Amen.
All right.
Good evening, everyone.
We're there in First Timothy, Chapter 6.
And first, I want to thank Brother Aaron for giving me the opportunity to preach.
This has been a really great year for me.
God's answered a lot of my prayers this year, and you know, for years I've been praying
to be a part of a church like this.
And you know, now I'm a member of a church like this, and the fact that I'm given the
opportunity to preach in a church like this is a huge blessing.
It's not something I take lightly.
But if you don't like the sermon tonight, or if it makes you mad, don't worry, Brother
Aaron, we'll be back.
So this is only a temporary situation.
Alright, but you're there in 1 Timothy chapter 6.
I want to focus on verse 12.
The Bible reads, "Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto
thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses."
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for this great day, God, and thank you for this church.
You've laid something on my heart tonight, God, I pray that you just help me to convey
the truth from your word to your people, that you give me boldness.
In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, and we see the Bible, the title of my sermon tonight is Fight the Good Fight.
Fight the good fight.
And the Bible teaches us here that there is a fight that we need to fight.
And since it specifies, it tells us fight the good fight of faith.
And since it specifies that, that lets me know that there's probably a fight out there
that's not a good fight that we should avoid.
So I want to talk tonight about good fights and bad fights.
And you know, God's people have always been involved in some sort of fight.
You see in the Old Testament, God's people are involved in both a spiritual and a physical
fight.
You see nations fighting against nations, you know, peoples against peoples, tongues
against tongues.
Always you see that in the Old Testament.
But in the New Testament, we've been called to a spiritual fight.
God doesn't want us taking up arms in the New Testament and going and overthrowing our
government or, you know, trying to go and fight against the police and our carnal laws.
We have a spiritual fight to fight tonight.
Go ahead and turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 10.
Keep your finger there in 1 Timothy, though.
Second Corinthians chapter 10.
We're going to lay some more groundwork here on warfare and on fighting.
Verse 3 of 2 Corinthians chapter 10, the Bible reads, "For the weapons of our warfare are
not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down
imaginations in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing
into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."
So we see there, we have what? Weapons, and we have warfare. That sounds like a fight
to me. But yet, so many people today, both the world and Christians, they see fighting
as a bad word. You know, as if just any type of fight, all fights are bad, avoid all fighting
at all costs.
And I see the three groups of Christians out there today. I see a group of Christians that's
fighting the good fight, that is fighting the Lord's fight, that's doing what God commands
us to do, that does all the fights that God wants us to do. And then I see a group of
Christians that wants to do zero fighting, that wants to stand for absolutely nothing.
They don't want to fight for the Word of God. They don't want to fight for godly principles
and values in their life. They don't want to fight for any standard of who's coming
to the church. Let the sodomites in. Let the politicians in. No fight to please man. You
know, they don't want to fight any battles today. And then you see a third group of Christians
that's fighting really hard. They're struggling, they're toiling, but they're beating into
the air. They're fighting a fight that's completely vain and completely worthless. And they're
wasting their time. They're wasting their energy. They're not doing anything for, for
God, yet they're trying so hard. So, you know, tonight I want to focus on some of these things
and we know that we're definitely being fought against. I don't think anyone in this room
has children going to public school. Maybe they do. I grew up in public school my whole
life. I went through K through 12 public school and you know, by the grace of God, I am what
I am despite of public school, not because of it. Because if you send your kids to public
school, everything you teach them, everything that comes behind this pulpit into their ears
and into their hearts will be fought against every single day in that public school. Everything
that you teach them from the word of God, every single thing that they learn from the
precious Bible, the King James Bible will be fought against. You know, in high school
the teachers come up and they say, "Hey, come join the LGBT Alliance Club." You know,
your Christian children, they will be forced, not necessarily forced, but they will be pushed
to join sodomites and an alliance. Is that something you want to do? That's a fight though
against us. Everything we teach them is fought against by them. You know, we see a fight
against us by other churches, right? The weak, watered-down churches. You know, everything
that we preach, they say, "Oh, you're legalists." They want to discredit the word of God. They
want to discredit everything we preach. You know, we see the fight against us from the
old IFB because we call out that what they're doing is wrong and that they're not fighting
the right battles that God wants us to fight. And we preach hard against these things, and
the old IFB fights against us because of it. You know, Satan's fighting against us. He's
sending in false prophets into our movement, into our churches, trying to corrupt us. We
definitely see that, don't we? So, the first wrong fight, I want to focus on the wrong fight
first, and that's the fight of politics and political theory. Turn to Titus chapter 3.
Titus chapter 3, looking down there at verse 8. "Pardon not your hearts, as in the provocation
in the day of temptation in the wilderness." Let me see, am I in the right one here? I
don't think I am in the right one. I'm sorry, what did I say there? Titus chapter 3? Okay,
excuse me. Okay, Titus chapter 3, verse 8. "This is a faithful saying, and these things
I will that thou affirm constantly." Okay, we need to be preaching these things constantly,
that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things
are good and profitable. Okay, so there's some stuff that we've got to be preaching.
They're good and profitable things. "But avoid foolish questions and genealogies and
contentions and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and vain." And you know,
when I read that verse, the first thing I thought about was this is politics, right?
Because here's a dictionary definition of politics. "The activities associated with
the governance of a country or other area, especially in the debate or conflict among
individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power." That sounds pretty stupid
and unchristian to me. You know, I thought that the reprobates were the ones filled with
debate. You know, why are we involved in some debate about the acquisition of power, of
nations? Is that a fight Christians need to be fighting? But do you see them fighting
that fight? You sure do. You know, what do you want your life to be about? Do you want
your life to be about the debate of gaining power in politics or do you want your life
to be about the things of God? You know, it says there are strivings about the law. That's
what politics is to me. You know, it's a bunch of foolish questions, you know, these debates,
a bunch of stupid questions, a bunch of contentions, a bunch of strivings about the law. It's totally
vain. It's totally unprofitable. What do you hear most Christians say today? No, you don't
understand. Christians have to be involved in politics because if we don't get this law
passed, then our nation won't be blessed. Hey, if we don't get this bill passed, we
won't be as free. Or if we don't get this person elected, you know, our nation won't
be as blessed. But let's see what the Bible says. Let's turn to Psalm chapter 33. Psalm
chapter 33. We'll see if the blessings of a nation are given by laws and by people elected
or we'll see what really does give a nation blessings. Let's see here. Psalm chapter 33,
verse 12, "Blessed is the nation whose bills are good." Blessed is the nation who has
a constitution. Is that what the Bible says? "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord
and the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance." You see, your nation being
blessed has nothing to do with the laws that are in place. Every nation that's ever been
blessed throughout mankind has been blessed because their God was the Lord, the God of
the Bible. Turn to Psalm chapter 9, back a few pages. Psalm chapter 9, verse 17. Psalm
chapter 9, verse 17, "The wicked shall be turned into hell." That sounds like a pretty
clear statement, right? The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that
forget God. Let me ask you, is the United States a country that's forgotten God today?
Is the United States a wicked nation today? You bet the United States is a wicked nation
today. You think about abortion, you know, 3,000 innocent children completely slaughtered
every day in this country. And you're going to say that electing Donald Trump, Jesus Christ
from heaven is going to say, oh, I see that you're slaughtering 3,000 children a day,
but that's okay because Donald Trump's your president. You think that's what God's saying
in heaven? You idiot. That's not at all what's happening. You know, the United States is
the beacon of homosexuality for the world. You know, we accept and promote homosexuality
more than any nation in the world, but God's saying, wow, I see you have a great gun law
that doesn't require a concealed carry permit. That's awesome. You know, I'm going to bless
you now because you follow liberty and your laws. That's not how it works. We have a nation
today that's becoming more and more accepting of fornication. We have a nation today where
in the colleges and in the public schools, they don't teach you, wait until you're married.
They teach you, just be safe. And that's what I was taught in public school. Going back
to what I was saying before, is that what you want your kids being taught? That's what's
being taught in the United States of America today. Divorce. We see a divorce rate that's
as high amongst Christians as we do in the world. Over 70% of people who vow till death
do us part, break that vow. Do you think God takes vows seriously? God does take vows seriously.
And he looks down from heaven and sees us breaking our vows, and he doesn't care what
our politics are. He sees the sin and the wickedness of our nation. Drunkenness. You
want to go to public school again? Here we go. Every single, you will be pushed to drink
alcohol so hard in public school. You know what? No person gets out of public school
without scars. No Christian does. I didn't. You know what? But I tell you what, drunkenness
is a huge thing that you see in public schools. You want your kids to grow up to be drunks?
Send them to public school. You know, we see in the United States, men and women reversing
roles. We see that they're totally out of their genders. We see that the United States
government is so sick, our country is so wicked, that not only do we want young, 18-year-old
men to go out and fight an unprofitable battle, some war against some, you know, civilians
in the Middle East. We're taking battles to all over the world. But not only do we want
our young men to get slaughtered and to get named for life, we want our women to do the
same thing. In the name of equality, we want to see our young ladies, our daughters, strap
on a uniform, put a gun around their chest and go and fight a battle. You think God's
gonna bless that? Our politics? No. God does not care about our politics. He cares about
sin and doing what's right. And you know what? All these pastors want to fight the battle
of politics today. But you know, and they say that they love America so much. If they
loved America, what they would do is help America remember that their God is the Lord.
They would help America remember the God of the Bible. And they'd preach hard against
sin, because what does the Bible say? The wicked shall be turned into hell and all nations
that forget God. It's an unprofitable and a vain battle that's being fought today. You
know, who's ever heard about Patriot conferences and Baptist churches, right? Where they bring
in the mayor and bring in the governor. Raise your hand if you've been to a church where
that's actually happened. Okay. Me too. You know, you hear about this preached a lot,
but this actually happens. Okay. Um, let's look down first at Psalm chapter 12, Psalm
chapter 12 verse eight, the wicked walk on every side when the vilest men are exalted.
And I think any person with a thinking brain realizes that politicians are some of the
vilest men in the world, right? They're all, they're almost always involved in some sort
of perverted sexual sin, right? Or just all sorts of filth. Politicians are disgusting
people, but you know, that's what's happening at these Patriot conferences. They're exalting
the most vile men. I went to one of these where, you know, the service starts out and
everybody stands up and pledges allegiance to the flag, right? I will never ever, again,
pledge allegiance to the flag. I will pledge allegiance to nothing but the words in this
book because the God in the Bible is the only thing in this world that has any authority.
You know, God does not change. Countries change. And if you make a vow and a pledge to a country,
what about during the tribulation when they're killing Christians? You've pledged your allegiance
to a flag? Unbelievable. We need to pledge our allegiance to God and God only. Or just
avoid vows altogether. God's not a big fan of vows, right? You know, so we sit there,
we pledge allegiance. Then we sing, "God bless America." We sing the national anthem. We sing
all these songs. And then everybody in the congregation who served in the military,
they get up with their uniform and they come up to the stage and they do like a march and they do
salute and in a Baptist church. Okay. Then all the politicians that are running for office,
they get up, they're introduced one by one and they say, "Oh, Mr. So-and-so, this person's running
for treasurer of the state of Idaho." Everybody claps. Everybody claps. They brought in the
governor of the state of Idaho who is a Roman Catholic into a Baptist church. Baptists applauding
for a Roman Catholic governor of the state of Idaho. Look, if the governor of any state feels
comfortable in your church, you are a bad church. You're compromising somewhere. You didn't see
Jesus Christ. You didn't see the apostles saying, "Potters Pilate, come in. Come on, let's go hang
out. Herod, let's hang out. Oh, King Herod. Everybody clap for King Herod. Do you even know where
Baptists got their name? Baptists got their name because Catholics called them Anabaptists because
they rebaptized after they got people saved. You know, we didn't get our name from John the Baptist
like a lot of people think. It was a derogatory term. You know, but it's a term I embrace. I love
being called a Baptist. But why are Baptists applauding Catholics in a church? Can you explain
that to me? That's a pretty sick thing. But yeah, they would just introduce every single one platform
and then they would just preach about how we need to pray for revival, right? With zero soul winning.
Proverbs chapter 28 verse 4 says, "They that forsake the law, praise the wicked, but such as keep the
law, contend with them." And what does that say? They that forsake the law, praise the wicked. Was
that church I going to praising the wicked? They sure were. And you know what? They forsook the law.
And that's a wicked church right there. You say, no, no, no, I obviously understand. Liberals are bad.
Yeah, we know, we know. But conservatives push Christian values. Look, if you think conservatives
push Christian values, you need to read the Bible because you don't even know what Christian values
are. If you look on the TV and you see the evangelical Christian viewpoint, it's not Christian.
Read your Bible. You know, here's a tweet by our Christian president, Donald Trump. Thank you,
LGBT community. I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your
freedoms and beliefs. So he'll fight for the homos. You say, oh, I thought he banned them from the
military. He's a politician. They speak on both sides of their mouth to please the fools that
vote for them. Donald Trump after Orlando, as your president, I will do everything in my power to
protect our LGBTQ citizens from violence and from oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.
And you know, all these Christians that think they're doing the right thing by voting for
him, it's so foolish because someday those people that they voted for are going to so quickly sell
them out. They're going to so quickly say that your Bible is a hateful and foreign ideology.
And you know what, I'm going to protect the fags from the Christians. That's what Donald Trump's
going to do. But you say, no, you're unpatriotic if you don't vote. No, you know, first of all,
I don't want to be patriotic. You know, pride is a sin, you know, and I'm not going to boast of
anything but that my God is the Lord. That's it. You say, Dylan, are you a voter? No, no, I'm not.
Turn to Ephesians chapter five. We'll move on here. I want to spend a lot of time on this though,
because most Christians think that this is an important fight. And they're so off about this,
so off about this. Ephesians chapter five verse 11. What should we do about politics? Let's see
what the Bible says and have no fellowship, no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,
but rather reprove them. I'm going to reprove those wicked politicians. And if you loved America,
like you claim you do, you would do the same thing. So we saw the first foolish fight today.
Sorry about that. First foolish fight today that we see is politics. And the second foolish fight
today you see Christians fighting is just vain babblings and fake science. Go ahead and turn
back to first Timothy chapter six, first Timothy chapter six, verse 20. Oh Timothy, keep that which
is committed to thy trust, avoiding. So here's another thing we need to avoid, avoiding profane
and vain babblings and oppositions of science falsely so-called. So first I want to focus on
first part of that verse, profane and vain babblings. You think what are, what are vain
babblings? Well let's think about it. What kind of people babble? Babies, right? You want to have a
conversation like babies and we could just sit across from each other and we could just babble
at each other? Does that sound like a lot of fun? It doesn't sound very fun to me. Babies babble,
right? Who else babbles? Drunk people. Drunk people babble. So we got two groups of very
intelligent people so far, babies and drunk people. So let's go to Proverbs chapter 23 and we can see
how the drunk man babbles. Proverbs chapter 23, this church should be familiar with it. First part
of the verse in 29 says, "Who hath woe?" So let's see who has woe. "Who hath sorrow? Who hath
contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes?" Well,
here's who. "They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou on the
wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup." And it goes on and goes on. So look,
if you're, if you're arguing with people and you're fighting with people about something that a baby
would be arguing about, or something that a drunk man would be arguing about, it's probably not a
good fight for you to be fighting. It's probably a profane and vain babbling that you should avoid.
Like the second Timothy said there, you know, it's not always big things in life that distracts
Christians from the work of God. Sometimes it could be little dumb things like music taste.
Have you ever heard people fight and get heated over music taste? I mean, that's a real thing,
right? How about, let's see, sports teams. People die at sporting events. People die at sporting
events from getting in fights. I used to, I lived in California. I used to go to Giants game,
Giants games. And I remember one year, some LA Dodgers fan took a baseball bat to the back
of the head of a Giants fan. I'm pretty sure he died. You know, like soccer fans, they die all the
time. Those, those people are crazy, right Anthony? You know, those things people actually fight about.
How about nationality or race? Do we see fighting going on there today? You know, the whole Black
Lives Matter thing, you know, but Romans chapter 10 verse 12 says, "For there is no difference between
the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him." Look,
your nationality doesn't matter. Your race doesn't matter whether you're a Jew, whether you're Greek,
whether you're Russian, whether you're Norwegian. It doesn't matter, okay? Your race is completely
vain to fight about. You know, Chevy versus Ford. You say, "No, people don't really fight about that."
You're not from Idaho. Look, you'll get in a fist fight in Idaho if you start talking bad about
someone's beloved Chevy or beloved Ford. You will. People actually fight about these kind of things.
Is that what we should be focusing on? Not at all. How about favorite preachers, right? People have
their personal tastes and that's great, but have you ever heard people just argue of who's the
best preacher? Is it Pastor Anderson? Is it Pastor Jimenez? Is it Brother Aaron? You know,
people get fired up about these things. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. 1 Corinthians chapter 3.
Verse 3, "For ye are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions,
are ye not carnal and walk as men? For one, saith I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos,
are ye not carnal?" And look, if you're fighting over these things, that's a carnal thing to do.
You should be more focused on the work that these men are doing than on the personalities.
And I get it, you know, as coming from a family that wasn't really fired up with the things of
God growing up, my heroes were athletes and, you know, historical figures. But honestly,
my heroes now are preachers, and I do look up to these men as people, you know, and I think that's
good, that's healthy to an extent, but when it gets to the point where you're fighting over it,
you know, and instead of focusing on the work that these men are doing, I don't think that's right.
You know, we're coming up to the holiday season. You ever heard people fight over holidays?
Let's go to Romans chapter 14. Romans chapter 14. Romans chapter 14 verse 5, "One man esteemeth one
day above another, another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own
mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord, and he that regardeth not the day,
to the Lord he does not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks,
and he that eateth not to the Lord, he eateth not and giveth God thanks. And look, I don't know
if there's anyone in this church that, you know, has a strong conviction about celebrating holidays
or not celebrating holidays, but you know, the Bible says, "Let every man be fully persuaded in
his own mind." And I'm not going to have anything against someone, you know, if they choose not to
celebrate a holiday like Christmas, as long as you don't get mad at me for celebrating Christmas.
You know, I want to celebrate it. You don't have to celebrate it. As long as we both regard it
unto the Lord, then that's biblical. But getting, if you're disfellowshipping with Christians over
the topic of a holiday, that's carnal. That's not right at all. That's something that we got to be
careful doesn't creep into our churches, because that does happen. And like I said, we're getting
to that part of the year, so we got to watch out for that. How about diet? Turn to 1 Corinthians
chapter 8, 1 Corinthians chapter 8, 1 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 4, "But as concerning therefore
the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is
nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. For though there be that are called
gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be gods many, and lords many, but unto us there is
but one God, the Father of whom are all things, and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
are all things, and we by Him. And then look down there at verse 8, "But meat commandeth us not to
God, for neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not are we the worse, but take
heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to them that are weak."
So what's the Bible saying there? Look, if someone has a certain diet that they want to, you know,
adhere to, it's not important. It's not something that we need to be fighting over. Now, we do know
that the Bible says that "he that eateth herbs is weak," right? So if you are a vegetarian, the Bible
does say that you're weak. You know, that's the Bible. That's not me. So I love eating meat, but
I'm not going to disfellowship with a Christian that's a vegetarian. You know, I'm more focused.
I want to be friends with Christians that are soul winners and that love God, not what's in their
refrigerator. I could care less what's in your refrigerator. If you're a Christian that loves God
and loves soul winning and loves hard preaching, we could be friends. We could be friends and we
could order different things at a restaurant and it'll be no problem at all. You know you think
you're like wow these are like really small things but yeah these actually can add up in
a Christian's life and they actually can take their their view away from the big picture of
what this life's about and the fight we're supposed to be fighting because they're involved with all
these little stupid things. Little stupid things. The YouTube comments, the flat earthers you know
every time it says flat earth flat earth flat earth every single time they talk to you nothing
about the flat earth right. I've heard about those people and you know I don't think it's a sin to
talk about these kind of things. I think sometimes it's fun to talk about these things you know I'm
a Ford guy you know but I'm not going to fight someone who's a Chevy guy but look please don't
let this become the main fight of your life. It's it's a sad thing when people are like that so
what about oppositions of science falsely so-called. We saw there in second Timothy he said avoid
profane and vain babblings and oppositions of science falsely so-called. This is preached on
a lot so I won't spend too much time here but you know if maybe you're a young child today and
you're not familiar completely I think you probably are with evolution in the big bang.
Basically evolution is a teaching that you know this creature starts out you know you got a whale.
For example this was literally in my biology textbook in school. Whales they taught somehow
evolved into deer. Okay so whales they swim they get close to the shore you know they feel maybe
the heat right and something pops out of them and eventually they're crawling on the shore and they
become a deer and that's what we hunt today. We hunt the great grandchildren of whales in the woods.
So that's evolution and then the big bang theory basically teaches that there was absolutely nothing
that exploded into everything so that should make sense right. So obviously we need to preach
against these stupid fairy tales. We do need to preach against them but you have a group of
people called Christian apologetics or apologists where they want to just, all they want to talk
about is creation, creation, creation and disproving evolution and we should teach people about these
things and we should know you know the truth about these things but people were dying and going to
hell way before evolution was ever you know made or created and people will be going to hell who
believe in creation. They need the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. So we saw two fights that we
need to avoid that the Bible specifically told us to avoid. Now let's talk about a good fight.
The first good fight I want to talk about is fighting for preaching hard. The hard you know
fighting for the preaching in our movement hard preaching. Go to second Timothy chapter four.
Second Timothy chapter four. You say well you know hard preaching we like it but you know it's not
it's not commanded is it? Well actually it is commanded. Let's read here in verse two.
Preach the word be instant in season out of season repute reprove rebuke exhort with all
lung suffering and doctrine. What's a rebuke? It's to strongly tell someone that they're wrong
about something. I'll read for you Isaiah chapter 58 verse one it says cry aloud spare not lift up
thy voice like a trumpet and show my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins.
And anytime someone sees a preacher preaching hard they're like wow that man's hateful you know wow
that guy's puffed up but no he's just preaching the way that the bible commanded him to and
let's see here um john the baptist i started talking about him earlier we're not named after
john the baptist but we gladly patterned ourselves after his preaching john the baptist was a hard
preacher go to mark chapter 6 verse 14 mark chapter 6 verse 14 you know and this is actually the fight
that we should be fighting is the fight for hard preaching but this fight you see completely
forsaken today like from most churches most churches you can sit in that church for a year
and not hear a hard sermon and when you do do hear sin slightly preached against the preachers
always treading really lightly they're apologizing all over themselves they'll say things like you
know part of the job of a preacher is is to you know preach about sin and it's like man you know
every 12 months we get to hear that part of the job of a preacher is to preach against sin mark
chapter 6 verse 14 and king Herod heard of him for his name was spread abroad and he said that john
the baptist was risen from the dead and therefore mighty works to show himself themselves in him
others said that is Elias who's another hard preacher and others said that it is a prophet
or as one of the prophets but when Herod heard thereof he said it is john whom i beheaded he
is risen from the dead for Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon john and bound him in
prison for Herodias sake for brother his brother philips wife for he had married her for john had
said unto herod it is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife therefore Herodias had a quarrel
against him and would have killed him but she could not so john the baptist said king herod you
stink an adulterer you can't have your your brother's wife he's preaching hard you know just think
about that that's that's wicked you know and he's preaching hard and he died for it right because
people don't like hard preaching and that's why so many preachers are shying away from it today is
because they think that that because hard preaching offense that nobody's going to come to their
church but you know what you know why you know people my age want to be in a church like this
is because people my age want to know the truth you know we want to know the full counsel of god
i don't care what the schools taught me you know i don't care what the wisdom of this world is
i want to know the full counsel of god and and you know if it hurts sometimes to get ripped apart by
the preaching of god's word that's okay because you come back stronger you know like i said this
is a fight right and fights can be pretty bloody sometimes sometimes you're going to leave the doors
of this church with a trail of blood behind you just because you got lit up you know we all get
lit up time to time and not only is there going to be blood sometimes in a fight sometimes there's
going to be casualties in a fight and people are going to leave this church because of hard
preaching and they have left this church already in the short year and a month or so we've been here
people have already left this this church over this issue and you just have to be okay with that
you just have to realize that people are going to come and people are going to go but this is the
fight that God commanded us to preach and we need to get behind this fight and don't bristle when
brother Aaron's up here and he preaches on your sin because you always talk about how much you love
hard preaching but then it comes to you and you're done you know that's not right you know but churches
have forsaken this today and you show me a church where sin is not preached on i'll show you a church
with no soul winning because you know it's a sin not to be a soul winner you show me a church
without hard preaching i'll show you no soul winning i'll show you a church that's full of
fornication because you know what that's that's a natural you know lust of the flesh that if it's
not hammered against that's something that's going to happen in churches you know you're going to see
a church full of drunkenness because the prevalent teaching out there is that Jesus made
alcoholic wine and so Christians a lot of them think that it's okay but if you preach hard against
it the word of God is quick and powerful and can change a Christian's heart you know I'll show you
a church that's full of worldliness and immodesty you know the church I used to go to where they
brought in the Catholic governor and you didn't see lots of skirts and dresses like you see in
churches that we have you know you see the short shorts in church sometimes you know that's not
right but believe it or not hard preaching works it actually does work but it only works is if
if you do what Isaiah 58 said if you spare not so many preachers they want to all of a sudden you
know all right I'm going to preach on this sin but they spare they they make loopholes for every sin
they apologize all over themselves you know we need to get back to preachers that just believe
the word of God again where they're not afraid they just get up and they say I have the truth in my
hands everything in this book is true if it goes against what you think you're wrong get over it
change or leave if you don't like it change or leave just preach what the Bible says stop worrying
about people getting so offended just preach the Bible you call yourself a preacher right what are
you preaching preach the Bible you know and kind of touching back on my first point preachers always
talk about how we need to pray for revival and they want to turn America around right that's
their fight I'll read for you second chronicles chapter seven verse 14 the Bible actually tells
us how we can turn a nation around verse 14 if my people if if the government if the uh the
congregated body where they call them senators representatives no if my people which are called
by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways
then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land you know God
says that if you want to turn a nation around you have to get rid of the sin you have to humble
yourself you have to pray and those things come by hard preaching look it works for me it worked for
me it didn't work from the churches that I was attending but it worked from preachers who actually
did have the boldness to preach the full counsel of God it actually did work from preachers like
pastor anderson and pastor Jimenez where I was wrong in a lot of things and when the word of
God is was presented to me you know Christians that love God are going to change they're going
to change now I'm not saying you're going to change if you're saved right you don't have to
change to be saved you only have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved but if you love God
then you will change that's the difference there you know has it worked for you in your life think
about some hard things that were that were strongholds in your life that the unadulterated
hard preaching of a big religious holiday coming up and it's not Christmas and it's not Thanksgiving
it's Black Friday you say what a religious holiday yeah the religion of American materialism it's a
stupid idea that right after you have your Thanksgiving meal right after you're supposed
to say God thank you so much for everything you've given me in my life thank you so much for my family
thank you for this place to live thank you for all that you've given me thank you for all the
blessings you've bestowed upon me and then you're going to have that meal with your family and then
you're going to jump in the car and stand in line for six hours to buy some worldly trash that you
don't need you know what that's that's a religion of American materialism I think Black Friday is
stupid I think it's totally stupid you know what most people that go Black Friday shopping they're
not shopping for something that they needed or for something that they had already planned on buying
and they just want to save money for they just want to get in line so they could buy some new toy
that they don't need that's just going to distract them from the word of god they just want the new
hoverboard or the new xbox 365 872 they want the next iphone 10 000 whatever how many have come up
now you know it's covetousness Black Friday is a stupid holiday you know the month of October and
November we got two really stupid holidays you know back to back it's getting in the way of the
good holidays in November and December right but just realize that if you're a covetous person
you will be destroyed your your walk with God will be destroyed because over time you think yeah I
could have a little bit of of this and that and it's not wrong to have stuff amen it's not wrong
to have stuff but you know I think about I bought a project truck and when I bought that project
truck my soul winning went down a little bit you know because I was more worried about getting the
lift kit and getting the big knobby tires right and how how is that going to profit me in heaven
you know I'm not going to be thankful for the big tires and lift kit that I put on my ford
that's that's stupid go to first john chapter 2 first john chapter 2 let's see what the bible
says about covetousness first john chapter 2 first 15 love not the world neither the things that are
in the world if any man love the world the love of the father is not in him for all that is in the
world the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the father
but is of the world and if you're a covetous person and all you care about is things that's
always on your mind and that's always on the tip of your tongue is acquiring something you know what
you just told me it told tells me that the love of the father is not in you because your heart
is in the things of the world and not on the things of god all you you know if you're just
constantly you find that your heart and your thoughts are always focused on things your heart
is not in the right place and the love of the father is not in you you know tonight is is your
love bestowed on those things which are above or is your love bestowed on those things which are on
the earth you know do you care more about your xbox or do you care more about souls do you care
more about your flat screen tv or do you care more about you know the new members of this church you
know our brothers and sisters in christ do you care more about the new iphone or do you care more
about god and doing his work you know you think well i don't think coverage is i don't think
covetousness is a big sin well let's go to first corinthians chapter five let's see the road that
covetousness will take you down maybe right now you're you know you're just barely there you know
you just you might have some covetous thoughts every once in a while but let's see where this
road will take you and you can decide if it's worth it for you first corinthians chapter five
verse 11 but now have i written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother
be a fornicator or covetous or an adulterer or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner with such
in one no not to eat you know the bible commands us that we shouldn't even company with someone
that's a fornicator and right now you're sitting in a church that will kick you out for one of
these things on this list including covetousness don't you doubt it you become covetous and you
come into this church and you're talking about you want to buy the new boat the new the new car and
like i said it's not wrong to have things you know if you're still if you're still serving god and if
your heart's in the right place but be careful because if those thoughts start creeping up in
your life this is the road it's going to get you down you're going to end up becoming a covetous
person that's cast out of the assembly of god is that worth it to you is that worth it to you to
lose the amazing church that we have for this the temporal things in this earth on this earth
that are going to be burnt someday don't let your heart be there tonight don't let your heart be
there tonight i'll read for you hebrews chapter 13 let your conversation be without covetousness
and be content with such things as you have for he hath said i will never leave thee nor forsake
thee you know this is a battle that god has commanded us to fight and you know us who are
you know usually in the pews you know we're not necessarily fighting it at that moment but we can
fight it by getting behind the man of god you know don't go home you know when the pastor or the
preacher is ripping against sin and don't go home and belittle sin to your family you know that's
not that's not fighting the good fight when the preacher is preaching hard against tv and you go
into their house and pop on the tv you're making a mock to the things of god your children your
children are going to learn that and you're fighting the wrong fight there you're going
to mess up your children's life and your life by doing that but this is a fight that is going to
continue to be fought at this church so if you don't like that fight then there's plenty other
churches that won't fight this fight so the other another good fight we need to be fighting turn to
romans chapter 16 so what we've seen so far the fight of politics a vain unprofitable fight
vain babblings and oppositions of science falsely so-called total waste of time to be fighting about
this uh these kind of things but you know hard preaching from god's word is a fight we need to
fight and in romans turn to romans chapter 16 we see that we need to be fighting the fight against
false prophets and false religion romans chapter 16 verse 17 now i beseech you brethren mark them
which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them
for they that are such serve not our lord jesus christ but their own belly and by good words and
fair speeches they deceive the hearts of the simple and that's what happens as false prophets
they come into good churches like us and they speak great swelling words and they sound good
and they deceive the hearts of the simple and they're coming to hurt people this is what people
don't understand about false prophets they are coming to hurt people whether it's false prophets
that creep into the congregation or false prophets that creep in behind the pulpits of churches
their goal is to hurt people you know we know jesus fought this fight right don't you don't
have to turn there but i'm going to turn there real quick uh matthew chapter 23 matthew chapter
23. Jesus was the long-haired hippie, right? That was all peace all the time, right? Okay, so verse 13 in Matthew, I'm just going to read a phrase that comes up over and over in this chapter. Verse 13, "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." This is Jesus speaking. Verse 14, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." Verse 15, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." Verse 16, "Woe unto you, you blind guides." 17, "You fools and blind. You fools and blind. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites."
Blind guides, Pharisees, hypocrites again and again and again and again. Jesus is calling them out.
So don't think that this isn't a fight we should be fighting. This is a fight Jesus Christ fought
and he did a really good job. This is one of the hardest sermons in the whole Bible,
Matthew chapter 23. I love, I love that chapter. But go ahead and turn to Jude right before
Revelation. You know, we hear a lot of preaching against false prophets. You know, this is something
that we're pretty shored up on, but it's something we need to hear over and over because their goal
is to hurt people. They do not have good intentions. Starting in verse 7, so it's kind of giving us the
context here. "Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner,
giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh are set forth,
for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." Okay, so even as Sodom and Gomorrah,
even as the Sodomites, even as the most wicked people on this, on the face of the planet,
let's see, even as those people likewise, also these filthy dreamers, defile the flesh. They're
always involved in some sort of sick sin, aren't they? They defile the flesh, despise dominions,
speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil,
he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said,
"The Lord rebuke thee." That's what Jesus was doing in Matthew 23, right? He was rebuking them.
Verse 10, "But these speak evil of those things which they know not, but what they know naturally
as brood beasts, and those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them! For they have gone in
the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the air of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying
of Korah. These are spots in your feast of charity when they feast with you." Not if they feast with
you, when they feast with you. They will creep into our congregation, even here at Verity Baptist
Church Vancouver, feeding themselves without fear, clouds they are without water, carried about of
winds, trees whose fruit withereth without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. These people
are reprobates. These people, their conscience has been seared with a hot iron. They want nothing to
do more than to harm the work of God and to harm the people of God. They want to creep in, and with
great swelling words, say, "Hey, you're a soul winner. You love God. Invest in this business so
that you can do more soul winning, and you can do more things for God." But what does he want to do?
He wants to rob you. He wants to hurt you. That's what the false prophet wants to do today.
The false prophet behind the pulpit, he wants to lie to you. He wants to hurt the congregation of
God. He wants to hurt the right teachings of God's Word. Who's my favorite false prophet to preach
against? Sam Gibb. Why? Because I had to sit and endurance preaching for three years of my life,
and I'm still mad about it. Horrible. But this man is a liar. This man is the biggest liar I've
ever seen. Comes up with all sorts of crazy things about Pastor Anderson. Why? Because Pastor
Anderson preaches the full counsel of God. Pastor Anderson's leading a movement that's turning this
world upside down for the gospel of Christ. You know, he's, he's destroying, he's helping destroy
doctrines that have plagued Christianity for hundreds of years. You know, that's why Sam Gibb
wants to attack Pastor Anderson because he can't preach anything out of this Bible that's going to
refute what he preaches. So he just lies. He just comes up with lies. You know, a good example of
this, I don't know if this was a good thing to do or not, but this weekend, this week Anthony and I,
we prank called Sam Gibb a lot. It was fun, right? We were prank calling him. And if you want to know
what we said, I'll tell you after the service, but he kept calling back. He was really mad, really mad,
really mad. And he got on Facebook and he posted these Andersonites, they cuss more than lost people
do. They have no compassion, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anthony never cussed. He never said one cuss word.
He's just a liar because he just wants to put the focus on a man and say Steven Anderson's disciples
are wicked people that have no compassion. You know, it's funny that you say we have no compassion.
When I observed you for three years and not one time did I ever see you preach the gospel to anyone,
not out at the door, not in church to a visitor. Why? Because you're an unsafe false prophet,
you know? And by the way, I have a prayer request for you all. Sam Gipp's having serious
health problems. You know, Sam Gipp is a false prophet reprobate and he's having serious health
problems right now. I have a prayer request that everyone would pray that God would kill him and
send him to hell before he defiles any more people and any more churches. This is a wicked man that
has caused serious damage to the people of God. You know, that church I went to, they ran, it was a
big church and there's some saved people in it and there's some unsaved people in it, but you know,
I'm going to pray earnestly to God that he would kill him, you know, before he does this anymore.
You know, Sam Gipp, you know, before he dies, what is he spending his time doing attacking the man of
God? I wonder if he feels the heat of the flames of hell yet. You know, I wonder if he realizes
that he's, that, you know, the worm is not going to stop eating him when he dies, you know, and I'm
going to rejoice in that day. I'm not going to be sad that he's, he's having health problems right
now. I'm going to pray what David prayed in Psalm 58, you know, that, that God would break the teeth
of the young lions, you know, and that he would melt them as a snail. Like the Bible says, you're
like, oh man, it doesn't sound like you're filled with the spirit right now. Well, David was a man
after God's own heart and he prayed that about a false prophet. So, you know, are you going to let
the Bible define what you think is, is being filled with the spirit or are you going to let your own
wisdom define that for you? I don't know where I am now. Let's see, you know, they come in and they
want to say, "Hey, you know, you want to hear a new teaching about the Trinity," and they're trying
to harm God's people. They're trying to harm them from sound doctrine, right? You know, we don't know
when the next false prophet is going to creep into our congregation, but know that it will happen,
you know? And Judas said, "When they feast with you, they will come." And I don't believe that we
should live our life in a way suspecting of our brothers and sisters in Christ of being false
prophets. I can't live that way. There's no way I could live that way. But just don't be surprised
when it happens. And when it happens and the man of God calls him out, you know, he knows more than
you do about the situation. Just get behind him. When Pastor Mendes was here, he preached about,
you know, how the man of God gets a special anointing, right? And he has discernment from
the Holy Ghost, right? Well, just trust that. You know, give the pastor the benefit of the doubt,
like Pastor Anderson preached when he was here. Don't always bristle when that happens. You know,
the fight against false doctrine. I'll just read for you a few verses out of the books of Timothy.
1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 1, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times
some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils."
1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 13, "Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation,
to doctrine." 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 15, "Study to show thyself approved unto God,
a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." So just in the books
of Timothy you can see how important doctrine is to God. You know, every church service shouldn't
be about, you know, how can I make, how can I feel good after I leave the service tonight. It
should be about doctrine too. You should be learning things from the Bible. And you know,
there's a, last week there was a great fight, you know, against a false doctrine called the
pre-trib rapture. We're fighting that fight right now. We're winning that fight right now. It's a
great thing because that's a, that's a doctrine that's, that has been a huge mark on Christianity
for a long time. And you know, I think, I think God's mad about it because the Bible is so clear
about it. This isn't a sermon tonight on the tribulation, but it's just, you can't go to the
word of God with an honest heart and come away being a pre-trib preacher. You just can not do it.
You know, after the tribulation is biblical and I encourage you, if you haven't watched the movie
after the tribulation, pick up a copy here and to watch it for yourself. But the Bible says in
Hebrews chapter 4, "For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a
discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Look, the word of God is quick and powerful. The
word of God can change people's hearts if preachers would just get up, preach against sin, preach hard,
preach the right doctrine, preach against the false prophets, follow the examples of the men in the
Bible instead of following the examples of, you know, Bible college teachers or by successful
pastors in the world's standards, you know, like Joel Osteen. Last fight I want to talk about tonight,
turn to Jude again, right before Revelation. Look at Jude, and this is the fight to win souls. Jude,
only chapter there. Verse three, "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common
salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend
for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." This fight is more important than any
fight God commands us to fight. You know, God has commanded us to fight a lot and they're all
important, but this right here is the most important fight. You know, we're out there,
we're struggling with people, right? It is a fight when you're out soul winning. You're taking the
two-edged sword of the King James Bible and you're fighting against all the false doctrine that those
people have been taught their whole life. You're fighting against all the wrong things that they
believe and it is a good fight. When God said fight the good fight, it is a good fight, you know.
And if we fail at this fight, the consequences are dire because people are going to spend eternity
in hell who do not believe on Jesus Christ to be saved. People who believe you have to repent of
your sins to be saved. People who believe or trust in anything other than Jesus Christ and Him alone,
they're going to hell when they die. And that's a sad thing and you should have compassion in your
heart to want to fight that fight. You know, this is the last thing that Jesus commanded us to do
before He left this earth. He said in Mark chapter 15, you go and turn there if you want,
but you don't have to. Mark chapter 15 or 16, really famous verse. And He said unto them,
"Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." That right there is a command
from Jesus Christ Himself before He left. You know, thank God we're in a soul winning church
and a soul winning movement. This church is fighting this fight. I'm pretty sure every
person here is a soul winner and thank God for that. But look, we need to even ramp it up more.
I think every year we should be doing more soul winning. You know, look at your life and see is
there anywhere I could fit more soul winning in there. You know, I think at a sermon I said that
90% of the world's soul winning is being done by the churches in our movement and I believe that
still. I think I should clarify though, by the churches in our movement and by the people
listening online who believe like us. Because I was that person for a long time, right? When I
went to a giant church and I was the only one soul winning because no one would want to go with me.
But look, we're doing a huge amount of soul winning and you can have your stupid math equation and say
1.1 souls per day average. Look, last month there's 31 days in a month, okay? In October there's 31
days, we had 85 people saved. So there's a math problem for you to figure out there, idiots.
You know, it has nothing to do with your stupid math problem. You know, you don't see Baptist
churches that run in the thousands doing that. Why? Because they're beating into the air.
They're fighting this fight the wrong way. Instead of going out and opening their mouth boldly
to make known unto them the mystery of the gospel, what they're doing is they're leaving
a door hanger, they're ringing the door and they're running away. Or they're having some
street preacher get up, you know, on the outside of a Planned Parenthood and tell them how wicked
they are. Great. Yeah, we know Planned Parenthood is wicked and we're going to preach it from behind
the pulpit. But when we're going to go to people, we're going to preach them the gospel of Jesus
Christ. We're just going to try to get them saved and actually have a conversation with them.
You know, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Faith does not come by reading.
Faith cometh by hearing. You have to hear the word of God preached unto you to be saved.
No one gets saved from a tract. Don't think that someone gets saved by a tract. You need
a spirit-filled soul winner to preach you the gospel. Think about how you got saved. Did you
get saved from a tract? No, no one in here got saved by a tract. You know, this church is barely
a year old, and we have soul winners going out every single day of the week. If you want to be a
soul winner in here, there's no excuse to why you can't. Every single day of the week, there are
people out here that are willing to go soul winning with you, every single day. Where am I at here?
You know, like I said though, we should be trying to do more and more every year. We should, we should
not be content with where we're at. Yeah, we got 85 people saved in a month. Praise God. But we
should do more. We should have a big vision. We should have a personal vision for, have a goal
for yourself, have a goal for this church. Not like most churches just to knock the zip code of your
church, but to preach the gospel to every single person in Vancouver and every single person in
Battleground and every single person in Brush Prairie and every single person in Kamas and every
single person in Portland. You know, let's have a big vision. You know, what's the verse? John,
no, Matthew chapter four. I'm sorry. Let me find it. I'm thinking of a verse. John chapter 14. Go
ahead and turn there. John chapter 14. John chapter 14 verse 12. "Verily, verily I say unto you, he that
believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do,
because I go unto my father." Greater works shall we do. But do you believe that tonight?
Do you believe that if you would just focus on the fights that God wants you to fight and forsake the
vain and unprofitable fights that the world tells you to fight or that the backsliding Christians
tell you to fight? Do you believe that we can do greater works than Jesus Christ did? Not great in
quality, of course, greater in quantity. Do you believe that tonight? You know, you think about
how he fed the 5,000. Do you believe that this church someday can get 5,000 people saved and
more? I do. If we'll fight this fight, you know, do you believe tonight that we can preach the gospel
to every person in Vancouver? Do you believe that we can preach the gospel to every person in Portland
and get multitudes and multitudes of people saved more than the apostles did in the book of Acts?
I believe we can. If we would fight the fight, if we would forsake the things that are taking
us away from the word of God and focus on the real fight that we need to be fighting,
soul winning. You say we're always preaching about soul winning. That's the main fight.
That is always going to be the main fight. If you get tired of soul winning, there's lots of other
churches that won't preach on soul winning too. So you're just getting all sorts of invitations to
leave tonight. No, I'm just kidding. No, I'm just kidding. You know, maybe you're a new Christian
and you're not in this fight yet. Look, the Bible says here in Matthew chapter four, verse 19,
and he saith unto them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. What did Jesus say? Follow me
and I will make you fishers of men. If you want to follow Jesus Christ, you're going to be a fisher
of men. And if you're not a fisher of men, you're not following Jesus Christ. You know, and if that's
a tough pill to swallow, then just come out soul winning. You know, it's easy and it's fun to learn.
You know, you could be a silent partner and you just watch people preach the gospel and you just
learn. You know, but do you want to follow Jesus today or do you or do you not? You know, hopefully
you do if you're in a church like this. So go out soul winning or maybe maybe you used to be in this
fight or maybe used to be in this fight a lot, but the things of this world have taken your eyes off
of it and you're more concerned of the things of the world now instead of a lost and dying world
and getting them to heaven. Turn to first Corinthians chapter three. You know, the Bible,
what's taking precedence in your life over soul winning? Is it your job? The Bible says six days
shout out labor, right? But you know, if all your bills are paid after, after day five,
if you've taken care of your family and you're providing for your family, you have all the things
you need, and you're only working that day six that you could have the new boat so that you could
have the new car so that you could have the new motorcycle. You know what? Maybe you should spend
your six days labor at your sixth day, laboring in God's vineyard for souls. Amen. Six days shout
out labor. And if you work a five day week and you're forsaking soul winning, you're not right
with God. Something's wrong there. Something's wrong there when you're putting the work of this
world. You know, whatever you do for a living, it's all going to be burned someday. Your money is
all going to be burned someday. Every physical thing that you possess someday is going to be
burned. But you know what? When you get to heaven, you're not going to be thinking, you're not going
to be thinking, I'm so glad I spent all those weekends at the lake. I'm so glad I spent so many
weekends snowboarding. No, you're going to look around at the people you want to the Lord and be
like, I'm so glad I preached you the gospel. I'm so glad you're here. You're not going to care about
your, your weekends that you did all your extravagant fun things. You're going to care
that someone's not burning in hell because you preach them the Bible. If things are taking
precedence over your life and soul winning that are, that are not needed, something's wrong there.
I got, I told you to turn to first Corinthians chapter three, right? First Corinthians chapter
three. We're almost done here. First Corinthians chapter three, verse 10. According to the grace
of God, which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation and another
man build it thereon. But let every man take heed how he build thereon. For other foundation
can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if any man build upon
this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall
be made manifest for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire. And
the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which
he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned,
he shall suffer loss. Look, what are you spending your time on? If what you're spending your
time on was to be exposed by fire, would it burn up or would it last forever? Is your
focus today on the things which are above or the things on the earth? Is your focus
today on things that are temporary or things that are eternal? Get your heart right with
God if all you are thinking about is the next thing you can achieve, the next possession
you can have, and worry about the soul that's dying and going to hell. Because that is going
to be a fulfilling feeling someday when you look at someone in heaven and know that they're
there because of you and because of Jesus Christ, right? That's going to be a fulfilling
feeling. Obviously, all glory will be going to God at that moment. But you know, I think
that there's going to be maybe some thank yous in heaven. I don't know. I can't say
that for sure. Don't hold me on that. But maybe there will be. Turn to Colossians chapter
3 and then we'll close. Colossians chapter 3 verse 2. Set your affection on things above,
not on things on the earth. That's a command. That's a command from the Bible right there.
You set your affections on things above and not on things on the earth. Stop worrying
about things on the earth. So what's the point of the sermon tonight? You know, God has called
us to a fight. God has called us to the good fight. You know, we need to make sure we're
avoiding the unprofitable fights. Is your fight politics today? Are you worried about
the acquisition of power and the debate of law, or are you fighting the fight of God?
Are you going to be the one that forsakes the law and praises the wicked, or are you
going to be the one that contends with them, like the Bible says? Are you caught up in
vain fights tonight, just worthless babblings? Are you a Christian apologist today, or are
you not apologizing for the Word of God and just standing on the promises of God and on
the Word of God? Are you fighting the good fight in your own home today? Are you fighting
the fight against sin in your home? Are you backing up what's preached at church, or are
you making a mock of it at home? You know, are you going to support the fight against
false prophets and false doctrines that's preached from behind this church, or are you
just going to fold and be sifted like wheat? 1 Timothy chapter 1, "This charge I commit
unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went on before thee, that thou by them
mightest war a good warfare." Let's make sure that we're warring a good warfare in our life,
fighting the right fights in our life. If we've forsaken some of these fights and we're
not in them as much as we used to be, let's get back to them, let's forsake the vain fights,
and we could be pleasing to God that way. So let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for
this church, God, and thank you for this truth in your Word. You have given us a fight to
fight. I just pray that you would help every heart here to just desire the things which
are above and not the things on the earth, and that you would just help us all to consider
this in our own life and just to get better in this area. In Jesus' name, amen.