Now the part of the passage I want to focus in there in Hebrews 11, of course it's a very
famous passage, a great powerful passage, but I want to focus in particularly on verses
8-10 where the Bible reads at the beginning of verse 8,
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should hear after
receive from inheritance, obeyed, and went out, not knowing whither he went.
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles
with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs of the same promise.
For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Now I want to take a special note of the phrase there in verse 8 where it says,
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place.
The Bible says there that he was called to go out.
That there was something that God told him specifically to do.
And what God told Abraham to do, he said you're going to go out.
Of course we know he was found in the land of Ur, the Chaldees, and then he was dwelling
with the heathen there.
And when God decided to begin to work in mankind and to select a particular group of people
that he was going to call his nation and make them a light unto the gentiles, of course
he began with Abraham.
And when he found Abraham, he found him in his own land and then he told him very specifically
that he was going to go to a very specific place.
And the Bible says that he didn't know where he went.
That he went out knowing not whither he went and he went out by faith.
But Abraham was called to go and the Bible goes on and says that when he was called to
go that he obeyed and went out.
Now that's going, that means that Abraham, that call that was put upon him, that was
a commandment.
That was something he was told to do because it says that he obeyed and went out.
It wasn't an option, it wasn't something that God just kind of put on the table and said,
you know Abraham, if you'd like this opportunity, I'd really like to use you, I'd really like
to make you a special person in the Scriptures and use you to start a great nation.
It's an option for you.
You know, he said he commanded him.
He was told to go.
And that's why it says that he obeyed and went out because he was obeying the command.
You see, going is a command.
God tells us to go in many different ways.
For example, we're called to go and preach the Gospel, aren't we?
The Bible says in Mark 16, he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel
to every preacher.
Again, that's not an option, that's not something that Jesus just said, hey if you feel like
it, or when it's convenient for you.
I've heard some people with this lifestyle of Angelic go so far as to say, well it says,
when he said go, what he means is as you live your life.
That's what it means to go.
As you're just going through this life, you know, witness to those people that you come
in contact with.
That's a bunch of hogwash.
Jesus said that we are to go, go out into all the world and preach the Gospel to every
preacher.
Not just those people that we bump into, not just those people that we have that influenced
our life.
Of course we should try and witness to those people as well, but the point I'm trying to
make here is that God often tells his people to go.
He tells them to go out and do something.
If you're Hebrews 11, bookmark it, but just turn back to Hebrews 10, one chapter.
We are called to go out, God puts the command for us to go in different instances.
There's the command to go preach the Gospel.
There's also the command to go to church.
If you think about it, we're here this morning, because that's a commandment that we have
to do.
We have to fulfill that.
God has called us to go to church.
Hebrews chapter 10, verse 24, the Bible reads,
And let us consider one another, to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking
the assembling of ourselves together.
Now what is the assembling of ourselves together?
That's the church.
That's us coming together and hearing the preaching of the word of God and praying and
assembling as a church.
And he's saying that we're not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner
of some is, but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day approaching.
Now that assembling of ourselves together, of course that's a church.
You have to go to church.
You can't assemble together without having to go to a place.
Not everybody's always living together, of course, that's pretty obvious.
So there's the commandment that we have to go to church.
We have to go soul-witting.
God puts a command on us to go.
Now what I want to preach about this morning is the fact that the title of the sermon is
called to go.
We've seen that we've called to preach the gospel, we've seen that we're called to go
to church, and speaking, kind of building off that point of being called to go to church,
I want to talk a little bit about the fact that sometimes in order to be in a good church,
you're going to have to move.
That's really what I wanted.
That's the thrust of the message, is talking about moving to be in a good church.
Because that's something that people have to deal with today.
That's something that a lot of people have to consider when we're looking at our nation
and our country and people that want to serve God with their lives and do things for God
and do great things.
They have to consider where they're at geographically, physically, in this world, in this nation,
in this country, and they have to consider whether or not it just might be that God might
put a call in their life to go.
And I don't say that lightly.
I don't just throw that out there as just an attempt to get people to build up a church
or something like that, or to just forsake the place that they've grown up, their friends
and their family.
That's the big thing to ask people to do.
We have to understand something that, and I really want to drive in, is the importance
of going to a good church and why it is that we need to go to a good church.
Of course, the best option is to bloom where you're planted.
That's what I was always told when I was in other churches.
The pastor would just say, just bloom where you're planted.
And that's a great thing if you can bloom where you're planted, but here's the thing.
In order to bloom, you've got to have some good soil.
Plants just don't bloom on a slab of concrete.
They don't just bloom on a hard-packed ground with soil devoid of any nutrients.
If you're going to bloom where you're planted, well, where you're planted has to be capable
of nurturing you and helping you to bloom, so that's something to consider.
And really it's important because there's the importance of the local church.
Christ died to save sinners and He commanded us to go to church.
The local church is God's vehicle to reach the world with the gospel.
That's how important the New Testament church is.
It's not something to be taken lightly, and people take church very lightly.
There's so many different types of churches, there's so many different brands and kinds
of churches, even within a Baptist denomination, if you want to call it that.
There's people that are all different stripes and types of churches, but that doesn't...
They get jaded or they just kind of take it for granted.
They'll just say, well, there's all these different churches, there's a church in every corner.
You know, what's wrong with any church?
Well, we're going to talk a little bit about it here in a minute, but I want to just drive
them to the point that the local church is important, that we need to be in a good church.
That's why the apostle Paul told Titus, he said, for this cause I left thee in Crete,
that thou should have set and ordered the things that are wanting and ordained elders
in every city as I appointed.
Of course, the elders, the pastor, the bishop.
So what he's saying here, Paul's telling you, he says, I want churches in every city.
I mean, that's how important it is to God that every one of his children, every believer
has a church to go to.
That he wants a church built in every city, that he would actually desire that men would
be sent out, ordained to start churches in every city.
And wouldn't it God that were the case in our country, that people wouldn't have to
consider moving, that people wouldn't have to think about leaving the place that they're
familiar with or the place that they've grown accustomed to and enjoy where they're comfortable
and have to move to some other strange place that they've never been to and learn a whole
other city and develop new friendships and all these things like that.
Would to God that we could have a church in every city, in the world and in this country.
But that's just not the case.
That's not what we see.
That's God's will, but unfortunately man has fallen short of accomplishing that goal.
The ideal situation is that everyone has a good church to go to where they are.
But if they don't, they're going to have to consider the fact that they might be called
to go.
Now, if there are a lot of good churches out there, and I think that sometimes on the flip
side of this coin, some people are real quick and eager to just forsake the local assembly
and have a lot of criticisms of a church and say, well I have to go to these or move to
one of these other churches.
Well, they could probably do alright where they're at.
We talk about deal breakers here.
You know, what are some deal breakers for a local church?
It might be that you're sitting, you know, maybe somebody out there in internet land
or if we might find ourselves in another situation in the future where we're in another city
or in another state where we have to say, well I have to go to a church, I have to pick
out a church.
What should or shouldn't I look for?
Well, you should probably look for somebody that uses the King James Bible.
I mean, that's the foundational thing.
If they're not using the King James Bible, that's an instant deal breaker.
I don't think, you know, if they're using an NIV or an ESV or any one of these versions,
any other thing than the preserved word of God in English, the King James Bible, you
know, that's a deal breaker.
We can't go to that church.
They don't have the right seed.
You know, anything that's going to bloom there is going to be corrupt.
They don't preach, they have to make sure that they're preaching the correct salvation.
And this is something that, you know, you can't just go on a doctrinal statement and
get a good beat on this.
Right.
A lot of times you actually have to go to that church, you know, and start to talk to
the people, talk to the pastor, talk to those in leadership to find out what exactly is
it that you guys believe about salvation.
Nobody's just going to come out and say, hey, yeah, we believe it's by works.
You know, the Catholic Church doesn't believe it's by works.
They won't say it's by works, but they teach it's by works.
Nobody wants to just come out and say, hey, it's by works.
Especially an independent, fundamental Baptist church.
You know, a Baptist pastor of all people knows the importance of saying the words, yeah,
salvation is by grace through faith.
They know that that's something that people want to hear, that that's what they're looking
for.
They've got all these different, these strange doctrines that they develop, all these new
beliefs and all these things that they're mixing in with the gospel, especially this
thing of repent of your sins.
They're trying to tell people now that, oh, yeah, salvation by grace through faith, but
if there's no change in your life, if you don't repent of these sins, well, you probably
didn't get the real thing.
Well, either you believed or you didn't.
Either you put your faith on trust in Christ or you didn't, and it has nothing to do with
your works.
And that's a whole other message in and of itself.
But that's one of the deal breakers, right?
The King James Bible, it's got to be there.
Salvation by grace through faith, it's got to be there.
What might be another deal breaker?
And for me, this is kind of, you've got to feel this one out a little bit.
There's some wiggle room here, but they've got to have some kind of an outreach.
That's important.
They've got to be a type of church.
You know, if they don't have this, personally, I'd be a little bit more lenient.
I could try to do my own soul winning and try to do my own outreach, even if a church
didn't as long as it was approved by the pastor.
No, if it was a pastor who was saying, you know, you can't do that.
You can't go out on behalf of our church and try to preach the gospel to people.
Well, that's a guy whose heart's just right.
He probably doesn't have salvation right at that point.
I mean, if you understand and know salvation, that people are dying and going to hell,
that Christ died for all the world, and all they have to do is believe, and all it requires
is somebody to go and preach to them, why wouldn't you want that?
So that would be another deal breaker, perhaps, and something to look out for.
Do they have any kind of an outreach?
They have some kind of ministry, something where they're trying to go out into the lost
and to minister to them.
Now, those are minimal requirements.
I think that's setting the bar pretty low, but that's a pretty important bar.
You wouldn't want to go any lower than that, right?
Now, when you're meeting these requirements, you know, that's a pretty low requirement,
and you have to ask yourself, is that what we want for our life?
Do we want to just meet the minimum requirements?
And I think there's a lot of people that are out there right now, that's what they're
doing, they're meeting the minimum requirements.
Like, hey, it's King James, he's got salvation right, they got a bus ministry, or we go on
visitation, we get an hour or so a week, you know, there's a time appointed for it.
That's great, and I'm glad there's something out there that you can attend to, or a church
you can go to that meets those requirements, but you've got to think about the fact that
that's setting the bar pretty low.
I mean, those are just basic standards.
That should just be common, that should just be in every church.
That should even be a question.
And when you're trying to meet these requirements, you know, you have to ask yourself, it's one
thing when it's just you, when you're just a single individual and it's just one person,
and you're going to that church and you're meeting the minimum requirements, you know,
you're the only person really that's being directly affected in your family.
But what about when you get married and your family starts to grow?
What about your spouse?
You know, especially with wives, you know, when people are taking their wives to these
churches that, you know, we talk about these minimum requirements, but what about when
they have a nursery, you know, and they want your wife to hand over the kids, you know,
or your wife, you know, the Bible, it lays down some pretty strict guidelines for women,
you know, and men too, but there's some things that women really struggle with in scriptures,
or at least they can.
Some do, you know, with the dress standards and being keepers at home, things that are
direct conflict with the world, you know, especially if your wife is somebody who got
saved later in life, and now they've got to make these decisions for whether or not
they're going to live for God, and those would involve, you know, getting out of the
workforce, and they're going to have all these worldly influences, all these friends and
family saying, wait, what are you doing?
Why are you dressing like that?
Why are you going to church all the time?
What do you mean you're staying at home with the kids?
Why don't you just put them in public school?
You know, people don't want to hear about it, you know, in the world when you start
to have, you know, because raising a family on a single income can be a little bit of
a struggle sometimes, and a lot of times, and I've had people do this to me and say,
well, why don't you just put your wife to work?
Why don't you just, you know, they don't have a lot of, you know, sympathy or understanding
for you because they just, they're like, well, just do what we're doing.
Just put your kids in the public education system and send your wife out there and put
her to work, and they don't really think that through, and of course, the Bible says
that women are to be keepers at home, that they are to love their husbands, love their
children, that they're going to be good and obedient, and they're supposed to stay
at home and raise the family, and that's a big job.
That's a very important job.
That's something that's undervalued in our society.
But when you ask your wife to do that, and then you're taken to a church that, yeah,
meets the minimum requirements, but doesn't have a lot of ladies that have that same mindset,
there aren't a lot of like-minded women in that church, it's going to be very hard for
her, you know, to do, I mean, she's, of course she's going to do, if she has any integrity,
she's just going to do it out of obedience to the word of God, but it sure would make
it easier if she had some support.
You know, I think that's a good reason to consider moving to a good church, is to find
support for your wife.
Find some kind of, get your wife plugged in into a church where there's a culture, where
there's a people there of like-minded ladies.
I mean, think here at Faithful Word, all the ladies that we have that stay at home that
are great examples that women can, other women and wives and mothers can go to for help and
guidance because we're just surrounded by them.
You know, talking about your wives, well what about your children?
It's meeting the minimum requirements in your local church is what's best for your children.
I mean, you think, I mean, I know the church we left.
I mean, children were very rare.
You know, they weren't being carted in on the bus route, you know, Wednesday night when
there was no bus route running, or Sunday night when there was no bus route running.
There were very few children there.
You know, a lot of these Baptist churches now, they're teaching their people, hey, use
birth control, only have one or two kids.
You know, and those kids are growing up quick.
And the kids that we did have in churches, I've seen so many of them just go to the devil.
They just go out, they go to the world, they don't live for God, they just take on the
things of the world.
As soon as they're 18 and they're out the door, you know, they run off into the world.
Not all of them, but the majority of them do.
Now you have to ask yourself, is that the example that you want to set for your children?
Do you want to bring your children up in a church that, yeah, meets the minimum requirements,
but there's hardly any children there.
The ones that are there, they go to the devil.
Or they're very worldly.
Or they're, of course, they're moms at work, so you're putting them in there with kids
that are, you know, going to the public school system, they've got all these influences in
their lives, and you want them being an influence on your children.
And a lot of people say, well, no, I don't.
So what they end up doing is just isolating their kids within that church.
So now you just have a very, now you're just isolating kids, they really don't have any
other friends.
And that's a great thing about going to a church like ours, is that there's so many
kids.
People are having children, I mean, our children growing up, they're going to have so many
options when it comes time to get married, when you think about it.
That's a great thing.
That's an important thing to think about.
And that they're going to have so, they're going to see so many godly examples of all
the children being raised up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and continuing
to live for God, even as they turn into young adults.
So meeting the minimum requirements, it's a low bar.
And it might be one thing if you're a single individual and you can suffer through that
and say, hey, you know what, I'm probably not going to get everything I need out of
this church.
But when you're, especially as a man, when you're now putting your wife in that situation
and your children, you have to start to ask yourself, it might just be that I'm being
called to go.
There might be better for me to go.
Because here's the thing, one of the thoughts that I had when I decided to move is this
thought that I read in a book, I can't remember which one it was, but it was written by a
pastor and he said this, your children will be what you are, you will be what your church
is, and your church will be what your pastor is.
So when you look at the man of God, you might as well say, well, the man of God, through
the church, through me, is going to be what my children are.
So you have to consider that.
What type of church are you in?
What type of pastor do you have?
What type of Christian are you going to be?
That's what's going to affect your children.
So we're meeting the minimum requirements.
We're going to a King James church where they have some kind of an outreach, they preach,
they got salvation right, and we're meeting the requirements, but are they accomplishing
great works for God?
I mean, that's another reason to perhaps move.
Another reason why God might call somebody to go is that there's a great work to be done
and when we pool our resources together, when more people are coming together in one place
and there's more man hours, there's more manpower there to go out and do the work, there's more
financial resources, there's just more volunteers to be able to do things, we can accomplish
greater things for God and we have more people.
Great things, of course, can be accomplished through smaller groups.
By comparison, faithful word, when you compare our church to some of the mega churches out
there, we're just a drop in the bucket, but what are those churches accomplishing for
God?
I mean, genuine works for God, souls being saved for eternity.
It's very little by comparison.
So the more of us there are, the greater work that we can do.
That might be another reason why God might call us to go is that He has a greater work
for us to do.
Now being called to go and saying, you know what, I know I'm in a decent church, I could
do well here, but I could do even better in another one.
And here's the thing, you've got all these options now.
I know when we went to move, it was two churches.
We opted for faithful word and we're glad that we did, we love it here.
But now the people today, man, you could pick your climate practically these days.
You've got options.
You could go to Florida to steadfast, not that trash can.
You could go to Dallas, Fort Worth, you've got two places in California, if that's not
your style, you could go all the way up to Vancouver and Washington.
We've got one coming up in Atlanta.
I know I'm forgetting some.
You've got Violet, Louisiana, another one in Baton Rouge.
You've got one out in Illinois if you're out there in the Midwest.
I know there's others and I'm forgetting them.
You've got two in Texas and a third one coming up and you've got options today.
You've got probably a dozen options, if not more.
You've got one in North Carolina, all these great churches of our stripe that preach the
whole council of God, that don't hold back, that emphasize soul winning, that emphasize
having children, that want to do a great work for God, that would be great churches that
you could go and you really could bloom there because the soil is good.
People have got a lot of great options today, but if you're going to do that, if you're
going to make that move, well, it requires some substance to do it.
It's easy to get fired up and say, yeah, I want to do that.
I know people that have been fired up and they've wanted to move for a long time, but
it took them a while because in order to answer that call to go, it's going to take some
substance.
It has to be tangible.
It has to have some weight.
There has to be some merit behind it.
There has to be some gravity to it.
You have to really feel that need to go, and when you start to feel that, you'll start
to make a plan.
That's the first step in getting, when you're called to go, you have to make a plan.
Now, we saw Abraham here, there wasn't much of a plan.
He was just basically told to go, and the Bible says he went into a land where he knew
not, but there was still a plan, wasn't there?
I'm sure he had to figure, well, we're about to leave.
We're never coming back.
We don't know where we're going.
They had to figure out what they were going to need, gather the supplies, get everything
together.
It wasn't just like God told them that he rolled out of the bed the next day and walked
out the front door of his tent and walked.
No, he had to pack up the tent, get everything together.
So you have to make a plan where you're going to go.
You have to make a plan.
The Bible says in Proverbs, where there is no vision, the people perish, but he that
keepeth the law happy is he.
See, when we don't have the vision, that's when you're going to perish.
If you just say, you know, I know we should go, I just don't know how to do it, I don't
know where I want to go, I don't know when I'm going to get there.
If you don't have a vision, if you don't have a plan, you're going to perish.
Eventually you're just going to say, yeah, if you keep putting it off, one day I'll go,
one day I'll get in one of these good churches, one day when everything's just right, when
the finances are perfect, when I've got everything lined up and all my ducks in a row, then I'll
make the move.
When everything's just secure and sound and I can make it.
Well, that might never happen.
That might never happen.
You might never make it.
I know when we moved, there was some planning, but it was pretty minimal.
And finances was not a huge part of it.
I mean, it was, do we have enough to get the vehicle there?
And we did.
And I was like, well, that's good enough.
That's our plan, right?
We were probably a little bit more on the Abrahamic side of it, right?
Where it was just like, we don't know where we're going, we're not going to know what
we're going to find when we get there.
We know we've got an apartment, a one bedroom apartment waiting, and the tires still got
enough tread to get us there, so let's just do it.
Right?
But we had it.
That's because there was some substance to it.
We were able to do that because there was some weight there.
You know, we had been in this church, some things had happened there, where we realized
this is not the place for us anymore, this isn't what we want to do with our lives, this
isn't how we want to raise our family.
And you hear about this great church that started up out in Phoenix and has been functioning
for several years, and really the draw for us wasn't just the preaching, but it was
the soul winning.
There was a pastor that was wanting people to go out and knock the doors and preach the
gospel, and of course there were some issues with doctrine requiring salvation, and that
was the main reason.
But boy, we could have found other churches in the area that had salvation dead on and
gone there, but there would have been these other things.
We probably could have been alright there, but there was a church somewhere that wanted
to preach the gospel to every creature.
They wanted to fulfill that commandment, and that's what motivated us to make a plan
and get out there.
You have to make a plan.
You have to set a date.
You have to say, this is when we're going to go, we're going to do it, and that's
when you'll start to make things happen.
The Bible says in James, go to now ye that say, today or tomorrow we will go into such
a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain.
Whereas you know now what shall be on the morrow, for what is your life?
It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and banished the way.
For then you ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or do that.
Of course we don't want to just be found boasting ourselves and saying, oh yeah, I'll
talk about all the great things that we're going to do.
But if the Lord will, the Lord called us to go, then we can say, you know what, we can
set a date.
We can say, the Lord will, we will be there this time in these following months or within
this time next year.
You have to set a date.
You have to provide for the plan.
You can't just make the plan.
You got to provide for it, right?
You have to find out what is needed and you got to fund it.
You got to get the resources together.
Not only that, you got to make a plan.
You got to provide for the plan to move.
You got to execute the plan.
It's not enough to have everything ready to know what to do.
You got the everything laid out.
You got the map smart.
You got the hotels you're going to stop to on the way there.
You got, you know what, where all the cracker barrels are along the route or whatever.
You've got all your money together and you've got exactly how long it's going to take you,
how much gas you're going to need.
You've got all these things in place.
But until you actually put the keys in the ignition and back that thing out of the driveway
and start making your way down the road, it's never going to happen.
You're going to have to do what it takes to execute the plan.
So it requires, if you're called to go, if you say, you know, I want to move to a good
church, it's going to require a plan.
It's going to require that you put some weight into it.
And it's going to require some sincerity.
And I really kind of want to take a minute.
And I talked a little bit about this last week with some other things, but I think this
is just something that's been in my heart and mind lately for some of my own personal
reasons, but also just because some of the things we've seen in our own church lately
that people are doing, making just terrible decisions with their lives.
And I think a lot of times because of the motivations of their heart, we're finally
starting to see what their true motives are in their heart.
And that's something that we have to really be careful and examine in our own cells, you
know, especially when it comes to this topic of moving, you know, why is it that you want
to go?
Why do you want to go to another church?
Why would somebody want to go and pack up their family and leave all their familiar
friends and family behind and go and start a life over in another city?
It requires some sincerity.
Your motives have to be sincere if you're going to...
Go ahead and bookmark Hebrews 11, but turn over to Philippians.
Philippians, you have to be sincere in your motivations if you're going to move.
If you're called to go, you know, obviously God...
And when I say when you're called to go, I'm not saying like, you know, you're waking
up with a vision in the night and God, you know, God's speaking to you as He did to Abraham.
You know, obviously it's just you're seeing the situation that you're in, what's the
potential, you understand these things, you're saying, hey, there's a call for me to go.
I'm not saying that God's literally calling you to go.
But in Philippians chapter 2, the Bible says, beginning of verse 1,
If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, any fellowship of
the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy that ye be like-minded, having
the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
Verse 3, Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind,
let each esteem other better themselves.
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
Those ought to be the motivations that we have because we're not out of strife or vainglory.
Not because we want to go to church and try to get on the camera or get our name mentioned
from the pulpit or be involved in some way publicly so that our name can be out there.
Because the thing is, you know, there's a lot of people that watch.
There's a lot of people that watch the preaching online.
There's a lot of people that pay attention.
People are showing up at church.
I went to that soloing conference in Detroit and I was blown away about how many people
knew me.
They're like, oh, you're Brother Corbin.
I'm like, yeah, I'm real.
Whatever happens to me, a flashback to when I moved here, I came up to Pastor Birdsons
back then.
He was just, you know, Brother Dave Birdsons just before he got set up.
And I just remember like, oh, I know who you are.
And I had that same kind of just like this star struck, just like, wow, you're real.
And it was just kind of an awkward moment with him.
He's like, yeah, we're real, you know, we're flesh and blood here, you know.
I remember getting here and seeing all the people that I recognized even before I got
to church in our neighborhood.
I would say, hey, that's so-and-so and hey, that's so...
I recognize the back of that person's head from the video and, you know, and now I have
that happening to me.
But the thing is, I didn't move out here so that I could, you know, so I could get on
the camera.
You know, I didn't move out here so people would recognize me and know my name at Faithful
Word.
But that's, I think a lot of people, they need to sincerely ask themselves if that's
why they're moving.
Because I think some people, it just might be that they're following, you know, they
want to go out there just to be part of the group, that they can get their name out there.
But the Bible says, let nothing be done through strife or vainglory.
And it's that vainglory that they're seeking.
And then it says, look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things
of others.
That ought to be the motive for wanting to go to a good church, of being willing to say,
hey, you know, I'm going to move my family.
Why?
Because you're going to look not on your own things.
On the things of your wife, the things of your children, the things of those that you're
going to come into contact with.
You get here and you want to be a blessing to the church.
And I just want to move out.
And I'm so thankful for, I mean, we've seen our church just grow in the six short years
that I've been here.
I mean, when we got here, we hadn't even broken 100 in the attendance record.
Six years later, you know, we're running close to 300 every Sunday morning, if not more.
And the buildings just expanded and I believe it's continued to grow and it's been such
a blessing.
And I'm just thankful for all the people that have come out here and they've come out for
the right reasons.
They don't care about getting behind a pulpit.
They don't care about, you know, whether or not they lead the songs or read the music
or read the scripture or get their face somewhere recognized.
They just want to be here for the right reasons.
Their motives are right and true.
They want to be a blessing.
They want God's best for their life.
They want to help others.
They want to help their family and they want to do the soul in it.
They're here for the right reason.
They're here for their own spiritual well-being.
That's the motive that we have to move for, the spiritual well-being of yourself, of your
family, of other people in the church, the spiritual well-being of those that you will
reach with the gospel.
I mean, I think that's the biggest motivation for anybody to move.
I think that's probably one of the biggest draws that people want to come to Faith Award
is they say, look at all the soul in it.
I mean, we're going to Aruba.
We're going to Sonora, Mexico.
You know, to sit up here and try to recall all the places we've been in the last couple
of years, it would be a chore to try to think.
I mean, we just had guys come back from Belize or Guatemala or something.
I can't remember.
Somewhere in South America, yeah, Belize.
We've been everywhere.
And people see that and they say, hey, I want to be a part of that.
They say, I want to be part of that soul winning.
I want to be part of a church that's doing something for God.
And there's other great churches out there.
They're doing other great things.
I think about steadfast and sending all these guys up to the Pine Ridge.
I believe they're there even today.
And thank God for that.
I mean, there's all these great churches.
I mean, it got varied.
You know, you can go on and on.
All these great churches that want to just do the soul winning.
Why don't you move to one of those churches?
Why don't you pick one out that you like and move to those churches and do something big for God.
Why?
For your own spiritual well-being, for the spiritual well-being of your family,
for the spiritual well-being of those that you'll get saved.
Not because you desire vainglory.
Not to be part of a club.
People need to ask themselves, why do they want to move?
Is it because you want to follow a man?
Is it because you want to follow a man or a movement?
You want to be a part of something or is it just because you want to be associated with someone?
It's because you want to be a part of something bigger.
Not just because you're drawn to one particular individual.
So we see it requires you to make a plan.
It requires you to make sure that if you're called to go, that you have a plan.
You feel the weight, the merit, the gravity of it.
It has to have some substance.
It has to have some sincerity.
But not only that, it requires sincerity.
It's going to require substance.
It's going to require sacrifice.
And this is really where I think this is the part that people really choke on.
You know, their motives are right.
They have a plan.
They know they can get there.
But then they start to understand something that is going to come at a cost.
That being called to go can come at a cost.
That it's going to cost you some things.
Turn back over to Hebrews 11 if you kept something there.
Hebrews chapter 11.
I mean, in this chapter we see people that cost them some things in order to be called of God.
To be obedient to the call of God.
You think about Moses here in verse 26.
Esteem the reproach of Christ's greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.
For he had respect in the recompense of reward.
So we see that, you know, he kind of had it made.
He could have stayed there.
And he could have lived in Egypt and probably had a pretty, as it says,
enjoy the pleasures of sin for his season.
You know, he was the son of Pharaoh's daughter and he was in a high position in the land.
He probably would have the best food.
You know, all those great things.
All the luxuries and the conveniences that that life would have afforded him.
But he forsook those things.
You say, well, that's not much of a sacrifice.
Maybe not, but it was definitely a temptation.
It was definitely something that was tempting him to keep him there.
And it was something that he had to put on the altar and say, you know what?
I'm willing to give this up.
That's why it says by faith he forsook Egypt.
He said, you know, I forsake all these things.
And I've heard other testimonies of other people and when they decided that they were
going to make a move, that's when all the offers started to come in.
Well, hey, we'll double your salary.
Hey, we'll give you this.
We'll give you that.
Just stick around.
Just stay here.
And don't go.
You know, the job offer might come in.
Or the opportunity to do whatever.
Some great opportunity that will keep you from joining a good church, maybe from fulfilling
the call that God has for you to go out and to help be a part of a great movement.
People might say, well, you know what?
I don't want to sacrifice this.
I don't want to give this up.
If you're going to answer the call to go, you're going to have to understand that it
might require a sacrifice that's going to come at a cost.
We're there in Hebrews 11.
Look at verse 37.
It talks about these people who aren't even mentioned by name.
It says that they were stone.
They were sawn asunder.
They were tempted.
They were slain with the sword.
They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented.
Now that does sound like Phoenix, doesn't it?
In the summer months, afflicted, tormented.
Yeah, a little bit.
They wandered about in deserts, right?
That's Phoenix.
And in mountains, Phoenix.
And in dens and in caves of the earth.
You know, when it gets really hot, you've got to stay in the den.
You've got to stay in the cave in the earth.
You've got to stay in that apartment.
You've got to stay in the house.
You've got to keep the AC on.
We can really relate to these people here at Phoenix, can't we?
And these all having a good report through faith received not the promise.
Of course, I'm joking around there.
These people really did make a sacrifice.
These things really did happen.
Why did they do that?
Why did they wander?
They were wandering about.
I mean, think about Abraham.
Think, oh wow, what an exciting life.
Yeah, life living in a tent.
Life spent your whole life raising your family in a tent.
Wandering about in some strange land, not receiving the promise.
You know, knowing that hearing God make all these promises.
Hey, one day your seed's going to be as the stars in heaven as the sand in the sea.
All the land that your foot treads upon is going to be, you know,
it's going to be your children are going to inherit it.
You know, that's a great promise.
But it's another thing to live it out.
To flesh that out in this life when you're living in a tent.
Abraham was someone who made a great sacrifice.
Someone who was willing to pay the cost to follow God to go.
And that's something that we might have to consider.
Now, I don't know, if they got here in America,
we're not wandering about goat skins and sheep skins.
And we're not tormented and afflicted.
I mean, we got it pretty easy.
And it's amazing the things that people will let them
hold them back from fulfilling the call to go.
They'll say, well, you know, I just can't find a job that's going to pay me
that extra five or ten thousand dollars a month.
Well, can you cut something out?
Can you make a little bit of a sacrifice here?
Well, you know, I just don't know.
I can't find my, you know, four bedroom, three bath house that I need.
Well, what about an apartment?
Can you make do with an apartment for a little while?
Do you find that house?
And I'm thinking about a family just moved here recently.
You know, they wanted to be here so bad.
They were willing to move like practically 45 minutes
to an hour out of town away from the church just to get started.
You know, and then that's not a huge sacrifice, but it's something
that somebody else might hinder them.
Well, you know, if I can't be within 20 minutes of church, what's the point?
I don't want to do all that driving every Sunday.
Well, that's pretty weak.
That's some weak sauce right there.
You need to, you know, man up a little bit about that kind of a thing
and say, look, it might come as a sacrifice, but look what these people did.
And we're not even close to having to do anything that they did.
Not even closed.
I mean, it would be a joke to try and compare anything that we've sacrificed.
I remember one of the great sacrifices that I had to make to move out here.
I had to sell my computer.
Oh, man.
It was like cutting off an arm, right?
What a great sacrifice that I made.
I sold my goods.
I had to leave a lot of things back in Michigan, man.
You know, I had to leave all this stuff.
I mean, it's nothing.
What if I were to get to heaven and go to Abraham?
Well, you know what I did, Abraham?
Where I went to these people and said, well, you know, I understand what you did,
you know, with being tortured and imprisoned, saunasundar.
You know, I sold a Mac.
It's a joke, right?
But some people, that's their mentality.
They don't understand the sacrifice that might be required of them.
They just want the smooth, easy path.
They want God to just wave a magic wand
and cause everything just to fall right into place.
Well, sometimes it doesn't work like that.
Sometimes God might even let things get in your way a little bit
just to kind of test your mettle, to see what you're made of,
to see what it's going to take to stop you.
That's what I've heard said is the test of a person's character
is what it takes to stop them.
What's going to keep you from accomplishing that thing that you ought to do for God?
What's going to stop you from living for God?
That's how we know what you're made of.
You know, to be in the will of God,
you just might have to get a little uncomfortable.
You might have to deal with a little discomfort
in order to answer the call to go to be in the will of God.
You know, it might not be the ideal situation,
but again, how does it compare to what we just read with Abraham and Isaac and Moses
and these strangers that we read about now?
You know, we talk about making a sacrifice in order to be in the will of God
and we talk about these individuals here in Hebrews 11
and we see the great sacrifice that they made,
but there's somebody else that did something similar.
You know, there's another person who was willing to be a little uncomfortable.
There was somebody else who was willing to go and do something
for somebody else that had the right motivations,
that wasn't seeking his own glory,
that wanted to go out and do something for God,
that wanted to accomplish God's will,
and he was willing to make a sacrifice.
That person is Jesus Christ.
And I think that's what a lot of people who are on the fence
and they're hem-hawn and, you know, their family's suffering
and they know they need to get in a good church,
whether it's here in Faithful Word or another church that's close to them
or they need to move.
You know, there's probably even good churches that we don't even know about
that a person might need to move like an hour in one direction.
They might need to move 45 minutes in one direction
in order to maybe make that move a little,
make that trip to that church a little easier,
to be a little bit more faithful to church.
But they don't want to do it because it's just too much to ask.
You know, but we need to consider him who endured
such contradiction of sinners against himself,
lest we be weary in our minds and faint.
You know, we have not suffered unto blood, striving against sin,
as Jesus Christ did.
People need to stop and consider the move that Jesus made for them.
Think about the fact that Jesus made a move for you.
That Jesus left heaven.
He left glory.
He left, you know, the throne and came down
and was, you know, became flesh, was born of a virgin.
He lived that life tempted in all points, like as we are,
you know, without sin.
Oh, he was God.
It must have been easy for him.
It wasn't, I mean, that's a pretty, that's stooping pretty low when you're God.
To say, hey, I want to come all the way down and be born in a manger.
Not a palace.
You know, he wasn't born in some luxurious place.
There wasn't, you know, all these people just heralding his birth
and just making sure he's pampered and taken care of.
He was born in a manger, you know, a trough where they feed cattle.
He was born out in the barn.
You ever been in a barn?
It's not exactly the most sanitary place to give birth,
but that's where he was born.
That's where the King of Glory was born.
He came down here.
He made a move for us, didn't he?
And he stuck around and he endured a lot of sacrifice
and he made a lot of, went through a lot of hardships.
But what if he made the same excuses some of us did,
that we don't want to be in the will of God?
And it might be, you know, a person that's in myself
and others that will come after me
and others that are even in the same position I'm in now
to think about, well, you know, there's a great need to go start churches.
There's a great need for people to leave a great church
and go start a great church.
But we can start to come up with a lot of excuses, couldn't we?
And say, you know, I don't want to make that move.
I don't want to take that chance.
I don't want to take the risk.
I don't want to put myself out there because, you know,
there's, it's going to be hard.
Or things aren't lined up just right.
But what if Jesus had that same excuse?
When the Father said, hey, I need to send somebody to go and die
for the world to pay for their sins,
just Jesus said, oh, you know, I would like to do it,
but, you know, it's just too much.
Sorry, I just can't do that.
You know, I don't want to deal with that discomfort.
I don't want to have to make that sacrifice.
That we'd all be in a pretty bad situation, wouldn't we?
But we need to have that same mindset, you know,
and consider that anything that we're going to do for God
is nothing compared to not only what others have done
but what Jesus did for us.
And stop making all the excuses.
Hebrews 11, look at verse 13, the Bible says,
These all died in faith, not having received the promises,
but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them,
and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers
and pilgrims on the earth.
They were strangers and pilgrims.
For they that say such things declare plainly
that they seek country, and surely if they had been mindful
of the country from whence they came out,
they might have an opportunity to return.
But now they desire a better country that is in heavenly,
wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.
For He hath prepared for them a city.
People get real hung up about where they're going to go live.
You know, people say, well, I want to go, you know,
I want to attend church in this city,
or I want to go start a church here.
It's got to be this type of weather and stuff like that.
And that's fine.
We can definitely, we have the luxury of having options
and letting our preferences kind of guide us.
But, you know, at the same time, you know,
none of those things really matter.
And if God calls us to go to a place that might not be ideal,
God calls us to a place that some people say,
why in the world would you want to go there?
Why would you want to go to a place like that?
Why would, for a church, why would you want to go to,
you know, when we were moving out to Phoenix,
you know what I heard over and over again?
It's hot there.
It's like, yeah, I know.
And when I got here, guess what?
It turns out they're right.
It's hot, you know?
And it's dry and it's brown and it's dusty.
There's a lot of great things about Phoenix and Arizona.
There's a lot of drawbacks, too.
A lot of people say, why are you moving there?
You know?
But, well, I'll tell you why.
I moved there.
I moved to Philadelphia.
I moved to, you know, Atlanta.
I moved to any one of these cities for a good church,
if I needed to, because I'm a stranger,
because I'm a pilgrim, because this world is not my home,
because I'm just, you know, passing through,
as the song says, you know,
that I'm seeking a heavenly city,
that I know that's my final destination,
the foundations of which the builder and maker is God.
You know, when you start to consider that,
that this life is just a vapor, that it's just fleeting,
you know, whatever sacrifices we have to make,
whatever discomfort we might have to go through,
wherever we might have to live in order to be a good church,
that might not be ideal to us,
might not meet all of our personal preferences,
you know, those things are pale in comparison to glory.
If we let that, if we embrace that promise as they did,
and if we allow that to persuade us,
if we allow the fact that we are going to inherit
a heavenly Jerusalem with Christ,
that we're going to dwell in a mansion
that Christ has made for us,
you know, we could start to let these things,
these discomforts, they don't seem so uncomfortable anymore.
These preferences, you know, they don't seem so important.
That's why the Bible says in 1 Peter,
He said,
You know, this lust that we have,
these desires in order,
I got to have this job and this city and have this house
and have all these preferences
that are going to war against our soul
and keep us out of a good church,
you know, you need to be more of a stranger,
you need to make yourself more of a pilgrim,
somebody who's just going to wander through this life,
wander through this land and inherit the promise.
You say, well, that's not easy.
Well, no, it's not easy.
And it's hard to, you know, to say,
it's easy to get up and just say,
yeah, well, you know, you're going to heaven one day
and you're going to live there,
so none of this here on earth should matter.
You know, you shouldn't be so hung up on all these
earthly, you know, earthly trivialities
and things like that.
It's easy to say that, right?
I mean, it was easy for God to just tell Abraham,
hey, go, you need to go.
It was easy for God to say it, right?
I mean, God knew the beginning from the end,
but, you know, if we're going to see it through,
if we're going to do it,
we're going to have to be by Abraham.
You know, Abraham obeyed, but how did he do it?
By faith, right?
That's what we see in this chapter,
by faith, by faith, by faith.
If we're going to do it,
we're going to have to do it like Abraham.
We're going to have to obey the call to go.
If we're going to do that,
we're going to have to do it by faith.
And that's the message this morning, you know,
is that we need to consider where we're at spiritually,
you know, and physically in this world.
And if it's anything less than what God would have us,
doing, then we need to consider moving.
We need to say, there might be a call for me to go.
You know, maybe we're doing good in a church,
but what if we could do 10 times better than another?
I mean, that's, I mean, if living a Christian life
is what's important to you,
being fruitful and abounding in Christ is what's important,
then being in a great church is very important.
And it's great if people can find something
where they're at, and honestly, that's,
would to God there was more of that,
that people could just find a church where they're at.
But if not, it might be that God has called us to go.
And we have to be willing to make a plan,
we're willing to execute it,
we're going to be willing to sacrifice,
and we're going to have to do it all by faith.
Because at the end of the day, you know,
whatever is not a faith, you know, is not pleasing to God.
So let's make sure our motivations are right.
And let's make sure that we're doing for the right reasons.
And it might be that, you know, one day,
we're in a great church now, but I mean, one day,
God will want us to go somewhere else
and start a great church or move to another great church.
But whatever it might be,
we should always have that attitude of,
hey, I'm a stranger here, I'm a pilgrim,
I'll go, I'll obey, and I'll do it by faith.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, again, thank you for,
thank you for the great examples that we have
with those that obey you, Lord, that you've set them.
Put them in your Word, Lord, that we can look to them
and understand how they did these things.
We can look to them and understand that
the things that we're going through often are
pale in comparison to the sacrifices
that others have made, and not to mention that of
the Lord Jesus himself, the great sacrifice that he paid for us,
and coming and dying on the cross for us.
Father, help us to always keep that in mind,
and help us to understand that we are strangers here,
that we're programs.
And, Lord, if you'd have us go to a place
to do a work for you, Lord, we should count it a joy
and a blessing and a privilege to go out
and to serve you wherever that might be.
We ask that you would just bless us now
and keep us safe as we go, in Jesus' name, amen.