Correction – A Love Story

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

Correction. It's one of these words that we're scared of, so I named this message, "Correction: A Love Story." Typically, if you're corrected, you don't think of it as a love story. You think of it as time to hunker down, put the walls up, mount the guns, load the defenses, and let's defend ourselves from this offensive action of this either enemy or peer or friend that we thought was a friend, but now they're an enemy because they're criticizing us. Correction. When you're corrected, anyone ever been corrected in their life? That's a broad, yeah, broad two hands.

Yeah, amen. What's the first thing? How do we typically react when we get placed in a position where correction is needed? We go on defense. Why? Because you're human. It hurts. There's this little thing called inside of me and maybe you guys have it too I don't know and and it's not too big you know it's just a little thing and it's something that sometimes I gotta I gotta deal with and I gotta put down and gotta make sure I get control of it or else it'll grow into something it doesn't need to be it's just this little itty bitty thing called pride now maybe you guys don't struggle with this thing but when we're corrected it irritates that part of us because if we're corrected that means that we're wrong right If we're wrong that can be interpreted into so many different things We might feel stupid or we might feel like our honor has been challenged Remember how we talked about that in the honor shame series might feel like our honor is challenged.

You know that in the first century Essentially honor was considered a limited resource and Honor was based how much honor you had was based on several different things what you inherited through your family line if your dad was well respected you would have the honor of the family but out in public On a day-to-day basis, you were responsible for keeping your level of honor and reputation up to par. And so anything could happen. I mean, you could be walking down the street and someone could say, "Hey, Jason, I heard that teaching you did last week. Let me ask you a question." And ask you a rhetorical question or a critical question and say that you're wrong for what you taught in the middle of everybody publicly.

Well, now it's up to you. Now, you can walk away. You can walk away, but then everybody who's looking on this situation is going to think, oh, he just got challenged and walked away. Must be hiding something, right? And then maybe you choose to respond, but you stumble around in your response because this guy had a well-thought-out way of attacking you, and you respond in a way that may be lacking. Maybe, you know, just kind of blurted something out, and it And it doesn't sound like a really good response. And so everybody looking on kind of thinks that, "Oh, well, maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was incorrect in his teaching."

Right? Or you could respond cleverly, and if your answer was a good response in the first century, and it overtook the guy who initially started the conversation, then now he's at shame. See, this was called an honor-shame battle. It took place in the social circles of the Roman Empire on a daily basis. You want to know why the Pharisees always called out Yeshua in public? That's why. They were trying to take away his honor and shame him. So what's his name? One Pharisee came to him at night. Why did they come to him at night? When his disciples wanted to ask him a question, you know they always came to him in secret.

He kind of leaned over and whispered, Sir, what about this? So that there was not an audience. What if you ask Yeshua a question and he can't answer it? Or if it's in front of an audience, then he's shamed. And so that's why they did that. So anytime someone did something publicly... It was for the purpose of taking away shame and honor. That's what that whole thing about turning the other cheek was about. Yeshua is saying, listen, I know it's hard sometimes to get control of this pride. It's not your pride that matters. It's not your honor that matters. It's not your shame that matters. I took that shame and now I have been resurrected, raised to life, will be, and will give that to you.

Turn the other cheek. If someone challenges your honor, don't even go with it. It's no big deal. Why do you feel like you have to defend something that's not even yours? Matt's yapping on about the social circles and conflict and stuff in the first century. What's that have to do with me today? One word, Facebook. Types up my Facebook. It's public. Someone disagrees. And you got that little, and we don't struggle with this, a little pride. Try to take my honor. Disagree. Why do you disagree? I disagree that you disagree. And now you disagree with me, so I'm going to disagree with you. And I'm going to disagree with you more than you disagree with me, and I win.

And typically how it works is the more, you know, and we actually, Facebook is set up to accommodate an honor battle every time you do it. You know what that little like button's for? That's the rating. That's the public rating of who is winning this honor battle whenever there's an argument or conflict on Facebook. You don't believe me. It's, it is what it is. It's incredible. And so why don't we like to be corrected? Because deep down we feel like some type of honor might be taken away from us. We'll be shamed maybe. Our pride will get in the way. We don't like to be wrong in any situation, right?

If we have a sin in our life, we certainly don't want it called out, especially if it's one we've been keeping in the closet, you know what I'm saying? You're not supposed to know about that. One way in which God tends to break our strength and pride is by correcting us through leaders and through our peers even. Almost all believers find it very difficult to receive correction. It's not even easy for, even as a young child, to receive correction. Anybody have a toddler? No, you do. What happens in the middle of the grocery store? You start, you correct him on something. See, does he typically do a good job at it?

He does? Okay. The three-year-old, no. Even at a young age, we know. No! See, Benjamin's awesome. I tell no to him every day. He can't say a word because he's only four months old. He doesn't even know. No! Took a bottle away from, actually, no, he didn't like it when I took a bottle away from him the other day. He was drinking too fast. Anyway. Even at such a young age, we understand that correction does not feel good. Yeshua was publicly humiliated, falsely accused by his enemies in many different things. We never think about that. It's interesting because if you were falsely accused, and I'm sure all of us have been there, I've been there till this day.

Matt taught this about this. No, I didn't, but whatever. Falsely accused, when you're falsely accused, what do you want to do, right? Someone's trying to correct you falsely, if you will. You want to defend yourself and you want to go on. One thing about Yeshua is he never complained about being falsely accused. Like a lamb to slaughter. And it was interesting when I came across this commentary about this topic is was he setting an example to us Now, I'm not talking about justice, and I'm not talking about, you know, legalities and stuff. I'm talking about not entertaining the idea that someone has so much power over us that they can actually take our honor away and our reputation before God away.

Because you're going to get falsely accused. Coming into Hebrew roots, you're falsely accused, you're going to go to a cult, right? We're going to talk about how to approach those types of situations. But I did find that interesting. Even if God allows an enemy to criticize you, Just ask yourself whether there's any truth to the criticism, you know? And that's all that matters. Whenever someone brings criticism to us, whenever criticism or correction comes our way, it's very interesting because our instinct is to get defensive, and lesson one, don't. Do not get defensive. Something I learned recently in advanced counseling techniques is...

If someone responds emotionally, okay? So let's say you ask a question or let's say you get in a disagreement with someone and you notice that someone, you know, I don't know, makes a YouTube video or something, starts yelling, screaming, yells back at you or to your face, turning beet red. If someone responds emotionally to any situation, it is an unconscious response, right? What that means is they are responding with a part of their brain that is not controlled. It's a feeling at this point, and they're regurgitating, they're responding emotionally with feeling. And I found that very interesting because that makes a lot of sense because if you have family members that are very upset that, you know, I don't know, Christmas or whatever, Sometimes emotion comes out, or maybe you're arguing, you want to talk about the calendar.

Lots of emotion comes out, right? The Sabbath, whatever. Emotion comes out. Maybe it's just a disagreement about how you should handle a situation at work. Sometimes emotion comes out. If you see someone that is responding to a situation with emotion, it's time to step back and realize what's going on. You are seeing how they are feeling right now. Either they're sad, or they're happy, or they're angry. I don't know. It's just very interesting, the things that we've been studying. That was kind of a rabbit trail. I apologize. If there's something in your life that needs correction, wouldn't you want to know about it?

We should have started this whole thing with that, right? If there's something inside your life that needs correction, would you want to know about it? That's an honest question. Some of us say yes. It's interesting because Things that go unchecked in our life specifically sin or maybe teaching or maybe doctrine or maybe our attitudes That's a big one the way we handle certain things the way we allow our emotions to take a hold of us if we don't Correct things that need to be corrected they grow into something that could kill us spiritually and physically so our correction is so important we've been talking a lot about application in this series recently and And I felt like this was this was something that needed to be brought up because Let's say someone comes to you and wants to correct you.

Let's say they're an enemy, an adversary of you, right? The only question you should ask in any situation of correction is are they saying something that is true? Y'all can write that down. Is it true? It doesn't matter how it's presented to you. It doesn't matter who presents it to you, okay? That's their problem. That should not be your problem. Is it true? Jason, I didn't like the way you yelled at people. You didn't have any patience with them. Is it true? Maybe it's not. Maybe it is. Right? And so one thing that I read that kind of made me chuckle is if someone comes to you and gives you a correction, think of it as going to the doctor for a free checkup.

We're going to talk about how to receive correction and how to give correction in just a minute, but this is kind of the intro. We've got to get our minds fixed right now. Okay? If someone comes to you, they believe they see something, an error in your ways, like I said, it could be the way you file papers at work. It doesn't matter. Okay? It's a free checkup. Who wouldn't? In a day and age today, free medical care is a big deal, right? And so, yeah, we'll accept that free checkup, even if the doctor is a jerk, right? Here we go. Free checkup. If you go to the doctor for a free checkup and he is dressed like this, run.

Our enemies often tell us more truths about ourselves than our friends do. You guys know that, right? We should not write off every single thing. Someone that has ought against us and that brings a correction to us, we shouldn't immediately write it off just because, oh, they don't like me. Because if you've got a piece of mud in your face, black smudge on your face, right? Did you make up all wrong, let's say? I don't know. Your friends are not going to be the first ones. Hopefully, friends may not be the first ones to be like, hey, don't look good. You run across someone that does not like you. Hey, streak.

Why don't you call me streak? I mean, look in the mirror, streak. I don't know. You got a big black smudge on your face. Free checkup. Dr. Wiz a jerk, but we found a symptom of a problem and now you can wash your face off and you can make it clean. You see how it works. This is not a fun topic. Not a fun topic. For me, I don't want my correction. You guys don't know. There's a natural phenomena for us to group together with people that are like-minded to us. It was very interesting. We tend to create cliques based on what we agree with in our life, right? So there's something coming up next year, this year, this year.

It's called the presidential elections, right? And we find ourselves grouping ourselves with people that support a candidate, whether it's this candidate or that candidate, or maybe it's this candidate. I ain't never heard of that candidate. Well, I'm gonna vote for him. We tend to group ourselves up in powerful circles of agreement. And agreement is a beautiful thing, it's a powerful thing because it gives weight to whatever is in your life that may or may not need correction, it supports it. It's an incredible thing. Validation in agreement. There's peace in agreement. And when someone comes and tells you that you're wrong, they need to make a correction, what does that do?

It separates you from the group that you feel strengthened in. That's why we don't like it, especially if it's sin, right? There's something in our life, right? Oh yeah, we're Israel. We're part of God's kingdom. We're followers of Yeshua, right? The fellowship, the church. Yeah, but listen. Listen, man. You sure do drink a lot. The way you talk to other people on Facebook is really not cool. You're not representing us as a body in a good way. Listen, man, I saw you check out that lady at work, and I've seen you do it multiple times, and how does your wife feel about that? I've just been called out and been labeled someone that doesn't really fit in the group of the righteous anymore.

We don't like being called out. We truly don't. I was going through Scripture, and I was trying to think of a lot of examples of people in the Bible who took correction. Now, a lot of people in the Bible took correction. Jeez. "Moses, I know you've been out here, bub. Remember that time when you hit that rock? So see that land over there? That's the promised land. Now you can't go in it. You're gonna die on this mountain and it'll be okay." Alright. And so I came to two examples that contrasted each other a lot. And the first one was Peter was a fisherman. Peter was passionate, extremely passionate.

He was unstable, he was impulsive, and he was insecure. Remember how he impulsively attempted to kill the high priest's servant? Look at that. Huge. See, some people think he was trying to hit them smack in the head with the sword when they came to arrest Yeshua. And he just missed. It seems to me like he knew how to swing a sword. I don't know. If you carry around a sword all the time, it's like if you carry around a gun all the time, you probably know how to shoot it. And so Peter chops the guy's ear off. Which, how did he get his ear and not his arm? Whatever. So he runs to the high priest's servant and he chops his ear off.

And what's interesting is Yeshua's like, no, man, no, if you're going to live by the sword, you're going to die by the sword, don't do that. Yeshua picks up the ear and heals the high servant. What would have happened if... The high priest's servant, right? This guy has access to everything, all of the inner chambers of the temple. He has a lot of responsibility on him, okay? He's not just the guy. The lowest position in the temple was to hold the doors, and the doors, you know, you'd see all your brothers and sisters go into the temple every single day, and you just sit there and guard the door and hold the door.

You would never really get to see the high priest or any of the elites in the temple, and it was so sad because you'd never get to walk up the altar. You'd never get to sacrifice anything. You'd never get to play in the band. You'd never even get to go any part of the temple. You know that whole ceremony where the leopard comes in after they've been cleansed. You touch the toe and the blood. Nope, can't do that. All you get to do is stand at the door. The lowest in the kingdom. We have this attitude. Yeshua talks about he who doesn't do these commandments and teaches others not to do them will be the lowest in the kingdom.

In contrast to the greatest. We always think, well as long as I make it in the kingdom, I'll be good to go. It's a very sad place to be the lowest in the kingdom. It's a very depressive place to be the lowest in the kingdom. I don't want to be the lowest in the kingdom. I want to see my Messiah. Regardless, rabbit trail. I had an outline here to keep me on track and it's not working. What would happen if Yeshua said, yeah, he kind of deserved to get his ear chopped off. You know, Peter, that's fine, whatever. Run away now, you know, whatever. The high priest servant would go back. He'd get his ear bandaged up, right?

It'd be all stitched up. He'd be good to go. A little hard of hearing. He'd stick a shofar in it. He could hear. According to the Torah, no one who is maimed in the face, the ears, other places, can come before the presence of God. which means that this priest, after his adrenaline went down, he's shocked by having his ear cut off, a little piece of flesh, when he reported back to work, that temple guard would say, nah, bruh, you're retired. You can never again approach the presence of God. You can never again serve the high priest in God's house. You can never again experience the weight of God's glory in an intimate manner, just like you got to do every single day.

Your ear's chopped off. Sorry, bruh. According to Torah, you can't come in here anymore. Would have been better if he just died. So Yeshua said, nah, Peter, what are you doing? Made the high priest servant hold again. Would not want to separate anyone from their position where they get to experience the intimacy of God. I thought that was pretty cool. But nevertheless, Peter jumped the gun, chopped the guy's ear off, right? Peter was always the first one to jump out of the stupid boat. Seriously, right? Saw him walking on the water, or at the end after the resurrection and everything, remember, catching the fish and jumps out and says he was naked, so he put on some clothes and then he jumped in the water.

Just always jumping out of boats because he's so excited and he was always the first to open his mouth, sometimes without thinking, right? So there's a situation where, and Matthew, turn with me to Matthew 16. This is great. I did a whole message in Costa Rica based off this passage right here. So Matthew chapter 16 verse 21. Are you there? I shouldn't even put this up here. It made everybody turn. All right. So going to verse 21, Matthew 16 verse 21. Get your sharpies out so we can. From the time Yeshua began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests. and scribes, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised up.

So Yeshua was telling his disciples, listen guys, here is how the gospel is going to be played out. I'm going to go to Jerusalem. I'm going to be taken up. I'm going to be beaten. I'm going to be scorched. I'm going to be crucified. I'm going to die. And it's not really necessarily a bunch of thugs that are going to do it. These are the elites of our people who are going to do this to me. But God is going to raise me up on the third day, and I'm going to be raised to life. And guys, this is going to be the gospel, and it's going to be awesome. It's going to be the fulfillment of all things. It's going to be absolutely incredible.

And so Yeshua was telling this stuff to his disciples, and Peter took him aside, yanked him aside, and began to rebuke our king, saying, Far, far be it from you, Lord. This shall never happen to you. Peter, nah, no, Lord, this isn't going to happen to you. You can make it stop. I've seen all the stuff you can do with the fish and bread and everything. You can teleport, whatever. You don't have to die. What Peter was doing is trying to distract Yeshua from his mission. Very interesting. Very interesting. Overcome with passion for his king. So Yeshua turned to Peter and said, get behind me, Peter. Get behind me, Satan.

You are a hindrance to me. Satan. Which is great, totally different message. If there's anything that is in your life that is a distraction from the gospel and the fulfillment of Yeshua, then it is satanic. That's another message though. It's time to audit ourselves. What is the spear tip of our testimony? What is the spear tip of our witness? Right? Is it calendars? Is it the way we read scripture? Is it the name? What is it? What is the spear tip? Or is it the gospel? The king, Messiah, looks at you and says, get out of my way, Satan. You, Satan worshiper, you are Satan himself. You are the devil himself.

When Yeshua was talking to the Pharisees, he didn't even call them Satan. You brood of vipers. Satan. It's a hard rebuke. Hard rebuke. And I love it because in Revelations 3.19, it says, those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. So Yeshua's strongest rebuke was actually saved for the ones he loved. And so we're going to get into this in a few minutes, but whenever correction comes your way, we need to start thinking about it as a sign of love from God, no matter how much it hurts. And so then we have, oh, and not long after this, this is interesting. So not long after this, many of Yeshua's followers began to rebuke him, right?

He had this whole crowd of people following him, and he started talking about eating his blood and all this mess. And everybody threw up their arms and they left. They stopped following him because they couldn't accept his teaching anymore. And remember what Peter says in John 6, 68. Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Yeshua turned to his disciples and said, are you guys going to leave too? Are you going to stay with me? Who shall we go to? My king, you have the words of eternal life. Now there can be a lot of topic and debate and discussion about what specifically Peter was talking about when he said, you have the words of eternal life.

I mean, was he speaking like a specific phrase? Was he just talking about the way Yeshua taught about his character? Or taught about our God? What was it? Guys, somewhere in there, I bet rebuke and correction fit into the category of words of eternal life. You can't get saved without correction. Something's got to change. Something has to be corrected. It's incredible. I love it. I have it in here somewhere, the definition of correction. Basically, it means to to change direction, essentially. And so we see Peter ends up in 1 Peter 5, 6. He says this. He says, We see a progress. Progress. Progress report from school and you start with the C's and D's.

And we know C's get degrees and that's awesome. But it's nice to see him kind of go to the A's. Peter started out kind of a C. Satan, that might be an F. I don't know. started understanding that rebuke and correction was important to an edifying walk with God. And then finally, he writes to us, the future believers, he's saying, listen guys, you need to humble yourselves. Humble yourselves. Therefore, under the mighty hand of God, know who you are under God's hand. If God is going to bring correction your day, your way, understand that you should not be defensive against God. It does not end well. Why?

So that he can properly exalt you when the time is right. One thing that I was thinking about, anybody, I play video games sometimes, and I'll let you guys know that. Does anyone else ever play video games? Even on your phone, Candy Crush something. So there's an idea and a strategy in a video game, and Some video games have levels and then other games have a character that you customize throughout the game and the more experience you get you know you can go and defeat a bunch of enemies or whatnot you get action points or experience points and when you get enough experience points or you play enough time in the game your character gets to level up right and I know I'm talking about right your level gets to go to the your character in the game gets to go to the very next level and moving forward in the game so that they can go on to establish and conquer other areas and other levels in the game.

And I love that because if God rebukes us because he loves us, if he offers correction because he loves us, if we need to be humble and stay humble when this happens, for what reason? So that we can be exalted? That's exactly what's happening. When correction comes your way and it is authentic and A lot of correction is not authentic. A lot of self-righteous folk out there who just want to bang you over the head with something happens. Even in that, is it right? Take the medicine, bitter, might not be good, whatever. If correction comes your way and it is authentic, you are standing right there at that threshold of leveling up in your life.

Next level. You get all kinds of new levels and maps available to you when you level up in the games. You get new weapons and all kinds of cool stuff, right? You get all kinds, a whole new scope of blessing in your life when God allows you to move forward in the places where you need to be in your life. Maybe there's something holding you back. Maybe there's an area that you've been trying to kind of be apathetic about. Maybe there's an area that you know about and you just love it because it keeps you warm at night. I don't know. These are the things that, if not corrected, will stunt you in the kingdom, will stunt you in life.

Things like unforgiveness, it's a big one. stop you in your tracks. People go decades with unforgiveness in their heart and don't realize how much they are holding themselves back from spreading the gospel and engaging with the generation that is far from God because they're too focused on their own hurt and don't want to let it go when it's time to let it go, when it's time to level up. Right? And so humble yourselves under the hand of God so that when the time is right, when it's time, you can level up. Then we got this guy. This guy is not the most popular disciple. His name is Judas. Things happen.

Nobody's perfect. And if you turn with me to John 12:1, the same story is actually in Matthew 26, I believe, as well. But we're going to stick with John 12:1. And it's interesting because we don't know a whole, whole lot about Judas. He kind of became known for like that one thing he did at the very end. It just wasn't cool. But nonetheless, he walked around with the power of God, walked with the disciples, casting out demons, healing the sick, all that mess. He's a very humbling character in the scriptures. We have to catch ourselves to figure out if we're leading a life excelling like Peter or if we're leading a life of apathy in Judas, thinking that we're in the kingdom, thinking that, oh, I got the spirit of God within me.

I can move forward and have nothing left but our own guts on the ground. So John 12:1, "Six days before Passover, Yeshua therefore came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Yeshua had raised from the dead." That's got to be a cool meeting. You know, that's the story around the table. This is the guy who raised me from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served, just like she always does, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at the table. Mary, therefore, took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Yeshua and wiped his feet with her hair.

The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume, but Judas, one of his disciples... So you see the scenario, right? We see this scenario going on where this woman is giving this expensive oil to Yeshua and she's anointing the king, right? This is the point, you know, the anointed one, right? Pfft. And she breaks this oil open. The whole house smells awesome. And Judas is over here criticizing this woman's decision for breaking this big expensive oil. You could have sold that for the poor, right? Making her feel real bad. And then what's Yeshua say? Leave her alone so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.

For the poor you will always have with you, but you do not always have me. That was a correction from Yeshua to Judas. It wasn't exactly, listen here, Satan, all right? You better leave this woman alone or I'm going to beat you or something like that. I mean, it wasn't a hard rebuke. Hey, leave her alone. You know, you're always going to have the poor. Let her do what she wants to do with this, all right? In the very next verse of the story in Matthew 12, 26, which is verse 14, we're going to see how Judas responds. It really wasn't that bad of a correction. It wasn't that big of a deal. Just leave her alone, Judas.

No big deal. And we're going to see how he responds. Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas, went to the chief priest and said, what will you give me if I deliver him over to you? And they paid him thirty shekels of silver In Matthew 26, right after this story, that very next verse, after Yeshua corrects Judas, he runs to the chief priest and is like, "Listen, I'll hand him over to you right now." One of these characters was able to handle correction maturely, understanding that it was a kindness from God. It was a free checkup and that it ended up being an authentic criticism, despite how severe it was.

The other fell apart, immaturely handled criticism, got offended, took it personally, did not want to address the areas of his life that needed to be changed in order for him to be exalted, right? And lashed out back at Yeshua because of it. Walk away today thinking if I'm a Peter or if I'm a Judas. And so the writer of Hebrews gives us an awesome verse to talk about this. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 3, 12 and 13. And just circle that verse, 12 and 13, because this is what the rest of the message is going to be based on. You guys there? Hebrews 3. Take care, brothers, lest there be any of you in an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

But exhort. Everybody say exhort. Exhort. And so, number one, Hebrews 3 is addressing who? Brothers, right? Who are the brothers, right? It's addressing the fellowships. It's addressing the believers. It's the brothers and sisters of Messiah. It's you and I. It's not some Joe Schmo on the, pagan on the street. And then he's trying to warn us of something that we need to be aware of in the verse. Notice in the verse it says, none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. What's that mean? Don't be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. The danger that the writer is telling us about is the deceitfulness of sin.

That's why he's saying exhort one another. That's why, guys, you got to be aware. You got to watch out. Why? Because the deceitfulness of sin may creep upon you. One thing about sin and lacking areas in our lives, they deceive the one participating in it. Now, a lot of you guys can say, I don't get that. Yeah, you can. Look at that one area in your life right now that you know you have a problem with and you've convinced yourself it's not a big deal. You ever notice how others are clearly involved in darkness? Perhaps in their walk is not truly genuine from your point of view and they're so quick to pick out a speck in your eye when they got big old tree limb in theirs, right?

This is what sin does. This is what pride does. This is what hate and unforgiveness do. They put a log in your eye so big you're blinded to it. Sometimes, since deception can be tactical, you can be aware of your log, right? But convince yourself that it's really only a speck. This is audit time. What's the log in your life that you've convinced yourself is only a splinter? Only a speck, no big deal. It's so small that surely, surely this speck in my life will have no significant effect on my relationship with God or with my fellow brothers and sisters in Messiah. Surely, as long as no one knows about it, right?

It'll be okay. This is what sin does. So how do we address this danger? Hebrews tells us, brothers and sisters in Messiah, it tells us to exhort one another, right? Exhortation means literally for someone to encourage someone to do something. So if I'm going to exhort you to do something, I'm going to encourage you to do it. You know, I would exhort you not to go to McDonald's every single day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, right? I would exhort you to try to find an area that you can volunteer in the community, volunteer at Fit Children's Ministry, right? Exhortation! Encourage you to do that. Exhortation is to encourage someone to go a certain direction or not go a certain direction.

It's a way to build up someone. So in the context of the verse, We are to exhort one another to help them do what? Recognize their sin and move away from it towards righteousness. Be holy. Exhort one another every day so that none of you would be hardened by sin. In other words, that's what correction is, guys. It's keeping an eye out for each other. It's making sure that we're all walking to the standards that we need to walk to. The writer of Hebrews is trying to give us some real world wisdom here. And he's saying that when we receive correction from other believers, it's a good thing. Okay? Repeat after me, it's a good thing.

This is how God delivers us from the blindness of our downfalls in life. The places and areas that we need correcting in. What correction really is, guys, is caring for someone enough not to let them be hardened and deceived by sin. That's why it's called a love story. Because when you correct someone, you're supposed to be doing it out of a loving heart. Not because you disagree with them or you're offended by them. Not because you think they're doing something wrong, but because... you know that their life could be better and a better situation in the kingdom. So, before we speak about giving correction to others, let's discuss how to receive correction.

Is that okay? We love receiving correction. Everybody still good? Don't worry. We'll get back to some cool history stuff soon. This stuff's important. Psalms 141.5. I want everybody to turn to this. I won't make you turn to any of the verses. Turn to this one. Psalms 141.5. And you guys better circle this. Let a righteous man strike me. for it is kindness. Let him rebuke me. It is oil for my head. Let my head not refuse it. You thought I was just being all lovey-dovey up here. Let the righteous man strike me. Why? Because it's kindness. If a righteous man is going to come and rebuke me, it is an act of kindness.

If he's righteous. An unrighteous man comes and rebukes you, that's a different audit altogether. But regardless, if someone comes to you, it's a kindness. You shouldn't refuse it. Pour the oil on my head. Now, I'm not saying that just anyone's correction is infallible. You know, we make stuff up all the time about other people. I've seen those who are zealous to correct others literally make up stuff about them to correct them with. Happens all the time, especially in the movement. I don't know why. But the biblical perspective of correction is to see that it's a kindness from God who is using it to make you more like Yeshua.

That's the whole purpose of correction. An example. So let's say that someone with a self-righteous spirit, maybe, maybe not, says that, hey, Angie, yeah, picture. Angie, I don't like the way that you spend your money. I think you're wasteful. I think you spend it incorrectly and unwisely. So Angie had a different tactic. Instead of going on a defensive, she did a shift blame. What would be a godly, righteous, non-rash way to respond to this? All right. Remain silent you could that's one way to deal with it But if you hate someone in your heart, then it's as if you've murdered him in real life Okay, so number one you can write these down number one do not be offended that someone has come to you and Offered an area of correction.

I know isn't that so easy? Yeah, I got that man. Don't be offended repeat that every day when someone comes to you says listen, bro, I This is not good. I see this area in your life that needs work. Do not be offended. Even if you can tell this person is just making something up. Okay? If this is true correction, it comes out of the love from God. It may taste funny. It may taste sour and hot and bitter and it may not taste good at all. But if it is true correction, then you do not want to rebel against a gift that God is sending you for your own maturity. Right? Number two, ask for details. Ask for details.

In other words, so someone says, hey man, you're spending all this money and you're not spending it well and yada, yada, yada. Something like this would be good. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. You can do it with a big smile if you want to, if that makes you feel better. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I know I am far from perfect in many areas of my life. What specifically concerns you about the way that I spend my money? I want to know how it is unwise or even sinful so I can correct it. Do you get all that? Get the gist of that? What does this do, right? What this does is it helps validate the correction, helps validate it.

Now you're asking for more details about what these people see in your life that could be a big old log that you don't know about. Now if they just ramble on about something or another, you know it's not a valid correction. They got some issues. They probably need to seek therapy. Pray for them and go home. It's no big deal. But that's not what you're looking for. You don't care if someone is falsely trying to correct you. It just doesn't matter. Free checkup every day is fine. What you're looking for is the ones that have true correction. Whatever it could be. Guys, this could be something small. This could be something big.

It applies to all. Typically, we as believers take criticism in one of two ways that I've realized. Do I have my slide? Yeah. Okay. Ways that we typically take correction. Is this okay? All right. Resistance and despair. Resistance and despair. And so resistance is someone who when they're criticized automatically say something like this to themselves. Well, they're wrong. They're wrong about me. They don't know me. They don't know my life. That's absolutely wrong. They're the ones that need correction. Yeah. Anybody else? Anybody ever? No? Never. Yeah. We got a few honest folk. And we take offense at a possible message from God.

We also have despair. Now this is one that I struggle with because you know if I get corrected like the first time I got a speeding ticket in my life when I was 16 like I went home and cried about it and felt really depressed about it for days and days and days and days and days. I hate correction especially when it's when it's when it's it's real it's authentic correction right and so despair is someone who when correction is brought to them they feel condemned. Maybe they say the things of themselves like I'm horrible I'm a horrible person I'm just a big mess up in the world. I'm embarrassed. Everybody thinks badly of me.

I just want to hide from everybody. Stop looking at me. Stop looking at my shame. The thing about taking correction this way is it blinds us from God's mercy in our lives, number one, and his grace. And it makes us feel like a victim. It makes us feel like a victim instead of someone who has been chosen by God to level up in our life. What happens if we can just understand correction is something from God? I believe that these two responses, they're typically due to self-righteous dependence. And I'll tell you why. I know that sounds kind of harsh, but I'll tell you why. The person who resists correction does so because they believe that they're perfect.

They believe that the way they live has a perfect model in God's kingdom and that they can do no wrong. There are no areas in their life that can be criticized. So therefore, if someone criticizes them, then automatically they say, no, I'm perfect, bro. Hmm. The person who despairs when correction comes their way knows that they're not good. They know they have issues in their life and they cannot bear to be reminded of the shortcomings in their life. Again, they're judging themselves and scaling themselves on their own righteousness instead of who they are in the kingdom. It's interesting. When I was doing this in Peter , Peter's talking again.

He says that, "For Messiah also suffered once for sins, "the righteousness for the unrighteous, "the righteous for the," who? "Unrighteous." Catching on. That he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. So Messiah suffered once. He was righteous. And he suffered for who? The unrighteous. He suffered for who? The gospel was for the unrighteous. The gospel was for you and I. The gospel was for everyone. Something that we need to realize, and maybe this will sum up what I'm trying to say, is correction is about sanctification. It is not about justification. sanctification.

You're not trying to be justified before God by accepting correction. You're trying to be sanctified into where God wants to place you in your life. It's about growing in godliness and becoming free from the presence and effects of sin in our lives, and it's about allowing God to take us to, like we said before, the next level in our lives to be witnesses of Yeshua. Not about acceptances before God, Understanding this perspective allows us to say when correction comes, whether it be from parents, peers, whatever, teachers, brothers and sisters in Yeshua, this allows us to look at this example and say, okay, I got correction. If it's authentic, this is a kindness from God.

He's pursuing you through correction to remove elements of sin or downfalls from your life and mold you after the one who was perfect. So how do we give correction? We're going there. How do we give correction? Number one, you need to look at your own heart first. If you see anyone that you want to go and correct about anything, dress they wore, the way they did their hair, the makeup, what they posted on Facebook, how they view the Bible, whatever, look at your own heart first. See, Ephesians 4.29 says, "...let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear."

Look at your own heart first. Before going to someone else for correction, ask yourself, why am I taking this moment to give correction to them? Before you make any correction, why am I doing this? Why am I doing that right now? Is it because I am offended? If so, then your motivation is more about them sinning against you than it is them sinning against God. And that's a completely different issue, right? There's a whole other level of unforgiveness and forgiveness that needs to come into play as well as correction. You're more motivated by pride than by love at that point. Galatians 6.1, Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore them in a spirit of gentleness.

Keep watch on yourself lest you too become tempted. Become tempted with what? Number two, don't be a chicken. So in John chapter 12 verses 42 through 43, we have a very interesting scenario. But many of the rulers believed in Messiah. But because of the Pharisees, they did not confesshim. See, the rulers were worried about the approval of the Pharisees, so they kept their mouth shut. Are we so worried about the approval of whoever that needs correction in our lives that we're going to keep our mouth shut instead of being the messenger of God that we need to be? If our heart is white and if the correction is sincere?

No, just do it. Do it. Sometimes we're scared of what someone will think of us if we bring something to their attention. And you know what? If it's worth bringing to their attention... then it's worth taking the risk that they might be mad at you about. Three, bring observations and questions to a person that you are going to bring correction to. This is on Facebook. This is on the phone. This is in the fellowship. This is anywhere. Bring observations and questions, not judgments and conclusions. There's a lot of people who bring correction and they make that stance right before they bring it. Psalms 139, two through four says this about God.

God knows everything about us, right? He knows what you think. He knows how you talk. He knows the words that you speak even before you speak them. And he's the only one that knows all this about you. The only one. The rest of us have to sit back and we can only make determinations on what we see and hear. Often what we see and hear is not the whole story and we misunderstand and then we judge people incorrectly. That's why when you make a correction, you need to bring questions and ask questions. Hey, you just got a crick in your neck? Did you really just check out that lady when she passed by? I mean, you know, it's kind of a brazen question, but you understand.

You need to see what people's heart is. Sometimes people need help and they're waiting on someone to notice so they can pull this log out of their eye. Telling someone that they're all ugly because they got a big og in their face is not gonna fix the problem Unless we ask questions we do not know the thoughts or intentions of anyone's heart and so we may end up like I said not having the whole story and may mistakenly accuse someone falsely all the time you don't mmm mmm Sometimes change is slow. So be patient be patient with someone if you need to bring correction, right friends at school parents everybody brothers sisters and Messiah 1 Thessalonians 5.14 says this about this, and we urge you brothers, admodish the idle, encourage the faint-hearted, and help the weak, and be patient with them all. Be patient with them all.

Sometimes we want the way that someone acts, someone speaks, someone talks, someone responds, someone dresses, someone thinks. We want it to change overnight if it needs correcting. How many of you guys know sometimes it's hard to change something overnight? Hey, bro, you know smoking will kill you, right? We're in a hospital. One thing that I learned in imaging, thanks to Jason pointing it out, there's a lot of stuff you can do to your body. Smoking will kill you. Kill you. Hey, bro, I notice you're smoking a lot. You need to quit those cigarettes, right? I mean, what can I do to help you? Oh, you need to stop those cigarettes.

All right, I'm going to quit. Next day, did you smoke again today? Why can't you just quit smoking? I don't know. Patience. What can I do to help you today, right? Patience. Patience. Guys, these are things that we don't like to talk about and some of us may think are boring. I don't like talking about them because I'm human and I feel like I have sometimes, sometimes I have honor in my life and sometimes I have pride in my life that I like to keep warm deep down inside and I don't like correction to come to me. But what is better, what's actually worse is how we react when correction comes and it's not even valid.

And so we explode on invalidatable correction against someone else and and make a big ol' offense out of it all because we just couldn't keep our fuse not lit. We couldn't handle it. We couldn't ask the questions. We couldn't thank them for possibly being a messenger of God and bringing this act of kindness to me. Is this authentic? What do you see in my life that needs correcting? And can you help me correct it? Maybe they don't see nothing. They just wanted to bug you. Or maybe there's something waiting for you that is willing to take you to the next level if you can change it. Taking correction to others.

Matthew 18 gives a formula for private correction. Messiah talks about it. He says, if a brother offends you, right? If you have an offense with a brother, right? You talk to him in silent. And if he won't listen, you bring someone else into the fold and then you bring it out in the public for the fellowship, right? Private offenses need to remain private if it's not a public affair. We also have a public correction. What Paul did with Peter, right? When he was fickle-minded with eating with the Gentiles, Paul called him out in front of everyone. Why? Because Peter was doing something that represented the entire body and it was wrong.

And Paul needed to make a line in the sand to dividing, listen guys, that's not how the body's supposed to work. When we give correction, guys, what is our heart in doing it? Is it because we are offended? If it is, there's a whole other aspect that you need to be dealing with before you even open your mouth to someone. The only time you should bring correction to someone is if you truly feel that this is going to jeopardize some type of integrity in their walk with Messiah. And I hope I've given you at least a little bit of wisdom from what I've learned over the years on how to handle that. Hey guys, I'm Matthew Vandrells, pastor of Founded in Truth Fellowship, and I hope you enjoyed this message.

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I hope so. I pray that you will continue seeking truth so that the light of God will shine through you and for the sake of the kingdom of our Savior, Yeshua. Shalom.