Baptist Church. It's good to see everyone this morning. We will turn in our
Let us praise his wing.
Glory in the highest I will shout and sing.
Standing on the promises of God, standing, standing.
Beth, this church, today is August 10th already, man.
It just goes by so quickly.
Right there on the left, we have our service time,
Sunday morning, 10.30 a.m., Sunday evening, 4.30 p.m.,
and then Wednesday service is at 5.30 p.m.,
and then our soul-winning time,
well, you know, we're already looking ahead.
That's why we have times,
even though there's only one time,
because we'll add more times,
but it's Sunday at 2 p.m.
And then the verse of the week is Philippians one to so that'll be coming up next week
It's grace be unto you and peace from God our father and from the Lord Jesus Christ
And again if any of the kids can quote any of the verses during the week
to somebody who's a non-family member.
Then as long as the parents are okay with it,
we've had ice cream in front of them.
And then at the end of the whole chapter,
whoever can quote it to somebody who's a non-family member,
we have gift cards or some kind of gift for you guys.
And then year to date, your numbers are wrong.
We have 176 souls won.
So I rushed in here this morning.
I did not update that number.
I apologize for that.
And then we have our birthdays coming up.
Jesse on the 13th.
Eli on the 17th and then Cynthia sister Cynthia on the 28th, and it'll be her first year celebrating as a mom
So she's probably excited and then right there yesterday
Was pastor cove and sisters Linda's 50th anniversary wedding anniversary, you know, so if you don't mind
Let's give them a round of applause
We don't have anything made you know he already all week. He was taking his wife around he was getting her hair done
And I think they went to you know dinner
He's still taking care of his wife for romanticizing her you know 50 years later
So that was really really nice to see but what what I will do is one of the places
They love to frequent is a little tiny place. It's a hole in the wall here called mighty burger, right?
So after the services, that's if you're okay with that pastor, whoever wants to join us,
we can all meet and fellowship there for a little bit and just celebrate you guys.
All right? All right. So that's what we'll do. And then, uh, August 22nd, which is a Friday,
we're just gonna, I'm just gonna set the time, 7pm. We have pastor Stephen Anderson from Faith
He's going to guess preach.
And then on the 23rd, we actually
have a soul-winning marathon scheduled for that Saturday.
Of course, back to our regular scheduled services.
And then this week, Thursday,
through Saturday, basically, just Thursday, half day,
and I think Saturday, half morning, Friday, all day.
There's a measure of treatment steadfast
that we're provided to.
So if any of the men want to come, let me know.
I will be there.
I believe I'm preaching on Friday.
And then we have the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship,
August 27th through the 31st.
And I will be preaching that Sunday morning in Spanish.
then I will be preaching that Sunday evening in English so that's where I'll be they'll end up of
the
At the end of the month I have brother Mike will be preaching the morning service that day
So come and support him for those of you who don't go to the fire breathing Baptist fellowship
And then Pastor Cobb will be preaching the evening service
Pastor Cobb also be preaching this Wednesday for us and then we have another
Sunday where he's and then he's actually preaching I think next Sunday
So, you know 88 50 years of marriage and still preaching the word of God, you know that I mean
What else could you ask for and then I want to
Recognize a couple people, we'd like to welcome back
the Capriati family, they're here visiting us.
And then again, last week,
we had the Limones family come visit us
and they're back again.
So welcome and thank you for coming by.
And there's just a couple of housekeeping rules.
Brother Heath, I appreciate it.
He's taken on a project to make the baby mother room better.
But in the meantime, it's not better, it's worse.
Because it has to get worse before it gets better.
So what I would ask is nobody, please don't let your kids go back there.
There's actually paint and like mud, you know, like.
wall mud and all that stuff is if they got in there and destroyed it just now
it would really be worse so just those two doors are closed we do have the
benches by blocking that and if you want to see that just ask whether he there's
only one wall painted right now we'll get the rest of them painted but he wants
to do that before Pastor Anderson comes here it's just a good project he took on
we really appreciate it so if you guys could do that so for the meantime if the
in the kitchen area and then just as a housekeeping because I know some of the people come visit
any materials in the back or just any materials in the church are free for anybody to use to pass
out to take home if you don't have a Bible or you need to give it to your friends and family
that's what's there we also have a lot of the cards as well and if we need anything else just
If anybody wants to join or if anybody wants to participate, just come see me and we'll
work that out.
The church will support you, we'll do our best to get you there with as little investment
as possible.
If no investment possible, then that's even better.
And then on the, on just on any communication, on the very back of the bulletins, we have
the church phone number, which works just like a regular cell phone.
It's just like a marketing number so I can mass text and email.
My phone number is also there at the bottom, my personal cell phone, it's a 956 number.
I've had that number since 1998, so you know it's kind of hard not to change, but that's my personal cell phone number if anybody ever needs to reach out to me as well.
And then of course all our contact information.
And without it, is there any announcements that I'm missing or anything I need?
And then yeah, brother Jason will pass out some bulletins. I do really good at one thing and I forget something else
So thank you. I always forget something, but we got brother moe if you'll turn your hymns over to page 50. Thanks, bro
All right, turn in your hymnals to page 50
Page number 50 to God be the glory.
67 song 67 and our song finders
Romans chapter number 14. We'll read the Bible while the offering plate is past.
Romans chapter number 14, where the Bible reads.
Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations.
For one believeth that he may eat all things, another who is weak eateth herbs.
Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not, and let not him which eateth not judge
Who art thou that judges another man's servant?
To his own master he standeth, or falleth.
Yea, he shall be holding up, for God is able to make him stand.
One man esteemeth, one day above another,
another esteemeth, every day alike.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
He that regarded the day, regarded it unto the Lord,
and he that regarded not the day,
to the Lord he doth not regard it.
He that eateth, eateth to the Lord.
He giveth God thanks and he that eateth not to the Lord, he eateth not and giveth God thanks.
For none of us have lived, for none of us liveeth to himself and no man dieeth to himself.
For whether we live, we live unto the Lord and whether we die, we die unto the Lord.
For to this end, Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be the Lord both of the dead and living.
But why dost thou judge thy brother, or why dost thou set at naught thy brother, for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ?
For it is written, as I live, sayeth the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.
Let us not therefore judge one another any more, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.
I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself,
but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.
But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably.
Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died."
Let not then your good evil be spoke your good be evil spoken of for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink
But righteousness and peace and joy and the Holy Ghost for he that is in these things
Servith Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men
Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace and things wherewith one may edify another
For me, destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for that man who
eateth with offense. It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine nor anything whereby
thy brother stumbleeth or is offended or is made weak. Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before
And he that doubteth is damned if he eat,
because he eateth not of faith,
but whatsoever is not of faith is sin.
Let's have a quick word of prayer.
Dear Fr. God, thank you for this day.
Thank you for gathering us all here
to hear your word for each Lord.
I pray you fill us with your spirit,
help us to receive the message with gladness, Lord.
And I pray that you feel Pastor Enrique Reyes
with your spirit, helping them preach
a bold and accurate sermon.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Amen.
And then you're there in Romans 14
You're there in Romans 14
Before we get started just look down there verse number two. I just love that verse right because it's Texans
We're just good meat eaters says for one that believe it for one bullet that he may eat all things
Another who is weak?
Eat at herbs. So that's why we just don't eat vegetables and stuff as often as we do meat
Right because I don't want to be weak
I just want to you know, enjoy the the good word and the meat of the word of God
But the you're there. Let's go focus on verse 11 and 12 of Romans
14
And let me just make sure I got my timer here. There you go.
Romans 14 says,
the great reckoning, accountability before God and man.
And so the purpose of the sermon this morning is,
last week I preached a couple of practical ones,
and I'm going to kind of pivot,
but these had been just in my mind for a couple weeks,
and I don't know if it's necessarily,
they had been on my mind because of things that are going on.
You know, sometimes I think things are just happening subconsciously,
and you end up doing it, and then it just worked out
that even this week, just on Friday,
I had somebody else that I was working with out in another part of the world and like
mid call, you know, I was holding them accountable and they just kind of like dropped off.
And so this seems to be a trend all over the country.
And I was like, I already had thought about this server, but I just
You know just solidified my thought about the fact that you know, we don't have what does that word reckon me?
It means to like account for right esteem or think on things. We just we're losing personal responsibility
Not only in America, but in the entire world and what it actually what it made me think about was I was only gonna preach about the fact that
personal responsibility seems to be at a
Downward spiral here in the US, but this person that just quit on me like halfway
And I'm just thinking, you know, what's one of the things is
our influence is starting to permeate the rest of the world, right? People do things based on what
they see, what on American television, sitcoms, TV, all that, because this guy speaks perfect English,
his actually probably speaks better than his mother tongue. He knows more about like American
culture than he probably knows about his own culture. And it's just, it's just a problem in
America, right? And I'm going to kind of touch on that and how we need to approach,
accountability in light of the Bible, right?
And so, and the reason I call it the great reckoning is
because at the end of the day, what does the Bible say?
So that every one of us shall give account of himself.
to who? To God. You know, it doesn't matter what you think you're doing or don't think or if you were right,
righted or wronged, or if you think you're doing the right thing. At the end of the day,
our only barometer is in the eyes of God. And the only one we really need to answer to
ultimately is God. And you say, well, what about your church and your family and your friends and all these people?
Well, look, if you're answering to God,
And then everything else just falls into place.
You're going to obey the authorities in your life.
You're going to obey the people.
But let's look at a couple of verses there.
In verse five, it says, one esteemeth, one day above another.
Another esteemeth every day alike,
let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
In other words, don't fight over the petty things,
which some people do.
Right it says he that regardeth the day regarded unto the Lord and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord
He does not regard it he that Edith Edith to the Lord for he giveth God
Thanks and he that Edith not to the Lord he does not and give it God
Thanks for none of us liveth to himself and no man
diet himself. And you know, we have this attitude in America, everything is in extremes, right?
You're either like this lone island out in the middle of nowhere, so nobody bugs you,
or you're in the middle of everything, but you just want to be left alone.
You know, you're this antisocial individual who doesn't want to talk to anybody.
And I don't know if you know this, but I mean, literally, I've heard people say,
you know, life would be great if it wasn't for what other people?
you know there's nothing I hate more in this world than other humans you know I just I can't
and yeah I'm thinking to myself look at yourself in the mirror like I mean maybe people don't like you
you know I don't know what to say right verse 14 says I know and I'm persuaded by the Lord Jesus
that there's nothing unclean of itself but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean
to him let him be clean in other words let him be accountable himself let him reckon that right
22, just to go through these verses, it says, has thou faith?
Have it to thyself before God.
Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing,
which he alloweth.
You know, and if we were to take it into context,
people like to fight over the minute things, right?
Even someone who eats herbs.
Hey, look, it's not a sin to eat herbs.
It's just that you're not as strong
as someone who eats meat, right?
That's why at our house, we eat a lot of steak
and we eat a lot of ground beef and pork and, you know,
Chicken and fish and all that stuff. We love protein, but some people think that protein is bad for you
They're just weaker, you know, so we just need to love them a little bit better
We just need to be a little bit more patient with them. All right, but what's that word reckon really mean?
I mean in the South we use that a lot, right? It's a southern colloquialism. I reckon that person's over there
I reckon this or I reckon that but the Bible actually uses that word a lot and that word reckon just means to count or
compute or calculate as in the number of mount
Also, it means to consider or esteem something, right?
That's why we say, oh, I reckon that person's a bad person, or I reckon that person's a
good person, right?
Or you think or suppose, I suppose or I reckon something's going to happen, right?
And so you're just basically settling accounts, you're counting on something, you consider
it in your planning, or you're anticipating it, or you deal with it.
But then that word account is closely tied to it, but it's not the same thing.
right? The account means you give an oral or written description of a particular event. In
other words, you're retelling or you're accounting for the things that you're talking about,
right? An explanatory statement of conduct as to a superior.
And then, of course, it has a lot to do with accounting in this world.
Like if you have a bank account, or you're going through your accounting, or even in
commerce or in digital, like you have a login, what's my account, right?
My username and password.
But it all means the same thing, right?
It's to give it an account too, or to get transparency behind something.
And so I just wanted to touch on those, because the King James reckoned an account or related,
they often overlap in meaning, right? Wrecking can mean to count, consider, esteem, calculate,
conclude. It's often has the idea of reasoning something out or tallying it up, whereas account
usually means to give an answer for, or explain, or settle, or to be responsible.
They're more directly tied to the idea of reporting back to someone authority. But with reckoning,
It starts with you right like it's something that you think about and then you're given account for that
And that's why we read that we're going to give an account to God.
And ultimately, that's really the goal, right?
Is that even when we're accounting to someone else, the reason we hold ourselves accountable
is because we ultimately want to be accountable to who?
The Lord Jesus Christ, right?
I have people in my life, and even to my wife, sometimes I'll be like, hey honey, let me make
this change in my life or let's do this so I can be accountable to you and the kids for
whatever reason.
changing the schedule, or maybe it can be something more serious, but I have those conversations,
right?
Hey, let me do this so I can be accountable to you, or maybe a business partner, or,
hey, Pastor, you know, Cobb, when we first transitioned, you know, I don't do it as much
now, but it's still a good practice to just come up to me and, hey, we're doing this or
I'm doing that.
It's just really a transparency and an accountability so that, you know, I mean, you know, I mean,
at the end of the day we all make mistakes so we shouldn't walk around thinking that you know
just because we're doing things in the church or we're reading our bibles or we're praying
that we're doing everything right right and so we should reckon to ourselves like
self-examine what is it that I'm accomplishing in my life what are the actions I'm taking and
You see it everywhere, right?
What happened in 2007 and 2008?
Let me start with the big stuff
and we'll go with the little stuff.
right? We had this financial crisis, you know, Brother Tre and I lived through it. Like it was
one of the most like stressful and tense times of our lives. We ran a boutique broker dealer.
We had people who had invested in our company and personally with us and people were losing 60,
70% of all their retirement and assets. You know who they're blaming? They're blaming us,
even though we didn't have anything to do with it. And what was the term that came about?
You know, it's a term that came out earlier in the 1980s, but it became popular then.
2007, 2008, 2009 area.
And it was that all these companies were what?
They were too big to fail, right?
And I remember there was this, in the financial services,
there was this kind of like split
between those that were like, yeah, these companies,
Merrill Lynch and Ernst Young and Burns
and all these other ones, now it's been a long time.
They're like, they're too big to fail.
We need to get the government to come in and bail them out.
But then you had the other group were like, hey, if a business fails, it fails, even if
it has deeper ramifications to the economy and to the people and everything, because
they need to be personally responsible.
They need to be held responsible for it.
One of the key people that lost, I think it was something in the billions of dollars
with some guy by the name of Jamie Dimon with the Chase, you know, he was, I think he's
basically it all got bailed out nobody said anything and all that money didn't
know I think he just might have gotten a slap on the wrist but we know I mean we
met people we interacted with people that just didn't care they just took
people's money and it got lost and people lost
more than just money.
Sometimes they lost their marriages,
sometimes they lost their homes, their families,
to the point where people lost their lives
because of the lack of personal responsibility,
personal reckoning, right?
And then I was reading this interesting article
that I was doing this,
and the article comes from a website
called the American Enterprise Institute.
And the reason I read it is because it's recent.
It's in the month of March of this year.
and the title of the article starts out, not only have two paragraphs to read, I'm not going to
read the whole thing, but it's what's wrong with personal responsibility. And in here,
what's interesting is this guy's talking about how he's having this conversation with someone
and the guy's asking if it's okay to ask
about personal responsibility because people get, you know, they're a little sensitive
to the issue. And he said, you know, and he gives this example, he says, on one mundane,
but revealing instance of how toxic things that got occurred, how toxic things got occurred in
2021, when the student affairs administration in higher education invited financial self-help guru,
Susie Orman, I don't know if you ever heard that she's that short-haired dyke, just a pain in the
personally us that were in the financial services you know the group of
people I hung out with we never liked Susie or mom but a lot of people liked
her right but that's irrelevant I just that's more of a personal thing but it
says to keynote their annual conference
only to freak out when she urged the audience to take charge of their financial futures.
Scandalized by this advice, the organization apologized for Orman making remarks offensive
We cannot discuss financial literacy without first acknowledging the inequitable and unjust systems that have prevented black
indigenous Latinx Asia Asian queer trans first-gen low-income and many other historical
minoritized and marginalized communities from attaining education and
general light and
general wealth
You know the problem is basically we're raising a generation of pansies
That's not willing to stand up and just own up to the mistakes of their life, right?
Let me just tell you something
God doesn't owe you anything and neither does the world, you know
We need to take a personal reckoning you are where you are in life because of the choices that you've made period
You can't even control and it really is like that because the world's so big that some of the major events in the world
Don't technically affect us right away. Right? I mean, how has the war in Ukraine affected you?
I mean, maybe in produce, I think that they produced a lot of things, but like when you
wake up in the morning, you're like, you know, you're going to put gas in your car and you're
like, oh, that damn Ukraine and Russia war is front.
Is that what you're doing?
No, you're just like, man, I need to make more money because everything's gone up in
price.
Now, I know there's trickle effects.
You could make the argument for that.
But that's how the world wants you to think that somehow something that happened then is affecting you now, right?
Or something that happened hundreds of years ago
Happened that you know is affecting you now like somehow all the white people in this room
Need to give me money because my Mexican heritage, you know, you stole my land
I mean, I've never, I never lived in this land when it was Mexico.
It's not my land.
I have no deeds to it.
I can't even prove if that was even the case.
Like it's just a dumb way to look at life, but somehow people get really like enamored
with these ideas of fighting for things that don't exist.
You know why?
Because they want to distract from the fact that they don't want to be personally, personally,
Right people don't want to get job. We went and did a like a job earlier this week where we changed out a
Like a water heater. I talked about it on Wednesday
That's irrelevant and by the way when I say we changed the water heater
I was more like where do you want me to hold this? What what wrench do you need?
So just let me be clear. I did not do any of the fancy stuff
But though the person that was living there was this 84 year old individual and the house was full of people
that were like grown individuals that are living there because they won't go out and get their own
place. I mean, I'm not talking like 20 year olds. I'm talking like 30, 40 year olds that are married
with their kids. Like this guy has his daughter and his grandkids and other people. Like it's just
like, but it's not just this guy. This is like all over America. Right? I mean, Hispanics are guilty
you know and somebody would be like why just like having family you know I love having family
but I like having my family around and that's about it you know I don't I don't want my brothers
and sisters and my aunts my brother-in-laws and I'd be annoyed I'd be angry all the time I'm already
angry enough as it is right
and then you know so it comes from the smallest of things all the way to the biggest of things
i mean that that term too big to fail it's interesting because it's it's a theory it says
is a theory in banking and finance that assert certain corporations particular financial institutions
are so large and so interconnected with an economy that their failure would be disastrous to the
I think I heard the number recently. I don't even check it anymore, but I think somebody was mentioning it or something like 33 or 37 million dollar a trillion dollars in debt
like
You know why because we just keep
We're moving personal accountability from everybody else.
Oh, you're in trouble. Don't worry about it. We'll just take care of you.
Right? We've got to show up and just take care of what?
The things that God's asked us to take care of, right?
And so these are the things that I want to focus on.
And it comes, you know, the reason this is so important
is because we're still the only light of hope in the entire world.
then you might as well just get ready, you know, for what's called the end times. And I really believe
that in so many respects, right? You look at the, the, the constitutions and the writings of other
countries and you won't find anything near what the United States has, right? I'm not going to read
it for the sake of time, but the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, I do all actually just
want to read this part, right? It says, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are
by their Creator with certain, what, unenalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. People are like, oh, health care is a right. No, it's not.
Oh, you know, bailing me out is a right. No, it's not. Your only right is life because God gave you
Liberty when you're free in Christ because God gave it to you and
You can't have the right to pursue happiness. That doesn't mean you're gonna attain it
But at least you can pursue it right and those are you know
We need to get back to teaching that to the youth of America to the next generation. I grew up
We went to school. I went to a public school and we learned all this stuff like we would
do our Pledge of Allegiance, whether you agree with it or not, what I'm trying to say is, hey,
these were the foundations of personal responsibility. You owned up to your mistakes,
good or bad. I mean, when I was in seventh grade, I got whooped on by the principal,
not my parents for acting up in class. You know, today, if that happened, that person
probably thrown in jail, you know, just because, you know, they're getting on to, you know, poor
I mean, isn't it just a couple of months ago some kids stabbed another kid and it just be you know
The kid that stabbed the kid was the victim right and I mean
It's just like these are the stories that we constantly keep hearing over and over
I mean just the other I mean this is just this morning wasn't in here in Houston
They're looking for some guy who was just in the park and decided to stab like some 70 70 year old biker just because
You know, he just wanted to you know why because there's no more personal responsibility
Everybody thinks they can just get away with anything. All right, so the first point I have for you
I have a couple points for you, but turn over to Roman six turn over Roman six and the first point is
Reckoning starts where in the mind and in the heart says what the hard man believeth unto what?
Salvation right unto righteousness
One of the mouths who make confession, you know, I'm paraphrasing it just for the sake of time, but
But it's also the heart is tied to what the mind?
And it's a it's time that we start educating not only re-educating ourselves
But also educating whoever we can about the fact that the Bible gives us a clear indication that we are personally
Responsible for ourselves remember Moses he felt so bad for the people because God was mad at the people and Moses said hey
Why don't you just blop me out? I love that interaction in the Old Testament,
because the next verse, and I don't have it memorized, but I'm going to paraphrase it for you,
in the next verse, God says, He doesn't even pay attention to Moses. He like totally ignores
him. He's like, Hey, he who sins against me, that's what I'm going to hold. Like basically,
that's what I'm going to punish. He's like, Moses, I don't know what you're trying to do.
Right? Because with personal accountability also comes like when we're trying to help people out,
we have two mistakes. You have the group of people that make the mistake that everybody owes them something.
Right? Oh, I, you know, I'm a certain race, so you owe me whatever restitution for all the sins of your past, you know, whatever.
Or you have the people who are like, well, I'm so sorry that you suffered so much.
So I'm going to take on this hero complex and then I'm going to just take care of you and do all this stuff.
This is like, you can't save the whole world. I mean, that's why you got people that go out.
like in the deep sea in these little boats trying to get like these whalers to stop killing whales
it's just like oh you know if i could just save one whale i could save the world right
if we just get one one cow to not fart anymore then we'll save the entire environment i mean
this is the ridiculousness of our world right i mean i did use the word fart just because there's
kids in the audience and i thought you know at least we'll wake them up a little bit right
what you believe what you conclude and what you count on as truth in your mind and your heart will set the course of life and
When you reckon these things incorrectly, well when you come to the time of accounting before God
It's gonna be pretty bad, right?
If you're unsaved, well, the reckoning is you're going to hell for all eternity.
But if you're saved, you don't want to be the least in the kingdom when you get to heaven.
You want to have done things for the Lord Jesus Christ, right?
In Romans 6, verse 11, the Bible says,
Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin,
but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lest thereof.
yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield you
yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead when your members as
instruments of righteousness unto God you know why does the US have this
personal responsibility kind of mantra, this belief that, you know, we should take accountability,
even though it's on the decline, we're still probably the only country who believes that we
should do things on our own, right? The greatest innovations still come from this country. The
greatest businesses still come from this country. I saw some statistic about just how many businesses
all the other countries combined,
and we like decimate the rest of the countries, right?
Because people want to have personal ownership,
personal responsibility, but it comes from the Bible.
Because God's constantly saying, hey, you are the one that I'm concerned about.
You're the one that needs to answer to me, not whatever the church does or whatever.
You know, I've told you guys before and I'll tell you again,
it's great to see all these people in the audience, but I don't show up for you.
I show up because I'm responding to God.
So if there's 30 people in the audience or there's one, I'm still going to show up
because my responsibility is to, you know, to God.
My responsibility isn't to you. It trickles down and I become responsible to you to feed the flock
But only because God's asked me hey, you need to feed the flock
Let's be responsible for that. You don't have to turn there go ahead and turn over to Romans 4
Just go back a few pages, but in Luke 22 verse 37 the Bible says where I say unto you that
this
That is written must be yet accomplished in me and he was reckoned among the transgressors for the things concerning me
have an end and
Sometimes the reckoning is not what you think it's not fair
I mean wasn't really fair from a human perspective that Jesus died on the cross and paid all our sins
No, he was just reckoned for that. That was the beautiful. That's the beautiful thing about salvation is he just took it on
because that was the responsibility he decided to take on Jesus with God the Father, right?
In Galatians 3 verse 16 says,
even as Abraham believed,
and it was accounted to what?
To everybody? No, to him for righteousness.
Which is interesting, because today we have these people that say,
hey, we need to be allies with the Jews.
I wasn't going to touch on it, but it just makes sense, right?
And they're like, hey, we want to be allies with the Jews in Israel,
Abraham believed, and it was only accounted to who?
To Abraham.
Hey, Abraham believed, but if you don't believe...
Just because Abraham believed doesn't mean you're going to get in heaven like it's not because of Abraham
It's because of you you've got to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ Genesis 15 6
I mean we see these verses over and over again says and he believed in the Lord speaking of Abraham and
Counted it to him for what for righteousness. That's where we're getting this from and even in Romans 4
We're gonna see this but I love Romans 4 because it's just so clear first of all on salvation and you know
If I can take the time to just
always reiterate salvation, I will, but also these are just great verses on personal accountability.
It says, what shall we say then in verse one, then that Abraham our father as pertaining to the flesh hath found?
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath weareth to glory, but not before God.
It's interesting because where does personal accountability start?
By your faith, not by your works.
The works come after your faith.
Because if Abraham was going to be justified by all the great things that he did,
then he would have things to boast about, but not before God.
Isn't that what the world is? It's a boasting platform.
Now with social media and everything, everybody's boasting about something,
except God doesn't care.
He's not that interested. Go to verse 3. He says,
For what sayeth the Scripture, Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
And then I love this verse. It's one of the greatest verses in the Bible
against salvation by works. It says,
Not unto him that worketh is the reward, not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
But to him that work is not but believe it's on him to justify the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness
Look the accounting doesn't even begin until you just until you believe
It says, even as David described the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputed righteousness
without works, saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are
covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
Comeeth this blessedness than upon the circumcision only or upon the uncircumcision also.
For we say that faith faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned? In other words, how did
Abraham get saved?
It said when he was in
circumcision or an uncircumcision not in circumcision, but in what an uncircumcision because it's not of works
But it's interesting because then after that what does God do? He holds him accountable, right? He chastises him
See, I'd rather be chastised and corrected than punished because that's the difference,
right?
Punishment is not even has nothing to do with accountability because remember, if you're
accountable to someone and, you know, for example, my kids are accountable to me, let
me just use that example.
If they mess up, you know what, I'm not condemning them to hell.
I'm not throwing them in a dungeon and feeding them water of affliction and bread of affliction.
You know, I just, I punish them and then we move on.
I love them.
Right, but if it's an enemy that attacks our home or something, I don't know what I'd be capable of doing, right?
It's the same thing with God. God holds us accountable. He wants us to to reckon ourselves to be
Responsible for our own actions, but then if we don't do it, he's gonna correct us
But it starts with faith
right
Go over to yeah, go over to Hebrews 4 go over to Hebrews 4. So the first thing we see that reckoning starts in the mind and in the heart
And I know it feels kind of repetitive, but it needs to be, that in order for us to establish
any of the points that I make in most of the sermons, we have to realize that I'm talking
to people of safe believers, or at least the majority of you should be.
And if you're not saved, you need to get saved.
You know, just, let's make that simple.
And if you don't know how to get saved, come talk to me or any of the men in the church,
we'll make sure that thing gets settled immediately.
We have an accountability to God and I know we preach on this quite a bit
But I've never preached to like that the specific look guys at the end of the day
You're only responsible to answer to God
Now kids obey your parents wives submit yourself to your husbands
But that's why you do it because you're accountable to God husbands lead your wives and
You know be men about it because you're responsible to who to God
Right if you show up to church act according to the way that God wants you to act in church
Not because of what I say or what I do at the end of the day. It doesn't really matter what matters is what God sees
Right, you're there in Hebrews 4, but I'll read for you really quick in Romans 14
Bible says for it is written as I live sayeth the Lord every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God
So that every one of us shall give account of himself to God
Right, I mean just because you in your mind you reckon that a sin is small
The accounting doesn't your accounting is not God's accounting
The Bible says for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God now
Do I believe there's different that all sin is equal? No, I don't believe that all sin is equal
I think you know, there's definitely based on the Bible
There's consequences for different types of sin, but in God's accounting all sin separates you from God
Just because you tell a white lie you've been you've convinced yourself. Oh, it's not that bad. What's bad?
You just committed sin
period
Oh, you know, I, you know, I, I, I didn't, I treated someone bad or I lost my temper,
but it wasn't that bad.
You know, at least I didn't stab him to death.
Yeah, but it didn't matter.
You sinned before God, right?
I mean, who's ever heard weird examples like that?
Well, you know, at least I don't treat you like the other guy down the street, you know,
who beats his wife and kicks her, you know, whatever.
Doesn't, don't do that.
you know, just treat your wives right.
I don't know why I thought about them,
but I do treat my wife as best as I can.
I don't know if I treat her right all the time,
but I love my wife, right?
So maybe that's what I'm thinking about.
But in Ecclesiastes 12, verse 14, the Bible says,
for God shall bring every work into judgment
with every secret thing,
whether it be good or whether it be evil.
You gotta remind yourself that God's always looking.
He's always paying attention.
It's actually really embarrassing to think about and I it's one of those things that I try to avoid thinking about is the fact that God sees everything
Cuz he's seen some pretty bad things in my life. I just I'd rather I'd rather not even talk about it
Right. I mean, it's just downright not only sad and depressing. It's embarrassing. Thank God that the other thing he does is as far as the east is
From the west he's forgotten my sense
He saw it that moment and then he just decided to forget it and unlike us who have this ability to sometimes recall traumatic events
God really means that when he says that it's done
Right. He's not like a Latino or a Hispanic passive-aggressive God
He's not reminding you like years later
Indirectly that you messed up right second Corinthians 5 verse 9 the Bible says wherefore we labor
That whether present or absent we may be accepted of him
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ
That everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he had done whether it be good or bad
And Hebrews 4 verse 12 the Bible says for the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword
piercing and dividing I mean piercing even to the dividedness under soul and spirit
And of the joints and marrow and it's a discerner of the thoughts and the intent of the heart and then pay attention here says neither
Is there any creature that is not manifesting aside?
But all things are what?
Naked and opened unto the eyes of him whom we have to do
look
You better remind yourself
Next tomorrow morning and later on today that God's God can see everything
Remember when you were little and you'd go to church and they're like remember little eyes what you see or what you touch
I don't know the song but it goes something like that
You know you need to be careful what you're doing because we're personally personally accountable to who ultimately to God
All right, let's go to the next point the next point I have for you and you guys can turn over to 1st Corinthians 4 1st Corinthians 4 is
That you want to have a reckoning and stewardship
What stewardship when you're responsible for that you're taking care of the things that you've been
Handed in your life of responsibility, right?
And when I when I'm talking about here though, it's your accounting or your stewardship to the church
What do I mean by that? Well, before that let me just remind you reckoning starts in the mind and the heart
And when our accountability starts to God so it would make sense that we would talk about the church, right?
and
The thing is with the church is that we need to not only there's two things that we need to focus on
We need to focus on the congregation and the group how we deal with the church in general, right?
The congregation not just from up here or from the pastoral point of view, but even from the congregation or the
The church member but also just the way you personally address these things. I've got a ton of verses here
So just stay with me. I had to turn the first Corinthians
But I'm going to read for you Hebrews 13 really quick, and right here in verse 13, verse 17,
speaking of a group of church members that says, obey them that have ruled over you and
submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls as they must give account that they
may do with joy and not with grief, for that is unprofitable to you.
Now I'm not gonna do like King Hezekiah where when you know God gave him is it Hezekiah that gave him the 15 years I
Always forget is it Zedekiah or Hezekiah?
I think it's Hezekiah, but he gave him extra 15 years and then after that he got like a little bit
You know boastful and some people came to visit and he's like hey, let me show you everything in my house
And the prophet comes, he's like, hey, what did you show him?
He's like, well, I showed him everything.
He's like, oh, because of that, you're going to get destroyed.
Right?
We're not just here.
Like we're transparent, but I'm not just giving you the keys
to the kingdom either.
Right?
But the thing is that we need to submit ourselves
to those that are watching over us.
Look, as long as Pastor Cobb's alive, in my opinion,
I'm still in submission to Pastor Cobb.
He candid the reigns of the church to me. But look, he's the one who ordained me and I don't have to answer
I he never has told me one thing or another there's never been like a set of rules
But I don't need the set of rules because I have them here in the Bible
Right and sometimes people get all up in arms about things and the other thing is I don't owe you anything
Just like you don't owe me anything. We owe it to the Lord
right people get all mad right there it says hey because as they must give an
account so the other thing is don't worry about what I'm doing other than
preaching the Word of God or what other churches are doing or other pastors are
doing you know the the biggest example I can give you because it's the one you
hear the most is like oh I don't go to church because you know they're just
looking at extract money from you
Right money's always the issue. Oh, they're just stealing money from you and they're spending money from you
I don't gift the church because I don't know what they're doing with that money
Look, I give tithes to this church in any church because the church goes to God
If they do something wrong with it, it says that they're accountable for their account
What you need to do is pray for me. Don't worry about me because if I mess up I've got some I've got a punishment coming
I mean, I try to keep that top of mind because I'm like, man, I'd rather you guys beat me up than God beat me up.
I'm just being really serious. You beat me up. It's over. God beat me up. It's pretty serious, right?
I mean, the Bible even says that there is a sin unto death. Like it could be a serious consequence. Go over to Ephesians 4.
I mean, I'm sorry. I haven't read 1 Corinthians 4. I'm sorry. It says, let a man so account of us in verse 1
as of the ministers of Christ and the stewards of the mysteries of God.
Hey, he's like, you're a minister of Christ and you're stewards of the mysteries of God.
Moreover, it is required in stewards, that what? That a man be found faithful.
But with me, it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you
or of a man's judgment.
Yeah, I judge not my own self, for I know nothing by myself,
yet I am not here justified.
But he that judges me is the Lord therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord come
Who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts and then shall every man
Have praise of God and there is a difference and there is a balance between holding someone accountable on the word of God and
Holding someone accountable based on your opinion, right? If you read the Bible in context, you know
what he's talking about is he's he sometimes we judge people based on what we think you should be
doing for the Lord not what you should be doing for the Lord right great example would be like
maybe let's just say that I use I use a spanking stick for my kids and another dad maybe spanks
Like it's not for me to judge whether that one's better than this one. We're both spanking our kids
That's what the Lord asks us to do, you know
It's not for me to sit here and be like well mine is better than that one or his is better than mine
Maybe I should that's not the point
Right and sometimes we'll sit in church in a group of people and the reason that you're making a you know
You're giving someone the the the stinky eye right the mean eyes because you don't like something about them
Oh, they, you know, I can't believe they're letting their kids eat in church or whatever.
I mean, don't let your kids eat in church.
And if they're doing it, if mine are doing it, call me out, right?
But at the same time, they're your kids.
You're responsible to your kids before the eyes of God, just like I'm responsible for
my kids, right?
Go to Ephesians 4 in Romans 8 verse 18, the Bible says, for I reckon.
that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall
be revealed in us. Look, as a church, we need to be what? Suffering for the cause of Christ,
not because someone irritated you in church. Right?
Someone comes and they're suffering because you know, they've got some
Sodomite or reprobate attacking them. Hey, let's get in the battle with them
But if somebody comes to me, they're like, hey, I don't like that you changed the color of the wall or you know that
You know, you took this down or that I'm probably just gonna ignore it and just move on
And then just figure out what we can do with it and life goes on. I'm not gonna like fight anybody about it
I'm not gonna do anything about it necessarily. Just it's not a battle worth having
All right increases for verse 11 the Bible says and he gave some what apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and some teachers
You know what? We might not even get to this sermon. I might just have to come back to it. I'm already in pain
We're 40 minutes in so I might just end up here here closing it out here in the next 20 minutes
But it says and he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and some teachers for the perfecting
Of the saints for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ
So we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God until a perfect man
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more children
tossed to and fro carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slate of men,
sleight of men, and cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait to deceive,
but speaking the truth and love may grow up into him in all things which is the head even
Christ. Hey, there's a reason why the church is established the way it is, especially in our
Baptist circles, because it's for that, for making you better, for growing you up.
Right? If there's young men, hey, you need to grow up.
If there's some old men acting like young men, you need to grow up, right?
It's funny because yesterday my son was playing video games, it's rare that we let him play
video games.
I think that was the first time in months that we did that.
And he's like, hey dad, come play video games with me.
And you know what?
I found that he was doing, he's guiding me.
he's getting frustrated you know why because daddy doesn't know how to play video games anymore
he's like dad you're not pushing press a and then press start and then go up and go down you
let me let me get you this tool and let me get you this thing and and and then he's like oh you
let it you let it go away let me get you another tool i'm like look i don't even i just stop playing
this is like i got frustrated i was like just you guys play i don't i don't need you to hold me
accountable to the buttons i'm not pushing right but isn't that you know how we act sometimes in church
You know, you let the younger child tell the older, more mature Christian how they need to run things in the church.
Someone who's been around for a long time. I mean Pastor Cobb
You know, it's like somebody come in and tell him Pastor Cobb about a run of marriage. He's only been doing it for 50 years
I mean, I think he would know something about it, right? Hey, Pastor Cobb
Maybe maybe treat your wife a little bit better because you know what I found in my marriage is that this is what works
You know, he'd probably just go home and be like, I can't believe it. You just said that to me
You know go over to acts 20. Let me just give you an example
In acts 20 the Bible says in verse 28. I'll start reading for you
It says,
Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made
you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
Notice that he's talking to a group of people to feed the flock.
Now we have clear scripture that the feeding of the flock comes from the pastor, mainly,
this is to a group of people, hey, it's your responsibility to help with the feeding.
Right? There's a lot of children in church and I'm not talking physically. I'm talking spiritually
I mean I can't just go around and put them all in a seat put a bib around them and feed them all like some of the men
You know, you need to help out or you need to just
You know teacher wives or your children the things of God so when they show up to church and they're like hey
The pastor said this they're like oh we get it now
You know we understand what he was saying it says for I know this in verse 29 that after my departing
Why why are we doing this because he says for after my departing show grievous wolves enter in among you
Not sparing the flock
Also, of your own self shall men arise, hey, also some of you in here, and I hope it's
not this group, hopefully when we get bigger that's what will happen, right, but says of
yourselves, just of your own self shall men arise, speaking perverse things that draw
away the disciples after them, therefore watch and remember that by the space of three years
Hey, there's a reason why we preach hard because we don't want that to happen not only here, but in any church
Right, that's why we preach against the false prophets and against false doctrines and against weird things
Sometimes even this the slightest things are the ones we need to preach against because they're the ones that can permeate and just infect the church
Right. I mean that what what was the bad thing about COVID?
Well, you know the initial strain was bad because of all the symptoms, but as COVID started to dilute
What was the bad thing? It's not necessarily the disease. It's the how contagious it was remember that it just it didn't take a
Lot for people to get sick like if we were sitting here and somebody at COVID on the initial strains
Basically, it sounds like everybody here. We could cover right what's the same thing when you let people just false preachers creep in
And we're not prepared as a church
and we're not feeding the flock, somebody's just going to get here and infect the church,
and then everybody's going to be affected. Right? You know, I've had people come,
it's funny, the only two or three times it's happened, go to Galatians 6.
go to Galatians six and like I said I'm just I'm probably just gonna stick to
these points I didn't realize I made it so long so you know sometimes we make
mistakes but Galatians six and verse one but I remember I had one time some guy
called me this is many years ago none of you would have ever met him
Pastor Cobb will know who I'm talking about probably the only one who
remembers and he he left on a vacation and then he came back and they had been
gone for a month and
I mean when they left they just left like normal church members like many of you go on vacation
You know brother Mike just got back from vacation. I mean he just laughed and came back. That's how it was
I'm just trying to put things in perspective
There was no conversation at before other than hey, we're leaving for vacation will come back now
They went like on a month-long vacation and all of a sudden the guy calls me out of the blue and he's like hey
Am I kicked out of the church?
Okay, like I don't know what you mean like
you've been gone for a month. He's like, well, what happened is during my whole time,
you know, I was listening to the Bible and I was listening to preaching. And I think the
first Corinthians 11 is talking about my wife needs to wear a head covering. And he goes,
I was like, you are the leader of your household.
If you want your wife to wear a head covering,
I was like, you're wrong about those verses,
but if that's how you decided that you should do it,
I was like, you can come to church anytime.
I was like, just don't be telling anybody else
your false doctrine.
Like just keep it to yourselves.
So sure enough, they show up Sunday,
she's wearing a head covering, you know,
like a men and night lady.
And then the next Sunday, gone.
They just leave never come back found out years later. They got divorced and that guy went off the deep end and all that stuff
But you know
We need to be firm on what we say and then when when last year
I think it was around this time when pure words went through what they went through
We had a lot of you guys show up here at the spring crest and we had this one guy who I didn't know wasn't part of your flock
But he sat back there and then
right after the services he came up to me and it was like a 30-minute conversation with the same
question he's like hey I don't believe that Jesus literally burned in hell and you know
and I don't remember he and then he some other doctrine I don't remember what it was
and I was like well you know that's not the stands of the church you know I can show you
And he said well, can I come to church and I said yeah, you can come to church
I said like but look this is what we believe just don't be spreading around and then for 30 minutes. He kept going like hey
Can I come to church here if I don't believe this I was like yeah, we don't have to agree on everything
I don't agree with everybody in the church on everything and then again
He's like but I just want to make sure that I finally I told him I'm like bro
I've only known you for five minutes like I don't know anything about you
I don't know if you're a good guy or a bad guy and some of you have heard the story
But it's just it's always like daunting to me like I don't know anything about you
Show up if you mess up we'll call you out and if you don't it's all be fine. It's it's not a big deal
But you know, that's what but that's what the church is for right over the years and you know
I'm gonna tell all myself when I saw you guys come in the my his bag back brothers back there
I actually thought they were of the Pentecostal persuasion because it's rare that we get
Hispanic brothers coming into the church and initially in my mind
I thought here we go again because every few years since I've been here without fail about every two years
Pastor Cobb and I have to deal with usually and it's like you guys and that's why I thought
An older Hispanic gentleman and a younger Hispanic gentleman come in
And they come in dressed real nice and the first thing they tell us is hey
We're really excited about your church and we have a bunch of church members that are Hispanic that'll fill up your church with us
We believe the same thing you believe
We're like, great, what do you believe?
It turns out they usually have Pentecostals, right?
And then they can tell us the stuff.
And they're like, but we just want to have a Spanish service
and we want to pay you for the building.
And we're like, we don't care about your money.
You know before I said it it was Pastor Cobb. He's like in Pastor Cobb is really a night like
You know salt of the earth, but he's still firm. He's like we're not interested
They're like, but you know, we're gonna bring 30 40 50 and this is when we were really small
So they they're basically appealing to what they think is our weakness, which is we don't have a big congregation
They're like we're gonna bring 30 40 50 60 people to the church
And he's like doesn't matter you guys don't believe in salvation by faith through grace like you know
You're basically going to hell is what he told him and they never showed up again, but I'm not kidding and I apologize
I'm confessing my faults to you when I saw them come in that was my first thought because it never fails
It looks exactly like that like they come in they you know
They're well dressed are very nice and then all of a sudden they just kind of like dump it on you
They're like hey, we're bringing a big church of Pentecostals
And I guess what they ended up doing is they just built a big church just like a block down there. So
That's a whole other thing
You know, that's the church that needs to go and like shut down.
That's a whole other problem.
Turn over to James five and I'll read for you really quick.
First Thessalonians.
And in First Thessalonians five verse 14, the Bible says,
Now we exhort you, brethren,
warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble minded,
support the weak, be patient toward all men.
So what's our duty as church members
when we're holding the reckoning
is that we first need to love the brothers
and sisters in Christ and then we hold them accountable.
But our initial reaction is always to do what? Hold people accountable and not empathize or sympathize now
Of course there's sins the Bible gives us in 1st Corinthians 5 that are clear that we should basically kick people out of the church
But most of the time most people aren't doing that like they're just living life. They're messing up. You know why cuz they're human
I mean, I mess up all the time.
I'm just gonna tell you that right now.
Just come for a whole month and read the bulletin.
I'm guaranteed there'll be a mistake in there
in the next bulletin, right?
Matthew 18, verse 15, you're in James 5.
The Bible says, moreover, if thy brother
shall trespass against thee,
go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone,
and if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained a brother.
And I know there's more to that, but where do we start?
We start with one on one.
We don't make a big stink about things.
We hold each other responsible.
At too many times, we get all hurt.
What does the youth of America call it now?
They get butt hurt, right?
I'm hurt because so-and-so didn't say hi to me
or didn't acknowledge me or didn't do this.
How about we just...
Do the work that we need to do. You know how many people like normie and don't say hi to me or don't respond to stuff
And I just like forget it all the time because we don't know what other people are dealing with right?
We should do that in the church as well
Right, sometimes we'll say something maybe we're trying to edify our brother and they just like blow us off
Just pray for that person
You know the biggest thing we can do for them is to pray for them is to edify them go to James 5 or 16
The Bible says confess your faults
One to another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Hey
We're talking about reckoning and accountability. The Bible actually says confess your faults now not your sins
I'm not your Pope
Which is weird because I don't have that much notoriety
But a lot of the comments we get on on our YouTube says that I'm trying to act like a pope believe me
Do not come and tell me your sins. I'll stop you dead in your tracks
If you want me to pray for you and you want to give me some like general idea of the problem
That's fine. I don't need to hear the CD details of your life
I don't want to know what you're thinking. Don't mess up my day with with your messed up thoughts, right?
Just I'll pray for you clean it up do what you need to do
But we do want to pray for each other, right?
And it says the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man of valeth much
Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rain
Not on the earth by the space of three years and six months
And he prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit
Brethren if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him
Let him know that he which covered the sinner from the air of his way shall save a soul from death
and she'll hide a multitude of sins.
This is why we're accountable to each other
so that we can help each other live more righteously, right?
That's why we don't change certain things in our church.
It might look antiquated in a little bit, you know,
to prim and proper, but that's how we want to keep it, right?
That's why we preach about women looking like women
and men looking like men,
because I don't want this confusion going around.
Right. I don't want you go to churches now. I mean, this is like 10 15 years ago
But I remember going a second Baptist and it looked like you were going to the mall
Women were dressed all scandally and you know with all kinds of very little clothing on that's how it is in the modern church
I don't I don't want that for our men for me for any and the other way around
We don't want like man to just show up. You know and look like bombs
I mean, I don't care if you wear a suit or not. That's not what I'm saying
I'm just saying there is a like we've had people and I what I mean by that is like literally
We've had people come in like in like the tiniest tank top like men and like
You know just some questionable garments and that's not happening here. I'm just saying
That happens sometimes, but you know what, when they show up to a church that looks like a church,
they're not going to do that, right? That's the personal accountability.
They're going to be uncomfortable. A couple of Wednesdays ago when we had that young man that
showed up, the only thing I noticed from up here, because I get to see a different perspective,
is I noticed that he kept looking around. I don't think he was expecting, you know,
what he was expecting. That's what we want. We want people to come in and be like,
This is a little bit different than the churches I've been attending to lately.
Where's the purple lights and the smoke and, you know, all the women that I get to
Google that, they're not around, right?
It's not like, you know, the pastor's going around talking all, I keep that on the up
and up to the best of my ability, right?
I don't want to make any of the women in the church uncomfortable because that's not our
goal.
Right and vice versa like we don't want to do that. And like I said, man, I didn't realize that we had a
We're running out of time here. So let me see if I'm even gonna finish this thing on the air
one
two
one two
You know what? We're gonna finish here because I'm not gonna there's way too much else to cover
But what I'm gonna probably end up doing is just I'm just gonna continue this tonight
Because I think it's an important subject right and it feels like it's very mundane very like run-of-the-mill
But the problem in America today is that we don't have any personal
Responsibility for anything people want to show up to church and they don't want to hear hard preaching because I don't want the preacher
To call them out on their sin Bible says hey, it's my duty to prick at your heart
Right, and then they get mad at me. Don't get mad at me. I'm just the messenger
Right, that's number one number two
Then you get home and the wives don't want to listen to their husbands because they're like well, you know
It's a it's a liberated America or vice versa
Husbands don't want to do the job that husbands need to do, you know, just like I believe
wholeheartedly that my wife should serve me and that when I get home I expect certain things doesn't
preclude me from my responsibility as a husband and as a father. That means that sometimes I must I got to change a diaper
Sometimes I'm the one who has to put the kids to bed
Sometimes I got to cook a meal now. That's not the norm
But you should be willing to step up because you know we have this mentality also in our churches or I don't know if on our churches
but you know this man mentality because
I've been seeing like these clips of I guess
The world's coming to the realization that feminism is crap, right?
So, but then you got the extreme where you've got these men that are like, oh, we're men.
Women, always everything.
You know, kiss my feet.
I won't ever do anything.
I just got to work.
No, that's not you.
You know, first of all, those men obviously either they're not married or they're not treating their wife right because...
If you have a wife, you know you better treat her right.
If you really want to get things done.
And my wife knows, I'm the leader of the household,
and I'll tell you right now, what I say goes,
but let me tell you what, I don't walk around and be like,
you know, just like marching orders.
I don't wake up the kids in the morning like,
de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de, everybody line up, you know,
that's, you're just...
you're going to fail, right? Like, you better treat your families, right? But you as men have a
personal responsibility to your wives and your children to do the things that are beyond just
providing for them. As a matter of fact, the more I read my Bible, the more I'm like, you know what,
Lord, if I need to take on more and my family needs to take on less, then so be it. Like, I want to
get to the end of my life and just be like, I'm so exhausted from working that I'm just ready to go
Right, that's the way the men should look at it
But you know as children and as wives and as church members you should live your life like that, too
We should do so much work that we don't know how to fit in all the extra work
That's the personal responsibility of the Lord Jesus Christ not oh so-and-so didn't do this for me or hey
You know only these church members get you know noticed by so-and-so or hey
This is this click going on over here or you know
The church has too many Hispanic people or you know black people or what it doesn't really matter
Nobody owes you anything
Nobody owes you an answer to anything
You know, there's no rights here in this church like just because you showed up doesn't mean you you're you're
What is it afforded anything in the church you earn it?
Look if you're saved by grace, let me just tell you something. I'll close with this literally, okay
I've got three minutes if you're saved by grace
And you come to this church, my mentality is, you better come to work.
What work you decide to do, that's between you and God.
I'm not going to go around telling you what to do, but I kind of expect it, because that's
what God expects.
Right?
Let me tell you something, I'm also not just going to expect it and not do anything.
I've convinced myself that the only way that I know people are going to do work is that
So don't worry about me because I'm gonna try to do as much as possible
I don't know if I'll outwork you because I know people that work really hard in my group of friends
So I'm not even you know, this is not a competition. I'm just worried about me. I
Wish I could have learned this lesson a much younger man like the only thing that you need to concern yourself with is
Answering to the Lord Jesus Christ
Because you're not gonna please anybody else
You're not going to make anybody else happy, right?
You're always going to fail.
You're always going to let somebody down.
Somebody's going to let you down.
But you know who's never going to let you down?
Lord Jesus Christ, right?
So when it comes to great reckoning,
let me just recap at least these three points,
and then we'll close out is it starts with our minds
and with our hearts.
Look, you've got to know the right thing.
Like you've got to have the right salvation.
And you got to have the right Bible and you got to have the right church
That's why I preached a couple of maybe last year, you know the the best church in our area is this church
Not in in Houston not in the world not in in the United States just in this area
This is the best church right because we're preaching the right thing
That way I can if you're gonna start fixing your life up, then you can go to a place
It's actually preaching something that will help you fix your life up
And then the second thing I'm always preaching even though I'm saying again is hey you your accountability is to God I
Tell my kids all the time like look you can misbehave with me. You can disobey me, but God's paying attention. I
Was like you want daddy to spank you?
Because if God spanks you you're in trouble
That's the spanking that hurts
Sometimes I don't even spank you that hard, but if God takes you out, I mean, he could take you out, literally, right?
And then when it comes to the church, and this was probably my longest point, but I wanted to spend time because
people have this wrong idea of what a church is. It's a congregation of believers,
but we're all accountable to who? Our reckoning is to God Almighty.
Look, the leader of the church is Jesus Christ.
I'm just a steward of that, right?
He gave me a position, a pastoral position.
That doesn't make me any better or worse than you.
As a matter of fact, some of our church members
are better soul winners.
They're more dedicated.
They have more time.
I'm gonna do everything I can to support that effort,
not be a stumbling block to that effort.
And I mean, I've heard the stories where people are like,
well, I was going to this church,
we started the soul winning program,
and then the pastor or the other pastor didn't like it.
And then they basically put a stop to it.
That's not what you're gonna get here because we're personally accountable Lord Jesus Christ
But I'm also we're not just gonna be all willy-nilly and just do whatever we want right and you know to close out
I mean, I love that we have a great church now, and but you know what? We had a great church then
But the church that was then it's not the one that's now. This is the one I'm focused on I can't do anything about the church in the past I
Can't do anything about the church in the future because I'm not guaranteed my future. I can only worry about
the people right now. I can only worry about the state of my mentality and the
state of my Christian maturity now. What I did in the past, if I wronged you or
anything, I'm sorry. I don't know. I was just learning. If you want to hold that
against me, I don't know, tough cookies. I'm moving on.
So either keep up with us or don't but the biggest thing is if you're gonna hold yourself accountable to yourself or anybody else
Remember, it's in the eyes of God not in your eyes your accountability isn't even necessarily to yourself
Because the reason you're trying to hold a reckoning to yourself is your barometer is the Lord of God
And you're like does this line up with what God's telling me to do. Is this what we want to do?
So let's go ahead and just
I'm not going to wrap this up. I'm not going to finish the rest of the sermon. Let's just wrap
up right here. Let's close in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for today,
Lord. Thank you for your opportunity, for the opportunity to be here, Lord. And tonight I'll
just wrap this up. There was so much more I wanted to say. But one of the things that I am
going to touch tonight is the fact that we have personal responsibility in our families. And
you know, one of the things that really encourages me is just got the way you've guided Pastor Cobb.
So long in the ministry and in his marriage. It is a rare day in age
And it's a rare thing in this age to be married for 50 years
that to be preaching for as long as he's been preaching, Lord.
So Lord, my prayer is that everybody here would be married
for the next 50 years,
and that if they've never been married,
that they would find someone to be married for for 50 years,
and that they would attend church for the next 50 years,
and that they would die serving the Lord Jesus Christ,
and that they would get sick and recover
serving the Lord Jesus Christ,
and that they would do everything
to serve the Lord Jesus Christ,
and that we would hold ourselves personally
personally accountable to you, Lord.
Thank you for all that you do, Lord.
Help us have a blessed day.
And Lord, also, I'm just gonna go ahead
and bless the food right now
for anybody who wants to join us.
I do wanna just celebrate the best way we can
for Pastor Cobb and Sister Linda.
So we'll be just blessed the food
we're about to eat and the fellowship.
And we do have a closing hymn.
And thank you for all that you do, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
And we have a closing hymn
by Brother Moe, page 305.
Alright, turn in your hymns to page 305, page 305, I must tell Jesus, page 305.