Petty Birds

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

Okay, so at our house, we have one child that is not black and white. This child doesn’t, like you can say to them, do this. That would be not their head. You can say, don’t do that. That is that. Don’t do that anymore. That’s it. And it’s like, what? I don’t know what you’re talking about. And recently we’ve been using a lot of metaphors about why we get it. It’s been helping a lot. Very engaging. Their imagination is wild all the time. So they’ve been, it’s helped a lot in doing some sin, and one of the ones that we’ve been using is, I guess, the looser quote, and it’s, um, he says that, It’s one thing for birds to fly over your head, it’s another thing to let them build nests in your hair.

And this one got really wide eyes, like, in my hair. And then we were very distracted by the mouthwash. And we had to talk about, well, how did they actually build these in your hair? I think it’s not an actual bird. My point now is that birds flying over your head is temptation. Letting the birds nest in your hair is sinning, actually. Letting the sin overcome you. So, and some of the birds that I see a large flock of flying over the ladies of Trinity, in particular, are birds of pettiness. There are a large amount of them. You know, like, have you ever gone over down the South of America when you’re on a freeway?

sometimes there’s like, and it’s insane, it crushes me out, amount of birds flying over the freeway there. I don’t know what they’re doing, I think they go sit in that sewage treatment area and walk in the gym. But that, I think it’s like that amount of them flying over us. And so I have even noticed a couple trying to land in my hair. And like I said, there’s lots of things that are sort of a petting, this is not normally one for me, and they are trying to do my hair. So I wanted to encourage all of us to be looking for signs of them getting in our hair and get them out. If they are getting in your hair or if you notice them getting in your friend’s hair, say, hey, you got some birds in my hair.

And the other thing that is really exciting about this is as the women of families and of the church, We set so much of the aroma or the flavor of the body and this is a spot where we really have a great opportunity to set a really wonderful flavor instead of a bitter, stinky yucky. So anyway, I know that quite a few of you are in relationships that because of, you know, how community has come about, it is a church split. because of that some of your relationships are under a significant amount of strain more than is typically encountered with the regular life. And the thing is with something like pettiness, it comes at you, you get it coming and going.

Like you can either be petty, you can be the initiator of it, or you can be petty as you receive pettiness. Does that make sense what I’m saying? It’s one of those things that’s not just, you know, if you are murdered, then you’re just murdered. You’re not going to murder anybody back here murdered. But, pettiness is one that it’s a, quickly turns into a cycle, and we just need to be on guard for that. So, for anybody that was, my favorite definition of pettiness is the art of living small. Tiny things, really big. You know, lots of times it comes in taking offense, actually more than even giving offense, but it’s sneaky and small.

It usually travels in a pack with gossip and slander and backbiting, and I do think that they almost always eventually meet up with bitterness, so it’s bad. And they’re usually hidden, and I think women are, I do think that these kind of birds like long hair, better than short hair. We are much better at it than men. I think some of that is men are just more upfront. You know, we’re really good at like really subtle hoping someone in the eye instead of just saying, I’m so mad at you, I can’t stand to get away from me. We do, you know, like little, I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s a look or whatever it’s a meaning.

And so anyway, we need to not do that. So the first thing, and this is the most obvious and primary thing, and I don’t actually, I have not seen this from anyone, so please don’t feel like I’m singling you out. But do be on guard. Don’t do the obvious thing. Don’t be the perpetrator of this. Don’t be the initiator of it. Don’t be gossiping about people. Don’t slander them. Don’t look superior to them, or turn a cold shoulder or anything like that. That’s not Christian. And that is one of the things that we’ve been talking about at our house a lot. The first thing, we are Christians first. We’re not anything else first.

We’re Christians first. So that means that we love ourselves and loving other people more than we love ourselves. And it’s really hard, especially if they’re doing something that we think is mean or unkind or they’ve sinned or whatever, but that’s first. Maggie and I recently went into a situation that was focused, thought was going to be difficult and ended up being difficult. And as we were going in, she said, this is weird. And I’m like, this is weird. We have to be Christians first. We are kind, we are friendly, we were going to be, no matter what happens in there, we are kind and nice first. That’s the first thing.

Doesn’t matter what they’re doing, she said. Okay, and so we went in and she’s so cute. She’s like a little miniature Christian woman engaging people in small talk and acting like it’s fun. But we are giving ourselves those pet talks pretty frequently. We’re Christians first. Nothing else matters. It doesn’t matter what kind of status you have, what position you have, what you’ve done in the past, none of that matters. What matters is that we live like Christ. So that is really hard, but really important. And that’s how we want to be known as kind Christian women. So I have written here, don’t be a cranky icky pants.

And secondly, this is less obvious I think, but what to do when you encounter it. And I have a couple things here. The first is don’t use it as an excuse for your own sin. This is one of the spots where I am finding the birds are getting in. Because I don’t normally feel the need to initiate pettiness, but when I see pettiness, then I want to sometimes get pettiness out of it. I want to start keeping track. I want to be like, hey, that was a deserve, why are you doing that? pick it that which is petty in and of itself. So don’t use it, you know, well they said this about me, so I’m not saying that much about them, I’m only saying this. So be careful to not use it, let it excuse your own sin.

Don’t take offense. This is a big Christian lady sin. This is like the sin that you can’t be confronted on. Well I’m offended. She offended me. She did this. She did this. I can’t believe that they looked at me like that. I’m offended, you can’t hold me accountable. That was offensive. One of the illustrations that I read when I was reading about this that I really liked was the idea of Susan Wold, a basketball player who has fallen backwards very dramatically after being fouled. Well, he was obviously offended, he’s laying on the ground. Well, no, not obviously, maybe he wasn’t offended, maybe he’s a big drunk.

Well, you know, he’s laying on the ground because he wants attention and he wants a foul to be called on that player. Lots of times were the player laying on the ground being in a wrong place about something that didn’t break up. And it, lots of times the person that is offended is the person who is sinning. And we need to remember that, you know, it’s easy to read, notice what people are doing, or just be looking for something wrong in what they’re doing, and be like, oh, I mean, you know, in another way then you can slide back to them, because then you can just, I’m just so hurt by what they did. And lots of times it’s better just not to take offense.

just move on from it, trying to think the best of what they possibly could have meant by what they said or did, and move on. You have bigger things that are more important to be thinking about than what may or may not have been done to you. That goes right along with keeping a record of wrongs. That is not, that’s true, not Christian. That’s not what we do. God is not keeping a record of our wrongs. We should not be keeping a record of the small wrongs that are being done to us. You know, and any time that I need help with that, First Corinthians 13 is good. First Peter 4a, about love covering a multitude of sins.

One of the things you see that’s interesting about that first is that it says, you know, the first part is the direction to let your love abound, to be sure that you’re loving because love covers a multitude of sins. It’s not, you know, love them by covering a multitude of sins, but when you are loving someone, that covers a multitude of sins. Does that make sense? That love comes first. And it’s a good indicator if a lot of sins are coming up that your love is not great enough for that person to cultivate it. And that’s totally that Spurgeon quote that faults are thick where love is thin. And that’s another thing that once you have one fault against somebody, then it’s like the love gets thinner and you start seeing more and more and more faults in what they’re healing.

So guard against that. Nancy, one quote she has about it, she says, if you keep feeding your imagination with little doses of resentments and disappointments, you’ll soon be a total brawn. I thought I was like, okay, that’s good. And as a side note on this, I did want to say, I think that there’s an important distinction between perceived wrongs done to us and legitimate wrongs done. And I do think that I’d say 90% of the time with ladies, it’s perceived wrongs. Lots of the time, we make a big deal out of something that really isn’t a big deal. I tell Sean when I’m feeling like that, especially when I’m pregnant, I’m like, I’m like that all the time when I’m pregnant.

I tell him, I know I’m being a girl. I just need you to confirm I’m being a girl. I’m really hurt by it, and he’s like, yep, you’re being a girl. That’s great. That is not even something to spend two seconds thinking about. But, you know, so I do think a lot of the time it’s perceived, And that’s a whole other issue that you need to deal with, why you’re seeing people doing wrong things to you all the time, you’re probably thinking about yourself too much. But I do think that recently there are some legitimate slums being done. And I have seen wrongs done to some of the ladies in this room, some of it has been very public, and that, you know, may be new territory for some of us.

Where it’s like, wow, okay, that actually is wrong. That is not okay. That person should not be doing that. And you don’t need to pretend that what they are doing is right. It’s not a matter of saying, oh no, that’s okay, it’s no big deal what they’re doing. If what they’re doing is wrong, it is wrong, and God’s going to hold them accountable for that, but we still are held responsible for how we respond to that. And that’s the part that I really want us to be careful about. So, I have your again, you know, the pep talk. If you’re headed into one of those situations where you find yourself in the middle of it, remind yourself you’re a Christian first. Ask God for help in that situation to act like Christ was.

And then Nancy Wilson recently posted about this and she gives some basic steps and thought they were pretty good. Her first step when you are a slander or something like this is done wrong against you is to thank God. And she wrote, I’m not joking. That really is true. It’s your opportunity, another opportunity to be like Christ because he was swammer and she pointed out that why he was arrested in the first place before he was crucified. It’s not like he was actually doing something wrong. And then she said, pray that God will bless the swammer. And she wrote, still not kidding. That’s really good because you know that’s where it’s like, maybe you could get to the point where, okay, you thank God, you know, you get the opportunity to be like Jesus.

But then pray that God will bless the person that’s doing wrong to you. Well, I’m going to do that. But actually bless them, that really will help keep bitterness away from you. If you’re praying those things, it’s going to at least force you to deal with whatever bitterness is there. And then our next step was pray that God will give you an opportunity to bless them. You know, that doesn’t need to be a huge thing. Even just smiling and being polite the next time you see them. Or, you know, she gave the example of if they had a car truck and you were given a ride. Just pray for an opportunity like that. And you may need to set that up, you know, give them a gift.

I don’t know what, you, each situation is so different, you would have to, obviously be coming up with creative things on your own. And then she also talks about that if this is a public thing, you even more so need to do that. Not in a clownish, you know, big scene kind of way, like, oh, hello, I’m loving you in a gummy way. But remember that if it’s public, people are watching. watching to see how that person is acting and they’re watching to see how you’re going to respond. So we do not want to be known as a petty, cranky, bitter group of offended people. That’s not who we want to be. We want to be known as happy, joyful people who are loving and worshiping God and who are eager to serve other people and eager for reconciliation if that needs to happen. So just remember that there are people watching She talks a lot about courtesy, which are like Christians are courteous.

So you don’t need to run up and hug them and be like, I’m just really missing you. But being courteous and kind towards them. And it’s just a prayer for vindication. And that is something that we can be doing. But I do think that you need to do those other ones first. Because the prayer for vindication can frequently be self-righteous and, you know… If you’ve really been doing these other things, then I do think that that’s a good prayer. And one thing also that we’ve been focusing on at our house is in that vindication, you know, we pray for, because we’re doing this with small children most of the time, we pray that whoever needs to get spanked would get spanked. And if it’s us, then we would be spanked immediately.

Like, we want to deal with our sin first, and we want God to deal with us first also. We don’t want, you know, because more than likely there’s sin on both sides when there’s problems. problems. We want to make sure that we are being spanked in dealing with that before we’re praying for other people to spank. It’s just like you would do with your own children if you’re disciplining them. They were telling you, well that one needs spanking. You would say, well it sounds like you need spanking first. So those are good things. And Shania even talked about this a couple weeks ago that pettiness doesn’t fit with right worship of God. That shows that you’re probably not eating the right bread. If you’re going back to the bread of pettiness and that are nesting, those things.

You’re not feasting on the good things that God has put in front of you. So I was thinking about that. This is one thing we talked about with that same kid. You know, there are certain things you can do to put a big hat on, and so to keep the birds from getting in your hair. And so a good pettiness prevention hat, maybe even scare phones off to get the birds really far away, is that real worship of God, and focusing on that, feasting on that in your mind. Those are really, that’s like, you know, I think I was listening, about thankfulness being a weapon, gratitude being a weapon, and that’s against sin. If you are truly grateful for all the wonderful things that God has done and is doing for you and in your life, it’s going to be very difficult to even remember the wrongs that are being done.

And definitely you won’t be able to focus on them or be wallowing in it. And the other part that we’ve talked about frequently, it’s really good, is in Psalm 52, the directions there are really interesting. David has had some, those are not perceived wrongs that have been done to David before Psalm 52. That’s when the whole deal goes down with Doag, who’s like seriously bad news, and you know, Saul is trying to kill David. It’s that, like David is having very wrong things done to him and he is not doing something wrong that’s even causing it. He is pretty much as innocent as you could be in that case. And what his call is to godly people is to see the wrong that’s done to them, to acknowledge it.

Like I said, you don’t have to pretend like it’s not happening. The next step is to fear God, to make sure that you are not going to fall into sin yourself. And then the third step is laugh. Like, what? I don’t know, that doesn’t sound very serious and godly. You think that the next step is going to be to read your Bible more, or be more serious and intense, or pray very seriously, but to laugh. And I love that picture. It goes back to all throughout the Psalms. God talks about us being at a table. He is inviting us to celebrate. He has won for us. So we’re at a table, a feasting table. That’s not where you’re really serious.

And those guys are being really bad over there. get to laugh and that is such a great conviction, convicting direction to me. I’m like, okay so it’s not enough to just not be sinning. I need to be rejoicing, like having a great time because God is blessing us. So anyways, I think that’s great and so I wanted to encourage all of you guys and if you all have anything that you would like to say.