against the sun, in the night season and all the day long.
Away up in fire and away from the clay,
God leads his dear children along.
Away up in glory, eternity's day,
God leads his dear children along.
Through the water, some through the flood, some through the fire, but all through the blood, some through great sorrow, but God gives us song in the nice season and all the day long.
Heavenly Father, Lord, we come before you tonight.
We just thank you for the opportunity again
to be in church on this Sunday evening.
We thank you for the safety you've provided for us
to be able to be here and the health
and just the ability to assemble together and worship you.
And we just ask your blessing upon us
as we come into this time of singing and praise unto you.
We just ask that you'd fill us with the Holy Spirit
and help us be edified and encouraged as we sing out
and help us just to worship you and spirit in truth
as we do that.
And that you'd also just prepare hearts
for the preaching to come.
and that He may preach with power and authority, and that we may understand the message and
apply it to our lives the best way we can, and that we may be better Christians as a
result of it, and that everything that's said and done would bring honor and glory to your
Son, and it's in His name, Jesus Christ, that we pray. Amen.
There's a royal banner given for display him number four hundred and five lift your voice nice and strong on that first now
four hundred and five
There's a royal banner given for display to the soldiers of the game
As an end sign where we lift it up today while as ransom once we sing
Marching on
marching on. For Christ counts everything but loss, and to crown him king, toil and sing
in the banner of the cross. Though the foe may rage and gather as the flood, let the standard
be displayed.
And beneath it holds as soldiers of the Lord, For the truth may not dismay.
Marching on, marching on, For Christ counts everything but loss,
And to crown Him king, Toil and sink me.
and made well, made the glorious tidings not.
And the Chris and the banner, now the story's out,
while the Lord shall claim his own.
Marching on, marching on, for Christ
downs everything but law.
When the glory dawns, destroying very near, it is hasten day by day.
Then before our King the flesh shall disappear, and the cross the world shall slay.
Marching on, marching on, for Christ has everything but life.
All right, good singing.
All right, at this time,
we'll go through our announcements together.
If you don't have a bulletin,
slip up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one.
On the inside, we have our service time.
Sunday mornings at 10.30 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at six.
Wednesday nights at seven is our Bible study.
And this week we're gonna be in Psalm 88.
We've got the soul winning times listed there below
as well as salvations and baptisms.
And then across the page, we've got the beautiful photo
of the Caca Baker baby Mimi who was born on August 13th.
So congratulations to them, be sure to congratulate them.
And if you want to help out with any meal trains,
there are still some meals that need to be signed up for.
So you can talk to Mrs. Amanda Wright
or Mrs. Sarah Ventura about that.
This Thursday night, we're having another Spanish game night at five o'clock on Thursday.
If you need to show up later, you could probably jump in because we'll be going for a few hours.
So, again, that is this Thursday evening.
And then that's for Spanish speakers only.
And then below that, the cruise mission strip, there's a whole bunch of...
I think a few of those are actually not cruise mission strips.
There's like a Mexico City mission strip on there.
And then of course, you know,
Pastor Shelley's got a big Bahamas mission strip coming up.
but there are a bunch of cruise mission strips options there and that that's just kind of
information for you to be able to plan those and look at those and you know see if you can
make any of those work. The way that we've been doing it to help people go on these cruise mission
strips is basically you buy your own cruise and then we actually buy the flight to get you
to that port to get started. So you know if you're going to go and do the soul winning
And, you know, we just expect you to go at each port,
soul winning for like four to five hours.
So if you put in about five hours of soul winning
or at least, you know, get close to that,
that's kind of what we're looking for,
four or five hours of soul winning.
And if you're willing to do that
and go on one of these trips,
you know, we want to help you get there
because we end up getting a ton of people
saved on these things.
And obviously you have a lot of fun
on the cruise and everything.
So if you'll buy the cruise,
then we will help you out with the flight.
While supplies last, see stores for details, void where prohibited, many will enter, few will win, and so forth.
But anyway, yeah, while supplies last, which, you know, supplies are pretty good right now,
so, you know, we should be able to accommodate everyone as long as you, you know,
Get your cruise. We don't want to book your flight until your cruise is locked in
So you have to lock in the cruise then come to us about us
Booking that flight for you and we'll help you out with that. You know God willing. Okay?
And then, on the back, we've got the list of expecting ladies, pray for them that they will have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery.
Oh, by the way, what I was saying is that, you know, these are ideas, these are ones that people in our church are doing, but really you can play in your own.
You really just need at least one other person.
And you can just kind of just find the one that fits your schedule and what you want to do.
And you can come to us for advice and we can tell you, hey, this is a good one or no, this is why it's a bad idea.
Because we know this is receptive, this is not. We typically know what the good ones are going to be.
And so keep praying for our expectant ladies. We've got a lot of pregnant ladies on the list here
that they would have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery.
And then below that, other upcoming events,
just wanna make a special mention of the fact
that I'm gonna be preaching at a different place each week.
I'm still gonna be hitting all the services here.
I'm not missing any church,
God willing for the next several months, really.
But this Friday night, I'm gonna be preaching in Houston.
Next Saturday night, I'm gonna be preaching in Dallas
at the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship.
Then on September 5th, Friday, I'm going to be preaching in Indianapolis,
and then on September 12th, Friday, I'm going to be preaching in Boise, Idaho.
So pray for me that I can have good travels and preach good sermons
and be a blessing in these places that I go.
And if you know anybody in those areas, give them the heads up.
If you're watching online, of course.
If you live within striking distance,
you should be willing to drive six, seven, eight,
maybe even nine hours to go to Narscape.
But anyway, if anybody's with it,
and people do that a lot of the time,
but if anybody's within striking distance,
whatever that means to you,
you know, whether that's, you know, one hour
or five hours or, it's funny,
people will be going to do an event somewhere,
we're doing a soul winning marathon somewhere,
or I'm going to preach somewhere,
and people will be like,
hey, come to this place sometime,
and it's like an hour and a half away.
Bro, I came thousands of miles.
You're gonna have to do that last little leg, you know?
It's like, if I'm coming to Oklahoma City,
don't tell me I need to be going to Tulsa or something.
Yeah, you're gonna have to make up that difference, all right?
So anyway, that's about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and quickly count up the soul winning
from the past few days.
So going back to Thursday,
which what was the date on Thursday?
It'd be the 14th.
So anything from Thursday, okay, got it?
Anything else from Thursday?
I'm sorry. Okay.
All right. Anything else? Got ya.
Anything else from Thursday? Okay. How about Friday?
Anything from Friday?
Gotcha.
Okay. Anything else for Friday? How about Saturday?
Oh yeah, you had, okay, so they had another OME TV soul winning marathon and they had
12 people participate and they had a total of 48 people saved, 12 participants, 48 salvation,
so great work on that.
And so anything outside of that, because I already got the 48 from that soul winning
marathon, all right.
getting married and winning souls the same day?
What a guy.
Because you have relatives come out?
Yeah, they came from Texas.
So that's who you were talking to?
Yeah, it was my father and my younger son.
Oh, excellent.
Very good.
From Houston, you said?
Yeah, it's crazy actually.
I'll say hi to him when I'm out there.
It's a small town, you know, a small place.
All right, and then anything else from Saturday besides those and then how about
Sunday today anything from today
So brother Ian's got the main group there
Okay, two for the main group gotcha
Say 13 for that group. All right, and then any other groups from today gotcha
Got it.
Okay.
Anything else from today?
Very good, keep up the great work on soul winning.
With that, let's sing our next song.
Come lead us.
All right, turn your hymn notes to hymn number 177.
Hymn number 177.
All right.
When love shines in Him number 177 Jesus comes with power to gladden when love shines in Him number
177 sing it out together now
Good thing everybody go up to him number 184 him number 184. I love be my Jesus him number 184
What words can I find to tell Jesus I love him number
time we will pass our offering plates around. As the plates go around,
let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter number three.
First Corinthians chapter number three. As we always do,
we'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number one.
Fall along silently with brother Dan as he reads 1 Corinthians chapter three,
beginning in verse number one.
1st Corinthians 3 the Bible reads and I brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual
But as unto carnal even as unto babes in Christ
I've fed you with milk and not with meat for hither to you were not able to bear it neither yet
Now are you able for you are yet carnal for whereas there is among you
Enveying and strife and divisions. Are you not carnal and walk his men?
For while one saith, I am of Paul, and another I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal?
Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?
I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.
So then neither is he that planted anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth
the increase.
Now he that planteth, and he that watereth, are one, and every man shall receive his
own reward according to his own labor.
For we are laborers together with God, ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.
According to the grace of God which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid
but let every man take heed how we buildeth there upon.
For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus Christ.
Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble,
every man's work shall be made manifest. For the day shall declare it, because it shall be
revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work
abide which he hath built there upon, he shall receive a reward.
If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved,
yet so is by fire. No ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in
you. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is holy,
which temple ye are. Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seems to be wise in the world,
in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness
For it is written, he taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
And again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are vain.
Therefore let no man glory in men, for all things are yours.
Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come,
all are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.
Dearly Father, thank you for today, and I thank you for this opportunity to gather here today and hear their word preach to us.
Please just open up our ears and hearts to receive the message and be faithful doers of the work.
Jesus name is prayer, amen.
Man, 1 Corinthians chapter 3 starts out with this subject about Christians who are carnal.
He says in verse number 1, and I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual,
but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
So notice here that the carnal Christian is equated to the babe in Christ.
So here's the thing, if someone just got saved, they're a babe in Christ.
15 years and they still have the maturity of that baby Christian who just got saved yesterday, right?
There's nothing wrong with being a babe in Christ, except when you've been saved for 20 years
and you have the mentality of a babe of Christ, that's a problem, right?
There's nothing wrong with a baby being a baby and we expect babies to need everything done for them and to be given
breast milk and then you know baby food and we expect them to soil their diapers and to scream
and cry about every little thing. That's just babies being babies.
but if a 10-year-old or a 15-year-old acted that way,
something's wrong with that picture, okay?
And it's the same thing spiritually.
The apostle Paul is saying,
I should be able to speak to you as unto spiritual,
but because you're carnal,
I end up having to talk to you as unto babes in Christ
and feed you with milk instead of strong meat.
So there's this famous false teacher out there,
And he famously said that there is no such thing as a carnal Christian.
In fact, I'm going to read the quote for you.
Quote, and this is from his most famous sermon that kind of put him on the map
on YouTube. It says, there is no such thing as a carnal Christian period.
Now the apostle Paul would beg to differ since he just said, Hey,
I had to talk to you like the carnal Christians that you are.
Even as unto babes in Christ. So according to Paul a carnal Christian is like a babe in Christ not somebody who's not in Christ
Because guess what a babe in Christ is still in Christ, and they're still a Christian
And so of course there are carnal Christians and you hear all of these other
Calvinist bozo types like that are like Paul washer saying things like oh, you know the doctrine of the carnal Christian
It's the most American doctrine ever
tailor-made for American Christianity.
Like, there's something wrong with American Christianity.
Like, I don't know, the Christianity that's probably done more for missions
and reaching the world with the Gospel than any other nation in the history of man?
So America has probably sent out more missionaries and done more soul and evangelize more
than anyone in the history of man.
But then you have these preachers, so, oh, you in America, you know, you American Christians.
You are so weak you American, you know, it's like bro love it or leave it
America is if anything
Superior spiritually then pretty much anywhere else and you even go to other places and usually the churches that are doing the most
It's some American guy went over there and started it and gotta go look. I'm just talking about reality today
I'm not even just being like some kind of a, you know, an American exceptionalist or something.
I'm just talking about the reality of the lay of the land.
Look around, brother.
There are more Baptists, more soul winners, more evangelical Christians,
doing more for God and more world missions than in America, than anywhere else.
But we're supposed to, I don't know, wish we were Chinese or something.
You know, what's the deal, man?
I don't understand this negativity, and I think I did a whole sermon on it like a year ago or something,
so I'm not gonna go too far into that.
But this idea that Christians can't be carnal, it just totally contradicts Scripture,
because keep your finger there and go back to Romans 7.
Another beautiful passage that really debunks this false teaching that, you know,
anybody who's not living for God is somehow not saved.
Anybody who's carnal isn't saved, or whatever.
Look at Romans chapter 7, this is the apostle Paul speaking,
who was arguably the greatest Christian who ever lived.
And what did he say in verse 14?
He said, for we know that the law is spiritual,
but I am carnal.
Sold under sense.
We have Paul Washer telling us there's no such thing as a carnal Christian.
Then we have the greatest Christian who ever lived saying, quote,
I am carnal.
Okay, so apparently you can be a Christian and still be carnal, okay?
Paul is talking about the fact that even as a saved Christian, he's still struggling with sin.
There's a battle between the flesh and the spirit.
The flesh lusted against the spirit, spirit against the flesh, something that we all deal with.
And so obviously we don't want to be carnal, we want to strive to be spiritual.
Here the Corinthians are being rebuked for being carnal, but they're not being rebuked for not existing.
Hey, you guys don't even exist.
Because carnal Christians aren't real.
You're a figment of my imagination.
I don't even know who I'm writing this letter to.
No, and he's not accusing them of being unsaved.
He's just saying you guys are like babes in Christ, okay?
And I'll read the whole quote too
to give you a little more context.
It says...
There's no such thing as a carnal Christian you are either a Christian who is growing in
Sanctification or you are not a Christian at all. So according to him, there's no such thing as backsliding
There's no such thing as moving backwards
There's no such thing as
stagnating in your Christian growth with is this if you're saved you're growing and if you're not growing all the time
You're not safe. This is garbage. It doesn't match what we see in reality
Nor does it match what we see in Scripture and I'm gonna prove that a little bit later in the sermon
But it says the Bible knows nothing of a person who claims Christ but lives like the world.
So it's just claiming that there's just foreign concept in the Bible, somebody who claims Christ but lives like the world.
Then why is the Bible constantly admonishing us not to be worldly?
if it's just automatic that we're not going to.
It's just impossible for us to do it.
Then why are there all these warnings
and telling us that we need to take heed
and then we need to work at being sanctified
and doing right, living right, getting sin out of our life,
abstaining from worldly lusts and so forth.
Those are not automatic things.
You know, I wish that every Christian, myself included,
when we got saved would just automatically
just start doing all the right things.
Wouldn't that be great if we just all this, you know if this Calvinist fairy tale would come true
It actually be kind of cool
If we would just believe on Christ call upon the name of the Lord and then all of a sudden
We just all our sent a sinful tendencies are just gone and we just find ourselves just doing the right thing at every turn
It's just so it's ridiculous. It's absurd
Now, obviously if we walk in the Spirit, yeah, there's going to be a great change in our lives.
And obviously God does empower us to do right, and we can walk in newness of life.
But unfortunately, most people are not putting on the new man on Monday morning.
They're not walking in the Spirit. We got to work at that.
And that's why the Bible is telling us over and over again, put on the new man, put off the old man,
put off the works of the flesh because it isn't automatic.
So he says here I couldn't speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal even as unto babes and Christ
I fed you with milk and not with meat for hitherto you were not able to bear it
Neither yet now are you able he's saying look I had to hit you with just really basic teaching
Because you're so basic because you're this babe in Christ and in the past you were too basic
But now, I assume that after some time had gone by,
you'd be ready for the deeper truths and for the meat of the word.
But unfortunately, I have to go back and take you back to kindergarten
and tell you just the most basic things and just give you the milk of the word.
I wish that I could give you something deeper and stronger.
And so that's what he's saying here when he talks about feeding with milk versus meat because, you know, he uses the same illustration in Hebrews chapter 5 when he says, you know, strong meat belong to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
But he said everyone that uses milk is a babe.
He's unskillful in the word of righteousness.
And so, you know, what the Bible is saying is that you don't want to get into the really deep things of the Bible and into the really exotic doctrines, if you will, until you have the basics down.
You know, we should really strive to hammer the basics.
if you went to a boxing gym or something,
or some kind of a martial arts studio,
and you wanna learn all these kind of spinning backfists,
kind of flying jump kicks or whatever.
No, you know, you need to just start with the basics,
give them the old one too.
The left jab and the right cross is what you're going to start with.
You're not going to start with the crane technique or something.
You're going to start with the more basic things.
Probably never going to get to the crane technique actually at a real gym.
But anyway, the point is that we as Christians,
we need to hammer basic doctrines and get those things down pat
before we move on to the exotic doctrines as it were.
And so many people, they want to go super deep.
on these really difficult subjects and then they haven't even read the Bible cover to cover
and they don't even have the basic things down, okay? And that's what he's talking about.
That's funny because, you know, I heard it said by someone that, you know, the preaching at the
Red Hop preaching conference was the, quote, strong meat of the word. And I'm thinking to myself,
really? Because I don't really remember it being that way. And then it was also said that me as a
preaching at that conference that, you know, the sermons that I brought were strong meat so they weren't really for everybody.
And I'm thinking to myself, okay, what did I preach on? You know, I'm going back and looking at my sermon titles from what I preached at the Red Hot Preaching Conference, marijuana.
Now, does a sermon against marijuana sound like the strong meat of the word to you?
Or does that seem like a pretty basic doctrine? Don't smoke pot.
was the really deep esoteric truth
that I delivered that night.
I did another server called People Who Are Trash.
Super deep stuff, folks.
Super theological, super cerebral, right?
It's really the strong meat of the word.
Somebody help me out, because it's,
I'm an old man, what else did I preach?
Transvestites, talk about the strong meat of the word.
I did a sermon called transvestites,
and it was said, oh, that's the meat of the word.
So everybody shouldn't go to the red hot preaching conference
because it's just a little bit advanced for people.
I'm sorry, but I don't think that sermons against marijuana
and trannies and sodomites and drunkenness
and fornication adultery, I don't think
that that's the meat of the word.
I think it's the milk of the word.
I think it's just basic, easy, bottom shelf stuff
that anybody off the street, I would be glad
for anyone off the street to stumble in here
and sit down and hear any of those sermons
because I feel like they were all pretty basic.
And then I think about some of the sermons
that were preached by other preachers
and I'm looking at their titles and it's the same thing.
Because here's the thing,
we don't want to confuse hard preaching with strong meat.
Strong meat here is talking about things that you'd have to be more mature to understand.
I don't think you have to be mature to understand.
No cross-dress, no smoke pot, no get drunk, no fornicate, no steal.
That's not, you don't have to be super advanced in your faith.
That's stuff for like day one.
Okay, and so what he's talking about when he talks about the strong meat of the word is talking about
Difficult doctrines, doctrines where there's like a prerequisite
Before you're even going to be able to grasp more difficult concepts
You have to know more about the Bible and look I've preached some sermons that were pretty difficult to follow
Maybe for somebody who's new in the faith and it was more of a strong meat of the word
But what I strive to do in every sermon is to do a mix of you know a glass of milk
with the steak
And, you know, worst case, I can just kind of just give the chocolate milk to the new believer
and while the seasoned believer is chewing up their steak, you know, they're just,
they just kind of slurp in their milk. And I can kind of give both. I think the ideal sermon
is a mix of deep things and basic things so that everybody at every level is growing and
learning and getting something out of it. But to call the Red Hot preaching conference,
the strong meat of the word is absurd.
because of the fact that it's not that it is complicated or difficult or cerebral or super deep in the Word of God.
No, my friend, it's just, it's hard preaching and I submit to you that people who just got saved are ready for hard preaching.
In fact, unsaved people are ready for hard preaching.
Everybody's ready for hard preaching,
and I can't even count how many times somebody came into our church,
brand new believer, unsaved visitor, whatever,
and just said, hey, I love this preaching.
Just right out of the gate.
From day one, they're just like, I love it.
Love the hard preaching.
Now, a more deep theological sermon might go over their head
and they might not enjoy it that much or get much out of it.
but this attitude that says,
oh, new believers aren't ready for hard preaching
or visitors aren't ready for hard preaching.
This is why in the old IFB,
they will typically have a mentality
of not preaching hard on Sunday morning.
So they'll preach all of their kind, mellow,
nice sermons on Sunday morning,
and then Sunday night is where they rip the face,
Wednesday night is where they rip face.
And to be honest with you,
I don't really understand the point.
And what you'll find in these churches is that they will have a dramatically larger Sunday morning crowd
than the Sunday night or Wednesday night crowd.
Now look, obviously I understand our Sunday morning crowd is definitely bigger than our Sunday night crowd.
And I would say that the difference is probably close to maybe 80 to 100 people different.
You know, so that if we run
300 on a Sunday morning.
We might run in the very low 200s on Sunday night.
Or if we run 287 in the morning,
we might have 195 in the evening.
You know, that's about where it stands,
but we still have like two thirds of the people
coming back and some people are like Sunday night only
and Wednesday night only.
You just can't get up in the morning or no.
They might have to work or have a different schedule.
But the point is,
that I don't understand the point in having to build some big giant auditorium
so that you can fit 600 people on Sunday morning and only 75 of them are coming back at night.
or something, or you have 400 people on Sunday morning
and 80 of them are coming back at night.
And I remember going to a church,
and this was not a fundamental Baptist church,
but it was a Baptist church, it was more liberal.
We went to this church for a while,
and they would run 2,000 on Sunday mornings.
Giant auditorium, 2,000 on Sunday mornings.
We didn't go to the Sunday night service.
Even though we were three to thrive our whole lives,
when you're at a liberal church,
one service is enough and you're done.
The 20 minute sermon and you're done.
But the pastor announced he's gonna do an end time series and we're like, okay
You know that sounds like could be interested sounds like it could be cool
He kind of said he was gonna blow our minds a little bit in the series. So we're like, oh, wow
Okay, we came back that Sunday night and it was our first time showing up at a Sunday night at this at this liberal church
And there were less than a hundred people there
So we're talking 2,000 on Sunday morning there were less than a hundred people and it was like the pastor came down from the platform
And just came down him. Whoa
That's exactly what happened to him, too
But he came he came down here amongst the people it took off the microphone
And it's just like it was like four rows of people and he's just kind of preach
I was like, wow, we're finally getting to know the pastor a little bit here
You just got to show you got to be one of the like five percent of people that show up on Sunday night
But a lot of times, old IFB churches will have these gigantic Sunday morning crowds
and then much smaller evening services.
And part of the reason why is that they're kind of stringing along those Sunday morning people
by not really hitting them with the hard preaching.
And then as soon as they hear the hard preaching, a lot of times, they're out.
So what's the point might as well just unload the whole truck and you know if they don't like it well
They can just hit the road jack and not come back and then we won't need as big of a building
To pack it out with a bunch of Sunday morning glories who don't even like heart-preaching who don't even want to hear the truth of God's
Word unless it fits their lifestyle or whatever. So there is no point at all in
dumbing down
spiritually
The Sunday morning sermon the Sunday look I should be able to rip on
Sodomites and fornication and drugs and alcohol and gambling
I should be able to hit all that stuff on Sunday morning and just preach the hardest sermon ever on Sunday morning with no issue
Because if it's true, if it's the Word of God,
if I'm filled with the Spirit of God,
I don't have to, like the Holy Spirit's in like night mode.
Or like your phone has like a night mode and a day mode.
So the Holy Spirit's in night mode
so I can really let her rip.
But then when my Holy Spirit's on morning mode,
that's when I hold back.
So I don't offend the Sunday morning glories.
We're gonna have to change the channel on this thing.
But.
The thing is that, you know, we don't want to have this attitude that says,
oh, people can't handle hard preaching, this is scary for them.
You know, maybe you're the one who can't handle the hard preaching.
Because what I've found is that people can handle way more than what we give them credit for.
And pastors across America are afraid to get up and preach hard
because they think the people can't handle it when in reality if they would get up and
preach hard and lead their people, a lot of the people would rally.
And the church could really grow and thrive and do more.
And the people who can't handle it, well, nuts to them.
You know, I only have one mode for preaching.
You know and to me like I never really got that excited about the red-hot preaching conference because I just felt like every Sunday at faithful word
The preaching is hard. It wasn't like oh, I got to find a hard sermon. It's just it's like no just find a sermon
Because that's the only kind of sermon that there is is preaching hard
And I am excited about preaching at the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship next Saturday night.
I'm not putting any shade on that because I'm super excited about that.
But you know what, I would be super excited if it were just called the Texas whatever fellowship.
I don't really, it's not that it's called fire breathing that gets me excited,
it's more just that we're going to our buddy's church and having a conference,
seeing our friends from all over America.
You could call it the, you know, the, I don't know, the friendship
and love and apple pie conference.
And I would just be like, yeah, let's go.
Let's do it.
And I'm still going to preach hard because that's the only way I know how to preach.
You know, I'm going to preach whatever the Bible says.
And so we don't want to use this, oh, you know, there's the strong meat, and then there's the milk,
and so, you know, that's the dichotomy.
The strong meat is when Pastor Anderson really goes up there and rips face, that is not the strong meat.
The strong meat is talking about difficult, complicated, deep things, theological, cerebral, you know,
things that are going deeper into the word, spiritual things, not just, hey, fags are gross.
That is not the meat of the word. That is the milk of the word. In fact, that's not even the milk of the word
That's colostrum. Is that the right word? Am I using the right word?
That's the colostrum of the word. You know, that's not even the milk
That's that clear stuff that comes out like the first day before your milk really comes in right ladies
Who knows what I'm talking all the ladies and kids that you didn't know I knew so much about breastfeeding
But I got 12 kids so I know my colostrum from my mother's milk. Okay?
It's the colostrum of the word at the Red Hop Preaching Conference.
It just hits kind of hard when you're back slidding.
Anyway, let's get off that.
Let's move on.
It says here, I fed you with milk and not with meat.
He's not saying, oh, I preach soft sermons because I was afraid of offending people and I don't want new believers.
And you know what's funny, when I was, sorry, I got to go off on this more.
When I was in Bible college, this is what they said.
They said, for the first year when you start your church, don't preach hard for that first year.
Just love your people.
And I'm like, I thought I was loving people when I preach hard.
I thought the harder I preach, the more love I feel.
What does that even mean?
Just love your people, don't preach too hard.
Because they said, you know, you gotta bring people along.
But here's the thing about that.
Here's why that makes no sense.
Because of the fact that there's always gonna be
a new person every Sunday, virtually.
I mean, we have first time visitors virtually
every single Sunday.
I mean, this Sunday we had several.
So if I'm like, oh, can't preach hard because,
what the heck?
All right, can't preach hard because people are too new.
If I can't, I guess I just can't move.
If I can't preach hard because people are too new,
what am I gonna do when new people are coming in
literally every Sunday?
Then I can just never preach hard.
And then what's funny is that these exact same people
who said, don't preach the really hard sermons
the first year, just love your people
and don't preach too hard.
The same people said, the people that you start
your church with,
are not going to be the people who you have with you in the long run.
And they showed us examples of pastors who started churches
and everybody who was with them that first year had all left and been replaced by other people.
Now, obviously, yeah, churches have a big turnover, but I was thinking to myself,
do you think maybe that's because you didn't preach hard for the first year?
And then all of a sudden you started preaching hard
and then you replaced everybody with new people?
Why don't I just skip that step and just go straight to year two?
Star-ripping phase, and then I can keep Second Sunday Amanda the whole time.
Where's Amanda?
I could keep Second Sunday Amanda the whole time.
And by the way, last Sunday, there was a family here in our church
where the dad was here on day one.
He even had Amanda beat by one week.
And that family was here last Sunday, right?
You know, I'm glad to still have a lot of people from that first year.
How about Amanda's mom, Wilma?
She was here last Sunday, am I right?
She was here real recently.
I think it was last Sunday I talked to her.
Not last Sunday, because I wasn't even here.
My last Sunday.
When I say last Sunday, I mean two weeks ago.
And so, because that's when I was here.
But the point is that we need to preach heart
and don't ever be scared to bring a visitor
to faithful word.
That hurts me more than when the president of Botswana
calls me undesirable.
I'll tell you why it hurts.
is when you're embarrassed to bring your friends or loved ones or visitors to
Faithful Word Baptist Church to hear me preach because you think I'm embarrassing
or something. That hurts because I'm preaching the Bible up here and I feel
like any sensible person from any walk of life can hear this preaching and say
okay it makes sense and if they're looking in the Bible so much the better
because they're gonna see it right in front of them.
So he says you're carnal, you know, I couldn't really lay the heavy stuff. I'm not talking about hard preaching
It's like my difficult stuff
You're carnal. You're not ready to handle the really difficult teaching the Bible and in another way to interpret the difficult
Another way to interpret the meat of the word versus the milk of the word would be asking you to do something hard
Like how hard is it to just get up to be like stay married?
Right don't get drunk
Don't stop shoplifting, right? These aren't the really hard things about get a haircut. That's not super hard. Is it?
But what if I said love your enemies that's hard
Right, there are things that are more difficult in the Bible more challenging to obey loving your enemies is harder than getting a haircut
But either way hard preaching is not the meat of the word typically hard preaching is the milk of the word
So, anyway, I just wanted to make clear that distinction.
So, he's going to bring up a specific point of why these people are carnal.
He says, your carnal, for while one sayeth first four,
I'm of Paul, and another I'm of Apollos, are you not carnal?
Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed,
even as the Lord gave to every man?
And so, what the Bible is saying is that ultimately God is the one who is working in our lives.
Jesus is the one who saved us.
God is the one who got us where we are in our lives.
And he used human beings to do that.
But we don't want to overemphasize the human beings.
And people who are immature or carnal, they get really tribal about these different personalities.
It's sort of like people who get obsessed with sports.
And it's just they're just a die-hard whatever the team fan and and you know
It's it's a little bit childish to just be a super-duper fan of
This preacher or this team or whatever, you know, obviously love those
who preach to you and have invested in you, be loyal to them, love them.
But we don't want to put them on such a pedestal and we certainly don't want to
make it a test of fellowship of, well, if you don't like this particular preacher,
then I'm going to have nothing to do with you. Or if you do like this particular preacher,
you know, well, and I'm not talking about false prophets, I'm talking about even within
Team Pastor Anderson versus, you know, team fill in some, you know, I don't know, old
IFB preacher or something that's saved and preaching the gospel, but he's just a little
different style or whatever.
We don't want to have this attitude that we're the only ones that are right and I'm
Team Paul and these Apollos people make me nervous.
You know, the Cephas crowd makes me nervous.
No, you know, we need to understand that there's room in Christianity.
for the Paul people, the Paulist people, the Cephas people and not be making a big deal
about identifying with the certain preacher and having this us against them mentality.
Now here's the thing, obviously we have our crowd of our friends and we get together and have
conferences and we work together on projects and so forth, but here's the thing, we don't have this
attitude that everybody outside of our group is somehow not legitimate or something.
You know, I think that there are a lot of good churches in this area, in the Phoenix area,
where you could go there and you could serve God, you could win souls, you could grow.
This is not the only legitimate church, and if I could do something to help those other
churches, I would, even if they're not our buddies, even if they're not in our crowd.
You know, and by the way, it's easy to get up and say that and not give any examples.
But I'll give you examples, you know, I think that Valley Baptist Church out in Mesa is a great church,
Pastor Kevin Kelly. And then there's a new church that just started up in Chandler,
Old Path Baptist, I believe. That guy seems like a great guy.
That seems like a great church. You know, and again, we could point to other churches in this area.
I just, I would list more, but I just don't really think about it that much or know
them that well. But I've visited other churches in this area. I guarantee you that there are probably about 10
churches in the Phoenix area that are King James
and that have some kind of soul-winning.
You know, it might be once a month,
it might not be as robust as our soul-winning program,
but they're still serving God.
You know, and you could go there and you could grow
and you could learn and you could serve God.
Look, obviously I want you to be at faithful word.
I want everybody to be at faithful word,
but here's the thing, I know that everybody's not going to be at faithful word.
And so I'm glad that these other churches exist
and I'm glad for every soul that they went to Christ.
And I'm not going to have this attitude that, well, we're the only ones that are right in everything.
Well, no, because Christianity existed long before we were born,
and it'll be here long after we're gone.
And there are, you know, literally over 6,000 independent Baptist churches in America that are King James.
Not even counting the ones that are not King James.
There's about 6,000 that are King James only.
in America just in America just King James only independent fundamental Baptist churches
I'm not saying that they're all great
But I'm saying that there's a lot of saved people serving God in those 6000 churches
There are a lot of good ones out there there they vary they're all over the spectrum from being really good to really bad
But the point is we're not alone
There are thousands of great churches in this world.
Our circle of friends is pretty small
in comparison to what's out there, okay?
Obviously, we like our friends,
but we don't want to have this carnal attitude
that says, well, I'm, you know, I'm new IFB,
and so I can't set foot in an old IFB church.
I can't set foot in these other churches.
No, if they're King James and they're preaching the gospel,
you know, you can go to those places.
You can visit those places.
You can attend those places.
in a pinch you join those places and and be fruitful and grow there
and we love those brothers and sisters in Christ we want to help them want to be
blessed them so we love it if we can go soul-winning and then point people to
those churches even. I mean there have been many times when I'm out soul-winning
in East Mesa or something oh you're all the way in Tempe well hey
Valleys right here and I'll point them to that church and I'll even you know write down the phone number of the church and say
Hey, if you need a ride they have a bus ministry and so I've sat there and tried to recruit people to these other churches
Why because it's not about our church or our pastor or our guy
It's really just about the work of God and we should all realize that we're on the same team
We should all be pulling
the same rope and not be too tribal or territorial about, you know, being associated with a certain
preacher or not. And again, I'm not talking about false prophets or something. I'm talking about
saved preachers that are preaching the Bible, but they're just not exactly like us. Okay.
So he says, if you're saying, I'm of Paul and I'm of Apollos, and you're basically having a contention about this,
like, oh, you're of Paul's, well, I'm of Paul, and trying to basically divide over that, right?
Because again, we don't want to miss this.
There's nothing, because people would twist this and say like, see, you don't want to follow a man.
The Bible teaches us to follow man.
Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ.
The problem is not following Paul. The problem is not following a Paulist.
Here's the problem is that there's strife and division among you, it says at the end of verse 3.
Strife and division, one says, I'm a Paul, another I'm of a Paulist.
What it's saying is you're breaking fellowship with other good Bible-believing Christians over a personality.
Right? And we shouldn't just break fellowship with other Christians and other churches for no reason.
And just, oh, we can't have anything to do with that church across town. No biblical reason given.
Does everybody see what I'm saying? That's carnal.
That's a baby Christian thing to do to think only my church is right and every other church is bad.
As opposed to maybe understanding, hey, I might like Paul better than Apollos, or I might like Apollos better,
and we should follow men of God as they follow Christ, but we don't want to have strife and division over personalities.
saying, oh, you know, well, you follow that guy.
So therefore, and again, I'm not,
false prophets, we should divide over unsaved false prophets.
That's not what we're talking about.
But is Paul or Apollos an unsaved false prophet?
No, he said they're ministers by whom you believed.
So these are definitely saved soul-winning guys.
And not only that, he says ministers by whom you believed,
even as the Lord gave to every man.
So, God has given to every man ministers by whom they believed and what the Bible is saying there is that people don't just get saved by themselves.
People don't just on their own have some kind of an epiphany.
We kind of talked about this this morning. You can't look inside or look at nature to get saved.
You get saved through divine revelation and that is because someone preaches the gospel to you.
The Bible says, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, but then it says, how shall they hear without a preacher?
And then the Ethiopian eunuch, he was just reading the Bible on his own but he couldn't understand it.
And then Philip asked him, understand us now what thou readest?
And he said, how can I, except some man should guide me.
Philip had to show him the Gospel from the Word of God.
He can't just derive it by himself from the Bible.
There are ministers by whom we believe, right?
If you're saved, somebody at some point explained the Gospel to you, preached,
and it was probably a bunch of people.
because one person will plant the seed, another person will water, and then ultimately God will give the increase,
but you could probably even point to multiple people that gave you the gospel over the years,
and maybe, well, this person planted the seed when I was a kid,
but I didn't get saved until I was an adult when someone presented it more clearly, or what have you.
So everybody has ministers by whom they believed.
Verse 6, I've planted Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.
So then neither is he that planted anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.
So he's saying, don't overemphasize the human instruments that God uses,
and just realize that it's not Pollyanity or Apollosianity, or Pastor Andersonianity, or New IFBianity,
it's Christianity, ultimately, that we're following.
Now, verse 8, he that planteth and he that watereth are one, and every man shall receive
his own reward according to his own labor.
Now what does it mean when it says he that planteth and he that watereth are one?
It's saying it's the same person.
Because some people, I've heard some people say, well I've never won anyone to Christ
in my life because God has called me just to be a planter.
So I just plant seeds, but I I can never get anybody to the finish line, but God has called me to just plant seeds
That's not true
We should all be striving to actually be a full-service gospel machine. We got to be able to win people to Christ
So we don't want to just be a planter only want to be a planter and a waterer and a harvester
because the Bible says,
he that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed,
that's talking about sowing the seeds, planting,
he that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seeds,
shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him, that's the finished product.
So the Bible says, if you're out there soul winning,
you know, you should ultimately be bringing in
the finished product.
So don't be like a planter only,
who just gives somebody a verse and then, all right,
see you later.
I'm done here, my work here is done.
No, there are a lot of opportunities that you're gonna have
to get somebody all the way to the finish line
and you need to preach the gospel
because now is the accepted time,
now is the day of salvation.
So you wanna be both a planter and a whore.
He that planteth and he that watereth are one,
it's the same person.
You're gonna do a little of both.
Sometimes you're only planting,
other times you're watering,
other times you get to bring your sheaves with you,
you do all of it.
Every man receives a reward according to his own labor,
for we are labors together with God, year God's husbandry,
year God's building. Ultimately, God is the master builder doing the work.
We are just cogs in his machine, but if the work's going to get done, we've got to be in our place
so that the soul-winning machine can work.
And so it says in verse number 10,
according to the grace of God, which is given unto me,
as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation
and another man buildeth thereon,
but let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
For other foundation can no man lay, than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."
Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay,
stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall
be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
Now let me say this, if you are not familiar with this passage, 1 Corinthians chapter 3.
you need to get familiar with this passage.
I think this is one of the most important things in the New Testament.
As far as doctrinally, unless you're just on the colostrum of the word
or barely on the milk of the word, I mean, you need to learn this passage
because there are going to be a lot of times, a lot of conversations
where you're going to want to turn to this passage
and where this is a go-to passage.
to teach people the Word of God, because the truth that is found here is so important in 1 Corinthians chapter 3.
And what am I talking about here? I'm talking about the fact that the Bible says, look, once you're saved, right, the foundation is Jesus Christ, right?
Christ is preached unto you, you have Christ in your heart, Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Jesus is your Savior, now it's time to build on that, right?
We as Christians, we talked about this morning, 99% of us here are saved,
and so now we want to build on that, okay?
And we can choose to build on that gold, silver, and precious stones,
wood, hay, and stubble. Now here's the thing about wood, hay, and stubble.
Wood, hay, and stubble are not necessarily sinful or evil,
wicked things. There's nothing sinful about the
It's just not a permanent material
You know we were we you know my wife and I we just celebrated our 25-year anniversary
And so we went on a special vacation just the two of us
They had an awesome time and we went to Alaska because that's where Phoenix people go to vacation
They go to cold rainy places in Alaska just to do the opposite of where we live
And so we went up there and we were in this one particular town and all these houses were made out of wood
And I was thinking to myself,
I don't think this is the best building material
to be making stuff out of wood
because everything was so wet all the time.
It was like, it was all like kind of cold and wet
and things weren't really drying out, it seemed like.
And we noticed that in people's yards,
they had all kinds of saw horses set up
and that we saw like lumber out being painted.
You could tell that they just constantly had to replace.
Like their deck and their siding if you could just tell that some houses they weren't replacing stuff
They were just rotting and then the other houses you could tell they had to just be on it just constantly
Replacing boards and painting and treating it and whatever because it's just such a temporary material
And I was thinking to myself, like, why don't they build things out of stone here or something?
Because this wood is all just kind of rotting.
It's just not the right environment for this.
And we, you know, I asked AI about it and got some of the reasons and so forth.
But then we were in another town in Alaska and a lot of people had plastic siding.
And I was like, yeah, this makes sense because the wood is just temporary.
you know, and wood and hay and stubble,
these are ephemeral things that don't last,
they don't, you know, whereas gold and silver
and precious stones are more permanent, right?
The metal and things like that is gonna be more permanent.
And the idea here is that if you pass these things
through a fire, if we put gold, silver and precious stones
through the fire, guess what's gonna come out
the other side, it's still gold, silver and precious stones.
And in fact, the fire can even purify it.
Whereas if you put wood, hay, and stubble through the fire, there's just nothing left.
So here's the thing, when we live our Christian lives, we're going to have a mix of
gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and stubble that we build our lives around and at the end of the day
there's going to be a judgment
of Christians. We're not talking about the great white throne of judgment for unsaved people.
We're talking about a judgment seat of Christ where we're getting rewarded according to our works.
Because he just told us a couple of verses ago, God's going to reward us all according to our works.
Okay, we're not saved by works, we're saved by faith alone, but we're rewarded according to our works.
And so therefore, the things that we do in life that have no eternal value are woodhand stubble.
It doesn't mean they're bad. So for example, I could go out and build a business.
And I build a business, make a bunch of money,
it's a good thing.
It's a nice thing, I'm feeding my family,
I'm providing jobs for people,
we're providing a service to the community,
but at the end of the day,
I'm not gonna get to heaven and say,
man, you built one heck of a business,
you know, here's some rewards,
here's some eternal rewards for that business you built.
Not happening, my friend,
because you're only gonna get rewarded
for what you do for Christ.
You know the stuff you do for Christ the works that you do for God
That's what's gonna be the eternal that if you're winning souls to Christ. That's obviously gold silver and precious stones. That's permanent
Whereas you just went out and just spent your life making money. Nothing wrong with that except for the fact that it's not of eternal value.
If you won zero souls, but built up a big business, you're not getting rewarded for that, okay?
You know, other things could be hobbies, and there's nothing wrong with, you know, playing basketball, volleyball, and a lot of these things, we need these things in our lives just as good, clean, fun.
so that we don't just go insane.
So we need to have a little fun in our lives,
and so we're going to go swimming and go hiking,
and we're going to play games and get out, board games,
and you know, we do these things,
but here's what we need to understand.
These things don't have eternal value.
They're kind of just here to get us through
the nasty here and now.
just to kind of not lose our minds. So we got to have a little fun and and and do
some good clean activities and so forth. But at the end of the day though the
stuff we're really getting rewarded for is like the spiritual stuff that we're
doing. You know getting people saved, discipling people, preaching the Word of
God, going to church and winning souls and you know even maybe donating to some
spiritual cause or something. You know all the things that we're doing to further
That's the gold, silver, and precious stones of our lives, okay?
Whereas the woodhand stubble is just temporary stuff. It's not necessarily sinful.
There's nothing wrong with playing volleyball, but it's just there's no volleyball award that's
going to be given out at the judgment seat of Christ. It should be obvious, right?
But it says here every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
If any man's work abide which he had built thereon, verse 14, he shall receive a reward.
If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss.
What? He's going to miss out on rewards. He's suffering a loss of reward.
But he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.
And then he goes on to talk about other things and we're going to get to that in a moment if we have time.
But the point here is, and the reason why I say this is such an important passage, you need to have this bookmarked.
You need to know that this passage is found in 1 Corinthians 3. You should know.
If I ask you, hey, where's that passage about the gold, silver, precious stones, wood and stuff?
You know, you want to learn the answer is 1 Corinthians 3 so that you can turn here.
Why?
Because what do you have?
You have people out there like these false teachers like Paul Washer, but even sometimes
saved Christians will actually teach this too, like, oh well, you know, there's no works
required for salvation, but hey, everybody who's really saved does the works.
How many times have we heard this before?
A million, right?
Well, you don't have to do works to be saved,
but everybody who's truly saved is going to have works.
And of course, Paul Washer is taking it
to an even more unbiblical extreme
by saying, you're either growing
or you're not even a Christian at all,
and the Bible knows nothing of a person
who claims Christ but lives like the world.
So they just say, oh, you don't have works?
And he said it in the same sermon.
You don't have works? You're not saved.
That's what he said.
You don't have works, you're not saved.
That is not biblical.
Because what is the Bible actually teaching?
Now, the main go-to verse I would take people to is Romans 4-5.
But to him that work had not, but believe with on him that justified the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness.
Even as David also described with the blessedness of the man,
unto him God imputed righteousness without works.
Him that work had not is being saved without works.
Romans 4-5, and Romans 4-5 dovetails perfectly with James chapter 2.
So, if anybody takes you to James chapter 2, say, okay, let's compare James 2 with Romans 4.
And if you compare them side by side, you can understand James 2 is talking about being justified in the eyes of man.
And Romans 4 is talking about being justified in the sight of God.
And the Bible makes that very clear, and it even uses Abraham as the example in both places.
It's a great cross-reference there, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, but...
This is another great supporting passage for that same concept because the Bible says that if you have Jesus as
Your foundation right you got saved you have Christ and then you build on that foundation
Wood and hay and stubble meaning that everything that you did in your life has no eternal value
You believed on Christ, but that's it. You didn't do any other gold silver or precious stones work. The Bible says
If any man's work abide, which he had built thereon, he shall receive reward.
So here's what I expect to happen.
I expect to get to the judgment seat of Christ, pass or receive an Anderson, and I expect
there to be a mix of both.
I expect there to be a bunch of wood-hand stubble of things that maybe I did that had
no eternal value, or maybe things I did for the wrong reason or something, or low-quality
work that just doesn't cut it.
And then I'm going to have other work, gold, silver, and precious stones.
I think it's going to be a mix for most of us, because it's like, oh, well, you won
these people to Christ, you preached these sermons, you did this good deed over here,
you donated to this, you helped these people over here, you did this, you did that, okay,
gold, silver, precious stones.
But then over here, yeah, you know, you really got super good at volleyball, but you know,
that's not really important.
You built this fire alarm business, but you know, that's just what it is.
And what does the Bible say?
Whatever remains, we get rewarded.
So the wood ants double burns away,
and it's like, okay, some people are gonna have
just like one silver dollar left.
Other people, it's just gonna be piles of,
and obviously it's a metaphor.
I'm not saying that it's gonna literally be like this,
but it's gonna be like this.
You know, some people are just gonna have piles of rewards.
They just want hundreds or thousands of people to the Lord.
They're just gonna have so many rewards.
Other people, it's like there's a nickel there.
But at least it's something, you know, it's like, hey, what can I get with this? St. Peter, you know, or whatever
Got a quarter get a gumball in heaven or whatever
Others are going to the VIP lounge in the sky, but but here's what it says though
It says if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, yet he himself shall be saved.
And so what's the Bible saying here?
That even if your works added up to Jack squat, and it's just your works are just burned up,
and it's just ashes and dust, does that mean you're not saved?
Does that mean you're going to hell?
Oh, you're not a real Christian
because you didn't have any works of eternal value.
No, you yourself still shall be saved.
And that's why I think it's such an important
and powerful passage to show people,
look, even if all my works are burned up,
I'm still gonna be saved.
And people debate about what this phrase means,
yet so is by fire.
I don't really care what it means
because as long as I'm saved, I'm good to go.
Yet he himself shall be saved whatever yet so is by fire means I ain't worried about it
You know and obviously I'm not this guy any way because I have done work for God
But the point is that so is by fire is probably I'll tell you my opinion
I think it's probably just a figure of speech or an expression of saying that you basically just barely got in because you
Didn't do any works, but you just got in on the grace of God
And so it's like you got saved by the skin of your teeth or something
You know, it's like, you know, you believed in Christ and that's it, but thankfully, that's all you needed, that's what it is, so you're in.
Even though you didn't do any, you know, works for God to earn the rewards, you're not getting the platinum or the gold or the silver package.
You're just in the most basic economy, you know, you're going to heaven in a fiery chariot, but it's got spirit airlines written on the side of that fiery chariot, all right?
Where as some of us are going to be in those like international first class where you know
You can like it practically turns into a bed has like a little wall around your cubicle
Who knows what I'm tired of who's seeing this I've never been in one
I've never I haven't gotten to that level yet, you know
I don't believe I ever will but the point is I've never been in one of those little walled-off little platinum whatever
You know my wife just got me into the United Lounge
for the first time yesterday because you know I'd never been in one of these like airport lounges.
I'd never been that elite, but my wife had this elite status with united.
And, you know, she brought me into the lounge.
I got to kind of see how the other half lives
and go in there.
And, you know, I was kind of like not used to it.
So I was just eating like, they had like chicken tacos
that you could make yourself.
I was like, this food's free.
So I'm like, I had to fill the hump.
And so I ate like five or, I don't know if it was five
or six, just loading them.
And every one of them I was loading with guacamole,
you know, because I was in the lounge.
You know other times it's spirit airlines and you can't even have a carry-on
You're putting on like four outfits because that's the only way you can bring clothes. I'm looking at you, brother Caleb
Where is here Kevin? It sounds like something you would do to you. Have you done it?
Spirit frontier, but I'm saying you've done those flights. He's like, of course, duh
Caleb's done the clothes thing. Yeah, see see yeah, that's because here's the Caleb is so lean
You know what I mean he could he puts on five outfits. He just looks like a normal dad
At that point, you know, he's just he does he has a dad bod just for that flight
And then he gets there takes off seven pairs of underwear and seven pairs of socks and whatever
So here's the thing but but here's the thing you're still saved though
You say you said did you get to the destination?
Every time right every single time spirit gets you there
Frontier gets you there every time. Well, guess what? You're gonna get to heaven, too
You know, you're not gonna have to you're not gonna be like my wife where she's she's like
50
What is it? Didn't your package get you from like 50 to 70 pound suitcases or something?
Yeah, so she's over here packing
370 pound suitcase and I'm thinking like how the heck do you even get 70 pounds of stuff into a suitcase?
But she does it
You know, I'm like breaking my back trying to unload this stuff into the house
I just got to go up the three steps into the front door trying to lift her 70 pound bags
Into the door, but here's the thing
You know some people are gonna have all kinds of checked bags
70 pounds of rewards in every bag with the carry-on and they're in the lounge
And they're eating the extra tacos and everything like that, but here's the thing
Just going to heaven is
exciting
You know, I don't care if you're on Spirit Airlines, if you're going to Hawaii, you're probably having a good time
Even if you're in the tightest seat and whatever, you know, it's gonna be cool when you get there
And so I'm not trying to, you know, say, hey, don't worry about doing works
Because you're going to heaven anyway what I am saying to you though is that if you don't do works you are going to heaven anyway
That's what the Bible says as long as you have Jesus Christ
You're going to heaven he that had the son hath life
And if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you shall be saved and whosoever believe it than him should not perish
But have eternal life. That's what the Bible says and so you should want to
do more for God. You should want to earn those miles and earn those points and get those tears of
status and earn those rewards. You should want to do great works for God and you should want your
life to matter and mean something. I would hate to get to the end of my life and say,
hey congratulations, nothing you did mattered.
But welcome to heaven. I'd be like, okay, cool. I'm just glad I'm here
But wouldn't it be better if it's like hey welcome to heaven and here's all the thousands of people that you got saved
Here's hundreds of thousands of years, you know
Hundreds of even just scores of people that you got saved. Hey when I was a kid
I was just like man. I would just love to get to heaven and just have one person that I got there
That'd be super cool. Just to get one person saved
And so that's the idea here, is that we are going to be judged for our works,
not to figure out whether we go to heaven or hell or not,
because you're saved even if all your works burned up.
That's what the Bible says.
That's why I think it's such a great passage.
And there are really many other things I could teach from this passage,
like I'm just out of time.
because this is such a great analogy and it's such a great passage
that I do think that this is something that you should mark in your Bible
or memorize or know where it is because this is
helpful to people. I've showed this to a lot of people that were struggling with
this doctrine
and I showed this to them and it really opens their eyes.
You know, it's not part of my standard gospel presentation
but I've been in a lot of conversations out soul-winning where I'm like,
okay, let's go to 1 Corinthians 3. Let's look at this because it is so powerful
clicks with people a lot of the time.
I think it's a great passage.
And so bottom line is this, do carnal Christians exist?
Yes.
Do you wanna be a carnal Christian?
No.
If you are a carnal Christian,
are you still going to heaven?
Yes.
Are you gonna get Boku rewards when you get there?
No.
because you're going to be the one who gets there and gets just skin in your teeth,
you got into heaven, and that's it.
No frills, you're not even getting a pack of peanuts on the flight, but you're still going.
And honestly, you'd rather be on the lowest possible tier of heaven
than in the most chill spot of hell because there's no chill spot in hell.
But you don't want to be left out.
You want to be inside those pearly gates,
and in order to be saved, you just have to believe in Jesus.
That's it. Everything else you do is bonus.
So I encourage you, get out there, work hard,
get people saved, earn rewards, and ask yourself,
is anything I'm doing in my life right now,
does it have eternal value?
Is anything I'm doing going to matter 1,000 years from now,
100 years from now, and think in those terms,
and then that's your gold, silver, and precious stones?
and then everything else is wood hand stubble.
Even if they're nice things, going to the gym,
I love going to the gym.
Going to the gym is wood hand stubble.
Let's face it, it's still good stuff.
I love it.
You know, I'll see you there.
No, you're like, no man, I'm not gonna be there.
But it's wood hand stubble.
And we need to get eternities, values, and view.
So, carnal Christians exist, they just don't get the rewards.
The more spiritual you are, the more you're going to build eternal things, the more rewards
you're going to get.
We're all going to heaven though, as long as we believe in Jesus.
Let's bribes and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word.
Thank you for this powerful passage, Lord.
I pray that everyone would kind of internalize this passage
and make it part of their worldview
and that, Lord, we would all absorb this great truth
and that we would be able to articulate this to other people
because so many people are confused
by the lying false prophets or even just, you know,
misguided, well-meaning people
who just haven't studied the word.
Lord, help us all do.
Remember this passage and be able to apply it and teach it to other people Lord and help us not to be carnal
Help us to be spiritual help us not to think
You know that we're the only people that are right and and to just you know
Hate everybody who's not affiliated with us or something Lord help us to understand that
Christianity at the end of the day is the bigger tent of people anybody who believes in
salvation by faith in Jesus is our brother in Christ Lord help us to
have a right attitude, not an attitude of strife
and just breaking fellowship with people for no reason,
but help us to be mature and spiritual and godly.
And yes, help us to follow the Pauls of this world,
but not to put them on too much of a pedestal
or idolize them.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen, all right, ladies and gentlemen,
take your hymnals, please.
Go to hymn number 309, hymn number 309.
309 there to be a Daniel him number 309
We'll sing this out together standing by a purpose true eating guys command him number
309 sing it out now
There's a trap of her, miss her, there to make it low.
Then in mighty men are lost, there we've got to stand.
Who for God have been host by joining Daniel's band?
There to be a Daniel, there to stand alone.
There's a trap of her, miss her, there to make it low.
Then the giants pray and toss, gawking through the land.
Come on to the earth from all our friends, our Daniels' men.
There to be a Daniel, there to stand alone.
There to have a purpose for them, there to make them known.
All the gods will bear our arms to thank the bread.
Satan and his host and fire shout for Daniel's men.
There to be a Daniel, there to stand alone.
We're there to make it home
Man, good things not be our dismissed