It's very slow.
Use it all the time.
I'm trying to scream.
I guess I can record it too.
That's a really good idea.
What are you doing?
I'm doing a little dance.
I don't know what you're doing.
I'm not even doing that.
What are you doing?
I'm doing a dance.
I don't know.
I like your bears.
I like your hair.
You're doing good.
I like your hair, man.
You're looking good.
I was going to see you man.
You're live right now.
you're live right now.
That's all that matters.
We're not showing too much of the wall.
We can trim it.
This little speck right there is part of that hotel.
We're turning to song 224, There Shall Be Showers and Blessings.
224, There Shall Be Showers and Blessings.
Song 224, There Shall Be Showers and Blessings.
There Shall Be Showers and Blessings.
This is the calmness of love.
There shall be seasons refreshing.
Send from the Savior above.
Showers of blessing.
Showers of blessing redeem.
Mercy God found us are calling.
But for the showers we clean.
There shall be showers of blessing.
Blessings reviving again.
Over the hills and the valley.
Sound of abundance of rain.
Showers of blessing.
Showers of blessing redeem.
Mercy God found us are calling.
But for the showers we clean.
There shall be showers of blessing.
Send them upon us, O Lord.
Grant to us now a refreshing.
Come and now honor my word.
Showers of blessing.
Showers of blessing redeem.
Mercy God found us are calling.
But for the showers we clean.
There shall be showers of blessing.
O that today they might fall.
Now as to God we're confessing.
Now as long as Jesus we call.
Showers of blessing.
Showers of blessing redeem.
Mercy God found us are calling.
But for the showers we clean.
Praise the name. Let's open up the morning of prayer.
Father and Father, thank you so much for this morning.
And thank you for all the people that have been coming to church this morning.
I pray that you bless every person here.
You just bless every aspect of our service.
Help us to sing out your blood.
And our hearts to you this morning, Lord.
And thank you for so much you've done for us.
I pray that you would bless 2023 from St. John's Baptist Church.
And that we have a very fruitful year for your honor and glory.
We love you in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen.
For our second song this morning, we'll go to 145.
145. It is well with my soul.
It's on the chorus as usual. It's now on the chorus.
Lady mode second.
145. It is well with my soul.
It's on 145. It is well with my soul.
It beats like a river that ended my way.
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my love, thou hast called me to say.
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Though Satan should love it, though trials should come,
Let this blessed assurance control,
That Christ, as we are in thy helplessness,
Will stay and must stand his own flag for my soul.
It is well, it is well with my soul.
My sin of the bliss of his glorious heart,
My sin not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.
Praise, O Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul.
It is well, it is well with my soul.
And, Lord, it's a day when my days shall be spied,
The clouds behold back as the snow,
The drops shall be tailed, and the wars shall be spent.
It is well, it is well with my soul.
It is well with my soul.
Now there was an appointed sign between the men of Israel and the liars-in-wait that they should make a great flame with smoke rising up out of the city.
And when the men of Israel retired in the battle, Benjamin began to smite and kill at the men of Israel about thirty persons.
For they said, Surely they are smitten down before us as in the first battle.
But when the flame began to rise up out of the city with a pillar of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them to behold the flame of the city ascended up to heaven.
But when the men of Israel turned again, the men of Benjamin were made, for they saw that evil was come upon them.
Therefore they turned their backs before the men of Israel under the way of the wilderness, but the battle overtook them and the men which came out of the cities they destroyed in the midst of them.
Thus they enclosed the Benjamites round about and chased them and trode them down with ease over against Gibeah for the sun rising.
And there fell a Benjamin eighteen thousand men, all these were men of valor.
And they turned and fled for the wilderness under the rock of Rehmon.
And they gleaned of them in the highway five thousand men, and pursued hard after them on the Gaidah and slew two thousand men of them.
So that all which fell that day of Benjamin were twenty and five thousand men that threw the sword, all these were men of valor.
But six hundred men turned and fled to the wilderness under the rock of Rehmon, and abode in the rock of Rehmon four months.
And the men of Israel turned again upon the children of Benjamin and spoke them with the edge of the sword.
As well the men of every city had the beast and all that came in hand.
Also they set on fire all the cities that they came to.
Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Father in Heaven we thank you Lord for our morning service and I pray that you fill the man of God with your Holy Spirit.
Give him clarity of mind and boldness to preach the sermon you have laid on his heart.
Help us to apply the message, soften hearts in the room Lord, so that we can listen, learn, and make changes to our lives for the better.
In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
We're here in Judges chapter twenty and I want to look at verse twenty again.
The Bible says the men of Israel went out to battle against Benjamin and the men of Israel put themselves in a way to fight against them at Gibeah.
The children of Benjamin came forth from Gibeah and destroyed down to the ground of the Israelites that day twenty and two thousand men.
And we have a story here where the children of Israel gathered themselves together as one man to put evil away from among the nation of Israel.
In chapter nineteen there's a horrible story of a bunch of sons of Belial abusing a woman and ended up killing her.
And the woman's husband was sending out her body parts as a wake up call to the entire nation that we need to get this evil out of our nation.
So they all gathered together and they originally went to the children of Benjamin and asked them for the sons of Belial.
Look what it says in verse number twelve.
And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribes of Israel saying what wickedness is this that is done among you.
Now they're going to deliver us the men, the children of Belial.
So when the entire nation is gathered around them they say deliver us children of Belial.
How is it difficult for the children of God to want to deliver up Satanists, to deliver up those who worship the devil, those who are the most evil people on the planet,
yet Benjamin refuses to deliver these sons of Belial, these Sodomites is another term for them in this chapter.
And isn't it so annoying when you have to defend the doctrines of the Bible to other Christians about the Sodomites?
I mean it's just so infuriating. You have to explain to someone that supposedly loves God, that supposedly is a child of God,
that the children of the devil are not to be defended, that the children of the devil are not to be harbored,
that the children of the devil are not people that you should just not allow any kind of punishment to happen to them.
I mean if they are going to kill people and hurt women and abuse them and take advantage of them,
why would you not want them to be put to death like the Bible says?
And it's just so infuriating when you talk to people today and they say oh let's love on them.
Let's be sweet to these people.
But really what they're doing is they're just siding with the devil.
They're enabling Satanism and evil to permeate society and the culture.
So of course the children of Benjamin are going to be attacked by the children of Israel.
But what's frustrating from the children of Israel's perspective, everything they're doing is right.
You know they've gathered themselves together against this group.
They've asked for the children of Belial. They're not willing to do it.
If you look at the Bible and Deuteronomy, it says that a city is not willing to deliver the children of Belial enough
that they're supposed to take ropes and basically just hide the whole city and just pull it all down.
It's going to destroy the entire place.
So that's the next stage and they try this, yet they have an epic failure in the battle.
And I think what's relatable about this story to all of us is we all will and have had failures in our lives.
We've had moments in our lives when we just totally and utterly failed.
And even sometimes when you're trying to do the right thing, you're trying to help someone, you're trying to be good,
you're trying to serve God, and you just ultimately just fail.
And you screw up, you do wrong, something bad goes, something arrived.
I mean this is a pretty epic failure. 22,000 men died in this battle.
And it can cause you to question sometimes if you're on the right path in life or if this is the right goal.
A lot of times people measure the path of their life by their failures.
They'll say, well if I failed that was the wrong idea. I'm not going to do that again.
They failed in any area of their life and they somehow use that as the determining factor of what they're going to do.
But that's not always the right way to look at a situation.
We need to evaluate our situation based on what the Bible says.
And we need to ask this question, well okay I failed or I had a big setback or something really bad happened to me.
But is this what God wants me to do?
And if this is what God wants me to do, then I'm just going to do it.
You know, you could listen to a sermon called How to Tell Your Wife What to Do.
And maybe you've been failing in that area and perhaps you say, you know what, I'm going to tell my wife what to do today.
And you do it and then it fails. You know, you totally lose the argument there, she wins or whatever.
But then you look back at the Bible and you're like, well that was the right thing to do. So you just try it again.
You don't just keep failing. Because really, failure is better than quitting.
Failure is better than quitting.
And notice what the children of Israel do here in verse 22.
And the people, the men of Israel, encourage themselves and set their battle against an array in the place where they put themselves in an array the first day.
So what happens is they had a giant failure, but notice they didn't quit. What did they do?
They encouraged themselves. They encouraged themselves.
And the title of my sermon this morning is this. Encourage yourself. Encourage yourself.
You're going to have failures in your life. You're going to have setbacks in your life.
You're going to sometimes not do things the right way or something horrible could happen.
But you know what, when you're on the right path or you already know what God wants you to do,
you encourage yourself and you do it again.
Don't quit. Really, in the grand scheme of things, typically the worst thing you can do is just quit.
Failing is not nearly as bad as quitting. And in almost every case, failing is better.
Failing here is not going to be the ultimate demise. There's more to this chapter.
It's not like they failed and then just went off. That would be the failure.
The failure would not be losing the 22,000 people. The failure would be quitting.
Quitting is the ultimate failure. Quitting is the only thing that we're not supposed to do.
You know, we sometimes are going to fail in life or sometimes we're going to have setbacks.
You know, the Bible clearly even says, be holy, cry holy.
But which of you is going to ever succeed at that ever?
You will never succeed at being holy. You will never succeed at being perfect.
You will never do everything right. The Bible makes it abundantly clear for all of sin to come short of the glory of God.
The Apostle Paul said that he did that, which he did not allow.
I mean, the Apostle Paul said that I screw up on an regular basis.
He said who shall deliver me from this body of death? He made it clear he was carnal.
He made it clear that he struggled every single day. He would fail at times.
We see the apostles, we see great men of God failing consistently in the Bible.
But you know what the ultimate failure is? Quitting. Just don't quit. Encourage yourself.
Now, I'm going to give you a dictionary definition of what encourage means.
We're going to kind of talk about this in the Bible.
Encourage, according to the dictionary, is to inspire with courage, spirit, or hope.
Let me say that again. To inspire with courage, spirit, or hope.
You have to give yourself courage. You have to give yourself spirit. You have to give yourself hope.
What is courage? Courage is the mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.
I really like that definition. It's saying the mental or moral strength.
You know, of course, they failed ethically, physically. But you know what they didn't fail?
They didn't fail mentally. They didn't fail morally. They said this is right.
We're going to encourage ourselves. They encouraged themselves.
And we're going to persevere. We're going to withstand this difficulty.
Of course, God is going to make certain battles in our lives difficult.
And you know what gives you a lot of character is having overcome difficulty in your life.
If everything was just so easy, if you just always win, if you just always succeed right off the bat,
it's going to be difficult for you to have even any kind of character.
You know, what gives you a lot of character is having failed, not succeeded, having to work really hard towards something,
and then achieving that goal, that gives you a lot of character.
And of course, to get to that point of success, you often have to constantly encourage yourself.
And I think that when we look at our world today, a lot of people are looking for an encouragement that comes from someone else.
They want their spouse to encourage them. They want their mom or dad to encourage them.
They want a family member, a friend, a mentor. They want a pastor. They need a guru. They need some kind of expert.
They need enough likes on their Facebook posts to encourage them.
And a lot of people are looking for encouragement from somewhere else.
But I believe that you really need to learn how to encourage yourself.
You have to learn how to encourage yourself. Of course, that courage and inspiration is going to ultimately come from the Bible.
But God has given us the opportunity with the Scripture and with God's Word to encourage ourselves,
meaning no matter what, you can always be encouraged.
Because if I was dependent upon another person, if I was dependent upon someone else to give me courage, well, that may not always work.
I could be left alone. I could be forsaken. I could have a difficulty where I don't have someone else.
You know, when I have the Scripture deep inside my heart, when I'm meditating on the Word of God, when I have the Holy Spirit,
I always have the opportunity to encourage myself.
I always have the opportunity to lift myself up through God's Word and allow Him to inspire me to keep doing that which is right,
to persevere despite awe, despite any kind of difficulty or situation.
Now, I have three points that I want to just make from this passage.
We're going to kind of unravel them a little bit in our sermon this morning.
Number one, when you fail, the first way to encourage yourself is to learn something from your failure.
You need to learn something from your failure.
And, of course, the children of Israel, they do learn something.
Now, look what it says. Skip forward a little bit in this chapter.
Look what it says in verse 28.
In Phinehas, the son of Eliezer, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days, saying,
Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin, my brother?
Or shall I cease? And the Lord said, Go up, for tomorrow I will deliver them into thine hand.
And Israel sent liars in wait round about Gibeon.
You know what they learned after two days of fighting?
We can't beat these guys head on.
Because every time they went head on, these children of Benjamin are really great warriors.
You know, they are stone, left hand, right hand. They're expert in war.
And if you can't beat someone head on, you need to learn that so you can try something different.
And, of course, what are they going to do?
They're going to go into battle.
They're going to pretend like they're losing again, run away, draw everybody out from the city,
and then they're going to sweep in behind them, destroy their city, and then basically encompass them where they're surrounded.
And it's difficult to fight someone with your back.
You know, you can face someone on, but you can't guard against arrows coming from both directions.
You know, that's why a lot of times you say, Hey, I got your back.
Where does that phrasing come from?
From the fact that you can't really defend both sides.
You know, God put eyes on the front, eyes on the front, born to hunt.
Eyes on the side, born to hide.
I'm not a hider. I'm born to hunt.
And man is born to hunt, but you don't have eyes on the back of your head.
So when it comes to warfare, you have to be careful what's behind you or what attack is coming from behind.
So they learned this after two days of battle, and now they're going to try something different.
So point one, whenever you have failed, you need to learn something different.
But here's another point, you need to try something different.
Try something different.
You know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.
This would be very true in programming.
You know, if you put the same code in and you expect a different output, it's never going to happen.
You know, in coding you have to constantly try something a little bit different or tweak it.
It's not just going to magically work all of a sudden.
And of course in your life, if you had failures in somewhere in your life and you just keep trying the same thing over and over and keep failing, failing, failing, failing, you're kind of insane.
And so it is really the idea that you need to try something different.
Once you've learned, okay, I failed, but I can see where I went wrong.
I can see where I could do something a little bit different this time.
And by doing something different, that is going to help you succeed.
The third point you can learn from this though is ultimately they asked God if they were going to win the battle.
Hey, should I still go back out? And the Lord said, hey, I'm going to win.
So they learned to depend on God.
They learned to depend on God.
And of course if you want to encourage yourself, you're going to do these three things.
You're going to learn from your mistakes.
You're going to have to try something different.
And ultimately you have to depend on God.
But when you do all of this, it'll encourage you.
Because, you know, hey, I learned something.
You know, second thing, hey, I have an opportunity, I have hope, because maybe if I try this different thing, it's going to work this time.
And the third is when I'm just ultimately trusting in God, that takes a lot of burden off of me to say, you know what, I know I failed, but I'm just trusting in God to get me back.
And it'll help you to say, you know what, I'm going to do it again.
I'm going to try again.
And not to be a quitter, the worst thing you can do in most cases is quit.
Don't be a quitter.
Encourage yourself.
And of course they had this failure, the first battle.
They had a second failure, but what happened?
The third battle they won.
What if they had quit on the second day?
That would have been an epic failure.
You know, when you look at this story as a whole, it's not a failure.
They had to overcome adversity.
They had to overcome difficulty.
We look at this story as a success.
Because it's measured in the fact that they didn't quit.
They trusted in God.
And God gave them the victory.
And in our lives, we're not going to necessarily always be measured by every failure.
But you know what, we're going to be measured by if we continue.
If we were steadfast all the way until the end.
Go to 1 Samuel, chapter 130.
The Bible has this consistent theme in the Scriptures that we need to encourage ourselves when we go through difficulty.
And most of us, honestly, have never gone through the difficulties that the men of the Bible went through.
I mean, we can think of Job.
I mean, of course he's the ultimate of that situation.
No one's ever went through Job's experience.
Arguably no one ever will.
The only person to outdo Job was Jesus.
And of course neither of us are Jesus or Job.
So therefore, we can always encourage ourselves.
Because if Job can continue serving God.
If Job is not going to curse God.
If Job is not going to quit on God.
Then why would I have the opportunity to quit on God?
I mean, Job's wife wanted him to quit.
Hey Job, why don't you just curse God and die?
Now let me ask you this question.
Who in Job's life was there to encourage him?
His wife didn't encourage him.
She's the same guy.
That's not a very encouraging statement.
He lost all his children.
They're not there to encourage him.
He has three friends.
They come for seven days to say nothing.
That was pretty helpful.
And then when they finally open their stupid mouth, they say a bunch of foolish things.
They preach a bunch of false doctrines.
And they're trying to convince Job he's the most wicked person to ever walk on the planet.
That wasn't very helpful.
That wasn't very encouraging.
He says, miserable comforters are ye.
He said there are positions of no value.
Like pediatricians don't do.
Like a male gynecologist.
Physicians of no value.
I mean, he didn't say like they helped at all.
They hurt.
They did not benefit.
They didn't encourage Job.
So you know what?
Job was relying upon the Lord to encourage him.
He is another man.
In 1 Samuel chapter 30, where we find ourselves, where everything has gone bad for David.
David, his marriage is a wreck.
He's run away.
He doesn't have his wife.
David, his father-in-law is trying to kill him.
David has been rejected in his whole nation.
Even of the men that did kind of assist him, they all got killed by good life and evil life.
He has a small band of men that have traveled with him that have gone into the Philistines land.
And he started serving a secular boss, his Philistine boss.
His boss liked him, but he wanted to go to battle.
And basically gets fired for the job because the other bosses don't like him.
Corporate says that you violated the terms and services.
You've been censored.
Sorry, we're going to have to let you go because of what you preached.
We're going to have to let you go because of what you said.
So he gets fired.
He comes back home.
And he loses all of the other people that are with him.
His wives, he gathered a couple of wives.
He lost the second and third wife.
It's like a country music song.
He lost the first wife and the second wife and the third wife.
I mean, David just lost it all.
Not only did he lose his children and dog,
he lost all of his buddies' wives and children and everything else that was going with him.
And it got so bad that even his own men wanted to kill him.
I mean, I can't imagine if all of you showed up and you're just like,
we're all ready to kill you, Patrick.
You know, all my soul-winding captains, you know, Dylan.
Well, that's kind of a fucking thing.
We're all ready to get you.
We're all ready to kill you.
I mean, that would be pretty discouraging when you literally have even your own brethren
and saved people just there ready to kill you at the moment's notice.
They're ready to stone them.
Look what it says in the first symbol, chapter 30, verse 6.
And David was greatly distressed.
Hey, there's a lot of stress when you're in leadership.
For the people's sake of stoning him.
Because the soul of all the peoples grieved every man for his sons and for his daughters.
But David encouraged himself and the Lord is God.
Let me tell you something.
If David had quit there, you know what, he probably would have gotten stoned.
They probably would have killed him.
Some horrible thing would have happened to him.
Saul probably would have found him.
You know what he did?
He encouraged himself.
And we all need to learn how to encourage ourselves in the Lord
and say, you know what, no matter what difficulty, struggle, failure, issue I have,
I can always encourage myself.
And you know what's so great about this passage?
As soon as David learned how to encourage himself,
as soon as he encouraged himself, it's all good after this.
Like, he just goes to victory, to victory, to victory, to victory, to victory, to victory.
He just has so many victories when he finally learns how to encourage himself.
And let me tell you something.
Maybe your life has been a lot of failures,
but when you learn how to encourage yourself,
you're going to have a lot of victories ahead of you.
A lot of victories ahead of you.
Go to Galatians chapter 6.
This is all kind of just way of interruption this morning,
but I want to give you a little bit of sampling of what the Bible says on the subject.
Really, I can show you so many stories.
We're great men about failures when they have difficulty.
Even Elijah kind of wanted to quit at one point,
and God had to give him special food,
which then strengthened him to make a great journey.
Now, when you get special heavenly food,
what is that usually a symbol of?
The Word of God.
And so, when he was down the dumps and ready to quit,
what encouraged Elijah to keep going?
The Bible.
The Word of God encouraged him and strengthened him
to make a journey that he wasn't even physically capable of making.
He could have never made that journey by himself,
but God strengthened him,
God gave him the mic,
and he traveled and he had a great experience with the Lord.
He got to hear the still small voice of the Lord.
And he got to inspire the next generation.
He got to inspire Elisha,
who ended up doing double the works that he did.
Who had a double portion of God's Spirit poured on him.
And so, what if Elijah had quit and we would have no Elisha?
What if Elijah had quit,
we wouldn't have seen him get carried up in a whirlwind of heaven?
You know, some of the greatest things that Elijah did
were the latter portion of his life,
even when he was in a low spot.
And we may be in a low spot in our lives,
we may have difficulty in our lives,
but that doesn't mean that God isn't ready
to just swoop in and help you.
You know, the children of Israel,
they couldn't physically go through the wilderness,
God and the core miracles, and get them through.
What was it? The manna from heaven.
The manna from heaven is what got them through the wilderness.
And you know, our lives and the path ahead for us
may be very difficult,
but what can get us through there is the manna of heaven.
It means the Word of God.
You know, when I look at America
and I look at the direction of our country
and I look at our government officials
and I look at the laws of our country,
I don't look at an easy road ahead of us.
In my mind, it almost seems like we passed the Red Sea
and now we're looking at the wilderness
that we have to walk through to get to the Promised Land.
And so what we're going to have to do
is we're going to have to learn how to rely upon God's Word
and constantly encourage ourselves and the Lord
to keep taking those steps of faith
and to not quit in the wilderness,
to not give up in the wilderness of our life.
You know, your life ahead of you
might be more difficult than it's ever been.
I don't want to tell you something that's not true.
I don't want to give you this idea of like,
you know what, 2023 is probably going to be
the greatest year ever.
There might be more difficulties this year
than the previous year.
In fact, we may actually be living
in the greatest days of America,
you know, in the sense of in our lifetime.
Like, this might be the greatest years that we get to live,
the most freedom, the best restaurants and food.
Obviously, customer service may never come back.
That might be a shift that's already sailed and gone.
And so we have to realize is that no matter
what difficulties lie ahead,
if I'm constantly waiting to encourage myself,
it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter what difficulty.
Maybe it's going to be all great.
I don't know.
I can't tell you for sure what's going to happen.
But I love them.
And those who try to serve God,
their lives usually don't get easier.
They get harder.
You know, at first, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,
they were challenged with eating the king's meat.
Later, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
are going to be challenged to be thrown
in the furnace of fire.
So it didn't look like it was, you know,
you're going to say, hey, which one's easier?
We already know which one was easier.
Daniel purpose in his heart not to defy himself
with the king's meat.
Later, he's going to be questioned
after the test.
Is he going to pray or be thrown in the lion's den?
That was a really serious challenge in heaven.
And I think, you know, again,
my personal opinion is when you study the Bible,
when you succeed at the difficulties God gives you,
He usually gives you a bigger challenge.
Just like the weight room.
You know, once you've got the 10 pounder,
you've got the 20 pounder, the 50 pounder,
the 100 pounder, the 150 pounder,
then you need a new gym.
You never even have free weights for that, right?
He's going to stack more weight on the barbell.
He's going to constantly increase the length,
increase the reps, make it more challenged,
because God likes to see you overcome greater difficulties.
We have to learn how to encourage ourselves.
Look at Galatians 6, verse 8.
For he that sowed to his flesh shall have the flesh
reap corruption, for he that sowed to the spirit
shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.
And let us not be weary in well-doing,
for in due season we shall reap.
Notice this, if we faint not.
What's the worst thing you can do?
Quit.
Just don't quit.
Go to 2 Thessalonians, just look to the right,
just a hair.
2 Thessalonians, chapter 3.
And look at verse 13.
But ye, brethren, be not weary in well-doing.
Notice there's a consistent theme in the Bible.
Hey, don't stop.
Don't be weary.
Don't slow down.
You know, I like this verse
because it doesn't say here, don't quit.
It doesn't say don't give up.
It says don't be weary.
What does it say here?
Don't quit.
Don't be weary.
What is weariness?
Weariness is, oh, I'm gonna do it,
but I don't want to.
Oh, I have to go to church again.
Oh, we have to go over here.
When is it gonna be over?
Mommy and daddy, are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
That's the weariness.
What did God say?
God said do not be weary.
How do you not even be weary?
You encourage yourselves.
You're excited.
You have hope.
You have inspiration.
You have courage.
You have boldness.
You're looking forward to the next challenge,
not like, oh, here we go again.
Oh, another one.
That's what the Bible's commanded you
is to not even be weary.
Encourage yourself.
Go to Proverbs 24.
In the middle of your Bible.
Proverbs 24.
You're gonna have difficulty in life
whether you come to this church or not.
You're gonna have difficulty in life
whether you serve God or not,
and this is an important trait to learn.
You need to learn how to encourage yourself,
and there is not a person on this planet
that will not fail in some way.
All of us are gonna fail.
All of us are gonna have setbacks.
Therefore, when we look at the righteous person,
the righteous person is not the perfect person.
The righteous person is the one that stays encouraged.
Look at Proverbs 24 verse 16.
The Bible says,
For a just man falleth seven times
and riseth up again,
but the wicked shall fall into mischief.
A verse that I think a lot of people can quote,
but we didn't live by it.
Hey, I had a setback,
and then I set back again,
and then again, and again, and again,
but you know what?
I just kept getting up,
and when I got up,
I learned something every time.
One again was learning something every time.
It is enthusiastic just to the right of your body weight,
right there.
You know, one thing you can learn in your life
is while we should learn how to encourage ourselves
from an individualistic perspective,
sometimes in our lives, though,
we need to realize we need other people.
We need to do everything ourselves.
You know, I have this bad tendency
to always want to do everything myself
because you ask other people to do it,
and they fail.
They do a bad job.
They don't do what you said.
They screw it up.
Everything you can imagine.
They do the opposite of what you ask them to do.
You know, you ask your children.
They clean up, and pretty soon,
they start grabbing the food,
and they're playing,
and you're like, this is the exact opposite
of what I told you to do.
You go to the workplace.
If you're a manager, you're a leader.
You could tell your employees something to do,
and they fail, and often,
what a bad manager will do is to say,
well, I'll just do it myself.
What a bad parent will do is just say,
I'll just do it myself.
No, you say, hey, you made a bigger mess.
Clean it up, too.
Now your work is doubled.
You did this wrong.
Let me show you how to do it.
You need other people,
but also realize you need other people.
I could not have church this morning
if it was me by myself.
Look, I didn't screw up.
I didn't bring the bulletin.
I didn't bring a lot of this.
I depend on so many different people
to even just stand here this morning
and preach to you as servants.
What I have learned in life
is that we have to depend on other people.
We have to learn how to use other people.
We can't all do it by ourselves,
and if we try to do it by ourselves,
we can't do as big a work
as if we use other people.
We have soul winning captains
because I can't do all the soul winning
leading and management and organizing.
Our soul winning captains can't even do it all.
They have lieutenants.
When they don't even have people that have titles,
they just have other great men in their tribe
that help them with the soul winning.
Whether they get a title or not, they don't even care.
They just want the work to get done.
There's so many people that just make this church
what it is, and they don't need all the recognition.
They don't need all the attention.
Leaving our business suite recently,
or leaving our taga office, I call it taga,
with taga office, that took a lot of people's effort.
We had tons of people helping us move stuff.
We had tons of people helping us clean things.
We had tons of people just assisting
in all kinds of ways.
I couldn't do that all by myself.
We need other people.
Look what the Bible says in Ecclesiastes chapter 4 verse 9.
Two are better than one,
because they have a good reward for their labor,
for if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow.
But woe to him that is alone
when he fall and forgets not another to help him.
According to the scripture, two are better than one.
What is that verse?
To me, it's learning something.
Sometimes you have to realize
two are better than one.
And any time you have a failure,
you can really help.
You know, if you fall and you're alone,
you can end up saying,
you know what, it would have been better
if I had someone else here to help pick me up.
So the next time you go on a journey,
you say, hey, will you come with me?
Hey, I need to get a buddy here.
Hey, I need someone to assist me here,
and you can have them assist you.
You know, there's a lot of jobs out there
you know, putting stuff together.
Whenever you do construction
or you do any kind of physical or manual labor,
often having another person there
is a big help because you can't just
always carry everything or hold everything up.
It's nice when someone pulls something up
while you fasten it, put it in place,
do that kind of work, and you do it by yourself
and you fail, you realize, you know what,
two are better than one.
What you have to realize is in your life,
sometimes you need more than one person.
Go to Acts chapter 13, go to Acts chapter 13.
You can't do everything by yourself.
You know, I depend on my wife for so many things.
If it wasn't for my wife, I would,
you know, me and my children would be
dressed very ugly, okay?
I don't have style.
I don't have the time to care about that.
Their hair would not look nearly as good.
You know, it looks, I mean,
my wife helped us look good.
My wife helps me.
My wife helps me to eat good meals.
My wife helps me to keep the house in order.
My wife helps me in so many areas.
My wife helps me to just sound
like an intelligent person
because there's some things that I
have efficiency in, I don't understand as well,
that I can ask her, and in our relationship,
she can help direct me and help
make me a better person.
My wife, frankly speaking,
has better linguistic skills than I do.
You know, and she's got more knowledge
in certain areas than I do.
I can ask her.
Also, she's a different person,
so she has a different perspective.
She can help me with blind spots
that I have in my life
and make me a better person,
and I can just learn from her.
Oh, she's the weaker vessel.
She might be weaker in some areas,
but you know what?
She's stronger in some areas, too.
And I can learn through her weakness.
I can learn through her perspective.
I can learn through her, you know,
human experience, and instead of
always looking down upon her
and thinking like I'm just so much
better than her in every area,
I can look at her as a help me
as someone that I can utilize.
You know, if you're gonna put together
a team, it's not good to hire someone
or get someone on your team
that's the exact same as you
in every category or worse.
It'd be nice to get someone
that's better than you in certain areas.
You know, taller, stronger, stronger,
more experienced.
That's why often when you look at a business,
the manager is not always
the most skilled person on the team
because that wouldn't make sense, necessarily.
The manager is good at managing.
The manager is good at making decisions.
I'm not saying yours.
I'm just saying in general,
that's what theory is, right?
The manager should be a good decision maker.
He should be organized.
He should be able to get other people
to do all of the work.
You know, there's a lot of stress
on people in those kind of positions.
But you know, a good manager is gonna
find someone that's really skilled
to do that work, even if he's
more skilled than himself.
And in your life, maybe you've been failing
because you're not relying on other people.
You're not utilizing the strengths of others.
You're not utilizing their skill
and their effort.
And of course, sometimes people fail
and it can cause you to think,
you know what, I don't want to use
the strength of others.
Look at Acts chapter 13.
In verse 13, Paul and his company
Luz and Pathos, they came to Berga
and Pamphylia and John, departing from them,
returned to Jerusalem.
So in one of the first missionary journeys
with the Apostle Paul,
he had an assistant, John Mark,
who was there to help and to assist them.
Yet John Mark just totally failed.
John Mark just totally just failed
and was not reliable.
Look at verse five.
It said, and they had also John
and their minister.
John was there for one reason,
to just make Paul's life easier.
That's what a minister means serving.
So it's like, hey, you need dry cleaning,
I got you.
You need food, I got you.
You need me to drive over here,
do this, pick this up.
He's just their minister.
And you know what, at one point
he just quit on the job.
He tried to quit and failed
in this point in time,
but he didn't quit ultimately.
Go to 2 Timothy chapter four,
2 Timothy chapter four,
and at one point in Paul's ministry,
Paul doesn't even want to use Mark
because he failed.
Now, in my personal opinion,
I think that Paul is right
to do whatever he wants there.
John probably needed a wake-up call
to say that this is serious,
he can't just quit and just come back
and pretend like everything is the same.
But at one point in Paul,
he didn't give up on Mark entirely.
He may have set him aside at one point in time,
but he did give Mark a second chance
and then he should leave.
And God bless Mark for not having
given up, but trying again.
And you know what Mark did?
He tried something different
because the next time he went to Barnabas.
He didn't go to Paul.
And of course, maybe he tried
some other new things.
He learned some stuff from his failure,
he was able to try something
and ultimately, he becomes profitable
for the ministry.
Look at 2nd Timothy chapter 4 verse 11.
Only Luke is with me.
Take Mark and bring him with me
for he is profitable to me
for the ministry.
You know, there could be a day
when you're not profitable,
you screw up, you do something bad
to your boss, but you know what?
The next day, you can do something profitable.
You know, you might not be profitable
for God someday,
but you end up becoming profitable
for the Lord of the future.
Go ahead and believe in chapter 1.
Who's somebody like that?
How about Peter?
Didn't Peter have like almost
the ultimate failure
when a little damsel's asking him
if he knows Christ?
And he's like, I know not the man.
And he started to swear in a curse.
That wasn't four letter words, folks, okay?
He was saying, I know not the man.
That's what it meant to curse.
That's what it meant to swear.
I don't know her.
I don't even think they believed him
because they just keep pestering about it.
No, no, no, you're that guy.
And then Jesus turns around
and looks at him, and I mean,
boy, talk about the worst look you could imagine.
I mean, just deny Christ three times.
Christ only told you you're going to fail.
And then you fail.
And the Bible says that Peter
went out of his breath bitterly.
You know what I like about Peter?
He obviously encouraged himself
because he didn't give up.
And then Peter becomes one
of the most important in history
who is willing to lay down his life
for God at the threat of any punishment,
at the threat of any death,
at the threat of any kind of evil.
Peter became so bold
because he had encouraged himself
and the Lord, and he had learned
from his mistake.
He said, I never want to make
that mistake again.
I am going to do something different.
I'm going to actually stand for God
the next time.
And thirdly, I'm going to depend on God
because he, whenever he's threatened
by the council and he's threatened
by the leaders, he says,
whether it's right to obey you or God,
you know, you can figure that out,
but we're going to obey God rather than men.
And he became bold.
He didn't say, I don't know who Jesus is.
He says, hey, we're never going
to stop preaching in Jesus Christ's name.
We're never going to give up.
We're never going to quit.
And then he gets thrown in prison.
And what happened? God bails him out.
He's never going to get out of there.
He's never going to pick him or whatever
and get him out of there.
And you know, sometimes in our lives
we may be put in a difficult spot
and think like, I can't get out of this.
But God can somehow get you out of it.
There's been times in my life where
I've gone through difficulty, hard experiences,
things I thought, I don't know how
I'm going to ever get out of this situation,
but God just made it work.
God just provided a miracle
and ultimately the way he succeeds
is by just not quitting.
Don't be a quitter.
Don't encourage himself regularly.
Now, Philemon is a short book.
It's about kind of the Apostle Paul's
experiences in prison.
He meets a guy and this guy
had failed previously.
Look at verse 10.
I diseased thee from my son on estimates
who I begotten my bond,
which in time past was to be unprofitable,
but now profitable to thee and me.
Notice this guy was a failure in the past.
He was a screw up in the past,
but now he's profitable.
Verse 12, who might have sinned again,
thou therefore receive him,
that is, mine own bowels,
who I would have obtained with me,
that by his stead he might have ministered
unto me in the bonds of the gospel.
But without thy mind would I do nothing
that thy benefit should not be,
as it were, a necessity but worth it.
So it says in this verse 15,
for perhaps he therefore did not receive
in this verse 15, for perhaps
he therefore departed for a season
that thou didst receive him forever.
You know, perhaps he had failed
one time so that he would never fail again.
And maybe you in your life,
you had a big failure,
you had a big setback,
but it was so that God could help you
to never make that mistake again.
I've had situations where I've dealt with people
and, you know, I've gotten ripped off
for lots of money one time
from a stupid, wicked, evil contractor,
and I always question that experience
and I always look back.
Do you know what I think now?
I'm not going to make that mistake again.
And what I learned from that is,
hey, I have so much more character
and knowledge than I did previously.
I'm a better person having gone
through that difficulty
or having that epic failure in my life
and now I'm better for it.
And what is character worth?
What is knowledge worth?
What is strength worth?
What is courage worth?
You know, Peter, he went through
that horrible experience
so that he could learn how bad failure felt
to realize I never want to do this again.
You know, as my boss, he used to tell me,
pain teaches.
Pain teaches.
You go through certain pains
and you're not going to be able
to do that again.
You know, a child who touches the hot stove
or puts their finger in the socket,
a lot of times for smart children,
they learn they'll never make that mistake again.
Some of them are a little bit.
And I get it.
My children do that one too.
Ellie, she fell from a chair yesterday
and then hurt her head.
And I was wondering, like,
is she going to finally learn
and be careful when she's finding out things?
Is she going to finally learn
and be careful when she's finding out things?
Nope.
And so, of course, that pain didn't teach there.
But often, pain will teach you.
And we need to learn
from the painful experiences that we have.
Go over to 2 Timothy chapter 4.
2 Timothy chapter 4.
Learn something from your mistakes.
You know, the worst thing you can do
is have a big failure and learn nothing.
Failure is a great opportunity
to learn how to do something better.
If you screw up, do bad, hey, okay.
But now I'm going to learn something from you.
And then I'm going to become a better person for you.
2 Timothy chapter 4, verse 11.
Only Luke is with me.
I already read that verse, I'm sorry.
2 Timothy verse 16.
At my first answer, no man stood with me,
but all men forsook me.
I pray God that it may not be late to return.
You know what?
I think about this verse,
and I haven't really thought about this,
but think about how everybody else was a failure.
I mean, forsaking Paul is a big failure.
They all failed.
You know, if the Apostle Paul wasn't saying,
okay, you failed once, nuts to you guys.
No, no, no, Paul said, hey,
I pray that God will give them a second chance
and that they'll have opportunity
to get it right the next time.
And you know, Onesiphorus was not ashamed of Paul's channel.
So later, there became people
that were not gonna forsake the Apostle Paul.
There were people, Luke was still with him.
Mark is still with him.
So even the Apostle Paul had people
given the second chance that were willing
to get it right, and they encouraged themselves.
You know, it would be embarrassing
to have been like a buddy with Paul
and to have given up on him.
I don't know.
Think about like you're ministering with Paul
and he gets thrown in prison again.
And you're like, probably done this time
moving on now, nuts to you.
And then he gets out and he's like,
hey, where are you?
Like, well, you know.
I mean, that'd be kind of embarrassing, wouldn't it?
Hey, why didn't you come see me?
Why didn't you come meet up with me?
Kind of embarrassing.
It was embarrassing when Jesus
had to come and talk to Peter.
He's like, why didn't you come see me?
Why didn't you come meet up with me?
You know?
He feels like a screw up.
He didn't know what to say.
But at the end of the day,
we have to learn how to go through
uncomfortable and difficult situations
so that we can learn something
from the future.
You know, if you never address
making a mistake, you're never
gonna learn from that mistake.
Let me explain what you do.
When you make a mistake, this is what you do.
Immediately acknowledge the mistake
apologize to all those that need
apology and say I'm gonna try
something different.
What does trying something different
signify?
You learn something.
If you don't try anything different,
it signifies you didn't learn anything.
Hey, I screwed up.
You're right.
It's wrong.
I'm sorry.
I shouldn't have done that.
My fault.
My experience.
And I see how I failed.
I see where I could have done
something better.
So I'm gonna do this something
better next time.
So point two is this.
Try something different.
Go to Joshua chapter 8.
We're gonna see.
You know, another thing you can
learn from other people's failures
in the Bible.
Sometimes you don't even have to
fail.
You don't even have to receive
and get drunk and vomit your guts
out to learn that drinking is stupid.
You can just learn from the lessons
in the Bible.
You can just see what the Bible is.
You know, you don't have to learn
from your uncle diddle what sodomites
are really like.
You can just read Genesis 19
and you can just read Judges
chapter 19 and you can just read
Romans 1 and say, hey, you sodomite
filthy pervert.
You're never allowed to be around
children ever.
And you don't have to go through
that gruesome experience.
You don't have to go through that
horrible experience.
You know, there's some experiences
you don't want to go through.
There's some experiences you don't
have to go through.
You can live through Judges 19 vicariously.
You don't have to experience that
for yourself.
You can see how men in the Bible
who commit adultery totally ruin
their lives and say I don't need
to learn that lesson.
You know, there's certain lessons
I never want to learn.
Divorce.
I never want to learn what it's like
to take LSD or hardcore drugs
or smoking.
You know, I've never smoked pot.
I don't even want to know what it's like.
I don't want to ever learn
from the mistake of getting a tattoo
because I can't go back.
Praise God, I don't have a tattoo.
Praise God.
I don't have a tattoo.
Praise God.
You know, my parents taught me
a lot of things to stay away from.
I did make mistakes.
There are certain things I wish
I could have changed.
But you can learn through other
people's mistakes, but sometimes
you've got to learn through your own.
Joshua chapter 8, look at verse 1.
And the Lord said to Joshua,
Fear not, neither be thou dismayed.
And the king of Ai and his people
and his city and his land.
And thou shalt do to Ai and her king
as thou didst unto Jericho and her king.
Only the spoil thereof and the cattle thereof
shall you take for the prey on yourselves.
Lay thee in an ambush
for the city behind you.
You know, this ambushing idea
is not unique.
God taught it to us.
God told us how to work it.
He said to ambush people.
Now, if you pay attention,
is Joshua before or after judges?
Before.
So I wonder where those judges learned it.
I wonder where the men of judges
in chapter number 20 could have learned,
hey, they could have learned from
this story and what happened
in the first battle when they went to Ai.
What happened? They lose.
They lose the battle.
But they learned something from that battle
because not only were they not right with God,
but God even asked them to strategically
do something different for their work.
You know, sometimes you have bad things
happen or evil happen,
and you have to learn from that mistake.
You know, you sign a lease,
and the lease has garbage language in it.
They're like, okay, next time
we're going to get a lease
with better language in it.
And then you learn that everyone's a scumbag.
So you say, maybe that's just not
the right option.
Maybe you have to come up
with a different option.
Or, you know, we'll not be able
to get a lease.
We have to do something different.
You have to learn.
You have to lease from someone
that's not going to break the lease.
Someone that's not a truce breaker.
Someone that's not going to go back
on their work.
Someone that's not going to compromise
to the world.
Someone that's not going to just
care about money.
You have to lease from that person.
You know, what would be the stupid thing
is to learn nothing and enter
into it or do the same tactic
every single time.
Hey, I'm still trusting in God,
but you know what, let's do something
different this time, right?
Let's keep trying, but let's try
something different.
Look at verse 14.
And it came to pass, and the king of Ai saw
that the ace arose up early,
and the men of the city went out
against Israel in battle.
He and all his people at a time
appointed before the flame,
but he wished not that there were liars
and Joshua and all Israel made
as if it were they were,
as if they were beaten before them.
And fled by the way of the wilderness
and all the people that were in Ai
were called together to pursue after them
and they pursued after Joshua
and were drawn away from the city.
And there was not a man left in Ai or Bethlehem
that went not out after Israel
and they left the city open
and pursued after Israel.
And the Lord said to them,
Joshua, stretch out the spear
that is in my hand toward Ai
where I will give it in my hand
and Joshua stretched out the spear
that he had in his hand toward the city.
And the ambush arose quickly
out of their place and they ran
as soon as he had stretched out his hand
and they entered into the city
and took it and hasted
and set the city on fire.
Now I'm really confused why in this story
when they went to take the city
the women and the children didn't
take it over.
Isn't it interesting, as soon as
there's no men in the city
you know that's the stupidity
of putting women in our military.
Who would put women in our military?
Only the enemy.
I mean what kind of,
I mean do you really think that
China and Russia over there
are shaking in their boots about GIJ
about the Karens that we have
in our military
and a lot of them are dykes
that go by a like mister or something?
I mean our military
and our country is a joke today.
They don't even need to attack us
we're destroying ourselves.
They're like why in the world
do we even attack America?
Pretty soon they're going to
literally just kill themselves.
And that's like the art of war
it's like when your enemy
is destroying itself
don't get in his way.
Don't fix what's not broken.
I don't know if I said it right
the first time.
Second Corinthians,
chapter number 12.
So point one,
we've got to learn something.
Point two is we've got to
try something different.
But ultimately we need to
make sure that every time
we try something it's always
based on depending on God.
So we've got to learn something.
Point two is we've got to
try something different.
Depending on the Lord.
Look what it says in second Corinthians,
chapter 12 verse 7.
Unless I should be exalted above measure
through the abundance of the revelations
there was given to me a thorn in the flesh
a messenger of Satan above me.
Unless I should be exalted above measure
for this thing I besought the Lord
thrice that it might depart from me.
And he said unto me
my grace is sufficient for thee
my strength is made perfect in meekness.
You know what?
Isn't it frustrating when you're praying
in a rectory prayer against a sodomite
reprobate and it's not happening?
Yes.
And it's like one time, two times,
two times.
And then you start wondering like
hopefully this verse doesn't fly.
He's like my grace is sufficient.
You know what?
Sometimes we need to be humbled anyways
and we need to realize we don't need
to be exalted above measure
and just say you know what?
God's grace is sufficient.
Praise God.
I mean we have a church full of people
this morning that love the God
and are singing praise to the Lord
I mean what more can we ask for?
His grace is sufficient.
But you know what he said?
His strength is made perfect in our weakness.
We might be weak.
We might have problems.
You know what?
It's gonna just give that much more glory to God.
Most gladly therefore will I rather
glory in my infirmities
that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities
in reproaches, in necessities,
in persecutions, in distresses
for Christ's sake.
For when I am weak,
then am I strong.
You know what?
When we get so prideful and lifted up
and think that we can do it all ourselves,
we're gonna be a total failure.
We have to stay weak and humble
and rely on God
and say you know what?
I'm gonna be weak.
I need him so that he can give us the glory
through his might, through his strength.
You know what?
When we humble ourselves,
he'll lift us up in due time.
You know what?
It's only because we humble ourselves.
It's only because we rely upon him.
Notice the list.
In infirmities.
You know this is your sicknesses, weaknesses,
you know, problems with you.
Reproaches.
Everybody not liking you.
That's our review.
Necessities.
You know needing other people.
You know our church literally,
even though it's an independent
fundamental Baptist church,
in a lot of ways it's been dependent
on other independent fundamental Baptist churches
just to survive.
Just to exist.
You know you can think of the history of this church.
At one point this church was in need
of different leadership.
And it had to take from another church
you know Pastor Steven Anderson coming here
just to even keep people like
from going crazy.
I mean what do you think would have happened
in January?
When steadfast Baptist church,
if you had a pastor that's obviously disqualified
and there's no other pastor showing up
and he's not willing to do the right thing,
not willing to step down,
people from afar are leaking
all the bad things that are happening
in the church.
It becomes public what's going on.
Or frankly the pastor just quits randomly.
How do you think the church was done
governing itself?
It was pretty meaningful
that they had someone come in
to help lead the flock
for at least a week or so.
And then have another leader come in.
You know, borrowing from your word Baptist church.
You know this church has leaned on
your word Baptist church in a lot of ways.
You know what happens when
all of a sudden the church is in need
and the Baptist church in a lot of ways.
You know what happens when
all of your money is fraudulently stolen from you?
How are you going to pay your bills?
How are you going to pay an electric bill
or a gas bill
and all of the other things that are going on?
We relied on as a congregation
other churches to help that even happen.
You know we've had new difficulties
where we've had other churches
just step in and be willing
to just help us with so much help.
But you know what?
That gives so much glory to God.
You know we are so weak
and pathetic we can't even do it.
And then someone else helps us
and we see the love of God.
We see the mercy of God.
We see the grace of God
and we see God coming alongside
and helping us.
And you know what?
When we're weak we're strong
because we have God step in
and perform miracles for us
and help us because
we live.
And God forbid our church
would ever be so successful
that we stop depending on God
and we start depending on ourselves.
Saying that we're rich
and increased with good
and I've noticed this word
need of nothing.
Woe under the church that says
we have need of nothing.
Woe under the church that says
that they're sufficient.
Woe under the person that says
I have need of nothing.
We need to rely on God
because it's only through
His strength and His power
and His might and His grace
that we have the things we need.
Go to Psalm 73, go to Psalm 73.
You know this is a time of year
that a lot of people make resolutions.
Maybe you failed every year
of your life in reading the Bible.
Okay?
Well let's learn something.
Why did you fail?
Maybe the time that you tried
to do something different.
Maybe you need to do it
different times.
The morning, the evening,
the lunch break or whatever it is
try something different.
If you failed to read the Bible
cover to cover every year
of your life and you don't
have a new method for this year
you're insane.
Come up with a new method.
Come up with a new strategy.
Come up with a new goal.
You say well I'm going to read
a new method.
New goal.
You know, hey I'm not coming
to church faithfully.
Okay, well identify what obstacles
or the reasons why you're not
coming to church faithfully
and try something different
and depend on God to help you
and whatever you're cutting out.
Oh well I can't go to church
you know faithfully because of
this issue, work or family or
I don't know what your issue is.
Well you know what?
I've gone out soul winning
but I've never gotten someone's name.
You know what?
Failure is not a problem.
Quitting is a problem.
It's like people are afraid
like well if I start preaching
the gospel to somebody and I fail
that would be embarrassing.
You know what's embarrassing?
Never trying to get the gospel.
That's what's embarrassing.
You know what's embarrassing?
Quitting I'm told.
You know what's not embarrassing?
And you don't depend on God to help you.
Then yeah it might just stay embarrassing.
But you know what?
Failure is not that embarrassing.
We all fail. We all struggle.
You know I remember
going out soul winning one time
and I ran into a Muslim
and he's like Jesus isn't God.
Yeah he is.
He's like nope Jesus isn't God.
Show it to me in the Bible.
I'm like of course it is.
It's somewhere in here.
I totally failed.
I didn't know how to answer it
because I didn't have any verses memorized.
I didn't know any of the places to look up.
All the places I could think of.
You know John 3 16
at the time I totally failed
and I felt like a loser
that I couldn't even answer the question on the fly.
Do you know what I did after that?
I memorized like 20 places I could turn to.
So then the next time
when someone asked me that question
the next time they're confused
I could just turn
and I'd go.
And of course there were places I knew
but it was just with that pressure.
Sometimes when you're in a pressured situation
you just forget.
You could memorize a verse your whole life
and then you get up and preach it
and you're just like.
You know just because sometimes
when you're in a pressured situation
it's different.
There's songs.
I don't know what's wrong with me
but I've done probably a thousand
to two thousand times in my life
and I could screw up the lyrics
every night.
It's just so weird.
Sometimes you just have a brain part
or you just forget
or you have something go wrong.
But you know what?
I don't stop trying to sing that song.
I don't stop trying to memorize that song
or learn that song.
I'm still willing to put myself out there.
I'm still gonna sing it
and even if I screw up
I'm gonna learn
and I'm gonna try something different
and I'm gonna depend on God to help me.
Look at Psalm 73 verse 26.
My flesh and my heart fail it
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion for heaven.
Hey you're gonna fail.
Your flesh is weak.
You can't do everything
but you know what?
I'm gonna learn from my failures.
I'm gonna try something different
and I'm gonna depend on God.
And of course I could wait
to preach a sermon a week from now
when we've all failed in resolutions.
But I'm just trying to give you
an idea of how to encourage yourself
and decide to even make a goal
because some people won't even make a goal
or won't even try to improve in their lives
because of so much past failure.
And what I'm telling you
is that is the failure.
The failure is not trying to be better.
The failure is not trying to improve.
Well I always lose my temper, okay?
Identify why, learn something from it,
try something different, depend on God.
I've been trying to work out
and I keep failing, okay well
figure out how to do something different.
Realize that you need someone.
I learned that lesson.
I basically have learned
there is no way I'll ever be
a consistent person working out
if I do it by myself.
If this never happened, I'll totally,
I just need other people.
And you know if you're that kind of person
then say you know what,
I need to identify someone
that's gonna help me and encourage me
and I can utilize them
and through my weakness I can become strong
because realizing you have the weakness
and then asking someone else
is gonna help you actually be strong.
But you try to do it yourself
and failing the rest of your life
is actually gonna be your weakness.
If you fail then to realize
you need other people or to succeed.
It's not weak to have other people
do everything for you
if that's what's necessary.
What's weak is to not ask people
for the things you need.
What's weak is to not keep trying.
You know as a husband or as a wife
there can be areas in the relationship
that you're failing in.
You need to ask the spouse to help you,
to encourage you, to do things better.
You know as a husband
sometimes you can need your wife
to help you some.
There's been times in my life
where I struggle with things
and I ask my wife to be
an accountability person for me
or to remind me or to bring things up
or to help me.
You know my wife
when I have something important,
you know there's been so many times in my life
where I set my alarm and I smooth it.
Who does this problem?
I'm not alone, thank God.
I remember when I was in college
I had been a walk-on on the golf team
so it means I wasn't recruited.
Basically I clocked the codes,
I joined the team
but I wasn't officially recruited.
And we had our first workout.
So the first thing we ever did as a team
was we were going to have a workout at 6 a.m.
It said no exceptions,
you have to be here at 6 a.m.
I hear my alarm going off,
I click the buzzer and it says 8 a.m.
I'm like, how did I do this?
And I don't even know if that would happen.
Obviously I had to snooze it or something.
And so I like get reamed,
I'm in trouble,
it was like horrible.
Next day, Tuesday, we have a workout.
6 a.m.
I set the alarm.
Beep, beep, beep.
I look, 8.30.
I'm like, what are you doing?
I thought I was going to be here at 6 a.m.
and I was like,
what am I doing?
I thought I was going to be thrown off
with the golf team.
I thought I was going to like totally be done.
And I said, you know,
I don't even know how I stayed on the team.
It was like by the grace of God,
like third time start.
So you know what I did?
I set 15 alarms for the next morning.
Every five minutes.
And I moved my alarm clock
20 feet away from my bed.
I made it.
I made it the third time.
But you know what I didn't do
is I didn't try the third time
to just totally fail.
I said, you know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to try something different.
You know, when I have something really important,
my wife will sometimes just literally say,
do you want me to set an alarm
and I'll wake you up too.
And it's like, yes.
Yes, I need this.
Because you know what?
Sometimes you just need other people.
But you know, you have to realize
sometimes you have a weakness.
You have a blind spot.
You have an issue.
You know, maybe your prayer life
was not what you wanted.
Well, learn.
Try something different.
It depends on God.
You know, we have to as a church
constantly encourage ourselves
because the world won't encourage you.
The world wants to shut you down.
The world wants to constantly attack you.
And of course, the ultimate thing
the devil is trying to do to you and me
is to get us to quit.
He doesn't care how.
And you know what the devil does though?
The devil keeps encouraging himself
because he keeps learning
and trying something different.
It's like, okay, well, making church
be farther away from your house,
that didn't get you to quit.
Having sodomite freaks protest outside,
that didn't get you to quit.
You know, having financial difficulty,
that didn't get you to quit.
Having new kids or new relationship problems,
that didn't get you to quit.
The devil is just, he doesn't care why you quit.
He just wants you to quit.
Whether it's money, finances, relationship.
You know, that's why he texts a lot of marriages
because marriage is in my opinion
one of the number one reasons
why people quit going to church.
That's why I emphasize why it's so important.
You know, there's a lot of people
you know, there's a lot of obstacles
that people have in serving God
and I can't say all of them.
But ultimately the devil has one goal.
Get you to quit.
You know what?
Instead of quitting, just fail.
It's okay, it's okay to fail
but then encourage yourself.
Learn from your failures.
Don't be afraid to fail.
Be afraid to quit.
Don't be weary.
Encourage yourself and give yourself hope
for the next day.
And you know what?
I'm very hopeful for Steadfast Baptist Church.
When I look at this next year
I'm very excited for what this church has in store.
I think we're gonna do great things for God.
I think that God is gonna come alongside of us
and perform all kinds of miracles
and do all kinds of great wonders through us.
I believe that we're gonna change
a lot of hearts and a lot of minds this year.
I mean, we've got a great documentary
that's coming down the pike.
We have great mission strips coming down the pike.
You know what?
I've preached some good sermons
about why men get married
so we're gonna have some children
coming down the pike pretty soon
and maybe one of these children
is gonna become a great man of God
and a mentor.
We're gonna send out great evangelists
and great pastors.
We're gonna plant churches.
We're gonna get it.
We're gonna do all kinds of wonderful things
if we do one thing.
Encourage yourself.
You know, this church has been through
a lot of ups and downs.
Doesn't it have been pretty exciting
to see it on the front row?
I mean, how lame would it be
to be the people that quit church?
Yeah, I used to go to this cool church.
How lame would it have been
if you were on the second day
of the battle against the Benjaminites
and you went home?
How lame would it have been
if you went home after the very battle they are?
How lame would it have been
if you denied Christ
and then went home
and learned about Peter
doing all kinds of amazing miracles?
I mean, Peter,
he was so blessed
by the Holy Spirit
and so gifted from the Holy Spirit.
His shadow healed people.
Wouldn't that be pretty cool?
I mean, that would have been
the most amazing thing.
What about John Mark?
I mean, think about all the cool things
that he could have seen
on that first trip.
Paul is blind to come back
and tell him all the cool stuff that happened
and he's just like, man, I miss him.
Don't quit on God.
Don't quit serving God.
He'll do amazing things in your life.
You know what?
You need to constantly encourage yourself
and if you give a good habit
and you know what, today is a good day to start.
It's a new year
or a new place.
We've got a lot of new things ahead of us
but I know this.
You know, that's not going away.
New problems.
New difficulties.
So you have to learn now
to encourage yourself
and the best way to do that
is this.
It's not hard to know what to do.
You need to read the Bible every day
and encourage yourself every day
or pretty soon you'll realize everything
and the people who quit my church
or quit a good church
or quit anywhere,
I guarantee there's one common theme
among all of those people
and it's don't read the Bible anymore.
Don't read the Bible anymore.
This year, be a person
and say, you know what?
It's 2023 and this year
I'm going to read the Bible anyway.
And I'm going to encourage myself
every single day
and I'm just excited
and hopeful
for what God's going to do for me.
Thank you Heavenly Father for this church.
Thank you so much for giving us
a blessing to be here
and be included together.
I pray that you would be with us
as we go out slowly this afternoon.
I pray that you would help
every single person in this room
that's had a lot of failure,
had a lot of problems,
had a lot of difficulties
to realize they can overcome,
they can succeed
and that they shouldn't quit
but that they should constantly
encourage themselves with the word of God.
And I pray that you would just
instill that deep into our hearts
that we would be steadfast this year.
I pray that you would bless our church this year,
that you would give us grace,
that we could stay humble
and rely upon your strength
and you could do great miracles for us.
That you would come alongside of us
and show us your might
and that you would just give us
so many victories over our enemies
in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen.
Alright, our final song is on 413.
Stand up, stand up for Jesus.
Can everyone stand for this song?
413.
Let's all stand.
413.
Stand up, stand up for Jesus.
Okay.
Stand up, stand up for Jesus,
sing soldiers of the cross.
Lift high in loyal manner,
live lost not stars or lost.
From victory unto victory,
His army shall we lead,
till every foe is vanquished,
and Christ is Lord in need.
Stand up, stand up for Jesus,
the trumpet call obey.
Born to the mighty conflict,
in this His glorious day,
He, that our men now serve Him
against the numbered foes.
Let earth rise with faith
and strength to strength oppose.
Stand up, stand up for Jesus,
stand in His strength alone.
The arm of flesh will fail you,
He may not trust your own.
Put on the gospel armor
and wild kingdom to prayer.
Where beauty calls for danger,
remember one declare.