 Hey man, so keep your place there in John chapter two. We see a couple interesting stories in John chapter two, but we're gonna look at the story kind of in between right in the middle of the chapter. And this is a topic that I don't think I've actually ever preached on before tonight, but look down at John chapter two in verse number 13, which is interesting. You preach 150 sermons a year, you know, give or take and you do that for several years. Pretty much every topic will be covered, but I don't think I've specifically preached a sermon on this topic, so we're gonna look at it this evening. Look down at John chapter two and look at verse number 13. The Bible says, and the Jews Passover was at hand, so this is right after Jesus turned the water into wine, he just started his ministry and the Bible says, and after the Jews Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money sitting. And when he made a scourge of small cords, he drove them out of the temple and the sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers money and overthrew the tables. And said unto them that sold doves take these things, hence make not my father's house and house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. And if you have a bulletin in front of you, this is actually the verse of the week, this prophecy about what Jesus would do here in Psalm 69 verse number nine, where the Bible says the zeal of thine house has eaten me up. So this was a Jesus fulfilling prophecy when he actually turned over the tables of the money changers in the temple in this story. Now Jesus actually did this twice. So this is the first time that he did it in Jerusalem where he turned over the money changers tables in John chapter two, he also did it in Matthew later on in his ministry in Matthew chapter 21. So he did it twice in his ministry. And that's what we're gonna talk about tonight. And we're gonna talk about this idea of selling in church, this idea of selling merchandise in church. I'm thinking about opening up a coffee shop and maybe selling some cookies. So I wanna just preach and I'm just kidding. I'm gonna actually preach on why you should not sell in church and why that Jesus was so upset with this situation. First of all, before we get into the sermon, let me just point out here that this idea that we're told as Christians that you should never get angry is false, okay? Because look at turn to Ephesians chapter four. Let's just do an introductory point here. Turn to Ephesians chapter four that this idea that all anger is wrong, okay? That you should just never get angry ever no matter what, okay? Look, Jesus was without sin. Like he was tempted like we were but without sin the Bible says, Jesus did not sin. And are you gonna tell me that he sat down and he literally made a whip. He made a scourge of small cords. He made a whip. He went into the temple. He flipped over the tables and he dumped out the money and he literally whipped them out of the temple here. This kind of goes against this picture of Jesus that we're taught today that Jesus is like this long haired hippie sitting in a field, Indian style with his hands like this or whatever. Jesus was angry here. He was upset with this situation. You say, well, how could you be angry? How could you be angry? Isn't that bad? Isn't that wrong? Look at Ephesians chapter four and look at verse number 26. Before we even get into the topic tonight let's just address this issue. The Bible says, be ye angry and sin not. Right there that statement is saying that it's possible to be angry and not sin. It says be ye angry meaning ye talking to a group of people. So what he's saying in this statement he's saying, he's like, look, when you get angry, don't sin. Perfectly implying that there is a way to be angry without sin, okay? Let not, then he explains further. He says, let not the sun go down on your wrath. In Proverbs chapter 14 verse 29, I'll just read it for you. The Bible says, he that is slow to wrath is of great understanding. It doesn't say he that hath no wrath is of great understanding. It says he that is slow to wrath. So what the Bible says, like this is not the point of the sermon tonight, but what the Bible says about anger, about wrath, is look, if you read the Bible there's a lot of wrath in the Bible and most of it's coming from God, okay? But what God is saying is that if you wanna be angry, if you wanna have a righteous anger you can't be quick to anger, number one. So you can't be this person that just like somebody does something wrong to you and you're just like, you're angry right away. You can't just be this person that just like goes crazy on people immediately. This is like the road rage person, right? They're out driving and somebody like does, the light goes green and the person doesn't immediately speed off like it's a NASCAR race, they wait half a second and this person's like, on their horn, right? This is a person that's very quick to anger. They're very quick to wrath. They're just, you know, have you ever met that type of person that they just snap on people? They just kinda go crazy on people? Look, that's a sin. If you're quick to anger, that is not sinning not when you're angry, okay? So the Bible says two things. You should be slow to anger. You know, how do you be slow to anger? Well, what's the Bible say? You're supposed to be just full of mercy. You're supposed to be full of mercy to people. You're supposed to be granting forgiveness. You have a friend that just keeps messing up over and over. You're supposed to be granting mercy. You're supposed to forgive that friend. You're supposed to be, look, it's not saying you can never be angry. It's just saying be slow to anger. And then, and this is a good one for married people right here, he says in Ephesians chapter four, he's like, let not the sun go down upon your wrath. It's saying like, don't like, let your wrath, I mean, it's saying literally there, just get it taken care of that day. Don't let it fester in you. Don't let it fester inside you, because guess what? Then it turns into bitterness. Then it turns into all sorts of ugly things. So, be slow to anger. Be patient with people. Be long suffering. That's one of the qualifications for someone to go into the ministry to be a pastor, is you must be long suffering. You must not be this person that's just like, just snaps on people in a second. Be slow to anger and get it taken care of. And that's where the Bible gives us all these great processes to handle conflicts between brothers and sisters in Christ, Matthew 18, all these different things, two or three witnesses, all these specific processes so we can just get these things taken care of quickly. You shouldn't just stay angry at somebody, go behind their back and try to turn a bunch of people. Look, that's sinning. That is against what the Bible says. Be slow to anger, be merciful, be forgiving, and get it taken care of. Don't let anger just be a part of who you are. But, all that to say this, Jesus was angry here. Jesus was angry. He wasn't quick to anger. He literally sat down. I don't know how long it takes to make a whip. I've never really made a whip before, but he literally sat, he saw what was going on. He sat down, he made a whip, and then he literally drove these people out of the temple, flipped over the tables. I mean, are you gonna tell me that he was like, excuse me, excuse me, I have this whip here, could you get aside and just, can I turn this table over please? No, he was mad. He was flipping tables over. He was literally driving, it said he drove them out of the temple. It paints quite a picture. So all that to say this, many churches sell merchandise today. Jesus said, make not my father's house and house of merchandise in verse number 16. And his disciples remember the prophecy, but many churches sell merchandise today. They sell, I mean, they sell all kinds of things. You know, they sell coffee, they sell food, they sell DVD, CDs, is that still a thing? I think those are going away. They sell, you know, just think of the things, some of the things that we have around here. They sell shirts. They sell clothing with the church logos on it. I mean, you know, you say, why? Why is this? They sell meals, you know, maybe if there's an event for the church, the church will charge people to come to the event. I mean, look, those, I mean, what's wrong with that? You know, aren't those things expensive? I'm gonna show you what's wrong with that tonight and why we will do things and why we do do things different. Many churches have auctions. They'll have auctions where they'll sell all kinds of garbage or whatever, you know, things to raise money for the church. So why do they do it? That's the first thing. Let's look at why churches sell merchandise. Why do they do it? Turn to 2nd Peter chapter two. There's two main reasons. I'm gonna tell you why churches actually sell things in church. Okay, and then we're gonna look at what the Bible says and then I'll explain to you why we do things the way we do things. Look, we do everything the way the Bible says it. That's it. When you follow the Bible, when your life is the Bible, you're a Baptist. Look at 2nd Peter chapter two. Here's the first reason. Here's the first reason that churches sell merchandise. That churches sell things. They could sell books. They could sell media items. Look, many of the same things that we have. We hand out a lot of material here. We go out and we hand out DVDs to people that have DVD players. We hand out pamphlets with the Bible way to heaven. I mean, look, that stuff's not free. That stuff's not free. We're just giving all of that stuff away. There's, I remember Pastor Anderson, some other friends of mine used to make USB drives with all these sermons on them and they just go out and they just give these things away by the thousands. We go on mission trips. What do we do? We literally bring boxes and just as many suitcases as we can possibly fit on the airplane full of what? Just full of media, full of sermons, full of Bible way to heavens, full of all of these materials that we're bringing over to these different places that the mission trips are taking place. But none of them are sold ever. They're all given away, okay? So here's the first reason. So why do churches do it? Why do churches do it? Look at 2 Peter chapter two and look at verse number one. The Bible says, the first reason is this, they're false prophets. Okay, and here's what false prophets do. This is the first reason. I'm not saying they're all false prophets, people that sell in church, but one of the main reasons that people sell in church is because that's what false prophets do. Look at what the Bible says. But there were false prophets among the people. Even as there shall be false teachers among you who privilege shall bring indamnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them and shall bring upon themselves swift destruction. Okay, we get it. The Bible's saying there's gonna be false prophets. There's false prophets today. I would say probably the majority of churches even in our city here have a false gospel. You know, the Catholic church, Jehovah's Witnesses, all these different people have a false gospel. Look at verse number two. And many shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. Look at verse number three, though. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not and their damnation slumbereth not. The Bible here is saying that these false prophets, the main thing about them is their covetous. Their covetous, that's what, you know what that means? That means they love money, basically is what he's talking about here. He says they love money. This is the Joel Osteen right here. That he's literally making merchandise of people is what the Bible says. They'll make the merchandise of you. They're making merchandise of people, meaning they're after people to get money from them. This is the whole point of these false prophets. They exist to make money. If you ask yourself why in the world would some pastor who's preaching a false gospel who literally does not care what the Bible says, he's getting up, he's preaching things that they're clearly against what the Bible says. He's like, why would somebody like that do that? Well, one of the main reasons is money, that's why. This is the whole, you know, this church growth movement. It's just like we must fill the pews, we must fill the chairs at all costs. So we're gonna just not preach what the Bible says. We're not gonna preach anything that's offensive. Anything, look, the Bible, I mean, if you just pick a page in the Bible and read it, it's gonna offend people today. That's just the way to, I mean, you're not gonna fill a church by preaching the whole counsel of God, all right? Look, this is the goal of these people is to just like water down the word of God, pick and choose the word of God, claim that their own words are the word of God. Why? To get people to give them money. It's very simple. So the first reason for this, for this merchandising in church, these people are just false prophets. These people, I mean, they just make merchandise of everything. They're just thinking of something that they can make money off of, all right? You say, okay, well, what about churches? What about churches that preach the Bible that have the right gospel at least that are still selling in churches? Because we actually went to a church before we moved to California. We went to an old IFB church, had the gospel right, pastor was saved preaching the Bible, and they sold in church at times. There would be missionaries that would come in or music groups that would come in and they would set up a store in the back of the church and they would sell all their materials and they would all to the people in the church after church services. They would sell materials, they would sell shirts, all these different things. So here's the thing, like, what's the big deal? Right? What's the big deal? They're just raising money for a good church. In the best case scenario where the pastor's saved, he's preaching the Bible, what's the problem? They're just, they're raising money for the church so the church can do more things. So the church can spread the gospel, right? It's interesting that many churches that do this, even churches that have the right gospel are not soul winning as well. It's interesting those two things tend to go together. However, let's say you did have a soul winning church that was preaching the gospel and was doing these things. What's the problem? What's the problem? I'm gonna explain to you what the problem is. Turn to Joshua chapter six. I'm gonna explain to you what the problem is. Other than the fact that Jesus said, don't make my, you know, look, we can just read what Jesus said and just say, let's pray and let's start the grill up in barbecue, all right? Because Jesus said, don't make my house and house of merchandise. We can just say, hey, end of sermon. Let's go eat, all right? But look at Joshua chapter six. I wanna kinda explain a concept to you about God, about the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Joshua chapter six. Here we're seeing Jericho, all right? We're seeing Jericho, we're seeing the, you know, this is the first city that they invaded after they crossed the Jordan River, the children of Israel, and they were not allowed to take anything. They were not allowed to take, they were just destroy everything. You say the people know everything, all the spoil, all the cattle, all the livestock, everything. They were not to keep anything for themselves. Look at verse number 17 of Joshua chapter six. The Bible says in the city shall be accursed, even it and all that are in to the Lord. Only Rahab the harlot shall live. She's of course the one that helped the spies, if you remember that. She and all that are within her house because she hid the messengers that we sent. And ye in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing. What was the accursed thing? Anything, anything there. Unless you make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing and make the camp of Israel accursed and trouble it. But all that, now he explains what they're not to take. But all the silver and gold and vessels of brass and iron are concentrated under the Lord. They go into the Lord's treasury, okay? They shall come into the treasury of the Lord. So the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpets and it came to pass when the people heard the sound of the trumpet. And the people shouted with a great shout that the wall fell down flat so the people went up into the city. Every man strayed before him and they took the city. And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city. Both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and ass with the edge of the sword. They killed all the livestock. You're like, what sense does that make? Like couldn't they have used the, I mean, here they are coming into a new land. They're this, you know, there's this group of people that's probably hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people, just the army itself. I mean, couldn't they use some livestock? What's the problem here? Now turn to Joshua chapter eight. Now turn to Joshua chapter eight, just a couple chapters over. So in Joshua chapter seven, we find the story, they destroyed Jericho, they were to destroy everything, but there was one man, Akin, who kept some stuff. He kept some spoil for himself. Okay, in Joshua chapter seven tells the story about Akin, how he kept some things and God accursed Israel for it. And then they went to invade the next city of AI and they lost the battle. And they're like, what in the world? Like God said, he's gonna take care of us in these battles. And they go into this next city and they lose. And God tells them it's because somebody took of the spoil of the accursed thing. They find Akin, they deal with that problem. And then they go into AI. And of course, now that they've made things right, they continue their victories. Look at verse number two of Joshua chapter eight. But here's what's interesting. All that to say this, look at Joshua chapter eight and verse number two. And thou shalt do to AI and her king as thou did unto Jericho and her king. So he's saying, you're gonna invade AI just like you invaded Jericho. But here's the difference right here. Only the spoil thereof and the cattle thereof shall you take for a prey unto who? Unto yourselves. Lathian ambush for the city behind it. So think of this story for a second. They go into Jericho and they're not allowed to take anything. They're not allowed to keep anything. As a matter of fact, the spoil, the materials they give to the treasury of the Lord, but all the livestock there to just slaughter and just like literally just waste. As a person you would think that's wasting that. You could think that it's just wasted. We could have used those sheep. We could have used those cows. We could have used those things. But God said, no, you can't keep any of the livestock. You can't keep any of the spoil. And then one of them betrays the Lord and does keep it and goes against what the Lord said. And it's a huge deal. And God says, I'm not gonna be with you because you've taken up the accursed thing. You went against what I told you to do. And then after they get that right, God says, yeah, you can keep it now. You can keep the spoil in this next city. So what's the point? Why? Why is that? Here's why, folks. Here's why that God wanted them to go into Jericho and go into the promised land. Why? For the right reasons. He didn't want them going into Jericho for the spoil. He didn't want them going into Jericho for the livestock, for the goods, all those different things. Look, he knew that he would need those things. He knew that they would need those things eventually, but he didn't want them to do that. Here's the reason that he did it. Because he wanted them to have faith first. He wanted them to have faith first. He's like, you, look, that's how God works. That's how God's works. You step out on faith first, and then God comes behind you. That's how God works. Think of the sermon this morning. These people are stuck in these boxes in their lives. Why? Why? Because they don't have the faith to step out of the box. But guess what? Those of us who have stepped out of the box, we know that when we step out of the box, God takes care of us. But guess what? We had faith first. I'm talking about living your Christian life here. I'm not talking about salvation, okay? But look, he wanted them to go into the Promised Land and have faith first, folks. And then he took care of them after. Turn to Matthew chapter nine. Look, folks, churches, you know, you say churches need money. You say, you know, you say, the more money we have, you know, this is what, this is how people think. Churches need money, and the more money that we have, the more we can do. Isn't that right? Wrong. That's wrong. Turn to Matthew chapter nine, and I'll explain to you why it's wrong. Look at what Jesus says in Matthew chapter nine in verse number 37. I mean, what, churches don't need money? Are you crazy, pastor? What are you talking about? Look at Matthew chapter nine in verse 37. Matthew chapter nine in verse 37. Look what Jesus says. Then sayeth he unto his disciples. The harvest truly is plenious. Jesus is saying, Jesus is saying, there's all these people out here that aren't saved. He's saying, look, he's saying what we see. He's saying, 99% of these people in Fresno are unsaved. All these people are gonna go to hell. This is what he's saying. The harvest is plenious. He's like, there's wheat everywhere is what he's saying. Then you look what he says, but the laborers are few. Did he say the money is few? Does he say that the harvest is plenious, but we don't have enough money? No, you know what he said? Look what he says. Pray ye therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth more money. He says, pray ye therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. Look, folks, we need people, not money. That's what Jesus said. Jesus said, you know what we need? We need people that will put faith first. We don't need money. This is the mistake people make. This is the mistake people make in their life. People think, look, they're pragmatic. I get it. I'm a logical person. I'm an engineer. I get it. I get how people think this way. People just think, if I just had more money, if I just had more money, then like, I mean, I just, I got so many bills. I got utility bills. I got these payments. I got rent. I got mortgage. I just, if I just had more money, then I could serve the Lord. I've actually known people who've quit the Christian life. And they said, you know what? I'm just gonna go make money. And as soon as I have a bunch of money, I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna help this ministry and I'm gonna be able to do so much more for the Lord. What in the world? That is a path that people will never come back from if Christians go down that road. Cause guess what? We don't need money. We need faith-filled people. That's what we need. You say, but what about the bills of the lights and all that? Faith first. That's what I say to that. Faith first. Look, folks, nothing will ever be for sale here. Ever. As long as I am the pastor of this church, nothing will ever be for sale at this church. To keep our focus is the main thing. Why? For one reason, because we will keep faith first here. Think, you know, I think about the ministry and being in the ministry and I haven't been in the ministry that long. You know, I've been a pastor for a little over a year now. And I think about the stresses of the ministry. Look, the stresses of the ministry are real. It's very stressful at times. It's very joyful, but it's very stressful at times. You say, what percentage of that stress in the ministry is money or monetary? I'm gonna tell you, zero. Zero. And to be honest with you, in my personal life it's the same. In my personal life, you know, there's things in your life that you gotta maybe handle things and problems arise and life has peaks and valleys. We get that, but in my personal life, what amount of stress do you have about money in your personal life, pastor? Zero, that's what. Zero. Look, I'm not, we talk, I preach many sermons on being smart and being biblical with your money. I'm not some fool that's out there just spending everything on worthless things and going into a bunch of debt, but the Bible tells us that. What do I need to care about money for? All I need to do is just do what the Bible says. That's it. I just have faith, faith, that if I follow what the Bible says for my finances, that I'll be fine and it works. Imagine that. But as far as the church goes, we don't need money, we need people. We need faith-filled people. And look, I've had people have this backwards and upside down since I've been, even as a satellite leader, I remember I had one guy years ago in the satellite ministry come up to me and this guy was just really obsessed with money. And he came up to me and he would just like to throw in little things about how much money he gave to the church and things like that and I'm just like, I mean, I don't wanna be insulting, but I'm just like, oh, you know, because I literally don't care. I literally don't care. And then he came to me at one time and this person came to me and he wanted to make a decision in his life that was clearly the wrong biblical decision. It was clearly just like a sinful decision, but one of the reasons that he came to me, he said, but if I make this decision, pastor, I can give more money to the church. I'm just like, what in the world? But this is the problem that people will have if they get these things out of order. Look, it's faith first, God will take care of everything else. You can't flip these things around on your head. Look, there will never be anything for sale here, ever. The first reason is because we will have faith first in this church, we will have faith first. Here's another reason. Here's another reason that Jesus didn't want the house of God being a house of merchandise. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Here's another reason that nothing should ever be for sale in the church. The reason is this. I mean, if you read the New Testament, Paul, I mean, who wrote most of the New Testament through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he's talking about how in the world do we get these Jews and these Gentiles all together in the same faith to get along in a church. And he's talking about things that you should eat, things you don't eat, different cultures, all coming together in Christ is a big theme of some of the letters that Paul writes. But here's one of the main reasons, or here's one big problem that comes with selling things in church or charging for things in church. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 11. I'll just tell you the answer right now. But here's the thing. It divides the church. The church is to be of unity. The church is to come together and be together. It divides the church. Look at verse number 18 of 1 Corinthians chapter 11. They were having problems with this church in Corinth, just doing the Lord's Supper. Something that they were to get together and do to remember the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, to remember Jesus Christ, death on the cross, to remember his body that was broken, to remember his blood that was shed for our sins. This is the purpose of the Lord's Supper. And look what these people turned it into. It says, first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there'd be divisions among you. Look, there was something that they were doing that was dividing people. Like if something's going on in the church, it says dividing people in the church, that's bad because the church is supposed to be in unity. For there must also be heresies among you. For they which are approved be made manifest among you. When you come together therefore in one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper. He's like, you're not doing it right. Why? What are they doing? Look what he says. For in eating, everyone takeeth before other his own supper, and one is hungry, and another is drunken. He says what? Have you not houses to eat and drink in? Or despise you the church of God and shame them that have not. What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. You know what they were doing? They were turning the Lord's Supper into like this. Imagine, we're pretty good at potlucks here. Imagine if we had a potluck, and if you didn't bring anything, you don't eat. That's what they were doing. So they were having a potluck, people were bringing this elaborate food and drink, and some people were just gorging themselves on all this food, and the other people, they had nothing to eat. Imagine having somebody stand in the line being like, what did you bring? You just brought a box of cookies from Costco? No, you go in this line. Look, that's what was happening here, and it was causing divisions in the church. Look, if you start selling things in the church, that's exactly what will happen. You start charging for events. You know, the lady's supper. We're gonna go to a really nice lady's supper, and everyone has to pay $60 to get in. Well, look, I mean, there's people in the church that maybe could afford that. There's people in the church that maybe can't afford that, where that's a bigger deal. And then, you know, it causes division in the church, and it will never happen here, okay? Everything will always be free here. You say, well, how in the world? It turned to Malachi chapter three. How in the world is the church gonna pay its bills? Look, I don't preach about money like ever, but I mean, the Bible's pretty clear that the church is to be taken care of. Think about Acts. We're studying through the book of Acts. In the beginning of the book of Acts, Acts one, two, three, and four, at the end of Acts chapter four, what did you have? You had all these people being added to the church, right? You had all these people being added to the church, and then they just gave everything to the church, and everything was fine. But the point is, they were added to the church first, and they gave willingly, okay? It doesn't say that people were added to the church, and then they started selling t-shirts, okay? Or they started making things that they could sell to everybody. I mean, that's not what it says. Look at Malachi chapter three in verse number eight. The Bible says, well, a man robbed God, yet you have robbed me. But you say, wherein have we robbed thee? He says, in tithes and offerings. This is where the church gets his money. The church gets his money from two places. It gets his money from two places. The first one is the tithe, which the Bible teaches is 10% of a person's income. And look, that's between you and God. That's between you and God. That's not up to me to get involved in that or anything like that. The Bible says that that 10% is just God's. Whether you give it to them or not, it's God's, okay? And then there's other things that just offerings. Just offerings. People just give. We've had many offerings here. Sometimes that we need something, and someone will just pay for it. That's an offering. We need a floor, or we need some insulation, or we need something, and people will just offer it. We need a new camera, and people will just offer those things. That's just an offering. People just pay for it. They don't go and they don't buy a picture, or they don't buy a trinket, and then the church has a bake sale, or something, to try to convince you. It's really actually pretty pitiful when you think about it. Because people are supposed to give tithes and offerings, and to just like, we've been to auctions at Christian schools. My wife and I, before we were Baptist, before I was even saved, we go to these auctions to raise money for the church, and it's just like this super selfish, prideful situation where people wanna be the one that bids the most on something and then they feel really good about it. But here's the thing. Tithes and especially offerings, it's faith. It's faith. It's not, I'm not getting something out of it. I mean, I'm not getting something out of that. I'm not gonna get a t-shirt out of it. I'm not gonna get a painting out of it. It's just, it's this whole idea of faith first. That's the whole point of tithes and offerings. All this selling, all this pride, all this selfishness, trying to like trick people and convince people to give money to the church, it's really pathetic actually, and it's totally unbiblical. All we need here folks, look, all we need here is faith-filled people. That's it. That's all we need. You wanna get, you know, just like this morning, you wanna exit that box? Good luck exiting that box with no faith. It's just you're not gonna be able to do it. You're not gonna be able to do it. And I mean, I remember when we moved here, this is the way God works. If you get nothing out of this sermon, just remember this, the way God works is you have to step out on faith first. When we moved to California, it was the first time in my entire life that I had ever just stepped out on faith. I mean, I literally, I can still remember the terror of the feeling. I literally quit my job before I had another job. I have never done that. And I was just like, you know what? I know this is the box I need to get out of. I know this is what I need to do. I know this is where we need to go in our Christian lives. I know this, nothing's gonna stop me. I'm just stepping out on faith. It was like a day or two later that I had a job. Faith first. We are not to make the house of God a house of merchandise. Everything will always be free here. And you know, it's probably something that's inevitably gonna happen as the church grows. We'll be able to do extra things, but you say, well, what if you wanna have, provide t-shirts, but we don't have the money for it? Then we just don't have those things. We're not gonna provide things and then charge you for it. That's never gonna happen because it's against what the Bible says. All the things that we send out with you, soul winning, all the things that you have from this church, it's just going to be provided by the church. And we're not ever going to make, we're never gonna sell anything. We're not gonna sell a cup of coffee in this church ever. Okay, because look, first of all, Jesus got mad. And Jesus is the head of this church. So if this made Jesus angry, we should pay attention to it. And like I said, we could have ended the sermon after five minutes. But that's the main thing, is that God just, He wants us to step out on faith. Look, your offering is you stepping out on faith. You know, your tithe that you give just, you're just reading the Bible and say, this is what the Bible says and bam, that's it. And you're just stepping out of these boxes on faith. If you don't have faith, you're gonna be locked in boxes for your entire Christian life. And you'll do nothing. You'll do nothing in your life. So no, we will never make the house of God a house of merchandise. So let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.