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

Well, this is not a typical sermon that I would normally preach, but I'm going to throw some verses in here, and it's not necessarily the most well laid out sermon either. But really, I just want to report on, kind of do like a year in review, basically, of the things that our church has done up to this point. And then we're going to kind of turn the page, and you know, everything that we did last year is great, but, you know, that's last year, and we're going to turn the page and move on to another year. And you know, I don't ever want to get where we're ever resting on the laurels of what we've done in time past. You know, because that can kind of be where we get to, that's what all the great sports legends do, they're like, yeah, when I was doing this, when I was in the league, I was doing this, this, and this, and then they all argue about who the best was or whatever. I want us to argue about when our best year was, till Jesus comes back. Because I want all of our years to be, you know, arguably our best years. And you know, is every year going to be our best year in what we accomplish? Probably not. But that is the goal. You know, like, what was it, 2020. You know, I was like, yeah, it's X 2020, woohoo, we're going to be, it's going to be an X 2020 vision, yeah. And it really was one of our worst soul winning years we've ever had. Those two years were just awful, as far as like soul winning goes. And it's just, you know, it was some pretty rough years for our church. But I feel like this year has been like one of our best years. And maybe in the total of our church in Vancouver, total number of salvations, maybe not the most. But, you know, we had some bozos that went to our church too. And who knows what faked so many numbers they were giving, you know, because some of those people are reprobates, honestly, some of those people that used to go to our church are reprobates and would like to, you know, give video game numbers and stuff like that. So, but I think our church is great right now. And I think that, you know, I think our church is, I'm really excited about where our church is right now. I'm excited about the great things our church has done, is doing, and is going to continue to do. And so let's look down our Bible. So the title of the sermon is basically just, you know, SFBC Year in Review and New Year's Goal. So that's really not exactly the most biblical title of the sermon ever. But I do want to just kind of spring off this text here in verse 15 says, and that he died for all, and that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. So as New Testament believers, you know, he died for us and we should live unto him. That should be the goal of our lives as Christians and as a church, or for henceforth, knowing no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth knowing him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things become new, talking about the new man, and all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. And so Christ has given us something really special to himself, near and dear to his heart. He's given us the ministry of reconciliation. What is that? Well, the ministry of reconciliation, think about like the term, well, the husband and wife reconciled. What is that talking about? Well, they were arguing, they had some disputes, but they made things better and their marriages better or whatever. They reconciled their differences, right? So if you look at it that way, it says in verse 19, to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. So he's committed unto us a very important task, and that task is to be the mouthpiece for God on this earth to reconcile the world unto God. It's a big responsibility. It's a huge responsibility. And unfortunately, a lot of churches have fallen down on the job, and they're not doing these tasks. This is the biggest thing that we do. This is what our church is really in existence for, is to reach new people, to reach the next generation, and obviously study the Bible, learn the Bible, preach the Bible, all that is important too, I know that. But the task he's given us, the gift he's given for us to do, is this word of reconciliation that says, now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. So what does an ambassador do? Well, they usually are someone that goes and speaks for some ruler from another country and tries to make peace and reconciles any differences that people would have to another country. We have ambassadors from the US that will go into some embassy. We have ambassadors to other countries, and we have embassies in other countries where we try to make inroads for peace and things like that. And so our job as ambassadors for Christ is that we would reconcile people to God. That's our job. As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead that you be reconciled to God. Our job is to reconcile and be ambassadors to Christ for people to get saved and believe in Jesus Christ, and that we would make that connection for them, we'd help them to see their need for Christ and that they would get saved. That's what our job is as a New Testament church. Proverbs 16 verse 3 says, commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established. We need to be people that our mind is on committing our works unto the Lord, because God's then going to establish our thoughts. He's going to establish our mind towards that commitment, towards ways that we can be ambassadors for Him to other people. It's not just about being in Vancouver. Of course, we do a lot of outreach and soul winning in Vancouver itself, but we've done a lot of soul winning in Kelso and Longview, done a lot of soul winning in Battleground. We've done a lot of soul winning all around this area, in Portland and Gresham. We're supposed to go to our Jerusalem, to our Samaria, to the areas of Judea, basically the state of Washington, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. We're supposed to go to other countries, right? That's what we aim to do with this church. Of course, we have a lot of different highlights and things that we do during the year, so I'm just going to kind of recap some of the things that we've done this year. Last January, we had Pastor Burzins come out and preach for us, that was nice. Then we showed the Preserve Bible documentary at Battleground Theater, which was pretty cool, but we got banned from there for life after that, so we can never do that again. Our list of allies in movie theaters is growing thin. February, we had the Sweetheart Banquet, and it was an Italian theme, we had a good time doing that, and the food wasn't all that great, but the preaching was good. We had Pastor Mejia here, he preached for us, and I had a good time. There's nothing wrong with having a good time while we serve the Lord, amen. This year, like I said in the announcements, we're going to have a Japanese theme, we're going to have Pastor Jones here. I wanted to also announce that, and I've already announced this before, but I wanted to remind people if you're wanting to go on a missions trip that's really fruitful, the missions trip to the Philippines is going to be February 18th through 25th, and when I read you the numbers from the Philippines, you might think, well hey, that might be a trip that I would like to go on. It is a long plane flight and things like that, but the rewards are worth the uncomfortable plane flight. And then March we had, we had, Spokane had the four year anniversary, and so we did that, and then we had the, we're going to have the five year anniversary this year of our church plant in Spokane, and April we had the Detroit Soul Waning Marathon, and how many people do we have that went to that, Brother Tembo, do you remember? Okay, I don't know, see, out with the old and with the new. I think we had like, I think it was like 60 something people or something like that. I know we had like over 60 in the church service, so I know we had 117 salvations, though. And also, they continued on Soul Waning after that, there's a small group there that's doing Soul Waning, and they just had their 300 salvation for the year, so it's things like that that can be sparked from just doing some Soul Waning, showing up in a city that's, people are like, well, what are you guys doing there? You know, I'll wear my Detroit shirt around, people are like, Detroit Soul Waning, like, where are you from? Like Portland, like, well, what are you doing here? Why'd you go there? It's like, because people need to be saved everywhere, that's why, you know? And so, but it gives you an opportunity to explain to people what we do as a church, because when we tell people stuff like that, sometimes people just look at us like we're weird, but it's like, I think that you're weird if you go to a church and they never do stuff like that. It's like, what is your mission program? To go and build cinder block houses? I mean, that's really what it is, to do some tie-dyed t-shirts and go and take pictures and selfies and build a cinder block house for somebody, and then you don't do any Soul Waning, because you don't know the language, and then you fly home and said you did a missions trip and you wasted a bunch of money for what? For nothing. Right. Real missions trips are the types of missions trips that our church does, is where everybody goes and we just all, we're all missionaries at the same time, and we're all just knocking on doors, or we're all just going out into the streets and the parks and the highways and the hedges, and there's some pretty rough hedges over in Detroit. I mean, the areas that we picked weren't ghetto enough for some people, and people were like, this just is not bad enough, we need to go to 8 Mile. You know, and people would be afraid to go to 8 Mile, but our people aren't afraid to go to 8 Mile. Our people are like, no, we need to go to 8 Mile. I didn't come here to go to 11 Mile, I came here to go to 8 Mile. I want to go knock on Eminem's cousin's door's house or whatever. But that's kind of how we roll, you know, when we do Soul Waning marathons, I mean, people go to Compton. It's like, you went to Compton? It's like, yeah, the Lord's with us, the Lord wants us to go to these places, and so it's not really scary to us because, you know, just don't do it at night, I mean, that'd be dumb. But, you know, when we're going during the day, God's, you know, we're children of the day and children of the light, and when we do these things, obviously we should do them during the daytime. So we had that big trip, and then we also launched a new church. I'm just like up looking at church buildings for no apparent reason, and I find this like, this like golden nugget type of church building where I'm like, really, could it be that inexpensive? And then I was like, well, you know, if the Lord's in this, then maybe he'll just, he'll answer me and everything will work out. And then he like didn't email me right back, and I'm just like, oh, okay, well maybe it wasn't, you know, meant to be, but I just kind of felt bad for all these people that have been driving from so far away to come to our church and, you know, they just have, and that's a big area up there. Even the people that still go to church up there right now still drive an hour and a half to get there, but it's a lot better than driving four and a half hours to get to here. But the landlord emailed me back, and like now the rest is history. Now we've had a church going there since April, and they had their 200 salvation. So they got 200 salvations in less than a year there, and it's a small church, but we've had, you know, I think we broke the record what, was it a few weeks ago, right? We had what, 30, did we have 36? 36 people in service, and it was on a Wednesday night? Yeah, on a Wednesday night. We now have three services a week, so we have a 9 a.m., that would be like a crack of dawn service for us, but I mean, they've been doing it every week, and the guys, instead of doing all these men's preaching nights all the time, they've kind of, now they're all preaching like full-length sermons, and so we're having to send people less and less up there, but eventually we're going to have a pastor that takes over, and it's going to be its own independent fundamental Baptist church, and they're zealous up there. They're fired up, and they're loving the fact that they have a church that they can go to that's pretty local. We had two new visitors show up today. They moved from, I think, Deacon Russell's church, but they showed up to church today there, so we're definitely, that church is growing, and by the time, you know, our one-year anniversary comes around, which Pastor Mejia, by the way, is going to be preaching the one-year anniversary up there, so that'd probably be a good time to show up. We might have to rent like a, you know, a space or something, or maybe see if we can work something out with Greg to use the upstairs and the downstairs or something, I don't know, but you know, that's going to be a great event, so in April, we're going to celebrate one year as a church up there, and Pastor Mejia's going to be preaching at it, so I confirmed it with him. It's locked in, and that will be the last Sunday of April, so the last Sunday of April 2024, whatever the date is. So anyway, May of this last year, or this year, I guess, we're still in the 2023. We had our first conference, which was, you know, hard to enjoy for me because it was just a lot of work, but it was still, I know everybody else enjoyed it, but everybody else put in a lot of work too. I know it was a lot of work, but it was an epic conference. I mean, got nothing but good comments and reviews about that, and so I just, it was a great conference, even though the Sodomites showed up at the last day and, you know, messed with our internet and stuff and really pissed me off, but you know, I thought that was the end of our lease, and that's what they were trying to do. They were trying to shut down our ability to lease this building, but then like a couple of weeks later, they were like, hey, we're ready to sign a new lease with you, and so they upset the owners here, and then they were like, hey, well, why don't we just give them another lease instead? How about that? So we won. We won a lot of victories this year, and so as we do great things for God, there's going to be enemies that try to attack us, and you know what? The enemies are going to fail. They might seem like they're winning here and there, but they always end up failing, don't they? They always end up crashing on the rocks and losing. And so we had that go on, and then in June we had a trip to Winnipeg, and we'd already kind of taken Jim under our wing, Brother Jim, as our guy in Winnipeg, and he actually is in Winkler, Manitoba right now, but I posted in our group yesterday that they got a new building, so they are actually moving to Winnipeg, which has always been the plan, but it's taken a year for them to find a building, and so they got this nice new building. It's like 1,900 square feet. It's a lot bigger than their old one. Their old building was pretty small, and it worked for them, but they have a lot of people that are excited about them going there because there's people that live there that are wanting to connect with them and get into that church, and so they're going to have some room to grow, and so that's exciting news, and so Brother Jim is going to be able to move that congregation over into a bigger city with about a million people. So the difference is 10,000 people in the city that they're in now versus one million people, so I mean, now they're driving an hour and a half to go soloing there on Saturdays, so now it's just going to be in their neighborhood, which is really nice. Of course, we had the Red Hot Preaching Conference in July last year, and it was the hottest ever. It was so hot in there that I got heat exhaustion after I preached, maybe I preached too long, but that's probably my fault, but it was hot in there. Who was there? Can I get an amen? Well, the exciting news about that is that Pastor Jimenez is moving it from July to June, and it's going to be in a new building that seats 400 people because he got a new building, which they're moving into in a few weeks. So a lot of prayer has been answered about that, and God's blessed Verity Baptist Church tremendously. And I was talking to Pastor Jimenez the other day, and I was like, it doesn't seem like a blessing right now because all the work you're having to put into it, but you're going to be able to enjoy it soon enough, but I'm sure it's a lot of work. But it's going to be awesome, but I can't really give out the dates quite yet, but it is going to be in June, so just plan on it being in June this year if that's something that you need for your vacation time. And let's see, the LGBT terrorist was shown at that Red Hot, and that was a great film by Pastor Shelley. And who got to watch that? Everybody got to watch that? If you haven't got to watch it yet, we'll make sure you get a link or something. So it was a great film. And it featured some of the Antifa terrorists that were outside of our building with their pink ski masks on and AR-15s, so they can show up and be in the ready position to shoot us. But if we did that to them, we'd probably be killed in the streets. But anyway, enough about that. Then our church also hit a milestone as Sure Foundation Baptist Church. We had five years as a church, and so it was a great milestone. And Pastor Jimenez preached for us the week after Red Hot. I asked him for a special favor. I dialed it in, and he did it. So I was happy about that, and I would have never asked him that if it wasn't five years, but he agreed to do that. But I had him preach for us like three or four times last year. I was hogging his calendar up. And then in August, right after our anniversary, I went to Toronto and took part in that soul winning marathon. And there was 187 salvations in that soul winning marathon. And I got to baptize a couple people, and I had a great time. If anybody wants to go back, I think we're going to do the same thing again this year. And then after that, I went to England with Pastor Jimenez and my wife, and Ms. Joanne, and their whole family went and got to preach in England. Who would have thought that Pastor Jimenez would have actually made it into England, but he did. And so he wasn't banned. But then the great thing about that trip is that I got to ordain Pastor Tavener. And so they became an independent Baptist church. Now they are Stronghold Baptist Church. And so that was a great blessing to be able to have that accomplished, and they're doing great over there across the pond. And so then September, Brother Matthew Stuckey was ordained as Pastor Stuckey, and they kept the name of Verity Baptist Church, and they're in the Philippines now. And so we support them as a missionary, and we'll still continue to do that. Ryan stole Amanda away from us. That was a low light of the year. But I got to do their wedding, which was nice, and I'm just kidding. I mean, they're still in our church technically, but yeah, he stole Amanda from us. I call her 362 Service Amanda, because like that faithful word, they call Second Service Amanda or whatever. And we had three, anyway, it's just a dumb joke, because she came after her. We had multiple services. But anyway, so yeah, he stole Amanda away from us and Kelly. But I got to do the wedding, so that was nice. And then in October, we had the Firebreather Baptist Fellowship, which some of our people went to. We had the Yakima Sony Marathon, where we had 66 salvations in just a few hours, pretty much. Well, we did do a whole day where it was pretty hard work that second day, but just like an hour and a half or two hours, we had like 20-something salvations the first day. It was pretty impressive. Was it 28 or something? I don't know. Anyway. And then we, I don't know if you saw this or not, but I think I mentioned it to our church that Pastor Stuckey ordained Brother Matthias. And we've been praying about him being sent over to Poland, so he is being sent over to Warsaw, Poland. I'm pretty sure he's already there. I haven't checked with Brother Stuckey about that, or Pastor Stuckey, excuse me. But he's a new missionary we're going to be taking on as soon as he gets established there. And then there was the Faithful Word Missions Conference I forgot about. Also Pastor Anderson did his annual, what does he call it, the mega conference? Yeah, the mega conference, and he preached at a whole bunch of different churches he preached here. And then, so that was great. And then, what else? See, that's a lot of stuff. We do a lot of stuff here. I'm probably forgetting stuff. Have I forgotten anything that you guys remember that we, am I covering it pretty much? So I think so. But December we had the Calgary Soul Waning Marathon, which I don't think anybody from our church went to because it was all Canadians. That was like the first event that we had all Canadians show up only. And it was 64 Canadians showed up to the church service in Calgary, and there was 22 salvations. So that was a great event, and Brother Jim put that on. And so I think that he's planning on going out there to preach again this next month here. And then we did the Indianapolis Soul Waning Preaching Trip, where me, Brother Bill, and Brother Brandon went out there, and there was, I think, 32 soul winners, 33 soul winners, something like that. And then we had 41 salvations in just a couple, basically three and a half hours or something like that of soul winning. We only had two hours on Saturday and an hour and a half on Friday, and that was a great trip. And so now I just want to go through what our churches did as far as, I know I'm not really getting into the Bible yet, but I will get into it, so just hang tight. But our church plants and soul winning groups. So Sure Foundation Baptist North had 154 salvations and one baptism. Sure Foundation Baptist Spokane had 100 salvations and one baptism. Sure Foundation Baptist Church UK, before they became Strong Tower, had 432 salvations and 22 baptisms. SFBCSA, which was basically not a church plant, but a Bible study group or a soul winning group, I guess is what we'd call it, had 78 salvations under our leadership. And then, so the totals for Strong Tower Baptist Church for the whole year was 758 salvations and 30 baptisms. And Strong Tower kept the soul winning group in South Africa, they're on the same time zone, but 10 hours flight down, they had 220 salvations. Strong Tower also took on a new group in Switzerland, so it's kind of expanding into Europe and they had 20 salvations, so for Switzerland that's probably good. So they had a grand total of 998 salvations and 30 baptisms for the year, which is awesome. And Sure Foundation Baptist Church Winnipeg had 118 salvations and 7 baptisms. Sure Foundation Baptist Church Seattle had 200 salvations and 5 baptisms. Bible Believers Baptist Church, a church we took on, had 160 salvations. And then the missionaries that we support, we support Verity Baptist Church in the Philippines. Their Manila location had 8,844 salvations, their Pampanga location had 1,651 salvations, their Bicol location had 1,032 salvations, and he said, I just got his numbers, he said not including last week because I think there was still more to come in, is 11,527 salvations and 13 baptisms. So that's just one missionary that we support, so they get a lot of salvations over there. So that's why I was saying that might be a good trip to go on, if you're going to go on a missions trip, to go over to the Philippines, and if you're looking for a wife it's possible that you might find a wife also. What do they call them, passport bros or whatever? Anyway, Pastor Mejia preached against that though, so I don't know. Faithful Word Christ Baptist Church in Nairobi, Kenya is another church that we help support, and that's Pastor Paul Warringa. They had 1,180 salvations and 13 baptisms, and so they did really well this year. They've gone through some trials and tribulations, they just had somebody break in and steal all their equipment, so they've had to replace all that. They had all that water damage, if you remember that. It's tough, it's a poor country, so they're doing the best they can over there. Our church here at home had 562 salvations and 42 baptisms, so actually 563 if you count the one that got saved today. With all the church plants and soul winning groups, and that's not including Strong Tower after they left our group, and the South African group after they left us, is 1,804 salvations and 42 baptisms, so praise the Lord for that. I might be off on the baptisms, I might have lost track of some of the ones that were done by our other churches, but 42 baptisms I'm positive about here, so that's great. I'm pretty sure that beats our numbers from last year, but I'm not 100% sure. I should have looked at last year's, but really, who cares? That's good numbers, right? Then if you look at Sure Foundation Baptist Church and Sure Foundation Baptist Church supported missionaries, that total is 14,999 salvations and 76 baptisms. I guess if you count the salvation today, that's 15,000. I think Brother Jim sent me that he got another one saved today, so that's 15,001. Okay, anyway, forgot about that one. We had a great year, that's what I'm saying. Baptist Church is the people, the missionaries we support, and then I also, we want to plan on taking on more missionaries this year, so I want to pick missionaries that actually preach the gospel and believe and teach the right salvation. We're not going to just take anybody on, like some of these other churches are like, oh, you're a missionary? Oh, you say you're a missionary? We have this wall of missionaries that we don't know what they're doing. We don't know who they're getting saved, and quite frankly, a lot of the missionaries that people send out or people that are out on the mission field aren't doing what missionaries are supposed to be doing, which is preaching the gospel. They don't even preach the right gospel, and they're really looking for a permanent vacation in some country that's beautiful or something. The way that I start churches and how I decide to do churches, I feel like I just go by God's leading. He doesn't tell me what church to start, but I just feel like God leads me in doing those things and deciding where to do soul-wanting events. I just feel like that things just happen, and I don't know how to explain it, but turn to Proverbs chapter three verse five. Proverbs chapter three verse five, we'll get some Bible in here. My philosophy is just faith. We do things based upon faith, and if we looked at the bottom line all the time, if we looked at every single statistic and tested all these numbers and areas and how well churches do here and there, I don't do that kind of stuff. I just feel like God leads me, and I'm just going to trust in Him to help me make the right decisions. The Bible says in Proverbs three five, it says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. See, this is what I don't want to do, is lean to my own understanding when it comes to planting churches and where I do soul-wanting events. I don't want to just leave it up to human reasoning all the time how I decide what churches to plant and what churches to not, what churches to start. Like I said, I just start looking at a building, and then all of a sudden SFBC Seattle just exists now. It's not like I was just like, how can I start another church? Really, sometimes I'm like, I kind of don't want to, Lord, but then I feel compelled to do it for some reason, and I just do. Maybe I just have a problem saying no, but I don't really have a problem saying no because there's people I've said no to. There's things I've said no to. There's areas I've said no to. When people are like, hey, let's start a church in Yukon, I'm like, no. There's only like 20,000 people total that live there, and Yukon's pretty big. I'd be willing to go soul-wanting in the biggest town there, but as far as starting a church there, it's not going to happen. There's too many grizzly bears up there. But anyway, it says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding. So I just want to lean on God's understanding more than my own, and it says in verse six, in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. If you actually believe those verses, then God will lead you. God will help you to understand how he wants you to understand, and you know what? Sometimes we just have to do things by faith. Sometimes the numbers and all this stuff is not going to add up, and the sense isn't going to be made. That's why we can't lean on our own understanding. We have to lean on God's understanding. Now turn to Mark chapter 16 verse 15. Here's what we do know. We do know these certain facts about God, and that's like when people are like, well, I just don't really know what I should do, and church is like, I don't know what we should do. We don't know what the will of God is. That is just in red letter edition or in black and white if you just have a black and white text Bible. Mark 16, 15, what's the Bible say? And he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Now that's a big task, isn't it? And really we could try really hard, and that would be a hard task for our church alone to accomplish. But isn't that what he says to do? So what is the will of God? That we would do that, right? So isn't it right to try to accomplish that goal and try to work towards that goal? And obviously we can only go as far as our church's finance will take us, as far as our people being faithful will take us as far as how many people we have. But that is the goal, to go to the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature. It says he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. That's what we're worried about is the people that are going to be damned because they don't believe. And so that makes it to where it's critical for us to get out and get people saved. And so if we can't start a church in that area, we can at least go soloing in that area and get a bunch of people saved. Like what I was talking about with Detroit, hey, it's great that those people are now faithful out there just knocking the doors every week, and hopefully that can become a church at some point. Right now it's a handful of people, but someday it'll probably become a church. And you know what? If they stay faithful and they add to that group and so more people start going, it probably will be. But that's kind of the formula that I look at. Are they going to be faithful? Is there going to be more people to go? And that's kind of, you know, it's a receptive area. People are going to get saved. They've had 300 people saved with a smaller group than we have up in Seattle. They've had a hundred more salvations. I mean, obviously, I don't know if they're counting the number that we started with in April. I don't know that for sure. But you know, that's a big chunk out of it. So we had a lot of laborers that day or that weekend. But anyway, so really, what is Mark 16, 15, and verse 16 saying? It's basically saying this world is doomed without Jesus Christ, and he's expecting us to get the job done. And as long as I'm the pastor at this church, we're going to continue to start churches. We're going to continue to go solely in other territories. We're going to continue to preach the gospel, and we're going to continue to do the first works and make that the priority of this church. And so if you don't like doing that, well, you might be in the wrong church, because that's what this church is going to do. So turn to Matthew chapter 28, verse 18, Matthew chapter 28, verse 18. And you're like, well, I like you that you're doing it, pastor, but I think we're doing it too much. Well, okay, but where's the verse that says, but I think you're doing it too much? How about to Paul? Like when all of his letters are written to different churches that he started. It's like to the churches at Galatia, multiple churches, to the church at current, and it's like, well, but you have all these churches that you started. There's no pastor. Well, I mean, why is he writing letters to them as an authority if there's a pastor at that church? Because wouldn't the pastor be the authority there? I mean, yeah. So once there was a pastor there, then he would have no reason to write letters to them anymore because then there would be an authority. So at some time, he was the authority because he was the apostle. Does that make sense? He planted the church, he was ordained to do that, and he was the pastor. I mean, not the pastor, but he did, you know, and was he at those churches until a pastor came? No, he wasn't. So people like to just criticize that kind of church planting, but then you're criticizing the way God does it then, the way God set it up. It's like not every church is going to work out. Not every area is going to be the best area to do it. Not everyone's going to be some huge, giant church, but God still said to do it. So Matthew 28, verse 18, and Jesus came and said unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and earth. So who has all the power? Jesus has all the power. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. So clear marching orders, go. Go do it. Get it done. Teach all nations. Get people saved. Baptize them. And then it says, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you. So we're going to teach them the Bible too, and lo, I'm with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. So look, he's empowered us to preach the world, to preach the gospel to the world. He's empowered us, and he gave us this power. When the Holy Spirit came upon the people at the day of Pentecost, he empowered the church, the New Testament church at that point, with the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, just because we can't do signs and wonders like lay our hands on sick people when they recover and things like that, it doesn't mean that we don't have the power of the Holy Spirit. We still have the power of the Holy Spirit, because you know what the power of the Holy Spirit is? The power of the Holy Spirit is the power of God unto salvation, and he's going to allow us to have that power that when we preach the gospel, the power of the Spirit of God is going to come upon people and allow them to understand the Bible and to believe. Amen. So now look at Acts chapter 1 verse 8. So Jesus is, you know, he, and before he says these statements in both passages that I've already gone to in Mark and Matthew, he upbraids the disciples for their lack of belief. He like kind of, he's getting onto them. And why is he doing that? Well, they're lacking in faith. And you know, when it comes to Paul, Paul is persecuting everybody, but then when Paul is converted, like there's no stopping the guy. He's just like, and he even says, I outworked all of them. I did more than all, and he wasn't bragging. He's just saying a fact. He was the apostle to the Gentiles. And he, you know why he turned the world upside down? Because there was no stopping the guy. He was just like a freight train. And in one generation, he basically reached the whole world, not necessarily by himself, but his zeal reached a lot of people. So Acts 1, 8 says, but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and in Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth. So Jesus already prophesied this was gonna happen. And look, that message is not just to them, because you know what? We wouldn't be sitting here in church today, saved and doing the same things, if it was just intended for the apostles to have that power. We have that same power. The power of the Holy Spirit has been put upon us also. Did he say you're gonna have power to do magic tricks? You're gonna have power to like, he's not talking about that. What's he say? Ye shall be witnesses unto me. And witnesses mean that what you've seen, you're gonna tell other people about. And so it's the same thing for us. What we've seen in the Bible, and what someone showed us, that faith we got, we're supposed to take that faith in that Bible and show that to somebody else. And this Bible is inspired by the Spirit of God. It's the word of God. And we take this book, and we show people how to be saved, and they're gonna get saved. That's the power of God unto salvation. Now turn to 2 Timothy chapter four, verse five. 2 Timothy chapter four, verse number five. One of the qualifications of being a bishop is to do the work of an evangelist. Look what it says in 2 Timothy four, five. It says, but watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist. What's an evangelist do? Well, they evangelize, don't they? They go out and get people saved. Now, obviously it's my job to go out and go soul wanting and things like that. But it says make full proof of thy ministry. Well, you know, an evangelist also, I believe Paul was an evangelist. And I believe Paul planted churches. I believe Philip planted churches. He's called Philip the evangelist when Paul sees him 20 years later after he went to Samaria and got the Ethiopian eunuch saved. So he ends up, Paul ends up running into him, and all of his daughters are preaching the gospel. And he is leading that work up there. So, I mean, the Bible, you know, the Bible's very clear what God wants. What does he want? Well, he wants us to go out and preach the gospel. He wants us to get people saved. He wants New Testament churches to start other New Testament churches. And he wants New Testament churches to, he wants pastors to beget other pastors. He wants pastors to be trained and to be ordained as pastors in other areas. In every city, that's the will of God. So our plans for this year are, we are gonna have a new church plant. It's gonna be in Indianapolis. And I went out there and I checked out the area. I met with, well, we actually had brother Justin come and visited us, brother Justin Zong, and I've talked with him extensively. He has the desire to be a pastor, and he wants to, he's gonna be boots on the ground basically for us. We are going to start the church in February. And we'll probably have an April event kind of launching everything. So, brother Justin's gonna be boots on the ground. We already have the building, it's already a done deal. We're allowed to preach everything in the King James Bible, that was put in the lease. So, whatever we preach is A-OK, which I thought was really cool. So, I mean, Leviticus 13 is in the King James Bible, isn't it? So, I mean, we got it done, it's all ready to go. We just have to put all the chairs, and the paint, and the hymns, and all that kind of stuff, and it's good to go. And the plan is to ordain him if he's qualified for the ministry in a few years. And the only time we can't have church service is the weekend of the Indianapolis 500, it's actually written in the lease. We can't have church services on the Indianapolis 500, and I know it's ungodly. But our plan for that is we're gonna have the not Indianapolis 500, and we're gonna have a church service in a different city, and do a Sony marathon in a different city someplace. So our first city we're gonna do is Chicago, and it's gonna be Memorial Day weekend, cuz every year the Indianapolis 500 is on Memorial Day weekend. So maybe we'll just do the Indianapolis 500, not the not Indianapolis 500, and try to just knock, get 500 people saved or something, I don't know, in five years or something, but that's the plan. And so I guess you just cannot move, there's 350,000 people go to that race, the town is a million people. So if you have 350,000 people just converging on a city at the same time, it's just, logistics go crazy, so that's just the way it is. But anyway, so I'm excited about that, that's gonna be starting in February. So like I said, everything's all set in stone, it's happening for sure. So the other exciting news is that we're gonna be ordaining Brother Jim Weeb as the pastor of the church up in Winnipeg, and that's gonna be happening in June. So that'll be like the ninth or somewhere around that weekend. So if anybody's wanting to go up to that, that'll be in Winnipeg at their new building. And so that's where it's taking place. So if anybody wants to attend that, so like I said, Chicago. So the Soul Waning Marathon's gonna be in Chicago this year. So normally we do Detroit, but we're gonna do Chicago. And then, like I said, that's Memorial Day weekend. And then I still wanna get to a Pacific Island sometime this year. I'm just not sure if that's gonna be able to take place or not, but I'm not 100% sure about that. But that is a plan. And I mean, we do have a vision for Canada. Like Canada is still wide open and things are happening there that might not, it might be tough for us to kind of be really super involved in that kind of stuff. But I am excited about churches being started in Canada. And so that is still the plan. So stay tuned for good news on the front of Canada. And then to support more missionaries. Brother Mateus is one of the ministries we're gonna pick up, and Evangelist Urbanic is another one. He's being sent to the Philippines to start, I think at this point, help Brother Stuckey or Pastor Stuckey. And I'm not sure what the capacity of that all is, but I'll figure all that out. But, and then of course at home. I wanna grow our church here and get more people that we get saved out there inside this building and disciple them, baptize them, disciple them, and teach them the Bible, and that we would reach more of the surrounding areas. Go ahead and turn to Titus chapter one, Titus chapter one. Titus chapter one, verse five, the Bible says, For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee. So in case you don't know, Crete is like a pretty small island. And so Paul left Titus and Crete to ordain elders in every city there. So if God wants elders in every city in Crete, do you think he wants elders in every city in America? Elders in every city in every country of the world? Of course he does. Now is that necessarily possible at this point? With God, all things are possible. But I'll just say this, is it the will of God to happen? Yes. So for us to continue with that goal in mind, that is the goal I have in mind. I want to start new churches, I want to train pastors, and I want to ordain them to the ministry so that we can have good quality churches. And this generation can have a great revival and that we can have some great soul winning churches sprout up in this generation. So we've already got a lot, but we need more. And that's the ultimate goal, right? So, and again, I think this is one of the most exciting years of our church's history, and a lot of weirdos are gone. We've got pretty normal people here now, for the most part. But, just kidding, I'm the only weird one left. But we've had some battles that we've gone through. And a lot of people don't always know what's going on necessarily, but the enemies have lost, and they went slinking back under their rocks. And hopefully they stay lost for a while. But obviously the enemies are gonna come back, but they lost. And so I'm glad that they lost. And our church is strong, our soul winning has increased, our salvations have increased. We've added new members, our baptisms increased from last year. We've had many successful church plants and constantly getting people saved over and over again. And you know what, I pray that 2024 is gonna be even better than 2023. I can't guarantee that, cuz 2020 just kind of really, I just realized that sometimes God has different plans. The children of Israel probably didn't realize that they weren't gonna be able to go to the temple for 70 years after Babylon destroyed it. So, I mean, it's just kind of one of those things. So you just never know, but Lord willing, we'll do greater things in 2024 than we did this year. So, Colossians chapter three, verse 17, Colossians chapter three, verse 17. I have one more place after this, and then we'll be done. Colossians 3, 17, the Bible says, and whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. So we're not just doing this for ourselves, or for our own accolades, or for to say, look, our church is number one, or whatever. And obviously, I want you to feel that our church is great and all that. But we're doing it for Jesus, and don't lose sight of that fact that this is the reason why we do the things that we do. And we might try and fail, but I would rather try things and fail than to never attempt great things for God. And be like that servant that hid his talent in the earth. So even if we do fail, trying for God, he knows our heart and the reason why we're doing things, and he knows why we're doing the things that we do. And so even if we fail, to me, if you never try anything, you're never gonna fail. But then if you never fail, you're never gonna learn how to succeed. Because the first time you ever rode a bike, I'm sure, you failed, didn't you? Most people, when they learn to ride a bike, here's how my stepdad taught me how to ride a bike. He was like, all right, you ready? No training wheels, so he just threw me. And I was like, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done, and I fell on the grass. And that's how you learn how to ride a bike. The next time, it only took twice, and I was just like, I did it. But I did crash once. I've crashed more than once, but I mean, I learn quickly. That's the test. It's kind of like how you learn how to swim. You wanna learn how to swim? They just throw you in. That's what dads do. But I didn't do that to my kids, but I just jumped in off of long dives with them. Anyway, but so turn to Acts, or excuse me, Romans chapter eight, and it'll be the last place I have you turn. Acts chapter number eight. So God knows the motivations and the reasons why we do things. And even if we fail, God still makes things turn out right for us. Look what it says in verse 26. Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. But the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with our groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. So even if we don't know what to pray for, we have the Spirit of God inside us that makes intercession for us and prays for us. But it says, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, so if we love God, and to them who are the called according to his purpose. If you're saved, you're the called according to his purpose, and you love God, all things are gonna work together for you for good. So it might seem bad, like Joseph, when you think about all the things that happen, all the evil things that happen to Joseph, they meant it for Joseph for evil. But God worked all those things out for good, for not only him and for his evil brothers really, but for the whole world, right? And so it says in verse 29, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, then he also called, and whom he called, then he also justified, and whom he justified, then he also glorified. What shall we say then to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? And that's my attitude about starting churches and about doing these things. If God is for us, if we already know that the Bible says these things, then who could be against us? If God said to start churches, then why is he gonna let us fail? If God said to go win souls, then why does it matter? We should just be able to close our eyes and put our finger on a map and say we're gonna go here and go soul winning. And really, a lot of times, that's what happens. Obviously, there's places that aren't as receptive to the gospel. If it's North Korea, we might wanna readjust our pinpoint, right, and say don't go to the pinned location, let's go to this pinned location, South Korea, right? But for the most part, or a language we don't speak, whatever, you know what I'm saying. But in America, we should be able to pin some point on the map, or any place that speaks English for the most part, and be able to go and at least, even in the richest neighborhoods sometimes, we'll pull somebody out and we'll get somebody saved that we, we were at condos up in Seattle last week. And I'm with Josh, and I'm like, we're in condos. It says, don't come unless you're invited, scum. Basically, you know, you know those signs. They don't really say that, but that's how I read it. We don't tolerate scum that aren't invited here. We're rich, buzz off. And this guy who just lost his wife two months ago, and is really emotional. He's lost all of his brothers had died. And it took us a while to get him, but he ended up getting saved. And he's like, you know, I believe that God sent you to us. God sent you guys to me, so that I could get saved today. And that's what it's all about, is that we go places, people are gonna get saved, and God's gonna work it out for us. And if God's for us, who can be against us? Says in verse 32, he that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. So I mean, I feel like when our heart's in the right place, and obviously we can, you know, you can mess up when you think your heart's in the right place and you make a bad decision, but, you know, God does know our heart. And if our heart is, hey, we wanna plant churches, we want to go soul-wanting and get people saved in these areas, you know, God's gonna make pass for us to make it happen, because he already said to do it. And so why would he not bless the things that we're doing? Like, why? If he already said to do it, then it's like, we literally should be able to go to any city and make it happen, right? I mean, that's the faith that we should have. Jeremiah 29 and 11 says, for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. And obviously, you know, I'm ripping that out of context, but just to say this, though, that God doesn't think, he doesn't think evil thoughts toward us. He wants to give us thoughts of peace, not thoughts of evil. He's not just waiting to say, hey, stupid, you shouldn't have started a church there, duh, you should have went here first. It's like, he wants a church there anyway, so why would he give out about it? You know what I mean? Like, I don't know, hopefully that makes sense to you, because that's kind of my philosophy about it, is just like, put a blindfold on me and just let me pick a city. You know, we'll go soul-wanting someplace, people are gonna get saved, and churches can get planted. As long as we have somebody that could be boots on the ground, and you got a big enough group that will meet there, then why not start a church there? Why not? You know, you're like, well, you're doing too much. Okay, well, you know, maybe I am, but I'm almost 50 years old, so I'm trying to get as much done as I can, right? I actually am gonna have you turn to one more verse, is that okay? Is that all right? Hebrews chapter 12, Hebrews chapter 12. So if you've been at this church for a long time, I hope that you take advantage of all the opportunities that you can, and stay excited, and stay plugged into our church, and don't get complacent. Because it's possible to get complacent. I was talking to somebody early about this, and I just said, we used to have 100% soul winning participation. There was a time when we had 100% participation. We don't have that now. And I'm not trying to call anybody out or anything. I'm just saying that somewhere down the line, someone got complacent. Someone just was like, and then it just happened. But, and maybe I was naive to think that it would always continue to be that way, but it's just not. But I would just say this, if you've been coming to this church for a long time, and you're like, well, it's just not as receptive as I thought. Well, just be faithful here, and then go to the trip. Because it's not like we don't offer opportunities for you to go to great trips. Or other churches don't have other trips that you can piggyback on top of. But if you live here, and this is where you kind of planted your roots, then stay planted, plant, take your roots up, and then go to the places that are receptive and preach the gospel there. Cuz you do get opportunities. And if you are faithful in this area, you will get people saved. So, Hebrews 12 one says, wherefore, seen we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Because the Christian life is a run of patience. It's a pacing yourself. It's not Roman candle, firecracker Christianity, where you just do a whole bunch of stuff and burn yourself out. You gotta keep a pace. If you're running a mile, that's four laps around the track. And if you just sprint for the first lap, you're gonna gas out and fall over. So you can't, you have to pace yourself and not just sprint out of the gate because you're gonna burn out. And so, that's why I'm saying this to the people that have been here for a while, run the race of patience. And it says, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. I mean, Jesus had 33 years. In his first 30, it's like perfectly keeping all the commandments. And then the last three is hardworking training guys. Every time he preaches, these evil wicked people are looking at him with all these evil looks. He gets to the Feast of Tabernacles and the Jews are all trying to kill him for the whole time, from John chapter seven to the end of John. They're trying to murder him for everything he does. And he endured a lot, but you know what? What Paul's saying here is that we look unto the author and finisher of our faith, he endured those things with patience. And we should look at how he endured things and endure those things the same way, endure them with patience and look at what our end game is. What is our end goal? To finish the race. To not quit, to not give up, to keep going, to say, you know what? I went to Shur Foundation Baptist Church for my whole life, or at least for many years. And I continued soul winning, I continued my church attendance, I stayed in my Bible, I stayed in the game, I paced myself. And when I'm all dead and buried, I finished, I finished the race. And if you're new to our church, this is an exciting time to be here. And I recommend that you get plugged into our church, learn the Bible, get involved in our church programs. And if you wanna work for the Lord, the opportunities are plenty. There's always something to do around here. Trust me, I'll find something for you to do. And I talked about this earlier, but when you do stuff, when you get plugged in and you take ownership of something, then it kinda becomes yours a little bit. Don't get too, but just take ownership of something. And then once you kinda take ownership of something, you feel like you're more part of it. When you get plugged in, you feel more part of a great church. And this is a great church in the field to get to know people. And hang out in fellowship, you'll see that really quickly. So if you wanna learn how to share your faith, this is a good church for you to go to, check. If you wanna learn the Bible, this is a great place to get plugged in, check. And if you're checking off a checklist. And if you want hard preaching, you're gonna get that too here, check. If you wanna go on a missions trip, check, you're gonna get that here too. And if you wanna help church plants get going, check, you can help with that too. You can be part of a start, starting up a new church, I mean, that stuff's exciting. And if you wanna help in a local church, you can do that here too. If you just wanna sit here and watch everybody else do stuff, you can do that too. I'm not forcing you to do anything. I'm just trying to help you, like if you're new here, to get plugged in and get with the program if you want. Meet new friends, Christian mingle, stuff like that. But that's kind of the year in review report. And I hope you're excited about the stuff we got coming out this year and the things we're gonna be doing. And obviously God kinda just throws things at us and we just never know how his plans are gonna, how things are gonna go according to his plans. But that's our plans and I think that God wants us to start new churches. I think he wants us to win souls. That I know for sure, and he wants new pastors to be ordained. So anyway, let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this great year that you've given our church. And God, I just pray that you bless each and every single individual in our church, Lord, and those that couldn't be here because of illness and whatever reason, if they're traveling. Lord, I just pray that you just bless each and every single person that would call this church their home church. And Lord, that you'd bring us many more people this year to share in this great work that's being done here. Pray you'd help us to be a light in a dark world, a light in this dark city. And help us to make a difference, help us to have compassion, help us to pull people from the fire. And Lord, help us to make sure that we are thanking you. And Lord, that we're doing this for you and not for our own motivations. I pray that you would just, Lord, that you would help those that are sick and have physical ailments. And Lord, just help us to be better Christians this year than we were, this next year than we were last year, and help us to be more spiritual. And I pray just all the blessings that you can put upon our church, Lord, and our church plants, and our leaders that we have, and the different places. Pray you just bless the new church plant up in Indianapolis. And pray that you just bless every single aspect of our ministry, and also the food that's to follow in our fellowship tonight. And we pray these things in your blessed name, Lord Jesus, amen.