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Amen, all right, first Corinthians chapter five. Okay, my sermon's here, that's good. Sermon notes, that's a recurring dream. You guys will have to ask Pastor Mejia some recurring dreams, but he's got some funny ones. I won't expose them here, but a recurring dream that I've always had as far as when you preach a lot, you'll start to have these recurring dreams. And one that I've always had that's just happened to me, I don't know, probably a dozen times, is that I'm preaching and then halfway through the sermon, Pastor Jimenez comes up and he's like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, that was garbage, you know? We don't believe any of that stuff, and they like pull me off, and you know, it's all that. But you know, I did have a dream that I opened up the pulpit and there was no sermon in there. So the sermon's here, and we're good. So let's go ahead and get started. First Corinthians chapter five, we're gonna look at something a little bit different in first Corinthians chapter five than you would normally look at in this. This is kind of a good chapter for church discipline, things that are allowed in the church, things that are not allowed in the church. What I wanna focus on, and I'm just gonna use this as kind of a segue into the sermon, it's not really gonna be what the sermon is about, but look down at verse number nine and verse number 10. The Bible says, I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators. Okay, we get that, right? We understand that. But then verse number 10 says this, it says, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or idolaters, for then must ye needs go out of the world. And then it goes in and it gives in verse number 11, of course, you know, those things that aren't to be allowed in the church, right? But in verse number 10, it's saying that there's a reason that verse number 11 says, if anyone be called a brother do these things. Because it's saying like, look, if you would have to stay away from these types of people, like you couldn't even go out in the world. You couldn't even go out there. You know, you couldn't, so it's talking about just a brother, things that are allowed in the church, not, you know, people just out in the world. Otherwise, you would just have the need to not even go out in the world. We'd all have to like move to, you know, North Dakota or something and hide from people, right? So it's saying, you know, we're gonna have to learn to deal with this type of thing. And I'm actually gonna talk about that in quite some detail in a couple weeks. But I just wanna give you a segue to, you know, what I'm gonna talk about this morning. I had a guy that I worked with. So we're, especially guys need to understand verse number 10, because guys are out in the world. You know, ladies, wives, you know, they're lucky in this sense that they don't have to go out in that as much as the guys. But us guys, we're gonna have to deal with people in the world. We're gonna have to deal with unsaved people out there. I had a guy at work about a year and a half ago, maybe a year ago. I worked with this guy quite a bit. And we worked pretty close together. We were pretty close together. He was very good at what he did. And, you know, I appreciated that about him. But look, this guy, look, he wasn't religious at all. He was a nice guy. He was a nice guy. He had a family. He was a normal person. He was not religious. He was not saved. And he's probably not gonna get saved. And you're gonna meet a lot of people in your life like that. That, you know, just their, you know, I guess, you know, I kind of looked at him and I just kind of figured, I figured he is too good at what he does. You know, he's too good at his job. If that makes sense. He's too good at what he does to pay attention to some of the things that he knew that I paid attention to. And he knew that, you know, I spent time on. He knew that I was, you know, involved in the church here, or he found out. And, you know, I didn't really announce that to people at work and things. But, you know, people know, people find out about you. And, you know, I talked with this guy. And, you know, he's like, oh, you know, you're involved in the church there. He's like, oh, you know, so are you the pastor of the church? And I'm like, and I'm like, no, you know, no, I'm not the pastor. You know, and he's like, you know, cause I mean, he could understand that. You know, if you're the pastor, he's not a religious guy, but it was something that he could understand. Like, no, I'm not the pastor. And then I explained, like, it's a church plant of a Baptist church in Sacramento. And then, you know, the eyes glaze over and he doesn't really understand what he's talking about. But he knew that I was involved in this ministry in town. And he kind of knew that I spent a lot of time here. And I spent a lot of time and thought and effort on this. And look, he just didn't really get it. He didn't understand it. He wasn't rude about it. He just didn't understand. You know, he said to me at one point, he's like, I don't understand why you spend so much time on that. You know, and look, I had no problems with this guy. He had no problem with me. We worked very well together. We did some great things together. It's just, he just didn't, he just didn't get it. He didn't understand why I put so much effort into that. You know, and I never really, I never really, I kind of knew, you know, where he was at spiritually. And I never really said much to him about it. You know, I kind of kept it short. But I have thought a lot about that question since that time. You know, what is, what is my motivation? You know, you spend so much time in an effort like this. You know, there needs to be some motivation behind that. You can't just, look, this isn't something that, and I could say this about the church people as well, you know, but this isn't something that you can just go through the motions to do. You know, you have to have something that is motivating you, that is driving you to do something like this. So I kind of wanted to just give you, you know, an idea of what those things are this morning from my perspective. You know, I want to tell you where I'm at. I want to give the answer to that guy's question. You know, if you'll give me a few minutes of your time, you know, I'll tell you where I'm at. I'll tell you where my motivation was, why the time and energy to put into this effort here was actually fairly easy to do. And hopefully you can take these points of motivation and you can use them in your own life. And you can use them to drive your Christian life. So you say, you know, what is it? What motivates you? Is it a nice building? You know, is that what you're after? You know, and it's like, obviously that's not it. You know, I mean, if we need, at some point we need a bigger building, I suppose we'll get a, that would be a good problem to have. And we'll get a bigger building. As a matter of fact, I'm thankful for this building. It's as old and, you know, the carpet used to be white. We just eaten so many tiger blood snow cones in here that that's, no, I'm just kidding. But I mean, look, this is a, maybe we'll move out of this area at some point, you know, get in a better area. I mean, you know, the battle I've had with the bums downtown here has been epic, okay? I mean, and it's lucky, you know, I've said this before, but it's lucky I was raised on a farm pitching manure because some of the things that I've cleaned up around here, it's, I never would have thought, I never would have thought when my dad would clean out the corrals every single year and I would have to go with a pitchfork and rubber boots for like six weeks on these piles of manure and spread the manure so you could get the tractor up on the manure piles and till it into the tree rows. And I never thought that that was preparing me for a moment like this, you know? But now I look back on that and I appreciate it. I'm like, you know, dad, thank you. Thank you for that. But look, it's obviously, it's not the building. How about the attendance? How about is it the attendance? Am I concerned about the attendance? Am I driven for the attendance? You know that over the last two years, that is the number one question I've been asked. The number one question I've been asked is how many people are you running there? How many people are coming to church there? And look, I get it. That's important and I'm gonna get into why that number is actually important, you know, a little bit in a few minutes. But really, I'm happy with the people that we have, you know? I mean, you know, Garrett even said that last night. We walked in the house and Garrett's like, man, if the church never grows and we just have these people, he's like, that would be great. And I'm like, I agree. But you know, we still are gonna allow visitors, okay? But the point is, I mean, that's not my main drive either. My main drive is not numbers. I'm not sitting there looking at the numbers every week and being like, oh man, you know? Look, we just do what we're supposed to do and God will handle the numbers. I mean, that's the way I've always felt about that, always. I'm not even the slightest bit concerned about the numbers. And guess what, we've grown. We've almost doubled in size since we've been here. Through all the garbage that we've had to go through in the last, especially the last year and a half, we're growing. We're a growing ministry. How about this one? How about social media? Does that drive me? Here's the thing. I don't know how many of you know me that well, but I hate social media. I mean, I hate it. I mean, hate's not even a strong enough word. And as a matter of fact, I might even hate it to a fault if that's possible. But I hate it, especially lately, I hate it even more. But look, look, here's the thing. I think God was kind of resetting me a little bit about this because we were getting through, I'm the kind of guy, I'm the kind of guy that, how do you handle all these things coming at you at one time? How do you handle being so busy? It's really easy. I handle things one at a time. You fight the monster in front of you. So yesterday or Friday night and yesterday morning, people are like, hey, are you excited about tomorrow? And I'm like, no, not really, because we have this soul winning event to run today. So I'm just like, I'm gonna get the monster in front of me out of the way, and then I'm gonna preach this sermon, and then I'm gonna be excited about tonight. So I mean, I'm the kind of person that just takes one thing at a time and you just focus on the thing in front of you, and then you'll find in your life that you can handle an awful lot. If you can, but if you worry about everything all the time, you're gonna crumple. Because if you worry about everything all the time, so here's the thing. It's funny because I was concerned and I was thinking about the day yesterday and it was 15 minutes. It was 15 minutes before I started and I kicked off the soul winning event yesterday. And we're still on social media, by the way. But it's 15 minutes before I kicked off the event yesterday and my wife walks up to me, she's like, you got a letter. And I'm like, a letter? Okay, and here I have, and I'm not gonna mention the people's names and I'll mention, you know, it's a letter from a couple in Pennsylvania. And I hope they don't mind, I'm gonna read one and a half sentences out of the letter. This is right before the big day yesterday. And I get this letter and it says, I just wanna send you this letter of encouragement. As the day of your ordination draws closer. It says, man, this is not good that I'm getting into this right now. It says, we are blessed by your sermons and we thank God for the technology that brings you into our home. So okay, you know, maybe it's to a fault and I've overcorrected and I've pegged the needle on that one. But still, it's not social media, that does not drive me. Okay, sometimes I think the less people know who I am, the better it would be for my family. But look, so I made a list for you all this morning. I made a list of three things. And I made a list of three things about what motivates me here and what I'm all about here and I hope that this list matches your list as well. It's a testimonial of sorts I'll give you this morning. So here's the thing about this list though. This list, as far as you set goals in your life, it's a weird list. Because I mean, I like to set goals and you should learn to set goals and then what I do is I set a goal and I achieve that goal. That's what you should do in your life. But here's the thing about this particular list. It's kind of a list of motivational goals, but none of them can be completely achieved. I mean, you think it's kind of depressing, but it's really not. But none of these goals that I'm gonna list for you this morning can be completely achieved in your life. I'm gonna start from the easy ones. There's only three. I'm gonna start from the easiest and go to the hardest. So let's begin. The first one is this. Mistakes. Mistakes motivate me. Turn to Psalm 119. Look, I've made some mistakes in my life. Maybe I can help people make less. It is a motivation for me. I mean, look, through my experiences, number one, the mistakes that I've made, but especially, especially through God's word. Maybe we can avoid some things in our lives that are, you know what? The Bible says they're avoidable. Look at Psalm 119. I could read the whole chapter for you. I just picked a couple of verses. The Bible says in verse number five, it says, oh, that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes. Then I shall not be ashamed when I have respect unto all thy commandments. Look, this is preaching right here. It's like, oh, that my ways were directed. Oh, that somebody was telling me to do what the Bible says. Well, that's preaching right there. Oh, that my ways were directed. That's you reading the Bible right there. That your ways were directed. You know, a lot of people, they read the Bible and they're like, okay, you know, the Bible says this, but then it helps to have somebody come up and just scream at you and direct your ways. So why? So why? Why do you need your ways directed? So you won't be ashamed. So you won't be ashamed in your life. Keep us from being ashamed. Who wants to be ashamed? Raise your hand if you wanna be ashamed. Look at verse 50. Look at verse 50. This is my comfort in my affliction, that thy word hath quickened me. Verse 51, the proud have had me greatly in derision, yet have I not declined from thy law. Look, God's law saves us, but it also makes us strong when people are putting us down, when people are attacking us, when people are pushing on us, when they're putting pressure on us, it's God's word that keeps us strong in that time. It's the preaching of God's word. Go to Hebrews chapter four. Why? Why does it have that effect? Why does it have that effect? Go to Hebrews chapter four. Look, and I can tell you, I can tell you that this goal, that this goal's already working here. This one's already working in this church. Look at Hebrews 4.12. Why is it working? Why is it working? I can tell you it's not because of me. I can tell you it's not because I'm some great orator. I can tell you it has, look, here's why it's working. Look at verse number 12 of Hebrews 4. For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of sunder of soul and spirit and the joints and marrow and the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Look, this word of God is so powerful it will move your flesh, is what the Bible is saying. Look, I can already see this goal being achieved. That's encouraging. That's encouraging. It's working, but you said, oh, but you can't achieve this goal completely? But guess what, it works for some, but not all. It works for some and not all. Look, I'm encouraged in my life that I can help some people to hear the word of God and I can preach and yell the word of God and I can help people through preaching. I can help people through personal advice that, by the way, I get from the word of God. It's not like I'm some brilliant person that just knows what to do in every scenario. No, I know what the Bible says and that's what I'm gonna tell you what to do. Amen. But look, here's the thing. Some people just insist on making their own mistakes. Like, I've been that person. I don't want you to be that person, but you'll be walking along with people in life and you're walking through life with them, ministering to them, and you say, oh, look out, there's a hole there. There's a hole there. And some people are just like, you know what? I'm gonna go in there. I'm like, okay, but no, that's a hole. You don't wanna go in there. They're like, no, I'm going in the hole. I'm gonna go in the hole. And they just jump in the hole. And you're like, man, what'd you jump in the hole for? I told you there's a hole there. And they're like, I'm in a hole. Help me. But here's the thing. Here's the thing, and here's the thing about the Bible too. So, you know, that can be frustrating, but that's my flesh that gets frustrated with that. But here's the thing. I'll stand by the hole. I'll stand by the hole, and when you're ready to get out of the hole, look, I'm not going in the hole with you. I'm not jumping in there with you, but when you're ready to get out of the hole, I'll grab you by the collar, and I'll pull you out of the hole. That motivates me. That motivates me. Look, like I said, none of these goals are fully achievable. People are gonna jump in the hole. You know, I mean, you can't get to the point on this list where you're like, check, that one's done. People are just gonna, some people just insist on making their own mistakes, and that's okay. We'll walk alongside you. And when you fall in the hole, we will walk circles around the hole, and then we'll pull you out of the hole. That's the Christian life. That's a motivation to me, right there. That's a small one. That's the smallest one. What's the second one? The second one is the gospel. You're like, this one, the gospel better be on the list. Here's the thing, and here's what we really need the numbers for. Turn to Ephesians chapter, just look at the front of your bulletin. Here's what we really need the numbers for. We need an army, because we're in a battle. Ephesians chapter six, or the front of your bulletin, in verse number 12 says, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness in this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. We've been studying through the book of Joshua. There's a lot of battles. Big armies, like physical, actual armies in battles. You know, they're fighting, they're fighting a physical war with people. But it's surprisingly similar. As a matter of fact, it's exactly similar, because we're fighting a spiritual war for people, is what we're doing. And Jesus even talked about this, and that's why we need an army. We need an army. Turn to Matthew chapter 26. We're in a spiritual war for people. We're not fighting for land. We're not fighting a physical wrestling match against people. Look, it's the spiritual wickedness that we're fighting. It's the rulers, it's the powers, and it's the spiritual wickedness that exists there, with the rulers and with the powers. That's what we're fighting. And that's where we need the army. It's not against flesh and blood. Even Peter misunderstood this. Even Peter got this one wrong, because I understand, it gets you angry. Peter got angry, look at verse 51 of Matthew 26. Peter misunderstood this for a brief moment. What kind of battle we were to fight here. Look at Matthew 26 and verse 51. The Bible says, and behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew a sword and struck a servant of the high priest and smote off his ear. We know from John 18 that this was actually Peter. Look at verse 52. Then Jesus said unto him, put up again thy sword into its place, for they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Jesus is saying to Peter here, he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's bigger things for you to do. There's bigger, I mean, imagine, imagine if Peter would have raised an army. Imagine if Peter, like they took Jesus and they killed Jesus, let's get an army together. Imagine if that was the mission of the apostles, was to build a physical army. You know, and then they, you know, okay, so they kill a few Romans, maybe some Pharisees or whatever, and that's it. Would that have been the best spend for Peter's life? Think about that. Jesus knew, turn to 2 Timothy chapter two. Jesus knew where he needed Peter and what kind of battle he needed them to fight. And I'm glad those guys fought it. I'm glad those guys fought it and we're still fighting it today. Look at 2 Timothy chapter two, but we do need an army. We do need an army. It's funny because this old, this army needs to have the exact, and I'm gonna show you, it needs to have the exact same attributes as the Old Testament army. So it's a spiritual war versus a physical war, but it needs to have the same attributes. Don't miss that. Look at 1 Timothy or 2 Timothy chapter two. Look at verse number three. 2 Timothy chapter two and look at verse number three. The Bible says, thou therefore endure hardness. So you gotta be tough, the Bible says. You can't be a wimp. You can't be somebody who's afraid of everything. You can't be a coward. You can't be a coward. As a good, what? As a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man, and then he gets into more detail. He says, no man that warth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that it may please him who have chosen him to be a soldier. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 20. By the way, this army, this army, here's one, here's the first similarity. The first similarity is Jesus Christ is the commander of this army. In the New Testament, he's the commander of our army and he was also, in Joshua chapter five, the commander of the army in the Old Testament. Same, same commander. So not only do you need to be strong, you need to be able to endure hardness, but you're not to be able to be preoccupied with other things, it says in the New Testament in 2 Timothy chapter two. But look at Deuteronomy chapter 20, talking about the actual army that's gonna fight the physical war. Look what the Bible says. It's talking about giving them advice, like hey, when you go into battle, here's what you're gonna need and what you're gonna not need. Look at verse 20 in verse number five. I'm sorry, chapter 20 of Deuteronomy in verse number five. And the officer shall speak unto the people, saying, what man is there that hath built a new house? Look, they're recruiting here. They're recruiting who's gonna go fight with them and who's not. What man is there that hath built a new house and hath not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle and another man dedicate it. Verse six, and what man is he that hath planted a vineyard that hath not eaten of it? Let him also go and return unto his house, lest he die in battle and another man eat of it. And what man is there that hath betrothed the wife and hath not taken her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle and another man take her. Verse number eight. This is your enduring hardness right here. Verse number eight, and the officer shall speak further unto the people. There's even more things they have to look for. And they shall say, what man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? Let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart. So that's interesting there, but first of all, it matches perfectly 2 Timothy chapter two, saying we can't have any cowards here. And it's interesting, the last part of verse number eight is like, we don't want a bunch of fearful people here because look, that spreads. It's like we don't want an army where we bring in a few cowards and pretty soon everybody's a coward. Because that's what'll happen. Look at the spies. They came back and they're like, those people are huge! We're like grasshoppers! And everybody was like this. It spread amongst everyone. But look, they didn't want people fighting alongside them whose minds were on their houses, their property, or even their new wife. The Bible says it's exactly the same, turn to Luke chapter 14, it's exactly the same as the New Testament army. And Jesus talked about it quite a bit, actually. Look at Luke chapter 14 and verse number 16. Luke chapter 14 and verse number 16. The Bible says, then he said unto him, a certain man made a great supper and bade many. And he sent his servant at supper to the time to say, suppertime to them that were bidden, saying, come, for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I bought a piece of ground and I must needs go and see it. I pray thee have me excused. Another said, I bought five yoke of oxen and I go to prove them. I pray thee have me excused. Another said, I'm married to life and therefore I can't come. Look, these are the same, I get that this has got application to salvation, but these are the same excuses that people gave to not coming to this marriage, the property, the work, the wife, or you could even take that into family. This comply to us as well. This is the same reason that, you know, we don't have as many people as we need to fight this, with this army. We don't have enough people in this army. When you think about the army that we are building to carry the gospel, these are the main roadblocks right here. The same roadblocks as in the Old Testament. You think about it, think about it. It's because people are pursuing this stuff. What are they pursuing? They're pursuing, I mean, this is the stuff that people will throw their whole life away on. The things that I just listed to you. They're pursuing work. They're pursuing their work. I mean, think about it, this one works both ways. I mean, they're too into their work. They're pursuing that. They're too into a career. They don't have time for anything spiritual. My colleague, just pursuing work. The Christian can do that as well. You can pursue work so much that you have no time for anything spiritual and be completely saved. Happens all the time. You know, this one works two ways. There's two sides of this coin. Maybe you have somebody who just doesn't want to work. They're like allergic to work. Lots of people like that too. But guess what, in Ephesians chapter four, it says the work of the ministry. The ministry's work. How about your wife or even family? I mean, look, that derails people. That messes people up. That stops people from joining the army. That one thing right there. Property, houses, the vineyard. People obsess over that stuff to the point where they will not join the army. And here's the thing, we could never have an army that was effective for carrying the gospel if we brought these people in and that's all they cared about. It wouldn't work. They were just fearful and all they cared about was worldly things. They just wouldn't work. It would ruin the goodness of the army that we had. I guess there's nothing new under the sun. You know, it not only stops people from joining the army, these things, it was the same thing that they were concerned about in the Old Testament with the physical army, fighting the physical war. But look, 2 Timothy chapter two says that people will get entangled with these things. And it'll destroy the effectiveness of our army. Turn to Matthew chapter 19. Matthew chapter 19, look at verse number 29. But Jesus addresses this. He addresses this. He understands that if you have an army that's gonna carry the gospel, he's like, you're gonna have a bunch of people that aren't affected by this stuff. That aren't affected by the property and the work and the world and the thorns of this life around their neck that are gonna choke them and choke their spiritual life out of them. Look at verse 29. Now look at verse 29. And choke their spiritual life out of them. Look at verse 29. That's why Jesus says, and everyone that forsaketh houses or brethren or sisters. I mean, you see the pattern here? Or father or mother or wife or children or lance. For my name's sake. Because look, if you're gonna join the army, that's what you have to do. If you're gonna join the army, if it's gonna be an effective army, this is what the people, the soldiers in the army are gonna have to do. They're gonna have to forsake these things. Jesus knew it. Jesus knew it. Look what he says. They shall receive a hundredfold and shall inherit everlasting life. Not and shall inherit everlasting life. See how just an inflection on a word can change doctrine? Everyone see, you have to work to get saved. No. They'll receive a hundredfold along with their everlasting life, folks. So look, I mean, if we do this effectively, if we build this army effectively, look, and here, this is kind of the point. This is kind of the motivating point of this goal right here is if we build this army effectively, and it's never really been about the numbers to me. It's been more about the army being ready to do the right thing. It's about the army having forsaken these things. I mean, is that wrong? Is that not what I've been preaching for the last 300 sermons? I mean, it's just, it's about forsaking these things so we can have this army. And then once we get that army, I wonder how many people we can get saved. I mean, I wonder how effective we can actually be. You know, back to my second point of, you know, when the battle heats up, when the battle heats up, you know, it's about the gospel. You're gonna need that hardness. But here's the thing. Here's the thing about that second point, that one word, gospel. Here's the thing about the gospel. Here's the thing, your life is probably gonna get tough at some point. Life is peaks and valleys. That's just the way it is. It's probably gonna get tough at some point. But as tough as it gets if you're in this army, here's the thing. The gospel is always your fallback position. You say, I don't understand what you're saying. Here's the thing. You need to understand this. I'm gonna explain it to you as best I can. The gospel is my fallback position. What does that mean? It's what has driven my decisions for the last six years. The gospel. You say, what do you mean? Okay, well, what do you mean, decisions? Well, the decision to move to California. It's a big decision. Decision to move to California. Okay, give up a career, give up a business, move to California. You're like, ah! Like, ah! It's a lot of decisions to make. Oh, but the gospel. Like, okay, that's the decision to change jobs. Ah! Oh, but the gospel. That's it, that's the fallback. That's the fallback when you have doubts in your life. The decision to move, we got a good church, and it, you know, it was like the best ever in Sacramento. It was like, I'll always remember those years there. It was awesome. I mean, the best friends ever, the best church ever, the best pastor, I mean, no offense. But, you know, I mean, everything was great there. You move to Fresno? Move to Fresno? Ah! Oh, but the gospel. Amen. It's always the fallback position. Are you getting it? Are you getting it? How about change jobs again? Oh, ah! Oh, but the gospel. Look, if moving to Fresno was to get one person saved, it'd be worth it. Right. Think about that when you go soul winning. Think about that when you go to church. If the goal of your life is to get one more person saved, it's worth it. It's worth giving up all the houses and the land and the cars and the whatever to get one person saved. But instead, it was hundreds of people in Fresno that had been saved. 18 just yesterday. Look, I saw grown men cry yesterday. Literally. The gospel. That's why. That's why. That is the point. Look, but we'll never fully achieve. Because most people don't want it. So we gotta go and we gotta dig. We gotta find the people that want it. We gotta go get them. It takes work, it takes hardness. It takes enduring that. And it takes an army that's made of the right things. And that army, what the army needs, when you read about those battles and you read about those people in the Old Testament, that's exactly what you have to have. It's the same, but we'll never fully achieve it. Not even close on this one. Not even close. Like I said, Brother Stuckey figured 98% unsaved. No, I think he was 99, I was 98, because I was the pessimist. But look, most people aren't gonna, they're not gonna want it. So that's a tough goal. But it's a worthy goal. And guess what, the gospel, the gospel will keep you grounded, because whenever you have doubts about anything in your life, it's always true. It's always true. And it's always your job to carry it. It's always your job to be that ambassador. It's your fallback, no matter what's going on. No matter what's going on in your life. Good times, bad times, it's sad, but the good times usually is when we forget about it. It's when the good times come is when we're like, yeah, I'm taking a sabbatical from the army. You'd think it'd be the other way around. But it's not. God blesses your life, and that's when you say, you know what, I'm going on leave for a while, or I'm going AWOL for a while. Happens all the time. But the gospel's your fallback, folks. What's the third one? I told you these goals. I told you these goals are getting progressively harder. You're like, what could be harder than that? You're like, what could be harder than that? What could be harder than trying to go out and get 99% of the world to accept something that they don't want? What could be harder than that? Well, here's the next one that motivates me, and this is the last one I'm gonna list this evening. Maybe, maybe we can raise a godly next generation. Go ahead. This is a big one. This is a big one. And it's funny because, it's not funny, but it's one, it's one that not many people in the Bible achieved. I mean, it's depressing. When you look at the great men of the Bible, and you look at this goal, most of them failed. But what if we can do it? What if we can do it? Look, here's the thing, I'm already seeing that too. I'm an expert at trends. I'm an expert, I can see trends of things. It's just, I don't know, it's just 20 years of looking for trends. I can see trends. And let me tell you something, I got five years of data now. I got five years of data points on this one. I came to Verity Baptist Church in 2016, and look, many kids, since I've been here, a lot of them are here today. Many kids, when I got to California, they were just kids. They're just little kids. And you're like, does it work? Is this goal achievable? Is this whole idea that we're doing, is it, you know, I get it, we talk about it a lot, but does it work? Look, I've seen just kids five years ago, and now they're adults serving the Lord on their own accord. How's that for a trend? It's working. These, look, forget about what you hear on social media or whatever. That is real. It's happening. It's happening, and we are, and you are watching it happen. You are seeing it happen. It's God's word working in their lives, is what it is. And that motivates me. That is a great motivation to me, watching the word of God produce the next generation, and this next generation that comes up, they pay no attention to the status quo. Status quo's powerful. The status quo is ruining 99% of people in this country. And yet, these kids are bucking that status quo. That's the trend that I see. That's the data points that I put together. That's what I'm, and look, guess what? That's what I'm seeing here. That's what I'm seeing here. It pains me to think. It pains me to think on this goal that we might not achieve it fully, but we probably won't. We may lose some here or there. You know, this guy, a guy I talked to yesterday, I come up to him, and you know, we're soul winning, and I ask him the question. He's sitting on his porch on his front lawn, and I ask him, you know, I'm talking to him about eternal life, and if he wants to know if he's going to heaven, he's like, no, but I want my kids to go to heaven. They're like, okay, that's a completely natural feeling that you would want your kids to go to heaven. Let me help you with that. You know, let me help you with that, and then I want to show him the Bible that I can show him how he can get to heaven, because he's more concerned about his kids, but hey, we've got to focus on you for a minute, and then we'll get to your kids. And you know, I don't know. I don't know if I could have said something different or what, but the guy just had no interest. I mean, talk about just like a twisted logic, a twisted reality, but here's the thing, folks. Here's the thing. If you care about the next generation, your life matters. Your life means everything. Look, your walk matters. Your walk matters for the next generation. Look, I'm not, I'm going to forget about God's word, but I want my kids to follow it. What in the world? What Bible are you reading? It's not going to work, folks. Look, this guy didn't have a clue, but you should know that. You should know that. You're like, I'm going to jump in that hole. I'm just going to go in there. Your kids are going to go in there, too. I mean, what can you say? You don't care about yourself. Do you care about your kids? Look, maybe that'll motivate people. Motivates me. It's like, look, wake up. Your kids are going to follow you in, and you're saved, buddy. And this is a really selfish thing about it right here. This is a really selfish thing about the hypocritical parent that's going to live a hypocritical life right here. They're going to jump in the hole. They're going to lay in the hole. They're going to lay, and they're going to wallow in the hole. You know what, they're saved, though. You got little kids? You want them to be saved? You know, why don't you relate that to your kids? How about you not live a hypocritical life so your kids, when somebody comes up to them, probably you with the Bible, they don't laugh in your face. Because you're wallowing in a hole. That's where it matters. Look, if you could give me the option, like, hey, man, somebody's going to hell, you or your kids. I'm like me every time. Any father that's worth anything would say me, but that's not how it works. That's not how God designed salvation. You can't just trade places with people. This isn't the Catholic church. You can't write somebody a check. Look, you got to get saved, and then you got to walk it. Because that's how you get the next generation in it. Look, that motivates me. That motivates me, because it's hard. It's hard to do. That's why so many people fail at it. So there you have it, folks. I mean, it's not complicated. It's not complicated the things that motivate me here. You know, preach the Bible. Teach people how to do this life right. God gives us all the directions. Number two, train the Lord's army to preach the gospel to the lost. And then raise a next generation of God-fearing children. That's what drives me. I mean, you say, you know, at the end of the day, that's it for me. You're like, man, that seems too simple, but here's the thing. At the end of the day, it's really about just spending this life in a worthy cause. That's it, to steal a quote from Teddy Roosevelt. But, I mean, that's, and that's it. That's all it is. It's pretty simple, but it's hard. It's simple, but it's hard to spend this life in a worthy cause, but the thing is, folks, we only have one to spend. We only have one to spend. Now, let me take some time here at the end to thank my family especially for the last two years. I want to thank them for their hard work and their sacrifices that they've made. I want to thank Ashley. Ashley, you are the music ministry. You know, you've been with your mother. You've, you know, every single cleaning day, these kids are there next to their mother. And they're working. They're in the work of the ministry. Garrett, I don't even know, like, how you do all the stuff that you do. I have nothing to do with the YouTube stuff or cool videos or anything like that. And just let me say, I got a bunch of words here. You're a better man at 19 than I was when I was 30. Don't get puffed up. Jacob, you're there helping your mother every single day. Every single day. And my wife, like I said, I mean, you are so wise. You are so wise. So many times you think you don't see much of her. You certainly don't hear much from her. But so many times I've gone to my wife and I was like, I got this idea. I got this idea for a sermon. It's just, you can't say that. You can't preach that. Everyone's gonna hate you. I'm rough. I'm rough around the edges. She's the sandpaper. Think about it that way. And, you know, you ever seen that bumper sticker of people that, you know, some guy's got this bumper sticker that says I love my wife. You know the bumper sticker I'm talking about? Am I the only one that's seen it? I've always thought that guy was lame. You know, I'm just like, you need a bumper sticker? You love your wife? You know, but I'll tell you what, I love my wife. And she's proof, if you've ever wondered the answer to this doctrinal question, she's proof that God answers the prayers of the unsaved. If you think, does God answer the prayers of the unsaved? He does. She's sitting right back there. 22 years, and every year is better than the last one. And guys, I think if you're gonna put a measuring stick on your life, that's a pretty good one. If you look at your marriage and you say, you know what, anniversary time, was this year better than last year? And if every year just keeps getting better, I think you're doing something right. World class, world class, I would have failed if it wasn't for her, so many things. So many things. I wanna thank the Church family. I got in the car on Wednesday night with Ashley and Garrett, and the first thing that they said to me was our Church family's awesome. It's so generous, so spirit-filled. I mean, look, there's a lot of words that are gonna be said today, there aren't the words, there aren't the words. I'm so excited for the future with this group of people. There's no group, look, there's no group, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, there is no group that I would rather face the future with than you all. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.