Wednesday Night Bible Study with Pastor Jeff - John 15

Well, guys, we're going to begin, and once again, a lot of people want to take their theology and cram it into John 15, and you'll see what

I mean in just a second. Let's start with verse 1, John chapter 15, verse 1, and yes, this is the gospel of John.

Jerry Lloyd, what you doing, son? Man, I love you. It says this,

I am the true vine, and my father is the vineyard keeper. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit.

You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I in you.

Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.

Verse 5, I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him, produces much fruit because you can do nothing without me.

Verse 6, if anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch, and he withers.

They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. Hellfire brimstone.

Hey, Pastor John. Hey, Brother John. Um, yeah, my staff is awesome.

Couldn't do anything without them. Awesome, most awesome people in the world. Okay, so, here's the deal.

Are y 'all ready? And for those of you that aren't used to my teaching, stay with me after I say this, okay?

Alright, here's the deal. If you were a Christian, but have fallen away, you have been cut off from the family of God, and you will be gathered up and thrown into hell.

Okay? That's just the way it is. Um, that's what it says right here. Any branch that does not bear fruit is cut off, gathered up after he withers, and thrown into the fire.

See? If you don't stay absolutely perfectly in the will of God your entire life, you're going to hell.

Hellfire brimstone. Is that what that means, guys? I know this is a delay, and this is how

I usually teach on Wednesdays, but, um, is that what this is talking about? Somebody answer.

That if you do not remain in God, you're going to be cut off, burn up, thrown away, and go to hell forever.

Nope. Jenny Hart says nope. Well, she's from Mississippi, Julie's from Georgia, so, um,

Kimmy, I love you. Nope. Nope.

So everyone's saying no. Is it? No. Okay. Okay. So, can someone help me out here?

I mean, because that's what I just read. Nah. Okay. Nutbush Chick says nah.

Trick Question Stephanie says. Johnny Armand says no. Man, y 'all are some strong Arminiests.

Yes, sir. Regem Bob. Look at those guys. I say no.

All right. Well, actually, I agree with all of you. First of all, understand this.

Harmonutics is the most important thing. That's not true.

The Holy Spirit's the most important thing. But on the concept of man, harmonutics is extremely, extremely important.

This is how we get, hey, Justin, if you bear no fruit, you're not a

Christian. Okay. Okay. So if I backslide and I'm not bearing fruit, I quit being a

Christian. There's Karina. So harmonics basically is this.

I have my own harmonutical laws, but we're just going to talk about them for a second.

Now I'm not going to get exhaustive on this, but there's some things that you've got to remember. Okay. Number one, harmonutics basically is a harmony in which truth can be gleaned, and it's a legal saying as well as a theological saying.

Any literary saying, really, or any literary field, harmonutics basically is a set of rules in which to glean from the text that which the author intended, you have to focus on certain things.

First of all, to who is speaking and to whom are they speaking? What is the background of the text?

What is going on? Language, of course, means a lot, but one of the things in theology is if it violates your interpretation, if it violates a doctrine, then what you're reading is still correct, but your interpretation of it is wrong.

Once again, this is why we have so many denominations. We have just been reading, well, last night,

Hebrews 10, and we read John 14 a couple of days ago, and we've been in Ephesians 1.

We have just, from three different sources, just declared pretty emphatically that a believer is saved forever, that Christ died once and for all, that his sin is expitiated.

It is, a payment and atonement has been made, so yes, it is definitely easier to do this in person, but that's okay.

You have to put it with all these other doctrines. Well, one of the other key elements, and Char just said it, is context.

Okay, first of all, understand that these last chapters of John, remember about 50 % of John historically or chronologically is the last week of Jesus.

That's it. The first part of it was leading up to, but the entire last half of John is all taking place within one week, okay?

And so Jesus, as we know, he's sitting here and he's talking to the disciples, and he's telling them, and he's telling them about the other, he's telling them about the

Holy Spirit coming, and they're like, what? They do not get it. And then he talks about the triune nature of God, and then he says that the last part of 14, get up, let's leave this place.

And as they're walking along, I'm sure they were walking along, and there's a grapevine there.

They were all over the place, still are to this day, and Jesus goes, aha, teaching moment. I am the vine, and my father is the vineyard keeper.

Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, he removes and prunes every branch that produces fruit.

First thing you need to realize is this, God is paying attention to everything.

Whether you're producing fruit or not producing fruit, you are being pruned by God. Can you say sanctification?

Because that is what we're talking about here, is those that even do produce fruit are still being pruned.

God is at work in them, okay? Now look at verse three. Everybody just look at verse three, just for a second.

You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

What? What does that mean? I'm totally lost.

What's that mean? Well, Jesus is once again taking in hermeneutical context to whom he is speaking, he is talking to his disciples, and he's telling them, that's what

I was trying to say, John says something similar in Matthew 3 .10.

John says, John says something similar in Matthew 3 .10. Well, let's run over to Matthew 3 .10,

since Brother Jonathan is a theologian of extraordinary nature, let us look.

Matthew 3 .10, let's see. Even now the axe is ready to strike the root of the trees, therefore every tree that doesn't produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

So John the Baptist is saying the same thing. Wow. Wow. Continuity in Scripture.

Absolutely. Good job, Brother Jonathan. So one of the things that these folks are struggling with, and the great majority of people were struggling with, was who is the identity of Christ, and was

Christ linked to Israel, or was Christ linked to something else?

And one of the things that had to be driven home is, is the exclusivity of God can only be found no longer in sacrifices or religion or whatever else, that the only way, and that's what he said in John 14, the only way to find

God was through Jesus Christ. Now, those that are already clean from the

Word receive that Word, and if you keep going here it says, remain in me. To remain means you have been placed.

Remember that positional idea that we've been talking about. Now the disciples, were they still clueless about 800 different things?

Absolutely. You know, Peter at one point said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, and three sentences later

Jesus looked at him and said, get thee behind me, Satan. Because Peter had the arrogance to actually take

Jesus to task. So, he says, remain in me, and I in you, just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself, it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him, produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.

If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch, and he withers. Have you ever thought about this?

When you read about the seven churches of Revelation, those churches in whom Jesus specifically addressed by name, the

Church of Evidence, and Pergamos, and all those other churches, can I ask you a question? Where are those churches today?

They don't exist. At all. None of them. They don't exist. The Church of Jerusalem does not exist.

The Church of Rome, sorry Catholics, does not exist, right? In other words, those local identities no longer exist.

Now, if you look at some of those churches in Revelation, you know, it says you are doing great things.

Jesus was like, man, I'm so proud of you, but you've done this. You have left your first love.

Several times over my life as a pastor, I've been asked to come to certain churches and sit down with a pastor and kind of explain to him maybe what is some of the things he could do or the church could do as a whole to kind of revive the church.

And it's amazing. I went to one church. I've shared this with my church people.

I went to one church, and they had water fountains. Now, this church back in the 70s, they were running probably about 800, 900 in Sunday school, okay?

They were just blowing and going, and that area of town was definitely the upper middle class area or middle class area of that city at the time, and man, they were just going gangbusters.

I mean, absolutely gangbusters. Well, this was about six, seven years ago, and now they're running maybe on a good

Sunday, 50, and all of those 50 people are over the age of 70.

And it's amazing that they had this building, or actually it was a complex.

They had a three -story Sunday school building. They had gymnasiums, sanctuary, chapel, administrative offices.

They had everything you could think of plus one, and it was 40 people in this little building, in this huge, massive sanctuary, and there was 40 people there, kind of sad.

So one time, as we were talking to these folks, I was just walking around, and I was walking down the hall, and they had a water fountain system, and one of the water fountains was about three feet high, and the other one was about five feet high, or probably lower, but you understand, one was for kids, one was for adults.

And so I just happened, you know, I just, being Jeff, I'm just fiddling and pushing, and the lower one didn't work, and I asked the guys, like,

I guess you don't have many hobbits or children running around here, this one doesn't work, and this is what he said, oh, that one hadn't worked in 30 years.

We never used it, so there was no need to even fix it. Now, this is the same church that the front doors to the sanctuary had, the wood had swollen, and the doors would not open, and they said, well, we don't use those doors, so we never saw the need to fix them.

Now, let me explain to you their financial situation. They had, I think at the time, around $2 .2

million in the bank. Their property was probably worth anywhere from, and I could be getting these numbers wrong, but $7 to $10 million, okay?

They were doing great financially, right? Their pastor was a good guy, he was a very good guy, but he was there basically to hold little old ladies' hands and help them into the grave.

He preached, and it was usually a very good three -point sermon on the blood of Jesus or Calvary or something like that.

As I talked to them and I listened, they always had a reason for what they did, but what they were concerned about was getting young people in.

That was their goal, is to get young people in the church. And I asked him,

I was like, brother, are y 'all producing any fruit? And this is what he said to me, well, we don't have any visitors.

In other words, in his mentality, y 'all listening to this? In his mentality, producing fruit meant bringing people through the door.

Church, let me tell you something, okay? If you got five people in the room and none of them are visitors, yet there's still no fruit being produced, something's wrong.

It's not new people coming in the door that produces fruit. Your spiritual life, where are you?

The church is not made up of new converts. The church is made up of who it is right now.

New converts are tomorrow. You're sitting there looking at the end result and the causality of where you're at is an unrepentant heart and a non -fruit producing church, and you want to sit there and go?

It's the neighborhood. Black people have moved in. And you know, when black people move in, the

Holy Spirit moves right on out, right? Come on, y 'all. Another two churches that we talked to said something like this.

This is what the chairman of the deacon said of one church. He said this, I don't care what

God's will. We had asked these two churches, or actually I didn't ask, but it had been suggested that one of these churches sell and the two churches merge and then use that money to hire a black pastor because the neighborhood was about 90 % black now.

Okay, I mean, personally, I think you preach the gospel. It don't matter where you are and what color you are.

Holy Spirit will produce fruit through you, but whatever. And this is what the chairman of the deacons of one of those churches said.

He said, I don't care what the will of God is. My mother grew up in this church.

My mother died in this church, and we will never merge with anyone. That was the chairman of the deacons.

Ichabod, listen to me. Listen to me. Bearing fruit is the responsibility of the church today.

Quit trying to go out and win the world for Jesus when you haven't even cleaned up your own mess, right?

Pastors, if you are looking at your church and you are measuring growth by how many people are coming in the doors, you are doing

God's people a serious disservice. The true measurement of maturity is found in the growth sanctification of the people that are already there.

And if you encourage your people where they are to grow, everything else takes care of itself.

Quit trying to be a TV preacher. Quit trying to keep up with First Baptist.

Quit trying to build yourself up based upon the number of chairs you fill.

See, let your people grow and mature. And by default, that maturity in the

Holy Spirit, they will bear fruit. Y 'all will bear fruit together. And growth will be an effect of that causality.

Guys, the fruit that's being talked about here is not walking out and telling people about Jesus.

That's an effect of obedience to Christ. Absolutely. But the effect has to come through, first of all, remaining in Christ and letting

Him be the central point. You know how many programs are out there? You know how many books are written for churches on how to be a great church in the millennium?

I actually write a book called How Evangelism Works. Evangelism is not a sentient being.

Evangelism does not work. That's not what the Holy Spirit works. God's people work.

Evangelism is not a living thing. You want to bear fruit? You want your church to grow?

Measure and change the paradigm in which you're seeing that growth. Has the person who is a four -year -old

Christian, are they still where they were at four years ago? If they are, you are failing as a leader in church.

You are failing to grow. It's the same thing as I hear from Christian parents all the time. Oh my gosh.

I raise my kids in church. I don't understand why they are atheist, dope -smoking, tree -hugging hippies now.

Because you weren't supposed to raise them in church. You were supposed to raise them in the Word of God. Why do we think we can take

God's Word and God's plan and come up with plan B and think it's going to work? There's only plan

A. That's the only plan there is. You remain in Christ and he will remain in you and you will produce much fruit.

Forget you qualifying what kind of fruit. You ain't a fruit inspector, okay? Quit trying to qualify

God's fruit, okay? Whoever God brings through that door, whether it be 40 old women or whether it be 5 ,000 people, measure the paradigm of you as a pastor by the spiritual growth that's happening in your flock.

Not so many people you don't even know their names or where they're at. All right. Verse 9.

Let's move on. Sorry. Hey. Oh man, I haven't been looking at the comments. Hey guys, everybody.

I'm sorry. I haven't been watching. Hey, there's Tim. Hey, there's Kaylee. I love Jazzy. All right, here we go.

Verse 9. As the father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love.

If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love just as I have kept my father's commands and remain in his love.

I have spoken these things to you so that your joy in you may be full and your joy may be...

Now, I just want to talk to Christians for a second. If you're a non -Christian, just hang on, okay?

Just hang on. And if you die before I finish this next sentence, sucks to be you. But for all of you that are

Christians, listen to me for a second. The reason some of your joy is gone, let me put it to you in Baptist vernacular.

Man, I remember when I got saved and all this and it was so awesome like this.

And then people will say, oh, well, yes, the honeymoon stage is over. What the heck is a honeymoon stage in Christianity?

What? I don't see that. That sounds like another one of those little milquetoast church made up things to explain away someone's reluctance to repent, okay?

You see, joy is a state of being, okay?

It's a state of being. It's not an emotion, okay? Happiness is an emotion. Joy is a state of being, all right?

So now, there's Miss Linda Johnson. Hey, Miss Linda. God, you always reminded me of the quintessential southern lady.

You always were. You're just a little itty -bitty sweet little southern lady. I don't know why, but that's what

I always thought. But anyways, the reason sometimes our joy seems to be fleeting, it's not because you haven't, you know, done your devotions, or you didn't pray the right prayer, or you need the

Holy Spirit to refill you again, or any of that other stuff, okay? That it's about obedience, all right?

Five kids I raised. I loved them, still do, with all my heart.

I was telling someone the other day, everybody says I'm supposed to love my grandchildren more than my kids.

It hadn't happened yet. I love my kids. I mean, my granddaughter, she's cute and everything.

And I do love her, but I still love my kids more. I would take Josiah over her any day of the week.

But maybe I'm weird. But anyways, loved them with all my heart. But here's one of the things

I did. I was consistent in that love.

And that consistency also meant putting them in time out, okay?

I ain't gonna lie. I whooped their rear ends, right? But it was never done out of vengeance or hate.

You see, I loved them, and I spanked them. And during that time, our relationship was not what it was prior to that.

But after they got a whippin', I always sat them down and talked to them and told them I loved them and gave them a hug, right?

And our relationship was restored. Guys, some of you have been being spanked by God.

And you feel like you need to do something else other than go back and do what he told you to do at first.

Remembering, once again, the church in Revelation. He says, hey, you want to repent from where you have fallen and go and do the works you did at first.

In other words, obey. I know this is difficult to preach about because it's so simplistic.

But that's because God knows we're sheep and he needs us to be simple. I'm telling you right now, obey.

It's just that simple. Obey. If you're one of those dorks out there that sits there and goes, well,

I can go on the lake and I can be close and intimate with God on the lake. I don't need to go to a church.

Well, a couple of things. Number one, you can't go to the church. The church is people's, okay?

You can be part of a church. But here's the second thing. Without accountability and someone in your life, you are going to go bonkers, okay?

You are going to be unstable. You have got to have accountability in your life.

You want your joy to be full? Obey. You're going to need help with obeying.

And that's what brothers and sisters in Christ are for. There's Wayne Thorne. So, guys, it's important that you obey.

And it's also important that you have people with you to help you obey.

All right, keep going. Now, listen to what it says. Verse, what is that?

13. No one has greater love than this, that when someone should lay down his life for his friends.

I'm a big, we have several of them on tonight. There's two police officers on here tonight.

And we have nurses and, you know, a fireman and all that stuff.

And I love you guys, you first responders, you police that are stormtroopers.

And just kidding. But I love you guys, okay? But I'm sorry, verse 13 is not written for your fallen memorials, okay?

Not that that's not great love, okay? I get it, it is. But you actually think, harmonetically,

Jesus is referring to police officers and firemen right here. No, it's just not. It's not.

You're going to have to grow up a little bit, okay? Guys, greater love hath no man that when he lay down his life for his friend.

In context, you are my friends if you do what I command you.

I'm going to give you a saying, it's called, Kilkishai Emotimo. It means this, look for an opportunity to die.

You know what I drove into my kids' heads growing up? Is that they had no value and worth except for that which they do and that which they were attached to.

I know that sounds weird in today's time, okay? But I taught them the greatest value you have is how you serve.

The greatest value in what you have is how you sacrifice, what you give. Not what you receive, not what you declare as yours, but that which you give away.

I remember my daughter, God bless her little heart, she and Josiah and Joshua and I were at an ice cream store.

I can't remember if it was Josiah or Joshua, but they were like three and four years old and I got them an ice cream cone and they're walking out of the store and we all get in the car and in the van there and Ashley gets in the front seat.

She's the girl, so she gets the front seat, that's just the way it is. She gets in the front seat and I look over and she doesn't have her ice cream.

I'm like, where's your ice cream, baby? And this is what she said, well the door hit Joshua's hand and knocked his ice cream out of his hand so I gave him mine so he wouldn't be sad.

So what did I do? Got out of the van, took her back in that ice cream store and bought her whatever she wanted.

Because she had learned the lesson out of love. She had learned the lesson to sacrifice, to love is the greatest aspect of identity that we as a family, i .e.

the church, can have. How does God tell us the world is going to know who we are?

Is it really going to be by our stupid signs holding up going, God hates fags? Really?

God hates hypocritical Pharisees, stiff -necked godless heathens too, you heretic.

Is it going to be because God says that we're against abortion? Man, they're really mad about abortion down there.

Woo, go church. No, that's not what it says. It says, God, the world is going to know that we are genuine

Christians when they see the love we have one for another.

Now, abortion's wrong, okay? Homosexuality's wrong, okay? I get that. But us being known for what we're against rather than what we're being known for, i .e.

God and each other, is so jacked up it's not even funny. No wonder the world calls us hypocrites, because we are.

We have mirror indictments and we look at the world and see our own filth and try to get mad at them to somehow assuage the guilt we have.

Listen to me. Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and love your plison, your fellow believer.

Some people want to say neighbor, like the guy next door. No, it means your fellow believer, the one who walks along with you as yourself.

And if you do that, you're doing good. You don't have 400 ,000 verses memorized, okay?

Learn them. You don't understand all the doctrines of Scripture, okay? Learn them. You're not doing everything you should be doing, okay?

Obey. But the height of that obedience must come in the love you have for God and the love you have for each other.

Listen to me. One of the things that fires me up, man, you talking about chapping my backside, is when

I see a group of people who call themselves Christians, and they're usually the ones, they're usually the ones that look like they're the holiness, but they start making fun of or they start ridiculing someone who is very low in the process of sanctification.

I'll give you a specific example. I had a, when

I came to Whitten, it was, it was in pretty rough shape, okay? It's a good church.

Has a few good people in it, but it was in rough shape. Well, the chairman of the deacons and the chairman of the pulpit committee, who is also a

Christian counselor and a deacon and a Sunday school teacher, about six months after I'd been there,

God had started moving in the lives of some people and some things had started to change. And this guy had shown up at the church and he was married to a

Filipino woman. So this guy says, uh, hey, brother,

Jeff, can we go to lunch? Now we preachers know that when you invite us to lunch, it ain't because you love us.

It's because you have something to get off your chest. Good with that. It's a free lunch. So you guys pay.

So I went, and this is what he told me. He said, pastor, I just love what's going on right now, but we got to be a good example to the world.

We can't have a mixed couples woman singing in the choir. A what?

A mixed couples woman, that little brown girl. She don't need to be singing in the choir.

That that's going against the word of God. It says, don't be unequally yoked. Now you have to understand at that moment, my head almost exploded.

Okay. And I wish I'll be honest with you. I wish I could tell you that I behaved in a very spiritually mature manner, but I got a little fired up to be honest with you.

Um, and it wasn't what he said. It was the manner in which he said it and the arrogance that came along with it.

Um, I saw with all of my eyes and heart, I saw a high priest

Pharisee sitting right in front of me and I lost my Jesus with him a little bit.

No, I didn't hit him or yell at him or anything, but I told him that wasn't going to happen. Okay.

And he said, well, I think we're going to have a problem. I said, well, tell you what, Sunday, there'll be two microphones on the pulpit.

You can have one and I can have one and we can have this discussion. That's the only way we're going to have this discussion.

Conversation's over. And next Sunday he left and he hadn't been back since. Now, why I say that is this.

When you claim to love Jesus and you hate, dislike, will not fellowship with a brother and sister in Christ because of their skin color, that's sin.

Just like the street walking whore, that's sin. You're gossiping, little hypocritical mouth.

That is just as much sin as any other sin. But even that's not the problem.

Here's the real problem. All right. You haven't borne fruit in so long, you can't even recognize the thorns that are covering your own soul and you have no joy.

Now, I'm not saying this to fuss at you. Well, yeah, I am. But I'm not saying this to be mean.

What I'm saying is to go back to right here. Listen to it. So that your joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

First John tells us, no man who hates his brother, no man who hates his brother can be a child of God.

If you say you love God and you hate your brother, you're a liar.

Those aren't my words. Those are God's words. Let that sink in for a second. If you say you're a child of God, but hate your brother in Christ, for whatever reason,

God calls you a liar. And that should send some chills down your soul.

It should. It should. Guys, if you remain in Christ, you have a new paradigm in which to see things.

Listen, look, this is a paradigm. Right now, I can see this big white thing right here, right?

But everything is a blur. I put these on. Oh, I can see it clear. My view changed.

Nothing changed in reality. The reality is God has a church family and it's not made up of white

Anglo -Saxon Protestants. It's just not. It's made up of those who have been regenerated and redeemed by the blood of the

Lamb. Our job as brothers and sisters in Christ is to love them.

It is the mark in which God said the world will know us. And if you lack joy in your life,

I'm telling you, please write this down. Write it on your bathroom mirror if you need to.

If you need the love and joy of Christ back in your life again, listen, repent, obey, and then serve something other than yourself.

You go serve something other than yourself, I promise you this, your joy will start to be revealed again.

Some of the most miserable people I've seen are people that sing in the choir and preach on the pulpit. They're just miserable.

They're miserable. Don't talk about ministry. Serve. Go scrub a bathroom floor.

Go take your hair and wipe the feet of somebody else. Go do something and debase yourself and lift somebody else up.

If your entire Christian experience is looking at, oh, this world's such a terrible place.

If that's all you can see, man, you've got to be miserable. But man, when you see the love and power of God moving through the lives of so many people, man, you start serving that, your whole paradigm will change.

All right, I gotta hurry. All right, watch this. You are my friends if you do what I command.

I do not call you slaves anymore. Now, hear this again. I don't call you slaves anymore because a slave doesn't know what his master is doing.

I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my father.

You did not choose me. Remember our study. You did not choose me, but I chose you.

I appointed you that you should go out and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain so that whatever you ask in my father's name, he will give you.

This is what I command you. Love one another. After everything in 14 chapters or 15 chapters, he boils it all down to this.

Three words. After all this, after I've taught you everything for three and a half years, get ready.

This is my command. Love one another. That's it. Love one another.

Going out and winning the world for Jesus, that will be an effect of the causality of your love.

Obeying God will be an effect of the causality of you loving God. Everything will roll back to the power in which you can do certain things will be how you love

God, and that will by default cause you to love your brothers and sisters in Christ, which will cause your joy and everything else to be full.

All right. I'm going to stop here at verse 18. I will decrease so God will increase.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Listen, if some of you, whatever church you go to,

I don't care what it is. I don't care if it's a mega church, small church, medium church, whatever it is, find a ministry.

First, talk to your pastor. Give him a shot. Okay. Talk to your pastor and say, hey, look, man,

I want to get. I want to get in the game here. If you ever played football and sat on the sidelines, you know, you had your helmet on sitting right by the coach because you wanted to go in.

Right. A good pastor wants guys to go in the game. All right.

So go and talk to him. Figure out what you do well. Every one of you does something well.

Okay. You have gift skills and talents. Okay. Gifts from the Holy Spirit, skills from life, talents from the abilities

God gave you. Okay. Take those to the pastor and sit there and go, hey, man, I want to get in the game, man.

I need an infusion here. I need to get in there, strap that bonnet on, and I need to crack a few heads.

What can I do in this place? Now, I understand because I have people ask me this all the time.

Well, you know, my pastor, you know, he wants me to sing in the choir, man. And okay, go sing in the choir.

Go back to him and say, now what? Go back to him and say, now what? Now what? Now what?

Now what? And every time, I don't remember who said this.

If I'm not mistaken, I think it was Kurt Cobain that said, if you're faithful in the little things,

God will make you faithful. Oh, no, that was Jesus in one of his parables. Guys, if you stay faithful, here's what pastors hate.

Oh, I'll do that. I remember this one guy in church, we were getting this grass cutting bid, and he was like, well,

I don't think we should pay that much money. I don't think we should pay people to cut the grass. We should volunteer to do it.

I was like, all right, put a volunteer list together. Oh, well, I wasn't talking about me.

Right. Shut up and go sit down. Guys, be that person, okay? Be that person.

Be the guy who's going to stand in the gap and says, hey, coach, put me in. I'm ready to play. If you still can't find things to do, okay?

If you still can't find things to do, find a ministry somewhere that is working and go work.

Don't have visions of going to Vietnam. I had a young man tell me one day, God called him to go to Vietnam to be a secret trained missionary.

You're watching too much James Bond, dude. Go mop floors. Go scrub toilets. Go wash the feet of his servants, okay?

Be faithful in the little things, then God will make you faithful in the big things, okay? Start out and start seeing, starting to see a few nurses getting pretty stressed in the current work environment.

Please say a prayer, family. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely pray for those folks, man.

Golly. But guys, find a place to serve, okay?

If you're in Memphis, Tennessee and you can't find a place to serve, I'll find you a place.

I guarantee I'll find you a place. So, man, don't come up with excuses, man.

Come up with solutions. I used to tell my kids all the time, I'd yell at them, hey, get me a 916 wrench and they go scrambling around.

I never let them come back and tell me, well, dad, I couldn't find it. That's not an excuse. Find one, steal one, make one, whatever it takes, bring me a 916 wrench.

I don't care. I don't want to hear excuses. I want a wrench, right? Same thing with us as Christians, man.

Let's not come up with excuses. If someone hurt your feelings a long time ago and you haven't gone into ministry, take the pacifier out of your mouth, pull your britches up, and let's go to work, okay?

Because you've been whining long enough, all right? The church needs to change. And this is a great opportunity for us as God's people to show the love of Christ, to do a little maturing on our own self, stop blaming everything else, the government and everyone else.

Let's take personal responsibility for who we are, and let's humble ourselves before Almighty God, and he will lift us up in due time.

Well, guys, I have not been watching. I don't think there's anyone.

I'm sure I haven't said hi to everyone here. But guys, it is a great day to be alive, to be alive in Jesus.

2 Corinthians 6 doesn't even hint at race. Nope, it does not. There's Diane McCasland.

Hey, sweetheart. There's Linda. Hey, Lisa. There's Lisa, Lisa, and Lisa. Hey, Lisa.

Tina Pennington. Hey, sweetheart. And there's Brother John. And man, there's so many of my friends here.

And Stanley, how are you doing, man? I love you so much. We went down to New Orleans after, what was the hurricane called?

Whatever it was, and helped his church out. I can't remember the name of that hurricane now.

But anyways. So, man, it's good to see you, brother. It really is.

Well, guys, I love you. I've taken enough of you. Hey, Mark, how are you doing, Mark? And there's

Kenny. Oh, man. Katrina, that was it.

Yep, Katrina. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Whitten went down there and rebuilt a church, the interior of it.

Because, you know, it flooded and everything. Hey, Rena. Hey, Rena. I love you.

I miss you so much, Rena. Y 'all say hi to Rena. Rena today is 119 years old.

I can't remember. But she and Moses were in the same yearbook.

Hey, Rena. Yeah, Katrina, that was it. All right. Well, I love y 'all so, so much.

And tomorrow, we're going to be answering one of those doctrinal questions that we talked about earlier.

Someone was asking, you're using all these words. I don't understand them. So tomorrow, we're going to be in John chapter 5.

John chapter 5. And we're going to talk about justification, sanctification, and glorification.

Those are some of the basic tenets of soteriology or salvation. And remember, guys, it's really important.

It's really, really important. Make sure you understand that all things work together, okay?

God has done so much in our salvation.

It's so much more than just forgiveness, man. We're more than slaves.

We're more than brothers, man. We are joint heirs with Christ. No, she's not that old.

She's really not 119. She's 47. Revelation 21 .8

might be a verse you look up tonight, Sue. Revelation 21 .8. All right.

I love y 'all so, so much. And I will see you tomorrow night at 7 .30.

It's going to be good tomorrow. If you have someone struggling with their salvation or if you have someone struggling with their sanctification, tomorrow night at 7 .30

central time, we will be back. I love y 'all so much. God bless you.