Part of the chapter that I want to focus on is beginning verse number 25, and this kind of ties in a little bit with Freedom Sunday slightly, but look if you would at verse 25.
It says, But Jesus called them unto him and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.
But it shall not be so among you. But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister.
And whosoever will be cheap among you, let him be your servant, even as the son of man came not to be minister unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.
Go to Philippians chapter 2. What Jesus is saying there is that the people that are lifted up in the world, the great rulers and leaders, are people who exercise authority and then tell people what to do.
He said, It's not going to be so among you. He said, The greatest among you shall be the servant.
And he said, Even the son of man, even Jesus Christ himself, did not come to be served. He did not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.
See, it's about doing things for other people, not about having people do things for you. Look at Philippians 2 verse 1.
It says, If there be, therefore, any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy that ye be like-minded, having the same love being of one accord, of one mind.
Let nothing be done through strife or big glory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves.
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
You don't have to turn there, but it says in I Corinthians 10, 24, Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth.
He tells us not to seek our own wealth, but to seek someone else's wealth.
You see, living our life should be about other people, not about ourselves, not about selfishness and how much goods we can acquire and how many people can serve us.
Let me ask you this. Jesus Christ came to serve, not to be served. How do you view this church? Do you view Faithful Word Baptist Church as a place to be served?
Or do you view it as a place where you're going to serve?
Do you view it as a place where you can bring something to the table and you can contribute something?
Or do you think of it as a place where you come just to take and just give to me and take?
It's about doing things for other people. It's not about focusing on yourself. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter 2.
See, focusing on yourself is going to make you a miserable person. Today, people are depressed more than ever.
All kinds of people, they have to go to a psychiatrist and take all kinds of drugs because they're depressed and they're down and they don't know what's wrong with them.
Most of it's just people focusing on themselves. When people are unhappy and they're down and sad and gloomy all the time, it's usually because they're a very self-centered person.
I've noticed something about people. There are people in this world that are happy people and then there are people that are unhappy.
And it seems to not matter what the circumstances are. People that are unhappy, down, depressed people, everything can go great for them.
And they're still going to find something wrong with it and they're still going to be down about it because the problem is not the circumstances.
The problem is them being self-centered. It doesn't matter whether things go great, the one thing that goes wrong is going to make them all upset.
And then other people, everything can go wrong and they're still happy. They're still in a good spirit. Why? Because they're not so focused on themselves.
Now look at King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 2. Here's a guy who is completely focused on himself. Look at the first word of every verse.
For the first eight verses, what's the first word? I, I, I, I, I. This is King Solomon. He said in verse 1,
I said in my heart, go to now, I will prove thee with myrrh. Therefore, enjoy pleasure. So it's just all about gratifying myself, having pleasure.
Behold, this also is manly. I said of laughter, it is mad. And of myrrh, what doeth it that I sought in my heart to give myself unto wine?
He's saying, I tried drinking. Yet, inquainting my heart with wisdom, and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men,
who would say, should do unto they have it all the days of their life. I made me great works. I builded me houses. I planted me vineyards.
Who's he building this stuff for? Himself. I built myself a house. I built myself a building. I planted myself a garden.
I made me gardens and orchards. I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit. I made me pools of water. Not for someone else.
To water the wood, there with the wood, to bring it forth trees. I got me servants and maidens and had servants born in my house.
Also, I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me.
I gathered me also silver and gold and the peculiar treasure of kings of the provinces. I gathered me men singers and women singers and the delights of the sons of men,
as musical instruments and that of all sorts. So I was great and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem.
Also, my wisdom remained with me. Look at verse 10. And whatsoever my eyes desired, I kept not from them.
I withheld not my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor. And this was my portion of all my labor.
He said just whatever I wanted, if I saw something, I took it. I didn't restrain myself whatsoever. I ate what I wanted. I drank what I wanted.
I mean, look, he saw women that he wanted. He had 300 wives and 700 concubines. He just gratified himself in every possible way.
He wants to drink. He drinks. He wants to build something. He wants music. He listens to music. He brings in singers.
He's got women. He's got money. He's got power. He's got wisdom. He's got knowledge. I mean, he has everything.
And he's just all about him gratifying himself. Look what he says in the next verse.
Then I looked on all the works that my hands had brought and on the labor that I had labored to do.
And behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. He said it was all worthless.
It was vexing his spirit. It made him upset. It made him unhappy to have everything he wanted, to do everything for himself.
Why? Because its selfishness will do that to you. It's not going to make you happy just getting everything for yourself.
Look at verse 17. Therefore, I hated life. Now, you probably think to yourself, you know, if I had all the money,
I was the richest king that had ever been in Jerusalem, and I had all the businesses, and I had all the trees and gardens and orchards and swimming pools,
men singers, women singers, servants, children, wives, everything that I want and anything and the power to enjoy all of it and all the money and all the time.
Would you hate life? You probably think, like, I wouldn't hate life. I'd be loving life. It'd be great.
But here's a man who did it, though, and he was a lot smarter than you are, and he was a lot smarter than I am, and yet he got all this stuff and he hated life.
Because fulfilling your own lust and just gratifying yourself with everything you want is not going to bring you happiness,
because it's just going to make you a selfish person, and being selfish never makes anybody happy.
Look at chapter 12. This is at the beginning of Ecclesiastes. Look at chapter 12 after Solomon works all this out in his mind.
In verse 8, he says, vanity of vanity saith the preacher, all is vanity. And moreover, because the preacher was wise...
So he's just saying, all is vanity. All that stuff I did is a waste of time.
Moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. He gave good heed and sought out and said in order many proverbs.
The preacher sought to find out acceptable words, and that which was written was upright, even words of truth.
The words of the wise are as goads and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.
And further by these my son be admonished of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.
See, at the end of it all, the one thing that he felt like had value out of everything that he did,
all the accomplishments, everything he did for himself, all the fun, all the pleasure, all the drinking, all the partying,
all the music, all the accomplishments and the studying and the knowledge.
The only thing he felt like having value was that he taught others.
He said, I still taught the people wisdom, and I preached the word of God, words that were given from one shepherd.
Of course, Jesus Christ said, I'm the good shepherd, the Lord is my shepherd.
And so, that was the only thing that really he accomplished in his life.
I mean, today, what did Solomon do that matters?
We're listening to his words right now.
Obviously, it's God's word, but he was used to preach those words unto the people.
The whole book of Proverbs, the whole book of Ecclesiastes, the book of Song of Solomon.
The only thing that's going to matter in life, and then he says, you know, the only thing that matters is the spirit of God and keep his commandments,
preaching the word of God, teaching other people.
The only thing that has value in your life is what you do for other people, not all the things that you receive.
Go to Acts chapter 20.
Acts chapter 20.
And honestly, this will determine your happiness in life.
If you go through life just trying to do everything for yourself, and just see how much money you can make.
You know, that's a lot of people's goal, isn't it?
Just, I'm going to make as much money as I can.
If that's what your life's all about, you're not going to be happy.
The Bible says, he that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver.
Or, maybe you decide, well my whole goal in life is just to get all the knowledge I can, just to learn everything I can.
Solomon did that too.
It didn't make him happy.
You know, it might be, I just want to build things, or I want to make my garden grow, or plant this garden, or have all these accomplishments.
Whenever you're focused upon yourself, you're going to become an unhappy person.
And the people that you know that are unhappy people, they're moaning and whining and complaining about how bad they have it.
Because it's all about them.
The Bible says, look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
Look at Acts chapter number 20 verse 35.
It says, I have showed you all things, how that so laboring, you ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus.
That's how we say, it is more blessed to give than to receive.
So, there's more joy in giving than in receiving.
There's more joy in doing something for someone else than to receive something.
Now, this is how this kind of ties in with Freedom Sunday.
First of all, we saw the verse about how, you know, among the Gentiles they exercise all this lordship.
It shall not be so among you.
But you know, the government is really, we were talking about this when we were outsourcing today.
The government has really taken away a lot of our joy in life.
And here's why.
Because it used to be a time when someone needed help.
Or someone was down on their luck and they didn't have any money.
Or they needed something to eat.
Or they needed some help because they were, you know, either handicapped or just, you know, having to go through a bad phase or whatever.
You know, people would help them out.
And the church would help them out.
You know, they could go to church and people at church would pitch in and help out.
And the Bible even says,
Hereby perceive we the love of God because He laid down His life for us.
And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
But whoso have this world's good, and seeeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?
My little children, let us not love in word, neither tongue, but in deed and in truth.
So the Bible tells us, right there, that, you know, when we see other people have need
and we see our brother and sister in Christ have need, you know, we ought to help them out.
We have what they need to give unto them and to help them out in their time of need.
But you see, today, the government has become the substitute that just gives everyone what they need.
Like, let's say somebody's poor or somebody's handicapped or somebody has a problem.
They don't go to the church to get help.
Or their brother and sister in Christ, if they're a believer, doesn't look at them and say, oh, this person needs help.
You just pretty much say, you know, go down to the government office, you know, get your food stamps or whatever.
And there are millions, literally, does anybody know the statistic, how many millions?
I know they've been talking about this a lot lately because there's so many millions of people on food stamps.
Does anybody know the statistic on that?
It's like 40, yeah, 40 million people.
Yeah, that sounds correct.
40 million people in America are receiving some kind of food assistance or some kind of food stamp or some kind of a meal program from the government.
Now, let me ask you this.
Does that person, as they receive that food or meal from the government, they don't say, thank you, government, I love you, government.
And the government doesn't get this warm, fuzzy feeling giving them a food stamp.
It's like, next, you know, or whatever.
Okay, now here's the thing.
Stop and think about this.
Let's say there was somebody that I knew and that person really just didn't have the food to feed their family, right?
And I went out, okay, and I went to the grocery store and I've, you know, I've done this, you've done this for people.
You know, you buy them a bag of groceries to help them out or something.
You know, you give them a gift card or you pick them up a meal, a takeout meal, and you give it to them.
Okay, isn't that a blessing to do that to somebody?
The Bible says it's more blessing to give than to receive.
Now, if someone does that for you, that's a blessing too.
It's not only a blessing to give, it's also a blessing to receive.
But it's just more blessing to give than to receive.
I mean, when someone reaches out to you in your time of need and they help you out and they do something for you, that means a lot.
And there's a bond that's created there and a friendship that's created there because, hey, this person helped me out in my time of need.
Hey, I needed help. I was down and they helped me out. They provided my need.
They bought me some food or they helped me in some other area, financially or even non-financially.
It just gave the support needed.
You look at that and you, you know, you thank that person, you love that person, and you're blessed by that.
And you pray to God and you thank God and say every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down to the Father of lights when there was no variableness and neither shadow of turning.
But even more so, when you have the opportunity where you have a little extra money or you have some extra stuff and you can reach out and help somebody out, that's blessed too to help them out.
But you see, when it's all done through the government, it's just not blessed.
Because here's the thing, when the government comes and just takes money away from you and just taxes you against your will, because I don't think that if it was voluntary, you know, we'd all just be lining up.
If the IRS wasn't going to come to our house with machine guns, we wouldn't pay that. We'd say, that's to you.
You know what I mean? We didn't pay this.
But no, they just take it right out of your check or whatever.
And so it's taken by force. It's taken at the barrel of the gun.
So does that make us have a good attitude? Do you think most people just write that check with a big smile to the IRS?
This is great.
Or sorry, you write the check to the U.S. Department of Treasury.
When you write that check, you're not saying, man, this is good. You know what, this is really a blessing, because I know I'm helping people in need.
I know that there's handicapped people, and this is going to help them survive.
And the poor people, and it's going to feed and clothe the hungry.
Man, this is really going to help out a lot of people. This is great.
You're like, that's how I pay.
Come to my house or I'll even put teeth.
You don't have a good attitude about it, because it makes you mad.
Because why? Because it's being taken from you against your will.
Nobody wants somebody to grab and give you a lot of money.
Sure, it's a blessing to give you this.
Somebody's got a gun to your head.
Hey, it's more a blessing to give than receive.
Hey, you're mad. You're being robbed. You're being stolen.
And then when people get the check, when people get the assistance that they need,
a lot of them don't necessarily even need it.
But the ones who are legitimately in need, and they get that help from the government,
do they send me a card?
Hey, I was looking at the IRS's website, Stephen Anderson,
and I saw that you paid a lot of taxes last year.
So I feel like maybe some of the money I got came from you, and so I love you.
Nobody even puts that together.
So it's just this cold transaction of money.
Just give us your money.
You know, maybe a little bit of it is going to go to some poor person that needs it.
The rest of it is going to be wasted and spent on stuff that you don't even believe in.
To bomb people if you don't even care what's going on over there.
You know, if you have a rip who's in charge of Libya.
You know what I mean?
Who cares whether it's Al Qaeda or Gaddafi or whatever.
You know what I mean?
Whatever, they're all messed up over there.
I don't want to get involved in there.
I don't want to meddle in another man's stride because that's like taking a dog by the ears.
That's what the Bible says.
But anyway, the bottom line of this is that they've taken away the blessing of helping people out.
Now there are times when I've been able to help people out, and there are times when people have helped me out.
But it's not as often.
Because the government has stepped in and taken that role and taken away the blessing of being able to help people out and to be helped out.
Because that builds relationships, that builds friendships, that builds love.
Because when you give someone something and sacrifice for someone else, you're going to love that person.
That's going to build love in your heart for them.
And when someone does that for you, you're going to love that person and thank them.
Because you know that they did it out of their own good will.
That's why the Bible says that no one should give of constraint or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver.
God wants people to give of their own accord and to help people out because they want to, not because they're being forced to.
And this is what we see today with all the forced sharing and so forth.
It turns something into a drudgery that should be a blessing.
It should be nice.
I remember one time I was driving and I went off course.
I got off on some highway and it was a blizzard.
And I got stuck out in the middle of the snow.
This happened about a year and a half ago.
I was driving and the whole freeway was shut down and I was taking this other highway.
And there's no other car on the road.
There's no civilization anywhere.
But my GPS kind of showed me that I was only about maybe 8 miles south of the highway or something.
So I kind of knew I was close to civilization.
So I'm driving along and I'm just in the middle of nowhere.
And it's just a miracle that I was even able to make it.
Because the snow was deep, a couple feet deep or whatever.
And I'm just flying in my two-wheel drive Hyundai Sonata four-cylinder.
And it didn't have automatic traction control.
But I'm just flying along and I knew, I literally knew, if I stop this car, I'm not going to be able to start again.
Because the only thing that's keeping me going on this road, some parts of the road were pretty good,
but then I'd get into that snow that was a couple feet deep.
And I'm thinking to myself, if I stop, I'm not going to be able to start again.
The only thing that's keeping me going is this momentum.
I'm going like 40, 45 miles an hour.
And I've got to maintain that speed, 40, 45 miles an hour.
Well then every once in a while there's just these big snow drifts across the road.
But I'm like, I can't stop.
So I just go through them.
And that's why if you look at my car, the wire tie is holding the front of Henry again.
Because that's the trip where it was destroyed.
So some of them I'm just kind of busting through them, just through snow.
Other ones I'm almost getting a little airborne over the top of it.
A little bit of a combination of both.
So I'm just busting through these things.
And eventually it destroyed the front of my car like you see right in front of the church building right now.
So I'm busting through, busting through.
And then the road started getting a little bit better.
So I'm thinking, okay, you know, I'm almost there, almost there.
I'm going to make it to this town.
Well I passed a farmhouse and the lights on.
And I look at the light on and I say, you know what, I better hit the odometer counter just in case I get stuck.
At least I know I can come back to this place.
So I hit the counter on the trip counter to zero.
And I'm driving along, driving off, things are getting better, things are getting better.
All of a sudden I get about a mile and a half away.
And there's just deep snow uphill and it's just stuck.
So I get out of the car, I spend like 45 minutes trying to get unstuck.
Can't get out, I'm putting stuff under the wheels trying to create traction.
It's not happening.
I had not even planned on, I'm kind of going to El Paso, which is a warm place.
Okay, this is in like January.
But I got redirected way up to the northern part of New Mexico.
So I'm literally wearing a long pair of shorts.
Okay, sure, but I have clothes packed.
So I switch into survival mode.
So I just took every piece of clothing out of the suitcase and just put it on.
You know, just three of everything.
You know, just three pairs of socks, three pairs of, you know, you know what, three shirts and, you know, a couple pairs of pants.
I just stack up.
I didn't have like winter clothes, but I just stacked up all my clothes.
And then I'm finding every piece of food and drink in my car, putting it in a backpack.
Like this is my survival backpack.
So I put in like a drink box, an apple, you know, a little bit of stuff.
And I put it all in this bag.
Then I make this video just in case like I don't make it.
So I pull out my video camera.
I'm like, it's this time, I'm stuck in the snow, I'm heading back to a farmhouse.
It was a mile and a half back.
You know, he was never seen again.
You know, so that way you can really know what happened to me.
You know, I left like a video message.
I love you, honey.
I love you, kids.
You know, I was kidding.
So I make this video.
So then I just start hiding.
I mean, it was cold.
There was really wind blowing, blizzard.
And so I march back to this farmhouse, knock on the door, you know, just this random farmhouse.
And I'm just like, tell these people I'm stuck in the snow.
You know, I don't know.
I got nowhere to go.
You know?
But anyway, I talked to them.
And these people, man, they were great.
Turned out they were Christians and everything.
And they helped me out.
They ended up giving me a place to stay for the night.
They got in my car unstuck.
They brought a winch over and pulled it out.
They gave me like a guest house to sleep in.
I had a great place to sleep.
And they got me out of there and everything.
Man, you know what?
I was really thankful to them for doing that for me.
You know, and I couldn't have called.
There was no cell phone receipt.
You couldn't have called a tow truck.
You couldn't have called anybody.
There was no government snow plow that was plowed on this road.
It was the middle of nowhere.
And these guys told me.
They said, you know, out here, they said you don't rely on the government or anything.
They said we just rely on ourselves.
Like we plow the road ourselves.
We have our own, you know, we got to like take care of ourselves out here.
There were ranchers.
And so, you know, I sent them a gift and everything.
And I really appreciated that.
And man, if that guy needed help, no, I would help that guy out a lot.
You know, I owe that guy.
Even, you know, I'll always owe that guy.
You know, and I'll always have a place in my heart for them and love them.
Because they helped me out in my time of need.
And you know what?
They appreciate it.
They said, hey, it was a blessing to be able to help you out.
You know, and I was blessed by being helped out.
You know, that's great.
When somebody helps you or when you get to help them, you know, that's what life is about.
That's what's going to make you a happier person in life.
But when you're just so focused on yourself, that's what's going to make you down and depressed and upset.
And so if you're down and depressed today, and turn if you would in your Bible to Luke chapter 12.
If you're down and depressed today, you're probably just focused on yourself.
You know, oh man, you know, my job's doing bad and my family's messed up.
And you know, I'm sick all the time and all this stuff.
But you know, if you start thinking about other people and caring about other people and helping other people,
it's going to make you a lot happier in life.
And you know, what is soul winning all about?
Soul winning is not about us.
It's about others.
I mean, when we go out and go soul winning, we knock thousands and thousands and thousands of doors.
And we preach unto thousands and thousands of people.
I mean, look at that map.
Look how much ground we've covered.
I mean, we've knocked the doors of hundreds of thousands of people with the gospel.
Are all of those people just coming to our church and putting money in the offering plate and being a part of our church
and singing the songs with us and helping us out?
Guess what? 99.9% of the people that we go out and try to help and try to preach to,
they're not ever going to do anything for us.
They're never even going to grace us with their presence one time.
I mean, how many of those people just slam the door and don't even care, tell you to drop dead?
And even the ones who listen to you and you preach them the gospel,
they're probably not going to do anything for us ever again.
And people who get saved, many of them are never even going to set foot in this church.
So why do we do it?
We do it because, you know, well, this is the way to build a fast-growing mega church today.
No. We do it for one reason. It's for them. It's not for us.
We don't give anything out of it.
We receive nothing. It doesn't make us any money. It doesn't make our church grow.
They don't come over and do our yard work for us or anything or help us or cook us dinner or anything.
They do nothing for us. But that's okay. That's not our goal.
Our goal is not to go out to be served. It's to serve. It's to help them.
And you know what? That's why 99% of churches don't do any soul editing.
Did you hear me? That's why they don't do it.
Because they don't care about other people. They care about themselves.
They don't care about some handicapped person that's never going to set foot outside their apartment,
and the only way they're going to hear the gospel is if somebody comes to their door and brings it to them.
They don't care about that person. They just want another yuppie SUV to pull into their parking lot
and throw money in the play and look pretty in the pew and build their church
and make their church thrive and be successful and grow.
I don't care whether our church is successful and grows.
Jesus Christ said, upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Well, that's up to Him. I mean, if the church grows, that doesn't help me.
That doesn't help you. That's going to be Jesus' blessing, and that's up to Him.
Who cares? As far as I'm concerned, it's my job to get up and preach.
It's my job to serve God. Let God deal with His own house, whether He wants them to be big or small.
He told us to go out and preach the gospel to every creature, and that's what we're going to do.
But most churches, they don't care about that elderly person that can't get out of the house.
They don't care about that teenager whose parents don't believe in God,
don't believe in the Bible, and will never take them to church.
Hey, I care about that teenager. I'm going to bring him the gospel.
He's not going to come to church, but I'm going to come to him and preach him the gospel.
They don't care about the Spanish speaker that doesn't even speak English
to learn Spanish and to go preach the gospel to them. Why?
Because there's nothing in return to them.
They'd rather take all their time and all their money and all their resources
into some glossy mailer to send to your house to tell you,
oh, come to our church and we promise that we won't preach on your sin
and we promise we won't talk about money and we promise that the music will be contemporary.
We literally got a thing in the mail that said, this is our pledge to you.
Number one, the music will be contemporary.
Number two, we will not mention money.
Number three, it will be a relevant message.
Translation, it won't come from the Bible.
Relevant preaching is a code word.
We won't preach biblical doctrine.
We'll just preach feel-good stuff that applies to you in your personal life.
Relevant preaching? What are you trying to say?
That there's something in the Bible that's not relevant?
All scriptures given by inspiration of God is profitable over doctrine.
Oh, it's relevant preaching. What's irrelevant? Leviticus?
No, it's profitable. It's all relevant.
Give me this relevant preaching.
I love irrelevant sermons. I'm serious.
I like somebody to just get up and preach the Bible.
I don't care if it fits my personal life right now.
I want to learn God's will. I just like God.
I just like the Bible. I just like Leviticus. I like it.
I don't need to be relevant.
It's going to tie into your personal life. No, just preach it to me.
Preach it all. Some of it ties in today and some of it will tie in tomorrow.
Eventually it's all going to be relevant in your life.
Or it was relevant in the past or it was relevant today in your life.
You need the whole book or else God wouldn't be giving you the whole book.
But they'd rather send out the little glossy mailer.
I was driving down the freeway yesterday with my son, Solomon,
and we look at a billboard and it says,
Cornerstone Community Church.
Church for people who don't like church.
And I said, you know what, son? I said, I don't want to go to that church, son.
I said, you know why, son?
Because people that don't like church are bad people, son.
They're wicked. They're worldly. They're ungodly.
They'd rather be in a bar.
They'd rather be out committing sin and fornication and adultery somewhere.
They don't like the hymns of the faith because they'd rather listen to Jimi Hendrix and The Doors and The Beatles.
And they'd rather listen to U2 and Motley Crue.
And they'd rather listen to Lady Gaga.
And they'd rather listen to everything the world puts out.
I said, I don't want to go to church that's geared toward bad people.
I want to go to church that's geared toward people who love God and they love the house of God.
And they say, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.
That's where I want to go to church, son.
And so I'm not going to go to that church because I like church, son.
When I was a little kid, I liked church.
And when I was a teenager, I liked church.
And I'm an adult now and I like church.
And that church is where people don't like church.
They want to go there because they want to make it like the world.
Oh, you won't even feel like you're at church.
Then I don't want to be there.
Guess what? If I don't want to feel like I'm at church, you know what I'll do?
I'll go somewhere besides church.
I mean, if I don't want to feel like I'm at church, I'm going to go to a rock concert.
Why would you go to some B-rated rock concert?
That's all it is.
I mean, if I want to listen to rock, let's hear a band that actually is an expert band.
Let's hear a professional band.
Let's go to the real thing than somebody who's just trying to copy them.
Some B-rated little Christian contemporary rock band, worship band, worship leader.
I don't need that stuff.
I want to go there. I want to feel like I'm at church.
I want to sing Amazing Grace on the solid rock.
I stand blessed assurance Jesus is mine.
Rock of ages clap for me.
That's what I want to sing when I go to church.
And guess what? I don't want to sing any of that other stuff any time.
I won't be at the rock concert because I like church.
It's church for people who don't like church.
What kind of government?
Oh, that's how we're going to reach people.
We're going to reach somebody.
Look, you're going to reach people that don't like church by making church not like church.
Then it's not church anymore, I guess.
It's stupid. It's nonsense.
Look, this is how you reach people.
You say, well, how are you going to reach these people who don't like church?
Here's what you do.
Instead of sitting around in your little ivory tower in Chandler,
waiting for all these crowds of people to come because,
oh wow, a church for people who don't like church? Let me go there.
Yeah, I'm sure all the hardcore people in this world,
all the drunks and all the forteers, they're all lining up at that church.
Finally, a church for me. I hate church. Let's go to church.
It's stupid.
But you know how you're going to reach those people cornerstone
if your pastor didn't look like a fag?
You know how you'd actually reach people?
You'd put on a suit and dress like a man and get a haircut like a man,
and then you'd go get in your car and go to those people and give them the gospel at their house.
And then they'll get saved.
And then when they get saved, the Spirit of God will live inside of them.
Then they might like church.
Maybe once they get saved, they'll like church.
And then maybe they'll come to church.
But no, we've got to go get all the unsaved people to come to church.
You know what? I'm not interested in getting unsaved people to come to church.
I'm sorry. I'm not.
I go to church to be around saved people.
That's why I like to go to church.
That's why it's called the body of Christ.
That's why it's called the Fellowship of the Saints.
That's why it's called the body of believers.
It's not about bringing in a bunch of unsaved people.
It's about going out and getting the unsaved saved.
And then bringing a man saved.
That's what it's about.
I'm not trying to use worldly music to attract worldliness into the church.
I go to church to get away from the world.
I go to church to get away from all that.
But they don't want to serve people.
They don't want to go out and preach the gospel in the ghetto.
They don't want to go out and dirty their hands and dirty their feet in central Phoenix.
Going to the inner city slums and giving the gospel to every creature out of their Bible.
You know what they want to do?
They want to sit around in their fancy building and send out mailers all day and say,
Hey, who made church the way you like it?
So you can come put money in the plate and come be a pretty little body in the pew.
That's what church has become today because people think that church is about being served and not about serving others.
That pastor wants to glorify himself and to glorify his building and to build it up with all the pretty little faces.
I want to go out and find the ugliest person I can and give him the gospel and get him saved.
I want to find the poor and the blind and the maimed and the halt and love the person that can do nothing for me.
That's what God commands us to do.
To love the unlovable.
To go to the dirty, filthy ghetto and find the prostitute and the dope dealer and find the poor and the blind, the handicapped,
the person who has no money that will never even have a ride to church and that will never put a dime in the offering plate
and to spend my time preaching to them when it's 110 degrees outside.
Not for me, for them.
For them.
And you know what? You'll be happy.
I mean look, I guarantee you, everybody who was out soul winning today, everybody who was out soul winning Monday,
everybody who was out soul winning on Tuesday, people who were out soul winning on Wednesday, they're not down and depressed.
They're not going home depressed after they had one person saved.
And you know, I've had some things that happened in my life that were pretty depressing.
I mean I've had things happen where I was really upset. I was really upset.
And I've had financial stuff happen where just everything's falling apart.
I've had horrible things happen in my life and you know what?
I went out soul winning sometimes even with a bad attitude.
You just do it, whatever I'm going, it's time to go soul winning.
But you know what? When somebody gets saved though, you're not down anymore.
And you say, you know what? My finances are destroyed.
But you know what? So what? Hey, I just got somebody saved.
That person's going to be in heaven. Nobody can ever take that away from me.
That's the joy in life.
I'm sure down at the little fun center of church that's for people who don't like church,
there's probably all kinds of people lined up to talk to Pastor Queerbait.
And look, have you seen a picture of the guy?
The guy's a pervert. I mean usually that billboard, today it said,
church for people who don't like church.
It has literally had obscene billboards on that billboard for Cornerstone Community Church.
Am I telling the truth, Susan? She drives by that billboard.
It's an obscene billboard talking about the bedroom,
how they're going to counsel your bedroom life if you're married.
They're going to explain to you how to have better whatever.
You know, I'm not even going to say it. In the bedroom.
That was the series down at that church. That's what they're going to preach about.
Cornerstone Community Church.
And you know, I can't believe he criticized another church.
That's not a church. It's for people who don't like church.
It's for people who want porno.
It's for people who want a pornographic Bible study
where somebody's going to tell you about your love life in the bedroom.
Hey, that's between me and my wife. I don't need some pastor who looks like a sodomite,
you know, counseling my love life, okay?
You know, I'm married to a woman, thank you very much.
But you know, down at Little Fun Center,
I'm sure that the lines are all filled with everybody
going and getting all their counseling for all their depression.
But you know, you're not fine in the Bible.
You won't find a lot about depression
and about poor self-esteem and poor self-image.
You know, the only verse I could find on self-esteem
was the one that said, let each esteem other, better than themselves.
You know, and that'll fix your self-esteem problems.
That'll fix all your psychological problems.
You know, God has given us the spirit of a sound mind,
and if you would get caring about other people
and go out and win some souls and preach the gospel
and get somebody saved, you know,
you're not going to be down and depressed over the things like...
Because the Bible says, you know, for the time being,
we may have heaviness. We're going to have sorrow.
But he says, yet we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory
because we know that there's heaven.
You know, we know that we have won you to Christ
and we'll see you in heaven.
Like what Paul said to the Thessalonians.
He said, what is our hope? What is our joy or crown of rejoicing?
Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ in this coming?
For ye are our glory and joy.
Paul said, my joy is when I get to heaven
and see the Thessalonians that I won to Christ.
That's the joy. That's the excitement.
That's the blessing, people, that you won to Christ.
Not what they did for you.
Not that you have a big paycheck.
Not that everything was successful in your life.
But what did you do for other people?
You see, when you get to heaven, there's not going to be a crown given out.
All right, and the crown for the guy who made the most money goes right here.
You know, Matt Adams says, you know, he made the most money.
Yeah!
Do you think anybody's going to care?
Do you think anybody's going to be carrying them around on their shoulders,
throwing them up and down saying, man, you are an amazing businessman?
No, what they would do is say, you know what, here's a crown
because here's a thousand people
or here's five hundred people that are here because of this preaching.
And look, there's a great reward in serving God.
Look at Luke chapter 12. This verse, this verse in Luke 12,
I mean, this verse blows me away.
And I think it kind of illustrates where I'm saying,
let me read the whole passage to give it to you in context
and then I'll get to the verse that really blows me away.
But look at Luke 12, 31.
And by the way, I'm sick of pastors that look like a fairy.
I mean, you know, we need men in this country to look like men.
I'm sorry. But with that guy, you know,
I don't know what kind of a metro little query it's trying to look like.
And, you know, I don't care whether you like this kind of preaching or not.
We need men in this country that can even act and look like men.
Not these effeminate little girly milk toasts. I'm sick of it.
And young men and teenagers and little boys that aren't the sound of my voice,
you grow up and decide you're going to look and act like a man
and not follow this Hollywood gender-bending, gender-neutral...
You're not going to hear this. It's just school, kids.
MTV's not going to explain this to you.
Let me explain to you right now at Faithful Word Baptist Church.
Be a man.
But he says in Luke chapter 12, verse 31, he says,
But rather seek ye the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.
Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
Sell that you have and give alms.
Provide yourselves bags which wax not old,
a treasure in the heavens that they will not.
Where no thief approaches, neither moss corrupted.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Let your loins be girt about, and your lights burning,
and yourselves like in a man that wait for their Lord,
when he will return from the wedding, and when he cometh and knocketh,
they may open unto him immediately.
Now he's talking about helping other people,
not having a bunch of riches for yourself,
but giving alms, helping out your brother and sister.
But here's the verse that blows me away.
Verse 37, I think this is one of the most amazing verses in the Bible.
It says, blessed are those servants.
And hold on a second, who are those servants?
Wouldn't that be us if we're doing what we're supposed to be doing?
Right? Aren't we those servants?
If we are serving God, if we are working when he comes,
if we're doing his will when he shows up,
blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching.
Verily I say unto you that he shall gird himself and make them to sit down to meet,
and will come forth and serve them.
And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so,
blessed are those servants.
You see, if you're a person who gives with your life,
if you're a person who serves others, not just in it for yourself,
but you go out and you say, why should I go out so many?
What's that going to profit me? It's not going to profit you anything.
But it's going to save a whole lot of people from going to hell.
That's what it's going to do.
What is the profit to come to church three times a week?
And what is the profit to God?
It's not going to profit you, it's going to profit everybody else.
But if you live a life that's about serving other people,
your whole life, not about being served, but about serving others.
The Bible says that when Jesus Christ returns,
he will let, and just imagine this, I really believe this verse.
If you're doing, if you've spent a life serving others, you know what?
Jesus, we're talking about the King of Kings,
the Lord of Lords, the God of the universe,
will literally set you down and gird himself and serve you.
I mean, isn't that amazing? Thank God.
I mean, imagine being a guest of honor in heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ
and he says, no, no, no.
You're bowing down to him, you're casting your crowns at him.
He says, no, no, no, have a seat. Let me serve you.
What an honor. I mean, can you imagine that?
I mean, if you went to see the dignities of today,
you know, the people that are lifted up so highly,
you know, President Barack Obama.
And, man, wouldn't that be great if he would invite you to his house?
You know, do you really think that he would serve you
if you showed up at his house? No, no, no.
All these other people would be serving
and they would take care of him because he's the Mr. Important guy.
But can you imagine, can you imagine, you know, Barack Obama,
you know, washing your feet, you know?
You say, come on, he's not going to do that.
He's too important.
You know, he's going to take off his button-up shirt
and use it to dry off your feet after he washes your feet.
You know, but that's what Jesus did to the disciples.
I mean, he literally washed their feet.
And, you know, that's what he'll literally do for us.
If we serve him, he will gird himself and say,
I will wait on you and feed you and I will serve you dinner in my house
and I'll wait on you.
I mean, how humbling is that?
That Jesus Christ himself would serve you
and then you won't even serve him.
I mean, think about that.
You won't even serve others.
It's beneath you to go to that bad neighborhood.
It's beneath you to talk to, you know, whatever type of people,
whatever color people or whatever economic type of people.
You know, it's beneath you to do that.
Because Jesus Christ can get on his knees and gird himself with a towel
and wash his disciples' feet and promise every believer who he promises.
He says, when I come back, if you are doing what you're supposed to be doing
and you're doing the work and you're serving me and serving others,
I will serve you just like I served those 11 apostles in John 14
when he put on the towel and gird himself and served them.
He'll serve you.
Can you serve him?
I mean, can you serve others?
You say, why would Jesus stoop to that level?
Because, you know what, that's who he is.
He's a person who's a servant.
He's a person, God himself is one who loves others and wants to take care of them.
Because, you know what, I think when Jesus Christ comes back at that great feast,
because there is a great feast coming when he comes back.
There's going to be a great feast where we are going to be rewarded and so forth.
I think that you know who's going to enjoy that meeting?
I bet he'll enjoy it more than you do.
Because he's the one doing the serving.
And it's more blessed to be the one doing the serving than the one to be receiving the service.
And so I think that Jesus Christ will enjoy serving us and rewarding us for what we've done.
Don't you think that's an amazing verse?
Did you ever think about that?
Like, wow, I'm going to get to heaven and Jesus is going to serve me.
But only if you've stayed the course.
Only if you're a servant now.
See, you can be a servant now today and have the blessing of serving others.
And then one day you'll be served by Jesus Christ himself, what an honor.
So much better than any honor that can be conferred upon you today.
Any praise of man that can be lavished on you today.
Any paycheck you can get today.
Any fancy dinner you can go out to today.
You know, I'd rather be at this meal than at some presidential prayer breakfast with a bunch of rabbis and a bunch of Catholic priests and Obama.
You know, I'd rather be in heaven and having Jesus Christ come and wake the table.
Now look, if Jesus Christ could be a servant, if he would watch the disciples' feet, if he would gird himself and serve them and serve us,
we ought to follow that example and say, you know what, it's about serving.
It's not about being the first one to go get my burger on Freedom Sunday.
You know, and make sure I get my hot dog, you know, on the first batch.
You know what, probably the people who had the most fun today are probably the people who did the cooking.
You know, the guy who ran the grill.
You know, he has the enjoyment of serving others.
There are those who ate the burger and they enjoyed the burger, but you know what, the person who served the burger,
the people who planned, the people who cleaned up afterwards, the people who are working and dipping up the food,
you know, they're the ones that are getting the most blessing out of it because it's more blessed to give than to receive.
And you know, if you get this truth tonight, and you know, I went off on a few tirades, sometimes I just, I'm sorry, I just go off on that cornerstone sometimes.
It makes me sick to see some perverted billboard about the bedroom in the name of the Lord Jesus.
That just makes me sick, I'm sorry.
Promoting people who don't like church, like that's cool.
Yeah, because if you're cool, you don't like church, right?
I mean, cool people don't like church, right?
You've got to be a little Bible-thumping little nerd to like church.
So that's why this is church for people who don't like church, because we're going to rock.
You know what, you can have all that stuff.
It's garbage.
Why don't they put up a billboard that says, hey, come to the church where we're going to go get our hands dirty and go preach to people in the ghetto.
Do you think that that billboard would bring in the crowds?
Let's put up a billboard that says, come to the church that's going to make you drive like 20 minutes to go soloing because they've already knocked every door between here and there.
And you have to go 20 minutes away to fill in something on the map.
Why don't you come to the church?
Come to the church that's going to take you out soloing for hours on a holiday weekend in 110 degree weather in the ghetto.
Isn't that great? Don't you want to come there?
Hello, anybody out there?
You know what, but guess what, I bet you the people here are happier than the people there.
Because they helped somebody else, they served somebody else, they did something for somebody else.
It's all about giving, not about receiving.
And so get this in your heart today, just decide, you know what, I may be a failure in my life.
And maybe in some ways you are a failure in life.
Some ways I may be a failure in my life.
We all fail in certain areas of our life.
But you know what, why don't you just decide like John the Baptist said.
I must decrease, he must increase.
Maybe my life's a failure, but you know what, I'm going to help someone else not be a failure.
You know, maybe I fail in this area, I fail in that area.
You know what, but I'm going to help my sons succeed.
I'm going to help my daughters succeed.
I'm going to help these poor people get the gospel.
You know, and even if I get through my whole life, think about this now, and I'll close with this.
What if I went through my whole life, okay, and I'm just the biggest failure?
Just use your imagination.
Okay, you don't have to imagine that.
But anyway, let's say I'm just a total failure.
Let's say as a pastor, I'm a total failure.
The church just falls apart, the church closes its doors, everybody scatters in a bunch of directions,
goes to all different liberal churches or quits church altogether.
Let's just say faith forward about the church just completely fails, falls apart.
It was all my fault.
Okay, is everybody using their imagination?
Let's say all my business and all my finances just go down the tubes.
I'm in debt, I'm bankrupt, I messed up.
Then my wife just, you know, tells me to curse God and die and just leaves me or something.
I'm just the imagination here.
All my kids grow up and, you know, they don't even want to be around me.
They think I'm an idiot.
They think I'm a failure.
So they move to other states and they live successful lives,
but they don't want to even see me on the holidays.
Are you getting the picture here?
I mean, just a failure in every area.
You know, and I mean, you know, I could go on and on, but I'm getting the press.
Just every area I just fail.
My whole family is estranged from me.
My finances are shot.
I'm living in poverty.
Nobody likes me.
I'm made fun of and mocked across America by just everyone who's ever heard of me.
Right?
But then let's say I die and breathe my last breath and I get to heaven
and there's just hundreds of people or thousands of people there
because I went out and preached the gospel.
You know, you say, well, how would there be that many?
Well, what if you just went out every week or every day for decades?
There's going to be a lot of people.
I mean, even if you're not getting that many people saved,
you know, even if you're just getting one person saved every week or two
or one saved a month, I mean, if you do that for decades, you know,
and then they get people saved, I mean, you have hundreds of people there.
Would you, I mean, would you really consider me a failure
just because I failed in this life?
You know what I mean?
And I don't want to fail in that area.
I want my family to be a success.
I want the church that I pastor to be a success.
You know, I want to be successful financially.
Nobody says I want to fail financially.
I want to be bankrupt.
I want to rely on other people because I can't pay my own bills.
You know, nobody wants that.
But you know what?
Would you rather be successful in life and get to heaven and have nobody there
because you didn't do anything for anyone else?
You were just working on your vineyard and your orchard and your,
I mean, think about it.
Because there are a lot of people today, my friend,
lots of people who are very successful people.
I'm talking about saved Christians that are very successful.
They have beautiful families, beautiful vehicles, beautiful houses.
But do they win souls?
You know that there are a lot that don't.
So who's the success and who's the failure, my friend?
Think about it.
The success, okay, let me give you an example.
How about a guy who's totally homeless?
How about a guy who never even got married?
How about a guy who never had children?
How about a guy who never made any money?
He never had success in business.
And how about a guy who preached and his whole church left him except 11 people?
Think about it now.
Twelve people, but one of them was a phony.
One of them was a devil.
How about a guy who was mocked, spat upon, hated, rejected, despised,
but was he a failure?
He's Jesus Christ.
And he gave his life for us.
He served others with his life.
And he is the greatest success of all time.
That's why God has highly exalted him and given him a name
just above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow
and every tongue is passed to Jesus Christ, the Lord, and the glory of God.
But by the world's standard, was he a success?
Was he a success in family?
No. Was he a success?
His brethren didn't even believe on him.
They made fun of him, blew him off.
Was he a success financially?
No.
Was he a success in business?
Was he a successful preacher?
Well, I mean, he had his brows, but then they all left and quit.
Was he a success with the criminal justice system?
No. They killed him.
But he was the greatest success ever.
So I'm just trying to get you to see that success
is not what you can do for yourself.
It's what you can do for other people.
That's the way you ought to live your life.
Father, please just help us to understand this truth, dear God.
Maybe not the most eloquent sermon,
but Father, just please help people to think about what I'm saying
and just realize that it's all about others.
It's about what you can do for others, getting other people saved.
And, you know, the blessing of the, you know, if you know that,
God, if you know that a brother or sister is in need to help fix their car
or to help, you know, give them a meal that they need,
or if they're sick, to bring them a bowl of chicken soup
or give them ten bucks if that's what they need,
dear God, just help us to be that kind of person that helps other people
because that's the blessing right there.
Help us to realize that giving is what it's about,
and help us to go out and love the unlovable
and to give the gospel to every preacher.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.