Where from cleansing from sin I cried, there to my heart was the blood applied.
Glory to his name, glory to his name, glory to his name.
There to my heart was the blood applied, glory to his name.
I am so wondrously saved from sin, Jesus so sweetly abides within.
There at the cross where he took me in, glory to his name, glory to his name, glory to his name.
There to my heart was the blood applied, glory to his name.
O precious fountain that saves from sin, I am so glad I have entered in.
There Jesus saves me and keeps me clean, glory to his name, glory to his name, glory to his name.
There to my heart was the blood applied, glory to his name.
Come to this fountain so rich and sweet, cast thy poor soul at the Savior's feet.
Plunge in today and be made complete, glory to his name, glory to his name, glory to his name.
There to my heart was the blood applied, glory to his name.
Amen. Amen. Good seeing you, Brother Brandon. Could you help us with a water prayer?
Amen. Our second song is based on number 191, In My Heart There Rings a Melody.
Song number 191, In My Heart There Rings a Melody.
Sing it out in the first.
I have a song that Jesus gave me, it was sent from heaven above.
There never was a sweeter melody, tis a melody of love.
In my heart there rings a melody, there rings a melody with heaven's harmony.
In my heart there rings a melody, there rings a melody of love.
I love the Christ who died on Calvary, for he washed my sins away.
He put within my heart a melody, and I know it's there to stay.
In my heart there rings a melody, there rings a melody with heaven's harmony.
In my heart there rings a melody, there rings a melody of love.
Twill be my endless theme and glory, with the angels I will sing.
Twill be a song with glorious harmony, when the courts of heaven ring.
In my heart there rings a melody, there rings a melody with heaven's harmony.
In my heart there rings a melody, there rings a melody of love.
All right, good morning, welcome to Church Foundation Baptist Church.
Let's take our bulletin to go through them.
If you need a bulletin, would you raise your hand?
All right, on our front cover we have our verse of the week.
It says, The foolish shall not stand in thy sight, thou hatest all workers of iniquity.
Psalm chapter 5, verse number 5, great verse there.
And our service times are Sunday morning at 10 30 a.m. and Sunday evening at 3 30 p.m.
And our Thursday Bible study is at 6 30 p.m.
Our soul-winning times are listed below.
If you're going soul-winning, please let brother Brandon know today.
It'll be going out at one o'clock.
Our regional times are listed below.
Brother Neve had one saved up in Tacoma yesterday.
Was there any salvations yesterday, brother Sean?
Okay, and so what we had, did you have one on Friday?
Three on Friday, amen.
All right, great.
And then there was one saved on Wednesday, correct?
All right, great job soul-winning this week, everybody.
And if you look down, you can see the praise report.
Old salvations, baptisms, attendance totals, and all that good stuff.
And on the right side inside cover, we have the Spanish
kids class that'll be next Tuesday at 6 p.m.
And July 15th of this next coming week is going to be the Red Hot Preaching Conference.
And it'll be the 15th through the 18th at Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, California.
I trust that everybody probably already has their hotel rooms and all that good stuff
if you're staying down there.
And so it's gonna be a great week of preaching and soul-winning and some leisure time.
We got our four champions going.
Raise your hand if you're one of the champions that are going to represent our church.
All right, one, two.
Where's the other ones?
They in here?
Bill and Evan, not even here.
All right, there's gonna be a rule.
No, they're practicing.
Yeah, they're probably at Remy's right now or so.
No, anyway, okay.
Well, you know, we do want to win.
So no, I'm just kidding.
All right, so yeah, it's gonna be a great time.
And so if you're one of those guys that are representing our church, if you happen to
like sprain your wrists or something, Brother Ramon is going to be the alternate for anybody
that's injured, right?
And they do have some pretty good players there.
So just be prepared.
So anyway, it's gonna be a great week.
And we got people covering the pulpit for Thursday and Sunday.
Brother Blake's gonna be preaching for us Sunday.
And Brother Eli will be preaching for us this Thursday night.
I think he's preaching about Jew homophags or something like that.
No, no, it's not.
Thanks for your here.
No, I'm just teasing.
But anyway, sorry, I had to crack a joke.
You guys are way too serious this morning.
So way too serious or way too tired?
One of the two.
All right, so and then so after that, we're gonna have in a couple few weeks here, we're
gonna have our grand reopening, our third year anniversary and our grand reopening.
And so we're going to have Pastor Bruce Mejia preaching for us on Friday night, the 30th.
And then Saturday, we're gonna have a soul winning marathon in our new area and our fire
new building.
And we're gonna all meet there in the morning.
And we're gonna have a little light breakfast will be sent out to preach.
And then once we provided course, and then we'll have a second session of soul winning
Sunday night, we'll have Pastor Joe Jones preaching for us.
It's not a men's preaching night.
Rylan messed up, and I'm going to kill him.
No, I'm just kidding.
I actually edited this and didn't even catch that.
So it's my fault.
Everything rises and falls on leadership.
So anyway, I still blame him though.
Anyway, so that's Pastor Joe Jones will be here Sunday night on August 1.
So that's going to be our grand reopening weekend.
It's going to be great.
And if you look down at the very last bullet point there, it says, Please see Brother Robert
out quarter for any opportunities to help finish the new building.
They painted.
He did some texturing.
And I just appreciate everybody for stepping up and helping with all that.
Tearing all that all that carpet out and stuff was a really big chore.
So we have someone coming to we have a real like crunch time when it comes to the carpet.
So we have two people coming to measure the building to see how fast we can get this carpet
in.
So just pray for that situation because I don't want to open up our new building with
no carpet.
That'd be pretty lame.
So we'd have to get a bunch of throw rugs from everybody and just like look like the
code of many colors or something.
I don't know.
But it probably looked like it was torn from dogs.
So we don't want to look like that.
So anyway, just be praying for that situation.
And if you there's plenty of opportunities to help if you're not going to the bread hot
preaching conference, we got some extra time.
You'd like to donate to the church building.
I'm sure Brother Robert can use you in many different situations.
So we're also looking for someone, anybody that can do some welding.
We want to do like a fab where we make it where kids can't go up that concrete set of
stairs.
And so you know how they are, they'll try to sneak into any nook and cranny that's possible
or hit their head against it or whatever.
You know, they just but we need somebody to come up with something that would work for
our building.
So there's a lot of different rooms there.
And so we're just trying to make it safe and make all all the buildings safe for children
to be there.
So that staircase is not my favorite staircase in the world.
So there'll be no children allowed to be going up and down those stairs.
By the way, that's going to be one of the new rules.
So anyway, but it's because if one of those kids were to fall down that set of stairs,
they're definitely going to the hospital.
So and we don't want that.
So anyway, we're a family integrated church and its children and infants are welcome during
the church services we have available for your family, mother, baby rooms and a dad
baby room located downstairs.
And for your convenience during the services, please reserve the back rows for families
with young children.
And no men are allowed in those rooms, the mother baby rooms, no mothers are allowed
in the dad baby room.
So please make sure you're latching the baby gates as you go down either set of stairs.
And it's very serious.
So please make sure that you're doing that.
And children, that includes you.
So just because you're a kid doesn't mean you can't be held responsible for the things
that you do.
So your parents should be beating you.
Thou shalt be.
So no, I'm just kidding.
But I'm kidding, but not kidding.
So but we need to make sure that we're controlling our children.
Obviously, you know, in a church that's this this size, you know, there's lots of children.
I love children and I'm not like getting down on them.
But we do have to stop the letting the children run in the church thing.
Like it's something I haven't brought up in a long time, but because I feel like I'd be
bringing something up every service.
I don't want to be that guy either.
But like when kids are constantly running through the church and other adults are telling
your kid to stop doing it and they just look at you like, you know, who do you think you
are?
That's not that's not good.
So pay attention to what your kids are doing.
If they're if you see you're telling me you can't see them through your peripheral running
through the church.
I mean, because all they have to do is hit the wrong person at the wrong time and that
person is going to go down and it's going to be embarrassing for them.
It's going to be embarrassing for you.
So just please make sure they're restrained, straining your children and not allowing them
to just run all over the building.
OK, so and also that includes just allowing them carte blanche in a room by themselves
to do whatever they want.
So make sure that you're watching your children.
It's important.
We're a family integrated church, so that doesn't mean the children rule the church.
The parents rule their children in this church.
So anyway, just want to bring that up real quick.
I'm just going to get negative today since you guys are making me mad already.
No, I'm just kidding.
All right.
So please no food in the assembly area.
Silence your cell phones and make sure you're if you're a lady and you're single, you're
getting an escort to your vehicle by one of the ushers.
And the online donations are available on our website and text giving.
And you can see the money matters.
The money that's come in so far for the month of July.
And my wife stayed home sick today, so please pray for her.
I kind of wonder if it's because we're going to sing happy birthday to her.
So she's like, I can't make it this season, but it's going to be Miss Sherry's birthday
and that'll be the 12th, which is tomorrow.
And then brother Adam's birthday is the 15th.
Where's brother Adam?
I don't see him.
Oh, hey, brother.
You want to come up here?
Sing happy birthday.
All right.
Well, let's sing happy birthday to Miss Sherry.
She's watched on the live stream and to brother Adam.
All right.
Where's my where's my birthday song person.
You mean to tell me you still haven't.
All right.
Let's sing.
Let's.
Brother Adam, how old are you?
What are you serious?
I was going to say I thought it was on the 15th.
He's going to be 15.
Hey, wow.
I told you I had this like time lapse that happens and everybody's the same age as when
they first started the church with us.
So I apologize.
18.
That's why your voice is like deeper now, right?
All right.
So anyway, that's it for announcements.
Is there anything anybody can help?
Anything anybody can think of besides that?
All right, let's go.
Let's sing another song.
We'll receive you.
Next song is number 174.
My Jesus, I love thee.
Song number 174.
My Jesus, I love thee.
Song 174.
My Jesus, I love thee.
Song 174.
Let's sing it out on the first.
My Jesus, I love thee.
I know thou art mine for thee, all the follies of sin.
I resign, my gracious Redeemer, my Savior art thou.
If ever I love thee, my Jesus, tis now.
I love thee because thou hast first loved me
and purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree.
I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow.
If ever I love thee, my Jesus, tis now.
I'll love thee in life, I'll love thee in death.
And praise thee as long as thou lendest me breath.
And say, when the death do lies, hold on my brow.
If ever I love thee, my Jesus, tis now.
In mansions of glory and endless delight,
I'll ever adore thee in heaven so bright.
I'll sing with a glittering crown on my brow.
If ever I love thee, my Jesus, tis now.
Amen.
Good seeing you, Brother Sean.
Could you bless your offering?
Amen.
All right, go and open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 36.
Exodus 36.
If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand,
and one of the ushers will bring you one.
Exodus 36.
Exodus 36, the Bible reads, then wrought Bezalel and Ahoyaleb
and every wisehearted man in whom the Lord put wisdom
and understanding to know how to work all manner of work
for the service of the sanctuary,
according to all that the Lord had commanded.
And Moses called to Bezalel and Ahoyaleb
and every wisehearted man in whose heart
the Lord had put wisdom, even every one
whose heart stirred him up to come under the work to do it.
And they received of Moses all the offering,
which the children of Israel had brought
for the work of the service of the sanctuary
to make it whittled.
And they brought yet unto him free offerings every morning.
And all the wise men that wrought
all the work of the sanctuary came every man
from his work which they made.
And they spake unto Moses, saying,
The people bring much more than enough
for the service of the work which the Lord commanded
to make.
And Moses gave commandment, and they
caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp,
saying, Let neither man nor woman
make any more work for the offering of the sanctuary.
So the people were restrained from bringing,
for the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work
to make it, and too much.
And every wisehearted man among them
that wrought the work of the tabernacle
made 10 curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple,
and scarlet, with cherubims of cunning work made he them.
The length of one curtain was 20 and eight cubits,
and the breadth of one curtain four cubits.
The curtains were all one size.
And he coupled the five curtains one unto another,
and the other five curtains he coupled one unto another.
And he made loops of blue on the edge of one curtain
from the selvedge in the coupling.
Likewise, he made in the uttermost side
of another curtain in the coupling of the second.
50 loops made he in one curtain, and 50 loops
made he in the edge of the curtain which
was in the coupling of the second.
The loops held one curtain to another.
And he made 50 tacks of gold, and coupled the curtains one
unto another with the taps, so it became one tabernacle.
And he made curtains of goat's hair
for the tent over the tabernacle.
11 curtains he made them.
The length of one curtain was 30 cubits,
and four cubits was the breadth of one curtain.
The 11 curtains were of one size.
And he coupled five curtains by themselves,
and six curtains by themselves.
And he made 50 loops upon the uttermost edge
of the curtain in the coupling.
And 50 loops made he upon the edge of the curtain
which coupleth the second.
And he made 50 tacks of brass to couple the tent together,
that it might be one.
And he made a covering for the tent of ram skins dyed red,
and a covering of badger skins above that.
And he made boards for the tabernacle
of shidomwood standing up.
And the length of a board was 10 cubits,
and the breadth of a board one cubit and a half.
One board had two tenons, equally distant one
from another.
Thus did he make for all the boards of the tabernacle.
And he made boards for the tabernacle,
20 boards for the south side southward,
and 40 sockets of silver he made under the 20 boards,
two sockets under one board for his two tenons,
and two sockets under another board for his two tenons.
And for the other side of the tabernacle,
which is toward the north corner, he made 20 boards.
And there 40 sockets of silver, two sockets under one board,
and two sockets under another board.
And for the side of the tabernacle westward,
he made six boards.
And two boards made he for the corners of the tabernacle
in the two sides.
And they were coupled beneath and coupled together
at the head thereof to one ring.
Thus he did it.
Thus he did to both of them in both the corners.
And there were eight boards.
And their sockets were 16 sockets of silver
under every board, two sockets.
And he made bars of shidamwood, five for the boards
of the one side of the tabernacle,
and five bars for the boards of the other side
of the tabernacle, and five bars for the boards
of the tabernacle for the sides westward.
And he made the middle bar to shoot through the boards
from one end to the other.
And he overlaid the boards with gold,
and made their rings of gold to be placed for the bars,
and overlaid the bars with gold.
And he made a veil of blue and purple and scarlet
and fine twine linen with cherubims made he of it,
cunning work.
And he made there unto four pillars of shidamwood,
and overlaid them with gold.
Their hooks were of gold, and he cast for them
four sockets of silver.
And he made in hanging for the tabernacle door
of blue and purple and scarlet and fine twine linen
of needlework, and the five pillars of it with their hooks.
And he overlaid their chappeters and their fillets
with gold, but their five sockets were of brass.
Brother Ramon, are you ready for this?
Okay, Exodus chapter 36, everything okay?
Can you hear me all right?
All right, the title of my sermon this morning
is Wise-Hearted Servants of God, Wise-Hearted Servants of God.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much
for this group of people that would show up
to hear your word preached this morning.
I pray you'd just bless every aspect of this day today, Lord.
Pray bless our new building that we're moving into shortly,
and I pray that you'd help us as church members
to see the things that you would consider
wise-hearted servants, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, so you have the story here in the ends of Exodus,
and actually it starts talking about building this tabernacle
in, I think it's in chapter 31.
So let's look at chapter 31 real quick,
just skip back a few pages, but the building of the tabernacle
is this process that takes like several chapters
towards the end of the book of Exodus,
and there's kind of a ringing coming through.
I don't know if you can fix that, Brother Tony.
But anyway, verse 31, or verse one in chapter 31 says,
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
See, I have called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri,
the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah,
and I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom,
and in understanding, and in knowledge,
and in all manner of workmanship,
to devise cunning works, to work in gold,
and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones,
to set them, and in carving of timber,
to work in all manner of workmanship.
And I behold I have given with him a holiab,
the son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan,
in the hearts of all that are wise-hearted,
I have put wisdom that they may make all that I have commanded
So again, we have this story, and God is telling Moses,
hey, I picked these guys,
and these guys are filled with the Spirit of God in wisdom,
and in understanding, and in knowledge,
and in all manner of workmanship.
And basically, this isn't like something
that is a spiritual, necessary thing.
These guys are working and laboring
and doing what God asked to do for this new tabernacle.
And so I kind of thought that this would be a good sermon
for our church, because we're about to move
into a new tabernacle ourselves,
and it's taking a lot of work to get it done.
It's taking people that have certain skill sets
to get that work done.
And I just want to appreciate everybody
that's been over there helping and doing things.
And I just thought that I was reading through this
with my normal Bible reading,
I just thought, well, this would be a helpful message
for people, because not everybody is a laborer.
And so a lot of people don't understand,
like if they've never worked a laboring job before,
that sometimes things take labor.
It's not like we can just spiritually move in there
and just everything's all done.
It doesn't work like that.
It takes laboring people to help put this building together.
So there's obviously things that have had taken place,
and if people that weren't doing it didn't have,
or people that were doing it didn't have the skills
to do those things, then maybe the wall would be off plum,
or maybe the paint would be the wrong colors,
or maybe the texturing wouldn't be right.
Maybe the carpet wouldn't be getting replaced.
There's just a lot of things
that go into a new church building,
and obviously it takes work.
And so I thought it'd be fitting
to preach a sermon like this,
since we only have a few more weekends in this building,
and to maybe exhort people that haven't helped
maybe to take part,
because there's a lot of stuff that still needs to be done.
And some of the stuff that needs to be done
is actually simply just picking something up
and putting it in something
and then unloading it when we get to the church building.
And we're gonna need everybody's help,
as much help as possible to get that done.
But you see these men of Israel,
Basiliel and Aholahab, and other wise men.
So it mentions these two guys by name,
and then it talks about and other wise men, right?
So and they're commended by the Lord
and written into the Bible for the work that they do.
Now I'm not saying if you help with this new building
that your name is gonna be written in the Bible,
because the Bible is already a closed book, right?
But you know what?
The things that you do laboring for the Lord,
He's always gonna remember those things.
And those things will be spoken about in heaven.
It's not just the soul winning we do
and the spiritual aspects.
It's not the preaching that gets done.
All those things are important.
It's not just the singing.
But you know the things,
the labor that goes into working in this church,
it's something that needs to be done.
It's something that people should be appreciated for
when they do it.
And I appreciate all the ladies that help
and they come and clean the building twice a week
or once a week or twice a week.
They take out of their time to come and do those things
and they're very much appreciated.
Now you might not get pats on the back from me every week
for doing the things that we do,
but you know who ultimately is patting you on the back?
It's gonna be God.
You know and you might not get the gold star of the week.
You might not have your picture up
as the employee of the week in the church
or something like that.
We don't really do that kind of stuff,
but hey we're ultimately working for God
and that's the one that we're supposed to be pleasing.
So you're not pleasing me, you're pleasing God.
And so when you put labor into things,
God is pleased with you.
And why did he pick these two men
and then mention all these other wise men
that helped do all this work?
Well because God is gonna recognize things like that.
God recognizes their hard work that they were already doing.
Do you think that God actually just picked the laziest guys
and the children of Israel to do this?
What do you know about the God of the Bible
where he just picks the laziest, most slothful people
to come and help do stuff?
He doesn't do that.
I mean you think about the children of Israel
and he picked a lot of people that were shepherds
to lead God's people, right?
Because it's hard work.
You're out in the cold.
You're losing sleep like Jacob was.
It makes you strong.
You gotta pick these animals up
and carry them on your shoulders sometimes.
I mean think about how hard of a worker Jacob was
and he was blessed of God.
Because why?
Because he was a hard worker and he was a spiritual man.
But see God just doesn't pick lazy people
to do the hardest jobs.
And some of this work,
like if you go through all these chapters,
you're like, oh the badger skin
and it talks about all these different things.
How 11 different curtains and all this other stuff.
It talks about a lot of different things
and a lot of times when you're in your Bible reading
you're like, okay I'm trying to get to the part
where Pharaoh gets smoked or whatever.
You know what I mean?
These aren't the most exciting chapters necessarily
when it comes to your Bible reading
but they're very important because you know what?
The church of God is important
and the building is important.
Why?
Because it's where we meet.
So what if we have like a natural disaster area
every time someone came to church?
You probably wouldn't like that.
You probably wouldn't like a building
where there was no paint on the walls,
no carpet on the floors.
It was just sawdust, right?
Hey you know it's not the building isn't important.
Well the building is kind of important.
You know it was important to God in the book of Exodus.
He made them make beautiful things
and he actually picked people that could actually
do the detailed work that was needed for the clothes.
They had to make clothes.
They had to make like the Umin and Thurman
and the breastplate and all that stuff
and it took skilled people,
skilled laborers to do these works.
Do you think that God was just going to grab somebody
from a temp service and say,
hey make these ouches of gold and cut these stones
and write the children of Israel's names on these stones
and then put them within this breastplate.
Do you think he's just going to find someone
from the daily labor place to do that?
No, he's going to find people that have the skills
to do those things.
But it wasn't just the fact that God gave them these skills.
Why do you think he gave them these skills?
He gave them to them because they were already hard workers.
That's my, I mean it doesn't say that,
but like I mean honestly God,
he really preaches against a lot in the Bible
people that are slothful,
people that are sluggards.
You know they're going to starve in the wintertime
when they're supposed to,
because look if you're not doing the work already,
God's not going to just pick you for really important jobs.
And you're like, well this isn't that important.
It was important to God.
God commanded it to be done,
so obviously it was important.
Now think about this in the New Testament.
We're commanded to go to church.
We're commanded to meet together, right?
And do you think God,
I mean obviously we don't have to worry
about having stained glass windows
and all this other stuff,
but like I said if it looked ghetto in here all the time,
you know people probably wouldn't,
they'd walk in, they'd look,
and they'd be like okay,
well I'm going to go to the white encepilcar down the street.
You know but we got to have a balance in these things.
God wants us to meet together.
Now do you think it's going to be better for us
to be able to meet in a building
where things can be a little comfortable,
things can look a little nice,
or do you think, you know,
because if we met underneath a tree,
would it still be a church?
Yeah, but would we be as effective
as we would with a building?
No, because people aren't going to,
you know people are going to want to go
where it's a little more comfortable.
And so I don't think that the building is the church.
Don't get me wrong,
I'm just saying that there's nothing wrong
with having a nice looking building
and things done in an excellent way.
So let's look back at our text in Exodus chapter 36.
Look at verse one.
So like I said, the title of the sermon
is Wise-Hearted Servants of God.
And my goal for this sermon is to try to help us
to understand what it takes to become
a wise-hearted servant of God.
Look at verse number one.
It says,
And then wrought Bezileel and Aholiyab
and every wise-hearted man in whom the Lord put wisdom
and understanding to know how to work all manner of work
for the service of the sanctuary
according to all that the Lord had commanded.
So point number one this morning is
wise-hearted servants give of their skills.
They give of their skills.
Look what it says.
It says they had wisdom and understanding.
So if you work on a job,
anybody that works any kind of job,
don't you have to,
eventually you're going to get wisdom.
You're going to get understanding how to do things.
I just think like brother Joe has a construction company
and like some people have just started working for him.
And at the beginning,
they probably don't have as much wisdom
and understanding as they will five years from now.
And so if you work hard at it,
you can get wise.
You can get understanding.
And what does that really translate into?
It translates into skills.
Right?
And so it takes time to get skills.
Now obviously God gave them a special understanding
from the Spirit of God to do the skills
that he wanted them to do.
But like I said,
these guys weren't just lazy dudes that he just picked
that were just laying in their beds at noontime
and just like,
hey, you know,
I'm going to put the Spirit of God into them
to do all this work.
No, he's going to pick the people
that are already hard workers.
So and they probably already had some type of skills
before he put this extra knowledge into them.
So it says that the Lord put wisdom and understanding
to know how to work.
See, it's not just important to work,
but it's also important to get skills to do the work
and to know how to do the work.
And it says what?
To know how to work all manner of work
for the service of the sanctuary.
And so it's really important right now,
especially moving to this new building,
that we have men and women
that can help with the service of the sanctuary.
We need to continue what we're doing here
and do it there.
But there's things that need to be done
to get it up and running.
And like I said,
we have about three weeks before our first day
at that new building,
and I want it to look nice.
I want it to look good.
And I want as many people are willing
to give their skills to go and take part in that.
These men here had great skills,
but there's a lot of people in our church
that have great skills also.
And I was thinking about just all the input
that's been going into putting this new building together.
And there's a lot of guys
that have just come together and helped out.
And I don't know if I want to embarrass everybody or whatever,
but I do want to embarrass Sean's dad
because Sean's dad was there.
Not embarrass him, but I do want to...
The Bible says we're supposed to let other men praise us.
So I'm going to praise some people, I guess, maybe today.
But brother Sean's dad came to help us figure out
any kind of electrical problems that we had.
And then brother Ryan came and helped
and brother Tony came
and we're trying to figure out the air conditioning
because the air conditioning was only working in one room.
And when you're working in the room
that has no air conditioning, it really stinks.
So there's a lot of work that had to get done.
But brother Sean's dad,
he has a knowledge and skill
with things that are mechanical,
things that are wiring and just how to do it.
Like he was like, was he an electrical engineer?
He's an electrician, okay.
So I am not an electrician.
Like if I think that something's bare,
I'm not even going to touch it.
I've never done any kind of electrical work in my life.
And so I don't have that kind of skill,
but you know what?
Brother Sean's dad does.
Brother Pat has electrical skill
and he just walked over.
And the first thing he did is just walked over
and grabbed the air conditioning little readout.
And he's like, oh, the batteries are dead.
And I thought, well, could that be the fix?
It's never that easy though, is it?
So he replaced the battery.
So we got the thing reading out
and then like they traced some things
and tried to figure everything out.
But brother Ryan,
he actually knows how to do heating and air conditioning.
Heating and air conditioning.
So he's actually a contractor that does that kind of work.
And so he got up there, you know,
and it was hot that day.
And he came to church that night
and his face was, well, he was like Moses.
Like I was going to try to put like a veil on his face
or something, right?
Because it was a white roof.
And if it's hot and it's a white roof,
guess what, it reflects off of that
and makes your face to shine, right?
And so he came in.
I was like, dang, he was up on that roof for a while.
But we got it going.
You know, it took men with skill to get that done.
So we also had the new bathrooms.
Like some of you haven't even been in there and seen it,
but we have a new area where there's bathrooms
that were installed.
And like the last thing I want
is for me to be preaching from here to here
and that someone's walking by me
to go into the bathroom all the time.
And I know you guys would do it.
So it's like, we need to build a wall.
We need to build a wall.
And so we're actually thinking about putting
like those office things that just slide into place,
but that wouldn't have been good enough.
So Brother Anthony came in and built us a wall.
Amen.
Thank you, Brother Anthony.
And so that wall went in.
So now people are gonna have to walk around
and go past the wall to go use the restroom.
And so, you know, and also it'll probably cut down
on the noise of the restroom.
You know, the toilet flushing.
I'm just like, I'm making this point.
It's like, pssshhhh.
But it takes men with skill to do those types of things.
You know, Brother Robert's texturing.
You know, he's a contractor that does painting.
And he's like got this can of texture,
which I've never seen that done before in my life either.
But I haven't even seen it yet.
I'm sure it looks nice though.
He's trying to match the texture that's on the other wall.
So the only thing I know how to do is roof houses
and put siding on.
And I haven't done either one of those in several years.
So, you know, the roof, it's already done.
So it's good to go.
I don't have these skills that these guys have
to do all this stuff.
I'm kind of like a grunt worker
when it comes to most of that stuff.
But, you know, it's important to have men with skill,
women with skill to do the work that needs to be done.
And what I'm talking about is laboring work, all right?
So these men had great skills.
Look at Genesis Chapter 47.
Keep your finger in excess.
We're going to come back to Exodus Chapter 36.
But look at Genesis Chapter 47.
Now, this is when Jacob and all the children of Israel
go back to Egypt.
They go to Egypt and Pharaoh is talking
and he wants, you know, the children of Israel
are going to go into the land of Goshen, right?
Look at verse number six in Genesis Chapter 47.
It says, the land of Egypt is before thee.
In the best of the land,
make thy father and brethren to dwell.
So Pharaoh's talking to Joseph here and it says,
in the land of Goshen, let them dwell.
And if thou knowest any, what does it say right there?
Men of activity among them,
then make them rulers over my cattle.
So even Pharaoh knows and understands that,
hey, if someone's a man of activity,
that's the ones that I want to make rulers over my cattle.
So men of activity are the people
that are going to get stuff done.
You know, and we preach the gospel to the lost a lot,
to poor people a lot, because they're the most receptive.
But like, this is true.
Most people that come and labor and do hard work
in the church are not the poor,
you know, not all poor people are lazy,
don't get me wrong.
But I'm saying the laziest people don't come
and come and work.
It's usually the middle class type people,
the laboring type people that come
and do all the work in the church.
And that's true.
And you know what?
This is a wise thing for Pharaoh to bring up and say,
hey, if you know of any men of activity,
those are the ones that I want to make rulers.
It's not the laziest people.
People would think, well, I'm a shepherd.
So I just watch these sheep just eat
and then I feed them, I water them,
and that's all there is to it.
No, sheep wander away.
Sheep leave the fold.
And Jesus talks a lot about that in the Bible,
how he goes to seek that one sheep that's lost.
And being a shepherd is a hard job.
It's harder than people would think.
Sleeping outside and camping all the time
probably isn't the most fun thing to do in the world.
But God is looking for men of activity,
just like Pharaoh was looking for men of activity.
And so again, you don't see the laziest guys
in the congregation being the busiest.
You see the ones that are men of activity
that are doing most of the work.
So what skills do you have?
And I'm talking to everybody, not just men.
I'm talking to women also.
What skills do you have that could be an asset
to your local church here?
What skills do you have?
And are you using the skills that you have from God
or are you wasting them by not doing anything with them?
We need people at this church that are willing to jump in
and chip in and do all the work together.
Because if everybody's doing everything together,
then it makes the work a lot easier too.
You ever heard that term, many hands make light work?
If it's only just one person doing something
and everybody else, one person cleaning the whole church
and everybody else making the mess,
the 99 making the mess and the one person cleaning,
that's not gonna be very good for our church.
That person's gonna wear away.
That person's gonna get resentful
because everybody's making a mess
and they're the only ones cleaning it up.
Okay, so we need people of activity,
men and women of activity that are willing to chip in
and help do the labor of this church.
Turn to Proverbs chapter 13.
Proverbs chapter 13 verse number four.
Proverbs 13 verse number four says,
the soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing.
So people that are, what's a sluggard?
Someone that moves like a slug.
You hear the slothful.
What do you think about when you think of a sloth?
They move like this, don't they?
They're really slow.
They're cute, but they're really slow.
And slugs, do you see slugs winning racing competitions
all the time with other bugs?
No, they just kind of just.
So what's God, he's showing us a picture of sluggards,
slothful people, people that just don't move very fast.
It says they hath nothing, you know, because the person,
you know, it's gonna be hard for you men if you work a job
and you're the slowest person on the crew.
Other men that are fast hate that and they like,
then they start to ridicule you behind your back,
then they start to ridicule you to your face.
First they'll try to help you, you know, hey,
do this, this is how you can do this faster.
But then they just always go back to the same way
they're doing, it's just like, I'm gonna sweep now.
We don't, you know, God doesn't like that.
Bosses don't like that.
Nobody likes when someone's just the slowest moving sloth
on the crew, okay?
So it's good to be, what's it say?
But the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.
It's not saying you are gonna be made fat.
You're gonna get fat.
Actually you'll probably get skinnier.
But the soul of the diligent.
So when you're doing all kinds of hard work
and working for the Lord, working hard at your job,
God's gonna make your soul fat.
And that is a blessing, that's not a curse.
Proverbs chapter 16 verse number three,
a couple pages over in your Bible says,
commit thy works unto the Lord
and thy thoughts shall be established.
When you commit your thoughts unto God,
your thoughts, when you commit your works, excuse me,
unto God, your thoughts are gonna be established.
God's gonna establish you.
And you know, what would thoughts be?
Well, thoughts would be learning skills, you know,
learning ways to be better at your job.
Turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter four, verse number 11.
1 Thessalonians chapter four verse 11.
Hey, if you wanna get skills, you gotta actually
put your hand to the work.
Because you're never gonna get better at something
unless you work at it, right?
I think I've told you about the paint striper,
how I hate doing the pump and all that stuff
because there's switches that you have to push and turn
and if you push the wrong one, paint's gonna fly out
or you know, something's gonna go wrong.
Like I'm scared of that pump,
I'm just not a real mechanical person like that.
But you know what, like if you learn,
if you just keep doing it, you're gonna learn how to do it
and then you're not gonna be the screw up
that blows paint all over somebody else or whatever.
You know, or paint through a place
that's not supposed to go.
There's switches, you have to turn them to load it,
to load the paint into it.
And it's not my favorite thing to do
because I always get paint on me
and I hate getting paint on me.
So I guess maybe at some point I'll learn the skill
of not getting paint on me while I'm trying to do that.
But the point is, the more you do something,
the better you're gonna get at it.
And so you're gonna learn those skills
to be able to be a skill,
to be able to add your skills to helping here at the church,
you do things and you get better at it.
You know, when Justin first started doing the counting
of the money and all that kind of stuff
and there's other guys that do that too.
But like at first, he had questions.
At first, we would have failures in the counting sometimes
and that rarely happens anymore.
You know why?
Because Justin has the skills to count the tithes and offerings.
And like I can't even remember the last time he said,
well, hey, we're $20 short here or, you know, whatever.
We have too much, we added too much, you know.
And those are minor, you know, things.
We've never had like some huge amount that was wrong,
like thousands of dollars or something like that.
But it's always something small.
But I seriously, I can't even remember the last time
that there's been a problem with that.
It's just because after five years,
he's gotten good at it, you know.
And so have the other guys.
I'm not trying to, you know, he's a holy Ab in this one.
And then there's the other men that count.
No, I'm just kidding.
But I just think of brother Justin
because he's the one that keeps track of all the stuff
and sends me the texts and all that kind of stuff.
And you know what?
He does that all the time.
He gives his time to doing that.
And I'm sure it's probably not always the easiest thing
for him to do, you know,
especially having all the children he has.
And you know, it's just every Sunday,
though, he's faithful to do that thing.
Here in 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 11, it says
that you study to be quiet and do your own business
and to work with your own hands as we commanded you.
That you may walk honestly toward them that are without
and that you may have lack of nothing.
You want to know how you're going to have lack of nothing?
Keep your mouth shut.
Do your own business and work with your own hands,
you know, as we commanded you.
See, God, you know, he would tell that to the apostle Paul.
He said if a man doesn't work, neither should he eat,
you know, and why?
Because you're supposed to work with your own hands.
You're supposed to bring in your own money.
Now, obviously, I'm not talking about
when people will have hard times, okay?
Everybody goes through times when they have hard times.
I'm talking about the people that just are too lazy
to get out there and work on their own
and bring home the bacon of their own accord
by working with their hands, just being quiet,
doing your own business.
That's what God wants.
That's what God commands men to do is to work.
So developing skills takes work.
And some people do have natural talent.
There is people that have natural talent
to be able to do certain skills,
but that only gets you so far.
If you want to be able to use your skills,
you must first develop them by working hard,
by doing things over and over and over again,
and you're going to get better.
You know, there's no shortcut to hard work.
There's no shortcut to that.
You just have to work hard.
You have to be diligent.
You have to, you know, work with your own hands.
You know, there's three different types of way
that people learn.
Like, you know, some people can just learn by audible.
You know, someone tells you to do something,
they can just do whatever that person repeated.
Some people have to be shown and taught.
You know, it's like a combination of the two,
but then some people just have to do it themselves.
Someone can explain it over and over and over again.
That's me.
Someone has to explain it to me over and over and over again,
but until I get my hands on it
and actually figure it out for myself,
I'm never going to learn by just someone
just telling me instructions.
I'm not.
You know, especially if it's something I've never done before
or if it's out of my wheelhouse.
You can sit there and explain how to get to a certain place
and people, you know, those people are like,
well, if you go here, you turn left
and then you go to the oak tree, turn right
and then like give you like 10 different ways of directions.
They've already lost me at the first one.
I can read a map.
I could get around with a map if I had to,
but someone telling me how to get someplace
and explaining every instruction,
I'm never going to find that place.
I'm always going to get lost every single time.
But sometimes it's just a combination of those things.
You know, you hear, you see, you do.
You know, and that's me.
I have to kind of have the whole enchilada,
the whole burrito has to be for me to be able to learn it all.
So point number two is that wisehearted servants
give of their time.
Not only do wisehearted servants give of their skills,
but they also give of their time
because giving isn't always just necessarily
about monetary money.
Throwing money at the problem doesn't always help.
Sometimes it takes time out of your own schedule
to be a wisehearted servant.
Doesn't, you know, people will be like,
you know, people in the charity,
you just want the people's money.
No, that's not true.
I want your time.
I want your skills.
I want, you know, whatever you have to offer.
You know, it's not just about someone
dropping money in the plate.
Because dropping, we could drop all the money
in the plate that we wanted to in this church.
And you know, without the skills to be able to do those things,
obviously I could pay someone else to do it.
But like, then where are you going to get the blessing from?
If we just paid these contractors
to do every single thing in our building all the time,
then where, you know, did God do that
when he built the tabernacle?
Or did he take from his own people and say,
hey, let's get this done together?
Let's get this done.
So wisehearted servants, point number two,
give of their time.
And so look at verse number two back in our text.
Verse number two, it says,
and Moses called Basilio in an Ohio lab
and every wisehearted man,
so he's calling the people that God picked, right,
and says, in whose heart the Lord had put wisdom,
even everyone whose heart stirred him up
to come unto the work to do it.
So sometimes, you know, when there's a lot,
you know, we have busy schedules in this church.
Everybody here is busy, you know.
But sometimes God stirs people's hearts up
to do certain things.
And a lot of times if you look up the term
stirred up in the Bible, it's a negative thing happening
because of something that's sinful that's happened.
But in this instance, it's obviously not.
Their heart was stirred up to come onto the work to do it.
And you know what, if you come to the work to do it,
you know what that takes?
It takes time.
It takes time out of your busy schedule.
Oh, I've already worked 10 hours today.
You know, but there's been people that have been coming
that are working several hours a day
and they're still coming and doing the work.
You know why?
Because they're a wisehearted servant
that's giving of their time.
And that time is important.
You know, time is something, you know,
when people feel like their time's being wasted,
it annoys them.
And so we need to be people that, you know,
when we're, if we're gonna be wisehearted servants,
we need to not just give of our skills, you know.
It'd be one thing to just walk in and say,
hey, this is how you do this, this is how you do this,
then you just like walk out.
Do it like this, bye.
You know, someone can have skills,
but then they don't give of their time
to actually see the work done.
So what's great about our church is that we have
a lot of people willing to help get things done,
which I really appreciate.
And that actually takes effort to do that.
That takes time out of your busy schedule to work for God.
Because you're not working, I mean, you could say,
yeah, we're working for the church.
Yeah, we are doing that.
You're helping the pastor out.
Yeah, you're doing that too, but ultimately,
what the Bible teaches is that when you're working
and you're laboring this type of labor
and you're giving of your time, you're doing it for God.
You're not doing it for yourself or other people
or the accolades, you're doing it for God.
That's the right attitude and heart to have about it.
So how about you?
Is your heart stirred up to help with the work
that needs to be done for our new building?
Are you, is your heart stirred up to do other things
to help maintain this building once we get into it?
You know, because maybe some people don't have the time.
Maybe some people are working out of town.
They just can't, you know, they can't get here.
I understand those things.
But what I'm talking about is something that takes,
that we're gonna have to be doing
as long as we're in this building.
You know, can you come up with solutions?
Can you come up with the time to just come and help?
You know, a lot of the ladies,
they're busy with their children,
but they still come every single week here
and help clean this building.
And you know what, it takes time
out of their homeschooling schedule.
It takes time out of their cooking and cleaning
or whatever they're doing
and taking care of the children and changing diapers
and potty training and all this other stuff.
It takes time.
So it's not just, like I said,
it's not just a spiritual thing.
It's a physical labor.
And you know what physical labor takes?
It takes time.
So when you're doing, sometimes as a contractor,
you do something that's called time and materials.
So that's how you charge for labor.
If you don't have a specific contract written out,
you're like, well, this is how much time
I'm gonna charge you for the time and for the labor.
And those two components get charged to that homeowner
or whoever it is to get the work done
because it takes time.
And you have to pay people a certain amount
of money per hour.
And so it's not, like I said,
I'm not talking about spiritual stuff.
We work and do spiritual labor,
which is physical labor also
because soul winning is like a combination
of those two things, right?
Soul winning is like you're out laboring
and depending on how hot it is
or how receptive it is,
you can be working really, really hard.
But even when you just knock the first door
and the person gets saved,
you're still having to preach to them
and that takes something out of you, doesn't it?
It makes you feel really tired when you're done
preaching the gospel to somebody and getting them saved.
But you know what?
It's all worth it.
So moving pews, moving and putting together chairs,
cleaning the building, cleaning the toilets,
fixing the air conditioning, building walls,
gates, mudding, taping, painting, texturing,
ripping out carpet, installing carpet,
making a pulpit, making a backdrop,
taking out the trash and recycling.
All these things take time, you know?
And we need people in this church
that are willing to work and put their skills in place,
but also to take the time to do those things.
You know what?
These wise-hearted men,
their heart was stirred up to them
to come to the work to do it.
And again, that takes time.
Turn to Haggai chapter 1.
Haggai or Haggai, however you want to call it.
Some people say Haggai, some people say Haggai.
But Haggai, Haggai chapter 1, verse 14.
The Bible says in Haggai chapter 1, verse 14,
and the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel,
the son of Sheltiel, governor of Judah.
So this guy is a governor.
This guy is the ruler of the people, right?
And it says, and the spirit of Joshua, the son of Josedek.
And this is the high priest.
It says, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people.
And they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God.
So sometimes it takes people to get stirred up,
and that's kind of one of the purposes of this sermon,
is to stir people up to want to do some of the physical things
and the labor that needs to be done in our church.
People that want to volunteer.
Because nobody's getting paid for it, right?
It's a volunteer thing.
But you are getting paid for it, though.
You are getting paid for it, though.
You're getting rewards in heaven for those things.
Because they do turn into, they are a spiritual thing
when you think about it,
because it's adding to the spirituality of our church.
Now, again, I don't want you to get the wrong idea,
because we're not building some kind of temple.
We're not building something.
We're not making you put gold moldings all over everything.
Nobody's asking you to just give talents of gold to build this thing.
But back then, that was what was done.
That's what God commanded.
So wouldn't you think, though,
that God would like our building to at least be presentable
and look nice to a certain degree?
It doesn't have to be like the temple that they built,
like the Zerubbabel built and all the remnant of the people.
It doesn't have to be as beautiful as the tabernacle
with all the different cunning work and everything that was done.
But shouldn't it look somewhat decent?
I think it should.
And you know what?
It's going to take time to do that.
It's not just something you can just slap together and be done with.
So let me ask you this.
Are you stirred up to do the work that needs to be done in our church?
And I pray that that would be something that you would think about and contemplate
and say, hey, am I giving a little bit of my time to help this church go?
Because it can't be done by one person.
It has to be done by a group effort.
And it does take time.
And it has to be done on purpose.
We have to purpose in our heart to do these things.
Point number three, wisehearted servants give of their treasure.
Wisehearted servants give of their treasure.
Look at verse number three back in our text.
Verse number three back in our text in Exodus chapter 36.
Verse number three, it says,
and they received of Moses all the offering
which the children of Israel had brought for the work of the service of the sanctuary
to make it with all and they brought yet unto him free offerings every morning.
Now I'm not asking you to bring free offerings every morning.
But this is what the children of Israel were doing so that this could get done.
Right?
It says in verse four,
and all the wise men that wrought all the work of the sanctuary
came every man from his work which they made.
And it says,
and they spake unto Moses saying that people bring much more than enough
for the service of the work which the Lord commanded to make.
So God commanded all this stuff to be done.
And you know, things aren't going to get done
unless we bring forth our treasure to help get it done.
Do you know that it costs money to put a new sign up?
Do you know that it costs money to put, you know,
all this brand new carpet in?
You know that it costs money to have walls built and windows installed?
You know that it costs money to paint the building?
And so how did that get done in the Old Testament in this chapter?
Well people brought, you know, out of their treasure and helped.
So they, not only did they bring their skills,
not only did they put their time in the work,
but they also brought their own money to help get it done.
Right?
And so did the Lord command us to congregate as a church?
Yes or no?
Do we have a building?
Yes or no?
Do we have to have a building to be a church?
No?
Do we have to have a bigger building than this one right now?
Do we have to?
No, we don't have to.
But what if we want to grow?
What if we want, you know,
because isn't it about just the kingdom of God growing?
And so in order to have the kingdom of God grow,
and if we're congregating in a building,
you know, we want the building to be able to fit
the size of the people that we have.
And so if we want to do that, guess what,
it's going to, if we have a new building,
guess what, it costs more money to run that.
It costs more time to do it because it's a bigger building.
But, you know, am I talking about financial support?
Yes, I am talking about financial support.
So are you supporting the work of God?
You know, and again, I don't look at what everybody gives
and I don't try to figure out what everybody makes
based upon what they give because I'm just,
that's just weird.
You know, I don't do that and I don't care.
But what I do want to ask is,
are you actually supporting the work here
or are you just a welfare child?
You know, and if people, there's,
because in any church, and I'm not saying in this one,
I'm just saying, but it could be, I don't know.
I don't know what you think about tithes and offerings,
but some people are like, well, it doesn't say
we have to give in the New Testament.
Well, but yeah, it kind of does.
I don't have time to preach that whole sermon
and I'm not going to right now, but it, you know,
in the New Testament, it talks about how, you know,
the man of God is supposed to live off the things
that are brought, have to live off the gospel.
It talks about, you know, giving with a good heart, right?
And why would you have to say something
that the Bible has already said that you're supposed to do?
You know, why would you, because didn't Abraham
give tithes of all?
Didn't Isaac give tithes of all?
Didn't Jacob give tithes of all?
Was that in the Old Testament?
Yeah, it was, but it was before the law.
And then the law reiterates it.
You know, did the law command to be circumcised?
Yes, it did, but Abraham was told to circumcise
before the law was even put into place.
So there's just certain things that are in the Bible
and it's like, well, it doesn't really,
a tithe means a tenth.
It means a tenth of all your income.
And most people here are dealing money.
Does anybody in here deal with cattle?
Does anybody here deal with sheep?
Are you guys sheep farmers in here?
Do you deal with goats?
Does anybody here a farmer that actually sells
farming stuff to a store?
No?
Because everybody in here deals with money.
And so when it's talking about, you know,
people are like, they get all hung up on this stuff.
But look, if what you earn just is money,
then bring that forth.
Bring forth what God said to do.
And you know why?
It's not for my sake.
It's for God's sake.
Because God commanded us to do that, right?
So if we're not giving unto the Lord
what he's already allowed us to have,
then what's the Bible teach about that?
The Bible teaches that you're basically stealing from God.
You're robbing God.
Now, we don't have to have a new building.
We don't have to.
You know, we could just cram 95, 100 people in this room
and just be like, you know what?
I don't want the congregation to grow any bigger.
You know, I'm just like one of these weird guys
that just, I don't want a big church.
The Bible doesn't teach that.
Okay, we'll go back into the book of Acts
and see how big that church was.
3,000 people saved one day, baptized, you know,
and they were added unto the church.
There was already 120 or whatever
going to the church at that time,
so there was 3,120, I guess.
But I want to grow this church.
I want it to get bigger.
And you know, there's a rule called the 80-20 rule.
That 80-20 rule is if every seat is filled in here,
which is basically kind of how it's been lately,
then people are going to come and they're going to be like,
there's no place to sit.
I'm just going to go.
Or I'm going to go find someplace else
where it's a little more comfortable.
The 80-20 rule is like you should have about 20% room left
for other people to come in.
And as long as you always have that,
then the church will continue to grow.
But that's any kind of thing like that.
But we want the church to grow,
not numerically so we can get the tithe money
and all that stuff.
Well, we do want it to be numerically,
but we want it to be done for the right reasons.
We want spiritual people in here.
We want people to love the Lord and want to learn the Bible,
and they want to help with the things of the Lord
and all that kind of stuff.
We want to teach them the Bible, get them baptized,
and all that good stuff,
help them to train their children and all that.
But it's not just so we can just add numbers.
Numbers are great, and the Bible teaches.
There's a book called Numbers, right?
Where it keeps track of all the numbers and stuff.
There's all kinds of numerical things
accounted for in the Bible.
But we want to help build the kingdom of God
so that more people get saved.
And the only way to do that is to get a bigger building,
lengthen the stakes, make the tent bigger.
As it talks about in the book of Isaiah,
that if you're running out of room,
we need a bigger room.
But here's my point.
Without money, we can't do that.
And so when we're moving into it,
this new building is going to cost more money.
And so I'm just trying to exhort people to,
if you're not already giving to the ministry here,
then you should start.
You know why you should start?
Because God is cursing you if you don't.
You're like, you're after our money, Pastor Thompson.
Whatever.
You know, I give to this church.
I give the tithe, the full tithe.
And so why would I not expect other people
to do the same thing?
God expects people to do the same thing.
And you are cursed if you don't do it.
And I'll get to that here in just a second.
But we can only do what the treasury we have
will allow us to do.
And so these people, they didn't mind giving.
They brought so much that they had to turn them away
and say, stop bringing this stuff.
We got everything we need.
But you know, that church in the wilderness
was at that point, and they had everything they needed.
But do you think that our church is at that point?
Do we have everything that we need?
I'm just like, here's your tithe check back.
We have everything we need.
But we're not there, guys.
And so we do need people to financially invest
in this church.
And what it is is you're just already giving back
what God allowed you to have in the first place.
And so really, God's just like, here's 100% of your money.
I'm just asking you by faith to give 10% back.
And then people are like, well, I'm just going to give 5%.
You know what?
You might as well just give zero.
Because you're already going to be cursed anyway.
You're like, well, that 5% is going to do something.
Yeah, it's going to curse you.
That's what it's going to do.
That 5% is going to curse you.
So you might as well just be a greedy Jew and not,
and just keep all your money for yourself.
And it's funny that people will just be like,
have this kind of attitude where they're just like,
you know, they got plenty.
We got paint on the walls.
We got all the stuff we need.
We got chairs.
Hey, there's always something that needs to be done.
There's always something that costs something.
And just like, if things will just come out of nowhere,
and I was like, oh, OK.
So things just come out of nowhere,
and we always need more money.
That's not so I can have my lavish Hawaiian vacation home
that I don't have.
It's not so I can eat at Black Angus every night,
which doesn't happen.
It's not so I can just do whatever I want,
whenever I want.
That's not true.
It's so that we need money to make this machine run.
And look, I'm not trying to make people feel bad or anything.
I'm trying to make you feel good.
I want to help you.
Because if you're a person that goes to this church
and you don't tithe, then you are cursed.
Look at verse number six in our text here.
It says, Moses gave commandment,
and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp,
saying, let neither man nor woman make any more work
for the offering of the sanctuary,
so the people were restrained from bringing.
You know, I'd love that to happen someday.
I'd just say, you know what?
You guys are just so great.
Just stop bringing money.
You know, that'd be great.
But that's probably not likely going to happen.
And it says in verse seven,
for the stuff they had was sufficient
for all the works to make it and too much.
It was just too much.
There comes a point where you can have too much.
And these people were so wise-hearted
that they were just like, you know what?
God's blessed me.
I'm going to give what I can and help this thing get done.
So, but again, we don't have that problem at this church.
We don't have so much that I'm just going to start
giving you back your money.
And anyway, you know, the tithe belongeth
unto the Lord, right?
It belongs to God.
So, but if you're not trusting God with your finances,
you are being cursed.
Make no mistake about it.
Look at Malachi chapter three.
You're like, that's in the Old Testament.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, right?
So it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof,
for instruction and righteousness to the man of God.
You know, maybe throughly furnished unto all good works.
I know I didn't quote that, right?
But all scripture is given to us, right?
Malachi chapter three, verse eight.
The Bible says, Will a man rob God?
Yet you have robbed me.
But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee?
What's God saying?
In tithes and offerings.
You're cursed with a curse.
So what happens if you rob God
and you don't give the tithes and offerings
that you're supposed to give?
You're cursed with a curse.
Who wants to be cursed with a curse in here?
Anybody?
Will you raise your hand if you want?
Yes, I would love to be cursed with a curse.
I mean, you'd have to be an idiot
to want to be cursed with a curse, right?
But look what it says.
For you have robbed me, even this whole nation.
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse,
all of them, not just some of them, all of them,
that there may be meat in mine house,
and prove me now herewith.
So this is one of the promises of God
that if you keep this commandment,
God's saying, hey, prove me with this.
Prove it.
Sayeth the Lord of hosts,
If I will not open you the windows of heaven
and pour you out a blessing,
that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
Who wants to be blessed like that?
Where you're just blessed so much
that God just pours out a blessing
that there's not room enough to receive it.
And am I telling you that you're going to just have
a Lamborghini delivered to your front house?
No, I'm not saying that.
I'm not saying that you're going to have
all the monetary wealth that you could ever imagine.
It says a blessing.
There's lots of things that are blessings in our lives, right?
But I'll tell you what.
You know, if you give to the Lord,
He is going to bless you.
He is going to take care of you.
And guess what?
The most important thing is that you're not going to be cursed.
Because what happens if you're cursed?
Then God, you know, He just has a funny way
of taking it out on you.
You know, you're like, well, you know,
I can't really afford a Tide
because I bought this brand new vehicle.
Just can't afford to give now.
You know, I really put myself in a pickle
and I feel bad about it.
You know what?
That car is probably going to,
the engine is going to blow.
You know, the tires are going to blow.
It's going to have problems.
God has a way of cursing you.
And it says in verse 11, it says,
and I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes.
So if you get the blessing by giving unto the Lord the tithe,
He says He will rebuke the devourer.
So what does that mean that if you don't give the tithe,
the devourer will not be rebuked?
And I don't know who this devourer is,
but he doesn't sound like a very nice person.
It sounds like he wants to take things from you.
And so you might be like, well, I'm saving all this money.
Guess what?
God's going to make a way for that money
to just disappear out of your bank account.
Whether it's some kind of hospital bill,
whether it's some kind of unforeseen circumstances.
But I'll tell you this,
if you don't give of the tithe,
then God's not going to rebuke the devourer.
He says you're cursed with the curse.
He says, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground.
Neither shall your vine cast her fruit
before the time of the field, saith the Lord our host.
And all nations shall call you blessed,
for you shall be a delightsome land,
saith the Lord our host.
So hey, you want the blessings of God
to be poured out upon you?
Then give God what He already told you to give.
And let me just tell you this,
once you give the tithe, it's the Lord's.
It's the Lord's.
You know, there's these churches that are around
and they sit there and like I said,
they lord over the pastor.
Little old ladies in the church on a business meeting,
I've seen it done.
Or the women are telling the pastor
what kind of toilet paper he needs to buy.
And what building project that they want to accomplish.
It's like that's not your job.
Where do you ever see that in the Bible?
You don't see it.
You know, so what happens with the money
is done by the person that rules the church,
that's the pastor, okay?
And it's not your job to just sit there and go,
well, I gave this and I just don't feel like,
you know, the pastor's using the money wisely.
Well, if that's true, then just get rid of the pastor.
If you don't feel that way, then just get rid of me.
But I'm just gonna do what I think is right
and I'm gonna give to the missionaries
that I want to give to,
that I think are doing the most work.
Brother Stuckey gets money from our church,
or the ministry there gets money from our church.
So why?
Because they're getting 126 people saved every single week.
156 people saved, 200 people.
I mean, they're just getting massive amounts of people saved.
And I want to invest that money
into someone that's actually gonna do the work
and get out there and get off their hind end and do something.
You know, Brother Stuckey's one of those guys.
He's a man of activity.
He's already started another church there
under Pastor Mendez's leadership.
And you know, they're doing great works for God.
So why wouldn't I invest that money in that?
But there's people in other churches,
and I'm not talking about our type of church.
Like, we're gonna give the pastor,
or we're gonna give this missionary,
all the missionaries an equal amount of money.
Who's been in a church like that?
I went to a church called Riverview Baptist.
It's in Tri-Cities.
And they have like,
how many missionaries do they have, Brother Eli?
But they have like a whole wall
that's just like dedicated to all these missionaries
that they give like 25 bucks a month to or something.
It might be more than that, I'm not sure.
But you know, that's cool.
But you know, some of those missionaries
are probably doing a better job
than the other missionaries are.
I want to invest more in the missionaries
that are actually doing something for God
than the ones that aren't.
So I don't know why I brought all that up.
But I'm just saying that the money that you put in,
your job as a church member
is to put the tithe in the offering plate.
And then let God do with that money
what he intends to do.
And so God is going to rebuke the devourer for yourself,
for your sake.
He's gonna open up the windows of heaven,
and he's gonna pour out a blessing upon you.
And whatever that blessing is, I don't know.
He just says he's gonna pour out a blessing on you.
Prove me, prove me.
And you know what?
If you have the faith to just,
you know, when your finances are not adding up,
and you're like,
I don't know how the tithe is gonna add into this.
I just don't know.
Just give it.
It's gonna add up.
Trust me.
I've proved God therewith with this doctrine.
And you know what?
God's never gonna let you down.
He's never, he's not gonna be like,
what's, he's never gonna,
what's that Rick roll?
He's never gonna Rick roll yet.
He's never gonna give you up.
He's never gonna let you down.
You know, he's not gonna do any of that.
God is not gonna Rick roll you.
He's gonna take care of you.
All right.
So you just do what God says,
and then just let the blessings come.
Turn to Matthew chapter,
turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 7.
I'm gonna read Matthew 621.
Matthew 621 says,
for where your treasure is,
there where your heart be also.
If your treasure is never going into the church,
your heart's not gonna be into the church either.
2 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 7 says,
every man according as he purposeth in his heart,
so let him give.
Not grudgingly or of necessity,
for God loveth a cheerful giver.
Now this is not in the context of tithing,
just so you know.
It's in the context of just,
because you know,
I'm not saying,
you know,
I believe that if you give the tithe,
you're right with God.
But doesn't the Bible say tithes and offerings?
So sometimes it's good to give to people that are poor.
And you don't have to blow a trumpet when you do it.
But that's kind of what this is talking about,
when you know,
when you're doing like an extra offering.
There is extra offerings in the Bible.
And I don't think we've ever called for one at this church,
where I said,
hey, let's just do an extra offering.
I've never done that.
But you know,
there's poor people that could use your help.
And you know,
sometimes that's gonna cut into you and hurt you.
But you know what God said?
You know,
let me borrow and I'll always pay you back.
You know,
if you give that money to someone,
you're lending to the Lord.
That's what the Bible teaches.
And you know what?
He doesn't give usury.
He doesn't take usury from you.
He actually gives it back to you just as if,
you know,
and so we can give it a lot of different ways.
But these men here,
these people at this time,
when they were making the tabernacle,
they gave of their treasure every day.
Every morning they were bringing all this stuff.
You know why?
They cared.
They were invested into this ministry.
They were invested into the commandment
that God brought forth unto Moses.
Turn to,
I'm gonna have to make my last point here
because I'm running out of time here.
But point number four,
before I go to point number four,
I just want to read this scripture for you.
You know,
talk about the guy in Luke chapter 12.
This says I'm gonna build bigger barns.
And you know,
I'm gonna say to my soul,
that has much goods laid up for many years.
So the people that are greedy
and just want to build their own retirement fund
and all this other stuff,
and they don't care about the things of God.
It says in Luke chapter 12 verse 21,
actually Luke chapter 12 verse 20 says,
But God said unto him,
Thou fool this night,
thy soul shall be required of thee.
Then who shall those things be,
which thou hast provided?
You're gonna lose everything anyway.
So you might as well invest in the things of the Lord.
It says in verse 21,
So is he that layeth up treasure for himself,
and is not rich toward God.
See, we need to be rich toward God
and the things of God,
and not just be thinking about ourselves
and our own money all the time.
Point number four,
last point,
Wise-hearted servants give great workmanship.
So it's not enough to just,
you know,
give of your time,
give of your skills.
You know,
it's not enough to just give of your treasure,
but we need to do the best work that we possibly can.
Because do you think that when they were done with this,
that it looked that the workmanship was all crappy?
No, it probably looked excellent.
You know,
God gave them the spirit of wisdom to do all this stuff,
and when everything was done,
it looked great.
So look at verse number eight back in our text.
It says,
And every wise-hearted man among them that wrought the work,
and what does that word wrought mean?
Like brought forth,
got the work done, right?
Excuse me.
And every wise-hearted man among them that wrought the work
of the tabernacle made ten curtains of fine twined linen,
and blue, and purple, and scarlet,
with cherubims of cunning work made he them.
So the quality of the work that they did was of cunning work.
It was fine twined linen.
It was great materials.
You know,
they didn't just buy the worst materials to get the job done.
They bought the best.
And then they used their skills, and their time,
and their workmanship,
and they made cunning work.
And cunning means possessing skill.
Possessing skill.
So cunning means,
they have this skill of cunning work,
and it says that they wrought the work.
They did the work.
It wasn't just slapped together.
Who's worked with people,
and they have the skills,
they have the time,
they have all this great knowledge and everything,
but then when they do it,
they just do it so fast and sloppily
that it just looks like crap.
That's not the kind of work that we want to do at this church.
We want to do it skillfully.
We want it to be fine twined linen,
blue and purple.
We want it to look nice when we're done with something.
So a wise hearted servant is going to give their best work
and their greatest workmanship that they can,
because ultimately you're working for God.
Colossians chapter 3 verse 23 says,
and whatsoever you do,
do it heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men.
So when you're working on stuff in this building,
or you're working on,
whether you're working on stuff at our new building,
you know,
do the best work you can.
Use your skills and do good work.
Because isn't it true that, you know,
there's a lot of talented people out in the world, right?
There's a lot of talented people out in the world,
but have you ever heard of someone's wasting their talent?
There's a lot of people that waste their talent.
They have the talent they can draw.
They're great athletes.
They have all these skills.
They're great mathematicians,
but there's a lot of people out there that don't use
the talent that they have.
They don't work hard and bring forth those skills.
And then, you know,
so a lot of people waste their talent.
A lot of people waste their skills,
and a lot of people, you know,
they care more about just getting it done
so they can just get out of there,
and they don't care about the quality of the work
that they're actually doing.
So when I roofed houses,
I was a six foot eight roofer,
which is stupid, okay?
But, you know, so my, like I wasn't,
like there's guys that can get up there and just like,
and they're usually short little Hispanic guys
that can do it, right?
I've seen some guys just like lay some squares down,
and they were just like awesome.
But that wasn't me.
I wasn't that fast, you know?
Because, you know, six foot eight guys
just aren't known to be roofers, right?
But, you know, what,
but I did care about the quality of the work that I did.
You know, when I put the pipe flashings in,
I spray painted the pipes,
and, you know, I tried to get the best materials I could,
make it look as nice as I could.
The roofs were actually straight,
not like this.
Some people just don't care.
They just slap it on, and they don't care.
But you know what?
When you're done with something,
and even if it's a roof,
most people don't care about roofs.
They don't even look at them.
They don't care.
But you know, when you're in a trade,
you always look at the stuff that you're in the trade for.
Like I'm sure brother Ryan looks at air conditioning units
all the time.
He's like, man, they need to really service that.
Look at how old that is or whatever.
But when I was roofing,
I would always look at people's houses.
I was like, man, that looks trash, you know?
And I would see people get hired over me,
and were they faster?
Yeah.
But you know, when they got done,
their roof didn't look as good as when I did it.
And my roofs didn't leak.
Isn't that the most important thing about a roof,
is that it shouldn't leak?
You know, I mean, you put a roof on.
Your job is to be a roofer, and it leaks.
You suck.
You didn't do a good job.
You ultimately failed at your own job.
You know, what is the first thing that people say,
you know, roof over ahead, food on the table.
Isn't that what they say?
And if the roof leaks, you're a failure as a roofer.
But we're supposed to do things as unto the Lord.
And I wasn't even saved when I did that,
but I cared about the workmanship.
I cared about the quality of service
that I was putting out there.
Now, in chapter 37 and 39,
I know I gotta be done here,
but it says, let's look at chapter 38, verse 22 real quick.
I just got a few more verses, and we'll be done.
Chapter 38, verse 22 says,
And Basiliel, the son of Uri and the son of her,
the tribe of Judah, made all the Lord commanded Moses.
So they did it all, everything that was done.
And with him was a holy ab and a high smack
of the tribe of Dan, an engraver and a cunning workman.
So he had possessed great skill as a workman
and an embroider in blue and in purple
and in scarlet and fine linen.
Now look over at chapter 39, verse 27.
And they made coats of fine linen of woven work
for Aaron and his sons and a mitre of fine linen
and goodly bonnets of fine linen
and linen breeches of fine twined linen
and a girdle of fine twined linen
and blue and purple and scarlet of needlework
as the Lord commanded Moses.
So not only did they give their time,
not only did they give their treasure,
not only did they give their skills,
but they also did a great quality of work
with great materials.
And so look, if you wanna be a wisehearted servant of God,
you should take these points and just apply them.
Hey, am I giving to my local church
like I should be?
Am I giving what God asked me to?
Because basically what it boils down to
is are you keeping the commandments of God?
As the Lord commanded Moses, that's what they did.
They did what God commanded them to do.
And God wants us to work for him,
not just in soul winning, not just in preaching,
not just, he wants us to labor
and make the house look good also.
And I believe that when we're done,
it's gonna look great.
And I really do appreciate all the people
that have put in their time.
And I'm not trying to make people feel guilty
that haven't been,
because there's a lot of people that do other stuff
or have done other stuff.
And I'm not trying to cut anybody down.
I just want to stir your hearts up and say,
hey, am I doing the best I can for God
in the labor that he's called me to do?
So let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, so much
for the beautiful church building that we now possess.
Lord, I pray that you'd help us to get it all done
in a timely manner, Lord.
And I just want to thank, personally,
all the people that have helped make this happen, Lord,
those people that do give to the ministry,
those people that do possess their skill
and give up their time.
Lord, I just want to appreciate them right now.
And I pray that you just give each person
that's helped a blessing.
And Lord, even people that are just watching
their own children so their husband can take
that extra time and come out and do these skills, Lord.
And for the future of our building, Lord,
let's pray that you'd help us to care about the things
that we have and the things that you've allowed us to have
and that we take care of those things.
Lord, I pray that we'd always be people
that would just do great, cunning work
and, Lord, that we would use the skills and time
and treasure to get the things done
in the best way we possibly can, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, last song is song number 81,
When We See Christ.
Song number 81, When We See Christ.
Song 81, When We See Christ.
Let's sing it out on the first.
Off times the day seems long, our trial's hard to bear.
We're tempted to complain, to murmur and despair.
But Christ will soon appear to catch His bride away,
all tears forever over in God's eternal day.
It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ.
One glimpse of His dear face, all sorrow will erase.
So bravely run the race till we see Christ.
On the second, let's sing it out on the second.
Sometimes the sky looks dark with not a ray of light.
We're tossed and driven on, no human help in sight.
But there is one in heaven who knows our deepest care.
Let Jesus solve your problems, just go to Him in prayer.
It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ.
One glimpse of His dear face, all sorrow will erase.
So bravely run the race till we see Christ.
Life's day will soon be o'er, all storms forever pass.
We'll cross the great divide to glory safe at last.
We'll share the joys of heaven, a harp, a home, a crown.
The tempter will be banished, we'll lay our burden down.
It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ.
Just one of His dear face, all sorrow will erase.
So bravely run the race till we see Christ.
Amen. Good to see you. Brother Eli, could you close the ward of prayer?