Well, thank you, Dwight. It's always a joy and a privilege to come back to Ambassador Baptist College and to see what God's doing here and to have the privilege of spending some time back here on campus and being around some of these men that I had the privilege, like you do at this time, to sit under and to learn as God is at work in your hearts. I was just telling Dr. Shred a few moments ago how that, you know, it's a joy to be able to be out doing the work of evangelism and meeting all different types of men and preachers and when people find out that you attended school here, then they have some type of connection as to different people that are associated with the school. I just recently had the privilege of meeting an older couple that's in their senior years now that they taught Dr. and Mrs. Surrett when they were students at Pillsbury. And it was interesting because as they were talking about, the statement was, oh, they were quite a couple on campus. And so, and all of this, and it was interesting because they were talking about them in the opposite of the way that I speak of them. They remember them as the students, but I remember them as the instructor. And I can remember sitting there in the pew like you are right now, And I would look up here at chapel speakers and I would daydream about the chance of one day being able to preach in chapel, but then I would sit there and I would listen to these guys preach and I would think there's no way in the world I'll ever be able to preach like these guys preach. But it was during that time that God had us here, that God was Molding us and shaping us for the ministry that we now have and we certainly appreciate our time at Ambassador Baptist College and so with all of that said Let's take our Bibles with first and we're going to turn to 1st Chronicles chapter 28 this morning 1st Chronicles chapter 28 Once you've found your place, let's stand together In 1 Chronicles chapter 28, beginning in verse 1, the Bible says, And David assembled all the princes of Israel, the princes of the tribes, and the captains of the companies that ministered to the king by course, and the captains over the thousands, and the captains over the hundreds, and the stewards over all the substance and possession of the king, and of his sons with the officers, and with the mighty men, and with all the valiant men under Jerusalem. Then David the king stood up upon his feet and said, Hear me, my brethren and my people. As for me, I had in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord and for the footstool of our God and had made ready the building. But God said unto me, Thou shalt not build a house for my name, because thou has been a man of war and has shed blood. Howbeit, the Lord God of Israel chose me before all the house of my father to be king over Israel forever. For he hath chosen Judah to be the ruler, and of the house of Judah the house of my father, and among the sons of my father he liked me to make me king over Israel. And of all my sons, for the Lord hath given me many sons, he hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel. And he said unto me, Solomon thy son, he shall build my house and my courts, for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father. Moreover, I will establish his kingdom forever if he be constant to do my commandments and my judgments as at this day. Now, therefore, in the sight of all Israel, the congregation of the Lord and in the audience of our God, keep and seek for all the commandments of the Lord your God, that you may possess this good land and leave it for an inheritance for your children after you forever. And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father. And serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. If thou seek him, he will be found of thee. But if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off forever. Take heed now, for the Lord has chosen thee to build a house for the sanctuary. Be strong and do it. Father, help us now in this chapel time to glorify you. Lord, we meet here once again in this service, Lord, not to hear from a man, but to hear from you. So I pray that the power of the Holy Spirit would just work inside this place. Lord, would you please blow a fresh breath of heaven through here? Lord, may we be listening with open and intentive hearts. Lord, may we desire to, Lord, to draw closer to you today than we were yesterday. Lord, I realize that inside this chapel today there are students that have tests to take, papers that are coming due, and all different types of assignments and pressures that are on them. But Lord, right now, would we just lay everything aside? And may we focus on our relationship with you. We'll thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for standing. You may be seated. In 1 Chronicles chapter 28, David is coming to the end of his life. He's coming to the end of the time in which he is the king of Israel and it's time for David to pass off the scene. It's time for David to pass the mantle over to the one that's going to be the next king. The one that God has chosen to be the next king. That one that would be the next king that God has chosen, his name was Solomon. We know that Solomon was David's son. It wasn't left up to David, just like it wasn't left up to David's father for David to be chosen to be the king of Israel. But as David mentions here in this passage, that God liked him to choose him. Out of all of his brothers, God chose David to be the one to be the king of Israel. So David's coming to the end of his life, and he knows that it's time now to make that transformation. And so David calls for this great assembly of people. David assembles all of these people. We read there in verse 1 of all those that were gathered together. The Bible says the princes of Israel, the princes of the tribes and the captains of the companies that ministered to the king by course, the captains over the thousands, the captains over the hundreds, the stewards over all the substance and possession of the king and of his sons, with the officers and with the mighty men and with all the valiant men under Jerusalem. Everybody that was somebody that had any type of responsibility in the kingdom of David was assembled together for this great meeting that's going to take place. And as they're assembled together, I kind of have it envisioned in my mind's eye that they've been brought into maybe a large hall like we are here in the chapel this morning. And David is seated on the platform, in the center of the platform, in his kingly chair there, and all of the people, they come together, and once everyone is inside the room, they close the doors, and then everyone stands, everyone's standing there, and then David rises to his feet, and a hush falls upon the crowd. As David looks out across the crowd, the Bible says, when David stood up upon his feet, The Bible says he begins to speak and he says, Hear me, my brethren and my people. As for me, I had in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord and for the footstool of our God and had made ready for the building. But God said unto me, Thou shalt not build a house for my name, because thou hast been a man of war and has shed blood. And so David begins to speak here. He begins to rehearse in the hearing of all of these people his desire that he had to do something great for God. But God said, I'll not let you do that. But I'll let the one that I've chosen to be king, I'll let Solomon do it. And so as David is there and he's speaking in the presence of all of these people, and he's having this great conversation and letting them know what's about to take place. As you're looking at this passage and as you read through the first eight verses, you can see that David is addressing the congregation at large. But then right in the midst of this conversation as it's taking place, you see that it moves from being a conversation where he's addressing the group at large and then he turns and almost as in a sense of a public responsibility, it's almost as though he turns and he begins to speak directly to Solomon in the hearing of all of those people so that Solomon would understand his accountability before these men. In verse 9, David turns, in my mind, and this is the way I see it, it's almost as though he's speaking to the group, but there on the platform, seated next to Solomon, excuse me, seated next to David, is Solomon there in his seat, almost as though David's preparing the people to get used to seeing Solomon up in front of the people. And as he's speaking to the group, telling them what's going to happen, He turns almost as though and begins to speak directly to Solomon. And as he begins to speak to Solomon, I find in verses 9 and 10 what he says to be yet profound, but yet very elementary. And my dear friends, one of the things that is needed today in modern day Christianity is we need to get back to some of the basic, fundamental, elementary aspects of serving God. And what David says to Solomon, some people, they may look at this and say, well, it's almost as though Solomon growing up in the house of David. He should understand these things. But yet, even though Solomon has grown up in the house of David, he needs to be reminded of these basic truths. And so David, being his earthly father, he turns and says, son, you're going to be in leadership. Here's some things that you need to remember. And as I look at you this morning, you're here at Ambassador Baptist College. And you're preparing for ministry, one day you're going to be in leadership. One day you're going to be out there and there's going to be people that are going to be looking to you for leadership. They're going to be looking to you for direction. And the advice that David gives to his son Solomon, right here in this passage, I believe is some of the greatest advice that you and I can remember in our earthly ministries. I want to preach a message this morning I've entitled, A Father's Advice. A father's But before I look at the advice that David gives to his son, could I mention some things that David does not say to Solomon? Could I mention some things for just a moment? You see, because the society we live in today, we've marched success by certain aspects of materialism, basically. We've marked success by what determines if a person is successful today. And even in ministry, this exists in ministry today, there are certain things and labels that we put on people because they've arrived at certain status levels or have certain standings in social settings. We've said, well, now this person is a successful person. You see, you don't look at this passage, you do not hear David saying to Solomon, you don't hear David say this. Now, Solomon. You need to understand, son, that you're going to be the king of Israel. And because you're going to be the king of Israel, you need to understand, son, that everyone that sees you needs to know that you're the king. Therefore, what you need to do is go out into the city. You need to look around the city and find that great, high and lofty place. Purchase that piece of property for yourself. And there, son, There is where you go and build your palace. There's where you build your home. And when people come into the kingdom, they see your home there up on that hillside and they look and they say, oh, what a great spectacle. What a great palace that there must be a great king. Look at the home he lives in. But that's not what David says to his son. He doesn't say to his son, son, what you need to do is you need to look out amongst our people. You need to look out amongst our people and find the greatest men that you can find to be in your army. Look out here, son, and find the men that can handle the sword, the spear. Find the men that's the greatest bowsmen. Find the greatest horsemen. Find the greatest chariotsmen. And son, go out here and find for your men the men that can create a great fighting army for yourself so that people will know that the armies of David should be feared and the armies of Solomon should be feared. And for that reason, son, build for yourself. A great army so that people will know you're a great king. He doesn't say that. He doesn't say build for yourself a great palace. He doesn't say, son, build for yourself a great army. He doesn't even say this. Son, if you're going to be respected among kings, you must be known as a wealthy man. You must be known as a wealthy man. So what you need to do is you need to build for yourself a great storehouse of treasure. You need to store up for yourself great treasures and then decorate your kingdom with all the treasures that have been stored up in your kingdom. And then when people come in, they'll see how magnificent and wonderful your kingdom is because they'll see all of the treasures that you possess. And they'll say, there is a great king. Look at his palace. Look at his treasures. And what an army he's put together for himself. That's not what David says. That's not what David says. And you know, in the modern day society we live in, the society we live in, and even if we're not careful, it can infect us. That the attitude that success will be marked by the size of the church that I one day pastor, or the greatness of the ministry that I one day have, it'll be marked by the possessions that we own, it'll be marked by how well my name is known in certain circles, and then we'll look at that and say, oh, what a great man that person must be, or oh, what a great ministry that person has. But that's not the marks of greatness, my dear friend. The march of greatness will be found in a man that has sold himself out to serving the Lord and doing what God wants him to do, even if it means he has to swim against the tides of the day. So when David turns and he looks at Solomon, notice, if you would please, what he does say. Again, I remind you that what he says, it seems so elementary, but yet, at the same time, it's very profound. He turns and he looks at Solomon in the midst of this great congregation and he says, And thou, Solomon, my son, verse 9 now, And thou, Solomon, my son, number one, know thou the God of thy father. Solomon, you're getting ready to be king. And the thing that you need to understand, son, as you get ready to lead this people, the very first thing is you need to know, son, is you need to know God. You need to know God. You see, God has sent you. God has brought you. God has directed you to come to Ambassador Baptist College for it's at this time in your life as God is preparing you for leadership. God did not send you here, fellas, to go find all the places you could go preach. God did not send you to come here and to straighten anybody out. God sent you to Ambassador Baptist College at this time in your life so that you might get to know him better than when you knew him coming in. The desire of your heart right now ought to be that on a daily basis, I'm seeking to know God better than I knew him yesterday. You see, when David says to Solomon, Know thou the God of thy father, the word here that's translated know, the word know, knowing, having knowledge of in verse nine, it has the idea of being acquainted with. The word is used many times in the Old Testament. I'll not stand up here and try and give you anyone in this room a lesson on Hebrew because I couldn't do that. But as I studied this passage and I look at this word, I do know that that is looking at extended definitions of this word. The idea is to be acquainted with, to be to have carnal knowledge of. It has the idea of there's an intimacy there involved in the relationship. In other words, you and I ought to be focusing on our relationship with God. We ought to be seeking to become intimately involved with God. And when Solomon is when Solomon is spoken to by his father, David, David says to Solomon, son, what you need is heart knowledge. You don't need head knowledge. And the problem that we have many times today, and our churches are filled with this, our Christian schools are filled with this, our youth groups are filled with this, and even our Christian colleges have the same problem. We've got a great deal of head knowledge, but we're absence of heart knowledge. When I was a youth pastor, and I can say this because I have some young people from my youth group that are in this school right now, and so I'm not saying anything that they can't back up. But when I was a youth pastor, we had a memorization program and they would memorize scripture. And rather than it being something, Brother Smith, that was just trapped in their brain, I would often stop them after they would quote a verse and I would say, now tell me what it means. Tell me what that verse means. Explain that verse to me. Take that verse and move it from something that you put in rote memory inside your mind and move it to something that you can use for application in your life as you go through things that God can use it, that you might help others or help yourself. You see, God's desire for you right now, God's desire for you is to get to know Him, to have that opportunity to develop your relationship with Him. When I came to Bible College, now I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I was saved when I was 20. I got married when I was 20. Just yesterday, my wife and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. When we came to Bible College, we'd been married for seven years. I was green in the faith. I was green in marriage. I was everything about. At the time, when we came to school, we had our two sons. Now we have two sons and two daughters. I've got a 15-year-old. One that's about to be 14, and then I've got a 6 and a 2-year-old. And when we came, I was still learning everything. Everything was so fresh and so green. I was trying to learn how to be a right dad. I was trying to learn how to be the man God wanted me to be. And when I would come to chapel, I felt like the worst sinner in the crowd. Because somebody would get up here and preach and they'd give an invitation. Man, here I was, I was coming down front. And because God was working in my heart. And we would sit and, fellas, we'd sit in the cafeteria and we'd talk about different things. And it was amazing how God was working in our hearts and showing us and teaching us and preparing us for one day that we would be out doing the work of the ministry. Why? Because we needed to know God. And it's at this time in your life, fellas, you need to get to know God. It's now when you develop your prayer life. Don't wait till you get your first ministry to try and prepare you to develop a prayer life. Start developing that prayer life now. It's now that you learn to trust the Lord. It's now that you learn to walk by faith. It's now that you learn to do that. You need to know God. And when David speaks to Solomon, he says, know God. But notice how he phrases it. He says, know thou the God of thy father. I find it interesting, David is personalizing it. He says, he's my God, but son, he's got to become your God. You can't go through life talking about mom and daddy's God. You can't go through life talking about grandma and grandpa's God. You can't go through life talking about your preacher's God. And you can't go through life talking about Dr. Chow's God. And you can't go through life talking about Dr. Comfort's God. No, my dear friend, he must become your God. You see, because as he becomes your God, then when you go out to do the work of the ministry, when you go out there to do what God's called you to do, as you go out there, then when you go through things, you'll find that you can go to your God. And you can seek those things that you need, and you'll find that He carries you during those times. You see, He says, Know thou the God of thy father. Solomon, make Him your God. Don't talk about it being Daddy's God. Oh, the God of my father did great things when my father was king. No, no, no, no. David wants Him to do great things while Solomon's king. You know, I hear so many times I'm in camp meetings, and I'm in different revivals and different things, and so many times I hear references to great men of the past. And I praise God for great men of the past. They talk about, oh, where are the days? And they'll mention different men's names. And it's almost like God's dead and God's not doing anything today. But you know what? The same God that David serves, the same God that we serve today and the same things that God desired to do in the life of David and did to the life of David, God wants to do in our life. But it happens as we get to know him. So he says, no, God, not only does he say, no, God, no to secondly, he says in verse nine and Solomon. Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father. Number two, serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind. For the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. Solomon, the first thing, number one, is you've got to know God. Number two, Solomon, as you know Him, you've got to serve. You've got to serve. If there is a critique, if that's the word I want to use, Maybe it's a negative statement that I hear from a lot of pastors today. Men that are looking for assistance. Men that are looking for youth pastors. If there's a statement that I hear made a lot today, it's this right here. I'm looking for someone that wants to serve. You see, there's a lot of people There's a lot of people, a lot of guys that are looking for a title. There's a lot of guys that are looking for a position. But there's not a lot of guys that want to be at 10 o'clock at night. They don't want to be in the bathroom with a plunger in their hand trying to unstop a toilet. There's a lot of guys that don't want to be picking up the garbage. There's a lot of guys that don't want to be painting any walls. There's a lot of guys, because that doesn't fall in my repertoire of being a preacher. But you see, if you're going to be in leadership, one of the first things you better learn is you better learn the art of serving. If you want people to follow you one day, you better learn how to serve people. And you've heard this said, I'm not saying anything new that hasn't been said from this platform and from behind this pulpit, but the reality is this. If you don't love people, the ministry is the wrong place in the world to be. If you don't like serving people, then go ahead right now and just finish out the semester, finish what you started, and then go do what God wants you to do, because the ministry is all about people. And you're going to run into all different types of people. There are going to be people that are easy to love and there are going to be people that are hard to love. But it's when you have a servant's attitude, you can serve the ones that are easy and you can serve the ones that are hard. But the reality is this, you better learn to serve. The word here that's translated serve throughout the Old Testament is translated in some places to labor for, other places to work for another. In some places it's translated to be enslaved to. You understand that? When he says to Solomon, Solomon, serve him. Enslave yourself to him, Solomon. Make him your master. And as you make him your master, notice what he says, you do this, Solomon, with a perfect heart and with a willing mind. You do it, Solomon, because in your heart there is no other purpose for doing it in your heart. You're doing it because you want to do it, and you're doing it with a willing mind, your desire to serve the Lord. You don't sing. If you sing so that people pat you on the back, if you preach so that people tell you how wonderful you are, how great your homiletics are, how much they just enjoy You're preaching, if that's what you preach, then you've gotten your reward when they pat you on your back. But he says, serve him with a perfect heart, with a willing mind. For the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. In other words, simple interpretation right there, simple translation is, God knows why you're doing it. God knows why you sing. God knows why you teach. God knows why you preach. God knows why everything you do. God knows exactly why you do it. So he says, son, when you do it, you do it with a perfect heart. That's why when Paul says in Galatians chapter 1, when Paul says in Galatians chapter 1 and verse 10, when he says, for do I now persuade men of God? Or do I seek to please men? For yet if I please men, I should not be the servant of Christ. Now notice now what Paul is saying in the book of Galatians. When he says in the book of Galatians, for do I now persuade men or God? The word persuade there in Galatians chapter 1 in verse 10, the word persuade literally means to make myself the friend of. Do I make myself the friend of men or do I make myself the friend of God? Crossroads. And if you're going to go out and you're going to be in leadership, you may be in what you think is the best Independent, fundamental, Baptist church you've ever been in. But you're going to be brought to crossroads. You're going to be brought to places of decision. And you're going to have to figure out, am I going to stand for right? Am I going to make myself the friend of men and compromise? Or am I going to stand for right and make myself the friend of God? I've got to figure out what I'm going to do. I'm at a crossroads. I must make a decision. But the rest of the verse says, for do I now persuade men or God? Do I make myself a friend of men or do I make myself a friend of God? Or do I seek to please men? Do I seek to be a man pleaser? Do I seek to compromise? Do I seek to just keep everybody getting along? Or do I seek to please God. That's the understanding. Because he goes on to say, therefore, if I yet please men, I should not be the servant. Now, notice now, the word servant there, it's the Greek word doulos, which means bond slave. Paul understood he, and you read it in Paul's writings, Paul understood that he was a servant. excuse me, the servant or the bond slave to Christ, Paul understood his responsibility as Christ had purchased him with his own blood, he had redeemed him out of the slave market of sin, set his feet on the solid rock, and as a responsibility to Christ, he made himself that servant. Now, the responsibility of a slave was to do what? Please the Master. The responsibility of a slave is to please the master. And my dear friend, this morning as you sit here, your primary responsibility must be to please the master. So you come to that crossroads. Do I serve men? Do I persuade men? Make myself the friend of men? Or do I make myself the friend of God? Because the moment that I begin to please men, notice what he says in Galatians 1 verse 10. The moment I begin to please men, no longer am I the servant of, no longer am I pleasing Christ. He says, Solomon, when you go out, as you lead this people, serve God. And son, as you serve Him, serve Him with a perfect heart. Serve Him with a willing mind. Because God knows exactly why you're doing it. My son, go out and serve Him. There's an area that I hear preachers complain today when they ask for, I just want somebody to serve. They often say that a lot of young men coming out of our Bible colleges don't have a desire to serve. They don't have a work ethic. They don't have a vision. If I don't tell them to do it, then they don't do it. They can't see the job that needs to be done and just do it. It's like I remember hearing said when I was in school here. Fellas, if you're walking across campus and you see a piece of paper tumbling through the breeze across campus, have enough character to bend down and pick it up. Don't wait on somebody that's on the on the cleaning staff or the Someone that's on the grounds crew to come by and pick it up. Have that character to pick it up. And it's the same way as you serve people as you're in the church. If people are going to get behind you, if you serve people, people will follow your leadership. But if you think that getting out of Bible college buys you the opportunity to go fishing when you want to go fishing, go hunting when you want to go fishing, go golfing when you want to go golfing, then my dear friend, what's going to happen is nobody will want to follow you. And I'm not against golfing. I love to play golf. If Brother Smith had asked me to go today, I'd have gone today, but he didn't ask me to go. I love to go fishing. I love to go hunting. It's deer season. I just as well be swinging in a tree stand right now as doing anything else. But the reality is this. If you want people to follow you, if you've got men that are working 50, 60-hour work weeks, and they're trying to get a hold of you at the church, and they can't get a hold of you because you're swinging from a tree out in the deer woods, it's going to be hard for that man to follow you. That's right. You got to serve. You say, well, my pastor goes golfing all the time. My pastor does this. How long has your pastor been there? See, some of those things come with time because they faithfully served. And David could do things as the king at the end of his life that Solomon wasn't going to be able to do at the beginning of his reign. And all of that comes through serving. So he says, number one, Know God. Number two, serve God. And then number three, and I'll be done. Notice what he says right in the middle of verse nine. A little small two-letter word, but boy, it's big. If thou seek him, he will be found of thee. But if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off forever. Take heed now, for the Lord hath chosen thee to build a house for the sanctuary. Be strong and do it. Solomon, in the hearing of all of this congregation, son number one, you've got to know God. Son number two, you've got to serve God. And as you know Him and as you serve Him, Solomon, be faithful. Be faithful. You say, Brother Abbott, where do you get be faithful right there? You see that little two-letter word I mentioned a moment ago, if? He says, if thou seek Him, He'll be found of thee. In other words, Solomon, if you do this, God will do this. It's a conditional statement. Solomon, if you'll do this, God will do this. But Solomon, you better understand, you better understand this as well. If you don't seek Him, then you better understand, if you forsake Him, He'll cast thee off forever. He'll jerk the kingdom out of your hand. You say, brother, how do you know that? Go back and look at verse 7, if you would, please. He says, moreover, I will establish His kingdom forever. That's a promise from God right there. I will. Conditional statement. He be constant to do my commandments and my judgments as at this day. If Solomon will continue to do later on what he's doing today, I will continue to bless Solomon and continue to take care of his kingdom. But the moment that Solomon says, I can do it myself, I can handle it, I can take care of it. Then he says, here's what will happen. He'll lose it. And my dear friend, if you've read your Bible and you know anything about the life of Solomon, you know what happened. And God is a God of his word. And I'm going to tell you something. You can come here and you can have a head full of knowledge and you can know your Bible frontwards and backwards and have all of it tracked here and miss out on getting the heart knowledge. You can come here and you can go to church and you can get in one of these churches where you're just kind of lost in the crowd and nobody knows what's going on. And you can come in here on Monday morning and you can pull that pink slip. I guess it's still pink. pull that CSR report, that CSR card out of your box in there, and you can write down something on there. Nobody really knows what you did. But in reality, you are not learning to serve. You're not getting to know God. And my dear friend, what will happen, you'll go out in the ministry and you'll forget how to be faithful because you never learned. Because you never learned. You can do the ministry. I remember Pastor Camp said this one time. Pastor Kemp said, if you have been preaching for any amount of time, if a man's been preaching for any amount of time, you can get up and preach for about 30 minutes without too much trouble, without a lot of preparation. Well, I sat there and I thought about that. I thought, man, I've studied the preaching. It's everything I can do to get 15 minutes out, much less just get up without a lot of study for 30 minutes. But then I got in the ministry, Pastor Kemp, and I got busy, and I realized that You can come into the office, and you've got that to-do list. And suddenly, getting along with the Lord, and having your devotions, and suddenly, rather than digging into the Word, you're just scraping off the top there. You're just surfacing. You're not getting down in there and digging things out that's helping you, that you can help other people. And I found out very quickly that you can do the work of the ministry in the arm of the flesh. You can do it. And you'll even see God do some things. But then suddenly it comes to you, and you think, Boy, if I was faithful to what I ought to be faithful to, how much more might I see God doing? I've often wondered how many times God has wanted to bless and meet the needs of Bill Abbott. But because in my pride and in my arrogance, and I tried to handle it myself, and rather than fall on my face before God and seek God to help in this need, I've wondered how many times I've missed out on seeing God do some great things. Because you see, in verse 10, he says, take heed now. Basically, he's just saying right there, pay attention, son. Right here, Solomon, pay attention. For the Lord hath chosen thee to build a house for the sanctuary. Be strong and do it. Here's what he's saying right there. He's saying, Solomon, God's chosen you to do something. If God's called you to preach, sir, He's called you to do something. He's called you to build a work for Him, not for you. God's called you to do something for Him. And in order to be able to do that, you've got to know Him, and you've got to learn to serve Him, and you've got to be faithful through the process. But He says there at the end, be strong and do it. Why does He say, be strong and do it? Well, it's kind of like, years ago, Nike, in their ad campaigns, came out with a slogan. And you saw it everywhere. You saw it on billboards. You saw it on t-shirts. You saw it on hats. You saw it on advertisements. Everywhere you looked, you saw this particular slogan, this particular phrase with Nike. Anybody in here remember what it was? That's right. Just do it. You know what happened? Not only athletes in the United States, but athletes around the world. They grabbed a hold of that slogan. They grabbed a hold of that idea. And when things got hard and when things got tough and when things get when things seem like they were going their worst and when they wanted to quit running, when they wanted to stop playing and when it seemed like the thing to do was just let somebody else take over. No, they said, I've just got to stay in here and go one more play, one more quarter and just keep on going. And young people, I'm going to tell you something. When you go out in the ministry, everybody's not going to love you. Everybody's not going to see the vision that you've got. Everybody's not going to want to go in the same direction you want to go. And there's going to be opposition. And there's going to be times when you're going to feel alone. And there's going to be times when you're going to feel like everybody's against you. But my dear friend, the reality is this. When it gets hard, don't quit. Just do it. He says, Son, there's going to be times when it's going to be tough. There's going to be times when it's not going to be popular. There's going to be times when people are going to stand against you. But as you go through it, be strong and do it. If there's anything we need today, especially in the climate in which we live, when compromise rules the day, when giving in and giving over for the sake of crowds, for the sake of money, for the sake of popularity, heed the advice of the Father. Be strong and do it. You've got to know it. You've got to serve Him. You've got to be faithful. Just do it. Father, we love You this morning. I thank You for the Word of God. I pray, Lord, that in this chapel time, we'll evaluate ourselves. In this room, there are people from all different backgrounds. young people that have grown up in Christian homes, young people that have been saved at an early age, and they've had the wonderful privilege of growing up in Christian school and memorizing Bible verses and sitting in Bible classes. And much of what they sit in in class oftentimes is just a refresher of what they learned when they were in high school. But Lord, may we never glory in our knowledge, but may we allow ourselves to be humbled through the power of the Holy Spirit that we might glean some new truth from some things we've already heard. In this room, there are people that have been saved for a short amount of time. They're learning and they're growing. But as well, Lord, we, too, can become arrogant in our knowledge and miss out on allowing you to work in our hearts. Give us a servant spirit. Give us a work ethic. Give us a desire, Lord, to serve you with our whole heart. Our mind and our soul. Lord, may we continue to be faithful to you. Lord, when times get hard and we struggle. Help us to be reminded of this verse when David says to Solomon, be strong and do it. Lord, may we be faithful to do the things you've called us to do. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.