Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Faith War Baptist Church.
Very good to see you all here, back for our Sunday night service.
If you would please find your seats now, grab a songbook or to hymn 114.
We'll get started tonight.
Hymn number 114, The Great Physician.
Hymn number 114.
We'll start together on that first now.
114, The Great Physician.
Now is near.
Hymn number 114.
Lift it up on that first.
114.
The great position now is near, the sin
Let's go before Lord and as his blessing on the service
to our brother Fidel González for Jesus's purpose.
Father in heaven, we thank you for our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ.
We thank you Lord for letting us lift up our voices
to you in praise.
We ask you Father to please bless all the expected
ladies in our church Lord.
Please bless Pastor Anderson to fill in with your holy spirit
and bless every aspect of his sermon.
It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen, back to him number 96, him number 96.
God leads us along.
In shady green pasture so rich and so sweet God leads his dear children along number 96.
In shady green pasture so rich and so sweet God leads
God leads his dear children along
Sometimes in the valley, in darkest of...
He says dear children
together if you don't have a bulletin slip up your hand nice and high we'll
get to you with one on the inside we have our service time Sunday mornings at
10 30 is our preaching service Sunday nights at 6 Wednesday nights at 7 is our
Bible study we're in second Chronicles chapter 33 this week we've got the soul
winning times listed there below as well as Salvation's and baptisms across the
page is the birth announcement for baby Elias and so congratulations to the
Below that, we've got the note about donuts and coffee before the service next Sunday morning.
At the bottom there is the note about the donation station over here where there's a lot of
Food frequently over there, especially on Wednesday nights, but also sometimes on Sunday mornings and other items that are donated
So be aware of that on the back keep praying for our expectant ladies that they'll have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery
We've got a baby shower coming up in one week right here on Sunday afternoon
This is a great time of fellowship for all of the ladies and teenage girls
Always feel free to come to these don't be shy about coming to these if you don't know
Lola or if you don't know whatever lady is being honored at these things
Just show up and have a good time and everybody's always invited to these there will be food
Provided enough said right two o'clock to four o'clock right here, and so that's a week from today
and then at the bottom other upcoming events this Friday night I'm gonna be
preaching in Oklahoma City at Anchor Baptist Church pastored by Brother
Dylan Oz and so I'm looking forward to that and then we've got Pastor Jonathan
Shelley coming out here to preach on February the 19th Wednesday night and
then in March we've got Brother Corbin Russell coming out to preach as well.
and then of course we got the big Bahamas cruise mission strip coming up March 23rd through 28th
and of course you know we're open to people organizing other cruise mission strips on their
own and then we can advertise those if people find a really good deal that hits a lot of good
soul winning ports then you know you can start something we'll advertise it and let people know
and then this one in particular is going to be a really good one because
the Bahamas is one of the best places to go soul-winning
and if you want to get inspired about this you can listen to
the sermon from the missions conference not last year but the year before when
Pastor Shelley preached the sermon about the Bahamas.
and that sermon can get you motivated
on just how receptive it is and how great it is.
Of course, this week also,
Brother Daniel Ryder and I took a short mission strip
to two places.
We went to the Cayman Islands and went to Jamaica
and we had a lot of success with a total of 52 salvations
between the two of us.
out there soul winning in the Caribbean.
The fields are white unto harvest
and there's a huge opportunity.
The thing that I love about it is that it's close.
So it's cheaper to get there than to go to places
that are on the other side of the world.
It's not that big of a difference in the time zone.
So you don't get a really bad jet lag or anything
because you can pretty much stay on Arizona time
and be okay because it's just like two hours different.
and it's just close, it's easy, they speak English,
and so there are just a lot of advantages,
and it's really just a mission field that needs to be hit,
because even though these places are so receptive,
you know, we're in the Cayman Islands,
I walk up to a table of five, six college students
and ask them, do you know for sure
if you died today, you would go to heaven,
and all six of them are saying no.
Right, I'm tired walk up to a group of three students. Do you know for sure if you died or you go to it?
No, no, no ask these people. Do you know for sure you're gonna have it? No, no, no
Lots of them are Seventh-day Adventist
Many of them are even Baptist in name, but don't even know if they're going to heaven, you know
But it's a lot of
Pentecostals Seventh-day Adventists
Protestants one of the things I was running into constantly
And Cayman Islands was also Episcopalian.
It was just a lot of Anglican Episcopalian
because it makes sense because it's part of the UK, right?
Cayman Islands is part of the UK,
so there's a lot of that Church of England, you know.
Hopefully their church isn't as bad
as that weird lesbian in Washington, D.C.
But anyway, you know, so it's a lot of Protestant,
Seventh-day Adventists, some of it's even Baptist,
but I'm telling you, so many people
They're receptive, they're interested in the things of God but they do not know for sure they're going to heaven because they do not understand that salvation is by faith.
They think it's something about the way they're living their lives and it's super clear when you're talking to them that they are not even close to being saved but then they get saved.
And not only do they get saved,
not only are they receptive to the gospel,
but the people that we're talking to
in the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, et cetera,
they really have a genuine interest in the things of God
because even after I would win them to Christ,
they would wanna keep talking about the Bible
and keep talking about spiritual things.
So I had some situations where I would win
a few people to Lord and then I would end up
sitting and talking with them for another hour.
You know, so I was having conversations that lasted over an hour.
You know, I'd win them to the Lord in like 10, 15 minutes and then just sit for another 45 minutes
and just be talking to them about the Bible, answering Bible questions,
talking about ways to live a better Christian life, to improve spiritually.
And so, you know, that shows that it's not just some,
oh yeah, here, you know, quickly blah, blah, blah, go through this, pray this prayer.
I mean, you know, the soul winning we do is real.
Okay, we're thorough, we do a thorough job, they understand the Gospel, they call upon
the name of the Lord, and then in many cases we're even able to impart even more unto them
as we, you know, preach.
other things to them even just in the ensuing conversations.
So it's a really great experience.
I highly recommend getting out there yourself.
One of our biggest goals this year as a church
is we wanna try to get as many of our church members
on the mission field as possible.
So I want you to personally, whoever you are,
think about the possibility of maybe you getting out there
on one of these trips.
And it might seem like a really wild step for you or maybe like a really big leap of faith or a crazy thing for you to do.
But step number one is to learn how to go soul winning right here at home and get some training, get some practice at home.
And we got plenty of people that can teach you how to go soul winning and get you out on one of these trips.
But if you're already a soul winner, if you already know how to win someone to Christ, you know, I'd love to see.
really high levels of participation this year,
getting out on the foreign field.
It's gonna be cool, and I just don't want you
to miss out on it, okay?
Cause I'm gonna go on a bunch of these cool trips,
whether you do or not.
But I just want you to have some fun too.
And also to get a taste of going soul-inning
in a really receptive place.
Cause honestly, soul-inning can get a little bit
discouraging sometimes when you're not getting
a lot of results or when you're being told no a lot.
And so it's just super refreshing to go soul winning in a place where people want to hear the gospel
and it kind of just reminds you of why you go soul winning in the first place why you love soul
winning in the first place it kind of re-energizes you for soul winning. All right so that was a big
long announcement about that but just want to keep those things on your heart and mind
and that is about it for announcements let's go ahead and count up the soul winning
from the last few days, so going back to Thursday,
anything to report from Thursday?
Yes.
Okay.
Got it?
Got it.
Gotcha.
Okay, and then how about Friday?
Okay.
Gotcha, gotcha.
Okay, anything else from Friday?
How about Saturday?
Okay.
Got it, okay, and then how about today?
Gotcha in the back by the Tilson, gotcha, okay, got it.
Anything else from today?
Oh, Brother Scott, gotcha, all right,
and then I'll log those from our trip.
Anything else from today that I missed?
All right, keep up the great work on soul winning,
and with that, let's sing our next song, come lead us.
All right, you should find the incident from your hymnal with rejoice in the Lord you don't have an insert
Please raise your hand and we'll sing it on that first God never moves without purpose or plan
God
Go in your hymnals now to hymn number 238, hymn number 238.
Christ liveeth in me.
Hymn number 238.
We get on that first verse together.
Once fall from God and dead in sin.
Number 238, Christ liveeth in me.
Sing it out on that verse now.
238.
Once fall.
All right, this time we'll pass our offering plates around
as the plates go around and turn our Bibles
to Matthew chapter 17.
Matthew chapter number 17, as we always do,
we'll read the entire chapter beginning of verse number one.
Follow along silently with Brother Dan as he reads,
Matthew 17, starting in verse number one.
Matthew 17, the Bible reads,
and after six days, Jesus taketh Peter,
James, and John his brother,
and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart,
and was transfigured before them,
and his face did shine as the sun,
and behold there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with them.
Then answered Peter and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here.
If thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles,
one for thee and one for Moses and one for Elias.
And while he yet spake, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them,
and behold a voice out of the cloud which said, This is my beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him.
And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face and were so afraid.
And Jesus came and touched them and said, Arise and be not afraid.
And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man save Jesus only, and as they came
down from the mountain, Jesus charged them saying, Tell the vision to no man until the
Son of man be risen again from the dead.
And his disciples asked him saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must come first?
And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall come, shall first come and restore
all things.
But I say unto you that Elias has come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto
Likewise shall also the son of man suffer of them."
Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.
And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man,
kneeling down to him and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son,
for he is a lunatic and sore vexed.
For off times he falleth into the fire and off into the water.
And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.
And Jesus answered and said,
Oh, faithless and perverse generation,
how long shall I be with you?
How long shall I suffer you?
Bring him hither to me.
And Jesus rebuked the devil,
and he departed out of him.
And the child was cured from that very hour.
Then came the disciples to Jesus apart
and said, why could not we cast him out?
And Jesus said unto them, because of your unbelief,
for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith
as a grain of mustard seed,
ye shall say unto this mountain,
remove hence to yonder place,
and it shall remove,
and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Albeit, this kind goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting.
And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, The Son of Man shall be betrayed
into the hands of men, and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised
again, and they were exceeding, sorry.
And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter,
He said, Yes, and when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon?
Of whom do the kings of the earth take customer tribute? Of their own children or of strangers?
Peter saith unto them, Hit unto him of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free.
Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, Go thou to the sea, and cast and hook, And take up the fish that first cometh up.
And when thou hast opened his mouth, Thou shalt find a piece of money, That take and give unto them for me and thee.
Thank you father for the opportunity to hear your holy and precious word
I ask you Phil Pastor Anderson with your Holy Spirit open our hearts on our ears to receive your perfect word
I pray this in Jesus's holy name Amen
Men, this evening we're continuing to talk about Revelation chapter 21 verse 8.
We talked about this morning that verse that is so great to use out soul winning for showing
people that we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God and just that we are all
based on the sins that we've committed in our lives deserving of hell.
And without Jesus Christ, that's where we would go.
and which is why we need to be saved by putting our faith and trust in Christ.
And in that long list, of course, we have the fearful, the unbelieving, abominable,
murderers, hormongers, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, right?
And this is a list of sins.
And it's talking about the fact that these sins are why people are damned
because of the fact that they've sinned, they've got to be punished for their sins.
And so we have this list.
Now, the interesting thing about the second thing on the list here, the unbelieving,
because that's what I'm focusing on tonight, is the unbelieving.
is, you know, why is it nested in this longer list of sins?
Because, duh, unbelievers are going to hell, right?
I mean, that's kind of obvious.
If the one thing that you have to do to be saved
is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
of course, unbelievers are damned.
So why is unbelieving on this list of sins?
Okay.
Well, first of all,
I think it makes sure that everyone knows
that they are nailed by this list.
Usually, it's easy enough to just get to the all liars
and everybody sort of feels like they got nailed by the list.
Because a lot of times I've shown this to people and you can kind of watch their face as you're going through it
and they're kind of thinking like,
not me, not me, I'm not a murderer, not a sorcerer.
And then it's like all liars, they're like, oh man, you know, I've done that.
But occasionally some people will even be stupid enough to try to claim that they've never lied
But here's the thing let's say that a person came along and they had this attitude that said well, you know
I don't need salvation. I don't need to believe in Jesus because I'm just a righteous person
Well, here's the thing not believing in Jesus is a big sin
So even if you were righteous in other areas
Or, think that you're righteous in other areas.
You are commanded to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and not believing in Jesus is
a sin.
Let me give you some scriptural proof for that.
First John chapter 3 verse 23 says this, this is His commandment that we should believe
on the name of His Son Jesus Christ.
Right?
So the Bible says this is His commandment that we should believe on the name of His Son
So, believing in Jesus is not optional, right?
It's a commandment.
Not only that, it makes sense that not believing in Jesus would be a sin, because essentially
you're calling God a liar by not believing in Jesus.
It says in 1 John 5 verse 10, he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself,
he that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record
that God gave of his Son.
And this is the record that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
So if you don't believe the Word of God, you're calling God a liar, so that makes sense that it would be a sin to do that.
However, all that being said, like I said, it's pretty obvious that unbelievers are damned.
But the sin here in Revelation 21-8,
the fearful and the unbelieving, the abominable, murderers,
that unbelieving there is not restricted only
to just not believing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Okay, obviously that's part of it,
but really, unbelief.
could be a reference to not believing anything that God says in the Bible.
Any time we don't believe something in the Bible or don't believe a promise of God,
that is a sin, because we are supposed to have faith in those things.
Now, if you would, flip over, or you should already be there in Matthew chapter 17.
Because what I want to show you is that not only are we saved by faith when we initially believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
we are also supposed to be living a life that is characterized by faith going forward, right?
So when it comes to getting saved, we just have to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, believe He's the Messiah,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as our hope of heaven.
But then after that, we're supposed to go through life
reading the Bible and learning other promises of God
and living a life characterized by faith in those promises of God.
And it's possible for a saved person
who has believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior
to still live a life that is not characterized by faith,
where they're doing things that show a lack of faith.
after that. Okay, let me show you some examples of this. Look at Matthew chapter 17 verse 14, it says,
Then Jesus answered and said, oh faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?
How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me.
Jesus rebuked the devil and he departed out of him and the child was cured from that very hour now
Here's the key part
I want to focus in on then came the disciples to Jesus apart and said why could not we cast him out?
Okay, now in the past remember the disciples have been empowered by Christ to cast out devils
And the Lord had given them that ability and they've exercised that ability
Previously so they're a little bit confused here
why they were not able to cast out this devil.
And they said, Lord, why couldn't we cast them out?
And look what it says in verse 20,
Jesus said to them, because of your unbelief.
Now look, are the disciples unsaved?
No, of course the disciples are saved.
Of course they believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
Of course they believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
That's not the issue here.
Jesus doesn't have a bunch of unsaved disciples.
He only has one that's unsaved, which is Judas Iscariot.
So, when he says, because of your unbelief, this is showing that it's possible, even for a saved Christian,
to be exercising unbelief in a certain situation,
or to just be sort of lacking faith in other areas of life, even if they've believed the gospel and are saved.
Right?
And so, he says, it's because of your unbelief.
For verily I say unto you, if ye have faith, as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain,
Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you,
How be it this kind goeth not out, but by prayer and fasting."
And so we can look at ourselves and we are saved because we have believed on Jesus and called upon the name of the Lord.
We know we're going to heaven, just like the disciples were saved, but
Are we out there moving mountains with our faith?
Not necessarily.
And so this is something that all of us need to work on
in our lives, increasing our faith
and living a life that is characterized by faith
and not unbelief.
Flip over if you would to Luke chapter 17
and we'll find a similar statement
over in Luke chapter 17.
Because remember, Revelation 21, 8.
is a great verse for showing people why they need to be saved.
Okay, we've all used it, or a lot of us have used it many times,
but in addition to that, it's also a list of things that God doesn't like.
It's also a list of bad things.
which are the reasons why God's wrath is coming upon the children of disobedience.
And so therefore, we should be striving to live our lives in a way that avoids these sinful things, right?
So once we're saved, we're already saved, we're going to heaven.
But do we want to be cowards? No.
Do we want to be faithless or unbelieving?
And again, we're not talking about salvation.
We're talking about just living a life where we're not walking by faith.
We're walking by sight.
and we're just not trusting in the promises of God like we should.
We're not fully trusting in His Word as we go through life.
Okay? Obviously, we don't want to be murderers or sorcerers or hormongers
just because we're saved. It doesn't mean,
oh, well, I'm saved, so I'm just going to go out and lie and do all these things.
So the reason I'm going through these point-by-point in these sermons
is because we all need to work on these things in our lives.
and work on number two, tonight, increasing our faith
and not going through life being characterized by unbelief.
Okay, so look what it says in Luke chapter 17 verse 5,
the Apostles said to the Lord, increase our faith.
And the Lord said,
if you had faith as a grain of mustard seed,
you might say unto this sycamen tree,
be thou plucked up by the root and be thou planted into the seed, it should obey you.
So he is explaining to them,
you have a tiny amount of faith.
And these are not bad Christians.
I mean, they're probably better Christians than any of us are.
These are the twelve disciples for crying out loud.
And yet he says to them,
your faith is so small,
it's not even the size of a mustard seed.
You have this tiny amount of faith.
And so I guarantee you that we probably
often have the same problem
of struggling with unbelief
or having too little faith
to live our lives the way that we should
and do the things that we should.
If the disciples need to be admonished
to increase their faith,
well, I think we probably need to increase our faith too.
and not just think, oh, well, I'm saved, therefore, I'm kind of done with faith.
Faith got me saved, now I'm done.
Well, yeah, you're done being saved, but you're not done living the Christian life,
and living the Christian life is going to take more and more faith.
And guess what?
People that have more faith, they do greater things for God.
People that have less faith, people that have little faith, they do less for God,
because they're more focused on the here and now, and not on spiritual things.
When trials and tribulations come along,
the people with a weak faith end up just falling away
and not trusting in the Lord to get them through those hard times.
And so then they end up just trying to fix everything themselves
and, you know, putting Christ and His Word on the back burner.
So we as Christians often have very little faith and that's something that we need to work on and so there are
Scriptures on this throughout the New Testament if you would though flip over to Numbers chapter 20
But for example in 2nd Corinthians 10 15
The Apostle Paul uses this phrase when your faith is increased
Right. He's talking about the fact that their faith needs to increase
later in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 3,
he says we are bound to thank God always for you, brother,
and as it is meet,
because that your faith groweth exceedingly,
and the charity of every one of you all toward each other,
boundeth.
So if he's telling the Thessalonians that their faith is growing exceedingly,
it sounds to me like everybody doesn't have the same amount of faith.
Okay, how much faith does it take to get saved?
Very little, very little.
The only thing is, whatever tiny little speck of faith
you have, you need to put it all on Jesus.
You can't put some of it on Buddha
and some of it on Krishna and whatever.
It's gotta all be on Jesus,
but it doesn't take some huge amount of faith
to just confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus,
just open your mouth and confess the Lord Jesus
and believe in your heart that God
is raising from the dead.
Thankfully, it doesn't take a lot of faith to be saved.
Okay, but amongst those who are saved, amongst those who are Christians, there are varying
levels of faith, which is why Paul could tell one church, hey, your faith is growing exceedingly.
You guys are increasing your faith.
Your faith is being increased.
And then we can see Jesus telling the disciples, O ye of little faith, wherefore didst thou
doubt?
right? Or, oh, you couldn't cast out this devil because of your unbelief.
So it sounds to me like some Christians have more faith than others.
Some Christians' faith is growing. Other Christians just go through life with very little faith,
and therefore they do very little for God. So this is something that we need to work on.
Now, even a godly Christian can sometimes fail to believe God in a certain situation and sin
by not exercising faith at that moment.
Okay, and here's an example of that in the life of Moses,
which is obviously one of the greatest men who's ever lived.
Alright, nobody would doubt that Moses is a super righteous,
godly man that was greatly used by God,
and yet he actually fell prey to unbelief at one point,
because look at Numbers chapter 20 verse 7.
The Lord spake unto Moses saying,
Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together,
thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye,
unto the rock before their eyes.
Now, Moses has previously gotten water out of this rock
by hitting it with his rod.
So he smote it with the rod, water came out.
It was a miracle of God.
This time, he's told to do it differently.
He's told, speak unto the rock before their eyes.
So, you know, talk to it in front of everyone.
He wants Moses to, in front of everybody,
speak to the rock and water's gonna come out.
Now look, this is obviously a bigger miracle.
Because, you know, if he's beating it with a stick,
somebody could think, oh, you know, he dislodged something.
He hit it with a stick and it dislodged this little fountain or whatever,
underwater aquifer and water's coming out.
You know, it's a little bit more impressive when you just speak to it
and water comes out, right? So, you know, he's asking him to do this
for whatever reason.
And he says, Thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock,
so thou shalt give the congregation and their beast drink.
And Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him,
and Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock,
and he said unto them, Here now ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock?
And Moses lifted up his hand with his rod, he smote the rock twice,
so he doesn't talk to the rock like he's supposed to.
Instead, he hits it twice.
and water came out abundantly
and the congregation drank and their beasts also.
So it still works, but it wasn't what God told him to do.
He hits it and yeah, the water comes out,
but that's not what God said.
God wanted to do a cooler miracle
where he speaks to the rock and the water comes out.
And the Lord spoke unto Moses, verse 12, and Aaron,
because, and this is the key right here,
look, because you believed me not,
Obviously, he believes in the Lord in general, he saved, just like you and I believe in the
Lord in general, we're saved, we believe the Word of God in general.
But in this situation, he didn't have the faith right then and there to do what God
had just told him to do by speaking to the rock.
And so it says, because you didn't believe me, right?
You believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall
into the land which I've given them.
And so you can see how there are a lot
of different applications here.
And look, I've preached this passage
in different ways at other times.
Lots of other pastors have preached this different ways
because this is a very deep story
that can be interpreted a whole bunch of ways
that are all legitimate.
There are lots of different things going on here
because you could think about, you know,
the smiting the rock twice.
could be a picture, of course, of the Lord Jesus Christ being smitten.
He's the rock and the living water comes from Christ.
And so, you know, Jesus is only crucified one time.
So he's only supposed to be, you know, smitten one time.
We don't want to recrucify Jesus every Sunday at the mass or something
and go through this over and over again.
And so that's the symbolism of hitting it twice.
All we really need to be to do to be saved.
He's already been smitten one time.
We just need to speak.
and just confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus, right?
Call upon the name of the Lord and be saved.
So yeah, that's a great interpretation
and obviously there are lots of wonderful things going on
in this passage that we could talk about for hours,
but another thing that we could think about
on just a more surface level is the idea here
that sometimes we'll do things a certain way in our life
and then sometimes God is asking us to change.
and to do something different, right?
And maybe we read something in the Bible
that tells us to do something
that maybe we haven't been doing in the past,
and we need to be willing to change.
We need to have the faith to change
and do something new,
if that's what God's telling us to do.
And here's the thing,
you know, a lot of Christians
are just in a rut in their lives.
And many times,
we need to step out in faith,
get out of our comfort zone,
and do something new
and do something different.
and not just be in the same rut,
making the same mistakes over and over again, and so forth.
It's another thing that you could look at this as,
you know, that Moses is like,
well, I hit it last time, so I'm just gonna hit it again.
Instead of saying, well, no,
God's telling you to do things differently.
You're gonna need to make a change.
Get out of your comfort zone.
You know, you don't have to use the rod for every miracle.
Okay, you can just speak to the rock and God can do it.
And so, you know, I hope that in 2025 you maybe get out of your comfort zone a little bit
and make some changes in your life to become a better person and to become a better Christian, right?
And do those changes based on what the Word of God is telling you.
Because here, God's giving Moses a really specific instruction, speak to the rock,
but we have a lot of specific instructions right here too about just how to live our lives.
And I guarantee you that there are some things in the Bible that are being dictated
that we aren't doing.
We do them differently.
Or we have our own way that we've been living our life.
And when we come across things in the Bible that conflict with our lifestyle,
we should be willing to make changes
and get out of our comfort zone and do some new things.
Well, you know, I've just never really been into soul winning.
Well, maybe it's time for you to get into it.
Well, I've just never really been a big reader, you know,
so I don't really read the Bible.
Well, time to get into it.
time to get into Bible reading, time to get consistent with Bible reading, time to start praying,
time to start soul-winning, time to start being faithful to church, time to go out on the mission field,
you know, time to do some new stuff in
2025 instead of just stagnating as a Christian and just saying, well, this is just how I've always done it in the past.
Well, God's telling him, you know, the way that you've done it in the past isn't gonna cut it this time.
I want you to do something different.
And when we're reading our Bibles, sometimes God's asking us to do something different than what we've done in the past.
And so we need to be willing to follow Him.
And so we see here, and the main reason I showed you this story though,
is because I want you to believe me when I tell you that unbelief is a sin that Christians can commit.
Right? Because guess what Christians can be fearful, unbelieving,
abominable, murderers,
whoremongers, sorcerers, idolaters, and liars. Please tell me which of those a Christian cannot commit, because guess what?
A Christian, even after they're saved, can and often will commit those things on that list.
And so another application of Revelation 21-8 is that these are sins that we should avoid.
Be in a coward.
Be an unbelieving you say well, you know, I thought all Christians are believers
Well, of course, we are basic believers in the sense that we believe in Christ. So was Moses
But yet he believed not God in this instance. Yeah, so were the disciples saved believers
But they couldn't cast out a devil in a certain situation because of their unbelief
Their faith was kind of belittled by Jesus actually it just straight was belittled by Jesus
other churches needed to increase their faith.
So, now that we've laid that foundation,
let me just give you a few practical applications.
Now, I'm going to give you three practical applications
tonight about how to be faithful
and not to be unbelieving as a Christian.
To be a Christian whose life is characterized by faith,
go to Matthew chapter six.
Here's three practical applications.
The first one is in Matthew chapter six,
is that number one,
If we're going to exercise faith, it means that we are seeking first the kingdom of God
and putting God before everything else in our lives.
putting God first in our lives.
Look what the Bible says in Matthew 6.31.
Therefore take no thoughts saying what shall we eat
or what shall we drink
or wherewithal shall we be clothed
for after all these things do the Gentiles seek
for your heavenly Father knoweth
that you have need of all these things
but seek ye first the kingdom of God
and His righteousness
and all these things shall be added unto you.
You see, going through life saying,
oh man, what are we going to eat?
What are we going to drink?
What are we going to wear?
is a lack of faith because the Bible says the Heavenly Father knows that we have need of all
those things. He's going to provide our needs. If God so clothed the grass of the field,
shall he not much more clothe you? O ye of little faith. Look, even a saved Christian,
if they're going through life saying, oh man, what are we going to do? How are we going to pay
the bills? How am I going to dress? How am I going to eat? The Bible says they have little faith.
And if you have a lot of faith, then you say,
I know my needs are going to be met.
I know God's going to give me food and raiment.
I know I'm going to have what I need to survive.
The Heavenly Father already knows that I have need of all these things.
And so therefore, my main priority is not going to be just,
what do I eat? What do I drink?
It's going to be, what do I need to do for God?
That's number I'm gonna seek first the kingdom of God the number one most important thing is what am I doing for God?
What's my game plan for serving God? What am I gonna do to evangelize?
What am I gonna do to please God? What am I gonna do to be a good Christian?
See that's number one because I already know that that other stuff's taken care of how do you know that by faith?
by faith. See, aren't you worried about all this other stuff? No, because God already promised me that it's all taken care of
and I believe him.
But that's faith, right?
So the person who lives their life based on faith is going to do more for God because they can easily prioritize God
because they realize, hey, this is all I need to worry about and then if I worry about that, other things will take care of themselves.
You say that's not how life works, Pastor Anderson. Things don't just take care of themselves.
Actually they do because look at verse 34 it says take therefore no thought for the morrow for the morrow
Shall take thought for the things of itself. I
Mean tomorrow is literally going to take care of itself
You say I don't know if tomorrow can think I don't know if tomorrow has a brain
But the Bible says the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof
And obviously tomorrow is not actually doing any thinking. It's a figure of speech. I'm joking
But the point is though that yeah, things will take care of themselves if you seek first the kingdom of God
Now look, obviously, I'm not saying hey, you don't need to go to work
You don't need to buy clothes, you don't need to sew,
and you don't need to reap and do these things.
Obviously, you know, the Bible doesn't say
seek only the kingdom of God,
it says seek first the kingdom of God, right?
So obviously there are other human activities
that we're gonna do throughout the week.
Yes, we are supposed to go to work and do all these things.
But when it comes to our brain,
We don't need to stress and worry about those things.
We don't need to sit around just thinking about money all the time.
Just money, money, money in our thought.
We wake up in the morning and check the bank account and think about money.
And we're thinking about money in the evening and in bed at night and on Saturday.
And we're just thinking about money.
No, no, what we need to be thinking about is the Word of God.
We need to be waking up in the morning and thinking about the things of God, reading our Bible.
praying, going through life, where the big goal, the big picture, is serving God,
that's the main thing.
And you say, I don't know, shouldn't you make these other things the main thing?
No, because they're already taken care of, if I seek first the kingdom of God.
All these other things will be added unto me.
But again, this takes faith.
People who are lean on faith, they're going to be worried, stressing about other things,
and then they're going to make decisions that reflect that.
Because they're going to put God on the backburner so they can really focus on making money and doing all these other things when in reality if you'll focus on the things of God you'll find that these other things are taken care of.
It's sort of like the story where Jesus tells Peter when they need to pay the taxes, he tells Peter to go out fishing and in the first fish that he catches if he opens the fish's mouth there's going to be a coin in the fish's mouth that he's going to be able to pay his taxes with.
Okay?
Would to God we could pay our taxes with a single coin in 2025.
But the point is, if we did it would be like a big giant coin that's made out of gold the
size of a pizza.
But the point is that the answer for Peter's financial issue was to go fishing, right?
right? The coin is in the fish's mouth. We win souls and our financial needs are met.
We're a fisher of men and then we have the revenue that we need to do our work as a church.
I think the most important component to our church succeeding financially.
And look, we are in our 20th year now at Faith Forward Baptist Church of being successful
financially, meaning that we've never run out of money, not been able to pay the bills,
and we've been able to be extremely liberal, not with our doctrine now, not with our interpretation
of the Bible now, but we've been extremely liberal with our funds as far as being generous.
and being able to do a lot of missions
and spend money on winning souls to Christ,
putting people on the mission field,
taking trips to all these Indian reservations
where we could do all that great soul winning and everything.
And we've been able to spend a lot of money
putting out all kinds of materials for free,
CDs, DVDs, of preaching, and on and on it goes.
And we've always just had plenty of money.
And we've been able to help out other churches big time.
Now you wouldn't know that by the way they treat us.
But, I mean, we've helped out a lot of these churches to the tune of five grand, ten grand, twenty grand, I mean, frequently.
frequently those kind of sums we've helped out other churches and been a
blessing to other churches why because we just had an abundance and let me tell
you why we've had an abundance is because we are a soul-winning church
that's why and because you know what first of all God knows that if money
comes into our church it's gonna translate into souls saved money comes
into our church it's more people on the mission field it's more mission strips
And God knows that.
So God's gonna invest in our church
because it's a winner as an investment
when it comes to soul winning and spiritually.
But not only that, people know that too.
People know that if they donate to faithful word,
it's going to soul winning.
It's going toward missions.
It's going toward reaching people with the gospel.
And here's the thing, it's true.
The more money we have,
the more of us go to the mission field
and the more souls we win.
And the less money we have, we slow down on those things.
It's just that simple.
And so God knows that, people know that.
We have had a, you know, I call our financial philosophy
the coin in the mouth economics is what we do here, right?
You know, because, and that's a stupid name,
I'm just kidding.
But the point is that our economic philosophy
is just based on, well, let's just go out
and catch a bunch of fish and the coin will be
in the fish's mouth.
We don't need to think about money, we need to think about fishing, right?
Think about winning souls, and the money will take care of itself.
Seek first the kingdom of God, and the financial needs will be met.
But also, that doesn't just apply for the church, it applies for your personal life as well.
If you will be faithful to serve the Lord, He will meet your needs as well, financially.
So, number one, seek first the Kingdom of God, putting God before everything else.
Go through with the second Chronicles, chapter number 20, the second practical application.
So practical application of having faith, not just to be saved, but exercising faith
throughout our lives is number one.
It takes faith to not worry about other things and to really seek first the Kingdom of God
and put that first.
But number two also it takes faith to fight the Lord's battles to stand with the man of God and to stand with the people of God
That takes faith to do that to make those kind of stands
fighting the Lord's battles.
Look at 2 Chronicles chapter 20, such a beautiful passage.
I know I preached on it recently with 2 Chronicles,
but it bears repeating because it's such a great passage.
Verse 17, you shall not need to fight in this battle.
Set yourselves, stand ye still,
and see the salvation of the Lord with you,
O Judah and Jerusalem.
Fear not, nor be dismayed.
Tomorrow go out against them,
for the Lord will be with you.
Right? That's a pretty powerful promise from God.
Verse 18,
And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground,
and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord,
worshiping the Lord,
and the Levites of the children of the Coethites
and of the children of the Korhites
stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel
with a loud voice on high.
And as they rose early in the morning
and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa,
And as they went forth,
Jehoshaphat stood and said.
Now look at the words of Jehoshaphat.
Hear me, O Judah,
and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem,
believe in the Lord your God,
so shall ye be established,
believe his prophets,
so shall you prosper.
Right and so the idea here is that in order to make a big stand here because they're facing enemies of the
neighboring nations that are coming against them, Moabites, Ammonites, and people and they need to make a stand
with the man of God,
Jehoshaphat, with the people of God,
those of Judah and Jerusalem, and
they have to take a stand here and they have to trust God and God says look you're not even going to need to fight in this battle.
I'm going to fight for you, but you have to show up.
You have to be present.
You have to take the stand.
And Jehoshaphat says, hey, believe in the Lord your God.
Believe that he's able to do this.
Believe that we can win.
Believe his prophets.
So shall you prosper, right?
Believe the preaching.
Believe the Bible.
And show up.
stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, right? And here's the thing, a lot
of success in the Christian life is just showing up. Showing up to church, right?
And standing with the people of God by showing up at a real, and by the way,
show up at a real church. Not some little watered-down, little fake, little, you know,
baby church.
Come to big boy church
Get the real stuff the real preaching and the real soul winning not down at door hanger Baptist
Not down at repent of your sins Baptist where we can't even keep the statement of faith and the tracks and the guest speakers
From teaching heresy
Like how hard is it just keep the statement of faith?
The guest preachers and the tracks in the back of the building from containing heresy like is it really that hard?
Is it really that hard to just make sure nobody gets up and preach his work salvation because you know what?
I've been pastoring now
I'm in my 20th year of pastoring and I've had all kinds of guest preachers
You're not gonna believe this none of them has ever taught workspace salvation from the pulpit never
Never has a guest preacher in 20 years gotten up and preach work salvation. Is it really that hard?
Or how about this?
If a preacher does get up and preach work salvation,
how about we rebuke him and call him out
and tell him he can't come back
and kick him out and run him out of town on a rail?
How about that?
And how about if the tracts are teaching a false doctrine
and a turn from your sins
and turn over a new leaf kind of salvation?
How about we just burn them all?
How about that?
How about we just throw them in the trash?
How about we just send them through the shredder?
How about that?
How about we make sure that the statement of faith
is a statement of faith,
not a statement of repent of your sins?
You see what I did there?
How about a statement of faith alone for salvation?
You know, and it kind of cracks me up
how supposedly one of the mottos
of the Protestant Reformation is
sola fide, which is Latin for only faith.
Faith alone, solo fide, and then you got these people adding to the gospel that, well, believing is not enough.
You also have to do these other things and clean up your life, or at least be willing to clean up your life,
and turn from this sin and turn from that sin. It's bogus, you know?
But it's like, hey, it's sad today that so many churches are compromising on the thing that matters the most.
the gospel.
And so if you have the opportunity to go to a real church
that's actually strong on the gospel
and actually strong on soul winning,
then you know what, you should take that opportunity
and not go to some
confused, mixed, and isn't it funny that the same churches that are a little mixed up on the Gospel
or maybe like their tract rack is a little mixed up or their guest preachers are a little mixed up
or their statement of faith is a little mixed up? Isn't it interesting?
They're also the same ones that are not aggressive about soul winning.
Well, you know what? I wouldn't be aggressive about soul winning either if I were confused about what the plan of salvation is.
Right?
Right? I mean, if I can't even keep the plan of salvation straight in this building,
Then I guess I wouldn't be super zealous about sharing a message that I can't even seem to keep straight myself!
Let me tell you something. Being solid on the doctrine of salvation is also something that goes hand in hand with aggressively spreading that doctrine.
Right, because when you're confident, when you know salvation is by faith alone,
when sola fide isn't just a slogan for you,
it's actually what you believe.
You know what?
You'll be out there preaching that message with a lot more confidence
than the one who's like,
well, I don't really know what repent means or what, you know, just confused.
or bringing in confused guest speakers
and having a confused track track,
and then you wonder why it's just a door hanger.
And by the way, going soul-winning frequently
will also prevent you from getting confused.
About the, you know what, here's the thing.
I presented, I can't even count how many times
I presented the gospel in the last seven days.
I'm not confused.
I don't have to be like, hmm, okay, let me think, salvation.
because I've been preaching the gospel to person after person after person after
soul-winning will do that for you.
You know what I mean?
It's like, how can you not be just super clear, super sharp, super ready with salvation
if you're out soul-winning all the time?
It would it's all just right there and you've had all these conversations and you've heard all the bozo
Unbelievers say stupid things to you because they're not saved and then you're trying to help them get saved
And then some of these guest preachers in old IFB churches
You're like yeah, this sounds like the crap that I heard from the door from unsafe people
You know what I'm saying like you recognize it and you're like yeah, I've heard this before last time I talked to an unsafe person
Fight the Lord's battles!
Stand with the man of God, stand with the people of God.
And you know what? It takes faith to go to a real church.
You know why? Because going to a real church
sometimes involves persecution,
fights, drama.
There's going to be problems.
You know, oh, there's just too much drama and faithful word.
Yeah, that's because there's so much action happening at Faithful Word.
You know what the word drama literally means like you know, I really like to geek out on language and words and everything
You know you because it's a Greek word. You know you go back to the actual root meaning of that word drama
And it literally means work
You know it's like you know obviously that's not what drama means, but I'm saying that that's where it originally comes from
It comes from a word that means work
You know, we still call it a dramatic work or a work of art or something like that.
But it actually comes from the word that means to do or to work.
And I'm not drawing some theological conclusion here.
I'm just drawing just a reasonable observation that churches that actually do stuff have more drama
than do nothing, be nothing, say nothing churches.
But hey, at least there's no drama there.
Hey, look at all these perfect families at the church
that does almost nothing for God!
Isn't it great?
You know, I wonder how many awards
are gonna be handed out when we get to heaven?
Least drama.
You had, least drama in your house.
Well done, good and faithful servant.
You had so little drama in your family.
You got along with your siblings so well
You didn't what you never want, you know, you didn't win anybody the Lord
You went soul any once in a blue moon and you sucked at it because you were just doing a door hanger
You know what I mean, it's like but boy did you did you have a sharp-looking, you know family photo and
Boy, you just got along with everybody so well
And boy, it was just so nice, that Christmas play that you had.
Like, what do people think that we're here on this earth to do?
Just to, you know, I'm going off on a little bit of a tangent here.
But here's what I call it, the cult of the perfect life.
The cult of the perfect life.
You know what I mean? Like, that's the goal.
That's what we're all serving, right?
Because that's what cult means, like you're serving something, right?
The cult of the perfect life, worshiping the perfect life,
having all your little ducks in a row and oh, it's such a pretty church building and
oh, the music is so pretty and everybody has their perfect little pretty lives
and we're all just gonna live this perfect little pretty life. Well, you know what?
Here's the thing, the people in the Bible, I want to know this, did the great men and women of God in the Bible live
perfect pretty little lives?
because they lived some gnarly lives.
Look, man, and you say, oh, you're just saying that
because your life be a little gnarly sometimes.
Well, here's the thing, guess what?
Yeah, you know what?
My life does get a little gnarly sometimes.
My life has gotten a little ugly sometimes.
But you know what?
I follow the Bible.
I'm not a perfect person.
But you know what? I am a Christian that follows the Bible in general.
I love God, I serve God, and I do right by God.
I'm not saying I'm perfect. I'm far from it.
But I've served God consistently for decades.
I've won souls consistently for decades, but you know what? Yeah, my life has never been perfect
I've never been perfect. I'm never gonna be perfect, but you know what? My goal is not to have this little perfect little life
Oh, it's so perfect. Oh, let me send out a little Christmas letter to tell everybody how perfect it is
Let me send out a little letter about our church how perfect our church is. No, it's it's a church
That produces results
Results, my friend.
And you know what?
I am a person that produces results.
Okay.
And guess what?
The people in the Bible who produce results, they weren't perfect either!
And today, instead of being serious about serving God and preaching the Bible every word of God
and letting the chips fall where they may and preaching hard and preaching true and preaching clear
and doing the work of an evangelist and going out there and winning bokeh's souls to Christ,
what do we have instead? The cold of the perfect life.
And you hear it all the time.
Hey, you just need to slow down on serving God and just, you know, just kind of wake up in the morning and get your little cup of coffee
and you get in the kind of fetal position on the couch with your cup of coffee and do your little devotions with the Lord and whatever.
It's like, okay, that's great.
And I'm all for you curling up on the sofa with your hot chocolate and your devotional with the Lord.
But you know what, are you going to go out and do any soul winning or what?
You know and I say to these pastors are you gonna get up and preach the hard sermons or what?
Are you gonna go out and do the big works for God or what?
And it's so funny how people like well, you know
That faithful word Baptist church. Yeah, they do win a ton of souls
I appreciate the fact that they're weighing tens of thousands of people to Lord, but you know
Here's our here's all the criticisms of it. It's amazing how much God uses
you know, bad churches like Faithful Word.
And then these really good churches do so little for God.
It's kind of ironic.
These really good churches with all these little perfect people
and the perfect little special churches
just do like nothing for God and reach so few people.
In fact, they're filled with converts that we reached.
You know, and it's like they're doing so little and then it's like, you know, well pastor Anderson is bad
But yeah, he wouldn't solve but he's a bad man. He's a very bad man
Well, here's the thing about that, you know, I don't know
I guess if I'm such a bad man, maybe we need some more bad pastors
Maybe we'd actually evangelize the whole stinking world
We probably evangelize the whole stinking world if we had some more bad pastors like bad pastor Anderson
And look, I'm not saying that I'm a bad person,
because I'm not.
I'm saying they claim that I'm some bad pastor.
I'm bad like the power glove was, no, I'm just kidding.
I'm just saying, you know, it's just stupid.
Like these people are stupid.
The tree is known by its fruit.
And you know what?
I'm not trying to live a perfect life.
I'm not a member of the cult of the perfect life.
And you know what's so funny is these,
pastors out there and Christians out there that claim that oh, you know
You can guarantee that all of your children turn out right and that they all turn out right
I'm thinking to myself. You know what God needs to flood the world again except with you as Noah
Right think about it
God flooding the world was a great idea. You just picked the wrong person
Right think about it because I mean God flooded the whole world
And Noah and his family were the only ones on the boat.
And we know that out of those three sons, one of them was super wicked.
But you know what?
The other two probably weren't that great either, because within a hundred years,
everybody's building the Tower of Babel.
The whole world is united in doing something ungodly.
A hundred years later.
It's all the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Noah are all doing the wrong thing.
But it didn't take long, did it?
They get off the boat and before Ham even does whatever weird stupid thing Ham did in Genesis 9.
Obviously a subject of debate.
God's already saying the moment that Noah gets off the ark. God's already saying, you know what?
I'm not gonna flood the earth again because I've just made and I'm paraphrasing but he says
I've just kind of made peace with the fact that the
Imaginations of man's heart are just evil from his youth
from his youth, human beings just have an evil imagination.
And so I'm just gonna accept that
and I'm not gonna flood the earth again.
But you know what I think would be what we need in 2025
is we need one more global flood, okay, right?
Like we need another global flood,
except this time instead of, you know, Sucky Noah, right?
Cause we know Noah was a terrible person
because just look at him.
Right? I mean come on. But if we had, you know, one of these other, you know,
Noah's all pastors that just guarantees that if we flooded the world and just let him and his perfect family survive.
We could have everything fixed right now. So what the flood was not a bad idea. It was just Noah was the wrong guy.
Right? Amen?
No, because this is stupid.
I hope you know I'm kidding right now.
This is so stupid because guess what?
God picked Noah who was an awesome guy,
and it still didn't work because Noah can't guarantee
that his adult children are gonna do right,
just like he can't guarantee that his adult grandchildren
are gonna do right, and God could have picked any person
He could have done the same thing in any generation.
He could do it with me.
He could do it with you.
He could do it with Abraham.
He could have done it with David.
He could have put David on the boat.
He could have said, all right,
let's flood the world one more time.
Let's put David on the boat,
just David and his family.
You know what, you would have gotten the same outcome.
You know these bunch of little perfect little
pastors and perfect little people
with their perfect little families.
Guess what? If you flood the world and put them on a boat,
they're going to screw it up too.
I guess they're just all better than Noah, and better than Samuel, and they're better than Abraham, they're better than Isaac, they're better than Jacob, they're better than everybody.
They're just so freaking awesome, and yet they seem to do so little to evangelize the world, and their churches seem to grow so, so slowly.
and they seem to have so little effect in their works for God.
Isn't that interesting?
It's too bad that God just keeps using the wrong people
and putting the wrong people on the boat
and blessing the wrong people's soul winning
and blessing the wrong people's missions.
It's just, you know, it's just, okay, all right, I'm done.
All right, number three.
Second Samuel chapter number 22 verse 31 is the last verse we'll look at tonight.
I'm sorry, I'm just not a member of the cult of the perfect life.
You know, I would rather live a super messed up life.
And I'm not talking about a sinful life, my friend.
I don't live a sinful life.
Again, not perfect. I'm not without sin, but I don't live a sinful life.
Like I'm not just out there doing all this stuff.
You know, relatively speaking, I strive to live the clean, straight-laced Christian life.
And here's the thing about that, is that I would rather live a messed up life,
and I'm not saying a sinful life, I'm just saying a messed up life,
like a life filled with problems and drama, right?
I would rather live a life filled with problems and drama and headaches and heartaches,
and to do a great work for God and reach boku, souls for Christ,
than to live a little perfect Christmas card life and be a big nobody.
Now look if you're a layman and you want to be a nobody well, that's kind of lame of you
But hey, whatever I guess that's why you're you know
Whatever but here's the thing but for a pastor to have that attitude. It's really sad
It's really sad for a pastor and I'm thinking of a particular pastor by the way
Who you know God should flood the earth and put him on the boat because he'll fix everything and this pastor literally said to me
He said you know Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son for the Lord, but he said I would never do that
He said, I would never give up my son for ministry because he said, my family is the
most important thing to me.
I'm just thinking like, what the heck, like you're a pastor?
The Bible literally says, he that love a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of
me.
He that love a father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.
The Bible literally uses Abraham sacrificing Isaac as an example of what you're supposed to do.
And I can understand a layman who's just kind of admitting,
hey, I'm not that spiritual, so, you know, I'm just going to just put my family first
because all I can see is just what's right here in front of me.
I don't have the faith.
Well, guess what?
No, we're supposed to be willing to sacrifice everything for Christ.
Okay, and if doing something great for Christ means that we're going to have more persecution,
more of a target on us, more affliction, more trials, more tribulation, more problems, more
so-called drama, then bring it on!
Because I'm not going to live my life as a nobody, and last time I checked, you want
to have a pastor that's willing to put it all out there and to give it his best.
And to give it everything.
Oh, never mind, you want to go down to some little
sysified church down the road that won't preach hard on sin,
that can't figure out whether salvation is by faith alone or not.
They can't get their statement of faith right, they can't get their guest preachers right,
they can't get their tracts right, and they're out there doing a door hanger.
You know what? Go there, if that's how you feel.
Because, oh, it's so beautiful, the building.
And, oh, the Christmas cards are so glorious.
But number three, here's what's going to take faith, living your life God's way.
Living your life God's way.
Because here's the thing, the world has got their ideas and their opinions about the way
that you should live your life.
And we're constantly being told by the so-called experts and people of this world how to live our lives.
But what does the Bible say in 2 Samuel 22 verse 31?
It says, As for God, His way is perfect.
The word of the Lord is tried.
And I love that phrase, the word of the Lord is tried.
Because if you think about it, the word of the Lord has been around for thousands of years and people have been doing it and it works.
And in the long run, people who followed the Bible were successful.
And people who didn't follow the Bible failed in the long run.
But in the short term, it doesn't always feel that way, does it?
In the short term, you don't always get the payoff right away,
because if it was that easy that every time you did something good,
you're just immediately blessed,
and every time you did something wrong, you're just immediately cursed,
well then it wouldn't be any faith required, would it?
But in the short term, sometimes the world's way can appear superior to those who have little faith.
But the Word of the Lord's tried.
We're not new at this, folks.
It's 2025 years after the birth of Christ, and we've had Christians and Christians and Christians doing what the Bible says,
staying true to the Word of God, and it has worked.
His way is perfect.
The Word of the Lord is tried.
It's not new. It's been tried and it's been proven and it's been tested and it works
He is a buckler another word for a shield, right?
He's a buckler to all them that trust in him
You know you if you have the faith and trust in the Lord you understand God's way is perfect
So that means we're gonna do marriage God's way
Child rearing, God's way.
Run a business, God's way.
Be an employee, God's way.
Take care of your physical body, God's way.
And when you don't do it God's way and you do it the world's way,
you know what that is?
I got a word for you, unbelief.
Unbelief.
I'm not saying you're not saved,
but I'm saying that in that area,
you are practicing unbelief rather than belief.
Because belief says, well, I got to do it God's way.
His way is perfect.
He's a buckler to those that trust in him
Versus well this other way seems like you know, it's working for the people around me
Well in the short term, maybe it is but in the long term God's way is tried. That's the way to do it
And so all that to say this, you know, what are we talking about with the unbelieving the unbelieving are damned
Right?
Why are they damned?
Well, they're damned because the one thing you have to do is believe in Jesus and they're
not doing it if they're unbelievers in that regard.
Why else are they damned?
Because disbelieving anything the Bible says is a sin, just like being a coward is a sin,
just like being a murderer is a sin, just like being a liar is a sin.
We as Christians, yes, we are saved and we are eternally secure.
We are on our way to heaven, but even though all our sins are forgiven and as far as the east is from the west so far
God has separated us from our sins
We want to live lives that please God and
Guess what if God is sending people to lake of fire for a list of sins
Those are a list of things that really do not please God
cowardice
unbelief, right? And tonight we're focusing on unbelief. So how do we live a
life characterized by faith instead of unbelief? Number one, trust the word of
God. Trust the word of God. Prioritize the things of God. Number two, stand with
the man of God and the people of God and fight the Lord's battles instead of
saying, well it's too much drama, I don't want to fight.
I just want to have peace and quiet.
Well then, go to be nothing, do nothing, door hanger Baptist.
And lastly, do things God's way.
Study the Bible, figure out how to do things according to the word of God, do it his way.
And you say, well, how do you know that that's the right way to do it?
Because that's what the Bible says.
Yeah, but oh, it looked like this other thing worked for this person,
and this other thing didn't work for this person, and you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, it's just just that's what the Bible says. I'm done. I'm done here
It's all the information I need
You know, you could come out with a bunch of studies and graphs and charts and tell me that I'm wrong
But at the end of the day, I'm gonna do what the Bible says and if it ends up being wrong then
God's gonna have to explain to me when I get to heaven
Why the Bible didn't really mean what it said, but that's not that conversation is never gonna happen
Because we've already been here for thousands of years and people have been doing it God's way, and it's been working in general
You have to
Do things God's way and why why do I do things God's way because I believe with all my heart that everything in this book is true
And so therefore we should avoid the sin of unbelief
When you feel unbelief creeping in, say, nope, I'm not going to be a coward, and I'm not going to be
unbelieving, I'm going to increase my faith and really lean on what God is saying.
and prioritize him and his word.
Let's prioritize and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.
We thank you so much for not flooding the world again
and killing us all, Lord,
because you understand that we are human
and that we are imperfect, Lord.
And obviously, Lord, this world is full of sinful people.
And Lord God, help us to reach as many of them as we can with the gospel so they can be saved.
But Lord, help us to also teach people that are saved to observe all things whatsoever you have commanded.
Help us to do something big with our lives.
And Lord, help us to do that because we have a big faith.
Increase our faith, Lord, and help us to grow in faith.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen all right ladies gentlemen if you need the hymnal 468 isn't he wonderful number 468
We'll sing this one twice and be dismissed
468 isn't he wonderful
I succeed with that bird and it's recorded in God's word.
Is it Jesus, my Lord, wonderful?
Is it he, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful?
Is it Jesus, my Lord, wonderful?
I succeed with that bird and it's recorded in God's word.
Is it Jesus, my Lord?
Thank you for listening tonight.
We are Smith.
.