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

Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Good morning everyone, welcome to Verde Baptist Church Manila. Please take your seats now, we're about to start the second service. Please grab your hymnals and open it to song number 55. Song number 55, we'll sing When the Rolls Hold Up Yonder. For those who know the song, please sing it loud. When the trumpet of the Lord, song number 55 on the first. When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more. When the morning breaks eternal pride and fair. When the sable birds shall gather over on the other shore. And the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there everyone. When the roll is called up yonder. When the roll is called up yonder. When the roll is called up yonder. When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there on the second. On the bright and cloudless morning when the dead in Christ shall rise. And the glory of his resurrection shared. When the chosen ones shall gather to their homes beyond the sky. When the roll is called up yonder. When the roll is called up yonder. When the roll is called up yonder. When the roll is called up yonder. When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there on the last. Let us labor for the master from the dawn till setting sun. Let us stock up all his wondrous love and care. Then when all of life is over and our work on earth is done. And the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there. When the roll is called up yonder. When the roll is called up yonder. When the roll is called up yonder. When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there. All right. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Verity Baptist Church. And let's take out our bulletins. We'll go through some announcements. And let's start by counting up any unreported salvations. And so let's start in this section here. Were there any salvations to report? One. Anybody else? How about in this section here? Salvations to report? One. Let's see. Over in this section, any salvations to report? Five. One. All right. Great work, everyone. Let me write that on my phone. So eight salvations to add. Of course, we do have soul winning this afternoon. The soul winning anthem and tiff starts at 1.30. The actual soul winning time starts at 1.45. One thing I forgot to mention in the first set of announcements is that we do have a sign up sheet over there on the circular table for the school ministry. And so we have appointments for all five days during the week. And, you know, the schools are a lot more open than they were in the past. So it's very possible we'll have a lot of opportunities going forward as well. Of course, we want to be as organized as possible because, you know, we don't necessarily know how many people are going to be free on a certain day to be able to go. This past time we had a lot of people come up from Pampanga. Now we have a lot of opportunities in Pampanga as well. So we're probably not going to be traveling up hours to preach up here if we can just preach there just 20 minutes away. And so there's also the possibility of schools, if we don't have enough people, we can get them to rearrange the schedule to combine classrooms and stuff like that. So we want to be as organized as possible, especially for this week. So we do have a sign up sheet over there for each of the days. And if you're going to be available for a specific day, if you're not sure, that's fine. I'm not trying to force you to make a vow or something right now that you're going to break. But if you could try to help us out and you say, hey, I'll be free just this one day and I'll be there for the school preaching. Just let us know over there. Obviously by default we're going to give the people that are here from the U.S. and other places the opportunity to preach. Because you just don't get opportunities to preach to large crowds in the U.S. It just will never happen. Maybe it will one day. Who knows? Maybe God can change things. But I've never seen it happen in the U.S. And so here, especially now, we've got an open door. But we do want to give the opportunity for those that have come here. This is a large reason why they want to come here. Just that chance to preach to the gospel to a lot of people. So just sign up over there if you get a chance. And we do have the school ministry each day. Of course we'll have soul winning parks. Last year for the missions trip we had a lot of people here. And so it was impossible to get everybody organized in the same park because there's just too many people. This year it's a little bit different because we have fewer people here. So I figure at the school preaching we can kind of figure there, okay, where are we going next for soul winning and everything like that. So anyways, that's for the school preaching. If you could just try to sign up over there if you're planning to participate in part of it. Other than that, we have our mission trip this week. And it's starting tomorrow. Next Sunday I'll have a special sermon for the end of the missions trip. And I will be up here on Wednesday this week preaching the midweek service as well. But I believe that's it for announcements. We will have Brother Chris lead us in another song. Alright, for our next song, song number 60. In song number 60, we'll sing face to face. Song number 60. Face to face, ready on the first. Face to face with Christ my Savior. Face to face what will it be? When with rapture I behold Him. Jesus Christ who died for me. Face to face I shall behold Him. Far beyond the starry sky. Face to face in all its glory. I shall see Him by and by on the second. Only faintly now I see Him. With the darkling veil between. But a blessed day is coming. When His glory shall be saved. Face to face I shall behold Him. Far beyond the starry sky. Face to face in all its glory. I shall see Him by and by. What rejoicing in His presence. When her banish dream and faint. When the crooked ways are straightened. And the dark things shall be played. Face to face I shall behold Him. Far beyond the starry sky. Face to face in all its glory. I shall see Him by and by. Everyone on the last. Face to face a blissful moment. Face to face to see and know. Face to face with my Redeemer. Jesus Christ who loves me so. Face to face I shall behold Him. Far beyond the starry sky. Face to face in all its glory. I shall see Him by and by. Great singing. Let's take our offering. Let's take our offering. For our script reading, please open your Bible to Macho chapter number 13. Macho chapter number 13, we will read beginning from verse number 31 to verse number 35. Macho chapter 13 beginning from verse 31 the Bible reads, Another parable for report unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed and spilled, which indeed is the leaves of all seeds, but when net is grown, it is to the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the earth come and latch in the branches drop. Another parable spake unto them, The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the wool was leavened. All these things take Jesus unto the multitude in parables, and without a parable spake he not unto them. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. Let's pray. All right. We're here in Matthew chapter 13. It is a short section of scripture. We'll probably get done a little bit earlier than normal, have a little more time for fellowship before so many time. We have two parables that are mentioned here in Matthew 13, and the name of the sermon is a grain of mustard seed, a grain of mustard seed. What is different about this parable than the one I just preached on, or the parable of the sower, which I preached on a few weeks ago, is the fact that in those parables, Jesus gives the explanation. In this parable, we do not have the explanation, and so there's a lot of different applications that you could make, a lot of different good ways that you can apply this. Obviously, I'm going to pick a specific way to apply these sermons, but you could apply the same scripture in another way as well. Verse 31, another parable putting forth on them, saying, the kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh the tree, so the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. Now, the verses I just read to you, people will say this is a big contradiction in the Bible, or a big error, because they will say, well, you know, mustard seed is not the smallest seed, so why does the Bible say that it is the smallest seed? And in fact, they're partially right in the fact that it is not the smallest seed, but it is the smallest seed that is over there in that part of the world. And so I think when Jesus is saying this with the mustard seed being the smallest, around the world you could find smaller ones, but in that part of the world, as you're speaking to people, and they look at all the plants that they have, they would know the mustard seed as being the smallest, so that's what he's trying to say to them, so they can understand what he's saying. It would not make sense to bring up a seed that they've never heard of, right? I mean, bring up this seed as the smallest, and they have no idea what seed he's talking about. Obviously he's going to pick the ones that are in that part of the world. It says from this article, since the mustard seed probably was cultivated in Palestine in ancient times for its oil, it may be argued that Jesus, when speaking of this type of seed, was talking about it in a comparison with all those seeds which were planted by farmers for food, and yeah, that is what I would say, that as he's speaking to the farmers that are there, it is the smallest seed for that part of the world for the food that they are creating. So that makes sense. It's not a contradiction in the Bible, but it is a very small seed, okay? Now, point number one, and the way I want to apply this is about a person getting saved, and when a person gets saved, they're like the smallest seed in the world. They know very little about the Bible. They do not have a whole lot to offer at that moment. First Peter chapter two. First Peter two. First Peter chapter two. And you know, if you're in this room right now, obviously we have a mix of people. Some people in this room have been saved for a long time. Maybe some people just in the last couple years. Some people in this room have been saved less than a year. For me, I've been saved more than 20 years at this time, over half my life, and you know, some people here I'm sure have been saved longer, but some people just a short amount of time. And I want you to think back to when you first got saved. When you first got saved, you probably didn't have a whole lot to offer. And what I mean by that is you probably didn't know much about the Bible. You probably would not have felt comfortable going soul winning or getting involved in various ministries and things like that because at the time you're just like a small little mustard seed. You're just newly saved. You do not have a lot to offer right at that moment. And the Bible gives the comparison between baby Christians with just babies in general. It says here in First Peter two verse one, Wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby. Look, I love having young kids in the house. And of course we have our fourth child that's on the way and we look forward to it. It's going to be exciting. But the reality is when a baby is born, they don't know how to do the dishes. When a baby is born, they don't know how to clean up a mess. When a baby is born, they don't know how to do anything. They don't really know how to talk or to walk. They don't know how to roll over. And it's one of these humbling things as a parent where you realize you literally have to teach your kids everything. It's like pretty much everything. You're teaching them. You're showing. You instruct over and over and over. I mean when a baby is born, they're not providing money for the house. There's not a whole lot that they offer. But the reality is that as that baby gets older and becomes a child, they start to get some responsibilities. They become a teenager. They become adult. And then at some point, they're going to have their own house where they're leading the home and working a full-time job. But when they're first born, they don't have a whole lot. And it's the same thing with a baby Christian. When someone first gets saved, they don't really have a whole lot to offer. I remember when I first got saved, this is how many Bible verses I could have quoted to you. Zero. I could not have quoted John 3.16. I didn't know. Jesus wept. I knew zero Bible verses. Right? I mean I had heard some verses. I couldn't have quoted a single Bible verse. And quite honestly, when I started coming to church, I don't think I looked super impressive like this guy is going to be a pastor one day. Because you know, I'm just kind of a baby Christian. Right? There's nothing wrong with being a baby Christian. But it's just a reality that everybody starts as a baby spiritually, just like you start as a baby in this world. Go to 1 Corinthians 3. 1 Corinthians 3. I mean you could look at someone who's a very impressive adult in a specific way, but when they were a baby, they didn't have that impressiveness. I mean you think of the most famous athletes in this world. I guess LeBron James is a lot older now. But I'm pretty sure as a baby, he wasn't jumping and dunking when he's a newborn baby. I'm pretty sure he just couldn't do anything. Right? And it's just like when a baby is born, it's not like they know how to do calculus. It's not like they're going to work a job. They don't know how to do much. And when someone is spiritually born into this world, I mean when they get saved I should say, and they're a child of God, they usually don't have a whole lot to offer at that moment. But of course when I look at a physical baby that's born, I mean our child that's going to be born, of course at the beginning they're not going to be able to produce much. I mean babies don't really even smile pretty much for the first few months, but eventually that baby's going to get older, that baby's going to learn, learn to read, learn to walk, eventually get older and probably have a family one day and work a full-time job. So when we think of this spiritually, don't put too high of expectations on a newly saved person. A newly saved person is newly saved. They're just a baby. They have a lot of things they need to grow, they need to learn. 1 Corinthians 3 verse 1, And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you are not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. Obviously with a physical baby you give them milk. That's what will make them grow. That's what makes them strong. You cannot give a newborn baby meat to eat. They're not going to be able to hold a fork. They're not going to be able to digest the steak. And there's weird people that are these hardcore vegans and they try to feed their babies on all fruits and vegetables from birth. And what takes place? I mean they've had babies that have died as a result of that because what they need is milk. And here's the reality. When someone first gets saved spiritually, I don't really care if they do not know what tribulation means or rapture or any of those things. It doesn't matter. They're newly saved. You know what's great for a newly saved person? They just start reading the Bible. They start to have a personal time with God. And they just slowly write things down that they learn from sermons. And then you check back on that person that's doing that for a couple years consistently and you're going to see that actually they've gained a lot of knowledge in a couple years. In our church we have people that got saved when they got saved and then came to our church and they were newly saved. Or people that we reached via the gospel. And I look at a lot of these people and it's like they're bona fide soul winners. They're preaching at schools. And it's like man, some of them have only been saved for a short amount of time and they're doing great things for God. You say well how is that possible? Because you get saved and you slowly learn. You start memorizing the soul winning verses. You start reading the Bible. And yeah, you know what? When you're first saved there's probably a lot of stuff that you don't know but you can slowly learn. But look, when someone is newly saved they don't need to just do a deep study in the book of Ezekiel. Or a deep study in the book of Zachariah. That's very much the meat of the word. Right? I remember when I first got saved and I had a good friend of mine that was a Mormon. And so I decided you know what? I'm excited to be saved. I want to get my friends saved. I'm just going to study and learn about Mormonism. Now I didn't know how to get a normal person saved that just had normal beliefs. But I was going to get a Mormon saved. Right? I read so many books on Mormonism in the first 12 months I was saved. And I learned all of these facts. I mean I used to be able to quote all of their prophets in the year they became the leaders and all of these things. And then you know what? All of that information I learned. Guess how many Mormons had helped get saved? Zero. None. I learned a bunch of knowledge that was pretty much useless. Now look, maybe if you lived in Utah there'd be some use for it. Or if you're in an area where there's a lot of Mormons you could learn some stuff. But the reality is what did I need when I first got saved? I needed to just start reading the Bible and going to church. I don't need to learn about how to convert some hardcore Mormon or whatever. It's like just learn the Bible and just slowly learn. The Bible says in verse 3, For ye are yet carnal, for where as there is among you, envying in strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men? For one sayeth, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal? One thing you notice with babies and young children in this world is they get into a lot of strife about pointless things. Right? You give a child a blue toy and you give another child the green toy and this child wants the other toy and this one wants this one. What's really humorous is when you give kids two things that look the exact same and they are the same, but they want the other one. It's like they're both Hershey's chocolate bars. There's no difference. Right? But they get so upset because they want one and you see this with babies in this world. And we understand when babies act this way because that's how we acted as babies. But then you expect that baby to grow up and be spiritual. And you know, Paul's saying the same thing here. He's looking at a church and he's like, you should be spiritual. You're not baby Christians. You've been saved a long time and yet you're acting carnal. You're not walking in the spirit. You're walking in the flesh. Right? Turn in your Bible to Matthew 13. Matthew chapter 13. So look, if somebody newly gets saved at our church, it's like, you know, we just need to give them a chance to grow. I'm not that worried about how somebody dresses that first got saved. I mean, obviously we live in a world today where, especially on women, the way women dress in today's world is very different than they did in the past. But if somebody's newly saved, honestly, I care like zero percent about how they're dressed. Right? They come to church, you know, whatever they're wearing. It's like, you say, why? Well, because number one, the inside fixes the outside. And so the thing is, it's like, I don't want them to just do something because I want to follow these rules because I have to. No, I want people to do something because they actually love God. That takes time to grow and to learn. When someone first gets saved, we don't expect them to know everything. And you might look at me right now and you might think, man, I've only been saved a short time and you preach sermons and I don't understand like half the things you're talking about. I mean, so many topics. I've never read that in the Bible. I've never learned that. And you wonder, you know, how could you know this information? And what I can say in all sincerity is that when I got saved, I knew nothing. Nothing. Now, over the course of 20 years, I just started reading the Bible every day. And I remember, you know, in my early days being saved, I would learn something in the Bible from reading and I'd be excited and I'd share it with someone. And they're like, well, yeah, of course. I was really excited. Like I learned some great truth. And it's like, oh, apparently everybody knows this. It's been saved longer than me. Right. But the thing is, you know, you start reading, you start learning and then you come to church. And of course, church is a great way to jump start your learning. You learn new topics. And here's the thing. It's OK if you hear a sermon and you don't catch everything because of the fact you caught something. Right. I preach on a sermon and maybe some of the information you're like, man, that's complicated. I don't fully get that. It's not something that, you know, I've really studied or I understand. It's OK, though, because I'm sure you're going to learn something and then you learn a little bit more. And if you hear a similar sermon a year later, you're probably going to be very surprised that a lot of it now is making sense because you've learned a lot of new information. Point number one, a person that gets saved, they know nothing. They're just a baby Christian. They're very newly saved. They're like a mustard seed. But point number two, a person can become a great tree. Bible says here, verse thirty one. Another parable putting forth onto them, saying the kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and showed in his field, which indeed is the least of all seeds. But when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs. One of the things I find fascinating is that God created this world specifically in a physical way to give us a lot of spiritual applications. And he created the mustard seed in this way where it's the least of the seeds that are in that part of the world. And yet when it grows, it's actually the greatest among herbs, the Bible says. Go to Isaiah twenty eight. Isaiah twenty eight. Isaiah Chapter twenty eight. Before I was saved, I was not a Baptist, you know, growing up, I didn't really go to church that much. I was part of a Protestant church, but my parents are very moral and strict that I learned great things from them. But I didn't go to a Baptist church or a church that is like this. And, you know, one example is I remember getting saved and I started going to church. And after being at the church for a long time, you know, six months or so, the pastor, you know, asked me and my friends like, hey, were you guys thinking about getting baptized sometime? And we're like, we had no idea we're supposed to get baptized. Right. Because, you know, we take these things for granted because obviously, oh, of course you believe and then you get baptized. Yeah, but a newly saved person, they don't automatically know all this information when they first get saved. And I had no idea that I needed to get baptized. I was completely unaware of it. And then the pastor showed me, well, this is what the Bible says. It's like, yeah, I'll be baptized as soon as as you know, I can. Right. And so, of course, when someone is newly saved or new at our church, a lot of information they're not going to fully know. And that is OK. Isaiah 28, verse nine. Whom shall he teach knowledge and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little. Unti, unti is how we learn. You just learn a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. And then after a while, you start to have a lot of knowledge. Right. It's OK. You know, sometimes people might become shy to go soul winning. And this is what people think before they've ever gone soul winning. Man, if I go out soul winning, I'm going to run into someone that's like this expert Jehovah's Witness. And they're going to make me look foolish. They're going to be quoting all these verses in the Bible. I'm not going to know what to say. Well, here's the thing about this. When we get soul winning, the worst that can happen is that you try to give the gospel and you don't do a great job. And they go from being unsaved to still being unsaved. It's not like you're going to go out there and, man, I cause somebody to lose their salvation because I did such a bad job. That doesn't happen. Nothing, nothing really that bad could possibly happen. Here's the thing. If you run into someone who's an expert Jehovah's Witness and wants to argue, here's the secret to winning that conversation. All right. Have a nice day and walk away. I walk away from plenty of conversations when people want to argue with me. And it's just like, you know what, I'm not going to waste my time because obviously they're just not going to listen. Right. And, you know, if people want to argue and debate with us, they're just not going to get saved. And it does not matter if you talk to them or I talk to them or Jesus Christ was here today talking to them. They would just not get saved. And so if you run into that, it's not the end of the world. Right. Obviously, this is a very receptive country to the gospel. But, you know, there's plenty of people I run into that just don't want to listen. Right. My wife is very good at getting people to listen to the gospel. And, you know, we were going soul winning yesterday after church and I was taking the kids. And, you know, we walked by and my wife stopped to talk to these two people. And I look back. I was surprised because they obviously didn't want to listen. I said, what happened? She's like, they're atheists. It's like, and what is it with people becoming atheists in 2025? Right. You know, you were saying, why did you preach the sermon series science in the Bible? You know, well, there's a lot more atheists than there used to be here in the Philippines as the world is waxing worse and worse. I mean, it's a reality that the two people she went to talk to, they're like, we don't believe in God. It's like, what? But the reality is, it does not matter if my wife talked to them or anybody in this room. You know what? They still would have said the same thing. We don't believe in God. And we're not interested. Right. Turn your Bible to Acts two. Acts two. Acts two. One thing we all need to be reminded of, if you're here in this room and you're a zealous soul winner and you're very excited to do it, I think we all need to remember about how we felt before we started sharing the gospel. I remember being scared. I remember being afraid and thinking, that is not my gift. I can't walk up to random people that I've never met before. That's just not me. It's not my special gift that God has given me. And of course, you know, when you learn more about the Bible, you realize it's not about a special gift. It's about obedience. You just do what God says. But of course, when you're a new Christian or a baby Christian, I had no idea about all of these things. And I started to go because I knew God told me to. And then the first time you go soul winning, what takes place? You realize it was not as hard as I thought it would be. If you're in this room right now and you've thought about diving into soul winning and you're kind of worried doing it for the first time, it is not as scary as you think. And we can pair you up with someone that is used to doing the speaking. And you can be there just kind of learning. You're there just kind of learning the robes, learning what to do. And you just kind of quietly learn. And eventually when you're learning and learning and learning, it's like then eventually that fire will come inside of you where you say, Hey, can I do it? Can I try giving somebody an invitation and try to talk to them about the Bible? And it starts just a little bit at a time and it slowly grows. Acts 2, verse 41. The Bible says this, Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day they were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. The Bible speaks about people that they get saved, they get baptized, and then they join the church, and they're continuing in doctrine and fellowship. And here's the thing. When Christians fellowship together, when soul winners fellowship together, one of the common things they talk about is the Bible and how the Bible applies to life. And you can just listen and you're learning. And then you come to church, you're hearing doctrines, and you're learning. And slowly, slowly you start to learn these things. Turn your Bible to Matthew 13. When this church started in the early days, and when I look at our church today, I believe our church is 100% united. We're united as one. We have the same doctrines, the same goals. We love each other. We care about each other. Honestly, when the church started, I didn't really feel like that when our church first started. And obviously, it's a unique situation because people were on the exact opposite of Filipino time, the very first service. We were there like 40 minutes earlier, and the room already had a lot of people. And I'm like, I don't even know any of these people. It's exciting because people have heard the ministry online, and then there are people from day one. But honestly, there was a problem we had in the early days with people. Literally, there were people that were forbidding other people at our church for going soul winning. They said, you're not allowed to go soul winning with us because you don't know enough yet. You have to study and learn first. Now, of course, they didn't ask me if they could restrict other people from going soul winning. And this should be obvious, but let me just help you out. It's like, if you're not the pastor, you don't make the rules at church. And I don't restrict people from our church from going soul winning. You say, well, what if they're preaching a false gospel? Then we remove them from the church. But if somebody's at our church and they want to go soul winning, guess what? Of course, you learn through trial and error. That's how you learn. I want them to go. Man, if somebody has the courage to go soul winning, I'm thinking, great. And of course, we expect, I mean, didn't we all the first time we went soul winning, we weren't that confident, we didn't do a great job, but we were slowly learning in how did we get better via practice. Look, I'm not sitting here saying that you should try to become a professional athlete, but if you wanted to become good at basketball, you don't just watch somebody else play basketball. You've got to actually practice yourself. And of course, when someone wants to go and say, hey, I want to go out soul winning, it's like, great. It's like they learn, and then over time, they get better. Look, I don't know how I sounded when I first started giving the gospel. I wish I had a recording. I'm sure that if I listen to myself now from back then, I'd be like, that's embarrassing. Kind of like if I listened to my early sermons I preached, I'm thinking, man, I made a lot of mistakes in the early days, right? But that's how you learn. Nobody's going to be an expert at everything from day one. Look, I don't want people at our church to be intimidated because they feel like I can never reach this point. Well, you just start and you slowly get better. And however good you become, I mean, great. I mean, if you decide to start reading the Bible now and just read it every day and you never reach the knowledge of other people, you still reached a level of knowledge that you didn't have before. And that is perfectly okay. Number one, a person getting saved, they know nothing. They're like a mustard seed. They know very little about the Bible. They have very little to offer. But number two, the encouraging thing, that mustard seed, that person can become a great tree. And then point number three, with that tree, you can become a blessing to others. Because notice what it says. Well, in verse 31, another parable put forth unto them saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all seeds. But when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh the tree. Notice this, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. And that symbolizes how you can be a blessing to other people. So you start off, you're newly saved, you become a tree. Then somebody else that is newly saved, maybe they'll be your silent partner out sowing it. Maybe somebody that you could invite, hey, do you want to come sowing with me? You know, you can be a silent partner, I can show you how to do this. Or maybe somebody comes to you and asks you something about the Bible. Yeah, the reality is that a lot of times people feel intimidated to talk to me about the Bible, either because they think I'm busy, or either because, you know, they're afraid. Like, oh, you know, I don't know, you know, I don't want to bother them or whatever. But what you'll often find is people will ask other members at the church about the Bible. So, for example, you become friends with someone at church, and they've been saved longer. That person might ask you something about the Bible, and so the knowledge you get, you can say, hey, that's a great question. I didn't know that before either. Let me just show you what the Bible says here. You know, this is what it says. Right? And then they can actually learn, and you're being a blessing to others. So not even just by a soul winning, but even if somebody asks you something about the Bible, you can actually show them something, and they can learn from it as well. Right? Now, obviously, I'm the one that's preaching the sermons. You know, this is a pastor-run church, and we understand that. But, you know, if somebody asks you something about the Bible, and, you know, you show what the Bible says, great. Right? Turn your Bible to Hebrews 5. Hebrews 5. Hebrews 5. And, you know, one thing to try to help encourage you that are a member, and I understand how this works, because before I was a pastor, especially when I was a baby Christian, you know, I had a desire to be a pastor and be in the ministry when I was 19 years old, and at the time, I was a mustard seed. I was very unimpressive, but I did have a desire, and I started to work toward that goal. But I just remember looking at pastors and hearing them preach, and I just thought to myself, I will never be at that level. I could never know that much about the Bible. I could never preach like that. I'm not a gifted speaker. That's just the way I felt, and I think by default, a lot of people feel that way. You know, when they hear the person preaching, they just feel like, especially if you're newly saved, like, man, I could never learn that. I've never heard these things. I know so little of the Bible. But here's the thing about this. Someone that's newly saved could look at another member of the church, and they could look at you as an example and say, hey, maybe I don't feel like I could be like the pastor, but I can reach that level. And you know what? They could be surprised and realize that actually, you can keep preaching and learning, and you can learn just as much information as I have, even if you're newly saved. You start reading the Bible. You start memorizing the Bible. You start coming to church. Pretty soon, you're going to know the things that I'm speaking about, and you're going to understand them, and you're going to know where the Bible actually teaches us. So look, if you're in this room, you know, you want to grow spiritually. Why? Because you can be a blessing to other people at the church. The Bible says in Hebrews 5, verse 11, Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. And notice this, for when the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as of need of milk, and not of strong meat. And the Bible's saying that you start off as a baby Christian, but there should arrive a time where you are a teacher. That doesn't mean that you're going to be a pastor. That doesn't even mean that you're going to get up here and preach sermons, but you should have the knowledge and the ability that when people ask you things, you could show them, hey, this is what the Bible says on that topic. And so a mustard seed starts off unimpressive, but it can become like a tree, and eventually it can be a blessing to other people. Go back to Matthew 13. That is our first parable, the parable of the mustard seed. Matthew 13. Anyway, the vast majority of Christians in this world have never read their Bible cover to cover, not a single time. And I know from just what people have told me at other Baptist churches they went to, that nobody at the church really reads the Bible much at a lot of churches. I'm not saying it's like that at every church, but a lot of churches, very few people read the Bible. We're not trying to have people raise hands here, but I think the vast majority of people in this room have actually read the Bible cover to cover at our church. And the thing is that if you start, maybe you don't know much now, but if you've never read the Bible cover to cover, of course you don't know that much. But if you start reading every day, you read for 15 minutes a day, you're going to get through the Bible once a year. And then even if you're staying at that pace, which is fine, once through the Bible a year and you do that for five years, after five years you're going to have some knowledge. And so the thing is you don't have to worry about what you are now, just look at what your goal is. If somebody starts lifting weights, you don't expect them to bench press 300 pounds the first time they lift. If they tried to do that, then they're probably going to get injured. But if you start just practicing and training over years and years and years and years, you start getting stronger and stronger. That's just the way that it goes. And it's the same thing spiritually speaking as well. Verse number 33, let's look at the second parable. Another parable is speaking on to them. The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the hole was leavened. Now, in the Bible, leaven represents, well, what leaven literally does is it spreads. It's something used in baking. But often it represents something bad, like false doctrine, like sin. And you could certainly apply this parable to the idea of something like that. But the Bible says, though, the kingdom of heaven in verse 33. So I really think the main application he's trying to make is just about us soul winning and reaching the world with the gospel. I believe he's speaking about something in a good way. You could get the idea leaven and sin spreads, and it's used that way in other places. But here when it says the kingdom of heaven, I believe we're looking at something that's good. And the idea is that, hey, you know what? It starts off small, but it eventually spreads, and you're going to reach more and more people with the gospel. So point number one is just simply soul winning. Go to Acts chapter one. Acts one. Acts chapter one. And, you know, a definition here of leaven is a substance, typically yeast, that is used in dough to make it rise. Notice what it says here in Acts chapter one, verse eight. Acts one, verse eight, it says, but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And so before Jesus went up to heaven, he left them with the instructions of getting people saved and starting churches. He said, in Jerusalem. Why does he say Jerusalem? Because that's where they were. So you start in your local area, then you reach all Judea, Jerusalem being part of Judea, and then you reach Samaria, and then you reach the uttermost parts of the earth. The idea is to get the gospel and spread it out to everybody. Now, when we had our first service here at Verity Baptist Church, Manila, the first service, I talked about the vision of VBC Manila, and the first point in that sermon was to start churches. The first point was not soul winning, and the reason why I gave that is because of the fact, as a church, your goal should be to duplicate yourself, and part of doing that is soul winning, but I always want to have the idea of trying to start new churches. Now, of course, when you preach that, people could hear that and say, hey, that's great. That's a great goal, but it's really just kind of something that you preach, but it's like you don't actually have it taking place immediately. It's something that you work toward. It's something that you have a goal of. But, of course, now, when we look at our bulletin and we count salvations, it's like we don't just have one church listed here. We started the church in Pampanga, and I'm committed to preach. I preach five sermons a week on most weeks. I'm committed to running these churches and preaching the sermons, and then, of course, we started the church in Bicol, and then we started a church in Poland, and then we have our two monthly ministries in Cavite and Laguna, which the goal is, of course, to eventually be them to be their own church and a bona fide church, and you say, what are you doing? We are taking something small with a lot. I mean, obviously, today we have our Laguna church, so a lot of people are gone here today, but we started off with just a small group of people, and we just slowly spread, and that is what the goal of a church is, right? To just slowly spread and reach the world with the gospel. I like to joke about the fact, since we have a church in Europe, that our goal is to start a church in every continent, including Antarctica. That's the last one on the list, but every continent we're going to get to. Go to Acts 2, and you say, why is that a goal? I don't think that people should have to drive from an hour and a half or two hours away on Sunday to go to a great church. I think it's a shame that people have to travel a long distance, and of course, I'm happy for all the people that are willing to make that travel, but I think it's sad, because when you think of the idea of a local church, there's a lot of wisdom in the church being local, being beside you, being nearby. We cannot 100% properly minister onto people that live a few hours away. I'm happy to have them come here as often as they can, but when we see that in Laguna and Cavite and other areas, we're thinking, man, we've got to think about starting something down there, because we cannot expect people to come from two hours away. And of course, if you drive two hours on Sunday and you try to come to the midweek service, it's going to take you five hours. You're not going to make it. The traffic's going to be crazy. And so of course, the goal is to slowly spread out and start more churches. You say, why? Because everybody deserves to have a great church that they can get excited about and believe in in their local area. Acts 2, verse 43. And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believe were together and had all things common. Acts 2, verse 45. And sold their possessions and goods, and part of them to all men as every man in need. And they continuing daily with one accord in the temple and in breaking of bread from house to house, to eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. So Jesus gave the instructions in Acts 1. What I want you to do is reach Jerusalem, then all Judea and Samaria, and on to the uttermost part of the earth. And of course, people are joining the church. The church is getting bigger in Jerusalem. Now let me ask you this question. Did they obey what Jesus said and really listen to what he said? Not really. Because he said, start in Jerusalem and then go to all Judea. And the only reason that happened is God had to allow persecution to get them to actually spread. Right? And it can be very easy as a church because, of course, I like preaching to a big crowd. I love it when we have more people to preach. And people get this idea that it's hard to preach to bigger crowds. I think it's a lot easier to preach to bigger crowds than small crowds. The crowd's more lively. There's amens. It's exciting. What's really awkward is when you're preaching to a small crowd. Right? But you preach to a large crowd. It's exciting. It's great. And of course, I want this church to be packed. And look, I hope that we eventually outgrow this first floor and we have to start meeting on the second floor, which we'll have to build. That's a great thing. That's the goal. That's what I want. But here's the thing. If we grow and grow and grow and grow, eventually you have to ask yourself this question. Should we start another church? I mean, if you're running 1,000 people, it's like, okay, I think it's time for another church to start. Right? And yet they didn't really listen to that in the book of Acts until persecution actually came. Go to Matthew 13. Matthew 13. Matthew chapter 13. And so point number one, we see soul winning. But point number two, we see spreading. So we preach the gospel. We go soul winning. We get people saved. And eventually the idea is that this message will slowly spread out like leaven and reach new areas. Matthew 13 verse 33. Another parable spake unto them. The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal. So it says three measures here, and then eventually you have this, and it's slowly going to end up spreading out. Okay? Go back to Acts. Go to Acts chapter 6. Acts 6. Now, look, I'm not much of a baker, so when you preach on topics you're not familiar with, you try to speak about it. I don't try to make myself sound super educated about something I don't know a lot about. I like to think of a marshmallow. Okay? You put a marshmallow in the microwave, you turn it on, and it just starts getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So if you're not familiar with baking cookies or baking bread or whatever, just think of a marshmallow that you put in the microwave, and it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And that's the idea when we go soul winning is we start, we preach the gospel, and eventually you bring more people to church, the church grows, and then eventually you spread out to more areas. Here's the thing about this. As a church, we can't send people soul winning two hours away on a Sunday. It's outside of our scope. We have the same parks that we go to, and the reason we don't go out further than that is because it already takes a while to get to some of these parks, sometimes 30 minutes to get to them. We can't go outside of that zone where it's going to take people an hour to get to their soul winning spot. If you had to go an hour to your soul winning spot, you could very easily quit soul winning because it's just too much. And so we can only do so much with the area we're at. Now obviously we do soul winning events. We have soul winning on Saturdays and throughout the week and things such as that. But if you really want to start reaching new areas, you've got to start getting more churches started. Because otherwise you're just not going to be able to reach these areas. In Pampanga, we got over 2,000 salvations last year. There is no way that our church would get 2,000 salvations in Pampanga as a church here unless you actually had a church there. That is the only way. Obviously, Beekle is way too far away to even think about us going soul winning there other than doing a missions trip. When we sent Brother Matthias and Sister Angel and their family to Poland, we lost a great family. Brother Matthias is incredibly zealous for soul winning. They both love God. They're zealous. But the reality is it's like, even though we're losing a great member of our church and a great preacher and someone very filled with the Spirit, how are we going to reach these other areas? He has a desire to be a pastor. He wants to go to Poland. There's a group of people waiting. It's like, yeah. It's like he was trained. I ordained him, sent him there. And look, in Poland last year, there was how many salvations? 683 salvations in Poland last year. That's phenomenal. It's amazing. And I just noticed a typo in the bulletin because I need to change it to 2025 for Poland. But it's like 63 salvations in 2025 in Poland. 683. I mean, a church in Europe? That's crazy. I mean, that isn't as impressive as what we're doing there. And you say, well, how does that happen? Well, it happens because you start a new church. And what you're doing is you're taking this message and spreading it out. And look, if there's men at our church that have a desire to be a pastor, that is a great goal to have. And if you prove yourself worthy, you get trained, you get ready, and you want to start a church somewhere, it's like, yeah, by all means, it's like we're happy for that. With the ministries in Laguna and Cavite, I believe there's going to come a day where they're going to be their own ministries in separate churches and not fully connected to our church like now. And the reality is that when that takes place, we're going to lose a lot of members from our church. But here's the thing. Our goal is to spread this message everywhere. And of course, I don't want to lose 20 members from our church. We've got a nice-sized crowd here, but I would love to have all the people from Laguna here. But the reality is it's just like there will come a day where it's like, hey, you know what? You're a long distance away from here. It's like we need a church in that area to reach. Obviously, things need to be done decently and in order. We're not just going to start churches everywhere. Obviously, these things, you have to be prepared for them, have a group of people and all of those things. But that is the goal to spread this message. Never get too comfortable about your own church and have this idea, well, I'm comfortable. I don't want us to grow anymore. I don't want us to start new churches. No, we want to grow so we can reach more people. Go to Acts 8. Acts chapter 8. Acts 8. Acts chapter 8. And so for sake of time, I'm skipping a few verses, but in the book of Acts, you see amazing growth in that early church. And quite honestly, I don't believe that a church in today's world is going to grow at the rate that they do in the book of Acts. I mean, they had like 1,000 people join the church from a soul winning event. That's not going to happen for our church, okay? But I do believe we can continue to grow and become a bigger church and bring new people to church and reach new people. And eventually it reaches the point where the church is like a mega church in the early days. Acts 8 verse 1. And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time, there's a great persecution against the church, which is at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions. Notice this of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Isn't it that he said in the earlier verse in Acts to reach Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria? He specifically mentions those areas. And you know what? They didn't go. They rejected what Jesus said. They were happy with their church. Obviously in the early church, there was an over obsession with just getting Jews saved. And then God's like, no, no, no. I want that message to go everywhere. Right? Go to Acts chapter 9. Acts 9 verse 31. Acts 9. Acts 9 verse 31. And it says in Acts 9 verse 31, Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Ghost were multiplied. Notice how it says churches, plural, and it mentions Judea, Galilee and Samaria. And God said, I want you to go to all Judea, Samaria and out of the uttermost part of the earth. Did they listen? Not really. God allows persecution to come. And look, even before Paul the Apostle was Paul the Apostle, he was the greatest spreader of Christianity. Right? He caused persecution to take that message everywhere. And he's trying to destroy the church. He actually spread it. So even before he saved, he's like helping spread the gospel. But you're getting churches in Samaria, Judea, Galilee. And look, the same thing is the goal today to basically take a church and then eventually multiply yourself. Go to Matthew 13. Matthew 13. As individual Christians, we want to produce more Christians. Right? I don't want to be the only Christian in this world. We don't want to be the only Christians. It's like somebody took the time to give me the gospel. I want to take the time to give other people the gospel and get people saved. But then the same is true as a church. Because how do people get saved? They get saved when somebody gives them the gospel. Is there any other way to get saved? No. Nobody gets saved on their own. The Bible is very clear on that in the book of Acts and many places in the Bible. People get saved because somebody brings that message to them. That's how I got saved. That's how you got saved. That's how everybody gets saved. Well, the same is true with churches as well. Because churches don't just start themselves. And if they do start themselves, what they're doing is actually wrong because you cannot just start your own church. Things need to be done decently and in order. Now look, I don't want you to misunderstand what I'm saying. Because I believe if you live in an area, we have people at our church that used to be OFWs. And they lived in areas without a great church. And they met together. And they sung hymns. And they went soul winning. And I think that's great. But if a church came along and said, we want to start a church in that area, what should you do? Get on board with what that church is doing. If it's a good church. And the reality is that churches just do not start themselves out of thin air if they're a good church. Before my family came to the Philippines, there was already people that were waiting for a church like this. We have people in this room right now that were here from the very first service and you've been here ever since. But it's not like you could have just started your own church without that authority and without the proper system. Right? So look, as individuals, we want to duplicate ourselves. But as churches, we need to realize our goal is to actually duplicate ourselves and help get more churches started. Bible says in Matthew 13 verse 33. So point number one, we have soul winning. Point number two, we have spreading. And point number three, lastly, the end goal is saturation fully. The idea is to fully saturate not even just the Philippines, but the entire world with the gospel. Bible says here in verse 33, another parable is spake unto them, the kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal. Notice this, till the whole was leavened. That is the idea to get this message everywhere. For sake of time, we're not going to turn here, but many places in the Old Testament talk about that all the earth may know. Maybe you've heard that song that we sing sometimes that all the earth may know that all the earth may know. That is the goal, that everybody is going to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, I will say this, that in my mindset, because I joke about starting a church in every continent. I don't really feel a desire to start churches in other continents. It just kind of happened with Poland, you know, because that's where Matthias wanted to go. I feel like, you know what, that the Philippines is a big enough country by itself that that's kind of where I'm invested into. Even outside of the Philippines itself, over half the population of the Philippines is in Luzon. I mean, there's like, what, 60 million, if I'm correct, 65 million people just in Luzon itself. I mean, that's already a big enough area where I kind of look at, you know, and in general, the sites in Mindanao kind of have a different main language. And they're kind of different areas where I kind of feel like this is big enough that I would be perfectly happy just to try to start churches in Luzon and never go outside of that. Now, of course, if somebody's at a church and they have a desire to start a church in some other place, great. I have no problem with that. But the idea of saturating fully is that it slowly spreads. So the idea would be you've got Manila, you've got Pampanga, and look at the surrounding provinces. Cavite, Laguna, you could think of Rizal, Tarlac, Bulacan, the surrounding areas, and the idea is you slowly reach more and more people. And then if you start a church that's a really good church, they can even be in command of their area with the goal of starting another church. Right now, we're not at this point by any means in Pampanga, but if ever we started a church, in my mindset, I think Tarlac would be a great place. It's an hour away, it's another province, but many of the people speak Pampangan as well. It just seems like it's a very logical next step. And as our church, we just slowly spread out. That is the goal that we have. And so, look, as much as we're doing for God, getting over a thousand people saved per month between our churches and ministries with a lot of people doing the work, it's like there will always be a lot of work left to do. The vast majority of people that we talk to are not saved when we approach them. One of the things about the school ministry with the questionnaires that we give is we ask them if they change their mind about what they believe. And the reality is that if someone is already saved when we go and talk to that school, then they don't change their mind during the Gospel presentation. They already believe it. But the reality is very few people in those questionnaires are answering correctly and saying we didn't change our mind indicating they already believe this. And what that means is the vast majority, I mean, look, if you ask the question, and I haven't done this at the schools, but you could, if you know for sure 100% that you're on your way to heaven, please raise your hand. There's not going to be a lot of hands raised. And even if they raise it, that doesn't mean that they're actually saved. Very few people that we run into are actually saved. So we feel like we're getting a lot of people saved, and we are. And we're doing a great work. And yet, when we go soul winning today, what are the odds that most people you run into are already saved? Extremely low. The only way that's going to take place is if you have only one conversation. Right? Because the vast majority of people that we talk to are not saved. And it will always be that way because as many people as we're reaching, I mean, the population just keeps growing. And there's a large population of just Catholic people and other faiths. The vast majority of people are unsaved. So what do we have to do? We've got to take this message and just like leaven, spread it. Get as many people saved as possible. Help get churches started. Help get new ministry started. Take every opportunity we can to take this message and just spread it as far as we can. Is it going to reach the end of the world? You know, I doubt we're going to start churches in all these continents and all these places around the world. But let's spread it as far as we can. And if we fully saturate Luzon one day, then hey, by all means, let's go outside Luzon and start more churches. Right. Matthew 13, verse 34. Let's close off. Matthew 13, verse 34. All these things spake Jesus under the multitude in parables and without a parable spake he not unto them, that it might be fulfilled which is spoken by the prophet saying, I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. And just one final thought from this short section of scripture we looked at is that in our modern day, we have access to information that people at other times did not have at my house. I do not know how many Bibles that we have. We have a lot of Bibles at our house. And I'm saying King James Bibles and even Bibles, some Bibles of Spanish and Tagalog, other languages that are good Bibles. You know, we have a lot of Bibles. I've got my Bible on on my cell phone right here. No, I mean, we have Bibles everywhere. You know, if you were to go back hundreds of years ago, a lot of people didn't have access to the word of God. I mean, during the Dark Ages, the Catholic Church didn't even want people to get the Bible. They didn't want them to learn the word of God. But we live in a day where I mean in the New Testament time, even in the days of Jesus, he's given information that people would have loved in the days of Abraham and Moses and Isaac and Jacob and those people. But even more so now because we have a completed final Bible. And look, you know, I know we're done with our New Testament challenge, but the goal is that you keep reading the Bible every day the rest of your life. And are you going to miss some days here and there? Of course. But find a plan and just stick with it and just unti, unti, slowly grow and be that large tree that can give shade to the birds. Let's close with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today and ask you to help us to apply this sermon to our lives. God, help us to apply both of these parables and all the information in here. God, help us to be people that just slowly grow the rest of our lives and continue to become bigger and stronger and better Christians. God, and ask you to help give courage to those that maybe are at our church and are kind of newer in the faith or there's a lot of information they don't know. Help them to just, you know, be dedicated to just reading the Bible regularly and slowly learning. God, we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. For our last song, song number 66. Song number 66 at Calvary. Years I spent in vanity and pride. Song number 66 on the first. Years I spent in vanity and pride. Caring not my Lord was crucified. Knowing not it was for me he died on Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free. Barden there was multiplied to me. There my birth and self had liberty. Calvary on second. By God's word that last my sin I learned. Then I trembled at the law I'd spurned. Till my guilty soul in glory turned to Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free. Barden there was multiplied to me. There my birth and self had liberty at Calvary. All the love that the salvation's planned. All the grace that brought it down to man. All the mining of the God that's back at Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free. Barden there was multiplied to me. There my birth and self had liberty at Calvary. Everyone on the last. Now I've given Jesus everything. Now I gladly own him as my king. Now my rapture soul can only sing of Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free. Barden there was multiplied to me. There my birth and self had liberty at Calvary. Let's pray dear Heavenly Father. We thank you Lord God for the message that we have heard. We pray that you would help us Lord to apply the principles that we have learned from this sermon in our lives. Help us Lord to be dedicated to your soul winning Lord God. Help us Lord to be a fruitful member of this church Lord and be a blessing to this church so that this church can grow and reach more people with the gospel. Help us Lord to have a great time and fellowship in soul winning this afternoon in Christ's name we pray. Amen. We're dismissed.