What's going on right now, it's more important than any sporting event that's going on.
It's more important than other things that we could be doing.
This is the house of God and it has a place of preeminence in our lives.
And Father, I just pray that you would meet with us tonight
and that we would not just fill up another hour with time,
but rather that this sermon will be used in the right way
to change the lives of those that are here.
And in Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
Now this is a very famous story in the Bible, of course,
the story about Joseph.
He had these initial dreams at the beginning of chapter 37.
He's a 17-year-old young man, the Bible tells us exactly how old he was.
And you notice the hatred that he receives from his brethren because of his dreams.
Now they already hated him because he was the youngest.
And so he was the baby of the family, spoiled.
You ever notice how people, as they get older,
some of the younger children get a little bit spoiled.
As the parents get older, they loosen up.
Now the youngest children can end up really messing their lives up
because the parents get more and more lenient,
they get more and more laid back, they're not as strict anymore.
Well, that's kind of what they thought was going on here.
His brethren looked at him and said, well, you know, you're the youngest.
Dad's got a soft spot for you.
And so they hated him because they felt like their dad did not love them
as much as he loved Joseph.
But on top of that, Joseph had these dreams.
He said, I have a dream that, you know, the sun, moon, and the eleven stars,
of course there's the twelve of them,
so it's pretty obvious what the reference is to.
He said, I had a dream that the sun and the moon and the eleven stars
were bowing down to me and worshipping me.
And then he said, I had another dream.
He said, I had a dream where we were all binding sheeps out in the field,
like, you know, they're harvesting grain and they're binding together sheeps.
And he said, your sheep started bowing down and worshipping my sheep.
Now they probably thought he might have been even making up the dream
because he's just trying to show them that one day I'm going to be on top
and one day you're going to be bowing down to me and literally worshipping me.
And they became angry about his dreams.
But I want to just, obviously there's a symbolic meaning here,
as always in the Bible, and there's something being taught here.
Look at verse 9.
The Bible says, you know, after the first dream,
after he's been rebuked for his dream,
the Bible says he dreamed yet another dream and told it to his brethren.
And then look down, if you would, at verse number 19.
The Bible reads, and they said one to another,
behold, this dreamer cometh.
Come now therefore and let us slay him and cast him into some pit
and we will say some evil beast have devoured him
and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
You see the attitude toward his dreams?
They want to discourage him.
They say, oh, this dreamer.
They're mocking him for having a dream of one day greatness for himself.
And they're making fun of him and they're saying,
we'll see what's going to become of your dreams.
Now, the title of the sermon tonight is Have a Vision for Your Life.
Have a Dream.
And you're like, it was going to be I Have a Dream,
but that sermon was already taken in 1968.
I have a dream today.
But anyway, have a dream.
Have a vision for your life.
I was reading this story and, you know,
it seems irritating, the dream that he had to his brethren,
but in reality, his other brethren,
what have you really read about these other 11 tribes of Israel
when you read this story?
Did they do anything great with their life at all?
I mean, I can't even find one thing.
I mean, as I study the book of Genesis, I think about, you know,
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Gad, Asher, Isaacar, Zebulun, Benjamin.
You go down the list and really they didn't do anything.
You get to read a few chapters about Judah messing up his life,
you know, doing wrong.
I don't really read any great thing that any of these people did.
And I wonder if it's because they had an attitude that said,
I don't have any dreams.
I don't have a vision.
I don't have any goals of greatness.
And when somebody else tells me their dream,
it just makes me upset and I think it's a joke
and I want to discourage them and say,
we'll see what's going to become of your stupid dream.
You think we're going to bow down and worship you, but what happened?
Of course, a few chapters later,
literally his brethren, and if you read the Bible carefully,
you'll see that his brethren literally get on their knees
and worship Joseph when they don't know that he's their brother.
When they think he's that great ruler in the land of Egypt,
the second in command of Pharaoh,
they literally bow down and worship him
because they were so scared of him.
They worshiped him like as if he were a god.
And that's exactly what he foresaw in his dream.
That's exactly the vision that he had in his dream
and it came to pass because the vision was from God.
The dream was from God.
What kind of dreams do you have for your life?
What kind of vision do you have for your life?
And my first point is, have a vision for your life.
Turn to 1 Timothy 3 because that's where we're going to be a little bit.
But while we're turning there, let me read you another verse.
And this is a verse that I talked about last Sunday night, I believe.
But while you're turning to 1 Timothy 3, the Bible reads in Ephesians 1,
to the praise of the glory of His grace,
wherein He had made us accepted and the Beloved
in whom we have redemption,
redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace.
In Colossians 1, 12, the Bible says,
giving thanks unto the Father,
which have made us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints of light.
Now, I talked about that last Sunday night,
how God has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance.
God's made us accepted and the Beloved.
God's given us a special place in His plan.
He's given us works that God meant before,
then we should walk in them.
Now, what kind of a vision do you have for your life?
Do you have a small vision
or do you have a great vision of grandeur like Joseph had?
What am I talking about?
Do you understand the potential
that every single person in this room has?
I mean, do you understand the fact
that there's no limit to how great you can be personally,
how great of a soul winner you could be,
how great of a Christian you could be?
There's no limit to how many people you could get saved.
There's no limit to how much you could do for God.
There's no limit to the greatness that God could give you
if you would just completely yield yourself to God
and sell out for God.
Well, people have such small goals.
You know, we're talking about Bible memorization.
That's just one small issue.
But, you know, you could really take that issue
of Bible memorization,
and that's just a microcosm of everything in life.
You know, we were talking about how when I was a kid
and I was in school,
somebody told me that his grandma had memorized
Psalm 119, one chapter, 176 verses.
It's a pretty long chapter.
And I couldn't believe it.
I literally, this is literally what I said.
Is that even possible?
Now, it seems silly now.
You know, you laugh now, duh, of course it's possible.
But I thought, is that even possible?
Later on, another friend of mine, a couple years later,
he told me, you know, so-and-so memorized
the entire book of Romans.
And I sat there and said,
I don't even know if I believe that.
You know, I don't even know if I believe that that's true
because I can't even see how that would even be humanly possible
to memorize the entire book of Romans, 16 chapters.
And then just two years ago,
I stumbled on a website that said,
memorize the New Testament in five years.
And I said, get out of here.
There's no way.
I mean, this is two years ago.
And I said, there's no way you could do that.
But now I'm over a third done with doing that.
You have over a hundred chapters memorized,
and now I'm looking at the whole Bible, okay?
Because nothing is impossible.
The Bible says I can do all things through Christ
which strengthened it, me.
Now, you think about how low people set the bar.
When I was younger, here's another example.
When I was a kid, and even as a teenager,
and even as a young adult,
my goal was that one person saved in my entire life
was to just one time take my Bible and open my Bible
and sit down with somebody,
show them the gospel,
have them bow their head and pray right there,
and ask Jesus Christ to be their savior
and receive Jesus Christ their savior
by believing on his finished work on the cross.
I said, if I could just win one person to the Lord,
that'd be the greatest thing in the world.
I just can't wait to get to heaven
and say that somebody's here because of me.
And my life would have some value.
My life would be worth something.
But, of course, now I'm looking toward more souls being saved.
You know, I'm looking toward bigger and better things.
What kind of a vision do you have?
Do you see the potential that God has for you?
Do you see what God could use you to do?
Now, let me just give you this one example.
Look at 1 Timothy 3.
And I was, I'm sorry, before you look there,
I want a guide to the Lord.
And I wanted the Lord at work.
And we were talking,
and he was talking about, you know, getting divorced.
That's the guy that I wanted the Lord.
I think he was in the process of getting divorced
or something like that.
And I remember, I had just won this guy the Lord
a few days before, literally.
I mean, less than a week before.
And I'd been trying to teach him the Bible.
I'd been, you know, trying to get him
listening to preaching tapes that I would send his way.
And I gave him little charts about how to read the Bible.
And I literally, when I looked at this guy,
I literally, I said to him,
you know what, I said, if you get divorced,
how are you ever going to be the pastor of a church?
Because look at this passage right here.
I'm going to read this for you.
And I'm going to tie this into what I'm saying.
Look at 1 Timothy 3, verse 1.
It's a true saying,
if a man desire the office of a bishop,
he desireth a good work.
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife.
There's one of the qualifications for being a pastor.
You can't be divorced and remarried.
You have to be the husband of one wife.
And a lot of people say, wait a minute,
that's one wife at a time.
One at a time, because they used to have polygamy.
They used to have multiple spouses.
Well, okay, well turn over in your Bible a few pages
and I'll prove you wrong right now.
Look at 1 Timothy, chapter 5.
See, the Bible has all the answers.
God never is going to leave us hanging
wondering, well, I wonder if that's what he really meant
when he says that.
Well, look at 1 Timothy, chapter 5
and look if you would at verse number 9.
1 Timothy 5, 9,
Let not a widow be taken into the number
under three score years old,
having been the wife of one man.
Now that's the exact same wording.
The husband of one wife, the wife of one man.
Now, is this talking about having more than one husband at a time?
That's ridiculous because no,
I don't know of any culture ever that says,
well, by then they accepted polygamy.
Well, I don't think that there were a lot of women
running around with more than one husband.
I think that, I'm glad you thought that was funny.
I'd be shocked.
I'll put it that way.
And so God puts that there as a little point of reference here.
He's talking about she's not a woman
who's been divorced and remarried.
You know, that's what he's saying.
And that's what he's saying
in the case of 1 Timothy, chapter 3.
Now, if you've been divorced and remarried,
I'm not saying anything against you.
You know, that's all in the past,
forgetting those things which are behind
and reaching forth under those things which are before.
But if a man wants to pastor a church,
he has disqualified himself by being divorced and remarried.
There's a reason why.
Look on, read a little further.
The husband of one wife, vigilant, sober.
These are qualifications that this man has to add up to
in order to be a pastor of a church.
Of good behavior, given the hospitality,
act to teach, not given to wine, no striker,
not greedy of filthy lucre.
That's talking about being in it for the money.
But patient, not a brawler, not covetous,
one that ruleth well his own house.
See, that's the criteria.
One that ruleth well his own house,
having his children in subjection with all gravity.
For if a man know not how to rule his own house,
how shall he take care of the church of God?
Not a novice, thus being lifted up with pride,
he fall into the condemnation of the devil.
Moreover, he must have a good reporter
than which are without,
lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil,
and on and on.
And I said to this man, and here he is,
you know, he's wearing baggy jeans.
You know, he still, you know,
just looks exactly the way that he did
before he got saved, right?
I mean, he's dressed the way he was before he got saved.
He talks the way he is.
And I looked at him, I said,
well, what if you want to be a pastor of a church?
You know, if you get divorced, if you go through with this,
I said, you're never going to be able to pastor a church.
And he looked at me like I had two heads.
Like, what?
You know, pastor of church?
I got saved like two days ago.
But I had a vision.
I looked at this, my new convert,
and I didn't see just a guy who just got saved.
I'm looking at this guy saying,
this guy could be a preacher.
This guy could be a pastor.
This guy, for sure, even if he's not a pastor,
he could be a soul winner.
I saw him knocking doors.
I saw him, you know, with a Christian kind of haircut.
I saw him out knocking doors.
I saw him preaching the gospel.
I saw him winning souls.
I saw him doing right.
I saw him living a clean and godly life.
I had a vision for his life.
Do you have a vision for your own life?
Do you have a vision for yourself?
You say, well, I'll be a pastor.
I don't want to do that.
How do you know, you know,
if you ever might be a pastor someday?
How do you know, kids in the front row?
How do you know you might be a pastor someday?
You better live by all these qualifications
no matter who you are.
And by the way, these are just good qualifications
for anybody to live by just to be a godly Christian.
But any man or young man should live by this
and say, I'm not going to limit my potential.
I'm not going to set the bar low
for what I'm going to do someday.
I'm going to fulfill the criteria
so that God can use me in any way possible.
Have a vision for the people you win to the Lord,
but how about having a vision for yourself?
What's your goal in life?
What do you see yourself doing?
What do you see yourself ten years from now?
Just the same as you are right now?
Just the same thing, ho hum.
Or do you see yourself pressing on the upward way?
New heights I'm gaining every day.
Still praying as I'm onward bound.
Look at my feet on higher ground.
Hey, have a vision for your life.
Did you know that you could be
the great soul winner one day that you want to be?
Did you know that one day you could be
the great Christian that you want to be?
Did you know that you could know the Bible one day
like you want to know the Bible?
Have a vision for your life and say,
I'm not content with the way I am right now.
I want to go forward.
I want to be greater.
I want to be better.
I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness,
David said.
He said, I'm never satisfied.
David, you're king of Israel.
Are you satisfied?
No.
David, God has used you.
The Holy Ghost has come upon you
to write the book of Psalms.
Have you arrived yet?
No.
He says, it's not good enough.
I want more.
I want to go higher.
I want greater.
I have a bigger vision.
I have more things that I want to do.
I have more greatness that I want to achieve.
Hey, have a vision for your life.
I'm a dream like Joseph had.
He said, now I'm just the youngest son
that everybody's mad at, that nobody likes.
I'm out doing this menial job of taking care of animals,
taking care of sheep.
But you know, one day, one day people are going to be
bowing down to me and begging me just to keep them alive,
just to feed them, just to provide.
The whole nations are going to come to me and say,
you have saved us.
I mean, that's what they said to him
at the end of the book of Genesis.
They came to Joseph and they said, you've saved us.
We would have died.
You've kept us alive.
We'll do anything for you.
What do you want from us?
And they literally came to him and bowed down to him.
And he said, I have a vision someday
that God is going to use me in a great way.
I have a dream.
And he said, just because somebody tells me
that my dream is not going to come to pass,
I'm going to dream another dream.
He says he dreamed yet another dream.
Have a vision for your life.
You know, it's so sad that,
and this makes me sad all the time,
but people out in the world, they have no vision
and they have no purpose in their life.
There's no meaning in their life.
They have no goal in life.
And I watch people that I know,
I watch even some relatives of mine,
some friends of mine,
I watch them just float through life
just with no point, no purpose,
just going nowhere, just wandering around.
They can't find any happiness.
They can't find any point in their life.
They can't seem to put their root down anywhere.
They just float around.
And I'll tell you why they float around
and I'll tell you why a lot of people
don't have a purpose for their life
and they don't have a vision for their life.
It's because they don't have the proper value of themselves.
They don't understand this, what the Bible says,
how God has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance.
They don't understand when the Bible says
that he's made us accepted and the beloved.
They don't understand what the Bible says.
For example, in Philippians 1, 6,
where he says, being confident of this very thing,
that he which has begun a good work in you
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
You know, I was thinking about this.
There was a lady in a business that we work with a lot
and I'm in the fire alarm business
and there's another company that we deal with all the time
and so I'm on the phone with these people every single day
and there's this one particular lady at this business
and I knew just from talking to her and from talking to people
that she lived by herself in a department.
And she had a roommate, a female roommate,
and now she was living on her own and this and that.
Well, I just found out the other day, somebody said,
well, her daughter, her daughter's sick and this and that.
And I was thinking, her daughter?
I didn't know that she had a daughter.
And I was just thinking to myself how sick that is.
Here's this young girl living by herself,
a single mother of this daughter.
It's just her and her daughter.
Her and her little daughter and no boyfriend, right?
No husband is what God would really expect.
The guy that shacked up with her, she was good enough for that,
but he's moved on now and here she is.
And I was thinking about just how sad that is,
what a tragedy that is because I went to this business
and I walked in and the lady that I'm talking about,
she's wearing a low-cut neckline on her shirt.
She's dressed promiscuously.
And I'm just thinking to myself,
what a tragedy that this girl thinks that that's all she's worth,
that she has to wear a low-cut neckline on her shirt
because that's the only value that she thinks she has.
Because she's out searching for some kind of meaning in her life.
Maybe she found her with this guy for a while.
He left.
Now she's feeling even more empty because he's left
and now she feels like she has to dress promiscuously
because she's trying to find somebody that loves her,
somebody to give her some value or purpose to her life.
That's just the way the world is.
I could give you thousands of examples like that.
You know people like that.
The unsafe world, these girls just go through life.
When I see a girl dressed sleazily in the street,
I just think to myself, you know what, this girl doesn't have any respect for herself.
She doesn't have any value of herself.
She doesn't have any kind of a vision for her life.
She doesn't see any kind of a dream or a goal in life.
She's just floating through life, just going through life.
Whatever guy decides to prey upon her or whatever,
she'll just fall right into his hands.
Why? Because she doesn't have any self-image, self-worth.
Now where's she going to find that value?
Well, she's only going to find it in Jesus Christ.
She's only going to find it when God says,
I'm going to make you accepted in the blood.
I'm going to make you meet to be partaker.
I'm going to adopt you as my child.
I'll never leave thee nor forsake thee.
I'm going to give you a purpose in life.
I'm going to give you works that God has foreordained for you to walk in.
I'm going to give you a calling and a meaning for your life
that can take you as far as you want to take it,
as far as you want to go with it.
And it's so sad that the world has no concept of that.
They have no vision for their life and they have no self-worth.
And by the way, when you dress like that, that's what it is.
You're not respecting yourself and you're not respecting God
who told you that you're worth something,
who told you that you're his child,
who told you that you have a value and a purpose in life.
When you dress sleazy, when you wear the low-cut neckline,
when you wear the short skirt,
all you're doing is just showing the world,
this is all I think of myself.
This is all I have to offer, just a physical body.
That's all I am.
Isn't that a tragedy?
It's sad.
When you see girls that are dressed wrong, do you get angry at them?
I don't get angry at them. I feel sorry for them.
I feel bad for them that they feel like they have to expose themselves
because they have no shame.
I mean, think about it. That's what the Bible says,
that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear.
They have no shame
because they have no value or worth for themselves.
They just let it all hang out.
And it's a tragedy. It's a sad thing.
And it says a lot about our society
that people don't have any kind of a value of their own life.
They don't have any value about what they're worth as a person.
And so because of that, people sell themselves short.
People, they just limit themselves and they think,
well, I guess this is all I'm good for.
You try and tell people that they can win souls.
You try and tell people that they can live for God.
I could never do that.
But what I'm trying to tell you is that God,
when you got saved, he made you a brand new creature.
And really, the sky's the limit because the Bible says,
I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.
I can do all things.
There's nothing that you can't achieve.
There's no greatness that you can't reach.
There's no goal that you can't set for yourself,
no dream that you can't set.
And you ought to have a dream and a goal for your life.
What's your goal tonight?
Think about it right now.
Where are you going in life?
Do you know where you're going in life?
Is there a purpose to your life?
Because if you don't have a goal for your life,
open the Bible and you'll find all kinds of dreams
and all kinds of goals
and all kinds of things that God has for you to do
in life, all kinds of works that God has for you to do.
But number two, not only do you have a goal for yourself,
have a vision for yourself, have a dream for yourself.
But number two, have a vision for your children,
not just for yourself, but have a vision for your children.
You say, well, I don't have any children.
Well, you may have children someday.
And so, again, don't sell yourself short.
You might have children someday.
And so realize that when you have those children,
they're not a burden to you.
It's not an inconvenience.
It's not another cost that you have.
You ought to have a vision and a dream for your children.
When I look at these three kids in the front row,
you know what I see?
I don't see a couple of little blond-headed kids.
You know what I see?
I see a great preacher right here.
I see a great soul winner right here.
I see a man who studies and knows the Bible.
I see a man who takes a stand for God.
I see right here in this chair,
I see a man that's going to lead a great family someday,
that's going to preach a great sermon someday,
that's going to knock doors someday,
that's going to be on fire for God someday.
I see a man that's going to be greater than anything
that I've ever achieved in my life that I ever will achieve.
Right here in this chair.
Right here, that's what I see when I look at my kids.
I have a vision for my kids.
See, the Bible talks about the prophet in the Old Testament.
The Bible says, you know what a prophet used to be called
is a seer.
In the book of 1 Samuel, he said,
what we call today a prophet used to be called a seer.
Why?
Well, part of the reason is because the prophet
could see things that other people couldn't see.
You remember the story of Elijah
and he walks out the door with his servant,
I think it might have been Gehazi,
I'm not sure if it was his other servant that replaced him,
but he walks out the door with his servant
and there's a great army coming
to actually take Elijah hostage
because Elijah had been helping the children of Israel
invade out of Assyrian's hands,
so they've come to take a massage.
And they walk out the door
and Elijah's servant's scared to death.
He says, oh no, Elijah, what are we going to do?
And Elijah just says,
there's more with us than there are with them.
And he prays and Elijah says,
God, would you open this young man's eyes
so that he could see what's really going on?
And when he prays for God to open his eyes,
he sees just all the mountains around him
just filled with just flaming chariots and horses
and all of God's angels,
just thousands of them.
And the young man's just taken aback,
but he allowed him to see a little bit
of what Elijah had been seeing all along.
You know, the Bible says in Psalm 34,
the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him.
He says that those that really fear God,
those that really live for God,
God's angels, I mean, camp out around them.
I mean, they're standing guard around them.
That's what we talked about this morning.
You know, God can keep you safe if you're living for God.
But when I look at my children,
see, I want to be like a seer,
like in the Old Testament, like the Bible talks about.
I want to look at my children and not just see what they are.
I want to see what they could be.
I want to see the future of what God could do with my kids.
Look if you would at Psalm 127,
right in the middle of your Bible, Psalm 127.
You know, sometimes some of the things that I preach,
you know, I approach them
or other people might approach them,
some of the things that I preach
or that I believe from a negative standpoint.
But, you know, really,
everything that I preach that's negative,
you could really look at it from a positive side.
Like, think about this.
This morning, I'm preaching against that filthy movie
that came out on Friday.
But really, you could look at it as,
boy, Pastor Anderson was really promoting
family values and clean living, right?
See how there's a positive side to everything?
And you say, well, Pastor Anderson is such a radical.
He's so crazy that he literally preaches against birth control.
Okay, that's one way of looking at it.
Or look at what the Bible says in Psalm 127, verse 3.
Lo, children are in heritage of the Lord,
and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong,
but when I had these kids, was God rewarding me?
Was God blessing me?
Was God giving me something?
Saying, Stephen Anderson, let me give you a reward.
I mean, that sounds pretty positive, right?
And then the Bible goes on to say,
as arrows are in the hand of a mighty man,
so are children of the youth.
Now, that's me when I had my first kid.
I was 20 years old when my first son was born.
That's me. I'm the youth.
So are children of the youth.
Oh, wait until you have kids.
Wait until you graduate from college,
and then wait two more years,
and wait until you're in your 30s.
What does the Bible say?
Blessed are children of the youth.
So are the children of the youth.
And then he says,
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.
They shall not be ashamed,
but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
So I'm just preaching about how happy you'll be
if you have your quiver full of children,
if you have all kinds of arrows in your hand.
Why is it a likeness of arrows?
Well, because the Bible, you don't have to turn there,
but in Psalm 45, 16, I love this verse.
Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children,
whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.
God says you have the power to make your children
princes in all the earth.
Now, who's in control?
He says, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.
He says, I'm going to give you these children.
This is your reward.
This is your heritage, your inheritance,
that you're inheriting from me,
that I'm giving you this great gift of children,
and you can take those children
and send them forth out of your house
as princes in the earth.
Whom thou mayest make princes in the earth.
You say, princes?
Do you see a prince
when you change that dirty diaper on his bottom?
I'm talking to my wife about the youngest John here.
Do you see a prince?
Hey, you can make him a prince
and send him out and send him forth
like an arrow that you shoot out like a weapon,
like a tool,
like I'm fighting a battle for the things of God.
I'm fighting a battle against the forces of evil.
I'm fighting for the Lord, fighting the Lord's battles,
preaching the gospel.
I can say, let me shoot out another arrow.
Bam.
Here's another soul-winning, sold-out,
separated Christian for you.
There's Solomon.
There's Isaac.
There's John.
Hey, I'm just going to keep on shooting.
Number four is due in February.
And that's what the Bible's talking about here.
Look, if that passage was talking about anything else,
you wouldn't have any trouble understanding it at all.
But some people don't like to have children.
Why? Because they're selfish.
That's why.
That's why people don't want to have children.
They don't want children because they're selfish,
because they want the SUV.
They want to have all their money.
They're too lazy to do the work of taking care of children.
But you know what?
I want to have as many children as I can.
Now, that's not a negative thing that I believe.
Pastor Anderson, you're so negative.
I'm negative because I'm telling you
that I want to have as many children as I can
because I love children, because children are a blessing.
That's negative.
Hey, if you have a vision for your children,
you'd want to have them too.
Look, yes, it's inconvenient to have children.
But I'm going to tell you something.
If you have a vision for what your children could become,
if you have great dreams for your children,
boy, it's just exciting to just have another one.
It's just so exciting to have another one
and just look into his eyes and say,
what's God going to do with this one?
Boy, what greatness can this one achieve for God?
You see how exciting that is?
But you've got to have a vision for your kids.
Watch how you talk to the kids
because you don't know who you're talking to.
I mean, you could be talking to the greatest preacher
of the next generation.
You could be talking to a great leader.
You could be talking to a great man of God.
You've got to watch what you say.
Don't treat children with disrespect.
You don't know who you're dealing with.
You don't know who you're messing with.
Have a vision for what these kids could become
and what your kids could become.
And that's why we live in such a birth control society anyway.
That's why we live in a society
where pretty much every woman that you meet
is popping birth control pills.
Why?
Because they don't understand the value of children.
Because they don't have a vision for children.
Because they don't have a dream
of what their children could achieve one day
and the greatness that they could achieve.
And, you know, if you don't have children,
one day you'll wish that you had more children.
I'll tell you that right now.
I've never talked to anybody that says,
you know what, I wish I would have just stopped at two.
You know, you talk to somebody that has four or five kids,
six kids, you know what,
I really wish I just would have stopped after number three.
I'll be honest with you.
Have you ever heard somebody say that before?
But I've never heard it.
If you have, that's a pretty messed up thing to say.
Especially if those younger kids are around.
But I've heard all kinds of people say,
man, I wish I would have just,
you know, looking back I would have had more kids.
Looking back I would have had more.
Because when you get older,
I mean, that's all you've got is your kids.
It's important.
But number three, not only have a vision for yourself,
and it's so important to have a vision for yourself,
great goals for yourself.
Value yourself enough to say God can use me.
I'm talking to everybody in this room.
God can use me as much as he can use anybody.
Don't ever say, well, you know,
I could never be used like so-and-so is being used.
I could never do the great things for God that so-and-so is doing.
Or, well, my kids are never going to achieve what so-and-so's kids are doing.
Don't ever say that.
You're not some kind of a stepchild of God or something.
God is saying here that you have the potential that anybody has.
He says you can be used greatly.
You are me to be a partaker.
I've got great works for you to do.
Don't sell yourself short.
Don't set the bar so low and say, well, that's all I'm ever going to do.
You don't know what you're going to do.
You don't know where you're going to be five years from now.
Set the highest goal you can.
Set the highest mark you can.
Push yourself to the highest limits that you can.
And number two, have a great vision for your children.
And maybe then you'll start wanting to have children.
And then have a great vision for what they could become someday,
and that will impact how much you invest in them, how well you treat them,
how much time you spend with them, and so forth.
But number three, have a vision for this church.
Have a great vision for Faithful Word Baptist Church.
Did you know that this church is the church that I've always dreamed of?
I mean that.
This church right here is what I've always dreamed someday.
Wouldn't it be great if there were a church that just preached the Bible
and just didn't care what anybody thinks?
I mean wouldn't it be great where there's a church where everybody was just on board
with winning souls and was on board with studying the Bible
and was on board with really selling out for God
and where everybody was just thrilled about the things of God
and excited about people getting saved and everybody was all in one accord
with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel?
Isn't it going to be so great?
And I'm going to tell you something.
Faithful Word Baptist Church is my dream come true,
but I have such a bigger vision for it.
I have such a greater dream that I'm dreaming.
You see, I dreamed the first dream of giving birth to Faithful Word Baptist Church,
but now as Joseph did in verse 9, now I'm going to dream yet another dream.
And I say, you know, for 2007, let's see if Faithful Word Baptist Church
can become even greater.
When all of us dream a bigger dream.
When all of us say, let's take it to another level.
When all of us say, I'm going to take my personal holiness to another level.
I'm going to take my personal Bible reading and Bible study to another level.
I'm going to take my personal soul winning up to the next level.
Well, I could never do that.
Hey, quit limiting yourself and dream a big dream and say,
I am going to be the Christian that I've always dreamed to be.
Think right now.
Daydream a little bit, if you will.
Like Joseph, he's dreaming.
Daydream a little bit and say, what would I be?
What would I love to be if I could?
Because I know I can't.
But what would I do if I could do anything?
If I could have complete control of myself.
If I could just do exactly what I want to be.
You know what I mean?
Like be the Christian that I want to be.
This is how I would act.
This is what I would spend my time on.
This is what I would quit doing.
This is what I would start doing.
Think about that for a minute and make that your goal.
Make that your vision and say, you know what?
I could be that person that I want to be.
I could be that kind of a Christian.
I could be that kind of a soul winner.
I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.
And put that vision in front of you and have that goal and say,
this is where I'm going.
This is what I want to do with my life.
I don't care if somebody else tells me I can't do it.
Somebody else tells me I'm not good enough.
I don't have what it takes.
I'm just going to keep pressing toward that mark of what I know
that I someday could become by the grace of God.
You know, when I started this church,
there were people at detractors that told me and they said,
I don't think people are going to come to your church.
You know, people tell me that.
I don't think anybody's going to come to your church.
They said, the way that you preach, no one will come and listen to you.
My wife told me that one time, okay?
You think I'm kidding.
She's just like, I hope anybody shows up for this.
And I had other people tell me, you know, you're too young.
People aren't going to respect you.
Or just all the different reasons why.
This reason why.
You're going to be a failure.
You're going to wash up.
You know, on and on people try to tell me that.
But you know what?
It doesn't really matter because I had a dream.
I had a vision of this church.
I had a vision of this church one day existing and it exists right now.
And it's a great church.
I love it.
And you know what?
And now I'm dreaming yet another dream.
And saying, let's go even greater.
Let's be even bigger.
Let's be better.
Let's do more.
More exciting.
But all of us together are going to have to have that kind of a commitment.
You know, and people, you know, have talked to me and, you know,
am I ever tempted to change this church?
Or to maybe just go soft in a few areas?
Maybe just liberal out on a few things?
Just to get a little bit more people in the doors, you know?
And then we'll ease them in and then, you know, we'll kind of sneak up on them
and turn them into a fundamentalist, okay?
But first we've got to get them in the door.
It reminds me of I talked to a guy, or actually a guy called me.
This pastor.
Hey, I'm glad, you know, he's real positive.
Hey, I'm glad you're starting this church.
And he said, man, it's so great, you know.
And it sounds like you're doing a great job.
And he said, you know, tell me about what's going on.
Tell me about the results.
You know, tell me about your tendencies and, you know, people being saved
and who you've got coming.
And I just told him, I said, well, you know, this is who's coming.
This is what's going on.
And he said, wow, he said, you know what, you're actually doing better than I did
when I started.
He said, you're actually having better results.
And I was really surprised because he pastored a great big church.
And he said, you know what, when I started out, I had less people coming than that.
And he said, I didn't have people that were near that faithful
and my people just came Sunday morning only, a lot of them and everything.
But he said, man, it sounds like you're doing great, you know.
It sounds like you're doing really well.
And he says, hey, I got a copy of your invitation that you put out, you know,
your flyer, your little track.
And he said, boy, he said, man, he said, that thing hits hard.
And he said, you want some advice?
And I said, sure.
And he said, I toned that thing down a little bit.
He said, I think you have it trimmed down.
He said, that part in there about what we believe, he said,
I think you need to trim that down because he said,
I think you're pushing people away with that, you know,
with that doctrinal statement of what you believe.
You need to trim that thing down.
And I said, well, I said, you know, I'm not going to, you know.
And he said, well, then I would think about doing this.
He said, well, you know, if you like it, he said, don't get me wrong.
He's like, I like it.
He's like, I showed that to some of my pastor friends and they said,
man, this guy's like the Green Berets.
This guy's the most radical branch of Baptist.
I loved it and they thought it was great,
but they agreed that it was just a little too radical to just be handing out,
you know, at somebody's door.
And I said, well, you know, I'm just going to keep it the way it is
because I like it, you know.
I mean, you said yourself, it seems like what I'm doing is working okay.
You know, why change it?
And he said, well, here's what I'd suggest then.
He said, why don't you just have two?
Why don't you make two?
You know, one that's the radical in your face, you know, kind of a fire,
and then one that's the kind of just kind of ease you in, you know, get you in.
Don't worry Biz, come on.
And just have two and then you can just decide based on who you're talking to.
And I'm just saying, to me that seems a little bit too faced.
You know, when I'm around these kind of people,
this is the way I want to come across.
And when I'm around this kind of people, this is the way I want to come.
Hey, look, I want to come across the same way all the time.
And, you know, those of you, everybody here pretty much knows me outside the pulpit.
Am I the same person?
Anywhere.
You're like, yeah, it's the same.
Gets a little old.
Hey, I'm the same.
And I don't care whether you just got saved yesterday.
I don't care whether you're not saved at all.
I don't care whether you've been saved your whole life.
I'm going to tell you that I'm on fire for God.
I'm a sold out soul winner.
I'm separated.
I'm against sin.
I hate the sin.
I'm King James Bible only.
I'm against the movies.
I'm against the world.
I'm against everything that you can think of.
And I don't care who you are.
I'm going to tell you that.
You see, this is what he wanted me to have.
He probably wanted me to have something like this.
You know.
Oh, wait a minute.
Oh, here.
Can I invite you to pay for a Baptist Church?
This flyer right here.
This is what he wants me to hand out.
No, this is the way it is.
And I'm never going to change this.
I was telling you before the service, I said, you know, I bought 12,000 of these
because I didn't plan on changing.
You know, I didn't plan on trimming it.
We were even saying maybe we'd get a little sticker.
We could add some more things that we believe.
You know, just the next thing we think, a little sticker.
Every time you fold one, just put a little sticker on it.
Oh, by the way, we forgot to tell you something else that we believe that's controversial.
Because the way I see it is this flyer represents who we are.
It's not just to invite people to church.
And we do use it to invite people to church.
But this not only tells other people what we are, but this reminds us who we are.
This gives us an identity.
I mean, we can look at this and say, yeah, this is what Faithful Word Baptist Church is.
And I think this is a pretty true representation of what it is.
And you're like, I've never even read it.
I've been going to church here for months.
Sit down and read it sometimes.
It's great.
I hope you don't quit calling when you read it.
But this is a good representation of what we are.
It's the same, you know, doctrinal statement that's on the website.
I mean, it's the exact same thing.
And so we put it in there because we want to just put forth what we are.
And, you know, this is what I always wished I would find on my door someday.
This invitation.
This is the invitation I always dreamed of.
I'm talking about when I was a teenager.
I'm talking about when I was a young adult.
This is the kind of church that I always wished existed.
Well, it exists right now, praise God.
And I'm going to tell you something.
This church is a dream of my life.
It's a church that I dreamed of.
And I'm dreaming other dreams of a greater faithful word Baptist church,
but it's going to be the same faithful word Baptist church
because the moment that I change anything, the moment that I change this,
the moment that I tone down my preaching a little bit,
I might as well just close the door because the dream is over.
I didn't dream of just another independent Baptist church in Phoenix, Arizona.
I didn't just dream of another independent Baptist church
because there wasn't enough franchise here.
It's like Burger King.
You need one in every town.
Oh, there isn't one here in this town?
Well, I guess I'll set up here then.
No, my friend.
This church is supposed to be a different church.
It's supposed to be a unique kind of a church.
It's supposed to be a glorious church.
It's supposed to be God's kind of a church.
And as soon as I water it down a little,
I don't care if I can just change one little thing
and bring in 200 more people or 2,000 more people.
I'm not going to do it because that would destroy my dream.
That would ruin my dream of this kind of a church.
And literally, if I'm not going to pastor this kind of a church,
I don't just want to be a pastor just so that I can have some title.
I don't care about being a pastor.
It means nothing to me.
What I care about is faithful word being Baptist church existing
and being the kind of church that it is right now.
And literally, if this church changed and became as liberal
as 99% of the independent fundamental Baptist churches that are out there,
I would literally just close the doors and say,
you know what, I might as well just go join one of these other churches
because there's no purpose to what I'm doing.
My dream has died.
My dream has ended.
And so I'll assure you right now this church will not change.
Maybe that's good news for you and maybe that's bad news for you,
but this church is not going to change.
And if it changes, then let's just quit, honestly.
I'll quit before I change and I don't plan on quitting either.
But I'll quit before I change because changing defeats the whole purpose of my dream.
It defeats the whole purpose.
Do you have a dream for this church?
Do you dream of a church that preaches the Bible unadulterated, uncensored,
straight down the line what God says?
Do you dream of a church where everyone's involved as a soul winner?
Do you dream of a church where everyone loves each other
and isn't just in some kind of a clique or in some kind of a fashion show on Sunday
and that's what it's all about?
Do you dream of a church where people come because they actually love God?
Do you dream of a church where people come because they love the Bible?
Do you dream of a church where people come because they love lost souls?
Because they see the girl with the low-cut top and say,
This girl needs the gospel.
She needs Jesus Christ.
She needs to be saved so she can realize that there's more to life than what's alive she's living.
That's why you ought to come to this church.
And that's why Faithful Word Baptist Church exists and that's the dream that I have.
Do you have the dream that I have for this church?
Do you dream of that kind of a church?
Like a church like the Book of Acts where God's power is evident.
A church where soul winning is just a way of life all the time.
A church of people who are sold out to God and they're filled with the Spirit.
That's the church that I dream of. Do you dream of that kind of a church?
Do you have that kind of a vision for this church?
You say, Well, I like this church just the way it is. I hope nobody new comes.
You say, Well, no.
Don't change. We're closing the doors. We're maximum capacity.
Hey, look. Don't you have a vision? Don't you have a vision for more of the same?
Do you have a vision?
I mean, do you have a vision of one day this church growing even larger than it is?
I mean, much larger. Do you have a vision like that?
Do you have a vision of maybe some people at your work?
And some of your friends and relatives and neighbors coming to this church?
I mean, do you ever just sit down and look over at an empty chair next to you
and picture your buddy there?
Picture your friend there?
Picture your family there?
Do you have that kind of a vision? Are you a seer?
Can you see something that maybe other people can't see?
Can you look at a small child?
Can you knock on the door outsoleting and win some teenager to the Lord?
Can you see them ten years from now serving God?
Can you see them ten years from now with a Bible and their aunt's soul winning?
Or are you one of these people that says,
oh, I wonder if they really even meant it?
Or do you have a vision and say, if this person got saved, good night.
Even if they never come to church, even if I don't get the instant gratification
of every person that I ever went to the Lord coming to church immediately,
getting baptized, joining the church.
Hey, do you have a vision that someday God could do something great in that life
and that your labor is not in vain?
And that even if God doesn't do something great in their life,
your labor is still not in vain?
Do you have a vision of that person in heaven one day
when you present them to Jesus Christ as your convert?
Do you have a vision for soul winning?
Do you have a vision for this church?
Do you have a vision for your friends?
Do you have a vision for your family?
Do you have a vision for your children?
Do you see more than everybody else sees?
Do you see bigger?
Do you see better?
Do you see greater?
Do you look in the mirror and see something greater than what you see right now?
Do you look at your children and see greater, better, bigger, more?
Do you walk into this church and do you see all the people that you wish you could see
come to church that you're inviting, that you're trying to bring,
that you're trying to win the Lord?
Do you have that kind of a vision?
Do you have that kind of a dream?
You see, the Bible says where there is no vision, the people perish.
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
It's dead, is what he's saying.
The moment that we stop having a vision is when we start to die.
It's when our church starts to decay.
It's when our church starts to fall apart, when we don't have a vision
of something bigger, something better.
Either we're growing or we're dying.
I mean, to stay alive, this church must continue to grow.
For you to continue to grow as a Christian, you've got to keep dreaming bigger dreams.
You've got to keep having a greater vision.
You have to keep seeing bigger things.
You've got to have a great vision for your life.
You've got to have a great vision for others.
And you've got to have a great vision for this church.
Don't listen to people that tell you that it can't be done.
I don't listen to the people that tell me that what I'm doing can't be done.
Don't you listen to the people that tell you what you want to do can't be done.
Listen to God, which says I can do all things through Christ, which strengthened me.
He, which has begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
Why don't you listen to that for a while?
That God is working on you and He's going to bring you to the finished product.
And so you have to have that kind of a vision and that kind of a goal in your life.
Don't wander through life like Cain.
Don't be like Cain, who's a fugitive in a vagabond and a wanderer in the earth.
Don't just wander around, well, I think I'll just get up and have breakfast
and go to work and have something to eat for lunch.
You know, I guess we'll do something this weekend.
That's the way unsaved people live.
No point, no purpose.
Set your face like a flint toward the goals that you have,
toward the greatness that God has for you,
toward the things that you plan for yourself, the things that God has planned for you.
Set yourself toward those goals.
Let's point this church toward some big goals this year.
And let's do something great for God because we have a vision,
because we can see something that maybe not everybody else can see.
I saw Faithful Word Baptist Church before it ever existed.
I saw it.
Other people didn't see it, but I saw it.
And now I'm looking at it.
And so I'm seeing other things.
And one day I'm going to lay my eyes on those other things, God willing.
And so let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, I just pray that you bless the message.
Not an eloquent sermon, dear God, but it's just such a great truth from the Bible
that we need to have a dream.
We need to have a vision.
We need to be able to see more than meets the eye, dear God.
And Father, I just pray that every single person in this room
that's listening to me right now would realize how important they are.
I wish that nobody in this church would ever feel like
they're not an important player in this church
and that no one in this church would ever feel like they could disappear
or be gone and nobody would notice or it wouldn't really matter
or it wouldn't really change anything.
I wish every single person in this room would understand
that they're an integral part of this church
and that every single person in this room is so important, so vital, so crucial
the way that they live their life.
It's so crucial what they do Monday through Saturday
to the success of this church.
It's so crucial that they stay in church, that they're faithful to church
and that it's so vital that we are all in our place, dear God.
The body has many members and they're all needed, they're all necessary,
they're all important.
I pray that everybody in this room would know how important they are
and not only to this church but just how important they are to you
and to your plan.
And God, please help no one in this room to sell themselves short
and to think that they can't do what they've always wanted to do
or to think that they can't achieve what maybe someone else thinks.
But dear God, help everyone to realize that truly the sky is the limit.