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To the rich, I was born To the rich, I was born To the rich, I was born To the poor, to the poor Till the world, of the world Is so vain Its salvation shall know its own To the hardest of places, he calls me to go Not thinking of boundaries The world may pronounce me a dreamer Of who we love in the master at least To the rich, I was born To the rich, I was born To the rich, I was born To the poor, to the poor Till the world, of the world Is so vain Its salvation shall know its own Oh ye that are spending your leisure And powers in pleasure, so foolish and far Away from yourself is this calling Sing and go to the regions beyond To the rich, I was born To the poor, to the poor To the regions beyond, I was born Till the world, of the world Is so vain Its salvation shall know There are other lost sheep that the master must bring Must the bestest be told He sends me to gather them out of the land And welcome them back to his home Lift up now to the nations beyond I was born, I was born To the rich, I was born Till the world, of the world Is so vain Its salvation shall know Ring the bells of heaven, dare enjoy today For a song returning from the wild See the Father, peace him out upon the way Welcoming his weary wasm's love Glory, glory, how the angels sing Glory, glory, how the loud hearts sing Tis the ransom for me, like the might we sing Dealing for the anthem of the free Ring the bells of heaven, dare enjoy today For the wanderer now is reconciled Lest the soul was blessed from a simple day And is born a new and handsome child Glory, glory, how the angels sing Glory, glory, how the loud hearts sing Tis the ransom for me, like the might we sing Dealing for the anthem of the free Ring the bells of heaven, stand at peace today Angels swell the crowds round we sing Tell the joyful sigh he's very far away For a precious soul is born again Glory, glory, how the angels sing Glory, glory, how the loud hearts sing Tis the ransom for me, like the might we sing Dealing for the anthem of the free Walk the Calvary's mountain, one dreadful morn Walk Christ my Savior, weary and worn Facing for sinners, death on the cross That He might save them from endless loss Blessed Redeemer, precious Redeemer Sees now I see Him on Calvary's screen Who let them be, for sinners flee I am a leading, lying for me Father, forgive them, the sin He prayed In all His life blood, blood passed away Praying for sinners, wise us now No one but Jesus, that rules us now Blessed Redeemer, precious Redeemer Sees now I see Him on Calvary's screen Who let them be, for sinners flee I am a leading, lying for me Oh, how I love Him, Savior and Friend How can my praises ever find Him Through the years I've now heard of Him and shown My time shall praise Him forevermore Blessed Redeemer, precious Redeemer Sees now I see Him on Calvary's screen Who let them be, for sinners flee I am a leading, lying for me Sing them over again to me Wonderful words of life Let me more of their beauty sing Wonderful words of life Words of life and beauty Teach me faith and beauty Wonderful words, wonderful words Wonderful words of life Beautiful words, wonderful words Wonderful words of life Christ the Blessed One gives to all Wonderful words of life Sinnerless to the loving God Wonderful words of life All so freely given Moving us to heaven Beautiful words, wonderful words Wonderful words of life Beautiful words, wonderful words Wonderful words of life Sweetly echo the Gospel call Wonderful words of life All who're born in it, peace to all Wonderful words of life Jesus, only Savior Saint did lie forever Beautiful words, wonderful words Wonderful words of life Beautiful words, wonderful words Wonderful words of life I heard an old, old story How a Savior came from glory How He came His life on Calvary To save our friends like Thee I heard about His groaning Of His precious ones at glory And I've been prevented of my sin And was not in glory Oh, we're free, Jesus I say, Lord, forever Please, God, be, and God, be With me, dream, be kind We are here, are you there? And, oh, how great you are We are free, we're free We are cleansing blood I heard about His healing Of His cleansing power in me Well, I think we need to watch Him And watch the light to see We've been brought up here, Jesus The river opens in And somehow Jesus came and come To be held in glory Oh, victory in Jesus I say, Lord, forever Please, God, be, and God, be With me, dream, be kind We are here, are you there? And, oh, how great you are We are free, Jesus I say, Lord, forever Please, God, be kind I heard about a mansion In glory Where we heard about The streets of Rome Beyond the crystal sea All about the angels singing And the o'er the ancients soaring Let us all see Chaos in the heaven A song of victory Oh, victory in Jesus I say, Lord, forever Please, God, be, and God, be With me, dream, be kind We are here, are you there? And, oh, how great you are He wants me to make the rain We need our victory, God My eyes have seen the glory Of the coming of the Lord Where the grace of wrath will soar He admits the fame Of lightning, of His terror And loves his Lord His truth is marching on Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah His truth is marching on I have seen Him in the watchfires Of a hundred circling camps They have built in heaven All two in need And there's the best His day is marching on Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah Our God is marching on He has sounded forth From the trumpet And shown Him a retreat He has sent me out The Lord has made me Oh, be swift, my soul To answer Him, be true Oh, let my feet Our God is marching on That's good, sing it out now Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah Our God is marching on On the last lifted up In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea With the glory in His bosom That's between you and me As He dies to make me holy Let us love to make Him free Oh, God is marching on That's good, sing it out now Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah Glory, glory, hallelujah Our God is marching on Far away the noises The voice of strife Upon my ear is calling Then I know the sins of earth He said on every hand Doubt and fear And pains of earth In vain to me are calling None of these shall move me From here to the land I'm living on the mountain Underneath the cloudless sky I'm drinking at the mountain That never shall I die Oh, yes, I'm yeasty Thank you for watching! Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. It's great to see everybody here tonight. We're going to find our seats. We will go ahead and get started. Once you've found a seat, grab a hymnal. And for our first song, we'll go to song number 17. Song number 17, One Day. Song number 17, let's all sing it out together on the verse. One day when heaven was filled with its praises One day when sin was as dark as could be Jesus came far to be born of the burden Well, the hostess by example is he Living he loved me, dying he saved me Buried he carried my sins far away Rising he justified freely forever One day he's coming for me a stay One day they led him up outer each mountain One day when fear from blood on his knee Suffering pain which despised and rejected Bearing our sins my Redeemer is he Living he loved me, dying he saved me Buried he carried my sins far away Rising he justified freely forever One day he's coming for me a stay One day they left him alone in the garden One day he rested from suffering grief Angels came down for his tomb to be vigil Oh, but the hostess my Saviour is he Living he loved me, dying he saved me Buried he carried my sins far away Rising he justified freely forever One day he's coming for me a stay One day the grave could conceal him no longer One day the stone flowed away from the door Then he arose over death he had conquered Now is ascending my Lord evermore Living he loved me, dying he saved me Buried he carried my sins far away Rising he justified freely forever One day he's coming for me a stay One day the trumpet the sound for his coming One day the skies in his glory will shine Wonderful day my beloved one's bringing Glorious Savior is Jesus' love Living he loved me, dying he saved me Buried he carried my sins far away Rising he justified freely forever One day he's coming for me a stay Great singing everybody. Let's open up the service now with a word of prayer. Lord we love you and we just thank you for the opportunity to serve you. Such a wonderful place to do it Lord. Thank you for all the souls that were saved this afternoon and all our efforts here Lord we love you. We just ask you to bless this church and bless the service and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright for our next song. Let's go to song number 60. Song number 60. Song number 60 face to face. Face to face my Christ my Savior Face to face what will it be And when rapture I behold Him Jesus Christ to God for me Face to face I shall behold Him Far beyond the starry sky Face to face in all his glory I shall see Him by and by Only faintly now I see Him With the darkling wail between But how blessed He is not me When His glory shall be seen Face to face I shall behold Him Far beyond the starry sky Face to face in all His glory I shall see Him by and by One rejoicing in His presence When our banishment been made When the crooked ways are straightened And the dark things shall be played Face to face I shall behold Him Far beyond the starry sky Face to face in all His glory I shall see Him by and by Face to face a blissful moment Face to face you see and know Face to face with my Redeemer Jesus Christ to love me so Face to face I shall behold Him Far beyond the starry sky Face to face in all His glory I shall see Him by and by Thank you for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you did not already get a bulletin, you can lift your hand. There was meant to be our Philippines mission update letter this morning. I think we missed it. I apologize. But we do have it for this evening. So I was going to go over that real quick. But our evangelist Duncan Urbanek in the Philippines tries to give us a monthly update. And so he has this. You can read through it and you can read through his prayer requests. I'm not going to read the entire thing. But he says that for the month of March, they were able to get 581 salvations, which is honestly incredible, especially considering that he'd been traveling and everything like that. So I guess he took it seriously that we're competing with him and he's going hard. But you know what? I like that. I like that iron sharpens iron. And if we can encourage our evangelists to do more work, then that's we're doing the right thing. He has a lot of other information there. They're going to be starting a church plant service over there. And we'll be just renting a small space doing just not all the time services, just occasional services over there and just kind of see what kind of receptivity we have to church services and if people like it. And you know, when it comes to church planting, I hope people have the right attitude and the right mindset that in a lot of cases, you know, church planting is a trial and error process and that not all church plants end up becoming successful. Not all of them work. Not all of them are a great area. And to me, like, we should always be willing to adapt and evolve and change. And so when we're doing church planting, we want to pray that it's successful, but we want to have that attitude of we're just always sowing seed and whatever the Lord blesses that ends up coming to fruition. If it doesn't, well, you know, we just want to be able to be willing to adapt and change. Not all churches will live forever. Churches come and go and, you know, that's just life. It's not necessarily a big deal. And we can at least celebrate whatever work a church accomplishes for whatever time being it has. And so we just need to have the right mentality that church plants, pastors, churches, these things, they change, they ebb and flow. And we just want to be used of God when we have those opportunities and, you know, bless the Lord. So we're looking at trying to do some church work over there. We don't know what the Lord is going to do, but, you know, you're never going to accomplish anything if you don't try. And so, you know, we can appreciate the people that are at least trying and putting some effort, energy into it because it's harder than it looks. And church planting is harder than it looks. Pastoring is harder than it looks. Being an evangelist is harder than it looks. And so we want to make sure that we're encouraging people and helping them and coming alongside of them and doing good. And whatever the Lord wills will allow him to do that for us. So just to give you an update, he's got some prayer requests there on the back and continue to pray for their soul winning efforts. I know our brother James over there has been doing a lot of soul winning too. Pray for him and pray for the other people that are over there. On the inside of our bulletin we have announcements about service times, soul winning times. Down below is church stats. On the right we have a list of expecting ladies. We have upcoming events, kids choir practice. It looks like we're getting really close to this wrapping up. And we'll be able to enjoy the fruits of our labor for Easter. So I'm really looking forward to hearing our kids practicing. My wife's been saying that they've been doing a really good job. And I appreciate you parents for participating and being involved in that. Spring swap is April 13th. Mansfield soul winning 19th. We have Easter services of course the 20th. The Scott baby showers on the 3rd. There's some details on the back about that. A Mother's Day brunch May 10th. And of course you're welcome to invite your mother or any other ladies in your family if they would like to attend. We just want to make sure you do sign up for that so that we can anticipate how many people to plan for. And then down below church reminders. Quiet time is from 2 to 4 every Sunday. Of course that first hour or so might be bumped right now just because of kids choir. But we still want to try and observe that and respect that. No running or rough playing in the church. Children shouldn't be on our stage area or in the kitchens area. The children should also not be in our mother baby room areas. The fellowship room is not a play area. Children should be not using church supplies unnecessarily. Make sure we're cleaning up after ourselves. Water bottles are for soul winning. Parents please watch your kids. And then children please obey the adults and the ushers in our services. We also have on the back is the notes about the baby shower. It's for the Scotts and their baby boy which is very exciting. Please if you'd like to bring a dessert or side dish let Ms. Milstead know. You can RSVP to her. And then if you'd like to get them a gift they are registered on Amazon. We have several prayer requests down below. Please be in prayer for our church family. If you have any updates or if you would like to modify that please just email us and we'd love to update our bulletin on prayer requests. That's all I have as far as evening. We're going to go to our Psalm 119 which is in our Psalm Binders. Psalm 119 if you can get those out. Alright that was Psalm 119. Psalm 119 let's all sing it out together. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Great singing everybody. Now as the offering plates are being passed around go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter number 17. That's the book of Luke chapter number 17. Luke chapter 17 the Bible says, Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offenses will come, But woe unto him through whom they come. It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, Than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves, if thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him, and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day, turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him. And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea, and it should obey you. But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meet, and will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken. And afterward thou shalt eat and drink. Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I tro not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants, for we have done that which was our duty to do. And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks, and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? There are not found that return to give glory to God save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. And when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither shall they say, Lo here, or lo there, for behold the kingdom of God is within you. And when he said unto the disciples, The days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and ye shall not see it. And they shall say to you, See here, or see there, go not after them, nor follow them. For as the lightning that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven shineth unto the other part under heaven, so shall also the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation. And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot, they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded. But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. In that day he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away. And he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. Remember Lot's wife. Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. I tell you in that night there shall be two men in one bed, the one shall be taken and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together, the one shall be taken and the other left. Two men shall be in the field, the one shall be taken and the other left. And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for Steadfast Baptist Church. Thank you for the souls that were saved today. I ask you to bless Evangelist Urbanic and the church plant that he's doing. Please bless the sermon now. Fill Pastor Shelley with your Holy Spirit and remove distractions so we can attend to your word. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. I want to look at an interesting part of scripture here. Look at verse number seven. The Bible says, But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he has come from the field, Go and sit down to meet, and will not rather say unto him, Make ready, wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken, and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I tro not. Now, here in verse number nine, I'm kind of getting the essence of the idea for my sermon this evening, but you see that this servant is almost expecting to be thanked for the work that he does. And Jesus says, Clearly, I tro not. Now, tro is kind of a word that we don't use normally. It just means think. So it's like, I think not is what he's saying. He's just saying like, No, he does not deserve a thank you. And really what you kind of see in essence is that Jesus is getting at a particular attitude. And I'm kind of continuing my bad attitude series again tonight. But I want to talk about the attitude of being entitled, of being entitled. Now, I want to caution you, okay? First of all, you said you liked hard preaching. We're going to test that theory. Now, I want to say this. Some of the things I'm going to say tonight, I guarantee everyone in here will like some of the things I say. Like you, there's going to be part of the sermon that you're thinking like, Yes, that person needs to hear that. But there also will most likely be parts that you might think, Is he talking about me? And I want to I just want to tell you right now. Yes, I am. OK. And I want you to challenge yourself to say, hey, maybe I might be having an attitude of entitlement in certain areas of my life. And I need to work on that. And we all need to work on it. We can all become entitled about certain things. And I think we need to challenge ourselves to not have this attitude, but rather have a humble attitude and not allow entitlement to spoil us. And I'll just be honest with you. I feel like I love spoiling people. And I'm not saying it in the sense that I want them actually to be spoiled. I'm just simply saying, like, that's just kind of a phrase we use. What I'm trying to say is like people that I really like and people I really care about, I like to do a lot of good things for them. I like to, you know, give them things that they don't necessarily need, do extras for. But what can happen as a result of that is because people become spoiled. People become entitled when someone that they're hanging around with is very generous, very kind, does a lot of good things for them, that they end up becoming very entitled. And because God is so good and because God does so many good things for us, it's very easy for us to be entitled. As Americans, because God has blessed our nation in so many ways, I think Americans can become entitled very easily in comparison to other parts of the world. And because we live in Texas, we could become very entitled. It's almost like the more prosperous you are, the more blessings you've had, the more good things you receive, it just makes it easier for you to be entitled. If you were raised where your parents made good money, you're well off, or you had maybe just a lot of privileges, it could cause you to be entitled. If you got to go to a preppy school, you know, there's this idea of the preppy school or you went to a preppy college, you can get this entitlement attitude. If your parents gave you a lot of handouts as a kid or you're a trust fund baby, you can get to become very entitled. But here's another thing, you could have this happen spiritually. Maybe someone's greatly blessed you spiritually and given you a lot of wonderful things spiritually and then become spiritually entitled. Or perhaps you go to a really awesome church that spoils you in a lot of ways, and then you become really entitled from a lot of the things that you've received. So we'll talk about a lot of these concepts here, but let's dig into this passage for a moment. Hopefully you're not too offended yet, all right? Look at verse seven again. But which of you, having a servant, plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him, by and by, when he has come from the field, go and sit down to meet? So he's basically saying, why would I have a servant and then basically serve him? You know, like, hey, I know you're hungry. You go ahead and eat. I'm not going to eat. No, no, no. He's basically saying the servant is there to serve the master. And so in a sense, the servant is going to be the one that prepares the meal for the master first, right? That's why he says in verse eight, and will not rather say in him, make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself and serve me till I have eaten and drunken, and afterward, thou shalt eat and drink. So again, the servant should be doing his job serving the master. This is just what makes sense. Verse nine, doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not or I tro not. So are you entitled to being thanked for doing what's expected of you? Biblically, the answer is no. You know, like how many people go to work and feel like they should just be thanked by their boss for just going to work? But you made an agreement with them to be paid. That was that was what you agreed to. So you are entitled to the paycheck that you've agreed to, but you're not entitled to a thank you for just doing exactly what you're agreed to be paid to do. And you know, our culture has destroyed this today, where every restaurant and every gas station and everything wants a tip. And I'm thinking like you just did your job. Why do I have to give you a tip? Because you did your job. Now, again, I know that in the restaurant culture in America, we have tipping as a thing and it's just kind of becoming grain in the culture. I'm not going to fight that too much. But it's almost like they're extending this to every service, every business, every idea. It's like you've got to tip everyone for every reason. I'm thinking I don't even have to say thank you. I paid for my goods. You gave me my goods. You know, biblically speaking, I don't even owe you a thank you. Now, look, I think we should be nice and we should be kind and we should say thank you. I almost always say thank you unless it's like a reprobate or something. And then I might just kind of grab it and move on with my life. But at the end of the day, I am trying to say thank you. I am trying to be courteous. And we should be like that. You know, we shouldn't have this attitude of feeling like I deserve a thank you. I deserve a tip for doing my job. You know, that's the wrong mindset and the wrong attitude. And you know what? It's a bad idea for our culture. Our culture is making a mistake in this tip over tipping culture. Over tipping culture basically makes people feel entitled. And so many people today feel very entitled to tips or all kinds of extras or bonuses. This is the wrong attitude. If you go to work and you do your job, if you do everything your boss says, you are not entitled to a bonus. If your company gives you a Christmas bonus, that is not something you're entitled to. That is to their discretion. And if you got a Christmas bonus last year and you do your job this year and they don't give you a Christmas bonus, you are not entitled to the Christmas bonus. You are not entitled to any bonus or any extra or any gift card or anything. If they did extras, you should recognize as an extra and not demand or feel entitled to certain extras. I've seen this ugliness in my family before. Because there was a period in our life where our parents were just giving us extra money for no reason. Like just all of a sudden they just gave us gifts on Christmas and then just giant checks with money. And it was like every year we got like a bigger check. And like obviously human nature, everybody is going to kind of think like, hey, I wonder if that's going to happen this year, right? But what would be a bad attitude is to say, hey, I deserve this or I'm entitled to this or I'm expecting this. And the checks didn't just keep getting bigger, okay? Otherwise I'd be a wealthy man at this point, all right? They had a lot of extra income for those few years. They blessed us. It was super great. But one year we show up and it doesn't happen, right? And then it's like siblings of mine are complaining about it. And in fact already spent the money that they were expecting to get. And then they were mad at our parents for not giving them that. And I'm thinking like you already get tons of presents. And I mean our family, my parents spoiled us on Christmas. I mean we got more gifts than most families. And then on top of that just get a check with a bunch of money. I mean that is just over the top. But it's just like you can get this entitlement attitude. Look, being a child you don't even deserve a gift from your parents. Your parents are not obligated to give you any present on your birthday, to give you any present on Christmas, to do anything nice for you. If they do anything it's because they love you and it's extra. I'm not against holidays and I'm not against extra days in our calendar. But let me tell you something, we should never have an entitled attitude. You know if my family decided to never celebrate Father's Day, that's their decision. If I get a Father's Day celebration, that's nice. I'm not against celebrating Father's Day but you know what, I'm not entitled to that. Just like Mother's Day should not be an entitlement. Now that's a little spicier, okay, especially in our culture. Now look, I'm not saying, marriage advice tip, celebrate Mother's Day, okay. Ladies, if your husband doesn't meet your expectations, don't feel entitled and be entitled on Mother's Day, okay. So we should have both opinions, right. We should do good things, we should go across the aisle, we should do extras. But you know we don't want to then have all these extras in our life and not realize they're an extra and start becoming entitled and start thinking this is just obligatory, they have to do it. Because then it kind of ruins the whole point anyways. You know if Valentine's Day is obligatory, then I feel like it's less special anyways. To me it's almost more special if you don't always do the exact same thing or have high expectations and so some years you had a special Valentine's Day, some years you don't, some years you have. And look, if you go all out, go for it, I'm not going to fight you. But I'm just saying that it seems a little more healthy if it's not always exactly the same or always expected because then you don't become spoiled rotten and you have to just have all these extras to even feel like you're actually spoiled. Because what will happen is you go big on Valentine's Day, then they have an expectation, they feel entitled to that. So in order to actually feel special you have to go beyond. And then you go beyond that and then you have to keep going beyond and then pretty much you just can't even compete. And then it's just like there's no point. So we don't want to get this attitude of just feeling like we deserve things or we're expected to receive things. This is a bad attitude. That's why He says in verse 10, So likewise ye, when ye should have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants. We have done that which was our duty to do. So again, there could be this attitude of like I deserve things or you should praise Me for doing exactly what I'm expected to do. Now go if you would to Matthew 7. And I want to talk about this in a marriage context here in a minute. But let's play it to a salvation context first. Oh, I went to church, I read my Bible, therefore God owes me eternal life. Wrong. Wrong. Well, I did what I was expected to do, therefore God owes me heaven. Or God is obligated to give me heaven. Wrong. God doesn't owe us anything. We're expected to keep His commandments, just period. But that doesn't give us eternal life. That doesn't give us salvation. Now you kind of see this little bit of an entitlement attitude. I believe in Matthew 7, look at verse 21. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name have done many wonderful works. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from ye that work iniquity. They anticipate that the works that they did should cause them to have a spot in heaven. They feel like they're entitled to be in heaven because of the things that they did for the Lord. But you know what? You don't get into heaven by your works. Salvation is a free gift purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ, and he gives it to us by grace. I don't deserve heaven. I deserve hell for my sins. But then they think, well, but look, I did all these things. I should then get heaven. Wrong. No one gets to heaven by their works. No one gets to heaven by what they did. And no one's entitled to heaven. No one's entitled to anything in this context. You know what? We see salvation by a free gift. It's grace, and at the end of the day, many people feel like they deserve heaven, and they're going to go to hell. He's going to say, I never knew you, depart from me that work iniquity. Now, that's one application. There's another way we could look at this, this entitlement attitude. Here's one in marriage, and I think that this is really important, is to recognize that in marriage, love is much more than just fulfilling your duty. Like, if you think, I'm going to have a successful marriage as a husband because I pay the bills, I tell my wife what to do, and I drag her to a good church, and I go soul winning, that is not something that your wife's going to be, like, extra saying thank you for. That's what you're expected to do. Like, you're just expected to do these things. And on the flip side, as a wife, let's go to the other side. This is a little bit spicier. If you make the meals, if you take care of the kids, and you clean the house, did you know you're not even entitled to a thank you? You're expected to do those things. So then why would you sit here and think, I deserve extra if I just do my duty, if I just do my job? Doing your job is not something to be thanked. It's what you're expected to do. Going to 1 Timothy 5, I want to go there for a moment. Same with your boss at work. If you just do your job, hey, you're not entitled to a thank you. Now, of course, we live in a society that's very courteous and very nice. I think it makes sense to say thank you. Hey, if I come home and my wife spends all day cleaning the house, I'll often tell her thank you. I'm not trying to say be a jerk, don't say these things. What I am saying is that even if I didn't, my wife is not entitled to a thank you. It's expected. Just like, you know, I don't pay the water bill, and my wife is like, thank you so much. I don't pay the gas bill, and she's like, oh, man, that was awesome. I like how you paid the gas bill, right? If I pay the credit card that we went over on budget, hey, I don't even get a thank you for that. But you know what? How is it that then wives feel like they should be thanked for every little thing they do? That's an entitlement attitude. We shouldn't be entitled to these things. And again, I'm not sitting here demanding my wife praise me and thank me for my job, because you know what? I do my part, she does her part, but that's not a marriage that's going to be that successful if that's all we do is just do our duties. You know, we also need to do things above our duties, okay? What thank have ye if you just do your duty? You know, you're just expected to do certain things in marriage. If you really want to have a successful marriage, you need to go beyond your duties. You want to be a successful Christian, you need to go beyond your duties. You want to be a successful employee, you need to go beyond your duties, okay? But at the same time, we also don't want to get this entitlement attitude when we just do what's expected of us. Now, 1 Timothy 5 gives us the expectations for a man in marriage, and it's making abundantly clear that men are supposed to be the provider for the family. Look at verse number 7. And these things give in charge that they may be blameless, but if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. So if you don't pay your bills, the Bible says you're basically a scumbag. I mean, I honestly think infidel is a worse word. You like think scumbag is a bad word? Infidel is worse. I mean, it's saying like an unbeliever. It's saying just like someone that's completely rebelled against the faith of Christianity. How could you tell me you're a Christian when you won't even pay your own bills? The Bible says when you won't pay your own bills, it's like you're not even a Christian. It's like you have a false religion. It's like you have a bad religion. You know, you need to be able to pay your own bills and not only just your bills, your wife's bills, your children's bills, pay for your whole family's bills. That's what the Bible says to be blameless. Men need to pay for their family. And look, you talk about getting respect in the household. Boy, when you pay all the bills, you often get a little bit more respect than the guy that's making his wife go out there and earn a paycheck. If you're going to put your wife in a pair of pants and have her go work in the workforce, well, it's going to be a little bit harder for her to come home and respect you. There's this viral video that's going online. I think it just got like millions and millions and millions of views online. And it's some wife complaining about her husband not doing enough chores around the house and saying not only was she mad that she had to tell her husband what to do, which there's so much to address about this video, but she was saying like, if you want to have a successful marriage, you husbands need to just do these chores without asking. You need to just read your wife's mind or whatever. And I'm just sitting here thinking like, wow, there's just so much wrong with this video. Number one, never go online and complain about your husband. It's wicked. It's just wicked, period. Number two, her husband should just say, all right, honey, you're going to stay home and do all the chores and I'll pay all the bills. Look, I do think you're kind of begging for your wife to get mad at you if you're going to make her get a job and then being the wife and the mother and do all the chores. But let me tell you something. If your husband made you do that, you still just shut your stupid mouth and do the chores. Sorry you married him. That's not my problem. And you know what? I can't stand all the women out there just being like, amen, you go girl. Oh yeah, that's right. Oh yeah, you tell them what to do. You know what? That's wickedness. That's wickedness and it's wrong. And look, I'm not for women working and having to pay their bills. What does the Bible say? The man should pay. And again, that'll make it easier. But look, if a woman had a job or a husband had her doing some kind of work, hey, that's between them. Obviously the Proverbs 31 woman has some side hustles. And as long as a wife is not neglecting her duties at home, there's technically nothing wrong with her making money on the side doing whatever she wants. But at the end of the day, you're not really going to have a successful marriage when you're putting her out there working for the man and working for you and doing all your other tasks. Then you might start becoming a house husband. You don't want that. It doesn't work well. And you know what? Wives are not in control of their husbands. Wives are not telling their husbands what to do. Wives are not the ones giving him the chores list and all this other stuff. You know what? That is for the husband to be in charge. Husband's in charge. The wife is subject under a husband. And at the end of the day, the husband's supposed to pay all the bills, so he makes all the rules. He decides what he's going to do. Now look, in a happy, healthy marriage, I believe that there's going to always be crossover. Okay? There's technically nothing wrong with a wife making zero dollars a year. If a wife makes literally no income, that is totally fine. And it's even biblical for the husband to be the sole provider, 100% all the income's coming from him. Okay? But if a wife ends up making money, you know what? That's, in my mind, coming across the aisle. That's her doing some extra. But as a husband, I don't think it's right to put expectation on your wife for her to make money. And in the same way, though, since the husband is paying all the bills and making all the money, you know what? It's not right for the wife, then, to expect her husband to have to do any of her job. You know, my wife doesn't have to do any of my job. My boss says, hey, we're behind on this project. I'm not like, all right, honey, get in there. Get some C Sharp going. Get that SQL server spinning up. Pull an all-nighter and get that server back in shape or something like that. My wife's never done my job. She doesn't ever have to do my job. She's never expected to do my job. I'm not asking her to do my job. I don't want her to do my job. She doesn't know how to do my job. And so isn't it a little silly, though, how the opposite most of our society expects? It's like, no, the husband has to do all of my job, though. That's a feminist culture that we live in. And you know what? It's an entitlement attitude. We live in an entitlement era where women feel like they can tell their husbands what to do and do their job for them. And tell them, hey, you need to come and do my job and my chores and my stuff. You know what? That's not the right attitude. Now, look, as a loving husband, I do come across the aisle often, okay? I do do a lot of things for my wife. But let me make it clear. You know, it's not because I'm expected to. And you know what? I don't want it to cause an entitlement attitude in any of my family or in my relationship. And we need wives to understand, hey, if your husband's coming across the aisle, that's something to thank. Hey, am you paying all the bills? I technically don't even deserve a thank you on that. You should say thank you, but you don't have to, all right? But if you come across the aisle, that should be a thank you, not, hey, I'm entitled to this. You're entitled to do my job for me. You know, that's wrong. Just like if I needed, let's just say my wife did have a job or bring in some extra income. You know, I shouldn't get this entitlement attitude towards her and say like, oh, yeah, well, I expect that or that has to come in or you better be making this extra money. We should be looking at it as gravy, cherry on the top, okay? And the same way, if I'm doing her stuff, and again, all of us men have different skills, you know, different things we can help with. If you come across the aisle and you're helping her with certain things, that should not become an entitlement area in your marriage. Now, there's some areas that I don't even give her a chance to be entitled in because, like, laundry, you don't want me to help, all right? I don't help. I've never helped. If anything, I'm the opposite of help, okay? Like, I think that the laundry basket is every section of my house. I mean, a table, a chair, over here, you know, it's just like, hey, the clothes can go wherever, you know? And again, I'm not even saying that's right. I'm just saying that I have this bad habit, okay, of just everything is the laundry basket for some reason. And, you know, but there are areas that I do help. You know, I learned how to cook at a young age, and I'm not the best, but there's some things that I'm very good at making. I enjoy cooking. So a lot of times, I'll make dinner, you know, I kind of have a routine where I make dinner once a night, usually, most of the time, and, you know, or at least I take care of dinner. Maybe I don't always make it, but I'm helping. That's not something that I have to do. That's just me coming across the aisle. But, you know, what could happen is, let's say you get in a pattern where you do that for your spouse. What if you took that away? What would that be like? Well, you know what? It would be an entitlement attitude if the person expected that, even though you're doing it. And so we don't want to make sure that we're getting this expectation of, like, oh, this has to happen. No, no, no, that's coming across the aisle, isn't it? You know, helping out with the kids, helping out with the house, all this stuff that's just their job. You know what? We don't want to allow people to get the wrong attitude. Now, of course, as a husband and as a father, I have to do things around the house. I have to take care of the kids, too. I have to be a husband. So I'm not saying that the woman's job is, like, always taking care of the kids or whatever. Whatever arrangements you have as a married couple, you know, whatever is her job, duties, whatever is your job, duties, and then when we come across the aisle, we need to recognize it as coming across the aisle so that we don't get entitled about those things, okay? And that's, you know, going to be a little bit different for each couple, each marriage. Go over to Luke chapter number 6. Go to Luke chapter number 6. So I'm just trying to help you just to apply some of these things. Is there an area in your life where you feel a little bit entitled about things in your relationship? And, again, some things are duties. Hey, the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter number 7, there's a part of marriage that's the duty. That's not something that's coming across the aisle. That's just you say, I do, and it's done deal, consent's given, bam. Hey, paying the bills, that was on day one. I do, you basically said, I will pay all bills, period. Okay? So there's lots of aspects of marriage that are just the duty. You know, as the man, you're the provider, you're the leader, you're the protector, you're going to do a lot of different things. As the wife, you're subject, you're submissive, you're going to do things for him that he wants. That's why he got married to you, okay? And we don't want to put those on the table as these are nice-to-haves or coming across the aisle. Coming across the aisle is doing extras that you're not expected to do. And, again, you know, here would be an extra. You know, I think that wives should make their husbands lunch because at the end of the day, or make them dinner or make them whatever, right? What would be an extra? What if she writes a little love note and slips it in the lunch box? Well, that's not a duty. That's just an extra, right? And those type of things is where you build a relationship. You know, you don't build a relationship on just a checklist of, hey, I showed up and I paid the bills, love me. You know how you get your wife to love you? Spend time with her, talk nice to her, hang out with her, take her on romantic dates, buy her jewelry. You know, these are the things that, you know, nice-to-haves. Is she entitled to jewelry? No, but at the end of the day, it's nice when you do things that are nice for her. Is she entitled to romantic getaways? No, but that would be a nice thing to do every once in a while. So, again, we want to make sure that we're balancing these items, getting them in the right place. Tithing, duty. Free will offering, bonus. Okay, so when it comes to church, you coming to church, obligatory. Don't think, you don't deserve a thank you to show up at church. You don't deserve a thank you for going soul winning. That's obligatory. That's your duty. That's your reasonable service. You're expected to do that. Okay, so if you think that you deserve everyone in here to thank you for that, you have the wrong attitude. Okay, you're expected to serve God, and so don't think that that is something to be praised or for us to go around and clap for you or something. Luke chapter 6, look at verse 31. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? For sinners also love those that love them, and if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? For sinners also do even the same. Hey, you do good unto people expecting the same in return, it's not even worthy of being thanked. You know, hey, you're just nice to people that are nice to you, there's nothing even special about that. But then how many people feel like they're entitled to this? Oh, well, I invited someone over, so now I'm entitled to them being nice to me or doing good, no, no, no, wrong attitude. You're even doing it for the wrong purpose. Go over to 1 Corinthians 6, let's just go to a lot of verses here, and then I'm going to make some more application, all right? People get a very wrong attitude about life. 1 Corinthians number 6, look at the last part of this, verse 19. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you? Which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. You know, I have a duty just to serve God because he bought me. Just like, you know, if a husband pays for you to marry him, because that's kind of the picture, you know, they pay this dowry in the Old Testament, even today in a lot of ways when you get married you have to pay for a lot of things, you're agreeing to pay for them for the rest of your life. So in a sense you're kind of like bought, in a sense. And it's the same picture of the husband and wife is kind of like Christ and the church. The church was bought and paid for by Jesus Christ. He laid down his life for them. Husbands are laying down their lives for their wives, in a sense, and basically agreeing to take care of them. And in a sense when you're bought and paid for, you're expected to then be their servant. You're expected to then be, you know, good unto them and do right unto them. And look, Christ has purchased us, so we are expected to serve him. He's not obligated to say thank you to us for just doing the things that he expects us to do. Go over to Romans chapter number 12. Let's go to another verse on this. Romans chapter number 12. We are to serve God because we're expected. But you can go above what's expected of you. You can go beyond just what's obligatory. Romans chapter number 12, look at verse 1. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So we're supposed to be a, quote, living sacrifice. Now, you know, the sacrifice in the Old Testament, you would go, you would take some kind of an animal, a lamb. If you were kind of poor, it might be a bird, a turtle dove or something that you would offer. And you would do this on somewhat regular basis. You would offer some sacrifices of the Lord. Now, it wasn't your whole life. It wasn't all of your income. What was it? It was the tithe, in a sense. And in many cases, it was a trespass or a sin offering. So, you know, just kind of out of just a basic expectation, God basically just expects us to just go to church, pay our tithes and not sin. And that's kind of if you look at the sacrificial system, that's basically what it was. You would go to church. You would pay your tithe. You would pay, you know, trespass offerings or whatever. And again, in the New Testament, praise God, we don't pay money for that. We just, you know, it's not the Catholic Church. We're not paying indulgences here. But you should at least in the New Testament, if you sin, say, God, I'm sorry, and try to not sin. Look, this is the basic Christian life. Doing those things is not some extra special thing. And you shouldn't act like God's over here just trying to just extra bless you and give you these special thank yous just because you're trying to not sin. You go to church and pay your tithe. There's a lot more to loving God, serving God, than just doing the reasonable service. And you shouldn't have this entitlement attitude like, well, I show up at church, pay my tithes, and I'm trying not to sin. Therefore, God just owes me all this stuff. God doesn't owe you squat. You were bought with a price. You just, you're just expected to do these things. Okay? And yet a lot of people, they almost feel like God's just going to give them all of this extra for just doing what's reasonable. Go to, if you went to James chapter number four, go to James chapter number four. And they have an entitlement attitude. Here's just one aspect that we could all get entitled to. Just deserving another day of life. We're not even promised another day of life. We're not guaranteed another day of life. You know, the Bible tells us to redeem the days because the days are evil. Redeeming the time because the days are evil. And we need to take advantage of the time that God has given us because we have no idea how much time we get. None of us know. And some people have this entitlement attitude about their life like, I'm entitled to 70 years of life or 80 years of life or however much. You don't know that. No one here deserves 70 years. No one here deserves 80 years of life. In fact, you know what we deserve? Death and hell. That's what we deserve. Look at James chapter number four towards the end of this. He says in verse 13, go to now, you that say today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain. Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow, for what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeared for a little time and then vanished away. For that you ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. But now you rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing is evil. Do not presume anything in the future. Don't feel entitled about anything in the future. Don't feel like God owes you something. Look, you are the one that was in debt and he paid your debt. And I see this entitlement attitude creeping into the youth of America especially. Where they feel like they're entitled to not just live, not just have a long life, everything. They feel like they're entitled to get a high paying job. Like the youth today just thinks like, you know what, I just deserve a high paying job. You know, I put in my dues. I went to college and played beer pong for four years. Where's my high paying job? It's like that's not how the real world works, honey. You know, you need to actually have some skills to offer to the marketplace because we still live in a capitalist society, praise God, where people are actually trying to make money. And you know how they make money? People work. They don't make money by you just showing up and then feeling entitled to a paycheck. You know, people go to work today even feeling entitled to a paycheck when they're not even producing for the company. Especially people that start out. Most people that start out at a company are probably a loss for the company. They're actually training, investing a lot of money into the individual, hoping they'll become productive in the long run. Or just frankly they just don't want to do the job themselves or they can't do the job themselves so they have to just farm it out at the lowest cost they can. But you're not even actually productive for the company. You're just basically giving time back to the management. And so people then they think they're entitled to a paycheck. But you know what this entitlement attitude does? Is it causes you to get replaced pretty soon. Replaced by other workers or replaced by technology. Because if you're not actually adding to the company you work for, if you're not bringing value to the company, they'll try to find a way to replace you. And let me tell you something. AI is coming for jobs. I work in the software industry and I know how AI is working and I know how fast it's growing. And boy, companies want to get rid of you entitled brats. There's a lot of entitled brats today that think that they're special. And boy I'm telling you, AI can do your job better, faster and complains a lot less. Boy it was a shock to me the other day. I mean this was a while back. But I drove through Panda Express and they had an AI bot take my order. Who's had this? Look, everything I said the AI got right. Now I'm sure it can make mistakes. Who would say they did it right too? Yeah, I mean for the most part they did pretty good. I mean like let's think of who we're competing against. A meth junkie that just got out of prison that usually gets it wrong. Like their competition was so low already that man, you know, they kind of nailed it. This is just the early infant stages. They can get to a point where virtually all the fast food restaurants could be unmanned. Or maybe they just have one person on site that's just a security guard more or less. Not even someone that's actually manning any of the food stations. Especially the garbage food they're making. I mean it's just like you would think it'd be pretty easy to just have machines do a lot of these things. Have one maintenance worker and have one security guard. And look, the maintenance worker guy, he's going to have to be smart. Because he's going to have to know how to program AI. So all those junkies are gone. All those drug addicts, they're completely replaced. And a lot of these people have an entitled attitude. They feel like they're entitled to paychecks. They're entitled for the government to take care of them. They're just an entitlement attitude that's just decaying our youth today. You know, what rather you should do instead of thinking like where's my high paying job, is you should think how can I be a highly skilled employee that someone needs? And then when you actually work for the company and you do everything you're expected to do, you're not even thinking you should get a bonus or time off or whatever. I mean like we don't even deserve paid time off. But isn't it weird? I mean companies give us paid time off. There's just so many things that our companies do for us and we live in America and we just get this entitled attitude. I mean how much PTO do you think the children of Israel got in the wilderness or in Egypt? How many times do you think they're like, hey Pharaoh, I need a little bit of PTO. Hey Pharaoh, where's the HR department? You know, it's just like he needs a few more whips. Like get him, you know. That's the HR department. Anytime you complain, that's who, and then people don't complain. But isn't it just, people just have this attitude about everything. Go to Matthew 20. Let's look at two more verses and then I'll give you a little bit more. I'll finish all the applications I wanted to make. And look, young people also, I feel like there's also this attitude I've seen. Young single guys feel like they're entitled to a wife. Like there should just be a woman that's just ready to just line up for me to marry. Because I'm so awesome. I'm Mr. Wonderful. I've arrived. Where are all the ladies that are ready for me to come rescue them? And look, this is a bad attitude. It's a bad attitude to feel like you're entitled to anything. And you just existing as a man, you don't deserve a wife. Where's the romance in that anyways? We should bring back some of the chivalry today. Rescue the princess from the dragon or something. Just label the dragon feminism and go rescue her from it or something. But don't think that you're going to just find this perfect little princess just sitting over here just minding her own business and then you walk by and she's just like, marry me. Because you walked by or something like that. Young people, they feel like they're entitled to a house. You are not entitled to a house. You're not entitled to a new truck. You're not entitled to anything. You spoiled, rotten American you. Stop thinking that you just deserve all these things and just put your head down and work hard and allow God to bless you. Whatever God gives you, you know what? You should thank Him for it. Instead of sitting here thinking like, where's my extras? When did God say you're going to get a truck? You're going to get a car? He didn't even promise you a wife. You have to go ahead and find one and then if you get one, you've obtained favor of the Lord. That's a blessing of the Lord. And you know, it's a blessing for keeping His commandments. I think the more you keep His commandments, hey, if you are strong, you're smart, if you make good money, you're probably more likely for God to give you that favor to get a wife. But if you're lazy, a jerk, you don't have any money, you have nowhere to live, God may not give you the favor to give a wife. It applies to everything in life. I've thought about this a lot as pastors. It's like, hey, pastors that have smaller churches or younger churches, it's like instead of worrying about why is God not giving me a big church, it's like how are you doing with the small church that you have? And if you're not a good shepherd with what you do have, why would God want to give you more? If you're not a good steward of what you do have, why would God want to give you more? And if you know what, you're not a good leader, why would God want to give you a wife to lead around? If you're not going to be someone that God wants to entrust with a wife or entrust with a sister or entrust with children, you know, if you look down on women or if you look down on children, why would God want to give you them to entrust under their safety? You know, we should be people that actually have great love and affection and care for people. Hey, you want to be a pastor? Well, why don't you love on people and do good to people when you're not a pastor? And then maybe God will say like, wow, I really like how this guy treats people. Maybe he's someone that could lead them or guide them. Hey, you want to be successful in the business world? You know, do good with your master's goods. You know, be a good steward of his goods so that God will bless you with your own. And we should stop having this just entitlement that's just spoiling all of us about everything. Look at Matthew chapter 20, verse number one. For the kingdom of heaven is likened to a man that is a householder which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them in his vineyard. Now, I'm not going to read the whole parable for sake of time, but you have this parable. A guy is agreeing with people to work in his yard. He's just saying, hey, I'll give you a penny. And they say, great. So they go do the work. Well, in the story, he hires people over time. So some people work all day. Some people work a half day. Some people work an hour. And then when he's paying them, the guy that only worked an hour, he starts with them first and he gives them a whole penny. Now, the guys that worked the whole day, they start thinking in their mind, well, if they worked an hour and got a penny and I worked the whole day, I should get more than the penny that he agreed with me. But then he ends up just giving them the penny. And then they get mad. Why? Entitled. They got entitled, didn't they? Now, let's skip to that point. It says in verse number 12 saying, let's look at verse 10. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more and they likewise received every man a penny. That supposed that they should have received more, that's entitlement creeping up into their brain. And it says, and when they had received it, they murmured against the good men of the house. How did the merman do them any bad? Hey, you work in my yard, I'll give you a penny. They worked in the yard, they got the penny. How was he bad? He gave them a job. He gave them money. But they supposed they should have gotten more. And how many people go to jobs and they do their job and they don't get a bonus or they don't get some extra and then they get mad at their boss for giving them exactly what they were looking for. That's a bad attitude. We should be grateful for the thing that we did get. Hey, if you agree, you get it, you should accept that. You don't need to get this entitlement attitude or allow it to creep in. Then he said in verse 13, but he answered one of them and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong. Didest not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is and go thy way. I will give unto this last even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will of mine own? Is thine eye evil because I am good? Now, again, he defends himself. He says, how am I bad? I'm actually good. You're the bad guy. Let's apply this to a lot of situations. Okay, go over to 1 Timothy 6, too. We'll get there in a minute. If you come to this church and you get a lot of extras coming to this church, you know what, that is extras. You know that church, there is nothing in the Bible that says that I am supposed to give you just free material to hand out for soul winning. There's nothing. There's nothing in the Bible requiring me to have free waters for you to go out soul winning. There's nothing in the Bible requiring us to give out free ice cream every single Wednesday night to your kids for memorizing the Bible. They should just memorize the Bible. But then it's like, that's not the ice cream that I wanted, you brat. Oh, I like Evian water. Where's the Evian water? At the store. Well, you know, at Faithful Word, they have this one DVD. Can we get those? Look, I had someone complain that we weren't handing out every single DVD that was sold on Framing the World. They were like, hey, why don't we buy these other DVDs because I don't like the ones you give us to hand out. I want these ones. And I'm like, well, you know what? The person that has the rights to those wants me to pay $8 a DVD to hand them out. And I'm just not that interested in taking $8 of the church money per DVD to hand out to a bunch of people in the ghetto that will never watch it and probably throw it around like a Chinese star or something. I mean, why would I then want to do that? That doesn't even make sense. But people just get this super over-the-top entitled attitude. Or they say, hey, why don't you just pay for everyone to have a free breakfast for every soul-winning time? And then I say, no. And then they get mad at me and then act like I'm bad because I don't want to do that. But you know what? Your eye is evil and I'm good because I'm still even giving you free things for the soul-winning time. That I didn't even have to do. I mean, what in the world is wrong with you? There's just people that just get this entitlement attitude where they feel like they're expected all these extras. We have a soul-winning marathon. And we show up and it's like free food, free sandwiches, free beverages, free Cokes, free PowerAids, free invites, free everything. Where's the juice for my kid? At the store. That's where it's at. You know what? I didn't even say that. You know what I said? I just said, hey, sorry, I didn't think about that. Do you want me to go get you one? But maybe that was the wrong attitude. You know what the wrong attitude is? It was like where is the juice for my kid, though? It wasn't even like, hey, did you have juice? It was just like where is the juice for my kid? That is such a brat attitude. And you know what? The new IFB is great, but because we do so many good things and so many free things and so many nice things, it causes people to get entitled. It causes people to have the wrong attitude and start thinking like, hey, this is expected. No, it's extra. It's not expected. It's extra. And you go to a really nice church where they give you all kinds of free meals and free extras and free things. Don't allow it to go to your head. Don't allow, I mean, you know, so many, I mean, we just like free men's conferences, just free conferences, all kinds of just specials and extras. And look, I never want to take that away. I don't want to stop doing that. And a lot of people are appreciative, okay? But at the same time, can we please not get entitled about that stuff? Because, you know, when you start getting entitled, it makes people want to take things away. It doesn't make them want to do more. It makes them want to do less. It makes them get upset about this and say, why is thine eye evil? Because I am good. First to me, chapter number six, the Bible brings up when we can be upset about things. At what level can we complain? Well, there's not a lot that we can complain about. It says in verse six, but godliness with contentment is great gain. If we brought nothing into this world, into this earth, we can carry nothing out. Having food and raiment, let us be there with content. Hey, what can I say? God, I'm not pleased, give me this now. Food and clothing. Everything else, we start getting entitled about, don't we? Super nice housing, super nice clothing, vehicles, jobs, having awesome churches. I mean, you know how many people would just die to have an old IFB church in their area? There's a lot of people in the world today that would love to have a non-King James only Baptist church in their area. Let alone an old IFB church. Let alone a new IFB church. Let alone a new IFB church filled with hundreds of people. Hey, there's like dozens of new IFB churches. Not all of them have a church this big with their own building, with lots of cool people in it. Let me tell you something, this church is super awesome. And you know what a church is? It's people. Don't ever get confused about the word church. When I'm talking about church, I'm talking about people. It is hard to find hundreds of people that are like this, that are this cool, this generous, this nice. And you could come to here and you could start feeling entitled, like I'm entitled to awesome friends. No, you're not. No one is obligated to be your friend. No one is obligated to be nice to you. No one is obligated to take your wife out on coffee dates. No one is obligated, like no one is allowed to come to you and say, hey, you and your wife need to take my family out. That's Adam Fannin. I had a couple tell me that Adam Fannin said, you know what, churches are supposed to take their pastor or their leader out to dinner. And he's like, I want to go here. There's other people, they say, hey, you ladies, you're required anytime y'all hang out to invite me, I'm required to get to hang out with y'all too. What planet are you living on? And then people say like, no one wants to be my wife's friend. Well, when you're demanding people to be her friend, they don't want to be your friend. Look, I have a lot of friends in here, but it's not because I demanded them. I'm sure they would feel awkward if I just said, Diego, you have to be my friend tonight. He would be like weirded out. But if I said like, hey, Diego, you want to hang out? You want to do something fun? He might be a little bit more enticed, but he's going to feel a little awkward when it's just like, you're hanging out with me tonight. You have no other option. You know, that's weird. It's weird to demand things of other people and to feel entitled about stuff. You know, we should never have that attitude. Go over to Proverbs 18. Hey, no matter how long you've been at this church, let me tell you something, I don't owe you anything. If you've been a member for a decade here, you're not more special than the new members. And you don't deserve things that they don't deserve or whatever. There's not like this special privilege. Hey, you do a lot of things at this church. You're in service here. I don't owe you a thank you because you know what? You're doing it for God. And if you think that I owe you a thank you for you serving God, you have the wrong attitude. You're not even doing it for God at that point. Don't think you're doing anything here for me. Don't try to get brownie points for me because I don't really give you anything in return usually. Like there's not a token like the Pastor Shelley token like you put in the machine and you're going to get something out of it. I'm just like Vegas, baby. You just keep putting the money in and it's just like nothing. You just keep pulling. Like there's nothing there. I'm just saying like sweet, you know, like okay. Hey, if you want to keep putting tokens in the machine, I'm fine. But if you think you're going to hit 777, you're wrong. Okay. There's no like hidden door. Like oh, you gave enough money to me. Here's Pastor Shelley's special open door. Or hey, now you get to be his friend or something like that. You know, people that try to buy friendships, I'm usually kind of leery of. I'm kind of like afraid, like why? Or you know, if somebody wants to do something special, I'm kind of thinking like I don't know, you know, is this person trying to be, is a flatterer or like what's going on? You know, friendships should be organic. They should be normal. They should be natural. You work together. You know, I want to be friends with people that I work together on stuff. You know, that's usually how we become friends with people is you work on things with people. You do things together. That's how you become friends. Not just this like hey, I gave a bunch of money. Or you just, you're supposed to be my friend because I do these things. You know, that's just not how it works. And as pastor, you know, I'm not obligated to be anybody's friend either. You do not get to be my friend just because you show up at this church. Okay, you want to be my friend? Be friendly to me and I'll be friendly to you and maybe we'll blossom into the greatest friendship ever, you know. I'm not saying I can't be friends with you. I'm not saying I won't be friends with you. But let me tell you something, it's not expected. No one is entitled to be my wife's friend. No one's entitled to be my children's friend. Nobody's entitled to be anybody in here's friend. Nobody's entitled here to get any extra special privileges. You know, we need to make sure that we're careful about our attitude and about church. Here's some other, you know, things that we do at our church. We do a lot of cool stuff. I mean, look at our bulletin. We have all these service times. You know, we have a Spanish service. No one is entitled to serve in that Spanish service. If you get to serve into it, it's a blessing and an opportunity for you. And if you start thinking like, well, of course I'm the one, I get to do this, you know what, that'll be taken away like this. No one's entitled to play in our music department. No one's entitled to be a song leader. No one's entitled to do anything. You're also not entitled to get to preach a sermon when I'm not here. You know, you could give this attitude like, well, I've been here for a while or I've always preached so then I get to preach. No. You know, in fact, many times I evaluate how people do in the preaching class to determine who I want to preach next. And that may even happen once every blue moon. But you know what, if you do a good job in that, you might get an opportunity. But someone that's entitled, boy, I'd love to strip that away from you. I'd love to take that away. We have all kinds of soul winning times. No one is entitled to lead a soul winning time. That is a special opportunity to get to do that. Okay. No one is entitled to be an evangelist or go do missions work for the church. Hey, no one's entitled to get to do any of these things. Events. Here's another one. How about quiet time? You know, quiet time is an extra. You know, our church is kind of far away for a lot of people. So it's difficult for them to come here and then go back to their house. And again, it's hard when you have little kids because they just have to nap. They're going to nap somewhere and if they don't, they're cranky. It's difficult. So just out of just trying to be nice, our church has offered a quiet time option to say, hey, some parents, they kind of need a space where their kids can just lay down and sleep. So we wanted to offer that. But, you know, the church is not obligated to offer the sanctuary for anybody for any reason. But, you know, we do that so that some people could enjoy that little bit of time. It can be quiet. But if everybody comes in here and is just loud, the kids are just running around, they're screaming, they're getting food, they're breaking stuff, then no one gets to enjoy it. Well, you know what? I'm a member here so I just get to do this. No, you don't. You know, I've never been to a church where I get to hang out in the sanctuary after the service. In fact, if you hang out a little too long, they'll come by and say, you have to leave. We don't even kick you all out early enough. I mean, some of you all are staying here for a long time. And I'm like, I'm not trying to stop you, but I'm just saying, like, you're not entitled to get to just hang out at the church building for all hours. I heard of a church. There was a pastor that was confiding in me. He said that there was this one church member that demanded him. He said, I want the sanctuary to be open whenever I want because I feel like I get to go pray there whenever I want. Because the Bible says that it should be a house of prayer. So, therefore, at any hour, at any time, they're supposed to open up the church building, allow this guy to come in the sanctuary to pray. Let me tell you what I would have said. No. You're weird. What does the Bible say? How about go in your closet and pray? That's your special place, okay? And, look, it's not like praying here in this vicinity is going to somehow make your prayers more special or something. You know, church is, again, not the building. It's the people. Yeah. When we come together as a group and we pray as a group, that's special. That's a special prayer at church. But you know what? You being in this building by yourself and praying is no more or less special than in your closet just praying to God in your heart. It's not any more special than praying in the water closet for all you Canadians, okay? I don't know if you know what that is, but there's nothing more special about where you're at physically, okay? And we shouldn't get this entitlement attitude like, well, I've been a member here. I pay tithes. Therefore, I get to use the church however and whenever I want. Wrong. Nope. You're not entitled to that. You don't get to just dictate what to do. And you know what? It's like you try to offer something nice like quiet time or something, but if everybody just ruins it, we can take that away and just say, hey, at 1205, everybody's out of the building. As soon as the last song is, we just usher everybody out. But you know what? That wouldn't be fun. That wouldn't be nice. People wouldn't like that. But you know if you just abuse things, well, then they get taken away. You don't want to treat the church with care? We'll take it away. You want to take church material nicely? We'll put it in the glass cases. Isn't that what companies are doing now? Because people are just stealing and doing trash, they have to put everything behind a locked cage because they're afraid of how you treat it. Is that what really church has to come down to? Do they have to put everything in a locked cage because people just can't be respectful of things? I mean, are you just entitled to everything and just acting however you want? I mean, does the house of God have no reverence anymore that you just trash it? I mean, how would you feel if I came to your house and I just spilled coffee all over your sofa? If I just let my kids just run around your kitchen getting into anything and everything they want, taking anything and everything they want, spilling anything and everything that they want, yelling and screaming and I won't say anything to them. How would you feel if I came to your house during your nap time and allow my kids to just run around and scream and don't let your kids get a nap? How would you feel if I just come around and bother you at your work or your place of business or when your wife is trying to get something? I mean, how disrespectful and how entitled do you have to be to act like that? I love hard preaching. Well, do you? You know, we need to sometimes look at ourselves and say, hey, what if everybody was like me? Would that be a good thing? Would that be a bad thing? Are we treating things with respect? If you treat the church worse than your house, you're just a problem. You should be better behaved at the house of God than you are at your own house. And if you're not very well behaved at church, maybe you just need to fix your life. We need to be well behaved. We need to be respectful of things. And look, I'm the type of person that I love to spoil people rotten. But please, please, you know, we don't have to become spoiled. You know, my parents spoiled me, but I didn't allow that to get to me in a lot of ways. But I could have. God spoils me in a lot of ways, but I don't have to let it get to me. We need to make sure that we're humbling ourselves so that God doesn't have to humble us. We need to humble ourselves so our parents don't humble us. You know, my siblings would always criticize me and my parents because they would say, oh, John gets to do whatever he wants. John gets nice cars and John gets to have extra money and John gets to do whatever. You know what my parents would say to me? This is what my parents would say. You know what? It doesn't matter if we ever watch you or pay attention. You always just do what's right anyways. You're making meals for us. You never get in trouble. You're not wrecking the car. You're not going out and getting drunk. You're not committing crimes. And then it's like, hey, I wonder why one child is getting more privileges than the other child. It's like, hey, it's not fair. Well, you know, it's also not fair to commit crimes and trash the car that your parents gave you and cause all these issues and problems at home. You know, maybe there's a reason why you get to do whatever you want. Think about it at your job. Many times some employees, they get to do whatever they want. And other employees, they're micromanaged to death. You want to know why? Because the one that's left alone, he just does right every time. The guy, when he's micromanaged, can't even do his job right. Hey, you kids at home, you want your parents to get off your back? Be a good kid. You don't want your parents constantly on your case, constantly disciplining you, constantly giving you rules? Well, behave. And you know what? The same applies to church. Hey, you want to have less rules at church? How about need less rules? I mean, doesn't that just make sense? Whereas it's like, hey, we want signs on everything. We want just constant rules and enforcement, bring out the whip. It's just like, you know, if you act like children, you get treated like children. If you act like responsible adults like Joseph, his boss doesn't even know what's going on. And you know what? That's a great way to handle ourselves at church. That's a great testimony. Wouldn't it be nice, a great testimony, when people visit the church and they're like, everybody's so mature, everybody's really respectful, they take care of their stuff, they don't seem entitled. As opposed to coming to a place where everybody's disrespectful, trashy, they feel like they deserve everything. They're asking for all these extras that no one even promised them whatsoever. You know, that's a bad testimony. And then, you know, you act like that. Well, then God will put you at an old IB church where you have to pay for everything. I mean, think about it. You get to go to a church where you get all these extras and all these nice things. You complain about it enough, you rail about it enough, God will put you at a church where he'll never give you a nice thing again. Be careful what you want. Proverbs 18, verse 12. Before destruction, the heart of man is haughty and before honor is humility. We need to not be entitled. We need to have humility in our lives. And we need, you know, what is the opposite of entitlement? Humility. I don't deserve these things. Don't have this attitude of you deserve things. Say, I don't deserve these things. And when you get extras in your life, be thankful to the person that gives you the extras. Your boss gives you a bonus at work, thank you. Gives you an extra day off, thank you. Hey, your husband does something for you ladies that is not part of his job, say thank you. Hey, your wives do something that's not part of their job, you say thank you. Hey, you get stuff at church that's not just found explicitly in the Bible, you should have an appreciative attitude and not getting an entitlement attitude. And look, if we behave ourselves well and we don't have an entitlement attitude and we're humble, what does God give us? Honor. Hey, we want to have honor from God. We want God to look at our church and to lift us up and to praise us. We better be humble about what we have and be thanking God for what we have. And if we don't, what will happen? Destruction. I don't want to be destroyed as a church. I want God to honor us as a church, but we have to first humble ourselves and be appreciative of what God's given us and be content with what we have and not start becoming entitled and thinking that God owes us a favor or something or owes us something special. We need to say, hey, we're here to serve you and we're going to not only do our duty, we're going to go above and beyond, but at the end of the day, I'm not expecting God to just give me all these things. I'm not entitled to these things. You know what, I'm just going to humbly serve and let the chips fall where they may. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for what you've given us. Thank you for your free gift of salvation. And we understand that we've been bought with a hefty price. I pray that we would not only just do our duty but be willing to go above and beyond, that we would treat the house of God with respect, that we would treat the institution of marriage with respect, we would treat our spouse with respect, we would treat our employers with respect, and I pray that we would have a humble attitude. We wouldn't just expect things, that we would try our best to just do what's right and expect nothing in return. And I pray that you would help us to humble ourselves. I pray if there's something that we need to fix, that we'd be willing to fix it. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, closing, let's go to song number 449. Song number 449, Dwelling in Bulaland. Song number 449. Let's all sing it out here. Far away the noise of strife among my ear is calling. Then I know the sins of earth be set on every hand. Doubt and fear and things of earth in vain to me are calling. None of these shall move me from Bulaland. I'm living on the mountain underneath a cloudless sky. Praise God! I'm drinking at the fountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes, I'm feasting on the meadow from a bountiful supply. For I am dwelling in Bulaland. Far below the storm of doubt upon the world is breeding. Sons of men in battle on the end of me will stand. Safe and mild within the castle of God's word retreating. Nothing then can reach me. If you love him, I'm living on the mountain underneath a cloudless sky. Praise God! I'm drinking at the mountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes, I'm feasting on the meadow from a bountiful supply. For I am dwelling in Bulaland. Let the stormy breezes blow their pride and not all warn me. I am safely sheltered here, protected by God's hand. Here the sun is always shining, here there's not can harm me. I am safe forever in Bulaland. I'm living on the mountain underneath a cloudless sky. Praise God! I'm drinking at the mountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes, I'm feasting on the meadow from a bountiful supply. For I am dwelling in Bulaland. You may hear the words of God I sing in contemplation. Hearing now his blessed voice, I see the way he planned. Dwelling in the spirit here, I learn of full salvation. Gladly will I tarry in Bulaland. I'm living on the mountain underneath a cloudless sky. Praise God! I'm drinking at the mountain that never shall run dry. Oh yes, I'm feasting on the meadow from a bountiful supply. For I am dwelling in Bulaland. Great singing everybody. You were all dismissed. Amen.