Numbers 11 and 27, I'll read it for you guys there.
It says, "And there ran a young man and told Moses and said,
"'Eladad and Midad do prophesy in the camp.
"'And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses,
"'one of his young men answered and said,
"'My Lord Moses forbid them.
"'And Moses said unto him, "End this thou for my sake.
"'Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets
"'and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them.'"
And the title of my sermon today is
"Would the God that all men preach."
And let's press pray real quick.
Dear Father God, thank you so much for this wonderful day.
Thank you so much for everything you do for me, God.
I pray that you help me to preach in a fine sermon, God,
and that you would give me a clear train of thought.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
- Amen.
- So the reason I picked this sermon today
is because I find something interesting that happens
when it comes to the subject of men preaching in church.
And that is this idea that the only people
that could come up behind this pulpit and preach
are the people that are called to preach
is what they say a lot in the old IFB.
Or you have to be wanting to go to the ministry
to come up and preach.
Or you have to have the gift of prophecy
to come up and preach.
But this is something that I absolutely disagree with.
And I don't think it's in the Bible.
And surely I would say that Moses here would agree with me
because he's saying, "Word to God
that all the Lord's people are prophets," right?
And so, you know, as a man in here,
they get this idea that if I'm not gonna be a pastor,
I shouldn't come up and preach.
And maybe you're not gonna be a pastor,
but that's not the only purpose
of coming up and preaching in the first place.
It's just, you know, that you're trying
to get your qualifications for being a pastor
or anything like that.
The purpose of preaching is for the perfecting of the saints,
it's for the edification of the saints, right?
You don't have to be a pastor
to edify people, and even if you don't have a desire
to be in the ministry, I would still encourage you
to come up and preach.
But why is that?
Because here's the thing, you know,
the Bible says that as a church,
we're one body made up of many members, right?
At your church, there's one body made up
of many members, and Paul dedicates a whole chapter
in 1 Corinthians 12 to the idea that yeah,
we do have our differences, but God makes us different
and draws those different kinds of people to the church
so that we can be one big successful body, right?
And so the thing is that God places all kinds
of different people in the church,
and you may not be like anybody else,
but you don't need to be like anybody else
'cause God made you the way you are on purpose, right?
And we have all different kinds of gifts in the church
and different strengths in the church, right?
But here's the thing, because our brains work differently
and because we have different life experience
or because we have different interpretations
or anything like that in the scripture,
there's gonna be things that I could teach you
that you never would've learned on your own.
And there's gonna be things that every man in this room
could teach me that I never would've learned on my own either.
That doesn't mean just pastors, that means everybody.
You know, and would to God that all men
would come up and preach.
And so this applies to every man,
therefore every man is necessary.
And because every man in here is different,
even if you are just a layman,
as people would say or whatever,
doesn't mean that you still don't have something
that you can edify people with.
The Bible says in First Corinthians, you know,
that all may get up one by one,
the preach that all may learn is what the Bible says there.
And you know, you can get pretty sharp on yourself
by just reading the Bible.
You can be pretty sharp in reading the Bible.
But you know, eventually it takes some other iron
to kind of round you off completely, right?
There's only so much you can learn by yourself
because everyone has blind spots.
And just like a quick example of this,
I think there's a guy, you know,
there's a guy in my church named Sean Coleman.
He's very like picture oriented when he's reading the Bible.
Very good at spotting different kinds of pictures
in the Bible.
My brain doesn't do that.
I just like straight, very plain, you know,
kind of reading, you know?
So there's things he teaches me all the time
about the Bible that it's just like,
I never would have saw that because my brain's like,
you know, maybe Jesus is the rock.
That's like, seems like an accurate picture, right?
Like that's the furthest my brain goes on the pictures,
right?
Just 'cause we're different, right?
But our differences is our strength.
And the world's obsessed with diversity,
but you know, more important than the diversity
of skin color is the diversity of thought, right?
And the diversity of the gifts of the spirit, right?
But here's the thing about this,
and people will make a lot of excuses
why they don't want to come up and preach.
They'll say like, "I don't have the gift of prophecy."
But it's like, there's tons of gifts in the Bible,
like the gift of wisdom and the gift of knowledge,
gift of the turning of spirits, right?
Just because you have the gift of wisdom,
does that mean you have no wisdom at all
to give to anybody else?
No, right?
Because you don't have the gift of knowledge,
does that mean you have no knowledge at all, right?
No, it's just saying that's not your best thing
in the world, but you don't have to be the best preacher
to come up here and edify everybody, right?
And it's not you that's edifying,
it's the spirit of God that's in you
that's edifying people.
And the thing about preaching is this,
is that it's not for self glorification, it's for the people in this room, not to make yourself
look good.
Hey, if you're not a good preacher, that's really what every single good preacher of
all time always says.
I'm not a good preacher.
It's like, there has to be some good ones though, right?
But it's like, and people will get scared like they're going to make a mistake.
But look, the only way you grow as a Christian is by making mistakes, you know, and men just,
I think it's just pride, they just get embarrassed or scared like, I'm going to come up here
and say something wrong.
It's like, join the club.
Everybody does, right?
But look, the only way you're going to get better at preaching is by getting up and preaching
in the first place.
Nobody starts out good at anything that you do.
Nobody does, right?
If you want to be a better preacher, come up here and preach.
It doesn't matter.
If you come up here and suck, who cares?
Everybody has a bomb sermon once in a while.
Everybody who starts out preaching, they don't preach like the best sermon of all time, right?
Who cares?
If you come up and make a mistake, nobody remembers it in a year anyways, right?
But what people will remember is the sermons that they hear and the edifications they get
from those scriptures when you're dividing them, when you're interpreting them to people.
That can stick with people the rest of their life, but your mistake isn't going to stick
with people, right?
So don't let pride keep you from that, but also people will also say, you know, "I don't
know the Bible very well, so I'm not going to give them preach."
The best way to learn the Bible or the best studies I've ever had in the Bible is when
I have to preach on that chapter and I'm like, "Okay, I need to know this," right?
Because if you know you're getting up before a congregation that knows their Bible well,
that is a great pressure to you to know the Bible and to get up and preach it well, right?
And to learn the Bible and to study it on your own.
I think that's why women have a disadvantage sometimes because they don't come up and preach
so they don't really have sometimes reasons they feel like to study, right?
Obviously we can still study for like soul learning and stuff like that.
But this sermon is to every man.
Every man is different, therefore you have something you can add to a conversation, there's
something that you can add to preaching, okay?
And I'd also say thirdly, you know, it's good to come up and preach this because pastors
need help, pastors need men to preach and fill the pulpit when they're not going to
be there in the first place.
But you know, when it comes to just being different and preaching, don't get this idea
that you have to be the best slice bread to come up and be a preacher.
You can come up and NFI people if you have the Holy Spirit in your heart, right?
And trust on God to work through you.
Don't work on yourself.
Because if you suck in the flesh, you're not a natural orator, hey, that's probably
more likely that God's going to use you, right?
Because then he gets all the glory for you, right?
So that being said, you know, I just want to encourage everybody, get up and preach.
When you have the opportunity to preach, get up and preach, even if it's not the wow factor
sermon of all time, it doesn't need to be.
What you should be focused on is helping everybody in this room improve little by little.
With that being said, let's pray.
Dear Father God, I thank you so much for this wonderful day, I thank you so much for what
you do for me, God.
I just pray that you'd be with the next preacher and help us to all preach things that are
edifying God.
Do you say we pray?
Amen.
Okay, I'm just going to pluck a verse out of Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4 and it says,
"And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord."
So I'd really like to pastor a sermon about being someone's hero and I wanted to hone
in on just kind of one element of parenting and raising kids.
You have to praise your children.
How many people here have a son specifically or children if not a son?
Probably more than half.
One element of parenting is you have to, at the appropriate time, praise them.
The Bible also says that the Father is the glory of the children.
Kids give their identity, they give their self-confidence.
The person that they are, they're taking it directly from their parents.
They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
The things that you encourage, the things that you praise about your kid, those are
going to be the things they hold on to.
They make that their personality, they make that their identity.
When Dad gives you a high-five, when Dad says, "Hey, you did a good job," that sticks with
those kids for their entire life, and that's molding them and encouraging them and helping
them to become the person that they are.
Kids that never get any positive feedback from their parents, you know, a lot of the
time they have developmental problems, they have confidence issues.
So we're raising kids, we're asking a lot of them in this next generation.
We're bringing them into a really weird, difficult world, and they need to go into this world
with that reinforcement from their parents that they were taught.
We trained them, we corrected them, we built them up, but then when it's time for them
to go, they need to go knowing that my parents believe that I can do this, I'm grounded,
I have some confidence from my parents.
That's going to help them mentally and emotionally.
So I wanted to just give one example of this.
We have in 1 Kings chapter 2, this is the chapter where Solomon's getting ready to take
over as David's getting older, and David's asking a lot of them.
He puts a big job in front of Solomon.
Right off the bat, Solomon has to take care of Joab, he has to take care of Shimei, he
has to make a lot of moves in his first week or whatever, and I want to just highlight
a couple of things that David says.
I'm going to turn to 1 Kings chapter 2, and I just want to point out that as David is
passing the baton to Solomon, in two verses of this chapter, he reassures Solomon, "Hey,
you're wise."
He praises him for his wisdom, he builds him up, and he gives him confidence by explaining
that he's wise.
So I'm just going to kind of skim a couple of verses.
Verse number one, it says, "Now the days of David's Unite, that he should die, and he
charged Solomon his son, saying, 'I go the way of all the earth, be thou strong therefore,
and show thyself a man.'"
Now I think you guys know the chapter, and I don't have time to read all of it, so I'm
going to skim down to verse six, "Do therefore according to thy wisdom, and let not his forehead
go down to the grave in peace."
So he tells him once, you know, one charge that he gives unto Solomon, he says, "Hey,
you have wisdom, so go and take care of this."
And then he gets on to Shimei, and then in verse 9 he says, "Now therefore hold him
not guiltless, for thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him."
So what did David, when the rubber hit the road at the biggest, you know, probably turning
point in Solomon's life, what does David praise him for and emphasize?
He reassures him that he's what, that he's wise.
What did David, if David could impart one thing unto Solomon, what did he impart unto
him?
I know he taught him to love the Word of God.
We know that he trained him up like that.
And so, it's no coincidence that a couple chapters later, or actually the next chapter
if I'm not mistaken, chapter three, what does Solomon, he now has the opportunity to ask
God for one thing.
God says ask me for one thing and I'll give it to you.
And what did Solomon ask for?
An understanding heart, which is just what?
Wisdom.
So guess what?
The things that you teach your kids are important.
The things that you praise your kids for and say hey, you know, great job, you did a really
good job, you know, developing this tray or this task.
They internalize that, it becomes important to them, and then what are they praying to
God for the next thing you know?
Amen.
So teach them to value the right thing.
With that, John reads next, "Pastor, thank you for putting this on me again."
We love the Mighty Men's Conference.
Now I'll just pray real quick, "Lord God, thank you for this conference, thank you for
all the good men and the good fathers in this room.
Help us to raise up a good generation.
We know that there's a lot of challenges ahead of them.
Help us to just build them up, give them confidence, and help all the men preach what's on their
heart this morning.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen."
I hope you're following along 1 Timothy chapter 4.
I do interviews, job interviews a lot.
I do an interview with a company kind of in the middle of COVID, and kind of at the end
of interviews when I get a chance to ask questions, I ask like, "Hey, what's the number one thing
in this role I could do to be successful?"
In the middle of COVID, the hiring manager just said, "Just show up."
I was just like, "Yeah, this is setting the bar pretty low, right?"
So 1 Timothy chapter 4, I want to kind of hone in on a verse here.
Look down at verse 12, "Let no man despise thy youth, be thou an example of the believers
in word, and conversation, and charity, and spirit, and faith, and purity, till I come,
give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine."
So that phrase in there, give attendance to, and so, you know, I think, you know, kind
of the modern, because there's a couple of ways to define attendance, but we like to
think of attendance as just being present, just showing up, right?
So here in this verse, it's actually a different kind of definition of that word being present.
Not just to be present, but to pay attention is what Paul's saying here, and to pay attention
to the reading, to the exhortation, to the doctrine when it's being preached.
So, you know, I noticed a couple of things, and I love a lot of the things that we do
here, but volleyball and being in the pool is probably like my favorite thing, right?
I noticed a couple of things, one is that we had a really good show up, we had really
good attendance when we get there, and a lot of the men in there, we played volleyball
for like three hours, right?
I didn't see one man get up and go to the bathroom, myself included, okay?
But here's the thing, we had really good, we had really good attendance, everybody was
there, right?
You know, sometimes I see people on the front row, they're facing the opposing side, and
the volleyball, the ball's being volleyed right behind them by all their teammates, they're
not paying attention, they're present, they're not paying attention to the volleyball.
And you know, that's kind of the difference, a good illustration of the difference between
just being present, being in attendance, and actually paying attention to what's happening,
what's going on.
And so, you know, when we come to this verse, we see that it's not just being present for
the reading and preaching of God's Word, but actually paying attention to what's being
preached.
And so, you know, I witness, you know, the preaching of God's Word impact a lot of people's
life.
And, you know, even if you say, you know, some people would only come to church for
three months and then they fizzle out and they're out of here, right?
But if they were paying attention, they absorbed some doctrine, they got some teachings, and
maybe some of it they could be a forgetful hearer about, but not all of it they're going
to forget.
And it's going to impact their life.
Isaiah 55, I'm just going to read that, verse 11, you know, God's talking about his
word, not returning void, he says, so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth,
it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it.
So every time God's word is going forth, he has a purpose for it, he has an intent for
it.
And if you're not paying attention, that's not going to hit home, right?
And it could be that, it could be that volley, that spike that just flies right by you because
you're just spaced out and not paying attention.
And so we need to make sure that, you know, as the Word of God's being preached, you know,
whatever God has for us, we're being attentive, we're paying attention and ready to receive
what we have.
So that's my sermon.
Turn to Joshua chapter 14.
I'm sorry, Joshua chapter 7, excuse me.
Let's start out here in, I'm sorry, I said it again, Joshua chapter 14, I'm sorry, I'm
thinking about four things at once here.
Joshua chapter 14, verse 7, look at this.
This is Caleb.
He says, "40 years old was I when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me."
So when he went out to spy the land, he was 40 years old, right?
Go down to verse 10 and he says, "And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he
said these 45 years."
So 45 years later now, he's talking and now he's 85.
Now look at verse 11, "As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent
to me. The title of my sermon is "The Path to Long Term Success." Go to Joshua chapter
1, "Long Term Success." And I use this verse here in Joshua to show here's how I'm going
to define for this sermon, "Long Term Success." Can I do what I'm doing today at age 40, I'm
not 40, but at 40, when I'm 85? Can I read the Bible as much then as I am now? Can I
go to church as much then as I am now? How about this, can I go soul winning then as
much as I am now? In fact, I hope I'm doing more because I've been doing it for 40 years.
But I will be successful at that time if I can look back at this time of my life and
say, "You know what? I'm doing at least what I did then. I'm doing that now."
Joshua chapter 1, we get this pep talk from the Lord to Joshua, and we're going to skip
through it real quick, but look at verse 6. This is the Lord telling Joshua, "Be strong
and of good courage." Be strong. I don't know why, but for some reason, it never goes the
way that I'm going to go here in this sermon. I'm talking about physical strength, not a
spiritual kind of whatever. In this sermon, I'm going to talk about physical strength.
How does physical strength happen? Progressive overload. It's the only way. Either more weight
or more reps. You have to tear down the muscle to lift it back up. We've got about 85 guys
and all of us got some sort of injury. You know why? Because we're lazy and we're idle
and we sit way too much and hip flexors are going out the window. Right? But what does
God say? Be strong. That's a commandment. He didn't say, "Oh, you're going to naturally
have good strength at 80." No, you're not. There's no one in here that's 80. Why? They're
gone. I have three people in my family that can't attend church because of physical reasons.
They mentally want to do it. Can you imagine the torture of being in a new IP church for
years and years and years and all of a sudden, "Oh, I can't go to church anymore because
of my trick knee or my bad back." That would literally be torture to have to be set to
the side because you were lazy for 40 years. So point number one on our path to long-term
success is strength. How do you get strength? Don't sleep in. Go to the gym. Go to the gym.
If you say, "I can't afford it," my gym membership is $15 a month. You can't afford $15 a month,
but get a side job. But even if you can't do that, do you have a floor? Do you have
body weight? You can do push-ups. You can do sit-ups. I'm not joking. Do that 500 times.
Mike Tyson in jail had no weights and did 2,000 deep knee bends a day. Like, do you
have a chair? There's an extra 500 exercises you can come up with with a chair. There's
no excuse. Be strong. Look at verse 6. Be strong. Be of good courage. Where does courage
come from? We're talking about emotional strength. I'll tell you something. The foundation for
emotional strength is physical strength. Because you have to tell your own self, "Don't sleep
in, go to the gym." So you're crucifying your own flesh and making it do something that
it doesn't want to do. The same will transfer to emotional strength. Because you will face
things that are very hard like being afraid, but you will have the testicular fortitude
to go through it anyway because you've practiced doing it again and again and again. Look at
verse 6. Be strong and of good courage. Why? For under this people thou shalt divide.
So point 1A is we have to divide. We have to divide from wicked people. We have to divide
the word correctly. We have to divide even our own thoughts, taking every thought captive.
Right? We're dividing good thoughts from bad thoughts. All of that comes from physical
strength which then leads to mental strength. Go to verse 7. Only thou be strong. So the
Lord repeats it again. Step number 2. Be strong and be courageous. So now double your physical
efforts to strengthen yourself which will then double down your mental fortitude and
you can be very courageous. And why? And we continue in verse 7. That thou mayest observe
to do. So you got physical strength. You got mental strength. Now you can observe and do.
You can observe from the word as it says here specifically on the surface to do all. To
do according to all the law. Right? We want to follow the law. We have to observe it to
do it. But we can also observe other people. How about your hero? My hero. How about Pastor
Anderson? We love how much he reads the Bible. But do you realize he works out six days a
week? Do you everyone know that? He works out strenuously six days a week. And why does
he do that? Because out of his own mouth, he wants to be able to preach at 85 as he
does at 40. We love the example of his Bible reading. It's like, Oh, it works out. Oh,
bodily pro exercise probably. Well, yeah. You know what that profit of 50 years of working
out does? It gets you one extra decade. You either going to stop at 60 or you're going
to go to 70 because 50 years you've been working out. It literally is one decade for 40 years
of working out. I call that the strength bank. You're putting in strength in that strength
bank. And then when you're old, you were pulling from that strength bank. And then when your
strength fails, then you're done. Right? Okay. Let's carry on here. The Lord kind of wraps
it up, so to speak, in verse eight. The book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth.
Stand out. You've got great physical strength. You got mental strength. Now we're going to
give you some spiritual strength. The book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth,
but thou shall meditate therein day and night that thou mayest observe. There's that word
again. To do. There's that word again. According to all that is written therein. And then amazing
words for then, which means you ain't getting there unless you did the first couple of steps.
For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous. And then again, and then thou shalt have good
success. The only time in the entire King James Bible that the word success appears
is in that verse. It's the only time. Now there's lots of synonyms that appear, but
that's the only one there. And I look at that and I go, wow, that is amazing when there's
a word in the Bible only one time. And it's there. And it's in this strength sandwich
of physical strength and spiritual strength and the biblical strength leading to success.
And let's wrap it up here in nine. He says, have I not commanded thee, be strong. I mean,
how many times does he have to say it? Brothers don't sleep in, go to the gym, have good courage,
be not afraid, mental strength, neither be dismayed, mental strength. And why? For the
Lord thy God is with thee, whither ever shall it go. The Lord will be with you wherever
you go. But if you don't have the strength to go, you can't follow Jesus because he's
going over here and you're stuck over here because you can't move. So bottom line, here's
what I want to get in a postage note. Here's, I'm going to sum it up for you. Long-term
success to be strong physically will lead to strong mentally, which will aid you in
being strong spiritually. You can rightly divide. You can observe to do all that the
law says. The Bible to not depart out of your mouth because the Lord that God is with thee
wherever they go. Success being as strong at 85 as I am at 40. Don't sleep in. Go to
the gym. I'll pray. Lord, thank you for this time and this weekend, Lord. It's such a blessing.
I pray that you just write on our brains and our hearts everything that is preached out
of this whole weekend and give us the strength to do it, Lord. In Jesus' name. Amen. Turn
to Psalm 27. And I'm just going to start at verse three. This is a passage that's very
familiar to us in the new IFB. "Lo, children are in heritage of the Lord, and the fruit
of the womb is His reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children
of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed,
but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate." And as I mentioned, this is a passage
that's really famous to us in the new IFB. You know, we believe in really obeying that
commandment of being fruitful and multiplying. And I think we get a lot of encouragement
from this, that children are always a blessing. We shouldn't look at them the way that modern
society does, as being a burden or looking at the economic cost for it, but really look
at the blessings that we reap from having a larger family. And it talks about them being
arrows in the hand of a mighty man. And I always looked at this passage in the very
last verse, in verse five, where it says, "They shall not be ashamed." I always kind
of interpreted it, I think, through the lens of growing up in this modern society where
people do kind of look down on people who have larger families. And it's encouraging
someone who's a parent in that large family to not be ashamed. But I actually have more
lately been looking at this verse in a different light. And that's really where the title
of my sermon comes from. It says, "They shall not be ashamed." And when you think about
it, if you follow actually the pronouns, and one thing that's kind of a big theme in society
lately is how important pronouns are. Well, God cares about pronouns as well, but you
don't get to decide what the pronouns are. He decides what the pronouns are. And when
you actually follow it, it says here in verse 5, "Happy is the man that hath his quiver
full of them." "Them" is referring back to the children. But it says, "They shall not
be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate." So actually what it's
talking about who's not ashamed, it's the children. The children that you have will not
be ashamed. It's not talking about the parents. And it draws this equivalence between not
being ashamed and speaking with the enemies in the gate. And it's like the converse would
be that they would be ashamed if they can't speak with enemies in the gate. And what is
it that these children would be speaking? Well, it's going to be the Word of God. You
have to be able to train your children and teach them the Word of God. And more to back
this up, if we go to Psalm 119, you don't necessarily have to turn there, but I'm going
to refer to verses 5 and 6. It says, "Oh, that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes.
Then shall I not be ashamed when I have respect unto thy commandments." So what is this saying?
It's saying a man, or even someone who's trained as a child, someone who's directed in the
statutes of God, they're not going to be ashamed because they have respect to God's commandments.
And in the same way, you can ensure that your children will not be ashamed if you're teaching
them the word of God, then they can speak with the enemies. And I thought about again
from just this passage in Psalm 119, where it says, Oh, that my ways were directed. It
actually made me think again in Psalm 127, back to verse four, it says, as arrows are
in the hand of a mighty man. Well, arrows are can be a powerful weapon, but only if
you're sending them in the right direction. And so in same way, your children, you have
to send them in the right direction. And that makes me think of in Proverbs, it talks about
in Proverbs 22 six, train up a child in the way he should go. And when he's old, he will
not depart from it. And just like an arrow, if you send an arrow in a certain direction,
that's where it's going to go, it's going to hit that target. And that's really what
it is with a child too. If you train them up to go in a certain direction, they're going
to keep going in that direction. In fact, even science teaches that, you know, it's
Newton's first law, it's an object is in motion and going at a certain speed, it'll keep going
in that direction. Unless what? Unless it's acted upon by an outside force. And what does
that sound like? That sounds like an enemy, an enemy at the gate. Well, how are your children
going to be able to speak to that enemy in the gate? It's because you've empowered them,
you've trained them in the Word of God. And so that's really the way I see that passage
now where it's talking about your children. They're not going to be ashamed because you've
trained them in the Word of God. And let's look at the context actually, because it's
not really that long a chapter. Psalm 127, it's only five verses. We kind of often focus
on those last three, but what's the context? Let's look at verse one and two. It says,
"Except the Lord build a house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep
the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit
up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he giveth his beloved sleep." So what is
this talking about? It uses the word vain three times. And what's vain? It's vain for
you to try to build a house except the Lord's keeping it. It's vain to try to protect a
city unless the Lord is keeping it. And so how are you keeping it? You're keeping it
by the word of God. That's how you keep your family safe. That's how you build a house.
That's how you protect a city. So you want to do those things through the Lord, through
the word of the Lord, so that you're not doing it in vain. And that really reminded me again
of kind of a theme chapter for Steadfast, 1 Corinthians 15. If you think about what's
the biggest enemy that our children can encounter? Well, if they don't get saved, death and hell.
But the Bible teaches us how we can have that victory. If you can turn to 1 Corinthians
15, and if you start in verse 55, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy
victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be
to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." So again, through
Jesus Christ, through God's Word, our children can speak even with the most vicious enemy,
death and hell, and have an answer for that, which is of course Jesus Christ. And it then
ties back to this worry that someone has. They're having those sleepless nights that
their work would be in vain. "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not
in vain in the Lord." You know, you can know that that house you build, that family you
build, that city that you're trying to protect, it's not going to be in vain as long as you
train up your children in the way they should go. And when they're old, they're not going
to depart from it. And that was the message I wanted to give you guys.
Amen. Pray. Thank you, Lord, for this morning, for the preaching that's edifying us. Thank
you, our pastor, for putting this conference in his heart and for allowing it to take place.
Please let it edify us further. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So, the title of my sermon
today is "Be the Right Kind of Mighty." So, the Bible talks a lot about might and people
being mighty, but it's not always in a good light. So, first of all, we see that the Bible
mentions, the first time it mentions someone being mighty is referring to Nimrod. So, in
Nimrod, it's not necessarily, the Bible doesn't say much about him, it just says that he was
a mighty hunter before the Lord. So, hunting is a good thing, I would say, but it's not
necessarily a morally good thing, it's just a good skill, it's a good way to provide,
it's fun, it's enjoyable. And actually, I would say that there's no more context other
than Nimrod was Amm's grandson, so I would say he was probably of a wicked lineage at
least. And he was part of the people that were outside of Israel. But the Bible teaches
we can be mighty in other stuff. The Bible even talks about people that are mighty to
drink. So I said 522 says, "Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and man of
strength to mingle strong drink." Woe is one of the things that Christ in the Bible always
talks in a derogatory way about like, you know, this guy is not going to do well, this
guy is having a curse upon him, or a people, woe unto them. Anybody that does this is having
a curse on them and their life. And so you can be mighty for good things, for mutual
things, and we know that God is almighty. And we know he doesn't sin, of course. So
he's mighty in all good things. And he wants us to want to be like him. So we want to be
mighty in things that are good. And there's a lot of things that are good in the Bible,
and the Bible teaches us we should be mighty in. So another definition of mighty would
be powerful. So of great power, I looked it up and it said of great power or ability.
So one of the most important things where we have the power to be is the sons of God.
John 1.12 says and to them that believe in his name, he gave power to become the sons
of God. So that's the first thing, the most powerful thing that I think we acquired power
in the moment that we believed to become the sons of God. And the second most important
thing I think we have power to do is to win souls. Isn't that a powerful thing? You go
to some place, you just encounter someone. I was driving up here from Mexico and I just
stopped at a gas station and a couple of guys walked up to my truck and they were like,
"Oh, we didn't see this truck here. Can we take a picture of it?" And I was just like,
"Yeah." And they were from Honduras or something. And so I just started preaching the gospel
and it's so hard to just, I don't know where, just encounter someone and change their mind
about anything. Like people have their mindsets on everything. But it's so incredible since
I got saved and have been soul winning, how many people we're able, we have the power
to change their mind through the Bible, through the word of God. It is the most powerful thing
to change somebody's mind and not only change their mind about some random thing, change
their mind about where they're going and who they trust in and their fundamental beliefs.
And that has the power to change your whole entire life. Because once they know that God
is their savior, the God of the Bible is their savior, they're going to then read the Bible
and then acquire even more power to change their lives, to quit drinking, to quit fornication,
to quit all sorts of wicked things. And that, my friends, is powerful. So thank you, Lord,
for this opportunity tonight, this morning. And please bless the next preacher. Amen.
Job 19. Let's just start in verse 22 of Job 19. Bible reads, "Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh? Oh, that my words were now written. Oh, that they were printed in a book, that they were graven with an iron pen, and led in the rock forever. For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh, I shall see God."
Whom shall I see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reigns
be consumed within me. The title of my sermon is My Redeemer Liveth. My Redeemer Liveth.
And guys, I want you to take these words with you that our Redeemer liveth, that my Redeemer
lives. And guys, this is very powerful, because when we walk out of here, we're going to go
back into the world, and it's not if, it's when you face troubles, when you face tribulations,
when you face persecutions. These words are going to help you get through that, that my
Redeemer liveth. What in the Bible is the 1 Corinthians chapter 15, 1 Corinthians chapter
15. These words are powerful words. The resurrection is powerful. The fact that we don't serve
some statue, some dead statue, we serve a living God. God is a God of the living and
not of the dead. We have a God that is alive today and is alive forever and ever. You can
have confidence in the things that you do and confidence to stand up against the tribulation
and persecution of the world. We don't serve a dead God, we serve a God that's alive because
our Redeemer lives. 1 Corinthians 15, look down your Bibles at verse 58, it says "therefore." Very
important word, "therefore." What does that mean? A logical conclusion. Let's conclude what we just
talked about. Now what is 1 Corinthians 15 really about? It's about the resurrection of Christ,
right? The Gospel, that He rose from the dead and because He rose, we're alive. And we're alive,
He's alive, right? Because we're going to live, He's alive. And it says, "therefore, my beloved."
Let's wrap this up. "Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as
much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." How can we stand steadfast against all
the bad things in the world, against all the wickedness, against all the tribulation,
is because our Redeemer lived it. Because He's alive and we have that confidence. Because He's
alive, we can look at verse 55. Because alive, we can say, "O death, where is thy sting, O grave,
where is thy victory? Because our Redeemer liveth." Our Redeemer is alive. Look, go back to verse 11.
Verse 11, Paul says, "Therefore, whether it were I or they, so we preach and so we believe." Why?
Because our Redeemer liveth. Why can we go out there and preach the gospel with confidence?
Because our God is alive. Because our Redeemer rose from the dead. Because He's alive today.
You think about stories in the Bible of men standing up against evil. You think about
Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego standing up against Nebuchadnezzar and saying, "We're not
careful to answer thee in this matter." What about Nehemiah standing up against Tobiah and
Sanballat and continuing to be steadfast and to build the wall? Because our Redeemer liveth.
Because we serve a living God. How is it that Hezekiah can stand up against Sennacherib
when he sends his two little Assyrian minions to rail on God and to get the whole city afraid
because our liveth. That's why. And go out there and you stand steadfast and you have these words
in your heart. And don't just think about the resurrection during Easter. You think about them
every single day. It's not just Easter that we celebrate the resurrection. It's every day in our
hearts that we know that my Redeemer liveth and there's power in that, guys. There's power that
you can stand up and say, "Hey, I'm going to Steadfast Baptist Church and I'm going to be
Steadfast because I serve a living God because my Redeemer is alive." And you can look at your
family and say, "No! I believe in Leviticus 20-13. I believe Romans 1 and I love my church and I love
my pastor because my Redeemer liveth." Take these words with you. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father,
thank you for your Word. Thank you for your Son, Jesus Christ, for rising from the dead for us, Lord,
to save us from the depths of hell and give us the strength, Lord, to walk through the darkness,
to walk through the valleys of the shadows of death, Lord. Thank you so much for sending your Son
to rise from the dead, Lord, and to give us strength. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Good morning, gentlemen, brothers. You may not know me very well, maybe some people do,
but I felt it was important for me to come up here and get this out of the way, you know.
Brother Remby, you inspired me, wherever you may be, to come up here and just, you know,
and attempt this, you know. So here I am. My name is Brother Carlos. I've been here a few times,
you know, here and there. I made a little sermon over the last couple days and put together little
parts of it from different sermons we've heard already. It's called "True Bravery." And if you
know me and my story, I work in the fire service and being a firefighter and, you know, we hear it
all the time how brave we are, how strong, how fearless, you know, we're heroes, right? And,
you know, I appreciate it, I appreciate all the, you know, the nice comments and all that, but when
I really think of it, obviously with the preaching that we just heard, yes, from Pastor Shelley,
especially being a hero, it makes me feel like I need to preach this. It's very important for
myself. So, obviously being a hero, being brave is something that, you know, there's a worldly
way of it, you know. I myself, you see me being adventurous, jumping off the trapeze, falling on
my back, killing myself out there doing all these things. That's not the bravery that obviously we
pursue in this world. What I see in you guys, and I've said this before, specifically to Pastor
Shelley and others, that the bravest men that I've ever been around and I've ever seen are the men
here in this building in the new IFD church. The persecution that you guys go through, which I
really haven't been through, I can't imagine what it is that you guys go through. And that is the
true bravery. So coming from someone that's a hero in the world and brave and whatever they may call
me, it can't get near and close to what you guys are doing right here and there. I feel it's
important for me to come up here and just verbalize that to you guys. To motivate us, to help us
maintain this, you know, the status of being mighty men because this is the mighty men conference,
right? So I'd like to continue on. There's not going to be a lot of Bibles, maybe quick verses
that we all should know. You guys know more than I do, I imagine, so I'm just going to kind of keep
it easy. Yeah, basically this sermon is just a reminder to help us, you know, if we ever
falter, if we ever feel that feeling of fear, because being fearful is, in Revelation 21.8,
as we know, it's clumped in, you know, with being a murderer, their abominations, all liars. Being
fearful in itself is worthy of death, you know, without Jesus, of course. So in the flesh we're
going to naturally feel these things. And against tribulations and persecutions, the things that I
can't imagine you guys already seeing, it's probably natural for us to, you know, to get,
feel that, to feel that feeling and whatever it is you guys have been through, which I can't
speak for, it's going to be tough. I will get there eventually, but this is more for you guys
if you ever feel that doubt again in your minds, you know, like arachnophobia, fear of heights,
fear of death, the fear of public speaking. These are fears that we should get over because it's
going to help us, you know, preach the gospel, you know, in our pursuit, you know, in a godly way
and walk of life. Amen. So, of course, 2 Timothy 1, 7, "For God hath not given us spirit of fear,
but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." So, through God, we should have no fear. Everything,
you know, we should just be able to continue walking as mighty men. So, I try to attribute
this to what I do for a living. I felt I had this opportunity, Jimmy, maybe you can relate to this
when I'm about to get into, but the firefighters, everyone calls them brave and being heroes, but I
really think it's if you took away their PPE, their personal protective equipment, their SCBA
breathing, and their thermal imaging cameras and all tools, they're not going to be so brave going
into that fire. They're just normal people. They have some extra training, but really,
they're just regular people, even in a worldly sense, I'd say. But for us, like how can we
ourselves, what is our PPE for in life? What can we use to protect ourselves and maintain being
mighty men, overcoming the fear, whatever that fear may be, that comes out our way.
So obviously, Ephesians 6, 11 and 13, that we should, I could read it out. I imagine you guys
know all these verses, that to put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against
the wiles of the devil, wherefore take on to you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to
withstand an evil day, and having done all to stand. So taking up your cross daily, putting on
the whole armor of God, to me is kind of how I look at the firefighter of protective gear,
what's going to give us that bravery, that what we may lack at some times in the future,
whenever that time may come. Hebrews 4 as well. Obviously Pastor Thompson isn't here, but I thought
it was funny that he kind of quoted the one scripture that he memorized, which I'm still
trying. He said it, "For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword
piercing evens of the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a
discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." And I'm comparing that, that's our two-edged sword,
the King James Bible in English. And we have our protective armor, we have the word of God,
the two-edged sword. We can tackle all enemies, any persecution, trials, tribulations that may
come at us in the future. You know, we have what we need. We have that personal protective equipment.
We have our weapon, our perfect weapon. So yeah, and I just, I wanted us to, how can I pretty much
end this on? That submit yourselves therefore to God and resist the devil and he will flee.
May be helping us stay away from these, you know, temptations and positions where we may be in
danger. Just resist the devil and he will flee. And Romans 8.31, I'll finish off by just saying,
"If God be for us, who can be against us?" And that's all I need to say.
So we're going to start in Colossians 3. I just want to thank Pastor Shelley for this
opportunity to get to preach. We're in Colossians 3. We're going to look down at verse 5. It says,
"Mortify therefore your members, which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness,
inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry."
So the title of my sermon is "Don't be a Sim." Right? So what is a Sim? Right? I don't know
about y'all, but I'm probably like one of the youngest here. I'm like 20. So I am the zoomer.
Right? So if you don't know what a Simp is, it's basically a guy who gives his strength unto a woman.
That's when you let a woman boss you around, you know, "Hey, whatever you want, honey. You know,
I'll paint my nails with you." Right? That's what it is. Flip with me if you would to 2 Corinthians
6. While you're flipping there, I'm going to read you a story in Proverbs 7. So in Proverbs 7,
we'll start in verse 25. So I have three points for this sermon. The first point was to not be
covetous. I just hit on that. What is coveting? It means you can covet a woman when you just look
on her. You know, Job said, "Why then should I think upon a maid? I made a covenant with my eyes.
Why then should I think upon a maid?" So even when we're married and even when we're single,
this is something that we have to endure. Right? Don't even look at the whore. Right? In Proverbs
7, you're there in 2 Corinthians, so stay there. Proverbs 7 verse 25 says, "Let not thy heart
decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths." This whore has a different pathway than you.
It's not godly, I'll tell you that. Verse 26, it says, "For she hath cast down many wounded,
yea, many strong men have been slain by her." Hey, the mighty men here, some of you could be
slain by a whore. I'm just putting that out there. Even though most of y'all are married,
but you know, adultery is a thing. Donnie Romero, right? Verse 27, it says, "Her house is the way
to your righteousness." No, no, no. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.
You want to go to hell? Get with the whore. If you're there in 2 Corinthians, found my place,
2 Corinthians 6, look down at verse 14, it says, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light
with darkness?" Of course, you know, when you start looking at these whores, you might think,
"Oh, well, maybe she is a virtuous one." You know, you're thinking with the wrong head,
that's what it is, right? So, you know, sometimes, you know, we shouldn't even be, you know, we don't
want to be like Joseph and even put ourselves in that situation. Well, we're just running away from
her. You know, don't even put yourself in that situation, right? And I'll hit more on that,
but flip with me if you would to Matthew 26. While you're flipping there, I'll show you one
of the biggest Gems in the Bible, named Solomon. So in 1 Kings 11, I'll read you from there while
you're flipping to Matthew 26. 1 Kings 11 verse 3, it says, "And he had seven hundred wives."
Let's talk about a man, right? Oh my word. He says, "Seven hundred wives and princesses and
three hundred concubines, and his wife turned away his heart." So what happens when you hook up with
all these women and these whores? They're going to turn away your heart from God. As godly men,
we shouldn't even be thinking about those type of whorish women to be around. We need to get
ourselves with godly women, and instead of hanging around these ungodly women, my second point is,
how about you hang around godly men? Men who are filled with wisdom and know the Bible really well.
You know, if you want to live a successful life, how about you look at successful marriages in
steadfast? We should be looking up to those men of God and see what their example is when it comes
to being in a biblical marriage or relationship for that matter. So there in Matthew, so my second
point was to hang around godly men instead of whorish. Seemed pretty simple. So you're there
in Matthew 26, look at verse 41. It says, "Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The
spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Of course, there's no temptation taking you,
but such as is common in man. Even when we're single, we're going to have temptation. I already
hit on this, but even when we're married, we're still going to have these temptations that are
come up, right? We have the television, we have all these, we have our cell phones now. I don't
know about you, but when I go on YouTube, it's all I see. I see like ads from like Asian women who
are half naked. I'm like, "Blow my word." So, and put, tell me if you would, a first Corinthians
seven, because it's going to be my last point. My last point, you know, God actually put this,
spoke this to me, and I'll look there again. So, God actually told me how to not be a sin.
Believe it or not, he spoke to me this morning. So, right here, we're in first Corinthians seven,
look down at verse two. It says, "Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his
own AI girlfriend." No, no, no, his own wife. Let every woman have her own husband. Seems
pretty simple, right? The third point is to get married. I know I'm not married yet, though.
But, yeah, let every man have his own wife. So, three points, pretty simple. Don't be covetous
towards women or anything for that matter. Don't be covet money. Third point, you know,
instead of hanging around whores, how about you align yourself with what God wants and
hang around God being kind. So, if you want to learn more about the Bible and have a successful
life, you know, hang around the men of God who are going to teach you about that.
Third point is to get married. Pretty simple. So, yeah, I just want to thank you for your time.
All right, guys, please turn to Matthew 7.24. And the title of my sermon is "Be Thankful and
Take Action." And I want to focus in on something specific about being thankful and taking action on
a specific thing, and that's the Word of God that's preached that we hear. And so, you know,
like an example of this would be like when pastor gets up and he preaches a sermon and it really
like pricks your heart. It hits home. You're like, "Hey, this is something I needed to hear,"
whether it's a reproof, a review, or just it edifies you in some way. You're thankful for it.
And in your heart, you're just like, "Hey, man, this is what I need." And you take that
and you go apply it to your life, and it actually changes you. It brings you closer to God.
And that's what I'm talking about, is that thankfulness that you feel in your heart,
and you take that and you do some action, right? And you may after the sermon, you go up to the
pastor, you shake his hand, you say, "Thank you for that. I really needed to hear that. That's
going to help me out." And then you take that thankfulness and you take action and do it.
Okay, so that's what I'm talking about. Now, that's like the thing that we want to do, that we
should do. Here's kind of the opposite of that is when we hear that sermon and it pricks our heart
and we're just thankful that we heard it and we're just like, "This is what I needed to hear."
And then we go up to the pastor, we shake his hand, "Thank you. Great sermon. That was awesome.
That's really going to help me out." And then you don't do it. You take no action.
Okay. So, you know, if that sermon was so awesome and it pricked your heart and you're just so
thankful for it, then why didn't you do it? Yeah. Right. So what we should do is we should be
thankful, but we should also take action. Amen. Be a doer of the word, not a hearer only. Right.
Yeah. So, you know, in Matthew 7 24, have you turned there? Let's take a look at that. And I
know this is talking about salvation, but I wanted to apply it to this concept. "Therefore,
whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man."
And so if you are thankful and you take action, all right, you're likened unto a wise man. And
obviously that's going to help you grow spiritually and do what's right. Now, if you don't take action,
if you're a hearer only, you know, what does the Bible say about that? Well, basically you're a
fool because if you look in Matthew 7 26 or right there, it says, "And everyone that heareth these
sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a fool." And think about this. If
you get pricked in the heart and you're very thankful for it and you go up and shake pastor's
hand and you say, "Thank you very much for that," and you don't do that. I mean, really your
thankfulness is vain. It's empty. It's useless. It's meaningless. It means nothing. And if you
are continually doing this service after service, month after month for years, I mean, what do you
think the pastor is going to be thinking? He's going to be thinking probably like, "I don't know.
Does this guy even listen? Does he even care? Is he like flattering me? Like his thankfulness
is vain and useless. I don't want my pastor to think that about me." Also, if I'm not applying
it, if I'm not being thankful, if I'm taking action and I'm not doing it, I'm not growing
spiritually. So, you know, when I do something like that, then, you know, over time, what somebody's
going to be thinking about me is, "That person's a fool, okay? He's hearing the Word. He's not
doing it." And it says right there in Matthew 7 26, "That person is a fool." So, do you want
people to think that you're a fool? Do you want your pastor to think that you're flattering him
and that your thankfulness is just vain and empty? So, be a hearer of the Word and do it. Be thankful
and take action. And so, the last thing I want to talk about, or the last point I want to make is,
are you thankful for your salvation? Have you ever told God, "Thank you so much that I'm not
going to burn in hell forever." Thank you so much for sending that guy to preach the gospel to me.
Alright, so if you're that thankful in your heart, then why aren't you out preaching the gospel?
So, be thankful and take action. Be a doer of the Word, not a hearer only,
do say it in your own self. And being in Bethany, in the house of Simon the Leopard,
as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikener very precious,
and she break the box and poured it on his head, and there were some that had indignation within
themselves and said, "Why was this waste of the ointment made? For it might have been sold for
more than 300 pence, and had been given to the poor, and they murmured against her." And Jesus said,
"Let her alone. Why trouble ye her? She hath wrought a good work on me. For ye have the poor
with you always, and whensoever ye will, ye may do them good, but me ye have not always. She hath
done what she could. She hath come a forehand to anoint my body to the burying." And if you
read this passage in the other gospels, you'll find out that this woman is Mary Magdalene,
and she makes this great sacrifice of something that was valuable to her, right? This ointment
was something precious to her, and she made this sacrifice for the death of Christ. She made this
sacrifice for His burying, and there was some opposition that was present. And again, if you
read the book of John, you know that the leader of that opposition was Judas, right? And some of the
other disciples followed along with him, questioning this great sacrifice that she made. But I want to
focus in on what Jesus Christ says to her, or says to them about her, verse eight. The Bible says,
"She hath done what she could." She hath done what she could. And that's the title of my sermon is,
"Do what you can." Do what you can. What is, you know, the most precious and valuable thing to
many of us here today? And it's time, right? The Bible says, "For what is your life?" It is even
a vapor. It appeared for a little time and then vanished away. Whether or not you realize it or
not, our time is one of the most valuable things that we have, right? We never know when that last
day is going to be, and so we need to take every advantage of the time that we have here on this
earth to do what we can, right? And what's great about God is he's equitable, right? Think about
the story of the widow woman, the poor widow woman, who she cast in the two mites that made
a farthing. And Jesus said, hey, she's given a greater sacrifice. She's given more than these
who have given up their abundance, right? So God is equitable. He looks at each person's situation
and he's just wanting us to do what we can, right? You notice Mary Magdalene, she wasn't trying to be
an apostle, right? She wasn't trying to do something outside of her bounds. She was doing what she could.
And as Christians, we need to do what we can. You know, and specifically, I'm talking about time
and using that time to reach the loves, right? To go out and get people saved. You say, "Hey,
you know, I'm not really that great of a speaker." Okay, do what you can, right? You can be a silent
partner. We can partner you up with somebody who does know how to talk and we can send you out and
you can get involved in getting somebody saved, changing their life forever. You say, "Hey, well,
I'm not the pastor." You know, there's a lot of Christians today that think that only a pastor
can get somebody saved, right? They'll go and hand them an invite so they can come to church
and hear the gospel preach every single service, right? But the reality is that you have a mouth,
you have the ability, you have God's word, and so you should do what you can. Use your time
and that precious sacrifice to get people saved. You know, through my Christian life,
I've seen a lot of people on both ends of the spectrum. They either try to do more than what
they can, or they're not doing enough, right? They're not doing what they could do. You know,
you could say, "Hey, you know what? I've screwed up in the past. You know, I have a pretty sorted
past. I've done some things. I don't think God would, you know, be, uh, he would be happy with
me going and doing these things, right? Because of all the things I've done in my life." But don't
forget, Mary Magdalene had seven devils that were cast out. And yet, guess what? She had the mentality,
"I'm going to do what I can." And we should be willing to sacrifice. The Bible says, "I beseech
you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God, which is a reasonable service." The Bible teaches that we should make
our bodies a living sacrifice. Just as Mary had sacrificed something that was precious to her
for the death of Christ, we too should sacrifice the time that we have, whether we are unmarried,
whether we're married, wherever we find ourselves, the time that we had, we should sacrifice that and
do what we can to get people saved. Let's pray. Amen. Amen. Heavenly Father, Lord, I just pray that
we would do what we can to serve you to preach the gospel to the lost and to get as many people saved
with the time that you've given us. And I just pray for the next preacher in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
All right, please turn your Bible to Hebrews chapter number 12. And I just want to say thanks to
Pastor Shelley for putting on this conference. I know for me it's one of the highlights of my year.
I don't know if you guys feel the same way. It's been a great time. It's great to see my family again.
Pastor Thompson, Remy, Brandon. It's great to see you guys again as always. And last night Pastor Thompson
read this verse and something really stuck out to me. Let's read Hebrews chapter 12. Let's start
reading in verse number 28. It says, "Wherefore are we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved
we're kings and priests right let us have grace whereby we may serve God accept acceptably and
then notice this phrase with reverence and godly fear and the title of my sermon is go to church
with reverence go to church with reverence you look at the word reverence in the dictionary this
is what it says it says a feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe or veneration and so
god is telling us that hey god wants us to serve him with deep respect with awe with veneration
with reverence and what is one of the main ways that we serve god as christians it's going to
church so when we do so we should do so reverently meaning we should be very respectful of the house
of god the things that go on in the house of god and you know one way we could do this one way that
we could show god that we deeply respect him that we fear him that we venerate him that we're in
awe of him is simply just being on time yes how are you going to tell someone you respect god
you respect church you are just venerating church you won't even show up to church on time
and i understand you know sometimes you're laid out soul winning sometimes you know you work
late on wednesday night there's there's reasons why people can show up late to church but it's
like sunday morning what's your excuse on sunday morning were you working in the morning probably
not you say yeah but cedar hill is really far away yeah we've been there for months you haven't
figured out how to set an alarm clock by now you know it's pretty and guess what it's really
disrespectful to your pastor too he's 10 minutes into your sermon and you're walking in to find a
seat that's not very respectful you know there's lots of people here that go to different churches
and i bet you in your churches there's different ministries there you have ushers you have safety
team members you have people in the music ministry you have people dealing with the audio and video
and you know what those people need to be on time for their duties as well they're on time
might be a little different than everyone else right so if you're part of the safety team at
our church pastor shelly's policies you need to be there at least 15 minutes early at least
right because how disrespectful would it be if i'm trying to call someone on the radio for something
and no one's even there to listen right are you really respecting god's house no absolutely not
or for the music ministry we want to practice our songs 15 minutes before that doesn't mean you
start tuning your instruments 15 minutes before that means you're ready to play 15 minutes before
it means you're ready to serve god 15 minutes before you know you don't turn on the camera you
don't turn on the audio video equipment right as pastor shelly's starting to preach no you get that
stuff going before you need to be on time for that kind of stuff right because that shows that you
actually have reverence for god's house how about this you know we're at a camp we're all dressed
like scrubs here today but when you're at church how about you dress reverently too and say oh
where's a bible verse that says i have to wear a suit and tie well i don't have a bible verse
that says that but i do have a bible verse that says to go to the house of god and to serve god
reverently it doesn't show god that you have deep respect and veneration and awe for him when you
come in look like you just went duck hunting yeah when you're coming in looking like you're just a
panhandler on the side of the road right we're coming to hear the pure and perfect word of god
being preached by a man of god and how are you going to show up looking for that event you know
if you were to go see president trump or your favorite politician speak you probably would
dress up nice for it why because you actually have respect for that person you go to a job interview
you probably dress up nice for it because you actually have respect for your boss but you know
what it really shows someone's heart when they show up to church all the time dressed like a slob
that's right it shows that they don't respect god's house about this paying attention in the
service paying attention in the service it's not just enough to show up on time it's not just enough
to be you know wearing nice clothes but when it comes time for the singing and for the announcements
and for the preaching of god's word you actually need to be mentally engaged why because you're
You're showing reverence to God.
And of course it's disrespectful to the song leader
when you're not paying attention.
Of course it's disrespectful to whoever's doing announcements.
Of course it's disrespectful to your pastor
when you're not paying attention to the preaching.
But you know who you're really being disrespectful to
is God.
Because who gave you a song leader?
God did.
Who gave you a pastor?
God did.
Who gave you a teacher?
Who gave you an evangelist?
God gave you those people.
God put them in a position that they're in
to serve the congregation, to preach the word of God,
to do whatever task that they're doing.
When you're not paying attention to those things,
you're not being reverent to God.
So, as mighty men, we need to be setting the example
for the kids and for the women in our church
that, hey, we wanna do like what Hebrews 12 says,
we wanna serve God acceptably
with reverence and godly fear.
And say, yeah, we're those old, independent,
fundamental Baptists that take everything seriously.
That's right.
We show up to church in a suit and tie
with a King James Bible in our hand.
Yeah, we sit up straight
and we listen to the man of God scream and yell at us.
Yeah, we open our hymnal when it's time to sing.
We sing out the songs.
Why?
Because we wanna serve God with reverence.
Amen.
Let's pray Lord.
Thank you for this day.
Thank you for the King James Bible.
Thank you for our pastor
and for all the men here that want to serve you
and pray that we would always do so.
Reverence in Jesus name we pray, amen.
All right, go with me to Acts chapter 18.
Acts chapter 18, verse 24, Acts 18, 24.
And it says, "And a certain Jew named Apollos,
"born at Alexandria, an eloquent man
"and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus."
I wanna preach a sermon titled "Mighty in the Scriptures."
Mighty in the Scriptures.
Now you may be here and you may be the weakest man.
You might be the most scrawny, tiniest man in the room.
But if you have the word of God in your head and in your heart, you're mighty.
You're mighty according to the Bible.
And to be mighty in the Scriptures, you have to spend time in the Scriptures.
If you wanna be mighty in the Scriptures, you have to be in the Scriptures.
If you wanna be like a mighty tree that's planted by the rivers of water,
then you gotta be by the rivers of water, of God's word.
You have to be, your mind has to be not in the counsel of the ungodly,
not in the way of sinners, not in the seat of the scornful,
but your delight has to be in the law of the Lord and in his law meditate day and night.
Amen.
You see, if you wanna be mighty in the Scriptures like Apollos was,
then your desire has to be not towards the deceitfulness of riches,
not the cares of this world, not the lusts of other things,
but your desire has to be towards the word of God,
towards something that's more to be desired than gold, the Bible says.
You know, not in the lusts of the flesh, not in the lusts of the eyes,
not in the pride of life, but in God's holy, forever-settled,
in-heaven word of God.
You're not in the things of this world that pass away,
not in Barbie, certainly not in Oppenheimer,
but your desire should be in God's word.
Your desire should be for that sincere milk of the word
that you may grow thereby.
So you gotta bulk up on the Bible,
and you gotta cut off the fat of the world.
You gotta cut off the worldliness,
and you gotta bulk up on the Bible
if you wanna be mighty in the Scriptures.
And really, you need to take this seriously.
Look at me right now and take this seriously.
You need to grow in God's word.
You need to grow in the knowledge
and in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
because there's a real battle out there.
We wrestle not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities and powers,
against the rulers of darkness of this world,
and against spiritual wickedness in high places.
And guess what, it's souls that hang in the balance.
It's your family that hangs in the balance.
And the moment that you leave the Bible,
then you don't have a chance.
You don't have a chance.
'Cause the Bible itself is what makes us mighty.
The Bible itself is mighty.
As we've heard preached, the word of God is quick,
is powerful, is sharper than any two-edged sword.
It's powerful.
The Bible says, "Is not my word like as a fire?"
Sayeth the Lord.
As a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces.
This is what makes us strong.
This is the sword of the spirit, the word of God.
So you need to hold this, you need to hold it,
you need to hold it tight.
If you have this, then the world, the devil,
and your flesh, they don't stand a chance.
They don't stand a chance.
But if you let your grip go,
the moment you let your grip go, good luck.
'Cause you're by yourself.
You need to hold on to the Bible.
I know a lot of us here,
we read the Bible on a daily basis.
We hear God's word being preached.
We have the habit of hiding God's word in our heart.
But my message to you is don't let go.
Hide in that grip.
Be mighty.
Be in the scriptures.
Be mighty in the scriptures.
Let's pray.
God, I pray you please help the rest of the next sermon.
I pray you please help us all
to be able to apply all the things we've heard this morning
and we thank you in Jesus' name, amen.
All right, well, I'm gonna go ahead and mic up here.
I do wanna take the time to thank Pastor Shelley
for putting on this event.
Thank you, Pastor Thompson, for coming out.
I know I can speak for all of us
when I say that we really appreciate it
and I'm stalling to get this on, I'm just kidding.
So I want you guys to turn, if you would,
to Deuteronomy chapter number 32, Deuteronomy chapter number 32
and I think to myself sometimes that it's just really funny
how God will work things out.
When I was planning this sermon,
that it ends up being the last one
because my sermon for you that I've prepared this morning
is titled Apply or Die?
Apply or Die?
And in the reality of the Christian life,
when you have been given preaching,
when you have been shown God's word,
when you have been given feedback,
when you have been instructed in the way of righteousness,
there are really two options for you, apply or die.
And we're gonna see that in Deuteronomy chapter number 32.
If you would look at verse 45,
for context here, we're having Moses,
he's giving the law, right?
Deuteronomy is the second law, as it were.
Moses is giving the law unto the children of Israel.
And look what he says when he's wrapping it up in verse 45.
It says, "And Moses made an end of speaking
"all these words to all Israel."
Verse 46, "And he said unto them,
"Set your hearts unto all the words
"which I testify among you this day,
"which ye shall command your children
"to observe and do all the words of this law."
Now why?
Verse 47, "For it is not a vain thing for you,
"because it is your life.
"And through this thing you shall what?
"Prolong your days in the land,
"whether you go over Jordan to possess it."
You wanna live a long, happy, healthy life?
You better apply, or you can just die.
Those are your two options, apply or die.
And why is it in the Christian life
that so many men are okay to just die?
And you say, "Well, you know what?
"I'm not gonna die, Cameron, I'm not gonna die physically."
Well, does your preaching die?
Does your soul winning die?
Did your church attendance die?
You know, the great quote from Pastor Thompson's sermon
last night, "Go to church, dummy."
Why?
'Cause you don't wanna die.
You say, "Well, I'm not doing anything
"that's worthy of death."
Well, let's just ring up Ananias and Sapphira real quick.
That's New Testament, folks.
What did Ananias and Sapphira do?
What was their sin?
They lied unto the Holy Ghost.
Now, show me where lying unto the Holy Ghost
is worthy of death.
But you know what Hebrews 10 says?
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands
of a living God.
And you know what?
They could have applied God's word.
I don't believe they were just one-off visitors.
I believe Ananias and Sapphira were faithful attendees
at least of the church there.
They're going.
They obviously knew Paul as it were, Peter as well.
I believe if I'm not conflating the scriptures here.
But here's the thing.
Whether or not when they showed up,
they weren't applying God's word.
They had purposed in their heart not to apply, but to die.
And it's not that they were thinking,
"Hey, I just want to die."
But what happens?
Death, you know?
And then what happens?
You know, sin, when it is finished,
bring forth what?
Death, right?
So look, God in the New Testament,
you don't have to sit here and say,
"Well, show me where it's worthy of death.
Show me where what I'm doing is worthy of death."
God can just decide
that you're worthy of death immediately.
Oh, oh, that lie?
Oh, you hear a sermon on lying,
but you're going to keep lying?
Death.
Oh, you hear a sermon on church attendance,
but you're not going to keep going to church?
Death.
You hear a sermon on soul winning,
but you're not going to get soul winning?
Death.
You know, apply or die.
I do want to bring up a point that Brother Remy preached.
He said, "Hey, you're going to have a bomb sermon
every once in a while, but in a year,
no one will remember it."
Let me say one thing.
If I had a nickel for every time someone
brought up Guardian Arnold this year,
I'd have a lot of nickels and that's about a year.
But when I stand here or when I sit here
and pastor gets up and he gives you some harsh feedback
in front of your friends, there's two options that I had.
I could let my preaching die or I could apply it.
You can swallow your pride.
You could just get better or you can get bitter.
What I'm here today to tell you is that Pastor Shelley,
Pastor Thompson, Evangelist Urbanek, Evangelist Furr,
or any man that gets up to preach for you,
the Bible says that they take account for your souls.
Just like in Ezekiel, they're the watchman.
They're set out.
And look, this is a perfect parallel with Ezekiel as well
because Moses, what does he say in verse 47?
It's not a vain thing because it's my life.
That's what Moses, no, no, no.
Moses said it's not a vain thing for you
'cause it's your life.
The watchman is tasked with giving you that feedback,
with giving you that preaching,
of telling you what you need to fix.
But the Bible says in Ezekiel,
"Once that watchman sounds that trumpet,
"the blood's on your hands if you don't prepare."
So you know what?
These pastors, these evangelists,
or any preacher, or any man that gets up to preach for you
that's giving you something to tell you to apply it
and you don't apply it, you've told me,
you've told God, you've told your peers,
"Hey, I'm just ready to die.
"Let me just die."
So here's the thing.
Don't get bitter, get better.
Don't die, let's apply.
Going home from this men's retreat, apply.
Because if I stop seeing you,
and I hear that you went the way of Todd Ferguson,
I'm gonna know that you just died.
You just didn't apply.
'Cause who prolongs our days?
Me exercising?
No, no, no.
It's God.
I need all the help that I can get
to not die and prolong my days.
So what do I have to do?
I've gotta apply.
And on a serious note, guys, let's apply, right?
Don't get bitter, get better.
And with that, I'll end on a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this men's retreat.
We thank you for the men of God that you've put in our life to teach us, to edify us.
And I just pray that we would take this seriously, that we would take all these sermons and apply
them to our life, Lord, that we could show you that we're not ready to die, we're not
ready to give up.
We're ready to apply and move forward, to press towards the mark of the high calling
that is in Christ Jesus.
These things we pray in Jesus' name, amen.