WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:02.000 The Bible reads, 00:03.160 --> 00:08.800 And I brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 00:08.800 --> 00:15.000 I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it, neither yet, now are ye able. 00:15.520 --> 00:22.440 For you are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envy and strife and divisions, are you not carnal and walk as men? 00:23.040 --> 00:28.480 For while one saith I am of Paul, and another I am of Apollos, are you not carnal? 00:28.960 --> 00:34.840 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believe, even as the Lord gathes to every man? 00:34.840 --> 00:38.880 I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. 00:39.080 --> 00:44.100 So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. 00:44.480 --> 00:50.400 Now he that planteth, and he that watereth, are one, and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. 00:50.920 --> 00:57.240 For we are laborers together with God, you are God's husbandry, you are God's building, according to the grace of God, 00:57.240 --> 01:02.240 which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. 01:02.240 --> 01:10.240 For let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon, for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. 01:10.240 --> 01:18.240 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest, 01:18.240 --> 01:24.240 for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. 01:24.240 --> 01:28.240 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. 01:28.240 --> 01:34.240 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. 01:34.240 --> 01:40.240 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 01:40.240 --> 01:46.240 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. 01:46.240 --> 01:53.240 Let no man deceive himself, if any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise. 01:53.240 --> 02:00.240 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. 02:00.240 --> 02:03.240 And again the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. 02:03.240 --> 02:12.240 Therefore let no man glory in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Sevis, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. 02:12.240 --> 02:15.240 All are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's. 02:15.240 --> 02:18.240 Let's pray. Father God, we thank you dear Lord for the King James Bible. 02:18.240 --> 02:22.240 Thank you for this wonderful church you've given us Lord, and wonderful brothers and sisters you have given us. 02:22.240 --> 02:28.240 Brother Yulisa tonight, and we ask that you please bless him with your Holy Spirit as he preaches on to us in Jesus name we pray. Amen. 02:28.240 --> 02:30.240 Amen. 02:30.240 --> 02:36.240 I just want to start off by thanking Pastor Meher for giving me the opportunity to preach. So it's a great blessing to do so. 02:36.240 --> 02:40.240 And you're there in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, look down at your Bibles at verse number 1. 02:40.240 --> 02:47.240 The Bible says, And I brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 02:47.240 --> 02:59.240 I fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are you able, for ye are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men? 02:59.240 --> 03:04.240 And the title of the sermon this evening is Babes in Christ, Babes in Christ. 03:04.240 --> 03:08.240 And here we see Paul addressing the church at Corinth who we know had many problems. 03:08.240 --> 03:16.240 And if you read the book of 1 and 2 Corinthians we see that you know they were puffed up, there were divisions, they had envying, they had strife. 03:16.240 --> 03:26.240 You know they were questioning the resurrection, they were failing to practice church discipline, they were tolerating sin, you know they were abusing the gifts, they were taking their brethren to court. 03:26.240 --> 03:34.240 They had all kinds of problems and you know just like today there's many churches, even churches that are Baptist churches that have problems. 03:34.240 --> 03:37.240 But the important thing is that we deal with the problems at church. 03:37.240 --> 03:42.240 So we never want to be like the church of Corinth where we just have all these problems and are never dealt with. 03:42.240 --> 03:51.240 And I believe that at this church, you know, when a problem arises, you know, it's dealt with right away and we don't let it turn into a bigger problem. 03:51.240 --> 04:01.240 And you're there in verse 1, I just want to read it again, it says, And I, brethren, cannot speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 04:01.240 --> 04:09.240 And so the sermon I said was Babes in Christ and this is just a reminder of a sermon that you know at one point or another we're all in this stage in our Christian life. 04:09.240 --> 04:17.240 When we get saved we don't automatically start as a grown adult, as mature in the faith, we all start as babes in Christ and this is a process that we all have to go through. 04:17.240 --> 04:25.240 And so this sermon is not just for people that are newly saved, you know that just got saved recently or have been saved for like less than a year. 04:25.240 --> 04:29.240 This is also a sermon for even us that have been in the Christian life longer than five years or ten years. 04:29.240 --> 04:36.240 Because the truth of the matter is that you know even though we've matured in our faith and we learn to live, you know, the Christian life, Christian principles, 04:36.240 --> 04:44.240 there is that danger of regressing, of falling back into old habits, into the old man, you know, falling back into sins of the past. 04:44.240 --> 04:51.240 And so we need to take heed lest we fall. So this sermon is for people that you know recently just got saved, that they're just babes in Christ, 04:51.240 --> 04:55.240 they don't know a whole lot about the Bible, they don't know a lot about Christian principles, 04:55.240 --> 05:02.240 but it's also a sermon for us that have been around you know for a couple of years that we don't fall back into this stage of the Christian life. 05:03.240 --> 05:09.240 And so we see first of all that as a way of introduction, as you might explain this, that we all start off in this stage. 05:09.240 --> 05:12.240 You know we don't get saved and then automatically know to do what's right. 05:12.240 --> 05:16.240 You know there's a lot of things in the Bible that we have to learn as we go. 05:16.240 --> 05:24.240 There's a lot of things that we have to, a lot of habits that we have to develop, a lot of principles that we have to learn in order to mature in our faith. 05:24.240 --> 05:31.240 Now go with me to John chapter, actually go to 1 Peter chapter two, 1 Peter chapter two. 05:31.240 --> 05:37.240 And so when a person gets saved, you know the Bible says that we get saved the moment that we trust in Jesus Christ. 05:37.240 --> 05:43.240 Salvation as a reminder, you know we all know this, but it's not a process. If you're visiting here today, salvation is not a process. 05:43.240 --> 05:48.240 It's not something that we grow into. The Bible says that we're saved the moment that we put our faith in Jesus Christ. 05:48.240 --> 05:54.240 The question was asked once, you know what must I do to be saved? And they said believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. 05:54.240 --> 05:59.240 You know the Bible says in John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, 05:59.240 --> 06:05.240 that whosoever believe it should not perish but have everlasting life. And so when we believe, when we trust in Jesus Christ, 06:05.240 --> 06:10.240 that's the moment that we have salvation. And that's the moment that we start off as babes in Christ. 06:10.240 --> 06:15.240 So again, salvation is not a process. It's not something that we have to grow into or anything like that. 06:15.240 --> 06:23.240 The Bible says, I'm going to read to you from 1 Peter chapter two, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby. 06:23.240 --> 06:29.240 And so here we see that as newborn babes, just like when a person is born physically, they're not born as a mature adult. 06:29.240 --> 06:36.240 And those of us that have children, obviously everybody starts off as a baby. And then when we're children, we have to grow over the years. 06:36.240 --> 06:41.240 We have to be fed milk. We have to be taken care of. These are things that our parents did for us. 06:41.240 --> 06:48.240 And in the same way, when a person is born spiritually, they start off as a baby. They don't start off as a fully grown mature Christian. 06:49.240 --> 06:55.240 This is something that we have to purposely grow into. And it's not like, you know, no illustration is perfect. 06:55.240 --> 07:00.240 Obviously, when a baby is born, over the years, they do mature. They do grow up. 07:00.240 --> 07:05.240 But when it comes to spiritual matters, this is something that we purposely have to do in order to grow in our faith. 07:05.240 --> 07:11.240 So there is that danger of just being in church for many years and remaining as a baby in Christ. 07:11.240 --> 07:17.240 And that's something that we don't want to do. And unfortunately, there's a lot of churches out there, you know, in the old IFB and just churches in general. 07:18.240 --> 07:23.240 That, you know, the pastor, all they give their congregates is the milk of the word. And as a result, you know, the congregates don't grow. 07:23.240 --> 07:29.240 They don't mature. They don't become, you know, mature Christians that are able to discern between good and evil. 07:29.240 --> 07:35.240 And at this church, I believe that we're fed, you know, a balanced diet. We have milk for the newborn babies. 07:35.240 --> 07:40.240 We have meat for those that are mature. And there's all kinds of preaching that we hear on practical living. 07:40.240 --> 07:45.240 You know, last Sunday, we heard a sermon on why things are gay, right? We heard a sermon about the chastisement of God. 07:45.240 --> 07:50.240 And these are all things that we need in order to help us in our Christian life. 07:50.240 --> 07:55.240 And so you're there in 2 Peter, Chapter 1. I think I should go to 2 Peter, Chapter 1. Let me read this to you. 07:55.240 --> 08:12.240 Look down at verse number five. It says, And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and to godliness, brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness charity. 08:12.240 --> 08:20.240 For if these things be in you and a bounty that make they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 08:20.240 --> 08:26.240 But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off and have forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. 08:26.240 --> 08:35.240 And so the Bible does say that we need to grow in our grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to him be glory both now forever and ever. Amen. 08:35.240 --> 08:41.240 And here we see that we need to grow in our faith and we need to add to our faith. We need to go from faith to faith. 08:41.240 --> 08:47.240 And it says that we need to add to our faith virtue, learn how to live right, be a moral and upright person. 08:47.240 --> 08:57.240 It says that we need to add to our to virtue knowledge and to knowledge temperance, knowing how to have self control and be able to constrain ourselves from doing that, which is wrong. 08:57.240 --> 09:01.240 And then we see this to temperance. We need to add patience. 09:01.240 --> 09:09.240 And that's something that as Christians we do need in our Christian life just have this matter of patience, being able to endure difficulties, being able to endure hardness. 09:09.240 --> 09:18.240 That's something that we need as a Christian. And then it says to add golliness and bodily kindness and then to bodily kindness charity. 09:18.240 --> 09:25.240 And so we see the progression of the Christian life that we should have remained as a baby in Christ, even though we all start off as that. 09:25.240 --> 09:33.240 You know, we should add to our faith so that we can mature in our Christian life. Now, go back to First Corinthians, Chapter three, go back to First Corinthians, Chapter three. 09:34.240 --> 09:41.240 I want to go back to verse number two where it says, I have fed you with milk and not with me for hither to you were not able to bear it. 09:41.240 --> 09:48.240 Neither yet. Now are you able for you are yet carnal for whereas there is among you, envying and strive and divisions. 09:48.240 --> 09:53.240 Are you not carnal and walk as men? And like I said in the beginning, this is something that we no matter what. 09:53.240 --> 09:57.240 Right. This is all we all start off as babes in Christ. It doesn't matter. 09:57.240 --> 10:02.240 You know, if you've been in church for X amount of years, if you just got saved recently, you're a babe in Christ. 10:02.240 --> 10:15.240 And the way that you grow is by coming to church, by hearing preaching from the word of God, by you, you know, physically by you purposely reading the word of God, growing, learning how to pray, learning how to live the Christian life. 10:15.240 --> 10:23.240 This is the only way that you're going to get past this stage. And as newborn babies, you know, there's things that we have to learn that we didn't know, especially if you didn't grow up in church. 10:24.240 --> 10:29.240 You know, we didn't we didn't have that habit of just going to church. You know, that wasn't something that we were familiar with. 10:29.240 --> 10:34.240 Maybe some of you guys did grow up going to church and then you got saved later on. Maybe you got saved as a child. 10:34.240 --> 10:46.240 But a lot of us, we got saved later in life and we had to develop those habits of just going to church, being where we need to be, learning how to pray, learning how to see me and others, others, learning how to putting others before us. 10:47.240 --> 10:54.240 And I always bring this up, you know, when I first got to church, one of the first things that I noticed, you know, when pastor gives, you know, the announcements, it's something that we pay attention to. 10:54.240 --> 11:04.240 Right. It's not just white noise, but I was noticing that, you know, they were mentioning, hey, we have service Sunday morning, Sunday night, and then we have midweek Bible study. 11:04.240 --> 11:10.240 And at the time I was new, you know, church wasn't something that I was used to. And to me, three services a week, you know, that seemed like a lot. 11:10.240 --> 11:17.240 Right. And that's something that as newborn babies, we have to develop an appetite. We have to develop that discipline of coming to church. 11:17.240 --> 11:23.240 You see somebody that's still a baby in Christ, somebody that's immature, that's carnal, they don't really see the importance of going to church. 11:23.240 --> 11:29.240 You know, church to them is not a priority. Sometimes they just put it in the backburner. It's just something that they do when they have time. 11:29.240 --> 11:38.240 And that shouldn't be said of us, especially if we consider us mature Christians. We should have that discipline, that character to come to church when we have service. 11:39.240 --> 11:43.240 Now, go to go to First Corinthians, Chapter two, First Corinthians, Chapter two. 11:43.240 --> 11:51.240 And so as newborn babes, this is just something that the Bible calls people that are carnal, people that are recently saved. 11:51.240 --> 11:55.240 And like I said, we all start off in this stage. There's no way around it. 11:55.240 --> 12:00.240 And as newborn babes, you know, this is something that we have to grow past. 12:00.240 --> 12:06.240 Like I said, Christians, when they're first, you know, they first get saved, they don't have those spiritual disciplines. 12:06.240 --> 12:13.240 And the first point that I wanted to make is that a newborn baby, somebody that's carnal, somebody that's just fleshly, they don't have church as a priority. 12:13.240 --> 12:19.240 And that's something that we have to get down. That's one of the most basic things. If you want to grow in your faith, you need to be in church. 12:19.240 --> 12:27.240 Right. And I get it. You know, sometimes we're not able to be in church all three services, maybe because of work, maybe because you're sick, whatever the case may be. 12:27.240 --> 12:32.240 But if you have that desire to grow as a Christian in your faith, you need to be in church. 12:33.240 --> 12:40.240 And the way that you grow in anything, you know, whether it's exercising, whether it's, you know, dieting, anything that you can think of, you need to be consistent. 12:40.240 --> 12:46.240 You need to do it more often. You know, sometimes less is more, but less church is not necessarily more. Right. 12:46.240 --> 12:52.240 We need that doesn't apply there. So if we want to grow, we want to get stronger. We want to see results. Right. 12:52.240 --> 12:59.240 We need to be consistent. We need to do it more than once a week. If somebody goes to the gym and they only go once a week, you know, that's good. 12:59.240 --> 13:04.240 That's a good start. Right. But it's not necessarily going to produce the results that they're looking for. 13:04.240 --> 13:09.240 A lot of times people look and it's just like a carnal example, but they see those shorts where it says abs in six minutes a day. 13:09.240 --> 13:18.240 You know, that's not how church works. Right. You're not going to grow in your Christian faith by just showing up here and there, not being consistent in order to grow in our Christian faith. 13:18.240 --> 13:26.240 We need to be in church when we have service. Right. And like I said, there's times where we maybe we're sick, you know, our head hurts. 13:27.240 --> 13:35.240 Right. Or, you know, our family is sick, whatever the case may be. You know, to that I say there's things that we can do in order to bypass that. Right. 13:35.240 --> 13:42.240 If you have a headache, you know, maybe it's like a little one. You can always take an Advil. There's something called Advil, a thousand milligrams and a C4. 13:42.240 --> 13:47.240 I don't really advise that, but there's things that you can do that would help you to be where you need to be. 13:47.240 --> 13:54.240 Now go to I think I actually go to actually go to Ephesians, Chapter four, Ephesians, Chapter four. 13:54.240 --> 13:59.240 And so the first thing I want to talk about is this matter of church. 13:59.240 --> 14:03.240 One of the most basic things that we need to do as a Christian. 14:03.240 --> 14:07.240 And so babes in Christ, they don't really prioritize this matter of church. 14:07.240 --> 14:12.240 You know, they make all kinds of excuses when we first get saved because it's not part of our life. 14:12.240 --> 14:20.240 You know, it's easy to miss church. Sometimes Sundays has been our family time where we're able to go hang out with friends. 14:20.240 --> 14:26.240 Maybe you have a barbecue. Maybe you have a party. These are all things that take us out of church or that keep us from going to church. 14:26.240 --> 14:32.240 And if you're not used to going to church, you know, you need to let your family know that, hey, Sundays are for church now. 14:32.240 --> 14:37.240 Right. And, you know, at first they're going to complain, you know, they're going to give you a hard time. 14:37.240 --> 14:44.240 But it's better to let them know now so that later on they don't invite you anymore or they just change the event altogether. 14:44.240 --> 14:48.240 But if they see that, you know, they invite you and they say, hey, Sunday, we're going to have a family gathering. 14:48.240 --> 14:51.240 We're going to have a birthday party. And you're like, I'll just miss church. They're going to keep doing it. 14:51.240 --> 14:54.240 They're going to see that you don't take church as serious as you say you do. 14:54.240 --> 14:58.240 But if you let them know from the beginning, hey, now I'm a Christian, I'm saved. 14:58.240 --> 15:01.240 I want to be in church. And, you know, they invite you. 15:01.240 --> 15:07.240 The more that you reject that invitation and they see that church is important to you, they're most likely to change the date of those parties. 15:07.240 --> 15:12.240 Right. So there's ways around it. And another thing that a person needs to learn. 15:12.240 --> 15:18.240 Another point I want to make is that introduction as a babe in Christ, like I said, we have to develop different appetites. 15:18.240 --> 15:23.240 First of all, we have to learn to prioritize spiritual things like church. 15:23.240 --> 15:27.240 We have to learn how to prioritize the right type of music, the right type of dress. 15:27.240 --> 15:33.240 Right. When we first get saved, there are things that perhaps we listen to that are not pleasing to God. 15:33.240 --> 15:41.240 There's music that probably we listen in the past where, you know, it promoted violence, it promoted fornication, it promoted, promoted adultery, whatever the case or kind of music. 15:41.240 --> 15:45.240 That you used to listen to. We need to replace that with godly music. Right. 15:45.240 --> 15:50.240 And I'm not, you know, I'm not I'm going to be honest. Right. When I first got saved, you know, hymns weren't that catchy to me. 15:50.240 --> 15:53.240 Right. It wasn't something that I naturally gravitated towards. 15:53.240 --> 15:58.240 But here's the thing. If you stop listening to worldly music, you have to replace it with something else. 15:58.240 --> 16:04.240 It's not just you, you know, stop you stop listening to music because at the end of the day you do want to listen to something. 16:04.240 --> 16:07.240 Right. So you're going to have to replace it with something that's godly, something that's different. 16:08.240 --> 16:15.240 And so what I recommend, you know, you have to develop that appetite for hymns, for special music, for godly music, not CCM. 16:15.240 --> 16:19.240 Because if you're going to listen to CCM, you might as well listen to the real thing. Right. 16:19.240 --> 16:24.240 So Ephesians, chapter four, Ephesians, chapter four. 16:24.240 --> 16:29.240 So the first point I want to make that as a Christian, we all start off as newborn babes. 16:29.240 --> 16:33.240 You know, we all start off as just being carnal. We don't have these spiritual disciplines. 16:33.240 --> 16:36.240 We don't really know what God expects from us. 16:36.240 --> 16:43.240 But the way that we grow in our faith and mature in our faith is by just coming to church, by reading the word of God, by learning to do right. 16:43.240 --> 16:47.240 And some of the disciplines that we need to get down in the first place, it's just this matter of church. 16:47.240 --> 16:53.240 There's a lot of people, even when we go out there, you know, we tell them, hey, even if they're safe, right, but they don't go to church. 16:53.240 --> 16:56.240 And they're like, well, I worship God in my house. You know, it's not that important. 16:56.240 --> 16:59.240 But the Bible actually commands us to be in church. 16:59.240 --> 17:03.240 The Bible tells us not to forsake the assembly together of ourselves as a matter of some is. 17:03.240 --> 17:07.240 And so there is people out there that that is their manner of how they live. Right. 17:07.240 --> 17:10.240 They're just used to by skipping church. 17:10.240 --> 17:13.240 And here's the thing, you know, the more that you skip church, the more you get out of church. 17:13.240 --> 17:15.240 And if you have children, your children see that. Right. 17:15.240 --> 17:21.240 And then they learn to they learn that church is not something that's important to you as a family. 17:21.240 --> 17:27.240 And, you know, that for one, as a father, I want my children to know that church is important. 17:27.240 --> 17:30.240 They're all little right now, but I want them to grow up in church. 17:30.240 --> 17:37.240 And I don't want to be a family where, you know, we go to church one week and then the next week we're out of church or we go to church, you know, two weeks straight. 17:37.240 --> 17:44.240 And then we go on vacation. No, we need to teach our children that church is important and that we need to be there when the doors are open. 17:44.240 --> 17:47.240 Now, you're there in Ephesians, chapter four. 17:47.240 --> 17:51.240 You're there in Ephesians, chapter four, look down at verse 14. 17:52.240 --> 18:03.240 The Bible says that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. 18:03.240 --> 18:06.240 And so here we see that newborn base or people that recently get saved. 18:06.240 --> 18:09.240 You know, there is that tendency of them being tossed to and fro. 18:09.240 --> 18:12.240 And the Bible is telling us to be no more children. 18:12.240 --> 18:15.240 And that's something that, you know, when you first get saved, you don't know a whole lot. 18:15.240 --> 18:22.240 And so you open yourself up to, you know, false teachers because, you know, let's face it, there's a lot of false teaching online right now. 18:22.240 --> 18:29.240 And even back then, I remember when I first got saved, you know, back in 2010, the first person I ever encountered online was Ray Comfort. 18:29.240 --> 18:31.240 Right. And I was a new Christian. 18:31.240 --> 18:35.240 I didn't really know much about the Bible, but he seemed to be saying the right thing. 18:35.240 --> 18:40.240 But as you grow in your faith and you realize, hey, this person is preaching a false gospel, this person is a false prophet. 18:40.240 --> 18:48.240 You learn to forsake that and reject that because you want to grow to a point where, you know, when a person is teaching false doctrine, right, bad doctrine. 18:48.240 --> 18:54.240 And the way that you do that is by coming to church, by reading the Bible, because you don't want to be this child that believes every single little thing. 18:54.240 --> 18:57.240 Right. You want to be a Christian that believes on the flat earth. 18:57.240 --> 19:02.240 You want to be a Christian that believes in like all these retarded doctrines. 19:02.240 --> 19:04.240 You want to be mature in your faith. 19:04.240 --> 19:09.240 You want to be able to distinguish between the right doctrine and be able to distinguish between whether or not a person is teaching the right doctrine. 19:10.240 --> 19:16.240 Things according to the Bible and that got our Hebrews actually go to Hebrews chapter five. 19:16.240 --> 19:17.240 Hebrews chapter five. 19:18.240 --> 19:22.240 And so right now I just want to explain the progression of a Christian. 19:22.240 --> 19:25.240 Basically, you know, we know that salvation is a one time event. 19:25.240 --> 19:26.240 It's not a process. 19:26.240 --> 19:28.240 It's not something that we have to grow into. 19:28.240 --> 19:30.240 We're not being saved. 19:30.240 --> 19:32.240 You know, the Bible says that we are saved. 19:32.240 --> 19:38.320 And so what we do need to grow into is just maturing as a Christian, being more godly, 19:38.320 --> 19:43.600 maturing, being more spiritual. And the way that we do that is by just getting the basics down. 19:43.600 --> 19:48.480 And the most basic thing is just this matter of reading the Bible, coming to church, praying, 19:48.480 --> 19:53.920 being around godly people that are going to help you in your Christian walk. So I said the first 19:53.920 --> 19:58.000 thing that a Christian has to get down is this matter of church. The second thing is just this 19:58.000 --> 20:02.880 matter of just replacing old habits with new habits, one of them being music, one of them being 20:02.880 --> 20:08.240 your friends, right? If you want to succeed in the Christian life, you want to go, you want to grow 20:08.240 --> 20:13.600 past that stage of being a baby in Christ, you need to replace old friends with new friends, 20:13.600 --> 20:17.760 you know, people that actually go to church and not just people that go to church, but people 20:17.760 --> 20:21.120 actually doing right. Because unfortunately, there's a lot of times where people, you know, 20:21.120 --> 20:25.600 they're in church, but they're not the most godly people. And you should learn to choose your friends 20:25.600 --> 20:30.480 even in church as well. And as we grow more, you know, there's going to be more new people, 20:30.480 --> 20:34.640 there's going to be people that have more baggage. You need to be careful with that, right? You need 20:34.640 --> 20:38.480 to be mature and you need to be the one that influences them and not the other way around. 20:39.840 --> 20:43.760 Now go, I think I told you to go to Hebrews chapter five, look down at verse number 12. 20:44.560 --> 20:49.760 The Bible says, for when for the time he ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again, 20:49.760 --> 20:54.400 which be the first principles of the oracles of God and are become such as have need of milk, 20:54.480 --> 20:59.120 not a strong meat for everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, 20:59.120 --> 21:03.760 for he is a babe. And then look down at verse 14, it says, but strong may belong to them that are 21:03.760 --> 21:10.160 full of that are a full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercise to 21:10.160 --> 21:14.880 discern both good and evil. And so we see the wording there that says for when for the time, 21:14.880 --> 21:21.040 he ought to be teachers. So there is an expectation for you to grow past being a babe in Christ. And 21:21.120 --> 21:25.920 it says right there, if you want to be a full age, it explains there that it says these are they 21:25.920 --> 21:32.320 right that have even those who by reason of use have their senses exercises, both good and evil. 21:32.320 --> 21:36.320 And so we see there it says by reason of use. So somebody that's going to be mature in the 21:36.320 --> 21:41.200 Christian life that tells us that they're not just a hearer of the word, but a doer of the word as 21:41.200 --> 21:47.200 well. Go to James chapter two. You see, if you want to get better at something, it's not just by 21:47.200 --> 21:51.280 learning about it. It's not just by reading about it. It's actually doing it right. There's, 21:52.000 --> 21:55.760 there's, you know, people that go out there, for example, they go to college and they're trying 21:55.760 --> 21:59.520 to get like a business degree or they're trying to learn a trade, but all they're doing is just 21:59.520 --> 22:02.960 studying. They're all they're doing is just, you know, learning equations. All they're doing is 22:02.960 --> 22:08.320 just reading books, but a person is actually out there doing the hands on training, learning that 22:08.320 --> 22:12.560 way. I guarantee you that person knows way more than a person that's just reading about. So it'll 22:12.560 --> 22:18.080 be like, what if I decided to go to the gym, right? And then I'm like, I go to the gym and then I just 22:18.080 --> 22:22.400 bring a book with me and I'm reading how to exercise, right? But I never actually pick up 22:22.400 --> 22:26.960 the barbell. Am I actually going to see results? No, right? What if I'm on the bench just taking 22:26.960 --> 22:31.120 up the bench and, you know, I'm somebody's trying to squat and I'm just there reading a book about 22:31.120 --> 22:35.600 how to, how to work out. That's not going to profit me at all. Right. And it's the same thing 22:35.600 --> 22:39.600 with people that just come to church and all they do is just listen to preaching, but if they're not 22:39.600 --> 22:44.080 actually putting it into practice, they're not going to get any benefit from it. And so we see 22:44.080 --> 22:49.360 here that by reason of use, we can say that that's actually a person that's being a doer of the word. 22:50.080 --> 22:56.240 And so I told you, go to James chapter two, go to James chapter two and look down at verse number 22:56.240 --> 23:02.320 22, the Bible says, but be doers of the word and not hears only deceiving your own selves for any 23:02.320 --> 23:08.000 beer here of the word and not a doer. He is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass, 23:08.000 --> 23:12.640 for he beholded himself and go with his way and straightway forget what manner of man he was. 23:12.640 --> 23:17.440 And so this is comparing somebody that, you know, just before, before a glass and they see, 23:17.440 --> 23:22.080 you know, how they look and they don't do anything about it. Right. They have buggers on their nose. 23:22.080 --> 23:28.800 They have no tears coming out of their nose. I'm guilty of that. But, but let's just say I went and 23:28.800 --> 23:33.200 I saw that our pastor tells me, right. Cause he always tells me, but let's just say I see it for 23:33.280 --> 23:38.080 myself and I don't do anything for it. You know, I don't push them in. No, I was kidding, but 23:38.080 --> 23:42.720 I don't do anything about it. You know, that doesn't profit me nothing. And so in the same way, 23:42.720 --> 23:47.520 if we go to the word of God and we're reading it and it's telling us what we're doing wrong, 23:47.520 --> 23:51.600 you know, we need to learn to put it into practice. Cause that's when the benefit actually comes. 23:51.600 --> 23:55.760 We're actually putting, you know, into practice of things that pastor preaches, the things that we 23:55.760 --> 24:00.080 read in the word of God. That's when we actually start to see the results that we want as a Christian. 24:00.880 --> 24:05.360 Now go to, go back to first Corinthians chapter three. 24:07.280 --> 24:11.760 So the first point that I want to make is that a Christian that's recently saved 24:11.760 --> 24:16.080 or anybody in general, we're going to start off in the stage with the bow refers to as a babe in 24:16.080 --> 24:20.960 Christ. You know, there's no way to skip that. You know, it doesn't matter if you, you know, you, 24:20.960 --> 24:24.880 like I said, grew up in church, but if you got saved recently, you're a babe in Christ. 24:25.040 --> 24:29.600 And so as a babe in Christ, the Bible says that even though Paul wants to speak to them as unto 24:29.600 --> 24:34.400 spiritual, you know, he couldn't, he had to speak unto them as unto carnal, as unto, you know, 24:34.400 --> 24:38.960 bathes in Christ because they're not able to receive the deep things of God. They need to be 24:38.960 --> 24:43.360 taught the basics and the basics would be just like, you know, salvation by grace through faith. 24:43.360 --> 24:48.240 It would be like learning about baptism, learning about hell, learning about soul winning, just 24:48.240 --> 24:53.040 learning basic Christian living. Those are the things that bathes in Christ need. And the Bible 24:53.840 --> 24:58.000 says, like I read to you in Hebrews for, for, you know, when the time that you ought to be teachers, 24:58.000 --> 25:02.480 that just shows us that, you know, that's the expectations. We shouldn't stay as bathes in 25:02.480 --> 25:07.920 Christ. We should want and desire to grow in our Christian faith. Now I told you to go to, 25:09.360 --> 25:13.840 go to a heap, back to first Corinthians chapter three. Let me read to you right there in verse 25:13.840 --> 25:19.840 number four. It says for a while one saved, I am of Paul and another, I am of Apollos. Are you not 25:19.840 --> 25:25.520 carnal? Who then is Paul and who is Apollos? But ministers by whom you believe even as the Lord gave 25:25.520 --> 25:30.320 to every man. And so we see that a babe in Christ, not only does he need, you know, the milk of the 25:30.320 --> 25:36.480 word, he also is somebody that is carnal. It's somebody that is fleshly. Why? And we see the, 25:36.480 --> 25:40.160 you know, the kind of behavior that they have. And this is why I say that even though you've been in 25:40.160 --> 25:46.240 church for many years, perhaps you've been saved for many years as well, you do have that danger of 25:46.240 --> 25:50.640 regressing and becoming a babe in Christ again. And the reason for it is because, you know, you 25:50.640 --> 25:55.120 get away from the word of God, you get away from church, you stop putting into practice the things 25:55.120 --> 25:59.680 that you read, the things that you hear, and you start acting carnal. Right? And so the Bible talks 25:59.680 --> 26:04.400 about the carnal men. And yes, you know, the carnal Christian does exist. It's not something like Paul 26:04.400 --> 26:08.720 Washer where it says there's no such thing as a carnal Christian. You know, Paul said that he is 26:08.720 --> 26:13.520 carnal, you know, I'm carnal. We're all carnal to a certain extent, right? But we shouldn't be 26:13.600 --> 26:18.080 characterized as just being carnal Christians. And a carnal Christian, essentially, is just somebody 26:18.080 --> 26:22.720 that, you know, doesn't even try to live a spiritual life. You know, they give it into the flesh, 26:22.720 --> 26:27.600 or they always fall into sin. You know, they're not what the Bible says where it says to walk 26:27.600 --> 26:32.320 in the spirit that you may not fulfill the lust of the flesh. And so we do have that commandment 26:32.320 --> 26:37.280 from God telling us to walk in the spirit. So that's not something that's automatic, right? When we 26:37.280 --> 26:41.680 get saved, batteries are not included. We're not automatically just doing right all the time, waking 26:41.680 --> 26:45.360 up in the morning wanting to read our Bible. These are something that we have to some things 26:45.360 --> 26:50.160 that we have to develop the appetite for, because we have the new man now, right? We have the spirit 26:50.160 --> 26:55.680 of God is the spirit of God in us that desires to live a godly life. You see, the spirit that's in 26:55.680 --> 27:01.040 us, that's the what wants to read the Bible, that's what wants to go so winning. That's what wants to 27:01.040 --> 27:05.920 invest in others. But the old man that's still in us, you know, it desires to, you know, live for the 27:05.920 --> 27:12.240 flesh. And so the Bible here is telling us that a babe in Christ is carnal at the end of the day. 27:13.040 --> 27:18.240 And so we see that a carnal man is just somebody that's causing, you know, drama, essentially, 27:18.240 --> 27:23.600 causing strife and envy. And those are the characteristics that we see. And so the Bible 27:23.600 --> 27:29.360 talks about the carnal man. It also talks about, you know, the natural man, which I forgot to mention 27:29.360 --> 27:33.760 in the beginning, but the natural man is what we were all before we're getting saved, right? And 27:33.760 --> 27:38.880 there's no way around it either, because even though a person claims to know of the Bible, 27:38.880 --> 27:44.160 claims to know things from the Bible, you know, they may know certain topics, timelines, you know, 27:44.160 --> 27:48.880 like history or anything like that. But if they're not saved, the Bible says that they can't 27:48.880 --> 27:52.160 understand the Bible. The Bible says in first Corinthians chapter two, I'm gonna read it for 27:52.160 --> 27:56.240 you in verse 14, but the natural man received is not the things of the spirit of God, for there are 27:56.240 --> 28:02.160 foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. So before 28:02.160 --> 28:06.640 even getting saved, you know, this is where we all are. It's just a natural man. And so it doesn't 28:06.640 --> 28:11.360 matter if, you know, a person claims to be a pastor or claims to know a lot about the Bible. 28:11.360 --> 28:15.200 If they're wrong in the gospel, you know, they're just a natural man. They can't receive the things 28:15.200 --> 28:19.280 of the spirit of God. Neither can he know them. The Bible says for there are foolishness unto him. 28:19.280 --> 28:23.680 So a lot of people that, you know, are online, and I don't really know a lot of the new people, 28:23.680 --> 28:28.720 but back in the day, it was just Ray Comfort, Paul Washer, John MacArthur, who's in hell now, 28:28.800 --> 28:33.040 and then, you know, Todd Friel, all these Calvinists, right? They can't receive the 28:33.040 --> 28:37.040 things of God because not only are they natural men, but, you know, at the end of the day, 28:37.040 --> 28:42.480 they're false prophets. You know, they're twice dead, plucked up by the roots. And so we see here 28:42.480 --> 28:47.040 that, you know, we start off as a natural man, but then once we get saved, once our spirit gets 28:47.040 --> 28:52.080 regenerated, once our spirit gets quickened, we start off as a baby in Christ, and it's up to us 28:52.080 --> 28:57.680 to grow past that stage in our Christian life. Now go to, let me see here, 29:00.560 --> 29:03.920 give me a second, go to Galatians chapter five, Galatians chapter five. 29:06.960 --> 29:08.400 Go to Galatians chapter five. 29:12.480 --> 29:18.720 So even as a Christian, you know, we are capable of doing horrendous sins, right, if we live in the 29:18.720 --> 29:24.000 flesh. And so in Galatians chapter five, we see in verse 19 where it says, 29:24.000 --> 29:28.960 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these adultery, fornication, uncleanness, 29:28.960 --> 29:35.200 lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strives, addictions, 29:35.200 --> 29:41.920 heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, rebellions, and such like of the witch. I tell you before, 29:41.920 --> 29:46.400 as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom 29:46.400 --> 29:50.800 of God. And so we see if somebody walks in the flesh, they are capable of doing some really 29:50.800 --> 29:54.640 wicked things. And so we don't want to be characterized as somebody that's just constantly 29:54.640 --> 29:59.120 in the flesh. Like I said, we want to grow past that. And it doesn't matter if you've been in 29:59.120 --> 30:03.120 church for X amount of years, if you're acting this way, according to the Bible, you're just a 30:03.120 --> 30:07.840 baby in Christ, right? You're just acting like a carnal Christian. And it shouldn't be said of us 30:07.840 --> 30:12.320 that we're the ones causing strive. We're the ones that constantly have problems with other people. 30:12.320 --> 30:17.040 You know, this is the characteristics and the attributes of somebody that isn't mature in the 30:17.040 --> 30:21.840 Christian life. And sometimes we see this within marriage, right? Where you have the husband who's 30:21.840 --> 30:26.800 not mature, and then you have the wife that's also not mature. And what happens? Constant conflict, 30:26.800 --> 30:32.720 right? And the thing is this, as spouses, one of you guys has to be more mature than the others. 30:33.520 --> 30:37.920 The best case scenario is that both are mature. But what happens when they're not mature? One 30:37.920 --> 30:46.160 person gets offended, the other person gets mad, and they lag, or how would you say? They don't 30:46.160 --> 30:51.600 forgive one another, right? And this is not something that we should be characterized as. 30:51.600 --> 30:57.040 If we're mature in the faith, if somebody does us wrong, we should be able to forgive that person, 30:57.040 --> 31:01.360 especially if they ask for forgiveness. And we don't want to be carnal Christians to where 31:01.360 --> 31:05.920 we're constantly getting offended, we're constantly causing strive and having problems with the 31:05.920 --> 31:10.720 brethren. We want to be somebody that is able to get along with the people in the church. Now, 31:10.720 --> 31:14.960 as the church gets bigger, you know, we're going to have a lot more new people. Sunday mornings, 31:14.960 --> 31:19.440 it's crowded, it's packed, right? And there's people even, you know, on Sundays that I haven't 31:19.440 --> 31:24.160 met myself. But as the church grows more and more, we're going to have different personalities. 31:24.160 --> 31:27.920 And the truth is that, you know, we're not all going to be able to get along in the sense like, 31:27.920 --> 31:32.560 you know, go out and hang out outside of church. You know, there are people that I get along more 31:32.560 --> 31:36.480 in this church than others. And that's just how it is sometimes. But at the end of the day, you know, 31:36.480 --> 31:41.200 I don't hate anybody in this church. And it should be said of us that if you're supposedly mature in 31:41.200 --> 31:44.800 the faith, you know, you shouldn't hate your brother. And you should be able to get along with 31:44.800 --> 31:49.840 those that come to this church. You don't want to be somebody that's characterized as a carnal 31:49.840 --> 31:54.720 Christian who's just walking in the flesh, who's constantly having problems and drama with other 31:54.720 --> 31:59.440 people. And this is something that, you know, is more common within women, right? It's not so much 31:59.440 --> 32:05.840 in men. And, you know, fortunately, you know, maybe nowadays is more common. It's becoming more common 32:05.840 --> 32:09.440 with men as well. But at the end of the day, there's probably just acting like women, right? 32:10.080 --> 32:17.200 So go to, go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. So the first point that I made is that we all start 32:17.200 --> 32:22.800 off as babes in Christ. That's just a stage that we start off at and we should grow past that. 32:22.800 --> 32:26.800 And then we saw in Hebrews chapter 5 that it said for when, for the time you ought to be teachers, 32:26.800 --> 32:31.760 you have need that one teach you again. And so there is an expectation for us to grow past that 32:31.760 --> 32:36.880 stage. And one of the things that we see, the reason why he even calls them babes in Christ or 32:36.880 --> 32:40.960 carnal is the fact that they're the way that they're acting, you know, there's envy and their 32:40.960 --> 32:45.440 strife and divisions. And we see that there is steaming, you know, one leader above the other. 32:45.440 --> 32:50.080 And this is something that sometimes happens in church, you know, somebody likes a person more 32:50.080 --> 32:54.560 than the other. And then, you know, they come, they kind of become like a click, right? And I 32:54.560 --> 32:58.240 don't want that ever to happen in our church. I don't think that ever will. But we always have to, 32:58.240 --> 33:03.680 you know, be careful with that. You know, I love the fact that we're organized as a church, we have 33:03.760 --> 33:07.920 so many teams, and the teams are there for a purpose, right? It's there to train 33:08.640 --> 33:13.360 laborers, is there to train people and teach them how to give the gospel, is there to help, 33:13.360 --> 33:18.720 you know, us invest in a group of people so that they can return their faith. But what happens if 33:18.720 --> 33:22.960 we were like all immature, and we're all carnal, and we're just fleshly, you know, we're going to 33:22.960 --> 33:27.760 have beef between, you know, one team and the other team. And, you know, that'll be pretty retarded to 33:28.480 --> 33:32.480 do, right? Because at the end of the day, we're all part of the same church. And so we shouldn't 33:32.480 --> 33:37.040 have this attitude and look at another team like, well, you know, they have a lot of salvations, 33:37.040 --> 33:40.880 but they're probably inflating the numbers, right? You know, it's kind of like when you see somebody 33:40.880 --> 33:45.360 that's bigger than you at the gym, and you're like, oh, that guy's probably not natural, right? But 33:45.360 --> 33:49.200 we don't want to have that attitude towards other teams, you know, if a team is getting a lot of 33:49.200 --> 33:54.320 salvations, or if one person in one team is getting a lot of salvations, we don't want to have like 33:54.320 --> 33:58.800 what the Bible says here, envies and strife, right? We need to learn how pastor, you know, 33:58.800 --> 34:03.920 preaching that sermon, how to deal with the success of others. And also, we need to learn how to, 34:03.920 --> 34:08.160 you know, handle this, our own success. But we don't want to be babes in Christ where we can't 34:08.160 --> 34:12.320 handle other people doing more than us. At the end of the day, we're all part of the same church, 34:12.320 --> 34:16.640 right? We're all part of First Works Baptist Church. And here's the thing, you know, I was, 34:16.640 --> 34:19.680 you know, we were talking about Belize, because we're going to go there on Sunday, 34:19.680 --> 34:24.880 faithful words out there right now doing a great work, right? They already got 102 the first day, 34:24.880 --> 34:29.200 138 the second day, and we're not hating on that, right? Because we're gonna do the same thing, 34:29.200 --> 34:33.040 right? We're not there saying, well, you know, they're probably giving a short gospel or 34:33.040 --> 34:37.920 something. They're probably like a one to three repeat after me. No, we're happy. We're praising 34:37.920 --> 34:41.760 God, you know, all glory goes to God. And you know, instead of being envious, we're gonna go 34:41.760 --> 34:46.320 and do likewise, right? And I believe that's what we're gonna do. But like I said, there 34:46.320 --> 34:51.120 shouldn't be this attitude in our church, where we think that one team is better than the other. 34:51.120 --> 34:56.560 All teams are different. We're not all created equal, right? But, you know, that's the important 34:56.560 --> 35:01.120 of being different, right? There's different teams. And you know, at the end, the point I'm 35:01.120 --> 35:05.120 trying to make is that we shouldn't become like cliques, especially with the teams in our church. 35:06.320 --> 35:12.960 Now go to go to go back to actually go back to First Corinthians chapter three. 35:15.600 --> 35:19.600 And so like I say, even though when our church gets bigger and bigger, there are going to be 35:19.600 --> 35:24.480 different personalities, and they might clash, but we shouldn't have beef, permanent beef with 35:24.480 --> 35:29.600 them, you know, we should be mature enough to if somebody offends us, we go to them. And you know, 35:29.600 --> 35:34.480 if they ask for forgiveness, they repent, you know, they hear us, then, you know, we've gained our 35:34.480 --> 35:38.560 brother. That's that kind of attitude that we should have. And if they apologize already, 35:38.560 --> 35:43.440 you know, that should be enough for us, right? We can't really judge a person's sincerity by 35:44.240 --> 35:48.160 how many times they apologize. If they already apologize once, you know, just accept the apology 35:48.160 --> 35:52.400 and move on. Because the thing about this, you know, when somebody is just a baby in Christ, 35:52.400 --> 35:56.560 and they're immature in their faith, you know, a person could do them wrong and apologize, but 35:56.560 --> 36:00.960 they're still harboring bitterness towards that person, right? And at the end of the day, what 36:00.960 --> 36:04.320 that does is not affecting the other person that did you wrong, it's just going to affect you. 36:05.600 --> 36:10.800 Now if you're there in, I totally go back to First Corinthians chapter three, look down at verse 36:10.800 --> 36:16.240 number four, it says again, for while one saith I am of Paul, and another I am of Apollos, are you 36:16.240 --> 36:22.640 not carnal? Who then is Paul and who is Apollos? But ministers by whom he believed, even as the 36:22.640 --> 36:28.160 Lord gave to every man. And so here we see that the first truth that I want to cover is this matter 36:28.160 --> 36:34.000 where it says by whom he believed. And so as newborn babies, we need to learn this truth 36:34.000 --> 36:38.160 that there is an importance of going out there and reaching people with the gospel. You know, 36:38.160 --> 36:43.600 people don't get saved by themselves, right? People don't get saved by just reading the Bible, 36:43.600 --> 36:47.280 by a track, especially not by a chick track, I don't even know those are around, but you know, 36:47.280 --> 36:51.680 people don't get saved by just reading the word of God. They need a preacher to come to them and 36:51.680 --> 36:55.520 give them the truth, preach them the gospel so that they could call upon the name of the Lord. 36:55.520 --> 37:01.280 And so as a newborn baby, you know, one of the best ways to grow in your faith is just learning 37:01.280 --> 37:05.520 to esteem others. And the way that you learn that is by actually going out there and doing the work, 37:05.520 --> 37:12.400 by going out there and reaching the loss, right? If you're just selfish, if you're just, you know, 37:12.560 --> 37:18.800 babing Christ, like this is what I think about, like with our children, right? Because they're 37:18.800 --> 37:22.640 small, those of you that have small children, you know, they're very selfish sometimes, right? 37:22.640 --> 37:26.880 And they think the world just revolves around them. And sometimes they just fight, 37:26.880 --> 37:31.760 sometimes they're, they don't get along, right? They need, they're very needy, right? But they're 37:31.760 --> 37:36.720 children and that's expected of them. But how weird does it look, right? If it's somebody that's a 37:36.720 --> 37:41.920 grown man, by the way, acting that way, right? Acting immature and just being self-centered, 37:42.320 --> 37:47.200 there comes a point where you should learn to invest in others and not having other people 37:47.200 --> 37:50.960 constantly invest in you, constantly, you know, checking up on you. Hey, are you coming to church? 37:50.960 --> 37:56.640 You know, you should just be able to be a person that's low maintenance. And if somebody has to 37:56.640 --> 38:00.160 text you, you know, hey, are you going to come to church tonight? That's kind of an insult, right? 38:00.160 --> 38:04.240 Because they're kind of implying that you miss a lot. And so you don't want to be that type of 38:04.240 --> 38:09.120 person. So one of the best ways that you're able to grow past the stage is by learning to invest in 38:09.120 --> 38:15.680 others, which is by soul winning. And here we see that the Bible says, by whom he believed. And so 38:15.680 --> 38:21.200 that truth that I see there is that, you know, people need a soul winner, right? People need 38:21.200 --> 38:25.360 somebody to preach them the gospel. You think of the example of the eunuch and Philip, you know, 38:25.360 --> 38:29.760 it wasn't that the eunuch just got saved by reading the Bible. The Bible says that, you know, Philip 38:29.760 --> 38:34.160 approached him and he asked him, you know, understands without Reedus. And he said, how can 38:34.240 --> 38:39.920 I accept some man guide me? And so people are out there seeking for the truth and we are responsible 38:39.920 --> 38:44.800 to give them that truth, right? The Bible says that God has given to us a ministry of reconciliation. 38:44.800 --> 38:49.360 So it's our job to reach the people that are out there. And we don't want to have this attitude 38:49.360 --> 38:54.160 either, you know, with a technology that we have today. You know, I love the technology that we 38:54.160 --> 38:59.040 have today and us being able to reach people online, but the truth is not everybody's online, 38:59.040 --> 39:04.240 you know, there's a lot of people that are not on only TV, believe it or not. And they require 39:04.240 --> 39:09.920 somebody to go to their door, right? To give them the gospel. This is why, you know, when we go out 39:09.920 --> 39:14.400 there to preach the gospel, we do pray, you know, God lead us to those that want to hear it, right? 39:14.400 --> 39:18.080 This is not something that we just, you know, vainly repeat. It's something that we believe, 39:18.080 --> 39:22.560 right? That God's going to lead us to those that actually want to hear the truth. And then how many 39:22.560 --> 39:27.360 times does it happen when we're out there, we give them the gospel, they get saved. And then later on 39:28.000 --> 39:31.760 at the end of the conversation, they're just so thankful, right? Because they're saying like, 39:31.760 --> 39:36.320 hey, I was just thinking about this last night. I was scared. You know, I was just looking up online, 39:36.320 --> 39:40.000 you know, what do I have to do to go to heaven? These are people that were waiting for the truth 39:40.000 --> 39:45.840 and, you know, God sent us to them. And so that's the importance that I see here that people require 39:45.840 --> 39:51.520 a minister. Now go to Romans chapter 10, Romans chapter 10. And so we don't want to minimize 39:51.600 --> 39:57.760 the effect that a soul winner has. And so as newborn base, we have to prioritize not only 39:57.760 --> 40:02.960 church, not only reading the word of God, but actually prioritize this matter of soul winning. 40:03.680 --> 40:07.520 And this is something that, you know, might not come natural to some of us. And I don't think, 40:07.520 --> 40:11.120 you know, unless you're a salesman, you're not used to going door to door, right? This is not 40:11.120 --> 40:15.440 something that like at the beginning we look forward to. It's just awkward, right? We're going 40:15.440 --> 40:20.480 into strangers homes. We're like, you know, opening up their gate, walking up to the door and just 40:20.480 --> 40:24.080 asking them, Hey, do you know for sure if you died today, would you go to heaven? And then we 40:24.080 --> 40:27.440 tell them that, you know, they're on their way to hell. We tell them how to get saved. You know, 40:27.440 --> 40:31.600 these are things that we have to learn and prioritize in our lives. And we're there in 40:31.600 --> 40:37.440 Romans chapter 10, look down at verse number 13, where it says, for whosoever shall call upon the 40:37.440 --> 40:42.640 name of the Lord shall be saved. And it says, how then shall they call on him in whom they have not 40:42.640 --> 40:48.240 believed? And how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without 40:48.240 --> 40:53.520 a preacher? And so we see here that a person does require a soul winner to give them the gospel. 40:53.520 --> 40:58.080 It's not this thing where a person could just read the word of God, understand it, and then get 40:58.080 --> 41:02.880 saved. Why? Because that person is a natural man. He can't receive the things of the spirit of God. 41:03.920 --> 41:09.360 And so it is up to us to go out there and give them the gospel. And again, along the subject about 41:09.360 --> 41:14.480 like, Omi, you know, I love Omi. It's a great way to reach a lot of people. It's a great way to reach 41:14.480 --> 41:17.680 our goal of 4,000 salvations, right? Which I'm pretty sure we're going to reach by the end of 41:17.680 --> 41:22.400 this month. But here's the thing. We still have to go out there and knock the doors of the people 41:22.400 --> 41:26.640 that are not online. And we could get, you know, a carnal, we could get in the flesh sometimes and 41:26.640 --> 41:30.800 be like, well, you know, it takes too much time to get out there, or I don't really want to make the 41:30.800 --> 41:35.440 drive to TJ, or I don't really want to go to, you know, all the cities that we go to. But we have to 41:35.440 --> 41:39.440 have it in our mind, you know, these people that we're reaching out there, they're not online. And 41:39.440 --> 41:44.160 someone has to give them the gospel. And also we kind of have this attitude as, you know, that people 41:44.160 --> 41:49.280 who are immature in the faith will, what I would say that it's like a bystander attitude, 41:49.280 --> 41:53.840 or like somebody else will reach them, right? There's already a church in Woldemar. There's 41:53.840 --> 41:58.160 already a church in Lake Elsinore. There's already a church in so-and-so city. We still have to go 41:58.160 --> 42:02.000 out there and preach to those people the gospel, because we don't know at the end of the day if 42:02.000 --> 42:06.320 that church is actually going out there. And if they are, we don't know for sure, right, that 42:06.320 --> 42:11.280 they're preaching the right gospel. So we should just take it as our responsibility to reach 42:11.280 --> 42:17.200 everybody in our community. And this is why we go to TJ. You know, it takes two hours to get to TJ. 42:17.200 --> 42:21.520 And a lot of times it's three or four, six of us. You know, sometimes it's a smaller group, 42:21.520 --> 42:27.440 but it's worth it every single time, right? Because we see people that 15, 20 people save, 42:27.440 --> 42:33.520 and these are people that I can guarantee you are not on OMI, right? And like I said, I love OMI. 42:33.520 --> 42:37.280 I'm not bashing OMI. We're going to keep doing OMI. But don't have it in your mind that it's 42:37.280 --> 42:41.760 not important as well to go out there and knock the doors of the people. This is the same reason 42:41.760 --> 42:46.080 why we're going to Belize. And I think this is like the fifth or sixth time that we're going, 42:46.080 --> 42:50.720 you know, to reach people again that are not online, right? And we've made a great impact 42:50.720 --> 42:55.200 all the years that we've gone. I'm looking forward to going again. I'm specifically thinking of like 42:55.200 --> 43:02.000 a guy named Efraim that I met in 2022. And it was cool because at the time he was like 12. He was 43:02.000 --> 43:06.720 like shorter than me, right? At the time. And, you know, I got him saved. And then we went back 43:06.720 --> 43:11.440 the next year. I met up with him. Now he's like this tall now. You know, he grew up. I didn't grow 43:11.440 --> 43:16.640 up at all. But, you know, we met up again. We had a service. He came to the service. He got baptized. 43:16.640 --> 43:20.480 And this time we're going again and we're going to meet up with him again. And, you know, I rejoice 43:20.480 --> 43:25.120 in things like that because we're able to see, you know, the fruit of our labor. And we know that all 43:25.120 --> 43:30.560 the things that we do for God are not in vain. Now go back to First Corinthians chapter three. 43:32.080 --> 43:33.200 First Corinthians chapter three. 43:40.800 --> 43:44.640 So the first point that I made is that as newborn babes, you know, the things that we have to do is 43:44.640 --> 43:49.600 prioritize the basics. Going to church, reading the word of God, learning to pray, learning to 43:49.600 --> 43:56.400 invest in others, and not being so carnal. Not being somebody that's just causing drama, envy, 43:56.400 --> 43:59.920 and strife. And there in First Corinthians chapter three, look down at verse number five, 43:59.920 --> 44:04.400 the Bible says again, who then is Paul and who is Apollos but ministers by whom he believed, 44:04.400 --> 44:08.800 even as the Lord gave to every man. And look down at verse number six, it says, I have planted 44:08.800 --> 44:15.040 Apollos water, but God gave the increase. And so we, again, we see the importance of our labor. 44:15.040 --> 44:18.560 You know, there are some that plant, you know, we could say that this is the person that preaches 44:18.560 --> 44:23.120 the gospel and there are some that water it, right? Maybe somebody else got you saved, but there's 44:23.120 --> 44:27.440 another person that invested in you and helped you grow in your Christian life. Or we could see it as, 44:27.440 --> 44:32.080 you know, a person that goes out there, the soul winners, right? That are planting and watering. 44:32.080 --> 44:36.720 And when we go out two and two, you know, both people are important, you know, the talker as 44:36.720 --> 44:41.600 much as the silent partner. And I'll tell you why, because the silent partner is not just there to, 44:41.600 --> 44:46.400 you know, be quiet and just, you know, for moral support, right? The silent partner is there to 44:46.400 --> 44:51.600 pray that that person gets saved. The silent partner is there to minimize distractions, right? 44:51.600 --> 44:55.920 And it's kind of like a pet peeve of mine when you have a silent partner, that person's not here 44:55.920 --> 45:00.480 right now, but you know, maybe you've gone out with somebody that has done this. When the silent 45:00.480 --> 45:06.080 partner is just disinterested, right? You're giving the gospel and instead of just backing you up and 45:06.080 --> 45:11.120 praying for the person or just keeping an eye out for any like danger or just helping you minimize 45:11.120 --> 45:15.200 distractions, what are they doing? They're just like looking around, you know, walking around, 45:15.200 --> 45:20.000 sitting on the stairs, you know, oh, well, this is one of the things that this person would do. 45:20.000 --> 45:23.920 Again, they're not here no more, but they would just sit on the stairs, right? And just like 45:23.920 --> 45:28.240 look into the distance and just being like distracted. That's just like one of the pet 45:28.240 --> 45:31.760 peeves of mine where like you're giving the gospel, you're there to get somebody saved, 45:31.760 --> 45:35.920 and this person's not even paying attention, right? And we don't want to be that kind of silent 45:35.920 --> 45:41.040 partner. We want to be there, want to be interested, be focused, right? And praying for the people so 45:41.040 --> 45:44.720 that they can get saved. Another thing that you don't want to do is just practical tips, right? 45:44.720 --> 45:51.600 You don't want to just like lean on somebody's like property or chair and just be a just slouching 45:51.600 --> 45:56.720 right there. Just, I don't know, taking up space, right? You're there for a purpose, and whether 45:56.720 --> 46:01.520 you're the talker, whether you're the silent partner, both of those people are there for a purpose. 46:01.520 --> 46:06.160 And so when we're there, you know, we need to go with that mindset of, you know, we're going to see 46:06.160 --> 46:11.120 somebody saved today. And sometimes we could be carnal, we could be fleshly, where we go to an area 46:11.120 --> 46:14.960 and it might be a little bit too nice, and we say, well, no one's going to get saved here. You just 46:14.960 --> 46:19.520 never know, right? Sometimes it's the most, the areas that look the most unreceptive where we see 46:19.520 --> 46:24.480 a lot of people saved. And so again, the point I want to make here as a newborn baby of Christ, 46:24.480 --> 46:28.880 one of the ways that you can grow in your faith is by investing in others. And the way that you 46:28.880 --> 46:34.000 do that is by going out there and actually doing the work. And just going back to that point where 46:34.000 --> 46:38.720 I was making that the way that you learn, the way that you grow, is by actually being a doer of the 46:38.720 --> 46:43.200 world. That's something that we have to purposely do. And it's not something that, you know, we do 46:43.200 --> 46:48.400 it one day and then the next day we're not doing it. We have to constantly do it day by day. 46:49.120 --> 46:51.200 Now go back to, actually, let me see. 46:53.760 --> 46:55.440 Go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. 46:59.680 --> 47:02.000 So I'm looking forward to going to Belize, all that to say, 47:02.880 --> 47:06.320 all right, that we're looking forward to going back to Belize and whether or not, you know, 47:06.320 --> 47:09.920 Faithful Word leaves some salvations for us, right? Because it seems like they're getting 47:09.920 --> 47:13.360 everybody saved, but we're going to another city, so we don't have to worry about that. 47:13.360 --> 47:16.320 But the thing is this, that the point I want to make with that is that, you know, 47:16.320 --> 47:20.640 Faithful Word is an awesome church, right? And they're doing a great work and we rejoice with 47:20.640 --> 47:24.480 them with everybody that they get saved, but we're also going to do a great work. And we 47:24.480 --> 47:27.840 shouldn't have this attitude where like one church is better than the other. If we're both 47:27.840 --> 47:30.960 getting people saved, you know, we're both doing it for the Lord at the end of the day. 47:30.960 --> 47:34.080 That's what the Bible says, who then is Paul, who then is Apollos, right? Because at the end of the 47:34.080 --> 47:38.960 day, we don't really matter in the sense that, you know, whether we go or not, you know, God is going 47:38.960 --> 47:43.440 to give the increase. If we don't go, somebody else in our church will go, right? But at the same 47:43.440 --> 47:47.120 time, we don't want to have this mentality where like, okay, well, you know, if somebody else is 47:47.120 --> 47:51.440 going to go, then I don't have to go, right? You want to have the mentality as that attitude, as if 47:52.000 --> 47:55.200 I don't think anybody else is going to go, I have to be the one that's going, right? 47:56.320 --> 48:00.000 Now, if you're there in first Corinthians chapter three, look down at verse number seven, it says, 48:00.000 --> 48:05.040 so then neither is he that planted anything, neither he that watereth, but God that give it 48:05.040 --> 48:10.960 the increase. And in verse number eight, now he that planted and he that watereth are one, 48:10.960 --> 48:16.640 and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. And so here we see 48:16.640 --> 48:20.800 that we are going to receive our own reward according to our own labor. So we can't have 48:20.800 --> 48:25.120 this attitude either. And if we're maturing under faith that, you know, our church does a lot of 48:25.120 --> 48:29.360 soul winning, therefore I'm going to get rewarded for it. It doesn't work that way, right? You need 48:29.360 --> 48:33.440 to go out there and do the work yourself in order to receive those rewards. You know, you're not 48:33.440 --> 48:38.800 going to receive rewards just by curiosity. You have to, you have to actually be the one to go out 48:38.800 --> 48:44.240 there and get the job done. And so the sermon this evening, let me see if I cover everything, 48:44.800 --> 48:49.760 is that number one, we all start off as babes in Christ. That's the first point I want to make. 48:49.760 --> 48:53.840 If you just got saved recently, you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're a babe in Christ, 48:53.840 --> 48:57.920 right? But you don't have to stay that way. You have to mature in your faith. And here's the other 48:57.920 --> 49:04.480 thing, us that we've been in church for a couple of years now, we have to, you know, keep an eye out 49:04.480 --> 49:08.640 that we don't regress back into being a babe in Christ, because these kinds of things, what we 49:08.640 --> 49:13.520 call backsliding, doesn't happen overnight. And, you know, we've been around for like nine years 49:13.520 --> 49:17.760 now, and there's a lot of people that are no longer here, right? And it's not because it happened 49:17.760 --> 49:21.520 overnight or anything like that. It's just things that happen little by little. And so we need to 49:21.520 --> 49:27.600 be careful in our life to pay attention to see little things creeping up in our life, like I 49:27.600 --> 49:32.480 said, little by little and realize that, hey, I'm going down a bad path. I need to repent. I need 49:32.480 --> 49:36.560 to get right with God and, you know, keep growing in my faith. And we don't want to be people that 49:36.560 --> 49:42.240 regress, right? Nobody, everybody hates it when, or I hate it too, when you're gaining and losing 49:42.240 --> 49:46.800 the same five pounds, right? You don't want to be that type of person where, like, you're constantly 49:46.800 --> 49:50.800 in the same stage. You take two steps forward and then you take two steps back and you're always in 49:50.800 --> 49:56.560 the same spot, right? That might suck, right, as in a physical sense, but it also sucks as a Christian, 49:56.560 --> 50:00.560 right? And you don't want to look years from now and realize that you haven't done anything with 50:00.560 --> 50:05.280 your life. And the third point that I want to make lastly is this, that if we're mature in our faith, 50:05.280 --> 50:09.680 we need to be patient with others. We need to realize that, hey, a person is carnal, you know, 50:09.680 --> 50:14.720 they're fleshy, they're worldly, but we can help them, right, mature in their faith. We can't look 50:14.720 --> 50:18.880 at everybody and expect them to act like, you know, one of us, right? They're not going to have it 50:18.880 --> 50:23.280 all together in the beginning. We certainly didn't have it all together. You know, we have to teach 50:23.280 --> 50:30.320 them to dress right, to act right, you know, men help the men out there, right? Hey, you're in charge, 50:30.320 --> 50:34.000 you're the husband, right? You get to tell your wife what to do. We need, these are things that 50:34.000 --> 50:38.000 we need to teach the men in our church. We need to teach the young men, you know, hey, you need to 50:38.000 --> 50:42.720 be a hard worker, you know, be 10 times better than the other employees that are there at that job. 50:42.720 --> 50:46.960 These are things that don't come naturally that we need to invest in others. So the last point 50:46.960 --> 50:50.800 I want to make is this, that we need to be patient with the new people that are coming to our church 50:50.800 --> 50:56.080 and they may not look like us. Some of them may have long hair. Some of them, you know, may be 50:56.080 --> 51:00.400 doing things that we probably wouldn't do now, right? But at one point or another, we were doing 51:00.400 --> 51:03.600 things that the people that were mature in their faith were looking at us, they're like, man, look 51:03.600 --> 51:08.880 at this guy, right? So we need to be patient. We need to realize that everybody starts off as a 51:08.880 --> 51:13.120 baby in Christ, but we need to put in the work and invest in others so that they can mature 51:13.120 --> 51:16.640 in their faith. And that's the sermon tonight. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for this 51:16.640 --> 51:20.960 day. Thank you for the service that we had, Lord. Thank you for the opportunity to preach. And I 51:20.960 --> 51:24.800 pray, Lord, that you be with us, that you would help us to mature in our faith, that we wouldn't 51:24.800 --> 51:31.680 revert back to old habits, to sinful habits, or to be undisciplined again. Help us to always remember 51:32.320 --> 51:36.080 the things that we learned in church and not only be a hero of the word, but also a doer. 51:36.080 --> 51:40.160 Help us to invest in others. Help us to do a great work for you. And please bless our 51:40.160 --> 51:43.280 efforts and beliefs that we will see a lot of people save. In Jesus' name, amen. 51:49.440 --> 51:52.720 Song number 310, Footprints of Jesus.