(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alleluia, singing heavens and earth reply, Alleluia, lives again our glorious King, Alleluia. Where, O death, is now thy sting, Alleluia, Doubting but see all the same, Alleluia. Where thy victory, O grave, Alleluia, Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia. Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia. Death in vain, forbidden rise, Alleluia. Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia, Sing we to our God above, Alleluia. Praise eternal as his love, Alleluia. Praise to God, he heavenly host, Alleluia. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Alleluia. Praise, Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature, Hold thou of God and plan the sun. Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor, How my soul's glory, joy, and crown. Fair are the meadows, Fairest in the woodlands, Roam in the blooming dark of spring. Jesus is bearer, Jesus is pure, Who makes the woeful heart to sing. Fair is the sunshine, Fair is still the moonlight, Hail of the twinkling starry host. Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer Than all the angels, them can boast. Beautiful Savior, Lord of the nations, Son of God and Son of man. Glory and honor, praise and oration, Now and forevermore be thine. There was a time on earth when in the book of heaven, The Holy Count was standing for Satan and for him. My name was at the top and many things we know. I tread until the keeper and sell it all to no one but God. Yes, the Holy Count was settled on the ground, And the records clear today, glory must my sins await. And the old account was settled long ago, And the old account was large and growing every day. The rock was always singing and never tried to fade. The land looked ahead and the sauce was made in gold. I said, I said, Lord, I said, Lord, I said, Lord, I said, Lord, Yes, the Holy Count was settled long ago, And the records clear today, glory must my sins await. And the old account was settled long ago, When at the judgment bar I stand before my King And he the book will open and cannot find his name, And will my heart be glad, my fears will grow, Because the night is settled on the ground, And the Holy Count was settled long ago, Yes, the Holy Count was settled long ago, And the records clear today, glory must my sins await. And the old account was settled long ago, When in that happy home, my Savior's home above, I'll sing redemption's story and praise Him for His love, And I'll prevent the world from being as white as snow, Because the King is settled and settled long ago, Long ago, long ago, Yes, the old account was settled long ago, And the records clear today, glory must my sins await. And the old account was settled long ago, O sinners, seek the Lord, repent of all your sin, For thus He hath prepared for you today, And may the peace you bear, how high three years we go, How dare you not repent, If we settle long ago, long ago, Long ago, long ago, Yes, the old account was settled long ago, And the records clear today, glory must my sins await. And the old account was settled long ago, When with the Savior we enter the glory, Then won't it be wonderful there, Making the troubles and cares of the story, Then won't it be wonderful there, Won't it be wonderful there, Having no burdens to bear, Joyously singing with heart bells all ringing, Oh, won't it be wonderful there, Walking and talking with Christ the soprano, Won't it be wonderful there, Raising the door in the matchless eternal, Won't it be wonderful there, Won't it be wonderful there, Having no burdens to bear, Joyously singing with heart bells all ringing, Oh, won't it be wonderful there, There where the tempest will never be sleeping, Oh, won't it be wonderful there, Sure that forever the Lord will be keeping us, Won't it be wonderful there, Won't it be wonderful there, Having no burdens to bear, Joyously singing with heart bells all ringing, Oh, won't it be wonderful there. I've found a friend who is tall to me, His love is ever true, I love to tell him how he can give me, And what his grace may be for you. Say, what his power be mine, Say, if you like so mine, That now the sea and the trees Are built for us, say, say, say, He saved me from every sin and harm, Say, would my soul be saved, Though bleeding strong by his mighty arm, Your right hand will guide me all the way, Say, what his power be mine, Say, if you like so mine, That now the sea and the trees Are built for us, say, say, say, We're poor and free and all alone, If love is sad to me, Come on to me when I leave you all, To live with me eternally, Say, what his power be mine, Say, if you like so mine, That now the sea and the trees Are built for us, say, say, say. I'd rather have Jesus Than silver or gold, I'd rather be his, Than have riches untold, I'd rather have Jesus Than wealth or wealth, I'd rather be led by his nails, Let him be the king Of the vast domain, Or be held in sin's best way, I'd rather have Jesus In any name, To this world of course today, I'd rather have Jesus Than men of cause, I'd rather be faithful To his dear cause, I'd rather have Jesus Than world wide way, I'd rather be true, To his holy name, Let him be the king Of the vast domain, Or be held in sin's best way, I'd rather have Jesus In any name, To this world of course today, Oh, now I see the crimson wave, The fountain deep and wild, Jesus, my Lord, my Jesus, say, Voice to his word in sigh, The cleansing stream, I see, I see, I come to know him cleantheth me, Oh, praise the Lord in cleantheth me, In cleantheth me, yes, cleantheth me, I see the new creation rise, I hear the speaking blood, It speaks colors in nature, I see, speak the crimson flood, The cleansing stream, I see, I see, I come to know him cleantheth me, Oh, praise the Lord in cleantheth me, In cleantheth me, yes, cleantheth me, I rise to walk in heavens of light, Above the world and sin, With hearts with pure and purpose wide, And Christ in Brooklyn, The cleansing stream, I see, I see, I come to know him cleantheth me, Oh, praise the Lord in cleantheth me, In cleantheth me, yes, cleantheth me, All the last amazing graces that we know, To feel the blood of Christ, And Jesus only, Jesus known, By Jesus crucified, The cleansing stream, I see, I see, I come to know him cleantheth me, Oh, praise the Lord in cleantheth me, In cleantheth me, yes, cleantheth me, I was lost in sin, But Jesus was with me, So wonderful to me, I found my fear, But Jesus set me free, He's a wonderful Savior to me, For he's a wonderful Savior to me, He's a wonderful Savior to me, I was lost in sin, But Jesus was with me, He's a wonderful Savior to me, He's a friend so true, So patient and so kind, He's a wonderful Savior to me, And with me, and with me, In my own time, He's a wonderful Savior to me, Oh, praise the Lord, He's a wonderful Savior to me, He's a wonderful Savior to me, I was lost in sin, But Jesus was with me, He's a wonderful Savior to me, He is always near, To comfort and to cheer, He's a wonderful Savior to me. Thank you for watching! . . . Good morning everyone. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. Thank you all for coming. We're going to go ahead and get started. Looks like everybody's pretty much seated already. You can go ahead and grab a hymnal. We're going to start in song number 162. To God be the glory. Song number 162. Sing it out nice and loud. Song 162. To God be the glory. To God be the glory. Great things He had done, Showed love to the world That He gave us His Son, To heal His life and atone him for sin, And open the life gate that all may call in, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, Let the earth hear His voice, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, Let the people rejoice, O come to the Father through Jesus the Son, And give Him the glory, Great things He had done. Song 162 on the second. O perfect redemption, The purchase of God, To ev'ry believer, The promise of God, The finest of men who truly believe, That moment from Jesus the pardon receives, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, Let the earth hear His voice, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, Let the people rejoice, O come to the Father through Jesus the Son, And give Him the glory, Great things He had done. On the last, Great things He had done, Great things He had done, Then great all rejoicing, Through Jesus the Son, Our glory higher and greater will be, Our wonder, our transform, In Jesus we see, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, Let the earth hear His voice, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, Let the people rejoice, O come to the Father through Jesus the Son, And give Him the glory, Great things He had done. Excellent singing everyone. Let's go ahead and bow our heads for a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day, we thank you for this church, we thank you for all the souls that were won in Mexico, Lord. We ask Lord that you bless this church and all the people in it, and that you help Pastor Shelley preach an edifying sermon unto us so we can walk out better Christians in the way we came in, Lord, for your honor and glory. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Alright, next up we have song number 162. Oh, I'm sorry, we ended up changing this one. Do you remember? 136, thank you. Song 136. Master, the Tempest is Raging. Song number 136. Sing it out on the first. Master, the Tempest is Raging. The billows are tossing high. The sky is o'ershadowed with blackness. No shelter or help is nigh. Carrots now come that we perish. Our hands now fly as sweet. In each moment your family is dreading. A grave in the angry deep. The winds and the waves shall obey my will. Peace be still. Better the wrath of the storm toss deep. Or demons or men or whatever they be. Where the water can swallow the shin. Where lies the master of ocean and urban times. They all shall sweetly obey my will. Peace be still. Peace be still. They all shall sweetly obey my will. Peace, please be still. Master with anguish shall spirit. Life now is my grief today. The depths of my sad heart are troubled. Awaken and save I pray. Torments of sin and of anguish. Speed o'er my sinking soul. And I perish, I perish dear master. For he did not take control. The winds and the waves shall obey my will. Peace be still. Better the wrath of the storm toss deep. Or demons or men or whatever they be. Where the water can swallow the shin. Where lies the master of ocean and urban times. They all shall sweetly obey my will. Peace be still. Peace be still. They all shall sweetly obey my will. Peace, please be still. On the last. Master the terror is over. The elements we've repressed. First done in the calm latest mirror. And heaven's within my grasp. Favour of rest in redeemer. Be ye alone no more. And with joy I shall bring the best harbor. And rest on the blissful shore. The winds and the waves shall obey my will. Peace be still. Better the wrath of the storm toss deep. Or demons or men or whatever they be. Where the water can swallow the shin. Where lies the master of ocean and urban times. They all shall sweetly obey my will. Peace be still. Peace be still. They all shall sweetly obey my will. Peace, please be still. We'll be summarizing the entire chapter of Matthew 28. It's a big chapter, but if you can get it done, and you can quote it to a non-family member, there is a special prize. Of course, the bigger chapters have a bigger prize. Any children 18 and under that can quote our verse of the week. You can get a special ice cream treat on Wednesdays. On the inside is our service times. We have Spanish service on 9 a.m. in the morning. We also have our Sunday morning here, and then our Sunday evening at 4.30. On Wednesday night, Bible study, we've been going through the book of Matthew, and so we're going to continue doing that. Our church-wide soul-winning times meet here at the building, and we go out soul-winning. Of course, if you've never been soul-winning, you're always welcome to join us or participate. We love silent partners as well, which just means there's no obligation for you to have to necessarily talk or give the gospel yet. You can just go with someone that is experienced in preaching the gospel and giving the gospel and learn how to do soul-winning with them. Regional times meet in different parts of the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area as our church is really spread out geographically, and so if you'd like to go, there's pretty much a soul-winning time every single day of the week. There is a time, of course, ladies go to every time, but there's a special ladies' time that my wife helps lead on Thursdays at 10.30 a.m., and so if you'd like to be a part of that, you can always message my wife, and a lot of ladies have been going out then. Also down below is our stats for the year, and really, it's been a great, great year. We've been kicking off really strong. In January, we had about, I think, 368 salvations for January, which was the best month that we've ever had apart from the one time we went to the Bahamas, because when we went to the Bahamas, we had like almost 1,000 salvations, and so that one month obviously was better, but apart from that, this last January was one of our best months that we've ever had, and I think that February, we're gonna probably beat it, so just because our Mexico missions trip went so well, and we had a great turnout. Now, I hadn't even been keeping track of just the Mexico missions trips, but I was just kind of curious, and Miss Lucy, I asked her, and she had kept stats on it, and our biggest event prior to was all the way back to 2019. We've gone there every year virtually, and in 2019, we had 177 salvations, but this year, we pushed ourselves, and we got 187 salvations, so praise the Lord. Honestly, it went really, really great, and I have a lot to say about it too, but I'm probably gonna say some things in my sermon about it anyways, but I did want to ask a few different guys in our church if they would just kind of give a little testimonial. We had a visitor with us, Brother Uriel. He came from Chicago down there, so I wanted you to come up here and just give us a few minutes of your experience and what you thought about the Mexico missions trips. Come on here, and I'm gonna have Brother Diego and Brother Marcel, y'all can come down too, and y'all can give a testimony real quick. Hey, good morning, everybody. So like Pastor Shelley said, my name is Uriel, and I came all the way from Chicago, and I was really happy that he presented this opportunity for me. I'm Mexican, and I have a big burden for Mexico, and so I'm glad that Pastor Shelley has that same burden, and it's funny that, you know, a gringo has a big burden for the people of Mexico, and so the missions trip kind of started off rough. The people didn't seem really receptive, but once you kind of started picking out who was gonna be receptive and who wasn't, it started going a lot better. There was a bit of a learning curve to it, but I mean, the people there, I mean, there's so many people you'll find receptive people and that are willing to give you their time, and even those that really don't want to, you can kind of just, like, really encourage them and get them to listen to you, and a lot of them got saved. There's a lot of false religions in that same marketplace where we were, and it's funny, because, like, you can tell people, oh, yeah, those religions, they're false, but you can kind of, like, show them as you're preaching the gospel. So, like, here we're actually showing you what the Bible says, and these false religions are not really showing you anything. They're just kind of standing there, and we were getting really persecuted by it, but it was a good turnout. We had a lot of salvations, and it's really receptive, and I was really encouraged by all the white people that came that are trying to learn Spanish, and it just really motivated me to, you know, catch up with them, because they were just really good, and they were very zealous, and I just want to thank Pastor Shelley again for letting me have this opportunity to come here. I would definitely echo all the sentiments that Uriel said. Yeah, I'm really grateful for Pastor Shelley's vision for the Spanish-speaking people. Thankfully, he allows us to have a Spanish service, and, yeah, the Mexican mission trip was great. I got a lot of salvations. That first morning was rough. I didn't get any, but after that, pretty much every other time, I got at least one salvation, and, yeah, it motivated me to just try to go do more soul-willing trips in Mexico, because I'd always be able to go to Mexico because I also have a big burden for Mexico. I was born in Mexico City, and I would actually like to go soul-willing there at some point later this year, and, yeah, it motivates me to see, because Mexico's in a really bad spot right now. You know, they have a Jewish communist president, but what motivates me is that we can make a difference, right? I can't make a difference politically, but I can make a difference through the soul-willing, getting people saved, and, yeah, I'm really grateful as well for all the white people, even the non-Spanish speakers that went. It definitely encourages me as well, because I want more Mexicans to get this burden, you know? It seems like, I told Pat Shelley this, that it seems like the biggest and best church in Mexico City is run by a white guy, and I want to change that, right? So, yeah, really grateful for the opportunity, really grateful for the trip, and hopefully, you know, more of y'all are encouraged to come along. It sounds better when he says that than if I said that. I just want to say thank you to Pastor Shelley for hosting this missions trip, and thank you to this church for your contributions to our church, because, you know, without you guys, altogether, we wouldn't be able to do a great work like this. I would just kind of echo some of the things that Uriel said as well. It was definitely a difficult time for me personally, because a lot of people seemed apathetic, they didn't really seem to kind of care. Also, in the location we were in, there was like a plaza, and there's a lot of stores, there's a lot of people selling stuff, there's a lot of music, a lot of noise, but sometimes you just got to learn how to navigate, you know, in stormy seas, and kind of figure out how to get the job done. So, my personal method is what I typically do in English as well, but in Spanish, what I was doing, the Bible says, like, whosoever will, let him come into the world of life freely. So, I just kind of try to target the people who I perceive will be the most receptive. I didn't really go to a lot of older people, I just kind of went to, like, teenagers and, like, younger adults, and I was just kind of, like, targeting them in the strip mall, in the plaza, and those different type of areas. And thank God, you know, I was able to have one of my best records in Mexico. I believe, like, the last two years, two years that I actually learned how to preach the gospel for the first time. I believe I got, like, eight people saved the first year. The second year, I got about maybe, like, 14, 15. This year, I was able to get 23 salvations, and because I've been going year after year, it motivates me to keep practicing my Spanish and get better. Unfortunately, like, I am from a Hispanic heritage, but I wasn't raised speaking Spanish, so I had to kind of, like, just relearn it all. So, coming to this church, you know, there's a lot of gringos over here speaking Spanish, and I'm like, how are these guys speaking Spanish? And I can't even speak Spanish myself. So, that kind of pushed me to learn to speak Spanish, and I'm very grateful that, you know, I was encouraged to learn. And because now I can take part of these Spanish mission trips. So, I'll just kind of end on this. Hopefully, everybody could try to, you know, try to learn how to speak Spanish. You know, my personal goal, and I think everybody should have this goal, obviously, is to preach the gospel in all the world, but I would like to preach the gospel in every single Spanish country, every single English country, in every single state of America. I think so far, me and Lucy were in competition. I believe she has 13 states she preached in in America. I have about seven, so I'm trying to make it 50 someday. But thank you, Pastor Shelley. Thank you, Steadfast, for everything, you know, for everything you guys do. And make sure to talk to all the people that went there on the trip, and some of those gringos that speak really good Spanish, Brother Nick Shermer and Brother Matt Illy, they speak great Spanish, and they're great soul winners, and they are snow white, you know what I mean? And so they're provoking them unto jealousy is what they're doing, and it's a good jealousy. You know, someone needs to get jealous for the country of Mexico and jealous for Spanish-speaking people, and try to get them saved because, you know, the apathy that they're describing is more of just a general apathy of the whole country. It's not so much necessarily just the individuals, but it's just kind of a general apathetic culture, mostly because of their oppression, because of the false religion that's been keeping them down. Of course, he brought up their government. Having a Jewish woman communist is about as worse as you can get, so obviously they have a lot of things working against them, but it's great that someone can show them some good and preach the gospel to them. And so, you know, I highly encourage you, if you have been working on Spanish at all, if you have any level of interest, to really consider, because it's not only something you can use down in Mexico, but you can often use it here in Texas, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. There's other areas. Houston, of course, is a major area where you can use Spanish, but even if you go to places like Oklahoma, I was able to give the gospel to many people in Spanish when I would visit in Oklahoma and go soloing up there. And so, you know, if you ever consider learning a foreign language, I think Spanish is probably the best language to learn for English speakers, and so I would highly encourage you to consider that. We'll probably be taking another trip to Mexico at the end of the year. There's also, like Brother Diego mentioned, he's trying to organize maybe a group to go to Mexico City at some point, and so there's going to be continual trips and other opportunities in the future, and so even if you're not ready to preach the gospel in Spanish now, just start working on it. And, of course, we really appreciate all of our church for supporting us and praying for us, because the trip went really smooth. Everything went really well, and, of course, I always try to make sure to feed our group really, really well, and so ask them. I'm sure they really enjoyed themselves, and we try to make missions trips fun, and we even appreciated some of our gringos that can't speak Spanish. You know, they were just there to support us and be with us, and it was fun to have them as well, so thank you so much for our church for going down there. We have other missions trips, though, and other events for, you know, just English speaking, of course. Our cruise missions trips coming up in just a few, like really like a week, and we're going to be going to some Caribbean islands. Honestly, I love going down to Mexico and preaching the gospel, and they're very receptive, but the Caribbean's more receptive in general, and so you don't feel like you're missing out by being an English speaker. You can go to the Caribbean, and you can have some of the greatest soul-winning opportunities you could ever wish for, and so those cruise mission trips are a great opportunity. We're also having the Bahamas missions trip in October, and we have a lot of people signed up. I think it's going to be the biggest missions trip that I am aware of for, like, new IFB or whatever that was ever happened, and so it's going to be a pretty epic journey, and we're already preparing and praying for that. Also, we have some other kids events. We're going to have a kids choir March 2nd, spring recital March 22nd. Also in the month of March, I don't think it's on here, but I think it's March 8th. We're having a Spanish marathon, a Spanish soul-winning marathon, and then we're going to have a Spanish breakfast before our Spanish services, and so we'll make sure to put that in there. Our church reminders are down below. Please take note of that. On the back, we have our prayer list, and one thing to note for the Garcia's, their daughter, Miss Christa, ended up giving birth to Victoria Elma, and so that's exciting, and Miss Eva is going to be going up there to see her daughter soon, and so congratulations to them. And it was great to have them and Miss Lucy down there because I'll tell you, the lady soul-winners down there were serious. They kicked our butt. I mean, they actually just knocked it out of the park, and so it's great to have some ladies down there that are zealous for soul-winning and preaching the gospel, and they have woman privilege or whatever it is. I don't know, but they did a great job, so let's go ahead and sing our third song for this morning, Psalm 150. It's going to be in our special handbooks, our special notebooks, hymn booklets, so if you want to get turned there, Psalm 150. Psalm 150. You'll notice at the end there's a little bit cut off, but it's God in three persons. It's the coda. Psalm 150. On the first. Praise be to the Lord. Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him with love. Burn the bent of His power. Praise Him for His mighty acts. Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise Him with love. Sound of the trumpet. Praise Him with love. Solitary and hard. Praise Him with a timbrel I guess. Praise Him with strength, instruments, can't orient. Praise Him upon the loud cymbals. Praise Him upon the sounding cymbals. Let everything that have breath. Praise the Lord. Praise be to the Lord. Praise God the Father. Praise God the Son. Praise God the Holy Ghost. Praise God in three persons. Great singing everybody. If the offering plates are going around would you please turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter number 10. Hebrews chapter number 10. Hebrews 10 the Bible reads, For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers they run to perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered, because that the worshipers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there was a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore, when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, To do thy will, O God. Above, when He said, Sacrifice and offering, and burnt offerings, and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the law. Then said He, Lo, I come, to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also was a witness to us, for after that He had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now, where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, and having an high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised. And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as ye see the day approaching. For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses, of how much sorer punishment suppose ye. Shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite under the spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, sayeth the Lord, and again the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, but called to remembrance the former days in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions, partly whilst ye were made a gazing stock, both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. Forget a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father God, we thank you for Hebrews chapter 10 and for our sermon this morning. I pray that you fill Pastor Shelley with the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit and enable him to preach the sermon you've laid on his heart with boldness and with clarity of mind. Help us to listen carefully, give us ears to hear, and enable us to apply this message to our lives to be better Christians. We love you in Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Amen. I want to look back again at verse 24. The Bible says, And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works. Now the Bible says that we are to do something, we are to provoke unto love. And that's the title of my sermon this morning, is that we are to provoke unto love. And notice the motivation, notice the purpose here in verse 24 is considering one another. The reason why we're provoking unto love is because it's going to cause other Christians to love more. What does the word provoke mean? According to the dictionary it means to incite, it's to stir up, or to cause a reaction. And so by provoking we are trying to provoke people to love more and to do good works. And we as God's people should be constantly provoking one another unto love. Now of course brothers love to provoke each other unto anger, or provoke each other unto wrath, or provoke each other unto irritation. And that's through being annoying, or an adversary, or envying, or hateful. But we need to make sure that when we're provoking one another, we're doing it to provoke them unto love. That we're trying to encourage them to love more and to have good works. Now this is I believe brought up in the Bible in a few different ways, but I want to go to Romans chapter 10 for a moment, go to Romans chapter number 10. Of course in Hebrews 10, I'm not going to necessarily belabor that passage, but the whole point is to provoke them unto love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of themselves together as the manner of some is. And so we use that passage to often indicate the importance of church. Because church is a congregation. Congregation is the idea of congregating. The assembly is where we're assembling. And so you'll see a lot of churches named the Church of God, or the Congregation of God, or the Assembly of God. Usually the Pentecostals are the ones that are taking these names. And there's nothing wrong with the names, just there's something wrong with Pentecostals. That's why they throw fits everywhere. They just throw all these fits or whatever. But that's not that their name is wrong. In fact many cults have a fine name. It's just their doctrine that's bad. The Church of Christ, there's nothing wrong with that name, but there's something wrong with those churches. There's something wrong with their doctrine. And we have to understand that a church is us congregating, assembling. Why would we assemble? What are we doing when we get together? We're considering one another, and we're going to provoke one another unto love and good works. We're trying to incite others to love. We're trying to incite others to do good works. We're trying to encourage people to do things that are biblical and God-honoring and to be steadfast and to endure and to do even more. We're trying to have iron, sharpen iron. That's why we're congregating. That's why we're assembling together. You know, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. What's the point? We're trying to admonish one another when we're singing loud and we're singing the Word of God. We're trying to provoke you to love God. The first song we sing is probably my favorite hymn, To God Be the Glory. What are we trying to do? We're trying to provoke one another to realize that all of our glory should be going to God, that we should be giving Him the recognition and the honor for the works that we accomplish and for the successes that we have and that we're ultimately here for His honor and for His glory. And, of course, when we're gathered together, we are here to try and provoke one another and incite one another and encourage one another to love. There's a lot of inciting and stirring up that the Bible wants for us to do. Now, of course, God also had a plan for this in Romans chapter number 10 where He was going to get the Gentiles saved hoping to provoke the Jews to end up getting saved. This is what He says at the end of the chapter. Notice what He says in verse number 18. But I say, have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world. So the Jews have heard the Gospel. Everyone's heard the Gospel. The Gospel's being spread out throughout the entire world. So there's no excuse. Verse 19, But I say, did not Israel know? So He asks, well, but what about Israel? You said everybody heard, but are we sure that Israel heard? And He says, First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. So what was one of God's attempts at saving the Jews was to get a lot of Gentiles saved to try and provoke them into jealousy because in their mind the Lord is their God. Of course, they're not truly believing in Him. Of course, they're not truly worshiping Him, and they haven't actually been saved. But it's still the right God. It's still the right religion in the sense that it's the religion of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's just that they themselves have been taken advantage of by the leaven of the Pharisees and by the traditions of men, and they've been led astray, and they haven't actually believed the prophets, and they haven't gotten saved. And so they might have the right God, but they're not worshiping Him in spirit and in truth, and they're not saved. And so by others end up embracing their God and embracing the Lord God, Jehovah, and embracing the Lord Jesus Christ, it was trying to provoke them and stir them up to say, hey, you need to accept your God. It's not fair that they're getting the benefits and the blessings of your God. Imagine you're outside and your son won't play with you, and so you end up playing with the neighbor kid, and it's an attempt to provoke your son to want to play with you because you say, no, no, that's my dad. This is my dad. I want him to play with me. And so him seeing you having so much fun with the neighbor kid with just some kid that's not even necessarily a natural-born kid, it could provoke him to say, no, no, no, I want dad to play catch with me. No, I want dad to show me how to ride a bike. No, I want dad to do something with me. And this is what he's trying to explain here is that the Gentiles, we were kind of like the neighbor kid. We were like the stranger. And by us getting saved and doing great works and God blessing the Gentiles, it was to try and provoke the Jews into saying, hey, why don't you believe in Jesus Christ and do great works because he's your God? That's the whole point here. They're trying to provoke them, undo jealousy by getting them saved. Just like apparently we've heard testimony this morning, us white people going down into Mexico and getting Mexicans saved is to try and provoke those that are actually closer brethren to them to actually go out and do the work. Or those that actually speak Spanish natively, we're trying to provoke them into jealousy of their own language. They're like, how dare these gringos speak my language? They're not doing very good. You know, if you ever hear me preach the gospel, you say like, well, it's kind of awkward to communicate to the point but there's a better way to say it. Well, then you say it. Right? Trying to provoke them onto jealousy. Hey, this is your language. Hey, this might be people that are closer to you from a familial perspective or from your heritage, your upbringing, your culture, whatever. But at the end of the day, someone's got to do the job. And when we do the job, sometimes we can encourage others. We can incite others. We can stir up others. We can provoke them unto love. Say, hey, if they can love these people, how much more should I be willing to love these people? How much more should I be willing to sacrifice for these people? Verse 20, but Isaiah is very bold and saith, I was found of them that sought me not. I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me, but the Israeli saith, all day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. So, of course, God was trying so hard to get the Jews saved and was constantly offering them all of these opportunities, sending them prophets, sending them to the disciples, having Jesus Christ go unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Sorry, my mic dropped for a second. It was a different kind of mic drop. We'll get there later. No, I'm just kidding. We see all kinds of people preaching the gospel to the Jews and it not being very effective, but it wasn't because they didn't have the opportunity. It was because they were stiff-necked. It was because they were disobedient. It was because they were gainsaying people, and so that's why many of them did not get saved. Of course, some of them did get saved. Verse 1 of chapter 11 says, I say then that God cast away his people, God forbid. For I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew. Woe ye not what the scripture say of Elias, how ye make an intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and dig down thine altars, and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what say the answer of God in them? I have reserved myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. And let me tell you something. There are still seven thousand men that have not bowed the knee to the Mary Shrine in the Catholic Church in Mexico. And you know, you might go down there, and it might be apathetic of a lot of people, but you know what? There's still a remnant. You're not left alone. And we should realize that, hey, while the vast majority may not get saved, there's still seven thousand men down there that need to get saved. And you know, they said that there are some people that are apathetic. Let me tell you, there are some people that were not apathetic. Because my partner for the majority of our missions trip, when we went down to Mexico this last few days, was Pastor Reyes. Pastor Enrique Reyes of Springcrest Baptist Church. Highly recommend if you're in Houston, that area, go to his church. But Pastor Reyes was my partner, and he was also, I believe he was born in Mexico as well. And so he actually grew up in Reynosa for a large portion of his life. And so it's home-filled advantage. But he took advantage of that, and he was preaching to a lot of people. And for the most part, we did have to really confront people and really try to engage people and work really hard. But there was this one moment where some lady just like came out of nowhere and just like got in his face, and is just like, you know, explaining to me how to get saved or whatever. Like, I want to get saved. And her son, who was older, he was like 28 years old, he had come by and said, hey, I want to get saved too, or I want to hear, but I have to go do an errand or something. So like he ran off. I didn't even know any of this had happened. I was just preaching to some other people. I had finished up with them. And then I turned around, and Pastor Reyes is like, hey, her son is coming back. You need to preach to him. And I didn't know like if she was like a positive encounter or a negative one. I didn't know why he wanted to separate. But the son came back, and he's like, you preached to him. And I'm thinking like, I'm the worst preacher here. You know, I don't know why you're asking me to preach to him or whatever. But so I just started preaching to this guy. His name was Eduardo. Okay, Eduardo. And I was preaching to him, and very receptive. He believed salvation was part faith, part works. I made it abundantly clear it was by faith alone. After I asked him, I said, hey, is this different? He said, it's way different. I said, hey, yeah, this is way different. He understood it was a free gift. He ended up getting saved. And then I ended up realizing that the mom had also gotten saved with Pastor Reyes. It was a good experience. Because I didn't know if he was just trying to earn interference or not, but it was actually a good encounter. And his mom's name was Maria, of course. You already knew that. And so we were there, and it was kind of like right at lunchtime. So I said, hey, we ran out of Bibles. I was like, hey, we're running back to the restaurant. That's kind of where we park. Can you come back with us? We'll get you a Bible. We'll get you whatever. And if you want, why don't you stick around? You can have lunch with us or whatever. And they were like, yeah, we really want to. So they were going to walk quite a bit of ways with us back to get a Bible. And as we're walking back, it was funny because I don't even know what I said, but all of a sudden Eduardo just turns to me, and he just starts speaking to me in English. And I'm thinking like, this whole time I could have preached the gospel in English to you, and you knew this the whole time. And it was just so funny. But yeah, he spoke English very well. He had actually gone to, he had lived in the United States for a little while, and he had learned English in the United States, but now he's back in Mexico, but very zealous, very zealous. And we went back to lunch, and then brother Uriel was there, basically just nonstop just teaching his mom all kinds of doctrines and showing her all kinds of things in the Bible. And essentially she just saw some of us out there preaching the gospel, and she was just wanting to get saved. She had seen, I think, some other soul winners earlier, and I think one of them maybe wasn't sure if she was wanting to talk or wasn't confident talking to them or something, so they just kind of gave her a card. And she was like mad that they didn't get her saved. She was so mad. We go back to the restaurant, and then she just points at the person, and she's just like, you didn't get me saved. And it was just like, what in the world? But it wasn't that person's fault at all. It was just that obviously when you're out soul winning, you're just giving cards, you're interacting with people. It just happens, right? But she was like provoked unto jealousy almost because she saw other people getting saved. She saw other people hearing the gospel, and she was very zealous, and she wanted her and her son to get saved. And I'm telling you, hey, there are people out there that want to get saved. When you go on missions trips, it happens more often in America. Sometimes people just come out of nowhere and say like, hey, I want to hear what you have to say. I'm interested in getting saved today. And it's a unique experience. It's not often, but it's great. It's in Acts 16 where the guy just comes down and says, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And you're just thinking like, where have you been all my life? You go to dock doors in America. It's not very often that you're going to have an encounter where someone's really wanting to hear what you have to say, just coming and seeking after you. But I'll tell you, when you go on missions trips and you're praying, it can happen. We end up having lunch with these people. And then, of course, Pastor Reyes has a great idea. He's like, hey, why don't we ask him where's another place we can go? Where's a place that we can find more people? And Eduardo's like, hey, I know a spot where a lot of kids get out of school, you know, and they're kind of just hanging out. Like, he's explaining where to go. And I thought, you know, it's better, you know, directions in Mexico, it's kind of like sketch, all right? I'm thinking like, let's figure out where this is going. I said, hey, why don't you come with us? So he says, yeah, I'll go with you. So he just got saved. He wants the Spanish and an English Bible. He wants the sermons. He wants the sermons in English. He wants the sermons in Spanish. He's like, hey, I'll take you to the next soul winning spot. And so Brother Eduardo took us out to some area where a bunch of school kids were, and then there we just started preaching the gospel, and it was really effective for Pastor Reyes. Now, what's crazy is that afternoon, Pastor Reyes and I were partners, and, you know, we kind of preached, he's preaching to one group. I'm kind of preaching next to him or near him to another group, and that afternoon, he ended up having 15 people saved just in the afternoon. I mean, just going from group to group to group, and I mean, talk about a zealous soul winner. And let me tell you something. It is hard work. You know, it's honestly actually like summer over there. I don't know if you, you know, if you actually go down there, it was hot. It was like hot. It felt like summer. You know, the sun's beating down on you, and, you know, you're just in a foreign environment, so it's just a little bit more difficult just in general. And boy, I mean, he just killed it. He just went out there, and he got a lot of people saved. And I think, honestly, part of the reason why we pushed ourselves so hard that day and that afternoon is because the day prior, the two ladies that were in our group, Ms. Eva and Ms. Lucy, they were getting way more people saved than all the rest of us, and then they just keep doing it. In fact, the two ladies got more people saved than all of us consistently, just every single time just going out there, preaching the gospel, and you could tell they were just working super hard. Every time you notice them or saw them somewhere, they're just always talking to people, always talking to groups, always got their attention, and it was just great to see their zeal, and you know what it does? It provokes me to work a little harder. Because sometimes you're out there, and you've been out there for three hours, you've been out there for hours, or maybe you did it in a morning session, you've had lunch, you're out there in the afternoon, it's hot, and you start to just kind of get like, I don't know, I'm kind of done. But then you just see someone else going, you're like, all right, I gotta go too. You know, I can try to talk to another person, or I can just do a little bit more, or I can talk a little bit longer. And let me tell you something. For me, like, if you preach the gospel in Spanish as not a native speaker, my mouth and tongue literally hurt. I don't know how to explain it, because it's weird. It's like using muscles you've never used for a long time. It's like, if you haven't bowled in like six years, and then you bowled and your arms sore after, the day after something, you're like, that was weird, right? It's kind of like that, but it's like, when I speak in Spanish for a long time like that, I end up feeling really sore, which is crazy, because I talk for a living, basically. I mean, like, I preach really long. I mean, you know I preach long, okay? I preach long, I sing, I'm talking to my kids, I'm talking to people, I'm constantly on the phone. Like, I talk all the time. But you know, speaking a foreign language, somehow it's just different muscles, it's just different parts of the tongue and the mouth, and it literally hurts. I've never even experienced that in English. It's like never happened before in my life. But for some reason it does. And seeing other people just keep going, pushing themselves, getting people saved, it provokes me unto jealousy, provokes me unto love, and saying, hey, I can preach to another person. Hey, I can do this. I can talk to another individual. I can go through this difficulty. And you know, talk about light affliction, preaching the gospel. I mean, just using your mouth a little bit more when it's a little uncomfortable. I mean, this is light affliction, but let me tell you something. When I see other brethren going out there and I see other people being, you know, zealous and working hard and not giving up, it provokes me to keep going. If my partner's like, hey, I'm done, I'm quitting, that would provoke me to say, yeah, I'm kind of tired too, let's just give up. But I see them just keep going and keep going and keep preaching and keep reaching more people. Well, it provokes me to just keep going and keep reaching and keep preaching people. You know, that soul-winning partner is a vital part of preaching the gospel. They're provoking their partner under love. They're provoking their partner under good works. And let me tell you something. If you went soul-winning by yourself, you would do a lot less than with your soul-winning partner. And let me tell you something. Silent partners are equal in the contribution to preaching the gospel. And we need more silent partners to go out there and preach the gospel. Don't look down on silent partners. Don't think that silent partners are equal and think that silent partners are inferior. You know, we need silent partners to revoke us under love and good works. You know, when David went to the battle, he needed his armor bearer to go with him. That's what encouraged him. That's what helped him to go out there and slay. And as David slew, his armor bearer was slaying behind him. And let me tell you something. Many times when you go out soul-winning, you're slaying in the front and your silent partner, your soul-winning partner, they're slaying behind you and they're helping you and provoking you under love and the good works. And you know, we need to constantly provoke one another under love and good works. And Jesus sent them out two by two. Because you know what? Let me tell you something. Preaching the gospel is a public thing, folks. And we need to encourage one another, just like church is a public event where we're assembling and gathering together and we need one another and two are better than one. Two are better than one. And you know what? It was a great experience going out there. It was also great seeing some of the younger guys, Brother Diego, Brother Uriel. I mean, Brother Uriel is only 20 years old. When I was 20 years old, I was not going out preaching the gospel. I was chasing other things. I'll just say it that way. Many people were chasing other things. What a great start that this young man has in his future to provoke me, hey, if this guy is going to sacrifice of his time and his effort, if this guy is willing to travel all the way down here, if this guy is willing to do this great work, how much more should I? And you know what? His efforts and his works, I guarantee, are going to encourage his friends, his family, other young men, other young women to make the same sacrifices, live a clean life, worry about souls. And you know what? He's provoking others into love and good works. And you know what? We need young men to make the sacrifices to make the sacrificial decisions of going out and preaching the gospel, to encourage other young people to follow like suit. We need some good role models of young men in this world because there's so many young men that are not good role models in this world and they're causing many people to fall after them, be not deceived, evil communications, corrupt good manners. We need some young men and young women that are going to go out there and say, Hey, I can actually abstain from the things of this world. I care more about the things of God than chasing the pleasures of this world. And you know what? I can be a sanctified and meet for the master's use at a young age. You know what? There's nothing wrong. Let no man despise thy youth. And you know what? We need some people to go out there and preach the gospel and inspire other people. You know, Brother Diego, he preaches great sermons and he's super young. I can't even imagine how good he's going to be a preacher when he's my age. I mean, he's got like 20 years to get there. I mean, he's got a long ways to go. I mean, we have young men in our church. They're going to encourage other young men, other young ladies, other people to go out and preach the gospel. The ladies in our church, they're encouraging the ladies to go out and preach the gospel. And boy, they have woman privilege. I don't know what to tell you. People act like, Oh, I'm a woman. I'm inferior. Then why do they always get more people saved? You know, there's these young single guys that act like women are worse than them at everything. And I'm thinking like, okay, let's take some of these ladies and let's take you and let's go so many and let's see who gets more people saved. Since you're so much better, it's crazy how they keep getting more people saved than you. And you know, let me tell you something. Some of the ladies in our church are excellent soul winners. They're excellent soul winners. And you know what? It's a rarity. Look, go to the Caribbean. You know, when you go to the Caribbean, especially if you're a white woman, I know you white women, you know, think like the fancy things, but condescending men of low estate, white women have privilege in foreign countries. Let me just tell you something because they just look at you and they're thinking like, wow, I've never seen anything like this before. And they want to talk to you. And then you have an opportunity to open your mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. You know, I'm not racist. I don't care, but other people are. And let me tell you something. People like white people. I like white people. Okay. And let me tell you something. You have a privilege. If you go to Africa, I'm just going to be honest with you. You go to Africa, you will be a celebrity. You will get off of the plane and everybody will think that you are awesome. Why wouldn't you want to use that to get a bunch of people saved? Hey, you go to the Philippines. You know what? You're going to be a celebrity. People are going to like you. You know, if you're tired of all the hate in America, just go to a foreign country. Everybody will love you. All right. I'm just being honest with you. I'm just trying to encourage you. I'm trying to provoke you to say, hey, why don't you use that American privilege? Why don't you use that American passport? Why don't you use that American exceptionalism to do something for God? And you know what? If you're not what I described, white or American or whatever, use whatever privilege you've got. You've been given a foreign tongue by birth. You can speak a foreign language by birth. Use that to preach the gospel to somebody and provoke others into love and good works. You have money. Use that money to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. You have opportunity. You have family. You have friends. Whatever God gave you, use whatever talents He gave you. And let me tell you something. Some of us in this room have the 10 talents been given unto us. We better use those 10 talents that we've been given because it's embarrassing when the guy that has one talent is using it and you have 10 and you're not using any of them. You know, we need people that have the 10 talents to go out there. If you think you're so great, then show us how great you are and use your 10 talents. And look, I think that there's a lot of people in here that are great and have a lot of talents, and I want you to consider one another and to provoke unto love and good works. I want to go to 1 John. I want to go to 1 John for a moment. You know, the Christian spirit, the Christian theme is that of love. It's like, what is the two commandments upon which the whole law hang upon? Loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself. Love is the fulfilling of the law. Everything's about love. And in 1 John, if you really kind of understand the theme of 1 John, it's about loving your brother. That's really what it is, and I want to prove that for a second. Look what it says in 1 John chapter 1, and I want to show you verse 3. It says, That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, notice this, that ye also may have fellowship with us. What is the first thing that the Bible is actually telling us that 1 John is about? It is about having fellowship with us, being in fellowship with brethren. And if you really understand, that is the whole theme of the book of 1 John. Now, it obviously brings up other concepts and other things that are taught out of this book, but you really have to understand that the whole point is to have fellowship with other brethren, and then when you have fellowship with other brethren, what's included in that, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ. When you're having fellowship with us, you're enjoying the fellowship of the Father and you're enjoying the fellowship of Jesus Christ. Now, I'm not going to go through this whole book, but I want to go through some verses here. If you're going to have fellowship with other Christians, with the brethren, there's some important things that you need to do. One of those is try not to sin. Look at chapter 2, verse 1. My little children, these things write unto you, that you sin not. A big portion of 1 John is addressing not sinning because when you sin, you're actually showing hatred towards the brethren. And so the more you clean up your life, the more you avoid sin, the more you're demonstrating your love for the brethren and your love for God. And you're going to have a closer fellowship with the brethren, the less that you sin. Of course, there's going to be some bozos always amongst the brethren. It says in verse 19, they went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. So notice again, he's kind of just making declarative statements like we have the fellowship with the Father and the Son and if you don't like us, you're the problem. I mean, that's what he's implying. He's saying, hey, if you are not fellowshipping with us, if you're not continuing with us, it's because you're being made manifest that you are not of us. And of course, who's us? It's not just the brethren, it's the Father and the Son too because they have fellowship with the Father and with the Son. And so our fellowship here is with the Father and the Son and when they go out and they're not continuing like us or with us, it's because they're not of us. And of course, you're going to see people like this. Well, you know, what would be someone not continuing like us, not using the King James Bible, not going soul winning, not doing missions trips, not loving the lost? When you see people going out from us and then they're just detransitioning from the King James Bible, not doing soul winning, not getting people saved, well, you have to ask this question, are they even of us? Because even if you don't like my face or my hair or my voice or anything about me, like I don't know why you would stop being King James only. I don't know why you would stop preaching the gospel and getting people saved. Like those two things should just continue no matter what. So the people that don't like me but they're continuing in the truth of the King James Bible and they're continuing soul winning, hey, they're with us. They're just kind of a bad brother, you know, but I'm just saying like they're kind of, if they're going to be mean and disgruntled and hateful then they're kind of a bad brother. They're kind of a disgruntled brother. Obviously, people that leave and they're still friendly, they're a great brother. But you got to look, hey, is this person continuing in the King James Bible? Are they continuing in soul winning? Are they continuing in the Word? Hey, they're a brother. But the person that's getting away from these things and not going to soul winning and not doing this, you got to kind of ask yourself, you know, is this person actually a brother or are they being made manifest that they were not of us? Oh, now they're a Hindu. Okay, well, yeah, now they're not. Obviously, they were never with us, were they? Okay, now they say they're Jesus. Okay, obviously, this person is not with us, okay? You know, and you're going to see things like this when you serve God. They went out from us, but they were not of us, okay? But again, we're noting that it's about us. Everything's about us. Hey, you're having fellowship with us. People are leaving us, right? Look at chapter 3, verse 9. Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he's born of God. In this, the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother, for this is the message that he heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. He's saying, hey, we can see the manifestation of the sons of God and the manifestation of the sons of the devil, of the children of Belial, and how do we see this manifestation? It's through love, and it's through the love of what? The love of the brethren, and when you have love for the brethren, you know what? You're going to want to go out and preach the gospel. You're going to try and reach the loss because you want to bring them into the fold, and we see this manifestation here where you can really see who the children of God are. The people that just care about souls and are getting people saved, they're our brethren, and the people that are attacking Christianity, attacking the gospel once they were with us, now we see the manifestation. These people are not of God. These are the children of the devil. Of course, the vast majority of this world, we're still kind of trying to figure out who that is, but we can see some of the clear manifestations of those that are of God and those who are not of God, and of course, it's through love of the brethren. We see the love of one another. Verse 12, not as Cain, who is of that wicked one and Slu's brother, and wherefore Slughium, because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous, marvel not, my brethren, of the world, HU. We know that we have passed from death and life. Why? Because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. When you don't love your brother, you're in a dangerous spot as a Christian. When you're a Christian and you don't have love for the brethren, you are abiding in death, and it is a dangerous, dangerous place to be. We need to make sure that we have love for the brethren, because when we hate the brethren, when we despise the brethren, when we're attacking the brethren, we're abiding in death like King Saul. Saul, of course, was constantly seeking to harm David. He hated David. He was continually his enemy. He was as enemy continually as the Bible describes, and we see him, what, slaying priests of God, inquiring of witchcraft, and then, of course, dying a gruesome death, not just him, but even his son, drug down with him because he was abiding in hatred for the brethren. And we as God's people need to make sure that we're always abiding in love and we're provoking one another unto love. We need to be provoking one another unto love and to good works and making sure that we're avoiding hatred. We should never hate the brethren. We should never despise the brethren. We should never wish ill upon our brethren. We should want the best for our brethren. Even if our brother doesn't want the best for us, we can still want the best for our brother. Now, it says in verse number 16, Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. First, John's constantly explaining to us all the things that God did. Why? To provoke us unto love because the whole point, again, is loving our brother. So he's constantly showing you how God loved us so that we can see that as the love of God so that we can see that and say, oh, I need to act like Christ. I need to act like God. God's willing to lay down his life for me. Therefore, I ought to be willing to lay down my life for the brethren. Of course, this could go to the extremity of a literal physical sacrifice, a physical sacrifice on the battlefield or some extreme example. But I believe another aspect of laying down your life would be simply saying, hey, instead of taking a personal vacation for the last few days, I'm going to go to Mexico and I'm going to lay down my life for the brethren and go preach the gospel to a bunch of people and get them saved. And hereby perceive we the love of God. You know, and we can see in a microcosm someone being willing to lay down their life in order for the brethren to get saved. Many people have to lay down, they have to lose their life in order to find it. And they say, you know what? Instead of all the dreams and the accolades I have for myself, maybe I could just become a soul winner. Maybe I could become a soul winning captain. Maybe I could do a lot of evangelism. Maybe I could go on some missions trips and I could reach somebody with the gospel. And maybe I could provoke others unto love and good works. Maybe by my example of going out and preaching the gospel, maybe by me laying down my life, I can encourage others to lay down their life for the brethren as well. And to give up all of their selfish ambitions for the glory of God and for His praise and for His honor and for other souls to be saved and go to heaven, to sacrifice for them. The ultimate gift that Jesus did for us, laying down His life and His honor and His glory and saying, not my will be done, but thine. Not my will, but thy will. Isn't that what we're supposed to pray? I mean, when you guys talk about the Lord's Prayer, isn't the Lord's Prayer thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven? Aren't we supposed to pray every day asking to align ourselves with the will of God? Not with our will, not with our wants, but to lay down our life, to be a daily sacrifice, to crucify the flesh, to walk in the spirit and to not walk in the flesh, to provoke one another unto love and good works and to preach the gospel. This is what we are to do when we assemble together not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the man of some is, but so much the more as you see the day approaching. As you see the day approaching, we need to constantly be revoking one another to do even more love and more good works. Look at chapter 4, verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Hey, soul winners are my brothers. That's what the Bible says. And the people that love the brethren, those that are showing their love, it says in verse number 8, he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. You know, you have to understand that God is love. So when you demonstrate no love, you really are demonstrating you don't really know God at all. How can a Christian get up and say they're such a great Christian or they love God when they're showing no love to the brethren? When you're showing no love to the brethren, hereby I perceive that you don't have the love of God or you're really, really weak in the love of God because the person that's showing great love for the brethren is the person that loves God the most. Show me someone that never preaches the gospel and I'll tell you someone that doesn't love God. You show me someone that isn't showing grace and kindness and charity to the brethren. I'll show you someone that doesn't love God. You show me someone that doesn't care about souls and missions trips and reaching the loss. I'll show you someone that doesn't love God. Now you show me someone that's getting people saved every single week, that's going on missions trips, that's sacrificing of their time, effort, and energy for people to get saved, and I'll show you someone that loves God. How are we going to measure the love of God? It's by the love of the brethren. That's what the Bible says. It says in verse 9, In this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. You know how God's love was manifested? He didn't just scream down from heaven, I love y'all. You know what He did? He sent His Son. You know how I love people in Mexico? I don't just say, Viva Mexico! I don't just say, I love Mexico! You know what? I went down there. In fact, all the people that I talked to, I don't think there was a single person, I told them I loved them. I didn't love in word, I loved in deed and in truth. I went down there and I preached them the gospel and I gave them, we gave over 150 Bibles out. We gave 150 Bibles out, we gave some of our nicer ones out, we got rid of all the stuff that we had, we're just handing out material, getting all kinds of emails and encouraging them and trying to bless them. Hey, that's love, my friend! That's what real love looks like. Hey, as a father, you know what's loving your children? Not just saying something, doing something with them. You know what's loving? It's not just telling your wife you love her, it's doing something with her. And I guarantee she knows the difference. Boy, if you just say it but you're never hanging out, never doing anything, never having fun together, she'll be like, I feel like you don't love me. Why? Because you're not showing it. Why? Why do we say that God loved us? Why is it that God loved us? Where do we manifest His love? Verse 9, in this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent His only begotten Son in the world that we might live through Him. How do we perceive the love of God? Because His Son was sacrificed on the cross for all of our sins. That's how He showed us He loved us. I don't need Him to constantly say it, He demonstrated it already. Romans 5-8, He demonstrated His love toward us. Let's keep reading, it says in verse 11, Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in Him and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit. And we have seen it do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world, whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in Him, and He in God. And we have known and believe the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in Him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? We can't see God the Father. We can't look up into heaven and see Him. No man hath seen Him save Jesus Christ. The Bible makes it clear. No man shall see my face and live. There's a couple exceptions in the Bible of men that saw glimpses of the Father from afar away or His backside. No man has seen His face save the Lord Jesus Christ, which is in the bosom of the Father. We can't see Him. And so how do I love God the Father? How do I love God? It's by loving you. It's by loving the lost. It's by going out and preaching the gospel. And if I don't love the people that I can actually see, then it's proof that I don't actually love God whom I can't see. My love for God is demonstrated by how I love the brethren, how I love Christians, how I love the people that I can see. That's why Jesus was often in Matthew 25 bringing up the fact that, hey, when you gave a cup of cold water or when you clothed or when you fed or when you did this, when you visited me and visited these people in prison, you were visiting me. That's how you love Jesus. You know how you love Jesus? You look at someone in this room and love them, and that's how you love Jesus. And if you don't love people in this room, you don't love Jesus. And if you don't go out into the sea of people and try to minister and give them the gospel, you don't love Jesus. You show your love for God. You show your love for Jesus by loving the brethren, by doing good under the brethren. And you should always just ask yourself this question. If this person was Jesus, how would I reinterpret my actions towards them? Would I have said those things? Would I have done those things? And whatever. And, of course, we understand Jesus is perfect and will never sin. But at the end of the day, if, and this is impossible, I'm just saying, since we're substituting, if that person sins, we have to say, well, even if it was another person, I would still treat them the same because this is how you treat a sinner, right? If they cross a boundary of 1 Corinthians 5, I'm going to treat them that way no matter who it is. I'm not a respecter of persons. But at the end of the day, we need to test ourselves and check and make sure, hey, would I have been this harsh? Would I have used this language? Would I have done this to this person if it was Jesus? If it was somebody that I actually look up with, if it was Paul, if it was Peter, if it was my dad, you know, would I have treated this person the same? And we have to test ourselves and make sure that we have love for the brethren. We don't want to do things to people that are not out of love. There's so much to this chapter. I need to go through this whole book again at some point. There's too much in this. But look at chapter 5, verse 1. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone that loveth him that begat loveth him also is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments, for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous. We love God by keeping his commandments, and when we keep his commandments, we're going to be loving our brethren, and that is how we see the love of God. We love the children of God when we love God. So you kind of see this correlation. Loving children of God, loving God. Keeping the commandments is loving your neighbor, and loving your neighbor is loving God, and this is how we see these things connected and intertwined one with another. Skip down to verse 16. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and you should give him life rhythm that sin not unto death. If there is a sin unto death, I do not say you should pray for it. So there's a caveat, but generally speaking, when our brother does things that are wrong, when our brother is not right, what is our attitude for that person? It's to intercede for them and to ask God to be gracious unto them and to give them life and to encourage them, not to hate on them, not to attack them, not to do evil unto them, but just pray, God, please be merciful to these people. Obviously, if it was an extremely, you know, extreme, terrible sin, then yeah, the prayer may not be effective. Obviously, if someone were to commit a grievous sin like the murder of people like Saul did or other individuals, yeah, you interceding may not really work in that case, right? And he's not necessarily wanting you to even intercede in that particular situation. There's a sin unto death, right? Death penalty worthy sins. We're not really like getting involved in those kind of things necessarily. But according to the Bible, if it's not death that they really need, then we should be praying that God gives them life and we should be praying that God's merciful and God's gracious unto them. But of course, you know, not everybody is going to have this attitude because they just don't love God. Go to Philippians chapter 1, go to Philippians chapter 1. But you know what? I'm content loving people and encouraging people to do the right thing whether they like me or not. You have to just at some point in your life just decide that if people like me or not, I don't care. And I think, you know, maybe God helped me with this just in my upbringing because when I was younger, I was very short and I was very annoying and so no one liked me, all right? And I just wasn't very well liked. I was pretty much ostracized for the majority of my upbringing. But it caused me to at least just not really care. Like I just really didn't, it didn't really bother me. And I'm like maybe God did that so that he knew when I became a pastor and no one liked me. I've already been there and done that. You know, I was thinking about it like also I married a young lady that grew up with me. My wife and I knew each other from junior high and high school. And so she's aware that I was not like Mr. Popular. She was aware that I had kind of a bad reputation in a lot of ways. And I had dated one girl one time and she liked me and everything was good but I just wasn't popular so she just basically broke up with me because she didn't like my bad reputation. And I'm thinking like, you know, what a blessing that I didn't marry some girl that whenever I ended up having a bad reputation in the future, she was going to leave me. Praise God that I married a wife that's loyal and I married a wife that's going to stick with me even if the world doesn't like me, even if family members turn on us, even if other people. You know, praise God that I have a wife that just likes me and I don't even know why, all right. I mean it's just a huge blessing. It's a huge, huge blessing because I don't deserve it. But I'm like maybe God put me in that position and caused me to go through those things so that I could have the light and the position that I have. But I'm okay with it. And I think that even if you didn't experience that, even if you were really popular growing up, even if a lot of people have liked you, you need to at some point learn the character of saying, you know what, if people don't like me, that's their problem. It's not my problem. If you don't like me, it's your problem. Because let me tell you something, I am a good friend. I am a good Christian. I do love the Lord. I do help people. I am a good person to hang out with. I am fun to hang out with. But you know what, if you don't like me, that's your fault. It's not my fault. But you know what, most people still won't like me. And that's okay. But at the end of the day, if I could still provoke that person unto love and good works, my mission is accomplished. Now, this is an important passage. Look at Philippians 1 verse 13. I'm proposing to add affliction to my bonds. But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel. What then? Notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice. Yea, and will rejoice. The apostle Paul says that he was in prison, and somehow some Christians, some people, were preaching the gospel not because they just wanted to get people saved. It was because they wanted to somehow hurt Paul. Which I don't even understand exactly how that worked or the mechanisms by which them preaching was going to cause them more affliction. But they were preaching the gospel not because they really wanted to get people saved. They kind of had a bad motive. But then what is Paul's attitude? I'm just glad that he's getting people saved and preaching the gospel. And you know, let me say this. I think, and I know, that because we're doing so many great works as a church and because we're getting so many people saved and because we're having record numbers, we're causing so many people that dislike us to get irritated. That's called provoking, all right? They're irritated. They're angry. They're upset about it. And you know, some of them, because of that, they're going to say, you know what, fine, I'm going to go get someone saved and I'm going to put it online. And you know what I'm going to do? Yes! Woo! You know, if you hate me and you get 10 people saved tomorrow, I'm going to say, great job. If you say, hey, they got 187 people saved in Mexico, I'm going to go get 200. I'm going to say, yes! Because we're supposed to provoke one another into love and good works. And you know what? You're never going to catch me criticizing people for getting people saved and getting people in church and getting them baptized and reaching the loss and doing missions trips. Therein do I rejoice! Because you know what? It's not about me. To God be the glory. And let me tell you something. The more that we say how many people are getting saved and getting in church and getting baptized, we're just going to provoke so many people to say, like, fine, then I'll do it. Fine, then I'll go out there and I'll have it. I better get some numbers. I better get some people saved. And the people that end up doing nothing, well, they weren't of us anyways. You know what I mean? Who cares? Who cares if they like me? You know what? And we're not just going to provoke the people that know us. We're going to provoke all kinds of people. We're going to provoke the non-denom church saying, man, look at these people. I mean, we have a thousand members in our church and we're doing almost nothing in comparison to these people. We need to start doing something. And look, sometimes non-denom churches accidentally get people saved. I don't even know how they do it, but they obviously do it. There's going to be Calvinists that say, wow, obviously, I don't think that, you know, it's me preaching the gospel to get some saved, but I better just do it anyways. And maybe a Calvinist will accidentally get someone saved every once in a while. You know, there might be people in the Southern Baptist Convention that say, well, we can't just let the independent Baptist show us up. We'll go out and do some works. We'll do a bigger missions trip. We'll do something. You know, maybe they'll actually, all these churches, will actually encourage their missionaries to preach the gospel to somebody. Instead of all these newsletters saying like, hey, little Johnny might come to church, they'll say like, hey, I'm actually just going to go preach to Johnny whether he comes to church or not. Because I saw this newsletter from Steadfast Baptist Church where evangelist Duncan Urbanic, I don't know who this guy is, but Duncan Urbanic got 500 people saved in January. He's really making us look bad. He's really making all the other missionaries not look like they love God very much. And you know what evangelist Urbanic is doing is he's provoking other people into love and good works. Hey, if you're on the mission field, why don't you preach the gospel to somebody? I mean, you would think of all positions, occupations, you're actually on the mission field as a missionary. What a novel idea to just preach to somebody, to actually evangelize when you're an evangelist. You know, maybe we could provoke these traveling evangelists to actually go out soul winning when they visit a church instead of just preaching the same sermon to everybody. Maybe the Internet will provoke them to say like, maybe I have to preach more than one sermon a year. You know, hey, us having attendance and having big conferences and doing these great works and constantly showing people and getting people baptized, we're going to try and provoke these other people to do great works. We're going to provoke haters and missionary Baptists and street preachers and the independent fundamental Baptist brethren for them to say like, wow, I want to get in on that action. I want to get people saved. And you know what? If they never like me, if they never want to have anything to do with me, there and do I still rejoice? We need to provoke unto love and good works. What does the Bible say in Matthew 5? Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. We need to rock this world with the Gospel. We need to say, hey, the fields are white unto harvest. Hey, there are people out there waiting to get saved and they just need someone to preach them the Gospel. And it's not about me. It's not about Steadfast Baptist Church. It's not about the new IFB. It's not about fundamental Baptists. It's about Christ and let us provoke others unto love and good works. Nuts to all that. Stop being a hater and be a lover and be a lover of God and be a lover of good works and go out there and preach the Gospel. Show us how much better of a Christian you are. Show us how much more you love God than us. Why don't you demonstrate it through your sacrifice of preaching the Gospel? Yet there's Christians out there, there's pastors out there. They have zero mission strips and they hate on all the other mission strips. Well, you don't have the love of God. Because you know what? How in the world are you going to reach the world if you don't do anything? Look at all these bad churches doing all these mission strips. Well, you doing zero mission strips is doing nothing. I mean, come on. How does that even make sense? You're doing nothing to reach people. Who cares if you're the best Christian that's ever walked the planet? You know what? I would rather go out with a bunch of publicans and harlots preaching the Gospel than to be in some high tower with a bunch of holier than thou's that have never cussed in their life. But they do zero mission strips. They're not going to go soul winning. And they don't have any love for the brethren. All they do is spend their time making hater and troll videos and say they're a troll. What a loser. Go to 1 Corinthians 9. They make boring documentaries that are lame and wrong. But you know what? I hope, you know what they're trying to do? They're trying to emulate Pastor Anderson and his documentary success. But you know, even their little stupid, lame, wrong documentaries, I hope everybody watches it. I hope it's wildly successful. And I hope everybody hears their Gospel presentation. And I hope everybody gets saved. Because you know what happens when they watch that? Well, they're going to definitely find out about us because they can't stop talking about us. And you know, at one point in my life, I was following Ken Ham because he was really big on creationism. And just because of Ken Ham, people are saying like, oh no, you've got to check out Ken Hovind. And I was like, okay, I'm going to listen to Ken Hovind. I was like, wow, he's way better. You know, I saw these debates online between James White and Sam Gipp on the King James Bible issue. And just because I was searching that, researching it, I found a video by a guy named Pastor Steven Anderson. And I was like, wow, he's way better. And you know, I'm not afraid of these people constantly attacking me and constantly bringing me up and constantly showing my sermons because I'm thinking like, man, if they listen to their sermon and then listen to the sermon here, then they're going to watch this. Even all the haters admit they only watch our sermons. I mean, if it's so bad, why are you always watching my sermon? But you know what, I'm going to still provoke you into love and good works too. Because you know, the cancerous preaching affects you, but even the good preaching affects you, whether you like it or not. Why can't they stop listening? I know why they can't stop listening. Because it's better. It's entertaining. Look, the most average sermon of Pastor Anderson's, the most basic average sermon of Pastor Anderson, is still better than every single one of these hater sermons. And so I hope that they get super popular. I hope that their YouTube channel becomes millions because they can't stop talking about them and they can't stop talking about us. And so they're going to point all these people to these sermons and they're going to be like, wow, this is so much better. Because once you have Texas brisket, you ain't going back, my friend. Once you've had the real thing, you're like, okay, well, yeah. It's like once you get the King James Bible, you're not going back to the NIV. Hey, once you get the new IFB spirit, you're not going to want to go back. There's nothing like it. It's superior. You know, this is what's so funny to me. I want to bring up one other thing here. This is what's funny to me is how everybody's constantly mad at Pastor Anderson right now and they think he's so bad and whatever. And it's really they're just accusing him of being a, quote, hypocrite. They're accusing him of being a hypocrite. They're like, oh, well, behind closed doors, he's doing all these bad things or something like that. But what's so funny to me about him being a, quote, hypocrite is they're not saying, like, he's preaching it. He's just his hypocrite. But here's the thing, even if he was a hypocrite, how does that even affect me? Because didn't Jesus say in Matthew 23 about the Pharisees and the Sadducees, all they bid you, observe and do. So if I can listen to the Pharisee tell me to do the right thing and then do it, how much more than a fundamental Baptist preacher, even if he was hypothetically a hypocrite, which he's not, I'm just saying, like, even if he was, how is that even negatively affecting me? It's not. And he's constantly provoking people in the love and good works. I'm filled with people in a room that have been provoked on the love and good works by his ministry and his church and by people that he's reached. You know, it's just so funny that there's just, like, ah, it's just so bad. Well, then why do we see so much good coming from it? Why do we see so much good coming from it? You know, there's always going to be accusations against the men of God. You know, Jack Hyles had a point in time where there's this huge online scandal and all this heat coming on him for having committed adultery. And it made public news. He did, like, public interviews. And, I mean, that's a serious accusation. That is an extreme scrutinizing of his church. But you know what? Go listen to sermons of Jack Hyles during that time. Great sermon still. Great preaching. Look at the soul winning of First Baptist Hammon at the time when the accusation was coming. They were still getting people saved. They're still growing. They're still doing great works for the Lord. And then compare that to someone named Jack Scopp, who Jack Scopp was actually committing adultery, who was actually caught doing this, and go listen to his sermons during that time. And you know what you'll notice? Weird, perverted, disgusting, evil things. In fact, Jack Scopp preached things that I won't even repeat. It was so disgusting and graphic, the things that he was saying behind the pulpit during that time. And then look how the church was diminishing and losing people and going downhill. Look, you're not going to convince me that there's this pastor out there that's just this raging adulterer and doing these evil things, and they're just budding with all this fruit and soul winning and missions trips and great preaching. These things are incompatible, folks. They're incompatible. Just like you see, show me a pastor that all he does is make hater videos and troll videos and attacks and is evil. You're not going to see him budding with all this soul winning and fruit and reaching people and truth and great preaching. Because they go hand in hand. And look, steadfast Baptist church people have been here for a long time. You know, back in time when there was a pastor doing things he shouldn't do, the preaching was off. The spirit was off. Who can testify to that? Yeah, look around the room. I'm not just making stuff up. It was obvious, folks. And so sometimes you have to put out all the noise. You just have to look at the fruit. You have to look at the love. Where is the love at? That's how you can see what's really going on. And of course I believe Jack Hyles is completely innocent. It was bogus. It was a dumb story that was made up against him to attack him. Because look, when you're doing great works for God, obviously the devil is going to come out and attack. Obviously the devil is going to try and shut you down. And you say, oh, well I think that you guys, you're losing your rewards for talking about how many people you get saved or something. That's a stupid, stupid thought. And I don't even care what you think. Because you know what's not getting you rewards? Getting no one saved. That's for sure not getting any rewards. But why would Jesus literally say, some get 30, some get 60, some get 100. Oops, why would I bring up those numbers? Why would he constantly bring up, hey, I got 3,000 saved here? Why is the Bible constantly telling us about all the people that got saved? Did you notice when you read your Bible, everyone in the whole world knows that Philip the evangelist got the Ethiopian eunuch saved? Did you realize that in Acts chapter 16, Paul and Silas got the Philippian jailer saved? Okay, then show me all the stories when we see all the disciples just constantly fasting and praying in the private closet and doing all the... That's very rare circumstances. It's not highlighting those things or giving money to the poor. I mean, Paul just mentions briefly that about communicating the poor or thinking about the poor, that he was doing it often. But it's not just going from story to story of, oh, and then Paul saw this poor person, gave him money, and then gave this other person money, and gave this other person money. In fact, we kind of have the opposite. It's like Peter says, silver and gold have I none. I'll give you the gospel. That's what's being highlighted. The Bible is praising soul winning. And we are going to praise soul winning in this church. We are going to praise soul winning. We're going to praise baptisms. We're going to praise church attendance. We're going to praise our missions trips. And we're going to constantly try to provoke others into love and good works. Why? Well, look at verse 22. 1 Corinthians 9, verse 22. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak. I made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you. Know ye not that they which run and erase run all, but one receiveth the prize, so run that ye may obtain. Hey, we are in a race. And let me tell you something. When you see someone else running, it provokes you to run a little harder. In fact, there's this phenomenon that people are constantly trying to figure out how to break a four minute mile, which is insane. And no one can do it. But then they figured out if they do this thing called a rabbit. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? You have the rabbit? So they have this rabbit. Someone is just running in front of them. And that person can't complete the race. Because the pace that they're running, they're not capable of running it that long. But them just being out in front and keeping the right pace actually psychologically helped that runner to be able to keep pace with the, quote, rabbit. So they're, quote, chasing the rabbit. And by having the rabbit out in front, each lap, they have like a new rabbit constantly going out. It allowed man to break the four minute mile and to go and do something that he wouldn't have been able to do by himself. He was provoked under running harder than he was capable of doing on his own. And you know what? We need to come to church to provoke ourselves to do more for God than we would if we didn't. And when you see people getting multitudes saved, when you see people getting tons of people saved. You know, if you go out sowing with us in the afternoon or in the Dallas weather, it'll be a great day to get one, two, maybe three people saved. So then you hear people like Pastor Reyes got 15 people saved. You're just like, wow. That can say like, I want to go out there. Because when you actually go sowing for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and you're just hitting your head against the wall, you're like, fine, I'll just go to Mexico. Fine, I'll just go to the Caribbean. Fine, I'll just go somewhere where I can just like actually find a place that's receptive. And you know, someone doing that, it's not like Pastor Reyes has a superhero cape on or something. Pastor Reyes, out there, he's willing, he's capable, and he did it. And look, if you go to the Caribbean, if you're a good soul winner and you're English speaking and you go to the Caribbean, you could get 15 people saved in a day. You could get 20 people saved in a day. It can happen. It really can happen. Just a humble servant willing to do it. You go out there with us this afternoon, you can still get one, two. Hey, we get the gleanings, too. We can't just always just get the handfuls. And I want to constantly encourage people to go out, do a missions trip. Hey, even if you don't really like me, you can still come on our missions trip as long as you're getting people saved. I mean, I don't really care. I don't care. If you're going to go out and preach the gospel this week to show me how much better of a Christian you are, please do. Please just, and brag all about it and I'll rejoice with you because I just don't even care. It doesn't bother me at all. There's so many people. There's 8 million people here. I can't reach them. Someone needs to reach them. We need to be encouraging the brethren by going out and preaching the gospel and nuts to anybody that wants to stop our freight train. Nuts to anybody that's going to criticize our stuff because you know what? I'm not quitting. I'm not giving up. I'm going to keep putting those numbers. We're going to keep having the best months and the best year and the best evangelism this church has ever seen. We're going to keep doing it. And someone's going to get those people saved. Is it you or is it someone else? You know, when you walk through the field, all the stuff on the ground that's super easy, someone's going to get it. You know, the Bahamas, it's really easy right now. But eventually it's going to all get gathered. Who's going to be the one that gathered it? You know, I have to give all credit to brother Nick Conley. If it wasn't for him, I would have never gone to the Bahamas. And then I preached a sermon and a bunch of people would have never gone to the Bahamas if it wasn't for my sermon. And then brother Kenton Knowles down there, without him, we wouldn't be getting into the schools and doing all this stuff. And I'm so glad all these people are constantly provoking, we're provoking one another to love and good works and to go where there's handfuls. And provoking people to go out and get these people saved. Someone needs to do it. Let it be us. And let us glorify God and encourage the brethren unto love and more good works. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for our church. Thank you for giving us so much success down in Mexico. I pray that our upcoming missions trips, our cruise missions trips, our small town soul winning events, our local soul winning times, our daily soul winning times, I pray that you would just empower our soul winners to do some of the greatest soul winning that we've ever done. I pray that you would encourage people that have not been soul winning to come out. I pray that you encourage those that have not taken the boldness of the courage to start talking to start talking. I pray that you take those of us that are talkers and you would just purge and prune any things in our lives that would cause us to help us to get even more people saved. And I pray that you could use our church to provoke many other brethren, many other Christians to do more good works, get more people saved, get more people baptized, more people in the church. America needs the gospel. Mexico needs the gospel. The whole world needs the gospel so desperately. Let us be a bright and shining light in such a dark world. And let us see a true harvest in this time, a true revival of soul winning, of people zealous of good works. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. For our last song we're going to go to song number 213. There's Glory in My Soul. Song number 213. Song 213, There's Glory in My Soul. Sing it out on the first. Since I lost my sins and I found my Savior, there is glory in my soul. Since my faith I sought and made God's favor, there is glory in my soul. There is glory, glory, there is glory in my soul. Every day my head grows and I conquer all my foes, there is glory, glory, there is glory in my soul, there is glory in my soul. Since He cleansed my heart, made me sigh for blindness, there is glory in my soul. Since He touched and healed his loving kindness, there is glory in my soul. There is glory, glory, there is glory in my soul. Every day my head grows and I conquer all my foes, there is glory, glory, there is glory in my soul, there is glory in my soul. Since with God I've walked now in sweet communion, there is glory in my soul. Brighter clothes each day in this heavenly union, there is glory in my soul. There is glory, glory, there is glory in my soul. Every day brighter clothes and I conquer all my foes, there is glory, glory, there is glory in my soul, there is glory in my soul. Since I entered Canaan on my way to heaven, there is glory in my soul. Since the day my life to the Lord was given, there is glory in my soul. There is glory, glory, there is glory in my soul. Every day brighter clothes and I conquer all my foes, there is glory, glory, there is glory in my soul, there is glory in my soul.