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So you're there in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and I want to preach a sermon that's tailored more so because we're coming into a new year and the title of the sermon is Increase More and More. Increase More and More. And so in this chapter actually there's a couple places where it's talking about increasing or abounding more and more and the thing is every year this is what I'm thinking about as far as the fact that I want at the end of the year to say hey I know more now than I did back when I started this year. I did more this year than I did the year before. And you know different things like that as far as the fact that do you know more doctrine now? Do you know more verses? Do you have more memorized? Have you seen more people saved? And I'm not necessarily saying like if you got 30 people saved a year and like just stayed at 30, I'm not saying like that has to increase every year. What I'm saying is that you had 30 saved last year, this year, did you have more, did you get anybody else saved? You know and stuff like that. But you can always be saying hey I want to do more, I want to increase it, I want to you know increase it steadily up and try to get more and more. Same thing with memorization right? Because you memorize, let's say you memorize a book last year, you don't have to memorize two books this year and then three books next year and five books the next year you know. It's the fact that each year are you getting like a book memorized for example or a chapter you know and you don't have to have the same goals as everybody else. But notice in verse one there, this is our memory verse for the week and I know it's a long one but I think it really sums up what I'm trying to preach this morning which it says in verse one, further more then we beseech you brethren and exhort you by the Lord Jesus that as you have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God so you would abound more and more and it says for you know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. So it's basically saying you know what we commanded, you know how to walk like we told you know like you ought to walk in the Lord and but we're saying you know you need to abound more and more now, you need to keep going, you need to keep trying to increase that. Going down to verse nine there it says it says but as touching brotherly love you need not that I write unto you for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another and indeed you do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia but we beseech you brethren that you increase more and more and that you study to be quiet and to do your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you that you may walk honestly toward them that are without and that you may have lack of nothing. So you know what it's talking about here is the fact that hey you already know that you love one another and it's already manifest in all these places that you are loving the brethren. So he's not coming here coming down on them he's saying you're doing good, keep doing it and keep increasing, keep abounding more and more and that's the thing that we should be thinking about is the fact that we're not content, right? We're not saying well this is enough, we're doing enough, no we should always be saying hey there's more that we can learn, there's more that we can do. You know we can still try to increase, is there anything in my life that I need to get cleaned up, is there anything that I can do more efficient, is there anything else that I can do to tighten things up and there's always going to be that. I don't care who you are but there's going to be things that you can do better, things that you can increase, things that you can let off of the world a little bit more and all that and so this isn't something where I'm saying like drastic changes have to happen but what you're trying to do is say okay this year I have a plan, I'm going to try to do this more, I'm going to try to do that more and I'm going to try to go ahead in this new year trying to increase what I already have, okay? And go to Philippians chapter one, Philippians chapter one, so this abounding more and more, this increasing more and more, it's just a phrase that I've seen in the Bible and it just sticks out to me you know as a fact of like doing this more and more and increasing and you know all that that deals with that. So in Philippians chapter one verse nine, Philippians chapter one verse nine, it says in this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment that you may approve things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. So again he's saying you know that your love may yet abound more and more and it talks about that your love would increase more and more and that you would walk in the Lord and please God and abound yet more and more in that and that's the thing that I see over and over again in the Bible and I'm not going to show you at nauseum all the places where it says to increase or to abound and all this but I do want to give you some basically just points on this as far as this isn't all inclusive okay as far as things to try to increase or things to try to abound in but I'm just going to give you some of the big ones that I think are important especially at the beginning of the year where you're going to start off your reading schedule you know you're going to try to you know read through the Bible at least once a year you're trying to memorize more you're trying to do this or that you know these are just certain things that I think about anyway when it comes to things that I want to increase at the beginning of the year and go to Revelation chapter one and the first thing that I get when I think of the new year I think of Bible reading that's the first thing I think of is can I increase my Bible reading is my Bible reading at you know par where it needs to be you know maybe you had a really good year you know and like as far as you're just really reading a lot you know you're kind of coming into the new year on a really good schedule then just keep doing it but let's say you're at the end of the year and you're like man I really was slacking especially through the holiday season you know I didn't have a lot of time to read or this this that and the other you know it's a good time to say okay it's time to reset this thing and try to get on track and really hit this hard I know brother Stuckey you know sent out him and his church that's out in the Philippines they're doing going through the New Testament one month and so this this month of January he's got a schedule and it was like you'd read like Matthew one to nine one day and then you'd read like from 10 to 18 or 20 or something like that and basically it's a schedule within 31 days that you'd get through the whole New Testament and I think you had a couple days honestly I think it was like 29 days because I think there's two days where you had a grace period of like you missed a day or something like that and so that's something that you could do but first I want to show you some verses on this so verse Revelation chapter 1 verse 3 Revelation chapter 1 verse 3 notice what it says is blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written therein for the time is at hand and so we see that actually there's there's a blessing on reading and you say well this is just that's prophecy no this is going to apply to all the Bible I'm gonna show you how the verses on it but you know notice that reading and hearing because you say well you know I'm a bad reader well join the club okay I didn't grow up reading a lot you know that's why I went into engineering there's more numbers you know and then I figured out engineering was word problems and then I'm like what am I doing but obviously as you're reading the Bible and you want to be a Christian you know a good Christian you're trying you need to really get into grammar you need to get into reading and it's just that's just the way it is but there's something to be said about hearing as well okay and some people knock this you know as far as saying well hearing doesn't count like listening to audio Bible doesn't count I think that's hogwash I mean that that right here and that would take away from someone let's say someone can't see you know and they you know I mean you say well they could read Braille or whatever okay but are you saying you the whole reason that Alexander Scorby you know did the audio Bible do you know the reason why he did it it's for people that couldn't see that's the reason he did it to begin with okay it was for the purpose of like they couldn't see to read therefore they could hear it okay and I'm glad he did it and I'm glad there's other you know if you don't like Alexander Scorby listen to someone else I don't care you can listen to Samuel Jackson for all I care on reading the King James Bible if there's a version of him doing that but all that to say is that you know when it comes down to hearing it I think that there's a blessing in that too I think you should do both okay but I'm just gonna be honest you know when it comes to a hectic life I end up listening to the Bible more than I read it now am I reading it of course I am and my schedule with reading go to Deuteronomy 17 Deuteronomy 17 my schedule with reading as far as what my goal is at the end of the year is to read through the Bible and listen to the Bible four times okay that's you know all together okay I'm not saying I'm reading it four times and listening to it four times but all that to say is that congruently I'm getting through the Bible four times in a year that's me as a pastor okay that's my goal now when I'm saying increase more and more that doesn't mean that okay this year I'm doing five next year I'm doing six next year I'm doing seven because that would be just kind of getting ridiculous okay and you can set different goals like I think that the schedule that brother Stuckey had or has for the church out in Manila I think that's a that's a cool thing to do to get through the New Testament one month I don't think that's sustainable right to do like read through the New Testament 12 times a year like that I think that you're gonna not end up reading the Old Testament like you should and you're gonna kind of lack on that I read through the Bible and one month one time you know I was single didn't have kids and you know I didn't have anything else to do right but I pretty much went to work went to the gym and just read just came home and read and you know I was and you say well I'm I just can't read that fast listen I'm a slow reader you know by the mark of like if you're listening to Alexander score but you should be able to get through the Bible once a year 15 minutes a day okay so if you want to get through it four times a year what do you have to do an hour right simple math here but an hour okay so if you want to do it in a month it comes out to about three hours a day of reading okay it took me four if you want to know my reading like back then at least it might be a little better now but you want to know my reading speed it took me four hours in general to do it okay and you say well that's crazy you know yeah it's a little crazy but you know what you have to be a little crazy to be a Christian sometimes if you want to really get it but here's the thing I don't recommend doing that every month and I don't think it's feasible for most people to do it every month and I don't think it's actually that good to do it every month anyway because you want to be able to actually study the Bible and think about what you're reading because I would read through Genesis in two days and I'd be in Exodus after two days and just so much information I mean you're like you know I've read I've read all the stories about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Noah you know and then you're already into Moses you're already past the Red Sea after two days and yes one thing that it did for me though and I'm just throwing this out there as a goal you can have whatever goals you want to have but it did give me the big picture because when I got to the New Testament I'm like well I just read the Old Testament like a few weeks you know in a matter of few weeks back there and so when you're going to the New Testament you're like oh man all these things are popping out to you okay now that's just an example of you know like brother Stuckey I think that's a great idea you know with doing the New Testament in a month if you want to go even more extreme do the whole Bible in a month or maybe in two months or maybe in three months right and so but the thing is is that one thing that I think will really help your Bible reading is if you get audio Bible involved okay and I'm talking to the men a lot here too because you're driving to work okay you want to say well how do you listen to it all the time that's all I listen to when I'm in my truck is the Bible okay barring I listen to some Christmas music you know during Christmas season okay but besides that you know it's basically I get in my truck the score becomes on you say well you're not going to pick up everything you know you're going to be thinking about this stuff you're not going to be that's better listen you're going to pick up something and who here has read through a chapter and then thought I don't remember what I just read so it happens to you when you're reading it's going to happen to you when you're listening so ultimately let me ask you a question if you got through the Bible four times a year in audio and you picked up a quarter of it each time guess what you're going to get it all eventually but I think you're going to get a little more than that and you can just train yourself to do that now and you say well you know I need to listen to my talk radio stop the talk radio stop you know you know the music that's out there today is such garbage I mean listen the music that's out there today that's that's on the the mainstream channels or whatever I'm pumping gas I'm in the I'm in the stores I hear this garbage listen I don't know maybe you're just like you're old you don't know what music is today you know well maybe but you know what it all sounds the same to me and it's all a bunch of immoral garbage anyway okay so what's on the radio it's not going to be good okay so why don't you just put on some score or put on some audio Bible of the person you like to hear okay but in the end that will do dividends for you if you want a secret of mine audio Bible okay an audio Bible here's the thing with audio Bible it'll help you with your reading did you know how I can pronounce a lot of these names audio Bible okay when you're going through there you're like mayor mayor shallow hash bags evil Merodach or Merodach ballad and you're like how do you know how to pronounce that name why can you go through that because Scorby's read it to me at nauseum okay and you know that's why I can read those names do you think I figured that out you think unless you can you can figure it out but let's just be honest when you're reading through here sometimes it looks like alien language when you see all those little ticks and all that stuff that you're trying to figure out how to pronounce it but all that to say is that audio Bible really help your pronunciation now he's a little British okay so you might want to say herb instead of herb okay and like different things like that but it's okay if you want to sound British that's fine but but all I'd say is that that'll really help out your reading now go to the Deuteronomy chapter 17 and verse 18 there I want to show you another place where the Bible is telling us that we need to read this is what I think a lot of Christians are lacking and even in our movement you know the new IFP movement if you will is that a lot of people listen to sermons but they don't actually read their Bible you know they're spoon-fed doctrine but they didn't actually study it for themselves they didn't actually see it for themselves they're not rooted and grounded in the word themselves the rooted and grounded in a preacher okay and so it's good to listen to sermons okay I'm glad that you got some good doctrine from some men of God that have studied it out but you know what you need to do is you need to read it for yourself you need to see it for yourself okay because if you don't see it for yourself in the Bible then you're not gonna be rooted and grounded because let's say that person falls away I'll say that person fails well now your rock is some man that you got your doctrine from instead of the Bible which is the Word of God that never fails so there's a there's a lot to be said about reading and knowing the Bible now and Deuteronomy 17 verse 18 it says it shall be when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites so notice what's happening here this is talking about the Kings like in Deuteronomy spacing if you have a king what you're going to do because God knows the future obviously if you have a king the king needs to copy a book the law okay so what's the book of law Moses you know the books of Moses Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy right you need to copy that out and you say why does he need to copy it well they didn't have a printing press back then okay but also copying something out yourself will really help you know it more anybody that's ever done anything like that you know or if you're memorizing a chapter guess what if you write it out it's gonna help you memorize it and you know what I started doing this and I fell off the wagon but I started copying down you know Genesis and I had this little book and I was writing it out and I got like a chapter 10 or something like that and then I got married and then I had kids and then you know so a lot of these things are you know if you're single you know you can really hit this stuff hard because you have a lot more time okay and so and you can kind of add things that other people can't do as much but all that say is that is it a bad idea to copy down the Bible yourself you're like well you know we have it in so many copies you can get everywhere but you know what if you copy it down then you're gonna know it a little more okay and but well notice what it says in verse 19 it says and it shall be with him and he shall read therein all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God to keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren and that he turned not aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left to the to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom he and his children in the midst of Israel and you say well this is talking about a king you know this isn't talking about us did you forget the verse where it says that he's made his kings and priests and that were a part of the royal priesthood of the believer so guess what yes this does apply to you and the thing is is that it says that he may keep the words of this law and how are you going to keep the word if you don't know the word and that's what's really missing in society is ignorant you know the ignorance of the world they're like well you know I can't believe you said that you know aren't you supposed to be a Christian you know when it comes to like loving this person hating this person or doing this and doing that and they'll say well you know that's not what you know that's not what what Jesus taught yeah it is you just don't know that's what he taught you say well that's not what the Bible teaches yes it is you just don't know that's what the Bible teaches on that and you know when it comes to you know I think of church discipline for example like there's a there's a lack of church discipline when it comes to like if someone's in fornication if someone's in you know drunkenness and I've been in Baptist churches where they just bring in all those people are like well you need to reform them and all that the Bible says they need to be thrown out of the church so that they will recover they have to have some consequence for their actions okay you said well that's not very loving that doesn't seem right well that's what the Bible teaches and you may not know that because you haven't read it okay that's just one example of many okay but all that to say is that notice it says he shall read it therein once and then just leave it off is that what it says so should you just read the Bible once and then be like I read it or should you read it all the days of your life now unless you're gonna say that it's gonna take him all the days of his life to read through the book of Moses the books of Moses listen I thought my reading comprehension skills were bad but if it takes him all the days of his life and you know he's worse than me but no it's basically saying you're supposed to be reading it over and over again okay this isn't something where you just get through it once you're like oh did that check that off the list no you should be reasoning it scores of times you know the first step is to get through it once and that's the hardest thing to do okay getting through the Bible once is the hardest thing to do once you go through it once it gets easier I promise you okay it took me years to get through the Bible once you say really yes it took me years now they take me years to get through the New Testament no New Testament's a lot easier to read but getting through the Old Testament getting through all that stuff as far as first chronicles and all that and you know going through it all and making sure I got every single book that I've ever read did I read other books more than once of course in that time but at the same time when did I finally say I've read every book of the Bible I've read every chapter of the Bible it took me I want to say I got saved at 17 I started reading the Bible when I was 18 in college and I want to say that it took me about four years to finally get through the Bible so I you know if this gives you any hope okay meaning that I started reading the Bible but it took me four years to where I could actually say I've read through the Bible cover to cover I've read every book I've read every chapter okay after that did it speed up yes it did okay you know what really sped it up is when I met Pastor Anderson and he's quoting off whole books put it off the book of Hebrews you know I thought just memorizing Ephesians 2 8 9 was cool you know and then he's like quoting off a whole book I'm like oh man you know when you feel like you're that big fish in a little pond you know what you really need to get out of this sermon is that your little fish and you know don't ever get this idea that I'm a big fish in a big pond you know because the worst thing you can do is compare yourselves among yourselves and say well you know I'm more than that person down the street well it doesn't take much okay you know it's like saying well I work harder than the person that you pulled lay that's dragging their feet it doesn't take much okay and so you shouldn't be comparing yourself among yourselves what you should be always think is that I'm a little fish and I need to get more and you could be a way above a lot of people okay but you know what that's gonna mean is that you're gonna get a lot higher that way you're gonna press toward that higher ground you know you're gonna press toward the mark for the prize the high calling of God in Christ Jesus but as much as you say well I'm content I've arrived and all that and you may not say this outwardly but we should never get that mentality that hey I've arrived and listen I'm preaching to myself because you know I've read through the Bible many times and I have a lot of Bible memorized but do you think I'm standing up here saying yeah I've done enough I never feel like I've done that I always feel like I'm behind I always feel like I need to read more I feel like four times a year is still not enough for me to know what I need to know when I'm standing up here okay so that being said we need to always be increasing and we need to be reading it all the days of our life think of verses are you know and Luke 4 4 now we usually think of man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that perceived it out of the mouth of God well in Luke 4 4 it's the same thing but it just says by every word of God okay and so two places in the Bible and I know they're parallel passages but you know what when God puts a parallel passage in there you know what it means you know what it's signifying is that this is important okay so if you ever see a passage in all four Gospels guess what that's probably very important that it's mentioned in all four Gospels okay like the crucifixion you know like stuff like that but there's other things that are you know certain things that are mentioned in all four Gospels or they're mentioned more than once some things are mentioned once now is that mean it's not important no obviously it's important but if things are mentioned over and over and over and over again you're like man I see that here I see it here I see us here guess what it's very important and so you know this is obviously when Jesus is being tempted but in Luke 4 4 it says in Jesus answered him saying it is written that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word of God and he's quoting Deuteronomy by the way so in Deuteronomy this is this is quoted so this isn't something that's just New Testament here this is obviously something that should be you know from before the Old Testament in the Old Testament in the New Testament you know all the time now job go to job 23 job 23 and don't worry I know this is the first point but honestly when it comes to this when it comes to Bible reading this is the thing that I look at as being like the number one thing I think about at the beginning of the year Bible reading okay job 23 in verse 12 it says neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food so one thing you need to be thinking about in this new year is the fact of okay you know how important is it for me to read the Bible is it more important than the food I eat okay and this is something that I want to implement myself meaning that sometimes you know and I'm always listening to the Bible on the way to work but I want to read before I even get out the door okay so this is something I'm personally going to try to increase meaning that I want to read and pray before I leave the door before I leave my house okay and you say well you know this all comes down to schedule right because when it comes down to it when you're leaving someone you're like you're like giving the most time that you can sleep if you're like me you're like okay how much time is it really going to take me to get there that I can get there by the skin of my teeth so that I can sleep one extra minute okay but this is where you got to say okay I'm going to get up a little earlier knowing that I could get to work or get to the gym you know without getting up this early knowing that I'm going to read a chapter or two just to get the day started and to do that and you know before you eat okay so and I don't eat breakfast necessarily I've already kind of discussed that I just have a protein shake after I get done with my workout but but all I have to say is that you know how about you read a chapter before you even eat anything okay now if you have medical reasons why you need to eat as soon as you wake up then eat okay this is obviously you know uh just something I'm implementing and all that but but I think Job implemented that as well meaning that he saw God's word as being more important than his necessary food and you know other verses on this 1 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 13 it says till I come give attendance to reading to exhortation to doctrine okay so as a pastor guess what I'm telling you give attendance to reading okay so if Timothy is supposed to be given attendance to reading and the church that he's pastoring guess what I'm going to say give attendance to reading and you know when you think of the verse there's many verses on this when it comes to the word of God but uh as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby so if you want to grow this year if you want to increase this year you're not going to do it unless you're reading the bible okay so the number one thing you should be doing to increase is to read more of the bible to listen more of the bible get yourself a schedule get into a routine that's the key okay when I get into my truck I don't think am I going to listen to score me no it just comes on okay now your car may not do that maybe it has to like you have to hit a button okay but you know what you need to get into is a is a thing where it's like boom button you know boom it's on and and you know it shouldn't be you should be thinking well I want to listen to this I want to listen to that now listen if you're on a long trip I'm not saying you need to listen to the bible the whole time you're in the vehicle I mean you could turn it off and you know because there's times where I travel and I'm like listening I've listened to two books of the bible I'm like all right gone through Joshua and Judges I needed I needed a little time to think about this okay but all I have to say is that you know if you're driving 30 minutes to work even 10 minutes to work whatever it is or an hour I mean good night if you're doing an hour and you listen through the audio bible you'll get through it four times in a year if you're doing that consistently and so I can't stress that enough okay and you know people will downgrade it and say well it's not as good as reading I disagree there are certain things that I've heard listening to the bible that I didn't see when I was reading it but there's certain things that I saw reading it that I didn't pick up when I was listening to it I think both are important I think you're blessed and both that you do I think both are should be there but I'll say this I think audio is going to help everybody out okay because now you're not worried about the reading part of it you're just listening to it and you can just you can concentrate on what's being said you're not having to put all the inflections in there you're not having to figure out when do I need to pause and the way I'm saying you don't need to figure out how it's said now a score be perfect in every way he inflects things no okay so don't take that to the bank it's every inflection that he does or every way he reads it is right but mostly yes he's right because it's it's not that complicated of english to to read now after reading I would go into members or I'm sorry go into good doctrine okay now memorization is going to come but good doctrine now you're not going to get good doctrine if you're not reading now can you get good doctrine from preaching yeah but you're only going to get that is if you're going to be hearing a lot of bible when you're getting that doctrine but ultimately this should be coming from you getting it yourself you need to feed yourselves okay meaning that I will spoon feed you you know that's why you come to church I'm like here's here's your medicine for the day here's your your meal for the day and you know but in the end I can't you know and I'm going through chapter by chapter through the bible okay meaning we're on wednesday nights we're going expository preaching where I'm doing chapter by chapter but listen it's gonna be a while before we get through the whole bible and not everybody's here every single time I'm going through those chapters and you may not even be at this church when I'm done with it you know you never know what can happen or where you may move or something you know whatever so that being said I can't I can't say well I'm gonna give you the whole bible this year that's not practical okay and proverbs chapter one go to proverbs chapter one because what you need to be thinking about is obviously your bible reading needs to increase or at least be at a good level meaning that if you're at a very good level if you're if listen if you're sitting in here today and you're reading through the bible four times a year that's a good level stay at that maintain it okay but if you're here and you say well I had I didn't read through it once last year I got through some of it I didn't read through it once well you need to increase that to at least once and listen if you're at if you say why get through it once a year why don't you increase it to one and a half why don't you increase it to two okay and so that's what you need to be thinking about and so obviously there's a cap off point where it's kind of a point of diminishing return meaning that you're getting to the point where you're reading it so much that you can't even think about it or you don't have enough time to read it that much okay so there are things that need to be done you need to take care of your family you need to work you need to do all these other things and so obviously there's going to be a point where you can't read more than that okay but you need to look into what you're doing and say okay could I read more and I think most of us could say yes to that I think most all of us could say yes to a certain extent now uh proverbs chapter one of verse five it says a wise man will hear and will increase learning and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels to understand a proverb in the interpretation the words of the wise and their dark sayings and you know when I think about doctrine a lot of times I'm thinking about that I'm thinking about hard passages right because most of us you know when you're looking at this you're like well salvation is by grace through faith it's not by works it's eternal security listen you don't really need to pound that in too hard you know when with your bible reading but I'll say this even with those type of doctrines that are just really easy doctrines or things that are very super clear you could always find more verses that bolster that same doctrine you could always find the passages that people to attack that doctrine with and understand those passages that would answer those questions there's always things you could be doing with a simple doctrine or a very main uh main doctrine foundational doctrine that you can sure up think of the trinity you know think of even baptism or just other things that you could say okay well you know I don't understand this one and what you should do is say okay I'm gonna pick a doctrine I'm gonna ask myself you know just ask yourself test yourself do you know some verses off the top of your head that will prove that doctrine if you do find some more if you don't find some and you know get some good doctrine and obviously reading through the bible you're going to see some of this stuff okay. Ephesians chapter 4 deals with this now this is where the church comes into effect as far as how you're going to grow and I believe a lot of churches aren't growing spiritually or in doctrine or in learning because it's just not being taught let's just be honest I mean the same stuff's being taught over and over and over again and there's nothing wrong with the same doctrines being preached but listen if I preach to you on eternal security for example I'm not just going to re-preach that same sermon okay there might be some things in there that are the same and some big points that are the same but I'm usually going to probably try to find something else or another angle to come into it at does that make sense because first of all I don't want to be bored preaching okay I don't like preaching the same sermons and you know there's times where I preach the same doctrine and I'm like man I feel like I'm re-preaching this even though I'm even preaching out of a different passage on the same subject it just to me I get to that point where I'm like I don't want to preach the same thing over again but some things do need to be preached over again some things need to be hit on you know the on the head more than once and all that but the church is a good place to get doctrine okay it's a good place it's a it's a good place to make sure you're safe on your doctrine that you're not going out of bounds okay and this is where you know having a pastor that is not a novice someone that's grounded in in doctrine okay and I'm not saying I'm the only one but I'm saying that there's other pastors that are very grounded in doctrine and if you if you're reading through the bible you're like what about this and some wild-eyed you know type of you know doctrine you know coming to church is really going to bring that in be like no it can't be that because of this okay and that's where that modalism stuff you know people like didn't never hear about modalism never really studied the trinity that hard and then when someone comes in with some kind of you know wild-eyed theory about it in a verse that seems to disprove the trinity a little bit everybody's just like well maybe that is right and everybody's falling into that trap but if you have if you have people that have seen that doctrine before and know what they're trying to do and knowing how they're twisting it then when you come to church you can say okay yeah you know that makes sense and so this is where the church is very important okay for many reasons but this is a good one doctrine Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 11 it says and he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ so there's there are different reasons obviously for the church obviously the work it's all winning all that but how about the edifying of the body of Christ so obviously reading your bible and doing your daily reading doing your personal reading is how you're going to edify yourself because obviously in the end you know you can know everything in this bible that i know but the church is there to be basically this pillar and ground of the truth if you will this kind of stability in your bible reading in your doctrine okay and notice in verse 13 it says till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of god unto a perfect man unto the measure of the statue of the fullness of Christ that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men in cunning craftiness whereby they lay lie in wait to deceive and i think about modalism honestly when i think about this passage on the recent events as far as people being carried away with the the craft of cunning craftiness of men and you know getting being carried away away with these you know doctrines that are not right this isn't for 15 but speaking the truth and love may grow up in to him in all things which is the head even Christ so we're talking about growing growing up into him verse verse 16 from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supply it according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself and love okay so if you want to increase obviously your own personal bible reading is crucial but guess what coming to church and hearing preaching is also a crucial part of that increasing and learning okay and so that is something that needs to be there okay because if you're not in church you're missing a part of that you're missing this part where you're going to increase and it's going to be and it's talking about the whole church coming together and all the unity all the fellowship who here has you don't necessarily have to raise your hand but again if you want who here has learned something from somebody else in the church besides me you know like just talking about different doctrines talking about different verses or someone gave you a verse i'll raise my hand someone showed me verses that i that i i'm like oh that's cool you know or that makes sense did it veer off from major doctrines that we believe did it veer off from our statement of faith no but there's certain verses where it's like oh yeah that's great you know that proves this point even more and so you know that's where you come in there that not even just the pastor but even the people in the church can edify each other and working together in that unity there but a famous verse on this you know as far as learning doctrine and uh second timothy 2 15 it says study to show thyself approved unto god a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth so what do you need to do you need to read the bible but you also need to study it okay now studying in your own time of course but also studying it when you're coming to and isn't that what we're dealing with here because what are wednesday nights usually it's a bible study it's a study okay a lot of you know and i try to do this to where i'm doing kind of a doctrinal sermon here and more of a an exhortation here or even a rebuke over here with sermon so i'm not like just coming at you with every single sermon just deep doctrine okay now you want my opinion i like those sermons okay those are the those are the fun ones for me i like deep doctrine i'm more of an analytical like i like figuring out puzzles and stuff like that but you also need the exhortation this is more of an exhortation sermon this isn't deep doctrine here okay this is exhortation for you to go out and increase more and more and then other sermons i'll be preaching against fornication that's a rebuke or reprove it can also be an exhortation that if you're pure then keep going right but uh i think there needs to be balance there but all that would be saying is that not every sermon you're getting is a bible study necessarily so you need to be doing your bible study as well okay now uh go to uh psalm 119 in verse 11 so we saw a bible reading we need to increase that we need to be reading the bible all the days of our life there's not a time where you're saying i've read enough because guess what you'll forget you will forget what you've read and so there's many times that i'm going through the bible and i'm like man i know i used to know that but it's just kind of refreshes you a little bit you're like oh yeah that's right and uh i know pastor anderson i was talking to him one time and he was saying you know like he preached a sermon years ago and someone said you know i i you know brought up something to him and he's like that's a good truth you know never thought of that and he's like and the person's like yeah you preached that in 2006 or something like that he's like really you know so you know that happens and there's been times where i preach the sermon and and i've re-listened to it because i'm kind of going over the same topic i want to see what i hit on because i don't want to re-preach the same thing over again i'm like man that's a good truth there i forgot about that you know and you know so there's things like that to where you because when you're going into a sermon like that you're looking at all these things and you're kind of finding things and all that and so you always need to refresh anyway you need to be keep reading now when it comes to memorization notice what it says in psalm 119 verse 11 it says thy word have i hidden mine heart that i might not sin against thee so david is saying here that he hid god's word in his heart so if you want to know like my idea of memorization is hiding the word of god in your heart having it there to where you know it and what's the point meaning this is that when there comes an occasion to sin his word is there to say no okay and i know i'm kind of bringing up fornication but if you think of fornication to be like okay the bible says flee fornication so you come up to that point where it's possible where you're getting in that situation versus on your mind or drunkenness right drinking like let's say you're in a place where it's like you're in a company event or you're doing something or just like oh you know here's a beer or whatever uh look not on the wine when it's red when it moves itself with right when it get given its cover in the cup wine is a marker strong drink is raging whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise that's the type of stuff that you need to be thinking about you say really do you need because you can know that it's wrong but if you have the verse literally verbatim in your mind then it's going to be very it's going to be a lot it's going to be a lot better for you as far as the deterrent okay and that's why you know one big reason to memorize the bible is for knowing god's laws knowing what he wants you to do in certain situations think of all the proverbs right a soft answer turneth away wrath you know when you think about someone like being really angry with you being you know like and they're just being very confrontational with you in a meeting i'm talking about just everyday life right everyday life you're in a you're in a situation and someone's being really angry and confrontational with you and you say a soft answer turn away wrath and you're like and instead of meeting them there with that same intensity you pull it back and say i see where you're coming from you know let's see if we can figure this out that's going to de-escalate the situation now your flesh is going to say i want to rip this person's face off because i'm right he's wrong right and so but do you see how a verse like that because now you know okay that's what i should do now it's your choice whether you're going to do it or not i'm not saying because you know the verse that you're going to actually do it but if you don't know the verse then how you're going to know to do it okay now uh go to psalm 1 psalm 1 so you're psalm 119 go back to psalm 1 just want to show you some verses on this because another way that it says it is to meditate on his word and obviously you can meditate on something that you've read but how much more can you meditate on something that you know word for word in your mind okay so uh you know when it comes to meditating on the word of god i look at memorization as being like just a the best way to meditate on the word of god if you will okay because does it say thou shalt memorize the word of god thou shalt memorize books of the bible listen how about this and think about this for a second when jesus was talking to his disciples he talked about uh he asked him a question he basically said if this servant does his duty you know and he does everything that the first that his master told him to do is he profitable and i'm paraphrasing here but he said no say i've done my duty i'm unprofitable because what is profitability something above and beyond that mark for example if you're working on a job unless you you you do a job and you get paid just enough to where you break even okay you paid your expenses you paid the salaries you paid the overhead but you have nothing left over that's unprofitable did you pay your salary do you have money to put food on the table all that stuff yeah that's not profitable profitable is when you make money above and beyond that you have money that's out that's out there that didn't need to pay salaries didn't need to pay overhead so profitability is not saying that you're not doing what you should be doing profitability is saying that you're doing above and beyond so you know what you know what i like you you say do you like the fact that i wasn't memorized books yeah because guess what i'm doing more than what god said for me to do right the bible says meditate on the word of god it says to hide the word in your heart okay did it say memorize the whole bible did it say memorize a book of the bible did it say anything like that so when i look at these things what you need to be looking about is saying hey i want to do more than what god tells me to do because you could you be a good christian and just read the bible and not memorize a whole bunch of like books of the bible yeah there's people that are doing great things for god that don't have that much memorized but do you want to just do your duty or do you want to be profitable okay and that's where this kind of comes in as far as increasing more and more being above and beyond that okay and so all that to say is that you know there's things to think about with that psalm 1 verse 1 it says blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the young godly nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the sea of the scornful but his delight is in the law of god and in his law doth he meditate day and night so he's he's meditating in it and there's other places that talk about this and i'm going to show you some other ones but but verse three there why is that important because it's going to make you profitable it's going to make you successful it's going to make you prosperous okay notice what it says in verse three it says and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season his leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper okay so when it comes to this you can always look at this in the real world explanation if you're profiting your company guess what you're going to prosper yourself because no one's going to want to lose someone that's getting them a bunch of profits okay and so when when you're looking at this you need to think about this as far as we're god's servants we're working for god and when you're being profitable when you're increasing more and more guess what god's going to hear you more and more god's going to be promoting you more and more and you know there's a lot of things to look at this but in the end i want to do more because i want to please god i want to do more because god deserves it does jesus not deserve profitability from his servants i say he deserves as much profit as he can get okay as much profit as i can get him okay at least duty okay so obviously that's the mark that everybody should be at is duty duty out soul winning duty in your bible reading duty in the commandments that you keep right but how about above that how about things that he didn't ask you to do but you know they're good and you do it anyway and so those are the types of things you need to think about when increasing uh joshua chapter one is a good place to look at dealing with meditating on the word of god again notice it's day and night there's places where uh it talks about david talks about the fact that um you know it's it's pretty much the idea of burning the midnight oil right you know the lamps are going out he's still reading the bible all that stuff um and so you know you can think about that with your bible reading has there ever been a time where you're just like you didn't want to give it up you know you should probably go to bed but you're still reading and all that um have you ever fallen asleep while you're reading the bible and i'm not counting church listen church service does not count as far as still falling asleep so if you fall asleep in church that's on you no but all i'm saying is that have you ever been like you know you're just trying to get it and you're just dead tired where you're just out you know and uh you know you david's obviously a good place to look to in psalm 119 is a great place to look to with this but in joshua 1 8 it says this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate therein day and night and now that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good success okay so if you want to be profitable you want to have success and you need to increase this okay you need to increase this meditation on his word and obviously memorization is going to help you with that okay so i look at memorization as being uh basically the hand and glove with meditation okay because think about it let's say you're out doing something that's monotonous right you're mowing the grass you know you're doing something out you know like on a farm let's say you're doing your work with you know like where you're just not you're not working with people you're not talking to people but you're just kind of doing something it's going to take you a long time very monotonous you don't have to think a lot about it you know yeah do you have a book memorized do you have a chapter memorized go through that chapter and think about it you'll quote it off but then think about the verses think about how it's said and you're not gonna be able to do that by having you know you're like driving a tractor and then you're like over here looking at this thing like trying to figure it out you know like that's not gonna probably end well you know but you know things to think about with with memorization but even in uh you don't have to turn there but first john chapter 2 verse 14 it says i've written unto young men because you're strong and the word of god abided in you and you have overcome the wicked one so there's other places we're talking about the word of god abiding in you and the thing that why that's important go to john chapter 14 the last thing i'll show you on the memorization portion is that the holy ghost can bring these things to remembrance okay but if you don't have it memorized or at least if you haven't read it a lot because there's passages that i didn't personally like sit down and say i'm going to memorize this but i but i could bring it to remembrance because i've read it that many times or i've heard it that many times or i've studied it that many times it just happens you know you think about the that your soul winning plan a lot of you probably didn't even have to memorize it because you said it so many times that you just memorized it right because you said it so many times that's the way i memorized a lot of the soul winning plan is that i just said it so many times i read it so many times you know that's like yeah i can just quote that off but uh in john 14 verse 26 talking about the comforter the holy ghost knows what it says john 14 verse 26 but the comforter which is the holy ghost whom the father will send in my name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to remembrance whatsoever i have said unto you so jesus is talking here saying he's going to bring things to remember that i said unto you well what did he say well this is the word of god right and jesus is the word so he's going to bring it to remembrance but he can't bring something to remembrance if you didn't hear it notice that i said unto you if you didn't hear jesus say it unto you then how is he going to bring it to remembrance and so this is what you need to be thinking about as far as uh the more you read the more you memorize the more you meditate on the word of god the more the holy ghost can draw from that now let's say you just had john 3 16 memorized well that's better than nothing but do you think that the holy ghost wants to pull out more than john 3 16 i'm sure that he he's he's give me something else you know because there's other things in the bible besides salvation that you need to be thinking about and so and this comes into when you're reading or when you're studying the more you have memorized the easier that study is going to be because you can have more bible in your memory that that the holy ghost can pull out and say hey this goes to that when you're when you memorize the new testament because new testament's probably the easier the easier passages to memorize when you're going and reading through these cryptic passages now you have this munition of the new testament in your mind in the back of your mind to basically go through that cryptic passage and say well this can't be what this is saying here because these verses over here okay and it's already in the back of your mind okay and the bible is big by the way so this is why this is important because you're not going to just be able to like read through the new testament real quick and see all right does that conflict with anything right i mean i guess if you're doing it in a month that but you still have to wait a month to get to the point where you're like all right i read through the new testament again all right so does that conflict with anything but how about you have a bunch of books memorized or you have a bunch of chapters memorized so at least they have a good bit okay the more you have the better but you know you need to be thinking about that and the holy ghost can pull that out anybody that's been out stolen knows that there's been things that that have been brought to your remembrance now is the holy ghost saying you know miss paula remember luke 17 you know like no but what you're doing is like when you're going through this and you're like oh yeah i remember that passage that mentioned the same thing that was correlated to this and if you don't have it off the top of your tongue that you can say it you can at least know where it's at okay those are the type of things that you need to be thinking about when it comes to memorization how about increasing your faith uh go to luke chapter 17 luke chapter 17 luke chapter 17 so what we see so far increase your bible reading increase your doctrine your learning okay which doctrine is just that right learning it's just a teaching increase the amount of teachings or doctrines that are in the bible that you know increase your memorization increase your faith now in luke chapter 17 verse 5 his apostles asked jesus this to to increase their faith he's or you know basically uh asking him to do it then verse 5 there says and the apostles said unto the lord increase our faith and the lord said if you had faith as a grain of mustard seed you might say unto this sycamine tree be thou plucked up by the root and be thou planted in in the sea and it should obey you so it doesn't really say like when you're reading this passage you're like okay he said increase our faith and then he said if you have faith as a grain of mustard it's not really answering it exactly but if you look at that and this is kind of a bible study uh i don't want to say trick but a technique okay when you look at like let's say a sentence like that is there anything in that sentence that's mentioned anywhere else and the idea of a faith of the grain of mustard seed is mentioned somewhere else go to matthew chapter 17 matthew chapter 17 this is where reading and memorization can help you with your bible study because you may look at this and say well it didn't really tell me how i can increase my faith but there's some clues in the passage that's being said that you can look at another place and pick up some more information now this is a case where his disciples could not cast out the devil out of this this person's son and this is where jesus comes in and actually does it but then he's going to basically explain why why they couldn't do it okay so if you couple that with the fact that they're saying increase our faith i believe he's going to give the answer on how you do it okay so in matthew 17 verse 19 it says then came the disciples to jesus apart and said why could not we cast him out and jesus said unto them because of your unbelief so what's the subject here as far as why they couldn't cast him out lack of faith right unbelief lack of faith however you want to look at it for verily i say unto you if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed you shall say unto this mountain remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible unto you sound familiar now i said the second entry in one this is a mountain here the same idea of the faith the grain of mustard seed notice in verse 21 how be it this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting so i believe this is telling us that if you want to increase your faith here's how you can do it prayer and fasting okay and so increasing your faith something we need to think about and now some people you know when it comes to fasting you really some people can't do fasting okay i don't believe fasting is is is necessarily mandatory but at the same time i do believe that a lot of us can do it okay and we don't have to do 40 days and 40 nights here okay we're talking like you could do a day you could do two days right and if you have medical conditions where you have to eat certain things and all this stuff then listen this is not what i'm talking about okay because i don't want you to crash or do something that would be really bad okay but i'm talking about just a typical person that that can do this without having problems then you know fasting will definitely get you closer to god okay because when you're hungry you know you need all the help you can get okay when i'm weak then am i strong in the lord you know and listen when i'm not eating i am weak and uh but but also prayer you know prayer is a big thing now how about another way i believe there is another way to increase your faith go to james chapter 2 now james chapter 2 is usually ripped out of context and say that you need to do works to be saved and to go to heaven but actually i believe this passage is actually showing us how to increase our faith or as it says in in james chapter 2 to perfect your faith okay so if you're perfecting your faith i would say it's increasing okay um and so uh it gives this example of abraham okay notice what it says in verse 21 so james 2 verse 21 it says was not abraham our father justified by works when he had offered isaac his son upon the altar see as thou how faith wrought with his works and notice this by works was faith made perfect so what made faith perfect works and it says and the scripture was fulfilled which said abraham believed god and it was imputed under him for righteousness and he was called the friend of god now i preached this many times obviously he's saved by faith and that's how he got righteousness but then being the friend of god is how he perfected his faith and how do you be the friend of god you're my friends if you do whatsoever i recommend you okay so this passage in james is talking about christians that if you don't do the works you have dead faith and what is it unprofitable what does it profit my brethren what are we talking about today being profitable okay increasing and you think of increase what's increase profit increase is profit okay so if you want to increase more and more you want to be more profitable meaning that you can't have dead faith and be profitable and your faith isn't going to increase if you're not doing the works okay so three ways to increase your faith prayer fasting works i can't do i can't do that three you know like that is the hardest thing to do does anyone else have a problem doing three like that i feel like a child when i'm trying to do that i have to do it like this but i'm just like over here i can do it a little bit but over here it's just anyway so if i mess up my finger movements over here that's why but anyway all i have to say is that i believe those are three ways that you can increase your faith and so guess what going out soul wanting who here would say that their faith has been increased seeing people saved i would say everybody would say that right anybody that sees anybody get saved you're just like yes you know you're just you're revived you're you're you're ready to go you know it just kind of lets everything float away all that stuff will increase your faith prayer fasting doing the works of god you know and this has nothing to do with going to heaven okay what i'm preaching on today has all to do with what you do as a christian to be profitable okay now uh go to um go to ephesians chapter 2 actually go to proverbs chapter 14 you know ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 through through 10 but for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves is the gift of god not of works let's say any man should boast but it says for we are his workmanship in christ jesus or created in christ jesus under good works which god hath before ordained that we should walk in them and so we should walk in his works because we are created as his workmanship okay so if we're his workmanship doesn't it make sense that we should increase that okay and that see these things meld into each other so this isn't like you separate this one this one this one this one listen if you're doing the works you're going to increase your faith and if you're doing the works to increase your faith guess what you're doing this one okay so but i do want to show you that you know this is a kind of a famous verse that we use a lot um you know and this kind of goes into our our children's rooms getting destroyed you know when it comes to like things like this we want to take care of our things but at the same time listen we know this to be true that if our church is clean without any messes that means that we're not doing anything okay that means that work isn't getting done and you know what i'd rather have a whole bunch of children i'd rather that our church be 50 children if not more and be a little messy i actually like that i like the fact that we have a lot of children in our church and you know when because listen most churches have an average age of 80 to dead okay and so and that's not against you know older people but what i'm saying is that our churches you know churches and by by the masses are dying off physically because they're just older people in there you look at our church and it's like the average the average age is like 10 not quite but what i'm saying is like when you add in all the children in there it's really kind of like the average age is actually a teenager age you know because a lot of people are in their 30s and 40s but then you have like you know infants and all that stuff so when you when you bring that down you know our average age is pretty pretty low and so um but all i say is that i like that but this verse right here in proverbs 14 verse 4 it says where no oxen are the crib is clean notice this but much increase is made is by the strength of the ox okay now i preached a sermon last week about bodily exercise prophetess okay so we don't just get up here and be like oh you know it's all about the spiritual realm that means i can be you know huge 300 pounds and you know praise god i'm you know on god's side and all that no we need to be in shape okay we need to be able to do the work okay but what we're talking about today is more the spiritual realm okay so we need to increase by strength and how are you going to get strength by reading the word of god by having good doctrine by memorizing the bible and by you know by doing increasing your faith and doing the works you know all these things are going to help you to be profitable okay but you need to basically go into this new year knowing hey where in these places can i increase you know i don't know if anybody's writing anything down but here you know kind of the the ideas of reading doctrine memorization uh increasing your faith increasing your labor how can i improve that for this year okay and you know that's the type of stuff that we need to be thinking about because we want to be fruitful go to john chapter 15 john chapter 15 and john chapter 15 is talking about jesus being the vine and we are the branches so in this passage we're not dealing with unsaved or saved people we're dealing with all saved people here okay and the idea though is that yeah we want to be fruitful but we also want to be increasing that you know we want that to increase and listen as our church grows guess what that's going to increase you know because more people are going to go out soul winning more people are going to grow the church is going to grow and the fruit's going to keep going on and on and on and on you know you if you if you win someone to christ and then you teach them to do the same thing guess what it's multiplying and and that fruit's gonna grow and grow and grow now and john chapter 15 is that story but you think of the the parable of the sower you know the the the seed that landed in the good ground and said it bring it bear fruit and bring it forth some 100 fold some 60 fold some 30 fold you know those are quantities and you know like i said if you're already at 30 a year you can say well i want to be 60 or if you're at 60 you'd be like i want to be at 100 or if you say well i'm not at 30 souls saved a year i want to attain to that or you could just say listen i want to give one person saved this year that's a great goal if you never want anybody to christ and you say you know what i want to win one person to the lord this year that's a great goal you win one person to the lord you're already above most christians in the world unfortunately okay but after that you say well you know what i want to win two people then three people and then four people and say you know what i want to win 10 people and you know what that's going to increase faster than you think okay listen if you're starting to win like 10 people to christ in a year you you have to be in some kind of routine and that's going to actually increase a lot faster than you think okay so you need to set these goals to be fruitful and uh john 15 of verse 1 it says i am the true vine and my father is the husbandman every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away and every branch that beareth fruit he purges it that it may bring forth more fruit and that's what we're talking about today i'm talking about a fruitful church here mountain baptist church i believe we're bringing forth fruit we're seeing close to 200 people saved a year and people baptized people growing in the lord and i can go into that in more detail if you wanted me to but in in the end i believe that we're growing and that we're fruitful but what we want to do is be more fruitful you know we want to purge some things we want to basically get it you know make some of the rough edges smooth and just kind of get more honed in every year i think we should try to hone in more and more and more okay we should never get content okay and notice what it says as you keep going there it says now ye now ye are clean through the word which i have spoken unto you abide in me and i in you as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me side notes unsaved people can't get people saved i don't know how you get around this but if you're not in the vine you're not getting anybody saved okay verse five it says i am the vine ye are the branches he that abideth in me and i in him uh the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me you can do nothing so how do you how do you bear how do you get to increase like that well you just need to keep abiding in christ if you keep doing this stuff listen it's going to get easier like i said you read through the bible one time next time is going to be a lot easier you read through it twice it's going to be even easier after that the more you read it the easier it becomes because it becomes second nature and you're like i've read this before and holly knows this you'll know when i read through a passage that i have memorized because i'm like going through that thing like it's nothing to the point where i have to slow down i'm like no i need to i need to read that a little slower because you have it memorized it's just like you know it you don't even need to look at the page okay so it's going to get easier as you go on and we want to bear much fruit and that's that's the thing that i see in this passage is that you're bearing fruit okay let's purge some things this is where jesus comes in he's going to purge some things he's going to try to step on your toes get some things out of your life move things around to where you're more focused on him purge to where and what you want to be and the goal is which i don't think we'll ever really get to is is pure efficiency okay you're just doing everything you have to do in this life to survive keep your children you know and have some sanity and doing everything you can for the lord okay now let me know when you arrived at that point okay where you feel like i'm doing everything that i can for the lord i've got everything else in a set order that i needed to be set in i don't think anybody's ever going to be in that place where you're just like yeah i'm just running at a hundred percent okay so we all need to be purging some things we all need to be cleaning up things we all need to be doing stuff like that and i had another passage you don't have to turn there but um in second peter i'm going to close it because we're out of time but second peter talks about this talks about growing in grace and the knowledge of the lord our lord and savior jesus christ it talks about adding to your faith virtue and knowledge and temperance and patience godliness brotherly kindness and charity so the idea of increasing or adding to is something that is a principle that's throughout the whole bible here okay and the idea is to have increase and this is the passage where it says so that an abundant entrance you know so that an entrance shall be mentioned unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our lord and savior jesus christ and you know if you if you you can go into the the kingdom just by being saved obviously just believe in the lord jesus christ but when you're at that abundant entrance and this is what jesus i'll end it with this jesus is saying you know he's talking about he's the the good shepherd and everybody else is the thief and a robber it says in john 10 10 the thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy i am calm that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly the way to have that more abundant life now that's not saying like it's you're more saved than someone else it just means that you're going to have an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom instead of just an entrance into the everlasting kingdom you're going to have rewards you're going to have crowns you're going to have all these different things that you're going to have to show for the works that you did and abundance is talking about profit increase we need to increase more and more we need to be profitable i don't want to be the church to just know well they're doing their duty i want to be known as a church that's saying you know what we're setting the bar higher than others you know and we're not looking at others i'm not looking at another church i didn't like google all the other churches and friends that i have and say okay what are they doing over here what are they doing over here no we're doing what we're doing here and i'm setting the marks higher i'm trying to do more and this should be on a personal basis as well okay because the more you do it the easier it will be for the church to do it as a whole okay because ultimately i can set those bars high but if you can't attain to it if you don't want to attain to it it's not going to help okay but if everybody's just on board and everybody's increasing guess what it's going to be easier okay it's going to be a matter of just okay who's going to do what okay and when are we going to do it so something to think about for this new year increasing more and more more abounding more and more um you know keep doing what you're doing but just try to see if there's places where you can increase that so let's end with a word of prayer the only father we thank you for today pray to be with us uh throughout the rest of today and the fellowship that we have uh pray to bless the food that we're about to eat and then lord also with the soul winning that afterwards i pray to uh keep us warm as it's getting a little colder out and then uh also just keep us safe um as we go out deliver us from any unreasonable wicked men uh we just pray to reward that free course but ultimately lord this year we pray that you would help us to increase more and more to help us to do more to glorify you and to be glorified in everything that we do at this church lord just praise you to help us with that and we love you and pray all in jesus christ name amen