And so, you guys, I hope you stayed in Ephesians. We're gonna spend some time there. I may read a piece of scripture from another place, but I don't know, I'll just do an introduction, I suppose. First time preaching here at Crimson Baptist, Crimson Avenue Baptist Church, John Nelson, and God had called me to reach other churches and to be a ministry help, and it's on, it's up to Him. It's what He told me. Are we good? We're good. All right. And so anyway, it's all about ministry help. And our ministry has been just kind of tweaked a little bit. And we've been to churches that don't have pastors. And by the way, if you haven't heard, there's a lot of them. And there's a lot of churches that will only have just a few people, but they don't have anybody to lead them. And there's a church down, even down farther south here and over to the east a little bit. They're running 20, 25 people, but no pastor. And so, and then two churches up north that we're looking and praying over. Building paid for, parking lot paid for, church fans are there, but there's just nobody. And it's just a building, and we don't want to see churches closed. We want to see people get invited, get invigorated, get excited, and go to church. You know, I think going to church is best day of the week. Even if it's on a Monday, going to church. You know, it's the best day of the week. I think the best week is having church every day of the week. You do that. But you know, you are having church at home because you're saved. You read your Bible, you study, God speaks to you, you pray. It's just like having a little mini service in the word of God and you're going out to attack the day with the scriptures on your heart and your mind. Hopefully they're still on your tongue so you can share them with somebody. So you sang a song, Standing on the Promises. I wanna preach on that word. One word, and Brother David likes one word messages, so one word, and that word is stand, and stand. I think God will do something in your life if you'll learn to stand and not sit. There's too many people that believe, too many Christians, too many say, I have called upon Jesus to save me, but they are sitting instead of standing, or can I say the word watch? because God even tells us to watch. And so we're standing. You know, people come in, they clean the church. And if you're a sitter, I will tell you this. I think the person who cleans the church has enough to dust. without having to come dust you off, because that's what we're doing. I'm just saying, it's that. So if you're coming just to look a little dusty, and as the preacher mentioned this morning, this isn't enough for one day. We're not giving you enough for three days, four days, five days, and then you go back to your Bible. We're giving you enough for what God has for you today that you take tomorrow, you add to your Bible reading tomorrow and let God do a work there. So standing, standing has to do with something. We stand for things because we value things. Something has a value, so you will stand for what you have a value placed on. A lot of you that are married, you have a value placed on your wife. You will stand for your wife. You will stand in offense for your wife, and you will stand in defense for your wife. Your wife is the same way. You will do the same thing for your husband. And so we can see those kind of things there. You put a value on your family, you're gonna stand for your family. All right, so let me ask you this question. Do you put a value on church? Are you gonna stand for your church? Someone comes up to you and they say, oh, man, I really enjoyed talking to you. By the way, I think you go to church. What church do you go to? Don't whisper it. Say it just as loud as you were talking about golf or fishing. Say it with a certain amount of pride, and you can have pride, if it's not selfish. And so get happy about being a member of Crimson Abdul Baptist Church. And get excited about it and stand for it. Somebody says, well, I just don't, church just isn't for me. You better stand up and say something. Because that person got a little bit of wrong way thinking from somebody either off the media, somewhere on TV, Or maybe they got hooked up with the wrong crowd and friends at work or school. Our job is to stand for Jesus. Our job is to stand so that the light can be reflected. I'm like a diamond. I don't shine. Diamonds don't shine. They reflect. Jesus is the light. He reflects off of me. Y'all know that children's song. I'm gonna do it brother David. I can't help it. But this little light of mine You all adults. Do you ever seen that? Do you like it I'm telling you there's a bunch of children's songs. I think some of us that don't think we're too good for That they're just not for us My dad was a firm believer that church was not for adults between high school and retirement. If you were between that age, church wasn't for you. You get out, you get a job, you work, you provide for your family. Everything else comes second. Well, I didn't fall into that way of thinking. So I still stayed in church after high school. Is it worth fighting for? Let me ask you a question again. Jesus, some people put a value on Jesus. Are you just there for the miracle or are you hearing the message? My mama used to yell down in the basement to me. I made a little playroom down there when I was younger and she used to yell down, Johnny, I know you can hear me, but are you listening? And I think God does the same thing to us. I think he says, I know you hear me, you read my Bible, I know you hear me, but are you gonna listen to me? You see, that's the difference between being a doer and a hearer of the word. You can hear it, but if you're gonna be a doer, you gotta listen. to what they're saying. So Ephesians chapter six verses 10 through 14, I really wanna look at the last two verses of 13 and 14. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having to done all stand. Now let me ask the question again, when is the evil day? Because I've been hearing about this ever since, you know, even before Bible college. There's going to come a day. And that's what they used to tell us. There's going to come a day. Y'all ever heard that before? I mean, your teachers in school. I grew up in school, and our public school teachers would always say, all right, class, there's going to come a day when you're going to have it. And I'm like, oh. By the way, y'all, it's 2025. We are in that day. We have been in that day. And some of us who used to be staunch Christians, who used to have a backbone like a railroad iron, have somehow melted. There are preachers who have left and are now going a different direction in their church. There are church members who have left. Look, empty seats. They're not here. They have gone a different direction because of this day that we're in. And I think it's very imperative, whether you're a pastor, a ministry helper, a missionary out on the field, or whether you're a church member, you're a bathroom cleaner, you're a floor sweeper of the church, it doesn't matter. You need to stand. Well, the battlefield. What is the battlefield in our lives today? I can tell you one battlefield is a home. Mamas bring kids to church and daddies don't come. Or mama and daddy stay home and the kids get on a bus. Or there ain't no daddy. Well, there ain't no mama and daddy, because they did drugs or in jail or whatever the case may be. And the kids are at grandma's where they got fostered out. I'm going to tell you, the home is a battlefield today. And even in Christian homes, even in churchgoer homes. And you come to church, and you look good, and you dress the part, and you're faithful, and you tithe, and you sing. But I'm telling you, your home is a battlefield. You gotta go back to it, and you gotta stand that Jesus is in the home. And you can't let the world in the home. You open your window to get fresh breeze, that's the only thing you need letting in the home. And we let things that we hear in the home, and we let things that we see in the home, and we talk about it, and pretty soon it's become part of us. The home is a battlefield. Let's move on. The church is a battlefield. What makes these things a battlefield? Well, you got to come down and make a decision about what color the carpet's going to be. Now, that may sound funny, but I've been in it. And we got two by two cutouts, 18-inch cutouts, squares. And we vote on the color of carpet. Four people want this, and two people want this, and five people want that. That's 11, and one person and one person. We only had 14 people trying to vote for one color of carpet. Dinner choices. Honey, where you want to go? I don't know. Where's that restaurant? I haven't seen that one. Where do you eat at? I don't know. Well, let's go to Taco Bell. I don't want to go there, okay? Well, what part of I don't know or I don't care would you like to go to? Let's go to Red Lobster. Oh, you know, just, no. Okay, just stay home, make a peanut butter sandwich, honey. You go do whatever you want. We fight over, not fight, but we have discussions. I've been married, I'll be married 35 years this coming May. We haven't had one fight. Isn't that amazing? We've had intense fellowship. It's a lot better than saying fight. Some of you all know what that means. Anybody know the definition of intense fellowship? Yeah, buddy. Yeah, buddy. Two people standing one third way right in the middle. You know, I'm just saying. Oh. Battlefields are in friendships. The battlefields are in friendships. And a lot of times you have to stand for what the Bible says and some of your friends ain't gonna like it. And you might lose some friends. And what I would do is let him go, but pray for him. Let him go, but pray for him. Gossip. Nobody knows that word. I'm going to help you with it. Right? Y'all don't understand gossip? You're good at it, you hear something, but you don't know if it's true or not, so you go tell somebody else. And then they tell somebody else, they tell somebody else, the fourth person doesn't understand what the first person said, so they made up something else. It's true! And that's why I like small churches. Everybody knows everybody and what's going on, so if you say something, you already know if it's true or not. We can slander sometimes, can't we? Can we, I mean, this little round piece up here is the voice. I'm gonna give you a little bit of thought process here in just a second. And then we have prejudices. We're biased over certain things and people even. A lot of energy and time is lost fighting over things that never should have been discussed in the first place. My wife and I have talked about our first two, three, four years of marriage about our intense fellowship. Do you remember any of that? No. Do you remember what was even over? No. So it wasn't worth it, but I'm telling you, there were some tears. There were some things that probably ought not have been said. I told her the other day, I said, I wish I could go back and love you like I love you now than when we first got married. Because 35 years, you have a different love than you had year one and year two. And so I'm trying to make up for all of that. And it's a lot of energy. That's why I drink Monster. Anyway. I don't do Red Bull, but I'll do a monster. Listen, then they gotta be sugar free. All right. A lot of energy and time and friends are no longer friends anymore that are good people, that are good Christian people. And many times you'll see somebody that's a friend in the church and one sitting over there and one sitting over there because they have a prejudice in the middle. There's a wall that ought not to be a wall between them, but because something petty Got in the way. So when I was associate pastor in Victory Baptist Church of Waterloo, Kansas, two old ladies been friends for over 40 years in the same town, in the same church. Found an earring. They had a heated discussion over this one earring, and they split. Their friendship of over 40 years ended that day with that one earring. I was right there. I listened to it. I tried to intervene. Is it worth it to let your stand down, to let your wall down and give up what you're standing for that God said? marriages are broken families are in distraught people who have been going to church quit going to church churches stop fellowshipping with Themselves and and other churches and can I say this trend? Cannot be and it is not pleasing to God. I We cannot allow these petty things, and I'm gonna say it like that, in our churches that cause a divided thing between, well, that person, they don't really have much to say, so I'm not gonna, yes, they do, they're a child of God, they're a child of the king, just like me and just like you. So get over your little petty thing, build a bridge, walk over it, And forgive be the first well, I didn't start I don't care who started it God said he doesn't care who started that you be the first Get up there and get it done So what's worth fighting for what is worth standing for? You see I I think as a child of God that's excited. They're going to heaven had the lock to shout for I But you got to back it up and find out if you're even excited about going to heaven. Because if you're not excited about going to heaven, I'll have a talk with God because he and I have a relationship. That because Jesus said that I go to prepare a place for you, I'm going to say, hey, Jesus, would you hold up a moment? We're going to change that house because they're having a pettiness difference. So would you do this to their home while they're still here? So when they get there, they'll remember. That's not going to happen. God's already prepared a place for you. God already knows what you're doing. I don't have to remind him. You think anything ever catches God off guard? God's a God of order. And I'm glad that we read in Genesis chapter one that he put water on the land before he put fish. Can you imagine that God created the heavens and the earth and fish? And the earth was without form and void, but there were fish. That's not how God works. And he does the same thing in our lives. He has an order that our steps are ordered by the Lord. So let's look here. Let's look at what is right to stand for. Your right to do right when no one's looking. You have the right to exercise your right to do right when nobody's looking. But God's looking. God's watching. You have the right to stand for the 10 commandments. You can exercise your Christian biblical freedom, liberty, and rights to stand for the Ten Commandments. You ought to have a sin-hating, devil-kicking, Bible-teaching, Bible-preaching church and stand for it. You ought to come into church and know that Jesus is number one. He is preeminent and prominent in the church. But you come in here, you know you're gonna preach the word of God. You're not gonna get something else. There are too many churches have something else. There's too many people going to churches, good people, solid people, well solid in a way they think they're solid, And they're going to hear how they can be a better person. Not worry about their sins, because they've already been forgiven. Just go on. Just remember to smile. So when you fall, smile, you'll get picked back up. And they just kind of ease their talking into you. So I'm telling you, be thankful for a church that preaches the gospel. Without hesitation, without changing it, without mixing it up, without getting out of context, the United States of America, the US of A, is worth standing for. We know people aren't standing for it, but we ought not to do what they do. We ought to do what we need to do, stand. Our flag is worth fighting for. Family values that God puts on the family found in the Bible are worth standing for. Having done all to stand, what have you done for your family lately that you can proudly stand? God, thank you. Instead of God, look what I did. You're not standing very tall and you look at God and you say, Lord, look what I did. Look at my family. I'm, I'm, no. You just need to stop and thank God. You need to praise God. You ever have a flat tire? Does it ever bother you? Anybody ever have a flat tire, look at it and say amen? No one? You can raise your hand, I promise it won't hurt you. Have you ever had a flat tire, looked at it, and go, well, amen, thank you, Lord. I'll be the only one, I think. Here's the blessing. Are you ready for the blessing? You got three tires that still have air in them. You see, it's how we look, whether it's through ourself or it's through God. that we allow to look through the way Jesus would see something. Yes, I have a flat tire. Flat tire doesn't mean the end, it just means you gotta take a little time to fix it so you can keep going. When you have a flat tire in life, it takes a little time for you to stand for what you believe in, get it fixed so you can keep moving. Everybody here, I believe, has had a flat tire in life where it slowed you down, where it's made you bend over a little bit, you got discouraged, you got disappointed, you got some sorrow in there, but God gives a song, we just sang that. But then we get to stand, because we're heaven bound, we tell God, amen, for what's happened, and then we get to go on. Because God picks us up, he helps us to fix it, and then we can keep moving forward for him. Her Bible's worth fighting for today. They want to close it up and shut it down. They're tearing pages out of it. That Satan parade was carrying Bible and tearing pages out of the Bible as they were doing the parade. That Satan parade was something I really didn't want to see, but I saw a clip of it, and I'm telling you, they're going to stand before God one day. But you and I need to learn to stand here so that when we do stand before God, we can say, Lord here, and lay him at his feet. So that when they go through, we don't just get all the burned stuff. We actually will have something of value for the Lord. Your personal prayer time is worth standing for. I can't do that, that's when I pray. Honey, um, I know dinner was late, but can we wait another 20 minutes or 30 minutes because that's my prayer time I'm not moving my prayer time around events that happen. That's my prayer time You see it's just like we don't plan anything on Sunday because that's when we go to church You ought to do prayer time the same way You ought to have a time in your life that you say, this is when I'm praying, this is the time that I have set aside for God and I told him I'm praying. I think that's worth standing for. Our personal Bible reading time and study time I think is worth standing for. Friends call you up and say, hey, I got a barbecue. It starts at 5 o'clock. And I say, OK, I'll be there at 7. Why are you going to be late? That's when I read my Bible. Well, you can read your Bible later when you get home. No, no. I have a Lord to please first. And you know that. That's why you're doing this. My friends know when I go to church. My friends know when I do something. The friends know that I do this. But yet they consistently try to interrupt. Family members who don't go to church will try to interrupt you. And you have to stand no matter how. My mama told me, you love your church family more than you love your family. You don't come when it's time. No, but I still show up. I got here in time for dessert. And you make a really good dessert, mama. I'll eat all of it if you want me to. I played ball for years. I played on a practice squad for semi-pro football. I played college basketball. I was going to try out for college baseball, but I figured I got too much going on to try to do all of that. And I got out of that, and I played softball, and I got into competitive softball, and I traveled. I got sponsored by a bat company, and I traveled. I'm not trying to have pride or anything, but I will say I was pretty good at what I did. Because I put time into it, I studied it, I learned, I watched videotapes, I did all these things to make me a better player. I would get requests and phone calls, hey, can you play, can you be with us, can you help us, can you fill in, blah, blah, blah. One day, My team said, we're going to get in this tournament. I said, OK. Went to the championship on Sunday. I'll play, but I can't come Sunday. I go to church. OK, but can you help us get there? I said, yeah, we'll go. So I go. I show up. We win everything. We go to the end on Saturday night. And I said, I'll see you all next week. Sunday came. I get a phone call. They lost. That happened three times. Three times they'd all get mad at me and they'd all call me individually. And then every Thursday they'd call me back and invite me again. Championships on Sunday. I said, okay, but I can't play Sunday. I'm being tested. Am I going to give in? Do I want the trophy bad enough or do I want to sing worship songs to God? Do I want the trophy over my Bible time at church? Do I want the trophy over the preaching of the word of God? What am I putting the value on that I'm standing for? So one day, I got up to bat and I hit a home run. And I walked over, and I sat down. My wife was there, and I went over, and I sat with her. And I watched while everybody else played. And the second time up, I went out, and I hit another home run, and I came back. I was excited. It was a good game. And one of my buddies called out from the team and said, yep, that's the preacher. And from then on, they just called me the preacher everywhere I went, everywhere I played, because I didn't play on Sundays. I didn't value a trophy. Over, God called me out to softball, called me out to do some other things. We were going three, four nights a week. My wife was going with me. I loved that she went. She didn't love that she went. But is it worth standing for? And I realized I had some other things that were worth a whole lot more than playing ball. But God used that to help me get through some things. And I think some of y'all are going through some things that God can use to help you get through it if you'll just stand for the word of God in your life. That if you'll just stand for that salvation that was freely given, yet it cost Jesus his life. It was an expensive gift, but it was expensive to Jesus and God, but not to you. It's free for you. There is a gift of salvation that will cost you nothing. The only thing it costs you is to get rid of your pride, step down from that sinful stand, and stand for what you know is right. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But you won't do it. Because being a Christian interrupts your lifestyle. I don't know how many people have told me that. Righteousness, and this is probably one of my favorite points, is worth standing for. But David kind of hinted on this last time we preached on holy. Be ye holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. We find that in Peter and we find that over in Exodus, Leviticus. Be holy. A more holy way of living is worth standing for. Hey, y'all don't mind, y'all can come over, you're my friends, we'll have dinner, but you gotta leave the cigarettes in the car. Y'all can come over, we're having a barbecue, but you can leave your beer in the car. I have given my yard and my house to Jesus. I am not allowing the things of the world that can cause a hindrance or stumbling in your walk. The neighbor sees that I got friends partying in my backyard with beer, what's that gonna put on me? So not only do you abstain from the appearance of evil, by the way, that's a stand right there. but that you don't allow that appearance to be on your property. That's a problem for some. Well, it's not me. I'm not doing it. I used to go to this, well, bar named Johnny's because they had the best hamburgers I've ever had. But I didn't drink, and I went during the daytime. But all my softball buddies drank. Well, I didn't want to be not around them. I didn't want to be that one, you know, that didn't do it. So, I would go in. I wouldn't sit at the bar. I'd get a table. Some of my buddies would sit around me. I'd have a hamburger. They'd have whatever they have and beer, and I'd drink Coke. You get seen walking out of Johnny's. Hey, I didn't know you go to Johnny's. I thought you went to church. Oops. I wasn't standing on what I should have been standing for. I was actually standing for self because it was, I didn't see anything wrong with it. I wasn't the evildoer that Peter talks about in the first chapter. First Peter chapter one, he talked about being an evildoer. I didn't think I was doing evil, but God said I was. just by going there. Oh, I may not have drank the beer, but I was allowing the presence of it. I had given in to the presence of alcohol and smoking. So it's just as bad. So a more holy way of living is to live righteously, is to abstain from those things that take away from the word of God in your life. I want people to look at me and see scripture. I want people to look at me in my life and see Jesus. I want that to be my persona that they look at me and said, oh, well, we can't do that because the preacher's here or John is here. And that's happened before. I've had someone come up and they say, you know, have you listened to me today? I said, yeah, I haven't cussed today, you're here. Well, I appreciate that. Why don't you work on that tomorrow when I'm not here? Let's not double up. You know? In order for a fight to be won, or a battle, there must be an understanding of where you're at. You have to be able to look at, okay, God said no, so why am I here? Am I saved? Yes. I put the armor on. Verse 11. So that means I'm standing in the midst of the wiles of the devil. Because I, God said no. God said don't go there. Don't do that. Don't listen to them. Don't talk like that. Don't even, have you ever had your mama say, don't you even think about that? Don't you even, holding a spatula or a flask of water or whatever in her hand, don't you even say that, no, no, no, no. We grew up on a farm and anything that had a handle on it. So you have to have an understanding of the battle. And then when you have the understanding of the battle, can I tell you this, there's gonna be some preparations made, knowing, knowing that there is a, how'd the Bible say it? That for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the, listen, the darkness, that's the evil day of this world. They rule that. You have no business as a child of God entertaining the darkness of the world. No, you do not have that right. God didn't give you that right. Well, I'm just joining them so I can save them. You lost. You've already lost. Because who have you even said the word Jesus to? You didn't step into it with Jesus, I'm telling you, so you obviously aren't gonna win that battle. Well, how do you win those from the dark? You pray for them. You walk over to them and say, hey, brother, I've been thinking about this. You know, Jimmy, you ought not to be with these people. Here's the track. Why don't you come to church with me on Sunday, okay? You do that, you got my phone number, give me a call. I'll catch you later, brother, and then you move on. Jimmy may not come that next Sunday. It may wear on him, but I promise you, he'll hear something. God's word doesn't come back void. It hits something. And then you come to a decision whether you say yay or nay. And that's the same for the Christian. When God does something in your life, you know it. He says, I know you hear me, are you listening? Why are you not standing anymore? You were doing pretty good. You were doing pretty good, why'd you sit down? I'm talking spiritually. Why'd you sit down? You ever have God ask that question? Man, that's a hard one. So I wanna try to hurry here, I really do. So bear with me for just a second. So there's gonna be preparations made in order to win the spiritual battle. I need to go to my preacher. Hey, preacher, there's a spiritual battle coming on. Can you pray with me? Here's what's going on. Here's what's happening. My sister and her husband, and they're just coming at us for whatever reason. And I want to make sure I say the right words. I don't want to say the wrong thing to upset anything. But I want to honor Jesus at the same time. You got to go to your preacher. You ought to call a brother up in church or a sister. If you're a sister, you call a sister up and say, hey, you know what? I'm going through a spiritual battle. I'm getting kind of depressed right now. Would you help me? Would you pray with me? And I tell you, there's nothing better than knowing someone's praying for you. There's nothing. My high school principal supervisor, I graduated from a Christian school. And his wife, Miss Phyllis, she came up to me just a few years ago. And I've been out of school over 40 years this last year. And she said, but John, I want you to know that we've been praying for you ever since you graduated. I had no idea. Isn't that awesome that there's people praying for you that you'd never know about? Listen, stand. Stand because there's people praying for you. Stand because there's people watching you. We got little ones in this church and they're gonna watch to see if you're sitting or standing. What are you doing to help these little ones fight off the devil and his tricks? They're coming while they live in a Christian home. No, they don't have it made. You gotta prepare, pray, read your Bible, change a few things in your life to help you to stand so that when the devil comes, you're like, don't get arrogant and say, come on. Just say, okay, Lord, we got this, right? I'm with you. All right, God, here we go. Order my steps. The battle's coming. Help me not turn, because the armor's only for the front. Help me not sit in the middle of it, because it's too overwhelming. When it gets overwhelming, turn to Jesus. When you feel like you're getting tired, turn to Jesus. When you feel like spiritually you just can't do anymore, turn to Jesus. Moses, I'm about done, I promise. Famous words of a preacher, I know, but listen. Moses, you remember Moses in the battle? I forget the valley, and Joshua went down and began to attack, and Moses held the rod of God up in the air, and every time that Moses was firm, the battle became a victory. But when Moses would get tired, because it's heavy after a while, the battle would slow down, and then he'd get enough to go, push it up again, and the battle would go on the Israelite side, and then he'd get tired. There's two men that came up to help him. Y'all remember? Good stuff. I want to tell you a little bit of illustration about that here in a second. But they took and they held. his arms up. It wasn't their job to hold the staff from the preacher. It wasn't their job to say, hey preacher, I got enough strength, hand me the staff. It wasn't their job to take the place of the preacher. You know, when the devil's getting fighting and the fighting's getting hard and the preacher's looking down, why don't you hold the preacher up instead of trying to take it from him? The example's right there with Moses. But as you and I get to fight in the spiritual battle and we start to get a little bit down, we ought to just take it to Jesus. Jesus brings people into our lives for a reason. And he makes us cross paths with someone that'll help us without us even knowing they're helping us. God tells us here in these few verses that it is how to equip ourselves to have victory in the battle. And very quickly, very, very quickly, I'm not gonna spend a lot of time here, but the first word is resist. To withstand. To withstand. That you may be able to withstand, verse 13. You know, withstand. with stand with the full armor, not just part of it. You know, some of us only want a piece of God. And you can't stand when you don't have it all together. You know from building things, if everybody's ever built something, you can't build a table with two legs. You got to put it all there. Well, I don't like the other two. I don't care. Your table is not a table till you get two more legs on it. It is unusable. What are you saying, that we're unusable? Yes. Yes, that's what I'm saying. We can become unusable if we don't put it all together. God wants to use us. that you may be able to withstand to the evil day. The evil day is when the youth come in and bomb schools and shoot schools up, when ex-husbands come in and destroy families, when humans act like animals, and they did that which was right in their own eyes, when abortion is a choice, and when they say that homosexuality is a normal, I say I want my alphabet back. Just give it back to me. Just say one word, y'all are queer. That'll cover everything. I don't need to make up words and take my alphabet away from me. Are you and I withstanding the evil today? And having done all to stand firm. Stand therefore. You know when you can stand? When you've done all. when you prayed, when you've read your Bible, when you've been faithful to church, when you sing the songs, when you lift your heart up to God, when you tithe, when you're active in church, you're not just someone sitting there and going yay as a cheerleader, but you're a participant. When you participate, check it out, you're standing and you're standing for God. And God wants people who will stand for him. What is all? And having done all to stand. What is it? What is the all? Very quickly, here's what it is. Y'all prayed up. Y'all read up. Y'all are thought up. Y'all have been worked up. And have we done all? How many of you smiled when you said, oh, it's time to go to church? Because it's not a job you come to, we kind of shared this a little bit. It's not something that you do because you're in a position. It's not something you do because the preacher expects it. God expects it. He demands your faithfulness. He didn't give his son Jesus a die on the cross so you could lackadaisically, that's a new word, Do whatever you want. All right, lastly, righteousness. You better stand with a righteous attitude. You better stand next to that one, even though they may be different, and stand with a righteous attitude. Are we withstanding today? In conclusion, here it is. Are we doing all we can to fight the fights that are worthy? I don't know how the city of Nixa entertains the thought of enjoying Crimson Avenue Baptist Church. I don't. I don't know how the people in Nixa entertain the thought in their head whether they like the idea of a church being built. and they have to look at it every day. I think the church likes that idea, but the people, I don't have any idea. But that's where we come in. That's where we come in standing firm on the word of God, saying, hey, hey, hey, we haven't changed for a thousand years. We haven't changed since Jesus built the church. You want real preaching and real teaching and real singing and real fellowship? I'm standing firmly because I believe Crimson Avenue Baptist Church has exactly what God needs for this area. And what does he have exactly for this area? He has you. Each one of you is what God has for this place. So what has God shown you tonight that's worth fighting for? And lastly, why don't we win the first battle? Well, how do I win the first battle? Right here. Here's your first battle right here. When's the last time that you've been here? You see, that's a battle. It's a battle in your mind. It's right here. Why don't we win the first battle tonight and join in prayer up here and just praise God that we have a church that's gonna be a lighthouse in a town full of sinners. In a town full of people that are standing for the wrong things. And you and I have the right things. And it's not what God wants for us to hold it into ourselves, but it's what God wants for us to give to others. So you have a battle right now tonight. And your battle is, am I gonna go up and thank God for what he's given me and ask him to help me? Or am I just gonna sit? Always stand, every head bowed. God, thank you for tonight and your love for us. What a privilege and an honor it is to preach your word. And Lord, I thank you so much for what you're doing here in this work and the building program. And the more I learn about it, Lord, I know I'm new. But I'm learning as fast as I can, and I'm trying, and I've already talked to some people in the area. And God, I just pray, Father in Heaven, that you would just turn this place into a beacon of light, a place of hope where people can come and find the hope they've been searching for, and that they drop all their things of the world. God, I just pray that Jesus would be prominent in our lives, that when we walk in the church, we know that Jesus is present. because we serve Him, we worship Him. And God, it is a place to stand firm on. It is a place. I want to plant my feet and be right here. And God, I pray tonight that if there's one here that has had pride, that first battle is salvation, that first battle is I just don't know 100% that I'm saved, I'm going to heaven. God, would you have them come tonight and get the preacher and get the preacher's wife or whoever it may be and say, hey, can you make sure I'm saved? Can you show me in the Bible what I need to do? And I tell you, Father in heaven, we'd rejoice, we'd shout. if someone was getting saved tonight. I don't know their hearts and I don't know everybody, but God, I rest in the fact that you promised you know everybody. So Father in heaven, I pray you bless this invitation, that you bless the time that we're given to you, that we not be in a hurry, but we do that which is right. And I'm thankful for an invitation. I'm thankful I get to stand for the right to have an invitation. We ask that you bless it now. We love you, Father in Heaven. Bless every heart that's in this house. In Jesus' name, His precious name, His holy name, we pray, amen.