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

Hi, this is Pastor Roger Jimenez from Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, California. Today I'm making a video entitled, The Luxuries of Being a Follower. And I want to begin by saying that most followers are awesome. And I can say here at Verity Baptist Church, I would say the vast majority of our church members are on board and are just on the same page with me as their pastor. And they're encouraging and they're just great to serve with. But something I've noticed over the last 10 years of ministry, and it's really been highlighted to me even more during this coronavirus crisis, is the fact that followers have certain luxuries that leaders do not have. There are certain things that followers can do and get away with that we as leaders just simply do not have the luxury of doing. And I wanted to highlight those for you in this video, especially for those of you who are exercising these luxuries, just to kind of maybe put it out there or shine a light on the fact that sometimes you as a follower are able to do certain things that we as leaders and those of us in leadership positions do not have the luxury to do. All right, so here we go. I'm going to give you five things that followers are able to do that leaders do not have the luxury of doing. Number one, the luxury of going back and forth from one extreme opinion to another with no shame of your inconsistency. Something I've noticed with followers is that they have the freedom to just go back and forth between extreme positions and really just have no shame or even embarrassment that they're going back and forth. I mean, as a follower, you could be calling your pastor early on in the coronavirus crisis and talking about, we need to shut down immediately. We need to stop holding services right now. And maybe the pastor is not even ready to make that decision at that point. And then later on, the same person saying, I can't believe you went live stream only. What are you, a FEMA pastor? You know, you caved into the government. And it's interesting to me how followers, how sometimes followers can just go back and forth from one extreme position to another. And there's no shame. There's not even like a disclaimer like, hey, I realized that I held this one position and now I'm holding. It's just like it never happened. They can just go back and forth, back and forth. That really is the luxury that followers have because those of us that are leaders, those of us that are actually leading followers that are paying attention to what we're saying, what we're doing, and they're even taking our advice. We don't have the luxury of just going from one extreme to another. We sometimes have to be very careful about when we take a position because we realize when we take a position, people are going to follow our lead. So for those of us who are leaders, we don't get to have that luxury, but for those that are followers, they sometimes often do. Here's number two, the luxury of making outlandish and grandizing decisions and promoting your decisions with no actual risk to yourself. Followers have the luxury of being able to be those Monday morning quarterbacks. They're able to be those backseat drivers where they can make decisions and promote their decisions. They can go on Facebook and Instagram and all sorts of, and you make YouTube videos about how I, if I was a pastor or here's what I would do, or here's what I think you should do, or every pastor is making the wrong decision. And they have the luxury of making outlandish and often grandizing decisions, decisions that make them look like they're tougher and more spiritual than everybody else. And they can promote those decisions, but they have a luxury that we don't have. And it is this that they can make those decisions and promote those decisions with no actual risk to themselves because no one's actually following them. No one's actually taking their lead. So that is one luxury that followers have that we as leaders do not have, because when you actually have people following you, when you actually have people taking, making decisions based on what you're saying, then you actually have to think about the people in your congregation. You have to actually consider the danger you're placing them in. So that is a luxury that followers have that leaders do not have. Here's number three, the luxury of then pinning yourself against actual leaders with actual followers and actual risk for the purpose of bringing them down to lift yourself up. And again, with no actual risk to yourself. So not only can you make these big outlandish grandiose, grandizing decisions about what you would do if you were in this situation, but then you can actually begin to attack actual leaders with actual followers and actual risks and try to bring them down or make them look bad to make yourself look good. So you can start making memes about how you're tougher and more spiritual. You can start sending emails and making videos, but the difference is that we're not in the same league because the decisions you make, the choices that you say you would make are actually not being played out in the real world because no one is actually following you. So followers have a luxury of being able to make these extreme decisions, take these extreme positions and then pin themselves against actual leaders who have actual followers who are taking actual risks. Here's number four, the luxury of living in denial, the luxury of being carried about with every wind of YouTube conspiracy theory, the luxury of being able to just watch video after video and go back and forth between extreme positions and make all sorts of extreme accusations. That is a luxury that you have as a follower. And look, if you're into that and that's your form of entertainment, more power to you. But let me tell you something, we as leaders are not afforded that luxury. We do not get to change our mind based on every video that somebody sends us in an email or through a text message. We don't get to just go back and forth. If as a leader, I stood up one week and said, bless God, we never shutting down church. And then the next week we got to shut down church immediately and just went back and forth, back and forth. We would lose our credibility as leaders. So we need to be careful about the decisions we make. We need to actually consider the risks that are involved. And then we need to just have a well-balanced approach. The Bible talks about a double-minded man being unstable in all his ways. Here's number five, the luxury of taking strong stands with no consistent life to back it up. And that's without anyone paying enough attention to you or caring enough about what you're doing to call you out on your hypocrisy. It's amazing to me how people who were not consistent to church, all of a sudden want to call the rest of us out who have been consistent to church for going to live stream only on a temporary basis in order to help not spread this highly infectious and fatal disease. There's an email that I received from a person that literally came to our church three times. And it's not like they came to our church three times in one week, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, the week right before the coronavirus. No, they came to our church three times and it was like weeks between those three times. And when we decided to go live stream only, I get an email telling me that I'm caving in and that we need to keep having the congregation meet together and all these things. But it's interesting to me, when you had the freedom to go to church, you didn't. And then, you know, you have people like me and my wife who have been here for 10 years, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, consistently in church. I can't even remember the last time I missed the church service. And obviously I'm not saying if you're sick or something like that, you have a legitimate reason to miss the church service. I think that's appropriate. But honestly, I can't even think of the last time I missed the church service. Last time that I wasn't at Verity Baptist Church is because I was at another church preaching. And yet those of us who have been here, who've been consistent and have chosen because we believe that there is a risk to the health of our church people to temporarily not have public gatherings, we're being attacked as caving in from people who didn't even go to church when they had the freedom to. I was talking to a pastor friend who was telling me about someone who didn't go soul winning, who's now trying to tell him, I can't believe that we're not going door to door. It's like, you didn't go soul winning when you had the chance you didn't go soul winning. And here's what I believe. I believe that when this coronavirus thing is over, those of us who are faithful to church before the coronavirus will be faithful to church after the coronavirus. Those of us who are faithful to soul winning before the coronavirus will be faithful to soul winning after the coronavirus. But there are some people out there who did not have the character to show up to church or soul winning when it was free, when they had the ability, when they had the freedom to do it. And now during this epidemic, they want to try to act like they're more spiritual than the rest of us. But they have the luxury of doing that because of the fact that they're not leaders. No one is actually paying attention and no one cares enough to call them out on their hypocrisy. So that's a luxury of taking a very strong stand with no consistent life to back it up. That is a luxury that is not afforded to leaders. We as leaders need to realize that when we make decisions, when we take stands, there are risks involved and we will have to deal with those consequences. In fact, we as leaders sometimes have to deal with the consequences even when we don't make the wrong decision. I'll give you an example. Back in 2016 when our church had a major protest, I stood up in front of our church people and there are a couple of hundred people that can attest to this. We have video that can attest to this. I stood up every week and said, do not engage with the protesters. Do not argue with them. Just ignore them. I realized they're trying to say things to you that are very mean and very angering and they're trying to get under your skin. Just when you leave a church building, get in your vehicle and just go home. Don't talk to them. Don't engage with them. We had some church people who decided to disregard my direction. They went out there and got in arguments with protesters and even in physical altercations with them. Those people ended up getting sued. But guess who also got sued as a result of those situations? I did. Even though I was the leader who was telling them not to do it, just because I was the leader, I ended up getting sued as a result as well. And here's what's really interesting just to add insult to injury. You'd think after that happens, those church people would come to me as a pastor and say, pastor, I want to apologize. You told us not to do it. And we did it anyway. And now we got sued and you got sued in the process as well. That's not what happened. You know what happened? Those people got mad at me. They went on a campaign to try to get people to leave our church and talk bad about me and my wife when they did something that I told them not to do to begin with. And here's all I'm telling you. As leaders, we have to deal with the consequences even when we do the right thing. Even when we give the right direction, we still sometimes end up having to deal with the consequences for decisions that followers make. And here's all I'm telling you, and I'm not complaining about it. I just want you to understand this. As followers, sometimes you get the luxuries to do certain things that we as leaders do not have the luxury to do. So for all of you out there who are upset and mad about the fact that the church is live stream only, or that we're going soul winning at parks and not door to door, I'm really looking forward to the day when this is all over and we can get back to life as normal. Because I'm assuming you're going to show up Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, every week. I'm assuming you're going to show up for every soul winning from here on. I'm assuming that you're actually going to do the things that you're saying and you're not just putting on a hyper spiritual show to try to make yourself seem like a better Christian than the rest of us. Thanks for watching.