Well, I just kind of kind of jump right into it this morning and ask you to take your Bibles and go to judges chapter 8 and Have a few more remarks before the morning service this morning, but for time's sake we'll get right into it and judges chapter 8 and I've been in a series on Wednesday nights at Shawnee through the book of Judges, and so we came through this a couple of weeks ago, and just a really interesting story that takes place here. You'd all be familiar, beginning in chapter 6, chapter 6 begins the story of Gideon, and so he describes himself as the least of his brethren, and we first see Gideon there in the wine press, hiding, hunkering down from the enemy, the Midianites, and he's threshing wheat there so that he can't be seen. So he's got the harvest just a little bit, because every time that The Midianites would let them sow their fields, and then when the harvest time came, they'd sweep in and take all their harvest away. And even to the point where they'd let them sow the fields and let them harvest the fields, and then they'd just come and gather the harvest. And so Gideon has just probably a small amount of the harvest, and he's trying to separate the chaff from the wheat there by throwing it up and letting the wind catch it. So you can imagine just every now and again, He's hunkering down. Nobody can see him He's behind the wine press and and just a little puff of wheat goes up and a little puff of chaff blows away And the wheat falls back down, you know And so that's where we're first introduced to Gideon and the angel comes to him and says, you know a mighty man of valor and Gideon's got to be looking around thinking who in the world is this angel talking to I'm hiding out here trying not to be found and and I'm being called a mighty man and Then you know the story about how that the he's told first Before you do anything you need to go and take care of the idol that's in your dad's backyard Go cut down the grove that's there and and pull down the altar and the idol that is there and so he's obedient to God in that way, but before he is willing to lead the armies of Israel into captivity and He needs a couple of signs from God and he's afraid and Continues to be afraid and he really asked God to continue to work and continue to work and continue to work by the ground being wet and the fleece being dry and the fleece being wet and the ground being dry and The the story there and then God finally says okay look you just go to the camp and listen and he goes and he hears the the story about how a barley cake rolls down the side of the hill and wipes out the Midianite army. He has reduced the army down to 300 men and they get their torches and their pitchers and their trumpets and they surround the mountains around The Midianites are in the valley and they go up on the hills around it surround it it with one voice they break the pitchers and the Trump and the and the torches glow and they blow the trumpets and they say the sword of the Lord and of Gideon and the army there of the Midianites Puts themselves all in a frenzy and starts killing each other 300 men put a hundred and thirty-five thousand Midianites to flight And as they begin to pursue them is where we pick up in chapter 8. Okay, so that's all leading up to chapter 8. And the story of Gideon doesn't end with them pursuing after him. It says in chapter 8 verse 1, And the men of Ephraim said unto him, Why hast thou served us thus? that thou callest us not, when thou wentest to fight with the Midianites, and they did chide with him sharply. And he said unto them, What have I done now in comparison of you? Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Ebaezer? God hath delivered into your hands the princes of Midian, Oreb, and Zeb, and what was I able to do in comparison to you? Then their anger was abated toward him when he had said that. Gideon came to Jordan and passed over he and the 300 men that were with him faint yet pursuing them And he said unto the men of Succoth give I pray you loaves of bread unto the people that follow me for they be faint and I am pursuing after Ziba and Zalmunna kings of the Midianite kings of Midian and the princes of Succoth said Are the hands of Ziba and Zalmunna now in thine hand? that we should give bread unto thine army. And Gideon said, Therefore, when the Lord hath delivered Ziba and Zamuna into mine hand, then will I tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briars. And he went up thence to Pinuel, and spake unto them likewise. And the men of Pinuel answered him, as the men of Succoth had answered him. And he spake also unto the men of Pinuel, saying, When I come again in peace, I'll tear down this tower. Nelzeba and Zamuna were in Karkor, and their host with them, about 15,000 men, and all that were left of all the host of the Children of the East, and there fell 130,000 men by the sword. And the story continues there. That's really what we're gonna deal with. Gideon does come back and does exactly what he says he's gonna do to the men of Succoth and the men of Pinuel. And we won't read that today, but I just wanna look at this part in this text and try and be a help and encouragement to you from it this morning. Father, as we take these remaining moments in Sunday school, I ask that you'd help Lord that your word would not just be our textbook this morning But it would really be the manual that we live by and would help and instruct in all matters of faith and practice in our personal lives and in your church Bless I ask in Jesus name Amen Well, you have here in verse 1 and following verse 1 and 2 the story that deals with Ephraim Ephraim being the tribe of Ephraim and so they've just seen a great victory and You know, I don't know exactly how far Gideon's net was cast when he tried to assemble Israel together but they didn't show up for the For the basic training when when they had all Israel there, but after they see the great victory they say hey now wait a second Wait a second, why didn't you let us in on that? Why weren't we a part of this battle plan and this strategy to go and take the Midianites? And so Gideon has to deal with them, and we see a couple of things in just this first part that aren't really the main point this morning, but are here. And the first is, once again, the truth from Proverbs, that a soft answer turneth away wrath. Because you got to think about Gideon at this point, He's been up the night before. outside of the camp of the Midianites, listening to them. He gets all of the people assembled and in their places and is getting everything ordered the day before. I imagine he didn't sleep much that day. It's at night that he breaks the pitchers and blows the trumpets. That's why the lights are effective. And then he's pursuing after them all through the night and into the next day. And it's the next day. And so Gideon's operating on no sleep, extreme fatigue, And these guys come to him and they say, hey, wait a second. They did chide with him sharply. That's Old Testament for they got in his face. They were a little bit upset with him. They said, hey, now wait a second. Why didn't you let us in on this? Because they were envious about how God just had used Gideon in the 300. And that's easy in a church. to get envious about what somebody else is doing and how somebody else is being used and and then say well I want to get in on that or I want to start a new ministry for this and that but the purpose of Ephraim's purpose is not that they wanted to exalt God and help Israel win a great victory is that Gideon and 300 men Though they give glory to God, they receive a lot of glory on themselves. And you see that in the next passage where they come to Gideon and they say, Reign thou over us. They want to make Gideon king. And he says, no, I'm not going to be your king and my boys aren't going to be your king. God will be your king. And even in that, Gideon's heart isn't completely right. If you read the passage, he begins to act a lot like king, even though he's not king. But they see that and they want to be a part of it. And Gideon says this, you can tell that it's envy that's driving them because of Gideon's response. He says, what have I done in comparison to you? What had Ephraim done to fight off the Midianites? Nothing. What had Gideon done? Just killed 130,000 or 120,000 of them, according to verse 10. So Gideon had done quite a bit more in comparison to Ephraim. But he says, look, we haven't done anything in comparison to you. Don't worry about it. Don't get your feathers all ruffled up. He says this. Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Ebazer? the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim. He's talking about the grapes that they would go through and harvest their fields and pull all the grapes off the vines and they'd leave some that was there for gleaning. And if they weren't exactly honest about it, they wouldn't leave real good stuff. They'd leave the trash fruit on the vine for the poor people to come by and get. And the gleaning, right after the gleaning, that would be turned into into Wine their new wine juice and and and then he says this Ephraim your old trash or your your your trash grapes that you left behind on the vine for somebody else to come pick They're better than the very best thing. We've got don't worry. You're you're still important. You're still significant and I don't believe this to be a church that's like that, but I'm telling you sometimes pastors can find themselves in this position where they're always having to pacify people, and they're always having to make people feel like, no, you're important, no, don't worry, we still need you, no, don't worry, there's a role for you, and I'm just trying to say this morning that you don't want to be that kind of church, and you don't want to be that kind of church member. that you ought to find your significance in Christ alone. And when you find your significance in Christ, he'll find a place to use you, and there'll be something for you to do. But you'll help your pastor a great deal if he's not constantly having to come to you and pacify you and say, no, don't worry. I know they're singing a special this week. I know they've sung some specials, but you have a good voice too, and God's still gonna use your voice. And sometimes in a church plant, it feels like, We haven't had a lot of that in our ministry, but there's been times where it feels like I'm constantly trying to abate people and and and make things okay and pacify people and a lot of it over envy about how God is using someone else rather than how God is using them the reality is that God used Gideon in the 300 the way he did because they were surrendered to him completely they were willing to put their lives on the line and Ephraim was not and and So they were not surrendered to God and so the difference there and how God used them was how surrendered they were But they needed pacified through all of that, but then we come to this passage that I really wanted to focus on Which is they had killed or have been Zeb? to finish out verse 3 that the Ephraimites had had they those Kings had run and they grabbed them up and captured them there, but but then beginning in verse 4 You've got Gideon and 300 men. They're faint, the Bible says. They're ready to pass out. They're completely and totally exhausted. I haven't been there many times in my life, but one time I went hunting with my brother. We do a lot of duck hunting together. We've got big backpacks that we wear that carry about a dozen and a half decoys in them. Shotgun goes down the side there. All the decoys have weights on them to keep them from floating away. We'd have two or three boxes of shotgun shell. The heavier the shot, the better when you're going after ducks. And so I don't know what those things weigh, probably 65, 70 pounds. And then a pair of waders slung over your shoulders, because you don't want to wear them in, and then a pair of big mud boots on. going about two and a half miles to where we're hunting that morning. And so we get there and we sit down in our blind, get everything out, and he opens up his bag and he pulls out a can. It's called Old Glory. I don't know if you guys even have Old Glory here, but it's an energy drink. It's like the cheapest energy drink known to man is 99 cents, you know, I think for a while they were 79 cents There's nothing good in that can I can guarantee it, you know, but I I succumbed to the temptation I was tired and we got up probably three o'clock that morning And so we're sitting in this blind waiting for the Sun to come up. I'm dozing off He said here man drink this and so I drank that and I And it helped, I mean, I had energy, but then walked back to the truck, and on the way back to the truck, I'm just like, man, I am wiped out. And I got to the house, and I just felt like, man, I could eat anything right now, and eat everything right now. And my wife had a blood sugar monitor, and I don't check my blood sugar like ever, but I checked my blood sugar because I was shaky and weak. And it was at 40, which is like really, really, really low. And I really, I literally was about to pass out. I imagine that's about how Gideon and the 300 fell at this point. Hadn't had time to stop and eat. They were hard after it, pursuing after them. and little skirmishes and battles throughout all of it. And they come to Succoth, which is an Israelite town, and they are wore out and they are exhausted. And they say to their brethren, Hey, give us a little bread, would you? We are tired. Gideon says, I got 300 men. We're pursuing after the Mennonites. We're driving these wicked people out of our land. They've tormented us. It's not like it was just them. They had tormented Succoth. They had taken their harvest. They had taken their sons and their daughters and their women. They had done all of this to them. And Gideon says, we are wore out. We're faint. They're still pursuing, which is oftentimes, even again, not to make too much application to it this morning, but even again, how church planters can feel sometimes and as you transition from like a church plant to a more established church and you start helping more church planters, then I just remind you as you have a church planter come in and preach and you have missionaries come in from the foreign fields, that this verse could often be used to describe them. They're frontline soldiers that are faint and yet they're still pursuing after what God has given them to do. And so that just encourages you to lift them up and help them and give them some bread, you know, some encouragement. But here they are, and they're faint, they're weary, and they say to the men of Succoth, give, I pray you, loaves of bread unto the people that follow me, for they be faint, and I am pursuing after Ziba and Zamuna, kings of Midian. Verse six, the leaders of Succoth say this. Are the hands of Ziba and Zamuna now in thine hand? You already captured them? They knew he hadn't. He just said, we're pursuing after them. So why do they say this? They're mocking him. They say, are the kings of Ziba and Zalmunna now in thine hand that we should give bread unto thine army? You know what they're worried about? They're worried about themselves. Gideon, if we give you bread and you don't end up catching Ziba and Zalmunna, they're going to come back And they're going to tear into us. And we're going to be worse off because we helped you than if we just let you go without helping you. They sided with Ziba and Zalmunna, the kings of the Midianites, rather than Gideon and God's people. They sided in their own worst interest in the long run, thinking it was in their best interest. They said, if you had already captured Ziba and Zamuna, we'd give you bread. But because we haven't, we can't risk it. We can't give you bread because of what it might cost us and the price we might have to pay. And so Gideon says this to them, verse 7. Therefore, when the Lord has delivered Ziba and Zamuna into mine hand, don't you love Gideon's faith here? There's no doubt in his mind. The Lord already said he's gonna do this. I know he's gonna do this. And when the Lord delivers Ziba and Zamuna into mine hand, then I will tear your flesh with thorns of the wilderness and with briars. That's pretty intense. That's another one of those passages that, like Jesus said, except you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. They said, this is a hard saying. I read Gideon say that, and I think, this is a hard saying. Gideon, because they didn't get involved, because they didn't help you accomplish God's purpose, you're gonna tear their flesh with thorns of the wilderness and with briars? And that's exactly what he says. Then he goes to Penuel, and they answered in the same way. They were the same way. They were looking out for themselves rather than looking out for the purposes of God. And they said, no, we're not going to give you bread. They answered the same way as the Men of Succoth did. And Gideon said, hey, when I come again in peace, we are plumb wore out right now, and we are in the fight for our lives. But I'm coming back, and when I do, it'll be in peace. We are gonna win this battle, because God said we're gonna win this battle. But when I come back in peace, that nice tower that you have there, you're all concerned about your safety and security, and not taking any risk, that nice tower that you have there that's made for your defense and for your protection, I'm gonna tear it down. Because you need to learn this lesson, that there is a price to be paid for serving God. But there's also a price to be paid for not serving God. I think sometimes we focus on the price to be paid for serving God. And there is a price to be paid for serving God. It costs to serve God, it does. It costs to go out and start a church. It costs leaving behind a church that you love. It costs leaving behind a ministry. It costs leaving behind financial stability. When you come to a church plant, I understand, it costs to come to a church plant rather than to go to a more established church. I've had many people that have come to the church as we were getting started that said things like this. They had teenagers and they said, you know, if you had a more established youth group, then we'd stay here and we'd get involved. But we need to go somewhere where there's already a youth group that can minister to our children. And I understand that. I'm not overly hard on them. I do recognize that if everybody that told me that had a youth group, we'd have 60 in our youth group right now. But I recognize that there is a price to be paid to being a member at a church plant rather than at a more established church, there's not as many ministries. But there's a greater price to not serving God. There is a price to be paid for not serving God, and that's what Gideon tells Succoth and Penuelm, that they will pay a price for not serving God. You know, a lot of times we think about the price to be paid for serving God. Okay, you're here this morning for Sunday school. That means you got up early. You could have slept in. Your neighbors probably slept in. They probably aren't at church this morning, or they're gonna get to a later service or something like that. In Oklahoma, we've got those big campus churches I told you about, and there's no commitment or anything at them, and so you can, it's all video, you know? Every service, you watch livestream on a big video screen, and the pastor's not even up there, so there's a Saturday night at five o'clock and a Saturday night at seven o'clock, They're Sunday morning at 8, 11, 1, and like 4. And you can go anytime you want. And you can fit it into your schedule wherever it's comfortable. Because that's sarcasm, okay? I know you're not acquainted with my preaching all that well, so this is sarcasm, okay? Because that's what it means to take up your cross and follow Jesus. Just fit Him into your schedule wherever it fits. We're building consumers rather than building disciples. And so, when you just fit Jesus in wherever He'll fit, He makes no real change to your life. You're not really a disciple of the Lord. But we've got these things. But if you're going to come to an independent Baptist church, You're going to be expected Sunday morning, Sunday night, Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. There's visitation opportunities throughout the week and on Saturday to go and reach people. And if you're going to be involved in that, there's a price to be paid. If you're going to serve in the nursery, there's a price to be paid. You're going to miss out on sitting in the service and receiving a blessing and having fellowship. In a church plant sometimes, as the church gets more established, you try to do once a month. Then as it grows bigger, once every two months. But sometimes, when we were starting, my wife was in the nursery for Sunday school and Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night. Then you get one other lady that says, I'll work in the nursery. Then she's in there half the week and my wife's in there half the week. And you get a couple more people, but you're still in there almost once a week or twice a month. And there's a price to be paid for that. You're giving something up. I'm not taking that away this morning, but I'm just saying there's a greater price to be paid for being a recipient of the blessing, like Succoth and Pinuel, where they had the Midianites driven out. They were recipients of the blessing of God, but they didn't want to be involved in it. And Gideon said, there's a price to be paid for remaining uninvolved. So he goes in, tears the tower down, and he teaches the men of Succoth a lesson, a very physical lesson, with thorns of the wilderness, and he beats them. And so that's the passage of Scripture. You say, well, okay, the lesson for them was their tower was torn down, and the price that they had to pay was their tower was torn down, and the thorns of the wilderness were torn into their flesh. But what's our price to be paid for not serving God? I believe that there's a temporal price to be paid, and an internal price to be paid. I believe there's actually two prices to be paid when you don't serve God. There's one here and now, and there's one in the hereafter. in the hereafter You stand before your Savior you stand before the Lord of all the earth and You give an account of your life And how you choose chose to use the time that he gave you I? And you have to stand before him and say, I know what your word said, I know that you commissioned your church to be involved in reaching all people, preaching the gospel to every creature, but I just couldn't find time or I had more important things to do than be involved in the Passing out of John and Romans or the knocking of doors or the following up of visitors I felt like you know my hobbies or my family time or my Desires in this area were more important than than that was I Sure, don't want to I sure don't want to stand before the Lord and have to say something like that. I I love, my brother and I, we do a lot of duck hunting together. I mentioned that already. We raise some dogs together. I love that time. But I gotta constantly be checking that and making sure that that's not becoming a priority in my life. It's not the priority. It's way, way, way, way, way back there somewhere. I got a little bit of free time here. I got a little bit of free time there. It's fine to use free time for recreation, but I'm not gonna put that above service to God. There'll be times he'll call me and say, hey, Walt's got a pond up in Stillwater, about an hour drive from my house. He called me last night. He saw 400 mallards on his pond last night. He said, you want to go hunt it in the morning? He's calling me on Friday night. I got a visitation on Saturday morning. I can't go hunt it in the morning. I mean, I give something up not to go hunting. We'd probably shoot six-man limit, you know 36 ducks that morning if we went out and hunted that morning But who knows what soul might not come to Christ and what person that's visited the church won't be there again because Nobody came by and visited them and and I'm just saying that that there is an eternal price to be paid if you don't serve God but there's a temporal price to be paid if you don't serve God and Jesus said, I'm come that ye might have life and that ye might have it more abundantly. I believe, with everything that's in me, I believe that if we'll live our lives according to God's Word, we'll receive more joy and pleasure and fulfillment out of this life than if we do like Solomon tried to do in the book of Ecclesiastes and live life for ourselves. He tried that it didn't work out very good for him. He said It's vanity and vexation of spirit Isn't that interesting that he's doing the very things that are supposed to bring the most joy and fulfillment? Living for the flesh doing whatever he wanted and he said it's actually not a uplifter of the spirit. It's a vexation to my spirit and And in contrast to that, you know, um there there there when you decide God is going to be first in my life God is going to be first in my home. God is going to be first with my children. God is going to come first in my workplace. God is going to come first in every single area of my life. that when you stop worrying about, well, I got to work these extra hours, I'm going to have to miss this service and miss that service and miss out on these opportunities to be involved in this or that. I'm going to have to miss out on those because I got to work these extra hours because I got to get paid and I got to be able to pay rent. I got to be able to do this. I got to be able to do that. We got to remember the words of our Lord that said, seek first the kingdom of God. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these other things shall be added unto you. If we'll just put him first, he's going to provide for all of our needs. And if Sokoth and Penuel would have put God first, they would have received a part of the blessing for the victory. But instead, they were worried about themselves. And what happens? They're going to come take all our food if you don't beat them and put themselves first. I'm telling you, your marriage will pay the price when you don't put God first. Your marriage will pay a price for you not serving God. Your children will pay a price for you not serving God. Somebody said what we allow in moderation, our children will do in excess. What we allow in our lives in moderation, a little bit of music that's not honoring to God, we allow it in moderation, our children hear that, they know, they're not fools. A little bit of missing church, not because I'm sick or because something came up that I just cannot get out of, but just because today we just don't really feel like it. What we allow in moderation, it's not always necessary, but it's likely our children will do in excess. Why? Because of the law of sowing and reaping. You put one kernel of corn into the ground, and what do you reap? You reap two ears of corn on one stalk that both have 800 kernels on it. You sowed one seed, you received 1600 kernels in return for it. That's how God works, that's his economy. That's the law of sowing and reaping. And when we do just a little bit that undermines the things we say we believe, it seems like those are the things that our children gravitate to. Those are the things that stand out to them. Because they hear, this is what we believe, and this is what we ought to do, and this is what is right. But then they see something else, and it's just like a big blinking red light, red flag in their life. They say, wait a second, that's not what you seem to be preaching. My challenge to you is this this morning. You'd get that you would get all in on the work of God at first date Baptist Church That you'd recognize the price to be paid for not serving. God is far greater than the price that I'll pay to serve God God I got just a note here that all I'll wrap things up with we'll finish just a little bit early make Make up for some of the long nights this week that I didn't finish early. Okay, so I've got a friend I graduated from Bible college with. His name is Ryan Wrench. He just started pastoring in Temecula, California. His dad started a church there in 1986. He just started pastoring. His dad stepped down and he took the ministry. He uh, he makes me feel bad all the time because I see like what he's posting on social media And he's doing like a 28 page bulletin right now like a weekly bulletin That's new content 28 pages of it every week. I'm like good night. You know, I just can't keep up with that Uh, and so anyway, this is an excerpt from from one of his bulletins uh that um that I think will be a help to you to understand. This is a well-established church. They probably run 300 or 400 people, and they've been there 35 years. They have multiple buildings on campus there. They have staff members. They have all sorts of different ministries and all sorts of different ways that people are serving. But within the first two or three months of pastoring, this is one of the things he wrote in the bulletin. He said, I worked a long time on the tone of tonight's notes. It's important, though, that we don't always consider, some things that are important that we don't always consider when we're offering for help. He said, there's trouble with a note like this. He said, you can think a note like this, that I'm gonna read in just a moment, that you're, like, it's a cry for help, like, man, we need help and nobody's helping us and what are we gonna do and all this other stuff. He said, that's not really the case or the point of it. But but this is universal to churches to church plants and established churches Southwest Baptist Church that I worked at for for four years and was a member at for like 10 or 12 years, they have 2,100 people that attend Sunday morning. They've got 30 bus routes and just a huge ministry, but the same things would apply there. A pastor in Shawnee, Oklahoma, seven-year-old church, not nearly the same type of ministry, obviously, but the same truths would apply to our ministry. I think they're universal to all ministry. And so he said this, how can I help? You know, you get that question a lot. Maybe you've asked your pastor that question. How can I help? How can I be more involved? Or this question, is there anything I can do to help? I can see it. I don't I don't know. I don't know that I saw it happen this week, but I can see it I mean I know your Desire is to help and to be involved and so I can see your pastor standing at the back door and when you walking out you saying something like this Pastor if you need anything this week, let me know or if I can help you in any way Let me know and those are all good things and and and things that you ought to do You ought to try to help and and be involved in that way He said this Those are hard questions to answer. They seem to be easy, and they are obviously purely motivated, but number one, one-time help is rare compared to reoccurring help. Number two, one-time help requires training, so most people just do it themselves. And number three, one-time help puts the creative mental burden on the one that you're trying to relieve. Okay, so there's a lot there that he said, but in a church, one-time help is rare. There's times, I'm sure, I don't know, I'm guessing, you bag the John Romans yourself, or do they come in bags? Bag them yourself. So that's more of like a one-time. It's not one time, but it's like one time every few months, or one time every six months, or one time a year, or something like that. That's more of a rare occasion. There are some rare things, but the church needs clean every week. And people need to work in nursery every week. And John and Romans need handed out every week. And things need put back in their place, and shopping needs done for things like toilet paper, and paper towels, and kitchen supplies. That needs done, not necessarily every week, but every month. Somebody's got to play piano every week, and special music is needed every week, and the sound booth is needed every week. in a church, there's not a lot of one-time need. And so sometimes you feel like, man, I've asked the pastor, can I do anything to help? Or if I can help you this week, let me know. And he didn't give me anything. And a lot of times that's because one-time help is, the need for one-time help is rare. The need for repetitive help is a lot greater. And then he said, one-time help requires training. You know, how much training does it take to take a John and Romans and put it in a bag? Not very much. But it does require some training. Orient it face up. That's a good thing. Put them in bundles of 25. Tie a little string around them. Put this many back in a box. Not that that's a big a deal and everybody in the room's bright enough to pick up on that, but there are other things that would be more intense and more involved that require training. It's not like someone comes to church today and they get saved, and they say, I want to help, and you say, oh yeah, go do John and Romans, and you send them back to a room to do John and Romans, and they know what to do. They got no clue what to do. It requires somebody teaching them and helping them, and that's the extra burden. And then it puts the creative mental burden on the person that you're trying to relieve. This was mentioned already this week, but there's a ton on your pastor's mind. There's a ton on every pastor's mind. You can do some reading online about decision fatigue and the constant making of decisions and how that degrades over time until you refresh the energy banks and get some rest and recoup. But just on a Sunday, I can tell you, your pastor, he's brighter than I am, but even just from a day of Sunday school and Sunday morning and Sunday night, and then dealing with folks and problems and issues throughout the week, and trying to win people to Christ throughout the week. We were there yesterday, and just a joy to see him. Witnessing and sharing the gospel to a young man that had visited the church and just really Taken the time to go through it. He had other things to do but just wanted to take the time to to answer every question and and field every issue and and so that still is Has been weighing on him and thinking on him and so when you ask him on the way out the door Hey, is there anything I can do it to help? He's got a quickly rolodex through all these things and try to find something a lot of times for me I just find myself coming up blank and then the next day or two days later. I was thinking well, I could ask him this this, or this, or this, or this, and all these other things start coming to mind. He said one-time help in a church setting is rare-ish. But there's always a few projects to be done, tables to be set up, events to be broken down for, different things like that. But there's far greater need for weekly stuff, like Sunday school teachers. junior church helpers Secretarial work there's a there's a ton of secretarial work that takes place in the church from from people that do the the counting of the offering to the Depositing to the recording of everything so that you can get tax statements, and then they categorize all the receipts That's a ton of work And praise God when you have somebody that does that and helps out in that way, because it's a huge relief. Mission letters and guest follow-up and the opening and closing of a building and the cleaning of the building and the nursery. and discipling one-on-one and Saturday soul winning and running the sound and playing the piano and leading the music and posting on social media, even if it's not the church's page, but just posting on social media because it's such a great means of getting the word out. posting a picture on your own account and tagging your church in it and saying, wow, the Lord met with us today or what a blessing to be in church today. Just things like that that are needed more often. Updating a website and running the live stream and ushering and all the different ministries and even having someone at the back door greeting. All of those things are repetitive over and over and over again. And there's not one of those that I listed that don't require some giving on your part. But I'm saying there's a greater price to be paid if you don't get involved and you don't give. That if this man and his family carries the majority of that weight, and it's not like, we haven't talked about this, he didn't ask me to preach this, it's not like he said we need to get more people involved. I just know it's a constant struggle in every church. That if you don't, he'll do as much of it as he possibly can. What's a better use of his time? Stuffing John and Romans into bags? Doing secretarial work? Categorizing and recording all the receipts? Or doing what the disciples deemed so necessary? They established the role of deacons when it was necessary. The church started without deacons, but they established the role of deacons when it was necessary to take care of the widows and the serving of tables so that they could give themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. And the more of those things I listed and other things that I didn't list that you can relieve from his plate, the more he'll be able to give himself to prayer and the ministry of the word, the greater blessing you'll receive when you come to church on Sunday. It's a cycle that feeds itself. I've been in situations where the pastor does everything. I mean, almost literally everything. And he comes into church on Sunday just totally and completely exhausted. And he gets up to preach, and he's giving it the best he's got, but he's just taxed, and he's faint yet pursuing. He's doing the best he can, but he is wore out. You think the people would have got more out of God's Word if he was refreshed and had spent more time in the study and in prayer? or if he came to church wore out like that. They would have enjoyed church and received more of a blessing from it if they had helped some throughout the week, rather than they had just left him to do everything. I'm just saying, there's a price to be paid for not serving God. I don't know about you, I'm not a big fan of the handout mentality. I'm not a big fan of the entitlement mentality that is becoming so common in our world today. People just expect. Don't be that type of a church member. That's what Succoth and Penuel were. They expected Gideon to go and fight and beat the Midianites, but they didn't want to put their skin on the line in any way. Be a church member that says, I'm going to do everything that I can. I'm going to find areas that need help, and I'm going to approach the pastor about it and ask him, hey, I noticed this could maybe be done a little bit better. Would you mind if I get involved in that area and help in that area? That would be such a blessing and such a relief to him. I'm just saying. Don't fall into the trap that the price to be paid for serving God is greater than the price to be paid for not serving God. Church will be so much greater if you just say, I'm going to jump all in and serve the Lord.