It's wonderful to be here with each and every one of you.
Today, we have a wonderful crowd and we appreciate so very much
your presence. If you consider yourself to be a
visitor here today, we would hope and pray that you feel as
you are. And that is our honored guest.
As I mentioned last Lord's day, I wanted to preach a sermon on
abounding in the work of the Lord and may I say as an
introduction before we go any further into this.
This passage or the things that we're going to talk about.
I will give the congregation here credit over time and praise
for the growth that we have. All had we have seen growth
evangelistically, and we've seen our numbers increase, and we've
also seen some that have really grown in the faith.
We have young men that are Desiring to do more for the
cause of Christ. We have three new teachers here
that are teaching and growing in Christ and we have other areas
to where we have grown as as a congregation.
But as we enter the year, 2019, there are some things that we
need to improve upon if we want to continue to grow and myself
included, how is it that we can abound in the work of the Lord?
How is it that we can make sure that the congregation that meets
here from time to time in Bakersfield exist for another 50
years. If the Lord tarries These are
things we have to consider and may I say we have to consider
them now or they will not happen 50 or 100 years from now, it has
to be. Now I want to talk about some of
these things. The great Apostle Paul said
this, this is from the new King James in 1st Corinthians, 15 and
58. He said, therefore my beloved
Brethren be steadfast immovable. Always abounding in the work of
the Lord knowing that your labor is not Is not in vain in the
Lord. Very interesting.
The word steadfast the idea or the concept of being steadfast.
Really is the opposite of giving up.
It is the opposite of giving up. I got to tell you there's some
things that I really don't understand in my life.
I don't understand how it is. Sometimes that we have to almost
beg people to stay faithful. And sometimes we want it so bad
for them, but if some point in time it has to be more.
It mean more to them than it does to us.
If someone wants to lose weight and they hire a personal
trainer, the personal trainer wants it really bad for that
person. But if some point in time, it
has to mean more to that person than it does to the one who's
encouraging that person to make changes in their life, what's it
mean to be steadfast? It's the opposite of giving up.
It literally means constantly moving ahead.
And may, I say, as we enter this year, if you're going to remain
faithful, you have to make the determination in advance that
you are going to do nothing but constantly move ahead in your
Christian Life, you have to make that choice, you have to make
the determined resolve. That's what I'm going to do.
And that's what I'm going to be. And I'm not going to be anything
else in my life other than a faithful child of God.
Bye. But it's interesting.
It says steadfast and I just said that that means to
constantly move ahead but then he says immovable.
So how are you constantly moving ahead and being immovable at the
same time? This word immovable means.
This in means never distracted to the side.
Your eye has to be single. You can't be distracted to the
side. Remember in Luke chapter 9, I
won't go into this very far, but Jesus made the concept to in
Luke chapter 9, Jesus was talking to those would-be
followers, and he told one said, I'll follow you, just let me go
bid them farewell at my house. We know what Jesus said.
He said no man putting his hand to the plow and looking back is
fit for the kingdom of God. What Jesus brilliantly.
Did he quoted an ancient proverb that dated back 800 BC?
And it means this, you cannot plow a straight Furrow if your
eyes are looking back. May I say this, you cannot
successfully live the Christian Life, if your eyes are peering
back to your former life of sin with fondness and all the
wonderful thoughts and memories of what happened before.
Jesus said you have to turn loose from your life of sin,
that's the same thing. Paul is saying, you can't get
distracted by the peripheral issues of life and the sinful
things that come your way, your eye has to be single and you
have to press forward, you have to be steadfast constantly
moving ahead and never distracted to the side.
And then he said this, I love this.
He says, always in, first of all, always means all the time.
Not every once in a while you see, you can't live the
Christian Life every once in a while you can't do that.
Every once in a while you can't get excited and motivated every
once in a while. He said as you do this you are
always and for all times going to abound in the work of the
Lord. It means resolutely pursuing our
goal, abounding in the work of the Lord.
You know, everybody in life. Would love to be successful.
That's the truth. Everybody wants to be successful
but there's a saying you know, it says Success is uncommon.
It is not to be achieved by the common man and do you know why?
That is the reason is, everybody would love to be successful
because that makes you feel good.
Makes you feel like you achieve something, right?
But not everybody successful in the reason for that is success
is not a goal. It's not success is not a goal.
Success is a byproduct of doing the right things, right?
All the time. That's that's what success is my
dad used to say, it's a matter of doing this.
It's a matter of making habits of doing things that failures
don't like to do the hard stuff. So success is a byproduct of
doing that kind of stuff. It's working and Abiding, and
laboring, and then you be successful.
So what's it mean, by the way, have you ever heard somebody say
now? Don't overdo it.
You know, somebody. It's just my personality, but
this is how I am. But I tend to overdo it with
things, I do working out or whatever and I've heard my whole
life. I don't overdo it.
Don't overdo it. Somebody might say, well, you
know, I want to be a Critic, don't overdo it.
I had a friend, tell me one time in college.
I think you're making too big a deal about this Christianity
stuff. You're taking it too far.
What does Paul say? He says that a bounding means to
go beyond or overdo it if we're going to be successful, we have
to over do it. That means we're going to go
beyond what is normal? Go beyond what is easy and press
even harder. Now it's a matter of going to
the extreme of are limits to overdue for the cause of Christ.
Now in chapter 16 and the first 12 verses you could pull out
about eight different things that we can use as examples on,
overdoing it or abounding in the work of the Lord.
I've chosen for, I've chosen for number one.
Not going to spend a lot of time on this but number one,
obviously, is in the first two verses of First Corinthians
chapter. 16, verses 1 and 2. One way that we can abound in
the work of the Lord is liberal giving.
Now, I'm talking about liberal giving from not only monetarily
of our means, but also of ourself liberal giving of our
self in every aspect of life. Specifically, in the first two
verses monetarily, Paul says, now concerning the collection
for the Saints as I have given orders to the churches of
galatia. So you must do also on the first
day of the week. Let each one of you lay
something aside, storing up, as he may Prosper, that there be no
collections when I come. So understanding this in second
Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 6.
But this, I say, he who sow sparingly will also reap
sparingly. Pairing Lee and he who sows
bountifully will also reap bountifully.
Now, what's interesting about this this is an investment Have
you ever stopped to consider that everything you do?
For the cause of Christ is an investment.
Now, I gotta tell you. This is where sometimes people
in the religious World get this all messed up.
It is true that if you. So you, so in a certain way, you
will reap in a certain way. But the denominational position
of prosperity preaching is this if you give more, you're going
to reap more for your own enjoyment for your own benefit
for your own pleasure for your own reward.
But you know, the reward for giving more is in heaven.
We are laying up Treasures in Heaven, that's the reward.
So what does it mean by this, about how we sow and how we reap
from a practical standpoint? Here it is.
I believe, with all my heart that God gives to givers not so
that they can reap the benefit of it in their own life, and be
rewarded, but so that they have the ability and the capacity to
do even more. So when you overdo it and you
Give liberally, you will reap liberally and you'll be able to
do even that which is more. That's what it's about.
It's about being able to do that much, is that?
Which is more? It's an investment, it's an
investment now. I know sometimes people are
poor. And just if you wonder about
that, I'm going to talk about that.
Sometimes people are really poor.
They don't have much, you know, Jesus, when he was sitting there
at the court of women noticed as he looked across there and there
was the woman that Widow that gave two mites, which by the
way, is 1/4 of a penny. Do you want to notice it in?
Monetary means today, it's 1/4 of a cent.
And he looked at all the others that were giving in the coffers
were being filled with these rich people, they gave out of
their abundance, she gave out of her necessity.
In other words, they gave out of what they had left over in
abundance and she gave out of her necessity.
My whole point telling you, is this Jesus said, she gave more
than all of them because she gave all she had That is a
Christian principle, not only in the giving monetarily of our
means, but also the giving of our life and service to Christ.
She gave all she had, you know, in the Philippines done and I
don't know that we have spent any time except this year
talking about money and I think the reason is is because they're
so poor. It's a third world country and
the poverty level is so high. So we don't spend a lot of time
talking about money or giving of your means or anything like
that, but it's a subject that needed to be taught on in fact
at the preacher study and Rojas Dom's topic.
Was he Talked on benevolence and he talked on the scriptural
pattern for benevolence both personally and congregationally,
and my topic was on the contribution, the treasury and
scriptural uses for the Lord's money.
And in that, even though we understand that they have
nothing hardly, they still have to give, we all do.
That's the work of the church. We all have to give it doesn't
matter what you have. You still have to give and it's
an investment. It's an investment.
And I think that all of us need to remember that as we continue
to live the Christian Life. Alright, number two, this is
very important. We have to have a vision for the
future, you know, in verse 5 First Corinthians 16.
Paul said this and I'm not going to make a bigger deal out of
what Paul said because I don't think he really meant that for
to be the point. We have to make a point about
this verse 5. He said, now I will come to you.
When I passed through Macedonia, for I am passing through
Macedonia. I use this verse to show that we
have we as a passage to show that with vision means you have
to have a plan. We have to have a plan of action
in every aspect of our life, and when you have a plan then you
have to have objectives to achieve that plan.
I use this passage just to show that Paul was not satisfied.
With the status quo. Paul was always talking about
and thinking about another place to take the gospel and spread
the gospel to another place. So he says this, I have a plan
that I want to come and see you when I passed through Macedonia.
Now, I made this point yesterday in my introduction about the
congregation here and I don't know, I could ask Darren right
now. He'd probably tell me to the
day, how long the church has been here?
But over 50 years, And you, and I got to thinking about this
last week. I started thinking about all the
pain, the congregations in California.
That had to close their doors and sell their buildings and
shut it down. You know, even before my time.
Some of you older. Folks can remember all the
churches that existed in the Los Angeles area.
What about all of them? Remember those all those down
there. Now, we have LAX and Covina and
we have one very small in Anaheim.
What about going north? What about all the
congregation's north that used to exist and now you just keep
on driving and you passed towns that once had the light of the
Gospel shining forth and now they're no longer there.
What about around here? What about around here?
What about congregations that were close by here?
That no longer exist? If we don't have a plan, now we
will be in the same boat when it comes time down the road and
everybody dies. We got to have a plan and we got
to be able to work that plan. Now, I think it's wonderful.
I think it's wonderful that we have not, we have not suffered
negative growth. Meaning this, you know, we've
lost a lot of people. If you go back a number of years
ago, I mean lost to death to passing away, but if you go back
years ago, there was one family, the jostling family, I preached
nine funerals from that family nine.
Over the last. I don't know how many couple of
years. Six people are.
So six, seven of nine. People are passing away because
that's life. That's what happens.
And fortunately, we baptize some folks.
We've converted some folks. So we haven't suffered the
ramifications of big negative growth.
So we remained relatively close to the same size because we are
converting people proportionate to how many were losing, but can
you imagine if we stop doing that?
We get smaller and smaller and smaller.
We have a challenge. We have a challenge ahead of us,
and I say this to you, please hear me.
I say this to you not as a - I'm not a negative guy but he might
said that this to me not long ago.
A preacher friend of mine. Good buddy.
He said you know what? There's three kinds of people.
There's people like you meaning me and then there's another kind
of guy and then he says and then there's me, I said, oh what does
that mean? He said you know you are he said
you're kind of uh you're the positive football coach that
gets in the locker room and tells his team, you can and get
some to believe it, they can use.
That's you. He said, then there's the person
up in the stands that says, man, we got no shot.
That's the negative guy. And I said, where does that put
you? He said, well, here's me.
You've already lost the game. He just don't know it yet.
I'm not the - guy and I never will be.
I choose not to do that. I will never do that.
But I'll tell you this. It doesn't mean that a positive
person cannot preach something - and it doesn't mean that I can't
make a negative statement. I'm going to make one now,
please hear me. We have a challenge, a huge
Challenge, and a huge task. You know what, that is taking
The Greatest Story Ever, Told to people and the majority of the
people that RIT, don't want it. That's fact.
So what Jesus said and few there be that find it.
That's what Jesus said, our job is not about to result.
Our job is about the effort. And you know what, when the Lord
comes back, do you know the Lord is not going to say Frank?
Let me see. How many, how many did you get?
How many did you get, did, did you hit the number right?
No, he's not going to do that, but he's going to know whether I
took the gospel to people and spread the seed of it, he's
going to know that. He's got to know if I did my
part. We have the majority of the
people that are around us, we're trying to take the gospel to
people that are so busy with everything else that becomes
their religion. And you just plug it in,
whatever it is just too busy. So what's going to happen?
What can we do? I'll tell you exactly what we
can do. It has to change in the family.
We have got to change the family.
We've got to get the family where the family needs to be.
And I'm talking about the structure of the family, the
structure of the Family. Wednesday nights were studying
now about the structure of the family where the man is
fulfilling his role in the home, and the woman is fulfilling her
role in the home and Lie, they had it right?
Now, I'm going to say this to you.
Can you imagine what we could do together?
If you as families would pull together, get the structure of
your family, right? And go shoulder-to-shoulder with
me, as an evangelist laboring among you with our sleeves
rolled up working together. Can you imagine what we can
accomplish? I'll tell you this.
All successful works in the body of Christ that I know of today.
All successful, works are Works where the Evangelist is working
among them and families are working to support the work.
yeah, working I'm an evangelist. It's my job to evangelize.
Can you imagine how it would be? If families would pull together
and start strengthening those that we convert?
So the Evangelist can continue and preach the gospel and do the
work of an evangelist. Can you imagine how many people
we could save as Linwood? Smith said, one time if we
didn't have to keep saving the same ones over and over.
I'm going to tell you something families.
I need you. Yeah I said it.
I need you. The work needs you.
The future of the church needs you.
We got to do better. You know, more people today, I
think are looking for churches. More than we're looking for the
truth. I think that happens so let's
take a look at this. We're talking about planting
we're talking about a vision, let's look at a passage that's
found in Proverbs 29:18, notice Proverbs 29:18 where there is no
vision, the people perish. Now, what is the word vision?
Mean? I've already established with
you at the reason we put that up for Paul's plan was to show that
a vision includes a plan got to have a plan, but 29, May 18
tells us some rules about the plan.
All we have to do is find out what the word Vision means In
this passage. It's all we got to do, all we
got to do is go to the new King James, and it tells us what it
means here. It is, where there is no
Revelation, the people cast off restraint, that's what the word
Vision means in that passage and Revelation is the word of God.
So, what I'm saying is in our plans, it has to not only Clued
Revelation but our plans cannot go beyond revelation.
Take over helmet word of God. It's not about programs.
You know, sometimes people in the religious World, they'll
say, you know, it's not about the programs, we have the
programs, but it's not about the program's about the southern the
program, shouldn't draw you in, but they have the programs and
the programs are drawing people in.
You see the point? Most people are looking for
church that has what they're looking for, instead of what the
truth is of the word of God. So in our plan, it has to not
only include the word of God, it can't go beyond the word of God.
Now, Vision. Vision by definition is dealing
with an appearance. It is that which comes into
view. In the Lord's church and at in
this congregation we have a four-fold vision, its fourfold,
and here it is. We got to see a lost world.
We have to see a saving gospel. We have to see that the world is
lost without the gospel, and finally, we have to see our
responsibility and taking the gospel to a lost world.
Let me show you the importance of that.
Give you an example of that. Here's an illustration, I used
to use many many many years ago in another sermon.
But I love it. I think it fits.
There was a wise old Indian father, that had three sons. and
he decided he wanted to give all of his possessions in life to
one of his three sons that showed the greatest prowess and
the greatest promise as the tested pointed to a mountain
that was bold against the sky, he sent all three of them up the
side of the mountain, and he gave this instruction He said
the only thing you have to do. The only requirement is when you
come back you have to bring back in your hand, a token to show
how high you climbed. The first son wasn't gone very
long. When he came back, he stood
before his father and he opened up his hand and in his hand was
a white Wildflower. His father knew exactly how high
he climbed because he knew that grew just above the Timberline.
The second son was gone for a long time.
When he came back, he stood before his father and he opened
up his hand. And in his hand, he had a red
Flintstone which showed the father he made it almost to the
top. But the third son was gone for a
long, long, long time. When he came back, he stood
before his father, he said, father in my hand, I have
nothing. Because where I went, there was
nothing to bring back. But he said, father, Where I
Stood. I stood on the mountain, I stood
on the summit, and I overlooked the valley.
And I saw two Great Rivers. Join the ocean.
His father said, it's been my life's ambition.
That one of my sons would have seen what you have seen. you
stand here as it were with nothing in your hand, to show
for your travels, but you have a vision in your soul, the
greatest of all The point being in our life to as a Christian
you may look back on your life and you may say, wait a minute,
I got really nothing to show for it.
But if you can say that where you have gone, you stood on the
summit and you saw the two great needs of human need and soul
starvation. Join the ocean of life.
If you can say that where you've gone, you've seen that, and you
did all, you could you'll have something far greater, you'll
have a vision in your soul. The greatest of all number
three, this morning. There's something else we have
to be nice and kind of audit first.
But we have to have a sense of flexibility, you know why?
Because sometimes plans change, and you can't get discouraged
and quit because it did And if you run into a roadblock, so
what do you got to keep going? You got to have a sense of
flexibility. Paul didn't notice this first
Corinthians 16 6 and 7 and it may be that I will remain or
even spend the winter with you that you may send me on my way
wherever I go for. I do not wish to see you now on
the way, but I hope to stay a while notice, if the Lord
permits Everything we do has to be with the provision if the
Lord permits. Do you know why?
Because when you make plans, there are two things that are
uncertain to things that are uncertain and two things that
you have nothing to do with number one, the uncertainty of
life. And number two, God's
Providence, and God's will. So you have to subject in our
planning in our vision. We have to subjected to the will
of God first Corinthians 16, 6 & 7.
What else, how about this James for?
And James was condemned. Being presumptuous planning,
that's planning that basically presumes that everything is
going to be exactly, as you have described it to me or plan to
be, you don't think about God at all.
So, here we go. Come now, you who say today or
tomorrow, we will go to such and such a city, spend a year buying
sell and make a profit. Whereas you do not know what
your what will happen tomorrow for.
What is your life? It is either even a vapor that
appears for a little time. And then vanishes away.
Instead you ought to say, if the Lord Wills we shall live and do
this or that, You know, Paul had many dreams and ambitions.
For taking the gospel to the world.
And I'm going to notice a passage with you.
That was in Apostolic times that dealt with miraculous Visions.
We don't have that today, but we do have the answer to prayer.
We do have God's Providence, but I want to notice something that
happened to Paul. and just think about what if Paul would have
got discouraged, Quit. What acts 16 now when they had
gone through phrygia and the reason region of galatia they
were forbidden by the Holy Spirit, to preach the word.
In Asia, after they had come to miss you.
They tried to go to basilia but the spirit did not permit them
so passing by Miss Tia, they came to troas and a vision
appeared to Paul in the night a man of Macedonia stood and
pleaded with him saying Saying, come over to Macedonia and help
us. Now, after he had seen the
vision immediately, we sought to go to Macedonia concluding that
the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.
What an amazing Passage. They wanted to go to Asia
Spirit. Stop them.
They wanted to go to the Athenian.
Nope. Spirit stopped him, they
couldn't go east. They already been there.
They wanted to go south. Couldn't go to South spirit
said. No, they wanted to go north.
Nope, spirit said no. So they went the only way they
could go, they went West and they found themself hitting the
agency and then all of a sudden they got the Macedonian call.
Now, think about it this way, what if they were I'd have
stopped too soon. I want to go over here.
They said, okay, no problem over there.
Oh, my can't do it, I'll go get it now.
Go. Well, back over here.
Yeah, you can go there sometimes plans change.
And we need to be flexible with our planning and not get
discouraged when it doesn't happen.
And I really appreciate the the brothers here.
When they pray in our congregational setting, because
they always pray for the work, and I appreciate that more than
you will ever know. Especially when you pray for me.
Me. And when you pray for me, and
you mentioned me in prayer, laboring among you, but pray for
the work as a whole to pray for all of us in the work.
Now watch what happens when we pray in first John 5 and 14.
Now this is the confidence that if we ask that, we have in him
that if we ask anything according to his will he hears
us? Now you've heard me preach this
from time to time. God hears, the audible sound of
everything. But this is a promise for the
Christian, and if we pray according to his will with that
provision, he hears us. What does that mean?
The word here? Debbie evine, presupposes.
A response. What it's saying is when you
pray God's going to answer the prayer, and it may be no, So
what when you pray according to God's will, it's not a matter of
you bending. God to you and his will to you.
It's about you submitting, your will to God's will.
And if you do that and you pray with that provision, God's going
to answer our prayers, but fourthly and finally, this
morning, As we looked at a number of these things so far,
we have to give liberally. We have to have a vision for the
future. Obviously they have to be
flexible everything subject to the will of God, but finally, we
have to be thorough now. I think thoroughness here.
Involves a commitment. It involves a commitment.
We have to be thorough, couple things about this back to verses
6 and 7 again. And it may be that I will remain
or even spend the winter with you that you may send me on my
way wherever I go for. I do not wish to see you now on
the way, but I hope to stay with you a while.
Paul understood. He understood the realities and
he understood the importance of staying a while and the work.
And may I say this to you, I love to hold gospel meetings
that go throughout the country and do that.
We have gospel meetings here in, you know, what happens day.
What happens? Oh the preacher and by the way,
you know who the greatest preacher is that the next guy
that came into town? The latest guy and everybody
gets excited. Oh, and we have somebody here.
That holds us a gospel meeting, you know?
It's wonderful. Everybody gets excited.
Oh, it's cold. Oh dear.
That is great. Then about Tuesday or Wednesday
of the following week. The excitement goes away and we
just kind of In Time start reverting back to what we've
always done, right? Kind of happens.
But the work has to continue and the work takes thoroughness and
the work takes time. It takes time.
Now, Paul was not a superficial guy, he was not a superficial
preacher. In fact, I'll tell you.
Sometimes there's a lot of superficial preaching in the
world today. This actually really happened by
the way. I can't even imagine being
called this, but there was a preacher in some denomination
who's preaching was so shallow, It had no depth that had no
meaning. It was so shallow, you know what
they called him. His congregants gave him a
nickname. You know, was birdbath.
He's so shallow they called him birdbath.
Can you imagine walking to Billie Holiday?
Here's birdbath, how you doing? Preaching is not shouting.
Preaching is edification preaching, the word needs to
have that kind of effect. And may I say this to there's a
three-fold responsibility or three phone work of the church,
it's evangelism edification and benevolence and that is it.
Now, my job is to be an evangelist.
It's also my job to help in the edification, but not just me.
It takes the teachers to, I'm excited about this and I'm
excited about the future. And what what?
We might be able to teach here? I want to meet with the teachers
really soon all the men that teach and brainstorm some
subject matters that would help the congregation.
Perhaps also getting some information and feedback from
the congregation on subjects that they they would feel would
be helpful if they heard preached from the pulpit to have
some sort of a plan and a structure that we stick to.
So we can make sure that we are edifying, the body of Christ,
Looking forward to that. Listen to this, let me show you
how thorough Paul was. In Colossians 1 and 28 him.
We preach warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom
that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus that's
pretty thorough. Then in Ephesians chapter 4, he
talked about perfecting the Saints or equipping the Saints
and he said this and he himself gave some to be Apostles, some
prophets, some evangelists some pastors and teachers.
Look at this phrase here for the equipping of the Saints.
For the work of the Mystery for the edifying of the body of
Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith, and the
knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man.
You know what sometimes we do, we quote this passage and we add
a comma. So we say it like this, For the
equipping of the Saints. Pause for the work of the
ministry. Pause for the edifying of the
body of Christ. That's not what it says.
It's one sentence. Look for the equipping of the
Saints for the work of the ministry.
That's you. That's you.
It's my job to equip the Saints for the work of the ministry.
That means it's not just the preacher, it's you, and it's my
job to help and trained and equipped.
What else he goes further to the measure of the stature of the
fullness of Christ that we should no longer, be children,
tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of
Doctrine by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of
deceitful plotting. Verses 15 and 16 says this.
But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him, in all
things, which is the head even Christ from whom the whole body
fitly joined together and compacted by that, which every
joint supplieth, according to the effectual, working in the
measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the
edifying of itself. In love, Paul took the word of
God. Second Timothy, 3:16 and 17 to
equipped or perfect, the Saints. That's a work and that's
together and that took time. And, you know, the first time he
went to Corinth, he was there about a year.
The second time he was there, he was there for about three
months. He used the entire time to train
and work with them and I want to notice a passage found in
Galatians chapter 4. I love this passage.
You know why? Because it shows that there's a
period of time for growth and Galatians, chapter 4.
My little children from whom I labor and birth.
Again, get this until Christ is formed in you.
You know why people struggle a lot?
Christ is not formed in them. Do you know why they sometimes
have priority problems? Christ is not formed in them.
You know why? They have attendance issues.
Christ is not formed in them. We have somewhere around 60 here
60 or so. Plus in this assembly this
morning, Wednesday night. We get on, average 17, 15 17 one
time, we had 11 recently, Come on, we can we can do better than
that. Oh, we can do better than that.
That's not good enough. You know what the problem is and
I want to say this so I'm not misunderstood, I'm not talking
to the precious older folks to do, all they can to be here and
would be here if they could but they can't get out.
I'm not talking to you. I'm not talking about those that
have ailments, where they can't get around in their sick.
I'm not talking about that at all, and I'm not talking about
the fact, there's sometimes, there are extenuating
circumstances beyond our control.
I'm not talking to you either, but out of the congregation size
that we have, I guarantee you. Some people are just making a
choice. And when you choose otherwise,
you know what Jesus Christ is not formed in you.
He's not. because if he was, you know, what happens,
Automatically the Lord's number one.
Automatically we demonstrate that he's number one by our
example, by our Behavior, I want to challenge each and every one
of you and 2019. I want to challenge every single
one of you in 2019 that when a year goes by let's look back and
say that Christ was finally formed in me.
Let's do that. That's number one.
What do I need the congregation to do?
I need you to, I'll do my part. I will work.
I will work as hard as I can. I will labor among you patiently
until Christ is formed in you, but you got some work to do.
We all do. We all do Christ, needs to be
formed in US. We need to stay faithful folks,
we need to keep plugging at it. Staying in there, hanging in
there, and if you get stuff, it's all right.
It's tough, don't quit. Don't be superficial, we have
way too much superficial Christianity Today on the
surface and that must certainly grieve the heart of God.
But remember if families will pull together and families will
have Christ formed in them? Can you imagine what we can do
together? I'm going to tell you what will
happen. Instead of sitting back thinking
a whole look how bad it is. We may say, you know what?
We may yet to see our finest hour.
Now I'm in it. I'm in it for good.
But I need you every step of the way.
What have we learned today is we close?
We learned that if we're going to abound in the work of the
lord, we have to give liberally, not only monetarily but of
ourself got start doing that. Got to be better, right?
Gotta do better. Number two, we got to have a
vision for the future. That's the plan.
We have to plan our work and work our plan and we're going to
have such a plan. We're going to have such a work
lined out, still need you but we cannot go beyond the word of
God. We cannot go beyond Revelation.
Number three, we got to be flexible because sometimes
things change and we have to submit everything that we do.
To God's Will and not be discouraged and give up if
something didn't work. And finally be thorough and
realize this is not an overnight thing.
I need you to be committed to the Long Haul.
Commit to the Long Haul. Let's be thorough.
And finally, please please, please.
Let Christ be formed in you. Change your life.
Let's go be better. Let's go be better in the future
than we've ever been in days gone.
By I'm finished. Thank you for your kind of
listening. We thank you for listening to
our podcast, put on by the Church of Christ at 22:15 plans.
Road in Bakersfield, if you would like any additional
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