Of course today we’re ordaining Brother Donnie Romero to go out and start a church and to be a pastor in Fort Worth, Texas starting next Sunday. I’m just going to focus on just 2 things this morning. There’s obviously a lot of advice that you can give someone who’s going out to start a church, who’s going out to be a pastor but I just want to give 2 things that I kept seeing over and over again in these books, 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus that just kept coming up as being the 2 keys of success that Brother Romero is going to need in order to successfully do the work that God has called him to do.
In fact, I’m going to have Brother Romero come up here because of course this sermon is directed mainly at him and that he’s the one being ordained. Honestly although the sermon is directly mainly at him, there are a lot of other men in our church who I know desire the office of a bishop and aspire to one day starting a church and being a preacher and so these are things that they need to hear as well, but really there’s something for all of us in the sermon this morning. I want to focus on just 2 aspects of what’s taught in 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus. It says in 2nd Timothy 2:15 first of all “Study to show thyself approve unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.”
I want to preach this morning on the subject of study and work. Those are going to be the 2 keys to doing what needs to be done in 2014. To start a great church, to study and to work. Flip over to 2nd Timothy chapter 3 verse 14 and we’ll see something similar. 2nd Timothy 3:14 the Bible reads “But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned that’s the study and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” We see here the importance of learning, studying, knowing the scriptures and then taking that knowledge and letting it furnish you unto all the good works. You have to be studying and learning the truth so that you can do the work of preaching the truth unto others.
Go to chapter 4 you’ll see the same pattern. In verse number 1 of 2nd Timothy 4 the Bible reads “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.”
Here we see the importance of sound doctrine and teaching the truth but then we also see the importance of doing the work. What is the enemy of both of these things, study and work? The enemy is laziness. Let me tell you something, studying the Bible is hard work in it of itself. You have to turn over to Ecclesiastes 12 verse 12. The Bible reads “And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” Did you hear that? Much study is a weariness of the flesh. It’s work to do much study in the Bible. To read the Bible, to learn the Bible, to know what you’re talking about is going to take a lot of hard work that your flesh is going to resist and you’re going to want to take the easy way, the lazy way.
Laziness is the enemy of study and laziness is the enemy of work. You see the lazy preacher is not going to do the requisite learning and study, he’s just going to keep repeating things that he’s heard other people preach. He’ll just basically go to whatever the fundamental pope that he follows and just download that sermon or just buy it online a set of 13 sermons for 99.95 or whatever and not do his own study and his own work. The problem with that is that false doctrine and error just keeps getting perpetuated because people aren’t doing the study and the work on their own.
Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody gets things wrong. Everybody preaches something that’s not exactly right but if everybody would do their own study and read the Bible themselves, then these errors wouldn’t just get perpetuated on a grand scale. We see today so many churches get the same things wrong and so many preachers get the same things wrong because they’re all getting it from the same source and it’s not the Bible, it’s not the Holy Spirit, it’s some college somewhere some fundamental pope somewhere, some book somewhere, some commentary somewhere. Study to show thyself approved unto God.
Do it yourself. You got to read it yourself. You have to go into the Bible and let God teach you not just take the easy way of everything being spoon-fed from someone else. That’s how error gets perpetuated. If every man of God would just go to the word of God himself with the Holy Spirit. I’m not saying he’s going to be perfect but you wouldn’t just have the same errors being perpetuated over and over again of just repeating things that we’ve heard.
On the same token, the lazy man not only does he just recycle the same sermons or keep borrowing the sermons only from someone else on the same token the lazy man doesn’t do the work of an evangelist. He said there in 2nd Timothy 4 verse 5 where we just were he said, “Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist.” What is the work of an evangelist? The word evangelist if you just break down that word, what does it mean to evangelize? It means to bring the gospel. An evangelist is one who gives the gospel. Evangelical means giving of the gospel. That’s what the word actually means because the word angel you’ll find it in the word evangelist if you look down at the word.
See the word angel right in the middle? The word angel means messenger. Then those 2 letters at the beginning of the word that E-V that’s a prefix that means good. What it is it’s a messenger that bringing good news and the gospel is good news. That’s why the Bible says that Jesus when he was reading in Luke chapter 4 said the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he’s anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He was quoting Isaiah 41:1 where he said “Spirit of Lord God is upon me. He’s anointed me to preach glad tidings.” The Bible defines the gospel as glad tidings or good news.
You know what the good news of the gospel is? That Jesus paid everything. Think about it. If we have to work our way to heaven, if we have to earn it by somehow living a good life or joining a church or following the commandments, that’d be bad news because we’ve all come short. We’ve all suddenly come short. That’s bad news if we have to get there on our merits but thank God it’s not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing the Holy Ghost. That’s good news. It’s the greatest news that there is.but he says do the work of an evangelist.
He’s saying “Make it a priority to go out and work to get people saved.” Going out and preaching the gospel is hard work. Going out soul winning, knocking doors, telling the gospel and you then say it’s a lot of work. He’s telling them do the work of an evangelist. The lazy man is not going to do the soul winning because soul winning is just too much work. That’s why so many churches are getting away from soul winning today. A lot of people will say soul winning doesn’t work. My response to that is always just you don’t work. If you do the work, soul winning will work.
Now depends on what you mean by soul winning work. If you expect soul winning to build a big church through soul winning, it’s not going to work that’s why they’re getting away from it. Their goal is just to build a big crowd and knocking doors and doing soul winning does not build a big crowd. Sure a lot of people in our church will reach through door to door soul winning, but a lot of the growth in our church has not come through door to door soul winning because honestly there are other ways to grow the church besides door to door soul winning that’s why they’re getting away from it. You know what door to door soul winning works for? Getting people saved. It works.
How can it not work? How can it not work to walk up to somebody with the Bible in your hand and just open the Bible and show them how to be saved? How could that not work? Of course, it works. Here’s the thing. It doesn’t work to build their big palace. It doesn’t work to build their big rock concert or whatever they’re trying to build. It does work to get people out of hell. You just got to get the right philosophy of why you’re doing it.
A lot of people think that soul winning is going to build a great church. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I don’t think it’s going to bring in people on that scale. Let me tell you this though. I’d rather see a church built so that they can go soul winning. They get the get the means and the end backwards. They think that the goal is let’s go soul winning so that we can have a great big church. What’s the point? Here’s what I say. “Let’s have a great big church so that we can do a lot of soul wining, so can we set out lots of people soul winning.
The final goal is not a big crowd on Sunday morning to hear me preach. No, the final goal is getting people saved. The final goal is that the entire are of Phoenix, Arizona would be evangelized. That’s the goal. We’re not going to get everybody saved. Broad is the way the leads to destruction. Many there be which go in there at because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be to find it. We know that most people aren’t going to accept the gospel. Let me tell you I just want every single person in Phoenix, Arizona to at least hear a clear presentation of the gospel.
To me soul winning works toward that. No one can argue that it gets that done and that’s why we do it and that’s why it’s important. There’s another city Fort Worth, Texas that needs this type of a soul winning church that’s going to go out and say more important than the growth of the church is the idea of knocking every door in Fort Worth and just getting everybody the gospel, just evangelize. Do the work of an evangelist. Here’s the thing. God doesn’t tell you do the work of building the church because he said upon this rock I’ll build thy church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. He said accept the Lord build the house they labor in vain to build it but he told you to do the work and evangelize.
If you go out and do the work of an evangelist and win people to Christ, even though that’s not going to directly lead to necessarily church growth, it’s obedience to God and then he’ll build a church. Not only that but God commands you to preach the word instant, in season and out of season to reprove, to rebuke, to exhort. He expects you to teach doctrine. If you’re going out and winning people to Christ and then you go up in the pulpit at Sunday morning [inaudible v] and you teach the Bible and you teach all the doctrine and you don’t withhold knowledge that’s unpopular but you just preach the whole council of God, let God build the church in his timing.
It doesn’t matter Brother Romero how slow or how fast that is. It doesn’t matter because it’s up to him and he’s the one who gets the glory not you. It doesn’t really matter. You’re not trying to impress anyone. You’re not trying to impress me. You’re not trying to impress the world. You’re just trying to go there and do the work of an evangelist faithfully preach the word, study, show yourself approve, teach the doctrine, that’s all you’re doing.
Let me tell you something. It doesn’t matter how big your church gets, the world is never going to be impressed because there’s always something bigger. Joel Osteen or whatever, you know what I’m saying? It doesn’t matter. If your goal is to impress people, waste of time. Waste of your life. The world is never going to be impressed. No matter how big Faithful Word Baptist Church gets, our church is empty. We’re still meeting at a strip mall. I hope that we meet in a strip mall until dooms day.
Our church grows every single year. Our church is thriving but we don’t need some palace. We don’t need some monument unto men. So what? I don’t care if you’re meeting in a tent. I don’t care if you’re meeting at a backyard. God doesn’t care. Are you preaching the word? Are you doing the work of an evangelist? Study to show thyself approved unto man. Study to show thyself approved unto the world. Study to show thyself unto approved unto people who think that your church should be a certain size or grow at a certain rate. No, it’s study to show yourself approved unto God. It’s about being approved unto God is what the Bible is teaching you. Those are the 2 things, studying and doing the work.
Go to 1st Timothy. We’ve seen some things from 2nd Timothy. Let’s go to 1st Timothy and let’s look at chapter 4. When it comes to studying and doing your own work, there’s nothing wrong with borrowing a sermon from someone else. I’ll be honest with you many sermons that I preached it had been borrowed from someone else. Sometimes people have contacted me and asked me permission to preach one of my sermons. What? Permission? It’s all from the same book. It’s all God’s word. None of us copyright it. I’ve borrowed sermon. I’ve gone to the preaching class sometimes and hear a sermon and turn it into my own sermon or hear a friend of mine somewhere preach a sermon that I like and borrow that sermon. There’s nothing wrong with it.
If you hear a good sermon that can help your people then preach it. The thing is if you’re doing your own reading and you’re doing own study, you’ll be able to know whether that sermon your borrowing is right or not right. When all you’re doing is borrowing sermons, something is wrong. If you’re doing your own studying and your own reading, there’s so much that God will be showing you that needs to be preached through the Holy Spirit as you read Bible.
Look at 1st Timothy chapter 4 verse 13. We’ll find the same 2 concepts of study and work. Verse 13 “Till I come, give attendance to reading.” You see the importance there of reading of the word of God. He said, “Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.
Now notice in these 4 verses that Paul is speaking to Timothy how much emphasis there was on Timothy himself on his reading on the gift that’s in him on his personal meditation and on taking heed unto himself. You’re not going to be able to lead others and help others and teach, unless you get yourself in order. You got to keep yourself. Whenever I read that verse that says in doing this thou shall both save thyself and them that hear thee, I always think of when I used to fly in airplanes every week. I’ve seen that safety demo 5 million times on what to do in the event of a crash landing and everything. Then the oxygen packs drop down.
They always say first put on your own oxygen mask then help the people around you. The reason that that specifically brought up is that a lot of people in their zeal to help others will just say, “I want to get it on all 8 of my kids first. I’m going to make sure they get all their oxygen mask on.” They’re going to pass out in the process and they’re not going to help anybody. You first put on your own oxygen mask, make sure you’re able to breathe so that you’ll be able to help others. It like the concept of first remove the beam out of your own eye then shall thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye. You’re not going to be able to help others. You’re not going to be able to lead others if you neglect yourself.
When I say take care of yourself, I’m not saying, “Hey you need to go down and get a massage and a chiropractic adjustment.” When I say take care of yourself, I’m saying you need to make sure that you’re spiritually where you need to be. That you’re doing the reading and the prayer and the study and the soul winning and that your family is the way that it needs to be before you can really be a blessing and a help to other people. You’ve got make sure that your own house is in order. If you can't take care of your own house, how can you take care of the church of God? This is a principle that’s all throughout the Bible of taking heed unto yourself.
I’ll be honest with you. In my life there are many things that I neglect and I try hard to get everything done. I’m pastoring a church and I have 8 children. I have a wife and I have all kinds of responsibilities that I’m trying to juggle all the time that I’ve been juggling for all these years especially back when I was running a business and pastoring the church at the same time and just trying to juggle so many things. Something is going to get neglected. Nobody is just a superman that just gets everything done perfectly all the time. Never neglects anything. You have to decide what’s important to you and make sure that it never gets neglected.
One thing that you need to decide is important is reading the Bible. Study to show thyself approved unto God. Why is it so important? Because it’s such a great responsibility to get up and preach the word of God. Because people are following you and people are hanging on your every word and whether it’s right or wrong many people are just going to believe what you preach whether it’s right or wrong. Hopefully you’re preaching the truth all the time. God wiling 99% of the time everything you’re saying is in lock step with scripture but it’s a great responsibility.
Of course everyone should be searching the scriptures daily whether these things be so but there’s a great responsibility. When you’re a leader and you’re up here preaching that people are listening to you, they’re looking to you. They’re relying whether they should be or not they are. They’re going to believe what you’re saying and so you need to read and study and know what you’re talking about because it’s a huge responsibility that you don’t be like the blind that lead the blind and then they both fall in the ditch. Don’t ever neglect reading and studying and learning the Bible. It’s paramount. Wisdom is the principle thing. You must learn and gain knowledge of the scripture in order to able to teach the Bible.
It could be easy to get caught up in a lot of other things, getting busy doing this, doing that. Instead make sure that reading that Bible, prayer, they’re just these basic foundational things become priorities in your life all the time and that you never get to the point where you’re just busy with the work of the ministry that you stop the studying and reading. You start recycling stuff. You start borrowing everything and not doing the work and the study. It’s what’s wrong today in America in churches its pastors who don’t know the Bible. It’s a huge problem.
This [inaudible 00:20:05] feather, this false sense of security of a college degree on the wall that somehow just makes them think that somehow they know something, it’s no substitute for actually knowing something. How many people I known who … I talk to a guy and he got a 4 year degree in nutrition. I say, “Can you teach me something about nutrition?” “I don’t know anything about nutrition.” A 4 year degree he said I just major in that. I was playing sports and everything. The bottom-line just because you go to college or something, it doesn’t mean you know anything.
By the way, even if you do go to college or even if you learn things without going to college, however you learn thing if you don’t keep maintaining that knowledge, you’ll know less every year that goes by. I’ll be honest with you. Sometimes I listen to old sermons that I preached from 2008, 2009, 2010 and I learn things from those sermons. I [inaudible 00:21:06] “Wow this is a great point. I never thought of that. Wait a minute, I’m the one who preached it.” I’m not joking. I am dead serious because of the fact that you learn things and you forget them because you’re human.
Unless you keep learning, unless you keep reading and keep memorizing the Bible and keep studying, you’re going to move backwards every year. You’re going to get dumber and dumber because you’re not replenishing the knowledge. As human beings we’re going to lose knowledge just a natural process of losing knowledge. Unless you’re just constantly learning new things, learning new things, learning new things, your preaching is going to get more and more shallow and you’re going to have less and less knowledge. Relying on some training that you got in the past, some study that you did in the past, isn’t going to cu tit. You have to keep reading.
Till I come he said give attendance to reading. You don’t stop the reading. You don’t stop the studying and it’s over. Now flip over to chapter 5. By the way he said meditate upon these things. That should bring you back to Joshua 1:8. “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night.” Just decide right now Brother Romero that you’re not going to be an ignorant preacher. You’re going to be one who studies up and knows what he’s talking about.
Here’s another great tip too. If there’s something you’re not sure about, don’t preach it. Don’t talk about it. I don’t claim to know everything. I’m not an expert on every subject. I’m not an expert on every chapter of the Bible. Let me tell you something. If there’s something that I don’t understand, I just don’t talk about it. Sometimes I’ll preach when I’m doing my Wednesday nights where I go through a chapter a week and I’ll get to a part that I don’t understand and I’ll just breeze past it. Then people will email me. “Man, I was really hoping that you were going to cover that part. I was really hoping you’re going to cover that verse because it’s so hard to understand.” I’m thinking, “Yeah it’s so hard to understand that I don’t understand it.”
I could just make something up but I’d rather just keep my mouth shut if I don’t know for sure that what I’m saying is right. It’s just better. Here’s the thing. There are plenty of things that you know. There are plenty of things that you’re sure of that you have no doubt on, that are crystal clear in scripture that you studied and you’ve read and you’ve worked out. That’s what you want to preach. You want to continually expand that to more that you can about and more that you can preach about but you need to be one who knows what he’s talking. You know what you’re saying. You know it’s right. You’ve studied it. You’ve looked at it. You’ve read the whole Bible repeatedly and cross referenced it and you know what the Bible says because of your own personal study.
Look at 1st Timothy 5:17 it says “Let the elders,” Elder is synonymous with bishop or pastor. Says “let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.” Doctrine means teaching. He’s saying you labor in the word and you labor in teaching. Like I said studying the Bible is hard work and teaching and preaching is hard work. This is the labor and when you think of the word labor, it’s even a stronger word than work. When you think of labor, you think of hard work. When you think of someone being a laborer, you think of them out there toiling by the sweat of their face. That’s the type of work God wants us to do and the word and doctrine.
That’s the elder that rules well. You know who’s an elder that’s going to rule well? It says it’s one who labors in the word and doctrine for the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, the labourer is worthy of his reward. Here a pastor is being likened unto a beast of burden, an ox that is treading out the corn doing hard physical labor. Although the word and doctrine is not physical labor per se it needs to be treated with the same vigor and the same aggressive attitude that says “I’m going to work hard. I’m going to study. I’m going to preach hard and I’m going to show myself approved unto God and no one else.”
Go to Titus chapter 1. We’re in the pastoral epistles here. That’s what these are. 2nd Timothy Titus these are instructions on the pastors. How are you going to be a great pastor? Sure there are lots of other pieces of advice I could give you. I could tell you all kinds of great pieces of advice but I can't put it all into one sermon. In this sermon I just want to focus on these 2 themes that just keep coming up study and work. If you don’t get these 2 things right, both of them will cause you to fail. If you don’t study, you’re going to start preaching false doctrine or you’re going to be one that just every 6 months the cycle starts over.
There are preachers out there who have about 6 months of sermons and then they start over again. Just keeping cycling through the same thing. Here’s the thing. People are going to believe. How many people have you known who have left the church and this is what they I wasn’t being fed. Where’s that complaint coming from? I wasn’t being fed. It’s a pastor that’s preaching the same thing over and over again. Sometimes you go to church every Sunday morning it’s the gospel. It’s the plan of salvation. You’re like we’re saved. We’ve been saved for years. I’ve been saved since I was 6 years old. Teach me something else, please.
Then I’ve heard one of these pastors say “Well if you get tired of hearing the gospel every Sunday morning, then something is wrong with you.” Well then something is wrong with me because I’d rather hear the gospel of soul winning in the presence of an [unsafe person 00:26:26] that needs it. Look, this whole thing of I’m not being fed, often it’s a legitimate criticism because the word is not being taught in its entirety. God said feed the flock of God which is among you taking the oversight thereof. He said unto the pastors feed the people. He said unto Peter “Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep.”
If you do the study that you need to do you’ll constantly be having all these great knowledge coming in and then you’ll be able to share that with the people and break it down to them in a way that they can understand and constantly learning new things. If you don’t do the work, if you don’t do the study, you’re either going to start preaching false doctrine or you’re going to become a broken record, boring same thing every week people are going to go somewhere else where they can find a place to be feed.
Look what it says in Titus chapter 1 verse 5. It says, “For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting.” Wanting there means lacking. Something is missing, he said, “the things that are wanting and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee.” What Paul is saying there is that there’s a lack of elders in every city. In Crete there were cities that just did not have a Bible believing preacher, a man of God that would teach the word. He’s saying, “Let’s ordain elders in every city. If any be blameless the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;
But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate.” This is where we get the name of our church by the way in verse 9. “Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.” Again, the Bible is empathizing here. The fact that you’ve been taught the word, the fact that you know the Bible that your doctrine is sound which will give you the ability to convince the gainsayers, the opponents, the people who are going to attack you and criticize you and say that you’re wrong.
Says in verse 10, “For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision.” He say especially the Jews. At that time that was a major opponent. That was the major opponent of the gospel was the Jews. They were constantly attacking the apostles and criticizing them and fighting them everywhere they went. What he’s saying there is that there’s a lack of good elders, that’s wanting. We need to fix it. We need more churches starting up. Then he says, “Oh man but there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers.” Isn’t that the truth that we say today?
I guaranty you that in Fort Worth, Texas there are many vain talkers. There are many and they may not be of the circumcision but of course they are ones who really bow down to the circumcision. That’s another sermon. We’re not going to do the Jews in their lives part 4. Basically there are many that are wrong. There are many false teachers. There are many vain talkers who just get up and blah, blah, blah.
Let me tell you something. A sermon that has 1 Bible verse and then you talking for the next hour is a bunch of blah, blah, blah. Preach the word the Bible says. Preach the Bible. Be different. Preach the word of God. He says there are many unruly vain talkers, deceivers. You’re going to be like a sheep in the midst of wolves. You’re going to be the lighthouse in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom you’re going to shine as a light in the world because there are many … lack of good teaching but many unruly vain talkers and deceivers.
He says, “Whose mouth must stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.” You’re not going to be able to stop the mouth of the false teachers unless you know what you’re talking about. Many of them are clever. Many of them know how to twist god’s word. You’re going to have to know your stuff to be able to rebuke them sharply as the Bible says. Let’s keep reading.
He says, “whose mouth must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sakes. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.
Flip over to chapter 2 of Titus. Just going through these pastoral epistles and we see a lot of the same things over and over again. Hey, know what you’ve learned. Know the scriptures. Study to show thyself approved unto God. Give attendance to reading. Take heed unto yourself. Meditate on these things. Know the Bible. Learn the Bible. Give attendance to reading. Study, work, labor in the word. Labor in doctrine. Have sound doctrine. Be right. Preach what’s right. Know what’s right. Make sure that everything that you say is right.
You know what the big part of the job is just being right. Just be right. Don’t be wrong. You know what makes people wrong? They err not knowing the scriptures. It says in verse 6. “Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded.” In here we find both elements again. “In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works.” There’s the work, right? “In doctrine shewing uncorruptness.” There’s the study the right there. Do you see that? Because you got to have the good works but you also need to have doctrine that shows uncorruptness meaning that you know the Bible and that your doctrine is pure, that your doctrine is the truth. “Gravity, sincerity.”
Verse 8 “Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.” Again, there’s so much we can talk about as we’re sending one out to go start a church and preach. There’s so many teachings in these pastoral epistles about the fact that you’re going to face opposition. He and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. There’s so much that’s explaining how they’re going to be many adversaries and many unruly vain talkers and deceivers. There are going to be people who attack you and criticize you.
Here’s the thing. Jesus said, “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you.” Here’s the key word falsely. There’s no reward when they speak evil of you and it’s true and you bear it patiently. It’s when they speak evil of you falsely for my namesake that’s when you rejoice and be exceeding glad because great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. You’re going to be criticized. You’re going to be lied about. People are going to say crazy things about you and you’re going to be shaking your head like “Where does this even come from? What are you even talking about?”
A lot of times criticism is at least anger and reality a little bit. Sometimes it’s just out there. I’ve been called everything under the sun. It doesn’t matter what you say or do you’re going to be called everything under the sun if you’re serving God. They called the master the house of Beelzebub. How much more so they call them of his household? I’ve been called a Jesuit, a Catholic. They said I was a Mormon. They had pictures of me playing an organ at Brigham Young University. I don’t even play the organ. I’ve never been to Brigham Young University. I’ve never been a Mormon. They have attacked me and called me … Here’s the thing. Just get it down. You’re a racist. No matter what you say.
It doesn’t matter if your whole church is filled with every nationality. It doesn’t matter if you preach that everybody is of the same blood and we’re all the same. We’re all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus and [inaudible 00:35:04]. There’s no other Jew nor gentile. Red, yellow, black and white, the person aside just you’re a racist. I’ve been called a Muslim extremist. I’ve been balled the Taliban. I’ve been called a racist. By the way, because of the wonderful teachings of Sigmund Freud preaching against homosexuality, you’ll be called a closet homosexual because everybody who preachers against homosexuality is a closet sodomite. That’s what the world teaches. Thank you Dr. Freud.
“Oh yeah you wouldn’t be coming down …” Basically according to the world that we live in, either you’re pro homo or if you’re anti homo you secretly are a homo. Basically they think that whole world is just homos or just … that’s what they think. You know what? They’re going to attack you with that. You know what? You’ve got to just show yourself approved unto God. Preach what he Bible …
They’re going to call you racist. They’re going to say you’re a closet homo because you hate homos and preach against them. That’s what they’re going to say about you. They’re going to tell you that you’re easy believe [inaudible 00:36:11] and 1, 2, 3 repeat after me because you go out and clearly explain the gospel to people and take the necessary to make sure they understand salvation by grace through faith.
Because you’re not adding works, you’re easy to believe these. You’re also going to be called this new thing that I get called a lot now misogynistic because you actually preach biblical roles of men and women. You’re going to be called everything. You’re going to be called just every name under the sun. You’re going to be accused of adultery. You’re going to be accused of murder. I’ve been accused of murder in the last year. I’m not kidding. You’re going to be accused of everything under the sun but let it always be falsely.
Here’s the thing. Sometimes the tendency when you’re lied about and say, “I got to go set the record straight.” Really just leap for joy and the more the false rumors and the lies spread, the more your reward is in heaven but let it always be falsely. See the Bible says here in Titus chapter 2 sound, speech that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you. Don’t give them something legitimate to say evil of you. Live your life above reproach. Be like Daniel where they said “If we’re going to find something against Daniel it’s going to have to be in the way that he worships his God because we can't find anything wrong with his character.” If that was the only thing they can accuse them of was worshipping the Lord.
Blessed are you when you’re attacked falsely. You need to live a life that’s above reproach but one of the ways that you’re going to be able to do that is by having uncorrupt doctrine in verse 8 there having sound speech that cannot be condemned. If you get up and preach things without fully studying them and flushing them out in God’s word, making sure that they’re true, there’ll be legitimate criticism coming your way. When you get up and preach … that’s why here’s the thing. Don’t learn something on Saturday night and then preach it on Sunday morning.
“Oh wow this cool! Yeah!” Then I go “Oops! That doesn’t jive with the rest of the Bible.” I remember I learned a great important truth around July of 2006. A ground breaking truth in the Bible. I literally decided this is so groundbreaking and it’s so different than what I’ve heard all my life, I’m going to read the entire Bible cover to cover just looking for that one thing just to make sure that I’m not wrong about this because I never heard anybody else teach this and I just want to make sure. I preach it instead in December of 2006.
Just study to show yourself approved and make sure that you prove all things. The Bible says prove all things, hold fast that which is good. He said do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. Make sure that when you preach a sermon, it’s airtight. I’m not saying you’re never going to make a mistake. I’m not saying I’ve never made a mistake but be very careful to study and do the labor in God’s word to make sure that what you’re preaching is right so that when people criticize your doctrine and criticize your teaching it’s just going to be because they don’t understand because they’re not saved or they haven’t studied or whatever their problem is. Don’t let it be a legitimate criticism.
We don’t need another ignorant preacher. I know that you do know the word of God and you have studied, that’s why you’re even being ordained and sent out. Let me say this though. You’ve got to keep learning. You got to keep studying. You got to keep growing and don’t just sit there and think “Oh yeah I know all the doctrines. I know …” I thought I knew everything once too when I was a teenager but then you find out there’s things that you’ve never even dreamed of, that you learned later in life.
I remember getting to a point where I think “I don’t think I’m going to learn any major new revelations from the Bible. I’ve read it cover to cover 10 times. Is there really anything else really shocker that I’m going to …” You know how many shockers I’ve had since then because the Bible is a very deep book and we know very little in our youth. The more that we study, the more that we read, the more that we learn, there’s so much more. Don’t let this be the end of your training. Let this be the beginning of study.
Then lastly let me just before I shut down this sermon, let me just focus on the work side because I focused a little more on the studying side. Remember those are the 2 things. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth. All the study in the world is not going to do you any good if you’re not doing the work. It’s like a spiritual obesity of one who’s just eating and eating and feeding on God’s word but they’re not out doing the work. They’re not burning those spiritual calories and then it becomes unhealthy. Eating a lot of good food can be nutritious for you or it can be a burden unto you, if you’re not doing the work.
Be sure that you balance the study with the work. There a lot of people today who just study and study and study and study but they don’t do the work. You’d think “At least they must know a lot.” but that’s not what the Bible says because the Bible teaches … for example we can go to one place in Hebrews chapter 5. There are many places we can go to focus on this but in Hebrews chapter for example it says in verse 12 “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
For every one that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” According to Hebrews 5 strong meat is to those not who just hear the word of God or read the word of God, but those who use the word of God are able to handle strong meat.
The Bible says in James chapter 1 if you want to just flip over there. It says in verse 22 “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”
Two kinds of people that study and read the word of God. The forgetful hearer and the doer of the work. That’s the contrast. You can sit there and read and read and read and memorize and memorize and study and study and study but if you’re not a doer of the work, you’ll be a forgetful hearer. You won’t understand it. You won’t be able to discern between good and evil like the one who uses the word of God. You have to have that balance of study and work and both of those are hard work. Both of them take labor.
It’s easy to want to just coast. Coast on past Bible knowledge. Coast on preaching that you’ve heard. Coast on study that you’ve done in the past and then to get to the point where you’re not really aggressively doing the work of an evangelist. You’re not really aggressively doing the work of the ministry, you’re just coasting. You’re not preaching your best. You’re not doing the soul winning. The invitation is not yet begun. I’m just kidding we don’t do invitation. You want to always make sure that you’re not just coasting and taking it easy.
Let me tell you something. Starting a church the way that you’re starting is not easy. Anybody who says it’s easy has never done it before. I did it and it was really hard. You talk to Brother Jimenez, really hard. Talk to Pastor Berzins, it’s hard. It’s a struggle. It’s a battle. It’s very difficult. Nobody is starting churches this way anymore because it’s so hard. It’s specially going to be hard for you because you’re going to be working a full time job and starting a church at the same time.
It’s going to be hard work but you’ve got to go into it ready to roll up the sleeves, girth up your loins like a man and you’ve got to be ready to really push yourself and labor especially in the beginning but you never want to lose sight of taking heed unto yourself and making sure that you stay where you need to be spiritual.
Have the right priorities. If you have to neglect something, don’t neglect the word. If you have to neglect something, don’t neglect your family and your personal life that you have with your wife and your children and things like that but don’t get lazy is the other side of that coin. You can't get lazy. You can't get yourself … and you know when it’s especially not the time to get lazy in the very beginning. In the very beginning you got to pull out all the stops. You got to go soul winning every day in the very beginning.
I’m not saying that that’s necessarily going to be sustainable for a lifetime but when you first start the church, you got to hit the ground running. You got to work hard. You got to get that thing going. It’s hard to get that plane off the ground and you got to push it and work. I just want you to remember Brother Romero these 2 words that are going to be keys to success. I want you to rambler this for the rest of your life these 2 words from when you were ordained. My 2 words that are my motto, that are my mantra is study and work. Those are the keys. There are a lot of other keys but those are just 2 that I want to emphasize to you this morning, study and work.
Now we’re going to pray at this time and then I’m going to pray specifically for Brother Romero. I’m going to lay my hands on him and I’m going to pray that the power of God will be upon Brother Romero and his ministry. Honestly, he can't do it in the flesh. He can't do any great work for God. Jesus said “Without me you can do nothing.” When you see somebody doing something without Jesus, it’s nothing [inaudible 00:46:43 ]. People accomplish a lot but it’s nothing.
If Brother Romero is going to accomplish something great for god, he’s going to need the power of the Holy Spirit and the Bible teaches this principle from one man of God to another to lay on the hands and to pray for God’s spirit and God’s blessing upon him as he goes out to basically do what we have done here in Tempe, Arizona to do the same thing in Fort Worth, Texas. It’s not going to be exactly the same because we’re all different but it’s going to be the same gospel, same Holy Spirit, same Bible and we’ve accomplished something here in Tempe. We started from scratch. There’s nobody and we’ve seen God build a church.
We’ve seen literally the doors of over a million people knocked with the gospel and we’re still going strong, still pushing it. Still have a vision to knock every door in the whole area. We want to pray for God’s special blessing upon Brother Romero as he goes out and does a great work of God. Not at his own strength or talent. You say, “I don’t know if Brother Romero is talented enough.” Well I know I’m not talented enough. His people skills are about 10 times better mine I know that much. Anybody who goes to his church knows that’s true. He’s a great guy. He’s got some skills. He’s got some talents.
You know honestly it’s not enough. He doesn’t have enough. It’s going to be through the power of God that this church succeeds and in the end God’s going to get all the glory. When this great steadfast Baptist church at Fort Worth is thriving and is a lighthouse and is a powerhouse of soul winning and the gospel, God’s going to get the glory because he can use the Romero’s of this world. He can use the Pastor Anderson’s of this world because he always looking for is just a willing vessel that will just say “Here am I Lord send me.”
There aren’t many that are called having great talent. Sometimes they are and praise the Lord for that but most of the time, he’ll purposely call people who need his help in order that he gets all the glory. I can honestly give God all the glory for whatever we’ve accomplished here and I believe that Brother Romero is going to accomplish great things. I have great faith in him that’s why … and I know that … Say amen if you have great faith in what Brother Romero is going to do.
Crowd: Amen.
Steven: We as a church have great faith in Brother Romero which is why we’re here today to see him ordained and sent off. We need to pray for the spirit of God to be upon him because it’s going to be all done through the power of the Lord. Let’s bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father please I just pray that you will bless Brother Romero Lord and just please just fill him with your spirit Lord and just let your power come upon him in a mighty way from this day forward unlike your power as ever been upon him Lord.
I pray that he would experience the fullness of your spirit unlike he has ever seen and I pray that his preaching will be anointed in a way that has never been anointed before Lord and just that you would use him doubly to what he’s ever been used up to this point Lord. Please just prepare a group of people in Fort Worth whose hearts you have touched that would be the foundation and bedrock of a great church. Lord, please just pour out your spirit upon him, upon his family, the [whole church 00:50:17]. Lord, he needs your help and I pray that you would use him as you’ve used me. Lord, I know that I’ve been nothing without you and I pray that it would all be done to your honor and glory and in Jesus name I pray, amen.
