what is up Church by the glades what's up man was that amazing or what Wow listen don't don't make fun of me but I had never actually heard that Michael Jackson Janet Jackson song ever I was getting roasted for I know but that was amazing that's a great way to find out about that song give them give the creative team another round of applause that was amazing for those of you don't know me my name is Abe I'm one of the pastor's here at church by the glades and allow me to welcome you to week two of escaping the Haunted Mansion so much fun and typically in the weeks leading up to this series and even last week when we kicked it off Pastor David has spent a couple of minutes kind of explaining why we as a church have kind of just full-on embraced Halloween and a Halloween themed series and the reason he does that is because there may be some of you guys in the crowd that grew up in a more traditional church environment and you might be asking yourself like man why would a church kind of embrace a holiday like Halloween and I don't know if you're like me but every time he explains why we're doing a Halloween themed series I always wonder like how many people in the crowd are actually speculating how many people in the crowd are actually skeptical like I can't imagine that there's very many people because I think we're all willing to acknowledge that though Halloween has some pretty sinister origins that over the last couple hundreds of years it's really evolved into an excuse to eat like pastor David said a lot of simple carbs and we're really silly costumes right but listen if you're here and you're like me and you're like man pastor dave was just preaching to the choir man like we're all on the same page like pastor David you're not you're wasting your time like we're all on the same page I want you guys to remember this every time he addresses that he's referring to and he's addressing people like my mother okay now let me tell you a little something my mom my mom oh my gosh I love my mom my mom is one of the godliest people that you will ever meet yeah that's right get my mom thank you you guys are so you guys are still honoring yeah she's one of Godley's people I've ever known my mom prays so much like coming up that's all I remember my mom doing just praying for our family praying for my school praying for traffic just she prayed for everything and like even to this day like church by the glades we are like number one on my mom's prayer list like I think I think my mom like she's consistently praying for all the life change that happens here she prays for the youth ministry which I'm a part of man she's amazing right but with all that being said my mother did not raise my sister and I to celebrate Halloween no she did not Halloween was not welcome in our home okay the the costumes were not welcome the scary movies weren't welcome the decorations weren't welcome the candy was banned from the household in October none of it like none of it was was accepted into my home in the older I've gotten the more I've come to realize that the reason my mom feels that way has a lot to do with her cultural background and just her upbringing you know if you're a first generation born American like I am or maybe you're here and you immigrated to this country maybe you're from the Caribbean or you're a Latino do we have any Latinos in the house yeah let's go that's what I am I'm a full-blooded Latino so you you're gonna understand where my mom's coming from on this like for here in America like by general consensus little children dressing up and trick-or-treating is like the cutest thing ever is it not like the little four-year-old boy shows up looking like Buzz Light you're like oh my gosh like oh she the little girl she's dressed up as a strawberry here have all the free candy bought at my own expense have all of it right that's how we kind of feel about it here in America but for my mom not so much see for my mom little children wandering around a neighborhood dressed up going from door to door asking for candy is actually quite dangerous and in her country it's called panhandling and my mom didn't immigrate to this country to raise me to be a beggar she came to this country so I could be a doctor or a lawyer ha ha joke's on her I'm a faster so listen my mom was not about that life listen the only time I remember ever dressing up for Halloween was one year when my mom took me to an anti Halloween event at a church now listen that's how you know your hater listen you don't want to celebrate Halloween fine don't dress up don't put up decorations wear the cute little kids come a-knockin don't open up the doors just ignore them like they're not even there but when you start hosting an anti Halloween event you've got a bridge too far but you need a chill right so I go to this anti Halloween event and you won't the one rule is to get admission into this anti Halloween event I had to dress up like a Bible character because god forbid god forbid you show up to church dressed up as spider-man so I don't have very many choices like how many cool Bible characters could I possibly dress like so I'm left with like one King David right y'all know David kill Goliath the giant-slayer Giant Killer like yeah I'm gonna be the Giant Killer so I show up to this party dressed up as David the Giant Killer and so did every other person at the Halloween party the anti Halloween party to make matters worse have you ever tried dressing up like a Bible character on a budget I showed up looking like the hood cello version of David to add insult to injury my mom tried talking me into wearing that same costume to my school's costume party the next day so that when people would ask me who I was I might share the gospel I had two thoughts a no B why show up dressed up as the hood cello version of David when I show up looking like the hood Shola version of myself every other day of school what are we talking about here mom now here's the thing even though my sister and I didn't celebrate Halloween it did not by any means mean that our household was deprived of any it wasn't like I had just as many in my life not just in October I'm talking about year-round people okay she trusts me like I did not miss that I know y'all watch scary movies and all that but I didn't miss out on the horse I wonder if we have anyone in the house was ever heard the spooky terrifying legend of mom's flying sandals are y'all familiar otherwise known as in Spanish as la chancla das y'all know about no chancla does you know what I mean like here's the thing chunk lettuce did it just attack in October they attack when I forgot to do my homework we're not in like what was for dinner when I looked at her wrong when I talked back if I did any of the above it would awaken my mom's telekinetic ability to take all the available footwear apparel on the room and launch it in my general direction it's okay though builds character but in all seriousness when it comes to Halloween like do you ever notice that when you look back at your childhood and you think of like growing up and and celebrating how when we're doing the whole thing did you ever realize that when you were like in high school or maybe you were even a little bit younger that there was always this monster or this this horror movie villain that kind of dominated your decade like like in the 70s Michael Myers was definitely that you know it came out in 78 but he didn't he it was okay if he came out later on in the 70s like he was so horrific that he's still like dominated the whole decade in the 80s who was it Freddy Krueger people Freddy Krueger Nightmare on Elm Street in the 90s I don't know if you guys remember this but there is this slasher film called scream scream that masked man that terrorized children right now in the 2000s when I was in high school it wasn't any of those I don't know if you remember but in the 2000s there's just this absolute onslaught of books movies and TV shows about vampires vampires beyond a shadow of a doubt dominated the 2000s right and it was almost like like pop culture and Hollywood became so obsessed with this question what if instead of our grandfathers vampire what if we created a new generation of vampires that lived amongst us as opposed to them being a distant people group as opposed to them just interacting with humans when it was time to feed and they lived in Transylvania what if they were like your co-workers what if it was they went to school with you what if it was your boyfriend right and from this question how would we deal with vampires all different kinds of movies books and and shows came out HBO had this show that had a crazy run that was called True Blood the book series Twilight became the movie series Twilight and it dominated like the box office for years and years and years blade Underworld I don't know if you guys are familiar with all these flicks but they all had their own response they had all had their own solution to how humans might deal with vampires now here's the thing I think Hollywood was right on track but here's the thing I don't know that it's a matter of fiction I don't know that it's a matter of if vampires live amongst us I think vampires do live amongst us now before you look at me all crazy let me ask you this question if vampires aren't real then what do you call all those people that suck the life out of you takers anyone what uh what do you call the one-upper in your life the no filter people in your life the personal space invaders in your life the Debbie downers in your life the passive-aggressive people in your life the close talkers the creepy uncles the guy who always forgets his wallet the telemarketers the crop dusters the University of Alabama fans the too much cologne guy bad tippers people who order a bottle of wine drink all of it and then suggest splitting the bill skinny people who complain about not being able to gain weight your middle school son who refuses to wear deodorant what if anything do you call these people other than vampires they're vampires people who suck the life out of you now I got to be honest I got to keep it real this is not an original thought Pastor David actually taught this years ago he did a series how brilliant is this it was called how to hug a vampire dealing with people who sucked the life out of you I'm not sure how many of you guys were around for that but he taught the series years ago and at the time my relationship with Jesus was really taken off and from the series from what he taught I really took a lot of that and I gleaned and I brought a lot of order to relationships that for a long time had a lot of disorder so in a series that's called escaping a haunted mansion I thought you know what how much more appropriate could this subject be like you can't escape a haunted mansion without first learning to navigate some relationships with vampires because at the end of the day the series was called how to hug a vampire the sermon is called how to hug a vampire it's not called how to slay a vampire God has not called us to slay the life-sucking life-sucking people in our life God has called us to embrace them love them and somehow navigate the relationships with them the same way he did if anyone at was surrounded by vampires man it was Jesus but in Scripture he taught us how to love those people anyways so what I want to do before we take off and we going to these points I want to read to you from Romans chapter 12 and Romans chapter 12 is like this all-encompassing passage about relationships about ideally what godly relationships should look like if we follow the Word of God I want you guys to consider this like God's relational manifesto it's amazing it's Romans chapter 12 verses 9 through 21 it's kind of a lengthy passage but it has so much goodness in it if you guys want to join me on the screen read along with me and let's see what God has to say about what our relationships should look like and you'll see here references to vampires says this love from the center of who you are don't think it run for dear life from evil hold on for dear life to good be good friends who love deeply practice playing second fiddle it's not all about you boo boo don't burn out keep yourselves fueled and a flame be alert servants of the master cheerfully expected don't quit in hard times pray all the harder help needy Christians be inventive in hospitality be inventive the Bible is encouraging us to be creative in how we show love and hospitality to one another it goes on verses 14 through 16 bless your enemies no cursing under your breath laugh with your happy friends when they're happy share tears when they're down get along with each other don't be stuck-up make friends with nobodies don't be the great somebody don't hit back discover beauty in everyone if you've got it in you get along with everybody if you've got it in you that is not a way out where you're just like Jesus today I just had to have it in me I don't have it in me I can't get it I can't I can't cope no the Bible says that the same power that rose Jesus from the grave lives inside you and that means that you have it in you where was I okay don't insist on getting even that's not for you to do I'll do the judging says God I'll take care of it our scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry go buy that person lunch or if he's thirsty get him a drink your generosity will surprise him with goodness don't let evil get the best of you get the best of evil by doing good that's beautiful right I was hoping you guys would clap at that because I want to take a second to openly acknowledge all the tension that's in that passage see I think sometimes like we approach God's Word we read God's Word we listen to God's Word and we take at its face value without ever really questioning what it means practically in our lives right now I was raised in church and my parents taught me at a very young age that God's Word wood and wood all wood is and would always be the ultimate authority in my life okay I was taught that if at any point I didn't know what to do who to call on or where to go that this book would point me in the right direction which by the way parents that is one of the most foundational values that you could ever instill into your children now full disclosure open disclaimer like I'm not a parent I don't know how hard it is to raise a kid so I'm not trying to give you parenting advice I'm not don't come at me okay but I am a son and I want to encourage you as a son I want to encourage you as a child I want to encourage you because the Bible says this that if you raise a child in the way that they should go that when they become older they will never depart from it now I don't know about you but that sounds to me like a parenting promise right now I'm not the product of perfect parenting but I am the product of two parents who taught me that this book was a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path and it has served me well in all of my life regardless of what I've up to regardless if I was up to good regardless if I was up to bad in the back of my mind I knew that this was it but even even for people like me who acknowledge and recognize this book as ultimate truth I think what will sometimes happen is we'll read scriptures like what we just read and we'll not our heads will be like oh yeah that's good we pay religious homage to it right which is useless by the way but then we never walk away and ask ourselves then how do I actually put this into practice we just read a scripture that says to bless our enemies that if we see that our enemies are in need to fulfill their needs and some other part of Scripture Jesus tells us to straight-up love our enemies but what does it look like to do that on Monday morning when our annoying manipulative conniving co-worker is up to no good yet again what does that look like what do we actually do and I think if we're being honest most of us just kind of fall back on old habits forgetting well God's Word has called us to do which is to love them so how to hug a vampire let's talk about that practically the first foundational truth that I would kind of want to lay down is this vampires build barriers but healthy people build boundaries okay well you guys read that with me I'll get it started here vampires build barriers healthy people build boundaries barriers let's start off with bears barriers are bad what kind of barriers am I talking about well there's all different kinds of barriers racial barriers socio-economic barriers gender barriers if there's one thing you need to know about barriers it's that Jesus came to destroy them he came to do away with barriers the gospel of Jesus Christ makes no exception based on on class based on race based on culture based on ethnicity based on class and I'm happy to be a part of a church that is destroying bears by simply inviting everyone and anyone to come worship with us no perfect people allowed I don't know if you guys have noticed this but our church has more diversity than episode of Sesame Street we got it all man we got it all I love being a part of a church like that listen barriers are bad barriers are for suckers barriers are for vampires don't don't do barriers in life but I do want to encourage you to do boundaries it's just something Pastor David taught man boundaries are beautiful not only are they beautiful but they're biblical chances are if you're a homeowner in Florida you know exactly where your property boundaries are and if you don't know where your property property boundaries are chances are that you just haven't had a hurricane knocked down a tree on your home okay after her happened I heard about all different kinds of disputes between property owners that were fighting over whose responsibility it was to pay for the damage that the tree had caused on the house that the tree had caused on the cars that the trees had caused just in general right but the funny thing is it wasn't until after the destruction had happened it wasn't until after disaster struck that anyone bothered asking themselves where the boundaries were see if you want to navigate your relationship with your vampire successfully you got to know where the boundaries are in your life right so many of us we we don't wait until after we've been betrayed until after we've been hurt so after that person stole from us until after they cheated on us to ask ourselves what good healthy boundaries could have prevented if we had known where they should have been to begin with you got to know where your boundaries are you have to know that okay now what ends up happening when it comes to boundaries is this is that so many of us have such an extensive negative history of not being able to set these boundaries for some of you guys this is the first time you're hearing this and you're like man I never thought of that like I'm not supposed to treat all my relationships and maybe you just have a graveyard of just awful relationship experiences well here's the thing if if you have a negative history of not being able to set boundaries I'm about to give you a solution to that see as I was doing some research about property boundaries getting ready for tonight what I found out is that oftentimes when there's a dispute between two different property owners about where the property lines are what they will do to settle the dispute is to bring in a third party and that third party is known as a property surveyor and the property surveyor comes in and they survey the property and with the help of maps tools and deeds they help you figure out where the boundaries to your home really are now if you're who I was referring to or typically you just really stink at setting healthy boundaries can I make a suggestion can I suggest to you that you bring in a third party that you bring in a relational surveyor to look at your relationships and say hey this person shouldn't be talking to you like that hey they should have be texting you after dark hey you need to be careful going to that person's party you need a relational surveyor man now here's the thing Church by the glades has resources for that ladies if you're a part of our church can I encourage you to come to our Thursday evening Bible studies man you need to come check those out you need to sit down in a circle of other like-minded women who are headed in the same and the right direction who are able to speak wisdom it's your life and say hey that's that's not that's not right you got to do something about that men I'm not about to let you off the hook man we got something for you too every Friday morning at 7 a.m. we have a band of brothers Bible study breakfast provided by the way and that's an excellent opportunity for you to come learn what healthy boundaries look like because the truth is there's so many of us that have had such a history of toxic relationships that we need some help putting things into order man there's no shame in needing help you need a relational surveyor to come help you make sense of your relational real estate that's what's that's for that that's what we provide that for now well I say that I also want to address this with you guys there's a lot of you guys that are well-intentioned and you're gonna leave this place with every with every idea with every intention in mind to go put this into practice but I need to warn you about something I need to warn you that not all vampires are created equally they're not all created equally okay you can't compare your well-meaning but invasive mother-in-law to an abusive predatory ex-boyfriend you can't compare the two and there are some vampires that are manipulative they're cunning and there are expert negotiators and the moment that they figure out that you're trying to put some boundaries in the end into place they're gonna give you pushback they're gonna say boundaries boundaries for what does that mean you don't care about me anymore does that mean you don't love me and when you get tempted to let some of those boundaries down I need you to remember this unconditional love does not mean unrestricted access you can give unconditional love without giving unrestricted access let me tell you that is the downfall of so many of our relationships as we think that God has called us to love these people unconditionally but we think that that means inviting that person over our house we think that means going to grab a drink with them we think that means breaking bread with them that's not what that means you can love someone at a distance just look at Jesus man Jesus with stiff arm and haters left and right left and right left him right he wasn't hanging out with these guys you can love these people at a distance that brings me to my second point and my second point tonight is this you must suck proof your soul suck proof your soul what does that mean that means you need to make your soul impervious to life sucking people you got to protect your heart from life sucking people I don't know about you but I'm an expert at giving people in my life way too much power and way too much authority to affect my thoughts my feelings and my well-being I don't know if you're like me but maybe at some point in time you've said man that person ruined my day that person made me so upset that person made me feel fill in the blank can we just take a moment to recognize how ridiculous that statement is a person made you feel a certain way if we're not careful we're handing licenses to people left and right to hold us at emotional gunpoint and here's the thing how are we gonna let people take our hearts hostage when our hearts belong to Jesus we have no business we have no business allowing people to make us feel a certain way and here's the thing you could set all the boundaries you want but boundaries don't mean that you're protecting yourself on the inside boundaries are things that you put into play on the outside but taking care of your soul protecting your soul from vampires is an inside job it's an inside job we have to make sure that we are doing the best to protect our souls I have some exciting news to share with you guys my wife and I even though we've just been married for eight months we're getting ready to welcome the newest member of the matos family that's right I brought a picture y'all I want you guys to meet are puffy that's coming home in November she's a golden retriever and her name is America because what's more American than a golden retriever and I'm gonna be a puppy parent y'all so I'm doing my research I'm on Google I'm on Amazon like I'm trying to have my house right and what I figured out is that people puppy-proof their homes did you guys know that they puppy-proof their homes to protect their belongings and to make sure that their puppy's safe people go as far as puppy proofing their cars exhibit a this is called a puppy car zip line and what it does is it protects your puppy from jumping into the front seat where they can hurt themselves or cause a distraction to you in traffic now I show you all that because I want to make a point we take all kinds of protective measures to protect the belongings and the people that we love we puppy-proof things we waterproof things we baby-proof things we get car insurance we get health insurance we get life insurance we get flood insurance we insure everything we own but how come we don't protect the most important resource we have which is our soul how come we don't do that and here's the thing the tricky thing about your soul is no one else can see it no one else knows what's going on there besides you and God so you can fake it all you want but let me tell you something there's an expiration date on all the fakery okay you will only be able to fake a healthy soul for so long because what will happen is something that will expose the true condition of your soul is a vampire it's a life sucking person in your life and let me let me break this you God uses vampires why wouldn't he he uses everything God uses vampires you want to know how God uses people certain people in your life he uses them as spiritual sandpaper to get into all those tough to reach corners of your character so he can conform you to be more like his son Jesus right and sometimes we gotta embrace that but if we're at a point in our life where we're like man hey I can't take it I don't care how many boundaries I said I don't care how much how much I try to love these people I just can't love these people in my life you need to realize that you are operating from a place of emptiness and brokenness and here's the thing the reason you can't give unconditional love is you can't give from that which you do not have and we're trying to love people with the love of God in public but we're not positioning ourselves in private to receive God's love and you see Jesus modeled this all the time I was gonna read the the verses but for the sake of time I wanna I want to tell you a story about Jesus Jesus modeled this this way this is just one of the many ways he did by the way Jesus had a cousin his name was John the Baptist and John the Baptist was Jesus's cousin but he was also a colabor he was someone that that worked alongside Jesus John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus Jesus deeply cared about John and John gets beheaded and the Bible says that when news reaches Jesus that his cousin that his friend had been killed that immediately Jesus withdrew privately he withdrew privately he got on his boat and he hightailed he went to spend time alone with God and the Bible says that when the masses when the crowds found out that Jesus had gone into his boat that they chose to follow him so when Jesus arrives to shore he has the crowds that are waiting on him and instead of being upset instead of being like man can't you guys just leave me alone don't you know my my friend just died the Bible says that Jesus had compassion on them how else would he have done that how how else would he have responded in love to those people unless he had first retreated to his heavenly Father you see we need to retreat to our Heavenly Father to receive his love to replenish all the love that were called to dispense day to day in our comings and goings even with the people that are difficult to love okay but here's the thing is is we get tired of loving these people and we become exhausted and eventually we feel like we're unable to love but we because we're not replenishing what we've dispensed allow me to illustrate this for you guys I brought some cups with me to make a point I want to take these two cups here right and I'm gonna make a point out of these cups okay these two cups look identical right but there's a distinct difference between these two cups one of them has a hole in it the other one is hole now here's the thing I want to make a point with this because both of these cups in function they function kind of the same because here's the thing about both of these cups is they both dispense water allow me to illustrate if I take this cup and I fill it up it's gonna dispense water right but it's doing so from a place of brokenness and what we need to know is no matter how much water we fill this up with it'll always end up empty see here's my point real love is not supposed to leak real love overflows real love overflows and so many of us think we're doing well but really we're just leaking love and eventually we're gonna end up empty because we're not retreating to the Heavenly Father in private to replenish what's come out of us we expect to be able to love people unconditionally without making the time in private with God to read his word to spend time in meditation and a prayer and journaling and and writing down the reasons why we're grateful for him and we end up parched and and thirsty and feeling used up but it's because we've gone about it the wrong way real love is supposed to overflow you see the way real love looks is first we fill up in private with God's love and eventually once we've been filled up and retained every chakra meant to retain then all the sudden we start filling all the other people around us with the love that God has called to love them with but it's from a place of wholeness it's from a place of entirety I got all wet just to make that point that's that's how we're supposed to love people we're supposed to be overflowing boozing with love but we need to make the time in private this hour that you're spending here in church man it's sacred it's awesome this is a gathering where we worship with like-minded people but you got to supplement this with something from Monday to Saturday you have to or else you'll never be able to love people the way God's called you to love them my last point is this loving the people that sucked the life out of you starts with realizing that you suck - that's so good Pastor David unfortunately I have some bad news your life will never be sucker free ever there will always be vampires in your life because if you wanted to live a life free of vampires God would have to take you out of this world because the worst vampire in your life is the one staring you back in the mirror but that's the thing about vampires and mirrors right I don't know if you know this about vampire folklore but vampires don't do mirrors they can't see their reflection in the mirror and that's important because mirrors represent self reflection it represents the moments in your days and your weeks where you say God show me what it is about me that you want to change God is there anything in me that offends you that's what David said Lord search my heart and search my soul show me what it is inside of me that offends you so I can change it but the truth is most of us don't walk around holding a mirror asking God God what do you want to do in my life no we put down the mirror and we pick up the magnifying glass and we walk around getting all up in people's chili criticizing gossiping speculating you know we we become the most critical person in other people's lives and all of a sudden we wake up one day to find out that we are someone else's vampire man loving the people that suck the life out of you starts by realizing that you suck - we suck - we do put the magnifying glass down pick up the mirror and the more you reflect in this mirror the more you will realize how audacious how beautiful how ridiculous is the love of Jesus that he would lay his life down for you and me Oh God is so good and then all of a sudden when you realize that Jesus died for sinners yourself included all the sudden you start loving all the sinners around you and it becomes easier vampires build barriers healthy people build boundaries remember that set some healthy boundaries in your life suck proof your soul make some time this week to spend alone with God and finally realize that you suck - because it will fill your heart with the joy of Christ knowing that He loves you infinitely let me pray for you guys God thank you so much for everybody that's here today god I pray for every person without a doubt they have a vampire in their life god I pray that you would strengthen them God that you would give them wisdom to build those healthy boundaries god that you would show them how sweet it is to spend just 5 10 15 minutes a day with you and finally that you would fill their hearts with a realization God that they are a sinner but you died for them anyways and it's in your name we pray and all God's people say