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

Right, we're here in our Bible in 1 Samuel chapter 2, 1 Samuel chapter 2, and I want you, we're going to be preaching on the series of proper balance, it's going to be part three in the series, we're going to talk about a spiritual balance, a spiritual balance. Now last week I talked about the essentials of our life, and obviously the spiritual realm is part of the essentials of your life, but I want to get more specific in our spiritual life, what exactly do we need to accomplish? What are the main areas that we are trying to achieve, okay? So last week I briefly talked about Bible reading, soul reading, and those things, but what are actually the things we're trying to develop? And one thing we need to have in our spiritual balance is knowledge. Knowledge is an important part of our spiritual walk with God. Here's what the Bible says in 1 Samuel 2 verse 1, and Hannah prayed and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, my horn is exalted in the Lord, my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies because I rejoice in thy salvation. For there is none holy as the Lord, for there is none beside thee, neither is there any rock like our God. Talk no more so exceeding proudly, let not arrogance come out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. And I would say that when you start coming to a church like ours, if you come from a different church background, this is probably one of the big switches because we really emphasize personal Bible reading. I mean, if you come from a Catholic background, Catholics never read the Bible. I mean, there's very few Catholics that have ever read the Bible cover to cover. It's extremely rare that Catholics read the Bible. It's not very emphasized, right? And then there's a lot of other churches that would focus on the music ministry and they make you feel like you're close to God when you never actually read the Bible. You don't even know what the Bible says, and yet you're convinced that you're very close to God, even though you have no knowledge of the Bible. But the problem is the Bible says that God is a God of knowledge, meaning we need to know what the Bible says. There are a list of rules of things we need to do and things we should not do, and you're only going to know them if you know what the Bible says, you need to get knowledge. It is true that you can get a lot of knowledge through the preaching of God's word. In fact, I would say that's probably one of the big things that you would say when you join a church like ours is you learn a lot, right? But you can learn more in your personal Bible reading and personal study of the Word of God yourself than you're going to hear in three sermons a week that are preached at this church. Go to Hosea chapter 6. Hosea 6. I mean, there are a lot of people that spend hours a day listening to CCM music. I don't know if Casting Crowns is still around. I don't know the modern CCM, but they listen to Jeremy Camp, Casting Crowns, Third Day or whatever the music is that's big now, and they feel like they're spiritual because the music itself gives you this false feeling that you're close to God when you're not, though, because you haven't actually done what God said, which is read the Bible every day, right? You need to know what the Bible says. Knowledge is an important aspect, and yet there are a lot of people, most people within the Christian realm that they pretty much just say, well, you know, I'm not really sure. I'll just ask my pastor, but they don't personally know the Bible for themselves. That's a big problem because God is a God of knowledge, meaning he expects all of us individually, not just me, but every member of the church to know what the Bible says. Says here in Hosea 6 verse 6, If I desired mercy and not sacrifice in the knowledge of God, more than burnt offerings. What the Bible says here is that God desires knowledge, knowledge of God, meaning you read the Bible, you read the scriptures, you have a Bible reading plan, you read the word of God, you memorize the word of God, you learn what the Bible says. You need to have the knowledge of God's work. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 6, Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy chapter 6. I mean, I think a lot of people have this buildup intimidation where they feel like that they cannot understand the Bible on their own and they feel like, man, only pastor Stuckey can do it. He's got a special gift. No, no, no. You have the same Holy Spirit of God inside of you that I have inside of myself and the greatest teacher in this world is the Holy Spirit of God. Meaning if you are saved, you can read your Bible and understand a spiritual book with the spiritual, the Spirit of God inside of you. You do not need me to learn what the Bible says. Now I can help you because I've read the Bible many times. I can help motivate you. I can teach you some new things, but it's not like you cannot pick up the Bible and read for yourself. You can read what the Bible says and be like, okay, this is what happened. This is what the Bible is teaching. You can read and actually learn for yourself, right? The Bible says God is a God of knowledge and he prefers knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Deuteronomy chapter 6, Deuteronomy 6 verse 6. And these words which I command thee to say shall be in thine heart and now shall teach them diligently onto thy children. Now look, God expects every parent to teach the word of God to their children. The thing is, if God is expecting you to be a teacher of the word of God, that means that you can actually learn it for yourself. Because think about the world that we live in today. There are a lot of topics that people just don't have a natural ability and they could never do, right? Many subjects in school and we all have various strengths and weaknesses. I used to be a math teacher and I'm pretty good at math, so I can teach math, but there's a lot I cannot teach because I just don't have a skill or I don't have an interest or whatever. But you know what the Bible is saying? With the word of God, it's different. Everybody can learn the word of God and teach it to their children. You might not be able to teach your kids calculus or Mandarin Chinese, but you can teach the word of God. You say, why is that? Because honestly, the Bible is not that complicated, at least not most of it. There are deep things in the Bible, but even in a tough book, a book like Isaiah or Ezekiel, you can still understand a lot of what you're reading. You might not get everything that the Bible is saying, but you can understand, okay, this is teaching. Don't drink alcohol. Even if you don't understand everything the chapter said, right? And so the Bible is saying all of us can read the word of God for ourselves and teach our kids. But if you're going to teach your kids what the Bible says, that means you better know what the Bible says. You better get some knowledge of the word of God. Go in your Bible to Deuteronomy 17. The Bible says, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. And honestly, when it comes to studying God's word, this is a lifelong thing. Because when you're first saved, probably the most important thing to you is defending and explaining salvation, right? That's for me, when I first got saved, that's all that mattered to me at the time. But then as you start learning more, you start realizing, you know, there's a lot of things I need to learn to explain. And then it's not just on topics like the end times or stuff like that, but even about, you know, having character and being a parent and all these things. You realize, I need to just keep reading and studying and learning so I can know for myself so I can not just get this knowledge, but also teach it to other people. Okay, Bible says in Deuteronomy 17 verse 18, and it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, verse 18 of Deuteronomy 17, and it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests of Levites, and it should be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life. There should not be a day that goes by where you do not read the Bible. Now, realistically, every single one of us has probably gotten plenty of days without doing our Bible reading. I wish I could say this never happened to me, but I would be lying if that were the case, right? I would say probably everybody throughout human history has missed a day of Bible reading, right? But it should not be a pattern in your life. I mean, the Bible links your spiritual food with your physical food. Do you accidentally skip your physical food in a day? Man, I forgot to eat breakfast. I forgot to eat lunch. I forgot to eat dinner. Right? I mean, that doesn't happen to us, does it? And yet, people skip their spiritual food all the time. And you know, what Job said is I've esteemed the words of God more than my necessary food. The word of God is more important than your physical food. And so we should be reading the Bible every single day. I get it. I have also had days where I missed my Bible reading. I use a Bible reading chart and the advantage in that is if you get a day behind, I got to read double today, right? Or if you get a little bit behind a few chapters, you got to read extra. But we should have a pattern saying, you know what? This is the time I read the Bible. This is the place I read the Bible. And I do not let things come up. And if for whatever reason you miss it later on in the day, it's like I got to take a break, I got to read my Bible. This is very important. I must read my Bible. We should read all the days of our life. Now, here's the thing about this. One area of our life that is very important is knowledge of the Bible. That's not the only area that's important, though. You know, sometimes when people start getting a lot of knowledge, people can have this attitude that the only thing that matters is knowledge. But that's not true. We're going to get a verse later on that speaks about growing in grace and knowledge. And knowledge is half that picture that's mentioned in that verse. Another way to look at grace would be character, being obedient to God's Word, doing what God says. And it's not just getting knowledge, but also our character and grace is important as well. Now, I will say this, that when you read the Bible, it is going to help you with that as well, because notice what it says in verse 19, And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life. Why? That he may learn to fear the Lord his God. To keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them. That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, meaning he is not prideful. And that he turn not aside from the commandment to the right hand, or to the left, to the end, that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel. So the Bible tells us here in the book of Deuteronomy that by reading God's Word, it's going to help you to be humble. By reading God's Word, it's going to help you to fear God. By reading God's Word, it's going to help you to stay obedient and continue to serve God. In fact, I would say that if someone consistently reads the Bible and never stops, I don't think they're going to fade out in serving God. Because the Bible says you are going to last in the Christian life if you have this pattern of reading the Bible every day. But I want you to realize something. The Bible speaks about reading God's Word. It does not say listening to a sermon will cause you to be humble and fear God. Now don't misunderstand me because I do think preaching helps. But a lot of people get all of their knowledge simply from listening to sermons. And you know what ends up taking place, and I've seen this throughout my life, and you know the Bible puts the emphasis on reading God's Word, but people get all this knowledge but they don't actually grow in grace that quickly. They're still prideful. They're still bitter. They're so envious. They're so covetous. But they know how to explain the poster of rapture. But they're an obnoxious jerk. It's like, well good job, because is that really what God's goal is for your life? That you understand the end times and everybody hates you because of your attitude? That's not the goal that God has for our lives. Because we do need to grow in knowledge. We need to read the Bible and learn the Bible, but that's not the only thing that we need in our lives. We also have to grow in our character. Go to 1 Samuel 2, where we started. See the Bible says knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifies. And you know, when I first got saved, I started to, you know, it took me a little while to get, I was memorizing some verses on salvation, but then I got into memorizing the Bible and reading the Bible. And you know, honestly, I'd read through the Bible many times before I ever listened to online preaching. But what often happens is people get saved through like the online ministry and they don't really start reading the Bible. They just listen to sermons. And what ends up taking place is they learn a lot of new doctrines and new topics and everything like that, but they don't necessarily grow that quickly in grace. And you know, and I've said this before, and this is true, because obviously I want my kids to have both, you know, knowledge and grace. But I would rather that my kids are just good kids than they have knowledge of God's Word. I don't want my kids to just grow up, you know, prideful and bitter and everything like that. No, I want them to actually have good character. Now I want both, but I'm just saying if I had to pick, I would personally pick, obviously they're going to get, I need them to be saved, okay? But I'm saying outside of salvation, it's like I'd rather they're just good kids, good people, than the fact they have a lot of knowledge. And you know, one thing I found interesting in my life is this, because we've had a lot of people that come to our churches through the online ministry, they join the church, and then we have people that we've reached door to door, especially Manila, it's a bigger church obviously, and we've reached people through the door to door ministry, and there can be people that have listened to sermons online for years, and they have really bad attitudes. And then other people, we get saved, and they don't know all these doctrines, but they're just good people, and they're humble, they're happy to be there, they're respectful, and from day one they're a blessing to the church. And then there's others that have a lot of knowledge of the Bible and all these doctrines, but they're more of a burden to the church. And you know, what's interesting about this is there are a lot of people that are the most zealous New I.P. people in the Philippines, and they live near one of our churches, and they don't go. Well, near one of our monthly church services, and they don't go, but they're known in the New I.P. realm. It's like, well, they're not a member of our church. Maybe they go to a Bible Bible search, I'm not really sure. But then there's other people that just get saved, and they were Catholic before or whatever, they're just good people, there's nice people, they just want to serve God, they're humble, they have a good attitude. And you know, I'm not trying to criticize listening to sermons online, but this is something I've seen for a long time, where people get the idea that since they have knowledge that automatically makes them better. And I'm like, you might have knowledge, but I see pride and bitterness and envy and all these things, and it's just like, you don't have it all figured out. And the Bible says, knowledge puffeth up. So it can be very dangerous to get filled with a lot of knowledge really quickly. So it's like just taking steroids, you get all this massive influx of knowledge, and yet you don't have any character. And I will also say this, though, that when people listen to a lot of sermons, you know, what ends up taking place is they get a lot of knowledge, but I don't think that necessarily means that they could actually show somebody else what the Bible says. It's kind of like hearing somebody else or watching somebody else do a math problem, but you really got to do it for yourself before you can teach somebody else. And I found it the same way with reading the Bible, where it's just like, if I read something on my own, I'm like, oh, I get it. And now I know how to explain it to somebody else. But if you learn something online, we've all heard things in sermons, we didn't write it down, and we forgot, okay, what's the explanation for this verse? Well, we don't really know how to explain to someone else. Well, the other thing is you don't really know the context. You can kind of miss the picture of what's being said. You just don't have any idea. We need to read it for ourselves so we fully understand. But it's also, when you're reading the Bible, it's going to give you character. It's going to give you grace. Bible says in 1 Samuel 2 verse 1, or look at verse number 2. There's none holy as the Lord, for there's none beside thee, neither is there any rock like our God. Talk no more so exceeding proudly, let not arrogance come out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. So it mentions knowledge, but before that, it says don't be arrogant. Before that, talk no more so exceeding proudly, where you got to boast on all your achievements. Before that, it says there's none holy as the Lord. See, here's the thing. When you read God's word, it's going to help you to be holy. It's going to help you to be humble. It's going to help you to do what the Bible says. And not just simply have knowledge, but it's actually going to fix your character as well. Turn your Bible to Proverbs chapter 8. Proverbs chapter 8. Proverbs chapter 8. Now, I do understand that when people do not have a good church to go to, where they're not learning much in the preaching and they're not being motivated, that you feel the need to basically get preaching on the side to motivate you to get you through the week. And I get that because I've been at churches where I didn't feel like I was learning much and I wasn't getting motivated because honestly, we need to get that motivation all the time to keep going or we're just going to fade out of our Christianity. We know what's right to do, but it's so hard. It seems so easy when we're in the house of God and hearing the preaching and then we leave and then tomorrow it's like, man, it's so hard to get myself to do what's right. So we need that motivation. But you know, the pattern that I've had in my life is that when I was at really good churches and I had a lot of great preaching, honestly, I just didn't listen to any other preaching. Not that there's nothing else to learn, but it's just kind of like, well, I'm already getting my motivation and what's more important is I get my Bible reading and my memorization and those things. I'm already learning. It's okay if I don't hear every new thing that there is. It's better for me to just do my Bible reading, my personal walk with God, and that is going to help build all areas of your Christianity. That's what the Bible teaches. And I do believe there's something miraculous about the Word of God and just reading God's Word. And it's something that can't be logically explained. Where if you read, if you read something, I mean, I'm in 2 Kings right now and as you read the Bible, you're just reading words on a page, but there's something behind it where God is just going to help you out in all areas of your life. God's going to bless your life. It's going to help you to be humble, the Bible says, by reading God's Word. Bible says in Proverbs 8, is that what I said in Proverbs 8? Verse 13, Proverbs 8, verse 13. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogance and the evil way and the froward mouth do I hate. See, the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogance and the evil way, meaning that we should be very against pride. And it shouldn't just be we're against other people being prideful. We better make sure that we're not prideful. And it's very easy to overlook our own personal flaws. You know, but you have to ask yourself, okay, do I have any bitterness in my heart toward people? Have I forgiven all my brothers and sisters and people that have done me wrong? Am I a prideful person? I got to let everyone know how great I am. Am I a covetous person where I cannot just accept what God gives me? Am I envious where I desire to be someone like somebody else and I want what they have? We got to ask ourselves those sorts of questions because honestly, those things I just mentioned, those are hard. There's not a single person in the world that does not struggle with pride. All of us struggle with pride. All of us want to get recognition. All of us want to be special. All of us want these things. And you say, well, what's the fix for this? The fix is reading the Bible. The fix is memorizing the Bible. The fix is spending time in God's Word. It is not just getting knowledge about, because here's the thing, you can get knowledge about the end times. That doesn't mean that you're not going to be bitter, though, as a person. Now, look, I'm not trying to be down on knowledge because it's a big thing we emphasize. I think it's important that you know the doctrines you believe. But, you know, I'd rather be a person that does not have bitterness in my heart than someone who knows everything about the end times. I'd rather just somebody be someone that if people were to ask, they'd say, well, that person is a person of character. They're respectful. They're a good person. They have a good attitude. They're patient. Look, these are things that honestly I struggle with. I mean, if you've been out of church for years, I'm sure you've seen flaws because I lose my temper. You know, sometimes I have a bad attitude. Sometimes I'm not in the best of moods or whatever. All of us struggle with these things. But those are the things I want to work on in my life. Do I want to know more about the Bible? Of course I do. But here's the great thing. By reading the Bible, you get both. You get the knowledge and it helps your character. But here's the thing, if you were to stop reading the Bible now, you might still have the knowledge, but your character would just plummet. That's what would take place. We need to have both of these things. Go in your Bible to 2 Peter chapter 3. It's very easy for us to convince ourselves we're spiritual if we're going to church, we have all this knowledge, we're going soul winning. We're doing all these things that outwardly look great. But here's the thing, what about the inside of your heart? Because you can be doing things on the outside for the wrong reasons. You can be doing things on the outside to look nice or look good. But honestly, ask yourself. Look at the mirror of God's Word and ask yourself, okay, do I struggle with this? Am I actually a good person? Have I actually developed grace and character in my life? Because here's the thing, you know what? One of the mistakes, and look, I've made this mistake before. When I started to listen to a lot of preaching, I started to learn a lot of new things. And you know what? I don't think I had the best attitude as I try to teach other people the new things that I learned. Right? And you know, the reality is that, you know, you can learn all of these doctrines, but that doesn't mean that you're going to convince somebody that they should want to follow this or believe these things other. But if people see you as a person that's just a good person, you're going to be much more likely to get them to come to church. Because you're like, you know what? I want to be like that person. It's obviously doing something for you. You have character. You have grace. I want to be like that. Bible says in 2 Peter 3 verse 18, But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen. Bible tells us to grow in grace and in the knowledge. Both of these things are important. But I would say that grace is mentioned before knowledge for a reason. Probably because it's more important. And knowledge is important. But after getting saved, it's like, you know what? You need to have character in your life. And not just why I've got knowledge, but also have character. Turn your Bible to Matthew chapter 6. You know, one of the things that encourages me as a person, you know, I don't see my family all the time since they live in the US. But you know, the last couple of times I've been in town, you know, it's like my parents have told me that I'm a much different person. Than I used to be. They just said they could see. And I don't notice these things myself. I don't think any of us do. But they just said they just saw how I responded to difficult situations or pressure, whatever. I didn't seem to lose my patience as much as I used to. You know, where maybe in the past I would, you know, get mad more quickly or whatever. I'm not trying to say imperfect or whatever. I'm just saying it felt like a big compliment to me because it's like, well, I'm glad. I'm, you know, I'm trying to become a better person. And you know, if you continue to read God's Word, it's going to help you become a better person. It's going to help you not to be prideful. It's going to help you not to be bitter. And it's not just knowledge. Knowledge is important. But since we're at a church that focuses so much on giving a lot of Bible and learning a lot, it can kind of give you this false added idea that knowledge is all that matters. When in reality, it's not all that matters. I'll give you an example just, and this is just kind of a general example, but let's say you're discussing something with someone and they are clearly wrong about something. And I'm just saying it doesn't have to relate to the Bible. Just something generically, like some sort of fact. Like, you know, for sure something happened in April and they're very convinced it happened in May. It's like, you know, I think all of us naturally, we want to like, no, you know, I'll prove it to you, right? And when you're younger, that's something you do. But, you know, we got to get to a point where we're like, honestly, it's okay to be like, oh, you know, maybe I'm wrong. And quite frankly, sometimes we are wrong. We don't realize that. But it's like, you know, it's okay to just allow yourself to lose the argument or whatever. It's not the end of the world. You have to prove that you're better or prove you're always right. It's okay to just be like, well, you know, maybe I'm wrong. You know, that's my perspective. Maybe I got the wrong information or whatever. It's okay to lose a battle, so to speak. It's not the end of the world to always prove you're right. Nobody likes to know it all, right? Nobody likes to know it all. If you're someone who always has to be right, that will be very aggravating to people, right? You know, none of us are always right, number one. But, you know, it's okay to be wrong about something, right? And I'm not saying I'm perfect at this. One thing I try to do is every once in a while, I'll step behind the pulpit and say, you know what, I said something last week. I was wrong about that. I misspoke or I misunderstood the information. I was just wrong about it. Now, I don't like doing that, but sometimes, unfortunately, it's necessary. Like I remember several months back, I was talking about that famous magician, David Blaine, because I said it's impossible to just create frogs. And apparently it is something physical you can do. I was like, well, I guess I'm wrong about it. Now, he's still demon disaster in Blaine, but I was wrong where it's actually, you know, I saw where actually he had the frogs and somehow broke them up or whatever. I didn't think that was possible. I thought it was some sort of dark magic. Apparently it is possible. It's like, you know, I was wrong. You know, he didn't do that by the power of Beelzebub. I guess physically you can just do it, but he's still possessed by devil. So I'm not trying to say anything nice about David Blaine. Let's just say I was wrong, you know, and sometimes we're wrong. So we have knowledge, we have character. Another important aspect is prayer. Now, I talked about that last week, but the reason why I'm making it a specific point in this sermon is because of the fact when we're reading the Bible, what is taking place is God is speaking to us. This is how God speaks to us. Now it could be that you have a specific thing that you're reading about and then all of a sudden, boom, it's like God is giving you the answer. I think we've all seen that before. It's amazing when that happens. But every time you read the Bible, God is speaking to you. His words are living. His words are just as alive now as they've ever been. But you have to speak to God also because basically we go to God to talk to God and then he responds to us. And God is always waiting, but prayer is when we're actually talking to God, specifically to pray means to ask, okay? But what we would say is a prayer. We give reverence to God. We give honor to God. We ask for things, but we also ask for forgiveness. We say thy will be done, all these things. But prayer is the time that we come to God and talk to him. Bible says in Matthew 6 verse 6, But thou when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou shalt shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. So the Bible is saying you don't make it a point to just pray in public, right? Now I'm not saying it's wrong to pray in public. We pray at the beginning of service, the end of service. We pray before we eat. If we go to a restaurant as a church, we'll pray for the food. You know, but here's the thing. We're not going to just at 12 o'clock all bow down on our knees and face Mecca and you know, pray before the world to be seen. Or sometimes there's athletes that will just bow down in the middle of a stadium and pray to God and you know what they should honestly do is just pray in their heart to God rather than doing something to be seen, right? And the Bible is saying God is aware of your praying. You don't have to let everybody know how much you pray, right? Verse 7, But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Now with vain repetitions, probably the religion we automatically think of is the Catholic Church that use vain repetitions when they pray. They have specific prayers they pray. I didn't grow up Catholic, but you know, just various prayers that you prayed when you were a kid, right? And so vain repetitions, just say three Hail Marys or whatever you say the same words over and over again, vain repetition. The idea is it's not coming from the heart. You're just vainly repeating something that's not actually something you're expressing from your heart. And it doesn't necessarily mean the words that you're saying are bad, but it shouldn't just be vainly repeated. And by the way, we can be guilty of this just by before we eat or something, not putting our heart into something and just saying the same words without thinking about it. Right? Where it's just like the same thing like, God, please just bless this food. Amen. Where we're just saying the words, but it's kind of like, I want to eat my food now. I cannot be bothered with actually talking to God for a minute and a half or whatever. I'm not saying you have to have a long prayer. I'm just saying it's a question of are you putting your heart into what you're saying? Or are they just kind of vain words? The Catholic Church is the church we probably think of with vain repetitions, but they are not the most guilty of false religions. The Orthodox Church is far more guilty of vain repetitions in the Catholic Church. You know, in Mount Athos, which is in Greece, it's like the most holy area of the world to the Orthodox Church, or at least the Greek Orthodox. And they've got a special spot up there in Mount Athos where you have to be on a list. And after a couple of years, you get to move to Mount Athos where you live with a bunch of other male priests by yourselves or male monks by yourselves. And literally on their schedule, they will pray for like six hours of vain repetition a day, where basically for two hours, you say the same thing over and over again. And I don't know what they say, but for an example, you know, our Heavenly Father, we respect you, our Heavenly Father, we respect you, our Heavenly Father, we respect you. And they think that by doing that for hours, they think just like the false prophets of Baal that are crying out to their God that they're going to be heard. And it's like, no! You're just vainly repeating something and you think that makes you spiritual. Another religion very guilty of vain repetitions is the Muslims, Islam. When they have their five times of prayer a day, they don't just pray whatever comes to their hearts. They have the exact words they're supposed to say. They literally have the exact routine like basically, you know, turn this many degrees and at this point you do whatever. I mean, it's like a dance routine. I'm waiting for them to go to America's Got Talent or something. And then they just get up there with the rock and then they just do their routine or whatever. And then that's why whenever you see Muslims, you see them all bow down at the exact same time and everything. It's literally like doing a dance routine. It's like a prayer routine where it's like you say these words, you face this direction. What is that called? Vain repetitions! As the heathen do. As God's people, we should be different. Meaning, yes, we pray every day, but you pray from the heart. Now, I do advocate using prayer lists. But one mistake I made when I made a prayer list was basically having everything on the list the entire day and basically you end up just quickly rushing through everything because you don't feel like you have time to get through everything. And then what I realized is there's no heart in it. It's like there's no meaning behind it. What I do now is there's seven days a week. So every day I pray for a different main category. Now, there are important things that come up that I might pray for every day. Or for example, as my wife is with child, it's something I'll pray for every day. But for example, on Monday I primarily pray for myself. My personal walk with God, my holiness, my godliness. On Tuesday I primarily pray. And I'm not saying you have to do this. I'm giving you an example. On Tuesday I primarily pray for my wife. On Wednesday I primarily pray for my kids. On Thursday, I got the category listed down my prayer road. It's like just different churches. Verity Baptist of Sacramento I try to pray for every week. Verity Baptist of Beekle, we have all these church plants and everything like that. Friday is for more the extended family. So my relatives, my parents, and also my wife's. Saturday is primarily BBC Pampanga. Sunday is primarily BBC Manila. And I'm not saying that's a perfect system. But the reason why I do that is because otherwise the prayer list is really long. And I'm just like, you know, I, you know, pray for my wife. Help her be spiritual. Pray for my son. Help him be spiritual. And I'm just like quickly rushing through it. There's no time in. So there is a balance of having a prayer list and things that you're praying for. But also making sure you actually take the time to actually put your heart into it. Because I don't want to just vainly repeat where it's like, help me read the Bible better. Help me do this. It's I want to make sure my heart's behind these things. So I think a prayer list is good. But I also believe that if it's not done the correct way, it can kind of just be detrimental in a way. The Bible says here in verse 9, it's going to give us a basic pattern of how to pray. Actually, verse 8. Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your father knoweth what things ye have needed before ye ask him. So what Jesus has said is, do not vainly repeat. Then what he says here in verse 9 is after this manner. What that means is I will give you a pattern of how to pray. But I'm not telling you to vainly repeat this because I just told you not to do that. Right? I mean, this is called the Lord's Prayer. People call it this, right? When I grew up as a Protestant, we said this every single week at church. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. I mean, this is like the first scripture I've memorized because of the fact every single week in the Protestant church, we just said the same prayer. What are we doing? Veinly repeating what you just said. Do not vainly repeat. He said after this manner. So here's the pattern. So he's going to give us a pattern. And we should look at this pattern and make our prayers like this pattern, but not just repeat this, okay? It says here after this manner, therefore, pray our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. When you say our Father, which art in heaven, the way you're starting your prayer request, number one, you're addressing it to God the Father. And the general pattern you're going to have is talking to God the Father when you're praying through the name of Jesus. We're going to see as he in this passage. But our Father, which art in heaven, what's the implication which art in heaven? I am here on earth. And what is man that thou art mindful of him? Basically showing how insignificant you are to Almighty God. Our Father is a very reverential term. And you know, our Father also gives the idea behind the fact that we're his children. And so the idea is that we are children of God. We can come to God in time to pray. But when it says hallowed be thy name, we're giving reverence to God as well and showing that he's up in heaven. We're just here on earth. So generally, when we do pray to God, by nature, what we want to do is just immediately say, God, please give me this, whatever we want. Right? I mean, if you have something in your mind like, God, please help me out with this. And of course, that's a good thing to pray. But honestly, we should first make sure that we're saying, hey, you know what? Start the prayer by saying, you're Almighty God. You're not obligated to answer this prayer request. I'm coming today. And just, you know, in a very reverential way, kind of showing that, and you know what this does? It humbles you. Because you're showing that, you know what? God is up in heaven. I'm just here on earth. And so first, hallowed be thy name. Then it says in verse 10, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. What's verse 10 saying? Well, basically, God, it's up to you. You do not have to answer what I'm about to ask. It is what you want. Your will be done before my will. Okay? And I'm just being honest, by nature, I don't think this is the way that we generally pray. I don't think this is by nature the way that I pray. It's like by nature, it's like, you know, God, please forgive me for my sins. This is what I want. But that's not really the best way to pray. I mean, if you're to come to your, if your kids come to you asking for something, but they don't do it in a proper respectful way, you're not going to want to answer that prayer request, right? And when we come before almighty God, we need to have the right attitude about it. And so when a child comes to you, they ask for something and you say no. And then they complain. It's like, well, wait a minute. You should have had the attitude that whether you, if you don't want me to have this, it's okay. And when we come to God, we need to have that attitude also. Give us this day. And I'm not saying you have to say these, you know, words like, God, it's your will. But at least in your heart, you need to have that attitude. God, this is what I want. But if this is not your will, it's not for me, I'm okay with that. Give us this day or daily bread. So there you're asking for something. You're asking your financial needs to be provided. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. I mean, if we want God to answer our prayer requests, it's like, God, forgive me for what I did wrong. And God, help me to forgive those that have done wrong against me. It's very easy to hold bitterness inside your heart and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For that is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen. But prayer is the time where we actually come to God and talk to him. And so the thing is, you don't want to have a one-way conversation where you're just hearing from God. You also need to talk to God. And of course, you could have a one-way conversation by just talking to God and never actually getting the answers from God. Because God's not coming down from heaven to tell you and talk to you personally face to face in a burning bush. Right? He's going to answer you through his word. He's going to talk to you through his word. So you need to have, look, a one-way conversation doesn't work. You need to have a two-way conversation. Right? So you need to make sure you have time for prayer in your life. And you know, honestly, if you don't have prayer, you're going to probably find yourself getting weak and tired and exhausted very quickly. Turn to Matthew chapter 28. We'll close out Matthew 28. And so the areas that we're trying to get in our spiritual life are knowledge, character, prayer. These are three essential things. Knowledge and character can both be done by reading and memorizing the Bible. For me, memorization of the Bible is very important to me because I really think it helps my spiritual walk. I put it far above listening to sermons. Right now, I'm memorizing Ecclesiastes chapter 3 is the main thing I'm memorizing right now, trying to memorize Ecclesiastes. But the great thing about it is, you know, when I have an active time memorizing the Bible, I can tell it's just helping me become more spiritual. It's just helping me do what's right. And the same is true with reading. So if you have extra time and you've done your reading, I would strongly advocate doing some memorization as opposed to listening to sermons. You can do what you want. Listening to sermons is also good. I'm just saying that you can get knowledge and character through your personal study of God's Word. And honestly, you can learn a lot of things on your own. You don't have to hear a sermon on. You're going to just know what the Bible says by reading it for yourself. Knowledge and character, we need prayer. And then the last aspect is work. You know, here's the thing. Physically speaking, if you eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat a lot of food and you're not active at all, it's not going to be good for you. And so the thing is, you know, you're getting a lot of intake and now you got to burn it off by doing something with it. Now, the primary way we do that is soul winning. I'm not going to say it's the only way, but it is the primary way. When I was younger and in college and I went to the gym for a couple hours a day, I ate a lot of food. You say, why? Because I'm burning a lot of calories. I mean, when you play basketball for an hour and a half and lift weights for an hour, it's like you burn a lot. And so I would eat a lot and a lot and a lot of food. If I try to do that now, you would just say, why is pastor gaining so much weight, right? Because I just, I'm not as active as I used to. I still try to be, but I just don't have as much time to do it as I used to. Well, the same is true spiritually. If you're getting all this knowledge and doing nothing with it, it's like you're basically spiritually being fat. It's a wrong balance. And you know, honestly, this is what a lot of people do that are obsessed with the online movement and listening to sermons that they're not in church. They never really go soul winning, but they get all this knowledge and it's just like, you're not even doing anything with it. What's the point? There is no point. Now, here's the thing. We're talking about the right balance on things because of the fact you could have this idea. You get in church and you know, you're doing all this soul winning and trying to do service to God and all these things, but you don't have the active time of reading the Bible. What's going to take place? You're going to burn yourself out very quickly because if you're burning off a lot, look, if you go running, if you run a marathon and then you don't eat any food afterwards, you're going to be weak. And the thing is, I mean, if your lift waits for an hour and it's like, well, you know, I'll just, you know, wait until tomorrow to eat. It's like, no, you need to eat immediately to get some energy back into your system. You need the right balance. And if you eat and exercise is the best combo, but it's like, if you're only going to do one, it's not going to help you, right? And so God gives these physical examples to help us understand the spiritual. And the same is true spiritually as well, that if you're just doing a lot of soul winning, but you're not getting the right balance of your personal walk, you are just going to grow weak and weary very quickly. That's just the way that it works. And the thing is, one of the big reasons for this series is because I have a goal that the members of this church are still going to be here a decade from now. And I know that if that is going to take place, it's going to require balance in your Christianity, in all the areas that we're talking about. It's very easy to dive into one aspect of serving God or one aspect of our lives. But if you allow these other areas to spin out of control, the whole system is going to fall apart. You need to have all of your areas well balanced in your life if you want to be successful. And so, you know what, honestly, this requires a lot of discipline and organization. I will write down the things I want to get done and try to go through them and a lot of stuff I don't get done, but I try to have a balance in my life of everything that I need. Matthew 28 verse 18, And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given on me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I command of you, and low them with you all away, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Jesus said, I want you to go. I want you to go out and praise the gospel. You know, to help you kind of understand this topic more, I thought about this many years ago. I was thinking of kind of the four main areas of our life that we have in Christianity. And the way I would define that is, you know, what I mentioned last week, prayer, Bible reading, church attendance, and so on. Those are kind of the four core that I would say. When it comes to those four things, two of them are visible and two are invisible to other people. Those that are visible are church attendance and soul winning. Those that are invisible to everybody else is prayer and Bible reading. For example, I know if you're in church right now, I have no idea if you read the Bible this morning. I know if you go soul winning, I have no idea if you're spending time in prayer. What generally takes place, and I've seen this through the years, as people drop out of church, that when people start to skip church or they skip soul winning, they used to do a lot more. You know what that means? It means in their personal life, they probably quit their Bible reading their prayer a long time ago. Because we by nature want to make sure that people see the things that we do, right? So oftentimes the last thing someone's going to drop out of is going to church or going soul winning. So you might not realize, once people start missing church, you might not realize, but they've probably been sliding for a while because in their personal life, they were letting that slip. Not only do we need all of those things, but I'm just saying that it's very easy to make sure we're doing the things so everybody else notices. But it's like, we better make sure that we have our Bible reading and our prayer and our personal time with God, because you're only going to go through the motions for so long. And eventually you're just going to fade out. That's just the way that it works. You say, why? I've known in my life, because obviously we all have ups and downs. I use a Bible reading chart now, but I have not always done that. And the reason why I use a Bible reading chart is because when I'm at lower moments, it gets me through those moments. And I've known times in my life where I'm doing just as much soul winning, but it's like in my personal walk with God, I'm not reading the Bible as much and you start to feel very weak. You start to get kind of depressed. It's like you lose your joy and everything's falling apart. You say, why? Because you didn't personally build up your strength through the week by reading the Bible and praying to God and asking for strength to get you through the week and to serve God. We need all of these areas of our life. Obviously we need to be in church. Obviously we need to be doing work. We also need a personal life and that fits in the categories, knowledge, character, prayer and work for God. Because I hope and I think all of us have a goal that we're going to be serving God until the day we die. And the truth is that's just not going to happen unless we get a proper balance on all areas of our Christianity. And one thing I'm thankful for, I look in this room and you know, everybody who was here at the beginning of the church that did not get kicked out is still here part of our church. Right? You know, you've been with it for years and years and years. And you know, I know our church is not a huge church. You know, we've got a lot of people saved and we're serving God and we're really the shining light here in Pampanga for the truth, I believe. And you know, the reason why you can last is when you have this proper balance. You know, here's the thing. I mean it when I say, I mean, I want our church to be, you know, twice as many people in the future, three times as many as much as God will bless us with. But I don't want anyone to leave the church. I want you to be here. And I know that the way that happens is we have a proper balance, right? And this is all there is because it's certainly true in our spiritual life. But I don't want you to let the other areas of your life fall apart either because I know those are important if you're going to be successful and last in serving God and having a successful life. Let's close in word prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today and ask you to help us to apply this to our lives including myself and my family. Help all of us in this room, God. Help us to have a balanced spiritual life, God. Help us to never fade out of our personal walk with you of reading the Bible and prayer, God. And I ask you to help us also just be zealous and motivated to continue to keep coming to church, God, and keep doing work for you and get people saved, God. Help us to have just the proper balance in all areas of our spiritual life. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.