And let me tell you something, if you want to serve Jesus, you have to sacrifice your
Sunday morning and show up to church.
And there are a lot of people who don't want to make that sacrifice.
How many people have I invited to church, oh Sunday is my one morning to sleep in.
The service starts at 10.30.
How late are you staying up on Saturday night?
But you know, oh that's my one morning.
And if you would go to Matthew 13, but you know, oh that's my one morning to sleep in.
I just don't want to give up that one day.
Well you know what, you want Christianity to cost you nothing, is what you're saying.
Oh no, you know, I just, I can't go soul winning because of the fact that you know, that's
my one night a week or that's this or that.
But you know, sometimes we've got to make sacrifices.
And realize that you know, you can't have everything in this world.
You can't have it all.
You can't be, for example in my case, a fire-breathing, leather-lung Baptist preacher and then expect
to also be buddies with the congressman and the mayor and the city council and to be invited
to the presidential prayer breakfast.
It's just not happening.
So we have to make a choice in our lives.
There's always the choice, choose this day whom you'll serve.
You can't serve God and mammon.
Paul said, you know, if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
So he said, do I now please men or God?
He asked the question, do I now please men or God?
You can't please both.
And a lot of people are trying to have it both ways.
You know, they want to have one foot in the world and one foot with the things of God
and they want to try to balance both and have both.
And it's deceptive.
It's not what David did, the man after God's own heart.
He said, I want this to cost me something.
I'm willing to pay the price to serve God, to serve the Lord.
But let's look at Matthew 13 verse 20.
The Bible says this, but he that receiveth the seed into stony places, the same as he
that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it.
The word anon means immediately.
It says, anon with joy receiveth it, okay?
Yet hath he not rooted himself, but doereth for a while.
And when you see doereth, you can think endureth.
He doereth for a while, for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word,
by and by he is offended.
So what's the Bible telling us here?
And basically, there are people who are new believers, or maybe they just aren't really
rooted and grounded yet in the faith, even if they've been saved for a long time.
And that any little thing that comes along, they're offended.
They're scared off.
You know, there are people throughout history who've suffered real persecution for the cause
of Christ.
And the Bible says, yea, in all that will live godly in Christ, Jesus shall suffer persecution.
But there are people who've been thrown in prison.
There have been people who've been beaten.
There have been people who've been killed.
And there are Christians today in America that are even scared to even come to a church
like Faithful Word Baptist Church.
Oh, because there might be protesters on the public sidewalk.
They might look at me.
You weakling.
You coward.
You know what?
It takes almost zero guts to come to this church.
It's the easiest thing in the world.
But there are some people who are so weak and so scared that literally they just want
to go down to the other independent fundamental Baptist church down the street where it's
a little more comfortable, a little less hype and controversy going on, and where they can
go in and sit down and just chill out and everything's great.
And you know what?
There's really nothing wrong with what the pastor's preaching down there.
It's what he's not preaching that's the problem.
That's the trouble with most churches.
It's not what they preach, it's what they won't preach.
We as Christians need to be willing to make some sacrifices and endure some persecution
and to give up some things because of the fact that, you know, that's what God wants
from us.
And if we love him, you know, then we're going to obey the Word.