But more than that, I want the people who already come to become a laborer.
You see, when I get up to preach, I don't preach to the visitors.
You know, have you ever heard the expression, preaching to the choir?
Or preaching to the saved? Amen.
That's my motto. I will preach to the choir.
I'm not trying to preach to the visitor, or the visitors, or the new people.
I've always tried to gear my sermons toward the most spiritual people in the church.
That's who I'm preaching to.
You know why? Because those are the laborers.
You see, instead of being so interested in just amassing a crowd,
and I'm all for church growth, and our church is growing and will continue to grow,
I'm all for it. But instead of just trying to get a big multitude together,
I'd rather have 12 men that are of the quality of Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew.
I'd rather have men like that, even if there are only 11 of them,
than to have multitudes of people who do nothing.
I'd rather have the laborers.
I'd rather pray for 12 laborers than to feed the 5,000.
What did more in Jesus' ministry, the fact that he fed 5,000,
or the fact that he trained 12 and then later 70 men
that spent the rest of their life winning souls to Christ,
that turned the world upside down?
You see, the crowd that he had when he fed the 5,000,
he rebuked them and said,
You know, the only reason you're following me is because you were fed, he said in John chapter 6.
And then he started to preach God's word, and many of them were offended and quit the church.
He got down to pretty much, he looked at the 12 and said,
Will you also go away?
You see, we need to get our mind right here and think of church not as what we don't have,
but why don't we just love the people that we do have?
You know, why don't we just look at the people that we have?
Because you see, it's not that we don't have enough people in this church, because we do.
We're all for growing and getting bigger and so forth,
but you know what we need is for the people in this church to grow individually.
It's not that we need more people necessarily, and you know, we do want more.
But you know, Jesus had 12, he had 70, and he did a lot with that, didn't he?
With 70 people, he did a lot.
We have the people that we need.
We need the people that are here to grow.
You see, we need the children that are here.
We need the teenagers that are here to listen to this preaching,
to be warned of the danger of sin,
to be warned of going down the wrong path,
to be warned of what it is to live a life after the flesh,
to understand the meaning of soul winning,
to know what it is to labor for the cause of Christ.
That's what we need.
And let me tell you something.
When you preach what the saved need,
when you preach what the choir needs,
and no, we don't have a choir,
but when you preach to the choir, quote unquote,
that offends the visitor in many cases.
That offends the unbeliever.
That offends the people that you're just so busy trying to get in
because we don't want to turn them off or turn them away.
But let me tell you something.
I'd rather offend and hair lip every visitor who walks through that door.
I would rather preach and have a revolving door out there
because people can't handle this kind of preaching
if my own children will learn what it means
to live a pure and righteous and godly life
and to grow up and serve God for the rest of their life.
That's what I want.
And you know what?
I care more about your teenager and your child
growing up and being pure on their wedding day
and going to the marriage altar pure.
I care more about that than somebody being offended
when I preach against fornication
or getting offended when I preach against the smut that's on TV
and gets offended when I preach against the porno
that's sent around on cell phones in the pic message.
You know what?
If that offends you, then get out of here
because I am here to preach to the laborers
because I'd rather have some laborers who are pure and godly
and righteous and want to be holy
and children who grow up in that kind of an environment
than a free-for-all
because nobody wants to preach what needs to be preached
because it's going to offend people and we can't be big enough.
You know what?
I want this church to be as big as possible with zero compromise
because I don't care if I can build a church that has 5,000 people in it
and my children go astray.
That's not what I want.
And it's not just my children.
It's you.
I love you.
I want you to live for God.
I don't care as much about somebody who's outside that door
as what I care about you who come to this church.
You should be flattered to come to Faithful Baptist Church
and know, hey, he's preaching to me.
He's not preaching to them.
What was that thing when you were a kid?
Was it the bubble tape?
Where it was for you, not them?
Who knows what I'm talking about?
It was like...
It was geared toward kids.
It was like, hey, it's for you, not them, about bubble tape.
It was explaining how adults don't understand
why kids want to chew bubble tape.
Who knows what bubble tape is?
It was like a little roll of gum.
That's our motto here.
For you, not them.
You see, if a visitor walks in, I'm not going to change my sermon.
If somebody calls me and says,
hey, I'm bringing somebody who's unsaved to church,
oh, man, I've got to make this a salvation message.
Say, don't you care about getting people saved?
Yeah, that's why we were out all day yesterday
getting people saved all day long.
From 10 a.m. to 8.30 p.m.,
getting people saved all day long.
And now I'm not trying to get somebody saved right now.
I'm trying to preach God's word
for the edification of the body of Christ right here,
trying to edify you till you can grow up,
till you can be a mature believer
that brings forth much fruit,
some 30, some 60, some 100.
That's what I care about.