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All right, amen. Well, we finally made it to chapter number four of 1st Corinthians. So, I'm excited about that. We're moving right along. Now, the title of the sermon this evening is actually a question, and that is, What's Behind Rockstar Pastors? What's Behind Rockstar Pastors? What you're gonna see, it's really not so much of a what, but a who, okay? You say, what's a rockstar pastor? Well, you'll see that here in a moment. Now, what you got to understand here is you're in 1st Corinthians 4. I'm gonna have you back up real quickly. Just go to chapter number three. We're gonna read a couple of verses and roll right into chapter number four. So, Paul has been addressing a very serious issue that the Corinthians are going through, and you got to really understand this issue, okay? This issue is pride, okay? Pride when it really starts to fester, and it starts to build, and it starts to consume a lot of people in church. You're gonna have a lot of problems, okay? And we're gonna talk about that. So, Paul has spent the last three chapters really addressing this issue of pride amongst the Corinthians because he cares for the church, and he doesn't want to see the church destroyed, okay? So, you say, well, what's this pride issue, you know, because don't we all have and struggle with pride? Well, that is true, okay? That is definitely true, but what they were doing is they were pitting pastors, I guess you could say, they're pitting people against each other. So, for example, you had one guy say, hey, you know, I'm of Apollos. Another guy said, well, I'm of Paul. Another, well, I'm of Cephas, or I'm of Peter, and then another person, well, I'm of Christ, and like we keep saying, you know, they were saying that because they're like, well, none of y'all are saved, and that's very divisive, okay? It's very divisive. It's very destructive. It's very foolish. It's very ignorant. It is the root of a church that will definitely collapse, okay? And that's why this is so important to understand because next week you're going to get hit hard with some very tough truths in chapter number five, okay? But when you really understand why Paul has spent the last three chapters and today dealing with pride, okay, it's going to help you next week. I'm just warning you, next week is very difficult to deal with. It is very hard, but, you know, we're students of the Word of God. We believe what the Bible says. So, with that in mind, let's jump back to chapter number three really quickly here. Look at verse number 20. So, Paul says this. It says, and again, so chapter three, verse 20, and again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are vain, okay? So, Paul is trying to get the Corinthians to understand something. He's trying to get them to understand that their own quote-unquote natural abilities to speak or to get things done really mean nothing, okay? We don't want to be viewed as people that lift up man on a pedestal, and that's exactly what these guys were doing, okay? And he's comparing and contrasting the wisdom of the world, which is foolishness to God, with the wisdom from God, which is obviously what we are supposed to flourish in. That's what we're supposed to excel in, okay? Look at verse 21. So, he says this, okay? So, the thoughts of the world are vain. They're empty. They're really meaningless. Verse 21, therefore, therefore means what? For this reason. Therefore, let no man glory in men, for all things are yours, okay? So, this begins to show us the problem that they were facing. Why weren't the Corinthians able to be profitable as believers? What was hindering? Well, it was pride. It was division, okay? It was confusion. Because they were so full of themselves, okay, they weren't able to get filled by the Word of God. So, therefore, he says, therefore, let no man glory in men, for all things are yours. They were missing out on the potential that they had, because the Bible is very clear that God has given gifts unto all men. If you're saved, you're born again, you have gifts, you have abilities that God has given you, okay? So, therefore, there's no need to put one man above another. The best of men are men at best. Verse 22, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, look what he says next, all are yours. All are yours, okay? God is not a respecter of persons. You can hear me say that a lot. Look at verse 23, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's, okay? Now, let's go to chapter number four. We're going to look at two verses, and then I'm going to go over two concepts with you here real quickly. Look at verse number one. Let a man sow a count of us. Now, if you don't mind writing in your Bible, or highlighting your Bible, I would like you to underline that word us there. Look at what Paul says here. Let a man sow a count of us. Look at the language that he is using here, okay? He doesn't say me or I, though there would be nothing wrong with him saying that. He's trying to teach a lesson here. He's trying to get the Corinthians to understand. This whole Christianity thing, this whole church thing, this whole Bible thing is an us process. This is not like the world where we rally behind one, you know, rock star basketball player, baseball player, football player, mixed martial arts fighter, or a president, or a politician. The kingdom of God does not operate like that. It can't operate like that. We have God, and then we have his bride. We have the body of Christ. So, his language is very clear here. Let a man sow a count of us, okay, as of, look at this next word, the ministers, okay? Ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Verse 2, moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. Okay? So, let's talk about this here, because what these people were doing, and again, let's think of the title real quick. What's behind rock star pastors? And I just put pastors there, but really, you could insert evangelists, you could insert deacon, you could insert soul winner. You know, what's behind a rock star Christian? Okay? That's how I want you to think of this. Now, again, the Corinthians, this is what they were doing. They were ranking people. Well, Paul's better than all of you. Apollo's is better than all of you. You know, and it was just this long, circular, foolish reasoning and cycle that just never ended. These guys would assemble together, and you got the Paul crew over here, you got the Apollo's crew over here, and then you got the Cephas crew in the middle, and it was just like that, and it was just very divisive and very tragic and very disappointing, okay? So, what's the problem with ranking pastors or ranking Christians? Because these guys, this is what they were doing. They were literally using this and drawing a line in the sand, saying, no, I'm of Apollo's. I'm better than you. It is what it is, okay? Very, very problematic. And I will tell you, this does happen in churches today. I knock on doors sometimes, and people look at me like I'm just this big. And they're like, well, I go to so-and-so's. I go to Life Church on Eagle and Franklin. And they've got, like, this smug attitude, you know? Like, who do you think you are? You're knocking on my door. Don't you know who I am? I go to his church, and he's filled with the Holy Ghost and blah, blah, blah. You know, I have a friend, a pastor, and he went to preach down in Arizona back in the summertime, and I was watching his sermon, and I was looking at a comment. And this guy comments. He's like, you know what? If it ain't Pastor Anderson, I'm not about it. I'm not going to listen to this. And thank God some people in the church, like, jumped on this guy and were like, hey, you need to watch your tone. You need to watch your attitude because this is not wise behavior. This guy prepared a meal, prepared something for you to learn, and this is how you treat him? You know, no pastor, at least of our sorts, would ever condone that type of behavior. It's disgusting, it's diminishing, it's degrading, and it's really disrespectful, okay? I just wanted to bring that up because these things do happen today. You know, every once in a while, I'll pop on Facebook, you know, see somebody like, well, if I were to go to a new IFB church, I would go to this one, this one, this one, and this one, and not the rest of them, okay? You know what they're trying to tell you? They're trying to tell you something. You know what they're trying to tell you? I'm a rock star. That's what they're trying to say. I'm the rock star. I'm the real gangster here, okay? And because I'm the rock star and because I'm the real gangster, I could only go to a real rock star or gangster church. You know what those pastors, when they read that, you know what they say? They start calling around, please pray for me that that person doesn't come here. Please pray for me that that person doesn't come here. I will pay you to take that person. That's what they're saying because they know. When they hear that, this is what they hear. I'm coming into the church to divide and conquer. That's what they hear. That's exactly what they hear. That's exactly what's going on in this passage, okay? So, again, how do they do this? Well, they do this by elevating one person over another. And the Bible's very clear. God has given us pastors, evangelists, deacons, leadership positions, and the church for the edifying of the saints. That's the whole purpose. Now, God has given us different pastors and a multitude of them because some people learn differently. Some people relate to different people based on their life experiences or whatever, okay? But, look, any Christian should be able to flourish in any saved pastor's congregation, okay? That's a good steward, by the way. That's what I mean there, okay? So, again, let's review here. What's the problem with ranking or rock-starring Christians? What's the problem with rock-starring pastors? Well, again, the number one word that you want to come to your mind is pride, which is a profitability killer. That's what it is. It kills profitability. It robs you of your potential. And what it does is it leaves you into a church that is full of judgmental people, okay? And I'm talking about the bad type of judging because we already learned that we're supposed to judge people. The spiritual judgeth all things, okay? We've already talked about that. We've already covered it. But the type of judgment you don't want is the person that's like, yeah, I'm actually better than you because I listened to this pastor or that pastor. I was working a job. This was a couple years ago, and this lady found out that I was a pastor. And she's like, well, I go to Harvest Church over in Meridian. And my pastor, when he hears of a new pastor, he gets him on his email list, he invites him to breakfast, and he gets him under his tutelage, and I'm going to get that for you. And he'll help you better understand the Bible so you can grow your church bigger, so you won't have to do this job anymore. I was like, I don't care if I've got 1,000 people. I'm not going to quit my job. I like it. I'm addicted to it, okay? I might go part-time, but I really like what I do. I don't want to stop doing it, okay? I want to pay somebody else to do it, you know? And obviously, there will come a day where that may not be able to happen. I may have to just do this. But, you know, that's up to God's timing. But I told her, I was like, you know, I appreciate your concern, but I'm good. No, no, no, I want to know what church you go to. I was like, you don't want to know. I don't, you know, I don't want to tell you this. I really just want to get this done for you and just take care of you in this way and just leave, okay? And it was like pulling teeth. She wanted to know the name. And I'm like, I'm not telling you the name because you're going to go to Google and believe the lies. You've got a 1.5 review on Google. What is wrong with you? There has got to be something wrong with you, right? You know, you're way down here, whereas my pastor's up here. And she's like, but, okay, but what if you could just go to his breakfast and just learn from him? I was like, that isn't going to happen. He's going to wind up learning from me. She's like, what do you mean? I was like, you'll figure it out someday. And I'm not being prideful or arrogant. But it's like, you're not going to teach me anything. This guy doesn't even know how to explain the gospel over at Harvest, okay? You go knock on someone's door that goes to that church and ask them if they're 100% sure they're going to heaven, you know what they say? Gee, I don't know. I've never really thought about that before. Or they're just like, you know who I am? You know where I go? You know how many vans we have? You know how many ham sandwiches we give out? Gee, have you ever heard of our malto meal ministry? You know how many shoes we've sent to Africa? You know this? That's their attitude, okay? It's despicable. It's disgusting. And the biggest problem of all by rock starring pastors, you're rock starring yourself. And when you're full of yourself, it makes it hard for anyone, especially a pastor, to actually feed you and give you the word of God. And the biggest problem of all is this is extremely offensive to God. And that's what Paul is going to get really going on here in just a moment. So one more time, look at verse number two. He says that, actually back up to verse one again. So let a man sow account of us. So he's trying to correct their thought process. He's saying, hey, let a man sow account of us, okay? Not as better than the other, not as rock stars, but as the ministers of Christ. So who's at the head? Christ, the Son of God, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Let's talk about that word, okay? Stewards. Now keep your place there in 1 Corinthians 4. Real quickly, go forward in the New Testament to 1 Peter chapter number 4. 1 Peter chapter number 4. Let's talk about this word stewards for a minute. What is stewardship? Okay, well in the Bible, a steward, or just in life in general, okay? A steward is somebody who has been entrusted to take care of someone else's stuff, okay? And in this case, we're told that we are to think of the apostles, pastors, leaders as stewards of the mysteries of God, okay? There's a lot of mysteries that are talked about in the New Testament. For example, the gospel is a mystery, okay? Why is it a mystery? Because if you're not saved, you can't understand it. Another mystery. What's another one? Let's see. The fact that it's not about Jew and Gentile. It's about the fact that we're all one in Christ. It's about the fact that we are the Israel of God. That's what the Bible says. That's a mystery to a lot of people. That's a mystery that many people today just don't seem to get, don't want to understand, don't want to receive. And then there's the mystery here that we're gonna talk about very quickly in 1 Peter chapter number 4. So if you would, look at verse number 10. It says this. So this is Peter, okay? He says, As every man hath received the gift, okay? Think about this. Every man. Not just males, but females too, okay? Christians, the body of Christ. As every man hath received the gift, Even so, minister the same one to another. As, here it is, good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Okay? God's grace. What is grace? Grace means what we don't deserve. Okay? That's what grace is. Grace is what we don't deserve. It means free. It is the fact that God looked down on mankind and said, Guess what? These people are never gonna be able to save themselves. I will send my son to die for their sins, for the sins of the entire world. Okay? And we learn here that we are to be good stewards with the manifold. What does manifold mean? A manifold is many outlets. Okay? That's what that means. So there are many outlets of the grace of God. Okay? We don't have time to go too deep into that, but we're supposed to be good stewards of that. Okay? There's a lot of doctrines in the Bible, a lot of things in the Bible, and as we learn those, we need to take good care of them. Meaning we don't want to just learn these and just keep them to ourselves, right? When the opportunity arises, we want to be able to teach others and share with others and help others with these things. Verse 11. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Okay? Now go back to First Corinthians chapter four. So we can see there that we're supposed to be good stewards. Whether you want to be a pastor or a deacon or an evangelist, you want to start a church someday, you know, that's great, but it doesn't matter. Okay? Even if you don't want that, you are supposed to be a steward. Everybody in here needs to be a steward of the word of God. You need to take good care of it. You need to be a steward of what God has given you because everybody in here has gifts and has abilities that are definitely from God. Now here's the key thing that you want to understand, again, about a steward. The steward takes care of the master's stuff. Okay? And that's going to be very important here in a second. And by the way, a good steward only cares about the opinion of one person. Let's see that. Let me show you that here real quick. Look at verse three. You want to learn how to be mentally tough? Think about this verse here. Okay? Think about this. Verse three, but with me. Okay? But with me, because remember, these people are very judgmental. They're like, ah, I'm better than you. I'm better than you. We're better than everybody else, blah, blah, blah. And so what that caused is people to have a negative view. Some people have a very negative view of the apostle Paul. Look what he says. But with me, it is a very small thing. That I should be judged of you. Okay? Look, this is, you want to talk about being a Savage? This is Savage here. This is Savage speak right here. This is Paul saying, look, this, this doesn't even really bug me. It's a minor thing. Okay? Cause Paul's on the outside. Paul's like, Hey, look, you guys are dropping the ball at every opportunity here. You guys are just so messed up. It's insane. It's literally unreal. And he's like, I'm not worried about what you're saying about me. See, I'm worried about you guys and whether or not you're even going to make it as a church. So he says, but with me, it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judgment. Yay. I judge not mine own self. Why is that? How did we get to this place here? How do we get to the point where we just don't care what other people think about us? Cause everybody wants that. And there's, and even you could, you could say that a thousand times, there will always be feelings that arise in your heart when someone criticizes you or someone gives you the sideways look or whatever it is, you know, you're going to have these feelings like, Oh man, you know, I'm not able to please that person. How do you get like this? You get like this when you realize, and you understand that you are a steward and the only opinion that the steward cares about is the masters. So Paul's like the only opinion I care about is God's. I'm studying to show myself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, just like the Bible says. That's where it's at. That's how you become mentally strong by understanding who you are and who you serve, because there's always going to be, there is always going to be this invisible driving force that is going to try to get us, try to get people to fit into a box or fit into a certain mold. Every so often, every pastor that I'm friends with will tell you this is so true. Okay. I think I brought this up not too long ago, but I'm going to bring it up again. Is it two red hot preaching conferences ago, you're sitting down eating lunch with some of the pastors and one pastor is like, ah, you know, I just got done preaching sermon. This guy came up to me and said this. And I was like, that's funny. It's probably the same guy that said that to me. And we're just laughing about it. And pastor Anderson's like, you know what? I got people that come to my church that tell me I'm not even pastor Anderson and enough for myself. It's just cracking up and laughing because that's how some people are. Now, this is not the prevailing attitude in our circles or what have you, but it is around. It is something that we have to recognize and call out and stomp on those toes because those types of people, I'm telling you, and I'm not trying to be rude, they divide churches. You will say, how does a church get to a point where they're just all clicky? They do that by rock starring people, primarily themselves. So just keep that in mind. Whereas Paul here, he's like, I'm able to pull past that because the only opinion that I care about is Christ's. That's how you should be. That's how I should be. That is how we should be. So let's move on. You're looking at verse number four. He says, for I know nothing by myself. Is that your attitude? Think about it. Is that your attitude today? I know nothing by myself. Because it should be. It should be. I know nothing by myself, yet am I not hereby justified. But he that judgeth me is the Lord. A lot of times I'll see people that tattooed on them. Only the Lord can judge me. And it's like, do you know where that comes from? Do you even know what that means? You better get some understanding. But what is Paul trying to communicate here? He's saying, hey, I don't let people try to divide me from my friends. I don't let people try to set culture. I go to the word of God and we do what the word of God says. We believe what the word of God tells us that we should believe. And therefore, if anybody wants to come in here and say, oh, you know, the guy down the street's got 10,000 people, why don't you have it? I don't care. It doesn't matter. I don't care what you think about me. I don't care if you think I need the tutelage of pastor, scholar, so-and-so who has a breakfast every month and he has 18 vans that run through the community. Doesn't matter. The only thing I'm concerned about is are we biblical? That's it, okay? That is absolutely it. Remember the first time I ever went to visit Verity Baptist Church? I want to say it was sometime in 2014. And this subject had come up, Pastor Mendez, because back then it was only Pastor Anderson, it was Pastor Mendez. I don't think Pastor Berzins had gotten started yet or maybe he did. It was just new. But there would be people that would come through, Verity, and they'd be like, this isn't like faith forward. You don't do this, this, and this. Pastor Mendez was like, I'm fully persuaded that I'm doing things the way the Bible says and that's good enough for me. And that's the attitude you should have, right? Are we biblical? Well, you should have five songs like this church does. You should have the smoke machines like this church does. You should have this. No. Are we biblical? That's the key. Are we being good stewards with the abilities and gifts that God has given us? That is the question that needs to be answered. Verse five. Therefore, okay, so therefore, judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts and then shall every man have praise of God. And of course, I'm not gonna get too much into that. We talked about that a lot this morning referring to the judgment. So remember, in the end times, after time as we know it is done, the world has their own judgment. The unsaved go to a judgment, which is called the great white throne judgment. Believers go to the judgment seat of Christ. We talked about that last week. We'll get into it again here as the book progresses and we get further down in some of these chapters. So let's move on to the example here. Look at verse six. So Paul says this. And these things, brethren, okay, so these things that I just got done telling you, these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes, that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another. So what's Paul doing here? He's addressing what I already told you. What's behind a rock star pastor? A rock star person. Just ask them and they'll tell you. That's how they are. They won't say it like I just put it forth to you, but you'll hear it implicitly in their speech. That's just how it is. So he's saying, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes. So he's basically saying, hey, whether it be Apollos, what he's implying here, Peter, all of us apostles, all of us pastors, we're stewards of God. We take the Bible and we read it, we study it, we try to feed it to people, and we try to do the best that we can to do what it says. That's it. That's all that we are supposed to be looked at as stewards of the mysteries of God. But what people do, because man has this innate nature in him to want to see flesh succeed. Man wants flesh to win. This is the big draw in why so many people gravitate towards sports. Again, I'm not knocking. If you like to watch your hockey games, I told you before, I'll go with you. I want to see the fights too. I'll go to a baseball game. I don't really care. It's fine. But you're not going to see me become a fan, a fanatic. You're not going to see me spending a lot of time idolizing someone's natural genetic abilities. It's not biblical. That's basically what Paul's saying here. He's like, hey, look, we're all on the same page and you guys need to catch up. You guys need to understand that men are men at best. That's what the Bible will teach you. Apart from Christ, you're nothing. Your works are as filthy rags, just like we read this morning. So that's the idea. And he said, hey, I don't want you guys being puffed up against each other. There is a danger in elevating man. And what that danger is, is what? It's pride. It robs you of your profitability and all the things we just mentioned. So let's move on. Look at verse seven. It says, For who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive? So basically, in other words, he's like, what do you have that you just conjured up, that you're just so good that just by chance you have, that makes you so much better than anybody else? So he says, verse seven, For whom maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hast not received it? So your gifts, your abilities, need to go back to God. They need to go back to Christ who gave those to you. Again, this chest pounding mentality. Well God equipped me and not you, therefore, I don't want to say it too loud, but I'm better than you. No. Wrong attitude, man. We don't want to have that attitude. It destroys people's lives. It destroys churches. And it takes away from everything we talked about this morning in Matthew 25, about the judgment. Okay? What are we supposed to do to each other? We are supposed to help each other. Okay? That counts for eternal rewards. When we neglect that, we are literally storing up for ourselves, instead of gold and silver, wood, hay, and stubble that's just going to burn away and become nothing. Okay? You don't have to do that. We can follow the example that we see here and become rich in the things of God. So verse eight, Now verse eight, Paul's going to introduce to us some sarcasm. Okay? So pay attention to this. Verse eight, Now ye are full. Now ye are rich. Ye have reigned as kings without us. And I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you. Okay? So what is he doing here? Okay? He's trying to beat this attitude out of them. So he's like, Oh, you guys are full. Okay? They're full because they got the best preacher who just was somehow born with the gift that no one knows how he got, but he got it. Okay? Completely neglecting the fact that God gave them those abilities, that God gave them those gifts. Okay? And so he's like, Oh, now you're full. Now you're rich. Now you're kings. And then he says, I wish you guys were kings and I wouldn't have to deal with you. You could make me rich. You could bless me with it. So he's being sarcastic here. Verse nine, For I think that God hath set forth us. The apostles last, as it were appointed to death, for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. Okay? So again, the primary application here is they were elevating men. They were elevating apostles. They were elevating guys like Apollos. And he's saying, Hey, just so you guys know, you know, as apostles, like we finished dead last. Like it seems like we're mocked by the world. We're being mocked by you guys. We just can't win no matter what we do. Okay? Verse 10. He says, We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ. We are weak, but ye are strong. Ye are honorable, but we are despised. Okay? Does anybody think that they're wise in Christ? Dividing each other and just mocking each other? No. Paul's being facetious here. Okay? He's being sarcastic. He's angry. And he's also getting ready, like I said, at the beginning to really hit him with a super combo in chapter number five. Okay? If you're not familiar with that, what's going to go down next week, it will shock you. It will be very shocking. But we have to get through it. So he's like, Hey, we're fools. You guys are wise. You know, what's the big deal here? What's the problem? Okay? So doing that in a loving way, in the way that Paul's doing it, is supposed to get them to be like, Oh, he's right. Okay? He's right. We are literally acting like we're better than Paul. We're acting like we're better than the apostles. When in fact, you know, if the apostle Paul were to be able to come down today, like God said, it's all right. You can come down there and visit churches. He would be able to come in here and be like, Hey, that's wrong. You would have that authority. But can another pastor come in here and do that? Of course not. We're independent. Okay? We don't tolerate that. But look at verse 11. Even until this present hour, we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted. Right? They get beaten all the time. It says, and have no certain dwelling place. So again, this goes back to the wisdom of God. See the world says, no, God's blessing you. If you've got 10,000 people, you've got five school buses, 18 vans, you get a hundred thousand dollars a month in donations. That's how you're blessed. Right? You must be blessed by God. What are the, what is the apostle Paul saying here? He's like, we're going without meals. We're getting beaten. We're getting stoned. We're getting kicked. We're getting, you know, we're getting tore up from every angle. The people that we got saved are better than us. Okay. That's what we get for serving the Lord. Okay. But look at what he says about that. Verse 12, labor working with our own hands. Okay. So there you go. Sometimes these guys had to, to work with their own hands to, to help build these things up. He says, being reviled, we bless. Being persecuted, we suffer it. Meaning we allow it. So he's saying, Hey, yes, we go through these things, but guess what? We allow it. Why do they allow it? Because they understand the reasoning that these things are happening to them. Okay. Because the enemy is real. Okay. With again, the enemy does is he comes in and says, if you were truly blessed, you would have fame. You would have riches. You would have that jet. The reason why Jesse Duplantis has four jets is because he is blessed by God. Don't you know that? If you were really blessed Pastor Jones, you would have a bus. You would at least be able to make a down payment, you know, by now for a jet. You've been around for almost five years, but you can't afford the jet. Therefore God doesn't love you. Okay. That's the idea. I'm telling you that's how some people, that's how most of professing Christianity is. But this is real Christianity. Look at verse 13. Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world and are the off scouring of all things to this day. He's saying real Christianity. Okay. When you believe the word of God and you preach the word of God, line upon line, precept upon precept, you're going to be viewed by the world and carnal Christians as the scum of the earth. Go look at our reviews. Okay. That's all I've got to say. To the world, we are the scum of the earth, the absolute scum of the earth. Look at verse 14. He says, I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons, I warn you. Sometimes warning people, you gotta be tough. You gotta tell them like it is and give it to them straight, not hide it, and then give it to them later. No. When it happens. Okay. Verse 15. For though ye have 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers, for in Christ Jesus, I have begotten you through the gospel. So he's reminding them, Hey, I begot you. I got you guys saved. Okay. And all of a sudden, now you got 10,000 instructors in Christ. You're going to see later on, he's like, when you guys assembled together, everybody's got a hymn. Everybody's got a Psalm. Everybody's got a word of knowledge. You guys are just so puffed up. You don't even need us. You don't need any help. Look at verse 16. Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me. And that's where people like to extract from. So, oh, you know, people will, they'll spin this a couple of ways. They'll say, okay, there's a doctrine called the supremacy of Paul. And in this current age and dispensation, whatever Paul says, even if it seems to contradict Jesus, we go with what Paul says. That's foolishness. I don't have time to really get into it. That's dumb. Because all the word of God harmonizes all of it. Okay. Paul didn't say anything different than Jesus. That's ridiculous. Another thing people will say is that, well, in the Greek, it doesn't say this. Okay. We're not supposed to follow man. What this says in the Greek is we're supposed to walk beside him. If you really knew Greek. So I know you don't know Greek. You're an idiot. That's not what it says. He's saying, follow me. Why can Paul say that? Because he's a good steward and he doesn't think more about man than what is written about man. So he's like, you can follow me because I'm following Christ. Think about the apostle Paul. He was hand picked by Jesus Christ himself. He has the right to say that. Okay. So we are allowed to follow man if he's following Christ. That's okay. Okay. But the world hears that. Oh, your last name's Jones. You must be related to Jim. Kind of a funny story about that. Pastor Mendez's dad, we got this long running joke that's been going on now for like five years to where he was trying to ask me if I was really related to Jim. I think somebody had mentioned that to him and I said, well, I do have a Kool-Aid recipe. You know, if you want to try, he's like, no, no, no, no, brother. I don't want to try your Kool-Aid recipe. So every time I say that, I'm like, hey, I brought the Kool-Aid today. He's like, no, no, no, no, brother. No, no, no, Kool-Aid. You know, and I don't know for sure, but I think for a short season, he actually believed I was related to him. Because you know me, I like joking around and goofing around with people. So sometimes I'll let jokes go that I probably shouldn't have. But yeah, I'm not related to Jim. Jones don't want to be. Okay, we can follow Paul because he follows Christ. That's what he's saying. Yeah, look at verse 17. For this cause, I have sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son. Now, he's not like, I'm his real biological dad. Got him saved. He's training Timothy up. He's a pastor. And he's gonna send Timothy to help straighten these guys out, to follow up with them to make sure they're doing right. So he says, For this cause, I have sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways, which, and here it is, be in Christ. Okay, be in Christ. As I teach everywhere in every church. So nothing is hidden. The stuff that Paul's telling these guys is stuff that he would tell every church, okay? Everybody, okay? There's no secret sauce like, oh, this church over here got a special word of knowledge. No, it wasn't like that. Paul said, This is the way it is. I need you guys to all share truth, read the letter from the Ephesians. You know, you Colossians, read the letter from the Philippians, and so on and so forth, and grow in the knowledge and wisdom of Christ. So, verse 18. So we're almost done, okay? Now some, he says this, Now some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you. So you got some people, and they're like, you know, the Apollos crowd, perhaps. Okay, they're like, Paul ain't gonna do nothing. What are you gonna do? Do something, Paul. Come down here. He ain't gonna do nothing, okay? He ain't gonna do nothing to me. That's how some of these guys were acting. So that's the way he brings us up. Now some are puffed up, as though I would not come unto you. Look what he says in verse 19. But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, and will know not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power, okay? We'll talk about what that means here in a second. Verse 20, For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. So what does that mean there in verse 19, when Paul says, But I will come unto you shortly, if the Lord will, and will know not the speech of them which are puffed up. So what Paul's saying he's gonna do, is he's gonna come there, and he's not gonna be like, okay, tell me everything you said. What did you say? And let me just try to softly walk on eggshells, and be like, okay, and I'm gonna reason with you, and I'm gonna coddle you. Paul wasn't like that. He's like, no, I'm gonna know. Look at the end of the verse there. He says, I won't know the speech of them that are puffed up, but the power. Meaning they don't have any power, because these people that are like, Paul ain't gonna do nothing. They don't have any power. They don't have any works. They're trusting in their own natural abilities, which is why they're rock starring themselves, and who they think is their super pastor, okay? And he's saying like, I'm gonna be able to go there, and know right away, you got no power, you're not getting people saved, you're not edifying people, you're not growing in the Lord. He's like, I'm gonna take one look at you, and I'm gonna know you're a fraud. You're a walking red flag is what you are, with strobe lights coming out of it, okay? It's gonna be that easy for me, and that's why he says in verse 20, for the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power, okay? What he means by that is by the power of the word of God. That's what he means by that, because that's how we get power. We're filled with the Holy Ghost. I mean, we're indwelled with the Holy Ghost, I should say, after salvation, and like he's already taught us, once you have the Holy Ghost, you can understand the Bible. You can read the Bible, you can get knowledge, you can get wisdom, you can get understanding, and you can thereby grow. What these guys are doing now, is they're saying, we're growing in our own wisdom, in our own knowledge, because we're so smart, and we read this book and that book, and we have these special words that really just hit home. You know what I mean? We're really eloquent of our own accord, and that's gonna help out God, and that's how we're gonna build the church. So in other words, we're gonna pull the Rick Warren approach, and what we would do, is we're gonna go around to the community and reason with people, and we're gonna ask you, hey, what kind of music do you like? Do you like rap? Do you like country? Do you like rock? What is it? And we're gonna model our services that way, so that we can relate to you, and be relatable, and then we'll grow, and we'll have the Pac-Man background, and everything that goes with it, and yes, that's how we're gonna grow. And Paul's gonna walk in there, and be like, this is a joke. This is a clown show. This is nothing more than Chuck E. Cheese or Pojo's over here. In fact, I'd rather go to Pojo's than most churches around here, just to be honest with you. I'd be more edified. Look, tell me you wouldn't be more edified playing ski ball over here at Pojo's, and going to some church that uses the NIV, or tells you that you gotta work and repent from yourself. I mean, it's ridiculous is what it is. We're in big trouble in this country, okay? And that is exactly the position that these people were in. And Paul's like, I'm gonna be able to spot you, because you're trusting in the word of man versus real power, which comes from the word of God. Okay, last verse. Verse 21. What will ye? Okay. What will ye? Shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness? So he's trying to give them an ultimatum here. He's telling them, how do you want it? Okay, because if the Lord allows me, I'm coming there with two things. It's either gonna be a rod, or it's gonna be in the spirit of meekness. Which one do you want? And of course, if they're smart, which you'll find out they do, you know, take heed to what he says later on, they get right, and he's gonna be able to go there in the spirit of meekness. Okay, and people say, oh, you know, if you were to just read this verse to somebody and say, do you think this is from the Bible or the Quran? You know what most people would tell you? That's gotta be from the Quran. That can't be from the Bible. You mean, tell me that an apostle would actually threaten a church to show up with a rod? Now, he's not saying, like, I'm gonna come there with a real, like, a metal baton like I have down here and just start beating the crap out of people. Okay, that's not what he's talking about. But basically, he's saying, I can come over there and just start ripping you apart with the word of God and just, you know, stepping on toes and just chewing you up. That's what he's saying. And he's like, is that what you want? Do you want me to come there and start preaching sermons and start kicking people out of church? Because he had the authority to do that. Because he is an apostle of Christ. Or do you want the other method? Where I come there in the spirit of meekness and truth. Okay, so that's basically what's going on. And you can kind of tell by that last statement there, he's getting ready to hit them hard. Okay, he's getting ready to hit them really hard next week with some stuff that a lot of people, again, have never heard. We don't want to talk about it, but we're gonna talk about it and we're gonna understand it. Okay, so we're gonna stop right there for tonight. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you again, Lord, for allowing us to be able to gather here this evening and serve us and bring us safely again next week. And again, we do thank you for all that you do for us. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.