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

🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 Hey man, wonderful singing at this time. Our ushers will be receiving the offering. Please turn your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians Chapter 1. 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 1 Thessalonians Chapter 1, the Bible reads, Paul, Silvanus, and Timotheus, of the Church of the Thessalonians, are just in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ and the sight of God and our Father, knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. And ye became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost, so that ye were in samples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. But from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God were to spread abroad, so that we need not to speak anything. But they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom ye raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. Let's pray. Dear Lord God, we just thank you for your word. We thank you for this opportunity to preach. I just ask that you would be with Pastor Shelley now. Please just fill me with your Holy Spirit to preach your word boldly to us. Please just give us ears to hear it, and please bless the preaching of your word, and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for having me out here to preach for you guys, and it's a great honor and privilege to be at First Works. And I brought my family with me, my wife and my children, and the accommodations and the hospitality has been excellent, and so I really appreciate that from Pastor Mejia and from the church family here. And it's been a long time since I've been out here. I actually got to preach in 2017, and it's great to see how the church has grown. Some would say it's like exploding with growth, and it's kind of great to see how this church is just blowing up all over, and it really strengthens my heart to see a great work for the Lord being done out here in Los Angeles and the greater area out here. And I wanted to preach to you this morning a sermon called The Benefits of Drama. The Benefits of Drama. And I think that this church, if there's a church out there that's ever experienced a little bit of drama, it can be First Works Baptist Church, but that's not a bad thing. I think a lot of people have kind of a negative connotation with the word drama, but drama is not necessarily a bad word. If you look it up in a dictionary, I know there's some bad words out there, okay, but drama is not one of those. Drama in the dictionary is related to words like incident, scene, spectacle, crisis, excitement, thrill, adventure, disturbance, commotion. I think some of those words might be some buzz words if you've been a part of this church for any amount of time, that sometimes there's some excitement, sometimes there's some commotion, sometimes there's some disturbance, and really that's what drama is all about. It's just something that's happening, really. If I think there's no drama, it's kind of boring, it's kind of lame, it's kind of steady. Those would be kind of the antonyms of that word. And when it comes to a New Testament church, I really don't find any churches in the Bible that lack drama. In fact, all of the churches in the Bible seem to have a lot of drama going on, and in fact, that's what all of us like. I mean, when you go to see a movie, you want to see the drama in a film, right? You want to see the drama going on on the screen, and of course there's a genre called drama, but ultimately if a movie had no drama, it wouldn't even be a good film. Because every film has to have conflict, it has to have resolution, it has to have some kind of an issue. There's no such thing as a movie where there's no drama whatsoever, and in fact, some of the greatest films have the biggest build-ups and the most drama associated with them. And really, we see nothing different in 1 Thessalonians 1 when we talk about churches that we know for sure are legitimate churches, we see a lot of drama associated with them. Look down at verse number 6 again, the Bible says, And he became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost. So here he's saying, you guys have received the Bible, but it's coupled with something. It's coupled with much affliction, which AKA is drama. And this church is really a church associated with a lot of drama in the Bible. But look at verse 7, So that you are in samples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-word is spread abroad so that we need not to speak anything. What the Apostle Paul is saying is that your church has experienced so much affliction, so much drama, that everyone has heard about you. I mean, it's just sounded out from the entire world that everybody knows about this church. Everyone's heard about this church. He doesn't even have to bring anything up as if, well, let me tell you about this church in Thessalonica. It's like, oh, I know about that church. Everybody's heard about that church. Everybody knows something about that church. Why? Because often when you have the truth and you're trying to do a big work for the Lord, there's going to be a lot of drama associated with that. There's going to be a lot of incidents and disturbances and special excitement events that are happening. It's going to be a scene. It's going to be a spectacle. There's all these different things that are happening where the work of God is happening. Everywhere in the Bible, it's filled with drama. I mean, what character in the Bible isn't just the most dramatic scene, the parting of the Red Sea, the entire earth being flooded, and the only people surviving are on a boat? I mean, everything about the Bible is just filled with drama and excitement and scenes and spectacles, and everyone hears about it. Whenever the children of Israel exit the Egyptians, everyone hears about it. It wasn't a quiet exit. It was a very loud exit that everybody got to hear about, and they got to hear about the Word of God. Look at chapter 2, verse 14. It says, For ye brethren became followers of the churches of God, which in Judea are in Christ Jesus. For ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us, and they pleased not God, and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles, that they might be saved to fill up their sins always, for the wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. So according to the Bible, the Apostle Paul likens this church to the first church in Jerusalem, to those which are in Judea. And he says there's something really similar between the first church, the Jews that are in Jerusalem, and you guys, it's a lot of drama. It's a lot of affliction. So he's saying, you know what actually kind of confirms the fact that you are like the other churches, that you're a real bonafide church, is all this drama, all this affliction, all of these enemies persecuting you. And even though they may not have as many Jews in Thessalonica, they even suffered of their own countrymen, meaning that the people in their area, the local area, hated on this church, attacked this church, stood against this church, and afflicted this church. And he says that's just like what the Jews were doing to them in Judea. So when I look at a real church in the Bible, it seems to always have enemies being attacked, a lot of drama. Everyone's heard about this particular church. I mean, this is the common theme we have in the New Testament. And really, I praise God that we get to live in the New Testament, and we get to live in America in 2022, where New Testament Christianity is happening right now. I mean, we are living New Testament Christianity where when we preach the Bible, there are people that will attack you. There are people that will go after you. There will be members of your local community riled up and try to assault you. They'll try to afflict you. They'll try to, you know, say all manner of evil against you falsely for Christ's sake. I mean, we have all kinds of these elements that we see in the Bible coming to life, coming to fruition. Not only that, but the Word of God is literally being spread abroad. I mean, your pastor, Pastor Mejia, has been on all kinds of news agency networks. He's been on Hispanic news stations. What is it, television? I mean, I mean, he's there. I mean, Pastor Mejia, right? I mean, we got him on Infowars. We got him everywhere. I mean, everyone's heard of Pastor Mejia. Everyone's heard of the church in L.A. I mean, you would think like L.A. you're thinking about some kind of false prophet or you're thinking about maybe even guys that are saved, like Paul Chappell. But it's like Paul Chappell who? It's like Pastor Mejia in the L.A. area, a church that's actually doing some real work for the Lord, has experienced some affliction. You know, I forget the church in the Bible where it's just like, and then they never, you know, had any problems. No one attacked them. No one went after them. I mean, their Bible college was thriving. No, no, we see, we see in the Bible constant persecution, constant affliction. Because if you're doing such a big work for the Lord, where's all your attacks? I mean, where is all the enemy? You know, I always like it in the sports, but it's like if some guy is out there just scoring touchdown after touchdown against you and they don't guard him, I mean, that's just bizarre. Of course, they're going to guard the best player. Of course, they're going to put the most enemies against the guy that's the strongest in the battle. You know, the person that's so weak and lame and doing nothing, it's like, don't guard him. He can't even catch the ball. And even if he tries to catch it, he might run in the wrong direction. You know, he might score a touchdown for the other team. So, of course, they're not getting attacked. I mean, if you're not getting attacked, it's really lame. I mean, it really isn't like something to brag about, but notice most churches today, they would brag about, well, we don't have any drama here. So, it means you're not doing anything. It's really lame. It's really boring. It's a scene that nobody's interested in watching. Any time you get to the no drama scene, the movie's over. It's like, and then they lived happily ever, it's over. You know, we didn't really care about that part. We cared about all the drama and all the affliction and all the things that were going on, right? Now, there's a benefit to this, though. What is the benefit of all this drama? What is the benefit of all this affliction? What is the benefit of these events and spectacles and scenes happening? It's not to get the praise of men. It's not to seem cool. It's for the gospel. Go over to 2 Timothy, just flip to the right, just a couple pages, 2 Timothy, chapter number 2. We experience these dramatic scenes, these dramatic events for the benefit of the gospel. And I know Pastor Mejia and I know a lot of my friends, we're not really interested in just seeing how much drama we can get. It's when you just serve God quietly, drama will come and find you. You don't even have to try, but we endure that for the sake of the gospel. You know, me myself, I don't really want drama necessarily. Like, I don't want to have enemies and afflictions, and I don't want to have all these sodomite protesters constantly knocking down my door or something like that. It's annoying. It's frustrating. It's frustrating to constantly get censored. It's frustrating to constantly shut down. It's frustrating to constantly be lied about. It's frustrating to have all these fights and wars, and it just seems like nobody wants to stand for righteousness anymore. I mean, there's a lot of drama that's just not fun to deal with necessarily. But why do you go through it? You go through it for the sake of the gospel. And it says in 2 Timothy, chapter number 2, look at verse number 8. Remember that Jesus Christ, the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel. Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evildoer, even unto bonds, but the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sake, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The Apostle Paul says, hey, I am looked at as a trouble maker. I'm looked at as an evildoer. I'm suffering a lot of trouble. I'm even going to prison, but I'm doing all of these things so that the next person will get saved. For the elect's sake. So that the next person that needs to get the gospel, the next person that's willing to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, will get that message and will get them saved. And you know what, that's one of the benefits of drama is that some people hear about the gospel through your drama. I mean, you going to prison for the sake of Christ, some people are going to be like, wow, this guy's serious. You know, this guy actually believes what he's saying up there. He's not just trying to get a paycheck. He's not just trying to get another Ferrari out of the parking lot. He's not trying to get another plane like Kenneth Copeland. No, this guy actually believes what he's saying because nobody wants to go to prison. Nobody wants this kind of affliction. You know, he said he's suffering trouble. Trouble is not a good thing. Nobody looks forward to trouble. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins, he wasn't desirous of going to the cross. In fact, he prayed with a great fervent spirit. He's begging the Lord. I mean, he's literally saying, if there's any other way, nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. And we see the urgency of Jesus Christ in the sense that he doesn't want to go through that drama, but that drama ends up bringing us the gospel. And that greatest drama ever told, the gospel of Jesus Christ, is what motivates and compels people to get saved. And we go out and we preach the drama of the Lord Jesus Christ, of his death, burial, and resurrection, and that gets people saved. But, you know, we also can go through drama, go through affliction, go through hardships, and it'll compel people to want to hear the message of the gospel, to hear about the Lord Jesus Christ, and to get saved. And so we say, you know what, bring on the drama so the next person gets saved. And it's funny to me how I have so many testimonies where people have literally told me salvation testimony based on these exact things. Go to Philippians, chapter number one, go back to Philippians, chapter number one. There is a family or there's a couple that goes to my church in Houston at the Pure Words Baptist Church, and they ended up hearing about a pastor being banned from entering into Jamaica. There was a pastor that had been banned from other countries, he wasn't allowed to preach there, and specifically for his views on the AIDS community. So, you know, because of his views on that, they just banned him and they wouldn't let him in the country. And so these people, they're like, I want to hear about this guy. They looked him up and they started listening to his preaching and then they got saved and then they got plugged into church. And I mean, these people are, you know, thriving church members, soul winning church members. And it all happened because of the drama of getting thrown out of a country or being banned preliminarily before we even be able to enter into the country. And not even necessarily for the gospel, even though it always is for the gospel, but it was for, you know, preaching against a bunch of perverts. But, you know, that type of preaching people get mad about and they say, oh, why do you have to bring that up so that those people get saved? Why do you have to bring that up so that people hear about the gospel? And you're like, well, that's not the gospel. Yeah, but it's all connected, my friend. It's the Word of God. It's the truth. And when you preach the truth, it does not return void. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ can reach people in a lot of different ways. In diverse manners and in sundry times, he spake unto us. Okay, so there's a lot of ways you read in the Bible where God talks to people and it's like, whoa, that was crazy. That was weird how he decided to speak to them. You know, we shouldn't limit God into one package, one way that he can reach people with the Word of God. You know, I want him to be able to reach people in every way. And even in affliction, affliction is one of the greatest ways to reach people with the gospel. Look at Philippians 1, verse 12. So he's saying, what happened to me has caused a reaction to where the gospel is going out more. So the question is, well, what happened? Verse 13. So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all other places. So him going to prison directly improves the gospel message going out. Now, of course, none of us would say, like, just sign me up for prison. You know, that just sounds really good. I've been missing out on some good meals lately. Prison, I heard, it's three squares a day. You know, get some more workout time in. I mean, nobody's excited about prison, right? But the Apostle Paul is saying, you know, I realized that me going to prison actually caused a lot of people to get more serious about soul winning, more serious about Christianity, and actually go out and start preaching the gospel. And a lot of people were more interested in hearing about what happened to me and hearing about the gospel message and hearing about Christianity. And tons of people are getting saved. And he's like, you know what? Even though I could get people saved one on one, me being in prison and other people doing the work has had a greater impact. And praise the Lord. Verse 14, he says, And many of the brethren of the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. And you know what? When you have a church that has a lot of drama and you see a man of God stand up against the foes and say, I'm not as scared of these freaks. I'm not as scared of the enemies. I'm going to keep preaching the word of God. You know what? It increases your boldness and your faith, and it gets you more confident to go out and preach the gospel to everyone else. You know what? Don't take it for granted that you have a pastor with a backbone that's willing to actually preach the Bible and stand up against the devil and stand up against his minions and actually preach what needs to be preached. There's so few men today that will get up and preach the Bible unapologetically. That they'll actually make a bold statement and then when the heat comes, they stick to it. Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt anybody's feelings. Please give me a paycheck. Please don't take away my church. Please don't let the deacons-wise vote me out of the church. I'm afraid of them. That's how it is in a lot of churches. In a lot of churches, the pastor is not the real leader, and he's too worried about a paycheck. He's too worried about a lot of things, and so they won't preach the Bible. That's another thing about a church like this that's great is it's homegrown. It started from scratch, essentially, and Pastor Mejia is just slowly building it and allowing the Lord to work through him and adding people to the church daily as the Bible teaches. And because it's homegrown, it enables him to have a lot of boldness in preaching the Bible. Whereas a lot of other churches, they already have a big show going on, so when the next pastor comes in, he doesn't necessarily feel like he has the privilege or the right to get up and just preach the Bible. He's just going to walk on eggshells. He doesn't want to offend certain people. That's kind of a bad model, in essence. Whoever is in charge should have the authority to make the decisions, and not everybody be worried about it and saying, Well, if we don't like his preaching, we'll just pick the next guy. That sounds like 2 Timothy 4, where we're talking about having itching ears and deciding what the preacher is going to say. You know, it's not for the congregation to tell Moses what to do. That never works out when the congregation tells the man of God what to do. They're always telling him to sin or to backslide or do wickedness. It's usually the one leader or the judge that's going to get everybody back on course. And you know what? I like that model of leadership, and that's the type of leadership that you should get behind is one that's a real leader, not one that's worried about getting thrown out and condescending to the lowest common denominator, worried about his paycheck, worried about all of the other influences that could possibly be had, but rather just saying, If you don't like it, get out. Go find somewhere else to go worship the Lord. But you know what? As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Go to Romans chapter one, Romans chapter number one. You know, the Bible says, Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. You know, we're not supposed to hide what we believe. I think that some people get confused about this, and they're afraid of letting light come out in the darkness. They're afraid of truth exposing lies. They're afraid of good exposing the evil. You know, we shouldn't be afraid of that. In fact, the gospel itself is the brightest light that we can shine, and some people get mad and they say, Oh, you guys always get afflicted or drama based on other doctrines or other things that are mentioned in the scripture. But honestly, the gospel is really what gives you the most contention. When you unapologetically preach the gospel by faith alone in Jesus Christ, you say, Once saved, always saved, you are going to experience a lot of attacks for that, and everything else is just streaming down from it. There's a lot of preachers out here that will not unapologetically get up and preach faith alone. They mix in things like repenting of your sin or lordship salvation, and you know what they don't want is a preacher getting out there and making it real crystal clear what the gospel is, so they have to attack him or assault him, make up false accusations, and say, Oh, this guy doesn't even believe in repentance because he doesn't believe in adding works to salvation. You know, by not adding works to salvation, you know what you're going to do? You're going to keep your church thinner because you're not going to have a bunch of unsaved people coming in through the doors. But a lot of these churches, because they've been so vague for so long, because they like to play both sides of the field, they end up bringing in a lot of unsaved people into their congregation. It's a mixed multitude. Of course, there's nothing wrong with an unsaved person meandering through the door. But you know what? When they meander through the door, we should all be trying to get them saved. And we don't want to play games with their soul by not giving them a clear gospel and giving them the best opportunity to get saved that day just so we can make sure they get plugged in and start tithing. You know, I'd rather that we have every visitor come one time and leave saved than get a bunch of unsaved people coming to my church for a long time tithing. But you know what? That is really the goal of a lot of these other churches. Like, let's just love on these people, invite them to come to the fellowship, and we'll feed them, and we'll be nice. But don't approach them with the gospel because that offends people. And literally, churches will say this. I've heard pastors say this to people. Like, don't just go right up to them and start preaching the gospel because it can offend them. They might be coming from a Catholic background or coming from another church background. And when you tell them they're unsaved, they're going to be offended. And it's like, yeah, they are. I mean, people don't like it when they go to church, quote, unquote, and they're not saved. They have a hard time with admitting to that reality. You know what? We need to confront people with the gospel. We need to confront people with the truth. And when you do these type of things and you're making a big impact and getting a lot of people saved, what's going to happen is the devil is going to notice and he's going to attack you. And when the devil attacks you, often when you stand strong, your word is going to be thundered out through the entire world and everyone's going to hear about it. Everyone's going to hear about the works that you've been doing. Look at Romans, chapter number one, verse eight. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. You know, every time I read about these churches, they're going mega viral. I mean, I don't see them having like ten subs. I don't see their views on their YouTube channel getting like five views on their sermons. I mean, these people are going mega viral. Millions and millions of views. Everyone's heard about it. Everyone knows what's going on with this church. Why? Because the truth is going to have a major impact. People want to hear the truth. I mean, when Jesus Christ came into a town, everybody's coming to fall in the sky. Everybody wants to hear what he has to say. And of course, even bad people want to hear what he has to say, right? They can't stop following him around, talking about him, harassing him on a regular basis. And you have to go through a lot of that drama, but I'm telling you, it's for a good reason. It's for the gospel. I mean, Romans chapter one is so impactful when it comes to the gospel. Look what he says in verse number 16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, to just to live by faith. So the apostle Paul, he wants to go to Rome to get people saved. He realizes the impact of getting someone saved is through the faith of one saved Christian, going to the faith of another person. And we need that faith to be modeled throughout the whole world. We need the gospel message to be thundering forth throughout the whole world and any part of the Bible. I mean, Romans chapter number one, isn't his main goal here to get people saved? I mean, he's saying, hey, I really want to come to you guys and I want to get people saved. I mean, look what he says in verse 15. So as much as in me is, think about that statement. So as much as in me is, he's saying every single ounce of my entire being, everything that I possibly have, all strength, all of my mental capacity, all of my effort, everything that's in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are in Rome also. He's saying, this is like the most important thing to me. Everything inside of me is ready to preach the gospel. Well, then why do you have to have chapters, you know, one have 18 through verse 32 in it? I mean, if it's so focused on the gospel, why do you have to bring up all these reprobates? Why do you have to bring up the AIDS community? Well, I'll tell you why I had to bring it up, because everything's still related to the gospel. You know why those people are like that? Because they rejected the gospel. I mean, how can you bring up the gospel and not bring these people up? In fact, many times myself and other soul winners have told me the only way this person is going to get saved is for me to explain the reprobate doctrine to them. Why? Because it's tied one to another. They say, oh, you're telling me these child molesters are going to go to heaven? No, I'm not saying that. What do you mean? Romans 1. Oh, you're telling me these freaks and perverts are going to go to heaven? No, I'm not saying that. They hate the gospel. They hate the Lord Jesus Christ. They'll never believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's even the reason why they are the way they are. And it's not confusing that if there's one group that hates the gospel, hates Jesus Christ, that if you're going to be protested, who are you going to be protested by? That group. And of course, we know Pastor me, he preaches against every sin. Adultery, murder, he preaches against abortion, he preaches against drunkenness. But you know what? You don't see the murder community ever going and protesting. You don't come see the adultery community ever come and protesting. I mean, you don't see the Catholic community come and protesting. I mean, Pastor me, you don't see the dispensational community coming out and protesting. Why is it, I mean, if you preach against every sin, but then there's just one that wants to come and protest you or attack you, why is it? It's because they hate the gospel. Don't let that discourage you. In fact, that should be an indicator you're in the right church. Just like in 1 Thessalonians, when he's talking about these people, they receive the word of much affliction. You know why they receive the word of so much affliction? Because they turn from idols unto the living God. They were first-generation Christians. Let me ask a question. Who in here was raised an independent fundamental Baptist as a child? One hand. Oh, two hands. Okay. Two hands? You know what that tells me? A lot of people turn from something to the living God. And I'm not saying all of it, I mean, some of you may be saved as a child. Let me ask that. Who was saved as a child? Okay, still about 10%. Think about that. I mean, only like 10% of this church is here because of their upbringing, typically. The rest of you were reached by someone, someone getting you saved, bringing you into church, dragging you to church. I mean, this church is literally the fruit of people going out and preaching the gospel, causing a lot of drama, as it were, reaching people and dragging them into church. You know, we can't sit here and deny the reality that drama has its benefit as a benefit of getting people saved. Go to 1 Corinthians, chapter number 6, go to 1 Corinthians, chapter number 6. I had a guy, he came into my church, and he was visiting, and he said, Hey, do you know who Pastor Murphy is? I'm like, yeah. I like him. And he's like, well, you know, my old IFB church, I was just in there, and our pastor, he just got up and he was like, hey, let's all pray for First Works Baptist Church, because I heard they've been going through a lot of affliction, and this is some random place in Texas. And he's like, I just wanted to let you know that, maybe you can communicate it to Pastor Mahir or something like that. But it's like, you don't even realize how many people know about your church, how many people are praying for your church, realizing the impact that your church has. And yes, of course, the most important thing is that it is a benefit of getting people saved in the gospel. But here's another benefit of going through a lot of drama, is that it brings glory to God. It brings glory to God that there's someone willing to stand on God's Word and preach it unashamedly. You know, to say, I'm not embarrassed of what the Bible says. I'm not embarrassed of Jesus Christ. I'm not embarrassed of God. You know, there was a lot of disciples who were ashamed of Jesus Christ the night that he was taken, weren't they? You know, the ones that stand with him, that brings a lot of glory to him. That brings a lot of glory to God, saying he's worth going through some suffering. The Lord of Hosts, I mean, the King of Kings, is worth me going through a little bit of suffering, a little bit of fiction, a little bit of persecution, a little bit of lies, a little bit of slander. When people are not willing to say, hey, I know that guy, it kind of makes them look bad. But when you say, hey, I'm with him, I'm with Jesus Christ, that makes Jesus Christ look better. And, you know, it brings glory to God. It brings glory to the Word of God. It brings glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. It brings glory to the Gospel when people are willing to identify themselves with men of God, or specifically, Jesus Christ and God. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and look at verse number 20. The Bible says this, For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. So we are commanded by God, since we've been bought, we've been purchased, literally, by his blood, that we are supposed to give our body to him. You know, we often like to think that our body is our own, but really our body is the Lord Jesus Christ. And whatever God wants our body to go through, we should force it to go through that for his glory, for his honor. You know, just like Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was to glorify God through his body. Not that he wanted to get on the cross, not that he wanted to be whipped, not that he wanted to be spat upon, not that he wanted a crown of thorns to be shoved down on his head, not that he wanted all of his blood to be spilled, not that he wanted to be humiliated. I mean, he's up there naked, on a cross, beaten and bruised. The Bible talks about his visage was so marred you couldn't even recognize who he was. I mean, we're talking about one of the most embarrassing things imaginable. I mean, who would just want to stand naked in front of their whole family and friends, let alone be hanging on a cross while doing it, let alone while letting everyone mock you and spit upon you, let alone having all kinds of horrible atrocities happen to you. Of course, you don't think if you get whipped and beaten, you might cry or scream, and then people mock you for your crying or your screaming, as if they wouldn't scream, as if they wouldn't cry, as if they wouldn't be weeping and wailing or whatever human emotion happens. I mean, you can't even control those things. We went on roller coasters on Friday, and I'm sitting here thinking like, don't scream because I want to keep my voice for Sunday, but then you just start going down the road and you're like, You're just like, you can't even help it. It just comes out, you know, you're just like, and just like any kind of affliction, you know, you touch something that's too hot, things come out of your mouth. Even words could come out of your mouth, you know. You wicked sinners, you. Go over to Philippians, chapter one, Philippians chapter one. But we realize that there's an involuntary response to pain or suffering, and Jesus Christ had to go through all of that for the glory of God. He went through all of that for you. He went through all of that for me. He went through all of that for the elect's sake. In fact, He did it for the whole world, even those that wouldn't even believe on Him. He died for them. He even died for the church. You know, the Bible says that the church is purchased in His blood. How then can you be ashamed and embarrassed of First Works Baptist Church when Jesus Christ bought it with His blood? You know what you're saying? You're saying you don't like the gospel. You know what you're saying? You're embarrassed of Jesus Christ dying on the cross when you don't like a church of God. When you're embarrassed of a church of God, you're embarrassed of Jesus. You know what? We should not be embarrassed of any church of God, any man of God that's standing firm on the Word of God. You know what? We should stand with them and encourage them and support them because that gives glory to God. That gives glory to the gospel. Philippians chapter number 1, we've already been here, but look at verse number 20 now. He's saying, hey, it doesn't matter what happens to me as long as I'm giving glory to God. He doesn't worry about His body being preserved. He doesn't worry about what's going to happen to Him personally. He doesn't care about that. He just wants to make sure that whatever does happen, it's somehow glorifying God. He doesn't care, oh, I'm in prison, oh, I die, I'm a martyr, I'm crucified, just like Christ was. It doesn't matter, just as long as it was for Christ. But I don't want to go to jail for being a drunkard. I don't want to get killed for being a loser or doing something wrong or being a criminal or getting in the wrong fight. I just want to make sure that no matter what I'm doing, it's somehow glorifying God in that moment. Whether through my life or through my death, I want my body to glorify and magnify the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, go if you went to John chapter 21. John chapter 21, I want to show you another verse here. Often what the Bible brings up is glorifying God through death specifically. Through death specifically. And I believe it's because, you know, the Bible puts a major emphasis not necessarily on starting the Christian life, but finishing the Christian life. You know, the starting was easy. That was free. I was just like drinking a glass of water, eating a piece of bread. All you have to do is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you start it. So that was easy. The hard part is finishing the Christian life. Because the first part was free, the next part cost you everything. To finish for the Lord Jesus Christ will cost you absolutely everything, including your own body. And you have to be willing to just put it all on the altar and say, here my Lord, send me. And for many of God's greatest disciples, greatest men, they had to literally put their body on the altar. They had to sacrifice everything. Look what it says in John chapter 21 verse 19. So when Jesus is talking to Peter and, you know, he's kind of going back and forth with John, he's like, what's going to happen to John? He's like, who cares about John? Let's talk about you. You know, he's like, but John seems to just, you know, he's not going to have to go through the bad stuff. It's like, but you are. And who cares what's going on with him? Because you can't affect them, right? You know, maybe God has called you to glorify him through your death. You know, we can think about churches in Revelation, let's go there anyways, Revelation chapter 2. But there's certain churches that Jesus is telling them, be faithful unto death. You know, there's some people who God's calling in their life is to die for Christ. Now, that's only some, that's not everyone. But if that was your calling, you know, you want to step up to the plate and you want to be willing to literally die for Christ. Now, there's plenty of people that were willing to die for Christ and they didn't even have to. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they're willing to put their body on the altar, didn't even have to. Daniel, he's willing to put it all on the altar, didn't even have to die. So a lot of times God will deliver those who are willing to sacrifice it all, but he wants it to be as real as possible. You know, none of these guys, even Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you can kind of tell their hesitation of the fact that they didn't know for sure they were going to survive that. They're kind of like, well, even if he doesn't, we're still not going to bow down. He's like, my God is able to deliver me. But even if he doesn't, you know, it's like, you know, they didn't necessarily always know that for sure, because they're still in the flesh, they didn't know for sure God's going to deliver them. But by faith, they would step out. By faith, they're like, well, whatever happens, happens. You know, Apostle Paul didn't know that every single time he's getting stoned, he's going to survive that. He probably thought every time this is it. And sometimes he probably wished it was. He's like, dang it, they didn't kill me? You know, this is like picking the rocks off. I mean, he's just like coming out. It's like a zombie. Maybe he like played tricks on his friends. He's like, oh, back from the dead. You know, they couldn't kill Paul. But for us, you know, there could be a time in history in our history where churches are literally happened to go through physical affliction, where their life is literally on the line. In fact, I think, you know, there's definitely been the threat of that. There's definitely been insinuations of that. And in the New Testament, you have plenty of people dying for the cause of Christ. So it wouldn't even surprise me if in our lifetime, we see great men of God being sacrificed or martyred for the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know, if that does happen, it shouldn't discourage you. And in fact, it should confirm to you that you're doing the work of God. And when you look at the real churches, I mean, we have seven real churches here in the Book of Revelation. Let me tell you something that's happening in these churches, drama. Look at verse two. I know thy works and thy labor and thy patience, and thou canst not bear them which are evil, and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not, and hast found them liars. So notice this church has a bunch of infiltrators, a bunch of people coming in lying, preaching false doctrine, claiming that they're saved, claiming that they're men of God, but they're really not. And they had to throw these people out. They had to hate on these people. They found them liars. They couldn't stand them. And you know what? In a church that's actually serving God, you're probably going to have bad people trying to sneak in here, coming in here, riling people up. They're a bunch of liars. And you know what? Your pastor has to deal with them. And don't think like, why is this church always having to throw people out at all this drama? It's called New Testament Christianity. And you know what? It glorifies God when you're willing to deal with the trash. You know what does not glorify God? Letting trash exist in here. Just like going to downtown L.A., you know it's not glorious all the trash on all the streets over there. You know it would be glorious if people would actually go and pick it up. If the tax dollars here weren't just going to Lying Newsom's pocket, but rather he was actually being willing to pay people to clean up the streets. You don't think that California is taking enough taxes in to clean up the streets. If we didn't have criminals and pedophiles at the top of the government in this state, you know what, the streets would be crystal clean. I mean they would be great. Instead of handing them needles, you know hand them a broom and get them sweeping. Give them a job. Give them like some actual nutrition, rather than just drugs to try and numb them to sleep. And to constantly take from all the taxpayers around here. You know it would be wonderful if in a church you went and you didn't have to experience trash. Literally and physically. So you better clean up after yourself, okay? Don't make all the cleaning crew come in here and do that. But then secondly, I don't want to go to a church that's filled with human trash. A bunch of liars and a bunch of railers and a bunch of unsaved people and have to constantly worry and fret about my children. Being a victim of predators coming into churches. Yet there are churches even in this area that are inviting predators into their sanctuary. Oh anybody can worship here. Not in the New Testament church. Have you even read 1 Corinthians chapter number 5? I mean have you even read the scriptures? Have you not read? I mean it makes me think of what Jesus is rebuking all the Pharisees with. And you know what, what kind of pastor is a shepherd that says wolves come in. Tares amongst the wheat come in. Anybody's welcome to worship. That is a foolish idea. That is not found in scripture. You should have some drama where you're throwing some trash out every once in a while. You know what, I praise my pastor and I praise every church that's willing to get trash out. Because very few churches will exercise church discipline anymore. Most of their church discipline is just, it's like this. Oh I marked them off the roll. That's their church discipline. They don't, well they're not a member. Didn't you see that? I marked them off the list. Well they're still coming, they're still involved in every single event. They're still working in the nursery. Yeah but they're not on the sheet. Who cares about the sheet? Pick them up and throw them into the street. I mean this is nonsense that we have today. But churches, they're so afraid. And you know what, even good people can sometimes get disciplined from a church. But you know what, that needs to happen because you don't want a little leaven leavening the whole lump. And you know what, this church has a great thing going for it. The worst thing that can happen is if you just start letting a bunch of leaven come in here. And I know Pastor Mee is not going to just let a bunch of leaven come in here and ruin all the work that he's already put into this church. And you know what, when he gets rid of some trash you should thank him. Not go attach yourself to the trash and go jump in the dumpster with it. You know people do that. There's even churches that are a literal dumpster. I mean it's just like, all they do is just collect trash. I mean that's the only way they grow is by us constantly throwing people out. And they're just like, my new member. I'm growing. You know. It's like we help them grow. Look at verse number 9. I know thy works and tribulation and poverty, but thou art rich. And I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. That sounds like some drama. It's like hey I know all these guys blaspheming you constantly, a bunch of Jews. Look at verse 10. So this is a Gentile area. But notice that they're able to rile up the Gentiles so much to drag God-fearing, Bible-believing Christians into prison. I mean what kind of false accusations were they bringing against these people? Oh they're inciting violence. Oh they're against the laws of the land. Oh they're so hateful. You know we got to throw them in prison. Who knows what they were saying. But it's all the same tactics. It's all the same things that they always bring up. The same false accusations. But you know what? That's a lot of drama when you literally have the cops coming in here dragging people out of church to prison. And they weren't committing crimes. They weren't doing any kind of violence. They weren't doing anything against the law of the land. They were simply just Bible-believing Christians, God-fearing men, women, and children going to church with the Bible, trying to hear what God has a message for them. Trying to preach the gospel of peace. Yet they're being hauled to prison. Yet they're being killed for the cause of Christ. It's a lot of drama. Look at verse 13. Antipas was my faithful martyr who was slain among you were Satan's wealth. I'll tell you what. I guarantee if one of, you know, a church member here, a faithful church member here got martyred, there'd be all these naysayers being like, oh he deserved it. Oh he got that was coming. He's no Job. No, you're no Job. Your Job's friend's a life ass. He's not even his friend, but you know. This is kind of accusation, but you know what? I don't care what they say. I care what God says. No one knows what God says. Hey, he's my faithful martyr. Wouldn't that be cool if your name was in the Bible? Like this guy's my faithful martyr. He's probably hanging out with Jesus in heaven. You know, he's not just holding the door open for everybody to go in and hang out with Jesus. He is, you know, right there next to him. He's sitting there in Jesus bosom. You know, the faithful martyr. And that's a lot of drama. Oh, this church literally has people being killed. Yeah, for the cause of Christ. Yeah, for the Lord Jesus. He's in Satan's seat. I mean, he's in California. I'm just kidding. I mean, this guy's faithful though, right? I'm just kidding. We're trying to take it back over to Texas. Go over to verse 20. Now that's crazy. Can you imagine if one of our friends had a woman preacher getting up preaching pro-fornication sermons? I mean, that is bizarre that they have a church that's perverted themselves that quickly and gone astray that far. But you know what's even crazier is the fact that then Jesus is like, I gave her space to repent. It's like he even was like willing to just like, okay, well, let's just kind of wait it out. Let's see if they fix this or whatever. But that's a lot of drama. I mean, you got all kinds of issues and problems. Look at chapter three, verse 10. Because thou has kept the word of my patience. I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth. Now, some people look at some of these churches and say, oh, Philadelphia didn't have any drama because it doesn't mention like negative things. But wait a minute. What does it say? Because thou has kept the word of my patience. Yeah, they had some drama. They were just keeping the word. They were patient through all of that drama that they initially had. And then God says, because you are so faithful during that drama, I'm not going to bring the big hammer later on you guys. All these other people are going to get that. So notice there's even a benefit here to glorifying God. Being patient and just serving God and going through the tribulation you have now, God may then turn that into peace for you later. Because when you glorify God, he likes you and he keeps you around. The people that stop glorifying him, the people that are backslidden, the Urijahs that go and hide in Egypt, God will come drag them back out and cause them to die. But you know the Jeremiahs, yeah, you might get thrown in the dunk pit, but you survive, you know? You get pulled out of there, right? Sometimes you have to go through some ugly stuff. Sometimes you have to go through some bad tribulation and some evil. But you know what? It just gives so much more glory to God, the fact that you went through it. And again, don't let the naysayers try to get you all riled up like, oh, well, it's not for the gospel's sake. Okay, well, let's just think about some people that suffered not for the gospel's sake, which I disagree that it was for the gospel. But the accusation they bring is not directly related. Let's just see, how about John the Baptist? What was it that got his head chopped off? Oh, because he was preaching the law at Herod, saying it was not lawful for him to have his brother's wife. And also another proof text that the Old Testament law was not just for the Jews. So I don't know if you realize this, Herod's not a Jew. Because the law's for everyone. There's only one God, there's only one law giver, and there's only one law, and we're all bound to it, whether you like it or not. And he was preaching against Herod for being a wicked adulterer, being in a relationship that he shouldn't be in, and because of preaching against adultery, he got his head chopped off. But it's also for the gospel's sake. How about Jesus Christ himself? What was the accusation? Hey Jesus, stop coming up here and preaching the death, bear, and resurrection. No, no, no. They said it was for blasphemy. They said it was because he was going to destroy the temple, inciting some violence, you know. Oh man, this guy's inciting a lot of violence. Go to Luke chapter 23, let's look at one of the accusations they brought against the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And of course Jesus had all manner of blasphemy. They said he was filled with devils, you know. He's performing miracles by the power of the devil. They're blaspheming the Holy Ghost. Whenever the Jews bring him to Pilate, they're like, okay, so what did he do? Well, if he were not a malefactor, we would not have brought him unto you. Okay, so what did he do? I already told you he's a bad guy. Come on, believe us. We're Jews, we don't lie. Pilate's like, yeah, okay, whatever. Luke 23, look at verse 14. Said unto them, ye have brought this man unto me as one that perverted the people. Notice what the accusation was against Jesus Christ, that he had perverted the nation. Oh, he's a pervert. But wait a minute, Jesus Christ is the truth. Jesus, he can't pervert anything. I'm the way, the truth, and the life. Oh, how did he pervert the nation? By healing everyone? By preaching the truth to everyone? By exposing all the wicked ravenous wolves known as the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the lawyers? Of course, then what do they label him as a pervert? But you know who's the real pervert? The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the lawyers, and Pilate, and Herod. Herod is sleeping with his brother's wife. Talk about a pervert. Talk about someone that's perverted the nation, the Jews. But then they project their sin, they project their insecurities onto the Lord Jesus Christ, and they say he's a blasphemer, they're the blasphemers. They say he's a pervert, they're the perverts. They say he's a malefactor, they're the malefactors. And you know what, it's the same thing. When people attack your pastor, of course they're not going to get up and say, oh, Pastor Mejia is helping people with their marriage, and Pastor Mejia is praying at night for people so that they'll be healed, and Pastor Mejia is staying up, you know, all night to console people that have lost a loved one. Oh, and Pastor Mejia is going door to door and trying to get people saved and pull them out of the fire. They're not going to bring that up. Oh, this guy's a pervert, a malefactor, an evil, and a railer. They're going to make all manner of false accusation against him. Oh, this guy's so hateful. You know, I've been here for a few days. I haven't experienced anything I hate yet. It's been a lot of love. It's been a lot of, you know, honor and respect. And I mean, as I've heard, I'm like the worst guy ever, so I mean, I just can't even believe how nice he is to me. I mean, if you actually brought in a really nice pastor, like a good pastor, I mean, I can't imagine how nice you'd treat them. This is foolishness, my friend. You know, you're going to have, if you have a New Testament church, you're going to have a lot of trauma. But let me tell you something. When you get all those false accusations labeled against you, when you get all those attacks, you're like Christ. And Christ looks down from heaven and says, look, here's a guy that's willing to suffer a lot of hate for me. He's willing to suffer a lot of evil for me. This guy is willing to stand with me and to be like me and follow in my example. And you know what? That gives glory to God. That gives glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. Gove you with the first Peter, chapter four, first Peter, chapter four. Paul was accused of causing an uproar, of turning the world upside down. Stephen was accused of blasphemy. The Apostle Paul brings out the phrase, as evildoers, yet true. The Apostle Paul is constantly labeled an evildoer and a deceiver. One is also perverting the nation and speaking blasphemous things. You know, Stephen's considered a blasphemer of Moses. He's teaching blasphemous things. He's preaching against Moses. Herod ends up killing James just because it pleased the Jews. Not because of him preaching the gospel. And of course, don't let those that are evil, don't let the Jews, don't let the AIDS community tell you what the real story is. Don't let the media tell you what the real story is. You know, it's frustrating when Christians use the media as their source of attacking you. They're thinking like, what? You literally sit here and complain about the media all day long and how it's lies, lies, lies. And then they write an article about Pastor Mejia and its truth. It's real all of a sudden, right? I mean, that doesn't make any sense. It's frustrating to me when I talk to people. Like, I've talked to people that not necessarily eat Baptist or go to our church or anything like that. And they're like, man, I can't stand the government. They're a bunch of liars and deceivers. And, you know, they're just, they're in on everything. They're just insider trading and all the corruption in the foreign policy. And they're a bunch of pedophiles and they just line their own pockets and all the lobbying efforts are wicked and the regulatory things are wicked. And they'd be like, but you need to get vaccinated. And I'm like, what? And this is like before 2000. It was really big. Like I had family members. They'd be like, the government lies about everything. And I'd be like, well, what do you think the CDC about vaccines? Oh, it's 100 percent true. It's the best thing ever. You know, I believe it. And it was like, they're like 100 percent liars. But over here, they're 100 percent truth. You don't think there could be something false or they're saying something wrong here or something shady on this area, too? Look, if you're that shady, you're shady on everything. You say like, hey, Pastor Shelley, where do you trust the government? Never. Nowhere. What agency do you like? None. Zero. Well, which ones do you trust? None of them. And of course, I'm not going to use the government or the media or the enemies of the gospel as a source against Christians. You know, if I'm going to think about a Christian, I'm going to think about what does the Bible say? And when I start thinking about what the Bible says, I'm like, OK, these guys are lied about, slandered. These people have a lot of drama. There's a lot of affliction. And then when I start seeing all that, I'm like, oh, yeah, this lines up. I don't see them just Rolls Royce, 100 percent capacity of their Bible college, no affliction. Palm trees lining the, you know, the driveway. When did you see that? Oh, that was the temple where the Jews were. Where it was all beautiful and well manicured and everything looked so nice. And you know what? They're they're more afraid of losing the building than their religion. Because they lost the religion to the to the Romans. The Romans were in charge, but they still have the temple, but they still have their prestige. Right. And they care more about that than they care about the actual New Testament Christianity or even Old Testament Christianity. They just let that slip out. You know what? God takes glory when we suffer for his sake and we hold to the Bible and we don't cling to anything else. I don't want to cling to anything else. Everything else is not worth it. Everything else deteriorates. Everything else is vanity. The only thing to really cling to in this world is the is the word of God is the Bible. That's what has eternal value. Look at First Peter, Chapter four, verse 16. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf. Notice if you suffer as a Christian, you should never be ashamed. Don't be ashamed when people lie about you. Don't be ashamed when people falsely accuse you. Don't be ashamed when people attack you for being a Christian. Oh, how dare you go to a church like First Works Baptist Church? No, I'm not ashamed of that. I'm going to glorify God. I glorify God that there's a church like this in this area. Praise the Lord that someone is willing to take a stand. That's willing to preach the Bible. That's willing to stand up against evil in this generation. You know what? We should glorify God for a church like this and praise God that He's willing to draw people together. I mean, think about this. This is a giant group of people that weren't even saved as a child. They've been reached in all manner of ways, being brought together in a glorious manner to give glory to God. This church exists to glorify God in every way. Don't be ashamed if you suffer. In fact, the more you suffer, the more you should glorify God. You know, when Peter and John, they finally got beaten and they ran away skipping. They're just like, yeah, we got we got to suffer for the cause of Christ. You know, it's funny because real testament Christianity, they know that they're a Christian if they've suffered. If they hadn't suffered, it's like, what are you doing? How lame are you? You know, it's like just think about it in Second Corinthians. I believe your pastors already preached to this chapter or through this book. But in Second Corinthians, the apostle Paul began speaking as a fool and chapters number 11 and stuff like that. And when he's speaking as a fool, he's bragging about suffering for the cause of Christ, because that's the real accolades of a Christian. Now, it's not seemly for him to do it about himself. That's kind of what's the inappropriate part of it. But what he's saying is true, that his suffering and the evil that's happened to him gives him kind of that street cred. You know, he's got those spiritual, you know, teardrops or whatever. He's got those those spiritual like stoning drops or whatever, you know, he's like, I've been stoned five times. I've been shipwrecked day and night. I mean, he's just he's bringing up all the things that have happened to him. Now, of course, it's not seemly for you to brag about yourself. And of course, that's what he's mocking. He's mocking how there's all these people bragging about themselves. But he's like, oh, if we're going to brag, then I'll go and I'll show you my rap sheet. And it's just like it makes everyone else look embarrassed because they have nothing to show for. But somehow now in America, it's like people think like, oh, look at my rap sheet clean as a whistle. And then they're bragging about that. And you're like, you guys don't even get the Bible. Because it's it's one thing to brag if you actually have something to brag about. It's another thing to brag when you have nothing to brag about. Our church has no drama. That's just like saying I suck. Look at me. I'm doing nothing. Look at me. We're not reaching anybody. We baptized one person this year and it was so-and-so's kid. You know, it's like Pastor Mia is baptizing everybody. Pastor Mia is reaching all kinds of new people with the gospel. You know, that's something to actually brag about. Hey, we got protested. You know, that's something to brag about. You know, he's not going to brag on himself. He needs other men to speak positively of him, like his church members. Not to get ashamed. Yeah, I go to First Works. I was like, I go to First Works. Have you seen the shirt? Go to Good Raymond, buy all the merchandise and just wear it everywhere, you know? So you're like, I go to First Works. I'm in the new IV. My pastor is Pastor Mia. I mean, it's cool. Up in heaven, they're like, man, that guy goes to Pastor Mia's church. That guy's awesome. Don't let the world influence you on what's cool or what's right. You know what? By standing with the man of God, you're giving glory to God. Go to Romans, chapter number five. Point one is this. The benefit of drama is the gospel. The benefit of the drama is the glory of God. But here's the third benefit I have of drama is the growth. Is the growth. And you get a lot of growth from going through drama. Drama is actually what's going to give you a lot of growth. And when I talk about growth, I'm not talking about physically, OK? I'm talking about spiritual growth here. You know, people that have gone through a lot of drama, they can go through more drama. And the people that have gone through no drama, they are terrified of drama. It's funny. There's there's been this group that's like protesting our church for a long time. And I saw them sometimes they talk about other churches are going to protest and they're going to protest. Like this other church has like thousands of people or something. And there was going to be like four protesters or something. And this church was like freaking out. Like they're just like having all staff, all hands on meeting. And they're just like terrified of like what's going to happen. And, you know, they get all nervous about just like any kind of level of persecution that they just have to bow over backwards. You know, there was a church right next to us. And they had nothing to do with us. They don't preach hard on anything. They don't even use the King James Bible. It's like a Southern Baptist church. And they put out a video saying, like, some people think that we're steadfast. We are not. We love A.I.D.S. You know, it's so wonderful. It's welcome in our church. Monkey pox, bring it on in. HIV, you got it. I mean, even The Who came out and said that 99 percent of people contracting monkey pox are men. And then of those people, 95 percent admitted to being a sodomite. The other five percent were lying about it. But it's like, why would you be inviting that into your church? And no one confused you with me. OK, that's stupid. They're so afraid of I mean, I would love it if people are like coming to protest our church and all their signs said, you know, we're against FWCLA. They're like, hey, we're protesting first works. And it's like, great. You know, we're not that church, but I'm just glad you confused me with Pastor Mejia. I feel cool now. You know, it's like I wouldn't be ashamed of that. I'd be like, praise God that we're getting persecuted for standing on the Bible. I mean, it's so silly what some of these Christians so-called are like. You know, when you go through a little bit of drama, when you go through a little affliction, you know, you can actually have a little bit of growth. You actually have a little bit of strength. You have a little bit of endurance. Look at Romans Chapter five, verse one. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith in this grace where we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation work of patience and patience, experience and experience, hope and hope. Make it not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. You know, he says in Romans, he says, look, we're obviously glorifying God through the gospel, but not just the gospel here. Not only so, but we glory in tribulations also saying, hey, when we suffer for the cause of Christ, we still glorify God through that. You know, Joe went through the ultimate tribulation and the ultimate sacrifice he could ever go. And then he still said, blessed be the name of the Lord. How does a man do that? Because he has the right mentality that everything is just of our life is just to glorify God. And a man that is willing to glorify God after the Lord has allowed him to lose all of his money, all of his finances, all of his house, all of his children, all of his health. And he kept his wife and he's still willing to glorify God. I mean, that man is showing how how worthy God is. I mean, God could take all that from you because, you know, Joe doesn't attribute it to the devil. Job says the Lord giveth, the Lord take it away. And he recognized that the devil could only do such things if the Lord had allowed him. And he's saying, hey, God took this away from me. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I mean, if God came down from heaven and took all the things that are most precious to you away from you, would you still say, you know what? Blessed be the name of the Lord. You know what? That type of tribulation does something to you, does something to your soul. It gives you what? Patience. Because Joe, going through that experience, if any kind of trouble ever happens to him again in the future, which would never even compare, he's going to have the patience to say, you know what? God's got this. It's still going to work out. He's going to have the experience to know there is nothing that could happen to me that would stop me from worshipping the Lord or trusting in the Lord or knowing that the Lord is still good and that the Lord is going to take care of me. And then it's going to give him hope because the next time he goes through evil, he realizes he can get through it again. And so it's kind of similar to a church experience where, you know, you have some tribulation, you have some persecution that happens to you, and while it's difficult in the moment, you just, you're patient about it. And then after going through that experience, it's going to give you hope for the next trial, the next tribulation, the next evil which befalls you, and really what happened is you got a lot of growth from that. So by going through drama, it gives you that spiritual growth so that you're stronger to be able to endure bigger afflictions, bigger trials, bigger tribulations in the future. Because ultimately dying for Christ is pretty much the epitome of sacrifice, but it's going to be hard to get to that point. So you have to build up. You know, you have to start lifting weights now so that you can get to that big goal in the future. You know, we all know this, no pain, no gain, right? I mean, if there's a church that knows something about working out, it first works, right? Hey, there's nothing wrong with working out. You know, we shouldn't just work out physically, we should work out spiritually. And you know, you're just like, A-I-D-S, yeah, Jews, yeah, yeah, infiltrators, yeah, woo! And then it's like, there's nothing left, that's all you got? I mean, you go to the gym, you know, I work out with a guy, go over to 2 Peter 1, and we go to a couple different gyms, and there's this one gym he really likes to go to because it's close to his house. And so we go there, but there's a problem for him. The dumbbells, the free weights, they max out at 100 pounds. So they don't have dumbbells above 100. Well, this guy needs dumbbells above 100. So then we go to another gym so that he can get like 120s and sit here in incline bench press, just like 12 reps. And I'm just sitting here just like, wow. But it kind of got maxed out, right? He kind of didn't have anything left to do. So then he has a new challenge. He has to get more weight, right? And if you want to actually grow physically, you got to keep challenging yourself, putting on new weight, heavier weight, more reps, all the different kind of challenges that go with weight living to get stronger and bigger. And there's a lot of Christians today. They look like Richard Simmons. Pee-wee Herman, okay? I mean, they're just going around, and it's like they got one-pound dumbbells. They're just like, ah, you know? And it's like pastor, he is over deadlifting, you know, like hundreds of pounds, like, oh, yeah. And it's like, that's what it's like spiritually. He's the guy who's like, someone left me a bad email. It's like, have you ever seen our voicemail? It's like, I changed the greeting to Leviticus 2013 to just try and reduce some of that. Can you imagine one of these big old IV churches putting Leviticus 2013 as their greeting? Everyone would freak out. You know, in our church, it's no big deal. You know, you go to Planet Fitness, and you like grunt a little bit, and everybody's like, oh, what happened? Are you okay? It's like you go to a real gym, and people are like, ah, yeah. It's like, that's normal. You know, you open the Bible, you accidentally say the word faggot, and people aren't just like, did he just say that behind the pulpit? It's like, yeah, I did. But then people get all offended by things because they've never heard that word, right? If you go to an old IV church, there's a lot of words that they wouldn't want to hear, okay? And at the end of the day, we should build up a tolerance to the things in the Bible so that we're not offended by the tribulation. You know, Jesus Christ is saying to people that he's telling them about the tribulations that are going to happen so they would not be offended. Because it's really difficult to just go from 0 to 60 sometimes. You know, it's really difficult to go to church, and then your first service, they're like, okay, now the cops are going to show up, they're going to drag you out, and they're going to execute some of you. It's like, oh, I came to the wrong church tonight. It's like, that would be hard, right? But if you've gone to church for decades, and you serve God for decades, and you've gone through tribulations for decades, and then you read in the Bible, hey, be thou faithful in the death, some people would be like, let's do it. I'm ready to go to heaven. I'm ready to glorify God in my body. Why? Because they're actually strong enough to handle that. They don't need just one pound dumbbells. They can actually handle some serious weight. And you know what? There's some people in this church that can handle some serious spiritual weight because they've gone through the drama. And those that can't, they haven't experienced any drama. They don't know what drama is. They don't like drama. They don't want to experience that. But you know, there's a benefit to that drama. There's a benefit to going to the gym and it hurting a little bit. Because if it never hurts, you'll never get strong. I guarantee every person that's actually seriously worked out is actually seriously strong. There's been plenty of times where working out was really painful. It's not fun. You know, doing squats is not fun. I would say the lunges, I hate lunges. I hate running. I think I hate everything about working out. I like arm day. That's like the only thing I like, you know, and, and if you work out well, it hurts for like days. I mean, unless you maybe if you're really good shape, but like if you work out like the second day is so bad. It's like it hurts the first day. And then the second day is just like a hammer, you know, and it gets a point where you can't even walk. Sorry. Just me. Okay. But the same could be spiritually, right? Going through some tribulation, it can actually hurt, right? It could actually kind of painful. You kind of like walk and you're just like, you're just kind of like dragging yourself up, you know, to the next place. But then eventually you kind of heal and you get a little bit stronger. And then the next time it's not as painful. The next time you can handle a little bit more. So don't, don't hear me wrong in saying that drama, it's all good. It's all roses. It's not. Obviously there's pain associated. Obviously there's affliction. There's tribulation. There's evil that's associated with it. But what happens is you get stronger over time and you can endure bigger things, more challenges, and it gets to a point where tribulation, minor tribulation, you don't even feel it. I guarantee there's plenty of guys in here or if I said, all right, do reps. I want you to see as many reps as you can with a five pound dumbbell. You'd be like all day. I mean, you're just like, I don't know. I can't even, you know, it's nothing. Right. So it's just like saying with Christianity, when you start serving God for a while, it's like, did you hear someone said something negative about your pastor? Like who cares? Did you see this comment? No. It's like, I don't care about that anymore. Like it's such a minor affliction. It just gets to a point where it's not even painful anymore. It's not even a big deal. It's just like only call me unless they're going to blow up the building. Second Peter chapter one, look at verse four. They make you, they shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So according to Bible, we're supposed to grow. Look, just skip forward a little bit to the end of the chapter. Chapter three, verse 17. Either for beloved seeing, you know, these things before beware list. He also being led away with error of the wicked fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ to him be glory both now and forever. Notice that God doesn't just want to wait to be glorified when we all get to heaven. He wants to be glorified now. And you know what glorifies God when willing to grow now, I want to go one place, go to second Chronicles chapter 32 and we're going to finish the sermon. The benefits of drama. Another one is the gospel. Number two is glory for God. And number three is growth. And I want to challenge you this morning to realize that the afflictions and the trials and tribulations you go through are simply God just testing you to see what you're going to really be like, you know, God put a lot of men of God through some difficult things. And if you go through some serious tribulations and some serious difficulty, you should actually look at it this way. God has a high respect for you. Because let's just say we all went to the gym and I look you and I'm like, you should do five pound dumbbells. You're going to feel disrespected as a man. Now, some of you ladies may not care. You're pretty humble about it, right? But you know, as a man, it's just like, whoa, fifties fives. Okay. You'd be like, what do you mean fives? What do you think I am here? Right. The same would be spiritually. It's like if your church never goes through anything difficulty, any kind of struggle, any kind of tribulation, it's like God's like, oh, here's some five pound dumbbells. You know, Paul Chapel, can you, can you, can you even get those up? Right. But if, but if he says to your church, like here's some, here's some hundred and twenties, you know, you should look, you should look at it this way. Wow. God actually thinks that I can handle something pretty serious. You know, God actually thinks I'm pretty strong here. God actually thinks, you know, and if someone took me to the gym and it's like, here's the hundred and twenties, I'd be like, only if God's going to help you with these. And sometimes we, as pastors, sometimes we, as Christians, we'd look at it. We're like, I can't lift that. I can't do that. But you know what? God wants to put some weight in front of you that he knows you can't do just to see if you'll just try it and he'll help you do it. That's the faith. Look at second Chronicles chapter 32 verse 31. How be it in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon who sent unto him to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land. God left him to try him that he might know all that was in his heart. Now this is Hezekiah and Hezekiah is a great guy. This guy did great exploits. There was times where he's surrounded by the enemy and he had to trust on the Lord. He won great battles. He destroyed all kinds of false religion in his days. I mean, Hezekiah is a really excellent guy. You know what? God says, I want to see everything that's in your heart. I want to see how far I can take you. I want to take you to the edge. And Hezekiah ended up faltering at the very edge. You know, he did great. He's a really strong guy, a really great Christian. But in one area he finally faltered. He was a little too prideful and he allowed the ambassadors of Babylon to come into his dwelling. He didn't exercise some church discipline, as it were. And he let some evil people come in, see too much. He didn't use enough discretion. He's a little too prideful. And because of them coming in, spying out all these treasures, guess who's coming down the pike? The Babylonians. Because they're like, wow, you want to talk about treasure? It's there. And here's a good tip. Don't tell people where your money and your guns are, okay? That's a bad thing. Don't like, hey, come in here. Here's where all the goods are. That's a bad idea. You want to advertise your goods, okay? And when it comes to Hezekiah, you know, he did a lot of great things for the Lord, but he was ultimately tested. And here's the thing. God is going to test you. How much can you handle? How many challenges and tribulations and trials can God put you through and you just keep relying upon Him, you stay patient for Him, you just keep getting in the fight for Him? You know what? All of us are going through a personal test. One day we will all stand before Christ and have to answer for ourselves. Your mom's not going to be there to answer for you. Your dad's not going to be there to answer for you. Your spouse isn't going to be there to answer for you. You know, and God's going to have tested your heart and you want to become, you want to stand there and be faithful. And I'll tell you, you know how you get there? You go through a lot of drama. If you want to get to the end and have Jesus Christ be really pleased with you, it's going to be through a lot of drama. Let's go to prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father for the Word of God. Thank you for this church. I pray that you would just strengthen the members of this church, strengthen Pastor Mejia, that you would encourage them. They'd realize that any drama that they experience is ultimately for your glory, it's for the gospel, it's for their own personal growth. And I pray that they wouldn't be discouraged or weary or faint in their minds, but rather they would glorify you for that struggle. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Song number 112, Be Still My Soul, is our dismissing song. Song number 112. Song number 112, Be Still My Soul, seen on that first verse. Be still my soul, the Lord is on my side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Leave to thy God to order and provide. In every change a faithful will remain. Be still my soul, thy best, thy earthly friend. Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end. Be still my soul, thy God doth undertake. To guide the future as He has the past. Thy hope, thy confidence let not be shaken. O now, mystic, freest shall be bright at last. Be still my soul, the waves and winds. Still know His face through them while He dwelt below. Be still my soul, the hour is pasting on. When we shall be forever with the Lord. When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone. Sorrow for God, love's purest joy restored. Be still my soul, when change and tears are past. All safe and blessed, we shall be at last. Great singing. I feel like that song was very fitting for the sermon. That was really good. I want to thank Pastor Shelly for that sermon. I know he talked a lot about our church, but honestly, I was translating it to Steadfast Baptist Church. Everything he was saying is what his church has been going through, him and himself as a leader. Please continue to pray for him and his family and his church. Obviously, spiritually, he has nothing to do with Planet Fitness, amen? He's obviously had some power lifting gym, deadlifting like 600 pounds spiritually because he's doing a great job out there. Continue to pray for him. He's going to be here tonight, so make sure you're here tonight. He thought that sermon was good. I'm putting a lot of pressure on him. He thought that sermon was good. Just way to tonight. It's way better than this morning. Looking forward to hearing him tonight. Let's go ahead and pray. We'll be dismissed. Father, we thank you again for our salvation. We're thankful for the message, Lord, and the reminder to allow ourselves to suffer tribulation, to endure, to be patient through it, Lord. What a great reminder that we all need, myself included, our church. I pray that you would deem us worthy to suffer more persecution and tribulation as the years go by, Lord. Of course, prepare us for that, Lord. I pray, Lord, that you'd continue to bless Steadfast Baptist Church and Pastor Shelley with more labors and salvations. May you continue to use them in a great way to encourage other believers out there to stand for the truth. I pray that you bless us as we go on our way. Bless the Sunday evening service. We love you. We thank you. Pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. You are dismissed.