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

["Pomp and Circumstance"] I'm going to talk to those of you at the same time, as you see, that's going to make sense. Yeah, that was a great thing. That was really good. That was really good. I think that's a great divine appointment with the whole drama, with the cops and everything. It's funny because I didn't know what I was walking into when I came up, because she sounded like one of those people that just wants to talk about everything but the gospel. But obviously I missed a lot, so I missed the whole pattern. But just when I walked up, she was just talking about helping me build this and that and all this stuff. And I'm feeling like, oh great. You handled it. You handled it just fine. Just great. I do the same thing. Some people just kind of go like, oh great, this is cool. Because some people are like, that's cool. Like every time you ever read back the gospel, they just want to talk about everything. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? It's the world's most physical world. When they have old symptoms of domestic violence and things like that, they want to feel like they can help if they're not there to help. And the person doesn't care about them. Bad type of drama. The person is just really horrible. It's a toxic situation. I don't know if I need to help them. If I don't have to know the will. If I can't get them out, they're going to want to go. I'm just like, oh, okay. I mean, there's just certain people out there that can help us out. I just said, wow. I just said, you know, sometimes the easiest way to understand this, for example, just bringing up drug addiction. Sometimes the best way to help people is to let them go. They just need to find the bottom. Sometimes they just need to have bad things happen. Otherwise, you can keep enabling the paper. If you enable the paper, it's going to break more than the bad papers. I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't know what the situation is here. That's right. That's right. That's your house. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. Church, if you open up your hymnals, it's 192. That's hymn 192, ring the bell of hell. Hymn 192. Ooh. Ring the bell of heaven. There is joy today. For a soul returning from the wild. Sing of our amazing love. You're welcome in your very worthy child. Glory, glory, how the angels sing. Glory, glory, how the love I'm free. Tis the race of army, like a mighty sea, feeling for the anthem of the free. Ring the bells of heaven, their joy today, for the one who now lives back in time. Yes, the soul has rescued from the simple way. It is going to do the rest of time. Glory, glory, how the angels sing. Glory, glory, how the love I'm free. Tis the race of army, like a mighty sea, feeling for the anthem of the free. Ring the bells of heaven, spread the peace today. Angels come, they clap for help to stray. Tell the joyful tidings, they're far away, for the precious soul is born again. Glory, glory, how the angels sing. Glory, glory, how the love I'm free. Tis the race of army, like a mighty sea, feeling for the anthem of the free. Father, we thank you for your grace and your mercy towards us. Thank you, Lord, for your word that saves us all, because it's a journey in heaven. We thank you, Father, for allowing us to preach your word and that people will believe in our new word and, again, have eternal life in the spirit of Jesus Christ. Lord, just continue to be present with us and as the past preaches your word, that you will just fill up with your spirit, that you can preach your word. And our people have learned that we are here and understand that you do us a good work. And we thank you, Lord, for all the saints' help. Father, we praise you. Again, we love you. Amen. Amen. Amen. Turn to your song for him, 198. 198. So we're going to speak a little. 198. So we're going to sing a little. So we're going to sing a little. So we're going to sing a little. So we're going to sing a little. So we're going to sing a little. Amen. All right. Great singing this afternoon. We're going to go through our announcements once again this evening. Slip up your hand real quick. I'll make sure we get one out to you. I think we've got some extras right up here at the pulpit. Everyone got some? All right, very good. Let's open up to the first page. We've got our service times. It's always Sunday morning at 1030, Sunday afternoon again at 4 p.m. Wednesday night at 7. We're going to be in Isaiah chapter 16 for our Bible study. We've got the soul-winning opportunities listed there as well as the salvations and baptisms. Let's go ahead and count up any salvations for today. Let's do today first. We went out soul-winning today. I know, Brother Logan, you're involved with five salvations, right? Amen. Yeah, great day out there on that regard. One over here. And then anyone else today? Salvation, did you guys get any today? Not today? How about other in the week? Did you do any yesterday? Three, amen. All right, so we have six for today and three for yesterday. Anybody else have any soul-winning to report? Anything at all? All right. Very good. Keep up the good work. We've got the offering totals through the month of July down there at the bottom of the page. Pray requests. We added Crescendo Taylor. She's pregnant, so that's an addition there. And then Micah's mom... Micah's not here? Oh, he isn't here. He's out there. Micah, pop your head around here. Your mom got... Did she start chemo treatments? I think in the 14th, the radiation. The radiation. So she's starting on the 14th? All right. And with Micah's mom, everything has been looking good so far. Nothing's been showing up, but this is obviously something that they just continue to do just to make 100% sure that all cancer's been eradicated and there's nothing that has come up. We'll pray. Remember to pray a little bit extra starting the 14th, especially because none of that stuff... The radiation's not good for your body, right? It's not good for cancer, but it's not good for your body either. So neither is chemotherapy. The way that modern medicine is treating cancer, it's really destructive to the body. So just pray that God will strengthen her immune system and strengthen her body to be able to withstand the treatment that she's getting and that the cancer will be fully treated. So that should be... That's good. I just wanted to make sure that we got the update on that. And then we also added my wife down at the bottom there. I don't know what's going on. Just pray for her. She's been having some weird blood pressure spikes, and we went to the ER yesterday and no really good answers at all other than there's a couple things that ruled out, which is nice to know, but no real good answers. So just pray that we'll be able to figure that out, or if we don't figure it out, that God will just heal it and we'll be able to move on. But it is enough to be impactful to cause us to go to the hospital, right? So it's not like... I don't want to downplay it too much, but we don't know what's going on. So we appreciate your prayers there. And then, of course, churches and pastors, we're going to continue to pray for St. Pat's Baptist Church. Pastor Shelley has been just at the brunt of these sodomite attacks lately. So just pray that God will keep them safe, keep them safe from evil, and continue to bless them and help them to just work, and to be able to work free of as much distraction as possible, because what they like to do is try to trouble you in many ways. You know, they're going to attack your finances. They're going to attack the building and the place and everything else and the people and your jobs and all that stuff. These are all the things that come along just to try to confound the work that's being done. So I don't even know everything that's going on. I do know from what I've seen online that they're trying to go after, like, the landlord to try to get him to kick him out and all this other stuff. It's like, this stuff is illegal. I mean, you can't just do that. You can't just kick out a church because you don't like what they say. I mean, there's, you know, you have rights. You have, even as renting, like, it's still, it may not be your property, but, like, as a tenant, you are acting as it's like your private property. I mean, it's, you can, we still do have a freedom of speech in this country, right? We still have a freedom of religion. We still have, you know, the ability to do that. And, you know, but the loving, tolerant, except everybody crowd doesn't really seem to be so loving and tolerant and accepting of independent fundamental Baptist churches, but we all know the reason for that. But anyhow, pray for them. You know, like I said, they try to find every way to attack. They send the vile messages in mail and all that other stuff, the stuff that many people don't even realize is going on behind the scenes. Pray for him. Pray for his family. Pray for their church at, you know, that God will look out for them and bless them for making the stand. Because, I mean, it's, things wouldn't even be so bad if more people would have been making the stand for the past, you know, decades, past few decades. If more, you know, men of God were preaching what needed to be preached and saying what needed to be said, not backing down and cowering down, then people like Pastor Shelley wouldn't have to deal with so much, or, you know, then people like Pastor Mejia wouldn't have his church bombed if it was being dealt with for the past few decades. But it hasn't been. So someone's got to stand up for God. So they're, you know, these people are doing it. Pray for them. Pray that God will use them and bless them. On the next page here, just again, a very, very, very, very warm thank you to all of you very much, very much appreciate it. I was very surprised last week and all the thoughts, all the gifts, everything, you know, was wonderful and very encouraging for me and it came at a really good time. So I really appreciate the encouragement from you all and looking forward to many, many, many more years here of serving the Lord. Banned but not bound is this website that Verity Baptist Church is putting out there. Bannedbutnotbound.com I put it in here. If you want to go and subscribe to their newsletter. Again, I don't know all the details of this yet. I just got a text message about a week ago from Pastor Jimenez talking about this and I haven't really dug into a whole lot but essentially what it is is just to keep people who are interested in preaching up to date on where the latest videos can be found because everybody seems to be getting shut down and videos are going up and coming down and everything else and even our channel isn't fully live yet. All the censorship, right? So as we've got different channels and different venues and everything else, this will help to keep all of that in one place for people who want to listen to the preaching. So I encourage you, if you're interested in that, to go there and just all you got to do is just submit your name and your email address and it subscribes you to a newsletter to an email list to receive, I assume, links to videos. I don't know. I'm going to see. I need to find out more about it but I signed up for it so we'll see we start getting in the mail for that. Upcoming events. We've got these multiple preaching events, conferences, Brother Denzel's wedding in Montana. It's a big one, September 10th and if you're interested in any of these events, just try to find out. You can find out more. I'll give you the best of my knowledge information or contact the various churches that are putting on these events. Bible memory passage. Now, I mentioned this this morning. Obviously, we're almost done with verses 44 through 59 but we have, for the big prize of memorizing all of John 8, we discovered that we have all these points racked up from when we did the camping trip through the state parks, Georgia State Parks and if you're able to memorize all of John, all 59 verses, by that deadline. So you've got multiple weeks. We've got three weeks left for this one, seven, eight, and nine, just for this portion of Scripture. This has its own prize. This has one of the gift cards or whatever we'll have for this but then I'm going to give you like three more weeks. So really, if you haven't been keeping up to date, you still have six weeks from today to get all of John 8 memorized and if you do so, you're going to get two free nights in a cottage at any one of the, essentially any one of the Georgia State Parks that the points can apply to which is almost all of them. There's only a few exceptions and that's a big deal. Those cottages are awesome. If you saw them at the last camping trip, I don't know but it's a really good deal for you because those things run, I don't know, 175 bucks a night or something like that. So this is a significant prize but it's a significant chapter too. So you're going to get two free nights and then obviously if more people in your family do the Bible memory, then everybody who does the challenge gets the prize. So you can rack them up, do whatever you want with it, whatever. So I'm hoping this is a big motivator to get people really involved in John 8 because it's a great passage and I'd love to see a lot of people finish that whole chapter. So for those of you who've been keeping up to date, this is good news. This is like, hey, this is a really cool prize to add on top of all the work that you've been putting in for the past few months. So I'm looking forward to that. Hopefully, like I said, try to get that done because it's a really significant prize for getting that done. And then the upcoming birthdays, of course, today we sang to Chloe. It's her 18th birthday and then Mrs. Freeman also has a birthday today. And I found out, too, that is a Hebron sick, right? So a lot of people are out sick. Be in prayer. We got a prayer list. Pray for like, you know, half of our church at least, maybe more than half of our church because there's so many people that are out sick today. Brother Peter, I don't think is sick. They were out. He was already planning on not being here, but I mean, I hope he's not sick. Yeah, he's got his family. That's right. He told me it was his family reunion. So he's out for that. But I was saying hopefully they're not sick, too, just because so many people have. It seems to be impacting the younger people more than anything. I don't know. I didn't really get it at all. It's already gone through my house. So we're clear on that front. But pray for everyone that's not here. Obviously, it's impacting a lot of people. But to the best of my knowledge, nothing is very serious for anybody. So it's just kind of a mild sickness, congestion, sinus infection type thing. All right. That's about it for announcements. So Brother Brian, please lead us in our next song. Can you turn to your songbook, song 364? 364, standing on the promises. Song 364. Standing on the promises of God, my Savior. Standing, standing on the standing on the promises of God. Standing on the promises I cannot fail. With an honest word without a fear of fail, I, the living Word, I shall prevail. Standing on the promises of God. Standing, standing. Standing on the promises of God, my Savior. Standing, standing. I'm standing on the promises of God. Standing on the promises of Christ the Lord. Without your hand, eternally, I long strong for. Overcoming daily, may the Spirit soar. Standing on the promises of God. Standing, standing. Standing on the promises of God, my Savior. Standing, standing. I'm standing on the promises of God. Standing on the promises I cannot fall. Listening every moment to the Spirit's call. Resting in my Savior as my all in all. Standing on the promises of God. Standing, standing. Standing on the promises of God, my Savior. Standing, standing. I'm standing on the promises of God. Once again, that was Hebrews chapter 9. Then verily, the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service and a worldly sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle made, the first wherein was the candlestick and the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary. And after the second veil, the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all, which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with the crown. Wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant. And over it, the cherry beams of glory, shadowing the mercy seat, of which we cannot now speak particularly. Now, when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. The second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the heirs of the people. The Holy Ghost is signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest. While as the first tabernacle was yet standing, which was a figure for the time been present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience, which stood only in meats and drinks and divers washings and cardinal ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation. But Christ being come and high priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building, neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctified through the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the First Testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is of force after men are dead, otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. Whereupon, neither the First Testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover, he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry, and almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy place every year with blood of others. For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world. But now, once in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Let's pray. Brother Mark, could you pray for us, please? Amen. Alright, so this afternoon's sermon is pretty much a continuation of this morning's sermon. If you didn't see this morning's sermon, I encourage you to go back and listen to it. What I did this morning is I just proved more of like a doctrine on the two different judgment seats that the Bible talks about. You've got the great white throne judgment that we find in Revelation chapter 20, where the dead are all standing before God and they're judged according to their works and they're cast into the lake of fire, right? That's the great white throne judgment. And then I talked about the judgment seat of Christ. So that's the judgment where believers are judged according to their works, but it's not to damnation. It's not being cast into the lake of fire. It's being judged where God is giving rewards out based on the works that you've done in this life. So what's interesting is that they're just complete polar opposites. So I didn't bring this up this morning, but if you think about it, the great white throne judgment, they're not getting any positive rewards at all for anything that they've done that's good because it's their bad deeds is causing them, you know, how much punishment they're going to end up receiving in hell essentially is how low the hell they're going to be cast into. But on the flip side, none of our bad deeds are really being brought up because Jesus already paid for those sins. It's the good things that God is going to be looking at giving us rewards for of just, OK, well, what ends up, you know, the Bible says the good and the bad, but the bad is not like it's a it's not a sin, right? It's just not it's just not a good work. It's a bad work, but it's not it's not a sin. It's not that we're being judged of like, oh, did you sin or not? It's all of the works that you did. Was it good or was it bad? Right. The bad ones just go away. They burn up, but the good ones you end up getting rewarded for. So that's how those two judgments work. And, you know, I told this sermon after this, the judgment, because as we read here in Hebrews nine, verse number twenty seven, famous passage, many people use this in soul winning, but says, and as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. And what I want to preach about this evening now, since we understand the doctrines of the judgment of Christ and the great white throne judgment is how that should impact us. I mean, it's one thing just to understand the doctrine, but you know, we need to realize this and it ought to be important enough to impact your life knowing that these are real events. I mean, there's going to come a day, there's coming a judgment day. And, you know, so on the one hand, you ought to be motivated by the great white throne judgment and anybody that might end up standing before God and being cast into the lake of fire. That ought to be motivating. And that's why we, you know, the verse like here in Hebrews 9.27, hey, it's appointed unto men once to die and after this a judgment. This ought to motivate us to go out and talk to people about, hey, there's a coming judgment. God is a judge. You know, everyone wants to talk about how God is love today. Yeah, God is love, but you know what? God's also a judge and there is a judgment day coming. So all the people that want to say, oh, God's love, judge not. Well, God's going to judge. Don't lie to yourself and don't let other people deceive you into thinking, well, God's just fine with everybody and everything and all manner of wickedness and everybody's going to heaven and there is no place called hell. Look, it's a lie because there is a judgment day. There's a great white throne judgment where people are going to be standing before God and they're going to not be able to answer for themselves anything because they've fallen short, they've broken God's commands and God's going to cast them into hell where they're going to stay and they're going to burn forever and ever and ever and ever and it's never going to end. The torture and the pain and the weeping and the wailing and the gnashing of teeth, that is going to happen eternally. And we have to remember that. It has to be a motivating factor for us knowing, hey, there's a judgment coming. People need to realize there's judgment. Turn, if you would, to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. We're going to look at some of the ways that definitely the disciples were motivated by these two different judgments and we're going to start with that great white throne judgment of people going to hell. That is something, if you love people, you ought to let this judgment motivate you to go out and warn people about this judgment and let them know about this judgment so that they don't have to be standing before God being judged by their works out of the law. Because there's another way. There's a way out and it's through Jesus Christ. And the Bible says that on some have compassion making a difference and others save with fear, right? Hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. That there's some people, this is very appropriate to be talking about the coming judgment. People need to be afraid of hell. People need to be afraid of that judgment to come. We need to be able to bring that out. And look, I'm all for being tactful with people. I'm all for communicating with people. But you know what? There's certain people that are going to respond to different things differently and some people you just need to save with fear and just pulling them out of the fire and let them know, hey, there's a judgment coming. Some people they're going to need to hear that truth just hammered home and to understand, wow, I really ought to do something about this. Yeah, I kind of thought that and I've been thinking that way and I don't want that to happen. So what do I got to do? What must I do to be saved? And this was part of the way that the apostle Paul even preached to Felix. I'm going to read for you from Acts 24. Verse 24 the Bible says, And after certain days when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ. So Paul's bound in prison, right? And then Felix, of course, let's just bring Paul before us. He wants to talk to him. He just wants to be entertained. He wants to hear from him. Whatever, right? Let's hear what he has to say. So bring out this prisoner. And as he reasoned, the Paul did, of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled. So he's like, hey, let's hear about this faith in Christ that Paul's sitting in prison for, right? So he comes out and he preaches righteousness and temperance and judgment to come to the point where Felix trembles. People need to know about the judgment to come. And answered Felix trembled and answered, Go thy way for this time, for when I have a convenient season, I'll call for you. Now, he didn't end up getting saved. Okay, he scared him and he turned the other way, unfortunately. But people need, look, at least the Apostle Paul can say, hey, I warned him. I told him about it. The Apostle Paul is motivated by that judgment to come and he's warning others about it. He warned Felix about it. He loved Felix enough to tell him the truth. He didn't lie to him and say, oh, well, God's going to love you anyways, Felix. It doesn't really matter how wicked you are. It's okay. No, it does matter. You need salvation. You are not good. You are not a good man. You're not going to stand before a holy God and think that he's going to let you into heaven. He's going to judge you according to your works. Part of the motivation, look at 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse number 3, Bible reads, But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That coming judgment ought to motivate us. Because if our gospel is hid, it's hid to them that are lost. It's hid to them that are going to be standing at that great white throne judgment. Those are going to be the ones that suffer. Hey, you're saved. Great. You're not going to be there. Well, I think you will be there. I think everyone's going to be there. But you're not going to be standing in judgment of God at that event. But I would say this, too. I don't want to be standing there and watching people that I know being judged for their works and cast into the lake of fire, and I didn't end up saying anything when I could have. Because I do believe, you know, in Revelation 20, we read it earlier, the heaven and earth fled away. Remember, there's no more place for them. And then there's this great white throne judgment. Well, where are the saints? You've got to be somewhere. Heaven and earth fled away. I think that great white throne judgment is something that all eyes are on. That's a big event. It's a big deal. Because that precludes the new heaven and new earth. So we're going to see these things, and I don't want to be thinking about this verse. I mean, imagine as a believer, how many times have you heard, but if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them, they're lost. You want that rolling around in your mind now when you see people being cast in the lake of fire? If our gospel be hid, it's hid to them, they're lost. And you're looking at someone that's lost, and you hid the gospel from them. Because you could have given them the gospel and you didn't. So it's hidden to them. Because you didn't open up your mouth and proclaim the word of God. So the judgments, this doctrine of knowing the judgment to come, is so important and so critical to automate us. This is the call to action. Understanding the doctrine is one thing. Oh yes, there's truth to it. You can talk about it educated and say, yes, there's the judgment seat of Christ and there's the great white throne judgment and this is what happens. But who cares about that ultimately if you're not going to let it influence the way that you live? You have to realize it. You have to understand not only is it a doctrine, but it's something that's actually really going to happen. It's the truth. We're going to see people being cast into a lake of fire. And we have the truth. We have the gospel. We have this light that we can go forth and bring to people so that they don't have to be cast into fire because of their works, but rather they could be standing at that judgment seat of Christ receiving rewards based on their works. Instead of being cast into a lake of fire based on their works. But hey, if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost. Turn to Ezekiel chapter 3. Ezekiel chapter 3, again, just illustrating here our duty, our obligation to preach the gospel. God's committed it unto us, the ministry of reconciliation. He's committed. It's given to us. It's your job. We're ambassadors for Christ. Ezekiel chapter 3 verse 16. It came to pass at the end of seven days that the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of Man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel. Therefore hear the word at my mouth and give them warning from me. We need to be warning people about the judgment. There's a judgment to come. And you know what? I would say not just the loss. The loss is the most important thing because someone going to hell forever, it's a big deal. But you know what? We also probably ought to be warning Christians, hey, there's a judgment seat of Christ. There's a judgment seat of Christ. You're going to be standing before Christ and all of your works are going to be put on display. What are you doing with your life? Are you going to stand there and be ashamed and lose everything and all that you're going to see left is just a foundation? Well, at least Christ is there. And that's all that was there at all. You didn't build on that foundation anything that was of value. It's going to happen. And you know, believers need to wake up to that. Don't waste your time here on earth. Don't waste your life being comfortable. Do something. Work. Work for God. Start earning some of those rewards. And don't give me this nonsense as baloney, oh, I'm so spiritual I don't need any. Heaven's good enough for me. Look, get rewards. Earn something for yourself. God will pay you for it. I mean, obviously we can't earn salvation. It's a giving you for free. Of course it's a giving. But now why don't you do something with it? Why don't you work and labor for the Lord? That's why He's paying you. And God doesn't operate the way the government does. The government's going to give a bunch of handouts and payouts to deadbeats that don't want to go and work. You say, oh, coronavirus will give you a bunch of money here. You can stay at home and just keep being lazy and don't go out and work. And we'll just give you a bunch of money. That's not how God operates. God's not going to do that. God's going to say, hey, I gave you that free gift. You're coming into heaven. You've got a home in heaven. But when it comes to anything else, when it comes to rewards, what are you going to have for the rest of eternity? Well, what did you work for? What did you do? What did you do with those talents I gave you? I gave you abilities. I gave you talents. I gave you something that you could use to work for me. What did you do with it? What did you do with it? It's a day of reckoning, right? You're his servants. Now, look, yes, we receive a free gift of salvation. That's one way of looking at it. It's true, absolutely true, 100% true, right? I'm not saying it's not. But you also got to remember that the Bible teaches that we're bought with a price, that we're redeemed, and we belong unto the Lord, right? Your body is not your own, but it's the Lord's. Don't forget that either. And don't forget that we need to offer our body as a living sacrifice, which is a reasonable service unto God, to yield up ourselves to be servants and workers and laborers together for Him. Hey, we were created unto good works. Ephesians 2.10. That's why we were, I mean, it's not all about salvation. Salvation's the first step. These judgments are real. They're going to come. I mean, when Jesus comes back, hey, first of all, we ought to be glad when He comes back, if we happen to be alive and remain. It ought to be a joyous event. And then when you're standing before the judgment seat of Christ, you don't want to be standing there and be ashamed. Because I guarantee you, all the saints, all the believers that have accepted Christ and are going to see nothing in the place of everything for their entire life, what their existence meant on this earth. Think about it. At the judgment seat of Christ, it is going to be an evaluation of your existence on this earth. It is evaluation of your existence on planet earth. What did you really do with your time? What a shame to have it all just wiped out. Let that sink in. Let that sink in as something that will, I mean, we know this is going to happen. This isn't a maybe, oh well, I hope that doesn't happen. Look, we know we're going to be standing before Christ and there's going to be a judgment seat of Christ. Like, that will happen. I mean, mark my words right now, one day in the future, we will be there. It's a reality. You can try to put it out of your mind and not think about it, but that's why I'm preaching a sermon, so you don't put it out of your mind. So you do think about it because you don't want to be there and be left with nothing. And the Bible tells us, hey, we're supposed to be watchmen in Ezekiel chapter 3. Obviously, he's not speaking directly to us, but we can apply this to the saint, to the believer, to the child of God. Hey, you're supposed to be a watchman. You're supposed to be out there and giving warning. You hear the word at my mouth, we have the word of God from his mouth in the Holy Bible, and he gives a lot of warnings there, so we need to be bringing these warnings to people and say, hey, this is what God said. This is what God said. He warned us not to do this. He warned you not to get into that sin. He warned you not to live that way. He warned you that if you don't put your faith in Christ, you're going to hell. The warnings are all here. And he says, verse 18, Now when I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die, and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity. So when you have a lost person out there, just living in sin, lost, and you don't say anything to them, well, you better believe they're still going to hell, even though you didn't say anything to them and you didn't warn them. I mean, that's going to happen. Of course it's going to happen. It says, but his blood will I require at thine hand. So your job is to preach the gospel. Your job is to be the watchman. He's saying, look, I mean, you're still partially responsible for this. Now, again, we're not saying that the repercussions is that you're going to hell. But when God's given you a job to do and you're just being completely derelict in that job and just not doing it at all, he's holding you responsible for it. There's culpability there. Verse 19, Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul. Again, when a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die, because thou hast not given him warning. He shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered. But his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the righteous man that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he has warned also thou hast delivered thy soul. So God's saying, look, when people do, you know, there's always personal responsibility. If people don't, you know, take heed to warning, don't take heed to warning, whatever, if they're doing things, whether they received a warning or not, they're responsible for what they do. But there's extra responsibility on you who you do know, and God has made you to be someone to bring a warning. And that's part of the job. That's part of the job of being a believer. It's not just to sit on your rear and just wait until glory comes. No, we've got to go out and preach. Turn, if you would, to 1 Corinthians 9. We're going to see something similar here. 1 Corinthians 9. Similar concept when it comes to preaching the gospel. Verse number 16 of 1 Corinthians 9, the Bible reads, For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of. For a necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. Why? Because it's our job. It's our task. He's saying, look, actually, if I'm not preaching the gospel, then woe unto me. Verse 17, for if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward. Hey, amen, right? That's what we're talking about. God's going to reward you. If you do this thing, if you willingly go out and say, you know what, I'm going to preach the gospel, I'm going to try to help you get people saved, I love people, I don't want to see them at that judgment, that great white throne judgment, I don't want to see them cast into hell, I want to see them receive that free gift, I actually want to see them not only receive that free gift, I want to see them working and earning their own rewards at the judgment seat of Christ, so that when they get there, they'll have a whole pile of precious stone that they've built up, that they've worked for and earned, that God's going to reward them for. That's what I want to see, and if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward. But if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed on me, saying, you know, if it's against my will, if I don't want to do this, God's still given me the task. Whether I want to do it or not, it's still my job to do. That's what the Bible's teaching right here. You could say, Pastor Persons, I don't like this, you guys are a soul-winning church, I want to just go back to some other church where I can feel comfortable in the pew, and I can just hear all the positive messages, and no one's going to try to get me to go out and do any work. Well, you can do that. Go ahead, you can do that. But guess what? A dispensation of the gospel is still committed unto you. And it's not given to you by me, by the way. It's given to you by God. God's the one who committed unto you that ministry of reconciliation. God has. And, you know, you didn't read the fine print when you got saved, but this is the deal, right? You say, I'm going to save your soul, and he does it no matter what. But when you read the fine print, he wants you doing something else for him, too. Now, again, obviously if you break that, he's not taken away from you or anything like that. It's not strings attached, it's not this contract, but the point is, he's bought you, and you belong to him. And he's saying, this is what you have to do. Obviously, it's perfectly reasonable, and we ought to want to do it anyways. I mean, if you love people, you will want to do it. If you care about other people, if you can love others the way you love yourself, I mean, you love yourself enough to be like, I don't want to go to hell. Well, how about you love other people enough to be like, yeah, I mean, just as much as I wouldn't want to go to hell, I don't want you to go to hell either. Let's explain that. And at the very least, just give people an option. I mean, obviously, you can't force anyone to believe anything anyways, but just be like, look, I don't know about you. Now, granted, I got saved when I was relatively young, I was 20 years old, but I would have loved to have gotten saved a lot earlier in my life. I would have been happy to have heard the gospel earlier in my life and received it then. It would have been so much better. Or, not just salvation, how about then being, you know, told about the judgment seat of Christ and all these other things that I was supposed to do and learning more about that, I would have loved to hear that too. There wasn't much of that going around either. Not where I was. I'm sure it was somewhere. But hey, look, whether you like it or not, it's committed unto you. Look at verse 18, what is my reward then? Verily, that when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel. For though I be free from all men, yet if I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews. To them that are under the laws, under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law. To them that are without law, as without law, being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ, that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak. I made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. This is the attitude and mindset we need to have of saying, look, I mean, I care about people so much, hey, I'm willing to, you know, conform to meet people where they're at and just kind of see, like, okay, well, here's where you're coming from. Okay, well, I can see things that way, but I'm going to preach the gospel to you too. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to talk to these people. You're in this set of thinking and you're following these laws. Okay, well, let me share this with you and show you the truth about the gospel and why that's not right or whatever. You know, I mean, you're going to put effort into this because you love people and say, I'm going to try to become all things all men as much as possible and try to connect with you and see where you're at because I want to bring you to Christ and do what it takes to get you to come to Christ, whatever that is. I mean, silly examples even. I'm just like, you know, people are going and, you know, I'm going to go throw out my trash or they're bringing in groceries. Hey, can I talk to you? I'll help you bring in your groceries. I'll do this to you, whatever. Like, I'll help do whatever you're doing if you just give me a chance to talk to you, right? Because you're so focused and intent on wanting to get people to hear the gospel, give them that opportunity. So we're going to do what we can to help that happen, to facilitate that. That's what the apostle Paul is saying here. And why? Because we know the truth of the judgments that are coming. There's a judgment for the lost and there's a judgment for the saved. And both are important. Both have an impact on eternity. The judgment of Christ, those are eternal value rewards that I don't want any of you to lose out on. I don't want to lose out on them. Be mindful of that. And not just rest, easy going, well, at least I'm not the great white throne judgment. You're still going to be standing before Jesus Christ. And in a sense, answering for yourself. Going, okay, well, here's your works. Ooh, nothing left. I can see some people, there's going to be this mountain of all this work that they've done, right? Some people, there may not be very much work there, but they're probably going to have some things come out, like, okay, cool, great, you know. Just like God gave to some, two talents, five talents, ten, you know, he's given some people different abilities. Some people he might have given a lot to, and they're going to have all of this work piled up and be like, yeah, look at all that work I did. And it's going to go, whoo. Wow. I mean, I sweat and toiled on this earth for those years to accumulate all that, and there's nothing. Look, I'm all for working hard. But I'll tell you what, I know that a lot of the work that I've been putting in lately at my job isn't going to be sitting on that. That may be sitting there, but that's not going to be the stuff that lasts. That's going to be the stuff that's gone. So I may have this big pile and, you know, it's all going to get, you know, everyone's pile is going to get shrunk down to some degree. Everyone's is, right? No one's just like all rubies and gold and, you know, like this treasure chest has just been opened up and be like, this is my, man, what do you got? That would be awesome, huh? Yeah. Put all that through the fire. Let's see what comes out. It all comes out great. Then you'd be, I mean, spiritually rich and blessed forever. I mean, that's awesome. And here's the best part about these rewards, too. I mean, think about it. Like, in today's world, you heard the phrase, it takes money to make money. Right? And people, and it does. There's certain amounts you can invest to really get returns on investment, all this other stuff. And it takes, like, you have to have a lot to really be able to see big revenues and big results, right? I mean, we're talking, like, big money, right? To be considered successful in the world's eyes, you really need to have some scratch. You really need to have something to start with to, I mean, even with businesses and things like that, it's really, really hard. You have to get a lot of things work in your favor to go from nothing to have, like, huge fortune, right? But here's the difference, though, with God, is that you don't need anything to start with. You just be willing and do. And anybody can do, and anyone can be willing, and you can just, so you can amass everyone, I put it this way, everyone is basically on this level playing field of being able to accumulate mass eternal rewards. Because the work is different and the reward system is different. You don't need to have all the, you don't need to be this great speaker to be able to be a great preacher. You don't need to have this natural ability to do things. You know why? Because God supplies what you need. That's why. God supplies what you need. There's so many things. You definitely don't have to have money. If you think you had to have money, what do you think Jesus, how much money do you think Jesus had? Jesus and his disciples were going around preaching the gospel, and when they were trying to feed the people, they're like, what do we have? Well, we've got this kid has five loaves and two small fishes, right? And it's like, well, how much money? They don't have nearly enough money. They didn't have money. This wasn't some big event. They weren't, you know, they weren't walking around, they weren't going around and preaching and passing around a plate and like collecting all this money. They weren't doing that. But wasn't Jesus successful? I mean, wasn't he doing everything that the Father had for him to do? Of course he was. I mean, that just goes to prove you don't need anything. You don't need a home. You don't need money. You don't need things to serve God and to serve God to the fullest, to the maximum. Because Jesus served God to the maximum and required none of it. So if we can follow as Jesus followed, to follow Jesus, I mean, you'd be set. You'd have a great retirement account set up for you at that judgment seat of Christ to be able to receive what a day that would be. And look, it's there for you. It's there for you. Nothing can hold it back from you but you. That's it. Let's keep reading 1 Corinthians 9, look down at verse number 23. The Bible says, And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain. We are running this Christian race. And look, there's a prize. God has a prize. You know, I give these little prizes for Bible memory and other things like that, but you know what? That also should remind us, there's a prize that God's going to give you for doing the spiritual things, for serving him, for leading people to Christ, for going out and just putting in the extra time, putting in the extra hour, trying to add, just talk to one more person. And think about this, too. You know, the great, I like the big days, I like the marathons and stuff, where we go out and we spend all day and we talk to people and stuff, but we get a lot of people saved in those days. But some people like to think that like, they'll only show up to those events and then they don't do the regular day. It's like, man, this is really exciting, and I got like three people saved a day or four people saved a day or whatever. It's like, you know, a good number, but then it's like you're not going out in between. The people who are going out consistently and you're going in week in, week out, day in, day out, you're going out, soul winning, soul winning, soul winning. How many salvations? One, zero, one, two, one, three, you know, just, just, slowly. You're doing, you know what you're doing? You're accumulating. And just, you can't get discouraged and be like, well, only one person got saved. Look, great, amen. First of all, amen for every soul that's saved. But you think about these rewards, you know, Lord willing, you'll have many years to serve God with. So that way, when you look back, you can be like, wow, I actually did accomplish something. And when you're standing at that judgment seat of Christ, you could stand confidently going, you know what, I mean, I did my best. I ran as hard as I could. And there's a prize to win. It's not good enough for me just to say that, well, I got into heaven. Look, I want God to be really pleased with me. I want to show up and God goes, hey, well done. Thou good and faithful servant. There's judgment coming. There's judgment coming for the lost, there's judgment coming for the believer. Judgment seat of Christ is when it's all, when all that you're, when you're a whole, what's that called? Your, I mean, your life. What do they call it? Your epitaph, right? On your tombstone. It's just this, what is your life all about? That's when it's going to come into play, right there, the judgment seat of Christ. Did I do anything with my life? And, you know, people get depressed going, I don't really think there's a meaning to my life. God's got a meaning for your life. You know what I mean? God's got a meaning for your life. And another added benefit is when you're serving God, guess what, that depression you're dealing with is going to go away. It's going to go away. Because it's more blessed to give than to receive, first of all. You're going to experience the blessings of God when you're walking in the Spirit and you're experiencing the fruit of the Spirit and the love and the joy and the peace and the gentleness and long suffering, goodness, faith, all these things that are going to come as you're leading people to Christ and helping other people and you can see people who are in messed up situations. Like we saw today, their life is just crazy and they've got all kinds of drama and turmoil and then you can bring them to Christ and then hopefully see them get plugged in and see them start changing their life and then ten years down the road be like, wow, I can't believe this is the same person. Remember when we showed up at that door? This is what we want to see. And going through that, do you know how much joy that brings? It's great. If you don't know, then get to work more. Get out there and work for the Lord because that's a great joy. It's work. Sure it is, but it's worth it on many levels. The joy, the rewards. I mean, loving people enough to be like, yeah, now you don't have to go to hell. Isn't that great? And you know what else happens? A new kinship. Wow, a new sister in Christ, a new brother in Christ. Amen. The family's grown a little bit. It's great. Verse 25. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we ain't incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly, so fight I, not as one that beateth the air. So he's relating our run for the prize in the Christian life to an athlete. They work to get a corruptible crown, a corruptible prize. Yeah, there's a prize for that. You win the Olympics or whatever, you get some gold medal, but ultimately that's corruptible. It's just going to go away. It's not eternal. It doesn't have any eternal value. He said, but we get an incorruptible. We get a prize that's eternal. It's not going to go away. It's never going to end. And he says, I therefore so run, not as uncertainly, so we could run this race and be certain that we're going to win the prize. You're not running against a bunch of other people. It's not a competition here. You don't have to worry about, wait, am I doing more than Brother Mike? Am I doing more than Brother Carter? Am I doing more? You know, don't worry about that. You just serve the God to your fullest and then you could win that prize. There's enough for God to go around, right? To give. Okay, you do what you need to do, what God has laid out for you, and you're serving to your utmost, then you know what? You could win the prize. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly, so fight I not as one that beat at the air, but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. We need to keep ourselves from sin. We need to keep ourselves holy, a vessel that's meat for the master's use. That's where we strive lawfully so that we don't end up just being good for nothing because we've destroyed our temple, we've destroyed our testimony, we've destroyed things to where now you're not really going to be able to serve God as well at all because you've destroyed the work. You've destroyed yourself. You've brought these things upon you. Flip over to Philippians chapter 1, and we're going to close in the book of Philippians. Being mindful of the judgments to come ultimately boils back down to preaching the gospel and doing the work of the Lord in that regard. I love the spirit that's just taught throughout the book of Philippians. One of my favorite books about Philippians is just great mindset and attitude of the Christian life and how we ought to be thinking and mindful about things. We're going to start in chapter 1, verse number 20. The Bible says, According to my earnest expectation and my hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death, for to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor, yet what I shall choose I whatnot, for I am in a strait betwixt two, having the desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better, nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. Again, this attitude of going, Look, I know I'm saved, and if I were to die today, I'd be with the Lord in heaven. That's great. I'm not going to be spending any more sleepless nights and staying up late and getting up early and toiling and working and pains and sorrows and everything else. When I leave this life, great. Right? That's a good thing. He says, But to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. It's better for me to stick around here and wait until God brings me home because there's a lot more work to be done and it's going to benefit you and I still need to do some more work to help you and help you and help you and help you and help you and help these other people and bring more people to Christ. It's more needful than me just going and enjoying being in the presence of the Lord. It's more needful that I'm here doing this work. That's the mindset. There's a judgment coming. There's only so much time that we have. It's better to just stay here instead of just daydreaming all day about what heaven's going to be like. Look, get to work here. Understand, hey, great. It's an encouragement knowing what heaven's going to be like, but then think about, well, what about the people who aren't going to be there? Where are they going to be? Judgment's coming. Motivation. Judgment's coming. Not a lot of time. I need to do more work here. Look at chapter 3, Philippians chapter 3. Chapter 3, verse number 7, the Bible reads, But what things were gained to me, those I counted loss for Christ, yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Now, there's a lot being said here. I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time here, but I want to just point out, he's saying, first of all, I suffered the loss of all things. Why? Because the Apostle Paul was, as a Pharisee, he was excelling, right? He was being promoted. He was going after the church. He was, you know, and climbing these ranks as far as just being respected and everything like that. So he lost all of that when he put his faith in Christ and then started preaching the gospel and going, you know, hey, these things that I fought against, now I believe these are actually true. I was wrong. And he gave up basically everything that he had, all the influence and clout and power, whatever, would come along with him being the Pharisee. He said, I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, right? He was attaining to this great level. He said, you know what? All of that was just like done. All of that was lost. All of that was nothing to me. Happily give all that up to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ. He goes on and on here. And he talks about going through these things and if I can suffer with him and, you know, fellowship of his sufferings will be made conformable in his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Now, what I'm going to tell you is that this is a mindset of doing all these things. I just want to have the best resurrection, to attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Everybody who's dead in Christ, who sleeps in Christ, will be part of that first resurrection. I've heard people try to twist this passage. We're going to see, we're going to keep reading here, but we'll try to say, oh, only some, only some believers get to partake in the first resurrection and then other people won't and everything else. And they'll try to say, but see, and they'll bring up the Revelation 20 that says, but the rest of the dead lived not until a thousand years were expired. You know, but that, the rest of the dead, that's the dead being judged and cast into the lake of fire. That's not the believers. You know, so those, so you're trying to tell me that there's going to be some people, some believers are being cast in the lake of fire after the millennial reign of Christ are going to spend eternity in hell? I don't think so. But what we need to understand here, because if you don't read this in context and read it fully, you can pull out one thing what the Apostle Paul is saying here that makes it sound like, well, maybe he's not really confident that he's going to be in that resurrection. Because look at what it says here. It says, verse 11, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Well, so that means you've got to work to have a resurrection. No. Let's keep reading. Verse 12, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. So what this is, it's a mindset, because he even says in his own words, but I follow after, verse 12, right in the middle, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. So he's trying to apprehend, he's trying to get the things he's already gotten through Jesus Christ. But he's saying, I'm working as if I'm trying to earn all this. I'm working as if I'm trying to get all this stuff and work for it, even though I know I've already got it, but I'm working to try to like earn it, right? It's this mindset of working so hard, like what can I possibly do to try to get this? That's the way I'm viewing this. I'm trying to get that high prize. Look, I already know I'm gonna be part of that first word. I already know I'm saved. I already know there's a resurrection coming. He knows this, but he's working as if he needed to work to receive it. But it's not what he believes in. It's hard. It's not like he's trusting in that. He's just saying that's how hard he's working. He says, and the next verse even says, because he says, verse 12, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect. Now, obviously, the resurrection hasn't happened yet anyways. I haven't already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before. He's saying, look, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. He's saying I'm not giving up. I know I've done a lot of bad things in the past. And he started off where we started reading in context here, verse seven, that's saying those things were like done. They were nothing. So I'm gonna forget about those things, but I'm gonna keep working and pressing forward to try to achieve that high prize, that high mark. He hasn't even finished his life yet, so he's gonna want to keep on working for that. And then he says, let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. And he had already made a statement here. Verse 12, he says, not as though I'd already attained, either were already perfect. Or he's saying, well, I'm not perfect. But then he says, well, let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. On the one hand, he's saying, look, I don't feel like I've attained anything. I feel like there's still so much more to do. But then he says, well, let us, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. He's saying, I haven't already attained that resurrection. I'm working like I need to work for that resurrection, but I know I'm gonna be part of it. You see what I'm saying? I know that I'm gonna be part of that first resurrection, but I want to work as if I need to attain to it and work for it. And that's why he says, then, too, let us, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. Like, all of us now, we're perfect through Christ. God's made us complete. God's made us whole. But let's have this mindset like, hey, let's just keep working to attain that. We're not gonna teach that, oh, you need to do this to be saved or anything like that, but we're gonna work towards it and work at it with this desire and this zeal and this drive as if we needed to attain it. Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. If in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me and mark them which walk, so as ye have us for an example. For many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are the enemies of the cross, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. And just flip over to chapter four real quick. Verse number one. Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and my crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. Now, if you notice, most of the sermon, you know, we're talking about the judgment, which would be a motivating factor to reach people. And part of, besides the great white throne judgment, people would be cast in the lake of fire. And so, people would be cast in the lake of fire. Reaching people and preaching the gospel not only impacts those people from not facing that judgment, but also is, I believe, the primary source for rewards at the judgment seat of Christ. And very clearly here, the apostle Paul is referring to these people as being not only as joy, but look at and crown. A crown is something that he's going to receive. It's a reward he's going to get from God. He's saying, You're my crown. You're my reward. Their work and their label and them being in Christ is going to be put on Paul's account because he's the one who preached the gospel unto them. He's the one who helped start the church and he's the one who helped disciple them. And getting them to that point, those are all works that the apostle Paul did. They're his crown. And glory. And like, obviously, they're not going to be standing there as his work, but he was part of that work, saying, You are a shining testimony to the work that he's done. We need to invest in people for our eternal future. Don't worry about the money in the 401k for your future here on earth. Worry more about, How do I need to invest so I can have rewards eternally? Well, that comes through investing in people. And I'll leave you with this because the number of souls that we get saved, amen, is definitely going to be a big factor in the rewards that you receive because that has eternal value because people are going to be saved forever. They're born again. There's a new creature born again. That doesn't go away. Nothing can change that. Nothing can. But also think about this because if you just stop at that, at just getting converts of soul winning, you're going to be losing out on even more rewards that you can get if you disciple and train other people, whether they were your converts or not, anybody who's saved, okay, and take advantage of that, use that to, you know, other people built on that foundation, great, but you can still build on that too. So, yes, we would love to see brand new converts being discipled and everything else. We're trying to do that, right? And hopefully with the new program, people are following up with people a little bit more and trying to garner more interest and get people plugged in. We want to do that. But even if it doesn't come from maybe one of your direct converts or something like that, maybe someone comes in, hey, try to get them, you know, out soul winning and doing more and help teach them and instruct them, that's going to be work that you've done and now when they start producing, all of that work that you've invested into them is going to come back on you, right? I mean, that's just like when we support missionaries. We're supporting Brother Stuckey and he's doing a lot of work out there and the Bible teaches very clearly that, you know, there's fruit that's going to bound onto our account because we're just trying to help facilitate the work that he's doing out there. So there's many ways that God rewards and, you know, if you can help train somebody to go out then and then have them earn rewards, well, they wouldn't have done that if it wasn't for you. You see what I'm saying? Like, that kicks back. It's like this great pyramid scheme. Except God's going to pay out. It's not just going to crumble. There's no end to this. If you could recruit more people to do more soul winning, that's going to come back. It will. I'm fully convinced of that. I think about people like Pastor Anderson, right, because I look at the work and the ministry that I'm doing and I've been doing now for eight years almost since I've been sent out to just be a pastor and I wouldn't have been where I was without getting the training, getting the teaching, the motivating and everything else as a result of his ministry and his work. So the works that I do end up getting also, you know, I don't know what God's percentage is that he puts out, you know, if there's a cut, like, all right, you're getting a 10% on everything that he does or whatever. I don't know how all that's going to work, but I'll tell you what, though, God is going to reward him for the training that he invested in people and other people to go out and do more works because there's just more being done for the Lord. So think about that. I mean, obviously, he's reached lots and lots of people, so I'm confident that there's going to be lots and lots of rewards there, just to get that direct reminder around it, be like, hey, I could start doing that. I could start helping people. I could start teaching people. And instead of keeping to myself at church, just coming in, listening, singing, going home, maybe I can start getting a little bit plugged in with just some more people, and maybe I can be an influence and help the other people here. And especially as new people start coming in, hey, great. Be friendly with them. See how you can help them. If for no other reason, then earn more rewards for yourself. Be selfish about it. Be like, yeah, I want to earn rewards. Of course you should love them and want to see them grow, right? But you will. I mean, that's the way that God is going to operate. All the good things that you do that end up having this eternal value, we want to see that. I want to see this section of Strong Old Baptist Church where people just have amassed these great rewards at the judgment seat of Christ because people are taking it seriously and going out and being like, yeah, we really serve the Lord. And you'll be able to see that. Be like, yeah. Amen. Praise God. Because you know all those rewards are going to represent the work that was done that really mattered in this world. So let these judgments to come. It's not just a doctrine. It's important. All the doctrines are important. They have a lot of meaning. Let it sink in and remember, hey, there's judgment coming. We need to do our job to warn others, both saved and unsaved alike. Hey, you're saved. Judgment seat of Christ is coming. Are you going to have anything that lasts? And unsaved, definitely. Hey, there's a judgment coming. You don't want to be there. You don't want to be judged out of the law because you're going to come up lacking. You're going to come up short. Spot-Rise Our Lord of Prayer. Dear Lord, we love you. Thank you so much for your word. We thank you for all the motivation we received from your word. Dear Lord, I pray that you would please help us to bring honor and glory unto your name through the works that we're doing and that you'd just help us to reach more people. Lord, I pray for all the people who are saved today that you would stir up their spirit, Lord, and remove any stumbling blocks from their path that as newborn babes they might be able to just start to grow, help us as a church to be able to foster that growth and help people to get plugged in. And Lord, I pray that you would just help us to help these people get their lives changed and that we would be mindful and not just go about our week and forget about them, Lord, but that we'll continue to pray for all the people who are saved today, this week, this month, and this year, and just continue to serve you, Lord. And God, we just ask that you would build our church and bring more labors. We love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, we're going to sing one last song before we are dismissed. Brother Brian, will you please lead us in our last song? Open up your song with song 127. That song 127, Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus. Song 127. Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus. Just to take him at his word. Just to rest upon his promise. Just to know the Savior, Lord. Jesus, Jesus, thou I trust in Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, thou I trust in, thou I prove in, o'er and o'er. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus. Oh, for great to trust in glory. Oh, how sweet to trust in Jesus. Just to trust in sin's blood. Just in sin will pay too much. Heed the hilly, flimsy blood. Jesus, Jesus, thou I trust in, thou I prove in, o'er and o'er. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus. Oh, for great to trust in, thou I prove in, o'er and o'er. Yes, this sweet to trust in Jesus. Just from sin and self to sin. Just from Jesus simply taking. I've been resting joy and peace. Jesus, Jesus, thou I trust in, o'er and o'er. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus. Oh, for great to trust in glory. I'm so glad I learned to trust me. Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend. And I know that thou art with me, will be with me to the end. Jesus, Jesus, thou I trust in, thou I prove in, o'er and o'er. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus. Oh, for great to trust in glory. Thanks for joining us. You are dismissed. Thank you.