Men, turn if you would in your Bible to Ezekiel chapter 33.
We're going to come back to James chapter 1, but I want to talk about the end of Ezekiel
chapter 33.
I had skipped this the other day because we ran out of time, and I'm going to tie this
in with what we see there in James chapter 1.
The title of my sermon tonight is, Be Doers of the Word.
Be doers of the word.
The Bible said in James there, be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving
your own selves.
Look what the Bible says in Ezekiel chapter 33 beginning in verse number 30.
The Bible reads, Also thou son of man, the children of thy people still are talking against
thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one
to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth
from the Lord.
And they come unto thee as the people, and they sit before thee as my people, and they
hear thy words, but they will not do them.
For with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.
And look at this, verse 32, this is kind of the key verse.
And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice and
can play well on an instrument, for they hear thy words, and then this is reiterated, but
they do them not.
So the idea here in this verse is that some people listen to preaching as entertainment,
but they're not actually serious about doing what they hear in that sermon or actually
doing the Word of God.
There were people that would come to Ezekiel and listen to his preaching.
They wanted to hear what he had to say.
They'd even fellowship with other people and say, Hey, let's go hear what Ezekiel has to
say.
And listen to what Ezekiel has to say.
But in their heart, they actually were more interested in the things of this world.
Their heart was going after their covetousness of just wanting money or just whatever pleasures
this world has to offer.
They weren't really serious about serving God.
They didn't really love Ezekiel, they didn't really love the Lord, but they just enjoyed
the preaching.
And we want to make sure that we as Christians never fall into that trap where we're going
to church and we're showing up and we're sitting before the Lord as his people as it
says here, but we're not actually serious about doing the work or actually doing the
sermon that we heard.
A lot of people are listening to preaching as entertainment.
I think that's great because I do the same thing.
I remember when I was a young man doing fire alarms and I was able to listen to headphones
on a lot of job sites because usually there'd be some boombox playing some stuff that I
didn't want to listen to.
So I'd have my headphones on and I'd listen to preaching for hours and it just made the
day go by.
I'm learning the Bible, I'm enjoying listening to the preaching.
You know, when you love the word of God, preaching can be entertaining and so that's great, but
you don't want it to become just entertainment or just, oh man, I love to hear so and so
the preacher just really rip face and he really preaches hard and it's so good.
Make sure that you're actually applying the preaching to your life and actually being
a doer of the word and not just a hearer of the word.
Not like these people were listening to Ezekiel preach was just sort of like watching TV for
them or just listening to music or something, something that they just enjoyed listening
to like a radio program or a podcast or something.
No, no, it's the word of God.
We need to be doers of the word.
Now go if you would to James chapter one and by the way, this is why some people, they
really just love preaching say against the preacher of rapture or against the sodomites
or whatever because it doesn't actually require them to do anything if you think about it.
Now look, I'm glad, I hope that you love those subjects.
I love preaching on those subjects, but we also need to love the preaching on subjects
that actually require us to do something.
You know, if the preaching is about being a good husband or being a good wife or obeying
your parents or working hard at your job, we need to love those kinds of practical sermons
too.
And there are a couple of different kinds of preaching.
I mean, some preaching is just doctrinal preaching.
Other preaching is really practical preaching, kind of telling you, hey, this is how we need
to be living our lives.
And then there's the doctrinal preaching, which doesn't necessarily require you to do
anything, but it's just teaching you doctrine.
And they're both super important.
Some people could make the mistake and go the other way.
All they want is the practical stuff.
And they're neglecting the doctrine of Christ and important teachings from the word of God.
We want to make sure that we're well-rounded as Christians.
But yeah, it's pretty easy to come to church and shout amen as the pastor just completely
chews up and spits out the preacher of rapture and those who teach it.
That's pretty easy.
Or it's pretty easy to go to church and the pastor's ripping on the sodomites because
that doesn't really require you to do anything because you weren't into dudes in the first
place.
You know, so you didn't really need Pastor Anderson to tell you, hey, you know, it's
a man with a woman, people, you know, so it's pretty easy to listen to that kind of preaching
in a sense.
We need to make sure that we actually want to hear all the counsel of God, the whole
Bible, and that we're willing to act on what we hear and actually do something that carries
over into our personal lives on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, not just be a hearer of the word
but be a doer of the word.
So it says in James 1 verse 22, be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your
own selves.
For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like unto a man beholding his
natural face in a glass, for he beholdeth himself and goeth his way and straightway
forgetteth what manner of man he was.
Now, the Christian life is not just only about knowing all the right doctrine and having
all the right beliefs and crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's of what we believe.
Now that's really important, obviously, but the Christian life is more to that.
It's also about putting those things into action.
Now some people might think that they're really good at just knowing all the doctrine and
they have all of that information even though they're not really doing the work.
But according to the Bible, in order to be the most knowledgeable, you also have to be
the doer of the word because the Bible says that if you hear the word of God and you don't
actually put it into practice, you are what the Bible calls a forgetful hearer.
You're going to forget what the Bible says.
The way that you retain the doctrines of the Bible is by using them, okay, and it's just
like anything else.
If you went to school and learned a bunch of stuff that you never actually used in your
life, you're going to forget it, aren't you?
I guarantee you there are tons of people in here that took Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry,
Pre-Calculus, maybe even went on to Calculus and everything, but you could not do any of
those problems to save your life.
Back then you could, but you might have gone 5 years, 10 years, 15 years without actually
using it.
Even if someone gave you a refresher on it and just said, hey, by the way, I just want
to remind you that the quadratic formula is negative b plus or minus the square root of
b squared minus 4ac divided by 2a, I just want to remind you of that.
You're like, oh yeah, that's right, that's what that is.
Unless you actually start using that to solve quadratic equations, it's going to be meaningless
to you.
This is why some people, they might be able to hear the Bible preached over and over again
and things don't really sink in.
They don't necessarily retain or actually understand the word of God on a more visceral
level from actually doing it.
Think about the fact that when we go soul winning, we're talking about salvation the
whole time because when we go out knocking doors, that's what we're talking about, the
Gospel, salvation.
So we end up using a lot of the same verses and we're going to verses about salvation
by faith, not of works and we all have those verses memorized without even trying.
We don't have to set out to memorize those if we've been out soul winning a lot and the
more you go soul winning, the more you use those verses and you kind of get in conversations
with Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, whoever and you might even learn peripheral
verses really well because you're using them to talk to those kind of people and it's like
you know those verses and those passages on a different level because you use them
and that's the way the whole Bible is.
Anytime we take something in the Bible and teach it to someone else or anytime we take
something in the Bible and say, you know what, I'm going to start doing that in my personal
life, that's where the real learning happens and that's why I think that these theologians
who aren't actually out in the field doing soul winning and actually dealing with the
common man, I don't think that they know the Bible as well as they think they do.
They think they're super smart and they just, they spend all day studying and maybe by your
logic you would think, well if you just spent all day studying, you're going to be super
knowledgeable but I submit to you that if you spend some of the day studying and some
of the day actually out doing the work, you're going to be more knowledgeable than the guy
who spent the whole day just studying.
If you have that mix of learning and studying and then actually putting it into practice
and a lot of these theologians and scholars, many of them self-styled with fake PhDs from
diploma mills where you mail in box tops and money and whatever, you know, the point is
that a lot of these self-styled scholars and theologians, you know, they're not doing the
work.
They're not as smart as you think they are, folks.
And in fact, Joe Church member without any formal training who's actually just reading
his Bible a lot and then actually doing it in his personal life, he's helping people,
he's winning souls, he's encouraging the brethren, he's living it in his daily life,
it's actually going to have better doctrine and no more than the guy whose life is just
dedicated to just study.
No, we need to have the balance of actually input and output, right, and working.
And it's not just the word of God, everything in life is like this but God here is focused
of course on our religion.
He says in verse 25, but whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth
therein, he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed
in his deed.
So there's two kinds of people, forgetful hearers and doers of the work.
You got to do the work if you really want to retain and learn these things.
Don't just be a hearer of the word, be a doer.
And then it says at the end in verse 27, pure religion and undefiled before God and the
Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself
unspotted from the world.
Now you might think if you hadn't read that verse that pure religion would be crossing
every doctrinal T and dotting every doctrinal I, which obviously I'm not downplaying the
importance of having right doctrine because that is super important as well.
But we want to make sure that that's not all our religion is about, just a creed of what
we believe, but rather religion is about getting out in the field and doing the word
of God and actually visiting the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, actually
helping other people, doing work for the Lord and keeping yourself unspotted from the world.
That's another thing.
A lot of the preaching that we hear is preaching against sin.
A lot of the preaching Ezekiel did, he was preaching against sin.
How do we respond to that preaching against sin?
Yeah, we enjoy listening to the pastor maybe rip some face on sins that don't apply to
us because we weren't going to snort cocaine anyway.
We weren't, you know, we weren't going to do some of these things, but what about when
the preaching hits where we live?
We need to be ready to put that into practice as well and keep ourselves unspotted from
the world because let's face it, we're living in a sinful world and we're constantly around
things that are wrong and we need to make sure that those things don't blemish us and
rub off on us so that we become spotted by this world.
You know, it's like picture it as if we're wearing white clothing and we're surrounded
by a bunch of soot and dirt and everything, and we're trying to keep that stuff clean,
right?
And obviously that's going to take effort to stay clean in an unclean generation, in
an unclean society.
So if you would flip over to Colossians chapter three, Colossians chapter number three, and
I return to Colossians three, I want to bring up another example about being a hearer of
the word.
It always kind of cracks me up whenever I read Luke chapter 13 and I used to kind of
not understand this passage until I had people say this to me almost verbatim where basically
Jesus is talking about how in the last day, it's kind of a parallel passage with Matthew
seven, how many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, if we not prophesied in thy name
and in thy name have cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works, and
then Jesus will profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me that were iniquity.
And so it's kind of a parallel passage with that where the disciples are asking Jesus,
are there few that be saved?
And the short answer is yes.
Most people are not saved, broad is the way that leads to destruction.
But he talks about people where it's too late, they want to be saved, but it's too late for
them.
And it's sort of like in Matthew seven where they're saying, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in thy name and all that.
But in the parallel passage in Luke 13 verse 26 it says, then shall you begin to say, we've
eaten and drunk in thy presence and thou hast taught in our streets.
So in this passage, instead of the people saying, we did all these works, they're saying,
we ate and drunk in your presence and thou hast taught in our streets.
And I'm thinking to myself, what in the world would that give you any credit or why are
you thinking that you're going to heaven or you're saved because you ate food in the
presence of Jesus or listen to him preaching?
You know, I mean, that's what they're saying, right?
We ate and drunk in your presence and you've taught in our streets.
But like, I've literally had people say to me, I've listened to hundreds of hours, like,
you owe me something now because I listened to you preach.
And I'm thinking to myself like, what?
How does that work?
What benefit did I get from you listening to my preaching?
I hope that you were benefited by listening to my preaching because I hope that the word
of God through the power of the Holy Spirit did a work in your heart and edified you and
helped you grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.
But it's kind of a one way valve, you know, that I hope that my preaching helps you, but
I don't actually get helped by you listening to my preaching or eating food that I serve
or something.
You know what I mean?
But that's how people think and it doesn't make any sense, but that's how people think.
But notice what they're saying.
You know, we've eaten and drunk in your presence and thou has taught in our streets.
They're like, Jesus, we were there when you preached.
We heard you preach, but were they saved?
No, they weren't.
They heard the message, but they weren't saved.
And if you stop and think about it, obviously salvation is not by works.
The Bible says it's not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy,
he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.
The Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith and the not of yourselves as
the gift of God, not of works as any man should boast.
Obviously salvation's not by works, but you do have to do something to be saved.
You have to believe in Jesus.
That's a do right there.
Now a lot of people will go to this Calvinistic extreme of like, you don't have to do anything.
You know, it's just, it's all done.
And basically Jesus has already picked, you know, before the foundation of the world and
all this stuff.
But that's not what the Bible teaches.
This is not a sermon against Calvinism, so I'm not going to elaborate on that.
And I know that, you know, 99% of us know that Calvinism is baloney.
But the point is, you do have to do something to be saved.
You don't have to do works, but you do have to believe in Jesus.
That's why the Bible says, what must I do to be saved?
Everybody get that word?
What must I do to be saved?
Notice they didn't say nothing.
You're either picked or you're not.
They said, what must I do to be saved?
Believe.
And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in the house.
So it's no effort or work or deeds, but it is believing.
And you do have to take that step of believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you know, the Bible says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
You can't just sit there and just be like, well, Jesus did everything.
You got to be like, okay, I believe that and then call upon the Lord and then you're saved.
Right?
Super easy.
He did all the work.
It's a free gift, but you still have to receive the gift, don't you?
You do have to tear the wrapping paper off the package and that's not considered you
earning or working for the gift, just opening the package.
You open the package by confessing with your mouth the Lord Jesus and by believing in your
heart that God raised him from the dead and then you're saved.
And so these people, they heard the Gospel message, but they did not act on it by receiving
Christ as their savior, by actually calling upon the name of the Lord, by actually putting
their faith and trust in Christ.
And it reminds me of my grandpa with the first time he went to a Baptist church.
My grandpa was raised in a Mormon household and when he was 16 years old he ended up leaving
home in Idaho Falls and hopping on a freight train to Southern California just to start
life as a 16-year-old young man in a new place.
And so thankfully he did not buy into the Mormon doctrine that he was raised with, but
he wasn't a born-again Christian either.
So he came down to Southern California, got a job there at some kind of a factory or some
thing, went off to World War II, came back, got married to my grandma.
Well he married my grandma and my grandma was a saved Baptist actually.
And so she brought him to her church, but the church that she went to is not a great
church because there are people that are saved.
It doesn't mean that they go to a great church, it doesn't mean that their pastor is preaching
a clear Gospel.
So he went to church and it was actually the famous false prophet in Southern California,
one of the worst pastors in America, John MacArthur.
It was his dad that was the pastor of this church in, I don't know if it was Glendale
or Pasadena, it was somewhere in that area.
So my grandpa went to the church with my grandma and the sermon was preached and there was
an invitation given at the end of the sermon to come forward if you wanted to be saved
or something along those lines.
So my grandpa, you know, he gets up out of his chair and he's just like, okay, you know.
He didn't really understand everything, but he just figured, okay, this is what I need
to do, you know, get me saved, let's do it.
So he basically came down the aisle and the pastor took him into his office and he said,
oh, you know, what did you want to talk about today?
And he said, well, you know, I'm coming forward to be saved because I guess maybe it wasn't
clear what the invitation was for, maybe the people that he was visiting with prompted
him to go down the aisle, but the pastor said, what is it that you wanted to talk to me about,
you know?
And he said, well, you know, I want to be saved.
And he said, well, did you hear my sermon today?
Did you listen to everything that I preached?
And he said, yeah.
And he said, well, then you're saved, you know.
And he's just like, okay, cool, you know, like basically it was just kind of like you're
here, you heard everything, but it wasn't like, but he didn't question him on like,
do you believe this?
Like, do you believe that Jesus died for you?
Do you believe this?
You know, there was no, hey, let me help you pray and call upon the name of the Lord.
It was just basically like you're here and you heard the sermon and it spoke to you,
so you're elect, basically, you know, because it was a Calvinist type mentality, just you're
here, you're coming, you heard, you're one of us.
I don't know.
I mean, I wasn't there, but this is the way the story was delivered to me.
And the point is that in order to be saved, no, you have to make a decision, okay?
You have to take that step where you heard the word and then you say, okay, you know
what?
I'll take it and you call upon the name of the Lord.
So then, you know, he walked out of there unsaved and he walked out of there not understanding
the gospel.
So he walked out and said, well, it kind of makes sense that I'm saved because I feel
like I'm just as good of a person as her family and they're all Christians and I'm just like
them so, because he didn't understand that it's by grace through faith, not of works.
He thought it's just about going to church and going through the motions and being a
Christian, quote unquote, with your lifestyle.
And so he ended up thankfully getting saved later at an independent fundamental Baptist
church that actually gave him the gospel and he became a super zealous Christian and everything
like that.
But the first time around, it was a dud because the pastor was a dud.
So that's Calvinism for you.
But anywho, we need to, when we hear the word of God, we need to take action.
When it comes to salvation, you know, someone hears the gospel, they need to take action
and call upon the name of the Lord and actually believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as their
savior and not just listen to it and say that they like it.
They have to actually respond to it.
So what about us though?
I mean, we're already saved, obviously.
The vast majority of people here tonight, I'm sure, are saved.
And so what about us?
You know, when we hear preaching from the word of God, we need to put it into practice
in our lives and actually be doers of the word.
I really like this passage in Colossians chapter 3 because it's so practical.
You know, and this is the kind of preaching that you can immediately apply to your life.
But it says in verse 17 of Colossians chapter 3, And whatsoever you do in word or deed,
do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
And then he starts giving some really practical advice saying, you know, wives, submit yourselves
unto your own husbands as is fit in the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them.
Children, obey your parents and all things for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.
So he starts out saying, hey, whatever you do, do it heartily, do it as unto the Lord.
And whether it's in word or deed, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus.
And then he's getting into practical things in our everyday lives, you know, being a wife,
being a husband, being a child, being a parent, fathers, provoke not your children to anger
lest they be discouraged.
And so, you know, when we hear these kind of things and we hear them preach, it doesn't
do any good if you say that you believe these things and you hear the preaching, maybe even
enjoy sermons on these topics, but if you're not actually doing it.
Because I guarantee you that there are women who come to church and they hear this verse
being preached that says, submit yourselves unto your own husbands.
And they agree with that intellectually and they would even smile and nod when that's
being preached.
But then they get home and they do what?
They start telling their husband what to do.
They don't do what he says.
They're rebellious.
They mouth off to him.
You know, they're not being a doer of the word, you know, and they might even like what
the Bible teaches about marriage and they like the idea of traditional roles of men
and women, but the question is, are they doing it?
Is that what they live in their life?
And then the same thing with the husbands, you know, husbands love your wives.
Obviously, we all agree with that, but you actually need to do that and not be bitter
against them, not be holding a grudge at the times that your wife didn't obey verse number
18, you know.
Verse number 19 is for you not to hold a grudge about that and get bitter about that
afterward.
You know, we need to make sure that we put God's word into practice in our lives.
It says in verse 22, servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh,
not with eye service as men pleasers, but in signals of heart, fearing God.
And then verse 23 really sums it up here, and whatsoever you do, do it heartily, meaning
do it from the heart as to the Lord and not unto men.
You know, I was talking to my teenage son yesterday and he made a really great point.
He said, you know, Dad, because, you know, teenagers, they get mundane jobs, don't they?
Typically teenagers are not going to be put in major management roles or running companies
or doing really necessarily high-end work.
Usually you start out as a teenager doing a really mundane job.
Like I remember, you know, one of my first jobs was working at Round Table Pizza and
the first day I did the dishes.
And I'm just in the scullery for several hours just washing dishes, just nothing but washing
dishes.
And then you're wiping down tables and you're, you know, refreshing the salad bar and you're
doing these things that are just very mundane.
They're not exactly rocket science.
And a lot of teenage jobs are like that, working as a cashier over here or just sweeping the
floor over here.
And, you know, a lot of times people have an attitude that says, well, this job is just
mundane, it's basic, and they don't give it everything that they've got because they don't
take it seriously.
But you know, my son made a great point.
We were talking about this yesterday and he said, you know, if you actually go to your
job, even if it's a really mundane job and even if it's just the lowest end job, but if
you actually go into it with an attitude that says, like, I am going to be the best ever
at this job and I am just going to just hit it out of the park, I'm just going to really
give it everything and just really just blow them away with how well I can do this job.
You know, it actually is, it makes it a fun job.
It could normally be a boring, monotonous job that's meaningless.
Anything, no matter how mundane it is, anything that you do, if you give it everything and
do it the best and excel at it, it can actually become something epic or something great.
Now, a lot of you might be thinking, like, I don't know what you're talking about, but
here's the thing.
Figure out what I'm talking about.
Figure out what I'm talking about because it'll change your life when you actually approach
your life this way, trying to do everything that you do to the fullest and do your best
at it and give it your all.
You can turn something really stupid and mundane into something really amazing by just doing
really well.
And, you know, he gave some examples about, you know, a job that he had worked at where
he was the bottom level of the totem pole, but he still treated the job as important
and really tried to go above and beyond in his customer service.
Like he brought up the example there was this old lady came in and, you know how a lot of
stores have that little cart that they can drive around?
And basically the store he worked at didn't have one.
And this lady was real disappointed because all they had like a wheelchair, but you had
to actually do it with your arms.
You know, you got to move yourself around with the wheelchair.
And so basically he told this lady, he said, listen, he said, I will push you around in
this wheelchair as long as you're in the store, like I'll take you ever.
You know?
So, and I mean, she took a long time shopping and he's just, you know, pushing her around
the store and just doing everything.
You know, it was just like whatever the customer needed, he, he just, he figured out what they
wanted.
He, he gave it to him, you know, and he, and, and the job ended up liking the fact that
he was actually, you know, cause isn't it just so easy to be like, no, sorry grandma,
we don't have it.
You know, time to build some upper body strength, all right?
You know, it's a, it's a lot easier to tell people no, isn't it?
And I remember working with people that had that mentality of just telling everyone no,
or they were always looking for reasons why things can't be done.
You know, or we were in construction and things have to be done in a certain order, you'd
show up at a job site, they'd be just seeking one thing that wasn't done, why we had to
walk away from the job and come back another day.
Instead of just being like, okay, let's do everything else and here's a work around for
that one thing.
It was just like, they're just so happy when they found a reason like, oh, can't do it,
out of here.
Call us when you're ready.
It's so easy to just say no, but we need to say yes, right?
And actually it can be done and let's go above and beyond.
Let's go the extra mile, not like, oh, well that's not my job.
And so, you know, how about just get it done and, and make the boss happy.
You know, the Bible says, servants obey in all things your masters according to the flesh,
not with eye service as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God.
It's not about pleasing man in the end.
It's about pleasing the Lord.
And most people work for someone else.
I know there are some people in here that are a business owner, but the vast majority
of people in here work for someone else.
Most people are an employee and you should be striving to fulfill the will of the boss
or the owner of the company and to make them happy and to do what they want.
Not because they're God, but because they basically represent God.
Because if we love God and obey God, we're going to obey our human authorities as well.
Not necessarily even because we think they're so great or out of respect or reverence for
them, but out of respect and reverence for the Lord.
When we go to our job, we're doing it as unto the Lord and we do it heartily, not as a men
pleaser, not just with eye service like, Hey, is everybody seeing me do this?
But even when the boss isn't looking because the real boss is always looking.
And so you say, well, you know, I don't know about submitting to my husband cause you don't
know my husband.
Hey, do it as unto Christ.
Your husband is Christ.
Okay.
That's the way you should think about it as I'm going to do it for the Lord's sake, even
if I don't respect my husband.
And if you don't respect your husband, shame on you because the Bible commands you to respect
your husband.
It says, see that the wife reverence her husband.
But if you have a bad attitude, you know, shift your focus and think about how, Hey,
I need to do it unto the Lord.
You know, same thing with the husbands.
You know, you, you're having trouble loving your wife.
Then think about the fact that God loves you in spite of all your sins, even though even
your righteousnesses are as filthy rags and we've all sinned and come short of the glory
of God yet God loves us anyway.
So if God can love us in spite of our faults, we need to love our wife in spite of her faults.
That's what the Bible is teaching and wives obviously need to love their husbands in spite
of his faults.
Okay.
And we need to not be bitter against our wives because God's not bitter against us for all
the thousands of sins that we've done in our life and all the times that we said, God,
I'm sorry I did that.
And then we do it again a few days later or weeks later and then, Oh, sorry, I did that.
Do it again.
It's a good thing.
God is forgiving and his mercies are new every morning.
We need to be forgiving.
We need to be the same way.
Children need to obey their parents.
We need to go to our job and not just give it a hundred percent, but go the extra mile.
If someone compels you to push them in a wheelchair for one mile, push them for two miles through
that store.
Okay.
You do the minimum and then you go beyond and you do more and you be a doer of the word
because you know what?
If you actually love the Lord and you're actually a good Christian and you're actually coming
to faithful word Baptist church and you're a, you're a member of faithful word Baptist
church and you know, you're plugged in here and you're, you, you, you see yourself as
being a zealous Christian.
My question is, is that carrying over into your everyday life?
You show up on Sunday and you know all the answers, you talk the talk, but if you're
actually going to have right religion in the eyes of God, you're being a doer of the word,
which involves not just soul winning.
So when he's great, visit the fatherless and the widows and their affliction, do charitable
work, help the poor, uh, actually going out and preaching the gospel to the poor.
Also preaching the gospel to every unsaved person that you can out solely.
That's great too.
But what about keeping yourself unspotted from the world?
You know, are you living a super worldly life and then showing up for soul winning?
I'm glad you're showing up for soul winning, but let's also be a doer of the rest of the
word.
You know, and I'm glad that you, you understand that Daniel 70th week chart.
Okay.
But, but guess what, you know, in my everyday life, that chart doesn't come up very often.
You know, I'm, I, and I'm not saying that that chart's not important.
I'm not saying that the Bible prophecy is not important, but, but rarely do I on Monday
or Tuesday or Wednesday, you know, run into a decision in my personal life and pull out
that chart and use that to help me make decisions about my everyday life.
Now again, some people could go too far in the other direction and say, oh man, we don't
need any of that.
You know, we just need the practical stuff.
You know, because here's how these two things come together.
I find that the practical sermons that tell you what to do, those are the most helpful
in the short term for just telling you, hey buddy, love your wife, hey buddy, submit,
you know, hey woman, submit to your own husband in the Lord, you know, children, obey mom
and dad.
You know, it's telling you do these things.
You know, the sermon that tells you, hey, quit wearing the short mini skirts and being
scantily clad and all these things.
You know, that stuff is really practical in the short term.
Don't steal, don't have an abortion, don't do drugs, don't get drunk.
Those sermons are great.
They're practical.
We need them in the short term, but what is it that's going to keep us serving God in
the long run for five years, 10 years, 15 years?
It's ultimately loving God, right?
It's not just following a list of rules.
It's loving the Lord Jesus Christ with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and by
studying the word of God and learning about all the Bible prophecy and learning about
all the doctrines of Christ and learning about the Trinity and learning all of these finer
points of doctrine actually increases our love for the Lord as we marvel at his plan
and all the things that the Bible teaches and so that actually does work on our heart.
So even though it might feel like a prophecy sermon doesn't really have anything for us
to do because it's not like, okay everybody, go buy that storeable food or something.
That's not what we're teaching.
So what do I do?
I listen to a sermon about Bible prophecy.
What do I do?
There might not be anything to do from that sermon, but that sermon could still be working
on your heart and just helping you actually love the Lord and know the Bible in general
for the long haul of your Christian life.
So those sermons do serve an important purpose and obviously we want to be able to recognize
things that are happening around us so that if we are in the generation when it takes
place, we don't want to be confused and confounded when those things happen.
So I'm not saying that those sermons don't matter.
They're important because any time we're preaching the word of God, hopefully you're loving the
Lord more and your faith is being increased through the hearing of God's word.
But at the end of the day though, if these things don't translate into action, in some
way they end up being in vain.
You know, if I sat and just listened to tons of sermon and became super knowledgeable about
the Bible, but then I'm worldly, I'm not soul winning, I'm a bad employee, lazy at my job,
I'm not good unto my spouse, I'm not good unto my kids, I'm not good as a provider.
You see what I mean?
Then what good is it at that point?
If you're just a hearer of the word and not a doer.
So I believe we need all of these types of preaching.
We want to obviously love the Lord because that's what motivates our actions.
We want to know the truth about Bible prophecy so that we don't get confused or confounded.
But at the end of the day though, we need to make sure that all of this preaching that
we're taking in is actually translating into work performed or changes made in our lifestyle.
And so if you come here for six months or a year or two years, you should be a little
different than you were, say, a year ago.
You know, you've sharpened things up or tuned things up in your life.
You know, maybe you should tonight think about some areas in your life that you're weak on
spiritually or even just in your practical everyday life and think about how you could
tune those things up according to God's word.
You know, that's the kind of action that we need to take when we hear the Bible preached.
You know, if you hear a sermon about how powerful the word of God is, you know, I could preach
a sermon called the power of God's word or the beauty of God's word, the majesty of God's
word.
You know, hopefully you're not just going to hear that sermon and say, wow, what an
awesome sermon.
God's word is so magnificent, hopefully it means tomorrow morning you're going to open
your Bible and actually read the thing.
You know, hopefully it means on Tuesday you're going to read the thing.
You know, if you hear a sermon about going the extra mile at your job, hopefully it means
that tomorrow you're going to go to your job and quit thinking that your job is just mundane
and I wish I had a different job, I wish I had a better job and just go there and say,
you know what, I'm going to turn this job into something epic by just doing the best
that anyone's ever done at this job or doing my personal best at this job.
And there's something beautiful about taking something mundane and turning it into something
special because anytime you do your best at anything, it becomes something special.
You know, and just, you hear the preaching on marriage, okay, but when you get home does
it all just go out the window because your husband, you know, left his shoes over here
or squeezed the toothpaste tube wrong or whatever or does it all just go out the window as soon
as your wife nags you in some way and all of a sudden you just get super bitter and
angry and fly off the table.
You know, make these things need to translate into action.
Don't walk out that door being a forgetful hearer.
You hear the sermon, good sermon, good times, good fellowship, good night at church and
it's like, what was the sermon about?
I don't know.
But I guarantee you that if you actually heard the sermon and then actually made a concrete
change in your life and actually put it into practice, then if you were asked, and don't
go around asking people this, but if we were asked, what did pastor Anderson preach on
last night?
You'd probably know if you did some homework.
You know what I mean?
If you actually did something and said like, okay, here's what I'm going to do this week.
Here's what I'm going to work.
Hey, pastor Anderson's preaching on XYZ, okay, I'm going to work on it this week, right?
Pastor Anderson gets up and preaches one of those sermons that everybody hates about like,
you know, not eating junk food or something.
You know what?
I'm going to eat better this week or something.
You know, pastor Anderson's preaching about loving your wife.
Hey, what am I going to do on Monday to be more loving to my wife, to be more considerate
of my wife?
Or, you know, pastor Anderson's preaching about wives, submit to your husbands.
Okay, what am I going to do the next time my husband tells me something that I don't
like or wants me to do something that I like, you know, what am I going to do?
Am I going to submit and say, well, you're the boss.
You know, that sounds like a great homework assignment.
Or children who are perennially arguing with their parents and mouthing off and talking
back.
You know, how about, hey, you know what, the next time my parents tell me something that
I don't want to do, I'm just going to say, yes, sir, yes, ma'am, and just do it.
You know, what are you going to do?
You know, maybe the sermons about evangelizing, soul winning, preaching the gospel, and you
haven't been out soul winning in a few months, you know, just, you know, you pick a time
this week, you pull out the bulletin and say, all right, circle it, I'm going, let's
do it.
I'm going to get out soul winning this week.
Maybe you've never even been out soul winning.
You know what, hey, you're like, you know what, I'm going to show up and be a silent
partner.
I mean, how hard is that?
You don't even have to say anything, right?
We don't have one of those little cards for you to drive, so you are going to have to
do the walking, but I mean, you just show up and go soul winning, right?
I mean, do it, be a doer and watch your life change.
Watch God bless you, but I guarantee you that there are people who've listened to hundreds
of hours of my sermons and had very little change in their life because they're just,
they're just, they're listening to it like they would listen to music or like they would
listen to the morning radio show or watch a TV show or something and they might even
in theory like it and think like, yeah, this is great.
I really liked that lifestyle that you're doing there.
You know, I see you married and having kids and, and going to work and, and you're, you
know, your wife is, is a homemaker and man, I really liked that.
You know, I like that traditional, you know, lifestyle with the family and everything,
but there's a difference between liking it and doing it because think about how sometimes
we might admire things that we're not, we have no intention of ever doing.
You know, like, like a lot of people today sometimes fantasize or dream of living a simpler
life and they think about like, you know, running some little organic farm or something
and kind of like, you know, getting out of the rat race of the city.
You know, who's ever kind of fantasized about that?
And yeah, I mean hands all over the building just kind of, you know, living a simpler life
and having a few animals and they have this kind of idealized and they might even see
somebody who's living that life and they think like, man, I really liked that.
Just, you know, just getting out, working physically, the connection with nature, getting
away from the hustle and bustle and all the electronic gadgets and just living a simpler
life.
And you know, I think that appeals to a lot of people on a certain level and you know,
I mean, I'm, I'm not really that into that, but you know, but I know a lot of people are
and even I've had moments where I thought like that, but the thing is it doesn't mean
you're actually going to do it even though you look at it and say, that's really cool.
Someday someday I'd like to do that, but it's a pretty big difference from that and actually
doing it.
It's a huge giant leap.
Well, you see how people could be the same way with the Christian life where they're
listening to preaching about what it means to be a red hot soul winning fundamental Baptist
or you know, having the right kind of a family life or whatever.
There's a big difference between admiring the Christian life and living the Christian
life.
And so you can listen to a lot of preaching and even even be like, yes, that's true.
That's right.
And admire it.
And you're not even being fake in that sense.
You're being sincere.
You really do like it, but there's a difference between saying, okay, now let's go do it.
Think about how many people watch sports, but they don't, they don't play sports.
They're totally out of shape.
And it always kind of cracks me up, like how can you be so into sports when you're so out
of shape?
Like, like you'd expect like really like athletic people to be really into sports and then you'd
expect like people that are, that are out of shape to be like, I don't want to think
about sports because like, you know what I mean?
Like you think you just want it out of your mind, like don't talk to me about sports,
but you see these people that are just like, they're like smoking a cigarette and they're
eating all the wrong things and they're just like, they're, they're, they're, you know,
they're driving that car to the store and they don't even need it.
And it's like, you know, and then they're just like super jazzed about sports and you're
like, you're quite the athlete.
But the thing about that is that that's how a lot of Christians could be with, with preaching.
You know what I mean?
Like if we could look at them spiritually, they'd have like a cigarette hanging out of
their mouth and they're eating everything wrong and they're super sedentary and they
came and walk around the block without getting out of breath.
And then, but then they're just like, yeah, go pastor Anderson, you know, faithful words
number one.
It's like, you know, well, I appreciate that, but time for you to get on the team, time
for you to get out in the field and actually start doing and not just hearing.
So that's what I really liked that passage in Ezekiel where he says, these people, they
come to you and, and you're under them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant
voice and can play well on an instrument for they hear thy words, but they do them not.
Meaning that this is just entertainment for them.
It's totally passive.
It's a one way valve.
They just listen to the preaching, but they don't actually do what's being said.
We need to be doers of the word.
And look, go out of here tonight and decide something that you're going to work on this
week.
What am I going to work on?
Am I going to work on reading my Bible?
Am I going to work on prayer?
Am I going to work on relationships?
Am I going to work on taking my job more seriously?
Am I going to work on kicking this addiction or that addiction in my life?
Whatever the sin is that you want to work on, whatever the, the, the, whether it's evangelizing
or soul winning or whatever, you know, I challenge you tonight, pick something to work on so
you can actually be a doer of the word.
Don't be just this armchair quarterback when it comes to Christian life.
No, you need to get out there on the field and actually get in the game yourself.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord and Lord, just, just help everyone who's
here to, to be motivated and stirred.
And Lord, I know there are a lot of people that are listening even at home and they,
they're probably the ones who need to hear this sermon even the most because most of
our church is pretty active in, in your work and I'm thankful for that Lord.
But I guarantee you that even our church members here, Lord could, could, could use work in
areas of their personal life.
Obviously I have things in my personal life that I need to work on.
We all do Lord help us all to be doers of the word and help those at home that are just
completely out of the game to take a listening to preaching to the next level by actually
getting in church and, and getting out soul winning and, and making some changes Lord.
And in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.