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

🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 Alright, good afternoon everybody and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. We can go ahead and find our seats. We'll go ahead and get started. It's great to see everybody here tonight. We can go ahead and find a hymnal once we've found a seat. We'll start in song number 129. Song number 129, Rock of Ages. Song number 129, song number 129, Rock of Ages. 🎵Music🎵 Song number 129. Sing it out together on the first. 🎵Music🎵 🎵Rock of ages, clap for me🎵 🎵Let me hide myself in thee🎵 🎵Let the water and the blood🎵 🎵From thy wounded side which flowed🎵 🎵Be a sin, a double cure🎵 🎵Save from wrath and make me pure🎵 🎵Could my tears forever flow🎵 🎵Could my zeal no languor know🎵 🎵These were sin, but not atone🎵 🎵Thou must save and thou alone🎵 🎵In my hand, O Christ, I bring🎵 🎵Simply to thy cross I cling🎵 🎵While I draw this bleeding breath🎵 🎵When my eyes shall close in death🎵 🎵When I rise to worlds unknown🎵 🎵And behold, beyond my throne🎵 🎵Rock of ages, clap for me🎵 🎵Rock of ages, clap for me🎵 🎵Let me hide myself in thee🎵 All right, great singing, everybody. Let's open up with a word of prayer. Lord, we just want to thank you again for Steadfast Baptist Church. We thank you for everything you do. We love you, and we just ask you to bless this church and bless this service, and it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, for our next song, we're going to go to song number 176. Song number 176, Jesus Loves the Little Children. It's a one-liner, but it's so nice. We'll sing it twice. Song number 176, Jesus Loves the Little Children. All the kids better sing out on this one. 🎵Jesus loves the little children🎵 🎵All the children of the world🎵 🎵Red and yellow, black and white🎵 🎵They are precious in His sight🎵 🎵Jesus loves the little children of the world🎵 🎵Jesus loves the little children🎵 🎵All the children of the world🎵 🎵All the children of the world🎵 🎵Red and yellow, black and white🎵 🎵They are precious in His sight🎵 🎵Jesus loves the little children of the world🎵 Good evening, thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, lift up your hand nice and high. One of our ushers that I don't see will give you a bulletin. All right, there he is. If you need a bulletin, raise your hand. We've got you. Also we have the Bible Memory passage. This looks like an old one. It is updated. I don't know if this is the right one. I want to make sure for our prayer list. All right. Proverbs 31 verse 1 we've got our new Bible Memory passage. If you didn't get a prize, but you did quote the Psalm 58, see Brother Oz and he can help you out with that prize. On the inside we have our service winning times church stats. Also we have our list of expecting ladies. Please be in prayer for them. We have several that are listed. Also upcoming events, we have the baby shower announcement below. Our cookout is happening this Sunday night and we did get some more fliers so we have enough for probably Sunday. It's kind of going to be limited. Try to take around 20, 25 just so that a lot of people can grab them. But we should have enough just for one more push for Sunday and everything like that or upcoming soul winning times. If you'll just kind of take a handful of those. Also the fire breathing Baptist fellowship is right around the corner. If you did sign up to help with our cookout, please did we already send an email out to those people? There's going to be one more email that we'll send out to you guys as kind of a follow up for those who are going to help with cooking, cleaning, everything like that. Also for the FBBF, we probably need to get somewhat of a sign up sheet for a few things. If you want to help us with some extra cleaning. I am asking if everybody would be willing to bring a dessert for the Friday night. We'll probably need some help just cleaning in between preachers, just restocking our bathrooms and stuff and then just some extra cleaning for after the services and before services just to make sure that everything is good. Especially since we'll have events even in the morning on Saturday. We're going to have our spelling bee so it'll probably take a good sized cleaning crew on Friday night just because we'll have had pizza and a lot of people here and everything like that. Also we are going to have a lot of visitors and a lot of guests coming in. Please be respectful of having a lot of guests and try to be nice. I think in advertising the conference has always been the 12th through the 15th, but since we are doing our events starting right on Thursday morning I'll probably still preach a special message on that Wednesday night and we'll hand out our shirts and everything like that for the conference on Wednesday night just so people can start wearing shirts and everything like that. You don't want to miss Wednesday night service. I know it says on the 12th, but you still should come on Wednesday. I'm preaching to the choir here to the Wednesday night crowd, but I'll reiterate that Sunday. Also the Texas chili cook-off is coming up the 31st. November 4th is our Abilene, Texas soul-winding marathon. On the back is our prayer list. We'll go over this real quick for this evening. Please continue to pray for Miss Lucy and her mother. Pray for Brother Hall. Pray for the Wallach's daughter Haley, her pregnancy. We've been praying for Miss Cooley's stepdad. We've been praying for Brother Oz, his brother. We've been praying for the grandmother of the Naims. We've been praying for the Dominican Republic missions trip. Someone told me there was a St. Lucia missions trip that recently happened really well. I think they had over a thousand salvations or something like that. That's definitely great. Also, we're praying for Brother Cooper. We're praying for Miss Mara. Her daughter has a court case that's really important. Then we've been praying for Brother Nate for a job. That's pretty much what we have on our prayer list. I'm going to go ahead and say a quick prayer for us as a church family. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for this church. Thank you so much for all these ladies that are expecting. Please be with them during their pregnancies. Please help their children to have a natural and normal delivery and development. I pray that you would also help our church family that's struggling with illness and sickness right now, especially our chronic issues. I pray that you would please give them deliverance if possible. If it's your will, I pray that you would give them comfort and peace no matter what. I pray that you would also help give favor unto those that need jobs or have upcoming events, that they need blessing. I pray that you'd also help with those that need to hear the gospel, that you would give us boldness to preach, that you would soften their hearts, that you would give them a perfect opportunity to share, and that we'd have courage to do so. I pray that you'd also bless our upcoming events, that you would help keep us safe, that you would help us to reach more people with the gospel and encourage people to also serve you. I pray that you'd also help our upcoming conference to go smoothly and for many people to be edified and for zeal to increase. And we just thank you for all you give us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. That's pretty much all I have for announcements. I did find some glasses in the soul winning van, and if they are yours, come on down. All right. He was blind and now he can see. You thought I wasn't a miracle worker, but no, I'm just kidding. There you go. All right. We're going to go to our third song, Psalm 149. Or is it 139? 149. All right. Sorry, this paper is throwing me off a little bit. All right, everyone. Psalm 149. Psalm 149. Praise ye the Lord, sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise in the congregation of saints. Let his real rejoice in him that made him let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. Let them praise his name in the dance, let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp for the Lord. Make it pleasure in his twinkle he will beautify the meek with salvation. Let the saints be joyful in glory, let them sing aloud upon their beds, let the high praises of God be in their mouth and of two edges, sword in their hand. To execute vengeance upon the heathen and punishments upon the people to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron. To execute upon them the judgment written this honor hath all the saints. Praise ye the Lord. All right, while the offering plate's being passed around, please turn your Bibles to Romans 16. Romans chapter number 16. Romans chapter number 16. Romans chapter number 16. Romans chapter number 16. Romans 16, the Bible reads, I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Sancria, that you receive her in the Lord as becometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you. For she hath been a suckerer of many, and of myself also. Greet Piscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ Jesus, who have for my life laid down their own necks, unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. Likewise, greet the church that is in their house, salute my well-beloved Epinatus, who is the first fruits of Achaea unto Christ. Greet Mary, who bestowed much labor on us. Salute Andronikus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me. Greet Ampleus, my beloved in the Lord, salute Urbain, our helper in Christ, and Stachys, my beloved. Salute Apelles, approved in Christ. Salute them which are of Aristobulus' household. Salute Herodion, my kinsmen. Greet them that be of the household of Narcissus, which are in the Lord. Salute Trifina and Trifosa, who labor in the Lord. Salute the beloved Persis, which labored much in the Lord. Salute Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother in mine. Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Petrobus, Hermes, and the brethren which are with them. Salute Philologus and Julia, Nereus, and his sister in Olympus, and all the saints which are with them. Salute one another with an holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you. Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. For your obedience has come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf, but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil. And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. Timotheus, my workfellow, and Lucius, and Jason, and Peter, my kinsmen, salute you. I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord. Gaius, mine host, and of the whole church, salute you. Erastus, the chamberlain of the city, salute you. And Cordis, a brother. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began but now is made manifest and by the scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the everlasting God made known to all the nations for the obedience of faith. To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you for Romans chapter 16 and I pray that you fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit, enable him to explain this chapter to the best of his ability to us and open ears and hearts, soften hearts in the room, Lord, so that we may receive the truths inculcated in this chapter. We love you and in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. So Ben, going through the Romans and we've got to the end, Romans chapter 16. Now, of course we don't have the original manuscripts and so we don't necessarily know exactly what they look like originally but one thing that I kind of have noticed in the end of chapter 15 and here in chapter 16 is you have a lot of amens and typically you would think of that as being kind of a conclusory ending to something and you have to understand this is a letter written to this church so I kind of, and I could be wrong on this but this is kind of my personal view as to how you kind of look at Romans is that chapter 15 is the conclusion of the letter so you kind of have that amen there at the very end notice in verse 33 of chapter 15, now the God of peace be with you all amen. Chapter 16 in my opinion is kind of like a P.S. so sometimes you have in a letter and if you've never written a letter you might not know what I'm talking about but in a letter sometimes you have a long format, you kind of have like an opening or greeting and you have your long format and then you're going to have sometimes what's called a P.S. or post script so it's just kind of like an addendum or something added to the message but it's not necessarily the main message it's just some kind of additional message that you wanted to give but it has kind of this natural break in it and it makes sense because if you think about this chapter what he's kind of doing is he kind of broke away from the main message and now he's going to give you this long list of people that he's commending so it's kind of just a separate thing to the letter so you kind of imagine like a letter and then you have this break and then he has this section where he's giving you all these recommendations as far as all these people that are good people and it's really important because back then they didn't have Facebook I don't know for some of you millennials and what is it Gen Y or something? What is the new one? Gen Z? Okay I can't even keep up with y'all they're just moving so fast for me but they don't even know what I'm talking about but back then you didn't necessarily know who's good, who's bad, you can't really look these people up, we don't know these strangers from one another and so these epistles serve a really important purpose of identifying good people and saying hey here's some good people, here's some bad people and so when random people show up at the church you could know like hey this is someone that Paul said is a good guy or hey this is someone that Paul said is not a good guy and you kind of have some ability to vet people a little bit based on prior knowledge. Now this happens today, I've had people visit my church or come from another church and they might say hey I go to this church or I know these people, sometimes they'll just call that person up and say hey do you know this person, what do you think about them? And it ranges and answers, sometimes they're like this is a great person, oh I love them that's awesome they visited, other times they're like this person's a psychopath or they've been thrown out of my church for doing all this weird stuff and you're thinking like okay and I think that is a biblical practice just like we see here in the book of Romans chapter 16 the apostle Paul identifying for us people that are good and of course in other epistles he identifies people that are bad he does say in this chapter very clearly to mark certain people as well so it's a biblical practice to name people to associate them by their name, call them out publicly, I mean this is really public and of course the apostle Paul is also not a one man show in the New Testament, he relies on a lot of people and I think this chapter is really important to have in the scripture to understand that the apostle Paul is relying on so many different people and there's so many other great people behind the scenes that cause Christianity to go forth and it's kind of God's way of letting us know hey you may not be the apostle Paul but you could be one of these people and even if you're not named, it doesn't really matter because there's just so many people that are important to the work of God it's not a one man show, a lot of times in the Bible we kind of are focused on leadership, we're kind of focused on the one man we're focused on Moses or we're focused on David or we're focused on whomever the story is, they're the main protagonist of the dialect but even though apostle Paul is kind of the main focus of the New Testament, this chapter is important to realizing that he didn't do this by himself, he had multitudes of people assisting him, helping him, doing really important work and his work would have never happened without these people and this church, this church can only exist because you guys are here, it's not a church of one that's a family, the reason why we even have church, the reason why I'm even a pastor is because there's multiple people here and a lot of people that are very important to this church, this church functions because many people that are not named are doing great works and of course I would love to name everybody every single time and we could get bricks and line all of the flooring with all of our names to make us feel all special and everything like that, but you know that doesn't really matter, what matters is that the work of God is going forward but I do think it's important to recognize that it's not just a one man show and that the apostle Paul is recognizing other people, verse 1 he recognizes, this is the first person he recognizes, I commend unto you, Phoebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Centria, that you receive her in the Lord as become a saint and that you assist her in what sort of business you have need of you, for she hath been a suckerer of many and of myself also, now suckerer is a synonymous term with helper, just means to help, to sucker someone means to help them, so it's a synonymous term with help, this woman was a great helper unto what? Many and of myself so this woman greatly helped the apostle Paul and she greatly helped many different people, now what's interesting is how this chapter starts, I commend notice it says I commend, look at verse number 3 greet, look at verse 6, greet, look at verse 8 greet, and then it kind of goes down salute, salute, salute, salute salute, salute, salute, salute, the only person that I recognize in this chapter as being commended is Phoebe and that's kind of interesting because it's obviously a female, it's obviously a woman that's being commended and you know the apostle Paul is especially in this portion of scripture not married when you compare with other epistles it's possibly gotten married in the latter portion of his life, I don't think so at all because he makes it clear he kind of has a special gift where he doesn't need to be married I don't see why he's in his dying age in Rome that he would have gotten married randomly but most likely Paul was never married, I think that that's pretty much just 99.9% but that doesn't mean that he couldn't have relationships with other women or other women didn't help him because especially at that time in history especially a man traveling, he needs to eat and he needs things that a woman provides in a relationship and yet he doesn't have a wife and he's traveling, there's not Motel 6 on every single corner, there's not McDonald's so you know what the apostle Paul would have needed is women to make meals for him, wash his clothes potentially, do a lot of things that a wife would normally do and I guarantee that Phoebe and other women were those help meets, you know, even though they weren't married to come alongside people like the apostle Paul and to assist them and do good under them and it's not a degrading work to do those tasks because without the apostle Paul getting food, getting clothing, having beds, having all these different things he couldn't even do the work that he needed. This reminds me of another woman in the Bible that helped the prophet, you know the prophet Elijah is needing assistance needs a place to stay and in the story it's always kind of talking about the woman, there's a woman that sets up a place for him and is providing all the things that he needs and taking care of the prophet and you kind of see this as a consistent theme, you see Rahab the harlot taking in the spies and you know sometimes women get this idea like they're not significant to the work of God but to the apostle Paul he's going to recommend people, what's the number one person he recommends is a woman and even though he's not married I think every married guy would also probably feel the same way that in many ways the most important person in our lives is a woman, it's our wife and that wife is the one that's there to assist us and to help us and we couldn't even be the men that we are without them and they're a great help and you know she's such a great helper that he's basically telling the whole church, look if this woman needs something, you guys need to help her because she's just an excellent help to the work of God, she's doing a lot of business for the work of God and if she asks for anything, give it to her if she's like hey I need some wheat, give it to her because she's going to make really good cookies if she says hey I need some scarlet thread, give it to her because she's going to make really awesome coats, just saying whatever she needs, supply this woman with the goods that she needs because she's helping a lot of people and we kind of see that camaraderie in Christianity where you can identify certain people and say this person's a great help now keep your finger here and go to 1 Timothy 3, I want to point this out 1 Timothy 3, some people will take Romans 16 and get a really strange doctrine and of course in their mind they're trying to lift up women but it's really in my opinion an attack on women because what they'll say is that Phoebe here is actually a deacon of the church and literally if you get an NIV, the NIV says that Phoebe is the deacon of the church, the NLT says that she's the deacon of the church, the RSV says she's the deaconess so they kind of try to feminize and make her the deaconess but here's the thing, she can't be a deacon according to scripture, the Bible has really clear instructions on who the deacon is supposed to be, look at what it says in 1 Timothy 3 verse 8, likewise must the deacons be grave not double tongue, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre, holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience and let these also first be proved, then let them use the office of a deacon being found blameless, even so must their wives be grave, not slander, sober, faithful in all things, let the deacons be the husbands of one wife ruling their children in their own houses well, for they that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. Now a deacon in the Bible virtually has the same qualifications as a pastor, I mean they're almost identical frankly when you kind of study and pay attention to them I would say the major difference between the deacon and the pastoral qualifications is that the pastor needs to have a few additional things like someone that's very good at preaching, teaching the Bible good leadership skills and someone that people are going to follow so someone that's going to be a deacon doesn't necessarily have to have those same qualities, many times they're going to be equivalent they're going to be on the same page, they're going to even probably be good at all of those as well but really a deacon is an official title in the Bible, it's not just a word using, describing what this person is, it's a title, you have pastor as a title it's also a role that people play, deacon is a title it's also a role people play, the word deacon is synonymous with servant it definitely means servant, but you know the deacon doesn't really have kind of an authority role in the church he's more of just a servant of the church, I would say his authority is above the layman but he's not really this like overarching person above the pastor which a lot of people do, a lot of people today a lot of churches they have a deacon board and they tell the pastor what to do that is bizarre, it's not scriptural, it doesn't make sense, the servant is not supposed to tell the master what to do, the master tells the servant what to do, and the pastor is the shepherd, he's the leader, he's the elder, he's the one that's supposed to rule the church of God, it's supposed to be either the elder or the elders ruling the church, not the deacons, not the servants, but what's really clear here in verse number 12 is let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, that means that they cannot be female, they cannot be a woman, now this is what some people would say, okay well in the Old Testament, you know the Bible prescribes certain punishments and they'll say if a man kills another man then they would be put to death, or it uses the male version of a particular commandment and they'll say it applies to both genders, so they'll say this just still applies to both genders you know the woman, she just has to be married to one husband now on the surface you can't necessarily say that that's wrong because there is a lot of things in the Bible that of course are talking about a man doing it and it would apply to women, but this cannot apply to women, and I want to explain why it cannot, there's no way it could possibly apply in both ways, notice that it says in verse 12 let the deacons be the husbands of one wife ruling their children and their own house as well, something that the Bible describes husbands as is the ruler of the house, okay now keep your, you don't have to keep your finger here, go to Ephesians chapter 5, let me go to another passage, ruling their children and their own house as well, so the husband is a ruler, look at what it says in Ephesians chapter number 5 verse 22, the Bible gives us some more instructions about what a husband is, Ephesians chapter 5 verse 22, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church and he is the savior of the body according to the Bible, the husband is the ruler, and the Bible says that a deacon has to be one that's ruling his own house well this is something a woman can't do because she's not the ruler and this is an important qualification for someone in any area of leadership is that they've already demonstrated that they're ruling their own house as well, the wife is not the ruler and if there was a situation where the wife is ruling her husband, well she's biblically unqualified because she's not even submissive, she's not even doing what a godly woman would do in the first place, so it's abundantly clear that a woman could never be the deacon or the pastor because the pastor and the deacon are supposed to be rulers of their own household and they're supposed to demonstrate their ruling ability already the woman is not ruling over her husband and if she is, that's satanic, that would be wicked, and so it's impossible for that to be true, therefore the rendering in the NIV and the NLT is a contradiction, and some people say oh there's contradictions in the Bible well in the NIV, in the NLT, but there's not in the King James Bible, which makes it abundantly clear that she is a servant now yeah, is a servant, is it what a deacon's doing serving similar to what she's being described as doing? Sure and sometimes words have dual meaning, here's a word like pastor, you know the Bible calls Jeremiah a pastor in the Old Testament but you know what he's not is a New Testament pastor with the title okay, he's pastoring in the sense that he's shepherding the children of Israel and you could use that word shepherd or pastoring or elder in multiple different ways, in multiple different contexts, but that doesn't mean that Jeremiah was a New Testament pastor, and I've seen some people that say oh, well Jeremiah wasn't married and he was a pastor, so why do I have to be married? Because the New Testament says you have to be married, okay, just like oh well why does Phoebe have to be a servant and not a deacon? Because the Bible tells us that the deacons are the husbands of one wife and the Apostle Paul is surely not ordaining Phoebe as a deacon of the church when he wrote 1 Timothy and he wrote Titus and he knows what the qualifications of leadership are and we never see anywhere else in Scripture that contradicts that. Of course what do people love to do that teach false doctrine? They go to a place in the Bible where it randomly gives you a person's name and a minor description and we've never heard about them ever before. But then ignore giant passages that are super clear. Like 1 Timothy chapter 3 is really clear on the qualifications of a deacon and then they'll be like oh, but I think women can be pastors and deacons because look at Phoebe. It's like, this is silly. This is a bad way to interpret the Bible, okay folks. Now again, is Romans 16 profitable? Yes. Can we learn things from it? Sure. Did we already talk about a lot of cool applications? Yes. Does this prove that Phoebe's a deacon? Absolutely not. That is a foolish way to interpret your Bible. Go back to Romans chapter 16. Romans chapter 16 is one of the least places you want to go to form your core doctrines of the faith. It's a list of names, right? I mean this is not the clear passages where we're getting our core doctrines from. This is supplementary information to the doctrines we've already established with clear verses. Some things in the Bible are crystal clear. Other things are vague. But we don't want to use the vague passages of the Bible to reinterpret the really clear passages in the Bible. That's a bad way to interpret scripture. Whenever someone is formulating any doctrine, it should be formulated on a clear verse, not a vague interpretation of who this Phoebe person is. That doesn't make any sense. Look at verse 3. Greet Priscilla and Achilla, my helpers in Christ Jesus, who have for my life laid down their own necks, unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. Likewise greet the church that is in their house. So it recognizes Priscilla and Achilla and it's like this power couple. It's like this husband and wife power couple. It always makes me think of the Garcia's in our church because it's just like this power couple that work really hard. And look, there's a lot of other power couples in our church, so I don't want to downplay it, but for some reason I just always think of them. And I think it's because a lot of times when I say their names, I might sometimes say her name first. But you kind of notice that here too, right? Priscilla and Achilla. But it's just like they both have a lot of zeal and of course these are people that have done a lot of work for the Lord and they're really zealous. And look, this is a cool thing. You as a couple should try to be a power couple where you're both serving the Lord, you're both doing the work of God, and it's often rare. It's often rare to find a husband and wife that are both just like super zealous, super on fire, both really devoted, both really want to do it. But even though it's rare, you know what? Be that rare exception, right? Be that power couple and if your spouse is a little bit more zealous than you, work on becoming equally zealous with them. Step up to their plate, step up to their level and do some work. And I think sometimes women feel intimidated to do a lot of the work of the Lord because their work is not going to be recognized very often. I mean, we're not going to have women getting up here and start preaching sermons or something like that. They're not going to be on the front page of the website necessarily as the main leader of the church or something like that. So they sometimes feel like that their works are done in vain, but it's only done in vain if you want recognition. Because I notice and the people in this room notice, and notice according to this, it says and not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. Meaning it's not like just that person, the apostle Paul, recognizes it. He's like, look, everybody knows about them because they're just awesome. And they're just serving everyone and they're loving everyone. And so we can see that your works will be recognized by those whom you serve. If you want recognition, if you want glory, just serve. Just help people. And you know what? In due time, God will give you recognition. If you're going around trying to tell everybody how great you are, pretty soon we're going to start knocking you down. That's just how it usually works. But think about this person's, these people's commitment. It says for my life laid down their own necks to Akilah and Priscilla, their lives were less valuable than the apostle Paul's in the sense that they were steaming other better than themselves. And they were willing at times to literally be willing to die for the apostle Paul. They put their life on the line. They were in dangerous situations, risking who knows, maybe the threat of government or threat of the nature. You know, in some cases they were under the threat of robbers. He could have died from the elements of the weather, from robbers or even potentially from the government. Who knows? It could have been all of them, right? And according to the Bible, these people were willing to die for the apostle Paul. Kind of makes you think of another passage in Romans. Keep your finger, go to Romans chapter number five. Go to Romans chapter number five for a second and let's look at a couple of verses here. Look what it says in verse number six. For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. That's kind of an interesting verse to parallel with what we're talking here, meaning that Aquila and Priscilla are rare. That only few would be willing to die for a good man but they're in that list. They're in that category of somebody that would be willing to die for a good man. They were willing to die for the apostle Paul and that means that these were extraordinary people. These were incredible servants of God and of course the apostle Paul is recommending them. He says, hey, greet these people. These people are awesome people. To me when I think about how great Priscilla and Aquila are and we actually read a little bit about them in the book of Acts makes me feel like Phoebe was great because he put her above them. Do you notice that? Phoebe must have been really an epic helper. You know what I like about this comparison is and I don't know, we don't know, but let's just assume that Phoebe maybe didn't have a husband. I don't know if she did or not. It kind of almost seems like maybe not. But for sure you could probably argue that her husband wasn't as zealous. What this tells me is that women can actually have more zeal than their husband or even in the absence of a husband or in the absence of a man in her life she could still do great things for God of her own accord. There are a few women in the Bible that are rare exceptions that they really love the Lord and they want to serve him greatly and I believe that God is going to reward those women greatly for their work and for their sacrifice. There's this woman hating attitude that is really a cancer in our society and even in the new IFB I feel like there's this attitude of women suck and they need some young buck to come tell them how wonderful they are or something like that or help them. This woman is an awesome woman and I don't see the man telling her what to do in this situation. Just because most women need that and most women need that man to come alongside and help them, there can be exceptions and there can be women that really have a desire to serve God and serve God faithfully and outshine their male counterparts. I just really hate this women hating attitude and acting like women can't be zealous or women don't like the Bible or women don't like Scripture or these kind of things because Phoebe is a great servant of God Priscilla is a great servant of God. There's a lot of women in the Bible that are awesome and there's a lot of women in this world that are awesome and even though they might not necessarily chart out the book of Revelation, they could actually still be more spiritual than you. You knowing the intricacies of the seven trumpets doesn't get you special rewards in heaven, but women making coats and women making quilts and women feeding meals and women praying for people, God's going to reward those women for those works. Whereas you're like I charted Revelation. It's like, I don't care. But it's really easy for men to pontificate about how much more spiritual they are because they understand the finer workings of end times Bible prophecy, yet they're not serving anyone. They're not helping anyone. And then there's women who are quietly just serving God and doing all kinds of special things for people and praying and making meals and helping other women and helping people in the church. And you know what? God is looking down and saying, I like Phoebe. I like Priscilla. I like the women in the church. And you know what? You young single punks, I'm not that happy with. Maybe that's why you can't find a wife because the Bible says he that obtained the wife find a favor of the Lord. OK, so you know what? Why don't you start serving and maybe you'll get a wife? OK, instead of you know, this is this is the attitude of a lot of single guys. I can't wait to get a servant. And it's like, why don't you why don't you start serving and find a woman that you can help serve to? Because, you know, even though you're a leader and you're the boss, you know, you can still serve. There's servant leadership out there. And you know what? I like serving my wife and I like doing things for her. Now, of course, I tell her what to do. But, you know, it'll make it easier to tell your wife what to do when you serve her on occasion to when you make her a nice steak meal. All right. And, you know, hey, whenever it's time to cook a steak, I'm I'm the guy on the job. Right. I can do that. I can make a good meal, too. And I can help out around the house. And you know what? It doesn't downgrade my role or my position. At the same time, though, you have to realize that we are all here to just serve one another. You know, we're here. It's not here to see who can climb the ladder. It's who can serve the most. And notice who's getting recognized by the apostle Paul. Not people that climbed the ladder. People who served the most people. Hey, why is Phoebe being recognized? Because she's been a sucker of many. Why is it that Priscilla and Akilah are being recognized? Because all the churches of the Gentiles recognized all the work that they did. Now, it says that they had a church services that are in their house. You know, I don't know what that means entirely. I personally think that they were just supplying the house. They probably weren't. I don't think that he was the pastor or anything like that. They were probably just the supplier, the host. Maybe they, you know, maybe they didn't have kids or something because honestly, when you look at their situation or maybe the kids were all grown, I don't know what the situation is. But based on their situation, they're traveling the world. They're always there to help. They're willing to risk and lay down their lives. It would kind of make sense in a situation where it's a power couple that doesn't have kids. Because, you know, a woman that has little kids, she's probably not wanting to die because she needs to, like, take care of her kids and that mother, that mama bear instinct in there is saying, like, you know, she wants to fight to live for those children. But if you didn't have kids or your kids are grown or something else, then you might be more likely to have the effort, energy and the money. You know, maybe especially if they didn't have kids, they might have more money, resources, a nice house, whatever. And so they're just like, hey, we're all in. Whatever we can do to help the church and do good in the church, we're here and we're going to just do great things for God. And everybody recognizes, look, these people are awesome. Doing a lot of things for God. Also in verse five, it says in the latter portion, it says, Salute my well-beloved Epinettus, who is the first fruits of Achaea unto Christ. Great Mary, who bestowed much labor on us. Now, I don't it's kind of interesting. Again, we get another woman. Notice how many women are being brought up in the very beginning. Mary, obviously she was Hispanic. No, I'm just kidding. She's from Spain. Look at verse seven. Salute Andronikos and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me. Now, it's just so funny that there's so many false doctrines taught in this chapter, because, you know, usually when we read this, we're just kind of like ready to get to the next book. We're like, all right, you know, name, name, name, name. But then false teachers love to take these chapters and turn them into all kinds of weird doctrines. Here's another proof, verse seven, of why women should be pastors. Didn't you just read that? Salute Andronikos and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me. They'll say, oh, well, see, Junia is kind of a feminine name. And so I think it was a female. And when it says who are noted apostles, that means that they were apostles. So there was female apostles. Therefore, there can be female apostles today and female pastors. That wasn't a stretch at all, OK? Now, it's kind of divided. I've actually researched this verse a lot in times past. But what's interesting about this is historically, most people have assumed that Junia is a female, but it is true. And I have looked it up and found many references to some even church fathers, which I don't really care, they're all probably all in hell, that Junia was also a male. I lean towards the idea that Junia is a man. So it instantly debunks that if that was true, OK? But let's just for the sake of the argument, talk about all the different options here. Number one, it could just be a dude and then we don't even have to worry about it. It was just a guy that was great. All right, Junia. Here's another option, is that it's a husband and wife. Why couldn't it be just if that was a female, if Junia was a female, I don't believe that. Let's just say for sake of argument, this was a male and female company. Yeah, male and a female. Why couldn't that just be like Priscilla and Akila, like this power couple? And then when it says who are note among the apostles, that doesn't mean that they're apostles. It just means that the apostles all are recommending these two people as saying they're really great. Here's another option. They're just two male apostles. But, you know, it would be weird to start saying that there's female apostles based on nothing in the Bible except for this one verse. Right. I mean, everything that we see in the Bible, it's only men, it's only men, it's only men, only guys doing stuff. And then randomly have just a list of names and they're just like, well, I think Junia is probably a girl and girls are apostles. And it's like wrong, false. Again, the apostles are the highest of the food chain from an authority perspective. Why would I believe when a pastor and a deacon who are supposed to be rulers and supposed to have authority are only supposed to be men that apostles are now randomly women? And if women were going to be apostles, you know, it'd probably been apostles. Mary. How about Mary Magdalene? I mean, she's like the first person to get to see Jesus. Wouldn't you think that would be an apostle? And if she was an apostle, don't you think at any point in the Bible they would have been like, hey, here's the apostle Mary? But usually you'll say, hey, here's the 12 apostles. Right. But Mary's always there. So why is Mary not an apostle, but Junia is somehow a female and that's an apostle? Like, the logic is just insane that some people come up with. But you know what? This is the kind of logic that you see anybody that just wants to justify having females in positions of leadership. It is a lot of churches in our area where they have it's predominantly, unfortunately, of black churches, but they have apostles where they have, you know, the Mr. and Mrs. apostle so and so. Right. It's like me and my wife are apostles. You know, it's like, no, you're not. That just proved to me that you're not saved. Like, anybody that calls himself an apostle today is just not saved. Like, you just instantly know, like, you are really screwed up on doctrine. You're probably a little crazy and you definitely try to speak in tongues or whatever you do, you know. But you know what? There is no such thing as apostles today. The apostle Paul makes it clear that he's the last of the apostles. He was one born out of due time. And so if we don't see any of the women that were hanging out with Jesus and the apostles all the time called apostles, it makes no sense why this random person mentioned here, Junia, would be also an apostle and female. I think the right way to interpret this is that they were two great guys who were recognized of the apostles. Maybe they were apostles. I don't know. The way I read that is it kind of sounds like they were just recognized as being noteworthy. But maybe it's just saying they're noteworthy among those who were apostles. That's another way to read that. It doesn't really matter. It doesn't even change the culture. I don't see how you could change any doctrine in the Bible or any practice in your life based on whether these guys were apostles or not. It's meaningless. And this is what you would call vain jangling. Vain jangling to argue. If you're going to have an argument after church on if these guys are apostles or not, that's called vain jangling. There's so much more to life than arguing things that are unknowable. Did Adam have a belly button or did he not? This is what you call vain jangling. It's unknowable. No one could know. It's impossible to know. And I don't care. Some people will literally say that doctrine will in effect how you interpret the rest of the Bible. Whether Adam had a belly button or not. And it's just like, why? It's just so silly. He was missing a rib. I know that. It was the best surgery he's ever had. Let's keep going with our story, though, because this doesn't really matter. And his mother and mine salute a syncretis Phlegon, Hermis, Patrebus, Hermes and the brethren which are with them. Salute Philologus and Julia Nerus and his sister. And Olympus and all the saints which are with them. Salute one another with a holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you. Now again, this is verse 16 where the Church of Christ gets their name. their name, but it's kind of funny because it's obviously not a name of a church. It didn't say like, hey, make sure to salute Steadfast Baptist Church. It's saying salute the churches, plural, meaning there's all these churches and these are the churches that are in Christ, meaning the congregations that are in Christ. It's not a name. It's kind of silly. It makes me think of how, and again, I'm gonna sound racist, but I don't care, is like when you see foreign foreigners name their businesses in a foreign language and it's like just random objects, like it'll be like el arbol, you know, it's like the tree. And it's like, that's how they name restaurants, right? La Mesa. And it's like the table. And you're like, that's just a weird name, okay? That's what I get. That's the impression I get when the Church of Christ names their, hey, we're the Church of Christ, but it's just like, that's weird. Like, why don't you give it a name? That's just describing what you are. You know, hey, we're a church of Christ. You know, hey, we're a steadfast Baptist church. We have a name and then we have a couple descriptors of what we do, right? We're Baptist and we're a church. Those are some descriptions. But you know, I don't think you should just, hey, we're just church. Hey, what church do you go to? Church. You know, I go to the churches of Christ. It's like, it's just a weird way to name things. It's like, it doesn't really have a name. So I like the fact that we name ourselves, that we have, hey, we're steadfast, right? We've got something. If you're gonna name yourself, then give yourself a name, not a description. It's kind of weird to give yourself a description, right? It's like, hey, what restaurant are you going to? The table. Well, you're gonna sit at the table. What's the name of the restaurant where you're gonna sit at the table? The table. It's like, that's just weird. But then they think it's cool. It's like, la mesa. You know, it's like mystical. This is what people do with Hebrew, right? It's like the Torah, you know, the Tanakh. You know, you're like, whoa, I'm a Torah follower. You're like, whoa, that's, you're a law follower? That's not as cool. When you say it just really plainly, you're just describing something. You're not necessarily giving it a name. And so it's just kind of weird. Now, verse 16 also says to salute these people with a holy kiss. In our culture, of course, we don't really have that. We usually use a handshake. So the modern equivalent would be, you know, in my mind, a handshake, fist bump, you know, that kind of came more popular with COVID and stuff like that. But, you know, I don't really want to bring this back. It's okay for me that it's not there. But there are cultures today where they still do this. And, you know, Greek culture, other cultures, men, especially European culture, they'll usually give each other a kiss on the cheek or something like that. And that's just their way of greeting. Or if they're just really good friends, really close with one another. But also notice that the coupling here, and holy kiss, right? It's not saying to do anything perverted or weird. It's something set apart. It's something special. You're giving them something that's pure, sanctified, nothing weird, nothing strange. And of course, there's nothing wrong with saluting one another. In fact, the Bible just says over and over, salute, salute, salute, salute. We should greet one another. We should salute one another. We should pay respect to one another. You know, even if you don't like someone in this church, you should still salute them. You should still just recognize them. Don't just give them the cold shoulder. Don't just like, if they walk up and say like, hey, how's it going? Like, you can still just say, hey, it's going good. Now, does that mean you have to go over to their house and, you know, sit in their chair and hang out with them? No. Okay, does that mean you have to ride in their car? Well, no, especially if they think they're as flat. But, you know, like, it doesn't matter what weirdos are at the church. You should still just be nice. Give them a bit of the doubt. Now, again, I don't think you should be, you have to be friends with anybody, okay? I will never, if, people sometimes come up to me and they're like, hey, we're not friends. And it's just like, okay, I'm not gonna make you friends. Like, if you think that I'm gonna be your pow wow companion, like, hey, let's get everybody to sit down. Why do you not like them? Why do you not like them? You know, you don't like red shirts. You don't like blue shirts. You know, you like the Cowboys, they don't. You know, it's like, I don't really care. I'm never gonna do that. Like, if you don't like someone in the church, congratulations, all right? I don't really care to police people's personal lives. If it's a 1 Corinthians 5 issue, then I have to deal with it, right? If it's not, I don't wanna deal with it at all, okay? And look, sometimes people ask me questions about like how they would handle a situation or they just want general advice. I'll give you advice on things, but I'm just not interested in solving drama or issues or problems. I am the least likely person to help you with that because I just, I really don't care. I'm one of the least dramatic people there are. If I don't like someone, I just ignore them. I don't care. Like, I'll be nice to them. But it really, drama to me is just annoying and it doesn't really help anything. And I find that you should just let everything go anyways. Like, I'm the type of person that just tries to let everything go. And I think that's what you should try to do. And here in the Bible, we have so many people. It's possible that some of these people don't like each other, right? Rufus may not like Fliegen. You know, it's like, he's got a weird name, right? They both have weird names. It's like Rufus and Fliegen. I mean, who are these people, right? But you know, if they don't like each other, okay, still salute them, right? Does it say here, well, if you don't like Rufus, don't salute him. Nope. If you don't like Rufus, you salute Rufus, right? If you don't like Tryphina or Tryphosa or if you don't like Persis, if you don't like, I mean, there's so many people here. Odds are you don't like everyone, right? Or you're not best friends with every single person. But you know what, you should still salute all of them and still show them respect. And they're still your brothers and sisters in Christ. And you know what? God gets mad when you can't even be nice to your own brother and sister, okay? We're supposed to love one another. And in fact, your love towards one another illustrates how much you love God. So the people in here that say like, I'm really not friends with anyone and I don't really like anyone, they really just don't like God. And the people in here that say I like everyone and I'm gonna get around, get along with everyone and I love everyone, I'm serving one, those are the people that love God the most, okay? So just check yourself and think like, wow, I just don't really like anyone. It's like you just really don't like God, okay? And those of you that really like a lot of people, you know what, you must like God a lot more than most people. So that's a good way to kind of check yourself. Look at verse 17. Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and finches contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them. For they that are such serve not a Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. Now you'll notice in this chapter, he gives all these positive recommendations. He tells us in verses 17 and 18 to mark some people but then he supplies no names. Did you notice that? It's only positive names in this book, no negative names. But we have other passages of scripture, other books where the apostle Paul's name and drop and all kinds of people, Alexander the coppersmith and he's quick to name all the wicked people that he's encountered in his life. I believe it's very clear why he didn't name anyone in the book of Romans. You wanna know why? It's gonna blow your mind away. He's never been to Rome. So who's he gonna name, right? I mean, there's a reason why he named these people. He's been around these people. He's hung out with these people. He's had life experience with these people and he's recommending all of them. But he's talking to a church that he hasn't visited yet. He looks forward to visiting in the future. So nobody's saying, he's like, I don't know who the bad people are up there yet. But you guys do, and you know what you guys should do? You guys should mark them, right? And let me tell you who the bad people are. I've never even met them. I don't even know their names, but I already know who they are. And you say, who are they? The ones that caused the visions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you've learned. This is a really important point. You know what I love about this point? That you can know that you're right. You know why you can know you're right? Because if you didn't know if you're right on doctrine, then why would you be able to separate from people that are teaching false doctrine? The reason why this is so important is because it's telling you, you know you're right. We know we're right on doctrine. And so the people that are causing offenses and divisions, they're wrong, get them out. Like you have to have confidence in your own doctrine to even do this. If you say, I don't even know what the Bible teaches, right? I'm wishy-washy on doctrine. How are you gonna start separating from people? No. And again, this isn't even a personal thing. Because this is the corporation of the church. This is the whole body saying, look, we all believe certain things. And if you don't believe these things, get out, right? Hey, we all believe Jesus Christ is the son of God. We all believe in the Trinity. We all believe salvation's by faith. We all believe certain core doctrines of the faith. And if you don't believe them, bye. There are certain things that are just not tolerated in the body of Christ. And people that are trying to cause division are not of God. Now, we have to contextualize this, right? Because didn't Jesus Christ said that he came to bring division? So what does that mean? Well, that division was between believers and unbelievers. So that's a healthy division. An unhealthy division is between believers and brethren. Someone that's sowing seeds of discord amongst brethren. That's a wicked person. And this is someone that you want to get out of your midst. And so sometimes even in our church setting, there may be times we have to name drop or throw people out of church. But at the end of the day, it's not like I'm on a hair trigger to just start marking people up. And if you've been a part of this church for a long period of time, it's probably been a while since I've even had to mark anybody. And if I hadn't have taken over the church and the condition it was, I probably wouldn't have had to mark that many people. Since being the pastor here, there's been very few people that have joined the church since and then had to be marked. Most of the people that have gotten marked in our church were here before I showed up. And there was a reason why it took a big house cleaning is because they weren't getting marked and tossed out when they should have. And so it's important to do this because a church that doesn't mow the lawn will start to have a lot of weeds grow. Everyone's gonna have weeds grow and every once in a while, you're gonna have to put a little bit of effort, a little maintenance into the yard. And the same is with the church that it needs a lot of maintenance. And so what some pastors do is they just stop maintaining their yard. And then it just, you know, you have like one weed. And if you already know it, or like one dandelion. But here's the problem. If you don't rip that one weed out or that one dandelion, then two weeks from now, you have five. And then the next week you have 50. And then you have 100. And then your whole yard is just dandelions. And you're like, what happened? And this is kind of how it happens in church where when you start having a bad person in church and you don't deal with it properly, all of a sudden it just starts multiplying. You start getting even more bad people and more, and it just starts growing like a cancer. Whereas when you just start nipping them in the bud, you just get that one weed and you just yank it out real hard and throw it away, then it's like, hey, we've been weed free for a while. You know, and that's why it's important to have church discipline. That's why it's important for people to actually be afraid of being thrown out of church. You know, some people say, I don't wanna go to church where I'm afraid to show up. Well, you know what? You should only be afraid if you're a bozo. You should only be afraid if you're a heretic. And then you should be terrified and just leave anyways, all right? But if you're not a bozo, you really don't have that much to be afraid of, okay? It's not like you're really likely to get thrown out of church when you love God and you wanna do the right thing. You pretty much have to be an infiltrator or just someone that's super backslidden and unwilling to do what's right, you know, for you to get on that list. But this list is not just for like backslidden people. This is like bad people, okay? And 1 Corinthians 5 is a church discipline chapter. This is more like heretic. This is someone that's just wicked, teaching false doctrine, trying to split the church. And it doesn't matter what church it is, people will try to come into a church and split it. There could be someone in the room right now that wants to split our church. But you know, of course, if they even try, they're gonna have a fight on their hands and they're gonna get marked and they're gonna get tossed out and the only division is gonna be them. We're gonna nip them in the bud, okay? But it's possible that in the future, especially if we grew or had even more people, that sometimes you do have these splits or fractions and people are able to creep in unawares and you can't pay as much attention or it's easy to get sucked in. And so you as a congregation, you needed to be leery of anybody that would draw you aside, start whispering in your ear, hey, come have a private Bible study with us. And then they say, hey, Pastor Shelley teaches this, but I think this and I think the Bible really says this and have you seen this map I have of the ice wall? As soon as they pull out the map with the ice wall, just leave, okay? Because you don't wanna go down that road, all right? Or today, because we have text messages, they'll send you these subtle text messages or they'll form all these weird chat groups or they have this Discord server like, hey, come join our Discord server where we can privately talk about things or whatever. I'm not saying it's bad like 100% of the time, but a lot of times this is how bad people operate. So it's not that every Discord server is bad, but every bad person uses a Discord server, okay? And it's like, it's not that every female drama, it's not that every group chat is female drama, but every female drama is in a group chat, okay? And so it's like, you gotta think about how these things operate and how they work and be careful of them because you yourself can get sucked into this junk, get led astray, get poisoned with false doctrine and bad people. And I can't watch everything and see everything. So you know what helps me mark people? You. You coming up to me and say, hey, this person's weird. This person's like trying to get me to believe in this weird doctrine. This person's coming around saying this. Hey, this person's talking bad about you. Hey, this person is really disrespectful. Hey, you know, sometimes we have brand new visitors that don't know any better, but someone that knows better, it's a red flag when they're not using titles, when they're just like, hey, Shelly said this. Like, hey, I was hearing in the sermon and Shelly said this about the Bible, but I think this. You know, that's a big red flag, okay? And they're like talking about other pastors that way. Instead of Pastor Anderson, it's just like Anderson or Steve or something, like that's really disrespectful. If they're like, hey, John boy, you know, and they're like, who's that? Oh, you're talking about Pastor Shelly. It's like, you know, and you know, to help that, here's how you figure out if they're a bad person or not, correct them. Hey, it's Pastor Shelly. And they're like, oh, I just call him Shelly. It's like bad person. They're like, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I should say it that way. Then you kind of recognize whether the difference is, but you know what, you should help people on that because what I wouldn't want to do is have a guest, like we're about to have a bunch of guests come and be like, hey, Thompson, hey, Anderson. That's disrespectful. You call every single one of our guests as a pastor, pastor so-and-so, Pastor Anderson, Pastor Thompson. You know what, that's super disrespectful. Don't talk to them that way. And if you notice other people in our church making that mistake, lovingly help them so that we don't, you know, sound like a bunch of retards and red flaggers, okay? Because that's just a weird way to talk. I don't talk to you that way. Usually, you know, I even call many people brother so-and-so, you know, or I usually don't use people's last name like that. That's just kind of weird. You know, I'm not like, hey, Oz, come here. You know, it's like, hey, brother Dylan. You know, I'm like, it makes the most sense. So why would you call me like Shelly, you know? Now, of course, I grew up playing golf and being on sports teams. Never would just call me Shelly because there's a lot of Jonathans. So it's to delineate who you are, whether they would just use your last name or whatever. But you know what? In a pastoral setting, in a church setting, you know, it's best to just always make sure you're using the title and not allowing these people to just creep in. One other thing I want to mention, I want to mark one person, and they're not in our church, but there's this guy, and his name is Pastor Jonathan Burris, okay? Now, I hope that none of you even know who this is, but this is a guy that is someone you should be looking out for. Because he's not, and I'm not saying him, I'm saying the next Jonathan Burris. And you know, I'm not going to call him pastor anymore. I used that one time because you know what? His church voted him out and he's no longer pastor, all right? His church threw him out because he's not King James only anymore. And in fact, he's uploading all these videos saying like, hey, I want to destroy the King James only movement, which I'm thinking like, what pastor of a fundamental Baptist church wants to destroy the King James only movement, right? Like how does that even make sense? And additionally, like of all the problems we have in America today, how is King James only-ism at the top of your list, right? Of all the sodomy and feminism and all the liberalism and all the heresy and all the false gospels and all the false teachers and all the issues of the, even if you were convinced that King James only-ism is wrong why would that be on the top of your list? You know, it would never be on the top of any godly saved persons list. This guy, I believe is wicked as hell. I believe he's not even saved. But there is a lot of people right now and what I call the deconstruction movement and fundamentalism, and they're trying to deconstruct fundamentalism, trying to deconstruct from King James only-ism. Usually people that call themselves deconstructionists are atheists who used to be a fundamentalist and now become an atheist, okay? It's kind of a popular term among them. And you see people like this in the Duggar family deconstructing. What that means is they basically just, they took their fundamentalist life and they said, you know, I don't think that that's right. You know, I think women should wear pants, you know? And they just kind of like took that one Lego and they were just like, okay. And they're like, yeah, I don't think the King James Bible's all that. I think all Bibles are good. And then they're like, you know, I don't think you have to go to church every single time. I'll just go to church every once in a while. Yeah, I don't think that the pastor is really someone that should be respected. You know, he's just a person, you know, no respect for the pastor anymore. And then they just, you know, I think that, you know, God probably loves every faith. Like, I don't understand why people think that just because they don't believe faith alone that they're saved, you know. I think it's just everyone that's a Christian's probably saved. And then like, well, you know, that's still too exclusive. I just think everybody's saved. And then pretty soon they're just an atheist. And this is what they say deconstructing. And this is pretty much what atheists are good for is just ruining things and destroying things in society. They don't really build a lot of stuff. They just pretty much ruin a lot of stuff and destroy a lot of stuff because that's their nature. And when you see this person, this deconstructing person, just know it's usually way worse than what they're letting on. Because this guy basically just said, hey, I think there's two verses in the King James that are wrong. It's like Daniel 3.25 and Isaiah 14, the one where it changes Lucifer to Morningstar and the one where it said it changes the Son of God to the Son of the Gods. It's like, why are those the two you're picking? Like two of the most satanic corruptions to pick from that you want to say the modern versions are right on. So his church threw them out based on those two alone. As soon as he did that, now he's just uploading video after video every single week. Just everything in the King James is wrong. Just every verse is wrong and why King James only is wrong. And he made this video a while back about why if you believe that Jesus went to hell, you're not saved. He said, that's damnable heresy. And he called out Pastor Anderson specifically and just said, this guy is teaching this doctrine. And anybody that believes Jesus went to hell is damned and just not saved whatsoever. And it's funny because Pastor McMurtry had made a video exposing this guy a long time ago, like, I don't know, six months ago or something like that. And his video is pretty good because he was just explaining how he believes Jesus went to hell. I think he might have a slightly different view than us on that, but I don't really care. The video was pretty good. And I'd been exposed to this pastor who's kind of a bozo and he was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but I've looked up this guy's video and he has a whole video on repentance now. And if you listen to his repentance, he's teaching that basically, if you don't repent of your sins, then you don't have saving faith. Then I saw he had a recent comment. Someone said, hey, since you're really against King James only ism, you should have a conversation with James White. And this is what he put in the comment, I'm a fan. How is a fundamental Baptist that was King James only fans of James White? And then another person put a comment like, sounds like you're a Calvinist. And he's like, then he puts the emoticon like with a hand raising up, like how he's a cow. It's like, dude, praise God for that church that threw their pastor out. I mean, and I'm not for that. You know, I think that was wrong, kind of like the American Revolution, but I'm still like thinking it was a good thing, okay. It's like, I'm kind of glad it happened, even though, you know, I don't think that's the right move. Like they shouldn't have the ability to do that to their pastor. But you know how you know if you fail of a pastor, when your church votes you out. And you know, he pastored the church for 12 years. I can understand that if you came into a new situation and you're just preaching like really hard that the church may not just kind of revolt and it's not necessarily the pastor's fault. But when you've been pastoring a church for 12 years and the whole congregation rises up against you, you failed as a pastor. You totally failed as a pastor. And so, you know, this guy is a complete bozo. He has all these videos up talking about how pastors shouldn't be in charge. And you should take the authority away from your pastor. And I'm thinking like, well, that's funny. It's funny that you made those videos and then your church threw you out because you're a freak. But again, you go into his videos, pastor Jonathan Burrus. Hey, what are you pastoring, buddy? Why do you have that title? Are you an online pastor now? You know, that's stupid. There's no such thing as an online pastor, folks, okay. You're not pastoring bits and a computer. There's all these people that now just want to call themselves a pastor. Why? Because they care more about their own opinion. And this guy is so hard to listen to. I had one of my pastor friends listen to him, one of his videos, and he said, after a few minutes, I just wanted to punch him in the face so much, I just had to shut it off. It was just like, because the guy is such an irritating prick. But, and he even said, he's like, I think, you know, that anybody who is gonna get up and preach on a topic should be the most educated on that topic. That's why I've made sure that I'm the most educated on every topic, or it's like, what in the world? Sounds like Trump or something, if he went to Tennessee. And you know, it's so funny about these people, especially him, is he wants to pride himself on being a Greek expert. And I just think it's so funny how these people who are these Greek experts have these hick accents. You know, so you're like, you're watching this guy, but he's debunking the King James Bible, and you're like, well, if you look at it in the Greek, it's like ha-fe-os. And I'm just thinking like, what in the world? I mean, can you imagine the cultural appropriation? What if someone said like, you have to go back to the Spanish, all right, and it's take-o and enchiladas, okay? You gotta get you some enchiladas and some take-os. And you know, that quesadilla, you know, that quesadilla is just where you're gonna get it. It's like, that's what these people sound like when they speak Greek. It's like, can you imagine someone coming like, all right, class, you ready to learn some Spain-ish? All right, it's take-o, and it's burrado, and enchilada, you know? You gotta get them things, okay? That's how these people sound when they speak Greek, and they wanna tell you how smart they are. But you know, beware of this person that goes back to the Greek and is like, hey, theos. It's like, dude, you really expect me to think that's how Paul sounded? This hick from Tennessee, and it's so funny that they wanna pretend like they're so educated. I've been studying the Greek. You know, it's like, dude, you just use lexicons and software, and your stupid hick accent with a mix of a raspian pronunciation. You sound like frat boys, okay? Someone help me with this point. It's like, you know, you go to college, and you have all these frat fraternities, and they're like, kappa sa, you know? It's like, that's not how you pronounce it, okay? You redneck hillbilly, and these redneck hillbillies are trying to get us back to the Greek. It's like, you don't speak Greek! Watch out for these people, okay? Mark all these people that have hick accents telling you what the Greek says, okay? That's just how you know, and of course, what is this guy trying to do? Cause division and offenses to the doctrine of Christ, trying to break up King James only-ism. Of course he's wrong. Of course he's an idiot. He hasn't discovered anything new. He's James White on Wish mixed in with some queso, you know? It's like, look, in a tumbleweed. It's like, this guy is just trash, and you know, I don't even think he's saved. You know, he hopes to meet his hero, James White, one day, and I thought, well, if he doesn't now, it'll probably be in hell, so there you go. Look what it says in verse 19. Bible says, for your obedience has come abroad unto all men. I am glad, therefore, on your behalf, but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil, and the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you, amen. I love this in consideration to our sermon on Sunday morning. Notice that it says in verse 20 that he's gonna bruise Satan under your feet shortly. What he's trying to say is, pretty soon, God is gonna do work in Rome, and you guys are gonna start crushing the false prophets in Rome. Like, Christianity is gonna start kicking some butt in Rome. And you know what, I would love it, obviously we don't have this today, but it'd be great if God would say like, hey, Satan's about to start getting bruised in America. That's what we need to do, is we need to start bruising Satan, start crushing the serpent, and cracking some skulls, and stomping on those scorpions in America, and actually getting some real revival in this country. You know what, sometimes you can be under a lot of oppression, but the revival's right around the corner. So just stick with it. You never know when God is just gonna do a great work, and we're gonna start bruising Satan, and we're gonna start treading on him, because you know what, the gospel is powerful. And when you got a bunch of people that are on fire for God, you know what, the devil better look out, because you know what, the power of the gospel is infinite, and Jesus Christ has already been given all authority in heaven and in earth, and so you know what, he wants us to go out there and tread on serpents, and he's saying, hey, just buckle up, guys, because it's about to happen. Like, you guys are about to just start doing some major damage to the enemy, and so that's what we should look forward to in our lives as well. Verse 21, Timotheus, my work fellow, and Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen salute you. Jason just, it's like, everybody has these weird names, he just says, Jason, you know. I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord. So obviously Paul was dictating verbally, and Tertius is writing down the epistle. Verse 23, Gaius, mine host, and of the whole church saluteth you, Erastus the chamberlain of the city saluteth you, and Quartus, brother, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, be with you all, amen. Now again, because it has that amen, it kind of makes me think that, as I'm kind of describing the epistle, you have the epistle's main note, main point, then you kind of have a P.S., this is the conclusion of our P.S., right? Hey, P.S., all these people are great, make sure to mark bad people, and here's a couple admonitions. And then verse 25, now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest and by the scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of the faith. To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever, amen. So you kind of have like, you kind of have like the P, the postscript, the P.S., and kind of like the signature, and then here in verses 25 to 27, you kind of just have this like tagline verse, and a lot of people do this, right? In writing a letter, you kind of write your letter, you might have a postscript, you kind of have a signature section, and then sometimes people just write like one last verse, right? They just kind of like write that one last thought, that one last admonition, and really this is a great like just conclusory point, some concluding thought that the apostle Paul has that wraps up the whole chapter. So in verse 25, he's saying that he wants them to be established according to the gospel and Jesus Christ, and notice this, it says, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began. His final thought is this, look, the gospel has been known throughout the whole world, and he wants them to be established to this gospel, and this was that great mystery. The mystery was how the gospel was gonna go to the whole world, and it's being revealed through Rome, because Rome is this distant Gentile city, it's kind of the epicenter of the world even. I mean, at this time, it's the Roman Empire, Rome's the capital of the Roman Empire, it's the capital of the world, it's the most important city that there could ever be, and he's saying, look, this incredible mystery and revelation of Jesus Christ has come unto you, and we want you to be established in this faith. This was that mystery that was gonna, verse 26, be made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of the faith. So he's saying this mystery is coming true, and it's your job as well to get the gospel to what? To all nations. What's the most important place for the gospel to be? Rome, because it's the epicenter of trade, business, politics, government. Yay, it's kind of the center of the world at this time, and so it's so important for them to get the gospel out. It says in verse 27, to God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ forever, amen. So he wants to have them realize the importance of their role. I think this is probably why Romans is the first epistle. It's kind of the first epistle that's put in here. It's because of how important Romans is. Romans really details the importance of the gospel message. It details out the gospel message. It explains the transition we've made from the Jews into the Gentile churches. It's making it clear that they need to be established. Why? So that all the Gentiles then can be established, and it's just a really pivotal chapter point to be made. It's the conclusion to the entire epistle, like hey, this church needs to be formed, established. The gospel needs to go out to everybody. You're at the heart of it, and it's just so important so that we can give all the honor and glory to God and through Jesus Christ and this mystery has been revealed. And so Rome is such an important place in time. And I think that you could make a parallel to America today that America is arguably the most important epicenter of Christianity. It is the place where Christianity is gonna get spread out. If we let our light go out in America, what hope does the world have really? I mean, there's so many places in the world that are not even being reached with the gospel, and missionaries are being funded from America. You know, when's the last time we had missionaries coming here from Mexico? You know, they're not sending their best and brightest folks, okay? To quote Trump. It's like people crossing the border aren't coming over here to get us saved, okay? They have other intentions in mind. The flooding of immigrants into Europe are not to get them saved, and they need it, okay? The Asian culture is not getting people saved. They can't even, Christianity's not even legal there. The Middle East is not getting people saved. Muslims are not getting people saved. Africa is not sending out missionaries, okay? Antarctica is not sending out missionaries. Australia is not sending out missionaries, okay? And I'm not saying that there isn't exceptions. I'm sure there is exceptions to every continent I just named. But just by and large, Christianity is going forth because of America. That's why it's important for us to realize that we have such an important role, an important job. You know, and God's given us a lot of wealth. We all have so much more wealth than the rest of the world, but you know, we shouldn't use that wealth for our own selfish gain. We should use that for the furtherance of the gospel, to get people saved, not necessarily just to build a palace here. And look, I'm all for having a nice church and building a big church. And we should do that because then it helps bring in more people that we can then continue to send out. But at the same time, we need to be sending too. We need to be a going church. We need to be getting the gospel to all nations and to the whole world and not just to be focused on our little tiny area of the world. This whole world is dying and going to hell and we need more churches, we need more leaders, we need more soul winners, we need more evangelists, we need bigger churches, we need more money to be going to the work of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because you know what, it's so important that we do it because we're the ones that can. And there's so many people that can't. There's so many people that don't have that opportunity. And you know, we're strategically placed in an area of the world, I believe in Dallas Fort Worth area, that we could do a giant work that other people can't. And we have like 8 million people in this area. We're pretty affordable to live considering a lot of other areas. There's a lot of jobs, we have a lot of resources, we already have a lot of great people. We need to really make an effort to do big works for God and not think small but to think big and to be willing to send a lot of people and to do a lot of big things. You know, we're having a conference pretty soon and I don't even think we can fit people in the building, but you know, we're gonna try. But you know, why not try to have a big vision and have a big work? You know, and maybe God will say, hey, you're doing such a good work, let's get you a bigger building. But you know, the only way to do that is when you read this list, there was a lot of people involved, right? I can't do it by myself. It takes the Phoebe's and the Killa and the Priscilla and the Mary and the Junia and it takes everyone. You know, get behind a movement that you can get excited about. You know, I think being part of this church is exciting. We have some awesome things in the future. You know, some people are like, I survived the cult. When was the last time we sacrificed someone, okay? You didn't like just barely miss the human sacrifice or something, you know? We're doing a big work here, okay? We're getting lots of people saved. Hey, you know, if you don't want to be here, you can leave whenever you want. No one's forcing you to be here. That's so funny. It's you throw people out and then they're like, I survived the cult. We threw you out. What are you talking about? Okay. Oh, I finally realized King James only is so bad so now I'm just gonna make videos all about it for the rest of my life. What a loser. You're a loser if you're gonna attack the King James Bible. You're the biggest loser. I like the ESV. Well, you're satanic, okay? Go hang out with James White and get a tattoo or whatever. Oh, I'm a Calvinist. You know why you're a Calvinist? Because you don't want to do big work for God. You want an excuse for why you're lazy and a pseudo-intellectual. Calvinists are pseudo-intellectuals. They are not actually smart. They pretend to be smart and they're not wise because you know what makes someone wise? Being a soul winner. The dumbest person in our church as a soul winner is smarter than all the Calvinists out there sitting in their ivory towers pretending like they know what the Bible even says when many of them aren't even saved. And the ones that are saved need to get out of that junk and start believing the gospel and spreading the gospel of faith and preaching the gospel to people and getting people saved because you know what? If our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost. There's a lost and dying world out there and it's our job, it's our responsibility. Don't look, well, it's somebody else to get the nation saved. No, it's our job to get the nation saved. It's our job, it's our responsibility. We have the truth, we have the money, we have the resources, we have the people. Let us not shift that responsibility to somebody else and say, well, God wants it to happen. He'll make it happen. No, no, we're gonna make it happen through the power of Jesus Christ and we're gonna give him all the honor and the glory when we do it too. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for what you've given us and living in such a great place and having so much abundance and wealth and prosperity and just a wealth of knowledge and great doctrine and great people and great friends and great men and great women and great children. I pray that we wouldn't just waste all the opportunities we have but we'd realize how important this church is, how important the work of the gospel is, the great need that's out there and I pray that we wouldn't get selfish and we wouldn't look to what we can do for ourselves in this life but rather we'd look to see how we can serve. As we see so many great people are mentioned in this chapter, they were noted for their serving and how they did works for others, how they laid down their lives for others, how they did work for others and I pray that we would have the same vision, that we would look to see what we could do for others, how we could serve others, how we could be a blessing to others and that we wouldn't do it for recognition but rather we'd do it out of love in our hearts and I pray that you would give us a great zeal and love in our hearts for the lost and for the world, that we could be a useful tool and vessels for your honor and your glory and in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. All right, in closing, let's go to song number 363. 363. Wonderful words of life. Song number 363. ["Wonderful Words of Life"] Everybody sing it out on the first. Sing them over again to me. Wonderful words of life. Let me more of their beauty see. Wonderful words of life. Words of life and beauty. Teach me faith and duty. Beautiful 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. Centerless to the loving call. Wonderful words of life. Words of free giving, wooing 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. Offer pardon and peace to all. Wonderful words of life. Jesus, only Savior, sanctified forever. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. We have a baptism. Miss Abby is coming for baptism. Abby, have you trusted Christ as your Savior? Then I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, buried in the likeness of His death, raised to walk in newness of life. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Make sure to congratulate Abby. God bless you. You're dismissed. You're dismissed.