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I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. Turn to 1 Corinthians 16, just go back if you're facing your Bible. And what I want to preach about this morning, and I know this is going to sound like a liberal, watered-down sermon, but it's not. I want to preach about having a winning attitude. Now this isn't, you know, your best life now or winning in life. But I do want to preach about having a winning attitude because it's extremely important, and this is a very biblical concept, having a winning attitude. Look at 1 Corinthians 16, 9. Look what Paul says. For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries. You notice that Paul here, first he said in Philippians 4 and 13, I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. What does that statement mean? It's confidence. It's boldness. It's an attitude that says we're going to have success. We're going to win, okay? We're going to do great things for God. Instead of focusing on the adversaries, he could have said in 1 Corinthians 16, 9, Oh man, it's so hard. It's so tough. There are so many adversaries. We have so many enemies. That's just a side note thrown on the end. The main thing he's emphasizing is the fact that there's a great door and effectual that was opened unto him. And let me tell you something. Today, we have a great door and effectual opened unto us. And many churches today, they don't have a winning attitude. They have a defeated attitude. They're defeated before they even start the battle. Because they've already been defeated in their own minds. And I'm going to go into a lot of different subjects this morning, but go to Psalm 126. Right in the middle of your Bible, the book of Psalms, if you just let it fall open in the middle, you'll be in Psalm. Go to Psalm 126. Because you see, many people today have an attitude that's defeated where they say, You know, soul-ending doesn't work. Our church can't grow. It can't be done. The world has become too wicked. People don't want to hear this kind of preaching. I'm tired of that kind of attitude. We've got to have a winning attitude that says, Yes, people do want to hear this kind of preaching. It's Bible preaching. It's the Spirit of God. And the Gospel has not lost its power this morning. The Bible says in Romans 1 16, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone. It didn't say it was the power of God. It said it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. To the Jew first and also to the Greek. Not it was the power of God. Not it's weak. But no, it's strong. It's powerful. It's a powerful message. The reason he wasn't ashamed of it was because of the power. But I'd be ashamed to be a part of a church that's a dead church that says that it can't be done. This is I can Baptist Church. I can do all things through Christ. This is great door open and effectual Baptist Church. There are many adversaries, so I think I'm going to cry about it. We need to have a winning attitude. Look at Psalm 126. This is a promise of God. Verse 5 says this, They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. And then look at the next verse. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. Now, this verse is very significant because the Bible, all throughout the Bible, refers to preaching the gospel, winning souls to Christ. It refers to it as sowing of seeds and harvesting a harvest, right? He talks about, look at 1 Corinthians 3, and we'll come back there, but look at 1 Corinthians 3. When he gives the parable of the sower, he talks about how he that soweth the good seed is the son of man. And he said the sower soweth the word. So when he's talking about sowing the word, I mean sowing the seed, he's talking about sowing the word. He said in 1 Peter 1.23, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth in a by a prayer. So that we know that the seed is the word. Jesus Christ, we told the parable of the sower, he told us the seed was the word. Peter told us that the seed is the word. 1 Corinthians 3 is where Paul talks about this in reference to soul winning. He talks about himself and Apollos. He says in verse 5, who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believe? Even as the Lord gave to every man. So these are the people who preached unto them the Gospel. Paul, Apollos, whoever. He said in verse 6, I have planted. See, that's the sowing of the seed. Apollos watered, but God gave the increase, so that neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase, now he that planteth and that watereth are one, and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are labourers together with God. Ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. So over and over again the Bible uses this illustration about reaping the harvest. He said the harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he'll send forth labourers into his harvest. He said those labourers, they plant the seed. They sow the word of God. They water that seed, and thank to God they get to reap that harvest of seeing someone get saved. But now with that in mind, go back to that promise. Stay in 1 Corinthians 3 because I'm going to show you something else. But in Psalm 126 he said, they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed. This is the precious seed right here, the incorruptible seed, the word of God. He said, they that go forth and weepeth bearing precious seed, shall maybe... He said shall doubtless, doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheep with him. There's no maybe, there's no question about it. That if you go out and you have the precious word of God here, the seed of God's work, and you go out there and you preach the gospel. I'm not saying you knock one door. But I mean if you go out and you work at it, and you sow that seed, you sow that seed, you sow that seed, and you knock those doors, and talk to people at work, and talk to your friends, you will get people saved. Period. And I'm not going to apologize for that statement. Well, you know, so I'm not going to... No. You will eventually get people saved. Maybe not the first day. He said this, let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faith not. You see, it's not a Burger King mentality where we just show up the first time and expect five minutes later to get the product. It takes work. It takes weeping. You say, why the weeping? You know, we ought to be weeping when we think of the fact that lost souls are dying and going to hell. When people in the Phoenix area have never heard a clear presentation of the Gospel, that ought to bring tears to our eyes. That ought to make us weep and take the Word of God and go bring them the Gospel. And if we will do it, God will give the increase. We're not even responsible for bringing in the increase. Look what he said there. He said in verse 6, I've planted a polished water, but God gave the increase. Let me ask you, if we plant and we water, will God give the increase? He promised He would. He said, doubtless. He said, don't even doubt it for one minute. The soul, when it works, it works. You just have to work it. If you do the work, it will work. But he said, you've got to sow the seed, you've got to water the seed, you've got to pray, you've got to weep, you've got to take the Bible, you've got to preach the Word of God. And the Word of God has not lost its power today. The Gospel has not lost its power. It's just that it's not being preached. That's why people aren't saved. If we don't go out and do the work, God will bless and God will give us the increase. But many today, even who are Christians who go soul winning, they go with the wrong attitude. They go with the defeated attitude. I know a lot of churches and a lot of pastors and Christians that I've spoken to, they'll go out soul winning because they know that it's the right thing to do, but they do not go expecting anyone to get saved. They literally go expecting no one to listen, expecting no one to get saved. When somebody gets saved, they're shocked. Literally. I mean, it's just, whoa! They can't believe it. And I remember when Peter and John walked into the temple, and you remember this man was healed. There was a lame man that was at the door of the temple. And he said, you know, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, I say indeed, rise up and walk. And it says they were all shocked about it. And Peter and John basically said to them, Why are you shocked? Why are you amazed that the God who created this whole world departed the Red Sea? Why are you amazed that he can make this man walk? And why are we amazed when we go out soul winning and preach the gospel to every preacher? When we get on our knees first and pray and ask God to lead us and to guide us to those who will be receptive to the truth of the gospel, and then we take the Bible, the preserved word of God in our hand, the King James Bible, and then we take it to them, we preach it to them, we make it clear to them, and then we're surprised when people get, of course they're going to get saved. Of course it's going to work. He said, doubtless it will work. Why do we doubt? But we need people today that are going out soul winning in faith, expecting God to do something great. Because when you go out with a defeated attitude, by the way, people can sense that. They can sense the weakness. They can sense the boldness, and they can sense the weakness. If somebody knocks on my door and says, you don't want to see this, do you? I'm like, no. I mean, when I go to somebody, I say, of course they want to see it. Because their soul is in the balance between heaven and hell. And I'm sick and tired of when somebody said, we don't do this high pressure evangelism. Who's ever heard something like that before? You know, this high pressure confrontational evangelism. Go to the book of Acts. This isn't in my notes. Sometimes I just like to add things into my sermon off the cuff. But go to Acts. I want to go to the part where he's talking to Agrippa. What chapter is that? 22 to 23, somewhere around there? Somebody help me out. Who's got the Bible knowledge this morning? It's slipping my mind here. King Agrippa, and he says he's almost persuaded. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Somebody find it for me. Chapter 24, thank you. See, in chapter 24, Paul is preaching unto Agrippa. Is it 24? Or am I just trusting you blindly? Yeah, here we go. He's preaching unto King Agrippa. And Agrippa was an expert, so-called, in the Word of God. And Paul said, you know, I'm glad to explain this to you, because in verse 3 he said, especially, this is what Paul's saying, because I know thee to be an expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jew. So he begins to preach him the Gospel. He begins to preach him the Word of God. And as he's preaching the Word of God to him, let me show you the response of Agrippa and Festus. Look at verse 24. And as he thus spake for himself... This is Paul preaching the Gospel to these two men, Festus and Agrippa. And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself. Much learning that make thee mad. Now, beside thyself means what? Crazy. Insane. And what does it mean to be mad? Insane. Crazy. It's not like when we use it for angry. This is the British meaning of, you know, are you mad? So he's basically saying, you know, you're beside yourself. Much learning has made thee mad. But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness. Now he begins to direct himself to Agrippa because he sees that Festus is pretty much rejecting the truth at this point. He turns back to Agrippa, the guy who was the expert. He says, for the king knoweth, talking about King Agrippa, for the king knoweth of these things, before whom I also speak freely, for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him, for this thing was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, believeth thou the prophets, I know that thou believeth. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. And Paul said, I would to God that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am. Except these bums. I don't want them all to be in jail and chained up like I am. But he said, I wish they'd believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at the way Paul is here. He cries out. He's begging Agrippa to be saved, saying, don't you believe the prophets that I know that you believe? He expected him to believe it. He didn't say, oh, you probably don't believe any of this, do you? He said, look, if you're an expert, if you know about the Bible, of course you're going to believe on Jesus Christ. And he's begging him to be saved. And he said, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. And I'm sick of people saying not to be aggressive with our soul winning. Brother Garrett and I went to a door this week. We knocked on a door and there was a gentleman who was visiting down here from the reservation up by Ganado, right? And we talked to this gentleman and basically I asked, and he was already saved. His wife was not saved. I asked his wife if she wanted to hear the gospel and she said no. But see, her husband had already told me before she got there, she needs to hear this. So, you know, I thank God that I was a little bit more persistent and after a little bit of persistence, I was able to give her the gospel. She did get saved. She was very happy about being saved. Praise God for that, that I didn't just say, oh, well, you know, I don't want to offend anybody here. I don't want to step on any toes here. Look, we need to go out there expecting people to be saved, expecting people to listen, expecting God to do something great. I can tell you just this week alone, at least three just fantastic soul winning experiences this week, just great soul winning experiences. I mean, I want a guy to the Lord this week that had never even set foot in any church in his whole life. You know, praise God for that. And, you know, I expect God to do something when I go out soul winning. Yeah, I went out for several hours this week with nobody saved other days, but you know what, if you faint not, you will reap. You'll get to that person that will get saved, that wants to hear the truth, that wants to hear the gospel. We need to go out with a winning attitude, not a loser attitude that says, it doesn't work, it can't be done. I'm defeated. It's so hard being a Christian. No, it's not. God gives us the victory. Who is he that overcometh the world? But he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God. The Bible says this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. And we need to have the faith that overcomes the world when we can believe God's promises and say, hey, we are on the winning side. We are not defeated. We are the victors. Even if we go out and don't get anybody saved today, we still won the victory because we preached the gospel and in due season we will reap if we faint not. Maybe we just planted the seed. Maybe later on some of you will water that seed and that person will be saved. You don't always get instant results. Sometimes a person has to hear the gospel a few times before they get saved. They're not always going to get saved the first time. You know, Agrippa didn't get saved that first time around. I hope that later on he did. At that point it was just an almost, but I hope later he got saved. We don't really know. But in 1 Corinthians 3 we're talking about the defeated attitude that says soul and it doesn't work. This is an important doctrine here in verse 8. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one. You say, why is that important? Because a lot of people will try to say, well, you know, I just plant seeds. I'm just the planter. You know, I never did anybody say I just plant seeds. But no, he said, no, he that planteth, he that watereth are one. He says the same guy. Sometimes you're planting, sometimes you're watering, and sometimes you get saved. Sometimes God gives the increase, but it's one guy who does both. It's not just, well, it's just my ministry just to plant. No, we ought to be out winning souls to Jesus Christ with a can-do mentality, not an I can't mentality. That's why Brother Garrett came to our church for one reason. Because he was interested in soul. He wasn't even saved. But he was interested in soul. But he was not saved, but he was on a quest for soul. He was looking for the truth. And basically, he went to a conference on soul-winning because his church said, oh, you like, you want to get into soul-winning, he's going to a Lutheran church. They said, you know, you like soul-winning, we're going to send you this evangelism power. He went to the conference, and all they told him, it was only a few miles from here, and they told him it can't be done. Soul-winning doesn't work. Soul-winning's a failure. And they were, weren't they, what were they doing? They were polling atheists, seeing what they wanted church to be like. And they said, we need a new church. And they said, we need to gear church to where atheists will like it, to try to reach them where they're at and all this kind of stuff. And he went to this conference, and he walked out of there and said, you know, this isn't right. And he looked, he was looking around, and he saw some advertisement for our church talking about soul-winning. And he said, I came to your church for one reason, to see if soul-winning works. And he showed up here, and he found out soul-winning works because we won his soul. But he sees it work every week because he's out doing the work every week, okay? And thank God for a church that didn't have a defeated attitude that was able to reach him because we had a winning attitude that said it can be done. We can go to a city, you know, like I did five years ago, and start a soul-winning, independent, fundamental Baptist church from scratch, and God will give the increase because he promised to do so. He said, upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. We need to have a winning attitude. I have a lot more points in my sermon, but while we're on the soul-winning point, I want to bring up something that Brother Segura showed me, you know, this way of the master. You know, this is what he's trying to bring into our church. No. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. This way of the master thing, and he's heard of it. Put up your hand. You know, Kirk Camry. It's so popular. It's so big, and it's funny how so many hands go up. Oh, yeah, way of the master. And here's what's funny. I preached against this like two years ago. I preached against way of the master, and here's what I said. I said, I've never seen their show, but I basically preached against it because I knew what it was about because I had heard about it from so many different people, and I got so much criticism. How dare you criticize? You didn't even see it. So Brother Segura sits me down and shows me on the Internet some of their soul-winning videos of Ray Comper, Living Water, Way of the Master. He sits me down and shows me that we had just finished a bunch of successful soul-winning that night, and we, you know, I'm dropping him off. He pulls it up on his iPhone. He's showing me some of the videos, and they have all these tons of videos, scores of videos, and you're not even going to believe this, my friend. You know, I didn't even... You know what? I apologize. Two years ago, I didn't know what I was talking about because it is so much worse than I ever could have even imagined, and I'm making a formal apology right now, you know, for not knowing what I was talking about because we watched this, and at the beginning of it, you know, Kirk Cameron, like, he's all metro'd out, you know, and he gets up at the beginning, and he's going to give... He gives a soul-winning tip. It's like this Living Waters University. He gives a soul-winning tip where he explains to you, now, what you're going to see in this video, this tip on soul-winning, okay? Then the guy Ray Comper, he's in Huntington Beach. He's giving the gospel to somebody, right? Except guess what? The people in the videos never get saved. Never. And, you know, and the person first showed me one after the other. I'm like, does anybody ever get saved? No. Every time is a failed attempt. Oh, watch how he does this. Why? So I can go on and fail? Like, oh, watch how Ray does this. Oh, look at Ray's technique here. How to fail. I mean, give me a break. Why would I want to watch soul-winning videos over and over again where it's just failure, failure, failure, failure? And you know what else I noticed? That they weren't bearing the precious seed at all. We watched several videos. Say, girls, watch them all. Yes. Hey, we watched several videos. None of the videos that we watched was even one Bible verse quoted. Not even one. Not even one. I mean, we're talking, they get the gospel to somebody for 10 or 15 minutes and not even one. Not even one Bible verse came across their lips. They're not bearing the precious seed. They're bearing man's wisdom, man's intellect. They're trying to logic with you, and really they're just badgering people and annoying with intellect and sight. Preach the Word. God's Word is where the power is, Ray Comfort. God's Word is where the power is, Kirk Cameron. Not in your little slick method on how to fail 500 times. Hey, let's watch them fail again. Hey, it's fun to watch people mess up and be a failure. And yet tens of thousands of people watch these videos of just failure, failure, failure. Hey, you want to see some success? Come down to Faithful Word Baptist Church. You say, where's the video? We don't walk around soloing with a video camera and a microphone like Ray Comfort. I'm sorry. Because we're more interested in that person actually being saved than in just making some kind of a show or something. Because people aren't going to be telling the truth when they're on camera with a microphone in their face. They're not going to be themselves. We put the camera away. We go do it every week. You want to see success? Come out with me this afternoon. Come out with anybody in our church, the soul winners of our church, male or female. Go out and see some success by going out and doing the work. It's not a 10-minute video. It's several hours of knocking doors in the sunshine, preaching the gospel to every creature. Not a failure, though, a success. Here's just a tip. Don't ever try to learn something from someone who's a failure. Amen. You think that's funny, but the people whose kids have turned out wrong will always be the first to give you parenting advice. Always. People who have been divorced five times have more marriage advice than you have time to listen to. I'd rather look at somebody who has a good marriage and get their advice and say, What are you doing right? I see people whose children have turned out right. I would go to them and say, What are you doing? Let me get some tips from you of the success. Not the failure. But let's get off soul winning. I don't want the whole sermon to be about soul winning. What about prayer? Look at Matthew chapter 21. Let's get on prayer a little bit. We did soul winning. But you see, the gospel that Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron preaches has no power because number one, it's devoid of God's word. That's why it doesn't have power. But number two, there's another reason why their gospel doesn't have power because it's not even the gospel of faith alone for salvation. It's a gospel of self-reformation and turning over a new leaf and turning from your sins to be saved. And that is not the biblical gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. But in Matthew 21, 21, this is what Jesus said. Having a winning attitude is what I'm talking about in the sermon, but really what we're talking about is having faith. Having faith that God is going to give us the victory. Having faith that God is going to do great things in and through us. It says in Matthew 21, 21, Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, if you have faith and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done. And look at verse 22. And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing ye shall receive. Go to 1 John 3. You see, God is telling us that when we pray, we ought to believe that God is going to answer our prayer. We shouldn't just pray, and many people today don't think that prayer works, quote, unquote. They'll say, oh, praying doesn't change anything. Praying doesn't work. And a lot of people have this Calvinist mentality, like whatever's going to happen is going to happen, and we can't change anything, and we just are along for the ride, this fatalistic attitude, and it's not scriptural because through prayer, we can. We can see God answer us and bless us and do great things for us and change things for us. You remember the parable of the unjust judge? And the woman kept going to the unjust judge over and over again. The judge was not giving her any justice. And finally, the judge who was a wicked man finally just said, you know what? I don't fear God. I don't fear this woman. I don't fear man. He said, I'm a crooked judge, but just because this woman is bugging me so much, I will give her what she wants just because she will not leave me alone. And Jesus told that story, and he said, how much more shall God avenge his elect that cry unto him day and night? How much more your Father in heaven that loves you is going to answer your prayers if you be diligent, if you'll ask in faith, believe in him, if you'll ask in faith, believe in him, he'll do it for you. Look at 1 John 3, verse 19. And hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. Notice that phrase. We have confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. He says, look, we ought to keep God's commandments, do the things that are pleasing in his sight. That's going to give us the confidence to go to God. And many times when we're living a sinful life or we're backslidden, we don't want to talk to God because we're kind of hiding from God because we're embarrassed. Sometimes if we've wronged someone, we avoid that person. Let's say you owe somebody money. You might kind of avoid them. You don't want to see them. Or if you've done something wrong to them, you don't want to face them. And sometimes people can be that way with God where they have a lot of sin in their life and so they just don't feel comfortable as much talking to God. And they don't ask God with the same confidence because they feel like God's going to look at them and say, why should I do that for you? Because you're not keeping my commandments. You're living in sin. And it's true. We'll receive what we need from God if we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. But we ought to keep His commandments. We ought to do the things that are pleasing in His sight and then go to Him with confidence, believing that we have the things that we're asking for. The Bible says, Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. See, you can be at peace when you know that you're living in God's will. None of us is perfect, but at least you're serving God. You're keeping His commandments. You pray unto God and ask Him to do something for you that you need or to give you something you need, not that He'll give you a million dollars or something. Not like my son, you know, where he bought... My son bought a wallet at the thrift store. And the next day, or maybe it was way later that day, he's at home, and he's exploring all the new compartments of his new wallet, and he found a $100 bill in that wallet. You're kidding. That's a prayer. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm not a prosperity preacher. But I'm telling you something. That was pretty amazing. But here's the thing. I'm not saying, God, please help $100 bills to appear in my wallet. That kind of a miracle doesn't always happen. Only for Solomon, right? But the thing is, when we pray for things that really matter, when we pray for things that are according to His will... Look at 1 John 5, for example. Look at 1 John 5 and verse number 14. It says, And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. And if we know that He hear us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him. And let me tell you something. If you're constantly praying and God never answers your prayers, something's wrong. Because God is a prayer-answering God. And if we're doing His commandments, if we're doing the things that are pleasing in His sight, if we're praying to Him and being consistent with it, and if we have faith and believe that God hears us and that He has our petition, we know that either He's going to give it to us or else He's going to give us something better or else maybe we're better off not having it. But we know that He hears us and we know He's going to bless us and do what's best for us. But let me tell you something. If you don't pray, you are not guaranteed that God's going to bless you and that God is going to give you what you need. You're not guaranteed. Because look at James chapter... Even our food. He said, Give us this day our daily bread. God expects us to ask Him to give us our eat. Look at James chapter 4. You say, Well, no, Pastor Anderson. If we pray according to His will, He answers us because He was going to do it anyway because it was already His will. And so it's kind of like this. Somebody said that every time they get in the shower, they pray that the water turns on. Then it turns on and they say that was an answer to prayer. That's not an answer to prayer because the water was going to turn on anyway, wasn't it? I'm not talking about just going through the motions, praying for things that are already going to happen anyway because they're God's will. Look, there are a lot of things that are God's will that aren't happening. But if we pray, God can step in and make those things happen. And look what I'm telling you right here in James chapter 4. It's clear. He says this. Verse 2, Ye lust and have not. Ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. Ye fight in war, yet ye have not because ye have not. He's explaining where a lot of the war in the world comes from. He said it starts out with the warfare that's going on in our body, the lust that war on our members. And it says you have not because you ask not. So it sounds like there are things that God would give me if I would ask. Ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find. Not and it shall be opened unto you. And that's what prayer is. And I think it's interesting. It's kind of funny how it spells ask, seek, not spells at. It's kind of an interesting thing. It's a good way to remember that verse, to help memorize that verse. Ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find. Not and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh, receive it. And everyone that seeketh, findeth. And to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. That's what the Bible says. Look at the next verse. Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lust. So he says, you know, if you're not getting what you need, it's because you're not asking. But he says if you keep asking and not getting it, it's probably because you're asking for something just to consume on your lust. You know, if you're just asking for things to gratify the flesh, that's not God's will for your life and that's not what's best for you. So God's not going to give it to you. But praying can make a big difference in your life. But you've got to pray with confidence. You've got to pray with boldness. You've got to pray believing that God's going to answer you. When you go solely, you expect people to get saved. You expect people to listen. You believe that God has sent you. I mean, let me give you a great example of this. I'm sorry, I keep getting back on soul winning. I try not to, but it's just... I was out soul winning. I was going to go soul winning several weeks ago. And I get in the car, and as I often do, I'm kind of an absent-minded person. You can ask my wife about that, but I just completely zoned out. And next thing I know, I'm just like, where am I? You don't know if I can drive? Yeah, you do. You just start driving. And I parked in the neighborhood, and I thought, okay, here I am. But then I get out of the car, I'm like, where am I? This is not where I'm meant to go. And I looked at my map, and I was supposed to be just on the east side of the 101, and I was just on the west side of the 101. And all the street names are kind of the same. You know how they do. The streets kind of continue to be, but they're not contiguous. And it was really bad traffic, and I was going to get in the car and go to the neighborhood I wanted to go to, but I said, you know what? I'm not going to fight. I don't want to fight that traffic. It's already getting late. I need to get out of here and knock some doors. And I got out of the car, and literally as I started walking through the door, I thought to myself, man, I bet somebody's going to get saved on this street because I thank God, you know, work this out to where I ought to be here. He's leading me, you know? And my wife says that I do that just to excuse my own mistakes in life. Every time I make a mistake or like goof up, or like, you know, mess up the directions, or something breaks, or I'm just like, you know, maybe there's a reason for this, you know? She's like, no, you blew it. No, there's a reason why. It worked out, you know? So I literally believed. I was like, God's leading me. I'll bet you somebody's going to get saved. And, you know, Tempe's not exactly white under harvest in most areas when we go soloing. It's the hardest soloing that we do. It's a lot easier when we're in Phoenix. But I get to the first door, nobody's home. The second door, I'm walking up the driveway, and this guy's walking out the door to leave. So I caught him at just the right time. He's already, you know, if I would have been a few minutes later, we would have been gone. And I talked to this guy, and he got saved, and he was just ready to get saved. He was just totally ripe under harvest. This guy was, he'd had some stuff happen in his life recently, some tragedy, and so he was upset. And he said he'd been thinking a lot about it. He was Catholic, and he didn't know for sure he was going to heaven, and I was able to win him to Christ. You know, because I went out there, and before that happened, I believed that. I believed that God was leading me before that, because that's the attitude I always have. Because I just assume, I mean, think about this now, folks. Most, almost everybody in this room has been soloing before. Most everybody. Most of the men in this room have been with me soloing. You know, we always pray for God to lead us, for God to guide us. I don't know about you, but I expect God to answer that prayer, because I know that's His will. I know that I'm doing His work. I know it's His will. Of course He's going to answer that prayer. And so when I pray that God's going to lead me, I assume that He's leading me, and no matter what happens on that day, I believe, hey, I'm doing God's work. You know, maybe nobody got saved, but maybe God needed those people to get the seed planted. Maybe down the road they'll get saved. Maybe He just wanted to give them a final warning. I don't know what God's doing in their life. But hey, I just believe that God answers me when I pray. And I believe that when I go soloing and do God's work, He's going to lead me to the people that need to hear it the most. I believe that. And so we need to have faith. We need to believe. We need to have confidence. We need to have boldness. And we need to have a winning attitude, not a failing, defeated attitude. Childrearing. Go to Proverbs 22. I've just got a few more quick points here. And really, you can apply this to any area of life. I'm making spiritual applications this morning. I'm applying it to things like soloing, prayer, rearing your children. But you know what? This will help you on your job, too, by the way. You know, I remember hearing the owner of the company I used to work for say this. He said, I really like so-and-so, the employee, because he comes to me with solutions, not problems. You know, and there are those employees, and you know you work with them, that everything, it can't be done. Everything on the job. Who knows what I'm talking about? You know, where you're on the job, they come to you, and it's like, oh, man, this isn't going to work. It's not going to work. Or here's why it's not going to work. Or we're going to fail. Or we're not going to get this done. I don't think we're going to get this done in time. And then there are other people who say, well, no, let's try this. No, I don't think it's going to work. Let's try this. Let's do it. No, we're going to get this done. Come on, let's hurry up. I think we can get it done today. We can make this work. It's two attitudes, my friend. There's the winning attitude and the defeated attitude. And biblically, we need to have a winning attitude. We need to believe and have faith and confidence and boldness that we're on the victory side, that we can do all things through Christ which strengthened me. And I get tired of an I can't mentality. Pastors that have it, churches that have it. I've heard pastors say this. Well, we'll get them in a minute. Go to child rearing. Where are you at? Proverbs 22. Look at Proverbs 22.6. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Now, isn't that a great promise from God? Amen. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he's old, he will not depart from it. Look at chapter 23, verse 13. It says in Proverbs 23, 13, withhold not correction from the child for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shall deliver his soul from hell. Now, according to these scriptures that we just read, do we have an influence on how our children turn out? We do, don't we? He said train up a child in the way he should go and when he's old, he will not depart from it. He said if we will spank the child, if we will correct the child and discipline the child as believers, he said you'll deliver his soul from hell. At least he'll be saved. Because, by the way, children who don't get spanked, you know why they usually are going to go to hell? Because they think that there's no punishment for their actions. They don't even believe in hell. I don't believe God would punish it. That's because their mom and dad didn't punish anybody. And not everybody who gets spanked is going to be saved, but you know what? If we're believers, if we're Christians, and we're teaching them the Gospel, preaching on it, and we're also disciplining them, and we're also training them right, not just a one-sided discipline only, but also a training and a nurturing. The Bible tells us to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We know that we can succeed as parents. Not just, well, we roll the dice and see how the kids turn out, cross our fingers and hope for the best. That is a false doctrine that's taught by people whose kids are all living for the devil. That's who teaches that doctrine. We do have an influence on how our children... He said, well, Pastor Anderson, that's easy for you to say. None of your children are old and grown. But you know what? Do you really have to physically see my children before you believe this doctrine, or can you just believe it because the Bible said it? Amen. I don't have to see my children turn out right to believe this verse. I already believe it. And when my children turn out right, it'll just be proof of something that I already knew. Now, I want to say this, though. Don't get me wrong. Every human being has free will in their life, don't they? People make decisions. Let me give you a perfect example. King David. Now, do you think that King David's parents raised him right? Absolutely. I mean, Jesse was obviously a great parent. He raised his children right. If you look at how his other children turned out, did you know that they turned out right, too? If you look at Jesse's other children, David's brothers, even though they were kind of mouthing off to him about David and Goliath, that whole thing. No. Just because they pick on each other. Because later, did you know that David had a lot of his brothers in key government positions in his government? And they were great warriors and great leaders, and they were godly men. And then there were a lot of women in David's family that grew up that were godly. Remember Zeruiah and she had some sons that were godly sons? Okay. And so we see that David was raised right. We see that he was a godly man, a man after God's own heart, a great man. Now, does that make him immune from falling into sin? No. He did commit adultery in the situation with Bathsheba, and he did have Uriah killed. So he did do a very wicked thing at a backslidden point in his life. But overall, would you say that he was a godly and righteous person or a wicked, ungodly person? Overall, he was a righteous person. He was saved. He was a great god. The Bible says in Acts that he served his own generation well when God looked over the whole picture. Yes, he had a major failure and mistake in his life. Yes, it was a wicked sin that caused him and the people around him to suffer. But he still grew up and did what was right for God. You know, I look at my parents. Were my parents the perfect parents? No, but they raised us right. They raised us children right. We were disciplined properly. We were brought to good churches. They preached unto us the right biblical doctrines and teachings. And you know what? I can honestly say that me and all three of my siblings are all living for God today. We all go to independent Baptist churches in all different parts of the... You know, I'm here. My sister's in Texas. My other sister's in Sacramento. My brother's in Sacramento. All of us go to independent Baptist churches. All of us pay our bills. All of us are somewhat successful in life. Does that mean that we haven't done anything wrong? Does that mean that none of us four have gone through different periods of being backslidden or going into sin? That's not the point. We all turned out right. My parents are proud of all four of us. Have we made mistakes? Sure. Have some of the siblings made more mistakes than others? You know, I'll leave that for someone else to judge. You know, that's not the point. It doesn't matter. All four of us turned out right on the whole. Okay? Why? Because we were raised right. And again, I'm not ripping or criticizing on someone's child-rearing. A lot of times you hear this kind of preaching too late. You know what I mean? And so I'm not criticizing you if your children are wayward and so forth because sometimes you hear this kind of preaching too late. Maybe you got saved later in life or maybe you didn't really start, you know, living for the Lord till later in life. But look, you say, why are you preaching this? It just makes people mad. And this kind of preaching does make people mad because maybe their children have turned out wrong. But the reason that I'm preaching this is because it's very important for those who have young children. That's what I'm talking to. I'm not talking about people who made mistakes in the past. Move on. You know, just forgetting those things are behind, reaching forth under those things which are before. You know, sometimes you learn the mistakes of child-rearing. You learn too late. You know, you get in a good church too late and so forth. But I'm preaching to those who have young children because it's very important that you have a winning attitude when it comes to raising your children. Because many people are running scared. They're scared that their children aren't going to turn out right and therefore they don't parent right. Because parenting takes the boldness to draw the line in the sand, to have strict rules, you know, to enforce those rules, to spank your child. And so many people, I've seen them get nervous when their children are teenagers, like, oh, I'm afraid they're going to leave. I'm afraid they're going to go out, whatever. And they'll start to back up. They'll start to let down the guard. And they'll basically let their children do whatever because they want to be their buddy, because they're afraid that they're going to go off and whatever. But you'll notice in the story of the prodigal son, there were the two brothers, right? One of them stayed behind and did what he was supposed to do. He followed his dad's rules. He was a good guy, right? Remember how the other son, he grew up and said, Dad, give me the portion of the substance that belongs to me. I'm going to go out and just live it up and blow all the money. And what did he do? He went and blew all his money, wasted all his money, wasted his substance. Now, look, the dad never backed down. He said, okay, that's what you want to do. Get out of here. He didn't sit there and say, oh, no, son, why don't you just live that riotous lifestyle and stay home here? Because I'll tell you right now, my ch... You know, I pray to God that all my children grow up to be greater Christians than I am. And I believe that they will. I believe that every single one of my children will grow up and do greater things than I will. That's what I believe. I want them to have a double portion of my spirit. But you know what? You see the father there, not relaxing the rules and saying, well, I'll just let them... You know, okay, we'll let them bring in the filthy television and the movies and the rock and roll and all the weirdo friends and stuff like that. You know, because otherwise, you know, we don't want to just scare them off and then we'll go run off and do it anyway. No, you stand your ground. You believe that your treating is going to pay off. And you stand for what's right and you do what's right and you don't back down when it comes to what's right. And you see that the prodigal son, he spent a brief sojourn in sin, but he came to himself and was right back at home. He still had the consequences of his actions, but he was back at home doing what was right for the rest of his life. You know, that's the moral of the story. So not to say that we don't have free will. Did my parents raise me right? Absolutely. So if I, after I'm already grown up at age 29, go out and commit some wicked sin, is that their fault at this point? No. Because they raised me right, we can all fall into sin. He said, let him that thinketh he stand and take heed lest he fall. If David can go into sin, we need to be on our guard all the time. If David was not on his guard properly. So what I'm saying is, we need to have the confidence that, you know, for example, I have five children, my sixth is on the way. I have the confidence that they will all turn out right, that they will all be trained upright, that they will all be delivered from hell, they will all be saved, and they will all grow up and live for God. I believe that. And I hope that none of them are foolish enough or stupid enough to spend that brief sojourn in the world to have to go and test it out. And that's what a lot of it is. They grow up in a Christian home and they want, oh, let me go test it out. It's not worth it. It's a fraud. This whole party life, this drunken lifestyle, this fornicating lifestyle, there's nothing there. It's a fraud. It's all fake. Don't be so foolish, children. I'm not just speaking to my children. All teenagers and kids listen to me right now. The world has nothing to offer. It's all a facade and it's empty behind it. There's nothing there. And don't go out and figure that out for yourself. Take our word for it. And I thank God that I didn't have to go drink to figure out, you know, I've never drunk a beer in my life, and I thank God that I didn't have to go test out drunkenness for myself and experiment with drugs. And I remember a guy tried to tell my dad. He said, if your kids are going to experiment with drugs, it's normal. Because, you know, my dad said train up a child the way he should go when he's old enough for it. You know, none of my siblings have been on drugs. You know, thank God. No, I don't expect my children to go experiment with drugs and get drunk and fornicate. No, I expect them to live a clean and godly life. And that's what you have to expect as a parent. And don't set the bar so low as a parent, is what I'm saying. Have a winning attitude that doesn't say, well, I think I hope my children might turn out decent. You know, at least maybe they can just not get strung out on drugs, you know. At least maybe they can just have a job. That's not my goal for my children, that they just have a job. I want my children to be the greatest preachers and soul winners and godly men and women and business people. Not business people. See how brainwashed we are? Business men and housewives and mothers. See how brainwashed we are? Business people. I'm disgusted with myself. My parents didn't raise me right. Anyway, next point. I got to close, I'm almost out of time. But look at 2nd Thessalonians chapter 3. Talking about having a winning attitude. Get your parenting, have a winning attitude. Set the bar high. Try to raise great people, not just mediocre, oh I'm just scared to death, they're going to go run out and go to a crack house or something. You know, of course that's not going to happen. You're training them right, you're spanking them, you're preaching to them, you've got them in church and you're reading the Bible to them and you love them and you spend time with them, of course they're going to turn out right. That's my attitude. And it's a winning attitude. And people who expect to win, they win. You could apply this idea at work. We talked about work. Even in sports, everybody knows this is true. When you're on your home field and everybody's cheering for you, you're more likely to win. Isn't that the truth? It's the home court advantage. Because the cheering, and it's motivating you to think, yes, we are going to win. Rah, rah, shish kum hai. I'm not really into sports. But the winning attitude. You know, when the team is winning, it seems like they develop a momentum, right? Where they just keep getting better and better. You know, and the losing team just starts getting a defeated attitude, they're going to fail. I've never really been into sports, so I don't know what I'm talking about. But when it comes to sports, I've done boxing. I did kickboxing for a long time. And you know, a big part of boxing is intimidation. If you can intimidate the opponent and get them scared, they're not going to fight as effectively as if they think they're going to win. They're going to do better. And it's that way in anything. Expect to succeed. Expect to win. Why? Because God is on our side. Why wouldn't we expect to win? Right? But look at 2 Thessalonians 3. When it comes to, this is more preaching to myself here. Pastoring. A lot of pastors don't have a winning attitude. They have a defeated attitude. Look at 2 Thessalonians 3. Look what Paul said. And we have confidence in the Lord touching you that He will do and will do the things which we command you. Now here's a guy who preached the word of God, Apostle Paul. He expected people to listen to what he preached and to do it. He said, Well, yeah. I have confidence that you will do the things that we command you here for the Bible. Philippians 1, 6. You don't have to turn there. It says, Be confident of this very thing, Paul said, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. I'm not going to read all these for the second time, but in 2 Corinthians 1, 2 Corinthians 2, 7, 8, all these places in one epistle, he said, I have confidence in you. I know you're going to serve God. I know you're going to do great things for God. And you see, pastors need to get up to date with confidence in themselves and confidence in their church that we will win the victory, that we will reach this city with the Gospel of Christ. Not a defeated attitude. Just, I need to get my people to go soul winning. How do we do it? How do we do it? How do we do it at Faithful Word? Why are there so many people who go out soul winning every week? Why? Because we're excited about it. Because we have a winning attitude. Of course I expect people to hear this preaching and get all fired up and want to go out soul winning. Of course they will. Are you kidding? It's God's word to be preached. But today, pastors are afraid to preach what the Bible says because they don't have confidence that people can receive it. They're afraid to get up and preach hard on sin. Oh, my people couldn't handle that. I mean, if I had a nickel for every time I heard about it, well, I don't think my people are ready for that. I don't think my people... I think before the sermon I'm going to start asking, are you ready for this? Can you handle this? Can you handle this preaching? Care whether you're ready for it? You better get ready for it because it's coming at you like a freight train, so you better get ready for it. Care if you're ready? But you know, I don't think my people are ready. And really it's just an insult to their people. You know, I look at this church, I don't see a bunch of losers. I don't look out over this crowd and just say, oh, what a bunch of losers. Is there some speaking engagement where I can go preach to people that matter? Seriously, I mean, you got pastors here, they're preaching all over America and skipping their own church a couple times a month. They'll skip out on preaching in their own church to go preach at the other end of the rainbow to some real human, real great Christians. This is the greatest group of Christians I'm preaching to right now. Where do you think I want to preach this morning? Here. Here! I want to go preach at some other church somewhere, and oh, in this other city, this big thriving church. This is the thriving church right here. These are the people I want to preach to. There's nobody more important to me than the people who are sitting in this room. That's who I'm preaching to right now. And I don't look out at you and think, oh, these bunch of losers, they're always going to be a mediocre Christian, so I guess I'll just kind of spoon feed them where they're at. No, I'm looking at you saying, wow, you guys are great! You guys love this, right? You love it! Yeah! You know, you're like, no, I don't. You love hard preaching, right? I mean, I can't preach too hard for you guys. I mean, I'll say something that I think is going to offend you, and you'll love it. Hey, man, I've got to come up with something new. I can't rip hard enough. And you know what? That's literally what I think. You're like, that's why he preaches like that. But literally, I have confidence in you. I look at you, and even if you're new to church, or even if you just got saved, I look at you and I see the great Christian that you could be. And I assume that you're going to be. I mean, whenever somebody quits the church, I'm always surprised. I'm not surprised when people join the church. Of course they'll join. Well, I'm just shocked that this place doesn't have thousands of people in it right now. It shocks me every day. Because I expect to win. And don't come to this church with an attitude of, well, you can't grow big if you preach right. That's a bunch of garbage. This church can get as big as we want to get, period. God is not limited. There are four million people in this city. Don't tell me there's some limitation here. Well, you know, we've just got to hold fast to the end here. And you've got to choose between growing and preaching right. No, we can preach right and grow. We can succeed without compromising. And we're already proving that, because we started out with nothing. You say, oh, your church is getting smaller. How could our church be getting smaller when we started with just me? Unless I have an appendage cut off of my body, this church is growing. But you know what? Honestly, in the last two months, we've had the best attendances in the history of our church. In 2010, our attendances are way up. And guess what? In 2009, they were up from 2008. And in 2008, they were up from 2007. Because our church is always growing. Why? Because we're not in this to fail. We're in this to win. Now, if our church doesn't grow, are we going to change the preaching? No. But we don't have to change the preaching to grow. We can preach it straight down the line and still grow. And we can thrive and win souls and do great things for God. We are on the winning side. If we're not defeated, we're going to win. Amen. And we don't have to sit there and compromise and say, well, you know, I don't know if this is really going to work. Of course it's going to work. Why wouldn't it work? We're doing what God said. And that's the attitude that I want to see in this church. That's the attitude that I strive to have in my own mind. You know what else is interesting, too? Recently on a Sunday, when we had a really packed out attendance on a Sunday morning, which we've been packed a lot lately all the time. But we had a really packed Sunday morning not too long ago. And I sat down and listed every person who was there. And literally, you're not going to believe this, our church has been around for almost five years. We're coming up on our five-year anniversary on December 25th. And we started from scratch, my friend. I didn't even get to town until December 22nd. I sat down and listed every person who was in that service and literally almost to the man, almost to the number, one-fifth of the people in that service were from 2006, started coming in 06. One-fifth started coming in 07. One-fifth started coming in 08. One-fifth started coming in 09. One-fifth started coming in 2010. It literally was almost exact. God is consistently blessing our church through the years, through thick and thin. And let me tell you something. We are on the winning side. We are pressing on the upward way, new heights we're gaining every day. But in your personal life, this is the attitude you need to have, a winning attitude, a successful attitude that says, I can. I can makes a great man. Not an I can't. Oh, here's all the adversaries. Here's all the problems. He said, man, it's a great job. Yeah, there's the adversaries. But, man, look at the great door that's open. That was Paul's mentality. And let's focus on what we can do, not what we can't do. And what can we do? All things through Christ we strengthen as us. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much, dear God, for your word and for the promises that we can believe. That's where the confidence comes from. That's where the winning attitude comes from, the promises of your word that tell us we're going to win and tell us we're going to succeed, dear God. Please just help us to do your will, to keep your commandments so that you can bless us. Help us to get on our knees and pray like we've never prayed before so that we can see you answer our prayers in a great way. We love you, and in Jesus' name we pray.