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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Stronghold Baptist Church. If you could open up your hymnals. The song number 202. Song 202, My Redeemer. Song number 202. On the cruel cross, he suffered from the curse to set me free. Sing, oh, sing of my Redeemer. With his blood, he purges me. On the cross, he sealed my parting. He gave the dead and made me free. I will tell the wondrous story of my lost estate to save. In his boundless love and mercy, he the ransom freely gave. Sing, oh, sing of my Redeemer. With his blood, he purges me. On the cross, he sealed my parting. He gave the dead and made me free. I will praise my dear Redeemer. His triumph and power I'll tell. How the victory given over sin and death and hell. Sing, oh, sing of my Redeemer. With his blood, he purges me. On the cross, he sealed my parting. He gave the dead and made me free. On the last, I will sing of my Redeemer. And his heavenly love to me. He from death to life had brought me. Son of God, with him to be. Sing, oh, sing of my Redeemer. With his blood, he purges me. On the cross, he sealed my parting. He gave the dead and made me free. Amen. Amen. Now, let's turn to our next song, Song number one hundred. - I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. I sing this out of the verse. Who was able to complete the April challenge? One, two. I saw that hand. Three, four. Amen. All right. Well, we've got prizes for you all. Come and see me after service because I didn't have them up ready here. The camping trip is on my mind. The April challenge was to spend at least a minimum of one hour every single day, the whole month of April, 30 days of doing something spiritual, reading your Bible, singing praises, things like that, and making sure you're occupying your time with at least one hour every single day. We'll give you prizes for that. Congratulations on that challenge. Let's get you on. I'm getting way too windy on the announcements here. Bible memory passage. I decided to give you an extra week. So those of you who are working on Hebrews chapter two, you've got an extra week to get this complete. I want to make sure we get this done. I know we're doing whole chapters at a time here. We started with Hebrews chapter one. We're doing Hebrews chapter two. We're going all the way through the book of Hebrews. The goal is to, if you can do these Bible memory passages, we're only doing two verses a week, you're going to memorize the entire book of Hebrews. Now, it's going to take a little while, but don't get worried or nervous about such a big test. You'll be like, man, I could never memorize a whole book of Hebrews. If you stick with this and do a little bit here, a little bit there, a couple verses a week is all you need to do. It might take a year or two, but that's fine. Just stay at it. Over time, you're going to be able to get this done, and then if you're able to memorize and quote the entire book of Hebrews, we're going to have a big prize for you. I don't know exactly what that is, but we'll take care of you. It's going to be a really good prize for being able to quote the entire book of Hebrews back Word Perfect. So if you're doing Hebrews chapter 2, though, you're going to get a prize for that. I've pushed it out one extra week to give you time to be able to do that. And if you're just way too far behind, get started on Hebrews chapter 3, because that's the next one. And then if it takes you a really long time, start on Hebrews chapter 4. Try to get one of these done beforehand if you can. Tuning on, we've got the baby shower. There's going to be a baby shower for Kristin. That's in the schedule here. You can check that out. And then baby showers for Mrs. Estrada and Mrs. Weatherby. They're going to be on May 22nd. Church anniversary picnic is our four-year anniversary. It's going to be June 25th at the park. It's going to be a lot of fun. Hope we can make it out for that. And then we have a guest preacher, Pastor Anderson, preaching on Sunday, July 10th. Both services, so try to come out here and support him. And then the upcoming birthdays and anniversaries are listed there for the month of May. That's it for our announcements. Did I miss anything? No, I hope not. Yes, Leslie. RSVP for the baby shower at the camp. RSVP for the baby shower at the camp. So, ladies, if you're planning on coming to the baby shower at the camp, who are we RSVPing to? You or Mrs. Mosteller? All right, you can RSVP to my wife or to Mrs. Mosteller. I think they're going to be coordinating the food because lunch is going to be provided. That's why we want to know if you plan on attending that during the camp. And did I miss anything else? Is someone else? Brother Jeff's birthday. Thank you. I've been trying to get through announcements. I get through that. Today is Brother Jeff's birthday. Jeff Estrada. So we're going to sing a happy birthday to Jeff. And, Jeff, this is your birthday today. You get your pick after service of whatever ice cream you want that's in the freezer. So that's the bonus that you get on your birthday is your choice. And there's some good stuff in there, too. I think we still might have some frozen snicker bars and all kinds of different stuff. There's good things there. So let's sing happy birthday to Brother Jeff. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Brother Jeff. Happy birthday to you. All right. Very good. Thank you for pointing that out. All right. That's it. If there's any more announcements, we'll cover it this evening because I'm taking up way too much of my time. Come on up here, Brother Peter, and lead us in our next song, please. My church, if you can open up your hymnals to song number 101. Song 101, Jesus Never Fingers. Song 101. The first earthly frames made through what truth doubts and fears assail. What still loves and cares for you is one who will not fail. Jesus never fails. Jesus never fails. Heaven and earth may pass away, but Jesus never fails. Though the sky be dark and clear, fear such storm to hail. Just remember he is near and he will not fail. Jesus never fails. Jesus never fails. Heaven and earth may pass away, but Jesus never fails. In life's dark and bitter hour, love will still prevail. Trust his everlasting power, Jesus will not fail. Jesus never fails. Jesus never fails. Heaven and earth may pass away, but Jesus never fails. Okay, church, great singing. This is not our morning light. Our Sunday morning offering on last night's church. Would you like that? In church, while the offering plates are being passed around, if you can open up your Bibles, the book of Romans, chapter 12. That's the book of Romans, chapter 12. And as we do customary here at Stronghold Baptist Church, we're going to read the entire chapter. And that's brother Devin, if he can please do that for us. That was Romans, chapter 12. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophesy, let us prophesy, according to the proportion of faith, or ministry, let us wait on our ministering, or he that teacheth on teaching, or he that exhorteth on exhortation. He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity. He that ruleth with diligence, he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without dissimulation, abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affection one to another with brotherly love and honor preferring one another, not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer, distributing to the necessity of saints given to hospitality. Bless them which persecute you, bless and curse not, rejoice within that do rejoice, and weep within that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another, mind not high things, but condescend to men of lowest state. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil, provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give him drink. For in so doing, thou shalt keep coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Brother Vernon Miller Jr., do you mind praying for us, please? Amen. All right, Romans chapter 12. So this morning, this morning we're going to be doing kind of more of a Bible study style sermon. One of the things that stood out to me when we were just doing our daily Bible reading as a family in Romans chapter 12 was right there at the very beginning of the chapter, if you want to look down in your Bibles, of course, verse number one, the Bible says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Now, I'm not going to be preaching on that specifically. That's a very powerful statement in itself, that we ought to be presenting our bodies a living sacrifice unto the Lord. If you're bought and paid for by Lord Jesus Christ, you've accepted that gift of eternal life, your reasonable service is that you offer up yourself to say, here I am, Lord, I'm going to do whatever you have for me to do, as a way of showing your love and gratitude to your Savior for saving your soul. I mean, that is something we all ought to be able to look at that and say, you know what, that's pretty reasonable. I mean, God saved me from an eternal damnation in hell. I think it's reasonable to say, okay, God, I'm going to live for you now. Thank you for saving me. You know, I'm going to do what you have to do. It's a great verse, a real powerful verse. Now, the rest of the chapter, look at verse number two, the Bible says, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So he's saying, you know, as you have a new spirit, because you're born again, I want you to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. We need to undo what the world has been pumping into your brain and telling you what's right, what's wrong, trying to teach you morality, trying to get you to accept sin, wickedness, perversion, saying you need to renew your mind now. You've got a new spirit. Let's renew your mind and let's be transformed into walking in that new spirit. And then he says that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So understanding, hey, I've been bought with a price. My reasonable service is to offer myself a living sacrifice. I also ought to be transformed in my mind. He's saying, when you do that, now you can prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And a lot of people want to know, I think, genuinely what is God's will for my life? What does God want me to do? I want to do what's right. I want to serve you, Lord. What is your will? And he's saying, you know what? If you can do those two things, offer up yourself a living sacrifice and transform your mind, now you can prove that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Proving means like you're testing it. You're testing the will of God. Well, how is this going to work out for me? Well, when you follow God's will, things will work out for the better for you every time. Now, we need to be transformed in our mind because sometimes you might not be able to see why things are good for you or how it's working out for you because the world may be telling you, wow, you're not doing very good. So the world can tell you, when you're doing good, you're going to be financially prosperous. You're going to have all this wealth. Everyone's going to love you. And things are going to be going really good for you. That's the world's view of being successful, of just everything going your way. But see, that's different than the Bible. It's different what the Bible teaches, which is why we're transformed in our mind to understand, hey, when you walk in the Spirit, the things of the world are not the things of God. The things that are of the Father are not the same as the things that are of the world. And just like Jesus Christ, if you go forth and try to live righteously and try to do the right thing, the world's going to hate that. The world cannot accept the things of the Father, of the Bible, the Word of God in general. So Jesus says, look, if they've called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more they have his household. So the Bible says, yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. So we need to be able to understand that there is going to be persecution, there's going to be trials, there's going to be tribulations, but this is part of the Christian life. So this doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong. This doesn't mean that, oh, wow, I started serving the Lord and all of a sudden I don't have very much money and I'm having all these problems, people are persecuting me. That doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. We need to transform our minds to understand that the Bible warns about this stuff, telling you this is going to happen. You're going to suffer for your faith. You're going to go through these things. If you actually live godly, if you want to live godly and try to do those things, you will have opposition, certainly, certainly. And the Bible says also, Jesus said, blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my name's sake. Because that's always what people have done to Christians, disciples throughout history, is that that happens. You're going to get your name drug through the mud. So that will happen. Now, the rest of Romans chapter 12, and this is all just kind of by way of introduction into the Bible study, it's talking about the will of God, the perfect, acceptable will of God. So it's talking about proving the perfect will of God because now the rest of this chapter, and even into chapter 13, but we're not going to really get into that, there's a lot of statements just being made here as we get into this chapter of all things that could probably have its own sermon by itself because he brings up just many different topics of ways that we can be in the will of God, that this is what we should be doing as Christians. So I'm going to take a little bit of time and we're going to compare scripture to scripture with all these different points that come up, and this sermon's going to be a two-parter, so don't worry if you're looking at the time going like, Pastor Burzins, we're only on like verse 6, and we've been sitting here for 30 minutes. Don't worry, we're going to go into the rest of the chapter this evening, so don't think that you're just going to be stuck here for hours or something. I wouldn't do that to you. Maybe I would, but I won't today. So let's keep reading here, though, in Romans 12. The Bible says in verse number 3, For I say through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. And this is the mindset that is broad by and large with everything that we do in the Christian life and the Christian faith should be coming from humility, not one of pride, not one where you're thinking great of yourself. This is the mindset which also was in Christ in Philippians. We're going to get to that later on in the sermon either tonight or this morning about having that mindset which Christ had, which is one of humility, where you put others, esteem others better than yourself. Verse number 4, For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. And this is explaining the fact that as born-again believers now, part of this church, we're all members like body parts that fit together to form one bigger body with Christ at the head, and we all have different jobs and functions, and God has given us different abilities in order to serve him that serves the body as a whole while you individually are serving the Lord. Okay? So God's will in your life, has given everybody different skills, different talents, different abilities, and he wants you to use whatever he's given to you to his glory, to God's glory. So we have a very diverse church, and we ought to have a very diverse church because just like there's a lot of different members, the body parts, right? We have fingers and toes and eyes and ears and hair and all these different parts of our body, they're all very different one from another, but they're all very important. They all serve their own purpose and function. It's the same way in church that we're gonna be performing these different functions, whatever God has blessed you with specifically. Now, some people will have similar skills and similar abilities that God's blessed you with. Great. Other people, it's gonna be very different, and we ought never to be looking at anyone else going like, oh, man, well, I wish I could do that. You know, God's gifted some people with very, very talented and musical abilities, and that's awesome. They're able to serve in church and be able to play and kind of just help our praise of the Lord through song and magnify that through those gifts, but not everybody has that skill. Not everyone has that ability, right? Not everybody is very good at teaching. Not everyone is very good at various different things. We're gonna go through all the things listed in Romans chapter 12, because these are all ways that you can serve and kind of figure out and find out, hey, this is the will of God. This is the will of God. This is the will of God. As you go verse by verse by verse, this is the will of God. This is the will of God. In those areas, especially where you excel, maybe you can start looking and saying, how can I do this more? I think this is something that I can do really well. I think God has gifted me in this area. I think I could be a really good minister. I think I could help serve other people and, you know, in many capacities. Like I said, we're gonna get through all of these, but the whole point now for the rest of the sermon is gonna be looking at these individually as these different gifts, these different abilities, and different ways to fulfill the will of God. Verse 6 says, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophesy, so that's gonna start listing them off. Obviously, I just mentioned everyone has different gifts. It says, whether prophesy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith. And now we're gonna pause on that for just a minute. I wanna expound a little bit on prophecy. You know, I went and got the dictionary definition of prophecy. Now, all of our definitions we ought to be taking contextually in the Bible, right? The meaning of words matters. And sometimes the way that the Bible uses specific words isn't exactly identical to the way that a dictionary might define them, okay? But by and large, they're gonna be very similar, if not the same meaning when you look things up in the dictionary, okay? Words change a little bit over time, especially when, you know, we're King James only here, so this Bible's translated into English from the original languages in the 1600s, so when we're looking at that, you know, we have to understand, yeah, over the course of a few hundred years, some words shift in meaning a little bit. But by and large, and you have to go with how the Bible's using words to understand exactly what they mean. Now, in general, when we see the word prophesying, it's very similar to preaching in Scripture, just the way that it's used broadly, but there is an element to prophecy, like revealing things that were unknown or things that are going to happen, right? So the dictionary definition for prophecy is, and I get these, okay, just so you know where I'm getting these definitions from, because obviously there's different dictionaries. I like using dictionary.com, but there's a British definition that is different from kind of the American definition, and I usually go to that one, because it seems to line up a little bit closer with the biblical definition. I mean, it makes sense, because it was British English when the Bible was translated in the 1600s, so it kind of fits in that regard. It's usually a little bit older definition, but anyways, here's what they say for prophecy. A message of divine truth revealing God's will. That's definition 1a. A message of divine truth revealing God's will, and I say that's very appropriate in general, especially in a biblical context. A prophecy is revealing God's will, revealing God's truth, right? The act of uttering such a message also can be a definition for prophecy. Definition number two is a prediction or a guess. So we tend to think of a prophecy being a prediction as kind of the number one definition. This has that as the number two definition, with the number one being a message of divine truth revealing God's will, and then number three, the function, activity, or charismatic endowment of a prophet or prophets. So as time goes on, I think it's shifted in our current language where almost everyone's going to think a prophecy is a prediction. Like, you are definitely predicting the future if you're giving a prophecy, whereas that hasn't always been and still isn't, according to this dictionary, the primary definition of the word. A message of divine truth revealing God's will, okay, oftentimes will be something that is a future event that hasn't happened yet. I mean, the Bible is full of those type of prophecies of things that are going to pass. And then prophesy, the word prophesy, you know, one's with a C, one's with an S, really spelled the same. To reveal or foretell is definition number one, something, especially a future event, by or as if by divine inspiration. But then definition number two, it says archaic. It's to give instruction in religious subjects. So there you see them kind of reversed, but it's essentially the same thing. Now, I'm going to say this. All that being said, I'm not trying to confuse you. I don't think it's that confusing. This is what we understand. When it's talking about the gifts of prophecy and prophesying, it says if you have a gift of prophecy, it doesn't necessarily mean that God is showing you these extra, like the prophets had revelations, right? St. John got a revelation from Jesus Christ that's our book of revelation here of things to come in the future. Daniel was given revelations of future events in the book of Daniel. Other prophets have been given these, you know, Isaiah, we're going through the book of Isaiah. How many times is God telling him, you know, hey, Israel's going to be judged, and all these things are going to happen that that hadn't happened yet. He's being told of all these events that are going to happen. Yes, that is prophesying. Sure, 100%. But there's also ways of prophesying that doesn't have to mean that you have a new revelation from God. So you can prophesy by preaching the book of revelation, for example. You can preach on things that are going to happen in the future because it's in God's word. It hasn't happened yet. It's still a prophecy. But there's also other things that you can preach when you start to understand more about the way things work and the more knowledge you gain and the more your wisdom increases from the word of God. On any given subject, you can start to see the way things will play out given the pattern and all the details and all the indications that you see that something's going a certain way. The more knowledge you have, it's similar to this with parents and children. Parents can see, oh, if they keep doing this, my child's leaning over on their chair. It is a real simple example. They're going to fall over. So in a way, you're kind of predicting the future. But it's not because you have this extra great, you know, God's spoken to you and said they're going to fall over their chair. It's because you understand the way things work and you can see that this is logically what's going to happen next. You can understand that through experience and just your own knowledge and wisdom. Well, similarly, we could gain more insight and knowledge about many different things. And I'm telling you, the longer that I've been in the word of God and studying and just gaining years and gaining experience and kind of gaining wisdom, I can start to see more patterns become a little bit clearer in other people's lives when people have problems and issues. You kind of see direction and paths that people are taking. So I'm going to preach or prophesy against certain things to help people not go down those paths because they could see, hey, I've seen this time and time again and I can kind of see where people are going. If you continue down that path, it's going to lead to destruction. Now, all of that wisdom comes from the word of God. But being able to tie all of the signs together that you can see, I think some people might be more gifted at being able to pick up on all the clues maybe than other people are, right? So this is one of those areas, hey, if God's given you that gift, if it's prophecy, well, let us prophesy. And this is also, I believe it says, according to the proportion of faith because there's an element of the unknown because it hasn't maybe happened yet. Faith of the things are kind of invisible, the things that you can't really see, but they're still true nonetheless. We have faith in things that are true. Obviously, we have faith that God exists. We have faith that Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again from the dead. We didn't see those things literally, but we have faith in them and they are true. It's truth. So this is an area where maybe you are better at that and I think as you gain your wisdom, you will get better at this, but some people have been given that ability and are able to see things a little bit more clearly, and, you know, we ought to use that for God's glory. So finding a way where you can utilize that gift of helping others through preaching, through prophesying, right? So that's number one. Heaven and gift differing according to grace has given us whether prophesy, let us prophesy, according to the proportion of faith, verse seven, or ministry, let us wait on our ministering. So ministry, what does it mean to minister? It means to serve, okay? How are you capable of serving others? Well, there's many ways of serving other people, and now, look, a lot of things that are mentioned in this chapter, everyone can do to different extents, right? Everyone can minister. So there's one aspect here of ministering that the Bible talks about people ministering like ministering the gospel. Romans 15, verse 16, the Bible says that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. So that's an area where, on the one hand, you have Jesus Christ has commanded, go ye therefore and preach the gospel of every creature, God has committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation, reconciling a lost world unto Christ. That is the job of every believer. God has given us that purpose and that goal for everybody. Man, woman, boy, girl can go and minister the gospel of Jesus Christ, right? So I don't want you to sit there and think, like, well, I'm just not good at ministering, so I shouldn't do any ministering. Well, no, there's some things where you should be doing. But there are other areas where you might be able to minister better, and you have a heart for just being able to serve and just kind of help people in various capacities. Matthew chapter 20, you don't have to turn it. I'm going to read this for you. Verse number 25, the Bible reads, But Jesus called them unto him and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you, but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister, and whosoever will be chief among you, not to be ministered unto, but to minister and gave his life a ransom for many. This is the mindset that we all ought to have. This is the mindset that Jesus Christ had, is to be a servant, to be a minister, right? We're going to minister in the gospel, of course, but there's also other ministries that you can do that's not just in the gospel. In Romans 15, I already quoted verse 16. That's how I'm ministering the gospel. Later on in that chapter in verse 25, the Bible says, But now I go into Jerusalem to minister unto the saints. So there's the apostle Paul saying, I'm going to minister to people. Saints means they're sanctified. It means they're already saved. So he's not going to minister the gospel. They already did that. They're already saved. But he's going to minister unto those saints. Why? Because they need some more help. One way of ministering is he could teach, he could preach, he could help them out, but there's other ways of ministering as well. Even helping people out financially is you're ministering to their needs, right? You're helping them out in various capacities. There's lots of different ways to do this, and it can vary from person to person ultimately. Verse number 26 there says, For it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which were at Jerusalem. So specifically in that context, he is going to minister unto the saints at Jerusalem by bringing this contribution that other churches, other believers have brought forth to help those saints at Jerusalem that were going through a hard time. He's going to bring them those gifts and minister to them in that capacity. Verse 27 says, It hath pleased them verily, and their debtors they are. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things. So he's saying, you know, the Gentiles received spiritually greatly from the church at Jerusalem sending out these preachers to go and preach the gospel to them and go and teach them and sending these different preachers that are spiritually feeding them. So he's saying, you know what? It only makes sense. It's their duty to say, Okay, well, you guys have a need. We'll help you out because it's a carnal thing. It's a physical thing. We've got some money we could send your way. We're doing fine. Here you go. We're going to help you out. Thank you so much for bringing us the spiritual meat and helping us that way. We're going to go and help you where you have a need. And this is taught all throughout Scripture, being able to do that. Now, again, these are just two examples. I could preach in our sermons about the different ways to minister. But I'm just bringing up a couple examples here just for you to kind of get your mind thinking about this and saying, Okay, what is the perfect will of God for me? What is God's will? What does God want me doing? Well, how about ministering? Right? There's lots of ways to minister. Ministering is serving. Get that mindset of what a Christian should be doing. It's serving other people. Let's look at the next. So even in the same verse, verse 7, or ministry, let us wait on ministering. And it's so easy to read through this because there's so many things just going boom, boom, boom, boom that he's listing off here. But we're going to take the time and kind of look at each one individually. Or he that teacheth on teaching. Now, teaching is something that not everybody is good at. Some people are a little bit more apt to teach. Apt means you're able to. And that's one of the qualifications of a bishop is that you have to have that ability to be able to teach people. You have to be able to break things down and make them easily understood. And that's definitely something that God can give you and help you with and gift to you spiritually to be able to serve God in that capacity of helping people understand things. Now, again, this can be broadly everybody can teach to different degrees. But if God's given you this ability to really be good at it, then you should use that ability even more and take on more opportunities to be able to teach. So going back to the gospel, it's something that all of us should be able to do. Well, you're teaching people what it takes to be saved. So there's an element of teaching in preaching the gospel. Yet you're trying to help them understand the concepts of being... Now, they're simple concepts, but understanding you're a sinner, understanding there's a penalty for sin, understanding that it's hell, understanding that God still loves you, understanding that Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again from that. You know, all these different things you try to help people understand. And you're going through a specific format in a way to help them that logically get to the conclusion of understanding, wow, okay, so Jesus died for me. I deserve hell, but God still loves me. He wants me to be saved. All I have to do is accept that free gift of eternal life by calling on the name of the Lord. Yes, I want to do that and understand you're saved. You help them to come to that understanding. You're teaching. So everybody should be doing that, but some people are better than others. And the more teaching ability that God has given you, you should think about doing more to serve in that capacity. Now, in order to be a good teacher, teachers need to be skilled in the Word. And you can keep your place here if you'd like. You want to turn to Hebrews chapter 5. And whether God's given you the natural ability to teach or not, I don't care how great of a talent you have, you have to know the subject matter you're teaching on in order to teach, right? I mean, that only makes sense. You can't teach on things you don't know. So in order to be a teacher of something, you have to know it and know it well. That's going to be the way you're going to be able to teach best anyways, is know things really well. And that's why we don't just teach things you just learned yesterday. Like, okay, absorb it a little bit. Think on it. Make sure it's right. You learn something new. Hey, that's great. I'm not saying it's false, but just make sure that you kind of, especially when it comes to spiritual things in the scripture, that you haven't been mistaken about it somewhere. You haven't been misled by a preacher, by a book, or by something else. And give it the time to be like, yes, this is accepted, and you've thought about it a lot, and you've kind of gone over it, and you know it really well, now you're at the position to be able to teach how to do, or whatever that truth is, be able to teach other people about it because you have a great understanding of it. Hebrews chapter five, verse number 12, the Bible reads, for when for the time ye ought to be teachers. So the Bible, there's kind of a rebuke going here to the Hebrews that like, you've been in church for a long time. You've been exposed to the word of God for a long time. You're saying, if you've been at it for this long, you ought to be teachers. Because you, I mean, just over the course of all this time, you should know this stuff well enough to teach other people. So you're saying, for when for the time you ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat. You're saying, but unfortunately, you just are lacking in wisdom and knowledge, and someone needs to teach you and give you the baby bottle so you can understand, hey, this is the first most important thing. These are the first principles, the first most important teachings. Get this doctrine right. Get all the basic doctrines right, and then you start building upon that the things that are a little bit deeper or more complicated, but you have to start with that good foundation, and you're saying, you don't even have that right. So you need to go back to the beginning, as it were. You should be like graduating high school, and instead, you're like in kindergarten. You need to learn these basic elements first. So for everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness for he is a babe. Now, there's nothing wrong with babies. Babies are great, right? I love babies. We have babies. There's people having babies here. Babies are great, but the problem comes in is if your baby just remains a baby forever. You don't want to be 20 years later. You still got a baby. Like, no, it's time for you to grow, right? It's the natural progression, but physically, obviously, babies are going to grow or they're going to die. Pretty much, right? I mean, the only way they're not going to grow is if you don't feed them. If they starve, they're going to starve to death. Spiritually, though, you know, you have eternal life. You can't die, right? Whosoever believeth in me, whosoever loveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believeth thou this, right? That's what Jesus said. So you could be spiritually emaciated and just kind of remain spiritually as a baby for a really long time if you don't feed yourself, and if that's the case with you, you're not in a position to teach. You still need some more milk. You need to grow. Once you have that milk, once you understand these things, you start growing spiritually, and, you know, those people who've been saved for 20 years, but they still don't really know anything about the Bible because they're not reading it for themselves. They're not really going to church. They're not doing anything to help themselves grow spiritually. So even though you would think, wow, I've been saved for this long, yeah, but you should be a teacher by now, and God would expect you to grow and become a teacher and be able to help other people out. So it's a shame to be, you know, around for that long and not be able to teach. This is why the Apostle Paul here, well, excuse me, the writer of Hebrews, I believe it's Apostle Paul, but regardless of that, the writer of Hebrews is stating here and kind of giving a sharp statement of, hey, look, you ought to be teachers, but you're not because it's a shame to be around for that long and be exposed to everything and not be able to teach. Verse 14 says, But strong meat belong unto them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. So if you think you've got this ability, you've got this talent, you know, I'm pretty good at breaking things down and making music understood, well, start getting in the word of God and learning it for yourself and understanding it so that you could use that ability to help teach others and break things down in a way that's gonna help them to understand. Get that, you know, get to the point where no longer, babe, you could use strong meat because your senses are exercised, so it's not enough just to learn the truth. You have to exercise the truth. You have to put it into practice. You have to do it. It's not enough just to know it. If you know things and don't put them into practice and don't do them, you're gonna forget it. You're not gonna retain that knowledge. You're gonna be like the natural man to look within a mirror and you behold yourself and you kind of see the things that are wrong with you, but if you don't put that into practice, you're gonna walk away and just forget about all the things that you'd seen and you learned. You need to be able to correct those things, put God's word into action in your life. You retain that knowledge that you have and you're able to build more on that knowledge and hopefully get to the point where you're able to teach others. Now, I want to mention this as well because there's definitely scriptures that forbid teaching to the church for women. Women are not allowed to teach. The Bible says by suffering not a woman to teach nor do you serve authority over the man but be in subjection, as also sayeth the law, 1 Corinthians chapter 14. But that doesn't mean that women could never teach. It just means that in the church setting behind the pulpit, they're not gonna be getting up and teaching because the Bible forbids it, but there's plenty of opportunity for women to teach other people. For one, everyone could teach through the gospel, going out individually and talking to people about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Two, all parents should be teaching their children. And three, the Bible talks about the aged women teaching the younger women to do different things and kind of help them out in their areas of what younger women are gonna need to learn from older women. There's plenty of opportunities to teach if God's blessed you with that ability to teach. I'll just read for you from Titus chapter 2. Go back to Romans 12. Titus 2 verse 3, the Bible says, the aged women likewise that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things. So right there, it says they're supposed to be teachers of good things, that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Well, that sounds like a pretty important teaching role if you ask me, that the word of God be not blasphemed, teaching the younger women all of these different things, that's a great role to have because you're preventing God's word from being blasphemed, and these things that are mentioned are not things that come naturally because the natural man is sinful, and these are things that the world is going to be telling you you're crazy, especially in our world today, oh yeah, women need to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, and obedient to their own husbands. The world is going to look at you and be like, you're nuts. The world today is going to say, that's hate speech. Seriously, you're misogynistic, you're male chauvinist, I can't believe you would say those things in public, you ought to be canceled. And unfortunately, there's going to be some young women that are going to hear a man saying these things going, oh yeah, well of course, a man's going to say he should be obedient to his own, which is why it's great for the aged women to say, no, this is good. We don't want the word of God blasphemed. He's not saying that because he's a man, he's saying that because the Bible says that. He's saying that because that's God's will for your life. Because God created Adam and Eve. God created man and woman. God created these people and the creatures the way that he created them and he created us differently. And he gave us different jobs to do. And that's God's will in our life. And we can go on and on about the differences between men and women, not going to do that this morning, have done it in the past, they're going to continue doing it again in the future. But I mean, we live in such a warped world, yeah, we need the transforming, the renewing of our minds that we can be transformed from this current world. Because this world's gone crazy. Never did I ever think I would ever be living in a world where people could question whether you're a man or a woman and give any validity to that and not say that person's nuts. I mean, literally, that person's nuts. That's always been the way things have been and that's still the way things are today. If you think, if you are born a man and you think, no, no, no, a woman, you're nuts. You got some serious problems. We're not going to say that's okay. Oh yeah, you can be, no, no, you've got a problem. You've got a serious problem. People are more worried about hurting people's feelings today than the truth. Romans 12, let's continue on God's will, proving that good and perfect and acceptable will of God. Verse number eight, or he that exhorteth on exhortation. Now, what does it mean to exhort? You exhort somebody. When you exhort people, it's very, a lot of these words could be very similar to one another and some of the differences are a little nuanced. When you're exhorting someone, you could be giving counsel or giving advice or kind of persuasively urging people. Like, I'm really exhorting you to do this. You're urging them to follow the right way or to understand that this is true or that's an exhortation. But you also need to show by example. You have to be the example in order for exhortation to be impactful. And I've got one verse here with a few verses. 1 Thessalonians chapter four, just to kind of help you understand what does it mean to exhort? Let's get some biblical examples of the word exhort being used. 1 Thessalonians chapter four, verse one. Furthermore, then, we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. So you're saying, look, we've already taught you the things you ought to do, how you ought to walk, how you ought to live, how you ought to behave. But we're exhorting you now to do it. Right? We're encouraging you and trying to advise you, look, you've learned this, now do it. That's exhortation. 2 Thessalonians chapter three, verse 10. The Bible says, For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should eat. Amen. Great verse. We didn't have to go that far back in context, but I like preaching that one anyways. It's a great command. If any would not work, neither should he eat. This we commanded you. That wasn't just a suggestion for your best life now. This we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now, them that are such, we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness they work and eat their own bread. So that exhortation, he's commanding, but we're also urging you. Look, this is a commandment, but come on guys, do this. And you're trying to be persuasive in your exhortation. And then in Hebrews 3.13, the Bible says, but exhorts one another daily. So a lot of these things you're going to find, this is something that everybody should be doing, but some people are kind of better in some areas than others. So I'm not saying leave any of these undone, but if you kind of find an area where you feel like, or you see that, you know, I think God's blessed me in this area. I've been exhorting people here, here, here, and they seem to be, they're getting good results. Right? Maybe God's blessed you in that area. Well hey, then keep doing it. Don't silence yourself. Exhort one another daily while it's called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Sin is always going to try to deceive people into committing sin. People are out there, proponents of sin. Workers of Satan are going to be out there trying to tell you, oh, it's not that big of a deal, it's not that bad, trying to downplay sin and get you to fall into the trap of sin, which is why we need to encourage one another, exhort one another daily, and be like, look, it's not worth it. We've already been commanded this. Don't go down that path. Look, just trust it. Trust God. Trust the Bible. Don't do it. Exhort one another daily so that people don't get hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Let's continue on here in Romans 12. Like I said, there's a lot to cover here, but I kind of wanted to try to do it in one sermon. Obviously, it's not going to happen in one. We're going to try to do it in two. But there's so many different great points in this chapter. He that exhorteth an exhortation, the next phrase, he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity. So even in giving, it's about giving financially, giving of whatever prosperity or physical financial prosperity God's given you. If you have that ability to be able to give, look, not everyone's in the same boat here either. Some people don't have very much at all. Now, I'm not talking about the tithe. God commands the tithe. Okay, and I believe I'm not going to prove all that to you this morning. In this church, we believe that God has commanded a tithe that belongs to God, not to you, not to me. It's God's money. It's 10% of your income. And if you don't make very much, the good thing about a percentage is it's not a whole lot of money. It's 10%. If you make $1, it's a dime. Okay, if you make $100, it's $10. There's a difference between a dime and $10, right? But it's a percentage, so you're on that scale. The more you make, then you're giving more total. But it's the same percentage for everybody, okay? But that's God's money. That's not the same as just giving alms and giving charitably and giving for other purposes and other causes. And we ought to do those things with simplicity. You know, giving a tithe ought to be with simplicity as well. Don't make it complicated. Don't get all upset about it. Hey, if God's told you to give this, then just give it to us. You know, it's God's money. But I have this in Matthew chapter 6 is where I'm going to read from to kind of go along with this concept of giving with simplicity, right? Keep it real simple. Maybe you are wealthy and maybe God's blessed you enough to be able to just give to people who are in need. Don't make it difficult or complicated and don't do it for recognition. That's one of the ways you're going to complicate things. Oh, I'll give this if you, you know, and start adding strings. Well, now you're complicating it. That's not simple. And people even want to give, and it hasn't happened here very much at all, almost never, almost never. Now, there's been times where we've collected for specific reasons or for specific people. You know, we collected for steadfast to send them an offering to help them when their time of need, when they're going through our times, and we will collect specifically for a few different instances. But, and it's this situation I'm actually bringing up right now. I don't think it's ever happened in our church history. But if someone, let's say someone has a lot of money and they just start telling you, like, well, I want you to use this for this and I want you to use this for this. Don't do that. If you're going to give, give. Don't start to put yourself in the administration position just because you have a lot of money and you say, well, I want this money to go for that. No, you either give it, and look, if people are going to try to do that here, I'm not going to take it. I don't care how much money it is because that's not your, if you're, are you put in a position of treasure and determining those things? Okay, that's different. But if you are not in that position, no. You're not dictating what the church is doing with everything. Just give it and give faithfully and give with simplicity. If you like what the work that's being done here and you can trust that the people who are making those decisions can make those decisions appropriately, then let them make those decisions and give with simplicity. And if not, then don't. Okay, don't. God loves a cheerful giver. And I'm not here begging you for your money. We never have a problem with money at this church, and I almost never preach on this subject. I don't have to because the people who are here love this church and love the work and we're all in unison, by and large, working together for the same cause, which is why we don't have a problem with this. Because we're all motivated by the same thing, and it's not money. So we have the operating expenses to do everything we need to do and anything we don't have money for, we don't do it. Imagine that. And we seem to always be fine. Praise God. But look at this in Matthew chapter 6. We're talking about giving with simplicity. God's blessed you. You've got the ability to give. Just do it with simplicity. Like the Bible says, let not the left hand know what the right hand is doing. You'll just be able to give and not hold on to that and not have to have strings attached and not just complicate what it needs to be and also not sound a trumpet before you give whatever it is that you want to give. Matthew chapter 6, verse number 1, Jesus said this. Take heed that you do not your alms before men. Alms is what we consider to be charity. It's not what the Bible calls charity, but we consider it to be charity. You're just giving yourself. You're helping people out. You're helping the poor. You're helping the homeless. You're helping people that have a need. That's giving of your alms. He says don't give your alms before men to be seen of them. Otherwise, you have no reward of your Father, which is in heaven. Here's the thing. When you give and give from the heart and just give, God will reward you for that. The Bible talks about God rewarding you for that, but if you're doing it so that everybody can see you and see what a great person you are and be like, wow, look at so-and-so. They give so much money, then you don't have a reward. There you go. There's your reward. People think really highly of you now. You want to have your name on a plaque or have a statue built because you've given so much money. Now you get nothing from God. That's your reward. There you go. You bought yourself a plaque or a statue or a wing of the building that you meet at that's named after you or something stupid like that. Well, whatever, right? Now, obviously, people do that, and the person giving doesn't want that or whatever. I'm not saying that everyone who's ever given is bad or something, but we need to look at this from your own standpoint, from your own point of view. Don't give your alms before men to be seen of them because you have no reward. Verse 2, Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Barely I say unto you, they have their reward. There's a lot of people out there doing this. Don't be like them. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth that thine alms may be in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. Give with simplicity. It's that simple. You want to help? You want to give? Great. And this isn't even in the context of giving to a church. And even in Romans chapter 12, it's not in the context of doing it at church either. It's just giving. Just giving. Now, obviously, that could apply here if you're giving, but also just anywhere. I mean, if you just want to help someone out and give to people, do it with simplicity. You don't need any recognition or anything like that. Just give. You know, we learned that lesson in Acts chapter 5 with Ananias and Sapphira. They sold some property, and they lied about it because they wanted to be seen like, oh, man, we gave everything. We sold this property and gave it all. And they died. And they were even told, look, when it was yours, you were free to do it whatever you wanted to. Like, you didn't have to come and give everything. If you want to, great, but you don't have to do that. That wasn't an obligation. They weren't, like, forced to do that. But they messed everything up by trying to get this glory, and they lied about it. Like, you lied to the Holy Ghost. Like, we don't care about how much money you're giving. It's not like you're lying to us like we care. But you know what? God cares about this because now you're, you know, there you go. You're done. You've lost it. It's a big deal. But anyway, that's another sermon for another day on Acts chapter 5. I don't want to get too far into that. Let's continue in Romans 12. I'm running out of time here. But that's okay because, like I said, we're going to continue this evening. I'll probably just finish verse 8, and we'll call it because there's, like, four things in verse 8. So he that exhorteth an exhortation, he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity, he that ruleth with diligence. So God has put people in positions of ruling as well. Any parent at home, your husbands are ruling the whole household. Wives are ruling their children. Different situations, you might be even out in the workforce and have employees under you. You're the master and they're the servant, kind of using, with a lot of biblical terminology there, you're the boss, you're ruling, okay? We need to be ruling with diligence, the Bible says. That's important. That's the will of God, that if you're in a position of ruling, that you're doing it with diligence. What are you doing? You're taking heed and taking it seriously and being very careful with the things that you do, that you're doing things right, and that you're using right judgment and that you're not, you know, because you're in a position of power when you rule, you need to be diligent about things. You need to be able to do the right thing. The Bible says in Proverbs 12, verse 24, the hand of the diligent shall bear rule, but the slothful shall be under tribute. You're the judge, okay? You need to be diligent about things. And for parents, you know, as you rule over your kids, you need to be diligent in the judgments that you make with them so that you're showing a good example, that you're giving them the truth through your ruling, that they understand what's right, they understand justice, right, that you could equally... Now, look, nobody's perfect, but these are the things we ought to be diligent about. And you're not just flippant about things with your kids because, you know, guess what? They're going to learn that from you. However you rule your house, you are passing that on to them in the future. And you're also shaping the way that they view right and wrong on how you rule in your house. So it's a very important job. You need to be diligent. As the Bible says in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 6, And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. This is all about the words of the law, right? They're being exhorted. Now, I want these words in your heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. Teach the word of God to your kids. 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. It sounds like there's a lot of times that you ought to be teaching the Bible to your kids. And as ruling your house, you need to be diligent in teaching those things. It's important. Take your job serious. Take your role seriously. It's the will of God for you to rule in various capacities. If you have children, that's your job, to rule your children. Teach them the word of God. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, the Bible says, and they shall be as frontless between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house and on thy gates. Obviously, the word of God, God's laws, God's commandments are very important. We ought to treat them with gravity and cleave to them as something that's good for us. Last part of this verse, it says, he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness. And we're going to get a lot more into this in the afternoon. This is kind of a similar vein. It's going to continue down the same thought of being loving and forgiving and things like that. So when we look at mercy, you have to show mercy with cheerfulness. Mercy is going to go hand in hand with forgiveness, right? Because when you show mercy to someone, they've done you wrong, and you would be justified in exerting some kind of punishment against them, but when you show mercy, you refrain from that. You're showing them mercy. You're going to say, okay, I'm not going to do something maybe that would have been warranted or justified. I'm going to restrain myself. I'm going to forgive. You've done me wrong, but I'm going to show mercy. And the Bible says that we ought to show mercy with cheerfulness, that it's not something you do bitterly or grudgingly, going, I guess I'm going to show mercy even though, you know, brothers, oh, and so did this to me, and you're kind of gritting your teeth, going, I'm going to force myself to be merciful. Now, if you have to do that, it's probably still better than not being merciful, but God's will is that you can be merciful with cheerfulness, that it's a glad thing. You could have joy in being able to forgive people and being able to overlook transgressions and being able to show mercy because if you could think about the amount of mercy that God has had towards you and how many times God has not dropped the hammer on you when you probably could have been very warranted for God to do so in your life, you could go, you know what? I'm going to kind of show that mercy unto my fellow man as God has to me, and if you would, just turn to Matthew 18 really quickly. We're going to read a few verses. We're going to close on this point and on this passage. Matthew 5.7, of course, in the Beatitudes, the Bible says, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. There's a good reason to being merciful because the way that you, essentially the way that you're treating other people is the way God's going to treat you. Right? If you're merciful to other people, then you know what? You're going to gain favor with God, and God's going to be merciful. He's going to see that and say, okay, I'm going to show him mercy because this is the way that God wants us to love people as he loved us. Matthew 18. Now, we're not going to go through this whole story, but basically there's this one guy that owed his lord or his master, and he pleads with him and says, look, I don't have any money. I'll pay you whatever I owe you. Just show, you know, give me some time. Be a little bit lenient. You know, don't sell me into servitude and everything else. So his master says, fine, I'm going to forgive you that debt. Right? But then that guy goes to someone else that owed him some money. He just got forgiven this great debt. He owed all this stuff. And then that guy says basically the same story that he had going, look, you know, times are tough, but I'm going to work at it. I'm going to get you what you need. Just give me a little bit of time. And he's like, no, you pay me now. Right? He grabs him by the throat. And other people see this and they're like, what is wrong with this guy? Like, they couldn't believe that he's doing this, so they go and tell his master, going like, look, this guy, this guy that you forgave that debt to, I mean, he's just being really hard on this other guy that owed him.