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“Spiritual Frogs”

Jim Boyd
03/23/25 - Sun AM

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(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

Good morning again.

If you're visiting with us, uh, every so often, the elders will speak to the congregation.

That's what I'm doing this morning.

Alan Dvorak is our normal preacher, and if you're in the area, uh, you want to hear somebody that actually knows how to speak, uh, with some profession to it, come back and hear Alan.

He, he always creates a great spiritual, um, message in a very good manner.

I want to start off by telling you a story about once when I was gonna go backpacking, uh, with a group of guys in the woods.

We're gonna be out for about a week.

And we looked at the weather and it was gonna be in the mid-60s, in the 1st 3 days, just a steady, drizzling rain the whole time, but we were going.

So as we set out, it was, it was kind of funny watching what people were doing.

And now, this was in the late 80s, so we had rain gear, but it was terrible.

Like if you wore it, you're gonna be drenched with sweat within the first hour.

If you didn't wear it, you're gonna be drenched with rain, so what was your choice.

So, There's guys that had it on, just kind of avoiding the misery thinking, you know, this is gonna, I'll take it off in a minute.

There's guys trying to hide under trees, you know, thinking, you know, I can keep the rain off me for a little bit.

This one guy goes over to a mud puddle.

He turned his back.

Razar and flopped back into it.

You roll around a couple of times and got up.

He's like, you babies.

So, what was he doing?

He, he was gonna be miserable, he knew it, he just decided to get out of the way.

Now, I, I didn't decide to go that route, but I think maybe he was on to a little something.

This is attributed to Mark Twain and before I get into it, I'm, I'm gonna do just a little aside.

It's been You know, less than 53 years ago, that Mark Twain supposedly said this, but they don't actually know if he said it or not.

It's been attributed to a bunch of different people.

A guy wrote a book about it, but even with the internet that Abraham Lincoln invented, we can't figure out if Mark Twain did it.

It just, it makes me appreciate the Bible even more.

And something's over, the words over 2000 years old, we can have full confidence.

It's pretty amazing.

But back to the point.

He said this, if it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning.

And if you're, if it's your dog eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.

Now that might sound kind of gross.

It might sound like what is he talking about, but really, what he's saying is this.

If you have a difficult task, if it's something you don't wanna do, if it's something that's unpleasant, maybe it's tedious, uh, maybe, maybe it's painful, maybe it takes a lot of attention you want to give, do those things first.

And there's, there's a lot of pragmatic reasons for it.

I, I looked on this one mental health site, and they gave a, a definition of procrastination from uh the Cambridge English Dictionary.

It says to keep delaying something that must be done, often because it's unpleasant or boring.

And then mental health professionals have decided to add to that definition with this.

Procrastination as a self-defeating behavior pattern marked by short-term benefits and long-term cost. Self-defeating.

Now, now, why would you say it's, it's self-defeating?

Well, if it's something that has to be done, the longer you put off, how well is it gonna get done?

Now, you're rushing, you don't feel comfortable, there's a lot of different reasons why.

And there's a guy named Brian Tracy who wrote a book called Eat That Frog, and it was about, why would you not do the things that you know are the most unpleasant first.

So, eat the frog is another way of saying, if you've got things that are important, no matter how unpleasant they are, you need to eat that frog first thing in the morning.

Give yourself a sense of, of responsibility or a sense of accomplishment, get started.

So, why do we procrastinate?

That, that's a huge question, isn't it?

So I normally print out my slides, just in case technology fails me, so the printer wasn't working.

It, it wouldn't print any black.

So I put it on my phone, I put it on my iPad, uh, I have my computer in case all that didn't work, and it didn't really stress me out because uh I'd known about it for about 3 weeks.

So why didn't I fix it?

Because I, I, in my mind, I didn't need it.

But in the last 3 weeks, there's been several times I went to print something and went and print black and I was like, yeah, I can do without it.

And then when I actually need it, I didn't have it.

So I put it off.

Why do you think I put that off?

I know a lot of different reasons.

We can get distracted about things.

Uh, a guy at work that knows me pretty well put this on my door.

Um, it was, I, I have like a little placard saying what my job is on the, you know, the, on the right side of my door.

Came to work and this sign was on my door.

He knows me pretty well, I think.

It says, Dear visitor.

In order to protect my concentration and sanity, I decided to implement a door policy.

Door open.

Very welcome to come in.

Yes, I would love to have a chat.

Door closed, please knock.

I will let you know if I'm able to talk.

If it's urgent.

I'll continue to work I'm or I will not continue to work.

And you should continue to knock.

I'm extremely easily distracted and will talk you to the end of time instead of doing much needed work test.

Now, he does know me.

I, I, I get guys that come by all and we'll just talk and talk and talk.

What's funny is he put two things on.

It says, never, uh, just go away if you need something.

He said he got this off Instagram or something.

This is the part that I thought was kind of funny.

This was urgent business.

The building or someone is on fire, you're bringing me coffee, there's a dog.

So In other words, the guy knows that if, if he, he knows me.

If something's going on that I don't like to do when I'm trying to eat that frog, I'll put it aside very quickly.

So I can just have a conversation and avoid taking the next bite.

Uh, maybe we, we don't like doing it because we're perfectionists.

Uh, and perfectionist, if you've known any, and I know we don't have any here.

Um, if we, if you're a perfectionist, You look at these tasks, and you know, you're, you're just dreading it, so you, you put it off.

Now, you would think a perfectionist would never put things off.

That's not the case.

Sometimes they dread the mental and physical effort they know it's gonna take to put it into something, so they just kinda put it off.

Uh, maybe you don't believe in your own abilities to do something.

You ever put something off for that reason?

You you knew something important was coming, but you just Yeah, I need to do it, but I, I don't think I can.

I don't know if I'll be able to.

Maybe I won't do it as good as I'd like.

How about fear and anxiety?

That's a huge one.

How many things, how many frogs in your life are, that you have to face that you've got to take care of it, you're just, you're scared of doing it.

It makes you super nervous, so you just kind of slide it down the road.

Let me ask you something, would that increase anxiety or reduce it?

It would increase it.

You would think it would make it less, but it's gonna make it worse.

Now, obviously, I'm going somewhere with this for this morning, and I'm talking about spiritual frogs.

They're huge, they're unpleasant, they're alive and wiggling.

Yeah, I'm not talking about fried, fried frog legs.

If you've ever had those, they're not that bad, but I'm talking about, you know, you're gonna have to crunch up those bones, pop those eyeballs as you kids you listening?

eating a frog would be gross, wouldn't it?

Well, eating a spiritual frog can be just as gross, cause you gotta look at yourself pretty hard sometimes.

And that's what I want us to do this morning is talk about eating the frog first, spiritually, the things in our lives.

If it's important, if it's difficult, if it's unpleasant, just do it first.

Get them out of the way.

Psalm 139 23-24.

Say, search me, oh God, and know my heart.

Have you ever prayed that prayer or do you put it off?

God already knows your heart, but you're asking God to know your heart.

Try me to know my thoughts and see if there's any grievous way in me.

And lead me in the everlasting way.

That's important.

We need to ask God for their help.

We need to get into our souls.

And have those things exposed so we know what's standing in our way.

And what might be some of those spiritual frogs.

Well, dealing with sin obviously is, is the one that jumps out the mind the most.

I, I had a young man tell me this.

He, he had a huge Spiritual problem that he just couldn't deal with him.

He put it off for years and he went through the cycle of guilt.

He went through all these things over and over and over.

And, and then he found that when he finally took on that, that huge spiritual frog, And ate it He said there were tadpoles everywhere.

That's not how he said it.

He said he couldn't believe how many little problems he had that were just being masked because he didn't take on this big thing.

So it's important if you got, if you got sin in your life, you gotta get on with it.

Forgiving others.

That's not an easy thing to do, reconciling broken relationships, letting go go of worldly attachments.

Living with faith over fear.

If I'm, I'm gonna say this comment and I feel kind of hypocritical about it because there's things I'm scared of in my life.

But we shouldn't have fear in our life.

We just should not have fear in our life.

Because there's nothing man can do to us.

That compares what God can do for us or to us.

Sharing the gospel Trusting God while suffering.

All those things can be really hard.

Now we're not, we're not gonna talk about all of them.

But we're gonna talk about a few that I think are pretty important.

First, I'm gonna start that dealing with sin.

In Matthew 7 verses 1 through 3 and then verse 163.

Matthew 7, and the point of reading this is not to get into the judgment part of it.

That says judge not that you be not judged, for the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged.

And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Why do you see the spec?

That is in your brother's eye, but not notice the log that is in your own eye, you hypocrite, verse 5.

First, take the log out of your own eye, then you will clearly See to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Again, I, I don't want to divert you by saying it's not telling you you can't deal with the speck in your brother's eye.

But if you've got that log in your eye, get it out first.

Remember I told you about the young man, he said when he, when he overcame what he thought was this huge spiritual hurdle in his life, he just couldn't get past and he did it.

He started finding all these little things he'd either neglected or was doing wrong.

And he had to get, he had specs all in his eyes.

And he had to get those taken care of.

Now, in 1 Corinthians 235:26 to 213, I'm not gonna read the whole thing.

I'm just gonna focus.

These, these would be, if these were in your life, They'd be huge spiritual frogs, wouldn't they?

Sexual immorality, idolaters.

Now, you gotta be careful about the idolatry.

Elijah mentioned idolatry and of this world, that anything that replaces the glory of God is idolatry.

Whether it's money, whether it's confidence in yourself, Uh, I don't care what it is, AI. If every place is the glory of God, it's idolatry.

Adulterers, homosexually homosexuality thieves, greedy drunkards, or vilers.

And you're probably thinking, well, I, I don't do any of those.

Well, maybe that's not right.

Maybe, maybe there are things on this list.

But you just don't want to eat that frog.

I, I would, I would say with confidence, I could probably look around this audience and say that somebody's got something on this list that may be bothering them.

And we should never look at anyone who's suffering with the giant frogs and, and look at them with disgust.

Because you might have a frog you need to chew on for a while.

And then in 217 Corinthians 210, There's another list So those are the giant frogs, right?

Well, let's, let's look at these.

You think, well, these aren't so, so bad in purity, sensuality, idolatry again, strife.

Have you ever known anybody that just loved to stir up strife?

There, there was a guy I used to work with.

He did it all the time.

In one corner of my office, there was a guy who was a total tree hugger.

I mean, you, you talked about anything in the environment.

He, he would just get all his hackles up.

He'd go after it.

There's another guy that thought we should all drink raw oil out of the ground, you know, it's just two separate guys, right?

So this guy would walk in our office and he would go, You know, I wonder why they don't shut down bike trails.

That could be harming worms.

And he'd just walk out, knowing that these two guys would just go at it for the next hour.

He loved to stir it up.

You ever seen the pictures of guys stirring the pot?

He was a pot stirrer.

Spiritually, the people can be stuck pot stirrers.

There's things that are pretty plainly evident in the scriptures sometimes that people just like to challenge.

To bring up strife.

Jealousy, fits of anger.

A lot of people struggle with that, and, and we tend to focus on men with that, but it's not just men.

Rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy.

Do you ever drive around, see these giant houses?

I make this joke all the time with the kids.

It's like, I don't want a house like that.

I just want the money to be able to have a house like that.

You know, that's a form of the in itself.

But do I dwell on it?

I hope not.

I hope I'm not envious.

Remember, envy is wanting something that somebody else has, regardless of what it takes, even if it's to their detriment.

So Now, let's look at James chapter 25, and we'll read verse 83, and then we'll look at 28 to 210.

And this is again.

Kind of a, a A dual thing here, talking about procrastination.

And then also, Just failing to do things that you know she should do.

Come now, you should say, today or tomorrow we will go into such and such town and spend a year there and try to make profit.

Now, this isn't exactly procrastination, this is making plans, right?

About, hey, we're, we're gonna have all these big plans for the future.

Says instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.

As it is, you boast in your arrogance.

All such boasting is evil.

I, I didn't go into a lot of research on how these tie together.

Alan, maybe that's a good question.

How, how does Knowing the right thing to do, and failing to do it, being sent, how is that tied to making all these big plans?

Well, if your big plans for the future, are causing you to not do the good now that you need to do.

It's sinful.

So Bev in a class, we we were talking about, she made a great statement.

She said, you know, we all struggle with this feeling of, I, I can't do enough.

I think most people feel like that.

I can't do enough.

Well, there's, there's two aspects of that.

No, you cannot do enough.

Jesus has done it all.

But the other aspect of it is, God doesn't want you to do everything.

He wants to do what you can do now.

So don't make big plans that interfere with doing good.

Do the things that you should do.

How about forgiving others?

In Classians 21000:13 says, bearing with one another.

And if one has a complaint against another forgiving each other.

As the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.

And, and it's not the only place that it's mentioned in the scripture.

It's in Matthew 6 and Luke 17, and Matthew 18 about forgiving over and over.

And it's, you, you're not given a choice.

You have to forgive.

But connected to that, is reconciling relationships.

Now, that is an enormous frog.

Any, has anybody here ever had a broken relationship?

Somebody that maybe is a friend, that is no longer a friend, maybe even an enemy?

Have you had a relationship with someone that, because of their stand on the gospel and your stand on the gospel?

You, you can't be the friend you once were.

You're supposed to try to reconcile those relationships.

And, and uh, it's not easy.

It's a big thing.

It's hard to do.

I've been on both sides of that.

I've had people that came to me to reconcile, and I've been to people to reconcile.

But I'll tell you, Once you, once you get that frog down your throat, it's gonna be the best meal you ever had.

So I want you to think this morning, who in my life do I have a broken relationship with and what can I do to reconcile it?

Maybe nothing.

Maybe there's nothing you can do.

But let's talk about that for just a second.

Before we get into this verse, I wanna.

Tell you some things to consider.

Maybe it just feels like the pain is gonna be too big.

Maybe you have this desire for justice or revenge.

Remember in Romans 12.

Vengeance is the Lord.

That's not our place.

Maybe our pride gets in the way.

No, he was wrong, not me.

He should come to me.

Maybe it's, maybe it's the fear of getting hurt again.

Man, if I, if I reconcile, I mean, he, he, he stabbed me in the back once.

How do I know it's not gonna do again?

Or I, I didn't do anything and he just turned his back on me.

Maybe they'll do it again.

I think we, we need to take a deeper look at what forgiveness really is, or, or maybe we have some unresolved bitterness that we just gotta get over.

Maybe it feels unfair.

Well, I'll tell you this, life is unfair.

But would God ask us to do anything that was not fair?

Was it fair that Jesus died on the cross?

Absolutely not.

Was it a hard thing to do so that we can have spiritual life?

Yes. So now let's look at this verse, Matthew 5.

You have heard that it was said to those of old, you should not murder, and whoever murders will be allowed for judgment.

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with their brother will be liable to judgment.

Whoever insult his brother will be liable to the council, and whoever says, you fool.

will be liable to the hell of fire.

So if you're offering your gift at the altar, and they remember that your brother has something against you, Leave your gift there before the altar and go.

First, we reconciled to your brother and then coming after your gift.

Did you notice it?

The wording there, it said, if you remember your brother has something against you.

But he's not right.

He was in the wrong.

I was in the right.

Then it's OK. Give your offering and go about your business.

Is that what it says?

It says, no, it has something.

It doesn't even say, it doesn't even mention who was right or wrong.

It says he has something against you.

Then you go to them.

Before you get on with what you consider your spiritual life.

In business as usual.

So, these are hard things.

Now, there's other things, we already talked about doing good.

That we might consider spiritual earthworms.

They're not as bad.

I mean, we've all seen kids eat earthworms or things like that.

These aren't big things.

I, I don't, I don't do my daily prayer and Bible reading.

Um, I'm easily distracted in worship.

Let me, let me just diverse for one second about distractions and worship.

I think it's not only are you, you may be easily distracted because your attention's not with it, maybe you don't care, maybe you've got a spiritual frog, you know, you gotta eat.

Have you ever found yourself that way?

You're in church.

The summer is going on, but your mind is just completely occupied with something that is eating you up.

Maybe there's things that are distracting you, so you're easily distracted.

But let me, let me diverse one second talk about you being a distraction.

So a lot of us, I love technology, a lot of us have phones.

And we, maybe we shouldn't pay attention to what everybody's doing around us.

Some people can just lock things out and go on.

But if you're doing this, I'm fairly confident you're not speed reading the Bible.

And if you're doing this, And it just continues and continues.

I'm fairly confident you're not doing a word search in your Bible program.

That can be distracting to others.

Now, you might be saying to yourself, well, they should just pay attention to their own business.

But if the things that you are doing are distracting to others, that's a problem.

Now, this one, this is a touchy one.

I want to make very, very clear.

I'm not talking about little children, I'm not talking about mothers with babies.

We all have health issues, but how many times do you get up in the service and go out?

If I want you to put yourself in like a corporate setting or just some setting.

And your CEO, somebody big, whatever the setting is in your mind, is talking to you and you just get up and walk out.

Now, I'm not God.

Uh, Allen's not God.

Whoever is reading the scripture is not God, but that is God's word being put out.

If, if you can't plan to be here on time, if you can't plan to be able to sit for 103 minutes, Maybe you gotta look at that.

Why are you going out constantly?

Now, I know this, this is a little bit mean-hearted, maybe, but it's actually not.

It, it is distracting if you get up 50 times during the service.

Again, I know there's things with children, with babies, people who have health problems.

I've, I've had to get up and go to the back myself.

But just think about things.

How about telling white lies or exaggerating?

I used to be terrible about this when I was, especially when I was young.

I don't do it much anymore, but you'll never know.

No, I'm kidding.

I don't do it anymore.

But I, I would lie about things that didn't matter.

I mean, literally didn't matter.

I, I got bit by a spider one time.

And Nobody believed what I was telling them.

It was banished, and I think I was in 5th grade, but you know what happened?

It was a grease fire and there was a baby in it.

I had to pull it out.

Why, why would I even do that?

It's because I wanted people to look at me and go, oh, that's cool.

That's what exaggeration is, really.

You want people to go, oh, that's cool.

Or maybe you're telling that little white lie to make life a little bit easier.

Complaining or grumbling.

We're gonna move on and patient and smart enough.

If you're a constant complainer, it's just no fun being around you.

And and you'll bring everybody around you down, and you will affect your own mental state.

There, and I, I can't speak to everything about it, but it's, I know it to be true.

If you will act happy, you will become happy.

I'm not talking about putting on a false state.

I'm talking about choosing to be cheerful, choosing to look on the bright side, choosing to find something good about people instead of bad.

Choosing to find things about this building you like instead of every other thing you don't.

And we don't hear a lot of that here, thankfully, but if you've been someplace where it's like that, I have Impatient in small matters, occasional gossip or idle talk, failing to encourage others, that's a big one for me.

I, I think all the time, there's a comedian, one time he said that he was, he, he makes His shtick is to make fun of mega churches.

And he said he was walking through the foyer and he saw Mrs.

Smith coming, and he quickly went.

Lord, please be Miss Smith.

Hey, Ms. Smith, I've been praying for you.

Now, why would he do that?

Cause he feels bad cause he probably knew he should have been.

Uh, I'll tell you the prayer list is awesome.

Uh, it, it makes it where you can have at your fingertips people you need to think about.

And I know there's families here that go through that prayer list with their kids, and that, that's amazing.

Uh, laziness and small responsibilities.

Being hospitable or friendly.

That's a hard, how many times?

Have you, and I'm, cause I've done it, uh, there's nothing I'm gonna say except for maybe murder, that is a, is a spiritual fraud that probably I haven't been guilty of.

How many times do you let the congregation said, well, that was an unfriendly group.

I won't ask her to say, uh, you know, raise your hand.

But now think about Do I look for visitors and go talk to them and go out of my way to make them feel welcome.

No, somebody else will do it.

We got deacons that will take care of it.

They're, they're handing out the cards.

Alan's gonna make every effort we can get there.

We got other friends.

It's taken care of.

They, they, they know we're friendly.

No, it, you get out of your comfort zone, be friendly with people.

Be friendly with people at work.

Not letting go of small offenses.

Now, these are, you know, these are just little earthworms, right?

They're not, no, we gotta get out of that mentality because they're, they're actually frogs, we need to start swallowing.

We may think they're small things, but remember we talked about the big things and the little things, right?

Is there really such a thing.

So, let me ask you this.

How do we eat that frog?

How do we get going on it?

Well, we need to pray first of all.

Going back to the prayer of the Psalm that at the beginning, ask God to look in your heart to find what it is you need to work on.

Pray for courage.

In Philippians 4.

Now, I want you to think about these spiritual things.

We always think about being anxious about external things.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be known to God.

That could be something very internal.

That's giving you anxiety.

Pray to God about it, that he'll give you a spirit of confidence and courage.

Because if you do that, This is not perhaps the peace of God, or, you know, if you give it a chance, the peace of God, or, you know, maybe if you're lucky, The peace of God, it says, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding.

You may not even understand.

What makes you feel at peace?

Once you do these things, But that peace will guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ.

Take the first step to obedience.

And just know that you can do all things, because Christ strengthens us.

In Proverbs 35 and 6, trust in the Lord of thy heart.

Do not lean on your own understanding.

That gets in our way a lot.

Yeah, I think I know how, yeah, I've I've got this problem, but I think this is the way I should deal with it.

Well, maybe there's some other things you can do, seek accountability.

Uh, In Hebrews 13:17 says, obey your leaders and submit to them, for they're keeping watch.

So this is a shameless plug for the elders.

Nothing Nothing hurts you.

More than 10 Nothing hurts us more to know that you're struggling with sin, but Nothing gives us more joy than if you'll come and ask us to help you with that sin.

And we're not perfect, We know that But he, he's given us a responsibility for a reason.

He's given us guidance in the word.

We're not gonna lean on our own understanding.

We want to help you, and God, God has given elders to look over your soul for that very reason.

Not to elevators, But to make a service to you.

James 5:16 says, therefore, con, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another.

I'll tell you, this is a big one for me.

I don't, I don't tell other people what my sins are all the time and ask them to pray for me.

Is it a trust issue?

Is it a shame issue?

And, you know, what is it that keeps me from doing that?

But if I do it, it says I'll be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power in its working.

There, there's so many things that we can do to start eating that frog.

But you just got to eat it.

That's the whole point.

You gotta eat the frog.

If you got a spiritual issue, you got to address it.

Let's go to God in prayer.

Father, we thank you for Uh, all the The wonders of creation you've given us.

Even, and this is light-hearted Lord, we know you've given us a sense of humor, but even as we consider the ugliness and the The foul taste that eating a raw frog would put in her mouth.

That same foul taste is in your mouth if we allow sin to reign over as if we If we haven't submitted ourselves to you in baptism, that same foul taste is our lives.

In your mouth, and Lord, we, we pray that you would help us to Look at ourselves hard, To use your word to do that.

To take on those things, whether they be what we consider big or what we consider small, we need you, Lord, and that is our prayer this morning.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

In just a second, we're gonna stand up to sing an invitation song and uh I've said this many times and I'll say it again, the reason we stand up is one everybody's ready to stretch, service is almost over.

But if you're standing, it's easier to take a step.

If you're standing and people are singing, and you know the people here love you, it's easy to take a step.

In Exodus 8, there's a very, very funny thing.

Uh, Gary pointed this out to me years ago and I just always think about it.

When the, when the frogs were in the land.

And And Moses said, or Pharaoh said, plead to your God.

That they would be taken away.

Mos said, when do you want me to do this?

In verse 10, he said, Tomorrow.

Why would you wait till tomorrow?

And I thought about a lot.

Wouldn't it be convenient if the locust came before the frogs?

It would have been kind of neat.

But But here's all these frogs, and he said tomorrow.

Why would he wait until tomorrow?

You can't figure you could read that 1000 times and not figure out why he's waiting till tomorrow.

You may be looking at yourself and saying, why am I waiting till tomorrow?

Don't If you're not baptized and you haven't realized the forgiveness of your sin, don't wait.

Eat the frog now.

If you're a Christian and you gotta make things right, eat the frog now.

Let's stand on this thing.