Verse number three, the Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. Father, I pray that you'd bless in a marvelous way in this time that we have to focus on your word, on your person. and the things that you've done for us and through us. We'll ask you to bless the message in Jesus' name. Amen. Anniversaries are not just dates on a calendar. If you've got a wedding anniversary, you know that's a special time. That means more than just marking off a day on the calendar. We have 27 years now as a church, and it's more than just a date on the calendar. It's a time when we look back and reflect. It's a time when We refresh and become renewed. It's a time when we look forward in hope and anticipating what God will still do. We're not done. I don't think God's finished with us. And so in our text, Psalm 126, 3, it reminds us, the Lord hath done great things for us. Do we recognize that? The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. And as we celebrate, this special day in the history of the church, we want to focus to be on the Lord because without Him, we would have nothing. Without Him, we would be nothing. Without Him, there would be no church. There would be no effective church. And so we're focusing on God today, and we're going to call it viewing, renewing, and pursuing. Viewing things from the past that God has done, renewing our vigor, our enthusiasm, living for the Lord and then pursuing Him into the future. We're not finished and He's not finished. It is fitting that we first look at the viewing, viewing God's faithfulness. In Lamentations, listen to this, in Lamentations it says in verse 22 of chapter 3, it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because His compassions fail not. Did you get that? His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. That's why just setting aside the thought of a 27th anniversary of our church, even on our personal journey, we can rejoice in the fact that whether we've been around for 27 years or longer or less, we can rejoice in the fact that God's grace has brought us this far. He's carried us through. He's dragging us, carrying us, supporting us. Sometimes we need to be dragged. I saw a little meme on Facebook yesterday that said, you've seen the memes before where the man's talking to Jesus and he sees There's only one set of footprints in the sand. And he says, Lord, you weren't with me. Look, there's only one set of footprints. And Jesus says, that's my footprints. That's when I was carrying you. Well, this new meme I saw yesterday, Jesus said to the man that asked, what about the footprints? He said, well, do you see that streak in the middle? That's where I was dragging you. And it might be that God has had to drag you personally through some of the experiences of your life. But He was teaching you. He was growing you spiritually. He was helping you. And even if you couldn't walk, He could lift you up and carry you or drag you, kicking and screaming if necessary. But we do have a church that we believe is built by God's grace, God's unchanging love. and care. We believed that 27 years ago when we started, that God loved us and He wanted a church in Searcy, Arkansas so that if somebody retired out of the military, they'd have a place to move and go to church. We wanted to have a place where if somebody retired from the mission field, they'd come here and say, there's a place where I can go to church. We wanted a place where somebody is struggling and having hard times financially or health-wise, they would have a place where they could go to church and say, they love me there. D.L. Moody, it was said one time, of a little boy who was attending D.L. Moody's church, and one of his friends said, why do you go way over there across town to go to that church where Mr. Moody is? The little boy said, because they love a feller over there. You know why I want people to come to our church? Because we love you. God loves you, and we love you, and we're glad you're here. And as we reflect over the 27 years, God has provided us members, people to serve, finances. I mean, there were times when Brother Paul can tell you he's been treasurer for a long time. He can tell you there's a lot of times when we would look at the finances the third week of the month and he'd say, Pastor, I don't know if we're going to make it this month or not. I'd say, well, we're just going to have to trust God. And he'd say, oh, no, has it come to that? I'm teasing about that but you know what? We trusted God and somehow we've never missed a payment. I mean we've never had a great big church, never had a lot of people who were giving at one time but somehow God took care of us financially. When we had a need for somebody to teach or somebody to preach or somebody to keep nursery or somebody to do anything in the church, God has provided people for us during that time. This church, I like to look at it like a big oak tree. I was up at my brother's house a few days ago in Isard County and there's a big old oak tree out there behind his house. When I was little, I grew up there. He bought the place where mom and dad raised us. And there was this big old oak tree, a big white oak tree. And I remember it was a little boy playing around the base of that old oak tree. I stepped over, it had big old roots on top of the ground that went down in the ground. I remember stepping over a root one day and almost stepped on a rattlesnake. And so I've got memories of that oak tree, but all these years, I was up there last week and I saw that old oak tree is still standing. You know, there's been a lot of storms come through that part of the country, but that old oak tree is still standing. The wind has blown. They've had tornadoes. They've had lightning strikes. But that old oak tree is still there. You know why it's there? Because its roots go way down deep. A light wind won't blow it over. I like to look at our church that way. When we first started, I had people that I knew and loved who said, secretly, I didn't know they'd said it. I heard it through the grapevine. One of them said, does Rick think that little old church is really going to survive? I think we were about three years into it at the time. To be honest with you, I was wondering if it was going to survive. But we had trust God. We trusted God and somehow God over the years has planted those roots deeper and deeper and deeper and because God's amazing grace that she sang about just a minute ago, God's amazing grace. We have amazing people because of God's amazing grace working through the people. God provided Paul and Dee in those early years and God provided for us when we were in that little storefront building across the street looked across the highway at this piece of property. There were 14 acres over here, and like Paul said, we just had a little handful of people, and all of us were broke, but this property came up for sale. And our landlord that we were renting the storefront from said, Brother Brooks, do you ever intend to buy some land? I said, yeah, if we ever get any money. And he said, well, that 14 acres across the road is available. It's been repossessed by the bank and they're going to sell it for a pretty good price. He said, I would buy it myself, but it's on the wrong side of the street for me. He said, if you're interested now, it'll be time to check into it. Well, we called the bank up at Ball Knob, and sure enough, they had it for $75,000 for 14 acres. And in the city limits, that's a pretty good price, friend. You'd pay that much maybe for one or two acres now. So we began to negotiate with them. We didn't have any money, but we were negotiating. And so as things went on, we finally, they were willing to sell it to us and the bank would even finance it for us if we could raise $10,000. Oh boy, we thought hard to raise that $10,000. I mean, we thought like we were the third monkey on the ramp going into Noah's Ark. I mean, we were getting with it. And we raised $10,000 and they said they'd finance it for us. And when I went to talk to him about signing the papers and such, and I told the president of the bank, I said, you know, I've been talking to the Lord about this, and I really believe he wants us to have that piece of property, but he's kind of placed it on my heart that we ought to get it for $72,000 instead of $75,000. He said, do you realize how good a price that is already? I said, yeah, I do. I'm not knocking it, but our people, we prayed about it, and we just believe we ought to get it for $72,000. And he looked over at his vice president and he said, you believe what he's saying? He said, well, so he's talking to the Lord about it. The president of the bank was a Christian. He's a Baptist. He said, well, okay, we'll let you have it for 72,000. And so we, we financed this property and, and got enough money to build this building on it. And guess what? Where we're, where we're sitting right now, this used to be about four or five feet lower. The ground, there's a cornfield out here and flooded all the time. We had a construction company widening out the road out there and they wanted to park their equipment on our lot. That's where we had a building. And I said, well, you know, we don't mind you parking your bulldozer and dump trucks on our lot, but I said, y'all going to have any fill dirt left over from your job?" He said, oh man, we're going to have a lot of it. I said, I'll tell you what. He was willing to pay us to park his equipment here. I said, I'll tell you what you do. If you'll give us the excess fill dirt, just dump it out here for a building, we'll let you park your equipment out here for free. He said, man, that's just what I need. He said, we'll do it. So they used their dump trucks, their bulldozers, and their big rollers, like a steamroller, compactor. They used their equipment, put it in place, built us a pad for this building. and the other end down there where we're going to be eating today, hope we don't fall in, but that's about 6 or 7 feet off the ground where it used to be because of all the free dirt. We got $100,000 worth of free dirt because God's hand was all over this and we trusted the Lord and the roots went deeper and God has given us some great things to rejoice about. God gave us Faith Bible Institute. We established it over 20 years ago. It's a Monday night Bible Institute where people get a three-year Bible certificate, college graduation, college level courses. We've been doing it for 20 years. We had to have at least, wasn't it 10 people? We had to have 10 people enroll in it in order for them to let us start a satellite Bible Institute. Brother Paul said, you think we can do it? I said, well, we'll try. And so we finally got 10 people together out of our little congregation when we were still in that old building across the street. And so we got 10 people across, coming on Monday nights, and several graduated. And you know, it's been over 20 years now, and we thought we were going to have trouble getting 10 people to join that first year. We have to keep at least eight or 10 enrolled now. to stay in the program and we're still doing it after 20 years. The roots that God plants by His grace run deep and so we're still moving. God's supplying. God's making the needs where they're met because He's involved in it. God gave us some great servants. We got some people sitting in here that have been busy, busy as all get out, serving the Lord, doing different things, teaching, keeping nursery, and cooking, and cleaning, and setting up chairs, and carrying out chairs, vacuuming floors, and visiting. We had a group out Thursday night and Saturday visiting. How many of you went out, just raise your hand real high, if you went out Thursday night or Saturday to visit for the See, hold them up real high so other folks can see you. There's some more in the back that went that's not in here right now. And so they went out and hit the streets and putting those door hangers and flyers on doors. And it was hot yesterday. Erica, my daughter-in-law, she said, now, there's two different areas where Aaron had mapped out for us to visit on Saturday. And I ain't a spring chicken anymore. And so she said, Dad, she said, I think you ought to take that Rebecca neighborhood, where Rebecca Street goes around it. She said, it's a lot leveler walking. And I found out. I said, well, that's good. I'm glad you thought of me. So I went ahead and took Rebecca Street on the right side of the loop. And she was right. Those streets are level. But she didn't tell me there was an embankment where you had to go up 99 steps to get to every stupid door along the way. Well, I got my exercise in. But I thank the Lord for all the people out hoofing it up and down the streets yesterday and putting out those flyers and invitations. We got people that serve. God has given us an online presence. A couple of visitors here this morning saw us online. How many of you saw us online before you came here? Yeah, several. Rod and his family. Miss Pat, she watched for a couple of years She decided to finally step into the water and wade out into the deep. She watched online. She said, that's my church. And one day she came and she wanted to join this church. And she became an official member. And she's a prized possession, I'll tell you. And we're glad to have you, Miss Pat. Thank God for our online presence. But not only does it help here locally, but God has used it. We're giving God the glory. God has used our online presence to reach around the world. And yes, people in the Philippines do see our Sunday broadcast, start saying movies. We're not showing movies yet, but we're our sermons. And so our services go around the world. We have a report. Aaron gives us a report every month or two. And we have people in like 50 different countries that have viewed us on Sermon Audio. What if the Apostle Paul... See, I'm a nobody. Nobody knows my name. Nobody knows who I am. What if the Apostle Paul had had such a tool as the Internet? Man, he would have covered the place in a hurry, wouldn't he? God can do great things through His people when we give Him the glory. So we view, we're looking back, seeing what God has done, and then we renew. Renewing our commitment to God's work. Philippians 3.13 says, Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are Before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. You know, we need an individual renewal, each one of us. You know, a church is not something magical that's just a corporate group. We're individuals. And God can bless a church, but He usually blesses individuals who cause the church then to be blessed. And as we renew our vigor. We're thinking about where God has brought us from. We see the good old days, but we can't live just in the good old days. We have to live today. And today is when we renew our vigor. And sometimes our flame flickers a little bit low. Our spiritual flame begins to flicker a little bit low. And when we realize that, that's the time when we can hit an altar. That's the time when we can get in our prayer closet. That's the time when we can search the Word of God. That's the time when we can pray and say, God, I'm not as excited as I used to be, and I've been depending too much on what you used to do, God. I want to see you do something today, and I'd like to see you do something with me. And when we do that, we renew our individual selves. Like an Olympic runner who's had some great victories in the past, When he's running a new race, you know what? That Olympic runner doesn't get up to the starting mark and start reminiscing about the victories he's had in the past. You know what an Olympic runner is doing? He's getting ready at the starting line to start the next race. He's looking at that finish line down the road. Yeah, it's good to glance back every once in a while, but we better gaze into the present and future because that's where we live. We need all across America churchwide renewal. We need renewal. You ever heard of burnout? Well, you can get burned out, but I'll tell you this, I'd rather burn out as rust out. Just keep on going. Our church, I like to think of our church as a lighthouse in our community. And if that light begins to flicker on the lighthouse, if it begins to flicker, there are ships out there that are in danger. And that lighthouse needs to renew its energy source. You know what you and I need to do as members of Liberty Baptist Church, those who call this their home? We need to renew our energy source. And it's Him. It's Him. Thank God for all the good people that we have. but we have to stay connected to Him. Jesus said, I am the vine, ye are the branches. And so we got to stay connected. We got to keep giving that source of power and nutrition from Him. And that's why we read the Bible. That's why we go to church. That's why we delve into the Word of God and study it extra hard. And that's why we pray and ask God to revive us again. And so as we look at our church, we're thinking, God, you've been good to us in the past. We can't live on those past victories though. What can we do right now, Lord? I'd like to see us have some new invigorated ministries in our church. A new outreach ministry, for instance. I think it's just asking to be launched. You see, if we decide to have more active tract ministry, not only can we hand out family crusade cards and invite people, you can hand out tracts that tell people how to be saved. And if you're in situations daily where you interact with people and it may not work out where you can verbally give them your testimony of being saved and what the Bible says about being saved, but you can always hand them a tract. I'd like to see us get that tract ministry fired up again, where we're keeping track, T-R-A-C-K, track of the tracts, T-R-A-C-T-S, where we give a report maybe monthly or quarterly or weekly even, how many tracts have been given out. Not so we can pat ourselves on the back and say, boy, look what we're doing, but because that gospel went out that many times. So that many people heard Maybe some of them for the first time how Jesus bled and died on the cross for them and how he'll save the most vile sinner that you can imagine if they only know. But Jesus said through Paul in the book of Romans he said that we have to be sent and there has to be a preacher. The church needs to be full of preachers not just a pulpit preacher but preachers who hand out gospel tracts all over the place and witness for the Lord. I'd like to see us have a dedicated greeting team. I mean, specific people. Now, our people are good to greet people, but I'd like to see us have a greeting team where we got a specific set of people, men and women, maybe even boys and girls involved, teens out there in the hallway as people come in. And maybe they're there for the very first time and we shake their hand and welcome them to the services and make them feel like we care. A greeting team to give them a reason to come back again. I'd like to see us for how maybe a senior saint's ministry where we get together, Brother Al, where you and I and maybe Brother DeWitt and Miss Helen and Lloyd and Carol and we can all get together and we can go out and eat more fried chicken. A senior citizen's ministry where we do it more than just once in a while but on a regular basis. We meet together and talk. I mean, we've got teen ministries and teens have activities. Well, we ain't all dried up either, you know. We're ready to do some stuff, aren't we? And so we'll have some things like that. Viewing, renewing, and then lastly, pursuing. Pursuing God's plan for the future. Jeremiah 29, 11 says, For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. God said to Israel, I love my people and I have a plan for them and I'm going to bring them to an expected end. And you know today, we are who are saved, we are God's people. And God says, I've got some pretty good thoughts about you. You know what God said? He said, actually I don't just like you, I love you. And He said, I've got a plan for every child of mine. and I have an expected end. He has an expected end for Israel and he's not done with Israel yet. I don't care how many times they attack Israel in the Middle East, God's not done with them yet and we'll see something big happen with Israel in the future. But God's not through with His church yet either. Even though there's many across the nation that may be closing their doors because of lack of interest in that particular area, but God is not finished. He said, Jesus said, the gates of hell shall not prevail against my church. So the church is not finished. We need to be looking to the future because God has an expected end. He wants to bring us closer to Him. He wants us to have peace. and hope in our heart. God's guiding. He said He's got an expected end and He's guiding, listen, He's guiding us. Like a father would help his child who's first learning to ride a bike. The father's helping the child along. He may wobble and turn over a time or two. The father doesn't give up and quit and go away. He picks him back up, puts him back on the bike and gets him started again. The very year we started this church, 1997, We lived over on Crestview, 105 Crestview here in Searcy. It was an excellent place. It was up on the hill, right behind a donut shop. Woo! Fried chicken and donuts. That's what Baptists love. Well, police officers like donuts and Baptists like chicken. Sorry, brother. He doesn't even like donuts. He loves spinach. That year we started, we lived on Crestview and Aaron, my son who's up here leading singing earlier, he was little then and he was just learning to ride a bike. He had training wheels on his bike. So I took the training wheels off, and I said, son, it's time to learn how to ride this thing without the training wheels. So I got him up on, we're on top of a hill, and down at the bottom of the hill is a big row of shrubs. And so I got him on top of the hill, and I put him on, and I said, I'm going to push you off, and you guide the handlebars, and when you get ready to stop before you get to those bushes, you pedal backwards on those brakes, and it'll stop your bike before you get to the bushes. So I pushed him off, and down the hill he went. But he forgot to turn the handlebars and he forgot to crank the brakes backwards. Guess what he did? Whoosh, right into the bushes. Well, I picked him up, got him up on top of the hill and set him off again. Second time he goes down the hill, swoosh, into the bushes again. Third time, same thing. This year Aaron turns 35 and I think he's going to, before Christmas, I think he's going to learn to ride. God doesn't want his people to give up and just quit. The reason a lot of those churches are closing their doors is because of apathetic people. They don't show up. You know, every time you show up for church, listen, every time you show up for church, that's like casting a vote. Let's keep the church open. God doesn't want us to be discouraged. God doesn't want us to drop out of the race. God wants us to stay in and keep moving forward, look into the future of what He can do, and keep those roots, through His grace, planted deeply. I think part of the problem is that so many people feel like, well, we're overwhelmed. In this day and time, man, the culture around us has gone crazy. And I don't have brothers and sisters who are encouraging me. I feel isolated and alone. I'm the only one that's excited about the Lord and so I might as well drop out too. I don't think that's what God wants of you. You know, you might not feel like you can do much. You might feel like you're not qualified. You don't have the ability. But if you're saved, God has given you gifts and you can serve Him. and you can serve Him well. You may not have much natural ability. I'm glad Erica can play the piano. I taught her everything I know. I can't even play a radio. I don't have a lot of natural ability. But you know what God can use? He can use people who have not much. He says in 1 Corinthians 26, listen to this. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world And the things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are. Why? Why does God choose the foolish things, the unqualified things, the weak things? Because He won't share His glory with anybody. And that's why I said when we brag on our church and 27 years anniversary, we better keep bragging on God first. Why does He choose people that are really nothing spectacular to work through? The last line of that verse 29 says that no flesh should glory in His presence. When we begin to brag on ourselves, then oops, there goes the blessings of God out the window. But if we say, Lord, I am as helpless as a hog on ice, I need Your help. He said, I'll use you. But when we get lifted up with pride, thinking we're somebody, He said, nope, I will use somebody else. When we're humble, when we give Him the glory, He said, I'll use you. That's who He's looking for. We may not have a big church, but as long as we're surrendered to God and to His will, I believe God will use us for His glory for as long as He chooses. It's all up to Him. We just have to learn to give Him the glory because He's the Great Shepherd. You know what we need in Liberty Baptist Church? We still need people who are getting saved. What we need in Liberty Baptist Church is people who are still getting baptized. What we need in Liberty Baptist Church is people who still say, you know, I love that church. I think I'll just join and be an official member so I get to be really on the inner circle. We still need some people who are willing to go out and pass out tracts and witness to people and see folks saved and to invite people to come in. Instead of criticizing the little things that we may get annoyed about, we're bragging on what God's doing in our church. And that will be more likely to attract people than any printed material, word of mouth. God's going to bring us to an expected end. In World War II, the city of Coventry, England, was devastated by bombing. Even their chapel bombed, stones laying flat. But those people said, we're not giving up. And they got out there and like Nehemiah, they took those old stones that had been tumbled down and knocked down by the bombs. They cleaned those stones up and started rebuilding. and they rebuilt until it was a brand new place again. You may feel like in your personal life that things have become devastated. But God can take those stones that look like rubble in your life and He can build you up into something beautiful for His honor and His glory. God's in the life-changing business. When He saved me, I was a wreck. I was a mess. If anybody should have gone to hell, it should have been me. But He reached down and touched me and saved me and changed my life and made me somebody that was willing to follow Him. And friend, when we're willing to follow Him and choose to do His will, He can do great things through us. It might be that somebody's listening today in this auditorium or by way of online presentation. Maybe you've never been saved. You know what God wants to do with you? He wants you to realize that you're a sinner just like the Bible says. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. He wants you to realize that Jesus died on the cross for one purpose. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. And by His blood being shed on that cross, He paid for the sins of mankind. And when we admit we're a sinner, believe that He died on the cross, believe that He rose again from the dead, we can have the salvation that only He can give. Confucius can't give it. Muhammad can't give it. Buddha can't give it, but Jesus is the one who died and came out of the grave. Because He lives, I can live. Because He lives, you can live. But the ball is on your end of the court. He died for you, now will you surrender to Him? Say, Lord, I trust you as my Savior. Would you do that today? Let's pray together. As we stand to our feet, we're going to pray. If you're able, we're going to stand to our feet and pray. I'll give you an opportunity just to respond to God's word. Father, I pray that you'd bless in this invitation time. Lord, I pray that if there are Christians who are discouraged, that they'd be ready to say, I'm going on for the next 27 years. I'm not giving up. I'm looking to the future. Thank you, God, for what you've done in the past. But Lord, renew me today so that I can look towards the future. Lord, I'm expectantly, expectantly, choosing to serve you. Because I know the future is glorious. I pray for those who have not been saved in the Lord today. They would admit in their heart that because of sin they do deserve hell. Not just the bad people, but all people who are born in this world are worthy of hell. But you died on the cross to pay for their sins with your own blood. You're the only righteous one, Lord, and I pray that people would realize that and believe that and trust the Lord Jesus as Savior this very day, that He might change their lives and give them hope as well. Father, bless in this invitation time.