Thank you.
All right.
Good morning, everyone.
Welcome to Stronghold Baptist Church.
If you could open up your hymnals.
The song number 202.
Song 202, My Redeemer.
Song number 202.
On the cruel cross, he suffered from the curse to set me free.
Sing, oh, sing of my Redeemer.
With his blood, he purges me.
On the cross, he sealed my parting.
He gave the dead and made me free.
I will tell the wondrous story of my lost estate to save.
In his boundless love and mercy, he the ransom freely gave.
Sing, oh, sing of my Redeemer.
With his blood, he purges me.
On the cross, he sealed my parting.
He gave the dead and made me free.
I will praise my dear Redeemer.
His triumph and power I'll tell.
How the victory given over sin and death and hell.
Sing, oh, sing of my Redeemer.
With his blood, he purges me.
On the cross, he sealed my parting.
He gave the dead and made me free.
On the last, I will sing of my Redeemer.
And his heavenly love to me.
He from death to life had brought me.
Son of God, with him to be.
Sing, oh, sing of my Redeemer.
With his blood, he purges me.
On the cross, he sealed my parting.
He gave the dead and made me free.
Amen.
Now, let's turn to our next song.
Song number 100.
It's all number 100, day by day.
It's all number 100.
["Day by Day"]
Let's sing this out on the verse.
Day by day and with each passing moment, strength I find
to meet my trials here.
Trusting in my father's wise bestowment,
I will cause more worry or more fear.
In whose heart is tied beyond all measure,
yet unto me stay what he deems best.
Loving me is part of pain and pleasure,
making for peace and rest.
Every day the Lord himself is near me,
with a special mercy for each hour.
All my cares he made would bear and cheer me.
In whose name is counselor and cloud.
The protection of his child and treasure
is a charge that on himself he's laid.
As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,
this the pledge to me be made.
On the last, he'll be head in every tribulation.
So to trust, I promise his award.
Yet I lose my faith's reconciliation.
Offer me within thy holy word.
Help me, Lord, with bold and troubled meaning.
Here to take as from a father's hand.
One by one, the days of no misleading,
till I reach the promised land.
Amen.
All right.
Great singing this morning.
At this time, we are going to go through our announcements.
If you do not have a bulletin, it looks like this.
Flip up your hand real high.
We'll make sure that we get one out to you.
And if you open up to the first page,
you'll see our service times listed there.
We got one right over here.
All right.
Sunday morning at 1030.
Sunday afternoon again at 4 PM.
And then Wednesday night at 7 is our Bible study.
We're going to be Isaiah chapter 54 this week.
So try to make it out for the midweek service.
We've got the soul winning opportunities listed there,
as well as the salvations and the baptisms
for the month of April, as well as for the year.
Let's go ahead and count up.
Does anybody have any salvations to report for the week?
Is there anyone who went out soul winning?
Yes, sir.
What day?
Friday was, I actually have a call at that point.
I went there Tuesday.
Tuesday?
All right.
We'll go with Tuesday.
Anybody else?
Yes, sir.
One on Friday and two yesterday.
Amen.
Yesterday.
Perfect.
Did I miss anyone else?
Very good.
We'll keep up the good work.
Preach the gospel, even outside of our regularly scheduled
soul winning times.
Like I mentioned before, the soul winning times are there.
We're going to be going out this afternoon.
If you don't know what soul winning is,
it's just basically we go and preach the gospel
and just go and preach salvation by grace through faith.
And this is not just a one, two, three repeat after me.
We actually engage in conversation
and try to persuade people to put
their trust in Jesus Christ, make
sure they fully understand and comprehend the gospel,
that they know it's a free gift that's not of their works,
and that the only requirement for salvation
is putting their trust in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
So that's what we do.
If you'd like to come out and join us,
you could just come along, be a silent partner,
and kind of witness how we do things,
and hopefully gain some experience
and be able to get a little bit more
adept at being able to preach the gospel to other people.
So yeah, this is what our church is all about.
If you're just visiting with us, this is the main focus.
This is the main goal is to go out and lead people to Christ
and win souls of Christ.
So that's why we go over this.
We count up these numbers.
It's not for personal glory.
It's so everyone can be edified and continuing
to move forward and rejoice in the fact
that people are getting saved.
So that's the whole goal and purpose of our church.
So continuing on here, we've got the offering totals
listed down at the bottom of the page for the month of April.
Prayer requests, please continue to pray for our ladies
who are with child.
Now I should have on here, Mrs. Doty,
when is your date for the, it's this Friday, right?
Okay, I have your estimated due date there,
but you have a scheduled C-section.
So I wish I would have thought about this
when I was making up these.
So please pray for Mrs. Doty.
She's having a C-section on Friday
and pray that everything goes well.
We're also gonna be doing a meal train.
It's gonna be a little bit more difficult.
I understand because we've got the camping trick next week,
but that's okay.
We'll still get you taken care of.
I understand you're gonna be able to make it out there
and get some food from camp, right?
Brother Kevin, assuming hopefully everything goes well
and you'll be able to make it out there
and get some that way.
We're also gonna hook you up with like Uber Eats too,
as well from church.
So we'll be able to help out in that regard,
but ultimately being in prayer,
everything goes well with the C-section
as planned for this Friday,
and then continue to pray for everyone else.
Of course, the other ladies who are with child
that their pregnancy delivery goes well.
Let's see, any updates?
Do we have any updates?
Mrs. Astrai, I saw her here somewhere.
How is your cousin doing?
Okay.
Well, that's great.
She's out of a coma.
So she's recovering very well,
and now just she's in hospital,
but waiting to be released to physical therapy.
Excellent.
That's very, very good news.
So praise the Lord for that.
That's awesome that she's come out of her coma.
How long has she been out of a coma for now?
I know like a week.
Great, great.
And then how did your grandma's surgery go?
Well, it wasn't unsuccessful in the sense
that there was too much scar tissue built up
because they'd waited so long,
and the surgery lasted longer than it was supposed to.
He was trying to make it work.
Yeah.
The pressure, the flake was too much pressure in her eye
and would cause her to lose her vision.
So it wasn't a success, but she's fine.
So they kind of abort the surgery?
I mean, it's-
Yeah, and they knew that going into it, apparently, also.
It was kind of a 50-50,
but my grandma wanted to go ahead
and go from it to do it anyways.
But what they can still do to help her
with her double vision in the eye
is she can wear-
Corrective, corrective lenses.
Is that pretty much where she's gonna be at now?
Like they're not gonna try doing any-
Yeah.
Okay.
But she's recovering just fine.
Okay.
So that's good.
She's with my mom and dad at their house now.
All right, so for those of you that didn't hear,
Brother Devon's grandmother had,
from one of her injuries, she had a fall
and she had broken her eye socket.
She was fractured her eye socket
and they were gonna do some reconstructive surgery.
But because it had taken so long,
if you remember, she'd been on the prayer list
for a really long time,
and just waiting and waiting and waiting
and waiting for surgery.
But because she had to wait so long,
there was a lot of scar tissue that was built up,
and that made it so that they weren't able to do
what they wanted to do with the surgery.
So the surgery was not successful
because they weren't able to do the reconstruction
because there's too much scar tissue in the way.
So basically, she's okay out of surgery.
She's elderly and the surgery went longer,
so it's another risk.
But thank God she came out of surgery okay.
She's recovering and now she has double vision,
but she's gonna try to correct that with corrective lenses.
So she's gonna get some glasses
and hopefully that'll fix the problem.
But there's no more planned surgery
and she's recovering just fine right now.
So we're gonna continue praying for Doris Rogers
and appreciate your prayers there.
And then brother Brian is probably in the sound room.
How's your grandmother doing brother Brian?
She had that stroke and she's recovering from this,
and she's doing physical therapy now?
So she's out of the hospital just yesterday
and able to do some physical therapy.
But everything's going as well as expected
given everything that happened.
Great, great, excellent, thank you for that.
To you pray for brother Brian's grandmother
and good news there.
And then we also had a prayer request
from a gentleman who, I don't see him this morning,
but he's been visiting our church a little bit recently.
He's got a newer member here, his name is Chris.
He wants his wife to be able to come
and be able to get baptized,
so please be in prayer for that as well,
that she would be able to come and visit
and that there wouldn't be any stumbling blocks
from her coming to church, so she'd come and get baptized.
And then continue to pray for Pastor Thompson
and Sure Foundation Baptist Church
with them be able to find a location.
Now unfortunately, Pastor Thompson is not going to be able
to make it to our camping trip this year.
So we had him scheduled, he was trying to make it happen,
but given the extra things he has to deal with at church,
he's not able to make it.
So I told him not to worry about it,
not a big deal of course.
We'd love to have him here,
but this is supposed to be just fun time,
so unfortunately now you guys are stuck,
you didn't pray, you're stuck.
You guys are stuck with me, excuse me,
pardon my slipping my tongue here,
but you're stuck with me because you didn't pray hard enough
for Pastor Thompson to make it here, okay?
So now I'm gonna be filling in and preaching on Monday.
So I'm gonna take that first night.
I know not everyone's gonna be there on Monday,
so you won't be bored with me too long
if you show up on Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday,
but on Monday I'm gonna be preaching.
And in fact, we have a schedule.
I've got the itinerary here.
I've got some of them out in the foyer.
So if you could just take one per family.
I don't have a bunch printed out here.
There's a tentative schedule.
It's pretty much set, but it's subject to change.
If there's any issues, just everyone,
especially those of you who are leading the activities,
review this, make sure it's gonna be good for you.
I started sending out some emails
of people who are not physically here
but are coming to the camp, and we are gonna have,
there was one event that I needed
a little bit more details on before I put it here,
and it's a singles event, and that's gonna be happening
on Tuesday at 1 p.m., I believe was the time for that.
Is that correct?
And Mrs. Rogers is gonna be in charge of that.
It's basically gonna be for adult singles,
just to be able to play some games and kinda hang out,
and maybe if there's people there that you don't know,
just some icebreakers to get to know each other.
So that is going to be on Tuesday at 1 p.m.
for anyone who's interested, and we'll add that on here.
I didn't have all the details why I didn't add it,
so we're gonna move forward with that.
And then everything else is on here,
so there's a lot of different things scheduled.
Obviously, it's do whatever you wanna do, essentially,
for the time that you're at the camp.
It's just enjoy yourself, have fun,
enjoy the amenities, hang out, fellowship,
and then if you want to do any of these other things
that are listed here, we've had people who volunteered
to put on some activities, you wanna have some extra fun.
I will say this, participating in the activities,
there's gonna be certain things that are competitive.
We're gonna have prizes for that,
so if you wanna do any of these other activities,
mostly for the kids, but you know,
there's, I'll have to look and see if we have prizes
that are gonna be suitable for adults as well,
but if you wanna get involved in any of these activities,
we will have some prizes, a lot of things to give away,
just fun stuff for the camp.
And speaking of things to give away,
if you're here today and you're coming to the camp,
everybody gets a,
marshmallow stick.
So I'm not gonna deal with giving this out
right during the service,
because there's a lot of people here today,
but I will set these out in the foyer,
so if you are coming to the camp and you are here today,
you may help yourself to one of these.
We've got plenty of them, so I'll put them out there
and just help yourself to one on the way out,
and that way you'll enjoy some marshmallows and campfire.
Really excited about this event,
it should be a lot of fun.
Everything is going well,
the only snag we've had so far
is Pastor Thompson had to bow out,
but everything is going very well.
So I put together an email,
but I didn't obviously send that to anyone in church yet,
so basically what's gonna happen is,
I'm gonna give the list of all the camping assignments,
and you know what, as soon as my announcements are over,
I'm gonna print off that list
so that y'all can see the camp numbers
and cottage numbers that you have,
so you can know what number you're assigned,
but I'm gonna have that list also at the front office,
so when you show up, go to the front office
because they're gonna have your parking pass.
Last year I tried taking all the parking passes,
but then it became way too chaotic
for everyone trying to find me
and get your parking pass and stuff,
so they'll have your name,
they'll have your assignment of wherever you're going,
so that they can tell you,
okay, you have this cottage, you have this campsite,
and here's your parking pass.
Now, I'm gonna be paying for all the parking passes,
we shouldn't have to pay anything for that,
and I'll work that out with the front desk
how that's gonna work out,
but make sure you go there.
Check in is all the way up until 10 p.m.,
so if you can't make it before 10 p.m. to check in,
let me know, okay?
I'll check in for you in that instance
if you're gonna end up showing up really late.
If you have to work,
you're not gonna get out there till late,
let me know, I'll check in for you,
but that'll be a special case.
Otherwise, everyone else, when you show up,
just go and check in.
Also, if you aren't planning on showing up
on Monday for the camp, please let me know
because we have everything reserved
from Monday through Sunday,
and we did through Sunday
just so that we don't have to worry
about breaking camp on Saturday
if you still enjoy the rest of the day
and kind of break whenever you want,
and if you wanna stay till Sunday morning, that's fine,
but that's what we reserved everything for.
So if you are gonna be showing up a couple days later,
and even if you've already mentioned this before,
please just mention it again to either myself or my wife.
No, actually, you know what, just let me know.
I don't want her to have to,
Leslie's been doing a lot of different things,
so just let me know either by text or by email
or talk to me in person
and let me know what day you plan showing up
if it's not gonna be on Monday,
and I will make a note for that
and make sure that your check-in is taken care of
because I don't want you, what they might do,
I'm gonna talk to them about this, they shouldn't do this,
but what's posted on their website is if you don't check in,
they're gonna cancel your reservation.
So I'm gonna make sure that doesn't happen
if you're not coming until Tuesday or whatever,
you know, we'll make sure your reservation isn't canceled,
so just please let me know about that
so I could make a point to make sure
that nothing goes wrong with your reservations,
but everything should be just fine.
Is there anything else?
We've got one more week, you know,
so is everyone geared up, you ready to go?
Awesome, it'll be a lot of fun, it's gonna be a lot of fun.
It's a great time.
There's a beach there.
We rented out the whole facility, essentially,
so it's pretty much gonna be just our church,
which is great.
Obviously, it's a public park,
so other people are welcome to come just in general,
but it's kind of out in the middle of nowhere,
and generally speaking, it'll be pretty much just us there.
So we've got, I've got printouts also of maps,
so a big overview of the place,
and then cottages and campsites and things like that.
I'll put that out available for everyone
to take with you as well.
And then, let's see,
that should be about it for the camping trip.
You can see that this is the order
of the pastors that are preaching there.
I'm preaching Monday night,
Pastor Williams is gonna preach Tuesday night,
Pastor Jimenez is gonna preach on Wednesday night,
Pastor Shelley's gonna preach on Thursday night,
and Pastor Anderson's gonna preach on Friday night.
So that is the schedule for the event.
And then going back in our announcements here,
we're gonna jump up one there to the May Challenge.
May Challenge is baptisms, baptisms.
That's what we're gonna focus on this month.
Last month, we're focusing on adding one hour, yes sir?
I'm sorry?
Yes, yes, yes, yes, thank you, that's a good point.
We are still having church here on the midweek service,
so anyone who's not going to camp,
even though I'm not going to be here,
Brother Carter's gonna be preaching for us
on that Wednesday night.
So don't feel like there's no church happening
if you're not at camp.
There definitely still will be
the regularly scheduled program going forward
Wednesday night right here.
So anyone not going to camp,
come on out to church on Wednesday night
and support Brother Carter,
who's gonna be preaching for you on that night,
whatever God lays out.
Of course, we're not gonna do
the regularly scheduled Bible study,
but he'll preach whatever God laid on his heart
to preach on that Wednesday.
So we definitely will still be having church on that day.
Thank you for pointing that out, it's a good point.
This month's challenge is we're focusing on baptisms.
So we're trying to get,
everyone's goal is to try to convince someone,
try to persuade someone to at least get one person baptized.
So when you're out soul winning,
if you lead someone to Christ, make a mental point.
And we should be doing this anyways,
but try to bring up baptism.
You've got friends or family,
people that you know are saved
and they haven't been baptized yet.
Talk to them about being baptized.
You know, Brother DJ, sorry,
you guys had a baptism on Wednesday,
so you just missed the,
if you would've known we were gonna do this,
maybe you would've waited till today,
but you're like, I could've got a prize.
But Geraldine got baptized on Wednesday,
so it was awesome, but praise the Lord for that.
But anyone who's able to bring someone in
and convince them to get baptized,
you'll get a prize for that.
So who was able to complete the April challenge?
One, two, I saw that hand.
Three, four, amen.
All right, well we've got prizes for y'all.
Come and see me after service
because I didn't have them up ready here.
The camping trip is on my mind.
So the April challenge was to spend
at least a minimum of one hour every single day,
the whole month of April, 30 days,
of doing something spiritual,
reading your Bible, soul-winding,
singing praises, things like that,
making sure you're occupying your time
with at least one hour every single day.
So we'll give you prizes for that.
Congratulations on that challenge.
And then let's get to you.
I'm getting way too windy on the announcements here.
Bible memory passage, I decided to give you an extra week.
So those of you who are working on Hebrews chapter two,
okay, you got an extra week to get this complete.
I wanna make sure we get this done.
I know we're doing whole chapters at a time here.
We started with Hebrews chapter one,
we're doing Hebrews chapter two,
we're going all the way through the book of Hebrews.
The goal is to, if you can do these Bible memory passages,
we're only doing two verses a week,
you're gonna memorize the entire book of Hebrews.
Now it's gonna take a little while, okay,
but don't get worried or nervous about such a big test.
You'll be like, man, I could never memorize
a whole book of Hebrews.
If you stick with this and do a little bit here,
a little bit there, a couple verses a week
is all you need to do.
It might take a year or two, but that's fine.
Just stay at it, you know?
Over time, you're gonna be able to get this done.
And then if you're able to memorize
and quote the entire book of Hebrews,
we're gonna have a big prize for you.
I don't know exactly what that is, but we'll take care of you.
It'll be a really good prize for being able to quote
the entire book of Hebrews back word perfect.
So if you're doing Hebrews chapter two, though,
you're gonna get a prize for that.
I've pushed it out one extra week to give you time
to be able to do that.
And if you're just way too far behind,
get started on Hebrews chapter three,
because that's the next one.
And then if it takes you a really long time,
just get started on Hebrews chapter four.
Try to get one of these done beforehand if you can.
Tuning on, we've got the baby shower.
There's gonna be a baby shower for Kristen
that's in the schedule here.
You can check that out.
And then baby showers for Mrs. Estrada, Mrs. Weatherby.
It'll be on May 22nd.
Church anniversary picnic is our four year anniversary,
is going to be June 25th at the park.
It's gonna be a lot of fun.
Hope we can make it out for that.
And then we have a guest preacher, Pastor Anderson,
preaching on Sunday, July 10th, both services.
So try to come out here and support him.
And then the upcoming birthdays and anniversaries
are listed there for the month of May.
That's it for our announcements.
Did I miss anything?
No, I hope not.
Yes, Leslie.
RSVP for the baby shower at the camp.
So, ladies, if you're planning on coming
to the baby shower at the camp,
who are we RSVPing to?
Okay.
You or Mrs. Mosteller?
All right, and you can RSVP to my wife
or to Mrs. Mosteller.
I think they're gonna be coordinating the food
because lunch is gonna be provided.
That's why we wanna know if you plan on attending that
during the camp.
And did I miss anything else?
Is someone else?
Hey, brother Jeff, it's your birthday.
Thank you.
I was trying to get through the announcements.
I get through that.
Today is brother Jeff's birthday.
Jeff Estrada, so we're gonna sing a happy birthday to Jeff.
And Jeff, this is your birthday today.
You get your pick after service
of whatever ice cream you want that's in the freezer.
So that's the bonus that you get on your birthday
is your choice.
And there's some good stuff in there too.
I think we still might have some frozen snicker bars
and all kinds of different stuff, just good things there.
So let's sing happy birthday to brother Jeff.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday, brother Jeff.
Happy birthday to you.
All right.
Very good.
Thank you for pointing that out.
All right, that's it.
If there's any more announcements,
we'll cover it this evening
because I'm taking up way too much of my time.
Come on up here, brother Peter,
and lead us in our next song, please.
All right, church, if you can open up your hand
and notice the song number 101.
Song 101, Jesus Never Fails.
Song 101.
["Jesus Never Fails"]
All the first earthly frames made through a true
Doubt and fears assail.
One still loves and cares for you.
One who will not fail.
Jesus never fails.
Heaven and earth, they pass away.
But Jesus never fails.
Though the sky be dark and clear,
Fears a storm to hail.
Just remember he is near.
And he will not fail.
Jesus never fails.
Heaven and earth, they pass away.
But Jesus never fails.
In my dark and bitter heart.
Love will still prevail.
Trust his everlasting power.
Jesus will not fail.
Jesus never fails.
Heaven and earth, they pass away.
Jesus never fails.
Heaven and earth, they pass away.
But Jesus never fails.
Amen, church.
Great singing this time with the Glide Garden.
Sunday morning offering on last night.
You like that?
Hey, church, while the offering plates
are being passed around, if you can open up your Bibles,
we're gonna read the book of Romans, chapter 12.
That's the book of Romans, chapter 12.
And as we do customary here at Stronghold Baptist Church,
we're gonna read the entire chapter.
And that's Brother Devin.
If he can please do that for us.
That was Romans, chapter 12.
I beseech you, therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world,
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God.
For I say through the grace given unto me
to every man that is among you,
not to this day, but to this day,
not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think,
but to think soberly, according, as God hath dealt
to every man, the measure of faith.
For as we have many members in one body,
and all members have not the same office,
so we, being many, are one body in Christ,
and every one members one of another,
having then gifts differing according to the grace
that is given to us, whether prophesy, let us prophesy,
according to the proportion of faith,
or ministry, let us wait on our ministering,
or he that teacheth on teaching,
or he that exhorteth on exhortation.
He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity.
He that ruleth with diligence,
he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness.
Let love be without dissimulation.
Abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good.
Be kindly affection one to another with brotherly love,
in honor preferring one another,
not slothful in business, fervent in spirit,
serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope,
patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer,
distributing to the necessity of saints
given to hospitality.
Bless them which persecute you, bless and curse not.
Rejoice within that do rejoice, and weep within that weep.
Be of the same mind one toward another.
Mind not high things, but condescend to men of lowest state.
Be not wise in your own conceits.
Reconpense to no man evil for evil.
Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
If it be possible, as much as lieth in you,
live peaceably with all men.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves,
but rather give place unto wrath.
For it is written, vengeance is mine,
I will repay, saith the Lord.
Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him.
If he thirst, give him drink.
For in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
Brother Vernon Miller, Jr.,
do you mind praying for us, please?
Amen.
All right, Romans chapter 12.
So this morning, this morning we're going to be doing kind of
more of a Bible study style sermon.
One of the things that stood out to me when we were just doing
our daily Bible reading as a family in Romans chapter 12,
was right there at the very beginning of the chapter,
if you want to look down in your Bibles.
Of course, verse number one, the Bible says,
I beseech you therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that you present your body as a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service.
Now, I'm not going to be preaching on that specifically.
That's a very powerful statement in itself,
you know, that we ought to be presenting our bodies a living
sacrifice unto the Lord, you know.
If you're bought and paid for by Lord Jesus Christ,
you've accepted that gift of eternal life.
Your reasonable service is that you offer up yourself to say,
here I am, Lord.
I'm going to do whatever you have for me to do,
as a way of showing your love and gratitude to your Savior
for saving your soul.
I mean, that is something we all ought
to be able to look at that and say, you know what?
That's pretty reasonable.
I mean, God saved me from an eternal damnation in hell.
I think it's reasonable to say, OK, God,
I'm going to live for you now.
Thank you for saving me.
You know, I'm going to do what you have to do.
It's a great verse, a real powerful verse.
Now, the rest of the chapter, look at verse number two,
the Bible says, and be not conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
So he's saying, you know, as you have a new spirit,
because you're born again, I want
you to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
We need to undo what the world has been pumping into your brain
and telling you what's right, what's wrong,
trying to teach you morality, trying to get you to accept
sin, wickedness, perversion.
You need to renew your mind now.
You've got a new spirit.
Let's renew your mind, and let's be transformed
into walking in that new spirit.
And then he says that you may prove
what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
So understanding, hey, I've been bought with a price.
My reasonable service is offer up myself a living sacrifice.
I also ought to be transformed in my mind.
He's saying, when you do that, now
you can prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will
of God.
And a lot of people want to know, I think, genuinely,
what is God's will for my life?
What does God want me to do?
I want to do what's right.
I want to serve you, Lord.
What is your will?
And he's saying, you know what?
If you can do those two things, offer up
yourself a living sacrifice and transform your mind,
now you can prove that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God.
Proving means you're testing it.
You're testing the will of God.
Well, how is this going to work out for me?
Well, when you follow God's will,
things will work out for the better for you every time.
Now, we need to be transformed renewing our mind
because sometimes you might not be
able to see why things are good for you
or how it's working out for you because the world may
be telling you, wow, you're not doing very good.
So the world can tell you, when you're doing good,
you're going to be financially prosperous.
You're going to have all this wealth.
Everyone's going to love you.
And things are going to be going really good for you.
That's the world's view of being successful,
of just everything going your way, right?
But see, that's different than the Bible.
It's different what the Bible teaches,
which is why we transformed in our mind to understand,
hey, when you walk in the spirit,
the things of the world are not the things of God.
The things that are of the Father
are not the same as the things that are of the world.
And just like Jesus Christ, if you go forth and try
to live righteously and try to do the right thing,
the world's going to hate that.
The world cannot accept the things of the Father,
of the Bible, the Word of God in general, right?
So Jesus says, look, if they've called the master
of the house Beelzebub, how much more they have his household.
So the Bible says, yea, and all that will live godly
in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
So we need to be able to understand
that there is going to be persecution,
there's going to be trials, there's going to be tribulations,
but this is part of the Christian life.
So this doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong.
This doesn't mean that, oh wow, I started serving the Lord
and all of a sudden I don't have very much money
and I'm having all these problems,
people are persecuting me.
That doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong.
Okay, we need to transform our minds to understand
the Bible warns about this stuff,
telling you this is going to happen.
You're going to suffer for your faith.
You're going to go through these things.
If you actually live godly, if you want to live godly
and try to do those things,
you will have opposition, certainly, certainly.
And the Bible says also, you know, Jesus said,
blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you
and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely
for my name's sake.
Right, because that's always what people have done
to Christians, disciples throughout history
is that that happens.
You're going to get your name drug through the mud,
so that will happen.
Now, the rest of Romans chapter 12,
and this is all just kind of by way of introduction
into the Bible study,
it's talking about the will of God,
the perfect, acceptable will of God.
So the time I serve is proving the perfect will of God
because now the rest of this chapter,
and even in the chapter 13,
but we're not going to really get into that,
there's a lot of statements just being made here
as we get into this chapter of all things
that could probably have its own sermon by itself
because he brings up just many different topics
of ways that we can be in the will of God,
that this is what we should be doing as Christians.
So I'm going to take a little bit of time
and we're going to compare scripture to scripture
with all these different points that come up,
and this sermon's going to be a two-parter,
so don't worry if you're looking at the time going like,
Pastor Burzins, we're only on like verse six,
and we've been sitting here for 30 minutes, don't worry,
we're going to go into the rest of the chapter this evening,
so don't think that you're just going to be stuck here
for hours or something, I wouldn't do that to you.
Maybe I would, but I won't today.
So let's keep reading here though in Romans 12.
The Bible says in verse number three,
for I say through the grace given unto me,
to every man that is among you,
not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think,
but to think soberly according as God hath dealt
to every man the measure of faith.
And this is the mindset that is broad by and large
with everything that we do in the Christian life
and the Christian faith should be coming from humility,
not one of pride, not one where you're thinking
great of yourself, this is the mindset
which also is in Christ, in Philippians,
we're going to get to that later on in the sermon,
either tonight or this morning,
about having that mindset which Christ had,
which is one of humility, where you put others,
esteem others better than yourself.
Verse number four, for as we have many members in one body
and all members have not the same office,
so we being many are one body in Christ
and everyone members one of another.
And this is explaining the fact that
as born again believers now, part of this church,
we're all members, like body parts that fit together
to form one bigger body with Christ at the head,
and we all have different jobs and functions,
and God has given us different abilities
in order to serve him that serves the body as a whole
while you individually are serving the Lord, okay?
So God's will in your life, God has given everybody
different skills, different talents, different abilities,
and he wants you to use whatever he's given to you
to his glory, to God's glory.
So we have a very diverse church
and we ought to have a very diverse church
because just like there's a lot of different members,
the body parts, right?
We have fingers and toes and eyes and ears and hair
and all these different parts of our body,
they're all very different one from another,
but they're all very important,
they all serve their own purpose and function.
It's the same way in church that we're gonna be
performing these different functions,
whatever God has blessed you with specifically.
Now, some people will have similar skills
and similar ability that God's blessed you with, great.
Other people, it's gonna be very different,
and we ought never to be looking at anyone else
going like, oh man, well I wish I could do that.
God's gifted some people with very talented
and musical abilities, and that's awesome.
They're able to serve in church and be able to play
and kinda just help our praise of the Lord through song
and magnify that through those gifts,
but not everybody has that skill,
not everyone has that ability, right?
Not everybody is very good at teaching,
not everyone is very good at various different things.
We're gonna go through all the things listed
in Romans chapter 12, because these are all ways
that you can serve and kinda figure out and find out,
hey, this is the will of God, this is the will of God,
this is the will of God.
As you go verse by verse by verse,
this is the will of God, this is the will of God.
In those areas, especially where you excel,
maybe you can start looking and saying,
how can I do this more?
I think this is something that I can do really well.
I think God has gifted me in this area.
I think I could be a really good minister,
I think I could help serve other people
and in many capacities, like I said,
we're gonna get through all of these,
but the whole point now for the rest of the sermon
is gonna be looking at these individually
as these different gifts, these different abilities,
and different ways to fulfill the will of God.
Verse six says, having then gifts differing
according to the grace that is given to us,
whether prophecy, so that's gonna start listing them off.
Obviously, I just mentioned everyone has different gifts.
It says, whether prophecy, let us prophesy
according to the proportion of faith,
and now we're gonna pause on that for just a minute,
I wanna expound a little bit on prophecy.
I went and got the dictionary definition of prophecy.
Now, all of our definitions,
we ought to be taking contextually in the Bible,
the meaning of words matters,
and sometimes the way that the Bible uses specific words
isn't exactly identical to the way
that a dictionary might define them,
but by and large, they're gonna be very similar,
if not the same meaning
when you look things up in the dictionary.
Words change a little bit over time,
especially when we're King James only here,
so this Bible is translated into English
from the original languages in the 1600s,
so when we're looking at that, we have to understand,
yeah, over the course of a few hundred years,
some words shift in meaning a little bit,
but by and large, and you have to go with
how the Bible is using words
to understand exactly what they mean.
Now, in general, when we see the word prophesying,
it's very similar to preaching in Scripture,
just the way that it's used broadly,
but there is an element to prophecy,
like revealing things that were unknown
or things that are going to happen, right?
So the dictionary definition for prophecy is,
and I get these, okay, just so you know
where I'm getting these definitions from,
because obviously there's different dictionaries.
I like using dictionary.com,
but there's a British definition
that is different from the American definition,
and I usually go to that one,
because it seems to line up a little bit closer
with the biblical definition.
I mean, it makes sense,
because it was British English
when the Bible was translated in the 1600s,
so it kind of fits in that regard.
It's usually a little bit older definition,
but anyways, here's what they say for prophecy.
A message of divine truth revealing God's will.
That's definition 1a.
A message of divine truth revealing God's will,
and I say that's very appropriate in general,
especially in a biblical context.
A prophecy is revealing God's will,
revealing God's truth, right?
The act of uttering such a message
can be a definition for prophecy.
Definition number two is a prediction or a guess.
So we tend to think of a prophecy being a prediction
as kind of the number one definition.
This has that as the number two definition,
with the number one being a message of divine truth
revealing God's will,
and then number three, the function, activity,
or charismatic endowment of a prophet or prophets.
So as time goes on,
I think it's shifted in our current language
where almost everyone's gonna think
a prophecy is a prediction.
You are definitely predicting the future
if you're giving a prophecy,
whereas that hasn't always been and still isn't,
according to this dictionary,
the primary definition of the word.
A message of divine truth revealing God's will
oftentimes will be something that is a future event
that hasn't happened yet.
The Bible is full of those type of prophecies
of things that are going to pass.
And then prophesy, the word prophesy,
one's with a C, one's with an S,
essentially spelled the same.
To reveal or foretell is definition number one,
something, especially a future event,
by or as if by divine inspiration.
But then definition number two, it says archaic.
It's to give instruction in religious subjects.
So there you see them kind of reversed,
but it's essentially the same thing.
Now, I'm gonna say this.
All that being said, I'm not trying to confuse you.
I don't think it's that confusing.
This is what we understand.
When it's talking about the gifts of prophecy
and prophesying, it says if you have a gift of prophecy,
it doesn't necessarily mean that God is showing you
these extra, like the prophets had revelations, right?
Saint John got a revelation from Jesus Christ
that's our book of revelation here
of things to come in the future.
Daniel was given revelations of future events
in the book of Daniel.
Other prophets have been given these,
Isaiah, we're going through the book of Isaiah.
How many times is God telling him,
hey, Israel's gonna be judged,
and all these things are gonna happen
that that hadn't happened yet.
He's being told of all these events that are gonna happen.
Yes, that is prophesying, sure, 100%.
But there's also ways of prophesying
that doesn't have to mean that you have
a new revelation from God.
So you can prophesy by preaching
the book of revelation, for example.
You can preach on things that are going to happen
in the future because it's in God's word.
It hasn't happened yet.
It's still a prophecy.
But there's also other things that you can preach
when you start to understand more
about the way things work and the more knowledge you gain
and the more your wisdom increases from the word of God.
On any given subject, you can start to see
the way things will play out given the pattern
and all the details and all the indications
that you see that something's going a certain way.
The more knowledge you have, it's similar to this
with parents and children.
Parents can see, oh, if they keep doing this,
my child's leaning over on their chair.
It is a real simple example.
They're going to fall over.
Okay, so in a way, you're kind of predicting the future,
but it's not because you have this extra great,
God's spoken to you and said
they're going to fall over their chair.
It's because you understand the way things work
and you can see that this is logically
what's going to happen next.
You can understand that through experience
and just your own knowledge and wisdom.
Well, similarly, we could gain more insight and knowledge
about many different things.
And I'm telling you, the longer that I've been
in the Word of God and studying and just gaining years
and gaining experience and kind of gaining wisdom,
I can start to see more patterns become a little bit clearer
in other people's lives.
When people have problems and issues,
you kind of see direction and paths that people are taking.
So I'm going to preach or prophesy against certain things
to help people not go down those paths
because I could see, hey, I've seen this time and time again
and I can kind of see where people are going.
If you continue down that path,
it's going to lead to destruction.
Now, all of that wisdom comes from the Word of God.
But being able to tie all of the signs together
that you can see, I think some people might be more gifted
at being able to pick up on all the clues
maybe than other people are, right?
So this is one of those areas, hey,
if God's given you that gift, if it's prophecy,
well, let us prophesy.
And this is also why I believe it says
according to the proportion of faith
because there's an element of the unknown
because it hasn't maybe happened yet.
Faith of the things are kind of invisible,
the things that you can't really see,
but they're still true nonetheless.
We have faith in things that are true.
Obviously, we have faith that God exists.
We have faith that Jesus Christ lived and died
and rose again from the dead.
We didn't see those things, literally,
but we have faith in them, and they are true, it's truth.
So this is an area where maybe you are better at that.
And I think as you gain your wisdom,
you will get better at this,
but some people have been given that ability
and are able to see things a little bit more clearly.
And we ought to use that for God's glory.
So finding a way where you can utilize that gift
of helping others through preaching, through prophesying.
Right, so that's number one.
Heaven and gift differing.
According to the grace that is given to us,
whether prophesy, let us prophesy.
According to the proportion of faith, verse seven,
or ministry, let us wait on our ministering.
So ministry, what does it mean to minister?
It means to serve, okay?
How are you capable of serving others?
Well, there's many ways of serving other people.
And now look, a lot of things that are mentioned
in this chapter, everyone can do to different extents.
Everyone can minister.
So there's one aspect here of ministering
that the Bible talks about people ministering,
like ministering the gospel.
Romans 15, verse 16, the Bible says
that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ
to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God,
that the offering up of the Gentiles
might be acceptable being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.
So that's an area where on the one hand,
you have Jesus Christ has commanded,
go ye therefore and preach the gospel of every creature.
God has committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation,
reconciling a lost world unto Christ.
That is the job of every believer.
God has given us that purpose and that goal for everybody.
Man, woman, boy, girl can go and minister
the gospel of Jesus Christ, right?
So I don't want you to sit there and think like,
well, I'm just not good at ministering,
so I shouldn't do any ministering.
Well, no, there's some things where you should be doing,
but there are other areas where you might be able
to minister better and you have a heart
for just being able to serve and just kind of help people
in various capacities.
Matthew chapter 20, you don't have to turn it.
I'm gonna read this for you.
Verse number 25, the Bible reads,
but Jesus called them unto him and said,
ye know that the princes of the Gentiles
exercise dominion over them,
and they that are great exercise authority upon them,
but it shall not be so among you,
but whosoever will be great among you,
let him be your minister,
and whosoever will be chief among you,
let him be your servant,
even as the son of man came not to be ministered unto,
but to minister and gave his life a ransom for many.
This is the mindset that we all ought to have.
This is the mindset that Jesus Christ had,
is to be a servant, to be a minister, right?
We're gonna minister in the gospel, of course,
but there's also other ministries that you can do
that's not just in the gospel.
In Romans 15, I already quoted verse 16,
that's how I'm ministering the gospel.
Later on in that chapter in verse 25,
the Bible says, but now I go unto Jerusalem
to minister unto the saints.
So there's the apostle Paul saying,
I'm going to minister to people,
saints means they're sanctified,
it means they're already saved.
So he's not going to minister the gospel,
they already did that, they're already saved,
but he's going to minister unto those saints, why?
Because they need some more help.
One way of ministering is he could teach,
he could preach, he could help them out,
but there's other ways of ministering as well.
Even helping people out financially
is you're ministering to their needs, right?
You're helping them out in various capacities,
lots of different ways to do this,
and it can vary from person to person, ultimately.
Verse number 26 there says,
for it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaea
to make a certain contribution for the poor saints
which were at Jerusalem.
So specifically in that context,
he is going to minister unto the saints at Jerusalem
by bringing this contribution that other churches,
other believers have brought forth
to help those saints at Jerusalem
that were going through a hard time.
He's going to bring them those gifts
and minister to them in that capacity.
Verse 27 says, it hath pleased them verily
and their debtors they are,
for if the Gentiles have been made partakers
of their spiritual things,
their duty is also to minister unto them
in carnal things.
So he's saying, you know, the Gentiles received
spiritually greatly from the church at Jerusalem
sending out these preachers
to go and preach the gospel to them
and go and teach them
and sending these different preachers
that are spiritually feeding them.
So he's saying, you know what, it only makes sense,
it's their duty to say, okay, well you guys have a need,
we'll help you out because it's a carnal thing,
it's a physical thing,
we've got some money we could send your way,
we're doing fine, here you go,
we're gonna help you out.
Thank you so much for bringing us the spiritual meat
and helping us that way,
we're gonna go and help you where you have a need.
And this is taught all throughout scriptures,
being able to do that.
Now, again, these are just two examples,
you could preach, I could preach as our sermons
about the different ways to minister.
But I'm just bringing up a couple examples here,
just for you to kind of get your mind thinking about this
and saying, okay, what is the perfect will of God for me?
What is God's will?
What does God want me doing?
Well, how about ministering?
There's lots of ways, ministering is serving.
Get that mindset of what a Christian should be doing,
it's serving other people.
Let's look at the next,
so even in the same verse, verse seven,
or ministry, let us wait on ministering.
And it's so easy to read through this
because there's so many things just going boom, boom, boom,
boom that he's listing off here,
but we're gonna take the time
and kind of look at each one individually.
Or he that teacheth on teaching.
Now teaching is something that not everybody is good at.
Some people are a little bit more apt to teach.
Apt means you're able to,
and that's one of the qualifications of a bishop,
is that you have to have that ability
to be able to teach people.
You have to be able to break things down
and make them easily understood,
and that's definitely something that God can give you
and help you with and gift to you spiritually
to be able to serve God in that capacity
of helping people understand things.
Now again, this can be broadly,
everybody can teach to different degrees, right?
But if God's given you this ability
to really be good at it,
then you should use that ability even more
and take on more opportunities to be able to teach.
So going back to the gospel,
it's something that all of us should be able to do.
Well, you're teaching people what it takes to be saved.
So there's an element of teaching in preaching the gospel.
You're trying to help them understand the concepts of,
now they're simple concepts,
but understanding you're a sinner,
understanding there's a penalty for sin,
understanding that it's hell,
understanding that God still loves you,
understanding that Jesus Christ died on the cross
and rose again from the dead,
all these different things you try to help people understand
and you're going through a specific format
in a way to help them that logically
get to the conclusion of understanding,
wow, okay, so Jesus died for me, I deserve hell,
but God still loves me, He wants me to be saved,
all I have to do is accept that free gift of eternal life
by calling on the name of the Lord,
yes, I want to do that and understand and say,
yo, you helped them to come to that understanding,
you're teaching.
So everybody should be doing that,
but some people are better than others,
and the more teaching ability that God has given you,
you should think about doing more to serve in that capacity.
Now, in order to be a good teacher,
teachers need to be skilled in the word.
And you can keep your place here if you'd like,
you want to turn to Hebrews chapter five.
And whether God's given you the natural ability
to teach or not,
I don't care how great of a talent you have,
you have to know the subject matter you're teaching on
in order to teach, right, I mean, that only makes sense,
you can't teach on things you don't know.
So in order to be a teacher of something,
you have to know it and know it well.
That's gonna be the way you're gonna be able
to teach best anyways, is know things really well.
And that's why we don't just teach things
you just learned yesterday.
Like, okay, absorb it a little bit, think on it,
make sure it's right, you learn something new,
hey, that's great, I'm not saying it's false,
but just make sure that you kind of,
especially when it comes to spiritual things
in the scripture, that you haven't been mistaken
about it somewhere, you haven't been misled
by a preacher or by a book or by something else,
and give it the time to be like, yes, this is accepted,
and you've thought about it a lot,
and you've kind of gone over it,
and you know it really well, now you're at the position
to be able to teach how to do, or whatever that truth is,
be able to teach other people about it,
because you have a great understanding of it.
Hebrews chapter five, verse number 12, the Bible reads,
for when for the time ye ought to be teachers,
so the Bible, there's kind of a rebuke going here
to the Hebrews, that like, you've been in church
for a long time, you've been exposed to the word of God
for a long time, and you're saying,
if you've been at it for this long,
you ought to be teachers, because you,
I mean, just over the course of all this time,
you should know this stuff well enough
to teach other people, so you're saying,
for when for the time you ought to be teachers,
ye have need that one teach you again,
which be the first principles of the oracles of God,
and are become such as have need of milk,
and not of strong meat, you're saying,
but unfortunately, you just are lacking
in wisdom and knowledge, and someone needs to teach you,
and give you the baby bottle, so you can understand,
hey, this is the first most important thing,
these are the first principles,
the first most important teachings,
get this doctrine right, get all the basic doctrines right,
and then you start building upon that the things
that are a little bit deeper or more complicated,
but you have to start with that good foundation,
and you're saying, you don't even have that right,
so you need to go back to the beginning, as it were,
you know, you should be like graduating high school,
and instead, you're like in kindergarten, right,
you need to learn these basic elements first,
so for everyone that useth milk is unskillful
in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe,
now there's nothing wrong with babies, babies are great,
right, I love babies, we have babies,
you know, there's people having babies here,
babies are great, but the problem comes in
is when you have, if your baby just remains a baby forever,
right, you don't wanna be 20 years later,
you still got a baby, like, no, it's time for you to grow,
right, it's the natural progression,
but you know, physically, obviously,
babies are gonna grow, they're gonna die,
pretty much, right, I mean, because if you're not,
the only way they're not gonna grow
is if you don't feed them, and if they starve,
they're gonna starve to death.
Spiritually, though, you know, you have eternal life,
you can't die, right, who's ever believed within me,
who's ever lived within me shall never die,
believe it's now this, right, that's what Jesus said,
so you could be spiritually emaciated,
and just kind of remain spiritually as a baby
for a really long time if you don't feed yourself,
and if that's the case with you,
you're not in a position to teach,
you still need some more milk, you need to grow,
once you have that milk, once you understand these things,
you start growing spiritually,
and you know, those people who've been saved for 20 years,
but they still don't really know anything about the Bible,
because they're not reading it for themselves,
they're not really going to church,
they're not doing anything
to help themselves grow spiritually,
so even though you would think,
wow, I've been saved for this long,
yeah, but you should be a teacher by now,
and God would expect you to grow and become a teacher
and be able to help other people out,
so it's a shame to be around for that long
and not be able to teach,
this is why the Apostle Paul here,
well, excuse me, the writer of Hebrews,
I believe it's Apostle Paul, but regardless of that,
the writer of Hebrews is stating here
and kind of giving a sharp statement of,
hey, look, you ought to be teachers, but you're not,
because it's a shame to be around for that long,
we expose everything and not be able to teach,
verse 14 says, but strong meat belonging to them
that are of full age, even those who by reason of use
have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil,
so if you think you've got this ability,
you've got this talent,
you know, I'm pretty good at breaking things down
and making music understood,
well, start getting in the word of God
and learning it for yourself and understanding it
so that you could use that ability to help teach others
and break things down in a way
that's gonna help them to understand.
Get that, you know, get to the point
where no longer, babe, you could use strong meat
because your senses are exercised,
so it's not enough just to learn the truth,
you have to exercise the truth,
you have to put it into practice.
You have to do it, it's not enough just to know it,
if you know things and don't put them into practice
and don't do them, you're gonna forget it,
you're not gonna retain that knowledge,
you're gonna be like the natural man
to look within a mirror and you behold yourself
and you kind of see the things that are wrong with you,
but if you don't put that into practice,
you're gonna walk away and just forget about
all the things that you'd seen and you learned.
You need to be able to correct those things,
put God's word into action in your life,
you retain that knowledge that you have
and you're able to build more on that knowledge
and hopefully get to the point
that we're able to teach others.
Now, I wanna mention this as well
because there's definitely scriptures
that forbid teaching to the church for women.
Women are not allowed to teach,
the Bible says, by suffering not a woman to teach,
nor do you serve authority over the man
but be in subjection, as also sayeth the law,
First Corinthians chapter 14,
but that doesn't mean that women could never teach,
it just means that in the church setting,
behind the pulpit, they're not gonna be getting up
and teaching because the Bible forbids it,
but there's plenty of opportunity
for women to teach other people,
for one, everyone could teach through the gospel,
going out individually and talking to people
about the gospel of Jesus Christ,
two, all parents should be teaching their children,
and three, the Bible talks about the aged women
teaching the younger women to do different things
and kind of help them out in their areas
of what younger women are gonna need to learn
from older women, there's plenty of opportunities to teach
if God's blessed you with that ability to teach.
I'll just read for you from Titus chapter two,
go back to Romans 12,
Titus two verse three, the Bible says,
the aged women likewise that they be in behavior
that is become of holiness, not false accusers,
not given to much wine, teachers of good things,
so right there, it says they're supposed to be teachers
of good things, that they may teach the young women
to be sober, to love their husbands,
to love their children, to be discreet, chaste,
keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands,
that the word of God be not blasphemed,
well that sounds like a pretty important teaching role
if you ask me, that the word of God be not blasphemed,
teaching the younger women all these different things,
that's a great role to have,
because you're preventing God's word from being blasphemed,
and these things that are mentioned
are not things that come naturally,
because the natural man is sinful,
and these are things that the world's gonna be telling you,
you're crazy, especially in our world today,
oh yeah, women need to be discreet, chaste,
keepers at home, and obedient to their own husbands,
the world's gonna look at you and be like, you're nuts,
the world today's gonna say, that's hate speech,
seriously, you're misogynistic, you're male chauvinist,
I can't believe you would say those things in public,
you oughta be canceled.
And unfortunately, there's gonna be some young women,
they're gonna hear a man saying these things,
going, oh yeah, well of course,
a man's gonna say he should be obedient to his own,
which is why it's great for the aged women
to say, no, this is good,
we don't want the word of God blasphemed,
he's not saying that because he's a man,
he's saying that because the Bible says that,
he's saying it because that's God's will for your life,
because God created Adam and Eve,
God created man and woman,
God created these people and the creatures
the way that he created them,
and he created us differently,
and he gave us different jobs to do,
and that's God's will in our life,
and we can go on and on about the differences
between men and women, not gonna do that this morning,
have done it in the past,
they're gonna continue doing it again in the future,
but I mean, we live in such a warped world,
yeah, we need the transforming, the renewing of our minds,
that we could be transformed from this current world,
because this world's gone crazy.
Never did I ever think I would ever be living in a world
where people could question whether you're a man or a woman
and give any validity to that
and not say that person's nuts.
I mean, literally, you're nuts.
That's always been the way things have been,
and that's still the way things are today,
if you think, if you are born a man and you think,
no, no, no, a woman, you're nuts,
you got some serious problems,
we're not gonna say that's okay,
oh yeah, you can be, no, no, you've got a problem,
you've got a serious problem.
People are more worried about hurting people's feelings
today instead of telling them the truth.
Romans 12, let's continue on God's will,
proving that good and perfect and acceptable will of God.
Verse number eight,
or he that exhorteth on exhortation.
Now, what does it mean to exhort?
You exhort somebody, when you exhort people,
it's very, a lot of these words
could be very similar to one another,
and some of the differences are a little nuanced.
When you're exhorting someone,
you could be giving counsel or giving advice
or kind of persuasively urging people.
Like, I'm really exhorting you to do this.
You're urging them to follow the right way
or to understand that this is true,
that's an exhortation.
But you also need to show by example.
You have to be the example in order for your exhortation
to be impactful.
And I've got one verse here with a few verses.
First Thessalonians chapter four,
just to kind of help you understand,
what does it mean to exhort?
Let's get some biblical examples
of the word exhort being used.
First Thessalonians chapter four, verse one.
Furthermore, then we beseech you, brethren,
and exhort you by the Lord Jesus,
that as ye have received of us
how ye ought to walk and to please God,
so ye would abound more and more.
So you're saying, look, we've already taught you
the things you ought to do, how you ought to walk,
how you ought to live, how you ought to behave.
But we're exhorting you now to do it, right?
We're encouraging you and trying to advise you,
look, you've learned this, now do it.
That's exhortation.
Second Thessalonians chapter three, verse 10.
The Bible says, for even when we were with you,
this we commanded you, that if any would not work,
neither should eat.
Amen, great verse, I love that verse.
We didn't have to go that far back in context,
but I like preaching that one anyways.
It's a great command.
If any would not work, neither should he eat.
This we commanded you.
That wasn't just a suggestion for your best life now.
This we commanded you, that if any would not work,
neither should he eat.
For we hear that there are some
which walk among you disorderly,
working not at all, but are busybodies.
Now then that are such, we command and exhort
by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness
they work and eat their own bread.
So that exhortation, he's commanding,
but we're also urging you.
Look, this is a commandment, but come on guys, do this.
And you're trying to be persuasive in your exhortation.
And then Hebrews 3.13, the Bible says,
but exhorts one another daily.
So a lot of these things you're gonna find,
this is something that everybody should be doing,
but some people are kind of better in some areas than others.
So I'm not saying leave any of these undone,
but if you kind of find an area where you feel like,
or you see that, you know,
I think God's blessed me in this area.
I've been exhorting people here and here and here,
and they seem to be, they're getting good results.
They seem to be taking, maybe God's blessed you in that area
well hey, then keep doing it.
Don't silence yourself.
Exhort one another daily while it's called today,
lest any of you be hardened
through the deceitfulness of sin.
Sin is always gonna try to deceive people
into committing sin.
People are out there, proponents of sin.
Workers of Satan are gonna be out there
trying to tell you, oh, it's not that big of a deal,
it's not that bad, trying to downplay sin
and get you to fall into the trap of sin,
which is why we need to encourage one another,
exhort one another daily, and be like,
look, it's not worth it.
We've already been commanded this.
Don't go down that path, look, just trust it.
Trust God, trust the Bible.
Don't do it.
Exhort one another daily so that people don't
get hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
Let's continue on here in Romans 12.
There's a lot to cover here,
but I kinda wanted to try to do it in one sermon.
Obviously, it's not gonna happen in one.
We're gonna try to do it in two.
But there's so many different great points in this chapter.
He that exhorteth an exhortation,
the next phrase, he that giveth,
let him do it with simplicity.
Even in giving, it's about giving financially,
giving of whatever prosperity,
your physical financial prosperity God's given you.
If you have that ability to be able to give,
look, not everyone's in the same boat here either.
Some people don't have very much at all.
Now, I'm not talking about the tithe.
God commands the tithe.
I believe I'm not gonna prove all that to you this morning.
In this church, we believe that God has commanded a tithe
that belongs to God, not to you, not to me.
It's God's money, it's 10% of your income.
If you don't make very much,
the good thing about a percentage
is it's not a whole lot of money.
It's 10%.
If you make a dollar, it's a dime.
Okay, if you make $100, it's $10.
There's a difference between a dime and $10, right?
But it's a percentage, so you're on that scale.
The more you make, then you're giving more total,
but it's the same percentage for everybody, okay?
But that's God's money.
That's not the same as just giving alms
and giving charitably and giving for other purposes
and other causes, and we oughta do those things
with simplicity.
Giving the tithe oughta be with simplicity as well,
or don't make it complicated.
Don't get all upset about it.
Hey, if God's told you to give this, then just give it to us.
It's God's money.
But I have this in Matthew chapter six
is where I'm gonna read from to kinda go along
with this concept of giving with simplicity, right?
Make it, keep it real simple.
Maybe you are wealthy, and maybe God's blessed you enough
to be able to just give to people who are in need.
Don't make it difficult or complicated,
and don't do it for recognition.
That's one of the ways you're gonna complicate things.
Oh, I'll give this if you, you know,
and start adding strings.
Well, now you're complicating it.
That's not simple.
And people even wanna give,
and it hasn't happened here very much at all,
almost never, almost never.
Now, there's been times where we've collected
for specific reasons or for specific people.
You know, we collected for steadfast to send them
an offering to help them when their time of need,
when they're going through our times,
and we will collect specifically
for a few different instances.
But, and it's this situation
I'm actually bringing up right now,
I don't think it's ever happened in our church history.
But if someone, let's say someone has a lot of money,
and they're just start telling you like,
well, I want you to use this for this,
and I want you to use this for that.
Don't do that.
If you're gonna give, give.
Don't start to put yourself in the administration position
just because you have a lot of money,
and you say, well, I want this money to go for that.
No, you either give it, and look,
if people are gonna try to do that here,
I'm not gonna take it.
I don't care how much money it is,
because that's not your,
are you put in a position of treasure
and determine those things?
Okay, that's different.
But if you are not in that position, no.
You're not dictating what the church is doing
with everything, just give it,
and give faithfully, and give with simplicity.
If you like what the work that's being done here,
and you can trust that the people
who are making those decisions
can make those decisions appropriately,
then let them make those decisions.
And give with simplicity.
Just, and if not, then don't.
Okay, don't.
God loves a cheerful giver,
and I'm not here begging you for your money.
We never have a problem with money in this church,
and I almost never preach on this subject.
I don't have to, because the people who are here
love this church, and love the work,
and we're all in unison, by and large,
working together for the same cause,
which is why we don't have a problem with this.
Because we're all motivated by the same thing,
and it's not money.
So we have the operating expenses
to do everything we need to do,
and anything we don't have money for, we don't do it.
Imagine that.
And we seem to always be fine.
Praise God.
But look at this, in Matthew chapter six,
we're talking about giving with simplicity.
If God's blessed you, you've got the ability to give,
just do it with simplicity.
Like the Bible says, let not the left hand
know what the right hand is doing.
Just be able to give, and not hold on to that,
and not have to have strings attached,
and not just complicate it any more than it needs to be,
and also not selling a trumpet before you give
whatever it is that you want to give.
Matthew chapter six, verse number one, Jesus said this,
take heed that you do not your alms before men.
Alms is that what we consider to be charity.
It's not what the Bible calls charity,
but we consider that to be charity.
You're just giving yourself, you're helping people out,
you're helping the poor, you're helping the homeless,
you're helping people that have a need.
That's giving of your alms.
He says don't give your alms before men to be seen of them,
otherwise you have no reward of your Father
which is in heaven.
Here's the thing, when you give,
and give from the heart, and just give,
God will reward you for that.
The Bible talks about God rewarding you for that,
but if you're doing it so that everybody can see you
and see what a great person you are,
and be like wow, look at so and so,
they give so much money,
then you don't have a reward.
You say there you go, there's your reward.
People think really highly of you now.
You want to have your name on a plaque,
or have a statue built because you've given so much money.
Now you get nothing from God.
That's your reward, there you go.
You bought yourself a plaque, or a statue,
or a wing of the building that you meet at
that's named after you or something stupid like that.
Well whatever, right?
Now obviously people do that,
and the person giving doesn't want that or whatever.
I'm not saying that everyone who's ever given
is bad or something,
but we need to look at this from your own standpoint,
from your own point of view.
Don't give your alms before men to be seen of them,
because you have no reward.
Verse two, therefore when thou doest thine alms,
do not sound a trumpet before thee,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets,
that they may have glory of men,
barely I say unto you they have their reward.
There's a lot of people out there doing this.
Don't be like them.
But when thou doest alms,
let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth,
that thine alms may be in secret,
and thy father which seeth in secret
himself shall reward thee openly.
Give with simplicity.
It's that simple.
You want to help?
You want to give?
Great.
And this isn't even in the context of giving to a church.
This is just talking about,
and even in Romans chapter 12,
it's not in the context of doing it at church either.
It's just giving.
Just giving, right?
Now obviously that could apply here if you're giving,
but also just anywhere.
I mean, if you just want to help someone out
and give to people, do it with simplicity.
You don't need any recognition or anything like that.
Just give.
We learned that lesson in Acts chapter five
with Ananias and Sapphira.
They sold some property and they lied about it
because they wanted to be seen like,
oh man, we gave everything,
we sold this property and gave it all,
and they died.
And they were even told,
look, when it was yours,
you were free to do whatever you wanted to.
You didn't have to come and give everything.
If you want to, great,
but you don't have to do that.
That wasn't an obligation.
They weren't forced to do that.
But they messed everything up
by trying to get this glory and they lied about it.
You lied to the Holy Ghost.
We don't care about how much money you're giving.
It's not like you're lying to us like we care.
But you know what?
God cares about this because now there you go, you're done.
You've lost it, it's a big deal.
But anyway, that's another sermon for another day
on Acts chapter five.
I don't want to get too far into that.
Let's continue in Romans 12.
I'm running out of time here.
But that's okay because like I said,
we're going to continue this evening.
I'll probably just finish verse eight and we'll call it
because there's like four things in verse eight.
So he that exhorteth an exhortation,
he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity.
He that ruleth with diligence.
So God has put people in positions of ruling as well.
Any parent at home, your husbands are ruling
the whole household.
Wives are ruling their children.
Different situations, you might be even out in the workforce
and have employees under you.
You're the master and they're the servant,
kind of using with a lot of biblical terminology there,
you're the boss, you're ruling.
Okay, we need to be ruling with diligence.
The Bible says that's important.
That's the will of God that if you're in a position
of ruling that you're doing it with diligence.
What are you doing?
You're taking heed and taking it seriously
and being very careful with the things that you do,
that you're doing things right
and that you're using right judgment
and that you're not, you know,
because you're in a position of power when you rule,
you need to be diligent about things.
You need to be able to do the right thing.
The Bible says in Proverbs 12 verse 24,
the hand of the diligent shall bear rule,
but the slothful shall be under tribute.
You're the judge, okay?
You need to be dealing with things.
And for parents, you know, as you rule over your kids,
you need to be diligent in the judgments
that you make with them so that you're showing
a good example, that you're giving them the truth
through your ruling, that they understand what's right.
They understand justice, right?
That you could equally, now look, nobody's perfect,
but these are the things we ought to be diligent about.
And you're not just flippant about things with your kids
because guess what, they're gonna learn that from you.
However you rule your house,
you are passing that on to them in the future.
And you're also shaping the way that they view
right and wrong on how you rule in your house.
So it's a very important job.
You need to be diligent.
As the Bible says in Deuteronomy chapter six,
verse six, and these words which I command thee
this day shall be in thine heart.
This is all about the words of the law, right?
They're being exhorted.
Now these, I want these words in your heart,
and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children.
Teach the word of God to your kids.
And shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house,
and when thou walkest by the way,
and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
It sounds like there's a lot of times
that you ought to be teaching the Bible to your kids.
And as ruling your house, you need to be diligent
in teaching those things.
It's important.
Take your job serious, take your role seriously.
It's the will of God for you to rule in various capacities.
If you have children, that's your job,
to rule your children.
Teach them the word of God.
And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand,
the Bible says, and they shall be as frontlets
between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them
upon the post of thy house and on thy gates.
Obviously the word of God, God's laws,
God's commandments are very important.
We ought to treat them with gravity
and cleave to them as something that's good for us.
Last part of this verse, it says,
he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness.
And we're gonna get a lot more into this in the afternoon.
This is kind of a similar vein.
It's gonna continue down this same thought
of being loving and forgiving and things like that.
So when we look at mercy,
you have to show mercy with cheerfulness.
Mercy is gonna go hand in hand with forgiveness, right?
Because when you show mercy to someone,
they've done you wrong, and you would be justified
in exerting some kind of punishment against them,
but when you show mercy, you refrain from that.
You're showing them mercy.
You're gonna say, okay, I'm not gonna do something
maybe that would have been warranted or justified.
I'm gonna restrain myself.
I'm gonna forgive.
You've done me wrong, but I'm going to show mercy.
And the Bible says that we ought to
show mercy with cheerfulness,
that it's not something you do bitterly or grudgingly,
going, I guess I'm gonna show mercy
even though, you know,
Mother's Oh, and so did this to me.
And you're kind of gritting your teeth,
going, I'm gonna force myself to be merciful.
Now, if you have to do that,
it's probably still better than not being merciful,
but God's will is that you can be merciful
with cheerfulness,
that it's a glad thing you can have joy
in being able to forgive people
and being able to overlook transgressions
and being able to show mercy
because if you could think about the amount of mercy
that God has had towards you
and how many times God has not dropped the hammer on you
when you probably could have been very warranted
for God to do so in your life,
you could go, you know what?
I am gonna kind of show that mercy
unto my fellow man as God has to me.
And if you would just turn to Matthew 18 really quickly.
That's why we're gonna read a few verses.
We're gonna close on this point and on this passage.
Matthew 5, seven, of course, in the Beatitudes,
the Bible says, blessed are the merciful
for they shall obtain mercy.
There's a good reason to being merciful
because the way that you,
essentially the way that you're treating other people
is the way God's gonna treat you.
So if you're merciful to other people,
then you know what?
You're gonna gain favor with God
and God's gonna be merciful.
He's gonna see that and say, okay,
I'm gonna show him mercy.
Because this is the way that God wants us to love people
as he loved us.
Matthew 18, now we're not gonna go through this whole story,
but basically there's this one guy
that owed his Lord or his master
and he pleads with him and says,
look, I don't have any money.
I'll pay you whatever I owe you.
Just show, you know, give me some time.
Be a little bit lenient.
You know, don't sell me in the servitude
and everything else.
So his master says, fine,
I'm gonna forgive you that debt, right?
But then that guy goes to someone else
that owed him some money.
He just got forgiven this great debt.
He owed all this stuff, he treated.
And then that guy says basically the same story
that he had going, look, you know,
times are tough, but I'm gonna work at it.
I'm gonna get you what you need.
Just give me a little bit of time.
And he's like, no, you pay me now, right?
And he grabs him by the throat.
And other people see this and they're like,
what is wrong with this guy?
Like, they couldn't believe that he's doing this.
So they go and tell his master going like,
look, this guy, this guy that you forgave that debt to,
I mean, he's just being really hard on this other guy
that owed him.
Verse 32, this is the judgment now against
that wicked guy who received mercy
but then wasn't willing to show mercy.
Then his Lord, after that he had called him,
and said unto him, oh, thou wicked servant,
I forgave thee all that debt because thou desirest me.
Shouldest not thou also have had compassion
on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee?
And his Lord was wroth, wroth is really angry,
and delivered him to the tormentors
till he should pay all that was due unto him.
So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you
if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone
as brother their trespasses.
So God's expecting you to be able to have that mercy
on people because he was merciful to you.
God forgave you so much.
You shouldn't be going around holding grudges
against people who have done you wrong.
You need to be willing to show mercy.
You need to be able to allow for that and say,
okay, well, I'm going to forgive you
what you've done wrong to me
because my heavenly Father's done that to me.
And we ought to be able to do that
with cheerfulness in the heart.
You ought to consider it.
And honestly, your perspective and your viewpoint
matters a lot.
We want to get to the point like the disciples.
The first time you read this, and for younger Christians,
it's going to be really hard to understand.
When the disciples got arrested and beaten and thrown
into prison, they were joyful.
And they were happy.
They were leaping and giving each other high fives
and going like, wow, we were counted worthy
to suffer shame for the cause of Christ.
Most people would probably be mortified
at the thought of going through that
and definitely not happy at all and not joyful.
There's a spiritual growth, though,
when you really can transform your mind
into viewing these things.
See, they had the right mindset after spending time
with Christ.
They were taught, and under the teaching of Jesus Christ,
they saw the way that he acted.
They saw his example.
And they loved Jesus so much that they're saying, well, hey,
the more we could be like Jesus, the better.
And they're happy about being able now
to be considered worthy to suffer shame.
That was their outlook.
That was their mindset.
Similarly, we ought to be able to consider it
a joy to be able to extend mercy
to people that have done you wrong
and to be able to forgive.
We ought to get to that point to where you're not
gritting your teeth and going, OK, well, I'm
supposed to forgive, so I'm going to forgive.
But be able to be glad about it, to be
able to be in a position of going, well, you know what?
This is great.
It's not great that someone did you wrong,
but it's great to be able to extend mercy to somebody.
And you can be cheerful about it and happy that, you know what?
I'm in a position where I could just say,
don't worry about it.
It's good to be in that position and be able to just say,
hey, no big deal.
Don't worry about it.
Someone borrows your stuff and they break it, show mercy.
Someone does something, you don't let, you know, show mercy.
And in your heart, hopefully you get to the point
where you'll be glad about that.
This is the will of God.
This is what God wants.
This is our attitude.
It starts with humility.
That's why those first couple of verses
goes over, because if you're proud, these things,
ministering, not going to happen.
Showing mercy on the people, not going to happen.
If you're proud and you think so highly of yourself,
none of these things teaching, why
are you going to waste your time on someone else?
Exhorting, I don't care about them, I care about me.
Nothing works if you're proud.
It starts with that humility.
And this evening we're going to get more into the humble minds
as we continue in this chapter, but let's
borrow as I have a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much
for all the instruction that you give us.
Romans chapter 12 is a great chapter, Lord.
I pray that you please just help us all.
There's a lot of different topics we covered this morning,
Lord, and I pray that just for all of us individually here,
you'd help us to maybe identify areas where we have strengths
and weaknesses, we can work on our weaknesses,
and maybe just help us in our stronger areas
where we've gifted us with certain abilities
that you could help us to improve on those areas
as well and to use them more for your glory and honor.
And we thank you for giving us all
that you've given us, dear Lord.
I thank you for everyone that's here today.
Lord, bless our church and help us all to be safe.
We go our separate ways this morning,
and I pray that you please also bless our soul-winding time
and help us lead many people in Christ today.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, we're gonna sing one last song
before we're dismissed.
Brother Peter, you please lead us.
And I know I said I was gonna have some printouts for you.
Come back this afternoon and I'll have them for you then.
My computer decided to reboot and I kinda lost some stuff,
so I'll have that for you this evening
if you come back this afternoon.
And don't forget your marshmallow sticks.
All right, church, if you can open up your hymnals
to song number 461.
All right.
Song number 461, Resting in His Promise.
Song 461.
["Resting in His Promise"]
On the first, all my sins were laid on Jesus.
On the cross, my death He paid.
Then He cried out, and it is finished.
And in the tomb was laid.
Resting sweetly in His promise.
Rest my soul on what He said.
Trusting fully, holy, trusting
in the price my Savior paid.
Now there is no condemnation,
not of blood my record bears.
For my sins the blood I'll cover,
Jesus' righteous robe I wear.
Resting sweetly in His promise.
Rest my soul on what He said.
Trusting fully, holy, trusting
in the price my Savior paid.
I have taken life eternal.
I am now a son of God.
Of God's nature now partaker.
Now no fear of judgment's rod.
Resting sweetly in His promise.
Rest my soul on what He said.
Trusting fully, holy, trusting
in the price my Savior paid.
I'm the last, but I will never leave for safety.
None can take me from His hand.
So the Savior's promise claiming,
now I live in You, O Lamb.
Resting sweetly in His promise.
Rest my soul on what He said.
Trusting fully, holy, trusting
in the price my Savior paid.
.