All right, Ephesians chapter four.
So the title of the sermon this morning is called
Becoming a Complete Christian, or Perfect,
as the King James likes to say it.
In Ephesians chapter four, verse 11, it says,
and he gave some apostles and some prophets
and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers
for the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry,
for the edifying of the body of Christ,
till we all come in the unity of the faith
and the knowledge of the Son of God
unto a perfect man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
See, at Very Baptist Church, if you haven't figured out,
you get much teaching here.
We get a lot of, not just teaching, great preaching,
and with that preaching, great application
that you need to apply to your life.
And I wanna ask you this morning,
how well are you at receiving that instruction?
And better yet, how well are you applying it
to your Christian life?
Because see, this is the only way
that you and me and you will become a complete Christian.
Proverbs 9, 9 says, give instruction to a wise man,
and he will be yet wiser.
Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.
We will become a complete Christian
when we apply what we learned.
And what is that when you do that?
It's called obedience.
Go to Genesis chapter 17, if you would.
Obedience to the word of God.
God speaks, the word of God is preached, and you obey.
So number one this morning, when you do obey,
you must obey immediately.
Genesis chapter 17, verse 23.
Genesis 17, 23.
And Abraham took Ishmael his son,
and all that were born in his house,
and all that were bought with his money,
every male among the men of Abraham's house,
and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin
in the selfsame day, as God had sent unto him.
See, look at that, the same day.
Abraham heard something, and who wants to do that?
Who wants to sign up for circumcision?
See, Abraham heard something, God said,
hey, this is what you're gonna do,
and he didn't wait, he didn't delay.
He goes, in the selfsame day, he listened, he obeyed God.
You know, he didn't hesitate.
You're there in Genesis 17, flip over to chapter 22.
Genesis chapter 22.
So to be a complete Christian,
not only must we obey immediately,
number two this morning, we must obey willingly.
Genesis 22, verse one.
And it came to pass after these things
that God did tempt Abraham.
And he said unto him, Abraham,
and he said, behold, here am I.
And he said, take now thy son, thy only son Isaac,
whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah,
and offer him there for a burnt offering
upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
And Abraham rose up early in the morning,
and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him,
and Isaac his son, and claved the wood
for the burnt offering, and rose up,
and went unto the place which God had told him.
See, Abraham got up early.
We're not gonna get up early to go to something
that we're not willingly gonna do.
And look, God told him, he goes,
this is what you're gonna do.
Abraham did not make excuses.
He didn't say, well, I got something to do tomorrow.
God, he's all, no.
God said, today is the day you're gonna do it.
And Abraham obeyed willingly.
Isaiah 119 says, if you be willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land.
See, there's a blessing associated with this behavior
of not only being obedient, but being willingly obedient.
So not only must we be obedient immediately,
and not only must we obey willingly,
we must obey in faith, obey in faith.
Look at Genesis 22, four.
Drop down to verse four, 22, four.
And on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes
and saw the place afar off,
and Abraham said unto his young men,
abide ye here with the ass,
and I and the lad will go yonder and worship,
and look at this, and come again to you.
See, Abraham believed that Isaac
was gonna come back with him.
And Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering, verse six,
and laid it upon Isaac his son,
and he took the fire in his hand and a knife,
and they went both of them together.
And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father and said,
my father, and he said, here am I, my son.
And he said, behold, the fire and the wood,
but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
And Abraham said, my son, look at this,
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.
He said, God's gonna take care of it, son.
We don't need to worry about it.
Incredible faith.
Look, and then he says, for a burnt offering,
so that they went both of them together,
and they came to the place which God had told him,
and Abraham built an altar there,
and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son,
and laid him on the altar upon the wood,
and Abraham stretched forth his hand,
and took the knife to slay his son.
See, Abraham was gonna go through with this.
Abraham was convinced.
I'm sure it wasn't an easy thing for them to do him.
I can imagine being in this situation,
but Abraham truly believed,
truly believed and obeyed in faith
that if he would have killed Isaac,
that God was gonna resurrect him.
God was gonna bring him back to life.
And so here's the soul-winding application to it.
So we come here week after week,
those you soul-winding every week,
and we're here Sunday morning, Wednesday night,
Sunday night, we're here, we're here,
and we get so much instruction,
so much instruction out of the word of God,
and we need to apply it.
We need to apply it in the ways that I say.
We need to obey it immediately,
and we need to obey it in faith,
but on Saturday morning, the soul-winding tips,
whether a pastor's up here, Deacon Oliver's up here,
one of the men of God, or one of the guys are up here
preaching the word of God to you,
we need to obey that as well.
I mean, Saturday morning,
this is just some kind of filler,
they extend the soul-winding meeting here.
And I found myself,
sometimes I don't actually apply some of these tips,
and over the last several weeks, we've been given much.
Several weeks back,
pastor talked about saturation of the gospel.
You remember if you were here,
you brought up a map and showed
how we need to give Sacramento, everyone,
a chance to hear the gospel,
and we need to go out further from the church,
and it's gonna be more of a sacrifice,
because the new local is not gonna be so local anymore.
But we need to get on board with that,
and gave this kind of a vision to do with that.
It's important.
Brother Matt stood up here and said,
becoming a mighty soul winner, learn, train, fight.
You guys remember that?
Learn, train, fight.
What's he trying to do?
Get prepared.
Get you prepared before you come here.
Get your plan out, what you're gonna say.
Don't try and work all that out today.
I mean, we're going out to go to battle.
You already need to have done that during the week.
And then Deacon Oliver taught us,
becoming all things to all men,
that we're not, as we go out,
we're not gonna just find people like us.
We're gonna find a lot of people
that are completely different from us,
and we need to be able to minister them,
and reach them where they're at.
And then Brother Jeff stood up
and talked about the hope of salvation,
or no, wait, to be ready to give an answer, okay, of what?
The hope of salvation that's in us,
the eternal life that's in us,
and to avoid those foolish questions.
But Brother Nate's the one that actually,
his sermon kinda stirred this sermon up,
because he taught on being ready, safety out, soul winning.
And last week, I was with Brother Matt,
me and my wife, Miss Casey, we were out,
and we were surrounded by dogs.
I mean, not sodomites, but actual dogs on each side.
And we're going, and his sermon popped in my mind.
I'm like, and I'm not talking little dogs,
I'm talking the rocks, the pits, the Sherman Shepherds,
the ones that could do some damage,
and I'm like, man, if they get out,
we're gonna get jacked up.
And I go, man, I'm not ready, I don't have anything.
So I didn't have it last week, brother, but I'm ready.
I purchased one, and if one of those dogs gets out,
I feel a little better now.
But it made me think, it went back into my mind,
maybe I'm not applying some of these other things
that I'm being taught.
It's important, because we've been given much here,
so God's gonna require much of every one of us.
Proverbs, here's Proverbs 5,
for those of you who don't wanna obey.
Proverbs 5, 12 says,
and say how I've hated instruction,
and my heart despised reproof,
and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers,
nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me.
That's not good, it doesn't wanna be,
that's not what I wanna be, it's not what I want for you.
So here's some verses who, if you wanna be like Abraham,
who obeyed immediately, willingly, and in faith,
Psalm 119, 100, I understand more than the ancients,
because I keep thy precepts.
Proverbs 10, 21 says,
the lips of the righteous feed many,
but fools die for want of wisdom.
See, we're not fools, because guess what,
we're getting preached the word of God.
But you know what, if you don't do anything with it,
if you don't wanna apply it,
because it really does you no good,
there's a lot of people out there
who have a lot of Bible knowledge,
but they don't use it, they don't use it to edify someone,
they don't use it to better someone.
So this morning, keep this in mind as you go out,
we wanna go out and feed many
with the righteousness that God's given us.
And use that wisdom, use that wisdom to teach others.
I forgot to mention brother Luke,
brother Luke talked about transitioning
from a silent partner to being a soul winner.
You're saying we're sitting out there and saying,
well, I already speak, how's that apply to me?
Well, can you teach someone else to speak?
Can you encourage someone else to become a speaker?
And use what freely been given to you.
I don't remember paying for anything that I've learned here.
It was freely preached to me, freely ready to receive it.
It's up to me now,
because it's not that we have lack of instruction
in the church, we have lack of obedience
to what we're being preached to.
So don't let that be you.
So strive to learn from these tips.
And show up tomorrow morning when the word of God's preached,
be ready to say, how can I apply this to my life?
Don't be thinking about someone else.
How's it apply to you?
Always act like pastor's preaching right to me.
Even if he's not looking at me, he's preaching to me.
How's this applied to me?
Because you wanna get better, don't you?
You wanna become complete.
Let's pray.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Father, thank you for the word of God.
Thank you for this church, our pastor,
all the men that stand up here and preach your word, Lord.
And I pray that we all take heed to it.
We all find a way to apply it in our lives
and become a more complete Christian for you.
In Jesus' name, we ask all these things, amen.