April 19, 2015
1 Corinthians chapter number three, the part that I wanted to focus on is beginning in verse number nine where the bible reads, “For we are laborers together with God, ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” The title of my sermon tonight is this, ye are God’s building. Now let’s keep on reading on here it says in the verse, “According to the grace of God which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation another built there on. But let every man take heed how he buildeth there upon. For the foundation can no man layeth and that is laid which is Jesus Christ.”
“Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver precious stones, wood hay, stubble. Every man’s work shall be made manifest for the day shall declareth. Because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath build there upon he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved yet so is by fire. No ye not” watch this, “That ye are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you, if any man defile the temple of God him shall God destroy for the temple of God is holy which temple ye are.”
Now it’s very clear when we read this passage that the building that’s being built here is a spiritual building. We are not talking about a physical building where we have a bunch of trucks out there bringing in cement to lay the foundation and we are going to build a big building. No it’s a spiritual building, Jesus Christ is the foundation and he says that building is people. Because he says to the people of the church of Corinth, ye are God’s building. In verse number nine and then at the end he says, “The temple of God is holy which temple ye are.” Now if you would go to Ephesians chapter number two.
The reason I point this out is because we live a day where churches often place great emphasis on building great physical buildings. Giant physical structures, beautiful structures. Is that really the main work that God has called us to do? Is that something that the New Testament emphasizes in any way shape or form? In all of the letters that the Apostle Paul is writing unto these various churches where he talks about the things that he’s working on and the things that they are working on and the things that they need to improve. He never one time brings up their great big building program.
Or the great big fundraiser to raise money for the building and yet in most churches today, this has become a great emphasis. Raising huge amounts of money to buy expensive buildings. Now I want to start out by saying this, my sermon tonight is not to criticize other churches who do things a little different than we do things. Or just to say that anybody who builds a building is bad or something. I don't want you to misunderstand the sermon and take things too far and just use this to insult or criticize other churches. Okay now are there churches out there who are abusive? Of course that just, it’s all about money, money and build big palaces, but the main purpose of the sermon tonight is just to explain to you the philosophy that we have here at Faithful Word Baptist church and why our church will never build a building.
Just to explain the philosophy and the scriptural reasons and I’m not saying that anybody who does this is a little different is wrong. Sure it’s ridiculous when it’s all about the building. I just want to understand why I have this philosophy that I believe is scriptural and why I think is smarter for our church to never build a building ever. Okay so look at Ephesians chapter 2 verse 19. The bible says, “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God and are build.”
He’s saying, “You are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom all the building fitly framed together growth unto an holy temple in the Lord. In whom ye also are built together for inhabitation of God through the spirit. The building in the New Testament is the church. The bible says, “That though mayest know how to oddest to behave thyself in the house of God which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. In the New Testament it is the church that is the house of God.
It’s not a physical building, a tabernacle or a temple but he says, “You collectively make up the temple of God, you are God’s building.” Okay that assembly of people that makes up the church that’s God’s building. Now tonight and if you would just flip a few page over to Ephesians four, tonight we are sitting in a building, okay. That is very scriptural for us to be sitting in a building and having church tonight because of the fact that even in the earliest church they had a building. You see they met in the upper room and we think of the upper room as being just a small little room.
If you remember there were 120 people meeting for church in the upper room. If you have a room big enough for 120 people to meet there and have church that’s a pretty big giant space that they were using. Then of course we know that the Lord kept adding to the church daily such that it should be saved. We know that thousands were added at church obviously they grew, obviously they are meeting somewhere. They are some location where they are getting together and assembling. Whether that it’s in the upper room, which had room for at least 120 people may be many more.
Or whether that’s another building, a tent, a tabernacle, whatever anyone constructs, obviously just due to whether and due to logistics. They are times when you need to meet in a building. Like for example in August in Phoenix Arizona you want to meet in a building, you don't want to be outside in this weather its way too hot. If we were in some extremely cold place, like if we were having a church in Alaska or something then the winters would be extreme and you did have even … Don't get me wrong, people who are against meeting at a building that’s just silly. Okay because in the bible they met in different buildings, they met in people’s houses but they also met in much bigger buildings to accommodate thousands of people, not the issue here.
What the issue here is when we get out of emphasis of reaching people and building people and carrying out that commission and where the emphasis instead becomes about building a physical building. Our success is measured by physical buildings. This come from a worldly philosophy. This is how the world look, the world is constantly insulting Faithful Word Baptist Church for meeting in a strip mall, right. Meeting in an office space and they are mocking that because that’s how the world thinks. Because the bible says that there are people in this world who suppose that gain is godliness.
They look at wealth and money and palaces and stain glass windows and gold and silver and precious stone, that’s what impresses them but the love of money is the root of all evil and God doesn’t see as man seeth. God is looking at the people. God looks at us and says, “You are my building” you are God’s building, you are His workmanship the bible says. Look at Ephesians chapter four verse 11 and he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints. For the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ.
That word edifying means buildings, that’s what it means. Who here speaks Spanish? We know that to say a building in Spanish is what? Edificio, right. To build something is to edify that’s what an edifice is, it’s a building. He says here that the work of the ministry done by pastors, teachers, evangelists, prophets it’s the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God unto a perfect man under the measure of the statute or the fullness of Christ that we henceforth be no more children. Tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine.
By the slide of man and cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait to deceive but speaking the truth and love may grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ. From whom the whole body fitly joint together and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. It’s about building ourselves, it’s about building each other, it’s about building people’s lives, it’s not about building a physical building in the New Testament.
Now in the Old Testament there are a lot of stories about warfare, people are going to battle and fighting with the sword and spear and shield. We know that in the New Testament the application for those things is a spiritual application. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness sin this world. Against spiritual wickedness in high places, we know that God‘s not calling us to take up sword and spear and go fight a physical enemy. It’s a spiritual battle. The weapons of our warfare the bible says are not carnal, they are not fleshly. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine.
We have to understand that many things in the Old Testament that are at a physical application have a spiritual application in the New Testament. In the Old Testament the physical battle is a spiritual warfare today in the New Testament. In the Old Testament there are great stories about magnificent buildings being built whether that’s the tabernacle or whether that’s Solomon’s temple or whether it’s the rebuilding of the temple in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. Or whether it’s the building of the wall around the city of Jerusalem and these stories are profitable unto us today.
Let me tell you something they have a spiritual application, it’s not about picking up the trowel and the hammer and going out and physically building a building. It’s about building the church which is people not a building. That’s why he says, “Look you are the temple of God, you are God’s building.” He’s using illustrations from the Old Testament temple to illustrate the building, “Of God’s People” in the New Testament it’s spiritual it’s not literal in the New Testament that’s what the bible is teaching. Now there are a lot of reasons why I do not believe that it is wise for our church to ever build or purchase a building.
You may or may not agree with these things but I’m just going to lay out to you what my philosophy is which I believe is derived from scripture and just from the wisdom that I have acquired just living on this earth. Even though I’m young I grew up and was born and raised an independent fundamental Baptist. From the time I was born I have gone to Baptist churches and I have seen the downfall of many soul winning Baptist churches and a lot of it had to do with buildings and money. Okay the love of money is the root of all evil and whenever we get off track where it’s not about the souls, it’s not about the people.
Where it becomes about the building, there’s a danger for us to go down a very wrong path. It’s my job as a pastor I believe to lead us away from danger and to lead us away from carnality. Again this is not saying that my philosophy or the way that we do things at Faithful Word is the only right way to do it, okay. This is just for us as a church to understand and if other people, other pastors would hear this and take it to heart, great. The men in our church that want to pastor someday, I hope that they’ll listen to this and think about this and understand this. We are living a day where when someone goes out to start a church often they start looking for the building even before they even start knocking the first door with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because that’s what it’s about.
Now part of that comes from the desire to impress other people, because of that fact that you don't want to be in a strip mall, you don't want to be meeting in an office space. You want to impress people, you want to have a real church building. The real free standing, people the whole shebang and that’s what people think right. Let me explain to you some of the reasons why it is not efficient or expedient for us to have a church building at this time or at any time. I’m telling you my goal with this church is to meet in a store front until Jesus comes. We are going to rent space until Jesus …
Now you say, “You don't have any vision” I have great vision. I want the church to grow but I just don't have visions of great buildings, I have visions of great people. You see it’s not about staying small, I don't believe in staying small, there are some people who do and they are, “All big churches are bad.” I don't believe that. God willing our church will continue to grow, we’ve grown every single year and we’ll continue to grow with God’s help and by His grace and I pray and hope that our church will someday run thousands of people and I believe that it will. I don't know maybe it will maybe it won't. That’s not really what gets me up in the morning of, “Yeah we are going to reach a thousand people.”
That’s not really that important to me because I believe it’s God’s jobs to build the church. It’s our job to preach, to win souls, to be faithful and Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” I believe that our church will probably one day run over a 1,000 I don't see why it wouldn’t but maybe I’m wrong who knows who cares. The bottom line is we have a great church it’s about quality not quantity, we are winning people to Christ. Honestly God said surely blessing I will bless thee and multiplying, I will multiply thee. If we are going out and knocking doors and winning people to Christ the church should go.
The church should multiply and staying small is not God’s will I don't believe I think that it’s about growing. It’s not about growing at any cost, it’s about staying right, having integrity zero comprise and let it go in its on time naturally. Not try to rush the growth by bringing in the rock band trimming the message and so forth. We don't want, you got be careful because there are this other people out there who have this attitude of, “Growth is bad stay small.” No that’s not what the bible teaches in the books of Acts they are growing dramatically. We should strive to grow as well but here are some reasons why building a building or buying a great church building is not part of that program.
In my mind or in my vision and I hope that after this sermon you will agree with me. We’ve already seen a lot of the scriptures deemphasizing physical buildings and emphasizing the spiritual building. Let me just compare to you buying a house personally with buying a church building okay just to help you understand where I’m coming from here okay. First of all when you buy a house for your familiar here are some benefits to buying a house for your familiar. Number one you get a tax write off when you buy a house because if you buy a house you pay interest right. Because you usually have to borrow the money most people, because we live in a debt based economy a debt based system.
Even if you pull the money out of your wallet and look at it, it says it’s for paying debts, right on the dollar bill. We live in a debt based system, there is not even enough money in circulation to pay off all the debt because of the fractional reserve lending and the scam of the Federal Reserve etcetera, etcetera. Pretty much every single person, I’m not going to ask for a raise of hand, pretty much almost every single person who buy the house, they borrow money to buy a house, you have to get a mortgage. The benefit to doing that is that you usually end up paying about the same amount per month as you would pay for rent anyway.
You get to write off all that interest, all the interest is a right off. All those hundreds and hundreds of dollars of interest that’s a tax benefit, okay. Not only that but when you buy a house personally usually you can get in with no money down or very little money down. You don't have to put up huge amounts of money to get into a house. Number three when you own a house, if somebody sues you or the IRS comes after you, usually they can't take away your house that you live in. Because they understand okay you have to have a dwelling place you have to love here.
Not only that but usually when you go to buy a house if you have reasonably good credit you don't need a bunch of cosigners you just sign it for yourself and you are in. You have decent credit, you have a job, you make enough money you sign for it yourself and not only that when you buy a house for yourself, you have a reasonable idea of how many people are going to live in that house in the long run, right. Now I always say that you should never buy a house with the attitude of, “I’m going to move in two or three years, I’m going to move in five years” no you are not because you don't know.
Because what if the housing value drops and then you can't sell it? You could be upside down. Whenever you buy a house it’s always wise to think about it in the sense that you might be stuck in that house for a very long time. That’s why when I bought my house here to start the church in I didn’t buy a big house but I bought a house, it’s a small old house but when I bought it, I thought about it like, I might be in this house for the next 30 years. I need to think about the fact that I’m going to have kids and everything so I need to get at least three bedroom, two bath or whatever.
You got to have at least some room to grow and the thing about it is that even though you are going to have a lot of kids, there’s only so many kids you can have. Then eventually they start living, at least that’s what I’m hoping, eventually they get married, get out of here and eventually you are going to reach critical mass where they start leaving at the same rate that they are being born and then you reach a certain maximum. I’m saying there’s not going to be a 100 people living in my house, right. It’s not going to be 200 people, you know okay at the most there’s going to be 10 or 12 people if I end up having a bunch of kids in that time that’s possible.
Now let’s compare these points with buying a church building okay. Well when you buy a church building there’s no tax benefit because churches aren't paying taxes anyway. You are not getting that write off so there’s no tax incentive to owning a church. Not only that but a church building is very expensive so we are not dealing with the relatively small amount of money of buying a personal home for yourself. 150,000, 250,000 back in 2012 before I had come to this realization that I’m preaching to you tonight about why we should never own a building and why we should never buy a church building.
Back in 2012 I contemplated moving our church into a building, owning a building. The reason why this thought came to my mind is because, I opened the mail box one day and there was a check for $75,000 in the mail made out to our church. I got the check and I was thinking, “Man is this for real? That’s a lot of money.” I took it down to the bank and they said, “The money is there” I’m like, “Well deposit this thing.” 75 grand so I thought to myself, “Wow maybe God is providing us money so that we could get into a church building” because how often do you have these big chunks of money to be able to put down on a church building?”
I looked down to it, I did some research and but right away something didn’t sit well with me right away with that because I’m thinking to myself, “Wait a minute, so somebody gives me $75,000 and I’m going to go out and spend like 10 times that much.” It’s like, “Wait a minute, if somebody gives me $75,000 and I go out and spend 750,000 or more something didn’t seem right about that, just seemed weird.” I started looking into it though just to see what was out there and here are some of the things that found. First of all I found that for $750,000 you could not even begin to get a building that’s big enough for our church not even close.
A church building for $750,000 will be way too small for the size of our church even back in 2012. With no grow, let alone growing room. If you are getting a 30 year loan you got to have growing room, right? Well the type of building that would have been purchased for $750,000 even in 2012 which was like the bottom of the market. The commercial real estate market was pretty close at the bottom in 2012, wasn’t even close. The building that we would have needed that would have some growing room would have been about $1 ½ million $1.5 million. Okay and not only that but it would have had growing room but necessarily 30 years of growing room because our church is growing at a pretty good rate, it’s growing pretty fast. It would have had maybe five, 10 years maybe probably not even that for, “Just sell it and get another one” but you don't know what the market is going to do.
It’s not always that easy to but the next building. You know what I’ve known a lot of churches that got into trouble doing stuff like that. I can remember talking to a pastor who is bragging about his financial wheeling and dealing. How he’d sold this property, bought this one sold this one and he’s wielding millions of dollars. He said, “There are a lot of pastors who can out preach me” but he said, “No one can help finance me.” That’s what, I thought and you know what, within two years he’s no longer pastoring because he messed up the finances. Because he just knew he’s going to sell this property and that is going to fix everything and then the market dropped and nobody wanted to buy.
He was sunk and because of the financial problems that led to all kinds of problems. Look how many divorces are caused by financial problems? Okay well let me explain something to you. Spiritual church divorces take place over financial problems to. When the church is all financially jerked up, church splits happen. People get angry, there’s fighting, there’s bitterness and so forth. We are talking about a lot more money than just buying a housing for your family. Think about this, how big is your house? How many square feet is your house? My house is like after I, well my house is like 1,500 square feet, okay.
Let’s say you have a big house that’s like 3,000 square right that would be considered a pretty big house, right, if you have a 3,000 square feet that’s huge. Okay well the thing is though you are sitting in a building that’s 3,600 square feet and we also have office space that we rent around the corner to store stuff so we actually have like 4,300, 4,400 square feet here. Okay and then my friend Pastor E. Menes in Sacramento California [inaudible 00:23:22] Baptist their building is like 4,400 square feet also, okay. This is the church that runs 100 and something people over there okay. We are talking about bigger buildings, big parking lots, how many vehicles do you have?
One, two okay, okay how many vehicles does a church parking lot need? Hundreds, okay. We are talking about a building that would be at least a million and half dollars and it wouldn’t even still be necessarily what you need. Okay, then you talk to the banks and you know what they want? 20% down. There’s no, no money down, it’s not buying a personal home no, they want 20% and it’s not negotiable. They say that’s low, we really want 40% down but they say, the least we’ll do is 20% and then they’ll give you a bad deal because you are only putting 20% down. Everything with business is more expensive than personal. Like for example you want to bring internet into your home versus bringing it into the office, it’s going to cost two or three much times as bringing it to office.
You want water bottles delivered to your home? Twice as much to have water bottles deliver to your business. That’s just the way things work. Business to business cost more than business to personal. We are talking about having to raise money for 300,000 bucks and I’m just giving an example here it probably cost more than this to get the building we need. Raise money for 300,000 bucks where I get up and preach all these sermons about how you cannot give out God and put your hand on the screen. You need to mortgage your house and borrow … Then you have everybody digging deep putting all their money in the plate right.
Mortgaging their home to put … I’ve been in churches where people are told you need to mortgage your house and or the church will sell bonds to people to raise money. Borrow money from the church members and everything and they get into everybody for all these money. Then not only that guess what? Pastor Anderson signature is not going to be enough, no. They want a whole bunch of people to sign, whole bunch of people to cosign that loan and now they are on, guess which kind of people they want to cosign? People who have money, people who have stuff, not just, “I’ll do it, I’m an 18 year old living in an apartment, I’ll cosign Pastor Anderson I got your back.”
No they want people who have something to lose, who have good credit, who have money, who own things collateral. Basically you are getting into debt first of all and let me say this, our church has existed for the last 10 years and we’ve never borrowed any money in 10 years. We’ve always been able to pay every bill on time. I think that’s a pretty good financial record the pastor church of a couple hundred people and to never borrow any money. To pay every bill on time and to always have money and to never run out of money, okay. That’s the best way to do it and that’s why our church will just continue to operate in cash.
Because you know what? If we don't have the money for it then we don't it. I think that’s a great philosophy to operate our church under, why not? Why not rent a building until Jesus comes? There’s no point in owning, there’s no benefit plus we have no idea how big the church is going to get so we might shell out that 1.5 mill, we might raise that 300,000 have the thermometer spin the wheel, raise the money have the bake sell. We might raise all the money, everybody gets all strapped for cash and pours every last cent into that down payment then you still have to pay the payments every month on the thing.
Okay what’s a mortgage on $1.5 million to a church like Faithful Word? This is a volatile institution folks in the worlds mind. They are not going to look at this as like, this is a … Because why? Because we are independent we don't have the Presbyterian denomination or the United Methodists denomination. The bank is like, “Well who’s your denomination? Who’s your district leader? You are not in the Southern Baptist Convention? You are not in the North American Baptist Association?” No they don't, you are independent? What. What you have no credit? What “ Okay well let’s get all these people with money in church and here’s the thing about people with a lot of money.
You know what? Thank God there are some people who have a lot of money that are spiritual people but let’s face it, the majority of spiritual people are not wealthy. Now look don't get me wrong, the exception proves the rule. There are people who have a lot of money that are spiritual giants, I believe that. There are people like that in the bible, people like Philemon seemed to have money but here’s the thing though. You know and I know that God has chosen the poor of this word rich in faith and heirs of the kingdoms which he has promised to them that love him but you despise the poor. Do not rich man oppress you and draw you before the judgm4ent seats?
Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by which you are called just to quote a little scripture but there’s more than that. Okay so do we really want our destiny to be controlled by a bunch of money bagged people who are controlling the credit and they’ve got their name signed and we better do it the way that they want. Because they don't want to lose that investment and blah, blah, blah. Now you got all these financial ties, you are financial married to all these church members. See when I get up and preach some face ripping sermon that all Mr. Money Bags doesn’t like, he can just slink out here and not let the door hit him on his way out.
When he doesn’t like the sermon that tells how Bruce Jenner really is or whatever? It’s like, Hey don't let the door” and he will just go huff and puff and blow the house down and go somewhere else. Now when he’s got all his bonds and he is all cosigned and putting money into, he’s going to fill invested and want to stay and screw things up. This is reality friend, I’m not just speaking in theory, I’m not just laying at home paranoid like, “What will people do?” This is stuff that is really happened, I’ve seen it, I have been in churches that were big, growing, thriving, soul winning churches. “We are going to build this great building for the glory of God.”
Then you know what ended happening? It all went downhill and a lot of it had to do with the buildings. Now there’s a lot of reasons for that. I’m just showing you why it doesn’t even make sense financially. Now you say, “Okay Pastor Anderson but what if God just works some great miracle where somebody just gives you millions of dollars and then you can go buy a building with it. Or what if there’s just some killer deal where some church building is on the market, way below market value and you can just steal it away?” It’s still going to cost a fortune even a good deal, even at half price, even at a quarter price it’s going to cost way too much, it would still cost a huge amount of money, money that we don't have. Let’s just say that the heavens open up and a church building just falls out of the sky. Even then and listen you don't believe me but honestly I can say right now from the bottom of my heart I don't want it. Take it back where it came from.
Beam it right back, take it back up into the sky where it came from and I never want to see it again. Let me tell you why, let me explain to you why? Because the fact is that where your treasure is there will your heart be also. Go Mathew chapter six, Mathew chapter six, the bible says in Mathew six verse 19, “Lay not up for yourself treasures upon earth where moth and rust does corrupt and where thieves breakthrough and steal but lay up for yourself treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal for where your treasure is there will your heart be also.” Now listen very carefully to this.
When you’ve got nothing, you have got nothing to lose. No thieves break through and steal nothing, rust does not corrupt nothingness. If there’s nothing then you have nothing to lose and true freedom comes from possessing nothing, okay. In many way, you are free now because nobody can take anything from you now anymore. The great author of the 20th century Alexander Solzhenitsyn who wrote the Gulag Archipelago. He wrote this book exposing how evil the Soviet Union was in the concentration camp, he spent 11 years in the Gulag system.
He went through some of the torture and he went through the deprivations of working in a forest labor camp and where everything is taken from you. He had a really good quote he said, “People only have power over you as long as they leave you with something.” He said, “Once they take everything away from you, you are free again.” Because he said, “When you don't have anything then people can't really control you they can't really intimidate you, they can threaten you because you have nothing to lose.” That’s basically what the bible is saying here, “Look put your treasures somewhere where you’ve got nothing to lose on this earth”
“Thieves can break through or steal, moth and rust can't corrupt it because it isn't there because you don't have treasures laid up on the earth.” Now here’s the thing. Where our treasure is there will our heart be also, where do we want our heart to be? In the people? In the souls or do we want it be in buildings and facilities and fancy structures, think about it. Now let me say this I’m not a person who’s into money, I’m not a person who has spent his life seeking money or I just really desire to lay up money and have treasures and have all these things. Let me tell you something though, I’m a human being and here’s the thing.
The bible says, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” Even though that is not something that I could ever see myself being tempted by laying up a bunch of wealth and doing … Here’s the thing though, there are a lot of people in the bible and also just a lot of people who we could see in our lives who basically get their hands on a whole bunch of money and it corrupts them. They get their hands on a whole bunch of money and they go crazy and they start making weird decisions doing weird things, it changes them. Look at people who win the lottery and it ruins their lives and they do a bunch of stupid things.
Look its reality so and I remember my dad would always tell me about his dad, his dad had a whole bunch of money but he wasn’t saved. He’s mother prayed that if it would take him losing all the money for him to get saved then that would happen. He did, he lost all the money and he got saved and he just really made it financially after. He always had enough to live and he did well but he never had that wealth that he had in the early days ever again. My dad always said that God just knew probably that he couldn’t handle it. He just kept him lean to a certain point.
Then my dad always told me, he said, “God has never allowed me to ever just really turn that corner financially, maybe God just knows I couldn’t handle.” You know what? Honestly those are wise words when we stop and think, you know what maybe it won't be good to have millions of dollars at my disposal because maybe I just wouldn’t know how to handle it. Or maybe I just would get a crazy thought or curve this thought or start making stupid decisions or start, how about this, getting prideful. Like Nebuchadnezzar where he looks out at the window at all the buildings and what does he say?
“Is not this great Babylon that I’ve built, nobody can out finance me” like that pastor told me a few years ago. It can go to peoples head or not only that let’s say okay the pastor is incorruptible, you know God willing he is. Let’s say the pastor is totally incorruptible but what about this, what about the fact that it’s just a big target when there’s all these money. Whether it’s money in the bank or money tied up in a giant building. What about just the target of somebody who wants to get in there and get control of that money and get control of those properties and so forth.
Now sometimes that person’s name is the IRS. Here’s the thing with the IRS, there are so many complicated rules that even if you do everything by the book they’ll still come in and mess with you and try to figure out where you didn’t cross the [inaudible 00:36:14]. They’ll come in sometime and then just targetely harass certain people that don't fit with their agenda of our United States government. The IRS can come in and give you fits and come in and move in with you, they’ll literally do these type of audits where they move in with you where they basically every day they are here. Watching you following you where they move in and do everything with you and see how you do everything and look at everything you do and analyze it. You say, “Well if you are not doing anything you’ve got nothing to hide. You say, “You don't really want them moving in with you and sometimes they just make stuff up that’s not even legit.” Just say, “I’m God this is the rule, we don't care what the law says, this is what we are going to do.”
Then comes the dreaded padlock on the front door, right. They padlock, they literally padlock the facility, he’s seen it and he’s an accountant. They’ll padlock the facility while here’s the thing, go ahead and padlock our rented facility. “You want to seize all our assets? There’s not much, here’s the keys to the church van enjoy buddy” because you know what? When you got nothing you got nothing to lose. Somebody wants to come in here and shut us down or sue us, they are going to sue the pants off of us. Well you know what? I’ll go buy another pair of pants at the thrift store.
Because honestly my pants aren't that expensive buddy. “Man we are going to sue you” listen I have been accused, I’m sorry not accused, I have been threatened with lawsuits so many times I can't even count but it’s funny that our church has never been sued. You want to know why? Because any lawyer is going to look at the pie and realize there’s no pie so how can I get a piece of it when there isn't one. Okay and then, “Well but we’ll come back for you personally Pastor Anderson.” “I don't own anything, I don't have any money, I have eight kids.”
“Come sue me, for what? Nothing. I don't own anything.” “Well we’ll sue Faithfull Word” “Faithful Word doesn’t own anything. What now?” See what I’m saying? You don't have this target on you of people wanting to sue you or audit you or steal from you or infiltrate the church take over and get control of the assets and split the church and this all these stuff. It all just becomes a nonissue, okay because of the fact that there’s no money to fight over, it’s just isn't there okay. That’s if everything goes well and you own a bunch of buildings and have a bunch of money in the bank.
How about the flipside of that where it all goes downhill and the church gets into debt up to their eyeballs. Because I could tell you about all the churches where the finances went great and where all the buildings are paid off and they are sitting on millions of dollars and then the pastor is corrupted. Then there’s a church spilt, there’s fighting everybody wants a piece of the pie, the trustees are mad and the cosigners are mad and the lender … Okay I can tell you that side but then there’s the other side of the coin where the church just gets in over their head up to their eyeballs and debt God forbid what of the church got smaller and you are into some giant building with a huge debt? I have been there done that, I’ve seen that. Okay or what about the churches that are just up to their eyeball and debt can't pay the bills then all of the fighting and bickering look you alleviate all this by just renting a building.
Here’s why renting a building makes sense? Because when you rent a building you can get it for the size church you are right now. Not the size you used to be, not the size you are going to be but the size you are right now. Why? Because there’s no long term commitment. In a year or two the church is bigger you walk away you get into, “Hey God forbid the church gets smaller” so what get a smaller building, no sweat doesn’t matter. Whereas with the building you are looked into a certain size whether it’s either too big or too small. Renting gives you the flexibility to just move on whenever it’s time to move on. There is no putting people at financial risk.
There’s no fundraisers, there’s no thermometers, there’s no sitting there and get people to mortgage their houses and getting Mr. Money Bags to cosign the list and everything, it’s just so much simpler and easier, you just pay as you go you are flexible and when stuff breaks the landlord fixes it, you don't have to fix it. Whereas when you buy the building and you scrap together that last penny and then stuff starts breaking. Remember when you bought your first house for your family? “This is great, we own” then something breaks like the next month and then you have to fix it.
You are used to just calling the landlord, “Hey the air conditioner is not working” now its like, “Hey you need a new air conditioner it’s $5,000” “Oh men.” They are a lot of benefits to just renting okay and that’s the way we are going to do it. You say, “Well Pastor Anderson you are limiting our church, you are limiting the growth.” “No, I’m not” because there’s always a bigger building to rent. Think about the buildings you can rent, if the church got huge where you are running thousands you could rent like a grocery store. Seriously like the building, I have worked in construction and I’ve worked in retail in the fire alarm business.
I’ve done all kinds of maintenance and inspections on vacant properties all the time and buildings where they used to be a K-Mart or a Marvin, bed bath and beyond, linens and thing. Grocery stores, Walmart for crying out loud, huge gigantic buildings that are just empty, just a big empty rectang … What do we need if it is not just a big empty rectangle? Isn't that good enough? Then you can come in and you can make it nice and you can do, look at our space right here, look at all this artwork, it’s like an art gallery in here for crying out loud. You can make it nice but you just keep getting a bigger store front.
You keep getting bigger office space and you just stay in office space until dooms day. When the sun and moon are darkened and the stars begin to fall, Faithful Word is still in a strip mall running thousands all being but in a strip mall, why not? It just makes sense people and then you don't get corrupted, you don't get tempted and again I’m not saying, “Hey it’s bad to buy a building for other people its bad.” I’m just telling you that as long as I’m running things here we are not buying a building, we are not having a building fund, we are not raising a bunch of money.
I’ll take it a step further than that, we are not even going to fill a giant bank account hold money ever. The money that comes in every month we spend it, we spend all of it. Why? You say, “Well why spend it all? Because why sit on it? Now go if you will to Mathew chapter 25, you were there in Mathew six, I’ll finish reading in Mathew six while you are turning. He said, “Where your treasure is there will your heart be also the light of the body is the eye. If therefore that eye be single thy hold body shall be full of light but if thy eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in the darkness, how great is that darkness.”
The eye referring to looking at and lusting after possessions the love of money curvaceousness and then he says. “No man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he would hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” mammon being money, the God of money. Look at Mathew 25, bible reads in verse 13 watch, “Therefore for you know neither the day nor the hour wherein the son of man cometh. For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country who called his own servants and delivered unto them his own goods. Unto one he gave five talents, to another two and to another one.”
To every man according to his several ability and straight way took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same and made them other five talents. Likewise he that had received two he also gained other two.” Mathew 25 verse 18, “But he that had received one went and dig in the earth and hid his lords money. After a longtime the lord of those servants cometh and reckoned with them. He that had received five talents came and brought other five talents saying, “Lord thou delivered unto me five talents build, I have gained beside them five talents more.”
He’s lord said to him, “Well done now good and faithful servant, thou has been a faithful over a few things I will make thee ruler over many things, enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, “Lord, thou delivered unto me two talents beyond I gained two other talents besides them.” He’s lord said to him, “Well done good and faithful servant thou has been faithful over a few things I will make thee ruler over many things, enter thou into the joy of thy lord. Then he which had received the one talent came and said, “Lord I knew that thou you are a hard man reaping where thou has not sown and gathering where thou has not strode. I was afraid and went and hid my talent in the earth, lo there thou that has that is thine his lord answered and said to him, “Thou wicked and slothful servant” thou knewest that I reap where I sow and gather where I have not strode. Thou honest therefore to put my money to the exchangers and then to my coming I should have receive mine with usury.”
Look he’s saying, “Don't burry what God gives you in the earth use it.” Put it out there let it grow, let it multiple. It God gives you five talents, he wants to receive 10 when He gets back. He gives you two he wants four, he doesn’t want to give you one and get one and he doesn’t want you to fearfully go burry it in the earth, he wants you to do something with it. Look, when it comes to the money when that is given to Faithful Word Baptist Church, when it comes to not only the tithes and offerings but there are a lot of people who send us money from all over of the world and from all over the country.
Literally probably, not probably, half the money that comes into this church comes from outside of this room, at least if not much more than that. I haven’t looked at it lately but in the past it’s more that people send here than what is actually given in the plate okay why? Because our church has internet presence of thousands and thousands of sermons, You Tube videos, audio recordings all kinds of stuff that’s all over the internet that gets millions and millions of listens every year. Our church has just tens of thousands of sermons being downloaded from the website every month and from You Tube it’s off the charts people.
The numbers are mind boggling, how many people listen in. Why? Because they are hungry for this kind of preaching, it’s not that because I’m a great preacher, it’s because I’m the only game in town that’s actually saying this stuff. Because there’s so many preachers who compromise that it’s hard to even find sound biblical preaching that’s going to rip their face and that’s what people want to hear. That’s why millions of sermons are downloaded constantly. Okay well that cause a lot of people donate and they send money, send money … Our church has plenty of mine, even before that our church had enough money because the philosophy is we don't spend what we don't have.
Okay if we have it we spend it, if we don't have it we don't spend. There are certain things that obviously have to be paid every month. Okay whether or not we want to because obviously the rent we got to pay the rent. Obviously my salary gets paid because I have to live and feed my eight children. Okay then also obviously our Ad in the yellow pages or the internet bill for live streaming and service, there are certain things that bills come every month. Certain expenses, putting some gas in the church van for the school or whatever. There’s a lot of other money that we spend above that on things that are optional, that we don't really have to do but we do them because we have the money.
For example, notice how we give out tens of thousands of audio preaching CD’s, they are all free. Tens of thousands of DVD’s we have all the movies back there on the shelf all free, we never sell anything. When have you ever gone to a church that gave you so much free stuff? Never, they charge you money for everything in most churches. I’ve been to churches where they charge you money for the tracks that you use out soul winning. You buy them and then go out and go soul winning them seriously. You shop at soul winning and you buy packs of this for a buck each, literally.
If there’s any kind of a dinner, any kind of a lunch any kind it’s, “Hey it’s $10, $5.” If there’s a youth activity, it’s $10 it’s $5. If there’s a banquet it’s $30 it’s” we just do everything for free, we have activities, we give you the preaching CD, people would always try to buy the preaching CD’s from me and I will always tell them, “I pay you to listen to them.” Buy, why would I sell it to you? I want you to hear it, we want as many people to hear this stuff as possible is the word of God. Basically it makes more sense to me if God gives us money because honestly I believe that God is the source of all blessing.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the father of light with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning. If money comes in its money that God has provided and it’s actually the Lord’s money it actually belongs to God. It belongs to the church but the church is the house of God. It’s really the Lord’s money so that money is spent on the Lord’s work, doing God’s work okay. Well what does God wants us to do with His man? Does He really wants us to go burry it? What does it say in the bible? Does he really wants to go just fill up some giant back account for our rainy day, we live in the desert okay.
Here’s the thing, “Man we got to save it up for a rainy day but here’s the thing, you know what says, “Lets save it up for a rainy day fear, fear. What if someone, what if we need that? Shut up with the what if, just spend it, because use it for God’s work. People are dying going to hell let’s go full speed ahead, let’s work as hard as we can. Now look what type of things do we spend money on? Part of is, part of it gets reinvested into the internet thing because first of all that’s where half of the money is coming from or more than half the money. A lot of it gets reinvested back in that machine because of the fact that people all over the world are being blessed by the sermon.
They are putting money in as a token of their appreciation, it’s good to take that money and put it toward giving back to them. That they can be blessed by the money that they put in to this ministry and that’s why we spend all the money to upgrade the thing where now we have crystal clear sound and the videos are live streamed and we have high quality video and everything like that. Why, because we want to reach more people with the gospel, with the truth, with the word of God. Then those people are some of the people who have even funded this ministry in many ways. Not only that but getting the movies translated into other languages and getting the subtitles put on and getting them transcribed and getting it out in the search engines.
Where people are finding the sermons to the tunes of thousands per day are finding out about our church, finding out about this preaching. You know what? That’s great because that’s just people that are hearing the word of God and God’s word goes forward. That’s a lot better than having a $100,000 sitting in the bank, okay. 100,000 bucks siting in the bank so that if we can get to 300,000 when that red in the thermometer hits the top we can then go out and spend five times that much. We can just struggle and strive to raise 300,000 so that we can spend 1.5 million. That we can finally stop having gatheist and fagnostics tell us that we are meeting in a strip mall.
Who cares, they hate us anyway nuts to them. You know what I found by the way our church started in a house okay who was here when we were meeting in a house? Only a few people everybody is in this side of the building. Okay, people that were there when we meeting in the house. Okay but here’s what I notice when we moved into our first building all the same people who didn’t like it in the house didn’t like it in the building. Because it turned out it wasn’t the house that was the problem, it was the preaching that was the problem in their mind. Because I remember when we first moved into our first building, I had a visitor card back when we did visitor cards.
I had a visitor card from every visitor who’d ever visit our church while we were in the house. I wrote them all a letter talking about how we are in this building now. We are in a real building now so and send out this letter to all of them and we have like three different household show up. It was like a family, a couple, single whatever. There’s three different entities show up, okay that had come in the past but now they are coming back now that we are in a building and they all came that one time and never came back. It turned out it wasn’t, they are like, “No we still don't like this preaching even now that it’s in a building.”
I do not like it in a house I do not like it in the belly I don't want it with a fox, I don't want it in a box. If you don't like it you don't like it. Because guess what, the people who want this kind of preaching they don't care whether they are sitting a living room or a tent or a church building or an office space or a strip mall. They are hungry for the word of God, that’s what they care about. They don't care about chandeliers and who … That’s not what it’s about to them and so they don't care so who cares about them. Don't sit there and try to reach people that don't even care because the people you are trying to reach with fancy buildings don't want the word of God. The people who do want the word of God they don't care if we are meeting in a mud hut they’ll be there.
I remember the first time that I went to a real fired up soul winning, because I grew up Independent Fundamental Baptist. When I got in a real red hot soul winning Independent Fundamental Baptist Church as a teenager, I remember when I stood up there air conditioner was broken. It was the height of summer and it was like a 110 degrees outside or whatever in Sacramento California has a few weeks like that every year which really just as hot as it is here. Just a few weeks though we have it for half the year … For a few weeks and I remember we are sitting there and the church didn’t even have patted churches like we have.
Metal folding chairs and on the back they had stenciled on the back Nuestra Casa, because they got them from Spanish restaurant or something. It’s just all these metal folding chairs stenciled on the back Nuestra Casa okay big giant fans that just did nothing but blow hot air around that was already there. No air conditioning and I remember sitting in there as a 17 year old boy, I had spent the last five years and just watered down dead Baptist churches. I remember sitting in that church with it just hot all the doors and windows are opened to 110 degrees outside, I’m sitting in a metal folding chair and the pastor is up there yelling about soul winning.
I remember thinking, “I love this place it’s great, I love it. Where has this church been on my life?” Why? Because who cares about all that other stuff, it’s about the word, it’s about souls being saved. Look if I can sit there and take the money and spent it on getting preaching CD’s into the hands of thousands of people, getting these videos into the house of thousands of people. Getting thousands and thousands of people to find our church website every single day then why would I sit there and just pile it up somewhere so I can count it like King Crochias or something.
Sit there like that Donald Duck scrooge McQuack or whatever swimming around in his money, who cares. I’d rather spend every last dime put it all out there, get it all out, spend it all. You know what? Because then nobody is going to be tempted to steal it. Nobody is going to come unto it, it’s all going to the lord’s work, it’s all legit but it’s all gone. When somebody wants to sue us and padlock the front door of our church you know what we will do? Will shut this church down and start another one across the street. Right? All in favor say aye … Who cares comes sue us, come shut us down, come padlock the front door. “Alright, hey Mr. IRS Man here’s the keys to the building and the keys to the van, see you later.”
“I’ll give you my forwarding address over at Living Word Baptist across the street.” They are going to do about, because if you’ve got nothing, you got nothing to lose. You know what? When you got the big multimillion dollar building and all the debt then you got to be careful what you preach too. Because you don't want to run off your trustees and you cosigners. You could screw up your loan or whatever, you don't want to mess with Mr. Money Bags, you don't want to confuse him. Go, I’ve one last point I wanted to make tonight, go to 2nd Timothy, chapter number two, I’m out of time but I just want to make one last point.
Is this making sense tonight? I think it makes great sense? I think that when the church becomes money orientated and it’s about buildings and these fund and that fund and saving up a bunch of money, I’d rather, look I just want to figure out ways to spend the money to reach the most souls. If there’s enough extra money then I’ll hire an assistant, right? Then we can do work for the Lord, we can go out and talk to people and win them to Christ and reach people and preach sermons. Get people saved and go soul winning and do something with our lives instead of just financing buildings. Sit back and say, “Look at all these buildings.”
You know what no one can ever take away from us as a church? No one can ever take away from us the souls that we won to the Lord. They’ll be there in heaven and nothing can change that, they’ll be there. We are not going to be gone, now here’s the thing, I remember my dad is an electrician. My dad put a lot of hard electrical working volunteering on this building program because a lot of times they’d use labor from the church. He would slave away on some buildings only for the church to go liberal. Look I could tell you about multiple churches the same story where basically the church is fundamental, the church is big, the church is thriving.
Look I’m going to tell you this and it sounds unbelievable, it might even sound hard to believe but I can literally tell you multiple scenarios that happened like is in … In my life churches that I went into as kid. Churches big, thriving, soul winning, King James preaching good and then they get the big buildings and then they build the big church buildings and then that’s not enough they have to build a big gymnasium. For the Christian school and for the banquets and whatever. They build the big church building, they build the big Sunday school facility, they build the big gymnasium.
They are on millions of dollars of property then they start changing the doctrine, going liberal, praising Billy Graham and whatever and just getting all weird it out and bringing in other versions. Then start running people off and alienating people and people start quitting the church, quitting the church okay. I have literally known of two churches where they literally just run everybody off basically people would call the pastor on the carpet for some of the stuff he’s doing where he’s going liberal or how about this, hiring his kids on the payroll and paying them too much money. Paying them more than everybody else getting paid doing the same jobs. Okay he puts his kids on the payroll and yadi, yada and then pretty soon they’ve run off everybody to where the church keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller and then the church is too small for the big building and then you know what they did?
They sell the big giant building for millions of dollars and then you know what they did? They put that in a bank account and then they go rent a building at a strip mall like we are doing. They have millions of dollars in the bank and then they just live off that for the rest of their lives. I can tell you two churches that I went to as a kid where that’s what happened. The church ending up going liberal, shrinking down to nothing, selling the facilities to some apostate church and then putting millions of dollars into a bank account and then they just operate a tiny church out of a strip mall no desire to grow, no desire to win souls.
Meet up with their tiny little group in the strip mall and they know that their salary is set for the rest of their life because they got millions of dollars sitting in the bank to pay their salary for the rest of their life. Two scenarios like that that I literally witnessed. Here’s the thing then the people who’ve sat there and slaved on the building and took out the mortgage and borrowed money and put into the building find. Ran all the electrical for free in their off time on the evenings and the weekends. They are like, “Oh man, what a waste of my time.” My dad is what he said to me so many times, I ran all his electrical wires and now it’s some heathen church, it’s some church that doesn’t even believe the bible.
I’m a Baptist some phony church is in there using the building. I remember one time I clicked on the cable access TV as a kid and I saw my old church building. The church that I grew up in and basically it had become a charismatic church. You remember cable access TV so I’m at home and I’m flipping through the channels as a teenager and I see the church I grew up in and there’s this charismatic preacher and somebody is playing the organ while he preached. He’s like … “Well I come to tell you this morning … It was just this wild circus and I’m thinking to myself, “That is so weird.”
It would be like if you saw this background and there is just some charismatic service going on. How do you think my dad felt and not just my dad there’s other people who volunteered and worked but here’s the cool thing about our church. All the work that you put in, all the money that’s put into the plate, you know what? It goes right out to something that you can see right then and there. It just translates right away into millions of people hearing the word of God. It translates into hundreds of thousands of doors being knocked. It translates into the work of Lord right here right now, not some building, “Hey this building is great we are going to grow old in this thing for the next 30 years.” Psych two years later I’m screwing the whole thing up. That’s reality my friend. By the way I’m not hiring my kids to work for this church either, let me say that right now.
Because you know what and listen kids, if you think I’m going to hire you, you are wrong. Sam and Isaac John you know what I want my kids to do? I want my kids to go out and get a job somewhere else so that their boss can yell and curse at them so that they can figure out what it’s like in the real world not where everything is being handed to them all the time. Not some dynasty where they grow up little Lord Fauntleroy and basically they are just handed the keys to the kingdom when they are 18 years old and they have their own office and their own company vehicle and they are working for dad.
It’s a family dynasty, wrong you go out and make it in the ugly world yourself and figure out what it’s like for everybody else who has to pull themselves up by their own boot straps but that’s another story. Anyway the last thing I want to point tonight is in 2nd Timothy chapter two, because I want to tell you something, when it comes to growing the church like I said, I believe in church growth. I think church growth is great, I want the church to grow. That’s not the most important thing though but look at what the bible says in verse one, “Thou therefore my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things that thou has heard of me among many witnesses the same commit thou of faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.”
Let me tell you something more important than growing in the sense of just our congregation here getting bigger, the better growth would be that we can send out other men to go start churches somewhere else. Than to just see how big we can build this crowd, we want this crowd to be, I think it would be over 1,000 someday God willing. You know what? I’d rather send as many men out here as I can that are trained faithful men who shall be able to able to teach others also to start and pastor churches elsewhere in this nation. Because then all the eggs aren't in one basket then if Faithful Word goes down there could still be other great churches all across the America still holding forth the word of life and still serving God.
What’s the vision for our church? You say Pastor Anderson where do you see yourself in five years” like this job interview questions. “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” What’s the vision for Faith” you know what the vision for Faithful Word Baptist is? It’s not a building, it’s not a free standing building it’s not, just look, just never ask me again, “Hey are we still in the strip mall?” The answer is always yes until Jesus comes, okay. Just get a bigger strip mall, a bigger office space but here’s the thing not only that but it’s not about immersing a bunch of money, because I don't want to have millions of dollars at my disposal.
I don't need that, I need that like I need a hole in my head, what’s good is that going to do? You know what I want? I just want to have enough money every month, not laid up and treasured up and put in a barn somewhere. No I just want enough money coming in every month where I can provide for my family and where I get paid for the work that I do, that’s all I want. I don't need to immerse a bunch of wealth and I don't need to control millions of dollars of church assets. I don't need a big ego, a big pride thing of controlling some empire of buildings and ministries. The camp, our 10th peak campus, when it starts being a campus, somewhere went wrong.
Anyway I’m just saying, the goal, my vision is yes to reach as many people as we can but it’s more about wining souls. It’s about knocking every single door in this greater Phoenix area five times and just giving everybody the gospel. To where people are sick of hearing the gospel. I heard a great story this morning where my wife was telling me that what was it, Shelly Resell was saying how she knocked somebody’s door and they had, their bible was just filled with invitations from our church over the years. They had like seven invitations to our church. They had been collecting them all the different colors and styles.
By the way, if you are listening out there, if you collect them all there’s a prize. If you come and bring one of each color you get a special prize. It’s like those little McDonald’s monopoly or something, “Oh man yellow again, I need green what’s going on, what’s going on Faithful Word.” The point is, it’s about winning souls but you know what my desire is more than just this church growing, what do I want this? From a human perspective, why in the world would I want this church to grow? I don't need an ego trip. If the church grows it’s just harder work for me to go find another building and deal with more people.
It’s just a headache but you know what it’s even better though it’s if we can [inaudible 01:08:26] start churches all over America. My vision is to send 20 guys out to start churches all nation, 100 guys out. Start churches all over America. Look we walked into Panera, Brad in Dearborn a few months ago and we walked in and we’ve never been even there and there were just 60 people ready and willing to go soul winning with us. Why? They are people all over America that want to go soul winning, that want to hear the bible preach. A lot of them they don't really have a leader that they can get behind. They don't have a local church that’s really bringing them into their full potential.
Of those 60 people or so that came soul winning like half of them had never gone. If they had a church though in their area they would be out soul winning, case and point they came all the way out to our thinking in Dearborn. What we really need is we need to train other leaders okay so that it’s diversified, where it’s not just all about one person. We are all following Pastor Anderson, no we need like a 100 leaders for people to look to. That way it’s not about Pastor Anderson it’s about the word and it’s about a whole bunch of different people that are all doing their own thing independent, soul winning fundamental Baptist and then when one of them gets a little squally it doesn’t affect the rest because they are all independent. I pray to God that we would have more men in this church that would have the desire to someday go out and start a church and pastor and that we could get them trained and that they would get serious and get, not play games with it but to do the work.
Study their bibles, read the bible memorize it, learn how to be a soul winner learn how to be a leader. Learn how to lead their family and go out there and start a great church. That’s a lot better than, “Hey we ran X number and here in Tempi we are the biggest fundamental church in Arizona.” Who cares? I’d rather send out a 100 people to go start churches all over America and you know what, we should be sending out a 100 people to go to start churches. There’s no reason not to because honestly as we grow, as we reach people, I think that eventually plus hopefully the guys that we send out then they will train other guys too and we’ll have the spiritual grandchildren of Faithful Word.
Honestly I just wanted to give you that vision tonight of just getting our view off of the physical, the temporal and getting it on the spiritual where it belongs. Getting it on souls, getting it on people and not having these idea of, “Well we got to be financially responsible by putting aside money for a rainy day. Look in your personal finances you run that how you want. Okay and obviously in our personal finances we need a house, we need food, we need whatever … Honestly there’s dangers there too with the love of money, that’s another sermon though. I just want you to know that my philosophy for pastoring this church is to just do it by the seed of our pants.
Spend all the money because you know what? What do we need to lay up a bunch of money for? “Well if something happens?” There’s money coming in every week, as long as we keep preaching and keep soul winning the money is going to keep coming. If the money stops coming we’ll figure something out but I want to invest, I want reinvest every penny into the work of the God and I’m not building any buildings ever and if you say, “Well I was hoping to stick around until you get out of that strip mall” well you know what? You might as well leave now, because we are never leaving.
Let’s bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father we thank you so much for your word Lord and we thank you for your son Lord and the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all sin. Help us to have spiritual things on the mind, help our affections to be above not on the things on the earth. Help us to realize that we are God’s building, we are the building, we have a real church building its people. Help us never to get sucked into this weird, emphasis on physical buildings and steeples and stain glass Lord, help us to keep it on souls and to be smart and wise and not to put any one person in control of just millions of dollars that’s just sitting a bank account somewhere that’s just a temptation to every thief and robber out there in Jesus name we pray, amen.
