Transcription
Jesus values his value for Unity. Doesn't mean that we compromise on beliefs. Doesn't mean we compromise a person's values. But it does mean I will die to my vision on this to protect the city values.
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Unity is only possible when there is diversity. Unity without diversity is uniformity, and that's not the same. It's it's not good that we all look alike, act alike. We want to have the same Kingdom values, but there's unique expression through every gift, through every position, through our history, our our our backgrounds, our upbringing, our nationalities. All those things are to be celebrated and protected. That uniqueness is uh is not a problem unless it conflicts with Kingdom values. Then we adjust to what God is saying, what God is wrong. But the point is is that we were designed to be together. You know, it would be horrible if my entire body was one big toe. It's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be unique every member. But here's the crazy thing is every member contributes to the next member. In other words, in fact, the Bible says there's life in which every joint supplies. So there's actually the release of life at every point where there's a connection. And the body of Christ is designed that way.
Many years ago in Weaverville, we had some dear friends who ran a small little little farm. And I don't remember what happened or why, but somehow they needed help with a little lamb. And Benny volunteered to babysit this baby sheep. And so this baby sheep lived with us in our house like a dog, except it was a sheep. And uh this little sheep, this little lamb would follow Benny all over the house because that thing thought she was Mom. And it was just the cutest thing. I don't know if that lamb was destined for dinner or what its purpose was, but we did, we did, we did. It was just a little lamb to us.
I did not, you probably knew this, but I didn't know sheep had long tails. I didn't know that. So we get this, we get this lamb, and it's got this rubber band, real tight little rubber band, you know, about halfway down the tail. And uh, and they said, "Oh yeah, that's uh that will just, it just cuts off life to the rest of the tail. So eventually it just rots and falls off." Well, that's kind of gross, but that's what you do with sheep, I guess. I don't know if you get that in the sheep owner's manual or what, but you got, you got to get rid of the long tail. Not sure why. So I put this little rubber band on. Sure enough, it just uh finally turns gross colors and then falls off.
Anytime we separate people from the flow of life, we actually sentence them to experience things in life they were never designed to experience. We're supposed to keep the flow of life one member to another. It's a responsibility and a privilege. Crazy that little rubber band. If, if you know, halfway through the process of getting the tail to fall off, if you take the rubber band off, there's enough poison in that tail to now be released back into the sheep to actually kill it. It'll actually kill the lamb. And so there's, there's this whole concept, if you will, of making sure that we keep connections on us, keep the connections open. And and in a way, the way we reign in life is to navigate relationships well.
I, you know, you don't get to just decide, "Alright, I've decided I'm not going to be criticized anymore." If, if only that were possible. Or or we could say, "You know what, I was betrayed, but it's never going to happen again." I'll never, now, you don't get to choose that. You can choose to have it not affect you, but the only way you can do that is to protect yourself from love. So if I, if I insulate myself so much where nobody can hurt me, well, then nobody can love me either. And so to be vulnerable in life, to experience life together means I will experience pain. So the way I demonstrate reigning in life is how I navigate disappointment and loss. It's how you navigate it. I don't get to choose whether or not I'm going to be criticized or rejected or embraced or loved. I don't get to choose that. I get to choose how I navigate what's been thrown at me.
I use the illustration a couple weeks ago, the whole adverse winds. A sailboat, by attacking, by using the sail and the rudder, can actually advance against the wind. And oftentimes our destiny is in the direction of adverse winds. And the Lord is simply inviting us to navigate relationships in a way where no matter what comes at you, you actually are making progress. And sometimes strength is developed by making progress in adversity. That gives us the maturity to live in the Promised Land once we enter it, to to live in it with maturity. In other words, we don't handle it carelessly and lose what God actually released to us.
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And he says in verse one, he says, "When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place." Again, here's this one accord concept. One accord, not not a car, not the Accord. One accord. 120 people in one accord. That would be a lot of people. All right. One accord. They're in unity. Unity is not uniformity. Now listen carefully. Most people's understanding of unity is the fight for uniformity. True unity requires diversity. "And a man shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one." They are not the same. Diversity is required for biblical unity. Unity does not tolerate diversity, it celebrates it. It's what makes it so beautiful.
The second thing I would say about unity is it's not something you and I can create. Most human efforts for unity, as noble as they may be, are simple attempts for agreement and or understanding. Not evil, not bad, just insufficient. The scripture says in Ephesians chapter 4, I think it's verse two, he says, "Preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace." Preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. Tells us a couple things about unity. Number one, preserve. I can't create it. It's already in existence. How did it get there? It's the unity of the spirit. True biblical unity is is seen wherever the Holy Spirit has influenced. Anytime you see in a relationship, a husband or wife, a church family, a nation, anytime you see real true unity, not just "we'll agree for this season," true biblical unity, it is the result of the Holy Spirit's influence in those individuals' lives.
Jesus prayed a prayer that they might be one. But what did he join to it? He said, "I gave them my glory that they might be one." What is the glory? The glory is the manifested presence of Jesus, seen as the Holy Spirit comes upon his people. "I gave them my glory. I gave them the manifestation of the presence of God upon them." Why? That they might be one. You never see where there's a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Let's just take some of the things we've seen happen in this room. I've watched this for years. When the spirit, when the power of God shows up in a room, I don't mean just for miracles, although I'm I'm all in for that. When the power of God shows up in a room, it's hard to find anyone who's mad at somebody else. There's something that takes place in that in that environment where all the hostilities, all the objections, all the stuff, you know, the love remembers no wrong. I'm not keeping an account. Why? It just all lost its importance in the presence.
My challenge, my challenge to you is Pentecost. Yes, it's about the demonstration of power, but the basis, if you if you consider the platform for this manifestation of the power of God, the resurrection, the testimony of the resurrection of Christ through power, the platform was they prayed together in one accord. They were they were united in heart so much so if they saw one of their own brothers or sisters in need, they would sell a position, possession to take care of that need. The point is, is it was, it was unity to the point of self-sacrifice. In other words, I'll pay any price to maintain this.
What does it look like to preserve the unity of the spirit? It means I am willing to invest. I'm not just going to price something and then to ease my conscience and and move out of doing something. I'm not just going to check, check the box that I prayed for unity.
In chapter 2, verse 14, it says, "Peter standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said, 'Men of Judea, o who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. These are not drunk as you suppose, since it's only the third hour of the day.'" That's a strange argument. I want to convince you that they're not drunk like you think they are. How can I say that? It's nine o'clock in the morning. Strange argument. But then he begins to read, and I want you to see what he reads, what he declares. He quotes this out of the Book of Joel, the prophet Joel. "And it shall come to pass in the last days, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh." Okay, stop for a moment. When the Holy Spirit is poured out, where the spirit of God is working in a group, when he is truly free to do as he pleases, he breaks every barrier that we create. I want you to look at them right now. "I will pour out my spirit on all flesh." All flesh. Every race. When the spirit of God shows up, it's a level playing field. There's not haves and have-nots. There's not this race versus this race, this class versus this class. All of that stuff is is obliterated in the presence of God. That's why we can say, "Preserve the unity." Unity is the fruit of His working in and through us.
So look at it again. "I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters will prophesy." Sons and daughters. The gender barrier. And there's only two. The gender barrier is broken in the outpouring of the spirit. "Your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams." The age barrier is broken in the move of the spirit. "On your men servants and maidservants, I will pour out my spirit in those days." The class barrier. Those who are the wealthy, those who are the poorest, those who are the servants of others. The class barrier is broken.
What's the point? When the Holy Spirit shows up in power, it's a level playing field. It's critical for us. We see even when Jesus would multiply food. We'll see that he multiplied the food with the four thousand, the five thousand, but you'll notice a note in that number. It will say, "and five thousand besides women and children." Women and children were, oh yeah, see, in the culture of that day, they counted a crowd by the number of men in the crowd, and then they mentioned and women and children. It's interesting then in one of these stories, the one who was ignored, the child, is the one who had the seed for the miracle, the loaves and the fishes. The ones who nobody counted, counted. Jesus counted and brought him into the place where his lunch became what seated the cloud for the multiplication of food. You see in Old Testament, in the culture of the day, New Testament, the Gospels, what you see is you see a crowd counted by the number of men. But all of a sudden, something happens. The Holy Spirit shows up. There's 120 people in an upper room praying. How many men? How many women? Doesn't say. Why? Because they're treated the same.
See, Jesus destroys, he destroys the power of division. Now we have to live in it. He destroys the power of division that exists between all flesh. He's the one who destroys that barrier between men and women. What men are qualified to do, what women are qualified to do. He's the one who destroys that barrier, that dividing wall. He is the one who destroys the well. God speaks through the aged, or it's just the young people that have the real spark for revival. He's the one who destroys that dividing wall. He destroys it and calls it foolishness. He's the one who comes and he touches the lowest of the low in this context, the servants, the slaves of another master, and he gives them access to the same wonderful and glorious outpouring of the Holy Spirit that is offered to all. We have to be careful that we don't return to a cultural standard that exalts one group above another. We have to protect our heart to make sure that we don't move to cultural values, sometimes good, sometimes very corrupt, that we don't return to cultural values instead of Kingdom values.
In the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Jesus said it, "I gave them my glory that they might be one." Preserve the unity of the spirit.
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John 17 is this. It's the Priestly prayer of Jesus. This is just right before he's taken, before he's betrayed, taken to Pilate, ends up being crucified. So this is his final recorded, in fact, it's the longest prayer of his in the Bible, to my knowledge. And in this prayer, he does several things. He, he's before the Father now. Remember, he was sent by the Father to represent the Father. So he stands before Him, and he, he brings an account of his own life to the Father. He said, "I manifested Your name." He said, "I displayed Your works." He said, "I performed Your word, or I displayed Your words, performed Your works." And he goes through four things he actually did. So he's giving an account to his Father on what he did with his life. And then he concludes this Priestly prayer with this cry that would be hard for us to, I don't know if we were to have actors and actresses on the stage or cinema film, it would be difficult to portray the gut-level cry of Jesus in this moment, because he's actually asking for God to do something in you and in me together that has only been done between the Father and the Son. A supernatural dimension of love and affection that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit enjoy would actually be the model or the standard for how we would do life. He's going through all this suffering, all this stuff, is going to end up on the cross, be resurrected, and it was to make this possible. It's that big of a deal.
So here, verse, we'll start with verse 20 of John 17. "I do not pray for these alone," that's the the 12, "but those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me." Stop right there. There are two basic credible witnesses in the earth to the resurrection of Christ: one is unity, two is the miraculous. We live in debt, if you will, we live in a sense of indebtedness to the world around us to model unity. Now, unity is expensive. Danny would say, Danny would say something like this. He said, "I love the part of you that reminds me of me." It's it's so funny. It's easy to be united with people who think just like us. That's the point. Unity isn't seen there. Camaraderie is common in the church and outside of the church. This unity is different. It goes beyond the obvious things that we have in common. It actually moves into this sacrificial love and care for people.
That cause Luke chapter 9 has this a storyline that is, to me, it's very funny. It's a series of experiences the disciples had. And and they had been commissioned. They came back with great reports of miracles and and so Jesus hears him talking, and they're actually arguing as to who is the greatest. You remember the story? And so Jesus corrects that part of their storyline. There is, it's not who is the greatest, the least is the greatest. You know, so he corrects that. And the next moment, John comes to Jesus with a report. Now understand, if John is coming to Jesus to tell him some news, it's because he thinks it's good news, right? He's not coming to confess his sins, he's coming to confess his success. So he comes to Jesus and he says, "We saw some guys over here, uh, trying to cast out demons in Your name. We told them to knock it off because they're not with us." Hahaha. It's just funny. It's like John is saying, "Alright, we got it down. We're not better than each other, but we are better than them. We are, we are on the inside of this demon casting out group. We are being trained by Jesus himself. They don't know, obviously don't know what they're doing." And so we told them to knock it off. And Jesus made this amazing statement. "If they're not against us, they're for us." Perhaps we're accustomed to thinking, "If they're not for us, they're against us." But in this situation, he, he said, "If you count people out that are not holding stones to destroy you, then you're going to miss your opportunity." A partnership at a level you would never experience without having that sense of devotion and commitment to people.
Paul pushed the same even farther in First Corinthians chapter 6. He talks to the church at Corinth, who has all kinds of issues. And one of the issues they had is they had one group of believers taking other believers to court because they were not treated fairly in a given situation. So what are they after? Justice. Your pursuit of justice, my pursuit of justice, is only blessed by the Lord in the measure I have died to my own desires. Because my pursuit of justice outside of personal yielding to Christ, pursuit of justice outside of that, will almost always end up with me trying to vindicate myself. And so Paul, now again, this is for other people that you know that need this. It's not, I'm sure it has no application for your life, but uh, I'm just trying to help you to be able to preach to your neighbor well, or your Christian relative, or whatever. Um, Paul pushes this point and he says, "Alright, you're being taken to court. What you're losing is greater than what you could ever gain." What's being destroyed? The concept of a body being members of one another. And he pushes the point and he comes to the this conclusion. He says, "Why not rather be wronged?" Well, because it's just not right. I don't want to condone their sin.
Jesus values his value for Unity. Doesn't mean that we compromise on beliefs. Doesn't mean we compromise on person's values. It does mean that love is greater than offense. It means love covers a multitude of sins. It means that I have to overcome my personal stuff so that I can demonstrate the love of Christ to another person.
We are about to experience something in the earth that you may or may not know anything about. In Portugal, on August 4th, there is a gathering of tens of thousands of people filling the newest, most modern, best stadium, I think, in all of Europe, Lisbon, Portugal. And it's a combination of Catholics and Protestants that are joining together to see people born again. It has, it has never been done in 2,000 years of church history. I, I was in dialogue with a dear friend and really a father who helped us, Jack Taylor, who, who, just as a dear, dear friend, he's home with the Lord now. But he, I remember we were in this dialogue, it was actually over emails and texts with a particular situation. And there was a healing, there was actually healing in a very, very challenging relationship. And in fact, he told me, he says, "It's the greatest miracle I've ever seen." It was that significant. And then he wrote me this note. He said, "Charles Wesley, if you remember John Wesley, John Wesley and George Whitfield were two of the great, great revivalists in The Awakening. And Charles Wesley would take John's theology and write it into songs because it's easier to learn song, easier told in theology that's written to music. And uh, in fact, I've told our worship teams, what do you want the church to look like in five years or ten years? Write songs about it now, and we'll sing our way into it. Yeah, because it, we actually, we we learn on a different level.
So anyway, so Charles Wesley wrote George Whitfield a letter. And they were, they grew up together in their early years, and then they had theological differences and they grew apart. One real cool quote that came out of George Whitfield's camp is that one of his assistants said, asked him, "Do you think we'll see uh, John Wesley in heaven?" And George said, "No." And he said, "That's what I thought." He said, "No, he'll be so much closer to the throne than we are, then we won't be able to see from where we're standing." Which is a very positive, obvious comment. So John Wesley, excuse me, Charles Wesley writes George Whitfield a note. And in this note, it said this: "We loved more when we knew less." Oh my God. I have watched it my entire life where people who are in love, in life, in ministry, doing stuff together, and the more they grow into their own gifts, the more they grow apart because we tend to love more when we know less. It doesn't mean we embrace ignorance. It just means we come face to face with the cost of unity.
What does it look like to live it? It means it's going to cost me. It means I have to lay down some of my own rights, my own ideas. Doesn't mean I compromise truth, but it does mean I will die to my vision on this to protect the city values. He values unity so much that he was willing to endure everything he went through to make it possible that we would experience a supernatural presence and gift that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit enjoy themselves, and that we would taste of that reality in how we do life together. And that's the ambition of the Lord. And it actually gives a credible witness to Jesus Christ. It says, um, "that they may be one in Us, that the world may believe."
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No wonder the enemy would work so hard to move us from one offense to another because it robs the voice that this gospel is real. It robs the volume. It robs the evidence. It robs, it takes away from us all the things that actually illustrate the power of this wonderful gospel.
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How do you reconcile relationships in your life and ministry when you have very conflicting doctrines? And it might be a personal conflict going on here, but also might be, we tend to walk with ministries we don't have complete, you know, yeah, agreement with our doctrines. I actually intentionally bring people in to speak as, you know, bring people in that that we don't agree with, but they're good people, they're people of prayer, they're abandoned to the Lord. And it just doesn't hurt us to be exposed to other segments of the body, to where we learn how to eat meat throughout bones. We learn how to celebrate who people are. And it comes down to, you know, they have a specific thing in mind usually when that question is asked, but it's a general question, so I can miss it all together. But if it's an essential thing, you know, like the blood of Jesus, you know, they deny the effect of the blood of Jesus, or the virgin birth, or whatever it might be, that's different. Then you, you have to draw relational boundaries. Yeah. And you're not gonna, you haven't had those folks into our, uh, our congregations. I have not. Yes. All the majors we agree on. It's the minors. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's the, you know, the role of angels, or, yeah, you baptized in the spirit, you speak in tongues when you get it, you know, those things. You know, there's opinions that are very diverse, and we have our convictions, what we feel are right, that we live by. But I'm not going to exclude people that think differently. And they're just, you just have to get to a place where you can celebrate who people are without stumbling over who they're not. That's what we, that's kind of the, one of the mantras of the, the culture of honor is to really celebrate what God is doing in a person. You know, Wesleyan Whitfield is, I think it's a great example. They were so diverse, and they were at odds for a season, as I understand it. I wasn't there, but I hear they're at odds for a season. And one of Whitfield's, uh, associates or friends said, "Yeah, I don't think we'll see Wesley in heaven." And Whitfield responded, "Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. He'll be so much closer to the throne than we are that we'll be hard to see him from where we are." And he was responding obviously in honor, wanting to honor one that he had really grown in affection for. So, you know, part of it just comes down to that. If it's an essential area, if it's a family member, that's one thing. With family, it doesn't matter what anybody believes, you're together. Yeah. You just, you know, I just, I'm not going to touch on touchy subjects. There's enough other things to talk about in life without offending or hurting people. You know, if it's a board member, or staff member, or a church member, or a pastor down the road, you know, there's all, there's different degrees of relationships, and you just learn what wisdom is. You know, when, when do you bring the subject up? Do you at all? Is it an essential part of life? Um, you know, I need, we need wisdom for that because it's, it's so easy to, you know, to lose a, lose a war and win a battle, so to speak. You know, to, "Well, I won that argument, but I lost a friend forever." Well, that's, that's, that's not right. That's not healthy. And the value of people is is huge. And even, even if they're wrong, because all of us, in my approach, is that every one of us believes something that's not right. Yeah. And we're convinced we're right. You know, we are, we're all in process. And, um, so we just need to give each other that whole grace and show mercy because you're going to want it later. Yeah, yeah.
We have that phrase on one of our visitor documents in, in the, you know, majors, unity, and the minors, uh, liberty. Yes. And, and, but in all things, love. Yes. Absolutely. That's right. And that came out of one of those guys that, right after Luther passed and Calvin passed, they were all just trying to kill each other over getting doctrine right. Yeah. You know, they were just lots and lots of separations and church splits and theological schools. And finally, this guy, Rupert, something or other, he came, he came up with that phrase. And we've seen that just in our lives as a congregation, in our lives, even on our own team. We have, we have some different understandings of of certain doctrines or end times that sort of deal. And people are often surprised by that. Like, there's no standard. They're like, "What's this Bethel standard?" Viewpoint here. I'm like, "I'm not sure there is one. I know Bill's got one, Chris has one, I have one." Yeah, yeah. And, um, we just enjoy each other and, you know, draw the strength from each other and, and, you know, oftentimes learn something new from each other. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. It's, I think it's, it's a huge part of life. I think that's what we're supposed to learn to do, you know, because it's in associating with people of diverse gifts and diverse views that we get healthier. You know, we don't become ingrown. And that happens so much by only hanging out with people with the same opinion. Yeah. You just, you become fortified in opinion, but not necessarily in maturity. Yes.
We're working on the doctrinal statement, you know, of the church. And partly by design, it was a big tent. It was lots of folks could find comfort and go, "I agree with that." Yeah. You know, in the way that we did that. And so many times that in denominations, we've just, they've parsed things so clearly that as far as end times are, I guess the spirit, that they're just, they're the belief statement actually separates and divides maybe too much. Yeah, yeah. I think the thing that Chris has been, I really started pronouncing here several years ago, was is that when you come together based on agreement, then you have to divide when there's disagreement. Yeah. But when you come together around fathers, around mothers, and it's, it's, you know, in a family Thanksgiving meal, you can have a Republican daughter and a, you know, a Democratic son and a Libertarian cousin. Yeah. You can have all, and you're all together and thankful. And yeah, and if they value each other, they're going to treat each other exactly with grace and stability and respect. Exactly.
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Gossip creates misinformation. How many of you ever did this in, like, grade school or whatever, where the teacher would line up 20 or 30, 40 students and and whisper a secret to the first one, and they would tell it to the second one, and to the third one, the fourth? By the time you get to the end, it's a completely different story. Yeah, yeah. That by itself should make us stay as far away from gossip as we possibly can because it creates misinformation. I mean, you could start with, "Julie bought a white horse, rode it to church, and her hair was all messed up." And by the time you get to the 30th student, she bought a white Mustang convertible, as she sat in the parking lot because she was embarrassed for her hair. And she, and that's what gossip does. It creates, it invites misinformation because it's interpreted through the perspective and values of the individual that heard. Oh, gossip is a coward's way of dealing with a problem. If there's a problem, you go directly. At minimum, you go to somebody who is involved in a solution, not someone you think should be involved in the solution. Because then you'll come to me. Stay away. I had somebody come to me once, they unloaded all their stuff about somebody else. And I listened to everything. I just, I milked it. And they just gave me all their stuff. And I said, "Now, have you gone to them?" The person, "No, I can't. They're, uh, whatever, they're too hard to talk to." Or whatever. It's usually, it's usually a spiritual excuse. "I just didn't discern," you know, whatever, whatever. So I said, "Well, um, I will give you seven days to talk to them because in seven days, I'm going to go to them and tell them what you told me." It really cuts down how many people want to confide in you, which, which I felt tremendously inspired of the Lord when I shared that.
Gossip in essence devalues relationship, connection, and trust. We attract the words we value. Luke says, in fact, the Gospel of Mark and Luke both have this concept that teaches, um, "Be careful what you listen to, because whatever you listen to, whatever you value, whatever you, whatever you let through your quality control, more will be given to you besides." In other words, what I receive will attract more. And that really is a principle of the Kingdom for life. So if you constantly have people that come to you with gossip, it's not a moment for shame, it's just a moment to make a decision. If you value it, you will attract. If God inhabits praise, who inhabits gossip? Words are, I don't know if entities is the right word. Words are that which hosts presence. And it depends what presence we host is determined by what we say. Jesus taught that he only said what he heard the Father say. But in John 6, he said, "My words to you are spirit."
Gospel is always, is often forced, excuse me, gossip is often used to force someone to change their conduct and or position on a matter through manipulation. And as I stated earlier, both manipulation and control are expressions of witchcraft. Gossip perverts the beauty and the wonder of the power of the tongue in the same way prostitution perverts the beauty of sexual intimacy in a marriage. That which was given to us as a gift to use for building up and creating is then used to kill, steal, and destroy. Gossip is the preferred tool of the enemy to destroy the life of a believer. It's a two-for-one deal.
I want to read one more portion of scripture to you, and it's out of Ephesians 4, beginning with verse 29. "Let no unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear." I'm going to come back to this verse. "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit." Notice what comes, what is in the context of our speech towards one another. "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander be put away from you, along with all malice." Gossip is the hiding place for unbelief. Gossip is the hiding place for unforgiveness. Kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
Here's where I want to end. I want to end with verse 29, just talk through this verse with you. I, I would say, you know, the concept of Ecclesiastes 10 verse 1 and 2 about the fly in the ointment. So we've got a perfumer who makes this beautiful perfume, and one fly gets in it and ruins the entire batch. And that's what happens in the anointing. The Lord has given us a grace, a call, something extraordinary that he's imparted to us, but through our words, we can actually plant small things called flies, that which is attracted to death, decay. We can put that in the ointment, and the entire thing is affected. And we have been given something. As Dan mentioned earlier, it's obviously, it's not the only thing going on in the world, but we get to be a part, which I'm glad we get to play. We get to, we get to be in the game, and I'm happy about that. But in such a crucial moment, if there were anything that I would say, Bethel family, let's be careful for this, it would be this right here. Be careful for this because in the zeal of life, it's easy to misspeak, misrepresent, and to say things out of a conviction of being right, out of a conviction or whatever, and misappropriate words that create damage and actually become the fly in the ointment. And in this case, he says, "Let no unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth." I've had a couple unwholesome words, two or two or three in my lifetime. Yeah, yeah. Forgive me for lying right there. "Let no unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification." So the target of my words is to be redemptive, not my chance to vent. A large percentage of people talk to vent, not talk to redeem. "It might give edification according to the need of the moment." Now, the need of the moment means I have to be present. If I bring this problem, this conflict, this situation into it, it will tarnish and taint what I have to say to you. But if I am with you, literally for your welfare, for your benefit, I will speak edifying words according to the need of the moment. It will be a timely word. Proverbs talks about the the beauty and the wonder of a timely word in season, apples of gold and settings of silver. It's this beautiful picture of what timely words look like. But then the last phrase of that verse is that it may give, might give grace to those who hear.