But coming through is He the best gifts and gives shoe-eye to you a more excellent way.
That's great. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for your word, thank you for your Bible.
Please bless the message that we will hear today from this chapter in order.
This is great. In Jesus' name, amen.
Alright, we're going to go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 12 here in a little bit and turn to Daniel chapter 6. Daniel chapter 6.
Now, if you were about to bring your policy to us this morning, we're going to be selling some active new sermons.
We walked into their own church this morning.
But the thing, the sermon is the necessary sacrifices when joining a new church.
The necessary sacrifices when joining a new church.
And, quite honestly, today's sermons are not necessarily kind of pounding them off in sermons.
They're kind of more instructional and just kind of educational.
And so, these are the sorts of sermons, though, that are actually very important to preach.
Quite honestly, when I'm talking about joining a new church, I probably should have preached a sermon a few months ago because,
you know, there's people in this room that you've never really been part of a church with.
You know, you listen to a lot of sermons online, but you're never really integrated as part of a church.
And being part of a church is different than listening to sermons online.
And then before this church, many of you were members of church, but it was a different church.
Obviously, when you come to a new church, churches do things differently.
And so, whether or not you're here and this is kind of your first church you've been a part of,
or whether or not you're part of a different one,
or maybe you might be part of a different church in the future,
these are things you need to know about when you join a new church.
And in Daniel, chapter 6, I want to show you something here.
I'm starting in verse number 8.
It reads,
Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing that it be not changed according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which all are if not.
Wherefore came Darius, signing the writing and the decree.
Now, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house, and his windows being opened in his chamber toward Jerusalem,
he kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did before time.
Now, with Daniel here, he has a set time and a set place where he prays.
We're in the middle of our prayer challenge this month,
and I've talked to you about having a set place, a set time, a set pattern for how you pray.
And if you don't have that, you're probably not going to be successful with it.
Now, you have to understand that when it comes to prayer, that is something you do in your personal time.
That is your personal walk with God.
And you can set your schedule to do it whenever you want.
As much as I recommend you do it first thing in the morning, if you choose to do it after work or whenever, that's perfectly fine.
You can have your personal time with God whenever you want.
But see, the number one thing you have to realize, the sacrifice when joining a new church,
is that your schedule must fit around the schedule of the church.
You can't expect the schedule of the church to fit around your schedule.
Turn to Acts chapter 20, Acts 20.
And see, when it comes to your personal walk with God, you can read the Bible whenever you want.
You can read the Bible at five in the morning if you want.
You can pray at five in the morning.
Look, we're not having church at five in the morning even if you're ready to have church, okay?
I'm sorry, but that's not going to be the time we have church service.
And your churches run things differently and they do things differently.
But you have to understand, you can't expect a church to fit its schedule around you.
You must fit your personal schedule around what the church does and how the church operates.
Acts chapter 20, verse number 7, the Bible reads,
Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow and continue his speech until midnight.
The Bible talks about how to love them, breaking bread.
And breaking bread is a reference to the Bible, both to communion but also just having a meal together, having fellowship.
And we break bread together every single week.
Obviously it's different here today, but every single week we break bread together and have fellowship before we go out sowing.
So now chapter 20, here Paul is preaching to them and he preaches on the first day of the week.
He preaches to them on Sunday.
Now there's nothing inherently magical about Sunday.
It's not really any different than yesterday.
But what you see in the Bible is the pattern for when they had church was on Sundays.
Now look, if every single person in this room worked on Sunday but did not work on Saturday,
no one would have church. We'd have church on Saturday.
There's nothing wrong with having church on Saturday, but the thing is since church has been on Sunday for a long time,
and since that's the pattern in the Bible, people's schedules were built around that.
It works best to have church on Sunday.
That's why we'll always have church on Sunday because that's usually the best day to have church.
But I want you to notice that Paul preaches until midnight.
Now you say, well that was a long sermon.
Well, let me explain something to you.
Preaching is one of the most tiring things you're ever going to do.
If you preached a full-length sermon, you feel like you've been in a box of cash.
You get done and you're exhausted.
You know, when we started this church, we had services back-to-back,
and the reason why is because at the hotel that we were renting out, it's a three hour minimum.
So if we had morning and evening service, we'd be paying twice as much money.
So we did the services back-to-back,
and my number one fear was, am I going to be able to do that?
Because I'm like, after one sermon, I feel exhausted. Am I going to be able to do that?
And quite honestly, I like this schedule, and that's why we're still doing it now
because I like just doing it back-to-back.
Then we have lunch. We have so many. I think it works great.
It works for our church. Churches do things differently.
That was kind of my number one concern.
But I'll tell you what. On Sunday nights, I'm exhausted
because not only is preaching tiring, but sowing is tiring as well.
It's mentally and physically exhausted.
Paul the Apostle was a man. He wasn't God. He was a man.
Paul the Apostle was not preaching 14 straight hours.
Just think about this logically.
You say, when did they have church? They probably met in the evening.
You say, well, how do you know that?
Because you don't preach for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours.
You would fall over dead.
Now, Eunuchus literally did fall over dead
because it's late at night, and he's not a bad guy.
He was a picture of a half-in and half-out Christian,
and if you're half-in and half-out, you usually fall out.
That's the picture we see.
But logically, you could say they probably had church at nighttime.
They were probably meeting at night.
You say, what? I don't know why.
It was probably the most convenient time.
Now, I'm sure a lot of those people started work at 6 in the morning on Monday.
Right at the sunrise.
I'm sure just six hours once they're done, they have work to go to.
But you know what? That was still a packed room.
Because look, nobody's hanging outside the window right now.
You say, why? Because there's chairs that are open.
You only sit in the window like Eunuchus when there's no other seats available.
It was a packed crowd, even though they were meeting late at night.
You say, why?
Because those people fit their schedule around what worked for the church.
Now, we don't know why the church met at night, but apparently that's what they did.
We don't have a set time.
But it sounds like they met kind of late at night
because I doubt Paul was preaching for more than four straight hours.
It's pretty tiring to preach. Obviously, they had a meal together.
They're breaking bread. They're preaching.
But logically, they were not meeting in the morning.
Now, with a lot of churches, they do a Monday evening schedule.
Now, we don't do that. Here we have back-to-back schedules.
You might say, back-to-back services.
You might say, Brother Stuckey, I wish it was Monday evening.
Here's what you have to remember.
You must fit your schedule around what works for the church.
You can't expect the church to fit a schedule around you.
Now, you might say, Brother Stuckey, that's easy for you to say
because it works for you to have a service at 10 and 1130.
And you know what? You're right. That schedule does work pretty well for me.
I like that schedule.
And I think that schedule works pretty well for a lot of people.
So you have to realize I've been an independent Baptist
pretty much right since I got saved for 13 years.
And so I've been an independent fundamental Baptist
and pretty much every church I went to had morning and evening schedule.
I have always liked just putting it all together.
For our church people coming from a long distance,
it makes sense to have it all at one time.
I think that makes sense.
You have back-to-back services.
You're able to come slowly and be a part of church.
And then you're able to get home at a decent time.
But look, I've been to churches before they did the morning and evening schedule.
And it wasn't always convenient for me.
But you know what? I was there for every service.
Look, I went to a church when I was in college that was 45 minutes away
because the best IFP church I could find was not in Morgantown.
It was in Blacksboro, West Virginia where there's so many back roads
and there's hardly any people.
But you know what? I went to every morning service.
I helped on the bus route.
When I got back, a 45-minute drive, I had basically a few hours
or just kind of dead time.
And then I went back to church.
It was not convenient for me.
But you know what? I fit my schedule around the church.
And you have to understand when a church operates,
you must expect your schedule fits around the church.
You don't expect the church to fit around the church.
Now turn to Matthew 10.
And so look, I haven't always been at churches
where I felt it was that convenient for me.
But I still fit my schedule around the church.
I didn't expect the church to change its schedule.
But you know, if you remember, when this church started,
what time were the Wednesday evening services going to be?
Does anybody remember?
6 p.m., not 7 p.m.
You say, why did you change them?
Brother Timothy talked to me. He was very respectful.
And he just told me, Brother Stuckey,
if we have the services at 6 p.m.,
I don't think many people are going to make it
because of their work schedules.
And so I changed it to 7.
You say, why do you like 6 p.m.?
Because I go to bed early.
I don't stay up late.
I'm an early riser.
I go to bed early and I wake up early.
I like going to bed before 10 p.m.
I don't like staying up late at night.
So for me, 6 p.m. worked great.
So I could go to bed early and just wake up early.
But you know what? I changed to 7 p.m.
Not because it was convenient for me,
but because of the fact it was going to be convenient for more people.
That's why we do it at 7 p.m.
So look, I'm not expecting you to do something I'm not doing
because I am changing my schedule to a degree
to fit what works for me.
Because it was going to be at 6 p.m.
We have it at 7.
Why? More people are able to come.
And see, this is the way it is with whatever it is with church.
But you have to understand that if you have a job
and it keeps you out of church,
you can't expect that the church is going to change its schedule to fit you.
You must find a way to get that changed.
Now I understand when you're part of a new church,
things are different and it might take time.
And look, there's people at our church that want to be here for every service
and they're not able to.
And I understand that.
And we pray for you.
And we want God to bless you.
And eventually you'll be able to be here for all the services.
But you have to understand that you're going to have to find a way to change.
You're not going to be able to have the church changed for you.
Why?
Because this time is convenient for church.
At 10 in the morning, at 1130, and then we have mid-afternoon solar.
That's what works for our church.
And then we have 7 p.m. Wednesday evening.
Look, if everybody worked on Wednesday evening, guess what?
We'd have church on Thursday evening.
We'd change.
Because we're trying to fit what's best for most people.
But no schedule works for everybody.
Look, I'm an early guy.
I'd be happy to have services that need more.
I'll be honest.
Get done early.
Get home early.
But that's not going to work for most people.
So we have to understand.
Our schedule must fit what the church does.
So it's not just with church services, though.
But it's also with church functions.
One of the big functions we do around here is soul winning.
Matthew chapter 10, starting at verse number 1, the Bible reads,
And when he had called on to his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.
Now drop down to verse number 5.
These twelve Jesus sent forth and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not.
And so here in Matthew chapter 10, he just said at the end of Matthew 9 that the harvest truly is plenteous, but the labors are few.
And in Matthew 10, what does he do?
He gets everybody organized, and he sends them out to preach the gospel.
They are meeting together before they go out.
He said, why is it that they meet together to go out at a set time?
Because if you don't have a set time, nothing gets done.
You must have a set time.
If we just said in our bulletin, hey, we're going to have soul winning.
Sometime on Saturday, in Qisan Memorial Circle, guess what?
We wouldn't get a whole lot of soul winning done.
You need to have a set time for people to be aware about it.
On Wednesdays, my wife and I have been going soul winning every single Wednesday for about six or seven weeks before we had it in the bulletin.
I wanted to make sure it was a time I could be committed to.
But quite honestly, when we had it in the bulletin, we had lots of people at the first day.
Why? Because if you don't have a set time for stuff, it just doesn't happen.
And so in Matthew chapter 10, they're meeting together for soul winning, and then they're sent out to preach the gospel.
And so in our bulletin, we have soul winning times on Sunday, on Saturday, and on Wednesday.
I believe everybody should go soul winning at least once a week.
The Bible doesn't mandate a specific amount of times, but you're supposed to go into all the world of priests and gospel to every preacher.
This is a command to everyone.
And if it's not part of your weekly schedule, it probably just starts to become very rare that it happens.
You need to be in a pattern of doing things.
We're going to be adding a soul winning time here in another week in Saturday towards the Moondalupa area, towards southern Metro Manila.
We have a lot of times available on this church.
Now the reason why we don't have a time every single day is because it's hard to be committed to every single time.
But these times, we're able to be committed to.
And look, if you're in this room and your soul winning is hit and miss, you must find a time that works for you and just be committed to it.
Now I understand a lot of people are here from a long distance away, so you might not be able to be committed to those times.
You need to find a time to be committed.
Because if you don't get committed to a set time and just have a set pattern, it just isn't going to happen.
That's the way it works. Turn to I Corinthians 11.
And you know, obviously this is nothing new that you're hearing right now.
But the reason why I'm preaching this is because a lot of people are part of this online movement and they listen to a lot of sermons.
You have to understand something.
You might listen to four hours of preaching every Sunday before you're part of this church.
You know, you listen to that time at like 9 o'clock at night when you're wearing shorts and a t-shirt and eating popcorn for four hours.
But you can't expect us to have service at 9 o'clock at night.
You must just find the time that the church has and just say, I'm committed to that time.
There's a set time the preaching takes place.
You might listen to hours and hours of preaching.
But in your personal time, you can do that whenever you want.
There has to be a set time how things operate.
At jobs, you have a set time when things take place.
And if you don't have a set time, it just doesn't happen.
You say, how do you know that?
Because, you know, when you have jobs that are like an 8 to 5 job and you clock in on your computer, you know that you have to be committed to that time.
But you know, you come to a construction site and there's no set time.
It's just kind of like, what do we do? Do we go to work? Whatever.
They just show up at like, you know, mid-afternoon to do it.
There is no set time. It's just kind of whenever.
If you don't have a set time, stuff just doesn't happen.
That's just the way it works. You need a set time.
Now in 1 Corinthians 11, starting verse 25, where Robert reads,
After the same manner, also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying,
This cup is the New Testament in my blood, this stew he has oft as he drinketh in remembrance of me.
For as often as he eat this bread and drink this cup, he did show the Lord's death in the middle of the evening come.
And so in 1 Corinthians 11, it's talking about the Lord's supper, which we're going to partake in today.
Now remember what we talked about, that the Lord's supper is a replacement of the Passover?
And I just heard this morning about a Baptist church that literally eats a lamb for their services.
It's like, okay, yeah, we still celebrate the Passover, but it's the Lord's supper now, and Jesus already rose again.
You can forget about, you know, worshipping the lamb that hasn't risen. He already rose again.
You don't eat a lamb here today.
But if you remember the Old Testament, the Passover was not done whenever you wanted.
There was a set day that had to be the Passover.
We did the Lord's supper one time for you.
And you say, what do I need to do?
You need to fit your schedule around when the church is doing the Lord's supper.
You can't expect, you know, the church to say, well, we'll just wait a week because it doesn't work.
That doesn't work.
There's a set time, and we've advertised a time.
It's like, you've got to fit your schedule around what the church does, okay?
Now turn to 1 Corinthians 12, where we started, 1 Corinthians 12.
And look, when it comes to fitting your schedule around what the church does,
quite honestly, anything you do in life, you have to change your schedule.
You start a new job, you've got to fit your schedule around when the job works.
Look, I've worked a job where I started at 4.30 in the morning.
Now I'm an early riser, but 4.30 is pretty early.
I would have loved that job if it started at 5.30 or 6.30, but it didn't.
It started at 4.30 in the morning.
And you say, what did you do?
I went to bed really early, and I woke up early.
And I made it to work every single day.
Never miss a day. Why?
Because I fit my schedule around when the job was.
1 Corinthians 12.
The next thing I want you to realize is this.
Another sacrifice you have to make when joining a church is you sacrifice your hobbies in free time.
1 Corinthians 12, starting in verse 12, the Bible reads,
Whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free,
have been all made to drink into one spirit, for the body is not one member, but many.
Now when the Bible talks about the body here in 1 Corinthians 12,
it's talking about the body in Christ, the local body.
We are a local body, a local church here in Manila.
And within this church, we all have different skills.
Every single one of us has certain things that we're good at,
and probably a lot of things we're not that good at.
Look, if I needed to do every single thing in here, I would have failed to say why.
Because as this passage talks about, the eye is the eye.
The eye is not the ear and the nose and everything else.
We have different skills.
Verse 15,
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 they hearing?
If the whole were hearing, where were the smell?
And see, the Bible talks about how with the body, it has different parts.
Look, it doesn't really do me a lot of good if I have five ears and I don't have a nose and I don't have eyes.
That doesn't do me much good.
It doesn't do me much good if I have five eyes and I don't have a mouth.
It's going to be hard to function.
You say, what's more important? They're all important.
My nose is important, my ears are important, my eyes are important, everything is important.
In this church, if you believe this is where God has placed you, you're important.
You say, well, I can't really do much.
Yes, you can, because the Bible says that everybody serves a function.
And what you need to do is find out what is my skill, what is my ability, and how can I use that to help the church.
Now, we're obviously kind of a new church and if you've noticed as this church has gone on,
we've slowly added more and more things to this church.
There's a reason for that.
We didn't start everything from day one because as a new church it takes time to get a pattern of things.
Coming up here probably the next couple months, I'll preach a sermon about volunteering for church
and we'll have a list of categories and you can talk about the things that you'd be interested in
and we'll be really organized with stuff.
Basically, there's two set people who take the operating plate every single service.
There's two people that count every service.
The reason why I've chosen not to do that all from day one is because we're a new church
and I'm just getting to know everybody and we need to kind of get in the path.
I think it makes sense more to be a little bit slow before we decide all those things.
But we're going to do that here in a couple months because as this church grows,
I just need to know certain people are doing certain things.
And we'll have backup people in case something doesn't get done.
And so this is something for you to think about here in the next couple months.
What can I bring to this church?
Now, there's a famous quote from a president in the U.S.
and this is not a godly president, but it's still a good quote nonetheless.
And he said, ask not what this country can do for you.
Well, what can you do for this country?
Now, look, I'm personally against just having a strong allegiance to countries
because I preach against the U.S. probably more than any country.
I preach against the U.S. and Philippines and those are the only countries I've lived in.
I'm like an Old Testament prop. They just preach against where they live.
Wherever you go, there's a lot of problems because people aren't involved in the Bible.
But I'm not saying you should have allegiance to a country,
but that's a good quote to think of in terms of a church, though.
Don't ask what can this church do for you. What can you do for this church?
Now, the truth is this church can do a lot for you.
It can help you get the sin out of your life.
It can help you love the Lord. It can help you read the Bible more.
It can help fix your marriage. It can help you be a better father, be a better mother.
This church can do a lot of love for you.
But what you need to ask is what can I do to help this church out?
Because if you help the church out, the church can do a better job of helping everybody out.
Now, obviously, I'm the person who gets up here and preaches the sermons.
That doesn't mean that I'm good at everything around here.
I can tell you I'm not good at everything.
There are certain things I know I'm good at and there are certain things I know I'm not good at.
I'm not good when it comes to technology.
That surprises people because my best skill is math.
And somehow I'm great at math and I'm terrible at technology.
That's me. I don't know why, but that's just who I am.
I'm not good at everything.
And if I was expected to do everything around here, look, this place would fail.
Now, I'm not preaching this because I believe we're struggling with this
because honestly, people volunteer. They're helping out.
I think we're doing a good job.
But I'm just giving you an idea that when you join a new church, you have to understand
you serve a function at that church.
There is something that you can do, that I can't do, that other people can't do.
If you have a certain skill, there's probably a reason why you have that skill.
There's probably a reason why God has pleased you in this church.
And you can figure out, how can I help out this church?
Verse number 18,
But now have God sent the members of every one of them in the body as it hath pleased them.
And if they were all one member, where were the body?
But now are they many members, yet who are one body?
And I cannot say under the hand I have no need of thee,
nor again the head and the feet I have no need of thee.
May much more of those members of the body who seem to be more feeble are necessary.
Oftentimes we look at things that aren't that important in our minds.
It's actually very necessary.
Because the understanding that you serve a function at this church,
the function you serve actually will probably require you to take up some of your free time to help out the church.
That's the truth.
And when you join a church, if you want that church to be successful,
you have to understand you should probably sacrifice some of your free time to help out that church.
I'm not asking you to do something that I won't do.
Because my whole life, ever since I got saved, I've been in an apartment, I've been in Baptist churches.
And look, I went to a church that had their bus routed like seven in the morning,
and I drove like an hour and a half to get there,
and I was there as the backup assistant person on the bus every single week.
Because that was the role that the pastor said, you know, I could help.
I'm not asking you to do something that I won't do.
At this church, obviously, I put in a lot of time as well.
And many people in this church do as well, but what I want you to understand is,
no matter who you are in this room, if you would say, hey, Verity Baptist Church Manila is my home,
this is my church, these are my friends, this is my family,
you have to understand there's something God would like you to do to help out with this church.
Verse number 23,
And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable,
upon these we bestow more abundant honor,
and our comfy parts have more abundant comfiness.
For our comfy parts have no need, but God hath timbered the body together,
having given more abundant honor to what that part was lacking.
There should be no schism in the body.
The members should have the same care one for another.
See, the Bible says we should have the same care for one another.
We should love one another.
Verse 26,
And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it,
or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.
Now, here the body of Christ and members in particular,
See, there's specific members or parts, body members, for this church.
There's a specific function, in particular if you're here for a reason.
There's something you can bring to the table.
That's what the Bible says. Turn to Luke 17.
Now, this is a tough balance because one thing I preach here is
not to get over burdens, not to be zealous over too much,
not to be righteous over much.
The Bible says I don't want you to just go above and beyond
in just every second of the day.
You have no free time whatsoever.
There's a tough balance here because especially if you're married
and you have a family, you need to spend time with your family.
Men in this room, you're married, you need to spend time with your wives.
You need to spend time with your kids
before your kids are going to grow up and they're going to hate you.
That's the reality.
You must spend time with them.
So I don't want you to go over and above and beyond what's reasonable.
But I'm just telling you that, you know what,
you probably spend a couple hours on Facebook every day.
And you could easily cut out that time on Facebook
and cut out pointless time during your day
and do something that actually has lasting, eternal value.
Because if the church has one 3,000 plus souls,
which is not mostly me, it's everybody at our church,
look, it needs to operate well in order to do that.
And when you're part of a church that's doing that,
you're partaking in those words.
You're partaking in the great works and the souls that are being saved.
Now look, 17, verse 10, the Bible reads,
So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded,
you say, We are unprofitable servants.
We have done that which was our duty to do.
And see, the Bible says that no matter how much we do,
we're still basically an unprofitable servant,
because we just did what God expected.
Like I said, this is a tough balance
because obviously you don't want to go overboard
and forsake your family.
Because obviously the Bible commands you to spend time with your family.
You need to work a job and make money and things like that.
But at the same time, God does expect you to volunteer as a part of the church.
If that's your church and you consider this your home,
you want to be as much of a blessing as possible.
Now turn to Luke 2.
Luke 2.
And like I said, this sermon is not the most pounding of all things
or the most new information,
but I do think it's a practical sermon we need to be aware of.
Because I've been a member of a lot of different churches
and every single church was a little bit different.
And every single church you kind of had to fit around that church
a little bit differently than a different church.
No church is going to be the same.
Inevitably what's going to happen?
It doesn't matter how much you like the preaching here.
It doesn't matter how much that you're having to stand against repentance and sins
or how much you like that we're post-tribbing these things like that.
I'm sure there are certain things your old church did
that you like a little bit more than this church.
Even though you like the preaching here, you like the fellowship,
there's probably some things in your old church you like a little bit more than this church.
But when you join a new church,
you have to understand you're fitting around the new church.
It's not going to be perfect.
It's different when you listen to a sermon online.
Listening to a sermon online is not part of the church.
You can listen to a sermon online that's not part of the church.
And when you're part of a church, you get to see the problems.
It's not always perfect.
You say, was everything perfect at a very Baptist church?
No, it wasn't.
Nothing's perfect everywhere.
There's no place where everything's always perfect.
There's always problems.
The reason why you didn't notice problems when you listen to sermons online
is because it is very organized.
And so there's people that, while the preaching's going on here,
there's various ushers and people in place that handle when situations come up.
But yes, you know what?
Coffee spills here and it spills in America too.
It spills everywhere. You have those problems.
Weird people visit our church.
Weird people visit a very Baptist church.
It's going to happen no matter where you go.
People always ask for money in this church.
I mean, just last night, I showed my wife all these messages from this person
that I've never met in my life that is asking for money.
He's like, that's not much different than America.
They ask for money in America?
They ask for money here in the Philippines.
It doesn't really matter.
Wherever you go, there's the same situations.
Now in Luke chapter 2,
the third thing I want you to keep in mind that you must sacrifice
is sometimes you need to sacrifice your opinions.
Luke 2 verses 48 and 49.
And when they saw him, they were amazed.
And his mother said unto him,
Son, why has thou thus dealt with us?
Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowful.
And he said unto them, How is it that he sought me?
Wist he not that I must be about my father's business?
Now notice how he refers to this as business
when it comes to a church.
I mean, yes, we're doing a spiritual work for God,
but in a lot of ways, in most ways,
we try to operate like a business operates.
Look, we have money that comes in.
We have to know how we're going to spend it.
We scan all the receipts.
We have our accounting information.
We must operate like a business.
And when it comes to a business, a business is organized.
A business is structured.
And you have to realize that in your personal job,
you don't always have opinions for your boss.
And if you always have opinions for your boss,
you're going to be getting a new job pretty soon.
Now, I don't mind people having opinions, and that's fine,
but you have to understand that if you have an opinion,
how would you approach it at your office?
How would you approach it at your office?
And that's probably the best way to approach it here.
If you think it's something that's very, very important,
you're respectful, and you approach it
just like it's like a business,
because what you have to understand is
everyone has opinions.
And there are so many things I get opinions about
every single week.
And look, I'm not really mad at anyone.
I'm not really mad at anyone at all.
I mean, I'm fine with that.
Honestly, I don't think we've been that opinionated
as a church.
I haven't really seen any of this problem.
But I'm just helping you understand
that when you join a church,
sometimes it's not always best to have opinions, okay?
Especially if it's something that's not very important.
If it's something very small,
like if you really just think that, you know,
something should be a different color,
it's like, man, I really think it's like this, really,
I've got 55 things that are more important to me
on my list right now.
You know, I'm thinking about, you know,
doing the word self, talking about the sermons,
it's like not all of those opinions are necessary, okay?
Now, if it's something major, you know, yes.
You know, tell me about it, you know, tell me privately.
But one thing you don't want to do is say,
oh, just tell everybody else in the church my opinion,
and then I'll tell Brother Stuckey afterwards.
And then when I say, no, I don't like that opinion,
everyone's like, wait a minute,
everyone else at church agrees.
It's like, well, you shouldn't just talk to me about it.
It's like, you know, I don't like that idea.
And so sometimes when you're part of a church,
it's not always best to have a lot of opinions.
Now, turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 4.
1 Corinthians 4.
And, you know, the truth is that if you've noticed,
we've gotten opinions from people on things,
and some of those things we've done
and some of those things we haven't.
And, you know, if you've asked me opinions on things,
if you've noticed, there's probably some things I said
I like that I didn't.
And some things I said I don't like that.
Because, you know, quite honestly, you know,
not everything I'm necessarily going to like.
Some things I do, some things I don't.
You know, that's just the way it works.
Now, in 1 Corinthians chapter 14,
the Bible says in verse number 26,
how is it then, brethren, when you come together,
every one of you hath a song, hath a doctrine,
hath a tongue, hath a revelation,
hath an interpretation.
Let all things be done unto and of mine.
Now, if you notice in the church in Corinth,
obviously they had a lot of prophets in their church.
But one thing mentioned is the fact everyone had a psalm,
everyone had a psalm, everyone had a doctrine.
Everybody had something they wanted to say.
Okay?
And so the problem with that is
when there's all these different opinions,
it can lead to me not being married.
Sometimes it can be just too much.
Okay?
Look at verse number 14, the Bible reads,
let all things be done decently and in order.
And so when things are done,
they need to be decently and in order.
Okay?
Now, in the church in Corinth, in this chapter,
what you notice,
these people are just kind of giving their opinions
to everybody.
That's honestly the big problem they have
is everybody knows about their opinions.
Someone just stands up and says,
hey, this is what I think about this.
Okay?
And that should have been just said
to the person who's running that church individually.
I know the pastors of this church.
They should have replaced them, I think.
But that should have just been done
to the pastor individually
and just said, hey, this is my idea.
Just say it to him privately
and then he decides whether or not he agrees with it
or disagrees with it.
That's the big problem in the church in Corinth.
Here's what you have to understand in life.
No matter what the situation,
everybody has an opinion about everything.
If you ask me something,
I will have an opinion.
It doesn't mean I'm going to tell you
what my opinion is though.
Okay?
You know, quite honestly,
when it comes to churches do things differently
and there's churches that I love
and I pray for those pastors
and there's certain things I do,
I don't agree with them.
I have a different opinion.
It doesn't mean I necessarily say
what my opinion is though.
It doesn't necessarily mean
that's going to be profitable
to say what my opinion is.
Okay?
Now turn to 1 Corinthians 3.
And the last point we have here
in this morning's sermon,
another thing you must sacrifice
when you're part of churches,
you must sacrifice your attitude.
See, we have a tendency
when we get mad about stuff
just to let everybody know we're mad.
Right?
Somebody at a restaurant,
you mess up your order,
hey, just yell at the person, right?
You complain or whatever.
But you know, that might be okay.
I mean, I wouldn't recommend it
outside of church either
because I think we ought to have
a good attitude and be nice and friendly.
But you know, that causes real damage in the church.
And you say, why?
The difference is that this church,
you see the same people every week.
See that person that, you know,
cuts you off from traffic
and you curse them out,
you're never going to see them again.
And if you do see them,
you won't recognize them
because there's a lot of people here.
But you know, someone at church,
if you get mad at them,
they're going to recognize you.
And see, we must sacrifice our attitudes.
Okay?
Now 1 Corinthians 3,
starting in verse number 1,
the Bible reads,
and I, brethren,
could not speak as on the spiritual
but as on the carnal,
even as on the things in Christ.
I thank you with no
and not with me
for hitherto ye are not able-bearer,
neither yet now are ye.
For ye are yet carnal,
whereas there is among you
in being and strife and divisions,
are ye not carnal who walk as men?
And see, what the Bible says
in 1 Corinthians 3 is,
this church is a carnal church.
Okay?
He says, I fed you with milk
because you weren't ready for the meat.
Now this church probably knew
the same doctrines we know.
They probably understood the end times
and things like that.
But the problem was the church,
although they knew all these doctrines,
it didn't mean that they were very spiritual.
And so what he says is,
I fed you with milk and not with meat
because you weren't ready for the meat.
You weren't ready for the deep things
because what you need to learn
is just not to fight the church, okay?
Now being part of a church,
fights are inevitable.
It happens, okay?
When the fights happen,
you know, we forgive each other
and we move on.
We'll look at that here in Ephesians 4
here in a second.
It's inevitable
because you're around people all the time.
Sometimes you get on each other's nerves.
Look, you know,
good advice to people
that are people that are not married.
When you get married,
sometimes your spouse will get on your nerves.
That's reality.
I'm not going to lie to you.
I'm going to actually help you out
with your marriage right now.
Look, there will be times
you get mad at your spouse.
You'll get mad at your husband.
You'll get mad at your wife.
You'll get mad at your kids.
You know, last time
when my son's kicking me in the face,
rolling around,
it's like, yeah,
I was kind of upset at my son.
It's inevitable
when you're around people all the time
that sometimes they get on your nerves, okay?
I'm not saying a fight's
never going to happen here.
Obviously, we're around each other
all the time.
We get stressed out with life.
Sometimes we're going to get upset
with each other.
When it happens though,
we need to forgive each other
and move on, okay?
Now, there's a story
I've heard before in church.
When this Baptist pastor
got up to preach a sermon,
and he preached through his sermon,
and everyone's like,
amen, and everything like that,
and then the next Sunday rolls around,
and he preaches the exact same sermon
word for word.
And so some of the members are like,
maybe he's just really busy
this past week, you know?
He's like, maybe, you know,
he just didn't have time
to write a new sermon.
And they said, you know,
we'll forgive him.
No big deal.
Then the next week rolled around
the same exact sermon.
And then they finally ended up
coming up to him and saying,
hey, he preached the same sermon
three straight weeks.
And he said, yeah,
once you figure it out,
we'll move on to something else.
And, you know, obviously,
that's kind of humorous,
but, you know,
that's kind of a reality though,
that if there's a real problem
in church,
I'll just keep preaching on it
until we move on past that.
That's the thing with the church report.
They don't need the need.
They need the help.
Turn to Ephesians 4,
Ephesians 4.
I think sometimes we get
a wrong idea too
about what it means
to be a mature Christian.
Oftentimes,
we might think
that if you understand
that the rapture is,
you know,
after the tribulation,
if you understand that doctrine,
you're a mature Christian.
Or if you understand
that the Bible teaches
teaches that we shouldn't have you know a kid's ministry you know where they're
outside of the norms of the church and not sanctioned. If you don't understand some of the
doctrines we believe, then you're really spiritual. But that's not really what you
see in Bible. See being spiritual is when you have patience in your life. Being
spiritual is when you don't get enbies. Being spiritual is when you don't get
bitter. And see this is why it's so important to be part of the church because I can promise you
that the majority of you in this room that listen to a lot of sermons online, the sermon on
patience doesn't catch your eye. The sermon on stoning the sodomites doesn't catch your eye.
And that's what you did to what's in your free time. But what would be more helpful in your life, to be honest?
Probably the sermon on patience. What would be more helpful in my life? The sermon on patience.
A sermon not being bitter, not being envious. Those sorts of sermons are the
ones we struggle with. Because all of us in our lives quite honestly have a lot of media
benefits, including myself. We need to become more patient. We need to have less bitterness, less strife in our lives. Look, it's hard. It takes practice. It takes work. What we don't want to do is have this idea that we're spiritual just because we know these doctrines other people don't know.
Yes, it's good to know those doctrines, but honestly what's going to actually help in your life is be nice to your spouse. That's what you're going to care about more than the rapture, okay, if your marriage is spinning out of control.
Being a good father, you're going to care about that a little bit more than you're going to care about certain doctrines that we believe. That's the stuff we need to work on. That's the stuff that's preached on in the Bible.
That's why in 1 Corinthians, that's what it's talking about, but also here in Ephesians 4. This is in reference to the church and notice what it says in verse 11.
And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
As we talked about earlier in 1 Corinthians, certain people have been given certain tasks.
In this church, I'm not the pastor of this church because I don't have multiple kids, but I am the evangelist of this church.
And the reason I'm here to preach the sermons is to help perfect the saints or help complete us and also for the work of the ministry and for the edifying of the body of Christ for this local church.
Look, we do have an online ministry, but the online ministry is not really that important. What's most important is helping out this local church.
The sermons I preach are not to try to get a lot of news on YouTube. In fact, I just started a series on our online ministry talking about the reason why we're not at college.
Now I have a long list and I thought about making it into a sermon, but the reason why I didn't is I said I don't think that's really that profitable of a sermon.
It will get a lot of news, but I'll just make it as an online video series because even though it might give me my most sermon reviews of any sermon I preach, I just don't think that's the most helpful thing for the people in this room.
So it's not a sermon I preach. Why? Because the online ministry or getting a lot of news is really not that important.
Quite honestly, we get donations from people, but getting online donations is not the most important thing because I believe that if we work hard at preaching the right sermons for this church, God's going to bless the church.
One way or another, God will provide. My job is to help perfect the saints and care for the people of this church.
And if you've been in this church for months, I think you realize that.
I care about this church. Honestly, we have an online ministry, but we're never going to be as famous as Verity Baptist.
We're never going to be as famous, no matter how many times I get on the news, we're never going to be as famous as that.
So I'm not even going to try to do that. I'm just going to try to help the saints that are in this room in this local body.
Now, in verse number 13, the Bible reads,
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
And go down to verse number 16. Verse 16,
From whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth, according to the effectual working, in the measure of every part, make an increase of the body unto thee, edifying of itself with love.
Now, this sounds like a complicated verse, but it's really not. Let me just explain this to you in verse 16.
The body's referring to the church, and it says, fitly joined together.
Think about a puzzle. Every single piece is important to complete that puzzle, isn't it?
Every piece needs to be there to complete that puzzle.
Just like at this church, we need all of the members here to complete that puzzle.
Look, if I just woke up today and I was missing my nose, there'd be a problem.
If I was missing my foot, there'd be a problem. I need that.
And when it comes to a church, you say, do we need you? Yeah, we do.
If this is where God's place, yeah, we need you.
There's a reason why you're here.
And honestly, I might not need that reason, but that's something for you to find out.
What is the skill that you have? What is it that you can do to help out this church?
And it says, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part.
And so think of cause and effect.
Every single part or every single body member should help effectually work,
which means it should help the church.
It should be a blessing to the church and not be a burden, okay?
Every single member.
The sad reality is that if you've been at churches for a long time,
there are a lot of members that are not a blessing.
There are a lot of members that, honestly, are more of a burden than they are a blessing.
And that's sad because every single body part should be helping in some way or another, okay?
Drop down to verse number 31. Close here. Verse 31.
And so when it comes to being a part of the church, we're here to help out the church,
but we're also here to help encourage one another.
Because I promise you that every single week there's people in this room that are struggling with their job.
And they want a different job, they'd like to be more involved in church, but they're struggling.
Or they're struggling financially or they're struggling in their marriage
or they're stressed out about something, every single one of us.
And the last thing you want is to come to church where you want to get more motivated to live for God,
and then you walk away depressed.
That's the last thing you want to do.
And so look, when it comes to having an attitude, you've got to check that attitude at the door, okay?
Now look, I don't think we've had a major problem with this,
but I'm just saying this because of the fact we need to realize this,
that we need to encourage one another,
professionally work together, okay?
Look, when it comes to the people in this room,
there are not too many people outside the walls of this room that believe the things that we do, okay?
I mean, look outside the walls here today at what the Catholics are doing right now.
Look, you know that the other religions would probably look at that and think it's not that strange.
I look at that and I say, man, this is bizarre what we're doing outside of it.
It's crazy. But you know, people don't understand the things we do.
And look, you know, we already realize we're a very small percentage of people.
And so, you know, if the world's rejecting you and mocking you at work and things like that,
the last thing we want is to come to church and have college, okay?
Verse number 31, God reads,
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.
Now, this is in the context of the church, okay?
It says let all bitterness, let that be put away from you.
Let all wrath be put away from you. Let all anger be put away from you.
See, the problem when it comes to bitterness, and this is probably one of the most dangerous things,
is bitterness is something that if it sticks in there, it just slowly eats away at you.
And somebody will leave this church a year from now, and the question is why did that person leave this church?
And they'll point to maybe a certain event when in reality something happened a year before.
And it was that root of bitterness the Bible talks about that slowly just grows and festers and festers and festers
until eventually they get mad and leave the church.
That happens.
And so when it comes to these things, we need to be putting these things away from us with all malice
and be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
Notice how he says, forgiving one another.
See, the understanding is in the church there's going to be times that all of us do something wrong.
And we need to ask for forgiveness.
All of us sometimes say something that's stupid that's wrong.
Look, I've said things that are foolish.
Sometimes we say things or do things and we need to just apologize.
It's not the end of the world.
It happens to all of us.
But what I want to highlight to you at the end of verse 32, it says, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
I want you to think about this question.
How did God forgive us?
Did God forgive us because we deserved it or because he was merciful to us?
He was merciful to us.
We didn't deserve it.
You say, brother, suck it.
So and so at church, they don't deserve my forgiveness.
Why don't you forgive them the way God's forgiven you?
We don't deserve to give God's forgiveness for the things we've done in our lives and yet God forgives us.
Say, well, so and so at church, they did something.
You know what?
They're probably right about that.
I'm not disagreeing with you.
They did you wrong.
They yelled at you.
They did this.
Forgive them anyway.
See, God forgives us, though we don't deserve it.
And look, none of us in this room, we deserve forgiveness for God.
And when we do something wrong with someone else, maybe we don't deserve forgiveness.
But here's the reason why it's so important for you to forgive others when they wrong you.
Because if you're willing to forgive others when they don't deserve it, guess what God's going to do in your life when you need some mercy.
If you commit some sort of sin, maybe you'll be a little bit more long suffering than you.
Give you more of a chance.
See, if you're willing to forgive other people, you reap what you sow.
But if you're not willing to forgive other people, then every time you make a mistake, God's going to lay down the hammer.
And other people are going to lay down the hammer on you.
Why?
You reap what you sow.
We should forgive people even if they don't deserve it.
And so when it comes to joining a new church, things we need to understand is this.
We need to fit our schedule around what the church does.
And quite honestly, there's people I know in this room that they come to church when it's not convenient for them.
And they make it to church, and they go to work exhausted.
Brother Dustin's a good example because he works very early in the morning.
I remember when we had the poll on our Facebook page of what would be the most convenient time for church.
He was one of the few people that said 6 p.m.
We said why?
Because he works very early in the morning.
I believe he's been to every single Wednesday night service, and he's not the only one.
I'm just kind of using that as an example because I'm sure every single Thursday morning he wakes up exhausted.
But he still comes to every service.
Why?
He's fitting his schedule around when the church operates.
That's what we all need to do.
We need to fit our schedule around when the church operates.
We also need to realize we might lose some of our hobbies.
We might lose some of our free time from time to time.
We also need to understand that when it comes to our personalities,
we need to be very careful in how we act with one another.
Because this is not some random person that you meet that you get to fight with.
It's not like you're playing some basketball game, and they foul at you when you're going up for a layup,
and you yell at them and everything.
You challenge them to go fight, and whatever the next day it's gone.
No.
I mean, you're going to see this person a few days later.
You're going to see them the next week.
So what you need to do is make sure, you know what?
Just have a good attitude.
Ask for forgiveness when you've screwed up.
And you know what? God's going to be merciful to you if you're going to be merciful to other people.
Let's go to the word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here in your house this morning,
and I ask you to help all of us, including myself, apply this to our lives.
All of us, God, we have so many changes we need to make,
and we just ask for your mercy in our lives, God.
We ask that you continue to bless this church and help us to grow as a church, God.
Help us to build.
Help us to effectually work from one together as a union, God.
We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.