, powerful filter to deal with one of the most difficult things we have to deal with as people, and that's other people. People are hard, and and please understand this. The biggest decisions you're gonna make in your life, they're not which schools to attend, if you're young, you're a student. Like that's an important decision, but it's it's not the most important decision. It's not it's not decisions about where you're gonna work. That's important, but it's not the most important. It's not even decisions about what to buy, the house to buy, the car. It's it's the decisions regarding who you spend your time with, who you allow to speak into your life, who you tether yourself to, who you listen to and allow influence in your heart. The gentleman who started our church, Steve, um, he, when he was young, he was selected at this company that he who worked for, a really big company, successful company, and he was selected to be part of the executive training program, which is a big deal. And so there's a small number of people, and and they're gonna be trained to be executives at this very successful firm. And the CEO of the entire company, I mean a publicly traded company, comes to speak with them the very first day. And so they're all kind of anticipating what's this guy gonna say? Is he gonna give us this pep talk about going the extra mile, doing whatever it takes, working as many hours as we could possibly work? And and Steve said that, no, no, no, what the man told them first day, he said, the most important thing that you need to decide right now is who you're gonna be friends with in this company. He said, if you want to be friends with the people who complain and moan and talk about how horrible it is to work here and how bad everything is, you can make that choice. It will not go well for you. But if you choose to surround yourself with people who inspire you, who challenge you, who want the best and who are willing to do whatever is necessary to see the results that are needed, that's gonna go well for you. So choose wisely. I was always impacted by that story that here's this guy, leads this company. He's got an opportunity to give one piece of advice to these up and comers, and he says, be careful with who you surround yourself with. Jesus is gonna tell us the same. Now, for some context, I want you to understand we've been going through this big teaching of Jesus, often called the Sermon on the Mount, for several, several weeks now. I mean, it's been a couple months. We've gone all the way through Matthew chapter five, we've gone all the way through Matthew chapter six, we're almost done with Matthew chapter seven. And know if you're if you're here for the first time, you're coming in at the tail end of this conversation. Jesus has gone on and on about how much God loves people, about how generous God is, that God is more willing to give than we are to ask. He's gone on and on about that. He's talked about how God accepts people that most others reject. God is incredibly inclusive. And so now we get to the end, and Jesus is kind of doing one of those things that I'm sure all of us have done in a conversation where you say a lot of stuff that's true and you meant it, but there's like a few nuances. And so you might say a bunch of things and say, now, that said, remember this. And that's what Jesus is doing. He's talked at length about how much love God has for people and how God is for people. But now he's going to give us a warning. And so in Matthew chapter 7, verses 15 through 20, Jesus begins with the word, beware. And just know when you see the word beware, you should read what comes next. That's just good life advice. If you're walking around and you're on some property and you see a sign that says, beware, don't just keep walking. Stop. Read the rest of the sign. Because what's what follows beware is usually pretty important. He says, Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions. Now, for the sake of time, we're gonna talk about some things today that are pretty direct. And I want us to understand something. It's like an umbrella that covers all of this. Jesus loves people and he commands us to love people. If you are a Jesus follower, if you've made a decision to follow Jesus, he has not requested that you love people, he has not suggested that you love people, he's never said to you, hey, you might want to consider loving people. He has commanded you to love people, but he's not commanded you to trust everyone. Love everyone, be liberal with love, but Jesus is challenging us here to be careful with trust. Love and trust are not the same thing. And we have to make a decision when we interact with people, we have to decide and understand and discern what type of person are we talking to? What type of person is this? Is this a a fellow sheep? If you're new to the whole faith thing, Jesus refers to us as sheep a lot. He's a shepherd and we're sheep. I don't know if that's a an insult or a compliment. I haven't been around sheep that much, but um, we're sheep, so there you go. And he says, either you're one of the sheep or maybe a person is a wolf. But in in sheep's clothing, disguised as a sheep. And we need discernment to determine who we're we're dealing with. We should be incredibly discerning when it comes to people. Because again, who we decide to tether ourselves to, it matters, it matters greatly. You don't want to spend time with wolves. Not a lot of time. You gotta have distance there. Like, every every once in a while, you've probably seen this on TV from time to time. There will be a person, seems like once a decade, that loves animals and just decides that they're gonna live with animals and they've somehow cracked the code and they like get this specific animal. There was a guy in the news a few years back that was like living with bears. I don't know if anyone ever saw this story. And he like hung out with bears. And he would just go and he'd be surrounded with bears, and he's like, I understand bears, I know how bears think. And and you know what happened to that guy? He was eaten by bears. There was another guy not that long ago, same thing with wolves, hung out with wolves and was like, I get wolves and I understand wolves, and you just have to know that this is how wolves think. And you know what happened to that guy? Eaten by bears. Um, no, I'm just joking. That'd be weird, right? That doesn't make any sense. No. Wolves. They got them. Because they're wolves. Look, it's so important for us to understand. His hands, we have this reputation for being an incredibly loving place. And that's genuine. We are not judgmental. Only God can judge the heart. But I have seen amazing, loving people, and their desire to not be judgmental, almost be fooled into just not practicing wise judgment. We are never to judge the heart of another person. That is God's prerogative only, but we are absolutely supposed to pay attention to their actions. And that's what Jesus is challenging us to do here. To discern who we're around. Is this a wise person? Is this a wise person who, if I'm around them, I'm gonna become more wise, I'm gonna be inspired, I'm gonna be challenged to grow? Is this is this a foolish person who just does whatever they feel like doing? If you have friends like that, they're a lot of fun to be around. But it's kind of like a roll of the dice. Sometimes great things happen because sometimes we feel like doing great things. Other times, bad things happen because sometimes we don't feel like doing good things. We live in a culture that has elevated feelings and we're told just follow your heart, trust your feelings. You know what you will never hear in scripture? You will never hear Jesus or a teacher or a prophet tell someone, what do you feel is true? You know, just go with that. I know what your head is saying, but what about your heart? In fact, in the Hebrew language, the word for mind and the word for heart are the same word. So there's not this separation or this elevation of feelings. We live in a world that elevates feelings, and so most of us, we have a tendency to live kind of foolishly, and we just do what we feel like doing, but that that goes the wrong way every bit as much as it goes the right way. Some people are wise, some people are foolish, and some people are are toxic. Whether they they intend to or not, some people have this way of creating stress and drama and pain, and it's because they live selfishly, because they're not really interested in other people. They they want what they want, and if you happen to go along with them, they're your friend. But if you don't, they're not. Because they're not concerned about you, and they're not concerned about your well-being, they're concerned about what they want, and they're willing to do whatever they need to do to get it. Whether that's lie, steal, manipulate, you name it, that's a wolf. Jesus says we've got to be on guard because they're real. And like I said at the beginning of the message, Jesus gives us a filter, a powerful filter, that helps us, helps us discern this kind of thing. And we need that discernment, guys. I mean, if you could take a second and think about a situation in your life right now that's causing you stress and anxiety and and worry, maybe some drama in your life. But don't raise your hand, don't shout out, just think this in your own mind. Does it involve a person? Is there someone else involved in that scenario? Yeah. Like people can be difficult, we can be difficult. And Jesus cautions us, be wise. And here's here's the filter. Let's just get to it. It's a question that we can ask, and it's powerful if you if you're willing to answer it honestly. It's powerful. And the question is, what's the fruit? What's the fruit? What's the result of that relationship? Let's go back again to Jesus' teachings. Matthew 7, beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can't produce bad fruit, and likewise, a bad tree can't produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Do we think Jesus is taking this seriously? Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions. What is the fruit? Now, Jesus specifically mentions false prophets, and we're gonna get to that here in just a minute, but but this is a principle that we can apply to all people, which is why Jesus ends this with saying, You can you can judge a person, you can understand a person based on their actions. What's the fruit of your relationships? Think about this in terms of your friends. When I was a youth pastor years ago, there was a kid in our youth group, and I didn't know him very well, he didn't come that often. Um, but his mom reached out to us and said, My son got in some trouble with the police, and he needs a hundred hours of community service, which, when you're a teenager and you need a hundred hours of community service, that that's a good number. That's a decent amount. And she said, Can you help him? And we're like, absolutely. And so I spent some time with him, and and I asked him, like, dude, what happened? And he's like, I didn't do anything. It was my friends. I was just with them. And I was real blunt. I was like, you need new friends. And he kind of looks at me like, excuse me. And I was like, look, dude, I'm just saying, I've got friends. And when I hang out with my friends on a Friday night, do you want to know what the statistical probability of meeting a hundred hours of community service after that is? Like, it's low. Like, if that ever happens when I'm hanging out with my friends, it'll be an amazing story. Because some crazy stuff had to happen in order for us to be in that situation. I said, you just need to be wise about who you're you're friends with. What is the fruit of your friendships? When you choose a friend, what is the desired result? And I want to challenge us. Let's go back to that feelings word. Again, we live in a culture that elevates feelings. And a lot of us settle for something we think is a good fruit of a relationship, but it can be deceptive. And it's it's this I feel good when I'm around this person. I feel good. Understand this God loves you and He wants you to feel good. Like He wants you to feel really good, but He doesn't want you to feel good at the expense of being good. And sometimes we have friends who can make us feel good about making bad decisions. And the result of that friendship is not that we're actually better. We're not challenged to be better people, we're not challenged to live better, we're just made to feel better. And feeling good has its place, it's helpful, but it's it's not always the most helpful thing. In fact, rarely, rarely is it. Your friends, do your friends hold you accountable because they desire to see you grow? There's a brilliant proverb. Proverb 27, verse 6, says, wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy. A sincere friend is willing to tell you the truth. To hold you accountable because a sincere friend wants to see you grow. Is the fruit of your friendships growth in your life? You're moving forward, you're challenged, you're inspired to be better. Or do your friends enable you? Maybe even encourage you to make rash decisions. That's something I notice a lot, by the way, is when you have an unwise friend, they'll often encourage you to make very rash decisions very quickly without thinking it through, without praying, without consulting. So, for example, let's say you're you're struggling at work, you're frustrated with your boss, your friend's like, you should just quit. You should just quit. You should walk in tomorrow and be like, I'm done, and then walk out, and that'll teach him. That is really bad advice. Look, there are times to quit a job, and there's a right way to do that, by the way. We always want to try to do the right thing the right way. It's possible to do the right thing the wrong way. I've even known people who've done the wrong thing, but they did it the right way. But we want to do the right thing the right way. And if you've got a friend that challenges you, that encourages you, you should just do this. And what follows is an incredibly life-altering decision that needs to be prayed about over and over again and consulted about because it would change everything for you. That's not that's not a wise friend. I've seen that happen in relationships as well, where if people are struggling in a marriage. And by the way, I've been married for 15 years, and it's sometimes a struggle. And an unwise friend will be like, you should just leave. You should just go. They don't deserve you. And that might be true. And look, there are situations where where separation has to happen. If there's abuse, if there's things like that, I get it. But that's a massive decision. If you've got a friend in your life who's constantly pushing you to make really major decisions without prayer, without consultation, that's not wise. That's not good fruit. And you've got to think about that. You've got to you've got to wonder is this a relationship that I need to have close proximity to? Again, we're called to love everyone. Some people we want to love up close, some people we want to love at an appropriate distance. The people you let close, the people you give influence to and give a voice to, be discerning. What's the fruit? Think about this when it comes to dating. Those of you who are single and you're dating someone, does the person you date, do they respect your convictions? That's one of the things I see in a lot of conversations I have with people who are dating and they're a believer and they want to live their life a certain way, but maybe they're in a relationship with someone who doesn't hold the same convictions, and that person's constantly pushing them to let go of their convictions, to do what that person wants to do. Guys, if that's your situation, be careful. Because when you really love someone, you honor their convictions. Like my wife has convictions I don't have. There's things my wife cares about that I, to be honest with you, I care nothing about on my own, but I love her. And if she is convicted about something and it doesn't go against my faith or anything like that, I'm I'm gonna support that because I love her. If you're in a relationship with someone and the fruit of your relationship is you're constantly being being tempted to go against what you know is right, that's not good fruit. That's not what God would have for you. Like God, God wants the best for you. Sometimes we read scripture, we get frustrated because it seems like God is holding us to a high standard. That's not because he's an oppressive God, it's because he actually believes you can do it. Because he actually believes in you, he has a high opinion of you, so his standard matches his opinion of you. And he wants the best for you, he wants good things for you in every aspect of life. And so if you're with someone and they're constantly trying to pull you away from what God would have you do, that is not good fruit, run away. If you're dating someone and and I were to ask you, hey, would you go into business with this person? Or would you start a company with this person? You're like, oh my gosh, no, that would be a total disaster. I couldn't imagine that. Do not marry them. Because that's the same thing. You're tethering yourself to something. We've got to be wise. Jesus is saying, beware, be discerning. If you're an employer, that that gets challenging because sometimes you have to make decisions as an employer as to who to hire and maybe who to let go, and that's hard. But you've got to be discerning and you have to ask that question: what's the fruit? What's the fruit of this person working here? Is it positive? Is it good? Are they are they helping the culture that we're trying to build? Or are they doing more than just their job? Are they actually helping us be who we're meant to be? Are they moving us forward or is it a constant challenge? You have to ask those questions. Jesus is gifting us with an incredibly simple filter. What's the fruit? And if the fruit is bad, and I'm not talking about a moment and instant, none of us are perfect. We all make mistakes. But I'm talking about consistently over time. There's a pattern of just bad fruit, bad fruit, stress, drama, heartbreak, anger, whatever it is. We've got to deal with that. And sometimes that means we have to separate, we have to pull back. Now, now I'll say this real quick and we'll move on. Sometimes we find ourselves in very difficult situations where the people that we have unhealthy relationships with are kind of inescapable. So maybe it's like your boss, and you need that job. And you can't go to your boss and say, hey, I've been thinking there's a lot of things you could do that would just make my life better. Um, and so here's a list, and thanks for helping me out. You can try that, and I would love to hear that story. Um or maybe, maybe it's a family member, someone really close to your family, and you're related to this person, and so they're just sort of inescapable because it's family. So there's a key word for you if that's your situation. If you're like, yes, I can think of a relationship, bad fruit, I don't know what to do, it's the word boundaries. You have to establish healthy boundaries in your relationships. Understand this. A lot of us don't like the word boundary because it just seems it's just it's not like a fun word. It's not a word anyone gets excited about. Ooh, boundaries, you know? What are you gonna do today? I'm putting some boundaries in my life. Ooh, boundaries. I like it. No one does that. It's a grown-up word. We're grown-ups. You have to have healthy boundaries in your life. Sometimes those boundaries need to be spoken. Sometimes you need to look at a person, maybe it's even a close relative, and say, hey, from now on, we're not gonna talk about this. Because when we have this conversation, when we start talking about this, it is it is bad. It goes poorly and it causes division. And because I love you, see that's the thing boundaries are not to punish people. You should never give a boundary as like a punitive measure. Boundaries are actually intended to punish. Preserve relationship. Because you put in a boundary and it says, hey, if we can stay within these lanes, we can have relationship. We can enjoy each other's company. It'll be good. But if we go outside of these lanes, it just goes bad. So for the sake of our relationship and preserving the love and the trust that we have, here's a boundary. And I'll tell you this if that person really loves you, they will respect your boundary. But if they don't, if they mock your boundary, if they ignore it, if they push against it, that means they don't respect you. Because when you when you love someone, you respect their boundaries. Sometimes you you can't talk about the boundary because of the dynamic of the relationship. Go back to an employer. You can't necessarily go to a boss and say, don't do this. That may not work. But you can have unspoken boundaries. You can have boundaries like, hey, when this person starts talking about this, or when this person does this, I'm just gonna ignore it. Or I'm gonna have to pray and say, Lord, help me just completely disconnect from what they're saying right now because it's not good. But you have to you have healthy boundaries, you put those in place. And if someone loves you and respects you, they'll they'll honor your boundary, and maybe after time that boundary can lessen. But don't be afraid to put boundaries in your life because again, it's what's the fruit? Do you want to see your life be what God wants it to be? Do you want it to be healthy and good and wholesome and awesome? God, that's what God wants. So use the filter that Jesus is giving. What's the fruit? Now, before we wrap up, I want to make sure we're being really honest with this teaching. Anytime we we look at something that Jesus or anything else in scripture says, we've got to make sure that we're really specifically talking about what Jesus is talking about. This does apply to lots of relationships, but specifically here, Jesus is talking about false prophets. In other words, people who speak on behalf of God. And we are we are challenged to be very, very careful about that. And this is a big one. Because this is very relevant for our time in the church today, and it was, by the way, when the New Testament was written 2,000 years ago. Because the movement of Jesus, just so you understand, is revolutionary. It's changed the world. A lot of people in modern times, they don't understand how much the message of Jesus has actually changed the world, and that a lot of the things that we believe and the freedoms that we have and the goodness that's in the world today is the direct result of the gospel message of Jesus taking hold and affecting culture. But the message of Jesus is entirely different than any other message of any other movement that's ever existed. And as soon as the message of Jesus began to explode and affect culture, you had all these other ideas and philosophies start to get mixed in. And people are now saying, hey, I want to be a Jesus follower, but I'm gonna bring in some of this. And I'm gonna bring in some of that. And that was something that the early church was very careful about. Treated that very, very intensely. So let's look, for example, Ephesians chapter 4, verse 14. We will no longer be immature like children. Remember, we're grown-ups. We won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. I love that phrase. Because there's a lot of that in the world. And oftentimes you know that's coming because someone will say, Well, you know, if you think about it this way, well, or if you just think, that's better than thinking about it a certain way. Just think. About 1 John 4 1. Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the Spirit they have comes from God, for there are many false prophets in the world. Now, why is it that false teachers, false prophets are often so successful? And the answer, unfortunately, is us. This is something that Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, told to a protege of his named Timothy, a great preacher and pastor in the early church. He says, Preach the word of God. Be prepared whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching. For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths. Now, let me ask this question. Let's say someone comes up to you and they know you're looking for a doctor. You need a doctor. I actually just got a letter that my doctor is moving or something, and I gotta find a new doctor. And so I'm like, I need a doctor. And you come to me and you say, hey, you should go to my doctor. I'll tell you what's awesome about my doctor. They only give good diagnoses. It's they're amazing. It doesn't matter what your blood work says, it doesn't matter what your vitals are. This doctor is passionately committed to only telling you good things about your health. They will only tell you that you're healthy and you're gonna live a really long and full life. You should go to them because it's a blast. Would any of you go to that doctor? No, because that's a silly criteria. Like this person tells you what you want to hear. Here's what's challenging though. When it comes to decisions that people and I mean people like Christians in our culture today, when it comes to the decisions they make in terms of who to listen to, that is often the only criteria that is considered. Who is saying things that I want to hear? Who's telling me what I already agree with? And we've got to have deeper filters than that when it comes to who we listen to. Like I'm a pastor, but I have pastors. I have I have friends, I have mentors, I have people that I listen to, and I gotta be super careful with that. And it can't just be people who say what I want them to say. We've got to be so, so careful. And like I said a minute ago, the early church, man, they took this so seriously. Look at, for example, Galatians chapter 1, verses 6 through 9. Paul writes, I'm shocked that you're turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ, you're following a different way that pretends to be the good news, but it's not the good news at all. You're being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ. Let God's curse, this is intense language, fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of good news than the one we preach to you. I say again what we have said before: if anyone preaches any other good news than the one you welcome, let that person be cursed. Does it seem like Paul is taking the purity of the message of Jesus seriously? Yeah. And what you gotta understand here is in this church in Galatia, what was being introduced to that church was legalism. Gotta be careful with isms. Legalism. And it's the idea that you earn God's love by adhering to a strict code of outward ethic. That's just called religion. And it kind of makes sense that that would be something the church would do, right? Because obviously we want to live good lives. But see, here's the thing: it's a twist. Because in religion, in legalism, your obedience to God is the root, and his love for you is the result. It's the fruit that grows because of your obedience. Our faith's totally different. His love for you, what Jesus did for you, that is the root. And your ability to obey God and actually live the life he's called you to live, that's the fruit. That's the result of you living connected to him. It's not the other way around. And so, Paul, he's not standing for it. He's like, No, why would you go backwards? You have a relationship with God, you traded in for a contract? Come on. He's not, he's not standing for it. We see in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, similar words. And by the way, the Corinthians, their struggle was not legalism. Corinth was a really interesting place. It was home to the temple of Aphrodite. It was like, think Las Vegas kind of on steroids. In fact, in ancient, in ancient plays, in ancient drama, if a character was ever a Corinthian, if they were ever from Corinth, they were always drunk. That was the character. So if you, it's like a person will come out on stage and they'd be like stumbling around, like, uh, and everyone's like, ah, Corinthian, they're always drunk. That's hilarious. Um, that's the reputation of Corinth. So I'm just saying that because legalism is not really a problem for the Corinthians. But they had other issues. He says, I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent. You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even when they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed. There's this passion that he has for making sure that we do not allow false teachings and false philosophies just to come in and be like, oh, that's interesting. Hmm. It's very important that we know the word. It's very important that we know scripture, it's very important that we know Jesus. See, here's the reality: the closer you are with him, the deeper your relationship with Jesus, the more you see him as he is, and he's the real thing. He's the real thing. Like the actual Greek word for false prophet is the word pseudo-prophet. And we still have that word pseudo in our language today. Pseudo means fake. Jesus is not pseudo, he's the real deal. And the closer you are with Jesus, the more you recognize real, and the easier it becomes to spot a fake. The more you walk with him, the more you study his word, the more you spend time in his presence, the more you're able to discern what is real and what is false. And there's a lot of false out there. There's a lot of pseudo. There's a lot of philosophies that are actually really old, that have just kind of seeped their way into our culture. And we kind of mix them with our faith, and we we try to create this like cocktail of Jesus teaching and culture teaching. It just doesn't work. It's like pouring a bunch of water, a lot more water than is necessary, into concrete and then hoping it's as strong. It's not. Great example would be something like in the early church they dealt with a heresy called Gnosticism. Gnosticism is alive and well today. Gnosticism is the idea that you get like a special knowledge that only you have, and you're the authority that, and that experiential knowledge that you have, that trumps everything else. And so we see that happen in our world today with ideas about identity. I mean, our culture believes and teaches that you are the authority of your identity, that you're the one who can decide who you are. And even if who you decide you are goes against what everyone else says and what everything else points to, you're the one that has that authority, that special knowledge. You're the one that decides who you really are. That's not a teaching of Scripture at all. Because in Scripture, we're not the authority. Jesus is. God is the authority. He's the one who knows who we really are. He knows you better than you know yourself, because he made you. And so when we come to Jesus, we submit to him and we say, Not mine, but like what you want, not my will, but your will. Who do you say I am? I want to become a new creation. But see, that stuff is slippery, and so it finds its way in, but we've got to we've got to see it. We've got to see it now. For the sake of time, I got two minutes left. So here, let's go. Um look, and I'll probably be a few minutes long, just so you know. Um look, we don't have time to go through all this. In fact, every once in a while we record an extra podcast. And if you have our mobile app or you subscribe to our podcast, go to our website. We'll put one up this week where we just go into more detail. But I I do want to just share a few quick things with you on how to how to spot false teaching. Because it's everywhere, guys, and it's so important when it comes to your faith, who you listen to. Jesus said, beware, right? Be discerning. So a few things. Number one, never listen to someone whose favorite theologian is his or herself. False teachers, they love to listen to themselves talk, and they have this air, and you can you can discern it, where it's like they think what they're saying is really epic and they kind of know it. They really like to be provocative. It's like their favorite thing to do when they post online or when they say things is say something like this is gonna, this is gonna ruffle some feathers. I bet you never heard it like this. And it's just it's just pride. It's very self-focused. They'll say things like, I have enough courage, they'll be self-referential a lot. Like be really careful of self-referential people because they're actually using themselves as the authority. They'll say, Well, what I know and what I've learned and what I've it's everything's I. And they don't really point to Jesus. That's that's a sign of false teaching. Go back to what Paul told to Timothy. Right? He says, Preach the word of God. If you're listening to spiritual teaching that isn't the word of God, where the word scripture is not relied on, I'm not talking about a little scripture dust sprinkled on top. I'm talking like it's it's the foundation. God convicted me big time a few years ago to stop teaching with the Bible and start teaching from the Bible. Because what do I know? And so if you're listening to teaching and it's not rooted in scripture in the word of God, that's that's an issue. If you're listening to teaching, and the person who's teaching is is never telling you to change, there's never an appeal to go further, to do more. It's just you're fine, you're good, just be encouraged, you're fine, you're good to be encouraged. Go back to 2 Timothy. I know I keep making you guys put this up, I'm sorry. He says, be prepared whether the time is favorable or not, patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage. Like, you gotta have all of that. And sometimes we need to be challenged. I know we don't look forward to that. I doubt many of you woke up and like, man, I really hope Justin smacks me across the face this morning. That'd just be great, you know? And I don't enjoy that. But when we teach, we gotta we gotta be honest, we gotta teach truth. And so hunger for what's true and be very, very careful when it comes to who you listen to. Test it. And if it's true, it will hold up to scrutiny. That's the other thing. People who are false teachers, they don't like to be questioned. They don't like to be questioned because it bothers them. But if something is true, it will hold up to scrutiny. So test it. At the end of the day, though, worship team, you guys can come out. We want to experience a good fruit. Guys, I hope you understand overarching with all of this. I know we it was kind of like a fire hose today, and I'm sorry, but it's a lot. And this is Jesus' fault. He's the one who says these things. I just have to try to teach it. All right? And he's he's hard to teach because he says like three lines, and in those three lines, there's about a thousand ideas. And so sometimes I'm like, Jesus, thank you so much, but could you have pleased provided outlines or like a teacher's guide for this? He didn't do that though. It's like he wants us to pray and rely on a spirit. It's weird. Um I see that he wants the best for you. He wants good fruit in your life, in every aspect of life. And this is not about being judgmental, it's not about looking at other people and saying you're not good enough, but it's about recognizing our own tendencies and understanding the deep influence that other people have on our lives and being very, very careful. We love everyone. Period. We love everyone. But you gotta be careful with who you trust. Jesus says, beware, be discerning. Don't be don't be cynical. Like a lot of people get cynical, they just they think the worst of everyone. Like I've noticed that a lot this last week with Kanye West. A lot of people are cynical about Kanye. I hope you're not cynical about have you guys paid attention to the Kanye thing? It's awesome. It's so awesome. Like, I know you gotta be cautious. Sometimes celebrities become Christians, and the church is like, they're the they're the spokesperson for our faith, and that's not necessarily a good idea. Um, but I'm watching this show the other night, and Kanye West is on, he's on national television. He's making this talk show host extremely uncomfortable because he's talking about Jesus, and people don't know what to do. It's funny when you watch like TV shows and then the name of Jesus gets pulled up, and people are like, you know, no, it's it's like this, they get really uncomfortable. Um, it's almost like his name has power. So this guy, he asks, right? This guy asks Kanye, are you like a Christian musician now, like a Christian rapper? And he's like, I'm a Christian everything now. And I was like, that's the best line I've ever heard. You know? It's awesome, and it's humbling. You know how humbled I have been the last week just watching Kanye? Because it's reminding me that God will raise anyone up. It's so like, you should be, God is so cool. He's like, hmm, who should I, who should I raise up to preach my message that Jesus is king? I've been in a series called The King and His Kingdom for since July, way before Kanye did his thing. And we're literally talking about the fact that Jesus is king, and I haven't been invited on any national talk shows, okay? And Kanye comes up with an album, calls it Jesus is king, and everyone's talking about it. And it's just so like God to say, I'll raise up this guy who's married to a Kardashian, and I'll make him the spokesperson for Christianity in America. Like that's just what God does. It's so cool. I love it. And we'll be discerning and we'll see. But don't be cynical. God doesn't like this whole thing about being discerning, being cynical is not being discerning. God doesn't want you to dismiss everyone, to expect everyone to fail. That's being cynical. Jesus is not cynical. He also doesn't want you to be naive. He doesn't want you to be naive and gullible, he wants you to be discerning. So be discerning and ask him for that. We're gonna finish with one scripture. James chapter 1, verse 5. If you need wisdom, ask our generous God and He'll give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. If you need discernment, ask him for it. He'll give it to you. What is the fruit? Use that. It works. Jesus works. We're gonna wrap up with three people getting baptized this morning, which is awesome. And hey, I know I went four minutes longer than normal. There's three people getting baptized. And at the first service we had two, and so today, five people going all in with Jesus. And if you're new here, this is what we live for. This is what it's all about is seeing people know Jesus. And look, guys, these these people are family members. And so when they make this decision, they need to look out and see us supporting them. Alright? So let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for this day. Lord, thank you for who you are. Thank you for being loving enough to give us challenging advice. Lord, you you loved us so much that you didn't just tell us what we wanted to hear, but you challenge us to go further. You challenge us to think deeper. And we're grateful for that, God. And we're grateful for these people that are going all in with you right now. It's an honor to be part of this. Lord, I pray if there's one person in the room who hasn't given their heart to you this morning, that they would be inspired by the actions of these people. They are going all in with you. They're recognizing who you are, that you are their king, that you are the king, and they're giving it all to you because you've already given it all to them. And I pray that if there's anyone here who hasn't done that, that they do it, they do it right now, they don't waste any more time. Because you're so good. It's in your name we pray. Amen.