Galatians chapter 6, we are finishing the book of Galatians, and in chapter number 5,
we had kind of finished by talking about the importance of not walking in the flesh,
but walking in the Spirit.
That was kind of the whole latter portion.
If you look back at chapter 5, look at verse 16,
This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
If you skip down to verse 25,
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another.
So in this latter portion of Galatians, the Apostle Paul is trying to bring up to this
church the importance of not being fleshly minded, carnally minded, but rather being
spiritual and walking in the Spirit.
And of course, this is very important for this church because this church has been mixed
up on the Gospel.
This church has allowed people to come in and basically teach a lot of false doctrine.
So obviously, this church is not a spiritual juggernaut.
This church has not been really walking in the Spirit.
They've been walking in the flesh quite a bit, and he's trying to kind of make it
clear to these people that they need to also walk in the Spirit.
And of course, that's important because if you think about the situation that they're
in, this church has slipped into really bad heresy,
and they've had some serious problems.
And of course, he wants them to get that doctrine right.
But here's the reality, if you get that doctrine right, but then you stay carnal,
what's going to happen?
You're going to go right back to where you were, and you're going to go back
into heresy and all manner of different kinds of sins.
It even said in verse 20, chapter 5, it said idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variants,
emulations, rasterized, seditions, notice this, heresies.
So a heresy is a work of the flesh, and of course, by not being spiritual, it allows
you to get into more and more heresy.
And so it's important to be spiritual so that you don't fall into all kinds of
weird heresies, and your church goes into a bad direction.
And even just you as a person, you go into a bad direction, because frankly speaking,
you could go to a church that's thriving, but you yourself are backsliding and becoming
more carnal and having serious issues.
Vice versa could be true, you could be going to a church that the church is kind of going
downhill like a Sardis, Baptist church, but you are still reading your Bible,
you're still going soul winning, you're still walking in the spirit, and you could
be personally thriving even though your church is just like destroying itself.
So it's important for us to be spiritual for ourselves, but then also as a whole, we want
everybody in the church to be kind of striving for this, so the church goes in the right
direction as well.
And that's kind of where we kind of tie into chapter number six, is he's still continuing
this thought of the importance of being spiritual, walking in the spirit, not just
fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, and he says in verse one,
Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such a one
in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
So it's kind of interesting that he brings this up in this book of the Bible, because
if you think about it, they're really overtaken in a fault, but he wasn't really
doing it in the spirit of meekness.
Now you have to understand that everything is contextual, and of course, what is the
point of this verse?
Let's slow down and just kind of think about this verse for a moment.
If someone's overtaken in a fault, you if you're spiritual, you would restore such
a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself.
What does considering thyself mean?
It's basically if you were in that position, how would you want to be treated?
Now keep your finger, go to Matthew chapter number seven, Matthew chapter number seven.
And look at verse number one, the Bible says, Judge not, that ye be not judged,
for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.
And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again.
So according to the Bible, however you treat people, God is often going to cause
that same treatment to be had for you as well.
So if you're kind of just a jerk towards people, if you're really harsh with people,
you should almost expect that God's going to put people in your life that are going
to judge you harshly, and are going to be rude to you, and kind of treat you in
the same manner.
And this is where you get the carnal ideas of things like karma, which of course karma
is not a biblical concept, it's not biblical doctrine, it's not what the Bible teaches,
but it's basically a perverted form of what the Bible teaches that you're going
to reap what you sow, and that if you treat people harshly, you should almost expect
that God's going to cause that kind of same thing to happen to you.
And if you rip people off, then God may cause you to get ripped off, and often,
in fact, when you read the Bible, punishment seemed to be the exact punishment that the
wicked person caused on other people.
So just like Pharaoh was throwing baby boys into the river, him and his whole army get
thrown into the river.
And just like Haman prepared a gallo for Mordecai, he gets hung on his own gallows.
And just like the presidents lie about Daniel and have him thrown in the lion's den, well
then they get thrown in the lion's den with their whole family.
And so often God will cause whatever evil you suppose on others, however you treat
other people, God will often treat you.
There's a parable that Jesus Christ tells of a man who can't pay his debt, and he
asks his master to forgive him, and he can't pay, and so he ends up forgiving him.
But then his underservant owes him just some nominal amount of money, and he does the
same thing to him, says like, I can't pay, but the Bible says that he grabbed him by
the throat, and he says that you have to pay all of the oas, and then he threw him
in the prison.
So then whenever the king hears about it, what does he do?
He takes that servant and throws him in the prison, because he's like, hey, if you're
going to judge that way, then I'll judge you the same way.
And the parable is to illustrate that God is that king, and we're the first servant,
and that God already forgave us so much more than we could ever have possibly been
able to pay back, so we shouldn't then treat our fellow servant with such a small
nominal debt in such a harsh way, because then God might end up treating us in the
same way, and God might treat us harshly if we're going to do the same thing.
So this is a very biblical concept, that if I see a brother overtaken in a fault,
I want to restore him in the spirit of meekness, considering myself, in the sense
that I should put myself in his position and say, if I did what he did, how would I
want people to treat me?
If I lied or stole or made a mistake or I did some bad sin, how would I want other
people to treat me?
And that's essentially how you should test your reaction to other people.
Now, if we put this in proper context then, there would be times where I would want someone
to treat me harshly, right?
What would be that context?
How about 1 Corinthians 5, a church discipline issue?
That should be dealt with harshly, according to the Bible.
And I wouldn't say, well, just because it's me, you should treat me nice or look the
other way.
I would say, hey, I should get that same treatment.
You know, when it comes to capital offense punishments, I say, hey, let's all have the
same playing board, you know, murder, death penalty, you know, adultery, death
penalty, right?
All the other perverted gross things, death penalty, I don't have any problem with equally
enforcing that law across the board.
I wouldn't say, well, look the other way it was me.
It's like, hey, the apostle Paul said this, if I've done something worthy of death,
I refuse not to die.
So the apostle Paul is not saying, hey, don't deal with me harshly in that situation.
He's just saying, hey, I'm willing to be judged in that manner.
And so the same would be the context of Galatians of, hey, if I'm off on the gospel,
please rebuke me until I get that right.
You know, deal with me harshly until I get that right.
But generally speaking, you know, you don't show up at church one time, you say a crossword,
you don't treat your spouse the best, you have a bad day, you have a bad mood, you do something
off, you know, you got to think like, what would it be like if I did that and how would
I want people to treat me and that's how you should treat other people.
Giving them grace, giving them mercy, having a meek and a humble spirit and not thinking
like, well, I would never do that or I didn't do that or whatever, you know, whatever
kind of attitude you might initially think of like, well, how dare that person treat
me that way or how dare that person say this or how dare they send that sin or, you know,
whatever the context is of the situation, there could be a lot of times where you look
down upon people for having faults.
Oh, well, you know, you should have worked harder, you know, you shouldn't be lazy
on the job or you shouldn't have married that person.
You know, that could be a thought that a lot of people have where they say like,
well, if you had married like me, you wouldn't have that problem, you know.
And of course, I could have that thought because I have the greatest wife in the world.
So I could just think like, well, that's your problem, you know.
You didn't marry well, right?
But that's not the right type of attitude because, you know, I could have been you and
I could have married your spouse or I could have had your parents or I could have had
your job or I could have, you know, whatever and it's not fair to just always judge people
so harshly because if that's your attitude, expect it to come back to you.
This is why, you know, I always try to think about this.
I always try to think like I want to be really gracious and kind to everybody because I want
God to treat me that way, you know, when I make a mistake or I have an off day or I
am negligent in my duties or whatever the problem is, I want God to treat me in a
certain way and so that is the type of attitude that the apostle Paul is trying
to express here.
Now, what is meekness in general?
I felt like we should go to a few verses here because it's kind of a hard word to
understand.
Go to Matthew chapter 11.
I think sometimes meekness is looked at as being inferior or maybe it's almost as a negative
connotation in the sense of that you're being too soft.
Like here's words that people sometimes associate with being meek, soft or weak but
that is not what the Bible teaches when it comes to meekness.
Now Moses was considered the meekest man on the face of the earth at his time and
it wasn't a negative thing.
It was actually a praise of the Lord.
God's like commending Moses on being one of the meekest men on the earth.
So what is meekness?
Look at Matthew chapter 11 verse 29.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart.
Now of course this is the Lord Jesus Christ talking about himself.
So of course meek could never have a negative characteristic because Jesus Christ
describes himself as being meek.
And of course Moses being meek is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ being meek.
And we as men and women should both be meek.
Of course we read in 1 Peter chapter number 3 when it talks about the role of a woman,
it talks about her being a meek and quiet spirit.
And I think that some women would think like oh man well you know that's just putting
down women or saying that women need to be inferior or women have to be weak and soft
and their opinions can't be heard.
Now let me ask this question.
Was Jesus someone they would say is soft, weak, and his opinion couldn't be heard?
Yet he said he was meek, didn't he?
Okay so maybe your understanding of meek is just wrong.
Okay and of course the world doesn't ever understand the Bible so don't let them
tell you what the Bible means or what meekness is.
You know let's let the Bible tell us what meekness is.
And I think in this verse it gives you kind of a synonym here, lowly.
What is lowly?
Lowly is looking or having a low view of oneself.
So what would be the synonym of lowly?
Humble.
Okay having humility.
Not thinking that you're better than other people.
Having a low opinion of yourself.
Not thinking that you are more important or a greater value or anything of other people
but rather lowering yourself so as to elevate other people.
And of course the Lord Jesus Christ is the lowliest of all men considering the fact that
he's God and he lowered himself down unto a unassuming servant.
You know he was in the form of a servant.
Nobody even knew who he was.
And it's like how much lower could he even have gone?
It's not really any possible for him to go any lower.
And that was to elevate our importance.
You think about it like obviously the whole essence of the gospel is about Jesus.
We don't want to take away from that.
But the gospel is also about us.
Because it's for God so loved the world.
It's about how much he loves us and showing kind of our value and our importance to God.
God loved us so much he was willing to sacrifice his son.
That's a pretty high price tag if you think about it.
I mean that price tag is the ultimate price tag.
Saying God is willing to pay the ultimate price for you.
What does that mean?
That's God lowering himself to elevate our importance and our value.
And I mean constantly biblical authors are saying things like what is man that thou art
mindful of him.
You know we're just dust.
We're like nothing.
And for whatever reason God holds us in great value and great esteem and God loved us so
much to be willing to sacrifice his son.
And Jesus obviously it's not a competition here.
We can't compete with the Lord Jesus Christ in value.
We can't compete with the Lord Jesus Christ in any category.
Intellect, wisdom, value, importance.
I mean he just he's a hundred percent we're zero percent in every category.
Yet he was willing to lower himself to elevate us.
So if Jesus is willing to do that how much more should we have the same attitude towards
other people?
I mean we're not even the Lord Jesus we don't have to humble ourselves as much as
Jesus did to elevate the importance of humanity.
So then how much more should we be willing to lower ourselves on a daily basis to then
elevate the importance of other people?
And that's the essence of being me.
So what is it what is Moses how is Moses being me?
He really doesn't think of himself as like well I'm Moses.
I'm the leader here.
I'm the great one.
You know I'm the savior of you guys.
He thinks of himself is not any more important than the little child that they took out of
Egypt.
Okay.
Caring about every single person thinking every person has great value loving the individual
you know communism teaches the exact opposite of this where individuals are meaningless
just all about the whole and the leadership whereas you know the Bible teaches it's all
about the individual and how much God cares about every single individual and every single
person has value and that there's not this just collateral damage that is taught with
all kinds of wicked satanic agendas.
Now I want to go to one more place go to Ephesians chapter number four and let's
see another place here that kind of describes this but I want you to get the right idea
of me because it's mentioned a lot of times in the Bible and most of the time it's
mentioned in the Bible it's not going to give you a definition.
You know the Bible says blessed are the meek but that doesn't tell you what that means
that just simply saying blessed are people that are meek but it's like well what is
that mean it's blessed people that are humbled blessed people that are lowly in their own
mind that aren't assuming that there's some great one Ephesians chapter number four look
at verse two with all lowliness and meekness with long suffering for burying one another
in love so the Bible is telling us to walk in a certain way and of course walking
in the spirit is the essence here too and it's saying with all what lowliness and meekness
why they're always seem to be coupled because they're kind of the same essence and what
is meekness it's lowliness go to Titus chapter three I want to go to one more place
Titus chapter number three and so one aspect of meekness is lowliness humility
another aspect of meekness though which I'm not turning to every place but you study
this in the Bible it's kind of tied with the word gentle okay and I'll show you one
of these references Titus chapter three verse two to speak evil of no man to be no brawlers
but gentle showing all meekness unto all men so he's telling you to be gentle and
then he's explaining that as doing what showing all meekness so again that's kind
of giving you another definition of what someone who's meek is is they are humble
and they're gentle so think about the context that we have here if you go back to Galatians
chapter number six you screw up what is the what kind of attitude would you want
someone to have towards you when you screwed up for them to be humble and gentle with
you isn't that a great attitude I mean if you screw up don't you want your parents
or mom and dad to be like hey it's okay and we all make mistakes or do you just
want the rod you know it's just like of course we like the gentleness we like the
the fact that it's not just like how did you screw that up no one would ever screw
that up I would never do that or you know I remember from my childhood and of
course you know no parent is perfect my father was a very good father I love him
but he wasn't always the the the the most gentle okay when it came to screw ups and
I remember when I would screw something up I mean he would berate me as if no one
on the planet could ever make that mistake and that he would never make that mistake
and and the thing that was frustrating is he was probably right about that that
he wasn't gonna make that mistake but it just didn't still it doesn't feel as
nice as it could have because I remember especially when I was studying for the SAT he would
ask me questions I get one wrong he's like how did you get that wrong you should never
get that one wrong and I was like what do you think you know every single one of these
questions you could get all of them right he's like yes and I was like okay so then I just
start testing and he got them all right of course and I'm like you know okay well
but but at the same time it's like a know-it-all doesn't make you feel better when you screw
up okay it's like hey at my age would he have gotten them all right though you know
that's a different question right if he had had my education you know would he have
gotten them all right so it's it's it's not necessarily fair to make that kind of
a comparison and the same could be with Christianity sometimes you've been a Christian
for 10 years and someone's been a Christian for five months and they make a mistake and
you're like how could you make that mistake and of course you would never make that mistake
having been a Christian as long as you have now but what if you had been a five-month-old
Christian could you have done that made that mistake not understood something and
of course we always just want to have a spirit of meekness we want to be humble
and we want to be gentle towards people we don't always be harsh and rude now of
course you know there's a time to use sternness there's a time to rebuke you
know and they have their places that are clearly outlined in Scripture right
but our first response are just what we should just basically default to is
just always being meek being gentle being of a humble opinion trying to
approach people softly and trying to give them the benefit of the doubt but
then you know of course there gets a point where eventually there's a
different attitude right a man that is an heretic after the first and second
ammunition reject but what should have gotten the first two times meekness he
should have gotten gentleness he should have gotten you know basically the
benefit of the doubt to start go back and go into Galatians chapter number six
so I just wanted to take a second because that's a really famous verse
and of course it finishes that fought off with saying let lest thou also be
tempted he's basically just trying to say hey deal with this guy harshly
because what happens when you make that mistake later you know you don't
want people to then come and read you like you read them you know if
someone at your work makes a minor mistake and you convince the boss to
fire them like well you better never make that mistake you know you say
some four-letter word that everybody gets upset about and you pretend like
it's the biggest deal in the world you better never say that word you
know I treat I give people a lot of gentleness on that you know what what
a hypocrite I would be if every time someone in this church had
ever custom my presence I'd like ripe them out or something or chewed them out
or been like a jerk to them then think if I ever made that mistake how
they would treat me but I guarantee there's plenty of people in this room
I'm not going to point to you okay I'm not gonna put you out in the room
there's plenty of people in this room that I've heard all kinds of
choice language and strong language and interesting things coming out of their
mouth and I don't remember a single time where I got really mad at them
rebuked them or even cared frankly speaking so you know of course you want
to be consistent in your daily life you know however you are you want to
always be consistent they want to make sure you're not creating these
hypocritical standards where you're judging everybody else really harshly
but you're not really always internalizing that thinking about it
yourself first you know another good way to judge things what if it was your
best friend you know you all in here have friends that you're closer with in
church than others as people in here you like more than others I get it
and it's like if someone does something mean to you at church or something you
didn't like it's like will substitute your best friend and then tell me how
you treated them you know then then say like how you would have acted
about it how you would have responded what you would have done and that's
often a good way to just kind of judge how you should respond to people in
general look at verse 2 bear you one another's burdens and so fulfill the
law of Christ of course you know the Bible is constantly trying to get us
to stop walking our flesh wants to just constantly be prideful rip on
people never have to do any kind of work I mean your your flesh is lazy
your flesh wants to come to church and do nothing he wants in fact they
didn't want to come to church let's be honest okay number one you want to
be here number two it's like your flesh just wants to take a nap and
eat have fun and all that kind of stuff you're not here to bear someone
also you know there could be a person that's at church that you avoid and you
say what do you mean well you know they're kind of needy and you just
want to avoid them because you don't want to be burdened with their life
you don't want to hear about well they've got issues or they have
problems or you know they may ask you for something or whatever and it's like
you almost try to avoid that person not because they're a bad person not
because they've shown weird red flags okay avoid that person I'm saying because
they're just a needy person and I remember there was someone like this at
one of the churches not this one but another church they talked to me one
time about this how they were needy and they were asking the leadership for
rides to church because they just they were having a hard time or
whatever and basically the church just like the leader is Adam Fanon okay he
made up a lie about the person to convince the whole church they should
be thrown out just so you had to stop helping them and it's like what kind of
you know what kind of a jerk does that where they just basically make up lies
or rumors about me and look that's bad but I'll tell you that happens
with a lot of people a lot of people they have some of their life it's a
little needy they have a little issue with so they'll just kind of like run
with some gossip about that person or just kind of believe something about
that person so as to be like well I don't have to help them now or I
don't have to be their friend or I don't have to talk nice to them or I don't have
to do whatever you know what if we all have that attitude then no one would
ever get helped because obviously the person with burdens is not the greatest
person to hang out with it's like who's the greatest person to hang out
with the person is going to take your burdens not give them right you want
to go with the guy that's richer than you so he'll buy your meal you
don't want to take the guy that's poorer than you so you have to buy his
meal right you don't want to go and and hang out with the person that's
going to be needy or need stuff from you you want to go hang out the person
that's going to give you stuff and that's going to be kind to you and
like you know give you all this benefit and so if your flesh had its
way it would just always gravitate towards the people that are just
always giving and kind and helping you and whatever whereas as a Christian
spirit we should say you know what I'm willing to even seek out and help
those that have burdens in the church find the people that aren't the most
fun to help or Mark the most fun to deal with and actually come alongside
them and help them you know when someone goes through a tragedy or goes
through something difficult that's way less fun than when they go through
something exciting and encouraging and you know there's more temptation
want to call the other person and say hey I heard you had a baby it's
great this is fun you know I heard that you got a promotion this is fun
as opposed to the guy that lost his job or the guy that you know they had a
problem with their family or they have a lost one or whatever the issue is you
know what we as spiritual people need to say you know what this person go
through a hard time let's talk to them let's help bear their burden
let's not just go to church to see what I can get out of it but rather
let's see where I can find a burden that could pick up and you say well
that's not fun yeah it's not fun to take burdens no one likes taking
burdens you know didn't like taking burden of Jesus because it says that he
despised you know the shame he didn't it didn't say like he loved the shame
but you know he took your shame and he put it on him and you know you
could even take the shame of other people sometimes people are in a
shameful situation right you know there could be a person that's down on
their luck miss you know doesn't have money doesn't have goods or doesn't
have friends or doesn't have whatever and you can basically take that shame
away from them and put it on yourself right the person that doesn't have any
friends you become their friend you take away some of that shame don't you you
know that person can't buy whatever or have whatever isn't gonna go to lunch
or whatever you take them to lunch it's like you're you're helping take
some of their shame you're taking some of their burden and of course
that may not be the most fun you know what we're not here to have fun
sorry the Buster bubble it's a Wednesday night okay you have fun on Sunday
morning we're here to serve God ultimately and if you're gonna serve
it's work and if you're gonna work it's not fun okay as Elon Musk put it you
have to stop working from home and you actually show up in the building
and actually get to work okay and you know what there's some truth to
that doctrine okay in the sense that you know work should be work it
shouldn't be a party it shouldn't be that you show up whenever you want and
get mimosas and just eat on the company dime like all these weird
Twitter employees no wonder that that company was going under it's like
they're spending more money than they're bringing in I guess from the
government the government bribes or whatever maybe is evening out I don't
know but it's just you know the Christianity thrives on servants it
does not thrive on takers okay and so we need more people that are willing
to bear one of the birds verse three for a man think himself to be
something when he is nothing he deceives himself I like it he doesn't
deceive anybody else just deceives himself okay verse four but let every
man prove his own work and then shall he ever joy seeing himself alone and
not in another forever man shall bear his own burden you know someone who
might think himself to be something when he's nothing is Joe Biden but you
know he only is deceiving himself if that were true because no one likes
Biden I mean his own party hates him you can tell but they wouldn't say it
out loud just because they want to hurt themselves but there's plenty of
people that think they're great when they're absolutely nothing when they're
actually just a nothing burger and of course this is really important that
we don't have this view what's the opposite of meekness this view who
had this view Haman think himself to be something when he's nothing you
know of course he comes into the king and the Kings like hey what
should be done of the man whom the king delighted the honor who would he
want to honor more than me and it's like probably anyone but I'm just
kidding obviously Mordecai okay and so we never want to have this opinion of
ourselves of where I'm just the greatest I'm something you know this is
this is what most teenagers in our country are struggling with right now
why because social media and the internet and tick-tock and Instagram
and YouTube and all these dumb platforms have convinced so many youth
that there's something when they're absolutely nothing and so many kids
today all they want to be is just tick-tock famous or they just want to
be YouTube famous or they want to be a professional video game player because
they think they're so good at video games and they really aren't even good
at video I've had a family member tell me that God told them that he wants
them to be a professional video game player and I'm like dude I probably
could beat you and I don't even play like this is dumb even if you were
great I would still tell you no you know even if you could be tick-tock
famous it will destroy you because you'll still think you're something
when you're still nothing in fact especially the tick-tock app they
promote stupidity on purpose so for you to become something you have to
first prove they're absolutely nothing even they become something and you're
still nothing you're only deceiving yourself and it's a fool's errand
because most of the people that are at the top of these lists have
already gotten there if you really want to understand social media it's not
much different than all of the multi-level marketing schemes and scams
that exist and and what I mean by that is all of there's all these
companies that made a lot of people rich as far as like you have salad
master and you have Mary Kay and you have I don't know what was the jet was
the leggings one there's some like weird leggings one it was like Lulu
lemon Lulu Mon I don't know what it's called Lulu something Lulu I don't care
nobody cares there is like something Lulu that was like these like jagging
leggings things or something that came out and I mean it was like super
popular for a while but you know what happens to all of them they eventually
get just they're just worthless after a while I mean there's maybe like I
think Mary Kay still going there's some that have kind of whether the
test of time but most of these they just go up in flames eventually why
because it's a scam any product that people really want you don't have to
have a scheme in order to sell it to people they're going to buy it
ok so of course in order to have a scheme or some kind of a gimmick to get
people to buy things it's because the product doesn't really have that much
value so of course this is how social media has worked in the sense
that all of the people that got in on YouTube or Twitter or Instagram or any
of these apps at the very beginning they are the ones that start in these
pyramid schemes and they're the ones that scale the top the new people are
almost never going to get in on this and everyone's just chasing after all of
those top premium spots but they're already pretty much locked in and
you're never going to get there and of course because YouTube is video and
there's so much industry there was a lot of people that could still get in
late that kind of road that way but it's because their industry had a void
like there was there's like people that kept figuring out new industries
that can get really popular like there'd be a carpentry channel or there would be
some guy that's showing tools off or some guy that's showing trucks off or
whatever but at this point almost every industry has been so saturated
that it's like if you decide well I'm going to create a YouTube channel
for cars it's like well 30 already exists and they're way better than you
it's like well I want to do stupid prank videos already exists
well I want to do sports videos already exists I mean it's like everything that
you could possibly even imagine on these social media companies is pretty much
already existed there's not going to be very much novelty to them anymore and
so all the people chasing after that YouTube fame will never get it never
ever get it just like all the people that see like oh well this person in
Lulu whatever and Mary Kay or whatever they made so much money
yeah because they were one of the first people to get in it's kind of like
Bitcoin Bitcoin is the same way Bitcoin is a scam
okay folks I've said it from like years ago and
I'm still saying it now here's the thing of course if you had been one of the first people to buy
Bitcoin you would be a multimillionaire I mean you have so much money just like any
of these topics if you've been the first person in these leggings thing or the first person Mary Kay
or salad mass or whatever and you got that pyramid scheme going essential oils
okay it's like there's nothing special about essential oils folks okay it's
lemon juice it's it's it's like there's
nothing great it's like these are just normal spices that have always existed
it's not like you invented a new spice or a new flavor or a new
it's like yeah they never thought of lavender before folks okay well it cures cancer it's like
really does it it's like these people are just saying anything to sell you stuff and then all
kinds of women will just buy all this junk or whatever because we live in a consumerism type
society but the person that's going to win is the first mover and all of these categories
and our youth just thinks that they are going to become famous and rich by getting in on these
pyramid schemes but they're not they're never going to get there and it's coming from the
same essence here of when you think you're someone special and you think there's something
unique about you but there's not and let's be honest most of these YouTube personalities
okay they are not special PewDiePie is not special Mr. Beast is not special okay in fact
I'll even say this a lot of not all a lot of the most famous singers in the world are not
special you could honestly take thousands and thousands of women and make them the next Lady
Gaga or make them the next whatever the only thing that makes them special is they have no
soul and they're a literal whore that will do anything for money that is the only reason
they're even in the position that they're in they're not even good at singing because
honestly a lot of people are way better singers than them but they're just not a soulless
whore so they're not willing to get into that position like a lot of these celebrities will
but you know there are some of course musicians and stuff that are just genuinely talented but
most of that was in the 80s and 90s and stuff the musicians of today are like they're
not even they're like talentless a lot of them are terrible and you want to know if
someone's good or not listen to their life versus their album and then you'll know if the
person's actually talented or not and that's why I don't even like listening to musicians
that can't sing live because they're just talentless and it's just junk and it's just
garbage or whatever it's like if this guy sounds anywhere close to his live then he's usually
you know his album and live are pretty similar you can tell that person's pretty talented
okay and they're genuinely talented people you know you could listen to someone like Alicia Keys
she is actually like genuinely talented you could listen to her sing live and it sounds good
some of these other girls like Lady Gaga and some of these others they can't sing now
I might just because she's not black obviously black girls can sing okay we get that alright and you know
the white girls it's like I don't know maybe a handful of them right but it's just they think
that there's something when they're actually nothing and of course as soon as they become
not useful Hollywood will just trash them and they'll turn into nothing you know there's actresses that are
literally the worst actress ever but they thought they were something and now they're just
trash Winona Ryder I mean this chick is just trash okay terrible actress she's not even pretty
it was like she just somehow fell into this role because she's a soulless whore okay mind
you and so because she got to that fame level she thought she was something that she's stealing
or whatever and then she gets trashed and nobody puts on her movie again it's just sad sack
life for her this is what every one of us could fall into this trap every one of those could
think well I'm just so much more unique or so much more special than everybody else when
you're really not anything special and you end up just deceiving yourself and you end up
destroying yourself we need to have a lowly humble opinion of ourselves where we don't think
we're better than everyone else but we don't think I'm irreplaceable or any of this kind
of junk but rather always elevating everybody else in her life you know this happens in marriages
where people will sit here and think like I could have so much better spouses you know oh
I just married so down you know if I were single I could just have anybody that I want
or I could I could totally upgrade or something like that and it's usually a lie because you've
been having those thoughts proves you're a terrible spouse number one and most of the time
if you try to go out there it's a it's a jungle folks okay you're not gonna upgrade you know I've
known ton of some people that have divorced and remarried I'm never thinking like wow what
an upgrade buddy you know usually you're like you're with that and it's like yeah because the
markets bad you know it's kind of like the mortgage market right now it's like you got
that interest rate it's like yeah you're screwed you know it's just like that and we need
to have an opinion though where we are lowly and humble and say you know what I married
up oh you know I could I'm just such an asset to this church I could go to some
other church that'd be a huge asset you know and it's like well since you left the
church got better interesting you mr. asset you and let's show how much you're doing
for these other churches or you know people just always have this high view of themselves
are usually just trashy people okay and we don't want to have that type of an opinion
or we think that we're better than we are you know why don't we just go ahead and prove
ourselves you know it says let me improve his own work meaning if you're gonna be really
harsh judge the only person you should be like that with is you it doesn't say
your spouse doesn't say your children says you you know what it's easy to pick on
everyone else but you should pick on yourself and you should prove yourself and you say
am I doing right am I right with God am I the best person that I can possibly be
you know you're always this makes me mad especially talk about marriage is it's like
almost every person and I'm putting myself in this category okay almost every one of
us right now if your spouse were to die or you got divorced would all work on yourself
to improve to try and get a new spouse like you'd probably try to work out more or groom
yourself more or dress prettier or dress more handsome or or you would try to like improve
yourself and if you ever went on a date again you would be way sweeter kinder and pull out
all the stops for that new heartthrob than you would for your current spouse right now
and you know that I'm saying is right and you know what it's trash because we should
all have the attitude of you know what I should date my spouse as hard as I would
date the heartthrob I had in junior high you know Brad Pitt or whatever I always
use him because sorry I don't know any new people or whatever David Beckham or whatever
is the new guy okay who's the heartthrob don't tell me you know as as guys I don't
know I don't know whatever it was that girl or that guy that you were like man
I would pull out all the stops for this person or whatever you know who's stopping you from
treating your spouse like that now who's stopping you from you know working out now
or improving now or being sweet to them now or taking them on awesome dates now or doing
whatever you know to improve now you know why don't you prove yourself now and say like
hey maybe I could be a better spouse and of course people that are having marriage problems
of course they think that if they had a different person their marriage would go better
no you would just be a better person because you'd be trying harder so it's like why don't
you start trying harder and then come back to me and say what's going on you know it's like
why don't you try a hundred percent why don't you try like this is the hardest you could
possibly try towards your relationship and then come back to me and say like hey this is how my
marriage is going whatever because usually people aren't even trying at all or they're just being a
terrible spouse or they're not dating their spouse and again I believe you should date your
spouse you shouldn't just be married your spouse you should date them you should treat them with
a lot of you know love and compassion and of course you know think about this with God you
know God is constantly measuring us you know why don't you constantly look at yourself through God's
eyes and say like would you be pleased with you if you were God today if you're a God today and
you looked at you and you judge you're like am I pleased with you know your performance of
Bible reading today am I pleased with your performance of memorization today am I pleased with
how many songs of praise you sang to me today what songs did you sing today hopefully it wasn't
Lady Gaga you know what it how much did you pray to me today how much you know how enthusiastic
were you about church or did you commit any sins today you know so like you know what did
you do today and then look at it like hey how would God look at you today this is a great way
to live your life you know it's a terrible way to live your life oh this guy's a jerk and this
guy's bad stop worrying about other people because you know what you're gonna stand before
Jesus one day and what everyone else did has no impact on that conversation nothing zero the only
thing that will matter is what you did today and what you did yesterday and what you will do
tomorrow your life and notice how the Bible says this in verse five for every man shall bear
his own burden you are going to bear your burden this is also why it's important to also
learn and grow every day because if you don't you're going to become dumb and an idiot
because you constantly forget things so you know what you need to constantly be reading learning
studying growing pushing yourself to be a better person hey if you're in a deadbeat job get a new
job life's too short you know if you're not getting skill if you're not getting if you're
not going forward you're going backwards and you need to constantly be pushing yourself
and pressing yourself hey you ladies keep learning and reading and studying you know the
homeschool moms you have the most important job here you know you're training the next
generation you know you should not be taking homeschool lightly you should be doing homeschool
100 and you know why because you're going to bear the burden of dumb kids if you don't
and you know what coming to my church will not make your kids smart
your kids can be dumb as rocks by coming to this church because you didn't teach them
anything because frankly speaking i mean a lot of the learning is reading the bible yourself
following along if they can't even read you're not even teaching them how to write you're
not even teaching them how to have discipline and self-control and to think about things you
know we try to question some of our older kids about church like hey what was talked about
what was learned what did you hear you know making sure they're engaging it's not just like
i like cars you know when can i watch the tablet again you know because some parents
will literally just let their kids watch tv until they're 18 and that was their education
system and the tv was bad when i was a kid it's so much worse now i mean almost every
commercial every time i get a glimpse of what's going on tv it's always like a drag queen or
something on the screen and it's like it's like football and then they have a drag queen
commercial i'm thinking like what how are they targeting this demographic like straight dudes
that like football are now into drag queens i'm thinking like what's going on under the on
the daytime tv shows or you know what are the commercials for the other shows you know what
do they show the commercial for the actual faggot shows i'm thinking like i don't even know
what their commercials are like if the football has drag queens you know it's gross i mean i
think what didn't the jacksonville jaguars or some team like hire a literal tranny to be their
cheerleader or something like that this year i mean it's just and you're going to let your
kids just sit there and soak all that in just soak whatever the jews want to teach them you
know jews good oh white people bad oh jews are white forget about that jews are white people
bad it's like oh okay you know it's just that propaganda just eight hours a day ten hours a
day just like oh i want to be a tik tok star huh that they're never going to get there
look that's what the next generation's like it's it's real scary you know because they're
going to still have to deliver you goods i mean have you noticed that customer service went down
it's because they're just like this customer wanted their food right oh how dare them
let's make a tik tok video and shame them
it's like and and then they think hey i got a hundred thousand views on my video
i'm so cool but they don't realize that 10 years from now they're still going to be stupid
and have a dumb job and no food and no money and no one likes them and they're ugly and old
because let me tell you something about every young person they get old and ugly
you notice that the tik tok videos aren't old grandma's shaking their rear end
it's the young chicks and you know what happens when they get old they're going to die
in the nursing home alone or in fact they might just get the assisted suicide that canada's
offering them or whatever why because you're going to bear your own burden and all these women that
are just whores having no kids just shaking their body parts on tik tok you know what they're
going to reap a whirlwind when they get older oh what kind of men are they attracting not
fundamental badness and the men out there are terrible too lazy jerks that don't want to work
for anything they don't want to earn anything you know our country is going into the toilet
and you can go down there with them if you don't try hard it's really easy to go with the
stream you know it's hard to go against the stream and you need to fight it every day because
you're going to bear that burden verse six let him that has taught in the word communicate
on him that teaches and all good things i don't have time for this point but if you
if you study the word communicate it means to give or share okay and i can show you a ton
of verses on this but you look it up yourself but communicate is is it often uh even in
reference to money specifically now it doesn't have to be money but that's basically what it's
saying so it's saying hey if you got taught the word of god you should be willing to pay
money under the guy that taught you that thing and of course the bible constantly teaches
this in romans and other places that ministers should live of the gospel that you shouldn't
muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn the minister should be paid that there's nothing
wrong and of course you know people will get mad at pastors for being paid shows that their
carnal because if you were spiritual why would you want to stop feeding the guy that's giving
you the spiritual food because you can't get that anywhere you know there's there's a limited
quantity of suppliers of spiritual food and and spiritual men that are willing to do the
spiritual tasks so it's like why would i want to shut that valve off and then when we go into
levels of importance what's more important than the ministers of god i mean in the old testament
god didn't set them up on a welfare system he set them on the hey you eat steak every meal system
i mean living pretty high on the hog quote unquote of course they didn't have any real
possessions but they lived a nice life they lived a comfortable life they lived of their own
work they were worthy of their meat they were worthy of their hire and of course you know
our church we believe in paying staff if if we can you know it doesn't have to happen we're
not i'm not you know even if i couldn't be paid i'm still gonna preach and i'm still gonna
do what i have to do but of course there's nothing wrong with it and i don't want the
activities and the spiritual maturity of our church to decline by forcing you know more labor
than has to be i mean the apostles made it clear that it wasn't meat for them to serve
tables they should be actually ministering the people in the word of god more than they should
be ministering the physical food i can go out and make money i know how to make money
it's not hard to make money but you know what it's hard to actually find people that are
willing to minister spiritual things and so it's a fool it's a fool that says you know what
i'm mad at pastors being paid you know what i i think that pastors across this country are
probably being underpaid at least the good ones you know the bible says that that you're
supposed to pay him double honor you know especially if he's doing a good job and so i believe
that pastors should be making you know double what the average salary is of men in their area
but you know i'm not saying that i get paid that i don't but i think that they're worthy of that
and i think that other churches should be worthy of that now you know joel osteen's getting like
a hundred honor that's not legit okay but i wouldn't get mad at a guy for getting paid double
honor because that's what the bible says okay and i think that they should and there's nothing
wrong with that and we should never be a church that has a problem with pastors for getting paid
we should have a problem where pastors teaching lies we should have a problem with
pastors being carnal we should have a problem with pastors using the nib but you know what i'm
not mad at pastors for getting paid well you know that that's a that's a bad heart that
basically doesn't like the things of god verse seven be not deceived god is not mocked for
whatsoever man so that should also reap of course you know i i've kind of just been hammering that
point but here's the verse that just really proves it i mean you're going to reap it look
at verse eight for he that soweth to his flesh shall the flesh reap corruption but he
that soweth to the spirit shall the spirit reap live everlasting look whatever you gain in this
life fleshly speaking you're eventually going to lose you gain all those muscles eventually you're
going to die it's going to be meaningless you know you you i'm not saying don't work out i
work out okay i like working out but i'm saying i i'm gonna it's gonna corrupt eventually i'm
gonna have to see corruption on that you know i make a lot of money it's eventually gonna
corrupt i'm eventually gonna lose out on that you buy a new car it eventually loses the new
car smell which is a sad day okay because the greatest day in a in a new car is the new car
smell okay but then it's gone and it's gone right if you have kids it doesn't last very long
okay this is a sad day for me all right i'll get over it but you know of course everything
eventually decays and corrupts as far as fleshly speaking you buy a new house it starts getting
worse and worse right you have kids in there and it gets worse and worse right some people
know what i'm saying whatever it is that you get eventually where's wait that new car
that new jacket the new shirt the new house the new whatever the new wife she gets older
you know it's like they have that chart where it shows like women find men attractive at what
age and it's like it kind of goes up and it's like as they get older they think like more
older men are attractive and for men it's just a flat line just like the same age it's just like
sorry but you know what i i'm not saying that i don't love my wife just as much as before
because i love her more but what i am saying is that everything sees corruption folks okay
we don't all just look the exact same and act the exact same forever
things eventually so so if you're just chasing that one thing
you know i guarantee the girls that brad pitt used to pull aren't the same as now
they're probably a lot better looking you know jennifer anston was better looking than
angelina jolie okay amen all right sorry i just had to put that out there i'm just saying
like you know eventually you can't reap all the same benefits and so if you're just sewing
to the flesh you're going to eventually just lose but the spiritual things that you
are constantly sewing towards you're going to reap them forever and all of eternity every reward
that you laid up up to this point you're going to have an all-vaternity for forever
you're never going to lose it you know that would that's great what a great investment program
that you never lose your investment every investment program here is like a scam
it's crypto just ask them about that all right now let's keep reading it says in verse nine and
let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap if we think not look you're
going to eventually get the things that you've worked hard for but it sometimes takes time it
takes patience you know i think that our church and i i said this privately to dylan i said i
think that our church has been sewing a lot for the last three years and we're going to
actually start reaping some of that and and i'm really excited about that but you know it takes
some time it takes some patience and it may not happen right now i just i'm i kind of
personally believe that our church is going to start reaping a lot of the good things that
we've been selling and you know frankly i think that our church has been reaping a lot of good
things you know i think as a pastor if i preach a lot of good sermons and if i'm doing a good
job then i'm going to start reaping a congregation of you know better people you know a better
church and things like that and i'm just saying like personally speaking this church is way
different than it was three years ago and i mean that in a good way a very good way
you know there's a lot of things like that you know you're going to eventually reap your children
you're not going to see the dividends right away but you keep sewing and investing in
those children and eventually you're going to start reaping a lot of good things in that children
and so you know you have to realize that some good things take a lot of time you have to kind
of wait and then eventually you're going to reap but notice he's saying don't be weary and
well doing don't stop doing good thinking that you're not going to reap you will reap
eventually what you sow you know you learn a lot you're going to eventually reap from that
education you know i worked on a job doing software development and i'll tell you what the
first four years were rough i was very underpaid very overworked not appreciated and it was a hard
four years and i i kind of was like thinking like man i don't know this gig is worth it but
then i hit a point where it was just like all reaping from then out from then on and it
was just like wow this is great you know my i went from a point in my salary where my salary
increased more than double you know like overnight and then it just kept increasing and
just kept increasing it was just like in the software world and it was just like wow this
is a this is great i'm finally reaping a lot of what i saw but i just so really hard for four
years you know and that was just that wasn't fun that wasn't a fun period i didn't like that
period as much but i learned a lot i grew and that's how there's a lot of careers a lot of
careers you have to sew for a really long time before you start really reaping in that
particular career that's why it's also not very good to just constantly bounce like if you just
bounce from job to job career career you know you won't ever see any reap you won't ever have
that big reaping that you could have if you just stay plugged in on the thing you're
dedicated for and you're working hard towards then you could eventually reap and don't be weary
and well doing just like joseph joseph had to sew for a long time but then when he reaped
it was just like i mean he never had to reap again i mean now he's at the top of the food
chain there's nowhere else to go i mean he's not going to become pharaoh but he literally is at
the top of the food chain because he's sewed so faithfully and so diligently over over time
and that's what we have to do we have to just constantly you know you might think that
you're being underappreciated by man but god will not allow that to happen so like there
could be this tendency or this idea of like well i don't want to work hard for this boss
because this boss isn't appreciating me but i'll tell you what god god will make sure you
get taken care of regardless of what man does you know god could replace your boss
god gets you a new job your boss could die all manner of things could happen or frankly
speaking maybe you don't even need what you think that you want and god will give you
everything you need anyways you'll be blessed in other ways but what i will say is this never
stop doing good or working really hard because i guarantee you will reap that's what the bible
guarantees okay don't take my word for it take god's word for it verse 10 as we therefore have
opportunity as we have therefore opportunity let us do good in all men especially unto them who
are the household of faith so of course we should bless the poor and especially those of
the house of god you see how large a letter i've written unto you with my own hand i always
think it's funny that glace is like one of the shortest books of the bible but an apostle
paul's like this is a large letter yeah so i guess everything's kind of relative but in my
mind that means this is a large letter so that means to me that a lot of letters written
at this time were not as lengthy as the books that we have in the bible people are probably
writing very short one-page type letters and sending them all the time and so this is a unique
sized letter and of course that the bible is unique you know you really think that people
at the time of christ are writing just like the gospel of of mark or like the acts according to
the apostles they're just writing that it's like humanly speaking people aren't doing those
kind of things very few people are even writing anything you know you have obviously you have
great writers of the past you have people like shakespeare and stuff that wrote tons of different
things but you know write a letter a letter is different than just a play that you're
going to actually use this is just a single document that you're talking to somebody for
so he wrote out a pretty lengthy letter here and he's saying he did it personally with
his own hand also this is unique that a lot of times you know he would speak and have
someone else write it this you know helps you understand that most of the bible was not
written by the actual speaker and and again i i like that i like the fact that it wasn't by
the original speaker because it even just shows how god wrote the bible because god didn't need
just it wasn't like just some man just went alone in a closet and just produced a text
like joseph smith they just by himself is just gonna write some i think he maybe had a
transcriber but uh you know just a few people or one person just going off and like oh here's
the bible or something it's like all these different men are all in coordination working
together through the spirit of god because think about this not only would you if you're
speaking the word of god you have someone writing it down like what if someone said hey
god has a message and i need you to write it down and he started saying something weird you
would stop writing you know what i mean like if he just started saying like you know and i'm the
prophet of all the prophets and i get all the wives and i get all the gold and he's the guy's
like um are you sure this is this is it i mean think about kind of the the check and balance
that exists there of you have so this is a unique one but most of the bible generally speaking
is you know multiple men or men writing about other men and of course by having that many
hands in the pot shows that this is a divine work because if it was a human error or human
work people would would catch all the weird stuff and the junk just like we see in the quran
just like we see in the book of mormon or the book of moron as they you know it says
moron in there so that's what i call it but the bible is is just it's infallible i mean
it's just it's the work of god and we see that the apostle paul even if he wrote this letter
with his own hand he was still inspired by the holy ghost verse 12 and as many i'm sorry
as many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh they constrain you to be circumcised
only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of christ for neither they themselves
who are circumcised keep the law but desire to have you circumcised they may glory in your
flesh so of course it's saying people that preach repent of your sins didn't actually repent
of their sins but they just want to have a big church of people like that to brag about how
great a minister they are it's like oh look at all these people following me and of course
it's always about a following and it's all about their subscribers and it's all about
building a big you know me university that's why a lot of these false prophets have big
followings because it's always about them and you know that's what i really like about pastor
stephen anderson is he's so charismatic and such a gifted preacher and has so many talents that if
he wanted to build an empire he could like i personally believe if pastor anderson had been
a little selfish and just every time he preached said like hey just come here don't just go to
the best church in the area don't go there come here and hey let's build a university and hey
send all your students here and hey just everybody you know he could probably run
a giant multi-thousand-person church if you really wanted to but you know what he's more
about christ and sending out other men and getting all these different churches i mean you
look at all the new ivy churches that exist you gather all the people from all these
churches i mean we're talking about thousands of people here okay whereas you know you could
be like paul chapel and you could just say hey i've got this fancy building with a fancy
university let's just get everybody to come to me and everybody come to west coast baptist
bible college and let's suck in all the youth and all the kids and have our own
beautiful facility and it's just kind of becoming like a cult of personality and i'm not
against building a big church don't hear me wrong you know what i'm not saying that i wouldn't
hope that our church runs thousands or tons of people please you know if god wants that let's
do it we need to run five people let's do it whatever god's will is go for it you know what
i don't want to build a big church at the detriment of christ i don't want to i don't want
to like make other churches worse to make us better you know we should be willing to make other
churches better for the cause of christ even if it's at our own detriment you know taking our
best talent and sending them somewhere else you know like is it really advantageous for
this church to take duncan and send him to pure words no duncan's a huge asset duncan does
great song leading i mean our song leading took a dip because we lost duncan you know our
soul winning took a dip because we lost duncan you know is the better urbanic no i'm just kidding
we we have all these we you know we've had people that are really great that could
that wanted to move here you know brother tannerfer wanted to move here and i'm like no
stay there and be a blessing to the oklahoma city church or whatever you know we could just
we could just suck in as many of the good people and all the talent and look i'm not
against good people coming here i would love for more good people to come we need more good
people but at the same time like if i'm taking a good person from another church that's really
good i don't really like that you know if i'm taking them out of a crappy church that's not
going to use them well or they're moving out from the boondocks then yeah get into church
you know get here right away you know what we should be willing to share our assets and
resources with other churches to help them grow and help build them up and not just try
to suck in all the stuff for ourselves and build ourselves and it's not about us it's not about
me you know god willing pure words or the oklahoma city church would be bigger and better
churches than us you know there's nothing wrong with what you know another church thriving better
than us you know we and of course i i think that we should all strive to be the best church
that we can be and grow and reach more people but we should always put christ first
and of course we should put the individual first too you know i would never want to make
a decision that's going to impact your spiritual life worse from my benefit you know it's better
for you and it's better for me i believe in the long run to make sure that your best interests
are in heart and to make sure that the best spiritual decisions for you are being made and
you know i always try to tell people you know i want people to go to the best church for them
and to get plugged in and to be spiritual now of course for a lot of people that is this
church so you know get in this church and get plugged in and start doing that you know if there
was hypothetically a better option for someone i'm like get there and do it you know we want
ever i mean this would be the attitude what if there was a great church on the other side
of town that you live close to that's even better than ours i would be selfish to say
come to mind you know it's like get to the better church you know go wherever but at the same
time the vice versa should be true too that if our church is better for you spiritually
and you live close to this other church i should want you not because i'm being selfish
because i want what's best for you spiritually and admittedly obviously the reason why this
church even exists is because i believe that otherwise i would just shut down and we'll
all go join the greatest church in this area let's all go join so-and-so's church
but it's hard for me to find a lot of great churches that are going to preach the whole
bible i mean what church is willing to preach the whole bible in this area what church is like
really emphasizing soul winning right now what church you know believes a lot of the doctrines
that we believe you know it's hard to find i mean it's it's that's why i even wanted to start
a church it's because i know there's a lot of people that want to serve god and want to be
more spiritual in their lives and i think that's the reason why we're here you know
the false prophets they just want you for selfish ambition that's what the bible teaches
verse 14 but god forbid that i should glory saving the cross over lord jesus christ by
whom the world is crucified unto me and i am the world so he's saying you know what a lot
of people do is they will judge their church on carnal means like my church is better than
yours because i have more members or my church is better than you because we have more baptisms
or we have uh you know we have all we have these altar calls we're getting people
saved in every service and of course what's the point of an altar call i personally believe
it's only for pride because if i genuinely cared about someone's salvation
i would not leave it up to them just raising their hand after the service because anybody
anybody that's ever tested one of these people knows that like 90 plus percent of the
time they didn't get saved and i'm only saying that because i've seen it i've experienced it we've
gone to foreign countries where you preach the whole gospel as clear as you could possibly preach
it you have hundreds of kids raise their hand and pray with you and then you go afterwards
and i kid you not i never found a single one that was actually saved after that
i'm not saying it didn't happen i'm saying you would have hundreds and then you walk up
to them and test them on what they just heard and what they just said that they believe and
they didn't get it and they didn't understand it and of course you know this is happening
in these modern churches today and of course what they're doing is they're getting the same
people saved every week but they tell everybody close your eyes and bow your head
and it's like i see that hand and it doesn't matter to that minister that's the same hand
every single week and it's like if that person actually cared they would just make sure
to test every person in their church to make sure they're safe you know i pretty much know
everybody in here already and the people that i don't know either me or one of my ushers or
somebody we go up to them right away after the service i'm like hey what do you believe about
salvation why because we actually care you know what isn't caring is just let strangers come in
here and just raise their hand after the service and not talk to them not make sure they're saved
and just let them go back on their merry way and then i can just brag i had 10 hands raised
in their altar call and then they glory in that they glory in all these different things
they glory about well my church is running a thousand my church is running five thousand my
church is running whatever you know people could brag about a church like ours you know we're
much larger than the average independent fundamental baptist church and we're definitely
larger than even just regular church i mean the average size of the church is like 75.
i mean we have over 200 people on our active roster you know i could get up here and be
like oh we're so much bigger you know we have friends and other people that have smaller
churches you know what a kind of what a what a braggart if i got up and said my church is better
than this church because we have more people in it or because we had more baptisms or whatever
the whatever the the carnal metric and the apostle paul is saying hey the only thing i
should be glorying in is the cross of our lord jesus christ you know not making it about
all these carnal metrics and all these measurement tools and thinking that you're so much better
you know the only thing i have the glory in is what christ did for me
because i'm just a sinner saved by grace just like everybody else and you know we don't really
know how god's gonna judge things and how he's gonna measure unto people because if the
poor widow women can throw in two mites and have given more than all of the other people
that gave then why would i think a church running thousands is gonna be that pastor is
gonna be more greatly rewarded than the pastor of two people that he pastored faithfully
oh well you know yeah your church is small it's in a strip mall who cares that it's in a strip
mall who cares about the building who cares about the number of the people you know we
should have spiritual goggles and at the end of the day we realize i'm not gonna glory about
myself at all i'm gonna only glory in the lord jesus christ so you know what we as steadfast
baptist church i love being part of steadfast baptist church i'm pleased that i go to
steadfast baptist church you know i don't want to glory in it and think that i'm better than other
christians because i go there or glory in and act like well i'm the pastor of steadfast
baptist you know what i glory in the lord jesus christ and that i'm saved
for in christ jesus neither circumcision avail anything nor uncircumcision but a new creature
and as many as walk according this rule peace be on them and mercy and upon the israel of
god from henceforth let no man trouble me for i bear in my body the marks of the lord
jesus brethren the grace of our lord jesus christ be with your spirit amen so he's saying
hey all of you that are saved here i'm gonna bless y'all okay he didn't bless everyone
did you notice that and as many as walk according this rule peace be on them
that's shade on the people that are not doing that okay fyi and he's saying hey and on
the israel of god uh i'm gonna bless all the people that are saved in your church
and are doing what i said not just carte blanche everyone and he's just like you know what
he glories in his infirmities if you think about it constantly in the bible because he's
saying hey you know what i bear the marks of the lord jesus saying like if there was anything
to brag about it would be the fact that i have stripes not the fact that how many people i
have in the room or how big a church or how much money i have or whatever it's like the
only glory because he glories in second corinthians 11 like a fool and he's saying like the only
thing to really brag about is all the persecution you know and it's funny to me
that all the churches that want to brag they never brag about persecution
but you know what who has a lot of persecution this church but let me say this it would be a
fool for us to brag about it it'd be a fool for us to glory in it it'd be a fool for us
to get up and say we're better than other people look at all of our persecution it's true it's not
like it's not true we should realize that it's true we shouldn't have a high view of ourselves
we should have a low view of ourselves and say you know what praise god that we suffer for
the cause of christ praise god for the marks that i bear in my body you know let's glory in
christ because christ has the ultimate marks in his body and you know mine are nothing in
comparison to his and we should never try to lift ourselves up because god will knock us down
let's close in prayer thank you heavenly father so much for this this great book of the bible
thank you for giving us so much instruction wisdom thank you for giving us the opportunity
to follow in your son's example who is the ultimate picture of humility the ultimate picture
of meekness the ultimate picture of lowliness i pray that we would have the same mind in
ourselves that we would love our brethren as ourselves that we would judge ourselves harshly
and we would be meek and gentle into others that whatever problems we have that we'd be willing
to work on ourselves and we would be also willing to bear one another's burdens we realize
that ultimately we're going to reap what we sow and i pray that we constantly be mindful of
that so that we walk in the spirit and that we would not be selfish in our lives in jesus
name we pray amen