[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us
[email protected] be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast. Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: So my name is Barry Smith. I'm grateful to Mike for asking me to teach the class and I'm grateful for all of you guys being here tonight and I'm sure we'll have a few more walk in, which is good. But let's go ahead and start with a prayer.
Father in heaven, thank you for the chance to be together tonight with all of these men. Thank you for for the choice that's been made by them and by some others I'm sure that will arrive to be in this place and be in this place together and to share with each other and to share from your word and to help us, Father, understand how to live closer to your will.
I pray tonight, Father, that as we have this discussion that each of us, every person in the room, will be willing to look at ourselves and perhaps recognize something about ourselves that we can see needs to better reflect your will to the world.
Help us to do that. Forgive us when we fail to and when we forget to and when we don't do it well.
But help us to do it, Father, because we know that is what we're supposed to be doing.
We're not here to live life, have careers, make money, raise children, grow old and go to church.
We're here to spread the kingdom and help all of us to remember that. I pray in Jesus name, Amen.
So I wish that instead of beginning to learn what I'm going to talk to you about tonight at somewhere around 45 I would have begun to learn it about 25 now. I was raised in the church in St. Louis. I have two older brothers. My mother became a Christian before any of us were born. My mother became a Christian while my dad was away in World War II.
They'd been married a few months and then he went overseas. Mom went to a tent meeting in the St. Louis area with her aunt, and my mom was baptized. 19.
My dad came back from the war, and he said, okay, let's go dancing, because that's what they like to do. And she said, well, I don't want to go to those places anymore. Bars and clubs and all of that. And that started this in their marriage. Okay? Now, they stayed together.
As a matter of fact, I'm the youngest, and I was 35 years old when my mother and father finally separated from each other.
Now, the beauty of that is that even though I grew up in a violent household, which I did physically, mentally, emotionally, every way you can imagine, okay? Starting first, when my older brother, who was eight years older than me, was about 15, we all wrestled. And my brother finally got the confidence to stop my dad from hitting Mom.
And that's when I first realized that usually loudmouths are bullies, that they're afraid of people that will stand up to them.
So my brother, eight years older than me, stepped in between my mom and my dad, and that was the last time I ever saw my dad hit my mom.
He graduated and left for high school. My brother, that's four years older than me, did the same thing. Larry.
And now I was about 11, and I saw the same thing happen.
Then when that brother graduated and went off to high school, to college, I had to do the same thing.
So I grew up in a house where there was no peace.
None except when he was gone and he was home when we saw him pull in the driveway.
Other than that, we didn't know where he was.
But my mom taught my brothers and I about God. My mom taught my brothers and I about treating people with fairness, no matter who they were, about forgiving people before they ask for forgiveness. Peter.
I didn't know how to do any of that, but my mom taught us.
I wish I would have learned and understood what she was talking about at a much younger age. Amen.
Right?
But I began to learn what I'm going to talk to you about tonight, somewhere around 45, somewhere around the middle of my working career.
Now, unlike most of the men in this room who had the intelligence and the wisdom and maybe the resources to finish high school and then go to college, Matthew. And get a degree in a good field and get a career kind of job, I did not do that.
I could blame it on all kinds of things. The bottom line to it is I didn't do it, okay?
But I had a work career, did one of the same things my dad did the day he came back from World War II, he started buying properties in St. Louis. And I watched that all my life. I bought my first property when I was 19, did the rehab on it, sold it.
I remember 25 years later meeting a guy in Atlanta and he said, oh, you're a flipper.
I said, well, I used to be able to do a flip. I have no idea what you're talking about. Right. I didn't know that's what it had started being called.
But I was building that career along. In the midst of that, about halfway through my working life, some things changed economically.
I had three children, and in a period of 11 months, I lost every dime we had, including our own home.
Took everything we had, saved everything we had in iras and used it to feed my family.
I'm not complaining. I'm not saying poor, pitiful. I'm painting a picture for you, and I want you to understand why this is important.
You see, I had bought into one of the same things that probably most of you as American men, have bought into. Right, Mike? You know what I'm talking about.
And you look regularly at, where am I? On my path?
I've got this much saved. There's this much. My ira, you know, I've made this advancement in my career. I'm not criticizing any of that.
How many of you were raised in the church? Raise your hand if you were raised in the church. It's the overwhelming majority of us, and all of us are Americans, I think.
Don't tell me if you're not.
I was doing the same thing.
And then things happened that were out of my control, that were not mistakes.
I'd made all the mistakes 15 years earlier. Right. Mike was a builder. He knows what I'm talking about.
But things happened that were out of my control, and I lost everything we had not too long before we moved here from Georgia, from the Atlanta area.
Had one child at Harding, one in Greater Atlanta Christian School. No, three in Greater Atlanta Christian School. When all that happened and I found out something, I found out, my brother Jahan Defard, that if your circle of friends are people that make as much money as you are more, and then your money ends, a whole lot of them have no idea what to do with you.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
They don't know what to do when you don't have a big income anymore, when you can't take that big vacation and take your kids along with their kids, when you have to sell your car and buy something smaller or less expensive, they don't know what to do. I'm talking about members of the church. They don't know what to do with you.
So because of that being of that uncomfortable feeling, they back away. They step away.
First it made me angry, and then I realized they don't know what to do. They're uncomfortable. They don't want to say, let me pay for your meal this time.
The second time, Larry, and the third time and the fourth. They don't want to do that. Right.
Here's what I'm talking about. Has to do with that right there.
Younger men especially. Listen to me.
Do not build your peace on things that can be taken away from you in a heartbeat.
Amen.
You understand what I'm talking about?
And that's pretty much everything. Financial everything.
Your home, your savings, your income.
Don't build your peace on that. I'm not telling you, don't do it. I'm not telling you don't have the career. I'm not telling you. Don't work hard for it. I'm not telling you, don't save. I'm not not saying don't put money in an ira. I'm not saying any of that.
Don't let that be the foundation of the peace in your life. Right, Larry?
Because those things can be taken away in a heartbeat.
Oh, well, Barry, no Christian would do that.
I did, and I didn't even realize it until it was gone.
So what did I learn? Mid-40s?
I learned something I wish I'd known when I was mid-20s, and it would have built my life differently.
Did I build it wrong? No.
Did I build it on something evil? No.
Did it revolve around sin? No.
None of that is true.
But I didn't build it on the right thing.
That's what I want to talk to you about now. If you want to leave, now's the time.
I did put two big guys by the door, though, so you'd be in trouble.
This is what I want to talk with you. I asked if you would answer this question, and many of you did.
I think it was norm to put a QR code up here. And I put some back on the doors, and I got a lot of answers, like 45 answers.
Some I fully expected, some I did not.
And to be very truthful with you, a couple that made me cry when I read them. It just washed over me instantly.
So we're going to talk about that. But this is my motto and the one I wish I would have learned to live when I was 25.
Now there's a lot of Reasons for this. You see nothing in life, especially in the life of a Christian man. Not one single thing happens by accident.
Everything in your life, every event, every meeting, every person, disappointing, encouraging, happy, sad, whatever, there is a purpose. There's a reason. If you will look for it, God will show you what the reason is.
That is the essence of Romans 8:28.
Not that everything is good, right, Ronnie? But that everything will work together for good. One of the things these events at 40 something taught me has helped me to maintain my peace as these elders have continued to support me to do mission work in Africa. You know why?
Because everything on the African continent moving target.
Everything, even the targets are moving targets.
But by the time I got to start doing the work, I already knew it. It didn't matter.
I would tell people that were going with me. You can go with me, as long as you understand that. Do we have an agenda? Do we have a schedule? Do we have a whatever? No.
I can tell you which country we're going to. And when we get there, the first thing we'll do is change something.
The next day we'll change something else. And the next morning we'll change another thing.
And then we'll make a plan for that day, and then we'll change that three or four times. And if you're good with that, and you can roll with that, and that won't steal your peace, then come on and go with me. And that's even an invitation I offer right now.
A young man asked me in an airport on my way home from this last trip.
We were talking. He was very courteous to me as an older man, and he said, can you give me some advice? I said, never let anything steal your peace. And he said, wow. And I thought, yeah, I wish at 20, 21 I would have understood that as well. All right, here's some of the things that came up. Now, as I go through these.
If you have a comment, when one of these words pops up here, anything, please just say it. You don't have to raise your hand, whatever. Just say, hey, Barry, that makes me think of this, that, or whatever. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to pause just a few seconds on each one of them. This one was pretty common. This one was way too common. This one was way too common. That's why they're up here at the beginning. Why am I putting them there? And why am I telling you this? Because I want you to understand something.
A lot of people said these three things right here.
A lot of the responses included this work Steals my peace, hurry or worry. I mean, steals my peace. And being busy or hurrying steals my peace.
It's very common.
If you believe those things, you're not alone.
Again, if you see something I want to make a comment, please don't hesitate. Just do it.
All of these, some of these were one word answers.
Some of them I compiled from sentences or statements.
This one bothers me.
For Christian man, this bothers me.
See, I get this, and we all know what that is, but this one bothers me. Did anybody explain what kind of fear? No, Ronnie, nobody did. I think there were seven or eight or nine people that said fear. There were a couple that said, like, I fear what's going to happen with my job or something specific, but it was just fear.
Okay, do either one of these surprise anybody?
My kids and my adult kids. What does that tell you? Fathers of young children, what does that tell you?
Your kids are always going to be a concern for you. Always.
Ronnie, your youngest is what age?
You don't even know.
Probably close to 50. No, I don't know.
She was born 76. 76. Y' all do the math. A lot of engineers in here. My kids are 30 to 41.
Okay? Some of you get kids from three to four.
It's not going to change your concern, your interest, your call it worry if you want to. I don't let it be worry in my life, remember? I don't let anything steal my peace. But concern, captivity of your mind is always going to be there.
There is not, Mark. And you know this as well. There's not a. Oh, we reached that point right now. They're all good. Everything's happy, right? That doesn't happen.
And if it does, forgive me for this statement. You're probably being lied to.
It doesn't happen.
You're going to continue to be concerned and interested in their lives until you're not here to be interested anymore.
Yes, sir.
[00:16:15] Speaker C: Back up to busyness, okay? Because with our kids and all the stuff, all the functions, activities and everything else, it's like we need to beware of the emptiness of a busy life. The barrenness of a busy life.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: Exactly so.
Exactly so.
[00:16:32] Speaker D: A thought that weighs in sometimes is if I don't let myself be stressed out, if I don't demonstrate anxiety and
[00:16:42] Speaker B: stress, then I don't care. Did you hear what David said?
In what universe does that make any sense yet? It happens, doesn't it?
[00:16:51] Speaker D: You evaluate yourself and others evaluate you.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Exactly. And you're sitting and talking with three other young fathers and the three of Them are stressed and they're busy, and we're going here and we're going there. And you're like, well, we're not. And you don't really tell them because it makes you feel different.
Life can be that way. Can be busy and not crazy and chaotic and out of control. Can be promise.
But you have to choose to make it that way, which we'll come back to later. By the way, those of you that were here when I had the little pre show going, what was that from?
It's Jerry Clower. It's Jerry Clower. And for those of you that don't know, go home, pop open YouTube and look up the Jerry Clower tree coon in the tree story, okay? Look it up. It's hilarious. Bottom line was this guy said the only way his daddy taught him to catch coons was you had to climb up in the tree with them and give them a fighting chance. And then you scare him out onto the ground where 30 dogs are going to chase him down right when you mark's laughing because he knows the story. And the bottom line was, it's dark. This guy climbs up in there, the coon's up in the tree, and they get to fighting and wrestling with each other and making noise, and both of them are screaming. And he keeps saying, shoot him, shoot him, shoot him. And they say, if we shoot, we'll hit you. And what's he say, Jeff?
Shoot up in here amongst us, somebody's got to have some relief, okay?
And I changed it to peace. And that's the way life is sometimes, isn't it? You know what? Just shoot me. I got to have some relief from what's going on right now. So that's not going to change. Kids, adult kids, you're always going to concern family arguments, family demands. I don't think anybody surprised that this was named by people.
See, here's something else that all of those experiences in the past taught me. When I started going to Africa and I met people, they have one possession in their family, one cooking pot that mom made the meals in. They didn't own the house they live in. They didn't own the clothes they were wearing. They went down to the local Catholic church or whoever had some and got clothes when this one wore out.
Kids that have shoes, they own nothing.
And we as Americans are so incredibly blessed that this is a problem for us.
Forgetting how much I actually have.
I'm not trying to make you feel guilty about that. Remember what this was. It was somebody's answer to what Steals my peace.
It's that I forget how much I have.
Yes, Mike, in the mid-90s, I spent
[00:19:41] Speaker E: three weeks in Russia. We were in Moscow, and we've been eating tongue and fish head soup.
And so finally, we were in Moscow. We came across a McDonald's. Me and. Me and three others.
And so we ordered what we normally order at McDonald's. And everybody stared at us because a family of five was sharing a single meal.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: We forget, guys, each of us had our own meal. Had your own meal.
We just. We're not aware and we forget. And this is what somebody from this class answered as what steals my peace? Yes, sir. Yeah.
[00:20:24] Speaker F: So I think when I wrote. I think I wrote that one. It's been a couple. And, you know, I think the. Certainly the possessions and things comes to mind immediately, but when I wrote that, I was actually thinking about relationally. So. So, like, whenever you're having trouble with your parents, kids, it's really easy to focus on, like, the challenge of the day, right? And then you forget all the, like, blessings that you have. And even having kids, a spouse that loves and cares and hopefully holds the same Christian values as you do. And, like, it's so easy for us, I think, to take that for granted and focus on the strife that you might have in your relationship at the time. And so I know that when I. I think I wrote that, it took me, like, five minutes to really think through kind of the stuff that I was gonna. I think that that's something that, like, plagues me more often than maybe anything else, is just forgetting all the good.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: The good things you do have. So let me just say this about that in regard to kids, right?
If you ever think your kids are driving you crazy, some of you know, my son Luke, he and his wife have been married almost six years.
They haven't been able to have children.
Her sister's got kids.
Luke's sister's got kids.
Praise the Lord. His wife is pregnant.
How much you think they're going to complain? At least between now and birth.
Perspective. This is one of the reasons it's so important for us to be here.
Yes, to be on Sunday morning and come to worship, but to be here for these kinds of opportunities to look at each other and share with each other about what's here.
I'm not talking about some big emotional thing. I'm talking about the truth.
And this is the truth about peace and what steals peace. Let's look at a few more of these quickly.
11 of these.
Of course, they're all anonymous Right. I have no idea what the ages were, but 11.
Losing loved ones in the future was something somebody said. Relationship hardships. Guess what? Guess what. If you're going to live in this world, Michael, you're going to have relationship hardships. Aren't your brother. You just. Things are just not going to be smooth. It's that simple.
If you're expecting them to be, and that is stealing your peace, stop it.
They're not going to be that way. They will be blessings in your life if you'll allow them to be.
But you have to engage with people in life if you're going to have relationships and, and there are going to be some that fall apart and don't ever come back together. There are going to be some that are hard, Matthew, and you work through them and you get to a point where they're a blessing in your life.
But relationship hardships are real and they're real for everybody.
This one bothered me.
This bothered me. And I'm going to make the same offer I did a few minutes ago. If you sent this statement in, please, please reach out to me privately.
Don't let this keep going.
Don't keep hiding it, because you probably are.
Don't do that.
You may have a wonderful career, you may retire with a 7 digit 401, but if you live with this, you'll never have any peace, ever.
Regrets in my marriage.
There were some statements about regrets in my former marriage.
If you've got those, seek help.
Don't think it's just going to get better or go away or heal itself. It won't. And it will continue to steal your peace.
Doubts about doing enough. Look at this.
As a Christian husband, Christian dad, Christian professional, doubts about whether I'm doing enough.
You know, this is a busy place. There's a lot of stuff going on here all the time. Guess what? Especially if you've got children at home, you do not have to come to everything.
In case you didn't know that.
Pick and choose the things that will bless you and your family.
But your children, if you have them at home, are your number one mission field.
Yes.
[00:24:36] Speaker E: Going back to very beginning, when you put down busyness.
I think we oftentimes equate busyness as doing those things that we're supposed to do.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:50] Speaker E: I think oftentimes we think of, okay, well, I'm doing good work because I'm always busy. I think we've got to really separate out busy work, busyness versus discipleship and discipline. And, and it's like you said, you know, it's. You don't have to chaperone your child on every single event.
And oftentimes it's better for them to get.
It's better for them to be corrected by or chaperoned by other adults versus you. And I think we, like, we've got to do every single thing.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: I remember when our oldest son, Cody, was 11, and we were at a school meeting. They were at a private school, and we were at the school meeting, and this older gentleman said, the most important thing you can do, other than, of course, teaching your child at home. And those things that are assumed, the most important thing you can do for your child's faith is introduce them to another man who shares the faith that you have that can be influential in that boy's life.
Maybe that's a coach. Maybe it's somebody at church. Maybe it's just the father of, you know, other young people or whatever, somebody else that goes on as the chaperone, Mike, instead of me or instead of you, Right?
The psyche of a man, of a young boy is why it works that way.
Because we reach a point in time when we say, well, you know, my dad has always told me this, but maybe I'll ask this man what he thinks.
All of these things will help you to maintain your own peace.
We can't do everything, guys. None of us can.
Spiritual busyness.
This is just a quote, okay?
Don't tell me if you're the one that did this, because I could never put a sentence together like this.
It wasn't mine. I just copied and pasted, overdo over, complicate and overemphasize what is necessary, if I understood it, for what is considered to be living good or living right or living a good life. Right? And I think there's probably a lot of truth in that statement. Let's go on.
This is also a quote for those of you in the back. I often feel like I'm not good enough.
I know I'm redeemed, but that doesn't always connect emotionally.
And it's the emotion behind the belief that drives us to do those things that we believe in or don't believe in. Okay, we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about these three things, and we're going to use some biblical illustrations from them. So from Genesis 4, you know what this story is, right? Cain and Abel, they both brought their offerings. And what I want you to do is look at this. First of all, the words that are highlighted, what are those two words in white?
Very angry okay, Cain is offering a head. No regard. So Cain was very angry and his face fell. The Lord said, why are you angry? Now, here's my question to you. Why was he angry?
Why was Cain angry?
Okay, maybe jealousy. What else?
God wasn't happy with him. Maybe that scared him. Maybe there was some fear involved. Maybe there was. Can't believe it. There was. Maybe there's some jealousy of his brother.
Okay, maybe he was angry because he was confused.
I thought I was doing what I was supposed to do.
Look at this last sentence. One of you read this for me. Mike, read this last sentence right here, starting with if.
[00:28:35] Speaker C: If you do well, will you not be accepted?
[00:28:39] Speaker B: I'm not going to ask you to define well because well is the decisions that we make every day about how I'm going to live my Christian life in order to be acceptable in God's eyes. And that's for you, and that's for you. And that's for you. And that's for you and me. That's for each one of us to decide on our own. Now, hopefully you surround yourself with some smart, wise, caring, loving people like my friend David, who would say to me, barry, you really shouldn't be doing this or that.
Barry, don't you think you ought to try to do this or that?
And he knows that I would appreciate that and I would listen to him.
That's iron sharpening iron. That's me being willing to listen to him and him coming to me humbly, when in fact my life needs to be corrected.
If you do well, will you not be accepted? Now look at the next part of this. And this is what I don't want you to forget.
And if you do not do well, if you don't do well, where is sin?
It's right there. Where is it?
It's crouching at the door. And Ronnie, what does it say? It's what is for you.
I'm going to make you believe you're not doing enough.
I'm going to make you believe you're not active enough.
I'm going to make you believe you're not advancing in your career enough.
I'm going to make you believe you're not involved enough at church. You're not spiritual enough. You're not praying enough. You're not doing whatever, anything sin can do to try to capture you or me.
It's going to do. It is at the door. Jeff talked last week about the prevalence of pornography and why it is such a problem.
Because it's right here.
It's just right There push one button.
Sin is crouching.
If you do not do well, what is well? I'm not answering that for you.
You have to answer that.
You have to say, I want to do well. Why? Because I want to maintain my peace, and I'm not going to let anything steal it. Then you better take the time to define what well is in your life.
And that doesn't mean you send the elders an email and say, I need a calendar of everything that's going to happen at the church building so that my family and I can be involved in every single event that probably is not well.
But way too many of us don't ever step back and say, what is well for Michael and Ann Marie and their children.
And Michael and Ann Marie are the ones that have to do that.
And for those of us that have adult children, we have to let them do it, don't we, Ronnie?
And it scares us and it worries us and it steals our peace.
What I'm trying to get you to see is that if you just go at this with whatever comes along, you're going to live without peace the rest of your life, especially if you've got a family.
So I'm encouraging you to step back from life, do whatever it takes.
Say I am going to and. Or my wife and I are going to determine what does it mean to do well in the Kelly family, in the Smith family. And that's what we're going to do.
And that is how and when you rule over it, and if you don't do it, it will rule over you, and it will steal your peace. And when your hair is my color or when your hair is gone, you will have no peace.
I went to a funeral of someone in St. Louis last week that died at 95.
This is a woman who's the mother of several children I grew up going to church with.
None of them are faithful. None of them. None of her grandchildren, none of her great grandchildren.
And one of her daughters sat at the table with me and cried her eyes out and said, barry, we've all fallen away.
And the more I talked with her, the more I realized it's because they did not plan. How are we not going to fall away?
She said they complained about how busy they were and the kids were going here and doing that, and we got to work extra hours and make extra money for the 401, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. She said, and now it's all gone. It's too late to stop and look at it and make a plan.
You think it won't happen to you?
Good luck with that.
Be wise, be smart, step back and say, what steals my peace right now?
And what plan can I make? Me and my wife? If you're married, what plan can we make for this to stop stealing our peace? And then what plans can we make for a week from now and a month from now and a year and five and a retirement age, et cetera, et cetera? If you don't plan for it, it's not going to happen. Not in our culture. It's not going to happen. I have a dear friend who has stage five kidney failure in Uganda. This church, especially the elders are very aware of it.
I got a message from him this morning. Because of the costs and because of three days a week of dialysis and everything connected to that, here's the statement he made to me. I think next week we'll go to the village.
For those of you who don't know, that means we're going to go back to the village where I was raised and I'm going to die because he can't handle the physical treatments and they can't pay for it.
But you know what? The man is at peace.
I think I'll just go back to the village.
My path is finished.
He's not blinded by a lot of things and a lot of stuff.
Am I trying to warn you about possessions? Yes, I am.
You must rule over it.
If you don't, it will rule you.
The problem was anger.
The problem with Cain is he was angry. And look at that scripture.
Somebody read that scripture right there. Just read it right off that screen.
[00:35:54] Speaker D: For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
[00:36:00] Speaker B: I will tell you, at 71 years old, one of the most foolish comments I've ever heard a man make, especially a Christian man, was, well, you know what? I've got a temper and you push me so far, but when you push me to there, I'm just not in control anymore. Liar.
You believed a lie and now you're lying to yourself.
Can you change that if you have an anger problem, Maybe not.
That's what this is for.
That's what the word is for. That's what the spirit is for. Because I'll tell you who can change it.
God can change it.
If you're not engaging with him to change it, you don't want it to change.
You're using it as an excuse.
And what is it doing? It is a built in tool that steals your piece.
You're saying to another person, well, you can push me so far, but beyond that, I'm just not responsible anymore. And the devil is standing behind you and going, I got you. I got you. You believe that foolishness, but these things don't change unless we step back and say, I'm going to change. This anger is what caused that problem.
Okay? So we're going to just move through this quickly. Bottom line to this with Moses is he struck the rock. We know the story.
I was going to ask you, why do you think he stuck the rock? But his pride.
Moses wanted the people to say, oh, look at Moses. Look at what Moses has done for us.
You know, the end result of this thing was at the end of his life, when you read the end of numbers, God took Moses up onto the plain of Moab and Moses died, and God buried him. And the scripture says, and to this day, nobody knows where that hero of Israel is even buried, Because God knew the hearts and the minds of men. We're going to go on.
Why are you afraid? Oh, you of little faith. Fear steals our peace. Fear.
Fear.
I respect a lot of things in this life and a lot of people, but I don't have any respect for fear.
We can talk about that more later if you want to. My grandmother's name was Pearl. These are things I heard Pearl say.
Sorry for the stupid analogy of Pearl's pearls. Okay, okay. Here's the first one. I didn't know that these were based on scripture when I was a little boy, But I heard my grandma say this. What's that say? What's that say?
Read it.
Don't let fools live for you in your head.
Somebody told me not too long ago, Somebody said that in the movie. I said, it couldn't be. My grandmother died years ago. No, somebody really did say that. So I guess a lot of people's grandmothers said it. I don't know. But you know, the bottom line is, if you study the word, you. You find out this principle. There it is.
Here's another one.
I love this one.
What should you do when you find yourself in the presence of a fool?
Leave.
How many of you work with fools?
I've worked with a lot of fools. You know what I used to do? I used to argue with them, Boy, I'm smarter than they are.
I know God, and I'm this and I'm that.
And God was probably laughing.
Barry, you're just making a fool out of yourself.
Best thing you can do when you find yourself in the presence of fools, rather than engage and let them steal your peace, is to follow what the scripture has to say.
Then, of course, my grandmother used to say this too. She said, well, now there's a different problem if you're the fool. But okay, we'll do a couple more.
Ever heard that one?
Yeah, in some different iteration or whatever. But that's one. My grandmother used to say all the time.
When they got a telephone, they were on a 12 person party line.
We would call her and talk to everybody in Lawrence County, Arkansas, at the same time. Because they just all get on the phone, hey, Pearl. Hey, Pearl. Hey, Pearl. Hey, Pearl. They were all on there. And then she started asking questions and we'd start telling her what was going on in our lives in St. Louis. And everybody in the whole county knew because they were all on a party line. If you don't know what party line is, I'll explain it later. Grandma used to say, don't borrow tomorrow's troubles. Okay, bottom line, Matthew 6.
Don't borrow trouble.
If worry about tomorrow, about anything, is what steals your peace, you're borrowing tomorrow's trouble.
Why can't I think of Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain, Mark Twain? Mark Twain said one time, I know that worry works because 95% of the things I worry about never happen.
I do want to do these quickly. Was that the first spell or second?
Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm going to go through a couple of these quickly. You can get up and leave if you have to, because this relates back to a lot of the problems that you guys listed in the beginning. Don't begrudge challenges.
Don't be mad or angry or sorry or let it steal your peace that difficult things have come along in your life. Family, children, work, finances, whatever it is, don't let that steal your.
It doesn't have to.
It's only if you give it permission to steal your peace that this will happen. Because you can instead look at it the way scripture does. Romans 5. We know these things build character.
That's like one of those great scriptures to read, but don't make me try to live it right. David, Come on, man, you're getting unreal here. You're stepping on my toes. Here's another one.
Rejoice, hmm? So that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
I'm gonna stop there because the bell has rung. And I'm gonna say this to you. Of all of the things that steal Your peace?
Tell me the one that matters. If before you get back to your car tonight, the Lord calls us home, which one of those things that steals your peace matters? Anybody want to tell me? Oh, but, Barry, this one is so important.
Before you get back to your car, this world is over and that thing really matters. Don't do it. Don't let the devil do it to you.
Step back and say, I'm going to learn how to control the things that steal my peace.
And if you have to, and you need to, brother, come.
Come screaming, hollering, crying, whatever it takes, and come to one of us, or some of us, or more than one of us, and say, I need your help.
I need your help.
Everything in my life looks normal and it's not.
David, would you have a quick prayer for us that God will help us learn how to keep our peace, and then we'll go.
[00:43:12] Speaker D: Father, you bless us and love us so much. And it makes us ashamed that we come with our anxieties and our troubles and things that you can see are really not anything in our life but important.
Help us, Father, to come face to face with you and to see you and to love you and to draw that relationship deep in our heart and put a peace that. Father, help us have a deep sense of peace and conviction of your love for us and our love for you, and help us lead our families in that way. In Christ's name, Amen.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: Amen. Thank you, guys.
