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

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Stronghold Baptist Church. If you can grab your hymnals and open up the song 191. Song 191, in my heart there rings a melody. Song 191. All right. Let's sing this out on the first. I have a song that Jesus gave me. It was saved from heaven above. There never was a speaker melody. Tis a melody of love. In my heart there rings a melody. There rings a melody with heaven's harmony. In my heart there brings a melody. There brings a melody of love. Is everyone awake this morning? Let's do the second. I love the Christ who died on Calvary. For he washed my sins away. He put within my heart a melody. And I know it's there to stay. In my heart there brings a melody. There brings a melody with heaven's harmony. In my heart there brings a melody. There brings a melody of love. Much better on the last. To be my aimless theme in glory. With the angels I will sing. To be a song with glorious harmony. When the thoughts of heaven ring. In my heart there rings a melody. There brings a melody with heaven's harmony. In my heart there brings a melody. There brings a melody of love. Amen. Amen. Let's turn to our next song. Song number 210. Song number 210, Wonderful Grace of Jesus. Song 210. On the first wonderful grace of Jesus. Pray for it in all my sin. How shall I try to describe it? Where shall the praise begin? Taking away my burden. Setting my spirit free. For the wonderful grace of Jesus. Reaches me. Wonderful the mass is the grace of Jesus. Deeper than the mighty rolling sea. Higher than the mountains. Sparkling like a fountain. All sufficient grace for even me. Water than the scope of my transgressions. Greater more than all my sin and shame. Oh magnify the precious name of Jesus. Praise his name. Wonderful grace of Jesus. Reaching to all the lost. I in a happy pardon. Stay to the utter vote. Change that which Lord has sundered. Giving me liberty. For the wonderful grace of Jesus. Reaches me. Wonderful the mass is the grace of Jesus. Deeper than the mighty rolling sea. Higher than the mountains. Sparkling like a fountain. All sufficient grace for even me. Water than the scope of my transgressions. Greater more than all my sin and shame. Oh magnify the precious name of Jesus. Praise his name. Wonderful grace of Jesus. Reaching the most divine. High is his holy power. Making God's dear child. Purchase peace in heaven. For all eternity. And the wonderful grace of Jesus. Reaches me. Wonderful the mass is the grace of Jesus. Deeper than the mighty rolling sea. Higher than the mountains. Sparkling like a fountain. All sufficient grace for even me. Water than the scope of my transgressions. Greater more than all my sin and shame. Oh magnify the precious name of Jesus. Praise his name. Amen. All right. Great singing this morning, church. Great to have you all with us here today. At this time, we're going to go through our announcements. If you do not have a bulletin with a cactus on it, just slip your hand up real high. Brother Carl will get one out to you. We've got one up here in the front row. The smart people are sitting near the front this morning because one of the air conditioners was out. So the one that's closer to me is the one that's been working all morning. The one that's back there, I just got started again. So you've got the sweat zone in the back. And we've got the cool zone up front. See, it pays off to sit closer. There's always emptiness up here, so. Amen, what do you mean, amen? There's always emptiness up here. Just teasing. All right. Let's open up our announcements and go through the bulletin here at the first page. You've got the service times. Sunday morning at 1030. Sunday afternoon, again at 4 p.m. So today we've got another preaching service. And then Wednesday night at 7 is our Bible study. We're starting to wrap up the book of Isaiah. So if you come out for this, there's all kinds of great truths in our Bible studies that you don't often hear even on Sundays. So come on out to our Wednesday night if you can make it out here for that. We've got the soul winning opportunities listed there as well as the salvations and the baptisms for month of May as well as for the year. Offering totals listed down there at the bottom of the page. Prayer requests. Let's go through the prayer requests real quick. How's your father doing, Cindy? I know like he had surgery and he was doing well. Is everything? Everything went really good. He went the following day on Friday to follow up. And his vision in that eye was 20 over 200 before. And now it was 20 over 30. Well, that's great. That's a huge improvement. That's awesome. So if you didn't hear that, her father's vision, the eye that he had the surgery in went from 20 over 200. If you think of 2020 as kind of the standard of having really good vision, his 20 over 200 is really bad. And then it went to 20 over 30, which is great. I mean, that's excellent. That's a huge, huge, huge improvement. So praise the Lord for that. And he seems to be recovering fine. Everything's well. Is that a long recovery or no for a cataract surgery? Is that? Just about a week. Just about a week? OK, good. So we'll pray for his continued recovery there. And then I don't know. Are there any updates for people who are on a prayer request? Does anyone have anything to update? Because I haven't heard anything else. If not, just continue to pray, of course, for everyone that is on our prayer list here. I swapped out churches and pastors to pray for steadfast again. We've been praying a lot for them. Continue to pray for their church, that God will help them find a permanent location. I think they found a place to meet at least for a little while, temporarily. And that's what Pastor Shelley was saying at the camping trip. But they're still looking for a more permanent home. So pray for them in that regard. On the next page, of course, today is a baby shower. We're celebrating a baby shower today. So we have two baby showers combined in one. So it's one party for two women. We've got Mrs. Weatherby and Mrs. Estrada. We're celebrating for both of those ladies who are going to be having their children very soon here. So because of that, we have food for everybody. So the entire church is welcome to eat after service. We've got some sandwiches from Publix. We've got a bunch of other stuff, kind of like we normally do here. So anyone that can help me kind of get things a little bit more set up, I would appreciate that. My whole family is out, obviously, this morning. You noticed, maybe you haven't noticed, I'm the only one here for my family. I've got a bunch of sick children. I thought it was going to be real quick. I had a one-day, kind of a 24-hour bug and seemed to bounce back. But all the rest of the kids that have been getting it have been taking longer to recover. So it still seems to be passing through my house. So they're all out today. So anybody that can help, I would really appreciate it. The big event days, it makes it a little bit harder when I'm here all alone. So appreciate the help with that. And of course, like I said, when we're done with service, we'll set up all the tables like we normally do, get the tablecloths out, do all the routines. So if you know the routine, appreciate your help with that. And if you don't know the routine, that's fine. You can learn it today. And we all have a good time with that. There's a few cakes. I know there's a baby boy being expected, a baby girl being expected. So we've got a pink cake and a blue cake. I mean, you've got to represent both, right? And we're not doing androgynous stuff here. We actually are celebrating boys and girls being boys and girls. So we'll be celebrating today. So all ladies, especially, are welcome to stick around after a service, not just for the lunch, but when I continue around for the party. And then we're going to have our soul winning time. And I don't know, I think it's supposed to rain today. But as with all our soul winning times, soul winning is rain or shine. It's up to you to choose if you want to come with us or not. But, you know, we go out. I mean, unless there's like a tornado touching down, you know, somewhere around. I don't like letting the weather dictate whether or not we're going to go preach the gospel. So we will be preaching gospel today. And then May Challenge, of course, is a baptism challenge. And the challenge is to try to get at least one person baptized throughout this month. Obviously, you want to be able to do that all the time. But specifically this month, we're kind of focused on it. And if you are able to encourage someone to get baptized this month, then you will get a prize for being able to do that. And stick around this evening. I'm going to be preaching about baptism, kind of covering a lot of different doctrines surrounding baptism. There's a lot of false doctrine out there regarding baptism. So I'm going to preach through that tonight. And then the Bible memory passage, we're doing Hebrews chapter 3. So it's always six verses. I broke this up into a couple chunks. So we've got one more week to memorize Hebrews 3, verses 1 through 6. Six verses. And honestly, even if you haven't started on this yet, you can get this done, I believe, by the end of the week if you just set your mind to it, you can get this done. And if you're able to do that, you'll get some prizes. Speaking of prizes, I do have prizes. Brother Peter, do you mind grabbing my backpack from, I think it's on one of those bins. It might be underneath my laptop, but just bring the whole backpack out here. I have the prizes. So if you completed Hebrews chapter 2, I've got the prizes for you today, and I don't want to wait until this evening because they are ready to go. And I believe there are six people that finished it, right, because one person told me that they did it, but they didn't get it quoted that day, thank you very much. So you've got a choice if you completed. Your choices are Chick-fil-A and Chipotle. They're both the same amount. You've got $20 gift cards for Chipotle and or Chick-fil-A. So if you completed Hebrews chapter 2, come on up and get your prize. And, you know, the first people up here, the first ones that get a choice. So if you want one over another, you better, yeah, there we go. I said, ah, I see people moving, going like, all right, this is. All right, we got one. Okay, go ahead, one per person. That's a pretty even split so far, so you're in good shape. Awesome, congratulations. All right, everyone who completed Hebrews chapter 2. Good job on that. Very good. I'm glad I got this even, it was a nice even split, so it worked out perfect. It's not like everyone wants one or the other. All right, and if you, now you're not going to get a $20 gift card for learning six verses, but there is a prize for that still. So, you know, memorize six verses by next week, deadlines by midnight next Sunday, and you'll be able to get a prize for that. Upcoming events, of course, we've got the baby shower listed there. Pastor Jason Robinson is going to be here on June 5th, so we're really excited about that. He's going to be preaching for us on that Sunday, both services, so make sure you can make it out here for that. Support him, hear what he's got to say. He's a really great guy. If you haven't met him, you know, get an opportunity to talk to him after service, get to know him a little bit. He's a very, he knows his Bible really well, he's really intelligent, so, you know, I encourage you to come on June 5th and hear what he has to say for us, and then, of course, Pastor Anderson's going to be here on July 10th as well, so we've got a couple of guest preachers coming in in the next couple months, which is going to be awesome, so come and hear them, and then on June 25th, we're going to have that picnic. Man, that's going to, that's right around the corner at this point, so I'm going to make sure that everything is good to go with our inflatables. I mean, we had to push that out. I know everything was fine, but I'm going to firm that up now this week and think and just make sure there's no problems with that. That should be a lot of fun. We've got the upcoming birthdays and anniversaries down there at the bottom of the page for the month of May, and that does it for our announcements. There are bagels. The Johnson family brought some bagels this morning, so you could help yourself to that. There's some fruit out there, of course, not necessarily during the preaching time, but after service, we've got the sandwiches, we've got the bagels. There's, you know, all kinds of food and drinks and everything, so help yourself, and of course, on these days, the refrigerator, all the drinks are fair game, it's open. So, yep, hopefully we'll have a great time this afternoon, and with that, I'm going to turn the service over to Brother Peter. All right, church, if you could open up your hymnals to song number 165. Song number 165, O Worship the King. Song 165. On the first, O worship the King, O glorious above, and gratefully sing his wonderful love, our shield and defender, the agent of days, a million in splendor and girded with praise. O tell of his might, and sing of his praise, whose robe is the light, whose canopy space, his chair is a rather deep under the storm, and our gates his path on the wings of the storm. Nine hounds in full care, what a merry sight, it breathes in the air, it shines in the light, it streams from the hills, it descends to the plain, and sweetly distills in the dew and the rain, French children of dust, and people as frail, in thee do we trust, nor by need to fail, thy mercies how tender, how firm to thee they are, our maker, defender, redeemer, and friend. Oh, and great singing at this time. We've got our offering, Sunday morning offering, and that's the ushers. All right, church, while those offering plates are still being passed around, if you can open up your Bibles, the book of Hebrews, chapter 10. That's Hebrews, chapter 10, and as we do customary here at Stronghold Baptist Church, we're going to read the entire chapter, and that's Brother Devin, if he can please do that for us. Brother Devin, if he can please do that for us. Once again, that was Hebrews, chapter 10. For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers there unto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered, because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins, but in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me, and burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering, and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither had pleasure therein which are offered by the law. Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all? And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us, for after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, sayeth the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them. And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, and having in high priests over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful that promised. Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as ye see the day approaching. For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much sore punishment suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will reconvene, saith the Lord, and again the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, but call to remembrance the former days, in which after ye were illuminated ye endured a great fight of afflictions, partly whilst ye were made a gazing stock, both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, doing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Brother Chad, do you mind praying for us please? All right, Hebrews chapter 10. I want you to look down in your Bible there and at verse number 22 we're going to start reading and kind of getting the first part of the text for the message this morning. The Bible reads, Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful that promised. And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. And the title of my sermon this morning is Consider One Another. Consider One Another. And this is something that, you know, I've preached on this topic just in general I think kind of frequently. I preached on it relatively recently, but this has just been laying on my heart. This is such a fundamental doctrine just of the Christian life in general of how we should be living and it's something that isn't easy to do. We kind of need to train ourselves to do just in general and I'm going to kind of dig deep into this word consider in just a minute, but before I even get into that part, you know, we're in Hebrews chapter 10 and I really wanted to springboard with using this passage, but I would be remiss if I didn't continue getting this in context just to underscore the importance of church and I cannot stress this enough. I've been going to church now long enough faithfully week in, week out, whether I've been a pastor or not and I'm telling you I've seen people come and go, I've seen people get on fire and serve the Lord and grow and really do a lot of great things and then kind of peter out and fall out and just sort of fall away and stop coming to church and I've seen other people who maybe they didn't get super zealous, but you know what, they remain faithful to church and I've seen steady growth in people that if you can just choose to stay faithful and just go to church week in, week out and make that a priority for yourself, I'm telling you, you know, you don't want to be the person that, yeah, maybe they get real zealous for a year or two and then they just are completely done and they kind of waste the rest of their life not serving the Lord as opposed to, you know, obviously I want you to be zealous, and I say don't be zealous, but it's better to be in church and just be in church for the long haul. Now, being in church is very important and we see from this passage here exactly how important that is. We start off, like I said in verse 24, it's kind of where I'm, well, you know, even in the context here, drawing near with a true heart, obviously, you know, our bodies are washed with pure water, you're saved, now you should be doing right, you should be doing good, we should be focused on considering one another, which, again, in a minute I'm going to get way more in depth on that concept of caring one for another, which you can't do when you're not assembled together, when you're not having fellowship and communicating and everything else with other believers, right? It's impossible to consider other people when you're not even here, when you don't even know the people that you're supposed to be considering. Consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works so when we come together, one of the important aspects here, main aspect, is provoking unto love and to good works, encouraging each other when you consider one another, and it follows that up, the sentence not over there, there's a colon saying, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is. There's definitely people out there whose manner is to forsake the assembly, and what's the assembling? Church. That's literally what the word, you know, the church means congregation, the assembly, when we come together, we all come together and say, okay, Sunday morning at 1030 we're all going to congregate, we're going to gather together. That is church. We're expanding this wall here, we're going to move into more space. That's not the church. This wall is not the church. The ceiling, the lights, the carpet, the door, all the physical composition of the structure that we meet in is not church. Us all being together here is church. The people are the church, that's what matters. It's all about the people, it's all about the people coming together and considering one another, provoking the love and good works, but you know what, there's plenty of people and the attitude's out there, and I hear it all the time when I go out and preach the gospel to people, oh, I don't need to go to church. I mean, I could have a relationship with God at home, I could pray, I could eat, I could do, you know, I could do all the things that God would have me to do at home. No, you can't do everything that God would have you to do at home. Now, can you have a relationship with God at home? Of course you can. And see, here's the thing, people conflate different ideas, or they might have a concept of church, of like the Catholic church, where they want to teach you've got to go through some priest in order to even pray unto God or something. Obviously, those are false doctrines, and that's not true, but church is very important. The assembling of ourselves together is extremely important, and the Bible teaches very clearly here that we should not be forsaking the assembling. What does it mean to forsake? It means I'm not going to church. I don't go to church. Now, you draw the line in your own mind what that looks like. OK? Because someone might come once a year and be like, yeah, I'm not forsaking it, because I go once a year. I view that as you're forsaking the assembly, because you're forsaking it 99% of the year, except for one day, right? More than 99% of the year. But obviously, as you get like, well, what about once a month? Well, what about once a week? You know, there's no set line in the sand that says this equals forsaking the assembly. You have to decide that for yourself. But just like with everything in the Bible and our service to God and our reception of the word of God, remember I said be ready to hear. We ought to want to do the most for God, not the least. Not say, where is that cutoff line? Which is why the Bible says here, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, verse 25, as the mayor of Simmons, but exhorting one another. And so much the more as you see the day approaching. So it's not, well, how little can I go to church? It's, no, we need to be getting together so much the more as we see the day approaching. Why? Because the days are getting darker and evil. We need to be coming together to strengthen and encourage and exhort one another even more. We need that encouragement. So it's more important than ever as we get closer and closer to the day of Christ. It's that much more important. But notice in context, because I'm just going to underscore how serious the Bible talks about forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as we continue reading, verse 26 starts with the word for, which is a conjunction of the previous thought. We just got done reading about considering one another, provoking good words, and not forsaking that assembling. For if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, or remaineth no more sacrifice for our sins. But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour it, now it's talking about God judging for your sins. This is tied exactly in context with forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. And you say, well, no, I think that she's just changing subject. Well, let's keep reading here. And look, you got to understand, this is about saved people, too. This is not talking about unsaved people. This is not talking about the fiery indignation towards unbelievers. Because when you keep reading here, and some people will twist this and take it out of context or try to misapply this passage to saying you could lose your salvation, but that's not what this is teaching either. Look at verse number 26, the Bible says, For if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, or remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. Now, God is a God of judgment, and God will judge. Just because your payment of the lake of fire for your sins has been paid for doesn't mean that God still doesn't judge. Right, the Bible says, Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. That applies to saved and unsaved alike. And, you know, when we try to preach the gospel to people and explain, hey, salvation is easy, it's free, it's 100% bought and paid for by Jesus Christ, people get this false concept, well, so you can just go out and do whatever you want and God's just fine with that, right? No, God's not just fine with that. Yes, there is a punishment. Yes, there are consequences for your actions here on this earth. Still, all we're saying is that Jesus Christ paid the ultimate punishment of the lake of fire, of hell, which you will not face that at all no matter how much you sin, but that doesn't mean that God's okay with your sin and it doesn't mean there's still no consequences for your sin. There absolutely is consequences for our sin on this earth. We need to have a fear of God, a healthy, respectful fear of the Lord because if we sin willfully, after we receive knowledge of the truth, the Bible says, There remain no more sacrifice for sins. And the reason why it's bringing up no more sacrifice for sins is because in the Old Testament, that's how people get right with God. Right? When you sin, well, now I've got to bring the sin offering. Now I've got to bring my trespasses offering in order to try to make things right with God. But you know what? In the New Testament, we don't offer sacrifices anymore. So now he's saying, Well, if you sin willfully, you're not going to just go ahead and bring in a bullock now and offer it up to the priest for a sin offering. Can't do that. There remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. Christ made all the sacrifice when he died on the cross. Obviously, those are all pictures of their representation, but that's no longer part of the law as far as getting right with God. So he says, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment, fire, and indignation which would have already adversaries, he that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses, of how much sorrow or punishment suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace. For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, the Lord shall judge, look at this, his people. His people. God judges his people. Not just the unsaved. Of course he judges the unsaved people. They get their day when they get cast in the leg of fire, but his people are judged. Vengeance belongs unto God, and God will repay. He'll recompense you for your sins. And then the Bible says in verse 31, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. We need to understand that, right? In our service to the Lord, we ought to be serving God with a pure heart, washed in that pure water, in that clean water, and just wanting to do what's right, because we love God, because we appreciate what he's done for us, all that he's done, that free gift. But you know what? We also have to understand the flip side, is that if we just become rebellious and stiff-necked and hard-hearted against the Lord, you know, he is also a God of judgment, and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And if you think you could just say, Well, you know what? I'm not going to go to church. I don't think I need to do any of that. That's a sin. And the Bible says right here, I mean, it's clear it's a sin that we're not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Like I said, you come up with the definition of what it really means to forsake for yourself, but we ought to have the heart of saying, Well, we just need to church more, you know, more and more as the day gets closer. Now, like I said, I wanted to bring that up because it's literally in the context here, and it is extremely important, and that's one of the big reasons why people just kind of stop doing anything for the Lord is when you get out of church. When you don't prioritize being with the assembly, you're going to end up fading out. And honestly, when you do that, and people who just forsake the assembling, you're not considering one another as we ought to. And this is the main focus I want to do for the rest of the morning sermon here is just think about considering one another. Now, when you consider something or someone anything, if I say, Well, consider this. What am I saying? Think about that. Right? Really process that and think about that. And when we consider one another, we ought to be thinking seriously about other people. Now, that takes time. That takes energy, and it takes you to set apart time to actually say, You know what? I'm going to think about people. And how about this? One of the easiest things you can do when considering one another is praying for one another. If you're not praying for other people in church, you're definitely not considering them. I mean, that's the easiest thing to do is to pray for someone. Obviously, I think we should go above and beyond prayer. Now, look, prayer is extremely important, and God can do everything, and we go to God for our needs. But when we consider one another, we ought to be thinking about the things that we can not just pray for them for but even do for them. You know, this church is a special church. This is a family, and I love the spirit we have in this church. I say that over and over again because I really do. We have a great church family here. I'm not preaching this because I think we have this big problem here. I think we have a great church, but I want to keep it a great church. And I want to maintain this mindset of being able to consider one another and provoke unto love and the good works because we need the encouragement. We need to be able to keep moving forward and keep moving on and see the appreciation. Turn, if you would, to Philippians 2. I'm going to read for you from Psalm 41. Psalm 41, verse 1, the Bible reads, Blessed is he that considerth the poor. Considerth the poor. The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. And, you know, the poor are probably some of the easiest people to just not consider. Right? You think about, like, people don't want to have to deal with the poor at all. Why? Because the poor have problems. The poor have needs. The poor are, you know, often just have things they need to deal with, or they don't look very nice, they may not smell very nice, they may not be very clean, you know, whatever. People who are really poor have more problems, and a lot of people don't want to deal with that. So your flesh is going to say, I don't want to deal with this at all, and I'm just going to ignore this, and I'm not going to consider the poor at all. But the Bible says if you consider the poor, you're blessed. The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Bible says in verse 2, the Lord will preserve him and keep him alive, and he shall be blessed upon the earth, and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies. The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing. Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness. So basically, the Bible says if you take care of the poor, God will take care of you. And that's a great promise, and it starts with considering the poor. Now the Bible also says in Proverbs 29 verse 7, the righteous considerth the cause of the poor, but the wicked regardeth not to know it. And that could be read two different ways. Considering the cause of the poor is what was the purpose, like why are they poor, which I do think we should be considering that as well. Right? Consider the cause of the poor. Well, if someone's poor because they're a drunk, drug-addicted fool, it doesn't mean to give them money, but you know what? Those people still need help too. It's just how do you help them? So we don't want to just throw money and say money is the answer to everything. And when we consider the poor and consider people, you ought to be thinking, what is the best way to help these people? The best way to help a drunk, a drug addict, is to get them into church and try to get them on God's plan and try to teach them and instruct them, yeah, they may need a little help here or there, but that's what's really going to help. And when I say help here or there, I'm talking about financial help, maybe a little bit here and there, if they're going to get on the right path, of course. But that's secondary. That's not the primary focus. And you know, it's really easy, especially if you have money, it's easy to throw money at problems, but that often doesn't solve them. Actually, it almost never is going to solve a problem. Money is not the answer to anything. Money doesn't just fix problems. And if you have problems in your life and you think, well, if I just had more money, everything would be better, you're fooling yourself, because money doesn't solve problems. Oftentimes, money creates problems, right? I mean, we all need to be able to eat, and to one degree, yeah, you're going to need some amount of money, you need to work, but if you're working and you're eating, praise the Lord for that. But we need to consider the cause of the poor and not just what makes them poor, but consider their cause, like what do they need or what's their purpose, what are they looking for, right? That's actually going to help them. We need to consider the cause of the poor. The Bible says the wicked regardless not to know it. The wicked doesn't care at all. They have no concern whatsoever, doesn't infect them, no sweat off their back, I don't care about these people. That's the attitude of the wicked, the Bible says. But we ought to consider the cause of the poor. And you read over and over again throughout the Bible where God talks about the widows, the fatherless, and the poor. The people who are the most easy to be trampled underfoot, the most easy to be used and abused because they don't really have advocates, right? These are the people that as Christians we ought to be caring for and loving and helping because they don't have anyone else to help them. And you know what? God loves to see that and blesses you for that. So we need to consider one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Bible says we should be considering the poor. You know what? God will bless you for that. And you know what? It takes time. It takes effort. That's what preaching is. It doesn't just come naturally. The natural thing is, hey, I'm really busy and I don't have time for anyone else. And maybe that's not for you. I know that is for me. That's the natural thing. Like, man, I got a lot of stuff to do. I got a lot of work to do. I got to do this, this, this, this, this, this, this. I don't have time for anything else. Well, you've got to be careful if all of your work is just for you. Now, obviously, you could still be busy about doing things for other people. You do things for your family, but not just your family. You could do work for other people. For me, some of the work that I do is for church, is to try to help everybody here. I'm not saying that you have to stop everything all the time for someone. But just consider, where does your work go? Is it all just for your own belly, for your own consumption? Or are you actually helping other people? Philippians chapter 2 is where I had to turn. And this is probably one of my absolute favorite chapters in the entire Bible. This just encapsulates the spirit and mindset we all should have. Verse number 1 in the Bible says, if there be, therefore, any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. And you know, when people care about one another, consider one another, we're all going to be in one accord and of one mind. The more people are involved in thinking about others, the more we're going to come together as a body, as one unit, as one man, as one mind. Verse 3, let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. When you can get this mindset of humility, when you're considering other people better than yourselves, you know what? That's when you're going to make the sacrifices and make the time to consider one another and to help other people out. When you have the mindset of I'm better than everyone else, you're going to be working for yourself and doing everything for yourself and saying, I don't care about that poor guy. I don't care about this guy. I don't care about that guy. Doesn't matter, because I'm number 1, right? But when you have the opposite mindset of saying everyone else is number 1, well, now you're going to be a lot more likely to be willing to help and do things. Say, OK, I'm going to put my things aside for a minute. I'm going to help you. And you know what? That's fine, and don't get hung up. Don't get hung up, and especially families, husbands, wives. This is something, well, first of all, this is something that can help your marriage in general, considering one another, first of all. Spending time thinking about your spouse, thinking about your children, those closest to you. Think about them. Consider their needs. Consider their faults. Consider what's going to help them. That'll strengthen your family just as much as it's going to strengthen our church. Man, I forgot where I was going with that now. So consider this too, though. When someone's trying to do good for other people, husband, wife, whatever, don't give your spouse a hard time for doing something nice for other people. Don't try to be like, oh, man, why are you always helping people? Well, look, this is the mindset that we should have. Why don't you have that mindset? Don't you know we've got to pull the weeds at our house? Who cares about the stupid weeds? Honestly, look, I'm all for maintaining stuff that you have or whatever and trying to make things look nice or whatever. But if it comes down between like, hey, I've got someone that needs my help and I can help them out this day. Or no, sorry, I've got to pull these weeds out of my yard. What has the more value? We've got to let go of some of the things that really don't matter. Now, look, if you've got the time, great. I'm not saying to just be real slovenly and sloppy with your stuff, but just prioritize. Prioritize. These are the things that are important. And there is a lot more love. There's a lot more satisfaction and love and joy and peace with helping other people than there is with beholding some great masterpiece of beauty. Well, no, I've got to trim up my hedges to look like an animal and be like, no matter how great. And there's nothing wrong with doing that. What I'm saying is if all of your energy and efforts going into things like that, you're going to find out it's vain. Just read Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes especially. King Solomon had everything at his fingertips. And he's like, oh, I've made all these great works and all this stuff. And you know what he said about all of it? It's vanity. It's empty. And he had the resources to do all kinds of magnificent great works and make it way better than any of us could probably do single-handedly. He had all this stuff done. And he said, you know what? It was all vanity. It doesn't really matter that much. It doesn't really matter that much. But you know what matters? The people matter. The people you help matter. And let's never lose that value structure. And we ought to be encouraging one another. And encourage one another in your household to do right and to do righteously and to serve the Lord and to serve other people. Be the help. Husbands, if your wives want to do something good and try to help other people, try to help them to do that. And vice versa. We ought to be having this mindset of helping each other to grow and then apply that more broadly, even in the church. You know, if someone's going to go out and help someone else, well, hey, what can I do to help you out? To make that happen, right? To have this whole support system to make sure that all the needs are met and that we can continue on the mission of serving, of service. Because this is exactly, if we keep reading here in Philippians 2, verse 4, Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. This is the attitude that Christ had. When he came to this earth, he came as a servant. To serve, to give us that example, to minister unto other people. He considered his disciples. He considered other people. He spent plenty of time and hours in prayer as well as helping people and considering how can I help these people? How can I teach these people? How can I teach these people? How can I train these people? How can I heal these people? And doing it. Turn to Luke chapter 6. And you know, consider people, especially when you expect things from people. Check your expectations and take a little bit of time to consider what it's like for them. And this goes hand in hand with, you know, when I was like judging, right? A lot of times people are quick to judge and quick to compare and it's a real carnal mindset. Oh, this person does this and this person does that. Take a little time to consider because you may not know all the factors in people's lives. And when you actually take a little bit of time to consider their ways, you might start to realize, oh, there's actually more to this than I thought and maybe I shouldn't be so quick and expecting this and expecting that or whatever. You know, consider your pastor. Consider his family. And look, I'm not saying you don't. My point is this. A lot of people, this is a position where people might have a lot of expectations, right? Like, well, I have this problem. You need to be here for me. You need to be here for me this. You need to do this. You need to do that. And I'm not saying you guys like that, but this is an illustration, right? You have someone in a position like this, well, you need to do this. This is your job. Just take a little bit of time if you have some consideration and say, well, you know what? Maybe the reason why he didn't text me back right away is because he's in a meeting at work and then he's going to get food for his sick family and then there could be other things going on, right? And take the time for the consideration and give people the benefit of the doubt when you consider them. And it'll make you better. It'll make everybody better. It's a better attitude to have because when you start having these expectations that don't get met, you start to get angry, right? And then you can start getting bitter as opposed to having mercy and love and long suffering in your heart but really taking the time to consider. When you start thinking about people and get to know people more, you might look at someone and be like, wow, that person's really lazy. I see that person in church and they just sit on their rear end and they don't do anything, right? But then maybe you find out, oh, that person was involved in an accident and had this serious surgery and is in tons of pain and they still managed to put a smile on their face, but if they get up to try to take a step, they might fall over. Consider. Consider those things. Now, look, it doesn't mean there's not lazy people. Of course there's lazy people, right? But don't be quick to judge and if you take the time to consider and how are you going to consider, how about you start to get to know people? How about the people that you think are super annoying and they do this and they do that and they have all these problems, that you think they have all these problems, why don't you get a chance to know them a little bit? Why don't you consider those things? Why don't you get a chance to know them a little bit? Why don't you consider them? And you know what? Maybe they do still have some problems and maybe you could help them with that then. Maybe you could tactfully help people that have problems instead of having to stick your nose up in the air attitude about them. Because guess what? If you just don't do anything, do you think their problems are going to go away magically? No. Right? And everyone has problems, right? No one's going to be perfect. We're all going to have our own issues. But take the time to consider. Consider one another. Consider by getting to know one another. And when we have our events here at church, why don't you go and try to get to know people you haven't talked to before? Get to know them a little bit. We try switching people up in soul winning times now. You go out soul winning, talk to people you go out soul winning with and get to know people a little bit. Doesn't mean you have to be their best friend, but get them to know a little bit so you can consider them and pray for them and think about them and see how you can do to help them out. We all need a little bit of help. Luke chapter 6, we're going to get this in the full context, but in Luke chapter 6 we find the golden rule. Right? Verse 31 about it says, And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. And this is a great mindset to keep in mind when you're considering other people. You say, well, I want to do better at considering other people. What does that mean? Well, what would you want people to do for you? Right? Consider them. That's how you should be thinking about, well, what can I do? How can I serve other people? Well, how would you want to be served? Get to know a little bit about them and say, well, where's their problem at? Okay, well, how can I help? What would I really like? If I was in their shoes, what would be helpful for me? And that's the great thing about considering one another. I got this text this week, or last week, or whatever, about, you know, someone was thinking about the church and expansion, and I thought this was wonderful. This was a great example. And she said, hey, pastor, you know, I see these pews that are up on Marketplace, and they're free, you know, get them. And he said, by the way, you know, I've got a trailer too, so you don't even got to worry about that. Hey, that's great. These are the types of things where, hey, someone's considering what's going on here, right? Someone's considering, hey, what can I do to help? And just, and going forward, that's awesome. That's great. That's one of the things I really love about this church. And that's just one small example, right? There's, you know, a lot of people have similar stories, but we got to be thinking about them as well. So you think about, well, what would I want if I was in that position? How could other people help? Let's get this in context, though, because this is going to show the true standard for this rule of as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. Verse 20, in Luke 6, the Bible reads, and he lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said, Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil, for the son of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. But woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep. You know what this says? And this says, Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets. Now, before we continue here, you know, up to this point, this illustrates perfectly the difference between God's economy and the world's economy. Between what the Bible says is right and successful versus what the world's going to tell you. Because what the world tells you is the exact opposite of what Jesus is saying here. So Jesus is saying, hey, if you're poor, you're blessed. If you hunger, you're blessed. If you weep, you're going to laugh. All these things that is going to be looked on as negative, bad things in this world, Jesus is saying, hey, have courage, have hope. And He's encouraging those people and saying, look, it's fine. It's all going to work out. And the reason why He's doing this is because the Christian life, when you really start living the Christian life, when you really start following Christ and doing as Christ did, you're going to find out it's not just all happy and, you know, like happy, everyone's got smiles on their faces, like there's nothing bad ever happening. Now, I'm not saying there's no joy. What I'm saying is you go through these times where you're going to have people hating you. You may end up being poor. You may not have all the riches. Why? Because you're not focused on those things. Or you're not spending all of your time just trying to earn filthy lucre. You're investing in people. So that's going to take away from any financial benefit you might have. You're going to find out that people are going to hate you when they find out what you believe because how are they going to find out what you believe? Because you talk about it. Because you're letting your light shine. And Jesus says, hey, be happy. That's great. And on the flip side, He says, hey, woe unto you that are rich. You've got your reward. You've got your consolation. He says, woe unto you that are full because you're going to end up hungering. Woe unto you that laugh now for you're going to mourn and weep. Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you. Hey, when everyone just thinks you're the greatest person in the world, that's a problem. How could that be a problem? Because that's exactly what they did under the false prophets because the false prophets didn't preach the truth because when you preach the truth, the truth divides. When you preach the truth, the truth hurts sometimes and people get offended and that's why not all... Now, look, should we have a good report? Of course. We shouldn't be criminals. We should be able to follow the rules. We should be able to do righteously and justly, but people, you know, they're still not all going to think you're a great person because of what you believe. Not everybody will. In general, of course, we're going to try to get along and live peaceably and do as much as we can. We don't want people to come and hate us, but if you're following Christ, people will hate you because you know who the whole world loves? The false prophets. The Billy Grahams. The Joel Osteen. Everyone loves those guys because they're false prophets because they don't say that which is true. They say the things that tickle people's ears and what people want to hear instead of what they need to hear. But let's continue here. Verse number 27. But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other, and him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee, and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again. And then it says, And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. Now, this might be a hard situation to put yourself in, especially when you're saying, well, these people who are doing bad things to me and they're cursing me and everything else, how could I even put myself in their shoes? Well, think about this. If someone's unsaved and they're cursing you and stuff, if you were the unsaved person, you're ignorant, you don't know the Bible, no one's given you the Gospel or whatever, you haven't understood it, and someone's giving you a hard time for being a Christian, wouldn't you appreciate at least having some grace? Wouldn't you like someone to be able to deal with you and overlook your transgressions and still love you and still love you enough to be able to give you the Gospel? Well, that's how we ought to be treating these people. And not shutting them down and giving railing for railing and spite for spite and everything else, but being able to say, you know what? I'm going to show this person some love because if I were in their shoes, that's what I would want for myself, and especially having that knowledge, right? Because you're coming from a better place of wisdom being saved and knowing how important that is. They may think that they know everything and it's garbage and the Bible's not true and everything else. They might think that, but you know that's not true. And if you were in their shoes and blinded, wouldn't you want to have someone still reach out to you to try to get past that blindness, to try to open up your eyes That's why we suffer these things and still bless those people and not answer the cursing for cursing and as you would that men should do to you, do you also to them likewise. But it takes some consideration to think about those things and whatever the situation is to kind of think, hey, if the roles were reversed, how would I like to be treated? What would be the best thing here? It takes consideration. So you consider one another in your family, consider one another in church, but even just consider other people in the world. The Bible says in verse 32, Two, for if you love them which love you, what thank have ye for sinners also love those that love them? And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye for sinners also do even the same? And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye for sinners also to lend to sinners to receive as much again? And here, Jesus is calling out that we're supposed to be different than the world. The world does all these things. You need to go above and beyond that. The standard is a lot higher for the believer. God's standard is higher. I should just put it that way. The God's standard is higher, and that goes for everybody, but we believe God's word, so we should put these things into practice. Verse 35, But love ye your enemies, and do good and lend, hoping for nothing again. And your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the highest, for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged. Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned. Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down and shaken together and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye meet withal, it shall be measured to you again. And there's so many concepts that tie together with this, with considering one another, and as you'd have men treat you, you'd treat it likewise, and judging. All three of these things kind of go hand in hand, and you can see how there's overlap there. But everything comes in a balance, too, right? Because we don't want to just get to this point where I think a lot of churches have gotten to this point of being very merciful because we should be very merciful. Look, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being merciful, but what I'm trying to express here is the going too far in a direction to where instead of being just merciful and not judging, you end up getting to the point of being too tolerant of sin. We need to be able to love, you know, do what's right and bless those that curse you and be able to have that mindset while at the same time be able to maintain a standard and not allow for the total and utter perversion and depravity that's out there. We need to be able to hold a standard, especially within the church, be able to still take the Bible as a whole, take these mindsets and be like, I'm going to be a minister, I'm going to be a servant, I'm going to do my best to help other people, to serve other people, to have that mindset, to esteem others better than myself and to live my life that way, while at the same time, though, not just giving in to every wicked thing or saying, well, I can't say anything's wicked because that's judging. No. That's false. That's taking things too far to an extreme because you're not taking the Bible as a whole and in balance. There's plenty of teaching that talks about, you know, we need to have lines drawn. But it doesn't mean, look, we have lines drawn according to scripture on things like adultery and fornication and, you know, all these different things, and you shouldn't lie to people and say that that's okay. But at the same time, when you have the mindset, well, what's going to be helpful for that person, all that's going to be helpful is telling them that those things are wrong and wicked and sinful, but you're also going to consider their cause and try to help them to overcome that. You know, people who are involved in different manners of wickedness, whatever, first of all, they might just need to get saved. I mean, that could be their biggest problem. Hey, they need to get saved because all this other stuff is going to go over their head anyways. But if they're saved, maybe they're still involved in some things. You know what? When you love them and consider them, you need to tell them the truth and show them what's right and not just be too polite. And we ought to be polite, but not to the point of just ignoring everything that's going on. But consider, consider it all. And, you know, there's nothing, when the Bible says to judge not, we still need to judge righteous judgment. It says judge not lest you be judged, for with what measure you meet, you shall be measured again. Again, we need to consider what's righteous and what's not and not be a hypocrite about the judging. I don't want to get too deep into the judging thing. That's a whole other sermon. You read Matthew chapter 7 on that whole chapter talks about judging. But it goes hand in hand because you're considering where people are coming from, considering the whole totality of the situation. But at the same time, hey, sin is sin. And we need to maintain that right balance. Blessed Father, I just have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for your words. I pray that you please help us to consider one another, to be able to think about how we could help others within our church, within our family, and even just more broadly, dear Lord, in general. We're trying to follow Christ's example. I pray that you please help us to do so and help us to gain more wisdom and knowledge. Lord, help us overcome our flesh and not just succumb to our fleshly desires or even just having a single mindset where we're just focused on ourselves, dear Lord, but help us to be able to think about other people and what we could be doing on a regular basis to serve others. We love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. We're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed this morning. And don't forget, of course, we have lunch for everyone. Everyone's welcome to join us for lunch regardless of the baby shower or if you're just visiting, please join us. We'd love to have you join us for lunch after service. All right, Brother Peter. All right, church, if you could open up your hymnals. Open up your hymnals to song number 374. Song number 374, Send the Line. Song number 374. On the first, there's a clock of freedom Restless wait, send the line Send the line There are souls to rescue There are souls to save Send the line Send the line Send the line The blessed gospel life Let it shine From shore to shore Send the line The blessed gospel life Let it shine Forevermore We have heard the mass A broken call today Send the line Send the line In a molded offering At the frost we let Send the line Send the line Send the line The blessed gospel life Let it shine From shore to shore Send the line The blessed gospel life Let it shine Forevermore Let us pray that Praise be everywhere around Send the line Send the line And the fire is like spirit Everywhere around Send the line Send the line Send the line The blessed gospel life Let it shine From shore to shore Send the line The blessed gospel life Let it shine Forevermore On the last let's sing this out Let us not go We're in the work of love Send the line Send the line Let us gather in truth A crown above Send the line Send the line Send the line The blessed gospel life Let it shine From shore to shore Send the line The blessed gospel life Let it shine Forevermore Amen, great singing Hold on before you're dismissed Let me go ahead and say grace for the food Lord, heavenly Father, thank you so much for gathering us here together Lord, Lord, I just pray that you bless the food that we're about to eat Lord, bless the hands that made the food Father, we just pray that we can just be blessed and just have fellowship together and love one another Lord, just be with one another, Lord We do this all for you, we love you Father In the name of Jesus, Amen In the name of Jesus, Amen