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And I really want to encourage you to listen to the voice of wisdom, listen to the voice of God. Proverbs, I believe we're going to go to chapter number nine. Proverbs chapter nine. Look what it says in Proverbs 9. How many of you guys are doing a Proverb a day? Anybody doing a Proverb a day? Man, I've been doing this for decades, right? Proverb a day keeps a foolishness away. Every day I'm doing a proverb, like, okay, Lord, I need fresh wisdom today. Well, in Proverbs 9, uh it says uh in Proverbs 9, are you all there? Look what it says in verse 1. It says, Wisdom hath built her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars, she hath killed her beasts. Uh verse 3, she hath set forth her maidens. Now look at verse 4. Whoso is simple, that means somebody who doesn't have any wisdom. They're just ignorant. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither. As for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Come eat of my bread and drink of the wine which I have mingled. Forsake the foolish and live and go in the way of understanding. So wisdom is actually saying, Hey, come to me. Like, I'll teach you, I'll educate you, I'll guide you. And wisdom is also saying, hey, get away from the bad friends. Get away from the drunkards, get away from the gluttons, get away from the people that will sabotage your life, get away from the complainers, get away from people that are going to want to just like pull you down. And what will happen when your heart seeks after wisdom every single day, it's not like you're not against people because Jesus came to die to pay for the sins of the world and he wants everybody to be saved. But as you're following wisdom, don't be surprised when your friend group changes. Because people that want to stay in drunkenness and lasciviousness and debauchery, they'll get mad because they're on the outside of the clique or the group or the club. And it's because they've just done a lot of foolish things. And all they're doing is throwing rocks. But as a wise person that's walking with God, your job is to walk in holiness and keep following Jesus. You can't make everybody happy. How many guys have found that to be true? You can't, if if you leave to try to make everybody else like you all the time, then you're going to forsake Christ. But if you're seeking wisdom and you're following wisdom, wisdom will help you kind of like be led up to higher paths. But on the flip side, there's another voice calling out to you. And it's the voice of foolishness, the voice of Satan, the voice of sin. Look what it says here in Proverbs chapter 9, verse number 16. Proverbs 9. It says, uh actually, let's let's pick let's go back just a little bit further. Um, verse 13 A foolish woman is clamorous, she is simple and knoweth nothing. She sitteth at the door of her house on a seat in the high places of the city to call passengers who go right on their ways. Whoso is simple, whoso is simple. So notice how they're both calling out for the simple. Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither. As for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant, but he knoweth not that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell. So you have different voices, different frequencies that you can tune into. And you get to choose which personal invitation you want to follow. Now I have I truth be told, when I was younger, I followed the the wrong voice and really messed up my life. How many of you guys did that too? And it there was consequences for it. But then I'm glad that God gave me mercy and grace, and I learned, like, okay, I'm just gonna follow wisdom. And I'm gonna stay in wisdom and ask God to help me to walk with him and and and and and get understanding and grow in Christ. And so today the encouragement is let's let's understand the power of a personal invitation. It could either lead you into light or it can lead you into darkness. So if you're taking notes, when you get a personal invite or you give a personal invitation, number one, realize uh consideration. Just know when somebody's inviting you to something or you're inviting somebody else to something, it's it's basically saying, Hey, I thought about you. I want you to to come. I'm I'm thinking about you, I'm I'm praying for you. Uh we see that in the scriptures. Think on someone else. How many of you guys, when God puts somebody across your mind, you pray for them? That's kind of how the Holy Spirit like brings it through, and like, oh, I wonder what that person's going through. And so I'll start thinking about them a little bit and then I'll start praying for them. That's a good thing. Um, number two, when you're giving a personal invitation to people, that's it says, I care about you. Number two is care. Like, not only am I considering with my mind, but I'm considering you with my heart. I I care about you. And Jesus gave these personal invites all the time. Like, hey, come, like I care about you. I don't want you to carry the heavy load. I don't want you to stress. I want you to take my yoke upon you. Um, I want you to live in peace. Number three, number three, when you give that personal invitation out to others or you're receiving one, it it's it's about connection. It says, Hey, I want you with me. I want you with me. Hey, you want you want to go to the ballgame together? You want to go sit with me in church? Hey, you want to go um to this hospital visit together with me? Hey, you want to sing some music together? I'd like that. That would be it's about connection, right? It's about togetherness. And in Mark chapter 3, Jesus, when he called his disciples to be with him, he said, Hey guys, come with me. I want you to be with me. Now, I want to just give you just a little piece here. Not everybody is going to get the same level of access as others. Jesus had 70 disciples, he had 12 disciples, he had three disciples. But he spent more time with the inner three. And so rather than getting all upset that some people are getting more favoritism than others, better for you to say, Jesus, let me serve you. And then if let's say I'm Andrew, I'm on Bartholomew, and I'm not Peter, James, and John, I'm not gonna get all angry that Jesus chose Peter, James, and John. I didn't get selected to that personal invitation to see Tabitha rise. I don't get to tell the master what he's gonna do with my life. I get to yield to him. And so watch out for people that get all kind of like uppity, that they're not a part of everything. Listen, be thankful that you're not invited to everything. You will go crazy, right? Trying to keep up with everything, right? And so, but but when you are, let's say you are a lonely person, make sure your loneliness is not because you're undesirable because of your sinfulness, or because your selfishness, or because of your baggage, or because of your drama, or because your breath stinks, or because you didn't take a shower, or because you're mean and crude and evil to people. That would mean, that would tell us why people don't want to be with you, right? Make sure that you pull the beam out of your eye, you're clean, you're healthy, you're walking in holiness. And what will happen is you will position yourself in such a way that people will want to invite you to things, right? Don't be the person that's always sticking your foot in your mouth because you say the wrong thing at the wrong time. The more you can have temperance inside yourself, the more the master will say, Hey, come on over. I want you to be a part of this. You won't make a fool of me, and I'm full of the family. And so when somebody gives you an invitation for connection, make sure that you're stewarding it well. Because they're saying, Hey, I want you to be a part of my life. Uh number number four, number four, with these personal invitations. Um, it's about community. It's about building the community. You know, as I was preaching to the um to the high school the other day, I just I said this and it kind of shocked him a little bit. I said, Heaven, heaven doesn't have, heaven doesn't allow illegal immigration into heaven. There's there's walls in heaven. There's an invitation to heaven, but you have to migrate legally. You you have to be uh born again, you have to be adopted into the family, you have to come through the process of Christ, you have to have justification through the blood of Christ. And anybody who tries to go up over the wall a different way, God will bind hand and foot and throw out. And so sometimes we can think, oh, this is just about heaven. No, your theology informs your policies, it informs how you operate in your church, in your business, in your family. And there's a there we have a God of order. The same thing with the community here. Like, praise God, we get to go to church. But I want to remind you, it's a privilege for us to be here today. Right? And every privilege carries with it the burden of being responsible. And if you will be irresponsible with the privilege of being in church, let's let's say you're gonna be a menace to the church, we will kick you out. Because what you're saying is that it's all about you and you will hurt everybody else. Now, it's not unloving to kick somebody out. That's the most loving thing you could do for that person, because if you enable their bad behavior, they ruin everybody else. But by kicking them out, you say, hey, listen, you're free to do what you want out there, but you can't do it right here. Right here, there's rules, there's you have to cohabitate, you have to operate in love. And when they look, because people will be kicked out of teams, churches, businesses, and then let's face it, they they learn.

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They oh, I can't behave that way. I can't be rude or crude or whatever it is and think I'm gonna get away with it. Well, they all of a sudden can wise up. And when somebody wise up, is there forgiveness? Is there grace? Is there mercy? Yeah. Thank God for second and third and fourth chances. And they can assimilate into the culture of the church or the business or the family. But the outside does not get to determine how God wants to run the inside. And so when you're giving the personal invitations, make sure that you're not falling prey to this concept that we have a community and just everybody can come in and do whatever they want. No, no. You're gonna have to have some respect and some care and some consideration the right way. And if you do a good job, we can do life together. We can cohabitate. Has anybody ever had a roommate before that it started well and then it just blew up? Or maybe you're you're dating somebody and it's like, oh, she's the best or he's the best, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh man, they are not the best. Well, it takes some time to do your due diligence to realize, oh, this is not gonna work. And I think a lot of times with young people, they think the grass is greener at some other church, they think the grass is greener in some other marriage or business. And and then what happens is that they'll walk around and they'll think, oh, the same problem I was having at that church, I'm having at this church. Well, it's there's a common denominator. It's you. Right? You've got to fix your own heart, and and as you fix your own heart, you can you can change your life. And all of a sudden, it's amazing what happens. When you get better, the community gets better. Right? All of a sudden you're, man, this is a great place again. Oh, look at my marriage. Look at my body. I love my body again, right? I love what's going on. And you'll start taking very good care of the of the community that you have. And so when you're giving these personal invitations, you're inviting people into your community. You're gonna break bread together. One of my favorite things to do in the community is eat. Y'all love to eat? Man, I love, I love Texas Roadhouse after a after a Wednesday night service. I love uh uh Epic Wings uh after a Bible club, right? I I love last night having all the uh uh uh uh uh all the food, watching the Padre game a little bit. One of the best things you can do for your family, have a, even your adult uh kids or grandkids, have a time where you're having family food together. And and and you pay for it. Amen. Don't don't always be the one that's oh, I hope they pay for it. Now, if you're poor, okay, yeah, but listen, like, but but the best way to get rich uh is really to sew it out, to be a blessing, right? And so have that, build that community connection. Let me give you this last one, and I'll I'll be finished because it's it's about baptism time. You ready? Come on, let's do this. Last one is when somebody gives you a personal invitation, you're creating memories together. You're creating memories. And these memories, it's an invitation to do life, to have experiences together. Uh this is what I love about Christianity. Like, you can you can you can invite people in and change your life, you can change their life. You know, now we have a fresh memory with uh Silas's invitation to these football players. That's a new, like, like enjoyable thing that there's some excitement going on, right? For our life group leaders. If you're in a if you're in a life group and it's like, man, nobody's coming, well, have you have you given a personal invitation? Right? If you give a personal invitation and and into different places, people are like, oh, they want to be with me. And you get to create these memories. How many of you all want to create some great memories this this um this fall winter season? Man, I want to create some awesome memories. And by the way, the memories that you had in the past, they can be different in the future. You can change, everything can change, and you could design wonderful events and wonderful experiences. And when you're when you're given those those personal invites out, that's what you're doing. You're extending this opportunity to create a really enjoyable experience with others. And that's what people want to be a part of. Amen. So just in closing, let's be real good, godly Christians. Let's let's not wait for everybody to invite us to things. Let's be the one that says, hey, come come on over to church. Come on over, let's let's go get some food together. Hey, you want to go uh painting or surfing or hit the golf ball? You know, what let's let's go do something together. And the more you can take that initiative, I'm telling you, the more relationships you'll have, the more joy you'll have, and you'll be taking that proactive approach.