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

Man, Galatians chapter number six, the part that I want to start in is there in verse number seven, where the Bible reads, Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever man soweth that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. And the title of my sermon tonight is Reaping Where You Sow. Reaping Where You Sow. You see, the areas in your life where you sow a lot of seed are the places where you're going to reap a great harvest. You're gonna reap what you sow, and you're gonna reap where you sow. And if you would flip over to 2 Corinthians chapter number nine, 2 Corinthians chapter number nine. In the famous passage I just read from Galatians 6, the Bible said, Whatsoever man soweth that shall he also reap. One example of this he brings out is in regard to salvation. You know, the Bible says that if we sow to the flesh, of the flesh we're gonna reap corruption, whereas if we sow to the Spirit, we will of the Spirit reap life everlasting. You see, life everlasting, everlasting life being saved, is not something that is reaped through fleshly works or through a carnal investment or a carnal sowing of seeds of good things that we've done. Being saved is spiritual. You know, the Bible says, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. So it's the Holy Spirit that quickens us through the Word of God when we put our faith in the Word of God. We put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. It's not something that we work toward and then reap some kind of a reward of being saved because of the works that we did in the flesh. Rather, it is of the salvation is of the Spirit. It's of the faith and our spirit in our heart that we put on Christ. And then the Bible says, Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not as we have therefore opportunity. Let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. So when we do well, we're gonna reap good things in those areas. Now, what I want to say, when it comes to many areas in our life, you're gonna get out of things what you put into them. Okay, look if you would at second Corinthians chapter nine verse six. But this I say, He would sow it sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he would sow it bountifully shall reap also bountifully. So no matter what the area of life we're talking about, no matter what part of the Christian life we're talking about, if you sow sparingly, you're gonna reap sparingly, meaning that if you only put a little bit into something, you're only gonna get a little bit out of it. And if you put a lot into something, you're gonna get a lot out of it. Now in this immediate context, this is talking about giving financially. It says in verse seven, every man according as he purposed in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. And if you study these two chapters, second Corinthians eight and nine, it has to do with, first of all, giving unto the poor, you know, giving of your finances to relieve the poor. And it also had to do with giving toward the Apostle Paul's ministry and providing his financial needs and his meat and drink that he needed to do the work of God. And, you know, he's basically saying that if they sow sparingly, meaning that they just give a little bit, then they're only gonna reap a little bit, okay? The Bible says, of course, give and it shall be given unto you. Now, this is not like a prosperity preaching kind of a televangelist, you know, put your hand on the screen and if you send in $100, you're gonna get $1,000. If you send in $10,000, you're gonna get $100,000. Obviously, we don't believe in that. That's not biblical. But the Bible does teach that when we give of the treasures that we have and when we give that to the Lord, or when we give unto the poor, the Bible says we're giving it to the Lord. When we do that, the Bible does teach that God will bless us and reward us and pour out his blessings upon us. But obviously, if we gave some tiny amount, God's not just gonna send us some major blessing. You know, when you think about the widow's might who cast in all that she had, that's why she received a great blessing because she cast in all that she had. I mean, she gave a lot. So how much you give is not necessarily a dollar amount as much as relative to what you have, what you've been blessed with. You know, for a very wealthy person to give a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars might be no big deal. But for somebody, it might be a huge deal to give $20. And then God would look at that as someone really sacrificially giving and really digging deep and being a cheerful giver. And God is gonna bless them and give them all sufficiency in all things. And if they sow bountifully like that, they're gonna reap bountifully the blessings. But it's like this in all areas of life, not just with giving. How about soul winning? Go to Psalm 126. We talked a lot about soul winning this morning and fulfilling the Great Commission. You're gonna get out of soul winning what you put into soul winning. You put a little bit of effort into soul winning, you're only gonna reap a little bit of a result. You put a lot of effort into soul winning, you're gonna reap a great effort. You're gonna get out of life what you put into life. And whatever you put into soul winning, that's what you're gonna get out of it. Look at Psalm 126 verse five. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with them. So bringing sheaves is talking about reaping a harvest. Sheaves are a bundled grain that's already been harvested and then carried in. So he says when you go out bearing precious seed, of course, we know the seed is the Word of God. You go out preaching the Word of God, you go out preaching the gospel, you're knocking doors, you're soul winning. The Bible says if you do that, weeping, he said you will doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing your sheaves with you. So if you put a lot of effort into it, obviously, somebody who's weeping is they care about it. You know, they're not just going through the motions, they're actually putting some effort and work and struggle into it. He said you'll doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing your sheaves with you. This just goes to show that anybody who says that soul winning is a failure is a liar. You know, we talked about this morning, people who say, Oh, I tried soul-winning and it didn't work. Well, then either you're lying or this verse is lying. Because this verse says that you will doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing your sheaves with you. If you're sowing the precious seed here, the Word of God, you cannot fail at soul-winning or God's a liar. Now, maybe you'll fail if you go for 30 minutes and then quit. Okay, then all bets are off because if you sow sparingly, you're going to reap sparingly. But if you actually put forth great effort and toil and hours and hours of work, you will reap in due season if you faint not. That's why we shouldn't be weary in well-doing. We shouldn't be weary in soul-winning. We'll reap in due season if we faint not. Sometimes the reaping process might take a little while, but you will get out of things what you put into them. Go to Matthew chapter seven. Another thing that you'll get out of it, what you put into it, you're going to reap what you sow in the area of prayer. How much effort you put into praying, how much time, how much energy you put into praying, that's what you're going to get back out of it. Look at Matthew chapter seven, verse seven, the Bible reads, ask and it shall be given you. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you whom if his son asked bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he asked a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him. You can receive good things through prayer, but you're only going to get out of it what you put into it. Go to James chapter four. You're only going to reap where you've sown. And if you pray just a little bit, you're going to get just a little bit of answer to your prayer. And if you pray a lot, you're going to get a lot of answer to your prayer because you're going to reap where you've sown. Look at James chapter four verse one. From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence even of your lust that war in your members? Ye lust and have not, ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain, ye fight and war, yet ye have not because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your lust. Right there he said you have not because you ask not. So the more asking we do, the more we're going to have, the more we're going to receive, the more answer we're going to get through prayer. Now go to Ezra chapter number seven. Ezra chapter number seven. Another area where we're going to get out of it what we put into it is the area of Bible reading. If you just do a little bit of Bible reading, you're not going to get much out of it. If you do a lot of Bible reading, you're going to get a lot out of it. You know, you sometimes will hear people talk or maybe you'll listen to a preacher and think, wow, that guy really knows the Bible well. He knows a lot of Bible. Well, the reason why he knows a lot of Bible is because he invested a lot of time and energy into learning the Bible. And if you would make that same investment, you would reap that same harvest. You're going to get into, you're going to get out of Bible reading exactly what you put into it. And if you put five minutes into it, don't expect to get some huge return on your investment. You know, it'd be like if you were investing in the stock market, which I don't believe in don't recommend, but let's say you were going to invest in the stock market. And let's say you find the hottest stock that there is. And you just know that this sucker is going to go up. You put five bucks on it. I don't care how much that stock goes up. You're not going to make a lot of money. You only put down $5. Even if it doubles, you made five bucks. Even if it quadruples, you made what? 20 bucks. I mean, if the thing is a hunt with 100 times when I bought it. Oh, wow. $500 because you only invested five bucks. Okay. So if you want a big return, you got to make a big investment. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And if you're going to sit there and invest five minutes into Bible reading, I don't care how good your Bible reading plan is. You're only going to get five minutes worth out of it. And the guy who you hear talk and it seems like the Bible is just flowing out of his mouth and he's constantly quoting scripture and he knows exactly where to turn. And you can refer to any Bible story. He knows exactly what you're talking about. That's because that guy has spent hundreds of hours reading his Bible, period. That's the only way to get like that. And look at Ezra chapter 7 verse 6. I really like this verse. It says this Ezra went up from Babylon and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses. You know, this is back in the Old Testament. That was their main scripture was the law of Moses, right? And it says he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given. And the king granted him all his requests according to the hand of the Lord is God upon him. You see this guy Ezra had spent a lot of time preparing for the work that God had for him by studying his Bible. Therefore, he's a ready scribe in the law of Moses. And because he was ready and because he studied the Bible so much, God just opens doors for him. It's really a great story because everywhere he goes, everything just works. I mean, doors just open. Everybody's helping him. All the co-workers and co-laborers just materialize and everybody just comes to him and rallies to him. And he has favor with the king and everything just works out great. Why? Because God's hand was upon him, the Bible says. Why? Because he was a ready scribe, because there's always a prepared place for a prepared person. We don't need to worry too much about where the opportunities are for us in our future of serving God as much as just being ready. If we'll get ready, the opportunities will be there. It's that simple. Now, today we don't have a lack of opportunities at Faith Forward Baptist Church. We don't have a lack of opportunities across America or across this world. What we have a lack of are ready scribes. That's what we lack today. And people say, hey, why don't you start a church here? Hey, can you start a church here? Can you start a church? I'll tell you why. Because we got a whole bunch of preacher boys. We got a whole bunch of guys who say, here am I, send me, I want to start a church. Hey, how many times you read through the Bible cover to cover? Three. That's the problem. I'm not going to send somebody out to start a church who's read the Bible three times. That's the problem. You want to know why we're not starting a church in a different city every month? You want to know why we're not just having ordination after ordination after ordination. And you're thinking, what about this guy? What about this guy? What about this guy? I'll tell you why. This is why this number right here. And even worse, sometimes this number is the problem. And you know, I don't like this number either. I don't like this number either. See, my minimum number is this number. And this isn't a crazy number, people. There's nothing crazy about this number here. I'm not going to ordain people that haven't read the Bible this many times. And for those that might just be listening to this and not watching it, I'm holding up ten fingers right now, okay? I'm telling you that people today, they don't want to put anything into it, but then they want to get everything out of it. I mean, how can you expect to know the Bible well if you haven't read it cover to cover? Ten times. If you're going to be a preacher. Now look, if you're a layman and you're reading the Bible cover to cover once a year, God bless you. That's great. You know, I'm glad that you're reading the Bible cover to cover. You're way ahead of most Christians if you're reading the Bible cover to cover on a yearly basis. That's great. That's wonderful, okay? But you want to be a preacher. You want to be a pastor. I mean, that's a pretty, it's a pretty big responsibility, you know, where you don't want to lead people astray. You don't want to make mistakes. You don't want to preach things that are false. And so you really need to know your stuff. And I think that preachers should study as much of the Bible as a lawyer with study of the law or as a doctor with study of medicine or as an engineer with study of engineering and mathematics and physics. Listen to me. I believe that what I'm doing is more important than any of those things. And it's not because I'm full of myself. It's because this book matters and God matter and all glory be unto Jesus Christ. It's not to lift myself up. It's to say that the job that I'm doing is the important job because it's spiritual. It's not saving a life physically in an ER. It's saving souls from hell. I mean, it's important. And people listen to me and they're going to go to heaven if they get the true gospel for me. Or if I were to preach lies that could cause people to go to hell. Or if I teach correctly on soul winning, you know, that could lead to many people being saved out on soul winning. Or if I get up and preach a wrong soul winning or foolish methods of soul winning or unbiblical things about soul winning, you know, that could cause a whole bunch of people to not get the gospel. And if I preach wrong on marriage, people could get divorced and have their lives ruined because I didn't preach biblical marriage advice. You know, or if I what if I preach wrong on child rearing and then people's kids grow up and go to the devil? I mean, there's a lot at stake. It really matters what's preached. It really matters what the doctrine is. It really matters what we believe. And so I better know what I'm talking about. I better study to show myself approved unto God as a pastor. It's not just me, every pastor, every pastor has a job that's more important than the president of the United States. It's true. And I don't care if that offends you or not, because you know what? God told Jeremiah the prophet. He said, I've set you above kings. Why? Because the spiritual need is the greatest need and the spiritual battle is the greatest battle. And God's business is the greatest business that there is. And we must be about the father's business. And so being a pastor is not something to take lightly. It's a big responsibility. So why would I let some lawyer study the law for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and be able to cite all the case history and cite all the precedents? And why would I let some doctors spend eight years of training and interning and reading books and memorizing things? And then I'm just going to read the Bible for 1015 minutes and say, Oh, this is my my pathway to pastoring a church. I'm reading the Bible 15 minutes a day. It doesn't make any sense. If you believe it's now maybe you don't think it's important. Maybe you think that the important people in this world are the doctors, the lawyers, the politicians, and that pastors are just sort of somewhere between a fast food worker and a garbage collector. So I mean, I don't know, maybe that's what you think. But you know, I happen to think it's a pretty important job and that people should put that much training into it. And if you want to be a pastor, and if you want to be ordained at Faithful Word Baptist Church, you better take that preparation seriously. And you better treat it like, Hey, I'm a spiritual lawyer here, right? Because I'm interpreting the laws of God. And I'm a spiritual doctor, because I'm here to cure the sickness of sin. And I'm here to resurrect the dead with the gospel of Jesus Christ and quicken that dead spirit. And I'm a spiritual leader and a spiritual ruler. Because those that are in the house of God as pastors should rule, rule well, the Bible says. Then why don't you put the preparation into it that those professions put into their professions and put the same type of effort and treat it with the same seriousness? If you were going after that type of a worldly career, why don't you put that effort into this instead of just wanting to put 15 or 20? Oh, it's just too strict, too high of a requirement. I mean, how many I don't know how many hours do you think that these people study a day, these lawyers and doctors and I mean, they must put in hours every day, right? They've got to. Okay, well, can we put a couple hours into the Bible? Because you're going to be a preacher? Put a few hours into it. You know, why don't you settle in and get comfortable and do some serious Bible reading, serious study. Be a ready scribe, and then I guarantee you, God will open all kinds of doors for you. And all kinds of opportunities will manifest themselves if you're prepared. But you have to put something into it. You have to put in the time and the effort and the work into Bible reading and then you're going to get out of it. Knowledge, wisdom, understanding, the hand of God upon you, opportunities and doors being open for you. That's what you'll get out of it. Now that's for the preachers, okay? But even just for the man, woman, boy and girl that's in church tonight, that's not a preacher, just the layman, just the tradesman, just the godly, soul winning Christian. You know what? You need the word of God too, because you need it for all things pertaining to life and godliness. You need to know how to go about your job. You need to know how to abstain from sin. You need to know how to have a good marriage, how to raise your children, how to manage your money, how to do all the things that the Bible can teach you. And so you need to put some effort. If you want to get a lot of wisdom out of it, you got to put a lot of time and effort into it and do some serious Bible reading. Not only that, but child rearing. Go to Deuteronomy chapter 6. You see, what I'm preaching on tonight is that any area of life you're going to get out of it what you put into it. And you can't just expect to just barely sow a tiny seed in any of these areas and then expect some big increase and then you're surprised when you don't receive the great reaping that you expect. You know, the Bible says if you sow sparingly, you're going to reap sparingly. So, you know, if you give financially some tiny amount, you know, you're going to get a tiny reward or a tiny benefit or blessing from that. If you do a tiny amount of soul winning, don't be surprised if you barely have anybody saved, if at all, because you barely put anything into it. You know, prayer, if it's just a quick little, dear Jesus, thank you for this food. Amen. Now I lay me down to sleep. You know, you're probably not going to get much out of that as if you were to do some real serious, earnest, heartfelt praying where you're actually talking to God and not just doing a vain repetition. You actually speak to God and ask Him for specific things and make your supplication unto Him. You know, the more you put into prayer, the more you're going to get out of it. And there's a lot you can get out of prayer because God has a lot of blessings that He wants to bestow on us. But we have not because we ask not. Bible reading, you're going to get out of it what you put into it. You know, you need to put some effort into it if you want to really learn the deep things of God. But not only that, child rearing. You know, you're going to get out of it what you put into it. Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 6 says, And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently, diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. You see, you're going to get out of child rearing what you put into it. You see, if you just neglect your children, ignore your children, just stick them in front of the TV, stick them on the full bus, and send them off to be raised by somebody else, or stick them in the daycare, stick them in the school. You're not spending time with them. You're not taking them to church. You're not reading the Bible to them. You're not praying with them. You're not teaching them anything. You know what? You can't be surprised when your children don't turn out the way you want them to, because you're only going to get out of it what you put into it. Homeschooling. You're going to get out of it what you put into it. You know, homeschooling is only as good as the homeschooler. See, there are people out there that will say, oh, homeschooling is terrible, and they'll give you examples of children who came out of homeschooling, and they don't know anything. They can hardly read. They can hardly do basic math. They're behind years of their grade level of their peers in public school. But then other people that come out of homeschooling come out way ahead of the curve, and they're advanced in math, advanced in English, advanced in all subjects. Why? Because it depends on how much seed was sown. It depends on how much work was put into it. You see, homeschooling is something that can either be done well, poorly, or not at all. I mean, there are people who say, oh, we homeschool. They don't really even homeschool. I mean, they just, like, put a coloring box on them, and then they just, like, put a coloring box on them, and then they just, like, put a coloring box on them, and then they just, like, put a coloring book in front of their kid every once in a while and hand it some crayons and call that homeschooling or something, or put them in front of some educational TV show or something and say, oh, yeah, they're homeschooled. You know, and they're not actually sitting down and going through. You know, like, my wife went through, and she explained about teaching how to read through phonics. I mean, that's it. Some people might have seen that and thought, like, whoa, that's a lot of work. Yeah, no kidding. It takes effort. It takes time. It takes discipline. But if you continue, you will reap in due season if you faint not. Child rearing, it takes diligence, diligently teaching the word of God unto your children. And by the way, taking them to church is not enough. Taking them to church is part of the equation, but you need to also on a daily basis speak of the word of God, diligently teach the word of God to your children. Your marriage is another area where you're going to get out of it what you put into it. You know, if you don't put any effort into your marriage, don't be surprised if you have a bad marriage. If you're not putting effort into spending time with your spouse, if you're not making the effort to get along and please your spouse and make sure that they're getting what they need out of this relationship, whether you're the husband or the wife, if you're not going to invest of your heart and soul and mind and strength into your marriage, if your marriage is not a priority, then don't be surprised if you have a bad marriage because marriage takes work. Marriage is not something that just automatically falls away. You know when you're a teenager, you think marriage is going to be easy, right? And you see maybe your parents struggling with marriage and you see other people who struggle with marriage and you just kind of laugh at that and just think, oh, man, when I get married, it's going to be a piece of cake. And you got it all figured out and it's going to be so easy. And really all of the single feel this way. You know, that marriage is so easy. I remember that this one guy piped up one time and just said, I don't understand what the big deal is. You know, there are married people, we're talking about marriage issues and things. And this guy piped up one time and he said, you know, I don't understand what the big deal is because, I mean, it's just so simple in Scripture. I mean, just, you know, husbands love your wives, you know? Why? He said, that's it. Case closed. This same guy got married and was divorced in a couple months after getting married. You know, why? Because it's, no, it's actually not that simple. It actually takes effort. It actually takes work, okay? Now here's a good Scripture on this, Ecclesiastes chapter 10, you don't have to turn there. Ecclesiastes chapter 10 verse 18 says, by much slothfulness, the building decayeth and through idleness of the hands, the house droppeth through. So you can move into a house where everything's nice, everything's working but if you never replace anything and you never fix anything, it will deteriorate over time, okay? So the teenager looks at marriage and they look at the nice, brand new home that they walk into where all the paint is fresh and the carpet's been freshly laid and they think to themselves, piece of cake, this is easy, what's the big deal? Home ownership's a piece of cake. Okay, then the water heater goes out, then the plumbing starts to leak, then the roof and then you start having the termite problems and then the mold and the dry rot, right? And the thing starts crumbling and it gets infested and the thing is just breaking down and the windows are drafty and the doors are drafty and the weather stripping gets brittle and decay and air is coming in to the doors and you can't retain the heat in the winter and you can't retain the cool and the stuff and then the air conditioning breaks down and it's $5,000 for the new air conditioning unit and the plumbing is breaking and then the drain gets clogged up. Oh, no problem, just a little roto-rooter, you know, just a little $49 rooted out or whatever until you find out that, oh, it's the roots from the trees. The roots from the trees have stabbed through your plumbing pipes of your drain and now they're blacked out. So now we have to dig up your sidewalk, dig up the backyard, dig up the driveway and dig down, replace all that pipe because of tree roots and, you know, once we lay it all down, guess what's eventually going to happen? The tree roots are just going to keep on creeping over and coming. Then a big storm comes and the tree breaks and falls on the house, smashes in the house. Then the tree gets a strange disease and dies. Then the sprinkler pipes break on the automatic sprinklers and then you go to dig in the yard to fix the sprinklers and your shovel hits the sprinkler pipe and puts a big hole in it. Now I just broke another sprinkler pipe. And all the sprinkler pipe, you go to screw in the new sprinkler and it just breaks the socket. It just strips out. It just breaks out. Everything falls apart. Everything deteriorates. Pretty soon you feel like you've replaced everything in your house. Eventually you're wondering, is any part of this house the same house that I moved into anymore because it seems like I've just replaced everything. I mean, look, I've lived in my house for 11 years. I've replaced all the plumbing. I've replaced most of the windows, the air conditioning unit. These are all true stories, by the way. But you know what? Marriage is the same way. It takes maintenance, right? There's a constant fixing of it. But you have to care enough to put some effort into it. You have to care. You have to spend the time and not just ignore it and just neglect it and whatever. See, by much slothfulness, the building decays and through idleness of the hands, the house drops through. You see, a house, yes, we're talking about a physical building, but a house often in the Bible is also referring to a family. The house of David. It's a family of David. And the Bible also says in Proverbs 14, 1, every wise woman buildeth her house, but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. I don't think this is a foolish woman walking into her house and just ripping drywall off the walls and throwing it down, ripping siding off, going up on the roof and just tearing shingles and hurling them. I don't think that's what foolish women are doing. I think it's saying that the foolish woman destroys her family, plucks it down with her hands instead of building her house, instead of putting effort into maintaining the children. See, there's this term homemaker, homemaker, right? Why? Because the wife is there putting effort into the marriage, putting effort into the child rearing, putting effort into the family. And then the husband also needs to put in the effort necessary to make his wife happy and to spend time with her and to have a relationship with her in all aspects that are involved in marriage. You see, marriage takes effort and you're only gonna get out of it what you put into it. And so both parties need to be putting something into it, putting effort into it, putting work into it in order to have a good marriage. And the teenagers and the young people, when they get married, they'll find out that this is true. They think, well, no, because we're just so madly in love that everything's just gonna be perfect every day. Well, we'll talk to you in a few years and we'll find out that's true. But, you know, preaching is like that. As a pastor, you know, whatever I put into it is what I'm gonna get out of it. You know, if I preach sermons on soul winning, people will go soul winning. If I never preached on soul winning, people wouldn't do a lot of soul winning. If I never preached against sin, there'd be a lot more sin in the church. You know, whatever you preach on as a pastor, that's the results that you're gonna get. You know, and if you just spend a whole bunch of time preaching on one thing, you're gonna have a lot of that. But then you might be lacking somewhere else. Go to 1 Timothy 4. This is the last place I'll have you turn. 1 Timothy 4. You know, another great example of getting out of it, what you put into it would be a workout, a physical workout. And I know that this is an illustration that the vast majority of people here don't relate to. I remember one time, one time recently, it just blew my mind. I was preaching, you remember this, like a month or two ago? I'm like, so, you know, how many of you like to work out regularly? Or, you know, you either run, lift weights, just some kind of a workout that you regularly do. There's like 200 and some people, and like five hands went up. Yeah, I like to work out. I'm thinking like, whoa. So this is not gonna be an effective illustration. But for you five, you're gonna love this one. And for the rest of you, you're gonna love, you love this verse because this is your life verse about how bodily exercise profit little. But here's the thing, a workout, when it comes to a workout, you get out of it what you put into it. When you do these workouts that are really easy, oh man, this workout's so easy. Guess what, it's because you're not getting anything out of it hardly at all. Oh man, this machine is just so easy. Yeah, that's because you're not making any gains. Oh, I don't like free weights. It's too hard. Yeah, but that's the point. It's hard and you get stronger, right? You get out of it what you put into it. No pain, no gain. Okay, you use free weights and it's hard because it works. The machines are a joke, amen? Amen. Can I get a witness? Free weights. Amen. But here's the thing, you get out of it what you put into it. If you're just gonna go to the gym and use a bunch of machines for a little 15, 20 minute girly-mon workout, you're not gonna make any gains. If you wanna make serious gains, you gotta put some effort into it. You gotta go down there and you gotta sweat and you gotta push yourself and you gotta hit the free weights and you know, you gotta put in an hour of lifting weights or 45 minutes of lifting weights and you gotta work during that time and push up and you oughta be drenched in sweat, you oughta be out of breath, you oughta, you know, have done something, right? And then, you know, the next day you're gonna be sore if you did a real weight training workout. You know, you gotta put something into it. You gotta put effort into it if you wanna get gains, okay. Well, how does that tie in with this? Well, first of all, just goes to show you that any area of life, you get out of it what you put into it. You know, you put, you work out once a month, you're not gonna get much out of it. You know, you work out three, four, five times a week, you're gonna get a lot out of it, right? But look what the Bible says in 1 Timothy 4-7. It says, But refuse profane and old wives' fables and exercise thyself rather unto godliness, for bodily exercise profited little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. So the Bible's saying here that, you know, bodily exercise, it only profits a little, and here's why. The Bible explains why in the verse, because it only helps you in this life. You see, exercising or lifting weights or running or whatever you do for exercise is of no eternal value. All the weightlifting that you do, all the running that you do, all the fitness that you perform in this life will not help you in the next life at all. You're not, you know, your new glorified body isn't going to be more buff because of the workouts that you do now. I'm going to be ripped for all eternity, you know. Now, for some of you, this is good news. You're like, oh, great, my glorified body can get rid of this spare tire. You know what I mean? Look, the Bible's saying the difference between bodily exercise, look at the verse. Body exercise profits little, but on the contrary, godliness, here's the difference between godliness and bodily exercise, godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come, whereas bodily exercise only helps you in the life that now is. It improves your quality of life now because you're healthier, you're stronger, whatever, whereas exercising yourself unto godliness helps you now, and it's going to help you for all eternity, and you're going to be glad in heaven. There's no rewards in heaven for the great gains. Let's not suppose that gain is godliness. Gains are not godliness. So the Bible says exercise yourself rather unto godliness. So here's why I like this illustration of a workout, and Paul brings it up in multiple epistles, and he brings up sports and training, is that when people work out, they take it seriously if they're going to make gains. They take it seriously, they're on a strict routine, they work hard, they break a sweat, they put a lot of effort into it, and then they get something out of it, and then they rejoice in those gains, albeit they're just carnal, earthly, temporal gains. We ought to take that same attitude into our spiritual lives that meatheads are taking into the gym, right? I mean, why don't we get that same mentality that says, hey, I'm going to put some serious work, I'm not going to try to take the easy way, the shortcut, the gimmick, the Bowflex, the Nordic track, or whatever. I'm going to get the real free weights. I'm going to get a King James Bible, I'm going to read the big boy version, I'm going to go out and do real-life soul-winning, I'm going to go to a fire-breathing church, I'm going to get on my knees and have a sweet hour of prayer, not just have a little talk with Jesus, and I'm going to make some serious gains. See, we need to take that mentality that some of these guys who just get really into their workouts and really into fitness, hey, why don't we exercise ourself rather unto godliness? Why don't we take that attitude toward Bible reading? I'll tell you this right now, and the four of you that are into fitness hopefully can back me up, but I don't know about you. Who's into training? Maybe it's more now. Now it's like half the church. No, I'm just kidding. Look, I don't know about you, but to me, anybody who does any serious training logs their training. I mean, am I right about that? Who agrees with that? You know, if you're serious about training, you log. I mean, otherwise, how do you even know what you lifted last week versus this week unless you're logging it, you know? And I mean, whenever I work out, that's the first thing I do. I pull out my log, and I look at, okay, here's what I lifted last week. Let's see if I can do a little better. I need some gains this week. Or let's say, okay, here's the running that I did last week. Here's the running I'm gonna do this week. You know, I find that if I don't log it, I don't really make gains. I don't really go anywhere. I don't really progress unless I'm keeping track of it and putting work into it and charting my progress. You know, it's the same thing with people who read their Bible. People don't log their Bible reading. Probably not doing a lot of Bible reading. You know, people who just say, well, I just kind of open the Bible and read wherever. They're not reading as much as the guy who says, let's read it cover to cover, and he's checking off the books and the table of contents, and he's checking off, okay, I read Isaiah, now I'm gonna read Jeremiah. I read Jeremiah, let's go back and read 2 Kings. Let's read the book of Psalms. Let's read Galatians and check it off, check it off, check it off, and then they've read the whole thing cover to cover because they logged it, right? Taking it seriously. Soul winning on a regular basis, not just, well, when the Lord brings somebody across my path every 18 months, you know, then I'll give him the gospel. No, how about a more serious training plan in your godliness exercise, like, hey, I'm gonna pick Monday night soul winning, I'm gonna be there every time, or I'm gonna be at Wednesday night soul winning every time. I'm gonna be at the Sunday afternoon soul winning every time. That's my routine, and if I miss it, I'll try to make it up some other time. If you miss a workout, you'll probably make that up. If you miss back day or whatever, you'll probably make that up if you're serious, right? If you care about it. And so we need to look at the areas in our life that we wanna succeed in, right? Bible reading, prayer, church attendance, soul winning, our marriage, our child rearing, our job, our finances, maybe even physical fitness, although that's not the most important thing, but it has its place. But you know, we need to sit down and think about, okay, what's important to me? What are my priorities in life? What matters to me? Where do I wanna reap a harvest? I mean, I don't know about you, but I wanna come rejoice with my sheaves with me. I don't wanna just be a nobody. I wanna do something with my life. I wanna accomplish something. I wanna reap some kind of harvest. I wanna win people to Christ, you know? I wanna have a great marriage. I wanna raise godly children. I wanna be an active part of my local church and help my church to succeed. You know, I want to pray and have the Lord answer my prayer and provide my needs. I wanna memorize the Bible. You know, I wanna reap a harvest in these areas. Well, you need to figure out where you wanna reap the harvest, and that's where you need to start sowing the seeds. And that's where you need to start putting in the effort, because you're only gonna get out of it what you put into it, whether that's giving, soul-winning, Bible-reading, praying, church, marriage, child-rearing, preaching, teaching, Bible memorization, even a physical workout, whatever. Now, I'm gonna close with this quote. I heard a preacher say this one time. I don't remember who said it, but this is a quote that has always stuck with me, and I like this quote. It said this. You will succeed at what you think about in your spare time. That's what this preacher said. He said, you'll succeed at what you think about in your spare time. And I think that's a great quote, because, you know, whatever we think about, whatever we meditate on, whatever our heart is in, that's what we're gonna invest in. That's what we're gonna put our effort into. And so if you sit around thinking about foolishness and nothingness and just dumb things, carnal things, worldly things, you know, that's what you're gonna succeed at. We need to meditate upon what we really want to get done and what we really want to succeed at, and we will be successful at that, which we think about in our spare time. I've found that to be true in my life, and I think that that's a great quote to meditate upon and think about. And all of this sermon tonight is a positive sermon, because I'm listing all the good things you should invest in. You know, invest in your marriage, invest in child rearing, invest in the Bible, invest in soul winning, invest in church, invest in giving. But here's the thing. We could also flip this sermon over and talk just as much about all the negative things that you can invest in, all the carnal things where you just reap corruption. You know, if you're just gonna spend so much time letting the devil program you through the media, you know, eventually, that's gonna bear fruit in your life. You're gonna reap the same. You know, if you're just gonna sow all these bad seeds and sow all kinds of sin and sow all kinds of harm in your life and in the life of others, that's all gonna come back and bite you, you know. You're gonna get out of that what you put into that too. So let's just decide what's important to us, decide where we wanna succeed, and that's where you're gonna harvest, you know. I mean, think about anything in life. Think about a piano lesson. You're only gonna get out of it what you put into it. You could go to a piano lesson every week, and if you don't practice, you're never gonna advance, and then you can't really blame the piano teacher now, can you? And guess what? The piano lesson only happens once a week, and that's not enough to learn how to play piano. You have to practice every day to learn how to play piano. And if you come to church once a week, but then the rest of the week, you're not reading your Bible, you're not praying, you're not, you know, that's not enough either. And then you blame the church because you're not being fed or you're not growing enough. Well, you're only gonna get out of it what you put into it, you know. You come to church once a week, you're not gonna get as much out of it as the guy who comes to church three times a week. He's gonna get more out of it. You go soul winning for two hours, you're gonna get more out of it than going for one hour. And look, this isn't a complicated sermon. It's not that deep tonight. Very simple sermon, but it's still a profound truth that you're gonna reap where you sow. And so pick the areas in life where you wanna reap and that's where you put your efforts. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and thank you for the gift of eternal life. Thank you for salvation. And Lord, I just pray that we would spend our lives sowing the right seeds, Lord, and just spending our time not sowing to the flesh and not sowing to that which is carnal. But Lord, help us to really pick some important spiritual areas and spend more time putting more effort into the things that really matter the most. And not to just let things decay and fall apart, Lord, but help us to put forth effort in the areas of our lives that are lacking. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.