 Alright, amen, amen. Hebrews 10, a very good chapter in the Bible, a very good book in the Bible, the book of Hebrews. I want to kind of do a brief overview of Hebrews chapter 10 and dig more into the second half of the chapter is kind of what I want to focus on, but a great chapter really talks about the comparing and contrasting the Old Testament and the sacrifices, being a picture of Christ and the differences there even ties into eternal security there at the end, right? There's not of those that draw back into precession, but of those that believe to the saving of the soul. So great chapter, great chapter to dig in. You know, he talks about the church and that's kind of what we're going to talk about tonight. Let's open with a word of prayer though too. Lord, thank you for this opportunity to preach. Lord, thank you for this church. Just be with Pastor Lord, be with Brother Jared as well and the family as they drive back and forth. Be with this message Lord, fill in with your spirit. Just help us to learn something here tonight, Lord. Your name is praying, amen. Amen. Okay, so again, chapter 10. Now, specifically we'll focus, we'll talk on verse 25, we'll just kind of start off there. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day approaching, right? Talking about church. Okay, so why is church so important in the Bible? Why, what is the method that God uses for church for our own lives, for our spiritual growth as Christians, as believers, right? We'll dig into that. That's kind of the purpose of the sermon and to apply that to our lives. And so I know we're all here at church and we understand it to some degree, but hopefully we can all learn something from it and dig into it deeper. So the title of the sermon, don't let it throw you off, but the title of the sermon is cows don't make milk. Okay, cows don't make milk. And it'll make sense by the end of it, don't call me a heretic yet, but just stick with me, it'll make sense. So cows don't make milk, keep that in mind. Hebrews 10, look down at verse 19, we'll start there and kind of dig through this and tease it out and go to a couple other places. We're going to stay mainly in Hebrews, but we'll flip around a little bit. So verse 19, having their forebrother in boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh, right? So this is talking about Christ. His flesh represented the veil of the Old Testament, the thing that separated the holiest of the holiest, right? And when he was died on the cross, that veil was rent and twain. It's symbolizing now we have access freely through Christ. We can come to him directly, right? We don't have to offer the sins or offer the offerings to pay for those sins to consecrate the priests that would go in there every so often. It's open to us. The veil was rent and twain at his death. Verse 21, and having a high priest over the house of God, right? High priest, the high priest, Christ. Christ is the head of the church, the house of God, right? The head of the church. For there is one mediator between God and man, talking about the man Christ Jesus. We have direct access. We can go to him directly. Look at verse 22, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. That kind of sounds like something. Let's see if it's talking about salvation. Having our heart sprinkled past tense from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. The writer of the church, I believe is Paul, the writer of Hebrews, excuse me, is talking to save people, full assurance, right? Assurance of salvation, eternal security. These are themes that kind of pop up in this verse 22. And so this message also is tied towards save people, post-salvation, what we should do after we get saved, right? Verse 23, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful that promised and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another in so much the more as you see the day approaching. Okay, this is definitely specifically talking about the coming together, right? The church, the assembly. In the Bible, the church is not a building. It is not a location. It is the gathering together. It's us all together here tonight. That's the church. This building, this building can be damaged, whatever. The church is us gathered together, right? Why church? What does God desire us to get out of church? Well, verse 24 says, let us consider one another, right? We're supposed to esteem each other in high regard. We're supposed to have feelings of compassion, brotherly feelings, sisterly feelings, right? Brothers and sisters in Christ. Keep them in mind. Think of them. Also provoking unto love and good works. It says there in verse 24, we're going to sharpen each other and kind of have that brotherly competition, right? To get better and to make each other grow stronger. But also to exhort one another, right? As it says in verse 25, exhorting, encouraging, sharpening, right? We have that a lot in our church life. We're talking with other brothers and sisters in Christ. We learn from people who have done it themselves, right? I'm 31 years old. I've been married seven years and I have two kids, but there's plenty of people here that have more kids than me, that have been married longer than me, that are older than me, that have more life experiences than me, right? We're on this continual spectrum inside the church of life experiences of spirituality and growth and levels of knowledge of the Bible, right? So we can always learn from others and we can talk with others. We were talking about health insurance the other day. We were talking about different things, right? It's not just spiritual things, although that's a huge important factor. It's life advice from a place of security where you know you're amongst like-minded individuals, right? That's a good purpose for the church. Now, I kind of want to apply this to something I see in my life in the business, right? Okay, keep in mind cows don't make milk. This is the title of the service. How does this apply in, right? We'll get to that. But I'm a dairyman, right? We milk cows and oftentimes it's a very competitive industry. So prices are margins are tied and prices are high for expenses and different things like that, right? It's very competitive. There's different regulations and things that have to be complied with. So how do we stay competitive? How does anybody in any industry? So, you know, whether it's coffee or whatever your job is, your labor is, how do you stay competitive in that, right? Maybe you're a homeschool mom or raising kids. How do you make sure that your kids are staying competitive and continually learning and continuing to push them? Well, as a dairyman, one thing, a couple things that we do, one thing we read in publications, magazines, different things, right? There's trade shows and sales people that have products that they want to try and help your herd do better and improve your herd and they think they can do that. So we talk to them and get ideas from them. Another thing we do is we'll look at studies. There's a lot of peer-reviewed journals out there that they do a study. They analyze a group of cows, fed a certain way, and they compare it to another group that's fed a little bit differently and they see what the differences are or whatever. I mean, anything you can think of with cows, they've studied it. It's kind of, it's a lot more information than a lot of people think, but those are options out there and they do provide good information, right? Another way that we do is by talking to other farmers, other neighbors, dairymen, hey, what did you do that worked for you? What did you do that didn't work for you? Hey, I tried this, it worked out great, right? I didn't, this didn't work at all. Don't do that, right? This is a way that we can grow and we can learn from others' experience and failures and this also kind of applies to our church life, right? We were just talking. We can learn from people's, how they've had successes raising their kids, correcting their kids in marriage, right? In finance and business and their spiritual life growing and these types of things. At the end of the day though, like in the dairy side of things, trying to pick and choose what we're learning from, right? We're trying to pick and choose all the neighbor did good here. I think I'll try that. Oh, this article kind of applies to my situation. I think I'll try that, but not always is it a perfect fit, right? It's not always our situation. It can be close to ours, but it's not our specific situation, right? So oftentimes when that, you know, we can pick and choose from the information that we're given, the neighbors, what they think. Same in our church and our Christian life. We can pick and choose from, oh, so-and-so did this and it worked for them and so-and-so is doing this and it's working good for them. But sometimes it leaves us wanting, right? Sometimes it leaves us a little bit short. There's a lot of variables to look from on the dairy side, right? There's a lot of variables to look from on the spiritual side too, right? In the Christian life. An example of this in the Christian life, maybe you're going to a liberal church. If somebody's, you know, when you just get saved and you're going to church and you find a church down the street and you're going to that church and it's got some truth in it and it's got some other stuff that's, you know, questionable, right? And you're having a hard time discerning it, right? You're a babe in Christ. You're learning. You're growing and you're trying to discern and maybe you're reading your Bible and maybe you're praying that God would open your eyes. But sometimes you need a little bit more to really get you going, right? This is the purpose of the church, right? It's to help kind of a push in the right direction, especially a good solid church. It's preaching the right Bible that's got the right doctrines on salvation, right? This is why we need to be involved in a good church, okay? Trying to do the Christian life solo, it can leave us wanting, right? Man, what does that verse mean? I have no idea what it's talking about. You might not get that answer unless you're in a good church and ask somebody, hey, what do you think that, you know, what does this mean? You could look at all the commentary Bibles. You're going to end up with the Scorpi Bible and the, you know, they're going to lead you astray. Some of that might be okay in there, but a lot of it's trash, right? You know, you got to be careful with that. That's why it's important to be in a good church. Now, why, another reason, sorry, that it only gets us so far, right? We have to deal with certain things, right? We have the temptation to sin. If we're out on our own trying to do the Christian life by ourselves, if we're not plugged into a good church and we're going to some lame church that's not really surrounding us with people that are like-minded, there's a temptation to sin, right? There's competition for our time. Sunday's a long day. We come to service three times a week. If we go soul-winning, you know, it's a busy part of our lives. There's a lot of things that compete for that time, right? And people, especially if they're not plugged into a good church, it can be a drag on them. There's a tendency to be apathetic in those things, right? Matthew 26 says, The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak, okay? That's the struggle that we have to deal with. So the point I want to try and make, all that to kind of introduce, look, we can benefit from spiritual guidance. We can benefit from being in a good church. Obviously, we're all here tonight. We're all in a good church. But let's tease this out and see if we can't learn some more things. Apply it to our lives as well. So if you're there in Hebrews, right, we just got done verse 25. Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 25, Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as a manner of some is, but exhorting one another in so much the more as you see the day approaching. Why is this important? Look at verse 26. For if we sin willfully, right, he just got done talking about being in church, not forsaking the assembling. Then he goes on to say, If we sin willfully, they're kind of tied together, right? We know we ought to be in church. If we sin willfully, if we're not going to church, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, right? We've been saved. We know better. They remain at no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. Doesn't sound very good, right? It's kind of, kind of, turn if you would to Luke chapter 12. Luke chapter 12. We were there a couple of weeks ago and we'll just kind of touch back to that. Matthew, Mark, Luke chapter 12. And look down if you would at verse 47. Okay? Hebrews is talking about if we sin willfully. We're going to be looking for that judgment, looking for that fiery indignation. Luke 12, 47 echoes that. And that servant, which knew his Lord's will and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. Okay? This guy's getting the hammers coming down on him, right? He knew what he ought to do. He did not do it. He's going to be beaten with many stripes. Verse 48 tells us another guy, but he that knew not and did commit things worthy of stripes, okay? He didn't know. He did him out of ignorance, but he still messed up. He still sinned, right? Shall be beaten with few stripes. Okay? So he's still getting the hammer, but it's going to be few, few stripes, right? So we have a guy that's getting beaten with many stripes and a guy that's getting beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given of him shall much be required, and to whom men have committed much of him, they will ask them more, right? The reason that we can benefit from spiritual guidance is because God's chastisement is real, right? If we know what to do and we're not doing it, we're going to be beaten severely, right? If we don't know what we ought to do and we still mess up, we're still going to be beaten with few stripes, the Bible says. Is there a third option, right? Many is worse than few, but is there a better option than few being beaten few times? Turn a few wood to Hebrews 11. Turn a few wood to Hebrews 11, right? Because there's many examples in the Bible of people that have experienced the chastisement of God, right? Even some of the great ones, David, King David, Solomon, like all these examples, Samson, you know, a lot of examples of chastisement in the Bible. But let's look at somebody who did it right. Hebrews 11, please look down at verse 24. By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. He made a choice. He made a choice to suffer affliction rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin. It was a distinct choice he made. Why did he do that? What motivated him to do that? Verse 26, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches, the reproach of Christ. Christ's work rebuking him and changing him and sharpening him, that was of greater riches. That probably hurt a little bit, right? He had to change things. He had to get things right in his life. That reproach of Christ, it took some time, but he viewed that as greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. For he had respect unto the recompense of the reward, right? The consequences of the reward for that choice that he made, the recompense, the results of that reward. Verse 27, by faith, he pursued Egypt, right? Faith, a key point like Brother Garrett said this morning, right? Faith plays a huge role in this. Not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. As seeing him who's invisible. Flip over a page to Hebrews 12. This is how Moses was able to get it right, right? You had the guy that got many stripes. He knew what to do and didn't do it. You got the guy that got few stripes. And then Moses here, he actually did it right. He chose, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, and endured as seeing him who's invisible. So how did he do this? He was seeing him who's invisible. Who is that? Hebrews 12.1, wherefore, seeing we are also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin would just so easily beset us, right? This is what Moses did, right? He forsook the sin, had no respect to that sin, which so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, right? This is what Moses did. He was doing it as seeing him who's invisible, right? He was looking unto Christ to motivate him to keep him on the straight and narrow path, okay? So how can we improve? How can we do what Moses did so that we aren't beaten with many stripes? We aren't beaten with few stripes. So we get by with the least stripes possible, right? We get by and we know what God wants us to do, and we implement that, we do that. How can we do that? This is the purpose of a spiritual leader, specifically the church, the leader of the church, right? Obviously Christ is the head of the church, right? He is the groom, we are the bride, the church is the bride of Christ, right? But he is the ultimate leader of the church. The King James Bible is going to dictate what this church believes doctrinally. That's it. There's a spiritual leadership in place under that, right? Pastor Jimenez as the satellite church. We're under his authority. Brother Jared, he's the direct head of this church, right? Above us. That's what the role of these spiritual leaders is in our lives. So back to the dairy example, right? We talked to other dairymen to stay competitive, to stay relevant, to stay up to date on new ideas, new technologies. But again, it sometimes leaves us wanting, right? There's a lot of things going on. It's hard to know everything, right? It's hard to cover all your bases. So sometimes you need to implement professional help, right? Taxes are a great example, right? Who can figure out their own taxes, right? Everybody has to hire some kind of accountant or turbo tax or something like that, right? Because it's so complicated that you could literally hang yourself trying to do your own taxes, right? But taxes or say somebody is trying to work out and getting better shape, they might employ a personal trainer, right? Or something like this, or a team that's trying to get better, they're going to have a coach. Somebody that's an Olympic athlete, right? They're going to have a coach. One person that we hire as a dairyman, or we employ as a dairyman, is a nutritionist, okay? And so they take where we are, right? They see where we're at. They get to know our operation and what we do. And then they, you know, based on all the feed we have on hand and what our goals are and what our opportunities are, they help us feed the cows and as well as feeding the cows, they help us do other operations in the dairy more efficiently. Oh yeah, hey, this worked better at this place. They're kind of a professional advisor to help us be the most efficient we can, right? They custom tailor a ration for every single animal on our place from the day she's born until the day she leaves. Through every stage of lactation, they balance the proteins, the amino acids are even balanced, the fats, the fiber, vitamins, minerals, everything, right? It's a great help. It's a great value to us. We see things that we'd otherwise miss, right? And it's a great way that we can benefit and reach our goals and even have goals that we didn't know we needed to have, okay? They help us hold us accountable. You know, we set a goal and we make sure that we're reaching that goal in a lot of time. That's how our professional help helps us, at least on the dairy. How can we relate that to, say, our pastor or our leader, our spiritual leaders, right? It's very similar, right? They custom tailor exactly what we need, right? And this is a huge benefit of being at a small church or at a church where you can get to actually know the preacher, okay? They start with us where we're at. They get to know us personally, right? A lot of the times they point out our deficiencies and I tease my wife about this because it's like, you know, last Sunday, we're driving back, man, I think the brother Jared's got a microphone in our car because it seems like every week it's something we need to hear, you know? I'm sure you all have the same thing. It's so applicable. He sees what we're going through and he can relate it to us specifically. He can preach on it, right? Where am I at here? Excuse me. So they see and they give us key messages, just tailored for us. Proverbs 27 says, iron sharpeneth iron. Verse 17, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend, right? This is what they're doing. They're grinding off the imperfections of us and filing that away to make us sharp, to make us what we need to be, to teach us what we need to know, right? Turn, if you would, to Hebrews chapter 5. One other thing that the nutritionist does for us at the dairy is he teaches us. He teaches us what we need to know. Hey, say this food product, it's a cheap product, but it's kind of high in fats and it's going to cause a depressed milk fat production and you're heard, you know, you shouldn't feed it. You should feed this instead. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know how that works, right? Well, the spiritual leader does the same thing. He helps teach us, right? Verse 12, for when 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 strong meat. Oftentimes, when I first got saved, I know for sure, you know, super zealous into the things, I'm watching all these documentaries and just taking all this stuff in and my wife thought I was probably losing my mind and everything else, right? The only curve is that the steep slope, but you only get so far, right? And you don't necessarily get the things that are designed for you and the knowledge puffs up and you think you know more than you know and then you go out and you realize, wow, I know like this much and I thought it was this much and then you have to learn more. Oftentimes, when we first get saved or we first start listening to hard preaching or we first start getting interested in the Bible and what the Bible says about our lives and how we ought to behave ourselves, we feel like we know a lot, but sometimes that's a puffed up knowledge, sometimes that's pride. That's what Hebrews 5-12 is talking about. We thought we knew a lot, but we still had need to be taught. We still had a lot to learn, right? Verse 13, for everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe, but strong meat belong to them that are of full age, talking about mature Christians, right? Maturity comes with age. Maturity as a Christian comes with learning more and more and actually being taught specifically how it will apply to your life. Romans 10-2, I'll just read it for you before I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge. A lot of times that's us when we first get saved, right? We're zealous, we're excited, you know, let me out, I want to go win souls and that's great and that's a great attitude but we need to learn more knowledge, right? And that's the purpose, one of the purposes of a spiritual leader or a spiritual maybe nutritionist, we can say. Another role that they play so our nutritionist at the dairy, right? He helps us set goals, he helps us benchmark. Hey, if we implement this strategy we can be maybe two pounds higher production in two years. Hey, that's a measurable goal, let's try and attain that, let's implement that, we can measure it along the way, we'll shoot for that goal. Also with the spiritual leader, right? They can help us implement goals. Recently we had a sermon series on finances, right? If we implement those things we could be living without consumer debt in our life. We could be having a decent savings, we could have a little bit of a cushion, right? We could live frugally within our means if we implement those things. Daily Bible reading is preached on, prayer time is preached on, these things all play into a role that, look, we can reach these goals and we can do those goals. They can set goals for us. When we first got saved, like, I didn't know that the Bible said specifically about alcohol. The pastor can point that out to us, right? He can say, hey, look, the Bible actually says this. We can read the Bible, right? Like those in Thessalonica, we can see whether those things be so. We can apply that to our lives and say, wow, I didn't know that. We need to make a change, right? We can be goal-setting and react to those goals that the spiritual leader helps us to make, right? They keep us diligent. They're reminding us about things, right? We hear sermons repeated every so often on, say, dress standards, on separated lifestyles, on alcohol, on all these different things, right? To keep us vigilant, to keep us diligent in those things. There is great importance in this, okay? Go back to Hebrews 10. I'm sorry. Go to Hebrews 13, please. Go to Hebrews 13. Sorry about that. The reason they hold us accountable and help to do this and that in this way, Hebrews 13 verse 17 tells us the responsibility of the leadership. Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls. Okay, this is their charge as a spiritual leader, as a pastor, as a mentor in this capacity. They watch for our souls and they, as they, that must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief. For that is unprofitable to you. So when they're given an account when they're telling Christ how they've led this church or how they've led whatever church that they're leading, right? It says, let, you know, obey them that they may do it with joy. If we as people that hear the message, hear the preaching, if we obey them, if we follow these things, if we apply it to our lives, right? He's going to be able to do it with joy. Not with grief. So it's not with grief. For that is unprofitable for you, for the church member, for that is unprofitable for grief. Well, I tried my best and they just wouldn't listen and I did everything I could. I did everything I could, but they didn't get rid of that sin or they didn't come to church. They didn't make it a continuous habit, right? It's not unprofitable for that person that didn't apply it to their lives, that didn't listen to the preaching, right? So this is a good, important thing that we can learn from the spiritual leaders in our lives. Flip back to Hebrews 10. Again, why is this important? Why is it important that they help to hold us accountable, that we hear preaching like this, to cover these issues often? Well, again, Hebrews 10, verse 26, for if we sin willfully, after that we have received the knowledge of the truth. There remain no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. Then in verse 26 it says if we sin willfully, it just got done talking about being at church, right? So I do believe this is specifically talking about forsaking the assembling, but we could really insert any pet sin there, right? We could put in whatever the sin is, if it's lustful thoughts, if it's whatever the sin is, lying, maybe it's a dirty mouth, maybe it's, you know, whatever the pet sin is that we have, if we sin willfully, the Bible's talking about, look down at verse 8, 28, he that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. So verse 26 it says if we sin willfully, verse 28 equates that to he that despised Moses' law. Sinning willfully is despising the law. That's what the Bible's connecting there. Let's see what else it connects it with. Of how much sorrow punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God, Jesus Christ and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and hath done despot unto the spirit of grace. Despot is dictionary.com says insult, malice, contemptuous treatment, hatred. It's not a word we use commonly in this way, but it's talking about sinning willfully equated with despising Moses' law equating with trodding underfoot the Son of God. Any sin that we have that we know we're doing willfully I'm just going to hide it over here and I'm going to water it and I'm going to keep it. Nobody's going to know about it. God does not view that lightly. Whatever the sin is, right? In this case, it's talking about coming to church, but if the sin is alcohol, if the sin is drugs, if the sin is lying, if the sin is dress standard, whatever the sin is, right? God does not view it lightly if we're doing it willfully, okay? This is Jesus Christ, right? The man who has beaten, ripped his beard out, put on the cross and said, Father forgive them for they know not what they do, right? God is not going to take this lightly. Look at verse 30. For we know him that has said vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense sayeth the Lord, and again the Lord shall judge his people, right? That's the chastisement of the Lord, right? That's why it's important that we hear these things and some of these messages that we hear over and over and over because maybe we've made that change in our life, but maybe somebody else is still struggling with that change and they need that encouragement and that the resolve to make that change, make that, you know, get that sin out of their life or start doing this or stop doing that, whatever it is, right? That's why it's good to hear these sermons over and over and over. Verse 31, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Look, if our hearts aren't right, if we're sitting willfully, God's not going to take that lightly. He's going to come down on us. That hammer is going to be coming and we don't want to be in that position, right? Remember the three people? We had the guy that knew what to do and didn't do it. That's this guy right here that this verse is talking about. There's the guy that sin that didn't know, right? He's never known, but he's still sinning. He's still getting beaten with few stripes. And then there's Moses, you know, and the people that we can look to know what God says and to implement those changes, okay? So how can we get the biggest benefit from being in a church, being under good spiritual guidance? How can we get the most bang for our buck in this area, right? Number one, show up to church, right? You got to be here to be able to hear what the preaching is. Step two, apply the preaching, right? It's so easy to see maybe where we miss in areas and other people's lives. Somebody else has had some issue, you know, maybe it's somebody we know, a friend of ours outside of church or whatever, and we see that they're struggling with something. It's easy to see like, oh, that sin's really holding them back in that area. You know, we might not say that to them, but it's easy to see in other people's lives, but it's sometimes hard to see in our own lives. That's why it's important to be in a church where they're going to be preaching about things, and it's, oh, wow, I didn't think about that before. I better, you know, apply that. I better make that change. The best, tying it back to the dairy, right? The best nutrition advice, the nutrition is he makes this specific ration for our cows. You know, we have this many pounds of alfalfa, this many pounds of corn, this many, all the stuff, right? We have 10 or 15 ingredients in the ration. We make it, mix it nice before and on paper, it's great. But if the guy that we have that's mixing the ration just says, ah, I'm going to put all this other stuff in, well, then it doesn't matter, right? Are the nutrition that we hear, the preaching that we hear tailored for us only matters if we actually do it, right? It's useless if we don't do it. It's just in one year, not the other. So show up to church. Why do we show up to church so that we can hear the preaching and apply it to our lives so we can get to know people, right? And a small church like this has been a huge help for us and our family. I used to go to a liberal church that was like thousands of people and every day you sit down, you know, we were pretty faithful and every day we'd sit down and say hi to one person, hi to the other person and then the next week it's totally different people and you never see the same people, right? You never meet, you never get to know their names, you never know anybody. You can't, hey brother Frank, how's it going? Hey, how's everybody doing, right? That's a huge blessing to being at a small church, an intimate church, you know, versus a huge church. Number, step three, get involved. Show up to church so that you can get involved, right? Every week, twice a week, we have opportunities to go soul winning. We go out and knock doors, tell people about Christ, tell them that they can get saved, that it's a free gift. That's the number one purpose of the church is to get people saved, right? We need an army of soul winners that are going to go out and win souls, win Fresno, win Fresno County, maybe California, right? This is the dream and the goal of this church is to win souls. We can't do that if we don't show up to church, right? We can't do that if we don't get involved. The cost of failure is huge, right? We have soul winning times, we have preaching available, we have all these things that we can apply to our lives, specific mentorship that we can do, and the cost of failure is huge. You know, if we're saved, there's nothing that we can ever do to change that, right? We can't lose our salvation, but if that paddle is coming down from God and the chastisement is going to be hitting us, it might affect our lives, it might affect our kids' lives, our spouse's lives, right? There's nothing we can do to lose our salvation, but it can impact whether or not our kids get saved, or maybe our grandkids get saved, or what about the people that we would meet out knocking doors, like Brother Matt talked about yesterday? You know, if we're not in church, that's not going to happen, it's going to affect their future, right? So it's not, the cost of failure is very high, we need to appreciate that. So one, how to get the most from our spiritual guidance or nutritionist or preachers, come to church, apply the preaching, get to know people. Next thing is to take it seriously, right? Come as you are, amen, come as you are, you know, that was a big thing in the liberal church, just come as you are, you know, flip-flops and everything else, and like there's a place for that, right? You get saved, there's nothing you need to repent of to get saved, you just believe on Christ, that's it. But we should move, we should grow and mature as Christians, right? We should, you know, look appropriate, right? The hair lengths and the dress standards and different things, we should do those things, we should, you know, apply the preaching, we should move past that, we should not just stay the same that we came, right? Come as you are, but let's implement some changes as well. This is a big boy church, right? We're out there knocking doors, we're out there doing the works, right? Liberal churches there, it's like the freshman team versus the varsity team, right? The AAA ball versus major leagues, like, it's not to say that, you know, anybody's welcome to come, right? Anybody that gets saved and wants to get involved, whatever level of spirituality you're at, like anybody that's saved, come on to church and learn and we'll teach you and we'll grow from there, but this is a serious business, right? We're doing the works, we're out there knocking doors, we need to reach people, we need to take it seriously, right? Are you three to thrive or are you once a month, right? Are you a liberal, you know, do you go to a liberal church or do you go to a sold out church? Are you wearing flip flops or are you wearing formal attire, like, you know, there's a difference, we take it seriously here. Back to Hebrews 10, right? Sometimes we need to remember our past and remember where we've come from, right? The victories that we've had in the past, sometimes as we get saved and we start implementing preaching that we hear and we start making that slope upwards, sometimes it's easy to get a little stagnant, right? To plateau. How do we overcome that? Look down at verse 32, continuing on, right? It was a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God in verse 31. Hebrews 10, 32. So if we find ourselves in that place and we want to get most out of the preaching but call to remembrance the former days, right? If you're in a plateau, call to remembrance the former days in which after you were illuminated, after you understood, after you were saved, after you understood right from wrong, you endure the great fight of afflictions, right? You started implementing changes maybe in your life or in your family's life, maybe people noticed, maybe people started giving you a hard time about it. Why are you doing that? Why are you guys cutting your hair? Why are you guys not listening to this kind of music anymore? Partly verse 33, whilst you were made a gazing stock both by reproaches and afflictions, these people are looking at you funny now, they notice things, right? And partly whilst you became companions of them that were so used, became companions, maybe you started going to a good church like this, maybe you got involved with people that are trying to edify you spiritually, like we should, right? People are noticing these things. These people that you're becoming friends with are used mightily of God. Like this is right, we're all sharpening iron in this room. That's what we need to do if we find ourselves in those plateaus. Look at the victories we've overcome already and gain strength and continue that on. Let's not stay stagnant, let's continue on. Let's apply that spiritual teaching in our lives. So how else can you benefit from a spiritual guidance, right? A spiritual leader. Well, we can honor that spiritual leader. Turn with me to 1 Thessalonians 5. Right, again, this is something we need to take seriously. This is a big boy church, right? We want to make sure that we're edifying one another, that we're behind the pastor in his dream, in his goal, right? This church here is planted to reach the lost in Fresno and to edify and grow as Christians here in this church and to apply the biblical preaching to our lives. 1 Thessalonians 5 look at verse 12. And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you and are over you and the Lord, our spiritual leaders, and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in the love, in love, for their works' sake. And be at peace among yourselves, right? We're to esteem them highly, to have good respect for them, to hold them in high regard. Look, if we're not, sometimes you see that there's a lot of ambience and strife. Turn to 1 Corinthians, right? We don't want to be a Corinthian. We don't want to be one of the guys that's talked about here in 1 Corinthians 3. Get behind your pastor. And this isn't anybody here. This is more people that might be listening online or maybe it myself two years ago going to a different church. If you're not at a church where you can get behind your pastor and get on board with it, nobody's forcing you to stay there. Move to a church where you can get behind your pastor or just shut your mouth and go along with this program to quit causing strife and envying, right? 1 Corinthians 3, look down to verse 3. Paul's addressing this very issue in the church at Corinth. For a year yet, carnal. For whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are you not carnal and walk as men? For one say, I'm a Paul. And another, I'm of a Paulus. Are you not carnal? Look, they're dividing each other based on maybe who they're listening to or who they're I want to be of a Paul. I want to be of a Paulus. Well, they're at the church at Corinth. Are they not having respect under their leader at Corinth, right? Again, if we want to get the most out of our spiritual guidance, we need to honor the person guiding us, right? Carnal minded people, it's going to cause divisions in the church. The church isn't going to get anywhere, right? This is kind of like, again, when I got saved, right? We're listening to sermons online and we weren't really going to a church at the time but we're listening to multiple sermons a day and just like enveloping myself in this and learning what the Bible has to say about the things. But once we started going to Verdi Sac and then here you know, like if I'm out working at the dairy and I get hungry I don't go to McDonald's and pick up some food. My wife makes food at home for me, right? So I go eat at home and that's kind of like once we got plugged into a church here we get fed here at church, right? The desire to listen to other sermons isn't what it used to be. You know, we're being fed here specifically for what we need and that's a great way, right? Look at verse 5 and 1 Corinthians 3. This verse 5 where it talks about even as the Lord gave to every man these people are not satisfied with what they're being fed with at Corinth and so they're causing envy and strife. We need to get behind our spiritual leader or get behind somebody that we can support, right? If that's not at whatever church somebody's at. This verse 5 where it talks about even as the Lord gave to every man I do believe that's talking to the soul winner, right? That every lost person has somebody specifically that God put in place for them to be reached with that gospel, right? Not always does the soul winner go, not always is the other person receptive, but I do believe that's talking about that. But I also believe that that's talking about the pastor or the preacher in your life, right? I do believe that Brother Jared in this example at this church, right? The Buddha came here in Fresno and God led him through that to get here and we're all here and I do believe that match is correct, right? God put him here for us and he put us here for him we're going to bet a bit the most that match is correct, right? It's a good match. He's designed for this area. God ordained him for that. Even as the Lord gave to every man every person has a church that's going to be their fit and where we should be. So, find your fit. If you're out there listening or whatever and you're not satisfied with your church, find a church that you can get behind and a pastor that you can get behind. Again, these things are important, right? How can we get the most out of our spiritual leader? Last point I want to make here, it's up to us to make the change, right? Turn to Jonah chapter 2. It's up to us to make the change. Remember the title of the sermon, right? Cows don't make milk. We haven't talked about that at all, right? Cows don't make milk. I'm a dairyman, right? What are you thinking, Trevor? Are you out of your mind? Of course cows make milk. I've never had a cow my entire life come up to me and say, here, brother Trevor, here's a gallon of milk. I've made it for you. Cows don't make milk. You have to get up in the morning. You have to feed the cow. You have to cool the milk. Cows don't just give milk. They don't just make milk, right? Coffee beans don't grind themselves, right? Brother, you've got to grind the coffee, right? It's up to us to implement these changes where we go to church, right? There's the old saying, right? You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink, right? We need to implement these things ourselves. Jonah 2, this is kind of an interesting verse that I want to point out that kind of illustrates this point well. So, Jonah 2, the first verse, then Jonah prayed unto the Lord, his God out of the fish's belly, right? He's in the belly of the fish. He's lamenting his condition. He's going through and prophesying about Christ's death and going into hell. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains, verse 6, the earth with their bars was about me forever. Verse 9, I will sacrifice unto thee I have vowed salvation is of the Lord. He's kind of having this epiphany moment coming to recognizing the position that he's in and why he's there, right? If you look on the map, the Mediterranean, right? You have, like, Jonah was over here and God wanted him to go to Nineveh over here and he gets on a boat and goes like way over here. It's like the complete opposite direction where he went. And he's realizing this in the belly of the whale. Man, I should have listened. I'm not in a good spot now. He's recognizing his mistake, right? Look at verse 8. Verse 8 is kind of one that stands out. It's a little bit different in that chapter and to me it's the epiphany moment for Jonah. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy, right? It's easy to lie to ourselves. Lying vanities. What's the opposite of that? Truth, right? Truth that maybe hurts, right? Things that are hard to hear. Lying vanities or something that's selfish that sounds good that's a lie, right? It's easy to observe lies in ourselves, right? Well, I don't think he's talking about me in the sermon. You know, I don't know that God necessarily really feels that strongly about X sin or Y sin or Z sin, right? It's easy to lie to ourselves. Well, you know, nobody's going to miss me if I don't go to church. I'm kind of tired today, you know. It's easy to lie to ourselves. They that observe lying vanities Bible says, forsake their own mercy, right? We would have mercy, right? Remember the three guys? The guy that's beaten with many stripes, the guy that gets few, and then the guy that gets very, very, very few. Hardly any, right? Moses. You know, knows what to do and doesn't, didn't know, and the guy that knew and did it right. If we observe the lying vanities, if we lie to ourselves, we're that first guy that's getting a lot of stripes, right? We're forsaking our own mercy. If we listen to the truth, even sometimes when it hurts, and we implement that truth, we will have mercy. That's the flip side of that, right? So again, it's up to us to implement the changes in church that we hear that apply to our lives. So in conclusion, remember, cows don't make milk. It's up to us to implement these changes. Up to us to be in a good church. Souls do depend on it. Not our souls necessarily, if we're saved, right? If we're saved, nothing can change that. Maybe our kids' souls, maybe our grandkids' souls, maybe the souls of the people we'd reach, knocking doors. The future of Fresno depends on it, right? We need to be in church so we can consider one another, provoking and exhorting one another. The personal growth potential, especially to church like this, is unreal, right? Come as you are, let's learn the Bible together. You know, let's apply these things to our lives and let's grow as a church, and let's become an army of soul winners, right? Spiritual leadership gives us what we need, right? There are, nutrition is custom tailoring it to what we need in our lives specifically, right? That's this role of the church that I wanted to focus on in the sermon. Obviously, there's many roles, right? And the number one is getting other people saved, doing the first works. But in this area, right, spiritual nutrition tailored exactly for what we need has been a huge help in my life, you know, and I've noticed that growing here just in the last year and a half, right? So get involved if you're not, somebody's listening out there, you know, find a good church that you can get behind, get involved, make the changes in your life, right? Cows aren't going to make milk by themselves. You've got to go out there and implement those changes. We've got to recognize the value of the church leadership, and we must do the work ourselves, okay? Let's close in a word of prayer.