All right, keep your place in 1 Corinthians 12
and turn to Ephesians chapter four.
Ephesians chapter four.
All right, we're looking at church growth.
Tonight we're looking at church structure.
That's the name of the sermon, church structure.
And last week we looked at the basic idea,
kind of an introduction, an overview,
that God expects churches to grow.
He wants them to grow.
He's given us an idea on what we need to do
and he's gonna do the work to grow it.
And we saw what the result of that is.
Today we're gonna be looking at church structure.
Now, the church of Corinth is a great place to go.
We're gonna be back in 1 Corinthians 12 in a second
because the church of Corinth
served as a great, bad example.
They screwed up a lot of stuff.
So they're a great place to go, 1 Corinthians,
if you're gonna be looking at a topic of church growth.
And in 1 Corinthians chapter 12,
we use the example of a body, okay?
Now, last week we briefly touched on the universal church
versus local church idea.
And just to touch on that real quickly,
when you think about a body,
a body doesn't do you much good
if it's spread out all over the country.
You need your body intact as one.
And in 1 Corinthians 12,
what we're talking about is the church body.
And so just as we have body members,
a church has members as well,
specifically placed in that church.
You see, if you're here tonight,
God specifically has placed you in Verdi Baptist Church
and you have certain functions
that God wants you to perform.
Now look at Ephesians chapter four, verse 16.
And the Bible says in Ephesians 4, 16,
from whom the whole body fitly joined together
and compacted by that which every joint supplieth
according to the effectual working
and the measure of every part,
maketh increase of the body
unto the edifying of itself in love.
So look at how it says the whole body fitly joined together.
You see, you are here at Verdi Baptist Church for a reason.
God has placed you here because you help complete the body
that we have here at Verdi Baptist Church.
And notice how it says every joint supplieth.
You see, God wants every single person involved in the work.
It says every joint supplieth,
and it says according to the effectual working
and the measure of every part.
You see, if we're all working,
it has an effectual reaction.
It causes other people to get more on fire for God.
And so every part, every joint,
we all need to be involved in this idea of church growth.
We all need to perform the roles that God has given us.
Now go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
And in 1 Corinthians chapter 12,
I want you to look down at verse number four.
And the Bible reads in 1 Corinthians 12, four, it says,
now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit.
The first point we have tonight is this.
There are different gifts that God has given us.
Nobody has been given the exact same gifts as somebody else.
Every single person in this room,
you have certain things that you're good at
and certain things that you're bad at.
Nobody in this room is good at everything.
Nobody in this room is bad at everything.
We've all been given different gifts.
You know, there's a philosophy
that you're taught when you're a kid
that you can be anything you want to be in life.
You know, if you want to be like a famous athlete
or a musician or you want to be an engineer,
whatever you want to be,
you can accomplish that no matter who you are.
That is a ridiculous philosophy.
Because if you have not been given a gift in a certain area,
then you might not be able to ever do it.
You know, there's a lot of kids, including me,
when I was a kid, I wanted to be a pro athlete.
But you know what?
Many kids make it as a pro athlete
because they just aren't given enough athletic ability.
And the bottom line is this.
You know, we teach kids,
they can go out and do whatever they want.
Obviously, hard work can help you accomplish a lot.
But you know what?
There are certain things that you can't do.
Because if God has not given you an ability
in a certain area,
you might never be able to accomplish that.
Not to mention that there are certain things
God doesn't want you to do if you're a Christian.
You know, God doesn't want you to be a pro athlete.
He doesn't want you to be a bartender
or other things like that.
But there are just certain areas in my life,
you know, there are certain things I'm very deficient in.
Certain things I'm not good at.
And no matter how much I might try to get good
at that one area,
it might be something that God hasn't blessed me with.
It might be something I could never do.
You know, I don't consider myself really musically gifted.
I'm okay at music.
But if I had set my heart to that,
you know, being an unsafe person,
try to be a professional musician,
I wouldn't have made it.
I don't have that sort of gift
that I could do something like that.
And every one of you in this room,
this could be an encouraging sermon to you.
Because it can show you if you feel defeated in life,
if you feel like you can't do anything
for Verity Baptist Church,
you're wrong about that.
Because every single person has been given gifts.
It says now there are diversities of gifts,
but the same spirit.
Every single person in this room,
you have been given gifts
and specifically placed in Verity Baptist Church
because you have the right gifts to help this church grow.
Look at verse number seven.
The Bible says in verse seven,
but the manifestation of the Spirit
is given to every man to profit with all.
For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom,
to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit,
to another faith by the same Spirit,
to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit,
to another the working of miracles,
to another prophecy,
to another discerning of spirits,
to another diverse kinds of tongues,
to another the interpretation of tongues.
But all these work at that one in the selfsame Spirit
dividing to every man severally as he will.
So you see here that there's a difference
in different gifts that are given.
We're not gonna turn here tonight for sake of time,
but Romans chapter 12,
if you have free time, you wanna look at it,
it talks a lot about this exact same subject as well.
But you see that there are different things listed here.
In one of the examples,
it says there's diverse kinds of tongues.
Certain people at this church
have an ability to speak multiple languages
and are able to get people saved in other languages.
That is not a gift that every single person in this room has
and quite frankly, that is something that some people
are never gonna be able to have.
They could try and try and try,
but they do not have the ability
to learn a language that easily.
There are certain people
that can pick up a language like that.
I had a roommate a long time ago
that he started studying Spanish and I was studying as well
and I started ahead and it wasn't too long
when he was way ahead of me in his Spanish knowledge.
Because he just had an ability to pick up languages easily.
That is something that some people have,
that's something some people don't have.
You can look at this church
and all of us are completely different.
There's a lot of people
that have a lot of skills with construction.
You look at this building,
it looks great in here.
If everybody was me, if you know me very well,
this building would not have gotten built.
We would have been hiring people to do the work for us.
It would have cost us a lot of money.
But thankfully, there's a lot of people
that have been given that gift to help build
and we have been given different gifts in life.
No matter who you are,
you have been given areas that you're good at
and no matter who you are,
there are things that you're bad at.
Now first, we need to understand this though.
We should not envy other people
if they've been given a gift that we haven't been given
and we should not feel defeated
if we don't have a certain gift.
You see that sometimes from people.
Somebody will be very good at something
and instead of being happy that they're doing well,
they're jealous or they're envious
that that person has a gift that they don't have.
You see that at jobs all the time.
Somebody gets hired, two people are working
and they're friends
and then the other person gets a raise above them
and instead of being thankful for that, they're envious.
We should not be envious in church
at someone who's been given gifts.
We should be thankful that there's people
that have been given certain gifts
that can help Verity Baptist Church grow
and another thing I see is that people get defeated.
Certain people, they look at their lives
and they think, what could I possibly do
to help Verity Baptist Church grow?
And there are a lot of different roles at this church.
Not everybody's gonna be up here preaching the sermons.
Not everybody's gonna be playing the piano or song leading.
There are lots of things to do at Verity Baptist Church
and we have to understand that whatever gifts
God has given us, God wants you to use those things
for the glory of God.
Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter four.
I hope this sermon tonight can help encourage you
if you're someone who feels that way.
If you feel like, well, there's all these other guys
at church that they seem like they know the Bible so well,
they know how to go soul winning,
they've been saved for years,
what could I contribute to Verity Baptist Church?
Well, God has specifically placed you at this church
so obviously God thinks that you have something
to contribute and you need to understand that as well,
that you have been given gifts
to help Verity Baptist Church grow.
In 1 Corinthians chapter four, look at verse six,
the Bible reads, and these things, brethren,
I have in a figure transferred to myself
and to Apollos for your sakes,
that you might learn in us not to think of men
above that which is written,
that no one of you be puffed up for one against another.
For who maketh thee to differ from another?
And what hast thou that thou didst not receive?
Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory
as if thou hadst not received it?
So we see here in verses six and seven
that people get puffed up oftentimes
when they're good at something.
That is another thing, we should not get puffed up
if there's a certain thing that God has given us
because who made us different from one another?
Obviously God's the one that gave you that ability
and if God gave you a specific ability,
why would you get puffed up about that?
If God gave you an ability, musically talented
and you could play the piano,
hey, praise the Lord, that's great.
We need people that are musically talented
but that's something that God gave you.
You know, if God gave you an ability to preach,
hey, that's great, that is something that God gave you.
That is not necessarily something
he's given to every single person.
I had a friend of mine one time who asked me years ago,
he asked me, do you think that every guy that's zealous
should become a pastor?
Quite frankly, the answer to that is no
because certain people don't necessarily have that gift
and it doesn't mean that they're worse
than another church member though.
You don't have to be a pastor to do something big for God.
I mean, we go out there, we go soul winning,
you get lots of people saying,
hey, you're doing big works for God.
Don't think that you have to become a pastor.
Yes, we need more churches, we need more pastors
but at the churches themselves,
we need our churches to get strengthened.
We need people that love the Lord,
people that know the Bible within the church
even if they're not the pastor.
We need people that have the ability to come up here
and preach a sermon if it needs to be preached,
people that can lead a soul winning time,
people that can lead music.
We need people to develop skills in their lives
and people that have skills,
you need to use those gifts for God.
And you gotta think that if God has given you
a certain skill, he expects you to use it,
especially if it's something that can be used for church.
All of us have certain things that we can do
that we can use for church
but we should not get puffed up about it.
We shouldn't look down on someone and think,
why is that person not as good at preaching as me?
He's been doing it several times, I just got up here.
That's ridiculous.
Different people have been given different gifts
and we should not be comparing amongst each other
who's better at this and who's better at that.
We've all been given different gifts.
If there's something you know you're good at
that you think that can help Verity Baptist Church,
hey, praise the Lord.
Use that gift for the glory of God
but don't look down on people
that don't have that same gift.
Turn to Matthew chapter 25.
Matthew chapter 25, look at verse 14.
The Bible reads,
For the kingdom of heaven is as a man
traveling into a far country,
who called his own servants
and delivered unto them his goods.
And unto one he gave five talents,
to another two and to another one.
To every man according to his several ability
and straight way took his journey.
So you notice that this man leaves
and he gives three different people talents,
five, two, and one.
He doesn't give the guy with five talents eight talents.
He divides it up.
And it's the same way with church.
We can't have one person doing all the work.
We need lots of people involved in the work.
But he says he gives the talents based on their ability.
Now here's what you have to understand tonight,
that you have been given gifts,
you might not have been given as many gifts
as somebody else.
Somebody in this room, you might be a five talent person.
Someone in this room might be a two talent.
Some person might be just a one talent person.
There's no need to look down on someone
who has less gifts than you.
You need to worry about the gifts that you've been given.
And think about this.
God is not gonna hold you accountable
for something he didn't give you.
If he didn't give you a gift in a certain area,
I mean, if you're not musically talented,
he's probably not gonna expect you
to end up leading song music.
You know, if you don't have any ability whatsoever.
But he will hold you accountable
for the gifts that he has given you.
And even if you've only been given one gift,
God expects you to use that gift for him.
God expects you to be a blessing to Verity Baptist Church.
If you've been given more talents,
God expects you to do more for God with those things.
You should be using all five of those things.
Honestly, a lot of people that have a lot of talents in life
they wouldn't wanna come to a church like this and serve.
Because they end up getting puffed up
with all the things that they're good at.
And they forget that God's the one
who gave them those abilities.
Quite frankly, a lot of people that are used by God
are people that don't have much to offer.
But they give everything they do have to offer.
And it's not a bad thing
if you only have one great skill you have
because it can be used very much for God.
Turn back to 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
And in 1 Corinthians chapter 12,
1 Corinthians chapter 12, look at verse number five.
The first thing we saw is there's different gifts.
But look at verse five, it says,
And there are differences of administrations,
but the same Lord.
See, based on the gifts that you've been given,
we try to put you into the right administration
or role to use that gift.
There are differences of gifts
and there's differences of administrations.
We try to put you into the right role
that you can administer that gift.
Look down at verse number 15.
In verse 15 it says,
If the foot shall say,
Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body,
is it therefore not of the body?
And if the ear shall say,
Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body,
is it therefore not of the body?
If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing?
If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?
So basically we see a hypothetical conversation
between a foot and a hand, okay?
Now wouldn't it be really ridiculous
for me to be up here tonight and say,
you know what, I think my feet are more valuable
than my hands, so I'd just rather have four feet
and no hands.
Wouldn't that be ridiculous?
I mean, do you think I could function better
with four feet and no hands, or how about two of each?
Probably two of each.
And you see a hypothetical conversation
between an eye, a nose, and an ear.
And wouldn't it be ridiculous if I had no nose,
no ears, and I just had five eyes?
That wouldn't really help me very much, would it?
You see, and here's what you have to understand.
God is using the example of a body.
Just like every single part of our body has value,
everybody at this church has value,
and nobody is the exact same.
It would be just as ridiculous for us
to look at someone else at the church and say,
well, they have no value because they're not an eye.
An eye is really the best thing to have.
We don't need the hands.
We don't need the feet.
We don't need the knees.
It's all about being an eye.
Well, that would be ridiculous.
If everybody at this church were me,
there'd be a lot of deficiencies of this church,
and it'd be like that with anybody in here.
Now, I do believe if there's something you're not good at,
you should probably try to strive to get better at it.
You don't wanna become really weak at certain areas,
but quite honestly, we're all different,
and there are certain things that you could never
end up becoming an expert at,
and there are certain things, though,
that you could use for God's glory.
Look down at verse, look at verse 18.
It says, but now hath God set the members,
every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.
And if they were all one member, where were the body?
But now are they many members, yet but one body.
And the eye cannot say unto the hand,
I have no need of thee, nor again the head to the feet,
I have no need of you.
You see, it would be ridiculous for the eye
to look at the hand and say, you know what?
We don't need the hand.
Now, you know, we just finished a six-part series
on evolution, and in evolution, they teach
that we've evolved from ape-like animals,
and we have certain parts in our body,
certain members, that have no value whatsoever.
They call them vestigial organs.
They believe there's certain parts to our body
that have no value whatsoever.
Now, we look at a statement like that,
and we say, well, that's pretty stupid,
because we're made in the image of God.
Obviously, all parts to our body have value.
You know, the scientists, they might not know,
they might not be smart enough to know
why certain parts in our body are there,
but I guarantee you, every single part
to our body has a function, and I'm not,
I don't consider myself an expert at science and anatomy,
but you know what, based on the Bible,
we know that every part of our body
was specifically made by God, and it has value,
and we look at someone like that, and we say,
the fool hath said in his heart there is no God.
You are very foolish to think certain parts
in your body have no value, but wait a minute.
Isn't this the exact example God's giving?
Just as it would be foolish to look at parts
of our body and say there's no value,
it would be just as foolish for Christians
to look at other members of the church and say,
we don't need those people, they have no value,
we don't want them, they're vestigial church members.
They're useless church members, let's get rid of them.
You know, that's ridiculous.
Every single person in this room has value,
and if you're someone who feels like you're defeated,
you need to realize that you have gifts.
God does expect you to use those gifts.
Don't get this attitude like you have nothing
to bring to the table.
Everybody in this room, God has something for you.
He doesn't want people just to be here
and not involved in anything at church.
He wants you to get involved.
He wants you to find out what you're good at.
We at Verity Baptist Church, we want you to find out
what you're good at so you can use that for God
and so you can get rewards for that.
All of us can get rewards for the things that we do.
We want you to realize that you can get rewards
and find out how you can get involved.
At verse 22, the Bible says,
Nay, much more those members of the body
which seem to be more feeble are necessary.
And those members of the body which we think
to be less honorable, upon these we bestow
more abundant honor, and our uncommly parts
have more abundant comeliness.
It says in verse 23, which we think to be less honorable.
You see, in our lives, we might look
at other church members and think that they don't have
as much value as ourselves or other church members.
And here's one thing you have to understand,
that if you use the gifts that you've been given
to administer various things, you might not get credit
for the things that you do.
Because people might look at you and say,
well, that's less honorable, that doesn't have value.
There are a lot of people at this church
that do things every single week
and they don't get much credit for it.
And people don't realize that.
People show up to church, they see the song leading,
they see the preaching, the things front and center,
and they don't realize how many things
are going on behind the scenes.
They don't realize how many hours
people are putting in volunteering.
And quite honestly, before I started working
for this church, I didn't realize a lot of things
that go on behind the scenes.
Because when you work for church,
you're seeing people all the time that are helping out.
You're calling people during the week
and asking them if they can help you.
They're coming down here, volunteering for hours
to fix something, and it saves me time,
and I can do something else.
And they are help contributing to the soul winning
because it frees me up to go soul winning,
to make soul winning maps or something like that,
and they will get rewarded for that.
And quite frankly, we don't really know
how God is gonna reward us one day.
If you were to compare someone who spends five hours
working on the building versus someone
who goes out soul winning for two hours
and gets somebody saved, how's God gonna reward?
I don't really know.
And quite honestly, it doesn't really matter.
I just need to worry about the gifts I've been given
and try to serve the God the best I can.
Whatever gifts you've been given,
God wants you to serve the Lord the best you can with those.
Turn to 1 Samuel chapter 30.
I might end up coming across as the liberal person
in this movement after this sermon
because we preach on soul winning a lot,
and obviously we believe in soul winning,
but it's not all about soul winning.
And we need to understand that,
and I'll show you this in 1 Samuel chapter 30.
Because you have to understand,
soul winning was given to a church, the Great Commission,
and you have to understand that there's a lot
of soul winning going on, but when people are helping out
with other things as well, then it frees up time
for more soul winning to go on.
Now I believe that if you're someone who's able bodied,
God has blessed you with good health,
you should be out there knocking doors.
And quite honestly, there's nothing more exciting.
I mean, it's great to see somebody get saved,
but there are also a lot of other roles
that need to be done at Verity Baptist Church.
Now in 1 Samuel chapter 30, I wanna show you something.
It says in verse nine, so David went,
he and the 600 men that were with him,
and came to the brook Bessor,
where those that were left behind stayed.
But David pursued, he and 400 men,
for 200 abode behind, which were so faint
that they could not go over the brook Bessor.
And so we see this battle, there's 600 men,
and 400 go off to battle, and the other 200 men
are pretty much at the point of death.
They do not have an ability to get involved in the battle.
They are tired, they are exhausted.
So what they do is they stay behind with the supplies.
They stay back there.
400 go to battle, and 200 stay back.
Look down at verse number 21.
It says, and David came to the 200 men
which were so faint that they could not follow David,
whom they had made also to abide at the brook Bessor,
and they went forth to meet David,
and to meet the people that were with him.
And when David came near to the people, he saluted them.
Then answered all the wicked men and men of Beliel,
of those that went with David, and said,
because they went not with us,
we will not give them aught of the spoil that we recovered,
save to every man his wife and his children,
that they may lead them away into part.
Then said David, ye shall not do so, my brethren,
with that which the Lord hath given us,
who hath preserved us, and delivered the company
that came against us into our hand.
For who will hearken on you in this matter?
But as his part is that goeth down to the battle,
so shall his part be that tarryeth by the stuff,
they shall part alike.
So basically you have 600 men.
400 men, they go off to battle.
The other 200 men, they wanna go to battle.
They wanna win this victory,
but they're so exhausted that they're gonna die
if they go to battle.
Now here's what you have to understand at a church.
You know, I'm 32 years old right now.
God has blessed me with good health.
I have the health that I can go out
and knock the doors zealously every single week
at this point in my life.
There are certain people at our church, though,
that aren't 32 years old.
They have gotten a little bit older,
or maybe God hasn't blessed them with the same health.
Obviously we believe in soul winning,
but we have to understand
that those people are not vestigial.
They can still get rewards for the work they're doing,
and if they don't have the health to go soul winning as much,
God's not gonna expect them to go soul winning as much
if they don't have that ability.
Quite honestly, there's people at our church
that when they go soul winning for an hour,
they're exhausted.
They put in time, and they just don't have the energy
to go for several hours.
Now us that are young, we look at ourselves and think,
oh man, I'll always have energy.
But quite honestly, once we start to get older,
it's gonna be a lot harder to go soul winning.
We need to make sure that we understand
that those other people,
where it's a lot more difficult to go soul winning,
that they are still able to get rewards here at church.
They can still be greatly used by God,
and we should not look down on them
just because of the fact they don't have the health
that some other people have.
There's probably gonna come a day
where it's a real struggle for me to knock doors.
I'm thankful that at 32 years old, God has blessed me,
and I have the energy and the ability to knock doors,
but there's gonna be a day
when I probably won't be able to do that as much.
There'll be a day when I don't have the energy
as much anymore, and if I go out,
I'll probably be a little bit less.
And we have to understand that the attitude of David
and the attitude of God is not
that those people have no value.
The attitude of David is, you know what?
They are doing work to help this church grow,
and they're gonna get rewarded as well.
Turn to John chapter three.
And if you're someone in this room
that soul winning is a real struggle for you,
and you only get to go out from time to time,
I want you to realize you can still get a lot of rewards.
Don't throw in the towel.
Don't retire from the Christian life.
You can still do big things for God,
because when you do a lot of great work here,
it frees up other people that have more time
to do more soul winning.
Hey, get involved with this church in any way you can.
You'll be a blessing in this church,
and God will reward you for that,
because you are helping the soul winning
by doing work here at church.
You know, if you have the ability to do something,
hey, get involved the best you can.
You're in John chapter three.
Let me just read you this verse in Romans 1.11.
It says, for I long to see you,
that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift
to the end, ye may be established.
You see, we shouldn't be comparing ourselves
with other people.
We should be like Paul, who said,
my goal is just to impart unto you some spiritual gift.
He's like, this is the gift I have.
I'm just trying to give it to you to help you out.
That's what we should all worry about.
Let's not compare ourselves to other people
and worry about what other people have
or what they don't have or what they do.
Hey, if there's somebody at this church
that has a gift, and they're not using it,
they're wasting it, that shouldn't affect you,
because you still have your gifts
that God is gonna hold you accountable for.
If other people aren't zealously serving God,
don't worry about it.
It doesn't affect the rewards
that you're gonna get in heaven.
You know, just worry about yourself.
In John chapter three, it says in verse 25,
then there arose a question between some of John's disciples
and the Jews about purifying.
And they came unto John and said unto him,
Rabbi, he that is with thee beyond Jordan
to whom thou bearest witness, behold,
the same baptizeth, and all men come to him.
John answered and said, A man can receive nothing
except to be given him from heaven.
Ye yourselves bear me witness that I said,
I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him.
He that hath the bride is the bridegroom,
but the friend of the bridegroom
which standeth and heareth him rejoiceth greatly
because of the bridegroom's voice.
This my joy therefore is fulfilled.
He must increase, but I must decrease.
So one of John's disciples, he comes to him,
and he tells him, you know what?
There's this new guy, Jesus,
and everybody wants to listen to him.
He's baptizing everybody.
He's better at preaching than you.
You know, the sermons are better.
They get more souls saved than you.
Now, quite honestly, I think the way his disciple came
to him was a pretty dumb way.
Coming to him, basically saying so-and-so
is more successful than you.
But you see that, and by the way,
that's not a way you should come to our pastor
or to this church and say, well, this other church,
look at how many people they get saved.
Look at how many people they get baptized.
Look at how great the preaching is over there.
We shouldn't come with that sort of attitude,
just like this disciple should have come
with a different attitude to John the Baptist.
But I love the way John the Baptist responds in verse 27.
He says, a man can receive nothing
except to be given him from heaven.
See, John the Baptist understood
that he had his certain role.
He had his gift, and he had his administration to perform,
and it was given to him by God,
but it could come to an end one day.
And it came to the point where John the Baptist
was no longer the big guy in town.
Now, you have to understand that if we live during this day,
you know, members of Verity Baptist Church,
we like to hear the preaching from the Word of God.
And before Jesus came on the scene,
we probably would've been going there
to listen to John the Baptist preach.
I mean, he was the best preacher in the entire world
before Jesus Christ started preaching.
He was the number one preacher in the entire world.
And one thing I've seen from independent Baptist preachers
is there's preachers that have a lot of talent,
they have a lot of ability,
and they end up getting puffed up,
like we already talked about.
That was not John the Baptist.
He said a man can receive nothing
except to be given him from heaven.
And he says in verse 30, he must increase,
but I must decrease.
The first point we had was there's different gifts.
Second thing, different administrations.
But the third, your administration can change
at Verity Baptist Church.
Just because you do something now,
it doesn't mean you will always be doing
that exact same thing.
You might not be able to do it anymore,
or for whatever reason,
there might be somebody else who comes,
and that's someone who we'd rather have do that
or change your role a little bit.
And here's the thing, John the Baptist,
his administration was changed,
but he didn't get mad about it.
And quite honestly, John 3.30 is just about
the central verse even in this series,
where it says he must increase, but I must decrease.
Because honestly, a lot of people,
they love churches when they're small,
but when things start to change and they get bigger,
they don't wanna accept that.
But here's the thing, the Bible says he must increase,
but I must decrease.
If you want God to increase in your life,
you've gotta be willing to decrease.
If you wanna have big things happen in your life,
you must decrease.
And John the Baptist understood that.
And here's what you have to understand.
Verity Baptist Church in 2017
is not gonna be the exact same church as it is in 2022.
Changes will happen, more people will be here,
things are gonna change, your administration may change,
and you cannot get upset about that
if your administration changes.
See, John the Baptist, he had the perfect attitude
when his role changed.
But let me show you someone who didn't have a good attitude.
Turn to 2 Samuel 19.
Okay.
In 2 Samuel 19, we're gonna look at Joab.
Joab served under David for a long time,
and it came to a point where Joab was being replaced
with somebody else.
Now, Joab, look at 2 Samuel 19, verse 13.
And say to Amasa, art thou not of my bone and of my flesh?
God do so to me, and more also,
if thou be not captain of the host before me continually
in the room of Joab.
Turn to chapter 20.
So we see here that Amasa is replacing Joab in his function.
But I want you to look at verse four in 2 Samuel 20.
Look at what it says.
Then said the king to Amasa,
assemble me the men of Judah within three days,
and be thou here present.
So Amasa went to assemble the men of Judah,
but he tarried longer than the set time
which he had appointed him.
You see, three days,
he didn't get the job done within three days.
He didn't do a great job at his new role.
But look at what,
now Joab should have been trying to help Amasa.
This is a new job he's taken on.
Joab should have taken Amasa under his wing and said,
hey, here's what I learned,
here's how I can help you out so you do a good job.
He doesn't do that to Amasa.
Whenever you take over a new role,
you're gonna make mistakes.
No matter what it is, if you take over a new job,
a new administration,
mistakes are gonna come along the way.
Look at verse number nine.
And Joab said to Amasa,
art thou in health, my brother?
And Joab took Amasa by the beard
with the right hand to kiss him,
but Amasa took no heed to the sword
that was in Joab's hand.
So he smote him therewith in the fifth rib
and shed out his bowels to the ground
and struck him not again, and he died.
So Joab and Abishah's brother
pursued after Sheba the son of Bichri.
I think Amasa was a little bit naive about Joab.
And Joab, he pretends to be friends with Amasa.
He says, he takes him by the beard to kiss him.
Ends up killing him when he says,
art thou in health, my brother?
That's a pretty cold-blooded way to kill someone.
You know, Joab should have taken Amasa under his wing.
And here's what Joab should have realized.
Even though he was being replaced,
it doesn't change the fact that he still served for years.
You know, if you're at this church
and you have a certain role that you do
and you served for years doing it,
you're gonna get rewards for the work that you did.
If one day your role changes, don't be mad about it.
Don't be mad about the new person that takes over.
You see that in companies all the time.
You know, a new boss will take over
and people don't like the new boss,
or they get mad because they like the old boss.
See, this is the way we see in this situation.
John the Baptist handled things perfectly.
Joab, on the other hand, he handled things terribly.
He killed Amasa because he was jealous
of the fact that Amasa, he was envious
that Amasa was now the person underneath David.
Turn to Numbers chapter 27.
And here's the other thing too, you know,
certain people at churches spend a lot of time volunteering
and really are a blessing to the church.
And they're really performing the role of an eye,
a hand, the feet, the elbows.
I mean, they're literally wearing themselves out
doing everything.
First off, we want everybody to be involved.
And secondly, we don't want you to get worn out.
I mean, soul winning's the big thing we go for.
And if you're just doing all this work,
you're probably not gonna have the energy
to go soul winning.
You'll become bitter, you'll be upset
when you don't get credit for certain things,
and you'll end up quitting the church.
And honestly, that happens all the time.
When people's roles change at church,
oftentimes they're bitter about it,
they're not happy about it,
they like the way it used to be,
and one day they end up quitting church.
You know, I was at a church one time,
a long time ago in West Virginia,
and I was in college at the time,
and the pastor always was trying to get us
to volunteer for everything,
but it was over the top.
I mean, the church was about a 35 minute drive
from where I lived towards the college campus,
and he would try to get us out to go out
like four days a week to clean stuff
and everything like that,
and then sometimes soul winning was canceled
on Saturdays for a cleaning day,
or to just do extra work on the bus route
and everything like that.
And honestly, it started to make me and my friends
a little bit kind of bitter about it,
because we were just so overburdened.
And here's the thing at this church,
you know, we want you to get involved
if you wanna volunteer,
but we don't wanna force you to just do so much
and perform the role of an eye and a hand and feet
and everything where you're just like,
man, I don't wanna have anything to do
with this church anymore.
And honestly, I feel like a lot of people,
they don't remember this verse,
he must increase, but I must decrease.
We have to understand if our role changes,
not to get upset about it.
Numbers chapter 27, starting at verse 15,
this is after Moses has already learned
he's not gonna go into the Promised Land.
If I can think of one thing in the Bible
that makes me almost feel like, man, he deserved it,
it's Moses, I feel like, man,
he had to put up with those people for decades,
and he comes so close and he doesn't make it in.
But look at how Moses reacts in verse 15.
And Moses spake unto the Lord, saying,
let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh,
set a man over the congregation,
which may go out before them
and which may go in before them,
and which may lead them out
that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep
which have no shepherd.
And the Lord said unto Moses,
take thee, Joshua, the son of Nun,
a man in whom is the spirit,
and lay thine hand upon him.
So what we see here is that Moses earnestly prays
that God will replace him with a great person.
He doesn't get bitter about it.
He's not rooting for Joshua to fail.
He honestly wants Joshua to do a great job.
And we don't have time to go into it,
but you can look throughout the first five books
of the Bible, you can see how Moses
really transitions to Joshua.
He does everything he can to set Joshua up for success.
Because Moses realized it's not about me, it's about God.
He understood the verse, he must increase,
but I must decrease.
It's not about us at Verity Baptist Church.
Whatever administration we have,
hey, do it to the best of our ability.
But if there comes a point where you no longer
are doing that role anymore,
try to help the next person out.
Try to be a blessing to them
and just be able to help in any way you can
at Verity Baptist Church in another role
or another function that you have.
Turn back to 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
And I mentioned this last week,
but I talked about not developing
this small church mentality.
Quite honestly, a lot of people,
they just don't want churches to grow.
They like it at the level they're at.
They know everybody.
They have their roles.
Everybody knows they're doing a lot of work for the church.
They like the fact they get credit for it.
And once it starts growing
and once they become less significant,
all of a sudden they end up quitting.
Now here's the thing.
I think when people start working for a church
and start volunteering,
I think they do have the right heart.
I think they're just trying to help God in any way they can.
But what ends up happening is once they start getting credit
for stuff, they start getting used to that.
And then all of a sudden,
part of why they're doing it is not just
because they're trying to help God out,
but because of the fact they like to get the credit for it.
And this is something that any of us can fall into
because we all naturally like to get credit.
I mean, nobody, I mean, honestly,
if I came down and being done with a sermon
and everyone's like, man, that was a terrible sermon,
it wouldn't make me feel that good.
Obviously, we like to get credit for things that we do,
but we have to understand no matter what you're doing,
you shouldn't be doing it to get credit.
And if that's the reason why you're doing it,
you're not gonna get your rewards anyway.
We shouldn't be doing things to be seen of men.
We should just be doing things because of the fact
that it's what God wants us to do.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, in verse six, the Bible reads,
and there are diversities of operations,
but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
First, we saw that there's different gifts.
Secondly, there's different administrations.
Third, we saw that your administration can change.
But fourth, we see there's different operations.
Basically, there's different ways
to perform different tasks.
There's different ways to get the job done, basically.
Here's what I wanna help you understand.
If there is something
that is not your administration at church,
it is not your primary thing
that you're in charge of or working on,
it's probably not a wise thing to go up to someone
who's been doing something for years
and tell them why they're wrong.
That is probably a pretty dumb thing to do.
If it's not your administration,
if it's not what God has given you
and Verity Baptist Church has given you to perform,
it's probably not a good idea to go up to them
and just say, hey, you'd be doing better
if you did it like this.
Now, I'm not saying you can't suggest things to people,
but there's also a way to suggest things.
And quite honestly, I've learned in life
that if you're used to doing something
and you have practice at it,
when people give you advice
that don't have much experience, they're usually wrong.
I mean, I can honestly tell you,
I've had several people in my life
that have given me advice about soul winning,
people that didn't have much experience.
And the advice they gave, it was not good advice
because they were very new at soul winning.
They'd give advice like, oh, you know,
this will help you talk to anybody
so they have to hear the gospel no matter what.
They're basically telling you to put your foot in the door
and just keep talking until they basically yell at you
or slam the door on your foot.
That's not good advice for soul winning
because if they don't wanna hear the gospel,
we don't waste our time.
And it's just amazing to me that when people give advice,
usually advice they give is bad advice.
I mean, think about if there's something
that you're really good at
or something that you know a lot about.
I would look at my life and if somebody came to me
and tried to convince me on a math problem
that I didn't know what I was talking about.
Quite honestly, I'd probably be a little bit sensitive
because it's something I consider myself decent at.
And secondly, I would feel like it's probably not right.
Now, we should be humble when somebody gives us advice,
but there is a way to present information.
Turn to James chapter one, James one.
In James chapter one, verse 19, the Bible reads in James 119,
wherefore, my beloved brethren,
let every man be swift to hear,
slow to speak, slow to wrath.
See, the Bible tells you you're supposed to be swift to hear,
slow to speak, slow to wrath.
But isn't it usually the exact opposite?
Aren't most people very slow to hear and swift to speak
and swift to speak?
You know, people shoot off their mouth about something
they don't know what they're talking about,
and then they end up getting filled full of wrath
because they're made to look foolish
because they didn't know what they were talking about
to begin with.
You know, we need to be very careful that, you know,
there's different ways to do different things.
And if somebody has been doing something for years,
they have probably figured out the best way to do it.
And quite honestly, they probably tried the other way
that did not work already.
And if they already tried this method and it didn't work,
they realize that they're not doing it.
If they tried this method and it didn't work,
they realize, hey, this is a better way to do it.
If somebody's been doing something for years,
we gotta be very careful how to present information.
Look at Proverbs chapter 25.
And let me show you what the Bible says
about how you should present that information.
Let's say, for example, there's something at this church
that somebody else is doing.
Somebody else's responsibility, someone else's role.
Let me show you how the Bible shows you
how you should talk to that person
if you wanna give them a suggestion.
Quite honestly, it's probably best
just to keep your mouth shut,
but if you have to give them advice,
this is what the Bible says in Proverbs 25.
Put thee to shame and thine infamy turn not away.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold
and pictures of silver.
See, the Bible says a word fitly spoken.
See, there is a right time to present information
and there's a wrong time as well.
It's not a good idea to try to give somebody advice
when they're surrounded by several other people
and tell them they don't know what they're doing.
That would be pretty dumb to walk up to someone.
They're in a circle of six people and say,
hey, you know what, your preaching's not very good
because you should've done this and this and this.
It's like, if you wanna give me advice,
you don't have to try to embarrass me
in front of everybody.
You know, what is your reason for doing that?
And if we're trying to give somebody advice on something,
if it's something that we're not privy to,
something that's not our role,
we need to be very careful to give advice,
but we also need to make sure we do it in the right way.
Don't be a jerk about it.
Just because you might be right,
it doesn't mean that you should just say it at any moment.
There's a right time and a right way.
It says a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold.
And sometimes we hear preaching behind the pulpit
where we get up and we preach sermons,
we yell, we scream, and quite honestly,
a lot of people at church,
they take that attitude in their daily lives.
They just go up to people and yell and say,
hey, you're wrong about this and this and this.
It's like, if you notice,
Pastor Jimenez doesn't act like that outside of the pulpit.
He doesn't just walk up to people on the streets
and start screaming at them.
He doesn't do that.
And it's like, we need to be very careful
with how we present information.
Turn to one last place tonight to Exodus chapter 18,
Exodus 18.
And the first thing we saw tonight is this,
that we've been given different gifts.
The second thing is we have different administrations
that we perform.
Third is your administration, it's flexible, it can change.
Fourth, there are different operations.
But fifth, the way we operate, that can change as well.
You know, one of the great examples
is the fact, well, I'll read Exodus 18 here first.
Exodus 18, look at verse 13.
And it came to pass on the morrow
that Moses sat to judge the people,
and the people stood by Moses
from the morning onto the evening.
And when Moses' father-in-law saw all that he did
to the people, he said, what is this thing
that thou doest to the people?
Why sittest thou thyself alone,
and all the people stand by thee from morning unto even?
And Moses said unto his father-in-law,
because the people come unto me to inquire of God.
When they have a matter, they come unto me,
and I judge between one and another.
And I do make the statutes of God and his laws.
And Moses' father-in-law said unto him,
the thing that thou doest is not good.
Thou wilt surely wear away both thou
and this people that is with thee,
for this thing is too heavy for thee.
Thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.
Now, what he says to him is, what you're doing is not good.
Now, the reason why it's not good
is not the fact that he's judging.
I'm sure a liberal would look at this passage
and just stop at that verse and not wanna read the rest
and say, there you go, you should never judge anyone.
The problem is not the fact that Moses is judging.
The problem is Moses is overburdened
with just way too much work to do.
He is judging from morning until even.
And he gets good advice on how he needs to change that.
It's not that they got rid of judging,
it's they changed the way that they did it.
You know, at Verity Baptist Church,
there are gonna be times when we have to change things.
On Saturdays for soul winning, for a long time,
we had everybody meet together in one group
and we paired everybody up.
Now, here's the thing.
That's not bad when you have a small number of people.
We have a lot of soul winners now.
And obviously it's great that we have a lot of soul winners,
but it's also a problem that needs fixed.
I said in the first lesson last week
that when a church grows, there's gonna be problems.
The result is there's gonna be things that you gotta fix.
And we decided we had to divide into three different groups
because it was just impossible to pair everybody up
within 20 minutes and we were staying here longer
every single week.
And here's the thing.
Pairing people seems very easy when you don't do it.
But when you actually pair people,
it's like the most stressful thing that there is.
I mean, obviously, when Pastor Mendez was gone on Saturdays
and I had to pair people, I dreaded it.
I was down on my knees praying like all morning long
saying, God, please help me.
I remember one time I had the pairing done completely
and I'm like, man, the sermon's not even over.
And then right towards the end, he said, let's pray.
And then all of a sudden, two people came in here
and I was like, oh, you gotta be kidding me.
Because once just one group comes in here,
I felt like just ripping it up
and just running out of here, you know?
And we realized that, you know what,
we've gotta change something
because there's just too many people going soul winning.
And praise the Lord, that's a great problem.
There's gonna be other things that come along the way.
When this church grows, more problems are gonna come.
And we're gonna have to change the way we operate things.
But don't get so fixated on the way we operate things
and have this attitude, well, you know,
I liked it better before.
Verity Baptist Church is not a good enough church now
because I liked it like this
and now I'm gonna quit the church and be mad
because I want it to be done like this.
And that is the sort of attitude a lot of people have.
And it goes back to that verse,
he must increase but I must decrease.
We have to realize it is not about us.
You need to understand a growing church
is always in transition.
There are gonna be changes that need to be made.
I wrote down a list of things that one day
maybe they could change.
And I didn't ask Pastor Mendez about this,
but this is the list I came up with,
things that maybe one day they might change.
It is possible one day that the time of church could change.
It could change a little bit later or a little bit before.
We shouldn't get so fixated on the time when church starts
or how long the services are.
That could change a little, who knows, I don't know.
You know, the soul winning times, they could change.
When we change this schedule,
soul winning was also moved back 30 minutes.
It is possible one day
that the times for soul winning are gonna change.
It's possible the maps we use for soul winning,
that could change one day.
The church building,
we're probably not gonna be here forever.
We're probably gonna outgrow this building
and end up moving somewhere else.
The church building, it's gonna change.
The ushers ministry, it could be adjusted or changed.
How we give the gospel to first time visitors
after the service, that could change.
You know, I don't know the changes that are gonna happen,
but here's what happens.
A church grows and you realize we need to make changes.
A growing church is always in transition.
If there's one thing I want you to get out of this sermon
is to remember that verse, John 3.30.
He must increase, but I must decrease.
Let's close in a word of prayer.
Dear heavenly Father,
thank you for allowing us to be in your house this evening
and I ask you to help us all,
including myself, to apply these principles
and these lessons that we can learn
from 1 Corinthians chapter 12
about the structure of church growth
and the obstacles along the way, God,
and help us all just to understand our gifts
and to try to use those to the best of our abilities, God,
and I ask you to continue to bless this church
and help us continue to grow.
We pray all this in Jesus' name, amen.