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

Cheap cowboy food. Cowboy beans is what we're going to serve and we'll probably try to have some kind of Texas barbecue or something like that. I don't know. Maybe figure something out. So anyway it's always a fun time to have the Sweet Park Banquet so if you haven't planned on doing that it's going to be Saturday. Usually start about 4 30 and Pastor Wee will be preaching. He'll be preaching for us on one of the services on Sunday. So and then looking forward into the distance make sure you make plans to be here for the King James Conference. We'll have guest speakers Pastor Shelley, Pastor Mejia, Pastor Anderson and then I'll be here to preach also. And the schedule is on our YouTube page on the community section. All the other stuff is par for the course here. Molly's birthday. We sang happy birthday to her and that's all I have to announce. Let's go ahead and sing another song. Oh she's raising her hand for the song. That's cheating. All right. They're all cheating. All right. Who is the luckiest blessed in this church? Miss Jessica. 216 I think. We're gonna do two songs for third by the way. So just surprise song 215. Let's sing it together on the first. Oh wait this is hold on one second. I was on the wrong song. Song 216 Shirley Goodness and Mercy. Song 216. Let's sing it together on the first. A pilgrim was I and a wandering In the cold night of sin I did roam When Jesus the kind shepherd found me And now I am on my way home Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days all the days of my life Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days all the days of my life On the second he restoreth my soul when I'm weary He giveth me strength day by day He leads me beside the still waters He guards me each step of the way Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days all the days of my life Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days all the days of my life On the last when I walked through the dark lonesome valley My savior will walk with me there And safely his great hand will lead me To the mansions he's gone to prepare Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days all the days of my life Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days all the days of my life And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever And I shall feast at the table spread for me Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days all the days of my life All the days all the days of my life Bobby 134 my anchor holds 134 my anchor holds 134 my anchor holds Song number 134 in your green and red hymn books my anchor holds Song 134 let's sing it together on the first though the angry surges roll On my tempest driven soul I am peaceful for I know Wildly though the winds may blow I've an anchor safe and sure That can evermore endure And it holds my anchor holds Oh you're wildest then oh gale On my bark so small and frail By his grace I shall not fail For my anchor holds My anchor holds On the second mighty tides about be sweet Perils lurk within the deep Angry clouds or shade the sky And the tempest rises high Still I stand the tempest shock For my anchor grips the rock And it holds my anchor holds Oh you're wildest then oh gale On my bark so small and frail By his grace I shall not fail For my anchor holds My anchor holds I can feel the anchor fast As I meet each sudden blast And the cable though unseen Bears the heavy strain between Through the storm I safely run Till the turning of the tide And it holds my anchor holds Oh you're wildest then oh gale On my bark so small and frail By his grace I shall not fail For my anchor holds My anchor holds On the last troubles almost whelm the soul Griefs like billows o'er me roll Tempt or seek to lure astray Storms obscure the light of day But in Christ I can be bold I've an anchor that shall hold And it holds my anchor holds Oh you're wildest then oh gale On my bark so small and frail By his grace I shall not fail For my anchor holds My anchor holds Amen, good singing with that. We'll have our offering. Brother Ramon, can you bless the offering for us? I didn't have my father, just thank you so much. All right, go ahead and open your Bibles to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter number 2. If you don't have a Bible, there should be one under the seat in front of you. Acts chapter number 2. Acts 2 the Bible reads, And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how here we, every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born, Parthians, and Medes, and the Lammites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, and Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, and Egypt, and in the parts of Libya, about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews, and proselytes, Cretes, and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words. For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain, whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should beholden of it. For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad. Moreover, also my flesh shall rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life, thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne. He seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens, but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter, and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they continually daily, with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. Brother Gabriel, will you pray for us? Amen. All right. Well, we're not in the Bible study tonight. I'm just gonna be preaching a sermon, the 2024 Year in Review. And I do this every year, and I'll be talking about maybe some of the 2025 goals. So we're here in Acts chapter 2. The reason why I like the book of Acts and these types of reviews is because our church, now, although the goal is to be like the church of Acts, we're not quite there yet. We haven't achieved that goal yet. But that is the goal, to be like the book of Acts, the church in the book of Acts, just all about that action, boss, or just making all kinds of headway and getting people saved, getting people baptized, starting churches, preaching the Bible, getting into all kinds of adventures, having great stories to tell, great salvation stories to talk about. And that's what the book of Acts is about. I mean, there's shipwrecks, there's false prophets, they're fighting demons, there's all kinds of stuff going on. And there's just all, the reason why it's called the book of Acts is because it's the actions of the apostles, the things that the apostles did after Jesus Christ leaves in the first chapter. He goes back up to heaven. He's like, hey, get it done, boys. That's paraphrasing, of course. Big paraphrase, very big liberties taken right there. But essentially, and we're going to get to that passage and I'll show you what he really said, but he's just basically, when he leaves, the last thing he's telling is, hey, get this job done. And so, you know, you see that the apostles just right out the gate, just start getting it done. Peter preaches this great sermon here. And at the end of it, a bunch of people end up getting saved. Look at verse 38. The Bible says, Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words that he'd testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word, the ones that got saved, were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about 3000 souls. 3000 souls in one day got saved. That is a great day of sowing, wouldn't you say? We haven't had one of those days we've had where we get where we have a whole bunch of people in the whole world sowing in one day, and we've gotten close to that mark where we're just getting all these people saved in one day, but that's a group effort all around the world, which is amazing. We haven't done that in quite some time because there's a whole bunch of splits that happen and a bunch of people don't like each other anymore and people just get envious and that's a different story that I don't want to talk about. I want to be positive tonight. I want to go out positive. I preach a positive sermon on Sunday, something to help motivate us to go into the new year, and this is a positive sermon tonight because we've done a lot of positive things this year, and we're a part of a lot of positive things that have happened this year. Negative things are going to happen when you're trying to do positive things for the Lord. There's going to be negativity that's going to come. People are going to sling mud at us. People are going to say, Oh, you're doing this, you're doing that. They're going to lie about us. People call me all the time and complain about you guys all the time. Did you know that? About knocking on their doors at nine o'clock in the morning and they were pounding on my door and all this other stuff and people complain, but you know what? You know, it's good that you're rousing people up and making people think about the things of God because you know what? Nobody's telling people. It's very few and far in between the people who are actually knocking on people's doors and telling people about the gospel, but here it is. 3000 souls. Why am I giving you a report? I'm going to give you some numbers tonight. I'm going to give you some numbers of what our church has helped achieve this last year and you know, things that churches that we've planted have helped achieve for the Lord this year. And you're like, well, what's the big deal about numbers? Like numbers is just a number. Yeah, I know numbers are numbers and they add up to other numbers, but that's math, but they are important. There's a whole book in the Bible. Guess what it's called? Numbers. You know, why is it called numbers? Because there's a lot of numbers in that book. God puts numbers all throughout the Bible and you know why he puts them in there? Because they're important to him. It's part of scripture because numbers are important to him. Is it the most important thing? It's not necessarily the most important thing, but why did God tell us that 3000 people got saved in one day? Because it's exciting. Because it's action packed. Because it makes us be like, hey, hey, God's word is effective. God's word can be so powerful that people can get saved in droves. Look at Acts chapter four, verse number one. Acts chapter four, verse number one. The Bible says in Acts four, one, it says, and as they spake unto the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, being grieved that they taught the people and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them and put them in hold unto the next day, for it was now eventide. Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed, and the number of the men was about 5000. That's even a better day. They're grieved that they're preaching to the people. Why do people get grieved about it? People are just haters. People just don't want to get saved, and when they don't want to get saved, they don't want other people to get saved. I'm sure that you've noticed when you're out soloing sometimes there's just that one or two or maybe even more people that they just want to make sure that you're not going to knock on somebody else's door. You're not going to get somebody saved. I'm going to stop you. I'm the manager from hell, and I signed my contract in satan's blood that I would not allow anybody to get the gospel preached to them or whatever. There's just some weirdos out there, and they don't want people to get saved, but you know what? God's word will break through those types of barriers. God's word will make sure that people get saved because it says many of them which heard the word when people hear the word of God people are going to get saved. In this in this instance 5,000 people got saved. Look at Acts chapter 5 verse 14. Acts chapter 5 verse 14. The bible reads, and believers were the more added to the Lord multitudes both of men and women. Oh and hey in the last verse it said the number of the men was about 5,000. That's just the men by the way. Now in the next chapter it's saying men and women, but it doesn't say how many. It just says multitudes. Now it's just like yeah it doesn't really matter how many. There's just a lot. Sometimes it's saying the the numbers. Sometimes it's just saying how many men. Sometimes it's saying men and women. It doesn't really matter what the number is. Look at verse 40. And to him they agreed, and when they had called the apostles and beaten them they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. And they departed from from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. You know that soul winning and getting people saved is so excited to them that they caught a beating afterwards and they're like hey let's go do this some more. This is this is a great time. This is fun. You know they counted themselves worthy that they were that they were able to be beaten and suffer shame for the name of Christ. That they were like this isn't stopping us. You know the persecution ramped it up. They said let's do this more. Call me crazy, but I just want to keep going. You know and when you when you when you're in a really receptive area have you ever noticed how you just want to keep going and keep going? You want to just keep getting people saved? You know and they even caught a beating and still want to do it. It's just how it is when you're filled with the spirit. You know people talk all the time about wanting to have a church like this. You know I've gone to churches over the years and they talk about the old days. They talk about these Welsh revivals and all this other stuff. They talk about stuff that happened that probably isn't true. Talk about stuff that happened that's in the 1800s or or the book of Acts. Stuff that they're never they're never going to do because they're never going to get out and do it. They like there's probably churches that are holding New Year's Eve services that don't even go soul winning. That they're talking about stuff that happened, but they don't do the stuff themselves. And I don't want this church to ever be a church that doesn't go out and do stuff themselves. We are self-starters. We want to get out and do the work and get it done ourselves. I don't want to just be a church that says we like soul winning. We want to be a church that does love soul winning so much that maybe if we did catch a beating we'd still get out there and do it. So look at Acts chapter 6 verse 8. Acts chapter 6 verse 8. And just hang on I'll get to the numbers here don't worry. What was that church like though? What was the church of the acts like? Well they were out doing the work. They were preaching the word. They're getting results. And if you get out, you do the work, you preach the word, you're going to get results. They're not talking about what Jesus did when he was on the earth. Jesus was gone. They're out doing it themselves. Just like Joshua didn't talk about what Moses did. He's like let's go do what we're going to do. They're actually doing it themselves. They're not just evangelizing though. They're spirit-filled, face-ripping sermons that they're preaching to. They're starting churches. People just act like well you should just preach the gospel and that's it. Don't preach anything else but the gospel. And people will come to our church and they'll hear me not preach the gospel in a sermon and they'll go you should be like Charles Spurgeon. He preached the gospel at every sermon he preached. It's like yeah I'm sure he did but he didn't preach the whole bible either. He has volumes of books. You're not going to hear him preach about certain things because they're not popular to preach. He was a popular preacher because he only preached about the popular things in the bible. He didn't preach the hairy things of the bible. So yeah people don't like that part but Stephen gets up and preaches this super spirit-filled sermon because look what does it say verse eight and Stephen full of faith and power did great wonders and miracles among the people. Was he full of faith? Yes. Was he full of power? Yes. And did great wonders and miracles among the people. Then there arose certain of the synagogue which is called the synagogue of the libertines and sirenians and alexandrians and of them of salicia and of asia disputing with Stephen. So when you start preaching the truth when you start preaching things that people don't like then they're going to start disputing with you if you're preaching spirit-filled sermons and it says and they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which they spake and what do they do when they can't do that when they can't resist the wisdom of the preaching of God's and look it's the preaching of God's word. It's not my doctrine something I made up something some other pastor made up when we preach the Bible we're preaching the word of God and people get angry at what the Bible says just because I'm saying that they get mad at me though. They're getting mad at Stephen they kill Stephen. Why? He was full of faith and power he was filled with the Holy Ghost and they killed him because of the words he was preaching were the word of God it wasn't because he was just a mean guy or something he just didn't like people no they don't like what he was saying what he was saying was the truth they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake and they suborned men which said we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God and they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes and came upon him and caught him and brought him to the council and set up false witnesses see this is how this these people always operate this is the types of things that happen to us all the time all the time when I'm pre when I preach stuff they'll get the false witnesses they start lying about me they start lying about people that I associate with those start lying about you and they just make stuff up which said this man ceases not to speak blasphemous words against his holy place and the law for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us but that isn't that exactly what he did though didn't the temple get destroyed and not one stone was left upon another that was not thrown down didn't the things that Moses taught some of those things got changed didn't they so actually that is what happened now look what happens because of him pre preaches this hard sermon well he preaches like he basically just teaches the history of Israel basically and then he says you always resist the holy ghost and then they get really upset with them and what happens look at verse 57 it says then they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears they basically I mean they're just screaming and they cover their ears and they run at him with one accord and cast him out of the city and stoned him and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet whose name was Saul now this this part of the bible is not here for no reason this affected Saul this affected Saul more than people actually realize and it says and they stone Stephen calling upon God and saying Lord Jesus received my spirit his preaching yes it got him killed but it affected the young man Saul to the point where Saul became the greatest Christian that ever walked the face of the earth after I mean Jesus Christ I mean he wrote half the New Testament he preached great sermons he was he was a go-getter he got it done he made sure that the whole world received the gospel and why because when Jesus meets Saul on the road to Damascus what's he say to him he says Saul Saul it's hard for thee to kick against the pricks why does he say that the pricks the pricks of hey you're doing something wrong you need to you need to get you know you need to get saved Saul that's that's probably what he's talking about the pricks of the Holy Spirit telling him he needs to get saved and he does I'm sure he felt bad about what he did there when he saw a man get stoned to death right in front of him that all he was doing was preaching the bible that affected him so don't think that just the gospel going out is the only thing we're supposed to do because this is what people will say and they'll go well why is there so much controversy with the church like ours why do people hate us so much because we preach the bible that's why it's not just about winning souls people it's not just about that it's about the truth of the bible being preached and people hate that and don't let people fool you with this it's only about the gospel why do they have to be so mean it's about both folks it's about both and people I could just I could preach the bible just as nice as pie and everything in here is divisive now everything is just pick a subject just you know flip to a page and people get offended about it just the way it is so look at acts 8 12. Acts 8 12 it says but they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ they were baptized both men and women let's talk about in Samaria he goes and preaches in Samaria people believe Philip's preaching skip down to verse 35 so he gets a bunch of people saved in Samaria and then he goes and it says in verse 35 then Philip opened his mouth let's talk about the Ethiopian eunuch Philip opened his mouth and began to the same scripture and began excuse me and preached unto him Jesus and as they went on their way they came unto a certain water and the eunuch said see here's water what doth hinder me to be baptized and Philip said if thou believeth with all thine heart thou mayest and he answered and said I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God see we have our personal stories too though that one person you're one-on-one with somebody and that person gets saved and maybe nobody else is ever going to hear that story it'll get lost in time it'll get lost in church maybe you know you heard that maybe just you and another person know about that story but that story this story is memorialized in the bible but how many of us have a great story where someone you you changed someone's mind with the bible and got them saved what we do at this church matters for eternity and what we've done in this last year matters for eternity and you know what what we're going to do next year matters for eternity and we shouldn't take these things for granted our attendance here is important our work our labor is not in vain and it does matter it matters what we're doing you know i could go on and on i could go chapter by chapter in the book of acts but i'm not going to do that to you guys tonight because we got games to play and fun to have i understand that but look numbers do matter and you know god just has all these books in the bible like it just even in the book of chronicles i mean we went through nine chapters it's just names names and names and then it'll go through materials and you know what what all the stuff that the temple had and how much gold and how much it weighed and and all this stuff but don't souls don't they count for more isn't how many people get saved a lot more important than that so a church like the church in the book a church in the book of acts is a church of action and when you attend a new testament church it should be a church that is active and actually doing something so if you're not in a church that is not if you're in church that's not doing something then you're in a wrong church like your church should be doing something it should be reaching people it should be getting people saved that should be the mission that's the main thing folks like what happened i just don't understand what happened what happened to baptists what happened to the evangelical movement i thought evangelicals got people saved that's what evangelical means just don't get it they don't even have the right gospel anymore half of them so anyway let's move on to the numbers brethren so what do we do this here well sure foundation baptist north that's the first church that we planted up in canada in surrey bc evangelist winfield fisher has been holding down holding it down up there with his family and we got a lot of faithful people up there 105 salvations they're like 105 that's it hey it's dark up there and i don't mean just because of the sikhs it's uh it's just filled with like you know it's just it's just hard soul winning up there if you've ever gone up there it's rough and they're doing their best and it's not exactly the bible belt up there but you know what they go out faithfully multiple times a week and you know what you get paid by god for the things you do for the time you spend and i'm thankful that they are up there working their tails off every single week and having a good attitude about it and uh the other day like a couple days ago it was just they had 101 and then he was like 105 for the so they must have got a few saved on sunday so praise the lord for that sfbc uh spokane uh we had a change in uh in leadership recently and brother remy is going to go up there and he's moving up there he's looking for a job and he's planning on moving up there and taking over the leadership with the hopes of being a pastor someday and uh this year they had 131 salvations four baptisms up there they had some new converts join the church on their anniversary last year the guy named i don't know who who's met brother jacob there but but jake just uh he came on the sunday evening of the second service on our anniversary he's been coming there ever since and uh last time i saw him he was talking about just how much he was telling i think he was telling somebody else there but he was saying about how much he's learned since he started going to that church he said i've learned more coming to this church in the last year than than i've learned all the other years like going to the churches i was going to so praise god and we've you know baptized some some sisters there and they've been going they've been going soul winning so um you know things are going good up there and looking forward to seeing what remy and kylie can do up there and i think everybody's excited so looking forward to that but 131 salvations there are four baptisms this year and then sfbc winnipeg was under our banner until june and i ordained brother jim but up until that point they had 79 salvations and three baptisms and they had started a bible study group in calgary which is uh which is doing well right now they're running i think over 20 people right now and they had 60 salvations while they were still under us so i never got a chance to preach and i'm going to go up there and preach i just haven't been able to pencil that out yet but then we have sfbc seattle we just ordained brother sean collin to go up there and he on his first full sunday there he baptized two converts i had five baptisms there this year and they they reached their goal of 200 salvations so they had 199 the year before last yeah last year and then they wanted to get 200 and so they hit the goal on sunday so praise the lord for that and yeah so looking forward to what brother sean's going to do up there and uh yeah so great job up there brother steven really got a lot more than he bargained for and brother neb so i really appreciate all the hard work that they've done up there and we got a really good situation up there so i'm looking forward to seeing that church grow and let's see bible believers baptist they had 167 salvations and four baptisms so and they've uh done a great job and they've had a lot of growth they've had some new guys come brother noah i don't know if anybody's met brother noah but he's been up there and he's been preaching and then uh yeah we've had some some new some new folks up there and so that church is doing really well 167 salvations and then uh and last february we planted a church called sfbc indianapolis brother justin zone he came to he actually came to uh the yakima church to go soloing with us all day he flew into portland like at 10 o'clock at night stayed in a hotel here drove up to yakima like six in the morning met us for the uh so many marathon went soloing with us all day i drove home after the so many marathon he drove back stayed in a hotel came here led songs for us because we didn't have any of our song leaders here which was a blessing and uh i met with him and brother matt and they kind of told me their their story and made their plea to uh get a church going which i did not want to do i'll admit i just my cup runneth over you know i'd already given that my cup runneth over speech on uh you know my new year's uh thing last year and i really didn't i honestly i just did not want to do it i was just like it's in the midwest like you know how am i going to do this like you know and they just i said okay well i'll come check it out and see and you know they everything that they said was true because sometimes people will say you know we got this plant that's ready to go we got all these people we got 60 people and usually it's just not true you know or it's you know it's nowhere near what they said and i mean it wasn't 60 people but it was you know 40 people so i mean because i always know that there's always gonna be people that say that they're gonna come and they don't come you know that always happens but when we started the church we had like 89 people come to the first service for a big kickoff and then they had 838 salvations this year and that's in less than a year so if they would have had a whole year they might have had close to a thousand there they had 13 baptisms and so yeah their first anniversary is coming up i'll be ordaining brother justin as the evangelist in the morning service and then i'm pretty sure brother uh pastor we will be preaching with me in the sunday night probably just do like a two quick sermons on sunday night yeah me doing a quick sermon but anyway um so yeah that church is very successful they're running 50 close to 50 so doing really well so i don't regret starting that at all and and then of course our church 540 salvations seven baptisms so but they're all our baptisms because they're all part of our church anyway so no but uh let's see yeah 540 salvations is pretty good for but i mean so but think about this so we you know the usually we would do the detroit soul winning and we'd get all those those salvations greedily to us you know but we gave all the chicago soul winning numbers to them because you know so am i not merciful i'm just kidding but normally we would do like a big trip and we would count all those for ourselves so you know but it's all us you know we're the ones that planted these churches and so in all reality you know until we cut the umbilical cord they're all our salvations anyway right and we all contribute to this and it's all our efforts that have helped all this come to pass anyway so we're all one team you know we're not really divided we're divided by congregations in a different place but we're still the same church so and you know the goal is not to keep them all as my own personal piggy banks like people like to accuse me of but you know we're we're like keeping some of these ones afloat so i don't understand how that works but anyway um yeah they're they're they're not going to be independent until someone's ordained as the pastor there that's how that works so as a total for our for sure foundation baptist church our total salvations 2120 for this year for all of our churches you know combined so good job and then 36 baptisms so praise the lord for that so yeah basically we're like i mean i hate to say the mother church because it sounds catholic we're not catholic but like we did plant these churches and these churches are are planted because and they're not you know basically they're attached so they're not independent and they are a part of our support in some way shape or form okay and it's your ties and your offerings and our extra work that's directly responsible for other churches being started and you guys allow me to go off and do these things and and the salvations the baptisms the spiritual works that take place there are added to your account so it's not like it's separate really i mean other people are doing the work in those areas but it's it's because of what you guys have done here in vancouver that allows these churches to get started so you believe in my vision and you get behind me and you know not everything is always worked out to the best you know sometimes things are not gonna not gonna work out so what does that mean we just stop trying that mean we just stop doing it you know sometimes leaders are bad sometimes they end up being bad sometimes they just don't work out or sometimes places don't work out i mean is the church of the emphasis still there oh i guess the apostle paul is bad because the church just stopped being a church someday oh he's bad paul planted a bad church because it should just go on till all eternity right because paul planted it right or otherwise he's just a false prophet is that how that works he's just a bad leader i mean think of the mental gymnastics that you have to go through on all that stuff it's just ridiculous how people think or you know whoever whoever ordained deatrophies that person must have been a bad leader because they ordained deatrophies was that the apostle john that did that kind of seems like it was because he's writing about him right he's like deatrophies doesn't let me come deatrophies doesn't even want me to come to the to the church that i started in the first place he throws out everybody so is that john's fault is that is that paul's fault that the people you know go bad is it jesus's fault that judas is bad is it i mean that's just a retarded way to think excuse me sorry i didn't mean that that's a foolish way to think how about that i apologize all right so without sfbc vancouver there would be no other churches like that out there so there would be no strong tower baptist church in the uk which has started other works in europe and africa there would be no sfbc north in the dark area of bc in canada there would be no fortress baptist church in winnipeg or calgary or the new church plant that they just started in toronto which is getting tons of people saved now there wouldn't be a location in indianapolis running 50 in the midwest right now there wouldn't be churches in spokane seattle and yakima and there surely wouldn't be one here without you guys here so i do want to say i just want to thank you guys for you know just all the hard work you do you sacrifice a lot and i just you know you guys work hard and it's because of you that we have all this you know all the the over 2 000 people getting saved this year because of the churches that we planted so we have we're not we're not exactly in the bible belt so the fact that we have all these loyal people here that still go out and knock these doors and we get lots of exercise because of what we we don't get to just stay at one door all the time like you know you go to some of these receptive areas it's like you just knock one door and you're just like chilling there for a long time yeah yeah you're getting a whole family saved just like i got five you know it's not like detroit or chicago or some of these other places so you know you're doing something you're putting your walking shoes on here sometimes so i mean you know we still get people saved here though so we still got 540 people saved here so praise god for that but we do put in a lot of work and i appreciate it i just want to say that to you guys and we're loyal and you know i sometimes i just wonder why did i choose this area sometimes i just want to say hey you guys want to just all move to like someplace that's really receptive well i'll just move like a but then i would think you guys would really think we're a cult then if i did that so i'm kidding i'm kidding all right so let's look at second corinthians chapter 11 verse 8 second corinthians chapter 11 verse 8 and sometimes the apostle paul he would go and start churches and he would take money from other churches he would like you know he wouldn't take it but people would give him money to go and do things in other places so that he wouldn't have to ask them and that's kind of what happens when you start church plants in a lot and most situations this is how it works the church that starts that plant is putting all their funds into that church plant that's what pastor jimenez did when he started the church in verity he put all a whole bunch of money into verity vancouver he bought all the chairs he bought all the equipment he gave us all the stuff that we needed to start we bought a piano without his permission he got mad at me but that was the madness he's ever gotten at me that i know of anyway so a lesson learned but anyway it says i verse uh second corinthians 11 8 says i robbed other churches taking wages of them to do you service and when i was present with you and wanted i was chargeable to no man for that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from mastodonia supplied and in all things i have kept myself from being burdensome unto you and so will i keep myself so the apostle paul is just telling them like hey you know i'm doing trying to do great things for your church so that i can start your church i robbed other churches he didn't literally rob them he's just saying i i use money from other churches to help you start your church he's just like trying to help them understand and to appreciate the things that were done for them because sometimes a lot of things a lot of people don't understand that when great things get done for them they don't appreciate it sometimes and i just want you to know that you are appreciated by me at least for the great things you've done for other churches and i think you know most most of the time people at these church plants they are very thankful for the fact that we started a church plant there and people can dog them out and make fun of them and mock the church plants that we have but they're thankful for the fact that they have a great place to go to church regardless of what other people say so just know that you guys are appreciated and you might not get thanked enough but i just want to thank you tonight for that and no the numbers aren't everything but they are recorded in some instances in some instances they're not as we saw earlier in those scriptures but what what tells me that they are important and worth recording you know they are they're worth recording right they were recorded for us but not all of them were so they're not the end-all be-all they're not but they are important that's why we record them but is every cell you're like pastor thompson is everyone really legit probably not but some of the ones that we didn't think were probably are you know it probably all balances out you know and there's some people that come in and they you know try to brag these big numbers and maybe some of them aren't legit probably but i'm sure there's some people that are honest and maybe they'll be like yeah i don't know i don't know if i want to count that one and later on you'll find out probably that person actually did get saved and you just didn't know it or maybe they just went and prayed later because of what you preached to them we don't know i was talking about the the glow that that doesn't come upon people when they get saved it'd be nice right but that's just not how it works so we just do our best you know we preach the best gospel we can and we try to be very thorough with them we don't just pray prayers with people and and hope that for the best we we want to make sure that they understand and we pray with them because we know they got it right now we did do that chicago soul winning event that was a big thing we did and we did have 118 salvations with five baptisms at that we went and visited first baptist church of hammond and that was pretty cool to see that whoever went to that and i got an opportunity to preach at 58th avenue baptist church which was pretty cool and didn't really realize that that was i was super tired when he asked me to do that and i didn't have a sermon ready i felt really bad but you know i did my best but it was a great trip that was like one of the main trips we went on last year we planted a church that went independent so like i said pastor weeb's church which was in winnipeg we after two years i decided to ordain brother jim and he became the pastor and they decided to call their name fortress baptist church and so they are fortress baptist church in winnipeg they got a new building and they've just hit the ground running you know they're doing great things for god i'll get to them here in just a second but we also ordained brother sean conlon the bible says turn to um turn to titus chapter one verse five titus one five try to go a little bit faster here titus one five it says for this cause left by the increte that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting and ordain elders in every city as i had appointed thee so one of the jobs of an elder is to ordain other elders and what's it say in every city so i'm way behind i've only ordained two elders in two different cities so i mean yeah i got i got i got some work to do i'm not just trying to ordain anybody that wants to get ordained i i do try to be very selective but uh i believe that brother jim brother jim was running basically a bible study group for almost five years before we even started him as of his church plant he was there he was leading people i was watching him for years and it's like people will say oh you just grab people that you don't know and you just ordain them it's like that's not true you don't know what i do you have no clue people just like to throw crap at the wall to see if it sticks i didn't say the other word i said crap dung doo doo but this is what people do they like to just say stuff because they they think they think it sounds cool they think they know everything but they don't know anything i watched brother jim for years i met brother jim when pastor anderson got banned from canada like well what year was that and then garrett had to preach that weird sermon but anyway i wasn't even a pastor then i met brother jim jim brother jim drove all the way from winnipeg and like he drove hours and hours and hours to get there and that was the first time i ever met him and you know brother jim's just been holding it down for years and i just like man why is anybody helping this guy so i just decided to help him and look at him now he's already started two other small plants well i mean if you consider toronto a small city it's like one of the biggest cities like one of the biggest cities it's like they already got you know it's already a bona fide like i don't think calgary is a plant because they're still they're not they don't have people preaching every week yet but toronto has somebody pre they have a rotation of preachers already so they already have a building they're already like having one service a week i think so they're just they're taking off there so they're just multiplying and he did that right after i got him ordained right after i ordained him he started that toronto he already had calgary going started toronto ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 says and he gave some elders or elders apostles he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints and for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of christ look it's turned to uh um ax 16 it's my job job to do the work of an evangelist as a pastor it's one of my qualifications you know and i'm sorry that some people just don't feel like that's necessarily part of their job but i do and maybe i've gone a little crazy about it but i don't think i have i've only ordained two pastors i've been a pastor for six years so i don't think that's that big of a deal and i'm the most spring chicken i'm gonna be 50 this this cup in like three weeks you know i gotta kind of redeem the time here so and pastor taverner i'll get to him in just a minute but they're they're killing it they are killing it so ax 16 4 says and as they went through the cities they delivered them the decrees for the to keep and were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at jerusalem and so were the churches established in the faith and increased in number daily so they were part of the same mind right they were ordaining other pastors other elder the elders were ordaining wasn't just the apostles the apostles and elders which were at jerusalem so fortress baptist church brother jim weeb what did they do what they accomplished this year well like i said they started that other church toronto fortress baptist toronto they have the bible study group in calgary fortress baptist calgary they had 217 salvations this year in winnipeg it's not exactly the most receptive area in the world it's canada 13 baptisms calgary had 182 salvations and toronto had 209 and i don't think that they started till like july or august so they're doing pretty well and they're only running maybe 15 20 people or something like that so far anyway so they total in total for the year they accomplished 608 salvations 13 baptisms so they're off to a great start and very proud for the accomplishments of fortress baptist church in their first year strong tower baptist church they they i went out there and celebrated the one year anniversary with them preached for their church they had 89 in church that service and total salvations this year 1519 salvations and 1019 of those were from the uk church alone so it's not very receptive there apparently no it is very receptive there actually when i was there i had like four salvations myself just just like from door to door soul 24 or five salvations i think the last one was like an old white irish lady that i thought there's no way she was ever going to get saved because usually white people there don't get saved but well i mean that's probably not true but the ones i talk to don't but she did she was like just really easy to get saved so but they had they had he has like two bible study groups there he has a swiss bible study group there that's kind of like you know he's trying to get it to be a church plan at some point and then a french bible study group and they had 500 salvations between the two they went to a big trip to malawi big so when he tripped malawi they preached to 2 000 kids uh there he didn't count i think he preached and maybe they prayed with him or something but i don't know that he counted them so he just didn't count them but he probably had a lot more salvations than that he just didn't want to count them so he said by far our best year yet for salvations total salvation since the church plant started 3 619 from the uk and 743 from the overseas groups 34 baptisms this year our best year yet not counting the ones in poland that they had like the 60 or whatever that one time but uh and then that takes them to 176 total baptisms for their time that they've been a church plant there so yeah top attendance 89 on the anniversary last year and total record is 121 on their ord on the day he was ordained so he says happy new year and so yeah 1 119 uk church salvations this year 500 swiss and french 1519 34 baptisms acts 1 8 acts 1 8 says but you shall receive power after that the holy ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me both in jerusalem and in judia and in samaria and into the uttermost part of the earth so we don't we don't support a lot of missionaries but we the ones we do are knocking it out of the park and so we're getting like a lot of bang for the buck right we're just killing the the missionaries that we support or killing it verity baptist church philippines salvation totals manila 11 911 that's a lot right vbc papanga 2070 vbc bikol 1034 vbc poland 683 total salvations 15698 so they also moved to a new building which i heard was doing great and they have a mission strip coming up in february if anybody wants to go to that i'm not exactly sure of the right date i tried to email him about that does anybody know the right date of that mission strip it's in february i want to say it's the second week but i'm not 100 sure anyway if anybody's interested in going to the philippines i know that he is having a mission trip there steadfast philippines we support evangelist eubannic and i just got just two days ago pastor shelley sent me that they had three thousand three hundred and eighty three he just sent me the new newsletter was like from two days ago since then they got three thousand four hundred twenty total so they were like they're just like every day they're just like so 3420 salvations for steadfast philippines 16 baptisms so he's off to a great start there and faithful word christ baptist church which is in nairobi kenya that's another uh it's a pastor that we support there they're an independent baptist church and they had 1600 salvations this year 30 baptisms and now he has a new building and he has 40 people attending his church so they started out really small i don't know if you guys have ever seen their videos or not but they got their whole church robbed remember they had all the the storm that destroyed their church building but now they have a new church building it looks like they're doing all very well it says thank you for your support so what's our goals well i talked about it the other day double down where god will allow us to double down and do the the most we the most we can and like i said that this is going to be 2025 i'm going to be 50 years old so i want to remember this is the best year i've ever done personally and hopefully the best year that our church has ever done you know in as far as numbers and most things we've ever done and really the only thing that's holding us back is ourselves so and you know we can we can do more soul winning we can do more bible reading we can do the most we've ever done but you know we're the only ones that can hold ourselves back so um money is limited but it's really not limited you know because god is the one that controls money so trump is the president now so hopefully things will you know some some money will start coming through i don't know as long as cove it doesn't happen again i think we might be all right but who knows you know you just never know about stuff like that but god can fight through economies he can make things happen for us right and um things to look forward to the one year anniversary of indianapolis the sweetheart banquet and um the spokane anniversary it's in march april is the seattle anniversary and the king james conference and looking forward to that happening i think there's gonna be a lot of people coming to our church so definitely want to get ready for that and cruise missions trips who's interested in the cruise missions trips anybody does anybody not know what i'm talking about if you don't know what i'm talking about raise your hand some of you who's maybe no oh well the cruise missions trips are basically instead of paying for like to go on some big mission trip somewhere you can pay for a cruise cruises are about a thousand dollars they could be more depending on how long you want to go on them but for that thousand dollars you get to go to all these different places and you get to get off and you can talk to people and preach the gospel to them or whatever and then they just feed you like the best food and you know supposedly it's like really nice and luxurious i've never been on a cruise before but i'm definitely interested in doing it i think it's kind of the thing that everybody's going to try to do this year so i know that that's being pushed pretty heavily in some of the other churches so i know a lot of people are interested in it so it's definitely something i'm going to be on the baptist bias show tomorrow at one o'clock and i know me pastor shelley pastor anders are going to talk about it and we're going to talk about a bunch of other stuff so and i personally would like to go to the south pacific and that's just kind of where i'd like to go but you know if you're kind of on a budget you don't want to go on some big mission stripper you have to pay for hotels and air i mean you're still gonna have to pay for the airfare to get someplace but if you're going out of seattle or la it's probably not going to be that much of a ticket but when you're talking about you know a cruise pacific's probably going to be you know a little easier for you to get to texas is like three and a half hours and nothing really goes out of there but florida you're going to go to florida florida man and that's like five hours probably two flights i don't know if there's a lot of direct flights to florida there probably isn't but i don't know maybe there is but anyway so trips i know about chicago is a for sure at some point this year so if you're wanting to go back to chicago that's a for sure trip philippines like i said february bahamas october steadfast i do know that for sure and again the uh cruise mission strips and uh i'd like to do more in portland i'd like to do some more small town soul winning and i want to do the sililo indian village you're like do you know what i'm talking about you know where that's at huh it's not it's on the yeah it's off the columbia river anyway it's small but that's all i got oh look at that say the clock perfect timing oh um yeah and yeah i i i had one more page sorry but it's a it's almost over anyway uh yeah my preaching schedule is pretty i'm trying to like not go as many places this year so um right now just have a few trips planned so but uh i have no plans to start any more churches so don't ask i know sean's conlon said in his one of his sermons he's like pastor just wants to free me up so he can start another church nope that's not what i want but i said this last year and then someone came and talked me and twisted my arm but i really am serious though this time but uh my cup really doth runneth over right now so um i really want to have pastors in the locations i already have so um again i'm gonna ordain brother justin so that's my ordination that i want to do this year for evangelist and uh the plan is after two years i want to ordain brother justin as pastor brother sean conlon's in no hurry to be pastor but he just got ordained as evangelist so he's got some work to do and uh that's pretty much it so um one day i want to have somebody that wants to be in yakima go up there and pastor so but yeah um let's do the most we can this year folks and it's really exciting to see you know numbers might just be numbers but those are souls that got saved souls that uh lives are changed forever that we'll get to see in heaven someday so all right let's pray lord we thank you so much for all the people that got saved under the ministry of this church and all the great people that go to it and lord i pray that you just bless each and every church plant that we do have every single leader lord that you keep their hearts and minds and lord that they'd be stayed upon you and lord i pray that you just bless each and every single person under the sound of my voice lord in this room the lord that they would still make sure foundation baptist church their church and lord that they'd be part of this team and lord that they would lord try to do the best that they've ever done as a christian this year that they'd be able to look on 2025 and say yes lord this is the year that i did the best i ever could and lord that would make this year the best that our church has ever been lord and i pray that you just help us to lord bring people to church and get people discipled and and get people baptized and lord that our church would grow in quantity but also in quality and i pray that you'd help us lord to do many missions trips and whether that be as just individuals but also maybe with other churches and and lord help us and and bless us monetarily so that we can do these things and lord do you have the money and we just give us the will and we pray that you just lord bless us in our health so that we could do these things and and help us as we uh as we try to get sin out of our life this year lord and help us where we struggle and pray bless us now and bless our new year in jesus name we pray amen uh see you out on the first I'll finish it strong on the third. I'll finish it strong on the third. I'll finish it strong on the third. I'll finish it strong on the third. I'll finish it strong on the third. I'll finish it strong on the third.