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If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere If Jesus goes with me, I'll go anywhere If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere If Jesus is with me, I'll go anywhere Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, There's just something about that things Master, Savior, Jesus, Light the fragrance after the rain Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Let all heaven and earth proclaim Kings and kingdoms will all pass away But there's something about that things Oh, my comrades, He is the Lord where He was right With horses now appearing, victory is nigh All the poor, for I am going, Jesus ain't no sin Make the answer back to heaven, by Thy grace we bear See the mighty host advancing, saints in the evening morn Mighty men around us calling, courage almost done All the poor, for I am coming, Jesus ain't no sin Make the answer back to heaven, by Thy grace we bear See the glorious banner waving near the trumpet glows Let all the earth's name a triumph over every flaw All the poor, for I am coming, Jesus ain't no sin Make the answer back to heaven, by Thy grace we bear Fierce among the battle-rages, not our help is near All the poor, for I am coming, Jesus ain't no sin Make the answer back to heaven, by Thy grace we bear There are things as we travel this earth should descend That transcend all the reasons of man But the things that matter the most in this world They could never be held in our hands I believe in a hill called Mount Belfry I believe, Lord, that earth will cross That we drive as surrender, and earth is no war I'll still cling to that old rugged roar I believe that the Christ who was slain on that cross lifted up now I believe that the Christ who was slain... Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you could all go ahead and find your seats, we will get started. Go ahead and grab a hymnal once you've found a seat. We're going to start in song number 53, Bula Land. Song 53, Bula Land. Song 53, Bula Land. Sing it out. On the first. I've reached the land of joining mine And all its riches freely mine Here shines on dim one blissful day For all my night has passed away Oh, Bula Land, sweet Bula Land As on the highest mount I stand I look away across the sea Where mansions are prepared for me And view the shining glorious shore My and my own forevermore Song number 53 on the second. My Savior comes and walks with me And sweet communion here hath we He gently leads me by his hand For this is heaven's borderland Oh, Bula Land, sweet Bula Land As on the highest mount I stand I look away across the sea Where mansions are prepared for me And view the shining glorious shore My and my own forevermore A stream for new upon the breeze Is born from ever where no trees And flowers that ever may grow Where streams of life forever flow Oh, Bula Land, sweet Bula Land As on the highest mount I stand I look away across the sea Where mansions are prepared for me And view the shining glorious shore My and my own forevermore On the last. The scepters seem to call to me Sweet sounds of heaven's melody As angels with the rock are born In sweet the sea they met in spawn Oh, Bula Land, sweet Bula Land As on the highest mount I stand I look away across the sea Where mansions are prepared for me And view the shining glorious shore My and my own forevermore Great singing, everybody. Let's go ahead and bow our heads for a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this church. We thank you for everyone that's gathered here. We ask that you please be with those that couldn't make it and with those that are stuck in the fire, Lord. We ask, Lord, that you, in California, we ask, Lord, that you please bless Pastor Shelley with your Holy Spirit so he can preach an edifying sermon unto us so we can walk out better Christians than we came in. For your honor and for your glory, it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, next up we have song number 37. There'll be no dark valley. Song 37. There'll be no dark valley on the first. There'll be no dark valley when Jesus comes. There'll be no dark valley when Jesus comes. There'll be no dark valley when Jesus comes. Together his loved ones hold. Together his loved ones hold. Together his loved ones hold. Oh Tell me no Oh But a blessed repeat when jesus comes to gather his loved one's home To gather his loved one's home To gather his loved one's home There'll be no dark valley when jesus comes together There'll be songs of greeting when jesus comes There'll be songs of greeting when jesus comes And a joyful meeting when jesus comes To gather his loved one's home To gather his loved one's home To gather his loved one's home There'll be no dark valley when jesus comes To gather his loved one's home January year to date and make sure you're still putting those numbers into our chat group That'll help us also on the right We have a list of our expecting ladies and our prayer list on the back is the note about the upcoming event this weekend And we had a sign-up sheet. It looks like pretty much everybody signed up. I had a little group that I just made just for those that were signed up and So we're looking forward to having A lot of soul winners go out there and do some soul winning this weekend maybe to escape the snow you never know all right, so but Also, we'll still have all of our normal services here down below. We have our church reminders Please for and most of them are geared towards our children, so please make sure your children aren't running or rough playing in the church Please have them not get on their stage area Children should also not be in our kitchen fridges or ice machine They should not be in our mother baby rooms without their mother the fellowship room also make sure You're not doing anything different in there. It's still all these same rules apply for that room as well It's not a play area Children should be using should not be using our church supplies. Please make sure you're cleaning up after yourself There is water bottles in our fridges, but they are for soul winning and for our visitors Also parents, please make sure you're watching your kids and kids if any adults give you any instruction Please make sure to just say yes, sir. Yes, ma'am and do that as far as our prayer list is concerned We're gonna you have several here that we've been continuing to pray for a few new ones Please be in prayer for the names grandmother, and we've been praying for her vision health and salvation Also, if you pray for miss Charlotte who's recovering from illness. I will pray for the Carlson's mother miss Rebecca We've been praying for the Miller's friends mom's cancer treatment Also, if you've been prayer for the Scots for cancer and for nerve pain Also be in prayer for the Garcia's for their daughter who's expecting and then we're also praying for Brother Tony for his work and health If you continue to pray for brother Sam and his fiancee things have been going well, but just continue to pray for them Also, if you pray for brother Alex for his work we've been praying for miss Warner's brother Chalmer Had a serious knee injury and is still recovering Continue to pray for the Hernandez's grandmother's recovering Also, mrs. Goodwin was asking for prayer for one of her friends for recovery from a surgery We've also been praying for brother Nick for his mother and for her salvation Brother Wallach was also asking for prayer for his brother Jason who had been recovering from a surgery If you continue to pray for the Apsles father who is Having some brain treatments and then also brother Billy wanted us to pray for a friend whose father is very sick Close to death and so I've willed to be praying for him and then also brother rich I wanted to pray for his father who's in California and really we could pray for Everybody in California because there's a lot of fires going on over there that are Definitely pretty devastating for that part of the world. So we'll go ahead and say a quick word of prayer for our church family Thank You Heavenly Father so much for our church and thank you so much for all these ladies who are expecting Please just help them with their pregnancies. Please help their children's development. I pray that you just give them a timely birth please also help those who have recently given birth to Continue to have their children develop and for them to recover quickly I pray that you would also just be with our church family that is struggling with serious illness and with cancer and with other Serious problems I pray if possible. Please just give them recovery. Please give them a miracle. Please give them health Please give them patience during this difficult time Our friends and family that are also struggling with these serious illnesses those who are close to death I pray that you would give us opportunity to come alongside comfort them to give them the gospel if needed I pray that you would also help our church family that needs Needs maybe a new job or needs help with their work needs a promotion. I pray that you just give them favor Please just also help those that need to travel and I pray that you'd also just bless our upcoming soul-winning events That you'd help us to be able to travel safely and to be able to get many people saved I pray that you continue to bless our church and that we would give you all the honor and glory and since Jesus name We pray Amen We're gonna go ahead and sing our third song of the evening Psalm 139 is for Psalm of the week. Psalm 139 is in our special handouts singing out nice and loud 139 Psalm 139 On the first Oh We're gonna speed it up a little bit And Those that rise up against me I I Great seeing it everybody as the offering plays are being passed around. Would you please turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter number six Matthew chapter number six You You Matthew six the Bible reads take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them Otherwise you have no reward of your father which is in heaven Therefore when thou doest thine alms do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and the streets That they may have glory of men barely I say unto you They have the reward but when thou doest alms let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth That thine alms may be in secret and thy father which seeth in secret Himself shall reward thee openly and when thou prayest thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are For they love to pray standing in the synagogues in the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men Barely I say unto you they have their reward But thou and thou prayest enter into thy closet and when thou has shut the door pray to thy father Which is in secret and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly But when ye pray use not vain repetitions as the heathen do for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking Be not ye therefore like unto them for your father knoweth what things he have need of before you ask him After this manner therefore pray ye our father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done in earth As it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever Amen for if you forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly Father will also forgive you But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses Moreover when ye fast be not as the hypocrites of a sad sad countenance for they disfigure their faces That they may appear into men to fast barely I say unto you They have their reward But thou and thou fastest anoint thine head and wash thy face that thou appear not unto men to fast But unto thy father which is in secret and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly Lay not up for yourselves treasure treasures upon earth Where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where neither thieves do not Break through nor steal for where your treasure is there Where will your heart be also the light of the body is the eye if therefore thine eye be single thy Whole body shall be full of light But if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness if therefore the light that is in thee be darkness How great is that darkness? No man can serve two masters Friday he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other He cannot serve God and mammon therefore I say unto you take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink nor yet for your body What you shall put on is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment Behold the fowls of the air for they so not neither do they reap nor gather into barns yet your heavenly father feedeth them are ye not much better than they Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature and why take ye thought for raiment considered the lilies of the field How they grow they toil not Neither do they spin and yet I say unto you that even Solomon and all his glory was not arrayed like one of these Wherefore have God so clothed the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven Shall he not much more clothe you oh ye of little faith Therefore take no thought saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed For after all these things do the Gentile seek for your heavenly father knoweth it That ye have need of all of these things But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you Take therefore no thought for the morrow for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Let us pray heavenly father. Thanks for this chapter of the Bible I pray you'd be with past Shelley bless him filled with the Holy Spirit to preach unto us your word and help us to receive It with their hearts praise in Jesus name. Amen Amen Matthew chapter number six. We are continuing our Bible study through the book of Matthew and in chapter number five we had started a series where Jesus Christ is going through it's called the Sermon on the Mount and This is a basically a pretty long sermon if you really think about it because it's chapters five step six and seven but here we're kind of getting in the middle and Chapter number five really emphasized the idea of kind of like a source the end was is just Going beyond just the letter of the law and explaining the spirit of the law and how righteousness is not just simply Keeping a checklist, but really there's a lot of things that are in the spirit of the law as well So just because the Bible says thou should not commit adultery doesn't mean that's the only way you could send in that category He brings up how just looking could be a sin that's similar or not just killing someone but just hating someone and kind of going beyond just what the letter of the law spells out and Really understanding the spirit of the law because the Bible tells us to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart And it also tells us love thy neighbor as ourself and upon these two hang all the law and prophets So technically it's unloving to hate your brother It's unloving to have lustful and covetous type thoughts And so we have to understand that righteousness Goes beyond just simply what's spelled out in the Bible that really it's just anything That's not loving God or loving your neighbor as yourself That's really a sin in the scripture and as we get into chapter number six I believe it's kind of a transition because he's kind of really pointing out what real religion looks like Versus fake religion if you really think about chapter six He's really emphasizing the ideas of what a true Christian is like and what a hypocrite is like and it brings up a few different Things that are in the religious practice the practice of a Christian here in verse number one It says take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them Otherwise you have no reward of your father, which is in heaven So again in chapter five it's bringing up a lot of just like sin things that you're doing wrong here in chapter six It transitions into things that are good. However, doing something good is not a checklist It's about the heart. So it's not like checklist. I gave money to the poor. So I did right No God looks at the motive God looks at the heart as to what you're really doing because if you give money to someone and The whole motive is so that someone will pay attention or someone will see or people think that you're doing something godly Then what the Bible is saying is you have no reward of your father, which is in heaven So from God's perspective giving money to people Publicly is not an attribute that God is praising It's not something God is looking for you to do God does not want you to give money with an ulterior motive of getting recognition of People looking to you and saying oh look this guy's godly. He gives money. He helped he helps people alms is just simply Helping poor people just giving money Is typically what we think of it could be obviously a gift or something That's not even necessarily directly cash But it's just simply saying giving something helping poor people in general is the concept that alms giving is and it's saying when you do This you shouldn't be doing it to be seen of people seen of men Says the next few verses therefore when thou doest thine alms do not sound a trumpet before the as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and then and in the Streets that they may have glory of men verily I say in you they have their reward But when thou doest alms let not thy left hand know with thy right hand doeth that I almost may be in secret and thy Father which seeth in secret Himself shall reward thee openly. So what God wants us to do is God wants us to give to the poor by faith What is by faith the faith is that if I give money to somebody and nobody else sees That there's no reward unless I just believe God will reward me for having done something. That's godly Whereas many people don't want to just give money away and not tell anyone because they think that's not gonna benefit me That doesn't help me. So they want to make sure to make a big deal about it now It's kind of silly is I think the Bible is obviously giving us some hype Hyperbolic language here of quotes sound a trumpet. I don't think that the Pharisees necessarily Were literally getting a trumpet and we're literally blowing it like I'm giving money to so-and-so. I don't think they necessarily did that But it's they were making a big deal about it. They are making a show of it. It was a public thing They're letting everyone know hey, I'm giving money to this person or hey, I just want to let everybody know I'm gonna bless this person and What the Bible is saying is he really shouldn't do that This is what I find interesting is when it talks about these hypocrites notice the location okay, it says specifically as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and In the streets, so it's talking about two locations now synagogue It's kind of a negative word for us just because it's associated with a false religion today But at this time that's what we would know as church if you live at this point in time When Jesus is walking and preaching the gospel like their meeting place for church is the synagogue. It's the congregation It's the assembling of the believers and so really what it's saying is these people like to brag about or boast or Let people know that they're giving money while in church So church is not a place to tell people that you're giving money out or making a show or making it clear that you're helping people financially Also the streets would just be in public basically So it's basically saying you shouldn't be going around in really public atmospheres Trying to make it clear like you're giving this money away You're helping people helping poor people because then you're not really doing it sincerely You're not doing it because you love the person you're not doing it because you want someone to be helped You just simply want some attention You want people to think that you're spiritual or think that you're godly and so you're making a big deal about look I'm helping this person. Look I'm writing checks to this person. Look at the money I gave to this person. I'm so wonderful I help people but that is a clear sign of someone that's a hypocrite Someone that's making a public show of their financial giving is a hypocrite the person that sincerely loves poor people We'll just give people money and kind of keep it on the DL Now, I don't think you happen is that some people try to take this to an extreme I don't think this is necessarily saying it has to be extreme but at the same time Obviously your just intention should be to sincerely help the person and not to draw attention yourself The less you're drawing attention to yourself You're gonna be obeying the spirit of giving alms Whereas the people that just give alms and make a big deal about it They don't understand the spirit of the Bible the spirit of giving alms and they're just trying to follow a checklist Or make it seem like they're godly or really for a tax write-off And in fact, a lot of people just kind of do these things to just be seen of men specifically They'll name charities in their name the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, right and you kind of think like oh They must be really godly. Look at all the money that they give away Look at all the philanthropy that these individuals do but it's really just to be seen of men They're not doing it because they love God. They're not doing it because they're Christian whatsoever they're just doing it to get recognition for tax write-offs and it's a thinly veiled way to exploit Poor people and push really wicked agendas, but that's a whole nother sermon I preached on that before but I just want to make it clear that when you give alms if you want to do it the right way You just don't let other people know what you're doing And that's kind of that's kind of how you're supposed to handle it look at verse number five And when thou prayest thou should not be as the hypocrites are for they love to pray Standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men verily I say in you They have their award so again notice It's the same pattern the same hypocrites not only like to give alms in the synagogue and in the streets But they also like to pray in the synagogues and pray in the streets Why to be seen of men so some people? They honestly come to church and do these long prayers Not because they sincerely want to say something to God or have some burden on their heart, but to be seen of men And I'm not saying that this is wrong because I don't think there's anything wrong with this But I just kind of find it a little bit awkward is that a lot of churches after service? They'll have like these altar benches where they're kind of like Encouraging everybody to come down and pray and some people just always are the first one down there and praying for a really long time And I'm not saying that they're not sincere But I'm just saying it kind of seems like what Matthew 6 is bringing up Where they're showing up at church to make these long Prayers or or doing these prayers not because they really want to pray something But simply because they want people to see oh that guy is really spiritual every service He's down at the altar and every service. He's there for 15 minutes or 20 minutes or something like that He must be really spiritual No, you know the spiritual person's praying in secret is what the Bible tells us you know it you know prayer I'm not against corporate prayer I'm not against prayer in the house of God because the Bible says the house of God is supposed to be a house of prayer For all nations, and there's a time and a place to come for prayer And and I'm not trying to downplay that but I am simply saying this the hypocrites love Praying standing in the synagogues and in the corners of three also just out in public they just love to make prayers and make long prayers of the Bible says and There's not anything wrong with public prayer But we should probably keep them to be shorter concise and sincere if you're not praying sincerely shouldn't pray Should only pray sincerely obviously you can consistently see the Apostle Paul and other people they're praying when they Break bread or when having fellowship I think it makes sense to pray when you're gonna have a meal and there's certain times but you know if it's the food just got sat down in front of you and It's like all right, let's pray, and it's just like here's my 15-minute You know super extra holier-than-thou spiritual prayer. You know that's not really Making a lot of sense. It's probably. I don't think that's what the Bible is bringing up and that person I'm not gonna invite to have lunch with me or ever again Okay You know and I've been around people they pray for a really long time in public Because my parents would take us to a lot of these kind of churches that were filled with hypocrites frankly speaking And you know the long prayers get awkward There's many times especially as a kid that I'm just like I'm just looking everywhere I'm just like oh man how long my legs are starting to buckle and I'm getting faint I'm just thinking like how long is this guy gonna pray? He's just saying the same thing over and over and of course I grew up in these circles where they're Pentecostal So not only after they prayed for 10 minutes Then they just start doing the go You know stuff and I'm just like dude we already got it like can you just just sit down and shut up, okay? We're done with the prayer and I remember thinking like I'm not spiritual because I didn't want to sit here and do these like 30 and 40 minute prayer circles or something but honestly the Bible is not saying that the Bible is saying that it wasn't right and That these people are actually just hypocrites is what they were really like and so when we pray in public I believe it should probably be short concise sincere to the point if you want to make long prayers You should do that privately in your prayer closet and everything like that, but but I will say this the Bible has a lot of prayers I Mean you can just you can go through Genesis Revelation, and you'll find prayer after prayer after prayer You'll find exact prayers you'll find exactly what many people prayed throughout the Bible in this Literal chapter we have Jesus Christ praying and let me say this There's pretty much no prayer in the Bible that you can read and less there in more than two minutes like it's they're all like Under two minutes or something so I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with praying for a long time But if you study the Bible They're not these like 40 and 50 minute prayers if you look at lots of passages on prayer specifically It says your Heavenly Father knows what you need before you even ask of him the Bible tells us the Holy Ghost makes intercession for us Many of the greatest prayers in the Bible are some of the shortest prayers ever recorded God be merciful me a sinner How long did that take I mean, but wasn't that a great prayer? Lord remember me when thou cometh in thy kingdom. That was probably an important prayer wasn't it? I mean, there's a lot of prayers I mean you know we have to realize that prayer God is not sitting here Expecting us to have to write these like giant monologues or something like that in order to be godly God Just wants us to pray God I mean the Bible says to Pray without ceasing and what I believe the Bible is really trying to emphasize God wants us to be in a regular Communication pattern he wants us to pray regularly pray often the Bible talks about Certain psalmist praying in the morning at lunch and in the evening so he's got hey He's praying three times a day Daniel prayed three times a day Jesus Christ when he's in the Garden of Gethsemane Praise three different times there so to me. It's probably more important that You're praying multiple times a day, then that you're having this super long elaborate prayer time Okay, and think about it. That's more practical anyways Isn't it a little bit easier or nice that when you have a few minutes? And it's in the morning a few minutes you pray the Lord then you're driving to work You got a few minutes you can pray for things that matter. Hey at lunch. You have a few minutes You can pray for something hey at evening. You got your family you guys can pray for something Hey when you're about to go to bed. Maybe there's something on your heart of mine you pray for something I think that's really the pattern that the Bible shows. It's not necessarily just this like I have this one hour session And I'm not if you do that great. I do not want to stop anybody to do that I'm not gonna fight anybody on that I'm just trying to give you some practical tips and some practical advice, and I want to make it clear that doing that in public hypocrite in Private it's fine, but I think that the Bible pretty consistently has a lot of these more concise and specific prayers That are done repeatedly through the day then this idea of just these super elongated Situations which we don't really see that Much of the Bible now this is the Bible brings up I think there's like one verse says like there's a prayer hour But but we don't know what that means that doesn't necessarily say they prayed for a whole hour That doesn't mean that every individual there prayed for an hour. Maybe it's just the time at which they prayed We obviously see people praying for a long time a couple times. I think you could say when Peter Is in prison they prayed until he basically came and knocked on the door and look if I'm in prison Pray until I come and knock on your door right, but I'm just saying like you know at the end of the day We have to make sure we're balancing All of the different things that we have to do we obviously can't just pray 24-7 but what I think God wants us to do is be in a constant state of Prayer but not publicly because that's not really the point the point is not to be seen of men The point is that you just genuinely want things and you need things and you want to glorify God And you're asking him you're casting all your care upon him, and that's why we go to the Lord in prayer Now it gives us specifically some instruction here, let's look at what its instruction is in this particular passage It says but thou when thou pray is enter into thy closet and when thou shut thy door Pray to thy father which is in secret and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly But when you pray use not vain repetitions as the heathen do for they think that they shall be heard for their much Speaking be not either for like unto them for your father knoweth what things you have need of Before you ask him. He's saying he already knows He just wants you to ask. He's not even saying you have to ask perfectly He's not saying you have to ask in a really elaborate way He's just simply saying I want you to ask and you know as a father I think that this helps me relate because I feel the same way especially with my kids is When I want to give them something or they need something I don't need them to necessarily be able to articulate it very well I just want them to ask and and sometimes you just want them to tell you what they want to Right and even your toddlers, they don't they don't even know how to form the words But just just pointing at it or just kind of saying something, you know It's nice when people just tell you what they want when people ask when people are polite It's it goes a long way and I believe this is the same way with God that God wants us to just simply be asking him On a regular basis. He tells us to go in private when we're praying now It brings up this thing of something we shouldn't do we should not use vain repetitions Notice who's doing this Heathen, so he's not even necessarily bringing up the spiritual. He's bringing up heathen and you know History is a fuzzy thing No one can necessarily know things for sure but you know A lot of people would say heathen pagan type religions would have a lot of quote chance and I think that's probably accurate That's probably what's being brought up here. And I think that even some quote Christian I'm using that word loosely Denominations are really Catholic do a lot of what I would call chanting and that's what I believe is really being referenced here is Where people are saying things repetitively? Number one that they don't mean or even understand necessarily They're just simply saying words at some point and God's saying that's not God's not wanting you to just sit here and just be Constantly repeating the same thing over and over thinking that that's somehow going to give you extra favor with God Now the Catholics are pretty bad at this. I want you to go to Luke chapter 11 They'll do a lot of what we call or what they call our fathers or Hail Mary's our fathers is what's referenced in this particular Chapter as the Lord's Prayer. Hail Mary's is another separate Catholic thing But even Greek Orthodox do the same thing where they'll just simply walk around God be merciful me a sinner God be merciful me a sinner God be merciful me a sinner God be merciful me a sinner God be merciful me a sinner That's kind of annoying, isn't it? How do you think God feels? And you just have like all these fields as a God versus me a sinner God versus a sinner And then you ask an Orthodox. Hey, what do you have to do be safe be a good person? Isn't that funny they'll sit there and just repeat that chant over and over and over and over again and they don't even realize that that passage is coming from someone that actually is putting their faith in Jesus and asking for his grace and then they believe in work salvation, isn't that ironic and then they think they're gonna be heard for their much speaking or a Catholic thinking that they they did something wrong and Their father which he should never be called But they'll say the father will tell them hey do 10 Hail Mary's or do 50 Hail Mary's or 50 our fathers You know, there's nothing wrong with praying the Lord's Prayer There's nothing wrong with praying God be merciful me a sinner but it doesn't make sense to just repeat the same thing over and over as a meaningless chant That's what vain means vain means meaningless So what's a meaningless repetition you're just saying it but it doesn't have any significance It's not real. There's not any real purpose to it. You're just simply just saying it to say it It doesn't even apply to the situation necessarily. You're just repeating something over and over and it doesn't have any benefit the modern-day Pentecostals speaking in tongues same thing just even if you thought that their nonsense was a really language just their vain repetition of vowel sounds is Meaningless it does not do anything. There are false religions. I believe Hinduism has this it's called Kundalini Where they basically do the exact same thing as what the modern-day Pentecostals are doing where they're just doing ecstatic utterances known as gloss Allelia and that particular utterance is meaningless It's vain it does not benefit But I do not believe that the Bible says that you can't pray the same thing over and over It's just that you shouldn't be doing it from a point of vanity or just a constant repetition And your prayers if he already knows what you need before you ask Then you just need to say it the one time, right? But what the Bible does bring up over and over is the idea of praying all the time for the same thing So what would that look like? That would be like what I was explaining earlier that you're praying for the same thing multiple times a day right in the morning I'm praying for the same things and the in the lunchtime. I'm praying for the same things in the evening I'm praying for the same things So, you know if there's somebody like our prayer like, you know, look at our prayer list somebody that's sick or someone that's got a situation I'm really worried about them I may pray in the morning for their health or for God to bless them and Then in the at lunch I may pray the exact same thing But it's not a vain repetition at that point I'm not gonna sit here and just say heal this person heal this person heal this person heal this person heal this person heal this person Like that starts to become a vain repetition, right but I may pray and ask God Hey, will you be merciful? Would you consider healing this person or giving them grace or whatever and then later in the day? I may pray the exact same thing and the Bible brings up this concept a little bit and if you place I want to show You look at Luke chapter 11 verse I'm not gonna read the whole thing But we'll just look at verse number five and he said unto them which of you shall have a friend and shall go unto him at midnight and say and him friend lend me three loaves for a friend of mine in his Journey has come to me and I have nothing to set before him and he from within shall answer and say trouble me not The door is now shut and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give thee I say unto you Though he will not rise and give him because he's his friend yet because of his importunity He will rise and give him as many as he needeth now the word Importunity is describing the fact that the guy won't shut up is the guy won't stop asking. He's like hey Give me three loaves of bread. No. Hey, give me three loaves of bread. I'm in I'm in bed, man Hey, give me three loaves of bread. My kids are in bed with me. What do you want? I want three loaves of bread He's getting up not because he's friend not because he likes him. He just wants him to stop knocking He wants him to stop asking that's what he's saying he's gonna rise for his Importunity and that's the reason why he's gonna grant this. What is this parable about? It's about God is basically saying hey many times You know people just do stuff because you ask them repeatedly Well God in the same way wants us to ask repeatedly for the same thing now It says here and I say and you ask and it shall be given you seek and he shall find knock and it shall be Open unto you. So of course, this is God bring up this concept of asking repeatedly for the same thing Go to Luke chapter 18. I'll show you this again Luke chapter number 18 What would be the danger here is going to the vain repetitious? Aspect of just saying a meaningless chant just saying the same thing over and over with this has doesn't really have much meaning anymore You said it that doesn't really make a lot of sense But I do believe the Bible says and very clearly teaches you should be praying for and you probably will be praying for the same things on a repeated basis even daily potentially and That's okay. The Bible says in Luke chapter 18 Look at what it says in verse 2 saying there was this in a city a judge which feared not God neither regarded man and there was a widow in that city and she came unto him saying avenge me of mine adversary and he Would not for a while but afterward he said within himself though I fear not God nor regard man yet because this widow trouble with me I will avenge her lest her lest by her continually coming she weary me and the Lord said here with the unjust just saith and Shall not God avenge his own elect which cry day and night unto him though he bear long with them I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh, shall they find faith on the earth? Here's the thing if I pray and ask God for something It may not be that he answers it right away, but that doesn't mean that he's not going to potentially answer it It would take faith for me to say, you know what I'm gonna pray again It would take faith me to say, you know, I'm gonna pray day and night until God Answers my prayer that would take faith. Whereas the person that gives up Doesn't have much faith What is the point of the story that the woman is not going to give up until the judge avenges her of her adversary? So she has she's basically just wearing him down We can't really wear God down But he's bringing this up as an analogy of hey since this woman won't stop asking and then he finally grants her petition We in the same vein should ask for the same things We should constantly go to God and we should cry day and night ask him to avenge us Ask him for our daily needs ask him for healing ask him for things And of course, you know we You know the Bible brings up this concept of if the Lord wills and and of course We can't necessarily demand things of God. I'm not a charismatic Okay, charismatic will like literally demand God do things and I think that's a weird way to pray But we should be praying. Hey Lord, if it's thy will please do this and I'm gonna pray until something happens and Then he says will God find faith on the earth, you know Well, we get to a point where people just kind of give up asking God to do things We shouldn't be like that. We should be Christians that are steadfast in our prayers We're praying. Hey the same things the same miracles that we need, you know We have we've had things in our bulletin and we will have things in our bulletin that we pray for a long time And we pray for it repeatedly and that's okay. It's okay. Obviously that may not come to pass We don't know how the Lord works in every situation But at the same time there's nothing wrong with praying for the same thing for a long time or repeatedly We just want to make sure in our prayer sessions That we're not just being repetitive to be repetitive and we're not making vain Repetitions the Bible says that God is not gonna just grant a prayer request just because you're sitting here Just vainly just uttering the same thing over and over but we want to balance that with the idea of he's saying I do want You to pray for this repeatedly though, just not necessarily in the same session We want to do this day and night in the morning at lunch in the evening We want to ask other people want to come together with other people and even pray with them That's why corporate prayer can be powerful, but we don't want to be the Catholics going around just saying 10 our fathers 10 Hail Mary's 50 God be merciful me of sinners because that doesn't really accomplish anything go view it back to Matthew chapter 6 So, I hope that I hope that that'll give you an idea of what the passage is really alluding to and what it's not alluding to It's not necessarily a whole sermon on prayer But this is a major component being brought up in Matthew chapter number 6 It says in verse 9 after this manner therefore pray ye our father which art in heaven Hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we give our debtors and lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever Amen God says and the Lord Jesus Christ God manifests in the flesh says here's how you pray so We should take that seriously now. I don't think that this is saying Say these words literally that's what the Catholic does. He's saying this is kind of how you should pray. This is a template This is kind of an idea. This is kind of a structure notice a couple elements of this number one It wasn't a long prayer was it? I Mean if you were to if we're to be honest, it's also kind of broad You know, he's talking about forgiveness. He didn't mention necessarily every single thing. He's just simply saying and forgive us our debts We don't even have necessarily the specifics give us this day or daily bread I Don't think that this is saying you can't pray longer than this. Don't hear me wrong but what I am saying is that in Many cases God already knows what we need and he simply wants us to just pray on a regular basis and I think what a lot of people are doing is just not praying at all and And you know, maybe maybe some people aren't praying these are thinking like well, I don't have 20 minutes Or I don't have 30 minutes. Okay? What what do you have you have two minutes? Hey, you could do a two-minute prayer Hey, you have 30 seconds you could do a 30-second prayer. Hey, you have 10 seconds You could do a 10-second prayer I mean, so I think we should try to unleash the opportunities and say hey, I should just pray more often and And maybe not realize that it's such a burden because it's not I mean his joke is easiest burden is light I mean, is it really that hard? I mean if God said hey I want you to pray three times a day for 10 seconds each And I'm not saying limit yourself to this. I'm just simply saying is that really that big of a burden? It really isn't but then how many people are even doing that? How many people are regularly going to the Lord and you know, hey, we got a prayer list It probably doesn't take too long to go through and just look at the ones and just say something to God I mean, I think you could have a pretty effective Prayer life in a pretty short amount of time But I think what God wants us to do is be praying daily praying regularly praying for different people The Apostle Paul brings up a lot of people he's constantly praying for and saying he's doing it daily saying he's doing it on a regular basis This is one aspect that we can learn from here Another thing we realize is he directs who is who does he direct his prayer to? Our Father which art in heaven. So notice he's directing his prayers to the Father. That's a consistent theme in the Bible You'll notice the prayers are always directed to the Father and especially after the resurrection in Jesus name So we're addressing the Father notice that the Father is somewhere He's in a location. He dwells in heaven our Father which art in heaven the Father's in heaven. We're addressing him Notice it says hallowed be thy name. This is important. Keep your finger and go to Matthew 23 hallowed What does that mean to honor and to set apart? We're honoring and setting apart a specific name. What is the name father? Now you'll see this mentioned a few different ways in the Bible we have here our father Then we also have Jesus saying heavenly father Okay, so there's a couple different ways that it's mentioned But it's the father and we see in Matthew chapter number 23 verse number 9 and Call no man your father upon the earth for one is your father which is in heaven Now, what would it be if you say hey, we're never gonna call anyone with this specific name except for one person God the Father what does that do? It sets it apart. It Hallows it it Hallows the name father when we only use it for God the Father now Is this saying in the context of describing who your parents are? No, we're not talking This is not the conversation This is not in view of hey, you can't call your dad father. Of course. There's nothing wrong with saying Hey, this is my father my mother. There's nothing wrong with using the English word father What is the context spiritually that we shouldn't be calling someone our father in a spiritual sense? Except for God the Father, you know who violates this again the Catholics Which is so funny because it's like the Catholics basically just read the Bible where it says don't do this and they do it And then all the things it says to do they just don't do those So what are Catholics their hypocrites folks? they just want to be seen of men and appear righteous and they'll sit there and Pray the Lord's Prayer over and over where they're saying over and over hallowed be thy name Hallowed be thy name how I mean they say it and they're our father 1020 30 times and then they'll look at their pedophile priests and they'll call him father That's a vain repetition when you sit there and just say over and over hallowed be thy name And then you just give it to some derelict pedophile Okay, father so-and-so, you know, that is what we really mean by vain repetitions What would it be that? Hallo, his name is to set it apart. Say it special only use it for God the Father and you know Don't be like one of these loser Weirdo Christians who calls God the Father Daddy, okay. It's so cringy and it just makes me it makes me angry. Okay There's these fake Christians. That'll be like let's let's pray Daddy, and I'm just like I instantly just want to walk away or run away or just hurt my ears or something I mean, it's just like it just sounds so irreverent Okay, and effectively Maybe it's not that big of a difference from an English synonym perspective But can we please use the word that is used here? Can we please use the father? We don't see Jesus Christ being disrespectful and using nicknames or something like that Let's use the name that we have here in the in the Bible Father right our father heavenly father use some derivative of that Don't use these cheap downgraded Little nicknames or something like that and be like he's cool with us. No. No, it's our father which art in heaven How would be thy name? We should how that name we should use reverence. We should use respect We should come to God the Father with fear and trembling Not just what's up, daddy, you know, that's that's that's disgusting. I'm sorry. I hate that if you do that You're not right with God. All right, that's what I said If we keep reading in our prayer though It says this thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth in earth as it is in heaven You know, we're supposed to align ourselves with God's will not ours We want a lot of things Here's something Jesus Christ had to align his will with the Father in In the Garden of Gethsemane when he's praying he's saying not my will be done He says in the Garden of Gethsemane if there's any other way let this cup pass from me He's saying I want to not do this His will is saying I want to do something else The the son the Lord Jesus Christ did not want to die if he could avoid it, but he said you know what? Nevertheless not my will but thine be done You have to recognize Jesus Christ asked for himself to not go to the cross He asked for and sometimes I think we could be the same we could ask the Lord for something or want something But it's not an alignment with God's will and what we have to do is we have to first say you know what? Nevertheless not my will but thine be done We have to be willing to submit ourselves and be obedient under the Lord's will and say well Whatever he wants is what I should really want and what I should really ultimately do How many Christians are living a life that is according to their will as Opposed to the Lord's will and we have to ask ourselves. What is the Lord's will? What is the Lord's will what is the Lord's will for me when I wake up in the morning? What is the Lord's will for me as far as which Bible I should use What is the Lord's will for how I should address our Father which art in heaven? What is the Lord's will when it comes to which church I should go to? What will what is the will of the Father as far as how often I should go to church? What is the will of the Father as far as how I should dress? What is the will of the Father as far as how I should live my life where I should live who I should marry How many kids I should have? How many times I should go soul winning what I do with my money, what is the Lord's will and Should we when we pray are we thinking are we just saying this are we actually thinking thy will be done in earth as it? Is in heaven? What does God want me to do? Hey when the song leader gets up here and says turn your handle this song? What does God want you to do? What is the Lord's will the Bible says to sing with a loud voice That's I mean I didn't say it loud God said loud You know, maybe in my flesh I could say let's just kind of you know, keep it down a little bit, you know Let's just you know, let's just you know, not go too hard, but it's like what's the Lord's will? Hey, what's the Lord's will on what should be preached? What's the Lord's will on which chapter we're gonna go through? What's the Lord's will on how a sermon should be approached? What's the Lord's will when it comes to church discipline? What's the Lord's will as far as our nation in our country? What's the Lord's will for our border policy? How many people in America are saying hey instead of us all asking ourselves what we want to do? Why don't we ask God what we should do for our border? What if we should ask God what we should do for our leaders? What if we should ask God what we should do to Hinduism? What if we should ask God what we should do to the LGBTQ? What is the Lord's will? And I don't like this Well, you know what you just don't like the Lord's will and This is something else that's implied in this prayer notice It says in the very first part of this thy kingdom come thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven is God's Will happening in earth? Wouldn't it be implied by this statement that what's going on in earth is not going to his perfect Will because if it was it would be kind of a meaningless statement, wouldn't it? Yet these Calvinists everything's going perfectly to God's will. How does a Calvinist even pray this prayer? How does a Calvinist even understand this prayer? Thy will be done check mark You know from a Calvinist perspective everything's God's will Everything's always happening exactly how he wants that when he wants it whatever every you know sodomite every single horrible murder Every theft in every criminal act that was God's will no, no, no that is not God's will folks God's will is found here in the scripture. This is God's will and we need to read the Bible and say hey thy will be done In earth as it is in heaven and we have an opportunity to affect that We have an opportunity for God's will to be accomplished in this earth in our lives And in the lives of the people that we influence and effect and we should do our best To wake up in the morning and think you know what how does God want me to live today? Not how do I want to live today? Verse 11 give us this day our daily bread. Hey God wants you to pray for dear daily needs things that you need There's nothing wrong with asking God for stuff that we need we need stuff We need bread verse 12 and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors This one's kind of interesting because most of these we've been asking for thinking about Don't necessarily have a counterpart, but this one is saying hey, will you forgive me the way I forgive other people? You know we like God's forgiveness, but do we like dishing it out do we like forgiving other people? we should wake up in the morning and If we have any unforgiveness We should probably go ahead and forgive people right then and there before we go into the into this prayer Because think about it this way if I haven't forgiven the people that I'm upset with I don't really want to say this do I hey forgive me like I didn't forgive them Hey forgive me like I didn't forgive my spouse Or didn't forgive my parents or didn't forgive my brother or didn't forgive this church member Or didn't forgive the guy across the street or didn't forgive whoever Hey, maybe you should forgive them and then say hey God will you forgive me of my trespasses? And Lead us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever I'm in now again this temptation I believe is Not what we maybe initially think I don't know for me when I hear the temptation I think of me being tempted to do something wrong or being offered something bad, but tempt can also just mean tried or tested and What I believe the Bible is alluding is the second definition here and it's saying that God We want to pray and ask. Hey, I don't I don't want persecution today if I don't have to have it. I don't I don't want to necessarily have to go through hard times if that's not what you want and He's asking for us to be delivered from evil. Evil is harm So some people would think like hey God, please don't tempt me with really sinful things today That's not really what's being implied here it's more saying hey God, please don't make me have to go through suffering of affliction and And the extreme persecution if I can avoid that that's more what we're praying for because the Bible tells us that God doesn't tempt us with evil and Even those are the same words It's it's actually a different context and it's basically God's not gonna sit here and offer you the apple on the tree That was the devil that did that God didn't come down and entice Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit That was the devil that was doing that God's not gonna try and bring sinful people into your life to just try to get you To sin but what God can do and will do many times Evidence in the Bible is he may bring a hardship or allow enemies to attack you and test you threaten you with the fiery furnace Hey, will you bow down to the false God and go to the fiery furnace or will you stand you would stand fast, right? but God's typically not coming around and trying to just get you to sin the devil's trying to get you to sin and God's trying to provide a way of escape God's trying to be there to protect you and deliver you from the evil Also says this and I think this end part is very interesting It says for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen No matter what All the glory of all eternity is going to God like No, man is gonna be able to steal the glory of God at some point God will come down from heaven and Jesus Christ will really literally rule and reign on this earth and Everyone will have to give recognition to him at some point Beyond that the Bible says every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father At some point, I mean God is the ruler of the universe and at some point He will no longer be hidden. His knowledge won't be hidden There'll be nothing that we won't even have faith because faith will become sight at that point And so all the glory all the honor all the recognition all the fame Everything will be given to God and no one could ever take it from him No one's gonna be able to say a cross word against the Lord No one's gonna be able to go against him at some point. He is getting all the honor and all the glory So it makes no sense to not give it to him now You want to be on his good side now? He's going to win. He is going to be the one that's victorious He's the one that's getting all the glory. We celebrate some men from history, but very few When you look at the grand scheme of things, I mean you think about certain popes they get a lot of attention You could think about kings and presidents. Here's somebody that's gotten a lot of Gloria of man But it's coming to end and that's Muhammad Arguably you could say from a humanistic perspective Muhammad has gotten some of the most glory that any man could ever have. I mean you have almost a billion Muslims that will speak very positively of Muhammad What is the stupid thing they say like they'll say these people's names and they say like peace be upon him or something, right? It's like they can't say their name without saying peace be upon them or something It's like you're just talking to a Muslim if you talk to a real Muslim, they'll be like Muhammad. Peace be upon him the guy's burning in hell and Even though there's a billion of you just saying that over and over and over again it doesn't stop Muhammad from just burning in the pit of hell right now and He's gonna be there forever and eventually there won't be any Muslims Eventually, they'll be all gone and wiped off the face of the map And boy, you know for all these people going around giving all this recognition and glory to Muhammad God's gonna have a special punishment for them And I wouldn't be surprised this is my personal opinion But I wouldn't be surprised of the end times When you see just a third and a fourth of mankind being wiped out and this huge war that's going out That it's Islam. That's on the losing side of that battle That it's Islam being punished Very severely and then of course Christians get a great persecution in the middle we're kind of the we're the we're the halftime show all right, and then after the halftime show then God just unleashes everything onto the Beast and onto the Antichrist on his kingdom the greatest wrath that's ever been poured out on those ungodly and he really takes it out on Jerusalem specifically and Then of course Babylon gets its final just nuke at the very end But I believe Islam is very likely going to be extremely punished For their blasphemy and their wicked satanic religion Islam is satanic Islam is a dumb religion Islam has the worst literature ever. It's called the Quran. I Mean I've read a lot of literature and the Quran is by far one of the worst things I've ever read and It doesn't make sense. It's silly. It's propaganda It's not good literature whatsoever. And I know they say well, it doesn't translate. Well, yeah, because it's garbage in garbage out folks okay, and No one can take the glory from God Islam will lose Catholicism Will lose Every Pope every president every guy Michael Jordan will not be remembered Wayne Gretzky will not nobody cares Nobody cares about the glory of man It'll soon fade as the flower wilts as the grass fades as all these things burn up as the entire works of the entire earth are completely destroyed Trump casinos going down Hey not only buildings, you know the twin towers and building seven all the other buildings are gonna fall down to The new building that they built is gonna fall down. The Burj Khalifa is going to fall down Every single building is going to fall down. It's all going to be destroyed and the only glory that will exist is the glory of the Lord Therefore we ought to get him the glory now We ought as well get on his side now and and not worry about the glory of men. It's meaningless We shouldn't care about the glory and the fame and the the attention of this world. It's all meaningless. It's all vain It has no benefit One day we'll realize wow. It was all just hits his kingdom. It's his power. It's his glory forever We should just go ahead and align ourselves with that attitude now Now verse 14 is a commentary on what was just mentioned. This is that prayer He says for if you forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly Father will also forgive you But if you forgive not men their trespasses neither will the Father forgive your trespasses so You need to be careful with forgiveness We need to forgive you let things go Do not hold grudges if you want God to be merciful to you. You also need to be merciful So we've had two major things pointed out here number one alms and prayer When you do alms secret prayer secret, here's the third one Moreover when you fast be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance for this figure their faces that they may appear unto men To fast verily I say unto you they have their reward But thou when thou fastest anoint thy head and wash thy face that thou appear not unto men to fast But unto thy father which is in secret and my father which seeeth in secrets reward thee openly again when you fast You shouldn't be telling everybody they're fasting What are the Catholics do they have a whole month dedicated to fasting lint that they tell everybody about and they'll even put ashes On their face. They'll have a sad countenance on purpose just to make it clear that they're fasting. I mean How are Catholics saved? When they can just read the Bible and black and white telling them to not do this and then they just do exactly what it's saying It's like hey, here's what hypocrites do. Oh, this must be what I do And it's just weird it's weird when It can only be explained that there's a real spiritual battle that's constantly raging And now unsaved people things just go like this over their head It's crazy how you can just tell the devil. Hey devil, you're gonna do this and then he just does it You tell unsaved people what they're gonna do and they do it reprobates can tell you the gospel. They don't even believe it People can just read the Bible and they just goes it's just because there's a spiritual element to understanding the Bible and When you're not saved somehow you're just blinded and because you're blinded It just doesn't make sense and you can read it and it just doesn't click and you can't figure it out now again There's gonna be passages in the Bible Darker things deeper things that even say people we're not always gonna get right away things that take time Sometimes we get confused I get it but when you're just wrong on every single page on every single section, you know You're not saved. Okay, that's you have the spirit of error. You don't have the spirit of truth and It's very evident with Catholicism as a whole Now when you fast, basically, you should just make it clear that you're not fasting at all. In fact This is almost like putting on a brave face if you think about it It's saying hey, don't be don't even have a sad cat Don't even look down like actually put on a brave face be the best version of yourself Be happy have a good attitude, you know, don't have a bad-looking face And you say oh, I can't help it. Yes, you can because God wouldn't say this if you couldn't help it Don't go around frowning and looking upset and having a bad look on your face You should have a happy countenance is what the Bible says. Okay in many different places and Here you should put on a brave face. You should have a good and a pleasant appearance the best that you can now We're gonna kind of transition away from these these three like main sections that it's had for sake of time I'm not gonna necessarily go through all this is in much detail I preached a sermon recently a kind of about the latter portion of this chapter But I do want to still read through this It says lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven Where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal for where your treasure is there will your heart be also You know, we need to make sure that we understand Our heart will follow the treasures that we have whatever you're working for or trying to lay up Your heart will naturally gravitate towards that whether that be earthly possessions or heavenly possessions And and to me when I think about this I'm thinking more about the idea that you're either concerned with the end of your life or your present situation And if you're concerned with the end of your life It's gonna be easier to be focused in on the spiritual things that you should lay up those kind of treasures rather than The present whereas the presents concern with how much money and clothing and cars and 401k all the stuff That is now that you can have and laying up this treasure And of course then your heart and mind will be thinking about those things constantly Whereas if you're constantly thinking about being with Jesus Christ in heaven Then you're thinking like well, I want to be I want him to be pleased with me when I show up, right? I want him to be finding me doing the right types of things and I want to bring a lot of people with me and I want him to say well done thou good and faithful servant and The more souls I get saved The more I'm gonna basically have my heart towards the things of God If I'm not getting anybody saved and I have no treasure in heaven Then it's almost like my heart won't even be in it. It's weird It's like you go soul-winning and then God will make your heart want to go soul-winning Whereas if you work on the carnal things like building things in this life, then your heart will be that again There's nothing wrong with Doing stuff on earth. We have to do some things on earth, right? We have to have a house We have to have a car. We need we need work. We need things So like you're gonna do you're gonna spend time on your job. Maybe even build a business. Maybe even build a house There's nothing wrong with those things and in a sense But at the same time if I'm only spending all my time building a house or building a business or building money or building my body or Any of these type of things then that could end up going where my heart it my heart's kind of in that My heart my feeling my affection my desires my time my energy all of the things that I have Whereas if you're thinking about heaven Then you're gonna put more of your desires Attention focus money to the things of God and laying up for yourselves treasures And have the treasures in heaven are great because they can't lose them the treasures here can be lost and Here's the other thing that stinks about treasures here as soon as you get them. They just start going downhill immediately It's like you build up a brand new nice house but it's only brand new the first day and Eventually you get that brand new house pretty soon a door is gonna break Pretty soon an appliance is gonna break pretty soon some spot in the grass is gonna get messed up Something's gonna fall apart your kids and it's probably not even you it's your kids, right? Boy, you have something new you get that new car and it's nice and then finally your kids just throw up in it You're just like wow Right you get a new garment and it rips it tears threads cart starts splintering on it or whatever you know, it just immediately kind of goes downhill and It's it's like in the heaven. It doesn't diminish. It's like it just stays in new quality. It just stays in mint condition You know, I don't have any kids to come and mess that up. All right, I Don't have I don't have anybody that's gonna come and steal that from me And so it's just better anyways Laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven thinking about the things of heaven Says in verse 22 the light of the body is the eye If therefore then I'd be single the whole body shall be full of light But if I might be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness if therefore the light that is in the darkness How great is that darkness? This is a pretty important verse. We probably spend a whole I mean all these could be like a whole sermon for honestly, but This is a really interesting thing Everything you see which seems really obvious, but just think about it everything you see is Because of your eyes, right and it's like we only experience light Because of our eyes if we were blind light would have no impact to us So our eyes are basically the only thing giving us an idea of what's going on around us Everything that we see people Things Sunsets foods everything is just coming through here. This is our source of all light all the information that we gather from sight and He's saying when your eyes are Focused when they're single when they're focused in on the good They're focused in on the things of God. Then your whole body is gonna be full of Godliness your whole body is gonna be filled with Christian when my eyes are single when I'm thinking about this when my eyes are focused on the scripture and on the Word of God and on the things of God then my whole body is Gonna be full of righteousness and full of godliness and full of the Spirit of God Whereas if my eyes are focused on the things of this world if I just allow tick-tock to fill my body What is it gonna fill it with? What is Facebook gonna fill my life with what is TV? What is the news? What is info wars? Gonna fill my body. What am I what am I what am I reading other things or listening to it? It's basically saying you're constantly filling yourself with something and if your eyes are single if they're focused on the things of God Then boy, you're gonna have a whole body full of light But what happens if you have an evil eye? What does that mean you're allowing evil things to come into you? You're allowing your eyes are just a door way You know, we talked about open borders being a problem in our country. Let me tell you about some open borders There are these things right here How many things are you letting migrate into your body? I Mean just imagine how many of you are just gonna open the door tonight to your house and just let anything come in But isn't that what TV does? I mean isn't TV. You're basically just open your eyes. They're saying anything The Internet's it just anything just anything can come in I Mean you you would think you're someone's insane if they say I never lock any of my doors In fact, I open my front door and anything can come into my house whenever it wants. However, it wants like this person's insane This person's weird, but then isn't that what we do with our eyes? Isn't that what so many people are doing? They just let anything come in to their brain and their hearts how many people are letting their kids do this? How many people their number one babysitter is the television for their children and They let their children watch TV for five six seven hours a day How much evil is pouring into that child's mind and heart? How much filth of this world is just constantly pouring into people on a regular basis and what does it say it says Thy whole body shall be full of darkness if therefore the light that is in thee be darkness. How great is that darkness? They say man, if you're only letting evil things come in. Wow, you're gonna be really dark And I look all of us struggle with bad thoughts and different things, but if I'm only letting evil come in What do you what kind of thoughts do you think I'm gonna have? What kind of desires do you think I'm gonna have how much am I gonna be walking in the spirit? What am I what kind of choices and actions am I gonna make and look I? Grew up very worldly I've already done. I've already done a lot of damage to myself by letting so much evil come in But I think that we should try on a daily basis to renew our Minds and we should try to get more light into our body because when we just let evil things come in boy How dark it can be and how dark our world is and how much filth is actually being? Shoved into our faces on a regular basis and all the devil wants to do is just constantly let filth just filter in Through our eye sockets. There's a there's like a kid's song out there and it's like oh be careful Little eyes what you see How true that song is Sometimes you can't unsee it You Know the things that you haven't seen won't hurt you like the things that you've seen It's okay to not see everything But how many of us are keeping our eyes single keeping them focused He's saying hey, we need to focus on the things of God if we want to have a body full of light Look at verse 24 No man can serve two masters Friday will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other you cannot serve God and mammon Here's a question do you want more stuff at the end of the year or do you want to be a better Christian at the end of the year You can't do both Now you could be a better Christian and God just gives you more stuff, but you can't chase after both Your daily decisions can't be both and the whole rest of this passage is saying hey just serve me and I'll give you what you need anyways But what do you think it what do you you know you make goals for the end for the beginning of the year? Where are you trying to be at the end of the year? Are you saying I want to be a better version of myself and a better Christian or are you saying I want more stuff? What is it that you're wanting what is it you're thinking about this year? What goals and plans do you have this year because you can't serve two masters? Which one are you more concerned with are you wanting to become a better soul winner this year? Are you wanting to buy more stuff? Are you wanting to get the church more are you wanting to go do some other events or some other projects or some other? activities more You got to the end of the year you said oh, man. I didn't do some of the things I wanted this year I'm gonna do them which ones were you more concerned with? Accomplishing this year you can't serve two masters Verse 25 therefore I say and you take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink Nor yet for your body we shall put on is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment Behold the thousand year for they so not neither do they reap nor the gather into barns your heavenly father feed at them Are you not much better than they which of you by taking thought can add one cubit into a stature? And why take you thought for raiment consider the lilies of the field how they grow they toil not neither Do they spin and yet I say unto you that even Solomon all his glory was not arrayed like one of these Wherefore of God so clothe the grass of the field which today is in tomorrow's cast in the oven? Shall he not much more clothe you oh, you have a little faith Saying don't worry about clothes verse 31 therefore take no thought saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we be clothed for after all These things of the Gentiles seek for heavenly father knoweth that you have need of all these things Notice again the verse 32 says have need hate food clothing and Drink those are things you need But he's saying still put me first Don't worry about the things you need and people will think if I put God first it may affect the things that I need If I put church attendance first If I put my time and I give God the first of my time That could affect the things I need if I put God first it could affect my career opportunities If I put God first in my tithing that could affect my finances Here's one if I don't drink alcohol it could affect me Look today in the workplace. There's a lot of pressure to drink alcohol. I mean I've worked for many companies and Every single company without fail they all drink. I've never I mean, okay apart from stuff that's bad as church Okay, I'll put that caveat. I'm saying outside of employment at the church All the staff meetings all the Christmas party all the things they drink they're always inviting you In fact, I was invited when it was like we were gonna go bar hopping I'm like, what does this have to do with our work? like why is that a thing and you know I just always politely decline and a lot of people can see there's a lot of pressure to go to all the corporate events and Drink and do these things and you know the events I can show up at Where it's not like a super weird environment like literally just bar after bar after bar I still try to attend and just don't drink and there's pressure like oh, come on, man Or they're like, oh you're a goody-two-shoes or whatever, you know, I just don't do it and I've still been able to be successful Yeah, does that mean that maybe I can't climb every corporate ladder I want probably not You know what? I'm not worried about Climbing the corporate lanterns because I need to drink the Kings drink I'm just gonna say you know what as for me in my house. We don't drink And you can still prosper in this world without drinking But some people think like no I need to go along with it I need to just have a beer with them with the guys or whatever Just don't do it He'll give you what you need What does it say but see he first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you Take therefore no thought for the morrow for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself sufficient on the days the evil there You know his boss tried to get him to drink Daniel Daniel's boss and there was a lot of pressure and it's really uncomfortable for him to say no But pretty soon, you know who's running the whole country Daniel Hey, what if Daniel said you know what? I don't think I'm gonna get promoted if I don't drink the Kings drink if I don't drink the Kings wine He would have never climbed to the top Isn't it funny how the guy who says I'll do what God wants? He'll put you at that top position that you probably wanted but if you seek that top position a he's not gonna give it to you Just see God and he'll put you where he wants you just seek God first Just say hey, I want to put reading my Bible first I want to pray first and you know, I'm not gonna do these things to be seen of men. I'm doing in my prayer closet I'm gonna give and help the poor just because I love poor people Well, how are you gonna get ahead financially if you're giving money to poor people? I don't know God makes it work How are you gonna get ahead by tithing? I don't know God makes it work How are you gonna accomplish all the things you need when you're praying? I don't know but God will make it work Hey Daniel found time to pray three times a day Daniel found a way to seek first the kingdom of God. He got promoted Does that mean we're all gonna rule? No but at the end of the day God is gonna put you in the positions that he wants when you seek him first and he'll Give you what you need and many cases. He'll probably even give you more than you even thought you were gonna get anyways But when you seek to get it by your own means by your own strength by your own power by your own might many times We'll lose out on what God had saved up for us We're supposed to make sure that we're seeking first the kingdom of God keeping our eyes single on him He'll give us what we need and at the end of the day Even if you don't get what you want in this world, you're not supposed to lay it for treasure on this earth Anyways, we're laying up treasure in heaven and pretty soon It'll all be his glory and his honor and those who served him will get all the honor and glory They could ever hope and wish for Who are you living for What kind of goals what kind of decisions that you make this year, you know, maybe you need to realign your goals Are your goals seeking first the kingdom of God this year, you know, we have a lot of soul-winning opportunities this year our churches a lot of events and The church says hey three servers every week You know sad is talking to people soul-winning tonight and they go to a Baptist Church and say do y'all have Sunday night? Yeah, like it's so sad churches don't have Sunday night church anymore and Wednesday night, yeah You know, we could we could close we don't have to have Sunday night I don't have to have Wednesday night, right? What if we scale back? But is that us seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness? What if we just say hey, we don't want to read the whole chapter. Let's just read a verse Hey, we don't need pastor Shelley to preach so long. It's boring. I Fall asleep just preach a 20-25 minute sermonette I Mean couldn't we could scale everything back we could be like everybody else Constantly going in the other direction, but boy that product seems to be destroying our nation doesn't They don't seem to be getting anybody saved do they I Mean if they're so great, why aren't they just bringing in hordes of unsaved people and getting them saved all the time How come every time we knock on the door the people that go to this church, they're not saved But We need to be seeking first the kingdom of God we already know the truth You already know what's right in your spirit. Maybe the problem is that you're feeding your evil eye a little too much Get your eye single on the things of God and see where he takes you this year Because I guarantee he'll take you to a great place if you let him We're sometimes our own worst enemy and God just wants to say hey Will he find faith on here? Let's go to prayer. Thank You Heavenly Father so much for giving us all these instructions and Giving us an opportunity to not only be saved, but also to serve you Giving us an opportunity to lay up treasure While none of us Are going to be the richest man in the world and while many of us will probably never be rich We have an opportunity to be rich spiritually. It doesn't take any money. It just takes somebody that's willing to serve God I pray that you would help us to have a desire to be rich towards God and not towards this world For us to seek first the kingdom of God I pray that you'd put a desire in us to keep our eyes single and focused on the things of God and They come alongside of us and that you'd bless us. You'd give us all the things that we need and we want When we seek you first, thank you for all you give us in Jesus name we pray Amen Amen for our last song we're gonna do song number 61 will never say goodbye Song number 61 We'll Never say goodbye song six one on the first Say goodbye Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Great singing everybody. You're all dismissed You