Variety Is The Spice of Life - Pastor Bruce Mejia

Amen.

Okay.

We're in 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

We're going to be here, the majority of the sermon, but we are going to visit some

other scriptures.

So just keep that in mind.

Have a little piece of paper or pen.

1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse number 4 says, Now there are diversities of gifts,

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

but the same spirit.

There are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.

And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh

all and on.

The title of my sermon this evening, excuse me, is variety is the spice of life.

Variety is the spice of life.

When you read the Bible, you actually see that variety is a major theme that is stamped

throughout the Word of God.

You have the Bible, for example, 66 books that essentially fundamentally teach the same

exact thing, but is written by a variety of different authors with different backgrounds.

And in fact, many of the books in the Bible address obviously the specific doctrines,

but from a different perspective, you think of the four Gospels that fundamentally teach

the same exact thing about Jesus Christ, but it is from their perspective.

You think of the 12 disciples that are centered around following the Lord Jesus Christ, yet

all of them are just completely different.

You have the sons of thunder, you have some that were fishermen, you have tax collectors,

you have one that was a Canaanite, just various backgrounds coming together to

follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

And of course, we know that the Bible is just filled with a variety of different

principles, different Bible characters, diverse backgrounds centered around the

same truth.

And it's important for us to realize that variety is not a bad thing, okay?

It's good to have a variety of different choices and so forth.

Now let me start by saying that variety is not at the exclusion of

scriptural unity, okay?

Meaning that we obviously have to believe in the fundamentals of the faith.

We need to make sure we agree on that, which is most important, but outside of

that, it's okay to have a little bit of variety in preferences and not everyone

has to be exactly like us, okay?

Now you're in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, point number one regarding variety being

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

the spice of life, that is that unity does not mean uniformity.

Unity does not mean uniformity.

What is uniformity?

Uniformity means sameness or consistency in form, character, appearance, behavior or

manner.

Uniformity is the expectation that everyone must be alike in areas where

differences could legitimately exist.

So even though God wants us to be unified around the word of God, around

the doctrines of the faith, around salvation, Jesus Christ, our biblical

convictions, it doesn't mean we need to be exactly the same in every area.

We have to have the same exact preferences, the same exact personality,

the same exact gifts.

There can be variety in those things and in fact, God encourages that.

Again, we see in verse number four of 1 Corinthians 12, there are

diversities of gifts, but I want you to notice this, but the same spirit.

So there could be people who have different gifts, spiritual gifts,

according to Romans chapter 12, 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and so forth,

Romans 12 · chapter mention 1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

but just to understand, just because someone is not wired exactly like you

doesn't mean that they don't have the spirit.

Okay?

You say to yourself, oh man, I get annoyed with this person because

they're just too much of filling the blank.

Well, it just means that they're different than you, but guess what?

They're still a Christian.

They still love the word of God.

They still love truth.

They still believe the same things that you do.

They're just not exactly like you are and that's okay.

And I don't want to get ahead of myself, but let me just say this is that

if our church was just filled with the same exact person,

the same exact personality, first of all, we would be an extremely annoying church.

Right?

If everyone in our church was just like you, it would be horrible.

If everyone was just like me, it would be horrible.

Now, obviously we're all going to share some of the same preferences in general,

but just to understand this is that God created us with different personalities,

different gifts, different strengths and different weaknesses.

And, you know, when we come together in a church,

these things are meant to complement one another, right?

Someone's strength is meant to help our weaknesses and vice versa.

We need to recognize that we need to have unity,

but not necessarily have this conformity

where we all have to be exactly alike in every single area of life.

He says there are diversities of gifts, same spirit,

differences of administration, but the same Lord.

Now, the way we can apply that is this.

Not every church has to be exactly like ours, okay?

And even churches that are like us,

even churches that we would affiliate with,

we don't have to do everything exactly alike.

You know why? Because there are differences of administration.

And in fact, he goes on to say in verse 6,

there are diversities of operations.

Now, you know, in the early years of our church,

when we went independent, I kind of had to deal with this a lot

because people had this idea that we have to be exactly like our sending church.

And look, our sending church is an awesome church.

The sending pastor is an awesome pastor.

And in fact, I learned a lot from him.

A lot of things that we do here are because of him.

You know, I decided to continue those things

because I agree with that style of church, the new FB church.

I agree with that. I believe we're a new FB church.

And so obviously whoever you're sent out of,

whatever pastor church you're sent out of,

you're going to share some of that DNA in your church.

It has to be that way, right?

You know, it'd be weird if it's just like we go independent

and all of a sudden it's like, well,

now we're a Presbyterian church.

What is that?

You know, you obviously are going to have a lot of the same DNA.

And in fact, you're going to share some of the same DNA

with other churches that didn't send you out.

Your other churches are going to influence you.

Other pastors are going to influence you.

And that's okay because the diversities in those churches

can often help us in our ministry here and vice versa.

But let me say this, that doesn't mean

that we have to be exactly like every other church.

You understand?

It doesn't mean we have to be exactly like faithful word.

It doesn't mean we have to be exactly like church foundation,

like steadfast Baptist church and so forth.

And there's definitely some churches

that we don't want to be anything alike

that used to be new IP, you know what I mean?

The point being here is that there's differences

of administration, differences in operations.

And it's important for us to recognize

that every church has a diverse way of dealing with things,

a variety of operations and administrations

that we should not stand in judgment of

on their end or our end.

Well, you know, I used to go to this church

and this is the way we did it there.

Great, praise God, but guess what?

Here we do it different

and they do it differently over there.

There's actually nothing wrong with that

because at the end of the day, the Bible says

it's the same Lord.

And the Bible says in verse number six,

it is the same God.

Listen to this, which worketh all in all.

Me, guess what?

God is working in those churches.

God is using that pastor.

God is using that congregation just as he's using us

and just because there's differences,

there's a variety of different ways that they do things,

doesn't mean that God isn't using us.

Doesn't mean that God isn't using them.

God's just operating in a different way over there.

And so this is important to understand that we want unity

and in fact, we want unity with other churches too,

to a certain degree, right?

You know, I want unity with old IFB churches,

it's just they don't want unity with us.

You know what I mean?

That's just the only problem.

You know, I want unity with old IFB churches.

Why? Because many of them believe in the right salvation.

Many of them believe they're King James only.

They're soul winners.

They believe in the right doctrines.

And so why wouldn't we want to get along

with the church like that, right?

If they are operating in that manner.

Now look, I don't agree with all the operations

of the old IFB though, right?

I don't necessarily want a Sunday school class.

I don't want bus ministry.

You know, I'm not gonna have a Christian school

or a Bible college or whatever it may be.

These are the administrations and operations of the old IFB.

But you know what?

Apparently God's still using many of them

even though they have that.

That's a different administration, a different operation.

But we have the same Lord, it's the same spirit.

But here's the thing.

You know, sometimes people could look at that and say,

well, why don't we do something like that?

Why don't we do it?

If it's working for them, I'll tell you why

because we have a different operation here.

And that doesn't work for us

and we're not really interested in that.

And again, you know, when you think of the bus ministry,

for example, we will never have a bus ministry

but I'm not gonna stand in judgment of a church that does

because I know that there are sincere people

who are in bus ministry.

They actually wanna get people saved.

They bring tons of people to church every single week.

They get those bus kids saved.

They get families integrated into the church

and they're doing a good job.

I personally know people who do that.

You know, my brother-in-laws

are super heavily involved in bus ministry

and I can tell you, you know,

with confidence that every single one of them

tries to make sure as best as possible

to make sure that they're saved.

Get them baptized, they bring them to church,

they try to get them integrated into the church

and so forth and I think that's great.

Are there churches out there

that just use bus ministry to beef up the numbers?

Of course.

You know, a lot of times people look at a church like ours

like, oh, you guys only run 200, we got this many.

Yeah, because of bus ministry though.

You know, a lot of these churches don't run like 200

but really they're running like 500

because 300 of those kids are actually from bus ministry.

But you know what?

I'm not gonna stand in judgment of that

unless of course, you know, people start asserting

that you can't be an independent fundamental Baptist

if you don't have a bus ministry.

At that point, now we're running into a problem, okay?

They need to have this philosophy

that we have a different operation,

a different administration and we're not the same

but that's okay because variety is the spice of life.

You understand?

And so, go to Romans chapter 12 if you would.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Unity does not mean uniformity.

So there should be differences between

independent fundamental Baptist church

and look, there should be differences

between new IFB churches as well.

There should be differences in the operation,

the way we do things.

That's okay and I'm explaining to you why.

When there's differences between churches like ours,

they can glean wisdom from us and vice versa.

If we did everything exactly the same

there's no room for growth.

So we need to be unified in our beliefs,

in the fundamentals of the faith

but not necessarily be exactly the same.

We're gonna share some of the same DNA

but not exactly the same.

Look at Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

We're gonna come back to 1 Corinthians 12.

Romans 12 verse four says,

for as we have many members in one body

and all members have not the same office

so we being many are one body in Christ

and everyone members one of another.

Having then gifts deferred according to the grace

that is given to us, whether prophecy,

let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith

or ministry, let us wait on our ministering

or he that teacheth on teaching,

he that exhorted on exhortation,

he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity,

he that ruleth with diligence,

he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness.

I've taught on this passage many times in the past

regarding the seven spiritual gifts

and I think this is a great thing to take into account

especially when dealing with people in church

because then you realize, oh,

the reason I'm annoyed with this person

is because we have different spiritual gifts

but if I understand how they operate

I can coexist with them.

I can appreciate their strengths

and vice versa, I know why they're wired the way they are,

why they do things the way they do,

why because there's diversities of gifts.

If we were all prophets, this church would just explode.

If we were all mercies, it'd be a liberal church.

It'd just be a compromising church.

If it was all mercies, it'd just be

an absolute compromising church.

If it was all prophets,

everyone here would be labeled a reprobate.

If it was all teachers, guess what?

It'd be just a really boring church.

Fact, that's a fact.

We wanna make sure that we have

a variety of different types of people

with different types of gifts

because we compliment each other

and look, when people have different spiritual gifts

and different personalities,

it forces us to enact spiritual principles

like mercy, patience, grace.

It gives us an opportunity

because look, prophets like to hang out

or prophets, mercies, everyone just likes

to hang out with each other who are just exactly alike.

That's even, teachers like to go with the teachers

and that's okay but you know what?

In order for you to enact

some spiritual principles in your life

you have to actually interact

with people who aren't like you.

Races like to be with races,

well you know races gotta get around

some black folk, okay?

So you can actually behave like a Christian

and enact those principles, amen?

So when it comes to the subject of variety

it's important to note that God demands unity

but not necessarily uniformity, okay?

God demands unity around the truth

and the fundamentals of the faith

but gives allowance for diversity.

And look, again,

he doesn't want everything to be exactly the same.

Think about the orchestra, okay?

I don't talk about the race

and the orchestra or anything like that.

Just think about orchestra for example.

When you think of an orchestra

every instrument that's playing the same note

isn't necessarily in harmony, right?

Harmony is actually a result of different instruments

contributing different parts

according to the same composition.

So like if everyone just does the melody,

yeah it sounds good

but it doesn't become beautiful

until everyone just plays a part,

a part of the composition.

Then it's like everyone working together

even though individually they sound different

they play a different instrument

but when they get together to compose a piece

it sounds great

and that's exactly how a church is.

If we're all violins and trumpets

or whatever it may be

it would just sound really loud.

It just sound like oh, there's just all trumpets

but because we're a church filled

with a variety of different instruments

just by way of illustration

we can compose a beautiful piece, understand?

And this is why God wants us to be different.

Variety is the spice of life.

We can believe the same Bible

have the same doctrines, preach the same gospel,

have the same biblical standards

but with diversities in our personalities

and preferences.

And you know what?

Churches can do the same

and they should do the same.

And you know, here's the thing,

like years ago there was a man

by the name of Pastor Hiles, okay?

Some of you know who that is,

some of you may not know who that is.

He had probably the largest

fundamental Baptist church during his time

and was responsible for starting

like a lot of fundamental Baptist churches,

like a lot of them.

He did a great work,

started a major soning movement,

was a super hard preacher.

He was in Ham in Indiana.

And you know, he started a lot of churches,

it was great.

But the only problem is that a lot of these churches

were just exactly like him.

And I'm not joking,

let me give you an example to this, okay?

Like Brother Hiles had this thing

where because he never,

I don't know,

I don't know if it's because of his health or whatever,

but he was always coughing during his sermons.

Like he was clearing his throat,

he'd be like,

he'd just do that all the time.

And it was kind of like something that was like,

he was known for.

Well, the churches that were started by him,

that were inspired by him and started by him,

they would preach exactly the same,

they would cough.

They would do the same thing.

Now look, we should copy Brother Hiles

as much as possible

because he was successful in a lot of ways.

But bro, like sneeze instead or something,

like I got cleared, go do something else.

It got to a point where it was kind of ridiculous

and it was like,

a lot of people would mock these preachers

because there would even be preachers

who would not only mimic his cough

and clearing of the throat,

but they would even mimic his stories.

Like they would just use his stories

as though they're the ones who are experiencing

whatever story Brother Hiles was talking about

to the point that even there's an instance

because Brother Hiles' wife, his name was,

what was her name?

Beverly.

Okay, so he was like,

Beverly one time, you know.

And there's a pastor got up, coughed,

told the story and said, Beverly.

Beverly wasn't his wife.

That's called uniformity, okay.

And I think it's important for every preacher boy

and anybody who's practicing to preach

to find a preacher that they want to sound like.

I think that's 100% valid.

Every preacher does that, okay.

You know, as I grew as a preacher, early years,

I've always had someone that I would want to mimic

their delivery the way they preach

because that's just how it works, okay.

You find someone that inspires you,

you find someone whose delivery inspires you

and you mimic that,

but eventually you kind of have to make it

your own style, you understand.

And use your own wife's name,

don't use my wife's name, you understand.

So you know, churches should be the same.

Thank God for these house churches

because that makes it easy to find a good church.

It's like, well, if that's a house church,

you're gonna find a King James only soul winning church,

hard preaching and so forth.

But it can cross some lines there

where it just becomes weird, you understand.

And so we need to make sure,

go to Luke chapter nine, if you will, Luke chapter nine.

We need to make sure that we have unity

but not necessarily seek out uniformity

where we have to be exactly the same

in every single way, every single aspect,

every mannerism, the way we do church,

the way we run the ministry.

There needs to be, you kind of need to fly on your own

and start coming up with your own ways of doing things,

your own administrations and operations and so forth.

And again, this also means

that we shouldn't necessarily stand in judgment

of another church just because they don't do it

exactly like we do, okay.

Because that's wrong, you know.

God, if we're independent Baptist churches,

we're independent, we're autonomous,

let me explain to you what that means.

It means that God is leading that church

in that particular operation.

And it'd be wrong for us as a foreign church

that has nothing to do with that church,

even though we believe the same

to try to impose upon them

to conduct ministry exactly the way we do it

because God is leading that pastor,

he's leading that church and we have to be content

with that.

Well, I just think they're just, you know,

they just kind of suck.

Well, you know, that might be true in some areas for sure.

But you know what, if they're preaching the gospel,

they're preaching against sin,

yeah, maybe the degree of hardness of the preaching

is not exactly up to par

of what we would consider to be the standard.

You know, that's not our thing,

but it doesn't mean that God isn't using them though.

And it doesn't mean that God's not pleased with them

either, because God is pleased with them.

And let me tell you, there's a lot of churches out there

that I wouldn't intend.

Like, I wouldn't be a member of.

But it's not because I think they're a bad church though.

It's not because I think they're a horrible church.

It's just that I like my preaching a little more fiery.

You know, I like to hear that for every once in a while.

Fag, fag, yeah.

Not the other one.

Yeah, gotcha.

You know, there's certain preaching that I just prefer.

And obviously I'm the pastor,

so you know, I can do that here.

But I'm just saying like, if I was a member,

I wouldn't necessarily go to every other church out there.

But here's the thing though,

I know that God is using other churches though.

And I know that God is pleased with that pastor,

he's pleased with that ministry.

You gotta keep in mind that God is still working

through the members of other churches.

And may I even say this,

even churches done are not fundamental

Baptist churches, believe it or not.

There's probably churches out there

that they're just called church,

or fellowship, or you know,

and you know, it's not my style of church.

I wouldn't want to go to a church like that.

You know, it's not necessarily what I would even consider,

but I can't necessarily,

if they have the right doctrines,

they're right on salvation,

they're right on the Bible.

And let me say this, there's churches out there

that are not fundamental Baptist churches

that do use King James, believe it or not.

You know, I can't necessarily say,

well God's not working through that church,

because if they're seeing people saved,

they're seeing people saved,

God's working in that church.

You know, I gave this illustration a while ago,

but I remember one time coming back from Belize,

I think it was like on our first trip,

and I was with someone and we're in the airplane,

and he was a, what do you call it?

Is it a male stewardess?

Is that what you call him?

A stewardess?

Flight attendant.

He's a male stewardess.

He's a flight attendant.

But you know, he kept walking by,

we had our Bibles open,

and then he's just like,

are you guys Christians?

They're like, yeah, we're actually missionaries.

He's like, you guys are missionaries, man, that's awesome.

And he was like long haired,

definitely not our style, okay?

And you know, automatically, I'm gonna tell you right now,

as soon as he said that he was a Christian,

I'm like, this guy's like some sort of liberal,

he's not a fundamental Baptist,

and I don't think he was,

but I definitely stood in judgment of him, okay?

But he was just like,

I just came back from a mission's trip with these folks,

and we got like 50 people saved or whatever.

And obviously that kind of terminology

is used only by people who actually get people saved.

You don't hear that from people

who go street preaching or something like that,

or they dig a well in some foreign land or whatever.

That typically comes from people

who are actually doing souling.

And he was like really excited,

how many did you guys get saved?

And it made me think like,

oh man, I thought this guy was like,

I mean he's a flight attendant, you know what I'm saying?

Like, you know, but here's the thing,

I probably won't go to his church,

I would never go to his church though.

But it helped me realize like,

well God's working in this person's life

and in that church.

Now again, this is not to say

that I would become a member there,

or I would even recommend for someone to go there.

I'm just saying that when the Bible talks

about diversities of operations and administrations,

it doesn't mean that God is working in those churches.

And it doesn't mean it's the exact fit for you or for me,

but we have to concede to the fact

that God is using some of these people

to change people's lives, okay?

Look at Luke 9, verse 49.

Luke 9:49

It says, and John answered and said,

Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name

and we forbade him because he followeth not with us.

Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not.

For he that is not against us is for us.

Now look, the Lord is correct, amen, he's right.

He's just like, why are you gonna stop him?

He's obviously doing the work

and so don't forbid him, let him continue doing that.

That's what he's explaining to him.

But here's the thing, like 100% agree.

Now I'd rather just be with John with Jesus though.

You understand what I'm saying?

So even though I can recognize

that there's men out there doing great works,

they're getting people saved, they're changing lives,

I wanna be as close to the truth as possible,

you understand?

So I wanna be at the church where I wanna be like

doing ministry with Jesus more than anything.

And so I wanna be at the church that's closest

to the Bible, that has the doctrine

that is closest to the Bible,

but I'm not gonna stand in judgment and say

these people aren't doing works

because the Lord said they're not against us,

they're for us and they're doing great works

over there as well.

And that's the attitude we need to have, my friends.

Is that God expects unity, but not necessarily uniformity.

Go to 1 Corinthians chapter one,

1 Corinthians chapter one if you would,

and then we're gonna go to Ephesians chapter four.

1 Corinthians chapter one

and then Ephesians chapter number four.

Diversity, variety is the spice of life.

Point number one is that unity doesn't mean uniformity.

Also wanna mention that we must have uniformity

where God demands uniformity.

So you don't wanna take this philosophy too far

and think to ourselves, oh,

we just let every Tom Dick and Harry in the church then.

Because obviously if people are wrong in salvation,

people have to get corrected on that.

If people are wrong on doctrines,

they need to be corrected.

Can two walk together except they be agreed, right?

Psalm 133 verse once says,

behold how good and how pleasant it is

for brethren to dwell together in unity.

Now look folks, in our church,

we wanna make sure that we're unified

around the fundamental doctrines of the faith.

But thankfully, listen to me,

thankfully a lot of us agree

on secondary and tertiary doctrines, right?

Like the Jews, like replacement theology,

like the reprobate doctrine.

These are secondary and tertiary positions, okay?

You understand what I'm saying?

And I think it's great

because the vast majority of people in our church

agree with us.

But let me say this,

if someone comes in doesn't believing that,

don't ostracize them for it.

Because we need to have unity,

we need to have uniformity where God demands that, okay?

So if he wants us to have the same Jesus,

we gotta have the same Jesus, right?

So we're gonna let some Muslim in here.

Well, I believe Jesus is the Christ.

No, you don't.

You do not believe that Jesus is the Christ.

You don't believe that Jesus is God.

Take that stinking thing off your head.

If you're gonna come to church

and look like a Christian

and confess Christ to be God.

That's not something we're gonna compromise on.

Cause God demands uniformity.

But you have people out there like,

well they believe that he's the Christ

and so that's good enough for me.

Then you suck as a Christian.

You don't know your Bible.

Because these people, the Muslims, Islam,

they hate Christians, they use Christians.

They don't believe in the Bible.

They mock the Bible.

And yeah, they tiptoe around a tulip

so that when they're around with you,

they walk on eggshells when they're around with you

until they outnumber you.

And then they turn on you too.

And so we need to make sure

we have uniformity where God demands.

Look at 1 Corinthians 1, verse 10.

1 Corinthians 1:10

This is not how to beseech your brethren.

By the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

they all speak the same thing.

That there be no divisions among you,

but they be perfectly joined together

in the same mind and in the same judgment.

So even when it comes to things of judgment,

if we are church disciplining someone

from the congregation because of sin,

we need to be unified in that area, okay?

Meaning we can't have bleeding hearts in our church.

Amen.

If I throw someone out because they're unrepentant,

because of some heresy,

some dandable heresy that they're teaching,

you can't be like, oh.

And if that's you, just keep your mouth shut.

Be unified with the church because if the church agrees

that this person should not be in the congregation

because of filling the blank,

then guess what?

You need to agree with the church

or you can join them, okay?

And look folks, bleeding hearts

are destructive to a local congregation

because at the end of the day,

what a bleeding heart does is they're following their heart.

I just don't think it's right.

Well, that's your problem.

If you weren't thinking, you wouldn't have thought that.

You need to make sure you're in line

with what the word of God says.

Look at Ephesians chapter four.

Ephesians chapter four.

So obviously, we need to have unity

and make sure that we agree with one another

in the fundamentals of the faith,

in the judgments of the church.

Look at Ephesians four verse one.

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord,

beseech you that you walk worthy

of the vocation wherewith you are called,

with all lowliness and meekness with long suffering

for bearing one another in love,

endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit

in the bond of peace.

Look at verse four.

There is one body and one spirit

even as you're called in one hope of your calling,

one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

one God and Father of all who is above all

and through all and in you all.

And you know what?

We need to agree with that.

You can't just be like, well, and here's the thing.

You know, if someone comes in our church

and let's just say they are a Presbyterian, okay?

Because Presbyterians are saved.

You know, we're not gonna tell them to leave

because if he believes in the right salvation,

if he believes in the right doctrines,

he can call himself a Presbyterian all he wants.

Yeah, he obviously has baptistic beliefs though,

understand?

But if he persists to call himself a Presbyterian,

you know, then he can be, you know,

the inferior denomination here if he wants.

It's perfectly fine, you know?

And there's nothing wrong with that.

What becomes wrong is if he tries to start

when people over to Presbyterian beliefs,

which is largely associated with Calvinism,

understand?

So we need to have some wiggle room here

and recognize, you know, my goal,

what I endeavor to do is when people come to our church,

we make them as Baptist as possible, right?

Try to make them as Baptist as possible.

And let me just say this, you know,

the larger our church gets is great, right?

Larger church gets is great.

But I'm just gonna tell you, the bigger our church gets,

the more we're gonna start winning people

who are not Baptist.

I don't wanna get at myself, but we are gonna start,

I mean, we have one people who are not Baptist.

And we're slowly making them Baptist.

But let me just tell you this,

many of them are not gonna be full-fledged,

fundamental Baptist the way we would consider them to be.

It's just not gonna happen.

You know, we're just thankful they even made their way

around to the reparative doctrine, to the right salvation.

But in a lot of ways, they may not be that way.

And you know what, I'm completely fine with that.

I'm perfectly fine with that.

Here's where I think everyone should be very unified,

though, as close as possible to the pastor and to the Bible.

Let me tell you, when we deal with leadership,

when it comes to the congregation,

you know, variety is the spice of life, amen.

It's okay if you have some people here

who come from different churches,

they come from sandals, they come from boots,

you know, whatever clothing church there is over there,

from cloaks, you know, whatever it may be.

But you know, none of them are gonna be

leaders in the church though.

Because when it comes to leaders in the church,

I want people who are as close to being

a new IVB fundamental Baptist as possible.

Because I ain't trying to argue with you,

I don't want you arguing with me.

You need to get on board, amen.

Making sure that we agree with one another.

Oh, that's not fair.

I didn't say you can't come to church.

I didn't say you can't go so many.

I didn't say you can't enjoy the preaching,

participate and be a member of the church.

I'm saying if you're gonna be a leader though,

we need to make sure we have unity in that regard.

Understand?

You know, a presbyterian is not gonna be a leader in our church.

And I think that's important.

And when I say leader, I'm not just talking about team leaders,

I'm talking about even ushers and stuff like that.

You know, orchestra members or whatnot, okay?

Anybody who holds some sort of visible position

of ministry, I consider to be somewhat of a leader.

And so we need to make sure

they're fundamental Baptist, new IV Baptist.

That's my standard.

That's the operation that I have here.

The reason I say that is because I've had experience

in church plans of times past,

where there's like full-fledged Calvinist ushers.

And you know, they were like,

you know, and I remember bringing this up to the leadership

and saying, hey, this guy, he uses an NASB.

He doesn't use a King James and he's an usher.

And at that, he's trying to be a head usher.

He's like, how are we gonna work with him?

And I'm like, I'm all for working with him,

but let's not let him be a leader though.

Cause you know, this is weird.

And so he was willing to conform and get a King James,

but I still wasn't comfortable with that

cause I just felt like he just did it

just so he can hold this position of leadership.

You know, we're not gonna have some Calvinist.

Calvinists can come to church if they want to here.

But we're definitely not gonna have a Calvinist

become a leader, an usher, a piano player or something.

You're not a Calvinist, right?

Alex just checking, you know what I'm saying?

You know, we're not gonna have any, why?

Because at the end of the day,

the closer we get up to the leadership,

the more we have to have in common

regarding the fundamentals of the faith

and even some preferences as well, okay?

But the more we trickle down to the congregation,

there should be leniency with what people believe

as far as their preferences are concerned, okay?

That's important.

I don't know, a lot of people don't agree with me on that,

but that's a fact.

That's just how it's supposed to be, okay?

Cause I know sometimes people are like,

I wish you were more strict than that area,

but you're not the pastor though.

And we have to understand something folks that,

you know, there's a danger in wanting everyone

to be exactly the same.

And I'm gonna get into why that's a danger in just a bit,

okay?

We need to conform where God demands us to conform,

but to have liberty where God allows us to have variety.

Go back to 1 Corinthians 12.

1 Corinthians 12, point number three

is that variety allows the body to function properly.

We need to have variety in order

for the local New Testament church

to operate properly, function properly.

Look at verse 13 of 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

It says, for by one spirit are we all baptized into one body.

Whether we be Jews or Gentiles,

whether we be bond or free,

and have been all made to drink into one spirit,

for the body is not one member, but many.

If the foot shall say because I am not the hand,

I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?

And if the ear shall say because I am not the eye,

I am not the body, is therefore not,

excuse me, is it therefore not of the body?

If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing?

So it's just like, what if everyone was an eye?

You look like a weirdo.

You know, it's just like, what if everything,

you just look nasty.

He says, if the whole were hearing,

where were the smellings?

Like, what if everything was just an ear?

You're just all ears.

But now have God set the members,

every one of them in the body,

as it hath pleased him,

and if they were all one member,

where were the body, but now are they many members,

yet but one body?

So a church entirely composed

of one type of Christian is gonna experience

severe deficiencies, and it actually becomes weird.

It actually becomes weird.

If all of us are exactly the same,

have the same exact preferences, we become tribal.

And when we become tribals, it's like us four and no more.

Someone comes with a different view,

a different conspiracy, a different idea,

and it's just like, nope, can't let that person in here.

You gotta be exactly like us.

Now you're acting like a cult, you understand?

We have to allow for differences

and give a little bit of liberty in these differences.

Now look, again, my preference would be

that a person comes to our church, they get saved,

and then they become just a straight,

fundamental Baptist, new IFB in all the way,

and I will not hinder that at all.

I want them to become that, okay?

But here's the thing, is that they have to choose

to do that though.

And not because we're threatening them

or something like that.

Like oh, you know, if you're not one of us,

you know, then, you know, get the hell out.

And don't tell the pastor I said that.

If you do, I'm gonna keep,

you know, you just start threatening people.

You need to gotta be patient with people.

And look, I'm trying to prepare you

because we have reached a lot of Calvary Chapel types,

and they're not fundamental Baptists at all.

And because you got saved in a new IFB church,

this is your standard.

So you think anything that's like different than that,

you're just kind of like, it gives you the ick.

You get the ick.

And I get it, I get it.

I'm just explaining to you though

that like we're gonna have people that come.

Like, and let me also explain,

this might be part of my other point,

but I'm gonna say it right now.

You know, this is kind of what happened to the old IFB.

Because old IFB, guess who they would reach?

Other old IFB.

They would reach other Baptists.

And so they really stopped reaching like other people,

they come from different backgrounds

because they felt threatened by them or something.

You understand?

And what happens is they became very tribal,

very cultish, so that if someone came to their church

believing, you know, I don't know,

in replacement theology,

they were like kicked out.

That's weird.

If you went to that church believing

in the post-trip pre-rath,

it's just like, not in this church,

get this Anderson out of here.

It's just like, you guys are like a cult.

There was no room for that in the old IFB.

They just like, if you weren't exactly,

you have to be pre-tribbed,

you know, worshiped, Benjamin then, yahoo.

You just have to be all Israel

and all it is just like,

if someone came with a different idea

of N times prophecy, of the Jews,

you just like automatically they're ostracized for it.

Why?

Because they felt like everyone had to be exactly the same.

And look folks, we do not wanna follow that same pattern.

Okay?

Now look, I believe I'm right on Israel.

I know that I'm right on Israel.

I know that I'm right on N times prophecy.

So if someone comes here believing the pre-trip rapture,

I'm just gonna say you're just wrong.

You can be here, but you just gotta put up

with all the preaching against the preacher rapture

and all the good preaching

about the poster pre-rath rapture and N times prophecy,

but you can come.

You just gotta tolerate me talking crap

about your beliefs though,

but you can still be here though.

You just gotta put up with me ripping on this

and you're all embarrassed in the service or whatever,

but you can still come.

I'm not kicking you out though.

And let me say this, I know this is crazy.

People can come believing the Jews are God's chosen people.

I know, you go out, walk out right now.

They can come believing that, that's okay.

It's super weird.

And we've had people come to our church believing that.

This church at this site, they believe that

and they'll talk to me about it and I'm just like,

let's do it, let's spar.

And then they're just proven wrong

and it's just like,

but they like the preaching.

They just think I'm wrong about that, but that's okay.

They have every right to be wrong.

You know what I mean?

I'm not threatened by that.

Here's the thing, I allow for that variety in our church.

Now look, obviously we're not gonna have a lot of Zionist

in our church because of the fact that

my stuff is online.

And let me just tell you this,

whoever comes to this church looking for a church

knows exactly what this church is about.

If you don't just stumble in here, okay?

Transvestites don't just stumble into our church.

Oh, it's looking for a church.

Oh, it's looking for a church.

It's just like, it's just not gonna happen.

And the day and age in which we live,

you're not just gonna not know exactly what we're about.

And we've had people in the past,

even in this year, they're like,

oh, we just look you up.

You don't just look me up.

You know what we're about, okay?

What was that?

I'll allow for diversity on that one.

I don't know if he was imitating the tranny or what.

Turn me off a little bit.

The point that I'm making here is that,

you know, if we were all just,

and look, here's the great thing about

allowing diversity in the church, okay?

In this regard, you know,

let's just say diversity and end times prophecy.

This is a church that believes

in a post-repriorath rapture,

but, you know, allowing others

with different viewpoints to come to our church,

it helps you out too.

Because if we're all saying the same thing,

it's easy for you to just have a raw, raw rally

where we all agree.

But what if your beliefs are challenged though?

Let's see you defend it, right?

That's just it.

We've had Preterists come to our church, you know?

The only time it becomes a problem

is if they start spreading it and trying to win others

and trying to like draw away disciples after them.

That's when it becomes an issue.

But if they're diplomatic, they're behaving themselves,

they're allowed to stay,

and we could even discuss it as well.

That's something you couldn't do with the old IFB though.

You could not challenge any ideas in the old IFB.

You can't challenge it.

This is what it is.

I don't wanna talk about it.

You can't have a sit-down with the pastor.

That's exactly how it is

in a lot of fundamental Baptist churches of yesteryear.

They don't accept variety, okay?

And so we don't wanna be a church.

It's just one type of Christian, one type of background.

We all agree.

And look, we all like to be kind of like the same.

It's just, you know,

we like to be around the same people.

That's just, that's kind of how we're wired.

But it's important to introduce variety

into the gene pool as well, okay?

Now you're in 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

Point number four is that variety allows

different weaknesses to be compensated

by different strengths.

Okay?

Look at 1 Corinthians 12 verse 21.

1 Corinthians 12:21

It says,

What is he saying?

You know, when one part is weak,

the part that's strong, it compensates for that.

It complements that, it helps that.

But if we're all strong in one area

and our ideas are not challenged,

it's not put to the test,

then we end up having these major weaknesses

in our spiritual DNA.

The recessive genes start popping up

because you become spiritually inbred.

And that's what we want to avoid, right?

We want to avoid being spiritually inbred Christians.

And I'm telling you, that's what happens to the old IFB.

You're just, they're just inbreeding

with other old IFB men.

And that's how it is in the South.

I don't mean like literally,

although that is a literal thing, right?

Isn't this true?

This is true.

We got Southern Baptists here.

There you go, see?

In the South, let me explain to you, okay?

Brother Tim, raise your hand, Brother Tim.

All right, wave your hand,

thank you, Brother Tim, no, I'm just kidding.

In the South, okay?

There's tons of fundamental Baptist churches in the South.

Hundreds and hundreds of fun,

I mean literally like on every corner,

there's fundamental Baptists, okay?

And all they do is just share their members, right?

Like one member is just like,

I don't like the color of the carpet on the church.

And then they just leave the church

and go to the church down the street.

Literally what happens?

And I'm not exaggerating at all,

this is literally what happens.

Like I don't like that we're spending all the money

on the sprinklers, we're going to this church instead

and they just pick up their family

to go to the church down the street.

And I am not exaggerating,

my accent is not exaggerating at all.

This is a fact, they do this.

And all they do is they just share members

one with another.

So they just become just like each other.

Just disgruntled, inbred, southern, fundamental Baptist.

I don't mean literally inbred,

although that may be play a role in that whole thing.

And the West Virginia area, that can be like that.

That's a thing, it's a thing.

I'm talking about spiritually inbred.

They just know, listen to this,

they only know how to reach fundamental Baptists.

We don't want to be a church

that only knows how to reach fundamental Baptists.

We only know how to reach new IP Baptists.

We want to be a church that's able to reach outside of that.

Like wow, we're going to reach these other churches

because we're completely different.

We just got to, I mean, don't we have the Bible?

Don't we have the corner on the truth on these things?

We can inspire people to want to be fundamental Baptists.

I've wanted to tell people to the Lord,

to salvation as well as the King James Bible.

You know, but people have this idea is like,

well King James is only like a Baptist thing.

It's really hard to win other people who use like

NIV and ESV.

Yeah, so we got to teach them the right way, okay?

And look, I want to reach fundamental Baptists,

but I'll be honest with you,

that pool is just kind of done for like,

I'm not really interested in winning old IAB anymore.

You know, they're kind of setting their ways.

We might have old IAB every once in a while come here.

You know what I mean?

If they want to get in trouble or something like that.

But it's very rare when we would have,

I think, of an old IAB person come here.

I can't even count on my hand

how many times that's happened this year.

Have we had any old IAB come here?

Maybe on accident or something like that?

I don't think so, okay?

But I don't want to just reach old IAB

and I don't want to just reach new IAB either.

I'm not trying to convince people in the new IAB

to come here.

I think it would be great

because it reinforces the ministry.

They come ready made.

You know, they got the reparated dog,

they got everything on lock.

They know all the stuff that we agree with

and I think that's great.

But I want to reach outside of that though.

And if you don't like that, you're weird.

You want to be inbred.

You want to be an inbred type person.

You know, I just want to reach,

your accent is going to start changing soon.

And look, this is in the Bible, my friends.

Let me explain to you, let me give you an example of this.

Because look, we're comfortable reaching people

as long as they believe all the stuff that we believe.

But you get a little uncomfortable

if they don't believe the rubber.

Man, they don't believe the rubber, Dr.

They're done.

Can't work with them.

Can't work with them.

Can't happen.

I don't know what we're going to do, you know?

Just teach them why you're scared for.

Let me tell you, this happened in the Bible.

The church at Jerusalem only reached Jews.

They only reached Jews.

And you know what happened when they only reached Jews?

They became Judaized.

It got all weird.

James got all weird.

They only want to reach Jews and they got all weird.

Who's the only one that actually went outside of that?

Paul started a bunch of churches filled with Jews and Gentiles.

And he's like a Jew ethnically reaching these Gentiles,

preaching about what they're struggling with.

And he's getting people from Asia Minor.

He's getting people from Greece.

He's getting people from Rome.

He's able to reach these people.

And obviously he's trying to go into a place

to reach proselyte Jews.

But in general, the majority of the churches

are composed of Gentile believers.

Why?

Because if not, you're going to end up

like the church at Jerusalem.

It's all inbred, okay?

You know that you're going to end up having

a spiritual Hasburs' chin, you know?

Because you're just completely inbred.

And look, Jews physically are like this too.

Jews, that's why they look the way they look.

Ashkenazi Jews, how many of you know

what I'm talking about?

They look weird.

It's not just because they're false religion.

Yes, but Ashkenazi Jews have these physical deformities

where you look at them and it's like

someone's up with this person.

But I'm going to tell you why.

It's because a lot of it has to do

with those recessive genes because they're basically

just marrying within the same population

for generations on end.

And they end up becoming just genetically

inferior in a lot of ways.

That's why like Jews have all these illnesses

that these genetic illnesses that they struggle with

is just very common because they're just marrying

within their own kind.

They're not building any type of resilience.

That's why it's important.

I think it's good to diversify, okay?

Even racially, yes.

That's what happened to the Indians

when the Europeans took over.

European takeover was good in a lot of ways, amen.

So why?

Because these Aztecs are just kind of

marrying within each other.

That's why they're not really strong.

That's why smallpox can kill them.

But then the Europeans came in,

they mixed in with them and they improved the genetics.

That's God's will.

That's how God wants it to be done.

He's not against interracial marrying

or anything like that.

Don't bring that racist nonsense here.

It's like, we gotta preserve the white man or something.

You want to preserve the white man,

give him the gospel.

Now look, if you're a white man,

you only want to marry a white woman,

you're more power to you, you know?

That's what you want to do, okay?

I'm not against it.

That's your preference, that's okay.

I'm not gonna condemn that.

I'm just saying for you to try to use the Bible

to try to justify that as another story,

since Moses literally married an Ethiopian woman.

And if you're a Christian,

you esteem Moses married a black woman.

An Ethiopian.

Black woman.

Darker than Maury.

Kofi, right?

Where's the other black people here?

You know, dark.

Obviously, Moses didn't care.

And you know, the Lord didn't care either.

And so, you know, the point that I'm making here

is you don't want to become like this spiritually,

you know, just spiritually inbred person,

where you're not building up a resilience towards,

you know, spiritual illnesses.

We need to diversify here and reach other people

and not feel threatened when the people that we reach

are not exactly like us.

Give them some time.

Because here's the thing,

sometimes people are like,

well, you know, they need to fall in line

with all these beliefs.

Yeah, but you're a spoon-fed all these beliefs though.

Like, you learn them like quick.

And praise God for that.

These things were streamlined to you.

You gotta understand, a lot of these people

just grew up in these liberal, limp-rested churches,

and that's all they've ever known.

So it's great that they like are hopping in here,

trying to learn the truth.

We just gotta understand, a lot of them

are coming with this liberal baggage, right?

And so we gotta work with them.

But you know, I like it, I love it.

I love the fact that there's Calvary Chapel

of people coming to our church.

I think it's great.

Because it's such a liberal church.

It's like the complete opposite of this church.

These gay churches are just like completely opposite.

And so they're not coming here for the smoke and mirrors.

Look how, look how I'm preaching.

Look how low the ceiling is.

We got one spotlight.

You know, look at this place.

You know, we're not, you know,

there's no bells and whistles here.

Got a little platform here, you know what I mean?

Just so people on the back of the seat,

because I'm short, you know,

it's not necessarily a physically just impressive place.

So whoever comes here is coming for the content.

And if they're going from some place like that,

where they do have the bells and whistles,

and they have all the fancy whatever,

you know, the pastor's flying in through a zip line

to lend the pulpit, you know what I mean?

I mean, I wouldn't mind doing that here.

I think that'd be kind of cool, you know?

You know, but then they come here,

obviously they're coming here for substance.

So give them some credit.

We need to introduce a new spiritual gene pool

into this place, because we need to help them

become strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

And so, you know, Jews, man,

you don't want to be like those Jews.

These endogamous Jews just marrying within their population

for generations on end, and just coming out all weird.

And, you know, oh, we're just, we're just gotta be just,

that's why, you know, you hear about these people,

like these, there's like these white people, right?

And sorry to say the same thing in the same sentence,

you know, Jews and the white people, you know,

you have these white people,

they literally go into the middle of nowhere

to make their own community compound,

where it's just only with white people.

In a couple generations, they're gonna be ugly,

very low-resilient and everything,

because they're just mixing in with each other.

Who else are they gonna marry, you know?

And so, you don't want this bottleneck effect spiritually

in our church, historical founder effects,

where it's just like, everyone's just old IEP,

just mixing in with old IEP, only reaching old IEP,

only reaching old IEP, it's just like,

then you become weak and you can't learn anymore,

understand?

And so very important, go to Romans 14, if you would,

Romans 14, weaknesses are exposed

when we introduce new people to the church,

because then they're gonna start bringing up problems

or doctrinal issues that maybe you've never heard of.

And you're like, oh, you know what?

I need to go back to the drawing board on that.

I need to like research that,

because I didn't even know that was a problem.

Yeah, that is an issue, and we have to learn about that

to kind of refute that, you understand?

And so the problem is that, oh, here's point number five.

Variety prevents us from thinking our way is the only way, okay?

It prevents us from thinking that our way is the only way.

We need to make sure that we recognize,

yeah, we're right on the Bible,

but other people are right on the Bible too, okay?

And you don't have to come to church like this

to get saved, there's plenty of other churches

that can get you saved.

There's plenty of other people who are right on the doctrines

that we're right on, they agree with us,

but they're not fundamental Baptists.

And guess what?

We're not necessarily the only ones, okay?

There are other churches that are doing great works,

and we can't have this mentality of like,

yeah, but we're like the best though.

You know, and obviously there's a healthy way

of thinking that where it's just like,

I do think our church is the best, great?

But never think that at the exclusion

of thinking that every other church is just bad.

Like we're the best and everyone else just sucks.

You know, everyone else is just apostate,

everyone else they just don't do soul winning right,

everyone else they don't teach right,

they don't preach right, that's a wrong attitude to have.

We're not the only ones who are right, okay?

Romans 14 verse five says,

one man esteemeth one day above another,

another esteemeth every day alike,

let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

And I would say this principle definitely applies

if you were to just put it into the liberal church.

Because think about this, you know,

in the liberal churches long hair

is just completely permissible for men to have, right?

No one questions that.

Everyone follows the same narrative

of long hair and drinking alcohol, isn't that true?

Like if you go to some,

if you go to an east side Calvary Chapel

and you ask about alcohol and long hair,

everyone's gonna tell you the same exact answer.

Jesus turned the water into wine,

low on for the stomach's sake, you know, not in excess.

You know, Jesus had long hair.

Everyone's gonna say the same exact thing,

but you take any one of those and you put them here

into a new spiritually genetic gene pool,

those ideas will be challenged from the Bible.

And you know what?

If they've been around their own people

saying the same thing over and over again,

thinking that they're right,

but you put them here,

they're gonna realize like, oh man,

I never actually learned what the Bible says about alcohol.

I've always heard this about it.

I never seen this verse.

I didn't know that verse was there.

Why? Because they thought that they were right.

Because everyone's just saying the same exact thing

over there.

You understand what I'm saying?

So what do they need?

They need a fundamental Baptist to go over there

or they need to come to a fundamental Baptist church

so their ideas can be challenged.

And they're not the only ones.

A ton of churches are like this.

A lot of Calvary Chapel liberal churches

will tell you the same exact thing

regarding long hair and alcohol.

I promise you that.

But why?

Because I'm telling you right now

there is no new gene being introduced.

There's no variety.

Because they look at us

and like all these fundamental Baptists,

they're so abrasive.

They're so mean-spirited.

They're so this, then, the other,

you know, they're a bunch of,

what do they call us?

Not, they're,

not Bible thumbprint.

Something about the law.

What do they say?

Legalist.

They're legalists.

They're just, you know,

I bet you they're King James only

and they look down on us.

But when you challenge their ideas

with the Bible, they have nothing to say, though.

Oh, you're just mean-spirited.

Oh, you just, you just, you just rude.

You don't have the spirit.

It's because you don't have the fruit of the spirit.

I don't have long hair

because I don't have the fruit of the, oh, okay, yeah.

Oh, I don't get pissy drunk

because I don't have the fruit of the spirit.

Oh, okay, I got it, yeah.

Yeah, real good argument there.

You know, variety prevents us

from thinking that our way is the only way.

And let me just give you,

let me drop a truth bomb on you right now.

50 years from now, there's gonna be churches

that are gonna point out the errors in our church.

That's a fact.

You may not even like that, but it's true.

Because every church, every church in every generation

has a deficiency.

That's just how it is.

And you know what?

We don't recognize our deficiencies

because our, we're fighting a particular battle

and the deficiencies we have aren't necessarily magnified

because we're not really focused on that right now.

That's just how it is.

You know, again, I think of Jay Frank Norris,

who in the 1920s, 30s and 40s,

he fought some incredible battles

against evolution, against modernism, you know,

against alcohol.

And these were like really big things in those days.

Huge.

And people would have, you know,

accredited him for seeing a lot of people saved,

fighting evolution, because you know,

during those times, a major problem within churches

is that churches were becoming liberal,

but not the way you and I would consider

liberal churches.

We're talking about liberal in their theology.

You know what that means?

It means they started believing,

oh, maybe evolution is true

and the Bible teaches evolution.

So they would mix these modernistic ideas

and try to impose it into the Bible

and he fought against that.

He's like, the Bible must be read literally.

It's the word of God, six-day literal creation,

evolution is a lie, and he fought that battle.

You're like, well, what was his deficiency?

Bro, he was a Zionist.

He was a hardcore Zionist.

He loved Israel.

But you know, that wasn't necessarily a battle back then

because everyone just agreed with that

and just, they didn't really, you know,

maybe the Lord, the spirit of the Lord

wanted them to focus on fighting modernism

in local New Testament churches

and then generations later,

Zionism would be fought thereafter.

But here we are, years later, we're like,

well, that was a deficiency in J. Frank Norris's time

where they didn't fight Zionism,

but they fought against these other battles

and praise God for that, you understand?

But now we're fighting that battle.

So every generation of every church

will have some form of deficiency.

And you know what, you gotta be okay with that.

Don't think, no, we got it all, we got it all.

We know, we got it all down packed.

Yeah, we got it all down packed

in the battles that we're fighting.

But there's certain battles that we're not fighting,

that we're kind of blinded to right now

because we're not necessarily focused on them right now.

It's not an issue.

Look, I'm gonna tell you right now.

You know, in, let's say, 50 years,

someone's gonna call us out and be like,

didn't preach enough against bestiality.

Cause it's not really like a major thing.

It is in Pakistan or whatever, but, you know,

but it's not like a major thing here.

And they're gonna be like, yeah, you know,

these guys are really hard on homos.

You find a lot of sermons on homos,

but not enough sermons on bestiality.

And we think about this earlier,

it's just like, why would we?

That's not, but you never know, 50 years from now,

that might be like a major thing.

And churches could look back and say,

that was a deficiency in their time.

They didn't really talk a whole lot about that.

But you know what someone's gonna get up and say,

but that's because that wasn't a battle

that was there for them at that time,

but it is now, okay?

Last point, you know, and before I get into this last

point, let me say this is that

we don't wanna become just like an echo chamber.

And even within our church, folks,

you know, I know a lot of you guys

like to hang out with your little crew.

You got your Instagram friends here.

You got your ex friends here.

You know, you get in with your little friends

and you guys bounce off the same ideas

off of each other and talk about this.

You know, don't become an echo chamber

of Christians in our church,

or you only wanna be around people that agree with you.

Get around some people in our church

that disagree with you.

You know, I know after the service,

you guys are just gonna shoot straight towards

the person that agrees with you the most.

That's a fact.

You're like, well, they're not here.

Then you're just gonna go home.

That's a fact.

You're gonna get around the people

who are sensitive like you,

who are hard like you,

who are zealous like you,

who are just like you,

who share your same viewpoints like you,

who share your same political viewpoints as you,

who share your same views on race like you,

who just are extreme in certain areas like you.

That's just how it is.

Get around some people who don't agree with you.

Be willing to talk to people.

You know, I'm willing to talk to Geo.

He's a runner.

You know, that ain't my thing.

You know what I mean?

I'm gonna fellowship with him, though, you know?

I'll hang out with the inferior,

you know, the weak things that I'm just kidding.

I'm kidding.

I'm kidding, brother Rick.

I'm kidding.

You know, I don't like running.

I just don't like it.

But I could talk to him about that, though.

It doesn't intimidate.

And it's not like, well,

I kind of don't like talking about this.

You know, hey, those of you who don't live,

go talk to someone who lives.

Ah, but then we get into the conversation of lifting.

Oh, God forbid someone inspires you to become healthier.

God forbid someone would actually encourage you

to get in the gym because you're fat

and you're just overweight

and you're just not healthy.

Your bones aren't healthy.

Get around the people that'll challenge you.

Don't become a group of just echo chamber Christians

where you're just reinforcing your own ideas

it's never challenged and you're just encouraged

to be exactly how you are the entire time.

It's not healthy, my friends.

I know you guys don't like it, that's okay.

I don't care.

Number six is demanding uniformity

where God allows a variety creates self-righteous division.

You know, you can't demand uniformity.

Oh, you gotta believe just like this.

Well, if it's not a fundamental of faith, no, I don't.

Okay?

I don't have to believe that.

Okay?

And we have to recognize that we don't want to be those

who are teaching for doctrines that commandments have been.

But you know what?

That's not just in doctrine, just in personality too.

Get around people who you don't necessarily click

with 100% of the time.

Why?

Because it's important for you to learn

how to fellowship with people

who are not exactly like you.

Oh, I don't like really talking to people like that

because they're really rude.

We probably need to be around some rude people.

Might be a little soft.

Might be like overly sensitive all the time.

Get around some people who help you develop some thick skin.

You know, this is why I'm done here.

This is why, you know, I'm not for like all Chinese church.

All black church.

All Mexican church.

In America of course,

because if you're in Mexico, you got no choice,

you know what I mean?

But there's churches like that in the United States

where it's like, I only want to go to a black church.

Ha!

I like to go to the black church and they're all, whoo!

Yeah, that's entertaining for like a week

and then it's just like, can we like,

can you stop acting a fool

and get serious about doctrine or whatever?

You know what I mean?

That's good for an Instagram clip or whatever.

But those people are like,

I only want to go to a black church

because I want to be around black people.

And look, let me say this,

we need more black people in our church

to stop being racist people, okay?

We do need more black people in our church, you know?

We only got like three right now in this service, I think.

And I don't even know if Adrian counts

because he's like half.

He's a light skinned, you know?

It's like, not even that much of a percentage.

Kofi and Mori make up the large percentage.

Will's not here.

He would, you know, was that four?

We got four here.

We need more black people.

You know, I'm not four.

We need all black church or how about this?

Well, let's just keep black people out.

We don't want too many black people in our church.

Kind of nonsense is that.

And some of you are like, well, what's wrong with that?

I think that's a good idea, you know?

And look, this is some of the old IFP did.

Let me tell you this story.

You guys ready for a story?

Some lore?

You know, back in the day, in Brother Kyle's day, okay?

There was a guy named Jim Vineyard

and, you know, he was in charge of the bus ministry

and he would go into the bus and count

how many black kids there were in the bus.

And there's too many, we got too many bleep

in the bus right now.

So he'd just pick up my random and throw them out.

We're a true story.

And some of you are like,

damn, that's kind of, you know, for real, can we do that?

No, you can't do that, okay?

And there's like too many whatever in the church,

too many whatever in the bus out, you know?

And, you know, whatever, you're saying,

well, pastor, different administrations and operations,

you know, there's differences in,

same spirit though, same lore or whatever, you know?

But, you know, I'm against an all Chinese church.

I don't think we should have an all Chinese church.

Can't understand anything, you know?

I'm against all black, I'm against all Mexican church too.

You sound racist, I'll be racist,

all equal across the board over every race.

I want a church to be filled with everything.

Can't have an all Mexican church

because then we'd start church late all the time.

You know, it would be horrific.

You know, what else we got?

Can't have an all white church either.

Oh, now you speak of.

Yeah, I don't want an all white church.

And look, I'm not specifically picking the demographic

of every, you know, we're like,

how many we got in here?

One time we did that though.

We tried to count how many of each race we had,

but then people were like,

that's not really white or whatever, whatever.

All white church, all Filipino church,

if we're all Filipino church,

we'd be having Pollux every single Sunday.

Marshmallows on spaghetti, we'd be having diabetes.

There's an issue when it's just too much

of one particular ethnicity or whatever it may be.

Just let it be folks, heaven is mixed.

And you have to learn how to get along with people.

And look, church is good

because it'll give you a culture shock too.

Maybe you didn't grow up with black people.

You know, I grew up with black people

so I don't have problems with black people at all.

I grew up with them, you know,

I got in fights with them, I got jumped by them,

you know, I got jumped, I almost got robbed by them,

you know, it's just, I grew up in Long Beach, amen.

That's where I grew up at.

So I know what that's all about.

But even then I'm not prejudice against black people, no.

You know, I'm not, I don't hate black people at all.

I recognize patterns like everyone else though.

Everyone recognizes patterns.

I recognize patterns in every ethnicity, okay?

I think a church should be diverse.

I don't think you were like, well, you know,

I think we should, I think this should be

an all Indian church.

Don't even let me get started.

Okay.

You know, we need to be diverse.

We want diversity.

Not in beliefs, but in the people that we reach.

And you need to learn how to fellowship with people

that are not your skin color.

And not be afraid of black people or something.

Or like, so are you Mexican or Salvadorian?

I'm Guatemalan.

What is that, Mexican or Salvadorian?

You know, are you Japanese or Chinese?

You know, learn how to talk to people.

Learn, you know, expand your horizons

and your knowledge about other people.

And don't think to yourself, well,

I don't really like it here

because this church doesn't really have my race here.

You know?

Well, you know, it's the human race.

Here you go.

How about that?

Okay.

And so variety is the spice of life.

Enjoy it.

And don't allow your mentality to be influenced

by X, Instagram, TikTok or whatever,

to think, well, you know,

this is the one world view

that I think everyone should have.

No, allow yourself to be challenged by the Bible,

by the preaching of God's word and by others.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much for your word.

Thank you for the variety that we've seen, Lord.

And in our church,

and I think church should be for every single race.

Lord, why not?

And we're not talking about every single culture

because we wanna have a Christian culture in our church

where we believe the Bible,

we believe in salvation by grace through faith,

we believe in the Trinity,

we believe in the King James Bible,

but it's okay to have differences in other areas.

And so, Lord, I pray that you'd help us to recognize

the importance of variety

and to recognize that not everyone has to be exactly like us.

Help us to not be spiritually inbred

that we would be willing to reach out

to other peoples of different types of churches

and Christian backgrounds

to help them to understand what the truth is.

We love you.

We thank you.

Pray the things in Jesus' name.