You
Good afternoon or morning everybody and welcome to steadfast Baptist Church.
It's great to see everybody here this morning.
If we can find our seats, we will get started.
And once we've found a seat, let's grab a hymnal and we'll start this morning with song number 397.
little as much when God is in it.
Great singing everybody. Let's open up the service now with a word of prayer.
Lord we love you and we just thank you so much for this church. Thank you so much for
the ability to gather here and hear the singing and be a part of it. We just ask that you help
us lift up our voices and fill this room with your spirit and it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right for our next song let's go to song number 108.
It's maybe a newer song to sum.
If you know it well, sing it out loudly.
Song number 108, Son of My Soul.
It's all singing out together on the first.
Son.
Thank you for coming to Cephas Baptist Church.
If you don't already have a bulletin,
you can lift up your hand nice and high whenever ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin.
And we got a picture of the Bahamas here on the front of our bulletin,
and I want to talk about that here in a minute,
but we have our Bible memory passage, Matthew 28, verse 17.
Anybody who can quote the verse of the week and get a prize on Wednesday night,
as 18 and under, and then additionally, anybody that can quote the entire chapter of Matthew 28 can receive a special prize as well.
We have a lot of people here and maybe even some more filling in, so if an usher asks you to kind of just move around, please just help us out on that.
On the inside we have our service and soul winning times and then we also have our church stats down below
So we have a Spanish service on Sunday mornings at 9 a.m.
If you'd like to participate the entire services in Spanish all the singing the announcements the preaching and everything and
That ministry has been doing really well
And so if you'd ever like to participate, we'd love for you to join us
Sunday evening is our 430 and Wednesday night is our 7 o'clock Bible study. We have church-wide soul winning that meets here at the building
So on Sundays at 2, we just meet here and go out.
If you want to participate the day, just be here at 2 p.m.
and we help organize people to be sent out for soul winning.
Regional times meet in different parts of the city, and we have different leaders
that meet throughout the city for that.
Down below is our church stats.
And honestly, this has just been such a great start to 2025,
and we've been doing a big work,
and so we want to maintain that zeal and that effort and that energy.
But thank you so much to everybody who's been participating in this.
On the right, we have a list of our expecting ladies.
Down below, some upcoming events.
So we've been practicing, we've had a kid's choir
that's practicing for an Easter special
and my wife's been helping lead this.
It's a Sundays at 2 p.m.
And so as soon as we get the soul winning organized
and out of here, she's gonna help organize.
There's two groups for the kid's choir practice.
They just meet here in the sanctuary area.
Spring recital, there is a sign up sheet.
Hopefully you already signed up
because there's tryouts and my wife
is gonna be doing that today.
your tryout time. We also have exciting news about the Foley's who are going to be having
their wedding on March 28th at 6 p.m. So congratulations to them. Finally, yeah. It's exciting.
This has been a long prayer request, and so it's great to see it come to fruition and just continue to pray.
Also, they are planning on inviting the entire church.
So if you'd like to just participate, it is that Friday, March 28th, 6 p.m.
We'd love for you to come, but they are going to have an RSVP, and so please make sure to RSVP.
You say, who do I ask? Ask Brother Sam, all right? So ask Brother Sam, and we'll probably...
put that detail and information in our group chat as well so you can follow up.
But if you are planning on coming, please let us know so we can organize that.
Down below that, we have our Mansfield soul-winning marathon.
It's April 19th, and that's going to be just the day before Easter.
Now, we have Easter flyers that can be handed out in preparation for Easter services,
and we'll be doing that on our marathon as well.
Down below, of course, is Easter.
This year is April 20th.
There's some church reminders down below.
Make sure, and again, this is a little bit different.
We sometimes have a quiet time in between services,
but because of the kids' choir,
that's a little bit different for now.
But we also have some reminders.
Please know running or rough playing in the church.
We don't want kids on our stage area.
Please also, kids shouldn't be in the kitchen or fridges
or ice machine without.
adult assistants, and then children should also not be in their mother's baby rooms without their mother.
So we want them to be in there. We have one right here, right behind, and then we have another one across the way.
So there's two mother baby room options.
We also have a fellowship room back here with several chairs.
So if a dad or somebody needs to use that area or overflow seating, we have that in the back as well.
Also, children shouldn't be using any of our church supplies.
We should be cleaning up after ourselves.
The water bottles in the fridges are for soul winning,
and parents, please just make sure you're watching your kids.
Kids, if any adult gives you some instruction,
just say yes or yes, ma'am, and just do it.
So, you know, we allow...
You just need to obey whatever authority is in there.
Today, we are having a luncheon and it's going to be outside in our back patio area
and everyone's invited, so we're having a big barbecue bash.
And, uh, brother Ryan Urbanek, his company, RNN Barbecue, is going to be, uh, cooking for us.
And so, you definitely want to have it, because, you know, there's nothing like Texas Barbecue.
And, uh, not only just Texas Barbecue, but Brother Ryan's really good.
He's actually, he competes very well and he makes it good.
It's hard for me to say positive things about him,
but I mean, when it comes to the brisket,
I mean, it's good, so I have to say it, all right?
I can't lie, so.
But his better half's here with us, Duncan Urbanic
and his brother, and so,
we're gonna get a testimony from here in just a minute.
I do want to say on the back, they organized an ASL marathon yesterday and had 92 sole winners come out and 43 salvations.
That, that is a great work.
because it's not like they're going to the Bahamas or something, okay?
AISL, and so that's a great work.
Down below, we have our prayer list.
Please make sure you're praying for our church family.
If you have other prayer requests that you would like to add to our bulletin, please just email us
or you can fill out the communication card and just slip it in our offering plate
and we'll try to get that added to our prayer list.
I did want to take just a few minutes to just say this week I went on one of our cruise missions trip
ideas. I went with one of my friends, Pastor Steven Anderson, and we went to a couple different
spots. We went to Nassau Bahamas, and then we also went to Freeport Bahamas, and then they
had just like a recreation day. So we kind of only had like two days for soul winning.
But on the first day we went to Nassau, I was able to meet up with one of our friends there,
Brother Kenton Knowles, who lives there, and he helped facilitate taking us to their
university there, and it's really just a hot spot for soul winning because there's just so many students there.
and the student population is really receptive to the gospel.
So we just pretty much went out there and just did soul winning for about five hours straight
and we ended up having as a group 58 salvations for just that five hours of soul winning,
which is honestly, is unbelievable.
but if you go, you can believe it.
And it's really just a lot of fun.
I personally was able to preach the gospel to over 30 people,
and I had 30 people saved for that five-hour period,
which, you know, for me personally, like...
I don't remember exactly, but I would say, like, the biggest days I've had in my mind are probably, like, 15 or 18 or something like that.
I've never even probably gotten into 20, so to get all the way to 30 is just...
it's kind of unusual.
And so, you know, I've preached a whole sermon on this called Bahamas Solonning Made Easy.
And honestly, for foreign missions, it probably can't get any better, in my personal opinion,
just because it's really close to where we live.
It's super beautiful.
It has pretty much every American amenity you could ever want,
and then the soul winning is just,
honestly, one of the easiest places to go soul winning.
You talk to people and say,
hey, could I show you how to go to heaven?
And they're just like,
yes, I'm really interested.
Yeah, I want to know.
People know the Bible.
They have respect for the Bible.
But most of them just aren't saved.
I did run into a few people that were saved already,
but for the most part, most people think that
they have to work their whole life and be faithful their whole life
and ask for forgiveness every day and just be like a zealous Christian in order to be saved.
And so when you show them that it's a one-time event of believing on Jesus Christ
and just trusting in His finished work,
a lot of them, you know, really connects well and they get saved.
And so...
You know, I can't I can't really recommend the Bahamas anymore. There's a little picture here
And I mean the water there is beautiful. The beaches are beautiful. The weather is amazing
It's pretty much everything you could ever want
You why the only this is the only danger the bomb is those thing is you might get spoiled because
because like other foreign missions trips actually a lot more work and effort and not necessarily as nice but man
The Bahamas is just like one of the one of the easiest soul winning opportunities
And so I highly highly encourage it. We also went to Freeport and
We ended up going to one of their universities as well, which was much smaller
A lot less student population, but we were able to preach to several of those students and many of them got saved too.
I think we had 18 salvations for our Freeport Day, which is still a great, great day.
Big number is just, it's just hard to compete with Nassau.
I mean, you just can't really compete with that particular area.
And so, but, you know, thank you so much to everybody who was praying for that trip.
Thanks for Brother Duncan for coming and preaching for us on Wednesday while I was out of town.
And I know some people here weren't here on Wednesday and didn't get to hear,
so I wanted to ask him to just come up and just kind of give us a little bit of a brief,
just a summary of what he's doing in the Philippines and what's going on.
And then, of course, today, we're celebrating lunch with him
and celebrating the work that they're doing and them going back.
So why don't you give us a little bit of a testimonial?
First, I'd just like to thank Pastor Shelley for bringing our family back here.
it's great to see everyone you know it's been about a year and so we moved
March 22nd so we're hitting on that year mark so it's great to see everyone
again I got my family in the back here my wife RG and we have two children
Titus and Anna but actually we have three now because my wife is expecting so
praise the Lord on that
And I'd just like to thank everyone here because without this church, we would have no ministry in the Philippines.
And as you've been seeing through the reports I've been sending out through this last year, it is a very receptive country.
I mean, especially if we're talking about foreign missions,
again, the biggest comparison with the Philippines and the Bahamas is just distance,
because that's why it's easier to do missions in Bahamas, because it's really close.
But they're probably about equal as far as how receptive it is.
Since we moved there last year in March, we just started soul winning right away as not
counting March Salvation, so for the last 11 months, we've had 4,319 Salvation.
And that's just, it's crazy to think about, and I was reminded about the soul winning
Because I'm like, wait, why does no one want to hear the gospel?
Because when you go to foreign missions, especially to the Philippines, you don't have that issue.
And typically for us, we're not going door-to-door, we're going to parks filled with teenagers who want to hear the gospel,
and they're in big groups, and a lot of them speak good English.
So it's just really easy.
You can walk up to a group of five kids, ask them, hey, do you want to hear the gospel?
They're all excited.
They say yes, and virtually like everyone you talk to agrees with you, like you don't deal with as many heretics and weirdos as you do in the United States, so the soul in there is just insane.
And so I believe it when Pastor Shelley is saying they got 30 in the Bahamas in one day
because you can get similar results in the Philippines as well.
If you're spending several hours per day, you can get a lot of salvations.
And those salvations weren't 100% by me, also through my wife's soul winning.
We also have a couple of kids in my wife's family.
They're both 17 now, and I think one's about to be 18.
And there's another one. He was with us, but now he's working, so he's not always with us today.
But we've trained three members of my wife's family,
and now two of them are going soul-winning with us on a weekly basis.
And also, Brother James, he pretty much moved to the Philippines as well.
And so he's able to do a lot of soul-winning.
I think this year from, you know, March to March, we'll have around 4,500 salvations,
and I really think this year in 2025, we're going to have even more, you know, especially if we're
counting Brother James' numbers. I think we're going to get a lot more than that,
and so it's just a great opportunity, and I appreciate all the support from the members
of this church. Again, without this church,
None of those people would have been saved, right?
And so this all just started a year ago,
so we're excited to see what the Lord is gonna do.
I like the competition that Pastor Shelly's bringing us now because y'all are taking all these trips to Bahamas.
So now, you know, I'm starting to sweat a little bit as far as keeping up with you guys because we're about neck and neck right now.
I think for January and February, I think we're around like 900 or 1,000 salvations.
So now, now I'm going to make sure I'm going to beat you guys this year.
And here's the thing, the day we get back to the Philippines, we're staying here until March.
the 24th. So we are getting back in the Philippines on the 25th. I have a school
I'm scheduled to go preach at on the 26th. So there's over like a thousand
students there. So if y'all want a chance y'all got to keep souling a lot
because we're gonna we're hopefully you know Lord willing will dominate but
we're really hoping we can get into a lot of more schools this year. So just keep
us in your prayers for that. Again it's great to see you guys and God bless.
Yeah, thanks so much to our evangelist Duncan and his family and and honestly while it is other people have contributed
He's definitely the pioneer and the individual that's caused a lot of people to have the zeal to go out there
He gave the zeal to brother James and without brother of in
Avengers are bandit going out there brother James probably wouldn't even gone out there
But and I wouldn't have gone out there and a lot of people may not have
partnered with them, he's trained a lot of people, and so we're planning on trying to
start a little church plant.
in his area.
And so just pray for that.
Pray for evangelists or banning.
If you ever want to donate to him and his ministry specifically,
you can always just let us know.
And he definitely accepts those donations.
He appreciates them very much.
And our church does pay for them 100%
as far as just funding their operation
and funding their opportunity.
And, you know, our philosophy on missions
is different than other churches.
Instead of having
150 missionaries that we support for 25 bucks a month or 50 bucks a month.
We try to just put that all together in one and just support one evangelist and try to get him out there.
And it's great to see his testimonials.
He's giving us a monthly update.
And it's really exciting to see, hey, he's getting 400 saved, 500 saved,
and the schools are going into and the new soul winners and the baptisms
and all the different works that are being done.
We really, really appreciate the work he's doing.
We also appreciate Verdi Baptist Church in the Philippines with Pastor Matthew Stuckey.
We've probably do partner with his ministry and also come alongside them and help them as well.
And they've been a great success and help, so we're still very supportive of their ministry and helping them as well.
And, you know, the Philippines, it's kind of crazy to think about numbers like that, but Metro Manila...
Just that area is 5th, approximately 15 million people is kind of an estimate of how many people
live there. And it's very densely populated. So if you've ever been to somewhere like New York City,
or maybe another very densely populated area in the United States,
the Philippines is more densely populated from my personal opinion.
And so, you know, that's why sending multiple missionaries and multiple people out there
is just kind of a drop of water on a hot stove in many ways,
just because there's just so many people
and just so much opportunity to preach unto people,
because 15 million is a lot.
I mean, the Dallas Fort Worth area is about 8 million,
and it's a lot, but think about double
and in almost a smaller geographic area,
all just densely packed into one spot.
And so, and that's just Manila Metro.
There's still tons of other little cities and areas and communities and towns and just...
The Philippines is a very populated country and it's growing.
the population's growing, and a lot of people are moving there,
and so it's definitely a thriving area.
And with more and more of the gospel and people getting saved,
I think the country's just going to get better and better every single year.
And so we want to just keep doing the work and keep harvesting
while the harvesting is just so plenious over there.
So we love the Philippines.
We love our evangelists, and we love that work over there,
and we want to keep supporting it while it makes sense right now.
So...
But for a lot of people, it may be hard to go out there.
That's why we also advertise Mexico missions trips.
We advertise Caribbean cruise missions trips.
And just small town.
We have a lot of small town soul winning opportunities.
And so, you know, you just got to get plugged in.
We want to be a church that's doing a lot of soul winning.
And we want to emphasize it, because that's the most important thing.
And that's what I'm going to be preaching about this morning anyways, is about the works.
And so I'm very excited to preach unto you this morning.
And actually, today and tonight, this morning and tonight,
I'm going to be preaching a lot about just steadfast Baptist church
and things we've gone through in our history and some of the stuff that we've seen,
because I think it's important to reflect.
And this is a time for us to reflect, to celebrate, to enjoy, and to kind of...
Get more zeal for the things of God and we've had other people for the Jacob and Jared
they went to the Philippines recently and they did a lot of work and they got a lot of people saved and so
You know anybody can get plugged in anybody can do a lot of soul-winning and that's what we highly encourage at our church
So thank you so much for being here. Please join us for lunch this afternoon. Now. We're gonna be singing a new song
If you want to get out your binders
I'm gonna be leading it
It's Psalm 58
And now we talked a lot about a lot of positive things
and exciting things and encouraging things,
and I love those,
but the Bible has some negative songs, okay?
And so Psalm 58, I'm just gonna be honest,
is not a nice song in any way.
All right, but
Here at the church we like to balance ourselves with seeing not just only positive things
But also some negative things and so you know
We also we sing praises of the Lord, but you know, you can't get mad at singing a song that's in the Bible
Okay, so we should be excited now. This is a song that goes through five times
So the first time you may not quite pick up all the words perfectly or the tune
but it repeats five times, so hopefully by the third, the fourth, and that fifth,
you can really sing in.
You can really kind of get the song kind of in your heart a little bit.
Our musicians have been practicing really hard on this,
so I'm very excited to sing it.
It is a little bit low of a tone, but it's kind of a dark hymn, so all right?
So I'm excited to practice this with you guys and learn it.
This is the first time we're singing it, Psalm 58.
You're on the first?
Thank you very much for singing that with me. If you turn in your Bibles to
2 Kings chapter 4 and we're gonna pass the offering plate
2 Kings chapter number 4
Second Kings 4, the Bible reads,
Now there cried a certain woman of the wives
of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha,
saying, Thy servant, my husband is dead,
and thou knowest that Thy servant did fear the Lord,
and the creditor is come to take unto him
my two sons to be bondmen.
and Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee?
Tell me, what hast thou in the house?
And she said, Thy handmaid hath not anything in the house.
Save a pot of oil.
Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad
of all thy neighbors, even empty vessels, borrow not a few.
And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee
and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels,
and thou shalt set aside that which is full.
So she went from him and shut the door upon her and upon her sons who brought the vessels to her and she poured out and
It came to pass when the vessels were full that she said unto her son
Bring me yet a vessel and he said unto her there is not a vessel more and the oil stayed
Then she came and told the man of God and he said go sell the oil and pay thy debt and live now in thy children of the rest
And it fell on a day that Elisha passed to Shunam, where was a great woman, and she constrained him to eat bread.
And so it was that as off as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread.
And she said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually.
Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall, and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick, and it shall be when he cometh to us that he shall turn in thither.
And it fell on a day that he came thither, and he turned into the chamber, and lay there.
And he said to Kehazai, his servant, call this Shunamite, and when he had called her, she stood before him. And he said unto him,
Say now unto her, Behold, Thou hast been careful for us with all this care.
What is to be done for thee?
Wouldest thou be spoken forth to the king or to the captain of the host?
And she answered, I dwell among mine own people.
And he said, What then is to be done for her?
And Gehazi answered, Verily she hath no child, and her husband is old.
And he said, Call her.
And when he had called her, she stood in the door.
And he said, About this season, according to the time of life,
thou shalt embrace a son.
And she said, Name, my Lord, thou man of God,
do not lie unto thine handmaid.
And the woman conceived and bear a son at that season
that Elisha had said unto her according to the time of life.
And when the child was grown, it fell on a day that he went out to his father to the
reapers and he said unto his father, my head, my head.
And he said to a lad, carry him to his mother.
And when he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon
and then died.
And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God and shut the door upon him and went out.
And she called under her husband and said,
Send me, I pray thee, one of the young men and one of the asses that I may run to the man of God and come again.
And he said, Wherefore wilt thou go to him today?
It is neither new moon nor Sabbath.
And she said, It shall be well.
Then she saddled an ass and said to her servant,
Drive and go forward, slak not thy writing for me,
except thy bid thee.
So she went and came unto the man of God to Mount Carmel.
And it came to pass when the man of God saw her afar off,
that he said to Gehazi, his servant, behold, yonder,
is that Shunamite.
Run now, I pray thee to meet her and say unto her,
is it well with thee?
Is it well with thy husband?
Is it well with the child?
And she answered it as well.
And when she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught him by the feet.
But Gehazi came near to thrust her away.
And the man of God said, Let her alone, for her soul is vexed within her.
And the Lord hath hid it from me, and hath not told me.
Then she said, Did I desire a son of my Lord, that I not say, do not deceive me?
Then he said to Gehazi, Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand, and go thy
way.
If thou meet any man, salute him not, and if any salute thee, answer him not again, and
lay my staff upon the face of the child.
And the mother of the child said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not
leave thee.
And he arose and followed her.
And Gehazi passed on before them and laid the staff upon the face of the child, but there was neither voice nor hearing.
Wherefore, he went again to meet him and told him, saying, the child is not awake.
And when Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead and laid upon his bed.
He went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord.
And he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth,
and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands.
And he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed warm.
Then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro, and went up, and stretched himself upon him.
And the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes.
call this Shunamite so he called her and when she was come into him he said take up thy son
then she went in and fell at his feet and bowed herself to the ground and took up her son
and went out and Elisha came again to Gilgal and there was a dearth in the land and the sons of
the prophets were sitting before him and he said unto his servant set on the great pot and seep
and one went out into the field to gather herbs and found a wild vine and gathered thereof wild
gourds is lapful and came and shred them into the pot of potage for they knew them not so they
poured out for the men to eat and it came to pass as they were eating of the potage that
they cried out and said oh thou man of God there is death in the pot and they could not eat thereof
Then bring meal and he cast it into the pot and he said pour out for the people that they may eat and there was no harm in the pot
And there came a man from Baal Shalisha and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits
20 loaves of barley and full ears of corn and the husk thereof and he said give unto the people that they may eat and
His servitor said what should I set this before and hundred men?
He said again give the people that they may eat for thus say it the Lord they shall eat
and shall leave thereof."
So he said it before them and they did eat
and left thereof according to the word of the Lord.
Let's power heads forward a prayer.
Father in heaven, I ask Lord God that you would fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit, enable him to preach the sermon you've laid on his heart with clarity of mind and with boldness.
I pray also that you would help us to pay attention to the message this morning and apply it to our lives and help us, Lord, to glorify you in everything we do.
We love you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
The Bible says and he said
What then is to be done for her and Gehazi answered verily she had no child and her husband is old now in this story
We have a woman who's been ministering unto Elisha and the man of God and doing good unto him
And so the question is kind of like well, what's gonna be done unto her?
What how can we bless her and Gehazi brings up this idea of the fact that she doesn't have a child
Now in verse 15, he said,
Call her and when he had called her,
she stood in the door and he said about the season
according to the time of life thou shalt embrace a son.
And she said, name I Lord, thou man of God,
do not lie under thine handmade.
And the woman conceived and bear a son at that season
that Elisha had said unto her,
according to the time of life.
Now.
Something you'll notice in the Bible as a big pattern is the men of God are often telling you things that are going to happen
and then they come to pass exactly like they said.
And this is a confirmation of the fact that God is with them, that God is confirming them
through their works and so we can constantly see in the Bible the real men of God are constantly
confirmed and established by their works whereas the fake men of God the insincere imposters they
have no works or their works are in failure and what's great is contrasting in the story
Gehazi is a servant, but the problem is that Gehazi cannot do what Elisha does in this story.
Now she gets this child, a little bit later the child dies.
If you skip down, look at verse number 25 because the woman goes to try and seek for the man of God to help her.
says in verse 25,
so she went and came under the man of God to Mount Carmel
and it came to pass when the man of God saw her far off,
that he said to Gehazi, a servant,
behold, yonder is that she unto might.
Run now, I pray thee, to meet her and say in her,
is it well with thee?
Is it well with thy husband?
Is it well with the child?
And she answered,
It is well this is interesting because her son dies. She goes and seeks after the man of God on her journey
She runs into Gehazi Gehazi sent ahead
Gehazi is there to ask like how's it going and she's just like it's well
It's almost like she could tell that Gehazi is kind of off or a bozo and so she doesn't want to she didn't want to get bothered by
Talking to him about this issue. She's just kind of in a beeline to Elisha specifically
Now in verse number the skip down to verse 27 and when she came to the man of God to the hill
She caught him by the feet
but but Gehazi came near to thrust her away and the man of God said let her alone for her soul is vexed within her and
The Lord hath hid it from me and hath not told me notice that when she finally gets to the man of God and
She's gonna beg something of him. She wants something Gehazi kind of wants to get rid of her
Yezai is not really interested, he doesn't really care,
he's not empathetic, and yet Elisha is like,
let her alone, obviously there's some kind of an issue here,
I don't know what it is, God hasn't told me yet.
It says in verse 28, then she said,
did I desire a son of my Lord?
Did I not say, do not deceive me?
Then he said to Gezi, gird up by loins
and take my staff in thy hand
and go thy way if thou meet any man, salute him not.
And if any Saluti answer him not again and lay my staff upon the face of the child
So Elisha now sends Gehazi out and says hey
Just go just go straight to the child put my staff on him to try and raise him from the dead
So Gehazi is sent out to go and do this task specifically for Elisha. He's instructed by Elisha to do so
And it says in verse number 30, though,
and the mother of the child said,
As the Lord liveth, and as the eye soul liveth,
I will not leave thee.
And he arose with father.
So you get the picture, Elisha's there, the woman comes,
he says, fine, send my servant to go raise the kid
from the dead.
And then the mother says, I'm not going back
until you go back with me.
She doesn't trust Gazeye.
She's not into Gehazi and as we get further in the story,
it's good reason, but she's like, I want you to come.
So then he comes back with her to their son.
Now it says in verse number 31,
and Gehazi passed on before them
and laid the staff upon the face of the child,
but there was neither voice nor hearing,
wherefore he went again to meet him
and told him saying, the child is not awake.
And when Elisha was coming to the house,
behold, the child was dead.
and laid upon his bed.
He went in there for and shut the door upon them,
twain, and prayed under the Lord.
And he went up and lay upon the child
and put his mouth upon his mouth
and his eyes upon his eyes
and his hands upon his hands.
And he stretched himself upon the child
and the flesh of the child waxed warm.
Then he returned and walked in the house to and fro
and went up and stretched himself upon him
and the child sneezed seven times
and the child opened his eyes.
So the child comes back to life.
There's a lot of things we could talk about in this story.
I'm trying to just get some foundation
before I really get into my sermon.
One thing that's kind of interesting,
something lays on the child like eye for eye,
mouth for mouth, all these things.
I don't know exactly what that means, but this is kind of what I've thought is that it almost pictures like your spirit reentering your body because it's like eye for eye, nose for nose, mouth for mouth.
And I think what it's kind of illustrating is a resurrection and the sense that when Jesus Christ rose again, his spirit, his soul returned into his physical body and he came back to life.
kind of picturing a resurrection and it really was a resurrection
where the child really comes back to life.
Now it's interesting as you contrast this, Gehazi was sent by the man of God,
told by the man of God, had the rod of the man of God,
yet when he laid the staff on nothing happened.
Whereas when Gehazi is put aside and then Elisha comes in,
Elisha actually performs the miracle and Elisha is successful.
And what we can discern between these two guys is one is successful at doing the works,
the other one's a failure at doing the works.
Now let's go to chapter 5, let's read a little bit more, go to chapter 5 verse 15.
Here's another story about Gehazi.
And again, for sake of time, I'm not reading these whole chapters, you should read all of them.
But Naaman the Syrian comes unto Elisha, has leprosy, asks Elisha to heal him.
He tells him to go dip in the river seven times.
He is healed.
Then Naaman wants to give a gift unto Elisha for having done this.
And it says in verse 15, he returned to the man of God.
He and all his company and came and stood before him and he said behold now
I know that there is no God and all the earth but in Israel now
Therefore I pray they take a blessing of thy servant
But he said as long as the Lord liveth before whom I stand I will receive none and he urged him to take it
But he refused and they haven't said shall there not then I pray they be given to thy servant to mules burden of earth
For thy servant will henceforth offer neither bird offering or sacrifice on other gods, but unto the Lord so
Naaman wants to give Elisha a gift and Elisha says no because Elisha is not a profit for money.
Elisha is not into the things of God for a reward.
Now, there's nothing wrong with them having taken a reward.
There's nothing wrong with them getting paid.
But just in this particular circumstance, he's not saying yes.
And he's not taking it and he's sending Naaman on his way with a blessing.
Well, the problem is Gehazi doesn't like that.
Skip down to verse 20.
But Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the man of God, said,
Behold, my master has spared Naaman, the Syrian,
and not receiving at his hands that which he brought.
But as the Lord liveth, I will run after him
and take somewhat of him.
So Gehazi followed after Naaman,
and when Naaman saw him running after him,
he lighted down from the chariot to meet him
and said, Is all a well?
And he said, All as well, my Master hath sent me, saying, Behold, even now, there be come to me from Mount Ephraim, two young men of the sons of the prophets, give them, I pray, the Italian of silver and two changes of garments.
And Naaman said, Be content, take two talents, and he urged them and bound two talents of silver and two bags with two changes of garments, and laid them up, lay them upon two of his servants, and they bear them before him.
And when he came to the tower he took them from their hand and bestowed them in the house
And he let them in go and they depart but when but he went in and stood before his master and Elisha said unto him
whence cometh thou Gehazi and
He said nice servant went no wither
This is like all your kids. It's like hey, what are you doing? Nothing?
It's like you're not doing nothing. No one's doing nothing, okay?
You know, this is where we all learned it, right?
The excuse is just like, oh, I didn't go anywhere.
Well, where have we been then?
I mean, think about how silly that is.
Like, he'd been missing you and you'd been gone
and he's like, where'd you go?
Nowhere, no wither.
And he said to them, went not mind heart with thee
when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee.
Is it a time to receive money and to receive garments in all of yards and vineyards and
sheep and oxen and men servants and maidservants?
The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee and unto thy seed forever, and he
went out from his presence a leper as white as snow.
And so we have another story, another example of Gehazi.
who doesn't perform a miracle, doesn't do right, only interested in money,
and he ends up being cursed with leprosy
for having deceived the man of God, deceiving Naaman,
lying about things and just trying to get money. Whereas the real man of God
doesn't lie, isn't interested in money, and you know what actually helps people
and blesses people.
And what we can tell the difference between these two people is the works.
One person heals people, helps people, does good unto people.
The other person lies to people for money.
And if you want to understand Christianity,
if you want to understand the real prophet from the false prophet,
it's all about the works.
And that's the title of my sermon this morning,
is it's all about the works.
Now, we could go through the whole Bible,
and I could just show you this,
because there's so many examples.
But I just kind of wanted to focus on this one,
and then I'm gonna go to a lot of different illustrations.
But here's another simple illustration.
How about Moses, and when he has this standoff
with the magicians of Pharaoh?
And we see Moses performing miracle after miracle,
turning water into blood.
Then he cast his staff down and it turns into a serpent.
And of course the magicians are able to copy
some of those things.
But we notice that Moses' serpent
swallows up the other two serpents
and then gets his staff back.
And then eventually when he gets to the lice,
they're like,
This is the finger of God, because it's, again, all about the works.
The real works of God will always triumph over the works of darkness and over evil.
And we, of course, need to make sure that whoever's doing the works has the right message.
The Bible gives a caveat and the Old Testament says if a man were to give some prophecy and it come to pass but he was trying to get you to go after false gods to still not listen to it.
The Bible tells us in the end times that the Antichrist will perform some basically miracles, false signs and wonders and that we're not supposed to necessarily be even.
So we have to have the right message.
But when you have the right message, there still can be a Gehazi and there can be an Elisha.
And how we determine that is it's all about the works.
So when we have the right messenger, we have the right message,
we still need to make a distinguishment between a Gehazi and Elisha.
And look, you say, well...
Elisha is a man of God, and Gehazi is a servant, okay?
But Elisha used to be the servant too,
because he used to be Elisha's servant,
and then what we end up seeing is that Elisha
ends up performing great works.
And why is it that we love the men of the Bible?
Why is it that we love the prophets of the Old Testament?
It's because of their works.
Why is it that we hate Gehazi?
Because he doesn't have any works and because he's a liar.
And so when we're measuring and we're testing the spirits and we're trying to see what's
really going on in this world, God wants us to trust in things.
He wants us to trust in the works in many cases.
Now think about this Gehazi character.
It's a very interesting character because to some degree Elijah would have trusted him.
Why would Elijah have this guy as his servant?
Why would he be sending him out to do works?
you know, spiritual stuff if he didn't actually trust in him.
And the reality is, sometimes men of God are going to have servants or people
that they put in positions of authority, they send out to do works,
and they believe in them. They trust them.
They think that they're sincere. They think they're a good guy.
They must have confused them or lied to them or something.
But we know that he lies to Elijah, doesn't he?
When Elijah asked him, hey, where'd you go?
He's like, oh, I didn't go anywhere
because he's a liar and he's fake.
He's not real.
And as the man of God,
sometimes you just excuse people's behavior.
You think like, well, I know Gehazi went
and the staff didn't work,
but you're just kind of like, yeah,
but he's probably still a good guy.
He's still, at least he did the task.
I don't know what's wrong,
but he must have given them a bit of the doubt.
But finally, he's just like, okay,
this guy's obviously not legit.
He's cursed with leprosy.
He was wicked, he was not sincere.
And we have to realize that in our ministry
and in the ministry of Christianity,
we will have Gehazis.
We will have fakes, we have bozos,
we'll have people that we send out,
we'll have people that we put our blessing on,
our spirit on, our authority on,
and they just completely fail
because they're a fake insincere Gehazi.
And you say, how do you know he's a Gehazi?
The works.
It's the works that tell us.
You know, what did Gehazi want?
He wanted a reward.
He was really in it for the money.
And a lot of people are in it for the money.
He was told to run ahead,
but he was not able to do a spiritual work.
He was sent, but he wasn't established.
And here's something we have to understand,
is that sometimes men of God can be sent
in a sense, or they're ordained, but they're still not legit because God never established them.
And there's a difference between being ordained and being established.
Ordained, as you're appointed to do work,
established as you accomplish the work, that you're doing good with the work.
And at the end of the day, it's all about the works.
You know, who cares if you're ordained and you accomplish nothing for God?
Who cares if you're sent out to do work for the church and you do nothing?
I mean, hey, they sent me to the Bahamas and I got zero saved.
Well, what's the point?
Hey, they sent me to the Philippines and we did nothing.
You know, it doesn't really matter.
What matters is like, hey, we got 4,300 people saved.
That's what matters.
because it's about the works.
I mean, how many missionaries have been sent out
into the world to preach the gospel?
That's not what's important.
You know what's important?
The results.
You know what's important?
The works, because at the end of the day,
we're not sending out missionaries to fail.
We're not sending out missionaries
to learn a foreign language.
We're sending out missionaries to preach the gospel
and get people saved.
And let me tell you something, it's about the works.
And you wanna know what missionaries I get excited about?
The ones producing works.
People like Evanzis Duncan or Bannock
works. You know what? Maybe one day we'll send out a Gehazi and he won't have the works
and we'll say like, well, you suck. Hey, I guess you're going to have a lot of problems.
And you know what? There isn't an evangelist I can think of that was sent out of a church.
Pastor Aaron Thompson's church that was sent out and was entrusted with the work and he
totally failed. His church totally failed. He's a complete failure and a loser.
And then he ended up stealing money from our church
because he's a disgusting evil failure.
And what happened to Gehazi when he went out and failed?
Oh yeah, he got leprosy.
And you know what, it's no coincidence
that the same failure of Pastor Thompson
now has some incurable disease
in his dying of some unusual strange punishment.
You may not have heard about it,
but this weirdo
who's just rejected Christianity, loves fags now,
now has some strange, weird, creepy punishment
that according to the news,
only 70 people in the world have this disease.
It's like unknowable.
This person, he was given six months to live.
I hope it's less.
And you know what, is it any coincidence that Gehazi is fake
and then gets all this leprosy for wanting money
and stealing money and lying about money
and then the same thing, someone gets sent out
and then guess what, they're a Gehazi
and they're gonna be destroyed too.
Look, it's not about being ordained as an evangelist
that's special.
You know what's special?
Doing the works.
You know what's special is sending someone out there
and getting thousands of people saved,
preaching good sermons,
having a zeal and a love for the things of God.
And that's why we love evangelism panic.
And that's why we hate Gehazi.
You know, my love should be
for the people that are doing the works.
Not for the people that are fake
and a failure and a loser.
And let me tell you something.
You shouldn't mess with Steadfast Baptist Church.
Because you think that's one story?
I got plenty more, okay?
And when you got people in this room praying for you,
you might buy some shoes and end up dead later, all right?
That's all I'm gonna say.
Because let me tell you something,
you know, if God be for us, who can be against us?
Now I have more to, I wanna say,
you know, not every Gehazi though,
or fake guy is in it for just the money.
But he's got people like Simon the Sorcerer.
He wasn't really in it for money,
but he just wanted attention.
He just wanted attention.
Let me tell you, there are certain guys
that it's like the only thing they want is attention.
And boy, the worst thing you can do is give them attention.
And boy, when they try to buy attention,
what does the man of God say?
You don't have any part or luck in this matter.
You're done.
Like we don't care about you.
In fact, because you want attention so much,
God's gonna give you zero attention.
And that's going to be your punishment because you're just such a narcissist and you love yourself so much
And so God will strip all of that away from you
Whereas the men of God they often don't even want attention, but they just get it anyways
They don't really want it and you know what God likes to give attention to people that don't want it
God does not want to give attention to people that want attention if you want attention
You need to change your heart if you want to be used by God
because it's not about attention.
And let me tell you something,
when you just humble yourself and you just do a small work
or you're just going to do something
where no one's noticing,
but you're filled with the spirit of God,
the attention will come if you do the right thing.
You don't, but you know,
the attention's honestly not worth it.
Like here's what's funny,
people that have actually gotten attention
realize it's not something to desire.
It's not something you want.
It's way better to just be under the radar.
It's way better to not have,
because the attention is mostly negative.
It's not positive.
Anyways, you know, I would love to be able to still use,
I don't credit cards, YouTube, any app on the phone.
Like, I mean, I can't hardly do anything.
I don't love that.
That's not fun.
That's not convenient.
It's not fun to sign up and buy all of our Airbnb's
for the Bahamas and then all gets canceled.
And then I have to do it again.
It's not fun to just sign up for all kinds of services.
It's not fun that I can literally be on almost nothing
that is a sermon platform.
Sermon audio, no.
Podcasts, no.
YouTube, no.
Facebook, no.
I mean, it's just like, that's annoying.
It's annoying to constantly be banned and censored
and attacked and threatened protesters at your house.
Like, that's not necessarily fun.
And so don't give this attitude like,
man, I can't wait to get attention.
It's not worth it.
It's better to just go somewhere and serve God and get a lot of people saved and if the attention comes well the attention comes
There's another thing I want to mention go back to 2 Kings chapter 2, and I think this is really interesting
Is if we think about Elisha
And you kind of have to really emphasis the last part of this word because you got to like Juh and then you got to lie
Shuh. All right, Juh is before Shuh. Think about a J before S, right?
So you got to like Juh who appoints Eli Shuh and when Eli Shuh is being appointed
He's asked like essentially Elijah asks him like what do you want?
Now think about this in contrast with Gehazi.
Gehazi, what does he want?
He wants the towns of silver, he wants the money,
he's in it for the goods.
What does Elisha want?
Well, look at verse number nine.
And it came to pass when they were gone over that Elijah said in Elisha,
Ask what I shall do for thee before I be taken away from thee.
And Elisha said, I pray thee, Let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.
And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing.
Nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee,
It shall be so unto thee, but if not, it shall not be so.
So when Elijah is going to be carried up by a whirlwind into heaven,
And he's basically saying Elisha this is our last chance like what do you want?
And he says I want a double portion of my spirit and he said he basically says well if you see me go up
Then you have it if you don't sorry you're stuck with one one time speed all right and
He ends up seeing him go up. He gets a double portion of his spirit when you read in the Bible
What do we see about Elisha? What it what makes Elisha different than Elijah?
He does double the works
It is double the worth because again, it's all about the works folks
It's not about like oh, I got this double spirit
So now I can just smoke people or do whatever like do weird stuff. What's the point of having the spirit?
It's to do more works. It's about the works being accomplished and accomplishing great things now
I'll say this whenever I was gonna be ordained by pastor Stephen Anderson because that's my sending pastor
I was going to Fayford Baptist Church in Phoenix, Arizona
I got on my knees before that happened like a few weeks before
and I just asked God, I said, God,
please give me a double portion of Pastor Anderson's spirit.
And I wasn't joking, it wasn't just to try it,
I meant it and I believed it.
He ordained me, I got sent to Pure Words Baptist Church.
Just doing my thing.
But then something happened, it was steadfast.
And I ended up being willing to come up there.
And you know what, the first service,
he ordained me a second time.
That is not a coincidence folks that is not something that just accidentally happens
I asked for this and guess what he has laid hands on me twice and blessed me twice
And you know what I take that very seriously. I know some people don't really care about our nation
I think we're nation special and I think it's very serious
And I prayed for it and by no coincidence. I believe it happened
Now here's the thing
What would make that special, though, is only one thing,
if we have a lot of works.
Because what would be the point if I go through that process
and then nothing is accomplished?
Nothing happens. Then it just is meaningless.
Who cares if you get laid on by hands
by 100 preachers 100 times
if you end up accomplishing nothing?
You know it doesn't really matter it doesn't really benefit anything and let me say something
It's not special to take over a church of 50 people and run it into the ground. I
Don't even care of it as a great name
It could have the greatest name of the church it could be in a great position when you take over it
Let me tell you something if you run it into the ground that is not special
Now if you take over a church, I'll say this if you take over a church of a hundred people
And the pastor is committing rampant adultery,
preaching weird stuff, there's a bad spirit,
there's tons of weirdos, he's doing drugs,
he's doing weird stuff with the money,
and he gets cast out and the whole church finds out.
If you take over that church of 100 people,
and after five or six years, you're running 50,
so it's less than half, and you're doing good works
and they're going so many,
I personally believe that's a success.
That's a success because you know what that's a rough situation to enter into and we have a bunch of weirdos
Just by even keep going and cleaning up the spirit and actually doing the works. That's a success
If you were able to just maintain if you just kept the hundred, you know the number and you're doing great works
I would say that's phenomenal
If you grow it to more than double
That is impossible
That is only because God is blessing that work and God is doing something special.
And you know what?
You should recognize that as special and that God's hand is upon those people and recognize the works.
I mean, this morning, I don't even know what our final count is,
but I think we have 271 people here this morning,
which our previous church record was 241.
That was the highest attendance we had had that was our 10-year anniversary service where I told everyone to come to take a
Picture and that me my wife was gonna give everyone a gift
We had 241 okay the second highest attendance we had ever had before that was 2 22
So like way less
2023 and it was on my birthday was a secret birthday party that y'all threw for me with food
Okay
We have 271 this morning, okay, now of course we have food and we have guests and visitors or whatever
But I mean obviously God is just trying to grow this church and to bless this church
And I'll be honest with you. It is not because I'm trying to do it at all
Like if you're saying hey pastor, what are you doing to try to grow the church nothing?
I preach sermons to get people to leave.
Like, you know this.
I'm preaching and people are just walking out
in the middle of the service.
I'm screaming, leave.
I'm rough around the edges.
I'm not necessarily the most polished speaker, pastor,
any of that.
But you know what?
God is just doing something special here
and we need to recognize that.
You know, God's doing something special
when we send an evangelist to the Philippines
and he's getting over 4,000 people saved, folks.
There's going to be 4,000 people in heaven that are going to come up and shake your hands and say thank you for sending an evangelist to give me the gospel.
And that's just the start.
We don't even know where the Lord is taking us right now.
But you know, how silly is it when the children of Israel come out of the, they're coming into the wilderness and they just forget, oh yeah, the Passover.
where God spared all of our firstborn.
Oh yeah, God drug us to the Red Sea and we walked through it
and then he destroyed all the Egyptians behind us.
Oh yeah, he's raining down heavenly bread from heaven
and we're eating this manna
and they're just like, I want cucumbers.
But you know what, there are people like that
that have been with us and they saw all these miracles,
they saw God blessing us and guiding us
and then they were like, I want cucumbers.
We'll go to the old I've been paid for cucumbers. Okay, but you know what?
It's kind of silly to have God just be with us so much and have blessed us so much and
So many good things have happened and then just act like you know, it's bad or something
Look, we can tell the Gehazi from the Elisha folks. Why because it's all about the works and
You know when I came here
I think the devil did want to destroy us.
Go to Acts chapter five.
I want to go to Acts chapter five.
I think that God was definitely blessing me,
but let me tell you something, the attacks were real.
When I first came to be the pastor,
instead of as a Baptist church,
I was immediately ripped off for over $100,000,
which most of you don't even have $100,000 to lose, okay?
I clawed my way to that money, just saving, investing, doing businesses, you know, cleaning
up poop from rental properties that I had acquired, just anything and everything.
I mean, a decade of just trying to accumulate all this wealth and just hard work, investing,
saving, all kinds of things.
Because when I, I mean, whenever I was a college graduate, I had no money.
So it took a long time to accumulate that kind of money to accumulate that kind of well just to have it lost in just a month or
Two boy, that's a real big incentive to get sad mad frustrated want to quit just all kind
I mean, it's real
Or just to have a bad mentality. It's really easy. I mean, I'll be honest y'all is kind of low mentally
I'm just like man. What a failure
But at the end of the day, I think that that's just Satan trying to discourage me
Not only that I had all kinds of people were stealing my back
I had someone smashing in my car steal my backpack with the thousands of dollars with a merchandise
I had people that I hired to do other work and they ripped me off and did bad work
I mean just all kinds of horrible things happening in fact not only did I get ripped off for a hundred thousand because
This guy was just attacking me on top of this
I went to a lawyer just to consult like what do I do and he was saying like well
Actually, you need to count all the damages
and the damages in the situation was $250,000 with the damages.
But, you know, I don't even want to sue people.
I just want to, like, move on with my life, and so I did.
But you know sometimes God just wants to humble you just to help you realize like he's in control
And I'll be honest with you
I think that God blessed me through that experience
Because prior to I kind of have this attitude that like I can't really like I always make the decisions
I'm really smart. I'm good with money
Which is not like I'm not, but God is just showing me,
it doesn't matter how good you are with money,
it doesn't matter how smart you are,
it doesn't matter how dillens you are,
someone can just come out of nowhere and rip you off.
Someone can just come out of nowhere
and take advantage of you, do you dirty,
and it happens to the best of us.
And it helped humble me to realize, wow.
God's in control and it doesn't matter how smart how much I protect myself like bad people out there and they'll rip you off
And you know what? There's no justice in our justice system
When you get ripped off taken advantage of many times you have to eat it you have to just suffer and it's it's ugly
It's nasty. I'm sure many of you have been ripped off before sure
Many of you have been stolen from and taken advantage of and it can be very discouraging
But you know what when you come into a church situation you have all this weird stuff happen just all at the same time
You have to realize that it's some form of persecution
And whenever you're persecuted for the cause of Christ,
instead of getting upset about it,
what you should really do is say,
you know what, this is a privilege.
You know, not only did I come in, we have protesters,
we have all kinds of heat coming in on us.
And we're a small church in comparison
to a lot of churches in Texas.
I mean, Texas has mega churches, folks.
They have huge giant churches, all kinds of groups,
all kinds of associations.
And for us to get so much attention,
And why are we being so protested and so many attacks?
You have to realize, like, we're blessed.
I mean, look what it says in Acts chapter five, verse 41.
This is Peter and John.
It says, and they departed from the presence of the council
rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame
for its name.
You know what?
If our church is protested and attacked and persecuted,
we should say, like, thank you, God,
for considering us worthy to be persecuted.
because not everybody's worthy of being persecuted.
God's just like, you're not even good enough to be persecuted.
If our church is persecuted hard,
that means in God's mind,
you're worthy to suffer persecution.
He likes you, he likes what you're doing,
and he wants you to receive that persecution
because you're the one doing the right thing.
It's like when you play a sport,
if you were the wide receiver out on the corner,
and they say, no one guard him.
You know why they say that because you're not good
They're like hey, we're gonna put him in triple coverage
That's worthy. You're worthy because they're saying this guy is a threat. This guy is legit
There's something special about this guy and so he's needed to be covered in this way
That's how it works in God's economy that boy the church is being triple covered. You should say like wow, that's an honor
That's an honor that they think that we're actually doing something that we're actually a threat that we're actually the ones
Really doing something for God and look
From 2019 to now we've accomplished some of them some giant works
It's obvious why the devil wanted to triple cover us because he knew what Randy Mosca do. You know what I mean
I mean, Randy Moss, I think, against the Cowboys,
he had like a three-catch game,
and it was like 260 yards and three touchdowns,
because every catch was a touchdown.
I think it was like a Thanksgiving game
or something like that.
And it's like, it didn't matter if he triple-covered,
double-covered, I mean, the guy is just gonna catch it.
And, you know...
When you see a church doing things like that it's not about the individual for our church
But when you see a church doing things like that you just have to recognize wow God must be doing something with that church
Because again, it's all about the works. What's the point of having a wide receiver if he never catches the ball?
What's the point of going out and playing on the field if you never score?
What's the point of being a church if we never accomplish anything?
What's the point of us all just coming up here and showing up and patting ourselves on the back and doing nothing?
You know what? It's about the works and we need to accomplish works
You know, but this church has reached millions of people if not billions
I mean, billions of people have heard about our church.
Millions and millions of people have heard about our church.
At one point in just a week's time,
we had 5,000 emails.
I'm sorry, voicemails, not emails.
We had way more emails.
We had 5,000 voicemails.
The phone was ringing every 30 seconds, 24-7.
Just voicemail, voicemail, voicemail, just voicemail.
Why?
I mean, you think about it, we're just kind of a smaller church at the time, especially,
I mean, we're running 100, 120 people at that time.
We made a movie, the preserved Bible film, after just a few weeks of uploading, it already
had 50,000 views.
Tons of people were being reached by it then of course they shut down our YouTube channel because we can't let that thing grow
I saw someone mirror it they mirrored our preserved biofilm
It got over a hundred thousand views before they took that channel down if you want to destroy YouTube channel
Just put a video with me on it, okay
But like here's a movie that got around I mean it conservatively that movie got over 200,000 views on YouTube alone
And I'm thinking, like, how many small, medium-sized churches
can make a film and get 200,000 views on their film?
I mean, just take another random old IB church that makes a film
and put it on their YouTube channel
and get 200,000 views.
It's not going to happen.
And if we were back in 2016, 2018, when YouTube
since it wasn't there and we put that movie up,
it would have gotten millions and millions of views for sure.
No doubt.
We made a movie, The Sodomite Deception,
and one week, 20,000 views.
And plenty, I put this on Internet Archive,
which is just like,
it's supposed to just be you can put anything on it.
And they would just like take down one,
I'd put it up on it.
I was putting it on our website,
like the Internet Archive version,
and just put it up, take it down.
And it would get like 5,000 views taken down,
7,000 views taken down.
I mean, that film at least has gotten over 30,000 views.
If that was back in YouTube days,
again, millions and millions and millions of views,
but here's the one thing I love about
You know what I love about Sodomite Inception is Brother Rich Caputo.
Brother Rich Caputo was living here in this area.
Didn't even know about our church.
Watches Sodomite Deception, gets super excited
and joins our church.
And boy, I love Brother Rich Caputo.
You know why?
Because of the works that he does.
He does a great job song leading.
He does a great, I mean, he's excellent on the guitar,
helping all kinds of people.
Great soul winner, great friend.
He's done a lot of work for our church.
You know what, even if that was the only thing
that Sodomite Deception accomplished, praise God.
It's all about the one isn't it? I mean, that's what the only because it just reached one person. Well, it reached brother-rich caputo
He's our saw to my deception, baby. All right
And look look at the fruit. I mean, that's a great that's a great product
If if I say hey said pass the Shelley if you make another film the only thing you're gonna get out of is another brother rich
I would make it right now
Not only that our church with one-on-one soul winning has gotten over 10,000 people saved and the last six years
So since 2019 you say what happened before 2019? No records. Okay, I
Don't know. I can't tell you. All right, the record ceased to exist. I
Don't think they started to exist either but
Since 2019 I take meticulous
Records of our church. We had over 10,000 people saved just on one-on-one soul winning
Not only that, we've had just on paper,
like we take account of all the people
that are members of our church,
people that leave our church,
people that have been thrown out of our church,
people that were kind of coming a few times,
filled out the visitor card,
but maybe they just didn't come enough to become a member.
Those people, so not just one-time visitors, basically,
they've come at least a couple of times,
we fill out the information we have, the record of them,
they've been coming through our doors.
631 people have come through the doors since 2019.
And then I also thought, well, how many people
are labeled a railer and been thrown out of our church?
And it was 19, okay?
So, because this is what's funny, these people say like,
oh, Pastor Shelley labels everyone a railer.
19, it's less than 3%.
So sorry, you know, not everyone gets labeled a railer,
railers get labeled railers, okay?
And they're less than 3%.
I would not want to be on that list of our church.
Especially when I just saw this one guy
have the worst black lesions all over his body
and having this incurable disease
and he's like melting like a snail literally.
I'm so glad we sang Psalm 58 today.
Currently, we have around 280 active members of our church,
which is pretty much the highest that we've ever had.
And when I took over, it was about 120.
Now, active members is not people that show up for a service,
it's people that come...
They come for services.
Maybe they don't always come Sunday morning.
Sometimes they come Sunday night or whatever.
So as long as you've been coming to the services regularly,
you're considered an active member.
And we had about 120 when I took over.
We have 280.
So our first services when I was a pastor
was like running 89, 99, around 100
when I, for the services that I was here.
Pastor Romero told me they had like 150 people
coming for services, but that wasn't, this is not true.
So it was like, it was a lot closer to about 100.
Cause we really didn't hardly lose anybody
when I first came.
It just, then you preach against the flat earth
and you just lose lots of people, so.
But, you know, if you kind of look at how our church works,
And every year or so, we lose about 20 people that are active members, like people that
are plugged in, active members who lose about 20 people, but then, well, we leave slash
get thrown out.
It's kind of a combo.
I'm just putting them in the same category.
Then we have about 45 new people joining every year as well.
Year after year now, of course, it's not necessarily always just like exactly like that because you you typically kind of have big purges
Every once in a while where you just lose a bunch of people
We recently had one of those so about six months ago
there was a lot of drama people trying to make drama more drama than it was and
So I just kind of looked at it. I said six months ago to now
How many people did we like lose as a church?
We lost 38 people.
So 38 people had left our church.
Now not all of those are for the drama.
Many of them, actually several of them had nothing to do with it at all.
It wasn't even had nothing to do with it, just personal issues or whatever.
So we lost about 38 people, but since then we've added like over 40 people.
So we've actually had a larger increase.
And we've had even more people in the last few weeks, they're not even on the radar.
I'm just saying our church somehow keeps growing and I don't have space.
I mean, just look around the room, okay?
We have 240 chairs in the sanctuary, we have 271 this morning.
That doesn't math, alright?
And I keep preaching for you to leave but you just won't, alright?
I can't figure out how to do that.
But I mean, just there's so many things going on in our church and I kind of wanted this evening
I want to talk a little bit more about the emotional well-being of our church how that's changed
I'm just kind of talking about numbers here for a second because the Bible says be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks
And I'm gonna be preaching on that this evening, but we should know I I want to know the stats of our church
I want to think about the people I want to think about what's going on in their hearts and their minds and the works that we're doing
Why because the church is about works folks
What's the point of us just getting together to pat ourselves on the back? No, we need to think about the works
There's been so many marriages that have happened at this church since I've been the pastor many babies birthed since this church
And there's been many marriages that have been preserved
Because you don't know but I was just kind of I just kind of made a quick list of my mind
There's been well over you know a dozen well over a dozen couples and individuals that I've counseled
Had you know marriage conversations with because it's a common thing. There's no such thing as you know
there's no such temptation taking you but such as common to man and
You know people have all kinds of issues and problems and you know what I think that's a great thing
Because the world is divorcing at a 50% rate
Let us not be that of set fast Baptist church where we're exactly the same
Let us work on our marriages and let us preserve our marriages and you know if you feel like man
We've had some hard spots in our marriage join the club
There are some pastors and preachers out there that want to make it seem like we've never fought like me my wife
I've never fought
He's never said a bad word to me
She's never said anything. She's never been irrational. I'm just thinking like
Like do you even hang out like how is that even possible? You know the only way
This is the only way I can rationalize a couple that never fights is if the husband always does what the wife says period
Like if you just if you're just wife just says something and you're just like yes, ma'am
Whatever you say every single time then I could kind of see how you don't fight
But if you actually ever rule your house for even one second, there'll be some friction every once in a while
There'll be some problems, but you know what it's good
And it really friction just kind of tells me that you both like each other and you actually care because when you don't have friction
It's usually because you don't care about the person
People that I work with or friends that I don't like I try to avoid them. I don't talk to them
I want to stay as far away from this possible and there's very little friction because I'm just I could care less you say something stupid
I'm just like never but somebody I care about someone that I actually like when they say something dumb
I'm like hey, that's kind of dumb like hey you shouldn't do that
Hey, I don't like that hey because you actually care about the person and you want to be around them
And what I'm just trying to help you understand is that look there's no such thing as this perfect marriage
It just doesn't exist.
And we all are in this boat, but you know what?
I've seen a lot of people's marriages improve.
And I've seen a lot of people get over issues,
whether they be minor, whether they be severe.
And that's special to me, because marriages,
problems are ugly, and I personally
don't want to deal with it.
I'm just going to be honest with you.
I don't want to deal with it.
but I will deal with it,
because you know what, someone needs to deal with it.
Someone has to do it.
And you know, a pastor that's neglectful in this area,
you'll see a lot of just marriages falling apart constantly
and a lot of huge problems in these areas
because they just won't deal with it
and they won't deal with it appropriately.
A lot of times this is what marriage counseling
is turned into in other churches, the wife's right.
I heard Jimmy Evans, a former pastor I had a long time ago.
He was talking about how he goes to marriage counseling, and he's just like yeah
We went to this lady marriage counselor, and she told me that I was wrong. My wife was right
And I'm just thinking like that's not you know, this is this is bad is bad advice
You know and again, I think that men can be jerks men can be wrong men can do things that are bad
You know what? We need to make sure that we're not tearing down male authority and the marriage
You know, according to the Bible, a man is 100% in charge and he is the one that gets
to make the decisions.
Now, I think that men should be a benevolent dictator.
They should make decisions that are sometimes a sacrifice on their part to bless their wife.
But at the end of the day, they need to make all the decisions.
And they need to be put back in the driver's seat.
We need to make men drive again and in their marriages, alright?
And spiritually, and buying the pulpit, everything, okay?
I mean, you really think that our country would be great with Kamala running the show?
And as much as I have problems with Trump, at least he's a man, all right?
Okay?
And he's given us an opportunity to focus on our job right now while he takes some of
the heat, so just praise God for Trump, all right?
Whether he's saved or unsaved, I don't really care.
He's just taking heat off and I just like it.
All the mission strips that our church has been taking,
just tons and tons of mission strips.
We've gone to Mexico almost every year, sometimes twice.
We've gone to the Bahamas.
We've had lots of people go to the Philippines on their own.
We obviously have Avengers or Bandit going to the Philippines.
We've had other people just go on other mission trips
to other churches, just join up.
And I had a pastor compliment me this week.
They said, you know what I love about steadfast?
Is like, for some reason, your people just always show up.
He said whether we have like a conference somewhere steadfast is always well represented there
And he said you have a missions trip steadfast is somehow well represented there and steadfast is excited
And he said also when they show up. It's not weirdos. It's cool people
He said there's a couple exceptions
No, he said hey the steadfast people are cool people and they're showing up
And, you know, our church runs hundreds,
but you know what, you don't see Steadfast,
you don't see our church is running our mouths online
like a bunch of just unhinged lunatics.
And you know what, that's a great testimony.
It's a great testimony that we don't have
a bunch of loudmouth women in our church,
constantly defending our church and running their mouth
and just making our church look like an embarrassment.
And there are some people that are doing that.
We had three church plants,
Here's here's what I can say is the moment that I was handing it over it was in good shape. I
Can say with an honest heart that when I handed the keys over
To revival, you know taking over our Jacksonville church or when I handed over the keys for pure words Baptist church
Or when I handed over the keys to anchor Baptist church when I'm handing over the keys. It was in good shape. I can say that and
You know, I can't force Gehazi to put the staff on the kid's face and it actually worked out.
But you know what I can do is I can give them the staff.
And it's not my fault if they screw it up.
I want to go to a few more verses. We need to go a few more verses.
Hey, we got lunch for you so you can stick around, all right?
I know you're not going anywhere.
Gov. Wood to go to Hebrews for a moment. Go to Hebrews chapter 13.
But you know, the Bible says that wisdom is justified of her children.
And at the end of the day, I believe this with my whole heart that the pastors and the missionaries
and the evangelists that are being used by God, you can tell.
You say, how?
The works.
It's the works.
You can see the move of God because of the works.
John the Baptist is out in the wilderness.
Everyone comes out to hear him preach.
You know why?
He doesn't, his YouTube channel got shut down
and they're still coming out to hear him.
Even the haters, the Pharisees can't get enough
of John the Baptist preaching.
And then Jesus shows up, same deal.
They just follow him around, all the works.
Of course, Jesus, no one's gonna out preach
or out do his works, but.
You know those that are filled with his spirit are going to be likewise when Peter comes into town
When Paul comes into town you see the works being done and the works is confirming and establishing, you know
You know a pastor a young pastor
Needs to allow God to establish him before he gets a little too big for his britches
When you do something for God, you know even a new you come to our church
Why don't you become a successful soul winner for a while before you think you're hot stuff?
Why don't you do something?
Why don't you actually prove that you're a godly Christian before you act like you're so hot stuff?
You're such a great pastor.
Well, you know, if you're a great pastor, then you don't even need anybody to tell you.
It's kind of like the Proverbs 31 woman.
You say, like, why is my husband not complimenting me?
Well, what about the works?
Because the woman that's doing the great works
will be complimented, period.
The person doing great works for God
will be complimented, period.
If you're doing great works at your job,
you will be complimented, period.
Because it's about the works.
And we're here because of the works.
Look at Hebrews chapter 13, verse seven.
The Bible says, remember them which have the rule over you
who have spoken unto you the word of God
whose faith follow
considering the end of their conversation.
Hey, follow the people that you considered like,
hey, I want to follow these works.
I'm looking at what this guy is doing,
and I want to do likewise.
Go over to John chapter 14,
go to John chapter number 14.
And you know, you could argue it sounds like
bandwagon Christianity,
but honestly, I can't see how that's wrong.
I mean, why would you not want to join in with the movement of God that's doing great things for God?
Why would you not want to be a part of the church that's growing, not shrinking?
Why would you not want to be a part of the church that's doing more soul winning, not less soul winning?
Why would you want to go to the church that's never going to be protested versus the church that you never know?
Why do you want to go to the church is never going to make a step on anybody's toes not preach anything that's going to challenge you
You're not going to grow that basically says hey you want to learn that go to Bible college
No, I want to go to the church that says you don't need Bible college. I'll teach you that
No, I want to go to the church where hey, they're encouraging people to have babies
Physically and spiritually hey, I want to go to a church where they're encouraging women to dress like women and they'll dress like godly ladies
and not have to show up at church
where there's some woman dressed like a hoochie mama
that I have to kind of try and not look at
while I'm trying to worship God.
I don't want to have to go to church
and fight the idea of a whore sitting there in church
that I have to try and disguise my eyes on from.
And where my wife's like looking at me where I'm looking.
Because you know what I know, I'm like,
I'm just trying to be like, praise the Lord, praise the Lord.
Good night
So I want to go to church. I want to go to church where men have a gun on their side of their hip
I want to go to a church where men actually talk and act like men. I don't want to be around a bunch of lisping
effeminate weirdos
I don't want to go to a church where it's all about school and the college and all this other stuff
I want to go to church where it's about the Bahamas and
Philippines and Shreveport and Lancaster and
Saldalis and preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to go to a church where evangelist comes up and doesn't tell
Me about his missionary trip to Israel
He tells me about my his missionary trip to the Philippines where he actually got people saved
We'll pray that Alfonso come to church one day.
Now it's like brother Duncan's like,
hey, I got 4,000 Alfonso's saved.
You know what I mean?
That's the kind of church I want to go to.
You say, well, I don't know.
I don't know if I can believe you, Pastor Shelley.
Okay, well, what does the Bible say?
Look at verse 10.
Believe is thou not that I am in the Father
and the Father in me.
The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself,
but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth works.
Believe me that I am the Father
Believe me for the very work's sake
Hey, if you don't like me, you don't like my face. You don't like my sermons. Well, okay, put all that aside
Believe said bass Baptist church for the work's sake
How can you deny what God has done?
How can you deny what the Lord is doing here
and the works that are being accomplished here?
You know what, you should believe me for the worksake.
You say like, hey, was it a good thing
that Pastor Anderson came and helped this church
and appointed a pastor and we moved on?
Well, I know it was because of the worksake.
You know, when you don't know what's the right decision,
you're gonna find out
eventually, because of the work's sake.
You say, hey, what kind of minister do I want to follow?
Well, look at their works.
What kind of works is that guy doing,
and that's the kind of guy that you should follow?
That's the kind of pastor and mentor that you want.
I don't want to go somewhere where the works aren't being accomplished,
because let me tell you something,
then the Spirit of God is not flowing there,
because wherever the Spirit of God is flowing,
works will be accomplished.
And we can't always judge a church just by,
well, they have a lot of attendance.
That isn't the only thing we're measuring here.
We're measuring at the works.
Have you seen the soul-winning numbers though?
Because hey, if our church cuts down to half,
but we get more people saved,
I'm gonna say praise God.
Because we need the room anyways, okay?
It's not about that.
You know, I don't want to have 1,000 people
and 10 people going soul-winning.
I'd rather have 50 people and 50 people going soul-winning.
You know what I mean?
I'm not praying for God to send me church members,
I'm praying for God to send me laborers.
You know why laborers?
You know why God's asking you for laborers?
Because it's about the works!
We are a church about works here!
That's why people get plugged in.
You know, people hold their nose at the hard preaching for the works.
People come to a soul-winning church for the works.
They'll say, well, I don't really agree
with the sodomite deception,
but I'm gonna go for the soul-winning.
And then eventually they're wearing the shirt, all right?
Because they went soul-winning.
And they ran into those people, and they're like,
wow, they hate the gospel every single time.
Is there a movie that explains us?
Here you go.
Oh, they're protesting us.
Is there a movie that explains it?
LGBT terrorists, here you go.
Is there is there something that explains why King James only churches are doing way more than everybody else?
Yeah, here's the preserved Bible. Watch it. See how do you know the King James is better than the other ones the works?
How do you know what preacher what pastor what evangelist what person it's the works folks?
Hey, here's here's just a good application. I didn't think about it. How do you know what person you want to marry?
Marry someone that has some works and wants to work
I don't want to be in a relationship where they're not going to work because you know what marriage is work
Go to 1st Thessalonians chapter number five. Hey, why did you believe Jesus the best preacher to ever preach?
Never man spake like this man spake his works
How can you argue with the works?
How can you disagree with the works that are being done?
And let me tell you something when you see a church just thriving in the works. You do not want to be on their bad list
It is just is a fool's errand
You are just kicking against the pricks and you might be a prick yourself. All right
Look at first Thessalonians 5 verse 13 and do esteem them notice
Oh, let's do verse 12 to and we will see to your brethren and know them which labor which labor
which labor
Among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you to esteem them very
highly in love for their
works sake
and be at peace among yourselves.
You know why I love Pastor Anderson?
Because of his works.
You wanna know why I love Pastor Mejia?
Because of his works.
You wanna know why I love Pastor Amenes?
Because of his works.
You wanna know why I love Pastor Thompson?
Because of his works.
And you know, some of the young guys,
some of the newer pastors,
you know why I'll end up loving them?
Because of their works.
You know, I love Pastor Matthew Stuckey because of his works.
How can you hate that guy when he is just tearing it up in the Philippines?
I mean, he's starting churches in Poland.
You know, these Europeans think there's so much better
than everybody else.
You got somebody in the Philippines
starting a church in Poland
because you can't get the job done
because it's about the works.
You know, I love evangelist or bannock.
You know, I was celebrating him because of the works.
If he came back and said, I got 4.13 people saved,
3.14 pi day, we probably wouldn't have a barbecue bash.
Right, I mean what's the point of a spending money on a guy that's gonna go out there to one of the most receptive places in the world and do
Nothing and accomplish nothing like it's all about the works
Well, but he has such a sweet spirit
You know, I'm not paying for sweet spirits. I don't know if you've met me before but it's not it's not my high play
Go to revelation. We'll finish
When you see a pastor though that's not doing what I'm saying and you know the Bible says I hate the work of them
That turn aside it shall not cleave to me
You know when you see a pastor not doing this, you know, I don't have good feelings towards that person
We should love the pastors for their works and we should hate the work of them that turn aside
You know, I'm not excited about that.
I don't like that.
What is turning aside?
The disgruntled, railing, backbiting people that just want to attack the work of God.
You know, those are evil people.
And you should look at their church and you'll notice things.
You'll notice that their church is filled with unhappy marriages.
You'll notice that they have bossy wives in their church.
So you'll notice they have unruly wives in their church.
You'll notice that their church members are running their mouths online all the time and
are unruly, have no respect for authority, no respect for pastors.
You'll notice that they're not doing more soul winning, they're doing less soul winning.
There are people that are pastors that were friends of ours, pastors of the new IB.
When they leave, they do less soul winning, not doing more, doing less.
You go to their soul winning marathon,
you go with their soul winners.
They're weak, ineffective, they don't know what they're doing.
They're not good at soul winning.
They're not very skilled.
They have goofy doctrine.
They teach you that railing is not really railing
and they make it meaningless.
They say that women should be teachers.
They tell you that, hey, if you preach the right gospel,
But then you sin, that's preaching a false gospel,
and they put a wet blanket on soul winning
and tell you to not go soul winning.
Look at the jobs of the people in their church.
And you say, like, what does that mean?
I feel like, oh, you just care about money.
No, here's the thing I know in America,
if you're a hard worker, you'll have good jobs.
You have skilled jobs.
When everybody in the church
has some kind of a lazy, apathetic, unskilled job,
It's coming from the preaching, folks.
I'm just gonna say it.
I'm sorry if you don't like that point, but it's just a fact.
They're friends with heretics.
They don't take bold stands.
They're not preaching really hard sermons on fags.
They're not preaching hard sermons on Jews.
They're not preaching hard sermons on King James' onlyism.
And you know what? They don't have a big faith.
They also don't appeal to intellect.
They don't make sound arguments for their preaching.
And you know what? They don't appeal to authority either.
But let me tell you something that is not the type of church you want to go to
Why because of the works, I don't even you could insert any personality any person any
Like prior stat sheet they had it doesn't matter if this is the works that they're producing
I want nothing to do that church and if you insert another guy
I don't care how rough around the edges. He is I don't care the sound of his voice
I don't care about any of these carnal things show me the works
that's the kind of guy I want. Why? Because it's about the works. It's all
about the works. What is Revelation 2? It's a church. It's written to seven
churches which are in Asia. What does it just say? Look at verse 2. I know thy
works. Look at verse number 5. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen
and repent and do the first works. Look at verse 9. I know thy works.
Look at verse 13, I know thy works.
Look at verse 19, I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and patience, and thy works.
Hey, I just want to remind you again, it's about the works.
And I know your works, and then I know your works too.
Verse 23, look at the end of this, and I will give unto every one of you, according to your works.
Look at verse 26 and either to overcome it then keepeth my works unto the end, to him
will I give power over the nations.
Look at chapter 3 verse 1.
I know thy works, look at verse two,
for I have not found thy works perfect before God.
Look at verse eight, I know thy works.
Look at verse 15, I know thy works.
Man, I feel like I'm noticing a pattern
that when God's judging a church,
how does he judge a church?
Works, works, works, works, works.
Faith without works is dead.
And you know what, there's a lot of dead churches today
because they don't have works.
And it's something that we need to make sure
that we're taking care of.
Now look, you can be dead and be in heaven.
I mean, how many people have died here in heaven?
Lots, millions, millions of people are dead and in heaven.
But you know how much they're accomplishing
on the earth right now?
Zero.
And Christians who are saved,
but they're not doing anything,
they're effectively...
The same as a dead person. That's what the Bible means phase that works is dead
It's just saying hey if you don't do any works. Well, you're effectively a net zero
You just do don't do anything. So hey, you're not helping and what's what's the main thing that we need to do?
What is James to really driving at we need to have works?
Add to your faith works patience, you know all these other things and we you know of course the first works is super important because in verse
Five of chapter 2 he's saying hey if you don't even have the first works. You're just done anyways. I don't even care
There's a lot of work to church. We never ever want to leave the first works
The first love which is soul winning which is preaching the gospel
That's what really matters at the end of the day the people that we drag with us to heaven
Look at verse 11 of chapter 3, this is the last thing I'm going to say.
Behold, I come quickly, hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.
Let me tell you something, if you are with us right now, if you are steadfast right now,
you are working towards a crown that only one person can take away from you.
You.
There's only one person and look why would I want to go through so much work so much so much drama so much strife already
To have been getting this crown to then quit later
You know, and you know, I don't know if I can believe you passage. I will believe me for the work sake
I mean have you seen what our church has been accomplishing have you been seen the spirit that God has been look the spirit in this church has never been better
I want to talk about the emotional well-being tonight and I want to talk more about that.
But just if you just look at the numbers and the works, something's happening here.
It's something special.
This church is special.
I feel like I have a great privilege to be the pastor of this church.
And I love you guys so much.
You know why I love you guys so much?
Because of the works.
If I was pastoring a bunch of carnal jerks that wouldn't go soul-winning,
I wouldn't have nearly as much love.
It wouldn't be so much of an honor to pastor that kind of a church.
It's an honor to pastor a church that's zealous of good works.
It's an honor to pastor a church that takes sacrifice of the time, money, effort, family,
job, and everything to preach the gospel and get people saved.
And you know what? You know, and I know, the people in this room are special
because of the works that they want to accomplish.
Let us not stop. It's all about the works.
And you know what? When we see people that are doing great works for God,
And this is what I know, people that don't love Pastor Anderson don't love God.
People that don't love Pastor Mejia don't love God.
People that don't love Pastor Menes don't love God.
People that don't love Pastor Thompson don't love God.
People that don't love Pastor Stuckey don't love God.
And you know what, if you don't love me, you don't love God either.
And let me tell you something, there's not some like magical old IB guy out here doing so many works and I don't like him.
If you can find me someone doing great works,
I guarantee I love that person.
Because I love the works.
I love the things of God.
I want them to be greatly accomplished.
And you know what, we should have great camaraderie
with people that are doing the works of God.
Whether you like their face, their personality,
where they're at, it doesn't matter.
Just like our church.
Don't get so fixated on everybody's personality
and looks and all the other stuff.
Just love the people in this room for their works.
because it's just all about the works.
And when you notice Gehazis out there
that don't have the works, stay far away from them.
You don't want to get leprosy either.
It's close in prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for giving us
just a great litmus test
that we can just see clearly.
The work of God being done because of the works.
Thank you for using our church
to do so many special things in the last six years.
Thank you so much for evangelists or bannock
and men that are willing to sacrifice
We know that being a pastor is a great work.
Thank you for giving me an opportunity to pass through this church.
I pray that you would help motivate me to be an example of working.
I pray that you would help our soul-winning captains to be an example of working.
I pray that you would help our soul-winners to do great works.
And I pray that we would never lose sight of what makes this church special, and that's the works.
And I pray that we give you all the honor and glory for those works, and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right, in closing, let's go to song number 408, song number 408, Loyalty to Christ,
song number 408,