You know, oh man, my job's going bad and my family's messed up and I'm sick all the time
and all that stuff.
But you know, if you start thinking about other people and caring about other people
and helping other people, it's going to make you a lot happier in life.
And you know, what is soul winning all about?
Soul winning is not about us.
It's about others.
I mean, when we go out and go soul winning, we knock thousands and thousands and thousands
of doors and we preach unto thousands and thousands of people.
I mean, look at that map.
Look how much ground we've covered.
I mean, we've knocked the doors of hundreds of thousands of people with the gospel.
Are all those people just coming to our church and putting money in the offering plate and
being a part of our church and singing the songs with us and helping us out?
Guess what?
99.9% of the people that we go out and try to help and try to preach to, they're not
ever going to do anything for us.
They're never even going to grace us with their presence one time.
I mean, how many of those people just slam the door and don't even care, tell you to
drop dead?
And even the ones who listen to you and you preach them the gospel, they're probably not
going to do anything for us ever again.
And people who get saved, many of them are never even going to set foot in this church.
So why do we do it?
Do we do it because, you know, well, this is the way to build a fast growing mega church
today.
No, we do it for one reason.
It's for them.
It's not for us.
We don't get anything out of it.
We receive nothing.
We don't get, it doesn't make us any money.
It doesn't make our church grow.
They don't come over and do our yard work for us or anything or help us out or cook
us dinner or anything.
They do nothing for us.
But that's okay.
That's not our goal.
Our goal is not to go out to be served.
It's to serve.
It's to help them.
And you know what?
That's why 99% of churches don't do any soul winning.
Did you hear me?
That's why they don't do it.
Because they don't care about other people, they care about themselves.
They don't care about some handicapped person that's never going to set foot outside their
apartment and the only way they're going to hear the gospel is if somebody comes to their
door and brings it to them.
They don't care about that person.
They just want another yuppie SUV to pull into their parking lot and throw money in
the plate and look pretty in the pew and build their church and make their church thrive
and be successful and grow.
I don't care whether our church is successful and grows.
Jesus Christ said upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it.
So that's up to Him.
I mean if the church grows that doesn't help me.
That doesn't help you.
That's going to be Jesus' blessing and that's up to Him.
Who cares as far as I'm concerned?
It's my job to get up and preach.
It's my job to serve God.
Let God deal with His own house whether He wants it to be big or small.
He told us to go out and preach the gospel to every creature and that's what we're going
to do.
But most churches they don't care about that elderly person that can't get out of the house.
They don't care about that teenager whose parents don't believe in God, don't believe
in the Bible and will never take them to church.
Hey I care about that teenager.
I'm going to bring him to gospel.
He's not going to come to church but I'm going to come to him and preach him the gospel.
They don't care about the Spanish speaker that doesn't even speak English to learn Spanish
and to go preach the gospel to them.
Why?
Because there's nothing in return to them.
They'd rather take all their time and all their money and all their resources into some
glossy mailer to send to your house to tell you, oh come to our church and we promise
that we won't preach on your sin and we promise we won't talk about money and we promise that
the music will be contemporary.
We literally got a thing in the mail that said this is our pledge to you.
Number one, the music will be contemporary.
Number two, we will not mention money.
Number three, it will be a relevant message, translation, it won't come from the Bible.
Relevant preaching is a code word.
We won't preach biblical doctrine, we'll just preach feel good stuff that applies to you
and your personal life.
Relevant preaching.
What are you trying to say?
That there's something in the Bible that's not relevant?
No, scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable over doctrine.
Oh, it's relevant preaching.
What is it?
What's irrelevant?
Leviticus?
No, it's profitable.
It's all relevant.
Give me this relevant preaching.
I love irrelevant sermons.
I'm serious.
I like somebody to just get up and preach the Bible.
I don't care if it fits my personal life right now.
I want to learn God's word.
I just like God.
I just like the Bible.
I just like Leviticus.
I like it.
I don't need to be relevant.
It's going to tie you into your personal life that, no, I just preach it to me.
Preach it all.
Some of it ties in today and some of it will tie in tomorrow.
Eventually it's all going to be relevant in your life.
Or it was relevant in the past, it would have been relevant today in your life.
You need the whole book or else God wouldn't have given you the whole book.
But they'd rather send out their little glossy mailer to tell you, I was driving down the
freeway yesterday with my son, Solomon, and we look at a billboard and it says, Cornerstone
Community Church, church for people who don't like church.
And I said, you know what, son?
I said, I don't want to go to that church, son.
I said, you know why, son?
Because people that don't like church are bad people, son.
They're wicked.
They're worldly.
They're ungodly.
They'd rather be in a bar.
They'd rather be out committing sin and fornication and adultery somewhere.
They don't like the hymns of the faith because they'd rather listen to Jimi Hendrix and the
Doors and the Beatles and they'd rather listen to U2 and Motley Crue and they'd rather listen
to Lady Gaga and they'd rather listen to everything that the world puts out.
I said, I don't want to go to church that's geared toward bad people.
I want to go to church that's geared toward people who love God and they love the house
of God.
And they say I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.
That's where I want to go to church, son.
And so I'm not going to go to that church because I like church, son.
When I was a little kid, I liked church.
And when I was a teenager, I liked church.
And I'm an adult now and I like church.
And that church is for people who don't like church.
And I don't want to go there because they want to make it like the world.
Oh, you won't even feel like you're at church.
Then I don't want to be there.
Guess what?
If I don't want to feel like I'm at church, you know what I'll do?
I'll go somewhere besides church.
I mean, if I don't want to feel like I'm at church, I'm going to go to a rock concert.
Why would you go to some B-rated rock concert?
That's all it is.
I mean, if I want to listen to rock, let's hear a band that actually is an expert band.
Let's hear a professional band.
Let's go to the real thing, then somebody who's just trying to copy them.
Some B-rated little Christian contemporary rock band, worship band, worship leader.
I don't need that stuff.
I want to feel like I'm at church.
I want to sing Amazing Grace.
On the solid rock I stand.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.
Rock of ages, clap for me.
That's what I want to sing when I go to church.
And guess what? I don't want to sing any of that other stuff any time.
I won't be at the rock concert because I like church.
Church for people who don't like church.
What kind of garbage?
Oh, that's how we're going to reach people.
We're going to reach them.
Look, you're going to reach people that don't like church by making church not like church.
Well, then it's not church anymore, I guess.
It's stupid. It's nonsense.
Look, this is how you reach people.
You say, well, how are you going to reach these people who don't like church?
Here's what you do.
Instead of sitting around in your little ivory tower in Sandler waiting for all these crowds of people to come because,
oh, wow, a church for people who don't like church? Let me go there.
Yeah, I'm sure all the hardcore people in this world, all the drunks and all the porn gators, they're all lining up at that church.
Finally, a church for me. I hate church. Let's go to church.
Stupid.
But you know how you're going to reach those people cornerstone if your pastor didn't look like a fag?
You know how you'd actually reach people?
You'd put on a suit and dress like a man and get a haircut like a man, and then you'd go get in your car and go to those people and give them the gospel at their house.
And then they'll get saved.
And then when they get saved, the Spirit of God will live inside of them.
Then they might like church.
Maybe once they get saved, they'll like church.
And then maybe they'll come to church.
But no, we've got to go get all the unsafe people to come to church.
You know what? I'm not interested in getting unsafe people to come to church. I'm sorry. I'm not.
I don't want to go to church. I go to church to be around safe people.
That's why I like to go to church.
That's why it's called the body of Christ.
That's why it's called the fellowship of the saints.
That's why it's called the body of believers.
It's not about bringing in a bunch of unsafe people.
It's about going out and getting the unsafe saved.
And then bringing them in saved.
That's what it's about.
I'm not trying to use worldly music to attract worldliness into the church.
I go to church to get away from the world.
I go to church to get away from all that.
But they don't want to serve people.
They don't want to go out and preach the gospel in the ghetto.
They don't want to go out and dirty their hands and dirty their feet in central Phoenix.
Going to the inner city slums and giving the gospel to every preacher out of their Bible.
You know what they want to do?
They want to sit around in their fancy building and send out mailers all day and say,
Hey, we'll make church the way you like it so you can come put money in the plate and come be a pretty little body in the pew.
That's what church has become today because people think that church is about being served and not about serving others.
That pastor wants to glorify himself and to glorify his building and to build it up with all the pretty little faces.
I want to go out and find the ugliest person that I can and give him the gospel and get him saved.
I want to find the poor and the blind and the maimed and the hulk and love the person that can do nothing for me.
That's what God commands us to do.
To love the unlovable.
To go to the dirty, filthy ghetto and find the prostitute and the dope dealer and find the poor and the blind, the handicapped,
the person who has no money that will never even have a ride to church and that will never put a dime in the offering plate
and to spend my time preaching to them when it's 110 degrees outside.
Not for me, for them!
And you know what? You'll be happy.
I mean, look, I guarantee you, everybody who was out soul winning today, everybody who was out soul winning Monday,
everybody who was out soul winning on Tuesday, people who were out soul winning on Wednesday,
they're not down and depressed.