First and foremost, before I get going, we're going to be in Ruth. Ruth chapter 1, if you want to go there. If you brought your Bible tonight. I want to thank you all. First and foremost to the faithful members of this church that allow something like this to go on. So I came from a little bit of background. I came from a small town in Indiana. How small? There were 5,000 people in the entire town. Well, you say, that's not too bad, right? So I moved down south to a small town called Sebastian, Florida. It's about three hours south of here, and I took on a church about four years ago. There are more people in the high school in Sebastian than there are in the entire town that I grew up in. And, you know, it's amazing to me because we got in last night and I'm anal. I'm so anal. I'm like, if I'm if I'm if I want to be on time, I need to be there at least a half an hour early. And I was I was bugging my kids all the way here. We need to get there. We're not going to get a seat. We need to get there when you get there. We need to get there. And they're like, Dad, just chill. We're going to find a seat. We sat up in the balcony and they were like, I can't believe the church is so full on a Wednesday night. That should warm your heart to see a bunch of people in church on a Wednesday night because that doesn't happen anymore. It doesn't happen anymore. And I brought my kids last year. Last year I came here by myself. It's my first time I ever came here and I brought my kids this year. And it was so funny. My kids have known me as their dad. I wasn't always a preacher, I wasn't raised in a Christian home. So when I preach, a lot of times all they hear is their dad. And it's so good to hear, we didn't even get to steak and shake yesterday, that's a mile down the road, we didn't even get to steak and shake. And I heard one of my kids say, it's not all about you, didn't you listen to the preacher? I know, I turned around and said, I don't think that was the spirit it was intended to, but okay, at least you're listening. Ruth chapter one, please. And, you know, pastor asked me, preacher asked me last night to come up with something. And, you know, I talked to Brother Joe Kenning out in the hall, and he's like, well, it's going to be a long night, because Brother Joe Kenning is going to come preach for you here soon. You're in for a treat there. And I said, Brother, I already got it in my head, man. Got it. I stayed up till 1.30 last night. Because I had four sermons by the time I got home, and I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know where to go. And I get all anxious, and I get all antsy, and so if I lose my spot, but I ain't seen this many faces in a church, man. I tell you what, it's a blessing to just be here. You know how many times I've looked from that camera angle and saw this pulpit on my computer or on my TV screen? It's just a blessing to be here, to see so many people who love the Lord. Ruth 1, verse 15. We're not going to go through the whole thing because we're only going to read a few verses because, you know, boy, if I had an hour. And verse 15, and she said, behold, thy sister-in-law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods return thou after thy sister-in-law. And Ruth said, entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following me, for whither thou goest, I will go, whither thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried. Well, let me tell you something. You know, when I was, I was going through all those sermons in my head, I was trying to talk to my wife and, and I was like, I don't know where to go. I don't know what to do. And she says, well, what about Ruth? And I went, I didn't even think about Ruth. But the whole, the whole message here is about the faithfulness in service. And I got to thinking, well, my wife's doing a Bible study in Ruth. So it was fresh in her mind. That's not something that I ever would have gone to. And I tell you, I'm not going to say my wife wrote this sermon for me, but I will tell you that she looked at me and says, what about Ruth? And that was enough, man. That was enough. So the thing here is verse 16 really struck me as I was reading through Ruth chapter 1 last night. And Naomi, we know the story. Her husband died. He was there for the wrong reasons anyway, but her husband died and then he leaves. They leave and they die and the sons die and the only people left is Naomi. She's all alone. The only thing she has is a couple daughters-in-law, so she decides to hightail back to where she's from, Bethlehem, Judah. And she sees her daughter-in-laws are following her, and she tells them to get lost. You know, you got prospects. I got prospects. I got nowhere to go. I got no money. I got no prospects. I got no land. I got no nothing. There's nothing for you here. Just go back. And one of them says, OK, see you later. But Ruth, Ruth, man, if I had the hour, I can do the five point right here. Verse 16, follow along with me. Ruth followed Naomi down a path that she could not see. She followed Naomi to a home that she did not have. She followed her into a nation that was not hers. She followed her to a God that she did not even know. and to a future that was not sure. Look what she says. She says, wherever you die, that's where I'll die, too. Boy, Ruth was faithful. She was faithful in her service to Naomi. She worked. She went out to the fields. We all know the story. She gleaned. She went and picked up little handfuls of purpose here, a little bit of there, a little bit of here, so she can provide for her family that wasn't even her family. And her faithfulness was rewarded. She met a guy, of course we know the story again, named Boaz. And it worked out for her. Now her faithfulness and service did not go unnoticed. It certainly did not go unnoticed. And she ends up becoming an ancestor to David and in the line of Jesus Christ. She was not a Jew. She was a Moabitess. But her faithfulness was rewarded. But to get to that point, she had to suffer a little bit. And she suffered. She suffered in poverty. She suffered in the loss of her husband. She suffered in the change of an entire nation. And I want to, man, we all suffer. And that suffering is part of the ministry. Now, I know there's a lot of preachers here, and I know there's a lot of pastors here. And I want to tell you, I've only been preaching for four years. I've only been a pastor for four years. I've been preaching for longer than that. I've only been a pastor for four years. And I tell you, my pastor that I had up in that little bitty church in Indiana, he had his act together. He knew what he was doing, right? I was his assistant there for a little while, and he would be like, I'm going here six months from now. Just have a couple services ready, and you're good to go. And I was like, man, I can do this all day. And then I got down to Sebastian, and I went, this is the hardest thing I've ever done. It's also the most rewarding. but it's easily the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. And along that, I didn't realize the suffering that comes along with the ministry. Sure, I had heard it preached. I've read 2 Corinthians. Boy, you read 2 Corinthians, there were some people who suffered. Paul suffered. Paul didn't just suffer emotionally. Paul suffered. I mean, Beaten multiple times. Imprisoned multiple times. Stoned. Shipwrecked. Snake bitten. Whole nine yards. Paul suffered all because every time he got kicked out of a town, what did he do? He dusted his feet off and he says, you know what? They're clean now. I'm going to go right back in and I'm going to tell them about Jesus Christ. And they kicked him out again and they stoned him or they beat him or they threw him in prison. Paul suffered for his ministry. Look, you want to serve Jesus Christ and you want to do something, you're going to suffer in the ministry. And now Ruth, and we can see it all through the scripture, Ruth suffered in poverty, the three Hebrew children suffered, the burning fire of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. We see that. We see how David was persecuted and was thrown into a lion's den, right? We see that. There's suffering in a ministry. Those are the obvious ones. Jeremiah suffered in a pit, right? But I say all this to kind of bring you to a point some of that suffering is brought on to us by ourselves. Some of these people in the Bible, they suffered because they were serving the Lord and they suffered and they suffered and it made them a better person for it. But I was always taught that you should not learn from your mistakes. You should learn from other people's mistakes so you never have to make those mistakes. So I want to talk to you a little bit about, I don't have a three point or whatever. I don't have any of that stuff. I just want to talk to you a little bit about the hardest thing for me to do in the ministry, to remain faithful. And that was that sometimes in order to be faithful to God, you just have to wait a few minutes. So, a little bit about my backstory, I wasn't raised in a Christian home. As a matter of fact, the first time my pastor saw me walk into that church, I'm pretty sure he said, what in the world is going on? I chased a skirt into church. Honest to God, I came to church for the first time because of a girl. And her mom, bless her heart, says you can't come over to my house on Sunday unless you go to church with us. So I chased a skirt into church and I sat underneath the pastor for about four years before I finally got saved. And boy was I rough around the edges. I had some weird ideas about what the Christianity really is and what the Bible really is. I had a skewed worldview of this book. And I tell you what, thank you, Lord, for putting me in a Bible-believing church the first time I started hearing about God. That's the biggest blessing that I can think of right now, that he put me in a church. I married that woman, by the way. I married her. We've been together since we were in eighth grade. That faithful woman who was faithful to church saw years ago that I was going to be a preacher, and I told her she was crazy. I told her, you're crazy. There's no way I'm going to be a pastor. There's no way I'm going to be a preacher. It's just not in the deck, honey. And she said, just wait. Just wait. You'll see. And that was the hardest thing for me to get through my head. See, I was young. I was ambitious. I was zealous. I wanted to do something for the Lord. So my mentality was, well, if I'm going to do something for him, I might as well. If the Lord don't tell me what he wants me to do, I'm just going to go do something. So what did I do? I moved my wife and my two kids down to Pensacola. Didn't ask God about it. I pulled a Joshua. I was like Joshua sending my family down to Ai. I wasn't meant to be there. See, the thing about it is I wasn't ready to go down to Pensacola. I wasn't prepared to go down to Pensacola. And one of the hardest things I've had to learn is sometimes you just got to wait for the Lord to tell you what to do. And that was so hard for me. And I didn't make it in Pensacola. I didn't stay there. I was only there for a year. Why? Because the Lord did not want me there. He never told me to go. And when I went, he kicked my tail the entire time I was there. Now, I don't have sufferings like some of you guys have sufferings. But my sufferings have been mostly me. And when I got back, I was like, all right, Lord, I got back to that little town in Indiana. And I was like, all right, Lord, I don't really know what I can do here, but if you want me to do something, do something. And you know what I heard? He said, just sit right there. So I had to sit in a pew and just wait on God. And that was so difficult. That is so difficult for a man who wants to serve the Lord to just sit and wait. So I wanted to do something. So what did he say? I went to my pastor and I said, look, I need something to do. And he's like, well, the lady who cleans our church just left, so you can clean the church. I was just like, I went to Bible school. I'm going to scrub the toilets in the church? Yeah, that's exactly what that means. So we did, we cleaned the toilets, we cleaned the church. Every Saturday night before church, before church on Sunday, we would go and we'd clean the church. And then they'd have a basketball tournament or a basketball league on Saturday nights and we have to get up and come clean the church again either Sunday morning or Sunday, Saturday night. And you know what that taught me? That taught me the meaning of just being faithful and doing what you're supposed to be doing. Eventually, and I'm not saying all these things to kind of give you a, you know, a puff your view of me up, because that's not what this is about at all. Because I know some of you guys are suffering here. You want to know why, how I know you guys are suffering? I mean, preacher says it. Preacher says it. There's some people here that are suffering, because he knows them. People call this man, I myself have done this, call this man Baldwin. I'm not a crier. I'm not a crier, but I've called this man Baldwin saying, hey, This person that you and I know, what's going on with him and it hurts. I don't know what to do. He knows you guys are suffering. You want to know how I know you guys are suffering? Because last year I sat in that pew and I was broken. Been in the ministry three years, broken, just absolutely just Had no clue if my marriage was going to succeed, had no clue if my church was going to succeed, had no clue if I was making any impact on any of the people that are in my church. It just seemed to be pointless. I was spinning my wheels. You know what the Lord said? He said, I was sitting right back there, right where Brother Jared's sitting. And I was sitting right there, and he said, you remember that lesson I taught you when you went to Pensacola? He said, just wait. Just hang on. And it's been a rough year. It's been a good year, man. It's been a good year. Lord, it's good to me no matter what happens. Amen. Let me tell you something. There's suffering in the ministry. And I'm going to tell you this story. And you might say, well, that doesn't seem like a whole lot, brother. I mean, there's plenty of people out here who suffer more. You're absolutely right. There's plenty of people out here who suffer more. I'm going to tell you how the Lord dealt with me. We had a homecoming the other day. Actually, it was the beginning of this month. It's supposed to be this big party, this big potluck. Baptists, we love food, right? Everybody's going to eat after service. Everybody's going to be there, right? You know how many people showed up for a homecoming? Six. Six people showed up for a homecoming. I watched, I listened to my wife cry herself to sleep that night. And I did too. And the Lord's just telling you, just wait. Just wait. We've been praying and praying and praying. We don't got a piano player. Our church is so small, we don't even have a piano player. And these small things really just bother me. But those small things, when the Lord really works them out, Lord, that just shows me exactly how he works and what he does, and I tell you what, just makes it even more rewarding when he does those things. Because just the day before I came down here, the day before I came here, the Sunday before I came down here, we have had a family that started coming. They're a little bit older, but they just started coming. And she walked up to me and she goes, you don't have a piano player. And I said, I do not. She goes, well, I've been playing piano in churches for 50 years. Do you need a piano player? Yes. You know, you guys chuckle at that, but that lifts my soul, man. See, we're told to do two things in the scripture that really are hard for me. We're told to wait and we're told to watch. We're told to wait on the Lord. We're told to wait for His coming. We're told to wait for His glorious appearing. And there's going to come a time, and I think it's going to be before we leave this earth, before I die, before I leave this earth, I'm going to see the Lord come back. Amen? I think I'm going to see it. And I cannot wait because we're told to watch. We don't keep our heart in the right place because we're not waiting for Him to tell us what to do. We just think we can go and do something, but we don't have our eyes in the right place either. We're supposed to be looking for Him. We're supposed to be seeing him come. And my brain works a little differently. My kids are tired of hearing this story because I tell it so often. But you guys don't know me. But I can't wait because I think the way it's going to happen, I think I'm not going to see his face first. The first thing I'm going to see is I'm going to see them fingers slip through them clouds. And then he's going to go back. And then we're going to get to see His face. The first thing that I'm going to get to do is see my Savior's face. He told you to wait for that. That's hard for me to do. We pray, even so come Lord Jesus, right? Even so come Lord Jesus, even so come... What happens if He doesn't? You know how long we've been saying that the Lord is going to come back? You know how long preachers have been saying, it's got to be soon, just look at the world, just look out there. How long have we been saying that? For far too long. The Bible says that that time was at hand, that was 2,000 years ago. We were told to wait on the Lord. And when you're told to wait, and you're like me, it becomes discouraging. And you feel like you're spinning your wheels, and you feel like you're not doing anything. And it feels like your ministry is not worthwhile. But we sang the song yesterday. will be worth it all. When I see those fingers slip through the clouds, I'm not going to wonder about whether or not my ministry was good enough or whether or not I needed to be waiting. You know what I'm going to be doing? Amen! Come Lord Jesus, let's go, right? You know, I love some brothers and sisters in here. I know a lot of you guys, but I'd leave without saying goodbye. I heard that from another preacher. I'm not going to tell you who it was. Look, I love you guys, but sorry, see you later. It'll be worth it all. And let me tell you something. I read a study, I read something the other day that said how long a pastor is in a church. The average length of a pastor is in a church. And it just boggled my mind. Couldn't believe it. I've already passed it. I've only been in the church for four years. I feel like I'm just getting going. And that's longer than the average preacher stays in the church because of the sufferings. Now, you're going to hear stories all through this week about how people suffered in the ministry and how people had hardships in the ministry. And they don't tell you this to try to make themselves feel good about the things that they've been through. They don't tell you these things to try to puff them up. They tell you these things so they can be a help to those who are in sorrow. So I know the default setting for us independent Baptists is, well, you know, he's just letting his flesh get a hold of him in the ministry. He's just bragging this and that. It's not that. Give them the benefit of the doubt. That's our default setting is to think negatively towards our brethren. And that needs to change, first off. That's not the message, but that needs to change. We need to give some of these people the benefit of the doubt because the way God dealt with me is not the same way God deals with you. And he told me to wait. And he told me to watch. And boy, that's suffering for me. because I cannot wait to see him face to face. Ruth followed her mother-in-law. I wouldn't follow my mother-in-law to another country. Ruth followed her mother-in-law, and I'm going to ask you a question, and I'm going to leave it at this. Preacher, you can come on up. Ruth followed her mother-in-law, and yet we can't even follow a book. Ruth followed her mother-in-law, yet we can't follow a God that we know exists, that we feel Him, that we hear Him, that we see Him. She didn't know who God was. The Bible says in Ruth chapter 1, I think it's in 15, it says she left the gods that she had and followed Naomi's God. She left and followed for a God that she didn't even know. Let's go ahead and pray. Dear Lord, thank You so much. for this blessed book that you've given us. Lord, thank you for these people here who come and love you and serve you and honor you. Lord, I pray that you heal that brokenness that's in some of their hearts, and I know it's there. Lord, I pray that you heal that heart, you mend that heart, and that you give them the clear direction they need. Lord, I pray that you be with him and bless him. Put a hedge of protection about him, Lord. And Lord, if there's a hole in that hedge, Lord, let a man come and fill that gap. I say this in the name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.