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

Alright, we're here in 1 Timothy chapter 4, and I want to thank everybody for coming out here, especially if you're here for the missions trip, and it's going to be a really exciting week. We're definitely excited for everyone coming out here, it's going to be a great time. And I want you to notice in 1 Timothy chapter 4 where it says in verse 12, Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Let all thy come give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. The name of this sermon is, Let no man despise thy youth. Let no man despise thy youth. And we have four points here. Turn to 1 Samuel 17. Now this is obviously a very famous phrase in the Bible, Let no man despise thy youth. And the first thing I want you to understand is, there is an automatic despising that takes place to people that are young. Is that not true? Look, we have a young church at Verity Baptist Church, Manila. We have a very young church. I'm not an old man by any stretch of the imagination, I'm one of the oldest people at our church, which is fine, because you know what, if it takes young people to turn this country upside down, then that's the way it's going to be done. Because we do not have an example we can look to of Baptists that have been preaching for decades, that are preaching the truth, and going soul winning, there's no one to look to around this area. It must be new blood that comes in and turns this place upside down. The first thing we have to understand, being a young church, is that people will automatically look down on you because you're young. It's just a fact, that's the way it takes place. 1 Samuel 17, notice verse 26, And David spake to the men that stood by him, saying, What shall be done to the man that killeth his Philistine, and taketh away their approach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God? The people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man that killeth him. Look, David is a young man in this situation. It shouldn't have been David that took care of this battle with Goliath. It should have been King Saul. I mean, you're head and shoulders above any man. You're so mighty, you're so bold, but you're not doing it. David's older brothers, they weren't doing it. The only person that was willing to do it was David. It shouldn't have been David. He should have been able to be a young man that's just learning how to be a great man of God, a great warrior. But he's the only one that was willing to take on this battle. Well notice the reaction from his older brother in verse 28. In Eliab, his eldest brother heard when he spake unto the men, and Eliab's anger was kindled against David, and he said, Why camest thou down hither? And with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride in the knottiness of thine heart, for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle. So Eliab makes a false accusation against David. Now if you read that story carefully, David made it a point to leave his sheep under the control of somebody else. He didn't just forsake his responsibility. He made sure somebody was watching his sheep, and his dad told him to go to the battle and just supply everybody. He wasn't expected to get involved, but when he got there, he realized nobody's willing to fight this battle. This person's mocking our God. Of course he's going to step in. Nobody is willing to fight that battle. What's his reaction of his older brother? His older brother criticizes him. He mocks him. This is the way it is in this world when it comes to being a soul winner and living for God. You try to live for God, and what are people going to do? They're going to criticize us. They're going to mock us. They're going to say what we're doing isn't effective. It doesn't work. Well, who else is fighting the battles, though? I mean, look, that's what they're going to do. You end up getting people saved, and then your churches, the churches that are members that came from originally, they were mad at you for getting people saved. Is that not true? They weren't happy you were getting people saved. They're not happy you're reading the Bible. Why? Because they're not willing to do it. If somebody's not willing to do the work, they get envious at the people actually doing the battle. You know why people hate our movement? You know why people that are Baptist can't stand us? Because they're envious that they're doing nothing, and we're the ones doing the work. That's the truth. And they'll look at anything they possibly can to pick apart at your life. Now, David had lived his life in a way that there was nothing his older brother could really say about it. Now, obviously, nobody's perfect. People make mistakes. But he's just throwing out false accusations. But what you have to understand is there is an automatic despising that is going to take place if you're young. It's automatic. Look, you know, I'm not young, but I'm not old, and I'm new at this. I know for a fact that people are going to look down on me automatically because they're like, well, you know, he only has one child. You know, his son's really young. He's only been married for three and a half years. I already know that pastors around the Philippines, they're going to find anything they can to criticize me and look down on me. It's automatic. It's the truth. And for our church, it's really young. All our guys and young ladies in their 20s at our church, look, they're automatically looking down on you already simply because of your age. We've all heard before, well, I've been soul winning for 40 years. So what do you know, right? I remember there was this evangelist in West Virginia. I use this term very lightly since he was a repentance of sins heretic. But this guy, he came into town at our church, and I remember like I was just kind of sitting in church, and you know, Pastor Jason Robinson was just back talking to him. All of a sudden, they start yelling with each other, and I'm like, whoa, what's going on? So I went to the back, and he's like scolding, you know, my friend, my friend's just, you know, Pastor Jason Robinson's just like, oh, you know, it's, we can agree to disagree. He's trying to walk away. And he's just like yelling at him. He's selling his books in the back of the church, you know, and he starts yelling at my friends. And what they were arguing about is whether or not you have to believe in eternal security to be safe. Let me just be very clear with what we believe. Yes, you do. You must believe in eternal security to be safe. And this evangelist, well, he didn't believe that. And so he's, you know, yelling at my friend and criticizing. And I remember him saying, you know, I've been doing this for 40 years. How long have you been doing it? It was kind of funny that he said that because that week, for whatever reason, like I was more zealous than I've ever been. And I had gone soul winning for like six straight days and gotten people saying, and then he's saying, well, what have you guys done? I've been doing this for so long. And it's like, well, who cares how long you've been doing it? What does the Bible say? Right. Because we know in first John five, you know, we've talked about it at our church very clearly. Yes, you must believe it's eternal life. And I don't care if you've been preaching a false gospel for 1000 years. The Bible says it's eternal life. Yeah, that's not a good argument. What does the Bible say? And he couldn't answer that because he doesn't know, he couldn't resist our words. And we tried to be respectful. I mean, it's in church, we're trying not to argue, but in brother Richard signs was there as well. So I got witnesses you got, you can ask him later on this week. And it's like, wow, we're not trying to get into an argument. Let me tell you something that I know people that I tried to give the gospel to that if it weren't for this topic of eternal security, they would have never gotten saved. We must bring it up to them. And so Eliyab is criticizing David. Why? Because he's younger than him. Because he's envious. Eliyab is the one who wanted to get lifted up to power, but he's not willing to fight the battle. Notice what it says in verse 29 David's response, and David said, What have I now done? Is there not a cause? And they criticize us and look down on us. And David's saying, Hey, there's a cause. There's a reason I'm fighting the battle. This guy Goliath is mocking us. He's mocking our God. Somebody's got to fight that battle. When it comes to so many of the Philippines, if we don't do it, who's going to do it? They can criticize us for what we're doing. But hey, what you're doing, Baptist isn't working. Look at this country. It's not working. We send so many missionaries from the US. What are they doing in this country? They don't even have the right gospel. They're doing nothing. They come back with reports. They do no work. They don't do any soul winning, and they're afraid to preach against anybody or anything. So now what's the result? When people actually stand up and preach against these wicked people, we're the ones that got to worry about getting sued and things like that. Because they haven't been doing it for decades. And it's like, well, if we have to be the ones to stand up and take that stand, that's what we're going to do. And obviously, I've talked about it recently, you know, we're going to be smart about how we attack, but we're not watering down our message. We're going to preach against these heresies. We're going to preach what the truth is. There is a cause for why we're here preaching against the truth. Look, I mean, this Feast of the Black Nazarene that just took place. There's 21 million Catholics mainly worshiping this weird statue. Somebody's got to preach against it. They're not the most idolatrous festival in the world, and they're not going to preach against it. It's like, well, we're going to have to do it then. Somebody's got to stand against that wickedness. Verse 30. And he turned from him toward another and spake after the same manner. And the people answered him again after the former manner. And when the words were heard, which David spake, they rehearsed them before Saul and he sent for him. And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him. Thy servant will go and fight with his philosophy. David has the guts to do what nobody else does. Now you would think King Saul would be like, Well, thank you. I'll pray for you. I'll try to do whatever I can to help. Notice Saul's reaction. And Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him. Now, why does he say this? For thou art but a youth. You know what he says? You're too young to fight this battle. You're not able to beat him because you're too young. Well, I mean, King Saul, you're older than him, and apparently you're not able to beat him. So it's just like, you know, somebody's got to fight the battle. He says you're a youth, and he a man of war from his youth. He says it's impossible to fight that battle. Look, God was not going to go down from heaven and put on armor and take out Goliath. He uses it. It's like with soul winning. God's not going to come down from heaven and preach the gospel. He expects us to preach the gospel. That's the way it works. And so they're criticized. He's criticizing him. Why? Because he is young. Look, we have to understand as a young church, people are automatically already looking down on us. Because we're young. We're a new church. You've got a young leader. I mean, even our pastor in California, I'm actually older than pastor in minutes. That kind of surprised people because, you know, he's been married for a long time, his kids. I'm actually older, and I'm not old. So even our sending pastor's not old, right? We're a young church. Here at Verity Baptist Church Manila, the majority of the people at our church are less than 30 years old. We're a young church. But you know what? No one else is fighting those battles. There's a reason why people come here from like an hour and a half away. If they had a church like this, they wouldn't do that. But you know what? There is no church throughout Metro Manila. Who else is doing this? We've got to fight that battle. We've got to get these churches started. And you know what? People are automatically going to look down on us. Now turn in your Bible to 1st Corinthians 16, 1st Corinthians 16. Now think about when Pastor Menace started Verity Baptist Church. If I remember correctly, he was 24 years old when he started that church. Now that's not old, is it? 24 years old. Now he had been married for several years. You know, he had a couple kids and things like that. But he hadn't been around for a long time. And because of that, when he was 24 years old, guess what? All the IFBs were trying to look for a reason to criticize him, right? They're automatically going to look down and despise him. You know, about 10 years ago, I pre-said a men's preaching night, okay? This kind of came to my mind this week. I decided to preach on this because we have a young church. So when we see passages that talk about your youth, you know, these are passages we need to know what the Bible teaches since most of us are very young. But I was at a men's preaching night about 10 years ago, maybe nine years ago or so. And there was about six guys that were preaching. And I preached a sermon called, Let No Man Despise Thy Youth. Now my whole sermon was basically my first point that I have here today. We're just getting started, okay? This is the good part where everyone who's young is like, Amen! And then all of a sudden it's like, oh man, now you're preaching against me. But that was pretty much my sermon. And honestly, you know, of the six people that were preaching, I had had the most experience preaching. And I pretty much just got up there and winged it. I didn't take it very seriously. I pretty much prepared my sermon a couple hours before, just kind of looked for verses. This was about nine, 10 years ago. I just didn't take it that seriously. And I thought I could just get behind the pulp and just kind of wing it and yell. And I remember when I got done, I was thinking, that was awful. I mean, I was stuttering, I was all over the, I mean, it was embarrassing. Public speaking can be very intimidating. And you know what, there's nothing more intimidating than getting up to preach, and you don't really know what you're talking about. That makes you nervous. And I remember I got done and I was like, man, that's gotta be very obvious that I just really bombed there. And you know what? There was six guys who preached. And I remember the pastor, it was actually Pastor Anderson. You know, he was the one running the men's preaching night. And I remember, he got up afterwards and he was talking about when you preached to take your sermon seriously. Now, he did not just outright say, you know, brother Stuckey, that was horrible. I know that's what he was thinking though. I'll have to ask him the next time I talk to him. I don't know if he remembers this, but I remember, I realized it was awful. And he got up there and talked about, hey, you know what? You need to take your preaching seriously. And you know, it was about a couple months later, he preached a sermon and he was going through 1 Timothy 4 and he was talking about this passage. And I realized I had a very shallow understanding of this passage because I did not look at it in context. I did not take the time to study and prepare. Now, I'm sure the reason why he preached on it a few months later was because of my sermon and he was teaching me something. He didn't do it right afterwards because he didn't want to embarrass me. But I remember that and I remember thinking, man, I don't know this passage well at all. Now, everything I've said so far in this sermon is true. But if that's all I said, it would be kind of a shallow understanding of what this passage is talking about. But you know, this is something I took to heart when Pastor Anderson rebuked me. And you know what? I have taken every sermon I've preached very seriously since. Even when it's just been a 10 minute sermon at a men's preaching night, I spent time preparing that sermon and studying. And all of us need to do that. Because when the preaching the Word of God's being done, this is very serious business. This is very important. We need to make sure we take it very seriously. So the first thing we see, you're in 1 Corinthians 16, is that people will automatically despise you simply because you're young. They want to find a reason to criticize you. And if they can't criticize you for anything else, they'll just be like, you're young. It's like, okay, yeah, I'm aware. You know, I'm not old. But that's what they're gonna do. They're gonna automatically despise you because you're young. But you know, it's interesting, when you look up in the Bible, let no man despise, this appears three times in the Bible. Not in the exact wording, but it's obvious it's referring to the same sort of thing when it says let no man despise. And in 1 Corinthians 16, we see one of these examples. 1 Corinthians 16, starting in verse nine. For a great door and a factual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries. Isn't that the way it works? Great soul when it gets done, you have a lot of adversaries. I mean, think about these last couple months. My first couple months here, month and a half in the Philippines. Man, lots of souls getting saved. There's a lot of adversaries after us. I was like, wow. Didn't expect it to happen that early. When great soul when it gets done, there will be adversaries. Honestly, this week, I promise you, we will have bad people come to be a part of our soul winning marathon. And pretend to be like us. Why? Because it happened last time. It happened in April. People came and said, hey, we serve the same God you do. We love someone. We can't find a church like this. Turns out that they were just being sent by their Baptist pastors to try to cause problems, get information and things like that. It's going to take place. We had to kick somebody out of our church before the church started. You know, cause I saw he was mocking Pastor Jimenez online and it was just like, you take a screenshot of it and say, sorry, buddy. Oh, it was a mistake. I didn't mean it. Oh, you accidentally mocked Pastor Jimenez. It's kind of interesting how you accidentally do that. And so it says here in 1 Corinthians 16, go to verse 10. Now if Timotheus come, see that he may be with you without fear, for he worketh the work of the Lord as I also do. So Paul says, Timothy does the work. He works the same work that I do. Then it says in verse 11, let no man therefore despise him, but conduct him forth in peace and he may come onto me before I look for him with a brethren. See Paul says, because he does the work of the Lord, you are not to despise him. Okay, now Timothy was not an old man, but Paul says, because he's doing the work, you should not despise him. You have to understand, and we'll look at this here in a little bit. When we go back to that passage, it's not just, well, hey, I'm young. So automatically you can't despise me. Well, no, there's always action implied in this. You see, you should not give people a reason to despise your youth. Do you understand what I'm saying? They're automatically gonna look down on you. They're gonna assume you're immature. So don't act immature and give them a reason, right? They're gonna assume that you're young and you don't know what you're talking about. Prove them wrong. Don't give them a reason. He says about Timothy, let no man therefore despise him. The reason why is, because you know what, Timothy also did the work. So they could not look at him and say, well, you don't do the work. You don't go sewing. They couldn't make that accusation. Why? Because Timothy did the work. So when it comes to us, hey, don't allow people to despise us. Don't allow people to look down on us. They're automatically gonna do it because we're young. Even so much more, we ought to be mature and not give them a reason. I know people want to despise me. They want to look down on me. These Baptists in the Philippines, they hate my guts. Amen. Now, I knew this would take place. I just didn't think it would happen this quickly. I mean, obviously it's gonna happen. It's just the way it is. But it's like, man, they hate our guts. They hate our church. Every false prophet hates our church. I mean, it's like, man, it's amazing how the enemies of God just all line up together and then hate the people that are going sober. They hate our guts. They want to despise me. They want to look down on me for any reason. I should not give them an opportunity to look down on me. They're already trying to find any chink in the armor. So when you're young, you have to go above and beyond to not give people a reason to despise you. And look, I don't have a problem with this. It is what it is. It's automatic that me starting this church... Let's say, for example, Pastor Jimenez moved to the Philippines, okay? And he started a church here. He actually moved, maybe, I don't know, the country kicked him out or whatever, I don't know. He moved here to start a church. You would automatically, the people in my church, you would automatically respect him a little bit more than you would respect me. Now, I'm not against that. Why? He's proven himself. He deserves that respect, right? You're automatically gonna think, well, he's run a church successfully. He's already preached for years. He knows what he's doing. He has a family. His kids are grown. He's been married for a long time. You will automatically respect him a little bit more than you're gonna respect me. And I don't have a problem with that because he's earned it, right? And so here's the thing. We automatically are gonna respect people that have proven themselves. And these people out here that hate us, they already are looking down on us. And they're gonna try to assume that you don't know what you're doing. They're gonna try to find something you must go above and beyond and therefore, they cannot despise him. That's what the Bible teaches. Turn to Titus 2, Titus 2. So I mean, if we started this church and I never did any work, I never spent time on my sermons, I never went soloing, it'd be very easy to despise me. You just say, well, that guy's lazy. He doesn't know what he's doing, right? See, Paul says about Timothy, don't despise him because you know what? He does the same work I do. It's kind of like Paul's stamp of approval saying, you know what? This guy does the work. You better not despise him just because he's young. He does the work. Titus 2, we see another example. In verses 11 through 15. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. Now, if you're a Calvinist in this room, do me a favor, just ignore the rest of the sermon and read this verse for an hour until you understand that he died for everybody. Amen. What do you not get? It appeared to all, hath appeared to all men. He died for everybody. Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world. Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify himself of peculiar people, zealous of good works. Verse 15. These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise them. Now, why is it that they're not able to despise him? You know why? Because he was living soberly, righteously, godly, because he was a peculiar person, zealous of good works. They couldn't despise him. He could speak with authority because he wasn't a hypocrite, right? He was actually doing the work. And so he says, hey, let no man despise you. Well, the reason why is because he's actually doing the work. It's not just, well, automatically, you get to preach what you want and they can't despise you. No, I mean, if he wasn't doing the work, if he was a hypocrite, you couldn't despise him. You could look down on him. But because of the fact that Titus was not a hypocrite, they couldn't despise him. They couldn't look down on him. Why? Because he was actually doing the work. So when you see this phrase, let no man despise thee, look, you must prove yourself. Otherwise, they will despise you. Turn back to 1 Timothy 4, 1 Timothy 4. And so everything I preached was true. Let no man despise thy youth. People should not look down on you just because you're young. You know, the Bible says, man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. The truth is all of us look on the outward appearance. All of us. It's automatic. God looks on the heart. I can't see your heart, right? We look on the outward appearance. It's just the way it is. And even myself and all of us in this room, you're automatically, if you see somebody who's young, you're gonna assume they're not as mature as somebody who's older, right? You're automatically gonna assume that it's just the way it works. And so you have to understand that being a young person, people already assume you're immature. Look, I was less mature 10 years ago than I am now. You know, you get a little bit older, you get married, you have a child, you become more mature. And so look, we automatically assume people that are younger, it's like, yeah, I used to be like that. Because I did used to be like that. I did used to be less mature. And so look, people are automatically wanting to look down on you. And it says the first time before, verse 12, let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. He says the reason why they can't look down on you for being young is if you are an example. Do you understand that? It's not just, hey, you know, you're young, don't let them look down on you. Look, if he wasn't an example of the believers, then they could look down on him. He says, be thou an example. It's the same thing I'm saying today to our young people at our church. Hey, be an example here in Metro Manila. Because otherwise they will look down on you. Otherwise they will mock you. Otherwise they will say we're amateur. No, we need to be an example here in Metro Manila. We've already got people that hate our guts. They want to find anything they possibly can. Don't let them find anything. Don't let them find anything. Don't do anything. Don't say anything where they can look down on you for being young. They automatically want to look down on you. Don't give them a reason. But be thou an example. And you know, the truth is this, that I remember I was at Verity Baptist Church for, I was there, we were there like three years or something like that. But I remember I had been there for like six months. And I remember I told this guy a joke. It was like outside of church, we were doing whatever. And he was shocked. He's like, I didn't even know you ever told any jokes. He's like, I always thought you were just like always serious. Now the reason why he thought that is because I made it a point at church, being young and just starting to work for the church, that I need to make sure I'm above reproach. I need to be mature and not just goofing off like I don't take it seriously. Now you can ask my wife, I'm the least serious person she's ever met. Okay? But you're not gonna notice that at church. You know why? Because this is serious to me. I take this seriously. At home, I joke every other sentence. Right, sometimes it gets on my wife's nerves. But you know, I don't act like that at church. You know why? Because I want people to respect me. I want people to realize I take this seriously because it's not a game to me. It's not a joke. And you know one thing that I think we should do, especially when we're young, be careful about some of the jokes you make and things you say because you might offend someone and not realize it. One thing that makes jokes so funny is if it really offends a person that you're making fun of, right? But you have to realize, sometimes that gets on their nerves. Sometimes, you know what, if it's funny to everyone but not to them, then you shouldn't say it. That's the truth. We need to be careful about the things we say. I'm not saying we should never have fun or have a good time or tell jokes. But you know, when you're young, you tend to say things that you wouldn't say when you're older. You know, I used to joke around all the time when I was in college. And you know what? You do that, people are not gonna take you seriously. I want people at this church to take me seriously. Why? Because I'm in this for the long haul. I wanna do everything I can to get churches started in this place and do a good job being the leader here. I want people to take me seriously because you know what? I take this very seriously. This is very important. We need to be an example. Now turn to 1 Corinthians 8. 1 Corinthians 8. I've said this before in a sermon but you know, a long time ago, I remember I had this YouTube channel like nine years ago. Yeah, I got three strikes on that channel like so quickly because I was just like mocking every, you know, false prophet and making fun of them and everything like that. And I got my channel remover really quickly, right? Because I was young and I was just joking around, saying things that were immature, things that are just not worth the time, had too much free time in my hands to get yourself in trouble, things like that. I'm not gonna act like that now though. You know what? It's not worth it. And honestly, you know, given the situation we've seen the last couple days which most of you guys know what I'm talking about, the sermon I preached a couple weeks ago, I think we could all say, you know what? That sermon was very true, right? And here in the Philippines, it's a little bit different than the United States. And people visiting here, they might not understand it. Hey, that's fine. Our battlefield here in the Philippines, we know what we need to do, especially going forward. It's just like, you know what? We get ourselves in some real trouble if we say certain things. We need to be above reproach because they wanna find something. They wanna do anything they can, especially now, right? We need to make sure we don't give them anything. People at our church, look, we need to quit mocking the false prophets online because you know what? What's gonna end up happening is we could end up getting sued and you know what? In America, some people that got sued, they left fairly back to church. Why? Because they didn't want the persecution. Don't allow yourself to get persecuted. Be above reproach in that area. Be mature, okay? And I'm saying that very strongly, especially given the situation. We've seen over these last couple weeks that everything I said in that sermon is even more true to me now than when I preached it. It's like, you know what? It's a different battlefield. And honestly, my friends that are in America that are from the Philippines, all of them have told me that, especially here in the last couple weeks. It's like, hey, you know, it's a different battlefield. It's like, you know, don't just name all those false prophets cause you're gonna get yourself in some real trouble. It's definitely true, right? We know that's true. We need to be mature and realize what we're up against. First Corinthians eight verse one. This is what it says in first Corinthians eight verse one. Now it's touching things offered on the idols. We know that we all have knowledge, okay? Now we get the fact that these idols, this feast of the black Nazarene is a joke. It's weird, it's bizarre. The Catholics here don't get that, we get that. But notice what it says, knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifyeth. You know, one downfall with all this online preaching is that people can learn a lot really quickly, but you know, you can't develop charity that quickly. See, ideally you'd be able to learn knowledge and charity at the same rate. You know, let me give you an example of this. Let's say for example, somebody comes in here and they're just, you know, dressed in a miniskirt and some woman comes in. That's not appropriate clothing, right? I think all of us would agree with that. Now somebody who has knowledge might say, hey, you know what, you need to change what you wear. You know what someone who has wisdom would do? They wouldn't say that. Just because you know something doesn't mean you have to tell people about it, right? And the problem is when you develop knowledge but you don't develop charity, you say things that you probably shouldn't say. And it's kind of funny how the way you always see this is when people just do something in their life, like they quit dressing a certain way or they quit drinking, they start telling everyone that, hey, you know what, it's inappropriate for you to do this. It's like, well, you were doing that two weeks ago. It's like, what, you just quit smoking cigarettes and now you're preaching against people in church for smoking cigarettes. It's like, you just quit, right? But that tends to be the way it works. And honestly, when it comes to our movement and all this preaching online, people gain a lot of knowledge quickly. And yeah, you know what, you do know more than these Baptist pastors. You know, you've read through the Bible once, you're ahead of them. That's the way it is, right? You can just prove them on the rapture. You can just prove them on Abraham's bosom. You can just prove them on the sons of God. But that doesn't mean that you should just tell everybody about how much knowledge you have, right? There's a time and a place. Behind the pulpit is the place for knowledge to be. Spread out, right? But it doesn't mean that we should go outside this pulpit and just tell everyone. Look, like I said, just on Thursday night, when people visit this church for the first time, they don't care about the rapture. They don't care at all. It was always kind of frustrating to me when someone would visit church and then the big conspiracy theorist people would kind of take them aside, just go through all these conspiracy theories. And it's like, do you really think somebody first visiting this church needs to hear about the towers in 9-11 and Oklahoma City? It's like, is that the most important thing for someone who just got saved? It's like, no. You know, there's a time and a place for certain things. Turn back to 1 Timothy 4. And so the first thing we saw is this, that you know what? People will automatically despise you because you're young. Secondly, don't give them a reason to despise them. Don't give them any ammunition. Look, if somebody's got a gun pointed at you, you don't hand them the bullets, right? Wouldn't that be foolish? Someone's got a gun pointed at you. Say, wait, hold on one second. You don't have any ammunition. Let me help you out here, right? That's literally the same sort of thing that's going on. The third thing that I want to talk about is the fact that people don't have any ammunition. The third thing, let's look at the attributes because he says beat out an example and he's going to give some certain attributes. He's going to mention in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. We don't have time to cover all these. We're going to cover just the first three. Go to Colossians 3. In word, in conversation, in charity. We're going to start with charity simply because that's what we were just talking about in 1 Corinthians 8, verse one. So word, conversation, charity. These are some attributes, some characteristics of how we can be an example. Colossians chapter three, starting at verse number 12, the Bible reads, Put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness, okay? Now, this is something you could do in your free time. This phrase, bond of perfectness, is really interesting. You know, when you line up 1 Corinthians 13, where it talks about charity with the fruits of the Spirit with Galatians 5, you're going to see a huge overlap. Charity suffereth long, what's one of the attributes of the fruits of the Spirit? Longsuffering, longsuffering. Longsuffering, charity suffereth long. It says it's the bond of perfectness. So charity is not just one thing, it's kind of a combination of a lot of different things. And so the Bible says it's the bond of perfectness. And look, you know what, it takes time to develop charity in your life. It's just the way it is. We're talking about being young. Look, you know, you develop knowledge pretty quickly, it doesn't mean you develop charity. And honestly, you know, we're so focused on the sermon so we can disprove the preacher of rapture. You know, some of us probably need to listen to some sermons on being kind, not being bitter. I know they don't get the YouTube views, but you know, those are the things that are going to change your life. You want to be a good husband, what do you think's more important? That you know how to prove the poster of rapture or that you're kind to your spouse? What's more important? What about raising your kids? You know, what's going to be more important? It's going to be those attributes, developing charity. Those aren't the sermons that get you a lot of views. They aren't the ones that are the clickbait that get like thousands of views. But you know what, my goal is not to just put these clickbait sermons up and get tons of views. My goal is to help people in our local church. We all, including myself, we need to work on being patient, not being bitter and having these attributes. Turn to 1 Timothy 4. And so it said in word and conversation and charity, so the first thing it mentioned was in word, okay, from 1 Timothy 4. Now it says in word in 1 Timothy 4.12, notice verse 13 where he says, till I come, give attendance to reading, okay, the word of God, reading the Bible. So word is mentioned basically just knowing your Bible and reading your Bible. But my number one goal here, or one of my big goals, is to get all of us to read the Bible. That's why we do our New Testament challenge at the end of January. Because we're not going to be a church that's afraid of our members reading the Bible, like a lot of churches. We want people to read the Bible. I want you to read because the Bible says you need to be an example in word, which means you need to know your Bible, you need to read your Bible. All of us do. And I don't care how much you know the Bible, you still need to read it every single day. He says, read therein all the days of thy life. And even on a day like this or this week, it's going to be a busy week. And it's very easy to go soul winning all day and kind of forget about your reading. But you know what, you need to read the Bible every day. That's what the Bible teaches. And here's the thing, if I can convince you to read the Bible, get you to read the Bible in your free time, 95% of what I preach, you don't even need. Because you're going to make the changes yourself. Look, if you learn most of what you know from me or the preaching online, there's a problem there. You should learn much more in your own personal time than just internet preaching or my sermons. You need to read the Bible for yourself. And if you read the Bible for yourself, you're going to know the word of God. You're going to develop not just knowledge, you're also going to develop charity. When you read through the Old Testament, most of the Old Testament is just stories of people's lives and how they act in various different situations. Most of it is not disproving certain false doctrines. Most of it is just seeing how people respond in certain situations. And if you actually read the Bible, it would actually help us in those situations. You see, great men of God do a lot of terrible things in the Bible, right? That's why we need to read the Bible so we don't make the same mistakes that they do. Turn to James 4. And so it's said in word, it's said in conversation and charity. So let's look at in conversation. This is one of the things that he's telling Timothy. To be an example, you have to be an example in your charity, you have to be an example in your word, you have to be an example in your conversation. Now in the Bible, conversation is not just what you're saying, but it's your whole lifestyle, okay? It says in James 4, verse 13, who is a wise man and a dude with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom, okay? If I was to show your good conversation with meekness of wisdom, basically through your works, you prove you're the real deal. With meekness of wisdom, which means you don't just lay down the hammer at every chance you get. He says with meekness of wisdom, you show through your works. It says in verse 14, but if you have bitter ending and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion in every evil work. See, the Bible speaks against getting in arguments all the time. It's against being full of envy and strife and bitterness and these things. These things are not good things to have. We shouldn't have a goal to see how many people can I get to dislike my video online or whatever, getting how many fights that I can online. You don't see that in the Bible. What you see in the Bible is you should try to avoid those things. And it's not being watered down. It's what the Bible teaches. And the problem people have is they hear preaching that's bold behind the pulpit, and what do they do? They get outside the pulpit and they act the same way. We're not supposed to act the same way. I don't act the same way outside the pulpit. I try not to get in fights. I try to avoid them. I try to get people the benefit of the doubt. I don't wanna get in fights outside the pulpit. What's the purpose? I preach the truth. We upload the sermon. We got plenty of fights. I don't have to try to get in fights because just simply uploading a sermon, there's gonna be a lot of people that get mad. That's just the way it is. But we should not leave the pulpit and try to get in arguments. And all of us, we should try to avoid these situations in life. Verse 17, but the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable. So first, you clean up your life and then you lay down the hammer on people, right? No, it says then peaceable, which means you should seek to be at peace with people. If you're living a pure life and you're living a godly life, you know what you should do? Be an example and be peaceable. Gentle and easy to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy. We should actually try to avoid arguments. That's what the Bible teaches. Now, look, that might sound like water down because we're independent fundamental Baptists, yeah, we preach very hard on what we believe, but it doesn't mean we try to cause arguments with people. We try to avoid those things. I don't wanna be in arguments my whole life. Outside the pulpit, you know what we do? We go soloing and we try to get people to come to church and we give them a chance to grow. Right. We don't expect them to look like this from day one and to talk the talk and be perfect. We actually expect them to stumble quite a bit, especially when they've been Catholic for 25 years. It's gonna take them time to grow. Turn back to 1 Timothy 4. So the first thing we see is this, that people will automatically look down at you simply because you're young. And quite honestly, you say, well, you know, I'm not that young, but look, people are gonna look down on us anyway for what we believe. They're gonna try to find something. So all of us need to make sure we don't give them a reason. And we see the attributes, but lastly, I wanna show you the method for how we do not allow people to despise our youth because verse 13 gives us the method. He says, till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. So the first thing he mentions is reading. Okay, now turn to Ephesians 4, Ephesians 4. So by reading the Bible, it's going to help you have the right character traits because he talked about conversation and word and charity and spirit and faith and purity. So giving attendance to reading, reading the Bible is gonna help you have faith and have charity and be an example and have purity. Reading the Bible is gonna help you fix that. Now Ephesians 4 is a very famous passage. And in verse 22, it says, that he put off concerning the former conversation in the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. So the old man, we have the old man and the new man. The new man is the saved person. The old man is your flesh. Now we have both of these until the day we die. We still have the old man, right? We could go back and do the same sins that we used to do because you know what? We're all sinners. We're not perfect. The Bible talks about the old man and the new man. Every single day, we must put off the old man. It's not like you can skip putting off the old man one day. You're gonna start acting like the old man if you don't put it off every day. We must put off the old man. Put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. Look, when you're reading the Bible and you live and forgot, you're a nicer person. That's the truth. When you're not reading the Bible, you're gonna walk in the old man. You'll get angry very quickly. You won't have much patience. You're gonna be bitter. You're gonna be envious. You're gonna be full of strife. But you know what? When you're reading the Bible and living for God, you don't even worry about all those things. You're just happy just going so on. If people mock you, you don't even care. Verse 23, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. So we need to be renewed daily and that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Now this passage in Ephesians 4 is very famous, but to have a good understanding of this passage, it parallels with Colossians chapter three. So turn to Colossians three, cause it's gonna give us actually better detail than it does in Ephesians four. And so notice what it says in Colossians three, verse eight. You're gonna see that these are parallel here. But now he also put off. Remember it said put off the old man. It says put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, evil, filthy communication out of your mouth. You know what the Bible's telling us in verse eight when you parallel that? That the old man you're putting off is full of anger and wrath and malice and blasphemy and filthy communication. That doesn't sound very good, is it? The old man, it is corrupt according to the deceitful laws. It's just it actually tells you pretty specifically in Colossians three, how it's corrupt. Verse nine, lie now one to another seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds. But notice verse 10. How are we gonna put off the old man? How do we put on the new man? And I put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. You know what the Bible's telling us when you compare those things? You know how you put off the old man, knowledge, the word of God? Now there's plenty of ways you can put off the old man. You could pray to God. It will help you put off the old man. You can memorize the Bible. But honestly, when you just compare those things, the thing it highlights is knowledge. That's how we renew our, I mean, renew. It means every single day we need to be renewed. It's not just something you do one time and you get saved. It's not just something you do, you know, hey, I quit watching TV. Now I don't have to worry about anything. No, every single day, you need to keep putting off the old man. And every single day, you need to be renewed, which means every single day in knowledge, you need to read the Bible every single day. Now remember the old man is full of anger and wrath and malice. It's corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. So here's the thing. If you wake up one day and you don't put off the old man, you're gonna start walking in the old man, okay? Now look, here's the truth. Being married, I can promise you, is not too hard for my wife to tell on days whether or not I've really spent time with God or not. Because you don't spend time with God, you don't put off the old man at the beginning of the day, what's gonna happen? You're gonna start acting like the old man. You're gonna start getting angry really quickly. Look, I know on days when I spend time with God in the morning, you know what? I'm pretty patient. On days that I don't spend much time, you know what, I'm not that patient. If you're a married person, it's your obligation to read the Bible. You know why? Because you're a much nicer person when you read the Bible. That's the truth. The old man is corrupt, and if you don't renew yourself in knowledge in reading the Bible, you're gonna act like the old man. Now I strongly believe, and I preached this before, that people should read their Bible first thing in the morning. That's my opinion. Now there's a few reasons why. One, if you don't read it first thing in the morning, you might not read it at all that day. Because life ends up getting busy. That's the way it works. But not only that, you must, at the beginning of the day, renew yourself. Because if you choose to read it at the end of your day, you're probably gonna walk in the old man all day. You're probably not gonna be that nice all day long. And then you read the Bible. Now you'll still learn the Bible, but you know what, you're not gonna be as nice that day. You're not gonna be walking in the new man that day. You need to get a good start to the beginning of your day. See, every single day, think about climbing a mountain. I've used this example before. When you climb a mountain, once you get your momentum going forward, it's pretty easy, right? But let's say, for example, you just kind of stop to rest for a second. All of a sudden, as you start climbing again, it takes a little bit of effort to get going. It's kind of like a car stopped on a hill, okay? If the car is just trying to go uphill, you have guys that will push it or something like that. And once it gets going, it just goes, doesn't it? Okay? It's the same thing with our Christian life. When we start the day, we're not going forward. We're just standing still. And if you don't actively start pushing yourself forward, you're gonna start sliding back. That's the way it works. We must actively put on the new man at the beginning of the day. Be renewed in knowledge. The other thing it mentions, it mentions exhortation. And so when it comes to hearing the preaching of God's word, we need to apply what we hear preached. Look, we need to understand that when somebody's preaching a sermon and they pray that God will guide them to what they need to preach, and you hear that sermon, you must realize, you know what? That sermon was meant for our church. It's meant to be helpful. You know, you oughta believe that. You oughta assume that. So when you hear the sermon, you need to apply that to your life, all of us. All of us, you hear the preaching, you apply it. That's the way it is. You're praying that God will guide you into what you preach, and God gives you the sermon. It's gonna help exhort you. All of us, we hear great preaching. You know, whether it's online or whether it's in this church, you're hearing what you need to do, but you've gotta actually choose to do it. That's the truth. You're getting exhorted. You're being told what you need to do. Most Baptist churches won't tell you what you need to do. They'll lie to you because they want your money. I don't want your money. That's fine. I'll just preach what the truth is, and if you choose to tithe this church or give an offering, that's fine. If not, hey, that's up to you. I'm just gonna preach what the Bible says. But you know, he said, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, which means we need church and we need to hear the preaching of God's word, and we actually hear we need to change, we need to change it. And then it mentions to doctrine. Now, when it comes to doctrine, that's probably something that most of us, you know, that's something we're into, right? We listen to all this preaching online. That's the easy one, right? It's very easy to admit, I wanna know all these doctrines and smash all these false, you know, wicked heresies, and we should know those things. But you don't forsake your Bible reading to listen to a sermon. You never do that. Because the number one thing you said is to like come give attendance to reading, okay? So the number one thing is before you're preaching is you need to read the Bible. You say, man, I listened to three hours of preaching yesterday, and I read the Bible for five minutes. Well, you need to change that. You need to start reading the Bible. Because the Bible's gonna make you grow a lot quicker. It's gonna help you develop charity, which is more important, a lot quicker, than if you don't read it at all. And so when it says this passage, let no man despise thy youth, yeah, you know, people should not look down on us simply because we're young. But you have to realize something. Because you're young, they wanna look down on you. And you must develop these attributes. And you know what? If you're not reading the Bible, giving exhortation to reading, to exhortation to doctrine, if you're not giving attendance to these things, you're probably gonna walk in the old man, and you're probably gonna give people a reason to despise you, and you're probably gonna make certain comments online, certain comments on YouTube, and you know what? You're giving people a reason to despise you. And when we got, you know, at least a few false prophets that are actively having members listening to every sermon pointing guns at us, we gotta be very careful about what we say, and not give them a reason to decide to lay down the hammer on us. Why? Because you know what? Soul winning is the big focus that we have around here. So anyways, let's close in word prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here in your house and be able to preach on this topic, God, and help me especially.