This and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that according as it is written he that gloryeth, let him glory in the Lord.
What happens when you break this?
What would you do for Pastor Anderson, just opening this church for us, to all the bullying that's going on.
I'm blessed today, I just appreciate your work.
It's great, amen.
Man, it's great to be here tonight, and I love the building, I love what you guys have done here, and I appreciate everybody who worked hard to make all this happen.
And I also appreciate everybody who came out tonight, I know a lot of people came from really far away and you've driven from all over Southern California and even further, and so I really appreciate you being here.
I truly believe that this is the beginning of something great, that many, many years from now we're going to look back at all of the great works that this church has done and all of the exciting things that happened.
And you're going to want to be one of those people that says, hey, I was there at the very beginning in El Monte on Tyler Avenue in that building.
So praise God to be a part of something great like this, and I'm privileged to be here tonight to preach to you.
But in 1 Corinthians, chapter number 1, I want to start out in verse number 18, and the title of the sermon tonight is Characteristics of Our Church.
Characteristics of Our Church.
Now a lot of people that are holier-than-thou types will object to calling it our church, but they don't understand that he's our Lord, our Father, our God, it's our faith, it's our belief, and this is our church, this is our Bible, right?
We take ownership of these things because we're blessed and privileged to be a part of the church, and so we say this is our church.
And I want to give you tonight some characteristics of our church because our church, Faithful Word Baptist Church, is not the same as all the other churches that are out there.
And you've already realized that or you wouldn't even be here tonight.
So what are some characteristics of our church that come directly from the Bible and specifically they come directly from 1 Corinthians, chapter number 1?
First of all, number 1, our church is geared toward the saved, not the unsaved.
We understand that church is geared to the saved, not the unsaved. Why is that important?
It's important because saved people and unsaved people want completely different things, and you can't please both.
You've got to choose, are you gearing your church toward those who are saved or are you gearing church toward the unsaved?
Look what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 1.18.
God made foolish the wisdom of this world, for after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
So we see here that God's Word being preached to the unsaved is foolishness. That means it's stupid.
They would listen to this sermon tonight or other sermons that I've preached or other sermons that other godly men preach and they would say this is dumb, this is foolish.
But to us which are saved, when we hear biblical preaching, it's the power of God to us.
But then we as saved people, when we look at the wisdom that the world has to offer, it's foolishness unto us.
If we were to sit in on the college classroom and listen in the history department or the science department or the social studies department, we would think that what's being taught is total foolishness.
We turn on the TV, it's foolishness unto us. We turn on the radio, it's foolishness unto us.
They think that they're so smart, they think they're so wise, we think it's ridiculous.
They walk into church and they think that we're foolish. Why? Because we have a totally different spirit and we have a totally different understanding.
We have the mind of Christ. They have the mind that is according to this world and so we're looking for two totally different things and church needs to be a place that's geared toward the saved.
Why? The whole world's already geared toward the unsaved, TV's geared toward the unsaved, radio's for the unsaved, magazines that are geared toward the unsaved.
Can't there just be one place where we can go in this world just to get away from all that stuff and just to set foot into an oasis that's for us, a place for us to hear things that we believe in and to be edified and strengthened in our faith.
Not to have our faith torn down, not to be tempted with the things of this world, but a place that's geared toward the saved.
Go through Ephesians chapter 4. We'll come back to 1 Corinthians 1, but go to Ephesians chapter 4.
This is the biggest mistake I believe that churches are making today is that they're gearing their church toward the unsaved.
They feel that they have to be worldly. They feel that they have to dumb down the message. They feel that they have to water things down and make it really easy for unsaved people to walk in and fit in and be able to accept the message.
One of the terms that they'll use is seeker sensitive. So they're gearing it toward that guy who just wanders in.
But what about all the people that are already here? Now let me just ask you a question tonight. Who here is saved? Put up your hand.
All right. That's virtually everybody. So it makes a lot more sense for me to gear my preaching tonight to people that are saved.
And if we were to ask that same question on Sunday morning, again, 90 some percent of hands are going to go up.
Sunday night, 99 percent of hands are going to go up. But yet, in churches across America today, every Sunday morning, it's a salvation message.
And every sermon is geared to not offend the world, not offend the unsaved, instead of just giving Christians what they need to hear.
Look what the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 11.
And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
Those are the three things that we're trying to accomplish with our preaching.
You know, when we get up here and preach Sunday morning, Sunday night, Thursday night, what we're trying to accomplish here are these three things.
We want to perfect the saints. What does it mean to perfect them? The Bible says that perfect means that you're wanting nothing or lacking nothing.
It means that you're complete. Right. So the perfecting of the saints is finding those areas of weakness in our lives and completing those areas.
So let's say you're strong on Bible reading, you're strong on soul winning, but you're weak on your prayer life.
Well, then the preaching can help perfect that, complete that, fix that deficiency in your life.
Maybe you're great at Bible reading, you're great on prayer, but you're not doing any soul winning.
You need some preaching to complete that area in your life.
And so the preaching is to perfect the saints, to fill in that which is lacking.
Maybe you're doing a lot of work for God, but you don't have a lot of knowledge.
So you come to church and you learn a lot of good doctrine and you get more solid on what you believe.
So it's to perfect the saints and it's for the work of the ministry.
It's to get you motivated to go out and do the work, also to get you organized to go out and do the work.
It's pretty hard to get out and just go soul winning and come up with your own program.
But when you've got a partner to go with, when somebody is assigning you a street to go on,
when somebody is giving you a time and a place to meet, it just gets the job done.
And then it says for the edifying of the body of Christ.
Again, the body of Christ being the assembly of believers here so that we can be built up in our faith,
so that we can be edified.
You see, the preaching is for the saved.
It's for the perfecting of the saints.
It's for the work of the ministry which is done by the saved.
And it's for edifying the body of Christ which is a born again baptized body of believers.
It says in verse 13,
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a perfect man, again that means a complete man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
that we henceforth be no more children,
tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine,
and by the slight of men and cunning craftiness,
whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
But speaking the truth in love may grow up unto him in all things,
which is the head, even Christ.
So we see here that church is to get us from being a babe in Christ to grow up,
and to be built up, and not to be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine.
So when you have a church that's geared toward the unsaved,
you end up with a church that's filled with babes in Christ,
because they're not being fed strong meat of the word.
It's just all milk.
It's milk on Sunday morning.
It's milk on Sunday night.
It's milk on Thursday night.
And it's non-fat milk at that.
You know, there's not a lot there.
And you end up with babes in Christ.
That's not what we want our church to be like.
Now we're glad that there are babes in Christ in the church.
There's nothing wrong with being a babe in Christ.
It's where we all started.
But we don't want to be a church just filled with babes in Christ.
We want to have the toddlers.
We want to have the children.
We want to have the teenagers.
We want to have the adults.
We want to have the seniors.
We want to have a church with mature believers that can lead
and that can guard against the false doctrine that's out there.
Look, there's so much false doctrine everywhere.
It's everywhere.
And it's constantly trying to creep in.
And the Bible says we can't be children
because we'll be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine.
We need some strong Bible teaching.
We need some doctrine.
We need some meat on the bone
so that at least we can have some men in the church
that would stand up to false doctrine and say no.
Because they know what they believe.
They know why they believe it.
They can defend what they believe.
And they can fight against the false doctrine when it tries to creep in.
Go to 1 Corinthians 1 where we started.
1 Corinthians chapter number 1.
And we're talking about tonight characteristics of our church.
What do we want our church to be like?
What do we want Faithful Word Baptist Church to be like?
And if we take 1 Corinthians chapter 1 as a guide,
what should it be like?
Number 1, it should be geared toward the saved.
It's about perfecting the saints.
It's about edifying the body of Christ.
If an unsaved person walks in, great, let's give them the gospel.
Let's get them saved.
But you know what?
It's not geared toward them.
It's geared toward the saved.
Say, well, I don't know.
I mean, what if I bring a visitor?
We're not gearing it toward your visitor.
We're gearing it toward us.
If your visitor comes, they better buckle up
and get ready to get some Bible preaching.
Because it's more important to edify the believers here
so that they can go out and win 100 people to the Lord
than this method of evangelism through bringing unsaved people.
Why don't you get your buddy saved and then bring him to church
and then when he's under this kind of preaching,
the Holy Spirit is going to bear witness with his spirit
that what he's hearing is the truth.
That will make the service go down a lot easier for your buddy
if you can win him the Lord in the car on the way over.
So number 1, church is to be geared to those who are saved.
Number 2, this church is not here to give people what they want.
Our church is not here to figure out what people want and give it to them.
Our church is here to give people what they need, not what they want.
Look what the Bible says in verse 22.
First it tells us what people want in verse 22.
Well, the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom.
Let's give them what they want, amen.
But look what it says in verse 23.
But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block
and unto the Greeks foolishness.
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
So he says the Jews require a sign, the Greeks seek after wisdom,
we preach neither.
We preach neither, we preach the Bible.
We preach Christ crucified.
We preach what God told us to preach.
We're not taking a poll to figure out what the Greeks want to hear,
figure out what the Jews want to hear,
figure out what the poor people want to hear,
what the Hispanics want to hear,
what the Republican talk radio crowd wants to hear,
what the liberal crowd wants to hear.
No! We're just going to preach what the Bible says
and people can like it or they can love it!
Because it's the Word of God!
He says, well the Jews, man, they seek after a sign.
And I've heard so many preachers, I can't even count how many preachers I've heard,
say, well the Jews seek after a sign.
That's why in the end times, God's going to give them that sign
and then they're all going to get saved.
I just heard a Baptist preacher last week.
Somebody sent me a sermon from a Baptist preacher
and he said that when Christ returns, all the Jews are going to get saved.
All of them.
They're all just going to seek Christ and they're all going to get saved.
Because, I mean, they seek after a sign.
Yeah, but Jesus said an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign
and there shall no sign be given unto it but the sign of the prophet Jonah.
Because as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly,
so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
You know, the Jews are seeking a sign.
Here's a sign for you, shlomo!
The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ!
There's your sign!
The sign of Jesus rising from the dead after three days.
There's your sign, buddy!
Take it or leave it.
That's the only sign you're going to get.
That's the sign.
The Greeks seek after wisdom.
I like what the Bible says in verse 20.
Where is the wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the disputer of this world?
When I think about the disputer of this world,
I think of these professional debate kind of guys.
That's kind of like the disputer, right?
The disputer of this world.
The guy who argues professionally or debates all the time.
Personally, I think the debates are a terrible way to learn,
a terrible way to get information,
a terrible way to present information.
In fact, I don't understand how Christians can be into debates
when the Bible specifically says that we should avoid contentions.
He said avoid contentions, avoid strivings about the law.
They're unprofitable in vain.
You know, when I'm out soul winning, I'm always trying to avoid arguments.
I try to get away from people that just want to dispute and argue.
You know, I want to preach the Gospel to somebody who has an ear to hear.
I mean, he that hath an ear to hear, let him hear.
And I'd rather just hear the truth than to hear lies.
And, you know, when I perceive that the words of wisdom are not in someone,
the Bible says just depart from that person.
But, you know, where's the disputer of this world?
Where's the wise?
Well, God, the Bible says, has made foolish the wisdom of this world
at the end of verse 20.
So number one, our church is geared toward those who are saved.
Number two, we're not here to give people what they want, okay?
So we're not going around and trying to figure out the music that they want,
the preaching that they want.
And some people would listen to the type of preaching that we do,
which simply is just Bible preaching that seeks to glorify the Lord
and edify the saved.
But they hear some of the preaching that we do and they say,
well, you know, brother, if you preach like that,
you're going to be a stumbling block to certain people, right?
I mean, that's the type of thing that they would say.
Hey, you're being a stumbling block.
You just get up and preach a Bible message.
You preach something straight out of the Bible.
And they say, you know, you're turning people away.
You're a stumbling block unto certain people.
I would just say that. Amen.
Because Paul said, you know what?
We preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block.
He just said, I'm just going to come out right out and say it.
I'm preaching things that are making people stumble.
But if it's the Gospel, if it's the Bible, if it's the truth,
if it's the Word of God, that's the way life is.
He said we preach Christ unto the Jews a stumbling block
and unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God
because the foolishness of God is wiser than man
and the weakness of God is stronger than man.
And that's so true that God's Word is so much greater
than anything that the world has to offer.
We're not up here trying to prove that we're right tonight.
We're not up here trying to debate and show the atheists
that we can really prove that God exists
and try to show the Catholics and show...
Look, we already know we're right.
The Bible backs up everything that we teach.
We get up and we preach the Word of God.
We're not trying to apologize for anything.
We're not trying to logic with people that aren't even saved.
We're here to preach the Word of God in the power of God
as we're filled with the Spirit of God
and he that hath an ear to hear will hear.
You know, when you go out soul winning
and you run into the person who just wants to argue
and dispute and fight you, you know what?
You admonish them once, you admonish them twice
and then you just shake it off and go to the next door
because you will eventually find that person
who is ready to hear the gospel
and that's the person you're looking for.
And you say, oh, this kind of preaching, you know,
nobody's going to want to hear this preaching.
But yet the house is full tonight
of people who do want to hear real Bible preaching,
who do love the Lord
and there are people like this in every generation
and there are people like this in every geographic area
and God calls out and uses a group of people
and it's not necessarily the greatest people
or the smartest people or the most talented people
but he calls out a group of people
and he uses them to do something great for his glory
and he gets all the glory.
And that brings me to my third point
is that our church is not reliant on talent,
personality or human ability.
So number one, our church is geared toward those who are saved.
Number two, we're not here to give people what they want.
We're here to just preach the Bible
and tell people what they need to hear.
And number three, our church is not reliant
on talent, personality or human ability.
Another way of saying this is that
our church is not built in the flesh.
It's not built through skillful tactics and methods
that were read somewhere in a marketing book
or a sleek presentation or just the right image
or the right building or the right personality or whatever.
Look what the Bible says in this passage.
It says in verse number 25,
because the foolishness of God is wiser than man
and the weakness of God is stronger than man.
For you see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh,
not many mighty, not many noble are called.
But God has chosen the foolish things of this world
to confound the wise,
and God has chosen the weak things of the world
to confound the things which are mighty
and base things of the world
and things which are despised hath God chosen
and things which are not to bring to naught things that are
that no flesh should glory in his presence.
What's he saying?
He's saying that if you go to a church that God's using
and if you go to a church that's a great soul winning church,
a church where the Bible's being preached
and where God's hand of mighty power is resting on that church,
if you go to that church and look around
at the people that God's using in that church
and just the people in general that are part of that church,
you're not going to find a lot of noble people,
high bred, high born, silver spoon in the mouth type people.
He said you're not going to find a lot of mighty men
according to the flesh.
You're not going to find a lot of wise men after the flesh.
It's not going to be just some kind of a rich and famous
who's who of the community.
It's not going to, you know, if you walk into Christ's church,
if you walk into the church that the apostle Paul is talking to here
and preaching to in Corinth,
if you walked into that church,
it's not going to be all the important people of the community.
It's not the mayor and the police chief
and all the businessmen and the millionaires
and all of the high society.
Now here's the thing.
There will be some rich people in the church.
There will be some noble people in the church.
There will be some mighty men in the church physically.
But you know what he says?
By and large, the people that God uses are not those type of people.
They're not the greatest people.
God didn't look down and choose out the strongest, most handsome,
smartest, most eloquent person and say,
well, I'm going to make him the pastor of this church
or that church or the other church because he's going to do the best job.
God can actually do more with less.
God can do more with less.
God can feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fishes.
And to feed 4,000 people, he used seven loaves.
So he actually did more with less.
And the Bible says that God,
most of the people that he calls are not the noble.
They're not the wise.
They're not the mighty.
They're not the smartest.
It's not going to be the most eloquent, the most talented.
And you know what?
That should be a blessing to you if you think to yourself,
hey, I don't know if I'm up to the task.
I don't know if God can use me in a great way.
You know, I mean, I want to do something for God,
but I don't have any great speaking ability.
I don't have any great financial backing.
I'm not good looking.
I'm not charming.
I'm not talented.
I'm just an average guy or maybe I'm even a little below average.
You know, if you're willing to be used by God,
God could even use you more greatly
because the Bible says that his strength is made perfect in weakness.
Paul said, well, when I'm weak, then am I strong?
He said all glory and infirmities, all glory and weakness
that the power of Christ might rest upon me.
So we don't want our church to be built on talent,
personality or human ability.
We want our church to be built on the power of God, the Spirit of God.
And that means that people who have a bad background,
people who have problems in their life,
people who are financially messed up, physically messed up,
emotionally messed up, you know what?
But they love the Lord.
God says, you know, I can take that motley crew.
I can take that group of people who love me
and want to serve me and I can turn an area upside down.
I can turn the world upside down.
Now with the nobility of the high priest's household
or of the household of the governor,
no, no, no, I'll take the fisherman, I'll take the tax collector,
I'll take the average Joe, I'll take Simon the Canaanite
just to confound the Zionists
and confound those who put too much emphasis on being a Jew.
He chose one of his disciples to be a Canaanite.
And then that Canaanite is going to be ruling over one of the 12 tribes of Israel in the millennium
because he said the 12 apostles will sit on the 12 thrones
judging the 12 tribes of Israel.
And one of them's name is Simon the Canaanite.
Why? Because he's glorified when he can take the base things of this world.
If he can take a Canaanite and use that Canaanite to turn the world upside down with Bible preaching,
to preach to a bunch of Jews and Gentiles,
then he's glorified by that.
And if we were smart and tall and handsome and dashing and good looking and eloquent and wealthy,
then God wouldn't get the glory. We'd get the glory.
If our teeth were perfect like Joel Osteen
and if we had everything in our life right and the perfect wardrobe
and the perfect building and the perfect program, then God wouldn't get the glory.
But God uses us in our condition to glorify him.
And you know what? The weaker we are, the better for him.
You say, well, I'm not talented. Great. I'm not a good speaker. Great.
You know, some of the best soul winners at Faith Forward Baptist Church
are some of the people that are the most socially awkward.
I'm not kidding.
I mean, there are some people in our church that are super quiet, super shy.
You'd never expect this person to be an effective soul winner.
And we're talking people that get people saved every week, consistent soul winners.
And you go out soul winning with these people.
And I mean, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon them.
And they speak the Word of God with boldness.
I mean, they go out and it's like, you wonder, is this even the same person?
Because he's so quiet. He's so shy.
And I mean, there are so many people I could point to at our church in Tempe
and say, man, if God can use this person to win souls, anybody can win souls.
If at first there be a willing heart, the Bible says,
it is accepted according to that a man hath, not according to that he hath not.
So God's not looking for what you don't have. He's just looking for what you do have.
What can you give? What can you provide? What can you do?
That's all he's looking for, to just lay your all on the altar.
And God can do great things through this church.
God can do great things through any church, any group of people,
any young man, any young lady, anyone who's willing and says,
here are my Lord, send me, can be greatly used by God.
See, Faithful Word Baptist Church is a church that defies all conventions.
It defies all logic where people would say,
well, this is the kind of church that would thrive or succeed
or this is the kind of preaching that's going to get it done.
You know, if we were to go to a Bible college today
and they were to teach on how to start a church
and what to preach on and how to run things,
it would literally be the opposite of everything we do practically.
I mean, when I was in Bible college, they pretty much taught me
virtually the opposite of almost everything I do.
I'm not kidding.
Everything they say is practically the opposite of that which we do
because they're wrong and we're right.
You say, well, that's prideful.
No, no, no, they're the ones that are prideful
if they think that they can make up their own methods
that aren't from the Bible.
We're humble enough to do it the way the Bible says.
If the Bible says don't make it a house of merchandise,
we're not going to sell anything.
We're going to give it all away for free.
Everything on those back shelves, it's free.
Take it, it's free.
Take as many as you want, it's free.
But they say, no, no, no, sell everything.
That's what I was taught in Bible college, sell everything.
They said if you give stuff away for free,
people won't appreciate it.
So you got to sell it to them.
Look, when I was in Bible college, when we went soul winning,
we had to buy the tracts that we handed out on soul winning.
Those weren't even given to us for free.
We would show up for soul winning
and there was like a fee to go soul winning.
I'm not kidding.
You'd show up to go soul winning
and you'd have to buy the tracts.
And it was like 50 cents for a little bundle
or a dollar for a little bundle.
And they said we don't want to charge a lot,
but we're going to charge a little bit
because otherwise people won't appreciate it
and they'll just kind of put them under the seat in the car
and they'll be all over their house
and they'll just squander them.
So we've got to charge money for them.
That's man's logic and man's wisdom.
God said not to make his house a house of merchandise, period.
We should not sell anything.
God forbid everything would ever be bought or sold in this building
or in our church over in Tempe
or any other Bible believing church.
A friend of mine told me that he asked his pastor,
what about the verse where Jesus said,
make not my Father's house a house of merchandise?
What do you do with that verse?
And the pastor said, well, that's a different dispensation.
I mean, so which of Christ's teachings are we not going to throw out?
Oh, it's just a different dispensation.
Everything Jesus said, different dispensation.
It's unbelievable, friend.
But see, they've got their own program, right,
that didn't come from the Bible
where they've got it all figured out
and they're so smart about how to go out
and invite people and not soul winning,
just 20,000 flyers and if you hand out this many flyers,
this many people are going to show up
and it's all based on math
and you've got to sell them this and sell them that
and it's all, look, forget all that.
Let's just do what the Bible says.
Let's just prove everybody wrong
and show that you can preach hard, rip face,
old hymns, the boring old traditional classic hymns,
King James Version, white pages, black ink,
no pictures in our Bible, right,
and we just preach and go soul winning and knock doors
and just, I don't know how, but it just works.
I don't know how.
You know what?
Actually, I do know how.
God blesses and then it's not based on talent.
It's not based on personality.
It's not based on our human ability.
It's just based on the blessing of God, the power of God.
It's a 1 Corinthians chapter one type church.
It says in verse 28, base things of the world
and things which are despised hath God chosen
and by the way, that tells me if you're not despised
of this world, are you even the chosen?
Think about that.
The ones that God chose to do a great work
are the ones that are despised.
Jesus said, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution.
If the world hates you, know that it hated me
before it hated you.
So he chose the ones that are despised
to actually be the ones that he uses greatly
and things which are not to bring to naught things that are.
That no flesh should glory in his presence,
but of him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God
is made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption
that according as it is written,
he that glorieth, glorieth means boasted,
he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord.
So number one, our church is geared
toward those who are saved.
Number two, our church is not here
to give people what they want.
It's here to just preach the word of God,
do it God's way, and let the chips fall where they may.
And number three, our church is not reliant
on talent, personality, or human ability.
Why?
Because if it were, then flesh could glory in his presence.
Say, look what we did.
Look what we built.
Look what we've accomplished.
No, we just have to sit back and say,
well, you know what?
All we did was just what the Bible said,
and God did it all.
God built the church.
God did the work.
You know, we're nothing special.
We're nothing great.
And in fact, you could do the same thing.
Let me show you how.
Anybody could do what I do.
Anybody could do what other men of God today are doing.
There's nothing complicated about it.
It's just a willingness to preach and obey the Bible.
But he says that no flesh should glory in his presence,
verse 30, but of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom.
So the Bible is saying Christ is our wisdom.
Christ is our righteousness.
Christ is our sanctification, and Christ is our redemption,
that according as it is written,
he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord.
Next verse.
And I, brethren, when I came to you,
came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom,
declaring unto you the testimony of God,
for I determined not to know anything among you,
save Jesus Christ and him crucified,
and I was with you in weakness and in fear
and in much trembling, and my speech and my preaching
were not with enticing words of man's wisdom,
but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men,
but in the power of God.
Look, you say, well, when I go out soul winning,
I'm a little bit fearful.
I'm a little timid or trembling.
You know what?
Paul was like that.
He got nervous.
You know, I'm performing a wedding in Mexico on Saturday.
I'm a little bit nervous
because this is my first Spanish wedding that I'm performing.
You know, I'm going to be there with fear and trembling,
but I still believe that God could use me
to preach to those people
and to preach the gospel and to preach his word
and that there's a purpose
and there's a reason for me being there,
and if anybody gets saved, if any good comes of that,
if anybody's edified or grows in the Lord
or is blessed by that, it's not going to be because of me
because I'm certainly not going to be eloquent
in a foreign language, but God can use me.
So I'm willing to say, Lord, here am I.
Send me.
Use me to fulfill that mission,
and that's what we're doing when we're out soul winning
or preaching a sermon or whatever.
You know, we just give it our best and let God use us.
He says that your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men but in the power of God,
how be it we speak wisdom among them that are perfect,
yet not the wisdom of this world
nor of the princes of this world that come to naught,
but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery,
even the hidden wisdom which God ordained
before the world unto our glory.
Jump down to verse 14, it says that the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God
for their foolishness unto him,
neither can he know them
because they're spiritually discerned.
So that brings us back to the beginning again, doesn't it?
You know, it's geared toward the saved.
This sermon is for you tonight if you're saved.
And if you're saved tonight,
I hope that this church is your church
where you can say, hey, this is what our church is like.
And I know some of you are from far away
and that's not possible for you to be here all the time,
and I appreciate you making the pilgrimage tonight
just to support us and encourage us
and meet with us and edify us,
but those that are local enough
to make it here on a regular basis,
if you're saved, this church is for you.
If you want a church that dishes up the Word of God
three times a week with no regard for what's popular,
no regard for what's cool or hip or trendy,
no regard for what people want to hear,
if you just want a preacher
that'll just give it to you straight,
then you are in the right place.
And number three, if you are a person
who's willing to be used by God,
you can be used in this church.
You can be not just a benchwarmer in this church,
you can be a part of the team.
You can be used mightily in this church
because God is looking for people just like you to use.
Say, well, I'm old.
God wants to use those who are old.
Well, I'm young.
Great.
You know, I'm ugly.
Great.
It doesn't matter.
I'm a bad speaker.
Join the club.
You know, so what?
God wants to use all of us,
and God is going to do great things with this church.
I firmly believe that, and I hope you believe that, too.
And I hope that those of you who live in this area
will decide, this is my church.
This is our church, and you know what?
We, through the power of God,
are going to do something great for God as a group.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much
for assembling this group of people, Lord,
and we just pray that this group, Lord,
would do mighty things for you.
Lord, thank you for what you've already allowed them to accomplish
in a short time with the 70-some people
that have already been saved over the last few weeks, Lord.
I just pray that you would just help this group to understand
that the sky is the limit for what they could accomplish.
There's no reason why they can't accomplish
everything that we are accomplishing in Arizona and more
and double what's being done in Arizona, Lord.
Just help this church to realize that you will use anyone
who will be a willing servant, a willing vessel,
and a living sacrifice, Lord,
and help us all to lay it on the altar, Lord,
and be ready to be used.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.