Music
Good evening everyone welcome to steadfast baptist church if you can please find your seats and grab your hymn books here we're going to sing 364 standing on the promises
364 standing on the promises
365 standing on the promises
Make sure you please do sign up just so we have an idea of how many people to anticipate for. April 9th to the 10th is the youth rally for Verity Baptist Church. April 13th is the Shreveport.
Looks like a lot of people signed up for that. And then May 5th is going to be a spring swap. If you have items of value that you no longer need or want you can donate them.
And if you want items of value, then you can come and look and see what is donated. So that's pretty much all we have on the events. On the back we have the prayer list. Please make sure you're praying for our church family.
And we'll go ahead and sing our third song, Psalm 15. Special handout Psalm 15.
All right, let's sing it out. Psalm 15.
Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
He that walketh up brightly and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor dame of a repose against his neighbour.
He that backbiteth not with his tongue, in whose eyes a vile person is content, but he honoureth them that fear the Lord.
In whose eyes a vile person is content, but he honoureth them that fear the Lord.
He that sweareth to his own word and change it not, he that puteth not out his money to usury,
for taken reward against he is, and he that doeth these things shall never be moved.
For who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
As the offering plates being passed around, please turn to Proverbs chapter 4. Proverbs chapter 4.
Proverbs chapter 4. The Bible reads, Hear ye children the instruction of a father, and attend to no understanding.
For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law. For I was my father's son, tender, and only beloved in the sight of my mother.
He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words, keep my commandments, and live.
Get wisdom, get understanding, forget it not, neither decline from the words of my mouth.
Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee. Love her, and she shall keep thee.
Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding.
Exalt her, and she shall promote thee. She shall bring thee to honor when thou dost embrace her.
She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace. A crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.
Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings, and the years of thy life shall be many.
I have taught thee in the way of wisdom, I have led thee in right paths.
When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straightened, and when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble.
Take fast hold of instruction, let her not go, keep her, for she is thy life.
Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men.
Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.
They sleep not, except they have done mischief, and their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall.
For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.
But the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
The way of the wicked is as darkness, they know not at what they stumble.
My son, attend to my words, incline thine ear unto my sayings.
Let them not depart from thine eyes, keep them in the midst of thine heart.
For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.
Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.
Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee.
Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.
Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.
Turn not to the right hand, nor to the left. Remove thy foot from evil.
Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.
I ask you to fill Pastor Shelley with your Holy Spirit, to preach the Word to us,
and I pray that you would fill us with your grace to go forth in this next week.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Amen.
I want to look back at verse 26. The Bible says this.
Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.
I really want to base my sermon on this particular verse here.
It has this idea of pondering the path of thy feet.
I was trying to think about how to word this in my own way.
Really, the title of my sermon is this.
What are you doing?
I think that sometimes in our lives, we just have to ask ourselves this question,
like, what are you doing?
It's a really important question to constantly recalibrate ourselves
and try to identify, are we on the right path?
Notice what the Bible is saying, ponder the path of thy feet.
It's saying, think about the direction that you're headed.
Think about where you're actually going.
The reality is, we are all moving.
We are objects in movement.
It's not so much, am I moving?
It's in what direction are you moving?
Because you will eventually go in a particular direction.
Even by doing nothing, you're moving in a direction.
You're moving in a direction of laziness and slothfulness and destruction.
We have to constantly think about, where are we headed?
Notice it says, let all thy ways be established.
Verse 27, turn not to the right hand, nor to the left, remove thy foot from evil.
The proverb is really trying to talk to someone who's on the right path.
He wants someone that's on the right path to think about that
and to recognize, hey, I am on the right path,
so I need to make sure that I'm not going to do something.
I'm not going to then turn to the right,
or I'm not going to end up turning to the left,
but rather I'm just going to stay on course.
I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing.
It's important for us to constantly evaluate ourselves
and constantly think about where we're at in life.
What are we doing?
He says in the verses preceding this,
and this is kind of like a singular thought here,
but he says in verse number 20, go all the way back to verse 20,
My son, attend to my words, incline thine ear unto my sayings.
Verse 21, let them not depart from thine eyes,
keep them in the midst of thine heart,
for they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.
Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.
I think that's a really important thought here in verse 23,
is to keep thy heart with all diligence.
What is it trying to warn you against or guard you against
is the fact that our heart is deceitful,
and it's really wanting to do a lot of things that are not right,
and we have to constantly keep our heart in check.
What Hollywood and the Jews want you to do is to follow your heart.
Really, all they're trying to say is just do something bad.
Do something wicked.
Give yourself over to joy and pleasure and just whatever you want,
whereas the Bible is kind of saying the opposite thing.
It's saying you need to keep your heart with all diligence.
You need to keep it in subjection and temperance
and make sure that you're actually focused in on what God is telling you to do
and the path that he has laid out before you
and that you're really pondering and thinking about the path you're on
and asking yourself this question, what am I doing?
What are you doing?
He says in verse 24,
Put away from thee a froward mouth and perverse lips.
Put far from thee.
Let thine eyes look right on,
and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.
Notice he's saying don't get this attitude.
When it talks about a froward mouth or perverse lips,
froward is contrary.
It's being a contrarian.
It's being against things.
It's a form of rebellion.
So you hear what the preacher says.
You hear the Sunday school answer,
and you don't like it because you have this froward attitude.
You want to be different.
Like, I don't want to just follow in the footsteps of other people,
and I just don't want to be a goody-two-shoes,
and I don't want to just do the Sunday school answer.
I want to carve my own way.
But you know what? That's a froward mouth
because it's not like the right way isn't easy to be understood
and isn't established.
Many times it's our heart that just wants to be so unique
and try to be different
and try to figure out our own path or something.
And it's like, no, no, it's really simple what you're supposed to do.
Don't have this negative attitude.
Don't have this rebellious attitude.
Don't have a perversion.
What is perversion? Pervert is to be crooked, okay?
So if someone was perverted in their path,
it means that they're getting off course.
So he's not wanting them to have perverse lips
or have a froward mouth, being contrary.
But rather, what is the proverb telling you?
Let thine eyes look right on,
and let thy eyelids look straight before thee.
So he's saying, look to the goal,
look at where you're trying to get to,
and just laser focus on it and just keep walking.
Just keep going.
And again, you ask this question, what are you doing?
It's like, I'm walking right there.
I know that I'm going there.
And the Bible really emphasized this idea of
identifying what you're doing and then doing that.
Now, there's other verses on this.
I want to go to another verse. Go to Proverbs 21.
Just flip over to Proverbs 21 for a moment.
And go to Proverbs 29 as well.
So we're going to Proverbs 21 and 29.
I want to look at verse 29 first, actually.
Look at Proverbs 29, verse number 18.
It's a pretty familiar verse,
but look what it says here.
Where there is no vision, the people perish,
but he that keepeth the law happy is he.
So it's important to have vision in your life.
It's important to think about where you want to go.
If you want to travel a very far distance,
you have to think about how you're going to get there,
and you have to start walking.
Let's just be honest.
If you want to go far, you have to start walking.
No one travels a great distance.
No one goes far without putting in a lot of time, effort, and energy.
If you want to get to a great distance,
then you have to take a great effort.
You have to start walking now,
and you have to be diligent on that path,
going on the straight course if you're going to get there.
This is just logic. This is just simple things,
but they apply to us in our spiritual journey
of identifying where you want to be,
identifying that path, and then getting a laser focus
and walking towards that path consistently
for a long period of time.
Now Proverbs 21, verse 2, the Bible says this,
Every way of a man is right in his own eyes,
but the Lord pondereth the hearts.
Why I want to mix this verse in
to what we've been talking about is this.
You, right now, already think
that everything you're doing is right.
Everybody in here.
And not even everybody in here, everybody out there, too.
Literally everyone thinks that what they're doing is right.
And let's just be honest, almost everyone is wrong.
Okay?
And so we have to constantly ask ourselves,
What are you doing?
And looking at the Scripture, and looking at the Bible,
and looking at the path that God has for us,
and saying, Am I on the right path?
Have I even created a vision?
Here's a question.
What are you even walking towards?
You say, Pastor Shelley,
I have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry.
Then here's the thing.
You're pretty much obviously not doing what the passage is saying
if you don't have anywhere you're trying to go.
I mean, just imagine if you ran out in the street,
you ran into a guy,
Hey, where you going?
I don't know.
That doesn't seem like somebody
that's going to be very successful in life.
Right?
You run into a guy,
and he won't even give you the time of day.
You're thinking, Where is he going?
He's like, I already know.
I don't have time.
I got to get there.
Right?
That's a guy that's going to be successful in life.
Right?
When you're running into the person,
it's like, I don't know what I'm doing.
I don't know where I'm going.
I'm just seeing what's going to happen in life.
You know, this is how most people live their lives.
Most people are just,
they don't even know what they're going to do
in the next five minutes.
They don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.
They don't know anything.
They basically have no idea,
no direction, no vision.
But even though they would even admit it to you,
they would say,
I have no idea what I'm going to do tomorrow.
I have no idea where I'm going.
I have no idea what's going to happen in two years
or five years or ten years.
But I know that every single decision I make
is always right.
It's like, that is the human condition.
That is how we all feel.
And the reality is, it's wrong.
Most of the time, it's wrong.
And we're very foolish.
Go back to Proverbs 4.
I want to go back to Proverbs chapter number 4.
I want to just pick out a few different areas,
and I want to ask you this question.
What are you doing?
You know what the Bible really emphasizes,
and it acts like it's a really important thing for us to do,
is to get wisdom.
Look at Proverbs chapter 4, verse 5.
The Bible says this.
Get wisdom.
Get understanding.
Forget it not.
Neither decline from the words of my mouth.
What are you doing to get wisdom?
Well, I already graduated from high school.
Isn't that, I mean, isn't that how most people
treat education, treat wisdom?
Well, I've already gone to school and done all that.
Wait a minute.
When did the Bible say,
when you're in high school, get wisdom?
You know what the Bible says?
Get wisdom.
And then I'd ask you this question.
What are you doing to get wisdom?
Do you read anything?
It's like, no.
Are you studying anything?
No.
But I did watch a video on how the earth's flat.
Well, you know what?
You're not getting any wisdom, bro.
And you know what?
I already know where you're headed to not being smart.
You know, the people that are smart,
the people that have a lot of wisdom,
they say, I want to be smart.
I want to get wisdom.
So you know what they do?
They find things that are going to get them that path.
They say, hey, I want to learn about science.
And you say, well,
how are you going to be really knowledgeable in science?
You know what they say?
I better read this book about science.
And then I better read this book about science.
And then I better ask people that know about science.
And then I better study science.
And you know what?
I'm going to do this for years and years and years.
And then now I'm going to actually have a lot of knowledge
and wisdom about science.
You know what?
Someone doesn't just wake up tomorrow and know science.
Someone doesn't just wake up tomorrow and just know things.
Say, hey, I want to be able to preach a sermon in Spanish.
And it's like, how much Spanish do you know?
Nada, all right?
I just guessed that word and got it right.
You know, it's like, well, here's the thing.
You're not going to wake up tomorrow, sorry, Pentecostals.
You're not going to wake up tomorrow
and be able to preach in Spanish, okay?
That's not how it works.
And if it did, God bless you,
but that's not really what the scripture teaches.
You know how you get to a point
where you can preach a sermon in Spanish?
You have to study Spanish.
You have to speak in Spanish.
You actually have to make a plan.
You have to look and say, I want to do this.
And then you have to walk on that path for a long time.
You have to be realistic about it.
What if you said, hey, I want to walk 10 miles in this direction?
Well, you know what?
You'd have to figure out, like, how long?
It takes, you know, 12 minutes to walk a mile.
That's going to take, if I'm going to run, I'm not going to 10.
That's like 120 minutes.
Then you have to be realistic about it.
Like, the only way I'm going to get there
is if I walk consistently for this period of time.
What if I just lay down on the ground and be like,
I just wish I could go there.
Hey, you got to start moving there.
If you want to actually get to that destination,
you got to start doing something to get there.
Hey, I want to be a wise person.
Well, do you read your Bible at all?
Here's the thing.
People that are wise read the Bible.
The only people that are wise in this world
are people that are reading the Bible.
You say, I would love to be a wise person, Pastor Shelley.
Well, you better read the Bible.
And you say, hey, I want to be smart in other areas of life,
whether that be science, engineering, electronics,
whether that be your career, building houses.
Whatever it is, there's a lot of knowledge that can be acquired,
but if you actually want to be really knowledgeable in that area,
here's my question.
What are you doing?
Are you doing anything to get that kind of knowledge?
Are you doing anything to get any kind of wisdom about that?
Because if you're not, let me explain something.
You won't get there.
Imagine I run into the guy.
He's like, hey, I want to walk 10 miles this way.
And he's laying on the ground.
You know what I say?
Well, what are you doing?
He's like, well, I just can't wait to get over there.
Get up.
You're going to have to start moving.
If you want to get there, I'll walk with you.
Hey, I'll help you.
I'll encourage you.
I'll give you some water.
You know, you have to actually stand up and start walking that direction.
If you want to get there, you have to do something.
And I think sometimes we have to be honest with ourselves and say, hey,
what are you doing?
You want to go far in this world?
What are you doing?
You children, you want to do something in your life?
You want to be somebody in your life?
Here's a question.
What are you doing?
You say, well, I just can't wait until I'm an adult.
You know, I'm sick of school.
My parents are so lame.
They give me all these rules, and they're down on me,
and they're making me study and stuff.
Well, let me explain something, children.
Whenever you get older, it doesn't get easier.
Because the rules are no longer from your loving parents.
They're from a boss that doesn't like you.
And let me explain something.
You still have to pay the man.
You just have to pay bills.
You still have to work.
And when you say, I don't really like studying and reading,
well, good luck when you go into the workforce and they say, hey,
what can you do?
Well, I can play video games, man, you know.
I could lay around and be a jerk.
It's like, well, we don't pay for that.
You know what we pay people?
We pay people that can actually learn, are educated, smart, hardworking,
having character, having diligence.
You know what?
Take homeschooling seriously, take your education seriously,
because it's going to greatly impact where you go.
You say, hey, I want to be like my dad.
I want to have a wife.
I want to have a house.
I want to pay bills.
I want to be a soul winner.
I want to do this.
Well, you know what?
You're going to have to work hard.
You're going to have to do what your dad's doing
and walk in his direction where he's learning and studying
and be like them.
Say, well, I just want to lay around.
We can go find a homeless person.
If you're a homeless person, you can go watch them right now.
What is the homeless person doing?
Nothing.
If we ask someone, what are you doing?
Nothing.
That's why they're a homeless person is because they're doing nothing.
It's not because America's unfair.
Homeless people are not a result of America's inequalities.
It's not because we're just mean or racist or hate veterans
or something like that.
It's none of those things are true.
In fact, it's surprising to me.
I feel like every business establishment I've ever been in,
they give some kind of a perk or some kind of a benefit
to someone that's been in the military.
And then it's like all these people in the military are complaining
about how it's so impossible to do anything.
It's like, dude, you're just lazy.
And I'll be honest, a lot of lazy people went in the military
because of the fact that they didn't have an opportunity to go to college.
They didn't work hard.
They didn't study.
They don't have any skills.
And then they were just like, well, just join the military.
And they're like, okay.
And then they got out and it was like you're still lazy
and uneducated and stupid.
Like, okay, yeah, maybe you have a six-pack
or maybe now you're able to shoot a gun at a wall or something.
But you know what?
Because you were lazy your first 18 years, that didn't change.
And you're still reaping what you sow.
And just jumping in the military doesn't magically give you a job
in the future either.
The question is, you should ask that kid, where are you going?
What are you doing?
Now, some people, they grow up wanting to be in the military.
They want to be specifically.
They want to be a pilot or they want to go and become a general or something.
And they're studying and working hard.
There's nothing wrong with military in general.
The United States military is a different question.
The IDF is an even bigger different question, okay.
There's nothing wrong with being in the military,
but don't do things just aimlessly.
Some people just join the military because they had nothing better to do.
You're still not going to go far.
The person that wanted to be in the military is going to be way better off
than the person that just aimlessly joins the military for no reason
because they have nothing better to do.
And you have to ask this person this question, like, what are you doing?
People that go to college and they're getting a degree,
and it's like, hey, what degree are you getting?
I don't know.
These are never the successful people in the world.
They end up graduating with some kind of a degree like business,
like a business degree, and I'm trying to remember the exact one
because I got a management degree, but I think they had, oh, yeah, general business.
This is what it was, okay.
General business was the degree for the kid that had no idea what he was going to do,
but he just has to graduate in a few years or something in a semester.
They're like, you got to pick something.
I guess general business, which is like, what skills do you offer?
They're general, man, you know.
Like, this is not the degree to get.
Never go to college aimlessly.
Don't go in the military aimlessly.
Don't live your life aimlessly.
Do something.
Figure out where you want to go and then go there.
Ponder the path of your feet.
You know, I've talked to lots of young people, and I'm saying,
if you just worked really hard in a career, you'll probably be better off
than the guy that graduates from college
because you'll have had so much more work experience and knowledge,
and you made money, you didn't lose money during that time,
and I've seen people successfully do it.
I've seen people be very successful.
You know, college, there's nothing wrong with college in theory,
but taking college not seriously,
not using it for the purposes that it's created for,
will destroy your life.
College is a good thing, and it's a horrible thing depending on how you use it.
You know, if you used college for a specific degree
that's geared towards people that can only get that degree,
I mean, if you want to go and become a lawyer, you have to go to law school.
They're not going to just let you take the bar exam.
You have to go to law school to even get the opportunity
to take the bar exam, but you know, once you become a lawyer,
you could make a lot of money.
I know because I pay them, all right?
Boy, do they charge some serious bank, okay?
It's insane, but you know, to become a lawyer takes a lot of effort.
You're not going to just magically become a lawyer,
and you're definitely not going to be a good lawyer by doing it that way.
You know, lawyers have to read a lot.
You don't like reading? Never be a lawyer.
Lawyers have to read so much material all the time,
like reading is their life.
That is what a lawyer does, by and large,
consuming large amounts of information,
and not only this, they have to actually retain what they read, too.
It's not just like, ooh, ooh.
No, no, no, they actually paid attention,
and they can make coherent arguments.
They can use logic. If you're not logical, don't be a lawyer, okay?
Terrible profession to go into.
But, you know, that just kind of leads me into this question of, like,
what are you doing when it comes to your career?
Well, I don't know. I just have a job.
But, you know, have you ever thought about this?
What do you want to be doing in your career five years from now
or ten years from now?
You say, like, I want to have this job ten years from now.
Well, here's the question. Are you even walking towards that?
It's like, hey, I want to own my own business, okay,
and be making lots of money and be my own boss.
And here would be a question, have you started a business?
It's like, no. Well, then how are you going to get there?
How are you going to own a business if you never start a business, right?
Where, hey, I want to be the lead tech at this particular company,
or I want to be this main engineer,
or I want to have this specific position.
Okay, well, does your job lead you to that?
And it's like, no.
Well, then it's like, what are you doing?
What are you doing?
It's like, well, I'm the manager at, you know, KSC, brah.
It's like, I'm hoping to be a lawyer one day.
Are you going to law school?
No.
Are you going to enroll?
Never.
You're never going to be a lawyer.
Let me just wake you up, okay?
And so you have to sometimes recognize, like, what are you doing with your career?
Now, again, not everybody has to be a lawyer.
And once you get to the spot that you want to be in,
you can be content in that, right?
You don't even have to go up anymore.
Making money is not the most important thing in this world.
But I think every young man and every child should think about,
what is a job that I'm willing to be content with?
What's a career path that I think would be reasonable to raise a family on?
And how do I get to that particular destination?
And then once you've arrived at that destination,
then you can reevaluate and say, hey, I'm willing to be content with this
and just do this the rest of my life.
Or say, hey, this isn't what I thought it was, and make a new goal,
and then walk towards that particular goal.
But you know what?
Don't have zero career goals.
You will end up in a bad spot when you have no idea of what you want to do in your career.
Look at Proverbs chapter 6, verse 6.
Proverbs chapter 6, verse 6.
The Bible says this.
Go to the ant, thou sluggard.
Consider her ways and be wise,
having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
provideth her meat in the summer and gathered her food in the harvest.
You know what's good about the ant?
It's thinking about the future.
It's saying, what do I want to have in the future?
And it's saying, I'm not going to be lazy right now.
I'm going to work as hard as I can right now
to make sure that my future is as bright as it can be.
And you know what?
This is how we should operate, especially as men who are charged by God
to be the sole provider of the household.
I mean, if any provide not for his own, especially for they of his own house,
he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel, is what the Bible says.
If any man would not work, neither should he eat, is what the Bible says.
So you know what?
As a man, making money is a part of just being a man.
And we have to work, so you might as well put a little bit of energy into that.
Think like, where do I want to go?
What do I want to do?
What's satisfactory to me?
And go for it.
And you know, I've challenged people.
I said, hey, if you want a specific job, have you thought about it?
I said, just go and talk to that person or just turn in a resume
and just say like, hey, I want to work for you.
I want this job.
And you know what's the worst thing they can do?
No.
But you know, this is what you can do.
If they say no, you say, what can I do to improve myself
or what can I change so that I can then get that job?
And then oftentimes they'll be like, I like this person's determination
and they'll give you a path to walk on.
And then you can say, now I'm going to walk on that path.
Now I'm going to do what it's going to take to get there
because that's where I want to go.
And no one gets somewhere aimlessly.
We all get somewhere because we had a purpose.
You know, the whole Bible talks about God creating things.
Everything was created on purpose.
You know, God didn't just like, let's just create stuff and see what happens.
Let's just put two people in a garden and give them a tree of good and evil
and a tree of naught.
Let's just see what happens.
Let's just see what, let's find out.
Okay.
And then it's like, oh man, I didn't know they were going to go straight
for the tree right away.
No, no.
Every single thing that was created and everything that ever has happened,
God already thought about it.
God planned it on purpose.
God knew where he was going.
God had everything laid out and planned and he's pondered it
and he already knows the right way.
He also knows the right way for our lives
and what we often have to do and need to do is ask God
by reading our Bibles and looking at what the scripture says
and say, am I on the right path, God?
Is this where you want me to go?
Am I doing what you've designed me to do?
Go over to Genesis chapter number two.
When we talk about design, it makes people mad,
but why would you not want to operate the way that God created you to operate?
God created men to work.
God created men to provide all the income, to be the man of the house,
to be the protector, to be the leader.
You know what?
We need to take that job seriously
and we need to think about where we're going because we affect other people.
We affect everyone.
Men affect everyone.
Everything that's happening in this world is because a man decided it.
Whether he decided to be lazy and allow feminism to creep in
or whether he wants evil to creep in,
good men decided to just not care and allow evil people to come in
and let their agenda go forward.
But every single decision that men are making is affecting everybody's lives.
The fact that good men have just allowed our country to go to hell
is their fault.
Because we're aimless in our country's vision.
They're aimless in how our country should be led.
They're aimless in what they want.
You know what?
Then we just have all kinds of evil coming in and they know what they want.
You know, evil doesn't struggle with this.
Evil's like, I want money.
And then they're just like, I'm going to do everything I can possibly do to get money.
Or they say, I want power.
And they're going to do literally anything to get power.
I mean, it's crazy to me how tomorrow,
evil's going to work as hard as it possibly can at achieving its goal.
But then Christians are just,
I don't know, serving God.
It's just like, why?
Why can't we put as much effort and energy in to serving God as Hillary Clinton does
and to making sure that her witnesses commit suicide?
Okay?
Think about how much effort and energy these evil people are putting into their life's goal
of money, power, and wealth.
And it's like, why can't we put that much effort and energy into the things of God?
And say, you know, whatever God designed me to do, I'm going to do it.
Whatever He wants me to do, that's what I'm going to do.
You know, for women this is frustrating because our culture wants you to become a man.
And it's like, stop trying to be a man.
Why would you want to be a man?
What does the Bible say? Genesis chapter 2, verse number 18.
And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone.
I will make him and help meet for him.
You know, this is the first time the word help is mentioned in the Bible.
The first time the word help is ever used in the Bible is describing a woman helping a man.
A woman helping a man.
And, you know, sometimes you have to ask yourself this question in marriage.
What are you doing?
And here's a question that women should be asking themselves in this world.
My main goal is helping. Am I helping my husband?
Because if you're not helping your husband, then here's my question.
What are you doing?
Let me just read, I'm going to get really, you know, sophisticated on this.
I'm going to read the definition of help, okay?
To give assistance to, okay?
Make it easier.
Wow, that's really unique, huh?
It says, make it easier for someone to do something.
Aid.
Here's another one, to wait on.
Do you know, in fact, several people's job, they'll even literally have a person and they're just called the help?
I mean, some professions, some job, it's just the help.
Or, in fact, in a lot of trades, where they have someone, they're just called the helper.
Now, imagine if men are going to work and one of the guys is called the helper.
And he's like, they're plumbers.
I mean, in plumbing, this is a pretty common term where the person that's there assisting is called the helper, right?
What if I'm plumbing and I say, hey, give me the wrench.
I don't want to give you a wrench.
Let's go shopping.
Hey, give me the wrench.
What's a wrench?
How successful is this person going to be if they won't hand the wrench?
Or they're arguing about it.
Or they're like, why don't you get the wrench?
It's like, what are you doing?
Wouldn't that be your question?
You have your helper and you're like, what are you doing?
You're my helper.
I say, wrench, and you hand me the wrench.
This is how this relationship works, okay?
But then we somehow apply this to marriage, which is what God did.
I didn't do it, okay?
God applied it.
And he's saying, hey, I'm going to give you a help.
And he's like, telling his wife something to do.
And then it's just like, meh.
It's like, what are you doing?
You're supposed to be a help, meat.
And you know what the word meat means?
Suitable or appropriate.
And of course, this is supposed to be what women are supposed to do.
And you know, that'll help marriage right there.
If women, they just thought, am I helping my husband?
I mean, it's a pretty revolutionary thought.
I'm just trying to be honest with you guys, okay?
This is a serious thing.
You know, are you helping your husband?
Are you doing things that assist him?
Are you doing things that make his life easier?
You know, what are things that you could do to make his life easier?
Well, you know, the Bible talks about a lot of things that women can do.
Guiding the house, making meals, taking care of the children,
raising the children, educating the children.
A lot of these things are a help unto the husband, okay?
Going out and getting a job is replacing your husband.
It's not really helping the husband.
Because now someone's still got to take care of the kids and the house
and all the other stuff.
You know, think about your husband's job or career.
Think about the path that your husband's going down,
whatever direction he's going.
Are you doing things that help him to get there?
You know, there's so much to know.
There's so much to do.
But if you're a wife, why not learn or think about the things
that would somehow aid or assist your husband, right?
If your husband's in real estate, learn about real estate, right?
If your husband's into plumbing or any of these things,
learn about that particular profession, right?
Learn about whatever he's doing.
And if you can assist him or knowledge or talk about it, then do it.
Some professions, some things are not going to gel well.
Maybe it's not going to really mix.
But, you know, I guarantee that he still has to eat lunch.
And I bet you could help him with that.
I bet you could help him with just encouraging him or whatever's going on.
You know, and you say, well, you know, our marriage isn't very good, you know.
And then I'd ask you this question.
Okay, well, how much are you helping him?
Well, I don't help him.
He's a jerk, you know.
Well, I don't help him because why do I have to help him?
Look, that's what God designed it for.
And then you have this, I just can't imagine being with him forever.
Well, you know, if you're not going down a direction of helping him,
it probably won't last.
It's probably not going to work out very well because your job is to help him.
And then he provides for everything.
He takes care of everything.
He leads everything.
And if a guy has no idea where he's going, how is she going to help you?
Okay, let's go back to our job.
I'm not a plumber.
I don't know what I'm doing.
And she's a helper.
How can I help?
I don't know.
Do you need anything?
Nah.
Do you want anything?
How can someone help you when you have nothing to do?
We need somebody that has something to do and is going somewhere,
and then she's what?
Helping him get there.
Helping him go there.
Studying for the bar exam.
Studying for the medical exam.
Helping to make banners and promote your business or whatever, right?
Or making lunch or whatever it is.
I mean, there's so much stuff that a wife can do to help her husband,
and people always are complaining about their marriage
or having issues in these areas.
And I'm thinking, like, you know the reason why people have successful marriages?
Is they do stuff together.
You know why your marriage is not as good?
Because you're not doing stuff together.
You want to have a better marriage, do something together.
Right?
And you say, well, what do we do?
Well, let's revisit.
Man, find something to do.
Find a direction.
Find that direction.
And you know what?
The lady should help him go in that direction.
And, of course, your marriage needs to be more than just simply accomplishing objective tasks.
You know, have some fun together, too.
You know, as a man, if you say, I want to have a happy marriage.
I want my wife to be pleased with me.
Well, maybe some of the tasks you do or some of the directions you're headed in
are things that she likes.
You're taking her to do stuff that she wants to do.
I guarantee she's going to be more helpful when you're doing things that she wants to do.
Going on a vacation that she's excited to go on.
Going to a restaurant that she wants to go to.
Going to a park or doing whatever.
You know, what are activities that she likes to do?
But you know what?
To improve a relationship, you have to do something with that person.
Find something to do and do it.
Learn a language together.
Read a book together.
Go and travel somewhere together.
Go visit a museum together.
You know, there are a lot of activities you can do that are even free.
I wish, I don't know about here, but I know in Houston,
there's like a cool Bible museum you can go to for free.
You can just do something.
I guarantee there's all kinds of cool stuff, cool activities, things you can find to do.
You know, take your kids to the park and teach them how to play a sport.
You all play a sport together.
You know, there's all kinds of stuff you can do.
You can hike together. That's free.
Hey, you want your wife to improve in some area?
Help her get there.
Say, you're going to get here and I'm going to help you and you're going to walk together
and that's how you're going to improve your relationship.
And this really applies to family in general.
It's not just your marriage.
If you want your kids to be smart, you have to teach them.
You have to teach.
Hey, I want to have the smartest kids.
Whenever my kids are grown, I want them to be the smartest kids.
Well, here's my question. What are you doing?
Well, I don't really teach them anything.
I'm just hoping that they'll just get smart.
By doing what?
Well, they play a lot of video games.
Not going to be smart.
Well, they watch themselves.
Well, probably not going to be that great and not that smart.
Like, you really want your kids to be the smartest and the brightest.
You know what you're going to have to do?
You're going to have to literally spend hours and hours every day teaching them.
Humschooling. I just want to be done in five minutes.
Well, guess where you're going.
Your kids are not going to be that bright.
You're going to get out of what you put into it.
If you want your kids to be really smart, you're going to put a lot of time, effort, and energy.
You're going to have to think about where they're going.
You're going to have to plan.
You're going to have to think about, hey, here's where I want them to be at the end of the year.
And then you say, how are we going to get to this point of knowledge?
I want them to be able to learn how to read now.
I want them now to learn how to read on a third grade level.
I want them to be able to read on an adult level.
I want them to know this form of mathematics.
And you make a plan and you say, we're going to have to learn all of these lessons.
We're going to read all these books.
You know, I want my kid to not be an NPC.
It's like, all right, so we're going to start with 9-11 was an inside job.
And then, oh, it's good.
Hey, you want your kid to be bright.
You have to start teaching them and getting them all these different steps, all these different layers.
I want my kid to read the Bible cover to cover.
Okay, we'll start with one chapter and then help them mark it off and then go to the next chapter, right?
Hey, as a dad, I want to read the Bible to my kids.
I want to make sure that when my kids are grown, I personally have read to them every single chapter of the Bible.
Well, then you know what?
You're going to have to start with Genesis 1 and you're going to have to check it off and get to the next one.
I mean, hey, I want my kids to be soul owners.
Well, you're going to have to drag them out to be soul owners.
I want my kid to learn a foreign language.
Well, you know what? They're not going to just learn it, like, for no reason.
You know how easy it is to learn a foreign language?
It is super hard.
It's super hard.
You really have to put a lot of effort, energy, time.
It takes a lot of practice.
You know, playing an instrument.
Oh, I want my kid to be a really great pianist or violinist or guitarist or anything.
You know what? They're going to have to put in hours and hours and hours and hours.
They're going to have to practice all the time.
They're going to have to play all the time.
I want my kid to be really athletic.
Well, you know what?
You're going to have to teach them how to throw and run and catch a lot.
Because almost no one is good right off the bat.
People that are good at throwing a baseball have thrown baseballs thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of times.
People that are good at throwing a football have thrown it thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of times.
People that are really good at basketball have shot thousands and thousands and thousands of shots.
Say, I want to be the next Michael Jordan.
Well, you better practice ten hours a day for the rest of your life.
You know, no one is just going to be like the next Michael Jordan.
No one just wakes up and is good at anything.
You are not going to get anywhere by doing nothing.
Get a plan, ponder the path by feet and think, where am I going?
What am I doing?
You want to be hardworking?
You want your kids to be hardworking?
Well, you know what?
You need to teach them how to be hardworking now.
In every aspect of their life.
They cleaning the house, cleaning their room, their own personal hygiene, their education, everything.
You want your kids to be hardworking?
They're going to have to learn how to be hardworking right now.
I hope that when my kids get their first job, they're like, man, this is easy compared to mom.
I don't want them to be like, wow, I didn't know how hard work was going to be.
You know, I want them to think like, man, my boss isn't breathing down my neck and telling me to do all this work.
You know, it's like, I mean, my wife's standards are always very high, but I'm thinking like, that's great.
I love that my wife has high standards because you know what?
I don't want someone to hire my children and think like, has no one ever taught you how to do anything?
Has no one ever yelled at you for messing up?
Now, we know that's not the case, okay?
Go if you would to 2 Corinthians 5, go to 2 Corinthians 5.
What are you doing?
Say, Pastor Shelley, I don't know.
Well, you know what? You need to think about it.
And you don't need to think about it one time.
You need to think about it all the time.
You need to constantly be evaluating yourself and thinking, where am I going?
And when you realize this is where I want to go, get laser focused in and always make sure you're still going that direction.
Always thinking about it like, am I still headed there? Am I still going there?
Did I turn to the right a little bit? Oh, no.
I need to get back and veer back in the right course and make sure that's still where I want to go.
And you should have big visions. You should have big plans.
You should be thinking about what you want to do, where you want to go,
how you're going to accomplish that and be striving for that on a regular basis
because if you want to go somewhere far, you need to start walking now.
It's sad when you look at churches today and you kind of have to ask churches, like, what are you doing?
It's like they scale back soul winning.
They're not wanting to have three services.
They want to get rid of the Sunday night service.
I mean, there's so many Baptist churches today, especially the Southern Baptist.
They're pretty much down to one service a week.
I mean, if they gave up one more service, they would literally have no more church
because they're just down to the one.
They don't have any evangelism.
And you know what? I guarantee that that Baptist church, that Southern Baptist church,
used to have three services a week and it used to have an evangelism time.
I would bet almost all of them did when they started or when they were founded or when they were going.
But you can kind of see where someone's headed and that's where they're going to end up.
You know what? I don't want to end up where it's just like, well, we're just kind of trending in a direction to get rid of services.
We're trending in a direction to get rid of soul winning.
We're trending in a direction to be less spiritual.
No, no, no. I want to make sure that we're looking at where we're trying to head and we're saying,
we're going to do more of that and we're going to keep doing that and we're going to keep going.
And you can notice this from an individual level.
You'll see people, they're three to thrive, they're on fire and then all of a sudden they just start missing.
Then all of a sudden they're just not here very regularly and then they slowly start to fade
and then eventually you see where they finished because we're always moving in a specific direction.
And then you see other people, they're just kind of barely coming but then they start coming a little bit more, a little bit more
and you see where they're headed.
And you know what? You need to be careful in which direction you're heading.
And I'm preaching to the Sunday night crowd but you guys know, look, not everybody that's in this room is going to be here in a year.
Two years, five years, ten years. You know who's going to be here in ten years?
The person that says, I want to be here in ten years.
The person that's not going to be here in ten years is the person that's like, I don't even know where I'm going to be in the next five minutes.
And it's like, we could tell. We could tell because we can see what's going on in your life.
You know, when you date a girl, she doesn't want a guy like that.
A girl wants a guy that says, I'm going to be with you on our death bed.
I'm going to be buried next to you.
We already picked out our two graves. We already bought our gravesite.
We already have our tombstones ready to go because it's you and me, baby.
We're going to die together.
I mean, that's the attitude that she wants.
She doesn't want a guy that's just like, you know, I'm not really sure how I feel about this relationship.
I don't want to put a label on a relationship or anything like that, you know.
That's not what girls like. Girls like a guy that's just like, I'm all in.
You're the only one that I want.
And, you know, I've already made up my mind.
And you know, the guy that's going to be buried next to his wife is the guy that's already decided he's going to be buried next to his wife.
This is just how we should approach life.
And you know, when it comes to the Christian life, you say, hey, I want to die a soul winner.
It's the person that's already made that decision.
Because if you don't decide right now, I want to die a soul winner, you probably won't end as a soul winner.
You probably won't.
I'm telling you, the people that are going to die a soul winner are the people that have already decided I want to die as a soul winner.
And then they notice when they start going to the right or the left, they're like, hey, I'm not trending in a direction that's going to die as a soul winner.
I need to get back on course and be someone that's going to die as a soul winner.
See, how I want to die in a fundamental Baptist church, I want my funeral to be in a fundamental Baptist church.
Well, you know what? Think about where you're going.
You could be going to the non-denom church service will be at your funeral.
Can you imagine going to a fundamental Baptist church most of your life and then eventually it's just like, well, grandpa, you know, he's getting buried by Steven Furtick.
Don't you want him to talk on your funeral? It's like, where did that guy go? He didn't know where he wanted to go.
He didn't know how he wanted to be buried. He wasn't thinking about his life in that context.
You know, 2nd Corinthians 5, this is a verse that really kind of stuck with me.
It kind of stuck out to me because of the way it's worded.
But look what it says in verse 14.
I don't know why it stuck out to me more, but this is what stuck out to me.
Everyone is dead.
Did you notice what it said here in this text?
It said, if one died for all, then we're all dead.
And the Bible says this in a lot of places. We're all dead in trespasses and sins.
But this is what I was, it really just hit me. It kind of stuck with me.
And I was thinking, like, literally everyone is dead except for those who get saved.
Meaning they're accomplishing nothing.
Question is, what are you doing? Nothing because you're dead.
And the only people that are accomplishing anything for God in this life,
are doing anything of eternal value, are the people that are saved and they're living that life.
It's not just being saved. It's being saved and living a life that's worth living.
Notice what he says here in the next verse.
And they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves.
Hey, the only people that are alive in this world are saved people.
Those are the only people that are even alive.
You say, like, oh, well, I think that all the unsaved people are doing good. No, no, they're dead.
They're dead. They have dead works. Nothing is being accomplished.
It's all just garbage and it's all trash.
The only things that are being accomplished are being accomplished by those that are alive.
And we are alive. We are the only people that can do anything for God.
Why would we then want to waste our lives living for ourselves?
We need to live unto God.
You know, we love to combat the idea of faith that works is dead by proving how that's not needed for salvation.
But you know what? We need to embrace the truth of that verse.
That faith without works is dead and when you're living of yourself, you're dead.
Go to 1 Timothy 5. Go to 1 Timothy 5.
And sometimes we have to ask ourselves or ask this question, what are you doing?
Are you living for yourself or are you living for Christ?
And you can tell the people that start living for themselves where they end up being dead again.
The only people that are accomplishing anything for God are the people that are living for Christ
and following His commandments and going to church and reading their Bible and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
They're the ones that are alive.
You want to know why there's no revival in America today?
Because all the Christians are dead.
Because all the saved are dead and they're living unto themselves.
Well, I don't know if that's true.
Well, look at 1 Timothy 5 and look at verse 5.
You want to know why America is so dead?
Because so many Christians are living in pleasure.
Because Christians only care about pleasure today and pleasing themselves
and they haven't thought about the direction that they're headed in
and they think everything they do is right.
Why? Because everybody thinks everything they do is right.
You need to ponder the path of your feet.
You need to think about what does God think about my life?
What is God thinking about what I'm doing?
Why in the world would you miss church in 2024 America?
I mean, how wicked does our country have to get for you to think that church matters?
I mean, we literally have trannies in our government.
We're like being taken over by communists as we speak right now.
We have Jews that are throttling our economy with all kinds of inflation
and destroying every aspect of society.
We have whores literally on every street corner.
The Internet is destroying young people.
Social media is taking over our country.
Why in the world are you not going to church? What are you doing?
You're just dead.
It's because so many Christians aren't even thinking about what they're doing.
What are you doing?
Where are you headed?
What path are you on?
Well, I'm going to make a lot of money.
Oh, so you're living in pleasure, so you're dead.
Well, I'm having a lot of fun.
Oh, so you're dead.
The only thing that matters in this life is the things of Christ.
We're the only ones that can do anything.
We have all of the power.
Christ literally said that He's given us all of the power.
He has all the power that's been given on Him, and He's giving it unto us.
And He's with us.
But you know what? So many Christians, they just won't do anything.
That's why we don't see revival in America.
It's because Christians are dead.
Christians don't want to live.
If we want to have revival in America, we need Christians to live again.
They need to quicken themselves.
They need to come alive.
They need to revive themselves with the Scriptures.
They need to be more excited about church than less excited.
They need to read their Bible more in 2024.
They need to go to church more in 2024.
They need to go soul-winning more in 2024.
They need to be having more charity and grace and love and sacrifice in their life
in 2024.
Oh, I just can't wait for revival to come.
Well, you know what? Revival is 10 miles away from you, and you're not walking.
Oh, church is too far.
Well, of course you didn't show up.
You don't have to come to this church to serve God, but let me say something.
Most people not going to a church like ours are doing nothing for God.
I mean, when's the last time you had someone knock on your door from another church?
When's the last time you've heard of anybody even knocking another door?
Any time I ever see anybody knocking doors, you know what it is?
Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses.
I'm not running into a bunch of people from Gateway.
And, I mean, think about it.
They have 30,000 people going to their church.
They could knock on your door if they wanted to and give you the right gospel.
But you know what? Most of them aren't even saved anyways.
And an unsaved person sure as heck isn't going to knock on your door and get you saved, okay?
It's embarrassing the world that we live in.
Faith without works is dead. Amen.
That's why we don't see revival.
It's because people are preaching that to get saved.
False prophets are getting out there.
And, you know, we need Christians to actually get serious about the direction that they're headed in
and ask themselves this question, what are you doing?
You know, if you look at every area of your life with this thought process, it'll change dramatically.
But you know what? It won't change dramatically tomorrow.
It won't change dramatically in a week.
You know what? It'll change dramatically in the long run.
You know, people that are very successful in this world, you know, they make a lot of money or something,
they don't do that overnight.
In fact, I saw this guy post this thing on Twitter.
And it was kind of funny because it's something I say all the time too.
But he just said, I asked nine of the most rich people that I could find.
And he did a personal interview with like nine of the richest people he could find.
And he said, I asked them all, if you could go back in time and tell your 20-year-old self what you should do,
like what would be your number one advice to your 20-year-old self, what would you tell them?
And this guy was like nine completely random different people.
The people were ranging from being like hundreds of, like 100 millionaire net worth, 10 millionaire net worth,
all of them multimillionaires, tons and tons of money.
They all said, you know what I would do?
I would tell my 20-year-old self to buy a property, to buy real estate, and to rent out as much as I can,
and then flip it to the next one.
And then just flip it to the next one.
And then just buy another property, and just buy another property, and just buy another property.
And just it didn't matter.
They all said real estate, real estate, real estate, real estate, real estate.
But let me tell you something.
You will not make any money in real estate in the first year.
You will not make any money in real estate in the second year.
But you know what?
You'll make tons of money in the long run.
And you know the people that invest in real estate, they know where they're going in the long run.
And look, I'm not trying to tell you this so you can be super rich, because I don't really care.
I've already preached that sermon.
I already told you the two best investments in the world, they're gold in real estate.
They've never changed, and they never will change, because of the scarcity factor.
And you don't want to have your money deteriorating for you.
Cash just deteriorates.
You've got to put that cash into something.
And of course, we should invest a lot into the spiritual.
So I'm all for investing in the spiritual.
But the point that I'm trying to make is that all of these individuals that are successful, they're in it for the long haul.
They're not trying to figure out how to get it tomorrow.
They're trying how to get it for the rest of their life.
And you should look at marriage as how am I going to have a great marriage for the rest of my life.
Not just how can I stop her from being mad at me for the next five seconds.
You know what?
Because you might have bad habits in your life that are causing you to be mad at you all the time.
And maybe you need to change that habit.
Not just try to figure out how to make peace for five seconds.
You need to figure out how to have long-lasting habits.
You need to have long-lasting attitudes.
You know, you women should think, how am I helping my husband?
I guarantee that will make a dramatic difference in your marriage in the long run, if that's how you view every situation.
Am I helping my husband?
Here's a question. Are you even doing anything to help your husband?
Well, I shop for myself, and I bathe myself, and I take care of myself.
And it's like, what did you do for him?
Nothing.
It's like, what are you doing?
Hey, do you even teach your kids anything?
There are people out there that homeschool and it's called no school.
And they literally don't do anything.
Your kids will be stupid.
And of course, that's what used to be the stereotype of homeschool kids.
You'd run into them, they can't read, they can't write.
They're very uneducated.
And you can tell the parents were lazy.
Do not be lazy with your children.
Do not think like, well, I didn't put them in public school, so they're going to be smart.
That's not how it works.
It's not not putting them in public school that makes them smart.
It's teaching them things that makes them smart.
And the reason why they're not smart in public school is because they don't teach them much either.
But you know, you can actually teach kids less than the public school.
It's possible, okay?
Don't be that person.
Okay.
And I'm telling you, it doesn't even take that much to compete on the public school system level.
But don't be content with that.
Teach them at a much higher level in the public school system.
Because the public school system is so bad.
It's basically just trying to get people to be just smart enough to produce in the economy
and not smart enough to realize who's in charge, okay?
That's kind of how the public school system works.
You know, when it comes to church, as a church, we need to think about where we're going.
What are we doing as a church?
And you say, like, well, are we growing?
I don't care if we're growing in numbers.
I care if we're growing in spirituality.
Because people are going to come and go and whirlwind.
And you know what?
Get in or get out.
I don't really care.
But I know where I want to go.
I want to be more soul winning in the future.
I'm going to die a soul winning Baptist.
I'm going to stay separate.
Pastor Shelley, are we going to relax on the dress code?
No!
Hey, are you going to get softer on the preaching?
Never!
Well, but, you know, you sometimes are mean or preach for long.
I don't care.
You know, I would rather be the preacher that says he keeps getting longer to sermons than they keep getting shorter.
Like, he used to preach for an hour.
Now he's preaching for 30 minutes.
Now it's 15 minutes.
Look, I've been to churches where we have an hour and a half service and the sermon was 15 minutes.
And then you have to ask this question, like, what are you doing?
We had three different announcement times.
Like, I don't even like the one announcement time.
Okay?
Let alone if you had three.
It was like we had announcements, then another announcement later, and then they had announcements after the whole service, too.
And I was just like, wow, what are we doing?
You know what they're doing?
They're waiting for the kids' programs to be done.
You know, usually in church, I've worked in the nursery a lot.
Usually the church are just kind of like, man, when is the preacher going to be done?
Okay.
And that church is the complete opposite.
We're like, when are the kids going to be done with their Sunday school, you know?
It's like, that's embarrassing.
It's like, what are we doing here?
Why would you want to be here for an hour and a half and get 15-minute sermons?
You know, that doesn't make any sense.
Right?
That's not a really good use of your time.
I don't want to be the church where we just keep marking off so many times and then pretty much we're just like,
yeah, just if you want, you know, give them an invite every once in a while.
If someone asks you for an invite, give it to them.
I mean, I was going to Fundamental Baptist Church and my pastor said,
this was his whole sermon was about the idea of evangelizing.
And he said that he was going to give his hairdresser an invite, but he chickened out.
And then she asked for it.
And he was like, man, I just felt like, you know, God was really moving.
And I'm like, you being too much of a coward to literally invite the person you see every single week at the hair salon?
And it wasn't like confronting on the gospel.
It was just simply like, here you go.
This is the church I go to.
And it wasn't even like a church where you type it into Google and it's like, they hate fags, shoot fags in the head, kill every fag.
This preacher got evicted for wanting to kill fags.
It's just like, no, it's like all positive reviews, okay?
It's not like our church when you search it, okay?
We're like a one issue church apparently, okay?
I mean, can you imagine going to church and the pastor is too afraid to hand out an invite and that's the sermon?
How is that going to encourage and embolden the other people?
You have to kind of ask yourself, what are you doing?
You're a pastor of a church.
You know, if you're in a leadership position in this church, you should ask yourself, what are you doing?
Are you becoming more spiritual?
Are you taking the things of God seriously?
Because we need to make sure and check ourselves and really evaluate ourselves.
And I hope that from this sermon, you'll take this seriously.
What are you doing?
What are you doing in your life?
Sometimes we need to just shake ourselves and just check ourselves like, am I on the right path with this?
And if you are, great, keep going.
But you know, if you notice like, hey, I think I'm wrong on some of these issues, change.
Because it's so easy for us to get used to the path that we're on and just think that we're doing right.
Because every man thinks that everything he's doing is right all the time.
Sometimes we need to wake ourselves up, shake ourselves a little bit, look at scripture and say,
is this really what God wants me to be doing with my life?
Am I accomplishing anything?
And at the end of the day, if you're not doing anything spiritual, you're wrong.
If you did everything I said in this sermon right, hey, I've got a great job lined out,
I've got a house, I've got a marriage, I've got kids, but I'm not thinking about church that much.
You're a zero.
The reason why I emphasize those other things is because a lot of times the people that are going to die a soul winner,
well, they had a job and they were able to make money.
Their marriage didn't fall apart.
Their kids weren't a train wreck.
And you know what, they actually had some education.
Because what I'll notice is in the long run, the people that can't hold down a job don't pan out of church.
And the people whose marriages just turn into a volcanic eruption don't stick in church.
And the people whose kids are a complete train wreck usually drag them to Stephen Furtick's church or some other garbage place.
And then what I've also noticed is people that aren't very smart and don't care about wisdom and knowledge,
well, they're not going to like me keep preaching the Bible because they're just too dumb for it.
You need to emphasize those things so that you'll stay on the right path for the spiritual journey
because that's what's really mattering.
Being a soul winner and being a faithful Christian for the rest of your life
because that's the only thing we can accomplish that means anything.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for the Word of God for giving us a light and a lamp under our feet to lighten our path.
I pray that we would just constantly be provoked by the Bible to really consider what's going on in our minds and our hearts,
to try and keep our heart with all diligence, make sure that we're testing the path that we're on.
I pray that when we get the right path, when we see the right path, when you help us with the right vision,
that we would just keep taking steps forward.
If we wouldn't turn to the right, we wouldn't turn to the left.
I pray that you would help us to constantly evaluate as a church what we're doing,
that we'd make sure that we're on the right path.
And I pray that you would help encourage and strengthen and embolden us to do the right thing,
no matter which way the world pocks, but rather we'd walk by faith, not by sight.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Let's sing 47, Let the Sun Shine Again in My Heart.
Song 47, Let the Sun Shine Again in My Heart.
I remember the time when I first knew the Savior,
when the sunlight of blessings so flawed in my heart.
Oh, the sweetness of first looking Jesus so near me,
and our thoughts of devotion would never be far.
Let the sun shine again, let the flowers bloom again,
stir the embers of love in my heart.
Holy Spirit, we dream, and embrace Thee again.
Let the sun shine again in my heart.
Then a sleeper's scripture is spoke to me daily,
how they guided my steps, but my zeal did not last.
And the sweet place of prayer where I stand with my Savior,
I elected and so too my joys were all past.
Let the sun shine again, let the flowers bloom again,
stir the embers of love in my heart.
Holy Spirit, we dream, and embrace Thee again.
Let the sun shine again in my heart.
Oh, I'm not proud to walk in the way with our children
when we met with that heart in the fellowship suite.
But the cool of the flesh and some worldly companions
in the paths of sin's pleasure attracted my feet.
Let the sun shine again, let the flowers bloom again,
stir the embers of love in my heart.
Holy Spirit, we dream, and embrace Thee again.
Let the sun shine again in my heart.
Oh, I come now again for forgiveness and blessing
as I've been in His child.
I am seeking Thy peace for the blood made my dead
and my spirit within me gives me come to my Father.
I'm wondering to see.
Let the sun shine again, let the flowers bloom again,
stir the embers of love in my heart.
Holy Spirit, we dream, and embrace Thee again.
Let the sun shine again in my heart.
Thank you all for coming. God bless. You are dismissed.