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He's a real friend to me, oh, I love Him so Oh, I want to sing and look upon His face There to sing forever of His saving grace On the streets of glory, let me lift my voice There's a blast, oh, my last, oh, my last, oh, my last There's a blast, oh, my last, oh, my last, oh, my last There's a blast, oh, my last, oh, my last, oh, my last Jesus, hear me hear the cross There a precious fountain Free to all our healing stream Close from Calvary's mountain In the cross, in the cross Be my glory ever Till my raptured soul shall find Rest beyond the river At the cross I stood one day Of mercy found me There the bright and burning stars Shift me to Calvary In the cross, in the cross Be my glory ever Till my raptured soul shall find Rest beyond the river Near the cross, oh, Lamb of God Rings and sings before me Help me, Lord, from day to day In this shadow of mine In the cross, in the cross Be my glory ever Till my raptured soul shall find Rest beyond the river Near the cross, I'll wash away Hoping just together Till I reach the calling sand Just beyond the river In the cross, in the cross Be my glory ever Till my raptured soul shall find Rest beyond the river I'm in the way, the bright and shining way I'm in the glory land way Well in the world that Jesus saves today Yes, I'm in the glory land way I'm in the glory land way I'm in the glory land way Heaven is clearer and the way growing clearer For I'm in the glory land way Let's to the call the gospel call today In the glory land way One verse of all the ways that you will gain In the glory land way I'm in the glory land way I'm in the glory land way Heaven is clearer and the way growing clearer For I'm in the glory land way Onward I go rejoicing in His love I'm in the glory land way So I shall see Him in heaven above I'm in the glory land way I'm in the glory land way I'm in the glory land way Okay everybody here again if we can go ahead and find our seats we will get started. And once we find a seat let's grab a hymnal and turn to song number 405. Song number 405, the banner of the cross. Song number 405. Marching on, marching on. For Christ had everything but loss. He's profound in faith, full and safe. He's the banner of the cross. Oh, they told Mary never as the one. Let the standard thingish play. And the defense holds as soldiers of the Lord. For the truth be not dismayed. Marching on, marching on. For Christ had everything but loss. He's profound in faith, full and safe. He's the banner of the cross. Over land and sea, there ever liveth come. Let the glorious tidings come. Of the crimson banner, now the story's done. While the Lord shall claim His love. Marching on, marching on. For Christ had everything but loss. He's profound in faith, full and safe. He's the banner of the cross. When the glory comes, His God, Mary, He is fixed in day by day. Then before our feet, the flow shall disappear. And across the world shall sing. Marching on, marching on. For Christ had everything but loss. He's profound in faith, full and safe. He's the banner of the cross. Great singing everybody. Let's open up the service now with a word of prayer. Lord, we love you and we thank you again for all the events today. The soul winning, the barbecue, everything was so great. We love you and we're just so privileged to be here. We just ask now that you fill this room with your spirit. Bless this church and everything that it does. And help us sing out loudly to you. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, for our next song, let's go to song number 261. Song number 261, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. Song number 261. Let's all sing it out together on the verse. Oh, so early Mary and so old, Go high in the darkness to see. There's life for a look at the Savior, And life for abundant and free. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful name, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of His glory and grace. Who death into life never lasts me, He past and we follow Him there. Oh, rising, no more, and coming, For more within conquers me. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful name, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of His glory and grace. His Word shall not fail you in comets, Believe Him and all will be well. Then come to a world that is mighty, His work is salvation to tell. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful name, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of His glory and grace. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of His glory and grace. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful name, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of His glory and grace. There's not going to be a reception this year, but we are still just going to have the recital, so if you'd like to just come, it's at four. Anybody's welcome to attend. There was the tryouts. Make sure you show up for those tryout times. We have the Foley wedding that's going to be happening on March 28th. That's a Friday at 6 p.m., and so we're really looking forward to that. Please make sure to RSVP to Brother Sam about that. Also, Mansfield Sony Marathon is April 19th, and a couple other church reminders down below. Just another quick plug. We're still going to have a lot of events upcoming in the future. We have plenty of Sony trips, ladies' tea, things like that, but a couple things to plug. In the middle of August, we are going to have our men's conference, so we're still having our Mighty Men's Conference in the middle of August. I believe it's the 14th or 15th, and I have to look on my phone. At the end of August, the 28th through the 31st, we're going to have our Firebreathing Baptist Fellowship Conference, and that's going to be a lot of fun. We have guest preachers that are coming in for that. Yeah, the men's retreat is the 14th and 15th and 16th of August. Then the FBBF is the 28th, 29th, 30th, and 31st, and then we're going to have our Bahamas Mission strip October 6th through 11th, and so we got a lot of big events like that. Just want to put on your radar, and also today we got to celebrate. We had a barbecue bash for lunch for our evangelist, Duncan Urbanic, who's here. They're going to be going back in a week or so back to the Philippines, so this is your opportunity to fellowship with them, hang out. I guess God multiplied our food for lunch, so we have so many leftovers. Brother Ryan said we have round two tonight, so if you want, they're going to be serving tonight a round two for anybody that would like to have that. I kind of have an anticipation we shattered our evening record again. I don't know why we keep breaking our records, but we broke the Wednesday, the morning, and the evening, so we'll probably have ice cream again. So if you like ice cream, you can stick around with us. I don't know if you're here for the ice cream or the barbecue or the preaching, but I'm just going to say it's for the preaching, okay? Or Brother Duncan, you know, it could be a lot of reasons. Thank you so much to Brother Ryan for doing the barbecue. It's RNN Barbecue, and he does such a good job. Let's give him a round of applause for that because it's really good, yeah. And thanks to everybody for being patient and having lunch with us. It was a lot of fun. Thanks, God, for a beautiful day because in Texas in the spring, you never know what you're going to get, but he gave us a great day today, and so thank the Lord for that. Azle Soul Running Marathon did great. Ninety-two soul runners and forty-three salvations. That's really epic. And then down below, we have our prayer list. Please keep our church family and your prayers, and if you have an additional prayer request, please email that to us or submit that to us. We'd love to have that. If you are planning on going to the Bahamas trip, what you need to do is after you buy your plane tickets, just email me your itinerary, and we're stashing that away, and we're getting that organized. So if you are planning on attending, once you've purchased your tickets, you can just email us that itinerary. We're going to go ahead and sing our new psalm. It's a brand new psalm, psalm of the week 58. It is in our special binders. Brother Dustin's going to come help and lead it this evening. Psalm 58. All right, that was Psalm 58. For the outro, we're going to go back into the chorus. Watch me on the timing. Psalm 58, let's all sing it out together. Let's all sing it out together. Let's all sing it out together. Let's all sing it out together. Let's all sing it out together. Let them melt away As waters which run Continually fade Even if it's hope To shoot its arrows Let them be As God in pieces As God in pieces Be in peace Be precious to us O congregation You need judge us rightly O you sons of men As the spell which melted Let every one of them Pass away like thou Untimely birth Of a woman that They may not see the Sun before your past Can't feel the 40 Shall take them away As with the Whirlwind both with me Men in his path Do thee in peace Be righteousness O congregation You need judge us rightly O you sons of men All churches shall rejoice Pray peace be in God Vengeance he shall watch His feet in the blood Of the wicked soul That a man shall save Verily there is A reward for more God righteous Verily he is A God that judges Judges in the earth Be in peace Be righteousness O congregation You need judge us rightly O you sons of men As the offering plates are being passed around Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Proverbs Chapter 27, that's the book of Proverbs Chapter number 27 Proverbs 27 Proverbs 27 Proverbs 27, the Bible says Boast not thyself of tomorrow For thou knowest not what a day may bring forth Let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth A stranger and not thine own lips A stone is heavy and the sand weighty But a fool's wrath is heavier than them both Wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous But who is able to stand before envy Open rebuke is better than secret love Faithful are the wounds of a friend But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful The full soul loathes a honeycomb But to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet As a bird that wandereth from her nest So is a man that wandereth from his place Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart So doth the sweetness of a man's friend By hearty counsel Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not Neither go into thy brother's house In the day of thy calamity For better is a neighbor that is near Than a brother far off My son be wise and make my heart glad That I may answer him that reproacheth me A prudent man foreseeeth the evil and hideth himself But the simple pass on and are punished Take his garment that is surety for a stranger And take a pledge of him for a strange woman He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice Rising early in the morning It shall be counted a curse to him A continual dropping in a very rainy day And a contentious woman are alike Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind And the ointment of his right hand Which beraith itself Iron sharpeneth iron So a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof So he that waiteth on his master shall be honored As in water face answereth to face So the heart of man to man Hell and destruction are never full So the eyes of man are never satisfied As the fining pot for silver and the furnace for gold So is a man to his praise Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar Among wheat with a pestle Yet will not his foolishness depart from him Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks And look well to thy herds For riches are not forever And doth the crown endure to every generation The hay appearth and the tender grass showeth itself And herbs of the mountains are gathered The lambs are for thy clothing And the goats are the price of the field And thou shalt have goats milk enough for thy food For the food of thy household And for the maintenance of thy maidens Let us pray Dear Heavenly Father I thank you for this great church And the great works that you're doing through this church Thank you for our pastor, Pastor Shelley I ask you to please bless him and help him to lead this church Please help him now as he preaches your word In Jesus' name, Amen Amen, I want to look at verse 23 again The Bible says Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks And look well to thy herds Now I believe the next verse actually kind of gives us a little bit of a kind of connection It says For riches are not forever And doth the crown endure to every generation So it's very important to be diligent in managing the assets Or managing the goods or managing the people that God has given unto us And so we should take note here That it's important to pay attention to what you're doing And what God has given to you And I kind of broke this down into two different categories I want to talk about this evening Number one, I want to talk about finances And number two, I want to talk about family And I believe that these are two different ways that we could take this verse and apply it Because a flock, in the Old Testament especially, or that timeline Your money is wrapped up in your livestock It's wrapped up in your cattle, your herd, your goats, your sheep That is often, for many people, their finances That is the money that they have And the Bible is telling us that it would be important to be diligent to know the state of your flock Trying to understand everything about your flock Understanding how many sheep you have Understanding its well-being Is it healthy, is it sickly, is it lean cattle, is it fat cattle Just basically everything that's going on with your situation And I want to talk about that first from a finance perspective And then I want to talk about it from a family perspective The people that you have to manage or look over And it's really important, you know, I think beyond that I'm breaking it down into two points But then we can take each point and break it down into two points too So if we're looking at finances The two things that I think are important to look at is how much you have And then what is the quality of what you have Those are two different things completely When you try to understand your financial position Or the money that you have It's important to know how much you have But it's also important to understand what type of quality of money you have Because not all money is the same kind of money You can have cash, you could have real estate You could have investments, you could have bitcoin, right You can have all these different things going on And you could have money that's coming in because you start a business And sometimes it's important to understand that business It's important to understand that some businesses have what's called seasonality So some businesses do really good at certain parts of the season Like a Christmas shop That does good during Christmas season But it doesn't do very good in the summer It doesn't do very good in the spring because it's simply not Christmas And so you have to understand, okay, the money that I'm making from this particular venture May not necessarily reflect what's going to happen for all of its future Go if you went to Luke chapter 16, go to Luke chapter number 16 We have to understand that the Bible teaches a lot of principles And we have to also be diligent in the things that God gives us Sheep and oxen, flocks, these things, they also have seasonality You have a calving season So you have the time when animals actually bring forth and have their young You could have potentially a sheep business where you're shearing sheep to get their coat And then you sell their wool Well that's seasonal, that's not going to always happen You have to kind of allot for that and think about it And so we want to make sure that we're very careful in thinking about our finances And how the money comes in People that are farmers have to think very diligently about their finances Because they often get paid once a year Many farmers have one paycheck for the entire year And so then they have to think about that and allot that money for their entire year They can't just spend like they're just bringing in money all the time I have kind of a famous example of this in my mind that I may have preached before But I'll just kind of remind you of this story Because I used to work at a bank and we had a new customer start a brand new frozen yogurt business And they started at the beginning of summer And their first month, so this is the first month, brand new, they just opened They had $100,000 in profit I mean just the first month The problem is this shop owner then thought Oh, I'm going to make $100,000 in profit every single month for the rest of my life Which was not true because since it was brand new Tons of people coming out of the woodwork People just want to try it It was just kind of a unique phenomenon in that area But he wanted the bank to loan him a bunch of money to start two more businesses In the second month of operation So operation day one He brought in $100,000 profit It cost him not even that much money to start a new business It cost him maybe $150,000 or $200,000 to start a new one So he's just like, I want $400,000 I want to start two more of these We're doing way better than I thought And us at the bank, we were like, I was a credit analyst So we like, you know, look at the numbers And we were just like, no It doesn't make sense You don't have money This is bad And we basically tell him no And then he goes and cries to some upper management And they're like, okay, we'll do it So they override us So we give him two more businesses So this guy starts a frozen yogurt business Makes $100,000 the first month Then opens two more locations like almost immediately So now he has three frozen yogurt businesses in the same town And he does pretty good in the summer Now he doesn't have $100,000 net profit the first month, the second month You know, it tapers off But he's still doing good But he basically opens the next two by about the end of the summer So throughout the summer, he's just killing it, doing good at this one location Then at the end of the summer, he now pops up and he has three frozen yogurt places Now he's taking about a $20,000 loss at each location every single month And he just happened to sign two and three year leases At these really expensive places where he's leasing property And the guy, this is what's interesting about the guy The guy before any of this used to own a lawn care business He owned a lawn care business And he made, you know, probably $150,000, $200,000 a year Worked pretty hard He ended up selling his business for $200,000 Invested all in this frozen yogurt So he had a business of 10 to 20 years doing lawn care Very successful, sold it all, started this frozen yogurt business By the end of the year, those two that he'd opened were already closed down And he ended up, I think he lost the other one eventually So basically just lost all the money, all the assets he had, lost his entire business Because here's the thing, all money is not the same kind of money You have to think about it And I mean, it shouldn't take a genius to realize that people like frozen yogurt in the summer A lot more than they like it in the winter And yet this person just kind of got a little hasty Hasty to be rich, had an evil eye And wanted to just make it big And instead of just taking the time Hey, let's go a whole year, figure out what your numbers look like before we open round number two Or maybe pay off your debt before you just start opening new businesses And yet, you know, this guy wasn't really being diligent to know the state of his flock in my mind He wasn't really thinking about what's really happening, what's coming in, let's be patient here And so, you know, sometimes we have to think about it like The money that you have or the money that's coming in, is that sustainable? Is that going to keep coming in? Is this investment going to go up? Is it going to go down? These are things that we need to think about Look at Luke chapter 16, look at verse number 9 The Bible says, And I say unto you, make yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness That when you fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much And he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much The Bible says If therefore you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon Who will commit to your trust the true riches? So the Bible says a few things here First of all, the principle that if you're faithful in that which is least You're going to be faithful in that which is much as well And, you know, one month of business has not really been showing yourself faithful You know, there was a guy that started a church, his name was Tyler Doka And he ordained an evangelist one week after starting his church And in the bio of his evangelist he said, This guy has been faithful to our church since the opening And I'm thinking like, you're kind of misusing the word faithful here You know, like, it's not faithful that you just showed up one time last week And if you think like, hey, I came to steadfast last week, can I be the evangelist now? The answer is no, okay Evangelist Urbanic was faithful at church for years and did all kinds of things for our church He was faithful, okay So, you know, we need to make sure that we're faithful with little things And God will often test us for a while God may give you just a little bit But he wants to see how are you going to do with this for a month, six months, a year Years, maybe even a decade in some cases And then he might give you much if you've been faithful in that which is least Of course there's a lot of spiritual connections here But think about the unrighteous mammon is being brought up in the previous verse It says, make yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness It's kind of saying like, make some rich friends I'm just telling you what the Bible says The Bible says make rich friends Why? Because things cost money And it's nice to have people that have money because things cost money even serving God costs money And when you make to yourselves friends of the unrighteous mammon They can help pay for things You know, praise God we get to have a building today Praise God we had lunch today Praise God we have opportunities to go on missions trips and have all these events that are free You know, someone paid for that And it's nice to have people that have money and work hard And then use that money for the things of God And whatever God gives us We should be very good stewards of We should be faithful with so that God can give us much And then of course when we have much then we can use that for the service of God For the things of God for blessing our family For blessing our friends For blessing other people And being that individual that can help others You know the Bible says he that is rich Like he's talking about charge them that are rich in this world That they be ready to distribute Willing to communicate Saying hey if you work hard If you're faithful in that which is least And you do right for a long time and then God ends up blessing you Well there's kind of an obligation That then if someone comes along And needs something that you're willing to help that person Like you're kind of ready to help You're kind of ready to use those assets that God's given you And what I've noticed is when people help others God ends up blessing that person even more It doesn't really make sense But it works And I've seen that with myself I've seen that with other people when you bless people And then other blessings come out of nowhere Also the Bible talks about leaving and inheritance Go back to Proverbs chapter number 13 But you know as a man Or the leader of the house You need to make sure that you know where your money is coming from You know how much money you have That you budget That you forecast That you do all of these things Now if your wife is better at accounting than you Or has skill in that area And you want to allow her to help No problem But you better be reviewing it And you better know You don't have to physically do the labor if you don't want to But you better be aware of it And managing it And thinking about it And taking some leadership on that role As a man you need to know How much money you're bringing in Not much money is going out You need to know where you're headed You should know what your net worth is And you should be working on Increasing your overall net worth Increasing your goods Paying attention I mean the Bible is saying Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks Jacob was a great manager of the flock And he increased Laban's flock greatly And he was faithful in that which was least And then what did God do? He gave him the whole flock He gave him all the assets And he gave him all the money because he's such a good manager Look at Joseph Joseph is a great money manager And a great steward of the blessing that was given unto him He was given seven years of plenty And he was able to weather seven years of famine Not only that He literally took the entire wealth of the world He was such a good money manager And such a good steward That he was able to basically preserve life in the entire world And made his boss the richest man in the entire world And accumulated all the wealth of the world for Pharaoh Now I don't agree with the fact that he then Basically put everybody in debt on top of that But there was nothing wrong with preserving the race And even making money for his boss He was doing what was right And he acquired all the wealth You know as the stewards of God We've been given assets God has given us money God has given us jobs God has given us finances And we should be good stewards of the finances that God gives us We should not be bad stewards And I think personally it's just a bad stewardship To just say like I don't really know I don't really pay attention to money I just spend money That's a bad attitude We should not be apathetic to these things We should be diligent We should pay attention We should think about them We should budget for things We should be thinking about the money that we're spending Now look I'm not saying don't spend money You can spend as This is what my dad said And I like this principle This is not the bible This is my dad's opinion He said there's nothing wrong with spending the money you have Just don't spend the money you don't have And most people their financial problems Are because they spend money they don't have Not that they're spending the money that they do have And how do you spend money they don't have? It's called credit cards It's called loans Payday, cash, advances All kinds of things like that That's when you get yourself into worlds of hurt And so it's really important to really think about You know the money that you have And being realistic about those things Paying attention to those things I personally I have a spreadsheet Like just an excel spreadsheet I use google sheets it's free If you have a gmail account Google sheets is completely free I have a sheet And I have on it every single transaction that I make All the transactions And I know exactly how much money is coming in I can tell you what my finances are gonna look like Three months from now I can do it as far as I want But I'm just I have it about three months in advance So I kind of have an idea How much money I have How much money I will have What kind of big expenditures I may have Thinking about things You know sometimes you pay insurance Like every six months Or every year Or you have all kinds of different bills and things It's important to know those things So you don't think in your mind Oh I've got two thousand bucks in the bank And forget you have to pay insurance And like the next month or something And you go spend all that money And then now you have this bill and you can't pay it You know realizing Hey we're pregnant That's gonna cost an arm and a leg and ten fingers Okay And think like Hey I might need to budget for that I might need to plan a little bit for that Hey my car is on its last leg I might need a new car Planning for that You know you want to get a house Planning for that Budgeting for that I think unfortunately our society Is taking advantage of a lot of young people And instead of them saving money And investing in a house or property They're just spending all that extra money On just random things Just buying an extra watch or car Eating out or doing whatever Instead of actually like Maybe taking that money And making a wiser good investment And you know we should be careful to think about The money that we have And how we're spending it And of course Then the guy that's lazy And wastes all of his money And is a bad steward Then gets mad at other people Who are not bad stewards He's like Oh this guy is rich Because he didn't waste all his money On lottery tickets It's like Well no Lottery tickets are bad investment You know Just because someone invests Or saves Or works hard Doesn't make them a bad person In fact It actually makes them a good person The good person is the one that's diligent To know the state of their flocks He's the one that's faithful in that which is least He's actually investing in the right kind of things The bad person is the one that's lazy Apathetic And just wastes the money That God gives him And I'll tell you You know Rich people Whatever you think about them They're not lazy There is some exceptions You could have like a You could have This example of like a Trust fund kid or something Where basically They just inherit wealth But the people that have money They had to work very hard to get it And they usually had to put a lot of diligence into it And they often don't spend a lot of money People that are just spending money like crazy Will become poor very soon I mean Even celebrities Even celebrities You look at rich rich rich celebrities They're making 27 million dollars a year 30 million dollars a year And then you look at them They're in debt They literally have no money They have no net worth Because they just spend everything that's coming in They're just a bad money manager It doesn't matter how much money's coming in It matters how you manage the money that's coming in Okay And there are plenty of people that don't even make very much money But they're just good with their money And over a long period of time They'll have acquired a lot of wealth Well What does the Bible say in Proverbs 13 Look at verse number 22 A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children And the wealth of the sinner is laid out for the just So you know sometimes you inherit windfalls Just because you're a righteous person The sinner gets his money taken from him And just gives it to a just person But you know the Bible says A good man leaveth an inheritance Not unto his children Unto his children's children That's what the Bible says And I think it's important for us to think about that And to play Now I believe that Go to Psalm 37 Go to Psalm 37 I think that we might be In a period of plenty You know Joseph went through a seven year period of plenty And he was coming up against the seven years of famine I'm not forecasting seven of anything I have no idea What I am saying is this With Trump in office It's likely that this could be a good time economically for us And what we should do is We should be diligent with that opportunity And we should take advantage of that opportunity And be good stewards of that opportunity We don't want to be like Joseph Where we're just not paying attention To the seven years of plenty And not doing anything good with it You know we should take that opportunity To make the money To make the stuff that's out there Take advantage of those opportunities And then invest them in good things So that we could weather a future storm Because if you look at any real estate market Any finance market Anything They always go up and down There's always ebbs and flows And what's good Hey take advantage of the good times But don't just waste all of it You know make some good investments Be diligent to know the state of thy flocks Okay And we should know the state of our flocks Know what's going on And be very careful with what God has blessed us with Now Psalm 37 I want to look at verse number 25 I have been young And now I'm old Yet have I not seen The righteous forsaken Nor is seed begging bread I mean the Bible is basically saying like Poor people That are begging bread Are not righteous I mean if you read the opposite of this He's saying the righteous Have never been like this So that if I see someone in this case It must mean there's some kind of issue With their righteousness What is righteousness? Doing right What's one of those things? Often it's because of the result of being lazy Maybe making bad decisions Getting involved in bad crowds Basically just not taking ownership Just being apathetic Not caring Making bad decisions Being lazy You know it's really easy to be poor Because all you have to do is nothing I mean being He's like what's the credentials of being a homeless person Just do nothing I mean many high school kids And college kids Have already got that locked down They just go hide in their basement Play video games Do nothing And they don't work hard They don't study They don't try to get a job And it's really really easy to do nothing And be poor What's hard is to accumulate wealth It's very hard It takes a lot of diligence It takes a lot of hard work And you know I empathize with people That are starting out with nothing I mean it's hard You know it's often easy to make money with money It's very hard to make money with nothing And it's very hard If you don't have someone help you With getting education Or getting a job If you have to kind of start from scratch In many cases it takes a lot a lot of effort A lot a lot of energy And I don't I don't I don't envy that position Because it's very difficult And you know I've been there Where I haven't had much money And I've had to work very hard And we all have to But here's the thing If you're righteous You know blessed is the man That walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly You know the Bible talks about When you do that which is right You work hard You're diligent God will bless you And I've noticed a pattern That people that serve God And do right He takes care of their needs And when he takes care of our needs We need to be careful with that Go to Luke chapter 14 Go to Luke chapter 14 So I'm just kind of hopping around A lot of verses here And you know what I'm saying Is not the most important thing Money is not the most important thing You could be the poorest person on the earth And still have great riches in heaven And serve God You know A man's life is not based on the abundance Of the things that he possesses Okay It's not a man's value But at the same time We can't just like run with that And say like okay Then God expects me to do nothing No The Bible says if you forsake your own Like if you provide not for your own You're worse than an infidel So you know If God gives me the opportunity to be in America Which is the most prosperous nation in the world If God's given me parents that educated me If God's given me an opportunity to have jobs If God's given me a really smart brain Or good verbal communication Or hands that work Or legs that move And I'm not using that to work hard And do what I can Well to me I'm just neglecting all the talents And all the gifts that God's given me You know If God gave me ten talents I better use ten talents If God's given me five I better use five Hey If God's given me one talent I better put that to use You know There's no special credit in heaven That you just buried your talent in the ground And claim that you're spiritual The spiritual person works And let me tell you You find people in the Bible that you like They work and they work hard And they're good stewards of what they've been given And they're good managers of what they've been given And they're not just going around Making a bunch of excuses They actually change their lives by working Say I don't like my situation I'll fix it And you know We need a bunch of people That are willing to fix their problems Instead of complaining about their problems all the time You know what's wrong with America People complain about their situation Instead of just fixing it It's called mansplaining You know what We need some more men around here Okay They just fix things And they just know how things work And they just actually work hard You know I wish I had people explaining this to me when I was younger Because I didn't always have a good work ethic And I still even need a good reminder every once in a while We all need to work hard And be diligent to know the state of our flocks You know It's hard work to go out and check the cheap And check the ox And check the flocks But we need to do that Now Luke chapter 14 look at verse 28 For which of you intending to build a tower Sitteth not down first And counteth the cost Whether you have sufficient to finish it Lest happily After you have laid the foundation And is not able to finish it All that behold it Began to mock him Saying this man began to build And was not able to finish The Bible is saying Hey if you're going to make a building If you're going to build something You have to first figure out How much does it even cost And if you don't raise the finances If you haven't procured the money Well you're going to look kind of silly When you fail You're going to look weird When you start three frozen yogurt places And then they all close down Because you didn't actually count the cost You didn't actually think about What it takes You didn't actually have the finances To get it done And then people are going to kind of use you As a proverb and a byword And they're going to make fun of you You know you're going to look bad When you start a house Start building it And then now you can't use it You know you can't actually put You know the flooring in You can't put all the stuff You're kind of just stuck You're stuck with an empty building And there's sometimes you'll go down the road And you'll find a construction project That's on halt And just never gets done Just days, months, years And you're kind of thinking like What's going on They ran out of money They weren't diligent They didn't count the cost They didn't think about it And we shouldn't be like that Now of course we can apply this all spiritually Can't we That whatever God's given us That we need to make sure That we're counting the cost And we're thinking about it And we're willing to go out And make that spiritual sacrifice You know when it comes to the things of God It's not Salvation's free But serving God is not free Being saved, free Being a disciple Costs you everything Everything It costs you Your mother Your brother Your wife Even your own life Is what the Bible says If you want to be a disciple We have to count the cost And we have to think about that And sometimes you have to be Even thinking about Hey am I willing to make that sacrifice Am I willing to give these things up If push comes to shove Would I be willing Because you know You're going to look really silly When you're serving God And then all of a sudden It's like Well my brother's offended Now I'm going to leave church Well Hey I'm all in it I'm going to go soul winning I'm going to do this Well But you know what To go soul winning You've got to show up You've got to actually come early You've got to spend time On Sundays Well I don't have that time Well then you're not going to be able to do it Hey I want to go to St. Vast Baptist Church Have you looked online to see How our reputation looks Because then they might be Friends Family Even your work Hey you go to this church Never heard of the man You know I know not the man Right You're kind of afraid To say Hey I don't I don't believe that I don't know about that You're afraid You're afraid You're afraid You're afraid I don't know about that You know sometimes you have to think Like am I willing to count the cost Because then you look kind of silly When you fail When you aren't willing to really count the cost When you aren't really willing to go all the way And you know especially as a pastor You don't want to be that kind of guy that's like Hey I'm here to serve God And then Well Not that hard Well not that much Well I'm not willing to pay that much You know that is a shame An approach to the cause of Christ We need to be willing to Make the ultimate sacrifice If we truly want to be a disciple Go to 1 Timothy 4 Go to 1 Timothy 4 I need to speed up for sake of time But point one is this We should be diligent And know the state of our flocks And we should think about the cost Financially here and hey We need to think about the cost And our spiritual life Hey if you want to have a family You got to think about how that's going to be expensive You know it would be kind of silly to think like Hey I want to have a wife And ten kids And I'm going to work at Subway For ten hours a week So you didn't really count the cost buddy Okay that's not very realistic You know you want to have a wife You want to have a nice house You want to have kids Well think about how much that costs And then go find a job that can pay that Okay Think about a career that's going to get you there You know you need to count that cost Hey you want to serve God with your life You want to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ You got to think about some of the costs That you might have to take And you know this is one that's kind of funny to me It just doesn't even make sense but it happens all the time People will sell all that they have Move across the country To come to a church like ours Because they think that that's going to spiritually help them Then they make friends with someone here that they've never met before in their life They didn't even move here with that person They didn't even know that person existed They come to a church like ours and then they make a friend And then the friend leaves the church and they're like Oh I'm going to leave the church But you didn't even show up for that person Like how does it make sense to sell everything To move across the country to come to a church You move for the church Then you make a friend which is a total bonus cherry on top And then if that friend leaves you say well now I'm going to leave too You didn't even count the cost You didn't even really think about it It's like that doesn't even make logical sense But people do this kind of stuff don't they Or they sell all they have and they get plugged in for the cause of Christ But then it's like, you know, it's not what they thought How about Evangelist Urbanic Selling all that he has, moving to the Philippines He may not have understood all the cold showers he was going to take Now he's visited so he probably did But I'm just saying like what if he hadn't What if he didn't, what if you just moved You just say hey pastor I sold everything I'm moving to the Philippines And it's like you show up for the first bathroom visit And you're kind of like oh, where's the shower Where's the bed, where's the steak Where's the In-N-Out Burger on every corner They're just kind of used to a certain custom of living in America And maybe it doesn't really exist over there the way they perceived it And they didn't really count the cost and then they get burnt out Or they think well that's not really what I was wanting Or they hear about, you know, missions trips or these kind of things Like hey I can't wait to go on one How do I sign up, well buy a ticket And they're like what do you mean buy a ticket It's like go online and buy yourself a ticket to this place And they're like well that costs money, exactly Right, you have to actually count the cost And so we have to think about our spiritual life And think about how things might cost Here's the second one that I want to talk about I want to talk about this a little bit more Is the families, the people that God's given us So number one, when God gives us money We need to be careful with that We need to think about that and we need to be diligent with it Secondly though, God will give us people, our family And not just physical family, even our spiritual family And we need to be diligent to know the state of our family Of the people that God has entrusted us And the people that God has given to us You know, you need to be thinking about the state of your wife Thinking about the state of your kids Thinking about the state of your employees If you're a boss, you need to be thinking about the state of your employees And thinking about their well-being I've known people who kind of complain They say, man I keep hiring all these people and it doesn't work out They have to constantly fire people But I'm trying to help this person say like Yeah, but do you have realistic expectations for this person Because if you hire these people And you're expecting them to do a certain job that costs a lot of money And you don't pay them a lot of money It may not really be a good fit, right They may get burnt out They may get frustrated Or you promise them all this money And then they show up and they do all this hard work And they don't get that kind of money This happens a lot in sales jobs They'll tell you, hey we got this sales job for you They'll be like, if you work really hard you can make $200,000 a year And then you're making like a hundred bucks a week And you're just thinking like, it's commission buddy And you know there's a lot of false expectations out there Well as an employer you can only be mad at yourself If you're advertising something and it's not really reality You've got to think about the state of your employees Of your servants, of your wife, of your children You know maybe your wife thought as a husband you'd actually be nice to her You'd actually take her on dates You'd actually help around the house You'd actually pay the bills And when you don't do those things and she's mad You'd be like, oh wife's submit Wives are good It's just like, yeah but is that a realistic expectation When you're putting her through the ringer When you're not actually doing your part You know we need to be diligent to know the state of our flocks We need to take care of them Think about them And you know as a pastor or a leader it's important for me too To know the state of this flock Spiritually Look what it says in verse number 12 Let no man despise thy youth But be thou an example of the believers In word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity So the Bible says that a man of God Is to be an example unto the believers An example unto the flock One thing that is really important is that I go out and preach the gospel to motivate you to preach the gospel That I go on missions trips to motivate you to go on missions trips That I love my wife so that you will love your wife That I love my children so that you'll love your children So that I work super hard so that you'll work super hard I mean you're not going to be as motivated to work hard at your job If I'm lazy and derelict and have no skills You know what would be more motivating Is if I'm hardworking and skilled and leading by example Leading by example in every way That is what we want We want pastors that are an example You know what you want as a pastor Is you want them to be like a copy and paste job And this is how you can tell if it's a good pastor and family If you say like hey it would be nice if we just copied and pasted this family You know whereas if you look at a pastor and his family And you wouldn't want to copy and paste well that's a bad Because there's supposed to be an example And you think whether you're a pastor or not You're still held to the same standards as the pastor In a sense that you're supposed to be a loving husband You're supposed to provide for your family You're supposed to be diligent, sober, a soul winner Doing the work that God has given you I mean the qualifications of a bishop are not like only pastors do this It's just saying this is what everybody should be doing The pastor is just doing it Right I mean the pastor is just doing what the Bible says And we want pastors that are good examples unto the flock Why? So that the flock can also follow in like step Why? Verse 13 let's keep reading Till I come give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine Neglect not the gift that is in thee which is given thee by prophecy With the laying on of the hands of the presbytery Meditate upon these things, give thyself wholly to them That thy profiting may appear to all You know one aspect of pastoring is that I should be public About what I'm doing and what I'm like To profit other people Like the things that I'm doing should be a little bit public Living in a glass house so that other people can profit from that example It says in verse 16 Take heed unto thyself unto the doctrine continuing them For in doing this thou shalt save thyself and them that hear thee Being a good example helps other people You kind of lead the flock, take care of the flock And then the flock can follow in like step Go over to 1 Peter chapter 5, 1 Peter chapter number 5 So when you think about this When we talk about being diligent and know the state of their flocks In finance we need to know how much money we have And then we got to think about what kind of money we have Is this money going to keep coming in? Is it sustainable? What kind of quality is it? We talk about people, we need to know how many people we have And we need to know what kind of well-being What's their quality? What's their state of mind? Where are they at? Because it's one thing to have a church of 200 That's the number But that doesn't mean it's positive or negative Think about it What if you have 200 but two weeks ago you had 500? That might not be in a good well-being Or maybe you had 100 and now you have 200, right? Those are two completely different scenarios Even though you're at the exact same number Or let's say you have 200 people in the room And half of them have the NIV in hand The other half have the NASB in hand Half of them believe in you can lose your salvation The other half believe in speaking in tongues One little group believes in oneness Well, it doesn't matter that you have 200 people there Or maybe you go to an old IFB church And you have 1000 people in the room But you have 10 people that go soul-winning Right? I mean, it doesn't matter the number as much as the well-being in many cases too We need to know both, don't we? And you know what I love about this church is thinking about the well-being of our church Because not only do we have a lot of people in this room But we have a lot of people that want to go soul-winning Everybody in here has a King James Bible Everybody in here believes salvation is by faith And if they don't, they would still give you the right answer They're just a Judas, okay? But even Judas will tell you that salvation is by faith Right? Even he will give the right answers You know, I like that we have so much doctrinal unity in this church And we have the same spirit And we have the same attitude You know, that's what makes a healthy church Not that you have 200 sheep But that you have 200 healthy sheep And strong sheep And sheep that want to serve God That's what's really, really important Is knowing both of these And knowing the state of thy flocks 1 Peter 5 is kind of an admonition to elders So it's important to know the state And you know, constantly through the New Testament We're constantly being alerted to the state of the flock You think of 1 Corinthians 3 and the Apostle Paul says Hey, you guys are carnal He's saying, hey, this church is just carnal Just point blank, you guys are carnal In Hebrews chapter number 5 The author is telling the audience Hey, you guys have become babes You become such a babe that you need that people just only feed you milk Because you can't handle the word So he's saying you're immature You haven't grown If you think about the seven churches which are in Asia That God writes to in the book of Revelation He's telling them there are all kinds of different states Some are in really good states Some are in a lukewarm state Some are dead But you know what he's doing? He's saying this is what you guys are like This is the state that you're in This is the quality This is the well-being that you're in In Titus chapter 2 The author is giving instructions to the aged men, aged women, young men, servants And he's trying to help them understand what they're supposed to be like And you know to me it's really really important Not just to think about the number of people that come to our church Or what the number is But to know what the people are like And when I think about Steadfast Baptist Church I kind of want to just take a second to think about what it was like In 2019, January 6, January 19 I'm here Sunday morning Or Sunday evening actually I think it was the first service It was a Sunday evening I'm here What was the church like from a well-being perspective And what is it like now? Well, and I'll be honest Back then I didn't want to necessarily just come out and say some things But we've had six years to heal But when I came here When I first came to Steadfast Baptist Church It was obvious that church discipline had been neglected as a church And that there were some people that were just ready for church discipline And they had not been church disciplined And so there was a lot of church discipline At the very beginning days of Steadfast Baptist Church But it was because it had been neglected for so long Steadfast Baptist Church had a lot of insincere people among the ranks And today I feel like most of the people here are very sincere I'm sure there's at least one insincere person Because I've noticed that of all the insincere people that we catch They always overlap each other To where there's always insincere people with us So there's always going to be insincere and fake people with us And if you would just leave, we would love it But, you know, it is what it is In many ways, and I'm also thinking about some of our church plants There was a lot of carnality in the church And especially in Jacksonville I'm just going to be honest, it was a very carnal church Why do you say that? That's mean Yeah, but the church was constantly fighting with itself And here's the thing, when there's fighting You just check the box carnal It doesn't matter why they're fighting Or what the argument's about Just arguing and fighting in a church is fact carnal And there was a lot of fighting, a lot of arguing There was a lot of immaturity in the church The soul winning skill of the church was just not very well refined I felt like there was a lot of improvement that needed to be made in the soul winning The zeal for soul winning was kind of off When I first came, and in fact, I don't know exactly But I think we only had two or three soul winning times for the week And I'm not trying to contrast everything yet But now we have one every single day So that's definitely a major change But the cleanliness of the church was off And I'm just saying the physical cleanliness of the church There was just issues Gossip was rampant in our church People didn't even understand what the word gossip means apparently Or something Marriages were off Now I don't know why that's a shock But there was a lot of marriages that were off Attitude issues The church was filled with so much conspiracy It made everyone uncomfortable And everybody was paranoid Paranoid to the point that someone would just come in And they would just be grilled About why they were there And what their motives were And are you a reprobate And it's like it's a first time visitor And one of these people that visited Was Pastor Anderson's niece And she said like She visited the church and they're just like grilling her Wondering if she's an infiltrator All this crazy stuff And then finally she's just like I'm Pastor Anderson's niece And they're like oh okay And they just like back off But it was just like really unfriendly Very unwelcome And look There's obviously gonna be infiltrators and bad people every once in a while We should not have that attitude towards first time visitors Unless they look weird Okay I do have a policy that if they're really sus That we can ask them to leave But that's you know That's because they're exhibiting weird behavior Not because they just showed up The church was a very needy church It was very neglected There was doctrinal issues Like flat earth And I mean I'll just be honest with you I didn't even think flat earthers existed I thought they were all fake Like I thought they were just lying about it And just kind of being like a troll But I preached a sermon against flat earth And 13 people left our church And I was just thinking like what in the world You know I couldn't even believe it That there was one let alone like over a dozen It was bizarre A lot of women's roles were off And marriage teachings that were kind of off A lot of authority issues Accountability issues Transparency issues There was confusion in the church There was some rotten people and troublemakers Wow And just leadership issues In fact all leadership was bad Just all of it A lot of loyalty issues too But here's the thing Since then I've thought about this a lot And I've thought about okay What would I say today What does our church really look like And has our church improved Has our well-being of the flock changed at all since 2019 And I would say absolutely Number one the soul winning has improved greatly I mean the attitude The amount of soul winning that we're doing The skill of the soul winning that we're doing It's not even close And this is important Because maybe some people might think like Oh that's obvious It's not obvious I could take you to a ton of churches right now Where they're an old IBC church And the soul winning six years ago was better The soul winning six years ago was more people More times More zealous And now they're going less Not as enthusiastic Not as sharp And you know we want to always measure ourselves And say hey where were we six years ago I hope that god willing six years from now We're not like we've got one and a half times a month We just put a door hanger We don't confront people You know that would be sad wouldn't it If we could look back and say Man we had a soul winning time every single week Or every single day We had all these missions trips We were emphasizing soul winning Now it's just a visitation Every once in a while Nobody goes In the winter we shut it down And look there's plenty of churches Where they shut it down At daylight savings time There's plenty of churches a day Where they're not going as much They're not confronting people They have weird gospel presentations I went soul winning with a guy from an old IBC church And he said this He said he will not pray with anybody at the door He said they have to come to church And walk the aisle before Because otherwise it seems that they haven't really Repented of their sins And I'm thinking like What's wrong with you You know I mean just If that's the case no one's getting saved I mean think about how sad of a heaven you have If that's the requirements to get in How could you even do foreign missions Like how does that even work Alright guys I know I just preached to you Here in the Bahamas And I know that you changed your mind You put your faith in Jesus But you're gonna have to come to my church You're gonna have to get on a boat or a plane And fly to my church and walk the aisle For me to make sure that you get saved I mean that doesn't even make sense It's not even logical There's a major difference in the facilities of our church And the facilities are way better than Sansom Park I'm just gonna say it It's way better There's more transparency We actually put out financial records and stats And statistics and all kinds of stuff The spirit in our church is way different The joy in our church is way different And here's a big one The friendliness of our church is way different Boy it's a lot friendlier here than it was six years ago The music has improved greatly The quality of people has changed astronomically I mean we're just so much better And here's the thing that's important about this point When you have high quality people in your church You know you attract More high quality people And when your church is full of trashy people and weirdos You know you attract More trashy people, more weirdos Because at the end of the day You know I remember somebody I'm not gonna say names But I'm just like There was somebody that wanted to visit St. Vast And when they did earlier They were kind of thinking like It's rough And I'm kind of surprised that this person actually stuck with our church But at the end of the day You know they came for the soul winning And they were able to stick a lot of stuff out But there's some people That they're just gonna not be able to stick it out Or they're not gonna give it a chance Just because it's just too rough or too weird And we don't want to have those obstacles If we can avoid them right We want to be high quality people And attract other high quality people And we want to be friendly The documentaries are way better You say what documentaries? There was other documentaries before I ever became the pastor of this church And look the documentaries are way better The conferences I don't know if there was a conference before But our conferences are great The knowledge of our church is awesome The life quality of many people in this room Is just way better than it was six years ago And the job that many people have from six years ago Way better The podcasts In the past they were gently led Now they have a Baptist bias alright It used to be before women were gently leading you Now we have a compilation of husbands doing stuff their wives Alright I'm not gonna talk about them anymore But you know let me make it clear Let me give all the credit though To the King James Bible folks Because let me tell you something When I came to be the pastor of this church I don't know how to run a church I don't know how to build a church I don't know how to fix a church I don't know how to do any of those things But you know what I do know? This does This knows how to run a church This knows how to fix a church This knows how to do everything for church Because you know what? Jesus Christ is the one that purchased this church with his own blood And this Bible, you know what? I believe it's true And because it's true I have faith that the word of God works And so when I go to this book and I say Alright I don't know what to do in this situation What do I do? I just believe it And here's the thing The reason why we have been successful Is one thing We put our faith in what this says And we decided to just do what this says When this says, hey Throw out railers You know what I did? I threw out the railers There's so many people that say Oh that's not the right thing to do Or you're just making up definitions of railers Or blah blah blah I don't care what you said I'm gonna throw you out if you're a railer And I just believe it And you know what? Wisdom is justified for children You know how many people I regret Throwing out for being a railer? Zero And our church is greatly improving You know, cast out the skewerner And the strife shall cease Is what the Bible says Hey, you know The Bible says to scream and to cry loud And I do it The Bible says let no man despise thee And I do it You know what? You're not gonna just trash the pastor And come to this church And it's not because it's me It's because it's the pastor You just don't trash the pastor You don't despise the pastor You don't despise the things of God And you know what? That's not my opinion That's God's opinion Let no man despise thee Bible Hey, the Bible says to approve, rebuke, and exhort With all long suffering and doctrine And that's what I do Because that's what the Bible says The Bible says to do the work of an evangelist And let me tell you something I'm going out there in the highways In the hedges and compelling them to come in I'm going on the missions trips Yeah, I've been to all kinds of foreign countries I've been to Mexico multiple times I've been to Jamaica I've been to the Bahamas I've been to Fiji I've been to Australia I've been to the Philippines And we're going to more Hey, I am gonna do the work of an evangelist Pastor Shelley just wants to go on personal adventures That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard I'm gonna go out there and preach the gospel To all kinds of different people And I'm gonna do the work of an evangelist Hey, I'm gonna pray for wisdom Because the Bible says it I'm gonna pray for grace I'm gonna pray for miracles I'm gonna pray for labor Hey, you know what? I prayed for my wife And there's been times where in my past There's ebbs and flows in our relationship But there's been times where I've wanted something To change in our relationship And you know what? I just prayed that God would be the one To change our relationship Or change the problems that we have And you say, why would you pray for that? Because I believe that the Bible works I believe that God can go into the heart of man And He can change it And I believe when you're a God And I believe when you're a good example And you're seeking God And you're doing what's right And you're praying God can perform miracles in your life There's been many people in my life Where I thought they wouldn't change Or the situation wouldn't change What I did is I said, hey, I'm gonna be diligent I'm gonna be faithful I know the state of my flock And I'm gonna pray that God will change it The Bible says every word of God is pure I believe it The Bible says that women should not wear that Which pertains unto a man And guess what? Let me tell you something I believe it And I say it Oh, you're not gonna build a church doing that You're gonna offend people I don't care I don't know how to build a church I'm just gonna do whatever this says And if you like it Or lump it Whatever It doesn't bother me I mean, I can't get enough people out of this church We just keep growing God says that He punishes people And I believe it I believe it Boy, I would not want the disease that's cleaving fast Onto one of our haters that's happening And look, you think that's one example? I know all kinds of examples I've seen so many people that have just hated on us Attacked us And boy, let me tell you something The quality of their life has gone down into the toilet And their skin's gone down into the toilet And their face has gone down into the toilet And they've died And all kinds of horrible, evil things are happening to them And you know, I see a lot of people in this room And their lives get better And the quality of life goes up And look, it's not because of me Or this building Or this sign It's because of this This works I believe it And we should be diligent to know the state of our flux Hey, you should be paying attention to your wife You should be paying attention to your children And you should be thinking Are they headed in the right spiritual direction? And you should know the state of them And you should be praying for them And encouraging them And be an example unto them You know what? God punishes people that reject the gospel By making them gay And I believe it After I get someone saved I say, now some people hate the gospel And they reject it And then God punishes them by making them gay And they just laugh And then I say, watch the movie Hey, Brother Jordanell's my witness That I'm talking to this girl She can't close the door fast enough I tell her that And then she's like, no Wait a second I need to turn off the stuff in the kitchen I'm going to come back I want to see this in the Bible right now And it was just like, here's Romans 1 Okay She's like, I've never heard that She was laughing the whole time But then, you know, she took the ticket She's like, I'm going to watch this Hey, I believe that the Jews are the synagogue of Satan Because the Bible says so And all of reality, okay? Hey, I believe when the Bible says Yea, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus Shall suffer persecution I believe it I don't think that we're doing something wrong I think we're doing something right And let me tell you something Boy, I would not want to serve God For 20 years of my life And not suffer persecution Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus Shall suffer persecution If you're godly, show me your persecution If you don't have persecution Here's my question Where's your godliness? And many people want to question Those that are suffering the greatest persecution Say, these people aren't godly These people aren't righteous And I'm thinking like They seem like the most righteous people on the planet Look at all the persecution Hey, if you're being persecuted hard Just check that box godly That's what the Bible says You know, I'm not really worried about All the different things of church Because like I said I don't know how to run a church I don't know how to be successful in running a church You could even argue Hey, when Pastor Shelley took over this church He was kind of a novice And wasn't well prepared And didn't have the skills I didn't Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep But I had one thing I believe the Bible And here's the second thing I had a Bible And let me tell you something We need to believe this thing There's nothing more real than this There's nothing more trustworthy than this And you know, any position and leadership that you have right now You need to be diligent to know the state of your flocks If you're a mother in here You need to know what's going on with your kids If you are a husband in here You need to know what's going on with your wife And with your kids If you have employees Hey, if you're a soul winning captain You better know what's going on with your soul winning group Hey, you're an usher You should be paying attention to what's going on in the church building Hey, you're in the music ministry As a leader You need to be making sure you understand what's going on with your musicians Hey, you're a cleaner Or you're a manager of cleaners You need to be making sure what's going on with the cleaning You're an evangelist You're a deacon You're a pastor You're whatever You need to make sure you know what's going on with what God has entrusted you with And many people, they care about one thing They care about growing They care about the number We should know the number But we should be really, really careful to know the state To think about the state And this is what I think Why would God want to give us more if we're not being successful with what we already have? And so we should always be thinking like Am I doing a great job with what I have? Because when you're doing a great job with what you have I believe God will in due time bless you with more But if you're not taking advantage of what you have Well, many times he'll take that away I think for a lot of you young guys A lot of you young people Instead of being focused on what could happen in the future What you would like to see in the future Focus in right now on what you have Focus in on what you have Whatever opportunities you have to minister right now Do excellent at that Whatever soul winning opportunities you have Do excellent with that If you just have a wife Just focus in on your wife You have one kid Focus in on that one kid Don't try to get ahead of yourself And try to worry about all the things that you don't have Worry about the things you do have Hey, you're a young lady You get married Focus on your husband Focus in on what you have You have one kid Focus on that one kid Focus in on what you have now And what you can change now And be a good steward of what you have right now And then God will bless you with more Or make those things better in the future But we don't want to get just so hyper focused in on things that we don't have Or the future You know, I think as a pastor There's this temptation for a lot of us To wish that we had a bigger church Or you could want to compare yourself to other people Or those kind of things But, you know, it's a really bad move You should just never ever do that This is what you should just always think of Am I doing a good job with the people that showed up? And I remember praying to God a long time ago Because when I was going to start a church I had no idea what to expect I always tried to have low expectations I had no expectations But I did pray and I asked God this I said, this is the one thing I want I just want one guy in my church That really wants to serve God I just want one person That just like really cares That wants to just get plugged in Dedicated That wants to grow That wants to learn the Bible I said, because as long as I have one person there That's just really zealous Then it'll motivate me to preach really great sermons for that person And to be a good example for that person And, you know, I think that we have lots of people like that But at the end of the day, that's all I wanted Was just the one I wasn't focused in on trying to get a job I wasn't focused in on trying to get a bunch of people Who cares about that? I don't want 200 people that don't care I'd rather have one that cares And I'll preach for that one person And, you know, I'll preach for my family I'll preach for everybody And I'm not only caring about that But I'm just saying that's what I prayed and asked God for And, you know, for a lot of us We need to just be focused in on what we do have And paying attention to what God has blessed us with And be good, good stewards of that flock Of whatever he has entrusted us with So let us be good stewards Because God will continue to bless us Let us take advantage of the opportunities we have And, you know, praise God for the well-being of our church Because it's dramatically, dramatically changed But let us hopefully six years from now say It's gotten even better Let's go some prayer Thank you Heavenly Father so much for our church Thank you so much for the work that you've given us to do Thank you for the money and the finances that you've blessed us with I pray that we would be good stewards of that I pray that we would be good managers That we would take account of what you've given us And I pray that we would also take account of the spiritual things you've given us The gospel and the King James Bible I pray that we would be diligent with the gospel you've given us That we go out and preach I pray that we would count the cost of being a disciple Thank you so much for all the people you've given us in our lives Our wives and our children Our servants I pray that you would help us to be good stewards Help us to be good managers and stewards and examples unto them And I pray that you would just help our church To continue to grow and to serve you And that we would make sure that whatever you entrust us with That we would be faithful with So you could bless us with more In Jesus' name we pray, Amen Alright, in closing, let's go to song number 15 Song number 15, lead me to Calvary Song number 15 Song number 15, let's all sing it out together on the first King of my life, I crown thee now Thine shall the glory be Lest I forget thy poor crown growl Lead me to Calvary Lest I forget that ceremony Lest I forget thy agony Lest I forget thy love for dear Lead me to Calvary Show me the tomb where thou wast laid Tenderly born and bled Angels and rogues of wide array Hard is the lost house left Lest I forget that ceremony Lest I forget thy agony Lest I forget thy love for me Lead me to Calvary Let me like Mary through the gloom Come with her gift to thee Show to me now the empty tomb Lead me to Calvary Lest I forget that ceremony Lest I forget thy agony Lest I forget thy love for me Lead me to Calvary May I be willing, Lord, to bear Daily I cross for thee Even I come from grief to share Thou that's more all for me Lest I forget that ceremony Lest I forget thy agony Lest I forget thy love for me Lead me to Calvary