Music
I'm just going to go through this really quickly, as I have a lot of announcements here.
But November 6-10, that is this week, is the Faithful Word Missions Conference.
So if you're not going to be able to go down there, I know we have a few people from our church that are going.
But if you're not going to be able to attend, the sermons will be on Rumble, I believe.
And probably the YouTube channel, if it's not canceled by the week.
Subscribe to the Faithful Word.
They have a newsletter where they send out the new YouTube channel as it gets nuked every week.
You can get the sermons there.
Let's see, November 14th is the Homeschool Field Trip.
You should have already signed up by November 1st.
But if you have any questions, see Ms. Rachel Woods.
And the Trampoline Park is scheduled, it's at Sky Zone Trampoline Park from 11am to 1230pm.
That is next Tuesday, I believe, yeah.
And then November 16th is our next Super Soul Winning Day on Saturday.
And it's from 12-4pm.
It'll be in, I said Kelso, Longview, because I'm not sure if it was Longview or Kelso.
But Brother Ramona and Ms. Bobby found a good spot that they don't think that we've ever been to before.
And that it was very receptive.
So we're going to try to get our soul winning done up there this time.
And afterwards we're going to have dinner at Stuffy's.
It's called Stuffy's 2, but I don't want to put the 2 after that and confuse anybody.
It's the only Stuffy's that's up there.
But we've gone there before, so the meals will be provided.
And I put that in brackets that they're not drinks, appetizers, or desserts.
I'm trying to keep the bill down a little bit.
If you want something, you know, water is of course free.
But the appetizers and desserts will be on you.
But I will provide for the meals.
So if you want to get a meal there.
And then it says unless the dessert or appetizer is your meal.
Because some people actually do order the appetizer for their meal.
So that is perfectly fine.
Or if you just want dessert and that's your meal, perfectly fine.
I just don't want people to go overboard like, yeah, I want this appetizer, that appetizer, the full course meal.
Sorry.
And dessert and, you know, like 15, you know, strawberry lemonades.
You know, let's not go crazy, all right?
So, but the meal will be provided after the soul winning.
And of course you don't have to show up at 12 if you have a lot of kids.
I understand that.
But if you want to just get a good soul winning chunk done from 12 to 4.
You know, I think around 4 it will start getting a little bit dark.
But I don't think we're quite there yet.
But I mean by the 17th it might be.
So I hope everybody got plenty of rest last night.
You should have got an extra hour of sleep unless you're me.
Then I didn't.
I use and abuse the daylight savings time.
Anyway, so November 26th is the Pie Social After Church.
That's a Tuesday night.
We're switching our Thursday night, normal Thursday night service from Thanksgiving to Tuesday that week.
And that will be Tuesday, November 26th, Pie Social After Church.
You may bring a pie.
I highly encourage you to bring a pie.
Whatever pie that I like the best.
And then, no, just kidding, whatever pie you want to bring.
The church will provide a few pies and eggnog and milk and stuff like that.
But if you want to bring pie, you're more than welcome to.
That is highly encouraged actually.
And then we're just going to fellowship afterwards.
So it will be a good night.
The Children's Christmas Choir Practice will be starting this Sunday after Thanksgiving which is December 1st.
December 7th is the Cookie Exchange.
You'll see the Jew for details.
That's the Jew right there.
Jew, Jew.
Julene.
So, anyway, that's a joke.
But I call her the Jew.
Anyway, so December 15th is Dr. Phil Stringer preaching again for both services.
December 22nd is the Christmas service.
I know that's all far out, but I just wanted to kind of give you guys a little lay of the land here
and let you know that, yes, the holidays are upon us.
It snuck upon us.
But I don't want you to be caught unawares for that day will come in an hour that you think not, right?
So, anyway, all the other stuff.
Of course, we're family integrated.
I mentioned that a little bit earlier.
But the mother baby room is located back there.
The dad baby room is located back there.
The other rules are listed below there.
The ability to give online and text giving numbers right there.
The bottom of that little box and our tithes and offerings that came in for the month of October,
the total is at the bottom of the page there.
Our birthdays and anniversaries, we have Ella, Liberty, and Julene.
And let's see, Liberty's, Ella's birthday is the fourth, which is that?
That's tomorrow.
And then we have Liberty is Tuesday, the fifth of November.
The gunpowder plot.
So, that's always a day to remember, right?
And then Julene's is the seventh.
So, that is what, Thursday?
All right.
Well, let's sing Happy Birthday to all the birthday people.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday, God bless you.
Happy birthday to you.
All right.
Does this belong to somebody?
This is lost and found.
Anybody?
Nobody wants to claim it?
All right.
Is it yours?
No.
Oh, I'm just going to set it right here.
That goes in the burn pile.
No, I'm just kidding.
All right.
I feel like I had another announcement.
Oh, yeah.
I do have another announcement.
I just wanted to let everybody know that, so, Daniel Kutzar is going to be stepping down
as the evangelist in Spokane.
It's not bad news.
He was fulfilling a role that we needed him to do.
And so, it's not bad.
He's not leaving the church or anything like that.
But Remy, who's my son, is going to be moving up to Spokane.
And he wants to be a pastor someday.
And he's not like being given anything on a silver platter or anything.
But he's going to earn it just like everybody else does.
But he is moving up there with the intent that he wants to lead that church in the future.
And so, he's going to be leading.
He's making steps to move up there.
So, he's not moving up there immediately.
He's going to be traveling up there about once a month.
And once he's able to secure a job and some place to live,
then his plan is to move up there and to lead the church.
So, for now, it's just going to be business as usual up in Spokane.
But that's where he's at today.
He's preaching.
And hopefully they've already made the announcement up there.
But I just wanted not to be super surprised about that.
Of course, I'm sad to see them go.
Not only is he my son, he's my son.
And that's my family, my grandchildren, my daughter-in-law.
So, it's going to be sad to have them gone.
But they're only going to be six hours away.
But it's bittersweet for me.
So, anyway, it's a good move for him.
He's wanted to be a pastor ever since he was a little boy.
So, it's not something I've ever impressed upon him or said,
you have to be a pastor or something like that.
But it's always been a desire in his heart to have a family.
And he's made that clear from a child.
So, he definitely has grown up as a preacher and as a man.
And I'm very proud of him.
So, anyway, yeah.
So, I just wanted to let everybody know that that's the plan.
Nothing bad is going on.
It's all good.
So, anyway, that's all I have for announcements.
Let's go ahead and sing another song and we'll receive the offering.
We're at the next hymn, number 158.
Go for a thousand tongues to sing.
Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing.
My great, redeemer's grace.
The glories of my God and King.
The triumphs of his grace.
My gracious Master and my God.
O, assist me to proclaim.
Truth brought through all the earth abroad.
The honors of thy name.
Jesus, the name that charms our fears.
That bids our sorrow cease.
His music in the sinner's ears.
His life and health and peace.
He breaks the bar of counseled sin.
He sets the prisoner free.
His blood can make the palace clean.
His blood availed for me.
Hear him ye deaf, his praise ye dumb.
Your loathsome tongues in joy.
Ye blind, behold your Savior come.
And leave ye lame for joy.
This time we'll take the offering.
Brother Sean, can you bless the offering?
Lord, thank you so much for this day.
Thank you, Lord, so much.
1 Timothy 3.
1 Timothy 3 the Bible reads,
This is the true saying,
If a man desireth the office of a bishop,
he desireth a good work.
A bishop then must be blameless,
the husband of one wife,
vigilant, sober of a good behavior,
given to hospitality, apt to teach,
not given to wine, no striker,
not greedy of filthy lucre,
but patient, not a brawler,
not covetous, one that ruleth well his own house,
having his children in subjection with all gravity.
For if a man know not how to rule his own house,
how shall he take care of the church of God?
Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride
he fall into the condemnation of the devil.
Moreover, he must have a good report of them
which are without, lest he fall into reproach
and the snare of the devil.
Likewise must the deacons be grave,
not double-tongued, not given to much wine,
not greedy of filthy lucre,
holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.
And let these also first be proved.
Then let them use the office of a deacon
being found blameless.
Even so must their wives be grave,
not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.
Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife,
ruling their children and their own house as well.
For they that have used the office of a deacon
well purchased to themselves a good degree,
and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.
These things write I unto thee,
hoping to come unto thee shortly.
But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know
how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God,
which is the church of the living God,
the pillar and ground of the truth.
And without controversy,
great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the spirit,
seen of angels preached unto the Gentiles,
believed on in the world, received up into glory.
Brother Eli, will you pray for us?
Lord, you must serve you, Father.
We pray you help us to listen to the word
that the preacher is willing to preach, Lord,
and to stand up for you.
Dear Lord, wherever there is a controversy between
what we believe and what the Bible says,
help us to realize that you're right and you're wrong.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
All right, well, I've been preaching
a New Believers series,
and this is number five in that series,
and so I'm gonna be preaching about
church attendance this morning,
and I've harped a lot about church attendance in the past,
but new believers and old believers
can get something out of this message,
but I am mainly targeting this towards
someone that would be a new believer,
but like I said, it can be geared also towards
people that have been saved for a long time
or for just maybe a couple years,
but church attendance is very important,
and in 1 Timothy 3.15, there it says,
but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know
how thou oughtest to behave thyself
in the house of God, which is the church
of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
And so clearly, the Bible teaches there
that we're supposed to behave ourselves
in the house of God, and then it says,
which is the church of the living God.
So when someone says the house of God,
you can equate that by Paul saying
that it's the church of the living God.
So that is the house of God.
When you're in the church, you are in the house of God.
Isn't that what it's saying?
And it says the pillar and ground of the truth.
And so it's holding the church in very high regard
because what do pillars do?
They hold things up, don't they?
And what does the ground do?
Well, you can't have a pillar holding something
unless there's solid ground to be,
to have a pillar to hold something up with.
So the ground is something that you would use
for a foundation, right?
And so the church is called the pillar
and ground of the truth.
So at a church, you're supposed to be getting truth.
And so one of the most important things you can do
after getting saved is to find
a good Bible-believing church to go to.
Now, I'm not saying the Baptists
are the only good churches to go to
because there's a lot of Baptist churches
that I would run screaming from.
So I'm not saying that Baptist church
is the only good church to go to.
And I'm sure that out in the world
there's some churches that might not even
have the name Baptist on it
that might be a good church.
But I would say the best churches to try to find
that are Bible-believing churches,
you're not gonna find a lot of good churches
that don't have King James only at the end of it.
So before I get too deeply into that,
you're like, oh, you've already turned me off, pastor.
Well, I hope not because there's a lot of,
you know, we should go to a church
that's based upon the foundations
of what the Bible says.
And how can you be a Bible-believing Baptist church
or a Bible-believing church
without having the foundation of the word of God?
And I've been talking,
I preached a couple sermons recently
about just how bad the new King James version is.
And so we need to have a Bible that we can trust,
a Bible that doesn't have 16 whole verses taken out of it,
a Bible that doesn't change the meanings
or go with the corrupted manuscripts
and try to use those corrupted manuscripts
and say those manuscripts are better because they're older.
Maybe they just weren't used.
That might be the problem.
But I don't wanna go too far off into that.
But we should, as new believers,
find a good church to go to.
And number one, I just wanna,
my first point in the sermon is,
what is a church exactly?
What is a church?
Because people will get this weird idea
that it's a building and it's not.
And notice I didn't say you have to find
the perfect unicorn church
that believes every single thing
exactly the way that you do.
Because sometimes people have that attitude.
Well, I just can't find a good church to go to.
And what people mean by that
is that they can't find a church
that believes every single doctrine that you believe.
And maybe you believe some weird things.
Maybe that's why you can't find a good church to go to.
And let me tell you something,
that if you go to a normal church,
maybe they don't believe everything 100% right.
But you probably don't already believe 100% right.
And church will make you normal.
A lot of times people already have these radical views
or weird things that they already believe.
And church will help normalize you
more than you would actually realize.
The first church I ever went to
about six or seven months later was a Baptist church.
And I believed a lot of weird things.
I gotta admit, when I first started going there,
the pastor probably was like,
I hope this guy never comes back.
And I showed up smelling like cigarettes
with a tank top on and a pair of gym shorts.
I think I was wearing a blazer jersey or something.
And I'm like, the pastor's preaching.
Or not the pastor, but it was a guest speaker preaching.
And his name was Bill Bramlett.
He's an evangelist.
He used to be a pastor
in independent fundamental Baptist churches.
But he's preaching.
It was a prophecy conference.
So he's preaching about end times.
And I'm like, first I start raising my hand.
And then I just start standing up and asking questions
in the middle of his sermon.
If someone did that here,
I'd probably just kindly ask them to sit down and be quiet.
But after a while, I'd probably just say,
the ushers would probably just be like,
let's take this guy out of here.
But the guy was really patient with me.
The pastor was really patient with me.
I just didn't know any better.
And so, looking back to that time,
and then afterwards I'm talking to him about,
do you believe that you can cast demons out of people?
And I was a little rough around the edges.
He could say, I'd never gone to church before,
a normal church before,
so I just didn't know what I was supposed to be like.
So I'm just saying that to tell you
that you can believe a lot of weird things and be saved.
And going to church will normalize you
and help you chip away those strange things that you believe.
And I'm not saying that if you believe that,
of course Christians could cast devils out of people
in the New Testament.
Jesus gave them that power.
But I don't believe it's our job
to go around trying to be demon hunters either.
You don't really see that being taught
in the New Testament, that we're just supposed
to go after demons and cast them out.
Anyway, but we shouldn't be looking for
some perfect church that just fits our mold.
Sometimes we have to allow God to mold us.
And church helps in those areas.
And if you, say you can't find a great church
to go to, you should go to the best church
in the area that you live.
What does that mean?
Well, you need to choose a church
that believes in the foundational truths of the faith.
And the first thing I would say, like I mentioned before,
is that the Bible is the word of God.
And it is the authority of all things of faith and practice.
That should be what the church rests upon
in its faith and practice.
Why do we do the things that we do?
The Bible says.
That should be the answer.
And if a church isn't resting upon what the Bible says,
which the Bible is the word of God.
Jesus Christ is called the word of God.
Jesus is the head of the church,
and what he says goes,
and his words are given to us in a book.
And that book is what we're supposed to follow.
We're supposed to follow our head.
Our head is Christ.
And he is the head of the church.
And so we believe that the King James version
of the Bible is the best translation,
and is the word of God without error, without mistake.
And the modern versions are not
the good versions of the Bible.
They have, like I said, missing 16 verses in a lot of them.
Lots of footnotes saying, you know, doubting God's word,
like the so-called long ending of Mark
that I talked about the other night.
And they basically end with you doubting
whether the resurrection,
it doesn't even talk about the resurrection.
And then also salvation by faith alone in Jesus.
Plus nothing, minus nothing,
it's just Jesus Christ saves alone.
You put your faith in Christ, he saves you.
Eternal security of the believer, foundational.
If the church doesn't believe that, you shouldn't go there.
If the church doesn't believe in faith alone,
and nothing else, not repenting of your sins,
not lordship, salvation.
If you believe in Jesus, you put your faith in Jesus
and he saves you, it's a gift,
and you get eternal life for that,
then that's what the Bible teaches.
Baptism by immersion.
We don't believe in sprinkling.
The Bible doesn't teach that at all.
No super soakers, no dunking three times.
The Bible says that we baptize them
in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost.
And we believe in the Trinity.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Ghost, these three are one.
The Father, the Word, the Holy Ghost, these three are one.
So and those are foundational to the faith of Christianity.
Hell is an everlasting torment
and fire as judgment of the unsaved.
These are foundational truths of the Bible.
And if the church you're trying to go to
doesn't believe these things,
they have a false version of the Bible.
They have a woman preacher.
These types of things,
you just should avoid churches like that.
You're like, what do you mean a woman preacher?
The Bible says we're not supposed to allow a woman
to usurp authority over the man.
Once they get up and preach God's Word
and try to usurp authority over anybody,
they're just wrong the moment they open their mouth.
Look, I'm not trying to be offensive here.
I'm just saying that this is what the Bible teaches.
This is what the apostle Paul taught,
that women, only men, are supposed to get up
and preach the Bible.
Now, they can preach at the door.
They can preach to their children.
They can preach to their neighbors
as far as preaching and trying to get people saved.
But as far as getting up behind a pulpit
or ruling over the church, that is not their place.
So what is a church?
Well, it's a place that teaches
the foundational truths of the Bible.
They rest on the Word of God.
Jesus Christ is the head of that church.
They have a good Bible.
Now, of course, if you're in Spanish,
in a Spanish-speaking church,
you're gonna use a different Bible.
I'm not saying you have to use the King James Bible
if you speak Portuguese or you speak Spanish
or something like that,
but you find the best translation
that doesn't have a bunch of garbage in it.
These are deal breakers, and here's another deal breaker.
For me, personally, is that that church should do so many,
but if it doesn't do so many,
hey, maybe you can help get that started there.
If it doesn't have, I'm pretty much a deal breaker
when it comes to godly music.
If a church has all these things I mentioned
and it has a rock and roll band with a plexiglass pulpit
and lights and smoke and all this other stuff,
I'm probably not gonna go there, just saying.
But if that was my only option
and it had all the other stuff,
I would probably just maybe skip the music
and come in for the preaching or something.
But I'm not gonna be okay with CCM or C-rock,
which is a crock, Christian rock,
or C-rap, crap, Christian rap.
Those are big deals to me as well.
I mean, the Bible says speaking to yourselves in psalms,
hymns, and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
I don't think rap music is in that category.
But those are deal breakers for me
on top of the stuff I already talked about
with the foundational truths of the Bible.
Let's read 1 Timothy 3.15 again real quickly here.
It says, but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know
how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God,
which is the church of the living God,
the pillar and ground of the truth.
So if the church is the house of God,
and the pillar that lifts or holds up the truth,
and the ground or the foundation of the truth,
don't you think it's important to actually be in that place?
I mean, Paul's talking about it to a pastor named Timothy.
These are the qualifications of the bishop.
I mean, wouldn't it be weird to be telling this to a bishop
and the bishop's like,
yeah, but we don't believe in going to church.
No, he's saying these things are super important.
You need to know how to behave yourself in the house of God
to teach people these things also,
but you know, don't go to church.
There's people out there that don't believe
in going to church.
So if we need to know how to behave ourselves there,
how do we do that if we're never there?
Isn't that a fair question?
And I would just say that making sure
that we are in the house of God,
the church of the living God,
the pillar and ground of the truth,
is pretty important for us to be there
and to get plugged into that place,
that source of truth,
that place where the pillar is gonna lift up the truth,
that place where you're gonna get the foundation.
Our church is called Sure Foundation Baptist Church.
Why are we called that?
Because we rest upon the foundations
of the truth of the word of God
and the fact that Jesus Christ is the foundational truth
of our beliefs and practices.
Look at Hebrews chapter two, verse number 12.
Hebrews chapter two, verse number 12.
Now we're gonna get into some Bible here.
The Bible says in Hebrews chapter two, verse 12,
says, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren
in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.
Now this is a scripture that the apostle Paul wrote
and he didn't actually write it himself.
This is from a psalm.
He's quoting a psalm here,
but he says in the midst of the church
I will sing praise unto thee.
Now he's quoting Psalm chapter 22, verse 22.
You can flip there if you want to,
but you might wanna just flip there
just so you can see this.
And what I'm trying to point out to you
is what a church is.
Now Psalm chapter 22, verse 22,
this is a real easy one to remember.
It's all twos, right?
And it says, I will declare thy name unto my brethren
in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
So the Bible can be its own built in dictionary
and in the New Testament it says church there
in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee
and in the Old Testament or in the Psalms
it says in the midst of the congregation
will I praise thee.
So what does that tell you?
The church and congregation mean the exact same thing, right?
So what does church mean?
It means congregation.
So the church is the congregation of the Lord
and a congregation is a group of people, right?
It's not just any group of people
when you're talking about the church,
you're talking about a group of people
that are believers in Jesus Christ, okay?
Now Exodus, go ahead and turn to Acts chapter seven,
verse 37, I'm gonna read for you in Exodus 12, six.
Exodus 12, six says, and ye shall keep it up
until the 14th day of the same month
and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel
shall kill it in the evening.
So you have the word in Exodus 12, six,
it says the assembly of the congregation.
So that's where you have a whole group of people
and it's being called an assembly
where a whole bunch of people are assembling together, right?
Who went to public school and they said it's assembly?
And assembly's where all the kids get together, right?
And it's the whole school gets together
in the gym or a cafeteria or something
and it's called assembly time
and they do some kind of a special deal on assembly time.
So assembly's where everybody gets together
and congregation and assembly also mean the same thing.
But the Bible doesn't like to be redundant
when the translators were translating things.
They don't like to say the wine of the wine.
They said the juice of the wine, right?
And so they'll say the assembly of the congregation.
If they said the whole congregation of the congregation
that would sound weird, right?
So they said the assembly of the congregation
so that we'd understand and that there's another word
for this and to sound redundant is to sound redundant, right?
So you're in Acts 7, 37, it says,
This is that Moses which said unto the children of Israel,
A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you
of your brethren, like unto me, him shall ye hear.
This is he that was in the church in the wilderness
with the angel which spake to him in the Mount Sinai,
and with our fathers who received the lively oracles
to give unto us.
So notice that it says Moses was in the church
in the wilderness.
Notice it doesn't say the congregation.
But if you go to the Old Testament,
the word church is never used talking about Moses.
It's called the congregation of the Lord
every time it's talking about it.
But what have we already seen?
The congregation means church.
So Moses had a church in the wilderness too.
It was the congregation of the Lord.
But to say that the church just started
in the New Testament is not really true either
because there was a congregation of the Lord
in the Old Testament too.
It was a big congregation.
It was millions of people actually.
When they left Egypt, there was literally millions of people.
Moses had a megachurch,
like the biggest megachurch of all time.
Millions of people, right?
He had a hard job.
But I just wanted to show you this
to define what a church is.
A church is an assembly,
a church is a congregation,
or it's an assembly of people,
but it is,
there's assemblies that are people that aren't saved.
There's congregations of people that aren't saved
that just get together for whatever purpose
for the Moose Lodge or whatever other kind of
Boy Scouts or whatever.
But when you're talking about a church in the Bible,
it's talking about,
or most of the times it's talking about
a congregation of believers.
So church, congregation, assembly are common terms
along with the term the house of God
as we saw in First Timothy chapter three.
And in the Old Testament,
where God met with Jacob,
it was,
Jacob said this is none other than the house of God.
If you remember when he rests his head on that pillow,
he's afraid, he's terrified.
This is where that term first comes from.
That is what First Timothy chapter three
is quoting for us.
And so that's where Jesus comes down.
He sees angels coming back and forth on that ladder.
And so this is where God met with the children of Israel.
He met with them in the tabernacle
of the congregation of the wilderness.
And after that,
and then it was after that,
it was the temple that Solomon built.
And now it is the New Testament church.
So when saved, spirit-filled believers
gather together for the worship of the Lord,
when we sang the songs when we first got together here,
we don't just do that for filler space.
We do that because we're worshiping
and singing to the Lord
and worshiping Him,
praising His name.
And so we do that,
and then we get together
to hear the preaching of God's word
and to do the work of the Lord.
We send people out
when we do our sowing time.
Our purpose isn't just to have some kind of a club
where we all get together
and pass our business cards out to each other
so that we can give each other work or something,
and just to have some kind of a club
where we just have potlucks and have fun
and go on cruises together or something.
Now I'm not saying we shouldn't have fun.
We shouldn't network,
not network inside our church,
but outside our church, whatever.
But that's not our purpose.
Our purpose is to get together
to praise the Lord,
to listen to His preaching,
to perfect the saints through the Bible,
through God's word, through that preaching.
Yes, fellowship together,
and then send the people out
to do the work of the Lord.
See, He didn't just save us so that we could do nothing.
He saved us so we could work for Him.
Now, that's why we send people out
to go sowing
and to do, you know,
or people would call that witnessing.
So when we do that,
when we gather together,
we are the church.
That's when it becomes the church.
It's not you by yourself
watching Bible preaching.
You're not the church then.
It's when we assemble together.
That's why it's called the assembly,
assembling ourselves together.
That's why it's called the congregation.
It's not you by yourself.
That is not the church.
You're like, well, I think it is the church.
That's, church means what?
Congregation.
People coming together, right?
So it's the people gathered together
in His name that makes the assembling
or what the Bible said,
the church of the living God.
And God is not dead.
God is living.
Jesus Christ rose from the dead
and He is alive forevermore.
Number two,
find a good church to go to
and plant some roots there.
I understand that people church hop
a little bit to find a good church that they like,
but once you find a good church,
you should plant roots there
or modern day plug in,
plug in to that source,
plant some roots there
and get involved.
Look at Psalm chapter 92 verse 13.
Psalm chapter 92 verse 13.
The Bible says
in Psalm chapter 92 verse 13, it says,
those that be planted
in the house of the Lord
shall flourish.
So planted in the house of the Lord.
Anybody that knows anything about planting things,
when you plant something,
that plant takes root, doesn't it?
And so in order for that plant
to flourish and do well,
those roots have to take hold
and it gets nourishment
and it gets watered,
maybe it gets dunged,
maybe it gets some kind of nutrients
that help that plant to flourish.
But it's not gonna flourish
unless it gets planted.
You can't just take a tree
and set it on top of the ground
and then leave it alone.
It has to be planted, doesn't it?
So what is the concept here?
It says those that be planted where?
In the house of the Lord.
What's the house of the Lord?
The church.
Isn't that what it said in our first verse
that we looked at this morning?
Planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish
in the courts of our God.
Does flourish indicate something that's a positive thing?
Yeah, flourish.
If you plant plants,
I'm sure people in here have planted things.
Maybe you planted a row of bushes or something
and that one bush just doesn't want to live
for some reason.
You know what I'm talking about?
Maybe some neighbor's dog is peeing on it or something.
Or it's just some,
it's just that bush for whatever reason
was a bad one.
It just doesn't want to grow.
It just keeps dying.
You have to finally just dig it up and kill it, right?
And plant a new one there or something.
But when we plant in the house of the Lord though,
the Bible says we're gonna flourish.
There's just no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
It says we're gonna flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall still bring forth fruit in old age.
They shall be fat and flourishing.
Now, to be fat isn't something that's positive
for human beings necessarily, but for a plant it is.
And it says they shall be fat and flourishing.
When you plant those bushes and they just keep growing,
you're like, man, I gotta keep trimming this bush
or whatever.
And we have bushes in our house that's like,
man, this thing just keeps wanting to grow next to our house
and we can't keep it off in our house
and that's how bugs get in your house and stuff like that.
And it's kind of annoying, but at least it's not dead.
It's covering windows that you want it to cover.
That's the whole point why people plant certain trees
and stuff like that.
They want it to cover their,
in England they call yards, backyards,
they call them gardens.
That's why in the Bible they planted a garden.
God planted a garden for Adam and Eve.
It was British people that did the King James Bible.
Just so you know.
But anyway, they call it gardens.
Which I kind of like that.
What we think of gardens is like we're planting things
to eat, right?
So we call it yards.
But anyway, so the Bible's saying here though
that we need to get planted in the house of the Lord.
We need to get roots in the place that we go to church at.
And if you're constantly just hopping from church to church
or you're not, you go to church every once in a while,
but then it's just every once in a while.
Then you're not really planted.
You're not really plugged in.
And to get plugged in, you gotta be there.
And so plants don't generally move, do they?
Once you plant it in there, it's not moving around.
Because if you're moving a plant around all the time,
it's gonna die, isn't it?
Because they get shocked.
Plants go through things called shock.
So when you move from house to house,
if you're somebody that moves every couple years
into a new apartment or something,
and you take those plants,
they go into something called shock.
And sometimes those plants don't make the move, do they?
They die, don't they?
And so when you're just constantly moving around
from church to church, that might kill your Christianity.
That might kill your spiritual life.
And look, I'm not saying never move churches.
That's not what I'm saying.
But if you're going to a good Bible-believing Baptist church
or a good Bible-believing church,
you shouldn't just hop around
just for the sake of hopping around.
And you should actually get plugged in
and find something to do with that church.
Because if you don't have a purpose,
then you're not gonna really feel plugged in, are you?
You're not gonna get your roots dug down in there
and have a purpose.
You're not really gonna get those deep roots that you need.
Colossians chapter two, verse six says,
As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord,
so walk ye in him.
And Christ is the body, the body of Christ
is what we're in right now.
That's what the Bible teaches.
When we're here as the church, we're in the body of Christ.
It says rooted and built up in him.
So he wants us to be rooted in him
and established in the faith.
Our modern word for that would be established in the faith.
As ye have been taught,
abounding therein with thanksgiving.
Isn't that kind of like that word flourishing?
Fat and flourishing?
So when we're built up in him, we're rooted in him,
we're built up in him, we're established in the faith
as we've been taught, abounding therein.
That's what Christ wants from us.
He wants us to get into a good church,
get planted, get built up, get roots in where we're at,
and be thankful for the things that we have.
Be thankful for the church that you're in.
Is it perfect?
It's probably not perfect.
You know why it's not perfect?
People go there.
And people can be great, but people can be annoying.
People can be good people, people can be bad people.
You can't control who all goes to the church that you go to.
But don't use some bad experience with a person
as to why, oh I left that because
it's got a couple hypocrites in that church.
So does Walmart, but you still shop there.
So does the place where you get your oil change.
Maybe there's some people that work at the oil change shop
that you go get your oil change at,
but you still go get your oil change there, don't you?
You know what I mean?
So people like to use excuses as why
they don't want to go to church.
And most of them are like armpits.
They all stink.
And everybody has one, right?
Everybody has two.
Well most people, okay.
So roots, I kind of just snagged this off the internet.
Roots are one of the three organs of a plant.
The primary function, most important job of the roots
is to take in water and nutrients.
Just like people, plants need water and nutrients to grow.
Roots also anchor the plant and help the plant
survive periods where there's too much
or too little water and nutrients.
So there's gonna be times in our life
where we're going through hard times.
But if you're rooted and grounded in your faith,
then even when you're going through hard times,
because plants don't really like to be overwatered either.
If you have a cactus and you start putting too much water
in that cactus, it's not good for it.
Too much water.
But any plant that you water too much
is gonna be hard on that.
But it won't necessarily kill it every time.
But if you have deep roots in any kind of plant,
it's gonna be able to withstand
some pretty harsh environments.
And our life as Christians can be hard and harsh at times.
And we go through a lot of storms,
we go through a lot of problems.
But if you're rooted and grounded,
if you're plugged in to a great church,
you can withstand a lot of things.
And look, when we have a lot of people around us
helping us and praying for us,
you don't have to be standing alone.
You don't have to be standing alone when you're going
through these hard times and hard trials.
So if you wanna flourish as a Christian,
then get planted into a great church
and it's really important for your spiritual growth
and to get that spiritual nutrition in life
and don't just put it off.
Even if you're not necessarily the most people person,
you should still try to get plugged into a church.
Maybe you're a little bit of a loner.
There's a lot of people in this world that are really shy,
they don't like to be around people,
and it's more like that nowadays than it ever has been
because of texting and people can be more
withdrawn from society and still connect.
There's a lot of people that connect with texts
and all kinds of stuff like that,
but they live in a world where you can speak text talk,
but when you get in front of people,
then they just clam up and just stop talking.
And they don't wanna be around people,
but that's just kinda the way it is.
We should still wanna get in and get plugged into a church
and just tough it out because we still have,
the Bible commands that we should go to church
and we'll get to that later, but number three this morning,
the purpose and benefits of attending church
on a regular basis, the purpose and benefits
of attending church on a regular basis,
turn to Psalm chapter 100.
Psalm chapter 100.
Psalm chapter 100, the Bible says in verse one,
make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all you lands.
That's a purpose.
We're supposed to be coming to church for a purpose.
What's one of the purposes?
Well, to make a joyful noise unto the Lord.
Does it say you have to be the best,
have the best singing voice?
No, it just says make a joyful noise.
A noise doesn't necessarily mean it sounds good, does it?
But do it with joy.
Do it with a melody in your heart to the Lord.
That's what I said earlier.
And it says all ye lands.
Verse two, serve the Lord with gladness.
You know, one of the purposes of us being here
is to serve the Lord.
How should we do it?
With gladness.
Like, eh, serve the Lord again today.
That shouldn't be our attitude.
Our attitude should be, hey, I get to serve the Lord today.
And you know what I'm gonna do with gladness,
and yeah, you might not always feel that way
and nobody always does.
But there's a lot of people out there
that don't even know the Lord.
They don't even get to serve the Lord at all
because they're in darkness trapped by the devil.
It says come before his presence with singing.
That's why we start our services with singing
because that's what the Bible says to do.
In the songbook of the Lord.
Psalm chapter 100, verse number three, or verse number two.
Come before his presence with singing.
You know, if we're in the house of the Lord,
we're in the house of God, is his presence here?
Absolutely, we're filled with the Spirit of God.
God is in all of us here.
If you're saved.
And so when we're all here together
and the Bible says that we're two or three are gathered,
he's there in the midst of us.
So we're here, Jesus is here with us.
And when we come before him,
we come before his presence with singing.
That's what the Bible says to do.
Know ye that the Lord, he is God.
It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves.
We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.
We're not coming here for our own benefit.
We're coming here because we belong to him.
We are his sheep, the sheep need to come home.
He's the shepherd.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving.
When you walk in this door,
we should have some thankfulness in our heart.
I mean, thanksgiving's coming up.
What are we thankful for?
We should be thankful for the fact that we're saved.
We get to come to church.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving
and into his courts with praise.
Be thankful unto him and bless his name.
For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting,
and his truth endureth to all generations.
And hey, we're in a generation right now.
And guess what?
His truth is in this church.
His truth is in this room right now and today,
and this promise is here for us.
And you know what?
We should be thankful for the fact
that we have a church here that we can go to.
You know, and we go to this church all the time,
and we can start to just kind of think,
oh man, you know, it can become like any other church.
We should never feel that way.
When we start to feel that way,
we need to do an about face
and figure out our stuff.
Figure out your problems
and readjust what you're thinking about,
where your mind's at,
because we can fall into sin really easily.
We can just fall out of church real easily.
All it takes is a catastrophe in our life
where we get our eyes off of Jesus
and start thinking about ourselves too much,
and then next thing you know, we're out of church.
It can happen, it can happen really quickly.
Isaiah chapter 56, actually turn to Matthew chapter 21.
One of the other, so we have the purpose to,
you know, make a joyful noise unto the Lord,
to serve the Lord with gladness,
to come into his presence with singing,
and to be thankful,
enter into his gates with thankfulness,
into his courts with praise.
Thank him, bless his name,
and be thankful for the fact that
his truth endureth to all generations,
and that this is a house of prayer.
This is a house of prayer,
and Isaiah 56 verse seven in the last part of it says,
for my house shall be called
a house of prayer for all people.
Thank God that he has a house
that's not just for the Jew,
the Jewish people.
They would like to say that,
but that's in the book of Isaiah.
It's for all people.
It's not just for the black Hebrew Israelites.
It's for all people.
It's not just, you know, it's for us, Goyim too.
Look what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 21 verse 12.
It says, and Jesus went in the temple of God
and cast out all that's sold and bought in the temple
and overthrew the tables of the money changers
and the seeds of them that sold doves.
So it's not supposed to be a house of merchandise.
It says, and said unto them,
it is written my house shall be called
the house of prayer,
but you have made it a den of thieves.
Our purpose is not here to be making money off of each other
or networking like I said earlier.
It's supposed to be a house of prayer.
Not just a house of prayer,
but it is a house of prayer.
This is where we get things done.
And one of the things that we come here for
is for it to be a house of prayer.
Psalm 133 verse one.
Turn over there.
See coming to church just isn't only for our benefit.
It's for the Lord.
It's not just for us.
In this world we kind of have gotten this idea
that everything's about us.
It's not really just about us.
It's about the Lord.
Psalm 133 verse one it says,
behold how good and how pleasant it is
for brethren to dwell together in unity.
See there are things that benefit the Lord,
but does he really need anything from us?
No he doesn't need anything from us.
He wants things from us.
He wants our praise and worship,
but he doesn't have to have it.
It's not like God ceases to exist if he doesn't have it.
But he does do things for our benefit
when we do come to church.
It says for brethren to dwell together in unity.
It's a good thing.
It's a pleasant thing.
You know, fellowshipping is a big part of our faith.
And there's a reason why he wants us to all come together.
One of the reasons is
for brethren to dwell together in unity.
It says it's like the precious ointment upon
the head that ran down
the beard, upon the beard, even Aaron's beard,
that went down to the skirts of his garments.
And it seems like a weird thing to say,
but that oil represents what?
The Holy Spirit of God.
The anointing of the Holy Spirit.
And it runs down Aaron's beard.
It says that's what it's like.
That precious ointment.
And look, we've all been filled
and anointed with the Holy Spirit,
so when brethren dwell together,
that anointing of the Holy Spirit is upon us all.
And so it's likening,
you know, brethren dwelling together in unity,
like that anointing of the Holy Spirit,
that fresh oil that we get
every time we come together in God's house.
And then it says in verse three,
as the dew of Hermon,
and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion,
for there the Lord commanded the blessing,
even life forevermore.
And so this dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion,
you know, we don't think of dew as a blessing
necessarily here,
but in a desert place it probably is a great blessing,
because things get watered that way.
But it's refreshing for us
to know that God commanded the blessing,
even life evermore.
We are heirs together of salvation.
You know, right now is kind of our testing ground.
We have to be around each other for all eternity.
So we might as well get used to it now.
And you know, I always say this and joke around about it,
say I might not want to be around some of you
for like the first 10,000 years,
but it is a joke, okay?
I like all you guys, I'm just joking,
but there might be some people in the Christian world
that I might not want to be around for 10,000 years,
Tommy McMurtry,
but you know,
everybody here I like.
But anyway,
there are some people I don't want to be around for a while,
but I'm just saying that
for the brethren to dwell together in unity,
even life forevermore,
we are the heirs of eternal life.
And we should get this right now,
that we should dwell together in unity
It's a good thing to be in fellowship.
You know, what I love about our church
is that after church we all sit around
and talk to each other about the things of God,
about pleasant things, about the Bible.
We talk about other stuff too,
but you know, it's great that our church
doesn't just run for the doors as soon as church is over.
We don't do that,
especially after Sunday night service
and after Thursday night service.
And I know a lot of people out
got to get up and go to work early in the morning,
but we still, what do we do?
We still hang out and talk together.
And that shows that we have a great church,
because people love to just sit around
and talk about the Bible and the things of God.
In Acts chapter two verse 47 it says,
praising God and having favor with all the people
and the Lord added to the church daily
such as should be saved.
They all believed,
all that believed were together
and had all things in common.
In Acts two at the end of the chapter
it explains all this stuff,
that they had fellowship,
they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine,
breaking bread, fellowship.
Turn to Ephesians chapter four,
Ephesians chapter four.
So the Bible is very clear that
having fellowship is an important thing.
Having unity within the church is an important thing
and having someone to preach to us
is an important thing.
Not all churches even have that.
Some of our satellite churches don't even have
a full time evangelist or a full time pastor yet
and that's something that God
hopefully will give to each church that we plant
at some point.
But it is a gift to have those things.
There's a lot of cities around this country
that would love to have a good Bible believing preacher
or pastor around the world.
There's some countries that the gospel
isn't even allowed in.
Even in North Korea to get a new IFB sermon
and that would probably be the death sentence.
To get a Joel Osteen sermon in there
would probably be the death sentence.
I mean we are blessed beyond measure
to live where we live.
But it says in Ephesians four, 11 it says
and he gave some apostles and some prophets
and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers
for the perfecting of the saints.
For the work of the ministry.
For the edifying of the body of Christ.
Till we all come in the unity of the faith
and the knowledge of the son of God
unto a perfect man.
Unto the measure of the stature
of the fullness of Christ.
And so how long do we need that?
For the whole time we're gonna be on this earth.
We all need this.
The edifying of the body of Christ.
The perfecting of the saints.
And that's just talking about
that pastors and teachers and evangelists
are here to help us in our Christian life.
You can read the Bible and know all the Bible doctrine
and know all the Bible
and the Holy Spirit can teach you all things
and will teach you all things.
The pastor when they preach
or the other preachers that get up and preach for you
they're for the perfecting of the saints.
And look we got a lot of guys
that could preach good sermons in this church
and they might not be the pastor
but they're still teachers.
They're still preachers.
And they can still help perfect the saints here.
I mean I think that the guys in our church
preach great sermons.
And I don't think that you lose anything
when they get up and preach.
I think they're great.
So you know when we have guest preachers here
it's a blessing to have those men get up and preach for us.
But turn to First Timothy.
I'm just gonna read this for you.
First Timothy 4.13 says,
"'Till I come give attendance to reading,
to exhortation, to doctrine."
You know the Bible, we read the Bible at every service
before someone gets up and preaches.
Why do we do that?
Well the Apostle Paul said to give attendance to reading.
This is important that the Bible gets read in context
so when the preacher gets up to preach
you know what the context of the passage was.
And also just for the word of God to be read,
maybe that's the only Bible reading you're gonna do
for the whole day, so at least on a Sunday
you're gonna get two chapters read to you
and you're gonna get some Bible
regardless of whether you got up and read the Bible or not.
But it says give attendance to reading, to exhortation.
What is that?
Encouragement to do the right thing.
To doctrine, that's the teaching of the word of God,
the Bible being taught and preached to you.
And you also know that you're gonna get,
people are gonna get sent out.
You know the thing is, there's a lot of people
that don't have a church to send them out
and they still go soul-winding anyway.
Praise God for those people.
But once they get plugged into a church,
those numbers change radically.
When we started churches where people were just doing
just some soul-wining, their numbers go up like that.
Because you're supposed to be sent.
The Bible teaches this, turn to Romans chapter 10.
Romans chapter number 10.
Didn't Jesus send 70 apostles?
Didn't Jesus send out the 12 to preach?
Romans chapter 10 verse 13 says,
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord
shall be saved.
For how then shall they call on him
whom they have not believed?
How shall they believe on him
and whom they have not heard?
How shall they hear without a preacher?
How shall they preach except they be sent?
As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them
that preach the gospel of peace
and bring glad tidings of good things.
Well who sends them?
The church sends them.
Who's sending them today?
The church is sending them today.
That's who's sending them,
that's who's supposed to send the preachers
to preach the gospel.
And that's why it's so important to have a local church
to do all these things.
To sing, to praise the Lord, to be thankful,
to hear the Bible reading, to have the Bible reading,
to hear the preaching, to have preachers, to send people.
Now can you do some of this stuff at home?
Can you sing at home?
Yeah.
Can you go out and preach the gospel from your house?
Yeah.
Can you read the Bible out loud at your house?
Yeah, you can do a lot of all these things
you can pretty much do at your house.
You can even preach at your house.
I mean, it's possible.
Of course you can do a lot of this stuff at your house.
But there's a time for private,
you know there's a time for private prayer.
But there's also a time for doing these things in public
and it's important to do these things in private.
There's also, it's important to do these things in public
because otherwise there wouldn't be
something called the church.
It'd be called the self, right?
It'd be called the family devotion.
It wouldn't be called the church.
It wouldn't be called the congregation of the Lord.
It wouldn't be called the assembly.
So why is church attendance so important, number four?
And why do I have to go?
Why?
Well, all the reasons I just listed above would be,
you know, probably good reasons, right?
And, you know, the other reason would be
because God says so, that's why.
That's probably, you know, the best reason.
Just do it because God said so.
Just start going to church because God said so.
Turn to Hebrews chapter 10.
Of course this is the most famous verse
and it's in the New Testament.
Now people are like, God never said to go to church.
That's just a man's construct, you know.
We can just get together out in nature
and we can go fishing.
That's God, that's the church.
It's like, no, that trout you caught on the lake is not God
and going out in the wilderness with a couple people
and drinking beers is not the church, okay?
No matter what you think.
You know, I'm in nature,
the bald eagle flying over my head, that is God.
No, you're in the Native American religion, buddy.
You're worshiping the nature.
You're worshiping, you know,
what all men like to worship,
their selves and nature.
Hebrews 10, 24 says, and let us consider one another
to provoke unto love and to good works.
I mean, we're supposed to love God with all of our heart,
with all of our mind, with all of our soul,
with all of our strength, with everything we have
and to love our neighbor as ourself.
And who's our neighbor when we're here?
Well, everybody's sitting next to you.
And so, to provoke unto love and good works,
well, how do we do that?
Well, by showing up.
By showing up.
And it's hard on people when they look around
and there's not a lot of people here.
It's hard, I'm like, well, why aren't they here?
Well, maybe they don't think it's important.
Well, maybe, why do I have to think it's important?
It does provoke when someone sees another person in church
and they see that person doing well
and they see that person trying hard
and they see that person giving it all they got,
well, that's gonna provoke that other person,
your neighbor, to do likewise.
But if they see you failing and you falling off
and you sliding on your church attendance,
then that's gonna provoke them to what?
Do the same.
And it's just a slippery slope.
And it says, not forsaking
the assembling of ourselves together.
And I already told you that assembling
is the same thing as congregating.
It's the same thing as going to church.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.
Forsaking is refusing to go to church, isn't it?
As the manner of some is.
And a manner is like the way in which you do things.
Your habit.
What's your habit?
Well, some people's habit is to just not come to church.
But exhorting one another.
What is that?
Encouraging other people to do what?
To go to church.
Instead of forsaking the assembling,
as the manner of some is,
exhort one another.
And so much the more as you see the day approaching.
And look, we're getting closer to, what's the day?
The day of Christ.
The day that Christ comes and receives us unto himself.
And that we get our new bodies,
that we won't sin,
we're gonna wanna go to church all the time.
Look, I don't always feel like going to church either.
I'm the pastor of the church.
And sometimes, I gotta admit,
I don't feel like going to church.
I'm sure that you all have those same days.
But you know what was really encouraging to me last week?
Is showing up to Bible Believers Baptist Church
and Brother Rick, who,
now you all got no excuses.
Brother Rick had open heart surgery a week to the day.
Just had his whole chest carved open and ripped open
and held open while he did open heart surgery on him.
And it shows up a week to the day for church.
Because that's how dedicated the man is.
And I even felt bad.
I'm like, I probably wouldn't have gone to church.
Like, I'm serious.
He probably was in a lot of pain.
And he walks up and he just kinda touches my shoulder
and says, hey preacher, how's it going?
That's a huge encouragement to me.
That's a huge encouragement to the rest of the people
that were there, I'm sure, to see Brother Rick walk in.
That's exhorting other people to good works.
That is provoking unto love and good works.
And now I'm just like, I have no excuse.
I'm sick.
If you're sick, stay home, okay?
If you have a running issue, please stay home.
But, you know what I mean, like,
I was thinking, and I even told him,
you didn't have to come.
You didn't have to come to church.
But it is an encouragement for me to see that.
But the Bible teaches here, though,
like people don't even look past the rest of this.
Look at verse 26.
It says, for if we sin willfully,
after that we receive the knowledge of the truth,
there remains no more sacrifice for sins.
So he's basically saying, like,
Paul's saying, we are sinning willfully
when we decide we're not gonna show up
to assemble ourselves together.
There remains no more sacrifice for sins,
but a certain fearful looking for of judgment
and fiery indignation which shall devour their adversaries.
That's not saying you're gonna get, you know,
thrown into hell for this, okay?
That's not what it's saying.
What it's saying is, this is what will happen
to the adversaries.
He's saying, they're sinning willfully
by not getting saved.
This is what's gonna happen to them.
But he's like, he that despised Moses' law
died without mercy under two or three witnesses.
How much more sore judgment or punishment
suppose he that he be thought worthy
who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God,
and hath counted the blood of the covenant
wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing
and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace.
So we have the Spirit of grace.
We've been given grace, you know,
abundant grace.
Like, so much grace that we just probably misuse it a lot.
And, you know, obviously we have grace.
I'm not saying, you know, should we sin
that grace may abound, God forbid.
We shouldn't do things just because we have grace.
But God does give us grace.
Thank God.
Because, you know, nobody's mature
and perfect in every situation.
And, you know, this is where I really try
to dig it into people to just, you know,
come to church as much as you can or whatever.
But I'm just saying it's because it's good for you.
It's the best thing you can do.
Come to church, you know, every message is important.
Every day you can praise God and be here to praise God
is important because you don't know
what's gonna happen in a day.
Turn to James chapter four, verse 13.
But to think that God wouldn't judge you
for sinning willfully by not coming to church
just because you don't feel like it,
I mean, you're fooling yourself if you think that.
Because any, you know, any sin, God will punish.
But if you're just like willfully not going to church
just because you don't feel like it,
or you just, you know, I'd rather stay home and watch this,
that's where I would be afraid.
Like, I'm just gonna stay home
and watch my favorite sitcom or whatever.
Ah, that's where I'd be like, okay,
now if you're sick or, you know, whatever,
I mean, obviously sometimes you have a hard day at work
or whatever and you're just like,
I just can't make that drive, whatever,
I mean, I'd have more grace over that
than I need to stay home and watch this baseball game
or something, that's when I'd be like,
I'm gonna stay a few paces away from you
for the next couple days, you know.
But James chapter four, verse 13 says,
go to now, ye that say, today or tomorrow
we will go into such a city and continue there a year
and buy and sell and get gain,
whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow,
for what is your life?
It is even a vapor that appearth for a little time
and then vanishes away.
It's true, like, I'm gonna be 50 this year,
and like, I'm just like, where did all that time go?
And then you kind of look back and regret and think,
man, I wish I would've been doing this earlier,
I wish I would've got saved earlier,
but you can wish all you want,
but it's just not gonna happen.
You can't take back the time that you lost.
You can't take back the time that you were in a bad church.
You can't take back any of that time
that you weren't working as hard
as you could've for the Lord.
But your life is a vapor.
You're gonna wake up tomorrow and you're gonna be 50
and you're like, where did it all go?
Why didn't I do more?
Why didn't I go to church more?
Or whatever.
But it says, for ye ought to say,
if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that,
but now ye rejoice in your boastings,
all such rejoicing is evil.
Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good
and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
And this is true.
If you know that you're supposed to be doing something
and you're not doing it, it's sin.
It is sin.
And that verse gets abused a lot, I realize that,
but it is true.
That's what it's saying.
And what's the context?
You know, I'm gonna do this today
and I'm gonna put this off.
And like tomorrow I'm gonna do this,
but today I'm gonna do this.
And you're just like putting stuff off.
Today or tomorrow, we'll go into Sunshine City.
You don't know that.
You don't know what a day's gonna bring forth.
You just don't know.
You don't know what next week is gonna bring.
You don't know what next month.
You might not have the ability to go to church next week.
And then you'll be like, well man,
I wish I would've went to church when I had the chance.
I wish I would've went sowing when I had the chance.
I wish I would've been reading my Bible when I could see.
I wish I would've been praying
when I could get on my knees.
You know, there's a lot of things that we put off
and that verse just kinda nails you right between the eyes
to him to know to do good and do it or not.
To him it is sin.
There's a lot of things that we probably
could be doing a lot better.
And you know what, church is gonna help you
to see things for how they are.
Because the Bible is sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit and the joints of marrow
and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
And when you go to church,
you're gonna hear the Bible preach
and it's gonna go, huah!
It's gonna give you, it's gonna rip open your chest cavity
like Brother Rick's and it's gonna get right into your heart
but it's gonna, it won't actually do it in real life.
It'll be a spiritual heart surgery.
It's gonna do a spiritual open heart surgery on you.
And you know, you're like,
well I don't know if I wanna do that.
Well, the alternative can be worse.
They just ignore those things and then next,
I mean, how bad would it be if you couldn't see?
And you can never read the Bible again.
You gotta learn how to do braille.
You just have to feel, well that'd be awful.
But could it happen?
Yeah, it could happen.
So, and I'm not trying to end this on a negative note, okay?
Because I think that going to church
should be a positive thing.
You know, we should feel positive about going to church.
So let's end on a positive note here.
Turn to Psalm, chapter 84, verse 10.
Because look, I love going to church.
I said that there's times when I don't feel like going,
but you know what, whenever I go, I'm glad I went.
Whenever I go to church, I come out with something positive.
I don't ever go home and go, man,
I'm so mad that I went to church today.
What an awful day in the Lord's house.
I never say that.
I never feel that way.
I mean, I'm just sitting here thinking about it
and I'm like, I don't ever say that.
I don't ever feel that way.
The only time I feel that way is maybe when I'm off
and I'm not at church and I get bad news.
I'm like, man, that's depressing.
It's usually Monday.
Monday is probably the worst day for pastors.
Because you're just all spent,
all your spiritualities have been spent for the Sunday.
And then the next day it's like,
I guess there's like studies that a pastor
shouldn't make major decisions on Mondays.
There's like actual studies done on it.
A pastor shouldn't make decisions
about what he's gonna do in the ministry on Mondays.
Pastors shouldn't even study for sermons on Mondays
in some of these things.
You shouldn't study for sermons.
If you're gonna do some kind of work,
then you should do administration work and that's it.
Because a lot of preachers quit on Mondays.
But it's not because, I don't ever feel like,
I don't ever feel like Sunday harmed me in some way.
Show me on this doll what Sunday did to you, Pastor Thompson.
I don't feel like that.
But it's just like, you know,
it's funny because I never feel that way,
but I do feel like drained on Mondays sometimes.
But I never feel like Sunday did this to me.
Look what you did to me Sunday.
I don't feel that way, but it's a weird feeling.
But church doesn't do that to me.
It's just the grind, I guess, is what it is sometimes.
Anyway, I'm just, can I lay on a couch
and tell you guys my problems?
Anyway, but I love going to church.
Church never makes me feel like that.
Preaching the word of God never makes me feel like that.
Going to someone, he never makes me feel like that.
Church is a positive thing.
And you should count it as a positive thing.
Psalm 84, verse 10 says,
for a day in thy courts is better than a thousand.
I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
I don't ever wanna go back to my old life, ever.
You know, and if you ever think about that,
just think about this verse.
And I don't think being a doorkeeper is that bad.
I would actually like that.
So, I mean, maybe this guy thought,
oh, I hate being a doorkeeper.
Maybe he's just like one of those people
that doesn't like talking.
What do they call that, an introvert?
Maybe this guy's an introvert
that wrote this psalm or something.
But to me, it doesn't sound like a bad thing.
But to dwell in the tents of wickedness,
that's something I don't ever wanna go back to.
I don't wanna go back and live a wicked life.
Psalm 122, verse one, this will be the last verse,
and we'll close it off.
Psalm 122, verse one.
This should be our feeling when we go to church.
It says, I was glad when they said unto me,
let us go into the house of the Lord.
And you can just replace that with,
I was glad when they said unto me, let's go to church.
Let's go to church.
That should be the feeling that we have.
And hey, if you don't feel that way when you're under way,
or when you're getting dressed,
or when you're getting ready for church,
when you're trying to get five or six, seven kids
ready for church, and you have all their clothes laid out.
I was thinking back to this, and I was thinking,
man, when we had all of our kids,
we were trying to get ready, and we had four kids
that were trying to get ready for church.
It was just like, my wife was trying to get ready for church.
But to have like six, seven kids,
that'd be even more rough.
But it's a lot of work.
I know that.
But you know what, you're gonna miss those times.
When you get older, and it's just you and your wife,
you're gonna miss those times of getting ready
and the, you know, yelling at each other
on the way to the church.
No, I'm just kidding.
Not that part, but you're gonna miss the times
when your kids are little, taking them to church.
You know, it's a great thing.
You should be glad that you get to go to church
and not feel bad that you have to go to church.
So get to a good church, get planted, get plugged in,
get involved, make friends, start serving the Lord.
And if you're already coming to church,
and you're not coming on a regular basis, why not?
Get back in the fight.
You know, you're missing the best days of your life
if you're not coming to church,
and you're wasting your life on things that don't matter.
So start enjoying the benefits of a great church.
Obey God and assemble with the saints on a regular basis,
and look, you'll never regret that.
You're never gonna get old and go,
man, I wish I would've watched more TV
instead of going to church.
I wish I really would've watched Super Bowl 59
or whatever instead of going to church that Sunday.
Like, I'll never feel that way.
You'll never gonna feel that way.
You're like, man, I recorded it, okay?
Just don't let people tell you the scores.
Watch it on Rewind or whatever.
It's not that big of a deal.
Do you even remember who won the Super Bowl?
Well, I remember who won the Super Bowl last year,
but do you remember who won it the year before that?
Or the year before that?
You probably don't, you probably have to look it up.
Because does it really matter?
Does it matter who won the presidency?
Does our president right now
remember who won the presidency last year?
Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you so much for this great church.
We pray that you just bless it, continue to bless it,
and that we continue to grow our membership
with new members, and Lord, that our old members
would stick and plant roots here.
Pray that you just bless, continue to bless
all that's done here.
Pray bless our soul as we go out today,
and we thank you for all your blessings.
We love you, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
This is like a Baptist pep assembly song.
We didn't coordinate, but it just worked out that way.
All right.
["The First Noel"]
On the first.
Would you live for Jesus and be always pure and good?
Would you walk with him within the narrow road?
Would you have him bear your boot and carry all your load?
Let him have his way with thee.
His blood can make you what you ought to be.
His blood can cleanse your heart and make you free.
His love can fill your soul and you will see.
Twas best for him to have his way with thee.
Would you have him make you free and follow at his call?
Would you know the peace that comes by giving all?
Would you have him save you so that you can never fall?
Let him have his way with thee.
His blood can make you what you ought to be.
His blood can cleanse your heart and make you free.
His love can fill your soul and you will see.
Twas best for him to have his way with thee.
On the last.
Would you walk in his kingdom,
find a place of constant rest?
Would you prove him true in providential test?
Would you in his service labor always at your best?
Let him have his way with thee.
His power can make you what you ought to be.
His blood can cleanse your heart and make you free.
His love can fill your soul and you will see.
Twas best for him to have his way with thee.
Amen.
Brother Sean, can you close this with a word of prayer?
Amen.