- Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
We can go ahead and find our seats.
We'll go ahead and get started.
Great to see everybody here this morning.
Once we've found our seats,
we'll go ahead and turn in our hymnals
to song number 43.
Number 43.
You're marching to Zion.
Song number 43.
Song number 43 in your hymnals.
We're marching to Zion.
Song number 43.
♪ Come we sweet accord ♪
♪ Join in the song sweet accord ♪
♪ And the sing ♪
- Singing, everybody, pray together.
Thank you, Lord, for Steadfast Baptist Church.
Thank you for allowing us to gather here together today.
We just ask now that you fill this room with your spirit
and help us praise you loudly, Lord, together.
And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
For our next song, let's go to song number 209.
Song number 209, "Sunshine in the Soul."
Song number 209.
Song number 209, "Sunshine in the Soul."
Song number 209, "Sunshine in my soul today."
Song number 209, "She gives me now."
Thank you for attending this morning at Fast Baptist Church.
Pastor Shelley's out.
He's out at the Red Hot Preaching Conference.
So pray that him, Brother Dylan and Brother Ben
and other members make it safe back home.
So we don't have any bulletins this morning.
So I'll just use a bulletin from last week.
Here in the front of the bulletin,
we have our Bible memory passage, Psalm 58,
verse three is our weekly verse.
Actually, we're verse four this week.
So that's last week.
So I apologize.
Service time, Sunday morning at 10.30.
We have our Sunday Spanish service at 4.30.
And then right after that,
we have our Sunday evening service at 5.30.
And then Wednesday service is at 7 p.m.
We have Church Ride Soul Winning.
We have Sunday at two, Wednesday at 5.15.
We also have regional Soul Winning times.
So when you get ahold of a bulletin,
inside are the Soul Winning times.
We have Monday, Tuesday, two on Thursday,
Friday, a couple on Saturday.
And we also have a special Soul Winning times
of the last Saturday of the month
with Brother West and Brother Lugo.
So get with the people in a Soul Winning times
if you wanna go Soul Winning to make sure
that you know where it's at
and that you can have a partner to go with you.
For the year for Salvation's for the month of July,
we're at 50, so keep up the good work.
We're doing great.
We knew that we moved here
that we were gonna get more people saved,
and it's been a blessing since we've been here.
Even though we're getting a lot of persecution,
the souls is what matters.
So no matter what happens outside,
we're getting people saved, all right?
Year to date is 1600 or 1,664,
so we're doing great with 14 baptisms.
We have a bunch of expecting ladies.
We have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
10 expecting ladies.
So continuing to be blessed through all the persecution,
right, souls, babies on their way,
our church is growing exponentially.
So pray for more laborers, pray for more people
that love the Lord, that want to come here
and so win and serve God, amen.
On our prayer list, we have some special prayers
that we have, and if you do have any special prayers,
please email the church so we can get it added
to the prayer list.
We have Rebecca Nogueira with health.
We have Lucy James for her mother.
We have Cameron Hall in his leg.
Michael Wolok, daughter, his daughter's pregnancy.
Karen Cooley, her stepdad, needs cancer treatment.
We have Brother Jeff Goodwin, health,
and union contract negotiations at work,
so pray for him and his work.
The Rodarte family, this is here,
their infant John has leukemia
and will be receiving chemotherapy,
so very special prayer there.
If, you know, as you know, we want our children
to be born healthy and not have any complications,
so we can only imagine the difficulty
that that family is going through right now.
The Holden family and their health,
Brother Nick Connolly,
Mother Arlene's heart surgery and recovery, correct?
Okay.
Grace Scott, prayers that operations will relieve her pain.
Brother Jimmy Stewart, friend Michael Centrals
is back in a hospital after a car crash,
so I guess he's having some more,
we have Brother Jimmy having more complications,
so yeah, all right, so.
And Brother Rich is looking for a job,
so hey, men need work,
so continue to pray for all the men of the church
that they have work at Brother Rich.
So let's say a quick prayer for the people
on the prayer list real quick.
Dear Heavenly Father, Lord,
we pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ, Lord,
and your wonderful children,
that you answer their prayers, Lord,
that you hear them when they call upon you,
and that you take care of them, Lord,
and you give them what is needful for them.
But Lord, heal their bodies,
help them with fine jobs, Lord,
and help the wonderful children
that you help the health issues that are going on.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
- All right, and just some church reminders
while we're at church.
No children on the stage, in the kitchen,
or unattended in the mother and baby rooms.
So we want children to always be attended, okay?
Mother and baby rooms are for mothers
and their children to and under.
So please leave older children with their fat father
during the service.
If you must bring any older children with you,
they must sit quietly in the room with you.
So the mother and baby room is a place for nursing
and maybe some fussy babies.
So it's not for little kids to go in there
and play with toys and be a distraction
to the people that are listening to the service.
So toys should not be shared
and only out in between Sunday services,
excluding baby items, especially in the winter
when the sickness is going around
and things like that and cold.
So if you bring toys, it's just for your kids
and try to wipe them down before you come to church.
The church building will be observing quiet time
every Sunday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
It's just a time to relax, have some quiet time.
So if you're here, please be mindful of that.
Maybe it's some time to read or something.
So that's all for announcements.
Also, sorry, two other things we have
are Mighty Men's Conference, which I'm excited for.
So if we do the Mighty Men's competition,
I wanna win this year, by the way.
So I am training for that.
So if you're coming and you're gonna compete, be ready.
'Cause I'm getting ready.
All right, so that's August 17th through the 19th.
So please talk to your boss, put in some PTO, whatever.
Please come, it's awesome, it's great fellowship.
Please make time for that.
I know we have a lot of things going on through the year,
conferences and so on and so forth.
But this is a great time to fellowship
with other men of the church, get to know each other
from Steadfast and OKC and Pure Words down in Houston.
And sometimes other people come from other churches too.
So it's a really good time to get away
and to get some fellowship.
And August 12th through the 15th, we have our,
is it our third annual?
Is it, I think so,
our Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship Conference.
So that's awesome.
So make time for that, please put it on your schedule.
Ask for time off, ask for PTO, whatever you have.
That's it for announcements.
Turn to our next song.
It's Psalm 150, Psalm 150.
- All right, that was Psalm 150.
If you don't have a handout,
we'll be in your King James Bible, Psalm chapter 150.
Psalm chapter 150.
Everybody sing it out, roll out on the first.
♪ Praise ye the Lord ♪
♪ Praise God in his sanctuary ♪
♪ Praise him in the firmament of his power ♪
♪ Praise him for his mighty acts ♪
♪ Praise him according to his excellent greatness ♪
♪ Praise him with the sound of the trumpet ♪
♪ Praise him with the psaltery ♪
♪ Praise him with the timbrel and dance ♪
♪ Praise him with stringed instruments and hands ♪
♪ Praise him upon the hills ♪
♪ Praise him with sounding cymbals ♪
♪ Let everything that hath breath praise ♪
- As the offering plates are being passed around,
go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 12.
That's Mark chapter number 12.
- Mark chapter 12, Mark chapter 12, the Bible reads.
And he began to speak unto them by parables.
A certain man planted a vineyard and set a hedge about it
and digged a place for the wine fat and built a tower
and let it out to husbandmen and went into a far country.
And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant
that he might receive from the husbandmen
of the fruit of the vineyard.
And they caught him and beat him and sent him away empty.
And again he sent unto them another servant.
And at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head,
and sent him away shamefully handled.
And again he sent another, and him they killed,
and many others, beating some and killing some.
Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved,
he sent him also last unto them, saying,
they will reverence my son.
But those husbandmen said among themselves,
this is the heir, come, let us kill him,
and the inheritance shall be ours.
And they took him and killed him
and cast him out of the vineyard.
What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do?
He will come and destroy the husbandmen
and will give the vineyard unto others.
And have ye not read this scripture,
the stone which the builders rejected
has become the head of the corner?
This was the lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
And they sought to lay hold on him, but feared the people,
for they knew that he had spoken the parable against them,
and they left him and went their way.
And they sent unto him certain of the Pharisees
and of the Herodians to catch him in his words.
And when they were come, they say unto him,
Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man.
For thou regardest not the person of men,
but teachest the way of God and truth.
Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?
Shall we give, or shall we not give?
But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them,
Why tempt ye me?
Bring me a penny, that I may see it.
And they brought it, and he saith unto them,
Whose is this image and superscription?
And they said unto him, Caesar's.
And Jesus answering said unto them,
Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's,
and to God the things that are God's.
And they marveled at him.
Then come unto him the Sadducees,
which say there is no resurrection.
And they asked him, saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us,
if a man's brother die, and leave his wife behind him,
and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife
and raise up seed unto his brother.
Now there were seven brethren, and the first took a wife,
and dying left no seed.
And the second took her, and died.
Neither left he any seed.
And the third likewise.
And the seven had her, and left no seed.
Last of all, the woman died also.
In the resurrection, therefore, when they shall rise,
whose wife shall she be of them?
For the seven had her to wife.
And Jesus answering said unto them,
do you not therefore err, because you know not
the scriptures, neither the power of God?
For when they shall rise from the dead,
they neither marry nor are given in marriage,
but are as the angels which are in heaven.
And as touching the dead that they rise,
have you not read in the book of Moses
how in the bush God spake unto them, saying,
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob?
He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.
Ye therefore do greatly err.
And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning
together, and perceiving that he had answered them well,
asked him, which is the first commandment of all?
And Jesus answered him, the first of all the commandments
is, here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,
and with all thy strength.
This is the first commandment.
And the second is like, namely this,
thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
There is none other commandment greater than these.
And the scribe said unto him, well,
master, thou has said the truth.
For there is one God, and there is none other but he.
And to love him with all the heart,
and with all the understanding, and with all the soul,
and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself
is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly,
he said unto him, thou are not far from the kingdom of God.
And no man after that durst ask him any question.
And Jesus answered and said while he taught in the temple,
how say the scribes that Christ is the son of David?
For David himself said by the Holy Ghost,
the Lord said to my Lord, sit thou on my right hand,
till I make thy enemies thy footstool.
David therefore himself calleth him Lord.
And whence is he then his son?
And the common people heard him gladly.
And he said unto them in his doctrine,
beware of the scribes which love to go in long clothing
and love salutations in the marketplaces,
and the chief seats in the synagogues in the uppermost rooms
at feasts, which devour widows' houses,
and for a pretense make long prayers.
These shall receive greater damnation.
And Jesus sat over against the treasury
and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury.
And many that were rich cast in much.
And there came a certain poor widow,
and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.
And he called unto him his disciples,
and saith unto them, verily I say unto you
that this poor widow hath cast more in than all they which
have cast into the treasury.
For all they did cast in of their abundance,
but she of her want did cast in all that she had,
even all her living.
Let us pray.
Father, thank you so much for this chapter,
and thank you for the opportunity for Brother Joe
to preach to us.
We just thank you for him and his family.
I pray that you would fill Brother Joe
with the power of the Holy Spirit.
Please help him to articulate his words.
Please help him to preach with power and authority.
And I pray that you would bless the soul
wanting this afternoon, Lord, and lead the group
to receptive hearts and receptive souls.
And we just ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.
- Amen.
Well, it's good to be here.
Thanks everyone for being here.
I wanna start off by thanking Pastor Shelley
for giving me the opportunity to preach.
It's always an honor and a privilege
to preach the word of God.
And so we're in Mark chapter 12.
Let's take a look at verse 41, Mark 12, verse 41.
And it says there, "And Jesus sat over against the treasury
and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury.
And many that were rich cast in much.
And there came a certain poor widow,
and she threw in two mites which make a farthing.
And he called unto him his disciples and saith unto them,
Verily I say unto you that this poor widow
hath cast more in than all they
which hath cast into the treasury.
For all they did cast in of their abundance,
but she of her want did cast in all that she had,
even all her living."
And I want to kind of go through this story here
and glean some information, glean some knowledge,
and make some applications of this story here in the Bible.
And so we have this poor widow.
Number one, she's poor.
The Bible says in Luke 21 that she did cast in
of her penury, meaning of her poverty.
Penury means poverty.
And so this lady's poor.
She's a widow.
So her husband's dead.
Her husband's not alive any longer.
And she has no provider.
No one is going out to make money and work
and provide for her.
And so she's poor.
She's a widow.
Her husband's dead.
It doesn't mention any of her children here.
I don't know if she had children.
Maybe she did.
If she did, it doesn't seem like her children
are helping her.
Maybe she didn't have any children.
And so we see here that this poor widow,
she's poor, her husband's dead.
She has no family, no friends, no one's helping her.
And she's really in a tough time in her life,
but she's still serving God.
She was still able to cast in even all that she had.
She didn't just cast in, you know, some of her money.
The Bible says here, the Bible is very clear
that she cast in all that she had.
And she only had two mites, which, you know,
I'm not a historian, I'm not really sure what that is,
but it's definitely not a lot, okay?
And so she cast in all that she had.
And Jesus says in verse 44 there,
that, I'm sorry, 43, that this poor widow
cast more in than all day.
And you would say, well, how is this possible?
'Cause Jesus Christ says that there's a lot of rich people
that cast in much, right?
But Jesus Christ says that this poor widow
cast more in than all those rich people combined.
All day that cast into their abundance,
this poor widow, by casting in all that she had,
cast in more than all those rich people.
And you say, well, how's that possible?
Well, because she gave 100% of what she had.
And if you give 100% to God, no one can out-give you
'cause she gave it all, right?
These rich people that gave in much,
they gave of their abundance, right?
They have a lot of money, so they gave much,
but she cast in all her living.
She gave it 100%, she gave it all to God.
And so I wanna make some applications here.
And on the surface, what we could see from this story here
is that God is not impressed by rich people
given a big sum of money.
You always hear about these rich celebrities
and politicians in those days,
the Pharisees and the Sadducees donating
a huge sum of money to some charity or some donation.
You hear about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
they're donating all this money to vaccines
so they can kill us all, right?
But you always hear about these rich people
donating this big sum of money
to some kind of charity, some kind of donations,
some kind of fund.
And you know, sometimes rich people,
they think they can buy God's forgiveness
by just donating a big sum of money,
by doing some good deed.
They think they could buy God's grace
and buy God's forgiveness, buy God's mercy.
But let me tell you something,
these people are a bunch of hypocrites.
'Cause you know, if they really cared about poor people,
if they really cared about the sick,
they would do it in secret.
And a lot of times when these rich people,
when they donate a lot of money,
they make a big show about it, don't they, right?
It's on the news, it's on TV, it's on whatever,
it's on the social media,
and they make a big show about it
'cause they want the praise of men.
You know, they're a bunch of hypocrites.
They don't really care about the people that they're helping
or the charity they're donating to.
They're just doing it for the praise of men.
They're doing it because they're hypocrites.
And so that doesn't impress God.
You know, we see Jesus Christ sitting here
and he sees all the rich people casting in much,
but it doesn't impress him, right?
These rich celebrities
and the people that this world lifts up, right?
These rich musicians and celebrities and actors,
God is not impressed by how much money they have, you know?
And we can also learn from this, you know,
if we're well off and we're a little bit wealthy,
the Bible says that we should be ready to distribute.
You know, we should help our brothers and sisters
if they're in need.
If someone's going through a financial time,
rough time in their life, you know,
we that are wealthy, if we are,
we should be able to help our brothers and sisters
in Christ and not make a big show about it, right?
Do it in secret, do it between you and your brother
in Christ and don't make a big show about it
because you're just being a hypocrite.
You're really, where's your heart?
Is your heart really wanting to help your friend
or do you just want people to know that you helped someone
and you gave them some money or something like that?
You know, an example of this is this YouTube channel
called MrBeast.
Who's ever heard of this YouTube channel, MrBeast?
This guy's like one of the top paid YouTube channels
and basically his channel is just based on him
giving away tons of money.
He gives away millions of dollars to people
on his YouTube channel.
He makes these videos where he'll buy
like a bunch of hearing aids to deaf people
and just give it to them for free.
And basically his whole channel is just based on him
donating money to people.
And this guy's the biggest hypocrite
because he makes it public.
He makes a big show about it.
He gets all these views on his videos
donating money to people.
And then YouTube pays him for all these views.
And you might, you know, you might watch his channel
and say, oh, this is a nice guy.
You know, he's giving away all this money
to people for free, but he's not, he's a hypocrite.
'Cause if he really cared about those people,
he would do it in private.
He would do it in secret.
He wouldn't put it on YouTube
and everyone can see and praise him.
He's just seeking the praise of men,
just like these Pharisees and Sadducees
and these rich people did.
And so it's all for show.
It doesn't impress God.
And we see here that what does impress God is faith, right?
This poor widow, it took a lot of faith
for her to cast everything in.
Her hope was in God.
Her trust was in the Lord, right?
She relied on God to save her out of her poverty
and she cast all in.
So that's what impresses God.
The Bible says without faith,
it's impossible to please God.
And so what impressed Jesus Christ here,
this lady is this lady's faith.
She had to have a lot of faith,
a lot of love for God to cast everything in to the Lord.
And so another thing we can learn from this story here also
is not to despise the poor, right?
Not to look down on people
just because they make less money than us,
or maybe they live in a modest house
or they drive an old car or because they're poor.
We should not despise the poor.
The Bible says that hath not God chosen
the poor of this world rich in faith?
And so God's chosen a lot of times people that are poor,
there are less well off, rich in faith.
Think about when we go sowning,
when we go to the poor neighborhoods, it's very receptive.
People get saved in poor neighborhoods.
But when you go to rich neighborhoods, right?
It's unreceptive.
Those are the neighborhoods that call the police on us.
They yell at us, they scream at us, they curse at us.
And obviously not every rich person is wicked like this.
But in general, the Bible says the poor are rich in faith.
And it says in James, it says, but ye have despised the poor.
And then it says, do not rich men oppress you and draw you before the judgment seats.
Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by which you are called.
So the Bible makes a contrast between poor people and rich people.
That poor people are rich in faith in general, and rich people aren't.
You know, a lot of times they reject the gospel.
They want nothing to do with the Bible, nothing to do with God, because they're relying on
their riches, right?
They're trusting in uncertain riches.
So on the surface, right, we should not despise the poor just because they make less than
us.
Maybe they're a little bit less well-off than some of us.
That's not a reason to look down at poor people.
Sometimes it's kind of easy in the flesh to look down at a poor person and just assume
that they're poor because they're lazy.
That's not always the case, especially in times that we have right now with inflation,
everything being so expensive.
We have large families.
A lot of times it's just the men that are working, and it can be difficult at times.
Doesn't mean that the guy's lazy.
You have men that are probably working one, two jobs, more than one job, working two jobs,
and it's rough to make ends meet.
So don't automatically assume just because someone's poor that they're lazy.
Now I'm not talking about the bums that are on the corner asking for money.
Yeah, yeah, they're lazy.
A lot of times they're out there because they're addicted to drugs, they're addicted to alcohol,
they don't want to work, and you should not give your money to them.
And a lot of times they're really violent.
When you don't give them money, they want to fight you, you know, I've seen on the news
where they spit in people's faces, you know, whenever you see a bum on the street, just
leave them alone.
Don't even, you know, talk to them.
But we don't want to assume that a brother in Christ is just lazy because they're maybe
a little bit poor or live in a modest house.
That's not always the case.
And we see here that Jesus Christ lifted up this woman.
He's praising her.
He's praising this poor widow.
Even though she's poor, he's praising her because she gave all in.
She cast all that she had onto the Lord.
And another thing we can learn here is that, from this poor widow, is that no matter what
hardships we're going through in life, whether it's financial hardships, marriage issues,
health issues, whatever we're going through, we should still serve God.
Because I mean, take a look at this poor widow.
I just said she's poor.
Her husband's dead.
It doesn't say anything about her family, her friends, her children, but you know what?
She's still serving God.
She still goes to the treasury, to the temple, and casts in all that she had.
And so no matter what's going on in your life, let's be honest.
Our lives are never going to be perfect.
Don't wait until you have all your ducks in a row to serve God, because it's never going
to happen.
You know, life is just like one problem after the other, you know?
And so we should serve God through our trials.
Don't wait.
Don't ever say, "Hey, I'm going to serve God after I fix this part of my life, or after
I fix this issue, or after I get over this."
No, you should serve God through your trials, all right?
Don't wait until your life is perfect, because it's never going to be perfect, right?
You may wait until one issue is done, another issue is going to pop up.
And that's life, you know?
So we should serve God through our trials.
And because, you know, life is a vapor, before you know it, we're going to be old and may
not even have the ability to serve God.
And so serve God now.
Also, you know, one thing I find interesting is in verse 41, it says that Jesus sat over
against the treasury and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury.
And you know, if you read the gospels, the Lord Jesus Christ was very busy, right?
He was about His Father's business.
The disciples even said that he was beside himself
'cause at times he wouldn't rest,
he wouldn't eat, he wouldn't drink any water.
He was just always on the go, always preaching, right?
He was always doing things for the Father.
But it's very interesting that here,
he took the time to sit and watch
as people cast money into the treasury.
And what I can take from that is, you know,
God notices how we're serving him.
God is watching us how we're serving him.
Are we doing it with all our might?
Are we serving God with all our strength,
with all our heart, with all our soul?
Or are we just giving God out of our abundance,
like these rich people?
And so Jesus Christ here, even though he's really busy,
he sat down and he's watching
what people are casting in to the treasury.
And he notices this poor widow,
casting all that she had.
And so we have to keep that in mind
when we're serving God.
We serve God with everything that we have, right?
And I understand life goes through hills and valleys
and things like that.
And sometimes you're just kind of going through the motion.
But you know, this is a very inspiring story.
This poor widow, she really has nothing going for her,
right?
She's in debt, she's in poverty, no family, no friends,
but she's still serving God, okay?
And the thing is, you know,
we need to be like this poor widow.
We need to have the faith of this poor widow, okay?
And God is watching us.
God is noticing how we're serving him, okay?
And I also want to make some spiritual applications here,
right?
Go through you with to Acts chapter eight,
Acts chapter eight.
And we see here that this poor widow
cast in all that she had to God.
She cast in all her money,
all her living to the Lord Jesus Christ, to God.
And the same thing is with salvation.
You know, when we get saved,
we have to cast all our trust, all our faith.
We have to rely only on what Jesus did
on the cross to save us, right?
We have to put our trust and faith in what he did.
When he died, was buried and rose again.
We have to put all our faith
only on Jesus Christ to save us.
Just like this poor widow
cast in all that she had on the Lord.
Now, I believe this poor widow
cast in all that she had
because she wanted God to save her physically.
You know, she had two mites, not much at all.
And she said, "Lord, I'm gonna give you
"everything that I have
"'cause I want you to save me physically.
"I want you to save me out of my poverty
"and provide for me."
You know, and it's the same thing with salvation.
In order to get saved, you have to put all your faith,
all your trust, all your alliance and dependence
on God to save you.
And when you do that, God saves you.
And I believe God saved this woman
out of her poverty, this widow.
Look at Acts chapter eight, look at verse 36.
The Bible says there, "And as they went on their way,
"they came onto a certain water,
"and the eunuch said, 'See, here is water.
"'What doth hinder me to be baptized?'
"And Philip said, 'If thou believest with all thine heart,
"'with all thine heart thou mayest.'
"And he answered and said, 'I believe
"'that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.'"
So notice here in verse 37,
he says you have to believe with all your heart, okay?
And so you can't have some of your faith on Jesus
and some on your good works.
You have to put all your faith, you have to rely,
depend only on what Jesus did to get you to heaven.
Kind of like this poor widow,
how she cast everything she had on the Lord, on God.
Now, if you think about it,
this poor widow had two mites, right?
She could have gave one mite to God
and she could have kept one mite, right?
But she didn't, and that would have been good
because that would have been 50% of what she had.
You know, she could have kept one and gave one to the Lord,
but the Bible says that she cast in both mites.
And for salvation, you can't have one mite on Jesus
and one mite on yourself.
You have to give both mites to Jesus.
You have to cast your faith and your trust
only on Jesus Christ to save you.
Also, another thing that I thought of here is marriage, okay?
Go if you would to Ephesians chapter five.
Ephesians chapter five.
You know, when a man and a woman get married,
the Bible says that the wife
should submit to her husband and everything.
And so just like this poor widow cast in everything,
when a man and a woman get married,
you know, the wife has to cast all her trust,
has to cast all her faith on her husband
to lead her and be the authority and lead that marriage,
right?
Look at Ephesians chapter five, look at verse 22.
It says, "Wives, submit yourselves
"onto your own husbands as unto the Lord.
"For the husband is the head of the wife,
"even as Christ is the head of the church
"and he's a savior of the body.
"Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ,
"so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything."
It doesn't say in some things,
it doesn't say in most things, it says in everything, right?
So, you know, it's not a 50/50 marriage.
It's not the husband gets one might
and the wife gets the other might.
No, the husband gets both mights.
And you gotta put all your faith, you wives,
have to put all your faith and trust
on your husband to lead you.
You have to submit to your husband in everything.
And you think about the word submit.
It has the meaning of, you know,
even if you don't wanna do it, you still have to submit.
It's not just doing what your husband tells you
when you agree with them.
It's also doing what your husband tells you
when you don't agree with him.
That's really what the definition of submit means.
You're submitting your will to your husband's will.
And just like this poor widow cast everything she has,
you know, when a wife and a husband get married,
the wife has to submit to her husband and everything.
The Bible says in Colossians 3, 18,
wives, submit yourselves onto your own husbands
as it is fit in the Lord.
So we have marriage, we have salvation,
also just in our everyday Christian life, right?
The Bible says that we live by faith.
And so just like this poor widow
cast in everything that she has, you know, for the Lord,
in our everyday life, you know, our everyday decisions,
things that we go through in life,
our trials and tribulations in life,
the worries and the cares of this world,
we should cast them all onto the Lord.
You know, we should not live our life worrying
about what we're gonna eat, what we're gonna weigh,
where we're gonna live, right?
We should cast all those worries on the Lord
because the Bible says that he cared for us.
Look at 1 Peter chapter five, 1 Peter chapter five.
So in our everyday Christian lives,
we should live by faith, by casting all our faith on God
to lead us, to guide us, to take care of us,
the decisions that we make in our lives,
we should cast those onto the Lord.
1 Peter chapter five, look at verse six.
It says humble yourselves therefore
under the mighty hand of God
that he may exalt you in due time.
Look at verse seven, casting all your care upon him, right?
Sounds familiar, casting?
Just like this poor widow casting all that she had.
Verse seven says, casting all your care upon him
for he cares for you.
I love that last phrase there, God cares for us.
You know, God cares for us.
God wants us to lean on him so he can provide for us.
The Bible says, seek ye first the kingdom of God
in his righteousness and all these things
shall be added onto you.
And so just in our everyday life,
you know, there's a lot of things.
We just read the prayer list here.
And we see that, you know, there's health issues,
financial issues, marriage issues,
things that just occur in life.
And you know, if we kind of consume,
these things can consume our mind
if we think about them, right?
And they can kind of just drive us crazy
with all these worries and stuff like that.
They can stress us out.
And stress can harm you physically.
Like stressing out causes physical issues with our health.
And so the Bible says, you know,
it tells us not to be careful for nothing, right?
Because be careful for nothing, but in everything,
by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving,
let your requests be made known unto God,
and the peace of God, which path all understanding
shall keep your hearts and mind through Jesus Christ.
And so be careful for nothing.
The word careful there means, you know, full of care, right?
Not to always worry all the time,
but to cast all our worries, all our decision-making,
all our troubles and problems in life, you know,
cast them on the Lord, pray about it.
And the Bible says the peace of God shall come upon us.
The Bible says thy word is a lamp onto my feet
and a light onto my path.
And so God's word will light up our path.
It'll help us make the right decisions.
And so in order to make the right decision, you know,
you gotta know God's word.
If his word is a lamp onto my feet,
well, I have to know his word.
I have to read his word, right?
And so reading the Bible will help you
make the right decisions in life.
You know, if you never read the Bible,
but you pray to God to help you make the right decision,
you know, you're not gonna get an audible voice.
God's not gonna text you.
He's not gonna call you on the phone, right?
You gotta read his word.
A lot of times his word is gonna tell you
what decision to make.
Why?
'Cause thy word is a lamp unto my feet.
And so if you don't have that lamp,
you're walking in darkness.
How can you expect to know what decisions to make
if you're not in God's word?
And so that's why it's important to read the word of God,
read the Bible.
It'll help you make the right decision
as far as who you're gonna marry, right?
The Bible says to marry someone that's equally yoked,
I'll be someone that's saved.
Well, if you've never read that,
how are you gonna know that?
If you don't come to church and listen to preaching,
how are you gonna know what the right decision is?
Okay?
So the title of my sermon here
is cast in all that you have.
Cast in all that you have.
And I have three components that I wanna talk about,
how in our lives we can cast in
all that we have onto the Lord, okay?
And the first point here is our talents.
Our talents, our abilities, our gifts that we have.
You know, I believe that each one of us
has a unique talent that we can serve God with.
You know, God made us, God is our creator.
I believe that God created each one of us
with a unique talent.
Whether that's a musical talent,
maybe you're very good at singing,
maybe you can play an instrument.
You can come up here, play the piano, play an instrument.
Some people are just naturally kind of very musical.
You know, that could be a talent
that you can use for the Lord.
Don't use that talent out in the world, you know,
and just use the talent that God gave you for the world.
You know, there's nothing necessarily wrong with that.
Say you're very smart or you have good people skills
to use that on the job, right, as a man.
But you know what?
You wanna use your talents for the Lord, right?
Just like this woman, this poor widow,
cast in all that she had.
Why not use our talents to further the kingdom of God?
Why not use our talents for the Lord?
You know, musical talents.
Like I mentioned, you may have good people skills.
Maybe you're a good talker.
You know, maybe you can speak well,
you're a good orator, right?
Well, hey, you can go out sowing, right?
Sowing takes some level of people skills.
Obviously on the door, you don't wanna be super awkward
and nervous, and we all are, I am, right?
We still kinda get the job done with God's help,
God's grace.
But especially if you have good people skills,
you kinda get along with people, you know, joke around,
you kinda make it easy going, easy to talk to,
that's a good skill that you can use out sowing, you know?
If you have good people skills.
Maybe you're very smart, you're very intelligent.
Why not learn a language?
Maybe you can learn Spanish.
I know a couple of my friends in here learned Spanish.
We have a lot of Spanish speakers
that we run into out sowing.
Maybe you're very smart.
Maybe it's easy for you to learn a language.
And you know, you never know unless you try.
How are you gonna know whether, what talent you have,
what skill you have unless you try?
Many of us have some talents
that are just kind of dormant.
We don't know that we have this talent unless we try.
Unless you come to church and try,
maybe try playing an instrument.
Try singing out loud.
Try going out soul winning.
Try reading the Bible.
Try preaching at home to your family.
You never know what skill you have, what talent.
You might really like doing something
and you get better at it.
Even if you don't have some kind of natural born talent,
I believe the more we work at something,
the better we'll be.
I'm not very musically talented at all.
I have a hard time just singing and just maintaining my rhythm.
But hey, I feel like the more times I sing the songs,
the better I get.
The more times I sing them, when I follow, especially the songs--
I love singing the songs, but it's a little bit harder
to follow through with the song, the rhythm, stuff like that.
But I feel like the more I do it, the better I get.
And so it's not necessarily you have
to have some kind of something that you're born with.
A lot of us do, but even if you don't, the more you do that,
the more you do something, the better you'll get at it.
Maybe you're good with your hands.
Maybe you work in construction, you're good with your hands.
Maybe you can help out the church when we're renovating,
helping out with that.
Whatever skill you have, why not kind of use it for the Lord?
Maybe some of the ladies in here, even some of the men,
maybe you're a good cook.
You make great meals.
I love that we have the meal train when the ladies give birth.
I know that's very helpful.
I know when my wife gives birth, I'm kind of lost.
I don't even know how to make milk and cereal.
So it's really a blessing when some of the other ladies
chip in and provide a meal.
I know, to us men, that's very helpful.
Because you're taking care of the kids.
Your wife just gave birth.
She's in bed for weeks taking care of the baby, the newborn.
And so it's really helpful when other ladies can chip in,
making a meal, providing a meal.
I know it's a great blessing for the family.
And cooking just takes time.
It takes skill.
You're not going to automatically be a good cook.
It just takes practice.
The more you do it, the better you get at it.
I don't cook, but I grill a lot.
I grill a lot of steak and burgers.
And it took me a while.
It took a lot of burnt steaks and a lot of burnt burgers.
So I'm not saying I'm a great griller or anything,
but it took some practice to kind of get it dialed in.
And so use your talent.
Allow God to use our talents.
Don't hide your talents.
Don't only use them for the world.
And I have an example of this.
Go through with the 1 Samuel chapter 16.
1 Samuel chapter 16.
You think about David.
David had a musical talent.
David was very talented musically.
The Bible calls him the sweet psalmist of Israel.
David wrote the whole book of Psalms pretty much.
Some Psalms were written by other people, but that's 150 Psalms that he wrote.
The Bible says, "Holy men of God spake by the Holy Ghost."
And so look at 1 Samuel 16, look at verse 14.
It says, "But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord
troubled him.
And Saul's servant said unto him, 'Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubled thee.
Let our Lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man who is
a cunning player on a harp, and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is
upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and now shall be well.'"
So basically here in 1 Samuel we have King Saul, you know he's not right with God at
this point, and basically God removes, the Bible says the Spirit of the Lord departed
from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul.
And so they came up with this idea, hey let's find someone that's really skillful in playing
the harp, really a skillful musician, and let's bring him to Saul, and he'll play the
harp to Saul, and that'll drive out the evil spirit.
And so they're looking for someone that's cunning, a cunning player in the harp.
And it says in verse 17, "And Saul said unto his servants, 'Provide me now a man that can
play well, and bring him to me.'
Verse 18, 'Then answered one of the servants, and said, 'Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse,
the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war,
and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the Lord is with him.'"
So the son of Jesse here is referring to David, right?
Eventually he became King David.
And so the Bible says that King David was cunning in playing.
Now, the word cunning, we would kind of think of it now, the word cunning, as almost kind
of like being deceitful, scheming, or kind of devising up a plan or something.
But in this context, the word cunning is actually a good thing.
The word cunning here just means skillful.
He has a lot of wisdom.
He has a lot of knowledge in this area.
And I'll prove that to you.
So if you would to Exodus chapter 35, Exodus chapter 35.
And so it says that David was a cunning man in playing the harp.
David has musical talents, right?
He loves singing and praising the Lord.
And David used his talents for the Lord.
We see that just by the book of Psalms, how he used his musical talent to write the book
of Psalms.
Obviously he was inspired by God.
Psalms is the word of God.
But David allowed God to use his talent.
He didn't take his talent and hide it under a bushel, right?
Or dig in the ground and just hide it on the ground and bury it.
He used it for the Lord.
And, you know, singing God's word is very powerful.
I love that we sing the Psalms here.
It's very powerful.
You know, it stirs me up when we sing the Psalms.
And our pastor, Shelley, puts some of the music and we sing them out loud.
You know, it's very edifying, right?
Look at Exodus 35.
Look at verse 30.
Now, this is talking about constructing the tabernacle, okay?
And it says in verse 30, "And Moses said unto the children of Israel, 'See, the Lord hath
called by name Bezalel, the son of Uriah, the son of Her of the tribe of Judah.'"
Look at verse 31.
"And he hath filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge,
and in all manner of workmanship."
So we see here that God chose this man, Bezalel, and God filled him with understanding.
God filled him with wisdom, with knowledge, and all manner of workmanship.
And so, if we pray and ask God, God can fill us with some specific talent that we're asking
for.
If you want to have good people skills, if you want to be a good speaker, and use that
out-sowning, use that to push that Bible, you know, God will answer that prayer.
You know, if you want to use some kind of skill, you want to pray for a skill, maybe
you ladies at home school, your children.
You know, teaching is a skill.
Not everyone can teach.
I know that from being on the job.
You know, I have a lot of good co-workers on the job that do a great job, but I try
to ask them, "Hey, can you teach me how to do that?"
And it just like, just goes over their head, right?
They don't have the ability to teach.
And so homeschooling is a skill, you know?
And obviously, you know, we know that homeschooling
is the best choice.
It'd be a lot easier to just send our kids
to the public school, but that's not really
the best choice for them, right?
And so you ladies in here, you can pray
and ask God to give you the skill to teach.
And you know, I watched my wife teaching our children,
and she's casting it a lot to the Lord,
just like this poor widow, right?
'Cause when you're homeschooling your kids, your children,
it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of patience,
it takes a lot of energy, right, just teaching them
how to read can be very laborious, right,
teaching your children how to read.
And so that's a skill that you ladies are doing,
that's a great thing that you ladies are doing
by homeschooling your children,
you're casting all that time and effort into your children.
And you know, the Bible says when you raise up a child
and nurture that mission of the Lord,
they're not gonna depart from it when they get older.
And so that's something that we can do to our kids,
homeschooling them, teaching them the Bible,
and also just teaching them other subjects,
math and history.
I know growing up, I really loved math,
I loved learning math, you know?
And I took a lot of math in school and college,
I took like, you know, calculus,
and then it kind of ruined it,
'cause then I went to like imaginary numbers,
and it just seemed like it wasn't even math anymore.
You know, like, why do I have letters in my equations?
You know, it kind of just ruined it for me.
But you know, math works out your mind, right?
Your problem solving skills.
You might think, well, hey, I'm never gonna use this.
Maybe for young, young girls, you know,
when am I ever gonna use math?
But you know, it exercises your brain.
Your brain's a muscle.
The more you use your brain, the smarter you get.
So look at verse 32.
And to devise curious works to work in gold
and in silver and in brass,
and in the cutting of stones to set them,
and the carving of wood to make any manner of cutting work.
So you see the word cutting there.
Verse 34.
And he hath put in his heart that he may teach,
both he and Ohio Lab, the son of Ahisamak,
of the tribe of Dan.
So God can make you a good teacher.
Look at verse 34.
And he hath put in his heart that he may teach.
God can give the ladies in here
that are homeschooling your children,
God can give you the ability to teach.
Okay, and again, the more you do it,
the better you'll get at it.
You know, you're investing in your children
when you're homeschooling them.
You're investing in their life.
You know, that's gonna stay with them forever, okay?
Verse 35 says, "Them hath he filled with wisdom of heart
to work all manner of work,
of the engraver and of the cunning workman
and of the embroiderer in blue and in purple
and scarlet and in fine linen and of the weaver,
even of them that do any work
and of those that devise cunning work."
So we see here that when it came
to constructing the tabernacle,
the Bible says that God chose talented men.
And these were men that used their talents
for the service of God to construct a tabernacle.
And in this case, Bezalil, God gave him wisdom.
God gave him knowledge.
God gave him a skill to use it for the Lord.
And so God can give you skills
if you're gonna use them for the service of the Lord.
If you're gonna go and use your talents out in the world
and not use them for the Lord,
then why should God give you any talents?
Why should God give you any abilities, any gifts, right?
So let's use our talents, let's use our gifts,
whatever those may be, let's use them for the Lord.
And just being a faithful church member, right?
You don't necessarily always have to do something in church,
always get maybe doing, like I said,
a musical instrument or whatever.
Just coming to church three times a week,
just being a faithful church member.
I'm sure coming here three times a week,
I'm sure Pastor Shelley is encouraged by that.
I'm sure that when we come to church,
Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night,
that's an encouragement to Pastor Shelley.
It encourages him, it motivates him.
So just being a faithful church member,
being a faithful sowner, going sowning when you can.
Like I said before, there's multiple times
on our bulletin where you can go sowning.
Take a time on the bulletin and say,
hey, I'm gonna show for sowing this time.
I'm gonna support Steadfast Baptist Church.
As a church, if we all pull together
and use our talents for the Lord,
we can do great things for God.
We can really further the work
that this church can do for God.
If you all kind of come together
and put our talents and our abilities
and our gifts together to serve in God.
So just coming to church three times a week,
supporting our pastor.
Also, just like no drama, you know?
It's great that this church doesn't have any drama, right?
I came from a church, you might've heard of it,
it's called Steadfast Jacksonville.
And that church had a lot of drama, right?
Just a ton of drama.
And I remember thinking, I remember talking to my friends
and saying, man, Pastor Shelley must just think
we're super carnal, super worldly,
because we're just all drama, you know?
And that's where drama comes from.
In fighting, in drama, and church members fighting
is just 'cause carnal, just being worldly, you know?
And it's just an embarrassment to have to bring up
all this drama to our pastor,
and he's dealing with all these other churches at the time,
and he has to deal with us fighting at a chili cook-off,
you know, and people are, you know,
what got me upset is I was just there to try some chili,
you know, and people got into a fight,
and they took their chili with them.
I'm like, hey, just leave the chili, you can go,
but just let me try some of the chili, you know?
But you can see how really childish and carnal that is.
And so part of being a Christian is forgiveness, right?
Just forgiving one another and just forgetting about it.
When you forgive someone, you're supposed to forget about it.
Don't let bitterness develop, especially in marriage, right?
I mean, you're married to your wife,
us men are supposed to love our wives,
just forgive your wife.
And same thing with the wives, forgive your husbands.
Don't let bitterness and all this stuff develop,
'cause it's just gonna ruin your marriage.
Bible says that the mercies of the Lord
are renewed every morning.
That's how we should be in our marriage.
Just forgiving each other, being loving.
Bible says love covered the multitude of sin.
And so just having no drama.
Not having drama, just loving each other,
loving our brothers and sisters in Christ,
letting things go.
If someone does really offend you,
maybe you can go and talk to them,
but just forgive each other.
It's not really a big deal.
If someone looks at me the wrong way
or sits in my seat, is that really a big deal?
Do I really have to get upset?
If someone tells your kids to stop running,
don't get mad, they shouldn't be running anyway.
And so, I teach my kids to respect their elders
and to say, "Yes, sir."
If one of the ushers tells my kids, "Hey, stop running."
Yeah, yeah, they need to listen to that.
They need to stop running.
I'm not going to go and yell at the usher,
"Hey, why are you telling my kids to stop?"
That's just childish.
They shouldn't be running anyway, right?
And that's just an example.
But we should not cause any drama.
Just come together in peace.
The Bible says, "How beautiful it is
when brethren dwell in unity."
I think I'm misquoting that,
but it's a beautiful thing to dwell together in unity,
to be united as a church, you know?
You know, those people outside there,
those animals outside, you know?
That's nothing compared to having
in-fighting inside the church, right?
As long as we're all united and we love each other
and we're serving God together,
they're not gonna affect us, right?
Nuts to 'em, right?
So we all have the potential to serve God.
We all have unique talents and abilities.
Every one of us, I feel like we all have potentials.
God has given us all certain gifts
that we can use to serve God.
And you know, I see this a lot out-souling.
I see out-souling, people have different personalities,
and your personality might click
with someone out-souling at the door,
where they're more prone to listen to you
than they are to me.
You know, this goes very well with ladies.
You know, a lot of times, out-souling,
people would rather listen to a woman,
a lady, than my ugly face, right?
And so, with all men, right?
So a lot of times, you ladies out-souling,
people are a lot nicer to you than they are to us men,
you know, and they're more patient with you,
they'll even listen to the gospel,
and so we all have different abilities,
different talents that we can use for the Lord, okay?
All right, so the first one,
point number one is using our talents,
casting in all our talents to the Lord, right?
Point number two is tithing,
casting all our tithes to the Lord.
Now, if you would, go to Leviticus chapter 27.
Leviticus 27.
Now, tithing is a biblical doctrine
all the way back to Genesis.
The Bible says that Abraham tied to Melchizedek,
which Melchizedek is an Old Testament appearance
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Hebrews seven, it tells us that.
So it's all the way back from Genesis.
It has not been done away with.
Tithing is all over the Bible, even in Proverbs.
And Proverbs is a timeless book.
Proverbs has not been done away with.
And so tithing is a biblical doctrine.
And we ought to cast in all our tithes to the Lord.
And you say, well, what is the tithe?
Well, look in Leviticus chapter 27, look at verse 30.
Leviticus 27, verse 30.
The Bible says there in verse 30,
"And all the tithe of the land,
whether of the seed of the land
or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's.
It is holy unto the Lord."
So it says here that all the tithe is the Lord's.
You know, the tithe belongs to God.
Whether you give it to God or not, it belongs to God.
And so when you don't tithe,
when you don't give that tithe to God, you're robbing God.
'Cause God's already said it belongs to Him.
If you hold onto it, if you don't tithe,
well, you're robbing God.
'Cause the tithe belongs to the Lord.
Look at verse 31, "And if a man will at all redeem
"all of his tithes, he shall add there
"to the fifth part thereof."
And so obviously back then they had cattle
and they tithed on their harvest fruits and vegetables
and corn and barkley.
So this one's saying, you know,
if there's someone back then, they really loved their cow.
You know, they had this cow that they named it.
They really loved this cow.
It's really precious onto them.
And they don't wanna, you know, give that cow to the Lord.
What they could do is they could keep that cow
and basically they would value or estimate,
say it's a thousand dollars worth for that cattle.
They would add a fifth, so they would add 200
and then give 1200 as their tithe.
Okay, that's what that's saying there.
Verse 32, and concerning the tithe of the herd
or the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod,
the 10th shall be holy onto the Lord.
So what is the tithe?
It's 10%.
The tithe is 10% of your increase.
That's what it says here in verse 32,
the 10th shall be holy onto the Lord.
Go with you with the Proverbs chapter three,
Proverbs chapter three.
I'm gonna read to you from Deuteronomy 14 22.
It says there, thou shall truly tithe all the increase
of thy seed that the field bringeth forth year by year.
So we just established that tithe is 10%.
Well, 10% of what?
It's 10% of your increase.
Whatever God has increased you with,
when your goods multiply, when your substance increase,
you tithe on your increase, 10% of your increase.
Look at Proverbs chapter three,
you're in Proverbs, look at chapter three, verse nine.
It says honor the Lord with thy substance.
That's talking about tithing.
And with the first fruits of all thy increase,
so shall thy barns be filled with plenty
and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.
And so it says here to honor the Lord with thy substance
and with the first fruits.
So not only are we tithing on our increase,
but I believe based on this verse here,
we need to tithe off our first fruits.
And so that's the first 10%.
And so what I believe here
is that we should tithe on our gross, okay?
So you men that go out to work,
when you get your paycheck,
I know today it's like direct deposit,
but I believe that we should tithe on our gross.
You know, the Bible talks about the first fruits,
the first links, okay?
And so we should tithe on the top 10% of what God gives us.
It says here, the first fruits,
go through it to Nehemiah chapter 10, Nehemiah chapter 10.
The first 10%, God command them of their harvest,
the first 10% of their cattle, the first open the womb,
the first fruits of that labor, the first born,
and you're giving God the preeminence, okay?
Now it's not God's fault that our wicked government
takes their money by force from our paycheck, okay?
It's not God's fault that our government,
they take their federal tax and they take the social security
and they take the 401k and they take the health insurance
and they take that by force out of our money
and then they give us the rest, okay?
Because the government taxes you on your gross, don't they?
The government, they take their tax from the gross.
And a lot of these things,
a lot of these deductions benefit us.
If you have health insurance, that's deducted
from your gross and that's something that you benefit from.
If you have a 401k, okay, well that gets deducted
from your paycheck and you benefit from that.
Social security, things like that.
And so we should not give the government the preeminence,
right, we should give God the preeminence.
We should give God the first 10%.
We should tie it off our gross.
And you know, if we're not, then we're kind of robbing God.
'Cause thinking about this, what if you get paid,
say you get paid $1,000 a week, okay?
And the government automatically takes 20%.
They take 200 to cover whatever taxes
and whatever else they robbed from us.
And then you tithe off that 800, right?
10% of 800 is 80, so then you give 80 to God.
But you know, actually you robbed God of $20
because you should have tithed 10% on $1,000
and you should have gave God 100, okay?
And so I didn't always know this.
You know, I heard a sermon on this,
I preach on this, and you know, it makes sense, right?
We should give God the preeminence.
We should tithe on our gross.
And really, you know, it's a couple of dollars.
Why you gotta be so cheap?
Why do you have to be such a Jew with your money
and, you know, and just rob God?
Is it really worth robbing God, you know, a couple of dollars?
You know, I'd rather live off 90% with God blessing me
than live off 100% and have God curse me
and send the devourer like we'll see here, okay?
And so, you know, tithe shows your heart.
You know, where's your heart?
Is your heart loving mummy, loving money,
loving the unrighteous mammon of this world, right?
Because, you know, it's an honor to tithe unto the Lord.
It belongs to him anyway.
Especially a church like this, you know,
when we tithe, we're furthering the work
that this church can do for the Lord, right?
And because, you know,
obviously there's bills to be paid, right?
The mortgage, the power bill, the water bill,
things like that.
And so, you know, tithing furthers the work of the Lord
that this church can do.
When people don't tithe, you know,
this church will do less for God.
Okay, look at Nehemiah, look at chapter 10 of Nehemiah.
And, you know, even in the New Testament,
Jesus Christ rebukes the Pharisees,
but he tells them that how they tithe on mint,
anise, and cumin.
And he says, these things, all you have done,
but not left the others undone,
judgment, mercy, and the law.
Okay, so he says, hey, you did good
that you tithed on all this stuff,
but your issue was you didn't observe
the other commandments.
And so tithing has not been done away with.
You know, a lot of the people that attack tithing
are the same people that attack church.
And there are these home church crowd
where they don't believe in a pastor,
they don't believe in a church.
They just kind of get together at Starbucks
and have their little church service, you know?
Look at Nehemiah chapter 10, look at verse 35.
Nehemiah chapter 10, look at verse 35.
"And to bring the first fruits of your ground."
I want you to notice the word first fruits,
first born in these verses here.
"And to bring the first fruits of our ground
"and the first fruits of all fruits,
"of all trees, year by year onto the house of the Lord,
"also the first born of your sons and of our cattle,
"as it is written in the law,
"and the first links of your herds and of your flocks
"to bring to the house of our God,
"onto the priest, the minister,
"that minister in the house of God,
"and that we should bring the first fruits of our dough,"
that's our money right there,
"and our offerings, and the fruit of all manner of trees,
"of wine and of oil, onto the priest,
"to the chambers of the house of our God,
"and the tides of our grant unto the Levites,
"that the same Levites might have the tides
"in all the cities of our tillage.
"And the priest, the son of Aaron,
"shall be with the Levites,
"when the Levites take tides,
"and the Levites shall bring up the tides of the tides
"unto the house of our God,
"to the chambers, into the treasury."
So everyone's tithing.
Even the priests are tithing off the tithe that they get.
And so we see here that God emphasizes the firstfruits,
the firstborn, the firstlings.
We should tithe off of our increase.
You know, when you get a job,
they tell you, hey, this is what you're gonna make a year,
or this is what you're gonna make an hour.
Well, you should tithe on that.
Why are you gonna make all these other deductions
and then tithe God off the rest?
Well, then maybe I should deduct my power bill.
You know, maybe I should deduct my water bill on my house
and then tithe off whatever's left.
That wouldn't be right.
I need to tithe off of my first fruits, right?
First links, first born.
You know, I believe God wants us here
to tithe on our gross, on everything that we make.
All our increase, we should tithe on that.
Right, you're in Nehemiah.
Look at Nehemiah chapter 13.
Nehemiah chapter 13.
Just flip over a couple of pages.
Nehemiah 13, look at verse 10.
So just like this woman, this poor widow
casting all that she had,
number one, we should cast in all our talents
to be used of God.
Number two, we should cast in all our tithes
to be used of the Lord, to the house of God.
Look at Nehemiah 13, look at verse 10.
And I perceived that the portions of the Levites
had not been given them.
This is talking about tithing.
In this story here, the people were not tithing.
The Levites weren't getting their portion
'cause the tithe went to the Levites.
And I perceived that the portion of the Levites
had not been given them for the Levites
and the singers that did the work
were fled, everyone to his field.
So obviously, you know, the Levites here,
they received the tithe and that's how they lived.
That's how they survived.
That's how they fed themselves
and their families from the tithe.
But when the people didn't tithe, the Levites left.
The Bible says here, they fled everyone to his field.
So they had to go work.
You know, people aren't tithing.
The house of God just stopped, right?
It was in shambles.
It was in repair and the Levites fled.
They all went to their field
and they have to work to provide, right?
They gotta eat, they gotta provide for their families.
Okay?
And so they have to make a living.
And so when we're not tithing,
the house of God is gonna cease.
You know, I mean, we're gonna do less for God
if we're not tithing.
Look at verse 11.
"Then contended is Nehemiah.
"Then contended I with the rulers and said,
"'Why is the house of God forsaken?'
"And I gathered them together and set them in their place.
"Then brought all Judah the tithe of the corn
"and the new wine and the oil onto the treasuries."
So we see here when the people of God,
when they stopped tithing,
the Bible says that the house of God was forsaken.
The Levites left.
They all went to do their own job out in the field.
The house of God was forsaken.
It fell in shambles and needed repair
and the work of God ceased.
So we see how important tithing is, right?
If we don't tithe, the church is gonna do less for God.
It's not gonna do as much as it can for God.
You think about this church is a great church.
There's a lot of things that we do here for God.
You think about the Bahamas mission strip
that this church went on here a couple of months ago.
I mean, that was a great work that we did for God, right?
Tons of people got saved.
I think almost a thousand people got saved
and a lot of people flew over there
and got tons of people saved, kids and schools and all that.
But you know, all that costs a lot of money.
Think about all the airline tickets, the reservations,
the hotels, right, the food over there, right?
All that costs money, okay?
And so that could not have been done without us tithing.
And so we're all gonna be partakers of that.
We're all gonna get rewarded for that.
You know, everybody that went is gonna get rewarded,
but everyone that stays is gonna get rewarded.
Everyone that tithes is gonna get rewarded for that.
Okay, 'cause your money went to finance that trip.
You know, it was a great thing
that some of the mothers and the ladies,
they stayed back and watched the children.
'Cause if the ladies didn't stay and watch the children,
some of the men couldn't go out and go to that trip.
And so we're all gonna get rewarded together.
Just like that story with David,
when some of the men stayed by the stuff
and some went to war, but they all got rewarded together.
And so as a church, when we tithe
and we do these great things for God,
we're all gonna get rewarded.
Whether we went on the trip,
whether we stayed and watched,
the moms in here that stayed and watched the children,
that's a great thing 'cause a lot of times
when I go out sowing, it's very hot outside.
I can't necessarily take all my kids with me.
And so it's just a great help
when my wife can stay back and watch the children.
'Cause if she's not able to do that, I can't go sowing.
I can't take all four of my kids with me
and necessarily go sowing like that.
So even the wives in here,
it's a great thing when you can help out,
help your husband out, watch the children,
so that the men can go out sowing and vice versa.
The men can stay back and watch the children
once a year or so, and we can let the kids go out,
you know, the moms go out sowing.
All right, so, and then go to Malachi chapter three,
Malachi chapter three, and look at verse eight.
Malachi chapter three, look at verse eight.
And I remember reading Malachi three,
and really just, it kind of hit me
that tithing is really important,
'cause tithing really shows your heart.
You know, are you really trusting God?
Do you love God?
You just said, if you love me, keep my commandments.
And tithing is a command, you know,
and so if we love God, and tithing really, you know,
helps exercise our faith that we're trusting God.
We believe that we can live off 90% more than,
you know, 100%.
We can live better with 90 than with 100
because we're tithing, we're gonna be blessed by God.
Look at Malachi chapter three, look at verse eight.
Will a man rob God?
Yet ye have robbed me, but ye say, wherein have we robbed thee
in tithes and offerings?
Ye are cursed with a curse,
for ye have robbed me even this whole nation.
So you see here that when we don't tithe,
not only are we robbing God, but God is cursing us.
You know, there's a lot of curses in the Bible.
You know, Deuteronomy 28 has a lot more curses
than blessings.
And you know, I don't want to be cursed by God.
You know, the creator, the one who created us,
the one who died on the cross for our sins,
you know, just created this universe.
I don't want to be cursed by God.
Just over a few bucks, a few dollars, right?
Ye are cursed with a curse,
for ye have robbed me even this whole nation.
You say, why did I rob God?
Because the tithe belongs to God.
And so when we're holding back on a tithe,
we're robbing God because it belongs to him.
Look at verse 10, bring ye all the tithes
into the storehouse, that there may be meat into mine house.
And prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts,
if I will not open you the windows of heaven
and pour you out a blessing,
that there should not be room enough to receive it.
And so we see here that when we do tithe,
God's gonna bless us.
And God even says, prove me, tithe and prove me
whether I'll open up the windows of heaven and bless you.
And so on the other hand, when we do tithe,
God's gonna bless us.
He's gonna multiply.
He's gonna make us be able to do more with what we have.
Sometimes you get paid and your money just vanishes.
You get all these bills, all these things
pop up out of nowhere.
And like I look at my bank accounts, like negative.
I'm getting emails from my bank,
like, hey, you're checking accounts super low.
You need to add some more money.
I'm thinking, man, where'd all the money go?
Look at verse 11.
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes,
and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground.
Neither shall your vine cast her fruit
before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.
So it talks about your crops going to waste,
your money go to waste,
and all nations shall call you blessed,
for ye shall be delightsome land,
or delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.
So we see here that if we don't tithe also,
God's gonna send the devourer.
That doesn't sound like something good, right?
It sounds like a curse.
And like I mentioned, you think about all the things
that could come up in life, right?
I just had to change my alternator on my car,
and it cost me $900.
I remember alternators were like $150 years ago,
but $900, it was like $450 for the alternator,
and it took, you know, $450 for labor.
And so you can think of all the things that pop up.
What if on your house, you know, your AC just goes out?
You know, and we all live in like an inferno outside,
and it's like 100 and something.
I don't really get why people like the heat.
People say they like the hot weather,
because, you know, God uses heat as torment.
You know, hell is hot.
And so God didn't create like an Alaska in hell
where he torments you with like frostbites
and your fingers fall off,
'cause it's like minus 100 degrees.
You know, God uses heat as a torment.
And so we need AC.
And so, you know, if your AC goes out at your house,
how much is that?
I don't know, eight, nine, 10 grand for a new AC unit.
What if your roof starts leaking at your house?
I mean, that's like 15 grand there for a new roof.
Health issues.
I had a really bad stomach bug, you know,
a couple of years ago, I went to this urgent care
and they charged me $3,000, you know,
just for being there for a couple of hours.
You know, so we can have all these issues pop up,
you know, health issues, medical bills,
things that could just, God will send a devour
and we'll just devour your money.
Or if you do tithe, God can bless your money
and stretch it and you could do more with it.
Where nothing will ever happen to your car,
you know, and your house will be in good shape.
I'm not saying that, and also I'm not saying,
you don't want to take this the wrong way
and say, well, if things go bad,
that means I'm doing something wrong.
'Cause think about Joe.
The Bible says he was a righteous man.
He went through some struggles,
but that's not because he was wicked or anything.
But in general, you know, the Bible says here
that God will bless us when we tithe
and he'll curse us if we don't tithe.
You say, well, brother Joe, I don't make that much money.
You know, I make minimum wage.
Okay, well, your tithe's not gonna be that much anyway
'cause it's a percentage, so it's 10%.
So God didn't give us a certain number,
he gave us a percentage.
So if you don't make much, your tithe won't be much, okay?
So point number one,
casting all our talents onto the Lord.
Point number two, cast our tithe onto the Lord,
tithe on our gross.
Point number three, let's cast all our time,
the time that we have to the Lord.
And you know, how about church time?
How about saying, hey, I'm gonna cast in
all three services onto the Lord.
I'm gonna make sure that I come to church with my family,
Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.
How about casting in your Bible time,
Bible reading time to the Lord,
and say, hey, I'm gonna dedicate every day
to read the Bible every day.
You know, I'm gonna cast that into the Lord.
How about sowing time?
Hey, I'm gonna go sowing.
That sowing time, I'm gonna casting into the Lord.
I'm gonna make sure I go sowing every week.
How about family devotional time?
You know, just spending time with your family.
That's time that you're casting into the Lord.
You know, it's easy for us as men to come home from work
and we're tired, we've been out in the heat all day.
You know, and to just kind of come home and just relax,
lay on the couch and just, you know, go on social media
and just not really spend time.
You think about it, our wives need us
to spend time with them.
You know, a lot of times our wives,
they've been home with the kids all day, you know,
and they need some adult conversation with us
when we come home.
They need some deep conversation.
Now us men, we kind of struggle with deep conversation.
I'm still not sure what that is yet,
but you know, we need to have like a deep conversation
with our wives, you know, talk about things that they like,
stuff like that.
So, you know, they need us men to talk to them,
spend time with them.
You know, my wife loves when I spend time with the kids.
You know, I noticed that when I spend time with the kids,
it makes my wife a lot happier.
Sometimes our wives just wants us to spend time
with our children.
You know, and that could be hard
when we're coming after work and we're tired,
but hey, why don't you devote that time
with your family onto the Lord and say,
hey, when I come home from work, no matter how tired I am,
I'm gonna spend time with my wife.
I'm gonna help her out.
I'm gonna talk to her.
I'm gonna spend time with my kids.
Hey, bring out a board game.
Play a board game with your kids.
You know, spend some time with your wife.
Also, going to work, right?
Going to work as men, we should work as unto the Lord.
We should make sure that when we're at work,
we're casting that time to the Lord.
And we should make sure
that we're not slacking off at the job.
We're not milking the clock.
We're working our hardest.
We're doing what we can
as if we're working unto the Lord, okay?
The Bible says in James 4, 14, it says,
"Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow,
"for what is your life?
"It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time
"and then vanishes away."
The Bible says in Ephesians 5, "Redeeming the time
"because the days are evil."
The Bible says in Psalm 90, "So teach us to number our days
"that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."
Go through with Ecclesiastes chapter 12.
Ecclesiastes chapter 12, so point number one,
casting all our talents onto the Lord,
just like this poor widow,
casting all that she had to the Lord.
Let's cast in all our talents, all of our abilities,
all of our gifts onto the Lord.
Point number two, let's cast in all our tithe.
Let's cast our tithe in onto the Lord.
And then point number three, let's cast in all our time
that we have onto the Lord.
You say, "Well, Brother Joe, I don't have a lot of time.
I work 10 hours a day.
I work 60, 70 hours a week."
Okay, the Bible says that if there be first a willing mind,
it is accepted according to that a man hath
and not according to that he hath not.
God's not gonna ask you to give something
that you don't have.
Whatever time you do have,
maybe you only have 30 minutes for sowing.
Hey, show for those 30 minutes.
Maybe you can only come Wednesday
before church for sowing for an hour.
Hey, do that.
Whatever time you have, just cast it to the Lord.
Look at Ecclesiastes chapter 12, look at verse one.
The Bible says here,
"Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth,
while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh,
when thou shalt say, 'I have no pleasure in them.'"
So the Bible says here,
"Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth."
Remember now thy creator.
And this is a message for the children in here,
the teenagers, the young adults.
Young adults, serve God in your youth.
Serve God while you're young.
Serve God while you're young, and you're strong,
and you're able.
Serve God now.
Don't wait until you're older to serve God.
Serve God now while you're young.
You teenagers in here, the young men, young women in here,
serve God while you're young.
Go out sewing with your parents.
Read your Bible at home.
Memorize the weekly verses, right?
Serve God.
If you invest into God your younger years,
you're gonna be rewarded for that your whole life.
Okay, some of us got saved when we were older.
I got saved when I was 27 years old.
I wish I would have gotten saved when I was younger.
I wish I grew up in a church like this when I was younger.
You know, and so you children in here, you teenagers, serve God in your youth.
Okay, and you should have your own walk with God.
Don't just rely on your parents telling you to go read the Bible or your dad telling you
to do this, memorize this.
Hey, you should have your own walk with God when you wake up.
You know, read the Bible, pray to God, you should have your own walk with God.
Serve God while you're young.
We talked about the first fruits and the tithe.
What about giving God the best years of our life?
You know, what about serving God while we're young, right?
What about serving God when we're strong and we're able and we have the energy and the
stamina to go out in the heat and serve God?
Because, you know, the Bible says here, "While the evil days come not, nor the years draw
nigh, we now shall say, 'Have no pleasure in them.'"
You know, I hate to break it to us, but, you know, we're going to get old one day.
And the Bible says here we're not going to have no pleasure in our older years.
You know, as people age, when people live to like 80s and 90s, they're really just ready
to be with the Lord.
You know, a lot of times as we get older, we have a lot of health issues and aches and
pains. We don't have the ability. You know, when you're 80 and 90, you might not necessarily
be able to go out in the heat and go sewing. And the Bible says here that you have no pleasure
in them. You know, when people get this old, they really don't have much pleasure in the
latter years of life. They're ready to kind of die and be with the Lord. And so why not
give the best years of your life in your youth, why not give those to God? Don't put off a
serving God when you're young. Don't waste your younger years. You children, you teenagers,
don't waste your young years on video games, on just vanity, you know, serve God while
you're young. You'll be rewarded for that your whole life. And it says, you remember
now that I creator also, you know, get saved at a young age, right? You young teenagers
in here, young children, you know, listen to the gospel from your parents, listen to
pastor preach the gospel up here, get saved at a young age. And when you get saved, get
baptized. Don't put off baptism. Once you get saved, you know, get baptized. Look at
verse two, Ecclesiastes chapter 12, little verse two, it says, while the sun or the light
or the moon or the stars be not darkened nor the clouds return after the rain. What is
this talking about? It's talking about, you know, as we get older, you know, our eyesight
gets weaker or older people tend to have weaker eyesight. Everything gets dim. They can't
see as well. Right. I know, I know my eyesight is very bad. I can't see far away. I went
to get the laser surgery, but they told me I couldn't because I don't know something's
wrong with my eyes. My cornea is really thin and I couldn't get it. And so now, you know,
I'm stuck wearing glasses my whole life. But you know, it says here, when we get older,
we're not going to see as well. Okay. You think about Isaac in the Old Testament. The
Bible says that his eyes were dim. That's how Esau was able to deceive him because he
couldn't see as well. So the God, God is just showing us here, Hey, when we get older, we're
not going to be able to serve God as much as we're when we're younger. So give your
younger years, give your first years onto the Lord. Serve God when you're young. Remember
now that creator in my youth, look at verse three and the days when the keepers of the
house shall tremble. What's that talking about? You know, when people get older, they kind
of, they, they start trembling their muscles. They have old man shaking hands, right? Their,
their shoulders, the keepers of the house. Uh, they start to tremble, right? Their muscles
tremble, they get the shakes and the strong men shall bow themselves. You know, a lot
of times when people get older, uh, their back is hunched over. They kind of lean forward.
I have a really old neighbor and you know, that's how he walks with a cane and he's
leaning forward. You know, they bow themselves, they lean forward. So you're not able to
walk as well. You're not going to be able to go out sewing when you're older. And then
it talks about here and the grinders cease because they are few. What's that talking
about? Talking about our teeth. And as we get older, we're going to lose all our teeth,
right? And so the grinders shall cease and those that look out of the windows be dark
and talk again, talking about your eyesight. So, I mean, everything's just going away.
Your teeth, your eyes, uh, when you get older, your muscles. Okay. Look at verse four and
the doors shall be shut in the streets when the sound of the grinding is low and he shall
rise up at the voice of the bird. What is this talking about here? Well, you know, old
people, they don't sleep very well. Old people don't get eight hours of sleep and they wake
up at every, every little noise. You know, it's talks here about the bird, the voice
of the bird. They rise up. I know, you know, my dad was, uh, it's pretty up there in age
and he'll wake up like every couple of hours. They don't sleep well. They toss and turn,
you know, and old people wake up really early. They tend to wake up like four or five AM.
You don't sleep as well when you get older. I know it's very, very depressing, but uh,
that's life. Look at verse five, I'm sorry, the verse four and all the daughters of music
shall be brought low. What's it talking about? So about our hearing. Also, as you get older,
your hearing is not as well kind of get a little bit deaf. You can't hear as well. Do
you know what it says here? Those of music shall be brought low. So you get older, you
can't see, you can't hear, you can't walk, right? Why put off serving God when you're
old? Why not serve God when you're young? Look at verse five. Also when they shall be
afraid of that, which is high and fear shall be in the way. You notice when the older people
get, the more fearful they are, right? Old people kind of tend to be afraid of heights.
Even when you're young, you're not really afraid of heights, but as you get older, you
get more fearful. Older people are not necessarily as risky as younger people. They're not going
to take risks. They're not going to go on some rollercoaster in general. The older you
get, the more fearful you get. The more cautious, and the almond tree shall flourish and the
grasshopper shall be a burden and desire shall fail. Desire, so we all know what that's
talking about. It's all downhill after that. What's the point of living after that really?
Because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. Or ever the
silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the
fountain, or the wheel be broken at the cistern, then shall the dust return to the earth as
it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Vanity of vanity, say the preacher.
All is vanity. What's the point of this in Ecclesiastes here is that we're all going
to die one day. And if we live to be really old, 70, 80, 90, we're going to basically
just all our muscles, our eyes that are hearing is just not going to be as it was in our youth.
So what's the point of this? Remember now that creator in thy youth. Serve God with
your best years of your life. Serve God while you're young. Serve God while you're able,
while you have the strength and the stamina to serve God. Because the older we get, the
less we're going to be able to do with God. And so just like this poor widow, cast in
all that she had, even all her living, let's cast in our talents, our abilities, our gifts.
Let's cast in all of our tithe and let's cast in all of our time. Remember now that Creator
in the days of thy youth. Let's pray. Thank you Lord for this church. Thank you Lord for
this story here about the poor widow that we can learn so much. Lord, help us to give
us the faith that this poor widow had to be able to cast in all that she had. Lord, help
us to cast in all our talents, all our time and all our tithe to you Lord. And I pray
Lord that you would bless the soul in here later coming up. And in Jesus name I pray.
Amen. In closing, let's go to song number 293. Song number 293. Song number 293 is your
all on the altar. Song number 293. Alright, sing it out real loud in the first. You have
longed for sweet peace and for faith to increase and have earnestly fervently prayed. But you
cannot have rest or be perfectly bled until all the altar is laid. It is your all that
is laid. Speak and ask to from all till our intelligence shall share.