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

Alright, we're here in 1 Timothy chapter 3, and I want you to notice here verse number 1, 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 1, and the Bible reads in 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 1, this is a true saying, if a man desireth the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. If a man desireth the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work, and the name of the sermon is the office versus the title of a pastor. The office versus the title of a pastor. In the Bible, the word bishop, the word pastor, the word elder, these terms represent the same thing, but different roles of that position, and so bishop is a very biblical term, like you could say bishop, pastor, or bishop Jimenez, but it's not really how we normally speak because the Catholic church, you know, whatever, we just say pastor, right? But it's a very biblical term, calling someone a bishop when they're the pastor of a church. It's another way to say that, just a different role within that. And so the name of the sermon is the office versus the title of a pastor, because what I'm preaching about is the difference between desiring the office versus desiring the title. The office versus the title. Because when it says if a man desire the office of a bishop, what that is linked with is he desireth a good work. So basically, if you desire to be a pastor, you desire to be a bishop, that is a good work that you desire, okay? What the Bible does not say, though, is that you should desire the title of a pastor. Now honestly, when I preach sermons, sometimes I try to plan my sermons sort of together, and there's a reason why I time this with the first sermon, because I truly believe that there are a lot of controlling psychopaths that are pastors that really like that title, I want to be called pastor, I want to be called rabbi, I want to be called father, whatever, and that's the reason why they get into the business. They don't desire the work, what they desire is the title, okay? So what I want to do in this sermon is I want to go through the various works of a bishop or a pastor. Let me make it very clear, I am not the pastor of this church. Now most of you are aware of that, some people maybe you're not, but you have to understand that when it comes to being a pastor, the Bible gives specific qualifications, okay? One of those qualifications is that you're a man, another qualification is you're married, another one is that you're married to a woman, and another one is that you have faithful children, plural, that you have multiple children. Now my wife and I are expecting in the next month to have our second child, but when it's saying faithful children, even if you have two children born, there's kind of an emphasis on a certain amount of time that needs to go by, and the reason why the Bible mentions is because if you don't know how to rule your own house well, how can you rule the house of God? So basically, you know, I've heard it said before in churches, the first church that you ever pastor is your home, and I think that's a good expression, a good phrase, because quite honestly, you know, for a lot of young people that are going to be married or newly married, you're going to be having kids, it's a huge change in life, you're going to learn new lessons every single week, and it really forces you to basically, you know, work on your personality, work on your characteristics, because it's not easy, life is difficult, it's a big challenge in life, okay? And it makes sense that instead of going through that stress when you're first married, that you have a little bit of time period. Now, since I don't have multiple kids at this time though, the pastor of this church is Pastor Roger Jimenez in Sacramento, California. Now obviously he doesn't come here all the time because it's a pretty long trip, he came out here for the missions trip last year, but he entrusted me to start this church. Every single week though, I send Pastor Jimenez an email on Monday, every single week, and sometimes I send him multiple emails if there's more stuff going on. I have a list of things where Pastor Jimenez wants to know this and this and this and this and this and this every single week, because he's very structured, very organized, so it's like this many people in church, this many soul winners, this many saved, this was the offering, and just a whole list of various things, and then if there's anything else going on, I report all those things. Why? Because he's still the one in responsibility. Obviously I have a lot of, you know, the leeway to do things here because he's not out here, but he still is the ultimate authority, okay? And that is a very biblical model to start a church, where if someone is not ready to be a pastor, someone can basically be the pastor and basically oversee it, whereas somebody else is doing the boots on the ground sort of work, doing the preaching, organizing things and running things. Now turn in your Bible to Matthew 23. Turn your Bible to Matthew 23. See what I want you to understand is the Bible says you desire good work if you desire the office of a bishop or the office of a pastor. I remember I was 19 years old when I first had a desire to be a pastor. I got saved at 18, and at 19 is when I started going soul winning. I preached my first sermon, and since that time I've always desired to be a pastor, okay? I never desired the title of a pastor. That is why I make it very clear at this church that I'm not the pastor of this church. I'm not embarrassed about that. I'm not ashamed about that. And quite honestly, I don't want people, and I'm not against people if they call me pastor because they're trying to be respectful and nice, but it's not a biblical term. And if it's not a biblical term, the best thing is brother Stuckey. I have no problem with that because that would be the best way to call me. I want you to realize I've never desired the title where I've got to be called pastor so I have control, I have the power, I'm better than the members because I'm the pastor blessed God and God called me blessed God and not you. Now look, that is the way a lot of pastors act. That's the way they feel. They feel I'm better than the members of my congregation. Now look, I want you to realize that I do believe personally that certain people are given that desire by God to be a pastor. Now I definitely believe there's people that, you know, have that desire but they don't become a pastor. They choose not to for various reasons or life gets difficult. I believe you can have a desire but maybe, you know, it's kind of a false desire. Maybe it's not necessarily the best thing that God wants you to do but you just want to serve God. You want to do something big for God. You're just not sure what avenue it is but I definitely believe there's people that the reason why they desire to be a pastor is not because of the work. They want the title. They want the control. They want the power, okay, and that is wicked and those are the worst people that could end up being pastors when they don't desire the work. They don't enjoy soul winning. They don't enjoy reading the Bible. They don't enjoy praying but they enjoy being called pastor, okay. Now notice what it says in Matthew 23 verse 1, then spake Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples saying, the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do but do not yet after their works for they say and do not. So in these verses what Jesus tells them is that since the scribes and Pharisees have the political power, you need to be very careful that you do the things that they're asking you. Not doing anything sinful but you don't do anything that's going to get you in big trouble, okay. The reality is in our country this is very applicable. A lot of these verses and passages in Matthew just open up to you when you're in this country because quite honestly there's certain things you can't say here and if you say them behind the pulpit then you'll be, somebody will be preaching your funeral next week. That's the reality and so this is what Jesus tells them. The things that they tell you to do, observe and do, the reason being because they have the political power, okay. And so that's the reason why you do that. Verse 4, for they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born and lay them on men's shoulders but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do for to be seen of men. They make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments. And so what Jesus is saying is these people, they talk a good game but they're not doing the work. He's like they're saying good things but they're not doing the work. Don't do after their works. See they desire to do something. They desire to have that title. They desire to have control. They don't desire the actual work though and that is what Jesus is saying. Verse 6, and love the uppermost rooms of feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues. Boy they love to get to each of those fancy restaurants. They get the pictures. Everybody's sharing. This person is so godly. He runs this Bible college. He hosts this conference. You look at him at the golf course, whatever, and they say these people are very good people. They're godly. Everybody respects them. Whenever they walk in the room everyone's like you are such a great person. Isn't that what you're seeing in this story? That's what they're saying. And look the reality is most people love all religious leaders whether they're Christian or not. You know you have somebody at the airport, you know some bald monk with this orange dress on and everyone's like he's so godly. Look at him and it's like you know okay I guess you have low standards on being holy but they think everybody who's religious is a good person and quite honestly a lot of people they like that sort of power. They like to be religious because people look at them and they make it a big point to dress and stand out from everybody. Look when I'm out in public do you realize I'm just dressed like a normal person? I don't put a suit on when I go to the grocery store either. I dress appropriately but I don't dress to stand out. I dress and I'm like any other person, nobody at the grocery store, nobody anywhere, nobody knows that I preach sermons or anything. They would have no idea. They wonder why are you in the Philippines I guess but I don't dress to stand out. I'm not trying to draw attention to myself because the Bible speaks about being modest and that doesn't just mean covering up you know your skin. It also means not trying to stand out and be some you know basically showy so everybody sees you. The Bible speaks about these people but notice how it says in verse seven and greetings in the markets. This is something they love and they love the greetings in the markets and to be called of men rabbi, rabbi. They love it when people call them rabbi okay. Do you realize that in our country there are people that love to be called holy father. There are people that love to be called pastor. There's people that love to be called these different titles. They don't desire the work but they desire to be called these things. You say how do you know that because this is in the Bible in Matthew chapter 23 and there's no new thing under the sun. That which came before is going to be what comes after okay and this existed in the days of Jesus. It exists now. Many and I personally believe most religious leaders they don't desire the work. They desire to be called a flattering title. That's the reality. They don't desire the work. They either desire the title, the power or they desire the sort of money that they can get. They desire the control. That's what they desire. They don't actually desire the work because the vast majority of religious leaders do no soul winning whatsoever and quite honestly when you listen to their sermons it's quite evident they never read the Bible either. They just read Bible commentaries. You say how can you say that. Look if you've been in those churches you know what I'm talking about because you learn nothing. There's nothing new they're bringing to the table. You've already heard this and it's these generic sermons with few verses and they love to preach short sermons because that's less work for them. Let's just have an hour of music and just 20 minute sermon because let's shorten the amount of work I need to do. That's the reality of the matter. Now turn in your Bible. Turn your Bible to Acts 6, Acts chapter 6. I think it's great if young men desire to be pastors if that's something that you believe God would have for your life. I believe it's great. You know when I was 19 I wasn't married when I was 19 I had that desire. Obviously when you get married and have kids a lot of things can change in your life. So once you get married you know if you if you no longer have the desire I wouldn't be mad at you. If you say I want to be a pastor and then you get married and have kids and you say man I don't know I just want to be a good husband good father. Hey I'm not going to try to push you into ministry. Okay. The end of the ministry is something you do if you desire. If you don't desire it then don't do it because you will hate your life. You'll be you'll just run yourself into the ground. Only do it if you actually have that desire. Okay. And if you don't that doesn't mean that you're worse. It doesn't mean that you're less godly. It just means God would have you working a secular job and just being a blessing in the church because you can't just have every single guy in the world being a pastor. You need members at churches. So yeah the majority of people aren't going to be pastors. It doesn't make the pastors better than the members. Okay. I don't feel obligated to go into the ministry. I've had people ask me this question before that do you believe that God wants every godly person to be a pastor every godly man. My answer to that would be no. My answer to that would be no. I don't believe that God wants every single person. I do believe God wants more people because last we checked there aren't a lot of great churches but I don't believe that God wants every single person this church one day is going to go out and start a church. And the reason why this is such an applicable sermon is because there's Baptist churches in the Philippines they really try to force people in the ministry. And they do it a couple different ways. They guilt you into it and they flatter you. They make you feel like man you're ready. Have you read the Bible cover to cover? Well you know I'm still in the Old Testament but you started right? It's like we'll send you out to start that church you're ready to go. That's the reality. And it's like there's no sorts of qualifications or anything and look quite honestly we have men at our church that I really respect the fact that you did not go and start churches because you didn't feel that you were ready. And here's the problem. They send you out, they start calling you pastor which is an unbiblical term. If you're not ordained as a pastor and you're not married, you don't have kids, you're not a pastor. But people at our church they wanted to send off to start churches and look I understand when I was younger honestly I felt more ready than years later when I actually had more experience. Once you have more experience you realize life's more difficult than you realize when you're 19, 20 years old. You're like wow maybe I'm not quite as ready as I thought. That's why you know being a little bit older, having kids, having a family is not a bad thing. But I really respect the fact that people waited. And I want you to realize that even in the US there was times that people tried to kind of push me. They're like you love preaching, there's this new church started up, they need a pastor. It's like well what are you talking to me for? It's like I'm not married. It's like why are you talking to me about that? But I want you to realize it's not just in the Philippines. I think it's very common in the Philippines this happens. It exists in the US as well. And we must go to God's terminology and what he says and to be a pastor you must be married with multiple kids. That is what the Bible says. There's people I know that are pastors, famous pastors in the IFB movement in the US that don't have multiple kids. Quite honestly I don't consider them pastors. Why? Because God gave qualifications for that. It's just like the same thing like if somebody decides you know I'm going to be a doctor but they don't go to school, they don't know how to do it. I'm not going to say they're a doctor. Even if somebody else calls them a doctor, they're not a doctor. They have to actually get training, they have to know what they're doing. So number one when it comes to the work of a pastor or the work of a bishop which is a good work, number one is having a personal walk with God. Having a personal walk with God. I want you to understand that obviously everybody at church needs to have a personal walk with God. The Bible reading challenge is for every single person in this room. Even the people that are kids, they might not be able to finish the entire New Testament but honestly if they can try to read some of it, it would be great for them as well to get in the habit of reading the Bible. I want you to realize that's not just for me. We're starting a Bible reading challenge for me because I need to have a walk with God. All of us need to have a walk with God. But I will say this, I do believe it's a little bit more important for the person preaching the sermons to have that walk with God. Because when they're preaching the sermons, it's going to affect how they preach, it's going to affect if they go soul winning, how they run the church and things such as that. The Bible speaks about this in Acts 6, 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. And then the 12 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. And so what the 12 are saying is there is a lot of work to get done. I mean obviously in the book of Acts, their church was just skyrocketing in growth. It was getting huge, tons of people were getting baptized, obviously they had tons of soul winning times, tons of work being done, and they're just like we don't have time to deal with this. There just wasn't enough time to get everything done. And so this is when they're going to choose certain people, you know, seven people, men of honest report the Bible says, and what they said was in verse 2, it is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. What they're saying is there is a lot of work that needs to be done, but honestly reading the Bible, preparing sermons, praying, that's a little bit more important. But the work has to get done. See there's certain work in life that has to get done. Your personal jobs, you have to work those jobs. You have to make money. It is what it is. You say reading the Bible is more important. It is more important, but you have to make money, right? You have to work your jobs. That must get done. But I want you to realize in a church setting, sometimes working it just overwhelming, and sometimes it can cause you to almost forsake your Bible reading and prayer, but you know that's the worst thing you could do if you're preaching the sermons. You must always be reading the Bible, learning new things, memorizing, and that's what they're talking about here in Acts 6. Verse 3, 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 and in the ministry of the word. What they say is there's a lot of just busy work to get done. We need to focus on prayer and the ministry of the word. That would include soul winning because the Bible speaks about the ministry, you know of reconciliation, but it would also include reading the Bible. It would also include writing sermons and all of those things. So you have to understand when it comes to the work of being a pastor or an evangelist, because mostly it's virtually the same, okay, preaching sermons and things such as that, you have to understand like writing sermons, some people enjoy that. But honestly, most people probably don't enjoy that. That doesn't make you less of a Christian, okay? I do enjoy writing sermons. I do enjoy memorizing the Bible. I realize that might not be for everybody. That doesn't mean that I'm more spiritual than you. It could just mean that's something that I need to do if I'm going to do this job and it's something that God gave me a desire to do. Now I'm not trying to be like overly spiritual. Obviously we're not a Pentecostal church and people argue about terms like the call to preach and stuff like that. And look, I do believe churches can go overboard, but if we're breaking it down what we're talking about, yes, I believe some people God wants to be a pastor and some he doesn't. The Bible does teach that and I'm not going to go preach a whole sermon on that, but I want you to realize it's an important concept because you're not less of a Christian if you don't become a pastor. You're not less of a Christian. Now obviously when it comes to the call to preach, because the Bible uses that terminology. That's where they get the terminology. Yeah, I understand when people say, man, at this moment I saw this bright light up in heaven and I hit the deck, you know, and all of a sudden I was like, man, God called me to preach. Yeah, obviously that's going way overboard, but what I believe is basically the call to desire. When I was 19 I first had a desire to preach, which I believe that is the call to preach. Okay? And people think different things of that, that's fine, but it's important to me to drive home the fact you're not less of a Christian just because you don't have a desire to preach. Maybe that's just not what God had you to do. Because God talks about you having different abilities, different roles, and look, the reality is I do believe that it's the desire God's given me. I believe I have the ability to preach sermons, but there's a lot of things I'm not very good at. That's why when we have to fix things at church, there's building maintenance. I don't do that. You say, Brother Stuckey, are you lazy? No, I just can't do it. It's like if I could do it, I would do it. A lot of that stuff I'm just not very good at. It's not the skill that I have. That's why when you have a church, people, somebody's the eyes, somebody's the ears, somebody's the nose. That's why everybody gets involved in the work, okay? But I want you to realize when it comes to the ministry of the Word, praying, reading the Bible, memorizing the Bible, some people find enjoyment in that. You could ask my wife when we first got married, I would just go out and say, I'm going for a walk, honey, and I just have my Bible, and I would just memorize the Bible for like an hour and a half. I enjoyed it, okay? That's not necessarily going to be everybody, though, okay? Now turn your Bible to Deuteronomy 17. Now obviously everybody needs to pray. Everybody needs to read the Bible. Everybody needs to memorize the Bible. But if I'm preaching three sermons a week or five sermons some week, four sermons in one day, I need to be reading the Bible to learn information, because the last thing I'm doing is opening a Bible commentary, okay? That's a whole other sermon for a whole other day, but it's like when I preach sermons, it's stuff that I learn. What I don't do, I don't just go online and say, I'm going to listen to a sermon by Pastor Menes and just re-preach what he preached. I don't do that. Now I will say this, that sometimes if I'm preaching on a passage, sometimes I'll listen to a godly person who's already preached on it when I already have my sermon just to see if there's certain things they could add or if I have questions, but I don't just re-preach other sermons. You say, why? You're not really going to be that excited re-preaching sermons. It's going to show in your preaching. When you find something in the Bible and then you preach that sermon, it has a lot more impact. You're a lot more excited about it. It's going to be obvious to the members. Now I want you to realize here in Deuteronomy 17, we're referring to David here in Deuteronomy 17. I want you to realize, well, not really David, but just a king in general, but this would apply to him obviously. But I want you to realize that when it comes to a king, the kings are not the spiritual leaders. They're the political leaders. Quite honestly, the spiritual leaders should not be the political leader. Now I know in the Philippines, they're one and the same often. That's not really the way that God would have it because if you notice in the Bible, you have Samuel and he's not the king. But realize that a king obviously has great influence over a lot of people because this is not just a president. A king has basically absolute rule. Deuteronomy 17, verse 14, when thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee and shall possess it and shall dwell therein and shall say, I will set a king over me like as all the nations that are about me, thou shalt in any way set him king over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose. One from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee. Thou mayest not set a stranger over thee which is not thy brother. So the Bible gives basic qualifications to become the king. It must be someone who's among you, not a stranger, various things like that. Go down to verse 18. And it says, and it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom that he shall write him a copy of this law and a book out of that which is before the priests, the Levites. So he's writing a copy of the law of the Lord. And it shall be with him and he shall read therein all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord is God to keep all the words of this law and these statues to do them. Okay. Now I want you to realize every single one of us should read therein all the days of our life, but it specifically mentions the kings because he has such an influence that it's especially important that he reads the Bible. Okay. Why? Because reading the Bible is going to cause you to fear God and it's going to cause you to keep the words of this law. That's what the Bible says. Okay. Now realize it's talking about writing a copy of the law, not typing it on a computer. Imagine if you typed up this entire Bible. It would take you a long time, wouldn't it? Imagine writing the entire Bible. You know what it would force you to do? It would force you to really understand what you're writing. It would force you, and honestly, I haven't done the entire Bible, but I started doing this before, and honestly, it's something I'd love to get back into, of writing chapters out. It takes a long time to write a chapter. It takes a really, really long time to write a chapter, and that's what they're telling them to do. Why? It causes them to fear the Lord and also to keep the words of these statues. We should all be reading the Bible every day, but especially the person who's the king. Verse 20, that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren. Basically, he doesn't become prideful, and that he turn not aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel. When we're talking about someone who's basically going to be the pastor, as a pastor, you're basically going to be serving the people, ministering onto the people, because that's what Jesus did. It says if you read the Bible, it will cause you not to be lifted up above the congregation. Look, when you hear pastors that think they're better than their congregation, it's kind of proof they don't read the Bible much, because the Bible says that if you're reading it, it's going to cause you not to be lifted up above your congregation. There's some pastor who's very arrogant. The Bible's telling you they don't read the Bible much, because that's going to cause you not to be arrogant. Now, turn your Bible to Acts 20. So when it comes to the work of being a pastor, one of the big things is reading the Bible. Now, once again, we all need to read the Bible, but if you're preaching several sermons a week, you need to know your Bible well, and quite honestly, the best way to really learn to write sermons is do a lot of Bible reading, because it makes your sermon writing a lot easier. See, if you have to preach three times a week, you've got to come up with new ideas, new concepts, and find verses, but it's a lot easier when you already kind of know the wording and you go to Esort and just type in a few words, boom, that's the verse I wanted. But if you don't really know the Bible very well, why do you think they go to commentaries? Because how else are they going to write their sermons? That's the reality. Acts 20. So reading the Word of God, having that personal walk, praying, things such as that, also preaching sermons, this is a large part of the work of being a pastor or a bishop or even an evangelist. Acts 20, verse 26, wherefore I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. And so Paul makes it very clear, I declared everything. See, every single word in this Bible needs to be preached. Every single word. Not just every word, but every single topic, every single concept, everything, okay? Nothing should be held back. Verse 28, take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood. Now, look, I understand we have pandesalah in the morning, we have kapeh and things such as that. When it says feed the church of God, it's not talking about pandesalah, okay? It's talking about feed them with the word of God. You're teaching them, okay? Because honestly, people go to churches all the time, and one of the big complaints in most Baptist churches is, I do not learn anything. And look, I've been a Baptist for a long time. When I got saved, I became a Baptist, I became an independent fundamental Baptist, and honestly, a lot of churches I went to, you didn't learn much. You weren't being fed anything, okay? And that's an indication the pastors aren't really spending a lot of time on their sermons, because look, this Bible's pretty big. There's a lot of things you can preach on. There's a lot of new information you can learn. And if you're never learning anything, that means they're never learning anything. They're not really reading the Bible, they're not memorizing the Bible, they're not doing the work of being a pastor. So why is it that they are a pastor? Well, oftentimes they like the title. That's the reality. That's what we're preaching against. So when it comes to preaching sermons, yeah, a large part of the work that I do is spending time writing sermons. Honestly, it takes a while, and the men in this room that have preached sermons, especially full-length sermons, you don't just kind of get up here five minutes before the service and just scribble down notes. You have to actually put in a lot of time to do this. You search stuff, you read the passages over and over again. It takes a lot of time. And I want you to realize that this is a large part of the work, and some people desire this. Some people really enjoy preaching sermons. Some people enjoy writing sermons. I enjoy doing this, okay? This has nothing to do with the title of being a pastor. And so you realize I don't have the title of being a pastor, but I'm really doing the same work as being a pastor. I get to study the Word of God, I get to preach sermons, so it's kind of like I really don't care about the title because I enjoy the work. I enjoy preaching sermons. I would rather get to preach sermons and not be called pastor than people call me pastor and I don't get to preach sermons. But sadly, honestly, there's a lot of pastors that it's the opposite way around. They don't necessarily enjoy preaching the sermons. And look, honestly, we don't have a lot of people guest preaching here. When I was in the U.S., we did for a couple weeks, but other than that, I pretty much preach every sermon. You say, why? Well, I like preaching. That's a large part. But I also believe it's important. I do believe that you're setting a standard of how things are supposed to run. So notice here in verse number 29, for I know this that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Grievous wolves are basically children of the devil. That's what he's referring to. Also of your own selves shall men arise. Didn't we talk about that this morning? Of your own selves. There's going to be people speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and remember that by the space of three years, I cease not to warn everyone night and day with tears. Now, I want you to realize it tells us a few things. One is that three years have gone by, and another thing he said is I've declared the entire counsel of God. So within three years, Paul was able to say, I've declared everything to you in the Bible. I've given you the foundation. I've preached everything. You say, well, what's your point, Brother Stuckey? Well, we've been around for more than a year, and I have a preaching calendar. I plan my sermons out in advance. I write them out in advance. I write the topics. I look at everything I'm going to preach, and quite honestly, I realized after the one year mark that I have not covered everything in the Bible. Am I avoiding topics in the Bible? No, I'm not, but there's a lot of topics to preach on. See, 156 sermons sounds like a lot, but it honestly really isn't that much. See, Paul in three years was able to preach everything, which means he wasn't holding anything back. He was preaching everything. He said, what are you saying, Brother Stuckey? Here's what I'm saying. I don't preach short sermons. My sermons are 50 plus minutes, but I was not able to cover everything within one year. What that tells me is sermons should be long because you cannot accurately say, I've preached the entire counsel of God if you preach short sermons, and that's kind of the trend with Baptist churches. They have short sermons where there's not much information. What's the problem? You're not going to be able to cover everything in the Bible. There's a lot to cover, and so, yeah, you know what? Sermons should be long because there needs to be a lot of information. It needs to be more than just, well, I preached on one verse and told six stories. That's not a sermon. You have to actually spend a lot of time writing the sermons, and look, I'm not shortening the sermons here. I'm not going to say, well, I'm just going to cut it down to 15 minutes. It's like, no, you know, we might cut other stuff out. We're not cutting down the length of the sermons because people need to be fed the Word of God, okay? And so my personal opinion, and there's not a verse that proves this. I do believe that the Bible's telling you sermons should be long from this passage because in three years you need to be able to say I preached everything in the Bible. Doesn't necessarily mean every single chapter, but all the concepts, all the basic information. I think your average sermon should probably be at least 40 minutes, okay? To say you're really able to cover everything in the Bible, I'm giving a generic number because it doesn't say the exact number, but I'm just saying, and obviously some sermons are longer than others depending on the material, but I'm just saying in general I think people should strive to preach for about 40 minutes. One thing I was very pleased at was when I was gone, all the men at this church, their sermons were at least 40 minutes. That shows me everybody put in time into their sermons. Now I understand some sermons are super long, but every sermon was at least 40 minutes. You say why is that important? It means that people put in time into their sermons. If they got up here and were done in like seven minutes, I mean for some of you you drive two hours away. Can you imagine if you drove two hours away and then like seven minutes later, let's close in a word of prayer. It's like man, some people wouldn't have even gotten here yet with Filipino time, right? I miss the whole sermon, it's already over. It's like no, people coming a long distance away, putting in their time, they deserve to be fed. They deserve to walk away and they learn things from the Bible, okay? And look, that's just not going to happen if the sermons are super short, okay? Now that's my opinion because there's not a verse that says this amount of time. But I will tell you this, that if any of you become pastors one day or you preach every single week, what you're going to find out at the end of the year is wow, there's a lot of stuff. I thought I'd preach on salvation once every month and the reprobates once every month and this and that. There's a lot of information in the Bible. And to cover everything, honestly, you need to preach for a long time. People need to be fed the word of God. First Corinthians 9, First Corinthians chapter 9. And so a large part of the work is having your personal walk with God. Another part is obviously preaching sermons and that is specific to the person running the church because unless you preach from time to time in general, most of the sermons are being preached by one person. So that's mainly specific to the person running the church, whether it's a pastor, whether it's an evangelist. I want you to see in First Corinthians chapter 9 verse 1, First Corinthians 9 verse 1, it says, Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are not ye my work in the Lord? So Paul is doing a lot of work, obviously, it says. Verse 2, If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you, for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord. Now the context of this chapter, he's basically talking about deserving to be paid, okay? And what he's saying is that he deserves to be paid even though he didn't take a paycheck usually because he was doing the work. He was bringing people to church. He was preaching the sermons. He was running things, getting a church started and because of that, he deserved to get paid. Now go down to verse number 7, go down to verse number 7. And remember what it said in Acts 20, what Paul said about feeding the flock? That is in reference to preaching sermons. You're feeding, you're teaching them. This is very important because in verse 7, who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? Who planted a vineyard and eateth not of the fruit thereof? Or who feedeth a flock and eateth not of the milk of the flock? The reason why Paul is able to say that is he's the one who preached the sermons. The reason why he deserved to get paid is he ran the church, okay? He preached the sermons. Now don't misunderstand me, there's nothing wrong with a church having people. I worked full-time at Verity Baptist Church and I still do work for Verity Baptist Church part-time remotely. There's nothing wrong for a church hiring people to do jobs, okay? But I want you to realize like the people's concept of an evangelist in modern days is like really different from what the Bible says because when you link back to why Paul deserved to get paid, he was the one feeding the flock. And so look, we've had people that have asked us, you know, I'm like a full-time soul winner, can you support me, send me money, like they're starting, you know, some whatever. They're not preaching the sermons but they're just going soul winning full-time. Well, honestly, I don't believe that they should get paid. I believe that should run from the church itself. Why? Because Paul talks about feeding the flock. Now if a church hires people to be soul winners, that's one thing. But what I'm talking about is Paul the Apostle here, he fed the flock. That's why he deserved to get paid because he was the one who started the Church of Corinth. He preached the sermons, okay? It links back to that. There's nothing wrong with people being soul winners at a church. I have nothing against that. There's like-minded church in the Philippines, they have full-time soul winners. I'm not preaching against that. That's not what I'm talking about. But what I'm saying is everything operates from the church itself. And see, Paul the Apostle was talking about why he deserved to get paid is not just that he was getting people saved, but because he was preaching the sermons. So when we're talking about being an evangelist, that means you're also the one running a church, preaching the sermons. It's not just that you're going soul winning. Because look, everybody at this church goes soul winning. Then we're all evangelists, okay? It's like I gave some evangelists, it's like, oh, we have soul winners at this church. That's not what it's talking about, okay? It's talking about more than that. It's also talking about preaching the sermons, feeding the flock, that's what it mentions. Now turn in your Bible to Revelation 2. Revelation 2. You say, why is that important? It's important because as I'm talking about not having the title of being a pastor, I'm still able to do the same work that a pastor would do of preaching sermons. That's why I don't desire, I'm not like, oh, I need to be called pastor next week. I'm okay, which is preaching the sermons, and I'm able to do basically the same work that I would if I was the pastor. Now turn in your Bible to Revelation 2. Revelation 2. Now I want you to realize in Revelation 2, we're going to look at a passage on soul winning, and another part of the work of being a pastor, a bishop, or even an evangelist would be going soul winning. Now once again, this is something for everybody at church, because he says, go ye into all the world. Ye is plural. He doesn't say, go me. He said, go ye, okay? Everybody goes. Not just the leader. Jesus didn't just say, go me. I got it. No, this is for everybody. But honestly, it's the most important for the person leading the church to go soul winning. You say, why? Because if people see their leader being lazy and not going soul winning, they're probably not going to go. But if they see their leader actually going soul winning, it will motivate them to also go as well, okay? Revelation 2, verse 1, unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write, these things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil, and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars, and hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted. Now, there's a lot of good things about this church. He talks about their work, their labor, their patience. They can't bear those which are evil, because that means they're not harboring pedophiles or anything like that. They have a lot of good things about them, but notice verse 4, nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works. Thy first love links back to the first works. The first works and thy first love, they're linking together. See, when a church first starts, they must do the work of soul winning to try to build that church. But what can happen is that as a church grows, you'll have a lot of different ministries, a lot of different fellowship activities. Nothing wrong with that. I think that's great. But what can happen is a soul winning can just die down. Now, you say, why are you mentioning this for the person running the church? Because if I quit soul winning, naturally, people are going to go a little bit less. That's the way it's going to work. Well, if Brother Stuckey can skip soul winning, then I can skip soul winning. That's the way it works. So it's very important for the leaders of church to go soul winning. Not just that they're sending people out to preach the gospel, but they're actually going out. Okay? You know, in the past month and a half, we started the new church plan in Pampanga, and there's a lot of extra work to be done. I'm going down there after the services. I'm not going to be going soul winning today because I'm going to be preaching two sermons in Pampanga, but I still win soul winning this week. There's still people at our church that went with me on Friday and Saturday this week and Wednesday. I'm still going out soul winning because if I had to quit my soul winning to do some new ministry, we're just not going to do the new ministry. Soul winning must stay the heartbeat of any church. And I want you to realize that throughout the Philippines, throughout America, there are a lot of pastors that never go soul winning. Do you believe in soul winning? Amen. Have a good time. It's like, I'll be headed to Starbucks, you know, with the tie, the money you gave me. I'll get a triple latte, not just that one with triple, right? They don't go soul winning. And so what happens? Well, those churches don't really do a lot of soul winning. And quite honestly, if you're a soul winner, you don't really want to be at a church where your pastor doesn't go soul winning. And I've been at churches where the pastors really didn't go soul winning. It frustrates you. And then what I see sometimes is I was at a church where they had soul winning. It was once a week, which is fine because the pastor worked a full time job. People are busy. Nothing wrong with that. Soul winning was on Saturdays. But then all of a sudden, it's like, we're canceling soul winning for a work day today. And it's just like, in that church, I drove 45 minutes to. It was out in the sticks when I was in college, like me and my friends. It's like, I'm going to drive 45 minutes on a Saturday to, it's like, no, I want to go soul winning. And it's like, but this is what churches do. And the reality is, soul winning must always stay at the heartbeat of a church. Now turn your Bible to Luke 2. Luke 2. And the Bible says, and how shall they preach except they be sent? So the reality is that a lot of you do a lot more soul winning than you did a year and a half ago, simply because you have a church that believes in soul winning. We have soul winning times, several times during a week, during the week, we believe in soul winning. But when you're at a church that doesn't do a lot of soul winning, it's hard to go soul winning. And I've been in that situation before. It's a lot easier to go soul winning when other people are doing it. But if you're on your own, you'll do it from time to time. You're not going to do it that regularly, though. But when you have a church that regularly believes in it, it's kind of like that's what people do for activities. That's what we do for fellowship. That's what we do for fun. It's like, hey, what are you doing on Saturday? Going soul winning. All right, I'll join you. I mean, amen for that. It's great to have like minded people at this church. But another part of the work of, or the office of being a bishop, the work, it's just operating a church in general. And quite honestly, this is the part of the work that is the least enjoyable, because the soul winning is great. Reading the Bible is great. Preaching the sermons is great. But then just like the daily ministration to make things organized, it takes a lot longer than you think. And it's not as fun as the other things. But notice what it says in Luke 2. Luke 2, verse 48. Luke 2, verse 48. And when they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, how is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business? This is not the only place where it mentions this, but it uses the terminology of business. Turn to Acts 6. Acts 6. See, the Bible says, let all things be done decently and in order. And that is in the context of a church. A lot of churches, they have kind of a free-for-all technique, right? It's very magulo. But that's not how a church should operate. A church actually should be very organized, okay? And it says in Acts 6, verse 3, Acts 6, verse 3, 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. The Bible uses the terminology of business. You say, what are you talking about, Brother Stuckey? Well, when it comes to our church, every single receipt on things that are bought, I scan into a computer and have it saved on a Dropbox file. Every single receipt. Now it's not particularly fun scanning every single receipt, but like stuff like that, honestly, it's important. So you can track where the money's going, you can stay organized, and this prevents you from having big problems that take place. When you keep things very organized, the result is things are going to be organized. Now, I come from a very organized church. Pastor Mendez is incredibly organized. The result is we try to model our church in a very similar way. When it comes to soul-winning maps and things such as that, I mean, we try to be as organized as possible. We pair you up with someone, we try to give you different partners each week, we give you a general area where you're going, we try to be as organized as possible. You say, why? Because you have to operate it like it's a business. Look, if you own a business, when you're at a business or you work at a business, you keep things very organized. Very organized, very structured, and the reality is that at church, things are supposed to be done decently and in order. For that to take place, though, you have to do this general maintenance that always takes place. Okay? Now turn in your Bible to Acts chapter 1. Acts 1. We'll look at a few more places. Acts chapter 1. And so just this morning, I give myself a to-do list, and I have just like a four by six card, and I've just got like a long list of things on my to-do list. Even stuff like just printing this stuff out, I mean, it doesn't take a lot of time to print out Bible charts, but it does take some time. Where you make the charts, you print them out, you say, why? Because I believe this will help you to read the Bible. If I just said, we're going to have a Bible reading challenge, but we didn't give you a chart, it would be a little bit more difficult for people to read the Bible. When we give you a chart and you can just cross it off, it makes it a lot easier. But things like this take time to do as well. It doesn't just happen automatically. There's general stuff like that every single week. We give people baptism certificates. That doesn't take the most time in the world, but when you start adding up all these things, a baptism certificate, scanning all the receipts, I have an Excel file with all the accounting to chart everything, put it in categories, it starts adding up to a lot of time, but the reason why we do that is because I think you need to be very organized, operated almost as if it's a business, because the Bible uses that terminology. Acts chapter 1, verse 8, Acts 1, verse 8, and 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. The Bible says that we're supposed to be witnesses unto the uttermost part of the earth. What this does not mean, this does not mean that we're going to do a soul winning marathon in a different country every year. That's not what it means. We'll do a soul winning marathon in South Africa, then we're going to do a soul winning marathon in New Zealand. What it means is you've got to get churches started everywhere. Now no one church can do this, but every church has their Jerusalem and you spread out from there. When it comes to getting churches started, there's many aspects to that. Part of that is training people to be pastors or to be able to preach. Since we do not believe that the Bible colleges ordain people to be pastors, and since it's the local church that does that, it also means the local church has to do the training. You can't outsource the training. Yes, you do the ordaining and the training at the local church. You prepare people. You say, why? Because it's going to make it a lot easier. When you already have some structure, you have preparation, it makes it a lot easier. Pastor Min has gave me plenty of tips of running a church and things would be a lot more stressful if I didn't have those things. Having a preaching calendar and showing me how that works, planning everything out, how to do sermon series, all things like that, it helps to get actual training. We do have men at this church who desire to one day be a pastor. I would love to one day ordain you to be a pastor somewhere, to start a church somewhere. That also means, though, training must come from the local church. To the best of our ability, that's what we're trying to do. We've done some, and I hope to do a lot more this coming year, giving you preaching tips. I think the church plan in Pampanga is great because chances to preach are a large part if you're going to be a pastor one day. It's also going to help teach you, do I really want to be a pastor? Because if it's a real chore to write one sermon every three months, try writing three runs one week. It just might mean maybe that's not what God would have for you, but if it's something you really start to enjoy, then it's like, hey, that's honestly great training, running ministries and things such as that. The training must come from the local church because that's where the ordaining comes. Everything operates out of the local church. The local church is the one that sends out missionaries, not the Bible college. The local church ordains people to be pastors. The local church is the one that feeds and teaches. It takes work to do this. The lessons I sent you guys on preaching, yeah, it took time to write those. Some were from Pastor Menes, some were from me. It took time to write those. I believe it's important though because our goal is to get churches started. All I'm trying to tell you is this is the work of being a pastor. It has nothing to do with being the title. We're talking about the work. Now turn back to 1 Timothy 3, 1 Timothy 3. We'll close up here in 1 Timothy 3. I want you to realize that if you're someone in this room and you say, Brother Stuckey, I want to be a pastor one day, or I might want to be a pastor, I'm not sure yet. I want to try to help you figure that out, and I would love to ordain you if that's what you want to do, but I want you to realize if I end up getting the sense that you don't really care about actually being a pastor, but you really love that title, you will never be ordained to this church, and I want you to realize that you say, how do you figure that out? Look, one of the big ways is we'd have preaching nights in Sacramento in California at Verity Baptist Church. We haven't done that here because everyone's coming from so far away that we just haven't done it yet. Maybe we will in the future, but you can tell that there's a lot of guys that wanted to be pastors, but someone would preach a 10-minute sermon, and it's as if they didn't even read the chapter ahead of time. It's just so obvious that they didn't even read the chapter, read the section, and it's like for a 10-minute sermon, they didn't take it very seriously, and it's like, look, if you're not going to take a 10-minute opportunity seriously, then why would you be trusted with a 45-minute sermon? Why would you be trusted with running a church if the 10-minute sermon is not worth your time? See, the Bible says you must be proven faithful in something that's small, and if you're proven faithful in something small, then you get the opportunity to do something big. That's what the Bible teaches, and honestly, that's why I wasn't originally planning to visit the U.S. in September. It wasn't originally in our plans. It was something the last couple months I decided to do. That's why I didn't mention it ahead of time, and a large part of that was that we had preaching here every Sunday afternoon, and I thought the guys were doing a good job, and I thought, you know what? People will come to this church while I'm gone. They'll be edified by the sermons. They'll be motivated. They'll be able to learn the Word of God, and honestly, the 20-minute opportunities prove that people are ready for longer opportunities, and in the future, I'm sure we'll have more opportunities to preach. Obviously, we have the church planned, but maybe even here as well, but I want you to realize that that's part of the work of being a pastor is preaching sermons. It's a large part of the work. Let's just look at one last place here, 1 Timothy 3, 1 Timothy 3, a bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given a hospitality apt to teach. The promise as a bishop must be blameless. To be a pastor, if you desire this, it's your job to be blameless. It's your choice whether you drink alcohol. I preach against it. It's your choice what you do. It's your choice whether you're reading the Bible or not. I mean, we'll send you a chart. We'll try to motivate you. We give you every single day, these are the chapters you read. It's your choice, though, whether you do it. It's your choice whether you're going to be blameless, whether you're going to be vigilant, sober, these things. That is your choice, but I want you to notice verse 6, not a novice. See I want you to realize I believe it's the individual's job to be blameless. I believe it's the church's job that the people aren't novices. See being a novice means you don't have any experience. You don't have any ability. It's my job if you want to be a pastor that you get opportunities to preach and learn how to do that. I can teach you those things. You learn how to do song leading. Eventually we'll do a song leading training for guys that want to be pastors one day or anyone who wants to go to it. I want you to realize I believe it's the church's job, though, to make sure that people are not novices when they go out there. It's your job to be blameless because I can't force you to read the Bible. I can't force you to memorize the Bible, but what I can do is give you opportunities so when you go out there you actually know what you're doing. It's not just that a Sunday morning rolls around like, man, how do I preach sermons? What am I doing? It's my job to try to get you prepared for that if you want to be a pastor. This is part of the work of being a pastor because every church should be trying to get churches started. You say, what's the point of the sermon? Well, a couple of things. One reason why I'm not really that stressed about having the title of being a pastor is because all the things I mentioned I already get to do. It's like I'm already doing the work of a pastor, I just don't get called pastor. That's fine with me. I get to preach a sermon. I love preaching sermons. I've loved preaching sermons for a long time. I enjoy writing sermons. I still get to do that. I'm not really stressed out about having the title of being a pastor. But the other thing I want you to realize is this, especially here in the Philippines where being called a pastor means very little. It doesn't mean that you're married necessarily. It doesn't mean that you have kids necessarily. It's just like you say, why is this important? Well, because quite honestly, people that really desire to be called pastors but they aren't, I would watch out for those people. Because honestly, a lot of times, I think they are bad people. I think a lot of pastors, they become pastors because they really like the title, but they don't want to do the work. They don't want to go soul winning. They don't spend time on their sermons. They don't do any of the work, but they get called pastor. Those are people that we need to watch for because honestly, it's a pretty wicked thing to say, I want to be called a pastor, but you don't want to do the work. That is a very common thing, not just in this country but around the world. How do you know it's a common thing? Because in Matthew chapter 23, Jesus says these Pharisees and scribes, they love the uppermost rooms and they love to be called of men, rabbi, rabbi. There's no new thing under the sun. Same thing today. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today and I just ask you to help us apply this sermon to our lives, God. I think it's great if there's young men in this room that have a desire to one day be pastors, God. Help us to prepare them and train them in everything we need to do, God. But I want you to realize, I want us all to realize that desiring the title of a pastor, that's a wicked thought, God. And if that's a desire people have, then honestly they shouldn't go into the ministry. And help us, though, God, to continue to grow as a church. Ask you to bless the soul winning later today and also the services in Pampanga. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.