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["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You Good morning and welcome. Let's find our seats taker song 167 One six seven 167 this morning sing it out on the first Oh Oh Oh Oh Amen good morning. We want to welcome you to verity baptist church this morning. We're glad you're with us We have a wonderful service lined up for you, of course today and tonight And we want to begin the service with a word of prayer So let's go ahead and bow our heads and have a word of prayer heavenly father lord We do thank you and we allow you We thank you for allowing us to be able to gather together lord We pray that you would bless the service today the preaching the fellowship the music But we ask that you would meet with us that you speak to our hearts in jesus name. We pray. Amen Turn to song 215 Two one five Heaven came down and glory filled my soul 215. Let's sing it out on the first Oh Today Just Okay Where Is Me Is Me Today Is Amen, all right. Well, let's take our bulletins this morning We'll go through some announcements real quickly If you do not have a bulletin just raise your hand and one of our ushers can get one for you if you need a bulletin just put your hand up and we will Get one for you the verse this week first chronicles 29 14 But who am I and what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? For all things come of thee and of thine own have we given thee and that's a good verse there We like that if you open up your bulletin, you'll see our service time sunday morning service 10 30 a.m We're glad you're with us on sunday morning. Of course on the lord's day for church We do invite you to be back tonight at 6 p.m For the evening service the evening service is different than the morning service different songs that are sung different sermon that's preached Just one more opportunity to be in god's house with god's people under the preaching of the word of god And of course, we'd love you to join us tonight for the sunday night service And then of course our wednesday evening bible study at 7 p.m And it's our midweek service. We call it the most encouraging service of the week and You can be back in church and in our bible study at 7 p.m on wednesday night If you look at our so many times our main so many times on saturday mornings at 10 a.m And then we have additional so many times on thursdays fridays and sundays at 2 p.m So we'd love for you to join us for any of those if you're a first-time guest We're glad you're with us We have a gift we'd like to give you as you walk out of the church building this morning as you go through the foyer You'll see a little table set up And on that table, you'll see these little gift bags Please grab one on your way out as a gift from us to you for being our guest this morning And we also ask if you're a first-time guest That you fill out the communication card, which is inserted in your bulletin If you need a pen just raise your hand one of our ushers can bring you by a pen We'd love to have a record of your attendance. We'd like to Also send you a little gift, but we need your info to do that So please take a moment to fill the card out when we're done with the announcements We're going to sing a song when we're done singing We're going to receive the offering and as the offering plate goes by you can drop this card in the offering plate If you look at the announcements there, we of course are a family integrated church What that means is that children and infants are always welcome in the church service We do not separate children from their parents for any reason However, we do have mother baby rooms and daddy rooms available for your convenience All of the rooms have comfortable seating. They've got monitors set up so you can watch the service and listen to it So if you have a child that's been distracting during the service or if you need some privacy We would encourage you to use those rooms as needed if you need to be baptized Please let us know we'd love to baptize you and you can let us know on your communication card on the back of the card There's a place for you to check off that you'd like information about baptism and we'll follow up with you In regards to that if you look at the announcements and upcoming events, of course The big announcement we have right now is the vision offering and our vision offering is a special offering We take every spring here at verity baptist church And it allows us to do some special things and our vision offering is next sunday march 26 So we want you to be thinking about praying about it Um, we've got a lot of information there in the bulletin for you You'll see the goals the things we're saving money for raising money for and then the giving opportunities how you can give I'm, not going to go into all these details right now Because we'll talk about it a little later on in the in the service We're actually going to show a video after the offerings that'll explain the vision offering and all those things. So be ready for that After we receive the offering if you continue there in the announcements, of course We have the lord's supper coming up and easter is just all right around the corner So we want you to be aware of that first of all the lord's supper And we partake of the lord's supper here at verity baptist church once a year and we do it the wednesday before easter And it's always a very special service and I want to encourage you to just save the date put on your calendar Even if you don't normally come to church on wednesday nights we would encourage you to make the effort to be here on this wednesday night and the lord's supper is one of the Ordinances that god the bible has given us to do like baptism is something that believers should partake in And we want to encourage you to be a part of it on wednesday april 5th at 7 p.m And then of course the following sunday april 9th is easter sunday. You should have one of these cards I realize you've got a lot of stuff in your bulletin You've got stuff regarding the vision offering there's a card and a commitment card and an envelope and we'll talk about those things Uh here in a little bit But uh, you should have one of these easter cards in the bulletin as well And we want to just encourage you to be thinking about easter Make sure you're in church on easter sunday and then we want you to be thinking about who you could invite to church on easter the The the easiest service to invite somebody to church is on easter service and you might have a co-worker or friend Or a neighbor or someone you've been thinking about inviting to church and I want to encourage you to use this easter card To invite them to church and bring them to church on easter sunday Of course, there's choir practice at 5 p.m Today and the choir is practicing for easter upcoming cleaning crew. You can check for your name there There's other things there for you to look at Please don't forget to turn your cell phones off or place them on silent during the service that they're not a distraction to anybody And if you look at the back of the bulletin birthdays and anniversaries For the month of march this week. We have one birthday zuri02. She has a birthday on march 23rd Praise report money matters all those things are there for you to look at And I would ask that you would be in prayer of course for our church family And it looks like we've got a little bit of a sickness going around It seems to only be affecting the little ones the children But we've got a couple families out. My wife had to stay home actually with one of our daughters. I wasn't feeling well So just be in prayer for the kids that they all get better soon And of course we're going to go ahead and sing the course of the week and we're going to receive the offering And then we've got a video we want to show you so just be ready for that Let's go ahead and take the chorus of the week and we'll sing I Stand amazed as we prepare to receive the offering this morning sing it out on the first when I examine That old rugged cross The mighty gold Brings The love Me On the second Oh Me Amen good singing we'll have the guys come up and help us With the offering at this time And then we will go ahead and get set up Uh to watch a video here about our upcoming vision offering. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Heavenly father Lord, we do. Thank you for allowing us to gather today. Lord We pray that you bless the offering the gift and the giver and lord We do pray for this upcoming vision offering that you would work in the hearts of our church people That we would all be willing to give to sacrifice to stretch ourselves To partake in this special offering in jesus name. We pray amen So Me So So So So So Hi, this is pastor roger Jimenez from verity baptist church in sacramento california i'm making a video for our church family And for all of our friends out there who generously support our ministry financially First of all, let me begin by saying thank you The lord has allowed us to do some great things here at verity baptist church And much of that has to do with the fact that you support our ministry and we appreciate that I'm making a video to let you know about our upcoming vision offering Our vision offering is a special offering that we take here at verity baptist church every spring And it allows us to do some special things and accomplish some things that we believe the lord has laid on our hearts as a vision For our church our vision offering this year is scheduled for sunday, march 26 And i'd like to let you know about some of the things that we are raising money for at this year's vision offering first Our biggest goal is to continue to save money towards the down payment of a future building As many of you know churches like ours will often have problems with landlords Who fight against us because of the positions of our church we ourselves at verity baptist church Have had issues with our landlords in the past after we had protests and sermons went viral for that reason We've decided that we would like to purchase our own building over the last several years We have faithfully put away towards the down payment of a future building and this vision offering Like other vision offerings is going to help us to get closer to that goal Secondly, we're going to continue to support our missions work We're going to support our church satellites in the philippines in manila pampanga and bicole And we're going to continue to support our missionaries Our evangelist brother matthew stuckey who's doing a great job in the philippines And also our other missionary support in the philippines Dave kabuntala lastly the vision offering is going to go towards helping us host the eighth annual Red hot preaching conference. The red hot preaching conference is an amazing event every year where we bring in preachers from the new ifb And people come from all over the country and different parts of the world to be part of this conference Of course Every conference has expenses associated with it and the vision offering allows us to put on the red hot preaching conference every year Last year. I set a big goal for the vision offering. I asked our church family to raise 100,000 in one special offering and our church family along with those of you who support our ministry financially online Blew that goal out of the water This year i'm asking the lord to help us do it again I'm asking you to consider participating in the vision offering and helping us raise a hundred thousand dollars in this year's Vision offering if you would like to participate in this year's vision offering and you're part of the verdi baptist church family You can of course bring a one-time offering on the day of the vision offering which is sunday, march 26 You can also if you prefer make a commitment to give towards the vision offering over the next three months You can commit to give in april in may or june or commit to give at all three months And of course if you'd like you can do both you can give it a one-time offering on the day of the vision offering And make a commitment towards the next several months if you're not part of our church family But you'd like to participate in this year's vision offering you can do that a couple of ways First you can go to our website verdi baptist.com hit the donate now button and you're able to give online through our website If you give online Please make sure to write vision offering in the memo so that we know that this donation is going towards this year's vision offering If you'd like to mail in a check you can do that at our address 320 harris avenue suite a sacramental california 95838 I appreciate you taking the time to watch this video and I simply ask that you would pray and consider Whether the lord would have you to participate in this year's vision offering. Thanks for watching So You You I 14 If you do not have a bible, please raise your hand and an usher will bring you one exodus chapter 14 We will read the entire chapter as our custom Exodus chapter 14 Just keep your hands up and an usher will bring you a bible Exodus 14 the bible reads and the lord spake unto moses saying speak unto the children of israel that they turn and encamp before pi haraweth between migdal and the sea over against bales ephon Before it shall ye encamp by the sea For pharaoh will say of the children of israel They are entangled in the land the wilderness hath shut them in And I will harden pharaoh's heart that he shall follow after them And I will be honored upon pharaoh and upon all his hosts that the egyptians may know that I am the lord And they did so And it was told the king of egypt that the people fled And the heart of pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people and they said why have we done this? That we have let israel go from serving us And he made ready his chariot and took his people with him And he took 600 chosen chariots and all the chariots of egypt and captains over every one of them And the lord hardened the heart of pharaoh king of egypt and he pursued after the children of israel And the children of israel went out with a high hand But the egyptians pursued after them all the horses and chariots of pharaoh and his horsemen and his army And overtook them in camping by the sea beside pi Heiroth before bale zephon and when pharaoh drew nigh the children of israel lifted up their eyes and behold The egyptians marched after them and they were so afraid and the children of israel cried out unto the lord and they said unto moses Because there were no graves in egypt has thou taken us away to die in the wilderness Wherefore has thou dealt thus with us to carry us forth out of egypt Is not this the word that we did tell thee in egypt saying let us alone that we may serve the egyptians For it had been better for us to serve the egyptians than that. We should die in the wilderness And moses said unto the people fear ye not Stand still and see the salvation of the lord, which he will show to you today For the egyptians whom ye have seen today. Ye shall see them again no more forever The lord shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace And the lord said unto moses wherefore cryest thou unto me speak unto the children of israel that they go forward But lift thou up thy rod and stretch out that hand over the sea And divide it And the children of israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea And I behold I will harden the hearts of the egyptians and they shall follow them And I will get me honor upon pharaoh and upon all his hosts upon his chariots and upon his horsemen And the egyptians shall know that I am the lord when I have gotten me honor upon pharaoh upon his chariots and upon his horsemen And the angel of god which went before the camp of israel Removed and went behind them and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face And stood behind them and it came between the camp of the egyptians and the camp of israel And it was a cloud and darkness to them But it gave light by night to these so that the one came not near the other all the night And moses stretched out his hand over the sea And the lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night and made the sea dry land And the waters were divided and the children of israel went unto the midst of the sea upon the dry ground And the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left And the egyptians pursued and went in after them to the midst of the sea even all pharaoh's horses his chariots and his horsemen And it came to pass that in the morning watch the lord looked unto the host of the egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud And troubled the host of the egyptians and took off their chariot wheels that they draped them heavily so that the egyptians said Let us flee from the face of israel the lord fighted for them against the egyptians and the lord said unto moses Stretch out that hand over the sea that the waters may come again upon the egyptians upon their chariots and upon their horsemen And moses stretched forth his hand over the sea and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared And the egyptians fled against it and the lord overthrew the egyptians in the midst of the sea And the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the hosts of pharaoh that came into the sea after them There remained not so much as one of them But the children of israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea And the waters were wall unto them on their right hand and on their left Thus the lord saved israel that day out of the hand of the egyptians And israel saw the egyptians dead upon the seashore And israel saw that great work which the lord did upon the egyptians And the people feared the lord and believed the lord and his servant moses. Let us pray Father god, thank you for this day. Thank you for this opportunity to come together Please bless the message bless pastor. Let it bring glory and honor to you in the name of jesus christ. I pray amen Amen All right, we're there in numbers chapter 14 And uh this morning, of course i'm preaching a special sermon and I i'm Entitling the sermon do it again lord. I want to speak on the subject of Something that you may or may not have noticed in the bible It's a characteristic of god that you may have seen in scripture. You maybe you haven't but it is god's ability to perform a great work to do Uh an amazing thing and then his willingness to do it again And you'll see throughout the bible if you haven't seen it already You'll see it lord willing by the end of the sermon that god is always able and willing to Do great works once and again and I want to begin this morning here in excess chapter 14 And I want to use this miracle in excess 14 as an example And when you talk about miracles in the bible, obviously the bible is full of accounts of miracles And many miracles are famous and well known one of the most famous miracles in the bible and for sure Probably the most famous miracle in the old testament is the miracle of the parting of the red sea And that's what we read about here in excess chapter 14 And I want you to look down at verse number nine excess chapter 14 and verse 9 Notice what the bible says, but the bible says but the egyptians pursued after them and this is of course after The 10 plagues of egypt moses has successfully delivered the children of israel out of egypt They have came out of egypt But pharaoh had a change of heart and decided to pursue After the children of israel verse 9 and the egyptians pursued after them All the horses and chariots of pharaoh and his horsemen and his army and overtook them in camping by the sea beside pihai high rock before baal ziphon So of course when you get the picture here the children of israel have came out of egypt They have left egypt after being in bondage for hundreds of years And now they are encamped by the sea as they left egypt They came across this natural barrier, which is the red sea. Of course, the the the sea was in their way And as they are encamped by the sea the egyptians decide to pursue after them look down at verse 10 and when pharaoh And when pharaoh drew nigh the children of israel lifted up their eyes and behold egyptians marched after them And they were so afraid and the children of israel cried out Unto the lord and we could go through a lot of different things here in the story I'm, not specifically preaching on this story this morning But let's just skip some of this and look down at verse 15 And the lord said unto moses wherefore christ that one to me speak unto the children of israel and I love this little phrase He says that they go forward and it's interesting because god tells moses. Why are you crying out to me? Why are you praying about this? He said tell the children of israel to go forward And I just think that's kind of interesting and maybe a little funny because of the fact that right before them is the red sea I mean right before them is this huge body of water and god is telling them just tell them to go forward look at verse 16 He says but lift thou up thy rod and stretch out thine hand over the sea and divide it And the children of israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea look verse 21 And moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind All that night and made the sea Dry land and the waters were divided and the children of israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground and the waters were A wall unto them on their right hand and on their left. And of course, this is a well-known miracle You've heard the story of the parting of the red sea and it's an amazing Event that took place the children of israel coming out of bondage up against the red sea. They are Entangled in the wilderness pharaoh is coming after them to bring them back into egypt and god miraculously parts the red sea moses stretched out his hand and his rod over the sea and it divided the bible says that the sea Divided and they went through on dry ground It says that the waters were a wall on either side So a pathway was literally divided through the red sea with dry ground on which they walked on And they walked over to the other side look at verse 29 But the children of israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea and the waters were a wall unto them On their right hand and on their left and again i'm not going to take the time to go through the whole story But you know that pharaoh decides to pursue after them into the red sea God keeps the sea open and for whatever reason because of the fact that he's a reprobate pharaoh decides to take his entire army Through the pathway as well and when they get to the midst, of course God brings back the waters not only delivers the children of israel through the red sea but uses the red sea to Take care of their enemies and of course, this is one of the most well-known miracles one of the most well-known supernatural events that happen in the bible and again if you were to stop just the secular person on the street someone that's maybe not a christian or doesn't go to church a lot and just ask them to name A supernatural event in the bible the red sea parting of the red sea is probably something That they're going to bring up in the old testament it is something that is an amazing feat and something that is Seen as the great power of god now you're there in exodus chapter 14 I'd like you to go with me to the book of joshua joshua chapter 3 if you turn over past leviticus past numbers past Deuteronomy into the book of joshua joshua chapter 3 you're there in exodus called past leviticus numbers deuteronomy in joshua and again I'm preaching on the subject of do it again lord And if you're taking notes this morning, and I always encourage you to take notes I want to give you three thoughts this morning And the first thought is this you can jot this down if you'd like number one god can do it again God can do it again. And though the parting of the red sea was an amazing Miracle and it was an amazing event in the lives of the children of israel What's interesting to me and something that I know you know this but maybe you haven't thought about it This way is that it is one of the most if not the most for sure in the old testament amazing miracles in the bible I mean, of course, we have the walls of generical coming down We have the sun standing still we have a lot of great miracles in the old testament But I would say the part of the red sea is the most well-known Most popular one of them all but what's interesting is that god actually did it again He pretty much did the same miracle Two different places two different leaders two different times, but he did it again Let me let me show it to you joshua chapter three and I know you know this but I want you to Consider it from this perspective joshua chapter three and verse seven The bible says and the lord said unto joshua this day. I will begin to magnify thee in the sight of all israel This is after moses who led the children of israel out of out of the out of egypt led them through the red sea Led them in the wilderness for 40 years. He has now Died and the next generation joshua has taken over and the bible says here in verse seven That and the lord said unto joshua this day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all israel? I want you to notice the context In which we see the next event Nothing in the bible is in there by coincidence Nothing is insignificant It's all in there for a reason and the context in which we get This miracle that we're going to see in joshua chapter three is this that they may know referring to the children of israel That as I was with moses, so I will be with thee This is what god tells joshua god tells joshua i'm getting ready to do something And and the purpose of what i'm going to do is that the children of israel who you are now the leader of? I want them to know that in the same way that I was with moses I will be with you. Look at verse eight. He says and thou shalt this is god speaking to joshua Thou shalt command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant saying when ye come to the brink of the waters Of jordan you shall stand still in jordan here again We see the children of israel getting ready for a new phase We saw them in exodus 14 coming out of bondage and we saw them up against the red sea Getting ready for a new phase in their history But they have to cross the red sea in order to get there here We have 40 years later the children of israel again getting ready for a new phase in their history They're about to enter the promised land. They're about to enter Canaan land They're about to begin the conquest of the land, but they find themselves again with a barrier of water before them They are standing verse eight at the brink of the water of jordan and notice what god says verse 13 And it shall come to pass as soon as the souls The souls is referring to the bottoms of the feet the souls of the feet of the priests That bear the ark of the lord the lord of all the earth notice again That's not there for no reason either. He is the lord of all the earth. He controls everything on this earth He says as soon as the souls of the feet of the priest that bear the ark of the lord The lord of all the earth shall rest in the waters of jordan that the waters of jordan shall be cut off From the waters that come down from above and they shall stand upon and heap. I want you to understand what god is saying here God is telling joshua that i'm going to do something similar to what I did with moses Remember that they may know that as I was with moses So I will be with thee now with moses They were standing before a sea and god parted the sea Walls of water on both sides as they crossed through a path that he made of dry land through the red sea With joshua, it's pretty much the same miracle, but it's a little different This is the jordan river and since it is a river it is flowing on one side So god does not part the jordan river what he does is he stops the flow of the water Look at it again verse 13 And it came to pass as soon as the souls of the feet of the priest That bear the ark of the lord the lord of all the earth shall rest in the waters of jordan That the waters of jordan shall be cut off meaning he's going to stop the flowing from the waters that came down from above Notice and they shall stand upon and heat the word heat means a gathering or a pile They're going instead of having two walls of water on either side They're going to have one wall of water where god stops the flowing of the jordan river and he drives the river That they might cross through it Look at verse 14 and it came to pass when the people were removed from their tents to pass over jordan And the priest bearing the ark the covenant before the people and as they bear the ark Uh, and as they that bear the ark were come unto jordan notice and the feet of the priest that bear the ark were dipped In the brim of the water you've heard people talking in the past. You've heard this phrase stepping out by faith These people were stepping out by faith Literally stepping onto the water believing that god would part the the what would would stop the flow of the river When they were coming to jordan and the feet of the priests that bear the ark were dipped in the brim of the water For jordan overflowed all his banks at the times of the harvest and what that little parentheses there Is telling you this is not just a little stream This was a flowing river a large river and not only was it a large river. It was at its highest it was overflowing All its banks at this time of the harvest verse 16 that the waters which came down from above Stood and rose up upon in heat they stood and they gathered as a pile as a wall Very far from the city adam that is beside zarithan and those that came down toward the sea of the plain Even the salt sea failed and were cut off and the people passed over right against Jericho verse 17 and the priests that bear the ark of the covenant of the lord stood firm on dry ground In the midst of the jordan and all israel passed over on dry ground until all the people were passed clean over jordan and The point that I want to make and what I want you to notice Is that though the parting of the red sea was an amazing miracle? And it definitely takes the title as the probably the most well-known most popular miracle the old testament What's interesting to me is that god did it again? It wasn't this one-time act and god says it's going to take all my strength going to take all my power I'm going to do this one time. Moses. You better get it right because I can only do this one. No No, god is not only able but he is willing to repeat himself over and over and we serve a god Who can do it again? He's not limited to uh, a limited strength like a human He's not limited to a certain amount of resources if he can do it once he can do it again He did it for moses and then he did it for joshua Go to second kings if you would second kings You're there in the book of joshua go to judges you're gonna go past judges ruth first samuel second samuel first king second king joshua Judges ruth first samuel second samuel first king second king second kings, please And while you go there, let me just explain to you Why it is that i'm preaching this sermon? Obviously for those of you that have been part of our church for years now You know that on the sunday before the vision offering I usually preach a sermon on the subject of giving And on the subject of of of the vision offering specifically Now if you're new to our church of your first-time guests Let me just say this and you'll have to just take me at my word. I really do not preach sermons about money very often Now i'm not i'm not afraid to preach those sermons because the bible talks a lot about giving It's not something that we emphasize around here In fact, you could come to our church for weeks and weeks and months and months and never hear one thing about giving or money Or anything like that But this is a time that we set aside in the calendar every year to focus on this idea of giving and of course regarding our vision offering so Uh, if you if you're new here I just want to say give us a few weeks and let me prove to you that this is not something we talk about a lot But it is something the bible does talk about And usually the sunday before the vision offering I preach on the subject of giving I preach on the subject of of sacrificial giving And and and and all those things this year I was I felt that the lord was leading me To kind of preach maybe a little bit of a different sermon at our vision offering And the reason is because last year as you already know and we saw in the video When we took our vision offering last year, I did something that i'd never done before And I gave our church family a goal now in the past We've done vision offerings where we just tried to raise money and there was no real specific goal We're just trying to see what the lord would do and we will definitely probably go back to that at some point But last year I felt moved of the lord to uh, step out a little bit by faith and ask our family Our church family to raise a hundred thousand dollars in one special offering and to be honest with you I felt like I was really putting myself out there and thinking good night You know that we might fail this thing and it might it might look bad and and whatever but I just thought That it would be something that god I felt like god I'd lay that on my heart and I came to you and I know that many of you god bless you. Uh, you know Gouted to you know, too whether our church could do that and of course our church along with the Generous online supporters people that support our ministry online that that don't even come to our church I mean completely blew that challenge out of the water And I came to you last year and asked you to raise a hundred thousand dollars, let me just give you some some Remind you of what it is that happened last year last year the total given at our church Meaning on the special day of the special offering. I mean i'm talking about a church with 200 people in it Uh total given at our church was eighty four thousand nine hundred eight dollars eighty seven cents total given online was seventy six thousand five hundred sixty six dollars Total committed to come in over three months april may and june was three nine thousand three hundred seventeen thousand Seventeen dollars the total vision offering last year. I challenged our church family to raise a hundred thousand dollars in one special offering We raised two hundred thousand seven hundred ninety one dollars and eighty seven cents in one offering We doubled that Now a few months later of uh A church that it was a friend needed a hundred thousand dollars And we gave it to them And I and I believe that maybe this is why god, you know I asked for a hundred thousand god said i'm gonna give you two but you're gonna have to give one of it away And um, and and we're happy to do that. We're happy to to to help wherever we can and to keep churches alive and keep churches going this morning i'm coming to you and Asking or telling you that i'm asking the lord to help us do it again Amen and i'm preaching on this subject of do it again lord because I want you to understand that god is not limited God is not limited to one-time events. God is not limited. Now. I'm not asking that we raise two hundred thousand dollars I'm, just saying that original goal of a hundred thousand dollars. We we tried to do it one time We thought it was an impossible task and god did it and i'm just here to tell you that I believe that god can do It again and what you'll notice in the bible is that god is the god and you may have not noticed this And and and maybe you'll notice it today But god he's this repetitive god where he not only does it but he wants to do it again He parted the red sea and then he parts the jordan river, but I want you to notice that that's not the only time that happened Let me give you another example go to second kings chapter number two Second kings chapter number two. We saw the story of moses and joshua Now let's look at the story of elijah and elisha second kings chapter number two And verse number seven second kings 2 7 The bible says in 50 men of the sons of the prophet went and stood to veo afar off and they too stood by notice jordan when the bible says they too the two there that are being referred to is elijah And elijah and of course elijah and elijah are a beautiful. Uh, uh, uh picture of the first generation and the second generation Just like moses and joshua and joshua was taken over for moses elijah is going to be taken over for the prophet elijah and but this is right before elijah is taken from elijah and the bible says that as they were traveling that day because elijah knew that That elijah would be taken from him as they were traveling that day one of the uh places that he had to go Was on the other side of the jordan river and the jordan river stood as a barrier between them Look at it again second kings 2 7 and 50 men of the sons of the prophets went and stood to veo far off And they too stood by jordan verse 8 And elijah took his mantle and wrapped it together. This is the man of god elijah He took his mantle and wrapped it together and notice what the bible says and smote the waters He takes his mantle and he hits the water We're talking about the jordan river and the bible says and they were divided Hither and thither so that they too went over on notice it dry ground Not only does god part the red sea for moses Not only does he stop the flow of the jordan river for joshua But then many years later we have elijah the man of god who takes his mantle He smote the water and god does it again He does the same thing the same river the same miracle they too went over on dry ground But that's not it Look at verse 11 And it came to pass as they still went on And talked that behold there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire And parted them both this is elijah and elijah they're going about their day and these chariots of fire appear and divide Elijah and elijah they they parted them asunder and elijah went up by a world went into heaven And elijah saw it and he cried my father my father The chariots of israel and the horsemen thereof and he saw him no more and he took all of his own clothes And rent them in two pieces verse 13 he took up also the mantle of elijah that fell from him So elijah and elijah cross the jordan river together elijah takes his mantle He smoked the water and god does it again. He did it for moses. He did it for joshua. He does it for elijah He stops the flowing of the jordan river elijah and elijah cross over on dry ground as they continue their day Chariots of fire appear depart that they they they divide them asunder Elijah is taken up by a whirlwind in the chariot of fire as he's going on. He drops his mantle And elijah the second generation picks it up You know, we need the second generation to pick up the mantle He took up also the mantle verse 13 of elijah that fell from him and went back and stood by the bank You would have never guessed the right of jordan He stood by the bank of jordan and he elijah Took the mantle of elijah that fell from him knows what he does and smote the waters and said now I want you to notice what he said Because this is not just some sort of preacher talk where he's just trying to be dramatic. He says this for a reason He says where is the lord god of elijah And what elijah is saying as he takes the mantle that has fell from elijah And he walks back up to that jordan river and he smote the jordan river and he cries out and says Where is the lord god of elijah? What elijah is saying is that I know elijah did not part the jordan river by his own power I know that elijah parted the jordan river by the power of god And if god can do it for moses and if god can do it for joshua and if god can do it for elijah Elijah says then god can do it for me. He says where is the god of elijah? Where is the lord god of elijah and when he had also when he also had smitten the waters notice what the bible says? They parted hither and thither So what does that mean here's what it means that god delights in doing it again God is not a one-trick pony He's not he doesn't just do it one time at the red sea He could do it at the jordan river for joshua and the entire nation of israel He can do it at the jordan river for two men elijah and elijah. He can do it for one man elijah Why because god is the god that can do it again? Can do it again The bible says they parted hither and thither and elijah went over verse 15 And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at jericho saw him They said notice what they identified when they saw elijah Doing what elijah had just done They identified that the spirit of elijah the thrust on elijah and they came to meet him and bowed themselves to the ground before him I want to give you three statements. And the first one is this that god can do it again And This isn't just about the vision offering I believe that god can do it again God can do it for moses. God can do it for joshua. God did it for elijah. God can do it for elijah And it doesn't matter what it is you're talking about. If god has done a great work. God can do it again Let me tell some of you who are getting a little cold in your christian walk Some of you who used to be excited about the things of god used to be excited for sunday morning church Used to be excited for sunday night church used to be excited for wednesday night church Used to be excited for so when you say things have changed a little bit. I've got a little cold I've got a little back. So let me tell you something god can do it again God can do it in your life. God can do it in my life. God is no respect to a person He doesn't bless one church and refuse to bless all other churches. He can do what he's done for other churches. He can do for us What he's done for other christians he can do for you You say well god has used verity baptist church over the years to see lives transformed Let me tell you something We're going to keep going soul winning you say why because god can do it again Because we can find more people who need to be saved and more people who need their marriages restored and more people Who have children that they need help raising and we can see god do it again. See god is no respecter of persons He's the god who delights I'm doing it again They say god had a special relationship with moses. Yes, he did but you know, he did it for joshua again God got a special relationship with elijah. Yes, he did but he did it for elisha again Why don't you be convinced this morning? That god can do it again I I realize look every time I stand up here and make any sort of challenge people I remember the very first vision offering we ever had the very first vision offering we ever had we were still in our house We were still meeting in the living room And some of you were there and I stood up and I said we're gonna raise three thousand dollars I mean that's it seems like a joke now, but at the time that seemed like an immense amount We're gonna raise three thousand dollars to buy a ten-year-old church van So that we can pick people up for church And I remember a little old lady. I was coming to our church at the time. She's no longer Alive, you know, she's she's no longer with us But I remember after you know, we we we I preached and we prayed and we raised the money praise the lord And at that time not only did we raise the three thousand we needed for the for the for the van We raised more than we needed we bought the van and we had enough money to put a down payment on our first building by god's grace I remember this little old lady Looking at me after the success of the vision offering and saying to me. I didn't think you could do it pastor When you said that I didn't say anything out loud But when you said that I thought to myself you can't do that And I remember I remember this was 12 years ago. I remember being really hurt And I mean, I really took it personally. I mean, I I love the lady and I wasn't upset with her But I thought to myself I thought everyone was on board with what we were doing She's like I didn't think we were gonna do it. I didn't think there was any way This little church was gonna raise three thousand and you guys raised more than praise god But you know what i've learned over the years is almost every year someone comes up to me and says the same thing I mean last year several of you said that to me and now I just chuckle and think to myself. Oh ye of little faith And I know that some of you are thinking right now I don't know you think we can do it and here's what i'm not telling you. We will do it. I'm not god But I can tell you god can do it God can do it again He's the god that delights in performing great works He's the god that delights in doing great miracles and then doing it again And doing it again And doing it again. He did it for moses and he did it for joshua. He did it for elijah and he did it for elijah Go to matthew chapter 14 if you would Matthew chapter 14 I said, I want to give you three statements this morning. The first one is this god can do it again I hope you've seen that in the bible He can do it again He delights in doing it again over and over again In matthew chapter 14 we find another miracle and again If we were to take a survey Of unchurched people secular people maybe people that aren't christians or people that don't go to church And ask them what is the most famous miracle in the new testament? What is the most famous miracle of the lord? Jesus christ, I mean there's there's Debate and it could be up in the air But definitely one of the ones that would be named if not the most well-known miracle Of the lord jesus christ and the new testament would be the feeding of the five thousand In matthew chapter 14 and verse 16 the bible says but jesus said unto them They need not depart remember he'd been teaching This crowd this massive crowd of people we call it the feeding of the five thousand But the bible tells us that it was five thousand men not counting women and children It might have been a crowd of we don't know. It might have been ten thousand people might have been fifteen thousand people Might have been twenty thousand people But jesus said unto them they need not depart Give you them to eat And they say unto him we have here but five loaves and two fishes He says you need to feed the crowd and the disciples say to jesus what some of you say to me Well, how can a little church of 200 people? Raise a hundred thousand dollars How all we have is is five loaves and two fishes And let me tell you something It doesn't matter what you have whatever you have the response is always the same from the lord jesus christ verse 4 18 He said bring them hither to me God says just bring me what you've got. I don't have much just bring it anyway I don't have anything impressive We don't have a lot of resources all we have is five loaves and two fishes and he said bring them hither to me Look at verse 19 And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass And took the five loaves. I want I want you to remember this. All right took the five loaves and two fishes How many loaves five loaves how many fishes two fishes? And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass and he took the five loaves and two fishes and looking up to heaven He blessed by the way, that's why we should pray before we eat I mean if jesus did it it's good enough. Jesus is good enough for us Looking up to heaven He blessed and break and gave loaves to the disciples and disciples to the multitude and they did all eat And were filled They didn't just they didn't just have a a sample They ate till they were filled You said what happened here? Jesus takes five loaves two fishes He he prays and blesses it and thanks god for it and he begins to break it and as he rips it apart He gives a piece to the disciples and then he rips and he gives a piece and he rips and he gives a piece And he ripped and he just never stops ripping Never stopped breaking He takes the five loaves and two fishes and he multiplies them Let me tell you something god can take our our meagerness and multiply him And he and he divided it and they all did eat and were filled and they took up the fragments What are the fragments the leftovers? Remember 5000 men Not counting women and children might have been 15 000 might have been 20 000 people there He takes five loaves and two fishes begins to break it and when it's all said and done And everybody has ate until they are full They go through and they pick up the fragment and the bible says that there remained 12 baskets full It's interesting to me there were 12 disciples who were helping him The disciples I said when are we going to have lunch? Hey god always take care of you 12 baskets full full of what bread and fishes It started with five loaves and two fishes They feed Notice verse 21 and they that had eaten were about 5 000 men beside women and children And they had 12 baskets full They had five loaves two fishes five thousand men beside women and children If most of the men there had wives and children, I mean there could have been 20 000 people there So Five loaves and two fishes They break it and when everyone's ate to their full, they've got 12 baskets left over You know, what's interesting? kind of like the most famous miracle of the old testament the parting of the red sea God did it again At the jordan river and god did it again at the jordan river and god did it again At the jordan river when you look at the feeding of the five thousand which is arguably the most famous miracle of the new testament What's really interesting is that god did it again? In matthew chapter 14 We see the fi of the feeding of the five thousand But if you flip over one page to matthew chapter 15, you see the feeding of the four thousand You may or may not have noticed it I don't know how you could have noticed that it's literally in the same book one chapter after the other but I get sometimes People are reading and they're not paying attention This miracle was repeated again Matthew 15 32 then jesus called his disciples unto him and said I have compassion on the multitude because they continue with me now three days and have nothing to eat And I will not send them away fast unless they faint in the way and his disciples say unto him When should we have so much bread in the wilderness as to fill so great a multitude And when you read that you think to yourself, are you serious? You just fought five thousand men beside women and children with five loves and two visions just the previous chapter And now you've got four thousand people in front of you and jesus saying hey, let's do it again Amen And your response is when should we feed so when when should we have so much bread in the wilderness as to feel so great A multitude sounds like some of you every vision offering How are we going to raise 100 000 are you serious we just raised 200 000 last year I'm not saying that was our might or our power But you think you said but things have changed we're going to talk about that things have changed but you know, what hasn't changed is gone Right And they and they respond with this question the cynical question When should we have so much bread in the wilderness as to fill so great a multitude and jesus say it unto them Don't you love it? How many loaves have you? And they said I want you to notice a different event Chapter 14 we had five thousand men Beside women and children chapter 15 we have four thousand men beside women and children chapter 14 we had five thousand loaves Excuse me, five loaves and not five thousand loaves. I mean there probably was five thousand loaves at some point But we had five loaves two fishes and twelve baskets Here verse 34 matthew 1534 and jesus said unto them how many loaves have ye and they said seven We have seven loaves And a few little fishes When he says a few there, we're not given the number but here's what we know. It's more than two Because if it would have been only two he would they would have said we have a couple of fishes The fact that he said a few fishes a few little fishes means there was more than two how many were there? We don't know, but we know that there was at least three Now here's what's interesting Verse 35 and he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground And he took the seven loaves and the few fishes at least three And gave thanks And break them and gave to his disciples and disciples to the multitude and they did all eat and were filled And they took up the broken meat that was left seven baskets full and they did eat They that did eat were four thousand men beside women and children and he sent them away Sent away the multitude and took ship and came into the coast of magdala Now I told you that i've got three statements for you The first one is that god can do it again and this story in the new testament Exemplifies that same thing that god can do it again He fed the five thousand in one chapter and he feeds four thousand in the next chapter What does that tell us is that god can do it again? It's not just the parting of the red seats whatever god wants to do He can do it again But that's actually not the point that I want to make From the feeding of the five thousand to feeding the four thousand It definitely helps the first point that god can do it again We saw that with the red sea in the jordan river We see that with the feeding of five thousand feeding four thousand, but the point that I want to make to you is this That not only can god Do it again Here's statement number two. God can do more with less God can do more with less You say what do you mean? Well, look look at the numbers that we have here Matthew chapter 14 5 000 men beside women and children five loaves two fishes 12 baskets left over Matthew chapter 15 we have 4 000 men beside women and children less people And we start with more seven loaves as opposed to five A few fishes at least three fishes as opposed to ten We had more to start with in chapter 15 seven loaves and a few fishes at least three We have less to feed four thousand men as opposed to five thousand men But we end up with less seven baskets full Now here's the thing All of it is a miracle All of it is amazing All of it is impossible You say why would god put these two stories side by side in chapter 14 chapter 15 and give us these numbers And I think that there's a lot that we can learn But I think that one of the things that god is trying to teach us is that god can do more with less He fed more with five loaves and two fishes and had more left over 12 baskets Than he did with the seven loaves and three fishes and though all of it is a miracle and none of it makes sense You and I would think well if you got to start with something What would you rather start with five loaves or seven loaves two fishes or a few fishes and god is telling us? Hey, he's not only not limited to not doing it again. He can do it again He's also the god that can do more with less He can do more with less You say why does this matter? Here's why it matters because things have changed Last year by god's grace I challenged you to give a hundred thousand dollars in one offering And we ended up giving two hundred thousand dollars And we gave a hundred thousand dollars of it away To save a church to help a church and praise god for that But can I just be honest with you? Things have changed since last year For one the economy is different Inflation has risen I get it You're struggling we're struggling it's expensive. Look i've got we're a family of eight. I've got a wife that Praise the lord stays home with the kids And and we've got six children and I get it. It's hard to it's it's difficult to feed children and all the Everything's gone up in price Things have changed Not only that but things have changed for our church Last year at the vision offering we had a youtube channel that had 20 000 subscribers And i'll just be very honest with you a lot Of what was coming in? Was coming in through the giving of people that were Not part of our church people that our church had helped and touched and blessed and praised the world for that Of course youtube kicked us off of youtube they shut down our 20 000 subscriber channel and i'll just be very honest with you It's affected our finances Now, please please don't misunderstand me and i'm not up here trying to make you feel bad or anything Our church is fine as far as our church being a self-supporting self-sufficient church. We Are fine. We don't have any problems there But what we had been doing for a long time is this extra donations that were coming in from the online was being spent on putting money in the savings And helping us to get to our goal of purchasing a building and that has dried up and i'm only bringing that up to say this I realize that things have changed and if you look at the numbers just on paper It might look like we actually have less and here's the thing It's not that it looks like we have less we do have less but i'm just here to tell you something That god is a god that can do more with less Not only can he do it again, but he can do more with less. He's not limited to our resources It doesn't matter if you got five loaves and two fishes or seven loaves and three fishes If you just bring what you have to god and god says let me deal with it What's highlighted here Is that god Can do more with less Go to matthew chapter 19 matthew chapter 19 Let me take a minute to speak to you about the vision offering You go to matthew chapter 19 and while you turn there, let me just Ask you also, maybe you can grab your bulletin and just talk to you And again, if you're here this morning and you're new to our church, this is very unusual This is not something we do every week. And if you came here for any length of time, you know, that's true But I also don't think it's unbiblical what we're doing Bible talks a lot about special offerings and giving and it's part of It's part of christian discipleship You know, the bible says where your where your treasure is there where your heart be also And whenever whenever people are whenever people are upset about a preacher preaching on money it always Puts up a red flag for me because where your treasure is there where your heart be also And when a preacher literally does it once a year and it bothers you then there's a major problem But i'd like you to look at this this vision offering And look at the goals Our goal Is to continue to save for a down payment for a future building. I'm going to give you some specific Numbers Later on this morning. I'm i'm going to do that off live stream So when i'm done with the sermon i'm going to give you just some more thoughts and I don't want to do that on the live Stream, but we are continuing we are saving our goal is to purchase a property of our own I I don't know that we will do that. I believe we will do that. I don't see why we can't do it. But um, But if god doesn't want us to do that, then we won't do that. But that is the goal that we are moving towards many of you know that in 2016 we had problems with landlords and not being able to find buildings because of our stance on the word of god and by god's grace we want to try to Protect our church from ever being in a position like that again again if god chooses not to let us do that I just ask god to let us allow us to do things and we start working that direction if he closes the doors Then then then he's the boss but up to this point He has not closed his doors and god has allowed us to to save and we are well our way towards our goal And that is our main that's probably our main focus for the vision offering is to save For a down payment of a future building. Of course. That's not the only thing we want to continue We want to continue to do that. We want to continue to do that. We want to continue to do that Of course, it's not the only thing we want to continue to support our missions work We've got our evangelist brother stucky in the philippines who we support full-time We've got another missionary dave kabum talla. We've been praying for his wife who recently was diagnosed with breast cancer And we we don't we do not support him full-time, but we support him with a good amount Every month and then of course we've got three churches in manila and pampanga and bikol That are verdi baptist church manila verdi baptist church pampanga verdi baptist church bikol They are part of our verdi baptist church family they are ran well by brother stucky and ms Tanu I appreciate that we want to continue to work and do the work that's being done there In the philippines and that's not it. We want by god's grace We will expand that and one day we'll have more evangelists and more missionaries and more churches that we're starting throughout the world Of course, we have the red hot preaching conference And one of the reasons that we started the red hot preaching conference We did not need to start the red hot preaching conference and sometimes i'll be honest with you. I regret starting Especially if you especially if you ask me the monday right after you know People always want to ask me the monday right after what are we going to do next year? And I tell them give me two weeks before you talk to me about The red hot preaching conference, but you know, one of the reasons we started the red hot preaching conference was to promote fundamentalism And was to promote fundamental baptist churches And I think it's definitely done that the red hot preaching conference has taken on a life of its own I mean literally we will have here from people that come to this conference from every state and from different parts of the country And it's it's it's amazing But obviously there are costs to that And it cost us money to put that on and we don't charge for conferences We don't charge for anything and our church family has been able to do this now for seven years this year will be our eighth annual red hot preaching conference as because of the vision offering And of course, we just had the next generation youth rally and the next generation was a was a youth rally was a huge success And and to be very honest with you and I don't mean this in any sort of way other than just I think the next year youth rally is possibly more important than the red hot preaching conference Because if we can if we can make sure that the next generation Like elisha grabs that mantle and continues the work There is no you've heard me say it a million times, but there is no success without succession And and you know, the youth rally was a huge success and the youth rally was amazing and everything was great But i'll be honest with you. There was a lot of costs associated with that as well And i'm not complaining up here. I hope you understand my heart I'm, just being very honest with you that though we serve god and there's a spiritual work for some of you that are Ultra-spiritual, let me help you out a little bit. We don't pay for these lights with prayers We don't turn on the air conditioning with fasting now we pray and we fast but smud wants checks that cash So we've got goals And we're saving to pay for a down payment we're saving for for we're continuing to support our missions work and we are uh Going to continue the red hot preaching conference. We will continue the next generation youth rally and look this is the most generous church i've ever known I'll be honest. I've been part of lots of churches and I know a lot of churches and i'm not Taking a dig on any other church. I'm just telling you i've never known of a more generous church than verity baptist church And i'm asking you to consider to give and I realize that things have changed in your life and things are maybe are a little More hectic and a little more difficult But i'm just telling you this and i'm hoping that I can express this properly is that god can do it again God can do it again And god can do more with less now next week is our vision offering and in your bulletin You've got several things there. Of course You've got the card that we want you to read and i'm going to ask you some of you And i'm going to ask that that you would pray about the vision offering and i'm going to ask that you would take this home And that between now and next sunday you would pray every day for the vision offering I'm, not saying you need to spend 30 minutes on your knees praying you can do a quick prayer, but if you would pray Every day, let me just ask who would commit right now to say pastor I'll pray every day for the vision offering and i'm not trying to put you on the spot I'm, just but I am trying to I appreciate that. Thank you very much. I see that hand. All right, don't have to come down the aisle but um Would you pray every day? I've always wanted to say that i've never had the opportunity Pray every day that god Would do it again And that god would do more with less and that's the purpose of the card Please take the card home. Look at it. Read it get acquainted with it and pray Just spend a few minutes every day. Just pray a few seconds Just praying for the vision offering that god would do more with less and that god would do it again Of course You've got the envelope and this is the envelope that we're going to ask you to put your vision offering in next year We're giving this to you now so you can take it home and pray and ask the lord What he would ask you what he would guide you what he would have you Uh to give for the vision offering and of course, we'd prefer that you give next week Now if you're not ready to give that's okay. You've got a commitment card here And again, you can take this home think about it pray about it, but you can make a commitment to give Uh, maybe you can't do it next week, but you can do it in april. Maybe you can do it in may Maybe you can do it in june Maybe you'd like to give next week and give in april and give in may and give in june Whatever the lord lays on your heart All we're asking is that you would consider And that you would pray and that you would realize that god can do more with less and that you would ask god That he would do it again Now here's the thing you're there in matthew 19 I said I wanted to give you three statements The first statement is this god can do it again The second statement is this god can do more with less Here's the third statement You say what if what if sunday night next week You get up there and you say we brought in 79 000 84 000 87 000 What are you gonna say i'm gonna say praise the lord You know, i'm it's not It's i'm not god And all I can do is pray and ask god And you can pray and ask god that he would help us do something But here's what I do want you to understand That though god is the god that can do it again And though god is the god that can do more with less There is one limit to god and that is this that god here statement number three. God is only limited by our lack of faith God is limited by our god our our lack of faith. God can do anything. Nothing is impossible with god You're there in matthew 19 look at verse 26 matthew 19 26, but jesus beheld them and said unto them with man This is impossible, but with god all things are possible Do you believe that that with god all things are possible that god can do anything look at luke chapter one You're there in matthew go past mark into the book of luke luke chapter one in verse 37 luke 137 the bible says for with god Nothing shall be impossible With god all things are possible impossible with god. Nothing shall be impossible You don't have to turn here, but i'll just read this for you. Genesis 18 14 Is anything too hard for the lord? And the answer is no God can do anything. Nothing is impossible for god But god is limited Because god chooses you say how can you say god is limited and here's what I want you to understand And i'm not being irreverent when I say that go back to matthew if you would matthew 13 Because god chooses to work through us Say pastor, do you believe that god has a hundred thousand dollars variety baptist church In the vision offering next week and the answer to that question is yes, I do Say, where is it in your bank account? And in my bank account I believe that god has the resources. You said what's the problem? The problem is that god chooses to work through us And we are the ones that can lack faith matthew 13 58 Matthew 13 58 and he did not many mighty works. This is jesus And he did not many mighty works there. Why because of their unbelief Here's what I know If we do not reach our goal next week And first of all, let me just say this if we don't reach our goal next week I'm, not gonna be mad at you. I'm not gonna be mad at anybody But I can tell you this if we don't reach our goal next week. I I will tell you this It's not because god couldn't do it Is because we failed Maybe because I failed To have the proper faith That god is the god That can do it again and that god can do more with less Let me just take a few minutes and for some of you you You've been with us for years and you've seen me do this year after year and I appreciate your patience But every year at the vision offering I announce to our church family what my wife and I are going to give to the vision offering I do this because it was advised of us to do this by a pastor when we first started And I realized that you're not supposed to talk about how much you gave and the bible actually teaches against that and you can lose Your rewards for doing that and i'm not advising and i'm not asking that any of you do that And in fact that you shouldn't do that The reason that I do that for our church families because I want you to know that we are in this with you And that we i'm putting my my money where my mouth is as well And you know, maybe we lose rewards for that in heaven and that's okay I'd rather motivate you and let you know that we're in this with you last year my wife and I stretched ourselves and we've definitely stretched ourselves in sacrifice because We We didn't know that we could do a hundred thousand dollars. So we we stretched ourselves and we committed to Double or last last year what we had been given and last year we gave two thousand five hundred dollars to the vision offering And this year my wife and I are trusting the lord to do it again We're committing to give two thousand five hundred dollars now Let me just say this and I always need to give all these disclaimers because we've got two hundred and some odd people here this morning and some of you hear that and you think We must be millionaires and other of you hear that and you think That's it, you know, that's just that's just how it is and and it's it's it's it's how it goes for some of you That might sound like a lot of money for some of you. That's nothing You and and and all i'm saying is this We're stretching ourselves We don't just have twenty five hundred dollars laying around and we definitely have enough broken things throughout our house that we could use it somewhere But we believe in this and we believe in what god is doing And and some of you are in a better financial position some of you are not in a better financial position And i'm not asking you to give what we're giving but I am asking you to stretch yourself into sacrifice And i'm asking this that you would for those of you that gave last year that you would at least consider giving what you gave last year And asking the lord to do it again For some of you you've been living in goshen While the economy has been going crazy around you and and and those ten plagues of egypt have been going around You've been the children of israel living in goshen under god's protection and you're actually doing fine And I would consider that I would ask you to consider that maybe god can use you to help us do more with less And you say what's going to happen? Will we reach it? I don't know that we'll reach it but I'm, I believe we can And we're going to do our part to stretch ourselves and i'm asking that you Uh would do your part to stretch yourself as well. Let me just end real quick I don't have a lot of a lot of uh time to go through this But let me just give you some characteristics on biblical giving i'm actually going to go into detail about this tonight But let me just give this to you real quickly when it comes to biblical giving the bible teaches several characteristics five number one It should be done willingly You can just jot this down if you'd like. We're not going to look at it right now second corinthians 8 Verse 3 and verses 11 to 12 second corinthians 8 verse 3 verse 11 to 12. It should be done willingly I I I I don't like churches that try to Manipulate people into giving and I hope you don't feel like we're manipulating you in any way shape or form I don't think it's wrong for me to just tell you Hey, here's what we're trying to do and here's what we're doing and and and and you pray about that um But it should be willing and and here's the thing if you say I don't like just preaching I don't like you talking about the vision offering i'm greedy and covet says, okay, whatever Um, don't give honestly and I don't and I don't mean that in any rude way But we don't we don't want your money if if your heart's not willing so it should be done willingly Um, it should be done sacrificially second corinthians 8 verses 2 to 3 It should be done sacrificially and say it doesn't it doesn't mean anything to god If you just give of your abundance and it doesn't hurt, you know The widow's might she gave all she had and i'm just asking that you would stretch and that you would give yourself It should be done purposefully and this is this is where I often see problems with the vision offering Is that people just they just come to church and they're like, I don't know i'll just give this much Don't do that. Pray about it. Honestly pray about it and it should be something to do purposefully second corinthians 9 verse 7 It should be done cheerfully second corinthians 9 and verse 7 as well It should be cheerful and again if you're not look I don't we don't want if you're if you're gonna give Even if you're gonna give a big amount, but you're gonna be all bitter and angry about it. Please keep your money Please keep your money. We don't need it. God doesn't need it It should be done cheerfully and it should be done Proportionally first corinthians 16 verses 1 through 2 you say what does that mean? It should be done in proportion to god's blessing as god has blessed you as god has Has prospered you we should give in proportion to the blessing that god has given us So we're not looking for everyone to give twenty five hundred dollars But we're giving to we're looking for everybody to sacrifice equally And for some of you you you couldn't give twenty five hundred dollars if you tried if you wanted to and that's okay Do what you can for some of you twenty five hundred dollars is a joke And I would just say you should stretch yourself to where you say I am giving to my power and above my power Look at matthew 1358 again I gave you three statements this evening this morning Number one god can do it again number two god can do more with less. I hope you believe that But if you don't Just know The statement number three is also true. God is only limited by our lack of faith And he did not many mighty works there because Of their unbelief I believe that god can do it again God can do it again, but it requires faith and it requires you and I to step out by faith to put our feet on That jordan river and to press the soles of our feet on that water And if we do that if we do that and I believe that we can watch god Do it again. That's why our heads in that water prayer. Heavenly father Lord, we love you and we thank you. Thank you for our church