Alright, we're here at 1st Kings 10, and we're going to be finishing up this series on the perfect church.
And, if I say the perfect church, obviously we know that no church is perfect, but,
you know, actually in the Bible, the word perfect, actually, is this still on?
Or...
There we go.
But, the word perfect actually means complete in the Bible, so it's actually accurate.
Obviously, we strive to be a perfect church in our modern-day word,
but we have to be a complete church. We want to be good and well-rounded in all things.
And as I mentioned, if you came in a little bit late,
is that this sermon is not really going to be the sort of sermon where I'm, you know, screaming and pounding the pulpit.
It's kind of more of a Bible study, and the sermons on Sunday are going to be kind of more exciting.
But, the name of the sermon is The Perfect Church Thy Culture.
The Perfect Church Thy Culture.
I couldn't really think of a better name for it, but, you know, these last couple weeks, we've talked about really important things.
Obviously, if you're going to be a good church, you need to hear, you know, preaching that can actually change your life,
preaching that's actually from the Word of God.
You also need to be a church that goes soul-winning.
You need your members to love the Word of God and things like that.
There's also a million small things.
And none of these things are necessarily as important as any of the ones that we've mentioned,
but when you add them all up together, it actually is very important.
So we're going to talk about some of those things here.
And so the main focus in 1 Kings 10, we see the wisdom of Solomon, which we've talked about.
We've seen the wisdom of the men.
We see the great works that are being done.
And also really focuses on the amount of money.
Now, I'm not going to get up here and preach on money all the time,
but I think the key in this chapter is at the beginning, she's blown away by how they're great at everything,
and you see how she provides them with what they need.
And so what I think the application for us as a church is that if we do what God wants, He'll provide our needs.
And that makes sense, right?
Because the last half of the chapter is just going through talking about money and things like that.
So most preachers would just get up and preach on money and say, see, we need money, money, money.
But actually, the application God's giving us is that if you're doing what's right, God's going to provide what you need.
Amen.
So let me just say a few things to start off.
And maybe I should have said this in the first sermon,
but one thing that's important for us to understand,
because we're talking about the Queen of Sheba visiting, and she's blown away by how great they are,
and we kind of have to figure out what exactly we're trying to do as a church to impress visitors when they come.
Now, one misconception that all of us in this room could have,
and anyone that's within this movement or like-minded churches,
see, all of you are at this church because of the fact you were listening to preaching for a long time,
and you wanted a church that was right on doctrine, post-trip and everything down the line,
and a church that went soul-winning.
But you have to understand that when people visit this church, they don't care about the rapture.
We get somebody saved out soul-winning and they visit us the first time,
they could care less whether we believe in a preacher, rapture or post-trip.
It means nothing to them whatsoever.
You know, when I first got saved and I started going to church,
you know, sometime between six months to a year after that, probably about eight months,
and this guy invited me to church, and I went to the church,
and I liked the church because they taught eternal security.
That is all that mattered to me at the time.
I didn't care about what the music was like, I didn't care if they were King James only,
and even as I started to learn those doctrines, I didn't understand the importance of those doctrines.
So it still didn't matter to me that much that my church was preaching out of another version of the Bible.
And as I started to grow, all of a sudden I learned, no, wait a minute,
I'm not going to a church where the pastor is like, well, I love the way the NLT puts it.
It's like, well, I don't love the way the NLT puts it, the New Lucifer translation.
But you have to realize that when we get people to come to this church,
they honestly do not care if we're post-trip, they don't care what Bible we're using,
and quite honestly, they might not even care about how the preaching is compared to a lot of other things.
You know what they're going to care about is, are the people friendly?
Is this a place where they can find friends and fit in?
Can they come here and have a good time?
People want to come to church, I mean, they come from Catholic backgrounds where they hate going to church.
It's going to blow them away if they're like, wow, people actually enjoy being here.
And so one thing that's very important right up front with being the perfect church,
or the ideal church, or a great church, is that we are friendly to people that visit.
Now the Bible says, a man that hath friends must show himself friendly.
The Bible talks about, if you're going to have friends, you must be friendly.
You have to understand that when somebody visits this church for the first time, they are the outsider.
They feel uncomfortable.
Right, now turn to 1 Corinthians 3.
Now this is important for us to understand right off the bat,
because as we end up moving into a new building, which, you know, could happen within the next month,
you know, there's a, you know, pray about it, there's a building that we're interested in that might work out.
You have to understand that we're going to try to hit every single house around that area.
We're going to reach that local community.
Obviously, we'd love to reach all of Metro Manila,
but one church cannot reach all of Metro Manila in terms of knocking everything.
Right, we're going to hit our local area, slowly expand out from that way.
Obviously, you have people living in different areas that are going soul winning in different areas.
We're going to hit every house in that area.
And we will end up having visitors from soul winning.
And when they come, all they're going to know is the gospel.
That's it.
They're not going to know anything else about the Bible.
They're not going to understand how wicked the Feast of the Black Nazarene is.
They're not going to even know that they need to get baptized.
Right, they're not going to know any of that.
And that's fine. We don't expect them to know everything from day one.
Now we started this church and we have a solid core of people that already love this preaching.
We have 35 people on Sunday.
That's a good amount. We're not blowing it away.
We're not a mega church, which is fine.
It's a solid amount of people though.
But we have 30 plus people that were already looking for a church like this.
Now in 1 Corinthians 3, I added this.
So let me just turn there myself in 1 Corinthians 3, starting at verse 1.
Where the Bible reads in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 1.
And I, brethren, cannot speak on you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
So this church is not spiritually strong.
There are a bunch of baby Christians and he clarifies why that is.
In verse 3, for a year yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men.
You see a church that has a lot of strife and is not together and unified, that's a carnal church.
You shouldn't have a lot of fights within the church.
Now one reason why a lot of churches have fights is because nobody knows what the doctrine is that the church believes.
Now it's very clear what our doctrine is.
So what ends up happening is people either say, man I love it or they just hit the road.
That's the way it works.
You know we're unified.
It doesn't matter how big we are, we're going to be unified as one.
The doctrine is not going to change in this church.
We know what we believe, we know what we stand for.
Now with a lot of churches that's not the case, but notice verse 4.
For while one sayeth, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal?
Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believe, even as the Lord gave to every man.
So you see some people are saying, hey I'm of Paul.
Others are saying I'm of Apollos.
And you see there's divisions within the church.
One thing we do not want to happen is when people start visiting this church where we have
the original people that listen to the sermons online
and the new Christians that don't know anything about the Bible.
And they come here and we got our cliques formed and nobody wants to talk to them because,
well you know I already have my best friends and we don't want to talk to them.
No we need to make them feel welcome.
We want this church to grow.
We want to build this church and we must avoid the clique mentality.
And look it happens at every church.
Every church within this movement, like-minded churches, cliques form.
It is inevitable.
Obviously you show up to church, let's face it, some people you like more than others.
That's just the way it is.
And as the church grows there are going to be certain people where you just say,
man that person just gets on my nerves.
It's inevitable.
Even as believers you know we're around each other a lot.
We're here for Sundays and Wednesdays for soul winning.
You know some people are going to get on your nerves.
That's just the way it is.
Understand though that we don't want cliques to form.
And one thing that I could see happening at this church is as this church grows
and we have all these new people that know nothing about the online internet world,
is that just the original group talks to themselves and the new group talks to their self.
It shouldn't just be me that talks to new visitors.
And I'm not saying we've got a problem with this,
but it's better to preach on stuff before you have a problem.
When we get new visitors to come to this church we ought to be friendly to them.
We ought to try to invite them, get them engaged, get them interested,
get them to realize that they have a church family here.
We are a church family.
But you have to realize that if we don't act that way,
if we expect them to understand the poster rapture before we accept them
and understand how to preach the gospel, they're never going to end up growing.
We need to give people a chance to grow.
We need to be friends to them.
And so if we want to build this church,
we need to show ourselves friendly on the new people that come.
And also the people we get saved.
We've got to be very friendly and really try to get them to come to church.
And when they do, we must avoid the click mentality.
I mean, there's a reason why this is in the Bible.
Because this happens at church where there's some people,
I'm appalled, I'm of a pause.
I'm of the internet world, the online preaching,
Pastor Anderson, Pastor Jimenez.
And oh, I'm a Catholic who just got saved.
And I'm still struggling to throw away my rosary beads, right?
I mean, we don't want cliques like that to form.
We want to be unified as a church to be one church.
Now, let me just point out a few other things before I get started.
Let me give you a few examples.
You know, this sort of preaching is not for everybody, right?
It takes time for people to get used to this kind of preaching.
I remember when I first started to listen to Pastor Anderson,
you know, 10 years ago, 10 plus years ago,
I liked his preaching because I learned from it.
But if I was honest, I would say, you know, he is way too harsh on people, right?
I was like, man, I don't understand why he's so rough on the sodomites.
Like, what is it? What's his deal?
It's like, I was learning from the preaching, but you know what?
Honestly, I thought he was way overboard.
Why? Because I was brainwashed by the world and I didn't realize it, okay?
Now, what do you think most people are going to think
when they come into a church like this?
They're going to think I'm way overboard the way I'm preaching.
They'll say, I get it that, you know, idols, we shouldn't worship them,
but you preach the whole sermon against the face of the black Nazarene.
It's like, yeah, they're going to think I'm a jerk.
So it's your job to convince them I'm not a jerk.
This church is a friendly church, right?
I mean, honestly, when people hear this preaching,
their first reaction might be to say, whoa, you know, that's way too extreme.
I'm not on board with that.
They're okay with you being maybe preaching a little bit hard.
But if you go to the level that we preach at at a church like this,
for a lot of people, it's too much to handle at the beginning.
They're going to need time to grow.
But if they can think this church is friendly
and give it a shot for a couple of weeks and a month,
eventually, God can change their heart.
I believe the Word of God has the power to change somebody's heart.
And honestly, when I first started listening to preaching like this,
I wasn't fully on board with it at first.
I was learning, so I wanted to listen.
But there are some things I was just like,
I just don't understand why they're that harsh.
But then all of a sudden, God changes their heart.
You start reading the Bible
and seeing everything that's being preached is true.
You know, one of my best friends back in West Virginia,
you know, we had been to a couple different IFB churches.
And look, I'm like you, I've been kicked out of church.
You know, it happens, you know, we had been,
we didn't get kicked out.
But it was just kind of like, we got to, you know,
it's just like, why are you still showing up?
You know, sort of thing.
They didn't really want us there.
And say, well, if you don't want us here.
But anyways, you know, I've been to a few different IFB churches
in the West Virginia area.
And so all of a sudden we started going in
and they all graduated from Highlands Anderson,
all the pastors.
So we started going to a new one.
And all of a sudden the pastor's like, oh, no, you know,
they showed up because he was warned about us.
You know, that these guys are,
we had gone to a church where quite honestly,
you know, there's, you know, I didn't,
don't mind the pastor.
You know, I still pray for him actually.
I don't think he's a bad guy,
but there was, you know, some money issues.
And so, you know, I think his heart changed
because he used to be a soul winner, love the Lord.
And it's weird.
Like, you know, he ended up getting money
because it was on a certain property
where they could produce oil.
And then all of a sudden, like a year later,
it's like, there was no money.
Everyone's like, what?
It's like, how did we just,
and so there's a lot of questions about it.
A lot of people can't handle money.
That's just the way it is.
So his heart changed and became a different person.
We started going to this new church though.
And the pastor and the assistant pastor
were very hesitant about us at first
because they had heard stories.
We had been to different churches and things like that.
And you know, the guy who was the assistant pastor,
who's a friend of mine now,
he graduated from Highlands Anderson.
They said at Highlands Anderson,
they preached against our movement.
They preached against Pastor Anderson, Pastor Mendez.
They preached against these people.
So he already had a biased view
on people that listen to sermons
and were post-trip and stuff like that.
So his first thought was just like, man, these guys are jerks.
But then all of a sudden,
we're going soul winning with the church
and we're friendly when we're not preaching.
And they're just like, this just doesn't add up.
We've heard that they're, you know, really rude or whatever.
The preaching is so overboard,
but they're really friendly.
And see, one thing people don't realize is
the things I say behind the pulpit,
I don't say outside the pulpit.
Now I will preach behind this pulpit
that you should not own a TV.
That is what I believe.
I will never tell you personally one-on-one
to get rid of your TV.
If you ask me, I'll tell you what I think.
But otherwise I will not go,
because it is not my authority to leave this pulpit
and tell you what to do
or tell you what I think unless you ask me, okay?
And so it should be the same way
with everyone in this room, you know.
We shouldn't go up to certain people at church
saying you need to do this or you need to do that.
That's something that's done behind the pulpit,
but outside the pulpit, we're very friendly.
And see, people don't necessarily understand
that they figure you act the same way behind the pulpit
that you do outside of the pulpit.
I don't act the same way outside of the pulpit.
I think it surprises people
if they've met me before they've ever heard me preach
because I'll yell sometimes and get fired up.
But outside the pulpit, you know, I'm more, you know, me.
You know, it's because there's a time and a place for things.
And honestly, the preaching of the Word of God
behind the pulpit, the reason why it's effective
is because you're preaching to everybody.
You're not saying, hey, Brother J,
you need to change this behind the pulpit.
You know, you don't say that.
You don't embarrass them.
And so they get to hear it without me personally just saying,
hey, you need to change this.
What happens?
Well, they realize, hey, that's what the Word of God says.
Now, if I were to talk to them outside the pulpit though
and say, you need to do this,
I'm gonna come across as a jerk.
Why?
Because I'm being a jerk.
That's the way it is, right?
Because there's a time and a place for stuff.
When one problem you see with churches like ours
is like women will visit church
and most women do not wear dresses, right?
Most women wear pants, shorts, whatever.
And you have certain times some women who will just quit wearing pants
will say to the new visitor,
you should not wear pants when they visit church.
It's like, what are you doing?
That is not your place.
That's not your job.
Let the Word of God change their heart.
And here's the thing.
If you change the inside, guess what happens?
It changes the outside.
Now, we need to understand this with visitors
because we cannot expect them to be like us from day one.
They will not be like us.
Eventually, our goal is that if they stay at this church long enough
that they'll care about the doctrine like we care about the doctrine.
But when they first come, they're just looking for a family.
They're just looking for friends and people that care about them.
They might like the preaching some
but it's not all about doctrine to them.
Now, eventually, our goal is that they'll stick around this church
because of the doctrine and that's the most important thing.
But when they first start,
that's not really what they're going to care about.
They're going to want to be at a place where they fit in.
Now, turn to...
Are we still in 1 Kings 10?
Turn back to 1 Kings 10 if you're not there.
And so, the first point is basically just
if we want to be the perfect church, the ideal church or a great church,
we need to be friendly, okay?
And we need to make sure we're not forming cliques.
We need to accept new people, give them a chance, talk to them.
And I get it, you know, you see your friend in church,
there's certain things you want to talk to them about
but you have to understand when this church grows,
we need the he must increase but I must decrease mentality
that John the Baptist had.
And realize as the church grows,
none of us are as important as we were when it was a small church.
That's the way it's supposed to be.
The church grows and there's tons of people that love it.
That's what we want if we want to turn this place upside down.
And so, the second thing I want you to look at is in 1 Kings 10 5,
let me read this verse.
In the meat of his table and the sitting of his servants
and the attendance of his ministers and their apparel and his cupbearers
and his ascent by which he went up into the house onto the house of the Lord,
there is no more spirit in him.
Now, there are a lot of things mentioned in verse 5
and a lot of these things are kind of similar
but there are distinctions between each of them.
I want to focus on the sitting of his servants, okay?
The sitting of his servants.
Now, turn to Nehemiah 8, Nehemiah 8.
Now, let me ask you a question.
When you think of a servant, what does a servant do?
A servant serves.
He works, right?
Now, if they're sitting, they're not working, are they?
The sitting of his servants.
Now, remember the Bible says that they had heard the wisdom of Solomon.
They stood before him to hear his wisdom.
They listened to his wisdom.
Well, remember I just preached on Psalms 1 a few weeks back
about how there's one person preaching, giving counsel to everybody else's sitting.
So, when he's saying the sitting of his servants,
he's saying the time when Solomon was imparting wisdom,
how they were sitting during that time period.
Because servants serve but in 1 Kings 10, 5, it talks about them sitting.
Look, you don't do work when you're sitting down.
Now, obviously, you can do some things
but in general, if you're sitting, you're not serving, right?
But there's a time to serve
and there's also time to hear the preaching of the word of God.
And so, the Bible talks about the sitting of his servants.
Now, this is similar to Nehemiah 8, Nehemiah 8 in verse 1.
And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street
that was before the Watergate.
And they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses,
which the Lord had commanded to Israel.
And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation,
both of men and women,
and all that could hear with understanding upon the first day of the seventh month.
And he read therein before the street that was before the Watergate,
from the morning until midday, before the men and the women,
and those that could understand,
and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.
So, here's an example where people are listening to the book of the law.
And this is an example where they're not sitting, they're standing.
Notice verse 5.
And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people,
for he was above all the people,
and when he opened it, all the people stood up.
So, they stand up when the word of God is being preached.
Verse 7, and there's a lot of names there go to the end of the verse.
Cause the people to understand, verse 7,
cause the people to understand the law,
and the people stood in their place.
So, in Nehemiah 8, the word of God is being preached for a long time,
and they're standing.
You say, why are they standing instead of sitting?
They didn't have chairs.
It's like on Sunday afternoons, the preaching's being done,
we're just standing.
We're not sitting, right?
But in general, if you're at a church, you're gonna have chairs,
and you know, one person's preaching, they're sitting.
So, it's the same thing.
Them, the way they stood,
they're paying attention to the word of God,
is the same way with people sitting.
Now, turn back to 1 Kings 10, 1 Kings 10.
So, exactly what was it about the way they sat that impressed them?
Okay.
Now, I've heard people preach before,
that you should sit up straight in your chair,
with, you know, straight back when the preaching's going on.
Now, I'm not saying I disagree with that,
but here's the thing, I don't do that.
So, I always leaned forward.
I don't feel comfortable when I'm like leaning back.
It feels very awkward to me, and I try to do it,
and I'm just like, you know, I can't do it.
And I lean forward, I'm excited.
So, I'm leaning forward for the word of God, right?
Now, but here's the thing though, whether you sit up straight,
which is like the professional way,
or whether or not you're leaning forward,
there's a difference between sitting like that,
and then sitting like you don't even care.
Like, you're just like, yeah, whatever, no big deal, right?
You could tell if you went into a room,
by the way people are sitting, in general,
whether or not those people want to hear what's being said.
Right?
I mean, I promise you, if we took a picture of this room,
versus a Catholic church,
I promise you, the way they sit in the Catholic church,
is going to be like this.
They're going to be bored out of their mind.
Is that not true?
You know that's true, right?
It impressed her because of the fact,
it's not like they were just pretending
to go through the motions.
No, they actually wanted to hear the word of God.
So, the way they were sitting is they were engaged.
You can tell if somebody's engaged or not, right?
And so, she could tell by the way they were sitting,
that they actually wanted to hear the wisdom.
Because later on, she talks about hearing,
that they stood there to hear the wisdom.
So, she noticed just based on the way they were sitting, okay?
And like I said, this is just kind of covering
all the little things.
But look, things like this matter.
That when the preaching's going on,
that you are paying attention.
And honestly, the most important person
is not even to a visitor, it's to me.
Because when I'm preaching,
you know, I've preached to decent-sized crowds before.
And you can see certain people that do not want to be there.
And that affects you when you're preaching.
You're just like, man, what in the world?
You can tell they do not want to be there.
When they're on their phone,
one, part of you is kind of upset about it.
Because it's like disrespectful.
It's like you're on your phone,
you're not paying attention while I'm preaching.
That's disrespectful.
But it's also just kind of deflating.
Because you're like, man,
am I preaching a bad sermon or something?
Am I not making sense?
It starts affecting you.
Gets in your mind while you're preaching,
you're thinking about this.
And that distracts you from preaching.
So quite honestly, you know, it is important
that when the preaching's going on, you're engaged.
Now, some people like to take notes, some don't.
You know, I encourage you,
if there's something that you hear that you're like,
man, I haven't thought about that,
take a note, write it down,
so you know for the future.
But when the preaching's going on,
you want to make sure that you actually care
about the preaching.
And that you're paying attention to what's being done.
And it's going to be obvious to first-time visitors
whether or not you want to sit and hear the preaching or not.
Now, I want you to notice also in,
whoa, you're in Nehemiah 8,
you don't have to turn from there.
But another thing that was mentioned in 1 Kings 10
is it said his cupbearers, okay?
And remember the Bible talked about servants, okay?
Now, a cupbearer, you say, what is a cupbearer?
Well, actually turn to Nehemiah 1, Nehemiah 1, okay?
And what a cupbearer basically is,
it's an official position of servitude.
It's not just being a servant,
it's an official position.
Nehemiah 1, verses 10 and 11.
Now these are thy servants and thy people
who now is redeemed by thy great power
and by their strong hand.
Oh Lord, I beseech thee,
let now thine ear be attentive
to the prayer of thy servant
and to the prayer of thy servants
who desire to fear thy name
and prosper I pray thee thy servant this day
and grant him mercy in the sight of this man
for I was the king's cupbearer, okay?
So a lot of people are servants,
but a cupbearer is an official position of servitude.
It would be basically like
we have a song leader at this church.
It's an official position of leadership at the church.
We're Bible reading, we're taking the offering,
things like that.
It's an official position, okay?
So the cupbearer,
there were certain people
that had official positions for Solomon.
And so what the Bible's basically saying
when it says his cupbearers,
that when you get a responsibility at church,
no matter how low you think it is,
you take it seriously, right?
It says his cupbearers,
and she noticed that, hey,
the people that have responsibilities,
they took it seriously.
Every responsibility at church,
you say, man, it's so small.
Look, if you prove yourself worthy in something small,
you'll get bigger opportunities.
That's the way God operates.
First you have to prove yourself in something small.
When you start a new job,
you're not the CEO from day one.
Quite honestly,
there's a lot of people in the CEO world,
a lot of them are just reprobate evil people.
But I mean, I'm just saying,
you don't start off at the top at a company.
You start off at the bottom.
You prove yourself in something small.
You say, well, I don't like my job.
I'm just a cupbearer.
Look, whatever the job is, it's important.
Everything in church matters.
No matter what your job is,
take it very seriously.
As far as I've seen so far,
people are taking the responsibilities
they have seriously,
but that's something you always want to do.
And as this church grows,
there's going to be more responsibilities.
If the people are not taking
their responsibilities seriously,
when we have new positions,
guess what they're not going to do?
They're not going to take it serious.
It's very important.
The Bible says that things
are to be done decently and orderly.
When it comes to a church,
we need things orderly and decent.
We need people to take
their responsibilities very seriously.
Look, I've been to churches
where I had very remedial tasks.
I didn't always work for churches, right?
I haven't always worked for churches in my life.
I went to churches and just did
whatever needed to be done, right?
I lived like an hour and a half from a church,
and I was the assistant on their morning bus route
that picked up kids,
and I left at like 5 30 in the morning to get there,
and we drove for a couple hours.
I was just the assistant.
It's not like I was the head hunch or anything.
I was just the assistant
in case they needed anything,
going on a little sleep.
Look, I've been there.
I've been the cupbearer before, right?
A position where it's just kind of like,
it wasn't a glorious position,
but I took it seriously.
I was like, this is a job the pastor gave me.
I'm going to take it seriously, right?
If he gave it to me,
I'm going to do the best job I can.
Amen.
And so it says it's cupbearers.
I turn back to 1 Kings 10.
Now, you might say,
well, these things don't seem that important,
but they're obviously important to God
if you listed them in 1 Kings 10 when he's talking.
It's a chapter that really shows us
what kind of church we need to be.
And he mentions these things.
Now, these are things that you would read over
if you're not paying attention, okay?
But when you're paying attention,
it makes sense when he's saying
the sitting of his servants,
a cupbearer is an official position.
And it also mentions in 1 Kings 10 5,
the attendance of his ministers,
the attendance of his ministers, okay?
Now, this is kind of similar to both those things,
and it's kind of in between,
but it's not the same thing.
The attendance of his ministers,
you have to understand the difference
between the attendance of his ministers and his cupbearers.
A cupbearer is an official position, okay?
Everyone, though, ought to be a minister.
There's certain official positions,
but everybody at the church can serve
in one way or another.
Now, when it says the attendance of his ministers,
you might have a wrong understanding
about this word minister.
Or attendance, I should say.
Because you talk about taking attendance,
and if you just show up, you know,
you're part of the attendance.
But if you look in the Bible,
turn to 1 Timothy 4, 1 Timothy 4.
The word attendance appears four times in the Bible,
and every single time,
it is not just merely showing up,
but it implies action to it.
The attendance of his ministers,
it implies action.
I'll give you one example of this.
In 1 Timothy 4, verses 12 and 13,
it says,
Let no man despise thy youth,
but be thou an example of the believers
in word and conversation,
in charity and spirit,
in faith and purity,
till I come give attendance to reading
to exhortation to doctrine.
When it says give attendance to reading,
that implies an action is being done.
It's not like you just say,
well, you know, I'm just,
and you don't read anything.
You're not giving attendance to reading
unless you're actually doing the reading.
There's action involved.
Every time the word attendance
appears in the Bible,
there's an action associated.
That's an action implied.
So when you go back to 1 Kings 10 5,
when you go back to 1 Kings 10 5,
and it says the attendance of his ministers,
there's action associated.
So what it's basically saying is,
it's not an official position,
but if there's anything you see
that needs to get done,
you get it done.
For example,
you see a piece of paper on the ground,
you pick it up,
you put it in the trash.
You don't have to ask me
whether or not I want you
to throw the trash away, right?
Obviously with big issues,
you know, you ask me,
you run it by me,
but with stuff like that,
you don't have to ask me
whether or not, you know,
hey, this trash needs to be picked up.
What do you do?
You just pick it up and throw it away.
I would do the same thing.
If I see trash in the ground,
I'll pick it up and throw it away.
I'm not above that rule.
If I see trash, I'll throw it away.
What she noticed
was the attendance of the ministers
where basically they didn't have
to be told to do something.
It's not like it was an official position,
but they just did what needed to be done.
And honestly,
with the church to run smoothly,
sometimes things need to get done
that you're not expecting to come up.
Sometimes we're going to hear rock music
on the other side of this wall.
And look, when I'm preaching,
I can't do anything about that.
I can't just like bang on this wall
and get them to stop, right?
And so what happens?
Well, someone,
hopefully we'll go over there
and talk to them,
get them to quiet, turn it down,
which we've had people volunteer
for these things,
which has been great.
This is what is talked about
with the attendance of his ministers.
When you see something
that needs to get done,
you get it done, right?
Because honestly,
it just gives me more work
if all these things are brought to me.
For example,
if the air conditioning isn't working,
what do you do?
You find a worker
and ask them to fix it, right?
Now, I'll help out as much as I can.
But quite honestly,
when I lived in Sacramento,
sometimes I'd lead the music,
but when I do great,
I don't have to worry about it, right?
And so that's what she noticed.
She noticed the attendance
of his ministers
that basically when there was
something that needed to be done,
other people did it.
They didn't even ask to solve
and they just got it done.
Now, let me just reiterate,
if there's something major,
obviously you're going to run that by me.
It's not like you just say,
hey, Brother Stuckey,
I just kicked Brother Prince
out of the church.
It's like, well, wait a minute.
Yeah, you got to run that by me
before you kick him out of the church, right?
Obviously with big things,
you got to run it by me first.
And depending on what it is,
I might even run it by Pastor Jimenez.
But with little stuff,
obviously, you know,
do your best to just get the stuff done.
And honestly, people have done that.
But that's just something
that's mentioned here in 1 Kings 10-5,
something she noticed.
Now, I want you to notice something else
in 1 Kings 10-5.
Right after the attendance of his ministers,
notice what it says.
And their apparel.
Now, we're going to spend
a little bit of time on this.
People have a lot of different
opinions on this.
What does it mean by apparel?
It means their clothing.
It means what they're wearing, okay?
Now, let me just say right off the bat,
as I get into this point,
that, you know, I'm fine
if you don't hold the same stance
as I do when it comes to apparel.
That's fine.
I do not believe it's a sin
to show up to church dressed without a tie.
I don't think that's a sin, okay?
Now, I personally wear a tie
and I'll explain why I do these things
and stuff like that.
And obviously, dress standards are different
depending on what your country is
and where you live and things like that.
Honestly, I'm still learning some of these things.
But one thing that's undeniable
is that clothing does matter.
Because it's mentioned here
as something she knows.
So we cannot just say
clothing matters not at all.
If I showed up to preach today
in shorts and a t-shirt,
don't tell me that you look at me with respect.
You wouldn't, would you?
You'd look at me like, I don't care.
Why? Because I'm dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, right?
So obviously, clothing does matter to some degree.
Now, this is a topic
that people get very touchy about.
So I'll do my best not to try to offend anyone.
I'm just going to show you what the Word of God says.
And quite honestly,
I'm not going to preach on clothing much.
Why? Well, because the Bible
doesn't focus on it that much.
But when the Bible does focus on it,
I'm not going to avoid it.
I won't avoid anything.
Even if it does offend someone,
it mentions their apparel, okay?
So I am going to talk about it.
Because the key is,
if you cleanse the inside,
the outside gets cleansed.
That's why I don't have to focus on it too much.
Because I know that if I can get people
to read the Bible and they love God,
the outside is going to fix itself.
I don't have to worry about that.
That's why when someone comes in here
and visits for the first time,
I'm not going to talk to them
about the clothing that they need to wear.
You know, it's fine to me.
You know, whatever they're wearing,
once they start hearing the preaching,
it's going to change them.
So it mentions their apparel.
Honey, can you get them?
And it mentions their apparel in verse number five.
Now, turn to Exodus 28.
Exodus 28.
Now, one thing you'll notice in the Bible is that
there are certain colors that the average person
could not necessarily wear.
For example, you know, purple was a color
that was not accessible to everyone.
We know that because the Bible says
Lydia was a seller of purple, okay?
She sold things that were purple.
Why?
It was a color of royalty that only rich people had.
Remember how they mocked Jesus?
You know, wearing scarlet and purple,
those were not things that the normal person has.
Obviously, today, we can wear scarlet and purple.
No problem.
It's accessible to anyone.
Honestly, in a lot of ways,
we're richer than they were back then.
Because even here, later on in the chapter,
it talked about all the things
Solomon was getting with the money.
I mean, she brought peacocks.
It's like, peacocks?
It's like, well, just go to the zoo, right?
It was a different time period.
But you know, certain colors are not all that accessible.
Now, you have to understand though,
the Queen of Sheba was one of the richest people in the world.
I personally do not think that it makes sense
that everyone just had really fancy rich clothing
and that's what impressed her.
That doesn't make sense to me.
A couple reasons.
One, even though she talks about
how much God had blessed them financially,
this is the reason why I don't think
that's what it's talking about.
One, because she's seen everything.
She's seen purple, scarlet.
She's seen everything.
But another thing, in 1 Kings 10-5,
you don't have to turn back there.
If you're still there, you can look though.
When you look at the things mentioned,
the sitting of his servants,
the attendance of his ministers,
their apparel, his cupbearers,
none of this has to do with money or being fancy at all.
All these things basically show
that people just care about being them.
The attendance of his ministers,
they're just trying to do their best.
The sitting of his servants,
they just want to hear the word of God.
So to me, what makes sense with their apparel,
and honestly, you could have a different opinion, that's fine.
I don't think it's that they were wearing rich clothing.
I think it's just that they were dressed
like they took it seriously.
Look, this suit is not an expensive suit.
I got this for my wedding day.
I got a new suit when I got married.
I'm still wearing this.
The one suit I wear,
I'm not wearing fancy, rich clothing.
But when you look at me, you would say,
well, Brother Stuckey takes it seriously.
I'm not wearing shorts and a t-shirt.
You say, okay, he's got a suit on.
He's got a tie.
I'm bad at tying ties, but I did my best.
You could say I'm dressed like I take this seriously.
I'm not just up here like it's a game,
like I'm goofing up,
but I'm dressed to take it seriously.
And I think that is what she noticed.
Now I want you to notice a few things
when it says Exodus 28 verses two and three.
Exodus 28 verses two and three.
I want you to realize that
when you see certain people in the Bible,
they did have certain dress standards
that they were expected to have.
Exodus 28 verse two.
And now shall make holy garments
for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty.
Now shall speak unto all that are wisehearted
whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom
that they may make Aaron's garments to consecrate him
that he may minister on me in the priest's office.
There were specific garments
that Aaron was expected to wear.
Okay.
It wasn't just, hey, just wear whatever you want.
There's specific garments that he was expected to wear
specifically given to him.
Now, one thing I'm not talking about in this sermon
cause it's outside of the scope.
I'm not talking about, you know,
dress standards for men versus women
and women wearing pants.
I'm not talking about that in this sermon.
That's outside of the scope.
I'm also not talking about what nakedness is.
The Bible talks about, you know,
your thigh being exposed as nakedness.
I'm just talking about dressing
like you take it seriously, right?
I believe that is what the queen of Sheba is talking about.
Now turn to Matthew 23, Matthew 23.
I went to a funeral a couple of years ago
and it was actually the funeral, like,
that I was asked to preach at the funeral
or give the words, even though I didn't really know.
It was like a distant relative.
I'm just, I don't know.
I don't know what they believe about the Bible.
You know, I just said something kind of generic,
but then there was somebody who showed up
with shorts and a t-shirt.
And it's just like, you're at a funeral.
It's like, what are you doing?
I mean, you don't show up to a funeral
wearing shorts and a t-shirt, right?
Because of the fact you just look at that and say,
well, you know, they're just not taking it seriously.
I mean, you don't show up to a wedding wearing flip-flops.
Right?
I've been to a few weddings.
I'm not a huge fan of going to weddings,
but you dress, you know, like you take it seriously.
I believe it's the same in the house of God
because this is important.
You want to dress like you take it seriously.
It says in Matthew 23, starting in verse 25,
woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
for you may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter,
but within they are full of extortion and excess.
Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that
which is within the cup and platter,
that the outside of them may be clean also.
Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
for you are like unto white and sepulchres,
which indeed appear beautiful outward,
but are within full of dead men's bones
and of all uncleanness.
Even so you also outwardly appear righteous unto men,
but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
So what you see is that Jesus is saying
that they got the outside right,
but they don't have the inside right.
Like I said, I'm not really that focused
on what people were wearing on the outside
because if the inside gets cleansed,
the outside will be cleansed.
That's the key.
So like I said, I'm not going to go outside this pulpit
and tell you my opinion
because that is outside of my authority.
I don't have the right to do that,
but obviously what is mentioned in 1 Kings 10,
you know, I'm going to bring it up because that's what it says.
Go back to 1 Kings 10, 1 Kings 10.
Me personally, I wear a suit on Sundays
or on Wednesdays as well when I preach.
And one thing Pastor Mendez has said
and I think this is a good rule
is like when you preach behind the pole,
but if anyone gets a chance
and we'll have people get a chance
to preach a full length sermon,
I'm going to expect you to dress seriously
because when you're in a position of leadership,
people are going to really expect you
to dress the part, right?
I'm not saying it's a sin not to wear a suit or whatever,
but you want to dress the part.
Now on Sundays, you know,
honestly I don't really expect anyone to wear a suit
and here's the reason why
because we go soloing right afterwards,
you're going to sweat right through it.
You know, I wouldn't expect you to wear a suit.
I wear a suit just to put in the suitcase
and drop it off downstairs.
I honestly don't really expect you,
I wouldn't wear a suit if I were you guys on Sunday
when we go soloing right afterwards
if you don't have a place to put it.
See in America, you just walk outside, there's your car,
you just throw your suit in there
and you go soloing, no big deal.
But obviously here, I mean,
if you're coming on a jiffy or whatever,
I'm not expecting you to wear a suit.
But you know, one thing that we should do
is just try to dress like you take it seriously.
That's something that the Queen of Sheba noticed.
Now let's see one other thing.
1 Kings 10, 8, we have three more things.
1 Kings 10, verse 8, and notice what it says,
Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants,
which stand continually before thee
in that here thy wisdom.
This kind of ties to some of the other things we talked about
where basically she just noticed
that they were happy to be there.
Now turn to Philippians 4, Philippians 4.
And like I've said before, we've all been in churches
where we were not happy to be there.
We didn't enjoy it.
We didn't learn anything from the preaching.
It was boring.
Nobody wanted to be there.
You put your best smile on when the pastor's looking at you,
but you did not want to be there.
I've done some of my best Bible memorization in church before.
You know, you're kind of slouched down in the pew
and you have your Bible here.
And you look up every once in a while and say amen,
you know, at the right time.
And you're just kind of memorizing the Bible.
I've memorized some good Bible while in church before.
Now it's just like, I want to get something out of this.
I'm not learning anything, so I guess I'll memorize the Bible.
But I want you to notice when it talks about being happy,
notice Philippians 4, verse 11.
It says, not that I speak in respect of what,
for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.
Notice what Paul says.
I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.
You know what that implies?
That you can actually learn to be happy.
Content means happy, right?
Paul says I learned to be content no matter what state I was in.
He learned to be happy.
People have this idea, well, you know, I'm not happy.
Look, you can learn to be happy, okay?
Now, honestly, I hope that all the men at our church that are married,
even if they're not here, I hope, you know, they'll listen to this.
Because I think this is valuable information for them.
The truth is when it comes to our movement,
it's a lot harder for a woman to adapt to this movement than it is for a guy.
And I think some of the big reasons are
the world has done a real number on women out there, right?
Because the way women dress is inappropriate.
It's what the Bible says not to.
Now, me, you know, I wear pants.
Most guys wear pants.
It's like, fine, the world hasn't done a number really on men.
But for women, honestly, they come to this movement,
if they get right with God, they're going to change the way they're dressed.
They're going to change a lot.
They got to, you know, quit their job, be a stay-at-home mom.
But those are some differences that for a guy we don't have to adjust to.
You know, I worked before I came to this movement.
I still work now, right?
You know, I dress the same way.
I wore pants, you know, for the last, you know, 30 years of my life,
25 years or whatever.
Look, I wear pants now.
It's the same way, right?
For women, though, it's a lot more difficult.
Because the world has done a real number on women.
The reason why this is important is, you know,
husbands need to understand that, you know,
their wives might not adapt to this as quickly as them, okay?
Honestly, it might take them some time.
You know, when my wife and I got married,
and my wife's been an independent Baptist for a long time,
but, you know, most churches, they don't emphasize reading the Bible, do they?
Right?
They don't go soloing.
So when my wife and I started talking, you know,
she didn't read the Bible as much as she does now.
Their church didn't go soloing until we started talking, right?
Because that's the way Baptist churches are.
And so quite honestly, there's a lot of changes that need to take place
when we started talking.
There's a lot of doctrine.
And look, I was long-suffering on doctrine.
There's a lot of stuff where, you know,
what she believed was wrong because she had been brainwashed.
You know, one of the biggest issues was the preacher of baptism.
That was kind of the big one where it's just like,
you know, she watched after the tribulation a couple times.
And we were still arguing about that point, right?
And I remember we were talking on the phone and she...
Because why?
Because when you're at a Baptist church
and you've been brainwashed for years and years and years,
you might not switch immediately.
That's why I said, you know, when a Catholic and Satan comes to this church,
they still might have some Catholicism that they need to get rid of.
They're not going to be an independent fundamental Baptist from day one,
dressed right and everything like that.
It's going to take them a little bit of time.
And so quite honestly, there was a lot of doctrines that,
you know, I was showing my wife and I said,
well, this is why I disagree with you.
But, you know, I needed to be long-suffering
rather than being a jerk if I wanted her to adapt to these new ones.
I remember we had a discussion one time.
I was reading through Genesis and I was looking at a verse
and I realized that what I believed was wrong.
I realized she was right.
And I remember telling her, she was so excited when I told her,
you know what, you're right about that.
I don't know if she remembers that.
I remember that I was like, you know, I'm wrong.
You know, that my interpretation of it, you know, was wrong.
I missed one key word there.
And, you know, I guess I have a different interpretation.
Maybe some people, it's not a big doctrine or anything like that.
But I was like, you know what?
What I believed, what I've heard, I don't agree with.
I believe something else is not a big thing whatsoever at all.
But I was like, you know, my wife's right about that.
And so she was very excited that day.
But quite honestly, you know, there's a lot of doctrines that, you know,
she had to change, right?
We have to understand that, especially husbands of this church,
and I hope they listen to this,
they cannot expect their wives to be just like them from day one.
In general, the guys are the ones listening to hours and hours of preaching,
not their wives.
So it's going to take their wives some time to grow.
Now, here's what you have to do.
You have to take a stand on certain things though.
Look, you know, there's certain things that I won't budge on.
You know, when we started talking, I was very clear that, you know what?
If we get married, we'll be a stay-at-home mom.
I wasn't going to budge on that.
Because you set your feet on the ground on certain topics.
But at the same time, I didn't expect her from day one to believe everything I did
and love the same preaching I did.
No, you know, I needed her to get a chance to grow.
And you know what?
As she read the Bible and started going so many, guess what?
She changed.
Why?
Because anybody who goes so many reads the Bible is going to start to change.
And they hear the preaching, it's going to change them.
So when it comes to learning to be content, like it talks about in Philippians 4, verse 11,
you have to understand, you can learn to be content.
And the ladies at our church that maybe their husband's a little bit more on fire for God than
them, they need to understand, they can learn to be happy.
Yes, it might be different to you.
You can learn to be content.
And a lot of people just like to decide, you know what?
I'm just going to be miserable my whole life.
No, learn to be content.
Learn to say, you know what?
I'll change because that's what the Bible says.
That's what we need to do.
Now turn back to actually turn to Luke 2, Luke 2.
Now those are kind of all the things in 1 Kings 10 when it comes to thy culture.
But let me just mention a couple other things real quickly before we get done.
A couple other key things that kind of go along with this culture, but not directly
mentioned here in 1 Kings 10.
You're turning to Luke 2.
But one thing is the music ministry.
You know, I haven't talked about music at all.
But when it comes to a church being a perfect church or a complete church or a great church,
the music is very important.
And sometimes we understate it because we put so much emphasis on the preaching.
But honestly, the music is very important.
Now, I personally believe, obviously, Brother Timothy has been sick recently.
I think he's doing a great job.
I think he's doing a good job with the music.
I like the not just the song lead, but the people playing instruments.
Obviously, we're just starting out as a church.
You're going to get bigger and better at everything as you grow.
I remember when I first started leading music, I was like, man, this is a lot more difficult
than I expected because I could normally sing a song.
But then when I was singing in front of everybody, my voice just cracked all the time.
I was like, man, I sound terrible.
I was like, it's difficult.
Honestly, it's difficult.
It's not easy to lead music.
For most people, it doesn't come naturally.
It takes work.
Honestly, Timothy's doing a good job.
He's putting in effort, and he's going to just get better as time goes on.
The music ministry, though, it's very important.
As this church grows, and we go to a new building and stuff like that, hopefully we can start
recording some songs and things like that, maybe some songs in Tagalog and things like
that that we can put on the internet.
The music ministry is very important.
Now, one other thing I want to mention is in Luke 2, verse 49, and the last point, this
is the point that splits the church right down the middle.
Filipino time.
That's the last point.
Okay, Filipino time.
All right.
Now, obviously, I understand being in Metro Manila, you're like, well, I'll show up sometime
between 30 minutes and two hours.
You don't know what the traffic is going to be like.
It's really hard to be on time.
It's really hard to give an accurate time.
You know, in America, you could give a pretty accurate time.
Like, you know, my estimated time of arrival is 2.04.
Here, it's like, well, you know, it's between 1.30 and 2.30.
I'll show up sometime between.
You just don't know how the traffic is going to be.
But, you know, honestly, especially as it comes to this week that's coming up for any
activities that anyone's involved with during the missions trip, especially coming to church
services, you do not want to be late for those church services.
Okay, it will set obviously, you know, we have tons of people that are visiting this
church, but also Verity Baptist Church is going to be here.
A lot of people.
And if we don't look like we're taking it seriously, it's going to make me look pretty
bad.
It makes us all look bad.
We want to make a good impression of people that are visiting, especially to our sending
church, Verity Baptist Church, which means, you know, we have the church services.
We need them to be on time.
We're ready to go.
Not just kind of like, well, you know, it's that we're actually on time, that we're just
very organized and orderly.
And obviously, we should always be like this, but we should especially be on our best this
week.
And notice Luke 2 49.
I was trying to think of a verse that would fit this.
Luke 2 verse 49.
And he said unto them, How is it that you sought me?
Was he not that it must be about my father's business?
And so Jesus Christ was talking about his Heavenly Father, because obviously Joseph
was, you know, he raised him, but he's not his biological father.
And he said, I must be about my father's business.
Notice he uses the word business.
Okay, now, obviously, as a church, we're not a business.
We're not trying to make money.
But it does show you when you think of a business, you need to be professional out of business.
You need to be orderly at a business.
Look, when you work a job, you don't show up 20 minutes late.
You show up early.
You say, No, no, I show up.
No, no, you show up early at the job.
That's what you're supposed to do.
You're supposed to clock in before you get started.
You should show up early for the job.
And honestly, we ought to strive our best.
And honestly, this is sort of like a pet peeve of mine.
Like my wife knows this, that I'm always like the first one at places.
That's kind of my personality.
I don't like showing up late for stuff.
But you know, we ought to do our best, especially when it comes to this week, that we are trying
our best to be here on time and get everything started.
Because when we have soul winning, think about this.
We're meeting at 11am at the Lapu-Lapu monument starting on Monday for soul winning.
Look, if people keep showing up at 1105, 1117, 1130, you know what, there's a lot of people
that aren't getting saved because we got to wait for people coming.
We need people to be there on time and ready to go.
So we can just send people out and just go do the work, right?
We have to strive our best to always be on time.
Obviously, not just this week, but especially this week.
We want to be on time for everything and not resort back to our Filipino time, but just
resort to the actual time, right?
And so the eight points we had here, when it comes to the culture.
Number one is just being friendly.
Number two, the sitting of his service to actually pay attention during the preaching.
Number three is cup bearers, where if you have a position at this church, you take it seriously.
Number four is the attendance of his ministers, where if there's something that needs to get
done, you just do it, you know, even if it's something small.
Number five, we talked about our clothing.
Number six, we talked about being happy.
Number seven, the music ministry and last Filipino time.
And so let me just encourage us all, as we come up to this week, to pray about this event.
Obviously, this is going to be really exciting, and I wanted this series, The Perfect Church,
I wanted to conclude this before we get started with this, because these three sermons we
preached on it, this is what we need to be as a church, and especially when it comes
to this week.
Let's close in a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here in your house this evening,
and help us all to apply these things, and help us strive to be a good church.
God, help us all to do our part.
We all have various roles, God.
Help this church just get bigger and better with each and every passing week, each and
every passing year, God.
I ask you to bless this church.
Help us to continue to go soul in it.