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Come on. I'm gonna preach for you. Jackson comes in. Hello. Hello. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Yeah. What do you think? Uh-huh. I'm gonna get a really good one. Well, here we go. Here we go. I'm gonna take a picture. What are you doing? I'm gonna take a picture. yeah yeah all right everybody welcome to pure words baptist church happy anniversary we're gonna go ahead and start with song number 412 onward Christian soldiers song four hundred and well onward christians told oh onward christian soldiers marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before hey on on foundation onward christian watching oh oh oh oh brothers where the saints have drawn oh oh oh charity onward christian soldiers marching as to with the cross of Jesus going on before onward thank you people join our happy throng when with us your voices in the triumph song glory, laud and honor unto Christ the king is through countless ages men and angels sing onward christian soldiers marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before amen amen next up is going to be 169 come thou found song number 169 come thou found come thou found of every blessing to my heart to sing thy praise strength of mercy never ceasing call for songs of loudest praise teach me some melodies on it some quite framing times above praise the mount I've fixed upon it found of thy redeeming love here I raise my Ebenezer either by thy help I come and I know by thy good pleasure safely I'll arrive at home God be when a stranger wandering from the fold of God he to rescue me from danger interpose his precious blood oh to grace how great a debtor greatly I've got strength to be let thy goodness like a fetter be hard to be prone to wander Lord I feel it prone to leave the God I love here's my heart oh take it seal it seal it for thy course above thank you again for coming to Purest Baptist Church if you didn't already get a bulletin or you like another one brother James is gonna come by and get you guys a bulletin and on the front we have the psalm that we're working on memorizing as well as we have on the inside service soul winning times I'm gonna get did we already get the count from today or do we need to get that 23 for today alright praise God on that and then if we had is there any soul winning from the past week that needs to be reported was there anything that anybody had alright that's great work on the soul winning and it was really receptive out there today even in the heat and so thanks so much to everybody who participated also please be in prayer for expecting lady we also have upcoming event the fire breathing Baptist fellowship in October if you'd like to participate I believe brother Duncan said there is a sign up sheet over here on the cabinet if you are planning on coming you can sign up just to give us an idea and then also prayer request please be praying for our church family we have church reminders there down below and that's pretty much really all I have as far as announcements are concerned we'll go ahead and sing our third song which is psalm 16 in our special handouts psalm 16 psalm 16 psalm 16 and we do have plenty of food left over so please after the service take as much as you want and right after the service don't forget we're doing our false Bible burning as well so stick around for that and we're gonna have some s'mores with that as well so but that we'll go ahead and turn to psalm 16 in your white King James Bible psalm 16 psalm 16 psalm 16 psalm 16 psalm 16 psalm 16 psalm 16 psalm 16 psalm 16 psalm 16 psalm 16 As the offering plate is being passed around please take out your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter number three Ecclesiastes chapter number three as our custom we'll read the entire chapter before the sermon Ecclesiastes chapter number three the Bible reads to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven a time to be born and a time to die a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted a time to kill and a time to heal a time to break down and a time to build up a time to weep and a time to laugh a time to mourn and a time to dance a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing a time to get and a time to lose a time to keep and a time to cast away a time to rend and a time to sow a time to keep silence and a time to speak a time to love and a time to hate a time of war and a time of peace what profit hath he that worketh and that wherein he laboureth I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it he hath made everything beautiful in his time also he hath set the world in their heart so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end I know that there is no good in them but for a man to rejoice and to do good in his life and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor it is the gift of God I know that whatsoever God doeth it shall be forever nothing can be put to it nor anything taken from it and God doeth it that men should fear before him that which hath been is now and that which is to be hath already been and God requireth that which is past and moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment that wickedness was there and the place of righteousness that iniquity was there I said in mine heart God shall judge the righteous and the wicked for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men that God might manifest them and that they might see that they themselves are beasts for that which befalleth the sons of men befall the beast even one thing befalleth them as the one dieth so dieth the other yea they have all one breath so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast for all is vanity all go unto one place all are of the dust and all the dust again who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works for that is this portion for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him fire heads what a prayer dear lord we just pray you feel past with your holy spirit as he preaches your word to us that we could all be edified just help us to be open and receptive to your word we love you in Jesus name amen. Amen it's good to be here in an evening service when everybody shows up it's funny how more people show up at the evening services at Pure Words than other church because usually you have like a lot of people come Sunday morning only that's where you get the Sunday morning only group but it's like it's cool in a smaller church how sometimes the evening service beats out the morning service even look at the record and it's like the Sunday night service it's like smashed the other services it's just kind of funny so but it's good to be here and this evening's sermons a little bit different than other sermons that I preach or kind of the style a little bit and I wanted to kind of reflect on the last five years a little bit of the church's history in kind of a unique way and the title of my sermon this evening is just the seasons of life now here in Ecclesiastes chapter three it seems to really indicate how there's just all these different seasons I mean look at verse one again to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heavens so the Bible's kind of just giving an idea of the fact that throughout our lives we're going to go through different quote seasons and this word season often we think of it as kind of the four seasons or a weather type thing where we talk about the summer which in Houston's about ten months and then you kind of have like a half month fall maybe like a three day winter and then a couple weeks spring but all joking aside obviously we realize that a lot of places kind of have generally speaking four seasons where you have a winter to the spring to the summer and you have a fall period of time and they sometimes even change a little bit right sometimes spring comes early sometimes spring comes late sometimes winter is extended sometimes summer is extended there's not always a perfect idea of how long these seasons are depending on what part of the country you're from these seasons can be radically different a lot different time periods if you go across the world often they're having the opposite more of that equator but if you go on the other side of the equator they're having kind of the exact opposite season a lot of times that we're having so when we talk about seasons what's interesting about this word is it's not necessarily defining an exact period of time it's just saying that it's kind of generally there was a beginning and end portion and you're in this general season right you're in this general period of time that can be categorized as a quote season now in this chapter brings up some different seasons that people will go through and this is not a complete list this is not saying every season that exists because as we read in verse one to everything there is a season meaning there's a lot more that we could even talk about than what's specifically even mentioned in this particular chapter but this chapter just gives us some ideas of some of the things that happen verse two a time to be born and time to die so we have two different seasons very very different yet they apply to every single person every single person here at a season where you're born and you're going to have a season where you die there's just going to be those two events in our lives are going to happen they're inevitable and they're very unique experiences very different from one another and in our lives we're going to have a lot of other seasons in between that birth and that death stage let's talk about just us as a person but even in our lives there can be other areas where it kind of experiences a birth phase and a death phase think about you know even just someone that owns a business right someone could start a business there's a birth phase and then the business gets shut down there was a death phase to that particular business right so all kinds of life experiences are going to go through these events of birth how about this church specifically about five years ago it was in the birth stage it had a beginning the church came to fruition and it was in the season of quote birth and that's really the kind of the first thing I want to talk about there's kind of just five things I want to identify and it's based on you know we've had church for about five years and I kind of want to talk about some seasons that I feel like the church has gone through and will go through and also relate them to us as an individual person but this church had a birth stage it had a birth period and it was great now what's interesting about the birth the first services we had here was on a Friday it was in August and it was hot and if you think it's hot in here now it was way hotter in here than when we had that birth service and in fact it was packed I can't remember for you know exactly what the numbers were but I think it was like 119 or 120 people that we had somewhere in that range it was well over 100 people and everybody was just packed in here I was like standing in the back we didn't even have anywhere we were out of seats you know what I mean and so we were just filled in here I had two creatures it was a double feature so we had two sermons and again it didn't get any cooler I mean I think it was like 85 in here or something like that I don't know it was super hot but we had Manly Perry came and preached for us and then Pastor Steven Anderson had preached for us as well that evening and Old Path Baptist Church had brought a bunch of people I think some other people had come to visit maybe Pastor Major had had some people in his church and so we just had a packed house tons of people here and it was funny because some people were already thinking like oh man you know we need another building or you know we're packing this place out and things like that and I'm like just wait till Wednesday you know just wait till Wednesday now Sunday morning we I think we still had like 90 people or so so we still had a good crowd on that first Sunday morning but Wednesday it was like 18 or 20 I don't know it was really small in comparison and you know after a few weeks I mean the Wednesday crowd was pretty small I mean it was only like 15-20 people on a Wednesday night service and that's just kind of to be expected you know when you start a church you're going to have a lot of people just maybe come out the first you know one or two services it's going to be a lot of people but then when church becomes real it's not just the exciting birth floor anymore then it starts to see like who's really in the church right and from that point we kind of had a little bit of growth and really you can kind of relate this to just persons as in general right we all went through a birth phase as a person a lot of times at someone's birth you have a lot of extended family and a lot of people come and they check out the new baby and it's kind of exciting but then when you finally go home it's like okay this thing cries all the time and uses the diaper you know uses the bathroom on itself all the time and the excitement kind of wears off a little bit right then it just becomes hard work boy taking care of a newborn baby can be a lot of work a lot of stress a lot of pressure especially the first one because the first baby you take it home and you're like what do we do with it like you're just like I don't even know like it can't even move it's scary it's so tiny the mom is just worried about every breath that it takes you know it's just like it's like okay it's breathing still you know it's just like it's really stressful but you know eventually after you know four or five kids you're just like yeah it's fine you know what I'm just kidding but of course these phases of life they seem really dramatic sometimes they can feel like forever you know maybe that newborn phase can feel like a long time but then in hindsight you're like wow that went over so quickly and that's just kind of how life is sometimes life slows down on you and it feels like this is going to take forever but then you realize you know what it wasn't that bad or I wish I had enjoyed that experience more or I wish I had been there when that particular experience had happened we had a lot of people that were at our first services and you know now they're no longer going to our church anymore and that's just the reality but we have some people that were we have some people that were at the first services and they're still here today so you know what praise God for that but there's going to be a lot of experiences in your life that are going to have this birth phase or this new phase and we should recognize that it's not going to last forever though whatever initial excitement or energy is not going to last I remember somebody came to our first services and it was Sunday morning and so we had a good service I mean like 80 something people and it seemed like there was a lot of energy people were excited and someone talked to me right after the service and they said oh man I'm just so excited about this church this is I'm just I'm going to come to every service and every soul winning time and I'm just so excited to be part of this church I didn't see him on Sunday night and then guess what I never saw him again ever and it was just kind of funny it's like he got kind of wrapped up in the newness or the excitement of it all but then it was just like I guess I don't know where he went you know I've never seen this person ever again so you know it's not to shame the person it's just to say like some people just get really excited about stuff when it's new but then as soon as the newness wears off they're kind of just like hit the road they're not really into it as much anymore what are some other phases of our lives that sometimes have that newness well how about getting saved isn't that a new phase in someone's life the moment they get born again they go to that birth phase and sometimes you'll even notice Christians when they get saved they have that initial high energy that excitement that zeal of just like they got saved and now I want to serve God and it's kind of fun but then that sometimes will wear off real fast won't it then it's like oh I have to go to church and read the Bible and serve him and it's not like it's cool it's not as cool as they thought maybe at first and so then a lot of people kind of don't last right they get saved and they're excited and it's not like they're not saved anymore they're just you know realizing that serving God's actually hard work and not very many people are interested in the hard work of going to the next stages or the next seasons of life and so some people what they do is they chase this new birth high and basically people just they can't last in anything they just have to go to the new so you'll notice there's a lot in relationships people will that because when you first get into a relationship and for some of us that are married and been married for a while maybe forgot about this but like when you're first dating or maybe first engaged or you're newly married sometimes your relationships not even work at all it's just fun like you just you just enjoy each other it's just exciting really everything that they do that's negative and bad you somehow like it like I like the way you burp you know it's just like it's weird but then after you get married for a while you're just like why'd you have to burp on it you know that was gross you know it's like it's kind of your perspective and attitude starts changing about everything it's like oh I love how sloppy they are it's cool and then it's like whoa you know I don't like cleaning up after you anymore right I mean all of the things that were easy and fun and the new part of your relationship they change and so what some people will do is they'll say well I like that feeling I had with them at first apparently our love didn't last so then they go chase a new relationship not realizing it's just a completely different season of life no one no one is gonna go through this birth phase forever and no relationship will go will have the birth phase over and over you have it just that one time you just have that one honeymoon phase you just have that one beginning stage and look there's nothing wrong with it being more exciting or high energy or a lot of fun but it's just not realistic to live your life just chasing that new high every single time that's why people that get divorced end up getting divorced more likely the next time isn't that crazy it's like people that get divorced are so much more likely to get divorced again and then again and again and again and again you're just like you'd think you'd figure it out by now but it's really it's a character flaw that they have where they just keep chasing that high that new high of everything and we want to realize that sometimes we're in a season of life that's not new and that's okay you know we need to make sure that we're not afraid of doing something new but at the same time we're satisfied with hey I've already done the new thing and now I'm just that season's over like I'm not gonna do that anymore I'm doing completely different seasons you children you young adults in here you're gonna go through a lot of new seasons in your life you're gonna have a season where you move out of your parents house it will happen eventually okay and then you might get married okay that's a new season of life when you first start having children that's a new season of life some people do all three of these the same time right they end up moving out getting married and having children in a period of like less than a year and it's just like a bam of new okay but no matter what you have to realize that while it might be exciting or fun or intimidating or whatever it just it only happens you know for a short period of time and that's just not life in general that's just one season of life and you have to get through that season with the right expectations enjoy it while you have it but realize that is not what's gonna life it's not realistic to live in this new phase of life or entire life you know you're gonna have days in the fall pretty soon I don't know how I don't know when there's gonna be a few days in the fall where it's gonna be perfect outside like Houston has some days in the late fall and even in the winter that are just amazing and I remember I guess every time I ever visited Houston before I lived here it was always in the fall or the winter and so I just thought Houston was like the most amazing place ever I was just like wow this is so awesome like I'd come it'd be like December it'd be like 75 and I could play golf and the trees are green I was just like this place is amazing it's like you know I wasn't visiting in the middle of July ok but you have to be realistic about it and say you know what not every day in Houston Texas is gonna be that 75 degree perfect weather low humidity no you're gonna have days where it's 110 99% humidity and it's just like whoa that's not what I was expecting and see this is the same with everything in life sometimes you're gonna have those fun moments enjoy it right ok you have that 75 day go out have fun ride a bike have a picnic enjoy that moment but realize it's not gonna last forever same with your marriage you're gonna have a honeymoon phase you young adults you'll have a phase where you have a honeymoon phase with your spouse enjoy it put all the effort and time and fun you can end up enjoying that experience but realize that's not marriage that's just you get that 175 perfect day and then marriage is gonna soon turn into humidity at 100% hot heat insufferable temperatures no rest day or night and you're just like ah give me that other day back now of course marriage then has its ebbs and flows it has of course then good days again in the future but you kind of start with the good you kind of start with that high energy you kind of start with the fun and we want to be people that realize hey I shouldn't be intimidated to start new things but also I realize it's not gonna last you know I'm gonna go through that birth phase and it's gonna be fun it's gonna be exciting but it's just not gonna last forever so inevitably you're gonna have something happen and it's going to go into a second phase and the second phase that I want to talk about is called change change so point one or season one I talked about was birth we're all gonna go through all kinds of different birth experiences in our life right the new birth salvation marriage children you start a new job you get a new business you how about this church this church had a new start right it had a new phase but it's just not gonna last forever something's gonna happen and then everything's gonna change everything's gonna be different now for this church things changed pretty dramatically and not really that far in go if you went to luke chapter 10 I want to go to another place in scripture luke chapter number 10 now in relation to ecclesiastes chapter 3 I don't have a specific parallel where I can just show you this specific thing but notice that it's constantly bringing up things like there's a time to be born and a time to die something happened there right something changed when you went from birth to death you know as there's a time to love and a time to hate something happened it changed right so it's constantly contrasting to extremely different things but what happens consistently is things are changing and things are always gonna change you're not gonna ever live in a perfect state of just one season you're gonna have all kinds of different seasons you can hang on to summer but guess what fall's gonna come and then winter's gonna come and then spring's gonna come and then summer's gonna come and it's just the only thing you can really expect for the climate is for it to change oh let's start a movie called you know climate change well that's convenient since the climate changes every second right I mean the weather's never the same okay so okay yeah sure the climate is changing I'm shocked wow you know why they came up with that because they used to say it was cooling and then it would like not be cooling at all it'd be really hot and then they'd be like oh it's global warming and then it was like cooling again and they're like oh crap it just keeps changing they're like climate change you know it's just like so then that way when we have really cold days they're like see climate change and then really hot days oops see climate change it's just like oh I guess it always fits because it's always changing you know what that's the reality of seasons is they're always changing and for this specific church hey we went through a pretty big change when you know I heard the news about steadfast Baptist church and what was going on up there and I felt like they were in a really bad spot with not I didn't know how many options it didn't seem like very many it really was virtually none and so I was like hey I'm willing to help try to figure out what's going on but as a result of me trying to help that church that was going to cause this church to go through a change there's going to be a change in how this church was running now you know it would be impossible for me to not think about that particular you know change for this church and for steadfast and all the things that happen and sometimes you play that hypothetical game right you play that thing like well you know what if I had made a different decision or what if things had gone a different way and you could play that all day long I think that in hindsight when I think about that change that happened like selfishly sometimes I think like well it would have been like my life would have been a lot easier if I had never done that you know I would have a lot more money if I had never done that because you know I had to give up a really good high paying job I had to sell all my stuff I had to go move to a place that's way more expensive I've been paid a lot less money since you know working there and not only that but in addition to just all of those things transpiring I got locked into some really bad situations where people rip me off for just egregious amounts of money that may have never happened if I had never gone down the road so like in some ways I'm just thinking like oh man that was rough and you know there's also just other things like I like Houston a lot I picked Houston I want to live here right so now I have to live in a different area so there's some differences there you think about the church you think about the people but you know there's so many good things that happen too and at the end of the day you know this is one thing that I kind of just thought about in hindsight about that change that just makes me really appreciate it is I believe that there are like literal people alive today that would not be alive if I had never taken over said that and what I mean by that is like I can think of people that ended up getting married or relationships that happened or people that had children when they didn't want to anymore or whatever and then I literally see their baby and it's like a reminder to me like wow this person just wouldn't even physically exist if that had happened and that is a pretty like big deal when it comes to the idea of like your life's decisions when you can actually look at a person and say like this person exists based on decisions that I made or my wife made or other people have made and you can really look at it and say like wow that's a good decision right that brought forth life that brought forth good things not only that just the people that we witnessed to the people that we got saved the events that have happened personal growth that I've been able to have and you know to some degree I think that this church location specifically pure words may have somewhat suffered or may have somewhat been a slower growth pattern by me helping take on said fact I mean I think that's just a fact there's probably no way to know for sure but this church probably would have grown a little bit more or like reached a few more people if I had been focused or dedicated down here but maybe not but at the same time like when it comes to the work of God what is more important is it more important for just this location to do well or is it for all of Christianity to have a net positive move and I feel like the work that's been done up at steadfast is just the amount of work that's been done is so much in scale that whatever a little bit of extra growth we would have had here is dwarfed by the amount of effort and work and success that we've had from me helping that church and us as a church helping that particular church but here's the thing sometimes you have life moments and you just have to make a decision and I want to show you that in the Bible look at Luke chapter 10 verse 30 here's a story doesn't Jesus answering said a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves which stripped him of his raiment and wounded him and departed him leaving him half dead and by chance there came down a certain priest that way and when he saw him he passed by on the other side and likewise a Levite when he was at that place came and looked on him and passed by on the other side but a certain Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was and when he saw him he had compassion on him and he went to him and bound up his wounds pouring in oil and wine and set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him and on the morrow when he departed he took out two pence and gave them to the host and said unto him take care of him and whatsoever thou spendest more when I come again I will repay thee which now these three think is thou his neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves and he said he that showed mercy on him then said Jesus unto him go and do thou likewise so according to the Bible we're supposed to model our lives after the good Samaritan now when we look at the good Samaritan this is not necessarily the phrase used in the Bible it's just what we the colloquialism we use to describe this man he's certainly a Samaritan the things he does are good hence we kind of have the term the good Samaritan a famous term why is he considered the good Samaritan it's because when no one would help this guy that was in a bad situation he decided to help him now here's the thing was the Samaritan obligated to help this individual the answer is no here's a question if he had not helped him who was going to help him according to the story basically no one right he was kind of this man's only option here now also think about what happened this guy is going to suffer the Samaritan suffered from this story what are some of the ways that the Samaritan suffered number one it's he definitely had a loss of time right don't you think it took some time away from the Samaritan to have to stop assess the situation help this guy get this guy into a place of lodging so he had to sacrifice his time in order to help this particular individual not only that it cost him money he literally paid two pence not only that but then was willing to pay whatever bill was going to come in the future so the Samaritan is losing his time he's losing his money and then here's another thing that I think kind of correlates to this is he had to lose his plans I'm sure that the Samaritan had some where he was going he wasn't just wandering around doing nothing he probably had a plan he's probably headed somewhere he probably had some direction for his life and the direction of his life got shifted and altered in order to help this particular individual and you know what sometimes in our lives we may already have a plan we may already have a vision we may already have our money and our time already allotted but there's just this person event or something in our way that says you know what this person needs help and what is Jesus saying Jesus saying hey be like the Samaritan and be willing to be driven off course be willing to give up of your time be willing to give up of your money be willing to give up of your plans so that you could help this particular individual and you know what when our church looks at another church that's suffering and it's like who's going to help them well there wasn't necessarily any real obvious options and I'm just speaking really bluntly like steadfast was just in a bad spot not a very not a lot of good options not anybody really volunteering technically I think I'm the only person that volunteered but I didn't even realize I was volunteering I called Pastor Anderson and I just said hey what's going on he's like we don't have any pastor I feel like the church really needs one it's in a bad spot he said I'm going to preach here every other Sunday and Pastor Jimenez is going to preach the other alternate Sundays until we get a pastor and if you know anything about Pastor Anderson or Pastor Jimenez that is an amazing statement for him to even make because these guys don't miss preaching behind their pulpit for anything Pastor Anderson would drive all night pulling the hair out of his legs just just to go and preach a sermon at his church I mean the guy just does not miss preaching sermons at his church I mean when I went to his church for two years and almost never was he not there preaching a sermon I mean pretty much so for him to say he'd be willing to miss a whole Sunday every other week until they could find a solution is saying they're in a bad spot I mean that's just clearly a bad situation I just said well what can I do to help I'm closer geographically and he was just like hey you could be the pastor and I was like sure and he'd tell me later he's like I was joking when I said that I was like okay but I just said that I was being honest when I said I was willing to help okay now of course I realized hey this is gonna be rough you know this is gonna like the biggest problem I had the thing that really made me the most upset or not want to do it was just thinking about this thinking about Pure Words and having to leave you guys and not being here as often as I could have been in the past because the first service the first service I've never been at Pure Words was the Sunday night I left to go to steadfast I'd been to every single service before that never missed a service was not planning on ever missing a service I hadn't had a guest preacher you know replaced me like I was here for every single service and then that was the first service I'd leave and that was the hardest service I've ever had it was the preacher in the morning and then to have to go up there it wasn't fun I know people here were very upset people you know were very distraught about that but at the end of the day you know the newness had wore off we were hit with a change but you know what that's life the newness was never gonna last forever sometimes you just have change and in hindsight how could the samaritan look and say I made the wrong decision right couldn't the samaritan play this play like hypothetical themselves and be like man I wouldn't have been late for work that day I wouldn't have wasted a bunch of time I wouldn't have I would have more money but you know what Jesus is commending him on what he had did now you can have different opinion than me this is just my personal opinion not what the bible says my personal opinion is I think that the parables in the bible especially that Jesus gave are probably real stories like I know they're a parable and I know that he's just using them as an example but the God of the universe in his infinite wisdom probably is able to think of like things that actually happen or know things that actually happen and then use them as real parables in these stories so I think that this probably is something that actually really happened but even if it didn't we can still keep going with this hypothetical samaritan guy that do we even see anything in the bible how the samaritan benefited from that situation the bible never says like the samaritan won the lottery but then the samaritan you know but then the guy got healthy and he was actually a rich guy and he gave him a bunch of money we don't even we never hear about that he just lost time he lost money he lost his plans and let me tell you something God was looking down from heaven and praised the samaritan didn't he and you know what sometimes that's going to be us sometimes you might have an opportunity to help someone and it's going to cost you time money and effort and you may never even get it back in this life you know what God's looking down from heaven and he's pleased with you and he's pleased with the riches that you're storing up yourself in heaven you know the poor widow woman who threw in two mites into the treasury and Jesus Christ looked at her and said that she gave more than they all you know the bible didn't say when she threw in the two mites then she won the lottery the next day either in fact we never even see any example of her getting any kind of money on earth or in this life now I'm sure God provided for her I'm sure God took care of her just like he cares about the sparrows of the field and he cares about everything about us I mean he knows the number of hairs on her head okay for some of us that's more than you know others but for some of us that's not a hard task to count but at the end of the day you know think about like how much does that even matter to us right what if you went home tonight and you're like I need to know how many hairs are on my head today let's count them you know it's like that's such a trivial detail most of us if not every single person on earth has never cared about the exact number of hairs on their head but God cares somehow I mean think about how much more God cares about us than we do care about ourselves and it's like if I lose out on my time effort energy and money you know what God still cares about me the same level and God's still gonna take care of me and God's still gonna provide me you know what God wanted me to do God want me to have the faith to actually help someone when I see them in need and God wants us as a church and wants us as a congregation wants us as Christians to help people when we have opportunity when you have that opportunity to help somebody when the opportunity is presented unto you you know what are you gonna do are you gonna be willing to step in go to Deuteronomy chapter 22 I want to show you another verse here Deuteronomy chapter 22 you say what do you think about this in hindsight well you know what I think I think it helped all of our church to learn that it's important to be willing to sacrifice for other people even if it's at our own detriment it helps us to see that example and say you know what we can we could help bear one another's burden we could help do good unto someone else now this is a principle taught everywhere in scripture it's not necessarily the most fun sermon but you know I guess you could go to Joel Osteen's church and learn about how to win the lottery or whatever but not here Deuteronomy 22 look at verse 4 thou shalt not see thy brother's ass or his ox fall down by the way and hide thyself from them thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again now again this is just a principle of the bible saying like if you see someone in need that you can help then you should help them now I don't think that we should get this over the top literal idea that just every single person you've ever seen broken down on the road you better help them and just every person you can't help every single person right? I don't think that's what the bible is saying but we all have opportunities in our lives where we could help someone it's not necessarily it's within our power we have the opportunity we have the option and what is the bible saying don't hide yourself when that opportunity arises when it's really clear and it's really obvious that you can help this individual especially when you're being asked hey don't hide yourself don't pretend like you don't see it and think about in context of what we're talking about what is an ox in the bible often pictured as well does god care for oxen the bible says in the new testament and the answer was a rhetorical question but the answer was no the oxen was actually a reference to pastors and preachers of the bible you can think about this steadfast kind of lost their ox didn't their ox kind of fell in the ditch the bible says that a whore is a deep ditch and you know what that ox fell in a deep ditch didn't it okay now you have a neighbor that loses their ox well what can you do you could help them get a better ox or a different ox or whatever okay and at the end of the day we shouldn't just hide ourselves and pretend like well our church is great nuts to you guys you know sometimes we should go beyond the idea of just being an independent fundamental baptist church and actually help other christians i mean where do you see that in the bible where the new testament churches are just like nuts to the eph the ephesians or who cares about the galatians or why did god have to write an epistle to the seven churches which are nation does he know we're independent here you know it's like that's so stupid to have this idea getting so independent that you can't even help other churches or care about them you know or know what's going on in other churches obviously i'm i believe in the ifb i believe in being an independent fundamental baptist church what that means is we're not dependent on another church to survive we are sufficient and we should try to get as many sufficient churches as possible and not have them all dependent on a pope or dependent on one denominational circle that's uh because then you get too much power concentrated it's easy for it to get really corrupted some of these denominations that exist out here the denomination owns all the property so like i you know there's the episcopal church if anybody knows about the episcopal church they kind of like owned every building so what happened though is some of the more conservative episcopal churches they started preaching a lot of things that the denominational headquarters didn't like anymore so then they were gonna literally evict them out of their church buildings for what they were preaching now i know a little bit about this okay about getting evicted from your church for what you're preaching because the headquarters isn't like so and you know it's not anything new to me in fact you know the episcopal church is going through this way before i even thought of going through this problem and it was actually one of the biggest church cases that's happened in all of the united states i think even in texas where several episcopal churches were kind of in a lawsuit against the main denomination over who owned the building and it went through all kinds of you know layers of courts and everything like that eventually went to the texas supreme court and they ruled in favor of the individual churches and said that they get their building and so it's just like nuts to you you know wicked denominational headquarters now obviously the episcopals are really off doctrinally they have some serious issues you know i've met some and they seem safe so i don't think that everybody in that denomination is just an unsaved reprobate obviously there's probably a lot of bad people most of them were the ones that were with the headquarters you know they were with that the more liberal branch because think about it this way almost every branch of christianity kind of has a conservative version of itself and kind of has a liberal version because like even us as baptists there are some really bad baptists out there there are some baptists out there that you're thinking like what in the how are you baptists where i live in the dallas fort worth area right now there's a church called like broadway baptist church their pastors are literal sodomites like i'm not even joking like open sodomites as the pastor that's a baptist church like what if that was the only experience you ever had with baptists you would think like all baptists are wicked as hell you know what i mean and even methodists you know the united methodist church they're like all sodomites and dykes and lesbians but then there's like really conservative versions of methodists that are not like that at all now again i'm not trying to recommend other denominations they have serious problems hey if the bible is your boss then you're a baptist ok that's i like that phrase and i believe it and i'm a baptist for a reason you have a baptist bias that's right but i am saying this that you know when it comes to all the denominations out there there's a lot some are a lot better than others and even within the same denomination there's some of these conservative and liberal branches but they went through a big change too you know that episcopal church went through a big change we've gone through a change the newness wore off and you know you have this with your children you know at first they're just this sweet little baby that they can't do any wrong and then all of a sudden they get lungs and they start screaming and they become a toddler and boy you go through a lot of changes with a child a child almost it just their life is just changed like now they scream now they cry now they eat different kinds of foods now they don't sleep at night anymore now they're walking now they're getting into everything now they're running you know now they climb on everything it's just like raising a child it's just like change change change change change change change i mean they're just constantly going through all these different phases and cycles and it's just like every cycle feels like an eternity sometimes then you get to phases like teaching them how to read and you're just like wow are my kids like mentally handicapped or what you know but that's just sometimes the the reality is like you go through these different phases and it's just like they're all difficult teaching someone how to read is hard teaching children how to use the potty can be hard and not it's never the same some kids you're like i don't even remember teaching you and you just learned how to use the potty other ones you're like why can't you figure this out you know like what's wrong with you you know they're all over the map discipline it can be all over the map you know and then you have these kids and then they become a teenager talk about change whoa changes of mood changes of attitude changes of behavior you know there's really not any consistency to raising children you're going to go through these changes in a church we're going to have even other changes that we go through and we don't want to be afraid of those changes we just want to realize it's going to happen and this church will never be the way it is right now forever you see i really like pure words baptist church right now we'll enjoy it right now because it won't be like this six months from now and it won't be like this a few years from now and it won't be like this you know it's just going to continue to change and you have to just embrace that and realize okay things are going to change your relationship is going to change you know your children are going to change enjoy the little years enjoy the baby years because you won't have them forever and I know even my wife like it's been about two years since we've had a baby and she misses it she talks about it she loves it she loves the little baby face she loves all the nuances and all the cute things and the outfits and whatever now I guess she loves 15 diapers a day or what you know I don't know but she loves that face so much and so when you're in those spaces enjoy the things enjoy the moment that you're in and don't just get upset that everything's constantly changing because eventually your life will be over and you never got to enjoy any of it go go to Romans chapter 5 go to Romans chapter 5 so I'm not talking about every phase I'm just using a few here's the third one that I think that we kind of went through and this is a phase that's really important is the patience phase because you have the birth which is fun and exciting then something changes but most of the time you're going to go through changes that aren't as fun you're going to go through changes that are difficult you're going to go through changes that are hard and what you have to have is you have to have patience during that new season of life and you have to kind of endure that particular season of life maybe you have to endure the really heat season if you don't like that or you have to endure the winter if you don't like the winter season or whatever it is I'm sure all of us have different preferences but sometimes you're going to go through hardships and you have to have patience you know it's said in Ecclesiastes chapter 3 there was a time to keep and that can be applied in a lot of ways but one thing that I think is sometimes you just have to keep God's commandments sometimes you just have to keep going to church sometimes you just have to keep going soul winning sometimes you just have to keep doing the right thing even though you don't want to at all even though you're kind of getting weary of it it's maybe getting harder you're not liking it as much maybe there's a person at church you don't like I'm sure some people have had that experience okay and you've got to realize that person may never come again though like there could be you could be really frustrated about that but then soon enough they won't be there and then you never have to have that problem again or you know even in your marriage sometimes your marriage can have a lull and you feel like oh man I'm going to be married to this person for another 50 years they could die tomorrow number one number two it could totally change if you're a woman your mood will change okay a couple times in the next hour especially when you get food right now you're kind of upset because you're getting closer to dinner but then you'll have food and you'll be happy again seriously it's real and you know you'll go through all these moods you'll go through all these changes but sometimes you just have to endure you just have to be patient you have to just go through it and you know for me personally you know when I didn't have Evangelist panic care preaching three times a week and I was coming here every Thursday it was a hard phase in my life it was just very difficult and there wasn't really any good options and honestly apart from like my wife and my family I feel like I had a lot of negativity towards me during that phase a lot of people very close to me even people that I like a lot were kind of just like you should just stop doing that or you should give that up or why don't you just preach the same sermon you preached on Wednesday night I'm just like you know like why don't you just put a TV down there and they just watch TV and I'm like oh I had someone tell me like why don't you just give the church to Pastor Anderson what does that even mean he's not a part of our church how does that even help that church you know that doesn't even make any sense to me and I'm just like thinking like you just don't get it and I'm like I'm not going there on Thursdays because I just love driving in Houston traffic you know and I love driving down there no no I'm doing it because the church needs good preaching I love those people and it's the right thing to do it's just the right thing to do and you say like well how long are you going to do it I had no idea and you know there were some times where I'm just thinking like man I don't know if this is ever going to change it was a hard phase in my life my life was very stressful sleep was not always ideal but you know and the money wasn't necessarily ideal either you know because I could I could have spent more time doing other things or whatever and it wasn't like I'm drawing a paycheck driving down here you know I think I thought about it one day and I was like you know I always give people that come guest preach for me you know like a love offering I was like if I got a love every time I went down there you know I was like but of course I never did that and I don't even think there would be anything wrong if someone did that but I'm just saying like obviously the church can't necessarily afford things like that or whatever but at the end of the day it was just a hard phase in my life and I'm just thinking like I don't know if this will ever change okay but sometimes you go through these difficulties and you just have to keep going through them just hold on tight because what does the Bible say in Romans 5 verse 1 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 the hope of the glory of God and not only so but we glory in tribulations also knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope makeeth not ashamed you know going through that phase of life and now having evangelist or bandit down here and having gone through another change that gave me patience experience and another word hope gave me hope that when I go through another difficult phase of my life in the future that it probably won't be forever and that I'll be glad that I made the decisions I did you know there was sometimes I came down here for Thursday night church and it was like me and the tailors you know or me and the tailors and like one other person or something like that right and even I would show up for soul winning and a couple times it was just me but most of the time it was just me and one other person and what was funny to me is like it wasn't even the same person like for like for six months it was this person and then like they left and then like another person for the next six months and then like another but it was like I felt like God just kept giving me just like one random person you know it was like I don't even know if I like this person I'm just glad they're here though right like I just appreciate that this is another person I can go out with or hang out with or go soul winning with and you know it was just a it's like a character building exercise you know the midweek service is a character building exercise for all of us because you could always find something to do with your time you could always not have to spend as much money you could have always had different plans but you know what you just do what's right and you actually serve God and he'll bless that and you have to realize we need to have the patience to just do the right thing say oh having lots of kids is really hard Pastor Shelley well just have the patience to get through it because you know what it's not going to be forever they're not going to be two years old forever you know how long your kids are going to be two years old? One year 365 every two year old is at a max 366 days okay that was a leap year alright and if you didn't even have them in a leap year then it's only 365 days it never lasts any longer than that they eventually turn 3 and then they turn 4 and then they turn 5 and then they turn 20 and then they're gone right eventually they're gone and you'll never have that phase ever again and I'll explain this when I get to my last point but you have to realize that not every phase of life is the most enjoyable phase birth is a lot more enjoyable than the next two phases we've talked about the change phase or the patience phase where you have to go through the difficulty the hardship the hard work and you know what this church has gone through a lot of hard work seasons seasons where we're just kind of just chugging along trying to still do the right thing you know maybe we're waiting on the AC to get fixed and it's like this is a long phase right that patience right we have to have patience on all kinds of different things that are going on about our particular church situation but you know what it's okay and I personally don't think that we're going through that phase anymore I think that we're kind of headed towards a fourth phase that I want to talk about which is a growth phase I feel like our church is now headed into a growth phase so we've talked about birth we went through birth as a church we've gone through change as a church we've gone through a patience phase where we had a lot of hardship but I think right now we're in a growth phase where it's time for us to just build spiritually and literally physically go to second Peter chapter number three go to second Peter chapter number three but you know we're all going to go through different hardships I think that this is similar to raising children again they get birthed then they go through a lot of changes early and then you have to go through some certain patience phases with your children and they all may be different you know teaching them to read might be the patience phase teaching them how to use the bathroom might be the patience phase and being a teenager might be the patience phase right you're going to go through those patience phases but also your children are going to go through a growth phase where they're growing a lot they're growing physically they're growing mentally they're growing spiritually and it's important to invest in your children during these phases because how you invest in their growth phase is how they're going to end up is how they're going to mature and you know what you only have so much time while you're going through that particular phase you know if there's a plant growing it only has that growth phase at one point in time and if it doesn't go right you won't produce fruit okay if the growing season doesn't have the rain if it doesn't have the nutrients in the ground then it won't grow and it won't be able to produce fruit it won't be strong enough mature enough healthy enough or whatever and it just won't produce fruit so it's important for us to go through the proper growth phase and even our church if our church doesn't go through a proper growth phase where we're growing spiritually and physically and everything else then we may not produce all the fruit that we could and we might become lacking and the Bible tells us very importantly to grow look at 2 Peter chapter 3 look at verse 17 beware lest ye also being led away with the error of the wicked fall from your own steadfastness but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and be glory both now and forever amen so according to the Bible we're supposed to grow and it's important to grow because if you don't grow you'll probably just end up getting destroyed think about it like a tree if you plant a tree the early stages of a tree's life is very delicate it's very fragile and a lot of people will even get anchors and they'll tie it around the tree just so it'll kind of grow straight and it'll grow appropriately because if at some point you have a big storm or something runs into it it could knock it over it could ruin the root system like something bad could happen but once that tree ends up growing into a big full mature tree it's going to be hard to really get that thing off course or to knock it over a little tiny shrub or a little tiny tree a child could run that thing over but then we're talking about a great oak a child if it runs in the tree the child's going the other direction the tree's going to be fine and think about that from a Christian perspective us as Christians some of us might be in that still early stock phase of our Christianity and we're tied down sometimes those tie downs are your parents you young adults and teenagers your parents are the ones that are holding your tree upright you're trying to lean all over and they're just like keeping you upright you know you need to keep growing because eventually your parents are going to cut those cords and if you didn't end up growing straight and you didn't grow to be a thick tree well then the storms of life may come and knock you over and destroy you and what is it saying you could be led away with the error of the wicked and fall from your own basket you know we need to think soberly about ourselves and realize that we could all get driven out of truth we could all stop serving God and that's something that we need to keep on the forefront of our mind and say you know what I need to maintain the right principles I need to keep growing and being knowledgeable and getting stronger and more spiritual so that I'm not knocked off course so that it's harder to knock me off course go to Exodus chapter one and I'll say it this way someone that's been in this church since day one someone that says hey I've been a member of Pure Words Baptist Church for five years and then we take another person in our church that's been I've been a member of steadfast I'm sorry Pure Words for five months you know who's more likely to quit the church the person that's been here for five months because they don't have as much invested they haven't had as much roots so it's much more likely that that person is going to walk away or quit or not be a part of the church whereas the person that's been there for a really long time it's like it's a lot harder for them to want to leave or get out so it's like the more you invest and the more you just put years and years and rings on that tree it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and then it's a lot more difficult to knock over it's like if you've been going to church three times a week for thirty years how likely do you think it is for that person to just drop out of church all of a sudden probably not going to happen but the person that's been doing it for three weeks how likely is it that person to maybe quit going to church you know it's a lot more likely that that person may end up getting out so that's why this growth phase is so important you know someone that knows everything in the Bible how likely is it that they're going to get sucked into one of these garbage churches out here probably almost zero percent chance I mean that's what I love about the kids in this church is they're going to know so much Bible by the time they're an adult they're never going to go to Joel Osteen's church they might get backslidden and they might become worldly but they're not going to go to Joel Osteen's church like if they decide they're going to go to church they're going to go to church like this right they're going to go to a good kind of church because they realize what church really is so it's important to grow in grace and knowledge and get all these things going in the right direction also it's healthy for a church to grow physically and even if we go through difficulty even if we have freaks come and you know yell at us or whatever you know that doesn't necessarily stop us from growing or going through a growth phase and I think our church will continue to grow as long as we're doing the right things but look at Exodus chapter 1 verse number 12 the Bible says but the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied and grew now this is so funny because it's like the more they try to stop them from growing as a congregation they just keep getting bigger and bigger and I think that the same is going to be for our church and churches like ours where the more and more our world just keeps trying to suppress Christianity and becoming more open and obvious about their agenda it just makes our churches look more and more attractive like our church you know five years ago it's like y'all are kind of weird and you you make a big deal about all these issues and you make it seem like the sodomites are going after children it's like do you really think in 2023 a lot of people are confused that sodomites are going to have children now I mean now it's like oh wow like that church is right that church actually knows what the Bible says hey that church is actually doing Christianity you know people are starting to wake up not only that when people are actually following God's commandments they actually get married and have children and start producing a lot of children it was funny I was talking with brother Dylan about this the other day but it's steadfast in the Dallas 4th area we're already getting a little tight on our building but you know we're doing great it's great for us right now and we're doing well but you know when we have a big Sunday morning you know almost all the chairs are full already and we have about 235 people that are on our membership role and our membership role is people that are actively coming so like as soon as people are not coming I take them off so that's a very accurate count of like people that are actually coming to services on a regular basis and so we have about 235 and if you look at our bulletin we have almost 15 ladies pregnant and I was telling Dylan I said whether we try to grow or not in one year's time we're going to have 250 people on the sheet just from a sheer fact that they're having children and when you look at how many children we have in our churches you know that church this church other churches you know eventually they're going to become adults okay I think steadfast specifically has like over 100 kids in that church probably more 100 kids well here's the thing when they start getting married and having kids the exponential growth rate goes through the roof folks okay they go through think about it this way in 10 years a lot of them will probably have gotten started getting married and start having kids if they actually do what the bible says which we're trying our best to try and teach them this they'll average between 7 and 8 children on their own so if you take like 50 couples you've got like 100 kids they all get married even if they only married each other they're not taking anybody else out okay even if they only married within that's still at least 50 couples times 8 that's another 400 people now they may not all go to my church but they'll go to other like-minded churches and think about that you could have an influx of 400 people in Texas generally this area going to a church like our church and that's just in like you know maybe 20 years 20 to 25 years there's about 10 for them to all start getting married and about another 10-15 years for them to pump out 7 or 8 kids but you could say in 25 years that's another 400 people that's if we didn't reach a single other soul if we never brought in another person at all and think about it this way you know I'm 36 I would preach until God takes me home you know if the Lord tarries and I preach to them like 85 or 90 or something like that all of those kids are going to then have kids then it gets really big folks okay what's 400 divided by 2 that's 200 times 8 that's 1600 right and it gets big fast that's what was happening with the children of Israel they were having lots and lots of kids and they were exploding in population they went from 70 souls 70 people to over a million in 400 years okay that's big growth now again we have you know almost 70 people here today but we don't have we're going to be around 400 but at the same time we couldn't have a building with millions of people in it for church right you would hit a breaking point a lot faster so it's like when you're following God's commandments and you're doing it right you're going to grow you know we need to grow because if you've ever noticed Houston has over 8 million people on paper if you talk about the illegals it's probably like another 5 million or something I don't know it's like insane how many people live here and it's just like from all over with all the people that cross the border I'm sure a lot of them came to Houston I'm sure there is just tons and tons millions and millions of people you and I can't knock on all those doors by ourselves we need our children we need more people we need more recruits you know this area needs more you know of an influence of a great church to go out there and preach the gospel and it's important for us to grow spiritually and physically so that we can reach this world and you know what's sad is that a lot of people don't grow spiritually and so then we don't grow physically this church has probably seen about 200 people come and go as members of this church since I started but you know how many people were there from the beginning to now a handful right but you just have tons of people come and go and come and go and a lot of them were even really zealous we had people in this church that would come in three times a week super zealous and now it's just like now they're doing nothing and you know it's sad I hope that they get back into church or come back here go at least somewhere do something for God I'm not mad at them I just want them to do something for the Lord I want them to have rewards in heaven and we need to go through that growth phase not for my sake not so we can say we have a big church but so we can get a lot of people saved I mean we went out with a small group and we had 20 something people saved today we could get and you know what I'll just be honest you guys are spoiled to death because if you go soul winning virtually anywhere else in this world it is in not even close to the same I mean even just in the Dallas Fort Worth area it is way harder to get people saved than it is down here I mean when I come down here it's just like that it's so easy I mean I remember coming down here when I was at the Watauga phase of steadfast virtually my only soul winning that I got people saved was here it was like I go soul winning for hours in DFW every week and then I come here for like one hour and I get a couple people saved it's just like praise God for the Thursday time you know it's like the Wednesday time nothing you know the Sunday afternoon time nothing and then it's just like you come down here on Thursdays and it's just like I mean it was just it was in fact I wasn't even getting anybody saved in English I'd come down here it's just like Spanish Spanish Spanish Spanish I was thinking like have I even gotten an English speaking person saved in a while like I don't even know but you know you live in other parts of the country go try soul winning in Washington state go try soul winning in San Francisco go try soul winning in Canada man it is brutal you know it is brutal going to a lot of these other areas hey go soul winning in Austin now I'm sure there was some more receptive areas than where I went when I tried it but man when I went there it was just rough it was brutal it was bad and I think that there's a lot of areas that are really rough these days but Houston is not that you guys have one of the greatest opportunities to get tons and tons of people saved you need to be taking advantage of that and you need to enjoy the growth phase that you have here that I think you're in and you can go on go to Galatians chapter six I'm going to finish I'll try to wrap up real quick here's the fifth phase I wanted to talk about or season because five years I'm giving you five seasons to think about this one hasn't happened but I believe it will happen and it's a phase that we'll all go through in different ways but it's the reaping phase there is a reaping phase I would argue that the reaping phase is the absolute most enjoyable phase now in Ecclesiastes chapter three it says there's a time to dance what does dancing symbolize though dancing is symbolizing joy excitement you know people dance at weddings people dance at celebrations you know David gets to dance when he brings back the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem was that the beginning of his life no that was the end stage of his life and that was the glory days because he had already gone through all the battles he had already gone through the birth the change the patience the growth phases he went through all of that and then he finally gets to enjoy the reaping phase and in a church churches go through these cycles churches have the start of the church then they kind of go through changes then they go through a patience phase and they go through growth phases but then they have like an enjoy phase and what I've noticed seems like a lot of people will only go to churches that are experiencing a reap phase you know what will be this it's a lot of these southern Baptist churches because the southern Baptist churches they weren't always as like heretical as they are today and I guarantee most of them when they started they started in like 1901 1905 or something like that and at first they were on fire they were the only Baptist in the area they're probably doing the soul winning they're doing the evangelism then you know they're going through all these phases but now they're in this like reap phase but unfortunately through the reap phase they got corrupt and they kind of got watered down and they went through a lot of these problems but then people they only want to go to the church where it's like we already have the ten million dollar building we're already running two thousand people we already have you know several generations of the people that were here and their kids and their grandkids and everything like that we already have you know the water slide and all the programs and all the different fun bells and whistles and the nice parking lot and you know they already have all those things and it's like people just only want to go to that church where it's just the reap phase quote unquote you know if you only ever go to the reap phase well then you don't have much character and you pretty much usually go to an apostate type church at that point because a lot of churches can't handle the reap phase you know a lot of churches you have a firebrand pastor that builds the church and he's like on the cusp of the reach phase and then he dies or retires and then the new bozo guy comes in and basically they go through the reap phase where they get all ecumenical and watered down and and of course he doesn't really appreciate it because he didn't build it right he didn't really understand what was going on but you know sometimes churches can still even go through a reap phase and it's a good phase and I would hope that at the end of my ministry I'm not handing off the reigns of some bozo or something like that but you know every church is going to go through these different phases and we want to make sure that you know we don't feel like oh I have to go to the reap phase church you know like let's compare Pure Words Baptist Church to Faith Word Baptist Church they're not in the same season folks Pastor Anderson had to go through a lot of the patience and growth phases but now their church is running several hundred people they have a lot more events they have a lot more things going on so they're in a little bit closer to a reaping phase than this church is and that's okay because who cares which phase you know it's only you being selfish that you have to go to a church where you're reaping why can't you go to a church where you're just investing and you're planting and you're building and you're going through the growth phase you're going through the patience phase you know I will argue this that if you're going through the patience phase you're going to be a better person a better Christian than if you're going to a reap church now you won't enjoy it as much but it's just like this it's like are you going to feel better after leaving the gym from working out or gorging yourself on ice cream it's like yeah the process of eating the ice cream was really fun and the working out really sucked but when it's over you're like well I really enjoy the benefits of actually having worked out and being in shape and I don't really enjoy the fact that I'm going to feel like a glutton and I'm like you know after having gorged myself on a bunch of sweets and so the same could be even applied with church where it's like if you're only going for church to just reap benefits of it you're not really growing that's not even benefiting you anyways you should be challenged and investing and putting your time and effort and energy into church and going through the difficult stages of a church because you know what you're going to reap what you sow and if you're only investing in a church to just show up and enjoy then you're not really going to reap anything you're only going to reap things when you're investing and putting time effort and energy into something and in Galatians chapter 6 it has the real famous portion of scripture here verse 7 hey if you're going to a flesh church guess what you're going to reap? Corruption what do you mean corruption? look there's so many parents that took their children and took their family to the fun center Baptist to the fun center liberal church and you know what their children now have grown up and you know what they're reaping? Corruption they have corrupt fruit their children are whore mongers and whores and having bastard children and they love the world and they act like the world because why? because they sowed to their flesh and they went to a church that tickled and pleased their flesh rather than sowing something spiritual into their children and now they're reaping corruption and you know what I don't want you to reap corruption from your children I don't want you to waste time going to church for decades of your life and then your children are like the devil when they leave you know what there's so many churches today that are literally raising just hellions because it's a false prophet and they're just well we just sow into the flesh there's so many churches today where in the summer instead of preaching they just watch Hollywood movies and I'm not saying let in a metaphorical sense I'm saying in the most literal sense you can imagine like this Life Church who's heard of Life Church it's really big in Oklahoma but they've spread campuses everywhere I've seen Life Churches in the Dallas Fort Worth area and I don't know this is cancer spreading all over but I saw an advertisement they have the whole church decorated like Star Wars and they're literally just showing Star Wars movies at church like how is that church anymore I mean that doesn't even make they're like the Republicans it's like Democrats become wicked and then the Republicans become Democrats from two years ago and then basically Fox News is like two years behind them and then the liberal churches are just a few years behind them so it's just like well you know I guess we're just going to start showing Star Wars movies that's how biblical the church is you know what's next I mean how much further down can you even go what do you think the children are going to reap when they went to church and they watched Star Wars they're going to reap corruption and they're sowing to their flesh you don't go to church to watch movies that's not spiritual there's nothing spiritual about Star Wars that is just only enjoyment and look there's nothing wrong with enjoying things I'm not against enjoying things I'm not saying that movies can't be fun I'm not saying you can't have fun you know what church is not an exercise of fun we're not here to just have fun we're here to be spiritual and to learn the Bible and to be challenged to serve God and if you don't what do you read you read this and I think this is what it says sow to the flesh reap of the flesh it doesn't say that it says you reap corruption it's saying you don't even get something good back you get something really bad back okay now it says in the next portion of this verse but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting not only this it says and let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap if we think not of course in a cycle of a church I think a church is sometimes longer than a person as far as seasons go sometimes the seasons of a church might last longer than the seasons of a person but if you apply this to your children what I've taught you this evening I think it's really important to understand you're going to have children go through all the birth phases and then they're going to go through the changes and then you're going to have to have the patience when you go through the hardships of raising children and you're going to have to go through a growth phase but eventually all of the children will leave all the children will leave and you know what you're only in a reaping season for the rest of your life you will only reap at that point now here's the thing reaping is not always good you could reap corruption or you could reap wonderful grandchildren you know what you will reap at some point so it's like oh I'm so tired well guess what you'll eventually be done you'll eventually not have to do it anymore but why not put as much as you can into them now and invest as much as you can now because eventually you'll just be a grandparent and you're just going to only reap and you know I know a lot of grandparents that they don't get to just relax you know what they're doing right now they're raising their grandchildren you know why they're raising their grandchildren because they didn't raise their children and so their children like I know many people who it's like basically their child is just a whore or whoremonger and just has these bastard children and now the grandparents are basically just raising that grandchild and it's like you don't want to do that you want to be grandma and grandpa where you just show up for an hour and then leave right where you just come and you just hang out and look there's nothing wrong with raising your grandchild there's nothing wrong with loving on them you shouldn't be doing that you should have raised your children right and they should be raising their children and you should just be the grandparents but you know what if you sow to your flesh you're going to reap you're going to reap corruption and if you sow a lot into your children and you love them and you have lots of them boy it's being a I can't even imagine how cool it would be I mean think about it you're a grandparent and you have like 10 or 12 children all grown raised married serving God and they're just pumping out children after children if you had 12 children that are all married pumping out children you could literally have a new grandchild every month think about that like you could like have them just like they're just pumping out it's like a tree that's just constantly producing fruit and you're just like bam bam you're going to like forget all their names you're just going to have so many kids right I mean if you had 12 kids and they averaged 8 each you would have 96 grandchildren you could have like 100 grandchildren you know what that's doing all the things right or you could have like Hunter Biden be your son and you could have a bunch of bastard kids from his you know relationships with all the prostitutes you slept with and just have to pay child support alimony and have a weird Jerry Springer family situation going on and just like basically your just life ends in a train wreck or you could have the most epic family reunions and tons and tons of grandchildren and see them all serving God and you know some of the women you're like I want to be a pastor here's the thing what if you have 12 children and then they have 8 children you might have several grandchildren that are pastors you could be literally raising several different pastors indirectly and how much more influential is that Timothy it's you know his lineage is traced spiritually from the mother side not even from the father side so you know I think that a lot of us we try to get ahead of ourselves and we try to always look to the future but the point of this sermon was just to realize look we're going to have a lot of different seasons of life enjoy the season that you're in because eventually it will change and you'll never have that season again enjoy the new phase because you won't have this church isn't going to have a new church again we're not starting the church the church isn't going to get reborn okay now it might change leadership but that's a change right it already had the new phase it already it's going to have a change it's had that we're going to have patient phases we're going to have growth phases and we'll you know God willing he told us he promised us if we are not weary and we don't faint then guess what we'll reap too we'll have some reaping seasons we'll have some reaping phases in our church we'll have reaping phases in our personal lives you know if you build a business a lot of times you're going to go through those hardships and at the end you get the reaping phase of building a business of a career of a marriage of all of these different things and you know we need to be patient and enjoy whatever cycle we're in and you know what I love the phase we're in right now this is a lot of fun let us not be constantly focused on what Pure Words Baptist Church will be and let's be focused on what Pure Words Baptist Church is and what we're doing right now and get committed and dedicated and on board with the program right now get on board and on program with your kids and their lives right now and just embrace your life embrace the decisions you have everything there's a season you're going to have these seasons you know what God gave you them for a reason let's just enjoy them all right goes in prayer thank you Heavenly Father so much for this church thank you for giving us just so much wisdom in the Bible that we can understand all the different things that are going to happen in our lives I pray that we would try to use the Bible as our guide so that we wouldn't be offended when we may go through difficulties changes we may have hardships we realize that not every season of life is always the most enjoyable but you know what through suffering and pain and difficulty often it makes us better people and I pray that we wouldn't get discouraged or weary during difficult cycles or harder times of our life harder times as a church but rather we'd embrace the challenges set before us we'd embrace the seasons that we're in we would be appreciative and grateful for the children and the spouses and the people that we have in our lives that we can influence and I pray that you would just help us as we go through the next seasons of our church to give you the honor and the glory for us to grow spiritually and physically so that we could get more people saved and that you would continue to bless us so that we could really enjoy the reaping season and in Jesus' name we pray, amen. And with that we'll go ahead and close it out with one more song It's going to be song 310, Footprints of Jesus Song number 310 Footprints of Jesus We lead on a we worthy calling come follow me and we see where that footprint's falling lead us to thee Footprints of Jesus that make the path they close lead them all on the steps of Jesus there e'er they go though they lead o'er the cold dark mountains seeking his sheep for a long last run of those mountains helping the weak Footprints of Jesus that make the pathway close we will follow the steps of Jesus where e'er they go if they lead through the temple holy preaching the word for in homes of the poor and only serving the Lord Footprints of Jesus that make the pathway close we will follow the steps of Jesus where e'er they go then and last when on high he sees us our journey done we will rest where the steps of Jesus then and is grown Footprints of Jesus that make the pathway close we will follow the steps of Jesus where e'er they go Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.