every day. Without him, we fall short. Can't do anything without him. God bless his name for being good to us and helping us. Looking back over at Philippians this morning, Thank God for touching Brother Keith and getting a good surgery. Lending me back in the house of the Lord this morning, that's a blessing. Wasn't expecting to see him, but glad he's here. Praying for Brother Ken. Brother Ken Jenkins in the hospital this morning. If at all possible, they're going to do surgery on him this morning. Just pray the Lord help him. Yes, help him, God. The Lord knows what he needs. I was thinking, coming up the road there this morning, Brother Joel, I was thinking about all the things, I was praying to the Lord. Brother Keith, I kind of thought, in my mind, I was praying this and praying that, Lord, you'd work this out in the surgery and work that out. The Lord reminded me that he knows what's best. And he knows what them doctors need to do, and he knows what needs to go on in there better than they do. They got an idea when they look at a camera or they do tests. They got an idea what they need to do. But he's the great physician and he knows everything. I love Brother Ken and I wanna see him come out of the hospital and I wanna see him preaching again. That's my desire for him. But Brother Keith, whatever the Lord's will is, that's what he's gonna perform. He allowed this to happen in his life, the struggles he's been going through the last couple of years, he's allowed that. All things are of God. I look at it more and more and all things are of God this morning. He's sovereign over us all. Everything. And so this morning I thank him for his goodness and grace, the time we've got to spend together, and pray that we get to spend some more time together. I mean, I was talking to a fellow yesterday. We are not promised tomorrow. No, it's Friday. That's right. We ain't promised tomorrow. We don't know. I mean, we go get in our vehicle, pull right out in front of somebody, somebody T-bonus, we go out into eternity. You have no idea. The Lord does, though. And he knows what we stand in need of. And I thank him for that this morning. And I thank him I can rest in that this morning, Brother Keith. that you can rest in him this morning, knowing that he does all things well. And there's peace and rest in knowing, I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I don't know what's going to happen in an hour or two from now. I have no idea what's going to happen in my children's life. Really, Keith, I don't know what's going on in your grandchildren's life, what's going to happen to them. I ain't got a clue. But I know the one that does. And he's holding it all in his hands. And won't nothing happen to me, won't have nothing happen to you. The part that comes through him. I can rest in that this morning. Bless his name. Back over in Philippians 2 this morning, y'all pray for us this morning. I need the Lord's help. We went through it, I believe, last week. He said, for it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. The desire to go do the things of God is his. That's him. The performing of those things, it's him. Brother Keith, I'm mindful this morning knowing that my best intentions are no good apart from Him. It really ain't. I mean, I can think today, this is what I need to get up and do. This is what I need to go accomplish. But brother, without the power of God in it, I can't do it. Not to please Him. Not to please Him. The Lord, He accepts what He does. He accepts what He does. And brother Joel, if He does that through you, then He accepts that. But if you do it in your own power, if you do it in your own strength, even if it's the right thing to do, it's still not accepted. Because he accepts what he does. And he says, for it is God which worketh in you. It's God that does it. I believe that we ought to, as children of God, we ought to try to live just as close to him as we can. I believe we ought to. I believe that should be every desire of every saved person's heart this morning. To live for God, to do right, to live right, to talk right, to act right. People might see something in our lives, but it's not us that they're seeing, it's Him. It's Him. The reason you desire that this morning, Ms. Camille, to live right, is Him. The reason that you do the things that you do this morning, it's Him. It's not us. This isn't a works religion. No. It's salvation by the grace of God. Yes. All in Christ, every bit of it. It says, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. of his good pleasure. He's gonna perform those things that he desires. Those things that is good in his side. He said do all things without murmuring and disputing. Without complaining, without reasoning in our minds, without waiting for somebody else to go do it. Brother Keith, there's a job to be done each and every day. And it's for me and you to go do. It is, it's for me and you to go do. There's things that... Brother Joel, he'd be awful foolish. He'd be awful foolish for me to see a brother or sister in need. And to think to myself, well, that's not my job to go do. God put them in my path for a reason. And if I've got means to help them, then I should do it. And brother, everything ain't just about the physical. Brother, if you can give them a word of encouragement, if the Lord gives you a word to speak to them, whatever. We all go through times where we're down. And sometimes, Sometimes you just need a handshake, Brother Keith, or a hug, or somebody to tell you that they appreciate you, they love you, and the Lord, good to see you. That's what you need sometimes. Yeah, you might need money in the bank, but sometimes a handshake and somebody telling you that they love you means a whole lot more to you than $100. And that's for each and every one of us to do. It's not just the pastor's job to go, work for the Lord. It's not just his job to call somebody when they're sick or to go visit them. It's each and every one of us' job. Chief, why do we do that? This is a family, and I love you. And when you're down, I want you back up. I want you well again. When you're sick, I'm praying for you. Brother Keith, when you need a surgery, I'm praying for you. I believe that's the way we ought to be, as a family, a group together. The same Holy Ghost that saved me saved you. The same Spirit that's living in me, living in you. Brother, we're one. I was reading over there, where the Lord said, he was speaking there in the garden, he was speaking to the Father, praying to the Father. And he said, he's praying that we would be one as him and the Father are one. He's not taking us out of the world, but he's leaving us right here and he's praying that we're one together in unity. one for another, just like him and the father wanted one another. They're the same. They have the same desires. They have the same goal, the same purpose. Because they are one. And this morning, brethren and sisters, we are. Chief, if you're hurting, I'm hurting. If I see Miss Norma in pain in her back or got a need on her heart, then that ought to hurt my heart. And I ought to pray for her, just like I would my own family, just like I would for my own need. Because that's who we are. Not just something that we do, but something that's who we are. This morning, he said, do all things without murmurings and disputings that you may be blameless. That word blameless there means irreproachable, unblameable. That you may be blameless and harmless. The word harmless there just simply means innocent. It's unmixed, it's pure. He's getting at here, do all things without murmurings and disputings that you may be blameless and harmless. That's a continuation of the sentence before that, the verse before that. He said do those things that this world might not be able to look at you and blame God for this or blame God for that, that they might not see reproach upon the name of Christ. There might not be reproach upon the church. That's what he's saying here. So in your daily walks, chief, you ought not to ever do anything that would bring shame to the name of the Lord. that if somebody's seen you doing something, then they ought not be saying, oh, well, he goes down there to that west side. That must be the way all those believe, and that must be the way all of those people live, and that must be the way that all those people talk. That's what he's saying there. He's one of those Christians. They're just a bunch of falseness, and it's just a religion. It's just something that they do. It's just a place they go on Sundays. That's what he's saying there. There shouldn't ever be any reproach And that's not saying that we don't do anything wrong. That's not If you follow me each and every day you're gonna see it you're gonna see it I still get mad Lord helps me. He helps me a lot. I got a temper But the Lord gives me grace and helps. Yeah There's a lot of times. I've got about my tongue. That's flesh wants to say something Sometimes I don't But a lost and dying world shouldn't be able to blame me. Shouldn't be able to blame God for what I'm doing. Shouldn't find fault in my life and have an excuse. Shouldn't have an excuse not to be going to church. Not have an excuse not to come to the Lord because of me. He said here we may be blameless and harmless. And in the grand scheme of things, Brother Keith, I know this morning that we are blameless in the sight of God. When the Heavenly Father sees me, He sees me through the blood of Jesus Christ, and I am blameless in Him. And we are, and I thank God for that. But He's talking here in this physical life. He's talking about in our daily actions and the way we walk, the way we talk, the way we live our lives. I should never live my life so that someone could blame or find fault before me before the Lord I Think about our Lord and The way he lived it tells about him in the Gospels you read Matthew Mark Luke John and You can't help but see a life that was different from this whole world around him. It was different from everyone. It was different from what the Jews were expecting. They thought they were getting a king that was gonna come rule over them. That's what they were expecting. They were expecting a messiah that would come and set up a kingdom and rule and reign. But instead of a lion, they got a lion. Instead of a lion, they got a lamb. The Bible called him harmless. It says here, it says here, blameless and harmless. But he said he was harmless as a dove. The Lord said, if someone smites you on the right hand, turn to him again and you let him. He's telling you there to take fault. to not lash back out against everything that's done and said to you. He was teaching his disciples that, brother, because they was gonna be going through some things. That's why he was teaching that. I don't think in the grand scheme of things, in the literal sense of it, the Lord was saying, just let somebody beat the fire out of you. I don't believe that's what he was saying. But that's what the Lord did. He did. He did. He did. And it's not a godly example. It's not the Christ-like thing to do. Why? Because these people seen Christ at his crucifixion. They seen him suffer wrong. A man that had never sinned take on the whole sin of the whole world. A man that did no wrong get beaten and bruised because of my sin, because of your sin. They seen him go through that and he opened up his mouth. He was up. Lead as a lamb before shears is done. Bible says, so he opened not his mouth. And that was the example set forth by Christ. And Christ was teaching his disciples, as they go forth, there's gonna be things that they're gonna beat you and they're gonna kill you. And I don't want you to lash back out against them. You want you to stand there like Stephen. with his gaze up into heaven. And what did Stephen say? He said, lay not this sin to their charge, just like our Lord did. That takes grace, brother. That takes grace. Stephen didn't murmur about what he was going through. He didn't complain. He gladly took it for the cause of Christ. He gladly took it for the cause of Christ. And when you look at the life of Stephen, what little bit's told about him, there is no blame to be put at him towards the church. You can't look at the life of Stephen and say, well, he ought not have done that. Paul didn't have any excuses when he looked at his life. Saul didn't have any excuses. He couldn't look at Stephen and say, well, he ought not have done that. He ought not have lived that way. He ought not have did this and did that. At one time, that's the way he looked at it. He looked at him as against the church, as against his religion. But I believe, I have to think in my life, in my mind, thinking back and saw, looking at Stephen, he had to see something in him that was like the Lord. He had to. He had to see something, a difference in his life that was different. He was a Christian. He was like Christ in his life and in his death. And that's what this lost and dying world needs to see in our lives. He said that you may be blameless and harmless. And not only not lashing back out against people, brother, I know it's hard whenever somebody says something against you, you know it's wrong. I know it's hard to hold your tongue. I know it's hard not to give them a piece of your mind. That's what the natural instinct is to do. You did me wrong, I'm going to tell you what I think about it. That's natural instinct. But brother, I don't want to do anything that's going to cause harm to someone. Where they can say, you know what, he's just like everybody else. He's got a temper just like everybody else. He didn't like what I said, so he told me off. I wouldn't ever want to do something like that. That someone could say or have an excuse that I would be their excuse why they wouldn't come to the Lord. That I would ever cause them injury. The Bible says harmless there. I wouldn't want to hurt them or discourage them or be a stumbling block in their way in any way. just by my manner of living, the way I talk, the way I act. I think, I was thinking about my Lord, and me and Jacob, we like to pick and cut up, and sometimes we're a little rough on Caleb. And we'll make jokes sometimes at his expense. I was thinking about this one, Chief. And the Lord said, you know what? I never did that. Not one time. I don't see in the Bible where, even in joking and jesting, where he made fun of somebody. He sure didn't bully anybody. He wasn't mean-spirited towards anybody. He wasn't. You think of the one time that you see in the scripture where our Lord got mad, and he overturned the tables in the temple because they were buying and selling and making gain in the temple. And he said, my house not be, it's to be a house of prayer. It wasn't for them to be making money and it wasn't for them to be exchanging money and all those other things. Bible says, be angry and sin lot. And my Lord did it right there. He had just called to be angry over what was going on. But he wasn't mean to those men. He shut down what they were doing. You look at his life and he never condemned. I mean, you talk about harlots and thieves and all kinds of manner of sinners that came to him. and the Lord took them in, went and ate with them and walked with them and talked with them and made a difference in their life. And what do we do? We see somebody that's not clothed quite right or a drunkard down in the street. Do we get down in the street with them? Brother Joel, it's easy to say, yeah, we care for people The man that walks up to you and says, I'm hungry, and asks for some money, it's not hard to give the man a cheeseburger. It's not hard to go give that man some food. But you think of a drunk down in the street that's throwing up all over the place and needs some help, or the drug addict that's in a bad way. The brother help him and get down in there with him. and really not just throw a little money at them or meet their immediate need, but to be there for them and to help them. Brother, that's a different thing. And that's what my Lord did. That's what my Lord did. I think a lot of times on the things, I think we look at these little... You give alms to the poor. I mean, that's what they did in the Bible, right? I mean, we think we're doing something. Brother, it ain't causing us anything. It is no sacrifice for us. It is no sacrifice for us to give a man $10 to go get some food when we got a $100 bill in our pocket. That's not a sacrifice at all. You look at the early church, they sacrificed. You look at Christ, he sacrificed. Brother, it wasn't just here and there a couple times a week, it was his whole life. That's the life he's calling us to. He said that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God. I spoke of it last week, I got ahead of myself. He said, here are the sons of God, without rebuke. Brother Joel, your children have likenesses of you. They do. Sure. Keith, your children have likenesses of you. I can see it this morning. Your children have likenesses of you. Jonathan, Jeremy, there's no denying who your parents are. And I'm wondering just in my mind that how many times people can look at my life and say, you know what, he looks just like his father. He looks like his heavenly father. He's acting like, he's got the similarities. He does the same things that his father does. That's what children do. He said the sons of God's without rebuke. the children of God, the sons, the daughters of God. He said, without rebuke, that word means unblameable, blameless, faultless. So this morning, are we acting like him? Are we doing what we should do? Are we behaving as the children of God this morning? Brother Joel, I'm not talking about are you saved this morning. If the Lord ever convicted your heart and drew you to himself and showed you that you were a sinner and he saved you by the good grace of God, if he did all that work in your life, If you still got the same Holy Ghost that's in my life, that was in the God of heaven, that's alive and well today, if that's the Spirit that lives in you, then you're saved, no doubt about that. But I'm talking about our life, our walk. I'm talking about our walk this morning. Can others see Christ in my life? Can you see Christ in your life this morning? Or are you just a church member? Or are you just a good person? But do they see something different? Is there fruit that says I'm a Christian? Is there fruit that shows that I'm saved? Jeremy, there's muscadine vines over at my house. And they're just starting to bloom out right now, and they're just starting to get some leaves. But in a few months, there's going to be some fruit. And right now, you can't tell the grapevine from the muscadine vine. But in a couple months, you'll be able to. They look the same right now on the outside. But you'll be able to tell what they are in a little bit by the fruit that they bear. I can look at fruit trees even whenever there's no leaves on them and tell that it's a fruit tree. You can tell a peach tree and a pear tree and an apple tree, they look different than an oak tree. They do. They look different. You can tell. But if you can't see the leaves, you don't see the fruit, then you don't know exactly what they are. But there's a time that you're going to be able to take. And it's about high time that we have some fruit to show really what we are. Keith, there's a time I was thinking about this. You plant an apple tree and you don't normally get apples the first year you plant a tree. Especially if you plant it from a seed. You don't. You don't see it. As it gets bigger, you can look at the leaves and you can tell what it's probably going to produce. You know, you can look at the bark and say, you know what, this ought to produce this at some point in time. But things grow over time. But eventually, there'll be some fruit. I guess my question this morning is, is the fruit bearing yet? Can people see the fruit? And then if it is, Brother Joel, I think of my muscadine vines there at the house. I gotta cut them back every year. I gotta cut them back every year. The Bible says, I am the vine, you are the branches. Every year I go back and I trim them branches back up. Because last year's growth ain't what produces fruit. It's this year's growth is what produces fruit. That vine just keeps getting longer and longer and gets harder and harder to get the fruit off of it if you don't prune it back. And that's what the Lord does in our lives. Is he keeping us pruned back? Is the fruit evident? Last year's growth will produce a lot of leaves. You can tell it's a muscadine vine, but you don't get that much fruit off of it. And it's harder to find the fruit. It's all covered up by all them leaves and by all the branches that was from last year. But if you'll keep her pruned up real nice, and brother, I can walk right up to the line. I can walk right up to the line and I can pick off the fruit. And it'll produce more fruit this year than it did last year if I keep her pruned right. And here's what he's saying in this scripture that we ought to keep it tight. We ought to keep it tight. We ought to be evident that we're the children of God. Yes, yes, yes. It's easy to get lax, Brother Keith. It is. It's easy to get lax. It's easy to get comfortable and say, well, I'm a child of God. And, you know, the Lord knows my heart and he knows that I want to live right for him and I want to do right for him. And those things are easy to say, but are we doing it? Are we staying close enough to him that we can hear his voice whenever he calls? Chief, when he tells you to do something, can you hear it? It's easy to get, I was thinking, I had a goose get, or not a goose, but we called it goose. I had a duck named Goose, and he got gone over this last weekend. They had gotten where they started getting further and further away from the house. When I was right up there in the woods, there wasn't no problem. If they would stay there with my geese, there's not a problem, because they're protected there. But when they get out on their own and they keep venturing out further and further, then there's more and more chance that something's going to get them. Well, my Drake didn't come back the other day. Why? Because they had got too comfortable getting out further and further. And it's easy for the church, it's easy for the family of God to do the same thing. A little sin, you know, we're in the world, we're gonna brush up against it, we're gonna be with it, we're gonna see it. And then next week with that sin don't quite bother me quite as much and I get a little further out there or I'm around a little bit more of it. Might not necessarily be doing it, Brother Joel. Yeah. But you're just around a little bit more of it. Well, you know what, sinners are sinners and that's what they're gonna do, so I'm just gonna be around it a little bit more and You might even justify it. I'm gonna try to reach this fella, so I'm gonna go spend more time with him. And all along, getting further and further away. And the voice is getting harder and harder to hear. Ain't staying up close and tight like it should be. And before long, you can't see the difference in my ducks and the ducks over at the pond across the way, on the other side of the fence. And then something happens and one of them gets gone. And in our lives, that's easy to do. Brother Joel, I want to keep it tight. I want to keep it close. I want to keep it where somebody could see something, not for my glory, but for his. So that they can see, you know what? He's a child of the king. He's a child of God. He is who he says he is. The fruit that he produces is evident in his life, that he's of the Father. Not my fruit. His fruit just comes through us. It ain't our fruit this morning. Brother Joel, it's not, if there's fruit in your life, it's not your fruit. It's not your fruit. The muscadines that grow on the vine They come off the branches. But it can't come off the branches if there ain't a vine. You cut the vine, and there'll be no fruit. They cannot produce fruit of their self. They can't. When that sap goes down in the wintertime, they won't produce fruit. There ain't none out there in them branches. I can cut it back, but come springtime, you'll start seeing that come out. You'll start seeing it where I made them cuts. You'll see the sap start coming back up. He said that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, without rebuke, unblameable, without fault in our lives, blameless. And he said, did to do all this in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation. Crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world. Brother Joel, if there's ever been a time that we've lived in a crooked and perverse nation, it's right now. He said in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation. That means in the middle of it, right up amongst them. The word crooked there means warped, perverse, wicked. Perverse there means to distort, misinterpret. It means morally corrupt. That's where we're at. They call evil good, they call good evil. They blast anybody that wants to take a stand against their wrongdoing. as a hate monger, you're against them. I'm not against anybody. I might be against a sinner committing, but I'm not against anybody. I would love to see anybody come to the Lord, no matter who they are. I don't care if they're black, white, yellow, purple. I don't care. It don't make no difference to me. I want to see them saved. I don't care if they're poor, if they're rich. It doesn't make a difference to me. He said there in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation. That just means a generation or age, that time. God didn't save us to take us out of this world. He didn't. I mean, bless the Lord if you got a job where you got a couple Christians that you can go speak to and talk with and fellowship with. But that ain't what God called me to. He called me to be alive in the place that I was put. That's exactly right. Right in the middle of a bunch of sin, he wants you to be different. That's right. I can't be a witness up at Freightliner, because that's not where I work. I can't be up at DuSant or wherever else you work, Chief. That's not for me. My place is up in Davidson. My place is over in China Grove, back where I live, in Salisbury, where I come to church at. Landis, if I go to a restaurant, that's where God's called me to. I don't live in Cleveland. I don't live in Woodleaf. I don't live in these places. Y'all do. That's where you're called to. And you're called to be a light there. In the middle, right slap dab in the middle of a crooked and perverse nation. In that generation. He said, among whom you shine as lights in the world. The word shine there means to show forth light. In Matthew chapter five, he said in verse 14, you are the light of the world. You are. Ain't saying that you might be, ain't saying that you could be, you are. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hit. Brother Keith, that's pretty simple. You come around the corner and you see a city sitting up on top of hilltop, you can't hide it. It's there, everybody can see it. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but they put it on a candlestick and giveth light unto all that are in the house. One writer said that the church is the candlestick and we're the lights to be set on that candlestick. It says it giveth light unto all that are in the house. He said, you are the light of the world. Jeremy, at your job, you are the light down there. You are. Back at the house, you are the light. Up in Woodleaf, you are the light. He said, let your light so shine before men. that they may see your good works and glorify you, no, but glorify your Father which is in heaven. They ought to see me acting like a son of God. That God would be the one that gets the glory. It's not that Robert does good deeds, or you know what, you can always depend on him, or he ain't like everybody else. He's a good fellow. No, it should be, he's different. They ought to know that, Chief, they ought to know that you're a Christian. They ought to know. I thought about that a lot, Brother Joel. You think about it a lot. I sometimes use my flashlight at work in the early morning, just walking down the hallway. So I don't have to open every door. That place is locked down. Everything's locked up. And so I ain't got to get my key out all the time. I will turn my flashlight on. And in that hallway where all the lights is on, it ain't that bright. And in this place, my light might not shine too bright. But whenever I shine it into one of those dark rooms, Brother Keith, it really lights it up. The light's evident in a dark place. And this world is dark. It's dark. They say that everything in this life that we, everything that I hold dear, they say is wrong. A man that works and his wife stays home and takes care of their children and he's not a transgender, or don't have gay children, or ain't mixed race, well something's wrong with that. That's the mentality that they put out there. You take it even into cartoons these days, you let your children watch, you better be careful what they're watching. Because it's awful hard to tell what in the world some of it is. And they're pushing it even at an early age. They're trying to indoctrinate you. And I don't care what you say, they are. They've been pushing it for years. I don't know what their end outcome is because, Brother Keith, two mules can't mate. It just don't work. And they push just perverseness. Brother, two women can't have children. Two men can't have children. It just don't work that way. God didn't set it up that way. But brother, it's dark. I mean, it's really dark right now. And we're to shine forth that light. Shine forth the light. I think myself, there's plenty of opportunities every day, each and every day, Brother Joel, for me to shine. There really is. There's all kinds of opportunity. Keith, I can just go to the gas station, and your light can shine. Your light's shining this morning, Brother. Just had surgery, came in here this morning. The will and do of his good pleasure is in Brother Keith this morning. Thank God for that. God give him a desire to be here. That lets me see some fruit, brother. Each and every day, we ought to be showing forth something. We ought to be showing forth something, and it ought to be for his glory. It ought to be for his glory, not ours. Not that I can say, well, you know what, I did a pretty good job today. I've never said that, Brother Keith. It don't matter what happens today, I might do everything that if you followed me around, you might say, you know what, he did a pretty good job today. I'd have to disagree with you at the end of the day, because I know on the inside, I know my heart, and I know what the thoughts I've thought through my mind, and the mumblings that's been under my breath. I know those things, and I'd have to disagree with you. But Brother Joel, I'd like to think that we're shining some light. Yeah. We're shining some light. Sure. I think about, you look back at that mission board back there, and there's people in Scotland, and there's people in the prisons, and there's people in Taiwan and Canada. My brother Keith, who's going to Cleveland? And who's going to Woodleaf? And who's going to China Grove, and Rockwell, and Salisbury, Gold Hill? Who's going to them places? And it ought to be us. Our light ought to be shining forth. And they ought to be able to look at our life, and not that we're perfect, but they ought to see our Father in us. They ought to see some fruit. They ought to see some fruit in our lives, that there's something different about us. And when we go through hard times, and whenever, you know, we ought to, Mama sings that song, Do people wonder, are we singing whenever there's hard times? Are we praying? Brother Joel, I just want to live closer to him. Like that old grapevine, the Muskegon Vine, I want to keep it pruned up tight. My children need to see something in your life this morning. They need to see it in my life. Keith, your grandchildren need to see something in my life. They need to see something in Brother Joel's life. They need to see something in your life. Each and every one of us this morning. That's what we need this morning. I pray God help you. Amen. Yes, sir.