We will not keep the law. We will be unsuccessful.
So it's very important for us to set a good vision of what we're trying to accomplish.
Turn to Titus chapter 1.
And the first thing that we're going to talk about today is
the first thing we're trying to accomplish as a church is
we want to duplicate ourselves as a church.
I would like to see a church just like this all throughout Metro Manila.
Tons of churches just like this.
But if you were to ask around the room,
there's people in this room that are coming from north, from south, from east,
from every direction, a long distance.
And the reason why you are is because there is no great church where you live.
That's the reason why you're willing to drive an hour and a half, two hours.
But see, that's not God's plan.
God would like there to be a great church everywhere,
so you don't have to drive a long distance.
My goal as the evangelist here, as the leader,
is to help get churches started.
That's a huge goal I have.
In Titus 1 verse 5, this is what the Bible reads,
For this cause left I thee in Crete,
that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting,
and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee.
And it says the things that are wanting.
What the Bible is telling us is there was a demand for good churches.
There was people that were going soul winning all throughout this area,
people that loved the Lord, but there was no pastor,
there was no evangelist, there was nobody to send to lead that church.
Things were wanting.
You look throughout the Philippines,
you look at our big mission trip we had in April,
past that time you can tell that things are wanting you.
There's a demand for a church like this.
When I first had a desire to come to the Philippines to start a church,
I was expecting to start with my wife,
however many kids we had, and just start working a full time job.
I wasn't expecting four years ago that there would be 35 or something people here this morning.
I wasn't expecting that.
Praise the Lord that here in the Philippines things are wanting.
People want a great church.
But see we don't just want one church in Metro Manila,
we need a lot of great churches in this area.
And sadly there aren't a lot of great churches.
Honestly if there was a great church right by where you lived,
I would recommend that you stay in that area,
because there's a lot of wisdom in a local church, being close to your church.
But you know the sad thing is we don't have great churches throughout the Philippines.
The Bible says in verse number 5, it says,
For this cause left I be in Crete.
See he was left with the responsibility of getting great churches started.
That was his whole goal.
Now look if this was something that wouldn't take much time at all,
he would just be there for six months or gain the best 20 guys and just leave.
But he was left in Crete.
Which means it's going to take a lot of time.
It's going to take a lot of effort.
You know if you're in this room and you say,
I do have a desire to pastor one day,
I do have a desire to preach sermons and be a pastor or an evangelist or something like that.
Hey I'm going to try to help you as much as I can,
but it's going to take a lot of work.
Both from myself and from you.
And here's the thing, in the Philippines,
there's just this thing going around from Baptist churches where you don't have to read the Bible at all,
you don't have to be married,
you don't have to be kids,
and you can be a pastor of a church.
Now just because they are doing things wrong,
does not mean that we're going to do things wrong.
You say well, I read the Bible more times than Vinny Avante.
Look everyone in this room has.
It doesn't matter if you read the Bible three times and the average pastor has read it half the time.
It doesn't mean we're going to do things wrong because God has a standard of how to do things.
We're going to do things right.
And so the Bible says he was left in order to ordain elders in every city.
Turn to, well actually look at verse number six.
It says if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly.
You might ask the question, you know, brother Stuckey, why is it in the bulletin it does not call you pastor?
The reason why it does not call me pastor in the bulletin is because I'm not a pastor.
He's saying why are you not a pastor?
Well notice what it says in verse number six.
If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children.
I don't have multiple kids.
I have one child.
And look all these pastors that are running around that don't have two kids, they're not pastors.
God doesn't look at them as pastors.
In the book of Titus it's very clear you have faithful children.
Children is plural.
That's multiple.
So the reason why I'm here is because pastor of men has determined that I was ready, but I didn't need the qualification of being a pastor.
So we're still under the wing of Verdi Baptist Church.
That's why we're Verdi Baptist Church Manila.
You know, Lord willing one day I will be the pastor once I meet that qualification.
But you know one qualification of being a pastor or being a bishop or elder is the fact that you have faithful children.
But notice that it mentions a lot of other things starting in verse number seven.
For a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy Luther,
but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word as the athlete taught,
that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsavers.
Notice that there's a lot of requirements to being a pastor.
Now all of those requirements are requirements to being an evangelist as well.
Because of the fact the only thing you're missing is having multiple kids, but you still have to meet everything else.
So if we're going to ordain people as evangelists at this church, it's going to be the same thing.
You know the standard that we have at Verdi Baptist Church is you need to read the Bible ten times cover to cover.
That is one qualification we have.
Now you might think that sounds like a lot, but if you're saved for five years and you have a desire to be a pastor, you can read through it twice a year.
That's thirty minutes a day.
Anyone in this room can make the time.
You know, we can set aside other things.
If you have a desire to be a pastor, you need to train for it.
It's like if somebody decided they wanted to be a surgeon.
Do you want somebody operating on you who has little experience whatsoever?
Or do you want someone who spends some real time training?
You want someone who spends some time training because they're more likely to get the job done correctly.
And so the Bible sets down qualifications.
In this church we're going to have basic qualifications as well.
Now one thing it does not say is that you have to have a Bible college degree.
You have to graduate from seminary.
Because that's kind of the standard from churches, isn't it?
You don't have to meet any of these qualifications as long as you have a Bible college degree.
But is that what the Bible says?
Does it ever mention a Bible college degree?
No, it doesn't at all.
But it mentions a lot of things that we need to meet these things.
And so turn to I Timothy 5.
And one thing I hate about churches that don't do things correctly.
You know when churches don't take the time to make sure people are ready.
And they lessen the qualifications that God set forth.
What it can cause you to do is get kind of frustrated if you want to be a pastor.
And feel like that you're more ready than these other people.
Look I've felt that before because you know I'm just coming here to start this church now.
But there are definitely times when I saw people rise up that did not meet the qualifications but were calling themselves pastor.
It frustrated me.
But just because they're doing things wrong does not mean we're going to change God's qualifications.
We need to do things right if we want God's blessing upon us.
And notice what it says in I Timothy 5 verse 22.
It says lay hands suddenly on no man.
This is talking about ordaining someone to be an evangelist, a pastor, a missionary, whatever.
It says lay hands suddenly on no man.
It means don't do it immediately.
Basically make sure they're ready.
Now that means that you're going to have to spend some real time.
You know one thing that Pastor Mendez had told me when I went there.
We had basically a five year plan.
But one thing he talks about is that he won't ordain someone in less than two years.
Because they need to be at the church and prove themselves worthy.
It can't just be these fly by ordinations that happen sometimes.
People need to prove that they're ready because it says lay hands suddenly on no man.
And it's very important that we keep that qualification.
Because notice what it says in verse 22.
Neither be partaker of other men's sins.
Keep thyself pure.
You see if we ordain people too quickly we will be partaker in their sins.
That's what the Bible teaches.
Because honestly even if they're saved and even if they love the Lord.
If they're not ready they're going to screw up.
That's the truth.
The Bible says that if you're not ready you're going to be filled with covetous sins.
You're going to be filled with pride.
And if people are not ready they should not be ordained.
And so it's very important that you say I want to be a pastor.
I want to be an evangelist.
Well let's make sure we do things right.
Because the worst thing I could do for you is ordain you now because you're better than the other Baptist churches out there.
Look that's not much competition.
I mean if you've read the Bible a couple times you probably know more about the Bible than them.
That's not much competition.
But just because they're doing things wrong we're not going to do things wrong here.
So look the first point we have, the first goal we have is to get a lot of great churches started.
But we must do things correctly.
Now turn in your Bible to Revelation chapter 2.
Now it might surprise you that the first thing I mentioned was getting churches started.
You might have thought that I would mention soul winning.
Which is what we're about to talk about.
Now here's the reason why I didn't mention soul winning.
Over these last nine months since our missions trip, has there been soul winning going on in the Philippines?
There has, hasn't there?
People have already been getting saved.
You know I'm not going to stand here and take credit and say man I started this big soul winning thing.
You guys have already been doing it.
And when I look back at my life, five or ten years from now, I'm not going to determine my success fully based on whether or not we have soul winning going on.
Because that was going on before I got here.
I'm going to determine it though, was I able to duplicate myself and duplicate this church so that way people don't have to drive a long distance.
And we have great churches everywhere.
There are 13 million people in Metro Manila.
13 million. There's 50, more than 50 million people in Luzon.
That is a lot of people.
We need more than one church. We need more than two churches. We need more than three.
We need dozens and dozens of churches.
We could easily use 13 churches in Metro Manila and be fine.
That's one million people for one great church.
There's a lot of unsaved people out there.
We need a lot of great churches.
And so a desire we have is to duplicate ourselves.
Now it says in Revelation chapter 2, the second point we have is getting people saved.
That's a vision we have of this church is to win people to the Lord.
It says in Revelation 2 starting in verse 1,
On to the angel of the church of Ephesus write,
These things say of he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand,
who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.
I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil,
and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not, and hast found them liars,
and hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted.
Now so far, does this sound like a good church from the first three verses?
It sounds like a great church, doesn't it?
I mean, they're laboring. They have patience. They're working hard.
But notice what it says in verse 4,
Nevertheless, I am somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
What is our first love? It's talking about soul winning.
Because soul winning is the first works.
And honestly, you know, I guarantee you this is true with most of you in this room.
When I got saved, immediately I had a desire to try to win my family and my friends to the Lord.
Now I didn't become a soul winner from day one, but in the back of my head,
I just wondered about, man, people are dying and going to hell.
You know, I just, when I go soul winning, I always mention this to people after I get them saved.
You know, I'll say, you know, you meant that prayer, didn't you?
And they'll say, well, yeah, I did.
And I say, well, you know, if you died now, where would you go?
And they say, I'd go to heaven.
And I say, can anything change that? And they'll say no.
And then I ask them this question, do you think everybody knows this?
Or do you think a lot of people are confused?
You know what, everybody always answers me.
I think most people are confused.
Now if they don't answer that, I start wondering, did they get it?
Because honestly, 95 plus percent of the time, they tell me, man, I think most people are confused.
And the look on their face is, it's very obvious to them, man, I was pretty confused.
When I got saved, it was very clear to me, I would have gone to hell if I had died before that.
And when I got saved, I immediately just wondered, man, what about my parents?
What about, you know, my roommate from college?
What about my friends? I mean, do they understand this? Do they believe this?
It just blows my mind how people can be so lazy and just not want to do the work.
But the first works, the first thing when you get saved, the first desire you have is to win souls to the Lord.
Honestly, you know, when I first got saved, I had a lot of problems in my life.
I listened to the wrong music, I watched TV, I was just like everybody else.
And the reason why I changed is because of soul winning. That is why I changed.
When I started going soul winning, I realized I could be much more effective if I quit watching the hellovision,
if I quit listening to the rock music and all that garbage that I listen to.
And I realized, man, if I want to be successful in my life, I need to make some changes.
See, the first works is referring to soul winning.
And this church has a lot of great things about it, but it does not have soul winning anymore.
It's left its first love. And sadly, you can love all throughout the world.
And you've got churches that have left their first love.
They used to love soul winning. They used to go soul winning.
They used to work hard to live for the Lord, but not anymore. They left their first love.
But what does God think about a church that is a good church but does not go soul winning?
Is a great church outside of that? Well, what does it say in verse 5?
Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works,
or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
You know what God says about this church? Basically, I'm going to get rid of you.
You're useless. You're in the way. You see, a church that does not go soul winning is doing nothing for God.
It doesn't matter how their doctrine is great or anything like that.
If they're not rescuing people from hell, we don't need them.
They can quit calling themselves Baptists because they're not Baptists.
If they're not going soul winning, they're useless to God.
And that's not my words. That's what God's saying.
He says he's going to remove the candlestick.
And there's churches out there right now that they have the right message of salvation.
And you know what? They look like a church, but in God's eyes, I've removed my candlestick.
I've removed the blessing from that church.
And I'll tell you what, this church is going to be a soul winning church forever.
And if we ever stop, God is going to remove his blessing upon this church.
So we believe in soul winning. We will always believe in soul winning.
And the reason this church exists is because of soul winning.
And that's what the Bible teaches. Let me tell you something.
All these Baptist churches that are too lazy, that have the right Gospel, but they do not go soul winning,
they are useless to God.
Now some people take this verse, verse 5, and they say, well see, you can lose your salvation.
If you're not doing the works, you're going to lose your salvation.
This is talking about a church. This is not talking about an individual.
It's talking about a church very clearly.
But you know, this is the way God feels about a church that does not win souls.
Turn to John 15. John 15.
I remember it was probably about six months after I got saved.
And the person who led me to the Lord had been trying to get me to start going soul winning.
And I told him, you know, man, I'm way too shy.
I was like, I could never be a soul winner. That's not my gift. It's not me.
And I just started feeling guilty about it, because I knew what the Bible said.
And my friend, you know, he was going soul winning, but I was just too shy to do it.
And I remember the first time I went soul winning.
The first time I started to talk to someone and invited them to church and stuff like that,
I walked away and I realized, you know what, that was not that difficult.
It wasn't that difficult.
You might be in this room right now and you say, you know, I've never gone soul winning before.
You know, I'm shy. It's not my natural ability.
Well, here's the thing. God commanded everyone to go soul winning.
He said, He commanded everybody, go ye, that's plural, into all the world, priests, gospel, and every creation.
This is the command for everyone.
And here's the great thing about it. It doesn't matter how shy you are naturally.
It doesn't matter your natural personality, because God can give you the boldness to do something big for God.
And I'll tell you what, if you've never been soul winning before, come out at 2 p.m.
We'll pair you with someone who knows how to go soul winning.
You don't have to say a word. You can start out as a silent partner.
Everybody starts as a silent partner, and that's how they learn to be a talker.
They learn how to go soul winning.
If you're too shy to do this, you know, just come out.
And you're going to realize it's not that bad.
And notice what it says in John 15.
We talked about the church.
But let's look at the individual.
John 15, verse 8. Notice what it says.
Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit.
So shall ye be my disciples.
See, the Bible says that the person who bears a lot of fruit, those are his disciples.
Now, it's kind of funny because some people will teach that you must be a disciple of God in order to go to heaven.
They'll say, well, you know, you've got to really follow him and be a disciple.
But here's the thing. The Bible says here being a disciple is bearing a lot of fruit.
This is talking about someone who's winning souls.
Because it says he that when it's souls is wise.
The Bible says the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that when it's souls is wise.
So bearing fruit is when you actually go out and you win souls from the Lord.
And this is how the Father is glorified.
This is when God looks down and he's happy with what you're accomplishing is if you're a soul winner.
You're getting people saved.
And you say, Brother Stike, I'm part of a church that is the biggest soul winning church here in Metro Manila.
But that doesn't change the fact that individually God looks down at you and says, I need you to be a soul winner.
Every single person.
And I guarantee you we're probably going to get more saved than any of the other churches in this area.
Not because we're doing something great, but because we really don't have competition.
But it doesn't change the fact that just because you're at a great church, you're still required.
You're still expected to be a soul winner yourself.
That's how the Father is glorified.
And notice what it says in verse one.
I read verse eight to start because people twist this passage to say you can lose your salvation.
Because they don't understand that this is an earthly example God is giving us to help us understand the spiritual.
The context from verse eight is talking about being a soul winner.
Not being saved, but being a soul winner because it's talking about bearing fruit.
But notice what it says in verse one.
I am the true vine and my Father is the husband-man.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away.
And every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit.
Now ye are clean through the water which I have spoken on you.
Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine.
No more can ye accept the abide in me.
You see if you're not living a godly and holy life you're not going to be a great soul winner.
See if you say I want to be a great soul winner brother Snecke I'm touched by this message.
You're going to have to make some changes in your life then.
You can't live a really worldly life and expect to set the world on fire.
You've got to make your decision.
Are you going to sit down and just spend six hours watching TV a day?
And being a soul winner it's not going to happen.
You've got to make your decision.
And that goes back to what I said earlier about becoming a soul winner made me make changes in my life.
Because the Bible says God's going to purge you.
You're going to start feeling guilty about things you never felt guilty about once you start going soul winning.
Because you're going to realize what's really important in life.
It says in verse five, I am the vine, ye are the branches.
He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.
For without me ye can do nothing.
Now verse six is the big verse they try to use to say well you can lose your salvation.
Obviously we believe here at Verity Baptist Church Manila that you can never lose your salvation.
It's eternal life. You could never lose it for any reason.
Notice what it says in verse six.
If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered.
And men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned.
And so the reason people try to say you can lose your salvation is they say well these are burned.
So if you're not abiding in the vine you're going to be burned up.
But we have to keep in mind this is a soul winning example he's giving.
When I was a child we would visit my grandparents sometimes and my granddad had a big field.
So he had lots of trees and often times the branches and the leaves would fall off those trees.
So every several months you'd have to clean up the field.
Now here's the thing. All of these are burned at the same time.
Men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned.
Let me ask you a question.
If someone dies unsaved does God wait to cast them into hell until other people have died as well so they can gather them all together?
Or do they immediately go to hell?
They immediately go to hell.
See here it's not immediate because they wait to gather them.
See when I was a kid you know what we did?
We gathered all the branches and leaves together and at one time we cast them into the fire to burn them.
Wouldn't it be pretty stupid to pick up one branch and burn it then go back out and pick up a leaf and burn it?
And then we had a giant wheelbarrow where we put all the leaves, all the branches and we burned them at the same time.
And so what God has explained to us, because here's the thing. Those branches and those leaves they were useless to us.
They took up space. They were in the way.
And God is using some strong words to say this.
That if you're a Christian that is not winning souls and not doing anything to win people to the Lord, you're basically useless to God.
See God has us here to win souls.
Now obviously I understand that there's certain people that they might have health problems.
They might not be able to go soul winning as much as some people that are younger and various things like that.
I understand we're in different stages in our life.
We don't compare ourselves to one another about how much we go soul winning.
But I'll tell you what, if you're an able body, if you have been blessed with the health to go soul winning, God wants you to go soul winning.
He expects you. And that is how our Father is going to be glorified.
So as an individual and as a church, he's going to be glorified when we're winning souls to the Lord.
That's our second point today is to win souls to the Lord.
Now turn to Philippians chapter 1.
Now these are pretty basic points this morning, but it's very important for us to cast a vision of what we're trying to accomplish.
Now in the future we're going to go more in depth on all these different things.
We have six points this morning.
We'll go more in depth on these various different things to understand how will we become soul winners.
How are we going to get churches started and things like that.
But I just want to send an introductory sermon to help us understand this is what we're trying to accomplish.
So if somebody asks you, you know, why do you drive an hour and a half to go to this church?
You can say, well this is the church that goes soul winning.
This is the church that's actually trying to duplicate itself.
Look, most churches are not trying to duplicate themselves.
They'll send you to Bible college to get the degree, but they don't want to spend the personal work to train you and get you ready to be a pastor.
We're different. I will spend the time because it's worth it. It's important.
And we're going to be a soul winning church.
But it says in Philippians 1, notice what it says in verse 9.
And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment.
The third point we have as a church, a vision we have is for spiritual growth amongst the members.
Every single person in this room, including myself, including my wife, including everyone in here, we need to be growing spiritually.
Look, none of us are Paul the Apostle.
We still have areas in our life where we need to change.
We still need to learn more. We still need to be more zealous with winning souls.
We need to read the Bible more. We need to know the Bible more.
We need to pray more. We need to have more patience, be long suffering.
Look, there's a lot of things we need to work on.
I struggle with it every day. All of us sin every single day.
We need to work on growing spiritually.
Now there's two main ways that we're going to grow spiritually in this room.
Turn to 1 Peter chapter 2.
The first way, the most important, is that you individually have a walk with God.
And that is how you're going to grow.
You individually need to have a personal walk with God.
And it says in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 2,
As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.
And so the Bible says, he's giving an earthly example of a baby.
As newborn babes, we need to desire the sincere milk of the word.
In the English language, it's the King James Bible.
That's the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.
That is how we're going to grow.
How does a baby grow?
A baby grows through milk. That's how they grow.
Now it's kind of interesting when you have a child,
because you start learning a lot of things.
And when you have a newborn baby, you know what you notice?
That when they're hungry, you know what they do?
They cry out. They yell out.
You know, my son will be smiling, he's in a great mood,
and then five minutes later he's just crying at the top of his lungs because he's hungry.
Right?
See, that's how a newborn baby is.
But do you realize that us as Christians, we ought to have the same zeal for reading the word of God?
We'd be willing to cry out and say, man, I just need to read the Bible.
That you would put aside Facebook in the morning.
You'd put aside YouTube. You'd put aside distractions.
You'd put aside your cell phone and turn it off so you don't get texts every five minutes to distract you.
And say, you know what? I'm going to spend my personal time with God here in the morning.
I'm going to spend time away from all distractions.
We ought to care as much for the word of God as a baby would for their physical milk.
We ought to care more for the word of God, our spiritual growth, than our physical health.
That's what the Bible teaches.
And so it says in 1 Peter 2, is by you individually reading the word of God,
and memorizing the word of God, and meditating on the word of God,
that is how you're going to grow.
Turn to Nehemiah chapter 8.
Honestly, if I can spark a desire in people to read the word of God for themselves,
if we get somebody saved this afternoon, and they decide they're going to start coming to church,
and they start coming on Wednesday night,
the best thing I can do to get them to grow is to read the word of God for themselves.
And if I can motivate them to read the word of God for themselves,
they're going to grow really quickly.
Now I love YouTube preaching. There's great sermons out there.
You know what's more important than YouTube preaching?
Because YouTube preaching is not in the Bible.
Has anyone seen the verse in the Bible that says, thou shalt listen to YouTube preaching?
I mean, it's great if you have that opportunity to listen to it,
but you know what's more important is your personal walk with God and reading the Bible.
It's kind of interesting because if you were to look at the pastors that we respect,
I'm sure that in this room we respect the same pastors, right?
Whether it's Pastor Menes, Pastor Anderson, people that we've listened to before,
we respect those men of God.
You know that they grew spiritually mainly through reading the Bible.
It's like when somebody first gets saved, they want to jumpstart their learning by just listening to sermons.
But the Bible says read the word of God, and that's how you're going to grow.
That is the best way you're going to grow.
Because if you listen to a lot of sermons, and listen to sermons is great.
If you have free time to do it, listen to great preaching.
But you have to realize when you listen to great preaching,
you'll learn doctrines and things like that,
but it's not necessarily going to teach you how to have patience in your life
and not to be bitter and to be long-suffering.
See, you will learn those things through having your personal walk with God.
That's the best way you're going to grow.
And that's the same thing that Pastor Menes would preach.
The best way to grow is for you individually to read the word of God.
Now if you have time during the day to listen to sermons and read the word of God, then do both.
If you have time for one, you know what you need to do?
Read the Bible.
Because the Bible says read therein all the days of thy life.
So the first thing is for you to grow spiritually is when you individually read the Bible
and study the Bible and memorize it for yourself.
But the second thing is going to be through the preaching at this church.
Look, if you're here three times a week and I am not able to help you grow spiritually,
I'm screwing up.
The word of God is so deep and there's so much information,
and if I can't teach you anything new, I mean, move to a different church.
Because I promise you that if anybody who's Spirit-filled spends real time working on a sermon,
I'm going to learn from that.
And if I can't teach you anything, then you need to go elsewhere
because the Bible is so deep and my responsibility is to help you grow spiritually.
That's a big responsibility.
In Nehemiah 8, let's look at verse number 1.
The Bible reads,
And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate.
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 the men and women, and all that could hear with understanding,
upon the first day of the seventh month.
In verse 2, as a side point, we see why we're a family-integrated church.
Notice how he says both the men and women and all that could hear with understanding.
All ages. Every single person was there.
We don't separate the kids from the adults because in the Bible they never separate the kids,
the young kids from the adults.
Everyone that can hear, which is everyone who has ears.
So he's saying everybody.
So men, women, and children.
And it says in verse 3,
He read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday.
Now that's a long time, isn't it?
Now this sermon, you say, man, this is so long.
We're only halfway through. It's like 30 minutes into the sermon.
Well, I mean, this was from morning until midday.
You know, I'm not going to sit up here and preach for 3, 4, 5 hours.
But you see that there was a day where people actually had so little distractions
that they cared about the Lord God that much
that they would listen for hours and hours to the Lord God.
These people love the Lord God.
And in our lives we have so many distractions,
it causes us not to care about the Lord God like people have in the past.
And it says, before the men and the women and those that can understand
and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.
It says they were attentive, which means they paid attention.
I once heard somebody say this.
He graduated from seminary and this was the wisdom he was taught.
He was taught the perfect sermon is between 21 and 23 minutes.
That's what he told me.
He said the reason why is it's been scientifically proven
that it is impossible to pay attention for more than 23 minutes.
Now let me ask you a question.
According to the word of God,
these people that were attentive to the book of the law for hours,
is it scientifically impossible to pay attention for more than 23 minutes?
It's not scientifically impossible.
The Bible is very clear that these people were attentive.
See, the Bible has the answer to everything, doesn't it?
I didn't know at the time that it did.
I was like, man, I wish I knew that verse that I could have shown him at the time.
The reason why we have long sermons,
and that's the pattern we see throughout the Bible,
is because there's a lot we need to learn.
There's so much information to learn.
We need more than just a little spiritual pat on the back to keep going.
We need sermons that will change our lives.
And look, I believe in soul winning,
and I wrote out my schedule earlier this week,
and I'm going to be going soul winning quite a bit throughout the week,
but I'm also going to spend a lot of time preparing sermons
because it's my job to preach sermons that can help change people's lives.
Because I believe the word of God is quick and powerful,
and if you preach sermons that are strong in doctrine
and bold and show what the Bible says,
I believe that can change people's lives.
Because it's this kind of preaching that changed my life,
and it was people that would spend the time to spend hours and hours
preparing for their sermons.
Look, you know, preaching the sermons is very important,
and even from a logical standpoint.
See, let's say, for example, I went soul winning 30 hours a week
and spent 30 minutes working on my sermons.
Now, if you've ever written a full length sermon,
you know that it takes a lot of time.
Because you finish your sermon, then you start realizing,
man, I've got to change some things, move things around.
It takes a lot of time to write a sermon that's going to change someone's life.
But see, if I went soul winning for 30 hours a week
and spent only 30 minutes on my sermons,
you guys wouldn't grow as much spiritually.
Now, if I spend less time soul winning,
if I spend, let's say, 15 hours a week soul winning,
which is still quite a bit of time,
and spend, you know, 10 hours, 15 hours on sermons,
which, honestly, for three sermons,
five hours a sermon is not really unreasonable to preach a good sermon.
Spend a lot of time preparing.
If I spend that much time, everybody in this room is going to grow spiritually.
And see, if everybody grows spiritually,
you will win more people in the Lord
than if I just spent a lot of time soul winning
and didn't really work on preaching a good sermon.
See, if I didn't work on preaching good sermons,
you guys would have to rely on YouTube to learn.
But you know what? This job as a local church
is the fact that I need to preach sermons that can change your life,
just like in Nehemiah 8.
And in this Nehemiah 8, it's a really long sermon.
And you say, why do you believe in long sermons?
Because in the Bible, there are long sermons.
And because there's so much to learn.
Look, I cannot, in 20 minutes,
preach a sermon about the vision of Verity Baptist Church in Manila
and fully cover everything.
I mean, honestly, we could spend hours talking about this.
It could be a lot more than just an hour long.
And so I believe sermons on any topic,
whether it's tithing, whether it's why we go soul winning,
why we're Baptist, any of these topics,
there's a lot of information on the Bible.
The Bible is incredibly deep,
and we need sermons that can change people's lives.
And if you're going to grow spiritually,
you individually need to read the Bible for yourself.
But I need to spend time on sermons.
And I just preach sermons that are going to help change people's lives.
Now turn to Acts 5.
And so the third thing we looked at was spiritual growth.
So the first thing was getting churches started,
duplicating ourselves as a church.
The second thing was soul winning.
The third thing is spiritual growth.
The fourth thing, a goal we have, a vision we have, is numeric growth.
We want to grow a number.
Look, there's a lot of people here this morning.
There's a lot of people here that love the Lord.
But you know, wouldn't it God that we had twice as many people
so we could have twice as many soldiers?
We want to grow numerically.
It says in Acts 5, verse 14,
And believers were the more added to the Lord
multitudes both of men and women.
Turn to Acts 11.
See, throughout the book of Acts,
you see a church that just grows numerically, just off the charts.
Now realize, this was before YouTube existed.
They weren't getting people at their church
because people heard about it online.
I'll tell you what, a goal I have at this church
that's not mentioned in this sermon,
I hope one day that most people in this room
did not hear about this church online,
but they heard about it through our personal soul winning.
That's a goal I have.
Now if we're able to reach a lot of people
through the online ministry, praise the Lord for that.
But I'll tell you what, in the book of Acts,
they reach people through personal soul winning
and bringing people to church and getting them baptized
and teaching them all things.
You see that in the book of Acts.
In Acts 11, notice what it says in verse 19,
Now they which were scattered abroad
upon the persecution that arose about Stephen
traveled as far as Venice and Cyprus and Antioch,
preaching the words of none but unto the Jews only.
And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene,
which when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians,
preaching the Lord Jesus.
And the hand of the Lord was with them,
and a great number believed and turned unto the Lord.
Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church
which was in Jerusalem, and they sent forth Barnabas,
that he should go as far as Antioch,
who when he came and had seen the grace of God,
was glad and exhorted them all,
that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord.
For he was a good man and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith,
and much people was added unto the Lord.
Why did God help this church multiply?
Because it was going solely.
Now turn to Acts chapter 2.
I want to show you something very important though.
See there's a common misconception in Acts 2.41 we're going to look at.
Because a lot of people think, this might surprise you,
but the Bible actually never numbers how many people get saved.
You'll never see that.
And I'll show this to you in Acts 2.41.
Because people think it says that 3,000 got saved,
but that's not what it says in Acts 2.41.
And it's very important for us to help us understand
how we're going to build this church.
Acts 2.41.
Then they that gladly received his word were baptized,
and the same day they were added unto them about 3,000 souls.
Let me ask you a question.
When you go soul winning,
does every single person you get saved get baptized?
No.
Do most people get baptized?
No.
In fact, few get baptized.
See, 3,000 people got saved and baptized.
More than 3,000 people got saved.
I don't want to break your heart,
but when we had that big mega marathon,
we didn't smash the record in the book of Acts.
I don't know what the record is because God doesn't give the number.
But 3,000 people got saved and baptized.
I think the reason why God, and we will have numbers here.
The reason why I think it's good for us to have numbers
is because there's people that are supporting us and praying for us,
and they need to know that we're actually going out there
and doing the work.
But I think the reason why God doesn't give the number
is because, honestly, it's hard to get a fully accurate number
on how many people you get saved.
I believe that yesterday I got three people saved.
I had a fourth person who prayed.
I don't think he got it based on what he said afterwards.
But that's not set in stone,
that when I say three, God's like,
okay, I'll let those three people into heaven.
Obviously, God knows the heart,
and He knows whether or not they get it.
Look, there's going to be some Judases.
John the baptized baptized some people
that didn't actually get saved,
that he thought were saved.
We're going to have some false converts.
Now, some people like to criticize us and say,
well, you guys get false converts.
Well, at least we get converts.
If you get converts,
yeah, you're going to have some false converts among them.
But at least we're going out there and doing something.
Now, I want you to notice in Acts 2.41 what it says.
It says,
Then they that gladly received His word...
Now, if you look throughout the Bible,
receiving His word is referring to salvation.
John 1.12,
But as many as received it,
to them gave He power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on His name,
not repent of their sins,
even to them that believe on His name.
Right?
Receiving Jesus, that's getting saved.
Now, in Acts 2.41, they gladly received.
Now, if you cross-reference with joyfully or gladfully,
it's talking about people that not only receive the word of God,
not only get saved,
but they actually do something with it.
You see, the proof of whether or not you love the Lord
is if there's actions that follow.
If ye love me, keep my commandments.
Now, you don't have to keep His commandments to go to heaven,
but if you really love God,
you're going to get baptized.
You're going to come to church.
So there was 3,000 people they got
that not only got saved,
but were so thankful that they got baptized
and they joined the church.
Now, why is that important to us with numeric growth?
Because honestly, here's the truth.
We need to put an effort to bring people into church.
You see, this is a church where the preaching will change your life.
Look, I'm just a normal person.
I'm nothing special.
But if you preach the word of God with boldness,
it's going to help change people's lives.
The word of God is powerful.
And honestly, we need to put an effort to bring people into church.
And I understand that most people we get saved will not come to church,
but let me tell you something I've learned through the years,
that the people that put in more effort to bring people to church,
bring more people to church.
It's not just random chance.
I get it that people have to make their own decision if they come to church,
but honestly, if we're going to bring people to church,
we need to put in an effort.
You could ask Brother Richard Sires.
You could ask him how we met.
I mentioned this to someone yesterday we were talking about.
There was a false prophet preaching at WVU,
and I sat down beside him when this guy was preaching,
because Richie was the one person who was paying attention
and not making fun of the guy.
And I just asked him,
what do you think about this guy?
And he's like, man, I feel bad.
People are making fun of him.
I said, yeah, let me ask you a question.
Do you know for sure if you're going to heaven?
I just immediately went to the gospel.
Richie didn't get saved immediately.
The reason why he ended up being with us
is because he started playing basketball with us
and started hanging out with us,
and eventually he ended up getting saved.
But do you realize it took a little bit of follow-up
to get him into church?
It wasn't immediate.
You could ask Pastor Romero.
He's talked about it in sermons.
I understand some people are for follow-up,
some people are not for follow-up.
I am for follow-up to some degree,
because if you put in some...
Now, we're never going to forsake soul winning
to do follow-up, but what if we do both?
What if we go soul winning
and actually pray for our converse
and actually send them a text message
inviting them to church
and actually try to do some follow-up with them?
Look, you're going to bring more people to church.
And honestly, one thing I would love to see you guys
in this room do, you say you love soul winning.
I would love for you to pray to God
to help give you guidance
on getting better at bringing people to church.
That's something I pray all the time.
God help me to bring people to church.
Because honestly, if we can bring people to church
like they did in the book of Acts,
look, it's going to change people's lives.
The Word of God will change people's lives.
Turn to...
Well, we're still in Acts chapter 2.
But the fifth thing we're looking at is
great fellowship.
One thing we need here at Verity Acts Manila
is we need to have great fellowship with one another.
Which means we need to care about one another.
We need to love one another.
We need to pray for one another.
It says in Acts chapter 2 verse 41...
Well, actually, look at verse 42.
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles'
doctrine and fellowship
and in breaking of bread and in prayers.
And fear came upon every soul
and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
And all that believed were together and had all things common.
And sold their possessions and goods
and parted them to all men as every man had need.
And they continuing daily with one accord in the temple
and breaking bread from house to house
to eat their meat with gladness
and singleness of heart.
Praising God and having favor with all the people
and the Lord added to the church daily
such as should be saved.
The reason why in the book of Acts
the church increased was not simply
because of soul winning but because people had
great fellowship with one another.
Notice that right in the midst of the soul winning
and the church adding to the church daily
is the fact that they had fellowship with one another.
Breaking in bread and prayers and things like that.
It's basically talking about eating together.
Yesterday after soul winning
I think eight of us were just hanging out eating together.
Look those things are good things.
We need fellowship.
And honestly if you're going to be successful in the Christian life
you need your best friends to be people that love the Lord.
You need to find people that actually love the Lord.
And at this church look around.
There's people that love the Lord.
There's people that care about the things of God.
Obviously we're a new church. We're just starting.
Lord willing once we have a building
we'll be able to start having some activities and things like that.
Because honestly you know soul winning is great.
The preaching is great.
But you know it's just great to have fellowship sometimes.
We don't always have to be talking.
And obviously we love talking about the word of God.
I'm sure we're fellowshiping.
We were talking about the word of God last night.
But it doesn't have to always be church, church, church.
But we need to spend time together.
We need to care about one another.
That is going to help our church grow.
And honestly when you see people that go to churches
and they do not develop friendships
they end up leaving that church one day.
Because what's going to happen is
six months from now I'm going to say something
behind the pulpit and you're going to be offended.
And if you have friends at this church
you're not going to leave because you have friends at this church.
If you don't have friends at this church
guess what? You're going to leave. Why?
Because the preacher is a jerk, right?
That's what you're going to say.
I mean this is reality. Because we're all excited day one
but eventually I'm going to preach on something
where you might get offended.
Because I'll be honest with you. Even being a Verity Baptist
there was a couple times when Pastor Menes preached
on something I was guilty of.
And look, it kind of just gets to you.
You kind of get mad a little bit. You know what I mean?
And so here's the thing. It's very important
for everyone in this room to develop good friendships.
So basically when times get tough
when you go through a financial trouble
when you go through persecution or health problems
you don't leave because you know
that your closest friends are in this room.
That's what I believe. I believe your closest friends
ought to be the people that you go to church with
and other people that love the Lord.
Now turn to Malachi 3.
And Malachi chapter 3 verse 16.
So you see this is in the New Testament
but it's also in the Old Testament.
Notice what it says.
Then they that feared the Lord, verse 16
then they that feared the Lord
spake often one to another.
It says those that feared the Lord
these are people that love the Lord.
These are people that go soul winning
and they care about the preaching of God's Word.
It says they spake often one to another.
See that's the pattern you see throughout the Bible.
That God's people, think of Daniel in the Bible.
Daniel had three friends we know about.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
What if he didn't have those friends?
Honestly it's pretty hard to stand for the things of God
by yourself.
And that's why you know honestly in our personal lives
some of you have not had a great church to go to.
You haven't been able to spend time
having great fellowship all the time.
Honestly you should take off in your Christian life now.
Because you can look around this room
and see people that love soul winning.
They love the Lord and it's going to help motivate
all of us to do more for God.
Turn to Romans chapter 1, Romans 1.
Now the first five things we mentioned here this morning
these are all essentials.
These are things that we must have.
We must have a plan and a strategy
and accomplish getting other churches started one day.
It's not going to happen overnight
but we must start working on that now.
We must duplicate ourselves
because we need great churches.
We must be a soul winning church.
If we quit going soul winning there's no point in this church existing.
Our candlestick needs to be removed if we quit going soul winning.
We need to grow spiritually.
We need to grow numerically.
And we need to have great fellowship with one another.
But one other thing
which is kind of a side thing that I would love to have
I would like to have a really thriving and edifying YouTube channel
for this ministry.
Now this is not an essential thing.
We're never going to skip soul winning to work on YouTube videos.
But honestly I would love to see a great YouTube channel
and there's a few reasons why.
Notice what it says in Romans 1 verses 7 and 8.
Romans 1 verses 7 and 8
To all that be in Rome,
beloved of God, called to be saints,
graced to you in peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
first I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all
that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.
The Bible says in Romans 1
this church, their faith was spoken of throughout the whole world.
They didn't have the online ministry at the time.
But here's the thing, we're able to accomplish more in today's world
because of the resources we have.
Look, why are most of you here today?
It's because of the online ministry, right?
And look, we can reach more people through the online ministry.
Now I hope that we can reach more people through our soul winning
but if we can reach people through the online ministry, that's great.
And we're going to work on having a good online ministry
because our faith can be spoken of throughout the whole world.
Turn to 1 Thessalonians 1
One thing I did not know, and so honestly just last year I never really researched it,
I didn't know that this country is the most spread out country in the entire world
in terms of overseas Filipinos that are workers.
There are 16 countries in the world with at least 100,000 Filipinos.
I mean even the United States, there's not 16 countries
where people from the United States, there's 100,000 people.
There are 16 countries in the world with 100,000.
There's a few countries that have more Filipinos overseas.
Mexico, India, and Russia.
But here's the thing, everybody that lives overseas in Mexico lives in the United States.
This is the country though that's really spread out in a lot of different areas.
In Arab countries, it's in other Asian countries, it's in Europe countries.
This country is spread out all throughout the entire world.
And it says in 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 6 through 8
For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia,
but also in every place your faith to God were to spread abroad
so that we need not to speak anything.
Their faith was spread abroad, people had heard about them.
Let me ask you a question.
Do you think, because there's over a million Filipinos that live in Saudi Arabia
working there, over 1 million.
Do you think they have a great church to go to?
Do you think they have anywhere to go to?
I actually know someone who I think he's planning to eventually move back here
and be a part of the church, but he goes soloing in Saudi Arabia.
And he's very successful because he doesn't try to convert Muslim Arabs to being Christians
because he'll get his head cut off if he does that.
But he converts a lot of Filipinos, he's very successful.
Brother Matt here from Hong Kong, the majority of people he gets saved are Filipinos.
Why? Because Filipinos are very receptive to the word God.
It's just the way it is.
I don't fully understand why that is.
But that's a large reason why I wanted to move here.
It's like, man, people are just really receptive.
Because in America you can go soloing for hours and it's like, no.
Because people that are rich and increased with goods have needed nothing.
That's the way they do it.
And so they just aren't interested in the word of God.
But you look at all these countries where there's tons of Filipinos that are spread abroad.
Look, they don't have great churches to go to.
And honestly, I would like to see our YouTube ministry be able to help edify them.
We had a video up about Apollo Kim Roy on the Verity Baptist channel before our channel got shut down.
That video got more than 3,000 views a day when our channel got shut down.
Because originally I thought it was near his birthday and that's the reason why it took off.
Because it took off when we were here on our mission trip.
And I realized, no, it's not his birthday.
It's the anniversary of when he became the appointed son of God on Earth.
That's the reason why the video started to take off.
Because I had no clue when we uploaded.
But it's like right when he became the appointed son of God in 2005, in April 2005,
all of a sudden, the 13-year anniversary, I guess people were searching Apollo Kim Roy.
And the video took off.
Because it started very slow, but then it started getting 1,000 a day, 2,000 a day.
It was getting 3,000 a day and it was trending upward.
We were getting like a dozen to 15 new subscribers every single day from that video.
And one thing that astonished me was we were getting so many views from Saudi Arabia.
Because I didn't know there was a lot of Filipinos in Saudi Arabia.
And I'm just like, why do people in Saudi Arabia care about Apollo Kim Roy?
But see, there's just a lot of countries around the world where there's tons of Filipinos.
And eventually, we'd love to get resources and other dialects here in the Philippines
in order to reach more people.
And hopefully, we can bring them into this movement.
Or if they live overseas, we can try to help edify them as they're working overseas.
And obviously, I believe the best thing for people is to be a part of a great church.
But honestly, you know, people make decisions.
Times are tough and they're there for various different reasons.
Not here to judge them.
But we want to try to help them through the online ministry.
Here's one last place, Daniel chapter 11.
And one thing I would really like to see happen.
You know, in countries around the world, there's not necessarily a great church in some of these countries.
But you know, honestly, before a great church exists, usually there's great soul-willing that goes on before it.
And God looks down and he sees the soul-willing and says, you know what, I need to give them a great church.
You know, why do you think great churches have started here in the Philippines?
Because there's a lot of soul-willing going on.
And God looks down and says, well, there are people that need a great church.
You look at Sure Foundation Baptist Church when it started.
You know, it started as Verity Vancouver, a church plan, just like we're a church plan.
And the reason why that I believe God blessed that area
is because they had dozens and dozens of people going soul-willing every single week.
And one thing I'd love to see is in some of these countries, maybe we can't get a church established there.
But if we can help motivate people and encourage them so they can start knowing soul-willing in small groups,
that would be a great thing.
And eventually I believe God would end up blessing them with a great church.
Notice what it says in Daniel 11, verse 32.
And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall be corrupt by flatteries,
but the people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits.
You see, as we get closer to the end days,
we have opportunities we didn't have a thousand years ago.
Part of that is through the online ministry.
I mean, people are able to network.
I mean, a lot of you are going soul-willing together because you found each other on Facebook
and you were listeners to Pastor Jimenez, Pastor Henderson, various different things.
We have opportunities in today's world.
Even though it's getting more wicked, we have more opportunities today than we had in the past.
And we ought to use those things.
So the six things that we looked at here today.
Number one is we want to get other churches started.
Number two is we want to get a lot of people saved.
Number three, we need to grow spiritually.
Number four, we need to grow numerically.
Number five, we must have great fellowship.
And as we have the opportunity, number six, we would love to have a great and thriving YouTube ministry.
See, the Bible says where there is no vision, the people perish.
And I'll tell you what, you look at the average churches around there, they're perishing.
They're dying off. They're not keeping the law.
They're not great churches.
And you know, one big reason why is because they just don't have any vision.
They don't have any goals of anything they're trying to accomplish.
The Bible says we need to have a vision.
Let's close with a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be in your house here this morning.