grab a hymnal and turn to song number 405, Laurie we love you and we thank you again
for all the events today, the soul barbecue, everything was so great, Laurie we love you
and we're just so privileged to be here and just ask now that you fill this room with
your spirit, bless this church and everything that it does and help us sing out loudly to
you and it's in Jesus name we pray, amen.
For our next song, let's go to song number 261, song number 261, Turn Your Eyes Upon
Jesus, song number 261, let's all sing it out together on the first.
St. Vas Baptist Church, if you did not already get a bulletin or you'd like another one,
one of our ushers can come by.
If you just lift your hand up real quick, one of our ushers can come by and get you
guys a bulletin on the front.
We have our picture that I took from the Bahamas Mission Strip I was on this week and it's
really a great area to go soul-witting, it's also very beautiful.
If anybody can quote the Bible memory passage, the verse of the week on Wednesday, they can
get ice cream.
Then Matthew 28, the entire chapter, there's a price for that as well.
On the inside is our service and soul-winning times.
Also please make sure you're turning in your church stats for our soul-winning maps.
There's a bin out here that you can put done or completed maps in that would really help
us.
On the right is a list of expecting ladies.
Upcoming events, we are practicing our kids choir on Sundays until our Easter services
and we're going to be having our kids perform a couple songs on Easter Sunday.
So that'll be very exciting.
Our spring recital is going to be this upcoming Saturday at four.
There's not going to be a reception this year, but we are still just going to have the recital.
So if you'd like to just come, it's at four.
Anybody's welcome to attend.
There was the tryouts.
Make sure you show up for those tryout times.
We have the Foley wedding that's going to be happening on March 28th.
That's a Friday at six PM.
And so we're really looking forward to that.
Please make sure to RSVP to brother Sam about that.
Also Mansfield soul hunting marathon is April 19th.
And then a couple other church reminders down below.
Just another quick plug.
We're still going to have a lot of events upcoming in the future.
We have plenty of soul hunting trips, ladies tea, things like that.
But a couple things to plug in the middle of August, we are going to have our men's
conference.
So we're still having our mighty men's conference in the middle of August.
I believe it's like the 14th or 15th and I have to look on my phone.
And then at the end of August, the 28th to the 31st, we're going to have our fire breathing
Baptist fellowship conference.
And that's going to be a lot of fun.
We have guest preachers that are coming in for that.
Yeah, the men's retreat is the 14th and 15th and 16th of August.
Then the FBBF is the 28th, 29th, 30th and 31st.
Then we're going to have our Bahamas missions trip October 6th through 11th.
We got a lot of big events like that.
Just want to put on your radar.
Also, today we got to celebrate.
We had a barbecue bash for lunch for our evangelist, Duncan Urbanek, who's here.
They're going to be going back in a week or so, back to the Philippines.
This is your opportunity to fellowship with them, hang out.
I guess God multiplied our food for lunch.
We have so many leftovers.
Brother Ryan said we have round two tonight, so if you want, they're going to be serving
tonight a round two for anybody that would like to have that.
I kind of have an anticipation we shattered our evening record again.
I don't know why we keep breaking our records, but we broke the Wednesday, the morning, and
the evening, so we'll probably have ice cream again, so if you like ice cream.
You can stick around with us.
I don't know if you're here for the ice cream or the barbecue or the preaching, but I'm
just going to say it's for the preaching, okay?
Or Brother Duncan.
It could be a lot of reasons, but thank you so much to Brother Ryan for doing the barbecue.
It's RNN Barbecue, and he does such a good job.
Let's give him a round of applause for that, because it's really good.
And thanks to everybody for being patient and having lunch with us.
It was a lot of fun.
Thanks God for a beautiful day, because in Texas in the spring, you never know what you're
going to get, but he gave us a great day today.
And so thank the Lord for that.
Azel's Soul Winning Marathon did great, 92 soul winners and 43 salvations.
That's really epic.
And then down below, we have our prayer list.
Please keep our church family and your prayers.
And if you have an additional prayer request, please email that to us or submit that to
us.
We'd love to have that.
If you are planning on going to the Bahamas trip, what you need to do is after you buy
your plane tickets, just email me your itinerary and we're stashing that away and we're getting
that organized.
So if you are planning on attending, once you've purchased your tickets, you can just
email us that itinerary.
We're going to go ahead and sing our new psalm.
It's a brand new psalm, Psalm of the Week 58.
It is in our special binders.
Brother Dustin's going to come help and lead it this evening.
Psalm 58.
Outro, we're going to go back into the chorus, watch me on the timing, Psalm 58, let's all
sing it out together.
The offering plates are being passed around.
Go ahead and turn in your Bibles, the Proverbs, chapter 27, that's the book of Proverbs, chapter
number 27.
Proverbs chapter 27, the Bible says, "Bost not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest
not what a day may bring forth.
Let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth, a stranger and not thine own lips.
A stone is heavy and the sand weighty, but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both.
Wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous, but who is able to stand before envy?
Open rebuke is better than secret love.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
The full soul loatheth honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.
As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place.
Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart, so doth the sweetness of a man's friend by
hearty counsel.
Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not, neither go into thy brother's
house in the day of thy calamity.
For better is a neighbor that is near than a brother far off.
My son be wise and make my heart glad, that I may answer him that reproacheth me.
A prudent man foreseeeth the evil and hideeth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished.
Take his garment that is surety for a stranger, and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.
He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted
a curse to him.
A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.
Whosoever heighteth her heighteth the wind, and the ointment of his right hand which berayeth
itself.
Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.
Whoso keepeth the fig-tree shall eat the fruit thereof, so he that waiteth on his master
shall be honored.
As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.
Hell and destruction are never full.
So the eyes of man are never satisfied.
As the finding pot for silver and the furnace for gold, so is a man to his praise.
Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his
foolishness depart from him.
Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.
For riches are not forever, and doth the crown endure to every generation.
The hay appearth, and the tender grass showeth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered.
The lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of the field.
And thou shalt have goats' milk enough for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance
of thy maidens.
Let us pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for this great church and the great works that you
are doing through this church.
Thank you for our pastor, Pastor Shelley.
I ask you to please bless him and help him to lead this church.
Please help him now as he preaches your word.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Amen.
I want to look at verse 23 again.
The Bible says, "Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks and look well to thy
herds."
Now, I believe the next verse actually kind of gives us a little bit of a kind of connection.
It says, "For riches are not forever, and doth the crown endure every generation."
So it's very important to be diligent in managing the assets or managing the goods or managing
the people that God has given unto us.
And so we should take note here that it's important to pay attention to what you're
doing and what God has given to you.
And I kind of broke this down into two different categories I want to talk about this evening.
Number one, I want to talk about finances.
And number two, I want to talk about family.
And I believe that these are two different ways that we could take this verse and apply
it because a flock in the Old Testament especially or that timeline, your money is wrapped up
in your livestock.
It's wrapped up in your cattle, your herd, your goats, your sheep.
That is often for many people their finances.
That is the money that they have.
And the Bible is telling us that it would be important to be diligent to know the state
of your flock, trying to understand everything about your flock, understanding how many sheep
you have, understanding its well-being.
Is it healthy?
Is it sickly?
Is it lean cattle?
Is it fat cattle?
Just basically just everything that's going on with your situation.
And I want to talk about that first from a finance perspective and then I want to talk
about it from a family perspective, the people that you have to manage or look over.
And it's really important, you know, I think beyond that I'm breaking it down in two points,
but then we can take each point and break it down in two points too.
So if we're looking at finances, the two things that I think are important to look at is how
much you have and then what is the quality of what you have.
Those are two different things completely.
When you try to understand your financial position or the money that you have, it's
important to know how much you have, but it's also important to understand what type of
quality of money do you have, because not all money is the same kind of money.
You can have cash, you could have real estate, you could have investments, you could have
bitcoin, right?
You can have all these different things going on, and you could have money that's coming
in because you start a business.
And sometimes it's important to understand that business, it's important to understand
that some businesses have what's called seasonality.
So some businesses do really good at certain parts of the season, like a Christmas shop.
That does good during Christmas season, but it doesn't do very good in the summer, it
doesn't do very good in the spring, because it's simply not Christmas.
So you have to understand, okay, the money that I'm making from this particular venture
may not necessarily reflect what's going to happen for all of its future.
Go if you went to Luke chapter 16, go to Luke chapter number 16.
We have to understand that the Bible teaches a lot of principles, and we have to also be
diligent in the things that God gives us.
Sheep and oxen, flocks, these things, they also have seasonality.
You have a calving season, so you have the time when animals actually bring forth and
have their young.
You could have potentially a sheep business where you're shearing sheep to get their coat,
and then you sell their wool.
Well, that's seasonal.
That's not going to always happen.
You have to kind of allot for that and think about it.
And so we want to make sure that we're very careful in thinking about our finances and
how the money comes in.
People that are farmers have to think very diligently about their finances because they
often get paid once a year.
Many farmers have one paycheck for the entire year.
And so then they have to think about that and allot that money for their entire year.
They can't just spend like they're just bringing in money all the time.
I have a kind of a famous example of this in my mind that I may have preached before,
but I'll just kind of remind you of this story because I used to work at a bank and we had
a new customer start a brand new frozen yogurt business.
And they started at the beginning of summer.
And their first month, so this is the first month, brand new, they just opened.
They had $100,000 in profit.
I mean just the first month.
The problem is this shop owner then thought, "Oh, I'm going to make $100,000 in profit
every single month for the rest of my life."
Which was not true because since it was brand new, tons of people coming out of the woodwork,
people just want to try it.
It was just kind of a unique phenomenon in that area.
But he wanted the bank to loan him a bunch of money to start two more businesses in the
second month of operation.
So operation day one, he brought in a $100,000 profit.
It cost him not even that much money to start a new business.
It cost him maybe $150,000 or $200,000 to start a new one.
So he's just like, "I want $400,000.
I want to start two more of these.
We're doing way better than I thought."
And us at the bank, we were like, I was a credit analyst.
So we look at the numbers, and we were just like, "No, it doesn't make sense.
You don't have money.
This is bad."
And we basically tell him no, and then he goes and cries to some upper management,
and they're like, "Okay, we'll do it."
So they override us.
So we give him two more businesses.
So this guy starts a frozen yogurt business, makes $100,000 first month, then opens two
more locations almost immediately.
So now he has three frozen yogurt businesses in the same town, and he does pretty good
in the summer.
Now he doesn't have a $100,000 net profit the first month, the second month, you know,
tapers off, but he's still doing good.
But he basically opens the next two by about the end of the summer.
So throughout the summer, he's just killing it, doing good at this one location.
Then at the end of the summer, he now pops up and he has three frozen yogurt places.
Now he's taking about a $20,000 loss at each location every single month.
And he just happened to sign two and three-year leases at these really expensive places where
he's leasing property.
And the guy, this is what's interesting about the guy, the guy before any of this used to
own a lawn care business.
He owned a lawn care business.
And he made, you know, probably $150,000, $200,000 a year, worked pretty hard.
He ended up selling his business for $200,000, invested it all in this frozen yogurt.
So he had a business of 10 to 20 years doing lawn care, very successful, sold it all, started
this frozen yogurt business.
By the end of the year, those two that he had opened were already closed down.
And he ended up, I think he lost the other one, eventually.
So basically he just lost all the money, all the assets he had, lost his entire business.
Because everything, all money is not the same kind of money.
You have to think about it, and I mean, it shouldn't take a genius to realize that people
like frozen yogurt in the summer a lot more than they like it in the winter.
And yet this person just kind of got a little hasty, hasty to be rich, had an evil eye,
and wanted to just make it big.
And instead of just taking the time, hey, let's go a whole year, figure out what your
numbers look like before we open round number two, or maybe pay off your debt before you
just start opening new businesses.
And yet, you know, this guy wasn't really being diligent to know the state of his flock
in my mind.
He wasn't really thinking about what's really happening, what's coming in, let's be patient
here.
And so, you know, sometimes we have to think about it like the money that you have or the
money that's coming in, is that sustainable? Is that going to keep coming in? Is this investment
going to go up? Is it going to go down? These are things that we need to think about. Look at Luke
chapter 16, look at verse number 9. The Bible says, "And I say to you, make yourselves friends
of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when you fail, they may receive you into everlasting
habitations. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much, and he that is
unjust in the least is unjust also in much." Bible says, "If therefore you have not been faithful in
the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?" So the Bible says a few
things here. First of all, the principle that if you're faithful in that which is least, you're
going to be faithful in that which is much as well. And, you know, one month of business has not really
been showing yourself faithful. You know, there was a guy that started a church, his name was Tyler
Doca, and he ordained an evangelist one week after starting his church, and in the bio of his
evangelist, he said, "This guy has been faithful to our church since the opening." And I'm thinking,
like, you're kind of misusing the word faithful here. You know, like, it's not faithful that you
just showed up one time last week. And if you think like, "Hey, I came to Steadfast last week,
can I be the evangelist now?" The answer is no. Okay. Evangelist Urbanik was faithful at church
for years and did all kinds of things for our church. He was faithful. Okay. So, you know,
we need to make sure that we're faithful with little things and God will often test us for a
while. God may give you just a little bit, but he wants to see how are you going to do with this
for a month, six months, a year, years, maybe even a decade in some cases. And then he might give you
much if you've been faithful in that which is least. Of course, there's a lot of spiritual
connections here, but think about the unrighteous mammon is being brought up in the previous verse.
It says make yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. It's kind of saying like
make some rich friends. I'm just telling you what the Bible says. The Bible says make rich friends.
Why? Because things cost money. And it's nice to have people that have money because
things cost money, even serving God costs money. And when you make yourselves friends of the
unrighteous mammon, they can help pay for things. You know, praise God, we get to have a building
today. Praise God, we had lunch today. Praise God, we have opportunities to go on missions trips and
have all these events that are free. You know, someone paid for that. And it's nice to have
people that have money and work hard and then use that money for the things of God. And whatever
God gives us, we should be very good stewards of, we should be faithful with, so that God can give
us much. And then, of course, when we have much, then we can use that for the service of God, for
the things of God, for blessing our family, for blessing our friends, for blessing other people,
and being that individual that can help others. You know, the Bible says he that is rich,
like he's talking about, charge them that are rich in this world, that they be ready to distribute,
willing to communicate, saying, "Hey, if you work hard, if you're faithful in that which is least,
and you do right for a long time, and then God ends up blessing you, well, there's kind of an
obligation that then if someone comes along and needs something that you're willing to help that
person." Like, you're kind of ready to help, you're kind of ready to use those assets that
God's given you. And what I've noticed is when people help others, God ends up blessing that
person even more. It doesn't really make sense, but it works. And I've seen that with myself,
I've seen that with other people, when you bless people and then other blessings come out of
nowhere. Also, the Bible talks about leaving an inheritance. Go back to Proverbs chapter number
13. But, you know, as a man or the leader of the house, you need to make sure that you know where
your money's coming from. You know how much money you have, that you budget, that you forecast,
that you do all of these things. Now, if your wife is better at accounting than you or has skill in
that area and you want to allow her to help, no problem. But you better be reviewing it and you
better know. You don't have to physically do the labor if you don't want to, but you better be aware
of it and managing it and thinking about it and taking, you know, some leadership on that role.
You know, as a man, you need to know how much money you're bringing in. You need to know how
much money's going out. You need to know where you're headed. You should know what your net worth is
and you should be working on increasing your overall net worth, increasing your goods,
paying attention. I mean, the Bible's saying, "Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks."
Jacob was a great manager of the flock and he increased Laban's flock greatly. And he was
faithful in that which was leased. And then what did God do? He gave him the whole flock. He gave
him all the assets and he gave him all the money because he's such a good manager. Look at Joseph.
Joseph is a great money manager and a great steward of the blessing that was given unto him.
He was given seven years of plenty and he was able to weather seven years of famine. Not only
that, he literally took the entire wealth of the world. He was such a good money manager and such
a good steward that he was able to basically preserve life in the entire world and made his
boss the richest man in the entire world and accumulated all the wealth of the world for
Pharaoh. Now, I don't agree with the fact that he then basically put everybody in debt on top of
that, but there was nothing wrong with preserving the race and even making money for his boss.
He was doing what was right and he acquired all the wealth. You know, as the stewards of God,
we've been given assets. We've been given that God has given us money, God has given us jobs,
God has given us finances, and we should be good stewards of the finances that God gives us.
We should not be bad stewards. And I think personally it's just a bad stewardship to just
say like, "I don't really know. I don't really pay attention to money. I just spend money."
That's a bad attitude. We should not be apathetic to these things. We should be diligent. We should
pay attention. We should think about them. We should budget for things. We should be thinking
about the money that we're spending. Now look, I'm not saying don't spend money. You can spend it.
This is what my dad said, and I like this principle. This is not the Bible. This is my dad's
opinion. He said, "There's nothing wrong with spending the money you have. Just don't spend
the money you don't have." And most people, their financial problems are because they spend money
they don't have, not that they're spending the money that they do have. And how do you spend
money they don't have? It's called credit cards, it's called loans, payday cash advances, all kinds
of things like that. That's when you get yourself into worlds of hurt. And so it's really important
to really think about, you know, the money that you have and being realistic about those things,
paying attention to those things. I personally, I have a spreadsheet, like just an Excel spreadsheet,
I use Google Sheets, it's free. If you have a Gmail account, Google Sheets is completely free.
I have a sheet, and I have on it every single transaction that I make, all the transactions,
and I know exactly how much money is coming in. I can tell you what my finances are going to look
like three months from now. I can do it as far as I want, but I'm just, I have it about three months
in advance, so I kind of have an idea how much money I have, how much money I will have, what
kind of big expenditures I may have. Thinking about things, you know, sometimes you pay insurance
like every six months, or every year, or you have all kinds of different bills and things.
It's important to know those things so you don't think in your mind, "Oh, I've got
2,000 bucks in the bank," and forget you have to pay insurance in like the next month or something,
and you go spend all that money, and then now you have this bill and you can't pay it. You know,
realizing, "Hey, we're pregnant. That's going to cost an arm and a leg and 10 fingers." Okay?
And think like, "Hey, I might need to budget for that. I might need to plan a little bit for that.
Hey, my car is on its last leg. I might need a new car." Planning for that. You know, you want
to get a house. Planning for that. Budgeting for that. I think, unfortunately, our society
is taking advantage of a lot of young people and instead of them saving money and investing in a
house or property, they're just spending all that extra money on just random things. Just buying an
extra watch or car or eating out or doing whatever instead of actually like maybe taking that money
and making a wiser good investment and you know we should be careful to think about the money that
we have and how we're spending it and of course then the guy that's lazy and wastes all of his
money and is a bad steward then gets mad at other people who are not bad stewards. He's like oh this
guy's rich because he didn't waste all his money on lottery tickets. It's like well no lottery
tickets are bad investment you know just because someone invests or saves or works hard doesn't
make them a bad person. In fact it actually makes them a good person. The good person is the one
that's diligent to know the state of their flocks, is one that's faithful in that which is least,
is actually investing in the right kind of things. The bad person is the one that's lazy,
apathetic, and just waste the money that God gives them. And I'll tell you you know rich people
whatever you think about them they're not lazy. There is some exceptions you could have like a
you could have this example of like a trust fund kid or something where basically you just inherit
wealth. But the people that have money they had to work very hard to get it and they usually had
to put a lot of diligence into it and they often don't spend a lot of money. People that are just
spending money like crazy will become poor very soon. I mean even celebrities you look at rich
rich rich celebrities they're making 27 million dollars a year 30 million dollars a year and then
you look at them they're they're in debt. They literally have no money they have no net worth
because they just spend everything that's coming in they're just a bad money manager.
It doesn't matter how much money is coming in it matters how you manage the money that's coming in
okay and there are plenty of people that don't even make very much money but they're just good
with their money and over a long period of time they'll have acquired a lot of wealth.
Well what does the bible say in Proverbs 13 look at verse number 22.
"A good man leaveeth an inheritance to his children's children and the wealth of the
sinner is laid up for the just." So you know sometimes you inherit windfalls just because
you're a righteous person. The sinner gets his money taken from him just gives it to a just person.
But you know the Bible says a good man leaveeth an inheritance not unto his children,
unto his children's children. That's what the Bible says and I think it's important for us
to think about that and to play. Now I believe that, go to Psalm 37, go to Psalm 37, I think
that we might be in a period of plenty. You know Joseph went through a seven-year period of plenty
and he was coming up against the seven years of famine. I'm not forecasting seven of anything,
I have no idea. But what I am saying is this, with Trump in office it's likely that this could
be a good time economically for us. And what we should do is we should be diligent with that
opportunity and we should take advantage of that opportunity and be good stewards of that opportunity.
We don't want to be like Joseph where we're just not paying attention to the seven years of plenty
and not doing anything good with it. You know we should take that opportunity to make the money,
to make the stuff that's out there, take advantage of those opportunities and then invest them in
good things so that we could weather a future storm. Because if you look at any real estate
market, any finance market, anything, they always go up and down. There's always ebbs and flows
and what's good, hey take advantage of the good times but don't just waste all of it,
you know make some good investments. No, be diligent to know the state of thy flocks,
okay? And we should know the state of our flocks, know what's going on and be very careful with what
God has blessed us with. Now Psalm 37, I want to look at verse number 25. "I have been young,
and now I'm old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor is seed begging bread." I mean the
Bible is basically saying like poor people that are begging bread are not righteous. I mean if
you read the opposite of this, he's saying the righteous have never been like this. So then if
I see someone in this case, it must mean there's some kind of issue with their righteousness.
What is righteous doing right? What's one of those things? Often it's because of a result of being
lazy, maybe making bad decisions, getting involved in bad crowds, just basically just not taking
ownership, just being apathetic, not caring, making bad decisions, being lazy. You know it's
really easy to be poor because all you have to do is nothing. I mean being, he's like what's the
credentials of being a homeless person? Just do nothing. I mean many high school kids and college
kids have already got that locked down. They just go hide in their basement, play video games, do
nothing and they don't work hard, they don't study, they don't try to get a job and it's really really
easy to do nothing and be poor. What's hard is to accumulate wealth. It's very hard, it takes a lot
of diligence, it takes a lot of hard work and you know I empathize for people that are starting out
with nothing. I mean it's hard. It's you know it's often easy to make money with money. It's very
hard to make money with nothing and it's very hard if you don't have someone help you with getting
education or getting a job. If you have to kind of start from scratch in many cases it takes a lot
a lot of effort a lot a lot of energy and I don't I don't um I don't envy that position because it's
very difficult and you know I've been there where I haven't had much money and I've had to work very
hard and and we all have to but here's the thing if you're righteous you know blessed is the man
that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. You know the Bible talks about when you do that
which is right you work hard you're diligent God will bless you and I've noticed a pattern that
people that serve God and do right he takes care of their needs and when we take care of our needs
we need to be careful that go to Luke chapter 14 go to Luke chapter 14 so I'm just kind of hopping
around a lot of verses here and you know what I'm saying is not the most important thing money is
not the most important thing you could be the poorest person on the earth and still have great
riches in heaven and serve God you know a man's life is not based on the abundance of the things
that he possesses okay it's not a man's value but at the same time we can't just like run with that
and say like okay then God expects me to do nothing no the Bible says if you forsake your own like
if you provide not for your own you're worse than an infidel so you know if God gives me the
opportunity to be in America which is the most prosperous nation in the world if God's given me
parents that educated me if God's given me an opportunity to have jobs if God's given me a
really smart brain or good verbal communication or hands that work or legs that move and I'm
not using that to work hard and do what I can well to me I'm just neglecting all the talents and
all the gifts that God's given me you know if God gave me 10 talents I better use 10 talents
if God's given me five I better use five hey if God's given me one talent I better put that to
use you know what it's there's no special credit in heaven that you just buried your talent in the
ground and claim that you're spiritual the spiritual person works and let me tell you you
find people in the Bible that you like they work and they work hard and they're good stewards of
what they've been given and they're good managers of what they've been given and they're not just
going around making a bunch of excuses they they actually change their lives by working
say i don't like my situation i'll fix it and you know we need a bunch of people that are
willing to fix their problems instead of complaining about their problems all the time
what's wrong with america people complain about their situation instead of just fixing it it's
called mansplaining you know what we need some more men around here okay they just fix things
and they just know how things work and they just actually work hard you know i wish that i had
people explaining this to me when i was younger because i didn't always have a good work ethic
and i still even need a good reminder every once in a while we all need to work hard and
be diligent to know the state of our flocks you know it's hard work to go out and check the cheap
and check the ox and check the flocks but we need to do that now look chapter 14 look at verse 28
for which of you intending to build a tower siteth not down first and count of the cost whether you
have sufficient to finish it lest happily after you've laid the foundation and is not able to
finish it all that behold it begin to mock him saying this man began to build and was not able
to finish by saying hey if you're going to make a building if you're going to build something you
have to first figure out how much does it even cost and if you don't raise the finances if you
haven't procured the money well you're going to look kind of silly when you fail you're going to
look weird when you start three frozen yogurt places and then they all close down because you
didn't actually count the cost you didn't actually think about what it takes you didn't actually have
the finances to get it done and then people are going to kind of use you as a proverb and a byword
and you're going to make fun of you you know you're going to look bad when you start a house start
building it and then now you can't can't use it you know you can't actually put you know the the
flooring in you can't put all the stuff you're kind of just stuck you're stuck with an empty
building and there's sometimes you'll go down the road and you'll find a construction project that's
on that's on halt and just never gets done just days months years and you're kind of thinking
like what's going on they ran out of money they weren't diligent they didn't count the cost they
didn't think about it and we shouldn't be like that now of course we can apply this all spiritually
can't we that whatever God's given us that we need to make sure that we're counting the cost
and we're thinking about it and we're willing to go out and make that spiritual sacrifice
you know when it comes to the things of God it's not salvation's free but serving God is not free
being saved free being a disciple costs you everything everything it costs you your mother
your brother your wife even your own life is what the Bible says if you want to be a disciple we
have to count the cost and we have to think about that and sometimes you have to be even thinking
about hey am i willing to make that sacrifice am i willing to give these things up if push comes
to shove would i be willing because you know you're going to look really silly when you're
serving god and then all of a sudden it's like well my brother's offended now i'm going to leave
church well hey i'm all in it i'm going to go soul winning i'm going to do this well but you know
what to go soul winning you got to show up you got to actually come early you got to spend time
on sundays well i don't i don't have that time well then you're not going to be able to do it
hey i want to go to steadfast baptist church have you looked online to see how our reputation looks
because then they might be friends family even your work hey you go to this church never heard
of the man you know i know not the man right you're kind of afraid to say hey i don't i don't
believe that i don't know about that you know sometimes you have to think like am i willing
to count the cost because then you look kind of silly when you fail when you aren't willing to
really count the cost when you aren't really willing to go all the way and you know especially
as a pastor you don't want to be that kind of guy that's like hey i'm here to serve god and then
well not that hard well not that much well i'm not willing to pay that much you know that is a shame
and approach to the cause of christ we need to be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice if we truly
want to be a disciple go if you had the first timothy chapter number four go to first timothy
chapter number four i need to speed up for sake of time but point one is this we should be diligent
know the state of our flocks and we should think about the costs financially here and hey we need
to think about the costs in our spiritual life hey if you want to have a family you got to think
about how that's gonna be expensive you know it'd be kind of silly to think like hey i want to have
a wife and 10 kids and i'm gonna work at subway for 10 hours a week so you didn't really count the
cost buddy okay that's not very realistic you know you want to have a wife you want to have a nice
house you want to have kids well think about how much that costs and then go find a job that can
pay that okay think about a career that's going to get you there you know you need to count that
cost hey you want to serve god with your life you want to be a disciple of the lord jesus christ you
got to think about some of the costs that you have to you might have to take and you know this is one
that's kind of funny to me it just doesn't even make sense but it happens all the time people will
sell all that they have move across the country to come to a church like ours because they think
that that's going to spiritually help them then they make friends with someone here that they've
never met before in their life they didn't even move here with that person they didn't even know
that person existed they come to a church like ours and they make a friend and then the friend
leaves the church and they're like oh i'm going to leave the church but but you didn't even you
didn't even show up for that person like how does it make sense to to sell everything to move across
the country to come to a church you move for the church then you make a friend which is a total
bonus cherry on top and then if that friend leaves you say well now i'm going to leave too
that doesn't make you didn't even count the cost you didn't even really think about it it's like
that doesn't even make logical sense but people do this kind of stuff don't they or they they
sell all they have and they they get plugged in for the cause of christ but then it's like
you know it's not what they thought how about evangels or bannock selling all that he has moving
to the philippines he may not have understood all the cold showers he was going to take now he's
visited so he probably did but i'm just saying like what if he hadn't what if he didn't what
if he just moved you just say hey pastor i sold everything i'm moving to the philippines and it's
like you show up for the first bathroom visit and you're kind of like oh like where's the shower
where's the bed you know where's where's the steak where's the in-and-out burger on every corner you
know like they're just they're just kind of used to a certain custom of living in america
and maybe it doesn't really exist over there the way they perceived it and they didn't really count
the cost and then they get burnt out or they they they think well that's not really a lot i was
wanting or they hear about you know missions trips or these kind of things like hey i can't wait to
go on one how do i sign up well buy a ticket and they're like why don't what do you mean buy a
ticket it's like go online and buy yourself a ticket to this place and they're like well that
costs money exactly right you have to actually count the cost you know and so we have to think
about our spiritual life and think about how things might cost here's the second one that i
want to talk about i want to talk about this a little bit more is the families the people that
god's given us so number one when god gives us money we need to be careful with that when you
think about that we need to be diligent with it secondly though god will give us people or family
and not just physical family even our spiritual family and we need to be diligent to know the
state of our family of the people that god has entrusted us and the people that god has given
to us you know you need to be thinking about the state of your wife thinking about the state of
your kids thinking about the state of your employees if you're a boss you need to be
thinking about the state of your employees and thinking about their well-being i've known people
who kind of complain they say man i keep hiring all these people and it doesn't work out they
have to constantly fire people but i'm trying to help this person say like yeah but do you have
realistic expectations for this person because if you hire these people and you're expecting
them to do a certain job that costs a lot of money and you don't pay them a lot of money
it may not really be a good fit right they might get burnt out they may get frustrated or you
promise them all this money and then they show up and they do all this hard work and they don't get
that kind of money this happens a lot in sales jobs they'll tell you hey we got this sales job
for you they'll be like if you work really hard you can make two hundred thousand dollars a year
and then you're making like a hundred bucks a week and you're just thinking like it's commission
buddy and you know there's a lot of false expectations out there well as an employer
you can only be mad at yourself if you're advertising something and it's not really
reality you got to think about the state of your employees of your servants of your wife of your
children you know maybe your wife thought as a husband you'd actually be nice to her you'd
actually take her on dates you'd actually help around the house you'd actually pay the bills
and when you don't do those things and she's mad you'd be like oh why submit why is it good it's
just like yeah but is that a realistic expectation when you're putting her through the ringer when
you're not actually doing your part you know we need to be diligent to know the state of our
flocks we need to take care of them think about them and you know as a pastor or a leader it's
important for me too to know the state of of this flock spiritually look what it says in verse number
12 let no man despise thy youth but be thou an example of the believers in word and conversation
and charity and spirit and faith and purity so the bible says that a man of god is to be an example
unto the believers an example unto the flock one thing that is really important is that i go out
and preach the gospel to motivate you to preach the gospel that i go on missions trips to motivate
you to go on missions trips that i love my wife so that you will love your wife that i love my
children so that you'll love your children so that i work super hard so that you'll work super hard
i mean it's you're not going to be as motivated to work hard at your job if i'm lazy and derelict
and have no skills you know it'd be more motivating is if i'm hard working and skilled and leading by
example leading by example in every way that is what we want we want pastors that are an example
you know what you want as a pastor is you want them to be like a copy and paste job and this is
how you can tell if it's a good pastor and family if you say like hey it would be nice if we just
copied and pasted this family you know whereas if you look at a pastor and his family and you
wouldn't want to copy and paste well that's a bad because they're supposed to be an example and you
think whether you're a pastor or not you're still held to the same standards as the pastor in a
sense that you're supposed to be a loving husband you're supposed to provide for your family
you're supposed to be diligent sober a soul winner doing the work that God has given you I mean the
qualifications of a bishop are not like only pastors do this it's just saying this is what
everybody should be doing the pastor is just doing it right I mean the pastor is just doing
what the Bible says and we want pastors that are good examples unto the flock why so that the flock
can also follow in like step why verse 13 let's keep reading till I come give attendance a reading
degradation to doctrine neglect not the gift that is in thee which was given thee by prophecy with
the laying on of the hands of the presbytery meditate upon these things give thyself wholly
to them that thy profiting may appear to all you know one aspect of pastoring is that I should be
public about what I'm doing and what I'm like to profit other people like the things that I'm doing
should be a little bit public living in a glass house so that other people can profit from that
example it says in verse 16 take heed unto thyself unto the doctrine continue in them
for in doing this thou shalt save thyself and them that hear thee being a good example helps
other people you kind of lead the flock take care of the flock and then the flock can follow in like
step go over to first peter chapter five first peter chapter number five so when you think about
this when we talk about being diligent and know the state of your flocks in finance when you know
how much money we have and then we got to think about what kind of money we have is this money
going to keep coming in is it sustainable what kind of quality is it we talk about people we
need to know how many people we have and we need to know what kind of well-being what's their
quality what's their state of mind where are they at because it's one thing to have a church of
200 that's the number but that doesn't mean it's positive or negative think about it what if you
have 200 but two weeks ago you had 500 that might not be in a good well-being or maybe at 100 and
now you have 200 right those are two completely different scenarios even though you're at the
exact same number or let's say you have 200 people in the room and half of them have the niv in hand
the other half have the nasb in hand half of them believe in you can lose your salvation the other
half believe in speaking in tongues one little group believes in oneness well it doesn't matter
they have 200 people there or maybe you go to an old ifb church and you have a thousand people in
the room but you have 10 people that go soul-winning right i mean it doesn't matter the number as much as
the well-being in many cases too we need to know both don't we and you know what i love about this
church is thinking about the well-being of our church because not only we have a lot of people
in this room but we have a lot of people that want to go soul-winning we have everybody in
here has a king day's bible everybody in here believes salvation by faith and if they don't
they would still give you the right answer they're just a judas okay but even judas will tell you
that salvation is by faith right even he will give the right answers you know i like that
we have so much doctrinal unity in this church and we have the same spirit and we have the
same attitude you know that's what makes a healthy church not that you have 200 sheep
but that you have 200 healthy sheep and strong sheep and sheep that want to serve god that's
what's really really important is knowing both of these and knowing the state of thy flocks first
Peter chapter number five is kind of an admonition to elders verse two feed the flock of god which is
among you taking the oversight there of not by constraint but willingly not for filthy lucre but
of a ready mind neither's being lords over god's heritage but being in samples to the flock so it's
important to know the state and you know constantly through the old test through the new testament
we're constantly being alerted to the state of the flock you think at first Corinthians chapter
number three and the apostle paul says hey you guys are carnal he's saying hey this church is
just carnal just point blank you guys are carnal and hebrews chapter number five the author is
telling the audience hey you guys have become babes you become you've gotten such a babe that
your need that people just only feed you milk because you can't handle the word so he's saying
you're immature you haven't grown if you think about the seven churches which are in asia that
god writes to in the book of revelation he's telling them they're all all kinds of different
states some are in really good states some are in a lukewarm state some are dead he's but he's you
know what he's doing he's saying this is what you guys are like this is the state that you're in
this is the qualities of the well-being that you're in in titus chapter two the author is giving
instructions to the aged men aged women young men servants and he's trying to help them understand
what they're supposed to be like and you know to me it's really really important not just to think
about the number of people that come to our church or what the number is but to know what the people
are like and when i think about steadfast baptist church i kind of want to just take a second just
think about what it was like in 2019 january 6th january 19 i'm here sunday morning or sunday
evening actually i think was the first there was a sunday evening i'm here what was the church like
from a well-being perspective and what is it like now well and i'll be honest you know back then i
didn't want to necessarily just come out and say some things okay but we've had six years to heal
but when i came here when i first came to steadfast baptist church it was obvious that church
discipline had been neglected as a church and that there were some people that were just ready for
church discipline and they had not been church disciplined and so there was a lot of church
discipline at the very beginning days of steadfast baptist church but it was because it had been
neglected for so long steadfast baptist church had a lot of insincere people among the ranks and you
know today i feel like most of the people here are very sincere i'm sure there's at least one
insincere person because i've noticed that of all the insincere people that we catch they always
overlapped each other to where there was always insincere people with us okay so there's always
going to be insincere and fake people with us and if you would just leave we would love it but you
know it is what it is uh in many ways you know and i'm also thinking about some of our church plants
there was a lot of carnality in the church and especially in jacksonville i'm just going to be
honest it was a very carnal church and you say why do you say that that's mean yeah but the church
was constantly fighting with itself and here's the thing when there's fighting it's just you just
check the box carnal like it doesn't it doesn't matter why they're fighting or what the argument
is about just arguing and fighting in a church is fact carnal and there was a lot of fighting
a lot of arguing there was a lot of immaturity in the church um the soul winning skill of the
church was just not very well refined felt like there was a lot of improvement that needed to be
made in the soul winning the zeal for soul winning was kind of off when i first came in fact i don't
know exactly but i think we only have like two or three soul winning times for the week and i'm not
trying to contrast everything yet but i mean now we have one every single day so that's definitely
a major change but the cleanliness of the church was off and i'm just saying like the physical
cleanliness of the church there was just issues gossip was rampant in our church it was just a it
was just like like people didn't even understand what the word gossip means apparently or something
marriages were off now i don't know why that's a shock but there was a lot of marriages that
were off attitude issues the church was filled with so much conspiracy it was it made everyone
uncomfortable and everybody was paranoid like it was it was paranoid to the point like someone
would just come in and they would just be like grilled about like why they were there and what
their motives were and are you a reprobate and it's like it's a first-time visitor and and one
of these people that visited was uh pastor anderson's niece and he said she said like she
visited the church and they're just like grilling her wondering she's an infiltrator like all this
crazy stuff and then finally she's just like i'm pastor anderson's niece and they're like oh okay
and they just like back off but it was just like really unfriendly very unwelcome and look there's
obviously gonna be infiltrators and bad people every once in a while we should not have that
attitude towards first-time visitors okay unless they look weird right okay i do have a policy
that if they're really sus that we can ask them to leave but that's you know that's because they're
exhibiting weird behavior not because they just showed up the church was a very needy church
it was very neglected there was doctrinal issues like flat earth and and i mean i'll just be honest
with you i didn't even think flat earthers existed i thought they were all fake like i thought they
were just lying about it and just kind of being like a troll but i preached a sermon against flat
earth and like 13 people left our church and i was just thinking like what in the world you know i
couldn't even believe it that there was one let alone like over a dozen it was it was bizarre a
lot of women's roles were off and marriage teachings that were kind of off a lot of
authority issues accountability issues transparency issues there was confusion in the church there
was some rotten people and troublemakers wow and just leadership issues in fact all leadership was
bad just all of it a lot of loyalty issues too but here's the thing since then i've thought about
this a lot and i've thought about okay what would i say today what does our church really look like
and has our church improved has our well-being of the flock changed at all since 2019
and i would say absolutely number one the soul winning has improved greatly i mean the attitude
the amount of soul winning that we're doing the skill of the soul winning that we're doing
it's not even close and this is important because maybe some people might think like oh that's
obvious it's not obvious i could take you to a ton of churches right now where they're an old
ivy church and the soul winning six years ago was better the soul winning six years ago was more
people more times more zealous and now they're going less not as enthusiastic not as sharp and
you know we want to always measure ourselves and say hey where were we where were we six years ago
i hope that god willing six years from now we're not like we've got one and a half times a month
we just put a door hanger we don't confront people you know that would be sad wouldn't it if we could
look back and say man we had a soul winning time every single week or every single day we had all
these missions trips we were emphasizing soul winning now it's just a visitation every once
in a while nobody goes in the winter we shut it down and look there's plenty of churches where
they shut it down at daylight savings time there's plenty of churches a day where they're not going
as much they're not confronting people they have weird gospel presentations i went soul winning
with a guy from an old ivy church and he said this he said he will not pray with anybody at the door
he said they have to come to church and walk the aisle before because otherwise it seems that they
haven't really repented of their sins and i'm thinking like what's wrong with you you know i
mean just if that's the case no one's getting saved i mean think about how sad of a heaven you
have if that's the requirements to get in how are you how could you even do foreign missions
like how does that even work all right guys i know i just preached to you here in uh in the
bahamas and i know that you changed your mind you put your faith in jesus but you're gonna have to
come to my church you have to get on a boat or a plane and fly to my church and walk the aisle
for me to make sure that you get saved i mean that doesn't even make sense it's not even logical
there's a there's a major difference in the facilities of our church hey the facilities
are way better than sansom park i'm just gonna say it it's way better there's more transparency
we actually put out financial records and stats and statistics and all kinds of stuff the spirit
in our church is way different the joy in our church is way different and here's a big one
the friendliness of our church is way different boy it's a lot friendlier here than it was six
years ago the music has improved greatly the quality of people has changed astronomically
i mean we're just we're just so much better and here's the thing that's important about this
point when you have high quality people in your church you know you attract more high quality
people and when your church is full of trashy people and weirdos you know you attract more
trashy people more weirdos because at the end of the day you know i remember somebody i'm not going
to i'm not going to say names but i'm just like there was somebody that wanted to visit step vast
and when they did early they were kind of thinking like it's rough and and i'm kind of surprised that
this person actually stuck with our church but at the end of the day you know they came for the
soul winning and they were able to stick a lot of stuff out but there's some people that they're
just going to not be able to stick it out or they're not going to give it a chance just because it's
just too rough or too weird and we don't want to have those obstacles if we can avoid them right
we want to be high quality people and attract other high quality people and we want to be friendly
the documentaries are way better you say what document there was other documentaries before
i ever became the pastor of this church and look the documentaries are way better the conferences
i don't know if there was a conference before but our conferences are great the knowledge of our
church is is awesome the life quality of many people in this room is just way better than it
was six years ago and the job that many people have from six years ago way better the podcasts
in the past they were gently led now they have a baptist bias all right it used to be for women
were gently leading you now we have a compilation of husbands doing stuff through wives all right
i'm not gonna talk about them you know let me make it clear that let me give all the credit though
to the king james bible folks because let me tell you something when i came to be the pastor of this
church i don't know how to run a church i don't know how to build a church i don't know how to
fix a church i don't know how to do any of those things but you know what i do know this does this
knows how to run a church this knows how to fix a church this knows how to do everything for church
because you know what jesus christ is the one that purchased this church with his own blood
and this bible you know what i believe is true and because it's true i have faith that the word of
god works and so when i go to this book and i say all right i don't know what to do in this situation
what do i do i just believe it and here's the thing the reason why we have been successful is
one thing we put our faith in what this says and we decided to just do what this says when this says
hey throw out railers you know what i did i threw out the railers there's so many people that say
oh that's not the right thing to do or you're just making up definitions of railers or blah blah blah
i don't care what you said i'm going to throw you out if you're a railer and i just believe it and
you know what it's wisdom is justified over children you know how many people i regret
throwing out for being a railer zero and our church is greatly improving you know cast out
the scorer and the strife cell ceases what the bible says hey you know the bible says to scream
and to cry loud and i do it the bible says let no man despise thee and i do it you know what you're
not going to just trash the pastor and come to this church and it's not because it's me it's
because it's the pastor you just don't trash the pastor you don't despise the pastor you don't
despise the things of god and you know what that's not my opinion that's god's opinion let no man
despise thee bible hey the bible says to approve rebuke and exhort with all long suffering and
doctrine and that's what i do because that's what the bible says the bible says to do the work of
an evangelist and let me tell you something i'm going out there in the highways and the hedges
and compelling them to come in i'm going on the missions trips yeah i've been to all kinds of
foreign countries i've been to mexico multiple times i've been to jamaica i've been to the
bahamas i've been to fiji i've been to australia i've been to the philippines and we're going to
more hey i am going to do the work of an evangelist pastor chalice wants to go on personal adventures
that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard i'm going to go out there and preach the gospel
to all kinds of different people and i'm going to do the work of an evangelist hey i'm going to
pray for wisdom because the bible says it i'm going to pray for grace i'm going to pray for
miracles i'm going to pray for labors hey you know what i prayed for my wife and there's been times
where in my past you know there's ebbs and flows in our relationship but there's been times where
i've wanted something to change in our relationship and you know what i just prayed that god would be
the one to change our relationship or change the problems that we have and you say why would you
pray for that because i believe that the bible works i believe that god can go into the heart
of man and he can change it and i believe when you're a good example and you're seeking god
and you're doing what's right and you're praying god can perform miracles in your life
there's been many people in my life where i thought they wouldn't change or the situation
wouldn't change what i did is i said hey i'm going to be diligent i'm going to be faithful
i know the state of my flock and i'm going to pray that god will change it the bible says every
word of god is pure i believe it the bible says that women should not wear that which
pertains to them to a man and guess what let me tell you something i believe it and i say it and
i oh you're not going to build a church doing that you're going to offend people i don't care i don't
know how to build a church i'm just going to do whatever this says and if you like it or lump it
whatever it doesn't it doesn't bother me i mean i can't get enough people out of this church we
just keep growing god says that he punishes people and i believe it boy i would not want the disease
that's cleaving fast onto one of our haters that's happening and look you think that's one example
i know all kinds of examples i've seen so many people that have just hated on us attacked us and
boy let me tell you something the quality of life has gone down into the toilet and their skin's
gone down in the toilet and their face has gone down in the toilet and they've died and all kinds
of horrible evil things are happening to them and you know i see a lot of people in this room and
their lives get better and the quality of life is and look it's not because of me or this building
or this sign it's because of this this works i believe it and we should be diligent to know
the state of our flocks hey you should be paying attention to your wife you should be paying
attention to your children and you should be thinking are they headed in the right spiritual
direction and you should know the state of them and you should be praying for them and encouraging
them and be an example unto them you know what god punishes people that reject the gospel by
making them gay and i believe it when i after i get someone saved i say now some people hate the
gospel and they reject it and then god punishes them by making them gay and they just laugh and
then i say watch the movie hey brother uh brother jordan dale's my witness that i'm talking to this
girl she can't she can't close the door fast enough i tell her that and then she's like no i'm
gonna wait a second i need to turn off the stuff in the kitchen i'm gonna come back i want to see
this in the bible right now and it was just like here's roman's one okay she's like i've never
heard that she was laughing the whole time but then you know she took the ticket she's like i'm
gonna watch this hey i believe that the jews are the synagogue of satan because the bible says so
and all of reality okay hey i believe when the bible says yay that all that will live godly in
christ jesus shall suffer persecution i believe it think that we're doing something wrong i think
we're doing something right and let me tell you something boy i would not want to serve god for
20 years of my life and not suffer persecution yay and that we live godly in christ jesus shall
suffer persecution if you're godly show me your persecution if you don't have persecution here's
my question where's your godliness and many people want to question those that are suffering the
greatest persecutions they these people aren't godly these people aren't righteous and i'm
thinking like they seem like the most righteous people on the planet look at all the persecution
hey if you're being persecuted hard just just check that box godly that's what the bible says
you know i'm not really worried about all the different things of church because like i said
i don't know how to run a church i don't know how to be successful in running a church
i i you could even argue hey when pastor shelley took over this church he was kind of a novice
and and wasn't well prepared and didn't have the skills i didn't check yep yep yep yep yep but i
had one thing i believe the bible and here's the second thing i had a bible and and let me tell you
something we need to believe this thing there's nothing more real than this there's nothing more
trustworthy than this and you know any position and leadership that you have right now you need
to be diligent to to know the state of your flocks if you're a mother in here you need to know what's
going on with your kids if you are a husband in here you need to know what's going on with your
wife and with your kids if you have employees hey if you're a soul winning captain you better know
what's going on with your soul winning group hey you're an usher you should be paying attention
what's going on in the church building hey you're in the music ministry or as a leader you need to
be making sure you understand what's going on with your musicians hey you're a cleaner or you're a
manager of cleaners you'd be making sure what's going on with the cleaning whatever you're an
evangelist you're you're a deacon you're a pastor you're whatever you need to make sure you know
what's going on with what God has entrusted you with and many people they care about one thing
they care about growing they care about the number we should know the number but we should be really
really careful to know the state so think about the state and this is what I think why would God
want to give us more if we're not being successful with what we already have and so we should always
be thinking like am I doing a great job with what I have because when you're doing a great
job with what you have I believe God will in due time bless you with more but if you're not taking
advantage of what you have well many times he'll take that away I think a lot for a lot of you
young guys a lot of you young people instead of being focused on what could happen in the future
or what you would like to see in the future focus in right now on what you have focus in on what you
have whatever opportunities you have to minister right now do excellent at that whatever soul-winning
opportunities you have do excellent with that if you just have a wife just focus in on your wife
you have one kid focus in on that one kid don't don't try to get ahead of yourself and try to
worry about all the things that you don't have worry about the things you do have hey you're a
young lady you you get married focus on your husband focus in on what you have you have one
kid focus on that one kid focus in on what you have now and what you're going to change now
and be a good steward of what you have right now and then God will bless you with more or make those
things better in the future but we don't want to get just so hyper focused in on things that we
don't have or the future you know I think as a pastor there's this temptation for a lot of us
to wish that we had a bigger church or we may compare you could want to compare yourself to
other people or those kind of things but you know it's a really bad move you should just never ever
do that what you this is what you should just always think of like am I doing a good job with
the people that showed up and I remember praying to God a long time ago because when I was going to
start a church I had no idea what to expect I always try to have low expectations I had no
expectations but I did pray and I asked God this I said there's only this is the one thing I want
I just want one guy in my church that really wants to serve God I just want one person that
just like really cares just wants to just get plugged in dedicated that wants to grow that
wants to learn the Bible I said because as long as I have one person there that's just really
zealous then it'll motivate me to preach really great sermons for that person and to be a good
example for that person and you know I think that we have lots of people like that but at the end of
the day that's all I wanted was just the one. I wasn't focused in on trying to get a bunch of
people or who cares about that. I don't want 200 people that don't care. I'd rather have one that
cares and I'll preach for that one person and you know I'll preach for my family, I'll preach for
everybody and I'm not only caring about that but I'm just saying that's what I pray and ask God for
and you know for a lot of us we need to just be focused in on what we do have and paying attention
to what God has blessed us with and be good good stewards of that flock of whatever He has entrusted
us with. So let us be good stewards because God will continue to bless us. Let us take advantage
of the opportunities we have and and you know praise God for the well-being of our church
because it's dramatically dramatically changed. But let us hopefully six years from now say
it's gotten even better. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for our church.
Thank you so much for the work that you've given us to do. Thank you for the money and the finances
that you've blessed us with. I pray that we would be good stewards of that. I pray that we would
be good managers, that we would take account of what you've given us. And I pray that we would
also take account of the spiritual things you've given us, the gospel and the King James Bible.
I pray that we would be diligent with the gospel you've given us, that we go out and preach.
I pray that we would count the cost of being a disciple. Thank you so much for all the people
you've given us in our lives, our wives and our children, our servants. I pray that you would
help us to be good managers and stewards and examples under them. And I pray that you would
just help our church to continue to grow and to serve you and that we would make sure that
whatever you entrust us with that we be faithful with so you could bless us with more. In Jesus
name we pray. Amen. All right, in closing, let's go to song number 15. Song number 15.