Bobby Chandler - What if... I Stop Listening to Bad Advice
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Summary:
In this «What If» series message, the preacher warns believers against following bad advice that leads to poor decisions, urging them to stop listening to worldly influences and instead seek godly discernment. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 15:33, Matthew 7:15–17, and especially Jesus' cursing of the barren fig tree (Matthew 21:18–20 and Mark 11) as a prophetic judgment on hypocrisy and fruitlessness, he connects it to the temple cleansing. The core takeaway is that listening to God first, being selective about advisors by examining their fruit, and staying connected to Jesus as the vine ensures we produce good fruit and avoid corruption from bad company.
What If I Stop Listening to Bad Advice?
We have been in a series titled «What If.» We have been asking the question, «Would living in a biblical way really change your life for the better?» We’ve talked about some hard topics, like tackling the spirit of offense, being able to take over our fears, walking in obedience, and trusting God with our finances, even when it’s scary.
But today, as I was praying this week, God gave me an interesting word to preach on. I felt a heavy burden because I’m seeing a lot of believers, a lot of followers of Christ, make terrible decisions based on bad advice—bad advice that somebody has spoken into your life. We’ve all fallen short in this in some way or another. We’ve all taken the advice of someone and thought, «Why did I listen to them? What was I thinking?»
So the title of today’s message is this: «What if I stop listening to bad advice? What if I stop listening to bad advice?» Am I speaking to somebody today already? Here’s what I want to do. I want to help you discern what is godly advice compared to worldly advice. Let me ask you this question before we dive into the Word today: How many of you have ever fallen into what I call the YouTube rabbit hole? I think a lot of you already know what I mean. You got on YouTube to search for a recipe or something, and hours later, you’ve been convinced to make glow-in-the-dark socks because somebody online told you that you need them for safety. Now you’re getting the whole family prepared—y’all better get your glow-in-the-dark socks ready tonight!
Influencers and Bad Advice Everywhere
So many times, I’ve been on YouTube, and hours later, I’m like, «What am I looking at right now?» But I’ve noticed too, in today’s culture, wherever you look—on social media, TV, or whatever—there’s some type of influencer trying to tell you how to live, giving you advice on maybe how to look better, how to act, how to dress, or how to speak. They even have answers to get you that crush you’ve been praying for a long time!
But everywhere you look, somebody is trying to influence you. Now, for some of you, I get it. You’re like, «I could care less about YouTube. I don’t care what people are saying on TV because I already have that friend, and I already have that family member that never seems to be quiet. If I’m in a relationship and they don’t like it, they’re going to let me know about it.» Or maybe you have that loving brother in Christ who had to pull you aside and say, «Hey, listen, man, I love you, but you just can’t wear socks with sandals. It’s not good. All right, we gotta stop this"—in a loving manner, of course. You can do what you want at home, just don’t leave the house like that!
No matter where you look, though, someone is trying to push their advice on you, and this really worries me. This is where I started to feel this burden because I’ve realized that a lot of believers, a lot of Christians, do not have discernment about whom they should be listening to. I’m telling you right now—I’m giving you a warning—people love to control you. People will love to take advantage of you. Paul makes this very clear. He says, «Don’t listen to the advice of the world. Don’t be like the world. You’re not meant to look like them; you’re meant to be a light in the darkness. You’re meant to walk a different path to show them the way, not follow their bad decisions.»
Bad Company Corrupts Good Character
Listen to this. Paul stated this in 1 Corinthians 15:33 (New Living Translation): «Do not be fooled by those who say such things, for bad company corrupts good character.» We’ve all been there, right? We’ve had someone we know we shouldn’t be hanging out with on the weekends, someone we’re constantly texting, someone pouring into our lives, and we’re looking at their life like, «Should I really be listening to them?»
What I love about this text is that Paul is addressing the people who started listening to the foolish advice of the world. They began to say, «You know what? If there is no resurrection, then we should just party it up today, live like there’s no tomorrow, because tomorrow we could die.» Even in the biblical days, the people were still saying, «YOLO!» Okay, I don’t think people say «YOLO» anymore, but you know what I’m talking about.
Let me show you 1 Corinthians 15:32. They were saying, «If there is no resurrection, let us feast, let us drink, for tomorrow we die.» Paul said, «That’s foolishness!» Have you ever noticed that the world will tell you this is living life to the fullest? «Go out, go party, get drunk, look like everybody else! This is how you should dress! This is how you should talk!» A lot of us who have been down that path wanted so badly to get out of it, but yet the world is telling you this is what you need—this makes your life better.
And I believe that we all have that one friend that, no matter how old we get, they’re still calling us up like, «Hey man, you want to party? You want to do this?» and we’re like, «No, I’m too old! What’s wrong with you? Stop it! I need a life change!» Let me ask you a serious question: Who are you taking advice from? Who is speaking into your life?
Here is a hard truth: Are you ready for this? Who you listen to now will influence the decisions that impact the rest of your life. Who you listen to now, who you allow to speak into your life and give you advice, will influence the decisions that impact the rest of your life. This is where I got the heavy burden because I see it all the time: bad advice believed by good people. I see it in counseling; people come up to me saying, «Hey pastor, I got some advice.» «Okay, what’d you hear?» «Well, my friend said I should just stop going to church.»
«Okay, well, you know what they told me? If you can’t trust Christians, who can you trust? So why should I go to church? Why should I be there? I don’t need a church to have a relationship with God.» Is that all right? But do you understand His Word? Do you have people in your life who are there for you, praying for you when you’re in need, helping you, guiding you, instructing you? Or do you just have somebody speaking into your life saying, «Hey, leave the church. Live how you want because that’s how they’re living?»
I see people all the time say, «You know what, pastor, I got some advice. I’m just ready to leave my marriage. I’m not happy. I’m not excited anymore. I just don’t feel what I used to feel. I just want to leave. I just want to be done with it. Let go of this commitment. I don’t really want a commitment anymore.» What about the kids? «Well, Facetime. I got friends, and they say it all works out.»
Bad company easily corrupts good character, and it’s so easy to be persuaded by people to live like the world. So I wanted to dive deep, and man, I got a message for you guys today because Jesus made it very clear how to have good discernment, and He made it simple. This is how He said it: «You know a tree by its fruit.» You will always know a tree by its fruit, what it produces in its life. The actions that you see speak louder than somebody’s big mouth or their words.
Knowing People by Their Fruit
Let me tell you, Matthew 7:15–17, Jesus said this: «Beware of false prophets, for they will come disguised as harmless sheep but really are vicious wolves. Now listen, Jesus said you can identify them by their fruit—that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit.»
In other words, what Jesus is saying is: Do not take relationship advice from somebody you know is cheating on their spouse. Do not take financial advice from somebody that you know is in tremendous debt. It’s not smart. And do not take biblical advice from someone who hates the church or has bitterness towards God. You can tell when a person is hurt; you can see their view of God through that stage or maybe that journey, like I was talking about earlier.
But here’s what I know: God is always good; God is always in control. You’re not here to impress people. I’m not here to impress you. All I want to do and all I want to see for our church is to be obedient to what God has for our lives. Because through everything, the good and the bad, He’ll take care of us, and we get to see the kingdom impacted, and that’s what it’s all about. That’s the reason you’re here; that’s the reason I preach every Sunday. So you can know the love of God and know that He has given you this incredible potential to make an impact for the kingdom.
But every week is a journey because the enemy is trying to attack us, and I don’t want you to fall for the bad advice because here is another big truth: Where there are sheep, there are wolves. That’s what Jesus was saying: Where there are sheep, there are wolves. But here is the good news: Jesus is our Shepherd, and He will protect you. He gives us instructions on how to live. He doesn’t just throw us out there with the enemy, but He tells us, «Hey, you’re meant to look different.»
Jesus and the Fig Tree
So here’s what I want to do today: I want to talk about an interesting story out of the Bible. When I tell you that Jesus did not like trees that did not produce fruit, I mean it seriously. There is this one story in the book of Matthew and the book of Mark where Jesus is on a journey early in the morning and He’s hangry. Anybody know what hangry is? Like right now, Pastor, I’m feeling it; can you hurry up a little bit? Okay, He was angry, and He was hungry. He sees this fig tree, and if you’ve read the story before, you may be like, «Okay, I don’t understand.»
But Jesus was pretty mad. He goes up to the fig tree hoping that it would have some figs for Him to eat, and guess what? It didn’t. So what does He do? He curses the tree, and right away it withers. The disciples are around, and they’re watching this, and they start talking to each other like, «Did you see what just happened?» «Yeah, don’t ever mess with Jesus when He’s hungry!» Okay, but they’re talking to each other, and the Bible tells us they were amazed. They were amazed because He literally cursed the tree, and it withered just like that.
So they ought to be confused: «Why is Jesus doing this?» Here’s the kicker: This is why I love the story—it wasn’t the season for the tree to produce figs. Jesus was still upset with it and cursed the tree. So I want to ask: Why?
Here’s the story. If you do have your Bibles with you, like I said, you can put a pen in your Bible in Matthew chapter 21, and we’re also going to look at Mark chapter 11. We’re going to compare the two texts, okay? But Matthew chapter 21 gives us a lot more details and a bigger description of Jesus’s journey and what He actually said to the fig tree. So let’s look together:
Matthew 21:18–20 says, «In the morning, as Jesus was returning to Jerusalem, He was hungry. He noticed a fig tree beside the road. When He went over there to see if there were any figs, but instead, there were only leaves, He said to it, 'May you never bear fruit again! '» It’s like leaving church on a Sunday hungry, going somewhere to eat, and it wasn’t good. «I’m never coming back here again!» That’s how angry He was.
And the disciples saw this, and it says immediately the fig tree withered up. Imagine seeing that—imagine witnessing that! The authority of Christ; here He cursed the tree, and immediately it withered. The scripture tells us the disciples were amazed, and when they saw this, they asked, «How did the fig tree wither so quickly?» If you keep reading the text, it’s powerful because Jesus is telling them, «By this authority, you too will be able to live as well, because the Spirit of God is going to live inside of you, and you’re going to see things you never thought you’d see. You’re going to be able to speak things you never thought you’d speak. You’re going to see miracles of God take place in your life.»
And I believe that God is speaking that to you today as well—you’re going to see incredible things when you just walk in faith and trust Him, no matter what the situation looks like. But as I started to dive into the text, a lot of questions arose. I want to answer two questions; one of them is very controversial. The first question is this: Why the inconsistent timeline?
Comparing Matthew and Mark on the Fig Tree
When you compare the story in Matthew chapter 21 with Mark 11, you may notice a different order of events, and I’m going to explain that to you today. In Matthew’s Gospel, here’s the whole rundown: Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. It’s before Passover. Then, like I said last week, I love that He comes in, everybody cheers Him on, and then He goes into the temple of God. If you know that story, when He saw what they were doing there, what did He do? He started flipping some tables. One day, I’ll do that on stage just to wake you guys up; it’ll be fun.
But He started flipping the tables around and said, «This will not be a robber’s den!» I want you to notice those words, okay? «This will not become a robber’s den.» Then, after all that in Matthew’s Gospel, right then the story of the fig tree took place, and He curses the tree.
But if you were to look at the book of Mark, the order seems different at first. Let me show you. Mark 11:14–15: «Then Jesus said to the tree, 'May no one ever eat your fruit again! ' and the disciples heard Him say it. After this, when they arrived back in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple and began driving out the people buying and selling.»
So looking at the two texts, Mark’s Gospel tells us Jesus cursed the tree before entering into the temple. Matthew’s Gospel tells us Jesus cursed the tree after entering the temple. A lot of people don’t understand how it seems like a different order. It’s actually not a different order, but both authors are trying to make a point across. See, Matthew is trying to show you the authority of Christ. He wants you to feel what happened in the temple of God, and then right after, immediately, the power of Christ being able to curse that fig tree.
What I love about Mark’s Gospel is the point he wants to get across to you. This is really cool; if you don’t know this, the book of Mark was written almost like an action movie. Mark wanted to get it across to the reader that this is action. Here are the actions that Jesus took; this is what Jesus did. And he wants you to really study what took place at that fig tree.
Because a lot of us, to be honest, I know I did, you read the story, you keep going, and you focus on the temple. You focus on Jesus flipping tables because that just is pretty cool. You know we don’t get to see Jesus like that a lot. But Mark wants you to say, «No, no, no, don’t skip it! Don’t skip it! There’s something big here! I don’t want you to miss it!»
Okay, and so here’s the fig tree, and then he goes back to the story of Jesus and the temple of God. He wants to connect the two. And the reason why may surprise you. Here’s question number two: Why did Jesus hate the fig tree? What made Jesus so mad? Now a lot of us would say, «Okay, He was hungry; that’s why He cursed the fig tree.» But you know there’s something deeper to this.
The Fig Tree as Prophetic Judgment
This is why I love the book of Mark. See, Mark wanted you to see the connection between the fig tree and the temple cleansing because this is what you may not know: when Jesus cursed the fig tree, do you know what He was doing? He was casting prophetic judgment on those, listen to this, who look godly on the outside but not on the inside. Let me say that again: It was a warning—pretty much what Jesus was saying was, «Stop playing around! Stop it! Don’t look like them! You are created for a purpose, a special reason to bear fruit, and God has this for you!»
But a lot of times, we see Israel taking in other gods, bad advice, and we see them fall over and over again. Let me show you this. So Jesus walks into the temple. This is what Mark wants you to see. Here’s the fig tree—Jesus curses it. Then Jesus walks into the temple. What happens? Matthew 21:12–13: «Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out all the people. What were they doing? They were buying and selling animals for sacrifice. They were making a profit in God’s house. So what He did? He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, and He said to them—now listen to His wording—'The scriptures declare, 'My temple shall be called a house of prayer, ' but you have turned it into a den of thieves.'»
This is where we get that phrase, «den of thieves.» If you’re reading the story, if you’ve seen the movies, a lot of times we think, «All right, Jesus was really upset because they were taking advantage of people and getting money from that in the house of God.» And yes, He was upset, but there was something prophetic taking place.
See, when Jesus quoted «den of thieves, » did you know that He was quoting out of the book of Jeremiah? He was speaking exactly what the prophet Jeremiah spoke to the Israelites as he challenged their view and mindset on the house of God. It’s really cool; let me show you this. Jeremiah 7:9-11: «God said, 'Do you really think you can steal? Do you really think you can murder? Do you really think you can commit adultery? Do you really think you can lie? Do you think you can burn incense to Baal and all of those other new gods of yours? '» And then you come here and stand before me.
Now imagine God saying this: «You murder, you steal, you commit adultery, you worship other gods, and you walk into My house, and then you proclaim that we’re safe!» Don’t get it twisted! He’s a good Father, but part of being good also means that He has to be a just judge. He can’t allow you to take bad advice and stray from the path that He has for you.
Sometimes, this is what we don’t like: we don’t like God putting us in check. I know I don’t. A lot of times, I remember in the past coming into church and being like, «God, speak to me today!» And I want all the fluff, right? I want to be in tears; I want to feel God just holding me. But sometimes God is saying, «You know what? I’m here with you, but I also know this needs to get out of your life.»
You remember when you spoke that there was pride in that? Sometimes God puts me in check. I’ll be really honest with you, I’m vulnerable. Back there, as I was praying, «God, just speak to me! Speak to me! Speak to me!» I actually felt convicted that that same prayer needs to be prayed every day, every week—not just in this building but before I go into Walmart—because God knows! You know, praying over you, George? Well, no.
But I got convicted back there before I started preaching to you. That’s something I should be praying every day. Sometimes I tell God, «I don’t feel like it! I don’t want to do it today!» But my life is not my own, and God has not called me to speak only on a stage, but in people’s lives. And the same thing for you—God has not just called you to come in here only on a Sunday and sit down and listen; that’s it! He has so much more for you—to live it out, to see it, to be amazed, just as the disciples were.
For Jesus told them, «You will be able to see incredible things!» The Spirit of God is living inside of you. But God speaks to them and says, «You burned incense to Baal and all those other new gods. You commit sacrifices, and if you know the worship of Baal, they would sacrifice little children. It was barbaric. It was terrible! The people of God were doing these things! Why? Because they listened to bad advice. And then He says, 'You come here and you stand before Me at My temple, and you chant, „We are safe."'»
Now listen, here’s the kicker. Only to go right back to those evil things! Welcome to Authentic Church! God loves you, but there are things in your life that are killing you! I’m going to take you down because you’ve been listening to the wrong people! You’ve been trying to look like the wrong people, and yet His Word is neglected!
And in verse 11, listen to this; Jeremiah says this: «The temple which bears My name has become a den of thieves.» Now when you look at the story of Jesus in the temple of God calling them this name, the den of thieves, you understand the connection! Yes, He was upset that this was happening—that there was theft taking place—but more importantly, this means what Jesus was saying: «My house, the house of God, cannot be a place for robbers to go to protect themselves from the consequences of their decisions.»
Let me make it more simple: Jesus was saying, «This is a robber’s den because a lot of you are taking advantage of God. You want to deliberately live in sin! How you want to live, live your own life, be in control. Then come in here, ask for forgiveness just to do it all over again.»
And I’ve been there. Man, you know how many times I’ve done that? You know how many times I’ve come up to God and said, «All right God, thank You! I love You! Forgive me!» And God’s like, «Do you mean it? Do you really want My forgiveness right now? Are you just going to go back and do the same thing?»
Speak the same way, live the same life? God says, «Don’t you know I’ve set you free from this? I’ve set you free. The chains have been broken! Hell was defeated!» We just proclaimed that last week! Why are you still thinking that you’re held captive to the sins in your life?
And I realize God will never be fooled; we think we’re smart at times, but He sees the heart. But He loves you, and any correction in our life is to help us live a better life. But man, I have noticed this lie in this terrible advice believed by so many Christians: «I can just do what I want to do, live life for me, I’ll ask for forgiveness later!»
And you never had a relationship with Christ. And that’s what kills me because He’s such a good Father who loves you. I want you to know that here’s what’s even more powerful: we dive more into the text, the fig tree. We look at it like, «Oh man, the story about a fig tree is just kind of crazy! Why are we talking so much about a fig tree, pastor? I don’t get it!»
The Fig Tree Represents Israel
You know what the fig tree represents? The nation of Israel. Let me show you Hosea 9:10. The Lord says, «O Israel, when I first found you, it was like finding fresh grapes in the desert. When I saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the first ripe figs of the season.»
What I need you to understand is that Israel was created to bless! This is what God spoke over His nation, over His people, over Abraham. «I’ve created you to bless! You have so much potential!» Let me show you the promise again—Genesis 12:2: «God said, I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.»
This tells me that our only job is to walk in obedience and allow God to do the work because notice He said twice, «I will make you.» You cannot do it yourself! «I will bless others through you.» You can’t do it; you don’t have the strength; you need me. But I’m here!
But bad company corrupts good character, and we see it over and over again in the Bible. Many times out of the Old Testament, bad advice comes in, and the branches start to become barren over Israel. Because here’s what He said: Are you ready? «You were like figs of the season.» It’s cute; it’s powerful. But then He continues in Hosea 9:10. «Yes, when I saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the first ripe figs of the season!»
But listen, «but then they deserted Me for Baal.» And when they deserted Me for Baal, they gave themselves over to this shameful idol. And I started to think about the tree, the fig tree. The disciples didn’t understand at the time because I need you to get it too: because of Christ, we have been grafted into the nation of Israel. We’ve become the people of God as well.
So this tree, we also are part of God’s tree, and what I’m telling you is that you are meant to produce good fruit. You! Yeah, look at somebody next to you and just point at them awkwardly—it’s cool! Wake them up! You have potential! God created you for a purpose!
The Pruning Illustration
But here’s what happened: I have some people back there; if you guys can come up real quick, we’re going to have some fun. All right, we’re going to pray. I’m handing out some sharp objects here, so hopefully the sermon has been good! If one of you can get on one side of the tree and then get on the other side as well because here’s what I’ve noticed: God created us for potential. God created us to do big things, but we allow people to come into our life to give us bad advice, and I just want you to see what happens.
Go ahead and just kind of clip a piece. Hold the big one! She’s taking the whole thing down! One move; that’s this one time! Because we hear people all the time say, «Hey! You don’t need to go to church!» You can cut that for me. «You don’t need to forgive!» We’ll just pretend that there we go—one more. You can send that private message, nobody will know.
Man, you can come here on Sundays and praise His name, but nobody needs to know what you do during the week, and what you do in private. I want you to feel this. Go ahead and drop those two; we’ll make a mess today. Thank you guys! Y’all give them a hand!
We allow people to come into our life, and we take any advice from them, and they just start to clip our branches one by one until we feel like we have nothing left. Jesus said, «No! You aren’t meant to live like this because if you take advice from everybody, I’m telling you it’s dangerous. But you are meant to be free!»
See, Jesus died for us to produce great fruit so that we would not be cursed. But again, where there are sheep, there are wolves. But Jesus is our Shepherd!
Three Truths to Avoid Bad Advice
So before you leave today, I want to give you three simple truths that will help you on how not to take bad advice and how to hear from the Lord.
Point number one is this: How do I stop listening to bad advice? Point one: Listen to God first! Isn’t that simple? It’s such a simple truth, but it’s powerful! And how many of us actually do it sometimes? Some days, listen to God first! Six times, six occasions, and I’m sure many more, Jesus walked away from the crowd, completely deserted everyone to be only with the Father.
I started to look up the reasons why He would do this. One reason was to prepare for a major task—anything big that was coming up that He had to be prepared for. In Luke 4:1-2, the scripture tells us that He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness where we know that He was tempted by the devil. But we know He had to be close with God the Father to overcome that temptation, for many more obstacles would face Him in the future.
We also know this about Jesus: that He would have to walk away to recharge. This is something I see so much: So many of us know what it’s like to be burnt out—just going, constantly going. «Gotta serve, gotta do this, gotta go there, gotta work, gotta do this, family, got baseball, got this, got this, got this.» By the time you’re resting your head on the pillow, «Oh, I forgot to talk to God!» And a lot of us experience this.
«God, thank You for—you know?» We’re out! Like the morning comes, we’ve got drool on our face, like, «God, did we have a conversation? What do we talk about?» We do everything else and put God last. In Mark 6:31, Jesus said, «Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest.» See, this is how Jesus handled grief!
When John the Baptist was killed, this is how He handled grief. He went into the presence of God! When He made important decisions, how He handled stress, He was with the Father. And many times, He started His day off by completely leaving everybody else. I love how He did it; the way the scripture tells us doesn’t look like He was trying to be polite about it; He was just pretty much like, «Later! I got something to do! I’m gonna go be with My Father, and I’m not going to apologize about that!»
You want to have this conversation, but I’m telling you, I don’t have the fuel for it yet until I’m with the Father! I’ve got this important decision to make, but I’ve made a lot of decisions that were bad ones because of bad advice. So this time I’m gonna hold off. I’m gonna fight myself; I’m gonna be patient; I’m gonna listen to the Father before I move.
Luke 5:16: «Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.» Let me share this with you: when you do not start your day with God, you allow other voices to reach you first. Let this begin: when you do not start your day with God, you allow other voices to reach you first. Do you really want Facebook to give you the mindset to face the day first thing in the morning? Do you really want somebody’s comments or what they said about you to be the only thing that plays through your mind throughout the day?
We ask people for advice so much, and we become too worn out to know what is good advice or bad advice. So first step, it’s easy: Listen to God first! Point number two is this: Be selective about who gives you advice! Can I get an amen to that? Allowing everyone to tell you what to do is dangerous because, like I said, people want to control you. People would also love to take advantage of you, right?
It makes you everybody’s puppet. You never know what somebody’s intentions may be. I say this all the time because a lot of us are like, «Pastor, I just want a lot of friends.» You can have a lot of friends; I’m not telling you not to have a lot of friends. Just be careful about who pours into your life! Because you’ve got that one friend you shouldn’t be listening to, and you’ve got that one friend who you know what they’re doing, and you don’t need to be doing it.
Jesus said, «You identify them by their fruit—that is, by the way that they act. Do not allow somebody to come up to you and say, 'Hey, I grow apples, but here’s an onion! '» And it’s funny, but we know how life gets complicated, and those situations really do stink, and they hurt.
Proverbs 13:20: «Walk with the wise and become wise, but associate with fools and get in trouble.» This is why Connect Groups are a big part of the church! I realize there’s only so much you can get from this setting. There’s only so much you can get from me speaking and teaching to you, but you need to have conversations with each other. I wanted that when you arrive, you see everybody as family. You get to know what somebody’s going through; you know what they’re dealing with; you know they’re praying for you.
If you need help, you know who to reach out to. But we can’t force you to do that. Sometimes it takes getting involved in a Connect Group, doing something outside of your comfort zone to meet some people. Because honestly, let me ask you again: Who is giving you advice? Who is speaking into your life right now? Are they wise? Are they foolish? Because Satan will tell you that the world is having a lot of fun on the outside, but on the inside, you’ll feel dead.
2 Corinthians 11:14–15: «I’m not surprised, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it’s no wonder that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. But in the end, they will get their punishment and their wicked deeds they deserve.» See, Satan knows that he’s going to the fire, and he wants to take you down with him.
Do not be fooled by bad company. I’ll have everybody stand here, and I’m going to give you my last point: To have discernment, you must stay connected with Jesus. So simple, but so powerful! We all know what it’s like when we get so busy, and Jesus is the last thing we pursue. You know what it’s like to be drained. Maybe you’re tired right now. Maybe you’re asking a lot of questions and feel like you don’t have enough answers.
Maybe you’re just not happy with life—maybe you’re seeing some problems taking place, and you don’t get it. Maybe it feels like the world is crashing down around you. Maybe you feel like you don’t have what it takes to have a breakthrough. Maybe you feel like you don’t know how to get out of this mess or this rut because we try to live life and control life without Jesus, and it will never work.
See, I love what Jesus said in John 15:5: «I am the vine; you are the branches, and those who remain in Me and I in them will produce much fruit. For apart from Me, you can do nothing.» This spoke to me. I started to realize when we remain in Jesus, it doesn’t matter this season; there will always be fruit. It doesn’t matter what I’m going through; God will always produce something beautiful and bigger than what I can imagine. Just like we sang this morning, «God, You are bigger! You’re bigger than everything that I’m facing!»
And even when I feel like I don’t have anything left, even when I’m tired and I’m weak, You are the vine that gives me everything I need! You make me new! The disciples were amazed when Jesus cursed the fig tree because He reassured them this will not happen to you if you remain in Me. The death that you see here will not take place in your life!
And everywhere you go, those who feel dead will come back to life as you pour into them the fruit that Christ has placed in you. Come on! And so, the next time somebody comes up with scissors, that good Shepherd is like, «Nah! Not this tree!» The winds can’t even knock this tree down; it’s not going out! But everybody will see it.
Let me share this with you beforehand! I love this verse: Psalm 119:69-70. «It’s pretty real; arrogant people smear me with lies, but in truth, God, I obey Your commandments with all my heart. Their hearts are dull and stupid, but I delight in Your instructions.» I’m not taking bad advice; I’m not listening to them! God, I delight in Your Word and what You have proclaimed over me! I delight in Your instructions because my suffering was good for me. My suffering was good for me because it taught me to pay attention to Your decrees.
Your instructions are more valuable to me than millions in gold and silver. Christ came to rescue you and me from the bad advice of hell! And it’s time to stand strong! Will you listen to the Father? Will you take caution? I’m instructing you today; I wanted to teach you a lot today to show you: Be careful who you listen to because it will impact the decisions that happen in your life for the future.