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Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you could please find your seats and grab your songbooks. We're going to start by singing, 410, faith is the victory. 410, faith is the victory. Song 410, faith is the victory. And camped along the hills of life, Ye Christian soldiers rise. And thus the battle there the night, Shall veil the glowing skies. Against the falling hills we love, Let all our strength be heard. Faith is the victory we know, That overcomes the world. Faith is the victory, Faith is the victory, Oh, glorious victory, That overcomes the world. His banner over us is the, Our sword, the word of God. We tread the road, the saints above, With shouts of triumph won. By faith they light the world, With breath swept on o'er every field. The faith by which they conquered them, Is still our shining shield. Faith is the victory, Faith is the victory, Oh, glorious victory, That overcomes the world. On every hand the foe we fight, Grown up in dread array, Let tense unease be left behind, And honor to the fray. Salvation's helmet on each end, With truth over and around, The earth shall tremble, meet our tread, And echo with our shouts. Faith is the victory, Faith is the victory, Oh, glorious victory, That overcomes the world. To him that overcomes the foe, White raiment shall begin, Before the angels he shall know, His name confessed in hand. Then onward from the hills of life, Our hearts will love a flame, We'll vanquish all the hopes tonight, In Jesus' concrete name. Faith is the victory, Faith is the victory, Oh, glorious victory, That overcomes the world. Great singing this evening. Let's start off with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you for Steadfast Baptist Church and our pastor and his family, Lord. Pray that you bless this night, that you would fill every individual here with the Holy Spirit. Help us to sing out with love and understanding in our hearts to you. And thank you for your countless blessings. We love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, for our second song, let's go to 197, Singing I Go. 197, Singing I Go. Song 197, Singing I Go. 107, Singing I Go. The trusting heart to Jesus' claims, Nor any ill foretold, But at the cross of Calvary's seat, Praise God for lift and lows, Singing I Go along my throne, Praising the Lord, praising the Lord, Singing I Go along my throne, For Jesus hath lifted my load, The passing days bring many cares, Fear not, I hear Him say, And when my fears are turned to wear, The burden slips away, Singing I Go along my throne, Praising the Lord, praising the Lord, Singing I Go along my throne, For Jesus hath lifted my load, He tells me of my Father's love, And never suffering I, My everlasting King above, All my needs abide, Singing I Go along my throne, Praising the Lord, praising the Lord, Singing I Go along my throne, For Jesus hath lifted my load, When to the throne of grace I flee, I find the promise true, The mighty arms upholding me, Will bear my burdens too, Singing I Go along my throne, Praising the Lord, praising the Lord, Singing I Go along my throne, For Jesus hath lifted my load. Thanks for coming to steadfast Baptist Church. If you did not already get a bulletin, and you would like one, just slip up your hand real quick. Whenever ushers can come by, get you a bulletin. On the front, we have our Bible memory passage. We're on Proverbs 31. Also on the inside, we have our service and soul winning times. Right, we have a list of ladies you can be in prayer for. We also have a prayer list. Please be in prayer for our church family. There's a bulletin back here, guys. Bulletin back there, all right. Also, we have our Christmas music recital for the children. It's going to be on December 16th from 2 to 4. And then also, the information is listed there. There should be a sign-up sheet for this, so make sure you're signing up for a time slot. We have kind of like a tryout slash rehearsal the week before. That way we make sure all the kids are ready. It is for ages 5 to 18. And if you are performing a song, you can do kind of anything you want as far as musically, but if you are singing, please use a hymn only. Also, everyone's invited, so even if you don't have a child performing this year, but you'd just like to attend, of course, everyone is welcome. And last year, it was great. The music was honestly very professional and really impressive, and so I think that you're going to enjoy it. Every other music recital, I feel like it's been really boring, and I wanted to leave as soon as I showed up, but honestly, I was really impressed with our kids. I thought that they did a really good job, and it was actually very entertaining, and it didn't last for like five hours or whatever, so there you go. I went to one music recital, and the music teacher, after the kids played for like two hours, then he just started playing like three or four songs, and you're sitting here like, what's happening? Like, why is he playing songs now too? All right. The ladies' Christmas party is going to be December 8th. That's a Friday, 6-9 p.m. Guys, watch the kids, all right? Nursings only, that's what that means. And then Christmas cookie bake-off, we have three different competition prizes, and by just entering, bringing your cookies, you're entered in all three. You don't have to make any sign or anything like that, but my advice is that if you want a chance to win or place, usually you have to make a lot of them just because if you only make like 10 cookies and they're all gone, then I'm going to be like, well, I don't know how to judge your cookie. You know, it's just gone. So that's why I advise. It's typically best to make a large, large batch so that way, or multiple batches, that way a lot of people can try them out. Also, upcoming events, please be in prayer for our missions trip this weekend. We also have a Christmas caroling on the 11th, and then we have a New Year's Eve party on the 31st. Since it's Sunday, we're going to do a special preaching that evening. So that's really all I have as far as announcements are concerned. We'll go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 147. It's in the King James Bible, or if you need, you can use one of these special handouts, and that'll help you sing that along. All right, Psalm 147. Praise ye the Lord, for it is good to sing praises unto our God. For it is pleasant and praises complete, the Lord doth build up Jerusalem. He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel, He healeth the broken, pin-hearted, bindeth of their wounds. He telleth the number of the stars, He calleth them all, He calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and of great power, His understanding is infinite. The Lord lifteth up the meek, He casteth the wicked down to the ground. Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving, sing praise upon the poor, unto our God who covereth the heavens, who with clouds who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass, grass to grow upon the mountains. He giveth to the least is true, and to the young ravens which cry, He delighteth not in the strength of the force, He taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear them, Hope in His mercy praise the poor of Jerusalem, praise thy God, O Zion. For He hath strengthened the bars of thy gates, He hath blessed thy children within me, He maketh these in thy borders and filleth me. With the finest of the wheat He sendeth forth His commandment, up on earth His word runneth very swiftly. He giveth stone like wool, He scattereth the poor, He scattereth the poor, He scattereth the poor, He casteth forth His eyes like warm, Souls who can stand before His cold, He sendeth out with room to cough His wind to blow, And the waters flow, who show with His word unto Jacob, His statutes and His judgments unto Israel, He hath not dealt so with any nation, and as they have not known Him, praise He the Lord. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. . Matthew chapter 6, Matthew chapter 6, the Bible reads, Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thy alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret himself, shall reward thee openly. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. After this manner, therefore pray ye, our Father which art in heaven, hallow be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Moreover, when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there where your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye, if therefore thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thy eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on, is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into the barns. Yet your heavenly Father feedeth them, are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall ye not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Let us pray. Father, we're so very thankful for Steadfast Baptist Church and Pastor Shelley and his family, and I just pray that you'll fill in with your Holy Spirit today. Help him to preach with power and authority and boldness. Help us to be edified and walk away better Christians. And Lord Jesus, we thank you so much for enduring the cross, the chastening, the beatings, and conquering hell and death for us, Lord, for the joy that was set before you. We love you, Jesus, and we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. The part of the chapter I want to look at here is verse 24, where the Bible says, No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Now, mammon is kind of a colloquialism. It's just kind of a metaphor for money, and it's not because it directly relates, but it's more just the concept that's being taught here, because mammon really kind of symbolizes food, symbolizes bread, and bread is symbolized by having abundance, having this earth's wealth, and having goods, and it's saying you can't serve both, mammon and God, meaning that you can't really serve the pleasures of this life and the good things of this life. Ultimately, what money buys, and serve God equally. So, you're really going to have to pick, and in fact, if you don't even pick one, you're going to end up just leaning in one direction either way. You can't have both. You can't have a just service attitude towards money only, and also serve God, and you can't think like, well, if I serve God, then I'm going to necessarily have the riches that Bill Gates has, or that Warren Buffet has, or Elon Musk, or these other individuals, because there's only so much time in a day. There's only so much opportunity that we have. You know, when's the last time that Elon Musk darkened the doors of a fundamental Baptist church, right? But I guarantee, Elon Musk goes to work six, seven days a week. I mean, in fact, I've heard that when he first took over Twitter, they literally took some of the area of the building, and they made it a place for people to just sleep. So, like, they're just sleeping at the building. So you would just take, like, six hours, you know, at night, and just sleep, and then you just go back to work. I mean, just working, just work, work, work, work. Why? Because they're trying to build wealth. They're trying to build money because these things are really important to them, and people that are constantly serving God, maybe they're putting soul winning on, you know, is really important to them, or they're taking church seriously. They are reading their Bible and trying to do a lot of things for the Lord. They may not be acquiring tons of wealth and having all this extra money and having all these extra goods and having all these extra houses and everything else because you just can't really do both, you know? And eventually, the person that's trying to kind of do both, eventually, he'll just really hate one and just kind of cleave to the other, and he's just gonna kind of hate the one, right? Like, if you just really love God and you just really want to serve God, when you're trying to chase money, eventually, you're just gonna get to the point where you're kind of sick of it and you don't want it anymore and then you just kind of, you just go back to God because that's what you really want. Or vice versa, maybe you're trying, you're going to church and stuff, but you kind of just, I really like what money has to offer, right? I really like what this world has to offer, and then they end up just kind of dropping church and letting go of things of God, and then they just end up getting money. And so he's trying to make it clear that you can't have both. Since you can't have both, what is the thought? Verse 25. Therefore, I say unto you, take no thought for your life. What you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body, what you shall put on is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment. What's so amazing about the Bible is how it's so right about life thousands of years later. I mean, if we were to really think about it, what are people pursuing riches? What does it really consume them? Well, it consumes them what they're going to eat, right? Where they're going to eat, eating at the five star restaurants, eating out, having the greatest delicacies to eat. Notice what the next thing is, what you should drink also in that context, but yet, nor yet for your body, meaning what kind of clothes are you going to have? And isn't that what rich people are consumed with? Their drip, you know, or like what their threads are. Sorry, you say, what's drip? I don't know. It's like this weird slang now. The kids use it or whatever. Man, have you seen my new drip? It's like, and of course celebrities are obsessed with their clothing. Certain shoes are worth tons and tons of money just because of they've got some basketball player associated with those shoes or something like that. I've even heard they make these like, I think it's maybe Nike's or something. It's some Jordan's type shoe. And it's like one has these little tiny wings that are endorsed with like Michael Jordan. And then the other ones just don't have the wings. It's like the exact same shoe, but just like one has this like one little like, you know, emblem on it. And one doesn't. And just by having the emblem, it makes it like 80 or $90 more expensive. You're just thinking like, what, why? I saw a video. There's this guy who went to some kind of a market where they're selling products and this guy's got all these basketball shoes on the table. He's like, I'll buy all your shoes for like $90,000 or something like that because people are constantly obsessed with like buying. There's like this thing out there. People are like buying like Jordan's or like specific collector type shoes to then resell them. And there's like this whole market about like selling basketball shoes to one another and just having the greatest. And it's like, why does that even matter? And of course these people, they probably wouldn't even actually play basketball in those shoes for fear of actually scuffing them up or breaking them or ruining them. You know, it's just, they gotta have these super awesome clothes. And it's so funny. People are just obsessed with this. You know, the new style, it used to be like you'd wear like a nice suit and clothes, but it's now it's like to look gangster, but be fresh. So like you have like these, you know, the Jersey and you have the Jordans and stuff like that, but there's no scuff marks. It's super clean, super white and everything. So it's like they have their normal clothes they wear when they're just going out and doing stuff. And then the rate when they dress up, it's the same clothes, but they're just clean, right? It's just, it's like they didn't really, they didn't really have like a different style. It's just, they have to have this super clean, fresh, you know, check out my drip, man. And you're just thinking like, this is so silly. And rich people are obsessed with clothing. I mean, you look at Paris where they have the runway models going up and down, fancy clothing. I mean, and you can only get so fancy, right? I mean, you really, as a man, you can't really get much like better looking than wearing a suit. But what they can do is you can have like a $20,000 suit. And you're thinking like, what's the difference? You know, I remember my mom, when she bought me my first suit, I went to JCPenney and we looked at all the suits and we kind of saw one that I liked. And then we went to Dillard's. And, you know, here's the thing. To me as a kid, I'm like, they kind of all look the same, right? It's like the blue suit, the gray suit, the black suit or whatever. But it's like if you get the JCPenney suit, and this is back then, I don't know anymore, but back then it was like the JCPenney suit was like 150 bucks or like $200 maybe. You go to Dillard's, it's like $400 or $500. But it's kind of the same, you know. It's just do you have the name brand, right? Do you have the particular silk? Is it like made out of silk or something? It's like I don't even want it to be made out of silk anyways. Okay. But this is what the world's chasing after. The world is chasing after money, clothes, and then what? The crib, right? Their house. And it's no new thing under the sun. It's the same things that they're constantly chasing. And God's saying, hey, don't worry about what you're going to eat. Don't worry about what clothes you're going to put on. Don't worry about where you live. Don't even take one thought. And let me tell you something. It is a covetous attitude to constantly obsess, to obsess with clothing and with food and with houses. And let me tell you something. You know who's mostly affected by that? People sitting around daydreaming and having nothing to do being idle. When they're idle, they're just constantly obsessed with what? Having a bigger house or new clothes or what they can buy. Learn this habit. Stop worrying about buying new things. You know what's not a hobby? Shopping, okay? We all have to shop, and I get it. But stop daydreaming about all the things you would buy when you can't buy them. Or you can't afford them. You don't need them. They're just excess. What does the Bible say? Am I preaching my opinion here? What does it say in verse 25? Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life. What does it say? What ye shall put on. Now look, I am not saying if you go out and buy clothes for yourself, you're wicked or something. I'm not saying if you want to buy clothes for your kids, you're wicked. But you know what? When you have clothes, stop worrying about how much more clothes you can get. I mean, back in the day, people had like three outfits. I guarantee almost everybody in here dresses like kings and queens where you literally have a whole wardrobe of clothes you don't even wear. Many women have multiple garments and outfits that they don't even wear. And you're just thinking like, why are you obsessed with buying something else? Because you're not even wearing what you have. Men are the same way. And in fact, most of the time, it's amazing to me. I don't even buy t-shirts. Like I can't even remember the last time I buy t-shirts, but I give like six to seven t-shirts away like every season. Like my t-shirts are multiplying in my shirt. It's just because of church or something, right? And I started looking and it's just like Pure Words and this shirt or whatever. It's like I'm not even worrying about t-shirts and God is just multiplying t-shirts onto me. You know what I mean? And it's like, why would I then worry about buying all this extra clothing and all these extra goods? You know, what does he say? Isn't not the life more than meat and the body than raiment? Isn't there more to life than food and clothing? Verse 26, Behold the fowls of the air, for they so not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? Now if I could do that, I would think about it. I'd try to be like 6'3", 6'4", something like that. I mean, why not, right? If I could think about it, I would do it, right? If I could just have a think about it. But he's saying you can't do it. All right, that sucks. Okay, move on. Verse 28, And why take thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the fields how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. He's trying to say Solomon's drip wasn't even as good as the flowers that God just has grow and then is destroyed the next day. It doesn't impress God. God's not like, oh, you look so fresh, so clean. That's such a good drip, brah. That's not God, okay? He's thinking like, my flowers look better than you. Verse 30, Wherefore have God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow's cast in the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. And here's the iconic verse, verse 33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself, sufficient of the days, and the people thereof. Now, I've heard this verse a lot. It's a really famous verse. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, right? How many people have heard that verse? They love that verse. They can memorize. Yeah, we love this verse. But, you know, something really stuck out to me a while back when I was thinking about this verse, and it was the next phrase. Because notice it doesn't just end. It says, But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And that's the title of the sermon this evening, is And His Righteousness. Now, when we think about the kingdom of God, seeking the kingdom of God, what does that really entail, actually? That entails getting saved, doesn't it? Doesn't that entail believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and getting saved? And when we're giving a message to the whole world, what's the most important thing you can do? Worry about your food and clothing, or getting into heaven? Just getting even saved on the forefront. Go to Matthew chapter 4. Go backwards just a hair for a second. Go to Matthew chapter number 4, and look at verse 17. Look what it says here. From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. What was it that Jesus Christ was wanting people to do? Jesus Christ wanted people to change their mind, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and then they would be what? In the kingdom of heaven. And the Bible makes it clear that the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven come not with observation, but it's actually inside of you. Meaning the moment that someone believed in Jesus Christ and got saved, they entered into the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God, and they were fighting spiritual warfare. Now, there is a coming millennial reign of Jesus Christ, and we get that, and things will be more manifest in that period of time, but there is also an understanding of the kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven that's happening right now where those who believe in Jesus Christ are entered into the kingdom of God, spiritually speaking, and we're going out, and we're fighting the wars for the kingdom of God when we preach the gospel and get people saved. And we talk about CE first, the kingdom of God. We're talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're talking about getting saved, and then maybe another application beyond that would just be you preaching the gospel, you focusing on evangelism and bringing other people into that kingdom of God. That is being the forefront, the most important part of your Christian life. Look at what Matthew chapter 3 verse 2 says. Matthew chapter number 3, look at verse number 2. And this is John the Baptist preaching and saying, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now, again, what does at hand mean? It's right here. They weren't preaching about, hey, thousands and thousands of years from now, Jesus Christ is going to be ruling and reigning on this earth. We're talking about ruling and reigning. He's saying, no, no, no, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, it's at hand. It's right here. You could touch it. It's palpable, okay? Why? Because those who are believing in Jesus Christ were entering in at that moment, and there is spiritual warfare that's at play here. And so when the Bible says, seek ye first the kingdom of God, what it's trying to tell you is it's trying to tell you you need to get saved, most importantly. And then you need to focus your life on the gospel of Jesus Christ, including getting other people saved, preaching the gospel, being a soul winner. That is way more important than what you eat and what clothes you put on and where you live is the gospel of Jesus Christ and being focused on that. But the Bible doesn't end there. It then says what? And his righteousness. That's what I want to focus on. Go to Deuteronomy chapter number six. Go to Deuteronomy chapter number six. So when we're talking about seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, the first applies to both. The first applies to both concepts. Number one, getting saved, and then number two, living a righteous life is more important, should be the number one priority above what? Food, clothing, the riches of this world, and then what the world can offer you. We should be seeking God's righteousness. I think there's a couple things we should emphasize here. Number one, and. What does and mean? In addition to. Another thing. Also. Right? So it's not just good enough to get saved. You need to also what? Try to be righteous. What is righteous? Doing right. Not doing wrong. Okay? And here's a really important word. Right in the middle. His. His righteousness. Not your righteousness. Not the world's righteousness. His righteousness. And his righteousness. Now look at what it says in Deuteronomy chapter six, verse 24. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always. That he might preserve us alive as it is at this day. And it shall be our righteousness if we observe the Lord our God if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God as he hath commanded us. Where does our righteousness come from? It comes from God's word. And only true righteousness is his righteousness. Any other form of righteousness would be a fake or pseudo-righteousness. Not really doing right. Not really accepted in his sight. Okay? Go if you would to Psalm chapter number four. Go to Psalm chapter number four. So what's the point of the sermon? Well, a lot of people are conflicted in their life decision-making. And they're not making things a priority that are God's righteousness. They're making the world their priority. They're making work their priority. They're making their life goal. Like, I just have to have this house. It's like, what's more important? Being godly and serving God with your life? Or having a particular house on a particular piece of property or living in a particular area or having a particular set of clothing. Well, as soon as I have a matching purse for every outfit, it's like, is that really that important? Is that really the most achievable? Like, is that the best goal to achieve? You know, you could be like Patrick Mahomes and have a pair of shoes for every single day of the week or something like that. But what would be the point in that? That's kind of effeminate if you have that many shoes anyways, okay? You know, it's funny to me. Like, it only applies to probably him, but there used to be this billboard you would see when I'd come over this part of the way. And it would always say, you know, divorce your husband and double the size of your closet. And I was thinking, like, well, joke's on you, because my wife would only get, like, a 10% increase. How in the world is he going to double it? You know, I don't have half the closet. And, you know, I don't need half the closet. Because frankly speaking, I don't need lots. I literally, my wife had bought me shoes. I think we were either 17 or 18. I still wear them. And just to let you know, that's like another 18 years in the future. I'm wearing the same shoes from 18 years ago. 18 years, folks. You say, is that in season? It came back in season, okay? It, like, fell out and now it's back in, okay? That's how long it was. But, you know what, I don't even care. Because who cares what's in season with this world? Many times what's in season with this world is gay. It's queer, okay? It's not even cool. It's like, I don't want to be in season with that, okay? And so we should stop worrying about what the world thinks and what the world wants us to do and what our selfish desires would be and think about, like, what does God want me to do with my life? You know, following God's commandments. You know, why does he have the Old Testament law in there? So that we'd actually read it and actually do it. And I'm not going to go through a whole list. The sermon is not going to be where I just go through all these specific sins or anything like that. I'm just kind of giving you the broad concepts here for a moment. But I want you to see a pattern in the Bible of how God talks about righteous people. And, of course, the Bible alludes to the righteous just being saved in general. But also, there's another aspect to it. It's just people that are actually doing right. Actually following God's commandments, doing the right things. And there's a benefit and a blessing to being a righteous person and following God's commandments. Remember what he said? Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. It didn't say get saved and everything's going to be good for you. It says get saved and his righteousness. It says, hey, you also have to still do right, though. You know, get saved, great. I'm glad you got saved. But now let's work on another part, and his righteousness. That's where the law comes into play. That's where church comes into play. That's where reading the Bible and focusing on the things of God come into play. And notice how God talks about these individuals. Psalm chapter 4, look at verse number 3. But know that the Lord has set apart him that is godly for himself. The Lord will hear when I call unto him. Hey, here's a good benefit. God answers your prayers. Wouldn't you like that? I mean, isn't there a pretty long list of prayer requests in a bulletin? Wouldn't you like it that when you pray for those people it actually means something to God? Verse 4, stand in awe and sin not. Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. Let me ask you a question. When's the last time you looked at serving God as a sacrifice? Because, you know, that's what the Bible says. You know you should offer unto God today a sacrifice of righteousness. A sacrifice of righteousness. Instead of being in the coolest drip, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to offer God a sacrifice of righteousness. I'm going to, instead of buying myself new clothes, I'm going to buy someone else some clothes. Whoo! Well, that's not very cool. I mean, I wonder if all the women in America, instead of worrying about what they're going to get for Christmas this year, decided what they're going to give to somebody else for Christmas this year. I wonder what would happen in our country. I wonder what would happen in our country if people were more concerned with others rather than themselves during the spirit of Christmas. You know what most people are thinking about in Christmas? What kind of presents they're going to get under the tree rather than thinking, hey, this is the best time of year to preach the gospel. But it's cold. It's the sacrifice of righteousness. What a sacrifice. Hey, go out in the cold and preach the gospel while everybody else is overpaying for a bunch of nonsensical goods made in China. Hey, all our drip's coming from China. We wear Chinese clothes. You didn't even know that. I'm just telling you, what is your goal in life? To see how much clothing you can acquire that you're not going to wear? Or to think about, hey, let's think about other people. And you know what? Serving God has a sacrifice element. Hey, why show up to church on Sunday night? It's a sacrifice. Why don't you offer that to God? Well, but you know what? I've got some work I've got to do. I've got to make some more bread. I've got to get some more money tonight. Okay. Well, we know who you love and we know who you hate. Some people show up at church. You don't realize this. In their heart, they're not wanting to be here. They're not even liking being here. And you know what? You have a big problem. You have a big problem if in your heart you don't even want to be in church. You need to be checking yourself because the Bible is saying the blessings come to the person that has their heart right with him. And you know what you need to do? You need to just put your trust in the Lord and offer sacrifices of righteousness. Be more concerned with how righteous you are than concerned with how much stuff you have. And you look around the room in here. Most people in here are not the rich people of this world. Most of the people in here don't have the giant net worth. Most of the people in here don't have all the extra goods and all the extra things. But God has chosen the poor of this world. He's choosing people that just love him and want to serve him. And you know what? I'd rather hang out with people that have no money and want to serve God, want to sacrifice for the Lord, than hang out with a bunch of rich people that want to just rip me off for another five bucks. Or they just want to brag to me about look at these new clothes I got. I don't care what you wear. I don't care what clothes you have. Don't show me. I'm not interested. But have you seen this? I don't care about your stuff. And we shouldn't care about stuff. Nuts to it. It's all going to burn one day. We should care about what God wants us to do and make some sacrifices in our life and to try and be more righteous. God cares more about you thinking about other people than thinking about yourself. Because you know what? God will take care of you. Well, what am I going to wear if I don't think about it? I don't know. Let God worry about it. Because I guarantee God's better at worrying about you than you are. And God doesn't, you know, a couple times he has people walking around naked. But you know, other than that, he pretty much closes people, right? He got a couple weird prophet stories. But apart from that, he's always taking care of his people. You know, they have clothes. And in fact, when you get to heaven, you got your clothes all figured out. You're going to get white raiment, okay? Everybody's so obsessed with the white, you know, you'll get it, okay? Look at verse number 8 here. I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. How much is laying down and just being completely at peace and not worrying about anything worth? You know who struggles the most to sleep? The people that are the most worried about their money and their houses and their cars and their riches and all these things. You know, when you're broke, you're not as worried about who's going to break in your house. It's like, I don't have anything to steal, you know. It's like, you know, take it, you know, whatever. It's like, I don't even have a TV for you to steal. You know, it's never, you can't steal my TV because I don't have one. I'm just not that worried about those things. You know, you should be less worried about those things. And when you're actually right with God, it's really easy to go to sleep. When you're not right with God, you're going to worry about everything. You're not going to even sleep that much. Look, I'll be honest with you. I love sleep. It's great. Apart from being injured recently, that's the only problem I've had. But, you know, for me, sleep is like the greatest thing ever. And I could fall asleep anywhere, so go to Psalm 11. Go to Psalm Chapter 11. In fact, my wife, I think that she's just envious of the fact that when I lay down, I go to sleep. I'm just telling you. The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, is what the Bible says, all right? I struggle to sleep at night. I'll tell you how to sleep better. Work harder. You know, I guarantee, if you just sit on the couch and you just watch Tic Tac videos all day, then by time you're going to go to sleep, you won't even be able to go to sleep. First of all, your mind's going to be like, your brain's going to be like fried. Because you've just been like. Look, there are videos, there are literal videos out there of like two and three-year-olds in China, and when they sleep, they just go like this. Like, that's how they sleep. Do you do that? You know, just think about it. In the nursing homes, in 40 years from now, everybody's just going to be like this. I'm just, hey, it's a scary thing. It's reality out there, folks, okay? Oh, yeah, sleep, laying around all day doesn't make you tired. You know what makes you tired? Working. Get up, get off your rear, and go do something. Look, there is enough to do in this world. Hey, go soul winning. It'll make you tired. I can tell. It's Sunday night. It's a little warm in here. You know, you're just kind of like. Hey, I'm telling you, it's important to work hard. And you know, you struggle with sleep, get right with God and work hard, and you'll just sleep like a baby. And when you're not so worried about the things of this world and getting more tomorrow, look, if I have zero thoughts towards the things of tomorrow, then I don't have to worry. I can just, okay, sleep. And then you wake up and just focus on what? His righteousness. Focus on his righteousness. Focus on doing right. Focus on being godly. Focus on what the Bible says. Focus on doing some work for the day. And you know what? Your life will actually be full of all the things you wanted anyways. You're going to still get the food, and you're still going to get the clothing, and you're still going to get somewhere to live. God's going to take care of you. But you know, obsessing about that ends up destroying your life, makes you just, you can't even sleep, and you're not even going to have true safety. Look at Psalm chapter 11, verse seven. For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness. His countenance doth behold the upright. God loves people that are righteous and do righteous things. Go ahead to Psalm chapter one now. I'll go backwards to Psalm chapter one. Let's just kind of read a decent amount of Bible, and then I'll finish with some applications. Psalm chapter one says this. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the what? The law of the Lord. This is a guy that's seeking what? His righteousness. And notice what it says. And in his law doth he meditate day and night, 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. Telling you there is a blessing attached to the guy that's seeking what first? What is this guy most obsessed with? His righteousness. Doing right. Being godly. Look at verse four. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. God is saying, hey, be righteous, and you're gonna flourish, and you're gonna last and sustain for a long period of time. Those who are ungodly, those who are concerned with the things of this world, and the riches of this world are just gonna perish and have just basically no blessings. You get the blessings from following and serving God. Go to Proverbs chapter one. And frankly speaking, I can't even do it justice, because we'd be here forever, but you read Proverbs, and it just hammers this point. Now I've just cherry-picked a handful of isolated verses here, but I do still want to show you the plethora of scripture on this particular point. Look at Proverbs chapter one, verse 33. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet from fear of evil. Boy, that is a great thing. I mean, if you could just know the absence of, hey, I'm gonna be safe. But who gets that? Whoso hearkeneth unto me. Following God's commitment. Let me explain something to you. When you chase money, you know what happens? You end up making enemies. They usually burn and rip a lot of people off to get a lot of that money. Then, by getting those riches, you know what they do? They paint a target on their back, because now they have all these riches for someone to come and get. And you know what they're not doing? They're not putting themselves in a place of safety. But the guy that wants to serve God humbly, you know what? Nobody really cares about him as much. People are wanting to attack him. He's not just racking up enemies in that way. He can rack up enemies, don't hear me wrong. But what I'm saying is he's not painting a target on his back of all these goods that covetous people, greedy people, thieves are really interested in. Thieves aren't really interested in stealing my truck. And people aren't that interested in my Bible. I have a lot of Bibles at home. I'm rich in Bibles. But I'm not that worried about someone breaking through. Someone came in and stole all my Bibles. That usually doesn't happen, does it? They stole all my T-shirts that are from church. People aren't going to steal my steadfast shirt and go wear that. And if they do, I won't even press charges. If you break into my house and the only thing you steal is my Sodomite deception T-shirt and you're wearing it, God bless you. I was trying to give that to you for free, okay? Now, obviously, if someone breaks into my house and I'm there, I'll probably kill them. But I'm just saying that, generally speaking, when you build up all this wealth and riches and you're chasing all those things, sometimes you're painting yourself into a corner where you're just a target for a lot of evil people. A lot of people want to attack you. Also, because you have all these riches and flashiness, you attract a lot of flatterers, vain and light persons, treacherous individuals. You attract a lot of whorish women, gold-digging-type women. I mean, pretty much every bad person in the world is like a bug, and you're just this light that it's all attracted to when you're seeking the things of this world. And when you're seeking the things of the Bible and of God, all of those bugs are repelled from that, and all the good God-righteous people are actually attracted towards you. So you don't even realize the magmatism in your life when you're just trying to serve God. That's just a practical explanation of this. I think even beyond that, God's providing his guardian angels and his blessing and his favor and guiding affairs so as to keep you safe. But I'm just telling you, seeking his righteousness will keep you safe, and it will provide you a safety that this world does not have to offer you. Look at chapter 3 and look at verse 9. Proverbs 3, verse 9, the Bible says, "'Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.'" Oh, if I serve God and if I tithe faithfully and if I am seeking his righteousness, I won't have any money. What does the Bible say? It says that your barns are going to be filled with plenty. And you know, some of the people that I know that they work really hard and they spend a lot of time at church and do a lot of things at church, they seem to just also be blessed really greatly in the world, too. And they're not like Warren Buffett. You know they have plenty. They're doing really well. God's taking care of them. You know, God will take care of you when you take care of him. It's not some kind of a fear like, I have to take a vow of poverty to serve God. No, you don't have to. You can live kind of a middle-class type life and serve God. But you know what? Not because you're chasing money, because you're chasing the things of God. You're chasing his righteousness, okay? Look at what it says in verse 33. The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked, but he blesseth the habitation of the just. Look at chapter 4, verse 4. He taught me also and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words, keep my commandments, and live. Notice you get to live a longer life by keeping his commandments. Go to chapter 10 for a moment. Go to chapter 10 and look at verse 3. Proverbs chapter 10, look at verse 3. The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish, but he casteth away the substance of the wicked. You could gather all this money and goods and then God just causes you to lose all of it. And then you could not be seeking anything, and then God just blesses you with that which you didn't even prepare for, you didn't even think about. I mean, the children of Israel are just trying to serve God and follow God out in the wilderness, and then God's like, Oh yeah, just inherit the promised land. And who built that up? The Canaanites, super wicked people. And the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just, as the Bible says. And you know what? Many times God will do that for you. He's providing for you. You don't have to worry about it. Look at chapter 11 and look at verse 3. The integrity of the upright shall guide them, but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them. Riches profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death. The righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way, but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness. The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them, but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness. When a wicked man dieth, his expectation shall perish, and the hope of unjust men perisheth. The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead. Notice how the Bible just, I mean, it's just like, every part is just like, the righteous delivered, the wicked destroyed, the righteous delivered, the wicked destroyed, the righteous delivered, the wicked destroyed. How many times do you need to hear that to realize God's got a consistent theme here? The righteous is going to deliver you and sustain your life and keep you safe and give you the plenty and give you the food and give you the clothing, but you know what? Desiring the world and the mammon and these other things, it'll destroy you. Look at chapter 12, look at verse 7. Chapter 12, look at verse 7. The wicked are overthrown and are not, but the house of the righteous shall stand. You know, we look at the world today and we look at the people that are in power and they have a lot of money, the rich people of this world. If you really pay attention, lots of times they're constantly overthrown and destroyed and discarded like the trash that they are. I mean, you've got people like Harvey Weinstein, a famous Hollywood mogul, made lots of films, but then just one day, some lady's accusations about him being a pervert came out and then it was like the floodgate of all these other women and now the guy is destroyed. Now the guy, nobody likes him, criminal indictments, all kinds of things coming on this guy and it's just, as soon as they can, they'll just turn on the wicked and they'll just throw them under the bus. You know that Sam Bank Friedman, I think is his name, some guy that embezzled a bunch of money and was living it up and it looked like he was going to get off scot-free, recently got criminally indicted and is now expected to actually go to jail for the things that he did. You know, there's constant times where the wicked are actually just constantly being destroyed and look, even Joe Biden, Joe Biden at this point, most of the news articles and the news media are saying like, don't run, stop running. They're ready to throw Joe under the bus. The problem is they're just not sure which emperor to put in yet, you know. The emperor has no clothes on but they got to find another bozo to kind of swap in but I guarantee if they had somebody ready to go, he would already be discarded like the trash that he is because they don't care about them and you know, these ungodly wicked people are going to constantly be destroyed, replaced, come and go, nobody cares about them. Hollywood celebrities, same way, constantly trash, they have a big movie and then they do something they don't like, they're done, they'll blacklist them, they die on drugs, they're killed. I mean, people that are on the top of the world. What was the guy that was in Fast and Furious, Paul Walker or something like that? Just randomly dies in a car crash, gone. Kurt Cobain, top of the world music, overdose, drug, dead. You know, there's other celebrities, there was like a, Winona Raya was like in a lot of movies at one point, then she got caught shoplifting. She's like thinking like, you have millions of dollars and then you're caught shoplifting. What is she seeking? Is she seeking God's righteousness or seeking what she's going to put on? She's seeking clothing that she can't afford and then she gets caught in that vicious cycle and now she's trash and nobody cares, they're not going to put her in movies or anything anymore. Johnny Depp with his big, you know, trial with Amber Heard, kind of ruined both of their reputations a lot, kind of, you know, just diminished a lot of people's opinions of them. You know, the wicked are constantly just being overthrown, destroyed, discarded, nobody cares about them. You know, it's a vain thing to seek after when you seek after the fame and the riches and the money of this world. Look at Proverbs chapter 12 verse 7. The wicked are overthrown and are not, but the house of the righteous shall stand. You know, even great people like Michael Jordan, think about how much money that guy has gotten and then he even got in trouble with money, was like a gambler. I think Phil Mickelson was another professional athlete who had like basically lost all his money, was in a lot of gambling addictions that caused him to lose all of his money. I've heard and seen a lot of professional poker players that have won dozens of millions of dollars and then they literally have nothing. They have like no money. It's like funny, these poker players, they'll win like $10 million in the poker tournament and then they'll go lose all of it at like the roulette table or something. And you're like, what an idiot. Like why did you do that? It's just because, you know, unrighteousness doesn't really profit. These wicked people, it doesn't really profit. They store up all this money and then someone just comes and steals it and takes away from them. The Mormons, they had like hid all this money and all these bank accounts and weren't like paying taxes on it and they were like, had this like shell game of like real estate and it recently got caught by the IRS. And you know, the big mafia is gonna come in after you and then they've had to do some kind of a settlement out of the system and the Mormons have to pay a bunch of money to them. Why? Because there's always a bigger mafia boss than you out there and eventually you're gonna have to pay the piper. You know, you try to scam people here, then there'll be some corporation that scams you. Then the IRS will scam them, right? Then you'll have Israel scam them, right? The United Nations will scam them. It's just like this vicious cycle of like who's the bigger mafia boss that's just gonna, you know, and then China's like calling on its loans and then China's gonna get off the US dollar and get on the brick system and is gonna bankrupt everybody on the American dollar. I mean it's just this vicious cycle of people just getting taken advantage of. Get out of the system. It's not a profitable system. Look at verse 13, verse 6. Righteousness keepeth him that is upright in the way, but wickedness overthroweth the sinner. Verse 9, the light of the righteous rejoices, but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out. Look at chapter 14, verse 11. Chapter 14, verse 11. The house of the wicked shall be overthrown, but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish. Look at chapter 15, verse 6. In the house of the righteous is much treasure, but in the revenues of the wicked is trouble. Maybe this is what the verse said. Get Bitcoin and you'll be fine. Isn't that what people think? They learn about how Jewed our economic system is and then they start thinking like, well, if I get Bitcoin, though, I'm somehow gonna exit the matrix. You know how you exit the matrix? Be righteous. What does the Bible say? The Bible says in verse 6, in the house of the righteous is much treasure. Look, is God saying, if you serve me, I'll never give you any money or goods or anything? No, no, no. You can have lots of goods. There was plenty of men in the Bible that God blessed greatly and had even great riches at times, but you know what they weren't doing? They weren't pursuing riches. Even Solomon was given the greatest riches ever and whenever God asked him, what do you want? You know what he didn't say? Riches. He said, give me wisdom. And you know what? Wisdom will give you more money than money itself. You know, a fool with lots of money will lose all of it. It's called the lottery. People win the lottery all the time and they lose all of it. They lose all of it all the time. Why? Because they don't have any wisdom and there's plenty of people that have lots of wisdom and they have no money and then all of a sudden they turn it into a decent amount of money or into plenty of riches or plenty of wealth because you know what's more important? Righteousness and wisdom and understanding. Look at chapter 21 and look at verse 12. Look at chapter 21 verse 12. The Bible says, the righteous man wisely considerate the house of the wicked, but God overthroweth the wicked for their wickedness. Even if you collect all of that money, God could just kill you and then you don't get to spend any of it. Go to chapter 24. You know, you could earn all this money and have all these goods and have all these riches and then God will kill you and then your son, Hunter Biden, will waste it on a bunch of horrors and drugs. Right? I mean, you know, what's the point? Solomon even kind of lamented that fact and he kind of thought like, hey, you know, what's the point of storing up all these riches because I don't know if a fool later is going to come and spend all of that or waste all of that. Look at Proverbs 24 verse 15. Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous. Spoil not his resting place, for a just man falls seven times and rises up again, but the wicked shall fall into mischief. Meaning, you know, a righteous person may have problems and issues in their lives but God's going to constantly see them through and help them get up whereas when wicked people fall, it's just total destruction forever. It's just like a permanent destruction. They're just going to be destroyed out of it. Look at chapter 28 verse 1. And again, I'm just cherry picking some verses here but don't we see a really consistent theme on the importance of being righteous? Look at verse 1, chapter 28. The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion. And boy, that is true all the time. There's so many wicked people. They're so afraid of their own shadow and they get nervous about things when they're not even real. Whereas we can stand on our life choices. You know, we embrace being steadfast. We're steadfast. There are people that would be terrified that anybody would know that they were a protester. Like, if someone knew at their job or their workplace or in their family, like, if that was actually a real threat, they would be terrified of like, oh, no, no, I didn't do that. I wasn't that type of person. You know, when the prophets of Baal, when a righteous person comes into power, you know what they do? They would change their garments and they would lie about all the marks on their body, all the cuts on their body, and be like, oh, that didn't happen for me like worshiping Baal or anything. Or, you know, I just fell or something. Got down the field, man. You know, what are you talking about, bro? Boy, they're ashamed of their lifestyle. They're ashamed of the wickedness that they've done. Whereas those who are righteous, you know, I'm not afraid to say, hey, yeah, I pastor a Baptist church. Hey, I love the King James Bible. Yeah, I did help create a documentary called The Sodomite Deception. I love it! It gets better every year. You know, our documentaries age like fine wine, okay? I'm telling you what, the quotes of our politicians age like spoiled milk. Because they were already rotten when they started and they only get worse afterwards. And I'm telling you, you know what? It's great to serve God. Go to 1 Timothy 4. I want to make a few last applications here. 1 Timothy 4. What's the title of the sermon? And His Righteousness. You know, this is something you need to dedicate your life to. If you're already saved, you've already got that first point, seek ye first the kingdom of God, here's the thing you need to be focused on, and His Righteousness. Focus your life on His Righteousness. Focus on what you're supposed to be doing that's right. Focus on what does God want me to do today? What does God not want me to do today? What are the thoughts that God wants me to have today? What are the thoughts that God does not want me to have today? You know, we're supposed to even take captive imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of Christ. We're supposed to basically rule our minds. You know, our mind is where sin starts. Our mind is where bad decisions and bad actions come out from. You know, you don't just kill a person, you first hate them. You first think bad thoughts about them and you hate them in your heart, then you plan against them, then you kill them. All the sins that we have in this world today, they first start up here, and that's why it's so important as a godly person to start trying to take captive this and to start renewing your mind and transforming your mind and thinking about the things of God. You say, how do I renew my mind in the morning, Pastor Shelley? How do I do it at lunch? How do I do it at night? How do I do it every single moment? You know, when you're struggling with bad thoughts, read a psalm of the Bible. Read a proverb of the Bible. Just start thinking about something else. You know, don't daydream about covetousness. Daydream about the things of God. And we could all do this, right? Even as men, we could sit here and daydream. And typically, I don't know, you know, for every guy, but I would say for me, I'm not really daydreaming about clothes and food and that kind of stuff, but sometimes I might catch myself thinking about, like, the hypotheticals of, like, oh, it would be cool if I could play, like, professional golf or if I could be, like, an athlete or accomplish some great work or just something that's not really necessarily, you know, attainable. It's not something that I can actually do. It's just something that I would like to do, right? Some kind of pursuit that I would have. And I think that that's kind of similar here when we look at 1 Timothy 4, look at verse 7. But refuse profane and old wise fables and exercise thyself rather unto godliness, for bodily exercise profit a little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. I think that our society glorifies physical prowess as a form of righteousness and, you know, as young men, you know, I feel like as young men, what do you daydream about? Being a professional athlete or being some great person, accomplishing some great goal. I know, again, why is it that Jordans are selling? Because everybody wants to be Michael Jordan, right? All the kids want to be Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky or they want to be Tom Brady or they want to be whoever it is that's the greatest sports athlete. They want to be Corey Seeger, right? Yeah. They want to be Play for the Texas Rangers and I get it. You know, I get that desire. I get people wanting to do those type of things. Just like women, they're fantasizing about having a big house and having lots of clothes and eating all the fancy meals and being this cat trophy wife or something. But, you know, instead of us just thinking and daydreaming about these sweet lives that we're going to have or we could have or I wish I had, we should be focused on the life that we really do have and stop worrying about a righteousness that this world offers that's not even real. It's fake. And because of this, people end up getting sucked into programs that promise they're going to deliver this and they don't, like a get-rich-quick scheme. Let me tell you something. We're all capable of getting sucked into a get-rich-quick scheme because there are a dime a dozen out there and you kind of sit here and think like, well, I've been serving God my whole life so I haven't had time to invest in riches so I need something to get money fast. And you know what? This is an illusion out there. Or you're trying to keep up with the Joneses. You're kind of young. You're early in life and you're looking at people that are literally a decade older than you and thinking like, man, they have a nicer car. They have a nicer house. They seem to have more money than me. And they're like, I want to fast-track to have their life. I want to have their house and their car and their wealth. It's like, okay, well, how about you work hard like they did for ten more years and then see where you're at? But instead of doing that, it's like, no, I want to get it now. I want to get it today. And they fall victim of these schemes and these tactics and you know what? It destroys them. Go to Proverbs chapter 28. Go to Proverbs 28. I've known people in my personal life that I feel like they tried literally every get-rich-quick scheme. In fact, they tried this. This is kind of funny. They literally tried selling tumbleweeds, okay? Isn't that weird? Like, I didn't even know someone would buy one. Let alone, they were like, well, you can find all these tumbleweeds on the side of the road free and we can, like, sell them. And I'm just thinking, like, what? No. And, you know, this is what they're thinking. Well, if we get all these and we price it at this and we have, like, a thousand people buy and then we get all, like, a million dollars, it's like, you're not going to get money from that. It's stupid. Just like every MLM, you know, just like every one of these Mary Kay and Saladmaster and Jegings things and, you know, men get sucked into the stock market like penny stocks and options trading and all these other things and there's all these get-rich-quick schemes that everybody thinks they're going to make all this money on and it's just for suckers. It's all for suckers. But I know the same people, then they started, you know, just buying a house, renovating it and renting it and then getting more money and then buying another house and renovating it and renting it. And, you know, it took a long time to really get anywhere, but now they have lots of properties. And then when, you know, the US government prints, like, a trillion dollars and just gives it to Ukraine, we have this thing called inflation. But you know what happens when you have 17 properties? Because let me explain something. In the Dallas-Worth area, from 2020 to, like, now, basically every property just went up, like, $100,000 just because of inflation, not because of anything special. It's just like, oops, way more money. But you know what happens when you have 17 properties? It went up times 17. It went up $1.7 million just because money was printed. I mean, that makes a difference, doesn't it? Now I wonder why people who own lots of property would love for inflation to keep happening. I wonder why the Jews that own literally every property would love for that to happen. Because, you know, people that own 100 properties or 1,000 properties, what happens? Times that by 100,000. And they literally didn't even do anything. All they do is just steal from you. They're just ripping all of us off and just giving them more money and making the purchase price of a new house just astronomical. And then, of course, those same people own the banks and they jack the interest rates up on us, too. So that's nice that they did that. But I'm telling you this. You know how they got money? They didn't get money by doing something hasty. They just actually worked hard. They just actually did something that actually has some value. People will work really, really hard to build in their own business and then they'll make tons of money because they own their own business, because they're actually making their own product. You know, people are not getting these get-rich-quick schemes are always flops and failures and don't profit. And the Bible even warns against this. Look at Proverbs 28, verse 20. A faithful man shall abound with blessings, but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. And the only time it does work is when people do something shady, rip people off, do something wicked. And you know what? You're going to have a lot of evil your way when you make money by unrighteous means. A lot of people today, instead of seeking God's righteousness, this is the righteousness that young men have is how many girlfriends they can have. Right? I mean, you go to public school, who is the coolest guys? It's not the guys that are virgins and pure. It's the guys that have been with the most ladies, isn't it? You know what? That's not the kind of righteousness that a godly person should seek after. And then afterwards, pretty much, no one's going to want to be with that whoremonger, or even worse, the ladies that do this. The ladies that do that, boy, they're destroying themselves. But you know, conventional wisdom, the world will try to tell you, oh, be as with as many partners as you can. In fact, there was literal TikTok and Instagram challenges for women to brag about how many partners they've been with. And I'm thinking, like, you're an idiot. That is literally just putting the L on your... This is like somebody saying, this is cool. Do this. Like, no. Putting that number out there is going to scare every guy in the world away that has any form of righteousness. And you know what's going to attract? The scummiest men alive. The worst kind of guys. You know, there's the conventional wisdom of this world, you know, when you graduate high school, to go to college and not get married. But I would say this. Most people are way better off if they get married and don't go to college. Those people are way better people, and they have way... Because you know what? She's expensive, but not as expensive as college, okay? Go to Proverbs chapter number five. Go to Proverbs chapter number five. College will put you in way more debt than getting married young, okay? And you know what's the benefit of getting married young? You're poor. So what does that mean? Let me explain something to you. This is something you should be careful of. You know, this is just good advice, especially young people. It's better when you get married first or when you meet the girl. You all live in poverty for a while. Because then you'll establish really good healthy habits. You know what would be a bad thing to do? Is spoil the crap out of her and have lots of money and riches and goods and spend them all on them, because then you're going to affect her character. And you know, you're going to have to live with this woman forever. You're better off her learning how to live four, five, six, ten years in poverty and having nothing so that when you actually have a lot of money, she's still thrifty and has a lot of character and doesn't care about money and riches, whereas spending and wasting all this money early on, and you'll then never be able to compete. You know, hey, if a girl's only going to go to date with me because I'm going to buy her a steak dinner, save the money and say, let's go for a coffee, you know. And I'm just saying, like, you should be careful because you keep them with what you win them to, right? Hey, if I win you because you like me, not because I have any money, then they're going to stay with you because they still like you. If you win them because you have money, they might not really like you. And when the money runs out, bye. What does the Bible say in Proverbs 5? Look at verse 18. Let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. You know, getting married young is a great thing. Marrying a young lady when you're poor is a great thing because she'll actually, it means she likes you, okay? If you're rich, you never really know if she likes you. That's why rich people, they always get a prenup. They just really don't even know. And, you know, it's even hard to blame them considering how our world's going, how, you know, it's like, I don't know if this young lady likes me or not, and she might just be after my money. And making them sign a prenup, it's like, I can see how that makes sense because the lady that wouldn't sign a prenup, it's kind of like, why are you marrying me then? I'm not endorsing prenups, but what I am saying is that if someone were rich and met a girl and he's like, I'm wanting to ask her to sign a prenup, I wouldn't judge him for that. I'd be like, I can't judge you for this, you know? This makes sense, okay? You know, but they'll say, oh, well, you know, you fix that, you live together first before you get married. This is an old wise fable, folks, lies. People that live together before they get married have a way higher rate of divorce. Way higher rate of divorce. They're not happy. And, you know, for the young women, you've already given them everything he was going to marry you for. He has no incentive to marry you ever. Because, you know, he's afraid of, if I marry her and she leaves me, she takes all my money. If she leaves me now, she gets nothing. That's what he's literally thinking. That's why you never, ever, ever be with a guy until he's married you, okay? Oh, soil your wild oats. Well, you know you're going to reap wild oats. You're going to reap wild oats. Oh, happy wife, happy life. Wrong. That's a dumb saying. I've seen lots of guys where their wife's happy and he's miserable, so how does that work? Okay. And I've seen the opposite. I've seen guys being happy and their wives are just like, whoa, what's going on with her? Okay. But, you know, how did that work out for Adam and Eve? Oh, let's make sure Eve's happy. Let's bring in sin to the whole world. Oops. Oh, Abraham. Hey, Sarah, what's going to make you happy? Being with your handmaid? What? You should have known, like, that was a dumb idea. Sarah, no. Okay. Hey, you know what? Sometimes you just have to tell your wife no. Why? Because you're seeking his righteousness, not the wisdom of this world. I saw this post or meme or something, and it's a young man. He texts his dad and he's like, Dad, I'm thinking about marriage. I think I'm ready to get married. And he says, apologize. He's like, why? Dad just says, apologize. I'm like, what's going on? Apologize right now. He's like, okay, you know, but what do I apologize for? He's like, for nothing. He's like, why? He's like, apologize for nothing now. He's like, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. He's like, now you're ready for marriage. It's a joke, folks, okay? I can tell all you laugh because it's real, all right? I'm telling you, you know, follow God's rights. Sometimes you just have to tell your wife no. Sometimes you have to do what's right. Sometimes you drag your wife to church when she doesn't want to be there. Sometimes you force her to do the right thing. You know what? That's the Bible's advice. You know, marrying the woman that's meek and quiet, that's the Bible's advice. There's a lot of advice here. You know, some people think that they're righteous because they use essential oils. Or coconut oil. Or onions in your socks, okay? Or they have medical advice like, hey, you need, Vicks cures everything. This was my grandmother's advice. You have a cold, Vicks. You have a headache, Vicks. Just literally, just Vicks on everything, okay? Some people think surgery fix everything. I mean, there are literally people, they just, go to the doctor, the doctor says, surgery, let's do it. You know what? There's a lot of surgeries out there that probably don't make that much sense. And if you're seeking his righteousness and you're studying what the Bible says on a lot of issues, sometimes you won't take the advice of the world. Go to Mark chapter 5. I want to go to another verse here. Go to Mark chapter number 5. We have two more verses that will be done. Mark chapter number 5. They used to say that bad blood was an issue that people had and they would do bloodletting in the medical profession. But you know, the Bible says that the life is in the blood. So people that were like studying the Bible and saying like, wow, actually blood, that doesn't make sense. That blood's bad that I should be cutting myself. You know the people that are cutting themselves? We're the prophets of Baal. Like maybe this doesn't make sense. And let me say something. When the medical industry is saying something that's counterintuitive to the Bible, don't do it. Oh, milk's bad. Well, milk's good in the Bible. Oh, honey's bad. Honey's bad. Honey's good in the Bible. Salt's bad. Salt's good in the Bible. It literally says salt is good. Red meat is bad. Well, then why do they eat it every single day? Then why is it Solomon, you know, getting literally dozens of cattle killed for him, 30 cattle killed for him every single day? I'm telling you, someone who's eating filet every single day, when you have 30 cattle, and that was just one. I mean, he had all kinds of other animals killed for him, too. All kinds of birds and deer and whatever. He had it all. Oh, these people that eat meat are bad. No, you're bad. There's so much advice out there. They're so righteous because they don't kill poor little innocent bambis and animals, chop its head off and eat it. Because you know what? I'm seeking his righteousness, not yours. Oh, how is that going for India? I'm sure a lot of people are moving to India pretty soon. Who's about to move to India? Who's about to move to North Korea? Yeah, liar. No one wants to move to these places. Why? Because that country isn't seeking God's righteousness, are they? And I'm telling you what. Where it's godly, it's a great place to live. And where it's a godly house, it's a great place to be in and a house that you would like to be in. Places that are full of wickedness and unrighteousness, they're scary places to be, full of evil. And you know what? We shouldn't follow the advice of this world, no matter how many degrees they have behind their name, even if they're wearing a white lab coat. Have you noticed doctors dress in white? Oh, they're a minister of light. They're dressed in all white. He said, I need this surgery to fix my blood. He's going to cut me open and just drain my blood. That's scary, folks. Look what it says in Mark 5, verse 25. There needs to be a whole new sermons on that topic, but this is just a sample. And a certain woman which had an issue of blood, 12 years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was nothing better, but rather grew worse. This woman seeking the attention of this world and the wisdom of this world, and she only got worse. There's a lot of people that just do whatever the world tells them. Well, I've gotten 18 boosters, and they're going to grow worse. Yeah, I've gotten every flu shot, and I've gotten every COVID shot, and I've done everything. Look, if you do everything that big pharma tells you, you are like a literal lab experiment. You might start growing a green third head or something. They are playing Frankenstein with this world just so they can line their own pockets, and they'll give you every unnecessary surgery and every unnecessary cure and every unnecessary pill, and they'll give you pills that will make you need other pills, and then you've got to mix them with that pill. I mean, it's insane, folks. And there are so many people today that are just living off of the medical industry and destroying themselves because they're just not seeking the wisdom that comes from the Bible on that topic. They're not realizing, hey, you know what the Bible is saying? Eat healthy and exercise and go to church and serve God. Like, go soul-winning unless you get some walking in. They just destroy their bodies. They're sitting somewhere watching TikTok videos and then wondering, like, my hip hurts, because you don't move. You don't walk. You don't do anything. Well, I'm struggling with my heart hurts. It's because you're giant, way overweight, and you eat Doritos all day, and it's like you're not eating the things. Well, Doritos are good for your health. Red beef is bad, and honey's bad, and milk's bad. You know, it's good Twinkies and Ho-Hos. When did the FDA ever say anything bad about them? That's the medical industry today. That's the world today. Get McDonald's, right? Get a soy burger from McDonald's, and you'll be healthy. The world will say, hey, you know what? I'm righteous because I adopt cats. When did the Bible say that? I donated money to some charity. You know, I knocked doors for the Republican Party. I gave $20 to some homeless guy, and he bought liquor with it. Give me a pat on the back. The worst people, I don't judge anyone. They judge the worst. I'm so righteous, I don't judge anybody. You're judging me right now by trying to make it seem like you're better than me for not judging. But you of course judge people, you self-righteous prick, okay? That sounds like you're judging me. You're right. Why do you judge people? I'm judging you right now, so I'll respond to that person. But I'll tell you this. Don't care what the world thinks. Don't care what the world says. Don't chase the profane and vain babblings, the old wise fables, their forms of righteousness, the world's form of righteousness, getting money. People think that they're good because they have money. Supposing that gain is godliness. You're supposed to withdraw yourself from those people. And look at verse 9. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some covet it after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things and follow after righteousness. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. But man of God, flee these things and follow after righteousness. Nuts to the money of this world. Nuts to the lusts of this world. Nuts to what they have to offer. Hey, it's Christmas season. When everybody gets so covetous and so obsessed with all the goods and the gifts that they have, I wish we could just cancel the gift giving altogether. Because you know what? Most people, they're just exchanging gifts. I'll buy you a $50 gift and you buy me a $50 gift. I wish we could just say, this year, no one is going to get a gift unless I just want to give you one. Because that's what a real gift is anyways. We've just basically turned into a materialistic type of holiday where we're just obsessed with, well, we just have to buy $500 worth of gifts today. Why? Why did we do that? Because people are just obsessed with covetousness. They're obsessed with themselves. They're obsessed with the lusts and the things of this world. You know what? Don't let this Christmas season be your Christmas list. Let it be God's commandments list. Don't seek ye first the presents that you're going to get under the tree. Seek ye first and his righteousness. Think about the things, you know, the love of money will destroy you and your faith and it'll cause so many people to stop serving the Lord. But you know what? Serving God will bring you all the things you have. I guarantee if you serve God, you'll still have presents under the tree. God will still take care of you. You'll still get things. You know, I don't care about that stuff anymore. I don't want anything for Christmas. I've never wanted anything for Christmas. I don't need anything for Christmas. But you know what I do need? I need more people to go out there and preach the gospel because our world is dark. I want more people to care about the things of God. I would rather have more people show up at church and get no presents than have a lot of presents under the tree. I like it, you know, you want to be a good present instead of everybody being obsessed with what presents they're getting on Christmas, showing up on Christmas Eve for church. Like, isn't it sad that we're going to celebrate a whole holiday about Jesus Christ and then people don't go to church? And then they open presents? That's like literally the exact opposite of what the Bible is saying. They're literally serving mammon and not Jesus Christ. If you have a carnal reason to not come to church, you're not right with God. Like I get it, sometimes we get sick or whatever and you can't make church. But you know what, why in the world would you skip church for making more money or the things of this world? You have a heart issue and you're not seeking first His righteousness at all. We should be seeking His righteousness and getting plugged into the things of God and serving God with our lives. This isn't a message that a lot of people want to hear. I don't care. I wanted to hear something fun tonight. Well, sorry. I wanted presents. I want a set of all my presents. Next to your presents. You know what's the present? The unspeakable gift of Jesus Christ. Let us not be a church that's so obsessed with the things of this world this year. Let's not be a church that's obsessed with the gospel of Jesus Christ and His righteousness. Let's go some prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for what you've given us and the unspeakable gift of your Son. I pray that we would not have the wrong mentality this season when we think about Christmas. That we wouldn't be obsessed with ourselves and we wouldn't be obsessed with covetousness. We wouldn't be obsessed with gifts. We wouldn't be obsessed with clothes. We wouldn't be obsessed with food and gift cards and eating out. We wouldn't be obsessed with our houses and vehicles and all these different things that the world has to offer. We would decide we're going to be more righteous this year. We're going to decide that following your commandments are more important. We're going to take church more seriously this year. And we're going to strive to be more righteous. And we thank you for all the blessings you give us for being righteous. I pray that we wouldn't worry about the world. We wouldn't worry about what's going to happen in the future. We wouldn't worry about the things that we need. We would just worry if we're right with you. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right. For our final song, 315. 315, Take My Life and Let It Be. Great song to reflect on after what was preached this evening. 315, Take My Life and Let It Be. Take my life and let it be. Consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Take my hands and let them move. At the impulse of Thy love. At the impulse of Thy love. Take my feet and let them be. Swift and beautiful for Thee. Take my voice and let me see. Always only for my King. Always only for my King. Take my silver and my gold. Not of my good I will hold. Take my moments and my days. Let them flow in ceaseless praise. Let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my will and make it mine. It shall be no longer mine. Take my heart, it is Thine own. It shall be Thy royal throne. It shall be Thy royal throne. Good singing. Thank you all for coming. God bless. You are dismissed. Thank you.