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It says, I can do all things through Christ with strength of me. That's not the verse I want to turn to. Chapter 3, sorry about that. That's a good verse. Chapter 3, 13, it says, Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Now, the thing that I want to preach about tonight is setting the bar too low, or not pressing for the high mark here, as Paul said, hey, I'm forgetting about past failures, and I'm pressing toward the mark for the high prize of calling God in Christ Jesus, but see, that kind of ties in with the verse that I accidentally read, too, because I can do all things through Christ with strength of me. So why would I set the bar low? Why would I limit myself in that way? Now, there's a lot of different areas that we don't want to set the bar too low, but look, if you would, at John 14, 12. John 14, verse 12, this is when Jesus is giving some of his last words to the disciples. He's talking about how the Holy Spirit's going to come and be the comforter that's going to live inside them. He's just about to go to the cross, and he says in Isaiah 14, verse 12, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father. So right there, Jesus is predicting that those that believe on him would do greater works than he did. Now, you say, how is that possible? He's not talking about greater in quality. Obviously, no one can do anything better than what Jesus has done. We cannot preach better than Jesus. We couldn't be a better soul winner than Jesus, but he's talking about greater in quantity. You see, Jesus Christ, with one man, he preached unto those that were there in the nation of Israel. He didn't really go too far outside that area, but he preached in Israel, and his ministry only really lasted for about three and a half years. But see, he sent out the disciples who then turned the world upside down with the gospel, who went out and preached unto multitudes and thousands of people for decades and for hundreds of years. You see, Jesus is telling his disciples, I think he's trying to motivate them, saying, you are going to do great things for God. You're going to do even greater works than what you've seen achieved in the last three and a half years. And so we as Christians need to get that spirit that he was trying to impart unto them and the spirit of the book of Acts that says we're going to do great things for God. We're not just trying to just exist or maintain or be mediocre, but we're pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, not setting the bar too low. So number one, we don't want to set the bar too low in our service for God. I remember when I was a young teenager, I used to pray every night, and I prayed this for years, literally. Just about every night, if I remembered it, and I probably did just about every night, I prayed that God would allow me to win one person to Christ in my lifetime. I prayed that prayer almost every night because usually when I would go to bed at night, I would pray before bed, and that was just something that I did growing up. That's something I did pretty much my whole life. And I used to have a lot of trouble sleeping also as a teenager, so a lot of times I'd do a lot of praying because I'm just in bed and I couldn't sleep, and I'd pray. And that was something that I prayed literally hundreds and hundreds of times. Oh God, please just help me to win one person to the Lord in my lifetime. I want my life to matter. I want it to mean something. I want somebody to be in heaven because I preached the gospel to them, and I prayed that over and over again because I'd never had anybody saved. And to me, that seemed like a great goal. That seemed like, hey, I've really accomplished something if I've won someone to Christ. By the way, if you've won one person to Christ, you have accomplished something great. You have done something big for God. I mean, that is a big deal. We don't ever want to lose sight of that. Every one person that wins, I mean, that's a human being. That's a soul that Jesus Christ died for. And so I used to pray that over and over again, but you know what? In reality, I was setting the bar a little low, wasn't I? But at the time, it was a big goal for me. I mean, at the time, it seemed, whoa, I hope I'm going to hit it. I hope I'm going to do it. And I never won anybody to Christ until I was 17 years old. I've been saved since I was six, but I never got anybody saved until I was 17. But I prayed that prayer, I prayed that prayer, and God has answered that prayer, you know, probably once for every time that I've ever prayed that I've won somebody to Christ, you know, for every prayer. It's like each time I prayed for one soul, it's like I think you just added them up because I've been able to win a lot of people to Christ. And now I'm not just looking to get one person saved. Hey, I'm looking to get as many people saved as I can. I want to get hundreds of people saved with my life. I want to get thousands of people saved with my life. We need to get an attitude that says that the sky is the limit and that we can do more for God than maybe what we are asking of ourselves right now. Also, when I was a teenager, I remember that every once in a while, and this is before I became a bona fide soul winner, I'd never really knocked a door, and I didn't really do a lot of real soul winning. That's why I had no one saved. But I remember that every once in a while, I'd be in a conversation with a friend, I'd be in a situation, and I would maybe just say something about the Bible, say something about Jesus, maybe quote one verse. And I felt like, wow, I really did something here. I quoted a Bible verse to this unbeliever. I'm really serving God here. And that's great for starters, but I could have done more. I could have opened my Bible and given them the whole plan of salvation. I could have preached the gospel. But see, at the time, that seemed really big to me. Like, wow, I've really done something big for God. You see, it's all about the way that you look at it. It's all about where you're setting the bar, where you're setting the standard. And I think that too many Christians have set the bar too low for what they want to do. They think that if they just give somebody the gospel, maybe once in a blue moon, or maybe just every once in a while, that friend or coworker, when really, if we study the book of Acts, we see that daily in the temple and in every house, they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. And I'm not saying for you personally to go soloing every day, but that church, without preaching the gospel, somebody from that church every day, and that could be said of our church, pretty much every day of the week, somebody from our church is out knocking doors, preaching the gospel, or winning somebody to Christ at work, or a friend or a family member. We need to raise the bar a little bit and say, hey, every day we ought to be preaching the gospel. Every time that you're ever alone with someone, I think is a general rule of thumb, give them the gospel. And that's a good rule, and I'm not saying that's the only time to give people the gospel, but you know what, if you're ever alone with someone that's not saved, that's an opportunity to give the gospel right there. Don't pass that up. See, while I'm waiting for an opportunity, that is an opportunity. Whether they bring it up and come to you or not, you need to take that opportunity. If you're alone with someone who's not saved, preach the gospel into that person. Give that person the gospel. But we need to raise the bar. Jesus said, I'm expecting you to do greater works than I do. That's raising the bar pretty high, isn't it? And Jesus Christ gave us the power to do it. He gave us the Spirit of God. He gave us the Word of God. We have all the tools. We have the freedoms in America to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. We don't even have to be worried about the government stopping us. We've got God's Word. We've got the Holy Spirit. We've got the freedoms. We've got the legs. We've got everything that we need. We need to raise the bar and say, let's get the gospel to the city. And it's easy for us to look around at other churches and maybe say, oh, we're doing better than them. But God said, if you compare yourself amongst yourselves, you're not wise. Compare yourself to me. That's the standard. Not giving the gospel to somebody once in a while, but rather the standard of what Jesus did and what his apostles and what his disciples did. That's the standard right there. Go to Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter number 5. Because not only do we want to raise the standard for I don't want to just preach the whole sermon on soul winning. I've already preached a lot of sermons on that lately. But you know, soul winning, for example, serving God, we need to raise the bar and not let man put a limitation on us. I remember for the first several years that I went soul winning, we pretty much had this limitation of one hour. And it was like we didn't really break that out. I mean, we went for one hour. And everybody in the church went for one hour. And no one really went for more than an hour. And so you pretty much, you hit that 59 minute and 59 second mark and you're done. It's like the thought had never even crossed anyone's mind. We could go for two hours. We're going to get twice as many people saved or three times twice. Or how about three? Two is good, three is good. That thought had never even crossed people's minds. And I remember we started going more hours and it started to spread like other people. They're like, wow, I never even thought of this. Me and Roger Jimenez were recruiting people to go in. We'd say, we're going to go for four hours. What? And we'd start recruiting people and we were able to get a lot more soul winning done. And we just figured it out. Like, wow, more people are getting saved. It's amazing. But they had that limitation, that 59 minutes. And here's the other thing. You're going to think this is funny. But for the first couple of years that I did soul winning in California, when I first was learning about soul winning, we would stop at the end of an hour. But if someone got saved, we would always stop too. So literally, if we knocked the first door and that person got saved, we were so excited about that person getting saved, we'd get in the car and go home and call them today. Every time. I mean, if somebody got saved, we're done. Or if we hit an hour, we're done. And I remember one time I even said to my soul partner, I was like, maybe God has us knocking all these receptive doors, unreceptive doors, because he knows we're going to quit as soon as somebody gets saved. He wants us to go and knock all these doors first. It seems silly now, but at the time, it just seemed as natural as rain. Well, you already got somebody saved. You're done. But we have these limitations in our mind. You see what I mean? The Bible doesn't say go soul winning for one hour. I mean, you can go for two hours. You can go for three hours. You say, well, how much do I have to go? You don't have to go at all. But God commands us to go. And we should want to go as much as we can and do whatever we can. It's different for every person. God knows your situation. God's going to bless you. But I'll say this. As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 9, he said, if you sow sparingly, you'll reap sparingly. And if you sow abundantly, you'll reap abundantly. The amount of seeds that you sow is going to determine what kind of a harvest you have. And so if you want to get the maximum people saved, you've got to put in the maximum work out there knocking doors and winning souls and doing God's work. But let's get off that subject. Look at Matthew chapter 5. What about the standards for the way that we conduct ourselves? What about the standards for the way that we live our life? Are we setting the bar too low? Well, let's see what God's standard is. It says in verse number 48 of Matthew 5, be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect. Now, if you get the context here, this is a chapter about people setting the bar too low. He said, well, you've heard that it was said, you know, thou shall not kill. He said, that's true. I'm not denying that. I'll uphold that. But he said, I'm saying unto you that if you're angry with your brother without a cause, that you'll be in danger of the judgment. He said, you've heard that it was said, thou shall not commit adultery, but I say unto you that if you look on a woman to lust after, you've committed adultery with her already in your heart. Is he raising the bar or lowering the bar? He's raising the bar. He's raising the standard. He's saying live your life by a higher standard than what you're living right now. Go back in the chapter to Matthew 5. Toward the beginning, when he's talking to the disciples in verse 17, he says, think not that I've come to destroy the law and the prophets. I came not to destroy, but to fulfill. For I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. That's a great verse on the preservation of God's word. But look at 19. Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now obviously the first application here is that he's saying, look, even if you're as great as the most cleanest living scribe and the most righteous Pharisee, that's not going to get you into heaven. That's why Paul said in Philippians 3, not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. That's why he said in Romans 10, 1, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved, for I bear the record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves under the righteousness of God. So it's not our righteousness that can get us into heaven, even if we were to be as the staunchest Pharisee or scribe. But you know what he's saying too? He's saying the Pharisees and the scribes don't measure up. And these are people that they thought back then were free. The word Pharisee literally means that they're separated. The scribes literally just spent their time copying and studying God's word. That was their living. That's all they did. And yet he said, not good enough. See, God's got a pretty high standard. The standard is Jesus. The standard is perfection. The standard is holiness. He said, be ye holy as I am holy. And he said, well, I can never attain that standard. Exactly. Which is why you just need to keep raising the bar in your life. Why you keep needed growing. Why you keep needed improving. You need to keep improving. I keep saying that wrong. You need to keep improving. You need to keep growing. Because you've never arrived. Paul said, I count on myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do. He said, I haven't apprehended. I haven't arrived yet. He said, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. We should always be raising the bar. It's not enough, he says. Well, you know, if you put away your wife, give her a bill of divorcement. He said, that's not good enough. You just don't divorce your wife. If you do, you're causing her to commit adultery. And he says, if you marry her that is divorced, you are committing adultery. He's raising the bar. Again, he says it's not enough to just love your friends and love those that love you. He said, love your enemies. Pray for them that hate you and despitefully use you and persecute you and afflict you. At the end of the chapter, look at verse 46. He said, if you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others? Do not even the public at so? And get that phrase, what do ye more than others? He's saying, raise the bar. Rise above man's standards of what is right and wrong and get a higher standard of right and wrong. Look at 1 Thessalonians 4. Go to 1 Thessalonians 4. 1 Thessalonians 4. So we ought not set the bar too low. We need to raise the bar. Raise the bar of our service for God, of our winning souls, preaching the Gospel. There's no reason in the world why this church cannot reach this city with the Gospel. At least not every door, at least once or twice. Even in the whole area of 4 million people, of the whole surrounding area, the one hour radius of our church. There is no reason in the world why our church can't do it. And yet there are tons of fundamental Baptist churches all over this city and they're not doing it. We've already put a huge chunk in it. We've already taken a huge slice out of it and we're a small church. And at the rate we're going, we will have knocked every door in this whole one hour radius in I think about 12 years from now or something like that at the rate we're going right now. But we're not going to continue at this rate. We're going to grow. We're going to increase. We're going to reach more people. We're going to get them saved. We're going to get them baptized. Our church is going to grow. You say, well I think our church has pretty much reached kind of a point. No, we have not reached anything. Oh, we're in a plateau. We're not in a plateau. We're growing. And people will say, well if you preach right, your church is always going to be small. That's a lie because Jesus Christ preached right and his church grew. And John the Baptist preached right and his church grew. And God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. It's not that there's some certain set number of people in this area that can handle a church like this, that want to be a fundamental Baptist, that really want to sell ground. No, the sky is the limit. We've just got to go out and find them. We've got to go out and bring them to Christ. And we ought not set the bar too low, my friend. Why not preach to God? I mean, it was kind of painful because you know that map out there? It's cool because I can see the reflection of it in the door right now. Whenever I preach, I can always see the map. I can always see the street map with the orange and everything. I don't know if you know that but I can see the mirror reflection crystal clear in that door right there. Maybe you can't from where you're sitting. But I looked at that map and it was really depressing when we added that top section. Who knows what I'm talking about? And it was because I went soloing with Brett up on the north side and I was like, I don't want to do this neighborhood ever again. And so we added a whole section just to show that we'd already done it. But you know what? It's because we're just increasing our vision of what we're going to do. And there will be more pieces added to that map. And you say, well, you're crazy. But the bottom line is we've set the standard too low as Christians and then the job doesn't get done. When there's really no reason in the world why we can't reach this city with the gospel. Now is everybody going to get saved? Of course not. Broad is the way which leadeth them to destruction and many there be which go in their act. Straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth them to life and few there be that find it. But we can give the gospel to everybody. We can at least take a clear, clear presentation to everybody and we will get many saved. Yeah, it'll be the minority that gets saved, but we'll still get a bunch of people saved. And we'll get more people saved if we'll increase our vision. But in our personal lives, we need to increase the bar of our righteousness. We don't want to just get comfortable is what I'm trying to say. You might be at a certain level in your Christianity. Maybe you've been in church for a long time. And you kind of reached a comfortable point. You're kind of just at a comfortable point. You're in the rhythm. You're going to church. You've got a certain level of righteousness and cleanness and Bible reading. It's time to raise the bar. You have not arrived. I've not arrived. We never get this attitude of, Okay, I'm there. Now if I can just maintain this for the next 50 years. You can't maintain in the Christian life. You're either going forward or you're going backwards. That's the way it is. You will not maintain. You're either growing or you're moving backwards. And so it's the same thing with our church. Think about if our church stopped growing. What if we stopped reaching people? What if we stopped bringing people in? Eventually, people will move away. We just had a couple. There was a great couple in our church this morning. Just move away, right? Move to Mexico. Well, you know what? Eventually everybody will grow old and die and move away. And hopefully you have enough kids to keep us rolling here. But the bottom line is, we've got to keep reaching people. We're either growing or we're dying. Churches that aren't growing, they're not. They're going backwards. Unless they're bringing in new people, winning souls to Christ, baptizing people. But in your personal life, you've got to move forward. You've got to raise the bar. You've got to get on Jesus' standard of living. And it's a lot more strength than maybe even what I preach. It's the Bible that's the standard. Where did Aggie turn to? 1 Thessalonians. This is a great passage on that. 1 Thessalonians 4, it says in verse 1, It says, He's saying, look, you've already received the commandments. You've already known what we told you. But you need to increase more and more. He's saying it's a continual process of just constantly increasing, constantly growing, constantly doing more, more and more and more. He said, For God had not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. And we need to be constantly increasing that holiness in our lives. Constantly more and more increasing. There's not a new commandment. He said, I write no new commandment unto you. He said, you know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus, but you need to increase your obedience to the commandments that are already there. Go back to chapter 3, verse 12. It's just a few verses back. He said, He said, I know you love the brethren. He said, a church that's been known for your love. He said, indeed, you do it toward all the brethren, which are in all Macedonia. But he said, I beseech you, brethren, that you increase more and more. I know you're already a loving church. I know that you already love, and you've reached out in love to all these brethren in Macedonia. But he said, do more. I know you're loving, but love more. He said, I know you're keeping the commandments. Keep them more strictly. I know you're a holy church, but he said, you need to be more holy. You need to increase more and more. You need to abound in these things and do more. Don't set the bar too low. Look at Psalm 45. Psalm chapter 45. He said, we don't want to set the bar too low in our service for God. Because he said, you'll do greater works than I've done, because I go to my Father. He said, you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you. And you shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and in the uttermost part of the earth. He said, you'll do greater works. Not greater in quality, but greater in quantity. He said, we need to increase more and more when it comes to our holiness. When it comes to our personal life, don't set the bar too low. And by the way, you can always find people that have a lower standard if you want to meet that standard. I mean, let's face it. In the world's book, if you just don't drink, you are Mr. Holiness right there. Isn't that true? I mean, just not drink. Wow, you don't drink? But is that really the standard? You know, I don't drink and I don't chew and I don't go with girls who do. So, you know, I arrive. But that's like a spiritual kindergarten. You haven't arrived yet. That's setting the bar pretty low. You know, as long as we don't drink and we don't smoke and we don't take drugs and we don't do just these really blatant things, we think we've arrived, but we haven't. We need to increase. We need to set the bar a little higher. The world sets the bar way down here. Most Christians and fundamental Baptists set this whole winning bar way down here. We need to decide that we're going to let Jesus Christ set the bar in our lives and we're going to increase it. We're going to push it further. We're going to push through that barrier. You know, there are a lot of psychological barriers that have been broken throughout history. Like there was a man named Roger Bannister. He was the first man who ran a four-minute mile. And when this man ran the four-minute mile before that, there were people who said it couldn't be done. He broke that record and a month later somebody else broke it. And now hundreds of people have broken it. Why? Because he broke through a psychological barrier in people's minds. Now if you've ever exercised or done push-ups or weightlifting, psychology plays a huge part. If you think that a different amount is on the bar than what's actually on the bar, you will perform differently. Seriously. I remember one time I did the math wrong and I put too much weight on the bar, more than I expected. And I got under it and it seemed heavy. But I thought to myself, I'm not going to let myself not be able to do this. I'm moving backward here. I pushed it further because I thought there was less on the bar than what was really there. Because a lot of it's just a mental barrier in your mind. Well, I can't lift more than this. I can't do more than this. And nobody can run a four-minute mile. But yeah, somebody did and then a whole bunch of people did afterward. But I've noticed this too. I remember when I was a child, me and my brother would have push-up contests. We'd have a contest. My brother is six years older than me. We were both teenagers. We would have a contest who could do the most push-ups. And whoever went second was usually going to be the winner. Because they knew what they had to hit. Let's say the first person does X amount, you knew, okay, I just got to do X plus one. And you pushed yourself past that point and you could do it. We had other contests where we'd go, I'm not recommending this. I don't want anybody to sue me if they get hurt or something. But we'd have these other ones where you'd see who could stay underwater the longest. And if we counted, if we did counting and time method, whoever did it first was usually the loser. Because you knew what you had to beat. And it's the psychology of setting that mark and hitting it. There's a lot to be said for that. I remember there were different times when I said, in my mind, let's say my dad said to me, go ahead and answer that. We'll wait. Anyway, I remember my dad would say, do 30 push-ups or something. And if you did 30 on that last one, you're like, 30. But if you would have said 35, you would have been 34, 35. It's just the psychology of what are you aiming at. And so we have to make sure that we're not setting the bar too low in our lives. We need to push it a little further sometimes. So we talked about soul winning. We talked about your personal life. What about this? Look at Psalm 45. This is a really great verse. I like this verse a lot, actually. It says in verse 16, instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth, I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations. Therefore shall the people praise thee forever and ever. In verse 16, he's basically saying, if you get the context of the passage, it's talking about a man and his wife, and he's basically talking about his wife that has left a far country and coming to his country. And basically he's saying, instead of thy fathers shall be thy children. Basically, you've given up your family by moving out there to be in the nation of Israel, to be there with David. He says, your children will replace that in your life. But what I like is where he says, instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth, and I say to you tonight that I want my children, I want to make them princes. That's the standard for my children. And a lot of people today, when they're raising their children, they have a standard like, well, just as long as my kids aren't strung out on drugs and teen pregnant and all this stuff, they'll be happy. But you know what? I want something greater for them than my children. I'm setting the bar high for my children. I want them to grow up and do greater works than what I've done. They have a lot more advantages than I have. I grew up in a Christian home. I grew up with a lot of great advantages. I grew up with a lot of great teaching and training. But my children have grown up with even more teaching and training and Bible put into them, and under whom much is given, of him shall much be required. And so I want my children to be princes today, not just average, not mediocre, not, well, Joe Blow Christian. No, I want them to be great. I want them to do great things for God. And so I want to invest in them. I want to pray for them. I want to lift up the standard and raise up my children to do great and mighty things for God. And God says you may make them princes in the earth. He said you can do that, and I believe that. I believe that if I train up a child in the way he should go when he's old enough to part from it. But you know what? I want to set that bar high in my life. I don't want to just raise average children. I don't want to be an average Christian. I don't want to be average pastor. I don't want to say, well, how am I doing as pastor? Let's look at the average. The average pastor stays in the same church for two and a half years. Well, I'm doing great. You know, I've been here for almost five. But that's not the standard. Oh, I've done double my time. I'm ready to go move on where the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. That's not the standard. I want to be here for the rest of my life. I'm going to stay here forever because of the fact that I'm not judging myself based on what someone else does. I'm judging myself based on what's right, what God requires me to do. And I don't want to say, well, how much does the pastor down the street go so when you all double that? It may still not be good enough. Right? It may still not be good enough to double. Oh, how much does he read his Bible? Well, that's the standard, right? And oftentimes, we say one time a year. And you know what? That's a great starting point to get somebody to read through the Bible cover to cover. And we've got the charts out there. We've got a big stack of them now, a big chart that will show you what to read every day. If you've never read the Bible cover to cover one time, hey, I would strongly suggest that you get that chart and start doing that reading and get through it that first time. But is that really the final standard? If you read it through once a year, you're reading it enough. You know, it's 15 minutes a day. I'm sorry, but I want to push that further. When I was 18, I read it four times. When I was 19, I read it four times. When I was 20, I read it four times cover to cover. And hey, I don't want to decrease my Bible reading. I want to increase it. I want to increase my Bible memory. I want to increase my Bible reading. I want to increase my prayer. I don't want to be going backwards, and I don't want to use someone else's mediocrity as my standard and say, well, if they're reading it once a year, then as a pastor, I'll do it twice a year and call it good. No, I want to increase more and more. I want to push it farther. I want to set it by God's standard. And you say, what's God's standard? Where does God tell us how much to read? I think He purposely doesn't tell us how much to read because He doesn't want us to do just that minimum. He wants us to read as much as we can. He wants us to meditate on it day and night. He wants us to constantly be pushing ourselves and going forward. I used to struggle with this for years. I used to ask myself the question constantly, is God pleased with me? Has anybody ever thought... I just wondered. I would look at my life and say, man, and honestly, even to this day, if I could talk to God face to face, if I could just be caught up to heaven like John was and stand before the throne of God and just be there for 30 seconds, and I could just ask God any question and talk to God and He would answer any question for me, honestly, the question I would ask is, how am I doing? Am I measuring up on a scale of 110? Because you don't get any feedback from God. You've got the Bible and you're serving God. Am I solely enough? Am I reading the Bible enough? Do I need to do more? Wouldn't you like to know that? To me, that's a lot more interesting than what other people might think of asking. That's what I want to know. Am I making the cut? Am I measuring up? How am I doing? I think God purposely doesn't tell us that. I don't know. Maybe if I were caught up there and I asked Him, He might not tell me. He'd just say, just be perfect. I'm not going to tell you how you're doing. Just do more. Whatever it is, do more. But you know, that is what I'd like to know. But I finally realized after years and years of wondering that and trying to figure out the answer to that question in the Bible of how I'm doing, and I would try to compare myself to different Bible characters. And I'd look at some of the Bible characters and think, wow, that person's doing a lot better than I am. And then other people, well, I'm doing better than him. And you're kind of looking at it and trying to figure out where do I rank in all of this. But I think God doesn't want us to know that because if He told us that we're doing good, we'd slack. I mean, we'd back off. We'd relax. We'd say, oh man, God's like, oh man, you're doing way better than anybody else. I'd just be like, oh man, I'm going to take it easy. As long as I'm in the upper percentile there. But that's not the way it works. We just need to realize, hey, we should never be satisfied. Just keep moving forward. David said, I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. He said that's the time to be satisfied when you're in heaven, when your life's over. But until then, you've got to keep pushing yourself. Keep pushing it more. And so in the area of child rearing, there's another great example where he said, set the bar low, make your children princes. And by the way, when we look at our children, we shouldn't look at them as a burden like the world looks at them. And look at our children, oh man, think about things that we could do if we didn't have all these children. We could go backpacking across Europe and we could take cruises into Alaska. You know, you tend to do this, oh man, what can we do? My children are not a burden. I praise the Lord for every one of my children. They're a blessing. And that's why number six is on the way because I love my children. I want to have more children. You say, how many? Remove the barrier. Set the bar higher. Honestly, it's true because, you know what, a lot of people will look at my family and say, wow, you have a really big family. But it doesn't seem big to me because to me, I've already raised the bar in my mind. And I mean, the average that people had in America 200 years ago was eight. That's the average. Just your average person, not necessarily Christian, whatever. You know, just your average person had eight. So I don't think that five children or six children is a huge family. I've already raised that bar in my mind. Some people think that having four children is a big family. Oh wow, you grew up in a really big family because I have three brothers and sisters. I mean, I look at my family and I say, I'm still a young man. I'm still in my 20s. I'm just getting started. You know, and people think that you're crazy, but it's because they've lowered the bar so much. They've lowered the standard on so many different areas. Look, if you would, at Second Kings chapter 13. Second Kings chapter 13. I really like this story also. This is King Joash is going to see Elisha while Elisha's dying. Now Elisha, this is kind of similar and it's kind of parallel. Remember when Elijah died and Elisha was there with him back in chapter 2? Well, watch this. There's a little bit of a similarity here. When King Joash is with Elisha, this is the king of the northern kingdom, the king of the northern kingdom of Israel. It says in verse 14 of chapter 13, Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness wherever he died. And Joash the king of Israel came down on him and wept over his face and said, Oh my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof. Now isn't that kind of a strange thing to say? But you know why he said that, right? Because that was the words that were said by Elisha back in chapter 2. You remember when Elijah was caught up by a whirlwind and the fiery chariot came down and swooped down and picked up Elijah and caught him up to heaven in Second Kings chapter 2? That's what Elisha said. He said, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof. And so that became a famous quote because you remember there were the sons of the prophet there looking on, 50 men. So that became a famous quote. So basically Joash is there at the deathbed of Elisha and Joash, why couldn't he have been a great man of God? Why couldn't God's spirit have rested mightily on King Joash? Why couldn't he have picked up the mantle of Elisha and done great works for God? Does God just choose certain people? To God that all of his people were prophets, he said in Numbers 11 26, and that he would put his spirit upon them. God wants to use you, he wants to use me. I believe he wanted to use King Joash. He could have used him as a great man of God. So here he is at this moment. He says, And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows, and he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it. And Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands. And he said, Open the window eastward. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the Lord's deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria. For thou shalt smite the Syrians in effect, till thou have consumed them. And he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote thrice and staked. So he smote three times and then he stopped. And the man of God was wroth with him. So he was angry. The man of God was wroth. Wroth is the same word as wrath comes from. Wroth is an adjective and wrath is a noun. But he said, The man of God was wroth with him and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times. Then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it. Whereas now thou shalt smite Syria foot thrice. And Elisha died and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming end of the year. I think God is just kind of showing us something about Joash here. That he's saying the bar too low in his mind. You know, and that's why Elisha became angry. And this was not a man picking up the mantle. Because you remember what Elisha said? When Elijah asked him, before he went up in the fiery chariot. Elijah said, Ask what I'll do for thee. He said, Ask me what you want. He kept telling him, You stay here, Elijah. And he said, No, no, no. I'm going to stay with you as the Lord liveth and as my soul liveth. He said, I will not leave thee. And Elisha kept following Elijah, following Elijah, following Elijah. And finally Elijah looked at him and said, Okay, what do you want me to do for you? Ask me what you want. And he said, I want a double portion of your spirit. That's a pretty tall order. I mean Elijah, who did all these great miracles. He prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. The man who called down fire from God that consumed the sacrifice in the altar. The man who did all these miracles, that had preached to all these great servants. He said, I want a double portion. I want to do twice as much as what you've done. And Elijah said, Thou hast asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, he said, If thou see me when I'm taken up, he said, they'll be done for you. He said, You'll get that. Isn't it a good thing he didn't say, Well, I want to have your exact spirit. He said, No, I want double. And God said, I'll give you double. Look at Isaiah chapter seven, where we started out. Isaiah chapter number seven. Isaiah chapter number seven. See, there was a man who set the bar pretty high and he knew Elijah. He followed him for years and he said, I want to be double the man that Elijah is. And did you know, and I've gone through and counted this myself. Did you know that Elijah did twice as many miracles as Elijah and made twice as many prophecies that came true as Elijah? Elijah literally did double. If you count it up, if you count up the miracles, I think it was like seven versus 14 whenever I counted. But I went through and counted and he did double. I mean, he had the double portion of his spirit. Now, Elijah's miracles were different than Elijah's miracles. Most of Elijah's miracles were more public. They were more, you know, he called down fire. He burnt up all these troops. And he basically, remember he called down fire and burnt up the troops in second Kings chapter one. He did all these great miracles. He made it not rain. He caused that big famine. You know, whereas Elijah's miracles, if you look at his miracles, it was more helping people. He basically, you know, he was the one where the meal kept coming out of the dish. He was the one where they kept multiplying the oil. He healed a lot of people. He raised some dead bodies. And it's funny because one of Elijah's miracles would happen after he died because he wasn't quite there to double yet. And what happened is when he died, they buried him in a pit. And what happened is there were some men running from some troops and one of them was killed and he fell into the grave where Elijah was buried. And when he hit the grave of Elijah, he revived and came back to life. Isn't that amazing? So it was like God said, whoops, one more miracle and I'm going to give you the double that you asked for. So let me ask you this. What do you ask for from God? What do you ask for from God? Do you ask like I did as a teenager just to allow me to get one person saved? You know, I think God saw me pray that prayer. I think he looked down on that and he said, you know, here's somebody who wants to do something for me here. And I think that he honored that and answered that prayer. But you know, I was sitting at the bar low back then, okay. What do you ask God? Do you even ask God for that? I mean, do you ask God to use you? I mean, do you beg God, God, give me a double portion of some great man of God's spirit? Or give me the power of God to preach, to win souls, to do great, help me not to be mediocre. I mean, is this your prayer life? This is how many of the Bible prayed. Help me to be a great man of God. Help me to win souls to Christ. Help me to do more for you. Use me in a powerful way, God. I mean, is that what we pray? Fill me with the Holy Spirit, God. Help me to do something great for you, God. Use me to the maximum. Help me to be the maximum that I can be. Because let me tell you something. One person who does maximum for Jesus Christ, there's no limit to what they can accomplish. I mean, look at the Apostle Paul. One man preached the Gospel all over the world, started churches in all kinds of foreign countries, spoke all kinds of foreign languages where he preached to these people. Set up churches in those areas, trained other pastors, left behind him Titus and Timothy and other men. How many souls went to heaven as a result of the things that Paul did with his life? I mean, it's hard to even fathom, isn't it? It's hard to even comprehend the chain of reaction of him winning people to Christ and those churches growing and thriving. It's hard to even imagine what one person who really gives it everything they've got, who really sets the bar high, really gets on their knees and prays to be users of God and then really sets the bar of holiness in their life at a higher level and then really moves their soul into a new level and moves their Bible memorization and Bible reading to a new level. There is no limit to what they can do. There's no limit. It's just the sky's the limit. He said here in Isaiah 7, compare this to what Elisha asked. He said, hey, I want another portion of Elijah's spirit. He's on his deathbed and he basically rebukes the next man because he didn't really have anybody to pass the torch to because Joash was a weak man spiritually, which was just pictured by the fact that he only smoked the ground three times. God used that as a picture of his weakness of setting the bar too low at three when it should have been at five or six. But he says here in Isaiah 7 in verse 10, King Ahaz, Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz saying, verse 10, Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God. Ask it either in the depth or in the height above. Now what's God telling him to do? Ask a sign. Now what should he do then? Ask a sign. I mean that's what he's being commanded to do by God. I mean God's saying, ask for a sign. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. So basically Ahaz here, because of his ignorance of the Bible, because of his confusion about what tempting God means, because of his foolishness, will not ask God to do anything. He's probably like a Calvinist or something. He just thinks, whatever's going to happen is going to happen. You know what I mean? So he didn't really have an attitude of, Look, if God said to you, just ask me to do something. Ask me for some sign. Ask me for a miracle. And I'll do it. Is that what you'd say? No, no. I already believe in you God. You don't have to show me anything. No thanks. Now here's what's interesting. Let's keep reading. I'll get to the part that's interesting. It says of Ahaz, he said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David. Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? So basically he's saying, Look, I'm sick of you, Ahaz. It's one thing for a man to be sick of you, but now you're weary me. I'm sick of you. He says, Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. This is a prophecy of Jesus Christ. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child shall know how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou pour'st shall be forsaken of both their kings. Now let me ask you, did Ahaz say that in his lifetime? Did he see the virgin birth of Christ? No, because this is probably about, I don't know, I think it's about 700 years before the virgin birth of Christ. He didn't get to see the miracles, because he would not ask God. He would not ask God to do something great. If he would have asked God to do something great, he would have been able to see a great miracle, but he didn't get to see it. Turn to chapter 38 of Isaiah. You're in chapter 38. Let's look at his descendant, Hezekiah. What chapter? Chapter 38, Isaiah chapter 38. So that was Ahaz. He's a king that you might not know that much about, because you might not hear that much preaching on Ahaz, but he was one of the kings of Judah. Well, Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, is here. And he's at the end of his life. And watch the difference between Hezekiah and Ahaz. So many decades have gone by here, and it says in verse number 5 of chapter 38, Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer. So here's a man who's praying. Here's a man who's asking God to do something. He said, I've heard thy prayer. I have seen thy tears. Behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years. Because he was going to die. He was sick. He was going to die. God was going to allow him to die, but he prayed and begged God, and God extended his life by fifteen years. Now again, that flies in the face of the Calvinist paradigm of, Well, whatever's going to happen happens anyway. If we pray, we get to be part of it. No, here's a place that changed. One time I went to a Presbyterian Bible study as a teenager, which I wouldn't recommend. But I went to a Presbyterian Bible study as a teenager, and they spent two hours talking about four verses in the book of Mark, where Jesus walked on the water. But they never brought up, in two hours of just dissecting every word, the one part that they stayed away from, in the little four verse section, was the part where it said that Jesus would have passed by them, but they called out unto them. Because it didn't fit in with their reasoning. You know, that man could call out to God and get him to come over to them when he had intended to go beyond them. That goes beyond them. Their mind is not large enough to grasp a God that could create man with free will, that could actually change things. Where man will say something, and God will hearken to the voice of man. Like when Joshua said, Son, stand thou still. And God hearkened to the voice of man and made the Son stand still. There's a man with some faith. There's a man who set the bar high. There's a man who believed and had the faith to call out to God to stop the Son. And God literally stopped the Son for Joshua. That's faith. That's amazing. There's a man who's not limiting God and not setting the bar low for God's power or what God can do. But here's the irony. Hezekiah has prayed this prayer. He's gotten this great answer to prayer. He says in verse 7, This shall be a sign unto thee from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing that he hath spoken. Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees which is gone down in the sundial of Ahaz. Of who? The sundial of Ahaz. Ten degrees backward. So the Son returned ten degrees by which degrees it was gone down. Now here's what's funny. If you read this exact passage in 2 Kings, God asks him. It gives a little more detail. And if you read this exact passage in 2 Kings, God asks Hezekiah. He said, Do you want the sundial to go forward 15 degrees or do you want it to go back 15 degrees? And Hezekiah says to God, Well, it's a light thing if it goes forward 15 degrees. I don't know how he figured. That's so easy. But he said, If it goes forward in time 15 degrees, that's a light thing. He said, I want to see it go backward 15 degrees. See the difference there? He's asking for something from God. And did God get mad and say, Stop tempting me? No, God was glad. God said, Okay, let's make it go backward. And in fact, let's do it on the sundial of Ahaz, the man who did not ask, the man who would not want to see my power and want to see my miracles. I love what Elijah said, the man who had the double portion. The man who said, Give me a double portion. When he had just seen Elijah go up in a whirlwind in a fiery chariot, he took the mantle of Elijah, smote the water and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? He wanted to see the miracles. We don't know if that was his first miracle. Where is the Lord God of Elijah? God wants us to test him, to tempt him. Don't say you're tempting me. I can do anything. Just ask and you shall receive. He wants us to do great things for God. He wants us to believe in his power. He wants us to raise the ball of what serving God is and what we can do for God and see God do in and through our lives. Remember Elijah? When he sent the woman, we talked about this miracle a little bit earlier, where he multiplied the oil, the woman who was in debt, and he told her. He said, What do you have in the house? She said, I don't have anything in the house except for I have this oil, this little cruise of oil. That's it. He said, Go to all your neighbors. He said, Borrow vessels of your neighbors. He said, Borrow not a few. Why? Because he wanted to show God's ability to the maximum. He said, Borrow as many as you can. When he kept pouring out the oil and it kept multiplying, he just filled each vessel and filled each vessel. Then he told her, Sell it and pay off your debts and live off the rest. You know what she's thinking. Why didn't I borrow enough? She didn't know what he was going to do. He just said, Borrow a bunch of vessels. He said, Borrow not a few. Her obedience to that command determined how much money she's going to have. Because if she would have just borrowed a little bit more, she would have had even more money to live off of for her family and so forth. There's no limit to God's ability. We are the ones who determine what God can do. We're the ones who determine. Remember when Jesus Christ went to a certain city and said he couldn't really do a lot of miracles there because of their unbelief? Except for the fact that he laid hands on a few sick folk and recovered them. There were some people in the town that had faith. Most of the people didn't have the faith and therefore he didn't do great miracles there. Because you see, the ball is in our court. God is in heaven. He's all powerful. He's almighty. He can do anything. And he's asking us to raise the ball. He's asking us. You say, could God perform a miracle today where he'd part the Jordan River? But the question is, is Elisha here today? That's the question. It's not whether God can part the Jordan River. It's not whether God can perform a miracle. It's whether or not Elisha or Joshua or Elijah or David exist on this earth. That is the question. That's really what it comes down to. Because it's not God that's limited. It's us. We're the ones who limit God. And it's not by going around and clicking our heels together and saying, I believe that God can do it. I believe. I believe. You know what it is? It's by being an Elijah in every area of life. When God's going to use you to do the great miracle. You've got to have that double portion of his spirit. You've got to have the whole pack. You can't be a charismatic Pentecostal who's not even saved, who thinks that salvation's by works so that you can lose your salvation, and think, oh, I have faith that God can move mountains. And so you're not even saved. Let alone Elijah. But you be an Elijah, and I guarantee you God can do great things in your life. You say, well, I just wasn't born to be an Elijah. That's nonsense. There you are, setting the bar low again. Paul said, I'm forgetting the things that serve behind. I'm forgetting all the sins that I've done in the past. I want to forget about all the failures. I want to press for the high mark. Well, I'm just hoping to just kind of make it in. I'm just hoping to just barely be decent. And obviously, a lot of people would just say, and I've actually heard people say this, I'm just glad I'm saved, I'm going to heaven, and that's all I care about. You know, well, that's fine. You're saved, there's no way you can lose your salvation, and you're going to heaven, but I don't want to be the least in the kingdom of heaven, do you? You want to be the least. You say, well, God would never call anybody that. He said he would. He said, if you teach men to violate my word, you'll be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. You're one of these pastors that gets up and preaches anything goes. You're going to be walking around for the rest of your eternity and there's a big sign on you that says, Mr. Least. And hey, at least you're not in hell. But you know what? I don't want to be the least. I want to be the best. You say, well, come on, Pastor Anderson, you think really high of yourself. I didn't say I am the best. I didn't say I actually think I'm going to be the best. But I still want to be the best. You know what I mean? Suddenly, we all want that. And you say, well, you'll never be the best, Pastor Anderson. You know what? That's up to me. That's up to me. I could be in Elijah. Am I in Elijah right now? No. But there's nothing to stop me from being in Elijah and there's nothing to stop you from being in Elijah except your flesh, except yourself. And if you'd raise the bar, if you'd walk in the Spirit, if you'd put on the new man, if you'd meditate on the word of God day and night, if you'd preach the gospel to every creature, if you'd do right in your life, God could do great things with you just like he did with the disciples. They weren't special people. I mean, they were a fisherman, a tax collector. They were just the common man, but they decided to follow Jesus Christ wherever he took them and he used them in a powerful way. You say, I'm too old. You're not too old. You say, well, I'm a woman. I'm not a man. God can use women like he used great women in the Bible to do great things for God, to win souls for Christ, to make their children princes, to do all kinds of great things. He uses men. He uses women. He uses the young. He uses the old. The limitation is all on you. And in fact, it's all in your mind. I heard a quote that I like that said, whether or not you think you can, you're right. If you think you can, you can. If you think you can't, well, you're right, you can't. But Paul said on the verse that I accidentally turned to, God had me turned there. Hey, I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. He said, I can be an Elijah. And he was an Elijah. I mean, he was up there with Elijah in greatness, as far as I'm concerned. Paul ended up being an Elijah in his life. And look, you say, well, I'm not, you know, we're living, we're not living in the Bible days. There's no new thing under the sun. You know, is God going to use you the same way? No, because who was the greatest preacher that ever lived, according to Jesus? John the Baptist. John the Baptist. Did he perform any miracles? Did he raise any dead bodies? Did he do anything like that? No. But wouldn't you say that God used him in a powerful way, in an amazing way? So it's not always God's will, necessarily, that you be exactly like Elijah. You know, like I said, Elijah's miracles were really different than Elijah's miracles. His preaching was a lot different. Both great men of God, but just a different style, a different personality. We're all different. God's going to use us all in different ways. But there's no reason why we can't achieve the greatness of an Elijah, except that we limit ourselves and limit God's ability. And so all that to say this, whatever area of the sermon, I'll close on this, whether it's your soul-ending, whether it's your Bible reading, whether it's your personal holiness, whether it's your prayer life, whether it's your Bible memorization. Somebody one time told me that their grandma memorized Psalm 119, one chapter, a long chapter, but one chapter. And I was like, is that even possible? Has that even begun? You know, but isn't that setting the bar low? I mean, memorizing that chapter is nothing. You know what I mean? And I remember somebody talked about memorizing the whole New Testament. And I thought, well, I have more than half of it done. You know, I'm trying to achieve that goal in the next couple of years. I'm pushing toward that personally. Why? Because it can be done. Anything is possible to those that believe. That's what Jesus said. He said all things are possible to those who believe. So the question is, are you setting the bar too low in your life? Walk out of here tonight and say, you know what? I want to do great things for God. I'm going to push it to the next level. Let's borrow our eyes and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your Word, your God, and it motivates us when we read about Joshua and Elijah and Elisha, read about these powerful men of God. We read about the stories about the disciples. We read the book of Acts, and it's powerful. It motivates us. But help us not to think of them as super humans because the Bible tells us that Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are. He was just like us, dear God. And so I want to cry out tonight with Elisha and say to you, where is the Lord God of Elijah? Father, please just pour out your Spirit on our church, dear God, and pour out your Spirit on me personally. Help us all to raise the bar in our lives and to do better things for you. And we love you and we thank you for everything that you've done in the past of our church, the last five years. But God, help us to have the greater days ahead of us. Help us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord and Savior. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.