As many of you know, if you’ve been here for a while, I’m married to one of the healthiest eaters in the world and my wife has spent about 40 years trying to pull me in her direction. And so for years she was after me to try what they call an elimination diet. You go a natural-pathic doctor, they take out blood and then they come back and they give you the results saying, this might be causing inflammation. This might be slowing you down. So for three weeks you can’t eat anything on this list. For somebody like me, it was listening to a doctor tell me, Gary, if you like it, you can’t eat it. Alright? If you never would choose it, that’s what you can eat for three weeks. Now, in a case of abominable timing, I don’t know why I didn’t connect with this. I actually did this with my birthday near the end of it.

And the reason that’s a big deal, and I know this is embarrassing, I have the taste buds of a 10-year-old boy, but I, I love cake and ice cream. I mean, for me, priorities in life, God, family cake and ice cream in y’all. I mean, that’s, that’s kind of where it goes a little bit. But because of the fat and the calories and the sugar, they’re twice, it’s twice a year where I really let myself enjoy it. Guilt free Father’s Day celebrate me and a dad and my birthday. So I’m on this stupid elimination diet over my birthday. And some family had had us out and there were a couple other couples there, and she knew it was my birthday. So she made my favorite. She had this chocolate cake, this was in Texas with Blue Bell ice cream for my birthday. And I watched seven other people eat my cake and ice cream.

And all I got to do was smell it. I was not in the best of moods on the drive home. And I’m telling Lisa, man, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I go, and when it’s done, I’m so gonna enjoy that cake and ice cream. She goes, you can’t do that. So what? I said, what, what are you talking about? It takes weeks if not months, to come off an elimination diet. I go, what do you mean? She goes, well, we have to test the foods and introduce ’em one by one. For instance, you, you tested positive for cranberries. So the first day we’ll give you some cranberries and we have to wait to see if you get a rash or how you feel. I don’t even like cranberries. All right, <laugh>. I eat cranberries once a year to be polite to the host. At Thanksgiving, I could go the rest of my life and never eat another cranberry and not feel the poor for it. So I have to forgive me, but I turn to my wife and say, what doctor from hell thought of this stupid diet?

But here’s the thinking. There are some foods, they won’t put you in the hospital, but they sap your energy. They give you foggy brain sinus issues, inflammation. So you, and the idea is if you want to thrive in life, if you wanna function on all cylinders, you avoid these foods so that you can have the best life possible. What if the same thing is true for relationships? What if there are some relationships that won’t put you in a mental hospital, but man, they drain your joy, they destroy your peace. They demolish your self-confidence, but maybe out of a misplaced sense of guilt. And, and we, Christians are so prey to this, or in some cases, I think a weak sense of mission. We keep going back to these people time and time again and we let ’em beat us up and do this to us again and again and again. And it’s draining our other relationships and it’s draining our mission before God because we think that’s what God wants us to do.

What if he doesn’t? What if in fact, Jesus taught and modeled an entirely different way. The way of walking in the footsteps of Jesus is to walk away from toxic people. Now, I came across this understanding rather late in my life. Some years ago I found out there was a guy who was just lying about me, undercutting me. I didn’t know why he had an issue with me. I had no issue with him. But I, it was clear that, well, I gotta address it. And fortunately, I have a great friend’s, been a marriage and family therapist for 40 years. He knew me. He had met this guy. He knew the situation. I said, look, just help me just wanna respond like a Christian. What do you think I should do? How do I approach him? What do I say? What do I begin with? And here’s a conversation that literally changed my life and my view of ministry when he said, Gary, I recommend that you don’t engage with him at all.

That how, how can that be the Christian thing to what are you talking about? He said, I want you to go to the book of Luke. I want you to count how many times Jesus walked away from someone without resolution or let someone walk away from him without Jesus giving chase. Well, I’m, I’m not clinically OCD, but I live in the neighborhood right next door to it. And, and so when somebody I really respect gives me that advice, I didn’t just read the book of Luke. I went through all four gospels and I recorded 41 instances where Jesus walked away from someone or let somebody walk away from him without resolution. Now, because of synoptic gospels refer to some of the same events. Some of those were referring to the same circumstance, but there were still dozens of encounters where Jesus was willing to walk away. I always thought that was a failure on my part. I must not be acting out of love. There must be some pride. I must not be surrendered to the spirit. But I didn’t believe Jesus could ever fail. So I was encouraged to press in more biblically and really study this. And I realized that what goes behind it with Jesus is that he was the most strategic thinker available.

And he had to be

Because he knew there would never be enough of us. Remember when he

Said to his disciples

In Luke 10, two,

Pray for the Lord of the harvest

To send more workers.

Jesus

Is sharing his heart with these guys. And what is he saying? They’ll never be enough of us.

People

Live for themselves. They’re doing harm. They’re doing their other thing. You all are now a part of the kingdom. You’re, you’re seeking first the kingdom, but there aren’t enough of us. And if there aren’t enough of us,

We have to step up. We have to work

Overtime. We have to be

Available

And use the most of

Every

Hour and day

To seek first

God’s kingdom. And why does this matter so much to Jesus?

‘Cause

People matter so much to Jesus. I want you to read this with me, John 15, eight, my, with me please. My Father

Is glorified by this, that you bear

Much

Fruit. I grew

Up with a different understanding of faith.

I thought God was glorified by what

I didn’t do. I don’t look at this. I don’t eat that smoke, that drink, that talk about that think that that that God is glorified when I don’t do

A whole

Lot of other things that people

Do. This is a positive view of

Faith. It’s a much better

Faith. It feels

Like heaven if you’ve been living the negative faith.

Jesus says you glor, he God is glorified

When we bear much fruit. And what does it mean to bear fruit? It means to invest in people. Remember when Jesus gave the great commission one of his last

Words

Before he ascended into heaven for the final time. He said in Matthew 28 19, therefore

Go

And make

Disciples

Of all nations, teaching them to obey

Everything

I have commanded you to

Serve Jesus is to look for people. God has prepared their heart

And they wanna say, teach me what Jesus commanded me and help me learn how to

Obey that we fulfilled

The great commission by investing in people.

That was Paul’s

Approach with the young Timothy two, Timothy two, two.

He says this,

And the things you’ll

Heard me

Say in the presence of many witnesses entrust

To say

This word with me,

Reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. Paul said, Timothy,

Here’s how you do ministry.

Look

And search

For reliable people that God has prepared. Pour

Your heart into them. Be

Sacrificial so that there will be others after you.

Remember when

Peter

Denied Jesus three times? And you gotta think he’s, he’s a little bit anxious when he sees Jesus risen from the dead.

‘Cause He’s gotta know. Jesus knows. And what does Jesus say to Peter? Peter, do you love me? Peter said, yes, Lord, I love you. What did Jesus say? Feed my she Peter, do you really love me? Yes Lord, you, no, I love you. Feed my sheep. Do you love Jesus this morning? You watch it online? Do you love Jesus this morning? What sheep are you feeding? It’s how you show Jesus you love him, not by what you don’t do, but by the people you are investing in and toxic people. When you let them have entry into your life and stay in your life, they’re the ones that keep you from bearing fruit. I worked with a guy who had a very toxic boss. It wasn’t the ultimate boss, but a mid-level boss made his life miserable. And he talked to me as a pastor because he realized one day he, he, the whole evening he’s trying to figure out how to survive, how to deal with this toxic boss.

And we’ll get into this next week more about some of these dynamics. And then he put his kids to bed. And at the end he realized I didn’t hear a thing my wife said. I I was going through the motions with my kids. I was haunted by this man at work. I said, Gary, this guy wrecks my day. How do I not let him wreck my family life when I don’t have to be around him? How do I mentally walk away from him or woman I know who has a national ministry that God has used in some great ways, but as usually will happen, if God is using someone in some great ways, there will be people that will attack ’em for the way that God is using them. And she was the victim of the month and they were challenging her and saying terrible things and misrepresenting her.

And she was just so flustered. And she and her husband had been praying about this work event for her husband for months. It was defining his career. It was crucial. And she realized to her horror, that she was so distracted by these toxic people online trying to respond, trying to know what to do. She didn’t even ask her husband how it had went. She said, that’s so messed up. God has called me to give myself fully to my husband. And I’m letting these people who they’ll just find some other victim next month, they’re taking away from my marriage. See, if you value fruitfulness as much as Jesus does, you know that to produce fruit, you gotta prune the tree. And there are some relationships that you know, they steal your joy, they steal your peace, they demolish yourself confidence and, and you think you still gotta keep ’em in your life.

It’s not that we don’t wanna be bothered. I, I hope as Christians we live to be bothered. I hope we wake up and say, God, I want to seek first year kingdom. If there’s a divine appointment that interrupts my schedule, but you’re behind it. I wanna be there. I’ll let ’em interrupt me. I I wanna do that. So it’s not just so that we can keep streaming Netflix for eight hours a day. It’s so that we can be more strategic and focused because I, I believe this is one of Satan’s greatest, most clever traps against the church. And it’s this, he knows he can’t keep you from loving people because God makes you love people. You spend time with the Lord. You worship like we have. You wanna love, you wanna give, you wanna pour yourself out because that’s God’s spirit within you. That’s what God does in a life.

And Satan knows he can’t stop that. But what he can try to do is get you to take that pure water of God’s love. Let’s say you picture God’s love as water that pours through you. And then God pours out from you to irrigate a field and create an entirely fruitful crop. And he says, I’m gonna get them to take that pure water of God’s love and pour it down the gutter of a toxic person who will never produce fruit, is not a reliable person, doesn’t care about the commands of Christ and will attack them to distract them from doing the good work and the healthy relationships that God has called them to do. But we can’t let ’em do that. Please don’t let ’em do that. Christianity is an endless, persistent and sacrificial pursuit of investing in reliable people by extension. That means we don’t let ourselves get distracted by toxic people.

Now I keep throwing out the word toxic. Let me define it just a little bit. I’m gonna go into it much more next week. We’re gonna get into the three traits of toxic people. So let me just be general this week and make it very clear that every toxic person is difficult, but not every difficult person is toxic. Did you get that? Every toxic person is difficult, but not every difficult person is toxic. And just because somebody has a different personality than you that might offend you doesn’t mean they’re toxic. I’m a third born, I’m not a type A, I’m never gonna be the senior pastor type. And, and, and somebody that has to be a leader might be a little more forceful. That doesn’t make ’em toxic because I have a different personality in mind. The way I’m using toxic is very particular. It’s, it’s those people who take little pieces out of you.

They haunt you. You get their phone number and your blood pressure rises, right? If you see the name come up on your call, there’s an email from ’em and all it’s like, oh, oh no. They demean you. They demolish your joy. There’s no peace. You have to recover from being around them. And they distract you from the healthy relationships and the good ministry that God has called you to. Lemme just put it this way. If, if someone is getting in the way of you becoming the person God created you to be and doing the work that God created you to do for you, that person is toxic. And I lived for decades naive to this. Whenever something would go wrong like that with the other guy mentioned, I just assumed it was me that I wasn’t acting in love or I wasn’t surrendered to the spirit if I was dealing with somebody that, to make a spiritual analogy, let’s say a toxic person, someone who’s a close talker and they have atrocious breath and they’re in your face and they’ve just eaten leeks and onions and garlic and gas station sushi.

All right? And they’re that close talker just blowing in your, and I would be like, oh God, please heal my nose <laugh>. I don’t wanna offend them by saying they have bad breath. Please heal my nose so their breath doesn’t stink. And God would say to me, Gary, your nose is working. Their breath stinks. Back up. What if spiritually, instead of blaming yourself for relationships that are going wrong, God wants to give you the sermon and say, Hey, back up. You’re discerning something real here. And it’s not healthy for you to be that close. Now why didn’t I accept that? ’cause It sounded so UNC Christian to me. It really did.

But can it be UNC Christian if it’s what Jesus taught? You’ve heard me quote so many times, Matthew 6 33, seek first the kingdom of God. ’cause I love it. I wanna wake up. God’s agenda is my agenda. I’m not after myself. I’m not after my own kingdom. Jesus is telling the church, go on offense. That’s how I lived my life. But I just was blind to seven verses later in the same sermon, basically the same paragraph after Jesus says, go on the offense. Look what he says in Matthew seven, six. Do not give what is holy to dogs. Do not throw your pearls before swine. Why? They’ll trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces.

Jesus loves you. He said this to protect you and to defend you. He says, I’m sending you out on the offense but I care about you. I don’t just use you up and and see you discarded. I want you to learn how to play defense. ’cause There’s some people out there you can give them words of truth with love and they won’t receive it as love. They’ll receive it as hate and then they will attack you and try to tear you to pieces. And I’m warning you ahead of time. And when Jesus is referring to dogs and pigs to a Jewish audience, you can’t make it nice. Jews didn’t keep dogs as pets. He’s not referring to Fifi or spots. The Egyptians kept dogs as pets, not Jews. Jesus is referring to the dogs that were just roam around. Manje, smelly predators, no people qualities at all. And then talking about pigs to Jewish people, he’s making it very clear that some people are just like that and you can’t make it sound nice. And Jesus is saying, I want you to go and give yourself, but watch out for those people.

We had sweetest creatures that ever lived as our family pet. When the kids were young. Amber was our golden retriever, perfect dog, a little bit too submissive. When I’d take her on walks and she would, so submission to a Chihuahua <laugh>, I’d say, Amber, you’ve had bowel movements bigger than that dog. I mean get a backbone. But she was perfect for our kids. And Lisa was determined while she wasn’t completely successful getting her husband to eat as healthy as she’d like her dog would, right? Her dog was eating healthy. And so she found this out of the way store in Houston that sold, I’m not making this up. Human grade, grain free, organic food for dogs. And that’s where Lisa went. And one time we were low, she says, I need your help. So came we picking it all up. We got up to the cashier stand.

She goes, all right, well why don’t you just go wait out in the car, we’ll bring it out <laugh>. I’m like, we’ve been married 30 years. Not once. Have you ever asked me to that I always carry ’em out. She goes, well they have nice boys that will carry it out. I go, well that and that. Oh <laugh>, you don’t want me to see how much we’re spending on this? Well, Amber’s health is important to me. I said, Hey babe, if it’s important to you, it’s important to me, I’ll be here, but I kind of wanna know. Right? And I’m happy to do that. Amber was worth it. If it help her live longer, I was all for it. But a couple weeks later, we’re taking her in an off leash area and some kid had dropped, I think it’s probably like a gas station hotdog with a white bun in the middle of the field. Amber saw it and she bolted. It was like she saw a squirrel. I mean she was dead set and and she was gonna get there and she saw Lisa chasing after Amber stop down. No. And that just made Amber go faster. And she’s trying to gobble that thing up in one swallow. And it’s so funny, Lisa’s yelling, I give you human grade grain-free organic food and you’re going to eat a gas station, a hot dog with a white bun.

Why would Amber do that when at home she has human grade, grain free, organic, and often raw food waiting for her. Why would she gulp down a gas station hot dog and a white bun? ’cause She’s a dog, right? <Laugh>, she doesn’t understand the rest. In fact, with Amber, the funkier, it smelled the better. And Jesus said, there’s some people like that. And some of you are just driving yourselves crazy. I love them. These are words of truth. I know it. And Jesus, I get it. But if they’re a spiritual dog or a pig, you can give them kosher food or a pearl and they take it as an assault and they’ll turn and tear you up. Now since Jesus ends the book of Matthew with a call to evangelize far and wide, he’s not telling us to avoid non-Christians or people who have questions. Those are the people we go after.

He says, look for those ones that are taking pieces out of you. They’re Satan by Satan to distract you so that you can’t do the ministry that God has called you to. They’re keeping you from producing fruit. Now, what does this mean? I wish I had more time on this. Jesus is assuming an active life of mission. If you take one message from this and you watch it online, what you get, your life matters. Not because of who you are, but who the spirit is within you. You’ve got the most important message ever spoken to the world. You’ve got the power of the Holy Spirit. They’ll use your unique gifting to get this word across. Your life matters. And so you wanna make the most of your time. When the US forces landed on the beaches of Normandy during World War ii, they were followed by a whole section of medics, but there weren’t enough medics.

So they had to perfect the art of battlefield triage. And what they meant by that is they would come up to a soldier if they found a guy who had been shot up. And they make the assumption, if I spend an hour trying to put this guy back together, there’s a 10% chance he’ll live. And they had to make the hard decision of shooting him up with morphine. They’d paint a red M on his chest so he didn’t get another fatal dose and help someone else. Why? Because five or six people would die and bleed out while he was trying to help this one guy that probably wouldn’t survive anyway. It’s not because they didn’t care ’cause there weren’t enough of ’em and they had to account for their time. And I think that’s Jesus’s call to his disciples, pray for more workers. There aren’t enough of us, and learn to play defense so you don’t waste your time with toxic people. And it wasn’t always toxic people, it was Jesus’s strategy. All four gospels record a conversation between Jesus and the rich young ruler. And in the book of Mark, it’s interesting because Mark adds something the other three gospels don’t. Here’s this rich man comes up to Jesus.

What do I have to do to be perfect?

And Jesus says to him, well, mark tells us that Jesus loved him. That there’s this personal affinity Jesus had. There’s something about this young man earnestly trying to follow God’s commands. Jesus

Said, I really like this guy.

And then he makes an amazing officer.

Give all you have, give it to the poor, sell all you have, give

It to the and come follow me. You know, he’s the only guy except one other that Jesus invited to his inner circle besides

The 12 disciples, what he was

Offering him, he’s

Incredible.

But Mark tells us he went away very

Sad because he was very wealthy.

Now Jesus loved him,

But

He didn’t chase

After him. He didn’t go,

Hey buddy, I know a hundred percent sounds like a lot. How about 50%? I’ll disciple you up. No,

It says

He turned to his disciples, the reliable people and taught ’em. This is why

It’s so difficult for the

Rich to enter the kingdom of God.

In another count in the book of Matthew, at the end of chapter eight, Jesus heals a man who would terrorize the community filled with all these demons. Jesus delivers them from the demons. The demons say, can we go into these pigs? Jesus says, sure pigs run over the cliff town. People have just seen this miracle and deliverance and they’re freaked out ’cause they were pig farmers. And their livelihood is at an end. They can have a fire cell on pork chops and bacon, but next month it’s gonna be a tough month. And so it says at the end of Matthew 8 38, they pleaded with him to leave

Their region.

It’s one of the saddest accounts in all the gospels.

What would you pay for a ticket to see Jesus’ life

If he said, I’m gonna come back incarnate for me. You could see me, you can hear me, you can ask me questions, I will pray for you.

What would you pay for that ticket? They had it. Jesus,

God incarnate there,

The pearl, the kosher food is there for

The taking and they’re frustrated

About their dead pigs. It’s like, Jesus, get outta

Here. What did Jesus

Do? How

Did Jesus respond? The very next verse, Matthew nine, one, Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. You want me to go

Goodbye?

He didn’t say, do you? Do you realize what happened? Satan’s kingdom is falling. You’ve seen a deliverance and power that you’ve never seen before. Let me explain to you why I did that. And by the way, why are you raising pigs? That’s a whole different question.

But you said, okay,

He’s strategic. You want me to go? I will go. And there’s 41 citations. It became an appendix for a book I wrote of Jesus interacting with people just like that. And it’s what he taught. So after all of this, he said in Matthew 10 14, if anyone will not welcome you, some of you gotta hear this or listen to your words of love and truth, keep telling them, say you don’t get it, you keep letting them be or shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town, Jesus taught and he modeled the necessity of walking away. And I wanna say this to some of you, ’cause I, I love this type of person. You’re gentle, you’re sensitive, you’re always giving and you let people terrorize you and you’re doing it for love, but it’s not strategic. And God doesn’t want it to happen.

Let me say this, please hear this. If you think I’ve just described you, God isn’t honored when you let yourself be emotionally and spiritually and certainly physically ripped to shreds. He wants you to be vibrant and filled with peace and joy. Why? Those are the kind of people who bear fruit. If you let a toxic person terrorize you, there’s not much of you to give to others. There’s a wonderful 17th century classic written by Puritan William Gral. It’s like 1200 pages, but if you wade through it, you get some gems like this. He warned it is easier to keep flies out of your pantry in the summer than to keep Satan’s servants from stealing your joy and infecting your peace. This is 17th century. There were no refrigerators, no Tupperware, no saran wrap. You could not keep flies from the pantry in the summer. And he’s saying, just as ubiquitous as the flies is Satan saying, I can’t take their salvation, but I’m gonna send my servants who will steal their joy, infect their peace and keep them from producing good fruit.

And you sensitive souls say, but it seems selfish. What do I worry about if they steal my joy? The Bible says the joy of Lord is my strength. They make you weak. If you’re weak, you can’t accomplish the task talk next week. They can be master gaslight. And if they undercut your confidence and you’re thinking maybe I don’t even know what I’m talking about. So just like I began that certain foods may not keep you, may not put you in the hospital, but if you wanna be operating on all cylinders, you just gotta learn to live without him or you’re gonna be lethargic. You won’t be able to live the life that God wants you to live. In the same way there are these relationships and maybe they’re even Satan’s servants to hold you back and you’ve let them terrorize you. Is this true? Even if it’s a family member, yes, it can be.

Esther fleece Allen grew up in an amazing, well, terribly dysfunctional home. Both her mom and her dad were abusive. Her dad was getting sued his entire life. He would even occasionally bring her into court to act as a character. Wished she was the only one he could find to try to do that. And the worst time that she was in court was when her parents were operating where they were in a lawsuit over who would get custody of Esther. They were going through a divorce. And throughout this terrible childhood, Esther had one little sanctuary. She wrote all of her thoughts and fears in this private journal, what it was like to live with an abusive dad, what it was like to live with an abusive mom trying to figure out what’s going on. It’s the only thing that kept her sane until she was there at the courtroom, while the lawyers are arguing over who gets custody.

And one of the worst moments of her life was when her dad’s lawyer held up in a clear plastic baggie her journal. Somehow he had stolen her journal and the lawyer read a selection in attacking her mom. Esther couldn’t believe it. The one thing that kept her sane was now publicized. She says, Gary, you don’t understand when you come from a dysfunctional home, you don’t want anybody to know what it was like. You feel guilty. And now it was taken from her and she just collapsed in the courtroom, yelled, I will never write another word again.

The court rightly decided that neither her mother or her father were capable of raising her. And thank God there was a church that knew of ster and they said, we’re not gonna let her be put in the foster system. And a family from that church took her in and they discipled her and they loved on her. And this is just the way of God. This is why we worship Jesus. He’s so good. He takes people from this dysfunctional background and he uses it for his glory. And and she became this powerful young woman teaching Christian ministries how to reach millennials. She was featured in Christianity Today, USA today, I think even Time Magazine. It was amazing. And and you know what happened is that her father, when he read these news reports, figured out where she lived.

He stalked her and I, it’s her story to tell. I’m not gonna complete it, but he violated the sanctuary of the apartment where she was living. And she had told me, Gary, that place, when you’ve come from a dysfunctional home, when you have an apartment and you’ve got your scripture verses on the wall and you have people in your Bible studies and you’ve had good mills, that’s your sanctuary. And her dad couldn’t let her have even that. He violated that. But it was her dad. What’s she supposed to do? Fortunately, a church got this and they got a restraining order on him. And when he broke the restraining order, they got him sent back to prison. And Esther still wasn’t sure, said Gary, what kind of woman sends her father to prison? I said, Esther, a woman who is called by God who is using God, who is defending not just herself but the ministry that God has given her.

You did exactly what you should have done. And I thank God for wise people in your church who got it and led you in that way. And after this experience, and this is what I was referring to about the wonder of Jesus, how he takes our brokenness. You remember that young girl who screamed out in a courtroom, I will never write another word again. Well, thank God Jesus had other plans and she released a phenomenal book called No More Faking Fine. It’s a story of healthy lament in a Christian’s life. I was invited to the book release. It was in Nashville. It was at the country Music Hall of Fame. And in the Rotunda, if you’ve ever been to the country Music Hall of Fame, they put up all of the plaques of all of the inductees in the Hall of Fame. And Esther was brilliant. She pointed at these plaques and she asked us how many songs of lament are represented in this hall? And we all laughed ’cause lament is country music, right? I lost my wife, I lost my dog, I lost my truck.

And we all laughed. And then she said, like a prophet, how many books have you ever seen in a Christian bookstore on Lament? Whereas at the time, I couldn’t think of one now, I’ve seen a few come out since she wrote her book. And God through this young woman’s terrible childhood said, I can use that to bring a whole new practice to the church and awaken to the reality of how to become spiritually healthy when you come from such a terrible background. So yes, sometimes to protect that ministry, you might even walk away from a family member why God has a plan for your life. But Satan does too. Satan’s plan is to not do God’s plan or to not be as effective as God wants you to be. Follow God’s plan every time. Next week we’re gonna go into the three most common traits of toxic people.

If you know somebody dealing with this, invite ’em. They don’t have to hear this, although they can on the app if they would like to do it. What I’m trying to do in this two week series is sort of encapsulate from a book I wrote a few years back, when to walk away finding freedom from toxic people. But there’s so many nuances and everything I can’t get into. So if this is something that’s of interest to you, we do have books in the back, which I almost never do because it’s such a mega churchy thing to do for the pastor to be selling his books. So let me make it clear. All the proceeds from today will be given to greater things project. And if you are here and you think this would help you and you’re in a tough time and you can’t afford it, just ask my wife.

She’s a beautiful woman. Straight hair, glasses, who looks way too young to be able to be married to me for the friends and family rate, and she’ll give it to you. This is our church. You’re not customers to us. You’re our brothers and sisters in Christ. If there’s something that would help you, we want to get it in your hands. And I’ve also asked another member, Tricia Lot Williford, who wrote a fabulous book within the last year, you Are Safe now that deals with spiritual abuse. And I asked Tricia if she would bring her books. And she is, she’s also donating the proceeds to greater things. And I wanted you to know about spiritual abuse because tons, sometimes the most toxic people look for jobs like this. We wanna be a healthy church. We want a church to be informed. What are the signs we will be accountable to the truth.

We don’t put ourself above anything. We just wanna offer these resources to help this church know how to handle the toxic people in your life so that we can produce fruit to the glory of God. Let me pray. Father, I thank you for your kindness and your compassion. Some people are just letting themselves be beaten up and perhaps you brought ’em here today so they could hear that is not your will. You don’t use them like a Kleenex and discard them. You love them and this is for them to set them free. God, you’re so good. Thank you for these words. For Jesus. We pray in His name. Amen.