♪ We'll sing our first angel, Lord, for Thee ♪
- Morning, welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
Thank you for coming this morning to our,
we're glad you're here.
Let's turn our hymn books to page 210.
We're gonna start out with Wonderful Grace of Jesus,
page 210 this morning.
Wonderful Grace of Jesus, your grace, their faith.
We pray that you just bless the soul winning in the services
and fill Pastor Shelley up with your Holy Spirit.
Bless to become better Christians
through your word and through the scriptures this morning.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Page number 20 will be our next song.
I'm sorry, verse 25, "Wounded for Me."
Page 25, "Wounded for Me."
This will be a new song.
It's fairly easy, so follow along.
"Wounded for Me," page 25.
Mic one, just lift up, just gonna come by
and get you guys a bulletin.
We are looking through Romans chapter number 10, verse 10,
and if you can complete the entire chapter,
you can receive a prize.
New Testament challenge, I didn't have prizes last week,
so I gave y'all an extra graced week.
And so if you did complete the New Testament challenge,
you can come down.
Got some gift cards here.
They're all the same denomination,
but there's a few different options here.
So you can come on down.
Give everybody a round of applause on that.
More important than reading the New Testament
is understanding the New Testament.
And so, of course, that's the real prize.
On the inside, we have our service and soul winning times.
We also have our church stats for the year.
And we really got off to a great start this year.
And honestly, last year was amazing.
It was a record breaking year last year as far as just the
works that we were able to accomplish.
And I had a good feeling that we could continue that pace
or even do better this year.
And I feel like we started well in January.
But I want to continue doing that.
And so we did a great work in the Philippines.
And we have a missionaries update letter that's inside of
our bulletin, and this is from Evangelist Urbanic.
I'm not going to read it just verbatim, but some of the highlights.
Even before our missions trip that started at the end of January,
the church plant over there had over 700 salvations.
So they were already accomplishing a lot of work.
Then we sent around 13 soul winners from our church here in the DFW area.
And they partnered with another handful or so of members from our church plant
in the Philippines.
And then they also partnered with Verity Baptist Church with Pastor Matthew
Stuckey, a few people from their church.
And they were able to do a lot of soul winning,
going into a lot of schools, doing a lot of preaching.
It says here in the newsletter specifically,
they had 32 soul winners in total.
But they ended up having 3,200 approximately students that were saved.
And they had-- or they preached to that many students, I'm sorry.
And they had like 1,400 salvations on just one of the days.
I think in total, it says there at the bottom, 3,497 salvations for that entire trip and
the work that they did.
And so honestly, that's just incredible, crazy numbers.
But that's why people fly across the world to go into the Philippines and preach.
You can read the entire newsletter if you would like.
I have our evangelists doing monthly newsletter updates for us.
And so I would encourage you to check that out.
When I'm kind of done with announcements, I'm going to ask a few people to come up and
give a few testimonies about that as well.
So we'll keep that in our mind.
But keep, you know, if angels are bannock in your prayers, keep that church plant in
your prayers.
And it's definitely a great work that they're doing over there.
We have another announcement on the congratulations of the UKIMS on the birth of Colton David.
He was born on the 2nd, 830 a.m., eight pounds and a quarter and then 21 inches long.
So congratulations to them.
Definitely have them in your prayers.
We have several other ladies that are expecting in our church, several in February.
Please keep them in your prayers.
Also, we kind of have just a breakout of the Philippines missions trip.
You can kind of see, I guess it was, the newsletter was a little bit behind, but some of the numbers
caught up.
It's like 3,576 salvations according to our official count here.
And so honestly, you know, great, great work, incredible effort.
A couple of other upcoming events, there's a baby shower for the Foley's on March 7th.
All ladies are welcome to attend, it is nurselings preferred, nurselings only preferred.
And then soul winning mega marathon is April 4th, so Easter is a little bit early I think
this year.
And so we're going to have a soul winning mega marathon in April.
And then Easter Sunday is there April 5th.
So that's pretty exciting.
On the back is the details about the baby shower.
So it is again nursing is only preferred is from 12 to 2 at the church.
If you'd like to attend you can RSVP to Ms. Suther, she's helping organize that.
Also down below we have a prayer list.
So if you could be in prayer for a church, that would be great.
That's pretty much all I have as far as announcements at the time.
But I do want to ask a few people, I'm going to ask Brother Malton first if you'd come
up here and give a quick testimonial about what happened in the Philippines, and then
I'm going to ask Brother Foley also if you'd follow him up on that and give another testimonial
as well.
Good morning everybody.
If you don't have a passport, I would highly recommend that you get a passport and put
it on your radar to go to the Philippines, because if you like soul winning, you need
to go.
The Filipinos, they're different.
I was watching Evangelist First's testimonial the other night about the Philippines, and
he said that one way that they're different from us is that they're just a lot more thankful.
And I would agree with that.
They're just, you know, the Bible says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God."
And they have a heart that's just open for the gospel, and they're hungry for it.
And it's just so easy to approach people there and get them saved.
It's so different from the United States.
It's unbelievable, and it's hard to even communicate to you just how different these people are.
It's like the people in the Bahamas are different, and you can really only experience that for
yourself if you go and you talk to them.
The people in the Philippines are just as much as receptive, if not more so.
They esteem the Bible in their schools, all these kids.
They know John 3.16.
They have English.
You can talk to them.
If you can talk to people out here, you can talk to them.
The scale of the people is incredible.
A lot of the soul winning areas that we went to were the same areas over and over and over
again.
I only ran into SAFE people twice on the trip, just talking to everybody that I could, trying
to give them the gospel.
There were people out there in Tanai Park, that knew Brother James.
We took out the track to give them the track, and they recognized and they're like, "Oh,
James, James."
Our brothers out there, Evangelist or Bannock, are doing a great work, and you need to go.
It's easily a highlight of my life to go out there and preach the gospel to the Filipinos,
and you need to make provision in your life to do it.
Get yourself a passport, get that lined up, especially if you have down time and you have
a heart for soul winning, you need to do it.
Thank you to Evangelist or Bannock and Verity Baptist Church for all the work that they
put in.
Brother Franklin, he put a lot of work in to line up opportunities, and he was working
there the whole day alongside of us to help us to get in order and to line us up and to
get into the classrooms.
So God bless Verity Baptist Church, Manila and Evangelist or Bannock out there and thank
to Evangelist Furr for lining up our accommodations and Brother James out there as well for all
the help that he did.
Thank you Pastor.
Yeah, so I also want to start thanking Pastor Shelley for promoting this trip and making
a big deal and there was a lot of work that went into this trip.
I want to thank Pastor Stuckey, Evangelist Urbanic, Brother James, and Brother Franklin
at Verity Manila.
They put in a lot of work and we truly were entering into other men's labors on this
trip.
In the past, this is my third time going to the Philippines, and in the past we kind
of focused on parks, just soul winning in the parks.
I've done a couple classes in the Philippines before, but this time we just arrived and
hit the ground running.
It was really focused on the schools, and they have a huge open door there with the
schools right now.
In the parks, you can expect to average like 25 to 30 salvations for a good eight hours
day of work, soul winning.
But in these classes, it's amazing because a 50-minute class, you can expect 20 to 25
students saved on average.
It was not just one class a day.
We had classes, we got to one of the schools before the sun was up, and we were there until
after the sun was down.
And it was just class after class after class.
It was amazing.
And this is where these giant numbers are coming from.
And the Philippines is already next level for soul winning, but they have just taken
it to a whole other level that I didn't even know was possible.
It still takes a lot of hard work to get people saved there.
You know, in the Bahamas, I'd say there's more people that will reject you.
They don't want to hear when you're, especially in the parks.
And there's still more of a language barrier, you know.
There are people that you still preach the gospel to and they don't have enough English
to get saved.
But clearly looking at the numbers, there are tons of people that do want to hear the
gospel.
They do understand it and they do believe and get saved.
And a tip that Evangelist Urbanic taught me was to go with a Filipino, especially for
the classes.
And the strategy that he taught us was I would preach the gospel in English to the class
and then pray with the class.
Then my wife would come up and preach the same thing in Tagalog and then pray with them.
And we saw huge success this way and I would highly recommend going with that strategy
if you ever visit.
Now, I'm not going to have my wife next time probably because she's having babies, but
I'm going to kind of lose that cheat code.
But for me, it's personally motivating.
I'm going to do my best to have my wife teach me Tagalog because it just takes it to a whole
other level.
You don't need Tagalog to have a successful mission strip in the Philippines.
Don't get me wrong, but it would just make it that much better.
We were able to visit my wife's family and have a family dinner with them.
We got two family members saved at that dinner.
We were like aggressively soul-warning at this family function, this family reunion.
And I was just thinking like, man, this is not America.
Family functions don't necessarily go the same way if you're just aggressively, systematically
soul-warning everybody.
But her mom ended up getting baptized.
Her dad also came to church.
He was willing to get baptized, but due to his dialysis pork, he was not able to get
dunked.
Something that really struck me on this trip was Brother James talking about how they have
this huge open door with the schools, but the problem they're encountering is they don't
have enough soul-winners.
There are schools that they are having to turn down because they don't have people to
go and preach the gospel.
There are schools where they're only doing a few classes and they have to skip the rest
of the class because there's not enough soul-winners.
And so if you have ever thought about going to the Philippines, do it.
And if you've never thought about it, pray about it and do it anyways.
I don't know about the other soul-winners, but for me personally, the worst part about
these trips to the Philippines is having to leave.
I just wish that it could last forever.
But I hope this motivates somebody to go the next time you have an opportunity.
I know I'm really looking forward to the next trip.
Thank you.
The Lord and our soul-winners, a round of applause for that.
Yeah.
Honestly, I talked to a lot of people from our church that went on the trip and they
all have really great testimonies, and one of the things that I really liked hearing
about the Foley's is how they even got some of their family members saved in church and
baptized and, you know, sometimes we can be a little bit hard-hearted to the fact that
these are real people that have real lives and real souls, even though they're across
the world and, you know, soul-wining makes a difference in people's lives and preaching
the gospel and we shouldn't just, you know, live our luxurious lives in America and just
kind of pretend like the whole world isn't going to hell, you know, sometimes you got
to put in that effort, that energy to go out there and to preach the gospel and to travel.
And honestly, when you listen to these people talk, they're saying it's like the best time
of their life.
So, you know, even though soul-wining is work, even though it's a sacrifice, even though
there's difficulties, you may get sick, traveling can be difficult, it can be expensive, there's
time off work, you get back from a vacation like this and you have to work way hard to
get back into the routine of things, there's real sacrifices there, but at the same time,
it's very rewarding, it's a very rewarding experience and so we as a church don't want
to just sit here and talk about the 150 missionaries we all give 10 bucks to a month, we'd rather
talk about the soul-winning that we're doing and we're trying to encourage you to go out
there and you to do the soul-winning and so I hope that by doing these testimonies
and having people share this stuff, it kind of just gets you fired up to want to do some
soul-winning of your own and look, even if you can't go to a foreign country, you just
become a regular soul-winner, just get plugged into going out and evangelizing in your local
area and preaching the gospel.
We live in Texas and I'll be honest with you, it is a very receptive state, especially compared
to other places in the United States and so you still have a great opportunity if you
put in work, if you put in effort, if you want to get people saved, you will get people
saved. And so, you know, there's really not an excuse. There are places in this world
that would be very difficult. I mean, you have to put 20 hours in, just even talk to
somebody, but not here and of course when you travel, sometimes you can accomplish in
a week how much you could accomplish in months or even a year's time, so winning in the United
States. I think Brother Sonny was telling me in his week in the Philippines, he was
basically getting the same amount of work done, of salvations done in that time than
like all of last year. And for him, that's big because he did great last year and put
in a lot of work and got a lot of people saved. So, you know, really these missions trips
can't be promoted more highly than we're doing. I mean, I'd love to hear testimonies from
everybody, but you guys, you know, ask these people, talk to them, pray about it, go on
missions trips, go soul winning here. You know, that's what our church is about. We
emphasize soul winning. We're not going to stop. And so we really, we really hope that
we give that zeal to other people. Two other things I wanted to say real quick, brother
evangelist first in Oklahoma City today preaching. And so if you want to check out his sermons,
you can. And then the second thing I was going to say is we put in our fellowship room, this
kind of background drop wall that we have from our marriage conference. And I've left
it in there only because we had the ice issue and then people have been sick and stuff.
But this is kind of the last week. So if you wanted to take a picture with it, you can.
But also if you participated in that event and you wanted to give us a testimonial after
the morning service, we could still do that. I think Brother Tim was going to help me with
those as well. But if you want to just give a quick testimonial, you're welcome to do
so. Some people have asked. I think we'll probably plan to do another event like that
in the future again. I think most of the people enjoyed it or said positive things. Maybe
they're just lying to me. I don't know. But, you know, honestly, it seemed like people
had a good time and they enjoyed it. And so it was a lot of fun to participate in. It
was a little bit disappointing that the weather caused some people to not be able to participate.
And I get that. But hopefully, in the future, we can plan it out with lots of time. And
maybe the weather will be more gracious to us and people can participate in something
similar because I think I had a good time. And I think a lot of other people did as well.
So that's really all I have. Big announcement today. I'm sorry. There was a lot of announcements
today. Bigger time. But I'll still preach long anyways. All right. So go ahead and turn
in your Psalm binders to Psalm 67, Psalm 67. And we'll sing our third song for the morning.
Psalm 67 will be passed around. You can turn your Bibles to 1st Thessalonians chapter
5. That's 1st Thessalonians chapter 5. Thessalonians 5, the Bible reads, "But of the times and
the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly
that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace
and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child,
and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness that that day should overtake
you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light and the children of the day. We are
not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us
watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are
drunken in the night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate
of faith and love, and for in helmet the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us
to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether
we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore, comfort yourselves together
and edify one another, even as also ye do. And we beseech you, brethren, to know them
which labor among you and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem
them very highly in love for their work's sake, and be at peace among yourselves. Now
we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly. Comfort the feeble-minded. Support
the weak. Be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any man, but
ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves and to all men. Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus
concerning you. Quench not the spirit, despise not prophesying, prove all things, hold fast
that which is good, abstain from all appearance of evil, and the very God of peace sanctify
you holy. And I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.
Brethren, pray for us. Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss. I charge you by the Lord
that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you. Amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven, I pray, Lord God, that you bless the sermon
this morning and give Pastor Shelley the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit. Help us to apply
this sermon to our lives and give us ears to hear the message and to be better Christians
from this day forward. We love you in Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen. I want to look back
at verse number 12 here in this epistle says and we beseech you brethren to know them which
labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly
in love for their works sake and be at peace among yourselves. Now in first Thessalonians
chapter five we kind of just get a lot of just general admonishments. They're not necessarily
all just intertwined and related. It's just kind of like lots of good ideas and lots of
good tips and in this specific passage verses twelve and thirteen it's kind of like the
one thought of leadership in church in general. We should have a positive attitude towards
that we should according to the Bible esteem them very highly in love and then it gives
a reason for their works sake and the title of my sermon this morning is this why we love
pastors, why we love pastors and the text has already given us the answer what was the
answer for their works sake that's the reason why we love pastors and that's why we should
love pastors of course sometimes people can love pastors for the wrong reason sometimes
people can despise pastors and they're not actually taking into account what the Bible
is saying here that they should actually be esteeming them very highly in love because
of their works sake or for their works sake and so you know we can look at this a few
different angles but it's the same conclusion that we're going to have the most respect
and the most love for pastors that are doing the works and we're going to kind of lose
respect and love for the pastors that are not doing the works but obviously you could
also have a pastor that's doing great works and for some reason you have the wrong emotion
and that's what the admonishment is saying is the admonishment is here that if you have
a pastor that's doing what the text is saying here then your attitude towards that person
should be to highly esteem them for their works sake and so this is just kind of a
we're testing ourselves this morning and we're trying to see do I have the right opinion
towards pastors and you know what I'm what I'm not trying to say is we love all pastors
that's not what the text even says the text doesn't say that we have the same feeling
towards every single pastor the Bible is saying that we should highly esteem and love the
pastors that are doing the works and that's why we love that particular pastor and that's
why we have a high respect for that particular pastor is because of their work sake now here's
the question what are the works then like what does that even look like what are we
talking about and I'm going to prove this morning you know why I believe the number
one reason why you love a pastor for their work sake which work we're talking about is
that of preaching now I want to go to first Timothy chapter number five go to first Timothy
chapter number five the Bible could not be clearer that the pastor's primary job primary
role is that of preaching the word of God is preaching the Bible and so why should you
really love a pastor why should you really look up to a pastor why should you have deep
feelings of respect and admiration for a pastor it should be because of his preaching that
should be the reason why you have a positive emotion and why you love that particular man
of God look at first Timothy chapter 5 verse 17 the Bible says let the elders that rule
well be counted worthy of double honor now elders here is in the context of a pastor
so we're talking about pastors pastors should be counted notice this worthy of double honor
now I'll be honest the primary application of this verse is meaning that they should
be double paid that's what it means but obviously honor in general goes along with the same
idea of respect so that's why it's kind of related giving honor unto someone is many
times meaning literally giving them money you know someone does a service for you you give them a
quote honorarium and the honorarium is because you're respecting the person so you know like
and this is just a tip and honestly most people do a very good job at this I'm not this is not
because someone didn't do this okay but I'm just saying like a pastor will typically do lots of
services for people and they don't get paid they just do it because that's just their job right
but typically what is customary or what you're supposed to do you're supposed to give them an
honorarium so someone goes to a pastor and says hey will you marry us then you know they just you
know they obviously if it's a church member in good standing and it makes sense then they
should typically say yes there could be situations where the pastor says refuse
but obviously they agree they're not going to say like hey you have to give me ten thousand dollars
to marry you or something like i think that's kind of weird there are probably pastors out
there that charge to do weddings and stuff like that but in general it's kind of a free service
right but then what's what's the right thing to do is then after the service has been performed
you give them some kind of a gift or money or something like that as a show of respect for
their time for their work for the effort that they put in it's just you give them an honorarium
they do a funeral you give them an honorarium you know there's certain things that if you ask this
pastor to do even though he agrees to do it for free and there's no obligation he don't have to
that's the right thing to do and between us pastor friends often we'll ask you hey will you come
preach for me or hey will you come do this thing for me and like they're doing work for us you know
our church tries to do our best to always give a very good honorarium unto pastors that come preach
for us even though there's no obligation i've never called a pastor friend and said hey will you come
preach for me and he's like well it's it's two thousand dollar minimum you laugh that is that
is real there are many pastors even in the ifb world that'll say i will only preach for you
if you pay all my expenses and you do all this stuff like they will charge for you know to come
you have to pay all their expenses you have to do all this stuff and look i still try to even just
do that anyways it's not like i i'm really not even offended entirely but i'm just saying like
that is how some people act and again i don't want to act like that i don't want to be this kind of
person hey it's if you know if it makes sense and whatever i just try to go out and help people and
look there's been plenty of times where i've gone out and preach for people or help people and they
give me no money joe jones i mean there's there's lots of people that you know will do this kind of
stuff and and again look i'm only saying that not to shame the person i just don't like the person
he's a false prophet teacher so you know that's why i said but i'm just saying like if i was a
friend of mine and they didn't pay me and there's it's been that way i don't i'm not gonna get mad
at them it's whatever you know who cares that's not the reason why i'm a pastor i'm not a pastor
to see if i can just go around and just you know get a couple thousand dollars or 500 bucks or a
gift card somewhere you know like that's not my stick okay i don't even like traveling that much
but this is what you do because you respect the person for their work's sake they came out unto
you they preached the bible unto you they performed your your wedding and i always put a sermon
when i do the wedding they do the funeral they're preaching at the funeral and what do you do you
you honor them because of their work's sake because of their preaching because of what they did
the word of god thundered forth and you give them an honorarium this is this is just makes sense
okay now it says let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor i
you know honestly i'm not offended by pastors getting paid or pastors getting paid well or
pastors getting paid double because you know what the bible says that should just be expected it
says let the elders that rule well be counted worthy this means that you if you have a negative
attitude toward a pastor being paid you're the problem if you have a problem with a pastor
getting paid double you're the problem because it doesn't say just be like i kind of i'll tolerate
it no no let them be counted worthy meaning like you want this to happen you're excited about this
happening you're you're like positive about this happen you don't have a negative attitude about
this and look this is just for some reason just grinds the gears of so many people they're just
like ah this one pastor he gets paid do you get paid at your job you get paid look what's more
important the work of god or your secular job you delivering food from mcdonald's at uber what's
more important work and then you're disgruntled about a guy getting paid to drop off mcdonald's
at someone's door you know and it's like oh that's fine but i'm mad at a pastor who's preaching the
word of god and he gets paid you know that doesn't make sense if you think about it logically number
one plus it shows that you have like a disdain for the things of god or the house of god and look
it's just the wrong attitude it's a bad attitude we should count pastors worthy of double honor
now notice what it says though especially they who labor in the word and doctrine so it's saying why
do we have this opinion why do we want this pastor to be worthy of double honor why do we love them
so much why do we respect them so much why do we want to pay them so much because of their preaching
because they're laboring in the word and doctrine so if there was a pastor out there that's not
laboring in word is not laboring in doctrine is not preaching the word of god then that's when i
would say you know i don't really feel like this guy's really worth his pay he's worth his weight
he's really pulling his weight he's really you know i'm kind of having a problem with him being
paid not because he's being paid because he's not doing a good job and isn't that how we all feel
isn't that you go to work and your boss thinks you're not doing a very good job he's frustrated
with how much he's paying you you get frustrated if you hire someone and they're not doing a very
good job and in the same vein in the same way hey pastors though that are doing a good job
you better not have a bad attitude about them getting paid or their money that's why we love
we love them we can't give them enough money because we just want to make sure that the
preaching is good the preaching is the word of God that they're laboring in the word they have
the time and the effort and the energy to be able to put into the word of God and they're not
distracted with all these other things and all this other time and just chasing you know do we
really need pastors to go out there and just have to like do uber eats on the side just to make a
living or do we want him to just read the Bible a little bit more we want him to get his doctrine
right it's like it's like I would rather pay the guy all the money and have the right doctrine
than pay him nothing and have bad doctrine right like what what are we doing here the the doctrine
and the word of God is the most important thing here okay now again me personally I I don't think
that like I'm not getting paid double honor from the church and I'm not saying that I there's
anything wrong with someone doing that I'm saying these things because it's the right thing to
preach you know the apostle Paul didn't even get paid at all for the most part he did get paid
don't take me wrong but he didn't get paid a lot of times or didn't get paid always not because he
wasn't worthy because sometimes he was just setting an example for himself so that you know people
would realize hey I need to work hard too that's one of the reasons why I did it another reason
could just be simply a church just can't afford it or you know you look at a small church plant
or a poor church or a church that's going through a hard time it's like you don't want to stress
them out anymore financially and he doesn't necessarily need it so he doesn't impose that
on them and again for our church and for our place you know I don't want to put any more
financial burden on our church than I necessarily have to because I love being able to use excess
funds to have awesome conferences and awesome events and to have people going out and doing
all kinds of soul winning you know and you can't have it both ways you can't necessarily always
have both and for me it's like hey I'd rather just pick up some slack on my end so that we can just
as a church just be running full speed as a church we can just invest that much more money into
conferences and so on I think we spent like over a hundred and twenty thousand dollars last year
on just conferences and soul winning events that's a lot of money I mean that's a lot that's more
money than some people's salaries you know and it's like that's a lot of money but look we did a lot
and we accomplished a lot you know take away that hundred and twenty thousand dollars and what would
our numbers look like what would our efforts and energies be looking like and then you know people
want to act like it's always worth the soul how about fourteen thousand souls how much that what
is that worth right and it's like hey we want to put this effort energy so of course a pastor has
the discretion and has the ability to decide and to determine you know what is going to be the
right way to allocate funds but let me tell you something if a pastor is allocating funds
to himself so that he can preach the right bible and the right doctrine we should never
criticize them for that i'm not saying that i'm even doing that i'm saying that even if if someone
was doing that or i was doing that there is nothing wrong with that we should count them worthy of
double honor now the preaching is not right if the doctrine is not good you know then we can take
the person to task on that particular issue but it's not about the money it's about the preaching
it's about the doctrine it's about them laboring in the word are they preaching that which is right
now go through to Ecclesiastes chapter 12 go to Ecclesiastes chapter number 12 we need to have
these doctrines right in our minds in our hearts and i think that you know even some of the things
i just said this morning are like taboo to people our pastors don't want to talk about them obviously
it could make somebody feel uncomfortable but i'm the type of person that i like to talk about
uncomfortable things so you know i'm the kind of person that i like to just say what you know
needs to be said and so that's just kind of how i am but also you know what we should not be
uncomfortable just saying what the bible says have you noticed that i've just been saying what the
bible said it's not like i'm just up here just like randomly giving you ideas we're like reading
the bible and just saying what the bible means and applying it okay. Ecclesiastes chapter 12
verse 10 the bible says the preacher sought to find out acceptable words and that which was
written was upright even words of truth the words of the wise are as goads and as nails fastened
by the masters of assemblies which are given from one shepherd and further by these my son be
admonished of making many books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh so this
is just kind of like from one preacher to another the advice that's being given here is he's saying
hey creatures need to make sure that what they're saying is right and i'll just be honest with you
the the one thing i think the hardest about in my sermon prep is just is what am i saying true
that's why i care about the most not as it polished not that he accidentally put
some strong language in there or something not you know like there's a lot of things you can
think of not are people going to feel comfortable do people like how i said it do people like all
this stuff i don't even think about dynamics for a second they just come out as i'm going
you know i think about this is what's going in my head is that true is that true is that right and
of course i always make verbal mistakes and i say things inaccurate sometimes but i'm in general
that's what i'm most concerned with and that's what i want to do and of course i make mistakes
there's sometimes i say things i'm trying to remember facts on the top of my head and i get
them wrong or i misspeak and i and i do those things and that's what embarrasses me the most
is when i say something that's not true that's what embarrasses me the most that's the most
embarrassing thing as a preacher is you say anything is just not true i've sometimes said
things that really offended people but then i thought about it and i'm like it's true though
and then i've said things that are not offensive that just weren't true and like i'm just being
honest i feel way more embarrassed saying something that's not accurate even if people
didn't mind even if nobody's offended than offending a lot of people but then what i said was
actually true and i'm just gonna be honest that is my style of preaching that's what i believe in
and that's what the bible is emphasizing here again and notice that the pastor and the preacher
it's it's not really emphasizing any work other than what making sure what they're saying they're
they're seeking out acceptable words the words of truth that means the word of god and then they're
using these words of god as goads meaning they're nailing things down and locking things that they're
locking down doctrine they're they're fastening doctrine they're making sure everybody has sound
doctrine that they're a fundamentalist they actually believe what the bible says and they
understand it and it's clear and it's not going anywhere it's steadfast it's unmovable i mean
when you got a roof that's kind of what i think of when i'm thinking like these goads and nails
you know fastened by masses and you know when you got the roof nailed down it's steadfast it's
unmovable that's what you want you don't want things loose and electrical you don't want a loose
wire you want that wire nut on that electrical wire perfect just dialed in tight strong i was
watching an electrician that's like a professional do some wiring and man i fell out of my league
when i because i'm you know a poor man's handyman or a free man's handyman whatever but i was
watching this guy work on electrical and just doing simple things just like simple wiring
things at one point because typically i do all my own stuff i had him to help me with some kind of
janky stuff in my house because it's weird but i was just watching him just twist the wires just
like so perfectly and just before he put the wire nut on it just like looked so beautiful and he was
using the tool and it was just like wow that's why you know we have professionals you know because
after he put the wire nut there i'm thinking like this guy put this electric wire together it's not
going to come loose there's not going to be a problem and so i learned from that i said hey i
want to implement that kind of a strategy you know you watch people that are craftsmen at building
and construction you know not all construction is the same not all buildings the same and it's like
he's saying you're a wise you know person here a master of assembly what is this this is guy that
is really good at building things and when he builds something he doesn't want to have to build
it again because it was built well this is important in computer programming and software
as well that good software once it's built you don't have to touch it again you don't have to
keep redesigning it you don't have to constantly just like put duct tape and glue and and it's
called spaghetti code is what it is it's like the the terminology you don't have to constantly have
to like fix all these problems and bugs and issues and it doesn't make sense and it's all over the
place you want a solid foundation just like you don't want to keep redoing the foundation of your
house you want to do the foundation your house once one dime in your life in the same way when
you're building things you want to have done once and i've gone through the hard road of laying
down foundations and then be like well that was a crappy foundation i need to redo it like i you
know we were doing this college thing and uh i i'm really excited about it i'm trying to promote
these like college soul winning events and i'm trying to like organize all these people doing
these college soul winning events but i was i was putting it on this like website of ours it's like
a wordpress website and in developer land you know wordpress is like a cuss word okay so i and i
really hate wordpress personally but i was just trying to do it and then we just start getting
people that are like emailing us all the time and responding and like all these events and i'm not
even doing a very good job with it and just become cumbersome and i'm like this is the wrong solution
and so the last few days i've just been working on building a brand new event system
that i'm pretty excited about i'm not ready to unveil it but i'm built an entire event system
and it's going to be super cool it's going to be super awesome and i think it's going to really
help soul winning in the future but here's the thing it's going to be built on a good foundation
it needs to be masterfully assembled so that it can actually work really really well the problem
is that when you don't put in the time you don't put in the effort you don't put in the energy to
have the right foundation everything gets wonky you've ever done construction have you ever done
building homework modeling you know it's like the floor is not level or you go into a room
and it's weird it's like the corner it's not actually a 90 degree corner at the wall it's
somehow like this and then it's like what in the world and you start like trying to put flooring in
you start trying to put trim you start you're just like thinking like who built this and then
you're like obviously not legal people i'm just kidding but it's just like what in the world is
this kind of wonky and look whenever whenever the wall doesn't have a perfect 90 degree corner you
know you have to do you have to cut the tile weird and then you have to cut the trim weird
and then you have to you're like having to make all these compromises because it's all screwed up
and the floor is not level and then you have to make another compromise and then when the
floor is not level well then the tile could crack because you put weight on it and the weight's not
evenly transferred and so it just starts just like turning into a nightmare this is what happens when
you have a pastor that has bad doctrine just just the corner of the room is off doctrinally
and then pretty soon it's the trim and then it's the tile and then it's the paint and then it's
just everything and you're just thinking like why does this room look like a fun house why is this
room just such a disaster why is everything crumbling why is everything breaking it's because
if you don't have the right foundation if you don't build things right the first time well it
gets way off and let me tell you something there are so many preachers and pastors today that are
building on an uneven foundation they're building with all kinds of crazy assembly and it throws
everything off that's why doctrine is so important that's why the pastor and the preacher needs to
make sure that what they're saying is right and saying is true because if they say things that
aren't true it's going to screw everything up and if our whole lives are based on verse 13 look look
what this says let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter fear God and keep his commandments
for this is the whole duty of man if our whole job in life is to be afraid of God and follow
his commandments then we want to make sure that the pastor is encouraging us to what fear God
and keep his commandments if he's not teaching the commandments right if he's off on doctrine
well then you're going to get screwed up if he's not emphasizing the fear of God and why it's
important to follow those commandments then you may decide to to go wayward or to not do them and
not observe them that's why the preaching is so important that's why you need to be thundering
forth and emphasize and look we all try to read our bibles and stuff but most of us are so busy
and most of us aren't putting that much effort and energy that honestly most people's diet is
just what's being preached to them and most people's you know their diet of being whatever's being
preached to them if they're just getting a bad diet from the pastor or the preacher they're going
to get really off now look if you're reading your bible faithfully if you're reading your bible an
hour a day you're memorizing lots of scripture even bad preaching is going to have a hard time
screwing you up too much but it still can but i'm telling you most people are just not like that
most people are not reading the bible faithfully most people are not studying the word of god most
people are not thinking about doctrine on their own and so that whatever they're hearing whatever
is being preached to them is actually forming most of their ideas most of their thoughts and
look i know that you like to pride yourself on being really smart but let's just be honest how
much have you learned just from preaching i mean just think about it like think where you were
doctrinally before you started hearing really good preaching and then think where you are now
and realize it wasn't you magically just figuring everything out realizing that you probably took
a pretty big journey through something called preaching and not just preaching great preaching
that's why you're here that's why you have good doctrine is because of people just spoon feeding
you great great doctrine the second to me the chapter four you know doctrine is often likened
under food in many cases and in america we get to go to a lot of restaurants there's a lot of
places that you can go out to eat and you can eat skillfully prepared food just like that you can
have food that you didn't even have to do hardly anything for that is just ready on the table for
you but if you think about the process from the raw ingredients to what you're actually consuming
it was a lot of steps to get there i mean when you're eating anything virtually it took a lot a
lot of process a lot a lot of work i mean talk about just a steak i mean that cow had to be
bird then it had to eat all this grass and then it had to be finished and then it had to be
slaughtered and then had to be butchered and then it had to be packaged and then it had to be
you know just cleaned up and then if it was like brisket specifically i mean brisket takes a lot
of effort to make it taste good because it's a tough meat so you have to actually like season
it well and put all this time and energy you have to pay a lot of money for potentially like good
cooking materials whether that be if you're gonna do over like a offset grill smoker or something
like this and that's how a lot of texas brisket is prepared it takes a lot of time management
effort and then you go in you can just walk in to a place that sells brisket they already have it
cooked and ready it's literally ready to order you really walk in obviously there could be a big
line but assuming you could walk right to the counter you can literally in like two minutes
order and be eating just delicious brisket like that but it took i mean just so much work and
effort and energy to get you to consume that in the same way many of us we didn't see the process
of the word of god being smoked and processed and cooked and slaughtered and cleaned up and
seasoned and all this stuff you just show up and you just get to eat the brisket you don't even know
what happened to you you know and it's just like but this is we have to realize i love the places
that make great brisket i'm thinking like i love you guys i'm not sitting here you know having the
great brisket and being like i don't like the building i mean hurtado barbecue no one has ever
ever ever said i love the building it's like this shack that's too small that's in an inconvenient
place the parking sucks you know it sounds like steadfast baptist church it's like too cramped
the parking's terrible the building's off it's like i don't even the atmosphere is rough it's
always too crowded but you know what i'm not going there for the building and think think about how
much of a a weirdo you'd be to just that's what you're complaining about you just get to eat this
like amazing brisket and you're sitting here and you're complaining about the building or something
it's like but that's how people are with christianity that's how people are when their
spiritual journey is that they want the nice building they want the nice place but you know
you know who chooses atmosphere over the food quality children children's they want to go to
the mcdonald's play place right like you could have brisket skillfully prepared no play place
they're like you could have chicken nuggets i don't even it's hard to even call them chicken
at mcdonald's i don't even know what's in it but play place right because they're just more
interested in that you know and look even women can be like this where they go to a restaurant
and they want to go to where it's beautiful like they want to go where it's the the atmosphere it's
just like i just love the atmosphere and it's so beautiful and it's so but it's like but the food's
terrible and it's like us as men we're not sitting here like man i just love the ambiance of this
restaurant we're sitting here like man i just want good food you know there's there was a restaurant
me and my wife were talking about it was hat creek burger or something like this who knows what i'm
talking about this hat creek burger it's like the atmosphere is really appealing for families
because they kind of have this like really cool like place where you can go out and play and
they've got like play sets and like the kids love it kids think it's awesome but i have to be honest
with you the burgers suck okay the food is just kind of awful sorry this is not an endorsement
of hat creek right but you know an alternative like shake shack their burgers are awesome and i was
thinking like man it would be nice if these places could like combine forces or something like you
know or it's like hey hat creek learn from this place but then i kind of had a woe moment because
it's like yeah but if if hat creek had those kind of burgers it would be too crowded you know like
everybody would want to go there it'd be like too too too many good things in one place but still
you know at the end of the day it's like many people are choosing to go for the ambiance
or the atmosphere over the food quality and i'm using this analogy because it's how a lot of
churches are today a lot of people they're wanting to go to gateway because of the ambiance and look
gateway is in southlake gateway is on like multiple acre property that is probably just
some of the nicest property in this area their building is fabulous there are accoutrements and
just the sound quality and the seating and the speakers and then just just the cool factor the
parking they're parking for days but it's like what's the food quality there the food quality
there it's like red 40 the food quality there is soy leptican the food quality there you can't
even pronounce it it's so weird it's a bunch of hawk phlegm and who knows what's in it and
you're thinking like is any of this even food is any of this is is is there an organic option
it's like no it's like there's not even it's it says 100 juice but it's zero percent juice in it
there's 100 Jews in it you know what i mean that's what's really in it and look we should realize
like why do i not like gateway well number one their pastor robert morris is a pedophile
convicted pedophile that pled guilty okay so just there's the facts it's like there's a good reason
not to like him but you know it's another reason not to like him because of his preaching look i
already liked him way before i knew he was a pedophile i already didn't like him because
i knew his preaching was bad his preaching was wrong and i didn't highly esteem robert morris
in love for his building for all the acreage for all the wonderful accoutrements of their building
you know what i didn't like about him his preaching because we should highly esteem a pastor and love
for their works sake for their preaching because that's what matters it's the preaching it's the
word of god it's the bible that matters and you know what it's not all this other fluff second
timothy chapter number four you turn there look at verse number two this is the instructions
to the pastor preach the word be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long
suffering and doctrine notice the admonishment to the pastor is to preach it's about doctrine
it's about the bible it's about the word of god look at first timothy four just flip back a page
or two first timothy four look at verse 12 let no man despise thy youth but be thou an example of
the believers in word and conversation and charity and spirit and faith and purity till i come give
attendance to reading to exhortation to doctrine what is he saying you guys may be reading the
bible you guys need to be exhorting the congregation to change you need to make sure that you're laying
down doctrine what is he telling the pastor preach preach the word of god it's the bible
it's doctrine verse 14 neglect not the gift that is envy which was given to you by prophecy with
the laying on of the hands of the presbytery now think about this obviously i think there's a
special gift given unto men of god that have had laid hands laid on them and typically what's
understood at least in fundamental circles not pentacosal circles is that they're getting a
special gift of the holy ghost that they're getting an extra empowerment a boost of the
holy ghost but what what is the job of the holy ghost anyways what is the whole point of the
holy ghost he's not for you to roll around on the floor and bark like a dog he's not he's not to go
and tell you to buy the red corvette and not the blue one he's to guide you into all truth he's to
help bring into remembrance all things whatsoever christ commanded it's to bring the bible into his
mind and his heart why because he's supposed to preach the bible and that's why we talk about
spirit-filled preaching is somebody that's preaching what the bible says they're preaching
what the holy ghost is leading them and prompting them and bringing bible verses and flooding into
their minds into their hearts and they're preaching the word of god and not to neglect the gift that
was given to you because if you just get up here and preach your opinion well then the holy ghost
has nothing to work with then the holy ghost isn't going to be doing anything it's not going to be
spirit-filled preaching and let me tell you something there's just a lot of garbage preaching
in this world because it's not spirit-filled they're neglecting the gift that was given to them
hey you have this gift why don't you use it and preach what the bible says
and let me tell you something you're always going to preach with more authority when you're
preaching what the bible says because you can just know it's right when you preach your opinion it's
weak watered down umbs i don't know maybe i kind of thought so maybe i'll check later that's what
it sounds like when it's not spiritual preaching you know when they heard jesus christ's preaching
they were saying this is different because he's speaking with authority never a man spake like
this man spake as they said about the lord jesus christ and you know what the bible says to rebuke
with all authority that's an instruction given unto pastors not just the lord jesus christ i
get it that we conflate these ideas and think oh well jesus of course he can preach with authority
no no no every single man that has an opportunity to preach should preach with authority because
they're preaching the bible and the bible's giving them that authority and they're preaching the
truth and when you know that what you're saying is what the bible is saying you can preach with
authority and we need preachers to not neglect the gift that's been given under them and to
preach the word of god with power with authority what is powerful preaching it's what the word of
god says it's the truth it's right look truth can slice through lies like that weak preaching just
goes over people's heads they walk away confused they don't know what to do they make no changes
in their life they stay on the course that they were already headed on they they're in the same
trajectory that they were already headed on what does powerful preaching do it can it can course
correct it can help keep you on the right path it can help keep you staying on the same path
it's going to make you steadfast unmovable always abounding in the work of the lord
look you come to steadfast baptist church you come three times a week you listen to the preaching
and then you put it into practice i guarantee you're going to keep going so winning you're going
to you're going to stay on the right path you're going to be steadfast you're going to be unmovable
you're going to always be abounding in the work of the lord people that get away from a good church
get away from good preaching they stop going so winning they stop reading their bible they
stop following god's commandments they stop fearing the lord they stop doing these things
because there's a correlation to good preaching and being on the right path and producing the
right kinds of fruits and that's why it's important to go to a church where the pastor is emphasizing
what the bible's emphasizing and hey we need pastors like timothy here that are not going to
neglect the gift that they've been given a gift use it he says meditate upon these things give
thyself holy to them that thy profiting may appear to all notice he works super hard and then his
profiting appears to all so it's obvious the ones that are laboring in the word and doctrine and
then we can highly esteem them in love for their work's sake and then we can count them worthy of
double honor as the bible is saying and we can appreciate the words of truth that they've sought
out very diligently we can appreciate the the masterful assembly that they've done of their
words and of their preaching we can appreciate the gift that god has given them of the holy ghost to
you know remind them of bible verses and to put them together and to guide us all into truth
and of course god gets all the glory because if you're preaching the word of god that's where
the glory is coming from and you know it it takes a humble person to just say a humble pastor to
just say you know what i'm not going to get up and say what i think tomorrow this morning i'm going
to get up and say what this thinks i'm not going to get look many times most of the time when i'm
thinking about sermon ideas or i'm coming with ideas i'm just like okay that sounds cool that's
right and then i'll go to the bible and i'm like yeah it's a little off my opinion is wrong my
opinion is not exactly how the text is saying it i need a i need a line to the bible's opinion
and most of the time it's just in my mind i'm i'm softer than the bible i'm just telling you
that's how it is i'm a little softer i'm a little weaker i have more caveats i have more excuses
and the bible's more just like no it's this is this is how you should feel about it no thine eye
shall not pity you know it's just like this is how you should actually approach this subject this is
how you should actually feel and then obviously there's even times sometimes where you kind of
like you know strike them down god and he's like give him grace you know look we use the bible to
balance ourselves to say like hey i don't know if i'm exactly right on this i don't know if i have
the right opinion hey i kind of have this idea what does the bible say that's what's important
not what we think we shouldn't lean on our own understanding we should trust the lord that's what
we should do we should put all of our confidence and faith in whatever the bible says now he says
this in verse 16 take you to thyself and unto the doctrine continue in them for in doing this thou
shall both save thyself and notice this and then that hear thee how in the world they're going to
hear you if you don't preach what you preach is going to save people that's why it's important
to go to a church where the pastor is going to preach things that can actually help you
again we're not talking about salvation of going to heaven albeit that could be a part but in
general it's saving us from the corruptions of this world it's saving us from the deceitfulness
of sin it's saving us from all the destructions of the flesh that we're going to go down if we
don't take heed to God's word if we don't fear God if we're not following his commandments you
know if we honor our father and our mother our days are going to be long upon the land which the
Lord by God give us us and and the end of the day if we're not hey it's going to shorten us
what's going to save us from that early destruction what's going to save us from an early death what's
going to save us from STDs what's going to save us from you know just destroying our lives personally
what's going to just help us from being lazy and apathetic and selfish and just carnal it's the
preaching of God's word that's going to save us from these bad attitudes and these bad spirits
and bad you know doctrines of feminism and weird stuff and she can leave so stupid i want to be
safe from that i want she can stay how about that why don't we preach he can stay and she can stay
right i mean we want to say things with authority not just like all these hypotheticals of bad
worst case scenarios who cares about that kind of stuff people that are going to rebel are going
to rebel we need to preach what the bible says to do so that the good people can at least take
heed i want to go to john chapter 21 john chapter 21 there's a lot of bible on the subject and it's
important that you understand why why would i go why do i go to church just go for the preaching
you know there's a there's a million reasons to go to a church there's a million reasons not to go
to church why should you go preaching why should you love some pastors more than others because of
the preaching that's that's how it should be and look the people that i really love you know the
pastors that i have the most respect for the pastors that i care about the most i'll tell you why
because they're preaching look at john 21 look at verse 15 so when they had died jesus saith to
simon peter simon son of jonas loveth thou me more than these he saith unto me hey lord who
knows that i love thee he saith unto him feed my lambs what is an instruction to peter feed the
lambs then of course famously feed my sheep feed my sheep three times go to first peter chapter
5 go to first peter chapter 5 matthew chapter 4 uh i'm gonna get to that in just a minute actually
i'm gonna put that aside but first peter chapter 5 brings up the same concept i don't want to get
distracted from this feed my lambs feed my sheep feed my sheep what is the feeding we're feeding
god's word the preaching is a feeding process or you're feeding them the word of god and if
you're preaching your opinion you're feeding them you know the gmo grossly made opinions all right
it's just you want that organic you want the word of god you want that pure you know word of god
and look also we need to be preaching the whole whole bible because just like a child eats kind
of a kid diet and it's not very nutritious and it's not very uh it's typically not as good as
an adult diet you know it's important for you to grow and look if you go to a church where the
pastor's idea the pastor's mind says i just want to grow that's the only thing i want to do i want
our church to grow so he's just going to preach weak shallow lame baby christian sermons that's
what he's going to do primarily well that's going to hurt you you know i have to eat dinner just as
much as my kids have to eat dinner i don't want my wife to make kid dinners only like it's just
it's just chicken nuggets every meal chicken nuggets mac and cheese just just toast with
butter on it cut up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches no no i want to like some legit stuff
i want you know the lasagna i want i want some meat i want she makes meatloaf she makes prime
ribs she makes all kinds of stuff i want the good stuff even if the kids are like care about you
i want the good stuff and look you know what do you really want to come to a church where i'm
catering to the first time visitor my sermon rather than the person that's been here for 10
years and dedicated their life to this church why in the world do i sit here and make a meal for
the first time visitor oh you know the first time visitor i don't care just like my wife puts down
a great meal in front of me and the baby's like i'm like i don't care give it cereal let it not
eat i'm gonna eat this and you know what at stephast baptist church i am not making sermons for
first time visitors in fact most of the time it's just like that's gonna be a rough one for them
but i'm gonna preach it you come to stephast baptist church oh i brought grandma well the sermon is for
grandma but it's mostly for you it's for the person that just wants to hear the bible this person that
wants to grow you know look at first Peter chapter five verse two this is the instruction of the
pastor again the elder feed the flock of god what is the what is the goal to feed them the word of
god to feed them the bible i'm not gonna have you turn there for sake of time but acts 20 verse 28
take he therefore into yourself and to all the flock over which the holy ghost that made you
overseers to feed the church of god which he had purchased of his own blood go ahead to second
timothy chapter four actually now look i don't think i can emphasize this point enough and it's
the biggest point it's the most important point why should we highly esteem pastors for the
preaching for the work's sake but specifically i think i've proved sufficiently that the main
goal the main job the main emphasis that pastors are given is to feed the feed the flock feed the
lambs feed the sheep feed the church to preach the word of god to labor in doctrine i mean it
could not be emphasized more that the main instruction the main goal the main purpose of
a pastor is to preach the word of god to say what is true and to help the the flock grow to not hold
anything back, you know, to spare not, to lift up your voice like a trumpet, to preach
with authority, to preach the truth, to make sure what you're saying is pleasing to God,
not to men.
Not your personal opinion, but what the Bible says.
And look, if a person says I'm leaving this church because of the preaching, amen.
That's the right, that's the right attitude.
I'm going to this church because of the preaching, and I'm not going to this church because of
the preaching.
I love this pastor because of the preaching.
I do not love this pastor because of his preaching.
That is the right opinion.
And, look, you want to make sure, like, where are my emotions?
Where's my heart at?
You know, sometimes you might even think, like, I kind of feel bad not liking this pastor.
He seems like a nice guy.
Yeah, but his preaching is atrocious.
You have the right opinion.
And, but if there's a guy, it's like, man, I learned a lot.
I'm learning a lot from this guy.
He's preaching so many great things to me, and I don't really like him.
You have the wrong heart.
You should highly esteem them and love for their work's sake.
Now, it's not just one work, of course.
There's multiple works, but this is the main work.
I kind of brought up the food analogies, but there's one other analogy that I kind of thought
about this, is when the children of Israel are in the promised land, and you have Solomon
passing the buck down to Rehoboam, his son, there's a split, and you kind of have Jeroboam
and Rehoboam.
And Jeroboam takes 10 tribes with him, and they rebel, and they go up to the northern
kingdom.
And what is Rehoboam's initial reaction is that he wants to go to civil war.
He wants to literally fight and bring them back.
But you know, forgive me on the numbers.
I think it's somewhere around like a half a million troops on both sides.
They're pretty evenly matched, even though it's two tribes versus the other ten.
But it's like, let's just say it's around a half a million troops on either side.
So we're talking about like a million people here.
Like, what's the real benefit of the nation of Israel going to civil war and then just
dwindling down to like 10,000 on both sides because they went to civil war?
That's not going to really help things.
And so God doesn't want Rehoboam to go and attack his brethren and destroy them.
He's just like, you know what?
Just let them, if they're going to rebel, let them go do their thing.
And then we're not just killing just tons and tons of children of Israel over this discrepancy
over this issue.
And, you know, I was thinking about this in the sense of like how we can apply it today.
It's like you kind of have the new IFB and you kind of have the ex new IFB.
You have people that separate and leave and rebel and do all this stuff.
And there could be this temptation to want to just go to war, like go to civil war.
And again, civil war would be like literally like killing people.
And in a spiritual application, it could be, you know, just trying to harm them, taking
vengeance in your own hands in some way.
And look, that's the wrong attitude.
If a church doesn't like us or doesn't want to be your friend, you know what?
We should still want them to just do their thing and serve God or whatever.
And look, it's not like God didn't use the nation of Israel, you know, not the southern
kingdom of Judah, the northern kingdom of Israel.
It's not like you didn't use them to still accomplish things every once in a while.
It's not like they didn't serve God rarely, occasionally, but it was mostly a train wreck
headed in the bad direction.
And if you think about it, you have the ten tribes.
Some of these tribes are really small.
They just instantly just like vanish off the scene.
It's like nobody cares about you anymore.
Nobody even knows what's going on.
And it's like this ex-NUIFB, it's like some of these churches, they're just so small,
they just vanish instantly.
They just like go up like a little vapor.
But even the bigger ones that are going to survive for a little while, you know what?
I'm not at war with them.
I'm not going to go some civil war.
They might still serve God every once in a while.
They might have still some hideout people in there, and we should just kind of leave
them alone.
But you know why I don't want to be their friend?
Because of the preaching, man.
Like look, the other side sucks at preaching.
And I'm not talking about dynamics.
I'm not talking about being eloquent.
I'm not talking about the sound of their voice.
Don't hear me wrong.
I'm not talking about carnal things.
I don't care about that.
And arguably some of them might even have better dynamics than me, might even have a
better voice, might even look more, you know, pastoral behind the pulpit.
They might use less strong language or whatever you, your preferences are.
But you know, at the end of the day, the preaching is trash and I do not highly esteem them in
love for their work's sake because there's nothing to highly esteem.
It's a steaming pile of dung in many cases.
That's why I don't like it.
And you know what?
You should be careful because if you go out and you listen to their garbage, you listen
to their preaching regularly, it will affect you.
Just like eating GMOs, eventually you get cancer and look, cancer doesn't kill you
like that.
Cancer kills you slowly.
And let me tell you something, going to X and Y and B will kill you slowly, spiritually,
maybe even physically, don't be like the rebellious tribes and going off and doing their thing.
Stick with Judah.
Isn't it interesting that most of these churches are kind of north and we're kind of like south?
And I know there's exceptions, but I'm just saying like, we love Pastor Thompson, don't
hear me wrong, but I'm just saying like, it's kind of interesting.
It's like, Northern California, southern California, yeah, you know what I mean?
And just like Illinois, Texas, yeah, and obviously there's weirdos in Texas and I get it.
I'm just saying like, hey, you know, we should not evaluate pastors and preachers on anything
more importantly than they're preaching.
Like the preaching is the number one.
And you know when I start losing respect for people because of their preaching.
And look, I'm not so conceited that if these people preach great sermons, I couldn't admit
it.
I'm not so self-absorbed that if I was, if they were just knocking out of the park,
I would just be like, let's just go join them.
Let's like, that's great.
That's awesome.
This is wonderful.
I hear, I constantly hear like, well, that's not what the Bible says.
Well, that's their personal opinion.
Well, that's not right.
Well, that, this person doesn't read their Bible.
This person doesn't study their Bible.
This person doesn't labor.
You know what?
I'm going to lose respect for this person.
I'm going to lose love for this person because of their preaching.
And you know what?
The right opinion is to have love for the people that have the preaching.
You know, if you're going to go to a church, go to a church that has the good preaching.
I cannot emphasize this point enough.
Secondly, 2nd Timothy chapter 4 verse 5, "But watch thou in all things endure afflictions,
do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry."
Look, a pastor is not an evangelist.
Someone that's only doing soul winning.
That's their main emphasis.
That's what they're primarily doing, is an evangelist.
Okay, evangelism is evangelist.
But the pastor's not an evangelist.
The pastor's a pastor.
But the pastor's still supposed to act like an evangelist at times.
He's still supposed to do evangelism.
He's still supposed to do the work of an evangelist.
And you know what?
If there's a pastor that has great preaching and he's doing the work of an evangelist on
top of that, he's doing a lot of evangelism, getting a lot of people saved, wow, that's
another reason why we should just really love this guy.
We should love pastors that are preaching great sermons and they're doing the work of
an evangelist.
And why would I lose respect for a pastor?
Because he's not preaching good sermons and he's not doing the work of an evangelist.
And you know, another thing I've noticed is how the other side, these other haters, these
people that separate, they do less soul winning, less missions trips, less events.
They de-emphasize preaching the gospel.
They try to put a wet blanket on soul winning.
They criticize soul winning.
They attack soul winning.
They don't want to count numbers.
They don't want to, it's just like, yeah, we get it.
You suck.
Okay.
But for some reason, some people don't get that.
And look, I'm not saying don't do it.
I would love to compete against them.
If they want to go harder, I'll go harder.
Right?
Iron sharpens iron.
But I'm just noticing a pattern again and it's like, why do you lose respect for these
people?
Well, why are they losing a zeal for preaching the gospel?
Why is it that the Lord Jesus Christ looks at the church in Revelation and is saying,
"Hey, I'm going to take away your candlestick because you've lost your first love, you've
left your first love, and therefore I'm going to literally remove your candlestick if you
don't repent."
Why?
Because if a church isn't really going soul winning, we can lose respect for them.
If Jesus Christ loses respect for them, how can I not lose respect for that church?
If you have a church of 300 people doing less evangelism than our church in Oklahoma City
with like 20 people, you're the problem.
You want to sit here and call us violent trashy, but then this other church is just kicking
your butt and soul winning.
I know who I like, I know who I love, I know who I have respect for, and I have no respect
for Pastor Shelley and for Dylan Oz.
It's just Pastor Oz, first of all.
But you know what?
I highly esteem Pastor Oz.
You know why?
Because of his preaching.
His preaching is great.
And because he's doing the work of an evangelist.
I don't care the size of his church.
You know what?
Not that there's a thousand person church, but his preaching is terrible and he's not
doing the work of an evangelist.
I have way less respect for him.
Way less love for him than someone like Pastor Dylan Oz, even if he has a small church.
Even if they lease a shopping center area.
Why?
Because you know what?
He's preaching the word of God because he's doing the work of an evangelist.
You know what?
I'm going to like the people that God likes.
Let me tell you something.
People that are doing the right things are rising stars and the people doing the wrong
things are just crumbling cancer.
So let's see where you are in five years from now.
Quit trying to just wonder if your microwave church is so much better than the slow cook
brisket.
All right?
It might start slow, but boy, when it's ready, you can taste the difference.
Sorry I'm hungry, you know how I am.
You know me.
In Philippians, I'm not going to have you turn there, but he's talking about Timothy
and he says, "For I have no man like mine, and who will naturally care for your state,
for all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ, but you know the proof of
him that as a son with the Father, he hath served with me in the gospel."
The Bible makes it clear that Timothy served in the gospel, that Timothy was supposed to
do the work of an evangelist.
And pastors need to be evangelists themselves, not just, I mean, look, I'm not saying that
I do the most evangelism in our church because I don't, but I would say this, I work pretty
hard at it.
I do do a lot of evangelism.
I try to set a pretty good example.
I mean, I've pretty much gone at least two or three times a week every week since I've
been the pastor of this church.
I mean, I was going every Wednesday, every Thursday, and every Sunday when I had pure
words.
I mean, mostly just Wednesdays and Sundays for me as a regular routine.
Then sometimes I'll just throw in a Saturday or I'll throw in another event or I'll throw
in a missions trip or I'll throw in whatever.
I've gone on lots of missions trips.
I've gone on a Mexico.
And look, do you think that we would be doing as many missions trips if I didn't go to the
Philippines and I never wanted to go to Mexico and I never wanted to go to the Bahamas and
I never did?
Look, I was the first scouting trip to the Bahamas, folks.
Look, why is our church doing this?
The pastor needs to set this example.
And if you have a pastor setting that example, then you better love that guy.
Not because of how he looks.
Not because of your friends with him.
Not because of the church building.
Not because of the size of the congregation.
Look, you should love him for his preaching and you should love him for doing the work
of an evangelist.
Now, I've got a second to be chapter two.
The last one is just kind of a catch-all.
It's just you should love him for his duties.
And look, I'm not going to necessarily belabor any of these points, but just being a pastor
unfortunately has a lot to it.
Like if it was just preaching and evangelism, it would be a much different style job.
And I think that unfortunately most people, this is what they think about pastoring.
They think like, "Oh, I like preaching.
I like to hear myself talk.
I like going soul-winning."
And they're like, "I could be a pastor."
But it's all the other stuff that's real interesting.
And unfortunately there's been even times in my life where I feel like I'm spending
90, 95 percent of my time on duties and not on the other as being a pastor.
There's a lot of crap that sometimes happens, like lawsuits, that's one.
But pastors, they're going to be doing things, they're going to be giving counsel,
just all kinds of counseling, all kinds of administrative things, finances,
just making sure the health of the church is good, kicking people out,
dealing with issues, dealing with problems.
When somebody has a life crisis, you know, they usually call their pastor a lot of times,
and you have to try and help them put their life back together, and sometimes you can't even.
I mean, it can be brutal. I've had a person call me that's on suicide watch, basically,
and then just like moments after the phone call, commit suicide. That's difficult to deal with.
I'll just be honest with you, okay? It's not fun to go through those particular situations.
And how do you comfort the wife that lost her husband and he died? How do you comfort
the children that had to see that horrific event? How do you have to feel as a pastor
knowing that you literally felt like you had this person's life possibly in your hands,
that you could have helped, and then you didn't do a good job? The care of the people,
you know, people don't understand some of those situations. The example that you have to set,
your family, documentaries, there's a new one coming out, Man of God, February 27th,
watch party, do it all right. Books, you know, a lot of pastors make books, online materials,
just even physical materials, events. I mean, hey, dude, events are rough. I just have to be
honest, like I kind of, I kind of like, don't like doing events, only from like the amount of work
that is put into them. But I love the events. So it's like, I don't want to get, I don't,
I'm not going to get rid of it. I'm just kind of like, it's kind of like making a really good meal.
You kind of hate doing the dishes afterwards, but you're just going to do it anyways. And it's just
like, but man, I mean, I feel like we throw some pretty decent events around here. Just saying
weddings, funerals, kid events, spelling bee. I mean, I could just sit here and they, I mean,
it's just like, there's just so many things that go into this. And it's like, look, you got a pastor
that's preaching great sermons, that's doing the work of an evangelist, that's doing counseling
and administration and finances and the health of the church. You know, sometimes you have to be a
real estate guru, you know, trying to find leases and trying to navigate lawsuits and trying to
navigate all the finances and getting money stolen and just like all this nonsense while doing all
the other stuff simultaneously and having church plants and dealing with disgruntled people and
people murmuring and planning all the time and having to call back losers that are attacking
you and lying about you and slandering you and taking pictures of your house and making documents
and sending it out to every single person and people just saying the worst things about you.
Yeah, there's a lot, but it's like why in the world if someone's doing all that would you not
have a positive opinion towards them? You know what you're the problem. Let me tell you something
every pastor I know that I have respect for they do so much behind the scenes that you have no idea
about and I'm only trying to give you a glimpse not because I care to lift myself up because I
don't and I'm not I don't even think I'm necessarily that great of a pastor especially in those
regards but let me tell you something you know what people that are doing this need to be looked
at with love and respect and not just love highly esteem them in love why do we love pastors for
their preaching why do we love pastors for their evangelism why do we love pastors all the duties
that they're doing this is the most important work is the house of god why would we ever want
to diminish that 2nd Timothy chapter 2 look at verse 15 study to show thyself approved unto god
a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth at the end of the day
you know pastors could do all the other stuff though and if the preaching's not right they're
going to be embarrassed 1st Timothy 3 verse 15 last verse i want to i want to use it says this
but if i tarry long if thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of god
which is the church of the living god the pillar and ground of the truth this place is about the
truth and we want we don't want to stop it we want you say man the sermons are long good because
that's what we're emphasizing what does our church emphasize the preaching why because that's what
the bible says what's the second thing the bible tells us to emphasize here evangelism what's the
second thing that we emphasize here evangelism let's look at our bulletin for a second open your
bulletin for a second did you notice that the first thing at the top of the bulletin is the
service times where you can hear the preaching did you notice that the second thing in the bulletin
is what all the soul winning times and then what's the third thing all the duties and hey when this
is rocking you know what you should love that pastor let me tell you something if number one
isn't rocking i don't give a crap what's in sections two and three you know that doesn't
matter to me that's not what's important you know what matters to me number one preaching and we
should highly esteem pastors for their work i hope that maybe you know this sermon can help you just
have a have the right opinion why do i have the emotions i have are my emotions right am i thinking
about things biblically correctly and you know look there are going to be people out there there's
going to be pastors out there that i lose respect for and i lose love for and it's biblical why
because they stopped preaching good sermons because they stopped doing the work of evangelists
maybe they're screwing up their duties some we want to make sure we have the right idea the
right concept the right thing you know some people like go to church for the music ministry
and look that's not our number one thing it's not the music but i'm not saying have a bad music
ministry i love having a good i want to have the best music ministry if i could but you know at
some churches it's only the music ministry and here's the thing that's a bad reason to go to a
church if you say well i like this church only because of the music that's the wrong attitude
i didn't even mention it like i didn't bring it up you know you need to go to church for
for the preaching you need to go to church for the evangelism you need to go to church for
all the other stuff after that let's close in prayer thank you heavenly father so much for giving
us the bible for giving us the word of god i pray that this church would always emphasize the truth
would always emphasize your word that we would not lean on our own understanding but in all our
ways acknowledge the word of god i pray that you would fill the congregation with your holy spirit
that you could guide us all into truth i pray that the preaching from this pulpit would emphasize the
truth no matter who's preaching it the congregation would highly esteem and love the preacher the
person that's giving them the word of god i pray that this church would be zealous of good works
that we would emphasize evangelism to a lost and dying world that we would care about the philippines
that we would care about the caribbean that we care about barbedos that we care about mexico
that we care about texas that we care about cedar hill that we care about the ghetto
that we want to go out and reach the lost soul for the lord jesus christ
and that we would esteem highly esteem those pastors that love evangelism and love the gospel
and love souls and i pray that you would help us to have the right priorities and the right emotions
and that we would set our affections on the right things and that our love would grow
towards the word of god and towards lost souls in jesus name we pray amen amen last song this
morning page 375 in your hymnbooks work for the night is coming page 375 work for the night is
coming it's 375 sing it out loud with us on the first