(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, the title of this message this morning is let's put the fun in fundamentalism. Our name of our church is what? Shore Foundation Baptist Church. We are upon a shore foundation, a foundation that is unmovable. We are known at this church to be independent, fundamental, and Baptist, right? We've gone through independence. We've explained that on the 4th of July. I will go through the doctrine of the Baptist, you know, doctrines that we believe, but we are also known as fundamental. Did you know that the word fun is found in that word? There are too many people today that look at fundamental churches like ours and others that would say, that church is boring, that church is lame, it's old school, it's not fun. It's just, they're always yelling at each other, they're always yelling at people, they're calling out things, they dress funny, it's not fun. It's not a fun church to go to. Well number one, I will say this, I have fun when I go to church, I don't know about you, but I do, and the church is not necessarily a place for fun. It's a place for learning, growing, the work of God, but we can still have fun in the process. So, look down at your Bible, if you would, at 1 Corinthians chapter 2. There's a reason that I had us turn to this passage to understand these truths. Number one, it clearly teaches, for instance, that, look down at verse 2, for I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It is our job as the church to shine the light of the gospel unto the world, unto this island and to the rest of the world. If there's anything we want people to know, is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the Savior of man, and if there's only anything that anyone around us can take away, is that He is the Savior. I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's it, that's the fundamental, that's the foundation. Outside of that we'll go into other things, but if there's only something that the rest of the world can look at us and attribute to us as a short foundation Baptist church, is that they believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. But then it goes on to say, and I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. I don't need to up here be someone who explains deep truths through sophistication, through hard language, through science, through math, though it is important to know these things, though it is important that we as Christians, a fundamental truth is that we grow in our faith and that we continue our Christianity and our knowledge of knowing things. The more you know, the more you are worth, clearly, but if there's only one thing someone can know and take away is that Jesus Christ is the Savior of man through faith alone in him. Now look down if you would at verse 10, the Bible reads, But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man save the Spirit of man which is in him? And so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Let me pause that really quickly, it kind of seems like a tongue twister, it kind of seems like a little hard to understand, but it's actually simple, it reads, For what man knoweth the things of man save the Spirit of man? Are you guys of mankind? Are you guys humans? Are you guys people? So what does the Bible say? In me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. The heart is desperately wicked in who can know it. We understand as humans, as people, that we are sinners, we have incorrect thinking, we have bad lusts, we have bad thoughts, we are covetous, sin dwells inside of the flesh of us. And the rest of the world's spirit is dead, right? But they're walking in the flesh, let's go on to see what it says more. Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. So what does this mean? Back to what I'm talking about, the fun and fundamentalism, right? When people look at us, right, the Bible teaches pure religion, an undefiled before God and the Father is this, that you visit the fatherless and widows in their afflictions, and that you keep yourself unspotted from the world. You separate yourself with how other people conduct themselves. When you were saved, when you put your faith in Christ, you were born again, you were born into God's family. You were separated, you were sanctified. We are known as saints in the Bible because we've been sanctified. But sanctification is a process, right, choosing to deny the old man and walking in the Spirit and doing the things that are pleasing unto God. Jesus Christ clearly says, if you love me, keep my commandments. And if those of you who have children understand, there are some kids that listen to you and there are some kids that don't listen to you. Obviously all, you know, parents love their children and children love their parents, but there are some children that are obedient and there are some children that are disobedient. And it shows how much love they have for their parent. Just like with us and our Father, when we choose to live a life of sin and stupidity, we are displeasing unto God. But if we choose to walk after his commandments and do what he says, we are pleasing unto him. And let me tell you this, when you do what is commanded of you by the Lord Jesus Christ himself, you will find yourself being happy. You will find yourself having fun in the process, not knowing it. See the world looks at us, right? And they just kind of think like, that church doesn't look like they're having fun. They look like they're just constantly serious and stern and it's just, it's never about fun to them. And they are right that most of the function of the church is not for fun. It's a work. How many of you go to work, go to your job and you're having fun? I mean, they call it work, right? Not fun. Can't you have fun at work with coworkers and your task at hand? I don't know about you, but when I go to work, I'm there to work. I'm there to do something. I'm there to accomplish what my boss wants. When we come to the church, we're here to learn what God wants of us and we're to do what he commands of us. But can't we have fun in the process? What do you think the word fellow shit even means? Fellow person, likehood, an individual, ship, likeness of that person, fellowship, having camaraderie with someone, having a similarity with someone. And when we come together as brothers and sisters in Christ, we have fellowship. We have fun with each other. So we get it, David, the Bible teaches that the unsaved, the sinful old man is always doing those things which are unpleasing to God. But the new man can choose to walk in the spirit and do those things which are pleasing. And when you do so, you'll actually have fun in the process. I know. Shocking. It's amazing. But let's keep going on. It reads in verse 12, now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the holy goth teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself does judge of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. When you are saved, right, you have two special abilities that are granted to you. Number one, you can understand the things of God, the words of God, the teachings of Jesus Christ, and what he has for us. You can understand that. And you got to realize the blessing that that truly is. There are people who are going around in this world blindly not knowing what is happening around them. The Bible talks about Jesus Christ in reference to the Pharisees and Sadducees. They are blind people leading the blind. He can see clearly. And I give this analogy a lot when I go out soul winning. Could you imagine that I was walking across the road and I'm blind and I cannot see. And then I tell the person, what if you saw a car and it was about to hit me and you yelled, David, be careful. There's a car. It's going to hit you. And then I looked at that person and I said, you know what, I don't believe in cars. Is that going to stop the car from hitting me? Of course not. This is in reference to the doctrine of what you deserve because of your sin. And there are lots of people who do not believe in hell, but we don't see by sight. We see by faith. Have you seen hell? I've not seen hell. The only way I know what hell is and have seen it is because the Bible has explained it to me. And that's where I'm going to go into my first point. Number one, what are the fundamentals of our faith? What is it? What is the foundational teaching of our Christian faith? What does it mean? What is the bottom of the tier of the simple understandings of God? Number one, we believe that the King James version of the Bible and our English language is the perfect translation of the word of God. We believe that we believe that we can sit here today in 2021 Hawaii and know God has for us. We believe in the absolute statements of the Bible. The Bible tells us about everything about our faith and practice, what we are to do, how we are to conduct ourselves, how we live our lives and so on and so forth. And how can we have fun with this? Okay, David, we get it. You have the word of God. You know the word of God. The word of God is readily available to you, me and everyone. So how can we have fun with that? Well, we can incentivize people through trying to memorize their Bible. I mean, I remember when I was growing in my faith, right? I came from Faithful Word Baptist Church and we used to have ways to help people to memorize their Bible. And if you were to memorize a chapter for the month, they would give gift cards and fun things and just ways to keep people on track to memorizing their Bible. And you'll realize that it's not the stinking coffee card that you're looking forward to. It's not the stinking, you know, Dutch Bros card that you're looking forward to or the food card that you're looking forward to. What you're looking forward to is knowing the words of God, meditating on these things, instilling them in your heart and memorizing in life. The Bible says, be ready always to give an answer to any man that asketh you of the hope of the reason that it's in you with meekness and fear. And when you are ready to give an answer, when you have the words of God instilled in your heart, that's the true reward. That's the true blessing. That's the true fun that you can have in your life. Because I don't know about you, but I find myself when I'm walking around having a bad day, not understand, like just things are going bad. I tend to quote passages in my head and heart and it helps me to feel better. Last year, Christmas, I was explaining how the job I was at at the time was, it was really hard. I was doing tree trimming and I don't know if you've ever done some tree trimming work, but it becomes physically demanding and it's a very brutal job and there are times where it was getting very stressful and intense and I found myself just singing Christmas melodies and it was making me feel better. So this is how we can have fun with our fundamentals. We can memorize the Bible. We can quote the Bible. We can learn the hymns, the songs, the spiritual songs and make a melody in our hearts. Well, what's another fundamental to our faith? I would go into the, and mind you, I'm going to give it to you in what I believe to be the most important to the least important and obviously everything that I'm going to go into is fundamental. It's the foundation. It's the bottom. It's what holds us up. So obviously to say that one of these is more important than the other is they're all equally important but I believe number one is first the word of God. You and I can't know who God is without Him speaking to us. I mean for crying out loud, I only know who God is because He told me who He was through His word. So we get it. The word of God. We have the word of God. What about who God is? Who is God? I mean a lot of people believe in God in being a tree. A lot of people believe in a pantheon of gods. A lot of people believe this person's God. A lot of people believe that person's God and a lot of people think a lot of things of God. A lot of people think they're God. A lot of people think a lot of weird things about God but we know who God is like the actual creator of the universe. I'm not saying like someone who claims to have been God though that is who Jesus is. He claims to have been the Son of God and we know Him and He knows us. It's one thing to know who God is. It's another thing that He knows you. And the Bible talks about that God is made up of three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost and these three are one. And there are lots of people who scratch their head at that. They're confused. And mind you, it is a mystery. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh. So this is truly surprising to us as created humans to realize that Jesus Christ who is God was come into the world to be the savior of man. That's a mystery. That's amazing. That's hard to understand. But I see it like this and you know for those of you who have had mom and dad in your life growing up, it's nice to have two parents to love on you, right? Well it's nice to have three people love on you who God is. And some people they kind of weird out by that because it's like, wait a second. You know, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, all three of these members, these people of the Godhead love you. And I've heard it explained like this once before and it helped me to understand things about God is the Father is God who's in heaven. Jesus Christ is God who is on earth that we could see the Son of God and the Holy Spirit is God who dwells inside of you. You're not God. You're not God, but God dwells in us when we believe on his Son, Jesus Christ. So there are so much depth to the doctrine of the Trinity and this fundamental truth through our faith that we believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was God manifested in the flesh. Immanuel as his name shall be called, which is God being with us. How can you have fun with this? Well think about this. What are the fruits of the Spirit? It says in Galatians chapter 5 verse 22, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. My fruit or his fruit? The fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace. What are we talking about? Having fun with fundamentals. Joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And joy is another way of saying enjoyment or having fun. When you in your life meditate on the word of God, think about who God is and his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan. Jesus Christ truly loves us so much that he was willing to take on death for us so that we do not have to ever see hell. And what a great thing that is. Let's have fun with the fact that we are saved from our sins. And that leads me into my next point. Number one is you know the words of God. You can understand the words of God. Number two is you know who God is because he tells us who he is through his word. But number three is faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ. This concept to me is really unique because a lot of people when we go evangelizing and preaching the gospel, they get confused about this, right? They're very like, you know, your faith saves you only, don't you also have to live a life of righteousness, live a life of servitude to God, stop your sin and all these other things, right? And it is a burden that is placed on them that they think they have to do to acquire salvation. But we understand that salvation is by faith alone. Now with that being said, you are held to a higher responsibility. You need to realize what is bestowed upon you and to whom much is given of him should much be required. But you can realize that you are saved from your sins. And that understand this as New Testament Christians, next time you go and eat some laulau or some kulua pork, have fun with it, because they were always allowed to do this in the Old Testament. I mean, I don't know about you, every time I eat bacon, every time I eat kulua pork, every time I have laulau, I'm just like, thank God that you came to be the savior of man and you fulfilled all the sacrificial laws of the Old Testament. Because there was a time where if you did so, this was considered sinful. But now as New Testament believers, you can enjoy that laulau. Enjoy it. Have fun with it. Like I don't see how people don't realize the importance is what's bestowed upon us. We know who God is because he told us who he is and we believe what he told us about him. These are foundations, fundamentals to our faith. How do we have fun with it? Memorize the Bible. Realize that you have three persons that make up the one God that loves you and go and eat some laulau because you love the fact that you can do this. Like I said, there are people today around the world who believe that the Mosaic law, the sacrificial laws were not done away and they don't eat pork. I feel bad for them. They don't have lots of fun. But what's another foundational doctrine to our faith? I'm just going to go on one more and this is the subject of baptism. Because we understand that baptism doesn't save us. It symbolizes the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Bible clearly says that once you believe, then you can be baptized. In the story of Philip in the Ethiopian eunuch, he comes to Philip and he says, what doth hinder me to be baptized? He says, if thou believeth with all thine heart thou mayest. If you believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, you may be baptized. Now, I don't know about you, but I know a lot of people like to make a spectacle of their baptism and I don't necessarily think there's something wrong with that because once again, baptism is an outward expression of your inward faith. You're showing the people around you that you believed on the son of God and you're going to symbolize that through going in the water in his death and his burial and come out of the water through his resurrection. And a lot of people will invite loved ones to this event. You know, like think about like a first birthday here in Hawaii, the big, big old shindig about it where they'll have like luau's and all kinds of other celebrations. I don't think there's something wrong with someone wanting family members and neighbors and loved ones to see they put their faith in Christ through the death beyond resurrection and symbolizing that and baptism. I think that's great. Right on. Praise the Lord. But what's another way we can have fun with baptism and showing people our faith? It's obviously going out and soul winning. Going out and soul winning. Remember, the first thing I said, an ability that you have as a born again believer is you can understand the words of God. Another ability that you have, that I have, that all of us have is to we can open our mouth the words of God and get another person saved because remember, God dwells inside of us. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. These words that I say unto you, they have spirit in their life. The words of God can get someone saved and we understand that a Christian begets a Christian. Now that you are saved and you have learned the things of God, who He is, and you believe this, you can now share that with someone and they can be saved. What does it say in Romans chapter 10 verse 13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Might be saved. You shall be saved because you believed. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him in whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and what bring glad tidings of good things. For crying out loud you guys, we're bringing people the message of the gospel, the good news of salvation. And there are so many people when they go out soul winning or evangelizing, they unfortunately will just go through the motions. They're just kind of like moping through and they don't like that the door gets slammed on them so often and people bark them out and they kind of get discouraged and disgruntled and like, oh man, this is lame. I just get barked out all the time. But you know what? The Bible says, leap for joy when they persecute you. And someone's slamming the door on you, it's not you being persecuted, by the way. It's just people not realizing what is in front of them. And I'm not saying you need to skip from house to house. I'm not saying skip along throughout the neighborhood and be like, hooray, we're giving the gospel. But for crying out loud, have fun with it. Have fellowship with your partner, your brother or sister in Christ. Have fun with your conversations. When you're talking to someone, love on them, truly love them. Have fun with how you give the good news. And with that being said, when you put the fun in fundamentalism, it's easy to do the service of the Lord because you are having fun along the way. When you're reading your Bible and you're coming across the building of the tabernacle, or you're coming across Aaron's clothing is being made, or you're coming across the genealogies and you're just like, ugh, here we go, this is going to be intense. Mind you, there are parts of the Bibles that I like more than others, but you can have fun with it. Look what God has for you. You can understand there's symbolism through Aaron's clothing. There's symbolism through the building of the tabernacle. There are symbolisms in the, or not symbolisms, but in the genealogy, there's lots of interesting concepts and you can have fun with this, memorize this, instill this in your heart, share it with others, and we can put fun back in fundamentalism. Well, okay, David, we get it. These are fundamentals of our faith that we can find ourselves having fun with, right? But let me tell you this, right? Don't get confused with what fun is, because our world today tells you what fun is, right? The Bible tells us what fun is, and then the world tells you what fun is. So the world is going to give you a misconstrued, unlegitimate idea of what fun is. They're giving you a very shallow, a very self-gratifying or instant type of fun, right? And this is dangerous to understand because there are things that this world offers that are fun that are not necessarily sinful. Think about sports. It's not sinful to play basketball. It's not sinful to go surfing. It's not sinful to go hiking. But where you got to be cautious is when people try to make sports their life. You know, we as Christians don't make sports our life. We don't try to obtain a corruptible crown, but an incorruptible through the things of God, right? And there are things that the world will tell you that are fun that are not fun. And basically in Proverbs 21, 22, it says, How long, ye simple ones, he loves simplicity, and the scorners delight in their scornings and fools hate knowledge. A real big thing that the world wants to promote as fun is being stupid, is being simple, is being not wise. Now get this. I am going to start by saying this. There is nothing wrong with starting in simplicity. There's nothing wrong with understanding things simplistically, but there is a difference between staying in your simplicity or staying ignorant and growing in knowledge and learning the things of God. Throughout the Proverbs and the Psalms, it constantly has a commandment, tells us to strive for knowledge, keep gaining wisdom, grow in your faith, keep moving forward, press towards the heart, the marking of the high calling, which is in Christ Jesus, right? These are constant reminders that the Bible is telling us. But how long, ye simple ones, will you love simplicity? Like I was saying, the world will try to take things as shallow as fun. Now think of it like this. Remember the other week when I was talking about the word party? A lot of times you'll hear friends and family members talking about partying, right? Like, oh, let's go party. You got to stop and think like, well, what do you mean by party, right? Because if you take a 35-year-old man and a 10-year-old girl and you looked at both of them and said, let's go party, this is going to mean two completely different things, right? Some men that are stupid and walking in the flesh are going to do dumb things, but a 10-year-old girl is probably going to have a tea party or something that she would consider as fun or as a party. So this word party is just a generic term to get people to follow the fad, follow the crowd, follow what the rest of the people are doing. And like I mentioned before, a lot of people will say like, let's go party, and then they go to a bar. They're not doing anything there, they're just drinking. Is drinking fun? No, drinking is not fun. Now, obviously some people think it's fun and it can be perceived as fun, and even in ways you can have fun for a moment, but the end of that road is going to leave you into heaviness, depression, and problems. Well, how do you know this? The Bible says, for instance, in Hebrews 11 verse 24, by faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ's greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect under the recompense of the reward. So like I was saying, kids, I'm not going to sit here and sugarcoat that when people tell you we're going to go have drinking and there is no fun in it. I'm not going to sit here and tell you there's no fun in it. It's a shallow fun. It's a bad type of fun. It is a fun that the world enjoys, but God's people disdain. God's people want nothing to do with this because it will destroy you in the end. The Bible says, if you serve sin, you will be the servant of sin. You need to serve the Lord Jesus Christ like Moses did. And I understand that it says, suffer the affliction of the people of God. But like I mentioned in the beginning, a lot of Christianity in our life is not all supposed to be about fun. It's supposed to be about work. It's supposed to be about growth. It's supposed to be about learning, wisdom, but you can still have fun in the process. Do you guys remember the sermon I preached sometime last year on, you know, comedy as a Christian? If any of you remember that sermon, I explained that it's okay in our lives to have enlightenment, enjoyment. One of the fruits of the Spirit is joy and to laugh at things from time to time. But what are you laughing at? Who do you think is funny? What do you think is funny determines whether or not you're in sin or not. And when it comes to that subject alcohol, that's just one example of what the world will call fun. I mean, for crying out loud, I'm not going to go into all the problems that the world says is fun and show you how they're not really what they're cooped up to be. But let's, you know, ask your parents, ask your spouses, ask your friends. I mean, it doesn't take a lot of deep thinking to show that, you know, doing drugs is not going to bring you a life of satisfaction in the end. It may bring you instant gratification, but that's it. And then a life of hurt and anger and disdain and people will hate you and people will not like what you're doing because you've destroyed your life, your health, your wealth, your mental health and all these things. But turn, if you would, to Proverbs chapter two. This is an example of what I'm trying to say. The world says something is fun, but God says something different. So what do we go with? The words of God or what people say? Obviously, like I mentioned in the beginning, a fundamental truth to our faith is that we adhere to the words of God as our final authority for all faith and practice. And it says in Proverbs chapter two, verse one, notice it says, my son, if thou wilt receive my words and hide my commandments with thee so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom and apply thine heart to understanding, yea, if thou Christ after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seekest her as silver and searches for her as for hid treasures, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find knowledge of God. So, you know, the world today, they see fun as chasing the dollar, right? They want you to think that money will bring you fun. Money will give you this life of, you know, you could work as much, you can just hang out with your friends and go on the yacht and go swimming and eat steak and lobster all night. Isn't that fun? The Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil. It's not a part, it's the root, it's the quintessential aspect to evil in our life is the love of money. So the world's going to tell you to chase silver. Let me ask you this, have you chased after the word of God like the unsaved chase after silver? Your fun, the amount of fun you're going to have in the end is unmeasurable to what the world thinks is fun. They're going to laugh it up now, but they're going to weep and cry later. Why? Because it says in verse 5, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. The Bible says the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. And I don't know about you, but like the Bible says, I don't want to stay simple. I don't mind starting in simplicity, but I want to end in perfection and growth and sanctification and knowledge and the things of God. And the Bible is telling us that here in Proverbs chapter 2, look at verse 6, it says, for the Lord giveth wisdom out of his mouth, cometh the knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous. He is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment and preserveth the ways of his, what, saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment and equity, yea, every good path. Watch number 10 when wisdom enterth into thine heart and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul. What is it? It's pleasant. It's nice. It's fun. It's good for you. Pleasant unto thy soul, direction shall preserve thee. I'm sorry. Understanding shall preserve thee. Understanding shall keep thee to deliver thee from the way of what? Evil men from the man that seeketh froward things who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice to do evil and delight in the frowardness of the wicked, whose ways are crooked and they, uh, and they froward in their paths to deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger, which flattereth with her words, which forsaketh the guide of her youth, of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God, for her house inclineth unto death and her paths unto dead, unto the dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life. Thou mayest walk in the way of good men and keep the paths of righteousness. The Bible is telling you that if you stay in simplicity, that if you try to be an idiot, you will destroy your life. You will not have fun in the process. Stick to the fundamentals. When your parent tells you not to go after the strange woman, not to go after the player, listen to them. They're not telling you this because they want to rain on your parade. They're telling you this because they know the end of that road is a fun life with your new spouse, a fun life with your children, a fun life with those who are willing to seek the things of God. And when you do this, then you will understand that the world doesn't offer you real fun. Be aware of your friends, of your family members, of people that try to pull you away from church, that try to get you to think that like your church is a place that people are not having real fun. Let me show you what real fun is. Unless they're going to bring you to a more fire-breathed church, a church that's serving God more, I'm telling you, be very cautious about it. Okay David, we get it. Number one, we're going to have fun in the fundamentals. We're going to memorize our Bibles. We're going to read the Bible. We understand who God is. We're going to share our faith with the lost. We're not going to listen to what the world says fun is. We're going to take it upon ourselves to just have clean family fun and grow in our faith. Right? But let me tell you this. Not everyone likes the same things, right? Turn if you would to 1 Corinthians chapter 12. We are known as brothers and sisters, right? I don't know about you for your biological siblings, right? Did you and your siblings like everything the same? No, like for instance, my, I growing up, didn't like to read. I thought reading was lame. Now I love to read, but my one brother loved reading and he would always push me to try to read more. And I was like, you're an idiot, man. I don't need to read. I'm way better than this. I'm going to go skate. I'm going to go surf and so on and so forth. Then I should have listened to my brother. But you know, I liked skating and surfing. He liked reading and not everyone likes the same things in the household. And it's the same with the people of God. You know, some people like to preach, some people like to sing, some people like to do all sorts of manner of different work. And the Bible instructs us that we all have a function in the church. Look down if you would at first Corinthians chapter 12 verse one. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not ye, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. So I'm going to pause. We all made mistakes. We all went and did stupid things. And he's pointing that out. Look, you guys made mistakes. But now wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed. And that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit with all. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit to another faith, by the same Spirit to another the gifts of healing, by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another diverse kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But all these worketh of that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man, severely as he will." So the Bible's saying that what I like, what you like, what others like, may be different. But if we all contribute our likes to the church, right, I like to preach, then I'm going to find myself bettering my preaching, right? Well, you know, Isaac likes to sing, so he's going to try to find himself bettering his singing and other people have different likes and we can all work together in trying to see how to better our fundamental teaching, right? I'm not as good as singing. Who's already noticed that by now? I'm not that good at singing, but I want to, I want to get better at singing. And once again, I believe singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs is a fundamental to our faith. I have fun singing it, but I'm not good at it. And others, we gravitate toward things we're naturally good at. So I like to strengthen my weakness and if I'm not as good of a singer, I'd like to strengthen my singing through hanging out with people who like to sing more often and find myself practicing it more and so on and so forth. So when a brother or sister in Christ, when you're trying to bestow upon them knowledge or wisdom or understanding and brothers and sisters are not gravitating towards you and your likening, it's okay if they gravitate towards other brothers and sisters and the things that they see as fun. I mean, one of the other gifts was to another faith by the same Spirit, to another the gift of healing by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another diverse kinds of tongues. I don't know about you, but I like to look into learning foreign languages and I think that's fun, but not everyone thinks that's fun and there are some people who like to do that. So we're going to gravitate towards each other and push each other towards growing in these things that will help us in the furtherance of our church. But not only that, look at verse 21. Verse 21 it says, and the eye cannot stay into the hand, I have no need of thee, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you, nay much more those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary and those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor, and our uncommly parts have more abundant comeliness. So there are people that think they're not worth much in the church, they're not that important because they're not necessarily leading the song or they're not leading the soul winning time or something like that. But the Bible's telling us that the least esteemed member in the church, the one that everyone would look at and be like, that person's not important, is most necessary. And this is in reference to whatever state we are in, therewith to be content. We're going to see new brothers and sisters come to the Lord as we grow in this church. We're going to see people from all walks of life who know little, who know a lot, who know nothing, who are just trying to better themselves. And we need to be able to bring people closer to perfection and not to look down on them when they don't understand a non-fundamental teaching. For crying out loud, we're going to go into all sorts of things. The Bible says, in reference to the great commission, right, we are to preach the gospel, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and teach them to observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded. So there are more than fundamentals that we need to know, and that's my last point I want to get into. We need to move past the fundamentals inevitably, because remember the Bible says, do not stay in simplicity, but the fundamentals are essential and fun to have. We need to know that we are grounded, we are upon a sure foundation, and with that we can grow into secondary doctrines and doctrines that are important. Teaching that the Bible has to teach is important, but it's not necessarily worth disfellowshipping over. Once again, we have fun with things that we are trying to go into perfection with. The Bible says turn, if you would, to Ephesians chapter 4. And while you turn to Ephesians chapter 4, I'm going to read from you from Hebrews, right? The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 5 verse 11, Of whom we have many things to say and hard to be uttered, seeing your dole of hearing. For when the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat. For everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe, but strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Like I said, we need to move on into perfection. We need to grow in our faith. We need to start somewhere, have fun with it, but don't stay there. Don't listen to the world. We all have a different function. And when we hang out with each other more often, we're going to grow as brothers and sisters. We're going to be able to do more. Where it says in Ephesians chapter 4, where you are, let me get there myself. The Bible clearly says in verse 11, and it gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a what perfect man, under the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 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. But speaking the truth and love may what grow up into him in all things, which is the head even Christ. So like I was saying, we're fundamentalist, you guys, we're independent, we're fundamental, we're Baptist. Let's have fun with this. It's not all work. I mean, have you ever heard the saying, all work and no play makes Jack go crazy? Like we are obviously here to do something real, but you know, we just, we're having birthdays around the corner. We have holidays that are coming up and we can find ourselves fellowshipping with each other, pushing each other, iron sharpening iron and growing in our faith. We're not going to listen to the world, but it tells us to be fun. We're going to do what the Bible tells us fun is, and I don't know about you, but as a fundamentalist, I tend to have lots of fun and I want to make sure you guys understand that you're not weird when your friends are like, Oh, you guys dress funny. You guys talk funny. You guys act funny. The Bible says be not of the world. And that's a good thing. You don't want others to look at you and think that you're acting just like everyone else. There is a attack on Christianity to make you think you're not supposed to be unspotted from the world. Let's be different and let's have fun in the process. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear heavenly father, thank you so much for your word. Thank you so much for salvation and thank you so much for allowing us to understand your word and to grow in your, uh, your faith and your things of God. Help us to just constantly seek to please you and everything and, uh, help us to have fun with the fundamentals. In Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen.