TAKING ACTION AGAINST STRIFE, PART 3 | DR MIKE WOODS SR. | 1-14-24

For your name is great and greatly to be praised. For your name is great, it is great and greatly to Come on, sing it again, sing it again. For your name, your name, your name, your name. For your name is great and greatly to be praised. Hallelujah. Come on, worship, worship that great name of Jesus. Worship that great name of Jesus. Utaia sandelele mosi. Jesus, he's worthy, he's worthy. Oh, your name is great and greatly to be praised. We love you, Father. We love you, Father. Accept our worship. Let it be a sweet-smelling savor in your nostrils. Your name is great. We do love you, God. And for your glory, we will do anything. We'll sacrifice ourselves to worship. Oh, we bring our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto you, which is our reasonable service. We'll cross rivers, we'll cross deserts if necessary. Whatever's necessary, we will worship you. Thank you, Jesus. To get your glory. Glory. Yes. You're the air we breathe. You're the air we breathe. Father, as we open your word today, let us experience the light, the illumination, and the intelligence of God. Do something in our mindset that is revolutionary. Let the revelation that you're about to release bulldoze our carnality. Let it become a champion for your way, your ideals. Let transformation and change take place today, and we'll give you praise and glory for it now, in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. And thanks be to God! Would you clap your hands again? Bless Jesus! Hallelujah! Glory to God! I love him for— Your name is great and greatly to be praised. For your name, your name, for your name is great and greatly to be praised. This time I want you to say to Jesus, oh, come on, say For your name is great, and greatly to be praised. Come on, one more time, sing it to Jesus. For your name, your name, for your name is great. I'm not gonna be long. I'm really gonna be as quickly and as extemporaneous as I possibly can. I want to continue this teaching on strife. This teaching is really important, guys. I started it on Thursday. I'm telling you how important it is. I started teaching it Thursday. I was going to teach the second half of this today. I could not wait. I went in my studio last night and started teaching it, and I streamed that today. It probably already played at 3 o'clock, so you guys got to make sure you go back and watch the A part of what I'm about to share, because I talked about the dangers of strife. This demon— and it is a demon— it'll kill you. It'll kill your dreams. It'll run your blood pressure up. It'll break up families. It'll break up churches. It'll kill a business. You have to deal with this. You cannot just sweep it under the rug and think it's going to go away. It's a spirit. In the first message, in taking action against strife— and that's what this series is— we begin to share how important it was to have unity and harmony. Y'all remember that Thursday, if you watch Thursday? Amen. Thursday we talked about how important that is. Nothing can happen until we really agree. God moves in the midst of agreement. So we talked about how we have to put— when we're walking with God, we have to put aside our own agenda. Say that with me. I got to put aside— y'all, y'all here today? Boss Dave is gone. He ain't coming back for several months. Y'all stuck with me. All right, glory to God. Are y'all here? Yes, sir. Say it's important that we walk in unity. Glory to God. It is very important. It's very important that we have agreement. The reason it's important, because God's plan is top priority, not ours. Most of the time we get out of sync with God because we want what we want. Can I submit to you that selfishness is the source of all strife? Anytime you get out of line with people of God people or God is because there's something happening in you, even if they're wrong. Watch this, that doesn't want to follow peace. Oh boy, because they could be wrong, but you got to choose to follow peace because the Bible told you to follow peace. Because you don't want to end up missing what God has for you because you didn't move peaceful. Church, I gotta move peaceful. All right, I'm just reviewing. So we talked about how important that is. We talked about how we avoid strife so we can maintain— watch this— agreement, unity, oneness, so that together— say we're better together— we can fulfill the plan of God. There's not just one person that has to do any work. Any leader that thinks they can do everything by themselves is crazy, because you cannot fulfill purpose in isolation. So every person in here that has purpose on your life, you need people. You cannot fulfill purpose without the help of others. God designed it that way because, again, he blesses oneness. So we have to be able to come together around a cause and be one. So it's important. Amen. Matter of fact, Jesus— and I talked about this in the first message— in John 17, he prayed that we will be one like him and the Father is one. You know how one Jesus and the Father was? So much so that Jesus said, when you've seen me, you've seen the Father. That's how one they was. So we have to be on the same page so much as kingdom people. I'm not just talking about in here, I'm talking about as the entire body of kingdom people. We got to get on the same page so that when you see one kingdom person, you see another one. But that don't seem to be so, right? Because everybody's got their own way. They think the kingdom should be advanced. Can I tell you something? There's only one way. It's the Constitution. This is the Constitution for the believer. It's the Bible, not my iPad. The Bible. Because there's a lot of stuff in here other than the Bible. Glory to God. The reality Check. Okay, maybe, maybe that was it. All right, y'all still with me? I'm glad you didn't run away. I don't know what that was. Just touch yourself. Say, I gotta move in peace, harmony, unity. I gotta walk with others in agreement. Watch this, around the agenda of God. That's easier said than done because all of us have plans, all of us have things we want to do. But even in your plans, you got to be able to have people around you that you can assemble as one. And wait a minute, you reap what you sow. So if you can't come together around God's vision, you divided from him, you divided from the division of the authority that that God puts in your life, then when it comes time for you to need people to help you do what you got to do, there won't be anybody around because you reap what you sow. Are y'all hearing this? Okay, so, so today— and we unpacked the spirit of strife last time— we'll get into this danger of strife a little deeper than I did last night. Go to 1 Corinthians 1, verses 9 through 11. Let's go. Hallelujah! Come on, iPad, what you doing? I promise you, I'm about to go back to paper Bible. Jesus Christ. Papa was doing exactly what he want to do. Come on, church. Jesus the Christ. Are you serious right now? I'm tell you what, the devil is a liar. 1 Corinthians 9. I'm talking about— okay, I ain't gonna even tell you what this thing is doing. That's crazy, he never did that. 1 and 9. All right, here we go. Y'all ready? It says God is faithful. Let me stop right there because we got to realize and recognize that God for real is not like people. God is faithful. So it should be easy for you to align with God because God is going to be faithful. That word faithful The word for faith is pistis, P-I-S-T-I-S. The word for faithful is pistos, P-I-S-T-O-S. This word means that God can be trusted. He's trustworthy. Say that with me. Say, God is faithful. Say, if God said it, he's gonna do it. I need you to— I need you to hear that. I need you to believe that if God said it out of his mouth, he's going to perform So it's okay to align with God's plan, God's word for your life. You got to trust the integrity of what he says. Now, if you don't read the Bible, if you never hear the Bible preached, if you don't know what's available to you, you don't— you really don't even know what's faithful, what he's faithful to. So this book is full of promises that he's faithful to. Say that with me. Say, God is faithful. So God's got my back. Say, I can trust him. And watch this. So God is faithful by whom you were called unto fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. So he's faithful that he called us into not religion, not legalism, not church. He called us into fellowship. Well, while we need to be in church, we need to go to church so we have corporate worship, but the calling is not to church. The calling is to fellowship with Jesus. The word fellowship is koinonia in Greek, which means to have community, common union, to be on the same page with Jesus. So God— so the calling is for me to be one with Jesus Christ. Can I submit to you that there are people that go to church who have no fellowship. Oh boy, they just attend church, but they don't know God. They have no community with him. They don't know him as the faithful God. Anybody here know him as a faithful God? When you look back over your shoulder, you can see how faithful he's been. He keeps proving that so he can strengthen fellowship. Verse 10, it says, now I beseech you— the word beseech means I beg you, I urge you— brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you may speak all the same thing. Wait a minute, there it is. Then we be in one, no strife. We're speaking the same thing. So saved people ought to be doing the same thing. Wait a minute, not setting our standards by the world. Are y'all hearing it? Yeah, I ain't— I'm never gonna judge nobody for what they do. You're gonna never see me share craziness that preachers do. Well, I just know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna follow the book. I, I can't— you know, if I'm, if I'm sitting in a Hawks game and they start— because every game they do this, the swag surf thing, right? So if I'm sitting in the Hawks game and that beat is on, I might just do this. But I ain't gonna do it at church. Y'all ain't got to say that, because not that I'm saying anybody's wrong, what I am saying, I can't touch God doing that. It doesn't benefit me to swag surf in here if I need to touch heaven. Okay, I'm, I'm, that's, that's my speech on that. I'm done. All right, what the reality is But at the end of the day, I need to touch him. But if I'm not at church, I give somebody— if I'm riding somebody else's car, come on, my head might do it. But if my focus— y'all ain't got to say nothing to me— is to get to God, I'm gonna do the things that I know is going to open up heaven for me. And sometimes even in our worship service, if I'll forget y'all here. Y'all ain't saying— because I'm trying to go for God for myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we got to say the same thing. But you know what happens if somebody does that? It sends a message that this is okay. Y'all ain't got to talk to me here. This is a message. Some folks, why they don't do that at my church? 'Cause we don't want to be worldly. Are y'all hearing me? Not at church. Listen, if you still got some worldly ways, you just got to do that. Go home and do that. Y'all ain't got to talk to me here, but we ain't doing it at church. Okay, here we go. All right, so he said, I beg you that we speak the same thing and that there be no division. So watch this, not just among us in here, but in the body. We all should be one with God's vision to advance the kingdom, to win the world. He said, but that should be perfectly joined together in the same mind, in the same judgment. Say that with me. Say, same mind, same judgment. So that means when we're on the same page When we look at certain things, we see the same perspective. We look at it through the eyes of Jesus, not man. Jesus, who— for having claimed, verse number 11, unto me— many of you, he's unto me— of you, my brethren, by them which are the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. So God wants to bless us, that's what this is saying. But the apostle says you got to get along. That's what he's saying. God want to bless you, but we got to get along with each other, and we certainly got to be in unison with God. Go to Psalm 133, verses 1, 2, and 3. I'm just saying, my, my This is crazy. Oh, you lie. I hate you for real. I hate you. This thing has never done this. Okay, so how about we know Psalms don't come before Revelation, right? So when I'm looking for Psalms, it's right in front of Revelation on this Bible. That never happens. Psalm 133. This is crazy, man. Psalm 133, verses 1, 2, and 3. Are y'all there? Oh boy, here we go. The Bible says A Song of Degrees of David, but which means it's a song of meditation. David meditated about this. He didn't just haphazardly write this. He meditated and thought deeply about this. A song of meditation came out of his meditation, his time with God. Watch this. The first thing he says, coming out of a time with the Lord, he said, behold, look, How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. He comes out of God's presence and said it's a good thing for us to dwell together as one. Wait a minute, good there, but not in Hebrew, it means profit. So it's a profitable thing. So when we operate together, we can be profitable. He said it's also pleasant, which means peace. Is peaceable. We gotta have peace, especially in the house of God. There ought to be peace. There'll be peace in the kingdom. That it ought to be pleasant. I told y'all the first message, peace is a spirit just like strife is, right? So when there's peace in a place, you can feel it. When it's strife, you feel that. When there's tension, you can feel that. When you're just tolerating somebody, you can feel that. You only got to say no. When you're just doing it because you have to and not out of real love, y'all ain't got to say nothing. I'm just gonna tell you, we can't be blessed until we operate in peace for real. Oh boy, you gotta handle every situation like Jesus would. He gonna handle it in peace. He's a Prince of Peace. My God, Jesus still died for the people that whipped him and nailed him to the cross because he was one with the purpose. He still said, I'm going to the cross and I am going to die for you. Are y'all hearing this? Verse 2, he said, it is like precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down unto the skirts of the garments. Verse 3, and that's the dew of Hermon, and that's the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. So there's, there's 3 things here that happens. Prophet happens when we unify. Prophetic peace in verse 1. Secondly, the anointing is released in unity where there's no strife. It's hard for the anointing to flow when there's no unity. I'm going some places and the anointing is not there. It appears to be there, but at the end of the day, it's really not because the house is divided. When you got a house divided, the anointing cannot flow from the head down. The head can have the anointing, but you can have people in the house who are divided, and then every time it flows to one person, it skips one and drops to the ground because there's no unity. Oh boy. Say, we need, we need unity. Are y'all here so we can have blessing? And anointing. Watch this, another thing here is eternal life. So eternity sits on you. I'm not talking about just when you die and go to heaven. I'm talking about you start experiencing eternity in the earth realm when you operate in oneness with God. Okay, all right, all right. So, so let me go. So, so go to Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12, because I'm boring y'all and I don't want to continue to do that. Glory to God. I want Hebrews 12 and I want you to look at verse 14. Yeah, that's what we'll start. 14. Um, first, so here's what I'll show you how dangerous strife is first in a church. Y'all hearing this? Because I, I don't— I grew up in a church. I've seen people literally fight in church. That's ridiculous. I've seen deacons put preachers out the church. I've seen the preacher show up at the church and the doors were locked and they wouldn't let him in. I've seen choir members in choir rehearsal get to fight and arguing. There's no blessing in that kind of carry-on. But look, let's look at this. 12:14, the Bible says, follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. So our goal is what? See the Lord, right? Our goal is to experience God when we come to church. So the first thing we got to do in order to do that, we got to follow peace. Oh boy, so I gotta follow peace. That's a state of tranquility with others. Watch this, even when they may not deserve your peace, you follow it anyway. Even if you want to put them in the headlock and DDT them, you have to learn to follow peace. Are you hearing this? You exempt yourself from going off, from wreaking havoc. So when people come at you wrong, so instead of you retaliating and disrupting your peace and your blessing, you gotta stop, make a decision to follow peace with that person. Oh boy, trust me, I've been there, done it. Then it says holiness without— yeah boy, this is not what you think. This is not legalism, this is not following rules, this is consecration. Hagiosimos is the Greek word. It means to consecrate yourself to a place of purity. Which means you're going to a time of consecration so that if you can't follow peace and you can't be peaceful with others, you go before God until he purifies that thing out of you. Are y'all hearing this? You sanctify your heart and your soul. That's holiness. You, you stay before God to your heart on that situation becomes like God's heart on the situation. Oh boy, that'll keep you from slapping some folk, I'm telling you now. I know, trust me. Look at verse 15: Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled. So the Bible is saying here that when you walk in strife, you carry a sword of bitterness. That every time your buttons are pushed, you go swinging that sword and you cut people that don't even deserve to be cut by your bitterness because you're angry at everybody. Okay, all right, I'm— I see y'all don't want to hear this, but I'm gonna preach anyway. So that's, that's what happens in many churches. And I'm telling— I see what God is getting ready to take us I see what's about to happen for us, and I see as God begins to add, we got to make sure our foundation is correct. We gotta make sure we don't have bitterness in our heart. We ain't walking around with a sword that was meant to be destroyed, and then we end up cutting people that don't deserve that. Are y'all hearing this? Yes, sir. Because guess what? They won't come back. You treat people wrong and they don't have— you don't have peace and love when new people come into the church. They won't come to this church because they won't feel the love of God. Are y'all hearing this? That's why Felicia and I, we try to practice loving everybody, because at the end of the day, that's what we want this house to be, an atmosphere of love. Love says I know what happened, but I still love you. Love said we fell out right here, we didn't disagree, but, but we gonna put that behind us because we're in God. Y'all ain't got to say nothing. So I gotta have peace and love. Y'all don't have to go here, but you can write it down. Galatians 5:13-26. But the fruit of the Spirit is love. That starts at 22. But 13 starts with the work of the flesh and bitterness and anger and revelings and strife, all works of the flesh. But in 22 says, instead of walking in your flesh, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, faith, meekness, temperance, long-suffering, gentleness, kindness. Against such there's no law. Nobody can stop you from loving. Love is the first one because you can't do any of those others if you don't love. Is it possible for you to have long-suffering with someone if you don't love them? It's impossible to have the joy of the Lord in situations that are not favorable to you if you don't love God. Are y'all hearing this? You gotta walk this out, because many a time the blessing is hindered because we're not walking this out. We still upset about— they didn't speak to me, somebody did this, somebody did that. Listen, you gotta get past that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my God. Oh, this is how even gossip is born. Oh boy, gossip is a dangerous, perverted spirit. See, you know you ain't let it go because you're still talking about it. Oh boy. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I'll just make sure this mic check, mic check, 1, 2, 3, it's working, right? You know you ain't released it because every time something comes up about it, you you whispering about. Yeah, that's right. Come on. Yeah, yeah. Now they got these little— what they call them— baby whisperers, dog whisperers. They can talk to anything. I don't know about that. It's a familiar spirit is what it is. Glory to God. But, but here's why I know. Yeah, yeah. Come on now. You can be a strife whisperer, but every time you get opportunity, you spilling negative about a situation that you really need to be quiet about. Put it under you and move on. It's over. There's nothing you can do about it. You can't go back. It happened. All you do is dust yourself out, move forward, and walk in the peace of God. Wait a minute, let me show you Proverbs 16:28. Go there. Proverbs 16:28. The Bible says this. It says, a perverse man Sow strife. Perverted. Perverse. Perverse. So perverse ain't just man on man, woman on woman. That's perverted, but that ain't the only perversion. Perversion is when you sow discord and strife and cause a division between people. That's it. A person, every time you look up, they're bickering, they're heated, they're arguing, they're fussing. They have a perverted spirit. And instead of you getting on their level, arguing with them, what you need to do is go somewhere and just start rebuking that demon in the name of Jesus. And sometimes you need to rebuke it face to face, because if that perversion constantly comes to your face, you need to say, in the name of Jesus, you need to stop sowing strife. So I was, I, I was on the phone with a preacher last week. Somebody trying to tell me something about somebody else. I said, look, man, in the name of Jesus, I do not want to hear that. There's other things we need to be discussing than this person. That's perverted. Pervert, perverse, perversion, which means you deviate from the authentic. So the authentic, pure conversation should be held in peace. And the moment you deviate from that, it starts sowing division. First of all, how you gonna make somebody not like somebody because you don't like them? Come on now, come on now, come on now. That's your problem, and you need to deal with God on that issue. But you can't expect me to treat somebody bad, or somebody else to treat a person bad, cause you got beef with them. Now what you need to do is handle your business. A perverse man's soul striketh— watch this— and a whisperer Always whispering separates friends. Let me tell you something, when you always a hater and trying to separate people from what's blessing them— oh, y'all, my God, here you, you are deemed a whisperer. When you're trying to unplug people from purpose and God's plan for their life, you are a whisperer. Always in somebody DM trying to I love them. Listen, I want you to remember something. You don't have to retaliate to whisperers or gossipers or haters. Your haters actually don't hate you. They actually just hate they can't do what you doing. Y'all ain't got to say nothing. So they find ways to make themselves feel better and they start whispering. You post something, they'll hit like on it, then inbox somebody else, say, child, did you see what they posted? Just a demon whisperer. Y'all ain't got to say nothing. That needs deliverance. Don't have a life. Scrolling, looking at everybody else's life, liking pictures, being perverted, and then talking about the same picture you liked. Okay, maybe that's not in here, but somebody out there, you actually like this video and they go talk about my preacher. You demon whisperer, get off my page in Jesus' name. Glory to God. Okay, Proverbs 17:9. Let me just move off that, but you got to be careful. I mean, it's just like, God have mercy. I've seen men who are extremely overweight fussing at their wife about losing weight. No, you get your fat self in the gym and you gonna lose weight. Are y'all hearing this? Yeah, I said Because that's that whispering demon that won't look at theyself. It's perverted. You trying to tell her don't eat that, and you sitting there got your plate piled up with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, gout. But you trying to tell somebody else what to do, and they got nerve to talk about them behind your back. Proverbs 17:19. The Bible said, he who covers and forgives an offense seeks love. So when you get offended, the thing to do is cover it and forgive. That's how Jesus rolls. Are y'all hearing this? Not fight. Not find a way to get revenge, not call a Zoom meeting about that person. Y'all ain't got to say nothing. I'm telling you, this type of crap happens, and these people supposed to— they call themselves saved. That's why you never would have saw me sharing none of that crap that was out about Bishop James. 'Cause if he did do it, that's between him and God. I ain't got nothing to do with that. I touch not my anointed, neither do my prophet no harm. What I do know, he's anointed. Some of the same women that got loosed got bound again. Sharing that crowd. This is the same man that you say, 'Loose you, woman, thou art loosed.' I mean, you're running crazy. Loosed. That's the problem, someone too loose. Glory to God. But you got to cover that stuff. We gotta learn in the body of Christ, because can I tell you something? That ain't the last exposure. Can I tell you something? Can I prophesy to you? There's more coming. There are more things that are going to be uncovered this year. There are things that are from the top, from these quote-unquote mega preachers. You're going to begin to see inside of their life. Oh my God, it's already happening. It's already happening as I'm speaking. It's happening. The reality is, as the body of Christ, our reaction to it is to check ourselves, is to get ourselves in line, to make sure— hear me, glory to God— that we don't get exposed. Come on, because guess what? You may not have did what they did, you may not have did nothing physically, but if you thought it You may not have did it, but you thought it. Jesus said if a man think on a woman, he's already committed that. So you know what you need to do is live a perpetual life of repentance. You should always stay open before God because you never know when you sin of commission and omission. It might be something that you didn't realize was sin that you did, so you need to repent all the time anyway. Because there's not one among us that's perfect, and that's what causes strife. You got all these religious legalistic believers that think they're better than everybody else. Okay, I'm sorry. But you gotta learn to seek love. God knows I wake up every day to live holy, and God forbid if something ever happened to me, I would not want to be turned into the hands of church folk. I'd rather walk through Skid Row and walk down the— glory to the name of God— uh, maximum security prison with prisoners than foolish church folk, cuz church folk will kill you, man. Y'all ain't got to say nothing here. Church folk see you fall, they'll kick you and keep stepping on you. Be 6 feet under, they going to make sure you 12, cuz they, they, they, they want to secure themselves in your failure. But the Bible says here, he who covers and forgives offense seeks love. That also deals with the fact that you look— you know that you may need love when you need forgiveness and cause offense. Jesus said forgive your brother 70 times 7 times in one day. That's 490 times. Sometimes I be want to say, Lord, can we just, can we just subtract 480 from it? Cuz they done offended me 10 times. I can just knock them out right here. Y'all hearing this? Glory to God. Go to Ephesians 4:30. I'm almost done. I'm going finish reading that while you turning. It says, but he who repeats or harks on a matter separates close friends. So if you keep harping on it, keep repeating it, keep sharing it, you're going to separate people from what they need to really be following. Oh boy. Okay, thank you, Holy Spirit. I love you, Jesus. Would y'all rather me start yelling in Tuna? Y'all want this. Glory to God. I want you to be clear that strife will grieve the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4:30. Y'all there? Okay, I got— I'm, I'm getting in sync with this iPad. I just figured out what it did. For some reason, it has book, the books of the Bible in alphabetical order. That is straight the devil. I don't even know how I did that. Glory to God. All right, Ephesians, because Ecclesiastes before Ephesians, Esther behind Ephesians. Crazy. Exodus is behind Esther. All right, Ephesians 4:30, the Bible says, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. That's not a suggestion, family. I'm saying again, that's not a suggestion, that's a command. That's something that God requires every Holy Spirit believer to adhere to. You should be on a quest daily not to grieve the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? Lapeo. What? L-A-P-E-O. Lapeo means to make sorrowful, to cause to be sad. Wait a minute, that means the Holy Spirit, because he is a person, he has emotion. Are y'all hearing this? He's a person. He's the person of God in you, and you can offend him. It also means to offend, to make him uneasy so that he leaves. So when you grieve him, he steps back. Let me submit to you, strife grieves him. Cussing because you know cuss words, it grieves him. It makes him uneasy. Now, I'm resolved some people cuss because they don't realize that they can really use their intelligence to formulate other words, and it makes them feel better about themselves that they use that language. I've cussed, said a cuss word of 2, 3, 4, 5 in my life. And I realized, glory to God, I don't care, talk about me much as you please. More you talk, I'm going on my knees. Hallelujah. It's in the past, so I know the words. And you know, a few months ago, a few months back I was so angry and it just slipped out. And Felicia said, what did you just say? I grieved her because the Holy Spirit is in her. And I said, okay, I am so sorry. Because it was like she was ready to pack. That's like where she was. This man done cussed. She was totally uneasy because she never heard me cuss. So I'm repenting about me cussing, and she, she's okay, I forgive you, just don't happen again. I didn't know who that was, but I was angry because some strife had came. So I teach y'all stuff out of my experiences. Most preachers ain't gonna tell y'all the truth, but at the end of the day, I'm gonna tell you the truth. Yeah, I, I, that time that word came out, I was fire mad. Thank God for deliverance. Thank God I had a mind to repent. Thank God my wife was there to help me feel the conviction, even though I, I didn't really need her there to make me feel more convicted. Oh, y'all hear me? You know, some people just make it worse. She the Holy Ghost police. 3 days later, she's still talking. I'm like, ma'am, I repented. God has moved on. I need you to move on too. I need you to just move right along. Yeah, I cussed 3 days ago. Let's, let's go, let's get past it. Glory to God. You know, I'm just appalled. Blessing and cursing just really can't come out of the same mouth. Like, okay, yeah, yeah, I know this, I know the Bible, let's move on, ma'am. I only want her to see this tape because she gonna bring it back up again. Hallelujah. Now don't you remind her. See, that's a whisperer. See, we got one. See, that's what I'm saying right there. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Okay, where's my scripture? Let me read. He said, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed. Say sealed. I love that word. That word means that there's a mark upon you that you belong to God. Uh, sprego in Greek, it means that God has marked you because you're his. So that means I'm marked and can't nothing the devil do snatch me out of So why would I grieve the very person that marks me as God's own? Why would I do anything to make him uneasy so I'm dismissed from God? Amen. That means I need to be mindful of how I move, what I say, what I do, who I'm with. When you have a seal on you and people know you, you can't let your good be evil spoken of. You gotta watch what you do. You gotta guard yourself and how you do it. The Bible even said if you got something that's gonna make somebody stumble, take that over there. Take that contaminated meat outside of the camp. Do it over there so nobody can stumble when they see you, so you don't cause them strife. We gotta learn to be compassionate like Jesus would toward us. It grieves the Holy Spirit when we're not, when we have strife against others because they do something we offended by. Jesus. Here it is, guys. When you say you in God, that's why, that's why the preachers who do the stuff in their churches get all that flack, because somebody's watching them. Matter of fact, most of the people that have negativity against them like them. They just did something wrong that didn't align with the seal. Are y'all hearing me? I've watched churches die, y'all, and I'm almost done, because of strife. I've seen marriages end in divorce because somebody was so bitter they wouldn't repent, they wouldn't change. They thought what they were doing were okay, bringing that bitterness and strife into the marriage, and the person just couldn't take it no more, they left. Nobody wants to be around an angry person all the time, and you're saying you are working for Jesus. It'll kill everything you put your hands on. I've watched people have so much strife that I saw them progress into cancer. I saw them progress into heart attacks. 'Cause you let people get on your nerves so, and you feel like you got to address everything. Some fights are not your fight. People who carry the spirit, they feel like they got to get in everything. I had a friend like that. I used to hate to be with him. We'd be at a high school football game, somebody else had nothing to do with us. We don't know them. They get to fight. He's so full of strife, he run into the fight and trying to jump in. Like, you don't even know them people. Why are you fighting? Because it's that spirit was driving him. I've seen people can't wait till a waitress at a restaurant mess up. So much strife. So that they can tell that waitress off. Most of the time it ain't even the waitress's fault, it's the people cooking the food. Okay, last scripture, go to James 3. Y'all learn anything today? Thank you, Lord. James 3, we'll start at verse 13. Watch this. When there's strife in your house, it even causes strife in your children. That spirit is transferable. You got children that won't behave in class, they're acting that way because of what they see happening with you. Let's read. The Bible said, who is a wise man? This is a question. And a dude with knowledge among you, let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. So the Bible said, when you're wise, if you want to be considered wise, out of your conversation you speak with meekness of wisdom. That's a powerful term, meekness. Say that, say meekness of wisdom. The word wisdom here, Sophia in Greek, it means skill. So he said, you speak with a humility and you speak with skill. You humble yourself and you speak skillfully to what's being said. Y'all heard me say this before, I'll say it again. The best way to do this is when you're stimulated with something that causes you strife, go to the space between stimulus and response and do not respond until you get an answer from the Holy Spirit of how to respond in to. Right. You got to seek this. It ain't going to just happen because your nature is going to want to respond. But when it happens, you got to have some Sophia, some skill. You got to humble yourself to do it too, because our lower nature wants to retaliate so that we feel like that person knows they're not getting the best of us. But meekness of wisdom says, I'm gonna humble myself and I'm gonna speak back with skill. I'm gonna tell you something, God can fight better than you can on any day. Hallelujah, Jesus. Go to 14. It says, but if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts Glory not and lie not against the truth. That's a strong statement. But you know what? There's a lot of people that's got bitter— not just envy, this scripture says bitter envy, which means you have a fierce indignation. Watch this, to sow discord. And make others feel bad because, again, maybe you can't do what they're doing or you want what they have. God says when this is in your heart and when strife is in your heart— oh, strife means that you're about— you're partisan, you take sides, you're cliquish. In this text, that's what it's talking about. So you, you hate— long as you, long as you're a cheerleader in your group, the leader of the group could be wrong and you're cheering on that wrong. God says, no, I, I don't need you to do that. He says, if you're doing that, glory not where glory stops, which means don't go through the fakeness of worship. Glory to God. Don't, don't come. Get this together first. Well, this shows us how strife can hinder a flow of worship. Watch this. He said, because you're lying against truth, you're going against what's in your heart. Deal with what's in your heart. That's why the Bible said you got an ought against your brother, go to them. He said, put your gift on the altar. I know you're anointed, I know you're prophesying, I know you're walking on water. He said, put it on the altar and go make things right with your brother. Get the strife straight. Hallelujah. Let me keep reading. He says, this wisdom descended not from above but is earthly sensual, devilish. So when you start moving in your flesh and operating in envy, operating in jealousy, operating in strife, he said this is not from heaven. He said, I need you to be clear, this doesn't come from above, it's earthly. I don't want nothing driving my life, leading my life that's earthly. I want nothing of this world as the head of my life. Oh boy, he said it's sensual, which means it's what you sense. It comes out of your senses, it comes out of your physical emotions. He says devilish, it's from devil. Devilish. Of course we don't want to do anything that's devilish, right? Verse 16: For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. So when there's envying and strife in a church, in a job, in a house, house is confused. I've seen wives jealous of their daughters, and they could never get on the same page with their children. I've seen husbands jealous of their sons. That's crazy. You brought these people into the world. Why would you be jealous? You should want them to be good, to look good, to do— that's why you see some, some mamas 60 trying to look like they 30-year-old daughter. Listen, you 60. I'm gonna need you to be 60. Glory to God. Because at the end of the day, you ought to be celebrating who your daughter has become, who your son is becoming or have become. But it causes confusion. Are y'all with me? And evil works. Verse 17: But the wisdom that is from above— here it is. He said when the wisdom comes from heaven, when you were acting out of that space between stimulus and response, and you get wisdom from above, it is pure. Say pure. He said first, pure, which is the Greek word hadnos, which means it's untainted with worldly influence. It comes straight from God's mind and desire for that situation. It's not influenced by you being angry, by you being mad, by you being upset. It pushes that out of the way. It's pure, it's innocent. Yeah, he says, first, pure. It's secondly peaceable. It's gentle and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, and without partiality and without hypocrisy. So this wisdom don't take sides. Are y'all hearing me? This wisdom is not partial. This wisdom does not consider itself. It moves in love. It moves in peace. Jesus. That's how Jesus handles us. Just think if Jesus didn't handle us like this, if he was partial. That's the very reason God sent Jesus, so that we don't get handled in a partisan way, because the old God of the Old Testament, Abba, did not play. You sinned against him, dead. Okay, yeah, you said okay, die. That was, that was it. Okay, I told you to do this, you didn't do that, okay, everybody's dead, everybody's cursed. But Jesus came so that we can have mercy. And find grace to help in the time of need. So if Jesus is in me, I need to have mercy on others. Oh boy, this is the secret of how to get along. In verse 17, be pure, be peaceable, be gentle. You're not being gentle if you're yelling. If you raise your voice at someone You're not being gentle. I heard somebody say, oh, I just, I just changed my tone. No, you're not being gentle. Gentleness is soft. Are y'all hearing this? That's how God handles us. I have to watch it with my, with my, um, granddaughter. I have to handle her gently because she's so sensitive. But it's so amazing that a person can be so sensitive but so aggressive. Are y'all hearing this? I mean, just talks and say what come to her mind. Like the other night, she told me, she said, Papa Mike, you in my business. I'm like, little girl, I had to kiss myself real quick. You ain't got no business And I had to tell her in a general way, you ain't got no business. And the only way you breathing is air in this house because I'm paying for it. So whatever I ask you, you need to respond to. But you got to be— but if I would have came harsh, she'd immediately start crying. Because you got to handle people where they are. Are you hearing this? Y'all stand, I'm done, I'm done. You have to learn. Y'all stand, I'm finished. Don't pray. Glory to God. Did y'all learn anything today? Hallelujah. Glory to God. Say this with me. Say, Heavenly Father, come on, say it. Say, Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, Say, I thank you that I realize now that unity and harmony are important. Say, according to your word, I believe I complete your joy by getting along with others. Say, in the name of Jesus, I declare today I will put aside my own agenda. Say, and I declare my life is in agreement, is in peace with your plan, your purpose, your dream, your destiny for my life. Say, in the name of Jesus, I believe that peace and strife are spirits. That can be felt. So in Jesus' name, I declare today I will walk in peace, I will walk in love, I will not grieve the Holy Spirit. Say, in Jesus' name, I thank you that I am sealed, I am marked to be a light. To show love, to show grace, to show mercy, considering myself. In Jesus' name, I am strife-free. Amen and amen. If you believe what you just said, clap your hands, open your mouth, and shout about that. Come on, come on. Shout about being free from strife and envy. Come on, shout about it! Hallelujah! Glory to God, glory to your name. Not another day will we bicker and argue and have undercurrents. That will eliminate strife from our life. Come on, give God praise for That. Hallelujah! Glory to God! We bless his name.