Don't Show Partiality

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They're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and challenging men to take their God-assigned role. Here's our hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. We are back. Welcome again to ManTalk Radio. I'm Will Hardy.

And I'm Roy Jones Jr. And you know, we were talking last week, Roy, we were speaking to the listener, and I think we could probably going to speak more to the listener again this this week, because now that we've talked about a little bit and listed some things when I did my word from the street, that may be a future segment of the show where we just go out and have a question and we interview people. There you go. So praise God. It may work.

It may. Amen. So but when they might think I'm coming to rob them, though, with my son.

Oh, no, no, no. Especially walk up with a mask. Well, everybody got masks now. Not all of them look like me. So this week, we want to talk about born again believers out there. You listeners, we are not to be partial.

We are impartial and we are objective in our thinking because it's so easy for us to start to drift one way or the other and start defending a political position instead of looking at what people are saying. And then we're taking what they're saying and filtering that through the gospel, because the gospel is absolute. The gospel is truth. And if we are walking by faith as we say, we are walking by faith, then we need to again, let the world see differences in us because we are changed people. And if they don't see a difference in us versus the world, you should ask yourself why exactly I look too much like the world that they don't know that I'm a follower of Christ.

And that's really problematic. And I got to ask the question again. Who is your king? Is your king the president? Is your king justices? Is your king even the individual who are laying beside you in the bed? If you if you make a individual your king, then that means Jesus Christ is not sitting on the throne of your life. He is definitely not the first priority.

And typically a person has several other priorities and Christ might be the fifth or sixth down on that list. So we have to be careful of that. So my question is, are we serving the king of politics or are you serving the king of kings? Because a lot of folks out there were doing just that. They were serving the king of politics and still continue to serve the king. Absolutely.

And that doesn't just go to the person sitting in the pew that goes to pastors who are serving politics. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Which is really concerning. Right. And that's one thing that you and I continue to question when we have a one on one conversations is what does it look like to be a father of Christ? And folks, we've got to be different.

And we've seen over the last, I don't know, tens of tens to 50 to 100 years that we've just continually slow fade on to a complete slow fade. Right. And we're there's not much difference to the general public between a believer and a non believer. Listen to what the Lord says in Isaiah fifty five, one through nine. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Are we looking for the presidential pardon or are we looking for God's pardon? I just want to I just want to throw that out there while I'm reading. While my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways, my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Well, that's when, you know, we get in the middle of these things and something happens that totally makes no sense. But if we're following Christ, it doesn't need to make sense, because when we get through that journey and through that storm, it's going to make sense.

You and I've talked about this in the past. Well, we've even been through a personal journey. His ways are in our ways. But when you in the middle of a storm, you can't quite understand what it's all about. When you get through on the other side, you realize that he had complete control through the storm. And the question is, though, is are we willing to go through the storm to see what God does have for us on the other side?

Most people these days, I would say no, if they can avoid the if they can avoid the tempering, they're going to avoid the tempering. Because, see, again, we are letting the natural proceed or precede the supernatural. We're putting the natural in front of us because we're receiving things through the eye gate, ear gate. And so all of these gates are open.

We're letting this information come in. And what it's doing, it's diluting down the word of God because we're letting those other things have precedent. So true.

So very true. If you're listening today, ask yourself that. Does my life look more like the world or does it look more like a follower of Christ? And see, when God say my thoughts are not your thoughts. See that that's in in all ways, because it's so easy for us to fall into the pit of the enemy. And see, the enemy, he has a lot of years on all of us. He has the ability to do and put in front of us those things that are enticing to us because he watches. He doesn't know the future.

He can't predict the future. But he knows what's coming for him and he knows what's coming for his legions that followed him when he was cast to earth, cast out of heaven. So when when God says my thoughts are not your thoughts, that means you we cannot think like we used to anymore. And when you do, then you're allowing yourself to be pulled back into the quagmire, if you will. And and we're being pulled under by this. And so we start to go along with the world and start listening to all these things that are unhealthy. Well, if I'm sitting here as a listener today and I'm thinking, you know, well, how do I keep my thought process clear?

How do I how do I stay on track? You and I covered the scripture before Romans 12, right? About renewing of the mind. And that's what it's all about. So if you with the amount of information overload that's coming today, and I think you and I would agree with this piece that you just cannot keep it all straight. And if you're not putting equal amount of time into the word of God and prayer time and meditation and listening time for him to speak with you, how do you ever expect to get on track?

You really can't. Then I don't know what the average usage is today of a cell phone and tablet and computer time, but it's got to be several hours a day. You know, the people between work, personal time, Facebook, Instagram, all those things. And the average person spends very, very little time in the word. And when we do get in the word and we read, what do you do with it after you read it? How are you applying that to your life?

Because reading is one thing, but application is another. We got to go out and do. Don't be a hearer of the word, as James says, but be a doer of the word. Go out and see the word requires you to to act on it. And it wants to act through you. The word of God wants to act through you. It wants to fulfill its mission through you.

It has to. But how will you let that happen if you're not letting it perform what God wants to perform through you to the unsaved? And you're sitting there listening.

You say, what do you mean I don't let it perform? Well, if you're tied up on your phone, you're tied up, worried about things you shouldn't be worried about. If you're in the middle, political discussions or those things that we were talking about before that are not of God, then that's how it happens. That's how you missed the opportunity. That's what ends up pulling you down, distracts you, gets the hook so that you don't even realize you're off track. And then you start showing partiality again instead of being impartial, because it's so easy for our thought processes to slip right back into the world.

That's that's a thin line. So you have you have to practice. Let God bless you to practice what you're reading. You have you have to go out and do it. And if you just listen and let it sit there and it'll do nothing because you're not acting on the word, you're not yielding yourself as instruments of righteousness.

Romans six and 16, you're not letting the Holy Spirit do what it wants to do for you. So we'll one the other day, my wife and I had the opportunity to watch this movie Social Dilemma on Netflix. I don't know if you've seen it yet or not, but it now it goes back to this whole thing about the the logarithms that are being built around your search history, around your viewing history that just in the background is being developed systematically as you're looking at material. And then also that starts to be what you're getting targeted with. If you go up a particular line of thinking within your political influences or beliefs or desires or interest, all of a sudden it just starts. That's what you start seeing. You don't get a balanced view of anything because now it's feeding everything that you have shaped this the machine, if you will, the computer to tell it to send you. So that's part of the problem that we're dealing with in today's society that we've never dealt with before and generations earlier.

It's not no longer just sitting down to read a book. If you've got thousands of thousands of things coming at you based on your your criteria that you've developed unknowingly. Yes, but and also I think we have a tendency to fall back into that line of thinking is when we hear other people's remarks that we disagree with.

So immediately we want to come and we want to make that challenge. And so what happens again is when we make that challenge and if the answer we don't get doesn't line up with what the person should be saying to us, then all of a sudden we get on defensive. Yeah, and then and if you're doing this on social media via Facebook or Instagram commentary, whatever, then the system, the logarithms are being built in the background by your comments, by your responses.

All those things are setting off triggers in the system so that it continues to feed the monster, if you will, of more and more distractions and more and more things that have got your interest or that are going to get you wound up or going to push your buttons. And that's if you haven't watched that documentary, go online and watch that documentary. It's called Social Dilemma on Netflix. And folks, if you're a parent, if you're a user of telephone and you have any tie to it at all, get on there and watch it. It's a good education for you to understand what's going on. And then it it also impacts your well-being. I mean, quite honestly, it impacts your well-being because it's it's feeding things that aren't necessarily wholesome for you.

And to Will's point, it could be a response that's got you your dander up, if you will, your negative response. And it just continues to feed behind the scenes. So be aware of that. Go watch the documentary, Social Dilemma, Netflix. And we're not getting paid to advertise Netflix by the way.

So when we come back, we're going to continue this conversation. And it's it's all about not being partial. Don't be partial. Be impartial. Be objective.

Don't be subjective. Let God bless you to know the truth so the truth can set you free. We'll be back here in a moment. TAWCMM would love to have you join their community of men for breakfast every first and third Friday of every month. They have Bible discussions and fellowship after the best breakfast in town. The meeting location is at their gracious host church, first Christian church in Kernersville, 1130 North Main Street in Kernersville. They have a hard start at seven o'clock and a hard stop at eight o'clock. First time visitors eat for free.

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Call 336-885-1987. Welcome back to ManTalk Radio. This is Roy. And this is Will.

And we're talking about born again believer. Don't be partial. Don't be partial in your thinking. You know, be objective when it comes to listening to things that have got us all up in an uproar and and pulling us back into the world. You've got to have a way to filter it. And you also have to have a sanity check, Will.

So that sometimes comes in the form of putting manual filters on what you're looking at and what you're listening to. But the other thing is accountability with somebody that sits and talks with you so that you can bounce this stuff off of when you when you're if you have a doubt, you need to pick up the phone, call a brother or sister in Christ, say, look, this just doesn't sit right. What are your thoughts?

Absolutely. And look what Jesus said in Matthew 25, 31 through 46. That's a lot of reading there.

But we probably want to summarize this. You'll take the rest of our segment. So so what Jesus is saying here is he said that there's going to come a time when the sheep are going to be separated from the goats. And then he's going to say to those on his right hand, come ye blessed to my father, inherit the kingdom.

And then he's going to say to those on his left, depart from me, for I never knew you. And then he's going to say for for the blessed, the ones who did it, he said, I was hungry. You gave me food. I was thirsty. You gave me drink. I was a stranger. You took me in. I was naked.

You close, clothe me. I was sick. You visited me.

I was in prison. You came to see me. And then Jesus answered, you know, then the people answered, the righteous answered, when do we do all these things? When do we do? We give you drink. We clothe you. We visit you in hospital and prison and all these things. And Jesus said, if you did it unto the least of these, my brother and you notice me, my brother, and you did it unto me. Yeah.

And that beautiful it is. And see, so what are we doing to each other when we get into these conversations, into the political weeds that God wants us to be pulled from? We have to listen to what is being said, regardless of who it is. Listen to what's being said. Take whatever is being said. Filter that through the scriptures and don't formulate your own opinion about a matter just because you disagree with it. There's going to be people who disagree with things that we say regarding the word of God. Oh, yeah. But does that change the word of God, Roy? Not at all.

It doesn't change at all. You know, one thing that would come to mind, Will, when we're talking about when you've done it unto the least of these, you've done it unto me. I know everyone that's probably listening on the Sunday afternoon is going past someone that's standing on the corner and that's homeless, that doesn't have food. And I know we see the panhandlers on just about every corner that any major intersection. One thing I want to just put on my heart as we're reading through this, those people, most of them are hungry. Yeah. And granted, some of them control the circumstances, got them into the situation and some were uncontrolled by things that happened to them.

Right. So just encourage you, if you're listening today, that to take a moment, stop that $5 or that $7, that $10 is going to do a whole lot for that person and don't stand in judgment of that person and pray about it as you're pulling up those intersections. God wants you to do something to do something and open your eyes and be be the feet of Christ to the person standing on the corner.

Amen. Be led by God. Notice what he said, Roy, in 2 Timothy 2 and 9. If you got that, you want to read what he says there. 2 Peter, excuse me, 2 Peter.

I don't see it on my list here. 2 Peter 2, 9. Then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment.

So you say, listener, you say, how can I be delivered or how can I change my thinking when my thinking is a certain way? Well, it says it right here. The Lord knows how to deliver you out of your temptation.

It says it right here. So so you have to believe that whatever it is you're going through, that God has the ability to take you not only through it, but also to bless you once you go through it on the other side with whatever blessings he have waiting for you. And we don't know what those blessings are until we go through it. And he'll never show us what the blessings is until we go through it. Look, look at the life of Job.

That's a prime example. Job had to go through all of the suffering that he went through and endure all of that. Even his three or four friends that he had there, so-called friends, I would say.

But but all of those individuals. And then once he got to the other side, God gave him blessing upon blessing upon blessing and and restored to him everything that he had plus some. And see, again, with with Job, it was material. But we not talk we don't have to talk about material as the blessing. It could be that you need more wisdom in the word of God. And that's a blessing.

So how am I to get that? However, if I don't know that God has the ability to deliver me, deliver me out of temptation. And if I'm saying I'm godly, then you qualify as an individual whom God want to deliver out of temptation. Lord, I feel like I'm on a roll now, Roy.

I'm not just so. So Second Peter Chapter two and two, twenty one and twenty two for would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it's happened to them, according to the true proverb, a dog returns to his own vomit and a sow having washed to her wallowing in the mire. Roy, don't return to be the dog returning to the vomit. The vomit is the pollution, the partiality of the world. See, here it is right here, saints.

It's right here. Don't return to that which God have delivered you from. Just because you're covered by the blood doesn't give you the right to stay in the mire. Absolutely.

And it's so easy to go back to it because God said you can go back. Yeah. If if if you allow yourself to remain out there, continue with this line of thinking that you have and you never be delivered from that, then where does that put you in the body of Christ? Yeah. Then you're just like everybody else, right? You've made a commitment, but you've not turned away from it.

Absolutely. Which leads us into the next scripture. Second Corinthians five seventeen. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things. Behold, all things have become new.

Oh, that's beautiful. And if you're sitting here listening and you've made a commitment to follow Christ and all things haven't become new after your decision, then you need to ask God to help you with those things. Or if your thinking hasn't changed and you're still thinking the same way, then you have to look at yourself and say, am I truly a new creation? Because if you keep going back doing the same sin over and over and over and over and over and over again, I have to ask the question, have you truly allowed God to deliver you from that? Or are you harboring that because that's your, quote unquote, secret sin or you rationalize and convince you to rationalize that it's OK because you're covered by the blood? Amen. And you're not you're not that should not be rationalizing.

You should not be. You are covered by the blood, but you have to repent and turn away from it. And back to earlier scripture, you know, he knows how to deliver us out of out of the temptation. So if you're if you're struggling with something, then just you need to immediately take that thought captive for the Lord and just turn it over to him.

Amen. And in First Corinthians two and twelve, he says that we have not received the spirit of the world, but we have received the spirit which is of Christ, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of Christ. And if you've accepted Christ and the Holy Spirit resides in you and you are a temple of the Holy Spirit.

That's right. So so why are we going to put the Holy Spirit through things that he has delivered us from? Or wants to deliver us from? And we're still holding on to these things.

We're still talking about the things that we should be freed from. And again, it's the over and over and over mentality. So what does that do to the Holy Spirit, Will, when if I as a believer grieve, it does grieve the Holy Spirit. Exactly. That's what I knew. That's where you do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Absolutely.

That's and that's that's the reality of it, right? It's no different than a loved one with the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. But you're standing beside that loved one and you're doing something that hurts that loved one right in front of the world. The Holy Spirit was residing in you. And as you do these things and you're committing sin, you're grieving the Holy Spirit. And you say, well, you know, that's that's easy to say, but hard to do. No, it's not hard to do. It's not hard to do if we understand that we are a new creation in Christ.

So while we're talking about this grieving the Holy Spirit, God just put on my heart. This is a talk. This is a black man and a white man sitting here talking. If you're listening to this program, we're going to challenge you to look at a person that looks different than you, looks different than you, speaks different than you, walks different than you and create a relationship and love that love that person. No matter if you're black, white, it doesn't matter whatever your ethnicity is or your background or your history.

You need to be changing and being a follower of Christ, which means loving your neighbor as yourself and doing things differently than the world's doing it. And that's what where this show is all about is breaking down the walls and showing how to love each other. Right, Will? Absolutely. And, you know, it's so easy for us to just get into trivial matters. And we let the smallest things become mountains. And we need to let them remain molehills instead of mountains.

But but we take the smallest of things. And if someone, quote unquote, offend us. Now we're ready to jump down their throat and say, why did you say this to me?

Why did you do this to me? Well, see, if you're walking in the spirit. And if the enemy in the person who is saying these things are yielding theirself to the enemy, then we need to understand it's the enemy working through them and not that individual. That's right. It's the enemy that's creating the problem. Absolutely.

Because he again, he want to pull you aside. Right. And to your point, you should be forgiving because, you know, Christ forgave us. God, God forgave us. And Christ forgave us when he died on the cross for our sins. Right.

He covered all those sins. But if you don't forgive your brother, then you're no different than the world. That's right. Don't be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good. That's right. That's the word of God.

Romans 12. Exactly right, Will. So, folks, we've enjoyed being with you. Hope you've enjoyed the show. One of the things we want to bring up to you real quick, we've got a men's summit coming up in February the 6th, Saturday, February 6th at First Christian Church in Connersville. Join us.

Tickets are available online at www.talkum.com. You have a blessed week. We'll talk to you next week. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, is building a community of men that are Christ followers with a desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on Man Talk today. Visit us at www.tawcmm.com.

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