you
You
Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Faithful Word Baptist Church, so now I see you out here for a Wednesday night service.
Grab your seats now and take your hymnals. Go to hymn 116. We'll get started tonight at hymn number 116.
116, He Leadeth Me. Hymn number 116.
When you find your place, we'll start together on that first noun. 116, He Leadeth Me.
Oh, blessed Thou. Let's sing this out. On to the Lord this evening. Hymn number 116.
Good start to our thing tonight. We want to go before the Lord and ask the blessing on the service. Let's bow our heads together
Dear heavenly father Lord, we come before you tonight
We just thank you for giving us this opportunity to be in church on the first day of the new year
We just ask for your blessing upon us as we sing out these praises and these songs unto you
Help us to be stirred and edified as we do that
for our hearts for the preaching to come.
We ask Lord your blessing upon our pastor
as he preaches to us tonight, fill him with your spirit
and that he may preach clearly to us
and that we may learn and be attentive
to the message tonight and that we be able to receive it.
And we'll thank you for all that takes place
in Jesus' name, amen.
Over to hymn 247, hymn number 247.
Save, saved, hymn number 247.
I found a friend who is all to me.
Number 247, you have to sing out this song loudly.
So help me out here, let's sing it out nice and strong
on that first together now.
Number 247, I found a...
All right.
the bulletins, lift up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one.
On the inside, we have our service time.
Sunday mornings at 10.30 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at six.
Wednesday nights at seven is our Bible study.
This week we'll be in Second Chronicles, chapter 31.
We've got the soul winning times listed there below,
as well as Salvation and Baptisms.
Happy New Year, of course.
It's January 1st, brand new year,
and so thank you for choosing to be here on this day.
Baby shower is coming up this Sunday for Eileen urban. That is from 2 to 4 p.m.
Right here all ladies and teenage girls are invited to attend
It's preferable that you leave your children other than teenage girls at home
But of course nurselings are always okay, and please RSVP to mrs. Chandler of gules
And then on the back,
we've got the note about coffee and donuts
before the service also next Sunday
in a few days from now.
So that starts at 10 a.m.
And then keep praying for the list there
of expectant ladies that they'll have
a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery.
Of course, one of these already happened, right?
Shanina Meathor gave birth a few days ago,
so we'll get that announcement to you soon.
And then I think that that's about it for announcements.
Down at the bottom we see that Pastor Aaron Thompson
is preaching on January 22nd.
That's another thing that's coming up.
And then Pastor Shelley is preaching on February the 19th,
Wednesday night.
And then what else have we got coming up?
Pastor Russell is preaching in mid-March.
And then also, we've got the missions conference.
You know, we just set the date on that.
We set a date and we put a ring on it.
We're gonna have the missions conference in November
on the fifth through the ninth.
I know that's super far away,
but still some of them mark the calendar
for the missions conference coming up in November.
And then also another thing that wanna mention too
is that we've been talking a lot about
the cruise ship mission strips.
Well, Brother Sigura is gonna be doing
a cruise ship mission strip on March 23rd through the 28th.
So really, I mean, really, you know,
people in the church can get together and, you know,
team up and go on these things whenever.
That's what's so cool about this program.
But
It's probably going to be a lot more fun too if you can get on one where there's a bunch of other people from church and everything and then there'll be a lot of good fellowship and everything like that.
So Brother Segora is going to be leading a missions trip on March 23rd through 28th.
The vessel is called Norwegian Jade, so that is the vessel.
So, March 23rd, Jade, if you want to be on the cruise ship,
I think there's already like maybe nine people from our church
that are already signed up for this particular cruise.
And it involves like four days of soul winning in the Bahamas,
which is one of the most receptive places to go soul winning.
Great place to go soul winning.
And so let us know if you're interested,
reach out to us if you're interested,
we can get you more details.
And we are sponsoring some people to do that.
Not, we're not buying anybody's cruises,
but we are sponsoring people by, you know,
if they buy the cruise, we are buying people's flights.
Okay, but that's kind of a wall supplies last,
sea store for details kind of thing.
You know, void were prohibited.
You know, many will enter, few will win type of thing.
But if you basically just, you know, first come, first served,
if you want to go on one of these,
if you book your ticket, we will, as the Lord allows,
we will try to pay for people's flights
to just make it a little more affordable for you.
And that way, you know, maybe instead of doing one of these,
you can do two of them.
Or maybe instead of doing two of them,
you can do three of them.
because we want to get as many of our church members
out on the mission field this year as we possibly can.
And this is a really inexpensive way to do it.
It's one of the cheapest ways to do a mission strip.
It kind of feels like an upgrade,
but yet financially it's like a downgrade,
which is super cool.
So anyway, if you're interested in that,
we've got stuff online about it.
I don't want to take up too much time
talking about it right now.
Yeah.
Okay, and here's another great thing about this.
There is no passport required.
So what they do want you to have though is they want you to have the driver's license with the little star on it
The real ID they they want you to have it
I'm not even sure that that's a hundred percent required
But I you know you should just do that to be safe
But here's the thing getting a passport can be kind of a pain in the neck
You know it's like what a hundred and eighty dollars and you got to make an appointment and get a picture taken do all this crazy stuff
Whereas the the real ID some of you probably already have it
You know you're probably checking your driver's license right now see if you have a little star on it
All you need to get the star on the driver's license is you know
I just got mine like a month ago. You just go to DMV it takes like 20 minutes
It's 20 bucks and it shows up in the mail like a week later
So it's about a thousand times easier than getting a passport
So, it's super easy and if you have the driver's license with the star on it, as long as the
cruise starts and ends in the United States, you can go to whatever foreign countries and
there's no immigration, no passport, nothing.
And so, for kids, they just need a birth certificate.
So, just have a birth certificate for the kids and a driver's license for the adults
Yeah, so any other questions just see brother say Gora or myself and we will
You know point you in the right direction or you know cruise related questions in general you can talk to the cruise guru
Brother Kevin over here. Yeah, how many crews have been on one, but he's the he's oh two. I see he's the expert
He's the guru so anyway
Yeah, it's it's gonna be fun and it's gonna be super productive
So it's really just a win-win.
So that's kind of what we're emphasizing.
We're probably not going to do any standard mission strips this year.
We're probably only going to focus on these cruise-based mission strips,
and then Mexico trips like Mexico Monday type things.
But that's pretty much all we're planning on doing as far as
organized mission strips is going to be emphasizing this for this year.
So that's the push.
All right, very good.
Let's go ahead and just count up the soul winning quickly
from the past few days.
What was that?
Oh, yeah.
One other thing, food.
We're going to have free food, as always.
And some of it's in the fridge, but we'll pull it out
after the service.
So be sure to check that out.
And then also, it's Brother Segura's birthday.
But, well, we got to wish him a happy birthday.
But I think he's hidden himself among the stuff.
So I, you know, I guess we can find out if he's actually paying attention to what's going on, you know
But he's a baby new year was born January 1st. So let's sing happy birthday to brother Segura
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday, Brother Sengora.
Happy birthday to you.
Wherever he is back there, I'm sure he's enjoying that and appreciating it.
And of course, he is one of the most important people around here,
as far as just making things happen, keeping things running.
He is the ultimate employee, and so we're super grateful to have...
And here he is now!
And we appreciate him very much, and I'm sure it'll be super fun to go on a Bahamas mission
trip with him in March.
So, all right, let's count up the soul winning, going back to Monday.
Anything to report from Monday?
Okay, got it, got it.
Okay, anything else from Monday?
Oh, there we go.
All right, and then how about Tuesday anything from Tuesday, okay?
Anything else from Tuesday, and then how about today now I know brother Moses you told me about one
Were there any other from the van besides the one that brother Moses told me about all right very good
And then outside the van gotcha
All right very good keep up the great work on soul winning and with that let's sing our next song come lead us
All right should find the answer in front of your hymn book
with the insert, uh, Born to Die.
If you have two songs on the answer,
we're only singing Born to Die.
Just ignore the other one,
but if you don't have an answer, raise your hand.
We'll sing it on that verse together,
on the night Christ is born,
just before break of born.
Let's see how it's going.
the sun.
Редактор субтитров О.Голубкина
As I follow the path you have made
On my death I partake
I envision I forsake all my sins
everybody take our hymnals now go to hymn 107 hymn number 107 praise the
Savior hymn number 107
107 praise the Savior you know hymn number 107
on that first together now
All we are in and there
Jesus is the name of Johnson
He foretold and said,
Lift him on, son
Nothing will man
Nothing harm done
While we trust in him
God said,
There he stands forever
He is faithful,
Think he'll ever
We shall be where we would be, and we shall be what we should be.
Things that are not now or would be, will shall be to our own.
Alright, just now we'll pass our offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to 2nd Chronicles, chapter number 31.
2 Chronicles 31, and as we always do, we will read the entire chapter beginning in verse
number one, following silently with Brother Dan as he reads, 2 Chronicles 31, beginning
in verse number one.
In 2 Chronicles 31 the Bible reads,
Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah
and break the images and pieces and cut down the groves
and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin
in Ephraim also in Manasseh until they had utterly destroyed them all.
Then all the children of Israel returned every man to his possession into their own cities.
and Hezekiah pointed the courses of the priests and the Levites after their courses.
Every man according to his service, the priests and Levites for burnt offerings
and for peace offerings, to minister and to give thanks
and to praise in the gates of the tents of the Lord.
He appointed also the king's portion of his substance for the burnt offerings,
to wit for the morning and evening burnt offerings,
and the burnt offerings for the Sabbath, and for the new moons
Moreover, He commanded the people that dwelt in Jerusalem to give the portion of the priests and the Levites that they might be encouraged in the law of the Lord.
And as soon as the commandant came abroad, the children of Israel brought in abundance the first fruits of corn, wine, and oil, and honey,
and of all the increase of the field and the tithe of all the things brought they in abundantly.
And concerning the children of Israel and Judah that dwelt in the cities of Judah,
they also brought in the tithe of oxen and sheep, and the tithe of holy things which were consecrated unto the Lord their God,
and laid them by heaps. In the third month they began to lay the foundation of the heaps and finished them in the seventh month.
And when Hezekiah and the princes came and saw the heaps, they blessed the Lord and His people Israel.
Then Hezekiah questioned with the priests and the Levites concerning the heaps,
and as a riot the chief priest of the house of Zadok answered him and said,
since the people began to bring the offerings into the house of the Lord,
we have had enough to eat, and have left plenty.
For the Lord hath blessed his people, and that which is left is this great store.
and Hezekiah commanded to prepare chambers in the house of the Lord, and they prepared them,
and brought in the offerings and the tithes and the dedicated things faithfully,
over which Kanaaniah the Levite was ruler, and Shimeiah's brother was the next,
and Jeheil and Aziziah and Nehath and Azahel and Jeremoth and Jezebad and Eliel and Ismikiah
and Mehath and Baniah were overseers under the hand of Kanaaniah and Shimeiah's brother,
and Azariah the ruler of the house of God and Korah the son of Imna the Levite the porter toward
the east was over the free will offering of God to distribute the oblations of the Lord
and the most holy things and next to him were Eden and Miniamon and Jeshua and Shamiah and Amariah
and Shekiniah in the cities of the priests in their set office to give to their brethren by
Beside their genealogy of males from three years old and upward, even unto everyone that
entereth into the house of the Lord, his daily portion for their service and their charges
according to their courses, both to the genealogy of the priests by the house of their father
and the Levites from twenty years old and upward, in their charges by their courses, and to
the genealogy of all their little ones, their wives and their sons and their daughters,
through all the congregation, for in their set office they sanctified themselves in holiness.
also of the sons of Aaron the priests which were in the fields of the suburbs of their cities
in every several city the men that were expressed by name to give portions to all the males among
the priests and to all that were reckoned by genealogies among the Levites. Nusted Hezekiah
throughout all Judah and wrought that which was good and right and truth before the Lord his
God and in every work that he began in the service of the house of God and in the law and in the
Dear Lord, we thank you for faith. We're Baptist Church Lord and thank you for everyone who's come here for church this evening
I pray that you would give a special blessing to everyone who's attending here tonight
And I pray that you'd feel pastor answering with your Holy Spirit
Give us all ears to hear and Jesus and pray amen
Men, 2 Chronicles, chapter 31, we're continuing to talk about Hezekiah, and if you remember
last time, it was a couple of weeks ago, but we talked about how Hezekiah had this big
Passover at the beginning of his reign, and he got a lot of the northern kingdom of Israel
people to come down and celebrate the Passover with them.
as an allegory about evangelism because he's kind of reaching out evangelizing that northern kingdom
and we talked about it from that angle and if you think about it these people from the northern
kingdom that came down and celebrated the Passover with them
This is sort of like a first step for them
to start worshiping the Lord again
because their nation had forsaken the Lord
and gotten away from the Bible.
And so Hezekiah is bringing them back
and coming to this Passover was kind of a first step for them.
Okay, and so I think in this chapter,
Second Chronicles 31,
we kind of see the children of Israel and Hezekiah
and Judah taking some next steps.
in serving God because, you know, when Hezekiah became king,
he's just opening the doors to the house of God, just getting things started
again,
having an initial Passover feast and of course the Passover is the most basic
holiday on that Old Testament calendar
and then in chapter 31 we see them now
beginning to take their walk with God to the next level
and so we can
make a lot of analogies with our own personal lives too.
Especially because it's January 1st,
we're starting out a new year,
and people often think about a new year
as a time to take things up a notch, right?
In our own personal lives, as a church, whatever.
People have all kinds of resolutions and high hopes
going into the new year of doing a better job
this year than last year.
And some people make fun of that,
but honestly, I think it's a great thing
to have that kind of attitude,
you know, good plans and to aim for something new.
You know, we knocked on a door out,
so winning just like less than an hour ago,
and you know, before we even came to the door,
the lady just swung open the door
without even knowing who we were,
and she's like, what the beep?
And it was just like, wow, we know what her resolution wasn't.
You know?
Obviously, like, wasn't anything about, like,
staying chill, being cool, being nice, not losing her temper,
not cussing at strangers before you've even
seen who they are, whatever.
But all right.
So you know, but then most people seem like more people today out
So when we're like extra friendly because they're probably like trying to be their best self on January 1st, right?
so as we think about this new year and
Taking things to the next level in our own personal lives and our walk with God. That's pretty much what this chapter is about
because look what it says in verse number one of chapter 31.
Now, when all this was finished, all Israel that were present
went out to the cities of Judah and break the images and pieces
and cut down the groves and threw down the high places
and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin.
And that's what we would expect to happen in Judah and Benjamin.
But it says also in Ephraim also, Ammanasi.
So even those who had come from the northern kingdom and celebrated the Passover with Ezekiah,
they're going back home and throwing down some altars and destroying some idolatry up there.
Until they had utterly destroyed them all.
Then all the children of Israel returned every man to his own possession into their own cities.
And so what we see here is the celebrating of the Passover is followed by the destruction of idolatry,
getting rid of some wicked things that didn't belong in their lives.
And then what we see at the end of verse one is sort of getting back into the routine of life, right?
going back to their own house, because, yeah, we get saved and we get in church,
maybe we tag some spiritual summit of a church service that's life-changing,
or we hear a great sermon, or we go on our first time soul-winning, or a mission trip,
or, you know, Christian summer camp, or something, right?
But then, inevitably, you have to get back into the routine of normal life, right?
And so that's what this chapter is all about, taking our Christianity to the next level
and then also having a system going forward for how we're going to continue serving God
in the long run.
Now, the first thing I want to talk about is this throwing down of the high places, right?
It says they threw down the high places.
Keep your finger here and go to 2 Corinthians chapter number 10 in the New Testament.
because 2 Corinthians chapter 10 has some really similar
language where the Apostle Paul is talking about the
spiritual warfare that we're involved in as Christians
because we are not involved in a physical battle like the
Israelites were, right? The Israelites are a physical
nation.
and they have physical warfare with the neighboring nations,
and they are enforcing the worship of the Lord
because they're the chosen people, the special nation,
and God is their God, and they're not allowed to worship other gods, right?
Whereas in the New Testament, we're not enforcing anything like that.
We don't have a government that's controlled by God and God's people.
We don't physically fight against the Philistines and the Moabites, right?
The Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood.
But that doesn't mean that these kind of Old Testament passages—
don't have application for us because just as they threw down the high places,
even though we're not going to go out physically destroying other churches or idols or something like that,
we have some throwing down to do of our own. Look what the Bible says in verse 3.
It says, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh,
for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.
Now what does carnal mean? Carnal means fleshly.
physical, you could say, they're not physical, you could say, but mighty through God to the
pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted
itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought.
to the obedience of Christ and so the idea here is that we're not going to physically go out and
throw down idols or go out and slay the enemies of the Lord or something because we're not living
in the Old Testament, we're living in the New Testament and we don't wrestle against flesh
and blood, but what do we throw down? We throw down imaginations, right? Notice the similar
language at the end of verse 4, pulling down strongholds, casting down imaginations. Now
What does this mean when it says strongholds, right?
Well, the literal meaning of a stronghold is what we would call like a fortress, right?
And so, if you think about it, when a foreign nation would invade another country...
It's pretty easy for them to just take over the countryside, right?
And you see this a lot throughout the Old Testament where, you know, the Assyrians or the Babylonians or the Egyptians or whatever,
you know, they'll come in and they could easily take over the countryside, the towns, and control the region.
But the last thing that they're going to be able to take over are the walled cities and especially Jerusalem, right?
So Jerusalem is the ultimate stronghold of Judah, right?
And so in our spiritual warfare, we are going to be
Casting down imaginations, and we're going to be pulling down strongholds.
Basically, you know, as the walls of Jericho came down,
we're going to tear down the walls of the strongholds.
So what is a stronghold then?
Basically, when we first get saved,
and when we first embrace the teachings of the Bible,
Certain things are going to be easy to adjust to or easy to accept and, you know, if we
learn, hey, you're not supposed to steal or something, that's not going to be some
new shocking revelation to us, like, oh, wow, I'm a Christian, I'm not supposed to steal
or something, right?
Not killing, not committing adultery, these things are easy, they're obvious, right?
But there are a lot of other things that the Bible teaches that are harder for some people
But we could call those strongholds and what I would call those are deeply seated wrong ideas
that are contrary to the Word of God,
but they're deeply seated in our culture,
they're ingrained in our minds,
our upbringing, where we just have these strongly held,
bad ideas, wrong ideas.
And the Word of God can tear those things down
and break down those walls and break down those barriers
and get those sins out of our life
or get those wrong doctrines out of our life.
And sometimes you'll hear...
preaching that talks about, you know, sins that people have trouble getting rid of as
strongholds.
Right?
Kind of like the last kind of holdouts as we're trying to conquer ourselves for Christ.
There's kind of those last few places where they're all holed up and the walls are there
and everything like that.
And so it's not a physical battle, but it's a spiritual battle.
But they are mighty. What are these mighty weapons of our warfare?
Well, the Bible talks about the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, right?
The sword of the Spirit is the weapon. Prayer is the weapon.
And so, the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, the Bible...
is the weapon that's gonna tear down these strongholds.
So these wrong, deeply-seated beliefs
in our American culture that are false,
you know, we need the Bible to get in there
and fix those things.
And we need preachers to get up
and preach against things that are popular in America
but that are sinful and wrong.
And that's what we mean by pulling down strongholds, casting down imaginations.
So yeah, I'm glad that you're saved, I'm glad that you're in church,
but if you want to take your Christian walk to the next level,
it's time to start tearing down some things in your life that don't belong.
throwing down some wrong practices that you've been accustomed to, sin in your life,
or just wrong opinions and wrong ideas, and get yourself on a more biblical footing.
So it says, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty. What could be more mighty
than the word of God, right? The word of God is quick and powerful,
sharper than any two-edged sword.
And so, they are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds,
casting down imaginations,
and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God
and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, right?
To where every thought in our mind is in accordance with God's word,
where we don't have opinions that go against what the Bible says.
The Bible's worldview becomes our worldview.
That's the goal.
The goal is that we think like God thinks, we have the mind of Christ, and in any given
situation we have a biblical way of approaching that situation.
That's the goal, that's what we're working toward.
Now, obviously, you're never going to get there unless you do a lot of Bible reading.
So I hope in the new year you already started out the day by reading your Bible today.
And if you have not read the Bible yet today, don't say,
well, I went to church and we read 2 Chronicles 31.
You need to get into a personal Bible reading plan
and start it today.
Even at least the minimum you could do
is the proverb of the day for crying out loud, right?
And contrary to what a preacher I heard recently thought,
the proverb of the day is the whole chapter.
It's not one verse.
Okay, the proverb of the day is the whole chapter.
The whole point is that there's 31 chapters and there's 31 days in the month and so, yeah,
at least get on the proverb of the day.
But hey, how about reading the Bible cover to cover in 2025?
That's really what you should be working on.
supplement it with the proverb of the day but the point is that you've got to be
reading the Bible so that the Spirit can have a sword to wield, right? You're saved,
you've got the Holy Spirit inside you. Put the sword in his hand by reading the
Bible, by listening to biblical preaching so that you can tear down these
strongholds, cast down these imaginations.
every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God.
You remember how a lot of the Old Testament idolatry took place in the high places?
Constantly talking about them, worshipping idols in the high places.
And so, when the Bible says here, you know,
that we have these things that exalt themselves, these high things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God,
you know, this is all of the world's so-called experts.
Right?
All these high things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God and they're so
smart and these experts and PhDs and, you know, historians and archaeologists and scientists
and scholars and biblical theologians and stuff like that, you know, and they exalt
themselves against the knowledge of God, meaning that they're smarter than God in their own
They think they know more, so they contradict the clear teaching of Scripture.
God's people, you got a bunch of just simple Christian people just reading the Bible, believing
what it says and doing what it says through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Then these kind of high people come along and tell you, oh well, you know, experts over
here say this and that and whatever, you know, we need to just go by what the Bible says.
and not be sucked in by these things, right?
Right, the experts are gonna tell you,
oh, you know, you gotta get rid of the King James
and get rid of these new Bibles.
It's garbage.
You know, the experts are gonna tell you
that we evolved from apes, right?
And that we're not special.
We're just another animal in the animal kingdom.
And you know, dolphins, it turns out,
are just as smart as we are.
Yeah, right.
Dolphins don't have any brains? Give me a break.
Like, oh wow, they're so smart.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
And people think like, oh, if we could understand them,
what would they be saying?
Dolphins don't use language.
The only creature on this planet that uses language
is a human being.
No animal on this planet uses language.
Do you understand?
Like, and by the way, any expert in linguistics
will tell you that.
Because this whole thing of oh, you know, I mean I literally heard a biologist say, you know
Well when the aliens show up
We might not be able to communicate them because we saw me and figured out how to communicate with like dolphins
It's like the dolphins don't have anything to say
It's not that we can't communicate with them is that there's nothing there. They're not reciting poetry
They don't use and here's what I mean by they don't use language
They don't that. Yeah, they make noises making noises to signal each other is not language
Okay, and here's the difference between
making a noise to signal and using actual language is that they don't come up with new sentences and
paragraphs and novel ways of using it you could find the dumbest person in America
He has come up with thousands of unique sentences that have never been said by anyone before and that will never be said by anyone again.
We could just go find the most derelict, drug addict, homeless person, and they will have unique things to say.
I'm not saying it's going to be any good, but I'm saying like...
I'm preaching a sermon tonight and most of the sentences that I'm saying tonight have
never been said by anyone and will never be said by anyone again.
This is called using language.
So language is when you have this tool kit of all these different words and you rearrange
them in novel ways to create new sentences.
Virtually every sentence out of my mouth is a sentence that no one's ever said before
Kind of thing like their dad said that his dad said that his dad made that noise and you could break it down
Maybe there's a hundred and fifty different noises, but it's just the same noises over and over again
They mean the same thing every time. There's no new sentence. There's no new novel way of doing it
Maybe every once in a while there's a new like
and whatever kind of comes out kind of you know a new little chirp dropped or
something and then people you know and then dolphins will use that for 50 years
they don't they're not saying anything you understand it's like a dog barking
or something it's not language it's not like a man if we could just understand
what the dog is saying he's not saying anything he's just making noises and
But that's not language
Okay, so like to try to be the but but these so-called experts will try to act like oh chimpanzees are practically
As smart as we are and and the dolphins are so smart folks the difference between us and the smartest animal is
massive
We are dramatically tremendously smarter than the smartest animal and we're not even on the same scale
We're off the charts in intelligence compared to chimpanzees and elephants and dolphins
I mean their their brain is a joke compared to our brains. I'm sorry to Fennie dolphins. They're listening to the sermon
Oh, that's right. They're too dumb to understand anything. I'm saying ever
So they won't be offended
Okay, somebody's listed as a sea world or something
But, but here's the thing about that is that, you know, oh, they taught this chimpanzee sign language.
Again, actually do the study, read up on that, and you will find that that was a failed experiment.
that people only pretend that it worked and that it's a fraud and that no if you teach it silent because they're like
Oh, well, it doesn't have the vocal chords, but we can just teach it to do with its hands again
Nothing novel nothing new no new sentences no actual use of language just like
Apple and then it gets an apple
That's not language
Push a button the light bulb comes on. That's not language
Anyway, I'm I got a little digression there, but again, well, you know the experts are gonna try to tell you you're an animal
The animals are just like us. We're just a little you know
We're just a little more advanced than the apes. No, we are light years more advanced than the apes and
God is that far beyond us?
We're special
We're made in the image of God. We're human beings. We did not evolve from apes. We were created in the image of God.
We are a special creation of God. We did not come from animals. Animals are animals and people are people.
But then the experts will come along and contradict the Word of God on history, on science, on marriage, on child rearing, on ethics, morality.
Folks, we've got to throw down these bogus ideas
and replace them with biblical concepts.
all these high things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God,
these high things that try to create skepticism in the Word of God
and try to get us to think that we know more than the Bible. Like,
like, well, you know, when you're a kid, you go to Sunday school and you learn this stuff,
but then you kind of grow up and you kind of outgrow the church and Christianity.
Hogwash. No one outgrows
The Word of God is the highest thing there is.
These other high things that are exalting themselves against the knowledge of God, we
need to tear down those things in our minds and exalt God's Word to its proper place
in our lives.
And so this is our goal to where we have our brains rewired according to the teachings
of God's Word, to where we start to think in a biblical way instead of a worldly way.
Right? And thinking like an atheist or something like that.
So the Bible says you're casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and
bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ and having a readiness to revenge all disobedience
when your
obedience is
fulfilled and the idea, you know revenge here
Typically when we hear the word revenge we have like a negative connotation with that
But what this is referring to is really just punishment
Revenging disobedience is just a proper punishment by a proper authority for those who are disobedient.
So let's go back, if you would, to 2 Chronicles 31 with that in mind.
So when we see the Israelites pulling down the high places and tearing down idolatry,
How do we apply that in our Christian lives?
If we want to take our Christian lives to the next level in 2025,
we need to tear down deeply seated wrong beliefs that we hold,
or that the people around us are trying to get us to hold,
or that society is trying to get us hold.
We need to tear down those deeply ingrained wrong beliefs
and get a biblical worldview in every area.
Bringing every thought into the obedience of Christ meaning that in all areas of life
whether it comes to
Whatever we eat and drink and where we go and how we live our lives and how we do our jobs
And how we do family like we need to replace the world's logic and the world's rationale with biblical reasoning
right? And some of these things are just, you know, well, I mean, we know that this is the way it is, right?
I mean, come on, we all know, right? That that could sometimes be just some deeply ingrained wrong idea that's unbiblical.
Because I mean, and think about how many doctrines people just take for granted as for sure being true and they're wrong.
Like people just be like, I mean, we know all sins equal, right?
But that's a deeply ingrained belief that a lot of people have that, you know,
well, all sins equal in God's eyes or something.
That's a false doctrine.
That is not what the Bible teaches.
Or here's another one, you know, well, of course we know that God loves every single person, right?
I mean, for sure, because we, you know, right?
But yet the Bible does talk about people where God hates certain people or God will love them no more.
Right?
And then here's another deeply ingrained wrong belief.
Well, we know that God, you know, has unconditional love, right?
I mean, the unconditional love of God is one of the most basic teachings of the Bible,
right?
Actually, it's not in the Bible.
I mean, how can you have this idea that God's love is unconditional when God literally
Now there is obviously some truth in every lie
Here's the truth about it. Okay, the true story is that God so loved the entire world
God loved
Every single person in the world enough to sacrifice his life for everyone
So we could go to any person in this world and say Jesus died for you because he loved you
But here's what the Bible also clearly teaches.
People that reject the Lord Jesus Christ will ultimately not be the objects of God's love
anymore and they will ultimately face God's eternal wrath in hell.
And people will try to say, oh, well God even loves them while he sends them to hell.
That's absurd because it's the most unloving thing that you can imagine sending someone
But yet, God loved them because he wanted them to be saved.
He gave them his only begotten Son.
I mean, he sacrificed immensely and gives them chance after chance and opportunity after opportunity to be saved.
God's love is tremendous.
God is begging people to get saved in the Bible.
We go out and beg people to get saved.
But to sit there and say, oh, well, God's love for you is unconditional, here's the thing.
If you reject the Lord Jesus Christ, you will, unfortunately, ultimately find yourself in
a position of what the Bible says over and over again where God says, I will love them
no more.
Or where it even talks about God hating people, or God rejecting people, God giving people
over to a reprobate mind.
to be rejected by God, to be hated by God,
to be cast into eternal damnation by God.
Folks, that's real.
That's what the Bible says.
Over and over and over again, there are warnings and warnings and warnings about the fact that eventually you can find yourself outside of God's love.
Now, here's the truth part, though, is that if you're saved,
If you're saved, God will never stop loving you, right?
So there's a little bit of truth there that God's love for us once we're saved is unconditional
in the sense that nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus,
our Lord.
So once we are saved, we are loved unconditionally by God.
But before we're saved, we're loved by God until we're not loved by God.
Look, if someone dies without receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, God's
love for that person runs out and they ultimately face the wrath of God in hell.
I'm sorry, but hell is not a loving place.
It's a place of utter and final rejection for those who have utterly and finally rejected
the Lord.
And so, you know, again, these are just some deeply ingrained,
deeply seated ideas.
And I remember a teenage girl walking up to me
when I was like 17 or something
and saying, does God love everybody?
And I said, absolutely, of course, God loves everybody.
And she said, okay, well then explain this verse to me.
And she showed me the verse
and it was about God hating people.
And I looked at the verse and I said,
Well, I was wrong apparently God doesn't love everybody because you know right here. It's sorry
And that's not the answer. She was looking for I thought she was trying to like straighten me out doctrinally and she did a great job
You know because she straightened me right out like as soon as I saw what she was showing me in the Bible
I was like yeah, this makes sense
But then it turned out she was like no he does love everybody you're supposed to explain to me why this isn't really saying that and I'm
Just like sorry can't help you
And you know the rest is history here. I am you know I've been preaching this now for 25 years, so thank you Mandy
I don't think she would approve of any of this
But I haven't talked to her in 25 years who knows maybe maybe she's a hardcore fundamental Baptist who knows but anyway
You know the idea here is that there are a lot of just wrong doctrines that just get repeated over oh, here's a good one
How about this one? Well, I mean of course you have to repent of your sins to be saved
You know and again this idea of that repent of your sins is
The way that you get it, but yet again, that's not what the Bible teaches
The Bible doesn't teach that you repent of your sins to be saved.
Repenting of our sins is something that we do every day, hopefully, right?
After we're saved, we're constantly repenting of this sin,
repenting of that sin, growing in our Christian life.
But guess what? That's not how we get saved.
That's not how we go to heaven because that would be a works-based salvation if it was about us
turning from this sin and turning from that sin and you know turning from our sinful lifestyle
in general hey that's a process that's something that happens our whole lives but when it comes to
being saved it's believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and what is the repentance
of salvation it's repent and believe the gospel not stop sinning it's stop believing something
It's stop being Catholic, stop being Buddhist, stop being a Hindu, stop being a Muslim and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
That's the repentance of salvation. It's not turn from your sins, but again, that's a stronghold.
That's one of these imaginations or strongholds that people have dreamed up.
that are so ingrained and it's hard to get people off of some of these false teachings and false doctrines.
And we could go on and on about all the strongholds of just kind of wrong ideas that are so deeply ingrained.
How about this one? Oh, the Jews are God's chosen people, even in the New Testament.
They're still God's chosen people. No, my friend, they were God's chosen people.
in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament,
Christians are God's chosen people,
and anybody who rejects the Lord Jesus Christ is unsaved
and not a child of God, and has God's wrath abiding on them.
And the Jews don't get a free pass for being Jews.
In fact, they go to extra hot hell.
They don't go to a cool spot in hell.
They go to a warm spot.
Again, we were just out soul-winning before the service.
I knocked on the guy's door, and he said, he's Jewish.
I said, can I show you what the Bible says?
How to go to heaven.
And he said, he said, I'm good,
because he said, I'm going to Jewish heaven.
And I told him, I said, well, I said, it doesn't exist.
And he's like, oh yeah, I know, I was just kidding.
So there you have it, folks.
Even he knew that Jewish heaven isn't real.
There's only Christian heaven.
Okay, there's only one heaven and it's got God the Father with Jesus Christ sitting on
his right hand and that's the only heaven there is.
There is no Jewish heaven, right?
And the only people who are going to heaven are saved Christians.
That's it because neither is there salvation in any other.
There's none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
And so people that follow the religion of Judaism and reject Jesus, they're not going to heaven.
Yeah, but they're still His chosen people.
Why would God choose a bunch of unsaved people?
To be his special people special for what just hey, you're real special on your way to hell
And you get to go to a special hell and burn specially that's stupid and doesn't make any sense
But yet 99% of Baptist churches in America are teaching that Jews that reject Jesus are God's chosen people
That Israel is special that God is blessing Israel folks if you're not saved you're not being blessed by God
Christians are being blessed by God.
And in fact, the more prosperity you have
as an unsaved person, the worse you are
because the less likely you are to get saved.
Blessed are the poor.
They have a better shot at getting saved, right?
Blessed are the afflicted that might have
a better chance of getting saved
than a bunch of just super prosperous, rich Jews.
They're just, I mean,
they're going to hell in a hand basket, folks.
And I don't say that because I reject or because I hate Jews, you know, because I don't hate Jews
You know what? Here's the proof that I don't hate Jews. I just tried to witness to a Jew like 75 minutes ago or something
Not my fault that he didn't want to hear it. I would have been glad
To spend as much time talking to that guy as necessary to give him the gospel
I would have been glad to take my time and give him my time and kindly lovingly gently
Share the gospel with him
Why? Because I love him and want him to be saved.
And even after he rejected the Gospel,
I still told him, Happy New Year.
You know, so I guess I'm, you know,
going to get a special blessing now according to the old IFB.
You know, because I blessed the chosen one.
But anyway, let's get back in the service.
So one of our next steps that we need to take
after we get saved, after we get in church,
if we want to grow to the next level in 2025,
we need to be studying our Bibles,
listening to preaching so that we can bring every thought.
to the obedience of Christ.
Tear down these strongholds and imaginations and wrong ideas
and we need to tear them down in ourselves
and then we also need to tear them down in other people, right?
Because we need to educate ourselves on what the truth is
and then we also help other people see the truth, right?
And get other people saved
and also other people understanding the Bible
as it's actually written,
not these wrong ideas that are out there.
Okay, so then what else do we have? I got to hurry up. I'd spent too much time talking about that, but the Bible says in verse number
2, and Hezekiah
appointed the courses of the priests and the Levites after their courses.
Every man according to his service, the priests and Levites for burnt offerings, for peace offerings,
to minister and to give thanks and to praise in the gates of the tents of the Lord.
So my second point, I'm going to go quickly on these last couple points. Point number one is that
In order to grow to the next level, we need to tear down these wrong, stupid ideas no
matter how much our society is so sold on something, if it's against the Bible, it's
wrong, you know, and so-called common sense things that are against the Bible, well, if
they're against the Bible, they're false, even if this world takes them for granted
or something.
So number one, we need to be reading our Bibles and getting those stupid ideas out of our head and getting those stupid ideas out of other people's heads, right?
But number two is that we need to, if we're going to grow spiritually in 2025, we need
to get into some godly routines.
We need to get some righteous routines in our life if we're going to take it to the
next level.
Because notice, at the end of verse one, they return every man to his possession into their
own cities.
Now, what is a course?
Well, this comes from the same root word
as like the Spanish word for running or something, right?
Corayer, okay?
And so the idea here, a course,
is like a track that you're on, right?
We think about like the stars and the planets
being in their courses.
It means that they're running through a certain routine, right?
And so the idea is he's putting people into routines of,
hey, you do the work on this day,
you do the work on that day,
you start at this time, you end at this time,
you guys work on this week, you guys have this week off.
So he's putting the priests and the Levites in their courses,
setting them to run a program as it were, right?
we need to have these kind of godly routines in our life because I've
always believed this my whole life is that the Christian life is not based
upon a single church service or you know one really powerful summer camp that
you go to. It's more of a weekend week out day in day out thing that really
caused you to be successful as a Christian.
And I've kind of been at those really powerful services,
you know, really powerful summer camps,
or really powerful conferences, or whatever.
But you know what?
Those aren't really the main sources of our Christian growth.
The real main source of your Christian growth
is the daily routine of reading your Bible every day.
the weekly routine of going to church every week, right?
Because you're gonna get way more out of coming to church
in 2025, 156 times.
You're gonna get way more out of that
than any special conference or special service
or summer camp.
Emotional services are great,
but at the end of the day, you gotta get in your course.
You got to get in a routine, it's all those little things stacking up, it's line upon line,
precept upon precept, here a little, there a little, that the Christian life is lived.
And so you need to get in some godly routines in the new year.
and you shouldn't even have to think about these things.
You need to just put them in place
and just like a computer programmer and just hit run
and it just runs the program.
It's just a macro that just runs on its own.
So for example, you just need to get in a routine
where you are reading the Bible every single day.
You get in a routine where you are praying
every single day.
You need to get in a routine
where you are just going to church on Sunday morning.
It's not like, hey, are we going to church today?
It's just like, well, duh.
It shouldn't even be a question, it's not even a conversation, like, are we going?
It's just like, well, it's, yeah, it's Sunday, isn't it?
Of course we're going!
Wednesday night, let's go, right?
Get in a routine, because imagine how much you'll grow this year if you come to 150 church services.
150 church services, imagine how much Bible you're going to learn.
And then imagine if you read the Bible cover to cover, that's 1189 chapters, which seems daunting.
Right, I mean 1189 chapters, but it's not daunting if you only do three or four day
That's where the routine comes in
Just make it a routine, 15 minutes in the Bible every day,
three hours of preaching a week, and you know what?
Whatever other godly routines you can dream up for,
prayer, soul winning, Bible reading, church, right?
Pick a soul winning time that you can be faithful to
and try to get in a routine where it just kind of becomes automatic.
Because if it's, I'll go soul winning when I have time.
Weeks will go by and you're like, man, where did the time go?
Haven't been soul winning in six weeks.
Get in a routine where you have a set time.
You know, on Sundays, I'm out soul winning.
Wednesdays, I'm out soul winning.
Saturday, whatever it is, pick a time that you can stick with.
Make it a routine.
Because then you get busy and time flies.
But if it's in your routine, it just keeps happening.
You just keep showing up and doing it.
So, you need to put some godly routines in your life and that's what we see Hezekiah doing,
appointing these routines.
And then, the third thing we see here, starting in verse number three, it says he appointed
also the king's portion of his substance for the burnt offerings to wit for the morning
offerings, excuse me, for the morning and evening burnt offerings and the burnt offerings
for the Sabbaths and for the new moons and for the set feasts as is written in the law
of the Lord.
actually taking some of his own substance, meaning his own wealth, his own possessions,
and he's actually donating it to the house of God so that they can have the
sacrifices that they need to get things going. But then not only that, it says in
verse 4, moreover, in addition to him like personally giving, moreover he
commanded the people that dwell in Jerusalem to give the portion of the
priests and the Levites that they might be encouraged in the law of the Lord.
And so here, he's setting the example by giving, and then he's encouraging the other people to give
so that the Levites will have their portion.
And then it talks about in the next several verses,
as soon as the commandment came abroad, verse 5,
the children of Israel brought in abundance the first fruits of corn, wine, and oil, and honey,
and all the increase of the field, and the tithe, tithe means the tenth part, or ten percent,
brought they in abundantly.
And then in the next few verses,
we see that they begin to pile up
all the things that are brought in
and they end up just having an abundance,
an excess, a surplus, because everybody's tithing,
everybody's giving 10% and they're giving the first 10%,
the first things, the first fruits,
and they bring this stuff in
and they end up just piling it up
and Hezekiah shows up.
And he says, you know, what are these heaps, right?
Look at what the Bible says first of all in verse eight,
when Hezekiah and the princess came and saw the heaps,
we don't really use this word unless you're from Australia.
You use it like multiple times a day.
But Australians always talk about heaps,
but it's just a big pile of something, right?
And when Hezekiah sees the heaps,
And the princess says they blessed the Lord and His people Israel.
Then Hezekiah questioned with the priests and the Levites concerning the heaps.
So like, what are these heaps?
And they're like, oh man, ever since the people started giving,
we have so much, we have more than enough, look halfway through verse 10.
It says, we've had enough to eat and have left plenty for the Lord has blessed His people
and now which is left is this great story.
Say, they're saying, look, we have all the money we need to operate the temple.
We have all the money we need to do God's work to eat and drink and be filled and then we just have all this surplus, all this extra.
So what's the moral of the story here?
And by the way, this is not the only part of the Bible where we see this kind of a surplus happening when God's people are tithing.
You know, it's the same thing in the book of Exodus where they have to tell people, stop giving.
Like stop bringing stuff. There's too much. We have too much, you know, because here's the thing
You know, if God's people give what they're supposed to give like there's more that you don't need to have fundraisers
And and all this stuff because here's the thing
And if every Christian would just tithe, there's more than enough money to do everything and
operate and whatever.
You know, we don't have to be like, all right, you got to really dig deep, folks, and we're
going to have a whole paycheck Sunday and everything.
We don't really have to do that kind of stuff.
We don't need the thermometer or anything because of the fact that God will provide
an abundance when people just give the tithe.
That's it.
Okay.
And he said, well, God is blessing his people
ever since they're bringing this stuff.
Now God's blessing them.
Because here's what you'll find is that you'll be able to live better on the 90%
than you would on the 100%.
Because God blesses the giving.
And then he blesses the church.
He blesses you.
It's a win-win for everybody.
So obviously, this is another step of growth
is supporting the church.
You know, getting involved in the work of God
honoring the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your increase.
Okay?
And so what we see here is that the people, they tear down the strongholds.
Number one, they start just tearing down the idols in high places, right?
Number two, they get in some godly routines where they just get in a weekend, week out,
day in, day out routine of serving God, right?
to those who have spiritually blessed them, the priests, the Levites, King Hezekiah, and so forth, and that operation,
they end up giving back.
And one of the things that the Bible emphasizes here is that it encourages
the
servants of God
when the people are supporting the work.
Because look what the Bible says in verse number four.
It says,
They're preaching, they're teaching, they're killing animal sacrifices, they're leading
the music, they're doing all these things full-time as full-time servants of the house
of God.
Well, obviously they have needs of, they need to eat, they need to drink, they need clothing,
they need to be supported and so it encourages them in the law of the Lord when basically
their needs are being met through the service that they're doing.
So basically it's an encouragement when God's people are giving to the work of the Lord
because then the priests and the Levites, they're encouraged in the law of the Lord because
they're like, hey, this is going to work.
And then, not only does it say, do it so they'll be encouraged,
but then also, when Hezekiah and the princes see the heaps in verse 8,
they bless the Lord and His people Israel.
They're really happy to see the surplus.
They're happy to see the abundance.
It's a blessing to them. They bless the people.
And it makes everybody happy.
So here's the thing.
There's a step in Christian growth where you go from just being a taker
to be in a contributor, and I'm not just talking about financially, just in general, right?
Because think about it, when you start out, you know, somebody gives you the gospel,
somebody wins you to Christ, you're on the receiving end of that blessing.
Right somebody brings you to church or talks you into coming to church and you show up at the church
You're taking in the music you're taking in the Bible reading you're taking in the preaching
You know if somebody talks to you about getting baptized you get baptized and you're you're learning and learning and soaking it all up
And growing and people are ministering to you
But you're kind of on a receiving end, right?
But then there's a step in Christian growth where not only do you start learning what the Bible says and tearing down all these wrong ideas
Not only do you get in some biblical routines of church Bible reading soul winning?
But you know you get to a point where you start actually being a contributor and now it's you
giving back
You know so you're now now instead of being one to Christ you're winning people to Christ
You know, instead of being brought to church, you're bringing people to church.
You know, instead of being encouraged by others, you're actually coming to church.
You're encouraging other people.
You're the one greeting visitors and making them feel welcome.
You're the one being friendly and helping people.
You're helping the poor.
You're contributing to the work of God.
You're putting money in the plate.
You know, you're doing stuff to actually benefit the church and you're being an encouragement
your fellow Christians, and to the leadership of the church.
And look, when I see this verse about how, you know, they're supposed to give
so that the priests and the Levites might be encouraged in the law of the Lord,
and how Hezekiah and the princes, when they see the abundance,
they bless the people and bless God, and they're happy about it.
You know, I think about how one of the biggest steps that I took in my Christian life
was when I decided as an 18-year-old young man that I was gonna be faithful to the services of the church, okay?
And I'll tell you why I made that decision because I'd heard a lot of preaching about how I should be coming to church, you know, every week and come to all the services and three to thrive Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night and all that.
But I'll tell you the thing that pushed me over the edge where I just decided I'm going to be faithful to church and I'm going to come to all three services and I'm going to come all the time.
I want to be an encouragement to my pastor,
and I want to be an encouragement to my fellow church members.
That's why I'm going to be there every time.
And the reason this happens is because I went to Germany
and I was living in the pastor's home.
You know, I'm staying with pastors in their house,
so I'm getting the behind the scenes
of what it's like to be a pastor.
And you know what I saw was that when the attendances were low
and people weren't there, they were super disappointed.
And I felt that disappointment.
And then also because I was going to smaller churches in Germany
than I was used to in the United States, I noticed that
I would go to church and then some teenager that I was kind of relying on
being there wouldn't be there
and there were like not that many teenagers and then I'd be super
disappointed.
And I thought to myself you know what I don't want to be the person who
disappoints my pastor by not showing up.
or disappoints my teenage friends by not showing up,
because they, my teenage friends want to see me,
my pastor wants to see me.
You know, I don't want to be that person
who's letting people down.
You know what, I want to be in encouragement
by being faithful and being in my place.
I mean, what do you think's more encouraging
on a Wednesday night?
A packed service or a sparse service
because everybody's busy with something else?
I mean, do you think it's encouraging to the pastor when a big crowd shows up to a service in general?
Yeah.
Right?
Because it's just more energy, more excitement, and it makes it feel like, hey, you guys actually
want to have a Wednesday night service.
That's why it's full of people.
Whereas, I remember my pastor in Sacramento used to say this.
He used to say, if you don't come on Wednesday night, you're basically saying that the Wednesday
night service might as well not exist.
If you only ever come on Sunday morning,
it's like you're kind of just saying,
well, all we need is Sunday morning.
If you want the Wednesday night service to exist,
show up and support the Wednesday night service.
If you want the Sunday night service to exist,
show up and support it.
Now here's the thing, whether you support it or not,
the Sunday night and Wednesday night will always exist
in faithful work, but it's a lot more encouraging
when it's packed with people, amen?
And not just to me, even if I don't care.
Guess what? Other people are encouraged because the energy is something that we all enjoy when it's a packed house on a Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, right?
And when you show up, you're encouraging me, right?
Right, they're not giving they're not contributing. They're not showing up. They're not you know, you know, I mean, it's like, okay
That's great. I'm glad you're taking but why don't you?
Step it up and give back
And you know what's funny is as people will come to our church and they'll visit our church or join our church
And they've been listening online for years and they live like 20 minutes away
And they've been listening for years and then they you know and look
Amen
That's great. I'd rather I'd rather that they listen and don't show up, but man
It's like what took you so long get down here
Get a part of the team
Be an encouragement people bless it because you know what it's great that people are listening online
But I can't really see them
So it's a lot more encouraging the people that I can actually look at like you guys are encouraging more than you know
People that I'll never know about or hear about or see anything about somebody understand what I'm saying
And it's not just about encouraging me because, you know, frankly, I'm doing pretty well and I don't really need a lot of encouraging right now.
But you know what? Other people, right, they could use the encouragement too.
And you say, well nobody cares if I show up or not.
Okay, you know, it's a wonderful life or whatever. I guess you didn't watch your Christmas movie because guess what?
It turns out people do care about you.
Somebody does want to see you, you know, somebody is worried about you
So, you know, you actually do matter or not, you know
There's your little hallmark moment for the for the sermon, but it's true
You might think oh, I don't matter, but you know what you do though people care if you're there
People want to see you people like seeing you there and they just like seeing people in church in general
It's encouraging and so obviously if you contribute to the church in any meaningful way
Whether that's physically attending whether that's donating whether that's soul winning going on a mission strip
Encouraging other people in the church being a friend being kind loving the people around you in church. Hey
contributing
is the next step up in your Christian life,
not being just a taker, but somebody who gives back,
somebody who puts in more than you take out even.
You know, you become more of an asset
and you're giving and you're doing more.
And that's what we see in this chapter,
we see the people giving.
And here's the thing, our church has never been,
anybody who's been at our church a long time,
knows this or listened to preaching,
our church has never emphasized money.
And we're not going to.
We barely talk about it. We don't emphasize it. We don't make a big deal about it and
You know, it's not something that we that we push or think about and yet in the 19 years of our church's existence
Because we're now in our 20th year Faith Ford Baptist Church
We have never run out of money
Even though we don't talk about it or solicit it or make a big deal. We've never run out of money. We've always had plenty of money
We've always been able to pair our bells and every once in a while
The money supply will dwindle a little bit and I will just pray a simple prayer to God and just say hey Lord
We're a little low on money and I just this is why I say the Lord. I say I'll just say I don't care
Because it's your deal and I just tell God I guess you want us to slow down a little bit
Then I guess we'll just slow down on what we're doing, but if you want us to go full speed ahead
You got to provide and then just like there's always like a check in the mail the next day
You know anytime I just pray I'm just like hey you want me to slow down
I'll slow down or if you want us to go full speed ahead you want the missions to be cranking
You want everything to go full force then you know provide the funds otherwise don't provide the funds
It's up to you and you know what that's that's been my method. That's been my prayer
That's been our philosophy for the last 19 plus years and it's always worked
And we've always had plenty of money, God has blessed.
And here's the thing, our church has not begged for money
or asked people to give above and beyond the tithe
or told people.
And look, let's face it, I've been in a lot of churches
where there's a lot of fundraising,
a lot of talk about money.
It's just raise money for this, raise money for that.
And 10%, so I've had preachers,
I've heard preachers get up and say,
if you're just tithing and that's it,
you're not right with God.
You got to go beyond the tithe you got to do tithes and offerings
Who's ever heard that preaching that ten percent's not enough. It's got to be eleven or more
So, you know, I don't believe that for one second
Because what I see in scripture is that if people just actually just give the tithe it's more than enough
You know if people would actually give the tithe, but here's the thing a lot of people don't give the tithe
And that's why the big donations do help to make up pick up the slack for the people who who aren't contributing
But but here's the thing if God's people give the tithe God blesses that and
Yeah, the other huge donations that come in obviously
They're we're gonna translate those into souls say we're gonna translate those into mission strips or whatever
But at the end of the day though God's program works
You know and really you could apply this across and I'm out of time
But you could apply this across the board like how God's program works and provides abundance
Like how about if every if every Christian would just do like a little bit of soul winning
This whole world would be evangelized overnight
But what's the sad truth 99% of people aren't doing any soul winning at all
So because 99% of saved Christians are doing zero soul winning then we have to have certain people that are just
working their butts off and doing a ton of extra soul winning because we're just having to work and work and work and try to
evangelize and it's such a huge job and and we work so hard to get it done.
But honestly if every Christian participated it would just be so simple. It would just be so easy.
And so the point is that we need more Christians in 2025 both in our church and also people
listening online.
We need more Christians in 2025 to basically step up their Christian life in three ways.
Number one, get into the Word of God and start getting rid of these stupid ideas that everybody
holds that are unbiblical.
Tear down these strongholds, these deeply held opinions, these deeply held false doctrines and stupid philosophies of our world
and bring every thought into captivity of the obedience of Christ.
Okay?
Number two, we need every Christian in 2025 to get into some solid routines.
biblical routines, because we're not going to do anything in a day or a week or a month.
It's going to be measured in decades.
We need to get into a long-term, day-in, day-out, week-in, week-out routine for God.
And then thirdly, we need to grow from being a taker, a receiver, a beneficiary.
We need to grow into being a contributor, right?
in the work of God and invested in Faithful Word Baptist Church specifically.
And again, I'm not just talking about financially.
Just manpower emotionally, financially, whatever.
Just get involved in helping the church succeed.
Helping your brothers and sisters in Christ succeed.
Get on the team, get involved, physically get down here and be a blessing to me.
And be a blessing to your other brothers and sisters in Christ and and make that decision that I made when I was 18
Where I'm just like, I'm not going to be that disappointing guy who's just constantly not showing up
I'm going to be an encouragement by being there being friendly
And and and being a part of the team and contributing. Let's bow out of order prayer father. We thank you so much for your word lord
Thank you for Hezekiah and his godly example
Help us Lord to follow this same formula in our own lives and to have a great year in 2025 and in Jesus name
We pray amen
Hey man take your hymnos please and go to hymn number
195 number 195 if you do the words I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever him number
195
Let's sing this out together.
Good things not good.