Steadfast Baptist Church, if you could please find your seats and grab your
hymnal. We're gonna start off by singing song 159, blessed be the name, sing it out
together, blessed be the name. The second is, let's open up in a word of prayer. Heavenly
Father, thank you for this beautiful day. Thank you for our church and the great
privilege it is to sing praises to your name and to worship you in your house
this morning. Just pray that you'd bless every aspect of this service. Bless those
that are away sick, Lord. We love you in Jesus name we pray, amen. For a second
song let's go to 157 now I'll ping I've seven come now Almighty King 157
morning thank you so much for coming to steadfast Baptist Church if you did not
already get a bulletin and you would like one you can still slip up your hand
ushers are gonna come by through the aisles and they can give you a bulletin
if you missed one if you'd like one Bible memory passage here on the front
we're on verse 16 so kind of around that halfway mark still plenty of time to
work on Proverbs 31 those who complete the entire chapter will get a special
prize and then also throughout the week children who are able to quote the verse
of the week and get a treat at our midweek service on the inside we have our
service and soul winning times and then we have our church stats also on the
right we have the list of our expecting ladies have our prayer list down below
we have on the back the congratulations to the freedom family on the birth of
maybe Ruby she was born on the 6th 8 31 a.m. weighing six pounds 15 ounces and
measuring 21 inches long congratulations to them sighting also we have a baby
shower in the honor of Catherine Craker and her baby girl on the third and
that's gonna be from 1230 to 230 and it is nursing's only preferred for a baby
showers if you'd like to come please make sure to RSVP to Mrs. Millstead and a
couple other upcoming events we have a preaching class that will begin on
Saturdays at 2 p.m. and that's starting on the 20th and it's it's gonna be
approximately a 10-week class we probably will we'll skip maybe at least
one or two weeks we're gonna skip the the baby shower week but it should be
pretty much consecutive other than that so pretty much just 10 weeks right in a
row it'll probably be around an hour and a half I'm gonna lead some of the
classes and then brother Oz is gonna also lead a lot of the classes as well
but we'll most like we'll mostly be just working on five-minute sermons and just
kind of working on lots of different aspects of sermon writing just preaching
and just just general feedback and any any men in the church that are 18 and
older that are a soul winner are welcome to participate it is only for those who
are are partaking in the preaching class so there's no spectators so if you if
you want to participate it's just the men only that are participate if you
show up you're participating so you're gonna get by in this pulpit but for
those who want to participate learn how to preach better and it's not it's not
really designed the class isn't designed necessarily just for like a pastor or
something like that it's just learning how to preach better and I think that
honestly it's great for every man to learn how to preach well and you can use
it in a lot of different ways you could use it at the nursing home you could use
it on missions trips we went to Bahamas and other places you know every guy was
basically getting opportunity to preach in the classrooms there's opportunities
for people to preach you know you could preach in the prison you could preach to
your family preach guest preach whenever I'm gone guest preach for other churches
like it's important to have a lot of guys that are able to preach and preach
well when they do it and so I would encourage anybody that would like to
learn how to preach better to come and participate in the class it's also just
open for the whole ten weeks so if you miss a week even if you miss that first
week you still can just come right in you might just ask me or brother Oz as
far as just what the assignment was for that week so that way you're you're
prepared for each class and we'll make sure to put people on email group and
we'll just kind of email stuff so basically all you have to do is just
show up to that first class and just have just have a five-minute sermon
prepared for that as well that's pretty much all I have as far as just the
bulletin I do have a few other things I want to say real quick so this week
we're gonna brother urbanic evangelist urbanic is gonna be traveling to the
Philippines and also I'm going out there with him simultaneously also James
Perry's going with us too so I conned him into it so but we have a few people
going out there and it's just kind of like a way for me to get a chance to
kind of scout the area and have a better idea to speak intelligently about
you know the vision for there and evangelists are panic while he's there
but he's gonna be joining up with pastor Matthew Stuckey and Verity Baptist
Church and helping them in the short term and in the immediate future and
then from there essentially his goal is just you know to basically help grow the
church and not necessarily that church just church in general so whether that
be planting a steadfast Baptist Church plant there or helping with some of the
Verity plants or whatever we don't know exactly we want to be a little bit
flexible on that but essentially he's gonna go over there and and really just
kind of get plugged in and and Pastor Stuckey's already been knocking out the
park I think I think that their church had like over 6,000 salvations for last
year and they have I think they're running maybe like a hundred people in
one of their church plants and then they have like dozens of other people that
are in other church plants so they have a lot of soul winners they have a lot of
dedicated people they have the opposite problem we have they usually have a lot
of ladies you know as opposed to all the single guys here so we figured we would
set up some kind of a dating ring or something I'm just kidding but basically
it's it's just kind of a different it's just different in some ways than this
side of the world I don't know everything I say just take with a grain
of salt because I've never been there that's why I feel like it's important
maybe to take at least one trip out there even for a few days just to kind
of get a better idea of like what's going on what the soul winning is like
what the church situation is like and everything like that so I can do a
better job of helping evangelist urbanic for the future in the long term and then
in sometime in February evangelist urbanic is gonna return with his entire family and
they're just gonna be out there permanently and and just basically doing
that work and so definitely pray that our trip goes well this week and pray
that evangelist urbanic everything goes really smoothly for him and that the
Lord really puts him where he needs to go it's definitely a daunting task to
move across the world like that and to be in a different environment and to not
be in Texas I mean I don't know it's just it's rough I can't imagine not
living in Texas I had to do it for a short space and in Phoenix but you know
I survived so it was my time in the wilderness all right now I'm back and I
don't ever want to leave God willing you know I would love to die here but who
knows and of course with evangelist bannock we don't know exactly we're just
trying to put them there and just be sensitive to the Lord's will obviously
you read the book of Acts you read different parts of the Bible and people
had to go all over and wherever and I even kind of wrote a new hymn that's
based on that that we were gonna try and sing today and there's one typo in here
we need to fix it's that fourth line it says cursing our foes it sounds kind of
right but it's really supposed to be crushing okay so you can curse them if
you want to but we're gonna be crushing our foes we're gonna sing that here in
just a moment I'll try my trip I'm actually gonna try and hit a lot of
different spots I'm actually visiting pastor Kevin Sepulveda from New Life
Baptist Church in it's in Australia he has two church plants I'm going to the
one in Sunshine Coast and so I'm gonna be visiting there on Wednesday night and
they offered to have me preach for them so I'm gonna be preaching for them and
then also pastor Stuckey asked me to preach for them in the Philippines on
that Sunday morning so I'll be gone all that week and I'll be traveling also
gonna be doing soul winning in some different spots and doing some scouting
I'll try to do like a little bit of vlogging and post it on my Twitter and
on my Instagram so you want to follow the trip a little bit you can but
definitely pray that everything goes smoothly pray for every everyone here to
be healthy my my daughter's kind of sick right now so we just pray for her as
well I think a lot of people are sick one other thing I wanted to mention as
well is I had asked some of you if you wouldn't mind writing a birthday card for
my father and some of y'all did and he was just really appreciative that he
wrote me a kind of a thank-you letter that you just wanted me to read for to
the church but this is this is what this is his words okay he just said thank
you to the body of believers at steadfast Baptist Church I recently
celebrated my 80th birthday and through the efforts of my daughter and pastor
Shelley many of you participated in that celebration I want to thank all of you
adults that sent me warm thoughts and you children that sent me some
wonderful artwork along with my birthday wishes and a special thanks to the
stewards for a very special blessing he said there's an older Bill Gaither song
that begins I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God again thanks to the
steadfast part of that family for your kindness to me the Lord bless thee and
keep thee the Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee the
Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace sincerely Trey Shelley
so thank you so much to everybody who did help with that I think that's all
the announcements I have so we're gonna sing a new hymn for the week where the
spirit blows and so you should have that in a part of your bulletin look on
with a neighbor and try to try to listen and pick up the song it's really simple
so I think you guys are gonna really like it where the spirit blows
everyone where the spirit blows if you need one go ahead and raise your hand
usher can bring you one here we go
where the spirit blows we will go, go boys
being passed around please turn in your Bibles to Numbers chapter 32 Numbers
chapter 32 32 the Bible now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a
very great multitude of cattle and when they saw the land of Jaser and the land
of Gilead that hold this was a place for cattle the children of Gad and the
children of Reuben came and spake unto Moses and to Eliezer the priest and
under the princes of the congregation saying Adiroth and Dibon and Jaser and
Nimrod and Heshbon and Eliah and Shebam and Nebo and beyond even the country
which the Lord smote before the congregation of Israel is a land for
cattle and thy servants have cattle wherefore said they if we have found
grace in thy sight let this land be given unto thy servants for a possession
and bring us not over Jordan and Moses said unto the children of Gad and to the
children of Reuben shall your brethren go to war and shall he sit here and
wherefore discourage ye the heart of the children of Israel from going over into
the land which the Lord hath given them thus did your fathers when I sent them
from Kadesh Barnea to see the land for when they went up unto the valley of
Eshkol and saw the land they discouraged the heart of the children of Israel that
they should not go into the land which the Lord had given them and the Lord's
anger was kindled at the same time and he swears saying surely none of the men
that came up out of Egypt from 20 years old and upward shall see the land which
I swear unto Abraham unto Isaac and unto Jacob because they have not wholly
followed me save Caleb the son of Jephunneh the kinesite and Joshua the
son of Nun for they have wholly followed the Lord and the Lord's anger was
kindled against Israel and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years
until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was
consumed and behold ye are risen up in your father's stead an increase of
sinful men to augment yet the fierce anger of the Lord toward Israel for if
ye turn away from after him he will yet again leave them in the wilderness and
ye shall destroy all this people and they came near unto him and said we will
build sheepfolds here for our cattle and cities for our little ones but we
ourselves will go ready armed before the children of Israel until we have
brought them under their place and our little one shall dwell in the fenced
cities because of the inhabitants of the land we will not return under our
houses until the children of Israel have inherited every man his inheritance
for we will not inherit with them on yonder side Jordan or forward because
our inheritance has fallen to us on this side Jordan eastward and Moses said
unto them if you will do this thing if you will go armed before the Lord to
war and will go all of you armed over Jordan before the Lord until he hath
driven out his enemies from before him and the land be subdued before the Lord
then afterward you shall return and be guiltless before the Lord and before
Israel and this land shall be your possession before the Lord but if you
will not do so behold ye have sinned against the Lord and be sure your sin
will find you out build you cities for your little ones and folds for your
sheep and do that which hath proceeded out of your mouth and the children of
Gad and the children of Ruben spake unto Moses saying thy servants will do as my
Lord commanded our little ones our wives our flocks and all our cattle shall be
there in the cities of Gilead but thy servants will pass over every man armed
for war before the Lord to battle as my Lord saith so concerning them Moses
commanded Eliezer the priest and Joshua the son of Nun and the chief fathers of
the tribes of the children of Israel and Moses said unto them if the children of
Gad and the children of Reuben will pass with you over Jordan every man armed to
battle before the Lord and the land shall be subdued before you then ye shall
give them the land of Gilead for a possession but if they will not pass
over with you armed they shall have possessions among you in the land of
Canaan and the children of Gad and the children of Reuben answered saying as
the Lord hath said unto thy servants so will we do we will pass over armed
before the Lord into the land of Canaan that the possession of our inheritance
on this side Jordan may be ours and Moses gave unto them even to the children
of Gad and to the children of Reuben and under the and under half the tribe of
Manasseh the son of Joseph the kingdom of Zion king of the Amorites and the
kingdom of Og king of Bashan the land with the cities thereof in the coasts
even the cities of the country roundabout and the children of Gad built
Dibon and Adiroth and Aror and Atroth and Shofan and Jazer and Jabiha and
Beth Nimrah and Beth Haren fenced cities and folds for sheep and the
children of Reuben built Heshbon and Alila and Kirjathiram and Nebo and
Baal-Meon their names being changed and Shibba and gave other names under the
cities which they builded and the children of Maker the son of Manasseh
went to Gilead and took it and dispossessed the Amorite which was in
it and Moses gave Gilead unto Maker the son of Manasseh and he dwelt therein and
Jair the son of Manasseh went and took the small towns thereof and called them
Havoth-Jair and Nova went and took Kenath and the villages thereof and called it
Nova after his own name. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father God we
thank you so much Lord for the scriptures and for the truths inculcated
in this chapter. I pray that you fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit now and
enable him to preach the sermon you've laid on his heart with boldness. Open
ears and soften hearts in the room Lord so that we may receive this message and
apply it to our lives and be doers of the word. We love you and in Jesus name I
pray Amen. Amen. I want to look back at the very beginning of this chapter the
Bible says now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a very great
multitude of cattle and when they saw the land of Jaser and the land of
Gilead that behold the place was a place for cattle the children of Gad and the
children of Reuben came and spake unto Moses and to Eliezer the priests and
unto the princes of the congregation saying Adiroth and Tyban and
Jaser and Nimra and Heshbon and Elie and Shebam and Nebo and Beon even the
country which the Lord smote before the congregation of Israel is a land for
cattle and thy servants have cattle wherefore said they if we have found
grace in thy sight let this land be given unto thy servants for a possession
and bring us not over Jordan Moses said unto the children of Gad and to the
children of Reuben shall your brethren go to war and shall ye sit here and
wherefore discourage ye the heart of the children of Israel and that's really
what I want to focus in is this phrase where he says why are you or meaning
wherefore why are you discouraging the heart of your brethren and and that's
the title of my sermon this morning is don't discourage your brethren don't
discourage your brethren now last week I preached a sermon entitled are you a
good example and in that sermon I really focused on us trying to think about our
lives and how our lives would positively affect other individuals and making sure
that we're doing good things so that we really positively impact those around
us and we set a good example for people but there's a flip side to that isn't
there there's a flip side to where you're not necessarily a good example
you're even a bad example you're the opposite of a good example you're
actually discouraging the heart of your brethren you're not encouraging the
heart of brethren and kind of at the tail end of my sermon I guess you could
say I let the cat out of the bag a little bit but I really just kind of ran
through a list of a lot of different things that people do that really kind
of set a bad example in a lot of ways and I feel like it's a disservice to
only just briefly mention them so this morning we're gonna go in a little more
detail and you know it's safe for me to remind you of these things okay it's not
grievous unto me to bring these things up again it's just grievous unto you bad
offenders okay but I also don't want you to take this sermon the wrong way I
really love our church I think that our church is possibly the greatest church
in the world I mean and when we talk about church what we're talking about is
the people we're talking we're not talking about I'm not talking about me
I'm not talking about this building I'm not talking about the design of our
artwork yeah I like all that I'm talking about you guys man I visit I've visited
a lot of churches I've been to a lot of churches and there's just something
special about steadfast Baptist Church there's something special about the
spirit here and the people here and you know what I love this church I love you
guys I think that we're really doing a good job and in fact we're obviously
doing a great job in certain areas but that does not mean that we can't improve
and often when we code to the month of January we try to look for ways to
improve make changes do things differently plus just being honest with
you I think a lot of people make bad decisions or a bad reflection just
simply because no one's pointed it out to them like no one's explained to them
how to be a better person or how a lot of the things that they're doing are not
very good you know unfortunately a lot of that was supposed to be taught from
people's parents parents were supposed to teach people how to behave how to
handle themselves they were supposed to model for their children a person going
to church three times a week and teaching their children and training
them and since a lot of us have missed out on that or didn't necessarily have
that as an example sometimes people are very naive or ignorant about behavior
and they they don't realize the decisions that they're making sometimes
discourage their brethren you know I don't think that when you read this
passage in context I don't think that the Rubinites and and these people were
were trying to just discourage the heart of their brethren they're just being a
little selfish weren't they they were just kind of like hey you know what you
guys just have the promised land we're fine we'll just be here but but they
didn't really understand how that was going to discourage them from then going
to the battle or going to the war and how that was going to cause a lot of
riff in the congregation and I think that's the same with church that a lot
of people don't understand that some of the decisions are making some of the
behavior some of their beliefs a lot of the things that they do can sometimes
discourage other people in the congregation and so it's important for
leadership to point that out and say hey don't do this because you're
discouraging the heart of your brethren does that kind of make sense so I want
you to have the right attitude when we we get to a sermon like this and it's
not just because like pastor Shelley's mad or pastor Shelley just wants to see
how much he can offend you I'm not trying to do that this morning but it's
gonna feel like that okay so I just want I just want to be like really clear this
morning and I'm gonna give really specific examples and I'm gonna talk
about a lot of things like really bluntly but I just I do that because I
love you guys and I want you to be better and unfortunately what's the
reality a lot of the worst offenders a lot of you people that are the worst
just continue to stay bad so if you're someone that's already like I'm ready
for lunch you need to buckle up and listen okay okay because we need you know
we we don't want to just say like I think we're doing really good no room
for no we need to get way better not even if we are the best even if you were
the best just continue to get even better okay and I don't think that we're
the best I'm just saying even if we were there's no reason not to try and get
better and improve and and we want to set a great example we want people to
show up at set fast Baptist church would be around us and say like wow they're
way different than other people other churches under congregation they got
everything dialed in and I would say you know obviously coming to a church like
ours if you compare it to a lot of other churches you're gonna like a lot of
things immediately you know you're gonna like the soul winning you're gonna like
the hard preaching you're gonna like hey they're King James only and they mean it
you know there's there's a lot of things to like hey I like the fact that every
guy in here is carrying a gun on their hip right I like a lot of these things I
like that the sodomites stand outside and protest rather than we us rolling
out the red carpet for them you know what I mean you're gonna like a lot of
things like that but you know sometimes you go to other churches and you like
the fact that everyone there is very serious if we go to an old IV church
this morning you know what no one's gonna be dressed in their pajamas no one's
gonna be just wearing like a t-shirt and a hoodie and do it like they pretty
much all dressed really nice they take church very seriously everything's very
pristine you know when you go into their sanctuary it you can hear a literal pin
drop you can hear that old person on the breathing machine I mean it's that quiet
and their church services and I'm just saying like they have some things really
nice too and it's like why couldn't we have all of it right why can't we have
the everybody taking church seriously the great music the nice building and then
on top of that the hard preaching the soul winning all the great aspects let's
let's get all the best of everything let's not just settle and just say well
I know there's some rough things around the edges here but it's it's generally
better no let's just try to be better in every category or if someone's
excelling let's just try to match their excellence and try to be like them and
do a good job so we see here in this text that based on their selfish
decision to want to just stay behind they're gonna cause other people to want
to do what be selfish and not fight not go to war not cross the Jordan not do
the difficult tasks and Moses basically rips them a new one and just says look
you're gonna go over there and you're gonna fight and then afterwards if
you've done that successfully then we'll give you the land that's your only
option otherwise you're gonna discourage the heart of your brethren and you're
not thinking about them are you go if you would to Philippians chapter 2 we're
not gonna go back to numbers but ultimately you know from my sermon last
Sunday I kind of had three points where we were are you a good example of your
family are you a good example by working hard and then my third point was are you
a good example by being spiritual and I didn't really I didn't talk about that
at all but if you think about it they just weren't being spiritual they were
being carnal and selfish and I think a lot of times people don't connect the
dots and understand what being spiritual means being spiritual because often when
I think a spirit being spiritual I think of just your basics like church reading
the Bible soul winning you know just kind of the basics things you would
think that are associated with church you know being spiritual is not just
about church attendance or reading a Bible it's a mentality and an attitude of
putting other people before yourself that's what it means to be spiritual
being spirit-filled having charity in 1st Corinthians chapter 13 is loving
other people and caring about them it's not just giving the money it's not just
showing up look you could show up to church give all your money and preach
and have zero charity and it would be worthless according to the Bible what
actually makes a church spiritual is that it cares for and thinks about other
people Jesus Christ made it clear that people will be able to just determine
who his disciples were by those who loved their brethren it was it was an
example of love it wasn't oh they preach the reprobate doctrine that's how you
know that Jesus is disciples and look I love preaching the Bible okay and and I
don't mind if the world knows me by that generally speaking people that
actually know us should not know us by that right the people that actually know
us the people in our church the people that visit our church they shouldn't
know us by that they should know us by our love say wow they're really kind
they're really nice they're really sincere they're always thinking about
other people not themselves look at Philippians chapter 2 verse 3 let
nothing be done through strife or vain glory but in lowliness of mind let each
esteem other better than themselves this is a tall task you have to you have to
genuinely in your heart believe other people are more important than you and I
think that's hard I mean how about Absalom how many people does Absalom
think are better than him I mean he doesn't even think his dad's better he
said oh that I were the judge in the land I mean he's arrived he is the most
important person on the planet and everything in his life being
accomplished is the most important thing it's the most important thing that he
becomes the judge he becomes the king that he everything that he wants all of
his desires happen that he gets to return back that he gets to see the
king's face you know he's all about me me me I I I he's not focused on any
other person the exact opposite of the Lord Jesus Christ who when he came to
this earth was not concerned with him or what he was doing he was concerned with
others and he was loving others and he was ministering unto others this is the
mind of Christ but what it says in verse 4 look not every man on his own things
but every man also on the things of others let this mind be in you which was
also in Christ Jesus so according to the text we're not supposed to be thinking
about our own things we're supposed to be thinking about whose things other
people's things were the Rubenites and the half tribe of Nasi and the Gaddites
were they thinking of other people's things or are they thinking of their
things they were thinking of our cattle and our land and our inheritance you
guys do you we're good that was not the right mentality that was not the
mentality of Christ that was not the attitude of Christ and Moses is trying
to impart into them you need to have the attitude of Christ where you go over
there and fight for this promised land that's not even yours at all you don't
even get it you're just literally fighting just for your brethren to for
them to inherit it for them to have it and then you're coming back over here so
that's the type of mentality that's the type of attitude that we should strive
to have is where we're more concerned with other people's things than our own
now this is a this is not an easy thing this is not something that people are
just naturally gonna do it's not something that you never even want to do
your flesh right now is saying this sounds like a bad idea like no don't do
this okay it's being spiritual that denies the flesh that crucifies the
flesh and cares about other people and loves other people and wants to do good
for other people fighting for other people I mean when's the last day you
went and worked a full day's labor for someone else is paycheck for someone
else's things think about that like that's that sounds crazy it's like I go
to work to pay my bills and to get money for me right but aren't there
people out there though sometimes volunteer their time effort energy to go
help someone else for no money and you know that's that's the reality that we
live in today is that people don't want to do that you don't be one do not even
work and then the government just give them money it's the exact opposite of
the spirit of Christ these liberals these leftists these Democrats they want
to do nothing and get paid while doing it whereas a spirit-filled God-fearing
man would actually work hard for other people and not even get anything from it
that is the reality of what it's like to be spiritual and then people love to
talk about being spiritual this is how the Democrats are spiritual they'll take
your money and give it to somebody else that's not being spiritual either okay
being spiritual is giving of yourself and giving of your money and giving of
your time and giving of your energy why is it that all these politicians they
basically go broke to the White House and then they come back rich that
doesn't sound like they were thinking of other people whereas Christ in the
exact opposite he started rich and became broke for us so that we could
benefit from his riches and from his glory and from his works and from his
righteousness he came here and he did all of the work and then we get all that
credit think about it Christ came here to do the job that we weren't willing to
do or capable of doing so that we could benefit from his wages we get the wages
of his righteousness imputed unto us and we get to go to heaven based on his work
ethic his attitude his spirit and we're riding on his dime a lot of people
think like how could I bless other people like this well you know what
that's Christ did and that's the example that Christ gave and you know why would
we be here this morning if we're gonna try and learn how to be more carnal
we're not trying to learn how to be carnal this morning we're trying to
learn how to be spiritual and when you're carnal you know what you do you
discourage the heart of your brethren when you're selfish you discourage the
heart of your brethren this is why communism fails because people don't
work hard and then they get extra money or a paycheck that they don't deserve
and it discourages the rest of the labor force it discourages the workforce and
it causes people to not want to work that's the opposite of how it should be
in the house of God where we should be willing to work hard for others and to
bless others and that motivates other people to work hard and to bless people
not looking for things for themselves but rather looking to bless others now I
want to go to one more place go to Deuteronomy chapter one then I'm just
gonna get a lot of specifics Deuteronomy chapter number one the Bible is really
clear on this attitude the Bible is really clear on this subject and I'm
just kind of laying a simple foundation Deuteronomy chapter number one I've
probably done enough but I want to show you another example here look at verse
23 and the saying pleased me well and I took 12 men of you one of a tribe and
they turned and went up into the mountain and came under the valley of
Eshkol and searched it out and they took of the fruit of the land in their hands
and brought it down unto us and brought us word again and said it is a good land
which the Lord our God doth give us notwithstanding you would not go up but
rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God and he murmured in your
tins and said because the Lord hated us he hath brought us forth out of the land
of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us whither shall
we go up our brethren have discouraged our heart saying the people is greater
and taller than we the cities are great and walled up to heaven and moreover we
have seen the sons of the Anakims there then I said unto you dread not neither
be afraid of them the Lord your God which goeth before you he shall fight
for you according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes and in the
wilderness where thou has seen how that the Lord thy God bare thee as Amandath
bareth son and all the way that he went until he came into this place yet in
this thing he did not believe the Lord your God so we have a passage here where
the children of Israel are being reminded as Deuteronomy so it's kind of
like a reminder it's a second rendition of the law they've wandered the
wilderness 40 years there this is kind of like the precursor to right before
going into the Jordan this is past the event that we already talked about
where the children like two and a half tribes basically just want to quit and
give up but he's reminding them of something that
took place 40 years ago he's saying you know
at the beginning of our journey we showed up to the promised land and i
sent 12 spies in 10 came back and gave a bad report or
an evil report two came back with a good report and
because of the 10 what happened is the hearts of the children of israel melted
and they didn't want to fight anymore they didn't want to go into the promised
land and as a punishment god made them wander
in the wilderness for 40 years now that whole generation had died and
so it's now the next generation he's reminding them of what the last
generation had done and he's not wanting them to do the same
thing again where we end up focusing on the giants
focusing on the government focusing on the walls
focusing on the land all the obstacles that are there
but rather focus on the fact that hey you really think you were going to walk
through the red sea god did that for you were you
going to defeat the egyptians god did that for you
did you provide food no manna from heaven god did that for you it's like
god is the one that fought for you and you even killed a few kings already
you've killed and conquered certain areas of land every time you did god did
it he's like why would it be any different now just keep trusting god and
god will deliver you but what happens is people start uh to be carnal and focused
on the giants and then they stop being spiritual okay and and it would be
similar to someone who got into church a few years ago or a little while ago and
and the lord started blessing them and the lord started helping them and they
they had another kid and they got a promotion at work and they had a job
but then this big giant called inflation came
and it hit them hard and they said well you know what now i need to get
go back to just the world and stop being so plugged in at church
in order to tackle this giant and they start getting
discouraged to actually trust the lord hey if the lord brought you
to this point and the lord's given you the children you have and giving you the
finances you have why can't he slay the giant of inflation too
why can't he tackle the next obstacle and the next challenge
and frankly speaking if there's anywhere in the world that you live
i mean we live in the land flowing with milk and honey i mean you can go to the
grocery store and literally buy all kinds of milk and honey you can get
raw milk raw honey you can get the cheap the cheap
fake stuff i mean you can get it all you can have it all and yet people
today they're so focused on the negatives of their life
the challenges of their life the difficulties the cares of this life
that they end up stop serving god and stop being spiritual
and when you stop being spiritual and stop focusing on those things
you actually discourage the heart of your brethren as well
and so we need to make sure that we're being diligent
in the attitude and the behaviors that we have
because they don't just affect us they affect everyone in this room
they affect every single person now i've given you a lot of scripture to shoe on
so i'm going to give you some specifics for a while all right and we'll still
flip to a few places in the bible but i just want to bring up some of
these things that i talked about previously
and just elaborate on them a little bit number one that i want to talk about
is being late being late now here's the thing when you show up
late what people notice is you coming in late
and then when you come in late it causes other people
to not take churches seriously to think oh well maybe i can be late
or it just changes their attitude because you know if it was something
that was important to you i bet you wouldn't be late to it
i mean think about the thing that you really like or the thing that's really
important to you maybe it's your job maybe your job is
really important to you and you're just never late your job you're
like well if i was late to my job i'd get fired
well then you know why don't you have the same attitude or zeal for church
how much more important is church than your job or maybe
it's just meal time it's like i never go past 12 30 without having eaten lunch
like by the time it's 12 30 i for sure eaten lunch i'm never late on feeding
myself physically but well wait a minute isn't
it more important the word of god i mean the author of job is saying that he
esteems the words of god more than his necessary food and you know that
verse always plagues me you know if i ever think about the idea of
like maybe you haven't done your bible reading yet
but then you're like worried about eating it's like which one's more
important though and of course you know isn't it interesting our bodies just
thinking like food's way more important than the bible
but is it is it more important and you know doesn't that change your attitude
what you feed yourself and who you become and you know what being late
just causes your brethren to be discouraged it's it's kind of embarrassing
it sometimes has a weird effect where if everybody just shows up at the last
minute or late for like the first 30 minutes the people that were early are
kind of discouraged thinking like where is everybody
i remember uh at pure words one one week i think that i was there for like a
thursday night service and it like the clock struck and like no one's there
now a few people came late and uh i can't remember it might have been brother
dylan was it i don't was it you okay i think brother dylan even called me one
time he's like no one's here what do i do and i was like just start
service now i think somebody came in i had a service like that i think a
faithful word when i was leading the north church
i had to basically just kind of like start a service and then people started
kind of like slowly creeping in or whatever and you know what
it kind of discourages the heart of people that showed up and are ready for
church when no one else is there you know and
just being late in general just discourages people you
know if you're late to your your company you're late to work
you're late for anything even just if you if you're going to take your wife out
on a date and you're late for that or you're not
showing it it's respect you know it's going to discourage the heart of them
it's going to cause other people to think oh it's not serious
or oh let's just all come late or it's not a big deal
you know and again i'm not going to like if someone shows up and it's late i'm
not going to be like hey late guy hey thanks for coming in late but you
know some people think that way some people feel that way and you know
it can it can be a little bit discouraging
if people just don't treat things you know with respect
and and they care for them your children could feel that way you know what if you
had a your kid has an event soccer game or
they're they're playing into the recital or they're doing something
and you come in late you miss their performance how would that how would they
feel they would feel like they're not as
important they would feel like maybe you don't care about them as much
and look i get it sometimes things happen we can't always
just avoid being late 100 percent of the time
but you can make it virtually non-existent
i think my wife my wife and i were talking about this and we were talking
about when we were at faithful word i think we were late like one time
there was and you know why i know it's one time
because when you're not late like you can remember the times that you are
the people that are late all the time they can't remember because they're just
always late and it's really just it's funny to me
there are some people that literally they come in
two minutes late every time and you're thinking like you're really punctual
like you really know how to manage time well you're just off
like it's not that you're not consistent you're super consistent
you're always like exactly two minutes late and i'm thinking like
just leave five minutes earlier right i mean then you're not two minutes late
it's just it's just like just change that habit slightly
or just make some kind of an adjustment maybe just set every clock in your house
five minutes behind the time and you're just then you're pleasantly
surprised when you're not late to everything all the time anymore
you're like how wow i'm three minutes early every single week
instead of two minutes late and it just leaves a better impression it'll make
people feel better plus sometimes here's here's what you
don't understand and this is what i'm i'm being more
specific okay be specific about this really all right
there's some people in the church that want to talk to you like there's some
people in here there's like i can't wait to see so and so i can't
wait to see james or i can't wait to see
somebody you know in this room and when you come late
i didn't get to talk to you like they wanted you to come a few minutes early
so they could say hi and they could ask you
how your week was and they could talk to you and they could have a little bit of
fellowship and when you come late you that
fellowship's gone now there's no fellowship and then by
not fellowshiping with that person of course after service you might not get
to talk to everybody you wanted to somebody leaves and then what happens
is they're a little bit less encouraged or you're a little bit discouraged
whereas if you had gotten that opportunity to fellowship talk
see that person give them a little bit of time you would have actually caused
them to be more encouraged whereas coming in late now they don't
get to see you they don't get to talk to you they didn't get to ask that
question i know myself and my wife there's plenty of times where
we wanted to talk to somebody at church and we missed that opportunity or
we wish that we had gotten to speak to them or whatever the thing is
and so i know that other people the same way that there's people here that would
love to have talked to you to fellowship with you
to have had that opportunity and because you're not showing up
and giving them that opportunity it can't happen so i'm just telling there's
a lot of consequences to being late but you know what being
late is for sure not thinking of other people
like if there's one attitude that has nothing to do with being late
it's considering other people because if you consider other people
you wouldn't be late you know musicians they like to practice and work together
and you know what it's awkward when one musician's out of tune or out of sync
with the other musicians and it's like obvious
and then it makes everyone look bad so all these people that showed up early
and practice and are prepared you make them all look bad because you
were late that's not thinking of other people
that's not considering other people you know we want to come prepared
ready to everything that we have you know whenever the bible says when we
find something to do we're supposed to do with all our might
whatever thy right hand find to do do it with thy might
okay and so if you have an opportunity to go to church
why don't you go to church with all of your might say i'm not going to come
late now obviously look you get in a car wreck
something happens whatever the kids throw up all over your clothes
while you're getting them in the car like that stuff happens on occasion
okay we get that but if you're just late
three minutes late every single week change your clocks
do something different get a different routine okay
that was point one here's a second one that i had
not watching your children boy this is this is a rough one
folks okay now look all children are all different ages
they're they're different genders there's male and female and
some children are better than others so some people
they could not watch their children and their children will be great and then
there's most of you the vast majority of you who if you
don't watch your kids they're literal hellions okay they're
like running around screaming and look we make rules
for them now they will not obey like they're not
it's not like if i just get up and preach a hard sermon the kids are not
going to run around and scream after the service
they're still going to do it the sermon was for you
to watch your kids pay attention and of course you know
it's not fair like some people will be like well it's not fair so and so it
doesn't have to necessarily monitor their kids as much well
that's not their fault that's your fault or maybe your kids
going through a hard stage that's life but you know what when you
don't watch your kids what happens is they cause other kids to
make mistakes run scream yell that normally wouldn't so they
actually cause more bad behavior also some people want to sit in
fellowship or talk after church but then your kids running around
running into them spilling things causing problems
actually wants them they want to leave because they just want to get out of the
chaos they want to get out of the whirlwind
and the tornado that's being caused by your children and you not watching them
Okay, not paying attention to their behavior.
Okay, additionally, you know, sometimes, you know, it just it's mind boggling how kids cause bad behavior.
It's obvious to the parent and then they don't do anything.
You should you know, you're encouraging your kid to be bad like I get it.
My kids and your kids, they're all going to disobey, especially when they feel like no one's watching them or paying attention.
But they need to be corrected.
They need to be disciplined.
They need to be told no, they need to be told no with the rod many times as well.
They need to sometimes just sit down and shut up because they they're not behaving properly in that moment.
And they need to be properly disciplined.
You know, it's just it's just crazy what the kids do and they'll tear up the sanctuary.
You know, last week you would think after a sermon that I preached, people would be a little bit better.
But there was literally like a whole row over here, right there, no one was sitting.
Like all the chairs, like people are sitting kind of everywhere.
There's just one row no one's sitting on.
And then I look and it's like someone had just taken granola and just literally like it was just like everywhere.
It was like all this granola and trash and all of this food just all on the seats and on the carpet.
I'm thinking like I know why no one's sitting there because it's like why would anybody ever want no one would sit there?
You'd have to do a mini cleanup session before you could even sit down in that area of the church and you know it's just embarrassing.
I'm thinking like what if we had a visitor come and they like turn to sit in the aisle and it's just like full of granola and trash and food and Kool-Aid.
It's like like why do you know people don't like going to daycares like who thinks that a daycare is the cleanest place on earth?
Who wants to go hang out at the daycare where everything's sticky and smells like Lysol?
And it's all like weird.
It's like that's we don't want our sanctuary the place where we're worshiping God as adults to become this sticky hot mess or whatever.
And I get like some people maybe bring their lunch or whatever and I'm not opposed to that.
But you know if it gets out of hand we might just have to take that away.
Look if you have lunch clean up after yourself for sure.
No one's no one's mad at you for cleaning up after yourself.
Here's here's another idea.
What if you cleaned up after someone and you didn't even make the mess?
I mean isn't that the whole point of being spiritual?
He's like I noticed them making a mess and they didn't clean up.
Well, why didn't you clean up for them?
Because think about it.
What if everybody had the attitude of I'm not going to only clean up after me.
I'm going to clean up after my children because they're never going to clean up after themselves.
And I'm not only going to clean up after my children.
I'm going to clean up after your children.
And like I don't want to do that.
Some kids in here are terrible.
Well, then you're like, thank you pastor for at least preaching the sermon.
Okay, you're at least thank you.
You're appreciative of the sermon itself.
But what I'm telling you is like somebody needs to pay attention to their kids.
And look, it's not everyone and it's not everybody has the same problem.
Some people, they have no problem with food, but then their kid just running around pushing everybody,
screaming, yelling, always causing problems with other children.
And look, you got to deal with that kid.
You got to get more boundaries around that kid.
And it's not like, oh, he's just a stickler at church.
I'm trying to help you with your life because you know when you leave this building,
it's not like your kids magically behave other places.
They're probably a hellion there too.
They're probably bad when you have a play date.
They're probably bad when you go to the restaurant.
They're probably bad when you hang out with your family.
They probably cause issues everywhere because you know what, kids are really consistent.
And so it's important to watch them not just at church,
to watch them in your life, to discipline them in your life.
And look, it blesses you.
But you know, when our church, if our church doesn't watch our kids
and allows them to be bad and allows them to have bad behavior,
you know it's going to happen. People are going to say,
"I don't want to have four or five, six kids."
I mean, do you see how many people are pregnant?
You know, a lot of people in here are pregnant
with their first, second, or third kid.
And then they see like, "Wow, the families of five, six, seven,
they look like a train wreck."
It could discourage them from having more kids.
And look, there are people in our church
that choose not to have kids according to the Bible.
They choose to have birth control or onan methods
or do whatever against what I preach.
And you know what, they even doing that discourages other people
from doing what the Bible says and having kids like I think
that they should be done like the Bible says,
being fruitful and multiplying.
But you know what, by having rough kids,
it actually causes even more people to feel that way.
You have rough kids and you're doing things
that are contrary to the preaching.
And you know what, it's just causing people to be discouraged.
Oh man, how do you do it?
You know, it's so difficult.
You know what, there are people in this room
that have large families and are doing great
and are excelling and then there's some people
that have large families that don't do as well.
There's some people that have one kid and it's horrible.
There's some people that have four or five kids
and it's great.
I mean, it's all over the map.
But let me tell you something.
You not watching your kids, not disciplining your kids,
discourages everybody else.
It causes the kids to not behave,
to not take their parents seriously.
I mean, what do you think happens
when the kid is just not behaving
and the parent doesn't discipline them?
What do you think my kids are thinking?
Oh, cool, well, if I do that, my dad won't discipline me.
Wrong, I will discipline you.
You know what rules you're under?
Mine, not some other dad, some other mom.
They don't discipline their kids.
You know, if I sometimes see there's like 20 kids running
or like 10 kids running in the church,
you know who gets disciplined?
Mine, I pick mine out.
I don't discipline yours.
Now I'll say stop running, but you know what?
I don't discipline them after that either.
And yet mine, they're not getting away with it.
They're not going to just do whatever they want.
And if they fall a bad example, I tell them all the time,
I say, "Hey, if other kids are disobeying, you don't do what they're doing
because I will punish you."
So I have to try and combat that.
I have to try and go against the grain sometimes on that.
And you know what? If you're the same way, do the same thing.
But we need, as a congregation, to try and have a better standard,
work harder, pay attention to our kids, instruct our kids,
discipline our kids, make sure that they're behaving.
Some kids are way easier than others.
Some of you have young girls and they're sweet and kind
and they wouldn't do anything wrong.
And then some of you have, you know, young men that would
literally burn the place down in five minutes if we weren't
watching them.
Okay.
And you say, ah, well, you know, you're just you're just
picking on me.
Well, your kids harder.
Sorry.
That's not my fault.
And sometimes it's not even entirely your fault because you
know what?
If you're just you're really zealous person, you have a lot
of energy.
Sometimes that transfers your kids and kids are just after
an hour long sermon.
They're ready to explode.
You know, I don't know.
But take them somewhere where they can like a park or
something where everything's bolted down, you know, far
away from here.
You know, they're behaving right now.
Teach them to continue behaving until they leave.
It's not like, oh service is over.
Let's do cartwheels and burn things and find stuff to make
paper airplanes and throw granola everywhere and trap.
Like that's just not that's not the behavior the attitude
we want and we don't want visitors to come here and say
like, oh man, the kids there are just insane.
Like I love stuff as bad as church, but the kids are bad.
The parents don't pay attention.
I'm nervous to bring my kid to church because they get bullied
on but these are things that people even tell me.
They're like my kids are getting roughed up bullied.
They're they're bad examples.
Things are you know, shame on us if that's how people literally
feel about coming to church.
We want them to be feeling welcome that the kids are on
good behavior.
I want people to say like I want to take my kids there so
that they'll be good like the kids at Steadfast.
They'll be well-behaved that they know how to handle
themselves.
You know people want to get away from you when your kids
are just a train wreck and especially when you don't do
anything.
No one in here's kids will be perfect.
But the worst thing is when you don't deal with it deal
with it.
Here's another thing if your kids make a mistake deal
with it right if your kids, you know punches another kid
in the face tell that have your kid go and apologize
that the kid and you apologize to the parents because
when you don't do that, you know what happens it just
it discourages people they think like I thought we're
brethren. I thought we like loved each other and you
don't even care that like this happened. You know, we
should be very careful to apologize make things right
now, you know for I'm not necessarily big on the
tattling. So, you know typically this should be coming
from parent to parent if one of your five-year-olds
comes up to me and it's like James is mean. I don't
I'm not going to have him come and apologize because
I don't know what that means. Okay, right like obviously
though if it's escalated to the point if your kids see
something bad, you know have them tell you first identify
make sure it's even valid and then maybe approach the
situation deal that if you did something if they did
something wrong though fix it. Try to fix it. Try to
apologize. It's not a big deal. I don't need an apology.
I don't really even care personally, but I know what
happens is other people get offended and and their
feelings hurt and it's not not good behavior and so
it could cause other people to get discouraged or man.
I don't want to go to church because I'll see them or
see their kids or these problems just a lot of
problems fix the problem, you know deal with your
kids. If a problem ensues just go over there and
apologize. It's not going to usually be a big deal.
It's just people get upset when you don't handle the
situation handle the situation. There's probably
more on this point, but I'm going to leave leave that
one of this just watch your kids. Okay. Here's another
one. If you don't go so winning, it can discourage
other people from going so winning. Sometimes people
like even they don't even have the courage to go so
winning, but they would if you went or they were not
even going to show up. But if you invite them to go
so winning, then they would or especially times during
the week, you know, you so winning leaders that maybe
have a regional time or you have a so winning time
throughout the week and you're thinking like no one's
coming. It's like how many people did you invite? No
one. That's why no one's coming. It's like you got
to try and find people and invite them and try to work
with a schedule and if the time doesn't work well
shift it. I remember at Faithful Word I used to have a
so winning time on Tuesday nights and the pastor just
started a preaching class. Well, I noticed a lot of
people that came to my so winning time also like going
to the preaching class. So what I did is I shifted my
time to where they could do both so then people weren't
forced to choose because what's the point of me having
a so winning time if no one shows up? I can go so
winning whenever I want. The whole point of having a
so winning time is to encourage other people to go so
winning. So if your so winning time isn't in a good
location or isn't a good time for other people, change
it, right? So then other people are encouraged and other
people will go, you know, there's a reason why I try to
lead a time on Sundays at 2 because you're already here.
It's easier. You have time off from work. You know, not
everybody can make that work, but a lot of people
can. So we're trying to encourage people to go Sundays
at 2, right? Or Saturdays. There's a Saturday time.
That's an easier time or there's times literally almost
every day of the week. There's a time Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So any day
ending and why you're covered but still some people
won't go because you don't go. You don't invite them.
You don't you don't encourage them or whatever. So we
need to we need to work on encouraging other people.
You know, sometimes I'm not joking. There's been plenty
of times especially even recently where I've gone
soul-winning and like every fiber of my carnal being
does not want to go soul-winning like I'm just I'm
just being honest with you like but I'm not like after
the fact like disappointed I win or anything like that
and in my in my spirit. I know that it's right, but
there's there's times where I go and I just carnally.
I don't want to be there. Maybe I don't feel very good.
You know, I'm tired. I don't want to think I don't want
to talk to these people like there's a lot of different
carnal excuses, but I just go and I know if I didn't
show up less people might show up the next week if I
consistently just allow myself to be like why is
don't feel like it today. We know what there's lots of
days where I don't feel like going to work either, but
I just drag myself to that too. There's days where you
might not feel like going to church, but you just go
anyways. There's times when you don't feel like making
dinner, but you have to eat right. There's times like
you don't feel like disciplining your kids. That's
almost every time but I just discipline them. Anyways,
you need sometimes you have to suck it up and just do
the hard thing just go places where you don't want to
serve and go. Hey, just show up and just go soul-winning
sometimes don't wait until I I feel it. You know, I'm
just so excited. You know, you're not going to
necessarily feel that way in the hottest part of the
year and in the coldest part of the year. You just
probably not, you know, it's like a perfect day and
it's like 70 degrees out and you're getting like a
dessert afterwards. Everybody shows up right, but
it's like in the colder times or the hot times or
whatever, but you know what you're discouraging other
people to go out to battle to go to war to preach the
gospel. I mean, we're here to preach the gospel
folks. The last thing we want to do is discourage people
from going soul winning. Also when people lead a soul
winning time, I always tell them please stick with it
for at least six months because if you just start a
soul winning time and then quit on it shortly after
you're going to discourage other people. You just being
faithful even if you just go by yourself, you can still
encourage other people because they'll every once
in a while ask you about it and they're just like man
that guy just that guy's like a rock. That guy just
goes out every single week. He's just like solid. He's
steady and then you actually encourage other people
to go when you just never go so winning though people
can kind of figure that out find out and it just it
just discourages them. Don't be like that. Hey, I'll
hang out, you know over here with the cattle. No go
so winning and you know don't quit on people. What
talk about discouraging somebody. Hey, I'll go so
winning with you and then last minute text. Sorry,
can't make it. Hey, I'll see you at church. Oh, sorry
can't go. Hey, I'll go work out with you. Sorry can't
work out. No, I've been guilty of this one. Okay, I
need all the encouragement ever to go work out.
Okay, man, I need like a hundred percent times a
thousand. If I went to work out by myself, I would
do so much less. Okay, and sometimes that's just
that's just life, right? You know, don't quit.
Don't tell somebody you're gonna do something and
not do it. Don't give up when it gets hard. Don't
allow excuses. You know, sometimes you're just an
excuse prone person. If you know you're gonna quit,
don't tell them you're gonna do it. Hey, I'll help
you move, man. And then you show up. Oh, I gotta go.
Sorry. Yeah, I took one book that said Fred, one
box that said Frasjali. I don't know. I just threw
it in there. Seriously, that happens. Be careful
who you have help at church. Okay, don't quit on
people and keep your word. If you promise to do
something, do it. You know, if don't miss church
unless it's like legit because it just discourages
people. And I was, I even asked my wife this. I
said when I was going to Faith Ward, I was thinking
about it. I think I only miss like three or four
services and I was fit. I was like 12 hours away
because I was out on vacation one time. I was in
Jamaica on a missions trip. That's why I also
missed and then the day that my daughter was born
that day. I missed that one service. I don't think
I miss a single time for being sick like not once
and this is including Thursday. This is Sunday
Wednesday Thursday for years for when I was at
pure words. I never missed a single service until
I came up here for the evening service. January 6
five years ago was the first time I had missed
a service and you know you can do it. You can
actually come to church. I get it. Sometimes we
get sick sometimes out of town. Sometimes you're
on a missions trip. You know there's there's
some legitimate excuses but when you don't have
a legitimate excuse go to church show up. You
know come through the doors. People are going to
be encouraged when you're here. It encourages
the brethren when you hear it discourages them
when you're not here, you know asking everybody
for money all the time just discourages them and
it makes them not want to hang out with you if
every time you hang out with someone they're
always asking you to buy them stuff or asking
for money. They will stop inviting you to do
things. You're just discouraging them. But if
you ever want some I'll pay for them. Now
they're going to now they're always want to
hang out. Hey, what are you doing later? You
know, hey, where are you going? Hey, what are
you doing? Yeah, they're excited to be around
you and you know what it changes their behavior.
It changes their attitude being someone that
can bless other people do good for other
people. You know, sometimes you think I'll
work this hard to make enough money just for
me. But what have you made enough money to
also bless people to you work hard enough
also to help the poor and help bless other
people. You know, what if you thought like
I'm not going to spend all my budget money.
I'm going to use a little bit of it for
other people to get gifts for other people
or do things for other people or buy them a
lunch every once in a while. What have you
never signed up for anything? I mean, I
already talked about this. It's just
annoying. And if there was one area that
Steadfast Baptist Church does not excel in,
it's signing up for things. I don't know
why, but it's just so frustrating and
people like they won't tell you and
then it's just like really hard to guess.
It's really hard to know. I know for
them, even for the men's conference, we
had one year we had like eight or nine
people sign up and not come and it was
just frustrating because it's like it
costs like two or three hundred bucks a
person plus you have to like you know
you get certain things based on how many
people are coming and stuff and it's
just like I just have to waste all this
money for for literally nothing. I mean
there's no extra benefit or something
you just you have to pay all this money
and whatever and it's just annoying. It's
like I can expect one or two but it's
like when it's like eight or nine. It's
like don't sign up for something and
not come and if you're planning on
coming sign up. Make sure you're on the
list, you're ready to go, you know what
you're doing, you're participating. Boy,
it just makes a big difference. It's a
big difference when it's like 98%
confidence in the sign-up sheet as
opposed to about 4%. We look at the
sign-up sheet and we're just like oh man this is
rough. You know get better at when you
sign up for things, doing it. You know if
you just constantly use the bathroom
during the service, it can cause people
to get you know distracted, discouraged
during the sermon. Here's one. Go to
Proverbs 26 for a moment. Go to Proverbs
chapter 26. Here's another thing. Treat
the things of God seriously. Now, I like
to joke from time to time. I like to
have fun. I'm not a person that's just
like super stiff necessarily, but it's
better to lean towards being sober and
being serious than just always being a
jokester, not taking anything seriously.
If you ever get an opportunity to
preach behind my pulpit, be serious. You
know what, you know what pissed me off
more than almost anything? If someone got
an opportunity to preach and they're
like, "Alright, I'm gonna preach on the
flat earth, just joking." That's stupid.
Don't be stupid. This is not open mic
night. It's not karaoke bar. We're not
just doing this to just get laughs on
the internet or something like that.
This is church, okay? Take church
seriously and don't always be joking
about everything. Don't, after a sermon
where I rip on being effeminate, don't
pretend to be effeminate to me. Don't,
if I say, "Hey, whenever I preach
something, don't come up and joke with me
afterwards," then people really come up
and joke with me afterwards. I'm thinking
like, "What's wrong with you?" You know,
there's something wrong with that person,
that contrarian. Take church seriously.
You know, when you go soul winning, take
it seriously. Don't be horsing around,
goofing off, saying weird things, okay?
Take it seriously. Look at Proverbs 26,
verse 19. "So is the man that deceiveth
his neighbor and saith, 'Am I not in sport?'"
Notice that it's a bad attitude to deceive people
and then just, "Oh, I was just joking."
And you know what it compares it to?
Look at verse 18. "As a madman who casteth
firebrands, arrows, and death."
It's like saying, what if you just took your firearm
and put a couple bullets in it, spun it around,
and just started pointing the trigger
and pulling the gun at yourself?
That's stupid.
Don't mess around with cars and guns
and things that are serious in this life.
And church is even more serious.
We're not messing around with it.
We're not trying to joke with it.
We're not trying to treat it lightly.
We need to take church seriously.
If you want to have fun, have it somewhere else.
If you want to joke, joke somewhere else.
You know, this is a place to be serious,
take things seriously,
not to play little stupid games, going around.
And, you know, sometimes people, they play, like,
these weird games, like, where they're like,
"Hey, look at the circle underneath my belt at church."
I think that's stupid.
You're immature.
Don't make church like that.
Don't be immature around church.
You know, you can just tell these people are immature.
They're not taking things seriously.
Look, if you don't have something serious, sober,
or spiritual to talk about at church, then just shut up.
Because you're discouraging the heart of a brethren
when they come to talk about the Bible and spiritual things,
and you're just joking around, horsing around,
talking about dumb things.
And, you know, in the multitude of words, "There wanteth not sin,"
you're probably going to say something sinful on top of it.
And do something sinful.
You know, don't make church a big joke house.
Be serious here.
And I let a lot of, like, when I see things that I don't like,
I don't really deal with it, or I don't, like, police people.
I'm not going to go around and helicopter pastor and just be like,
"Whoa! What are you doing? What did you say? What did you do?"
You know, I'm not going to do that.
People want me to police everyone's Facebook,
and what they say online, and everything they do.
People sometimes dress inappropriately,
or things I don't really agree with,
or do things I don't really agree with.
I'm not going to go around and harass everybody
in the church building for it.
But you know what? You might be in a sermon.
And you're like, "Were you talking about me?"
Yes.
Go to Titus chapter number two.
Go to Titus chapter two.
When I say that I'm talking about you,
I always mean it.
And every sermon's for every person.
So it's, yes, it's for you.
Be serious. Take church seriously.
I'm not here to joke.
This isn't a joke.
We're not playing church.
We're worshiping God in spirit and in truth.
And we need to take the church of God seriously.
It needs to be a serious place.
This is a serious institution.
We're doing serious work.
This is the most important work in the world.
You know, imagine if you were going to fly on a spacecraft
and you were going to be shot up into orbit
and the people in the NASA controls are horsing around.
Hey, let's play around with the ejection seat.
Oh, I'm going to press it.
Oh, I missed it.
Oh, let's dance around with coffee on all these controls.
You know, you'd be thinking like, what are you doing?
Like, the people at NASA have to take their job really seriously.
And they have to make sure that they're following protocol,
and they're following the rules, and they're treating everything
with soberness.
I mean, you wouldn't want to treat that inappropriately.
You know, some people even mess around with guns.
Never be that person, and never be around me.
Guns are not a toy.
Don't just loosely--
I remember somebody came to my house one time,
and they asked to see my gun.
And I just-- I kind of showed it to him.
He just, like-- he just pops out the clip, just cocks--
basically just, you know, cocks it back, drops the charge,
then just starts dry firing at everything in my house.
And I'm just thinking, like, what are you doing?
Like, don't just start just unloading my clip
and then just start dry firing at everything in my house.
Like, super inappropriate.
I'm like, let me know how to never invite you back.
Try that, OK?
You should be very respectful.
You never, ever, ever, ever point a gun
at anything you don't want to destroy.
You just don't do it.
Treat it with soberness and seriousness.
You know what's more important than a gun?
This.
Treat this with all seriousness.
And we want to be careful with it.
You know, hey, don't point this at someone
that's not a reprobate, right?
Make sure they're a reprobate before you
start pointing this at them and slicing them up and down,
OK?
Be serious about it.
You know what makes our church seem like a joke?
When you say everyone's a reprobate.
This person cut me off in traffic,
probably a reprobate.
Person had a pentagram, you know, shirt on.
Definitely a reprobate.
They had a Jewish star necklace.
Definitely a reprobate.
Look, are these bad signs?
Yes.
Okay.
But let's not get just so reprobate trigger happy
that people start thinking like they're not careful
with their gun.
They're not careful with their sword.
They're not careful with things of God.
You know, let us be careful.
Let us be sober.
Let us not point the gun at someone
we're not ready to destroy.
Now look, when, you know, you have some queer
that's protesting your church,
point the gun, okay, spiritually.
Point the sword spiritually.
We would never do any physical damage, okay,
except defending ourselves.
But you know what?
I have no problem, you know, unleashing the sword
of the spirit on the people that need it.
But you know, let's be careful with the sword of the spirit.
Let's treat it with respect.
You know, make sure you're cleaning up after yourself.
Say thank you.
Do the memory verse.
Sing the hymn, sing loud.
When you don't sing, everybody else doesn't want to sing.
You know, it's just the volume is dictated by other people.
Like you go to a church, everybody starts singing loud, everybody sings loud.
Everybody's just going, "Brother."
The guy next to you is not like, "Brother and brother!"
You know, he has a harder time, okay?
Because he's like, he's just thinking like, "Brother."
You know, sing out, sing loud.
You know, the song leader needs to start loud so everybody else can follow their lead.
You know, play your instrument loud.
We want to all sing together.
We're worshiping the God of the universe.
He deserves some worthy praise here.
Not some mumbling.
Not just, "Hmm."
You know, that's just not going to do it, folks.
Goodwood to Proverbs 18.
Here's one last point I'm going to focus on, okay?
Don't hate women, okay?
Don't hate women.
And I don't think that anybody just outright hates women in our church.
I don't believe that.
But I do think that there's an attitude that's like this or can creep in and can cause a lot of problems.
And it's just this very negative, hateful attitude towards women.
And it's especially because in our country and our culture and our society,
the women have been victimized, taken advantage of, and destroyed in a lot of ways.
And so it can cause a lot of single guys or even married guys in general to talk trash on women.
Talk trash on women and American women and young ladies.
And you know what?
It really just causes a lot of problems because when you are saying negative things about them,
it causes other people to start talking trash on women in general.
And you know what?
We have some really great women in our church and a lot of them are from America.
Some of them aren't.
We have some great women in here that are not from America.
But you know what?
I'm not going to sit here and say like all the women in our church are second-rate citizens or something
or don't love the Lord or can't be spiritual because we have plenty of spiritual ladies that come to our church.
There's plenty of great American women that come to the church.
And you know what?
A lot of them were probably raised feminist.
They probably had a lot of like things that you could speak against prior to getting serious about church or getting saved.
And you know what?
They're growing.
They're improving.
But you know what?
They need time.
They need grace.
You're not perfect either.
But when you just hate on women in general, it just discourages the conversation.
It causes women to have a bad attitude or feel like they're second rate or something
like that or they're not good enough or they have all these problems.
And women are already so self-conscious.
The last thing we want to do is just add to that.
They need encouragement.
They do not need discouragement.
Women are their own worst enemy already and they constantly can cause themselves to just
feel bad.
We need to encourage them and embolden them and not act like they're just these inferior
spiritual beings.
They have, in some ways, a harder job than us as men.
Our culture, praise God, is not wearing a bunch of dresses and skirts as men.
I feel zero pressure to wear a dress or a skirt.
In fact, I feel the exact opposite.
I feel an enormous amount of pressure to never do that ever.
Who also feels that way as a man?
Okay, yeah, praise God, right?
Women have the exact opposite about how they dress.
They are encouraged to dress like whores, dress like harlots, to dress naked, to dress
like men.
I mean, for a woman to want to dress like a conservative, God-fearing woman and skirts
and dresses is very intimidating.
They can feel socially ostracized.
It can be even difficult, practically speaking, because you go to the store and there's almost
nothing to buy.
If you're a taller lady, it's even harder.
My wife to find a dress or a skirt that goes down to the knee, it's difficult.
That's why they are in the dress cult, because it's hard to find dresses, you know?
It's like they find one, they're all like, "Buy it," they're all excited to get that
particular garment just because it's hard.
And then people, men, young single guys, will think like, "Oh, these ladies aren't as spiritual
as I am because they struggle in that area."
Well, that's not even a struggle at all for you.
You have actually zero pressure to dress like a tranny.
Like you're not sitting home contemplating like, "Should I do that or not?"
But I guarantee there's sins that you have that are really, really hard on you that are
not hard on them.
I bet you, you have a hard time with your eyes and looking at things that you shouldn't.
But the problem is it's a lot easier to hide that one with sunglasses or because you're
in private or whatever.
It's not as open of a sin.
It's not as obvious of a sin.
So you can sit here on your high horse and think, "I'm so much more spiritual than women."
But you're not anyways.
You just think more highly of yourself than you ought to think.
Okay.
Hey, you know what?
It's not the biggest deal.
Look, I wish that every woman would dress appropriately and the Bible says when you
don't it's an abomination.
But you know what?
Of all the problems we have, it's not the biggest deal that we have.
It's not the biggest problem.
And you've got to first change the inside part of the man before the outward appearance
changes.
So I've got all the outward right.
Yeah, but is your heart right?
Do you care about people? Do you love people?
You know, I've met women that don't necessarily dress right,
but they're really sweet and they care about a lot of other people.
And then you have, oh, you just look really nice as a man,
but you don't care about anybody else and you're selfish.
You know, it's the most selfish people in the world, single guys.
I'm telling you, just like that's just their nature.
And I'm not saying every single one, there's always exceptions.
There's plenty of single guys that come to our church
and do a lot for our church.
They bless a lot of other people.
They help a lot of other people.
But just generally speaking, young single guys
are by nature the most selfish beings you could ever be around,
virtually speaking.
And it's nice when they finally get married and have kids,
they turn into a completely different creature.
They're really helpful.
They actually are more empathetic.
They think about other people because it's forced upon them.
You're now forced to take care of other people 24/7.
So then that just becomes your attitude and behavior.
Whereas when you're single, you only had to care about you.
So it was just life was easy.
Man, if I was single, life would be so easy.
But you know what? I would hate it.
Because I love my wife and I love my children.
And I love caring for them.
And I have so much more enrichment in life
from loving and caring for other people than just being selfish.
Than just only caring about myself.
And taking care of myself.
Look at Proverbs chapter 18.
Look at verse 22.
Proverbs 18, look at verse 22.
"The desire..."
I'm sorry.
"...whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord."
I hate this attitude of thinking that women are bad, and marriage is bad, and you can't find one.
Look, is there a lot of whores out there?
Yes, but you don't have to marry any of them.
Is there a lot of terrible feminists out there?
Yes, don't marry any of them.
Is there a lot of bad women that live in America?
Yeah, don't marry any of them.
But you know what? I don't think that all American women are bad.
I don't think that all women are bad at all.
And there's a lot of great women.
There's a lot of people that can be redeemed, restored, transformed.
There's a lot of people posting pictures of girls basically making a complete transformation,
being very liberal, and now they're very conservative.
They realize, "Wow, that was a bad idea."
And in fact, all of them, they'll admit it.
They make all these videos admitting it, and they're like,
"Man, I kind of wanted this date with this Alpha conservative male, and I really liked it."
It's like when you're an Alpha and showing them the way,
often they're like, "I can see why I would be submissive.
I can see why I like staying home. I can see why this is attractive."
And you know what? You could win them over.
And be the Samson that basically just takes charge and gets a woman
and just like, "You're my wife."
And then all the other single guys are like, "I want to be like him."
As opposed to being the guy that's like, "I've been on 50 dates,
and they were all first dates, and I'm probably never going to get married."
Now you're discouraging all the single people that are thinking like,
"Oh, I don't want to be like that. I want to be like Samson."
You know what? Don't talk negatively about women.
Don't talk negatively about marriage.
I hate this. It really irks me.
And it makes the Bible almost impossible.
Go to 1 Corinthians 7, which I don't think is impossible.
I think that every single person here can get married if they want to.
But you know, there's single girls that come to our church.
You make them feel really awkward and bad how much you hate on women,
or how much you talk negatively about how women are bad or something.
And I mean, look, if a young single lady is coming to our church on her own,
wow, that's impressive. That's impressive for someone to do that.
And we need to encourage more of that, not discourage that,
or cause them to feel like there's something wrong with them as a person,
or they are always going to be the second-class citizen, or something like that.
Causing the single guys to feel intimidated to talk to women.
Like, I think all women are bad, or all the women in America are bad.
And they were going to try to talk to a girl that came to church,
and now they feel, like, iffy about it.
You know, I'm always trying to put pressure, like, "Go talk to the girls. Go talk to this lady."
You know, I've seen it. Random girls just show up at our church I've never seen before,
and none of the single guys go and talk to her.
And I'm thinking, like, "What's wrong with y'all? Like, she should be getting, like, ten offers."
You know, like, I don't know what's going on.
And look, I get it. If you're not attracted to somebody, then, you know, don't waste people's time.
I get it. But at the same time, like, I'm thinking, like, there's no way every single one of these ugly-looking single guys in here is good.
Like, they're, like, thinking, like, you need to start realizing you're not a ten, so sevens are okay for you, okay?
Like, you're kind of like a four or a five, you know. Financially, you're like a two, which looks, looks, looks aren't even as important.
It's more like that other number, okay?
And I'm just thinking, like, go and talk to her, right?
And look, God gave us tens, nines, and threes, and twos, all the numbers.
You know why? Look what it says in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse number 2.
"Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own life."
You know, the way our structure is in America right now, this isn't happening or very possible
because, kind of, it's like all women are just attracted to the same guy
and trying to go for the same guy.
Well, that doesn't mathematically work.
We need tens to be with tens, and nines with nines, and eights with eights, and sevens with sevens.
And you know, every once in a while there's a lucky person like me, like a five that marries a ten.
Sorry, you know, I took.
But it needs to just be, like, on rare occasion.
Not the vast majority of situations like that, okay?
And we need people to wake up and smell the roses and realize you're not a ten.
Stop trashing women that aren't tens, too.
It's like, you're not a ten, but then you get mad that every girl in here is not a ten.
Like, she's not, like, looks like a Hollywood celebrity.
And she's got her Bible, and she's like this Proverbs 31, you know, perfection or something.
And she's just like, "Would you like me to make a meal for our date? You don't even have to spend any money.
In fact, I will make the meal for our date, sir. Yes, Lord.
I just want you to know that no matter what decision you make, I will always support you, sir.
Would you, you know, would you please take me on a date at your convenience?
I await your call. That's what, that's what they think.
Oh, and by the way, I'm going to memorize Proverbs 31 while I wait.
And I'm going to write you a note. They're thinking like, man, where are all these women at?
It's like, where are you at? Are you kidding me?
It's like, this is what they think they expect or something.
Like all these young virgins that are just basically ready to make them filet mignon
and call them Lord whenever and however they want and rub their back.
And then they're like, oh, I make $20 an hour, and I work about 25 hours a week.
And I live with eight other guys in a one-bedroom. I lease my car.
It's like a 20-year-old Honda. It's pretty cool.
Do you want to live with all of us?
It's like, where's all these tens that don't want to marry me?
It's thinking like, "They won't talk to you."
Women are marrying for security, to be provided for, to be taken care of.
Do that. There's a reason why.
They have these shows like "The Most Eligible Bachelor" or whatever.
It's usually a guy that's like 30, he makes a ton of money, he has his own house,
he's good-looking, he's athletic, and it's like all these girls want to date him.
It's like I live with eight other guys, and I play Dungeons & Dragons, and it's like why?
Why would any girl want to date that?
And I'm not willing to ever confront her about a date, she has to ask me first.
It's like good luck, okay?
You're just not being realistic.
You need to woo the young ladies and talk sweetly to them,
not constantly trashing them everywhere you go, and telling them...
Don't talk trash on another man's wife. You might get punched.
And you would be like, "Is that right?"
No, it's not right. You shouldn't get punched.
But I'm telling you, men in this room will punch you.
If you disrespect their wife too much, if you cross a line too much,
if you talk trash on the women in this room, stop.
Just don't do it. Don't hate on women.
And it makes people not want to even get married.
I want to go to one more place. Go to Matthew 5 and we'll finish.
How long are you going to preach? Why won't we be here for a while, okay?
Here's your bonus point, okay?
Don't skip church because I'm not here.
Yes, that's you.
Because you're going to discourage those preachers when they come.
You know, it's really embarrassing when it's like I have a guest preacher
and it's like half the church doesn't show up.
It's like I'm not that much better of a preacher than these guys anyways
and they could probably preach a better sermon or something that helps you anyways.
You know, it's not about Pastor Shelley. It's not about the preacher.
You're here for Jesus!
Why would I decide who I'm going to go to church based on the preacher?
I'm not going to say, well, you know what, if it's Ben, I'll go.
If it's Dylan, I won't.
If it's Pastor Shelley, you know.
But, I mean, Dylan does preach shorter sermons, so that's kind of nice.
Ben has some cool rants.
Man, it's long, you know.
These aren't thoughts you should be having, okay?
And you're laughing because you've had them.
You just come to church and you just sit down and you yell "Amen" when you need to, okay?
And even maybe if you needed it, say "Amen" anyways, okay?
Because some people in here just need some preaching.
And I'm trying to be specific. I'm not mad at anybody individually.
I just want us to be better as a church, and I want people when they visit to like our church.
And look at this attitude you find in Matthew chapter 5, look at verse 38.
"You have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil.
But whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
Here's the thought for you, go twain.
Whatever you think is expected of you, double it.
Whatever you think to do, do it twice.
Double it. Do more.
This is, you know, hey, I don't want to go the mile, I'll go with you twain, right?
I'm not going to come two minutes late, I'm going to come four minutes early, right?
I'm not going to let my kids just destroy everything.
I'm going to pay attention to my kids and your kids.
I'm not going to quit on you.
I'm going to do something you didn't even ask me to do.
I'm going to ask you to go to me twice as much as I have in the past.
I'm going to make sure that I'm at every church service.
And you know what? When they ask me to bring something, I'm going to bring two things.
To the potluck or to the baby shower.
I'm going to make sure that I use the bathroom twice before the service.
So I don't have to use it during.
I'm going to make sure I'm serious. I'm going to not clean up after myself.
I'm going to clean up after someone else, too.
You know what? That discourages the cleaners when they show up and the church is trashed.
It's nice when they show up and they're thinking, "Who already cleaned?"
That's kind of nice, isn't it?
I'm not going to just do the memory verse that Pastor Celia has.
I'm going to do another one on top of that.
And you know what? I'm not going to hate on women today.
I'm going to talk to two ladies today. That's what I'm going to do.
You know what? I'm not going to trash a lady today.
I'm going to buy her lunch. That's what I'm going to do.
And let's make sure that we're trying to think about other people and we're going the extra mile.
You know that phrase comes from?
The Bible. Going the extra mile.
It's a Christian attitude. It's a spiritual attitude.
Let us have that. Let us go the extra mile for Christ.
Let's close with a prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for this morning.
Thank you so much for our church.
I pray that we would take the words of God seriously.
That we take this job that we have seriously.
That we would take our roles here seriously.
And that we would try to apply them.
We would try to make sure that we're thinking about other people.
I pray that you would help the church to encourage our guest preachers as they come.
And they preach services.
I pray that you would bless those services.
That you would help minister the spirit unto those people.
That they would have better lives.
I pray that you would keep everyone safe as they travel.
That you would bless our soul-willing exploits.
That you would bless Evangelist Herbanic on his way to the Philippines.
I pray that people would think about him and message him.
And support him and encourage him.
And I pray that we would have an attitude where we're not just thinking about ourselves on this side of the river.
But rather we think about our brethren and be willing to go the extra mile with them.
In Jesus name we pray.
Alright for our final song, 294 since Jesus came into my heart.
And remember like what was preached.
Or I'm sorry it's not 294, let me get the right one.
But remember what was preached, we've got to sing loud.
Got to be enthusiastic.
It's not the stare at Dylan silently time.
Some of you adults do that, it's kind of creepy.
It's the sing time.
194 since Jesus came into my heart.
Thank you all for coming. God bless.