(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

And I first want to start out by saying that I am very grateful to be here right now. Brother Morgan was supposed to preach tonight, but I got a call from Pastor Anderson. I believe things are going smooth down there, as smooth as they can go, and he just asked me to preach tonight. So I just said, Roger that. I'll make it happen. So I'm here. My very first time here in front of you guys, so if you've never heard me preach here, neither have I, okay? So when I got the word, I did what any sane person who hasn't preached in a while would pretty much do, and I went and got myself a rock star to get myself punked. But for the record, it was organic, all right? And I deserved it because I was in the elliptical for an hour this morning. Don't believe me, Catherine, the piano player, was there too, so she saw me, but she did an hour and a half, so she's more hardcore than I am. But 1 Timothy chapter 1, if you can look at your Bibles there, you know, I want to read verse 1. That's the verse I'm going to focus on. It says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope, and the title of my sermon in lieu of what's going on is simply this. The title of my sermon is God, the pastor, and you. God, the pastor, and you. So I'm going to get into the sermon, and my first point is simply this. God is the one who puts men into the ministry. God is the one that puts people behind his pulpit, you understand? And this is the thing. If you look down there, it says, Paul, an apostle of who? Jesus Christ. By what? By commandment. See, when a man gets picked by God, he's obeying God. God seeks for people. He looks for those who are qualified. He wants to use people. He wants elders in every city. So what Pastor Anderson and Pastor Jimenez and these guys do, they see that calling based on the qualifications of a pastor, and they want to answer that calling. They want to be a blessing, so they say, yeah, Lord, send me, and God says, I will. And he does that. So if you can see right there, he says, by the commandment, I've got our Savior, Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope. Go to verse 12, please. Just go down to verse number 12. More evidence of who puts people in the ministry. Paul did not say, hey, I decided to do this on my own. He did not say that. What he did say was simply this. And I thank Christ Jesus, there he is again, our Lord, who has enabled me, for that he counted me what? Faithful. So not just an ordinary person will be selected by God, it's somebody who God considers faithful. And it simply says right there, put in me into the ministry. Put in me into the ministry. So the first point is simply this. God is the one that puts men into the ministry, and that's my first example right there. But he says, you put me in the ministry, when did that happen? Please go to Acts chapter 9. Go to Acts chapter 9. And see, right now I think this is a good message. I want my children to hear it. I mean, when I first got saved and I first started going to church, they were doing the discipleship program. I'm like, hey, I want to grow. I want to learn. So the assistant pastor at the time of my old church, Redwood Baptist Church in Northern California, he's like, hey, just sign up and I'll teach you some stuff. I'm like, okay, no problem, sign up. And we went over different lessons. We went over hair. We went over clothing. But one of the things that he went over was the qualification of a pastor and the pastor himself. So this lesson actually stuck with me. And as far as what's been going on recently, especially in Jacksonville, this message kept popping up in my head like, man, I wish these people knew what I learned a long time ago that would have kept me from making the mistake that they're making down in Jacksonville. And what they're doing in Jacksonville is they're splitting the church as we speak. That's what's happening right there. And if Fannie decided to take whatever crew is there that supports him and decide to go against the decision of the new pastor, which is Jonathan Shelley, and that is not right. He may think in his heart it is, but you're going to find out really quickly that it is not. It is a dangerous thing to rise up. When I learned that lesson early, I said to myself, you know what? No matter what happens, unless the pastor disqualifies himself, if the Savior is arising against my own pastor, I'd say, you know what, I'm going to stick with the pastor. I'm going to stick with him. Because from what I saw, just simple, clear verses, guess who picks them? It is God that picks them. So if you have a problem with a pastor, I understand this. You really have a problem with God. That's what you're really going up against. And so I'd be afraid to go up against God and touch God's anointed. And that's why we all need to be careful. And that's what I'm going to do today. The whole purpose of my sermon today is to get you to trust Pastor Anderson even more. And people on the internet, get you to trust your pastor even more. And those that don't have a pastor, start trusting pastors a little bit more in lieu of what obviously people have done. And I'm not talking about false prophets today. I'm talking about bona fide, saved individuals that are qualified that actually know what they're doing. I'm talking about those individuals that we should just, by faith, trust them, realize that they're coming from God, period. Everybody else, these false prophets, these oneness idiots, those guys, kick them to the curb, don't trust them for nothing. You're in the book of Acts. I'm going to start with verse 1. It says simply this. In Saul, we're going to talk about the apostle Paul. This is before he was known as Paul. He's known as Saul. And Saul, yet breathing out threatening and slaughtering against the disciples of the Lord, went up to the high priest and desired of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any of this wise, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven and fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, what purchased you without me? And he said, who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecuted. Is it hard for thee to kick against the pricks? And he trembled. And astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go. Go. The Lord chose him. The Lord put him in the ministry, just like he said earlier in 1 Timothy 1.12. It is the Lord that selected him to do a specific job, and it is no different today. Man doesn't pick the guile ultimately to lead the church. Yes, they're being used by God to lay hands, but the decision is coming from God. They need to just take that by faith. And it was a good day when I realized that. But you know what? I don't really understand much of Christianity. That's why I started going to church. I still had to consider myself Catholic at the time, fresh out of the military, saved a couple years earlier. I wanted to learn more about Christianity, so they started me small. But I'm glad they taught me right away about the pastor, the role, who picks him, because I didn't understand. I was like, why do people want to be pastors? What's the deal behind that? I mean, what's the whole purpose behind it? I didn't really understand it. I was kind of wondering what it was about, so I'm glad they took me, and they showed me that, look, this is of God. And that gave me a different perspective towards the pastor, realizing that, hey, you know what? This guy selected by God, I need to do my best to support the guy, and whatever happens, it is what it is. I just got to do my best. My individual decision was to, hey, do whatever I can to help him out once I realized that it's ultimately coming from God. But you're right there in the book of Acts, where it says, arise and go. God is a perfect example. This is where he picked him to be into the ministry, and of course, we know the apostle Paul was a guy that was faithful. He was so zealous, he was actually killing people, thinking that he was doing God a favor. But that's just my first example. I've got more examples of who really picks the man of God, who really is behind the pastor these days, and it's no different back then than it is today. If you've got your Bible, please go to Mark 1-2. Go to Mark 1-2. I'm going to read from Malachi 3-1, and Malachi 3-1 says simply this, and behold, I, that's the Lord talking, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me and the Lord whom he seek. Matthew 11-10, similar, the exact same thing, pretty much, for this is he of whom it is written, behold, I, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. Luke 7-27, this is he of whom it is written, behold, I, I send my messenger before that face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. Three times I, I is a prophecy about John the Baptist. I wonder if God wants us to figure out who's actually behind these men of God. I think he's making it very clear who's behind them and why we should support him because it's his decision. He decided he's the best person for the job. I want him to do it, and I want you to follow him. That's what it comes down to. You're right there in Mark 1-2. Mark 1-2 simply says this, as it is written in the prophets, behold, I send my messenger before that face, which shall prepare thy way before thee, the voice of one quiet in the wilderness, before you the way of the Lord, make his path straight. John did baptize in the wilderness and preached the baptism and repentance for the mission of sin. So who picked John? God did. When? Go to Luke 15, please. I'm sorry, Luke 1. Please go to Luke chapter 1, verse 5. I don't know, but last time I checked, I think God is smarter than men. So when he decides to do something, it's the best decision, period. So when people get together and they're trying to please the Lord, he's going to give them wisdom. When they're pleasing him in his sight, he's going to tell them, hey, this is what you should do. Not throwing out of a voice, but just through people's wisdom is what happened down in Jacksonville or in steadfast down in Texas. They chose him. They're like, hey, this is the best decision. We need to get this church running. We need to keep going. We don't need to lose people. So Pastor Anderson went down there, did his best to be right with God. I believe they made the right decision. And I'll just say it right now, Shelley is better than Romero, sorry, he is. Pastor Shelley was better than Romero before he left, and he's even better than he was even now. And he's going to step it up. That guy cares. He cares a lot. He cares so much about souls. He learned a different language just to get more people saved in heaven. He ended up taking the time to learn Spanish. It's difficult learning a language. Romero did not even come close to learning one word on his own. Probably learned a bunch of bad words from TV or who knows what. But I don't understand how they can look at this guy and it's like, hey, this guy wants to help. He's willing to move his family's sacrifice. He's not being selfish. You know, he's showing the true signs of a prophet by not being self-willed. And this guy down in Jacksonville, you can't even get underneath him? Let me give you guys the leadership lesson really quickly. You want to be a good leader? Never, never, ever, ever lose your ability to follow. Never lose that ability to follow. Because you know what the best leaders today in the military, you name it, hey, at any given point, they're ready to follow. And in case you haven't figured it out, I'm in charge of Wednesday night soul winning. Hey, our pastor's in charge of the preaching and everything else, but during Wednesday night soul winning, during his time, I tell him what to do. I give him his teams. I give him his silent partner. I tell him where he's going to go. He gives me an idea of where he wants to go, but I pick those specific streets and I pair up his people and I tell him, you're ready to go. Go come back. Give me back the map. He submits to me. I'm leading that. But guess what? Once he comes back, it reverses right away. I'm now under his authority. Why? Because he understands that, hey, at some point, I need to follow too. And that's what we're asking of Anaphani, but I guess he doesn't have that quality. And any leadership book would tell you that. Hey, good leaders also know how to follow. That's how God chose him to be leaders. But if you're right there in Mark 1, 2, you know, I'll tell you to go to look one. Like it says, I, I, I, I set my mission before that phase. Let's take a look at how it happened. It says there was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias of the course of Abia, and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. You want to be blameless? Hey, here's a clue. Not some, all. You want to be used in a mighty way, kids? You want to be used in a mighty way? You don't want to be pastors, future pastors? You might want to take a look at that verse and learn from Zacharias. Not some, all. Obviously, he wasn't a perfect man, but it says right there that he was walking in all the command sources of the Lord. That's just a side note. And they had no child, because that Elizabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years. And it came to pass that while he executed the priest's office before God in order of his course, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense. And when he went into the temple of the Lord, and a whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense, and there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias, for that prayer is heard. And the wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And we know that God picked them, because God kept saying, I will send my messenger. And even tells them, and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth, for he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God, and the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. God picked them. God knew that he was going to do what God told him to do. God called them the greatest, and this is a fact. God was behind John the Baptist. Does anybody want to disagree? And by faith, if you have that perspective today, you'll look at your pastor with more respect, with a little bit more fear, realizing that, hey, this is God's decision. Who am I to question it? This is what came about. This is the fact. This is the situation. I'm going to go with it. I'm by faith going to trust that God is behind this person and follow whoever it is that's behind the pulpit. I'm not talking about false prophets. I'm talking about people that are legitimately safe, and they're qualified, and they know what they're doing for crying out loud. So the third example I want to use that God is behind pastors, I'm going to use Jeremiah and Isaiah, so please go to Isaiah 61.1. Please go to Isaiah 61.1. I'm going to read from Jeremiah 1.3. Jeremiah 1.3 simply says this. And it came also in the days of Jehiakim, the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the current way of Jerusalem, captive in the fifth month. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee. I, I ordained you. He said, you're going to be my prophet, you're going to be my pastor. I'm going to pick you to get this job done. And that's what happened over in Texas. God chose Shelly, Pastor Shelly, to get the job done. And this guy can't even see it, and he wants to pretend he's all biblical, and he's all righteous, and he's following the Lord. That's a bunch of nonsense. He's not following the Lord at all. He's leading people astray, and he won't be punished for that. You'll see in a second. But you're in Isaiah 61, this is what the Bible says, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to bring liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. Obviously, it's the prophecy of Jesus Christ, but once again, the Father was behind Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is behind the man of God, and let's just realize that tonight, and that should put you at peace of mind, it should give you peace of mind to realize that, hey, my pastor is chosen by God. That's amazing. Being specifically selected by God Almighty, the God of the universe, the creator of the world, coming down, looking down, seeing Pastor Anderson, picking him, selecting him, I mean if you stop and think about it, that is just an amazing thought. And anybody here can be used by God as well. So point number one is simply this, God is the one who puts man into the ministry. And honestly, they usually say, hey, keep the best point for last, so they can remember it. But you know what, if you remember anything today, anything at all, I'll simplify it as much as I can, just remember this, God is the one responsible. Hopefully you wake up tomorrow and remember that. God is the one responsible for His men. He puts them in the ministry. God is the one responsible. If you remember anything today, just remember that, so you can now coast and enjoy the rest of the sermon. Now my second point is simply this, everyone needs a pastor. Everyone needs a pastor. Just like a child needs parents in order to make it in this world, of course the better the parent, the higher success the child is probably going to have. But just like a child needs parents to make it in this world, each one of us are children of God, and guess what we need? Someone to guide us as well. Every single person in this world needs a pastor. And you're like, duh, but as a girl, I already know that, that's why I'm here, I understand that. But there's people on the internet, and not only that, we have relatives, I know people in this room right now who have fathers that they literally call themselves Christians, they claim that they know the Lord, they claim that they're saved, they claim they're on their way to heaven, but when you ask them if they want to come to church, they're like, I just don't believe in pastors. I think they're all greedy. It's me and God, that's it, plain and simple, I don't need anybody else, me and the Bible, we're good to go. Well, let's see if that's what the Bible says. What I want you to do, if you can, please go to Jeremiah 3.12. As best you can, as fast as you can, go to Jeremiah 3.12. And I've heard that before, these backsliders, these people that don't know the Bible, let's give them the benefit of the doubt, let's just pretend they're saved for two seconds. You know what, that just shows me you don't even know the Bible, period. But for the ones that obviously don't, you know, have the Holy Ghost in them or whatever, then forget them, forget about all those individuals. But for us who have the Holy Ghost, hey, we can easily figure it out just by spending time in the Bible that God mentions pastors a lot, God wants us to all be under pastor. Pastor's there for our benefit, and that's really His. He's there to serve us, we're not here necessarily to serve Him. Now hopefully you're there in Jeremiah 3. Jeremiah 3 says simply this, This is talking about backsliding Israel, how do you know? Because it's right there, we turned out backsliding Israel. And I will bring you to Zion and I will give you pastors, not a pastor, pastors, well four, according to my heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. Well I can feed myself, I understand you can feed yourself by reading the Bible, but you know what? You can feed yourself a lot quicker if somebody helps you out. I mean even the world has figured that out. You know I hear all the time when I'm listening to audiobooks, they always say, hey look, you cannot learn everything about a certain subject in your lifetime. The best way to get good at something is to learn from people who are already doing it. That's just a fact. The way to learn the Bible even better is by obviously getting it from people who already read it, who have learned things. See Pastor Anderson is a product of his parents, his pastor, and probably leaders that he had throughout his life, whether in Bible college or who knows what, but he's the man he is today, not because he just went into a closet and read the Bible for 20 years and then came out saying, hey, I'm ready, okay, you're ordained, boom, and all of a sudden he's preaching these great sermons? It's not because he read the Bible and that was it, no, it's because he learned from men of God, not just that, he had pastors throughout his life that helped him to become the man who he is, and we're getting the benefit from that, I don't know if you, but I've benefited a lot from the preaching, I hope you do too as well. But how did it get to this point? Through pastors, I mean pastors are mentioned all over the Bible, Old Testament as you can tell, that's Jeremiah, well let's take a look at the New Testament, because in Jeremiah it simply says this, hey, they will feed you with knowledge and understanding, why? Because that's their job. If you have the Bible, please go to 1 Timothy 4.12, 1 Timothy 4.12, I'm going to read from 2 Timothy 4.2, and this is just basic stuff, but it's powerful, this stuff kept me from going against my pastor when it got tough back in California, and I'll go over that in a second, but what we see here is simply this, it says, preach the word, this is Paul talking to Timothy, preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, extort with all long-suffering and doctrine, preach the word, I mean you can't get any clearer than that, we need a preacher to preach the word. The second thing about pastors is that they're there to remind us of stuff that you already know, which is what I'm doing today, I don't think I'm preaching anything new, there's nothing new under the sun, I'm just repeating stuff you guys already know, I'm just hoping you need to refresh it in your heart, why? Because if not, we'll let it slip, it'll go away, it's just how we are. So it says simply here, if thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nursed up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, where unto thou hast attained. So all I want to say is simply this, the pastor's there to help us, to rebuke us, to exhort us, to reprove us, but to remind us even of some of the stuff that's small, you know, to just tell us, hey, remember this, yeah, oh, we forgot about that, so the pastor's very important, he's going to do these things for us, but you know what, he's also there to be an example unto us, to help us grow quicker to become the man or the woman that God wants us to be. Get right there in 1 Timothy 4, 12, it simply says this, Paul talking to Timothy, let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word and in conversation and in charity and in spirit and in faith and in purity, he is to be our example. And yes, reading the Bible, you can learn a lot of what right and wrong is, but let's just face it, some things are just given to individuals just by pure wisdom, and what I mean by that, here's a good example, is soul winning. Let me ask you this, how many of you guys actually learned soul winning, really good soul winning just by reading the Bible? I didn't think so either. I learned it by watching pastors, by reading books on soul winning, by learning the Romans road. I don't know who came up with the Romans road, but we're all benefiting from it today, and I think it's decades old, maybe it can go up to 100 years old, I don't know, but that's the kind of stuff that I'm talking about, I don't think anybody would have been able to learn this just on their own, just by reading the Bible, going through Romans 23, etc. etc. So it's just a perfect example of how the pastor's there for a reason, it'll benefit us, perfect example is soul winning, I don't think we can learn the soul winning that we even have today just by reading the Bible, maybe we could have, but I highly doubt it because God's given us pastors to grow. But I'm going to read from 2 Timothy 4, 5, if you can please go to Titus chapter 1, go to Titus chapter 1 please, and it simply says this in 2 Timothy 4, 5, but watch thou in all things endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, a soul winner, make full proof of thy ministry. So Timothy is being told, A, show them how it's done, show them what evangelism is, teach them how to be one, because that's what God wants to do, to go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature. I'm going to read from Ephesians 4, 11, it says this, and he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors, they're mentioned in the Old Testament, they're mentioned in the New Testament, this is a verse that I'm pretty sure 99% of you guys have heard, so let's never get to the point where we start despising church and let's never get to the point where we really don't think that being a pastor is such a big deal. They're chosen by God, that's a big deal. So you're right there, Ephesians 4, I'm sorry I told you to go to Titus chapter 2, a whole chapter all about being a pastor, if it's not that important, if we don't really need pastors that much, if they're not that crucial in our lives, why would God spend an entire chapter on it? I'm just going to start reading. Titus chapter 1, Paul, servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness and hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began, but has in due time manifested his word through what? Preaching. Who's doing the majority preaching? Pastors, preachers, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Savior and if having pastors is not that big of a deal anymore in 2019, well let's keep reading. To Titus, my own son, after the common faith, grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior, for this God slaved idea in Crete that thou should have said unto her things that are wanted and do what? Ordain elders in some cities, most of the cities, every city. So what is that showing us? That God wants pastors in every city. And last time I checked this wasn't something that was just for their time, it's for our time as well. So what are we looking at so far? Elders in every city. What did he give them back in the book of Jeremiah? Pastors according to his heart, that's who God's looking. So just by faith you have to look at our pastors and the other pastors that hey, they're not self-willed, they're not greedy, God wouldn't have ever picked them unless they're coming out being oneness or whatever heresy, damnable heresy, then of course they weren't chosen by God. Just use common sense. But let's just give our pastors, the ones in our movement, no matter how long they've been in the ministry, the benefit of the doubt until they come out full-blown oneness and realize that these men are of God. We can't trust them. If they weren't of God, they never would have been selected in the first place if they're truly saved. It's just a fact. Now of course they probably have some saved pastors that force themselves to become non-self-ordained who knows what, but the people in our movement from what I know, these guys are qualified, these guys are legit, let's just look at them as what they are, men selected by God to help us, to benefit us, let's just trust them, amen? So point number one is that God is the one who puts men into the ministry. Point number two is that everyone needs a pastor. And point number three is simply this, I believe everybody in this room should know how to treat his pastor, should know how to treat his pastor. And here's some examples of how we can treat our pastor. Number one, pray for him daily, daily, there's a lot of people in this room, I cannot possibly pray for every single one of you guys daily, but if you're not doing so, and I'm not going to ask for a raise of hand, if you're not doing so, try to make it a habit in 2019, forget about 2018, let's start with 2019, of praying for our pastor daily, wisdom, protection, you name it. And if some of you guys are doing it, hey, 10 years down the road, I want to hear that you're still doing it. Not just for 2019, but for whatever it is, 20, 30, 50 years down the road, and look, that's my goal. I don't always do it every day, but something happens, or whatever comes across my, I just get busy, but that's one thing you can do for your pastor, is pray for him daily. Let me read from 1 Timothy, you guys can go to Hebrews 13, 7 please, go to Hebrews 13, 7. So 1 Timothy 2 says simply this, I so differ that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving our thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. I want to just back up a little bit where it says, pray for all that are in authority. In case you haven't figured it out, you know, Pastor Anderson in this house is our authority. Our authority. How do you know that? Well, look at Hebrews. Hebrews 13, 17, it doesn't say anything but this, obey, obey them that have the rule over you, obey doesn't really mean obey, well keep reading, and submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls, as they must give an account that they may do it with joy and not with grief, for that is unprofitable unto you. So the next point is simply this, how can we treat our pastor good? Well, pray for him, but yes, also number two, obey him, obey him, in stuff that pertains to this house. So if he doesn't want a carpet of certain color and he tells you, no, take your carpet back to the store, you do it. Don't decide for him what he wants to do. Let him decide everything that has to do with this house, whatever it may be, it's for your benefit as well, because you don't want him to give an account and when your name comes up in heaven, he's thinking, man, that guy was a pain in the butt. When your name comes up, hopefully it's like, amen, Raymond, yeah, I can't wait to see how he gets rewarded. So you may do it joyfully, amen, and even when Pastor Anderson starts praying for you, man, I hope he's thinking, man, I enjoy praying for this individual, I hope you're not that guy who's giving him a hard time and when it's time for him to pray for you, it's like, oh man, this guy. I want to be a blessing unto him, I don't know about you, amen. So just obey him. It says right there clearly, obey them, Adam Fanning, obey them. He now has the rule over you, in case you haven't figured that out, Brother Shelley, Brother Shelley is now in charge, do what he tells you or it's going to come down on you. And another way we can honor him, well, I'm sorry, another way we can treat our pastor very well is by honoring him, 1 Timothy 5.17, if you can go to 1 Timothy 5.18, that'd be great, but 1 Timothy 5.17 says simply this, let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine, and doctrine. So whenever you can, I mean, let's just try to do this, let's just try to give Pastor Anderson, I mean, if anybody labors in the word and doctrine, I mean, for crying out a lot, I believe our pastor is doing that. Not just that, it's like, hey, he's worthy of double honor and I know when you try to show that to him, there's going to be these haters, oh, look at that cult, look how they worship him or whatever, he named two of his kids after him, what a cult, in case you don't know, I did name two of my kids after Pastor Anderson, yes, I did, because I didn't have money to give, so I gave him the names, amen, and when my kids asked me, why did you name me Steve? I'm going to say because of Pastor Anderson and I want you to follow him, amen, that's why I did it, not because it's a cult, because I'm trying to show him double honor, right? Because I didn't name my third kid after him, his name is Savion, it doesn't say triple honor, double honor, so I did two, but it would have been three if it said triple honor, I promise you that, believe you me, I would have done that, in a heartbeat, bam, just like that, but it can be whatever you think is honorable to him, do it, but one thing you should never do is call him by his first name, amen, you're like, who in the heck would do that? Hey, that happened in this church, we had a big issue years ago, it's over with now, but hey, it was Steve, Steve, Steve, and I'm sitting back like, man, I came from Independent Fundamental Baptist Church, and this lesson was taught to me 15 years ago, but you know what, it's common sense you don't do that, there's such disrespect, I mean I have a hard time calling Captain Hester, Hester, or Brother Hester, every time I see him, it's like Captain Hester, I just have a hard time like that, it's a marine thing, alright, he's literally a captain from the Navy, hopefully he doesn't get his, you know, retirement taken away by me saying that, but I literally have a hard time calling him Ray, why, because I honor him, I respect the guy, it's nothing to do with me trying to be a pain in the butt, I'm not trying to annoy him, it's just hard for me to call him Ray, especially since I know he's a captain, do you get the same feeling, or what, you do, right, not just me, ha, so let's give him as much honor as possible, amen, another way you can honor Pastor Anderson is simply this, or anybody, whatever pastor you have down the road, is make sure he and his family are well taken care of, well taken care of, and I think this church does a really good job doing that, you know, I mean I see you guys doing stuff for him all day long, every day, and it's amazing, I mean I love that, and I don't know how much he makes, but I'm gonna tell you right now, I don't think he makes enough, you know, seriously, I mean there was this book that I ended up getting, this audio book, it was about basically giving presentations or speeches or whatever, because you know pastor did his class, I'm like well let me see if this guy has better tips or a little bit more stuff, I don't know, Pastor Anderson's stuff was way better by the way, so I ended up getting this guy's book, I listened to it, and he was talking about some online, he's like hey download my online or whatever, so you can kind of work on your speeches or whatever the case, so I went to his website, whatever it was, and I couldn't figure it out, I'm like man, where is it at, I want to get it to kind of compare it to what pastor's been giving us, which was pretty similar from what I could tell, so I decided to just email, and I'm thinking he'll never answer, well I emailed the answer back, you know, and I'm like yeah I'm just trying to get the online for some reason, I got the audio book, and you said go to your website, can't download it, what's up, so he's like hey, you know, where did you buy it, and that was the last email that he sent me, I forgot to respond to him, but I was kind of checking him out, this guy goes around teaching CEOs or whatever how to speak a little bit better, get better presentations, you know obviously I didn't learn from him that well, but here's what happened, I looked and see how much he charges, the guy to give a seminar, like a three hour seminar I believe, charges $10,000, $10,000 just to be at a three hour conference at your company to teach you how to speak well, and guess what, Pastor Anderson does way more than three hours a month, and his stuff is way better than this guy, he's way more dynamic, way better speaker, this guy should take lessons from Pastor Anderson, but this guy, if he were to preach as many times as Pastor Anderson, would probably want $100,000 a month, but that's the reality, these speakers get paid a ton of money, and a lot of stuff is just how to make more money, but we're getting stuff that's yeah, making us make spiritual money, you know, but I hope you never think that Pastor Anderson is making so much money, it's like man, it must be nice or whatever, this stuff is hard work, to get to this level is hard work, tons of hours that you never saw him reading the Bible, I mean I have a lot of respect for him, it just takes a lot of hard work to get to that level, to go from where he started, to where he's at, where every sermon he's just killing it over and over and over again, of course it's not perfect, but every time I listen to a sermon I'm like man, how does he do it without even trying, it's like how in the world did he preach on Romans 8.28 a couple of days ago with no notes, I'm like what in the world's up with that, you know, and then he calls me up, I want you to preach, yes sir, and I'm like lock myself in there and do my best, but all that to say this, hey, I mean I don't even know how to say, but what he's doing is a great service to us, and compared to what the world makes, he doesn't even come close, but let's never make him struggle, you know, let's just meet every need, you see a need, let's take the lead, whatever it may be, you know, cleaning up the place, it makes a difference, helping him out of his house, it makes a difference, whatever you can do, just keep on doing it, God will reward you for it, amen. Another way we can take care of Pastor Anderson is by never allowing him to be criticized, never allowing him to be criticized, I want you to go to Numbers 12.1 please, go to Numbers 12.1, I'm going to read from 1 Timothy 5.19, 1 Timothy 5.19 simply says this, against an elder received not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses, two or three witnesses, and pastors are not perfect, but you know what, let's just never ever allow them to be criticized, and many times if you've been here long enough, he has told you what to do, and not just that, let's just try not to criticize ourselves as well, criticize others, but for crying out loud, if anybody's criticizing our pastor, hey, let's just do our service and let him know about it or shut him down, whoever it is, him or her, because I don't know about you, but he has saved me from a lot of destruction that I probably would have had if I didn't come across this preaching, because I wasn't on board with any of this stuff until he showed me straight from the Bible, I mean I grew up in the old independent fundamental Baptist church, where it was just nurseries, Christian schools, Bible colleges, pre-Trib rapture, all this stuff that would have definitely destroyed my family, wives working, you know, it was just ridiculous, and when I heard otherwise, I don't know about you, but I appreciated it so much, I couldn't believe it, I'm like man I am going in the wrong direction, and that grew my love for him, hopefully you guys have the same feel as well, I used to work for an addictions program, I was a volunteer in the addictions program, and the main guy, he came up to me and he's like look, these guys are addicted to heroin, pornography, marijuana, et cetera et cetera, don't be surprised if all of a sudden they're just hugging you and squeezing you like crazy, because when you help these people get off that stuff, they would take a bullet for you, and to me that sounded really weird, I'm like whoa, that's crazy, but honestly, I can tell you that's how I feel about Pastor Anderson, for getting me off all the garbage that I was into, and if he had not come across when he did, who knows what would have happened to my family, who knows if the Independent Fundamental Baptist, the old guys would have gotten into my head even more, I probably would have just had two kids and that's it, but I got eight kids over there and I'm happy for every single one of them, and you know what, I don't know, but I'm telling you, I think destruction would have been the word to describe my life had I not come across the truth that Pastor Anderson preaches, so when it comes to me criticizing him, I can't even think about criticizing him, it's just so hard, I'm sure if I get back to it and don't read my Bible, it's easier for me to think about criticizing him or whatever, but let's just stay in the word of God, let's just God guide us and help us and just keep growing and I guarantee you'll never get to the point where you're going against Pastor Anderson. Isn't it funny that Fannin claims to be so spiritual, boasting about how much Pastor Anderson is, Pastor Anderson that, and now he's trying to make Pastor Anderson seem like he's just a corrupt individual, trying to make it seem like Pastor Anderson just full of lies, you know, trying to take over, you know, and last year he was just praising him, trying to invite him every single time to go down there, you know, but now he's turned against him, he's a deceiver big time, how could you do that? Well you're either unsaved or you're not in this book, bottom line. To rail on him, to call him this, call him that, it's just unheard of, like I can't believe he's doing that. To a man that helped save my life, I feel like I can go down to Jacksonville and just give him a knuckle sandwich, I just feel like seriously, who's, I mean I'm not going to do it, but I'm like, how could you be so deceitful? You know, it's like you're out of your stinking mind, but let's never get to that point where we start to criticize Pastor Anderson, and if we criticize others, let's just fix ourselves as well, because that's not good either. But not just, not allowing somebody to criticize Pastor Anderson, you know, let's us never criticize him, and you guys are there in Numbers 12.1, I'm just going to read one verse, 12.1, and Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses, criticizing speaking against Moses, because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married, for he had married the Ethiopian woman, and we know how the story goes, if you know the Bible, you know, at least through that chapter, you know that she got struck with leprosy, God didn't like it, it was not a small thing, it was a big thing to criticize Moses at the time, and you know what, that's what these guys are doing. You know, they're clearly criticizing a man that's clearly a man of God, and I mean I don't need to ask for a raise of hands, but you guys got saved just listening to him, some of you guys got saved just listening to him on the internet, and when I first started seeing these emails, I'm like, this has got to be fake, this can't be real, then I started running into families like the Ball family, you know, other individuals as well, you know, other people that are just on fire, and I'm just like, what in the world, how long you been saved? That long? Not even five years, and you're all doing me, shame on me, so how in the world, he helps you grow so fast, it's just unbelievable, you know, 15 years ago when I got saved, trying to find something on salvation or solving on the internet was impossible, he's got stuff all over the place, if he's not the devil, you're insane, I'm sorry, but you're just crazy, but everybody's saying, you're not even qualified to be a pastor, you're Pastor Jimenez, you guys are not even qualified, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, yeah, says the guy, you know, and his chair doesn't even go to church, all messed up in his head, I mean, did you not read this story? When they showed me this story when I first got saved, that scared me, I was like, wow, yeah, I'm gonna try to make sure I never say anything against pastor, you know, pastors are all back in Northern California, it just freaked me out, but you know what, it is what it is, you know, we just got to keep ourselves from becoming these individuals and start criticizing our pastor, you know, or other pastors, let them do their thing, just realize, hey, if you got issues with them, you really got issues with God, because they, God is the one that selected them, he was the one behind them, so hopefully we can remember that, that God is the one responsible, take that truth and take it for the rest of your lives. Another thing is simply this, you guys are already kind of doing this, but, you know, just help him out, if you can't go to Exodus 17, 9, just help him out with whatever you can, obviously that goes back to taking care of his family, you know, doing your best to just, you know, help the pastor, you know, financially, however it may be, if you can, give, give, you know, but this is just a very cool story of how they just, you know, helped the man of God. Exodus 17, 9, I'll give you time to get there, because it's a really cool story, we should read it as a church, it's one of the coolest stories I've read early on in my Christian life, I'm just like, wow, and I didn't even know this story and I actually came across this story through my wife, at the time when we were going to Redwood Baptist Church in Northern California, she ended up going to like a lady's retreat and there was this evangelist, you know, his last name, I believe it was, I think it was in Hartree or something, you know, and his wife was leading this lady's, you know, evangelist, you know, function or whatever, so I remember my wife going to that and then she ended up coming back to church and I ran across her and I was just curious, I'm like, so, you know, what do they do with these things? And she was saying, oh, she was just giving, you know, some lessons, some Bible lessons, and I'm like, really, what did she give? And she gave this story, you know, she was talking about Erin and her basically helping Moses, you know, during a battle, you know, how they helped raise his arms up, you know, and that was just her saying, look, this is how we should be with our pastors, try to help raise his arms up when they're down, you know, try to lift him up, you know, because let's just face it, there's certain things a pastor cannot do without our help. Actually, there might be a lot that he cannot do without our help. He knows that, you know, so together we're going to get a lot accomplished. This isn't a one-man show whatsoever. You know, a pastor needs us and we need him as well to reach this whole entire county and state, country, and world. You know, hope you're on board with his vision of reaching seven billion people with the gospel. I love that. I want some of that. Hopefully my kids can accomplish that if we don't accomplish it in our lifetime, but that's a great goal to have. God loves you when you pray big. You know, pray big or go home. You know, you guys know the story with that. But let's just read really quickly the story because I think it's a very good story to read. It says, then Moses said unto Joshua, choose out men and go out, fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand. So Joshua did as Moses had said to him and fought with Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill and it came to pass that Moses held up his hands that Israel prevailed. When he led down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands were heavy and he took a stone and put it under him and he sat there on and Aaron and Hur stayed up, his hands, the one on the one side and the other on the other side and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. Can you imagine that pain? Ms. Katherine was basically doing shoulders this morning and she had that thing up and rising while reading her Bible. I'm like, man, you remind me of Moses. She's working on her shoulders and she's like, this feels good. And just checking out her Bible while everyone's looking at her reading her Bible, working out. It was a cool sight but it reminded me of this story. So maybe this is why God had pastor tell me to go preach so I could talk about this and it'll stick in your head. But can you imagine Ms. Katherine, our piano player, just lifting up that machine, you know? It was a cool sight. I should have took a picture. And it says that A, his arms were there to the going down of the sun and Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword, bottom line, they won. Why? Because God's people got behind a pastor and they succeeded. And you know what, steadfast, you know, steadfast Fort Worth, you guys are going to succeed. You guys are going to win. This is my verse to prove it that you guys are going to win. You guys are going to defeat this knucklehead down in Jacksonville and if they leave, let them leave. They'll be under God's wrath and I'm sure they're saying the thing about us but we're right, they're wrong, bottom line. So stick with it, steadfast, Fort Worth, stick with your pastor, stick with Brother Shelley. Pastor Shelley will guide you, he'll take care of business and he's far better than we were anyways so just take that to the bank, he will do a good job. Amen? And my last point on how you can help your pastor, I don't have a verse for this but it's just common sense. This might offend some of you people but I'm not trying to offend anyone. This is something that was told to me and you know what, it affected me and I never forgot this. And I kind of took it as a shock but you know what, it makes sense when you think about it. This number 8 or this 8 point is simply this, do not waste his time. Do not waste his time. His time is so limited. Do not waste his time with trivial. Do not call him on the phone unless it's extremely important. If it can wait until church, let it wait. Why is that? Well let me give you some biblical titles that they give the pastors so you can get an idea of where I'm coming from. This is what the pastor calls them, this is what they're called in scripture. Watchmen on the wall, bishop, man of God, minister, evangelist, prophet, teacher, shepherd, overseer, elder, pastor, preacher, yes they're interchangeable words but it seems like that's a busy individual. But let me give you the 2019 list as well. Starting with my favorite one, he's also a janitor believe it or not. He still cleans this place up here and there. We walked into our office, me and Daniel and it was squeaky clean. We're like oh man we're in trouble. But being the good boss that he is, he's like hey I fixed it for you guys. We're like oh man thank you. How about this, counselor. You guys have seen it after morning service, night service, Wednesday night service, he's doing his best to counsel people and even preaching to us is counseling us. How about this one, soul winning director. You should see how many hours he spent trying to get the last rest trip going. He was here for hours. It took a lot of hard work. He even said hey it's a lot more hard work than I thought. So he was in there doing the best he can. When I went to your house to do the little supper he was still here and I don't know how long he stayed but he was here way earlier than that. Almost like 12, 13 hours trying to get this soul winning map done. And guess what, it's still going to happen down the road. Probably with the Indio one. So if you want to ever help pastor just hit him up. Hey what can I do? I know the Indio trip is kind of stressful to plan out. Just try to make it a blessing on him, amen. Officiator at weddings. Let's just face it, we had a lot of weddings last year, did we not? Hey nobody told them in Bible college they'll be doing that left and right. But he has to have all these practices, yes or no. Hey Friday night practices. Who's had a Friday night practice at a wedding? There you go. Hey this is just more stuff that he does. Administrator. I mean he's constantly working on the computer. Him and Mrs. Anderson, bulletins, you name it, emails, Facebook, all of that stuff. It's work. It takes time. He's an office manager as well. Takes care of me, these guys, making sure we're doing what we're doing. Music director, who has been part of the recordings. It's a blessing, right? But it's hard work, is it not? Planning all that stuff takes time. Let me continue. Camp director. We haven't gone camping in a while, yes, but when we do it's hard work to plan and to pay. You know, who would have thought you had to take care of camp stuff as a pastor? Hey you know what happened to his grandma? He knows he has to be sometimes a funeral director. It's a fact. He has to take care of business sometimes and his outside, his usual duties. Financial officer. I mean man, having to take care of the bills, figuring it all out. You think it's easy? Talk to Romero, who screwed it all up. Talk to Fannie, who's like, I haven't been paid what I've been paid when I first started doing this. All the money's going to pay the rent. No, it's going to gambling actually. That's really where it's going. And because of you, oh no, I didn't know anything about it. Look, you're in charge of that church, the thing's just screwed up, takes your ownership, everything that happens at that building, at that church down in Jacksonville is a reflection of what you're doing and failing to do. So your failing to get on top of Romero and make him do his job, guess what, that's your fault as well. But he's not taking full responsibility. He was going to preach on sermon this morning, and Pastor Romero says, I bet you he was going to throw him under the bus. He never told me about money, never said this, never said that. That's a loser. Take responsibility. You own it, take it. Everything that happens down there, reflection of what you're doing or failing to do. Same thing with your children. They do something, reflection of what you're doing or failing to do. Don't come across as like, hey, that person, this person. That's how losers talk. It's just a fact. Let's continue. Well, obviously we know he's an evangelist, worldwide evangelist sometimes. Hey, traveling is hard, but he wants to do a lot of traveling to wake nations up. That's why he's doing it, not because it's all fun and dandy. It's hard work traveling. It's hard work doing all that. So when you're trying to get on radios, I mean, he's a visionary. That stuff takes a lot of time to figure out and do. He's also a church driver. 515 so many times, who's driving that? He's doing it. I'm not doing it, he's doing it. Website developer, well I'm never done with the website, but he does and that stuff takes time. He's a director. Here's one that most pastors don't even touch, film director. Coming up with some good documentaries? They're good, right? That stuff takes work. It takes me like three hours to do a three minute video, let alone a 55 minute cool documentary just giving you the stuff that he does. I just put international speaker because everybody wants him all over the place. Radio shows call him up, places are like, hey, come have a marathon over here. This country, that country, I mean, they want him to come and he wants to do it, but guess what? When things go bad, he doesn't have time to do any of that. He's also a brother, a father, a son, a husband, and hopefully in 2020, a grandpa, right? What are you laughing, man? I'm serious. He's going to give it more busier, folks. He's going to give it more busier. But I'm just trying to wake you guys up a little bit. Now, I'm not saying don't go to him. Of course, go to him, but you know what? When I was in middle school, they taught me this phrase, just a minute, let me think. What does that mean? Just take a minute to think about your question, you can probably answer it yourself. Let's just face the reality of things. But don't be a PTW. Who's ever heard me say that? PTW. He has, he has. Don't be a PTW, he has. Here's what I tell people when they're going out so many, watch out for PTWs. I haven't told that many people, but this is something that I got from my old job when I was working at Fry's Electronics and we had to deal with customers. A PTW is simply this, a professional time waster. They're everywhere. They're all knocking doors, they're coming to Fry's, make you think they're going to buy, they waste about an hour and a half of your time while you're losing commission, not a big deal, I like helping customers, but they specifically go there just to waste time because they have no friends whatsoever and they just want to have somebody to talk to and they sacrifice you instead of letting you go out there and make some money to feed your family. They're just, I got a question about this computer and later on I'll think about it and he leaves. And never comes back. Don't be a professional time waster. Watch out for them out so many. They want to talk your ear off. So when it comes to the church, don't be a PTW to pastor. If it's important tell them, and look, for the last nine and a half years, ten years that I've been here, you know, I think I only have asked them maybe five or less questions. The last one was probably about four or whatever years ago and it was really important and it was me switching jobs because I couldn't figure it out. I was working as an electronics supervisor here at Fry's Electronics but then this job with Cox Communications came up and I just wasn't sure if I wanted to work for a company that deals with TV and whatever, so I just brought up the pastor and he's like, do it. Go for it. You know, you're providing a service, what people do with that service is their business. I'm like, all right. Follow the man's advice, worked out great. So even now it's like, hey, you know what, he hasn't led me astray. Romans 28, right? Even if he does give us bad advice, if you're right with God, I think God will take care of you. What do you think? Can we have enough faith to figure that one out? So of course pastor's not going to make perfect decisions but he makes a lot of good decisions. Let's just admit that. There's a lot of good wisdom. He's a very good pastor and let's just try to back him up and once again let me just quickly review. Tonight's sermon is simply God, the pastor, and you. I want you to realize that God's behind these people. I want you to see what the pastor's all about and I want you to realize what you need to do. You need to figure out how to treat your own pastor because he has children. They want to go home. They're hungry. Obviously Ms. Anderson wakes up early, goes to bed late. Hey, she would like to go home in a reasonable hour. I'm not saying go to him but do your best to answer your own questions. If you can't figure it out, go to him if it's something you need to know like right now because I have to make a decision on that job really quick to see if I should even take it but I didn't want to make a mistake so I brought it up to him and he told me without even thinking twice, just do it. You can pay more. Your son is completely off. Hey, it's another whatever trade that you can learn and it was what it was. It became a blessing by taking his advice but I couldn't figure it out just from my own Bible reading. The answer was going to be no. If you had to tell me pick one, make a decision, I would have said no to it so I double checked with him. He said yes and before I even went up to him, I just told my wife get ready for a job change because I'm going to do whatever he tells me to do because I can't figure this out. So I'm going to do whatever he tells me to do and I'm comfortable with fries but you know what? I don't know anything about cable. I don't know anything about tools. It's going to be from scratch. I'm going to have to just take it by faith but I told him look, if he says go, I'm going to hopefully it works out but I don't see how it wouldn't if it's coming from him. So when I did that, I went up to him. That was a really hard decision. I couldn't figure it out. That's when I went up to him to figure it out and he just told me hey, do it and it worked out just fine. So when it comes to questions, all that, if he's freed up, I'm sure he doesn't mind answering them but hey, check your heart. Make sure you're not doing it just to impress him. Hopefully you're not despising him to the point where you're going to waste his time. But I just want you guys to remember that because when I learned that about 15 years ago, I was always watching my time with pastor because I did see that he had kids, his wife, everything. So I did my best to answer my own questions and when I was told that, I didn't get offended. I'm like that makes sense. You know, because like he said before, there's 300 people here. If you spend some minute with everybody, he'll never go home. It's just a fact. So let's just remember this as best you can but once again, hopefully you never get to the point where you're despising pastor and you start to look at him in a way that he's not. Hey, he's chosen by God, period. And if you had a problem with him, we get emails, hey, I got a problem with my pastor. Well, did you pray for him? No. Did you pass for him? No. He's like are you doing anything for him? No, but he preaches this and that and whatever. He's like, you know what, shut up and go pray. Just shut up, go pray. Go a day with hunger and just spend it all in prayer and see what God does with that. But if not, remember the Church of Sardis, don't leave anyways unless he disqualifies himself. Stick around and back him up. God will bless you because it's harder to back up somebody that you're not fully on board with, you know, than to somebody that you completely agree with. Yeah, you'll back him up real quick, you know, but it takes more character to back up somebody who you may not completely agree with him but he is your boss. He is the pastor. He's taking care of business, you know. Show him love, show him respect and hopefully you guys learn something. Let's pray. Dear Father, we thank you so much for all that you've done and Lord, thank you for the opportunity. Father, I did my best. I hope everybody just goes home made a fight and Lord, I ask you to just bless the congregation for their faithfulness. In the name of your son, Jesus Christ, amen.