Okay, if you would turn your Bibles over to Colossians. Look at Colossians chapter 3. And I do use notes. If I didn't, this would be pitiful. So I've used notes for years and I've I've never just preached off of a text by itself without having notes. Every once in a while I get kind of redirected and preach something else, you know, but I've always had some guide to keep my mind back on the scriptures. I've tried to stay with the scriptures, but it's very important to me that you get what the Lord's given me, so I want to help you with that. And I want you to look inward today. I'm not asking you to look around or look at the nation or look at the country. I'm asking you to look inward. Look at yourself. I'm not asking you to look at your neighbor on your pew. I'm asking you to look at yourself this morning. And we're going to talk about a few things that I hope will help you and I hope that you'll get something from it and the Lord will help you with it and maybe you can improve on some things. Maybe you can make some changes in your life. And you know, we come to church, it's not just a pep rally. We come to church to get something so that we can try to do a little bit better for the Lord Jesus Christ and be a better servant for him. And I want to be I've been trying to improve on preaching for 30 some years and maybe the time I die I'll have something figured out, you know, but I've been trying and I want to be a better preacher and I pay attention to the way that other guys do it, you know, trying to improve my delivery and my method and all that stuff. I do all I can, you know, to do that stuff, but I have to look inward. I look inward a lot, you know, during the week trying to figure out what's wrong with me so that I can fix some bad things and try to start on the right path towards some good things. You know, we all have to do those things. I mean, if you read in the verses previous to where we're going to read this morning, you'll see the two natures. That is a doctrinal teaching. You've got an old nature that loves to do the things that it used to do. And then you've got a new nature that loves to serve God. And that new nature is what we're gonna be speaking to this morning, inward. The inward man. The man that needs to grow. The fella that we rarely see, we always see the fleshy fella, and we rarely see that inward fella. And that's the one that we wanna look at this morning is that inward fella. Let's look in verse 22, Colossians 3. Now know what the application is. I don't want you to think I've gone haywire doctrinally. I understand the application, but I'm not gonna approach it that way this morning. I'm gonna try to give some spiritual, practical application for us. Now notice there it says servants in verse 22 of Colossians 3. Obey in all things your masters according to the flesh. So there were some at that time that had masters according to the flesh, showing that they were servants according to the flesh. And he says, "...according to the flesh, not with eye service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God." And then he says, "...and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance. For ye..." Now that's directed at YOU. And that's personal, it's pointed. For ye serve the Lord Christ. And that is exactly right. We serve the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't serve men, we serve Jesus. Now we are to be in service to other people, you know, there's no doubt about that. We try to serve other people and try to help people as much as we can. We're in service to that. But now there is a difference between humanism and Christian service. Somebody that is a humanist is always trying to build up the outward man. Somebody trying to please the outward man. Somebody that's trying to encourage the outward man. It'd be kind of like a coach saying, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it, you know. That's somebody that's always giving. Oprah is a humanist. What she did is she was trying to build up people that day that she gave all those cars away. She was trying to build up people on the outside and trying to encourage them. Now look, we're not humanists. We're servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't preach humanism. I want to be a servant of Jesus Christ. The reason this passage is so important for us today in this day and age is because this speaks to the Laodicean church period in church history, and that's us. That's where we are. We are in Laodicea. When we were reading this morning, we live among a perverse, you see, a perverse nation. You see, that's where we are. We are in a perverse nation. And you say, well, it's a Christian nation. Well, I think if it's a Christian nation, they're going to have to sure pick up their game if it is because things just ain't Christian. As far as the Bible goes, things are a little different. So now I want to be in service to the Lord, but I also realize where I'm at today, living in this perverse nation in a lay to see in church period. But even though we're there, we still are supposed to serve the Lord. Doesn't matter where we are physically, we are supposed to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. That's our life. I mean, what does it mean to be a servant? I was trying to think of things that would maybe help you out a little bit. What does it mean to be a servant? One of the things is dependability and loyalty. If you're a servant, you're dependable, you're loyal. Somebody can count on you. You're there, you know, you understand those things, I don't have to elaborate on that. Serving as loyal and faithful and dedicated and selfless, not self-centered or selfish. A real servant that's not doing this thing, you know, with eye service, I mean, whenever they're looking at you, you're doing what you're supposed to do. You ever noticed whenever you're doing something at work, the boss always shows up when you're taking a break, and then he shows up, you're sitting down on the five-gallon bucket, you know, taking a break, and he probably thinks you've been sitting there for two hours, you know. You just sit down, that's the way that works out, you know. Seems like the boss never catches you when you're working hard, you know, it just don't seem to work out that way. But now with the Lord, he sees everything. I mean, the eyes of the Lord are in every place. He knows it all. He sees you when you're alone. Well, I almost said, He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. The Lord sees everything. He knows your heart. And you see, your heart is the thing that God's going to examine. He tries the heart. And that's the thing he's gonna examine. So this morning I'm asking you to look inward. So I ask myself, what is a servant? To me, what is a servant to me? It's somebody that sets aside their own will. And sets aside their own desires. And they're willing to set aside those things so that they might be able to do the will of somebody else. So now I don't know about you, but that's probably a great definition of what submission is. You're submitting under somebody. And let me tell you something, everybody has some kind of a problem with authority. One of the problems with the Bible is, is people have such a problem with the authority of the Scriptures, that's why people don't like to read the Bible, is because it is authoritative. It's absolute truth. It's not relative truth, it's real, it's true. It's God's word, it's not man's word, it's absolute. And people don't like authority, so since they don't like authority, they don't wanna give in and submit to that. So now for me, I think it's giving in to that, not only giving in to the will of somebody else. Now when I'm saying that, I'm talking about giving in to the will of God, but it's also doing it with the right attitude and being joyful about doing it. I've seen some wives in my family who have been good wives, but they did it with the wrong attitude. My grandmother served my granddaddy. I'm not joking. She served my granddaddy. My Papa would sit on the chair after he'd had a long day working, and she'd worked all day too, you know, cooking, cleaning, canning, you know, working in the garden, doing everything she did, and then she'd crochet, do all that stuff. She worked all day, you know, and Papa would come in, he'd sit down after a long day's work, and he'd sit down in his easy chair, and he'd sit back, and he would just relax and watch TV. And Mama never got a chance to relax. Papaw would take his iced tea cup. I am not joking when I say this he would take his iced tea cup and jiggle it and Mamaw would get up and she would run to the kitchen and get him some iced tea and pour it for him And then she'd go back and sit back down And my papaw and my grandmother worked probably twice as hard as my papaw did But she never got any recognition for that you see now that's a servant But now the problem was that she did it out of duty and not out of joy. Now what I'm asking you to do is look inward this morning and do it out of joy to serve the Lord Jesus Christ with the right attitude. Now let me read you a couple of verses. I won't make you turn over there. Over in Luke chapter 17, I'm sure you're all familiar with that passage over there. The ten lepers, you know, the Lord heals those ten lepers, one comes back and he says, where are the nine? And he says, this one is found to come back and thank you for what you did for him. That's a terrible paraphrase, but that's what it is. But before that passage started, it says this, it says, but which of you having a servant plowing or feeding cattle was saying to him, by and by, when he's come from the field, go and sit down to meet. So the master's not going to tell the servant to go sit down and meet, and I'm going to serve you. The next verse says, Luke 17, 8, it says, And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me till I have eaten and drunken, and afterward thou shalt eat and drink. Now that is the position of a servant. A position of a servant is under his master, that means he is under authority. He is under somebody. But now a real servant is somebody that's going to do it with a joyful heart. with the right kind of heart and the right kind of attitude. I have preached, I guess you've heard preaching for years, you know, that people say you ought to serve the Lord. I know we've all heard the term. But now, what does it mean to serve the Lord? I mean, if we're going to have the heart of a servant, if God's going to try our heart to see if our heart is the heart of a servant, and we're going to serve Him with a clean and a pure heart, what does that mean? I mean, we all have a different definition of what we think it is to serve the Lord. But I'm going to stick in the verses this morning and I'm going to tell you what I think the Bible is teaching us here this morning to help us out. Now, first of all, I think we ought to be purposed. We ought to be purposed in heart. There ought to be a reason for doing that. Look in verse 22. He says, in all things, your masters according to the flesh." So I think from the verse I could extract that there should be some obedience. I think we ought to figure out what it is to obey the Lord from our heart, not just with eye service. Everybody knows what eye service is, right? You know, as soon as you get away from somebody telling you what to do, you roll your eyes and go, You know, give it one of them numbers. I don't do that personally. I roll my eyes at my boss if I don't like it, you know. I let her know my disdain for whatever it is she's asked me to do right up front, you know. But that's not right. We should have this kind of purpose service to the Lord, something that's unwavering. You know the Bible says in James chapter 1 verse 8, it says a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. So if you have divided loyalties, or if you have a divided heart, you're going to be unstable in your service toward the Lord. I think many people, they get to the point in their Christian walk to where they're kind of split down the middle, you know, they're lukewarm, they're not either-or, they're not cold or hot. And the Lord would rather you be cold as to be lukewarm. He'd rather you be hot as to be lukewarm. A half-in, half-out Christian, that ain't nothing. That's useless. I mean, you can't affect them with the Word of God. You can't encourage them with the Word of God. There's nothing that you can do to try to get them out of that. They've got to turn inward and look in there and try to purpose for themselves what to do for themselves for the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to have a purposed heart. A double heart is not a good thing. I think they're, now look, you're a man, all right? You man your man, okay? You know what your wife wants? She wants all your heart. Is it not a saying? Honey, I love you with all my heart. Is that not a saying? You know what my wife wants? She wants my undivided attention, my undivided loyalty, and she wants my undivided heart. She does not want my mind being on something else. Unwavering loyalty. The other day, I was in Jacksonville, Florida. I went to the Walmart. I guess that's the thing, when you go on a trip, you gotta go to a Walmart somewhere. It's a rule or something. You always forget something. So I'd gone to the Walmart early in the morning so I could miss the crowd, and that didn't work out, because there's a crowd early in the morning. And I was walking up to the door, and there was a young lady standing there, and she didn't have enough clothes on to cover a gnat. And so I quickly turned my head like this. I thought, well, I'm gonna walk like this to go in the door. You say, why? Because I don't want her to think, even though she wasn't with me, that I have a divided heart and a wandering eye. So I turn like this. All right, so in front of me there was another man walking. He was probably my age or a little older, you know. And as we walked in the Walmart doors, this man was like this. I thought the man was going to trip over the threshold going in Walmart. And I thought, buddy, I wonder how your wife would react if she is walking beside you right now. Now the Lord sees everything we do. He knows everything we think about. He saw that guy doing that the other day. Do you know what God does not want? He does not want you to set up an idol in your heart and divide your loyalty between Him and something else. He wants you to put Him in your heart and for Him to have the preeminence so that you will have a singleness of heart. The only way you're gonna ever obey Jesus Christ is if you are single-hearted and single-eyed. And if you're divided in your loyalties to something else, Your marriage is gonna suffer if your heart is not completely in it together. I've heard a testimony of somebody in their church and they said that they were best friends. That's a great testimony to have. If your marriage is gonna work and survive, you ought to be friends. My wife is not my slave. She is a human being. And she is not my slave. Now for the first thirty how many ever years I thought she was my slave, but I realized quickly that she is not. She has helped me and done all kind of things for me. She's there for me. But you know why she does that? Because she loves me. Now if you've got a relationship like that to where you're friends with somebody and you're not having to make them do something, I don't think the Lord gets any joy out of making us do anything for Him. Matter of fact, He's not going to. He's going to present it to you and say, hey, you want to do this? If you don't want to do it, it's your business, but this is what I'd like for you to do. And you know what we do? We look at it as optional. I don't look at those things as optional. When God's dealing with me about those things, and He's working on my heart, trying to change me about something, I don't think that's optional. Now, it might take me a little while to get things fixed out and worked out on the inside, but I don't look at it as optional. Our love and devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ should be absolute. Completely. With no question. I went to a funeral, it's been a few years ago, and there were some guys that showed up from this man's work, and they were all testifying of what a great worker, not at the funeral, but, you know, going through the line, we were all just talking, and they said one of the things about this man is he lived a Christian life on the job. They said that he was a great witness and a great testimony, said that he read his Bible every day on the job. He was a great Christian outside of church. I think you guys have probably, I don't know if you've all heard me before, but I use this term WYSIWYG. Maybe some of you know what WYSIWYG is, but I want to be a WYSIWYG Christian. You say, well, that sounds kind of sissy. Well, if you'll listen to me, man, it ain't too sissy. A WYSIWYG Christian is what you see is what you get. You ought to be the same here as you are at the house. And you ought to be the same at the house as you are here. None of you would walk on these doors right here, no matter how anybody was dressed, and you would fix your eyes on them because of the way they were dressed. But when you get outside of this controlled environment, sometimes your mind has a tendency to get away from God and your heart has a tendency to get away from God. You need to get that thing fixed. And you need to fix that thing on Jesus Christ. If you read over in 1 Corinthians chapter 16 about the household of Stephanas, that they were addicted, ADDICTED! The Bible says they addicted themselves to the ministry is exactly what it says. I mean, they spent some time addicting themselves to the ministry and to the work of the Lord. Now, if you're going to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, you see, there needs to be a singleness there. There needs to be some obedience. Obedience shows your character. If you've got character as a Christian, obedience shows and reveals that character. Whenever you struggle and you go through things, you know that does build some character, but most of your Christian character comes right after you get saved, depending on if you get taught anything out of the Bible or not. And some people don't. Some people get saved and that's all they get. They don't get any teaching. They've got the same Holy Spirit of God in them as I've got in me. And they've got the same Lord Jesus Christ in them as me and you've got in us. They're saved on their way to heaven, but they don't ever get any teaching. I know some guys that live way out in Iowa and way out in Montana, and there just ain't no Bible churches out there. And man, they say we try to go to church somewhere and just can't find anything, and that's one of our requirements if you're gonna go to our school. You have to attend a church regular. That is a requirement. And so they'll tell us we don't have a church. Man, do you know that breaks my heart that there's places in America, I could understand it in England, or Africa, or India, but here, in America? Boy, somebody drop the ball. That there's not somewhere that you can go and get some teaching out of the Bible. That's sad, man. That is just absolutely just, to me, just unheard of. Now, if you're going to serve the Lord and there's going to be some of that obedience there and it's something that you do out of the heart, then you're going to have to have a humble heart. And humility is a tough thing for us Americans because we're raised to be proud. I'm proud to be an American. I mean, that's in our nature. We're proud people. In the mountains of North Carolina, in the mountains of Haywood County, I'm not smacking you, but you know that we are a proud people. Whenever somebody comes up to us and they'll say, do you need any help? Nope, don't need no help, I got this. It don't matter if you can walk or you can't walk. Nope, I've got this. I mean, we're stubborn. We're hard-headed, bull-headed. And we don't like it whenever people offer help. We don't like for people to help us do anything. I'd just as soon dig a ditch as to ask somebody to come dig it for me, by hand. Even though Larry's got a trencher. I'd rather dig it by hand, personally. I don't know why we're that way. He could have it done in 15 minutes. It'd take me 15 days or something. We are proud people. My wife's aunt went to help some people in Clyde. They were giving them some money and some clothes and trying to buy them washer, dryer, you know, just whatever they could to try to help them out. And they were trying to give this lady some money to help her and she said, no, this lady over here, she needs it more than I do. I thought, my goodness, and she didn't have nothing. And she's saying, they need it more than me. I mean, man, just, and they didn't have nothing. There was nothing left to have. In order for us to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, you're gonna have to look inward. You're gonna have to change that heart. There needs to be some humility there. You gotta humble yourself. Whether you like it or not, at times you need help. You might need, let's put it this way, you might need mental help. There might be something broke up here. And if there's something broke up here, then there's doctors for that that can help you. Now I don't think everybody needs that. You might need physical help. There might be something broke here or something that needs fixing here. Now we would go to the doctor for that, but we're too proud to go for the other thing. And then here's the thing that people shy away from the most. You might need some spiritual help. In order to get closer to God, God has set up some things in that Bible as ways for us to follow and serve Him, but we have to learn with a humble heart to go to somebody that might actually know something more than me. You know, when I go talk to an older Christian, I look up to an older Christian. Somebody that's lived a longer Christian, I don't care if they're a preacher or not, I look up to an older Christian. Because sometimes they can say something to me that will really help me out. because they've been somewhere that I haven't been yet, they've learned something I haven't learned yet, and it would be foolish for me not to listen to somebody that's got some wisdom. So when I sit down, I don't do a whole lot of talking. I listen. I'm trying to listen and find out what they might know that'll help me get to the place to where they are. But if you're gonna do that, you gotta have a humble heart. You're never gonna do those things with a proud heart. I'm not trying to be so somber today, but it's a serious subject. Because if we're going to get closer to Jesus Christ, we've got to look inward. We've got to figure out what's wrong, what's broke right here. And we've got to say, Lord, there's something. You know, I was on my way this morning. I like to get in the car and drive and pray. That's when I do my best praying. And I got in the car, and I was driving to go get some coffee, and I was driving up the road, and I was praying, and I got some personal things I pray. I'm not gonna tell you what they are, but just like you got personal things you pray about, you know? And I was praying, I was saying, God, is there something there? Is there something there that needs to be fixed? Is there something I need to change in my life, in my walk, so I can be a better preacher? I know you guys are praying the same thing for me as well, so I mean, Lord help that poor fellow. He tries, he does his best, but maybe someday he'll get there. I agree with you. Look down at verse 23. Not only does there need to be a humble heart and some obedience and some purpose in your life, there needs to be some passion. My old preacher, he said this one time when he was preaching, And he said, do you love her like you used to? He said, do you still court her? No, I don't. I should, but I don't. Well, I did before we got married. I wanted to win the prize, you know. I wanted to win her heart. But it's like, you know, a lot of marriages, you know, whenever you win them, then you got them, and you think you can treat them any way you want to. And it don't work that way. Here we have, we've been married a long time, some of you been married a long time, and some of you working on being married a long time, and I'm gonna tell you one thing, if you don't keep that passion, that flame in your heart for the other, that's gonna burn out one day. And you're gonna have a tough time sitting beside each other. When you drive down the road, and me and Karen, we look at cars and we're driving, I mean, we drive a lot, so we look at cars, you know, and we'll be looking at these couples, you know, these older couples, and they'll be driving down the road and they're sitting there like this. Man driving, woman sitting there. Both of them just like that. Or they'll be going down the road and he's driving, she's on the phone. I think they lost their passion. You know, you're the only one that can get that passion back. You know, over in Revelation chapter 2, they had left their first love. That was a problem with that church. And maybe some of you, you've kind of left that first love. Oh, you had it whenever you was dating, you was courting, whatever you want to call it. Some Christians, they don't like for me to say dating, you know, courting, whatever, trying to get her. One of the things I could never understand when we were in school, we'd go up to some girl and we'd say, would you go with me? Never could understand that saying where we're gonna go, you know, you go will you go with me where we're going? I couldn't get that thing, you know But I'll tell you one thing I've noticed over the years a lot of Christians. They've lost their passion for the Lord Jesus Christ They've left that first love that desire now if we're going to have a passion for Jesus you're gonna have to have the right desires and Not just a humble heart, but a desirous heart. You're going to have to have a desire to, listen to me, please Him, not please men. Little kids, they'll come up to me. I have, I mean, every once in a while I come, when I go somewhere, they ask me to sign their Bibles, you know, and these little kids will come and I always write down Galatians chapter one, verse nine and 10. For do you seek to please men or God? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. And I write that in their Bibles hoping one day they'll look over there and they'll read that and they'll say, boy, I think it's important for us to please God and not worry too much about what people think about us. You see, there's some passion, there's some desire. You ought to have some desire to serve the Lord. I remember I used to listen to these preachers in this county, and they'd get up and preach, and man, they were... Man, Joel Ferguson, that guy was a fireball, man. And he would preach to us, and at the end of that service, my heart yearned for what he said. My desire was changing in me. I wanted what that man had. And I would sometimes go to the altar and I would pray and I'd say, Lord, I don't know what the guy's got, but I'd sure like to have some of it. I don't know where he got it. I don't know how he got it, but I want whatever that fellow's got. His influence rubbed off on me. The guy influenced me to know that it was important to keep a passionate, desirous heart for the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you're going to be a servant, you've got to have some desire for him. It can't just be coming to church. Church is important. I think it's very important. But that can't be the only thing. But it's important. Because that's how you get all that stuff together, and the Lord kind of works all those things together, and you get to church, and the Holy Spirit of God deals with you about things, and shows you things on the inside, and deals with you about your heart, and He convicts you of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and He tries to help you to grow up a little bit. Those are all inward. See, you're just sitting here, you're just listening to me, but hopefully the Holy Spirit of God is dealing with you. And I mean, I can't make that happen. That's between you and Him. All I can do is just preach. And really, that's my job, is to preach to you. And tell you what the Bible says, and show you what the Scriptures say, and then hopefully the Holy Spirit of God will deal with you about something inside your heart. I want Him to. Over in Exodus, don't turn over there, but in Exodus chapter 21, there's a great illustration. The law has just been given in Exodus 20. And then when you get to chapter 21, the Lord gives the rules for servants. If they own a slave, He gives rules for that. And He says this, He says, if this servant that you bought comes in empty-handed, he doesn't have anything, he doesn't have a wife, and he doesn't have kids, then he serves you for six years. Then on that seventh year, he can go out for free. But here's the thing, if he came in empty-handed, he goes out with nothing. So if he came in and the master gave him a wife and they had kids, then the wife and the kids stayed. It was his choice. See, it's your choice what you're going to do. You can go out free. I heard a fellow say something to me this week. It was profound. He said, when you get saved, you know what the Lord does? He gives your life back to you. And then it's your choice what you do with that life. And boy, I sat there and I thought, oh man, that was good. I don't know if anybody else in that building got it. And I was sitting there thinking, thank you, Lord, that you gave me some choices and I picked a few of them that was right. But it's your choice. It's your decision. It's up to you. So now at the end of that, I think it's Exodus 21, 5, It says this, He says, you don't have to go out free, it's your choice. And in Exodus 21 and 5, you can go to your Master and you can say this, I love my Master. You see how that's always first? I love my Master. And boy, He's been a gentle Master. He's been better to me than anybody on the face of this earth. He's a better Father than my Father ever was. I LOVE MY MASTER, I LOVE MY WIFE, AND I LOVE MY CHILDREN. I WILL NOT GO OUT FOR FREE. And then you know what that master does? He takes that servant over to the door post and he lays his ear up there on the door post and he takes an awl. Everybody knows what an awl is, right? And he takes an awl and he punches a hole through his ear. And you know what that shows? That shows that you are a servant to that Master. And that Master owns you and you are servant to Him. You have submitted to that will. Do you know what that is right there? Everybody that wears an earring, you know what that is? That shows that you are a servant to somebody. You know, used to, where that originated, it was on the Navy. That's where that originated. You know, if a man overboard and they got him back up, they'd put a ring in their ear to show that they were a survivor. In the Old Testament, they'd bore that ear through with an awl to show they were a servant. Do you know what we are? If you want to serve the Lord Jesus Christ for the rest of your life, you need to go find you a doorpost. Now, I'm not saying go get an actual awl and drill your ear through. But you know what you ought to do spiritually speaking? Because sometimes people take you literal about stuff like that. Well, Brother Mike, I did that the other day, but man, my ear bled for days, you know, but I got a hole right there, you know. No, I'm saying you ought to find you a lonely spot somewhere, just you and God and say, okay, Lord, here it is. I want to serve you forever. And if that fellow, if that master, he bored that ear through and there's a hole in that ear right there, then that means that you're a servant to that man forever. You know what we ought to do? We ought to take the time. If we got a humble heart and we have a desire to serve the Lord, we ought to take the time to get on our knees and say, okay, Lord, I want to serve you forever. That's a real servant's heart right there. Whatever time we have left, I don't know how much time we have left, but whatever time we have left, it ought to be spent serving the Lord Jesus Christ. Does everybody agree with that? Don't you think that's important? You know, the mantra out in the world is just do it. What a silly thing to say. You ought to have some desire, you ought to have some determination. I think a lot of people, they are lacking courage and confidence is the reason they don't serve the Lord. You know, whenever we first started the church down there in Canton, And we had to walk down the hill in front of God and everybody, and everybody in Canton would come by and the red light stopped right there where the annex of the theater was. And here we were, we were walking down through there with Bibles in our arms, you know, and a sign to put out front to say that we're here, you know, that was our little post. And one of the things I said to those people who would come, I said, you know, it takes a lot of courage to walk down this street right here, this sidewalk. and walk in this door right here so everybody can see you. It takes a lot of courage to do that. And I'll tell you what it does, it shows your desire to do something for the Lord. And that encouraged me that they were willing to walk down the sidewalk with their Bibles in their hands, going to a place that wasn't even a church, a church building, nothing, and showing up and sitting in there with their... that takes courage. And I know at times it had to be embarrassing for him. I know it had to. But man, what a blessing. You know what, whenever I first started going to church over there at Oak Grove Baptist Church, I wanted to carry my Bible in the building so bad I couldn't hardly stand it. I'd get to church with my Bible and it would sit in the car and I would think, man, today I'm carrying it in. And I would think about putting it under my arm and carrying it in and boy, I couldn't. I was embarrassed. You know why I was embarrassed? Because of the life that I was living. And I was afraid that if somebody saw me with that Bible under my arm, they'd laugh at me. And it took me years before I could get my Bible out of the back window. You know how the sun just curls up the pages? Some of you had one like that before, hadn't you? curls up the pages on your Bible you know and it's all wrinkled because of the sun and it's dried it up and you know about like some Christians hearts are just dried up I got that Bible out and I carried it in and I'm telling you what it made me feel good like I had accomplished something that was a small step in the right direction And then when I got to Bible school, I was standing on the street corner holding my Bible up in the air, preaching to cars and telling men and women, boy and girls that they were going to hell, standing at their car window right here. And I was scared to death, man. I ain't going to stand up here and lie to you and tell you I was brave. I wasn't. I was scared to death. I didn't know if one of them idiots had a gun, if they was going to shoot me. I didn't have a clue what they was going to do, you know. I'd love it when they'd get to the red light and they'd roll up their window like they couldn't hear it. They could hear us better with the window rolled up than they would if it was down. They'd get there, you know, and then somebody, you know, would start honking, you know, they'd be excited that we was out there and every once in a while you'd get a thumbs up or sometimes they'd come by and they'd say amen, you know, and boy, that's a little encouragement, you know, and it gave me courage to keep doing it and continue on. But it takes a step in the right direction to have that courage so that God might give you the right desires to serve Him. But you gotta have that right desire. You know, we all love something. We all love, come on now, we all love something. My old pastor, he loved basketball. He especially loved Duke basketball. And if you don't, I feel sorry for you, but there you go. He loved Duke, man. That was his team. He even preached. It somehow found its way into sermons a lot. He had a passion for that. But you know what he loved more than he loved basketball? He loved the Lord Jesus Christ. If he had to give up a basketball game to serve Jesus, he'd do it every time. You know, I think that kind of gets in the way though. People, they love something and that gets in the way of serving Jesus Christ. Instead of giving that thing up to serve Him as well. It's okay to go to a ball game. It's okay to go to a race. There's nothing wrong with that. It's okay to go to basketball, football, all those things. There ain't nothing wrong with those things in and of itself. But if it takes the place of serving the Lord, then yeah, there's something wrong with that. You see, there's when your priorities have got to come into play. You got to figure out, is your heart going to serve Jesus or are you going to serve something else? I'm just talking to you about the heart of a servant. Do you have one? If you look inward today and you looked at yourself for a little while, do you have that heart of a servant? Look down there in verse 23. Now, if you have the heart of a servant, then whatever you do, you're going to do it for the Lord Jesus Christ. Look, man, what a verse. Do you know that Karen said this is one of the Bible verses that really helped her out? She said she was ironing clothes one day and she said, I remembered that verse. And she said, I was ironing clothes. And she said, whatsoever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord. Isn't that what the verse says? And so she said, okay, I'm going to do this for the Lord. I thought, man, that blessed my heart. So you know what I did? The next day I went to work and I was welding up one of them toolboxes there at Better Built Toolboxes. And I said, okay, I'm going to do this for the Lord. So the next time I struck an arc and laid a bead on that aluminum toolbox, I went down through there and I said, whatsoever you do, do it heartily as the Lord. Do you know what it helped me? It improved their production because I went from building about 100 toolboxes a day to about 250 a day. And man, I mean to tell you, I was going through it with joy in my heart, saying, man, whatsoever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord. And it changed my whole attitude toward everything. I thought, man, if you're going to read your Bible, read it for Jesus, don't read it for the brethren so you can brag and tell them how many times you've read the thing. Just read it. I mean, if you're fixing soup this afternoon, do it heartily as unto the Lord. If you're fixing a stake, do the same thing, you know. If you're driving nails, drive nails for the Lord. Don't look at it like you're doing this to get a paycheck. You're doing those things so that you can serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And you do that stuff, so you do it hardly when you're babysitting the grandkids. Don't look at it like, man, I'm gonna tell you what, if that kid don't sit down, I'm gonna beat him absolutely to death, you know. Say, Lord, I'm doing this for you. I'm doing this to be a blessing. When you take that new job, don't look at it like, you know, these people are getting on my nerves bad. Do it hardly as to the Lord, you see. It says whatsoever you do, you know, part of our character, the things that we've done in life, God will use everything that you've done in life. If you will let him. He will use everything that you've done in life to use it for Him. If you're, let's say, just for example, let's say you're an accountant. Do you know what? There's plenty of need for accountants in churches. And you know what God will do? God will allow you to use that. If you're playing a piano, play it for the Lord. When you're tickling the ivory up there, the next time you're doing it, do it for Jesus Christ's sake. If you're leading the singing, you ain't leading it for you or me. You're doing it for Him. And so He'll get the pleasure out of it. Whatsoever ye do, do it hardly as to the Lord. I think my grandmother could have used that verse right there whenever she was trying to serve my old curmudgeon papaw. He is about as happy as a bullfrog. I think she could have used that. You know, I'm doing this to help him, but I'm serving Jesus. And I think what it would do, it would cut down on that complaining we was talking about over there in Sunday school this morning. Do everything without murmurings and disputings, you know. If you learn how to serve the Lord with a clean heart and do it for the right reasons, it's going to help you have some joy for Jesus. I think we ought to have a little joy for the Lord. I think we ought to praise the Lord. That ought to be part of our thing, you know. If you're making a deposit, make it for the Lord, you know. I mean, washing a dish. You say, Brother Mike, do you wash dishes? I sure do. I try to help her. Now, I don't wash as many as she does, you know. I mean, but I do. Last night she was telling me we cooked some bacon and eggs and we got back from Florida. I did. She didn't eat any of them. And I laid my dishes on the stove like any good man will do, you know. And she said, I got to get this grease out of this pan because she said, I know I'm going to have to wash it. She did not wash it. I washed that dish. I washed all the dishes. But here's how men are. If we do stuff like that, we'll go up to her and say, now, honey, did you notice that I washed the dishes this morning? I mean, that's us. You know why? Because we want some praise for that. Because we stepped out of our comfort zone and washed them dishes, you know. D.O. Moody said, there are many of us who are willing to do great things for the Lord. But there are few of us who are willing to do the little things. And it's those little things that add up to be something big. And some of those little things we just haven't learned to do yet, have we? We ought to do everything that we do to bring honor and glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. Karen said that whenever her mother died, she works with a lady that's Jewish. I don't mean in religion, I mean she is a Jew. And she said when her mother died that she had a tree planted in Israel in honor of her mother. And I thought that was the coolest thing. I thought, man, if I ever get to go back to Israel over there, we can see a tree somewhere planted on the side of the hill over there, somewhere near the Mount of Olives, planted in honor of her mother. And then I got to think further down the road, and I thought, you know, in the Millennial Kingdom, when we get to go over to Jerusalem every once in a while, won't that be the coolest thing? You want to go to the Holy Land? Pop, you're there, man. Won't that be something? And we get to go find that tree that was planted in honor of her mother? You know what we ought to do in our heart? We ought to plant something there that brings honor and glory to our Savior Jesus Christ. It's supposed to be honor to whom honor is due, praise to whom praise. We ought to honor Him in everything. You ought to honor Him whenever you eat. You ought to have enough Christian courage at a restaurant around here with all the people that you're familiar with to bow your head and pray and thank God for that food because if it wasn't for Jesus Christ, you wouldn't be eating that food. You ought to sometime, you ought to thank God for the good job that you have, that He's given you the health to be able to work that job, and He's given you the strength to be able to do those things. Man, I've been cutting trees for a month. I hadn't cut trees for a while, but I've been cutting them for a month. I'm telling you what, I ain't the man I used to be. Used to, I could take a log, put it on my shoulder and walk it up and throw it, you know. Man, ain't no picking it up and putting it on my shoulder and throwing it anymore. It don't work that way. But I do have a set of hand trucks with rubber wheels, and I can go out there and put them on the hand trucks and I can do something with it, you know. I can get it done, just maybe not the same way. I don't have nothing to prove anymore. I don't have to be stronger than everybody else. You see, now I'm trying to serve the Lord with a clean heart, with the right attitude, the right motive, so that when I stand before Him, I don't have nothing between me and my Savior. I'm afraid there's a lot of people, they just haven't learned how to honor God in their lives yet. We can honor all kind of stuff in this world, but honoring God, it seems like a whole lot harder of a task. Now look inward this morning. Look on the inside and see how your heart relationship is with Jesus Christ. Let me read you a little something and then I'm going to be done. William James said this, he says, the great use of a life is to spend it for something that outlasts it. C.T. Studd, he was a missionary to inland China in a place that really was a bad place for a human being to be because they were in danger all the time when they were there. And Stud wrote this, he said, two little lines I heard one day traveling along life's busy way, bringing conviction to my heart and from my mind would not depart. Only one life will soon be passed, only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life, yes, only one, soon will its fleeting hours be done. Then in that day my Lord to meet and stand before His judgment seat. Only one life will soon be passed, only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life, the still small voice gently pleads for a better choice, bidding me selfish aims to leave and to God's holy will to cleave. Only one life will soon be passed, only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life, a few brief years, each with its burdens, hopes, and fears, each with its days I must fulfill, living for self or in His will. Only one life, it will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last. When this bright world will tempt me sore, when Satan would evict or score, When self would seek to have its way, then help me, Lord, with joy to stay. Only one life will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last. Give me a Father, a purpose deep, and joy or sorrow, Thy Word to keep. Faithful and true, whate'er the strife, pleasing Thee in my daily life. Only one life will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last. O let my love with fervor burn, and from the world now let me turn, living for thee and thee alone, bringing thee pleasure on thy throne. Only one life will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life, yes, only one. Now let me say, thy will be done. And when at last I hear the call, I know I'll say, t'was worth it all. Only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. And when I am dying, how happy I'll be if the lamp of life has burned out for thee. Only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. Let's all stand for a word of prayer.