Losing Your Temper

Good morning. Let's stand and pray together. Okay, let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for this day, this time we can be together. We lift up this man on Rob's heart, ask you to speak to him, deal with him, help him on his way. And we just pray for your presence as we meet here this morning in your name. Please speak to our hearts and may your spirit dwell among us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. When I was in Bible college, there was a teacher and he'd say, An excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie. Everybody catch that? It looks like a reason, but it's just the skin. It's just a lie. And I thought sometimes he'd say that about stuff that was legitimate reasons. And I pondered what was the difference between a legitimate reason and an excuse. When I just googled it, the first Google answer is that reason. So okay, I'll set the premise here. Something undesirable happens. You're late or something doesn't go the way you want it. And then we look at the cause for that. When we look at the cause for that, is it a reason that this thing went wrong? Or is it an excuse for why that thing went wrong? The first little Google result that comes up is, Reason implies that fault, a fault is sincerely recognized and accepted. And that you take accountability for your actions. An excuse exists to justify, to blame or defend a fault with the intent to absolve oneself of accountability. Those are some big words. Did the children maybe understand that? An excuse is when you say, I didn't do anything wrong. I did everything right. And there was some outside forces that caused this bad thing to happen. But there's no fault in what I did. And a reason is like, oh, the reason it happened is because I did. I did it this way and I should have done it that way. That's a reason. Or maybe the reason it maybe the reason is that I did everything I should have done. But, you know, the weather or or something outside of my control. But an excuse will never be followed by a positive goal directed or solution oriented behavior. Which is kind of the point that I'm that I'm trying to make. That's what we should have. Positive, goal directed, solution oriented behavior. Those are big words, but we should always be sincerely on the lookout for changes that we can make. Any fault of our own. Any faults of our own. Anything that we can even just do better. Any way that something can change for the better based on something that we did. My wife said something brilliant recently. She said she was talking about some situation. And she said, she said, something's got to change. And then she said, and the only thing I can change is myself. Wow. That's brilliant that we all would have that attitude. Something's got to change. And the only thing I can change is myself. That's not exactly true. We can we can help others to change as well. But this should be our mindset. Our goal is to figure out what we can change in ourselves. If it needs to be changed. So the attitude we should have is that I need to do something different. Not, I didn't do anything wrong. Or there's nothing I could have done differently. Or it was completely outside my control. If that's the truth, then that's the truth. But we need to recognize within our nature a desire to absolve ourselves of guilt. And say it wasn't my fault. And we need to counter that and figure out any way that it possibly was our fault. We should be doing this diligently and sincerely. It is our responsibility. If we're making excuses or saying that it's something outside of our control. And the change really does need to happen within ourselves. Then we won't make that change. And we should be eager to figure out ways that we need to change. And fixing those things. Okay, that was a little bit about excuse. Excuse making and sincerely looking to what we can change in ourselves. And what I really want to talk about is temper and losing your temper. So, I think I figured out the definition of temper. Temper is balance of two seemingly opposing principles or forces. It's often expressed with, we say we lose our temper. That means we got angry or upset or we were unkind. And the most common, probably the most common tangible, physical, literal example we have is steel. Steel has a temper, but all kinds of things have. Clay has a temper, glass has a temper. But we look at steel and we, go ahead. It's a balance of two opposing forces. Now, tempering is a verb, like if I temper steel. And it's a process. There's heat and hammers and all this stuff. But ultimately what the goal is, what I'm doing is I'm trying to create a balance in the steel. Now steel has two qualities. One quality that steel has is that it's strong. It's holding up the roof here. It's strong stuff. But another quality that steel has is that it gives. If they made this steel here as hard as they could and I hit it with a bat, it would shatter. They can, they do, I don't know how they do it with heat and they do stuff with carbon. And to make steel hard and it can become so hard that it will just not give. And if you try to push it, it'll break. It'll snap. We don't want that quality. So in construction, in our, when we make forms for concrete, on our concrete crew we use stakes. Mushroom on the top. They'll eventually start to squish like clay. Like really slow clay and really hard clay. But it gives, like we're changing the shape of it. Like the same way you do with a piece of clay but it takes hammers and it's a lot slower. And yet I'm driving it into the ground through rocks. It doesn't bend. It doesn't break. It's hard. But there's a balance of these qualities that we want. That on a knife edge, on the blade, the edge of a knife, you want it as hard as you can. Because if it's soft and if you hit something, it's going to bend. The very fine edge of the knife, you want it to be hard so it doesn't bend. But if it's too hard, then it'll break. You'll hit something and it'll chip off. And so they try to find this balance in a knife edge so that it doesn't break but it doesn't bend. It has to be kind of hard and kind of soft. And that's called temper. And you'll hear the expression often used to temper something with something else. To balance. To balance it out. I wrote down graciously unbending. And this is the thing that I want to talk about. I feel like it comes up often when I'm discussing some principle, some problem with the people of God. The conclusion always ends up being some difficult stretching of being unable to let go of two things. And it would seem that in order to hold tight to this thing, I should let go of this one. Or in order to hold tight to this one, I have to let go of both of them. And how can I hold on to both? And yet, this is what we find as often. The answer, we see it even in God's nature. Our Lord was human and divine. And like an old preacher said, He wasn't half human. He wasn't half God and half man. He was 100% God and 100% man. And because He was that, He had a connection with both God and man. And He's the mediator bringing God and man together. So, not losing our temper means not losing the balance. Not reaching a point where we break. Not giving up. Max probably knows a lot more about this. So they have airplanes that have to take off and land off these boats out in the ocean. And an airplane normally needs a long runway to get up enough speed to take off. And it needs a long runway to slow down enough to stop on an airplane. And so, instead of making really long ships, they make short ships. And feel free to correct me, Max. I'm probably going to say this wrong. I didn't study it out too much. But I know in general, since they don't have the long runway for the plane to take off, they catapult, I think, the plane. They throw it. They have a mechanism like a catapult. And they shoot the plane and give it a big head start. And then it takes off. And then when the plane lands, it only has this short space. I mean, it would just end up landing in the ocean. But it's got a hook on its tail. And it grabs onto a cable. And it's not quite elastic-y. It's probably got hydraulics. But it would look like elastic. And I think maybe if that doesn't catch, there's actually a net that stops the plane. Now, I just love this. This is what I'm talking about. It's a perfect illustration. If you can imagine this airplane. I mean, it's very heavy. It's going very fast. It's got a lot of inertia. And it's coming down like it takes a great amount of force to stop it. But if there was no give, it would do something really bad. If that hook was on its tail, it's going to rip the hook off. It's going to rip the tail off. But if it's not strong enough, then the plane is going to end up in the ocean. So, it's got to have this balance. It's got to be ungiving. What did I say? Ungracious. No. Gracious. Gracious unbending. It does give in a way to prevent something from breaking. But it doesn't let it go off the ship. And I think this is a good illustration of where we find ourselves in Christianity. Like one of these cables. It's trying to grab on to this enormous, heavy, high-powered, fast thing. And stop it without breaking it. But without letting it go any further. And the tension is all on this cable. And it all ends up being on us. This is what God has done. It's an oversimplification of what God has done in order for man to be saved. And it's what we do as we cling to others. And try to help others to be reconciled to God. And in the Baptist world that I was in, Independent Fundamental Baptist. We had a saying, If the truth hurts, you need the hurt. And it was just this. We had this stubborn, hard mentality. And there's some truth to that. I've said, and I believe, The kindest thing you can ever do for somebody is to tell them the truth. The kindest thing you can do for somebody is to tell them, Show them, To tell them that if somebody's in error, The kindest thing you can do is tell them that they're in error. You're not being kind if you let them go on in their error. You're not being kind if you don't tell them the truth. So I want to amend this though. Because there's truth in that, but it's not entirely true. And maybe I'll even amend it again. But I want to amend it by saying, That the most helpful thing you can do is to get someone to see their error. Get someone to see the truth. Maybe there's ways of telling somebody the truth, And pointing someone's error out to them that doesn't actually help them. What you said was true, but it wasn't helpful for them. And we want to help people. So we need to get creative. And we need to figure out not just, I can't just tell somebody that they're in error, And tell somebody the truth. I need to figure out how to get them to see it. Otherwise, ultimately I've failed. I can't say, well I told them. That's how the Baptists were. If the truth hurts, you need to hurt. Like, I'm sorry it hurt, but there it is. And if you can't take it, so what? I'm just going to go pound on other people with the truth. And we want, our goal is that people would be helped. That people would be changed. Not just have the truth told to them in a way that they can't accept. And that doesn't actually help them. So, I'm talking about tactics. And I'm about tactics. And I think God is about tactics. I think this is part of, as He compels us to conduct ourselves. Like either a tree that needs to bear fruit for the Master who's coming back. Or people working in a vineyard who's expecting the Master to come back. Or a servant who's been given something to invest. He's going to be coming back. And we should be figuring out how can we bring forth the most fruit. How can we bring the biggest return? How do we do it? And God gives us, He doesn't line it all out for us. He wants us to use our creativity, our personal free will to make our choices. To use extreme examples like, should I open up an orphanage? Should I start a homeless ministry? Should I, you know, all these options of good things to do. And I don't think God necessarily wants to just tell us exactly what to do. Maybe in some cases He does or will. But I think for the most part God wants us to make choices. Like, I know what will please the Lord. If I, there's all these orphans. I'm going to help all these orphans. That will please, that's what God wants me to do. And that's what will please Him. And it's unlikely that on the Day of Judgment He's going to say, Oh, you blew it. I wanted you to be a missionary to such and such a place. And here you stayed here and helped all these orphans. Like, it's unlikely. Like, you're going to be, we are going to be responsible for what fruit we bring forth. And we should be exercising ourselves being creative. And how to do that. I think that's what's being touched on in the scripture. In Jude verse 22 it says, And of some have compassion. In the New King James it says, Making a distinction. And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire. Hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. So, we might have to adjust our tactics when we're dealing with people and trying to help people. This is trying to help our children. Trying to help our brothers and sisters in a home. Trying to help people that we meet at the gas station. Whatever it would be. Adjusting our tactics. Now, our tactics are never going to be unkind. Our tactics are never going to be hurtful and unthoughtful and dismissive. That's not what I'm talking about. There was this neat Baptist preacher guy. S.M. Davis was his name. He'd preach about, even among the Baptists, he'd preach about these really sort of controversial things. And he got up and he talked about how bad the TV was. Get the TV out of your home. And he appeals to fathers or husbands, men in the homes. And he says, oh, but you see, I agree with you, preacher. That TV's bad. It needs to get out of the house. But I've had it there for so long. My children and my wife, they love it. I'll never be able to get out of the house. What do I do? How do I do it? And he says, oh, it's so easy. I'll tell you what to do. And he gives him this description. He says, go out to the garage or the barn and get you a sledgehammer. And go into the living room. And he very dramatically, I won't even try to act it out, but very dramatically says, you come in there and you just start smashing the TV. And he's screaming, you know, just this big theatrical, I hate this thing. I hate this thing. And just smash it to bits right there in the living room. And he says, it's funny. And then when you're done laughing, he says, they won't give you any problem about it at all. It's just like this extreme tactic that he uses in order to get this result. And he says, if they ever start saying, oh, I missed the TV or something, just grab the sledgehammer and be like, okay, I did it. I said I wasn't going to, but I did. Okay, he's dramatic and it's funny. But it's this extreme tactic. So let's just use this kind of as an example. Like if there's a man and he's allowed TV to be in his home, but now he doesn't like it, like what can he do? Ultimately what the man is saying is we're not going to have this in the home anymore. And that's what that man that I described, that's what he did. It's busted. It's out of the home. But there was no grace in that. And that's the humor. That's why it made a bunch of people laugh. I doubt anybody would have really done that. But somehow there's this idea that unless we do something extreme like that, unless we say the TV is bad and it's so bad I'm going to smash it, if we don't smash it then we're not really saying that it's bad and it's just not true. A man could go in and speak to his family and he could have an amount of time like that he's not going to immediately get it out. He wants to compel them. He wants them to see. But eventually it's going to be out of the house. But that's a given. That's not going to bend. But there's no hammers involved. There's no smashing involved. There's no dramatic display. He graciously, kindly talks with his children and his family. He reasons with them. And if they don't receive it he keeps reasoning with them. And he keeps reasoning with them. And it can't go on forever. But if you can get that, it's like this thing catching a big airplane. It's not going to, I'm not going to let you go into the ocean. But neither am I just going to be a wall that you're going to smash into. That's just violent and it's not God's ways. It's not God's ways for us. So losing your temper is like breaking. It would be like in this illustration of the airplane coming in. It would either be like a net that just like is going and just says, I can't do this anymore. And just lets the plane go into the ocean. Or else it says, I don't want to stretch like that anymore. And it just doesn't bend and just the plane hits it and it rips the tail off. Excuses are saying like, well, it's not my fault. Why is the boat so short? The boat should be longer. Why are we in the ocean in the first place? Why is the plane so heavy? Why is it going so fast? What's it got to be in the air for anyway? These are excuses. The right attitude says, what can I do to help remedy this problem? So this thing like to bring it down to real life. Losing your temper is breaking. It's letting go of your cross. Like what God wants us to bear a cross. And we just say, I can't do this anymore. And set it off. I saw this really neat. It was like a story in picture. And it was a guy carrying his cross. And he says, oh Lord, this cross is so heavy. Can you relieve the burden a little bit? And then the guy goes and he cuts off a bit of his own cross. And then he goes on. He's like, oh Lord, it's so heavy. Can you relieve my burden a little bit? And he cuts off a little more. And as he's cutting it off, he's like, thank you, Lord. As though the Lord was doing this. But it wasn't the Lord. It was his own doing. And then he gets to this great chasm. And the other people have been carrying their crosses. They set them over the chasm. And it spans from one side to the other. And this guy gets to the chasm. And his cross is too short because he made it. He lightened his load rather than endure to the end. It's not a perfect illustration, but I kind of appreciate it. A cross is not something to set down is more what I'm trying to say. We're supposed to continue bearing it. It's expressed. You hear a sentiment. Somebody says, okay, that's it. All right, that does it. And one that I hear, have been hearing a lot. I guess it's been the past 10 years now that people say, I'm done. We didn't say that when I was a boy. That's something that's come up later. I'm done. And this is the like, I'm not going to bear my cross anymore. I'm not going to endure this anymore. I'm not going to be gracious anymore. I'm about to say it, what I shouldn't say. What's not going to be helpful. What's not going to be kind. But no, I withheld it and I withheld it, but not anymore. And here it comes. The losing of the temper. Something that shouldn't be done or shouldn't be said after a buildup is, in sin it's released. It may be something true that's being said, but it's not helpful. And it's not kind. It's the one extreme, but the temper, it doesn't let go. It's the truth. Yes. But temper like balances the truth with kindness. It doesn't go to being unkind. It doesn't. It recognizes that if I say that right now, it is not going to be helpful. And so I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to say it. And there's no excuse for it. For letting go of your temper. For giving in and saying that thing or doing that thing. There is no excuse. It is sin. And it is a failure. And it can go both ways. There was a tactic when I was a child, I would see adults do something where, so there would be two ways to deal with, let's say, a lazy child. A child that doesn't, everybody, a bunch of work needs to be done, a bunch of work, so we're going to do the work. And one child like groans. And so somebody can lose their patience with that child and say, you know what, since you're complaining, you're going to do all the work. Everybody else stop. And since you complained, you're doing it all. That's extreme. Now, the other extreme, the other side is, oh, yeah, oh, it's too hard for you. You know what, you don't have to do any work. We're all going to bear your burden. You sit over here and watch and try to shame the child. These were tactics that I saw used. And they can be effective, but they're not kind. They're not good. And I've recognized, as I'm trying to make judgments, judgments as a parent, sometimes that will come to mind. Maybe because it's what I experienced as a child, but it's an easy, quick, it makes a big impact one way or the other. It's going to make a big impact on that child. But as a parent, it's my job to not act that way, to painstakingly, prayerfully figure out, how can I help this situation? How can I help this child? And often, as probably other papas know it, it can be very difficult sometimes trying to find that balance and trying to allow yourself to be stretched in order to help somebody. Now, I learned a lot of lessons as a child and through my life because I'd push people to becoming impatient with me. I'd see their impatience. They'd give up on me, become impatient with me, be unkind to me. And it really helped me to see things, and it really brought on changes in my life. But that's not our ways. Just because that can work, and it works sometimes, and it worked in my life, it's not something that I want to employ in order to try to help somebody else. If it would be that I'm being a… If someone is being a burden to me, being bothersome or troublesome, rather than blow my top and just tell them emotionally and unkindly what they're doing, I can lovingly tell them, I really want you to know what you're doing is really being a trial. You're really being… Help them to see that without throwing it in their face. It's just an example. But the biggest point that I'm trying to make is that we ought not resort to this, just letting go. And I'm just going to say it, and I'm just going to do it. I've been gracious for long enough. There is no long enough. Long enough is when the Lord says that's enough, and that'll be at the end. And until then, we just continue being stretched. And we don't let go of being helpful and being kind. This is how God has dealt with us. And He doesn't have to deal with us this way. He is the Almighty God. There is no sin in Him. And He could be a brick wall and just smash and destroy and eliminate anything that's imperfect. But He endures, and He's gracious. And this is the thing. So how much more should we? We're the lowly ones that needed to be forgiven. Of course we should be gracious. Of course we should be forgiving. Sometimes God isn't. Sometimes God puts His foot down. And one day God is going to put His foot down. And He's going to say, enough. That's it. I'm done. And He's going to be. And it's going to be over. And that's when our rest will come. But until then, if we try to take a rest, we're stealing it. It's not ours. He's going to give us rest. We're looking forward to a rest. And until then, we bear our burden. And there's rewards and glory for those who bear their burden, who endure until the end. And not before that. My children, though they might recognize some wrongdoing in the home, they have a way that they can deal with that. And I have a way that I deal with it. And they're not allowed to deal with things the way that I deal with things. They can talk to each other. And they can talk to me. But I'm the one who gives a spanking if a spanking needs to be given. I'm the one who takes something away if something needs to be taken away. I'm the one who says, okay, from now on it's going to be this way. But they don't do those things. And likewise here in the world. God is going to bring forth judgment. And until then, we deal with each other like brothers. So if we can get this in our head that I think it's easy probably for most of us to say that we're way more patient than we used to be. We're way more gracious than we used to be. And I used to have gotten upset long ago. But now it takes me way longer before I finally get upset. And I just want to say that's not okay. It's not the goal. Literally the goal is to never break. If you get upset, you get upset. But to never break and let go of that unkindness. And I want to be clear. Sometimes a change needs to be made. And that's fine. But it's a calculated, intentional, gracious change that gets made. And not an abrupt, impatient, emotional, hurtful. Hopefully everybody gets this thing that I'm saying. There's this something else. Like a letting go that we ought not. That's never okay. We can't be satisfied with less. We can't be satisfied stopping short of the end. We can't make excuses about this. We either lie to ourselves. Or we believe a lie that says, I can't do this anymore. I can't take this anymore. It's a lie. The truth is, here's the good news. You can. I can't do this anymore. Yes, you can. And you must. And that's the goal. And that's what it looks like. And what it looks like is no breaking. Like that man cannot be broken. That man will not let go of being gracious and kind and patient. No matter what. Now, so if we're clinging to truth. And we're clinging to grace. And it's kind of ripping us to think, oh, I can't do this. I've got to let go. I'm going to break. I wanted to say something like, you won't break. But maybe you will. But you can rest assured, if you're holding on to the truth. And if you're holding on to graciousness, kindness, the fruits of the spirit. The ways of God. And you do break. It's a way that you needed to be broken. And it's his careful, intentional, loving hand. That is allowing us to be broken in that way. Because it's a way that we needed to grow. And this, whatever. Okay, so just practically speaking. We're being, somehow we're being pushed. We're being stretched. We think, we can even think to ourselves. I have endured this way longer than most people would. We just have to continue enduring. And not letting go. And this hurts. Oh, this hurts. Well, when we're doing what we're supposed to do. And holding on to both of those things. It hurts. It will make you sad. It will make you cry. It will make you humble. It will bear good fruit in our lives. And that fruit that comes. And we'll know it's of God. If we're really holding on to those things. There's no sin. And we're holding on to those things. And it rips us apart. That pain. Whatever change that comes from that pain. Should be treasured. And cherished. And embraced. That's the fruit. That's the good stuff. And that's what we want. But it only comes when we maintain temper. When we don't let go. And don't break. Feel free to comment or correct. Amen, brother Buddy. A lot of those object lessons are very edifying. Especially the one about the chasm and the cross. I like that. Many good things, brother. I can learn from you. I've only had two children. And they were young. I mean they were 12 and 14 when I had them. But for child training and the way you explained it. I would have learned a lot from you. I still can learn a lot from you. Bless you. And all those things. On excuses. I guess I wrote a couple things. It started in the garden, right? It was Adam. It was the woman. What did she say? It was the snake. I mean the serpent. And it passes down the excuses. And of course Aaron. And they didn't have anybody who died. And so Moses confronted Aaron and said, Come on, you eat the Passover. And he says, Are you serious? I mean, what's happened to me? And then Moses backed off. Jonathan ate honey when there was a man known to eat honey. And Saul wanted to stone him. His own dad wanted to stone him. And so now I don't know if this was an excuse or justifying. And the people said, No, you ain't going to stone Jonathan. You just want a victory. And so they prevented Saul from stoning him. The people didn't purify themselves for the Passover. And Hezekiah said, He prayed to the Lord, excused him, excused him. And the Lord heard his prayer. And this is a stupid thought, a dumb thought. Maybe a lot of my thoughts are dumb. But I was thinking how you said, Buddy. Brother Buddy said, I've had it. No more. I picked up this book at the thrift store. And Brother Max, it's yours if you want it. If you want to trash it, it's not. But I picked it up. It's George Foreman's autobiography. He's a professed Christian, George Foreman. He was a heavyweight champion in the world, another kingdom, boxing. George Foreman, big, strong black man. Anyway, and after he lost a fight, he had complete peace. And he had an Irish manager named Gil Clancy. Gil Clancy was a good, he changed a lot of trammies. He was a little white guy. And after he lost the fight, George Foreman, he had peace. And he came over, and he kissed him in his mouth. And he says, I got Jesus. I don't care anymore. I don't care about fighting all this. And so it was interesting. And Clancy was, he says, you just lost a $5 million fight. And he's like this. And then eventually he came back and became champ again. And I'm not condoning that by any means. But he's a professed Christian. He's a street preacher in Houston. And he goes talking about Jesus. He says when he hits someone, it's kisses of love or punches of love. But I thought when you said, no point of mass. I've had it. No more. But that's what Foreman, after he lost a fight, he says, uh-uh. I'm just giving myself to you. He said he never had such blissful moments as after losing that fight. He just said, I'm giving it all to Jesus. Anyway, that wasn't, I don't know if it was worth saying that. But in Jesus, you know, excuses. Hey, I married a wife. Jesus said, well, go ahead. My father died. Jesus said, well, let the dead bury the dead. And I just bought a couple of oxen. Let me try them. Jesus said, go ahead. I mean, excuses people made. Sometimes when Jesus was reviled, you know, this and that, they called him every name and slapped him. He was silent. And then other times, another time, we all know, when Jesus went to the, in the temple, they're buying and selling. He got a scourge of whip. And he started, he cast out the animals. He never hit the people. But he's cast out the animals. And I know we're praying for certain things in a different congregation there. But like you said, brother, buddy, love is the way to go. The rich young ruler says, when Jesus looked at him, he loved him. And then he said, come follow me. And he couldn't do it. And I'm sure to all you parents, you love your children so much. You die for them in a heartbeat and all that. But you do discipline them. And that's good love. And when Herod, forgive me, when John the Baptist said to Herod, it's not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. It was love. And love is the motivation key. But a lot of people, they, they're just so weak. And they compromise. And they don't realize that they're being partakers of the sin. You know, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. It's not talking about Dijon and Walter Jr. It's talking about a collective body. You Corinthians are the temple of the Holy Spirit. You as a whole. And if one person, if don't lay hands on anyone suddenly, you partake of their sins. We'll all be guilty if we let in adultery and war and immodesty and entertainment. And you, we're all guilty in that. And that's a fearful thing. And Jesus loves the rich ruler. And, yeah, the, quick, make it quick. The, growing up a Catholic and the Orthodox. Both of them at one time, they smashed those icons to bit. Icons and images. They are evil and all that. They both have them now. But at one time, they smashed them. I can't tell you. They're evil. They're idolatry. Well, they still have them. And Buddy doesn't like comic books and cartoons. Neither do I. I think I'd go with him and burn every comic book and cartoon in the whole world. But some of the other people, maybe even this congregation, would like them. I know I sinned. I bought Mother's Goose Nursery Times at the thing. I said, well, maybe this would be good for Seamus and Sunshine and like that. And got raked over the coal for it. I don't think Michelle would want it. I don't think anyone would want it. And Buddy, no. And so, I got to be taught, too. Nursery rhymes and no. To me, no. I learned the hard way. What do you think about nursery rhymes? I didn't hear you clearly. What do you think about nursery rhymes? You know, Mother's Goose. Mother Goose and all the other nonsense. Nursery rhymes. Well, generally speaking, I like poultry, but I don't understand the story. He likes poultry. Okay. The Lord be magnified. Yeah, I forgot. I wanted to share as an illustration about excuse making. One of my children, I'll let you guess which one that it was. So, as a parent, like sometimes your child does something wrong, and there's all these levels of things that can happen. Like you say, you know that they did something. And you say, did you do that? And they say, no. Okay. You got to deal with that now. Because they say they didn't do it. And it goes on from there. Or you say, no, you did do this. Okay, finally say they did it. But such and such. But so and so. But you said. And now I've got to deal with that. And so, often like just trying to deal with a child about one thing can turn into a, it can just go on a trail of a bunch of different things. Their attitude can be bad. Now I've got to deal with that. But I had this one child. I still have him. And I'd say, it was just like it was remarkable. Like over and over I'd say, did you do that bad thing? Yes, I'm sorry. And they'd be like, and I'm all ready. Whatever they're going to throw at me. And all I get is a yes, I'm sorry. I won't do that again. And I was like, well, okay then. And I just, so often I'm all geared up for this big thing. And it was just like, you know, just like over and over this same person would just continue. Like they just, they didn't make excuses. They owned up to it. They recognized what they were going to do wrong. If I had a punishment, they'd say, yeah, okay. And that, I mean, it was just like, oh, what else can I, just like it was so plain to me. Like this is how God wants us to be. Like what else can you do with somebody that just admits they're wrong and says they're going to change. Like, all right, let's just go on then. Anyway. Yeah, it's been a blessing to be here. And I don't really have a whole lot to share other than to just say that was excellent, buddy. And it really spoke to me. And my wife appreciated it too. It's just a lot to glean from that and to purge unrighteousness, add kindness. And I wonder if maybe what part of what Jesus meant when he said be seasoned with salt and light was to be tempered with salt and light. Amen. Thank you for that message. I think it's kind of funny how you can hear somebody's message and then just have a whole spree of flashbacks of things that have happened in the last year or so. And even though it seems kind of minimal, just having a family to start with just as a reminder of ways that I could have handled things better or said things better. So, yeah, I really appreciated it. Let me not be ashamed, let not my enemies triumph over me. Let me not be ashamed, let not my enemies triumph over me. On ever on through thick and thin my Jesus hath prepared the way. If heaven's city I would win, then from this path I must not stray. And though with thorns discovered, O Lord, my Jesus always goes before. And though with thorns discovered, O Lord, my Jesus always goes before. On ever on we must not tread with God, we go through blood and fire. Think not of that with prose we've spread, the cross demands a courage tired. Through tribulation lies the way, there in God's kingdom we can stay. Through tribulation lies the way, there in God's kingdom we can stay. On ever on the endless shore the battle must victorious flow. The more affliction we endure, the more our heart with joy o'erflows. So up and onward, ever on, that is the way that heaven is won. So up and onward, ever on, it's the way that heaven is won. Having no home when God is there and love fills every breast. When one their wish and one their prayer and one their heavenly rest. Having no home where Jesus' name is seen to every ear. Where children early lift his pain and parents hold him dear. Having no home where prayer is heard and praises want to rise. Where parents love the sacred word and all its wisdom price. Lord let us in our homes agree, let us have peace to gain. Unite our hearts in love to thee and love to God will reign.