The verse that I'd like to focus on is in verse number 4, the Bible says,
Where no oxen are, the crib is clean, but much increase is by the strength of the ox.
And I want to preach about how to have a clean crib today.
How to clean your crib. Now, I'm not speaking Ebonics today.
A lot of people today will call their house their crib, you know.
But this is basically talking about the place where the oxen would dwell, the crib.
And you think of a barn or wherever, and the Bible says,
Where no oxen are, the crib is clean, but much increase is by the strength of the oxen.
What God's telling us is that, you know, if you really want to have a clean barn,
if you don't want anything to smell bad or anything dirty or messy in there,
well that's easy, just don't put any animals in it.
But wait a minute, is that even the purpose of having a barn? What's the point then?
And so God's saying that if you have no oxen, you can have a clean crib.
But there's much increase by the strength of the ox.
And because it's Father's Day, I want to preach this about having children.
I always think of children when I read this verse, you know.
And I'm not saying that children are like animals, but what I'm saying is,
I think of this when I think of my crib, you know, when I think of my house.
And if you really wanted to have a clean house,
probably the best thing you could do is just not have children,
because children are going to make your house messy, it's just a fact.
And not even just if your children are messy,
but just having a lot of people living in a house is a necessity,
going to create a lot of hard work.
I mean, my wife, when she cooks, she's cooking for eight people at every meal.
That's going to create more mess, that's going to create more work,
that's going to take a lot more effort.
But, just as there's much increase by the strength of the ox,
there's a great blessing in having children that's worth all the effort
and all the work and all the dirt that's caused by it.
Go to Psalm 127, if you would.
Psalm 127.
You know, I'm tying this in with Father's Day,
but really it can apply to a lot of areas of life.
Where no oxen are, the crib is clean,
but much increase is by the strength of the ox.
Psalm 127 verse 3 says,
Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord,
and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man,
so are children of the youth.
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 gates.
According to the Bible, having children is a blessing.
Having children is a reward from God, it's a gift from God,
and so we ought to be happy about it.
And he says that we will be happy
if we have our quiver full of them.
He said in verse 4,
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man,
so are children of the youth.
Now, if you're in battle and you have a bow and arrows,
how many arrows do you want to have?
You want to have as many as you can.
You want to have a full quiver.
You don't want to just have a few.
You want to have the maximum,
and that's what God's saying.
It's the same way with children.
And he says in verse 5,
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.
They shall not be ashamed,
to speak with the enemies in the gate.
He said, so are children of the youth.
A lot of people are told,
wait till you're older to have children.
But God says having children in youth is a blessing.
It's a good thing.
It'll make you happy.
And so the Bible is telling us here
that having children is good.
You want to have a clean crib?
Just don't have any children.
I mean, people who have no children,
it's very easy for them to keep their house clean.
It's not going to take a whole lot of effort
to keep it clean.
You want to make sure that your children
don't turn out wrong?
You know, because nobody wants to beget a foolish son,
and you'll be the sorrow of them that bear him.
But here's a way to make sure
your children don't turn out wrong.
Just don't have any children.
And then they for sure won't turn out wrong.
If you want to never preach a bad sermon,
just never preach.
And then you'll never be embarrassed
because you stood up and preached a bad sermon.
You know, you never want to mess up on the piano
and be embarrassed?
Well, just don't ever play the piano in church.
And then you'll never make a mistake.
You don't ever want to get a ticket?
You never want to get a ticket from the police?
Just don't drive.
Now, I know Chris Brozwell will say,
well, even if you don't drive, you're going to get a lot of it
because he gets tickets every week on his skateboard,
on his bicycle.
Don't ask me how.
He's the only person I've ever known
he got thrown in jail
because they were walking their bike down the sidewalk.
But it's really good.
But the bottom line is, if you drive your car,
eventually you're going to get pulled over.
Even if you're not doing anything wrong,
you're going to get pulled over
just from the sheer driving.
So just never drive, and you'll never get pulled over.
If you never want to lose in a sporting event,
just never compete, and then you'll never lose.
But you say, pass around.
That's ridiculous.
Of course it's ridiculous.
Because in life, obviously the easy way
is just to do nothing and to be nothing,
and then you're never going to have any problems.
You're never going to have any dirty crib.
You're never going to have any failure in your life
if you don't do anything.
Look at Matthew chapter 21.
Matthew chapter 21, see,
it's about producing something with your life.
If you have oxen,
you're going to produce something as a farmer.
You know, the farmer has oxen.
The Bible talks about he's using the strength of the ox.
He's using that oxen to plow a field, to pull a cart,
to make the earth produce food.
He's trying to run his business
and get something out of his business.
Well, he needs that ox to do that,
and of course it's going to smell up his barn.
It's going to make things dirty.
It's going to make a mess,
but it's worth it for the strength of the ox.
Look at Matthew chapter 21 verse 18.
The Bible says now in the morning,
as he returned into the city, he hungered,
and when he saw a fig tree in the way,
he came to it and found nothing there on the leaves only
and said unto it,
Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever,
and presently the fig tree withered away,
and when the disciples saw it, they marveled,
saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away?
So Jesus here, he sees a fig tree off in the distance,
and it looked good.
I mean, the leaves looked good.
The tree looked good,
and he wanted to go over and get some figs
to eat from the figs.
He goes to that fig tree,
and he found no fruit on it,
and Jesus cursed that fig tree,
and it just began to wither and die right before.
And you know, the Bible's telling us something else here.
It's not about how good you look sometimes.
It's about what you produce.
This fig tree looked good,
but it was good for nothing,
to the point where Jesus cursed it
and caused it to wither and die.
You know, if you want to have a really clean house,
okay, don't have any kids,
but you know, what's the purpose of the house?
You know, to house my family.
To house my children.
I don't look at my children
and think that they're a burden
for messing up the house.
They're there because I want them there,
and that's why in heaven.
I mean, why do we have a church building?
You know, to pack it full of people
and to preach to them.
Why do we have a restroom?
To use that restroom.
Why do we have a car to drive the car?
Not to put them on display.
Not to put them in like a museum.
Why do we have tools?
So that we can keep our tools perfect
in a little display case?
No.
The tools that we use as men
are dirty and rusty
and they're bent up
because we've used them.
That's what they're for.
That's what it's good for.
And so we're not trying to have
the prettiest church.
We want the church that produces.
I'm not trying to have
the most pristine house
possible.
No, I want the house that they can
feed eight people.
That's what I want the kitchen to be like.
Not just a kitchen that looks great.
Not just a church of people
who are dressed nice
and they look good,
but a church of people who go out
and win souls to Christ
and bring forth much fruit
because we've got a lot of great
auction in this church.
Strong workers, strong servants of God.
That's what it's all about.
I mean, the smaller the church,
the less problems you're going to have.
Right?
I mean, it's easier to have
a smaller church,
a smaller group of people.
And some people like a small church.
And then the church starts getting bigger
and then they leave the church.
But really, we want to have
as big of a church as we can.
We want to get as many people.
We're not going to compromise.
We're not going to change
what we believe or preach
in order to get people to come.
But we want as many workers
here as possible.
That's going to create more work.
That's going to create more problems.
That's going to create more issues.
We're going to need a bigger building.
We're going to need more surprise.
We're going to need...
It's going to cause me
to have more time spent
dealing with people
and dealing with things.
But it's worth it.
That's the whole point is to grow,
to produce, to build something.
Look at Matthew 25.
You see, think about a restaurant.
Who's ever worked in a restaurant before?
Put your hand if you've worked in a restaurant.
You know, I've worked in a restaurant
for three years.
I worked at a pizza restaurant.
And some days,
the restaurant's really slow.
And you don't have a lot of business
coming in, right?
And what do you do?
You do a lot of cleaning.
And you're doing all the deep cleaning.
And you're really straightening things out.
Other days, the restaurant is packed.
And it's jam-packed.
And it's busy.
And food is just flying everywhere.
I mean, I remember when I used to work at round table,
we were at a really busy round table.
And literally, we'd be making pizzas.
And we'd be going so fast,
in such a hurry, making the pizzas,
that literally, under our feet
was a solid layer of food on the ground.
I mean, just all the cheese and toppings,
they're just flying.
And literally, the floor would just be packed with it.
And I could never, my shoes,
all the tread in my shoes
was just stuffed with food every day.
Because we were so busy.
And I could never even walk in the house with those shoes.
I'd have to leave my shoes outside,
put them on, and go to the restaurant.
And we kept everything clean and sanitary.
But fresh, fresh food is flying all over the ground.
And you would literally just,
you couldn't even see the floor.
There's just junk and trash and food.
But we were making money.
What was the purpose of running that restaurant?
To make money.
To serve as many people as we could with pizza.
To feed as many people possible.
So we don't say,
oh, this is great.
Look how slow it is today.
We can really relax.
We can take it easy.
We can really get everything sparkling.
We can really get the oven nice and gleaming and shiny.
And we can really make everything look good.
No, that's not what the manager wants.
He wants that place packed.
He wants that place busy.
He doesn't care that food's flying everywhere
and that there's a mess everywhere
because of the fact that he's making money.
And that's what the goal is,
to produce something, to build something.
And then when it's all over,
when the restaurant closes,
then you clean it up.
It's the same way in our house.
You know, in our house throughout the day,
the kitchen is always moving.
I mean, something's going on in that kitchen all the time.
And so there's food everywhere.
Now, no, we're not walking in food and everything like that.
I wouldn't be in this like that.
But what I'm saying is,
there's a lot of action in that kitchen, okay?
Because there's something happening.
If we wanted to have a really clean kitchen,
one thing that we could do is just eat out.
We could just buy takeout and use paper plates
and just order our meals out.
But no, we want that healthy, home-cooked meal.
There's going to be some mess associated with it.
And at the end of the day,
like the restaurant closing,
this is where we put all the kids in bed.
And then it's all closed down,
and then we can actually clean things up
and get a good...
Where did I have to turn? Matthew 25?
Look at Matthew 25, verse 14.
It says,
This is basically a businessman here.
He's delivering over his goods to these men.
And likewise, he that had received two,
he also gained the other two.
His Lord said to them,
Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
Thou hast been faithful over a few things.
I will make thee ruler over many things.
Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
He also that had received two talents came and said,
Lord, thou deliverer sent me two talents.
Behold, I have gained two other talents beside them.
His Lord said unto him,
Well done, good and faithful servant.
Thou hast been faithful over a few things.
I will make thee ruler over many things.
Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
Then he which had received the one talent came and said,
Lord, I knew thee, that thou art an hard man,
reaping where thou hast not shown
and gathering where thou hast not straw'd,
and I was afraid, and when in hid thy talent in the earth,
lo, there thou hast that is thine.
His Lord answered and sent me,
and thou wicked and slothful servant.
Slothful means lazy.
Thou wicked and slothful servant.
Thou knewest that I reap where I showed not
and gathered where I have not straw'd.
Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money
into the exchangers, and then at my coming
I should have received mine own with usury.
Take therefore the talent from him
and given unto him which hath ten talents,
for unto everyone that hath shall be given,
and he shall have abundance,
but from him that hath not shall be taken away,
even that which he hath,
and cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness.
There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Of course, this is an illustration.
It's a parable dealing with,
and we keep going to all the different meanings of it,
but it's talking about, you know, the nation of Israel,
who was supposed to be a light to the Gentiles.
They hid that under a bushel.
They were rejected.
He went to the Gentiles and so forth,
but the bottom line is here that God is teaching us
an illustration of doing something with what we have,
producing something, building something,
getting something done, and not being just afraid
and just wanting to take the easy route
and the do-nothing route.
Jesus said,
He that is not with me is against me,
and he that gathereth not with me scatterth abroad.
So, according to the Bible, if we're not serving God,
if we're not gathering with him,
we're actually counterproductive.
We're actually hurting the cause of Christ
by being a do-nothing.
This guy had wasted his master's money.
Yeah, he gave him back the same thing,
but he could have given that one talent
unto the man to whom he gave five,
and he would have got six back instead of five back.
So he really wasted his time.
He wasted his money.
He wasted his capital there
by giving it to this guy who did nothing with it.
Go to Revelation, chapter 3.
Revelation, chapter number 3.
See, the safe and easy, clean route
is to do nothing,
to go through life
and just to be a do-nothing,
be lukewarm.
Look if you would at Revelation 3.14.
It says,
And unto the angel of the church
of the land of the sea is right,
these things saith the Amen,
the faithful and true witness,
the beginning of the creation of God.
I know thy works,
that thou art neither cold nor hot.
I would thou work cold or hot.
So that because thou art lukewarm
and neither cold nor hot,
I will skew thee out of my mouth,
because thou sayest I am rich
and increased with goods
and have need of nothing,
and knowest not that thou art wretched
and miserable and poor and blind and naked.
I counsel thee to buy and meet
gold tried in the fire,
that thou mayest be rich,
and white raiment,
that thou mayest be clothed,
and that the shame of thy nakedness
do not appear,
and anoint thine eyes with eyesab,
that thou mayest see.
As many as I love,
I rebuke and chasten.
I love this part.
Be zealous, therefore,
and repent.
God wants us to be zealous.
God wants us to be on fire.
He wants us to be cold or hot.
He doesn't want us to be lukewarm.
Now, the lukewarm life here
that he's referring to
is the comfortable life,
because notice what he says
in verse number 17.
He says,
because thou sayest I am rich
and increased with goods
and have need of nothing.
Doesn't that sound just comfortable?
I mean, I've got everything I need.
I just kick back and relax.
I've got all the money.
I've got all the conveniences.
I'm living on an easy street.
You see, lukewarm is comfortable.
Who likes being really cold?
Nobody wants to be cold.
Cold is a discomfort.
Or who wants to be really hot all the time?
That's why you live in Phoenix.
That's why I moved here.
But anyway, being hot is not comfortable.
Nobody wants to be hot.
Nobody wants to be cold.
What do they want to be?
Just right, like Goldilocks.
You know, lukewarm.
Just right in the middle.
Not too cold.
Not too hot.
You want to have everything you need.
You want to be rich.
You want to be increased with goods.
You want to have need of nothing.
You don't want to need things.
You want to have everything you need.
And God is saying here
that he doesn't always want us to be
in that comfortable, easy mode.
The do-nothings of the world,
the be-nothings of the world,
are always going to be more comfortable.
The Bible says,
Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution.
You see, if you're not doing a lot for God,
if you're just cruising through life,
you're going to live a really easy, comfortable life.
Now, if you try to live a really wicked life,
you're not going to be comfortable.
You're going to be constantly
running into problems on that end.
And if you try to live a really godly, righteous life
and really get a lot of people saved
and really preach the truth to a lot of people,
you're going to suffer for that.
The Bible says,
All that will live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution.
Look how much Paul and the other apostles
suffered in the Bible.
Look how the prophets of the Old Testament suffered.
The more you do for God,
you're going to suffer for it.
If you live a really wicked life,
you're going to suffer for it.
If you want to just be the most comfortable,
easy street light,
it's just being right in the middle,
doing nothing.
I mean, if you're a politician,
what are you going to do?
You're going to take that middle course.
You know, you go too far to the left,
everybody's going to hate you.
You go too far to the right,
everybody's going to, you know,
just take that middle compromise right.
And this is where most Baptist preachers are at today.
Right in the middle.
That safe ground.
That clean ground.
That ground right in the dead center
where you're not offending these people,
you're kind of trying to have it both ways,
you're straddling the fence.
God said,
That makes me sick.
He said,
Get in or get out.
Hot or cold.
On or off.
Don't be lukewarm.
God wants us to take a side,
but when you take sides,
there's going to be consequences for that.
When you stand up and take sides,
you're going to offend people sometimes.
When you go out and serve God,
and win a lot of souls to the Lord Jesus Christ,
you're going to be persecuted for that.
You're going to be attacked for that.
I mean, if you look at the Apostle Paul,
when the Apostle Paul,
or I'm sorry, not the Apostle Paul,
remember the seven sons of Sceva
in the book of Acts?
They were these guys who were going to try
to be like the Apostle Paul,
and they were going to try to cast out these devils,
but they weren't really apostles.
But they were trying to pretend that they were apostles.
And so they came,
and they were going to cast out these devils.
And you remember what the devil-possessed man told them?
The man who was possessed by the devil said,
Well, Jesus I know,
and Paul I know,
but who are you?
And then he attacked them,
and he beat up all seven of them,
and sent them out of the house wounded.
Well, the lesson there is that this guy
who was possessed with all these devils,
those devils, they knew Jesus, of course.
Remember every time they came across him
in the New Testament,
they bowed down before him and worshiped him.
But they also knew the Apostle Paul.
How did they know Paul?
Because Paul was out getting people saved.
Paul was out preaching the Word of God.
Paul was out stirring things up.
And he was out getting something done that's forgotten.
And so the devil had him marked.
The devil had a target on him.
It said, I know Jesus, and I know Paul.
Who are you?
You know, these guys,
they were trying to be an exorcist, they said.
So it was like,
I don't know if this was a business
they were trying to do or something,
but they were trying to pretend
to be able to do the miracles that Paul could do.
And of course, they couldn't.
But they knew Paul,
and I wonder, does the devil know you this morning?
Would the devil say,
Well, Brother so-and-so I know,
or does he just not even care about you
because you're not doing anything for God anyway.
You're not harming his cause whatsoever.
But when you go out and do something for God,
you are going to suffer for it.
So what are you going to do?
Just be a do-nothing?
A be-nothing?
Just take the middle ground?
That makes God sick.
You know, the easiest route to take
is to have no children.
You know, as we talked about it earlier.
You're not going to have all the bills.
I mean, look,
it's expensive to have children.
Any dad who's here today,
and I don't know,
what did we have to buy?
How many dads did we have?
Twelve.
Twelve dads?
Okay.
Any of those dads,
we could ask them.
And they've laid out tens of thousands
of hundreds of thousands of dollars
in the course of being a dad.
It costs a lot of money
to feed, to clothe,
to take care of children.
Everything you can go and buy.
You know, if you're just one person,
you're not going to have all the bills.
If you're just one person,
let's say you go out to eat,
you're buying one meal.
Then you've got to start multiplying that.
Now going out to eat is not ten dollars,
it's sixty dollars.
You know, it's not fifteen dollars,
it's eighty dollars.
You know, you're just multiplying everything.
And you need a bigger house.
You need a bigger vehicle.
And then the bigger vehicle takes more gas
to put in the tank.
And you need this,
and you need more clothes,
and you need shoes,
and you need all this.
But it's worth it,
the Bible says,
where no oxen are,
the crib is clean,
but there's much strength
by the increase,
much increase by the strength of the ox.
It's worth the benefits of having children.
The blessings of having children
outweigh the cost,
outweigh the effort.
The blessings of serving God
outweigh the cost.
They outweigh the dirt
that's caused by it in your life.
It's worth it
to do something with your life.
It's worth it to serve God.
It's worth it to produce fruit.
It's worth it to have children.
It's worth it to get something done for God
and not to just be a do-nothing.
It's worth it to take a stand
for what's right,
even if it gets you persecuted,
because you're doing something.
And so what I'm saying today
is don't take the easy way in life.
That's what the whole sermon's about.
Don't go the easy way,
the smooth way.
The easy way is to have no children,
or maybe just have one,
or maybe just have two,
and say,
well, that's all I can handle
and I'll still keep up my fancy lifestyle,
and it's just too much work.
No, don't do things the easy way.
Take on the challenge.
Have another child.
Take that challenge.
God tells us that we ought to have
as many as we can.
It's a blessing.
He'll bless us with children.
Take on the challenge of another child.
Take on the challenge.
Push yourself to do something big for God.
Push yourself,
if you've never gone out of soul winning,
to get out there soul winning,
or maybe you've just been a silent partner.
You know, the easy way
is just to continue being a silent partner
until doomsday.
But you know,
one of these days,
you ought to open your mouth boldly
to make known the mystery of the gospel.
And yeah,
you're going to mess up.
You're going to drop your Bible.
You're going to be embarrassed.
You're going to freeze up.
You're not going to know what to say.
You're going to make mistakes.
But at least you're out there doing it.
At least you're doing something.
At least you're trying.
You know,
get up and preach.
You know,
at the camping trip,
we're having a chance
for the young guys to preach.
You know,
get up there and preach.
I don't know if I can do it.
Hey,
get up there and try.
You know,
I'd rather see somebody
who gets up there and tries
to preach
and does their best
than the person who says,
like,
the guy who hid his talent
while I was just afraid.
So I just went
and buried it in the earth.
Hey,
if you know the Bible,
if you've got a lot of Bible knowledge,
you've been reading your Bible,
you've got a lot of truths in your heart,
hey,
get up and preach those truths.
Preach a source sermon
at the camping trip.
You know,
get up and preach
and don't hide it under a bushel
and bury it
and say,
well,
I was just afraid.
I was afraid
that people would laugh at me.
I'm afraid that people
aren't going to like my sermon.
Look,
you're not going to believe this.
Not everybody is like
every sermon I preach.
No.
I mean,
there have been,
no,
I'm serious.
I mean,
there have been times
when I preached a sermon
and somebody didn't like it.
It was always
a really small minority.
But hey,
there are people
who didn't like
what I have to say.
And then there are other times
when,
you know,
I had a sermon
and it made so much sense,
you know,
when I was right.
And then you get up there
and you just,
it's just bombs.
You just bomb it.
You know,
you just get up
or you just get up
and you just freeze up.
You know,
that's it.
But you know what?
Before I started this church
a little over
five and a half years ago,
before I came to Phoenix
and started knocking doors
and starting a church,
and by the way,
you know,
I didn't know
what was going to happen.
I didn't know
a single person in Phoenix.
I just started knocking doors.
I didn't know
what God was going to do.
God said,
upon this rock,
I'll build my church
and the gates of hell
should not prevail against it.
I didn't know
what was going to happen.
I didn't know
what God was going to do,
but I started knocking the doors
and preaching the gospel
to every creature.
And let me tell you something,
before I'd even done that,
I'd already preached
over 500 sermons.
Before I even started the church.
Preaching in nursing homes,
preaching on buses,
not city buses,
but on the streets
and on the streets
and watching the back side
and not city buses,
but church buses.
Preaching on buses,
preaching in nursing homes,
preaching at Sunday school classes,
preaching on a youth night
where they would let the teenagers
of the youth preach
kind of like we do on the camping
where we let everybody
have a chance to preach.
I preached all these times.
Do you really think
every sermon that I preached
was just the great sermon?
No, I mean there were times
when I preached awful sermons.
Horrible sermons.
I mean,
they were biblically right.
God wasn't up preaching heresy
or anything.
You know what I mean?
I just totally dropped the ball.
Totally, but you know what, at least I was trying.
You know, I was up there doing my best,
learning how to do it.
I was trying my hardest.
And you know, there's something to be said for that.
Not to just take the easy, the comfortable route.
And in my life, I'm always trying to push myself
to a higher level.
You know, get out of my comfort zone.
You know, I've been soul winning now for I think 11 years,
or what, 12 years now.
12 years ago I started outdoor soul winning.
When I first started, I was so nervous.
And my heart would be pounding,
and I would almost hope people aren't home.
You know what I mean?
Who's been there before?
You know, you ring the doorbell
and you're hoping that they're not home.
Because you're nervous.
And usually, I got over that after a few times,
and then I got to where when I would first go soul winning
the first few doors, that's how I felt.
And then after I'd get warmed up, then I was okay.
It was just those first couple doors.
And you're nervous.
And I was probably like that for like a year.
Probably after a year of soul winning,
I got over the nervousness of it.
But see now, I'm pushing myself to a new level.
Because over the past couple of years,
I've been doing a ton of soul winning in Spanish language.
Well see, that's pushing me to a new level.
I'm nervous again.
You know, because now I'm giving the gospel
in a foreign language.
I have to think a lot harder.
I'm stumbling over my words more.
But I'm pushing myself, I'm not taking the easy way
of just saying, oh, you don't speak Spanish, nuts to you.
Let's go to the next door.
Because that would be the easy thing to do.
Because to me, it's a lot easier to give somebody
the gospel in English than it is in Spanish.
It's a lot of hard work.
And who knows how to speak Spanish
where you can give somebody the gospel in Spanish?
Yeah, it's hard work.
Well, it's not hard for you.
For you, it's hard in English.
Yeah, exactly.
So you know what I'm talking about, same thing.
But yeah, for the day, it's a challenge.
You're nervous again, you're struggling.
You know, it's hard work.
And the easy way would be to just skip those doors
and just go to the people who speak English.
And hey, if you speak English,
that's all you can do, obviously.
But if you have the ability,
if you have that talent that God's given you,
you gotta use it.
And you gotta push yourself
and not always take the easy route,
but do something that's hard that's gonna push you
and make you work harder.
And you know, I went soloing in Norway, you know?
And I'm soloing in Norwegian language.
That's hard.
I mean, that's a challenge.
I mean, anything that you do
that you're not used to doing that's something new
is gonna be hard.
But you've gotta push yourself.
And look, those of you who are just,
we're just asking you to just go out
and give the gospel to somebody in English.
That sounds pretty easy right now
after we're talking about Spanish.
But you know what, when you're not used to it,
it is a challenge, it is hard.
Getting up and preaching
after you've done it hundreds of times is no sweat.
But when you've never done it,
or even if you've done it 50 times,
you're still nervous getting up and preaching.
I'm nervous right now, I'm just saying.
Anyway, the bottom line is that,
you gotta take the difficult route in life sometimes,
and not just always want the easy street,
and the easy route.
You know, having children's not easy.
Dads, I mean, you know that.
It's work, and today's economy,
people look at it, and the uncertainty,
they say, well, I don't know if I'm gonna have children,
because I don't know if I'm gonna be able to afford it.
It's gonna take some faith to have children in 2011.
I mean, in 2011, the way things are,
and the way people are nervous,
and maybe you're not making as much money as you were
before the economy crashed and everything,
it's gonna take a little faith to step out and say,
my God shall supply all your need,
according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus,
and to believe that God is gonna take care of us,
and that if we seek first the kingdom of God,
all these things will be added unto us,
meaning food and clothing.
It's gonna take some faith to have children
when times are uncertain.
But are you gonna take the easy way?
You gonna take the clean crib route that just says,
it'll just be so much easier if we don't have children.
It'll be so much easier if I just don't go soul-winding.
I can just sit in my air conditioning and just relax.
It's gonna be so much easier to not prepare that sermon
for the camping trip.
I prepared three sermons a week, okay?
Can you prepare a five-minute sermon?
Can you prepare a 10-minute sermon?
I prepared three and a half hours of preaching,
approximately, per week, okay?
And I'm just saying, can you push yourself?
And obviously, yeah, it's easier to be a spectator.
It's always easier to sit on the sidelines
and watch everyone else do it.
But will you push yourself, and will you challenge yourself?
And if you go the same for playing ghetto,
or playing the organ, or leading the singing,
these are things that are challenging.
These are things that God could use some laborers
and could use some people to do, to preach.
I mean, our country is dying for preachers
that would preach the gospel, preach the truth,
and preach the word of God, and not hold back, okay?
Where are the preachers of the next generation
gonna come from if they're not gonna come
out of the local church?
I mean, if they're not gonna come out of this camping trip,
if they're not gonna come out of other camping trips
and other local churches, where young men get a chance
to get up and preach.
I mean, look, 12 years ago, I stood up and preached
my first sermon, 12 years ago.
And you know, a journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step.
You know, you get up and you preach that sermon,
and that's where it starts.
And you gotta preach that first sermon
before you can get to the 500th sermon
when you're starting that church.
You gotta preach sermons one through 499.
And preaching sermon 700 is a lot more fun
than preaching sermon number four.
Sermon number four, you know, is not exactly
the greatest sermon in the world.
You know, when you get to 700 and 800,
maybe you might start preaching some good sermons, okay?
But it takes a lot of work to get there.
And it's a lot easier to just not do it.
It's a lot easier to just sit in the pew.
It's a lot easier just to watch everybody else doing it.
It's a lot easier to stay in the pew
than to play that piano or play that organ
or to lead the singing.
But you gotta take the hard road.
You gotta do it, somebody's gotta do it.
You gotta push yourself and challenge yourself
and not take the clean crib road
but take the actual road that's gonna push you
and challenge you and maybe make you work a little harder.
And maybe make you push yourself
to limits that you're not used to.
So let me read the verse one more time.
It says, where no oxen are, the crib is clean
but much increase is by the strength of the ox.
So what is it gonna be in your life?
The clean crib, the perfect schedule,
the perfect little orderly schedule.
And look, you can find a job
that'll give you a perfectly ordered schedule.
You can find a lifestyle where you have plenty of time off,
plenty of time to keep your kitchen and your house
gleaming and clean like a model home
to keep your car looking like you just drove it off the lot.
But when you live in your car,
like I do a few days a week,
I mean, my car, I just broke 200,000 miles on my car.
My 2008, I'm big.
I think I'm at 201,000 miles right now on my 2008.
And you know, it's not the cleanest car in the parking lot.
There's bugs all over that windshield
because at 201,000 miles,
I've killed so many millions of bugs
I've sent to the next world.
Millions of bugs have given up the ghost on that windshield.
And it's not the cleanest car in the parking lot
but it's probably driven the furthest in any car.
Does anybody else have a car in the parking lot
that has over 200,000 miles?
You have the white, that white truck?
Yeah, you?
Okay, yeah.
Oh, you drive a taxi cab.
Yeah.
So look, I guarantee you that none of those three,
do you think that your white truck
is the best looking car on the parking lot?
If you look at it, you say, oh man, look at that thing.
Look how beat up it is.
I mean, my car is held together with wire ties in the front.
It is.
It's got zip ties in the front.
But it's never broken down
and it's driven over 200,000 miles.
So, you know, there could be another car that looks perfect
but is it the workhorse?
Is it getting something done?
And so yeah, I could have a perfectly clean car,
a perfectly clean house.
I could sleep eight hours every night, right?
I could sleep eight hours a night.
I could give my beauty rest.
I could wake up every morning
and floss and brush my teeth three times a day
after every meal.
And I could eat a perfect little balanced meal
like Michelle Obama just came out with a little MyPlate.
I could have a perfect little plate
like she designed of food.
I could sit there and live this perfect sanitary life,
go to bed at the exact time every night,
get up every morning, work exactly seven hours,
59 minutes and 59 seconds a day.
I could do that every day.
It'd be easy, but you know what?
Sometimes you gotta just push yourself a little bit
to get something done.
And probably if you have six kids,
that's not your lifestyle that I just described.
Because you're not even gonna be able to pay for six kids
on eight hours a day of work, probably,
unless you're just a really talented person.
I mean, unless you just have a really good job
and you're really talented.
Now, you'd be able to pay for it for six children.
You're not gonna pay for a family of eight
on 40 hours a week unless you're just really
making a lot of money.
Not everything's gonna be clean.
You know, your suit isn't always gonna be clean
when your baby is spitting up upon you
right before the service.
But you know what?
I'd rather have that baby.
I'd rather have that production.
I'd rather have that blessing.
I'd rather have that paycheck of working 90 hours
than working 40 hours, even though it's gonna splatter
a lot more bugs on the windshield, my friend.
It's gonna make it dirty your car
and it's gonna cut into my sleep and it's gonna cut.
You've got to sometimes have a dirty crib in your life
in order to have the increase of the strength of the office.
And so have children, work hard, win salt,
do something for God, push yourself to the next level.
And I'm not saying to have a dirty crib.
Obviously, you should keep your house and your car
and your clothes as clean as you can.
But you know what?
At the end of the day, it's not a beauty contest
at the end of the day.
When we get to heaven and stand in the judgment seat
of Christ, it's not gonna be,
well, look how clean my suit was.
And look how perfect my car and my house looked
and my house looked like a museum.
No, it's gonna be okay, what have you done?
We're gonna be judged according to our works,
the Bible said.
And I'm not talking about salvation.
We're saved by grace through faith, not of works.
Not of works, let's say man should pose.
But when it comes to our rewards that we get,
it's gonna be based on works.
I mean, when I worked for a company putting in alarms,
they didn't give me a paycheck based on
how clean my shirt was and how clean my truck was
and how organized the drawers was.
No, I got paid on how much I completed,
how many jobs I finished, how much I finished the work.
And so yes, keep it clean as you can.
But you know what?
It's all about getting something done.
It's about having those children
and raising them to serve God.
It's worth it.
It's worth the diaper change.
It's worth the work and the effort.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, thank you so much for your work, dear God.
Help us not to bury our talent, dear God.
Help us not to be a do nothing
and to take the easy road all the time in life.
Help us to push ourselves and maybe upset our schedule
a little bit in order to go soul winning.
Maybe put ourselves under a little stress
in order to right that sermon, dear God.
Help us to do something for you that would be worthwhile
and help everyone who's here, dear God,
to fear not and to have peace in their heart
about having children and not to be afraid
to have children because of financial concern.
When you promised that you would provide for us,
you promised that you would take care of us.
And so God help us to have faith in your word
in that area.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.