I'm glad we go to church where it doesn't matter even if two or three piano players aren't here because we've got about 14 more at home. So I'm glad that we've got talent. I go to some churches that run double what we run and they have zero pianists and zero musicians, which is crazy. And so we go to a great church. Don't you agree? We love your church. Say amen. Amen. Well, Philippians chapter number four, and I'm glad to get to be here. They're down there in North Carolina. I think Dad, where he's, Tuesday morning, and then Lauren singing. Amen. Look at me if you would, in verse number one. Philippians chapter four, verse one. It says, Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and belonging, long for my joy and crown. Notice this phrase, it says, So stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. I beseech you. and I entreat thee also, true yoke fellow, help those women which labor with me in the gospel, with lament also, and with other my fellow laborers whose names are in the book of life. And it's crazy to think Paul's writing about you and I, brother Delbert. This time he's writing about people he really knew, but if your name's in the book of life, you're a fellow laborer in the book of Christ. in moderation, be known unto all men, the Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, and with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Go back with me to verse number one. I want us to take note of that phrase that says in the middle of the verse, it says, therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, Stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. that Paul was writing to the church there in Philippi. wrong, then it did good. And Paul is correcting them for the things they are doing. In Galatians, Dad has been teaching through it. And you find that they've got problems. trying to change something they're doing. we're living in here in America, and to how many of us can't And everything is falling apart. And even the things that aren't falling apart should be falling apart. But it's held together by a lot of prayer and Johnny Talbert's hand. and act like we're fighting the devil all the time, when the truth is, most of the time, the devil doesn't have a clue who we are. Can we agree on that? Now, you might fight with some demons every now and again, but Lucifer is not omnipresent for the devil. He's not everywhere all the time at the same time, and I really don't think that he's all that concerned with a preacher that preaches a few meetings a year, really charming. He's got demons that do that kind of work for devils, as the Bible calls them, but no matter what, We aren't there yet, and I pray that we don't get there until long after I'm gone. But the truth is, is that in any given moment, we could eventually be there one day. And everything could change just like that, and our world could be different. Or if you're following God's will, you could run and be a missionary. and ruined their lives, all because they believe in the blood of a dead Jew. I mean, in their mind, they're believing on something that's not even real, but yet, it gets them so upset that they want to take their life. Here you find the churches vilifying what they did whenever persecution had surrounded them. You know what they did, Brother Kelvin, when the enemies were literally surrounding them and they were fixing to die? You know what they did, Brother Josh? They just kept serving God like they had done every other day before. I mean, they are really waking up and looking death in the face. And they get up and say, I'm a part of the church. And God told Peter all the years ago that the gates of hell would not prevail. And my job is to keep moving forward tonight. Now, the reason we've got the church we've got today is because there are some churches like the Church of Philippi, And he encourages them with a specific command in verse number 1. Once you notice what he says in verse 1 again, it says, I love my King James Bible, won't you? I understand that the enemy is surrounding you on every side, but just stand fast. I know what you find in this church is the other. A lot of them got martyred after this book was written. When I was reading some of the history, and a lot of them died at the hand of a sword or at the hand of stones, or literally clipped down, because they stood fast. But you know what they kept doing, Brother Blake? They just kept standing. It did not matter what happened in their life. They had made a commitment. about all the years for the last 2,000 years, the reason we're here for the Calvary is because there were some church members somewhere along the line that said it doesn't matter what happens in my life, doesn't matter what happens around me, doesn't matter what happens to me, I'm standing fast in the Lord tonight. I was thinking about the thought today, I'm glad that the church marches on, aren't you? I've been listening for 2,000 plus years. The world is trying to put out the fire of the church. The devil's trying to wipe out the church. The flesh is trying to destroy the church from the inside, but yet, Here we still are because the church marches on tonight. There is nothing that is certain in our life except for one thing, Brother Delbert, that as long as the Holy Ghost is here, as long as we got the Bible, then the church is still alive. It does not matter if there's some that are martyred for the faith, if there's some that sit around and do nothing for God. When the church was born around the book of Acts, when it came from the wounded side of Christ, that's just like us. We had a birth date, but we'll never have an ending date. We're eternal building forward. I've not always been, God's always been, but when God created the church, the bride of Christ, there will never be a day where there's not one. I was cleaning up my room, gutting everything, and getting ready to move out. When I get older and you talk about me in Paris, I will be in Paris. But at the time, my name was on a special list, and I went to Malden Elementary. If you know anything about anybody that came from there, we're all dumb. There's no smart people. I was probably the only name on the A-number list, in all honesty. But I remember when I first got that trophy and I got that little My name had made it on the roll, but not just everybody, unless you went to, I guess, Macy's School. Not just everybody could make it on the list. I had done the work, and now I was a part of this special list from Denver. I say that that's exactly, though it's a little bit more important, to be a part of the church tonight. that you have made it on the lips, that we're on something that not every person that's ever lived has always on the lips, forever. Not because God didn't let them, but because they didn't choose Christ as the all atoning blood, sacrifice for their sin. Not everybody that's lived has gotten to be on the lips, but I'm glad tonight I'm in Paul's sin. Those that's names are in the book of life. I don't know if you're on it, but I know you're on the shadow of a doubt. If you choose to attend here, you will love this church and you'll be glad that you go here. Say amen. The truth is, in about 100 years, nearly everybody in this room, probably everybody in the room, if God doesn't come back, we'll all be dead, we'll all be in a grave somewhere. And I say it four different ways that the church keeps marching on that Paul reminds us of, and I believe we can apply it in our own personalized way. of the same mind in the Lord. We find in this church, and we've talked about so far, they've suffered at the hands of persecution, but they really haven't had very many problems. Now we talked about in the introduction that Paul hasn't had to really correct anything. And you know what Paul used to try and correct them and get inside their head that they needed to live clean and live holy? He reminded them they were part of one body, and that body was the church. Galatians, he talks about how they were those, the Judaizers would freak them, they were perverting the gospel of Christ, which essentially was perverting the entire work that the church is here to do. You know what Paul reminded them of in Galatians? He reminded them that Christ gives grace freely to all men, of the church, because if you realize that we're all part of one body, it would get us to stop the majority of the garbage that we do in our lives, don't you agree, Mike? None of us would go and would stab our own body. Now, we wouldn't harm our flesh more than likely. We wouldn't want to do something that damaged me. I don't want to hurt myself or Josh. I'm. problems in the local church. He says that they be of the same mind in the Lord. You know what that is? That's unity, tomorrow. You know what the biggest problem you might run into is? Is that there's a lack of unity within the church. That just a little, excuse me, just a little problem could blow up the entire church from the inside. How many of you can agree that the church ought to have unity? Don't you think that? I understand that there's unity, preferably. We know and understand that I'm not preaching that we ought to have unity with the Catholic Church, Brother Jeff. And if we did that, Brother Jeff would have a heart attack back there. We're not talking about unity with the world. We're not talking about unity with other doctrine. We're talking about unity within our local New Testament Baptist church and unity with those that are like mine, like faith, like Bible, and the same exact gospel that we preach today and preach tonight. If I imagine if I wanted to walk down off the stage for Josh and my right leg wanted to go to the right and my left leg wanted to go to the left, I would go nowhere tonight. It'd be a problem. Why? Because my body's wanting to go two different ways. It's trying to split. It's trying to separate. Paul said, there ain't no reason that any of you should have your own mind. It should all be in the mind of God. Nowhere will run into a lot of problems with joining in the local church I think that if they would just do the bathroom this way, listen, if you came over here with Yeah. the same mind of God, and everything else will fall in line. That's where the whole root of the problem is. You wouldn't live in sin if you had God's mind. If you were thinking how God thinks, you wouldn't live the way you live. People you talk about wouldn't do what you do because you'd be thinking how God thinks. I'm here to say that if all of us were to be honest, we've all been guilty of I think. Can't you agree? I do a lot of my own thinking tonight. Well, the church has marched on with the unity among its people, but then secondly, the church has been marching on with an unchanging praise. It's not. It's been marching on with an unchanging praise. Look at me in verse number four. Verse number four. Chapter number four, verse four, it says, Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. We've quoted this verse before. I was reading through it, and I read through the text a bunch, but you know how it is, you get the reading, and I'm just skimming over the words. And I was looking at reading in verse number four, and I noticed that it said, Rejoice in the Lord always, not all the way, it's a real play. We've always quoted it, it said, Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I said rejoice, we had the S on the end of all the way, but I found the King James, don't you love the King James Bible? always, and I skipped the majority of that point that night. He sent back my book this long. A lot more than I thought he was going to say. that you will always overeat when you go to the Mexican restaurant. You're not eating at the Mexican restaurant every time you eat, but every time you eat at that restaurant, you always eat too much. But always means the word consistently, but the word always without the S means constantly. Always means on every occasion. All the way. Every moment of your life, I will be there and that's exactly I always praise when my favorite preachers preach and I always praise when they sing my favorite song. You can always praise. You can always just praise him constantly, without stopping, without fail. Remember where the Church of Philippi is at when Delano says, move on. They're literally being persecuted. Now, if they only praised consistently when things were good, they probably wouldn't be able to praise when rocks are flying overhead and they're fixing to die for preaching Christ. But Paul would tell them that they were only supposed to praise when things were going the way they wanted. He told them that praise of God on every and the doctor says it's good, you just keep on going. and minds through Christ Jesus. Notice the Bible says that we ought to be careful for nothing, that we ought to pray, we ought to make supplication, we ought to thank God, and let our requests be made known to Him, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will be given to you and I, and will keep our hearts and our minds through Christ Jesus. You talk about a day when they need the peace, imagine if we were to walk out here and be killed. Clearly, they took your and put him to death slowly with him on fire. And you know what he did? His last words were, Mama, tell them about Jesus and who he is. This is what the captain was saying at the time of his death. You know why? He had something like a peace. You can't explain it. How in the world could somebody unfurl to death and still rejoice? That's exactly what this church was needing at this time. I'm always. We expect this to happen. We expect for us to come to church and sit in our pew, and we expect to never read our Bible, rarely read our Bible. We expect to rarely ever pray, and then all of a sudden, Dr. Charles gets a big problem, and we're waiting, looking around, frantically waiting for that ease of reading on you, but you haven't talked to God in months, and you can't walk with him. fixin' to die and he asked you to pray, it didn't wanna take you an hour to get clean and repent of everything you've been doin' before you broke in to talk and walk with him, it's been so long. And you really want real peace in your life, but God shall come through walkin' and prayin' and talkin' to you. That's where that peace comes from, that's where it's sayin' hey, walk with God, and God will give you peace tonight. Remember what happened to Enoch? Enoch didn't just wake up one morning all of a sudden and naturally, like, God looked at Enoch and said, Enoch, we're closer to my house than you are. You're going to just stay on back there for the night. He took Enoch back, but it didn't happen just because he got up one day and said, Lord, get me out of here. No, he walked with God every day, and eventually something crazy happened. Supernatural. That changed, and now we know Enoch. Now, you want me to give you peace and change and walk with me? I'm glad that it's long suffering. Aren't you? God still gives us peace a lot of times, but you would find you might not have to ask for peace if you just walk with me in all those times you're supposed to be walking with me. It's not like that. As the church marches on, because of the unity with its people, because of unchanging courage and unexplainable peace in the last thing I've done, the church marches on with But the truth is, as we talk about Paul, Paul, one of the greatest Christians that has ever lived, but without some fellow laborers whose names were in the Book of Life, Paul, well, we've made it very far tonight. The truth is, as you know, Paul might be the most well-known, but he wasn't the only Christian back then. There were a lot of people that were putting their lives on the line, living for God, and really risking everything. The Bible does not give them to us by name in the Bible. They didn't receive any awards. of history. But yet, without them, the work couldn't go on tonight. And they might not have been seen, but they still mattered in the eyes of God. And Paul knew that he would not be who he is without people who had brought him to where he's at. The truth is, Brother Delbert, you got a song you can play with Dad and Son, if you don't mind. And I'm going to have Brother Delbert play in just a second. I'm going to give you one thought, and I'll finish tonight. But we always say we don't ever want to forget where we come from. We always want God to know it's humble tonight. And I hate saying stuff like that because when you say, man, we're humble, then all of a sudden, me and my brother would like to talk about it. When you finally realize that you're humble, you really ain't humble anymore. You have to try it one more time. But our prayer is always, Lord, don't ever let us go somewhere and think that it's us or it's what he's doing or it's what I'm doing. It's because my outline is because of where I come from or who I know. every person that ever hears anybody. at one time, and you would have thought that he was the stuff. And he literally sat down and started whizzing. I remember somebody kicking on me saying I live out of the offering plate. And I realized that that is probably true. But actually, I get paid on PayPal for checks. I live out of your bank account, the majority of the time, tonight. And I say, all you preachers, you just live out of the bank account. But you know what that ought to do? And every preacher and every person in ministry is mine. And God reminded us that what if it was the church members that were getting up and going to their job and working and laboring and serving God that wasn't us? Nobody will ever know who he is. Nobody will ever go visit his grave. Nobody will ever talk about how great a Christian brother Jesse was. You know what Jesse did every time he was there? He passed away just a few months ago. I ain't got a lot of money. We go to camp meeting here. Remember, the only reason you're here is because some are on the line and somebody helped you get here tonight. I go back and I can see and talk about everybody, Ms. Hadley, Ms. Wanda, Ms. Barclues, these different ladies throughout the years have been here, have served, have passed away here. Word. Word. Word. Word. Word. Word. Word. Word. Word. I'm glad I got some. Amen. Aren't you glad that there's been times when you took every word that Christ gave you? Aren't you glad that he breathed the pressure and problems away on your life? You see that money's been up, money's been down. Leaders have fled. You see that the inside has changed, a lot has changed in the last few years. God. to know him better.