We're here in Lamentations chapter 3, and the book of Lamentations is a book that's not often focused on too much.
There's a lot of great verses there, and I want to draw your attention to Lamentations chapter 3 verse 27,
where the Bible reads,
It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
Now, you know, oftentimes, I mean, usually when I preach sermons, it's something I plan ahead of time.
I have a preaching calendar where I plan ahead of time exactly what I'm going to preach.
Then every once in a while, I need to preach a sermon because situations come up,
and I realize this is something I have to deal with.
And, you know, this is not exactly the most fun sermon to preach,
but it's a sermon that I think I need to preach.
And the name of the sermon is, Let a man bear the yoke in his youth.
Let a man bear the yoke in his youth.
And you'll understand maybe halfway through the sermon, I'll explain why I'm basically preaching this.
But let's just look at several points of why it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.
What does the Bible mean by that?
The Bible means that when a man is young, he should work hard.
And it's a good thing for him to work hard and not be lazy.
It's good, when you're young, to bear the yoke.
Now, one reason why, turn to Genesis chapter 3, one reason why is simply this.
When you're young, you can accomplish more than when you're old.
In Genesis chapter 3, we're going to see this.
I mean, the truth is, when you're young, whether you think you're busy or not,
you actually have a lot more free time than when you get older.
Once you get married, once you have a family, your time is going to start to get, you know, kind of sparse.
You're not going to have as much free time.
You can just accomplish a lot more when you're young.
And this is what it says in Genesis chapter 3, verses 17 through 19.
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake.
In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.
Now, in verse 17, he's telling Adam that the curse is, he's going to have to work hard, okay?
But I do want you to notice something in this verse, where it says, cursed is the ground for thy sake.
Okay? In that verse, God is telling him, this is a good thing for you, that you have to work hard.
Cursed is the ground for thy sake.
It's for Adam's benefit that he has to work hard.
It was the curse of God, everything wasn't handed to him, but it's actually for his benefit.
Why? Because it's good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.
It's good for a man that he has to work hard to make it in this world.
It says, for thy sake, verse 18,
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.
And the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground.
For out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
See, the Bible's saying here, it's going to be hard to provide your daily sustenance.
You're going to have to work very hard for your food.
You're going to have to work hard to make it.
Now he says it's for thy sake, but he's telling him you need to work hard if you're going to make it.
And here's the thing, when you're sweating, it's basically telling you this is going to be something that's very difficult to do.
It's not going to be easy.
Now the truth is that when you're young you can work harder than when you're old.
You know, the sad thing is, my dad was a very hard worker growing up.
He was an awesome father. He was a great father.
And the reason why I'm here today, I give credit to my parents who did a great job raising me.
But there comes a point in life where basically you're able to outwork your dad.
Why? Because he reaches a certain age where he just can't do as much anymore.
When you get older, it's just a lot more difficult, you know.
And this might be kind of a silly example, but I used to play sports all the time.
You know, pretty much when I was in college I played basketball five, six days a week.
I'd play for a couple hours, never stretch.
I'd wake up the next day and I'd just do the same thing the next day.
You know, I used to play sports in California before we moved here like once a week playing basketball.
And I'd wake up and my back was sore and when I was driving I could barely turn around.
It just gets more difficult when you get older.
And the truth is that when you're young you can accomplish more than when you're old.
It's kind of like when we go soul winning.
During this mega marathon, not mega marathon, but during the missions trip,
there were people that came here that were more elderly that came from Verity Baptist Church.
And they went out there, they put in their effort, but they just couldn't put in as much time as us that are younger.
Why? Because when you get older, it's just going to be more difficult.
Now turn to Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5.
The sad reality though is that when you're young you don't really realize how precious your time is.
And once you realize how precious it is, it's already gone.
You can't get back your time.
And you need to bear the yoke when you're young now and accomplish something and work hard.
Now obviously work hard with soul winning and reading the Bible, but work hard in your personal life with your job.
Because it's not easy to make it here.
I mean this isn't the poorest country in the world, but it's not the richest either.
In America, and this shocked my wife when she moved there, but you literally can work zero hours a week and the government gives you money.
And you're perfectly fine. They give you your food, they give you everything.
That's kind of against what the Bible says.
When it says if you don't work, neither should you eat.
But the U.S. will pay you to do nothing.
They're not going to pay you to do nothing here.
You're going to have to work hard to make it.
It's not going to be easy.
It says in Ephesians 5 verses 15 to 16.
The Bible says be wise and redeem the time.
What does it mean by the days are evil?
We'll turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and the Bible is going to tell us what that means.
The days are evil.
Basically what it's saying is that when you get older, those days are evil.
Because basically you start losing your energy, you start losing your strength.
You're not as strong as you used to be. You don't have as much time or energy.
And in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 verse 1, it says
The evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.
So you notice it uses that terminology, the evil days.
Now Ecclesiastes chapter 12 is a chapter about getting older in life.
It uses a lot of metaphorical and symbolic language.
So you have to really look at it and pay attention to what's being said.
But it's talking about aging in life. Notice verse 2.
While the sun or the light or the moon or the stars be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain.
Notice verse 3.
In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble.
What does it mean by the keepers of the house shall tremble?
What it's saying is your hands tremble as you get older.
Isn't that the truth?
With people that are older, their hands are a little bit shaky. They're not as strong.
It says keepers of the house. Why does it say that?
Because your hands are what are going to open the door to your house.
And they're also going to be what protects you if somebody comes in.
Right? If somebody comes in to try to cause problems or whatever breaks into your house.
Your hands are the keepers of the house.
What happens as you get older?
They start to tremble.
They start to shake.
Right? When you get older, it's like you've had too much caffeine.
Because when you're young and you just drink a bunch of coffee and whatever, your hands start to shake. Right?
That happens to you when you get older.
It's just inevitable that the keepers of the house are going to tremble.
Then it says this.
And the strong men shall bow themselves.
What does it mean by the strong men shall bow themselves?
It's talking about your legs.
Your legs just aren't going to be as strong when you get older as when you're young.
Now it says the strong men. Why?
Because your legs are a lot stronger than your upper body.
When I used to lift at the gym a lot, I was able to leg press more than four times as much weight than I was able to bench press.
Why? Because your legs are a lot stronger.
I know that you see these pictures of these guys that lift all the time at the gym.
They've got these really strong muscles and their legs are like this.
But that's not the way God intended it to be.
Your legs are going to be a lot stronger.
I mean we walk with our legs all the time.
It's important that they're strong.
But as you get older, you don't have as much strength.
You see people that are older, when they go to stand up, they have to kind of push off their chairs just to get up.
Why? Because the strong men bow themselves as they get older.
They're just not as strong as they used to be.
It's inevitable that's what's going to happen.
It says then, and the grinders cease because they are few.
What is that talking about?
It's talking about your teeth.
Isn't it true that when people get older, they often lose their teeth?
The grinders cease because they are few.
We're seeing as you age in life, it's kind of the downward spiral.
Your body just isn't as strong as it used to be.
The grinders cease because they are few.
And it says, and those that look out of the windows be darkened.
What is that talking about?
It's talking about your eyesight.
Those that look out of the windows be darkened.
He's using a lot of symbolic language, but that's what he's referring to.
And when you get older, your eyesight often goes bad.
Now, you might not be aware of this in this room because I always wear contacts,
but my eyesight went bad when I was like nine years old.
I started wearing glasses.
I'm very legally blind without contacts or glasses.
I can't recognize my wife for more than like a couple feet away from me.
My vision is really that bad.
Without contacts or without glasses.
I remember I was driving once in the US, and my eye was itchy,
so I kind of rubbed it, and my contact fell out.
And that's really dangerous for me because I'm seeing all this double vision,
so I closed that eye, and I was trying to just pull over to the side of the road
because without my contacts or glasses, my vision is real bad.
I'm nearsighted, so I can see this without my contacts or glasses.
But more than a couple feet away, I can't see.
But no matter how good your eyesight is, when you get older, it's going to start to go.
My grandmother is in her 90s, and her eyesight has really started to go.
She can't really see that well anymore.
Because when you get older, your body will get weaker.
It's inevitable that every single person is going to die one day,
and before you die, you're going to start to slowly wear away.
You don't have the same strength.
Unfortunately, when you're young, you don't necessarily realize that or think about that.
But you're going to realize that when you're older,
you're going to wish that you could just see a little bit better.
You're going to wish you could walk just a little bit better.
So what do you need to do?
Well, hey, if you're young, redeem the time now.
Because when you get older, it's not going to be as easy.
Say, Brother Stuck, I love going so many.
Hey, redeem that time now.
Because when you get older, you're not going to be able to go out for four, five, six hours a day.
It's going to be more difficult.
You're just not going to have the same strength.
You're not going to have the same energy.
Hey, redeem that time now.
Unfortunately, when people are young, especially in today's world, they have their cell phone all the time.
So they're playing video games.
They're texting all the time.
They're doing Instagram and all this stuff.
But they're not spending any time reading the Bible.
They're not learning to work hard.
They don't take their jobs very seriously.
And the sad thing is, you know what?
That's your best time to work hard and accomplish something.
When you're young, you can accomplish a lot more.
Turn to 1 Kings 2.
Now, a lot of people consider this a blessing.
But in a way, it's kind of a curse that, you know, there was a time period when just to make it in life in America.
I'm not talking about the Philippines.
But even in the US, you had to work very hard just to provide your food on a daily basis.
It wasn't that easy.
And what it caused people to do was they learned to work hard.
That's not actually really a curse.
Because it benefits you in life, which we're going to see here in a second.
But you had to work hard just to provide.
It says in 1 Kings 2, verses 1 and 2.
Now, let me ask you a question about David.
Was David a powerful warrior in his life?
He was, wasn't he?
I mean, he killed Goliath.
He's pretty much the most powerful warrior who ever lived.
Right? He killed Goliath.
I mean, before that, he told Saul, hey, I killed a lion, I killed a bear.
It's like, what in the world?
I mean, they didn't have guns back then.
But he got the job done.
He was a powerful warrior.
But notice when he gets towards the end of his life.
And he charged Solomon his son saying, I go the way of all the earth.
What is he saying?
He's saying, I'm about to die.
Okay?
Be thou strong, therefore, and show thyself a man.
And what David's going to do is give instructions to his son Solomon.
And he's going to give him things to accomplish.
Why? Because he can't accomplish them anymore.
He doesn't have the same ability that he had when he was young.
Solomon, though, is young in the prime of his life, so he can accomplish it.
But David can no longer accomplish killing Goliath.
He can't do that anymore.
He's aged, and all of a sudden, he's giving his son Solomon a charge.
You know, they say in sports, they use this phrase that the one thing that's undefeated is time.
And what they mean by that is, no matter how good you are, you eventually get older,
and then somebody who's younger can just beat you.
You know, Manny Pacquiao was obviously a sensational boxer,
but as you get older, somebody that's young is going to come along,
and he's going to be able to beat you, and you're not going to be the best anymore.
Why? Because once you get older, your abilities start to fade.
You're just not going to be as strong, you're not going to be able to see as well,
you're not going to have as much strength or energy.
It's just inevitable.
And so, the moral of the story is that the first point is,
hey, accomplish things when you're young, because you can accomplish a lot more when you're young.
Now, turn to Ephesians 5.
Ephesians 5.
You know, I'm sure that when people come to the end of their life, obviously I'm not at the end of my life,
but I'm sure pretty much just everybody has some regrets in their life.
They're going to wish I had done more.
Obviously with people that are saved, we're going to wish we did more soul-winning, aren't we?
We're going to wish we just had a little bit more boldness and just went out a little bit longer.
We're going to wish that we read the Bible.
We're going to wish that we did a better job raising our kids or spent more time with family.
We're going to wish we didn't spend so much time playing video games.
And I understand when you're young, you do a lot of foolish things.
I played sports and video games when I was young, but when you become a man, you put away childish things.
But wouldn't it God that you learned to put away childish things at a very young age?
I don't know about here in the Philippines, but in the U.S. it's like an epidemic of men in their 30s playing video games.
And it causes their wives to hate them. That's the reality.
But they're obsessed with playing video games for hours and hours and hours.
What a waste of time.
Why not actually just live a real life?
What a waste of time to play video games for hours.
And that's something that used to be kids would do that, but now grown men do that.
They spend their free time. It's like, man, you're in your 30s and 40s and you have a bunch of guys that were playing video games all throughout the night.
It's like, what's wrong with you?
Why don't you spend time with your family?
And so the first thing is you can accomplish more when you're young.
But the second thing I want you to understand is this.
That hard work when you're young, it benefits you for the future.
Now look at Ephesians 5, verse 25.
The Bible says, husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.
So the first point underneath benefiting you in the future is this.
In your marriage, working hard when you're young will benefit you in your marriage.
The Bible says we're supposed to love our wives as Christ loved the church.
Now we know that Jesus died for us, but he also spent his whole life just devoted to the things of God, didn't he?
And we're supposed to love our wives sacrificially.
We put aside our personal wants and desires and we work hard to help our wife and to love our wife and to care about our wife.
Now turn to Philippians chapter 2.
Now here's the thing. To love your wife in that way, that's not easy.
It takes a lot of hard work to love your wife in that way.
Let's see how Jesus loved us in Philippians chapter 2.
It says we have the same love that Christ had for us.
Philippians chapter 2, starting at verse 2.
Fulfill ye my joy that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord of one mind.
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also in the things of others.
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.
So the Bible says in verse 4, look on other people's things rather than your own.
Basically care about them and think they're more important or more valuable than your own desires and your own wants.
What's an example of this?
It means that when I want to go out to Chowking, I go to Jollibee. Why?
My wife loves Jollibee.
I like Chowking, right? I put aside what I want and we go to Jollibee, right?
Obviously there's things more important than that, but the truth is that you're going to have a lot of things in your life when you get married that you might not want to do, but it's what your wife wants.
Now I'm not saying you change your standards.
I'm not saying you go to Catholic Church because your wife wants to go to Catholic Church because she just loves those idols.
I'm not saying that, but what I am saying is that we are supposed to lay down our lives because Christ came here to serve.
He didn't become a conquering king when He was here. We ought to be the same way with our wives. That's what it says.
Turn back to Ephesians 5.
Why do you think that Jesus spent all night in prayer sometimes?
Why do you think He was always out preaching the Gospel? Because He cared about other people more than Himself.
That's why He died for us.
In Ephesians 5, notice what it says in verse 29.
For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church.
Naturally, we love ourselves.
We might not say that, but the truth is every single one of us, we love ourselves.
We want to do things that we want that make us happy, but according to the Bible, you should put aside your own desires, especially if you're married, to please your wife and to make her happy.
Look, there's times when we don't feel like going solo anymore.
I have times where I do not feel like going solo anymore, but you know what? God tells us to go solo anymore.
We need to do that every week whether we feel like it or not.
There's times I don't feel like reading the Bible.
Well, what do you do? Well, you read the Bible. Why? God told you to read the Bible.
You're going to have times when you're married. The truth is when you're married, you will fight with your spouse.
Now, I'm not going to have a raise of hands, but every single guy in this room who's married, you would raise both hands and say,
Yes, you know what? That's definitely true. I've had fights with my wife before, okay?
I want you guys to realize that are young. Marriage is great. It's awesome, but it's not easy.
It takes a lot of hard work, and people have this idea, I can just kind of float through life and be lazy when I'm young and just become a hard worker once I get married and have kids.
Well, good luck with that because everything in life is a steady climb.
You don't just go from here to here overnight. It takes a lot of time to get better at this.
So it's good when you're young to bear the yoke. Why? It's going to benefit you in your marriage.
But not only just benefiting you in your marriage, it's going to benefit you when you raise kids.
Let's look at Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4.
And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
The Bible says in Ephesians 6 verse 4 that we are not to provoke our children to wrath.
It gives us the formula of how we're supposed to not provoke them to wrath.
It says bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
So it mentions two things. Now for me, this was a very comforting verse when my son was about to be born.
Because it's kind of intimidating becoming a father for the first time.
But honestly, the Bible breaks it down. It's actually pretty simple about how you can be a good father.
Notice what it says. Nurture and admonition. What is nurture talking about?
It means you provide love and care and affection and you spend time with your kids.
That's what it means by nurture. What does it mean by admonition?
It means you provide discipline and spanking and correcting when they're wrong.
Now according to the Bible, you must do both of these or you're going to provoke your children to wrath.
See, let's say you had nurture without admonition. Let's say you spent time with your kids.
You loved your kids. You never spanked them. You never disciplined them. You never corrected them.
According to the Bible, your kids are going to provoke them to wrath. Why?
Because of the fact your kids are going to be rebellious bad kids. That's the truth.
If we don't get spanked, we're going to end up being bad. That's what the Bible teaches.
We need to provide admonition. Obviously, a large part of that is through God's work.
But we also have to spank them at times and then show them why what they did was wrong so they can correct the problem.
We don't do that because we hate them, but the Bible teaches that as parents, it's our job to discipline our kids.
We must provide both nurture and admonition.
But let's say, for example, you had admonition without nurture.
Because some people, they just want to spend time with their kids, but they never discipline them.
That's the strategy of the world. The world's philosophy is just always love, love, love and no discipline.
When you look at kids out here in this world, is it working? It's not working.
Look, I was a high school teacher in Phoenix, Arizona for one year. Those kids were so disrespectful. It was ridiculous.
I was teaching in class and then some kid got mad. I'm teaching math.
I'm not preaching a sermon and he got mad and he walked out of the class.
It's like, what am I supposed to do as the teacher? Because when all the kids are rebellious, you can't do anything about them.
If it's just one or two kids, but when all of them are just breaking the rules and doing whatever, and then the principal never does anything,
and they're just allowed to do whatever, they don't get in trouble, you can't do anything as the teacher.
That's why I didn't like teaching in public school. I liked teaching in the community college, which was a little bit different.
But it wasn't too much fun teaching in public high school when the kids are just rebellious and disrespectful.
It was strange to me because when I was young, it wasn't like that.
But there's a huge change that has taken place in the last 10, 15, 20 years.
That's what happens when you have admonition or nurture without any admonition.
But if you have admonition without nurture and you're just like a strict military person and you spank your kid
and you always correct them but you never spend any time with them, your kid is going to grow up and hate you.
That's the reality. We need both. We need the balance. Yes, we need to discipline our kids. Yes, we need to spend time with our kids.
Now here's the thing. When you work a full-time job, it's very easy to come home and just be lazy.
Now I know a lot of the guys here that you're young, you're not married, you go home, you listen to sermons and stuff like that.
But when you get married, you need to come home and spend time with your wife and your kids.
That's what the Bible teaches. You say, well, it's more godly to listen to sermons. No, it's not.
Because I have a Bible verse that proves this.
Coming home and just spending time listening to sermons and never spending time with your wife or kids,
you're going to be a bad husband and you're going to be a bad father.
Just because you're a soul winner does not mean you're going to end up doing a good job raising your kids.
You have to actually spend time with them.
And if somebody knows the Bible pretty well and your kids know that you know the Bible well,
but you're not doing a good job raising them, they will resent you and they will hate you.
That's the truth.
You say, well, I'm just going to make sure I spend time with my kids.
Well, then when you're young, before you're married, learn to work hard now.
Because it's not going to be easy when you get home from work and you're exhausted to spend time with your wife and kids.
You're going to just be, you know, stay home, be lazy, do whatever.
You need to spend time with your kids.
And that's not easy.
You need to learn to work hard when you're young so you will do a good job as a husband and a father.
Turn to 1 Samuel 7.
I can already tell you this is going to be a long sermon.
The second sermon is going to be shorter.
I can already tell we're like 24 minutes into this.
Now let me just say this.
I'll give you kind of the main reason why we're preaching this later on in the sermon.
I'm not preaching this because I think we have a problem with the guys at this church being lazy that are young.
That's not why I'm preaching it because I don't think we have a problem with that.
But, you know, I will explain to you later on, you know, why exactly we're preaching this sermon.
But in 1 Samuel 7, let's look at the life of Samuel.
Wouldn't we all say that Samuel was a good character in the Bible?
There's two books of the Bible named after him.
Wasn't he a great character in the Bible?
Question is, was he a good father?
He wasn't really a good father.
He wasn't a terrible father.
But what you see with a lot of great men in the Bible, a lot of them are not good parents.
Isn't that what you see?
Their kids grow up and then, you know what, they're not good kids.
Why? Because it's hard to be a father. It's not easy.
You have to spend a lot of time.
But notice what it says in 1 Samuel 7 verse 15.
And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life.
Okay?
Notice verse 16 is very key.
And he went from year to year in circuit to Bethel and Gilgal and Mizpah and judge Israel and all those places.
Samuel is going all over the place, everywhere, judging the people.
If you notice in the next chapter, it talks about how his kids didn't love the Lord.
Why is it that he didn't love the Lord?
Because Samuel was always gone from his kids.
He was always helping everybody else and not spending that much time with his kids.
He's always going in circuit from place to place.
What's a modern day example of this?
Well, how about independent fundamental Baptist pastors who are always gone from their family?
You know, you could look at some of the people that we know from way back in the past and maybe you've heard their sermons, you've heard people talk about them.
A lot of them were terrible parents.
And we know that because their kids grew up and they hated the Lord.
That's the truth.
You say, why did that happen?
Because they were literally staying in a hotel room six days a week, preaching to a bunch of people and never spending time with their kids.
What ends up happening?
Their kids grow up and they hate them.
That's the reality.
Look, I decided a long time ago, and I don't know what's going to happen in the Philippines in the next 10 years, but if we become a country that has all kinds of like-minded churches and I get invited every single weekend, every single week to preach here and here and here, I'm not going to do it.
I'm not saying I'll never preach anywhere, but you know what?
I'm not just going to be spending time away from my family five, six days a week and not being there for my kids.
What's going to happen?
My kids are going to resent me.
Why?
Because I care about other people more than I care about them.
That's the truth.
And look, Samuel was a great guy, but he was not a great parent.
Now, I don't think his kids were unsaved, but they didn't love the Lord like Samuel.
Why?
Because he cared about other people and spent more time with other people.
He's judging in circuit, so he's going from place to place to place to place, but he's not home with his kids.
Look, if you're going to be a good parent, it's going to take a lot of hard work.
It's going to take time.
Now, turn to Malachi chapter one, Malachi one.
And so working hard in your youth, it's going to benefit you in your marriage.
It's going to benefit you when you raise your kids.
But you know, it's also going to benefit you in work, to work hard when you're young.
And we say young, you could look at before you even have a full-time job, when you're 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.
Or if you do have a full-time job, you're 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, just learn to work hard as early as possible.
Notice what it says in Malachi chapter one, verse nine and 10.
Notice verse 10.
You know, God is very angry at them.
Then he says this in verse 10.
Why is he angry?
Neither do you kindle fire on mine altar for naught.
I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.
What does he mean by there's not a single person that would shut the doors for naught?
Basically, he's saying there's not even a single person that's going to volunteer to open and close the doors, right?
Think if you had a church and nobody volunteered for anything.
That's what he's talking about, basically.
He's mad at them and saying, hey, I can't even find a single person that would shut the doors for naught.
I can't find a single person that's going to take the offering plate.
They say I'd rather just sit down and not get up.
I'd rather not hand out bulletins.
I'd rather not do anything, okay?
God is angry about that.
It says neither do you kindle fire on mine altar for naught.
What is he saying?
He's saying everybody expects to get paid for any work they do.
That's what he's saying.
He's mad at them because he said everyone wants to do it for their own benefit.
Now let me say something, that if you always expect to get paid for volunteering you do,
you've got your reward here on earth if you get paid for that.
You're going to lose your reward up in heaven.
Now look, when it comes to running a church,
I learned a lot going to Verity Baptist Church from Pastor Mendez.
He does an awesome job.
He does a great job running the church.
I don't want people to volunteer if they don't want to because you will resent me if I do that.
If I try to force you to do things, I don't want to do that.
If you want to volunteer, that's great because obviously there's always more work to be done.
But I don't want people to do it and feel like they're obligated.
You think of the story of Rehoboam after Solomon was gone.
And he made the yoke and the burden so hard on the people that they hated him and rebelled against him and went to Jeroboam.
And so I'm not going to ask people to do this and this and this and this.
And then they're going to end up resenting me.
So if you want to volunteer, hey that's great.
A lot of people at this church, you volunteer, you put in time.
But in Malachi chapter 1 what we're seeing is that you should be willing to do it without getting paid.
And like I said, I don't really think this is a problem, but it is a problem in the Philippines in terms of Baptist churches.
Because they have a weird system, we'll talk about this more later on, where you basically get paid for everything.
But you get paid a very, very small amount.
They want you to be a full-time worker and it's like, okay you have enough money to buy a loaf of bread for the week to keep you satisfied from your hunger.
They don't give you real money, they just give you a little bit to kind of make you happy.
But see, it's either that you're willing to volunteer and you get rewards from God.
Or you're a full-time worker and you get paid an honest and fair salary.
Not that you get paid pennies. That's ridiculous.
And that's what Baptist churches do in the Philippines.
They pay you a ridiculously low amount of money.
I've heard of getting paid 30 pesos per week.
What in the world? How can you survive off that? What a joke.
You see, the Bible says that if you work hard, you deserve to get paid for what you do.
And look, if you're working for a church full-time, you need more than 30 pesos a week.
That's ridiculous.
Now turn to Genesis 29.
Now for a church to operate successfully, you do need people that are willing to volunteer.
I'm very thankful, my wife's very thankful, that we have a lot of stuff to get done these next couple weeks.
And a lot of people have just volunteered and said, hey, Brother Stuckey, we'll do that. We'll take care of it.
That's great. Why?
Because first off, I'm not good at all that stuff.
A lot of that stuff I'm not going to be very good at.
I'm not going to do as good of a job.
But two, it makes it a lot easier for me.
It helps when people are willing to volunteer.
When I lived in West Virginia, actually I lived in Pennsylvania at the time.
When I was living with my parents several years back.
And I went to a church that was about an hour and a half away.
And I was willing to volunteer and help out in whatever way the pastor wanted.
And the job he gave me was basically leaving at about 7 in the morning on the bus route on Sunday mornings to be the assistant to help pick up kids.
So living an hour and a half away, I would leave at like 5.30 in the morning.
And I'd get there like 10 minutes before they left.
And the bus route was ridiculous.
They would drive out like 30 minutes to pick up one person.
It was ridiculous how much money they were spending on just the gas.
Because gas is really expensive in America.
But it was like a two hour bus route.
And I got there really early.
And then you drive back to drop off all the kids afterwards.
But I didn't get paid for it.
I didn't ask to get paid. Why?
Because you should be willing to volunteer for a church.
Because you want to do it because you love God.
Not to get credit, not to get money.
But because you love God, you're willing to volunteer and help out.
And that's what it says in Malachi 1.
If a church is going to be successful, you need people that are willing to volunteer and work hard.
In Genesis chapter 29, let's look at verses 13 through 15.
It says in verse 13,
And it came to pass, when Laban heard the tidings of Jacob his sister's son,
that he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house.
And he told Laban all these things.
And Laban said to him,
Surely thou art my bone and my flesh.
And he abode with him the space of a month.
Now in verse 14, at the end of it, how long is Jacob spending with Laban?
One month.
It says he abode with him the space of a month.
That's more than four weeks.
One month.
Notice what it says in verse 15.
And Laban said unto Jacob,
Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for naught?
What is he saying there?
He's saying that Jacob for a month was working for free.
He says, shouldest thou therefore serve me for naught?
He was already serving Laban.
He was working for free.
He wasn't asking to get paid. He was just working hard.
Why? Because Jacob was not a lazy guy.
Because he learned to bear the yoke in his youth.
So he shows up at a place and he just has this attitude.
What can I do to help?
And he's serving him.
And then Laban, what's his reaction?
He says, wow, you're working so hard.
I don't want you to work so hard and get paid nothing.
So what does he say?
Tell me, what shall thy wages be?
Say, you want to get a promotion and work?
Hey, do things that you're not asked to do.
Just volunteer. Be the first person there and the last person to leave.
Volunteer. Work hard.
What's going to be the reaction of your boss?
Hey, what shall thy wages be?
What do you want to get paid?
Because you're such a valuable employee, I don't want to lose you.
You're a better employee than anyone else in my life.
You know what, every single one of us, we should be the best employee at our job.
Not because we're the smartest, but because we work harder than anyone else.
Amen.
Right?
Because one thing that we can fix in life is how hard we work.
Because we're born with a certain level of intelligence and abilities.
And you might work a job, there might be other people that are better at it naturally than you.
But you know what, it doesn't mean they have to work harder than you.
And we as Christians, we need to work harder than the world.
We need to set a good example to the Catholics, INC, and all these people
that we work harder than all these other people.
Because all the religions here go out preaching their version of the Gospel.
Isn't that true?
All the false religions are out there preaching something.
But you know, we need to work harder than them.
And so when somebody looks on the outside, they say,
wow, well you know the Baptists over there, they work really hard.
Now this INC, I mean they say they've got the true church and they're lazy as can be.
Right?
That should be the reaction.
We ought to work harder than anyone else.
And the reaction might be from your boss, hey what shall thy wages be?
Now turn to Genesis 47.
And so what we do see is this, that volunteering, it can lead to getting hired,
or getting a raise, getting a better job.
We see that in the Bible.
And I want you to notice in Genesis chapter 47, in verse number 6,
it says,
The land of Egypt is before thee, and the best of thy land make thy father and brethren to dwell.
In the land of Goshen let them dwell, and if thou knowest any men of activity among them,
then make them rulers over my cattle.
Who does he say he wants to be the rulers?
Those that are men of activity.
Basically those that work harder than other people.
Right?
He says the people I want to hire, not the smartest, but the people that are men of activity.
Why? Because hard work is going to pass up intelligence any day of the week.
Hard work is the secret to success in life.
And knowing that promotion cometh from the Lord,
if God sees that you work hard,
God is going to make sure that you're provided for.
And that he takes care of your needs.
God expects us to work hard.
Now turn to 2 Samuel 11.
Now obviously we're a new church here at Verity Baptist Church Manila.
We've only been around 2 months, and we just purchased our building,
and there's still a lot of stuff we're trying to get figured out.
Figure out how much finance we get in on a normal basis.
But you say, well Brother Stockton, I love God and I would love to work for the church.
You say, what's the secret to getting hired?
Be the best worker.
Right?
That's the person who's going to get hired who's really good at working hard.
That's the truth.
Because when you're looking at being successful at something,
you want people that are going to get the job done.
And who gets the job done?
Those that work hard.
Now at our church a lot of people work hard.
And that's great, there's so many people that are willing to volunteer.
But that is the secret.
It's just being a hard worker.
Now I want you to turn to 2 Samuel 11.
Let me turn there myself because I just added this this morning.
But a third reason, not only does it benefit you in the future,
not only can you accomplish more when you're young,
but a third reason is this, that working hard when you're young,
it keeps you out of trouble.
Now we're going to see 2 Samuel 11, and David is not single.
He is married, but I want you to notice what it says in verse number 1.
It says in 2 Samuel 11 verse 1,
In this verse, it says at the time when kings go forth to battle.
What does that mean?
It's the time when kings go out there and fight the battle.
They go out there and they work.
Because there was a day when the presidents and leaders were on the front of the battle.
They actually fought the battles.
Now they just kind of sit up in their office and just send other people to do the job.
But there was a time when the kings fought the battle.
At the time when kings go forth to battle.
But did David go forth to battle, according to verse 1?
No he didn't. What does it say?
But David tarry still at Jerusalem.
So basically, David's being lazy.
Now David was a hard worker, but he wasn't working hard in this story right here.
Notice verse 2,
So David is rising up from off his bed and he's walking around.
Why is it that he's walking around so late at night?
He can't sleep.
He was in bed and he's rising up.
Why is it that he can't sleep?
Because he's being lazy.
Because when you work hard you fall asleep like that.
99% of the time.
When you can't sleep, why is it?
Because you've been sitting around doing nothing all day.
That's the truth 99% of the time.
David can't sleep so he goes off of his bed.
He was supposed to go forth to battle.
He didn't do it.
Now all of a sudden he can't sleep.
He rides from off his bed and walked upon the roof of the king's house.
And from the roof he saw a woman washing herself.
And the woman was very beautiful to look upon.
I won't continue with the story.
I think we all are aware of what happened with Bathsheba.
But where did the adultery start from?
Him being lazy.
See working hard it's going to keep you out of trouble.
Now honestly when you're single it's a lot easier to get into trouble than when you're married.
Because when you're married you usually would come home at a set time and be with your wife and kids.
When you're single though with free time it's very easy to get into trouble.
And so according to the Bible is it good to have a bunch of free time where you're doing nothing?
It's not.
God expects us to work hard.
And honestly it's going to keep us out of trouble.
Turn to Lamentations 3.
Let me show you one more verse on this.
And then we'll start to get to the application and why we're preaching this.
And so let's notice verse 27 again and it says this.
It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
But notice the next verse.
For a guy who bears the yoke in his youth.
He sitteth alone and keepeth silence.
Okay?
Basically you know he refrains from getting into trouble whether it was social media or for what he says.
It's kind of like the Bible says women shall be saved in childbearing.
If they get married and have kids it's going to keep them from being a gossip in a busy body.
Right?
So what we're seeing is that by working hard by bearing the yoke in your youth.
It's going to help you to keep silence and not cause problems.
Right? That's the truth.
Because when we have too much free time on our hands it doesn't matter who we are.
If David could end up committing adultery because of free time.
Any one of us could get into big trouble by having free time.
I'm not saying you need to work a hundred hours a week.
But what I am saying is you shouldn't just have this big block of time where you say.
Man I got like you know two free days.
I have nothing on my schedule.
I don't know what I'm going to do.
There's a good chance you might get into trouble.
That's why people get into trouble.
Look working hard it helps prevent you from getting into trouble.
Now turn to 2 Thessalonians 3.
Let me tell you a story about myself too.
And this was probably I don't know 2006 or 2007.
And I got saved in 2003 in October of 2003.
I was 18 years old.
I was a freshman in college.
And you know as I started to read the Bible and everything.
I started to just have a desire to just read the Bible and go soul winning and things like that.
I was just like man I just want to serve God.
Now I didn't know the Bible well enough to know that part of serving God is working very hard.
I was lazy in college.
Because you're brought up in America at least when I was in college.
And you're taught that hey if you get this degree.
You're going to walk out and start off with this big salary.
And life's really easy just work 40 hours a week and that's it.
That's kind of what you're taught when you go to college.
They don't really prepare you for the real world.
What happened in America over the last you know 15 years or so is the market kind of collapsed.
Yes the U.S. is a rich country.
It's not as rich as it used to be though.
They are slowly losing money every year.
There's many reasons why that but the U.S. is losing money every year.
See when my dad graduated from college.
They would actually have companies go to the colleges and try to recruit you.
It doesn't work that way in America now.
Now you spend hours and hours online begging a company to hire you.
But see when my dad was getting out of college.
The companies came to you and they would try to get you to work for them.
Because you know it was it was a market where they needed employees.
And so if you graduated from college man you were set for life.
What happened in America though is.
That you know you can graduate from college without knowing anything very easily.
Now some of you might know this some of you might not.
Brother Chris is going to know I'm going to use a calculus example.
But you know I got a math degree in college.
And I was in calculus four.
It was the final calculus class.
There's a lot of other math class but calculus four.
And I was in this class and you know the teacher had like an hour of practice session after class if anyone had any questions.
So I would go to it sometimes.
This is calculus four.
And a kid literally asked.
What the derivative X to the fourth was.
Now most of you probably don't know what I'm talking about.
But if you had calculus you're like what in the world.
Because all you do is bring down the four.
And four minus one.
Let me pull out my cell phone for four minus one.
Oh it's three.
Four X to the third.
But he was in calculus four.
And if you haven't had calculus I'm not saying that you understand what I'm talking about with derivatives.
But that's like really easy.
That I'm confident my son I can teach him what X to the fourth is.
The derivative of that when he's five years old.
It's not difficult.
OK.
But he was in calculus four.
What does that mean.
It means he passed calculus one two and three.
So what happened in America is they passed everybody.
So what does that end up meaning.
It means a degree doesn't mean that much anymore.
Because everybody's got it.
I've got the same degree as that guy.
And that guy doesn't know anything about math.
Right.
And so what ends up happening.
It means that all of you have the same resume when you get out of college.
You all have whatever GPA.
You all have the same degree.
And so a degree doesn't mean as much anymore.
It used to mean a lot.
It used to be that if you had a degree you were kind of set for life.
You know in the Philippines a degree is a lot more valuable than in America now.
In America you make just as much money as if you're a construction worker.
As if you're you know an engineer you have just as much ability.
If you're a plumber an electrician versus being an engineer.
You make more than you would if you're a teacher.
Now it's not like that in the Philippines.
Right.
I mean obviously you know there is a benefit financially.
And I'm not going down that rabbit trail or whatever you know.
It's different.
But what I'm saying is that it changed in America.
And so they don't really teach you that.
So I was very lazy in college.
Now I got saved in college but I was very lazy in college.
So I didn't work hard in my classes.
I was like whatever I got my GPA I don't care.
And I just figured I'd graduate and you know you're set for life.
But then all of a sudden you realize wow it's not that easy.
So when I was in college though there was a time period when I started to get really interested in the Bible.
And I was I thought in my mind before I realized Christian school was wrong biblically.
And that's that's a whole nother sermon.
But I was would have been willing to work for an IFB church as a teacher.
For a much much less salary than a normal teacher would get.
Why? Because I didn't want to help the public school system.
You know I had a zeal but not according to knowledge.
I was willing to have a less of a salary.
There's actually you know a lot of people within our movement here in the Philippines that work for Baptist churches.
And you know what those churches robbed them.
Those churches gave them a very low salary.
Now that's wicked because if you work a certain amount of hours you deserve to get paid for what you do.
But they basically would pay everyone just a very small amount.
That's kind of what they do in America with the Christian school system.
You get paid.
They convince you that if you're godly you'll work for the church and get paid a very small salary.
OK.
You know there's a lot of people here in the Philippines that they love God and they would love to work for a church.
But you know when it comes to working for a church if you're going to get hired you're going to pay what you deserve.
You're not going to get paid a really low salary like other Baptist churches are doing.
Because that's wrong.
It's not biblical.
OK.
Now turn to you're in 2 Thessalonians 3.
The reason why I'm preaching the sermon is not because of anybody in this room.
Because you know people in this room you know you love God you go soul and you're here.
But you know we have an epidemic of people that just will show up at this church and expect they're going to get hired by the church.
And they expect we're going to house them and feed them.
And it's like I don't know who you are.
We have had at least six times that's happened.
Six times.
A couple people emailed us before the church started.
And they said do you have need for a full time worker.
It's like a full time worker?
We could have 10 people at the first service.
Why would we need a full time worker if our church would be that small?
Now obviously if our church is huge you know yeah you need people to work for them.
You know at Verity Baptist Church outside of Pastor Mendez I was the first full time worker.
They had 130 to 140 people going to church on Sunday mornings.
They had a lot of people.
A church that's really small doesn't need a full time worker.
That's the truth.
Now we had two people that emailed us and we've had four people that have showed up.
And obviously you know I wrote this sermon a few weeks ago.
But obviously we had a situation last week that many of you know about.
And it's like someone who wants to come here and expects to get paid by the church.
It's like are you kidding? I don't know who you are.
I don't even know if well I know that person's not safe.
But you just randomly show up it's like how do I know if you're even safe?
How do I know if you're a good worker?
Why would you hire someone if you don't even know that they're a good worker?
If they're lazy we don't want them to work for us.
They're not going to help us. They're going to be a hindrance.
They're not going to be a help.
And we have an epidemic of people showing up and they think they're going to get paid to work full time.
And we're going to house them and feed them.
It's like why in the world would we do that? We don't even know who you are.
And I know a lot of Baptist Church in the Philippines do that.
We're never doing that here.
I don't care if every Baptist Church does it. We're not going to do that here.
Because of the fact it's not a biblical thing.
Now let me just say this. I understand that when it comes to churches, different churches operate differently.
That's fine. There's other churches that do a lot of soul winning.
And they operate a little differently than us.
I don't have anything against them. Praise the Lord they're winning a lot of souls.
I'm just explaining to you why we do that this year.
And the reason why I'm preaching it is because it's an issue I have to preach on.
Because people show up all the time and they want to work for this church.
And then once they find out we're not going to hire them then they leave.
That happens. It's like fine. Leave.
Because if you're going to leave because you're not getting paid when I don't even know who you are.
Go ahead and leave.
We don't even know who you are.
We want people here. If we're going to hire someone, it's going to be someone I know.
I'm not going to hire some random person I don't know.
Now in 2 Thessalonians 3, let me show you verse 6.
The Bible reads,
Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly,
and not after the tradition which he received of us.
The Bible tells us to withdraw if somebody doesn't go after the tradition that they receive.
For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us.
For we behave not ourselves disorderly among you.
Neither did we eat any man's bread for naught, but wrought with labor and travail night and day,
that we might not be chargeable to any of you.
Was Paul the Apostle a good evangelist?
He was. He was the best, wasn't he?
Paul the Apostle, did he work a job while he was an evangelist?
Yes, he did.
He worked as a tent maker, okay?
If people are going to show up here and expect, they're not willing to work another job.
They're not willing to be happy at a normal job or work hard there, but you're going to work first.
You're just like, no, get a real job first.
I mean, get a job, of course we're not going to hire you if you're not working first.
We need to see that you're good at doing what you do, that you work hard.
Because if you don't work hard, we don't want you to work for us.
But look, Paul said I might not be chargeable to any of you.
And we need people to have an attitude that Paul the Apostle had.
Because what's happening, and in America as well we've had this situation,
where people have an attitude, they're not going to work another job, they're just going to work for the church.
It's like, no, learn to work a job.
Before I got hired by Verity Baptist Church, I had a full-time job.
And the way I got hired is, first, I've known Pastor Jimenez for over a decade.
I've known him a very long time. I met him in 2008 or 2009, I can't remember.
I've known him for a very long time. He knew who I was.
He'd known me for a long time.
And I told him I was going to move to the church.
So I counted the cost, I looked at our finances, I saved up.
When my wife and I first got married, and you can ask her this,
but I decided when I got married that I was going to move within six months to go to a church that's like-minded.
And so I made the decision to move to Verity Baptist Church, that's where I decided to go.
And I didn't want to be in an apartment that was a one-year lease
because we'd be paying all these months that we weren't going to be there.
I didn't want to get tied down to Maryland where I worked.
And so I found a month-by-month apartment.
The month-by-month apartment I found was the cheapest one I could find.
You could ask my wife, we moved in there, there were nails sticking out of the ground,
there were staples sticking out of the ground. Why?
It used to have a carpet there and the carpet was taken away.
It was not a nice place to live.
It was like the worst place to live.
You say, why did you do that?
Because I wanted to have enough money so I could move to California
and get trained to be a missionary, trained to be a pastor one day.
So I was willing to stay at a very, very terrible place.
I'm not exaggerating, there were staples and nails sticking out of the ground at the place.
But it was a month-by-month place, and honestly, the rent was very cheap.
So that's what I did.
Now we moved to California, we didn't know the area.
We stayed in an apartment for nine months, it was a lot more expensive than we needed to pay.
I had money saved up and we bought a house.
I did that, I put myself in a position of working hard.
And you know what, I chose to live in a bad place. Why?
Because I wanted the ability to be able to move.
Because I figure once we get married and have kids,
I want to stay at a place a little bit nicer than a place that has nails sticking out of the ground.
If you know my son, my son's pretty rowdy, isn't he?
If we stayed at a place with nails and staples sticking out of the ground,
we'd be at the hospital like every other day.
So in 2 Thessalonians 3, let me give you a couple of examples real quick.
There was a guy that went to Verity Baptist Church two different times.
His name is Brother Arthur.
He came, he used to live in France.
He ended up coming to the church for three months.
He showed up and he had money saved up.
He bought a bicycle.
He didn't ask for any help whatsoever.
He was a full-time soul winner for the church for a couple months before he started working for someone at the church
that wanted to hire him.
He never asked to be hired.
He never asked for any money for soul winning.
He just chose to do it because he loved God.
There was a time period where I used to go soul winning six days a week while working.
I worked 40 hours a week and I studied math exams for 30 hours a week for my actuarial career.
I was working basically 70 hours a week and going soul winning around six times a week.
Myself and Brother Richard Sanders, we used to go soul winning together all the time.
I never asked to get paid by the church.
But people show up and they don't have this sort of attitude.
People show up and they're lazy.
There was a guy in Sacramento, California.
I went out for a jog one day and this guy was just kind of sitting underneath the tree.
This was my day off from work and I just stopped and started talking to him about the Bible.
He ended up coming to church like a week later which surprised me because most people we talk to don't come to church.
He didn't get saved immediately but he ended up getting saved.
I found out that the guy was actually homeless.
Being homeless in America and being homeless in the Philippines is different.
If you're homeless in America, you're a lazy drug addict.
That's the nicest way to say it.
You've got real problems.
Because in America, you get paid to literally do nothing.
The government will give you money if you just show up, you write down your name, they give you the money.
You're a lazy drug addict if you're living on the streets.
Not only that, if you're living on the streets in America, you're living on the streets because not even your friends and family are willing to take you in.
This guy came to church and it seemed like he wanted to fix his life.
I actually helped him for a little while.
We actually let him sleep in our backyard in a tent for about a week.
I was trying to help him get on his feet.
He was going soloing for the church a lot, he was reading the Bible a lot.
He ended up getting a job full time but he went back to his old ways.
I don't regret trying to help him out because when you lead someone to the Lord, you love him, you care about him, you want to give him a chance.
But it just kind of shows that the same guy goes back to his old lifestyle.
That's just kind of the way it is.
When people show up here and they don't have a job and they just expect the church is going to hire them,
look, they're going to go back to their old ways of being lazy.
In 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul says to withdraw yourself from those that would not be willing to work.
It's a really wicked sin in the Bible.
And laziness spreads.
The last thing we would do is ever hire someone who has not proven to be a good worker.
That would be a very foolish decision to make.
You hire someone who proves that they work hard.
It's just common sense.
Notice what it says in verse 9.
It says, not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an ensemble on you to follow us.
When I was planning to move here, I visited the Philippines in 2014.
I visited up here in Manila but also in Pampanga where my wife is from.
And my plan, because I thought about being a missionary but I wasn't 100% for sure,
but God kind of showed me this is where he wanted me.
My plan was to save up money and move to the Philippines and work a full-time job as a teacher
and start a church with just my wife, myself, and two kids or however many kids we had.
That was what my plan was. I was not expecting to work full-time.
I am fortunate and I'm blessed that I work remotely for Verity Baptist Church
so I spend about half my time doing things that I did when I was in California,
still with accounting and things like that, and I spend the rest of the time devoted to this church.
I'm very blessed to have that opportunity.
But my plan was to come here and work a full-time job as a teacher.
There's a lot of people I see and they're good people, they go so many,
but it's just like, well, how can I be a full-time missionary?
It's like, why would you have that attitude? That wasn't Paul the Apostle.
Paul the Apostle didn't expect anything. He worked a job.
That's what my plan was, to move here and work a job.
Obviously, if the opportunity arises, praise the Lord.
Because God will choose you if you're worthy of it.
But to have this attitude, because if I started a church in America as a pastor,
would I be full-time from day one?
No, I wouldn't. You know what I'd do? I'd work a job, like all the pastors in America do.
So why would it be any different moving here?
Look, you can get hired teaching in schools here.
You can teach English, you can teach math, or whatever.
You can find jobs here. It's not like it's a completely different language,
where if you speak English, you know, oh boy.
You can get hired here.
If you're going to move here and be a missionary, plan to work a full-time job.
And if God blesses you, or if you save up money where you can just say,
I'm going to be full-time from day one, you save up your own money.
Then, hey, praise the Lord for that.
But otherwise, don't expect to move here and just be a full-time missionary from day one.
And quite honestly, that's what most people do.
And there's no nice way for me to say this.
This is not a fun sermon to preach, because obviously, this is nothing to do with our church.
And I don't want to offend other people out there that listen.
But it's a situation we deal with, because people show up at our church all the time.
And they email a message to the church, and they want to get hired by the church.
And it's just like, what part of the Bible are you reading that makes you think that this is a biblical or godly thing?
Now, let me say this.
First off, when the Bible says, six days shalt thou labor, it's talking about working six days, 12-hour days.
That's 72 hours.
If somebody was hired, if we had a bunch of people hired here full-time at this church,
I wouldn't have 40 hours of work for you to do during the week.
You wouldn't have enough things to do.
We're just not a big enough church to just hire tons and tons of people.
You can only go soul winning so much in a day.
Isn't soul winning exhausting?
You can't go soul winning for eight hours every day, day after day after day after day.
You're going to drop after a while.
It doesn't matter how young you are.
Even if the days are not evil yet, look, you don't have that much energy.
Just go soul winning for hours and hours and hours.
It's not going to be healthy for your body.
So it wouldn't make sense for us to hire a ton of people that work full-time.
It just wouldn't make sense.
All these people showing up that want to get hired,
look, I don't have the work for you to do.
If I were to hire a bunch of people and not have the work for them to do,
I'm helping them be lazy.
That's the way I see it.
Obviously, if other churches see things differently, that's fine.
They can do things differently.
I have no problem with that.
We're independent churches.
We run things differently.
I talked to Pastor Menes when he was here during the missions trip.
He agreed 100% with what my thoughts are
in terms of how we're going to run things and how we're going to structure things.
But if we were to just hire people here to just live at the church building,
and we wouldn't have 40 hours of work to do,
I'm doing a bad job as a leader.
My job is to help the congregation.
That's my number one job.
Obviously, we're going to get a ton of people saved here,
but we're not trying to compete with anyone or anything like that.
My job is to help edify you.
And if I present the wrong attitude to the young men here
that's going to cause you to be lazy and then end up being bad parents
and bad husbands,
and what's going to happen is a bunch of young guys here
that you're going to eventually get married and start a family,
how are you going to afford to have your wife stay home?
Isn't that what 90-whatever percent of us believe
that your wife should stay home and raise the kids?
How are you going to do that if you're not able to make any money?
And then all of a sudden, is the company going to want to hire you
when you're 35 years old without any experience?
They're going to want to hire you when you're 25
and you're still young and you can do it.
And you know what? If we were to do that, I'm harming you guys.
I'm not helping you guys. That's the way I look at it.
Let me turn to Proverbs 14.
I apologize for the length of this sermon. It's going to be a lot longer.
I kind of figured it would be. The next sermon is going to be shorter.
But there's another problem that would happen if we just hired a bunch of people.
If people showed up and said,
Yeah, we'll pay you peanuts, a very low salary that's not going to help you make it in life.
It's going to harm you.
What's going to end up happening is we'll have a bunch of reprobates at this church.
You say, why? Because reprobates are lazy and covetous.
That's what's going to end up happening.
We're going to have a bunch of bad people at this church.
I don't want this church to be filled with a bunch of bad people.
We're going to have bad people at this church no matter what we do.
I don't want to just add to that.
We need people that, and honestly, when I was young, I was lazy.
When I was in college and graduated from college.
The truth is, the sort of preaching I needed was a sermon like this.
Because it's not easy to make it here, and you need to develop that career when you're young.
And she can end up making it.
If our church grows, if our finances are there, obviously we're a new church.
Obviously there's costs of moving into a new building.
It's still early to tell how much we're going to get in every month.
You've got to be smart with money. You don't know how much is going to come.
I don't want to hire someone, and then all of a sudden say a month later, whoops, I made a mistake.
I know you quit your job to work for the church, but we really can't pay you.
Now we'll start just paying you 30 pesos a week.
I don't want to do that.
Obviously as the church grows, we could hire someone full-time, but I want to make sure it's actually sustainable.
And if we hire someone full-time, they're going to get paid what they deserve.
They're not going to get paid like this is a secondary job, because you know what?
The ministry is a lot of hard work.
And once we're at the point where there's lots of work to be done and 20 hours of sowing on the side until there's more work to be done,
yeah, you do need someone to work there.
A church the size of Verity Baptist Church that runs, I don't know, 160, 170 people,
they do need full-time workers at that church.
They have two full-time workers, including Pastor Menes, and a part-time worker at that church.
And well, also myself, who's part-time.
Yeah, when you're that size, you do need that many people.
But when you're a smaller church, it's not really a necessity.
Now turn to Proverbs 14, and the last thing I want you to look at is this.
This is something we must take by faith.
Because as I said in this sermon, I hope I've made this clear,
I'm not preaching this because there's any problem with the members of our church.
Our church is filled full of people that love the Lord.
Over 90% of this church went sowing this past week.
That's amazing for a church. That's awesome.
And there's people in this room that you love, God, you would love to work for the church.
And like I said, eventually that could happen.
That's a good attitude to have, that you love God and you just want to serve Him.
That is a good attitude to have.
That's different than someone just coming in, who's not a part of our church,
and expecting to get hired or to work for the church, or to get free food or free rooming.
It's like, no, that's just not what we're going to do here.
It's great to have this attitude, but this is something you must take by faith.
Because this sort of sermon is not a fun sermon to preach.
It's a sermon, honestly, a lot of people could disagree with.
But honestly, this is going to help you out.
This is better for you when you're young.
And my job is to help the people I'm preaching to.
It's better for you not to work full time for the church.
Obviously, if the church grows and we're able to pay someone a fair salary to work for the church,
something that I expect to be permanent, unless something major came up, that's different.
But honestly, it's not best for you guys that love the Lord.
You say, I want to serve God. That is a great attitude to have.
I love that you want to serve God. You just want to serve Him and do everything you can.
But honestly, it just wouldn't be the best thing for you.
When I was young, I just wanted to work for the church to serve God.
But honestly, the best thing for me at the time was to develop a career.
And honestly, once I worked hard and developed a career, it helped me out later in life, being married and having a child.
Proverbs 14, verse 12, it says,
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
Obviously, this applies to an unsaved person.
What seems right to them is to work their way to heaven.
But even us as believers, oftentimes there's a lot of things that seem right to us, things that we want,
things that our heart leads us down a certain road.
But it doesn't mean it's going to be beneficial for us.
OK, now turn to 1 Samuel 16.
Now, one thing that's interesting about this is when you think about soul winning,
is soul winning a chore or is it fun?
It's fun.
Soul winning is not really a job. It's fun.
It's great to go soul winning, right?
I love getting to go soul winning. Obviously, there's times you wake up, you don't want to go.
But I love going soul winning.
There's a lot of things with my job I don't like.
For those that were here last week, it wasn't really fun after Sunday service talking to someone about an issue.
It's not someone in this room.
But it's like those things aren't fun.
There's a lot of things with the ministry that aren't fun.
It's like you say, man, I just want to work for the church.
It's not just soul winning, though.
There's a lot of things that aren't going to be fun working for a church.
I love the opportunity of working for Verity Baptist Church and getting the training.
There's a lot of things about that job that weren't fun.
That's the truth.
It's like with any job.
There's going to be certain things that are fun, certain things that aren't.
Now turn to 1 Samuel 16. Let's look at verse 1.
Let me show you an interesting story.
And it says in 1 Samuel 16, verse 1,
And the Lord said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel?
Fill thine horn with oil, and go.
I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided me a king among his sons.
So God is going to choose a king among the sons of Jesse.
He's going to choose the next king.
Now notice what it says in verse 7.
But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance or on the height of his stature, because I have refused him.
For the Lord seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.
So when it comes to choosing one, God looks at the heart.
See, Samuel showed up and he kind of figured that he had found the next king.
But God tells him, you know, God looks on the heart.
Notice what it says in verse 10.
Again, Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel.
And Samuel said unto Jesse, The Lord hath not chosen these.
So all the sons of Jesse are there, and God didn't choose any of them to be king.
You say, wait a minute.
Why did God say there was going to be a son chosen among Jesse's sons to be the next king?
Because there was one son that did not show up.
See, God is choosing someone to be the king, and you know what?
David didn't show up.
You say, why?
Well notice verse 11.
And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children?
And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and behold, he keepeth the sheep.
What's a more glorious job, being the king of Israel or keeping the sheep?
Being the king of Israel, right?
Obviously, to David, that's a really glorious job.
You know, David said, you know what, I have a job I can't leave.
I must be there to keep the sheep.
See, when it comes to hiring someone, when it comes to biblical standards,
you find someone who's a hard worker, but you find someone who's just working hard
and is not expecting to get hired.
So when people move to this church, and they expect to get hired,
it's like, well, you're the last person, because you're showing up to be chosen.
I'm going to choose a person that doesn't show up to be chosen.
It's just a hard worker just going about their job, and they take it seriously.
Notice what it says in 1 Samuel 17, turn there.
See, David had more character than his brothers did.
And see, on the outside, David was not the best choice,
but God looked on the heart, and he was the right choice.
And it says in 1 Samuel 17, verse 20,
And David rose up early in the morning and left the sheep with the keeper.
Notice as David's going forth to the battle, he's just going to supply the battle,
to supply the brethren there.
He's not really going forth to fight the battle.
His dad just sent him out there to bring the supplies.
But notice before he goes, he makes it a point to leave the sheep with the keeper.
He doesn't just say, well, that job is meaningless.
No, he takes that job seriously.
Look, whatever job you have, take it seriously.
Say, well, I'm just keeping the sheep.
It's important.
Promotion cometh from the Lord.
If you do a good job at your personal job, God might look down and say,
you know what, I'm going to give you the opportunity at a much better job.
See, that's the way God operates.
He sees our hard work.
And I understand it's tougher here in the Philippines to make it than the U.S.
But look, I had to learn to work hard, and that's what helped me in life.
And the truth is that here, work hard, and God can see what you're doing
and give you a better job or a better paying job.
Whatever job you have, take it seriously.
Look, you know, obviously, you know, the more souls we get here saved, the better.
I want you to love soul winning and put in a lot of time with soul winning.
But one thing I'm not for is just, well, I'm just going to not take my job seriously
and just do extra soul winning.
No, take your job seriously.
And, you know, if that requires you working overtime and cutting out some soul winning, that's fine.
Because according to the Bible, even though it's going to benefit our numbers for the short term,
it's not going to benefit you in the long term.
You're not going to end up being a good husband.
You're not going to end up being a good father.
It's not going to benefit you in your life.
And then once you get older one day, you're going to have no skills, no experience,
and no one's going to want to hire you.
Learn to work hard.
Obviously, I believe in going soul winning every single week.
But it doesn't mean you have to go every single day.
You have to take your job seriously as well.
And it's going to be tough if you're going to make it in this world.
Notice verse 21.
For Israel and the Philistines had put the battle in the right army against the army.
And David left his carriage in the hand of the keeper of the carriage.
Notice how he just has this attitude that whatever it is, I make sure I'm disciplined and take that job seriously.
I don't just forsake it and leave it behind.
And ran into the army and came and saluted his brethren.
Obviously, we know later on that David ends up being the one that killed Goliath.
Why was David chosen to be king?
Because he did a good job at a very remedial, basic job.
And then God chose him because he was just a really good worker and he was found faithful.
When it comes to this sermon, obviously my job is to preach to the people of this church.
Like I said, other churches can run things differently. That's fine.
But it's just a topic I have to preach on.
Obviously, we're going to have people show up at this church all the time and expect to get paid.
Now, I hope they just listen to this sermon ahead of time.
And then they just go to, I don't know, the Bible Baptist Church down the road.
It's like, they would love you there!
You're willing to work for pennies?
Go ahead. Join them. That's fine.
Hopefully they just hear this sermon ahead of time.
But it's important for me to help everyone in this church understand how we operate things.
I believe that the same way you would operate a church in the U.S. is the same way you operate in the Philippines.
That's my philosophy on it.
What worked for Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento is going to work here.
The same sort of structure. It's the same thing. Why?
Because this isn't something that's an American thing or a Filipino thing.
It's a Bible thing.
Everything I said, I used a lot of Bible verses.
You can ask me if you have any questions about it.
But everything I told you today, I showed you what the Bible said about it.
Obviously, I said churches can do things differently. That's fine.
But my number one job is to try to help everyone in this room out.
That's my job.
And I believe that if we apply this, I believe this is the best thing.
I don't think it's the best thing for young guys to be working full-time at the church.
Now, obviously, if you prove yourself faithful and the church money is there, you can get paid a fair salary.
But I don't think it's the best thing.
It's very important for all of us when we're young to learn to bear the yoke.
It's going to benefit you in life.
It's going to help you out. Let's close an order of prayer.