Amen, you're there now in Acts 11 and
When I first went through it
I was like man, it almost feels like a repetitive from chapter 10
But then as I kept reading there's a lot of good things that just really stood out to me and popped out
And I got more excited about preaching it than I initially had intended
And so we're there in Acts 11
But before we do that the title of the sermon this evening is Acts 11 a paradigm shift
A paradigm shift and the reason I'm preaching this is because obviously Jesus made the gospel clear to everybody
but even after he gave him the command in
What is it Matthew Mark Luke and John and then you move into the book of Acts?
And he literally said in Matthew and in Mark and in Luke and in John
But Matthew's the most famous one row ye into all the world, right?
And baptizing them in the name of the Father the Son and Holy Ghost
It still seems like it just hasn't clicked for the people.
The gospel has been the same, but it hasn't just clicked for everybody else.
And this is really what we see here is that God's really doing a work with the people of God
and removing basically what they thought was the pattern that should remain,
which is preaching to the Jews and only preaching to a certain type of people
and saying, you know, the gospel is free to everybody.
And Jesus made that clear in his Gospels. He was very clear even though he mainly preached to the Jews
His gospel is a gospel for everybody, but
They're so entrenched in the religious ways that they're still thinking that the only people they need to preach to are the Jews
and God keeps like
leaving signs and doing things,
and the more he does it, the more contention he creates.
But the difference here is, instead of persecuting,
they finally come to the conclusion that,
hey, God's way is the best way.
Right?
And so that's why it's a paradigm shift, because what is a paradigm?
Well, paradigm is just a framework containing the basic assumptions.
It's a way of thinking, a methodology that are commonly accepted by members of the scientific
community.
Now, it started out in science, but it's really just used in everyday life, right?
And it's a cognitive framework shared by members of any discipline or group.
So what's a good way to describe it?
Springcrest, we have a certain way to do that, right? We have a certain service of order. It's
almost like all Baptist churches, but there's differentiating patterns in it. So we have our
own paradigm. We do things our own way. It's really just another fancy way of saying there's a pattern,
but a paradigm shift is what a pattern change or an interruption in that pattern. A paradigm shift
perceive or approach a particular idea, believe or system.
It occurs when the dominant framework or worldviews replaced by a new one
often due to new discoveries, insights or cultural changes.
You know, Christ in a way was a paradigm shift because they're expecting
this glorious king to come in the clouds and destroy the enemies
and he comes in the form of a servant and what are the Pharisees and the Sadducees
and the scribes and the religious people that they do, they reject them.
because they're like, there's no way that this is the pattern for the way we need to do things.
When really that he came and just broke the mold, right? The term was popularized by the
philosopher Thomas Kahn in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962,
when he described about scientific breakthroughs like Copernicus heliocentric model or Eisen
And basically, you know what it is, right?
Some people thought the earth was flat, although now people think the earth is flat again.
Which is weird, but there's you know at one point people thought that the earth was the center of the universe and not the Sun
Turns out the Sun is the center of our universe, right?
Like the s like the s-u-n and so these are shifts ice science theory of relatively, you know
Just made major breakthroughs in science. That's a paradigm shift. It just replaces the old way of thinking
It's basically what that is, right? So
However, paradigm shifts are not limited to science. They happen in spiritual, cultural
business and personal growth as well. So in the spiritual, you know, just moving away from maybe
like a legalistic viewpoint to, yeah, and you could even do legalistic to legalistic,
where we're legalistic in the Bible, but we're not legalistic in the patterns, right? We're
not going to just do what men say or in a cultural shift. You know, Trump in a way is a form of a
He's the untraditional candidate for both Republicans and Democrats.
They don't really know what to do with his demeanor and his speech and the way he draws
people.
You know, it's definitely a cultural shift.
And so these are just the things that happen.
And so when you're reading Acts 11, it's not evident at first, but as the thing, as the
chapter goes on, we see that what is going on is they are going through a mental paradigm
shift.
They're like, hey, we're used to doing things this way, and the more Peter and the Apostles
and the different cities that they're preaching it, more people get saved that are not Jews,
the more they're like, oh, wait a minute.
This thing of salvation is for everybody now. Remember the one thing I want to keep clear is we got to read it in context
Obviously salvation has been for everybody all the time
But the main group of people that we're leading up to Christ's time is the Israelites
And they're still holding on to a lot of those religious beliefs
right? They're still holding on to a lot of those religious traditions. And we'll go there
at X 11, verse one, it says, and the apostles and the brethren that were in Judea heard
that the Gentiles had also received the word of God.
And when Peter was coming to Jerusalem, when he goes back to the church and says,
they were of the circumcision, contended with him.
Because what are they focused on?
The outward thing, the works.
They're like, hey, we're better than these guys because we're of the circumcision.
Now here it's clear, by the way, we read the scripture,
that they're saved by grace, but they're still holding on to some of those traditions.
And even today, I mean, no two Baptist churches are alike and even within the ones that are similar
Like you you start to break into like little
Pockets, right and you have churches that are very
stringent
On for example, I've said it before I'm not gonna harp on it too much
But yeah, I went to the first independent Baptist church. I went to
The pastor would preach about how when he had his children,
he circumcised them all on the eighth day according to the Old Testament laws.
Which doesn't do anything for anybody.
Like, it doesn't make them any better than me.
It doesn't make them any more saved than me.
Right? You see pastors today wearing the shoal sometimes during Easter.
That doesn't do anything for anybody. It's all show.
And these guys, fine, they're circumcised.
But they're not better than the Gentiles. They just happen to be circumcised because the only
Circumcision that matters and I'll always harp on it to the day that I die is the circumcision of the heart
Right, that's really what the picture was and so they went there and they're contending literally they're fighting
They're going against what Peter has done
Little did they know that Peter was sent by who by God Almighty
So we go here. I'm not going to read it all because we just read it
But Peter goes and I like this as he rehearsed the matter now
I know when we usually think we hear some matter is that you know
He practiced it and there might be some truth that but it's also just old English is just sometimes in a way nicer, right?
All he's saying is he's just retelling the story
He's rehearsing the story of what happened, right?
And this is the story that we heard that we read in chapter 10 where you know God sends down the unclean foods and he says
what, uh, what I call clean, let no man call common, uh, or uncommon, sorry.
And so he, he goes through this and he tells him how after all of this, he went down there
and he says, I love this. And he says, and I began to speak the Holy ghost fell on them
ass on us in the beginning, which is interesting because who was there when Jesus ascended into
You know, one of the things that really stands out to me is we need to constantly have a paradigm shift in our thinking when it comes to Christ
You know the way to grow is we don't change
the way we are as Baptists, like in the Bible,
but we change the way we are carnally, right?
Our growth should always reflect the fact that
every once in a while we should have a paradigm shift
or an aha moment.
You know, you've heard of those aha moments
where you're doing something and you're learning something
all of a sudden one day just clicks.
You're like, ah, that's why I do this.
Who remembers, you guys won't remember,
but you remember Karate Kid?
Pastor Cobb, did you ever see the movie Karate Kid?
If you didn't, it's okay.
But the movie, you know, it's the famous scene
where he's like wax on, wax off,
and he's training him to fight karate
and he's like, hey, you gotta wax on the car
and then you gotta take the wax off.
And in the whole scene, he's like wax on, wax off.
And then later on in the movie, he's really angry.
At the at the sensei and he's like why are you I want to learn karate and you're making me clean the cars and then he goes
You know Daniel son stand up and he's like he kicks him and he goes wax on and then you know
Obviously he'd been doing this so much. He's able to block and then wax off and he's blocking and not blocking
That's the way though. It should be with Christianity, right? We should read our Bible so much day and night
We should meditate on the Word of God. We should memorize scripture so much that every
Every few months or every few weeks or maybe daily maybe we should have an aha moment of like
Oh, that's why I shouldn't treat someone like this or that's why we need to do this thing
Or that's why we need to raise our children a certain way
Or I never knew this was that's why we preach against false prophets so much
Or that's why the gospel has to be clear whatever it is. It needs to be because we're picking on peter here
But we have the same problem
We know that the Gospels for everybody, but we can have we can get a little elitist in our Christianity at times as a matter of fact
90% of Christianity today is elitist
They think oh, why are you going out there into the highways and hedges if you're not
Circumcised or if you're not doing this in the church or if you had if you don't have this program
If your building doesn't look like this or if you haven't raised good children or you know, whatever
I just you know, I was preparing this I didn't even plan on doing this
But I just saw a clip from one pastor that posted some other pastor and this pastor has a clip and and in context
He's trying to make a
a positive point, but it just sounds so dumb. And in the context of the thing, he's saying that
at the end of, that we shouldn't look to soul winners and praise them for their hard work.
You know, we should never follow a man, we should follow Jesus, which I don't have anything
against that statement. We should always look to Jesus. But Peter didn't Paul say, follow me,
as I follow the Lord. Later in Peter Paul say, Hey, look at me.
And then, I mean, doesn't Peter and Barnabas and all these guys in the acts, they're like,
hey, we're doing these things, you know, you need to listen to us, you need to do this.
But then the rest of the statement, and I might not be quoting it perfectly, you can
look it up.
Then he says, you know, at the end of the, I guess the history of the world or at the
end of our lives, Satan is going to be the greatest soul winner.
And what he's, I guess what he's trying to say is that Satan's going to get souls to
But I'm thinking to myself, when I think of a win, it's something positive, right?
If somebody gets one over on me, but it's for something negative, they didn't win.
They just committed fraud, or they committed some egregious act against.
Like the devil winning people over to hell is not so winning.
It's so damning.
Like and people say stuff like that because what they're doing is they're like these guys here. They're like, hey, Peter
You shouldn't be going to these people because they're not circumcised
Let's let's contend a little bit. Let's have a little bit of contention
about this whole thing and then if we just keep reading there in verse 16 it says
Then remember I the word of the Lord how that he said John indeed baptized with water
But he should be baptized with the Holy Ghost
For as much as God gave them the light gift as he did unto us who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ,
what was I that I
Could withstand God. He's holding. He's holding my count. He's like, who do you think that I am that could go against God?
You know when people talk bad about soulwaters, who do you think they are?
They're nobody. Who do you think that I am? I'm nobody, right?
We're nobody when God sets out a great plan
A great and effectual work he's doing through us, right?
He's already started a great work.
We are his workmanship.
If we make an excuse, you know what we're doing?
We're trying to impede the work of God.
But you know what? God's work isn't impeded.
He's just going to remove you and replace you with somebody else.
The attitude that most Christians have today is that they're not replaceable.
Well, I'm needed.
If I'm not there, nothing happens.
No, if you're not there, somebody else will fill your place in.
You know, God made the salvation story and the gospel message so simple that a five-year-old
could do it if you teach them well.
I could replace all the soul winners with a bunch of five-year-olds that we'd be just
as effective as we were with a bunch of adults.
Because the soul winning message is simple.
I mean, I've literally seen children give the gospel.
But it's constantly doing this but the difference is and that's why I'm not picking on these guys here because right there in verse 18
It says when they heard these things
They held their peace and glorified God saying then hath no
Then had God also to the Gentiles granted repentance
Right and the first point I have for you with all this is it's a not so paradigm shift
What do you mean by that? That's kind of horrible English, you know, you guys are learning that it's like a double negative
But what I say is because it's not really a paradigm shift
It's just us submitting to the fact that God has a plan and then we're always trying to
Swort that plan directly or indirectly, but sometimes we just need to be slapped on the face a little bit to be like
Oh, you know what? You're right
You know we can have that attitude
Right now, there's a there's a couple of churches that are really doing great this year in soul winning
Friends of ours faithful word Baptist church steadfast Baptist church. I mean, I think we're doing great
But in comparison in numbers, they're doing better. I mean, let's just if we're running numbers, they're doing better
Spiritually that's forgot to decide right but number wise they're doing better now
There's two attitudes we could have we could be like all you shouldn't look to soul winners because at the end of the day
Say it's gonna be the greatest soul winner
Which is such a dumb attitude to have or we could just be like praise the Lord and God continue to bless them
Because right here. He says oh well because God's made it available to everybody
So I like the attitude of these guys because even though they came with a bad attitude and they're like Peter
What are you doing? Why are you talking to these Gentiles? They're not even circumcised
Peter's like look, let me explain what happened and they're like well, you know what then
To God be the glory basically they're doing a great work. So it's not really because for God. There is no paradigm shift
Right. He was the same yesterday today and forever, right? God God doesn't change
He he has no very there's no very variable in this in him
He's not like one day. He's this way and the next day. He's that way the reason it feels that way sometimes is because that's our problem
It's a me problem if we see change
Right the reason that Christ has gotten better in my life is not because Christ was better
It's because I'm the one who's actually figuring it out. I'm like, oh
Uh-huh. God is better for this and God is better for that
I I should stop doing that and thank God I cleaned up this sin
And maybe I shouldn't be an idiot in this and you know a dumb bunny in that or whatever
You know go over to Romans 10 go over to Romans 10, but I'll read for you really quick Galatians 3
the Bible says
In verse 28, there's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither bond or free, there's neither male or female, for you are all one in Christ, Jesus.
And we know these verses, but in Romans 10, we have all the famous scriptures that we use in so many, but the ones that I'm using today really stood out to me.
It says, verse 11 says, for the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed, 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.
And I like how it's talking about it in a form of a currency, right?
It says, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, how then
shall they call on him who they have not believed, and how shall they believe in him who they
have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach except
they be sent, as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel
of peace and bring glad tidings of good things.
But they have not all obeyed the gospel.
For aside sayeth, Lord, who hath believed or report?
So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, but I say have they not heard
Yes, verily their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the end of the world
But I say did not Israel know first Moses say it
I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people and by a foolish nation
I will anger you but as I as is very bold and safe. I was found of them that
Sought me not I was made manifest unto them that are asked not after me
That asked not after me, but to Israel he said all day long
I have stretched forth my hands into a disobedient and gain sane people. What does it say? It's clearing up. What?
The same thing that Paul I mean that Peter's dealing with hey the gospel is not just to a race or
A religion it's to everybody
That says hey
The people that weren't seeking me. I found the people that didn't know me
I found because the people that didn't know me rejected me
We were in the wilderness and they're like you took us out of Egypt
To kill us here and then he they part the Red Sea is like well you part at the Red Sea only to kill us in the desert
And then you get, you know, and we got here only for you to kill us here and then they spy out the land
And they're like, oh those guys are too big. We can't take them. It's like a constant rejection of who of God
And look, there's two types of people that are rejecting there
There's the reprobates those that hate God that they're going to hell like the sons of Korah
But there's also those that are saved that just reject the work that God has for you
And really what it comes down to is what the fact that most people are lazy
They don't want to do the work.
The reality of life is most people are lazy.
If there's a lesson that's to be learned here, don't be lazy.
You know God, I think shows grace to for example our church
We're consistent. I always tell people we're consistently inconsistent, but we're consistent meaning because of our numbers
It's hard to sometimes be out every week or you know, our numbers fluctuate
Sometimes we have a really good turnout sometimes we don't but the fact of the matter is the people that are here are faithful
And I know that there's
extenuating circumstances
but I know that there's a heart of people that care and they want to do those things.
So God knows the circumstances, but the one thing that we're willing to do is we're willing to work,
right? Through it all. And then you have churches that are way bigger and better than us
and they don't do any work for the Lord because they're just, you know, happy on their laurels.
They're settling for the fact that tithes are good, the coffee shop works,
You know, they got their retirement plan.
They don't have to do anything for the Lord.
I mean, they're saved, so who cares about everybody else?
Ephesians 2 verse 14, the Bible says,
For he is our peace, who hath made both one
and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.
Having abolished in the flesh the enmity even the law of commandments contained in ordinances for to make himself of
Twain one new man so making peace and that he may reconcile both unto God in one body the cross having slain
The enmity thereby. I mean really the work was done by who?
Jesus Christ
Right, so it's not a it's it's a not so paradigm shift. It's not that that
That big of a pattern interrupt
It only is like that, or seems like that, not only to these guys, but even to us at times,
because we're still not in the full knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Right? I mean, the one thing is, the more you read your Bible, the more you realize some things are not that important.
But you got a bunch of churches and pastors and I've heard it all my life and I'm even hearing it now again
They're like, well, you know, I'd never listen to a pastor who had bad children
Or I'd never listen to a pastor who had this happen in this live or I'd never listen to a pastor who couldn't and
And these and these guys are doing the work
Thinking and I keep thinking to myself, man, I guess it's just not reading the Bible
I mean things that come to my mind, you know forget just let's start with bad children
Eli and Samuel both had bad children
Right, and then let's talk. Let's let's go into maybe
You know
Not maybe a great church wife
But what I mean by that is she was in in the forefront Moses wife was always in the background
And apparently she was African and apparently that was a big deal and Moses couldn't speak well
And God's not like well, you guys are the ones that I'm gonna listen to they're like no
I'm gonna send you to the pit of hell
The difference is
Anytime that you're doing really good work, and you're doing hard work, and you're willing to do the work
Someone's always there to criticize
You know why because most people are spectators in life
When you go to the Rockets game or the baseball game, you've got maybe 30 people on the field and maybe some backups
And you got thousands of people in this in this dance
The small percentage of people that are doing the work, but everybody feels like they're entitled to their opinion on that thing. Oh
If only the coach would have
Would have you know brought in the reliever in the seventh inning instead of the eighth we would have won that guys the moron
Okay
And it's the same thing in church, right?
Well, if only the preacher would, you know, have an extra service, maybe they'd do something.
Or maybe the preacher would do this, or maybe if the church would show up and do that, and
they don't show up to church.
It's amazing.
In the last six months, we haven't had like, you know, I don't, I don't.
telegraphed the drama, but we've had some drama in the church.
Pastor Cobb's probably the only one who knows.
No, I think maybe Brother Trek is, you know, he's part of the leadership, so I try to keep
him in the loop.
But the little bit of drama we've had, you know who it comes from?
From people that aren't even the most consistent in the church.
It's always like that.
People that show up, like, once a week.
Or they don't even go soul-winning or they don't do anything and they're the ones that are like causing all kinds of issue
Do I love him any less? No, I don't it doesn't really matter to me
God's gonna judge them just like he's gonna judge me which by the way
I'm not even picking on those people because I don't have things that I need to work on
But I'm just saying it's interesting when you're doing the work. You don't have time to complain
You know Moses was so busy literally his father-in-law was like, hey, you need to take a break brother
You need to delegate some of this stuff out
In the meantime, the sense of core are like Moses can't handle his business
I mean, I've literally had people say that you know the reason the church that it grows because I you know
I didn't know what I was doing
Our Spanish ministry the people that left the guy was like hey
You know the reason we left is because you don't know how to run a church. We never grew
But you know why you got mad because like a month before he had gotten on to me because we could go so many and we'd get those
Names and numbers and he's like, hey, you know, how come those people never come to church?
I was like, well, most people are never gonna come to church when you you lead them to Christ
Because there's a lot of a lot of reasons I said, but if you think that they're gonna come to church
Here's the number and here's the email
Call them
I said, I don't have to make all the phone calls in church and I don't have to send
every email.
You're part of the church.
Do it.
And you know what he did?
Zero.
But you know what he did?
He also called me out.
It's funny, like, right?
A minute you say, hey, if you want to solve it.
Give me a solution. I don't mind people complaining. I actually don't as long as they bring me a solution, right?
Hey, if you've got a problem in the church, hey, pastor
I don't like the way the pews are but before before you take it the wrong way
Guess what? I found this great special on pews and these are just much better
And I think we could get them for this much. Do you think that you I might even entertain the idea?
But if you're just coming in front and be like, hey, the pews suck. They're really uncomfortable and I have sciatica and I can't sit down
And I'm like, okay, well, what do you want me to do about it?
Well, I don't know, but you need to fix it.
That's just a bad attitude, right?
And you're going against God, which is my second point.
Like I said, I don't have that many points.
You're there in verse 19.
You can't go against God.
Look, you can't stop anybody who's doing a good work for God.
You can't stop me as much as you couldn't stop Eli if Eli was doing the best work for
God.
He he does not discriminate by age or by race or by gender
If you're doing a good work for God, you can't go against God and actually let it right there in verse 19
The Bible says now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen
Now this has already been a while right because even Paul or Saul's already saved and we're having all this
They're still they're still feeling or reeling from the effects of the persecution of Stephen, right?
They traveled as far as Phineas and Cyprus and Antioch preaching the word to none
But unto the Jews only now the problem is here. They're still there's that shift, right?
They haven't gone through that shift
It says and some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene
Which when they were coming to Antioch spake unto the Grecians
Preaching the Lord Jesus Christ. So now they they preached it to somebody who's not a Jew
And the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed and turned unto the Lord.
Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church, which was in Jerusalem,
and they sent forth Barnabas that he should go as far as Antioch.
Now I love the attitude, these same people who contended with Peter now get a second word
of a group of Grecians that have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and what do they do now?
They're like, hey, let's send some relief. Let's send some help.
Which, by the way, I'm going to bring a sermon on Barnabas because
Barnabas is just like this unspoken hero. People don't really speak of Barnabas,
but he's kind of like a facilitator of the work of God.
Right? And they send Barnabas forth. That's the attitude. You know, I don't care that people
have problems. Everybody has to grow. But I love the attitude of the Church of Jerusalem. They're like,
And we took the correction, we corrected ourselves, and now we're going to do better.
And so when they got this news, you notice they didn't contend anymore.
Now they're like, hey, we're not going to go against God.
Send Barnabas.
It says in verse 23,
and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, and much people was added unto the Lord.
But I like that, you know, they followed Barnabas why?
Because when he came, they saw what? The grace of God.
He was glad, and what did he do though? He exhorted them. What is exhorting?
It's basically calling them out in a nice way.
Right. He's holding them accountable that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. Look when you exhort someone
You're not tippy-toeing around the issue. You're saying you need to do this
You might not be rebuking them, but exhortation is also tough
You know when I preach and I say hey, we need to do more soul winning
You need to be at church more often. You need to read your Bible more often
You need to raise your children a certain way. We need to do these things fight the tide against the enemy. That's exhortation
I'm not necessarily calling out you calling you out on sin, but I'm saying hey
We also can call you out on the lack of work or you could do more work
Go to John 4 go to John 4, but I'll read for you really quick and Isaiah 43 19 the Bible says behold I will do a new thing
Now it shall spring forth
Show ye not know it. I will even make a way in the wilderness and the rivers and the new desert
I mean in the desert
1st Corinthians 3 verse 9 the Bible says for we are labors together with God
Ye are God's husbandry ye are God's building
All we need to do is just be willing to labor
John 4 verse 35 the Bible says say ye not therefore there are yet four months and then come with harvest
Behold I sent you lift up your eyes and look on the fields for they're white already to harvest and
He that reapeth receiveeth wages
Remember I said that for you know that our currency in 2025 moving forward should be what the work of the Lord
I'm not just saying that because I'm money hungry on
Prosperity as a matter of fact our currency is heavenly not earthly, but also because the Lord makes it clear
What is our currency?
Because you know when you get a wage now, right? If you go to McDonald's and you get a job
You're gonna get a wage for what for working
So, if God's saying, hey, this is your minimum wage for heaven, not to get into heaven, but
to what?
He's going to say here, he says, and he that reapeth receiveeth wages and gathereth fruit
unto eternal life, I mean, to life eternal, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth
may rejoice together.
And herein is that saying, true, once souleth in another reapeth, I sent you to reap, whereon
he bestowed no labor, other men labored, and ye are entered into their labors.
And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified.
He told me all that I ever did.
Now why did I pick this specific scripture?
Because what did Jesus do?
Just what Peter did.
Who's he preaching to?
The Samaritan woman.
She even said it and then what does she reach it? What does she do immediately?
She goes out and she preaches the gospel and because of her testimony
They asked the Lord Jesus if we were to read it. They're like, hey, can you stay with us a while?
We need more people to get saved
But it's all because they took on the currency of the Lord's work
You're there in verse 25 and verse 25 of Acts 11
that there's a paradigm shift, even though it's really not a paradigm shift.
And with that comes the realization that it's better to just accept the things that the Lord is doing
because you can't go against God.
There's so many examples, right? Remember when the apostles were like,
hey, there's other people baptizing and healing in your name, and he's like,
hey, if they're for us, they're not against us, right?
Then the, when the sons, you know, the brothers, they're like, why don't we bring down fire
from heaven like, you know, Elijah, and he's like, well, hold on, you don't even know what
you're talking about, because we're here to do the Lord's work, right?
And Acts 11 verse 25 says, then departed Barnabas to Tarsus for to seek Saul, and when he had
And they came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church and taught much people and the disciples were called Christians first and Antioch
It feels kind of random, but it's not it's on theme right Barnabas has no paradigm shift
If we follow Barnabas throughout the book of Acts Barnabas is is excited for anybody who's excited for the Lord
Barnabas gets to Antioch and he's like, you know
I can do this work, but I know somebody better.
Let me go get Saul.
You know, the attitude most Christians have today is,
oh, I'm not gonna, I won't, I don't want to be with that guy,
or I don't want to fellowship with that guy,
because blah, blah, blah, bleep, bleep, bleep, blah, blah,
even though they're doing good works.
Oh, and he preaches from the pulpit,
it's just too abrasive.
I don't like him, because he screams too much.
I mean, I hear all kinds of stupid stuff.
Now I'm thinking to myself, Barnabas,
Has no problem with with Saul and he knows it's all persecuted the church
He's not like well, I won't listen to anybody who persecuted the church so long. There's no way that he has
you know
Salvation in him because how can a guy who got so many people killed be now on fire for the Lord?
Isn't that what a Baptist would do today?
You know people would come and you know, they'd go to the local 2025 church and they're like hey, there's this guy named
Saul and he we just heard he got saved. I don't know
He's all I heard is he's a bad out of hell
There's no outward
Appearance of his salvation was he ever saved? I
Mean isn't that how people I mean people are jerks like that. I'm just like isn't salvation just completely by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ
But Barnabas, he's great. Barnabas is like, where's Paul? I can't do this by myself.
You know, I mean, I'm still excited when Pastor Shelley came and brought all the people, right?
I don't have a problem with him being better at drawing people and having a bigger audience.
I don't, it doesn't bother me. And most people would listen and be like, oh, he's kissing the ring.
You know, he's just such a kiss-butt or whatever they want to call it.
No, I just realized that I don't want to impede the work of God if there's people that are doing it better than me
Go for it more power to you. Go learn
I was talking to Moe earlier because we were here at the church and he was helping out
And I said Moe if you want to do work for the Lord you're 23 you're young you're single
You got all the time in the world if you want to go learn how they do it over there
So you can bring that back you tell me and we'll fund you and let's go
I wish I was 23 again single I mean for for that right like I wish I was 23 in
the sense that I wish I could go back and be I remember when I was 23 I I have
so much energy that I wear most people out I feel bad mom was like he's
overwhelmed you know that's just the way that and I'm 45 when I was 23 can you
imagine I was probably jumping off the walls but I wasn't living for the Lord I
wasn't doing things for Christ
Man, if I could take 23-year-old Ibn Iqan and just fill him with the Holy Spirit, the
things that we would do.
But I'm not going to sit here and mope about those things, what I'm going to do is be like,
well, I still got a lot of energy at 45, so let's go do the work.
Let's go kick some butt, right?
Oh, you shouldn't say butt from the pulpit, you know.
My kids would be cracking up, though.
That's a whole different story.
But go over to Colossians 3, but in Hebrews 10, Bible says in verse 24, it says, and let
unto love and to good works.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together
as a matter of some is,
but exhorting one another and so much more
as you see the day approaching.
Hey, let's provoke each other unto love and good works.
The problem is most people like that verse
without the part with works.
This is Baptist in 2025.
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love.
And that's it.
They forgot the works part.
Because they get because everybody's so competitive
Compete with yourself
Colossians 3 verse 15 the Bible says and let the peace of God rule in your hearts
To rule means that you're submissive because that means somebody is is is leading you you're not the leader of your heart
To the which also you're called in one body and be thankful let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom
Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
grace in your hearts to the Lord, and whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name
of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
First Timothy 2 verse 1 says, Thou, therefore my son, be strong in the grace that is in
Christ Jesus, and the things that thou hast heard among me among many witnesses, the same
Who shall be able to teach others also that is our entire purpose is to work
To preach the gospel and to teach others to do the same thing
You know my goal shouldn't be to just want to be the pastor of spring crest
My goal should be that I could replace myself
One day just like Pastor Cobb or Dane me that I could maybe one day not only replace ourselves
But even plant other churches
I was talking to somebody else. I remember when you know, I'm using an example because it stands out when Pastor Shelley was here
You know, we were on Saturday. We did a soul-winning marathon and you know, the church's fail
It was great to see and I have all the the the
All the maps and I'm passing them out. I'm telling the people I could just he's right here and I could send some right
He wants to just interject
And I have one of two options. I could be like, well, I'm the leader of the church. I'm the pastor
And I could just continue doing the things that I do or I could just be like what I did
Which is I don't do this that often to a large group because our group isn't that large and I'm like, you know what?
Do you want to add anything to the thing? He just took over. You know what? I just stepped back and just let I mean
I was like great much better. I don't he deals with his people all the time
Let him let him run him because that's what we need to do
Because you know the problem is if you want to be everything to everybody you're gonna be nothing to nobody like you're just gonna fail
Right. I want to be able to you know
Maybe one day have young men that want to preach and and lead this church and maybe other churches
And I want to have a Spanish ministry and I want to you know
Go out and do a bunch of other things here, but I can't I know I can't there's no feasible way for me to do it by myself
But there is a way from for me to do it
By myself in the sense that if I just let God take the reins he'll give me the the people that we can work together with I
Know that's not a contradictory, but I'm not I can do it by myself with Christ
Meaning he'll take me and find the people to surround me to do the good work, or I could just be the one and only
Moses
Got Aaron
Right Elijah got Elijah
You know Samuel
Let's what is it Samuel got?
Was it David? I mean Saul David, and then he got to Solomon right? Yeah, it's a Solomon. I
Mean, of course the Apostles were reading through the book of Acts
Let's start to close this thing out, right? So we see that it's a paradigm shift. It's but it's really not it's not a paradigm shift
Right, and we're not going to go against the work of the Lord
And when we're, when we're focused, we're developing the leaders and I love Barnabas's attitude.
As a matter of fact, I was looking it up and I almost started talking about Barnabas and
made it, made it, made it like a sub point, but he's just so prominent that he actually
requires his own sermon.
Barnabas is just one of those cool characters because you don't hear a lot preached about
Barnabas, but Barnabas really is a great facilitator, right?
He doesn't care who gets the glory.
I mean, for him to have the attitude, the leadership picked Barnabas to go to Antioch.
I mean, so he could already feel like I'm in Spanish, there's a term, I wish I could
translate it easy, but for those that know Spanish, you know, I'm Juancomane means like
I'm the top dog, right, type of thing.
But instead of what it is to say, he says, then he turned to seek for Saul to bring him
over and then they stay there a year to do the work of the Lord.
I mean, that's a great attitude.
We need to have that attitude, right?
We need to have the attitude, who can do this better than me?
And how can I help them facilitate this work so that we can get more souls for Christ?
Maybe at the end of the day, what does God say in John?
You're working what others already labored.
You know, you showed up late to the party, but you get to reap the rewards.
It's okay. We're all showing up late to the party because
You know Christ died for us over 2,000 years ago, but before that before the foundation of the world. It was already done
It's not like we're discovering something new
Go to verse 27 of Acts 11 it says and in these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch and
There stood upon
One of them named Agabus and signified by the spirit that there should be great derth throughout all the world
Which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar
Then the disciples every man according to his ability determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judea
Which also they did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul
And so we see here, the church also has a good attitude.
Cause they're like, hey, Barnabas and Saul are doing a good work.
Notice how the church leadership didn't get onto Barnabas.
They're like, Barnabas, we sent you to Antioch.
What are you doing working with Saul?
Why in the world would you go to Antioch
and stop what you're doing and pick up Saul?
You could have done so much, you know,
you could have, they could have had that attitude,
but instead what attitude do they have?
Not only are they happy that they're doing the work, but then they find out that there's going to be this dearth by this prophet named Agibus.
And they're like, you know what? Whatever we can do in our ability, monetarily, our time, let's get it done and what do they do?
They send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judea.
They're like, let's gather our resources to help them out.
People love preaching on the book of Acts. I don't think they really believe it.
Now
Churches will do it if it means that they get to be glorified not glorify God
Hey, let's raise money for the homeless
Man people show up in droves
Let's raise money for children that are did you know every seven seconds a kid goes hungry in the world?
Yeah, world hunger exists. Thanks for pointing it out
Just every about every three seconds somebody dies. We're not you know
Sending money to all the funeral homes to hold funerals for everybody like things happen
But I mean in that oh help us raise money so we can send missionaries to Mexico to build
Houses and get them clean water, and then you ask him how much so what are you gonna do?
Oh, well, we're not because this is our first time going we just want to show him the love of Christ
And then what if you leave and they die
Man, what I want is, hey, the tithing money comes here, but most of it goes to soul winning.
You know, we're small enough that probably the percentages would be skewed a little bit
because at any time we buy like a piece of equipment, it's just such a big chunk of,
you know, the overall thing.
But other than that, I mean, we just, the things that we buy are like equipment and
soul winning.
And I try to, you know, I told my wife, I was like,
I'm gonna make it a point that the more soul winners we get,
like I'm just gonna reward them even more.
But what, where did I get that concept from?
Well, number one, it's biblical, but number two,
the churches that are doing better than us.
You know, if you go soul-winning with any of these churches
that I mentioned, I can guarantee you two things.
You'll probably get all your meals covered.
And if it's a small enough group,
you'll probably get your lodging covered.
What what other churches do you know that do that for soul winners?
It's the opposite in other churches
Hey, we're having the couples retreat
It's three hundred dollars for the weekend. We got your great discount for those couples. They can't afford it
We'll put you on a payment plan
So that you can fix your marriage
And then the marriage counseling, the couples that are on a payment plan, they're like,
you know, the majority of failed marriages, one of the main reasons marriages fail is
for finances.
It's like, oh man, I'm on a payment plan so you can tell me that I shouldn't have been
on the payment plan.
Right?
If they want to have an event, let's go to a camping trip.
Oh, well, it's 50 bucks a person.
Oh, we're going to, I've literally seen where they'll have soul winning schools and they
charge for the materials.
I don't we had a soul winning a it wasn't a great turnout at the time
But we we didn't charge anything remember pastor when we had it
It was just you me and brother James and we were here and we brought lunch and we did all of that
I didn't charge brother James. I mean, I guess I should have right. I'm just kidding. I'm joking
But we need to be locally supporting our churches
You know, I don't even preach on time. I just but I will preach on you supporting the church
for the work that they're doing
but a local church that's doing the work of the Lord.
You want to know where the money's going for the church.
Disclaimer, you don't want to be one of those people that's always wanting to audit the church.
Like, that's just being nosy, but you want to know that the leadership's telling you where that's going.
It's like, my wife knows where I spend the money, but my wife's not like...
running transactions and like giving me like asking me for a report at the first
of all that wouldn't happen but second of all if she did that it'd be like when
in the world are you doing like that didn't even happen in marriages right
if it does that's weird but that's a whole other thing but in Proverbs 19 like
let me just close this out the Bible says in verse 17 says he that hath pity
on the poor lendeth unto the Lord and that which he hath given will he pay
him again
In 2 Corinthians 9 verse 6, the Bible says,
Every man, according as he purposed in his heart to let him give, not grudgingly or a
necessity for God, love with the cheerful giver, and God is all, is able to make all
grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency and all things may abound
to every work.
I love that statement because it's not a statement of what if, it's like if you're
doing the work, it says ye always having sufficiency.
You know spring crest, I don't care how big we are
We're always gonna have sufficiency as long as we do the work of the Lord
That's why I honestly I try not to worry and eventually God willing we'll get to the point where I can just hand that off to somebody else
There's certain things that you know, I would I don't care about the money
I honestly it's the one place like I worry about my finances. I do you know
I I need to work on that and I don't do it as often but when I was a young man
I would worry more now. It's not so much. I used to be the type that would like check my bank account daily
I don't do that anymore because you know, you're just gonna stress yourself out
Look if you're looking at your bank account daily, you're
Here's the conclusions that you're going to come up with that you don't have enough
money for the things that you think you want.
because you never have enough money because we're just greedy by nature.
So why feed that animal? Why feed the carnal nature?
Because you always make plans that everybody has a bunch of wants, not a bunch of needs.
You have your needs. As far as I know, everybody here got fed today. Everybody has a roof over
their head. Nobody walked in the church naked. And actually, I'm adding one. God said, if you have
He didn't even say you need to have a roof over your head. Now, that doesn't mean he wants you to be homeless
I'm just saying if you have those things it's common sense. You you have somewhere to live
right
And and very very rare times. I'll catch myself. I'm looking at like maybe the church finances
And I'll start trying to put that that same feeling but for the most part. I really don't worry about it like because the Lord's providing I
Want all the church money to go to our people for the work of the Lord
People call how we get a calls. I mean, I don't know what the soul winning did but ever since Pastor Shelly came
It slowed down a little bit
But ever since he came I guess because they passed out a bunch of cards
I've got a call like at first it was like once a week, but now it's been like every few weeks
I get a call to the church
Some random person with some random story about how they can't pay their rent or their kids haven't been fed
Where they've been bedridden for months and if we could just send them
200 bucks or 300 bucks it would mean the world and it would solve all their problems
And I'm like I just always tell them we're not that kind of church
I was like we don't give you know, we don't just give money out like that
But I will say if somebody says hey, there's a good soul-winning opportunity for this or that and it's gonna be X dollars of X
X amount of dollars, and I'm gonna be like, well, is it gonna be good reaping? Yeah, here you go
No questions asked
Just send me the numbers send me how many people are gonna get one to the Lord or how many doors you knock is that you know
You're not always leading everybody Christ. How many hours did you go soul-winning? How many noble doors did you knock?
That's what I want
I mean, I don't know if I made that clear, but I did say that earlier, but I will say it again
If there's any opportunity like that and it requires funds and we can do it you bring it to me
We'll do it
Like those are the kind of opportunities. I want right like if you say, hey
there's this thing if we just go to the small town or
You know, there's this church event that's going and you know, whatever. Let me know and if we can figure it out
We will
I'm not gonna stop any of that work, but if you come to me and say that you know
You've been better in for months and you need to pay your rent
I'm gonna be like I'm just gonna tell you the same thing I tell them. No, thank you
Right, but let's close in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father Lord
Thank you so much for today. Thank you for your blessing, but Lord more importantly. Thank you for the lesson two lessons number one
We shouldn't be contentious towards your work, but if we are Lord
Help us to just accept correction and then be supportive of the work
You know the problem isn't
The contention the problem is if you just dig your heels in
You know, I pray for all these churches and pastors to get annoyed
When people post about how many souls they've won or how great of a soul
Winning ministry they have or you know, how much work they do
They're like, oh, you shouldn't brag. You should just leave them alone. If it's bragging the Lord will take care of them
But if they really are doing the work praise the Lord
I mean, it's it would be my prayer that our church would do that that I would just be bombarded with text every day
About how many souls we've led to the Lord man, that'd be so encouraging on a regular basis
It's encouraging when we lead people to Christ imagine just doing that on a daily. That's my prayer for our church
that we would just be able to have a full-time, daily, soul-winning time and ministry, Lord.
That you would bless our church and get laborers in here
so we could do the work that is necessary to lead people out of hell and into heaven.
Teach us to admonish ourselves and to clean from the word.
And bless this week. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.