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

Amen. All right, we're there in 2 Corinthians chapter number 3, and of course on Wednesday nights we're making our way through the book of 2 Corinthians. We're going verse by verse, chapter by chapter, and if you've noticed, we've been seeing a theme starting in chapter 2. The Apostle Paul had this theme in regards to the ministry, and to be honest with you, I've read the book of 2 Corinthians many times, and I never really noticed the theme until I started studying it for this Wednesday night Bible study. But in chapter 2, if you remember verses 1 through 11, he talked about a true man of God's heart, and then he also talked about church discipline and how it's supposed to hurt. And then in verses 12 through 17, in last week's sermon or study, we saw the marks of the ministry. So the Apostle Paul has been kind of dealing with this theme starting in chapter 2 regarding the ministry and regarding those of us that are in ministry in regards to spiritual leadership and things like that. And tonight in chapter 3, he continues that, and he talks about the ministry for the first six verses of the chapter, and we're going to cover that tonight. The next week we'll do the latter part of the chapter, and the latter part of the chapter, he shifts gears a little bit. There's a connection, and we'll look at it next week. He shifts gears a little bit, and he talks about the New Testament versus the Old Testament in reference to the New Covenant versus the Old Covenant. So we'll cover that next week in our Bible study. But in these verses, he talks about spiritual leadership. He talks about what we would call ordained leadership or leadership of a local church, and this would be primarily speaking to like a pastor, but it could also of course apply to a deacon and an evangelist. And he talks about the credibility of spiritual leadership, and then he talks about the sufficiency of spiritual leadership, and I'll show that to you here tonight. Look down at verse number 1. We'll start right at the beginning of the chapter there, 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 1. He says this, Do we begin again to commend ourselves? The word command means to praise or to recommend. We would probably use the word today, recommend. He says, Do we begin again to recommend ourselves? He says, Do we need to praise ourselves or recommend ourselves? And of course he's asking this question. He says, Or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you? So he's not speaking negatively about this practice, and the practice he's referring to, and if you're taking notes, maybe you can write this down. We're talking about begin tonight with the credibility of spiritual leadership, and begins by talking about letters of recommendation or letters of commendation, and we would probably call them letters of recommendation today. And he's not speaking negatively about this idea of letters of recommendation. He's asking them, Is this something that we need? He said, Or need we? But notice he says, as some others. So the idea is that there are others that do need these letters of recommendation, but the apostle Paul is asking, Do we need these letters of recommendation to you? Notice there he says, epistles of commendation to you. Here's what he's asking. He's saying, Do you need a letter, like a reference from us in order to receive us, or letters of commendation from you? Do you need to supply us with a reference letter, or with a letter of commendation? Now, if you've never noticed this in the Bible before, you may not be sure what he's talking about, but he's talking about this practice of letters of recommendation, and again, he's asking this question, Do we need this from you, or do we need this for you? But I kind of want you to understand this idea of letters of recommendation. Keep your finger there in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, of course, that's our text for tonight, but go with me if you would to the book of Acts, Acts chapter 9. If you're going backwards, you're going to go past the book of 1 Corinthians, past the book of Romans, into the book of Acts. So let me kind of just explain this to you real quickly. This idea of letters of recommendation. I want to talk to you about the first century practice of the letters of recommendation, and then talk to you about the 21st century practice of the letters of recommendation. The first century practice is this, and we don't have a lot of details. The Bible doesn't say a lot about it. We just kind of get these little glimpses that we see here from the Apostle Paul, but apparently there was a practice by the first century churches and first century believers that when a believer would move around as they traveled, either because they were traveling for business or work, or vacation or something like that, or if they were just actually moving from one area to another, the church that they would be a part of, the church that they were a part of, would give them letters of commendation or letters of recommendation from whatever church they were coming from to show the church that they were going to. And again, we see this here in 2 Corinthians 3.1 when Paul brings it up, do we begin again to commend ourselves, or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you. But if you think about it, and you have read the New Testament, you'll realize that you often hear the Apostle Paul talking about the fact that he's sending Titus, or he's sending Timothy, or he's sending certain individuals, and he always sends them with letters. Now some of those letters were actually the epistles that ended up being part of our canon of Scripture, but some of them are different letters that he wrote, but he sends them with letters, and it seems to indicate that there's this practice where they would take these letters of recommendation with them. Now if you're wondering what the purpose for that is, of course we can understand how New Testament churches could be suspicious or apprehensive of accepting unknown believers due to the persecution that first century believers would endure. During the first century we know that they received a lot of persecution from the Jews, we know that the Roman Empire would later on take on that persecution, so of course having someone just show up to church one day and say, Oh hey, I'm from this other church 100 miles away, or 500 miles away, or whatever, people could be apprehensive about that, and they could be suspicious about that because there's so much persecution. So what the churches would do is they would send them with a letter of commendation, or recommendation saying, Yes, this is a church member in good standing, they're moving to your area, or maybe they're just traveling. And we see that, even if you remember in the book of Romans, he talks about certain believers, and he says, treat them well, he says this was a servant of the church, make sure you take care of them. And these would be an example of these letters of commendation. Let me give you an example of why you might need one, or want one. Acts chapter 9, look at verse 26, here we see the example of the apostle Paul himself when he first got saved. Now if you remember the apostle Paul's story, before he was Paul, he was known as Saul. Saul of Tarsus, Acts 9 and verse 26, and when Saul, and of course we know this is, he will later be named Paul, was come to Jerusalem, he is saved to join himself to the disciples. The word is saved means he attempted, or he tried to join himself to the disciples. Notice, but they were all afraid of him. And of course that's with good reason, because Saul has been wrecking havoc on the church. He's been bringing persecution upon the church, and at this point he's already been saved, he's already been part of another church and he's been serving faithfully, but when he gets to Jerusalem, they don't know that, they just remember him as Saul, and they were afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple. They thought he was there to cause problems, cause issues, notice verse 27, But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles, notice these words, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. So here, Paul didn't have a letter of recommendation or a letter of commendation, but Barnabas stood there and gave the commendation or the recommendation and said, Look, I know you guys don't know this, but I know him, and he declared unto them how Paul had seen the Lord in the way, and how he had spoken to him, and how Paul had preached boldly in Damascus in the name of Jesus. In fact, if you remember, in Damascus, Paul, because of his bold preaching, had received persecution. The disciples had to let him out of a window in a basket, if you remember that. He had to run away because of the persecution. And now he shows up in Jerusalem, and they're like, Why are you here? You know, they don't trust him. So we see here an example of the first century practice of the letters of commendation or recommendation, why they would need that. The interesting thing is something that you may not necessarily be aware of. Go to the book of Matthew, if you would, Matthew chapter 18. If you keep going backwards, you'll come to the first book of the New Testament, Matthew chapter 18. And do me a favor, when you get to the book of Matthew, put a ribbon or a bookmark there, because we're going to leave it, and we're going to come back to it several times during the sermon tonight. So I'd like you to be able to get to Matthew chapter 18 quickly. The interesting thing about the letters of recommendation, or the letters of commendation, is that this was actually a practice that had been practiced by local churches even up until very recently. Even in my own life, I've been a part of churches that practiced this idea of letters of commendation. Now, I'm sure there are churches that still practice this, but I will tell you this. I think they're probably going by the wayside. And the reason is this. When I was growing up, it was very, you'd often hear this phrase, whenever a member would join a church, and of course, we have a different process of church membership, and we try to follow the Bible. You know, we believe the Bible is our final authority in all matters of faith and practice, so we try to just do everything the Bible says to do. I'm not necessarily against churches that do what I'm about to explain to you, but we've never done that here, because we don't really find it in the Bible. But when I was growing up, in most independent fundamental Baptist churches, or most conservative type churches, you would vote on members. You know, someone would come, and they would walk down the aisle at the end of the service, and they would say, this family is joining the church. You know, you would vote on them and all that. And again, I'm not against churches doing that. It's just not something we've practiced here. I don't really see that in the Bible. But what you would often hear is this. The pastor would say that this family, or this individual, or this person, they're joining the church, and they would tell you that they're joining the church either by baptism, or by letter of recommendation. And if they were joining the church by baptism, what that meant is that they had gotten saved at this church, and that they had gotten baptized here, because the Bible says in order to be part of a local church, the Bible says that the Lord added to the church after there on the day of Pentecost when they believed, and there was 3,000 baptized, they were added unto the church. So the pastor would get up and say, you know, this individual is joining the church by baptism. And that means that they got saved here, they got baptized here, they were a new believer. But when somebody would come from a different church, somebody would move maybe from a different state, or somewhere else, a different city, and they would join the church, and they were already a member of a different church, and they had already been saved and baptized, and they had been scripturally baptized and all of that, then the pastor would say, this individual is joining the church by letter of recommendation. And back in the 70s, 80s, even in the 90s, churches literally would, you know, call or fax another church, you know, if somebody said, hey, I want to join the church, they would ask them, are you saved? You know, are you baptized? And if they weren't saved, they were baptized, they were obviously trying to get them saved, get them baptized, and they joined the church that way. And if they were already saved and baptized, then they would ask, well, what church are you from? Or what membership are you in? And they would say, oh, I went to so-and-so Baptist church in this city. And then the church secretary or the pastor or someone would call that church or fax that church and ask for a letter of recommendation. They would literally send a letter saying, yes, this is a member of our church, you know, in good standing, and we recommend them to your fellowship. This was actually a practice that was practiced by churches. Even, I remember it growing up, that this is something that churches did. Now, churches don't really do this anymore, and the major reason for it, the reason that they don't do it anymore is because the reason that they did do it is because there used to be a time in our country when churches believed in church discipline. You say, what does church discipline have to do with letters of recommendation? Well, there was a time in our country when people actually believed that if you were a drunkard, that if you were a fornicator, that if you did any of the sins found in 1 Corinthians 5, or that if you had gone through the Matthew 18 process, they actually believed in kicking people out of church. That's called church discipline. When people, they cross certain lines, and then they were kicked out of church. So that's why churches would ask for a letter of recommendation, and you know, we shouldn't be that, it shouldn't be that odd for us to think about the fact that even in our fellowship of churches, there's a whole lot of idiots that get thrown out of our churches. And what the churches were trying to avoid is just some troublemaker going from this church to that church to that church. So they would ask for a letter of commendation or a letter of recommendation, and you know, sometimes you'd call the pastor and they're like, no, we kicked that guy out. You know, that guy's a fornicator or this or that or whatever. So that was the practice of letters of commendation or recommendation, even up until recently, but in the last, I don't know, 10, 20 years, this idea of church discipline, which is a bit, I don't know if you know this, but it's in the Bible, this concept of throwing people out of church. Some of you could help me out and say amen, you know, when I say something like that. You act like you've never heard that before. Have you ever heard of church discipline? You ever heard me talk about that? Maybe it sounds kind of familiar. So this is a practice from the Word of God, and this is why people would do it. Today, churches don't do it because churches don't practice church discipline. Now, within the new IFB, you know, this is our fellowship of churches, we do practice a form of letters of recommendation. We're just, because there's not that many of us, and so many of us pastors just know each other casually and friendly, you know, we take a little bit more of a casual approach maybe to it. It's more like a text of recommendation. But honestly, I've texted pastors and I've had pastors text me, I mean, just maybe three months ago, I had one pastor say, hey, this guy says, this guy just moved here, he says he's from your church, you know, is he all right? And I said, yeah, you know, this is an individual, they came to our church, I told them they weren't really that faithful, they would come maybe once every three weeks or something like that, but they never gave us any problems, and, you know, they told me they were moving to your area, and yes, they were fine, you know. And that really is a practice of recommendation. And I would imagine that as the years go by, if our fellowship of churches ends up having, you know, more than six or seven churches, and it's like 50 or 100 churches where maybe the pastors don't know each other well, then this whole like letter of recommendation thing might come back in a more formal way. Obviously, it might be like an email or something like that. But the idea is this, that churches should uphold the discipline that is given at other churches. This is something the Bible teaches, are you there in Matthew 18? Let me just give you, what I want to show you is verse 18, but before I do that, let me just give you the context, because in verses 15 through 17, we have this concept of church discipline, for those of you who have never heard of it before. Here it is, okay, I've obviously failed to teach this to you, so I'm going to make up for it right now. Matthew 18, 15, moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, that means they've done you wrong. Here's what you're supposed to do, number one, tell me if you've ever heard this before, go and tell them his faults to thee and him alone, right? You're supposed to go to them and say, hey, you've wronged me, you did wrong. You don't go to everybody else in the church, you don't go to Facebook, you don't go to Instagram, you don't go tell everybody and their mom, the Bible says you're supposed to go tell him his fault between thee and him alone. And if he shall hear thee, thou has gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, here's step two, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. And I've always taught this, that when you get to step two, you better involve me or my wife in the process at that point, alright? And then number, you know, we need to be one of those witnesses. Then number three, verse 17, and if you neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. Then you bring it before the church, you know, we've done that here. Usually it'll be on a Sunday night and always turn the live stream off or things like that, but I shouldn't say always, but 99.9% of the time we turn the live stream off or things like that. And if he shall neglect to hear thee, tell it unto the church. Notice, last part of verse 17, but if you neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and as a publican. What does that mean? That means that at that point, if you bring it before the church and say, this individual just has this sin problem and they won't get it right, and they still don't want to get it right even if you brought it before the church, then the Bible says at that point you're supposed to no longer treat them like if they're a saved person, like a brother in Christ. He says you treat them like a heathen man and a publican. They're put out from the church because churches were saved people. Now, this is not saying that that person lost their salvation. It just means that from then forward, part of church discipline is that we're going to treat them as though they're unsaved. They're not part of our fellowship. We're going to disfellowship them. This is the process of church discipline. The Catholic Church famously calls it excommunication. Now, they attach that to salvation because they say you've got to be a Catholic to go to heaven. That's a whole different story. But the idea is this, that they're no longer allowed to be part of the church. That's church discipline. Now, this is just one passage. There's many passages. I preached entire sermons on church discipline. We have a whole church membership class that most of you have probably gone through where we go through and explain all the reasons why you could get kicked out of church and what it means to be a member and all that. Here's the point, and I want you to understand the context. Verse 15, 16, and 17 is about church discipline. That's the context in which we get verse 18. Notice what Jesus says in verse 18. Barely I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Jesus said that in verse 18 in the context of verse 15, 16, and 17. Here's what this means. It means that God himself in heaven acknowledges church discipline. He says if a brother trespasses against you and you go and tell him his fault between him and thee alone and then they don't listen to you and you take two or three witnesses and they don't listen and you take it before the whole church and they don't listen and then you disfellowship them, God says, Hey, when you do that, I will put a curse upon them. He says, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Here's the point. God himself acknowledges church discipline. He says if you bind it on earth, I'll bind it in heaven. And by the way, let's say they get right with God and they come back because remember we've been talking about that in 2 Corinthians. Then he says, hey, whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Here's his idea. God himself will get on board with and acknowledge church discipline. Therefore, other churches should acknowledge church discipline as well. Now for that reason, here at Verity Baptist Church, we ask for text messages of recommendation. We ask for commendation from other churches when people come from other churches. And here's the thing. We uphold the church discipline of other churches. And look, please understand this. We don't only uphold the church discipline of other new IFB churches, which is our fellowship of churches, even though it's usually like new IFB churches are pretty much the only church that are actually practicing church discipline and kicking people out of church. But we will acknowledge it for many churches. Old IFB, if somebody gets kicked out of an old IFB church and they come here and we know about it and all of that, we will not allow them to be part of our church. Now here's the thing. The old IFB sometimes, they don't like to work with us. I've asked for letters of recommendation from old IFB churches and they ignore me. So it's like, okay, whatever. But what I'm saying, I don't care what church it is. It could be a Southern Baptist church. If they've been kicked out, hey, what is bound on earth shall be bound in heaven. And what is loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Here's the sad thing. The sad thing is that just that this practice of church discipline has gone by the wayside. Go back to 2nd Corinthians chapter 3. I remember we had a couple that we kicked out of church for fornication and just being unrepentant in their fornication. And they just decided they were going to go to another independent Protestant church just here in town, not in Sacramento, but in Citrus Heights. And the pastor of that church calls me and he says, hey, this couple just showed up here. They said they went to your church. What's going on? And I said, hey, we kicked them out of church for fornication. We gave them several chances. They wouldn't repent. And so they're not welcomed to our church until they get married or whatever. And they didn't want to get married. And there's this whole complicated thing. One of them was still married. That was the problem. So this whole mess and I'm like, yeah, we kicked them out. And the pastor is like, oh, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, no problem. Click, hang up. Next Sunday, they become members of their church, you know, serving in their ministry. And I'm thinking to myself, like, why did you call me? You're not you don't actually follow the Bible, you know, but I don't even know why he called me, to be honest with you. Maybe he just wanted to know how much they tithed or something, because I think that's what he cared about. But the point is this, that we actually believe the Bible at Verity Baptist Church. And we actually will follow the Bible and we'll throw people out of church and we'll ask for letters of commendation. This is a practice from the word of God. So this is what the apostle Paul is referring to. Go back to Second Corinthians chapter three, when he says, Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or need we, as some others, epistle a commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? Now, he's bringing this up, but he's not being negative about it. He said, look, sometimes people need letters of commendation. But he's asking the church at Corinth, because they're treating him bad. And he's saying, I started this church. I got many of you saved. He says, do I need to bring a letter of commendation before I come? Do I need to bring a letter of recommendation before I come? And he begins by talking about these letters of recommendation. But then, in verse two, he shifts to this idea of the legitimacy of his ministry, because he's being a little sarcastic, right? He's saying, hey, church at Corinth, do you need me to show up with a letter of recommendation? Do you need me to show up with a letter of commendation? Do you need me to ask Peter to write a letter saying, yeah, Paul's a good guy? Do you need me to bring Barnabas and write a letter saying, yeah, let him come to church? He's being a little sarcastic over verse two. Then he says this. He says, ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men. Here's what he says. He says, if you need a letter of recommendation, just look at yourself. You're my letter of recommendation. You need a letter of commendation, he says? He says, look at, you are. He says, ye are our epistles, written in our hearts, known and read of all men. Say, what does he mean by that? Here's what he means. The legitimacy of a spiritual leader, the credibility of a spiritual leader can be seen in their fruit. You say, how do you know if somebody's a legit leader? And we're going to look at it here in a minute. Jesus taught, look at their fruit. Look at what they produce. Look at their results. The point that the apostle Paul is making is, I understand, Paul's saying. I understand why sometimes you need letters of commendation and letters of recommendation. You may not know Titus, and you may not know Timothy. I may need to write a letter and say, hey, they're a good guy, and you don't know Phoebe, and you don't know these individuals. And Paul's saying, but do you need one from me? Do I need to show up with a letter of commendation? And then he turns around and says, if you need a letter of commendation, hey, ye are our epistles written in our hearts. He says, you're the proof of my ministry. You are the credibility or the legitimacy of my ministry. Why? Because if you want to know the credibility of a spiritual leader, you need to look no further than the fruit that they produce. Now, there's another idea here, and I want you to see it before we move on. He says, ye are our epistles written in our hearts. Then he says this, known and read of all men. The life of a Christian, please get this, the life of a Christian may be the only thing unbelievers ever really know about God. Think about that. Someone said it this way. Your life may be the only Bible an unbeliever ever reads. You say, my unsaved family, they're never going to read the Bible. My unsaved co-workers, they're never going to read the Bible. My unsaved neighbors, they're never going to read the Bible. They're never going to look up for a sermon on YouTube. They're never going to watch a documentary. No matter how many I give them, they're just not interested. But let me tell you something. Ye are our epistles written in our hearts, known and read of all men. They might never watch a sermon. They might never look at a documentary. They might not ever show up for an Easter service or a family and friend day. They might not ever read a flyer. They might not ever read a pamphlet. They might not ever look at any of that. But if they're near you and if they know you, then they can see the truth of God's word in your life. In fact, your life may be the only Bible they ever read. That ought to be humbling to us. When we are the epistles written in our hearts, when we are the epistles of God known and read of all men, the question that we must ask is, what do people see when they see you? What kind of Bible are they reading? Really, it's the effect of the Bible on your life. Go to Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5. I'll say this. I'll say this. Many Christians, many Christians have miserably failed in this area of life, which is why the token answer we get from people, isn't this true? The token answer we get from unbelievers as to why they don't come to church is, oh, church is filled with a bunch of hypocrites. Here's what they mean by that. They mean, all the Christians I know are hypocrites. They are the epistles read, manifested, seen, testified of all, and what their lives have said and what their lives have shown the world is, I don't need Christianity. If that's Christianity, I don't need it. They're hypocrites. They're liars. They're Pharisees. Paul reminds us that your life... Look, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. Sometimes people get all upset. I understand why my family won't get saved. I'm not saying that this is why your family won't get saved. I'm not saying this is why your co-workers won't get saved. But you ought to ask yourself, is your testimony a stumbling block to your loved ones getting saved? Matthew 5 and verse 16, notice what Jesus said. Jesus said it this way. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. I don't believe in lifestyle evangelism, but I do believe that your lifestyle could be a hindrance to your evangelism. The Bible says that our light should shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father which is in heaven. The apostle Paul says, hey, you are epistles of Christ. You are epistles of God. You are read by known and read of all men. And when they see you, when they hear you, when they examine you, what do they see? Let your light so shine before men that they may see your... I want you to remember these words from Matthew 5 and 16. Good works, we're not saved by works, but we are saved to work. And he says, see your good works, and then he said, why do I want to have good works? Here's why. So that they will glorify your Father which is in heaven. See, when we do good works, go to 1 Peter, if you would, 1 Peter chapter 2. If you start at the end of the New Testament, go backwards. You have Revelation, Jude, 3 John, 2 Peter. When we do good works, it brings glory to God, our Father. That they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. See, here's the thing, it's okay. You say, well my family, you don't understand, I started coming to church and I started reading the Bible. I started praying, I stopped watching certain shows and I got rid of my television. We started dressing differently and we started going to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, soul winning. We stopped drinking, we stopped this, we stopped that. They think I'm weird, they think I'm peculiar. Hey, if that's the case, praise God for it. If they think you're weird and they don't want anything to do with Christianity because you're too strict and you're too holy. Hey, that's between them and God, that's fine. But don't let it be that, hey, it's better that they don't want to come to church because you're not a drunk than they won't come to church because you are a drunk and you're a hypocrite. 1 Peter 2 and verse 11, Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims. Don't ever forget, that's all you and I are on this earth. We're strangers and pilgrims. We're on a journey, we're just passing through. This world is not my home. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims. He says, since you're just a stranger. Stranger means a foreigner. You're just visiting. You're just here for a short time. You're just passing through. Since you're a stranger and a pilgrim, he says, abstain from fleshly lust, which war against the soul. Notice verse 12, having your conversation. What does the word conversation mean? It means conduct, behavior, lifestyle. Having your conversation. Honest? What does that mean? It means sincere, authentic, real. Honest among the Gentiles that whereas. You see that word whereas? The word whereas means that in contrast to the fact, it means although, he says, you want to live your life and have a conduct that's honest. Look, you ought to have a testimony, you're the most honest person at work. You men, you men, you are bringing a reproach to the name of Christ if you allow yourself to be known as the laziest, as the guy who's always late, who leaves early, who doesn't work hard, who talks bad about the body. You ought to have the best testimony at work. And don't forget that when you go to work, you're not serving a man, you're doing it as unto the Lord. Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles that whereas, that although, that in contrast to the fact that they speak evil against you as evildoers, though they think you're weird, though they think you're odd, though they think you're crazy. Hey, let them think that we're not crazy, we're just peculiar. Though they speak against you as evildoers, that they may, don't miss it, by your good works, remember that from Matthew 5 and 16, that they may see your good works? That they may by your good works, which they shall behold, that they may see your good works, that they may by your good works, which they shall behold, don't miss it, glorify God in the day of visitation. Here's a question, does your life bring glory to God? Does the way you act at work bring glory to God? Does the way you act, the way you act with your unsaved family members, unsaved friends, does it bring glory to God or does it give them a reason to not want to serve God? Because here's what Paul says, Paul says, ye are our epistles, written in our hearts, he says, seen and read of all men. Go to 1 Peter chapter 4, you're there in chapter 2, just flip over to chapter 4 real quickly. He continues on with this idea, he says, if ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye. Hey, if they write bad articles about you because of Jesus Christ, happy are ye. Brother Oliver just told me about an article, he answers our phones around here and he knows we're getting a little more extra hate calls than we normally do. So he Googled my name and there was a new article about me and about our church. Actually, he was mentioning it too and he's like, oh, this is why people are calling. Hey, if ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye. For the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. On their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. There's no such thing as bad publicity if your publicity comes because you're doing right, because you're living right, because you're preaching the Bible. In their part he's evil spoken of. In their part, they think they're giving us bad publicity, but on your part he is glorified. But then he says this, verse 15, but let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters. Here's what he's saying. If they're going to write bad articles about you, let them write bad articles about you because you're actually preaching the Bible and they don't like it. Don't let them write bad articles about you because you stole from the church, or you're doing all sorts of things you shouldn't be doing. That's the context. Look at verse 16. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him, here's our word, glorify God on this behalf. You say, Pastor, are you embarrassed that if we googled your name, all these bad articles come up about you? I'm not ashamed. I glorify God. If I'm reproached for the name of Christ, that's a good thing. Let us rejoice. The Apostle Paul, go back to 2 Corinthians. He talks about the credibility of spiritual leadership. He begins by talking about this idea of letters of recommendation, and then he connects it. He brings it up sarcastically a little bit, and he says, look, you are my letters of recommendation. You are the legitimacy of my ministry. We need to understand this, that the life of a Christian may be the only Bible that unbelievers read. Secondly, let me say this. The life of a follower, and we already talked about this, but let me just make it abundantly clear. The life of a follower is the best way to know the legitimacy of a minister. Let's again, in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, and look at verse number 3. For as much as you are manifestly declared, the word manifest means to be seen, declared means to be communicated or spoken. He says, you are manifestly declared to be the epistles of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart. He says, you are the epistles ministered by us. He said, you are the proof of our ministry. Go back to Matthew, if you would, Matthew chapter 7. Remember I told you to keep your place in Matthew? Matthew chapter 7. Look at verse 15. Let's just quickly look at this. Look, the best way to know the legitimacy of a spiritual leader is by looking at what they produce, their fruit. Now, in Matthew chapter 7, in verse 16 you have this very famous phrase, ye shall know them by their fruits. And people like to take that little phrase out of context and try to use that as proof of work salvation. That, you know, ye shall know them by their fruits, they try to make that apply to Christians. And they'll say, well, if you really got saved, then we're going to see some fruit in your life. The problem with that is that you're taking a phrase out of its context. What does the Bible actually mean? What did Jesus mean when he said, ye shall know them by their fruits? Who's the them that he's referring to? Well, let's look at the context. Look at verse 15. Beware of false prophets. He's talking about spiritual leadership. And in this case, he's talking about bad spiritual leadership. False prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. He says, ye shall know them by their fruits. You say, how can I know if a pastor is a good guy or a bad guy? Well, there's lots of ways to know. You can listen to the sermons and the doctrine, see if it lines up. But here's a great way. Just look at the fruit. Ye shall know them by their fruits. And then he says this, do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Here's what he means by that. Grape vines produce grapes. Thorn bushes produce thorns. Fig trees produce figs. Thistles produce thistles. Grapes don't produce thorns. Figs don't produce thistles. In verse 17 he says, even so, in the same way, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore, notice it again, by their fruits ye shall know them. So what does that mean? Here's what it means. If you want to know if Pastor Jimenez is a good pastor, a good spiritual leadership, just talk to our fruit. Talk to our church. Talk to church people and ask them, hey, what do you believe about the King James Bible? What do you believe about eternal security? Don't ask about church discipline. Apparently we've missed that one. What do you believe about salvation by grace through faith? What do you believe about the reprobate doctrine? What do you believe about this? What do you believe about that? Now, let me just say this. Obviously, as churches get larger, 150, 170, 200, 250, you're going to find people that are going to give the wrong answers. You know, obviously you should have grace. Hey, even Jesus had Judas in his 12, okay? But by and large, you should be able to talk to church people and they're all saved and understand the Bible and understand basic doctrines. That's the fruit. And look, here at our church, we send out 100 soul winners every week to go preach the gospel. And we have done a whole lot of, you know, unofficial surveys of the churches in our area. Because there are some churches, when you knock on the door and you're like, hey, we'd like to invite you to church. Oh, I go to church. And they're like, what church do you go to? And they're like, Calvary Christian Center. It's like, you already know. I've talked to probably everybody in that church and like all of them were not saved. You know, you start learning and realizing that a tree is known by its fruit. And it is the church, it is the fruit, it is the followers that are the credibility of spiritual leadership. So we see, number one, the credibility of spiritual leadership. And then secondly, let me just show you real quickly, and I've got to hurry up because I'm out of time. The sufficiency of spiritual leadership. Look at verse four, 2 Corinthians chapter three and verse four. The sufficiency of spiritual leadership. He says, and such trust have we through Christ to God work. Again, the subject is spiritual leadership. He's talking about pastors and in this case, because it's a new first century apostles and things like that. He says, and such trust have we through Christ to God work. He says, not that we are sufficient. You see that word sufficient there? Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves. Here's what he's saying. We, as spiritual leaders, as pastors, deacons, evangelists, ordained ministry. We are not sufficient of ourselves for the ministry. Please understand that. Now he's making that clear because he's about to make another statement and I'm about to make another statement. And I don't want you to take it the wrong way. Our belief as men of God, and we have the privilege to be called that, is that not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves. We are not sufficient of ourselves for the ministry. Real quickly, go to 1 Corinthians 15, if you would. If you're there in 2 Corinthians, just go back to 1 Corinthians 15. In 2 Corinthians 3 and 5, he says, not that we are sufficient. That word sufficient. Why don't you notice in 1 Corinthians 15, 9, the same word, the same underlying Greek word is translated a little differently. I'm not correcting the King James here. There's nothing wrong with the King James. I'm just showing you that the same Greek word is used synonymously. In 1 Corinthians 3, 5, the King James translators translated it as the word sufficient and that was correct. In 1 Corinthians 15, 9, I want you to notice he says, Paul says, I am the least of the apostles. That goes with what he's saying, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves. He says, for I am the least of the apostles. Notice, he says, that I'm not meet to be called an apostle. The word meet there is the same Greek word that's translated in 2 Corinthians 3, 5 as sufficient. The word meet means acceptable. That I have what I need. Often we use the word meet in regards to a wife being a help meet. That she was created by God to be an acceptable helper to her husband. Well here Paul is saying, I am the least of the apostles that I'm not meet to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. He said, I don't have the sufficiency to be called an apostle. He said, I don't have that ability within myself. Look at verse 10, 1 Corinthians 15, 10. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And by his grace, which was bestowed, you see the word bestowed there? It means to be given something, to be presented something. He says, by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace, which was bestowed upon me, was not in vain. But I labored more abundantly than they all. Yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with me. So why don't you notice that when we talk about the sufficiency of spiritual leadership, the first idea is that we are not sufficient of ourselves for the ministry. No man is. No one is sufficient. No one is enabled. Nobody has what they need for the ministry. Why? Because this is a spiritual work that must be done in the spirit of God. By the spirit of God. Go back to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. With that said, let me say this. That for true men of God, God makes them sufficient and able ministers. Notice again what he says, 2 Corinthians 3 verse 5. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who also hath made us, notice this word, able ministers. Who has made us able ministers? God. God makes us sufficient. God makes us able ministers. Who also hath made us able ministers for the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit, for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. Let me just share a few thoughts with you real quickly about this. We'll finish up. Go to 1 Timothy chapter 1 if you would. You'll find the t-books are all clustered together. 1 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy Titus, 1 Timothy chapter 1. We are not sufficient of ourselves to the ministry. No man is. But true men of God are made sufficient and able ministers by God. God makes them able. God makes them sufficient. Let me just share this idea with you again from 1 Timothy 1. Notice what Paul says in 1 Timothy 1 verse 11. He says, According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust, and I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, notice what he says, who hath enabled me. The word enabled means he's made me able. Remember he said there in 2 Corinthians 3, 6, who has also made us able ministers. He says our sufficiency is of God. Here he says, who hath enabled me, for that he counteth me faithful, putting me into the ministry. God makes true spiritual leaders sufficient and able ministers for the ministry. Go to 1 Timothy 3. Look at verse 1. 1 Timothy 3 and verse 1. Here we have the well-known characteristics of a pastor, the qualifications of a pastor. 1 Timothy 3 verse 1. He says, This is a true saying. If a man desireth the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality. Those are all things, those are all things that any Christian could have, right, and every Christian should have. Blameless, husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality. But then he says this, opt to teach. See the word opt there? The word opt means having the ability. It means aptitude, having the tendency to. See, we are not sufficient of ourselves for the ministry, no one is, but God makes us sufficient and able ministers. And please don't misunderstand what I'm about to say to you, and I'll do my best to kind of say it as clearly as I can. Go to Ephesians if you would, Ephesians chapter 4. If you're there in 2 Corinthians, or if you have your place in 2 Corinthians, go past Galatians to Ephesians. Many years ago I was part of a church that had a pastor that was a man of God. He had issues, and obviously, like any man, he has issues, but he was definitely a man of God. I mean, you could tell that the Spirit of God was upon him, he could speak, he could rule the church, he had the respect of the people, all those things. He met the qualifications, but he's very sickly, and as a result he would miss church a lot because of health and things like that. And when he was sick, you know, over the years there was different men that would fill in, and some were good and some were not so good. And there was a span when a lot of the men that were able to preach and all that, they went and started their own churches and got their own ministries. And there was this man, and I'm not going to give you his name, who was a faithful man in the church. Not a bad man, a saved man, a godly man, loved the Lord, loved his family, loved the church, loved his pastor, and served the Lord. But he would preach, and he would preach a lot. The man could not preach himself out of a wet paper bag. I mean, he would just bring you to tears, not because he was moving you. He's just a terrible preacher. And I remember my wife and I, it seemed like a decade, it was probably just a few years, where we're just like, we go to church out of duty, not because we want to. It was like, oh brother, so and so is preaching again, oh man. You know, and it's like, we just go to church because it's the right thing to do, we love the Lord, forsake not the assembling of ourselves together, but we just couldn't stand it. And he was a good man. He was a godly man, saved man, loved the Lord, loved his family, had a good testimony, all of that. One day they announced that he was going to get ordained to be a pastor, and he went and became the pastor of this church a couple hours away. It was a small church, small town, I don't remember, I don't know exactly, I think they had 40, 50 people. And he was there for like, I don't know how long, it was probably just about a year, maybe a little more than a year, and he just completely killed the church. I mean, it went from 40 to 0, they closed the doors, they sold the building, they sold the property, donated the money to the church he came from, came back. And I'm saying all that to say this, there are pastors, I'm talking about independent fundamental Baptist pastors of churches all across this country, and I'm not saying this in a negative way, and I hope that the Lord helps you understand my heart in which I'm not saying this in flesh. You might think I'm saying this in flesh, and the Lord knows I'm not. There are men that stand behind pulpits all over this country that have no business being there. I'm not saying they're bad, now there's some bad men, I'm not talking about those men, I'm talking about good men. They love the Lord, they love their wives, they love their children, they've raised good children, they serve God, they walk with God, all those things. But God has not enabled them. They don't have the apt. And I'm not speaking against them, I think they could serve the Lord, and I think they should be good, godly, faithful men in a church, and they should serve under a pastor, but I'm telling you something, there is something about being a pastor and a spiritual leader where God gives you the ability. He enables you. He gives you the aptitude. He gives you the gift. Look, Romans 12, you don't have to turn there, I'll just read this for you. The Bible says this in verse 6, Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us. Do you understand that the Holy Spirit gives all of us different gifts? He says, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy. Do you understand that speaking and preaching is actually a spiritual gift? According to the portion of faith, or ministry, let us wait on our ministry, or he that teacheth the teaching, or he that exhorteth on exhortation, he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity, he that ruleth with diligence, he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness, and look, please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. They're not bad men, but they don't have the ability to communicate, to cast a vision, to stir people up, to motivate and mobilize people, and they're not bad people, but they have no place being in the pulpit. There has to, look, there has to come a point in anyone that wants to go into ministry where those of us that ordain them and send them out need to look at them and say, yes, there are things they need to do. They have to read the Bible a certain amount of times. They need to be faithful. They need to do this. They need to do that, and we want them to meet all those qualifications, but there has to come a point where we look at them, and I'm not trying to spiritualize it or make it all hocus-focus, but where we look at them and say, do they have the touch of God, the aptitude to actually do this? You say, well, pastor, how do you quantify that? I'm just, you say, why are you preaching about this? Paul's bringing it up. I don't know. He's just been bringing up the ministry. Maybe he just wants us to kind of identify this. I'll tell you this. For me, what I'm looking for, when I'm looking for people that we can send out, that we can go lead churches, things like that, I'm looking for two things that they can do well. Communicate. Communicate the word of God. Communicate the truth of God's word. Speak well. I think you're getting a little too cardinal. I don't know how else to tell you. Look, it's part of the job description. You stand in front of people and you preach, and we're not here to entertain and put on a show, but to some extent you have to be able to speak and actually communicate the truth of God's word. You have to be able to communicate and speak well, and they need to be able to organize and structure. I have to say it this way. They must be able to motivate and mobilize. You say, why do you send out Brother Stuckey to be an evangelist? Because he can preach and because he can organize. Why do you send out Pastor Jones? Because he can preach and he can organize. Why do you send out Pastor Pazarski? Because he can preach and he can organize. Why do you send out Pastor Tom? Because he can preach and he can organize. Look, the qualifications, the Bible says that we as pastors, we are an ensemble for everyone to follow. I think everyone should try to follow. All those qualifications should be the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach. All of that can everybody do except that last one. Except that last one. Apt, that's something God gives you. Now, I'm not saying you can't work on it. I'm not saying you can't. Obviously, I just taught about our habits. You have gifts and you should work within your gifts. You can get better. But for Brother... I'm not going to give his name. I almost did. And no matter how much you were trying, it wasn't going to happen. He's probably watching. Ephesians chapter 4. You have to be able to stop yourself in the pulpit right before you say the wrong thing. Ephesians chapter 4. Look at verse 11. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. You know that God gave you a pastor? And by the way, God gave your pastor some people. We're a gift to each other. So why did God put us together? Why did God bring us together? Why did God bring Verity Baptist Church? And by the way, I hope you understand my heart. I'm not trying to make it sound like we're the greatest thing ever, but I do believe this, that there is no greater work, there's no greater thing happening in Sacramento, California right now than what's happening here at Verity Baptist Church. Not because of you and not because of me, but because we have submitted ourselves to the Word of God and to do the work of God. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. Why? For the perfecting of the saints, for the maturing of the saints, for the completing of the saints. What are we trying to accomplish here? We're trying to bring you in and hopefully you're learning. Hopefully you're growing. Hopefully we're helping you get well-rounded for the perfecting of the saints. We're trying to help you grow. But guess what? We're also trying to help the ministry grow for the work of the ministry. For the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. I'm just telling you that there is credibility of spiritual leadership. What is it? It's the followers. And by the way, let me just say this. I remember my dad told me this before when I went into the ministry. And it's true. You can be ordained. You can receive the title. You can be pastor. But for Brother so-and-so, was he a pastor? He got ordained. He got the title. He got the position. But when the church got to zero, guess what? He wasn't a pastor. Because you know what you need to be a pastor? Sheep. You can be ordained and meet all the qualifications, but at some point there has to be something God gives you to help you motivate and mobilize and lead others. God has given us a church to do the work of God together. God has allowed me and my wife to minister to you in the ministry. And God has brought you here for the perfecting of you, the perfecting of the saints, the work of the ministry, the edifying of the body of Christ. Go back to 2 Corinthians 3, verse 2. We'll finish up. Look at verse 2 again. We already saw it, but I just want you to see it as we finish. Your life and my life is to have one purpose, to glorify God. All things were created by him and for him. All things were created that they might bring pleasure to him. 2 Corinthians 3, 2. Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men. What to God? What to God that could be said of Verity Baptist Church, the members of this church, the staff of this church, the leadership in this church, the pastor of this church, that all of us bring glory to God, that others may see us and think, that's an odd bunch. They might reproach us for the name of Christ, but that we would be an epistle that would be known and read of all men. Let's bow our heads in our word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you, Lord, for your word. Thank you for this passage of scripture, Lord. The apostle Paul has been dealing with this idea of ministry. And for those of us in ministry, we often have to think about these things as we send people out. I think sometimes people have this idea that they just got to mark off this checklist, and as long as they meet all the criteria, the pastor has to lay his hands on them and ordain them. But the truth of the matter is, there is a spiritual aspect to this. There's something that God gives them. We can see it through their preaching. We can see it through their people skills, how they get along with others. Do they alienate others? Are they ministering, helping, being encouraging? We can see it through their character. Are they faithful to those services? Do they show up on time? Are they faithful to soul winning? It's just something that God has to give them. Lord, I pray you'd help us. I thank you that you've allowed us to identify men. Over the last eleven years, we've been able to identify men to help us plant churches in this state, on this side of the country, and in the world. And Lord, I pray you'd continue to help us to identify men that not only meet these qualifications, but that you have enabled, that you've given the apt and the ability. In the matchless name of Christ, we pray. Amen. We're going to have Brother Moses come up and lead us in the final song. I just want to remind you of a couple of things. First of all, we have soul winning tomorrow at 2 p.m. We'd love for you to join us, of course, for soul winning at that time. And then our main soul winning time is on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. We'd love for you to join us. Make sure you are here to help us reach people at the Gospel. And then, of course, our Sunday services. If there's anything we can do for you, please let us know. Invite someone, bring someone with you. And then don't forget that in the foyer, we have the sign-up sheets for the cornbread and for the desserts for the Harvest Party. So if you're not yet signed up and you're able to, please make sure you go back there and sign up for that. If there's anything we can do for you, please let us know. We're, of course, praying for you. We'll have Brother Moses come up and lead us in the final song.