The Bible says here in 1 Corinthians 15.57, it says,
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
I want to talk about that word, victory.
Now what does the word victory mean?
I was thinking about just looking at kind of the root word.
Victory means you're fighting a battle and you win.
It's about winning a fight, winning a game, victory.
The word victory comes from a Latin word, just the English word victory
and a Latin word like vincerae would be one way to pronounce it.
Nobody really knows how to pronounce it back then.
But it means to conquer, to win, to battle.
It means that you are having success in life, not defeat.
The opposite of victory would be defeat, would be losing.
Now let me read you some verses from the Bible that sound like victory is what God wants for us.
The Bible says in Philippians 4.13,
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Well that sounds like victory.
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
The Bible says in Philippians 3.14,
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Man, that's victory, that's success, that's power.
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 2.14,
Now thanks be unto God which always causes us to triumph in Christ,
and which maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.
Well that's victory, always triumphing through Jesus Christ the Bible says.
Romans 8.37,
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
Well that's victory, we're more than conquerors as Christians.
Some people live such a defeated life, and some people have such a defeatist mentality.
Especially among, believe it or not, independent Baptist churches.
People think, well, we're living in a day, they say, look how bad things are,
and they get this really doom and gloom kind of attitude of,
look how bad things are, look how bad the world is, boy,
all these churches are changing, and boy, you just can't do it anymore.
You just can't see people saved.
Boy, I just don't think you can raise kids for God anymore.
The world's so wicked, I guess you just have to cross your fingers and just hope that they turn out right.
Boy, it just seems like we can't get people saved, we can't get people baptized,
we can't get people in church anymore.
I don't buy that for one second.
I don't live this defeated mentality because God says that he always causes us to triumph.
He always gives us the victory.
Now there's going to be a battle involved.
I'm not saying there's going to be a bed of roses.
I'm not saying that the Christian life's going to be easy.
I'm not saying your job's going to be easy.
I'm not saying that this church growth is going to be easy.
It's not going to be easy.
Fighting's not easy.
Battling's not easy.
But hey, we're going to get the victory.
We're going to triumph always.
We're always going to end up on top.
The Bible says a just man falleth seven times and rises up again.
A just man doesn't just go through life just walking along.
You know, people who just go through life without any problems, without any struggle, without any fight,
it's probably because they're not doing anything.
It's probably because they're not living for God.
It's probably because they're just living for themselves, taking care of themselves.
And the Bible says that men will speak well of you when you do good to your own flesh.
When you take care of yourself, people will love you.
They'll think you're great if you buy yourself all the toys.
Your parents will love you.
Everybody will love you.
Buy yourself all the things.
Do everything for you.
Everything's about you.
That's the standard that the world lives by.
The SUVs in the driveway, the fancy house, everything that the world has to offer, the fancy name brands.
And that's what they say success is.
But you know what?
If you live for God, it's going to be a fight.
But let me tell you something.
You're always going to triumph.
You might fall seven times.
Seven times you might get knocked down, but you won't be knocked out.
It's like a boxing match where a man maybe gets knocked down again and again.
He keeps getting knocked down, but he gets back up and he wins the fight.
Because you can win the fight without necessarily winning every round of a boxing match.
You can get knocked out a few times and rise up and win the fight.
And that's what God's saying here.
Yes, it's a fight, but it'll always cause you to triumph.
I always give you the victory.
Let me ask you something.
Are you having victory in your Christian life?
Are you having triumph in your Christian life?
Now let me give you some points.
I want to give you several points on this subject of having the victory, of winning.
Not being just defeated, down in the dumps, having a bad attitude, just depressing.
Boy, the Bible says the joy of the Lord is your strength.
Boy, how can you handle the things that go on?
How can you handle the hard times?
The joy of the Lord.
God causes us always to rejoice in the trials.
We have the victory.
We can rejoice in the things of God.
And that's our strength, rejoicing, joy.
Don't go through life down in the dumps, depressed.
Think about all the good things and think about how, you know, maybe it's rough right now.
But hey, I know I'm going to triumph in the end.
You say, how do you know you're going to triumph?
Faith.
Because God said we're going to triumph.
God said he's going to give us the victory.
God said we're always going to triumph.
And let me show you some steps that I found in the Bible right here in this passage and
then a few other passages that will tell you how you can have the victory in the Christian
life.
Just some step by step things.
But first I want to show you something that number one, victory is excitement.
Victory is exciting.
Now think about it.
You go to a sporting event and your team is losing, there's not a lot of excitement there.
You know, it's like, oh man, the excitement is when they're winning, when they make that
touchdown, you know, when they score that point.
That's the excitement is when you're winning.
It's never exciting to lose.
It's not exciting to fail.
And God wants you to have an exciting Christian life.
You say, well, my Christian life is kind of boring.
I think church is boring.
I think reading the Bible is boring.
It's probably because you're not having the victory because you're not doing what we're
going to talk about in this message.
Now let me show you a story in Matthew chapter 14, book of Matthew.
This is the first book in the New Testament, Matthew 14.
Matthew chapter 14.
And I want to show you one of my favorite stories in the Bible, Matthew chapter 14.
And we're going to begin reading in verse number 22 of Matthew 14.
Matthew 14, 22, the Bible says, and straightway, Jesus constrained his disciples to get into
a ship and to go before him onto the other side while he sent the multitudes away.
And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray.
And when the evening was come, he was there alone.
But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with the waves for the wind was contrary.
So Jesus goes up to a mountain to pray by himself.
And he says, he tells the disciples, I want you to get into the ship.
I mean, he constrained them to get in the ship.
He says, you will get in the ship, get in the ship, go across the other side.
I'm going to meet you on the other side.
Then he goes up into a mountain to pray.
And the Bible says right here, and the ship was now in the midst of the sea, this verse
24, tossed with the waves for the wind was contrary.
So here's a huge storm comes upon them while they're out on the ship.
And the ship is just tossing and reeling to and fro.
The wind is blowing against them.
It's a dangerous situation.
And keep in mind, these men, these disciples, half of them were fishermen.
But six or seven of them were fishermen, if you look at John 21 and some other places.
And so these guys know how to sail a ship.
These are novices.
And yet they're getting scared by how bad this storm is.
It says in verse 25, and in the fourth watch of the night, that's between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m.
Jesus went under them, walking on the sea.
So here they are.
It's just late into the night.
They've been struggling all night just to keep the boat afloat.
And at 3 in the morning, Jesus comes out walking to them on the water.
And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, verse 26, they were troubled, saying
it is a spirit.
And they cried out for fear.
But straightway, Jesus spake under them saying, be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid.
Now look at this.
And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.
And he said, come.
And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.
But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid and beginning to sink, he cried saying,
Lord, save me.
And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him, O thou
of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?
And when they were coming to the ship, the wind ceased.
And they that were in the ship came and worshiped him, saying of the truth, thou art the Son
of God.
Now look at this.
At the beginning of what I read to you, it says in verse 22, the first verse I read to
you, it says, and he sent the multitudes away, is what it says.
So here's Jesus.
He just fed the 5,000, if you know the story.
He fed the 5,000.
He preached a great sermon to them.
And then he sends them away.
So, boy, we're funneling down here from 5,000 people who come to church when they hear the
preaching to just the 12 disciples.
These are the guys who are working with Jesus day in and day out.
These are his most intimate friends.
These are the ones who are going to turn the world upside down in the book of Acts.
They're going to go everywhere preaching the gospel.
They're going to see thousands of people saved and baptized.
These 12 men are going to revolutionize the entire world.
So we funnel down from the 5,000 to the 12.
And these 12 men get on a boat.
They're out on a ship.
And Jesus comes to them.
But one of them, Peter, stands out in this story here because he says, you know what, Jesus?
If it's you, why don't you bid me to come out on the water where you are?
Why don't you invite me out of the ship to walk on the water with you?
I mean, can you imagine that?
Can you imagine the guts that he had to say, I don't want to be in the ship.
I want to be out there.
I want to walk on the water.
It's not enough to just see something great happening.
I want to be in the middle of it.
I want to be the one doing it.
Well, I love that attitude.
We live in such a spectator society.
Let's face it.
What's the biggest pastime?
Just sitting in front of the stupid television.
Just, oh, Satan, fill my mind with whatever you want.
Just show me all the nudity.
Show me all the filth.
Show me all the cussing.
Give me all the rock music.
Give me everything.
Just, oh, you want me to like the queers?
Well, just play it on TV for the next five hours.
And pretty soon I'll start to like them because I'll start laughing.
It's funny.
Oh, look at that guy.
He's acting like a girl.
That's funny.
And just, come on.
And it's just this spectator mentality.
What's the other big thing?
You know, sports.
You go out and watch sports.
OK.
Whatever happened to playing sports?
But we see we live in a spectator mentality.
That's why you come to church.
Same thing.
You come to church.
Let's all sit down and let's watch.
Ms. Amanda's going to come up and sing a special to all of us.
And, you know, you go to most churches and half the time you're just sitting there watching
church.
You know, you're just watching everybody else sing.
You're watching these people perform.
And they get up there, you know, and they sing some great thing.
And, oh, wow, what a blessing.
And we all just, oh, yeah, bravo.
You know, like you're in a nightclub or something, watching somebody perform like a concert.
Oh, let's give them a big hand.
Wow, wow, wow.
No.
The Bible says in the midst of the congregation, I will sing praise unto thee.
I will sing praise unto thee.
I've never found anybody listening to songs in the Bible.
They're always singing songs.
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.
Don't listen to a joyful noise.
But it just goes to illustrate that in today's world, we live in a spectator mentality where
everybody just wants to sit down and watch what's going on.
This is a Baptist church.
And, you know, in a Baptist church, I just want to put this out there.
If you're a man in a Baptist church, when it's good, you can say, Amen.
All right.
You can say, Amen.
Come on, that's good.
All right.
You can say, Amen.
And then you're participating, right?
Then you're not just spectating what's going on.
Now, in this spectator mentality, we have 11 men here.
And these are all great men.
All 12 of these men are great men.
But 11 of them are just spectators.
They just want to sit around and watch what's going on.
But Peter says, You know what?
I'm going to get out of the boat.
Who do you think had the most fun in this story?
Who do you think had the most exciting day here?
Who do you think was the one that said Christianity is not boring at all?
I mean, the guy who's out walking on the water?
Or the guy who's in the boat saying, Wait, I think I can see him.
I think I can see what's going on.
All right.
Get out of the boat in your Christian life, is what I'm trying to say.
Don't always be in the boat.
Wait, I like to be in the boat because I'm comfortable.
Because I'm in my lawn chair on the deck of the boat.
I've got my lemonade.
And I'm really comfortable.
And I'd rather just sit here and watch what's going on.
Look, get out of the boat.
If you're too comfortable in your Christian life, then you're probably not going to get the victory.
And you're probably not going to live an exciting Christian life.
I was thinking about this.
I love rafting.
Okay, rafting is one of my favorite things.
I've been rafting more times than I can even count.
I probably like, literally probably like 30 times I've been rafting.
A lot of times.
But my favorite rafting trip was one that I took up in Wisconsin.
Because in California, there wasn't really anything that was major rapids.
Nothing really, you know, the class four, you know, the class five type stuff.
It was more just, we got so bored with the rapids that we would start going through the rapids with no raft.
We would just go through them just by ourselves and I could all beat up, get all bruised up.
Just because we were looking for some kind of a thrill, you know.
Some kind of excitement in this rafting.
But this trip that we took in Wisconsin, oh, it was awesome.
It was a contest, kind of like we've had contests here a little bit, you know, we just started.
And it was a contest, you know, who could get the most people to church and get them baptized and get people saved.
You know, it was just a big contest for promotion and big exciting days in our ministry.
And so I filled a bus and so I won this contest.
And so the assistant pastor took us all out rafting up in Wisconsin.
We drove like seven hours up to this Indian reservation.
I mean, it was in the middle of nowhere.
And get this, we were doing this in March and this in Wisconsin.
And so the water had ice in it, okay, literally.
On the edges of the water, it was frozen, it had ice in it.
And we're going on these class four rapids.
It was great, but we had wetsuits so that helped a little bit.
At least we told ourselves that it helped a little bit.
So here we are and we're having just the time of our lives.
But what was the funnest part of the whole trip?
What's the part that you're talking about in the van, on the way home?
What's the part that everybody's talking about?
Are they talking about the time when you're just kicking back, just enjoying the scenery?
No, what are you talking about?
You're talking about when you go off just that big waterfall
and everybody's just thrown out of the boat.
That's what you're talking about.
You're talking about when you got ejected from the boat,
you're not in the comfort of the raft,
and you're going through the rapids with no raft just by yourself, outside the boat.
What's the same thing in this story here?
One guy got out of the boat, he got out of the raft,
he's the guy that God wrote the chapter about.
He's the guy that God used in a mighty way.
He's the guy that got to have the exciting Christian life,
because he said, I'm not just going to sit around on the boat and be a spectator.
I'm not going to live a boring Christian life
where I just do only those things that are comfortable for me.
I'm not going to go outside my comfort zone.
I'm not going to push myself to the limit.
I'm not going to go a little further.
I want to get out of the boat of the comfortable, plain, boring Christian life
and step out and say, I'm going to step out to where if God doesn't come through for me,
I'm going to die.
Think about it.
Jesus says, okay, come on.
What if Jesus wouldn't have come through for me?
He just says, all right, I'm going to do this.
Next thing you know, he's driving.
This is a bad storm.
This isn't falling in the pool.
We're talking about falling in boisterous waves and storms.
We're talking about waves that are crashing over the ship.
They're dead immediately.
But he said, you know what?
I have so much faith.
I'm just going to step out and do it.
Just see what happens.
Boy, I like that.
That's the victory.
That's the excitement in the Christian life.
And so I love that story.
And if you think about it, look at the percentage of people that got out of the boat.
There's very few people.
We're talking about 5,000 men, the Bible says.
It doesn't even count the women and children.
I don't know how many people were there, but it could have easily been, what, 10, 15,
20,000 people.
You never know.
And then we're just whittled down to the 12 who were actually there when the excitement
happens.
They're the ones who came back for Sunday night and for Wednesday night and saw things
happen.
And then from there, we go down to just the one man who steps out and says, I'm not even
going to be like the 5,000.
I'm not going to be like the 12.
I'm going to be the one that steps out there with Jesus.
And so don't always be like the crowd.
The crowd, let me tell you something, the crowd is never right, ever.
The crowd is never right.
God is never for the crowd.
He's always for the individual.
He's always talking to one person.
We preached on this a few months ago when we first started the church about it.
God's the God of the individual.
And that's what I love about the King James Bible is that he uses the words the and thou.
Now, if you get a modern Bible translation, all it has is you.
Everything is you, you, you, you, you, you.
If you have the King James Bible, it uses the word the and thou for one person, singular.
Thou, thee, thine, thy, that's all just your, but it means one person.
But if it says ye or you or your, it's plural.
It's two people.
So the difference is, you open that door please.
Hi, my man.
Seats right here.
So the difference is that if you're reading the King James Bible here, you're seeing the
thee, the thou, you know, hey, look, I'm talking to you.
He's talking to one person.
Whereas if it says you or ye or your, he's talking to many people.
But you know what?
God just continually, when you're reading through this Bible, it's constantly thou,
thou, thou, thee, thy, thy, thou, thou, thou.
Because he's saying, I'm talking to you personally.
Because God didn't say in Ezekiel 22, 30, I sought for a group that would stand in the
gap before me that I would not destroy my people.
He said, I sought for a man.
I sought for a man that would stand in the gap before me for my people that they should
not be destroyed.
And so God is not the God of the crowd.
And see, the group here, the 11, they stayed on the boat.
One man got off the boat and lived the exciting Christian life.
Everybody else is just a spectator on the boat, not getting involved.
So that finishes that point.
But I want you to say, be one of the few that gets out of the boat.
Be one of the few that lives the exciting Christian life.
You know, soul winning is exciting.
There's nothing more exciting than winning somebody to Christ.
There's nothing more exciting than going to somebody who they're not sure if they're
going to heaven.
They don't know for sure they're scared of dying.
They're scared of going to hell.
They don't know what to believe.
They've been confused by religion.
And taking that person and opening the Bible, showing them God's simple plan of salvation,
belief on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
And having that person bow their head and trust Christ as Savior.
Nothing is more exciting than that.
I'll max that up against all the movies.
I'll max that up against all the partying.
I'll max it up against anything.
There's nothing more exciting than winning people to Christ and seeing people saved.
You say, well, my Christian life is boring.
I think reading the Bible is boring.
I think church is boring.
It's probably because you're not winning anybody to Christ.
You know, the times that I was the least bored in church was when I brought a visitor with
me.
That was the least bored.
Because, you know, I was excited.
Like, I'd bring maybe somebody that I worked with.
And I'd get them to come to church with me.
Maybe somebody that I'd won to the Lord on the job.
And I'd win them to Christ on the job.
And then I'd bring them to church with me.
And I remember, I'm sitting next to them.
And every time, you know, it'd be time to sing a song.
And I'd help them find the song.
And boy, I was excited because I had my convert right here.
I had somebody that I'd won to the Lord.
And then we get to the preaching.
And the whole time, I'm like, listen to the preaching.
Oh man, it's good, you know.
And then he's hearing this.
This is great.
Man, I'm excited.
That's exciting.
When you're bringing people to church.
When you're a soul winner.
When you're winning people to the Lord.
When you've got people getting baptized.
When you've got people having their lives changed.
You know, when you see a marriage put back together.
It's exciting.
When you see somebody get off the drugs and see people get off the liquor and they get
off all the addictions that have them enslaved and in bondage.
When you see that, that's the excitement.
When you see God actually do something legitimate.
Well, I'd get bored too.
Just coming, you know.
Let's just come every week and sing some songs and oh, let's read the Bible.
You know, no, I want to see something happen.
I want to see something grow.
I want to see people saved.
I want to see the excitement.
You know, people, I've heard people say that, you know, oh man, the Baptist, it's dead.
You know, because we don't, because we don't have rock music, you know, because we don't
have the drums up here and we're not going like, woo!
You know, we don't have some kind of a, you know, a rock concert going on up here.
Say, well, it's dead.
It's boring.
You know, the old hymns.
I mean, Amazing Grace.
It's boring.
Come on, man.
Get with the times.
2006.
But you know, I'm sorry, but I'd rather go to a church where we sing the good old fashioned
hymns, but somebody gets saved.
But there's visitors coming, you know, but, but people are being won to Christ.
People are being baptized.
I'd rather go to a church like that than to go to a church where it's all hip hip hooray.
Nobody ever gets saved.
Nobody's life has ever changed.
Nothing ever really happens.
To me, that's just a superficial kind of excitement.
I want to see the excitement of something real.
Like, show me what's happening.
You know, people, people say like, well, you know, you guys, you know, numbers.
I like numbers.
Can I tell you why I like numbers?
Well, first of all, God wrote a whole book called Numbers in the Bible.
Did you know that?
People say that God doesn't care about numbers.
It's like, well, then why did he write a book called Numbers?
It's the fourth book in the Bible.
Why did God say that if you're a, if you're a Christian, he said some Christians are going
to bring forth nothing.
Some are going to bring forth 30 fold.
Some are going to bring forth 60 fold and some are going to bring forth a hundred fold.
That sounds like numbers.
God said, I gave one talent to each of my servants.
One of them came back with 10, one of them came back with five and one of them came back with one.
And the one that came back with one, he ripped his face off and said, you're lazy.
He said, you wicked and slothful servant.
I gave you one and you came back with one.
Why don't you do something with it?
And so God is a God that cares about numbers.
You say, well, you just care about numbers.
You're so unspiritual.
You just care about numbers.
Let me tell you something.
There's nothing more spiritual than caring about numbers because every single number is a real person.
Every number is a who.
It's not a what.
It's not a number.
It's a who.
Every single number, you say, well, yeah, we had, you know, four baptized, you know, in, in, in, or I'm sorry, we had six baptized in January, February.
Praise the Lord.
That means six people got saved and baptized.
That means six people said, I know for sure I'm going to heaven.
I'm saved through Jesus Christ.
And now I'm going to obey God and be baptized.
Hallelujah.
That's not a number.
That's exciting.
You say, wait, look, Hey, I'd rather get one per, would you rather get one person saved or a hundred people saved?
I'd rather get a hundred people saved.
You say, well, that's unspiritual.
You're dumb.
That's very spiritual because every single number, every single person is a real person.
And Jesus died for every single person that's on God's green earth.
And every single person that we went to the Lord, the Bible says, there's joy in the presence of the angels in heaven over one sinner that repented.
So one sinner, that's it.
Well, one's a number, isn't it?
And God talks all about numbers.
And I love numbers because I love to see something big happening.
And to get something big, you know, there's going to be a number involved.
How do you measure something big?
How do you measure the excitement?
You measure it by a number and say, we saw a lot of people here.
We saw this many people saved.
We saw this many people baptized.
It's exciting.
Now, God says, look, if you're a soul winner, you'll be living an exciting life.
If you're not a soul winner, your life might be a little boring if you don't get anybody saved and so forth.
But not only is soul winning exciting, and for those of you that came below, we're preaching on victory in the Christian life and on living the exciting Christian life.
But not only is soul winning exciting, but reading the Bible is exciting.
I love reading the Bible.
Now, I will admit to you, when I first started reading the Bible, it was a chore.
Especially when I said I'm going to read the Bible cover to cover.
I'm going to read from one side to the other.
Before I started getting into Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
And you think I was just eating popcorn and drinking a soda?
Oh, man, I can't wait to find out what the next burnt offering is.
I can't wait to find out which animal they're going to bring to the tabernacle next.
And I can tell who reads their Bible because they're laughing right now.
But anyway, I can't wait to find out what to do when somebody has leprosy.
But it's a chore.
But I just said, you know what, I know I'm supposed to read this.
I know God wants me to read this.
I'm just going to read it.
But then I got to 1 and 2 Samuel.
Oh, man, you get to 1 and 2 Samuel.
They start getting out the swords.
It starts just getting exciting.
1 and 2 Kings.
Oh, man, this is great.
Then you get to 1 Chronicles.
And the first nine chapters is a list of names.
The first nine chapters.
Adam, Seth, Enos, Kenan, Mataleel, Jared, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, and the sons of Noah,
M, Sam, David.
It just goes down the list and just starts rattling off these names.
And then you're just, oh, man.
And then you get into 2 Chronicles.
And there's a little more fighting going on, a little bit more excitement.
And then you get into Ezra.
That's a lot of names.
But then there's some story.
And then Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel.
Your head's just spinning.
But you know, you keep reading it.
And pretty soon, man, you start to love to read the Bible.
I remember I used to have a little schedule for reading the Bible.
But I just found myself, I just couldn't put it down.
I was so into the story.
I was so into what was going on.
I'd just keep reading and keep reading just hours and hours.
I mean, I've spent a whole day just reading the Bible, just reading and reading and reading.
Because I was just so enthralled in what's going on.
But it starts out by character.
It starts out by character that says, I'm going to force myself.
Listen, sit down, open your eyes, hold this book in your hand, and look at it and read it.
But then, boy, you start out doing it by character.
Pretty soon you're just doing it because you love it, because you enjoy it.
And pretty soon, Leviticus is exciting, believe it or not.
Pretty soon, you know, First Chronicles is exciting.
Those names are really interesting.
If you know all the stories involved about those people, you read those names, you can see how it all comes together.
It's very interesting.
But reading the Bible is exciting.
You know, Hollywood is so boring.
And I was thinking about this.
The things of God, the more you do them, the more exciting they get.
The things in the world, the more you do them, the more bored you get and tired of them.
I was thinking about this.
I don't go to the movies and stuff, but I drive by and I see the marquees and the signs, the advertisements.
And I was just thinking, is it just me, or for the past few years, is everything just a remake?
Everything on the marquees, it's like part two, part two, part three.
Or it's these shows that I recognize from the 70s and the 80s and stuff.
And here they are again.
Let's take it out and brush it off.
It's just so boring.
It's just so old.
They've used everything up.
It's just so old that they have to go back and find some old fossil of a movie and brush it up.
Well, let's just have part seven and part eight, part nine, part ten.
And then that's not even exciting enough.
So then they have to come up with this new thing, reality TV.
And it's so boring, all their stories and all their Hollywood and everything, that now let's have reality TV.
Let's just watch people do nothing.
Let's watch people fight and scream and yell at each other in some apartment all day.
Let's take the weirdest people and put them together and just see what happens.
And it just seems like it all just gets boring.
It's so old, it's like give it a rest.
But with the things of God, it's just the opposite.
With the things of God, you start out, maybe it's a little boring,
but then it just gets better and better and better and better and better.
You know, the book of Hebrews, I mean, I love the book of Hebrews.
That's what we've been doing on Wednesday nights.
I love the book of Hebrews.
I memorize the whole book of Hebrews.
You know what that means?
It means I've read it about 500 times or so.
You think I'm bored with the book of Hebrews?
Every time I prepare a Bible study, and I mean this,
every time I prepare one of those Bible studies in the book of Hebrews,
I learn just all kinds of new things every time.
And you say, how can that be?
Because this book is so infinite, it's as infinite as God is.
The Bible says, in the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
So this is God.
Do you think I'm going to figure God out in my lifetime?
Absolutely not.
And so, what other book, you show me any book in the world
that I can read 500 times, 1,000 times, and not be bored.
Show me.
Show me a movie I can watch more than three times without boring my brains out.
But see, with God, it gets better and better and better and better,
and it starts out with a little bit of work.
It starts out with a little bit of character.
The things of the world, they start out exciting.
Wow, wow, look, all that blowing up, and it's just glamour and excitement.
But you watch it the third time, and it's like, OK, I've seen this before.
Let's watch part two.
Let's watch part three.
Let's watch reality TV.
It just gets old and boring.
It's the same thing with soul winning.
You start out soul winning every door.
You just dread every door, you know?
Hope they're not home.
It's kind of like, oh, they're not home.
You run to the next one.
Because you don't want to talk to anybody.
And you're looking at the watch.
Like, I've been out for 23 minutes and 49 seconds.
And I said I was going to go for an hour, OK?
But pretty soon, you start doing it more.
You start seeing people save.
You start having people come to church.
You start getting them in the water.
And you say, man, I love this.
I want to go every day.
I want to go hours a day.
It's exciting.
It's great.
But it starts out with character.
It starts out with discipline.
God says, do it because I told you to do it.
It's not fun.
It's not go-kart racing.
It's not horseback riding.
But I told you to do it.
Just do it.
And you do it.
And then pretty soon, it is fun.
And that's the way the things of God are.
It's kind of the opposite of the way the things of the world are.
But anyway, I've got to move on quickly here.
If you go back to our scripture that we started in 1 Corinthians 15,
and that's where we're going to spend the rest of the message.
1 Corinthians chapter 15.
And I want to show you some of these verses where God is saying that Jesus Christ gives
us the victory.
Because then right after it says he gives us the victory, then he goes on and gives
us some real good advice on how to get the victory.
Because you say, well, I know you're talking about excitement and victory and not being
defeated mentality where you just struggle through life and you never seem to get the
victory.
But look at this.
In verse 57 of 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the Bible says,
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, so because of verse 57, therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord.
Now, we'll look at the latter part of the verse in a minute.
But right now, I just want to show you these three words.
Steadfast.
That means you're like a rock.
You don't change.
You don't move.
It is the same thing.
Unmovable.
Pretty much like steadfast.
Always.
What's that word mean?
Always.
What's it mean?
It means all the time.
Always.
So God says if you want to have the victory, you've got to be steadfast, unmovable and
always abounding in the work of the Lord.
What's that mean?
Consistency.
The word that would describe that is consistency.
Consistent.
Day in, day out.
What does that mean?
It means Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, consistent, consistent to church.
Reading the Bible daily, every day, every day.
I read the Bible daily, every day.
Even if it's just a few minutes, read it every day.
You'll be better off reading a little bit every day, just a little bit every day than
to just not read it and say, well, I don't have time to read the entire book of Leviticus
right now, so I'm just not going to read it.
You know, at least just pick it up and just read something because God will speak to you
through the word of God and the consistency is what's Bible.
You know, church attendance.
I was thinking about this.
I've been inviting people to church for years.
You know, even before I knew how to win souls, I'd invite people to church and then try to
do it that way and I would invite people to church and this is what you hear so many times.
I'll try.
I'll try and be there.
I'll try and make it.
I think I'll be there.
They never, never have come.
No one has ever come and I mean, these people are legitimately going to try.
They legitimately said, I think I'll be there.
Never.
Because there's somebody called the devil and if somebody says, I'll try.
I think so.
Then the devil said, what are you going to try?
Well, I'll just make sure and stop you.
Okay.
Oh, what's your limit?
Okay.
If you get a flat tire, you're not going to go.
Okay.
Well then that's what I'll do.
I'll give you a flat tire.
Oh, wait a minute.
You won't come because you know, and he knows where the line is and he can see just from
looking at our life where the line is and so he's going to say, I'll just take you to
But if you say, the Bible says, resist the devil and he will flee from you.
If you say to the devil, you know what?
I don't care what you do.
I will be in church.
I don't care about the call on my hands and knees.
I'll be there.
Now I understand their providential hindrance.
You know, if you got a terrible accident, you know, you'd have to like have to just
tell the ambulance, just drop me off at church at the end of the service.
I need you to take me down to the hospital.
Okay.
I'm not talking about that.
And obviously if somebody's sick, you know, if somebody's legitimately sick, they didn't
just like, oh, I sneeze one time.
Oh, the whole family's got to stay home.
You know, somebody coughed, you know, he chokes on his cheerios and like, you got to stay
home.
But you know, if somebody's legitimately sick, you know, you don't want to bring them and
get us all some kind of a sick colony here where we all get sick from germs.
But I'm talking about just some little thing comes up, you get a phone call, you know,
or whatever.
You find a way around it because, you know, I guarantee if you were going to work, you'd
find a way around it because that's important, right?
But church is important.
Truth is more important than work, by the way.
And so what happens is if you draw that line and say, this is what it will take to get
me out of church, then the devil just knows exactly what it's going to take to get you
out of church and he'll cause bad things happen.
You want bad things to happen?
But if you say like, no, I will be in church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night,
nothing will stop me from being there, then the devil just says, well, I'm not going to
waste my time because there's a guy down the street who said, I'll try it.
I'm going to go spend time at his house, making everything spill on the ground and knocking
over grape juice on the carpet.
I'm going to do everything over there.
I'm going to leave this guy alone.
Don't you want the devil to leave you alone?
Resist the devil and he'll flee from you.
If you have this steadfast, unmovable attitude, he just gives up.
He just says, there's nothing I can do because he's going to be there.
I've tried in the past and it didn't work.
So I guess I'm just going to go down the street.
And so consistency is vital.
Now consistency is the key to victory in every area of the Christian life.
And let me illustrate to you why.
Who's heard of calculus before?
Now I'm a mathematician by nature.
And before I went into the ministry, I love math.
I was studying to be a mathematician.
Now what is calculus?
Calculus is when you take something and you break it down into super small parts.
I mean super small parts.
Like you take time and just break it down into this billion trillionths of a second.
And you can do all kinds of fancy calculations with this.
I'll not go into it, but I love calculus.
Well, who do you think invented calculus?
Probably God.
I think man just kind of discovered calculus.
I'm sure God invented it, but whenever you break things down into small parts, you can
do much more than you ever thought possible.
For example, people go to church for 20, 30, 40 years and they've never read the Bible
through cover to cover.
Yet if you break it down and say, I'm going to read it every day for 365 days, it only
gets 15 minutes a day.
And you read the entire thing.
That's for the average reader.
You know, some people might be a little faster or slower than that, but if you listen to
it on tape where somebody's reading it or the average reader, 15 minutes a day and you
will have read the entire Bible through in just one year's time, that means in 20 years
you could have read the Bible through 20 times.
Now there are very few people that have read the Bible through 20 times, but many people
go to church for 20, 30 years.
But because they're not consistent, because they read a little and then they don't read
it for five days and then they read some and then they read.
And even if they're reading it for two hours, because they're not consistent, just 15 minutes
a day, 15 minutes a day or 30 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day, an hour a day, an hour a
day, whatever the case may be, whatever you decide to do for your Bible reading.
Consistency, you can do mass amounts.
You know, I remember when I first heard somebody talk about memorizing the entire New Testament
and I thought, that's insane.
That's crazy.
You can't do that.
And I heard somebody talk about memorizing the entire Bible and I thought, there's no
way.
Now to my knowledge, no one has ever memorized the entire Bible because I researched that.
But memorizing the New Testament seems like a pretty, does that seem like something that
you kids want to do to go to win a trip to go karting?
No.
But the point is, it seems just like this wacky, bizarre, unattainable goal, memorizing
the whole New Testament, memorizing the whole Bible.
Yet, if you break it down and you have some consistency, let's say you just learned four
verses every day.
Now that's, that's a lot, you know, that's a lot to memorize four verses out of the Bible
every day.
But is it unreasonable?
Is it ridiculous?
It's not ridiculous.
I mean, it's very doable, especially because what I do is while I'm on the job, I do electrical
work like brother McCoy does.
Right now I'm stuck in the office until my contractor's license goes through, which should
be about three weeks from now.
But I, you know, I have the cards in my pocket and just while I'm bending the conduit, you
know, while I'm pulling wires, I just got those verses kind of running through my head.
I'm meditating on the word of God night and day.
And so four verses a day is not undoable, is not unattainable.
And if you can just learn four verses a day and retain what you've learned, did you know
you got the entire new test memorized in five years?
Now that's not ridiculous at all.
And you see how you can bring something down that's just really crazy and bring it down
and make it something that's possible.
Like I remember when we were at First Baptist Church of Hammond and they said, we're going
to have 25,000 people baptized in one year.
And you thought, that's insane.
That's ridiculous.
There's no way.
There is no way in the world.
That's stupid.
But think about it.
If you have 250 people that have 100 people baptized, you just did it.
And we're talking about a church that runs 12,000.
So if you break it down into small parts, it's possible.
And so I set my goal.
I'm going to have 100 people baptized.
I'm going to be one of the 250.
I just came up with that number myself arbitrarily.
But the point is it's doable if everybody gets involved because you broke it down into
a small part.
Think about 12,000 people.
Everybody had two people baptized the entire year.
And obviously some of us are out all day Saturday getting all kinds of people saved and baptized
and everything like that.
But the point is if you break things down into smaller parts, you can get things done.
But the only way you can break it down into small parts and get things done is that one
word, consistency.
Because if one person drops the ball, it's not happening.
Because if one day you miss the Bible reading, you blew it.
Consistency is everything.
Consistent in your church attendance.
Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.
Consistent in your Bible reading.
Consistent in prayer.
It's the same thing with typing.
You talk about typing, giving 10% of your income to the church.
Now, some people, I've known people that came in and they threw down like $20,000.
And it's like, wow.
And everybody's like, wow, that's so awesome.
But that doesn't impress God at all.
Because what impresses God is somebody who tithes.
Now, given big financial gifts, do you think God needs your money?
We learned about this, Roxanne remembers, on a Wednesday night we studied in the book
of Hebrews, tithing a little bit.
God doesn't need your money.
You think I need your money?
I work a full-time job.
I work 40 hours a week.
I pay my own bill.
I don't take a dime.
You think our church needs your money?
We don't need a stinkin' dime.
That's the honest truth.
We got plenty of money.
Because I'm not even taking a paycheck.
There's plenty of money.
The point is not money because God paves the street with gold.
He said, money's like dirt to me.
I make the asphalt out of it in heaven.
But the point is, it's obedience.
It's just consistency.
If you put your tithe in every week, just 10% of what you make, and just say, I'm just
going to obey God and get my tithe, and God says he's going to bless me and take care
of me if I do that financially.
He's going to take care of me.
Well, you're going to end up giving more than the guy who throws down the $20,000, you know,
the big shot.
Yeah, you know, here's my big gift.
I'm buying a big auditorium, a big building, and they're going to name it after me.
They're going to name it after me, the Steve Anderson Memorial Auditorium, because I threw
down my.
But you know, if you gave for 50 years, just tithe, just your tithe.
Well, you'd have given way more than that by the end of it all.
And that's what God's looking for is this obedience and consistency.
God's not impressed with money.
I'm not impressed with money.
God's not impressed with finance.
What he cares about is consistent obedience to the things of God.
You know, my son here, he memorizes entire chapters of the Bible.
He can quote several chapters of the Bible, I mean the whole chapter.
Right now, he can get up and quote them.
Because why?
Because he's just a genius?
Because he learns one chapter a day?
No.
Because he just learns one verse a day on average.
Just one verse.
He memorizes.
And he's just consistent.
Pretty soon, he can quote the whole book.
And it's very possible.
Consistency is everything.
I've got to move on quickly.
You know, child rearing.
Okay, this brings up a great point.
And I've preached a whole sermon on this on a Sunday night several weeks ago.
But child rearing.
The key to child rearing is consistency.
Again, people say, well, spankings don't work.
Don't tell me that spankings don't work.
You know, I've been listening to this for years and years.
Spanking doesn't work.
I tried it and it didn't work.
Okay.
Well, there's a problem right there.
You tried it.
That's not consistency.
You can't try it one time.
You've got to try it every day for the rest of your life and it'll work.
And a lot of times I think that one of the biggest problems with child rearing is laziness.
And I struggle with this and I have to work on this.
But you don't always want to get up out of the chair and go over and discipline the child.
You just want to yell at them.
Hey, you don't quit doing that!
Because you don't want to get up, man.
You're relaxing.
You're sitting in front of the TV or whatever.
I don't want to get up and do something.
But you've got to be consistent.
You've got to just get up and do it.
And I think the biggest problem...
No, let me give you a little object lesson here.
This is the spanking tool in this house.
This is the spoon.
Now, let me just give you some practical advice here.
It doesn't quite fit in with the sermon, but it's important.
Give you some practical advice.
Number one, the Bible says to spank your children with a rod.
It talks about the rod.
Spare the rod.
Spoil the child.
That type of thing.
And so the key here is not to use your hand when you're spanking your kids.
Let me tell you why.
Because if you go like this...
Excuse me for being a little graphic here, but that doesn't hurt at all.
That hurts like nothing.
I can't even hardly feel that.
It feels like nothing.
And if you actually spanked your kid with your hand hard enough for them actually to feel it,
you're probably injuring their body.
Because if you take your kid and go wham with their hand,
you're going to be like giving them a chiropractic adjustment.
You're just trying to give them a spanking.
And so that's not effective.
Because the key is you don't want to injure the child.
You're not trying to abuse the child and injure them.
You're trying to inflict pain as a punishment so that they learn not to do it again.
And so that they can grow and obey as God talks about spanking your children.
If you love them, spank them.
So that they can grow up and learn right and wrong and so forth.
Kids that aren't spanked just run wild.
Now, the goal is to inflict the pain without injury.
You don't want to injure the child so that's what you use.
Man, that stings a lot more than your hand.
And you don't have to hit near as hard.
But even with this, I'm not talking about like, no, no.
No, no, little doggies.
Don't do that.
And the kid's just laughing at you like, ha, ha.
You got to, hey, it's in the wrist, all right?
You got to, it's all in the wrist.
We're teaching classes on this.
But anyway, you got to inflict some pain.
If you're spanking your kid every five minutes, something's wrong.
Because I'll tell you what.
When I was growing up, when I got to spanking, I lived in fear of spanking.
I didn't just say, well, I'm just going to do it wrong anyway and get a spanking every 20 minutes.
I did not get a spanking every 20 minutes.
Because after I got a spanking, I had the fear of God in me.
And I did not want to spank.
Let me show you.
This is what I got spanked with when I was growing up.
This is the actual one.
My parents gave this to me.
I asked my parents to give me this.
From the time I was not their age, but this is when I was older.
This is like when I was older.
My parents used this as spanking.
This is a sailboat rod.
This is made out of fiberglass.
It's hard as a rock, and it snaps like a whip.
And this thing was bad.
Now, I'm not saying you need to go down to the local sailboat store and pick one of these up.
But I'm telling you, this is what I was spanked with.
So, this is mild.
This is what I use.
This is what was used on me.
And kids, just be glad that your mom doesn't have this.
You'd be hiding this under the bed.
I think we hid this behind the fridge a few times growing up.
But man, I got spanked with this thing, and I didn't get spanked every five minutes.
It was like a couple days before I lost my convictions about right or wrong.
And if you're spanking your kids every five minutes, then it's probably a joke to them.
They probably are not taking it seriously because you're probably not hitting them hard enough.
And so, you've got to really lay that.
You've got to lay into it.
And try it on yourself.
I'm serious.
Try it and see.
Because you might find that the way you've been doing it is not even really doing anything.
And so, experiment a little bit.
You're like, oh, that's how I'm going to do it.
Anyway, humor aside, it's so vital, child rearing, because we live in a day where kids just run wild.
They're rebellious.
They do whatever.
But the key is to spankings.
You're right, spankings won't work if you're not consistent.
Because they think, well, sometimes I can get away with it, and sometimes I can't, so I'm going to take my chances.
But if they know, if I do this, it's going to happen, that's where you get them, with the consistency.
Everything in Christian life is about consistency.
So, God says, I'll give you the victory in child rearing, but you've got to be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding.
That means every time, always.
And quickly, number three.
Not only consistency, but if you look at the last verse there, 1558.
And this is the one that I like.
In verse 1558, the Bible says,
Therefore, my beloved brethren, 1 Corinthians 1558, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,
for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
God says, if you work for me, and if you're steadfast, unmovable, and always abounding, that's the key.
He said, you know that your labor is not in vain.
You know that you'll get results, is what he's saying here.
Your labor's not in vain, you're not spinning your wheels, you're not just beating the air.
He says, if you do this, if you're always abounding in the work of the Lord, if you are unmovable, you will not change.
I will not move, I will do what I said I'm going to do.
God said, you will not labor in vain.
You're not spinning your wheels, you will get results.
You know, this thing of child rearing is not you roll the dice and hope that they turn out right.
No, it's not a gamble, it is a sure thing because he says, your labor's not in vain.
You're not wasting your time. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he's old, he will not depart from it.
And the same thing with going soul-wanting.
He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
You say, I went to this church for two or three years, and they went soul-wanting, he gave the gospel, and nobody got saved.
If they didn't, then God's a liar, because God said they'll come back doubtless with rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with him.
You say, this church has no results.
It's just the same five people for the next twenty years, and nobody gets saved, and nobody's baptized.
It's because they must not be steadfast, unmovable, always bounding the work of the Lord,
because God said that they will labor, not in vain, but that they will see results.
You know, I have missionaries contact me, and I'll go through this quickly, but I have missionaries contact me constantly.
Then they want me to support them.
You know, they want our church to support them to go to a foreign country, you know, which is understandable,
because some countries, for example, you know, obviously they're not going to be able to work or anything.
And so the only way they can go there is if somebody kind of pays their way,
and churches will send people to go to these other countries and preach the gospel and start churches in a foreign country.
Like, for example, there's a missionary that we're probably going to be taking on our church here.
He's a missionary to Korea. His name's Barry Hoffman.
And he is a great missionary. He's seen all kinds of people saved. He's been there for about eight years.
He's got a church up and running in Seoul, Korea. He's got like 200 people,
and he's got some young men that he's trained that are starting other churches and so forth.
But, you know, these missionaries were just contacting me, just beating my door down,
and just calling emails, you know, just constantly contacting me.
And so I said, you know what, I need a way to just kind of weed out, you know, because I'll...
Jesus said I must be about my Father's business.
And so I believe in running this church like a business.
Now, imagine going to a businessman. Okay.
And you say, well, that sounds spiritual. Okay, well, fine.
But look, let's go to a businessman, and let's say, Mr. Businessman, I'm a stockbroker.
Now, let's pretend that I'm the spiritual stockbroker of this church, okay?
Now, let's say I go, Mr. Businessman, I'm a stockbroker, and I want you to invest in my company.
And he says, okay, well, what percent yield will this investment give me on my money?
Will it give me 4%, 5%, 10%, 20%?
And how is he going to know?
Well, hey, listen, man, I'm not clairvoyant. I'm not a psychic.
I don't know what kind of yield it's going to give.
Now, that's not what he says. He says, well, let me show you the past performance.
Let me show you what it's yielded over the last five years, over the last 10 years, over the last 20 years.
Does everybody follow what I'm saying?
He says, let's look at the past performance of this stock or this bond or this investment,
and we'll see what the yield has been like in the past,
and then that will tell us where it's going in the future, right?
It's common sense.
So imagine if we ran church like a business, and we ran missions, like, you know,
sending out missionaries like a business and say, okay, oh, you want to be supported by me?
Okay, well, how many people have you won to Christ in the last year's time?
I mean, 365 days, you had a whole year.
You want me to pay you a full-time paycheck to go somewhere
where your job is going to be to win people to Christ in another country,
and I want that to happen?
I'd be willing to put my money toward that any day of the week to get people saved in Korea?
Good night. Praise the Lord.
And so I want to know how many people you've won to the Lord?
Oh, numbers.
But what are you doing? What have you been doing?
How many people have been saved? How many people have been baptized?
Give me some kind of an inkling.
Well, I said, well, listen, missionaries, you know, I put this on my website.
I said, you know, because they're going to the website, and they're just beating my door down, beating my door down.
I said, listen, here's a questionnaire. Just fill this out.
You know, do you believe like we believe? I'm just on the King James Bible, and just like two things.
Just independent Baptist, King James Bible.
And then how many people have you won to the Lord in the last month?
Now, that seems very reasonable. It seems totally reasonable.
And so people send it back to me. Zero, zero, zero.
How many people you are? You're getting paid full time, right?
That's your job. Now, listen, I work full time job. I win people to the Lord every week.
And many times every day.
And I try to win somebody to the Lord every single day of my life.
And these people are getting paid full time with God's money.
$50,000 a year, $47,000 a year, where some hardworking electrician or somebody who works hard,
then they put their money in the plate, and they come to get my ministry to get people saved.
And it's going to take one of their stinking tulips in some country where nothing's happening.
That's ungodly, that's wicked as hell.
And you think that I'm going to take my hard-earned money, and your hard-earned money,
and send it to some guy who's a big zero?
This isn't welfare. This isn't General Assistance Program.
This isn't a welfare state, man. This is God's, a capitalist.
He says, I give you an investment, I want to return on my investment.
And I want to run it like a business and say, look, man, you better win somebody to the Lord.
I'm going to give you some money.
You know, I'm glad you're in Korea, sir.
And don't get me wrong, because the guy that I'm talking about in Korea is a great soul winner.
Barry Hoffman, the man that I'm thinking about supporting, that we're probably going to take on,
he's a great soul winner.
He's winning people to the Lord, he's seeing people baptized, he's building a church, he's sending people into the ministry.
He's a great guy.
But some of these guys, man, they're sending me their thing, and they're saying, they're coming to me with their hand out.
I didn't come to them.
You know, whatever they do is fine, but they're coming to me saying, my name's Jimmy, I'll take all you give me.
And then I'm saying to them, well, did you win anybody to the Lord this week?
Did you win anybody to the Lord this month?
And it's just like, zero, zero.
And then they call me, and I'm embarrassed that they're even calling me.
Like, how do you want the guts to call me?
You just told me that you won zero people to the Lord last month, and that you're getting paid full time to do this.
And I have to control myself, literally, from just becoming enraged with people.
And I try to just say, like, here, honey, you talk to me.
Here, you tell this guy that I'm not a zero man, OK?
Here, you talk to him, all right?
I don't want to talk to him, because I get so enraged.
Hey, the spirit of the Lord just comes upon me, and I just get angry.
And it just bothers me.
But we need to have some common sense about this thing.
And so victory, the point of the ceremony, victory brings results.
If you're getting zero results, maybe you're, oh, wow.
All kinds of results.
Read the book of Acts, man.
People are getting saved.
They're getting baptized.
Things are happening.
Jesus wasn't just walking around just, hey, I can't get anybody to come to my church.
He's like, hey, follow me.
And the two guys get out of the boat and follow him.
Hey, come on, let's go.
Let's get people saved.
All right, yeah, let's go.
Let's follow this guy.
How many people did Jesus walk up to and say, follow me?
And they said, I don't want to.
You know, they're all, he was getting results.
He was making something happen.
But, you know, maybe he asked a lot of people that didn't follow him.
Maybe he didn't just spend five minutes doing it.
Maybe he actually got some wool up his sleeve and worked just like I work, just like every
man works at his job.
Why don't they work at their job?
Because they just expect to walk down the street and people are going to fall on their
knees and say, what must I do to be saved?
It's not going to work that way, man.
You got to work.
You got to get some results.
And if you work it, if you're steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.
It said in 1 Corinthians 15, 58, always abounding in the work of the Lord.
You know your labor is not in vain.
Boy, I love that.
That's the promise of God.
We do our part.
God does his part.
That's all the promises of God.
Salvation.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our part.
Thou shalt be saved.
God's part.
And on and on, that's all the promises of God.
There's our part and then God's part.
God will do his part, but we got to do our part.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, thank you so much for the great truths of the Bible, God.
Boy, I love living a Christian life that's about victory, a life that's about winning,
that's about abounding, that's about excitement.
And God, I just pray that you please just bless us all today and for the rest of the
week and help us to see the victory in our Christian life.
Help us to all work on this thing of consistency.
And Father, help us to abound in the work of the Lord.
Let's roll up our sleeves and work for you.