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

All right. Well, it's great to be back here at Verity Baptist Church. And I want to thank Pastor Minnis for giving me the opportunity to come here and fellowship with the church we were a part of for three years. And I also want to thank the Bahamundi family, picking me up at the airport, and the Sweetin family for being very hospitable to us and everything. And we definitely miss you guys, and I really appreciate everyone who talks to my wife. You email and keep in touch. And I've never been the best at keeping in touch with people, but I know my wife often will tell me she's talking to a lot of the ladies and things such as that. So we appreciate everything, and we appreciate all the prayers and the thoughts. And, you know, Zeph is doing very well. And, you know, if you were there for the missions trip, you'd realize he's a very, very big baby, and nothing has changed. I mean, he looks like a full-size, like, three-year-old. But he's still a one-and-a-half-year-old, so he always likes to be held. So my wife is definitely very small, so it's very difficult. But things are going great, and I look forward to getting to know some of the new people. I see so many familiar faces, but also new faces, and I look forward to fellowshiping with you guys this week. And I want you to look at Acts chapter 1, verse 8 here to start out. And this is probably the most famous verse when it comes to missions in the Bible, when it comes to soul winning and church planting. And it says in Acts chapter 1, verse 8, But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses on me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And so just the general application of this verse is basically Jerusalem is your local area. So for us here in Sacramento, our Jerusalem is Sacramento. That's the main area we're reaching. That's the main area we're going soul winning. And you start off in Sacramento, and then you branch off into other areas. Now, the end goal is to reach the entire earth, but one church alone is not going to be able to do that. And so this past year, I think you've really seen with this church that this verse is really fitting us, because you look at all the church plants that have been started. You think of Fresno that's just starting here just recently, and you're seeing Verity Baptist Church slowly branch out to the entire world. Now, we're going to go back here later on in the sermon to Acts chapter 1, but turn your Bible to 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. And so the name of this sermon is Misconceptions on the Mission Field. Misconceptions on the Mission Field. Now, I'm going to be preaching here three times, and I'm not trying to edify myself, obviously, but I did think it was appropriate to preach one sermon on missions. I'm sure a lot of people have questions and things such as that. And to really give you a summary of the whole sermon, I believe a church that started in a foreign country should operate the exact same way as a church started anywhere. And so we're going to go through this, and honestly, there's a lot of misconceptions when it comes to churches on the mission field. And if you've been an independent fundamental Baptist for a long time, then you've seen missionaries come into your churches. I've been an independent Baptist for about 15 years, and we had plenty of missionaries come into West Virginia all the time, and they'd always bring their programs and everything such as that. And the way they do missions is just completely off from what the Bible says. And I think most of us are aware of that. For example, deputation is a two-year process, generally, where you basically go around from church to church, and you're basically begging for money. So basically, for two years, you're learning to be watered down. You're learning to try to please the people instead of preaching what the Bible says, because your whole goal is to get that pastor and that church to give you money. So instead of just preaching what the God gives you or preaching a sermon that's really helpful and edifying, you don't want to offend anybody. So you're not going to really preach on anything. And you do that for two years. Then you go out to the foreign field. You're there for like 10, 15 years. And then you go on something that's called furlough. And furlough is basically where you go back to all the churches that donate to you, and you basically leave your church for like six or eight months, and you basically go back and just talk to all the people that are giving you money and just make sure they're still going to give you money. So basically, you just abandon your church for like six months. Now, that's ridiculous, because when you think about running a church, you think of what a pastor is. One of the things is being a shepherd and actually caring for those sheep. Like when David fights the battle in 1 Samuel 17, he doesn't just abandon the sheep. It makes it clear he leaves them with a keeper. He always is there taking care of the sheep. And if you've got a pastor that just leaves the flock, he doesn't even care about them, what's going to even happen at that church? I mean, if Pastor Mendez was gone from this church for six months or eight months, who knows what's going to happen? I mean, it could be complete chaos. But that's what happens on the mission field, where you're there for 10 years and 15 years, and then you're just gone for like six months, and then you don't even know what's going on. For me, I'm gone for like two and a half weeks, and that feels like a long time. I'm still a bit on jet lag, so I woke up at around 2 in the morning and went back to bed and then woke up at 3.30, and I was like, oh, you know, the service starts at 4 a.m., the Wednesday night service in Manila, so I watched the service. I was like, I guess that's a blessing to wake up really early to be able to do that. But I just can't imagine being gone from your church because you ought to care about your church. And so there's a lot of problems when it comes to how missions are done, but what I want you to understand is when you hear something false preached a lot of times, you might disagree with the overarching message, but at the same time, some stuff that's false is going to cling onto you. And so when I'm talking about misconceptions on the mission field, some of these things you might hear at first and be like, I don't know if that makes sense. But at Verity Baptist Church, we always prove everything with the Bible, and so I'll show you all of these points from the Bible. And one common thing when it comes to being on the mission field, so to speak, is that missionaries should not work a secular job, and honestly, that's a misconception, okay? In 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 8, the Bible reads, So being affectionately desirous of you, we are willing to have imparted unto you not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because you were dear unto us. For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail, for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. I think we would agree that Paul the Apostle was probably the greatest church planner, the greatest missionary, the greatest evangelist that's ever lived, and Paul worked a secular job. Paul was not just full time just living off the churches. He actually was a tent maker. He actually worked a job. Now, I want you to understand, I am not saying that it's wrong for someone to be full time. I'm not saying it's wrong if you're on the mission field to be full time, but it's certainly not wrong to work as well. And you know, honestly, the general tendency, especially in the Philippines, they teach it is wrong to work a secular job if you're running a church. Basically, if you're running a church but you also work a secular job, it proves you were not called by God. That's what they teach. And so all of the Baptist churches in the Philippines, from day one, those people that are starting those churches are full time. But they don't have the money to be full time, so basically their wives make the money, and they basically are stay-at-home dads, and they say, well, we don't work a job. Now, first off, that's insulting to women because being a stay-at-home mom is a lot of work. But basically they just reverse the role so they can say, well, you know, we're full time. And I'm sure it's like this in many countries and many places. Well, that's ridiculous because Paul the Apostle, he actually did work a full time, not a full time job, but he certainly worked enough to provide his bills. He was a tent maker, and there's certainly nothing sinful or wrong about actually working a job and making some money. Turn to 2 Thessalonians 3. When I first had a desire to go to the Philippines, and it kind of started when I visited in 2014. I visited my wife in Pampanga, and I saw how receptive it was, and I really liked the atmosphere, the culture, and things such as that. And my plan was to work full time as a math teacher when I potentially moved to the Philippines one day. And with the Internet and the opportunities that there are there, I thought, you know, I might even be able to just work online as a teacher, and money that wouldn't be a lot here in the U.S. would go a lot further in the Philippines. But my attitude was never I'm going to be just full time, you know, I figured I'll work a secular job because when you start, I figured my wife and I will be at the church and we'll have a few kids, and we'll start with no members. And so if we don't have any members, how am I going to pay the bills? So I figured I'm going to work a full time secular job. Now I'm blessed that I have the opportunity to still work remotely for Verity Baptist Church, and it's able to pay my bills. But, you know, honestly, you know, when it comes to most Baptist churches, they would say what I'm doing is wrong and sinful because I'm not called by God since I'm not full time from day one. But, you know, when you look at Paul the Apostle, you look at the example in the Bible and Paul the Apostle was actually working. Why? Because he had the attitude I don't want to be chargeable to anybody. I don't want to steal money. I want to work by the sweat of my brow night and day, so I won't be chargeable to anybody. But, you know, honestly, when it comes to most missionaries that are out there, what they honestly are is just trying to dodge work and be lazy. Most missionaries that you give money to on the foreign field. Look, I've been at Baptist churches where we support like 50 missionaries and we have like 50 members at church. You say, well, how do you support 50 members? You give them like $5 a year. $5 a month at the most. You support all these missionaries and you've got this big map on the wall and you've got a little, you know, little safety pin or whatever at all these places to show we've got missionaries everywhere because it makes you look like you're really godly. You're supporting missionaries all over the world. In reality, you're giving money to people that are lazy if not heretics most of them. And, honestly, all they're trying to do is avoid work and you don't even know who those missionaries are. You know nothing about them. All you know is they had a nice video presentation when they came in and you know nothing at all about them. And the truth is most people that are missionaries out there, they're just lazy people trying to avoid work, okay? Notice what it says in 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 6. Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourself from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us. For yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you. Neither did we eat any man's bread for naught, but wrought with labor and travail night and day that we might not be chargeable to any of you. And so notice in verse 6 it talks about brothers walking disorderly, and that is linked with not actually working. Isn't it true that in the last few years at Verity Baptist Church, the people that have caused the problems in church are the ones that just don't work jobs? I mean, that's what you always see. The ones that are too lazy to work are also the ones that end up being full of problems all the time. They're too lazy to work, and they get into problems at church. And the Bible says withdraw from those that walk disorderly, the ones that just aren't doing any work. That's what the Bible teaches. Generally those people end up being troublemakers. And see, Paul the apostle didn't want to be like that. And he worked night and day, and he did it to be an example for people to follow after him. Verse number 9, not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an ensemble unto you to follow us. For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work and eat their own bread. And so Paul said, I want to be an example so people will follow after me. Now here's what you need to understand when you're in a poorer country. You will have people constantly come to your church and ask to be a full-time worker that you've never met. We have people that show up all the time and just say, oh, can I work full-time for the church? I'm like, I don't even know who you are. And it's like, you know, the typical Baptist churches, they support like tons of people full-time, and they have for a very low amount. And so people show up all the time, and they just want to be full-time workers. It's like, I don't even know who you are. And they say, well, you know, I listen to Pastor Anderson and Pastor Mann is online. It's like, I don't know who you are. It's like, for one, we're not just going to hire like a ton of people, but for two, it's just like, we're a small church. I mean, how are we going to hire just like all these people working full-time to do what? I mean, yeah, but are you literally going to go soloing for eight hours a day? I mean, there's just not enough work to do. But people show up all the time. One guy who actually stuck around at a church for a little while, you know, he wanted to work full-time and everything. And I don't even know why he came to our church, because he spoke less English than anyone I've ever met. And I tried to talk to him, and it was just like, he would just always talk to my wife, and I tried to talk to him in Tagalog, and he just, I mean, we couldn't communicate at all. He understood like no English whatsoever, and it's like, you know, why do you want to even come here to listen to the sermons then? And he had told me that he had heard about our church, and he believed the same things, but he had never heard of who Pastor Jimenez was. And I was like, you've never heard of Pastor Jimenez, but you know, our church. And so like, he came to our church, and he ended up just trying to steal money from people. He was trying to guilt them into money. He had these stories and everything, and he was just trying to use the church for money. And honestly, that happens all the time in the Philippines and in poor countries. People try to use the church for money, and honestly, what the Bible says is if people are not willing to work, then they're going to be walking disorderly. They're busybodies. They're troublemakers. And so look, you have to understand that when a church starts, when Verity Baptist Church started, there weren't a lot of people here from day one. The church was not big enough at that time for Pastor Jimenez to be full-time. And so he worked full-time while running the church, and eventually it reached to the point where he was able to be full-time in the ministry. But when a church starts, it's not really at that point, and it's not sinful. It's not wrong to work a secular job. In fact, people like that, they encourage you, because you see your leader working very hard and trying to make things work out, but you know, what you typically see as the missionaries, they go around for deputation for two years to avoid work. Their work process is a two-year period of begging for money, and they have the same memorized presentation, they have the same eight-minute video with a lot of starving kids to try to guilt you into giving money, and then they have this really touchy-feely song, and then they try to guilt you into giving them money, and they're basically set for life. They're set for a really easy life with nobody looking over them or watching what they're doing, and they really don't have to do anything the rest of their life. And honestly, most of them are pretty lazy. Are there exceptions? Of course there are some exceptions. But honestly, most missionaries coming from the Baptist world are actually very lazy people. They don't really do much soul-winning, they don't put much time into their sermons, and you know, honestly, they're just trying to avoid work. Now turn to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians 6. And as you turn to Ephesians 6, let me just read you in 2 Corinthians 11, verses 8 and 9, where the Bible reads, I robbed other churches, taking wages of them to do you service. And when I was present with you and wanted, I was chargeable to no man for that which was lacking to me, the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied. And in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself. And so we see that the attitude of Paul the Apostle is, I don't want to be a burden to people. Look, I don't understand people that always want to be a burden to other people. Because my natural personality and maybe the way I was raised, I don't want to be a burden to people. You know, I don't want to just, I remember when I was in college, the first few years, I didn't have a car. And so sometimes my friends would give me rides, but I would often just walk, you know, for 45 minutes to go to class and things such as that. I didn't just expect people to always give me a ride and be a burden unto them. But it's just this culture we have today where everybody expects everything handed to them, they're very lazy, and they don't even worry about that. But Paul the Apostle, he had the attitude, I don't want to be a burden unto people. And so he wanted to work a job so he was not a burden. He didn't want to be a burden unto those churches. So what Paul the Apostle was literally doing is he'd get churches started and established, he'd preach at those churches, he'd go to start a new church, and guess what? He's not going to have enough support as he's starting a new church. He got a little bit of support from some churches, but he's going by faith, and he's like, I'm going back to my secular job. He gets a new church started, it gets built up, he might have enough money to support his needs, then he goes on to a new church. And so he's going by faith, going to new churches. But he was constantly actually working. He wasn't a lazy person. And if anyone deserved to be paid, it was Paul the Apostle. But he had the attitude, I don't want to be a burden. Okay? Now notice what it says in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 5. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ. Not with eye service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. With good will doing service, as to the Lord and not to men. Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And he masters do the same things unto them for bearing threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven, neither is there respect of persons with him. So the Bible says whether you're a servant, whether or not you're a master, whether you're a company owner, or whether or not you're an employee, your boss is ultimately the Lord, no matter what your job is. Because there's this attitude that, you know, I'm in full-time Christian service, Pastor Minnis is in full-time Christian service, and we're basically better than other people. But no matter what your job is, you're in full-time Christian service. Because your boss is the Lord. So it doesn't matter whether you're working at Burger King, it doesn't matter whether you're working as an engineer, or whether or not you're a missionary, or whether or not you're a pastor, your boss is the Lord. And so whatever job you have, you're supposed to obey your boss and be a good employee no matter what job you have. And so this attitude that missionaries are full-time workers, but the members are just kind of these lowly people, that's ridiculous. Look, I've only been a missionary for less than a year. I worked at Verity Baptist for a couple years, and before that, I just worked secular jobs. It's not that I'm more godly now than I was a few years ago. It's just I have a different role of what I'm doing. But whatever your job is, you're in full-time Christian service. And so the attitude that you've got to be full-time from day one, and fully supported, otherwise you're not as right with God, that's ridiculous. Especially when the example we have in the Bible was Paul the Apostle, and he was actually working, and he was not a lazy person, working night and day. So for him, it was probably working eight hours making tents, and then going soul winning for like six hours, then working on his sermons at night, and then rinse and repeat the next day. Turn to Psalm 75, Psalm 75. Now, I do want you to understand this, that especially in the past, but also even today, if you move to certain countries, you might not be able to work. There are certain laws with visas, and it can be very difficult, even if you want to work. But I want you to understand that if you have the ability to work, you should not be avoiding it. So yes, there are some locations where you might not be able to work a secular job, although with the internet in today's world, there's a lot of opportunities, especially if it's a country that is not as wealthy, where you can basically end up working. Look, the last thing I would ever do when I decided I wanted to be a missionary was go around for two years and beg churches for money. I mean, I don't understand the attitude, I'm just going to go around and beg church. For one, there's not a lot of churches that would invite me. So I'd only have like a small handful of churches to beg from, so I don't really think I'd get a whole lot of money. But I mean, I just don't understand the attitude, because I've never been the sort of person that wants to go around and beg for money. I mean, I would think, you know, as a normal person, you don't want to basically live off of other people. I would think you'd have the attitude, I want to make it my own way, not just get money from other people, but actually work my own job, work by the sweat of my brow. You don't want to be a burden on to people. In Psalm 75, verse 6, the Bible reads, For promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge, he putteth down one and setteth up another. And so the Bible says that God is the judge, he's the ultimate boss, and he's the one that can promote you. So whether you're working at a fast food place, look, when you're 16 years old or 17 years old, you're not going to be working as an engineer making six figures. You're going to be working at a fast food place, you're going to be working at Fry's Electronics, and there's nothing wrong with that. Work really hard, be a good example, and realize that your boss is the Lord no matter whether you're making small money or big money. Now turn in your Bible back to Acts 1. Now, I want you to understand that all of these points are really going to tie together, okay? Because the second point we have is this, that a big misconception of missions is that churches on the mission field should be dependent permanently financially. That is generally what you see. And this ties in the first point, because if the person who's the missionary is being fully supported by a sending church, they're not fully dependent, okay? Now, I understand it's okay to get donations, there's nothing wrong with that, but if you're fully just draining your sending church or sending churches just permanently, you're not independent. Now, when we say that we're IFB, what does the I stand for? Independent. But what about all of the churches on the mission field? They are intentionally being dependent forever. They're not even trying to be independent. Now I don't understand that because there's many reasons why you would want to be an independent church, and that's a whole other sermon, but their goal is to be dependent permanently. Now I understand it because they are trying to be lazy, and it's a nice, safe, easy situation. Look, when you're an independent church, you have to realize there's a lot of stress, there's responsibilities. Every month there's a payment that gets paid for this building. Every month you're looking at all the finances and things such as that, but if you're dependent on other churches and they'll just send you what you need, then you don't even have to worry about it. But honestly, there's a lot of problems with that, and when it comes to church planting, which we see in Acts 1, verse 8, if your church is dependent financially, you will never be able to get more churches started. It won't work. It says in Acts 1, verse 8, But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses on me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And so what you see in the Bible is the goal is to reach the whole world with the Gospel. One church does not do that, though. See, when you're reaching Jerusalem, you establish that church. To reach Judea, this is really talking about getting another church started. Because yes, you can go on one missions trip or have one soul-winning event and get a lot of people saved. That's not going to satisfy the community, though. That's just one small soul-winning marathon. What the goal really is is to get churches started in other directions. And so you get a church started in Fresno, then you reach out to the Bay Area one day, and you're slowly branching out. And then you get a church started in Vancouver, Shur Foundation Baptist Church, and what do they do? They're branching out in other directions. That is what the goal is, and so when that church gets started, they need to become independent. That way, they can get new churches started. Because if they're still dependent financially, they can't go and get a new church started. They must become independent. And so every church in the world should have a goal of being an IFB church, which means they become dependent. So whether it's in the US or the Philippines, they should have a goal of becoming independent. Now the truth is, it is harder in some countries. Because honestly, if you have a lot of members in the Philippines, the amount of money that's going to come in, look, when it comes to commercial buildings, they're not that cheap in the Philippines. That was one of the things that was surprising to me when I was looking at prices. I was like, man, they are really not that cheap. It's surprising. And so it is more difficult, but it is what it is. It's also a more receptive country. You have the better and you have the worse with the situations. Yeah, it's more difficult to make it financially, but that's just the way it is. At the same time, that church should have a goal of becoming independent, not being dependent on their sending church, because that church should ultimately have the goal of getting more churches started. And rarely do you see that from churches that are on the mission field. They're not really trying to get new churches started. They're perfectly happy with having their church, getting the money coming in. They're dependent. They're covered financially, so they don't worry about reaching the other areas. Now turn to Titus 1. Titus 1. One thing I've been very pleased at is we are very financially stable at Verity Baptist Church Manila. We have people at our church that are very generous, and we do have some people that donate online. And honestly, it covers our finances. And I've been surprised, actually, with some of the things. We have a very nice building for what we have. We have pretty nice chairs. We have bought air conditioning units and things such as that. God has really blessed us. But here's the thing. If we didn't have that money coming in, we just wouldn't have an air conditioning unit. It would just get really hot on Sundays. Now we use the money when it comes in, but if it doesn't come in, well, you keep things simple. That's the way it is. Look, when a church starts, they don't have to have everything from day one. It's like one thing people have talked about on our YouTube, they said, yeah, your sound quality is not that good. It's like, man, getting a church started, the last thing I'm really worried about is how the online ministry is going. It's like, yeah, down the road that's important, but we're a local church. It's cool that someone in Europe is listening to sermons, but it's kind of like, we're here in the Philippines. So it's cool that I understand our sound's not the greatest, but it's like, well, that's not the first thing we're trying to fix, though. There's a lot more things that are far more important than that. Getting chairs was far more important as our church grew a little bit. We said, well, we need to get some more chairs, things like that. But look, if you don't have the money coming in, you keep things simple. What you don't do is go above your means and be a burden to your sending church. It doesn't make sense. And you can ask Pastor Menes, but honestly, he gave me an assignment to do a week ago, and it was something I was able to outsource, and I said, well, let me just try to do this myself and see if I can save us money. And it's something that I'm going to be working on. I did it once. I'm going to try to do it to save money, because I want as much as we can not to be a financial burden and want to be a help. And I do not understand the attitude of not trying to do that, but honestly, most churches, they're trying to be dependent permanently on the mission field. They're not trying to become independent. It says in Titus 1, verse 5, for this cause left I the increase that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee. And so here we also see a great verse when it talks about basically churches being planted. And notice how it says that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting. So basically, the things are wanting in the area. There's people that love the Lord. They go soul winning. They love hard preaching. There's just no one to set as the elder or the leader of that area or the pastor of that area. It's kind of the same thing we have today. Aren't there a lot of people throughout the U.S. that listen to sermons online, and they're looking for a church just like this? But honestly, there's just not enough people to set as elders in those areas. And so, you know, honestly, when it comes to what the whole goal of a church is, the ultimate goal is to get churches started. That's the number one goal. Now, obviously, we do a lot of soul winning in Manila, as you guys do a lot of soul winning here, but that's just part of what a church does. The ultimate goal is to actually duplicate yourself, because you cannot follow Acts 1-8 if you're not actually duplicating yourself. If you're just one church in the Philippines, what good is that going to do? You'll get a lot of people saved, but ultimately, you should have the goal of expanding and reaching new areas. Now, these things don't happen accidentally. It's not something where five years down the road you decide, well, let's just decide to start planting churches. You have to actually prepare for something like that. It actually takes time. It actually takes effort, but that should be the goal. And so, when it comes to churches, look, they need to become independent so they can actually do that. If we couldn't be independent in Manila, you know, how are we really going to be able to get new churches started? It wouldn't make a lot of sense. Now, turn in your Bible to 1 Timothy 5. So what you generally see with the system with missionaries is that churches in America are pretty lame in today's world. You know, I was an independent Baptist 15 years ago, and, you know, the churches were better than that. And it's just getting worse and worse with every passing year. I mean, it's a dramatic difference. Churches that used to go soul-winning when I started, they just quit soul-winning in West Virginia, like completely. They used to have 20 people show up for soul-winning time. Now they have like nobody showing up at those same churches. Churches have gotten really lame. They don't really do the soul-winning, and so they basically outsource it to missionaries in foreign countries. And so basically there's this symbiotic relationship between the churches in America and the foreign countries, because basically the churches in America don't want to go soul-winning. So they basically outsource it, and they just provide the money, and they say, look at all these countries we're reaching with the gospel, even though we never go soul-winning, or very little. And so basically the churches on the mission field, they're very happy to be dependent, and so basically they don't have to worry about anything. And they're also able to report big results because of the fact, I could report 30 saved every single day because I'm surrounded by little kids all the time. They're like, there's this white guy, and they just run up to you. And look, you could preach a really short gospel and say 30 got saved, when in reality none of them got saved. And you're able to basically have altar calls, and the same kids that got saved last week get saved again, and you count them again. And it's like, yeah, this kid got baptized 10 times. You count it every single time. I mean, that's the reality. And for those of you that have been independent Baptist for a long time, you know how that works. I've been in rooms before where basically I was the guy who was supposed to try to lead the kids to the Lord, and there was a lady leading the young girls to the Lord. And so I'm giving the gospel to a couple kids. I spend 15 minutes and they don't get it, because most six or seven year olds, they need to hear the gospel over and over and over and over. And then the lady was helping with the young girls. Like two minutes later, she gets a few saved. She's like, oh, I'll send in the next. And she got like 12 saved in like 20 minutes. And so pastor's asking back for the results, and I'm like, yeah, I wasn't able to get them saved. And this lady's like, yeah, you know, I got like 10 saved. And it's annoying, because you know they're not really getting saved. But that is the reality that you see. And when it comes to in the foreign field, even more so, if you have children's ministries, you'll be swamped if you say we've got free food. You'll have like 30 kids show up. But honestly, you know, we don't believe in a bus route. You know, we don't have these children's ministries. And you know, honestly, that's what you generally see, though, with these churches. And it's this symbiotic relationship where it makes the churches in the mission field look really good, and it makes the churches in America look good, because look at all these places we're reaching with the gospel. It's just this big scam. It's this symbiotic relationship. Now turn in your Bible to I Timothy 5. But let me say this one thing, because there's this attitude on the mission field, and this is kind of a subpoint, but there's sort of this attitude that soul winning is more valuable in the Philippines than in the US, or soul winning is more valuable in these other countries. Because honestly, you know, when it comes to results of soul winning, like our church gets more people saved than this church does. And it's not because we're working harder, and we're not doing more soul winning. It's just more receptive. But that doesn't make the soul winning time less valuable. You say we went out on Saturday, and we got two people saved as a church. We're in a really tough area in North Natomas. That doesn't make your soul winning less valuable. Because at the end of the day, this church has started a lot of other churches, and that is the ultimate goal. And there's this attitude where basically like, well, you know, on the mission field you get so many people saved. What's the point of going soul winning here when I've gone soul winning for a month and nobody's saved? Well, the point is that you've got a church in Vancouver. You've got a church in Boise. You've got a church in Fresno. You've got a church in Manila. And eventually a lot more churches are going to get started. That's the point, because the whole point of a church is to basically get a new church planted, and that church reaches the area. Because this church could not sufficiently reach Boise by itself. Even if you had one soul winning event, you'd get 30 saved, and that would be it. You have a soul winning event in Vancouver, you get 30 saved, that's it. You have a missions trip in Manila, you get lots of people saved. But at the end of the day, if you don't have a church there to keep those people and to reach those people, then it doesn't really mean that much. I mean, it's great, but at the end of the day, the whole goal of a church is to get churches planted. And that's what you see in Acts 1-8, Titus 1-5, and the overarching theme with missions throughout the book of Acts is to get churches started. That is the main thing. And when it comes to it, every church in every area needs to go soul winning, and that way that church can grow, and they reach the point they can start a new church. That's the way it works. Now, in 1 Timothy 5, the third misconception about missions is that a church on the mission field should be 100% focused on soul winning. That's a misconception that people have. Now, in 1 Timothy 5, verses 17 and 18, the Bible reads, Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine. For the Scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, and the laborer is worthy of his reward. And so in verse number 17, it's basically talking about a pastor, an elder, who's counted worthy of double honor. Why is he worthy of double honor, or basically being worthy of getting paid? Because of the fact he labors in the word and doctrine. Now, yes, every pastor needs to go soul winning, but they also need to labor in the word and doctrine. They need to actually focus on their sermons. Look, you don't show up on a Wednesday night and just pull up a random chapter in Ezekiel and get up and preach a really good sermon unless you spend a lot of time. Now, I don't know about you, but when I read the book of Ezekiel, I'm like, I have no clue what this book is talking about. I mean, it's like the most confusing book in the Bible. You have to spend, and I don't care who it is, you've got to spend a lot of time. And if you want to preach a sermon that can change lives, it takes a lot of time to do that. Now look, I go soul winning a lot. We have three official soul winning times at our church, and I also go at other times. I go soul winning every Wednesday evening. The first Wednesday I miss soul winning was basically, you know, yesterday, because, you know, it's got, well, today's. Yesterday, you know, different time zone. Basically, that's the first time I've ever missed soul winning on Wednesday night in Manila, because, you know, I'm here in the U.S. You know, on Saturday, I go almost every Saturday, although we have someone at our church who runs that time. And on Sunday, I've missed two Sundays, because once my son was really sick, and once I went to a preaching event in Pampanga. And so those are the only two times I've missed a soul winning. So I'm there for the soul winning, and I also go during the week. We preach at the schools and stuff like that. But what I do not do is just show up and not spend any time on my sermon. I actually spend hours on my sermon, because we have members at our church. Some of them come an hour and a half. Drive. They come for an hour and a half, and I preach a generic message on salvation. What good is that going to do for them? They need sermons about being a good husband, being a good wife, being a good father, being a good mother. They need sermons where they're learning, being edified. Otherwise, they're just going to die out and be gone. You have to actually spend time. Now, when a church starts, you're not going to have as many members. And so when a church starts, there's going to be a lot of time focused on soul winning to eventually reach and have more people. But as the church grows more, more time should be invested in the sermons, because you're going to accomplish more through the people than you are as an individual person. That's the way it works. Now, we were blessed at our first service. We had 40 people at our very first service, and some of those were just kind of checking out the church. But we had members from day one. And so I saw members and people that love the Lord, and I was like, I've got to spend real time on these sermons to help them out. Now, generally, on the mission field, the sermons are very generic and very lame, because the whole focus is supposedly on soul winning, although it's really on running bus routes and bringing a lot of kids to church. But the sermons are supposed to be very generic and lame. You say, why? Because of the fact, remember, these churches are dependent, not independent. And so basically, they're sending churches that don't want them to say anything that's going to cause problems. And if they say anything that causes problems, they could lose support money. So they're going to intentionally not just tell it like it is. Look, I was only in the Philippines like a month, and the most famous Baptist threatened to sue me and preached against me at a funeral. It's like, yeah, you know what? I said things that ruffled some feathers. I preached a five-part sermon series on the dark history of the Roman Catholic Church, which is the religion of the Philippines. It's like, I'm not holding anything back. But here's the thing. If I was being supported by all these lame churches, I wouldn't say anything controversial at all. Why? Because of the fact I don't want to offend them and lose that support money. And if I say certain things, they might say, well, we just don't want to have this sort of controversy. And they'll take away the money. And so basically, all these things are tying together. But when it comes to the church, look, when you have members at your church that are expecting to hear something, you have to actually teach them something that's going to help them change their lives. And if you just preach something very generic, look, it's not going to help. In First Timothy 5, it says they're worthy of double honor because they're laboring in the word and doctrine. Look, when it comes to sermons, a lot of time needs to be spent on those sermons. Because if it's not spent on the sermons, then the sermons just aren't going to be that good. That's just the way it is. To write a good sermon, you have to spend a lot of time on it. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of effort. But then you see the fruit of it. You see the result of it. And you see churches getting started. You see a church growing and thriving. So turn to First Corinthians 9. First Corinthians 9. And so yeah, you know, we do a lot of soul winning in Manila. But I don't really agree that we're just fully focused on soul winning because honestly, we have three services during the week. And so I spend a lot of time on each of those sermons. And I spend a lot of time preparing those sermons. I preached a two-part series on the Apocrypha because we're Catholic country and obviously the Apocrypha is the Catholic books. So I read the entire Apocrypha. Look, that was like the worst 20 hours of my life. You're never going to find a more boring book. And I went online and looked for errors in the Apocrypha. But unfortunately, I don't really think anybody like mine has actually ever finished the Apocrypha. Because you know Catholics don't read the Bible and they don't read their books. So no Catholic's ever even read it. And honestly, probably very few people have. But I read the entire thing looking for every error because I said, if I want to preach a sermon on this, I want to make sure I actually cover it fully. And so it took a lot of time preparing that. It caused me to stay up late and read and read and read. And what was supposed to take me like a month took like three months because it got really boring and I couldn't focus and I was falling asleep every time I read it. But look, you need to spend a lot of time. And sometimes it takes a lot of research when you're preparing sermons. You preach a sermon on Baptist history, you've got to spend some research to learn that history and things such as that. Now in 1 Timothy 5, you're in 1 Corinthians 9, but remember it said, being worthy of double honor, laboring in the word and doctrine. But it also said in 1 Timothy 5, as you're in 1 Corinthians 9, for the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, and the laborer is worthy of his reward. Now this is very important because in 1 Corinthians 9, I want you to notice what it says in verse 5. Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord in Cephas? Or I only in Barnabas have we not power to forbear working? Who goeth to warfare any time at his own charges? Who planteth a vineyard and eateth not of the fruit thereof? Or who feedeth a flock and eateth not of the milk of the flock? Say these things as a man, or saith not the law the same also? So Paul's talking about how basically we're working, we deserve to be paid, and then notice what it says in verse 9. For it is written in the law of Moses, thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn, doth God take care for oxen. See that is the same thing that was said in 1 Timothy 5 verse 18. You say why is that important? Because in 1 Timothy 5, the context is elders or pastors. Paul was not a pastor. Paul was a missionary. So what are you seeing? The same, basically quoted the exact same way, so it works the same for a pastor, it works the same for a missionary. So basically a pastor is worthy of double honor because he's laboring in the word and doctrine. As the Bible says, thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. And then it says the same thing for a missionary in 1 Corinthians 9. What are you seeing? You're seeing a church on the mission field operates the same thing as a church in the US. It's the same way. Elders are worthy of double honor because they labor in the word and doctrine. They spend time in their sermons. As it says, thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. It says the same thing for missionaries in 1 Corinthians 9, because Paul was not a pastor. He was a missionary. He was a church planter. Look, churches on the foreign field should operate the same way as a church in the US. Now there are going to be some slight differences due to different cultures and things such as that, but just as you do a lot of soul winning here, you do a lot of soul winning there. Just as you spend a lot of time on sermons here, you spend a lot of time on sermons there. And as the church grows, there's more of a need for spending more time on sermons. But there's kind of this attitude that basically thinks just operate completely different on the foreign field, but that's not really what you see in the Bible, because you see the same thing given to a missionary as you're seeing given to a pastor, where basically you labor in the word and doctrine. And so look, if I'm preaching sermons, but I'm not spending a lot of time and not really preparing, I'm not really obeying that. Now turn to Acts 6. Acts 6. And what you have to understand is that, because sometimes people have this attitude that, well, you know, pastors have a really easy job. And part of that attitude comes because a lot of pastors are kind of lazy. There are definitely a lot of Baptist pastors that go down to Panera Bread. You'll find them there. At least in West Virginia, that's where they hang out. They'll go and they'll watch a lot of videos. They've got their blogs and everything they spend lots of hours on. They're watching all these YouTube videos and stuff like that as they're preaching a really strenuous schedule of preaching one sermon a week and everything such as that. So yeah, I understand the reputation, because there are a lot of Baptist churches like that. But you know, a pastor that's actually doing a good job in going soul winning and preaching sermons that change lives, look, they are working very hard. And you need to understand that about your pastor. You cannot get up behind the pulpit and actually preach sermons that change lives unless you spend a lot of time. Now look, you can get up and yell behind the pulpit and seem like you're a good preacher. But look, TD Jakes could get up and yell behind this pulpit, and if he didn't say any heresy for a minute, he'd sound great. Why? He's a lot more dynamic than me. I mean, he's a good speaker. But is he actually teaching? Is he actually helping out? Look, the sermons here, as you go through the book of Ezekiel, you're learning every single week. You're looking at things saying, man, I had no idea about that. You say, did Pastor Jimenez just read it and automatically understand? No, what he did was he read the chapter over and over and over in cross-reference and looked throughout the Bible, and then he learned what it was talking about. Look, if you're gonna preach sermons that change lives, you have to spend a lot of time on those sermons. Why? None of us really know the Bible that well. It's funny because when I first got saved, I thought I knew the Bible pretty well, and every year that goes by, I know less and less about the Bible. I'm like, man, I really don't know the Bible well. I mean, the Bible is infinitely deep, and you can study your entire life. You have to realize that if a pastor is going to preach sermons that change lives, they're spending a lot of time, and you ought to really respect that man of God. You say, well, you know, all he does is preach for three hours a week and go, I mean, he doesn't really do anything. No, they spend a lot of time. And look, and I know even from a small church, there's just a lot of issues at churches. It just is what it is. You're dealing with personalities. There's conflicts that come up, you know. People that love the Lord, but just issues come up. That's just the way it is. And look, it takes a lot of time, just the maintenance, much less preparing the sermons and preaching, and you got to preach that sermon whether you feel like it or not. And look, you have to realize, I have times I show up at church and I'm like, I don't want to be here right now. Because all of us, you know, we have times where we just don't feel like being at church. We're tired, whatever. But you got to preach that sermon anyway. There are times I would love to show up at Sunday and just say, man, I just would really like to just sit in the pew and just hear a sermon for once. No stress, not the responsibility. But, you know, you realize that's just the job you signed up for. And what you have to do is realize and respect Pastor Menes for what he's doing. And you have to realize that when you hear his sermons, it's like, man, that doesn't just come from just 30 minutes. That comes from hours and hours of labor, and there really is late time of laboring in the Word and doctrine. Look, you have to spend a lot of time and labor if you're going to preach those sermons. And honestly, studying the Bible, it is labor. It's hard work. It's not out there, you know, digging a ditch, that sort of labor. But, you know, mentally, it's draining. It takes a lot of effort to really actually prepare sermons. Now, in Acts chapter 6, notice what it says in verse 1. And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples onto them and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer into the ministry of the Word. And so, time being spent on prayer, it takes effort. Ministry of the Word, that could certainly include soul winning, but it also is going to include everything with the Word, which includes preaching the sermons. And because it was such a difficult job, they couldn't take care of everything. They had to actually hire. They grew, and they had to hire people to deal with the maintenance, because they said, We need to deal with the ministry of the Word. Verse number 7, And the word of God increased, and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. And so, why does the word of God increase? Well, one big reason why the word of God increases is because the pastors have time to labor in the ministry of the Word, not just soul winning. Look, soul winning is part of building a church, and it's certainly part of getting God's blessing upon your church, but a large part is the fact that you're able to labor in the ministry of the Word and laboring in the Word and doctrine to preach sermons that change lives. Because every single person in this room, including myself, if we don't hear hard preaching and sermons that change our lives, we will start to become backslidden. We will fade out of the things of God, because the world kicks us around all week long, and you must be in a place that's completely separate from the world, and you're actually learning the word of God. Look, if you're at a church where the sermons are lame, I've been there for years, and you don't even feel like showing up for church, because you're learning nothing. You go to church, and you're literally like, I'm coming here out of obligation. And it's like you show up early on Sunday morning to help out on the bus routes. I've showed up at 6 in the morning to help out on the bus routes, and you're there for church. You hear a sermon that's lame, and you learn nothing. And look, the Bible is infinite. I believe I could learn from anybody who spends actual time on their sermons. They can learn something and teach me something, but you hear nothing. You learn nothing in your sermons, and you're spending all of your free time. It's draining you. What's the result going to be? You're basically going to get depressed and want to quit church, because you're like, what's the purpose? You're using up all your energy, and you're not being fed spiritually. That is the reality with most Baptist churches. You're not being fed spiritually at all. But if a church is going to grow, then those pastors need time to work on their sermons and spend a lot of time. And the more time, the better. Look, you can notice when Pastor Menes became full time, and I don't remember the exact date, but I just remember thinking this when I was living in West Virginia, how his preaching was great before it got even better, because he was able to spend more time on his sermons. And see, the more time that's spent, the better, because you can learn more and be edified even more. Now turn to Acts 20. And in Acts chapter 20, I want to read you verse number 7, where the Bible reads, and upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached on to them, ready to depart on the morrow, and continued his speech until midnight. Now, I've thought about the story quite a bit, because preaching until midnight, I mean, other than on New Year's, where you have like the popcorn preaching a lot of churches do, where you have a bunch of guys preach until it reaches midnight, it's like a sermon till midnight, and they're meeting on the first day of the week. What I tend to believe is that the church started very late for whatever reason. They didn't meet in the morning. Maybe people had to work or whatever, because honestly, you know, I could not preach from 10 in the morning to 12 at night. 14 hours of preaching with small breaks in between. I wouldn't have the ability to do that. I think what makes sense is they probably met later in the day, but he preaches late until midnight. And what I want you to realize is, if he's preaching for hours and hours, because however long it is, he's preaching long sermons, you can't just preach long sermons unless you spend a lot of time preparing those sermons. The average sermon at this church is probably about an hour long, which is the same thing that we have in Manila, but look, you can't write a sermon like this and preach for an hour unless you spend a lot of time. If you want to preach something that actually edifies people. Now turn to Matthew 16. And so the first point we had is this. One misconception is that it's wrong for missionaries to work jobs. Another misconception is that churches in the mission field should be dependent permanently, financially from their sending churches and never really become independent. And a third misconception is that the church should be completely focused on soul winning. And don't misunderstand me, we go soul winning a lot. I go soul winning several times every single week, but that's not all we do, because we actually have a goal of getting churches started. And what we saw in Act 6 was one thing that gets more churches planted is when actually the sermons are changing people's lives. That is a necessity, because otherwise people will come to a church and love it because of the soul winning, but then after a few months they're going to get sick of the preaching because they're not learning anything. Even people that are listening to a lot of sermons online. If my sermons I spent no time on, people would come and after a couple months they'd say, hey this is lame, I can just listen to sermons online and learn more. I'm not relying on the online ministry or my members to listen to sermons from another country to learn the Word of God. I'm expecting that I'm going to be teaching them the Word of God. Especially because, honestly, issues are a little bit different in the Philippines than in the U.S. If you listen to some of my preaching you're going to think, why does Brother Stuckey hate Catholics so much? I didn't realize he hated them so much. I've never preached against Catholics before until I moved to the Philippines. I don't hate Catholics, but everywhere you are everybody's Catholic. So what do I preach about all the time? I preach about Catholicism. I preach about all the issues due to Catholicism in our country. It just is what it is. You preach on the issues of the area you live in. And so the only person, honestly, who's going to be able to do that is going to be me because, honestly, Pastor Minn is not going to preach on Catholics every single month. He's going to do it from time to time because there's not that many Catholics here, at least compared to the Philippines, where 80% of people are Catholic. So yeah, you know what, every single month I preach a few sermons on Catholicism because that's the issue we deal with. Now notice what it says in Matthew 16, and the last misconception about missions is that churches on the mission field will skyrocket in growth. There's a general assumption that when you start a church on the mission field your growth is just going to skyrocket overnight, but quite honestly it's not different in the Philippines in here. It's the same thing when it comes to church growing. Now it says in Matthew 16 verse 18, and I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And so the Bible says that I will build my church. Now this is not talking about a universal church because there is no universal church. There's local churches. There's Verity Baptist Church Sacramento, Verity Baptist Church Manila, there's Shield of Faith Baptist Church. There's local churches, but what he's saying is I'm going to help build this church. I'm going to help it grow, okay? Now you have to understand that when it comes to God building a church, it doesn't just happen overnight. It doesn't just go from nothing to being huge overnight, and there's many reasons why. Look, if our church doubled in size in a couple weeks, it would destroy the integrity of that church. You say why? Because the new people wouldn't really be going soul winning. They'd be half in and half out, and it would wear on everybody. It's better for a church to just progressively grow at the rate that God decides, and so what we do when we're trying to help build a church is we just do what God tells us to do. We go soul winning. We invite as many people to church as we can. You spend a lot of time on the sermons, and slowly the church grows. There are a ton of visitors here in Sacramento to church, aren't there? Most of them don't stick around, and quite honestly, as much as we want the church to grow, it's probably better that they don't all stick around because it would destroy the integrity of the church. Now turn to Exodus 25. That'll be the last place. When it came to us in Manila, our first service, we had 40 people, and that was very exciting. I predicted when our church started we'd have 40 people, and we had exactly 40, but what I really predicted was 40 people that were like members, and we didn't have 40 members from day one. We had two people from Hong Kong at our first service. Well, they're good friends of mine, but I can't really expect them to travel to the Philippines by plane every single week. We had two people from Hong Kong. We had two Catholics who were basically tricked into coming to church, and they came after the service was over, and so it's kind of like a whole other service, but they weren't going to stick around. Then we had three people that listened to sermons online, and they came to one service, and a couple of them were so excited for this church to get started. They came one time. That was the only time they ever came, and I've tried to reach out to them. I've sent the messages, invited them to soul-winning events, and then they've never come back. They were not going to stick around, and we had a family of five from Bulacan, and this family was about three and a half hours away, so the family came one service, and then the husband came to two services after that, I think, and I tried to be friendly, and then he didn't come back, and I messaged him and tried to stay in contact, but you know, he's three and a half hours away. I wasn't really expecting him. It would have been great if he stuck around, but it wasn't really realistic, so we had 28 people that were members from day one. Now, the first few months of our church, those 28 people were there almost every service, because the church is new. It's exciting. We basically started at the end of November. We made it to the missions trip less than two months later, and then, you know, they basically lasted about a month longer, and then some of those people, they're all still there, but some of them, you know, they go on vacation from time to time. Some of them live a long ways away. They're not always all of them there. Sometimes they miss from time to time, so when our church started the first three months, we averaged about in the low 30s for the average typical Sunday, but you know, honestly, over the last three months, and I put this into Microsoft Excel, we've averaged like the low to mid 40s, and so quite honestly, that's actually a pretty good growth. I mean, that's six months, and it's like, well, that's 20%. It's like, well, I'm sorry we're not Joel Osteen's church. It's like, no, we're not running 200 people, and I don't know if we ever will. It's like, that's, if we do that every six months, then that's going to be great. If we do that for a couple years, we'll reach a hundred, but I don't expect it to happen overnight. You say, why? Because that's just not how it works. You know what grows really quickly? Weeds. Weeds grow really quickly. Isn't that true? I mean, they're an annoyance, and they grow really quickly, and you got to keep dealing with them all the time. Anyone who has a garden knows how that works, but look, a church that has, anything that has real value or real meaning, it doesn't come overnight. It takes time. It takes effort. Look, when it comes to people coming here to Sacramento, we've seen it a million times. Somebody comes for the first time, and they love the sermon. Man, it was a sermon on rock music, and they're like, that's the greatest sermon I've ever heard. I learned so much. Man, I've been looking for a church like this my entire life, and you're thinking, they're never coming back, and they never do. Guess what happens when I'm preaching in Manila? You know, I'm preaching the sermon, and I can tell someone's a new visitor. I'm like, man, they're liking this sermon. I'm preaching. They're learning and everything. They're like, oh, this is great. Never see them again. You say, well, why does it work that way? Well, because when you're hearing the sermon against rock music and you're learning, it's really interesting, and then you go home at night, and it's like, I still want to listen to rock music. And you know, I can go to the non-denominational church down the street, and not only do I not have to hear preaching against it, I can actually hear it before the service. And so as much as they're learning, most people just don't want to change their lives. That's the way it works. And there are people all over the world in every country that want to hear the truth and change their lives. Everywhere all over the world. But the majority of people don't. And so honestly, when it comes to church growing, yeah, it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of effort. Now, this is not the way church growth works. It's not that you have 20 every single service, and then the next week you have 25, and then slowly over time. No, church growth is like this. You have a good day, then you're down. You have a good day, you get arrogant, God humbles you, and you're like slowly growing. Now, you have the good day, like we had 63, like we broke our record like a month and a half ago. Man, was that exciting. And that was, you know, from there, it just kind of goes off, it levels off. But when it comes to our church, every single week in July, we had at least 50 people. Look, with basically twice as many members, because not everyone's there for every single service, I was like, man, that's great. And you know, we had a family of eight that left since then, but we're still above what we were. But when it comes to church growth, I never expected us to skyrocket in growth. I expected us to start a little bit higher, because there's a lot of people that said, man, I've been looking for a church like this my whole life. And you know, it is what it is. That's the way it is when you start a new church. People that really want that church don't always come. I never expected to skyrocket in growth. I did expect to start a little bit higher, but our rate of growth, honestly, it's been good, and it's been what I would expect. We're slowly growing, and isn't that what you've seen at Verity Baptist Church? This church has been around for nine years, and you're not going to find any preaching like this anywhere near this church. And there are so many people that have visited this church, and they would even agree with that. But at the same time, they just don't choose to stick around. Because quite honestly, living for God is very difficult. So when it comes to actually, you know, sticking in a church, church growth, it takes a lot of time. It doesn't come overnight. And so notice what it says in Exodus 25. Exodus 25. In verse number 8, the Bible reads, And let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them, according to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall you make it. Now, he's literally talking about a building, but there's a symbolic understanding here that when it comes to making a sanctuary, we must do it exactly with the pattern that God showed us. And so when you come to the New Testament with the church, you can do some things differently. Our services, we meet at 10 and 11, 30 in the morning. We have back-to-back services, so it's a little bit different than here. The Bible doesn't tell you exactly when to meet for church. You can start at 10, 30. You can start at 11. You can meet at different times. But there are certain things that are not negotiable, right? There are certain things that must be done. It doesn't come down to, well, are we going to go street preaching or are we going to go soul winning? No, you go soul winning because that's what the Bible says. That's not up for debate. Now, certain things can be changed and certain things, depending on the culture and the people and things such as that, but when it comes to certain things God says, we do it exactly after the pattern as God says. And as much as is possible, we try to do it exactly like God says. And so what we need to realize is we do what God says and we trust for God to grow that church. If a church grows too quickly, it's very possible the person running that church could become a little bit arrogant. Look, if our church skyrocketed, it would be very possible I could get lifted up full of pride because I'm having too much success. That's not necessarily a good thing. Sometimes it's better for a church to go slow because then the church is actually ready for that. So what we do is we go soul winning. We try to bring people to church that want to come to church, and we preach the word of God and the church slowly grows, but it's not going to just skyrocket overnight. Now, I could make our church attendance skyrocket overnight. I promise you that. And we wouldn't even have to change the music. All we would have to do is basically just hand out flyers every single week that we have free food, and we would have 30 kids at every single service. And quite honestly, we've had times where a lot of kids came in because they're like, oh, there's this white guy, and they just follow me in or whatever. They're curious. They don't say that, but that's what they're thinking. But they come to church, and then honestly, I was in the middle of a sermon because there was a bunch of kids. I was like, hey, kids. Someone talked to them because it was just a distraction. Look, there's many reasons why we don't run children's ministries here. Quite honestly, there's a reason why children are separated from the adults because if you have a lot of children, they're just in the way. Now, it's great when there's their parents with them and training them and teaching them, but quite honestly, I've worked on a lot of bus routes, and most of those kids are rejected by their parents, and so quite honestly, most of them are troublemakers. It's not their fault. I feel bad for them, but the reality is you can't run a church service. You're not running a daycare system. You're having church services, and it just doesn't work that way. We could start averaging 75, though, in a couple weeks. I promise you that, and it wouldn't really be that difficult, and I know that because the first service we had in Pasig, we basically made a flyer for first service, free gift, and there was tons of kids that showed up. And we could do that every week and have tons of people, but that would destroy the integrity of our church. It wouldn't work, and I would rather have a number that's basically realistic and, you know, we're just trusting God to slowly build the church. It's no different in the Philippines than here. It works the same way. Church growth works the same way. It's difficult. Now, I would say that it's a little bit easier to get people to visit church in the Philippines, but I will also say many of those people are coming for financial benefits sometimes, and oftentimes, they try to use the church for money. In terms of building a church, it's not easy. It takes effort everywhere, and so honestly, the whole point of the sermon is really to show you. You say, what are you doing in Manila? The exact same thing is here. There's really not much difference at all. Now, there's different opportunities. Like, we preach in the schools, and that's not necessarily an opportunity you have here, but quite honestly, the way the church runs, it's really not a whole lot different than here. I mean, we have services at different times, but other than that, we still preach three sermons a week. I still spend a lot of time. My sermons are not 30 minutes. They're an hour long. I do the same thing that we do here, because if it works here in the US, why wouldn't it work in the Philippines? If you have a good model that is successful, why not try to just pattern yourself after that model? I'm not just trying to change the whole system. Why? Because I think it works the same anywhere, and quite honestly, when it comes to churches in the mission field, it's really not a whole lot different than churches in America. So when it comes to some of the misconceptions, I understand that we disagree with kind of how Baptist churches run their missions, but I think some of these things might have gotten passed on to us without thinking about this, and honestly, one of the big points there was just that churches are permanently dependent. That is what you see with churches that are on the missions field, that are coming from these IFB churches. They're permanently supported, and then they go on furlough to make sure they're permanently supported, because they want an easy lifestyle and an easy job, but quite honestly, God never intended life to be that easy. He intended it to be a lot of work. He intended it to be difficult, and we all should have the attitude of working hard. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thanks for allowing us to be here today and just getting to see this sermon on missions, God, and for people to be able to maybe have a better understanding, and realize it's really not that much different in the Philippines. It's more receptive. We do get more people saved, but quite honestly, we deal with a lot of the same issues, and church growth is just as difficult. It's really the same thing here, God, but the labor there is going to end up being rewarded, just as here with all the churches being started. God, I ask you to just continue to bless this church. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.