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

so the title of my sermon today is two are better than one two are better than one but before i get into the sermon i did want to say something about the guy that brother chad got saved because we went to the wrong address too so i don't know what was going on with that there was just a few people brother chris i think we all got stranded in this weird spot but anyway i was i so to chad had pulled up and he was out and and then like we were kind of right behind and we pulled in right behind him and this guy's like walking down the down the road he's not on the sidewalk he's like walking in the road and i'm like i'm about to run this dude over and so my spirit was a little bit different than chad's with this guy i was like why is it that you know why don't you walk on the sidewalk man and like he walks and like somebody pulls up right behind like right before he's about to walk someone pulls up and then chad like jumps out and then the guy's just kind of like you know feels like you know these cars are blocking him and then like brother chad jumps out and i was like he ain't gonna get saved that just tells you what my spirit was like yesterday but then i was like he's giving him the gospel shut my mouth i mean that's a bad attitude to have the pastor of the church he ain't gonna get saved but he didn't look like he was like he looked really serious how he's like wearing sunglasses he looked like you know he had a backpack like he was like on a mission usually people don't like to be stopped when they're on a mission so but anyway just a tale of two different you know things going on brother chad's like yeah it's a miracle that he got saved i'm like gather up get on my water run you over no but i'm very glad he got saved and i do believe in divine appointments and that definitely was and you know the beauty of this church i believe was a divine appointment like this church was about you know this church was a different church before we came and you know brother rudy and brother jason basically helped launch this church and they did a great job doing that and there was a couple times when it was just a wednesday night and they were by themselves you know and so i would i would incur i would try to encourage them and say look it's gonna get bigger it's it's gonna grow if you do things the way god tells you to do things the church is gonna grow so this church was like running maximum of 10 before we got here and now i mean it looks like we have probably close to 70 people in here this morning and usually there's about 40 people on a sunday or somewhere around there depending on you know we got out of town people that drive from a long ways away so sometimes not everybody can be here at once but let's look at our verses here let's look at verse number number eight it says there is one alone and there is not a second yea he hath neither child nor brother yet is there no end of all his labor neither is his eyes satisfied with riches neither saith he for whom do i labor and bereave my soul of good this is also this is also vanity yea it is sore travail two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor let's pray heavenly father we thank you lord so much for this wonderful day and all the great people that are a part of this church and and so thankful for brother chad and his family and all the great work they've done and also all the other folks here lord that just do a great job and make sure this place is a well oiled machine and we're just so thankful for a church out here in spokane valley area and there's not a lot of great churches out there anymore lord but this is one of them pray bless this church pray bless everybody here and help everybody to think about just how important it is to be going to a good church lord and how thankful they should be that they could be in a church like this in jesus name we pray amen all right so two are better than one so i'm just going to preach this concept this principle this morning and i'm going to go into a lot of different things but uh this weekend marks the second full year of sure foundation baptist church in spokane and uh thus far it's a success isn't it and so yesterday we started out sewing in an area that we first started in the first weekend that we went we went to those same apartment complexes and it wasn't as receptive i think we only got like maybe two or three saved isn't that right brother robert like and people were rude to us and you know well i heard that you guys got chased around by the paparazzi or something yesterday after i left yeah i heard he was like you know giving you the number one sign or something like that you should have said no two is better than one i think he gave the universal sign for not being friendly but anyway so but we had about about 70 soul owners i'd say like if you include all the children i didn't count everybody but it was a room full about like this so it's close and but we didn't have that many soul owners the first year we went out i don't think we hadn't even close to that it was probably maybe 40 or something like that even maybe even less but the point is is that the first year things were good but the second year things have even been better and so i look forward to the third year being even better than the second year but two is better than one that's what this principle is teaching now obviously if you're talking about one in spirit one in in doctrine and one and you know and you know our church being one that's a that's a different concept but i'm talking about just two being better than one isn't it nice to have a soul winning partner what if i what if we said okay we're going soul winning today and every person including all the children have to go to their own doors and knock their doors what do we cover more ground right but see the the thing is that the lord wants us to go two by two and so why because two is better than one and because it's nice to have a soul a silent partner that can help you and pray for you someone you can get to know while you're going from door to door because i'm sure most silent or most talkers or most i mean most soul winning pairs probably talk about things as they go so not only are you going so many but you're making friends as you do it or maybe deciding that you don't like them as a friend i'm just kidding but we've had more salvations this last year than we did the year before two is better than one so we had 244 salvations last year and the year before i think it was like a little over 100 right it was just barely over 100 so we've over doubled the number of people that were saved from the first year and like i said before we started with around 10 people and i and you know brother i know brother daniel was one of the first people to come and brother chris and you know we've had brother robert we've had a lot of people um you know that that started out but i mean a little people that started out but now look we're up to 40 to 50 people in this church so the second year has been better numerically than the first year so the first year is great you know the first year everything's new and everything's great but you're still working out the kinks you're still working out the problems and we didn't really have like a an ordained evangelist like we do now so it's better the second year we had you know beginning our second year we had brother chad ordained about this time last year and the weather was a lot worse it was like a blizzard outside right i remember pastor anderson came and preached and we were at the community center and we had 85 that night but like it was pretty you know it was the weather was a lot worse so i'm glad for the weather it's a lot more mild this year but uh the bible says two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor the more people there are the more labor is going to get done the more rewards you're going to get so you're not going to get as many people saved with one person as you are going to get with two and you might think well that's weird because you could send more if one person went by themselves you could cover more ground you could knock more doors but that's not how god wants it because you know nobody's going to just go out and go sowing by themselves what if this church just had one person in it was brother chad nobody else came to this church and he was responsible for all the preaching doing all the other stuff and he did all the soul winning that'd be pretty lonely wouldn't it two's better than one like if his wife was joining him it's like hey honey why don't you come to church with me two would be better than one so and that's the principle that it's teaching here is that you know and basically man gets lonely by themselves and they they put people in solitary confinement in prison why because they want to punish them and then you know if you're in a prison cell like that for too long you know what happens you start to go mad you start to go crazy it affects your psychiatric well-being and so god does not want us to be alone he wants us to have companions he wants us to have a spouse he wants us to have children he wants us to have families and brothers and sisters he wants us to have a church with more than one person in it he wants us to have soul winning with more than one person at the door you know two is better than one and what if this church had never made it past the first year that'd be a bad thing wouldn't it it would be it would be considered it wouldn't be considered good it'd be considered bad and now we've got to the second year it's better because we we know that we're continuing to move forward and two indicates success we've made it past our second year but you know we gotta have a vision to go further it can't just be about well we you know we made it two years now we can just rest on our laurels and all the the great things we did this last year now we got to do better and uh and go bigger next year so three is better than two in terms of church service and years and as long as the church is growing numerically and maturely it's going to be better now we also had the coronavirus all that stuff and it kind of stifled things a little bit i i would say as far as like growth but like this building isn't going to get any bigger but we still can cram more people in this room on a weekly basis and we need people to be faithful it's important to be in church it's important to be in the house of the lord every week as much as you can be here and we have a lot of new faces here and i'm thankful for them and that's just going to continue to grow this church even further so so three will be better than two hopefully right so i'm looking forward to year three i'm looking forward to seeing the things that the lord's going to do for us this year so um so i'm going to just have some statements that i'm going to go through i might have to skip some for time's sake but i'm going to be done by 12. um done by 12. the pizza's going to be here i know you guys's mouths are going to be watering so uh but i'll try to keep it to just 12 12 noon maybe even earlier but i do want to go some through some of these principles and just i mean it's not i'm going to go through every single principle about two being better one i'll just pick some things that i like so two are better than one in companionship two are better than one number one statement i want to make is that two are better than one in companionship now look at genesis chapter 2 verse 18 look at genesis chapter 2 verse number 18 if you don't know where genesis is it's the first book of the bible and it's the second chapter so it shouldn't be too hard to find genesis chapter 2 verse 18 what's the bible say it says and the lord god said it is not good that man should be alone you see that it's not good that man should be alone i will make him and help meet for him what's he's saying i'm going to make him a wife you know and it's not just so she could do all the work all the extra work you know he is the bible when it says me that means fitting like i'm going to make a help me fit you know somebody fitting for him a companion and so god saw adam he made adam he made all these animals and he said you know what it's not good that he's alone and so god doesn't want us to be alone two are better than one right and so obviously if he hadn't made that companion for adam eve then we wouldn't even be here today so two are definitely better than one so in most cases anyway so turn to proverbs chapter 18 verse 22 proverbs chapter 18 verse 22 and i'll say this it's better for a man to be married than for a man to be alone in most cases it's better for a woman to have a husband than to be alone in most cases obviously there's situations where it probably wouldn't be good but um i i think it's good for a man to have a wife and if you're single here today you know you know try to get married unless you're like a eunuch or something or you know and there's nothing wrong with that like paul said you know he never got married so you know there's certain cases where people are able to do that but in most cases and even paul you know he still had companions that he went out with and what did he talk about when everybody had forsaken him that he that was that a good thing for him or was that a bad thing for him so it was a bad thing because paul had companions and friends that he traveled with and nobody wants to do everything alone so proverbs 18 verse 22 says who so findeth a wife findeth a good thing and obtaineth what favor of the lord so if you find a wife guys you're finding a good thing now make sure you find a good wife though just because she's a wife doesn't mean she's always going to be good okay find a good wife find someone that's on board with the things that you believe and ladies same thing you know don't just pick the first guy that comes along you know you can be a little bit selective there is seven billion people in the world today so but you know you got to tailor that down to people that are saved which then that brings the percentages way down so but you can get someone saved and then marry them if you like them all right but just make sure they're really saved you know that you didn't just like pick them from a catholic church and go they're a christian a pastor i swear they are you know people do that kind of stuff people are like well you know they're a christian they say they're a christian so it's good enough for me well it's not gonna be good enough for you and they don't want to go to church it's not gonna be good enough for you and they don't want to go soloing it's not gonna be good enough for you when you want to have 12 children and they don't so think about those things like be selective in who you want that companion to be so and you know one man one woman you know that's all it should be all right and i'm going to talk about today's theme is two okay because it's our second anniversary so today two is better than one this morning but tonight it's going to be you know there's only two genders okay so we're going to take a drastic swing tonight but today i want to encourage you if you if you're someone that's looking for a spouse then you need to find you need you need to actually look you need to actually talk to people you know if there's you know there's people that are could fit that bill for you then you know you know it's good to do hi i'm so and so nice to meet you i'm ryan nice to meet you know you gotta meet people i'm sorry i pulled someone with single out i'm sorry brother that wasn't the example i was talking about though but you know what i mean so it's good to be married you know i'd be lost without my wife i you know i i couldn't imagine being in life without my wife she is my help me she is the love of my life and it would be devastating for me to not have her in my life that's why the bible says it's if you find a wife you find a thing and i believe that and it says you obtain favor from the lord i wouldn't be a pastor if it wasn't for my wife because you know you have to be married the husband of one wife in order to be a pastor right you have to have faithful children that uh you know you have to rule your house well so there's certain qualifications you have to meet to be a pastor and so we know that paul was not a pastor but you know paul did have companions and so it's good it's not good for man to be alone in any situation in marriage and fellowship in in in any of the things that we do for the lord it's not good now it's better to have a good friend with the same values and beliefs uh than you that you have um to help comfort you to help have fun you know it's good to have friends isn't it you know if you say your best friend is a dog then what does that say about you you can't get along with people you know but it's funny though i mean people say that dog is man's best friend you know have you heard that before all right that's weird but sometimes dogs are more loyal than friends are that's sad so we should when we're friends we should be good friends when you pick a friend you should pick a good friend you know because dogs are always loyal aren't they like i mean for the most part unless you have a pit bull then they could eat your children but but for that you know when the kids grow up they stop going daddy daddy you know at a certain age my kids got to be teenagers and they didn't run to my legs and hug my legs and you know those are things that you you don't forget that that you like but you know you know what your dogs are always going to do your dogs are always going to come home you know and they're barking like shut up get away from me you know come here boy come here dogs are loyal in that way though and uh they follow you around the house and stuff like that so i'm not saying have a dog as a best friend i'm just saying if you're if you know a dog shouldn't be your best friend but if you're a friend you should be a loyal friend and you should pick loyal friends but you know sometimes people just stab you in the back and that's just the way it is but it's good to have a friend you're still in proverbs chapter 18 look at verse 24 it says a man that hath friends must show himself friendly and there's a friend that sticketh closer than a brother you don't want to go through life with no friends you should have friends you should have people that you trust in your life that you can count on and things like that but the truth of the matter is you're probably going to have about a handful of friends that you ever could trust for your whole life you know if that so but that's sad that should say something about us as friends so hey two is better than one it's better to have a friend than to have no friends and to say my dog is my best friend okay so we need to in proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 says iron sharpeneth iron so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend so see that that's two things right there iron sharpening iron so if you have a friend that's someone that's going to sharpen you two is better than one so you have that person to sharpen you as a friend and as as a human being actually so if you have a friend that friend will stick closer than a brother and so two are better than one because you know it's better to have a friend than to live life alone statement number two two are better than one in leadership in leadership and you're like well this is a pastor led church it is but it's good to have more than one leader isn't it you know there's a lot of leaders in this in this room chad is in charge while i'm not here he's the boots on the ground i'm the leader of five different churches so but i have to have leadership in those different locations in the churches that we have so that brother ian over in england is our newest church leader and so he needs people underneath him to help him in leadership one man can't do this by himself one man can't lead this church by himself we need to have more leaders and so two is better than one right now we have two ordained men in this room that are leaders in this church and it's better that i so if it was just me having to call shots from six hours away and no and there's no uh bonafide leader here then that's not going to be good we need to have more leadership and so and you don't have to be just an ordained person to be in leadership there's a lot of people in this room that i count on for leadership every single week rylan makes the bulletins and he messes them up all the time but he still does it oh brother daniel i'm just kidding brother daniel makes the bulletins in here every week for this church and he sends me a copy so i know what's going on you know everybody in this room that goes so winning you're a leader in one way shape or form if you're a talker you're leading that person that doesn't talk you know or you're leading children and showing them how to go so wanting what soul winning is all about you know and if we don't have anybody here to baptize we're not fulfilling the great commission brother chad is ordained and he does the baptisms here for the most part i think he's done all like he's done 11 baptisms or no it would be 11 today you've done 10 we've had 11 but you've done some of them okay okay never mind anyway so but we've had you know and last year was a bad year for baptisms for i think all churches but but we two leaders are better than one three leaders are better than one you know there has to be someone in charge but there's many leaders it's important because it can drive if you don't have people you can count on it's it hurts leaders it doesn't help them it hurts them it's like hey i can't count on anybody i need to be able to count on people to be leaders and so two leaders are better than one so it says two are better than one in verse nine in our text so we're gonna we're gonna keep going back to our text and uh but verse number nine in our text in ecclesiastes 4 says two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor so a good reward for their labor two people can lift more than one person can't they so have you ever heard that term team lift if you've ever worked at a place where you have to live have these stuff and you're like like you know if you if you see a box that says team lift that doesn't mean you lift it by yourself that means you need one person other person to help lift it and two can lift a lot more weight and do a lot more work than one person so our lord jesus christ did not minister alone did he john the baptist actually started that new testament work where he was the voice in the wilderness and people were coming to him to get baptized he started getting people saved and then he paved the way for jesus so jesus didn't start it on his own did he he had john the baptist do that and so when he came when jesus came in after him he already had disciples john pointed him to disciples and said here these guys here's these guys and then peter i mean um excuse me jesus then he picked he hand-picked his 12 apostles and he what who'd he pick working people people that knew how to labor with their hands except for matthew the tax collector you know he was writing checks and he was breaking next in cash and checks but uh other than that but you know it's still hard work being a blue i think that was just showing that if you work in an office you still could work hard right he was working hard at stealing people's money but he got better right um but uh the more help we have in this church the more leadership we have in this church the better this church is going to be you know and i i mean i just went full time a couple months ago and uh people were like well now that you're the pastor you know can you start doing this like hey i got i've already had plenty of stuff i've put on the back burner i got stuff to do i still need help i still need people to back me up i still need people to do things and brother chad does too he doesn't do everything by himself and if he did he would wear away he would waste away that's what moses's father-in-law jethro told him he said hey you know you're you're getting up and you're judging everything from the morning till the evening you're gonna wear away you're gonna waste away it's it's not good for you to do that so the and was moses a great leader absolutely it was a great leader but sometimes you know he had some hard times didn't he with the people that followed him weren't really always that good of followers were they so like i said last year we ordained brother chad is the evangelist at sure foundation baptist church he's been overseeing he's been the boots on the ground and you know he leads his own soul winning time you know he gets people saved that i was about to run over i mean he does i was going to try to end his life and bro chad wanted to save his life two are better than one but look you know we've had this year was weird like i ordained chad and then also this pandemic stuff came up right and they're like telling us we need to shut down and all this other stuff and and it's just been kind of a weird year and we're trying to get now it's kind of we're going out of it like idaho people are burning their masks yesterday and so i mean i think we're starting to clear off all this stuff now that they've implemented everything that they wanted to implement but uh you know what's better than having one church though yeah two churches you know and i'm getting ahead of myself but we have five churches in in five different locations it's not like i have all of them in vancouver washington we have one here also we have one in surrey bc we have one in hawaii and we have one in canada and then we have one yeah i don't like to lose track over here um and then england so but those each location has its own leadership and then they have sub leadership underneath them people that are helping them do all these things and so it is better to have more than one leader if i was just calling all the shots and making all the decisions down to the finest detail i'd be wearing away myself i need people to help me brother chad needs people to help him here so don't lose sight of that and just think well he's the leader he's ordained he's the one that should do everything that's not a good and i know you guys don't have that attitude but sometimes i think people forget that leadership can be a lonely place and we need people to come alongside us and hat and be leadership with us two is better than one now turn to numbers chapter 11 verse 13 i'll show you a spot where moses uh needs some help here and he's fed up people weren't wanting to help and uh he really got to a really dark place and this is a place that i don't ever want to get to there's been times when i felt like quitting i'll admit it um and maybe there'll be times in the future when i feel like quitting but it shouldn't be because of any of the fellow church members that we have maybe it'd be something else but sometimes church members don't realize the burdens that they're putting on their leaders sometimes you know but here here's what happened in numbers chapter 11 look at verse 13 it says when should i have flesh to give unto all this people they're asking for flesh or disc the people are discontented with what moses and what they're really discontented with what god's doing for them they're getting he's giving them this manna and it's you know representing the lord jesus and it's not enough for them and so they're upset they're like oh that we could go back to egypt and have the the leeks and the garlic and the you know the flesh you know they want meat but the way that they went about it was wrong they start complaining and so hey you know god can do a lot of things god can do anything actually and so instead of whining and complaining why don't you just ask god for what you need and that's really the attitude they should have had and when leaders see perceive people that have a complaining spirit and they're just complaining about everything and they're whining then it's it starts to affect the leadership look at what happens here's what moses says to god i'm not able to bear all this people alone because it is what too heavy for me remember when moses was trying to uh let you know he was he was trying to keep his hands up and he had to have who was it her and aaron had to hold his arms up while the battle was continuing see moses needed help too look what it says and and if thou deal thus with me kill me i mean leadership can get to the point where you're just like god just kill me and i don't want to ever get to that point but why is two better than one because we need help and you know we don't want to get to this point where chad's been like lord just kill me you know or miss jessica lord just kill me i mean you know and obviously she's not a leader in that way but like she is like the evangelist's wife and she does things around here that probably people don't see and uh or if you do see it but you know we don't want to get to the point where we're vexing the leaders to the point where they just want to be killed i i don't i haven't gotten there yet but i want to be killed but this is what moses dealt with though kill me i pray the out of out of hand if i have found favor in thy sight and let me not see my wretchedness see when we think when we can't do it all alone and people aren't wanting to help then it makes us feel like we're not good enough see how moses felt like he was just wretched because he just couldn't do all the things that god wanted or that he felt like he needed to do it says the lord said unto moses gather unto me 70 men of the elders of israel whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people and officers over them and bring them onto the tabernacle of the congregation that they may stand there with thee see sometimes we just need people to also just to stand with us now because pastors and leaders go through battles and sometimes even if you if even if you're not helping but sometimes it's good to just know that someone's standing with you someone's on your side see it says that they may stand there with thee so god said pick these 70 men that they can stand with you and that and sometimes that's just all we need is someone to stand with us but it says and i'll come down and talk with thee there and i will take of the spirit which is upon thee and i will put it upon them and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee see two is better than one and you know multiply that it's good to have multiple leaders that are helping and that they know where they're supposed to be they know what needs to be done in the church they are the ones that pick up the piece of paper that's on the floor when someone else doesn't have time to do it the people that just want to serve in the church and they know that the leader needs help so the leader can't do it all by himself moses couldn't do it all by himself and he was one of the greatest leaders of all time and he got to the point where he just said god just kill me elijah got to the point where he said god just take my life and we don't want the leadership to and i'm not look i'm not trying to make you feel guilty or anything like that i'm just saying that like it's good to have people to stand with you and it's good to have more leadership than just one person he says oh come down and then it says that that excuse me in verse 17 the end of it says that thou bear it not thyself alone see it's not good for man to be alone it's not good for a white a woman to be alone it's not good for for a person to not have any friends it's not good for a leader to not have any people to stand with them so number three statement three is in churches two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor the more is is more churches than one you know it's better to have more than one church right so if you think about the book of acts how did it start out one church right and so after jesus was resurrected he you know the the apostles got together and met right they had one church at that time and so what did god say to do though he said to go out into all the world and preach the gospel to every preacher and they were just like hunkered down in jerusalem and so persecution ended up coming to that church and then what happened because of that persecution more churches got started more people preached the word in different places and more churches got started so you know we have five churches under what you would call i guess what you call the stir foundation banner and people probably think i'm nuts you know but i i'm not going crazy i haven't asked god to kill me yet and so things are going well we have a system that we do we have a a way that we start church plants and it works you know is is one day one of them going to fail maybe but everything's been good so far nothing's nothing's ever been to the point where i have to pull the plug on anything i haven't had to fire any of my leadership yet i haven't had to you know we haven't had that many problems everything for the most part you know obviously there's problems in every church but we're doing good we're doing we're going solid and you know what we have more lights popping up around the world and that's what we need that's what we need and you know i guess uh i guess i'll know when my threshold comes if you see me on suicide watch then you'll know that i went too far okay but you know god willing we're gonna start another church in the summertime we're trying to start a church in seattle and so we just need men to rise up and to be willing to be leaders in these places so you know look this is a big area i want to start a church in tri-city someday i want to start a church in yakima someday you know there's a lot of different places in this just in this area that i want to start churches i'm trying to start in the bigger areas and then kind of you know then maybe the smaller towns will get some eventually you know we got we got to think about in decades i'm not doing all this next year okay but my goal at the beginning of the year was to start two churches one's already done my goal at the beginning of the year was to get a bigger building so that our church could grow in vancouver and we're on our way there and you know i signed the lease here we got one more year here and then we're going to probably try to get a bigger building here so as long as like we don't have like a huge attendance drop or something that's going to happen you know the more people we have the more we can do and so the more places we're at the more people can get saved in those places around the world that's what he said he said go to the uttermost parts of the earth it doesn't get more uttermost in hawaii so you know and and the god people are waiting to hear the gospel in these places london england really does not have did not i mean not london just the whole that whole island and then ireland right next to it they don't have a lot of hope they don't have people going to knocking doors you know on a massive scale like it needs to be but that's going to change you know and then persecution is going to come because of that but you know what that's going to do it's going to cause our churches to multiply it's going to cause our people to multiply and two churches are better than one right turn to proverbs chapter 29 verse 18 proverbs chapter 29 verse 18 we need more churches and i definitely don't want to go so far and fast that i can't handle it but you know that's why my last point was that we need more leaders two are better than one right so we need leaders and so like i'm not going to plan a church where i can't count on someone to lead or i can't count on people to do what needs to be done so look where it says in proverbs 29 verse 18 says where there is no vision the people perish but he that keepeth the law happy as he but where there's no vision if i don't have a vision for what sure foundation baptist church is going to be then people are going to perish you know we don't want people to perish we want people to be saved like we had nine salvations for this church yesterday because people care because it's it's a big deal so wanting that this church is a big deal and everybody cares about getting people saved but what if we didn't have that vision i'll tell you what there's a lot of churches in this town that don't have that vision and the people around us are perishing this church can't do it all by itself but you know apparently we're the only ones that are doing it i mean do you brother chatter there are other churches are going door to door and giving the true gospel in this city that you've ever run into we've never ran into okay but yet there's other baptist churches in this town isn't there you know baptizing people in dresses or whatever guys so what in the world i mean that's weird to me but it's like put a pair of pants on this guy you know he's no longer a sheik so but anyway you know they're so oh this one guy got baptized what about getting people saved there's no vision in this city except for in this church you know and who's gonna do it we're gonna have to do it brother chad loves idaho you know he's going every wednesday with a group of people to try to get people saved over there good this is a big area it's a huge area and you know what there's 40 or 50 people here that have a vision to reach people you know what we need churches like this all over the place but we can only do so much at one time but you know what if i don't have a vision uh for what i'm doing for this church you know for what this church is supposed to be doing people are going to perish you know and that's what i think about that's what keeps me up at night it's like how can we do more how can we get more people saved how can we get churches planted in other areas so look at first samuel chapter three verse number one first samuel chapter three verse number one actually you know what i'm going to have you turn to ax chapter one i'm going to read for you first samuel chapter three verse one verse three one says and the child samuel ministered unto the lord before eli and the word of the lord was precious in those days and there was no open vision see when there's no vision the people perish and that was a dark time in the time of israel and it's because there was no open vision we have to have a vision to reach people and you know what that vision is two is better than one we got to get more churches planted we got to get more churches started we got to get more leadership started and that starts with multiplication of people and churches so look at ax chapter one verse 14 it says these all continued in what's it say one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and mary and the mother of jesus and with his brethren and in those days peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said the number of names together were about 120. so 120 is what you know jesus had all these people saved all these people were baptized but at the end of it how many people are in the first church 126 people you know what god's always done a lot with very little you know if you look at you think about gideon and the 300 and you think about just the very small he always does things with small numbers that are big works because you know what we have a we have a god that he doesn't want us to take the credit for everything that he does we're trying to do what he asks us to do with a very small number of people you know what the true remnants it's always going to be that way you're not going to have you know john hagee sized churches out knocking doors and preaching the gospel to people it's because the rent there's a remnant there's a righteous remnant you know what john hagee's church doesn't have any of them and joel osteen doesn't have any of those and kenneth copeland doesn't have any of those it's just little churches like this in smokan valley little churches like shield of faith baptist church of boise idaho little churches like our church in vancouver washington in comparison to these big mega churches we are few in number but it started with one church with a small amount of people look at verse uh let's look at romans chapter one verse seven see it start off with one church but then it multiplied into all these churches so you've got the epistles that paul wrote right and so what does he say in those epistles look at romans chapter one verse seven to all that be in rome beloved of god called to be saints grace to you and peace from god our father and the lord jesus christ so he's saying to the saints he's writing letters to people that why because there's believers that are being lights in the world in all these different locations and you know what it took it took one man but also you know he didn't do it by himself did he he had companions that went and helped him do all these things first corinthians 1 2 says unto the church of god which is at corinth to them that are sanctified in christ jesus called to be saints will all that in every place call upon the name of the lord jesus christ our lord both theirs and ours go ahead and turn to revelation chapter um chapter one i'm just going to read for you a couple more verses galatians chapter 1 verse 2 and all the brethren which are with me unto the churches of galatia churches see they start off with one but it multiplied into multiple churches you know people say i wanted to have a church just like the church of acts well hey what did the church of acts do they multiplied churches they multiplied pastors they multiplied people why because exponential growth you know you can't just do it with one you have to have two you have to have three you have to have multiplicity ephesians 1 1 says paul an apostle of jesus christ by the will of god to the saints which are at ephysis and to the faithful in christ jesus and i believe that there was a church in philipi there was a church in thessalonica there was a church in antioc and you know paul was a member of the church of antioc and he was just being faithful he was just preaching and teaching he was a prophet and god said separate unto me saul and barnabas he said i'm going to separate these guys because they're going to go out and do the work and they literally turn the world upside down with all just a couple guys sent out they got all these people to help them and look all those churches started because of paul but he didn't do it by himself he had to have help didn't he and so we have to have help and you know what's it what's it going to take it's going to take more churches so and think about all the church you know you think you think i'm crazy by starting all these churches what about paul was paul crazy you know think about it he was sent out of antioc and antioc's like you know we got the we got the most church plants in the whole region they had church plants everywhere did you think do you think they just had pastors automatically in those locations no they didn't they had something similar to what we have here an extension of that church and then eventually he would those people would be ordained in those places look at revelation chapter 1 verse 11 it says saying i am alpha and omega the first and the last and what thou see us write in a book and send it unto the seven churches which are in asia unto ephysis and unto smirna and unto pergamos and to thyatira and unto sardis and to philadelphia and unto laodicea so that's seven churches that that john was supposed to write uh these letters to but paul i don't i don't remember paul i don't know if paul started all these churches i know there was other disciples there was other apostles too but i know ephysis was one of the ones that he started but if you think about it like antioc that was like a station for two guys that went out and then started a whole bunch of churches so really that's how uh the churches in the in the beginning that's how they multiplied and i feel like when you know this movement started that we're restarting something that god has already intended for us to do but somewhere baptists lost sight of what they were supposed to be doing and they have missionaries believe me they do but they're more like muchinaries they are they they need five thousand dollars a month to go and they don't know the language they don't preach the gospel what are you doing there they send a letter back and they're like pray for this person we had to work for dinner last week we we told them that adam and eve are real people or something it's like wow wow you're just just tearing it up with that five thousand dollars a month that you're getting every month we have laborers that work for free here all the time better missionaries than they ever hope to be i had a missionary contact me just recently i i guarantee you he probably doesn't even preach the gospel you know and if he does then he probably repent of your sins you got all these people that bat in baptist lore that are supposedly these great missionaries of times past but when you dig into them a lot of them are false prophets so you know we want to start churches the right way with the right gospel with the right plan and they will thrive just like this church is thriving today so we need a vision past this sunday we need a vision for next sunday we need a vision for next year we need a vision for the year after that we need a vision for a lifetime are you in it for the long haul are you glad that you have a church like this to go to because you know what a lot of people don't we had a lady that's here today i'm not going to say her name but she drove 14 hours to come here because it's the closest church like this church that she could go to how sad is that you know and all these churches it seems like the people are leaving another brother chad had problems in churches that he's been at because they just you know telling you don't go soul winning don't preach the gospel to this person let me do you know i mean just everybody who has a story where they were at a baptist church and they were preaching false god false doctrine false doctrine yeah pretty much everybody here i was in a church that was preaching false doctrine and you know we need to be in the churches that preach the right doctrine and teach the right gospel and send people out two by two like you're supposed to and not just make it a country club i there's a pastor in yakima that's fighting for his church survival today because these moss back ruckmanite deacons there are trying to get them out of there we went so winning up there for a whole week with him he's so winning there's another guy in the church to go soul winning with them but that's pretty much it but you know what there's no other churches in yakima that are doing it you know the devil is coming hard after churches like this church the devil is going to come hard and what are you going to do we need to rest upon the rock and stop being on sinking sand with everything and we need to quit being afraid to do what we need to do and preach how we need to preach because this world's going to hell in a handbasket and there's a lot of false doctrine out there but we need more churches like this church so um number four statement four we need to uh two is better than one in works two is better than one in works it says in verse nine again it says two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor the more like i said at the beginning the more you have more people you have the more works you can get done one person can do a lot of work you know i'm sure there's people here that have worked solo and you can do a lot of work you can't get as much done with more people james chapter 2 verse 17 says even so faith if it hath not works is dead being what alone so faith is good it gets you saved but you know if you don't have works with that then your faith is dead you have a dead faith it doesn't mean that you're not saved though so a lot of people like to twist that you know that verse but that's not true you're just like you're dead because your faith is dead because it's alone it doesn't have works to come alongside that faith to get those rewards deuteronomy chapter 32 go ahead and turn there real quick deuteronomy chapter 32 the bible teaches this principle but god teaches this exponential growth with having more than one person in works because how does the lord send us out two by two he wants us to get more work done he sent out 70 other elders he didn't just have 12 apostles he had 70 others so it says in verse 30 in deuteronomy chapter 32 it says how should one chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight you see how it exponentially grew with just two people because you're going to get more work it's better one is not as good as two two is better than one so what's the principle teaching that you're going to get more done with more people so one person can accomplish a lot of work but with two you can get exponential growth and so obviously we want more than two right we want more than two soul winners in the church but you know pairs of two are going to get more done why is that i don't know well that's just the way god ordained it that's the way you know i think you know just thinking about the soul winning principles say you're a guy you're a young man you knock on a young lady's door you're by yourself they can accuse you of all kinds of stuff the bible says in the mouth of two or three witness shall every word be established and so it's a protection for you too because people can say you know people can follow you around with a camera while you're out soul winning and just say accuse you of doing all kinds of stuff because isn't it funny how people always like put videos up but you never saw what happened right before they started filming that video they could accuse you of anything they want so it's you know i'm not saying it's wrong to go out with one person i know a lot of people have done just one person soul winning but how encouraging is that it's not encouraging you know eventually people just say you know i'm not going to go because you're not encouraged you're not lifted up to go so turn to matthew chapter 9 verse 36 matthew chapter 9 verse 36 the more laborers we get at this church the more rewards we're going to earn as individuals so because ultimately we're all one big team right we're all working together striving for the faith of the gospel it's a group effort but your rewards that you get in heaven are going to be individual rewards isn't that interesting but it takes a team to get that done matthew chapter 9 verse 36 says but when he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd so these this is a multitude of people they didn't even have one leader so i was talking about two leaders or better than one they didn't have any leaders and jesus had compassion on them because they were as sheep having no shepherd matthew 9 verse 37 says then say at the end of his disciples the harvest is truly is plenteous but what the laborers are few so again i'm saying that the you know god's gonna get a lot done with a little amount of people but it's not just one see it says few that's three right a few means three so it's very few people that are out doing the work that we're doing so we need everybody we can get to help accomplish the team goal what's the team goal to seek and save that which was lost that's where you're going to get rewards and that's not the only works that are that there are but that is the main work that we do at this church ultimately we're here to fulfill the great commission to get people saved to get people baptized and to teach them the bible right so wrestling is a good example of an individual sport that takes a team to build right so one wrestler by himself you know he's never going to be a great wrestler unless he has people to wrestle with you know you don't get that freak chimpanzee strength in wrestling unless you learn to dominate people right it's like it's weird like wrestling i'm not a good wrestler i never have been so but my kids are pretty good wrestlers and i've seen really good wrestlers because we were in hermiston and hermiston has like freak wrestlers there so but these kids get these strength in them that you know these people that wrestle they get a strength in them that they get from wrestling other people so wrestling is an individual sport where you get individual rewards you have like these tournaments where you can get first second third fourth fifth or whatever place but to get that prize to get that reward at the end of like i'm the greatest wrestler you have a team that helps you do that it's not just yourself so you can get a lot of rewards but you need people to help you so you know wrestlers need coaches that can teach them the holds and the things that they know you know the half nelson or you can flip someone over you know you put the arm behind the back and turn them over and get on top of their chest and you know but it's an individual reward that you get at the end of wrestling when it's when you're out on the mat it's just you against another person and so but someone got you there it wasn't yourself someone got you to be the freak of nature that you are that makes you the great wrestler i'm saying that because wrestlers have freak strength i mean they're like you know they get a hold of you it's like a chimpanzee is holding on you but uh i got so my wrestling career ended in my freshman year when i was like i'm gonna skip basketball and try wrestling you know and i go against a state champion and people are like he's a state champion he's really good like yeah okay whatever you know i didn't think he was gonna smash my face into the mat hit me a bloody nose i mean ultimately i just went and let him pin me because he couldn't pin me but like every time he couldn't pin me he just got mad and was like you know smashing me into the mat so he ended my career i was like yeah i don't want to do that again and they say that those that can't that those that can't wrestle they coach right so i coach my kids and i'm a good coach at wrestling but i just as far as like uh me doing it myself you know i uh you know that was a bad person for me to wrestle my first wrestling match as a freshman but anyway the point is is that someone had to coach that wrestler to be that champion wrestler and it took dedicated parents to take them to their practices and it takes you know hard work and dedication someone to drill that stuff into you and it takes a partner to wrestle with to get better you know jacob was a good wrestler in the bible that's the first mma match in history right in this corner you have in this side of the octagon you have the lord jesus christ in this side of the octagon you got jacob and he proved you know he couldn't prevail against the lord jesus christ obviously and the lord jesus had to put a submission hold on him and pop his hip out of socket for the fight to end right but that shows you jacob was a tough guy wasn't he and he didn't get there on his own he had yeah you know he had a brother that was tough too so i'm just saying that you know in works it's it takes a team effort we get an individual reward in heaven you know he's going to say well done a good and faithful servant to us but it takes a team effort to get those rewards it can't just be you on your own so um so let's see number six encouragement it takes uh two is better than one for encouragement and exhortation two is better than one for encouragement and exhortation so it says in verse number 10 says for if they fall the one will lift up his fellow but woe to him that is alone when he falleth for he hath not another to help him up and you know it's really important for us to understand that we need to have other people to help us sometimes we fall sometimes we go through hard times you know what it's nice to have a brother or sister in christ that can lift you up and and give you good counsel and encourage you to move on and encourage you to keep going some way and encourage you to keep going to church you know it's important to have fellowship fellowship is a big deal it's a bigger deal than people even realize going to church is a bigger deal than people give it credit for like oh it's not a big deal if i skip church for family time it is a big deal you know and if you drive from far away you know one day a week i don't think that's too much of a sacrifice to sacrifice for your family because you know what your family's not getting any better when they're not in church they're not learning the bible when they're not in church it's it's different sitting on the couch eating cheetos and getting up to go to the bathroom and pausing the video it's different it's the being in church is way better that's why god said that he wanted us to gather together so it says in proverbs 24 verse 16 it says for a just man falls seven times and rises up again but the wicked shall fall into mischief so a just man falls but you know if there's not someone to help pick them up then they're going to have a harder time when someone falls on their own they have nobody to give compassion on them and nobody to help them up it's going to be harder to get up isn't it and that's why it says that in in in our chapter in verse 10 in uh ecclesiastes 4 10 it says woe to him that is alone when he fall off for he hath not another to help him up so we don't want to be alone being alone is not good right two are better than one so john chapter 16 go ahead and turn there john chapter 16 john chapter 16 verse 32 see and people can start to feel alone and and even as a lead in leadership there's a lot of people and people always want to talk and things like that but sometimes leadership can be alone you know i'm i was alone in my hotel room you know writing these sermons while everybody else was out having fun last night but it's like it's not like i don't want to be out hanging out but i just have a responsibility that i have you know someone had to preach the sermons today because brother chad wasn't going to do it so he's like i'm done it's your weekend pastor thompson but you know we anybody can feel alone you know but you shouldn't have as long as you're saved you should never feel alone even if you don't have any friends even if the dog won't play with you if your wife doesn't like you whatever it is or your husband doesn't like you whatever it is if you feel alone if you're saved you're never alone you're never alone and so you should take encouragement from that john chapter 16 verse 32 says behold the hour cometh yea is now come that ye shall be scattered every man to his own and shall leave me alone see jesus was left alone wasn't he he had to suffer and die alone and nobody was there with him but look what it says it says and yet i am not alone because the father is with me so he had but ultimately even the father left him that's a whole different thing i'm not going to get into because jesus bore the the burden for everybody and part of that was being separated from the father but the father was with him to the end right and so we always have if you're saved you have the holy spirit it's always going to be with you and first amule chapter 30 verse 6 turn go ahead and turn to first amule chapter 30 verse 6 i'm running out of time here first amule chapter 30 verse 6 the bible says and david was greatly distressed for the people spake of stoning him see leadership can get you in some funky situations so everybody's children got kidnapped their wives got kidnapped and everybody's upset and this says and david was greatly distressed for the people spake of stoning him see moses had gotten situations like that where the people were ready to kill him it says because the soul of the people has grieved every man for his sons and his daughters but david what encouraged himself and the lord his god so even when you don't have people around you they're encouraging you they want to kill you they want to stone you other people are all mad at you for some decision that you made or just people are just you know you feel alone you know who you can always be encouraged in what's to say he encouraged himself and the lord his god so even if you think everybody's forsaken you you know nobody's not everybody's forsaken you the lord will encourage you and lift you up in hebrews 13 5 it says let your conversation be without covetous this but and be content with such things as you have for he has said i will never leave thee nor forsake thee so you're never alone if you're saved jesus said i'll never leave thee nor forsake thee and you know as long as we're content with what we have even if we aren't content with what we have he still said i'll never leave thee nor forsake thee so don't feel discouraged know that you always have god to count on if you can't count on your brother you can't count on your sister your wife your husband your kids anybody but you know who you can't always count on you can always count on god and he'll always encourage you and lift you up so in verse 11 in our text and ecclesiastes if you've kept your finger there or whatever i never told you to do that but i told you we'd be coming back to it but it says in verse 11 again if two lie together then they have heat but how can one be warm alone and so obviously it's talking about like you know if you're cold you know we don't really experience this type of situation like most people have heaters in their home or fireplaces whatever they're not really cold nights you know if you're married you know you want to cuddle up or whatever and some people just lay together just so they have heat but like if i if i think about this in a spiritual principle i think if we're alone we're not going to stay on fire for god and so we need two to actually you know two is better than one because we're going to have warmth we're going to have the heat to keep going and keep staying zealous for god because if you're just by yourself and you don't go to church and you don't have anybody to encourage you um in church and you and you don't have your brothers and sisters in christ to lift you up when you're down you know you're you're going to lose your heat for the lord and so god wants us to be fire brands plucked from the fire where we're just like you know we're about it we're going we're going out soul and we care about the things of god but you know if if it's just you by yourself how can you be warm alone you can't be warm alone you have to have someone else to keep you warm and when you're talking about uh spiritual things you know encouragement from brothers and sisters in christ is something that you need it's hard to be on fire for god alone and it's even harder to be alone with no church and no brethren to encourage you and when you have someone with you it encourages you and fires you up that's the great thing about soul winning too is that you have that other person it's like you know if that other person's on fire that fire is going to move to that other person like yeah i'm pumped up i'm i'm ready to go so wanting because sometimes we don't feel like going let's just be honest sometimes you're just like my bunions hurt no my back hurts my knee hurts or whatever when you get older you feel that way but it is hard work you know we were doing triple deckers yesterday i was like but i was encouraged because you know what i had a partner to go with me but imagine if you didn't have a partner and you're like you gotta knock all these doors all these triple deckers by yourself that's not very encouraging but you know what it is encouraging when you have someone to go with you so hebrew chapter 10 verse 25 you know church is more important than you realize church there's and and like i said if there was just one person in church it wouldn't be very you know exhorting to you right if chad was just up preaching to himself which you know i think that would be weird but if he was just preaching to himself it really wouldn't be that comforting to him it wouldn't really be helping him for some reason god just says you know i want the congregation to be together and what is that was the reason well it says in hebrews 10 25 it says not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is but what exhorting one another that's encouraging one another that's you know trying to get other people zealous to do other things and encouraging them to what continuing faith to continue to come to church it says exhorting one another it's contagious when people are on fire for god and they push that to other people you know but if you're not there to be you know like well i wonder why so and so wasn't here on sunday night you know people always ask that question in their minds right now where were you on sunday night some people just say it to them you know that's exhorting it's convicting well i just went out for ice cream with my kids i decided it was time for family time well you know okay but that's not exhort you're not there to exhort that person to do good works and to be encouraged in the lord when you're gone maybe that person maybe you being gone is the reason why they're going to be gone next week you know i'm saying again we encourage each other so two is better than one and and it's because god wants us to exhort one another see one another it's not just one one another two is better than one right fellowship is more important than people realize turn to acts chapter 14 verse 22 acts chapter 14 verse 22 the bible says confirming the soul so paul went around confirming the souls of the people that got saved in these different areas it says confirming the souls of the disciples and what exhorting them to continue in the faith exhorting them to continue in the faith and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of god see when we know we have to go through much tribulation to get into the kingdom of god that or that we're going to go through much tribulation to get into the kingdom of god not that we have to because that's the way we get saved i'm not saying that okay i'm just saying that we're going to go through tribulation all that live godly in christ jesus shall suffer persecution okay so isn't it more comforting to know that you have other people to go through it with you it is and that's why paul went back to the other churches and said hey i just want to exhort you to continue in the faith and that we're going to go through a lot of tribulation but we're going to do it together and it's going to be tough you know but what are what are other people being taught oh jesus is going to come at any moment and whisk you away on your nice comfy little pillow and you're going to play a little harp with sylvester and tweety up in heaven no we got to go through much tribulation all right on this earth and if we're not if this church is never suffering tribulation then we're not a real church but we are a real church last thing i'm going to be real quick with this statement number seven spiritual warfare look at verse 12 in our text when we're going through spiritual warfare two is better than one look at verse 12 it says and if one prevail against him two shall withstand him and a threefold cord is not quickly broken hey if it's just you by yourself more a bunch of people can overwhelm you but if you have two to withstand someone and even three that cord will not be quickly broken you know but if it's just one little string it's going to be easily broken isn't it so it's good to have multiple people on the same side when it comes to spiritual warfare it's good to have people praying for you it's good to have people to again to encourage you and lift you up when you're going through spiritual battles look at all the time we have you know prayer requests on when on thursday nights and on thursday nights it's just like four pages worth of prayer requests and every you know i don't even have time to read all of them but everybody always seems to be going through some kind of tribulation in their life it might be a health tribulation it might be some problem with their family their family's health it might be their job whatever it is but everybody's always going through some sort of tribulation in their life and spiritual warfare we should be praying for each other we should be encouraging one another when we're going through problems and not just say oh yeah they're prayed you know that shouldn't be our attitude we should actually care about people and care about what's going on in their life so you know and just think about this in this principle that i'm talking about and i'm just going to wind it down here but there's a lot of things that too are better than it's better to have two eyes right you know it's better to have two eyes you know if you have one eye you don't see as good it's better to have two hands right two hands could do more than one it's better to have two arms so you can carry stuff or whatever it's better to have two legs so you can walk right so two is better than one in a lot of different aspects and numbers do matter so every single person in this church you know is is essential to this church you're all part of the body of christ here and so each body has a function you know there might be two arms there might be two legs you know but if you're missing your nose then you can't smell that false prophet you know what i mean you can't smell that stinky church member or whatever but each individual in this room matters in this and you know i'm excited what this church is going to do in the future with more laborers you know and in the not just the second year but now the third year and the fourth year i want this church to grow and i'm excited to see what's going to happen and i think that um if we stick with this principle of two being better than one you know just think about that you know meditate upon that because it's important it's important to exhort one another and be here when you can be here and because you think well nobody's gonna miss me nobody's my friend that's not true you know but you a friend must show himself friendly don't forget that because maybe you're you know not a person that you know maybe you're an introvert maybe you're just talking to other people it's not your thing but you can still you still have to fight through that stuff and show yourself friendly and make friends if you say i have no friends except for my dog then it's probably kind of your fault so you know what i'm saying so and your dog isn't shouldn't be your best friend it should be somebody else all right so i know something i'm i know i'm stepping on dogs here but it is important to understand hey human contact is what we need so let's pray heavenly father we thank you lord so much for this great church and for the second year that's been here lord i pray that you just bless it into the future just you know even past the third fourth and lord until you come back lord i pray this church would be a stronghold in this area where people know that they can come and they'll be sent out and get good preaching and be edified and lord i pray that this church would continue its work in your great commission and i pray that you bless each and every person that's came from far and near to be part of this great weekend i pray you bless them in jesus name amen