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Amen. At the beginning of the chapter there, the Bible reads, Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. And I want to focus in on verse number two where it says, The same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. And the title of my sermon tonight is, Faithful with What You Have. Being faithful with what you have. The Bible tells us to take the things that we've learned and commit them unto faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. Well, what does it mean to be a faithful man? Who are these faithful men that these things should be committed unto? Well, there is a lot of scripture on this. If you want to just flip over to 1 Corinthians chapter 4, and I'll read for you some verses from Proverbs. Proverbs 14 5 says, A faithful witness will not lie, but a false witness will utter lies. Faithfulness in this context is referring to being trustworthy. It's someone that you can put your faith in, you can rely on them, you can count on them. You know, a faithful person at the job would be a person where you give them a job to do and you just consider it done. You don't even have to follow up on it because they're reliable, they're trustworthy, you know they're going to get it done. And it says a faithful witness is going to tell you the truth. You know, the false witness is going to utter lies, you can't trust what he says. The faithful person is the person you can trust. Proverbs 20 verse 6, Most men will proclaim everyone his own goodness, but a faithful man who can find. So the Bible is saying that faithful men are few and far between, although there are plenty of people who would claim to be faithful and would sing their own praises. Proverbs 25, 13, As the cold of snow in the time of harvest, so is a faithful messenger to them that send him, for he refreshest the soul of his masters. You know, if you give a faithful person a job to do, it's just so refreshing how they just take care of everything, they get it done, you don't have to worry about it, you can trust them, you can rely on them. And the Bible says in Proverbs 28, 20, A faithful man shall abound with blessings, but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. So the faithful person is the person who just day in, day out, week in, week out, they do their job, you can rely on them, you can count on them, not the person who's just in a hurry to make it to the top, or in a hurry to get rich, or just in a hurry to get the job done and do it sloppy and so forth. Look what it says in 1 Corinthians chapter 4, Let a man sow account of us as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God, moreover it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. A steward is someone that you trust with things, sort of like we talked about this morning in the story of Joseph, where Potiphar trusted him with everything. Why? Because he was faithful. And so it's required in stewards that a man be found faithful. That's the most important attribute for a steward to have. What's a steward? Someone that you entrust your money with, your goods with, and they organize it for you, they take care of you, someone like an accountant or something would be the equivalent. And so we are the stewards, the Bible says in verse 1 there, of the mysteries of God. God has given us his word, he's given us the gospel, he's given us all this doctrine, and he's trusting us to be faithful, to preach the word of God faithfully, to teach it faithfully, and not to quit, and not to change or alter the message. Right? We're trusted with this information, we need to use it for the glory of God and be faithful. Flip over, if you would, to 1 Timothy chapter 3. The Bible also describes Jesus Christ as being faithful, as well as Moses being faithful. Hebrews 3, 1, you're turning to 1 Timothy 3. Hebrews 3 says, Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. Jesus was faithful to the Father. Moses was faithful to God. And it's required of us that we be faithful. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 3, this is the qualification for the deacon. Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre, holding the mystery of the faith and a pure conscience. And let these also first be proved, and then let them use the office of a deacon being found blameless. Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, and then watch this last phrase, faithful in all things. So when it comes to the qualifications for a pastor and the qualifications for a deacon, one of the qualifications is faithfulness, and even their wives must be faithful in all things. You know, if you had a guy who's a great man, he's godly, he's faithful, but his wife is unfaithful. He's not qualified to pastor, is he? He's not qualified even to be a deacon. Why? Because his wife needs to be faithful as well. Faithfulness is a key attribute in servants of the Lord, and even in their families. The Bible even says they must have faithful children, faithful wife. You know, it's important that the family be faithful. So this is something that comes up over and over again. Now flip over to Luke 16. Luke 16. And while you're turning to Luke 16, I'll read for you Matthew 25, 23. His Lord said unto him, well done, good and faithful servant. That's a pretty famous quote that people think about getting to heaven and seeing the Lord, and they want him to tell them, well done, thou good and faithful servant. That's one of the most famous quotes in the Bible. But notice it's good and faithful servant. So if we want to hear that, we want to be faithful. He says, thou hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Now it makes sense that if you have an employee, if you have a servant, if you have a worker, that first you would trust them with a little bit, right? And then see how they do. And then if they're faithful with that little bit, now you'll trust them with more. You'll give them a small responsibility, and then when they do well, you give them a big responsibility. Well, that's exactly the way God is. God says, look, you've been faithful with the little things. I'm going to make you a ruler over many things. Because you were faithful with that which was least, you will be entrusted with something greater. And this is where a lot of people miss the boat. They think that their job is not important, and so they don't give it their best, and they're not faithful because they think, oh, this is just a small menial task. But the Bible says if you're not faithful in that which is least, you won't be faithful in the great things either. You know, you think to yourself, oh, well, you know, this is just a minimum wage, bottom level job. Well, you know what, just expect to stay there if you're not faithful. You know, and if you're faithful, God's going to look down and find you faithful. He will upgrade your job. You don't think God can open doors for you to get a better job and a better opportunity if you're faithful no matter what that job is. Look, every faithful electrician or faithful plumber started out digging ditches, right? And they need to be found faithful digging that hole, digging those ditches, and not just saying, oh, this isn't important. Hey, everything's important. Anything worth doing is worth doing right the first time. And if you show your boss, hey, I can be a faithful ditch digger. I can be faithful in the mail room shipping packages. I can be faithful washing the dishes. Well, you know what, the one who's faithful washing the dishes is later going to be the one that's faithful in the kitchen cooking the food. And then he's going to be found faithful to be the manager. That's how you advance. But you start out in the scullery washing dishes, right? If you work in a restaurant, who's ever worked in a restaurant and worked in the scullery and has heard that term before? You've never heard that term? Oh, man, like two other people? The scullery. You know, I remember when I started working at Round Table Pizza. Who ate Round Table on this Compton trip? I saw some of those pictures on Facebook, and I was like, I had to keep quoting, thou shall not covet, thou shall not covet. You know, I was happy for you guys. But anyway, you know, I remember my first day at Round Table Pizza, I just lived in that scullery. You know, the first day, three hours in the scullery. All that steam and hot water and washing dishes, you know, and then you move up and you get more responsibility. But the guy who slacks in the scullery, I, and look, I remember there were some guys, that's all, they just, it's like they never advanced. They're just always washing dishes. They're just always cleaning the bathroom. It's like they never got beyond that because they were too unfaithful. That's all you could trust them with. You can't trust them to handle any money or to deal with customers because they're going to blow it. And that's a shameful thing. Look at Luke chapter 16 verse 10. It says, he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. It's the same kind of person, folks. The guy who you can trust with a lot, he'll take every little job seriously. Why? Because he's just a faithful person. That's just who he is. And he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much because he's just that kind of person. Now a lot of people kid themselves and kid those around them. Well, if I had a real job, I'd take it a little more seriously. No, you wouldn't. If you won't take your menial job seriously, you won't take your, quote, real job seriously either. You've got to be faithful. You know, if you're not faithful with your allowance as a kid, you're not going to be faithful with your salary when you grow up. It's just what kind of person are you? What kind of character do you have? Are you faithful or not? It says in verse 11, if therefore you've not been found faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust? The true riches. Now, what's the unrighteous mammon? That's just talking about the money of this world. He's saying that's, you know, a small thing compared to the true riches. Now you say, well, what are the true riches? I thought I was making money. The true riches would be wisdom, knowledge, understanding, blessings from God, the power of the Holy Spirit. These are the true riches. But God says, look, if you can't even be faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust? The true riches. And watch this. If you've not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? What he's saying is, you know, before you could ever own your own business, you would be a faithful employee being a blessing to someone else's business. And if you can't be faithful working for someone else, how are you going to be faithful running your own business? It's just not going to happen, is it? Now, when it comes to spiritual things, because this is kind of a carnal illustration where he's talking about business and employees and things, if you get the context of Luke 16. But we know that spiritually also, God has committed unto us the riches of Christ, and that we are considered his stewards, and that we are supposed to be faithful servants of God. And so when we give this a spiritual application, think about this. If you can't be faithful in church, who's ever going to ordain you to be a pastor? Right? If you can't serve under someone else's ministry, how can you lead your own ministry? Right? If you can't be faithful with a little responsibility in the church, you know, having a church that you're pastoring is a pretty big responsibility. Right? So you've got to be found faithful first, in that which is least, so that you can graduate to a higher level of responsibility. And that's what the Bible is saying here. Now, the title of my sermon tonight is, Faithful with What You Have. So whatever little responsibility you have, or whatever little opportunity you have, be faithful with what you have, and then God will give you more. Amen? So you've got to be faithful with what you have. And I was thinking of different illustrations about this. How people sometimes, you know, they want to start thinking about the next thing, instead of just being faithful with what they have and where they are right now. You know, there are guys who want to pastor a church someday, but then I'm sick and I call them up on the phone and I say, Hey, I'm sick. I can't make it to church. Can you fill the pulpit for me and can you preach? Oh, I'm not prepared. You know, it's like, if you can't have one sermon on standby, where you're ready to fill in for Pastor Anderson at all times, when I've specifically asked certain people and said, Hey, I want you to have a sermon on standby at all times. Be ready to back me up at all times. Keep that thing in the glove box because who knows what's going to happen, right? I could get sick. Something's going to happen to me. You know, if you can't have one sermon on standby to fill in for Pastor Anderson, how are you going to prepare three sermons every week? Right? You got to be ready to fill in. And you know what? That's actually a big responsibility anyway, because if you fill in for me on Sunday morning, there's over 300 people physically in attendance. There's 89,000 subscribers on YouTube. You know, I mean, it's a pretty big opportunity to get to preach, right? But are you going to be ready for it? And how good of a job are you going to do? Or are you going to phone it in? Right? Are you going to be prepared? Are you going to say yes, I'll be ready to go, right? That's faithfulness, reliability. So the point is that whatever opportunity you're given, take it seriously. Now, what about if you're given an opportunity to preach up at Word of Truth Baptist? You say, oh, that's a small church. Well, you know what? It's still a big opportunity for you to serve the Lord. And you know what? Whether it's preaching at FWBC Los Angeles, or whether it's preaching at Word of Truth Baptist, or whether it's preaching up at FWBC North, or whether it's preaching in a school on a missions trip or whatever, hey, those are cool opportunities. And you know what you want to do? Your best. Even getting up and preaching in the preaching class. You know, that's an opportunity to preach. And it should be taken seriously. And you know what? When you're preaching to any group of people, it doesn't matter the size, you should take it seriously and do your best. And if you're faithful with it, you'll be given bigger opportunities. You know, when I started Faithful Word Baptist Church, hardly anybody came because nobody knew about us. It was a brand new church. We started in the living room. And you know, the very first service we had nine people, including my family, which is five people and four visitors. You know, other services we had seven, eight, nine, ten, twelve, fifteen. All throughout that first year we averaged about ten. And during that time, you know, I had to be faithful no matter how many people are there. It didn't matter if I'm preaching to ten thousand people or ten people. Be faithful, right? You know, you preach and take it seriously. You know, one of my favorite compliments that my sister Ronnie gave me, she came and visited the church. And the day that she came, it was kind of a day when there were only two other people who showed up. It was my family, two people, and my sister's family. It was in the early days. And some of our other members weren't around. So it was kind of a really light attendance day. And she showed up. And you know, so I preached. And she said to me, she said, you know what? She said, the thing I liked about it is that even though we were in a living room and it was a really small crowd, you preached like you were preaching to thousands, she said. Even though it was just a really small group, I felt like I was in a real church. You know, because it was a real church, amen? But you know what? You want to know what the irony is that I actually was preaching to thousands. Because thousands of people, literally tens of thousands of people, have gone back and done what? Downloaded all the sermons from 2006, 2007, 2000. I hate it when people do that because I don't like the old preaching. Listen to the new stuff. But anyway. But people do though. You know, they go back and they download 2006, 2007, 2008. So even though I thought I was only preaching to 10 people. And I never even imagined that we would have a huge internet falling. That thought never even entered my mind. I'm just preaching to these 10 people. You know? And that's who I'm preaching to. But you know, I'm glad I was taking it seriously. Because I was actually preaching to tens of thousands of people. But I didn't know that at the time. And neither do you know what opportunities God's going to open up. What God's going to do. Or what if you're only preaching to two people, right? And one of them is going to be some great preacher of the next generation. Right? I mean, what if you're preaching to two people and you inspire somebody that could turn the world upside down, right? I mean, or you could inspire that lady who's going to raise a godly son. And they could do great things. Or godly women that would do great things. And be soul winners and win hundreds of people to the Lord. Who knows what people are going to do, right? So don't ever take it lightly. Anytime you have an opportunity to preach, it doesn't matter how few people are there or how many people are there. That's a blessing to be able to get up and preach. And you know what? You say, well, it's just a tiny crowd. Well, you know what? God's watching to see how you're doing. And if he sees you do a poor job, you know what he's going to do? Say, that's it. No more opportunities for this guy. If this guy can't preach well to three, he has no business preaching to 300. If he can't take it seriously and love those three people, how's he going to love 300 people? You know, and there were even a couple services in the early days of our church where it was just my family. But I still preach. There were two services like that. And I still sang the songs, did the announcements, preached the sermon. I treated it like I would treat any other church service. And here's why. Because my family are people too. They actually matter more to me than anyone else in the auditorium. So the fact that they're there, it's like, oh, nobody showed up. Well, my family's here. That's not nobody. Right? These people matter. And so they got that preaching. So we want to be faithful with whatever opportunities we have, whatever we've been given, do our best with it. Instead of always looking for something that's further out or more grandiose or glamorous, be faithful with what you have. You know, I was thinking of some illustrations about this. Like, for example, when it comes to dinner time, sometimes you'll have a little kid that will tell you, hey, I can eat a lot more than that. You know, load up my plate. Or I want a whole burger or I want a whole pizza or whatever. And I always say to them, hey, why don't you just eat what's on your plate and then we'll talk? Like, if you didn't run out of what's on your plate, why are we talking about getting more? Finish that which you have and then you'll get more. But it's like people are already getting seconds when they haven't even finished what's on their plate. And, you know, it's like they just want to think about something else. They haven't even cleaned the plate and they want more. It doesn't make any sense. But that's how people are in a lot of different areas of life. You know, as long as you got the next bite in the bowl, you got nothing to complain about, right? And that's how our life is. It's one bite at a time. It's one step at a time. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Lean not on thine own understanding and all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. And the Bible says thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. He doesn't light up the whole road but he lights up your path right in front of your feet. As long as you know what the next step is, you take the next step and be faithful with what you have. You know what always blows my mind is when people talk about the missing books of the Bible. These extra books of the Bible, hidden books of the Bible. But they have not finished the 66 books. It's like, you know, you want to talk about some hidden mystery book. You didn't even finish the 66 that God gave you. How stupid is that? And you're wondering about the book of Enoch or some nonsense. And here's a spoiler alert. The missing books of the Bible are junk. They're not quite as bad as the Quran but they're pretty bad, okay? They're pretty lame. They're not even good literature. So, you know, people want that which is beyond their scope instead of just being faithful with what they do have. I mean, look, if all we had was the New Testament, we'd read the New Testament, right? If we were in a language that only had a New Testament translated, hey, we'd just read the New Testament. Wouldn't be like, I want Genesis. Well, did you read Mark and Luke? You know, right? Read what you got. Be faithful with what you got because I strongly believe this. If you're faithful with what you have, God will always give you more. You'll never run out of things to do. When you get to the end, something else will open up every single time. But you've got to do everything you can first with what you've got. You know what I'm saying? It's, let me give you an illustration. How about missionaries, okay? If they can't win souls in the United States, how are they going to win souls on the mission field? These guys barely do any soul winning, if at all. But, oh, they're going to go start churches, plural, you know, in some country in Africa, Asia, Europe, or whatever. These missionaries need to be faithful in the U.S. and we want to see them be faithful because if they're faithful here, then they'll be faithful there and vice versa. If they're not, they won't. Now, I was thinking about the fact that I would like to see our church and other churches like us, friends of ours in our movement, I would like to see us evangelize the entire world in our lifetime. That is the vision that I have and I preached a whole sermon where I laid out how that actually is humanly possible in our lifetime, a step-by-step plan, a strategy to evangelize the whole world. And that strategy can work and will work if we do the work. And you know what? We're on track, by the way. I preached that a year or two ago or whenever. You know, we've done everything that we set out to do since then. We are on target. We are on track. The mission is picking up speed. You know, our map is getting filled in there for Arizona or for Phoenix, rather. And also for Arizona, we're finishing off the Indian reservations. Other churches are being founded all over America. You know, Brother Jonathan Shelley is being ordained tonight to be a part of that program and to go start a church in Houston. And you know, he's going to get a vision for Houston and Texas and under the uttermost parts of the earth. It can be done. But a question that sometimes people ask is, well, what about these countries where it's illegal to preach the gospel? You know, we talked about it this morning, how you can't go into these Muslim countries and start preaching the gospel to Muslims, or they'll kill you in a lot of these places. Or the people that convert, they'll get killed. You know, or people would ask, hey, how do we get into North Korea and get the gospel to North Korea? But let me ask you this, how are you doing on South Korea? How are we doing on South Korea? You know, everybody wants to talk about getting the gospel to North Korea. How's South Korea coming along? Because I believe this from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. You mark my words. If we evangelize every country in the world where it is legal and open to do so, I promise you we will not even have to wait one day to get into these closed countries. God won't even make us wait one day. I have zero doubt about that. I mean, if we're tearing it up and God just sees us knocking every door in this country, every door in this, we've got churches planted all over. We're evangelizing this country, that country. And when we start running out of countries, you don't think God's going to just bust those doors wide open before we even finish the last country we can do. But you know what? Instead, we just want to talk about the countries we can't get into. You know why? Because that appeals to the lazy man. To just, oh, it's such a shame we can't get into this Muslim country. Well, it's funny because we can march into Dearborn and go soul-winning. We've done it. Oh, man, you know, it's just a shame we can't get into North Korea. Well, you know what? You can march right into South Korea and go soul-winning all you want. You can go soul-winning, S-E-O-U-L, amen? And so, you know, you can go soul-winning in all the good places that are open and legal and safe. And look, it's common sense missions, folks. You start with the places that are easy, that speak our language, that are receptive, that are legal, that are safe, that are wide open, because you know what? God will open the other doors. But you want God to open doors way down the hall, you know, you got 20 steps till then, you know, do the work that God has given you right now, and then we'll talk, and then we'll talk. Then we'll strategize the next step. You know, you got countries all over the Caribbean, and in Central and South America, and especially places that speak English, like Guyana, like Belize, like Jamaica, like all these island countries of the Caribbean. And you know what? Those places are receptive to the gospel, and they're wide open. It's totally legal to march in there and do soul-winning and win people to Christ. You know, can we at least knock those out? I mean, some of these countries only have like one million people in them, or a couple hundred thousand people. Why don't we get that done? Why don't we finish those places and get those done, and then we could go to Africa where there are places that are wide open to the gospel, that are ready to hear us, and go knock all those out, places where it's receptive. Then we could go to the Philippines and get people saved, start church. I mean, there's just, there's so many places and so many opportunities that are wide unto harvest. I promise you that if we would be faithful, God would say, oh, you guys need a little more territory? Yeah, let me enlarge your coasts. Let me open this up for you. Oh, you guys are starting to be on top of each other. You know, now that there's 300 of these zealous soul-winning churches, or 500 of these zealous soul-winning churches that are taking missions trips every couple months, yeah, you guys are starting to just be on top of each other and running out of places to go. Here, let me open up North Korea. Here, let me open up countries in the Middle East. Let's open up this place or that place. It will happen. It's not that it might happen. It will happen. Why? Because that's what God always does. God always gives you more work than you'll ever do. You're not going to be like waiting on God, like, okay, God, who do we give the gospel to? We've knocked every door. We've evangelized everybody so much, and you told us to go to all nations, and there's like 50 nations where it's illegal. You know, what's the deal? They're not letting us in. They're not, he'll just, he'll start opening them up. That's the answer. That's the key. So instead of thinking about what you can't do, do what you can do. You know, people are the same way with the Bible. They worry about the parts of the Bible they don't understand, and there are things in the Bible I don't understand. There are things in the Bible that we'll probably never understand this side of heaven because the Bible's really deep, and as we get older and study and work for the Lord, we understand more and more. But you know what? I always tell people, especially if they're a beginner just starting to read the Bible, I tell them, look, when you come to something you don't understand, don't worry about it. You know, don't get hung up because a lot of people, they're like, man, I tried to read Genesis, but it's like, I can't get past Chapter 6 because I'm just hung up. I'm the sons of God and the daughters of man. I'm just hung up. They don't get anywhere. They don't get to read the rest of Genesis. They don't get to Exodus. And the thing is, because they fall down some rabbit hole because they're just like, I gotta get to the bottom of this. That's like if you took a test and you get to the second question and you spend a whole hour on that. What do they tell you to do? Skip it. Come back to it. When I read the Bible the first time, there was a lot more that I didn't understand than the second time. The second time I understood more. Third time I understood a little more. Fourth time I understood a little more. But the key is that when you come to something you don't understand, you just shrug your shoulders and keep going and keep reading. Keep moving on. Is there something that you do understand? Do it. If you understand something from the Bible, put it into practice. And when God sees you put it into practice, you know what he'll do? Reveal more knowledge. And then you'll put that knowledge into practice. But if he tells you, hey, this is my will. This is what I'm saying in the word. And you understand scripture and you're like, I'm not going to do that. Is God going to reveal you item number two, item number three? You didn't do item number one. And if you didn't do two, three, and four, is he going to reveal truth number five? Truth number six? No, because you've shown yourself to be unworthy of his revelations. Now look what the Bible says in Luke chapter eight. Turn over to Luke chapter eight. And I like what Jesus said to Nicodemus. If I've told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? I mean, if Nicodemus couldn't even handle the milk of the word, how's he going to understand the deep things of God? You know, if he won't even believe the basic truths that Jesus is trying to tell him, what if I get into the heavenly stuff? You're not going to be able to handle it. Be faithful with the information you have, with the teaching you have, with what you do have, faithfulness. Look at Luke chapter eight, verse 18. Take heed therefore how ye hear, for whosoever hath to him shall be given, and whosoever hath not from him shall be taken, even that which he seemeth to have. So the Bible says, take heed how ye hear, at the beginning of verse 18. Be careful how you listen, because if you don't listen well, God will take information away from you. And if you do listen well, and you have that truth in your heart, God will give you more. And then it's like, you could tie this in with what it says in James one, where it says, but be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is likened to a man beholding his natural face in a glass, for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and it says, and continue it therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. And that tells me there are two kinds of listeners, the doer of the work, and the forgetful hearer. So what the Bible is saying, if you hear information from God's word, and you do it, you'll remember it, and you'll learn more. If you hear God's word, and you don't do it, and you don't take heed unto it, then you'll lose it. You'll forget it. And God will even take other information away from you as a punishment, because you're a bad steward of the mysteries of God. You're a bad steward of the information you were given. You know, if I tell somebody something, and they reject it, and then I tell them something else, and they reject it, I'm going to stop talking to that person. What does the Bible say outsolding a man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition? Reject. Because if I show them one clear truth from the Bible, they reject it. Second one, they reject. See you later. Why? They were not faithful with what they were given. They were a bad steward, and I'm not going to waste my breath on someone who's unworthy to hear what I'm preaching. I'd rather take it to the next person who wants to actually listen and receive the truth. And this is the same way that God is. He's looking for a faithful steward to commit the true riches. We've got to be faithful if we want God to trust us, and use us, and put us in the positions of leadership in the church. The Apostle Paul said, I thank Christ Jesus, my Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. How do you get put into the ministry? The Lord's got to find you faithful. But not only does the Lord need to find you faithful, your local church needs to find you faithful. As the whole point of ordination, what does it mean to be ordained? You know, we hear this word a lot, and it's something that most people have heard. But few people, it seems, have stopped to think about, what does that actually mean, ordination? Well, ordained is used synonymously in the Bible with appointed. Appointed and ordained are synonymous. Appointing somebody is basically putting them in a certain position, saying, hey, this is where you're going to serve. I now appoint you minister of this or minister of that. Even the government would use terminology like that, right? Ordination is basically saying, this is the job you're going to do. So if someone is ordained to be a pastor, it's basically them being commissioned and appointed as, hey, you are going to pastor a church. Or being a missionary, you're going to be an evangelist. You're going to be a missionary. Or you're going to serve as the deacon, right? That's what it means to be ordained or appointed. What it really means is that you've been chosen and approved for a certain job. People have looked at you and said, OK, you meet the qualifications, and so we are selecting you for this task. That's what it means to be ordained or appointed to the ministry. Now the whole purpose of ordination is that you're found faithful not just in the sight of God, but that your fellow man finds you faithful, that your church looks at you and said, hey, this is a faithful guy. This guy, he's been with us, we've observed him, and we have found him to be faithful. We found him to be trustworthy, reliable, doctrinally sound. We have found him qualified for the task at hand. This is what it means to be ordained, right? Now this is why I will never ordain my sons to the ministry. And I've been saying this for almost a decade now, that I will not hire my sons to work for the church, and I will never ordain them into the ministry. Why? Because that's a conflict of interest right there. This is where nepotism comes in, and I've seen it my whole life, and it has bothered me, and I've seen churches get torn apart because of this, where the pastor shows favoritism unto his children, and he hires them and pays them all kinds of money and gives them these jobs, even when other people might have been more qualified, and just thrust them into important positions of responsibility when they're 18 and whatever. I've just chosen to just not have that problem by just deciding that none of my children will ever work for Faithful Word Baptist Church, and none of them will ever be ordained by me. Because you know what? If only your daddy ordains you, you know what? You're probably not qualified. If the only person on the planet you can find to ordain you is your dad, that's a real shame. Now I'm not, look, I know that there have been some good men of God who have been ordained by their dads, and I'm not trying to throw any shade on them, but there's another certain somebody who was not faithful, who was thrown out of his church, excommunicated, and rejected of the church as a whole, and then he went to his daddy to get ordained. That defeats the whole purpose of ordination. Mom, will you ordain me? Dad, would you ordain me? That defeats the whole purpose. The whole point is that you're found faithful of your church, not of your mama, not of your daddy. That doesn't, that's so stupid. Well my wife believes in me. My kids believe in me. My mommy thinks I can do it, you know. Well you know what? That's not what matters. You know what? You're able to be in a church of God's people where everything's not just handed to you, and where you're submitting yourself under the authority of the leadership of the church, and where you serve, and you show that you are faithful in another man's ministry, and then you can go out and be a leader of a ministry that God trusts you with, right? But you gotta first serve under someone else, right? It just makes sense. So this nepotism of, oh I'm gonna get my parents to ordain me, come on. What a joke. You know, you gotta be ordained by the church that knows you and observes you and finds you faithful. And that certain somebody loser that I'm talking about, you know what? There's no way in H-E double hockey sticks that that church would have ever ordained anyone else in his situation if he wasn't the pastor's kid. If just some Joe Blow Trinity denier off the street, hey I got fired from my deacon position at the church, and I was excommunicated and thrown out of the church for denying the Trinity, but will you guys ordain me seven months later? Never would have happened in a million years if it would have been a church other than daddy's church. That's not ordination. That's not faithfulness. Folks, ordination is when you show up to church and you are a blessing to the church, you're found faithful in the church, and when you're sent out from the church, you know what? People are excited about it. And people are patting you on the back saying, hey, we wish you success, you've been a blessing, we're gonna miss you, let's have a going away potluck for you, you know, and we want you to go and do the work that God has for you. That's what ordination is. It's the approval of the church. You see, God gave qualifications for the pastor, didn't he, in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus chapter 1, and let me tell you something, it's not a self-test. It's not a self-check. It's someone else says, hey, this guy's a faithful guy. Let's send him to go start the church here, or let's make him the deacon, or let's send him to evangelize this country or that country or this tribe or that tribe. This is what ordination means. Now tonight, we're gonna be ordaining Jonathan Shelley, and he's been with us now for a few years. He's been found faithful, he's been a blessing to me, he's been a blessing to you, he's been a blessing to our church, and what he's being sent out to do is a very important job. We really need churches to be founded in our day because the churches, in many cases, are in decay. They're on the decline, and you wish that you could just kind of go in and revitalize some of these dead churches of the old IFB, but sadly, a lot of them, it's just too late for them. They're just too dead. They're just too entrenched in wrong ways of thinking, false doctrine, et cetera. I'm not saying that all the churches in Houston are bad. There are some good churches in the Houston area and in that part of Texas, for sure, but here's the thing about Houston. Houston is a city with eight million people in the greater Houston area, and just to put it in perspective, we have about four million here in the greater Phoenix area, and Phoenix is a huge city. It's a massive city. Well, Houston is like double the size, so you need more than one soul-winning church. You're going to need more than one Bible preaching, fire and brimstone, soul-winning church. Just like in Phoenix, you're going to need more than one to effectively reach, unless it's Faithful Word that does the work of a hundred, amen? No, I'm just kidding. But anyway. No, no, no. Realistically, in the long run, you want to have multiple churches in a city that size, and Houston is not being evangelized right now. Every door is not being knocked to the level that it needs to be at all, not even close, and so Brother Shelley is going to go there, and he's going to establish an independent, fundamental Baptist church in Houston, Texas, with a vision for soul-winning, reaching people, church growth, and preaching hard. Not just going there and just getting people saved, and getting them to first base, but not teaching them everything. He's going to get up, and he's going to preach the whole counsel of God, amen? And preach the hard sermons, and the easy sermons, and not hold back. Frankly, he's going to be like us. You know, why? Because he's been here with us, his heart has been knit unto us, and he's going to take what he's learned here, and the spirit of this place, and what the Holy Spirit has given him in private study, and in his Christian life, and he's going to go and do the work in Houston, Texas. And so, we need to pray for him, because obviously there are going to be many adversaries, there's going to be opposition, the devil is most certainly going to attack him, if he does anything for the Lord, and makes a big stir over there, and really starts to knock a lot of doors and everything. You know, the devil's going to take notice of that, and there are going to be enemies and adversaries, so we need to pray for him, we need to pray for his family, and we need to be an encouragement and a blessing to him. And I'm excited to see what he's going to do, and what the results are going to be. The souls that are saved, the church that's established, and hopefully we can continue to watch for years and years, 5 years, 10 years, and continue to see the fruit of this church plant. And so, all in favor of ordaining brother Jonathan Shelley, say Amen. Amen. Alright, come on up here brother Shelley, we're going to pray for brother Shelley, and send him out to start the church in Houston, Texas. So let's just have a word of prayer now for brother Shelley, I'll lead us in prayer. Dear Lord, we just thank you so much for brother Shelley, and we thank you for having him serve with us over the past few years, we're very thankful for the people that have been saved, the doctrines that have been taught, and the friendship, and the fellowship, Lord, we just pray that you would please just fill him with your spirit, Lord. We know that through the power of the flesh, he will be able to do nothing, he will go to Houston and fail, but Lord, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we know that he will succeed, and do great things, and so I just pray that you would pour out your spirit upon him, use him mightily, and I pray that you would just go before him, and prepare a group of people that would be knit unto him, that would be the core of this new church, Lord, just people that he could rely on, faithful people that he could serve with, Lord, and I just pray that you would start to assemble that team right now, and that new group, Lord, that's going to spend years and years supporting brother Shelley, Lord, bless his family, his wife, his children, protect them, and keep them spiritual, and keep them right with you, Lord, please just do a great work, Lord, in Houston, I pray that the city would be turned upside down with the gospel, and I pray that brother Shelley would also be able to reach many other men that he could commit to other ministries, and other churches could be founded, missions in the Caribbean, Lord, and all over the world that would come out of this new church, Pure Words Baptist Church, Lord, put your blessing upon it, and put your blessing upon brother Shelley, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. All right, very good, we're going to go ahead and be dismissed in a moment, and we're going to have a word of prayer, and then sing another song, but please do be praying for the Shelley family, and you know, if you can go out there for a visit sometime soon, and support them in any way you possibly can, amen, I'm looking forward to going out there and preaching on August 3rd, now some people have wondered, you know, why is he being ordained tonight when you know, he's not going to start the church for several weeks, well we wanted to go ahead and get him ordained, because you know, we're hoping that he can baptize some people before he goes, amen. So he's going to be hopefully baptizing some people over the next few weeks, and you got a few more weeks to get to know them, and spend time with them before they head off to do their mission in Texas, so take advantage of that, be sure to congratulate them, and pray for them. Let's go ahead and bow our heads in prayer, Lord we thank you so much for the service tonight, and we thank you for faithfulness of the Shelley family and other great families in our church, Lord I pray that you'd raise up many other people that would also be prepared to go out and do great works for you, Lord, and I pray that you raise up a whole generation of young preachers that would get back to the old paths, and Lord I just pray that you would help our church to be a blessing to the Shelleys, and I pray that they would be a blessing to Houston, and it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.