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

Ezra chapter 7. Now Ezra is a very interesting person in the Bible. I'm not going to be really preaching about him or his story, but I do want to take some thoughts in the chapter that we read earlier. So Ezra chapter 7, just look at verse number 16. I mean you may have noticed as we're going through this chapter what the key theme was or the key topic was. But just to give you an idea here, let's look at it again in verse number 16. Ezra chapter 7 verse 16. It says, And all the silver and gold that thou canst find in all the province of Babylon, with the freewill offering of the people, and of the priests offering willingly for the house of their God, which is in Jerusalem. What's that referring to? That's referring to the new temple. The new temple that's going to be constructed. The first temple was destroyed. This is now the second temple that coming out of Babylon, the southern kingdom of Judah, and they're going back in and they're getting ready to rebuild Jerusalem, getting ready to rebuild the temple so they can worship in the house of their God. And look at verse 17. Thou mayest buy speedily with this money, bullocks, rams, lambs, with their meat offerings and their drink offerings, and offer them upon the altar of the house of your God, which is in Jerusalem. Drop down to verse 19. The vessels also that are given thee for the service of the house of thy God, whose those deliver thou before the God of Jerusalem. And whatsoever more shall be needful for the house of thy God, which thou shall have occasion to bestow, bestow it out of the king's treasure house. So just read those verses so you can see this chapter is about the house of God. Okay. And there's many more references of the house of God here in this chapter. But it gives you that flavor of what we're talking about. And of course, the house of God in the Old Testament was the temple in Jerusalem. But what is the house of God in the New Testament? It's this congregation right here. It's this assembly of brethren right here. We're called the house of God, not the bricks, not the walls, not this pulpit, not this microphone, but each one of us as people of God when we gather together, it doesn't matter if it's in a building, it doesn't matter if it's in a public park, it doesn't matter where it is, if it's in someone's house, we are the house of God. All right. And what we see regarding the house of God, we see something special about Ezra. If you look at verse number nine, Ezra chapter seven, verse nine. What does the Bible say about Ezra here? It says, For upon the first day of the first month began he to go up from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month came he to Jerusalem, according to the good hand of his God upon him. For Ezra had prepared in his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments. What I want you to see that Ezra as he was coming to the house of God, he was coming into Jerusalem, it says Ezra had prepared his heart. Okay, he had prepared his heart. The title for the sermon tonight is Preparing for Church. Preparing for Church. Okay. So I want to give you some practical advice, some practical tips, some things that we can take from the Bible before you come into the house of God, you know. And this is something very basic. We know we should be in church. We know this is the place where we come and hear the Word of God preached. But I'm hoping to give you some tips, some advice to enrich your attendance in the church. So you can get more out of church attendance than just coming here. Look, there's a lot of Christians that go to church. A lot of people go to church. Okay. And they go in week in, they go week out, but they don't get much out of church. Okay. Part of the reason is probably they're at a bad church. That's part of the reason. Okay, that's not what we've got. We've got a good church. Okay. But if you're not getting anything out of church, it's not the church. It's your lack of preparation. Okay. If you're going to be doing anything great, if you're going to ever succeed at something, you always need to prepare. You know, in order for you to get your car license, drive a car, you need to prepare. You need to learn the rules. You need to learn how to drive. And then you pass the test. And then you're going to be successful at being driving a car. I mean, that's just for anything in life. You need to prepare for the things that are important, for the things that you want to have great success in. All right. So we're going to be looking at, I believe I've got seven points here, as far as helping you prepare for church. So point number one, when it comes to church, preparation number one, do not make church attendance a decision. Okay. Do not make church attendance a decision. You know, when church comes around, you shouldn't be talking to your husband or your wife and saying, hey, should we be in church today? You know, should we pass today? You know, should we go this Sunday to church? That shouldn't be a discussion in your household. All right. Now take your Bibles and turn to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10, please, and verse 25. And this is a very common passage that a lot of people are familiar with. But Hebrews chapter 10, verse number 25, Hebrews chapter 10, verse 25, the Bible reads, 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 what we see in this verse here is that we are people that ought not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Okay. Now, some people have different views of what that means. I'll give you my thoughts. Some pastors will teach if you miss a church service, you forsaken the assembly. Okay. And I'm not going to, you know, attack those pastors. I know their hearts are in the right place. But you know, to forsake something is to completely give away, to completely do away with something. For me, forsaking the assembling is when you're like, you know what, I'm done with church. I'm not going there anymore. There are a bunch of hypocrites. And yes, church is a bunch of hypocrites. So is that person saying there are a bunch of hypocrites. All right. Because we all want to serve the Lord. We all want to do what's right. But we all have the sinful nature. And we're all going to make mistakes in life. Okay. But look, the Bible says here, not so much a forsaken, I want you to be focused on. But it says as the manner of some is. You see, for some believers, their manner of life is to forsake the assembling of themselves. Okay. They've created a pattern in their life. And you just know, brother so and so, sister so and so, is unlikely, is most likely not going to be in church today. Why? Because that's their manner. That's how they are. And that's the reputation they've built for themselves, that they forsake the assembling. And my question to you is what manner are you? What manner is your family? You know, and what you should be is that, well, church is just part of my life. You know, as much as getting up in the morning is part of my life, as much as feeding myself food is part of my life, as much as, you know, getting into the car and going to work or getting in the car and buying the groceries, you know, just the stuff that you don't question. Should I do this today? You know you need to do it because it's just part of your life. You know, and church should be just something that's just part of your life. There's no question. You know, I was just testing the kids today. I said, so kids, which one of you guys are going to church today? And they all looked at me like funny, like, what are you talking about? We're all going to be there. Like, what kind of question is that? You know, just seeing to see how my family would prepare, like, you know, how they respond to this, you know. So for us, missing church is unusual. You know, there'd have to be something that's out of the ordinary for us to miss church. Of course, I'm not saying there's never a time to miss church. You know, if you're sick or, you know, you just can't make it for, you know, physically unable to make it, your car breaks down, some emergency comes up. You know, you feel like you're contagious with some illness, and you feel I don't want to give that to the brethren. I mean, there could be various reasons, you know. And when you don't turn up to church, I'm not thinking this person's a bad person. Why isn't he in church today? Why isn't she in church? I'm not thinking like that. I'm just thinking, brother so-and-so, sister so-and-so must have a legitimate reason not to be here today. You know, so be it. I'm not going to bother them about it. But if I see obviously a pattern where they're missing maybe two or three servers, I don't see them for a few weeks, you know, I'll probably just contact them, you know, text them, ring them, say, hey, are you okay? Is there anything we can be pre-praying for? Because then obviously I start to become concerned when people are missing church for a long period, you know. But the Bible tells me there are going to be some people that it's just their manner. It's just the way they are, they're going to be forsaking the assembling. And we get the reverse here. Instead of forsaking, we should be people that exhort one another, Hebrews 10.25, that we exhort one another, and so much the more as you see that they're approaching. We should be people going, hey, we should have more church. As we see the day coming, as we see the day of Christ approaching, as we see, you know, that the latter days we should be wondering, hey, we should desire to be in church more often. You know, we're a church that started with two services. We started with the Sunday morning, you know, the midweek service. And then we've added now another, well, we added a third service once a month. We now apply that every week. You know, we are applying these things in our life. You know, and I've got the men's class every, you know, the last Friday of every month, roughly. And again, that's church pretty much. Everyone's invited to be part of that. There's other lessons, other things to learn. They can be part of all these things. So, you know, we do apply this in our church. We are people that exhort in one another to be in church more often, you know. And that's a good thing because we, you know, it does require a bit of effort to get to church, I understand. But once you're here, it isn't, I mean, your spirit rejoices. The Lord rejoices to know that you're here. So prepare yourself for church by making a non-decision. We're just going to be there unless some emergency comes up, unless something else comes up, all right. So I'll just talk about the midweek service very quickly. I'll just give you my personal story is that I grew up with my parents. And, you know, we were, my parents were regular churchgoers. You know, my parents are here right now. Regular churchgoers, we would go usually on Sunday morning, okay. And we were pretty much one service a week family. I grew up just being accustomed to go into one service per week, sometimes two services, you know, sometimes the two Sunday services, but more often than not, the morning Sunday service. And so, you know, when I got married with Christina, we were going to church, we're going basically to the two Sunday services, you know, we're going Sunday morning, Sunday evening, but we would not make much of an effort to get to the midweek service. Once in a while, we would make the midweek service, once in a while. And then my pastor asked me, can you come and preach one day on a Wednesday, you know, and I'm really not accustomed. My manner was to miss the midweek service, okay, at the time. And I remember when my pastor asked me to preach, I was delighted. I was thankful. But I felt like a hypocrite. Like I'm thinking, man, I'm going to go to church to preach, you know, I'm going there to teach the Word of God, but I'm hardly there during the midweek service. And, you know, just that call from my pastor got me to realize, you know what, I better be there every week, and I better be there for the midweek services. And you know what, the midweek services were shorter sermons, the midweek service, there were less songs, but the midweek service at the church that I was at, they had prayer time, they would gather with the brethren, and they would pray together. And I started to love the midweek service more than your Sunday service. Because I started to know the people in my church even better. I started to see they've got issues, they've got concerns, they got prayer requests. And, you know, you start to grow in love, and you start to see the needs of other people. And when other people are praying for you, you feel loved by the brethren. The midweek services for me, even though it was the smallest attendance, you know, for your average services, it was the best service. It was the best service because we were applying the love that God gives to each one of us to our brethren, you know. And I just want to tell you the midweek service is important here. This is why we have a prayer time, because I loved it so much in my previous church, you know, and I hope you guys learn to love the prayer time as well. Because that's really when you're going to get to know one another even more. Now, of course, there are people in our church that can't come to the midweek service. We have some brethren that travel long distances, and I'm thankful that they come, you know, on Sundays. I mean, we got one family that travels two hours to get here, and two hours back, you know, and of course, it's probably impossible for them to be here during the midweek services, or very difficult for some other families. But for us that are more local, for us that are able to make it, you know, we really should make an effort to be here for the midweek services. And I'm thankful for the church we have, because I usually know that those that are more local are going to be here. You know, I'm not usually wondering, is there going to be anyone here today? I'm pretty confident there's going to be the brethren usually here for the midweek services as well. But preparing for your church, point number one was, do not make church attendance a decision. Okay, it should not be a decision. All right, preparation tip number two, preparation tip number two. Now go to First Corinthians chapter 14, please. First Corinthians chapter 14, verse 40. First Corinthians 14, verse 40. And before we read that, tip number two is prepare by removing all distractions. Prepare by removing all distractions. We all come to church, and we all have things in our minds. You know, we all have, maybe you've not eaten and you're hungry, you know, you got food on your mind. Maybe you've got a big project, you got to get to work early, or something else, there's something that's on your mind. Maybe you've got to pay some bill, or you got to pay your rent, or you got to do something. And you come and you, you know, if you're like me, I've got several things in my mind all the time. Okay. But when you come to church, you need to make the decision, I'm going to put all these distractions, all these thoughts. Yes, they're probably important, but I'm just going to set them aside for now. And I'm going to give my church my full attention. I'm going to give church my full focus. Now look at First Corinthians chapter 14, verse 40. First Corinthians 14, verse 40. The Bible says, let all things, and this is in the context of how a church ought to be run. It says, let all things be done decently and in order. Okay. Church ought to be an orderly thing. Things ought to be done in order and decently. Okay. Because when things are not decent, when things are out of order, when things are chaos, it's a distraction. It's a distraction from the church service. So I've got a few points under this about removing all distractions. Number one, be on time, or be here even better before the time. Okay. Be here on time or before the time. Because here's the thing, if you come late, you're not a distraction to me. I don't think you'll be a distraction to the brethren in the church, but you've distracted yourself. You know, you've come late, you've missed part of the service, you've missed part of the singing. Like a lot of people, a lot of believers out there, and I've experienced this in churches, they turn up like five minutes before the preaching because they know what time the preaching starts. And they're like, I'm going to miss the song service, I'm going to miss the prayer, or I'm going to miss the giving, like some people do the offering during the service. I'm going to miss all that, but I'll turn up five minutes before the message. Hey, you've missed a significant part of the church service when you're late. You know, when you miss the song service, you miss the worship that God was expecting you to give him. The worship that God deserves. You know, when you come late, you miss that opportunity. So you're not a distraction to me if you're late, but you miss out part of the service, so you're going to be distracted by your lateness, because there's parts of that that you've missed. Now, the next thing that I've got under that is train your children to not be a distraction. Train your children to not be a distraction. And do I expect kids to be perfect and never make a sound? Of course not. That's not realistic. I'm talking about little ones, you know, of course not. That's not realistic. But, you know, pay attention. If your kids are starting to make, you know, a bit of noise, you know, you start to see people turning their heads, you know, and they're not looking, they're not paying attention to the preaching, not paying attention to the singing. Hey, your child's become a distraction. At that point, you need to deal with that, okay? And of course, I want you to deal with it, because that's where the children is going to get the practice. That's how they're going to learn to sit still, to sit in church and pay attention, is that they need the training. They need to have that experience where they are making a bit of noise, and then mum and dad come there and get them to be quiet or whatever, you know, and, you know, you can practice that at home. You can practice that in church, you know. But, you know, make sure your children are not a distraction. Now I'm talking about, I'm going to refer to now some of the older children and children I'm talking to you, you know, don't talk to your friends during the service. Don't talk to your friends during the preaching, okay? Because when you start talking to someone else, you distract your friend from hearing the Word of God, okay? You distract your friend from hearing the Word of God. And I would say if you can't help but be a distraction, then go and sit with your parents. You know, go and sit with your parents, and your parents will make sure that you're not distracting other people, okay? But I would say if you're going to sit together as kids, come sit at the front. You know, don't sit at the back, all right? Again, I'm talking about experiences of churches that I've been at, where you have the young people, they all go to the back. Do you think they're paying attention? They're chatting. They're talking about what they're going to be doing after the service. They're talking about their, you know, whatever their experiences are, and the people that, you know, their friends and all that kind of stuff. And they're at the back of the church not paying attention. You know, I like kids. I like young people sitting together. I like it. But you know what? If you're going to sit together, come sit at the front, okay? And that's going to help you maintain focus and not be distracted by anything else, all right? So what else have I got? Can you please turn to Psalm 119, please? Psalm 119, verse 18. How else can we remove distractions? Psalm 119, verse 18. Psalm 119, verse 18. And by the way, I don't want you to get this idea that I'm saying remove distractions, because I'm a super important person. You need to listen to Pastor Kevin, all right? I'm saying remove all your distractions, so you can have your heart and your mind focus on the Lord and on the Word of God. You know, this isn't the Kevin Sepulveda show. You know, I'm not here. I'm not going to start juggling for you to keep your focus. You know, I'm not going to start singing a solo to you. You know, whatever. I don't know how people keep other churches. Those fun senses, what do they do to keep people interested? You know, all the fun and games and the skits. I'm not going to start acting here and things like that, okay? It's not about, you know, focusing. This isn't, like I said, this isn't the Kevin Sepulveda show. You know, we come here because we're preparing our hearts to hear what the Lord has to say to us. But look at Psalm 119 verse 18. Psalm 119 verse 18. The Bible says, Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Okay, so this is a prayer to God. You know, we come to church, we want to behold, we want to see wondrous things out of thy law. Okay, we want to see beautiful things. We want to learn things of God. And we see that the psalmist asked the Lord, can you open mine eyes? Can you help me understand? Can you help me focus? Can you help get the other distractions away? You know, help me not to have my eyes on other things, but my eyes focused upon the law of God. So one great way to be focused is just before you come pray to the Lord. Lord, open my eyes, open my heart, open my ears, help me. Because I am a distracting person. I get distracted easily. You know, the flesh gets in the way. The flesh starts thinking about other things that aren't related to church. Lord, help me open my eyes. It's a great prayer to have to the Lord. You know, I believe the Lord will answer that prayer. I believe the Lord will bless you if you ask Him to do that for you when you come to church. Another way another way for you to maintain focus, if you find that you're easily distracted, I'm not saying you should all do this. You know, I think it's I think, in fact, if you all did, I think it'd be helpful anyway. But I'm not saying you should all do this. But if you find that you get distracted easily, what I would recommend is bring a pen and paper or bring a notebook and a pen. You know, and as I'm preaching or as someone else behind this pulpit is preaching, you know, start taking down notes. Start taking down the references. I know a few of you do that already. You know, start paying attention. It's going to help you. It's going to help you focus. It's coming to church in 3D. Okay, instead of just hearing the Word of God, now you're actually writing things down. You know, you're adding another dimension to the Word of God being taught to you. You know, I'm not recommending the cinemas, but the cinemas used to be, you know, the 2D movie screen. And then they introduced the 3D. You know, you have the 3D glasses, and now you can see things coming at you. And then there are some movie theaters that now have the seats that move and the smoke and there's wind and there's like a subwoofer on your back and it's pumping, you know, the sounds of whatever of the movie into your back. And you get the full experience. You feel like you're being there, right? You get an extra dimensional experience of that movie. You know, so coming to hear the Word of God and writing things down gives you that next dimension. You know, it makes it a 3D service. Now you've got another part of you that's focused because you want to write things down. You're going to be paying more attention before I write those things down. Okay, and writing things down, of course, is going to help you to do further study. You know, you should go home and you should think about what was preached. You know, and if you have notes, now you've got your resources. You can go back and check, you know, and do further research. Maybe one day, maybe you might become a pastor. You might become not even a pastor, just a preacher. Just someone that I call on to get here and preach us the Word of God, be a teacher. You know, how much better would it be if you've had all these notes, you've got all these resources now. You can go back, hey, I'm going to cover this topic. Oh, let's see what was taught back then about this. You know, refresh your mind, refresh your memory, go back. You can take some of those thoughts with you, you know, create a sermon out of it. You're going to have a great resource for you, should you get into the ministry into the future, if you take down notes. So remove all distractions. And lastly, please turn to James chapter one, verse 21. I better hurry up. All right, James chapter one, I'm only on point number two. I've got seven things. All right, James chapter one, verse 21. James chapter one, verse 21. James chapter one, verse 21. The Bible reads, Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls. So what's one way that we can receive with meekness the word of God? Is to lay apart the filthiness, the naughtiness in our lives. All right. Before you come to church, confess your sins to the Lord. Okay, don't let your sins be a distraction for you in church. And if you come to church with unconfessed sins, it will cause you to be distracted. Okay, it'll cause you to be in the flesh to some extent, where it's going to limit your ability to take in the word, you know, and to make like I do it before I come and preach the word of God. I'm always on the drive here. I'm always, Lord, if there's anything I've not confessed to you, please forgive me. You know, please be merciful to me. I've got to come and preach the word of God to your people. Please use me. Make me a clean vessel. Okay. And that's important for the preacher, absolutely important for the preacher. But it's also important for all of you. Okay, because not only is the word of God being proclaimed, but you want to come and receive the word of God, right? And you need to make sure you confess your sins to the Lord. Hey, I don't care. You can be sitting here five minutes before service starts and you go, we have not confessed a sin to the Lord. Just have a silent prayer. Get it over and done with. You know the Lord wants you to come to him confessing your sins. He'll forgive you. And he wants you to enjoy church. He wants you to make the most of it. The great time right then before the service starts, just bow your head to the Lord, ask him to forgive you for your unconfessed sins. Okay, we all have them. None of us are perfect. And you know, make sure you do that so you can take advantage and it will cause that distraction of your sin to be done away with. All right. So point number three, how else can we prepare for church? Point number one was do not make church attendance a decision. Point number two was prepare by removing all distractions. Number three, prepare by expecting to hear from God. Expecting to hear from God. Now let me, if you are someone that does make a decision, should it be in church day or not? If that's your style, okay. But if you were expecting to hear from the word of God, you know if we went to church today, we're going to hear from God. God's going to speak to us. Isn't that going to drive you to be in church more often? Aren't you just going to like, God's going to speak to me and if I miss church today, I'm going to not get what the Lord was wanting me to hear that day. Okay, the Lord is, this is his house. The Lord's presence is here. Okay, and if I'm doing things right as a pastor, the Holy Spirit is using me as his vessel to preach the word of God. Okay, you're going to hear from the word of God. But of course, you must remove those distractions. All these things come together. But turn to Hebrews chapter five, please. Hebrews chapter five, verse 11. Hebrews chapter five, verse 11. Hebrews chapter five, verse 11. I don't want you to become this Christian. And I've been this person in my churches in the past. I don't want you to become this person and not in this church. Okay, Hebrews chapter five, verse 11. The Bible says, There are a lot of Christians today that are dull of hearing. Okay, it doesn't matter what kind of preacher you have behind the pulpit. It doesn't matter how good the church is. They're just going to come to church out of habit, but they're going to be dull of hearing. They're going to hear it. They're going to hear something, but they're not going to be taken in what is being said. What a waste of life. What a waste of coming to church. You know, coming to church takes time to prepare yourself, get your family ready. It's going to cost some fuel in your car. It's going to take an hour or so out of your time of your life. You know, you're going to go home a little bit more tired than any other day, let's say during a midweek or whatever. You're putting some effort into it. You want to get something out of it. You know, when you invest in an opportunity, you want some profit, you want some reward, you know. But some people out of just religious habit, they go to church, but they don't hear a single thing. They don't hear a single thing. I've been to church where after the service, like nobody talks about the message. No one talks about the Bible. No one cares. It's like, what's for lunch, right? What's going on? You know, what are you doing this week? Who cares about what was preached? You know, what was preached this morning? I can't remember. I don't know. You know, you become dull of hearing. It's a really bad place to be, because then the Lord really needs to work hard in your life to get a hearing aid into you. So you can start paying attention once it gets to the word of God. Please don't make church just this religious thing that you do. You know, I've got to do it. I've got to keep up the appearances. I just, you know, it's almost better that you... No, I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. All right. But you know, you should be someone that's ready to hear, knowing or expecting that God is here and that He will speak to you. All right. And look, I don't expect you to necessarily pay attention to the whole service, the whole sermon. You know, it's good if you do. But if you're, you know, I remember being in church as a parent. You know, your kids start to cry. Your kids start this. You got to attend to them. And you're going to miss parts of the sermon, right? But what, you know, that's okay. If you miss parts of it, it's okay. But still pay attention when you can pay attention once again because what you're aiming for is just to pick up the nuggets of truth. Okay. I would say, and probably for many of you, you know, when you come to church, you're just, you're always going to walk away with that nugget of truth. Just that one thing that you learnt in you. That one thing that you can apply to your life. Okay. I've got seven points right here. But there might be just one of these points that really rings true to you. Say, well, this point I really need to work on. You know, this one point, and you probably forget all the other things. But that's fine. As long as you can take something, okay, something, and then that will allow you to apply that later in your life. Please go to Revelation chapter two, verse 29. Revelation chapter two, verse 29. Revelation chapter two, verse 29. Now, what I don't want you to think is that, well, I'm preaching this sermon because, you know, Pastor Kevin thinks it's really, you know, really important, and everyone needs to pay attention to him, you know. Look, church is more than just listening to the pastor. It's more than that. Go to Revelation chapter two, verse 29. The Bible says, He that hath an ear, make sure that ear is not dull of hearing, right? He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. You see, when you come to church, the Holy Spirit will speak to this church. If you miss church, you're going to miss out on what the Holy Spirit wanted to say to the church. It might be, when you make that decision, I'm not going to go today, it's just, I just had a, you know, I had a late night last night, and I'm not going to go to church this morning. It might be the sermon that was prepared was just for you. It might be the prayer that you're asking God, help me understand this, you know, help open my eyes to this situation. It might be that the Lord pressed that upon my heart, and I'm preaching about it, and you're, well, I'm not going to be there today. And you miss out on what the Spirit is saying to the churches, okay? But look, like I said, church is more than preaching. You come to church because you want to open this hymn book, you want to sing praises to the Lord. It's so important those songs that we sing are full of doctrine and that they're true. And I appreciate it when you have questions. Is that true? Should we sing that? I like that because we want to make the church as true as possible. We want to make sure the doctrine is right as much as we possibly can make it with our weak, you know, understanding and our weak vessels that we have. But we want to make sure that every opportunity, even if it's just a prayer, you know, Brother Callum, can you pray right now? There might be something in that prayer that the Holy Spirit speaks to you for. You know, it might be something in the prayer. It might be something in the hymn book. It might be something in your fellowship. You know, it might be just your brother saying, hi, sister, how are you? You know, is everything okay? And that might be the Holy Spirit just encouraging you to tell you you've got brothers and sisters in the Lord that love you and care about you. And that might be just the way the Holy Spirit speaks to you. But the Holy Spirit can use every part of our life in church, even the food together, the fellowship, the soul winning, all the parts that make up our church to speak to you. Okay, it's not just the preaching. Pay attention to how the Holy Ghost is speaking to you through other methods. This is why it's not good for you to miss the parts of the service because the Holy Spirit may have wanted to speak to you through that song. Okay, many times I've learned doctrine, just reading, you know, I grew up in a Baptist Union church. I didn't have a lot of good Bible teaching, but many of the hymn books, they were awesome. Many of the hymns I'd sing, I'd go, oh, wow, is that true? Is that in the Bible? Because there's great doctrine even in a lot of these songs. All right, so keep your, no, actually turn to 1 Corinthians now. Turn to 1 Corinthians 14, verse 34. 1 Corinthians 14, verse 34. When I think about the bread and butter of church, or bread and butter of Christian life, you know, of course, it's reading your Bible, praying, going to church, confessing your sins, going soul winning. I think I'm missing something else. But you know, those common things. And you know, today I'm preaching on church attendance. It's just one of those bread and butter parts of your life. You know, but we need to hear this stuff because it's so important. You know, it's the foundation of your Christian life. You know, when you're missing parts of this stuff, you're going to lack in your Christian walk. And church attendance is a big part of it. So that's why I'm covering it again today. Even though, of course, I've covered it in the past. But go to 1 Corinthians 14, verse 34. 1 Corinthians, chapter 14, verse 34. And if you're feminist inclined, then cover your ears. No, no, I don't want you to be dull of hearing. We want to hear what the Word of God says. 1 Corinthians 14, verse 34. The Bible says, 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 saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. Say, Pastor Kevin, did you write that in my Bible today? No, it was always there. It was always there. It's not the Mandela effect. It's always been there. All right, now this, of course, is speaking in reference to the teaching time of church. Okay, the teaching time of church, men are called to get behind the pulpit, open the Word of God and preach it. You're better off having a weak man preaching behind the pulpit than the strongest woman. If we want to be in obedience to the Word of God, you're better off just having the weakest man in the church getting up and giving some message, because we want to follow the obedience, you know, be in obedience to what God teaches us here. So is this saying that women should always be silent? They shouldn't sing? They shouldn't, you know, pray for one another? Of course not. We're talking about teaching time. Men are called to stand up and teach from the Word of God. But here's the thing that I want to take away from this. All right, if there's something that, and I'm talking about wives here, and even daughters, I'll apply this to daughters as well. Daughters and wives, if there's something that you want further understanding of the scriptures, of course, I'm here. I'm your pastor when it comes to church time. But what you should do first, because I'm not your first authority in your life. I'm your authority within the church. But the first authority in your life is your husband, is your father, okay? And it says here, verse number 35, and if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home. There's a few things here that I want you to notice. Going home is the perfect time to speak about the things that you learned in church, okay? Going home is a perfect time for you to speak about things that happen in church. Is that your home? You know, is that your home? Do you get home and talk with your family about the things that were discussed in church today? Say, no, that's not going on. Well, you know, the Bible says that's what should be happening. That's when it's time to ask questions. That's when it's time to clarify. And of course, husbands, dads, you're the spiritual leader in your family. You should be driving this opportunity in your house. Some of you travel further to get home from church. You know, if you travel half an hour, an hour or so, hey, in the car, on the way home is a great opportunity. You got nothing else to do except look out the window. Great opportunity to say, hey, that was discussed in church today. What do you make of that? How do you think we can apply that as a family in our lives? Or if you heard me say something wrong, okay? I taught something wrong. You should say, hey, guys, listen, we respect Pastor Kevin. But first of all, the Word of God. The Word of God comes first. And we heard him say this. But let me show you what the Bible says about this issue, okay? Hey, it's a great time. I'm not offended. I would delight in you doing that. I would rejoice to know that you're standing on the Word of God and you're leading your family in His Word. You know, I really, if you notice one thing that I really keep drumming home in this church and down in the church in Sydney, is the authority of the father of the husband, taking leadership, you know, we live in a society that's totally trying to remove what it means to be a man, to stand up strong, to be a strong leader. Hey, they're doing away with the roles of husband and wife, you know, and men are getting weaker. Men don't want to make decisions. They want to go and ask someone else, say, what do I do? And if it fails, you can blame that person instead of taking accountability for yourself. No, it's time for men to stand up. It's time for fathers to say, hey, I'm in charge of what my kids learn of the Bible. Hey, I took them to church because I think they're going to get the best teaching there. And when it's something wrong, there's something I disagree with, as long as I have the Bible to show them, do it. I would love it for you to do that. I'm not going to be offended. I want you to take ownership of your family. You know, I want you to do that. I've done that. And I discussed this with the men's leadership class where I've heard something false at church. You know, did I speak bad of the pastor? Did I put him down? Did I try to make my kids disrespect him? No, I said, look, guys, you know, well, that was taught. Well, here's what the Bible says, you know? And again, I said this before, but it's going to teach your kids to make sure they don't become mindless zombies and just listen. That was taught at church. I must believe that. No, you go back to the Bible and check it out. You go back to the Bible and check it out, all right? Point number four. Point number four is prepare to edify the body of Christ. Prepare to edify the body of Christ. When you come to church, you should be asking your question, who can I encourage? Who can I lift up? Who can I give joy? And who can I be a blessing toward in this church? You know, and I would say, list everybody in your church. We're a small church. We don't have that many people. And make sure if there's someone that you've not spent time with, someone that you've not greeted, someone that you've not spoken to, go to them this time and say, hey, you know what? I'm going to spend a little bit of time with them. I'm going to ask them if there's anything I can do for them, if there's something I've been praying for in for their life. Make them know that I love them and edify them. There's a lot of verses we can turn to. Let me just, I'll get you to turn to, you guys are in 1 Corinthians. So go to 1 Corinthians chapter 14. You guys are already there, right? 14, but verse number three, we won't read that just yet. I'll read some other passages to you. I'm going to read from Romans 14, verse 19. Romans 14, verse 19. The Bible says, let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace and things which are where we've, one may edify another, okay? We want to make for peace. We want to have church as a peaceful place. And in order to do that, we must edify another, okay? Now, you should not, I mean, there's nothing wrong with you saying, I want to be in church today to be edified. Nothing wrong with you saying, nothing wrong with that, okay? But you know, edifying another person is going to edify you. Just knowing that I was a blessing to that person is going to make you feel a lot better about yourself, okay? Because I was able to play a part in that person's life. I was able to bring them a smile. You know, I gave them 30 seconds of my time. I said, hello, sister, how are you today? How's your week been? And you probably, you know, they're happy to know that you care about them for 30 seconds. Come on, we can all do that, right? First Thessalonians chapter five, verse 11 says, wherefore comfort yourselves together and edify one another, even as also ye do, okay? Comfort yourselves one together, edify one another. James chapter five, verse 16 says, confess your faults one to another and pray for one another, that ye may be healed. Listen, if you don't pray for one another, you're not going to be healed, all right? Prayer is important in order to have our prayers answered. It says the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Hey, use your midweek service to send in your prayer requests. This is something I need prayer for. The Bible says to do it, that we may heal one another, that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much, okay? God's going to answer our prayers, and I'm sure you can say during this time in church when we've prayed together, you've seen prayers answered. I'm sure we can all confess those things, but the Bible also said confess your faults one to another. Now, it doesn't say confess your sins one to another. You know, I'm not a priest that you come to me, and we go into a box, what do they call those things? Confessional booths, and you come and tell me your sins, and I go, God bless you, brother. Say 10 Hail Marys, and you'll be fine with God, you'll be right. No, no, no, not confessing your sins in that way, but if there's just something you're struggling with in life, you don't need to give everybody all the details. We don't need to know all about your dirty laundry. You know, we want to maintain the best thoughts about you. If I knew every part of your dirty life, do you think I'll respect you? Probably not. If you knew everything about my dirty laundry, do you think you respect me? No, but we all have faults. We all have challenges. We all have difficulties, you know, and there's a time when you need to give that burden to someone else and say, can you please pray about this? I've got this issue. I've got this fault. Please pray for me. That'll edify the brethren. Now you guys are in 1 Corinthians chapter four, 14, sorry, 14 verse three. And this is for the preachers. Remember, I preach and some other men here preach and, you know, I love the fact that a lot of you guys are getting into the habit now of getting rotated and preaching. But this is something you need to remember when you preach. In 1 Corinthians 14 verse three, it says, but he, that prophesier, for that's the one that proclaims the word of God, speaketh unto men to edification. And exhortation and comfort. Hey, when you come and prepare a sermon, yes, you know, use your, you know, be wise, you know, do some study, you know, digging deep, but we're not interested in how smart you are. You know, we're interested to be edified by the preaching of the word, okay? When you come here, you prepare a sermon, how can I edify my brethren with the sermon? You know, that's gonna drive you. How can I comfort my brethren? How can I exhort my brethren? All right? Now you might say, well, does that mean we can never preach, you know, negative things? You know, can we never preach things that are, you know, you know, you know, against the false prophets and against the wickedness of this word? Because that's gonna get people down a bit. No, no, no, that's fine. If you guys go to 2 Corinthians now, 2 Corinthians verse 13 verse 10, 2 Corinthians verse 13, chapter 13, chapter 13, 2 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 10, sorry. And I got a lot on my mind. I started to get messed up with my references. 2 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 10. This is of course, Paul speaking to the Corinthians. He says, therefore, I write these things being absent, lest being present, I should use sharpness. You see, Paul says, when I'm present with you, I'm gonna be sharp. When I come and preach, it's gonna cut through, okay? There's gonna be some hard preaching, okay? But look at this, according to the power which the Lord have given me to edification and not to destruction. You see, coming and preaching hard against sin, coming and preaching hard against worldliness is not to destroy the brethren. It's to edify the brethren, okay? It's to renew their mind. That's what God says, of course. You know, how is it that I went back to worldliness? How is it that I thought this was okay? It's good to be reminded how God feels. I feel a bit bad about it now because I'm not living up to God's standard, but now I feel edified because I'm reminded of how God feels, and now I can work toward getting back to where God wants me to be, all right? So even when you preach the hard preaching, it's to edify the church. So edify, build up the church, all right? Now, the last thing about preparing to edify the body of Christ just quickly is prepare. Well, this is part of the same thing about edifying the church, but come here thinking about how can I participate in the church service? You know, I don't want to be someone that just sits there in a chair and gets off the chair and that's all I do in the church. Now, for some of you guys, especially the men, it's fine, you participate in different ministries. You know, you get to preach. You know, I ask you to pray sometimes during the service, get to get up here and read the Bible. Hey, that's participating. That's participating. That's serving one another, but especially we already mentioned the ladies are not to get here behind the pulpit with the teaching ministry. Hey, by the way, I need a song leader, all right? I've been saying this for over a year now. Where's my song leaders? You want to participate? You know, prepare yourself. Say, hey, brother Kevin, you know, today or next week, I'm ready to be a song leader. I need you, I need you, okay? My voice can only do so much. Okay, especially, you know, going down to Sydney and coming up here and preaching. I'm sure the Lord's working in someone's heart right now. Maybe several of you guys, right? Anyway, but you know, there's other things you can do, like cleaning, you know, preparing lunch, preparing lunch. You know, we have lunch on Sundays, you know, setting up, packing up, whatever, whatever it is, you know, whatever it is that you're capable of doing. And I've mentioned that, you know, Sister Trish before, you know, just the cards, what a blessing. You know, you know, always making sure there's new cards there, refreshing it and, you know, it's available for us. It's a blessing that we don't need to now spend like five bucks to get a card for someone's birthday. It's free. It's all there because someone is serving the church. You know, see whatever your hands, whatever it is your hands can do, you know, come and be a service and edify the body of Christ. Let me go through those points once again. Point number one was do not make church attendance our decision. Point number two was prepared by removing all distractions. Point number three was prepared by expecting to hear from God. Point number four was prepared to edify the body of Christ. And I better start getting through the rest really quickly. But point number five is prepare to rejoice in the Lord. Prepare to rejoice in the Lord. If you guys can go to, let's go to Psalms. Let's go to Psalms. Psalm 122, please, verse one. And this is, of course, a verse that I've used several times in previous verses, previous sermons, but it's a powerful verse. You know, Psalm 122, verse one says, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Prepare yourself by having the right emotion. Kids, it's time for church today. Oh, I don't know. You know, you should be glad. Say, hey, I'm going to rejoice. I'm going to be happy. All right. You know, yes, maybe your flesh would be rather doing other things. I think all of our fleshers would rather be doing other things, but you should be coming in the new man, in the spirit and saying, hey, I'm going to come and rejoice. I'm happy to be in the house. Even if it's just to see your friends. Hey, that's a great thing to be glad about. Okay. Even if it's just that, it's a great thing to be glad about. Go to Psalm 84, please. Psalm 84, Psalm 84, verse four. Psalm 84, verse four. You want to be blessed by God? I think we all want to be blessed by God. Psalm 84, verse four says, blessed are they that dwell in thy house. The house, of course, the church, right? They will still, sorry, they will be still praising thee, Selah. Hey, when we come, part of the joy, part of the gladness is singing praises to the Lord, speaking highly of the Lord. When you come and you pray, don't forget to honor the Lord. Make sure you praise His name. Praise Him for the great works and the blessings that He's given us. And lastly, I'll just read to you very quickly. 1 Corinthians 14, 33 says, for God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints. So God is not the author of confusion, okay? God is not the author of confusion. See, church ought to be a place of clarity. It's a place of clarity. The brainwashing that you get in the world, you ought to come to church and be clear minded. Oh, brainwashing, yes. Give me the word of God, right? It ought to be clear. You know, it ought to be a refresh from the brainwashing of the world. It ought to be a place where the scripture is made clearer to understand. Look, I've gone to church, I've heard preaching, and I'm more confused after the sermon. Like, there's a passage that seems clear to me. Then I heard a preaching on that passage, and like, what in the world? Is that, that's not what the passage says. I had questions, now I've got further questions about what that was. No, you should come to a church and make sure you choose wisely the person that you put yourself under, the preachers that you listen to. And you know, as preachers, we should be making the word of God clear. And when you learn things, when things become clearer, your soul is going to rejoice because it's the food. The word of God is the food of the spirit. It's the food of the soul. It's the food of the inner man and will strengthen the inner man. And that will cause you to be glad and to rejoice. So to prepare to rejoice in the Lord. All right. And actually, I got one other point here. I don't know why did I put this here? Anyway, I'll read to you quickly. Second Corinthians 13 verse 12. It says, Greet one another with an holy kiss. I kind of think that should have been on the edifying the body. Okay. But greet one another with an holy kiss. Well, let's just tie it into being glad. All right. Let's tie it into being glad. Because here's one thing, and I mentioned that already. One thing that's going to cause you to be glad. One thing that's going to cause you to rejoice is when your brethren come and greet you. And let me say, I think this is an area where our church can improve in. Just honestly. Okay. Making sure that we, I'm not saying you need to obviously give a kiss. I'm not saying that's the place you need to improve. Of course, the kiss there is a cultural acceptance in that time. You know, if I'm in Chile and I go to church and I don't kiss the ladies on the cheek and say hello, I'd be considered being rude by doing that. But of course, if I came up to your wives and started kissing them on the cheek, don't you think that's a bit inappropriate? You know, Kevin. That's not really going to cause you to rejoice. You know, it's going to start to make you question what's going on, you know. So of course, you've got to think about your culture at this point in time. But the greater point is this. The Bible said here to greet one another. Okay. Greet one another. It doesn't say men greet the men. It doesn't say women greet the women. It doesn't say kids greet the kids. It says greet one another. Okay. So make sure, and my apologies, because sometimes my mind's buzzing. My apologies if I forget to say hi to you. Sometimes I even apologize for not saying hi, because I feel bad about it, you know. Especially as a pastor, I should be trying to set an example. Make sure when you come to church, you just spend that two seconds. Hi, brother. Hi, sister. How are you? You know, make sure you do that. That's going to cause people to rejoice. They want to come to church because, hey, my church cares about me. You know, my church thinks about me. All right. I don't know if that point was meant to be there or not, but it is now. All right. So let's point number six. And I've got seven points all together. If you guys can go to 1 Timothy chapter five, verse 17. 1 Timothy chapter five, verse 17. Point number six is prepare to give toward the work of the church. Prepare to give. I'm talking about your finances here. I'm talking about your tithes and your offerings. Prepare to give it toward the work of the church. Okay. Now, this can be challenging for some people. I do plan to preach soon on tithes and offerings and stuff like this. I know it was difficult for me to get into the habit of doing it, okay, especially when you're struggling a little bit financially. But this is part of your preparation of church, is I want to contribute, you know, to the work of God. And you know what? Very little of that actually comes to me. Most of that just comes to paying the lease, to the food, to the resources, whatever it is that we need to do. To the electricity bill, you know, to the body corporate fees, and whatever it is, you know, all the resources. Very, very, very few dollars actually come into my pocket now, okay. It doesn't matter. I'm not complaining. I'm not complaining. I'm not desperately needing it, you know. But nevertheless, we need to make sure and understand that, hey, there's a cost involved with running church, okay. And 1 Timothy chapter five, verse 17. 1 Timothy chapter five, verse 17 says, Let the elders, hey, that's like a pastor, that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine. So if you feel that I rule well, if you feel that I labor in word and doctrine, the Bible says that I should receive double honor, you know. And I'm not picking and choosing what verses I want here. This is what the Bible teaches, right? That, you know, it says here that pastors ought to be paid. But of course, this has greater context of making sure there's enough finances, resources in the church to make it run efficiently. Look at verse number 18, 1 Timothy 5, 18. For the scriptures say, If they shall not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, and the laborer is worthy of his reward. Now, I'd be concerned if I'm like five years as a pastor, unpaid, you know, I'd be like, man, am I even, am I ruling that well? Maybe I'm not laboring hard enough in the word and doctrine. That's why there's nothing coming, you know, into my pockets. But it doesn't matter. It's not about my pockets. You know, coming and preparing yourself for the work of God is to have faith. Say, Lord, I probably need these dollars, but I'm going to give it to your work. I'm going to give it to your house. And I'm going to just have faith that you're going to provide my every need. Hey, it's going to work great wonders in your life. It's going to cause you to grow in many areas of your life, just helping the work of God in the local church and this context financially. Because we don't want to be a church like the Corinthians. Remember, we've gone to the Corinthians, how bad they were. And I'll quickly read to you 2 Corinthians 11 verse 8. Paul says to the Corinthian church, I robbed other churches, taking wages of them to do you service. Man, what a shame. He says, look, in order for me to serve you, to work for you, you know, to preach the word of God to you, to encourage you, I've had to take wages from other churches because you're not providing. And if you remember, when we got through this, the Corinthian church were well off. They were abandoned in their finances. And Paul was taking money from churches that were struggling financially. They had less, but they were the ones willing to give to the work of God. And in doing so, he was able then to serve the Corinthian church. What an embarrassment for that to be recorded forever in the word of God. I don't want that New Life Baptist church, you know, cause, you know, people to rob other churches to serve them. You know, I don't want that to be said about our church. So remember, hey, prepare to give toward the work of the church. That means you're going to have to set aside some money. That means you're going to have to make some difficult challenges, these decisions. There's going to be some challenges with that. Hey, but you know, it's going toward the house of the Lord. And if you can say, hey, I rejoice in the house of the Lord. I'm learning from the house of the Lord. I'm being blessed by the house of the Lord. And it really should be no question that I should really give toward it. You know, just doing my small part there as well. And the last point that I have, guys, the last point that I have, turn to Hebrews chapter five, Hebrews chapter five. Hebrews chapter five is to prepare to apply and grow. Prepare to apply and grow. You should be thinking when I come to church, I'm ready to be hit wherever I need to be hit. I need to take whatever I need to take. You know, if there's an area here that I'm lacking is, I've got to make, I've got to decide I'm going to make an improvement here. I'm hoping I can come to church and see the scenario in my life that I'm lacking in, because I want to make an improvement. I want to grow. I want to mature. Okay, and Hebrews chapter five, verse 12. Hebrews chapter five, verse 12 says, for when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and have become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat. Think about your life as a believer. How long have you been saved? How long have you been a child of God? Can you teach the word of God now? Say, I've been saved for 20 years. I've been saved for 30 years, 40 years. Can you teach the word of God? Are you able to show people doctrines that you believe? Are you able to convince the gainsayers? Are you able to show people when they're wrong in doctrine? Are you able to calmly show people, you know, what the word of God says? And if you're not, it means you haven't grown. You haven't grown. You're still a babe in Christ. You're still needing the milk yourself. And that's, you know, the Hebrews here are being brought to shame. They ought to be teachers by now, okay? And I'm not just talking about teaching here behind the pulpit. Of course, we mentioned that that's not the role for ladies. But you're teachers to your children. You know, you're teachers to your, you could be teachers to your fellow friends, to your fellow, you know, mothers, fellow wives. You can help and guide and teach one another and show them places in the word of God. And if you're unable to do that, that's a problem. You haven't grown. You've become dull of hearing. You know, you haven't prepared when you come to church. You know, you haven't prepared yourself to grow and to learn. And look, you know, I'll be honest with you. There's been times that I've sat in church. I've heard preaching and I've been like, yeah, I know I need to do that. I'm not going to do it. Why? Because I was carnal. Why? Because I was in the flesh. You know, there's been many opportunities that I've had to grow. And I just resisted the Holy Ghost. I just quenched the Spirit, you know, and you know, it stunted my growth. Hey, maybe I could have been a pastor early in my life potentially. Had I always, you know, been someone that said I want to grow and learn and take in what there is to say. It doesn't, you know, I don't have any regrets, you know, put that behind me. I'm serving the Lord today, thank God. It doesn't matter. Hey, but there's going to be times where I preach and I put a lot of work and effort into my sermons. And you know, one thing that I found as a pastor, one thing that gives me the greatest satisfaction is when I see people in the church growing. And I'm not saying you have to become this superstar in two years, you know, that you need to be like the Paul the Apostle in a few years. But just seeing the little things, you know, just seeing the small amounts of growth, the improvements, you know, the attention that people give to the Word of God, you know, just even within my own children, seeing them and growing knowledge and things like that. I mean, just seeing Nicholas preach gives me so much pleasure. There are a few things that he said that I'm like, I don't know if he should have said that. But anyway, it gives me great joy. It gives me great joy, you know, to see my children growing in the Lord. It gives me great joy as a pastor to see my church growing in the Lord, you know. If you say, hey, what can we do, you know, what can we do for Pastor Kevin? You know, is there something we can do for him? You know, can we collect some money and send him a gift, buy him a present? No, I don't want that. I just want to see you grow in the Lord. I just want to see you mature. I want to see you know your Bible's more. I want to see you open the hymns and knowing your hymns better, singing louder, praising the Lord. I don't care how bad your voice is, singing praises to the Lord is going to give me great joy. It will show me that you've applied these things and that you've grown and that you've become a hearer of the Word of God. And of course, you know, be not hearers only, but be a doer of the Word of God and, you know, apply the things that you've learned. So just in summary, guys, the seven points. I did have some other things, but we'll just summarize it now. Point number one was do not make church attendance a decision. Point number two, prepare by removing all distractions. Point number three was prepare by expecting to hear from God. Point number four was prepare to edify the body of Christ. Point five, prepare to rejoice in the Lord. Point six, prepare to give toward the work of the church. And point seven, prepare to apply and to grow. Let's pray.