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Music Music Music Music Music Music Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you could please find your seats and grab a song book. And we'll turn in our hymnals to song four hundred and thirteen. Stand up, stand up for Jesus. Four hundred and thirteen. Stand up, stand up for Jesus. Half of you are standing anyways. Let's go ahead and just stand for this opening song. Four hundred and thirteen. Stand up, stand up for Jesus. Music Stand up, stand up for Jesus. We soldiers of the cross. Lift high his royal banner. It must not suffer loss. From victory until victory. His armies shall be beat. Till every foe is vanquished. When Christ is Lord indeed. Stand up, stand up for Jesus. A trumpet call obey. Forth to the mighty conflict. In this his glorious name. That our men now serve him. Against the numbered foes. Let courage rise with danger. And strength to strength upholds. Stand up, stand up for Jesus. Stand in his strength alone. The arm of flesh will fail you. Do not trust your own. Put on the gospel bar. And watching unto prayer. Be gentle watching there. Good singing. You may be seated and we'll have a word of prayer. Lord, thank you so much for this church and thank you for all the people that would show up on a Sunday morning to praise us to you and to fellowship with God's people. I pray that you bless every person here. That you fill us all with the Holy Spirit and that you would just bless the services and soul winning today. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, for our next song we'll go to 147, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. 147, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. 147. What a fellowship, what a joy divine. Leaning on the everlasting arms. What a blessedness, what a peace is mine. Leaning on the everlasting arms. Leaning, leaning safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning, leaning leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms. Oh how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way. Leaning on the everlasting arms. Oh how bright the path grows from day to day. Leaning on the everlasting arms. Leaning, leaning safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning, leaning leaning on the everlasting arms. What have I to dread? What have I to fear? Leaning on the everlasting arms. I have blessed peace with my Lord so near. Leaning on the everlasting arms. Leaning, leaning safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning, leaning leaning on the everlasting arms. Good morning, thank you so much for coming to Said Fast Baptist Church. If you didn't already get a bulletin you can lift up your hand nice and high and one of our ushers would love to come by and get you a bulletin. On the front we have our Bible memory passage John chapter 1 verse 14 and then on the inside we have our service and soul winning times, also our church stats and then on the right we have our list of expecting ladies. Continue to pray for all of our ladies that are expecting. We have our prayer list. If you would like to be added to our prayer list, please just email the church, SteadfastBaptistKJV at gmail.com or you can fill out one of our communication cards and just slip it right into the offering plate and we'll make sure to add that. Do indicate if it's a public or private prayer request, otherwise we assume it's public. Down below we have the church reminders. This is for soul winning. Please remember to mark your soul winning maps especially if they're done and put them in the respective folder or bin over here. If for any reason you need to you can just give them to me or brother Dylan or something like that and we can put it in the respective bin. But if you could help us with that, that would be great. Also please return English soul winning invitations to the English bin in Spanish. We actually have both English and Spanish invitations and sometimes people accidentally put them in the wrong bin. So whenever you're just putting back extras or something, just please pay attention so that way you're putting them in the right spot. Also on the back we have the upcoming events. We have a Waco Soul Winning marathon that's coming up this Saturday and we're going to be meeting at Pecan Bottom Park. So it's there in the Waco area and we're really excited about this. I think it's going to be a great opportunity to preach the gospel. We'll be meeting there for breakfast and lunch. So it's the exact same spot and we have everything pretty much set up and scheduled. Who's planning on coming to this thing? Oh yeah, lots of people are coming. That's great. And I know some people from PeerWords are coming up and I believe that it's even some other people in the surrounding areas might show up for our soul winning marathon. So it's a great opportunity to see new soul winners and meet other people as well as preach the gospel all day and to get fed. I don't know what's better. So it's a great day. Please participate if you're able. Also we have the Soul Winning seminar coming up March 24th, 25th, and 26th. Now the seminar aspect is only going to be in the evening on Thursday and Friday and then in the morning on Saturday. But we will have soul winning all day. So we'll have soul winning on Thursday during the day and Friday and soul winning after the morning session on Saturday. So there will be lots of opportunity to go soul winning. There will be three seminar sessions and we'll be feeding people. I want people to show up so I was like, well let's feed them. That's when people show up. So we'll feed you and then we'll help you. Again, it's kind of going to give you an opportunity to actually practice soul winning. I really find that it's going to be a great opportunity especially for people that maybe feel a little nervous or a little intimidated to try and preach the gospel to someone for the first time. You can preach it to someone that's already saved and it's going to go really well. They probably won't even slam a door in your face or curse at you. Now that's really getting into character if you're doing that. We'll have experienced soul winners, we'll have brand new soul winners just anything and everything and again, it's for all groups. So hopefully everybody will get something out of it but we want everyone to participate if you can. I'm really looking forward to this event. We're also encouraging you to invite people to this event and we're going to even have some goodies and they might be some really nice goodies. So I'm telling you, you want to come to this thing, alright? Also a college station Sony Marathon April 2nd Homeschool field trip April 29th, May 21st, Austin Texas Sony Marathon. So a lot of Sony Marathons, a lot of events. One other announcement I want to make, we put up a bulletin board just to the other side of our cabinet and it's going to be our member board and basically the goal of the member board is that sometimes church members like to communicate to each other about events or activities or things that they want to do and we're just basically wanting to provide an opportunity for you guys to communicate those things. So whether that be just ladies want to get together for coffee or you want to teach piano lessons or you want to help put someone's dog down, whatever activities that you're wanting to do or able to participate in, I want to be able to provide a place where you can basically put that information because I want the bulletin to kind of stay strictly to church activities or church sponsored activities but there's going to still be plenty of things that you guys want to communicate have fun, maybe a birthday party, I don't know what it is, you come up with the idea. I'm not coming up with the idea. It's just essentially if you say I want to communicate this to the church you can use the bulletin board and we've always had this available but you could use our church Facebook group. So we have like a Facebook members group and you can communicate your activities or whatever you want to plan or anything like that. So we just wanted to provide that. It has a little tax in there and stuff like that so just if you have something you would like to communicate to other people or you want people to be aware of or to share information that should be used at your discretion. So if you have questions just ask me about it or you could ask my wife but at the same time it should be pretty self explanatory. These are just things that y'all want to fellowship with and again as our church grows I want people to feel like they can have fellowship activities that aren't necessarily church sponsored. We want y'all to have your own social life and y'all to be able to have your own activities and I don't want to hold you back. Sometimes you want to do something and it's like you don't need my permission to hang out with people. You can hang out with whoever you want, whenever you want, however you want and so we just really want to help you still communicate with people that you love to fellowship with and hang out with and church is usually a common place where people come together, show up, get to talk about things so if you would like to use it you can, if you never want to use it that's great too. Also there's one other announcement that I'm making. We're starting a new soul winning system and it's called Soul Winning Tribes and basically the goal here is to try and create a little bit of a formal system around our soul winning to help the soul winning increase and so every single person in our church that is a member of our church is automatically assigned into one of these soul winning tribes and that was just done by me. As new members get added to our church we'll have basically the leaders or the captains of these tribes add people to those groups. Now some of you might question like I don't know how the membership works here I'll just remind you, if you come to our church services three times in one month you're automatically a member. You say I didn't know if I wanted to join, you joined. It's kind of like with salvation, when you get saved you also join the Lord's army whether you liked it or not. So here's the thing, if you're coming here you get all the benefits of being a member. Now if you don't come for three months straight you're automatically removed as a member as well. So basically membership being automatic, you come three times in one month, you're in. Then you just have to show up once every three months. So the Easter only people are not members. But if you make like one holiday every quarter, you're in. You're in like Flint. So that's basically how it works and if you're not quite sure you're a member you're probably a member, just letting you know. If you're a first time visitor or guest we're glad that you're here but this is specifically to those who are members. Now in order to manage soul winning more effectively I felt like it was beneficial to have more leadership that could make more decisions about soul winning. So that's the goal of this particular process and I'm going to end up starting with and designated four soul winning captains. And they're basically going to be in charge of a section of the church which will be their tribe. And these captains are essentially just going to help me with soul winning responsibilities. Now when it comes to soul winning specifically they're going to be empowered to make every decision about soul winning. So you don't have to talk to me about anything related to soul winning. The captains from now on are going to have full authority and power to make any and all decisions about soul winning. So whoever your soul winning captain is whatever questions you have regarding soul winning you can go to them directly and they can answer all those questions. And this is essentially just because our church is getting bigger, we have more and more soul winners, we have more and more soul winning times it's just going to help if we have other people that can make those decisions they can basically set up times and help people. So if you're already leading a soul winning time nothing's going to change. If you're already going to a soul winning time nothing's going to change. Really the only thing that's changing is you have more people that you can have help you in making decisions regarding soul winning. That's all that's really changing, we're just adding more people and empowering these captains to basically assist in the soul winning responsibilities. Some of the things that are going to change, all soul winning reporting is going to go through the captains. We're not going to gather it during the announcements anymore. So essentially if you go to a soul winning time you either give your number to that leader of that soul winning time or if soul winning is done outside of that you just give a direct leader captain. So you only have to report the soul winning one time to one person. It's either the leader of that soul winning time or it's the captain of your tribe. And we'll let everybody know who that person is, we'll disseminate that information. Our captains, to start with this new soul winning system is going to be Ryan Urbanek, Jason West, Phillip Milstead and Dylan Oz. Now again all of you are going to be designated a captain, you're going to be part of their tribe. But it's not that there can't be cross communication so don't feel intimidated that you can't talk to the other captains or anything like that, they can always assist you and help you in these situations but you will have a primary captain that's going to assist you in regards to soul winning. So if you want to start a soul winning time, if someone wants to start a soul winning time I don't even have to make that decision. My captains will have full power and authority to help people set their soul winning times up, get those things going and working. Because for me it's not very practical. If we have like 50 people going soul winning in our church I can't necessarily go soul winning with every single person and know exactly how good a soul winner everybody is and where they're at and what would be practical for them. So it makes more sense to start designating more and more leadership around soul winning so they can make even more informed decisions and they can assist you in their soul winning responsibilities. Mostly everything related to this is just simply in soul winning and again since we're in the Lord's army it makes sense to have more positions of authority, more leadership and to basically just to help me make better decisions and just to deal with potential issues if there was an issue. But if you say I don't go soul winning you probably won't experience any difference. You may have someone come around and ask you to go soul winning with them. That's about it. But that's the same anyways. If you go soul winning I don't envision anything changing except for who you're reporting those numbers to essentially. Now again for these people they're going to have a few tasks and a few responsibilities to kind of assist and to help our church and I think that it's going to be a great formal process around what we're already doing to help us grow and get better and to help people that want to get involved in soul winning to have more people they can approach, talk to, train from and learn. All of these men have led soul winning times. All of these men are very good soul winners and so that's why I'm putting them in these positions. But we have other men in our church that are great soul winners very good at getting people saved and so it's not that these are the only good people that are soul winning in our church. In fact they might even be the best but they are the best people for these positions. So I've hand picked them. They've all said yes and I'm going to actually be preaching a sermon on it this morning to explain it even further. If you have questions or any concerns or you want to know something you can always approach me and I'll definitely address it with you to help you understand. I think this is going to be a great way for us to grow and to be more efficient in everything that we're already doing. One other quick announcement this evening we're having a church finance and business meeting. It is for members only. So if there was a visitor that comes to the evening service we'll just have to ask them to leave for the meeting afterwards. But it's going to follow the evening service immediately. So immediately following the evening service we're just going to have our church business meeting going over our financials like we always do and just a couple other updates as far as just what's going on with the church. So you're welcome to participate. You don't have to. All members are asked to come if possible. So that's pretty much all I had for announcements. We'll go ahead and go to our third song. 174 my Jesus I love thee. 174 my Jesus I love thee. 174 my Jesus I love thee. 174 my Jesus I love thee. 174 my Jesus I love thee. I know thou art mine for thee all the follies of sin I resign. My gracious Redeemer my Savior now. If ever I love thee my Jesus is now. I love thee because thou hast first loved me and purchased my pardon on Calvary's stream. I love thee for wearing the thorns on my brow. If ever I love thee my Jesus is now. I'll love thee in life I will love thee in death and praise thee as long as thou lendest me breath and say when the death do lies cold on my brow. If ever I love thee my Jesus is now. In vengeance of glory and endless delight I'll ever adore thee in heaven so bright. I'll sing with the glittering cloud on my brow. If ever I love thee my Jesus is now. As the offering plates are passed around, please turn in your Bibles to First Chronicles chapter 11. First Chronicles chapter 11. We'll read the whole chapter prior to the beginning of the sermon. First Chronicles chapter 11. The Bible reads in First Chronicles chapter 11. Then all Israel gathered themselves to David unto Hebron saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. And moreover in time past, even when Saul was king, thou wast he that ledest out and broughtest in Israel. And the Lord thy God said unto thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be ruler over my people Israel. Therefore came all the elders of Israel to the king of Hebron, and David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel, according to the word of the Lord by Samuel. And David and all Israel went to Jerusalem, which is Jebus, where the Jebusites were, the inhabitants of the land. And the inhabitants of Jebus said to David, Thou shalt not come hither. Nevertheless, David took the castle of Zion, which is the city of David. And David said, Whosoever smited the Jebusites first shall be chief and captain. So Joab the son of Ziruriah went first up and was chief. And David dwelt in the castle, therefore they called it the city of David. And he built the city round about, even from Millo round about, and Joab repaired the rest of the city. So David waxed greater and greater, for the Lord of hosts was with him. These also are the chief of the mighty men whom David had, who strengthened themselves with him in his kingdom, and with all Israel, to make him king, according to the word of the Lord concerning Israel. And this is the number of the mighty men whom David had, Jehoshabim and Hachmanite, the chief of the captains. He lifted up his spear against three hundred slain by him at one time, and after him was Eliezer the son of Dodo the Ahohite, who was one of the three mighties. He was with David at past Amim, and there the Philistines were gathered together to battle, where was a parcel of ground full of barley, and the people fled from before the Philistines. And they set themselves in the midst of that parcel, and delivered it, and slew the Philistines, and the Lord saved them by a great deliverance. Now three of the thirty captains went down to the rock to David, into the cave of Adullam, and the host of the Philistines encamped in the valley of Rephaim. And David was then in the hold, and the Philistine's garrison was then at Bethlehem. And David longed and said, Oh, that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem that is at the gate. And the three break through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David. But David would not drink of it, but poured it out to the Lord, and said, My God forbid it be that I should do this thing. Shall I drink the blood of these men that have put their lives in jeopardy? For with the jeopardy of their lives they brought it, therefore he would not drink it. These things did these three mightiest. And Abishai the brother of Joab, he was chief of the three. For lifting up his spear against three hundred, he slew them, and had a name among the three. Of the three he was more honorable than the two, for he was their captain, howbeit he attained not to the first three. Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Kabziel, who had done many acts, he slew two lion-like men of Moab. Also he went down and slew a lion in a pit in a snowy day. And he slew an Egyptian, a man of great stature, five cubits high, and in the Egyptian's hand was a spear like a weaver's beam. And he went down to him with a staff, and plucked the spear out of the Egyptian's hand, and slew him with his own spear. These things did Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and had the name among the three mighties. Behold, he was honorable among the thirty, but attained not to the first three, and David set him over his guard. Also the valiant men of the armies were Azahael the brother of Joab, Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem, Chamoth the Hororite, Hilez the Pilonite, Ira the son of Ikkash the Tekoite, Abiezer the Antithite, Sibikai the Hushithite, Eli the Ahohite, Meherai the Natophathite, Helad the son of Bayanah the Natophathite, Ithai the son of Ribai of Gibeah that pertained to the children of Benjamin, Benaiah the Pithonite, Hurai of the brooks of Gaiash, Abiel the Arbathite, Asmaveth the Bahramite, Eliabah the Shelbanite, the sons of Hashem the Gizanite, Jonathan the son of Shaggy the Haraiite, Ahaim the son of Seikr the Haraiite, Eliphil the son of Ur, Kepher the Maquitharite, Ahijah the Pilonite, Hasro the Carmelite, Neorai the son of Esbaai, Joel the brother of Nathan, Mibhar the son of Hagarai, Zelak the Ammonite, Nehairite the Birathite, the Armabara of Joab the son of Zeruiah, Ira the Ithrite, Gereb the Ithrite, Uriah the Hittite, Zabad the son of Eli, Adinah the son of Shiza the Reubenite, a captain of the Reubenites, and thirty with him, Hanan the son of Maacah and Joshephat the Mythknight, Uzziah the Ashtirithite, Shema and Jehiel the sons of Hothan and Arorite, Jadiel the son of Shimri and Joah his brother the Tizite, Eliel the Mahevite and Jerubai and Joshephiah the sons of Elnaim and Ithma the Moabite, Eliel and Obed and Jeziel the Mesobite. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father God we thank you for the morning service and for our church. I pray that you protect it. I also pray Lord that you would fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit and enable him to thunder forth the message you've laid on his heart and help us to pay close attention so we can apply this message to our lives. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen. The title of my sermon this morning is Church Captains. Church Captains. And you know what I love about books of the Bible like 1 Chronicles or Kings or some of these other books where they mention all these names is just the reality that the work of God is not a one-man job. It's not a one-man show. There's a lot of people involved here and even David himself while he is a mighty man he has a lot of other great men that are standing alongside him helping him assisting him and doing the work of the Lord and these people's names are in the word of God for all of eternity. I mean this is a lot of people a lot of great men men that were willing to serve the Lord and the capacity that they were given and while not everyone can be David this is still a very honorable list of men. These are great positions of opportunity for them to serve the Lord here and when it comes to a church not everyone is going to be a pastor necessarily but just because not everyone's a pastor doesn't mean that there isn't great opportunities for people to serve to step up to help assist for there to be a need for leadership and as a church is going to grow and have more and more people there's going to be a need to appoint other leaders in the church so as for the church to be run successfully you know throughout the old testament you're going to constantly see these concepts of war military you're going to see soldiers and they need to have organization they need to have structure they need to have leaders they need to have rulers and so the bible is constantly appointing captains throughout the old testament captains is actually found in your bible so many times in so many different places and i believe that it's obvious that we also as a new testament church being the spiritual army of God need spiritual captains of war okay and so the title of my sermon is church captains let's look at first chronicles chapter 11 verse 6 the bible says this and david said usa smite of the jebesites first shall be chief and captain so joab the son of zariah went first up was chief we noticed that joab is listed in the bible as being a captain now what is a captain well go if you would keep your finger but go to chapter 27 for just a moment the word captain is really a just basic broad term it simply means a leader of some capacity now exactly what that person is a captive of or a captain of is just basically subjective you know it could be all kinds of different things it's contextually driven what that person is the captain of you know i usually think of a captain as being a captain of a ship right basically the person that's in charge of the ship but a captain can simply be any capacity any area it's just someone that's a leader if you look it up in a dictionary a captain is referred to as a military leader the commander of a unit or a body of troops now again it's not saying what specific rank or where it's designated which troops because the captain could be of a handful of people it could be the guy at the top and joab specifically what's interesting about his uh capacity is he's not just a general like a basic captain he's like the highest level of captain and he has other titles that are given to him look what it says in verse 34 of chapter 27 the bible says and after it hit the fell was jehoi to the son of benaya and the biathar the general of the king's army was joab so notice joab is also referred to as the general because that's like his more formal official title he's the general of the army he's the top of the food chain as far as the army is structured but at the same time you could still refer to him as the captain or the chief captain of the army because captain's a more broad term general's more the specific role and position that he's holding yet there's going to be other men throughout the army ranks of david's army that are also known as captains go if you would to deuteronomy chapter number one go to deuteronomy chapter number one now essentially when it comes to the armies of the lord especially when you have a king the structure is essentially of the king is the top of the food chain okay he is the the main leader of the army then below the king he has his general then below the general you have captains okay and so then you have all these captains that are basically uh designated to lead to rule and to help with organizing things now we see this captain's being mentioned in deuteronomy chapter one look what it says verse 10 the lord your god hath multiplied you and behold ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude now this scenario that they find themselves in is not necessarily the place when you start implementing captains it's just that it's extremely needful when you have millions of people and the children of israel coming out of the land of egypt are you know millions of people hundreds of thousands of people millions of people here especially when you're including man woman boy child servants and everything else that's coming out with them you gotta have some leadership you gotta have some structure how can a million people all talk to moses i mean that's just completely impractical it makes no sense therefore you have to have other structure and think about it this way back then especially they don't have facebook social media email so how would you even disseminate a message to a million people how could you even preach to a million people whereas today you could preach online and millions of people could hear your message so with the advent of technology it's allowed for people to manage more people at a bigger scale but still it's impractical to assist a million people or hundreds of thousands of people and so the bible is going to break up and divide the lord's people so that we can have other rulers other leaders assist in just the job duties of life it says in verse number 11 the lord god of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as you are and bless you as he hath promised you not only were they a lot of people but then they want to get even bigger which is great because the bible says be fruitful multiply you know one of the instructions and commandments for us is to grow you know and so sometimes while growth is not necessarily the most important thing and you can't necessarily always impact growth we should be striving for growth we should be building processes and doing things that will help us grow if possible it says in verse number 12 how can i myself alone bear your cumbrance and your burden and your strife take you wise men understanding and known among your tribes and i will make them rulers over you so moses is just saying there's no way i could take care of all these people there's too many problems too many issues too many things to deal with so we need other people now when they point other people over them notice the title that's given to them rulers i mean this is not just like a a paper tiger this is not just someone that's you know a team lead it's a ruler because it always frustrates me when i'm at the job and you know they have like a department and they make someone a team leader but you don't really have any rule you don't i mean you know if someone's not doing a good job or not doing right yeah you can kind of tell them that's not right you don't really have any power authority to do anything about it but these men are different these men actually have the ability to rule they can actually make real decisions they're empowered they're not just a leader on paper they're a leader and a ruler physically in reality says in verse 14 and he answered me and said the thing which thou has spoken is good for us to do so i took the chief of your tribes wise men and known and made them heads over you captains over thousands and captains over hundreds and captains over 50s and captains over tens and officers among your tribe so notice they ended up appointing military positions leaders which are called captains so again a captain is a kind of a broad term isn't it you could be a captain of ten or you could be the captain of the entire army as joab is evidenced so essentially the word captain is just meaning the ruler or leader of a particular group of individuals and in god's army he was setting up all kinds of different captains now the way i envision this and again we could look at this in a lot of different ways is you kind of have your low level captains who are responsible for the 10 individuals and then you would have a captain above them now that captain is most likely when it's talking about over 50s he probably has like five captains that report to him you know because that would make sense you have five captains of 10 each that would be 50 people and then you basically have one captain that's in charge of that guy right and then with the hundreds you know you probably have again we don't know exactly what number that is let's just say it's maybe like 500 again or something like that then you maybe have 10 captains or five maybe it's 250 it doesn't matter but essentially you have another captain above that and then you would have quantities of being thousands so then you have a captain above that group so you just kind of have this little bit of a hierarchy where you're only having to manage maybe around 10 men or 15 men or you know some kind of a number of men that you can actually talk to respond to think about jesus he's kind of only dealing with 12 people isn't he he's only dealing with his 12 disciples he's not necessarily able to teach and train hundreds or 50s of people at the same time it becomes too impractical it gets to a point where it's not as reasonable and you're not going to give all those individuals the amount of attention that they deserve or they need now obviously this isn't just saying all the people because it's probably just the heads of the household right so while it's 10 men it could still be 80 people in general because we're talking about their wives and their children you know if they've got families like the cardonas it could be thousands of people right it's all over the map though right it's got a lot of people so they're kind of managing the heads of the household the mean that they're able to go to war and in fact it could be even more than that because most of the time when it's talking about these men it's only talking about the men that are able to go to war so your young teenagers wouldn't count some of your older men wouldn't even count this is just like the heads of the household the prime military men you've got a captain over about 10 of these guys and they're leading that particular group now when i see the word officers again that also gives leeway to the fact that there might even be other designations other positions that might be appointed within these ranks to even assist the captains so then you have officers within those tribes and for our church captains we're going to end up doing this where we have captains who are leading groups of people and assisting in these job duties assisting in basically the sole winning responsibilities but there's going to be officers as well who are going to be designated and i'm going to call them lieutenants and and lieutenants are basically if you look up the word in dictionaries an assistant but a lieutenant would be a great guy in the tribe that's going to be able to assist that captain and all the captains and lieutenants will officially be selected by me they may be recommended by the captains but then the lieutenants are basically captains and waiting or they're just to assist and then as the tribes grow maybe they divide and then those lieutenants become more captains it's basically we just want to create a formal system so that people can end up falling into these roles in these positions and it's no shock to me that when you think about it the bible is written way before america was even the twinkle of in the eye of the british okay and yet all of our military designations follow the biblical principles because we have our generals which are at the top and then we have captains and we have other designations that follow the exact same biblical model even biblical naming and and positions here so i think it makes sense for us in a spiritual war in a spiritual army to start creating a formal process around what we're already doing so that we can have better decision making better leadership and that problems if they ever arise would be resolved appropriately go to numbers chapter number two numbers chapter number two now if you think about this jesus is also described as being the captain of our salvation meaning what he's the top of the food chain when it comes to the military conquest you know in a sense we have our king which is god and obviously jesus is also king but he's also considered the captain and i envision this as being similar to david david i would say is the king but he's also the captain of the army and jesus is our king he's also our captain and then he's gonna have under captains he's going to basically have under leaders that are essentially ruling and reigning and that this captain structure is not necessarily just only solely designated as like a pastor or whatever it's just going to basically have delineations based on practicality right if you're running a church of thousands it's impractical to have one leader you know it's impractical to have one person manage all these groups of people and and to do things appropriately and effectively and look we want to be the best spiritual army for the lord possibly you know the lord is looking down and expecting us to organize and manage ourselves appropriate and to put good men in good positions of leadership and to exercise good dominion over the things that he's given us you know the bible tells us that we're supposed to have dominion over the the fish in the sea over the whole earth and you know we need to set up proper roles and the proper designations and putting godly men in these positions to help and assist us so that we can be successful for the lord you know i think that the the army that we're in the the battle that we're in is very serious there's no more important role than being in the military for jesus christ you know that is our designation and when you read in the old testament they were not it was not a suggestion to be in the military it's like are you able or not because if you're able you're in the you're in the military you know it wasn't like well i just that's not who i am no no men are commanded to fight men are designated to be in the lord's army and you know what in a church if if you're got breath in your lungs and you're saved you're in the army okay maybe you're in the reserves i don't know but you know what you're you're in the military and so we're going to start designating ourselves like the bible describes because the bible is written for our ammunition our example you know why would i sit here and think like there's just page after page talking about military and war and setting up all these positions and then it's just like well that's no practicality for us today no designation of course it has obvious practicality for us today and it's how we want to organize ourselves now look at numbers chapter 2 verse 14 the bible says this then the tribe of gad and the captain of the sons of gad shall be eliasath the son of raul now the reason why i pulled out a verse like this and there's probably hundreds of verses like this is that we see the children of israel divided in a few different ways we have tribes and then we have captains okay and so that's why i'm using these titles or designations for our church as we essentially will have tribes and then we'll have captains of those particular tribes now in the old testament the tribes are designated based on your family members but we're all brothers and sisters in christ so you have no problem being an indie tribe okay now we're not going to call you dan or izakar right you're going to you're going to you're going to be the tribe based on your captain okay the captain's name that way you don't have to uh be like disparaged against or something like that like i don't want to be you know dan or i don't want to be menassi or something like that right look what it says in verse 15 and his host and those that were numbered of them were forty and five thousand and six hundred and fifty all that were numbered in the camp of rubin were a hundred thousand and fifty and one thousand and four hundred and fifty throughout their armies and they shall set forth in the second rank so also they had ranks within their military conquest and a rank is like a row in this in this particular context so they're lining up they're ready to go to war they have a captain they're able to go to war and we see that they're taking the spiritual bat or they're taking the physical battle seriously and if they're taking the physical battle this seriously then how much more should we take the spiritual battle right i mean if they're designating ranks and they're putting people in positions of leadership and they're ready to fight and this is a major deal and they're putting all this effort and energy and they're naming people and doing all this work like why would i think that that's more important that physical battle than the spiritual battle that we have in the new testament i think it's more important the spiritual battle and i think we should take it just as serious or more serious than they did and if they're going to put all this work and effort and energy into the military you know what they're going to reap what they sow who wants to mess with the military when they're this organized and all the men are mighty men i mean you're not going to mess with this now when it's gi jane it's like when they have no leadership when the military is making their soldiers walk around in high heels i mean that makes no sense or when they point people in positions of leadership that shouldn't really be there that are essentially just a political play or or they just have to elevate people because of nepotism or whatever you know we don't want to be like that because it would make our military weak we want to designate men that are filled with the spirit of god that are valiant men that are going to do the work of the lord that have already shown themselves to be faithful men and then we want to get everybody else in rows and ranks and ready to go to the battle you know what there's nothing more important than being in the lord's army and doing his work you don't have to be at the top you don't have to be the greatest person ever or anything like that because some of these men in the bible that we read about in first chronicles chapter 11 some of their exploits are epic i mean they're killing so many individuals so many wars i mean we don't know from just a physical fighting perspective i mean benaya might be a better warrior than david now obviously david killed goliath and obviously david killed lots of people himself and he's probably the baddest dude i don't know but we don't know that for sure and it doesn't even matter you know because you might as well just get in line and serve the lord and work as hard as you can and just if i'm in the second rank i'm in the second rank if i'm in the third rank i'm in the third rank wherever i find myself but you know what i just want to say here my lord send me just put me in there i just want to be in the ring i don't want to be on the sideline i don't want to be someone that's not willing to get into the battle and do the work of the lord and i'm so glad that i'm in the lord's army and not in the u.s military i don't want to be in that rank i don't want to be on those lines i don't want to fight the battles that they're going to send me to fight because you know what i like the battles that the church is going to send people out to fight i'm not that interested in fighting you know for the corporate greed of our nation for political lobbying power or for political pressure or to assassinate people that are going to actually exercise freedom you don't think that that happens you don't think that there's a lot of evil going on and the mercenaries of the day or the united states military who are doing their bidding for them who are trained to be mindless robots to just basically just kill on command or to just yes sir and do whatever inject anything in their body i mean at will go and shoot at any target man woman boy child i mean shoot missiles do whatever i mean i don't want to do that kind of work and fortunately for us in the lord's army we have a captain of our salvation the lord jesus christ we have the word of god to keep all of us in check whereas the u.s military it doesn't seem like they have that theoretically they have the u.s constitution theoretically they're supposed to fight against terrorists domestic and foreign but you know what i know that that doesn't necessarily happen and you know what i know it'd be super unpopular to go against the stream of the u.s military but i'll tell you what every single person in this military you better say that this is your top commander in chief this is your captain at the end of the day and i don't care what instructions you get if it violates the word of god you say no you stand on the bible you stand on the word of god you know we still need men to come alongside us and to help guide us and to rule us and lead us and as long as they're in the parameters of the word of god you just say yes sir and you do it now i like that i like this structure i like this philosophy go if you would back to first chronicles chapter number 11 so what is a captain doing in the bible what are some of the attributes of these captains what are these captains striving for well the bible gives us all kinds of different reasons why these men are selected as captains you have to realize that the leader david here from an earthly perspective the main captain what he's doing is he's unifying god's people he's a rallying point for god's people and it makes me think of the lord jesus christ the lord jesus christ and christianity should be a rallying point for all of god's people all of the children of Israel so that they're all gathered together and that we can fight in unity we can fight in unison you know a church is supposed to be unified a church is supposed to be rallied together with one common purpose in mind and that common purpose is the word of god the common purpose is the lord jesus christ and as we have this great unity it's going to help us grow and it's going to attract more people that same common purpose of getting people saved preaching the gospel of jesus christ getting people baptized teaching them to deserve all things whatsoever christ commanded us the great commission we are here commanded to teach all nations the bible says go you know the world and preach the gospel to every creature now how are we going to do that effectively well we need to organize ourselves and we need to get into the military ranks of god's army and say here am i send me you know and we want to be a sending church where we're sending out our troops we're sending out our military to go out and to do spiritual warfare today which is preaching the gospel of jesus christ and with more leadership it's going to make us more effective it's going to help us grow it's going to help us make sure that we're doing things right and appropriate okay now it says in verse number one then all israel gathered themselves to david unto hebron saying behold we are thy bone and thy flesh now you have to understand again in the old testament everything was physical so they're saying we're brothers and sisters physically now today we're not brothers and sisters you know it'd have to be a church in like kentucky or new jersey for that to be true but here we're not y'all look different than me okay but we are brothers and sisters in christ so we have that same unity we have that same commonality that's mentioned here says in verse six now skip down and david said where whosoever smite at the jebi sites first they'll be chief and captain so joab the son of zariah went up for went first up and was chief so when it comes to a captain what is one of the most important aspects of a captain is that they're brave we see that the first captain the person that's going to be in charge of all of david's military what is he saying who's going up first and think about this this makes sense coming from david why is david in the position he's in because he's the guy going against goliath no one else should go against goliath and david's like well i'll go and so david's gonna say the same challenge he's gonna say you know what the person that i want to put in a position of leadership and authority is the guy that's first to the battle the guy that says i'm going up there i want that mountain i mean he's saying hey it's mine for the taking i'm going up there i'm filled with the spirit of god and i'm ready to go to the battle and you know what if you want to be in positions of leadership you have to be brave you have to have courage you have to be able to take on challenges you have to face adversity you have to be one of those that were first to attempt something not like hey why don't you try it no no a captain is the one that's like i'll do it no i'll step in no i'll take the on the hard tasks i'll do the difficult job i'll do the thing that somebody doesn't want to do and this applies to all areas of life it can apply to your job you want to be a manager you want to be the team leader be the guy that steps in and is brave and is willing to take on the hard task doing the difficult jobs and that's what's going to put you in that position look at verse 16 skip down for a moment and let's look at verse number 16 and took it and brought it to david but david would not drink of it but poured it out to the lord and said my god forbid at me that i should do this thing till i drink the blood of these men that have put their lives in jeopardy for the jeopardy of their lives they brought it therefore he would not drink it these things did these three mightiest now what i wanted to pull out of this is these are the top of the top these are the greatest of the captains the strongest the mightiest what is something that they're willing to do they're willing to put their lives in jeopardy now that is bravery that is courage when there's actual real threat something could happen to them and they say you know what i'm willing to put it on the line i'm willing to be brave here i'm willing to put myself in a little bit of jeopardy and think about this they're putting themselves in jeopardy for the most menial task of getting water david and it's on a whim so talk about bravery this isn't like david's like i really need you guys to get in there it's saying like just on a whim they're willing to put themselves on the line they're willing to be brave they're willing to put things in jeopardy they've counted the cost as it were and they said you know what i'm here to serve i'm willing to be brave and have courage and to lead and it doesn't matter if i potentially have danger or risk here because i've already committed i've already decided that i'm ready to put this on the line and do the work now this makes me think of the new testament because the bible says go to second timothy chapter one i want us to read it actually keep your finger and go to second timothy chapter one i want to read this but makes me think of the new testament how we're supposed to have courage too we're supposed to be brave too and as a christian whether you're a captain or not you're supposed to have this mentality you're supposed to have this attitude of saying i'm going to put on the line i've already counted the cup you want to be a disciple of jesus christ you have to say i'm counting all the rest of my life dung i'm burning every bridge i'm as elisha did killing all the oxen and just you know i'm gonna have a good steak first but then i'm gonna go to the battle you know i'm saying bye to dad you know when the disciple the disciple wannabe came to jesus and said let me bury my father first he said let the dead bury their dead now if i'm thinking like what is a legitimate excuse not to follow jesus isn't it going your father's own funeral i mean that's a pretty legit excuse but he's saying you know what you just have to completely just keep your hand to the plow no looking back i i'm gonna follow jesus no turning back look what it says in second timothy chapter one verse seven for god has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind being not the other for ashamed of the testimony of our lord nor of me as prisoner but be the partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of god do you know what he's telling timothy hey don't be ashamed of jesus christ don't be ashamed of the word of god hey you're willing to put yourself in jeopardy's sake for the bible's sake for jesus sake and you're acknowledging you might have to go through some afflictions he's not saying like well it's just easy because nothing bad is going to happen to you he says no be a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel knowing that what there's going to be a little bit of suffering there's going to be a little bit of hardship there's going to be a little bit of fighting you know what a threefold cord is not strong is not quickly broken and when these three men go to get that water they say hey we don't i got these two guys i don't need anything else you want water done what is that bravery what is that is power what is that it's love what is that it's a sound mind i mean these guys are going in there now david thinks it's kind of crazy a little bit all right when we get that go back to first chronicles chapter 11 you know i don't know what all the spiritual pictures are here but you know this made me think of it made me think of salvation by works because if you think about it this is a great work that they do and they offer it to david and notice david rejected it meaning that the greatest work that you could possibly do if you offer that for your salvation jesus is going to pour it out and he's like i don't want this you know what because it's all by grace i don't know if that's the picture that's here or not but it just made me think of it okay and you would think like why would god ever reject my really good work but notice david rejected a really great work didn't it i mean don't you think that those people would be a little disappointed they went through that much hassle that much effort that much energy hazarded their own lives and then he's just like i don't want it but you know what that's what people do all the time catholics will literally risk their entire life give all this money give their body to be burned i mean you name it they're risking it all they're giving it all and you know what when they stand up before jesus christ and they offer that water he's going to say depart from me i never knew you because it's either a free gift of grace or you don't get into heaven well i could go reject my offering well you know what he rejected kane's offering too and i bet kane worked really hard for that offering and notice these three men work really hard do what seems like a great work i mean no one's going to argue this was a great work and isn't even an according to david's will i mean didn't say david say like i really wish this would happen and that's what a lot of christians are going to do well i tried really hard not to lie jesus i tried really hard to preach the bible jesus i tried really hard to do all these wonderful works but then he's going to say department never need it's not good enough your greatest works are nothing in god's sight it's filthy rags compared to what jesus did that's why you have to get saved by grace now after you're saved let's add a lot of works to that you know let's do some great works but at the same time you know your works are only acceptable to god when they're according to his will and while david is kind of just being like man it'd be great to drink some of this water he didn't want his men to do that and so here's another thing that you can learn as a captain is it's better to do exactly the will of your leader than to just make some great sacrifice that he didn't ask for you know it's better to follow instructions than to just make some great sacrifice it's better to obey than to sacrifice as king saul didn't understand and these men are past saul saul's already died so they should learn from saul's mistake that obedience is more important than some great sacrifice than doing something that your leader or commander doesn't really want you to do you know a lot of people would think like well i don't tithe you know what i give a lot of money to you know this homeless shelter i sold all of my i sold all of my goods and i gave it to africa but you know what jesus is going to be mad at you for not just tithing even if you gave a hundred percent of your your goods to the poor because you know he'd rather just obey than have this great sacrifice and some people think like well i want to serve god my way no no no you serve god his way and as a captain in the military it's more important to the will of your superior than it is to do your own will you're really just supposed to submit yourself and subject yourself unto the leadership and do as they would have you do okay jesus already gave us plenty of commandments to follow we don't need to start inventing new tasks or new ideas or other things that we want to do or to jeopardy our lives it's like hey pastor shelley i know you didn't tell us but we snuck over to israel and are like preaching the gospel to a bunch of jews or it's like no why don't you just go next door you know it's like we spent millions of dollars it's like no there's there's bad ideas and i'm sure the leadership has plenty of good ideas for you called god called the bible don't try and invent things that don't make sense or aren't found in the scripture you know faith coming by hearing and hearing by the word of god if you really want to have great faith do the things god already told you rather than making something up and deciding that that's what you think god wants you to do now in first chronicles chapter 11 look at verse number 20 let's learn some more from these these captains it says in abishar the brother of joab he was chief of the three for lifting up his spear against 300 he slew them and had a name among the three of the three he was more honorable than the two for he was their captain albeit he attained not to the first three now one thing you'll notice very quickly in this chapter is that not everybody's the same not everybody's equal some people are better than others you know and look this is the bible this is the word of god and instead of getting offended at where you line up or match up why don't you just work on being more honorable because notice when god designates the leadership he's not saying like this guy was just kind of a bozo and just snuck up there here's your nepotism hire here's your you know random no no these are all men that are really prestigious they deserve it they're very respectable because god's going to elevate you in due time god's not just sitting over here with a david at the sheepfold and just saying like i know you could kill goliath but i just want to keep you watching sheep no he takes the david out of the sheepfold and puts them on the front lines and puts them in the valley okay god knows you and knows what you're capable of and wants to use you and you just have to say here am i send me you just have to get plugged in but if you know you say i want to do more then start doing better or where you're at start being more honorable where you're at because these captains are very honorable men what is that they have respect they have a good reputation people fear them people look to these people as a leader before they're a leader they're basically saying i want to be like this guy i want to fight like this guy i want to be brave like this guy i want to have courage like this person now go to chapter 12 and look at verse number one so what are some of the things we've learned if you're going to be a captain you got to be brave you got to be obedient you got to be honorable here's another one verse one now these are they that came to david to ziklag while yet kept himself close because of saul the son of kish and they were among the mighty men helpers of the war here's another point they're they're a helper they're helpful you know the worst thing you can do when you're in position of leadership is not being helpful causing more work causing more burden the whole point of you being appointed is to assist the upper leadership so if you're making it more difficult than them managing the people under you you're going to get fired you're going to get replaced the whole goal is for you to help if you're not helpful then essentially you're going to get replaced and you know that's how god views it when god looks down to someone saying you're not really helping me accomplish my will then he's like i'm going to toss you aside buddy you know the branches that aren't producing fruit god's like you know what why am i going to give you water why i'm going to give you nutrients why am i going to let you why come birth at the ground as the bible describes the trees that are not bearing fruit you know they might dung it but you know what's dunging it's hard preaching okay but it might try to work on a little bit but if it's not going to produce fruit it's like let's get this one out of here and let's get a a tree that's producing fruit and so it's important to be someone that's helpful go to galatians chapter six keep your finger and go to galatians chapter number six let's look at a verse here and at the end of the day why why do we have positions of ministry why do we have positions of leadership why are people appointed to do this work it's to it's to basically assist in the burden of other people it's to minister to other people it's about people about helping other people okay so you know a position of leadership is not to be served but rather to serve and the bible teaches in galatians look at chapter six verse number two bury one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of christ so by doing things that help other people take burdens off of other people you're essentially a helper and that's what god wants you know when you think about marriage think about the beginning of the bible you have the husband and the wife and the wife is called the help me what does that mean she's taking burden off of her husband now she's adding burden to her husband she's just not fulfilling the role that god has called her to ideally a wife is going to take burden off of the husband not adding burden and when you read proverbs 31 you're not sitting here thinking like man that's tough to manage you're thinking like that sounds great i mean she's cooking all the meals she's providing him with the best clothing in the entire you know country everybody's like you look sharp meaning yes you need some of you men need your wife to help you get dressed i can tell that your wife doesn't dress you and you say how do you know that because you don't look that great okay we noticed that the proverbs 31 woman is taking care of all the children and all the children are are well educated and respectful and they're doing their job and you know she's she's doing them good all the days of her life is what the bible says right because she's a helper so in the same context when we have men that are in positions of leadership they should fulfill the same role they're a helper they're helping you accomplish tax and taking burden off and assisting in job duties and they're not shifting the burden bad leaders shift burden good leaders take burden on they basically help assist other people when i look at a pastor a pastor should not put burden on the congregation's life the pastor should take the burdens of the people and and try to offload some of those help remove burden and when we think about it our ultimate pastor our ultimate bishop is jesus christ who literally says we're supposed to cast all of our care upon him you know we're supposed to lift all of our burdens upon him and and that's really what we're supposed to do is in christ uh example we're supposed to also try to take burdens off people take the care off of people encourage people give them bravery give them courage you know you say it's not just one thing for you to be brave it's another thing to inspire other people to be brave encourage other people to come with you to the battle to assist them and basically not having the spirit of fear but of power and of love and it's not much it's a lot easier to be brave with people and you know the the men that are in positions of leadership they have to be brave as evidenced by when the spies go into the land of canan and they come back and give an evil report the whole congregation gets upset the whole congregation gets disappointed the whole congregation's hearts are basically weakened and saddened by the the evil report even just one group of people not going to fight and they get mad at them they're like you're not allowed to just sit here and inherit you know this this other area of land gad and manasseh and everything like that they're supposed to go and get in the battle ruben what is it ruben and manasseh and some of them they just basically don't even want to go into the battle and it's like you're going to basically weaken the hearts of your brothers now we're all in the battle we're all going to fight and it's important for the captains and leaders to come alongside those that are weak and encourage them so that everyone is ready for the battle everyone is ready for the fight i mean if you know i was going to go face somebody or i had to approach somebody and it's it's kind of an intimidating situation but i got brother conley and brother west next to me i want to be like i feel a little bit safer you know i just feel a little bit more emboldened right you know you feel like a little bit like what do you say now you know and there's other men in here too that you know it's scary you know i wouldn't want to be on the other side of the situation okay and we know who you are and it doesn't matter you know if if you're brave alone because you need other people to be brave with right what if david had killed goliath but then the rest of the men still stayed scared no he needed to inspire them by killing goliath and grabbing that head and running around with it for everybody else to go and chase the philistines with them they're like sweet let's go you know if david can do it i can do it you know and praise god i don't look like these guys so it's like a past show i can do it you know of course i could do it you know of course i could be strong of course i could be brave right and you know what god is glorified through my weakness god is glorified through my infirmities you know what i may not look like someone that just got a fresh off the marine corpse but at the end of the day you know what my power rests in the might of god and in the power of god and we just need people that are strong in faith to actually stand up and be courageous today and to be honorable and to be helpers of the lord and to help those that are weak now first chronicles chapter 12 let's look at the next verse here we read verse number one look at verse number two what are these men like it says they were armed with bows and could use both the right hand and the left and hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow even of saul's brethren of benjamin now that's incredible these guys are skilled you know it makes me think of a soul winner you know a soul winner he can he can not only get people saved just from going straight through his presentation you could just start anywhere in the bible and you can get him saved i mean this guy's like philip the evangelist who just runs in the guy reading a part of the bible he's just like let me just start explaining to you right now i mean he's got his left hand he's got his right hand i mean whatever the situation calls for he's able to fight and when i think about men of god soul winners the best soul winners it doesn't matter what you do just hand them the sword and they'll start slaying with it whether it was their left hand or their right hand or whatever it is they're ready to slay they're ready to fight they're prepared it doesn't matter what doctrine it doesn't matter what enemy it doesn't matter what situation they're ready to get in there and fight because they're skilled and you know what we should i don't care if you're a pastor or not memorize scripture we should study the doctrine of the bible you know when the pastor or a preacher gets up and teaches you a doctrine you should pay attention learn those verses of the bible know where to turn your bible it would be a shame and reproach to be out there contending for the faith and you just don't know how to do it well i can't throw with my left hand no you need to be able to throw that left hand i'm not talking about literally i'm talking about spiritually okay because left-handers are weird right but that's a different sermon look at verse 33 of zebulun such as went forth to battle expert in war with all instruments of war 50 000 which could keep rank they were not of a double heart again emphasis on expert in war you know there's nothing stopping you from being the greatest warriors ever you know it's not like you have to be a pastor to be expert in war in fact i guarantee many of the men in our church are expert in war when it comes to preaching the gospel and they would make many pastors look like a weakling they would make many pastors look like a coward they would make many pastors look not expert or not skilled whatsoever and look it's not a contest of one better than a pastor what i am saying is you should not let any position hold you back from being the greatest soul winner ever you can be the greatest warrior people should look at you and say this person's expert in war this person is great with the word of god and look with all instruments of war with genesis with x i mean everything every instrument they could possibly use they do it and i like this though they could keep rank what does that mean that they're humble meaning it doesn't matter what position they're in they're just happy to serve you know and that's an important quality and attribute of anybody regardless of where they find themselves and those that you want to put in positions of leadership are ones that were content with the rank that they were already in they weren't well i have to climb the ranks or whatever no no they're just fine just being in the military they're just fine serving the lord and they're not of a double heart now go if you went to james chapter number one go to james chapter one i want to look at a verse here what's a double heart you know they're not they're not someone that you're going to have them commit one day and then change their mind the next they're loyal so you kind of have the opposite a double heart would be someone that's not loyal they're fickle they'll change they're not resolved whereas the opposite of that would be someone who's loyal committed essentially when they say that they're going to do something they're going to do it they're not going to just back away they're not someone that you would not be able to trust it says in james 1 5 it says if any of you lack wisdom let him ask of god that giveth to all men liberally and it braideth not and it shall be given him let him ask in faith nothing wavering for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the win and toss let not that man think that he's received anything of the lord a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways look as as leaders you can't be double-minded when you make a decision you have to commit to that decision you have to be loyal to that decision you don't want to be wishy-washy and and when it comes to uh upper levels of leadership you don't want to trust people that could go back on their word or would just be like well i know i said that but i'm not going to actually do that well i know i committed but i can't well i know no we need people that are willing to just say hey i've made up my mind i'm going to do it period he that swearth through his own hurt and changeth not is what the bible says i mean we sing it and that's what men of god should be like one who keep rank and they're not of a double heart they're not like well i i don't want to be in this branch of the arm anymore i don't like the navy well don't sign up for it i don't want to be in the armed forces you know well you know get some skills nobody got that joke okay go you go if you would to psalm 84 go to psalm 84 i'm just saying that it's important to be humble and content where you find yourself the bible says great peace have they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them now when it comes to rank when it comes through these situations you know not everybody's at the top and you know what you shouldn't care where you find yourself you should just care that you're serving god and and i like being rated but you know some people just can't handle that they can't handle the rank because they don't want to be in that position or they think they're better than that rank it's like eh why am i in this position you know why am i a captain of 10 i could do hundreds for sure you know it's like no no you should be content with wherever you're at whatever rating or i love being graded i love being rated because it helps you know where you're at so you can improve rather than just rating yourself all the time trying to figure out and of course you should you should judge yourself but at the end it's nice to have judgment from other people and you shouldn't get offended if someone else ever judges you if someone else ever gives you a rating i mean how else are they going to have these captains how are they going to identify people to put in positions i mean the whole bible is a rating system here's the top guy here's the next guy these guys weren't as good as this guy i mean that's like the whole bible i mean what if they were just like but he was really offended by that you know he was mighty but he was just a little offended at the position he was in no no no you wouldn't be in that position if you were offended so easily men should not be offended great peace of they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them no matter where you find yourself no matter where you're at you know and if you say well i want to be in a better position then work really hard where you're at then elevate you know your game and be more honorable because i guarantee the honorable man is going to be elevated whether that's by me or not god's going to do it now look at psalms 84 look at verse 10 for a day in thy courts is better than a thousand i had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my god than to dwell in the tents of wickedness you know it's better to be humble in the doorkeeper than to get an evil or a prideful heart and desire that which is not yours to be covetous you know think about people like korra i mean they were already in a really elevated position yet not content even though they were in such an elevated position they had to be at the top they have to displace moses they have to displace erin and people that have to be in positions of authority are often very wicked people and even if they're not a wicked person it's at least a wicked thought it's definitely something that needs to be put in check and needs to be resolved otherwise they're just not going to be a good leader and look not everybody has to be a leader not everybody has to be a leader of tens or whatever you know you need to work on your leadership skills because if you're a man you're leading your wife you're leading your children and these people are the most important people to you and so you want to make sure you're doing a great job with them now i'm i'm pretty much done with the old testament i i was going to quote a few verses from the new testament you can look at one go to jude but i want to just explain our church captains real quick what's going to be happening and then i'm going to close but you know the bible says this charger committed in the sun timothy according to the prophecies which before on thee that thou by them mightest war a good warfare now in the old testament they fought a physical battle we don't we fight a spiritual battle but it's still war and we want to fight a good warfare so we want to have a good military we want to have a good system we want to be diligent with what god has given us you know the bible says for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds the bible says though we walk in the flesh we not war after the flesh you know what we war the bible says fight the good fight of faith the apostle paul says i have fought a good fight and the bible says in jude 1 3 beloved when i gave all diligence to write unto you the common salvation it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints now i didn't tell them this but i want those four guys to come up here real quick on the stage with dylan jason brian and philip now what are these guys going to be doing that way you have a face with the names you probably already know all right you probably don't really want to look at their face i get that but you know you guys can come up here so these guys are going to be our are starting out captains now i'll say this things could change tomorrow they could change before the evening service okay if need be right okay no i'm just kidding so so obviously we're going to put these guys in these positions they're going to help assist me and if they're giving you a direction in regards to soul winning you should treat them like you would treat me and you should treat me like you treat jesus so you should assume that jesus is talking to you when they give you instruction in regards to soul winning now what they're going to do they're going to manage the soul winning times so if you have any questions regarding the soul winning you don't ask pastor shelly you ask them okay they can handle your questions if they have a question that's too difficult or they really want to get my opinion i'll help them but at the end of the day i am giving them full of power and authority to make decisions regarding soul winning i don't want that to be confusing i want you to know exactly where i stand on the issue i will support them in their decision even if it's kind of a bad decision i'll support them and then we'll fix it later okay so but at the end of the day if you if you have a problem that can't be resolved obviously i'm still willing to talk to you and address problems and address issues so it's not like you can't talk to me i'm just saying they can still make all the decisions necessary for goal winning okay um also they're going to help me disciple soul winners what that means is they're going to approach the people in their group and ask them to go so winning with them just because they want to go so winning with you and i've told them to do that so if you think it's you know like why are they asking me to go so anything with you because they want to go so anything with you and essentially i want them to go so anything with you and i want you to go so anything with them and it should be an honor and a privilege to go so any with them you know of benaya the son of joe is like hey i want to go fighting with you i'd be like let's go like hey i'm gonna go slay this lion in the pit it's like let's go and look there's other great soul winners in my church don't think that there aren't i'm just simply saying these guys are our good examples as well and they're going to end up helping me appoint lieutenants which are other great soul winners in our church and with and they're going to help identify other people that are good soul winners and then when we go to so many times when we have new people joined to our church people start coming and they're like i want to go so winning we have people that we know of that are really good soul winners that we can point them if you're new to so winning and you say i want to learn so winning try to go something with one of these guys okay or one of the guys that they recommend because they're going to have really good knowledge as regards to soul winning and we want to make sure that we're putting forth a good example for soul winning not only that they're going to help pair every single person so if you know if you are just at a loss for someone and you want help you know you're a lady or whatever talk to your soul winning captain and they can help you now this does not replace the so many leaders at a soul winning time the so many leaders in charge you know whatever you know when i show up to so many time i'm not in charge the so many leaders in charge okay they're not necessarily in charge but if the so many leader needs to answer a question their captain can basically assist them in that situation so if you're leading a soul winning time nothing's changing you're just simply reporting your numbers to your captain okay and if you have questions instead of asking me about it just ask them about it they're also going to capture the sowing list for everybody i'm also charging these guys you guys have to pray for every single person in your tribe so they're on a regular basis being praying for you caring for you guys also i've designated that they can have one tribal party per year paid for by the church so and and i'll say this you don't have to go but you're going to be invited so i was like what's going to be the change you you tell a different person you're so many numbers and you get invited to an extra party yay you know i mean what else is there okay and they'll probably feed you i don't know what they're going to do all right that's for them to decide if if you decide to go missing they may try to call i'm going to tell them you call that person and you you go talk to that person and it's going to help you know encourage people that are going through a hard time or going through difficulty or whatever just someone else that you can reach out to and then i'm going to commission them to recruit new members to the tribe now of course you can also do that if you see new people come into the church and you form a friendship with them and you say hey we have tribe i want you to be part of our tribe and you basically take them take them to your leader you know let me take you to my leader you know and be like this guy's on our team and he's like let's go you know you're supposed to be fruitful multiply we're supposed to go out and preach the gospel and again i want you to because then as these tribes grow they're going to divide and become more tribes and we're gonna have more captains around more you know the goal is to grow the goal is to have more positions of leadership and more men that can help stand in the gap and do the work and these men are willing at this time to you know take on a big responsibility and and it means a lot to me it helps me a lot it helps me to be able to manage the things i need to instead of having to deal with a lot of other menial tasks or smaller job duties we can appoint more positions of leadership and basically help our church grow so if you have questions concerns or you want me to answer something just ask me i will post a list of your tribes out publicly so you just know but they'll also contact you email you or whatever so you you're not in the dark if you for some reason don't find out or don't know email call me text me or whatever or just ask one of the captains and they'll let you know what team you're on what tribe you're on but i'll have that posted by this evening so don't bother people about it but i'll have it posted by the evening service and then you can look and you can see and you can know where you're designated but i think that's pretty much all that i have to say on that issue i'm really excited about this i think it's going to be a blessing to our church it's going to help us do even more for the lord so i just want to pray help you guys pray with me we're going to pray over these guys right now and just ask the lord to just fill them with his spirit and that they would do a really good job and leading in our soul-winning effort all right we're just going to pray for these guys thank you only father so much for steadfast baptist church and for these men that are willing to step up in positions of leadership i pray that our church would just rally behind them that you would fill them with your spirit you'd fill them with wisdom that you'd give them great discretion that you would allow our church to be a great soul-winning army that we would go out and do great conquests in your name i pray that you would just keep all these men humble that you would keep our church humble that we would look to you as our strength and our power and that as you give us these men that you would help our church to just grow to be fruitful and multiply in your honor and your glory and in jesus name we pray amen thank you guys let's go ahead and go to our next song for this for this afternoon 173 and we'll finish 173 all right 173 love lifted me oh i was sinking deep in sin far from the peaceful shore very deeply stained within seeking to rise no more but the master of the sea me when nothing else when nothing else all my heart marries my soul nothing else souls in danger look above jesus out of the angry waves he's a master of the sea billows his will obey me your savior wants to be be saved when nothing else me good singing thank you all for coming you are dismissed