I'm taking a aspirin day at least before at least.

Well, I'm super glad to have all of you with us today at all of our locations.

If you do have your Bibles, we're going to start in Proverbs 25, we're in the second week of a series called Toxic to Dale and to talk to you about Toxic influences before we dive in.

I'm curious, how many of you are like me? You love movies, all of our locations. You love movies. Anybody like the New Karate Kid? Anybody like that? New Karate Kid? I liked it. Take a jacket on. Put your jacket off on. Fight!

I liked it. Toys Story 3. Anybody watch Toys Story 3? At the end, I'm there with my kids, and I'm crying at Toys Story 3. Daddy, are you crying? I've got something in my eye. There's just something in my eye. I'm crying at Toys Story 3. Inception. Anybody see Inception? Inception? Is this a dream? Is this real? I don't know. If you haven't seen it, you don't know what I'm talking about. There's another movie, 2009 Golden Globe winner of the year for the best comedy. About half the people that I know.

I've talked to, they've seen the movie hangover. I haven't seen the movie. I know a lot of you have. Here it's very funny. For those of you that have seen the movie hangover, I want to just kind of talk about that one in particular for a minute. I could talk about any number of different ones. This one's just relatively easy to talk about for this sermon. If you have seen it, like the people I talked to that have seen the movie hangover, they didn't realize what I'm about to tell you. I told them, did you know this? They're like,

I did notice that in the movie. So for those of you that have seen it or if you're considering seeing it, you may have made out of notice. There are actually 91 different versions of the F-bomb in this movie. 91 different versions of the F-bomb. There's 41 S-words, 9 slang terms for the male private parts, 2 for the female, 13 hells, 14 A, crooked letter, crooked letter words, 31 different version of God's name.

31 different versions of God's name and vein. And this doesn't include the innumerable sexual references and sexual scenes. So how many of you did not see the movie hangover? It did not see it. How many of you want to thank God right now? In charge that you didn't see this movie. Because you're going, oh, I feel so guilty or so weird. And if you did see it, you're going to see the movie hangover.

You're going to see the movie, like about half of my friends and people I'm close to. I don't want you to feel just like the biggest loser right now. Because I have seen movies that are similar to that. I'll just be real honest. And growing up, I saw about a bazillion that were very similar to that and probably even worse. But what's interesting is the people that I talked to as it did you realize that there was about one F-bomb per minute. Minutes. Like, no. No, I didn't even notice.

And how many of you like mixed martial arts or you might call it cage fighting or UFC a little throw down? How many of you like that? You're not going to raise my hand. This could be a trick question. There's not a trick question. I like MMA. I like watching that. But I'll be honest. The first time I saw it years ago, it turned my stomach. These guys are in a cage and they're much larger than I am and very mean looking and they're just pounding each other. And this one. I don't know if they changed that. I don't know if they changed that.

Sometimes the rules are not. But back then, they took this guy and they put him in an arm lock and I watched as his arm snapped. His forearm just popped. And I was like, and it grossed me out. And then I watched it again and it wasn't as gross. And now, after watching it for a long time, I bring my little sons in and we're like, snap his arm. And I guess my standards have maybe changed. You could say,

I've been desensitized to something that used to turn my stomach and now I'm entertained by it. I like it. Could it be that there is a generation that's been desensitized to watching what used to be maybe bad and now we consider it good.

And we don't even notice that so many of us are consuming and paying for and seeking out toxic influences. Fair question, right?

Honestly, this is going to be a tough message. I just want you to know for everybody, if it's not tough for you, it's probably because you're not following Christ.

I mean, I'll be real honest because just as loud as culture is, we are inundated with messages that are not pleasing to God.

So if it's not tough for you, because you're not a Christian or because maybe you're a Christian, it's not very sensitive to what God wants to say to you.

Because let's be honest. Chances are every one of you have been to a movie or seen something on TV or read something or looked at something.

It wasn't pleasing to God, probably with some F-bombs and maybe some God's name and veins. And it didn't really bother you, but think about it.

If I did say 91 F-bombs in this sermon, you'd probably be offended. If I did one, you'd probably be offended.

And yet, you willingly consumed that and paid money for it probably in the last 30 days.

Can you see the tension? Toxic influences. If you're taking notes, here's our definition for toxic for this series.

It's anything containing poisonous material capable of causing sickness or even death, anything today we're talking about influences.

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