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At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
Welcome to the Sandals Church Podcast. My name is Jocelyn and I am part of the team here at Sandals Church. We are so happy to have you join us today as we listen to this message with Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown, teaching from our gospel of Matthew series. If you enjoyed our content, consider leaving us a rating to help this podcast reach more people. But for now, let's get into the message.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Hi, and welcome to Sandals Church. About 30 years ago, God gave me this vision of being real. So, we're gonna start off today and we're gonna practice being real. Now, you're gonna wanna lie. Just remember you're in church.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Okay? How many of you have ever sat through a boring sermon? Raise your hands. That's so bad. I apologize, I apologize.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Sermons were not meant to be boring. I remember as a kid, I was 16 years old and as a teenager it's hard to focus anyways, but my grandfather took me to a Spanish sermon where it was translated from English into Spanish. 3 hours. Okay? 3 hour sermon.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And halfway through, because I was close to the Holy Spirit, I fell asleep, I was in a trance, And my grandpa, man, he was a scary man, he had Popeye forearms, smacked me and he said, Are you sleeping? And I lied and I said, No, grandfather, I was praying. Praying. So here's the thing is, a lot of people, including preachers, don't understand what preaching is. If you're taking notes, listen to me, preaching is not teaching, and teaching is not preaching, okay?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It is not. And that's why a lot of people when they come to church, they get bored, okay? A sermon is not a grammar lesson. That's not what it is. We don't study nouns and prepositions and adjectives.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Here's what a sermon is. A sermon is a person anointed by God, who spent time in God's word and has a love for 2 things, and listen very carefully, a love for God and his word, and a love for his people. Amen. And this is what's wrong with churches. Churches get pastors that love God's word, and they turn Sundays into seminary.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Okay? And I went to seminary and I call it cemetery, that's where your faith goes to die. It's horrible. It's absolutely horrible. And a lot of times that's why people get so confused.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so, you know, sometimes you go to church and you feel dumb. The good news in my sermons, you will never feel that way. You'll feel like, you know what, I can do that too. I could do that. So I have a heart for God's word and I have a heart for God's people.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I want you to know this, that God uses preaching. God has always used preaching to change lives. And a lot of times, I'm not gonna set you up because you get this wrong, but if I asked you, who's the greatest preacher in the Bible? You'd all say Jesus, and that's cheating. Because he's Jesus.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Like every word he says is the word of God. I mean, that's cheating. You know, like, amen. You know? But the greatest preacher in the Bible, I believe, is John the Baptist.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So we're gonna look at him today. Okay? Because John's not Jesus. He's like you, he's like me, he's got his own problems. He's a little strange.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We're gonna get into that in a minute. But God uses preaching to prepare people. And so I just want you to know that what I'm trying to do as we go through the book of Matthew is, this is not a lesson. This is not seminary. This is not school.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I'm not teaching, I'm preaching. And so one of the questions I get all the time is why did you skip this sentence or that's it? Because I'm preaching a sermon. I've read God's word. I've read all of it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You can do the same too on your own free time. And what I say is, God, what do you want me to tell our church? What do you want me to tell our church? And that's what I'm gonna do today. So number 1, if you're taking notes, listen to this, God uses a preacher to call people to repentance.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:This is what's so broken with so many of the churches in our country that have gone woke, and they're a joke. Okay? I hear this all the time, it's all about love. Well, a lot of it's about love. But there's also a lot about repentance, about justice, about God's anger, about God's coming wrath and coming judgment.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Love is one of the categories, one of the major categories of the bible. It's not the only category. And so, people in the day and age of Jesus, they got it twisted, they got it backwards, they became very very broken. And so God sent a preacher and his name was John. Let's take a look at our Bibles.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I want you to take some notes today. If you got your Bibles, we're gonna look at Matthew 3:1-3. In those days, and you could translate this at the proper time, but in those days, John the Baptist, amen, Baptist, there's 3 of us in here, in those days John the Baptist came to the Judean wilderness and he began preaching. So what does he start to do? He doesn't say, hey guys, let's study the word of God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He stands out in the wilderness and he preaches to the people. He has a heart for God's word and he has a heart for God's people. And listen to his message, repent. I actually heard a pastor say this, Repentance is simply a change of mind without action. False, untrue.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Repentance is a deep sorrow for what you're doing and a change and a promise to do something different. That's what it is. It's deep sorrow to God. God, I'm sorry that I've been living this way and I'm going to change and I'm going to live the way you've called me to live. So that's what the word repent means, metaneo.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It's a complete change of one's mind and I would say actions. It's the turning away from the way you're going to a new way. So his message is, repent of your sins and you hear what I'm saying in the sentence, and turn to God. So it's multi directional. It's turning away from my sin and it's turning to God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so much of the people today, in today's age, we think we can turn to God without turning away from sin. And you cannot do that. Listen to me, that's a false God, that's a false gospel. It's not the word of God. To turn to God, I have to turn away from my sin.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And so here's what churches are doing. In the name of love, they they're pretending some things aren't sin. Now, here's why this is dangerous. This is not to put anybody down. This is not to make anybody feel guilty.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:John is preaching this to warn people. Yes. He says, repent of your sins and turn to God. Listen to this. For the kingdom of heaven is near.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yes.
Jocelyn Cervantes:In
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:the old translations, it says it this way. The kingdom of God is at hand. It's right here. It's right now. And here's what he's saying, that's good news, but it's bad news if you're not right with God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And let me say that today, for some of you when the Lord Jesus returns, that's good news for a lot of us and for some of us, it's terrible news forever. Because you didn't turn, you didn't turn from your sins. Oh, you made a statement, you went forward, you got baptized, you never turned from. You can't turn to unless you turn from. And he says, this is what the prophet Isaiah was speaking about.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He was speaking about John when he said, he is a voice shouting in the wilderness. My wife is always like, stop shouting. I was like, I'm married. This is my only opportunity. You know?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Guys, when you get married, there's volume control and you don't set it. You you don't control what shouting is.
McKay Vandenberg:Hey, Sandals Church. Thank you so much for joining in today's message with pastor Matt Brown. I wanted to take a quick moment to invite you into the work that Sandals Church is doing. One way you can do that is by giving financially. If you head to give dotsc, you can do so there.
McKay Vandenberg:For now, let's get back into our message.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But here's what he said, prepare the way for the Lord's coming. Listen to me, 400 years. 400 years, God had been silent. Think about that. Some of you, you haven't heard from God in a week, a month, a year, a decade.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The Jewish people, the called people of God had silence from God for 400 years. And John says, get ready. Prepare, the Lord's coming. And here's the thing, a lot of Jewish people, they just thought, well, it's just, you know, this is just our religion, this is just our culture, this is just moral fabric of our society, this is just the way that we live. And some Jews actually thought the Messiah wasn't going to come.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Maybe he was figurative, you know, he's mystical, it was myth because it had taken so long. One of my favorite lines from Tolkien, Lord of the Rings is this line, things that should not have been forgotten were forgotten. And that's what's happened in our culture. Things that should not have been forgotten were forgotten. Here's what you need to know.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:John said the messiah is coming and he's almost here. And here's what I want you to know, the messiah is coming back and he's almost here and some of you aren't ready. He says prepare the way for the lord's coming. Clear the road for him. Wow.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Get ready, get ready. You see, we need preaching because God uses preachers to wake us up, to wake us up. God used Pastor Greg Laurie to call me out of my sin and into the kingdom of God. I'm forever grateful for him. Because he preached the word of God unapologetically.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He preached the word of God. I'm forever grateful for pastor Rick Warren, who preached in a way that I could understand there were points. You ever listened to a sermon with no points? Oh, my gosh. I was like, I I get this.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:2nd Timothy 42, look at this. Preach the word of God. Not my words, his words. Preach the word of God. Be prepared.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Listen to me, I prepare, I work through this, I wrestle with this, I have a panic attack every Wednesday. I want you to imagine preaching to the same group of people your entire life. It's terrifying. You've heard all my jokes, you know all my thoughts. I'm like, Lord, give me something new.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Preach the word of God, be prepared whether the time is favorable or not. Listen to me, here's why we need to pray for our preachers. Because preachers have to preach to us about our marriages when their marriages aren't okay. Preachers have to preach to us about our kids when their kids are a wreck. Preachers have to preach to us about our finances when their finances are a mess.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Listen to me, it's not easy to be a preacher. Every single preacher who has ever preached has to admit, if they're a follower of God, that there is a gap between what they are saying and how they are living. It is a humbling occupation. And preachers who think they're there are in trouble. And the Bible says pride comes before a fall, and those are the preachers that fall.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Patiently correct, this is the one I'm working on, you can pray for me on this one. I wish God's words said instantly correct. Wouldn't that be great if my job was just to run around? You know what you need to do? Patiently correct.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I've not always got this right. Matter of fact, I've got it wrong more than right. Rebuke. Listen to me. God uses preachers to tell us we're wrong.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You like it when you agree with a sermon. What are you gonna do when you don't like it? Those are usually the ones we need to hear. Okay. It gets better.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And encourage your people with good teaching. Sermons should encourage us. Man, when I grew up as a kid, I grew up Southern Baptist, and if they weren't screaming, they weren't preaching.
Jocelyn Cervantes:If you
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:didn't feel like a big pile of poo at the end of the message, you didn't hear a you didn't hear a sermon. That's not what the word of God says. Encourage your people. Amen. Listen to me.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:None of us can do this. None of us get this right all the time. That's why there's grace. That's why there's Jesus. That's why we're here to worship.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Right? So if I do beat you up, it's because I wanna lift you up. I wanna lift you. Number 2, this is God's word. God uses, can I get an amen, unusual people to preach his message?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I come from a long line of unusual people. I remember when I was a kid, I fell in love with John. This guy's half naked, eating crickets and honey. Can you imagine, you know, if I had something in my teeth right now, you wouldn't even listen to word. I'd say, John's just got a cricket up in there.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But you know when Sandals started, you know what people talked about? Me. He's got long hair, He's too young. He says crazy things, some of them were crazy. People will come up to me and quote sermons from 20 years ago.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I'm like, Lord help us. Lord help us. I mean, aren't you grateful you get 53 year old Matt? Look it. Let's take a look at Matthew 34 through 6.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So I want you to underline this in your bibles. John's clothes were woven were woven, excuse me, from coarse camel hair. What do you think he smelled like? Yeah. You ever smelled a camel?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yeah. I've been to the Middle East, like, 10 times. I got on a camel once, and I will never do it again, unless my wife makes me again. They smell so bad. They spit at people.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Their tongues are abnormally long. I think God was tired on the day he made camels. He's, like, they gotta ride something. Look at this. He wore a leather belt around his waist.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The Jesus movement would've thought he was weird. Right? For food, he ate locusts and wild honey. You ever ate bugs? Tammy and I were in Cambodia on a mission trip years ago and they served us bugs.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Yes. That wasn't the worst of what was prepared for us that evening. Bugs, insects that look like they would eat you if you didn't eat them. So John's a wild man. He's a crazy man.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But you know what? God used him. That's right. Yes, he did. God used him.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You don't have to be a perfect person to be used of God. Yeah. But look at this. People from Jerusalem and from all Judea and all over the Jordan Valley, look at this, went out to see and hear, stop John. And I hear this all the time from people.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Well, God's word says God's word will never return null and void, and yet it does in churches all across America every Sunday. Now why is that? Because God anoints a person to preach. Preaching is not just God's word, preaching is God's word through a personality. One time I preached at a very large church, I've never been asked to come back again.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The pastor stood up and said, we are not a personality driven church. Every church is personality driven. Some of them are just boring personalities. Okay? Listen to me, if you want if you just want God's word, then let AI preach it to you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:AI will deliver a sermon. God uses the human spirit with his spirit to preach to his people. And so people were drawn to him. They were drawn to something different. They don't like the status quo.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:They don't like the system. They realize something's wrong with this. Right? Let's go to that church with the weirdo with the long hair who looks like Jesus. He's got I used to have the soul patch, I called it the flavor saver.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know? People are like, why do you have that? I couldn't grow a full goatee yet. Like, I was I was praying for it. I was believing in it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But people were like, people would come to Sandals because they thought we were a cult. No. You know what we were? We were reaching kids that weren't interested in religious games. We did some wild stuff.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:John was wild. And he baptized them in the Jordan River, man.
Jocelyn Cervantes:Do you
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:know that in Judaism only converts got baptized? He baptized Jewish people. Isn't that crazy? Why even Jewish people need to repent? Even Jewish people need to be cleansed.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Number 3, look at this. God uses preachers to challenge the powerful and the comfortable. Why do I need church? Because you need to be challenged where you're powerful and where you're comfortable. That's what we need.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We don't need softball messages, right? That's not what we need. We need fast pitch hardball. That's what we need. Bring it, preach it, deliver it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Listen to me. If there's not a moment in my sermon where you go, oh, then I didn't preach. Right? It's called the punch and hug. That's what it's called.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Check this out, Matthew 3:7. But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees, here's the thing, the religious elite showed up. So I want you to underline that. Not everybody that's religious is righteous. So look at this.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But when he saw Pharisees and Sadducees coming and this is this is an interpretive challenge. And I and I think the NLT translates it correctly, because I don't believe they came to be baptized. But they came to watch him baptized. Let's check him out. Let's check him out.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I remember the first time I was preaching at Sandals, I saw Greg Laurie in the back. No. One time, right before I went on stage to preach, Tammy comes up to me, Rick Warren sending you on the front row. Thanks babe for the encouragement. And you can't miss Rick, he's a giant.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He's a giant man. But why were they coming? Something was happening. Not from me, it was from God. God was doing something.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:God was doing something. And people far from God, listen to me, started coming to hear somebody preach. Not the religious people, they have churches, they go to church. But people that don't have a church started coming. Listen to me.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's who Sandals is. Sandals Church was created to reach the lost. Amen. Amen? That's what we're created for.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Alright. So look at this. But when he saw Pharisees and Sadducees coming to watch him baptize, he denounced them. Oh. John and Jesus are always harsh to the religious.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You know who they're never harsh to? The broken. Come on now. Ever. In my religious tradition, you know who we beat up?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:The broken. The broken. You know Sandals Church made the news when we had strippers, prostitutes, and porn stars attend church? We made the news. Because Christians weren't sure how they felt about that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I was like, really? Jesus got a foot rub from a prostitute. He had a meal, and it made everybody uncomfortable. You're like, foot rub? That's my translation.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's my translation. I know, some of you are like, I I never never read that. But listen to what he calls them. You brute of what? Satan.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:What is Satan? Satan. Come on. It's not a is that a compliment? You brood of snakes, he explained.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Who warned you to flee the coming wrath? Wow. Do you know that in 70 AD, every one of the Sadducees was murdered by the Roman Empire? They all died. Listen to what he says.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Prove by the way you live that you have repented. Why? Repentance is not just faith in Christ. Repentance is faith in Christ because you've turned from sin. Prove by the way that you live that you've repented.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You don't need to be perfect. Listen to me. It is not about perfection, but it is about direction. Which way are you headed? Which way are you headed?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Amen. Prove by the way that you live that you have repented of your sins and you've turned to God. Listen to me, I know so many of you have come to church for the first time. I cannot tell you how many times I meet somebody at the town church and I say, where did you used to go to church? And here's the answer, nowhere.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Praise God, there's somewhere for them to go. Listen to this. He says, don't just say to each other, don't just say to each other, we're safe, for we're descendants of Abraham. Don't just say, I gave my life to Christ at a harvest crusade. I was baptized at 8 years old.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I I believed in Jesus in Sunday school. Don't just say we're safe. Look at your life. Yeah. That's good.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Is there evidence of faith in your life? Don't tell me you've changed. Show me Christ has changed you. Listen to what John says, he's a fiery preacher. That means what?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Something. Oh, no. Nothing. That means nothing. For I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Do you know that stones are more alive than some churches? Let us never be that church. Amen. Listen to what he says. Even now, the acts of god's judgment is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Man, listen to this. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into what? Fire. Listen to me sandals, the Lord is coming. Are you ready?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So here's what happened. There was a spiritual ferbrancy, a vibrancy. There was an awareness that the temple was corrupt. They knew that. They knew that the people at the temple were all about money and all about getting rich, they knew that something was desperately wrong with the temple, and so they began to flee to the deserts to worship and talk about and read God's word, and an expectation of the messiah just grew and grew and grew.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And all of a sudden, Jesus shows up. Jesus shows up and John begins to prepare the way for him. Listen to me, there's been an expectation of the return of Jesus for about a 100 years. All across the world, this expectation. Nobody knows the day or the hour, that's what Jesus said.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Anybody that tells you they know, they're wrong. They're wrong. Even if they got a chart or a graph, they're wrong. So listen to what we gotta do as a church. Listen, we gotta preach Jesus.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Look at this. 1 Corinthians 118, the message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction. Listen to me, you know who's not interested in Jesus? Those who are interested in sin. But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Listen to me, I know that preaching and the Holy Spirit and Jesus can change you because it changed me. Amen. That's right. I didn't become perfect. It was not about perfection.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:It changed my direction. Are you ready to change your direction? Here's why we need preachers. Number 4. God uses preachers to point people to Jesus.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Any preacher that points at themselves is a problem. We point to Jesus. We point to Jesus. And let me challenge the parents in our church, listen to me. We are not raising up preachers, and you know why?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Moms and dads are not dreaming that one of their kids one day will be a preacher. You want them to be doctors and lawyers and wealthy and successful. We need preachers! We need preachers. We have openings at our church and 0 people apply.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I get it. Less money, more negative attention. Now I get it. Now I get it. Man, I was talking with a young church planner out of LA.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He said, do you have any advice? I said, yeah, God is good, people suck. I said focus on God. Come on now. And he'll help you deal with the people.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Now I don't mean you people. Now here's the thing, if if you're overly religious, you're more offended that I said suck than you are with the truth, that that's how people are. You know what the sadducee said? Can you believe he called us vipers? Who uses that kind of potty mouth?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He was clear. Listen to me, I want you to raise your kids to follow God, not money. And if God calls them to preach, if God calls them to ministry, if God calls them to serve, then you support it or you got a problem with God. Come on. Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Encourage your kids to go all in with Jesus. Amen. Because he went all in with them. Amen? Matthew 3:11 through 12.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He says, I baptized with water those who repent of their sins and turned to God, but someone is coming soon who is greater than I am. What I love about John is he never gets it twisted. He knows who he is. He knows he has b o. He knows he has bugs in his teeth.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He is not about can you imagine John on Instagram? You know? You know? Is it mic on? Is it on?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Is it on? What do you mean tighten my robe? John, just pull that tighter, buddy. You're gonna get kicked off Instagram again. Listen to what he says.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So much greater than I am, I'm not worthy even to be his slave, come on sandals church, and carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Listen to me, when God got a hold of my life there was fire in my soul, and I'll never forget that day. When's the last time you were on fire for God? When's the last time you invited the holy spirit and said, do what you will?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Last week I preached at a charismatic church. I think they all drink Red Bulls before. It was wild, man. But you know what they're into? The Holy Spirit and fire.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's right. Sometimes that sounds I feel like we're into tea and crackers. I'm just like, I'm just kidding. I appreciate that, Matt. I appreciate that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Listen to me listen to me, if you've ever been hurt by the church or somebody in the church, here's what you need to know. The wheat and the chaff are in the church. We don't know who's which. And when the church historically has tried to discern that, it got really ugly. It got really ugly.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Listen to what he said. He said, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit, then he will clean up go back. Here we go. I'm sorry. Then he will clean up the threshing area and gathering the wheat into his barn, burning the chaff with an ever ending fire.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He's gonna separate the wheat from the chaff, and then the chaff gets burned. We gotta be ready.
Jocelyn Cervantes:Yeah.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We gotta be ready. Look at 1 Corinthians 123. But we preach Christ crucified. I know people don't get it, right? How on earth can you worship a dead guy?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Like, how can you do that? Last week in small group. How on earth can you believe a virgin gave birth? Without God, I don't. With God, I believe anything.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's right. He says, It's a stumbling block to Jews. Now you need to know, there are Jewish people that believe in Jesus, but it's a small minority. A stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles. But to those who are called let me ask you, are you called?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Man, this is what we need. Number 5, last point. Jesus shows us how to honor biblical preaching. Do you know how many times I've heard somebody say, I don't need a sermon.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I don't need a preacher. Can I just tell you I need both? Yes. I need both. I cannot tell you how many times I listen to another pastor, and God fillets my soul.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Fillets my soul. Last week, I was preaching at Ocean's Church, and John and Lisa Bevere were on the front row. You know, John Bevere preached in Hawaii one time, Tamara in Hawaii, and she says, let's go hear this guy. I don't know what his name is, Paul Revere, something like that. And I didn't wanna go.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Who who wants to hear a sermon in Hawaii? That's not why you go to Hawaii. But, you know, God used John to change my life. He is the preacher to change my life. And there I am, 15 years later, preaching in front of him.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Man, isn't it amazing what God does? Matthew 313-15, Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River. I want you to underline this in your bibles. This is so important. Jesus is the greatest leader who has ever lived.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Look at this. Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. Remember, the Pharisees and Sadducees came to watch. Jesus came to get wet. But John tried to talk him out of it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I mean, you wanna talk about awkward. Jesus, I just have a robe on, it's gonna get weird. Listen to what he says, Listen what he says. I am the one who needs to be baptized by you. He gets it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He says, so why why are you coming to me? And I want you to underline this for those of you who struggle. Why do I need to go to church? Why do I need to be a part of a church? He said, why what Why do you Why why are you coming to me?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And Jesus said, it should be done. Listen to this, for we must carry out, underline this in your bible, all that God requires. And so John agreed to baptize him. Listen to me. You don't know what baptism is.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Baptism does not save you. It identifies you with what team you're on. I want you to underline this in your Bibles. John saw that Jesus came to him. Why is that?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:John is calling a team. He's saying, what team are you on? Are you on God's team or the devil's team? And the religious people show up and John says, you're on the wrong team. Jesus says, I know what team I'm on.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Listen to this, and Jesus, the son of God who never sinned, who does not need to be baptized, was baptized because he wants to model for us what we must do. Baptism is an announcement of what team you're on. I got to lead a young guy back to God last week. He's 19 years old. Almost threw away his life, got drunk, went to jail, but God had God was merciful on him.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And I told him after he gave his life to Christ, I said, you need to get baptized, and I want you to invite all those idiot friends of yours that gave you that alcohol. I want you to invite them to church. I want them to see what team you're on now. He's just looking at me. I said because if you're truly changed, then you're truly changed.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:You would drink with them. Now invite them to have a drink with you. Look, if they'll get you drunk, why don't you say show them how to have their souls saved? Listen to me, Sandals. Here's what's missing.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So many of us read this and we don't understand how important the team is. Well, I can just I can just I can just be a Christian at home. It's just it's just me and Jesus. Even Jesus demonstrated he needed a team. And he announces in front of the Pharisees and in front of the Sadducees which team he's on.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:He's on team repentance. And he didn't even need to repent. He's on team confession. He didn't even need to confess. Baptism, listen to me, is about connecting with the family of God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We have too many people at Sandals Church that are disconnected. Oh, I believe in Jesus, me and Jesus are good. Jesus says, then join my team. Join my team. And I wanna encourage you to do that.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:I wanna encourage you. My job as a preacher is to challenge you to obedience. I don't know why on earth Christians allowed Nike to come up with the slogan, just do it. Why isn't that our slogan? Oh, I don't wanna get baptized.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Just do it. I don't wanna go to church. Just do it. I don't wanna tithe, just do it. I don't wanna forgive, just do it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Why on earth did a dude from Oregon figure that out? Christian's slogan is, I'll pray about doing it. Here's what I want to challenge you to do, I want to challenge you to connect with us at Sandals Church. We got a lot of people but we can be a better team. We have this new thing we're launching and listen to me, I've worked on this, I've prayed over this, our pastors are ready for this, but it's called Sandals Church Connect.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We're just asking for an hour of your time and here's what we're gonna tell you. We're gonna tell you whose team we're on, Jesus. We're gonna tell you what his team is about. Let me tell you what his team is about. Preaching God's word and reaching the lost people.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We are on mission, amen, to make disciples, not just here, but all over the world for Jesus. That's team Jesus. And we wanna invite you to be a part of this team, but listen to me, we want you to know what team you're joining. Because it's not your team, it's His team. He makes the rules, he calls the shots.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:And we got to submit to that. So let me challenge you, I get it, you're busy. You know, I get it, some of the people in sandals are weird. That's why there's room for you, amen? I mean, come on.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:We're not called to love people who are like us, we're called to love people who are different from us. That's team Jesus. Your team is all the people that you like, the people that you have things in common with, the people who are in your same wealth category. Team Jesus is, man, if you're ready to repent, you can be on the team. And it doesn't matter how much money you make.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Doesn't matter how old you are, how young you are, it doesn't matter what color your skin is. It doesn't matter what your sexuality is. If you're ready to repent, you can be on team Jesus.
Jocelyn Cervantes:Amen.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:That's it. Listen to me. As a church, we should work hard to honor and support those who preach. Look at look at the scripture, look at this. In the same way, the Lord ordered that those who preach the good news should be supported by those who, what?
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Benefit from it. I gotta confess, this is a confession. I've gotten way too casual in my preaching. And here's why. We're in California, like we're chill, I get it.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:But the return of Jesus is not chill. Come on now. And what we need to do as a church is we need to honor preaching. Because you know what? California needs preachers to call us from our stupid ideas.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:California has gotten silly. And you know why that is? Because we don't have enough Johns who are willing to go out into the desert. That's why I went to Riverside to start a church, Amen? And challenge people, Listen to me uncompromisingly to repent and turn to God.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Listen to me, God does love you but he's calling you to repent. And that's the gospel, that's the gospel. So let me challenge you today. If you're disconnected, go sign up, find out, figure out how to be a part of Sandals. It's Sandals Church Connect.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Okay? And if there's a staff member that doesn't know what that is, email me. We want to get you connected. Listen to me, Sandals. We either are a team or we're not a church.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Mhmm. That's right. And as a team, we have a mission. And we have a coach who's our Christ. And he's called us to a task, and we need to do that together.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:So let's pray. Lord, we pray in the name of Jesus that we would take seriously the commandment to follow you. Lord, let us take the lead of Jesus who did not need to be baptized but wanted to identify publicly with the team that he was on. Lord, let us be that way as well. Let us connect with you.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Let us join Sandals Church. Let this be our church, our home, our team, and let us accomplish your mission. Lord, let us respond to preaching like John. And Lord, raise up preachers in this church. We pray in Jesus' name.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown:Amen.
Morgan Teruel:Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you want more content from the series, we have a YouTube playlist linked in the description. And if you want more information about who we are and what we do, you can go to sandalschurch.com.