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Good evening, welcome to our services tonight here at Faith Word Baptist Church. It's a joy to see you all here on this Sunday night service. Let's all take our seats, please, as we take our song books. You should find a hymnal close by, and once you have one, please turn to hymn number 180. We'll begin tonight with hymn number 180, isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful? Hymn number 180. Once you've found your place, we'll sing it on that first verse, there will never be a sweeter story, 180. It's the love of Jesus, something wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. It's the love of Jesus, something wonderful, wonderful is to me. That's what sets the universe around me, reaching to the one who stole the blame. Stating the one who's worth the bounty, that is why my heart feels truly safe. It's the love of Jesus, something wonderful, wonderful, wonderful is to me. It's the love of Jesus, something wonderful, wonderful it is to me. The love beyond our hymn of opportunity, love of God and Christ, how can it be? This will be my theme at ever ending, great, great, deep in love and gallery. It's the love of Jesus, something wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. It's the love of Jesus, something wonderful, wonderful it is to me. Amen. Thank you for our gathering tonight. Lord, we ask that you bless the service, Lord, and we pray as well that you give each one of us teachable spirits and please bless the preaching tonight. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Hymn number 121, Like a River, Glorious. Hymn number 121, Like a River, Glorious is God's perfect peace. Hymn number 121. Hymn number 121, Like a River, Glorious is God's perfect peace. Over all the glories, in his mighty dreams. Perfect and always, for every day. Perfect and it groweth, deeper all the way. State of what the hope of, hearts are fully blessed. Fighting as he promised, perfect peace and rest. Hidden in the hollow of his blessed hand. Never folk can follow, never traitors stand. Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care. Not a blast of hurry, touch the spirit there. State of what the hope of, hearts are fully blessed. Fighting as he promised, perfect peace and rest. Every joy or trial, calling from above. Traced upon our guile, by the Son of God. We may trust him fully, all for us to do. May you trust him wholly, find him wholly true. State of what Jehovah, hearts are fully blessed. Fighting as he promised, perfect peace and rest. We've got the soul winning times listed there below, as well as salvations and baptisms. Thanks to everybody who participated in the small town soul winning this weekend. Seven soul winners with seven salvations. And then if you're using the church provided transportation to the Red Hot Preaching Conference, you've got to be here super early in the morning because it's leaving at 4 a.m. sharp. So be there on time, you can sleep on the road, but you've got to get there on time because they have to leave on time in order to make it all the way to Sacramento, 11 hours away in time for that six o'clock service. And obviously you have to leave some time for Murphy's Law and stops and traffic and all the other things that come into play. The Bible memory passage, we're just wrapping up 1 Corinthians 2, 9 through 13. And so the deadline for that's next Sunday. There's going to be a camping trip coming up on September 23rd through 25th. Limited spaces available. See brother Raymond for details. And you can sign up over here at the bulletin board for that camping trip. Oh sorry, the sign up for the camping trips over by the kitchen. This is the small town soul winning stuff over here to my right. And then on the back, we're going to be doing monthly trips to Mexico on Mondays. It's about two and a half, two hours and 40 minutes away. And so they're going to be driving down there once a month just to do a day of soul winning. Just basically make a long day out of it, a day trip. And so if you're interested, talk to brother Segura. But that's going to be starting August 2nd. It's going to be the first Monday of every month. Keep praying for our expectant ladies that they will have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery. We've also got the church yearbooks. And so do we have more yearbooks to give out tonight? Do we still have them? Yeah, okay. So let's go ahead and hand out yearbooks. If you did not get a yearbook this morning, just put up your hand nice and high. If you did not get one and we'll get one out to you. They're grabbing the yearbooks right now. And so don't be shy. If you didn't get one, just put up your hand and we'll get you a yearbook. And then while we're handing those out, the other thing is just the other events that are listed there below. We've got the small town soul winning trips happening almost every weekend. So keep an eye on those. More details are over here. And talk to brother Raymond also for details. Keep your hand up. They're getting those yearbooks out. And that's about it for announcements. Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning from the past few days. Any soul winning to report from Thursday? Anything from Thursday? Okay, got it. All right, anything else from Thursday? What about from Friday? Anything from Friday? How about Saturday? Obviously we got the seven from the trip. Anything outside of those seven from the trip? Okay. And then what about today? Two brother Scott? Okay. Got one. Got it. Got it. Got it. Anything else from today that I'm missing? All right, very good. Keep up the great work on soul winning. With that, come lead us in our next song. All right, we're going to sing Psalm 81. You should find that incident in the cover of your hymnals there. If you don't have one, please raise your hand. And we'll sing it on that first. Sing aloud unto God our strength. On our song of peace day. For this was a statue for Israel and the law of the God of Jacob. Is he ordained in Joseph for a testimony when he led out? Through the land of Egypt where I heard a language that I understood not. I removed his shoulder from the burden. His hands were delivered from the pause. Down falls the trouble I delivered me. I answered me the sacred place of thunder. I burned me at the waters of Meribah. See, I hear oh my people. Oh, and I will testify unto thee. Oh, Israel thou wilt hearken unto me. There shall no strange God be me. Thine is shall thou worship any strange God. I am the Lord my God is from. Thee out of the land of Egypt. Oh, and I now find I will fill in. God my people would not hearken to my voice. Israel would not agree. So I gave them up one tinder on my spot. And you bought them their own counsels. Oh, that my people had hearkened unto me. And Israel had walked in my way. I should have submitted their enemies. And turned my hand against their adversaries. The haters of the Lord should have submitted. Should have submitted themselves unto him. But their time should endure forever. He should have fed them also. With the finest of the lead and with the need. Out of the rocks should I have satisfied thee. Out of the rocks should I have satisfied thee. Amen. And your hymnals please turn to hymn number 52. Zion's hill hymn number 52. It waits for me a glad tomorrow. Zion's hill hymn number 52. Let's sing it on this verse first all together now. There wait will be a glad tomorrow. Where it's a first we don't confide. And when that fast is there the sorrow. I'll dwell upon the other side. Someday beyond the range of mortal hell. Someday God only knows just where and when. The will of mortal life shall all stand still. And I shall hope to follow the Zion's hill. Someday I'll hear the angels singing. Beyond the shadows of the dew. And all the bells of heaven ringing. While saints are singing long sweet home. Someday beyond the range of mortal hell. Someday God only knows just where and when. The will of mortal life shall all stand still. And I shall go to dwell on Zion's hill. Someday my labors will be ended. And all my wonders will be o'er. And all that's broken times will be mended. And our society no more. Someday beyond the range of mortal hell. Someday God only knows just where and when. The will of mortal life shall all stand still. And I shall go to dwell on Zion's hill. Someday the dark clouds will be lifted. And all the night of moving past. And all our spirits will be lifted. The day of fresh shall not at last. Someday beyond the range of mortal hell. Someday God only knows just where and when. The will of mortal life shall all stand still. And I shall go to dwell on Zion's hill. All right, this time we'll pass to offering plates. And as the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to James chapter 4. James chapter number 4, as we always do. We'll read the entire chapter, beginning with verse number 1. James chapter 4, follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads. James chapter 4, starting verse number 1. In James chapter 4 the Bible reads, From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lust that warn your members? Ye lust, and have not. Ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain. Ye fight, and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lust. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lustest to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore, he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law. But if thou judgeth the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who art thou that judgeth another? Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy, and sell, and get gain. Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appearth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing is evil. Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. Dear Father in Heaven, please fill the path through the Spirit, and please give us all wisdom today, in no standing prayer. In Jesus' name, Amen. Man, the title of my sermon tonight is What are you doing with what you have right now? What are you doing with what you have right now? Beginning in verse 13 there in James 4, the Bible reads, Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy, and sell, and get gain. Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appearth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing is evil. Therefore, to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. What are you doing with what you have right now? A lot of people, they talk a pretty big talk about what they're going to do in the future. Or maybe even they tell themselves a big story about how later on down the road they're going to do great things for God. But the Bible is telling us that we don't even know what a day is going to bring forth. And so if we know to do good, and we do it not, to us it is a sin. So we need to do the good that we know to do right now. So if there's something righteous that needs to be done, let's do it now and not talk about how, oh we're going to do it a year from now, or two years from now, or five years from now. We have no idea whether that will even come to pass. And so a lot of people, they're waiting until they get their finances in order. You know, and then they're going to serve God. You know, I just have to get my job together, and then I'll serve God. Or I'm just waiting for my health to take a turn. And once I get my family right, once I get my marriage or my child rearing right, then I'll serve God. But here's the thing about that. Life is never going to be perfect. You are never going to have all your ducks in a row. And if you're waiting to have all your ducks in a row to serve God, you're just never going to end up serving God. And so the idea is that while we're going through the trials and tribulations of life, while we have those family problems, financial problems, health problems, that we serve God along the way because the only day that we're guaranteed is today. You know, we have right now to serve God, and we should not be just thinking about how we're going to do it off in the future at some point and talking about the morrow and boasting of the morrow. Now, he said in verse 16, But now you rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing is evil. So this reminds us back to Proverbs chapter 27 verse 1, which says pretty much the same thing. It says, Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. So we don't know what's going to happen, so therefore we should do with what we've got right now and serve God in our current situation, our current condition. Go, if you would, to Luke chapter 16. You know, maybe you're young and you're thinking to yourself, well, I'll serve God when I'm older. You know, I'm young. I've got plenty of time. I don't need to worry about that. You know, the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 12, 1, Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. So the Bible's telling us that your youth is the primo time to serve God. You know, we were down in Tucson a couple weeks ago. We heard Pastor Aaron Thompson preach, and he made a great point in his sermon. He said, you know, we all want to be serving God when we're in our 80s and 90s, and we picture ourselves at age 80 and 85 just going soul winning all the way unto the bitter end. But then he said, look around and tell me, how many people in that age group do you actually see soul winning or serving God? I mean, think about it. And when he said that, I was just thinking about, wow, you know, because I've been in a lot of churches, and it just isn't happening because you get old, you know, and you don't have the physical capabilities that you used to have. Now, look, I guarantee you that there are rare exceptions to this. You know, I remember hearing Pastor Lee Roberson preach in person when he was 95 years old, and it was a great sermon. I mean, he got up and he preached for like 25 minutes. It was a powerful sermon. That's the exception, not the rule. Okay, most people aren't going to be preaching when they're in their 90s. And look, I've also heard the stories about the people soul winning when they're 70, 80 years old. But let me tell you something, by and large, the young people are the ones who have the energy and the strength to get out there and do it. And obviously when you're in your 30s, your 40s, your 50s, your 60s, you've still got that strength to do it. And you know what? I hope to be one of those exceptions. I hope you are too. I hope we're all soul winning in our 70s and 80s, and we're just all the way to the end. But are we really going to count on that? You know, you teenagers need to understand that when you're a teenager, it's a great time to start serving God. It's a great time to start winning souls to Christ right now as a teenager. When you're a young adult, serve God now. If you know to do good, do it now. If you don't do it, it's a sin not to do it. And don't just think about how you're going to do it down the road. Do it right now. You know, you hear these financial guys talk about how, like, you know, if you invested this tiny amount of money when you're young enough, and then it just becomes some incredible amount of money. Who knows what I'm talking about? And they're like, you've got to start investing young. You've got to start thinking about retirement young. You know, start paying your retirement when you're 19, 20. Right? We've all heard that. And they show how, you know, if the earlier you start, you're going to get these incredible dividends. And how, you know, if you don't start thinking about your retirement until later, you know, it doesn't have enough time to snowball and whatever. You know, I don't care about that. When I heard that, I thought about serving God. And this is what I thought about. I wonder if the earlier I start serving God, and I start basically laying up treasures in heaven early, when I'm a teenager or in my 20s, I wonder if it's just going to pay off that much more because I started so much earlier. And, you know, to me that made sense to me. That if God sees me giving him my best, giving him the first fruits, he's going to honor that because God wants the first fruits. And what is our best? Our prime of life. Well, you know what? We ought to spend the prime of our life, the years when we have the most strength and the most energy and the most stamina. We ought to use that time serving God and putting into a heavenly investment, not laying up treasures on the earth, but laying up treasures in heaven. And we ought to start young. So, you know, I want to encourage you, like that guy's trying to get you to lay up a bunch of money for yourself. Hey, I want to encourage you to start young investing in the things of God because I think that you're going to get more bang for your buck by starting young and serving God and remembering the Creator in the days of your youth because you don't even know how much time you have. You don't know what situation your life is going to bring. You know, if you're available now, if you have the time now, if you have the energy now, serve God now. Win souls to Christ now. Take a missions trip now. Do all that stuff now while you can, while it's available to you. You know, you think about that investment analogy of, you know, putting in the investment early. You know, how about putting the Bible into your brain early because then you have it in your brain for your whole life. I mean, the more Bible you read when you're young, you're going to be drawn off that knowledge for the rest of your life as opposed to, oh, you know, I'll study the Bible later. Well, then you're going to do a bunch of years that you're doing in the dark because you haven't studied the Word of God to know how to live your life and then you're going to make all these mistakes and have all these regrets. You know, serve God now. Serve God when you're young. Serve God whatever status you're in. Maybe you are in your 50s, 60s, even 70s. Hey, serve God right now. There's no time like the present and if you still have that strength, then be thankful for it and get out there and do something. Did I tell you to turn to Luke chapter 16? Look at verse number 10. The title of the sermon is what are you doing with what you have right now, the opportunities that you have right now, the ability that you have, the strength that you have, the time that you've been given. What are you doing right now, not what you're going to do down the road. Look what the Bible says in Luke chapter 16 verse 10. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. Now, in addition to people having this attitude of, oh, you know, once I get my career in order, once I get educated, once I get married, once I get my health fixed, once I get my finance fixed, then I'll serve God. Another attitude that could be out there is, well, you know, I just don't really have what I need to serve God. I don't really have the tools or the opportunities to serve God. You know, if I had a better job or if I had a godly husband, you know, or if I had kids or if I were pastor or if I, you know, and people have all of these situations where if they were given more opportunity or more responsibility or greater tools or, well, if I had lots of money, man, I'd be just donating it all to the work of the Lord and all this stuff. You know, the Bible says he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. So the question is, what are you doing with what you have right now? Because no matter what little you have right now, whatever little sphere of influence you have, whatever little financial resources you have, whatever little family you have or little opportunity you have, what are you doing with it? Because if you're unfaithful with it, I promise you you'll be unfaithful when you're given a bigger chance and when you're given a bigger opportunity. You know, a lot of people, they don't treat their job with the proper respect because they say, well, this isn't a real job. This isn't a serious job. So I'm just going to kind of phone it in and do the minimum and not really try my best because I'm only making minimum wage. This is just a starter job. This isn't a career. Well, you know what? That's how you're going to be for the rest of your life. If you're on your starter minimum wage job and you're phoning it in and you're doing everything halfway, guess what? That's just the kind of person that you are according to the Bible because the Bible says that if you're unfaithful in that which is least, you'll also be unfaithful in much. And look what the Bible says in verse 11. If therefore you've not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you've not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? Oh, man, if I were running my own business, oh, man, I'd work so hard, I'd burn the midnight oil, but, you know, this guy that I'm working for. But hold on a second. If you're not faithful in another man's business, guess what? Nobody's going to give you one of your own. And here's the big somebody who's not going to give you one of your own, God, because it is God who controls your destiny. God ultimately is the one who controls your destiny, not your boss at work. So you say, well, my boss doesn't appreciate me. Does the Lord appreciate you? Because the Lord looks down from heaven and sees everything that you do and he promises to reward every good deed that you do. Every time you give it your best on the job, he sees that and he'll reward that because you did well. And so if you do well, if God gives you a little opportunity and you do well with it, guess what he's going to give you? A bigger opportunity, a better opportunity. But if you squander what he gives you, he's not going to give you more because you showed that you don't appreciate what you're given. And a lot of people think that they would be different in a different situation, but we are the same person and we need to learn whatever state we're in there with to be content and in whatever position we're in to give it our best. You say, well, you don't know my husband. Why don't you just be the best wife that you can be? And I'm not saying God's going to give you a different husband, but what I'm saying is maybe your husband will change or give it your best at your job and guess what? Maybe God will give you a better job or maybe your job will change. There have been situations where people are working for a company and things are a certain way, and then the company gets bought by someone else, gets new ownership, new management, and things can completely change. And sometimes they can get worse, but sometimes they can get a lot better when the new ownership comes in. And so God can just snap his fingers and change your situation. He holds your destiny in the palm of his hand, and so work on impressing him day to day and be faithful in what you've been given. Do with what you have right now. You don't have to be a pastor to serve God. You don't have to be a missionary to serve God. You don't have to be an evangelist to serve God. You don't have to be a deacon to serve God. You can serve God as a godly man, woman, boy, or girl. No matter where you are in life, you can be winning souls. You can be doing right and working and serving in the local church without having a special position or some kind of a high level or whatever that even means. Now, go back to James chapter 4. So in James chapter 4, we had that passage about not boasting about what you're going to do tomorrow and doing the good you know to do right now because if we don't do it, it's a sin, and we need to serve God now. Teenagers, serve God now. And by the way, just while we're turning back to James chapter 4, just to you children in general, okay, you know, you're working on your schoolwork, whether you're homeschooled or whether you go to school, okay, that's your job. When you're a kid, that's pretty much your job. Like, you're being trained. You're being educated. You're doing your schoolwork. And you know what? If you're a slacker on your schoolwork, guess what? You're probably going to be a slacker when you get out in the workforce as well. And people are like, yeah, but my schoolwork's boring. Hey, you know what? Your job's going to be boring too. Very few people in here have a fun, exciting job that's just so cool and glamorous all the time. And you know what? If we were to ask children to give us a list of jobs that they think are glamorous, I guarantee you that if we actually looked at what those people do in those jobs, it's not as glamorous as they think, right? I mean, what are some of the really glamorous jobs that are out there that kids would think like, yeah, I'm going to be a firefighter. Okay, but hold on a second, though. It's not like just every day is just this wild adventure. I don't really know that much about that profession, but I would guess that there are probably a lot of mundane tasks of just cleaning up the firehouse and doing repetitive drills. Do we have any firefighters in our church at this time? I work for EMT for a while. Fires are like 4% of what they actually do, and then half of what they do is ride along with the EMTs and just sit there kind of bored. So there's a lot of waiting. There's a lot of being bored. I mean, look, I'm sure it has its moments. Every job has its moments, but it's not really that super. Oh, I'm going to be in the police or something. You probably have to write out a bunch of paperwork that's probably a lot like schoolwork, writing out these long reports and writing out all this paperwork and doing all this stuff. You got to go to training that's like PE or whatever. But look, I guarantee you these glamorous. Oh, I'll be an actor, actress. I've talked to people that are actual actors or actresses in Hollywood and here's what they say. They say you're just like sitting in a trailer waiting and you just have to like look perfect all the time and you're just like waiting for hours and hours and hours. And then you get out there and there's just like 50 people waiting for you and you just have to do perfect because like every second is money and they have to just do perfect and it's like, okay, go wait more. You know, it's hard, difficult, boring, repetitive. You know, I think about the jobs that I've had. Let's see, I worked at a pizza restaurant. That was pretty repetitive. I liked it but it's very repetitive. Just, you know, you're just making the dough or just whatever your job is. I mean, one guy is just like putting the cheese and the pepperoni, slide it down to the next guy. Okay, it's very repetitive, redundant. There's a lot of every day, every day the thing just gets complete, the kitchen would just get completely trashed and had to be like immaculate by the next day only to get trashed again the next day. To be made immaculate again, it's just this repetition. That's life. You know, I did fire alarms for like 10 years and when I would do fire alarm systems, I would do like a hotel, a giant high-rise hotel and install the exact same devices in every single room, just hundreds of rooms and it's just like two red wires and two black wires coming in the back of this thing and I land the two red wires under the positive screw and the two black wires under the negative screw and then mount it to the wall and then do it again and again and again and again. It's just extremely... But then I got to do the computer programming, you know, program the whole system for the building and that's just entering like each smoke detector, you know, each device and giving it a name and just blah, blah. That's life, you know. Work involves a lot of just repetitive, busy work. School work is just like work that you're going to do in real life, okay. It's just you got to just grin and bear it and the thing is, if you're slacking now, you're building bad habits that are going to be hard to break later. So you should start being diligent now and being a hard worker now, not just on your school work but even on your chores around the house. I mean, when you're a kid, that's your job. Oh, household chores. Well, what's it going to be like when you're working at Round Table Pizza? It's like doing chores. You're mopping the floor, you're doing dishes. I've done all that. You're chopping up vegetables, whatever. Well, you know what? You've got to learn to be a hard worker as a kid and then that will stay with you for the rest of your life, okay. So work hard now, serve God now, build good habits now, get out solely now. And you know what? You kids, maybe you're not necessarily getting out door-to-door soul winning. Do you witness to the friends that you play with? Because you know what? If you're playing with other kids your age, why not give them the gospel? If you've learned how to do it, why not put that into practice and start winning souls right now as a child? And you teenagers and young adults, man, get out there and knock doors with us and win some people to the Lord now. You don't need to wait until later. Until later, do it now. So in James chapter four, not only do you have this idea of not boasting of the morrow, but you also have this idea being taught earlier in the chapter about being humble and allowing the Lord to lift you up and exalt you in due time. You know, paying your dues and letting God lift you up when he sees fit to whatever the position or whatever. Look at verse five, it says, do you think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? You know, we have a tendency to envy and covet as human beings. And the Bible says, but he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw an eye to God and he will draw an eye to you. Cleanse your hands ye sinners and purify your hearts you double minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter return to morning and your joy to heaviness. Here's the key, verse 10. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up. Turn just a few pages to the right in your Bible. First Peter five, couple pages to the right. First Peter five says this in verse five. Likewise ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time. Do you see that? Humble yourselves and God will exalt you in due time. You've got to pay your dues first. You've got to put in your time in a humble position. And again, using the schoolwork illustration, right? You know, that's a humble task. Do your best. Housework, chores around the house. That's a humble task. Do your best at it. You know, especially you young ladies, you know, you may end up doing that for the rest of your life if you get married to a godly husband and he's out working hard to pay the bills. He's doing some repetitive boring task somewhere and you're going to be at home cleaning up and keeping things nice and making food and everything. Ah, you know, I want to go out in the workforce. You know, it's the same thing out in the workforce, my friend. In fact, women actually have it good being at home and they're actually doing something very fulfilling and it really matters because the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. And so you say, well, you know, my starter job, hey, look, you start out in a humble job and you do well and then God will eventually give you bigger and better opportunities and you'll be ready for them. Okay, and then when it comes to serving God, you start out just humbly serving God in the best way you can. Go out sowing as a silent partner, right? You know, sweep the floor. Just jump in and do whatever it takes. You know, Brother Corbin Russell is now the deacon at our church and he preaches three times a week at our church plant in Tucson. I mean, that's pretty cool, right? He gets to work full time for the church and he preaches three times a week. He's got his own congregation down there that's growing and happening down there. But, you know, the decision to hire Brother Corbin Russell, it was actually Brother Segura's idea to hire Brother Corbin Russell. And do you remember what he told me, Brother Segura? When we were talking about this, he suggested Brother Russell and he said that we should hire Brother Russell. This is before he's a deacon or anything because he said, you know what, it just seems like he's always willing to get in there and do stuff that's not necessarily the glamorous stuff but he's just willing to do whatever menial jobs. He's always volunteering for stuff, he's always helping out with stuff and he helps out with just humble things. You remember telling me that? Yeah, he would jump in and just do the kind of thankless jobs and he was just kind of always there to jump in and do stuff and that was why Brother Segura even wanted to hire him, okay? And so we see that, you know, if you're faithful when you don't have the position, you know, maybe you'll get the position down the road. But whether you do or you don't, you be faithful with what you've got right now. You do with what you got. So that's a good example. Now let me give you a bad example, okay? So there was this bozo who visited our church a while back and this guy, he's like a young guy, young single guy and, you know, he comes up to me and people do this to me all the time, you know, he wants to become a pastor. How do I become a pastor? And so, you know, I told him, I said, well, I said, I don't train young single guys to be a pastor because, you know, they're so far from that and you don't really know where life's going to take you. And so, you know, just focus on getting married, have some kids and then we'll talk because in order to meet the biblical qualifications, you have to be married and have kids, number one, okay? But number two, I've seen a lot of guys who really wanted to be a pastor when they're single. Once they get married and have a few kids, they kind of just get comfortable in that lifestyle and they just decide, you know what, I don't think it's for me. I don't think I want to be a pastor anymore. I'm just happy with what I'm doing and, you know, they just lose that desire, right? Okay, so I'm not just going to spend a bunch of time training somebody that's not even going to pan out, okay? And obviously, they're so far from it because the time it's going to take to get married and have kids. So I just told this guy, look, I said, you know, if you want to be a pastor someday, just focus on just serving God in your local church right now. Just be faithful in church. Read your Bible. You know, I said the biggest problem with a lot of pastors today is they don't know the Bible. So be reading the Bible. You know, read the Bible at least ten times cover to cover before you become a pastor and know what you're talking about so, you know, you can be studying the Bible, you can be soul winning, but I said, hey, the main thing is to just be a blessing in your local church, get involved in whatever ministries they have, whatever opportunities they have, just get in there and humbly serve. Now, of course, this guy didn't like that answer, okay? And then, so I'm going to give you three points about this guy. So point number one, he's just this young single dude coming up to me wanting to be trained for the pastorate and offended that I'm not training him, okay? Point number two, the guy goes on Facebook and publicly posts, hey, does anybody have any suggestions on how I could become an alpha male? What? And I'm thinking to myself, well, point number one, don't go on Facebook asking how to become an alpha male. That's step one. But what kind of a stupid question is that? That's absurd. See my every tips on how I can become an alpha male. What does that even mean? Here's the thing about being an alpha male. Number one, the Bible does not teach us to aspire to being alpha males. It's not a biblical ambition to have like, yeah, I just want to be this bad dude and I'm going to be the alpha male, the pack leader. I mean, is that really what the Bible teaches? Is that a Christian virtue? Now look, but I understand the concept that some people have that charisma where they're just kind of an alpha male. They're just the kind of guy that just kind of walks into a room and they just kind of dominate the room, you know what I mean? And I think if somebody like that, my grandpa was like that. He was just kind of a larger than life kind of guy and he just, you know, had that charisma and whatever. But it's like, is that really what life's about, being the Fonz or something? You know what I mean? Or is it like you're just so cool or you're just the alpha male, you know? You know what that, I got a word for that, pride, ego. Now look, and I guarantee you the guys that are quote unquote alpha males, they didn't set out, they didn't have like a book like How to Be an Alpha Male for Dummies. You know, it's like they just, that's just how they are. And people that are trying too hard are automatically not an alpha male. Okay, so what kind of, it's like I could spend hours just explaining everything that's wrong with that question. Okay, how do I, does anybody have any tips on how to become an alpha male? I don't know, take that drug that Alex Jones is selling, I guess, right? Super male vitality. His before and after picture, he's both fat. But anyway, all right, never mind. But anyway, the point is, you know, this guy, he just wants to be this alpha male, okay? It's misguided, because first of all, it's not a Christian virtue, it's not what God has called us to do. You know what, what if I told you that our life is not about glorifying ourselves, it's about glorifying Jesus Christ. So why would we just desire to just be this, you know, this man that everyone just looks to or something? That's ego, it's pride, it's wickedness is what it is. So then, you know, the guy of course washes up from the independent fundamental Baptist movement and, you know, now he is saying that he wants to be a politician. So that's point three about this guy, okay? Now what do these things all have in common? You know, first it's like he wants to be a pastor, doesn't want to be faithful now, didn't respect his pastor of his local church, because his pastor is pre-trib or something, you know, so he won't respect his pastor, he would not serve faithfully and humbly in his local church, he's just whining about everything that's wrong with his church, okay? And so here he is, but he wants to be a pastor, can't even get a woman to follow him, but he thinks he's going to lead the people of God. It's like, well, why don't you get one person to follow you that's female and then we'll talk, okay? It's called getting married. Then he wants to be this alpha male and now all of a sudden he's burned out on the independent fundamental Baptist movement, I guess because he figured out that, you know, he can't just become a pastor overnight or something, some nonsense. Now he says like, oh, you know, you guys are a cult, all of the new independent fundamental Baptist churches are all a cult and, you know, Verity Baptist and Faithful Word Baptist and steadfast, they're all a cult and pray for me because I want to go into politics now. You know what? All this guy wants is just power. Do you understand what his desire is? His desire is just power. Like he wants to just have the power of being a leader in the church, being a pastor, the power of being the alpha male. He wants to have the power of being a politician and, you know, he'll probably make a great politician because he sounds like just as much of a piece of crap as all the politicians that we have in America today. That's what we've got today, a bunch of people who they don't want to be humble, they don't want to serve God, they don't want to do with the opportunity they've got right now. They've just got all these pie in the sky dreams about being a pastor and being he-man and being a president or something. And by the way, you don't have to be an alpha male to be president, just look at our president right now. I don't think anybody's ever accused of being that. But what a loser. What a loser, huh? He sits there and, oh, oh, Pastor Anderson, oh, you're so great, but as soon as he doesn't get trained to be a pastor, now all of a sudden, oh, it's a cult, oh, you're so bad, ah, ah. And then he accused me and then he said, oh, I know for sure that Pastor Anderson's not legit because I met him and I could just feel that he was unloving. I'm thinking to myself, you're so creepy, no wonder you got a weird vibe from me. You come up to me all creepy, yeah, I might give you a weird vibe, sorry. Everybody, you know, we always reflect back whatever people, you know, send our way. But what a rotten person, you know, to sit there and just want power. You know what, that's like Satan, like he just wants power, like, I will be like the most high. And then he tried to tempt Jesus with that. Oh, all these things will I give thee. He says he's gonna give you, he offered to give Jesus all the power and all the authority and he says, you know, it's delivered unto me and unto whomsoever I will, I give it, he said in Luke chapter four. It'll all be yours, Jesus, if you just follow that verse. Jesus wasn't tempted by that because Jesus is a humble servant and Satan's trying to offer him all this power that is appealing to ego and pride. And you know what, pride is the downfall of just about everybody. You know, we talked about this morning how pride is why people don't go to heaven. And it is the biggest thing that will ruin your life and destroy you, pride. And so you've got to do with what you have right now instead of just desiring all this other position. Look, and here's the thing, everybody's not gonna be a pastor. You know, and being a pastor is not all that it's cracked up to be anyway. So, you know, some people are gonna be put in that position and some people aren't, and the majority of people aren't. You know, you can't just have all chiefs and no Indians. So not everybody's gonna have those positions, but it's not about the position. And let me tell you this, if you do desire the office of a bishop, the Bible says you desire a good work. So it doesn't say you desire good power. It says you desire good work. The point of wanting to be a pastor is that you want to do the work of being a pastor. You know, you want to preach and win souls to Christ and you want to help people and minister. That's why being a pastor is called being a minister. Minister means servant, okay? So it's all about the work. It's all about serving and winning souls and helping other people. And guess what? That's all stuff that you can do without being a pastor. I mean, you know, I was soul winning for a long time before I was ever a pastor. I was reading my Bible. I was preaching the Bible. I was teaching the Bible to other people. I was discipling people long before I was a pastor because you don't need to be a pastor to do those things. And you know what? I guarantee you, if you become a legitimate pastor, if God actually allows you to reach that position legitimately, it's gonna be because he saw you being faithful in another man's church, and then he'll give you your own ministry because you were faithful in someone else's ministry. And he sees you doing well in a humble position, then he will exalt you in due time and he'll lift you up to a higher position. Think about great men in the Bible, how they started out just being faithful where they were. You know, you think about a guy like David. I mean, David was a very humble follower of Saul. He was never demanding to be put in positions of authority or anything. He was always very humble and surprised when people offered him high levels of position. He was just doing a good job as a shepherd for his dad. He did a good job just as a soldier in Saul's army. And he was just faithful. You know, look at Elisha. Elisha poured water on the hands of Elijah. See, a lot of people would be too prideful to do that, to serve in such a menial way, helping Elijah wash his hands or something like, you know, what am I, some kind of a butler or something? Am I a custodian? But here's the thing, Elisha ended up actually doing twice the works that Elijah did, having a double portion of God's Spirit. But he started out as the humble servant of Elijah, playing second fiddle to Elijah. Same thing with Joshua. You know, Joshua faithfully served under Moses. And then after decades and decades and decades of Joshua faithfully serving under Moses, then God said to him after Moses died, now I'm gonna begin to exalt you. He said, I'm gonna now lift you up. Why? Because God wanted the people to fear Joshua the way they feared Moses and to follow Joshua. And so Joshua was faithful for decades and then God said, now I'm gonna lift you up. You know, you humbled yourself, now I'm gonna exalt you in due time. As opposed to some young punk Korah, Dathan, and Abiram just how do I get the position? How do I get the power? How can I get authority? If I can't get authority in the church, then I want to get authority, you know, over the chicks. And if I can't get authority over the chicks, then I'm just gonna get authority as a politician. It's just that's all they want because it's wickedness, it's evil. You know, I read to you in Luke chapter 16 about how if you've been unfaithful in the little things, you're gonna be unfaithful in the big things. That's why the Bible says, if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? You know, if you can't run a household, then you can't run the church, okay? If you can't oversee your wife and kids, then you can't oversee the body of Christ. You know, that's like a training ground or a practice for learning how to do it. And so you've got to be faithful in that which is little. Well, he says something similar just a little later in Luke chapter 19 in verse 17. You don't have to turn there, but he said, well, thou good servant, because thou hast been faithful in a very little, notice that, because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over 10 cities. Now, that's a lot of power. I mean, if you're put in authority over 10 cities, that's a pretty big deal, right? It'd be like, hey, you know, have authority over Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, Peoria, Surprise, Apache Junction, Chandler, Gilbert. I mean, it's like a huge area, right? Millions and millions of people. I mean, he's telling this guy have authority over 10 cities. Why did this guy get authority over 10 cities? Because he did really well ruling five cities? Because he did really well ruling one city? Because he even did really well even just ruling a neighborhood? No, this guy was faithful in very little, because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over 10 cities. What? You're gonna trust this guy with 10 cities? When all the guy's ever done is this tiny little job, he had the very little authority, and now all of a sudden he's just, boom, because God knows that the guy who is faithful in very little is also gonna be faithful in very much because that's just the kind of guy that he is. He just takes stuff seriously. He's faithful. And in fact, it's harder to take that very little seriously than it is to take the big job seriously. So if he can take that very little seriously and give it his best and do a good job, well, you know what? That's all God needs to see. All right, boom, 10 cities. Let me tell you something. It's a lot harder to preach to five people than to preach to 500 people. And I know because I've done both many times. And let me tell you something. It's super hard to preach to a small crowd. Preaching to a big crowd's easy because you can kind of feed out the energy of the crowd. You got hundreds of people to kind of feed on that energy. But when it's just you and like three people, preach it. I mean, think about it. Would you rather preach to three or 300? It's hard. And so here's the thing. Get good at preaching to a small crowd and you'll have no issue preaching to large crowds. I guarantee you that. When I started the church here, I had no experience preaching to large crowds. But it worked out great because I wasn't preaching to a large crowd. I was preaching to a tiny crowd and had lots of experience with that. And I was well prepared to preach in my living room to five people, eight people, 10 people, these tiny crowds. But here's the thing. The best compliment that my sister ever gave me in the early days of my ministry, because you know what? I was preaching in the early days. We held church in the house for a year and a half. We met in my living room. And the most we ever ran in that house was like 29 or 30 people in that house for the first year and a half of our church's existence. And the first year, we averaged about 10 people. The second year, we averaged about 20 people. And the highest day was like 29 or something. It's like we just couldn't quite hit 30. And so that was the size of the church. And I remember my sister and her family visited. And, you know, this was like a Sunday night service or something. And, you know, Amanda was there. And, you know, a couple other people. It was like my family, maybe like two or three church members, and then my sister's family. So it was a very small crowd. It was like my sister's family, my family, and maybe Amanda and two other people. And I remember my sister said this to me and this was like a great compliment for me. She said, even though it was a small crowd, you preached like you were preaching to thousands. And I remember I loved that when she told me that. I was like, wow, thank you. You know, like I really liked that. But you want to know what's funny is that I was preaching to thousands because now those sermons are being downloaded thousands of times every month, even the ones from that 2006. But I had no clue of that at the time. At the time, I had no idea of the potential of the Internet. So when I'm preaching in 2006, I thought I was just preaching to those 10 people. I had no clue about YouTube hadn't even been invented yet. You know, or maybe it had. Maybe I didn't find out about it. I think YouTube was technically invented in like 2005. But I never heard of it until the end of 2007, you know. But I had no clue about YouTube and, you know, that it would blow up the way it did where people would be listening to MP3s and online and everything. And so I just thought I'm preaching to these five people. I'm preaching to these three people. I'm preaching to these 11 people, these 15 people. But you know what? I'm glad that I took it seriously. I'm glad that I didn't just phone it in and not really care because it turned out I was preaching to more people than I thought. And here's the thing. You know, obviously the Internet is a new technology. But guess what? The preachers of yesteryear, they preach the exact same thing I'm preaching right now. But here's how they would tell the story. Like the way I'm telling the story is, hey, I preached and it was only a handful of people. But it turned out the MP3 got 100,000 downloads or something. But here's the thing. I remember the preachers of yesteryear. You know what they would preach? Yeah, you know, I preached a sermon and I did a revival and only five people showed up. But I still showed up and I still preached and I gave it my best. And one of those guys is a pastor today. You know, who's heard those kind of illustrations? You know, you hear them tell the stories of like, you know, hey, it turned out that one guy in the back that showed up late and came to that service and there were only seven or eight people. But I still preached my heart out and gave it my best. Hey, that guy's a missionary now and he's winning hundreds of people to the Lord over here and he's winning thousands over here. You know, and so the principle, there's nothing new under the sun. The principle still applies that when we look at what we're doing and we think it's small, we don't really realize the impact that we're having. You know, the person that you train out on soul winning may grow on to be a great soul winner someday or a great preacher someday. And you're like, oh, I didn't get any position in the church. Oh, you know, I never got to preach behind the pulpit. Yeah, but the guy that you won to the Lord at the door is now preaching to thousands. Or the guy that you trained out soul winning, he turned out to be a lifelong soul winner and just kept winning souls for decades and you taught him how to do it. Look, folks, there are so many opportunities if we would just see what's right in front of us and see what we have right now. And so my question for you tonight is what are you doing with what you have right now? Quit thinking about all the opportunities you don't have, the spouse you don't have, the job you don't have, the position you don't have, and do with what you got right now. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 4, you don't have to turn there, you don't have to turn there, but if you would turn to John chapter six, 1 Corinthians 4, one, let a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. And this is a very famous verse. Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. Now, what is a steward? A steward is someone that you trust with your money, your possessions. It's the guy who takes care of your stuff, okay? And so what's the biggest job requirement for a steward is that he be found faithful, okay? So basically if I have a guy that's going to, you know, run my finances and he's got all the power of attorney and he's got all my banking information and he handles all that, you know, I'd have to trust that guy, right? Or if I have somebody in my home running my actual home and taking care of myself, you'd have to trust a person that's working in your home. Well, God's comparing the servants of God to a steward. That's what it means to be a steward. And he's saying it's required in stewards that a man be found faithful. That's the most important job description. If I'm going to trust you with stuff, I've got to be able to trust you, right? So faithfulness is the criterion for God's people as stewards of the mysteries of God, as stewards of the Gospel, we've got to be found faithful. How are you found faithful? It's sort of like this. You know, every job requires that you have experience, but you can't get experience without getting the job. You know what I'm talking about? Like, people sometimes complain about that. Like, man, every job wants me to have experience, but how can I get experience when nobody will give me the job? Okay, so it's kind of this paradox. So it's kind of like, well, well, hold on a second. How can I become a steward if I got to be found faithful? Somebody would have to trust me with something first so that I could be found faithful so that I can be a good steward. But here's the way it works. First, you're given very little. And then you're a good steward with the very little. You're found faithful, and then you're given more. Does everybody understand how that works? And so right now, as a kid, you might think to yourself that as a kid, you don't really have a lot of responsibility. People aren't really looking up to you. Your job isn't important. Your schoolwork doesn't matter. I'm not gonna use any of this in real life anyway. But guess what? You're going to use your brain in real life, and you're gonna use your work ethic in real life, and those are the things that are being trained right now. And you might think, oh, you know, what's the big deal about soul winning or whatever or preaching in the preaching night or preaching in a men's preaching class? You know what? Every time you get up behind the pulpit to preach, if you're in a men's preaching class and you're preaching to five people, 10 people, and you think, oh, this isn't a big deal. There are only like 10 guys there. Okay, welcome to my world for the first year of being a pastor. The first year of being a pastor, there are only 10 people there. So whatever you're doing in that preaching night is what I did for the first year of pastoring, and I took it seriously. I thought it was important. I thought it mattered. So be found faithful so that God can give you more opportunities so that you can do even greater works, but let God worry about that. You just worry about doing with what you got right now, okay? Look at John chapter six, verse eight. This is, of course, the famous story of the feeding of the 5,000, and it says in verse eight, one of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, there is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes, but what are they among so many? I mean, what does this even matter? And you know, that's our attitude. We look at our life. We look at our family. We look at our job. We look at our position in the church, and we just look at it, and we just see, all we see is just five loaves and two fishes, and we think, like, well, what is this gonna do? What does this even matter? Who cares? You know, that little boy with the five loaves and two fishes, he might have just not even come forward, because, you know, when they're talking about, all right, we gotta feed 5,000 people, he might have felt a little stupid saying, well, here, I've got five loaves and two fishes. It's kind of like, get away from me, son. You're bothering me. You know, that's not enough. But you know what? He was willing to give what he had. He knew there was a need, and he volunteered his stuff, and he said, you know what? I don't have a lot, but here you go. Here's what I got. Five loaves and two fishes. It's all yours, Jesus. Here you go. And Jesus is able to take that and feed 5,000. Now, not only was the food produced so that people could actually be filled, and they didn't have to go home hungry and starving and fainting by the wayside and getting all hypoglycemic, not only did the people get fed, that's not even really the big deal. The big deal is the miracle that we're reading about it thousands of years later. The big deal is the miracle. I mean, yeah, people got filled, that's great, but what was better? The fact that they got food? No, the main thing is that Jesus performed a miracle that we still think about and talk about, that we're still inspired by. So think about the miracles that God can do if you'll just be faithful in the very little that you have. And you might think to yourself, oh, well, my job as a wife isn't that important because my husband's just blank or whatever. He's just whatever, fill in the blank. He's not like my husband is some great man of God. He's just kind of an average dude. That's a stupid attitude. You know what? Why don't you be faithful to your husband? Why don't you be the best wife you can possibly be to your husband? And you know what? God can do great things in your life. Well, I only have one child. Well, you know what? Whether you have one child or ten children, be a faithful mother, give it your best, do your best to raise those kids for God, and God will do great things. God will perform miracles. Whatever it is that you've got, be willing to be faithful, to do with what you've got. And I challenge everyone as I close the sermon to serve God right now. And I don't care how busy you are. And look, I understand that certain phases of life are like a preparation phase where you're maybe getting things in order or whatever. But you know what? You need to be serving the Lord even during that time because you don't know what a day is going to bring forth. And you know what? I know a guy who's a missionary, and he trained in Bible college for years. Then he went to language school for years, gets out of language school, and finally he's like, okay, I'm going to start a church now, falls over dead. And he was in his 20s. This guy was a personal friend who actually had stayed the night at my house before, died in his 20s after years and years and years of preparing to serve God, and he wasted a bunch of time in language school where he's not even winning souls, and then he fell over dead once he was done and ready to actually start the work. What a shame. I bet he wishes now that during that time of language school, he would have actually been winning souls to Jesus Christ and doing the work now. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? You don't know what's going to happen. And so I challenge you, teenagers, young adults, middle-aged, I challenge you this week to serve God and witness this week. Give someone the gospel this week. Knock a door this week. Be the best parent you can be this week. Be the best spouse you can be this week. Be the best worker on your job this week. Shine the light of Christ this week and quit thinking about some pie-in-the-sky future where it's going to be so awesome and it's going to be so great and you're going to do so much. No, you won't unless you're doing it now. Do it today or never. Spire doesn't have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for the fact that you've given us the ministry of reconciliation and you've given purpose and meaning to our lives. You've given us important work to do, Lord. I pray that every single person would grab the opportunities that they've got now, Lord, and just sign up to go do the soul winning now and show up to a soul winning time now and spend time with their family now. Read the Bible now. Pray now and, Lord, I pray that every single person would just realize that the only time that we're guaranteed is now and not wish or dream of some future where they're going to serve you, Lord. I pray that everyone here would understand the urgency of serving you now and in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Amen. Please take your psalm books and turn to hymn number 41. We'll be dismissed in singing number 41 in the suite. By and by, hymn number 41. There's a land that is fairer than day, hymn number 41. Let's sing it all together on this first verse. There's a land that is fairer than day And thy faith need to see it upon For the Father waits over the place To prepare us a dwelling with air In the sleep, by and by We shall meet on the beautiful storm In the sleep, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore We shall sing on that beautiful shore The melodious songs of the blessed And our spirits shall sorrow more Not a sign for the blessing of rest In the sleep, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore In the sleep, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore To our bountiful Father above We will offer our tribute of praise For the glorious gift of His love And the blessings that hallow our days In the sleep, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore In the sleep, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore In the sleep, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore In the sleep, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore In the sleep, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore In the sleep, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore