Amen. All right. Well, I want to, of course, say thank you to Pastor Pozarnsky, Ms. Heidi, for the invitation to come out here today and for the hospitality and the great dinner we had last night and fellowship.
And of course, the Pozarnsky family is near and dear to our hearts. Of course, we love them and we're proud of the work that's being done here.
And I want to, of course, thank the Verity Baptist Church family for you coming out, supporting Hold Fast this weekend.
And of course, I want to say congratulations to Hold Fast Baptist Church. Those of you that came from First Works as well, thank you for being here.
And congratulations. One year of ministry. And you know, I know that in ministry, it often seems like the days are long, but the years are short.
And often when you're in ministry, it seems like you're just kind of going through the thing. And then one day you'll wake up one day and it's been 10 years, you know, 12 years.
And you'll look back on these days as exciting times. So congratulations for one year of ministry. And I praise the Lord for that.
This morning, I want to preach to you, being the one year anniversary of this church, I want to preach on the subject of the ingredients of a great church.
The ingredients of a great church. And I heard a pastor say years ago that a church should be like a family expecting guests.
And that's what we want, right? That's what we work towards. And that's what we are always trying to be ready for as a church family, especially on Sunday mornings.
And really every service, we want to be expecting guests. And a church, thank you, sir. Appreciate it.
And a church is, that's exactly what a church should be. It should be a family expecting guests.
And we're there in 1 Kings Chapter 10. And of course, we have the story of the Queen of Sheba and she is visiting King Solomon.
And I want to use this story this morning to preach this sermon because of the fact that the Queen of Sheba was visiting or she was a guest of King Solomon's realm and kingdom.
Notice there in 1 Kings Chapter 10 and verse 1, the Bible says,
And when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, notice these words,
She came. She was a guest. She came, the Bible says, to prove him with hard questions.
Notice there again in verse 2, And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bear spices and very much gold and precious stones.
And notice again the emphasis, When she came to Solomon, she communed with him in all that was in her heart.
So this morning, I'd like to take the story of the Queen of Sheba and use it as an example or as an allegory or a parable or just a representation of a church
expecting guests. And I'd like to give you three ingredients this morning in regards to a great church.
What are the ingredients that come together in order to create a great church?
And by the way, let me just say this. You already have these ingredients at Hold Fast Baptist Church.
I want to encourage you to identify that, to know that and to continue.
And if you're taking notes this morning, and of course, I encourage you to take notes.
I notice on the back of the bulletin, there's a place for you to write down some things.
What are the ingredients of a great church? Well, number one, you could write this down.
The first ingredient of a great church, I want to say it this way, is practical preaching, practical preaching.
And when people come to church, you know, if you think about why we start a church,
obviously, we started a Verity Baptist Church, ordained Pastor Brzezinski.
We sent him down here as a satellite leader for a couple of years.
One year ago, we ordained him to be the pastor of this church.
It became an independent church. Why do we do that?
Of course, to fulfill the Great Commission, to be able to win souls in this area,
and disciple people, help them get baptized.
But when you really think about it, one of the main purposes of the church,
obviously, we want to get people saved, we want to get people baptized.
But what we will do most of is then take those converts and disciple them.
Obviously, we emphasize soul winning. We do a lot of soul winning, going out in the community, knocking doors.
And we give time for soul winning. We do baptizing and we baptize new converts.
But what a church will spend most of its time on, what a pastor and a pastor's wife will spend most of their time on,
is the discipleship aspect, is helping people grow.
Because the truth of the matter is this, when people come to church,
they generally come to church with problems and doubts.
Usually, people don't show up to church and they're just like,
everything's great in my life, everything's wonderful, I'm just looking for a place to give 10% of my income to.
Generally speaking, that's not the attitude. Every once in a while, you'll get that, right?
Every once in a while, you'll get somebody who shows up and it's like,
you come to spy out the land, you seem a little too perfect.
Usually, people show up to church with problems. That's why they come to church.
And what is our goal, what is our plan, is to help them.
And I want you to notice here the Queen of the South, the Queen of Sheba.
In verse 1, the Bible says,
And when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord,
notice the Bible says, she came to prove. Notice that word prove there.
The word prove means to establish the truth of something.
The idea is that she came to acquire proof. She came to acquire evidence.
She had heard some things about King Solomon and his kingdom,
and she came to prove, notice what the Bible says, with hard questions.
See, people will often show up to church and they'll show up with problems.
Notice the term there, with hard questions.
They not only will show up with problems, but they'll show up with doubts.
They'll show up with doubts. Notice there, the Bible says, to prove Him.
And often times, people will come to church as a last resort.
They'll come to church, you know, their marriage is falling apart,
or their relationship with their children is falling apart,
or they're addicted to drugs, or they're addicted to alcohol,
and they've tried everything else.
And then as a last resort, they'll say,
Well, let me go down to church and see if they can help me there.
And they'll show up with hard questions, and they'll show up with doubts.
They just want to see, well, they're not really expecting, you know,
I'm not really expecting that Solomon's kingdom is going to be all that I've heard it's going to be.
But I'm going to go down there and prove Him, and I'm going to bring these hard questions.
The truth is this, that people will come to church with problems and doubts.
Pastor Brzozarski preached an amazing sermon at the Red Hot Preaching Conference this year,
and he preached on the subject.
And I love the sermon because I feel like this is a theme that I like to talk about with church.
And he preached a sermon about build, not bond.
And the fact that if you're going to have a church, if you're going to grow a church,
if you're going to be in ministry, you just have to realize that it's not going to be handed to you.
You're going to have to build it.
And that's true because of the fact that, you know,
when you look at a church and you look at people that have good marriages,
they're raising godly children, their health is going well, their finances are in order,
they're serving in church, they're tithing, they're soul winning, they're serving.
When you look at those people, you have to realize it's rare that those people show up
and walk through the door just having it all put together, and I'm just here to serve.
Now that happens from time to time, and praise God for it.
But generally speaking, people show up and they're just a mess, you know?
And if you look at them a year later, you look at them two years later,
you look at them three years later, and things are going well in their life,
is because somebody took the time and energy to help them and disciple them
and encourage them and pray for them and to help them grow.
Because the truth of the matter is this, that ministry truly is built, not bought.
It's a work we have to do. It's something we have to do.
Now I want you to notice that when the Queen of Sheba shows up to Solomon,
she shows up with problems, she shows up with doubt,
she came to prove him, and she came with hard questions.
But notice how she leaves, verse 3.
And Solomon told her all her questions.
The Bible says she came with hard questions, but he answered all her questions.
And notice what the Bible says.
There was not anything hid from the king which he told her not.
She came, and she came with hard questions, but you know she left with answers.
And our job as a church is to give people everything that they need.
I love how the Bible says there, there was not anything he told her not.
There was not anything that he hid from her.
She asked questions, and the Bible tells us they were hard questions.
You know, what those questions were, we don't know for sure.
We do know of one very good question that was answered to her
that I'll talk about later at the end of the sermon.
But we know that whatever the questions were, they were hard questions,
they were difficult questions.
She came to seek some answers, and she left with the answers that she needed.
You're there in 1 Kings chapter 10.
Keep your place there if you would.
Put a ribbon or a bookmark or something.
That's going to be our text for this morning.
But go with maybe a whip to the book of Acts in the New Testament.
Acts chapter 20.
In the New Testament you have the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts.
Acts chapter 20.
The Bible says that Solomon told her all her questions.
There was not anything he hid from the king which he told her not.
And it's interesting to me because what the Bible is emphasizing here
is that the way that it's worded, you would not really think that it should be worded this way.
Because the Bible says she came with questions, right?
So you'd think the Bible would just tell us, and Solomon answered all her questions.
The Bible says she came to prove him.
And you would think the Bible would just tell us, and Solomon just answered everything she wanted.
But the way that it's worded, it seems to indicate that there were some things that Solomon told her,
some things that Solomon felt she needed to hear that she wasn't necessarily asking questions about.
Because the way it's worded, it says Solomon told her all her questions.
We would, you know, see that as a normal phrase in the story.
But here's what's interesting when it says there was not anything hid.
What does that mean?
It means that there is a potential for Solomon to maybe, there were some things that he could have not told her.
And then the Bible emphasizes it again and it says there was not anything hid from the king,
and it emphasizes again which he told her not.
Again, it seems to indicate that there's this potential that Solomon could have just answered her questions,
but he felt like there was more information that he needed to give her.
And you might ask, you know, well what is that about or what are you trying to get at?
You know what I've learned over the last 12 years of ministry is that oftentimes people are asking the wrong questions.
They'll come to you with a question if they even come to you with a question.
They'll come to you with a question and they'll say, well, you know, what am I supposed to do about this?
Or what should I do about that? Or what should I do about this situation?
And we as pastors, we realize, hey, you know, you're asking me this question and I can answer that question for you,
but the truth of the matter is there's another underlying problem that you're ignoring right now.
There's actually another underlying problem that is also attributing to this problem that you're having.
And we, like Solomon, have to decide that we're not going to hide anything,
that we're going to tell you everything you need to know, we're going to tell you everything you need to hear.
You say, well, that's not the question. I didn't come. People will come and say, well, I want to ask about my marriage.
And it's like, well, let me help you with your marriage, but before we get to your marriage, let's talk about your drug addiction.
Oh, no, I'm not asking about the drug addiction. Yeah, but the drug addiction is affecting your marriage.
And oftentimes people, they want to ask you this one question. They want to focus on this one thing.
They come to church, they're like, I just need this one issue. And then, you know, they come to Pastor Brzozarski,
and he's like, well, let me help you with this issue, but, you know, you also need to get a job.
You also need to stop being so stinking lazy. You also need to start, you know, showing up to church.
You also need to start soul winning. You also need to, and it's like, why did I ask all that?
Well, you know what? There was not anything here from the king which you told her not.
She came with certain questions, as all of us have said. I'm going to answer your questions,
and I'm going to answer the questions that you haven't asked.
The questions that you should have asked. The questions that you need.
See, you said, what makes, what made the kingdom of Solomon a great kingdom?
What makes a church a great church? It is practical preaching that answers the questions of life,
the questions you're asking, and the questions you refuse to ask.
The questions you're asking, and the questions you should have asked.
Are you there in Acts chapter 20? Look at verse 26.
The Apostle Paul says something similar to what we read about King Solomon.
Acts chapter 20 and verse 26,
Wherefore I take to you, I take you to record this day,
and what that means is Paul saying, you can, you can, you can record this as a matter of fact.
You can prove me here if you'd like.
Wherefore I take you to record this day, he says that I am pure from the blood of all men.
You say, how could Paul say that he's pure from the blood of all men?
Notice what he says in verse 27. He says,
For I have not shunned.
You see that word shunned? The word shunned means to keep away, to withhold, to avoid.
Paul says, I have not shunned. I have not kept away. I have not withheld.
I have not avoided. I have not hid. There's nothing that I have not told you.
He says, I have not shunned to declare unto you. Notice what he says.
All the counsel of God. He said, I've given it all to you.
I've answered every question. I've answered every question you've asked.
I've answered every question you haven't asked. I've answered every question you should have asked.
He said, I have not shunned to declare unto you the counsel of God.
So what's an ingredient of a great church?
It's a church that gives you practical preaching.
It's a church that answers all the questions.
It's the church that offends you by answering the questions you didn't ask.
It's a church that offends you by answering the questions you should have asked.
It's a church that does not hide.
The Bible says about Solomon, there was not anything hid from the king which he told her not.
He told her everything she needed to hear.
Solomon could say to the queen of Sheba, I've not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
He said, I've given it all to you.
You know, it's interesting because as I was preparing for this sermon, I was talking to Pastor Bozarnsky about this last night at dinner.
I've read this verse thousands of times. I've preached this verse, I'm sure, hundreds of times.
Acts 20-27, For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
And usually when we go to that verse, what we take away from that passage, and I do believe this is the proper application,
is that we as Bible-believing preachers should not shun, should not avoid any part of the Bible.
We should preach the entire counsel, all the counsel of God.
We should preach the Word, be in sin in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering.
We shouldn't cut anything out. We should preach all the Word, all of it.
And that's usually the application that we take away from that verse.
For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
And that is the proper application. But one thing that stood out to me is this word, counsel.
Because whenever in the past when I've seen that phrase, all the counsel of God, I've just assumed it to mean everything the Bible says.
And that's true. That is what it means. But the word counsel is the same word that we use to, in ministry, we often do counseling.
And the word counsel means to give advice. It means to give instruction. It means to give direction.
It means to answer the question. And here Paul says, look, I have not shunned to declare to you.
He could have said all of scripture. He said, I'm not shunned to declare unto you. He could have said the entire Bible.
He said, I'm not shunned to declare to you. He could have said all doctrine. And all of that applies there.
But Paul specifically said, I'm not shunned to declare to you all the advice, all the direction, all the instruction, all of the answers to the questions that you need for life.
I'm not shunned to declare to you all the counsel of God.
He says, I've given it all to you. I've given you all the counsel. I've given you every counsel.
Go to 2 Timothy, I just quoted that verse for you, but let's look at it together. 2 Timothy chapter 4.
If you can find the T-books, they're all clustered together. 1 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, Titus, 2 Timothy chapter 2, excuse me, 2 Timothy chapter 4.
My wife and I have been in ministry for the last 12 years.
And as a pastor and as a pastor's wife, and I'm sure Pastor and Ms. Wozarski have already experienced some of this, being one year into ministry.
You know, we were talking last night and he was telling me how, as satellite leader for two years, there were questions that people never asked him that they ask him now as a pastor.
And that's true, because as a pastor, and often times as a pastor's wife, we're expected to have answers to people's questions.
You know, my wife and I do counseling. We do a lot of counseling at our church and we're available to do counseling.
And this isn't something that I talk a lot about, but both my wife and I have actually received formal training in counseling.
We've received certification in counseling because years ago, we started to realize people are coming to us with some hard questions.
And we just kind of wanted to have some direction and some, to be able to do counseling and make sure that we weren't, you know, just telling people the wrong thing or advising them things that were wrong or whatever.
And even now, my wife and I are in the midst of a counseling course that we're taking right now to receive even higher certification.
And I'm not saying that that's not something necessarily every pastor needs to do. It's just something that we're interested in.
We do a lot of it. We do a lot of counseling. So I'm saying that to say this, we believe in counseling.
And over the last 12 years of ministry, praise God, the Lord has allowed us to be able to help a lot of people through counseling.
And in our church, there's been people that have been addicted to drugs, addicted to alcohol, addicted to other things that we've helped them, you know, get off of that and live the life that God has called them to live.
And by God's grace, we've had a lot of success. You know, we've also had a lot of failure, obviously, because counseling, you can't force, you know, like the old saying goes,
you can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, you know, and people have to make the decision themselves to want to take the help.
But by God's grace, God has allowed us to be able to help people through counseling. I'm saying all that to say this, we believe in counseling.
I think it's good to counsel people. I think it's right for me as a pastor to counsel men and counsel couples and for my wife to counsel ladies.
And we believe in all of that. When it comes to counseling, there are kind of two types of counseling.
There's what I would call the pleasant counseling, which the pleasant counseling is usually a one-time counseling session.
I mean, it's usually just a one-time event where somebody comes in my office. I mean, just recently somebody asked if they could meet with both my wife and I,
just because it was a husband and wife and there was a situation that they want to get a female perspective and I agreed with it 100%.
And you know, sometimes people will come to us and it's just this one-time counseling session and it's like, here's the situation, here's what's going on, what do you think we should do?
And of course, we leverage the principles of the word of God, but it's not just the principles of the word of God, it's the experience.
When I was a teenager, my wife and I, we met at Subway as teenagers and we had a Persian manager who would often say this phrase.
He said, experience is expensive. And that is true, especially for counseling, because you know, counseling is not just telling people, well, the Bible says this.
There's a lot of experience that once you've talked to a lot of people, you begin to leverage that experience.
Well, here's what, you know, we've seen in the past, here's a good way to go about this or whatever.
So sometimes you have these one-time counseling sessions, right, where somebody comes, they've got a problem, they've got a dilemma and they're like, what do we do?
And it's like, well, here's what the Bible says, here's some of the experience we've had, here's what we think, here's the advice, you should do X, Y and Z.
And it's like, thank you pastor, thank you Ms. Joanne, you know, we're going to do that.
And they go on their merry way and praise God for that.
And look, I believe those situations are needed from time to time because as a pastor, you can't just preach sermons where you just get into every specific, you know.
Well, here's how it works when you're a husband and a wife and you've got four children.
And here's how it works when you're a husband and a wife and you've got two children that are both your husband and wives.
And then, you know, you can't go into every detail of every situation.
So sometimes people have to come to you just privately and say, what do you think about this?
And we help them.
That's the one-time counsel.
But then sometimes you have the long-term counsel.
And the long-term counseling, that's usually when somebody is just under the bondage of sin.
Where they're just, and look, and I believe in it.
We've done it, we help people.
Sometimes people just need somebody to hold their hand and walk them and walk with them and walk alongside them for weeks or months or years or however long it takes to help them get victory in those areas.
But here's the point that I want to make.
I said all that to say that.
I'm not down on counseling.
I believe in counseling and I hope people in our church will come to us for counseling if they need it or to Pastor Buzorski if they need it.
But let me just say this.
With all that said, please understand something.
The preaching you get from the pulpit of Hold Fast Baptist Church on Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night is all the counseling you need.
And if you say, well, I'm in that situation where I'm under bondage and I need somebody to hold my hand and I need somebody to be with me and help me get through that.
I'm not down on you.
We want to help you.
We want to be there for you.
But let me just make something clear.
The reason you find yourself in that situation is because you've not been listening.
You've not been applying the preaching from the Word of God.
Because here's the truth.
There's nothing we're going to say to you in the office that's different than when we say, be on the pulpit.
And when Paul says, look, I have not shunned to declare to you all the counsel of God.
You need to understand that a Sunday morning church service, a Sunday night church service, a Wednesday night church service, you say, what is this?
Is this a church service?
No, it's group therapy.
I mean, you should tell your boss, oh, I need Wednesday nights off.
For what?
For group therapy.
You're not going to deny me therapy, are you?
I need to go see my counselor on Wednesday night.
On Sunday night.
You say, who's your counselor?
The Lord Jesus Christ.
The mighty God.
The counselor.
The Prince of Peace.
Through the Word of God.
And through the man of God.
The man of God stands up and says, I've not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God.
And let me just let you in on a little secret.
You say, I'm too embarrassed to go to pastor and ask for help.
I'm too embarrassed to go ask Miss Joanne or Miss Heidi for help.
I'm too embarrassed or I'm too proud or I'm too whatever.
Let me just help you understand something.
If you were to choose today to say, I'm going to go to church Sunday morning.
I'm going to go to church Sunday night.
I'm going to go to church Wednesday night.
And I'm just going to do everything that the man of God preaches from the Word of God and tells me to do.
I'm just going to do all of it.
Whether I agree with it or not.
Whether I think it's stupid or not.
Whether I think it's going to work or not.
I'm just going to do all of it and I'm just going to do it for one year.
I promise you that it's a two year anniversary of this church.
You would look back and have a completely different, blessed, successful life.
Because this church provides for you all the counsel you need.
It provides all the counsel of God.
And especially Pastor Przarnsky.
I went on his website just before we came here just to kind of look at the sermons he's preached.
And obviously he preaches the Word of God and prays God for it.
But I mean, practical preaching is coming from this pulpit.
I mean, four things to do with inflation.
You know, through inflation I was thinking like, I need to listen to that sermon.
You know, I want to know what he said about that.
You know, I'm just, look, you said what are the ingredients of a great church?
The ingredients of a great church is a church that is preaching the whole counsel of God.
That is teaching you everything you need to know about the Word of God.
But it doesn't benefit you if you don't apply it.
If you don't do it.
You know what the problem is with Christians though?
We give lip service to the Word of God and we don't really believe it.
We'll say, oh no, the Bible is the Word of God.
The Bible has all the answers.
And then you open up the Bible and say, well the Bible says to do this.
Oh, that doesn't apply to me.
It all applies to everybody.
Are you there in 2 Timothy 4?
Look at verse 2, preach the Word.
Be in season, out of season, whether it's popular or not.
That's what that means.
Reprove, that means to correct.
Rebuke, that means to reprimand.
Exhort, that means to encourage.
And by the way, those are three things that should be done in the sermons.
Sometimes you should be corrected.
Sometimes you should be reprimanded.
Sometimes you should be encouraged.
And by the way, in counseling, one on one, sometimes I'm reprimanding.
Sometimes I'm correcting.
And sometimes I'm encouraging.
With all the long suffering and doctrine, look at 2 Timothy 3.16.
2 Timothy 3.16, notice what the Bible says.
2 Timothy 3.16, all Scripture, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.
Now usually when we go to 2 Timothy 3.16, that's what we focus in on.
The inspiration of God's Word.
God spoke these words.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.
God spoke these words.
They are God's words.
That's usually what we focus on.
Praise God for it.
But notice what Paul is teaching us.
He says all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.
Yes, that's true.
And he says, since that's true, it is ... Notice he says, and is profitable.
It's profitable.
Oh, that doesn't apply to me.
No, it applies to you.
It is profitable.
For what?
For doctrine?
What's doctrine?
What to believe?
For reproof?
Doctrine is this.
The right thing?
Reproof?
The wrong thing?
For correction?
How to fix the wrong thing?
For instruction?
How to do the right thing?
I mean, that's church.
You say, well, if I come back to Whole Fast Baptist Church tonight,
if I come back to Whole Fast Baptist Church once tonight,
if I come back next week, and I hope if you're a guest here from the community,
that you will come back next week and listen to Pastor Brzezinski,
the pastor of this church, preach.
You say, what can I expect?
Here's what you can expect.
To be told what's the right thing to do.
To be told what's the wrong thing to do.
To be told how to correct the wrong thing.
To make it the right thing.
Or to be told how to continue to do the right thing.
Doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction is what you will receive.
You say, why?
Because all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.
Because it's good.
It's all good.
Go to 2 Peter, chapter 1.
2 Peter, chapter 1.
You're there in 2 Timothy.
You go past Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter.
2 Peter, chapter 1.
2 Peter 1 and verse 3.
Look, people show up with problems.
The Queen of Sheba showed up with problems and doubts.
People will show up here.
People show up to Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento with problems and doubts.
And our goal is that they would leave with answers and hope.
They show up doubting.
Can God really help me?
And our job is to make sure they leave with the answers they need.
You say the answers to the questions they've asked.
The answers to the questions they've asked.
The answers to the questions they've not asked.
The answers to the questions they should have asked.
That they leave with answers.
And Lord willing, that they leave with hope.
That God can help them.
That the Word of God can help them.
That God is no respecter of persons.
That if biblical preaching and biblical counsel has helped others, it can help them too.
2 Peter 1 and verse 3.
Notice what the Bible says.
According as His divine power.
Notice what the Bible says.
I want you to notice this.
Have given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
Through the knowledge of Him that had called us to the glory and virtue.
Why don't you just key in on this phrase.
The Bible says that God has given to us all things.
All things that pertain unto life and godliness.
Everything you need for life is contained in the Word of God.
Everything you need for godliness is contained in the Word of God.
And I can't speak for the church down the street.
I can't speak for the non-denom church down the street.
But I can tell you at whole fast Baptist church.
They are not shunning to declare the whole counsel of God.
They are giving you the answers to the questions.
Sometimes people leave upset.
You say why?
Because they are getting answers to questions they didn't want answered.
But Pastor Bezos is going to stand up like King Solomon.
And say I'm not going to hide anything from you.
He's going to stand up like the Apostle Paul.
And say I am not shunned to declare the whole counsel of God.
Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?
Are you going to get upset because I told you what you need to hear?
You came to ask a question but you're asking the wrong question.
You're being manipulative.
You came to change the subject.
The question you should be asking is this question.
Let me answer the question you need.
Let me declare the counsel of God.
You say what are the ingredients of a great church?
The ingredients of a great church are practical preaching.
Preaching you could do something with.
Preaching you could take home and do something.
You don't walk out these doors thinking to yourself, I wonder what he meant by that.
I wonder what he wanted us to do.
I wonder what he meant by that.
No, no.
The reason you're mad when you're leaving is because you know exactly what he wanted you to do.
You know exactly what he meant.
You know exactly what you're supposed to do with it.
But you know what?
That's between you and God.
You want to go ruin your life and not listen to the word of God and take counsel from the man of God.
That's your problem.
He's doing his job when he can say like the Apostle Paul, I'm not shunned to declare the counsel of God.
Go back to 1 Kings chapter 10.
1 Kings chapter 10.
Why don't you notice that the Queen of Sheba, she shows up to this church service.
She shows up to King Solomon Baptist Church.
And she gets there and the first thing she is encountered with is powerful, practical preaching.
The answers to the questions.
Nothing was hid.
The questions she asked, the questions she didn't ask, the questions she should have asked.
But don't you notice there's a second ingredient to a great church.
Not only is practical preaching an ingredient to a great church, but also a professional program.
Notice what the Bible says here in verse 4.
1 Kings 10 and verse 4.
And when the Queen of Sheba had seen all of Solomon's wisdom, that's the practical preaching,
but notice the professional program and the house that he had built and the meat at his table.
That's the grilling that's going to happen tonight after the service.
And the sitting of his servants and the attendance of his ministers and their apparel and his cupbearers
and his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the Lord.
The Bible says there was no more spirit in her.
You know the Bible tells us here that she shows up and not only does she get practical preaching,
but she witnesses a professional program.
She says, wow this is amazing.
You guys take this serious.
I mean she's looking around.
She sees the meat at his table, the sitting of his servants, the attendance of his ministers,
their apparel, his cupbearers, his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the Lord.
And there was no spirit left in her.
She was impressed.
She saw a professional program.
She saw people that took the work that they were doing seriously.
If you were to go with me to the book of Acts, Acts 6 in the New Testament.
The ingredients of a great church, what are they?
Number one, practical preaching.
By and large that's going to come from your pastor.
Your job in the practical preaching aspect is to be ready to receive the word of God.
To hear him with an open heart and apply it to your life.
But here's an area where the church members can get involved in a professional program.
You know you should take a step in the service of God.
In the service of God's house.
Acts chapter 6 if you would, keep your finger there in Acts 6.
We're going to leave it and we're going to come back to it.
Acts chapter 6, notice what the Bible says.
And in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied,
there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected.
Then the twelve called the multitude of his disciples unto them and said,
It is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.
Wherefore brethren, look out among you seven men of honest report,
full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.
But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
You know if you say, I love, hope that the church is a great church.
Well help make it great and continue to be great by you stepping up to serve.
A church is not a one man show.
It's not a one man and his wife show.
It requires other people to actually step up and say,
Hey how can I help? How can I serve? What can I do?
You ought to learn to ask this question just in life.
Young people and my kids especially.
You ought to learn to live your life asking this question.
How can I help?
Don't watch somebody working and just sit there and say,
Wow that's amazing. Look at them.
I mean look at all they're doing.
You watch somebody working and you say,
What's the appropriate response? Walk up to them.
How can I help?
What can I do?
How can I get involved?
This is the work of God.
This is the spiritual work.
This is the work done with the Holy Spirit of God.
And I don't mean to be rude when I say this.
I don't mean to be irreverent when I say this.
Please understand my heart.
This is the ministry of spiritual work.
The work of God.
But let me let you in on a little secret.
The Holy Spirit is not going to show up here on a Monday and vacuum.
The Holy Spirit is not going to take the trash out.
The Holy Spirit is not going to fold the bulletins.
The Holy Spirit is not going to show up and knock the doors that you're supposed to show up.
He'll go with you.
You know the Holy Spirit will help you vacuum.
The Holy Spirit will go with you, knock those doors, preach the gospel.
But you've got to show up.
You've got to step it up.
You've got to take the step to serve.
Keep your place there in Acts.
Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 4.
You're there in Acts.
Go past Romans, 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians chapter 4.
Let me say this about the professional program.
Not only should you step up to serve,
but when you do step up to serve,
you should take it serious when you serve.
1 Corinthians 4, 2, the Bible says,
Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful.
A faithful man is hard to find.
You say, what does it mean to be faithful?
It means you can be relied on.
It means you can be trusted with responsibility.
It means you don't have to worry about it.
I'm thankful to God, and I know that Pastor Brzezinski has this here,
and I'm thankful at Verity Baptist Church that I've got a handful of men
that run ministries that I just don't have to worry about.
They keep me in the loop, and they let me know,
but I know they take the work of God seriously.
I know they're not doing it for me.
They're doing it for the Lord.
And they work at it, and they make sure it's professional,
it's top notch, and it gets done.
And you know, I don't have to worry about it
because I know they're doing it for God.
And they take it seriously.
They do a good job with it.
The Bible says in Proverbs 25, 19,
confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble
is like a broken tooth and a foot out of joint.
If you've ever had a toothache, you know how annoying that is.
Well, confidence in an unfaithful man can get pretty irritating.
And for those of us that like to work and work hard,
a lazy guy, there's nothing more irritating in the world
than a lazy man that cannot be trusted,
that cannot be entrusted with something.
Go to Ecclesiastes, if you would.
Ecclesiastes chapter 9.
If you open up your Bible just right in the center,
you're more than likely following the book of Psalms.
Right after Psalms, you have Proverbs,
then the book of Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes chapter 9.
You ought to take the work of God seriously.
You ought to be serious.
Jesus was serious.
I love this little phrase that the young Lord Jesus Christ,
He says, I must be about my Father's business.
He said, I'm in the business of my Father.
I'm serious in the work of God.
I take the work of God serious.
Years ago, I joined the United States Air Force.
I was enlisted in the Air Force for four years.
Let me give this big, huge disclaimer.
I do not encourage anybody to join the military ever.
I don't think you young people don't join the military.
Join the army of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You can do much better things than serve Aunt Sam,
is what it is now.
I don't recommend anybody join the military.
I'm not saying this as an endorsement.
I'm just saying it as a statement of fact.
I joined the military.
There was a lot of things wrong in the military.
One thing that I do, there's one thing that I often look back at
and think to myself, I'm thankful for this.
Obviously, you can always be thankful for something.
In the Air Force, we had the Air Force core values.
The Air Force core values were three statements
that we would often say or hear or be told.
They'd be written on walls.
The Air Force core values were integrity first,
service before self, and excellence in all we do.
I remember when I was getting ready to go into boot camp,
my wife and I were young.
We were married, but we were obviously very young.
I remember my wife and I were sitting in an office
talking to the Air Force recruiter that was signing me up to go to the military.
He was talking to me about boot camp and how boot camp was going to be
and talked to my wife.
I remember he said to my wife, he asked my wife this question,
how long does it take your husband to wash the car?
She was like, I don't know, 20 minutes, 25 minutes, something.
He said to her, when he comes back from boot camp,
it's going to take him like four hours to wash the car.
The point that he was making is one thing they're going to just drill into you
at boot camp is attention to detail.
It's this idea of excellence in all we do.
I was already kind of a type A personality going into the military.
I already kind of had the attention to detail thing,
but I will tell you one thing.
I don't recommend anybody go to the military,
but if there's one thing that I think would be good for men especially to learn
is just to have someone scream and yell in your face
and mock you for just not having attention to detail.
To this day, it's a blessing and it's a curse.
If you've ever been to Verity Baptist Church, we run a well-oiled machine.
It's organized, it's all those things.
I don't do this obviously when I go to other people's churches.
To this day, I walk in to the lobby of Verity Baptist Church
and my eye just goes to everything that's wrong.
That picture's crooked.
That broom needs to get put away.
Why are you not wearing your usher's coat?
Just everything that's wrong.
I have to kind of restrain myself and go hide in my office.
I don't have to see this.
It's going to give me an anxiety attack.
There's something that was drilled into me in boot camp.
In boot camp, they would show you a picture for two minutes
and they're like, we want your drawer to look like this.
It wasn't like fold your shirt.
It was like this complicated thing.
Then they put it away and you'd work at it for 45 minutes
and then show it to your T.I.
They'd find something wrong with it.
They wouldn't tell you what was wrong with it.
They'd take the whole thing and just throw it
and tell you you're an idiot and tell you to do it again.
You just did that and did that.
Do you know what it caused you to do?
It caused you, when they showed you that picture,
you paid attention to every detail.
You looked at it and you're like, I'm going to get it exactly that way.
Here's what I'm telling you.
If they will do it for the military industrial complex,
if they'll do it at Disneyland,
I've never been to Disneyland, but I'm told it's the cleanest place on earth.
It's the most organized place on earth.
It's the most excellent that all we do plays on earth.
If they'll do it for the almighty dog,
can't we do it for God?
Can't we take the work of God seriously?
Can't we show up early or at least on time?
Can't we do and take seriously the things that we're doing for God?
Can't we do it seriously?
Ecclesiastes 9, 10, the Bible says,
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.
Look, if you're going to do it, do it well.
If you're going to do it well, do it well for the Lord.
You know, I tell our ushers,
your job is to provide the hospitality and the care for our church family.
Let it not be said that there's any restaurant in this city.
Let it not be said that there's any theater in this city
that provides better service for their people
than we provide for our people at Verity Baptist Church.
Well, we're a volunteer workforce. You're not paying us.
Well, I'm not paying you. God is.
You ought to step up and you ought to take it seriously.
The Queen of Sheba was impressed,
not only because she showed up and there was practical preaching,
she was impressed because she showed up and there was a professional program.
Things were running well and obviously, nothing's going to be perfect.
Obviously, there's going to be mistakes.
Obviously, not everything's going to be exactly the way it needs to be.
We understand. We're human beings.
Look, if we're going to do something, we should try to do it well.
We should try to pay attention to what we're doing.
I tell my kids from time to time my sons will work with.
My brother-in-law, Jose Cruz, who has a landscaping business,
will work with him when he's got some big cleanup or some big projects.
The Bible says it's good for a man to labor and to work hard,
especially in their youth.
But I will often say to them while I'm driving them to work,
I'll tell them, look, at work, your goal,
and they've heard me say this many times,
at work, your goal is to go as fast as possible and as slow as needed,
as fast as possible and as slow as needed.
I say, you know what your boss doesn't want?
He doesn't want you to just be like, I got it all done,
and it's all sloppy and messed up like, yeah, you got it all done,
but we got to redo it all.
Your boss isn't going to be happy with that.
And your boss is also not going to be happy with, it's completely perfect,
but we missed all the deadlines.
He's not happy with that either.
You know what your boss wants?
He wants you to move as quickly as possible, but as slow as needed.
He wants you to get the job done, but he wants you to do it right.
He wants you to pay attention to detail.
And look, if your boss on earth wants that,
that's what your boss in heaven wants.
A professional program.
Excellence in all we do.
Step up.
Look, I'm trying to encourage you to step up and serve God,
but I'm also trying to encourage you, if you're going to step up and serve God,
take it seriously.
Do it seriously.
Do it for the Lord.
Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with thy might.
Go back to 1 Kings chapter 10.
1 Kings chapter 10.
A church should be a family expecting guests.
King Solomon was running his kingdom and a guest showed up, Queen of Sheba.
And she was highly impressed.
She said, why was she impressed?
Because of the practical preaching, she got the answers to the questions,
all the questions, even the questions she didn't ask.
Because of the professional program, she looked around and she said,
these people take their job seriously.
She looked at the meat of his table and the sitting of his servants
and the attendance of his ministers and their apparel and his cupbearers and his set.
And she said, wow, this is amazing.
But I want you to notice, thirdly this morning,
one of the ingredients of a great church, not only practical preaching,
not only a professional program,
but I want you to notice another ingredient to a great ministry,
a great organization is this, pleasant people.
Look at verse 6 again.
1 Kings 10 verse 6.
And she said to the king,
It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom.
Howbeit I believed not the word until I came and mine eyes had seen it.
And behold, the half was not told me,
thy wisdom and prosperity exceeded the fame which I heard.
Look at verse 8, notice what she says.
She said, what were you impressed with?
My questions got answered.
They were hard questions, I came to prove you.
They got answered.
What were you impressed with?
The professional program.
These people are doing a work for the king and they're doing it well.
She said, you know what else impressed me?
Verse 8,
Happy are thy men.
Happy are these thy servants,
which stand continually before thee and that hear thy wisdom.
You know, she was impressed with the fact that there was pleasant people.
These people in 1 Kings chapter 10 were happy in the service of their king.
Who was their king?
King Solomon.
Physically, literally, King Solomon was their king
and they were happy in the service of their king.
Happy are thy men.
Happy are these thy servants,
which stand continually before thee and that hear thy wisdom.
But you know, if they were happy in the service of their king,
then you and I need to be happy in the service of our king.
You say, who's our king?
The Lord Jesus Christ.
I like that song we sing.
I'm happy in the service of the king.
I am happy, oh so happy.
I have peace and joy that nothing else can bring in the service of the king.
In the service of the king, every talent I will bring.
I have peace and joy and blessing in the service of the king.
I'm happy in the service of the king.
I'm happy, oh so happy, through the sunshine and the shadow,
I can sing in the service of the king.
You know, serving the Lord is a joyful thing.
Serving God should be a happy thing.
We should be happy in the service of the Lord.
I'm not sure if you kept your place in Proverbs,
but go back to Proverbs chapter 13.
Proverbs 13.
You know, the devil's a liar.
The devil tries to tell you.
The Bible says, there is a way which seemeth right unto a man,
but the end thereof are the ways of death.
In Proverbs chapter 13 and verse 15, I want you to notice this.
The Bible says, good understanding giveth favor.
Notice this phrase, but the way of the transgressor is hard.
Look, I'm not going to sit here and lie to you.
There's pleasure in sin for a season.
There's pleasure in sin for a little while,
but when you go down the road of fulfilling every desire of your flesh,
I'm here to tell you something, the way of the transgressor is hard.
You don't believe me? Ask the homeless guy.
You don't believe me?
Ask the person who's getting a divorce
because they can't get their act together.
Look, the way of the transgressor is hard.
It's difficult, but you know the life of a Christian is a happy life.
It ought to be a happy thing.
It ought to be something.
We're joyful and go to Acts chapter 20.
Acts chapter 20.
A prayer that I often have, I was just talking to my wife about this.
My wife and I were talking about it.
A prayer that I often have for my children, or I should say about my children,
and I pray this on a regular basis.
I'll ask the Lord, Lord would you help me to see if there's anything that I'm doing
or that we're doing right now in the lives of our children
that one day we're going to look back on and regret that we did those things.
That is a prayer that I often pray, a prayer that my wife and I often pray.
If there's anything we're doing right now, Lord, we're trying to raise it for God.
We're trying to raise it for the Lord.
If there's anything we're doing right now, would you please help me to see that?
Anything I'm going to regret, because here's the truth.
Honestly, I know that 20 years from now, 30 years from now,
my wife and I are going to look back and be like, yeah, we regret this.
We regret that. We wish we would.
I know that's going to happen.
I'm just trying to minimize that as much as possible.
A prayer that we often pray is, Lord, if there's anything we're doing that we shouldn't be doing,
would you please open our eyes to anything we're going to regret?
Would you please open our eyes to that so we can identify it now and fix it?
To be very honest with you, oftentimes I pray that prayer and I think to myself,
I can't think of anything.
I'm not saying we're perfect.
Lord, I can't think of anything, but if there's anything, would you please open our eyes to it,
open my eyes to it?
But recently I was praying that prayer and I felt like the Lord brought something to me.
Obviously, he didn't speak to me audibly.
I'm not schizophrenic.
But I feel like the Holy Spirit, and it wasn't just the Holy Spirit.
There was other things in my life that kind of...
I knew this about myself.
You may not know this about me, but I tend to be a negative type person.
I walk in a room and I see everything that's wrong.
I tell my wife, what's the word, honey?
When you like to be alone and stuff, not a pessimist.
Good night, thank you.
Extrovert, introvert.
I'm an introvert.
She's like, I don't think you're an introvert.
I think you just don't like people.
I thought that's what it meant to be an introvert.
I tend to be negative.
But one thing that I felt like the Lord just kind of...
Because look, the ministry can be difficult.
The ministry can be hard from time to time.
But one thing that I don't want to look back on with my kids and regret
is that I made the ministry seem anything but joyful.
That I made the ministry seem like it was a negative thing.
Like it was a hard thing.
It is hard.
It's a lot of work.
I'm not going to lie to you, there's a lot of heartbreak that goes with the ministry
and dealing with people.
But the truth of the matter is this, that we ought to be happy in the Lord.
There's no better life than serving God.
There's nothing else that I would rather do than serve the Lord.
And these people, they were happy.
And I hope that my kids will look back on their father and say,
my dad wasn't perfect and he was a sinner and he thinks he shouldn't have done like anybody else.
But he was happy in the service of the Lord.
He loved God.
He was happy with serving God.
My mom and dad were happily married.
They were, our home was a happy home.
We often tell our kids sometimes they get in these moods.
I'm not talking about any one of them.
I'm saying from time to time all of them will be like this.
And if you've got multiple children you can testify to this.
You know, we're like, you know how it is when you're in your work.
I'm going to my office and I'll have one kid come up and say,
so and so hit me.
And then two minutes later, so and so, and they're referring to the same kid, spat on me.
And then two minutes later, so and so, and they're referring to the same kid,
you know, slap me upside the head or something.
And it's like, good night.
And then you've got to bring that kid in and be like, everybody's complaining about you.
And my wife, you know, she'll often say, you're being disagreeable.
Don't be disagreeable.
Be agreeable. Try to get along.
Look, there are times to stand up and fight.
We understand that.
We contend for the faith.
There are times we've got to stand up and fight for what's right and fight for the word of God.
But we ought, we ought to contend, but we ought not be contentious.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11, 16,
but if any man seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.
I often think of Ishmael when I think about people being disagreeable versus being agreeable.
I think about what the Bible says about Ishmael.
The Bible says that every man's hand was against him and his hand was against every man.
And look, our lives ought not be that way.
There is a time when we need to stand up and fight.
There's a time when we've got to stand up for what's right.
There's a time where we've got to stand up and say, no, we're not going to do that.
No, we're not going to compromise.
No, look, I get that.
And I'm not, I'm not talking about that, but I'm just saying in life,
we have to try to be pleasant people, happy people.
We have to show our families and show the rest of the church family,
hey, serving the Lord is a joyful thing.
The way of the transgressor is hard.
You think this is hard?
Go be a drug addict.
You think this is hard?
Go spend 50 years in prison.
You think this is hard?
Look, this is a good life.
God came to give us the abundant Christian life.
And I'm not going to tell you that it's not difficult.
I'm not going to tell you that it's not hard at times.
You know, obviously coming here for the one-year anniversary, you know,
makes me think back on our church when we first started.
We started the Verity Baptist Church 12 years ago.
I think this, here in a few weeks in September,
we're going to be celebrating our 12-year anniversary.
And my wife and I, we started our church in our living room of our house.
We celebrated our first-year anniversary in our living room of our house.
And I remember after we celebrated our one-year anniversary,
I was kind of reminiscing about this.
I was thinking about coming here and preaching the one-year anniversary.
I remember after we celebrated our one-year anniversary,
our anniversary in September, we celebrated the one-year anniversary
and then we ended the year and we were going to start the first year.
That first year after our one-year anniversary,
we had our church that had sent us out.
They had given us these banners because the church had these themes for the year.
And they had these banners and their theme for the year previously
was this theme taken from the book of Luke where it said,
we never saw it on this fashion.
And they had given us those banners and I put those banners up
and I was going to stand up on the first Sunday of the year
and I was going to preach this sermon called, Never Saw It On This Fashion.
And I thought it was fitting because the story,
if you're familiar with the story of the Lord Jesus Christ,
We Never Saw It On This Fashion, he was preaching in a house
and our church was meeting in a house so I just thought it was fitting.
He was preaching in the house and there were so many people there.
The Bible says that everything was full and they tried to bring this lame man in to be healed
but they couldn't get him to Jesus because there were so many people in the house
that they had to cut a hole in the roof and they brought him down in the midst
and when he came down, he healed the man right there in this crowded house in front of everybody
and the people said, we never saw it on this fashion.
I was going to preach this sermon about how, hey, it can be done in a house again.
We can have this house filled and packed and people can be healed
and God's Word can be preached and people will say, we never saw it on this fashion.
I was excited. We had the things up. I was going to preach.
It was going to be this encouraging rah rah sermon getting everybody excited to go out
and here comes the first Sunday of the year and no one shows up.
Not one person. First time it ever happened. Nobody showed up.
Me, my wife and my children.
And I was already ready for this because I told myself, if nobody ever shows up,
if there's ever a service where nobody shows up, I'm just going to start the service.
We're going to sing the songs. We're going to start on time.
We're going to go through the whole thing just like it's supposed to be
because my family is important and if they're in church, I'm going to preach to them.
But I think to myself, I'm going to preach the sermon about the house is going to be packed.
And it's like my wife and my kids.
So we start the service and we're in the house. We're in our living room.
We have a downstairs bedroom in our house and we made the downstairs bedroom the mother baby room.
The mother baby room had this little tiny screen, like a baby monitor.
That was our first monitor. We had the baby monitor on the piano and whatever.
So we go through the whole service. We sing the song. We go through the announcements.
We sing the song. We take the offering. We sing the song.
I read the text and then I bow my head to pray before the preaching.
And I close my eyes and I'm praying right before the sermon.
And I hear our little daughter, our baby daughter or one of our kids that was young, start crying.
My eyes are closed. I'm praying.
And I hear, I can hear my wife because the baby's crying.
And she's like gathering the stuff and gathering the kids and she's getting up and going to the mother baby room.
As I'm praying, my eyes are closed and I'm thinking to myself like,
Honey, are you serious? There's nobody here.
Like I'm just going to preach to like an empty room while you're in the mother baby room.
You're not distracting me. Nobody's here.
You know, so I'm just like, what in the world is she doing?
And I say, Amen. I open my eyes and right in front of me is Miss Jovita.
Miss Jovita is this Filipino lady. She came to our very first service.
She was there from day one. She eventually moved to the Philippines.
But Miss Jovita had came in while I was praying. I didn't realize it.
And then our baby started crying so my wife didn't want to distract Miss Jovita.
So she gets the baby and goes to the mother baby room.
I'm sure she had to nurse the baby and whatever, do all those things.
So then I was like, okay, I see why you left.
You know, you don't want to distract Miss Jovita.
So I, you know, so I preach the sermon.
And it's like, it's me and Miss Jovita and my wife and a mother baby room.
And I'm preaching about, you know, I just, I don't know what I'm going to do.
I didn't have another sermon. I'm just like, this house is going to be full.
This house is going to be packed.
You're going to have to bring people in through the wall, you know, through the roof.
And I just preach my whole sermon.
You know, in my heart I'm just like, what in the world?
And I remember just, you know, I prayed at the end and I did back then what I do to this day.
I went to the back door and I waited while Miss Jovita grabbed her stuff.
She came to the door.
I remember she looked at me and she said, great sermon, Pastor.
She shook my hand and left and it was just kind of like, oh.
I'm just here to tell you the ministry can be hard.
I get that.
But you know what?
We ought to be happy in the service of the King.
You know, praise God for Miss Jovita.
Praise God for my family being there.
Praise God for the work.
Look, let's not be discouraged in the service of the Lord.
In fact, something that the Queen of Sheba saw, she said, happy are thy men.
Happy are these thy servants.
She said, I've never seen.
You know that the world doesn't see happy people?
They go to work and they don't see happy people.
They go to their family gatherings and they don't see happy people.
They see people that have got to get drunk to have a good time.
They're so miserable.
They ought to show up to church and see happy people.
People that are agreeable and that are pleasant and that are happy.
That doesn't mean that our lives are what we want.
That doesn't mean that there's not difficulty.
That doesn't mean that things don't go wrong at times.
That doesn't mean that you don't accidentally put the wrong date in the bulletin.
That doesn't mean any of that.
But it means that we're happy in the service of the King.
That we're happy where Jesus has us.
Acts chapter 20, you notice what the Bible says.
Verse 24.
Here's what Paul said.
He said, but none of these things move me.
Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course.
Now there's a famous passage in 2 Timothy where Paul talks about finishing his course.
I fought the good fight.
I've ran the race.
He said, I finished my course.
But I like what he says here because he says that I might finish my course, notice these
words, with joy.
Paul said, I don't just want to be in the ministry.
I want to be in the ministry and happy about it.
Look, I don't want to get to the end of my marriage and I've been married for ...
My wife and I got married when we were 18 years old.
It's very possible that we could be married for 40 years or 50 years.
I don't want to get to the end of this thing and be like, well we made it.
50 years and the whole thing was miserable but we never got a divorce.
Praise God.
No, I want to get to the end of that thing and say, I'm happy.
I'm happy in the service of the Lord.
I'm happy with what God has allowed us to do.
I'm happy and I'm thankful for the wife He gave me and the children He gave me and the
church He's given us and the work He's given us.
And yes, have there been trials?
Yes.
Have there been down times?
Yes.
Have there been fights?
Yes.
Have there been persecutions?
Yes.
There's been all of that.
But we're happy in the service of our King.
Go to Matthew chapter 12.
We'll finish up.
Matthew chapter 12.
We have this Queen of Sheba.
She shows up.
Why don't you notice a few things about the Queen of Sheba.
We'll just look at this real quick.
I'm out of time.
I've got to do this quickly.
I want you to notice that the Queen of Sheba, she showed up with some hard questions.
I don't know what they were.
I honestly don't know what they were.
Maybe they were scientific questions.
Maybe they were questions about nature.
Maybe she was struggling in her marriage.
I don't know what it was.
She shows up with some hard questions and the Bible says that Solomon, it seems to indicate
that he didn't hide anything.
Meaning he not only answered questions, he answered questions she didn't ask.
He answered questions she shouldn't have asked, she should have asked.
You say, what do you think was one of those questions?
Well, in Matthew chapter 12 verse 42, the Bible tells us this about the Queen of Sheba.
Matthew 12 42, I recently preached about this to our church family on Wednesday night.
Matthew 12 42, the Queen of the South, that's the Queen of Sheba, this is Jesus speaking,
shall rise up in the judgment.
The judgment is referring to the judgment day, the great white throne.
You say she's going to be at the great white throne.
All of us are going to be there because she's not being judged at the great white throne.
She's not being condemned.
She's doing the condemning.
The Queen of Sheba shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and notice and shall condemn it.
For she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon.
And behold, a greater than Solomon is here.
You know, one thing that we know when the Queen of Sheba showed up, when she left, she left saved.
You say, what's a question that he hid nothing from her?
What's a question that she didn't ask that he answered?
At some point in her stay, Solomon said, hey, I'm happy to answer all your questions,
but you know, there's one question you should be asking me and it's about,
do you know for sure if you died today or you're on your way to heaven?
Because she shows up, the Bible tells us, with these hard questions.
She left, but you know what, she left saved because Jesus tells us that she's going to rise up at the judgment
and she's going to condemn those and she's going to say, look, I came from the uttermost part of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon and you're not listening to Jesus and Jesus is greater than Solomon.
So I want you to notice she left saved, but not only that, go back to 1 Kings chapter 10, look at verse 1.
Not only did she leave saved, but I want you to notice, notice her attitude coming into the thing, 1 Kings 10, 1.
And when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord,
she came to prove, she wanted proof, she didn't believe, she came to prove him with hard questions.
But notice verse 5, when she left.
And the meat of his table and the sitting of his servants and the attendance of his ministers
and their apparel and his cupbearers and his ascent by which he went up into the house of the Lord,
there was, notice, no more spirit in her.
You know, she came kind of feisty.
I'm going to prove this guy, see if he's really what he says he is, see what this is all about.
She came kind of feisty with this bad attitude, but you know when she left, the Bible says she left with no more spirit in her.
She came ready to fight, but you know she left surrendered.
So how did the Queen of Sheba leave the presence of Solomon?
She left saved, she left surrendered, and she left satisfied.
Notice verse 6.
And she said to the king, it was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom.
Howbeit I believe not the words.
She says, look, I had a bad attitude about this thing.
I believe not the words.
Until I came, and mine eyes have seen it, and behold, the half was not told me.
Thy wisdom and prosperity exceeded the fame which I heard.
You say, Pastor, why do we need to have practical preaching?
Why do we need to have a professional program?
Why do we need to be pleasant people?
Sometimes people come to church, they're so negative about everything.
And I don't think they're really negative about church, they're just negative about life.
Just everything's wrong, everything's bad.
Can you believe they didn't do this, or they didn't do that, or can you believe this mistake,
or they said the wrong thing.
You know, everything's just this negativity.
You say, why should we be pleasant? Here's why.
So that when people show up, they'll leave saved, surrendered, and satisfied.
They'll say, wow, there's something there.
Those people, they got something.
I've never seen people, so I've never seen married couples that actually love each other.
I've never seen that.
That's amazing.
They'll look at us and say, I got the answers to the questions.
I was impressed with their efficiency and how seriously they took the work of God.
And they were happy.
And people will say, I want that.
I want that.
I want my children to be like those children.
I want my marriage to be like those marriages.
I want my legacy to be like those legacies.
Those are the ingredients of a great church.
That's why I'm here tonight with a prayer.