A Healthy Distance By Ethan Wentzlaff

The greatest danger to the church is not those who are outside the church, but it's people creeping their way inside the church and gaining influence that is ungodly. This is where it's important for us to know what god's word says and to be rooted on scripture because there are leaders who can look really good. There are leaders with lots of social media following. There are leaders who stand behind pulpits and preach seemingly out of God's word, but they're not speaking his truth. [00:13:35] (26 seconds)  #GuardAgainstFalseLeaders

The issue is not working around non Christians, but it's it's entering partnerships or arrangements that require compromise. If your job or business requires you to sin, deceive, or violate your conscience before God, then you need to leave. No opportunity is worth disobedience to Christ. And lastly, being yoked to this world in an unhealthy way. Hear it a lot that the things of the Bible make some people uncomfortable. [00:20:43] (27 seconds)  #NoCompromiseWithSin

we need to know this too. Because there's this often idea that that, I was talking with David yesterday, he threw threw this line out there, flirt to convert. It was a joke. But this idea where you can flirt with someone and then hopefully convert them to Jesus. That's not the approach that I'd recommend, and that's not the approach that God recommends. Don't do that. So we need to consider this. Don't flirt to convert. Plain and simple, do not marry someone who does not share your faith and your deepest values in Christ. [00:15:35] (31 seconds)  #DontFlirtToConvert

I'll say this right now. If you are a Christian, your closest friend should be a Christian. The people we spend the most time with, I opened with those quotes, they often shape who we become. So if we want to have the values of Christ, our friendships need to have those values. And I'm not saying don't hear me wrong. I'm not saying you can't interact with people who aren't Christians because we should. That's our calling. We need to be ministers in this world. But the people that are most close to you, they should share the single most important thing to you. [00:18:28] (33 seconds)  #FaithFilledFriendships

Is this idea as we walk with God, the longer we walk with God, the more of our rough edges he will chip away, and he will make us more and more like him until he takes us home, until we are in eternal glory with him. That is what sanctification is. It's the idea of him making us more holy, him setting us apart for his purposes. And as we walk with him, he will make us more holy. But the saddest tragedy of of the modern church and the modern Christian is that as we walk with God, we become older, but we don't become holier. [00:27:49] (36 seconds)  #GrowHolierNotJustOlder

Jesus is inviting us not to bear our own yoke, but to bear his, to hop in a yoke with him, to hop in a canoe with him. And what he does is is he says it's easy and light, not because it is, but because he is bearing the grunt of the load. He is bearing the burden. We hop in that that boat with him, and he turns into a motorboat, and he's going. It's this idea where where it's not the life of a Christian is not an easy life, but it's e it's light because Christ is with us. [00:34:25] (32 seconds)  #YokeWithChrist

So I wanna acknowledge and and and and and, recognize that some of us are in here, and and we feel the weight of our sin. We feel the defilement in our life. We feel the need of cleansing. We we maybe have been in a canoe that we wanna get out of. And the encouraging thing is is is is we don't have to cleanse ourself. We don't have to clean ourselves up, but the Bible says, god will cleanse us if we come to him. So if you're here today and you haven't made that choice to to come to Jesus, I encourage you to come to him today. [00:29:40] (35 seconds)  #JesusCleansesYou

Who we're getting in a boat with matters. Because if you've ever tried rowing with someone who's not all in it, you're either going in a circle, you're going slower than everyone else, or you're flipping the boat. And that that's the image I want us to think about. Because the big truth that Paul is pointing to here is that unbelievers and believers are moving in fundamentally different directions. We're under different masters. We're under different loyalties. So we cannot tie ourselves in a way that is binding. [00:11:38] (29 seconds)  #WhoYouRowWithMatters