is going back to what we already covered and thinking it over again. I'm going to read the same scriptures we just read a while ago. Verse 13 of chapter 16 of Matthew. When Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, He asked his disciples, saying, whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? We've talked already about that question. They said, some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. And he saith unto them, but whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered, and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood is not revealed unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. I'm going to read these next two verses. I'm going to start in 17 here in just a minute. And I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I'll build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then he charged his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. That was a temporary instruction for the time until he would go to Calvary. Let's pray. Father, we just ask you to anoint your word. Pray, God, that your Holy Spirit would just take charge in our hearts and lives. Help us to give heed and attention. Help us to open our hearts. Help us, Lord, to allow you to speak to us, to move in us, to work in us as we go through the Scriptures. Thank you for your goodness to us and for the just being able to be in church this morning. Thank you that we're not in the storm, but you're in charge of the storms. So Lord, we just leave everything to you and ask you to help us to find refuge in you today. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. So I'm preaching on this thought, what makes the church different And we've already seen just a little bit what men say about the church makes us different. I mean, some man saying this about the church, some man saying that about the church, some other one saying, don't give me any of the church. I don't want any of it. But it's not what men say. It's what we say, what we believe. That's the difference. And so I wanted to talk, we were, we talked about Christ the anointed one already. So thou to Christ, the son of the living God. And that word Christ is the Greek word in the New Testament for the Hebrew word Messiah in the Old Testament. And either one of them mean the anointed one. Over there in Isaiah, Isaiah preached and said, unto you a son is given. Unto you a child is born. Unto you a son is given. That'll take you to John 3, 16, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. that whosoever believeth in him would have everlasting life. So we're talking about what we believe about the church, and we begin with that thought. The church is made up of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm gonna try to show you just a little bit about that. I can't. I can't give you everything. We'd be here all day. The New Testament is built around that thought. Believers in Christ make up the body of Christ. And so, but I did want to notice one verse with you in Matthew, over in 28. This may be a Bible drill. Get you to exercise your fingers as well as your ears. In 28, 18, Jesus' last words to his disciples. We read Mark 3.14, where he selected the disciples, the 12. Now then, they have gone out into Galilee. to the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. He said, you tell them to go to that mountain over on the east side of Jerusalem, remember? And what mountain is that? Anybody know? It's the Mount of Olives. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. Verse 17, and here's what I want us to see. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all, I've got it marked in red in my Bible, that little word, all. Not part of the power, not some of the power, but all power is given unto me in heaven. Why, all of us know that he's the king of heaven. But you ought to get this, and in earth, all the power rests in him, the Messiah, the Christ. The anointed one is the authoritative one. Go ye therefore. One of the first rules of Bible study is when you say the word therefore, you say what's the therefore therefore. What's this there for? Therefore. It points you back to all power. So it says, go ye in my power, in all power, heaven and earth power, and teach all nations in my power, in all power, and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost in my power. It's not what we can do. It's what He can do with us, through us, in us. That's what the church is. We're nobodies, but He's everything. And it's teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you, and here's the promise. and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world." I remember I worked in a chemical plant down here by Alvin. We were talking about having a flying club over our brother. And we had a guy that was going to teach us how to fly and we were going to chip in our Everybody was going to chip in and buy a little old plane, and then we was going to learn to fly it. One guy stood up and he said, I don't want to be in this club. And somebody said, why? He said, because Jesus said, lo, I'm with you always. Not hi, lo. That's a misconception of that word, of course. But I got you to laugh a little bit and smile. What I'm talking about is the church is the church, not because of some preacher, some evangelist, or some great building, or some great crowd, or some people want to talk about old Dr. So-and-so, and this, that, or the other, or that old church down there by the banks of the river where God really met with us back in those days. That's not the church. This is the church. And this is the church only because of our belief in Him. He makes up the church. The church, I said this earlier, I'll say it again, I'll probably say it again before it's over. The church started in heaven. We read Luke chapter one. It all came from heaven. I mean, the virgin birth, John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, who preached about Christ from his boyhood. It all started in heaven. Men couldn't design it. God designed it. It was a secret. a mystery for thousands of years, and then it was revealed at the birth, life, and death of Christ. He's still in charge of us. It began in heaven. If we get there tonight, we'll see it going back to heaven. It could be right around the corner. Somebody said, Brother Wayne, do you think Jesus is going to come? I remember when we turned the century, 1999, we moved over to 2000. I went to a preacher meeting up in Missouri. The preacher had a cellar out there and they had filled it up with food. It looked like a Mormon cellar out there. grain and honey and barrels and sacks of food. I said, what's that for? He said, well, we might be going into the tribulation period or something. He said, I don't know, but we're just getting ready for his coming. You remember when all that was going on? I got letters from preachers. One of my members said, Brother Wayne, do you think Jesus is going to come on January 1st? I said, absolutely not. If I was a betting man, I'd bet that he would not come. They said, why do you say that? I said, it says in the Bible. And now you think not. That's when the Son of Man comes. Not what everybody's thinking about. You remember, the computers were going to shut down, the planes were going to crash, all that stuff was going to happen and Jesus was going to come. None of it happened. It was all men's imagination. I don't, they're probably still eating them groceries they had stacked. But it's poor country up there and they needed, so anyway. We're in the church. The reason we're reading this text is to say Jesus started the church. See, look at it. He said, I'm on this rock, I'm going to build my church. You say, why are you so convinced? Because I've read the Bible. John, Matthew chapter 11. Let's look at a couple of verses. In verse 25. Verse 24, the Pharisees heard that he had cast the devil out. This fellow does not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. Jesus knew their thoughts and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. Every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. I was talking to the preacher this morning. James said that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Our church is filled up with people who are trying to play a double-minded role. I mean, they'll be to church on Sunday if it's convenient, but they'll be out in the world the rest of the time. And what we see in the church today is a gradual slide toward complete denial of the truths of the Word of God. I mean, the emphasis is not on the Bible, in many churches, it's about, it's on what somebody says about the Bible, or about somebody's computer program, or some, we've come to the, we're, the Bible says we're each one responsible for this generation. One of the old preachers said that every generation is just one generation away from hell. This time, you know, we got fire over there on that coast, and we got the storm over there on that coast, and all kinds of unusual things are happening all over America. Somebody said, do you think God's judging America? He might just be trying to ring our bell and say, look up, draw near, getting back in the will of God. Hey, did you understand this, that there are less churches in America today than there was 100 years ago in America? Think about that. Probably three times the population. have less churches than they did a hundred years ago. We're fastly becoming an apostate society. Think about the things that have happened in the political campaigns in the last two or three years that never happened before. I'm thankful that I'm thankful to be an American, but I'd hate to be an American without the church. America would go down without the church. And so he said, I'm not divided. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you. That's what Jesus said. We do see the act of God in our midst. Somebody this morning talked about praying for the sick. Aren't you glad right now, brother, that we got a God, that we can go to heaven? on his wings, get a hold of him in the hour of need. For your wife, we pray. For the preacher, we prayed this morning. I'm thankful for that refuge. We're not praying to Johnny come lightly, and we're not praying to the God of this world that can satisfy the imaginations of the world, but we're praying to the God of heaven. who has all power in heaven. And when he speaks and says, it works, it does. And when we can get him in our corner, we'll win the battle every time. So he said, if I cast out devils by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God's come to your house. Can I enter into it? And he, let me skip down to verse 30. He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not scattereth abroad. So I've got to go on. I've got to go. We've got more places to go. So I wanted to talk about this. We have said what we believe makes the difference. You could go in many churches across America this morning and what they're believing is whatever the newspaper said last week. or what they're believing is whatever the most popular entertainment group has put together. That doesn't separate us. What we believe, Jesus said to Peter, Peter, you didn't dream up that answer. But you got that answer from God in heaven. You know that Jesus is the Christ because God has spoken to your heart. That makes up the church. I said this morning, the only way you get into the church is by belief on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's preached all the way through the New Testament. But get this. If we haven't, let me just, I'll give you a pet peeve. You can turn on the radio and listen to the preachers, or TV, or many of it, go into many of the churches, and what they're gonna say is something like this. Just invite Jesus into your heart. You know the Bible never says invite him into your heart. Here's what the Bible says, that if the Holy Spirit has not convicted your heart, you can't be saved. You can't think it in your mind and be saved. You can't make the invitation up out of your imagination and be saved. It'll take conviction of you. The sanctification of the Spirit is God's Holy Spirit working in my heart. Do you remember that day? If you're saved, you do, there was a day when God convicted you of the sins. We talked about that just a while ago. I was raised in a preacher's home, but I run from God for a good part of my young years. I had to come to a place of complete hatred of that sin that was separating me from God. You know, I could go to the joint Everybody's having a big time, and I'm miserable. I'd laugh on the outside, but I was crying on the inside. When I got to that place that I could no longer stand it, and finally turned my face toward heaven, guess what happened? God did something that has lasted. I was saved when I was 12 years old, and now I'm 85. So I've been saved 73 years or something like that. He's never failed me one time in 73 years, not one time. And when I do drift, I saw a sign somewhere that said, focus my heart. It's in your bedroom, isn't it? my straying heart on thee, somewhere in your house, that thing. And I thought, that could be my motto. How many times have I looked away, went here, went there, but not one time did he ever take his eye off of me, not once. I'm just saved because of him. Do you see that? And you are too. It's a work of God or it's no work at all. And so what we believe about the church, we better believe it on the basis of what the Bible gives us. Amen, Brother Wayne. Good preacher. So that's what we're... There's more, but I want to move to the building now. See, our building makes us different. And this is probably as far as I'll get. Y'all gonna have to invite me back. I can't get through this whole thing. What we believe, we believe by divine revelation. Let's turn over to 1 John. I just can't pass this up. 1 John chapter four. Verse number 15. Let's start with 13. As you know, probably you know, John wrote five books of the New Testament. The Gospel of John is the strongest proof of the lordship of Jesus Christ. in my mind, it's the most simple, direct statement. I mean, the verse, it begins with this, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. The capital W Word, that's Jesus, was God, that's what it says. All things were made by him without him, but not anything made that was made. Then he goes down and says, He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father." That's verse 18. The bosom of the Father. He had declared Him. Think about what that verse says. All you know about God, you learn off the Bible. and the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything we know about God has to come off this book. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, don't you see? And you can worship everything in the pyramids, or back over there in the Roman, those places, Ephesus, Thessalonica, all of those idolatry worshiping places of the Roman Empire, all of the wisdom places over in Greece. You can go to all of them, but you won't find God until you get back to the book. And let the Holy Ghost speak off the page of the book to your heart and get a real knowledge of who we are and who he is. So he says in 13 of this chapter four, let's start with 11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. I had that homeless person sitting here this morning. When she came in, she's out there filling out a prayer request. She asked me, said, what's your prayer request? Kind of set me back. She came in here to get answers from God. I hope it's something somehow stuck. I was just thinking about her a while ago. She had a Bible with her. And she could go to the scriptures, as I called off scriptures. She could move around. She's been in church somewhere. I believe we ought to pray that that little girl would get her heart right with God. somehow get back to God, somehow let God bless her like He'd like to and use her like He'd like to. It's all around us, don't you see? Hereby we know that we dwell in Him. No, if we love one another, God dwells in us and His love is perfected in us. That's what I'm trying to say. What if I don't like the way she looks? Love her anyway. Pray for her anyway. What if I don't approve of her lifestyle? Pray for her. God can convict her heart. You can't. Gossip won't change it. We're the church. We're built. He said in verse 10, hearing his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Now then, hereby know that we dwell in him and he in us because he's given us of his spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world." You understand what that said? As He is, so are we in this world. What did Jesus come for? He came to die on the cross, to give Himself a ransom, to seek and to save that which is lost. He was a pretty baby in the manger, I'm sure, but the cross was already before him. Satan was already against him. He was already the objective of all the ridicule this world could put on him. But he came anyway. He said, because as he is, so are we in this world. As I read that, I say, Wayne, do you reflect his love where you go? Do you get self-pity and pouty and fuss and want to fight about something that makes no difference? and destroy the testimony of Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's what the church is. There's no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear, because fear hath torn me. He that fears is not made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God and hate his brother, he's a liar. I've got a message on how you know you're saved. And if you say, I never have doubt in my salvation, I would say, you better check up on what you're saying. Anytime we get away from the love of God, the Holy Spirit of God, we'll have doubts. It's only as we come back into his love and his spirit dwells in us, that's when the doubt goes away. He that loveth not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God who he has not seen? And this is the commandment. And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. That's the mark of the church. I had a lady, I preached this thought. Years ago, I had a lady come to me and she said, Brother Wayne, there's some people in this church I just can't stand. I don't like them. God didn't tell you you had to like them. God said love them with his love. What he says over in Colossians chapter three is, forbear and forgive. Forbear, that means I put up with guys like him. Right? And he puts up with guys like me. Forgive is when we make a mistake and step on somebody's toes by mistake, they forgive us anyway. Well, that's another message. What I'm doing is trying to describe the church to you. It's not these walls. It's not how big the offering is. It's the presence of God in each of our hearts. That's who makes up the church. What we are makes the church different. I've got just a few more minutes. I'm gonna give you one more little thing. Over in our text, he says, here's the church. Our building makes us different. John the Baptist started it before the church was ever organized. He was pointing to Jesus, the Savior. I had a friend that preached it. He said that John the Baptist came out of the wilderness with a camel hair coat and had a locust leg hanging out of one corner of his mouth and honey dripping out of the other. But he came preaching about Jesus. That was his only message. He's coming. That was his message. God used him to, if you look at your Bible, and I'm not gonna go there, but God used John the Baptist to prepare those boys who became the apostles that Jesus chose to be with him. If you read the book of Acts, in Acts about chapter six, I think it is, somewhere along there, they were just looking for a fill-in for Jude, who was an unbeliever from the beginning, who had double-crossed Jesus, kissed him on the cheek, and led him down to the cross. And the requirement was that for a disciple, an apostle, that they be baptized with the baptism of John. Remember that? And so, John started it. And it continued through the apostles, through the prophets, through the teachers, The scripture says over in Hebrews chapter number nine, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which began to be spoken of by the Lord, but was confirmed unto us by those who heard him? You can put this in your memory and hang on to it. Every Bible writer was either an eyewitness of Jesus, every New Testament writer was a witness of Jesus in the act, or a firsthand receiver of the gospel from someone who was an eyewitness. Began to be spoken of by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by those who heard Him. who heard them, and those who heard them, and those who heard them. My great-granddad was in the Civil War. He was a Yankee soldier from Iowa. When he was discharged from the Civil War, he went back to Iowa, loaded a wagon and put his family and kids in it, and came to the Indian Nation, Oklahoma, to be a church planner and a traveling preacher there in Oklahoma. He kept the message going. My granddad couldn't even read and write, but he could pray. My dad got saved because my granddad had an altar down at the barn. When all the boys went to bed, he went to the barn to pray for his family. Dad talked about trying to pull the quill over his ears where he could quit hearing that grandpa calling his name before the Lord. but he couldn't hide the truth of the gospel that was in that prayer. He got saved. I heard my dad preach and I got saved. Every one of us are a product of some chain that began back there. You think about who told you about Jesus, and then think about who told them about Jesus. Hey, It's the church. It's handed down through the church. I mean, I got saved in the church. I got called in the church. I got rebuked in the church. I got took to the woodshed in the church. God formed and worked in me in the church. And I said something to the preacher last night, maybe to Brother Rick. I don't know where I'd be today if it were not for the church. Sunday school classes, prayer meetings. All of those people are gone. My pastor's wife was my Sunday school teacher and my sweetheart. I had a crush on her when I was about 10 or 11 years old. And she, all of my life, till she died. She died at 94. I preached her funeral in Love of Texas. We'd call each other every two or three weeks. It was always this way. When we came to the end of the conversation, you can't call me this, but she could. She'd say, well, we love each other, don't we, Wayney? And that was the way it was. You know what she did in those 94 years? She kept trimming my toenails away from the things of this world. She kept going me back to a place of wanting Jesus in my life. She kept showing me what it was for someone who would pray for me and love me even when I was pretty unlovable. You got somebody like that in your memory, you ought to say, thank you, Jesus, for the church. Thank you for putting me in the church. Thank you for those old timers that kept us herded toward Jesus in the church. Let's stand. Father, I just ask you to have your way here in our hearts. Lord, I know that I didn't get anywhere close to where I thought I'd be, but it doesn't matter about mine.