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

All right, we're in First Timothy chapter number four and look down at your Bibles at verse number 13. It says, till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. And the main word I want to focus on there is attendance. So what the Apostle Paul is doing here is basically instructing Timothy how to keep the church in order. And one of the things he tells them to do is make sure you pay attention, make sure you give attendance to, make sure you guys are consistent in these areas, which is reading, exhortation and doctrine. This is one of the reasons why we read the entire chapter prior to us preaching or prior to myself preaching. It says there to exhortation and to doctrine, doctrine is actually teaching. So my responsibility as a shepherd here is to teach the word of God, to teach doctrine, to make sure the church understands certain principles and doctrines from the word of God. Now turn with me if you went to chapter number three and look what it says in verse number 14. It says, these things write I unto you hoping to come unto thee shortly, but if I tarry long that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth. So we obviously understand that chapter four is a reflection of what he's saying in chapter number three about how we ought to behave in the house of God. And one of the things he tells them to do is like, Hey, one of the behaviors that Christians ought to have is that they give attendance to these things, right? But what I want to focus on this morning is things that are basically principles that we can glean from, from the doctrines that we already know. And the title of the sermon this morning is church disciplines, church disciplines. Now this has nothing to do with excommunicating people from out of the church that took place last week. Okay. So if you don't, if you want to learn about that, you could just revisit the sermons from last week on online, on YouTube and talk about church discipline, right? But these are church disciplines, things that we ought to as a church, I believe should adhere to give attendance to. And these things really will make our church better. He said, don't you think our church is great? Absolutely. I think we have the best church in California. Now look, I love Verity Baptist Church is doing its job in the North, but you know, I have a bias towards our church here, amen. And I think we have the greatest church, but you know what? I think we can become a greater church, but the way we become a greater church is by creating greater individuals within the church. And how do individuals become greater by just taking care of that, which is just basic. How do you become a better Christian by fine tuning and really mastering the basics of the Christian life? Well, you know, I think if I'm going to become a greater Christian, I need to know all the facets of end time Bible prophecy, you know, Daniel 70th week, all the timeline, well, you know what? That will help you to be a more knowledgeable Christian. But if you want to be a better Christian, a greater Christian, that happens when you just master the basics, because when you master the basics, everything else seems to just fall into place, okay? So this is what we're going to, and it's going to be a very practical sermon. So you know, if you're looking for that bombastic, foaming out my mouth type of sermon, you know, you're going to have to go in the past and watch some sermons or wait till in the future when something else takes place, right? And we'll do that. We want to be an effective church. We want to be an efficient church. And we want to make sure that every individual within our church reaches their potential. Look, we're about to go independent in about a month or so. And at that point, we're no longer Faithful World Baptist Church. We're First Works Baptist Church. And at that point, you know, we have the responsibility as individuals to mature, to grow up, right? To know if you came to our church, a babe in Christ, well, you know what? Now you have the responsibility to grow up. You should no longer remain a babe in Christ, right? Or maybe you've been in church for many years, but you've reverted a little bit. You become a child once again. You become a babe once again. Okay, well, now it's time to put on your big boy pants. Now it's time to take on some responsibilities. Now it's time to get some character. Now it's time to get some disciplines and actually come to church, not just for a show, but actually because it actually benefits you. It benefits your family. You want to learn something. You want to become greater at what you're doing. You know, we never want to be the type of church that thinks that we have nothing to work on. Well, first of all, you never want to be an individual that thinks I have nothing to work on. I have arrived. I'm downpacked. I got everything. Everything's good to go. That's not a proper attitude to have. And once you get that attitude, then you stop growing. You're going to revert. You're going to go back. You're going to regress. You're not going to grow in your Christian life and you're actually going to, you're going to deteriorate is what you're going to do. And the same goes as a church. If we as a church think, well, we got everything down pack. Our sowing is great. The preaching is great. The fellowship is great. Nothing needs to be worked on. You're wrong. We always have something that we need to work on. Now thankfully, I believe we have a church that is not deficient in that which is most important. You understand what I'm saying? You go to certain churches and they're deficient. You know, they don't do the sowing. Or they don't do enough of the sowing, right? Or the members do sowing, but maybe the pastor does it. Or the pastor does the sowing, but the church members don't do the sowing, right? Or you know, they preach hard on sin, but they're very weak on doctrine. That's a deficiency that that church has, right? You know, you have churches that are strong in being King James only, but they're not strong in sowing. That's a deficiency. Or the other way around, they're strong on sowing, but they're not very... They may be King James, but they don't take a strong stance on being King James only. That is a deficiency in that church, okay? And I'm not talking about deficiencies within our church. I'm talking about things that I believe we're strong on, but we need to make better, okay? Now go with me, if you would, to 1 Corinthians chapter 14. I'm gonna read to you from Revelation chapter 3, verse number 2, it says, be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die, for I have not found thy works perfect before God. What does perfect mean? It means complete. So what God is saying here is he's telling the church here in Revelation chapter 3 that we need to make sure that these things which remain, these things that we have down packed, we need to make sure that we strengthen them, okay? We need to fortify them, reinforce them, make them stronger. Now look at 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse 26. It says here, verse 26, how is it then, brethren, when you come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying. Now what was the problem here? Because is there a problem with having a psalm? No. Is there a problem with having doctrine? Definitely not. Is there a problem with being able to speak another language? Having a tongue? No. Is there a problem with having a revelation? Absolutely not. Now when it says revelation there, it doesn't mean a new revelation. A revelation is basically you coming to someone, it's like you coming to someone and say, hey, I just learned something new, check this out. You know, I read this in the Old Testament and this was revealed unto me and I compare scripture with scripture and it matches up, isn't that great? You know what I mean? That's what that means there. Hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying. What was the problem that they had here is that they were disorderly. All these things were done at the same time. Someone had a psalm, someone had a doctrine, someone had a tongue, you know, were speaking. Someone had a revelation and interpretation and it was all just kind of disorderly. It was just chaotic is what it was. You know, our church and God's churches should have order to them, right? Look at verse 33. For God is not the author of confusion but of peace as in all churches of the saints. Metro women keep silence in the churches. So we're dealing with the Pentecostal, Charismatic type church here, right? Because the women were not keeping silent. They were speaking up and look, I've known Baptist churches that do that. Independent fundamental Baptist churches that do that where, you know, the lady's like, hey man, brother, you know, the Tony Hudson type churches, right? The south type churches, you know, and look, just because they're in the south doesn't mean you got to be that way. We have churches who are like-minded with us who don't have churches like that. So it's not like, oh, that's just the, that's just how they are. No, yeah, that is just how they are. But not everyone in the south has to be that way, okay? It says there, let your women keep silence in the churches for it is not permitted unto them to speak but they are commanded to be under obedience as also sayeth the law. Look at verse 37. Let's see here. Verse 37 says, if any man think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that are right unto you are the commandments of the Lord. But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant. I like what he says there. So he's in this chapter, he's admonishing the people. He say, look, you got to improve in these areas, make sure you're orderly. But obviously there's going to be some people in the church. They just want to be ignorant. And you know what? Let them be ignorant. So what's this? Who's this sermon for? Well, obviously I'm preaching it to the church, but I'm preaching it to those who want to improve. I'm preaching it to those who said, you know what, I have not arrived yet. I want to continue to grow. What do I need to do? What are the steps that I need to take to grow? But the person, there's other people in here maybe who are just like, well, I just come because I just come or my mom drags me to church. My dad drags me to church or I'm just here cause I know I need to be in church, but I'm not really interested in growing. Okay. Be ignorant then. Right? If any man be ignorant, right? Stay ignorant. If you want to continue to be, if you want to continue to be an ignorant person and not grow and you just want to have the label that you go to church and the label that you're an independent fundamental Baptist, that's fine. If you want to remain in that, be ignorant. Tune me out. Think of what you're going to eat after lunch or whatever. Look at verse 40, let all things be done decently and in order. Go to first Corinthians chapter number 12 if you would go back to first Corinthians chapter number 12 it says in verse number four, now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. There are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God, which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit with all. So we see here that God is giving us as a church, the Liberty to operate in a certain way. Right? And that's why we have church on Sundays, for example. That's why we, we have the order of service, the way we do the, the, the, so many times the way we, we operate it. What can we do? It's just like, well, where's that in the Bible? Well, if it's not specifically in the Bible, when we're supposed to do something, then we just use the wisdom of God. We have our preferences and that is now become the operation of our church. You understand? Look at verse 27. Now you are the body of Christ and members in particular, and God had set some in the church first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers after that miracles, then gifts of healing helps governments, diversities of tongues. So what is governments? Governments mean that we're like a, a, a government church run church like China, right? Where they literally is just like, they literally have to turn in their sermon to make sure they're not preaching anything that's contrary to communism or whatever. Governments just mean that we have order in the church. There's leadership in the church that maintains and establishes government, right? So everything's not chaotic. You don't just come up here and say, well, you know, I think the Bible actually says this, right? That's chaotic. That's disorderly. In the church, we have government here. So this is what I want to talk about. I want to talk about church disciplines and I'm basing it off of everything we just talked about and I'm just going to go through seven things that we as a church need to make sure that we're consistent in. Now when you hear these, you're like, well, that's obvious. Yeah, but you know, sometimes it's the most obvious things that we need to talk about and sometimes people are just new to church and they don't know that these things are important. Okay. Church discipline number one, attend church on a regular basis, which what I mean by that faithfulness, consistency and making it a priority. So church should not just be something that you do throughout the week. It's it's something that's part of your life. Like I don't agree with that. I have other things that are more important than church than he that is ignorant. Let him be ignorant then. But you know, we believe, I believe, and I believe the Bible teaches that church should be an integral part of our lives. Church should be a priority. We should be faithful. We should be consistent and not just for consistency sake. It helps us as individuals go to Hebrew chapter 10 if you would, Hebrew chapter number 10. Now I realize that I'm speaking to people who drive from far and wide to come to our church and sometimes it's very difficult to come to church. So you take this with a grain of salt if you live like two hours away or whatever. You know, obviously you should make, you should plan, I would say to move closer to church. I would. Right. If you like our church and you feel like this is your church, you know, I believe that our family and our way of life should be, should, should encumber where the church is at. This is, this is part of our life here, right? Church. But look at Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 24 it says, and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. So the commandment here is for us to encourage one another, provoke one another into good works, right? You are spiritually strong and you that are strong should bear the infirmities of the weak. Someone who is discouraged in the Lord, they're going through a time of depression or maybe they're just a babe in Christ and they have a, they have a trouble being consistent within the Christian life. We who are strong should provoke them unto good works, right? You know, we who are strong should encourage new believers, Hey, why don't you come sowing with me? Let's go sowing. Oh man, but I've never done it. Well, you don't have to. You just be a silent partner. Watch me do it. And whenever you're ready, you can start talking. Provoke that person unto good works. But how is that done? Verse 25, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. So the way you provoke one another into good works is by assembling together. This is the assembly of God, the real assembly of God, right? Not that false, wicked cult, false gospel preaching here, heretical apostasy church, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves. So we're not the first forsaken out. Here's the thing, okay? Because that will say unto me, Oh man, we'll already come to church Sunday morning. Are you saying that I'm not right with God if I don't come Sunday night or Thursday night? No, I'm not saying that. And in fact, nowhere in the Bible does it say we should have church on Sunday night or Thursday, right? This is what we have chosen as an operation for our church and we believe works. But I will say this, look what it continues to say. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. So we should assemble so much the more as you see the day approaching. So in other words, whenever those doors are open for church service, you should try to be here. You should try to be here as much as you possibly can. And look, you think to yourself, man, there's so many people that miss church or you know, they don't come to church and we're living in the Laodicean church era where people don't want to come to church. Everyone's heart is cold towards God. It says not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is. So guess what? There's nothing new under the sun. Even in this church era, right, in this time in the book of Hebrews, people were still being lazy not coming to church. Their hair hurts or you know, their dog died or they got a barbecue with their cousin. They had excuses back then as people have excuses today. So in order for us to go forward for God, look, there's no such thing as like a lone ranger Christian. We do need each other. We do. I need you. You need me. You need one another. We need the encouragement and the provoking unto good works. And look, mark it down. If you're, if you are just being, if you're, if your heart is becoming apathetic towards the things of God, one thing that does fire you up is when you're around people who are not apathetic. They're on fire. It's just like, man, I want to like, that's provoking one another to good works. But that happens when you come to church and look, we want to make sure that we make church a priority. I remember when I first got saved, I literally thought there was only church on Sunday mornings. I went to Pacific Baptist Church and I went there Sunday morning. I went to Sunday school class and then I went to the main church service. You guys know what Sunday school class is? It's this, you know, a little operation that they had, right? And I would go there and I was just like, this is great. And that's all I would do for like, I don't know, two or three weeks. And then, uh, the assistant pastor got up and said, Hey, we were promoting something in our church. It's called four to flourish. And what he was saying is basically you come Sunday morning, Sunday night, uh, Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night, uh, Thursday night, they have Thursday service. And he goes, I guarantee that if you want to grow in the Christian life, you show up to all those services, you will grow in your Christian life. And I was like, they got more services here? I was like, wow, that's crazy. And then I remember one of those Sunday school teachers came and say, yeah, why don't you come tonight for service? And I was like, well, I got to, I got to, I live like, oh yeah, why don't I come? I'm like 21. What do I have to sleep or something? I got something important to do. I got to go sleep or take a nap or eat or, you know, do whatever. And I was like, yeah, I'll come. And you know what? I grew. And I grew and I grew. And I guarantee you, any person you ask, what helped them grow in their spiritual life? More often than not, they'll tell you just coming to church consistently, showing up to every service. Okay. And look, you can still be right with God and go to one service. Absolutely. But you will stunt your spiritual growth if you only come to one service. You can still be right with God though. And that's important. Amen. But aren't we taught? Should I not speak unto you? Not as unto babes, but as unto grown men? Should I not speak unto you, not as children, but as grown men? And should I not try to provoke you to say, yeah, one service is good, two is better, three is great. What about the fourth? What about Sunday school class? Well, we make up for that in the main service here, okay? You get enough Bible in the main service to make up for both main service and Sunday school in the old IFP church. Let's continue to read. It says in verse 26, for if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth that remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. So obviously, you know, when you're outside of these walls, we can't say we're not right with God if we're not in church though, or we can't say we're right with God if we're not in church. So if you're not in church, you can't say, I'm reading my Bible, I'm soul winning. Well, first of all, let me just correct something here. If you're soul winning, but you're not going to church, you have your priorities all mixed up. And I'm getting ahead of myself here. We should not have this attitude of, well, let's just go soul winning. We won't go to church, but we will go soul winning with the church. That's not the way it works. I woke up late, then wake up early. That's novel. Well, how am I supposed to do that? Go to bed on time? One. What's on time? 930, 10 o'clock. Get yourself a good eight hours of sleep. Here's a novel idea. An alarm clock. Here's another novel idea. Coffee. Amen. Praise God, park it, yes. These things help, right? They assist us in coming to church. But let me say this is we want to make sure that we're faithful, we're consistent, and we make church a priority. Now go with me if you would to, let's see here. Go to Romans chapter number 10 if you would. Romans chapter number 10. So what does this mean by attending church faithfully, making it a priority? Well, we do not downplay the importance of attending church to ourselves nor to our children. You understand that? So don't minimize the importance of attending church. Obviously to yourself, but more so to your children. Like oh, you know, dad, are we going to church? No, not tonight. They're like, oh, okay, because you know, in their minds, they're going to think, well, I guess church is not that important. If the man of the house, the leader, the boss, the lord of that house says that we don't have to go. And especially if the children, after you said that, see you sit your butt on the couch to watch some TV, he's like, oh, that's what dad wants to do. That's why we're not in church. Hello. You know, we need to make sure that we never downplay the importance of church and look, you will regret it when your children grow up. You will regret downplaying church to your children once they grow up. Because look, we are what we would refer to as a family integrated church. What does that mean? We operate church in such a way that we take the next generation into account. So basically what we do is we encourage all the children, all the families to stay together during the church service because we want the children to hear the preaching of God's word and build up a healthy spiritual appetite for preaching and the things of God from a very early age. You know, we're not throwing candy at them and, you know, singing stupid songs. The only song that's not stupid is Father Abraham. That's a good theme song for replacement theology. But you know, they're not building these unholy appetites, these apathetic appetites for these liberal churches, they're actually building up good appetites. So we have integrated church, obviously for the protection of the families, but we're thinking of the next generation is what we're doing. We're taking the little ones into consideration, teaching...and look, it's a hassle sometimes, is it not? Those of you who are parents who have little ones, you know, they get out of hand, they're crying, they're squirming all over the place, they're crawling, you're just trying to grab them. You have to go and spank them and then you're like, man, brother, he is getting on me for not paying attention, but I have like the baby and all that stuff. I get that, okay? Sometimes it's a hassle, but it's worth it. It's very much worth it because a couple of years in church, they'll just be able to sit in church and listen to the preaching of God's word with ease. And they'll have that built in core value of being in church. Now look, we love the fact that we have a family integrated church and why? Because we're teaching the next generation, but what if you don't even come to church? You're still teaching them, aren't you? You're teaching that the family integrated church that you uphold so much and that you criticize the old diet B for not having is not important to go to all the time, you understand? So we need to make sure that we make this, now I'm not talking about, look, be faithful to church, but let me give you some exceptions to this rule. If you're dead, don't come. I'm good with that. If you're sick, don't come to church. Why? Because you get me sick. You get everyone else sick. Let me share another very novel idea with you. If your children are sick, I mean, don't just leave them at the house and you come to church. You know, one parent should stay and one parent should come like, oh, but we don't want to miss church. I get that and thank you for your zeal, but you actually do more damage if you bring your children sick to church. You say, well, what do you mean by sick? Well, let me give you two cases, okay? Let me give you an extreme case and not so extreme case. Here's the extreme case. If your children is throwing up like the exorcist, projectile vomiting, probably shouldn't come to church, okay? Or if your children just has a cold or a hand, foot and mouth disease or someone throw out some baby infirmities, meat, measles, yeah, don't bring them to have measles, right? Chicken pox. I'm talking about things that are contagious, right? Don't bring them to church. You're like, oh, I don't want to miss. Yeah, but here's the thing is you do want to miss because you don't want to infect other children and guess what? Again, other families have to stay from home because people are getting sick and stuff like that, okay? So the exception to the rules is if your children are sick or if you're sick, if you're bleeding and dying, don't come. You're still right with God. You're just taking care of your children who are sick, okay? And look, throwing up is a big one. Now, if your child comes to church and you didn't know they were sick and they just throw up and then on the spot, I get that, you didn't know. But if you know that they're puking, they're throwing up, we're going to go to church anyways because we're independent fundamental Baptists, bless God. Get right with God. You're just like getting on there, you're like, you're going to come to church no matter what. No, stay home. Let's use some wisdom, right? So and look, we all have an excuse why not to come to church, don't we? We can always come with an excuse why we can't come on Sunday night, why we come, but here's the thing, let me flip this on you. Why don't you make an excuse why you should come to church, right? It's easier to look for an excuse why not to come, but it's actually harder sometimes to actually come up with an excuse why we should come. But you know what? There's far more excuses, good excuses, why you should come than not to come. Why should you be in church? Well, because I'll grow and learn God's word, I'll get the fellowship that I need. There's many excuses, but it's funny that we use the excuses why not to come than the excuses why we should come, you understand? So we shouldn't miss church unless we're sick, hey, out of town, but look, I believe if you're out of town, you should still go to church. Even when I was in my old IFP church, if I was out of town, I would still attend another church and I'd go to Sunday school, believe it or not, because at that time I had that conviction to go to Sunday school. I no longer have that conviction to go to Sunday school class. I don't think it's necessary anymore. You say why? Because the old IFP sermon was about 20 minutes long and Sunday school class was about 20 minutes long, 40 minutes total. Our church services have 50 minutes, sometimes more, if I'm really on something, worth the preaching. But I believe if you're out of town, you don't take a vacation from being a Christian. It's not like you're out of town and you just, well, I'm not in California, only in California do I attend church or whatever. If you're out of town, go to church. And look, if you have to, go to an old IFP church. It's not like you're becoming a member there. Yeah, but they're pre-trimmed. Then that's cool that you're the only post-trim guy who's actually able to go in there and be a part of that church service. So as I mentioned, don't come strolling in for soul winning and not come to church. Okay? Like, well, I just want to make sure at least I get that soul winning time. No, because the church sends you out to go do soul winning. Right? Look at the Bible says in Romans chapter 10, verse 13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in him in whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher? That's the verse of the people who come soul winning but don't come to church. Man, they need a preacher. Verse 15, and how shall they preach except they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. Hey, you need to be sent from our church to go preach the gospel. So look, sometimes people will, and then what, you're going to give out like our tracks or invites where it has. Yeah. Make sure you come to church. You know, maybe I don't go, but you guys can definitely go. You probably need it more than I do. And let me, let me just say this right now. Church is more important than soul winning. It's more important. Yes, it is. It's more important than soul winning. But you know, if you come to church, you're going to do the soul winning. That's how it works, right? It's like this. My family is more important than the church. It's not like I'm showing bias one toward another. It's called priorities in order. So if you don't come to church, you know, okay, you come so many, but you, you have your priorities mixed up. Okay. Have the discipline and the consistency of coming to church. I rather honestly rather have someone who's consistent in church and not go soul winning for a while than someone who only goes soul winning and doesn't come to church because I know for a fact that someone who comes to church consistently will end up going soul winning. I cannot guarantee that someone who only goes soul winning will actually come to church because obviously their priorities are mixed up. That's more important than church. Okay. So church attendance is very much important. And we need to make sure that we're consistent in that and look, be punctual to services. You know, I was going to talk about that, right? Be punctual. Now everyone who was late today was like, oh, and I purposely, I'm being honest with you. I purposely did not pay attention to anyone who was late today because I knew I was going to preach this point and I didn't want to have a bias toward someone if they like, you know, came to church late. So if you came to church late, don't worry about it. I don't know. Now other people may have may know and they may be looking at you looking at you. Okay. We should be punctual to church. This shows us and our children that church is important. Okay. When you say, Hey, we need to be here at this time. So we need to make sure that we get ready and look, being punctual shows what preparation, not just a flipping attitude towards church. Okay. It's, it takes preparation to get ready for something that's important. Let me ask you something. Are you late for your job? No. Well, the job, you know, they gave me a paycheck. Yeah, but this is the house of God. This is God's business and God deserves far more recognition, obedience and punctuality than even our own jobs. Now, obviously everything's in its order, so we're not saying that the work is not important. Work is absolutely important, but what I'm saying is this is, is that we should not have this attitude where we're punctual to everything else, but church, you know, you come in when you come in, you know, we, if we're late, we're making a statement that this isn't important. We're not taking others preparation into consideration either. People prepare for church, you know, and I'm not just talking about myself, there's people within our church that prepare for Sunday and we need to take that into consideration and be considerate of those things when we get ready for church. You know, look, I believe that we should wear our Sunday's best to church. I believe that wholeheartedly. We're ambassadors for Christ, we're representatives and you know, I don't think you should come to church sloppy. Well, I don't have a shirt and tie and suit like you, but then you wear your best. I'm not saying you have to wear this, but you wear your best and look, if you need a suit, I'll give you one if you can fit it, you know, if you're like three sizes smaller than me, then you know, obviously it's not going to look good on you or whatever. Or if you're three sizes bigger than me, you know, I believe you should wear your Sunday's best and we need to get rid of this culture that says, well, you know, we're not like the old IFB that, you know, they're, they're all about, you know, the clothing or whatever. I'm just going to come in my basketball shorts and my tank top and you know, just kind of just do church. For me, church is important. So I show up to God's house because it's important and I'd address the part, right? You know, when you go to, when you go to work, you have a uniform that you have to wear, right? And in fact, it is proven that you actually behave how you dress. You know, if you dress sloppily, you're going to behave sloppily. And if you dress appropriately, you will behave appropriately. Okay. And there's a lot that I can say about that, but I'm going to skip that for just a minute. But I do want to, I do want to emphasize that point, Hey, we should, we not dress to impress. Who cares about impressing anybody here, but we should dress for the men dress appropriately and for the women dress modestly. You understand that? You know, that obviously that's not popular today, but we want to make sure that the ladies in our church are a reflection of the, of God's holiness, that they're modest, that they're not just showing off, you know, their parts, their body parts and causing maybe men in our, in our church to stumble. We want to make sure that it's a reflection of the inner man that's within the woman and a man when he dresses should reflect Christianity. Are you saying a shirt and tie reflects Christianity? Let's let's have a guy who, who claims to be a Christian who's tatted from head to toe, has a Mohawk and a bone through his nose. And let's have brother Milan walk down the street and ask just the total stranger, which one's the Christian? They'll tell you that Milan is the Christian. And the other guy could be saved, right? He could be a saved guy. He's just worldly, but they will automatically see and say, well, that guy's probably the Christian. Fact. Okay. Hey, this is good. Amen. I know. I know we're not hitting on reprobates or anything like that, but this is still important. Okay. So church attendance. Another thing is this, Hey, make sure you have a good spirit when you come to church. Good spirit. What is a good spirit? Joyful, friendly, being spirit filled. God gave the, God gave every single one of us these things called teeth. We use it to chew food. We use it when we're mad at people, but we also use it to smile. You show them, you know, now the reprobates we threw out last week were lacking in that area. You know, one of them was toothless. Oh, you shouldn't make fun. I'll make fun of those reprobates all day, every day, these guys are wicked, but we should have a good spirit. Amen. We should have a good spirit when we come to church. What do I mean by that? Well, if you got in a fight with your wife prior to church and you guys are in a bad mood, leave that at the door. Don't bring that in here. Okay. Or if you're just got finished chastising your child or something, you're in a bad mood. Leave that at the door. If you got in a fight with your boyfriend or your girlfriend or you name it, leave it at the door. Come in here with a good, joyful spirit. Come spirit filled. And look, this actually takes place not before you enter into those doors, it actually takes place in your personal devotional time in the morning when you read your Bible. You know, on Sunday mornings, if you have that discipline, when you're reading your Bible, you're praying, you're asking God to fill you with your spirit just to get ready for church. Today's church. All right. And it kind of prepares your heart to come here with a good attitude. And what do I mean by a good attitude? You know, I'm not saying you have to 100% just throw out the day like, life sucks, but I got to smile. I'm not saying that. I'm saying, you know, sometimes you got to pay attention to how your countenance is. Because if you always have people saying, Hey, is everything okay? And you're like, yeah, why? There's probably a reason why they're asking, Hey, is everything okay? Because that countenance has fallen. You know, and it could be that maybe you're just thinking about things that you're just stressed out or whatever may be. But you know what, we need to make sure that we rule our spirits. He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls. Learn to smile, learn to have a good countenance, learn to have a good spirit. The Bible says the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear when someone has a wounded spirit, that individual has a hard time bearing with just life. But you know what, the people who have to look at that person, they have a hard time bearing that as well. People don't like to be around moody people. Have you noticed that? I don't like being around moody people. If I find out you're moody, I just take a left turn, right turn and go somewhere else. Because it affects us, doesn't it? It makes us moody, it makes us angry, it makes us emotional, whatever it may be. We need to make sure that we have a good spirit, an excellent spirit when we come to church. And that includes just like if you get in an altercation or a confrontation with your wife or your husband, apologize. Just say I'm sorry. Right before you get out of the car say, just say sorry. I'm just kidding. You say sorry, okay? You guys didn't get that. Apologize to your spouse and just say, I'm sorry, I had a bad attitude, I snapped at you, I was curt, I was sharp with you and I'm sorry for doing that. I apologize. Will you forgive me? Yes, I forgive you. All right, let's go to church, let's smile, let's have a good time. Thank God that we're saved, we're both going to church, look at the silver lining and everything. Try to fix the situation so you can have a good attitude when you come here. This is how you should not come here, okay? Just like, hey brother, what's wrong, nothing. All messed up, callers all over the place, you're just, and you just sit down and you're just like, yeah, yeah, everything's fine. You know, that's not a good attitude to have. It's like, okay, I'm staying away from this guy for an entire week, you know? But the person who comes in is just like, hey brother, how's it going, good to see you, joins the conversations, you know? And look, I'm not saying force yourself to have a good time, but if you're in the spirit, you're going to have a good time when you're here. Because to be quite honest with you, we as a church, we have a good time. Even before eating. We have a good time, you know? Here's the next one. When we come, we should be ready to hear. What do I mean by that? Paying close attention to the sermons, amen? But even to the announcements. We don't do the announcements just for the sake of filling in the service, by the way. It's just like, we need something else to do in the service. Give announcements. Oh, that's a good idea. We do it for your sake. Pay attention to the announcements. And look, it's not hard to pay attention to the announcements, okay? What's hard is fine tuning your focus. You need to be able to focus. A lot of people who have a hard time paying attention in church, it's because they watch too much television. Or, you know, their diet is really bad. And they have so much junk food within them that all the blood is trying to digest all that garbage in your stomach so the blood leaves your head to go do that. But if you don't have junk in your stomach, guess what? Then all the blood stays up here and you have this cognitive focus that's just sharp. That's too much for church. Church is where we need it the most. We're listening to the wonderful words of life. This is where we need to pay attention to the most, right? This is the Word of God. This is the King James Bible, okay? So the Bible, go to James chapter 1. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 2, verse number 1, Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. And that happens, doesn't it? When you're in church, you're just listening and all of a sudden you're just, it's just slipping. And then you're like, and then you come back to reality like, whoa, what did I miss? You know, you hear Brother Mejia and he's just talking, you know, normal tone and then you space out and then you come back when I'm yelling about some reprobate. Wait, wait, wait, who got thrown out? Wait, who's that? Wait, wait, what did he say? Wait, who? Pay attention! Pay attention to the things which you are listening to. Okay, look at James 1 verse 19, Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. The Bible says be swift to hear. What does that mean? You're ready. You're quick to listen. You're quick to hear. And look, there's going to be people here who are not going to put this into practice. Let them be ignorant then, you understand? But you, if you want to grow, you need to develop the ability to focus and retain that which is being spoken, that which is being taught. Learn to pay attention in church. Turn off the social media, turn off the television, turn off that which causes you to just wander off in your mind and learn to focus. They used to literally teach at House Anderson College. If you want to learn how to focus, they would literally tell you to grab a pen and just look at the tip of that pen for like five minutes straight to focus because people had such a hard time focusing in those days. I don't think you got to go to that extent. You know, eat some vegetables, get some sleep, turn off the television, and I think you'll be fine, okay? But we need to make sure that we pay attention and look, go to Luke chapter 8, if you would, Luke chapter 8. Hey, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. You put all the time and effort to make it here. You know, the gas money, the effort, waking up on Sunday early on, you know, waking up at early, the early morning of the hours, 9.30, 9.45, 10 o'clock, you know, to make it to church. You iron your shirt, you get the kids ready, but then you come and you just don't listen. What a waste. You're going to put all that effort into it, if you're going to invest that much, you tithe here, you know, you get persecuted for coming here, if you're going to put all that effort into being here, then you should pay attention when you come, right? Look at Luke chapter 8 verse 18, it says, Take heed therefore, how ye hear, for whosoever hath to him shall be given, and whosoever hath not from him shall be taken, even that which he seemeth to have. Most people in here are hearing me, but you're not listening. Well, I shouldn't say most people. Some people are hearing me, but they're not listening. There's a difference between the two. You hear noise, you hear sound, but you're not actually paying attention to what's being said. Okay. And, you know, sometimes I'll announce something or I'll preach something and someone will come immediately afterwards and ask me about something that I literally just talked about. Literally. That day. Or how about when we have an event, right? We give the schedule, we announce what day it's going to be, all these things, and people come up to me like, hey, so when is that so many, someone's going to come up to me after, so when's the Red Hot Preaching Conference? Is that this week or is that next week? You know what that shows me is that when you're nodding at me during the announcements, you are nodding at me, you're nodding at something else. You're paying attention to something completely different, you know. We need to make sure that we pay attention and look, it's dangerous to be in a church like this because you're getting a lot of information. So you know what that means? You're accountable for more. You're getting a lot of doctrine, you're getting a lot of instruction, you're getting a lot of God's wisdom, and if you bypass those things, you're still accountable for them. So look, this is what you can do to help you with that is make sure you pay attention to what you're listening to, okay. The Bible says in 2 Peter 1.19, we have also a more sure word of prophecy where until you do well that you take heed, as though unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts, the Bible tells us there. Look, let me remind everyone that the Bible sitting on your lap should not just be for looks. All right, you got a Bible on your lap? When we go to the scriptures, read them, okay. Read the scriptures and follow along in church. And again, parents, you guys get the exception because I know you got children, sometimes you can't do that. But hey, single guys, if you're single or if you're not here with your wife or your spouse and you have a Bible in front of you, when we go to the scriptures, if we go to a familiar scripture, I already know that scripture, I don't need this, open up the Bible and read it. It's only going to help you more. Open up the Bible and read it. We're not going to put the scriptures on the screen for you. I know you probably missed that. You get a Bible, open it up and read along with us. And look, often our posture in church reflects what we think of church as well. John, bring me that church, please. All right, that church, that chair. Bring me one of these chairs. Hey, posture in church is important. Okay, you can put it right there. You can sit down. I'll do this illustration. Posture in church is important. Okay. And it'll help you to pay attention if you have the correct posture. Now everyone's like sitting up right now. Like, yeah, you tell him brother Mejia, good. This tells you church is not important. That's not important, right? It shows you like you're lazy or something. It shows like you're calling attention to yourself. Well, I got long legs and stuff. You know, I just, that shows you church is not important. And look, I'm not going to give you the way you should sit. I'm just going to give you the way I sit that helped me pay attention. Just I know it's profound, isn't it? When you're just sitting like this and you back straight, pay attention. Okay. Why? Because then if your back is straight, you open up your diaphragm, you're able to, more oxygen can get in. I'm serious. And you can actually pay attention better in church. But you know, your posture reflects what you think, how church, how important churches to you, you know, and I don't mind if you cross your legs or whatever. That's a good posture right there with Milan. Everyone look at Milan right now. Don't move Milan. You know, that's a good posture right there. Okay. And well, what I'm saying is don't slouch in church. Don't slouch in church. Take this, John, please. Don't slouch in church. This is not a surfer buddy, liberal type of church where I'm on a bar stool and you know, torn jeans or whatever and you just come and you're just like, give me the word, bro. Sit up. Sit up straight and listen. Okay. Hey, don't. This is not a good posture right here. That's not. Oh, I'm just having trouble staying awake. Then sit up and that'll help you. I guarantee you. Okay. And look, I'm not offended when people yawn either because yawning actually is your body's way of teaching. Basically trying to wake you up. Okay. Now what I, what I don't like is when people just make once they want everyone to know they're yawning you sound like, like the T-Rex from Jurassic park or something, but you just escaped and look, and sometimes people try to mask that with saying amen. And then everyone in the church is like, let me teach you how to yawn. I'm serious about this. Now the reason I know how to yawn is because in Bible college, we had a terrible diet, terrible schedule, terrible teaching. So we have to like purposely try to stay awake, right? And literally this is what you do. You clench your teeth together, keep your mouth closed and you breathe in through your nose and you just let it out through your mouth. Literally you can yawn within yourself without being so offensive. Okay. You don't have to like, you just show everyone that you're just like young. It's funny, but I've seen it. Okay. I've seen it. You could just yawn thus within yourself and just keep your teeth closed. Hey. This is like really like practical teaching, but sometimes stuff like this is necessary. Okay. Cause like people, sometimes people who yawn like that don't know that it's offensive or they don't know that they shouldn't slouch in church. So guess what? Now, you know, if you don't know now, you know, okay. And I'm not against people yawning. When you yawn, your, your brain is basically trying to get the oxygen needed in order for you to wake up. That's why you feel awake after you yawn. There's nothing wrong with that. All right. But it's just how you yawn. Okay. You don't want to sound like the T-Rex. You don't want to look like the predator when you're just like kind of thing, just, you know, discreetly yawn. Okay. So we should have proper posture in church. Sit up straight when you, and teach your kids to sit up straight. It's it's, it's, it's a, it's a work in progress teaching kids to sit in church, right? But it's needed, you know, we, we, my wife works on it with my kids and you know, my son's back there right now. He's just sitting up straight. I'm not even paying attention to me. He's looking at someone else doing something else or something. But Hey, we got him to sit. He's sitting right there, you know, and we, we want to teach that to our kids. So look, what if you're, what if you're a, the posture of your children just reflects your posture, you know, cause they really just do what they, they copy other people's what they do and they copy you. Okay. And on that note, we shouldn't fall asleep in church. Now I don't really see this very often. Okay. And it's not offensive towards me cause I know you're not falling asleep because I'm a boring preacher. I don't think I'm a boring preacher. I don't think I am. And I'm not boasting of anything. I'm just saying, you know, the Bible is exciting and if I preach the Bible, it's, it's, it should keep your attention, right? I think falling asleep in church just means first and foremost, like on a Sunday, you just didn't get enough sleep at night and we need to get back to getting good sleep at night, which means going to sleep at a reasonable time. You know, even if, and look, getting good sleep means going to sleep early. I'm not talking about getting an amount of sleep, like from 12 to eight, you know, well I got eight hours of sleep. Yeah, but here's the thing is you need to go to sleep earlier if you want to get quality sleep. Okay. 930, 10 o'clock to wake up at a reasonable time because that's how your body actually functions. That's what it, it's, it's motivated to actually be more awake and aware when you actually get not just eight hours of sleep, but quality eight hours of sleep. Okay. Put away the, what are those called? The energy drinks that wears you down. You get a crash from that and look, if you're pounding an energy drink right before church, you're like, Oh, we're getting ready for church. Well, as soon as the preaching starts, you're going to crash and that's why you're just like, you're just barely staying awake. Okay. I feel like I'm hitting on a, on a very important point here. You know, people look, I understand that the AC is hot. The AC is hot. Yeah. The AC is hot actually. Right. The AC is not well here and it's summertime and you know, you're just like, you're, you're in this heat and stuff like that, but have the discipline to stay awake in church. Okay. And look, I've had to sit through boring preachers in the old IFB. All right. I'm telling the law, not being one of them, you know, I haven't had to sleep. It's a sit through boring preaching and you know what? I stayed awake the entire time. I remember one time, the only time I think I actually fell asleep one time in church, it wasn't in church. It was in chapel college. Chapel was when we were doing a campaign against the proposition eight where the homos are trying to get married and we basically had a campaign. We just threw out a bunch of flyers from like 11 o'clock at night till about six o'clock in the morning. And then we had Bible college at eight and then I went to school thereafter. So I stayed awake that entire time. And I remember being in Bible college and that was the only time I literally just like fell asleep. Okay. And then I woke up like two seconds later or whatever. And I remember even being at work and I was on the phone with someone and I just fell asleep. I was so tired. And then the only reason I woke up is because the lady was like, hello, hello. And I'm just like, I don't know where I'm at in this call. Just like hang up. But for the most part, even when I was tired, I tried to stay awake. Men if you have a hard time staying awake in church, this is what you do. You pull your hair legs. I'm being honest. Oh, I'm not going to go through all that. Then discipline yourself to stay awake then. If you're not willing to do that, then discipline yourself to actually stay awake, right? Pinch your hair legs if you have to wake up. And I don't think you have to do that. I think if you just, you know, go to sleep on time, you eat properly, you should be fine on Sunday morning. Now look, the exception to the rule on this is Thursdays. I will say that because I know people here, guys here who work on Thursdays and they come to church right after work and they're tired. They're dead tired. If you're able to just even give me a wink, I'm good. Okay. But I know some guys are just like, man, I'm really tired. And they're working hard at staying awake. And I get that because you have work and whatnot. Obviously there's things that you can do to improve that so that doesn't happen to you. But at that point, that's your realm. That's what you want to do with your disciplines. Okay. We're almost done. Number four, we should be ready to sing when we come to church. Grab a song book, learn the songs and sing out loud. Even if you know the song, grab a song book. When brother Marcos or brother Mark or brother Alex come over here and they start leading the song, you know, look, grab, actually grab the song book, give me a song book. Grab a song book, open it up to where it is that I don't know the song. Then that's why you need to open up the song book and look, your children will become better singers than you one day. You know why? Because they grew up in church. Typically children who grow up in a independent fundamental Baptist church actually become excellent vocalists, singers. They know how to sing well because they just grew up singing their whole lives, right? But therefore you've got to discipline your children, like open up the song book, here it is, you know, sing along, okay? And that helps you prepare your heart for preaching. When you sing the hymns, it helps you to prepare your heart for preaching. Let me see here. And lastly, I'll just leave it at this. We should be ready to come and love people. So when we come to church, look, we are a hateful church. I'll just be honest with you. You know, we hate reprobates, we hate the haters of God, we hate the fags, they're never welcomed here. But you know, as extreme as we are when it comes to our hatred, so should we be extreme with our love for sinners, with our love for those who are lost, with our love for the brethren, okay? With our love for those who come through our doors, visitors. We should have an exceeding love for people. And look, the love that we have for our brethren should be great, amen? That's one thing that would encourage you to come to church is like, I want to go to church because I love the brethren. I want to fellowship with the brethren because I love them. And I'm not saying you have to tell them you love them, like, hey, I love you. You know, Brother Bruce, I love you. I'll be like, we love you too, brother, okay? But what I'm saying is, you know, that should be our motive is that we love people. And then when we go sowing, we should love people. When new visitors come, hey, go and greet them because you love them. What if they're like a reprobate or something like that? Last Sunday was a bad Sunday for us to have visitors. No offense, Adan, okay? I'm glad, hey, Adan's here today, amen? I know he's not ready. He got saved and he got baptized and he's good to go, amen? But I'll be honest with you, Adan, he's right there, you know, yeah. But like last week, I was on edge. Any visitor who came, I'm like, were you sent by the twins? You know, I'm gonna throw you out too. And look, we ended up throwing two idiots out of the church yesterday, not yesterday, last week, last Sunday, you know, and they were idiots. Had nothing to do with the twins, but just had to do with the twins' father, which is Satan, who sent them there here to infiltrate and be like idiots and I had to throw them out. So I was already on edge. And I remember like, we threw out those two hair ticks and I'm just screaming the kid's head out. I'm like, nah, nah, nah. And then like Mark or somebody was like, hey, Adan wants to get baptized. I'm like, all right. And I go back in there, I'm like, who wants to get baptized? And Adan was just like, me, but we can wait till next week if you want, we'll baptize you right now, you know? It was just a bad Sunday is what it was. I say it was a good Sunday, but it was a bad Sunday for infiltrators to even try to come in here and try to mess with us. You know, no love. My, you know, at that point I had my extreme hatred more so than my extreme love. You know, but that's not gonna be every Sunday, obviously. You know, more often than not, we're gonna have Sundays where there's just normal people who come to church, visitors, our brothers, and we should have a zealous love towards the brethren. We should have a zealous love towards people, visitors, sinners, people who we meet outdoor knocking. You know, have a genuine love for people when you go out and preach the gospel. That when you look upon them, you see them as people who are going to hell who need you to give them the gospel. That you would have a sincere, genuine love towards them that you would want to win them to Christ, okay? And when they don't accept Christ, you know, I'm not saying you have to get overly emotional, like these reprobates try to do, and someone wanna get, don't break down and stuff like that. But there should be a sense of hurt. It's like, man, this person's gonna go to hell. You know, I wish that person would have gotten saved. And they move on to the next. And that happens as we have a genuine love for people. So these are the church disciplines that I believe we should have. And notice that, I mean, obviously, soul winning is involved in this, right? That's a discipline we should have. I believe we have that discipline, and the way we're gonna improve upon that as we expand more and go into different cities, and we train the people who are here and now, right? But these are the disciplines that I believe we as a church do have, but should improve upon so much more as the years go by. Amen? Amen. Spire heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, and thank you for the disciplines that you set forth within your word, the principles, the guidelines, and how we as a church can create an operation based off of those guidelines. I pray that you'd help us in every area. I'm thankful for a great church, great people, great individuals. I love them all, and I'm so thankful for them. And these are my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I know they got my back, and I got theirs. And I just pray that as a church, we continue to grow and go forward and improve in these areas, Lord, and we're looking forward to what you're gonna do in the future, and we love you so much. We thank you. Pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.