Abounding In The Work Of The Lord - Frank Brancato

It's wonderful to be here with each and every one of you.

Today, we have a wonderful crowd and we appreciate so very much

your presence. If you consider yourself to be a

visitor here today, we would hope and pray that you feel as

you are. And that is our honored guest.

As I mentioned last Lord's day, I wanted to preach a sermon on

abounding in the work of the Lord and may I say as an

introduction before we go any further into this.

This passage or the things that we're going to talk about.

I will give the congregation here credit over time and praise

for the growth that we have. All had we have seen growth

evangelistically, and we've seen our numbers increase, and we've

also seen some that have really grown in the faith.

We have young men that are Desiring to do more for the

cause of Christ. We have three new teachers here

that are teaching and growing in Christ and we have other areas

to where we have grown as as a congregation.

But as we enter the year, 2019, there are some things that we

need to improve upon if we want to continue to grow and myself

included, how is it that we can abound in the work of the Lord?

How is it that we can make sure that the congregation that meets

here from time to time in Bakersfield exist for another 50

years. If the Lord tarries These are

things we have to consider and may I say we have to consider

them now or they will not happen 50 or 100 years from now, it has

to be. Now I want to talk about some of

these things. The great Apostle Paul said

this, this is from the new King James in 1st Corinthians, 15 and

58. He said, therefore my beloved

Brethren be steadfast immovable. Always abounding in the work of

the Lord knowing that your labor is not Is not in vain in the

Lord. Very interesting.

The word steadfast the idea or the concept of being steadfast.

Really is the opposite of giving up.

It is the opposite of giving up. I got to tell you there's some

things that I really don't understand in my life.

I don't understand how it is. Sometimes that we have to almost

beg people to stay faithful. And sometimes we want it so bad

for them, but if some point in time it has to be more.

It mean more to them than it does to us.

If someone wants to lose weight and they hire a personal

trainer, the personal trainer wants it really bad for that

person. But if some point in time, it

has to mean more to that person than it does to the one who's

encouraging that person to make changes in their life, what's it

mean to be steadfast? It's the opposite of giving up.

It literally means constantly moving ahead.

And may, I say, as we enter this year, if you're going to remain

faithful, you have to make the determination in advance that

you are going to do nothing but constantly move ahead in your

Christian Life, you have to make that choice, you have to make

the determined resolve. That's what I'm going to do.

And that's what I'm going to be. And I'm not going to be anything

else in my life other than a faithful child of God.

Bye. But it's interesting.

It says steadfast and I just said that that means to

constantly move ahead but then he says immovable.

So how are you constantly moving ahead and being immovable at the

same time? This word immovable means.

This in means never distracted to the side.

Your eye has to be single. You can't be distracted to the

side. Remember in Luke chapter 9, I

Luke 9 · chapter mention

won't go into this very far, but Jesus made the concept to in

Luke chapter 9, Jesus was talking to those would-be

Luke 9 · chapter mention

followers, and he told one said, I'll follow you, just let me go

bid them farewell at my house. We know what Jesus said.

He said no man putting his hand to the plow and looking back is

fit for the kingdom of God. What Jesus brilliantly.

Did he quoted an ancient proverb that dated back 800 BC?

And it means this, you cannot plow a straight Furrow if your

eyes are looking back. May I say this, you cannot

successfully live the Christian Life, if your eyes are peering

back to your former life of sin with fondness and all the

wonderful thoughts and memories of what happened before.

Jesus said you have to turn loose from your life of sin,

that's the same thing. Paul is saying, you can't get

distracted by the peripheral issues of life and the sinful

things that come your way, your eye has to be single and you

have to press forward, you have to be steadfast constantly

moving ahead and never distracted to the side.

And then he said this, I love this.

He says, always in, first of all, always means all the time.

Not every once in a while you see, you can't live the

Christian Life every once in a while you can't do that.

Every once in a while you can't get excited and motivated every

once in a while. He said as you do this you are

always and for all times going to abound in the work of the

Lord. It means resolutely pursuing our

goal, abounding in the work of the Lord.

You know, everybody in life. Would love to be successful.

That's the truth. Everybody wants to be successful

but there's a saying you know, it says Success is uncommon.

It is not to be achieved by the common man and do you know why?

That is the reason is, everybody would love to be successful

because that makes you feel good.

Makes you feel like you achieve something, right?

But not everybody successful in the reason for that is success

is not a goal. It's not success is not a goal.

Success is a byproduct of doing the right things, right?

All the time. That's that's what success is my

dad used to say, it's a matter of doing this.

It's a matter of making habits of doing things that failures

don't like to do the hard stuff. So success is a byproduct of

doing that kind of stuff. It's working and Abiding, and

laboring, and then you be successful.

So what's it mean, by the way, have you ever heard somebody say

now? Don't overdo it.

You know, somebody. It's just my personality, but

this is how I am. But I tend to overdo it with

things, I do working out or whatever and I've heard my whole

life. I don't overdo it.

Don't overdo it. Somebody might say, well, you

know, I want to be a Critic, don't overdo it.

I had a friend, tell me one time in college.

I think you're making too big a deal about this Christianity

stuff. You're taking it too far.

What does Paul say? He says that a bounding means to

go beyond or overdo it if we're going to be successful, we have

to over do it. That means we're going to go

beyond what is normal? Go beyond what is easy and press

even harder. Now it's a matter of going to

the extreme of are limits to overdue for the cause of Christ.

Now in chapter 16 and the first 12 verses you could pull out

about eight different things that we can use as examples on,

overdoing it or abounding in the work of the Lord.

I've chosen for, I've chosen for number one.

Not going to spend a lot of time on this but number one,

obviously, is in the first two verses of First Corinthians

chapter. 16, verses 1 and 2. One way that we can abound in

the work of the Lord is liberal giving.

Now, I'm talking about liberal giving from not only monetarily

of our means, but also of ourself liberal giving of our

self in every aspect of life. Specifically, in the first two

verses monetarily, Paul says, now concerning the collection

for the Saints as I have given orders to the churches of

galatia. So you must do also on the first

day of the week. Let each one of you lay

something aside, storing up, as he may Prosper, that there be no

collections when I come. So understanding this in second

2 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 6.

But this, I say, he who sow sparingly will also reap

sparingly. Pairing Lee and he who sows

bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Now, what's interesting about this this is an investment Have

you ever stopped to consider that everything you do?

For the cause of Christ is an investment.

Now, I gotta tell you. This is where sometimes people

in the religious World get this all messed up.

It is true that if you. So you, so in a certain way, you

will reap in a certain way. But the denominational position

of prosperity preaching is this if you give more, you're going

to reap more for your own enjoyment for your own benefit

for your own pleasure for your own reward.

But you know, the reward for giving more is in heaven.

We are laying up Treasures in Heaven, that's the reward.

So what does it mean by this, about how we sow and how we reap

from a practical standpoint? Here it is.

I believe, with all my heart that God gives to givers not so

that they can reap the benefit of it in their own life, and be

rewarded, but so that they have the ability and the capacity to

do even more. So when you overdo it and you

Give liberally, you will reap liberally and you'll be able to

do even that which is more. That's what it's about.

It's about being able to do that much, is that?

Which is more? It's an investment, it's an

investment now. I know sometimes people are

poor. And just if you wonder about

that, I'm going to talk about that.

Sometimes people are really poor.

They don't have much, you know, Jesus, when he was sitting there

at the court of women noticed as he looked across there and there

was the woman that Widow that gave two mites, which by the

way, is 1/4 of a penny. Do you want to notice it in?

Monetary means today, it's 1/4 of a cent.

And he looked at all the others that were giving in the coffers

were being filled with these rich people, they gave out of

their abundance, she gave out of her necessity.

In other words, they gave out of what they had left over in

abundance and she gave out of her necessity.

My whole point telling you, is this Jesus said, she gave more

than all of them because she gave all she had That is a

Christian principle, not only in the giving monetarily of our

means, but also the giving of our life and service to Christ.

She gave all she had, you know, in the Philippines done and I

don't know that we have spent any time except this year

talking about money and I think the reason is is because they're

so poor. It's a third world country and

the poverty level is so high. So we don't spend a lot of time

talking about money or giving of your means or anything like

that, but it's a subject that needed to be taught on in fact

at the preacher study and Rojas Dom's topic.

Was he Talked on benevolence and he talked on the scriptural

pattern for benevolence both personally and congregationally,

and my topic was on the contribution, the treasury and

scriptural uses for the Lord's money.

And in that, even though we understand that they have

nothing hardly, they still have to give, we all do.

That's the work of the church. We all have to give it doesn't

matter what you have. You still have to give and it's

an investment. It's an investment.

And I think that all of us need to remember that as we continue

to live the Christian Life. Alright, number two, this is

very important. We have to have a vision for the

future, you know, in verse 5 First Corinthians 16.

Paul said this and I'm not going to make a bigger deal out of

what Paul said because I don't think he really meant that for

to be the point. We have to make a point about

this verse 5. He said, now I will come to you.

When I passed through Macedonia, for I am passing through

Macedonia. I use this verse to show that we

have we as a passage to show that with vision means you have

to have a plan. We have to have a plan of action

in every aspect of our life, and when you have a plan then you

have to have objectives to achieve that plan.

I use this passage just to show that Paul was not satisfied.

With the status quo. Paul was always talking about

and thinking about another place to take the gospel and spread

the gospel to another place. So he says this, I have a plan

that I want to come and see you when I passed through Macedonia.

Now, I made this point yesterday in my introduction about the

congregation here and I don't know, I could ask Darren right

now. He'd probably tell me to the

day, how long the church has been here?

But over 50 years, And you, and I got to thinking about this

last week. I started thinking about all the

pain, the congregations in California.

That had to close their doors and sell their buildings and

shut it down. You know, even before my time.

Some of you older. Folks can remember all the

churches that existed in the Los Angeles area.

What about all of them? Remember those all those down

there. Now, we have LAX and Covina and

we have one very small in Anaheim.

What about going north? What about all the

congregation's north that used to exist and now you just keep

on driving and you passed towns that once had the light of the

Gospel shining forth and now they're no longer there.

What about around here? What about around here?

What about congregations that were close by here?

That no longer exist? If we don't have a plan, now we

will be in the same boat when it comes time down the road and

everybody dies. We got to have a plan and we got

to be able to work that plan. Now, I think it's wonderful.

I think it's wonderful that we have not, we have not suffered

negative growth. Meaning this, you know, we've

lost a lot of people. If you go back a number of years

ago, I mean lost to death to passing away, but if you go back

years ago, there was one family, the jostling family, I preached

nine funerals from that family nine.

Over the last. I don't know how many couple of

years. Six people are.

So six, seven of nine. People are passing away because

that's life. That's what happens.

And fortunately, we baptize some folks.

We've converted some folks. So we haven't suffered the

ramifications of big negative growth.

So we remained relatively close to the same size because we are

converting people proportionate to how many were losing, but can

you imagine if we stop doing that?

We get smaller and smaller and smaller.

We have a challenge. We have a challenge ahead of us,

and I say this to you, please hear me.

I say this to you not as a - I'm not a negative guy but he might

said that this to me not long ago.

A preacher friend of mine. Good buddy.

He said you know what? There's three kinds of people.

There's people like you meaning me and then there's another kind

of guy and then he says and then there's me, I said, oh what does

that mean? He said you know you are he said

you're kind of uh you're the positive football coach that

gets in the locker room and tells his team, you can and get

some to believe it, they can use.

That's you. He said, then there's the person

up in the stands that says, man, we got no shot.

That's the negative guy. And I said, where does that put

you? He said, well, here's me.

You've already lost the game. He just don't know it yet.

I'm not the - guy and I never will be.

I choose not to do that. I will never do that.

But I'll tell you this. It doesn't mean that a positive

person cannot preach something - and it doesn't mean that I can't

make a negative statement. I'm going to make one now,

please hear me. We have a challenge, a huge

Challenge, and a huge task. You know what, that is taking

The Greatest Story Ever, Told to people and the majority of the

people that RIT, don't want it. That's fact.

So what Jesus said and few there be that find it.

That's what Jesus said, our job is not about to result.

Our job is about the effort. And you know what, when the Lord

comes back, do you know the Lord is not going to say Frank?

Let me see. How many, how many did you get?

How many did you get, did, did you hit the number right?

No, he's not going to do that, but he's going to know whether I

took the gospel to people and spread the seed of it, he's

going to know that. He's got to know if I did my

part. We have the majority of the

people that are around us, we're trying to take the gospel to

people that are so busy with everything else that becomes

their religion. And you just plug it in,

whatever it is just too busy. So what's going to happen?

What can we do? I'll tell you exactly what we

can do. It has to change in the family.

We have got to change the family.

We've got to get the family where the family needs to be.

And I'm talking about the structure of the family, the

structure of the Family. Wednesday nights were studying

now about the structure of the family where the man is

fulfilling his role in the home, and the woman is fulfilling her

role in the home and Lie, they had it right?

Now, I'm going to say this to you.

Can you imagine what we could do together?

If you as families would pull together, get the structure of

your family, right? And go shoulder-to-shoulder with

me, as an evangelist laboring among you with our sleeves

rolled up working together. Can you imagine what we can

accomplish? I'll tell you this.

All successful works in the body of Christ that I know of today.

All successful, works are Works where the Evangelist is working

among them and families are working to support the work.

yeah, working I'm an evangelist. It's my job to evangelize.

Can you imagine how it would be? If families would pull together

and start strengthening those that we convert?

So the Evangelist can continue and preach the gospel and do the

work of an evangelist. Can you imagine how many people

we could save as Linwood? Smith said, one time if we

didn't have to keep saving the same ones over and over.

I'm going to tell you something families.

I need you. Yeah I said it.

I need you. The work needs you.

The future of the church needs you.

We got to do better. You know, more people today, I

think are looking for churches. More than we're looking for the

truth. I think that happens so let's

take a look at this. We're talking about planting

we're talking about a vision, let's look at a passage that's

found in Proverbs 29:18, notice Proverbs 29:18 where there is no

Proverbs 29:18 Proverbs 29:18

vision, the people perish. Now, what is the word vision?

Mean? I've already established with

you at the reason we put that up for Paul's plan was to show that

a vision includes a plan got to have a plan, but 29, May 18

tells us some rules about the plan.

All we have to do is find out what the word Vision means In

this passage. It's all we got to do, all we

got to do is go to the new King James, and it tells us what it

means here. It is, where there is no

Revelation, the people cast off restraint, that's what the word

Vision means in that passage and Revelation is the word of God.

So, what I'm saying is in our plans, it has to not only Clued

Revelation but our plans cannot go beyond revelation.

Take over helmet word of God. It's not about programs.

You know, sometimes people in the religious World, they'll

say, you know, it's not about the programs, we have the

programs, but it's not about the program's about the southern the

program, shouldn't draw you in, but they have the programs and

the programs are drawing people in.

You see the point? Most people are looking for

church that has what they're looking for, instead of what the

truth is of the word of God. So in our plan, it has to not

only include the word of God, it can't go beyond the word of God.

Now, Vision. Vision by definition is dealing

with an appearance. It is that which comes into

view. In the Lord's church and at in

this congregation we have a four-fold vision, its fourfold,

and here it is. We got to see a lost world.

We have to see a saving gospel. We have to see that the world is

lost without the gospel, and finally, we have to see our

responsibility and taking the gospel to a lost world.

Let me show you the importance of that.

Give you an example of that. Here's an illustration, I used

to use many many many years ago in another sermon.

But I love it. I think it fits.

There was a wise old Indian father, that had three sons. and

he decided he wanted to give all of his possessions in life to

one of his three sons that showed the greatest prowess and

the greatest promise as the tested pointed to a mountain

that was bold against the sky, he sent all three of them up the

side of the mountain, and he gave this instruction He said

the only thing you have to do. The only requirement is when you

come back you have to bring back in your hand, a token to show

how high you climbed. The first son wasn't gone very

long. When he came back, he stood

before his father and he opened up his hand and in his hand was

a white Wildflower. His father knew exactly how high

he climbed because he knew that grew just above the Timberline.

The second son was gone for a long time.

When he came back, he stood before his father and he opened

up his hand. And in his hand, he had a red

Flintstone which showed the father he made it almost to the

top. But the third son was gone for a

long, long, long time. When he came back, he stood

before his father, he said, father in my hand, I have

nothing. Because where I went, there was

nothing to bring back. But he said, father, Where I

Stood. I stood on the mountain, I stood

on the summit, and I overlooked the valley.

And I saw two Great Rivers. Join the ocean.

His father said, it's been my life's ambition.

That one of my sons would have seen what you have seen. you

stand here as it were with nothing in your hand, to show

for your travels, but you have a vision in your soul, the

greatest of all The point being in our life to as a Christian

you may look back on your life and you may say, wait a minute,

I got really nothing to show for it.

But if you can say that where you have gone, you stood on the

summit and you saw the two great needs of human need and soul

starvation. Join the ocean of life.

If you can say that where you've gone, you've seen that, and you

did all, you could you'll have something far greater, you'll

have a vision in your soul. The greatest of all number

three, this morning. There's something else we have

to be nice and kind of audit first.

But we have to have a sense of flexibility, you know why?

Because sometimes plans change, and you can't get discouraged

and quit because it did And if you run into a roadblock, so

what do you got to keep going? You got to have a sense of

flexibility. Paul didn't notice this first

Corinthians 16 6 and 7 and it may be that I will remain or

even spend the winter with you that you may send me on my way

wherever I go for. I do not wish to see you now on

the way, but I hope to stay a while notice, if the Lord

permits Everything we do has to be with the provision if the

Lord permits. Do you know why?

Because when you make plans, there are two things that are

uncertain to things that are uncertain and two things that

you have nothing to do with number one, the uncertainty of

life. And number two, God's

Providence, and God's will. So you have to subject in our

planning in our vision. We have to subjected to the will

of God first Corinthians 16, 6 & 7.

What else, how about this James for?

And James was condemned. Being presumptuous planning,

that's planning that basically presumes that everything is

going to be exactly, as you have described it to me or plan to

be, you don't think about God at all.

So, here we go. Come now, you who say today or

tomorrow, we will go to such and such a city, spend a year buying

sell and make a profit. Whereas you do not know what

your what will happen tomorrow for.

What is your life? It is either even a vapor that

appears for a little time. And then vanishes away.

Instead you ought to say, if the Lord Wills we shall live and do

this or that, You know, Paul had many dreams and ambitions.

For taking the gospel to the world.

And I'm going to notice a passage with you.

That was in Apostolic times that dealt with miraculous Visions.

We don't have that today, but we do have the answer to prayer.

We do have God's Providence, but I want to notice something that

happened to Paul. and just think about what if Paul would have

got discouraged, Quit. What acts 16 now when they had

gone through phrygia and the reason region of galatia they

were forbidden by the Holy Spirit, to preach the word.

In Asia, after they had come to miss you.

They tried to go to basilia but the spirit did not permit them

so passing by Miss Tia, they came to troas and a vision

appeared to Paul in the night a man of Macedonia stood and

pleaded with him saying Saying, come over to Macedonia and help

us. Now, after he had seen the

vision immediately, we sought to go to Macedonia concluding that

the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.

What an amazing Passage. They wanted to go to Asia

Spirit. Stop them.

They wanted to go to the Athenian.

Nope. Spirit stopped him, they

couldn't go east. They already been there.

They wanted to go south. Couldn't go to South spirit

said. No, they wanted to go north.

Nope, spirit said no. So they went the only way they

could go, they went West and they found themself hitting the

agency and then all of a sudden they got the Macedonian call.

Now, think about it this way, what if they were I'd have

stopped too soon. I want to go over here.

They said, okay, no problem over there.

Oh, my can't do it, I'll go get it now.

Go. Well, back over here.

Yeah, you can go there sometimes plans change.

And we need to be flexible with our planning and not get

discouraged when it doesn't happen.

And I really appreciate the the brothers here.

When they pray in our congregational setting, because

they always pray for the work, and I appreciate that more than

you will ever know. Especially when you pray for me.

Me. And when you pray for me, and

you mentioned me in prayer, laboring among you, but pray for

the work as a whole to pray for all of us in the work.

Now watch what happens when we pray in first John 5 and 14.

Now this is the confidence that if we ask that, we have in him

that if we ask anything according to his will he hears

us? Now you've heard me preach this

from time to time. God hears, the audible sound of

everything. But this is a promise for the

Christian, and if we pray according to his will with that

provision, he hears us. What does that mean?

The word here? Debbie evine, presupposes.

A response. What it's saying is when you

pray God's going to answer the prayer, and it may be no, So

what when you pray according to God's will, it's not a matter of

you bending. God to you and his will to you.

It's about you submitting, your will to God's will.

And if you do that and you pray with that provision, God's going

to answer our prayers, but fourthly and finally, this

morning, As we looked at a number of these things so far,

we have to give liberally. We have to have a vision for the

future. Obviously they have to be

flexible everything subject to the will of God, but finally, we

have to be thorough now. I think thoroughness here.

Involves a commitment. It involves a commitment.

We have to be thorough, couple things about this back to verses

6 and 7 again. And it may be that I will remain

or even spend the winter with you that you may send me on my

way wherever I go for. I do not wish to see you now on

the way, but I hope to stay with you a while.

Paul understood. He understood the realities and

he understood the importance of staying a while and the work.

And may I say this to you, I love to hold gospel meetings

that go throughout the country and do that.

We have gospel meetings here in, you know, what happens day.

What happens? Oh the preacher and by the way,

you know who the greatest preacher is that the next guy

that came into town? The latest guy and everybody

gets excited. Oh, and we have somebody here.

That holds us a gospel meeting, you know?

It's wonderful. Everybody gets excited.

Oh, it's cold. Oh dear.

That is great. Then about Tuesday or Wednesday

of the following week. The excitement goes away and we

just kind of In Time start reverting back to what we've

always done, right? Kind of happens.

But the work has to continue and the work takes thoroughness and

the work takes time. It takes time.

Now, Paul was not a superficial guy, he was not a superficial

preacher. In fact, I'll tell you.

Sometimes there's a lot of superficial preaching in the

world today. This actually really happened by

the way. I can't even imagine being

called this, but there was a preacher in some denomination

who's preaching was so shallow, It had no depth that had no

meaning. It was so shallow, you know what

they called him. His congregants gave him a

nickname. You know, was birdbath.

He's so shallow they called him birdbath.

Can you imagine walking to Billie Holiday?

Here's birdbath, how you doing? Preaching is not shouting.

Preaching is edification preaching, the word needs to

have that kind of effect. And may I say this to there's a

three-fold responsibility or three phone work of the church,

it's evangelism edification and benevolence and that is it.

Now, my job is to be an evangelist.

It's also my job to help in the edification, but not just me.

It takes the teachers to, I'm excited about this and I'm

excited about the future. And what what?

We might be able to teach here? I want to meet with the teachers

really soon all the men that teach and brainstorm some

subject matters that would help the congregation.

Perhaps also getting some information and feedback from

the congregation on subjects that they they would feel would

be helpful if they heard preached from the pulpit to have

some sort of a plan and a structure that we stick to.

So we can make sure that we are edifying, the body of Christ,

Looking forward to that. Listen to this, let me show you

how thorough Paul was. In Colossians 1 and 28 him.

We preach warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom

that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus that's

pretty thorough. Then in Ephesians chapter 4, he

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

talked about perfecting the Saints or equipping the Saints

and he said this and he himself gave some to be Apostles, some

prophets, some evangelists some pastors and teachers.

Look at this phrase here for the equipping of the Saints.

For the work of the Mystery for the edifying of the body of

Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith, and the

knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man.

You know what sometimes we do, we quote this passage and we add

a comma. So we say it like this, For the

equipping of the Saints. Pause for the work of the

ministry. Pause for the edifying of the

body of Christ. That's not what it says.

It's one sentence. Look for the equipping of the

Saints for the work of the ministry.

That's you. That's you.

It's my job to equip the Saints for the work of the ministry.

That means it's not just the preacher, it's you, and it's my

job to help and trained and equipped.

What else he goes further to the measure of the stature of the

fullness of Christ that we should no longer, be children,

tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of

Doctrine by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of

deceitful plotting. Verses 15 and 16 says this.

But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him, in all

things, which is the head even Christ from whom the whole body

fitly joined together and compacted by that, which every

joint supplieth, according to the effectual, working in the

measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the

edifying of itself. In love, Paul took the word of

God. Second Timothy, 3:16 and 17 to

equipped or perfect, the Saints. That's a work and that's

together and that took time. And, you know, the first time he

went to Corinth, he was there about a year.

The second time he was there, he was there for about three

months. He used the entire time to train

and work with them and I want to notice a passage found in

Galatians chapter 4. I love this passage.

Galatians 4 · chapter mention

You know why? Because it shows that there's a

period of time for growth and Galatians, chapter 4.

Galatians 4 · chapter mention

My little children from whom I labor and birth.

Again, get this until Christ is formed in you.

You know why people struggle a lot?

Christ is not formed in them. Do you know why they sometimes

have priority problems? Christ is not formed in them.

You know why? They have attendance issues.

Christ is not formed in them. We have somewhere around 60 here

60 or so. Plus in this assembly this

morning, Wednesday night. We get on, average 17, 15 17 one

time, we had 11 recently, Come on, we can we can do better than

that. Oh, we can do better than that.

That's not good enough. You know what the problem is and

I want to say this so I'm not misunderstood, I'm not talking

to the precious older folks to do, all they can to be here and

would be here if they could but they can't get out.

I'm not talking to you. I'm not talking about those that

have ailments, where they can't get around in their sick.

I'm not talking about that at all, and I'm not talking about

the fact, there's sometimes, there are extenuating

circumstances beyond our control.

I'm not talking to you either, but out of the congregation size

that we have, I guarantee you. Some people are just making a

choice. And when you choose otherwise,

you know what Jesus Christ is not formed in you.

He's not. because if he was, you know, what happens,

Automatically the Lord's number one.

Automatically we demonstrate that he's number one by our

example, by our Behavior, I want to challenge each and every one

of you and 2019. I want to challenge every single

one of you in 2019 that when a year goes by let's look back and

say that Christ was finally formed in me.

Let's do that. That's number one.

What do I need the congregation to do?

I need you to, I'll do my part. I will work.

I will work as hard as I can. I will labor among you patiently

until Christ is formed in you, but you got some work to do.

We all do. We all do Christ, needs to be

formed in US. We need to stay faithful folks,

we need to keep plugging at it. Staying in there, hanging in

there, and if you get stuff, it's all right.

It's tough, don't quit. Don't be superficial, we have

way too much superficial Christianity Today on the

surface and that must certainly grieve the heart of God.

But remember if families will pull together and families will

have Christ formed in them? Can you imagine what we can do

together? I'm going to tell you what will

happen. Instead of sitting back thinking

a whole look how bad it is. We may say, you know what?

We may yet to see our finest hour.

Now I'm in it. I'm in it for good.

But I need you every step of the way.

What have we learned today is we close?

We learned that if we're going to abound in the work of the

lord, we have to give liberally, not only monetarily but of

ourself got start doing that. Got to be better, right?

Gotta do better. Number two, we got to have a

vision for the future. That's the plan.

We have to plan our work and work our plan and we're going to

have such a plan. We're going to have such a work

lined out, still need you but we cannot go beyond the word of

God. We cannot go beyond Revelation.

Number three, we got to be flexible because sometimes

things change and we have to submit everything that we do.

To God's Will and not be discouraged and give up if

something didn't work. And finally be thorough and

realize this is not an overnight thing.

I need you to be committed to the Long Haul.

Commit to the Long Haul. Let's be thorough.

And finally, please please, please.

Let Christ be formed in you. Change your life.

Let's go be better. Let's go be better in the future

than we've ever been in days gone.

By I'm finished. Thank you for your kind of

listening. We thank you for listening to

our podcast, put on by the Church of Christ at 22:15 plans.

Road in Bakersfield, if you would like any additional

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