(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.) Take your place there in Job. So you see the story in the first chapter of Job. Job had a tough day here. What we're going to talk about this morning is the limits of your faith. The sermon had a title, and I guess that would be the title, is the limits of your faith. What limits your faith? And what can we do to look at the limits of our faith? So in Job chapter 1, really what I want to do this morning is I just want to ask you a couple of questions, really, is what I want to do. And really down here at Job chapter 1, I want you to kind of focus on verse number 8. We'll start there. The first question I want to ask you this morning is this. Is your faith dependent on a hedge? If we look at Job chapter 1, in verse number 8, the Bible reads, and the book of Job says, the Lord said unto the Satan, hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, and a perfect and upright man, one that fearth God, and a shear of his people? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, doth Job fear God for naught? Hast not thou made an edge about him, about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? That thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land, that put forth thy hand now, and touched all that he hath, and who will curse thee to thy face? The Lord said unto Satan, behold, all that he hath is in thy power, in thy power, only upon himself, but not before thy hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord. So basically what we have here is we have a challenge from Satan to God. God is saying, look at my servant Job. Look at this man that serves me. Look at this man, how faithful he is to me. Well, of course he's faithful to you. His life is perfect. He has everything going for him. He's rich. He has all sorts of cattle and sheep and all sorts of children. His family is great. Everything is great with Job. But if you took that away from him, he'd curse you to your face, Satan said. So that's the story as it starts out with Job. Now Satan basically said he put a hedge around Job. If you remove that hedge, he would no longer be faithful towards you. So we see the test of Job beginning here. And God says, OK, take away the hedge. Notice in verse number 12, God says, behold, all that he hath is in thy power. God gives the power to Satan to take away everything that Job has. And then he says, but put forth not thy hand upon Job. And of course, that even changes even further for God allows Satan to even start cursing Job's help and taking away his help. And he says, don't kill him. But Job was taken all the way to the brink to test this hedge. OK? Now, let me ask you this. What is your faith depending on a hedge? As you live in America today, and most of us are rich by all standards of other people living in the world, your life is not only going to be good terms. I wish that it was. I mean, I guess I really don't, because as we see as we move on here, bad times in your life might actually be good terms. Your life, I can guarantee you, no matter what happens in your life, that if your life is good now, it will not always be good. You're going to go through hard times. You're not just going to go through tribulations, as the Bible says. You're not just going to go through people persecuting you. But you might have financial problems in your life. You are very likely going to have financial problems sometimes in your life. You may have problems with sickness. You are very likely going to have problems with sickness in your life, eventually, whether it be someone that you love or yourself or whatever. If you have a family, you have a lot of people in your family, there's always someone getting sick or having health problems and all of these types of things. They're coming. Turn your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Paul did not have an easy life. While you're turning there, let me read for you Romans 8.18. And Paul says this. He says, for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Paul is basically saying that anything that I suffer now is nothing compared to the glory that I am going to have, is what Paul is saying. And in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, and we'll start reading up in verse number 7. But Paul is basically, Paul had some sort of sickness. We don't know what it was. He calls it a thorn in the flesh here. He had some sort of sickness that was causing him pain. I mean, it must have been something that was painful on a daily basis to him if he called it a thorn in the flesh. And in verse number 7, Paul says this. And lest I should be exalted above measure, above measure through the abundance of revelation, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh. The messenger saith to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for me. My strength is made perfect in weakness. And if you haven't read the letter of the Bible, those words that say my grace is sufficient for my strength is made perfect in weakness will be in bread, because that was Jesus' response to Paul. So Paul had this thorn in his flesh, and he asked for God to take it away. And God basically said, no. God basically had an all-star here, and he used it. And if you see in verse number 7, Paul kind of explains why God said no. He kind of gives you the answer. He said, no, unless I should be exalted. So God said, number one, it's going to keep him humble. And number two, he wants his power to be made perfect through the weakness of Paul. So he needed Paul to be in his best, and God decided that he was just going to say no. And Paul was just going to have to deal with this thorn in his flesh for the rest of his life, as far as we know. Now, whether tough times in your life, what I'm trying to get at is whether tough times in your life trying to be farther away from God or closer to God is a real-time stress test of your thing. So what are those tough times going to do to you? When you look at Job, and you look at the very last verse of Job, you know, the Bible says, go ahead and turn there. Let's look at the very last verse of Job 1. And it says, look, Job had the worst name that anyone could possibly even imagine happening. He lost everything in one day. You notice how it just kept saying that another servant came to him, another servant came to him. He lost all his stuff. He lost all his animals. He lost all his possessions. And then he lost all his children in the same day. And at the end, in verse number 22, it says, in all this, Job sinned not, nor charged God blood foolishly. He didn't lose his temper and say to God, you know, why are you doing this to me? Job never turned to God. And if you read the story of Job and the entire book of Job, even as Job's calamities get worse and Satan is allowed to touch his belt, and Job, he literally, he just asked to die. He just says, why was I able to mourn? Just, it would be better if I would just die. His wife either says to him, curse God and die. She says to him, hi, slave. But the point is, Job never once foolishly charged God when all this was happening again. It was a great faith. It was a great testimony of Job's faith. So we need to understand, first of all, that whatever God does is right. Okay? And sometimes, you know, sometimes, bad things, you know, just happen in your life. You know, you live in a fallen, broken world. Now look, this is my turn to Isaiah 55, while I explain this. But here's my theory on dealing with hard times. Because you're going to go through hard times with God. The more people that you surround yourself with, the more people that you know at church, and that you have in your family, the more children that you have, you're further and further out from this living. You know, hard times are coming. You're going to have some hard times in your life. So my theory on hard times is this. First of all, learn everything you possibly can, personally, when you're going through hard times. You know, hard times humbles. Hard times humbles. They make us realize that, hey, you know what? I'm not really in charge of everything here. You know, I've been, you know, I could have been accused of being this person in my life whose body had everything planned out perfectly. But hard times really humble you when you realize that, you know, you're not in charge of everything. You can't control everything. So learn, you know, learn whatever lessons you can, personally. We had some hard times, you know, a few months ago with some sickness in our family. And, you know, I started a list of just lessons that I needed to learn from this. And most of those lessons are for me, personally. And I'll never share them with anyone but my wife. Just personal lessons that I took away from that to help make me better, and help me help my faith grow, and help keep me humble, and help me become a better Christian. You know, some of those lessons are great lessons that can be, you know, applied and, you know, come out with sermons and things like that. But a lot of those lessons are just personal lessons for myself. And, you know, so learn whatever you can from the hard times in your life. Because you know what? They'll make you better going forward. Look at Isaiah 55. Look down at verse number 8. Now this is what we need to have faith in in hard times. In Isaiah 55 and verse 8, the Bible reads, But my thoughts are not of your thoughts, neither are your ways and my ways, sayeth the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your loves. God's ways are higher than our ways. And nine times out of ten, I'll tell you this. Years down the road, you'll look back at those hard times, and you will understand what God was doing in those hard times. You may not understand it, you know, during the times that you're going through those things, but most hard times in my life, I can look back and I can say, you know what? I took some valuable lessons out of those hard times. And it was really worth it. You know, Job lost everything in one day. You know, you can't have this faith that needs to live in a padded room that's so fragile that it needs to live in a padded room and it needs to be protected perfectly and everything needs to go perfect. Because it's just a matter of time before things come and go perfect in your life. And if that's going to break your faith, you're doomed. You're not literally doomed, but I mean, your faith is going to break because hard times are coming. You need to understand that God's ways are higher than our ways. Job lost everything in one single day. You know, he said that naked I came out of my mother's womb and naked shall I return to her. The Lord gave and the Lord taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I mean, that's some strong faith right there. You know, he looked at his children, he's like, they were just borrowed to me for a time. And the Lord just took them away. I mean, that's some strong faith. So remember, remember as we talked about in Romans, you know, tribulation, work of patience. Patience, experience and experience hope. So that's how we should use those times in our life is to make us stronger. And we remember that God is always right and his ways are higher than our ways. So my second question is this. Turn to Mark chapter 11. My second question for you today is this. What limits your faith? You know, is there, well, first of all, you know, is there a limitless faith? Is there such a thing? But really, if your faith has limits on it, what limits it? Look at Mark chapter 11. Excuse me. Mark chapter 11, down in verse number 22. And Jesus answered and said unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, That shall not doubt his heart, but shall believe those things which he saith shall come to pass. He shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Jesus is saying that the only thing that limits, you know, what I will do for you is your own faith. And my ability to do that. I mean, think about asking God to move the mountain. Could you, could any of us really ask that question and command the mountain to move and not have doubts in our mind that God will actually do it? I don't think so. But it's even in our own faith. Turn to Matthew 14. We'll see just a personal example of this. With Peter. So Jesus has sent the disciples out in the sea, on the boat, and he did not go with them. And of course a storm came up, and then he went out and he walked on the water towards them. And in Matthew 14, verses 26, the Bible reads, And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit, and they cried out with fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer, because I be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out on the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. Now Peter's walking on the water. But when he saw the wind, voice Chris, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? So Peter doubted the fact that Jesus could protect him. He saw the wind, and he saw the waves, and he saw the storm. He started to doubt it, and he started to sink. You know, you'll see many times when Jesus was healing people that Jesus said, Thou faith, as may be whole. Thy faith, as may be whole. It was the faith of the people that Jesus pointed out. In Mark 5, and I have to turn there, in Mark 5, verse 34, we see the woman where Jesus is walking with a big crowd, and the woman privately knows that she touches his garment. And Jesus didn't give permission to her or anything like that. She just touched his garment without him knowing. But he felt the virtue come out of him to heal her. And he said unto her, when she admitted that it was her, in verse 34, he said, daughter, thy faith, as may be whole. He said. Remember the centurion's servant? Turn to Luke 7. Luke 7. The centurion who wanted his servant healed by Jesus. Luke chapter 7. Look at verse number 8. And the centurion is telling Jesus that he doesn't even have to come to his house. It seems strange at first when you read it until you hear Jesus's exclamation. But he says, the centurion says, for I also am a man set under authority, having with me soldiers, and I stand in one go. And he goeth unto another come, and he cometh to my servant, do this, and he doeth it. He's basically saying, Jesus, I'm not even worthy of you to come to my house. All you have to do is command that it's done, and I know it will be done. And Jesus said to him, check in on verse number 9. When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him and turned him about and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith. No, not in Jesus. Here's this Roman centurion that has all this faith, and Jesus is saying, I don't even find it amongst the Jews faith that is this great. So how do we get this great faith? How do we get this limitless faith? I mean, I want it. Don't you want it? We're not talking about saving faith. Here we're talking about our faith as we walk in our Christian life. You know, how is our faith made perfect? James chapter 2. Because a perfect faith is limitless faith. Is it not? James chapter 2. You see why we went through James chapter 2 as one of the first sermons that we did here? For a save, you know, for James chapter 2, it was a chapel that I didn't necessarily like in the Bible after I got saved until I understood what he was actually saying. And you realize, as a saved Christian, how important that chapter is for your Christian walk. Look at James chapter 2 and verse number 21. We're looking for this perfect faith. How do we get it? Was not Abraham our father, justified by works for the author Isaac the son upon the altar? Seeth thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? Wrought means worked into shape. It means it was formed, worked into shape through the works that he did. Turn to Matthew 14. Look, what constrains your faith is you. It's our doubts for what God can do in our life. This is why the Baptist church has church three times a week, by the way. You know, you're going to find that there's, you know, and I even asked this question when I first became a Baptist after I got saved. I was like, why? Why can't that be me? Where's the chapter and verse there? But your faith needs to be fed or weakened. Your faith needs to be fed. It's like metal being worked into shape. If your faith is fed, it will grow, and it will become stronger. So it needs to be fed. You know, this is the importance of, you know, getting plugged into a church. This is the importance of, you know, not just coming Sunday morning and getting actually plugged in to a church like this. Your faith needs to be fed. Look, the Thursday church, it's actually a little irritating for me, because I get to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then by Thursday, it's like, because it's Wednesday and I'm like, I feel like I want to go to church now. I mean, I love coming to church. I love being here and seeing you folks, and I won't be surprised, I actually do. But it feeds us. You know, you sit and you go and you do your job during the week and you do whatever you have to do, but you need to be fed every few days. Or it will start to fall off, and you can see that, you know, if you ever leave and you go on vacation and you stop and get out of that routine. If you've been in that routine, and you get out of that routine, you can almost feel it. When we went to North Dakota on vacation and we came back and we tried to go to church, it was a real challenge. You know, we tried to go to church. That's another sermon for another time. But we tried to go to church, and by the time we were driving home, we felt like we were spiritually starving. That's how we literally felt. And all of us in the family felt that way. So that's the importance of getting plugged in to a Bible preaching church like this one. So let me ask you a third question. Where did I have you turn? Matthew 14, turn to Luke 16. Turn to Luke 16. Luke 16. I want to read for you a parable. I want to talk about this parable. But my third question is this. How far will you take this thing? This is a super important question for this church. How far will you take this thing? Look at Luke 16. We're going to read this story, this parable. This parable of the unjust steward. And I want to read it for you. I want to give you the two lessons out of this parable. A lot of people are confused by this parable, but I think people are generally overthinking it, so I'm going to explain it to you. Look at verse number one. And he said unto his disciples, Jesus, there was a certain rich man which had a steward, and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him and said unto him, how is it that I hear this of thee, given account of my stewardship, and I ask no longer be steward? I'm going to get fired. Then the steward said unto themself, what shall I do? My lord, take me away from me to stewardship. I cannot dig to beg. I am ashamed. The steward says, I'm going to get fired, and I don't know how I'm going to want to work, and I don't want to beg for money because I'm too proud. He's like, what am I going to do? So he starts thinking about what he's going to do. I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship that they may receive me into their houses. So he called every one of his lords deaders unto him, and he said unto them first, how much oest thou art for my lord? And he said, in hundred measures of oil. And he said, unto him, take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. And he said to the other, how much oest thou? And he said, a hundred measures a week. And he said, unto him, take thy bill, and write four score, eighty. And the lord commended the unjust steward because he had done wisely, for the children of this world were in their generation wiser than the children of life. And I say unto you, make yourself friends with a man of unrighteousness that when he fail, may be receive you into everlasting habitations. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much, and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. So here we have the servant who's going to get fired. I'll break it down for you. He's going to get fired because he wasted his master's money. He was not doing a good job. He was like the accountant for the business. He was going out and he was just blowing all this money on him, wasting this money. And he finds out he's going to get fired. There's this period where he knows he's going to get fired, but he still has the job. So what does he do? He goes out to all the people that his boss has business with and gives them discounts and everything, using his boss's money. So a lot of people get a little confused on the wording here, but basically he was unjust with his boss's money all the way through. He was never just with his boss's money. So the first lesson is this. If you therefore have not been faithful in the unrighteous commandment, who will commit to your trust of the true riches? So he was never faithful with what was his master's. And if you have not been faithful in that which is in other man's, you shall give you that which is of your own. And the second lesson is the lesson I really want to focus on here. It's in verse number 13. No servant can serve two masters, for either you will hate the one and love the other, or else you will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and man. And this is so true. So the question is, where does your heart lie? This servant served himself. He never served his master justly, even when he knew he was getting fired. He didn't turn and all of a sudden do the right thing. He always served himself, period. So what you do with your life, with your saved life, it depends on where your heart lies. I mean, where's your heart lie? Because I know for a fact that you cannot be focused on things in this world and then also be focused on spiritual things in your life. You have to choose one. And then you can do the things. It's not saying don't work and don't support your family, but that's not what your heart should be. Your heart should be in spiritual things. So what limits your faith is you. That's what we see here. So what's the application? What am I getting at? What I'm getting at is applying it to your faith. This is the application of faith. How do we apply our faith in our lives? Now, go to Acts chapter 5. We have some examples, some extreme examples in the Bible of people who apply their faith. I mean, I thank God for these examples in the Bible. In Acts chapter 5 and verse 40, the Bible says this, And to him they agreed, and when they had called the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. So the apostles, the disciples, they just got beaten here saying they were commanded, don't ever do it again, or we're going to throw you to jail. And then part of the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for shame for his name. And daily in the temple and in every house they seized not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. The apostles were extreme examples of what you could do with your faith for us in the Bible. But I heard them put it this way one time about the apostles. You notice how the apostles were, they were normal people. They were normal men, they were fishermen, they were tax collectors, who was a physician. You know, they were just people that had jobs. They were normal people. Now these guys were either brilliant liars to write the things that they wrote here. They were either brilliant liars they could write in the New Testament and write all these things that would match the Bible. They were either brilliant liars that for some unreasonable reason destroyed their lives for a lie, or they were ordinary men and witnessed something extraordinary and not only did they witness something extraordinary, but they decided that this is where my heart is, this is where we're going with this thing. This is what we're doing for the rest of our lives. They took it all away. The whole way. Nearly all of them died, not only were persecuted throughout their whole lives, but they died horrible deaths for the faith. They were killed for the faith of Jesus Christ. Every single one of them, except John, was murdered, crucified, beheaded, tortured, boiled and oiled, all kinds of historical accounts of these things. Stayed to the ground and killed. I mean, terrible, terrible things. They took it the whole way. Now today, what does that mean for us today? You know, we look at making changes in our secular self to move in this direction, right? You know, that could mean a number of different things. That could mean going to church, as I talked about, going to church three times a week. You know, that's a pretty small thing compared to what other people in the Bible did. You know, we need to feed this faith. You know, maybe getting to church, you know, that's step one. You know, that's step one. Maybe that means, you know, changing jobs or changing something in your schedule or in your life, but making a move in your life that allows you to do that first step. That's what it is. Moving, you know, we've already had people move here, move closer so they can be closer to this church. People do it. It's a common thing. You know, I remember, you know, that when I think about, you know, this church, of course I look at the model of a very Baptist church in Sacramento, and when I think about, you know, the power of that church, you know, you've got about 180, 200 people up there, but the power of that church is unbelievable what they are accomplishing up there. Turn to I Corinthians 3. You know, we've had people move here. Very Baptist Sacramento has had a dozen or more people move to go to that church. They've moved across the country, they've moved across the state, they've moved across the city, all kinds of things. They've moved from all over. Just to get to that first step and then to be in a church like that, feed their faith, and go to the next step from there. Now what you won't see in that church is a bunch of those people, because I know all those people, they're my friends, and what you won't see is those people sitting down and discussing amongst themselves who gave up the most and getting married to a Baptist church. I've never heard a conversation like that, ever. Because, you know, what those people know that have made that type of decision to make a shift in their life like that, what they know is in I Corinthians chapter 3, look at verse number 12. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. So all those things that people gave up, whether it was a little or a lot, they're all going to burn. It means nothing. And the fact that somebody moved across the country from Tennessee or Kentucky or wherever, they've already made that decision in their life that most things mean nothing. If they were to argue or debate on, oh, I had this and this and this, it would be stupid. Because every single one of them has already realized this, that it's all nothing, it's all going to burn. But it doesn't matter if it's a great career, a great job, it doesn't make any difference. Because it's making that decision that that's not what your life is about, and that's the key. Remember Luke 21, the poor widow who Kathy held, the rich man throwing the money in the plate? Then you had this poor widow that put in two mites, and Jesus said, this poor widow had cast in more than one widow. It doesn't matter if it's a little or a lot. It's making the decision that, you know what, this stuff, this life that I'm living, this business that I have, she gave all that she had, she made that decision. Turn to 2 Chronicles 25. 2 Chronicles 25, let's see what God says about that. 2 Chronicles 25, man in his eye has to get ready to go to war. 2 Chronicles 25 and verse number 6. He goes and he hires an army, and the Bible says in verse number 6, He, Amaziah, hired also an hundred thousand mighty men of valor out of Israel, for an hundred talents of silver. But there came a man of God to him, saying, O king, let not the army of Israel go with thee. For the Lord is not with Israel, to wit with all the children of Ephraim. But if thou wilt go, do it, be strong for the battle. God shall make thee fall before the enemy, for God hath power to help and to cast down. And verse number 9 is like one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. It defines my life in a lot of ways. And Amaziah said to the man of God, What shall we do for the hundred talents of silver that I have given to the army of Israel? To the man of God answering, the Lord is able to give you much more than this. Now that takes faith to believe that. You know how much a railroad tie weighs? A railroad tie weighs about 200 pounds. It's everything that a strong man can do to pick up a railroad tie. You notice how God said the Lord is able to give you much more than this? I remember before we moved, I was having a little bit of a crisis of, am I crazy? Crisis of faith, you could say. I decided to move, and there was a big hill on the farm where I could drive my pickup on top of this hill and I could look down and I could see the whole farm. And I could see hundreds and hundreds of railroad ties that I had to put in by hand as pesos. And Garrett and I had the buildings that we built. And all this stuff, the business, all the things. Now it's like all this work that just couldn't walk away from me. It's everything you can do to pick up a railroad tie and put in a three foot hole. And then can't catch that thing to the point where you hit the truck and it won't even go past. It's a lot of work. You know what? It's all going to burn. Every bit of it. You notice how God said the Lord is able to give you much more than this? Here's what he didn't say. He didn't say, I don't care about anything you've ever done. That's what he didn't say. He didn't say he doesn't care about your financial needs. He doesn't say he doesn't care how you're going to support your family. He didn't say that he doesn't care about where you're going to live. He said, I can give you more. See, I was a player. I had it all figured out. I had the next 30 years of my life figured out. I was going to build this place, and my son was going to buy this place, and he was going to have his place over there, and I was going to have my place over here. It was just execute the plan, and I was executing. Let me tell you what. When I put my mind to something, I gave it to him. I had it all figured out. And walking away from it, I had to let it all go. 100%. 100% I gave it. And you know what? The Lord is able to give you much more than this. And I guarantee that statement. God guarantees it right here in your life. Because whatever you think you can do, it is nothing compared to what God can do. And he says he can give you more than this. But you've got to let it go first. You've got to let it go first. The Lord took care of us better, more than I could ever imagine. The Lord took care of us. And you know what? When I let it go, and then I started doing the right works, guess what? That rock was my faith. And my faith got stronger. And then I wanted to do more. And then God gave me more. And I wanted to do more. And you see how it works? It's like that relationship with a friend that I told you about a few weeks ago. The relationship you want to have with a friend is where you're constantly trying to give your friend a better deal. And you're constantly trying to give your friend, that's the relationship you want to have with God. No, I want to do more for you. And then he's able to give you much more than this. That's how it works. Look, I'm not preaching across area gospel here. But I'm telling you, this promise is real. And even if it has nothing to do with anything financial, I mean, just what God, what you can do with your faith and your life, here's the nice thing about that. You know, you have things, whether it be your business or whether it be your job or whatever, hey, I'd like to get this promotion or I'd like to get the business going in this direction. But all these different things are stopping you. Here's what's stopping you with your faith and getting this type of faith that can make you become this superstar like these Madison Wilder. You know what's stopping you? It's only you. That's it. It's only you. I mean, that's a wonderful thing. Hopefully it's not a huge problem. Hopefully, you know, you weren't that big of a problem. But at least you don't have to deal with worse other people than that. You say, quit worrying about it. We're as able to give you much more than this. Get moving with these you should be doing and I will take care of you. That's it. Look, church attendance, soul winning, these are all the building blocks of your Christian life. You know what I mean? We go out soul winning. We try to get people to church. We get people staying. We try to recycle them. You know, that's a lot of work. It's not easy all the time. It's hard work. It would be much easier for you at the lamp or the ceiling fan church or whatever the churches are. Right? But guess what? You go to those churches, you're still going to be just as safe. You're not going to lose your salvation. You're just as safe. But when you go to the door, which actually exists by the way, there's actually a one called the door. But when you go to the carpet and you go to church there, you're going to go on mission trips and you're going to hand out diapers to people. You're going to give people time and all. This is what you're going to do with your life. Nothing. You know, here's some time and all. Have fun in hell. See you next year. Hey, don't you hut. Have fun burning in hell. Why the world? It doesn't make any sense. But in order to have a small church that turns the world upside down, you need to have this subset of people. You need to have this core of people that have this great thing. See what I'm saying? I mean, I love it for you as the individual to have this great thing. But if we're going to have this church that turns the world upside down, we've got to have these people. I've already got this church sacramento. They run like 200 on Sunday morning. They run like 160 on Wednesday. They're all sold out. They have that core. That's why they're doing such great things and they're just this tiny group of people. I'd rather have 50 people in this church for the next year and have the right type of people. And have 150 people in here that are just like, they don't want to, whatever. It's the kind of people we need here. It's hard to be half in here. Sorry. You know, it's difficult to be half in here because the problem statement is this folks. The problem statement for us and the reason that we're focusing so much here on you individually, in your marriages and all this and the strong family unit is because the problem statement is the same is that the world is unsafe. The entire world is unsafe. And who's going to go up and tell them how to get saved? Nobody else is going. Nobody. So you've got to have these building blocks and it's only limited by you. You know, I can't make you have greater faith. It's limited by you. Now, even further than this, you say I'm going to go up more than one and go so many and get people saved. I don't do that until I can't breathe anymore. I don't do that. But here's the thing. If we start getting great faith in here and rotting our faith into something that's strong, like folded steel strong, guess what? We're going to raise up men here that want to run in the ministry. And then we'll have families. Because guess what? The ministry thinks I just need to. I mean, my family is in this 100% with me. They came with me. They were part of the decision. I need to take this move in my life. We're going to raise up men here that need to have strong marriages and need to have strong families that will start churches one day. I mean, I'm looking out there, but this is the type of building blocks that we need if this is ever going to happen. So we need the building block of you and your faith and then your strong marriage and then your family, and then we can raise up men that can start churches here. And you know what? That's a force multiplier. What does that mean? That means that, you know, soul winning is a function of man-hours, right? It's if I put in more hours, I'll get more people saved, right? But if I start a church, then it starts a church, then it starts a church, all of a sudden it blows up exponentially. That's what's happening. And we can't have that. That's what's happening out there with the other churches. We have to keep that going here. And it all starts with how strong your faith is. What do you think? How far are you going to take this thing? I mean, if you're living three, four hours away and you can't get to church consistently, because you can't if you live three, four hours away, that's just how far it's going to go for you. And that's fine. That's your choice. That's your choice. But that's how far it's going to go for you. That's where your mind stops. Only you decide. I see a group of people, and I see a group of people that are sold out on what they can do. And we need to do that here. I want to do that here. So, look. You know, we say this verse all the time. These that have turned the world upside down have come together also. Just leave it here. We say that all the time. These that turned the world upside down have come to press the walls. But you know what? That was said about the apostles, not us. You know what I mean? That was said about men who left everything, who were tortured and beaten throughout their whole life. We go read all the things that Paul went through. That's who that was said about. If we want that to be said about us, how far are you going away? That's what I want to say. I'm going to go away. But I can't do this by myself. So, I just want you to think, Bob, that the point of this sermon this morning is real simple. You're saying, you're sitting in this church, how limited is your faith? How limited is your faith? How far are you going to take this from us? You know what? That's a decision that only you can make. That's it. And then, if we get a bunch of sold out people that are willing to take this thing the whole way, and we start doing these things that I talked about this morning, then people will say that we're turning the world upside down. It's all limited to a decision, folks. It's up to you. Sorry I had to have a word trip. We had a thing before this church, the Bible, where we asked that you give us the strength, the patience, and ultimately, Lord, the faith, that you help us to make these decisions in our lives that will rock with our faith and make it stronger for you. I pray for people that you help them understand that if they want to do things great in their life for you, that they are going to have to put their heart on the rails. They will have to make decisions that might go against their secular upbringing or whatever other things that they've been taught. We want our faith to rock perfectly with you in this work that needs to be done on this earth. Short lives, get it done, and get it done in the best way possible. Lord, we love you. We pray for us to say in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.