Good morning. It is an honor to be here and I appreciate getting to see people who've become friends over the years. Brother Surratt, Brother Johnston. We've had dealings together in the ministry. Brother Childs has filled in for me back in the earlier days when I'd go out of town or something I didn't have somebody to preach. I'd get him to come and preach. and helped us out and it was a real blessing this morning to see Billy Cawthorne. We actually worked together at McGuire Nuclear Plant back in the early 70s. I hired in there as a welder and Billy was a young helper and his dad was the general foreman over the welders. And then we ran into each other again down at Rock Hill after I'd got transferred there to start the job out. And then I went to Bible College and came back and they hired me back. And Billy was there as well then and really worked his way up through the company. He did exactly what I had intentions of doing before the Lord intervened. The Lord called me into the ministry. Before that I intended to stay with Duke Power, get a college education. I worked at McGuire Nuclear Plant. I'd drive back to Rock Hill, 65 miles, and then go to business college at night at the local technical institution until 11 o'clock at night and then drive back to McGuire Nuclear Plant the next day. I did that for a year and a half. And then during that time my wife and I got saved and we got active in church and felt the Lord wanted us in the ministry. So we packed up and went to Missouri. Brother Jeff Wills and his wife are members of the church and his son Jason has been a deacon with us for a while and been a member for a long time. And they had good training under Brother Surratt and I appreciate that so much. And when you get members who or want to serve the Lord and they're faithful in church and you don't have to teach them all the basics, you know. They already tithe. And things like that. It's a real blessing to have people join the church that way. So we're thankful. I've got Sam and one of our deacons, Jerry Hood. Some of you know Jerry. He's taken classes here over a few years. And it's a blessing to have these men. In your Bibles this morning in Matthew chapter 16, Verse 18 I'm gonna turn to several passages if you want to turn you can if you don't listen I don't know what you're supposed to do as a student but I'm going to look at about four passages that all deal with the church. In Matthew 16 and verse number 17, Jesus answered and said unto him to Peter, Blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jonah for flesh and blood is not revealed unto thee but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Look over with me if you would at Ephesians chapter 4. And verse 11, Ephesians 4 verse 11, speaking about God giving gifted people to the church, it says, and he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. Verse 12 of chapter 4, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, that we all come in the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God into a perfect man. under the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him and all things which is the head even Christ from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplied according to the effectual working in the measure of every part making increase of the body under the edifying of itself in love. And then if you look back at Corinthians, let me see if I'm in first or second. In first Corinthians chapter 12, I had 2 Corinthians marked because of a verse I was using in a sermon this past weekend. 1 Corinthians 12 and verse 12 says, For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one spirit. Well the body is not one member but many. Then if you would if Colossians chapter 1 and verse 18 and 19 and I'll be through with reading passages about the church. Colossians 1 and verse 18. Scripture says, and he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. All of you are now, and if you do what is right in your life, will always be connected vitally with a local church. In the future, we will be in the bride of Christ. And that is a blessing for us. And it is a distinction from the nation of Israel, the church in Israel, you can be an Israelite and get saved and baptized and become a member of a church today. and be a part of the church today, but there is a special distinction for the nation of Israel that the church does not replace. And the promises to them are still true and will take place. Now, Jesus established the church with the apostles. as the pillars upon the rock foundation of him and his message of salvation so that when we're saved we're grounded on the rock of Jesus Christ and his intention for us then is to be obedient to follow him in believers baptism and become a part of a local church and get busy serving God. You folks have done that. And I'm sure you're going to continue to do that. But old ones around here, we've seen a few who, not from here specifically, but in our life, we've been associated with some people who've failed, who've gotten out of church. who stopped reading their Bible, they quit being a witness for God, they've been hurt, they've got depressed, they've got discouraged, whatever's happened, they've gotten into sin, they've gotten away from the Lord, and when that happens, they get away from the church and their effectiveness for the Lord. Now, we as saved people are part of the body of Christ. As a part of the body, the church is pictured in the New Testament as the body of Christ. He's the head and we are the members of the body. God has purposes for us. He has placed us in the body with gifts to serve and to be equipped. In Ephesians 4, the Bible says God has brought leaders into the church to train the members for the work of the ministry, to edify, to build up, to equip, the members of the church for the work of the ministry. So everybody in the church has got a part. Everybody in the church has got a job. Everybody in the church has got a function. We've got a reason. We've got a purpose. And God is highly involved in that. The church is not the building. Sometimes when people come from other denominations, somebody from a Catholic background or something of that nature, they see a storefront church. And you know, they kind of feel sorry for it. It's not really a church, you know, it doesn't have stained glass windows, and it doesn't have, you know, padded pews and all of that sort of thing. The building is not the church, the people are the church. And I know I'm preaching to the choir today. I know you believe this and you know this and you're taught this. Sadly, some of my brethren have gone in a an area to try to isolate the church from anybody and everybody and they teach a Baptist bride position and things of that nature. Be careful of those extremist views because they're out there. You don't want that in your school and you don't want that in your life. You want to continue to be faithful to serve the Lord throughout your ministry. The church is divine in its origin. It's distinct. It was a mystery to the nation of Israel that Jew and Gentile, male and female could be one in the eyes of God in the church. The ordinances of the church. A young man was graduated from Bible college, and he was supposed to appear before a board for ordination. And he was busy, and he was a little bit lazy, and he just didn't study and get prepared. And so the preacher, the board sat there, and they asked him, they said, tell us what the ordinances of the church are. And he said tithes and offerings. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are the the ordinances that God has given to the church. And those ordinances associate us as an identification with Jesus Christ in His death, burial and resurrection and His coming again. And so the church is important. A love for the church, a knowledge of the church, a working of the church. We are blessed in our church. We have seven adult classes. And they're all taught by people who've either graduated from Bible college or had Bible college training or they've been in the ministry. And we've got, it's a real blessing to have that kind of level of people of knowledge to teach and train our people. So I want you to look first at the meaning of the church. In the Greek ekklesia, two words joined together means a called out assembly. and it is more than just a gathering. The synagogue was a gathering place. It was like the forerunner of the church. And the church gathers us together, but it gathers us together in a calling from the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the problems we have in churches a lot of times, we create ourself that we go out and solicit people to come to the church and invite them and evangelize them and all that sort of thing And instead of letting God work in their heart, sometimes we convince them to come and be a part of our church when the Lord hasn't led them there in the beginning. And then those are usually people that won't stay and cause problems and things of that nature. Jesus Christ is building His church. And if we join with Him in the duties that He's given us to do and let Him build His church, He'll give us the people that we need to do the jobs that are needed to be done. If we're not taking care of the people God has put under our trust, why should he give us more people to put under our trust if we're not doing what we should with those we minister to? Church is more than an organization, it's an organism. It's a living thing. And the Lord is the head of it. And we are members of that. And it's our job to do the work that God has called us to do. The church is more than an educational meeting, though it is a place for great education in the Bible, the Bible itself and the theology of the Bible. We learn that in a good church if we go for a long period of time. I have people all the time who come to me and say, you know, I've been coming to this church for about a year and I came from whatever denominational background and I've learned more about the Bible in this year than I've learned my whole life in the churches that I went to. And that's not an uncommon thing, it happens quite often. Because too many people just want to control the people to get their money for denominational reasons and they're not really teaching them the Bible. And one reason I love this school is because you teach people the Bible and the theology of it. Church is more than a government meeting. An assembly for a town assembly could use that same word. It is a called assembly. But it's not called together by Jesus Christ to do His work and have His authority and His function placed upon it. The early church had great power. In Acts chapter 4 verse 33 the Bible says they had great power in people being saved and in God doing miraculous things. Great grace was upon them in that day. And there was a fear and a respect for God and the awesomeness of God's power in working in the lives of people that we've lost a lot of today. that it's a routine thing for people to go to church today and not see it as the greatness of God and the power of God and the miraculous working of God. And so they fail quite often to have a real fear and respect for God like the early church had. There was a greatness about the early church. What they bound on earth was bound in heaven. The church has authority. When a church does business, when a church does discipline, it ought to always do discipline broken hearted. But when it does discipline, it has the authority of God. And when God disciplines somebody, He wants to use the church for them to be made aware of their sin with the hope they will repent of their sin and be restored to the church that has disciplined them. That early church had 3,000 saved and then 5,000 saved. They had people giving sacrificially in a way that was unbelievable. They had land or something. They sold it and brought the money and gave it, all of it, so that it could be used to distribute among those who had needs. There was growth. There was ministry. There was a greatness in their history. There was a greatness in their purpose. Evangelizing the lost. from the establishment of the church under Jesus Christ, it's empowerment by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, it's scattering of believers because of persecution. They established churches and spread the gospel in a few short years. We have a hard time just getting the gospel now in this day and time. They boldly, where no man had gone before. If you get into ministry full time whatever you're doing in secretarial work or teacher or a pastor or a missionary or you graduate and until God opens a door for you full time in the ministry you do as Matthew did. Now he had a double incentive he didn't have time to tell you all about. He kind of had his eyes on a particular girl whose dad was the pastor of the church where he went and worked for three years you know. So he had a double incentive for working but I'm so thankful to see men who are willing to work a job when there's not a full time position available for them in a church and be willing to do the kind of work that you would even if you were full time on the staff of the church. I remember a brother O'Brien that we support in Canada that Sam took our young people the other day of the month to visit with them as a mission trip and help put on a Sunday school and VBS and some things like that while they were up there on a mission trip. And I remember the history that he had where he graduated from Bible college and he helped another brother who started church and worked a job for a few years and then surrendered for missions and went on his deputation, raised his support and went to the mission field. There is a a greatness about the purpose we do that would cause us to do that, cause us to give up a career, cause us to say no to just wealth that's not in God's plan for our life, to evangelize the lost, to edify believers. build up believers. There are as this young man gave testimony this morning there are so many people in the South who may be saved but they have not been discipled. They're not active in church not faithful in church. They don't know if they're saved or not because they feel their life is not perfect or as holy as it should be. When all along what they need is somebody to take them aside and disciple them and get them active in church and get them involved in some way and it's amazing what can be accomplished when believers are edified. Our job is to equip the saints to prepare them with what they need to do the work that God has called them to do. Sam is tremendous in this kind of thing with our church. that getting visitation cards printed and helping people to get motivated to get out on visitation and have a plan of canvassing an area and things like that. It's a great help to equip the people so they have what they need to go and do the job that we would like to see them do. You're gonna have to endure in the ministry. This year will be 39 years since we started the church. We had no backing, no denominational backing, no church backing. We had one church that I put myself under to start the church, but there was nothing financial that came from them. I worked a full-time job for a year while the church was getting going to keep my family supported. And there were a lot of trials and difficulties. and sometimes even persecution as the early church went through. We see that in the foreign fields right now with some who, because of Islam, have persecuted Christianity to the point that where once the seven churches of Asia Minor were in the country we know as Turkey today, and today there's almost no percentage of Christianity that could in any sense be public because of the control of Islam and the persecution of Christian people. We have to encourage others. You want to do something that people will really like, you want to make yourself friendly so people will like you, be an encourager. Listen to other people and let them know you want to encourage them and pray for them about their needs being met. Many people need desperately some encouragement because life has got them so beat down. You enable the fallen to be restored. Galatians 6, 1 and 2 says, Ye that are spiritual restore such in one that is taken in a fall. It's important that we help people who falter to know that God still loves them like the father waiting on the prodigal son to come home. God wants his wayward children to come back to him and find forgiveness and restoration. We are to elect leaders, ordain elders and deacons. We just ordain one new deacon. and elected two more that were already ordained serving. And so we have seven deacons and two men who serve on the finance committee and they are a great help and a blessing in the church. I remember in the early days we hardly had a man in the first 100 people in attendance of our church. We hardly had a man who was biblically qualified to serve as a deacon. And there's a vast difference in the congregation today than what it was 38 years ago of the quality of Christianity and the knowledge of people that God has given us today. It's important that we don't forget to enjoy the journey. You can get overloaded in Bible college with trying to work and go to school. I know I did it too. I worked full time and went to business college. I worked full time and went through Bible college. My wife kept having babies while we were in college and we started with one and graduated and then had four and now I've got 13 grandchildren. They keep multiplying for some reason and they're a blessing in our life. But when you're working 40 hours a week and going to school full time and sleeping about three or four or five hours a night, it's easy to just kind of get dull. and not be rejoicing and not be as happy as we ought to be as believers who've been saved by the grace of God. And it's important that we enjoy the journey we're going through. I've been married for 46 years, almost 47. And I've been at the same church for 38 years, almost 39. And I have to remind myself at times with the hours putting in that I'm enjoying what God has asked me to do and the blessings that He has bestowed upon me. We need to enlarge our tent. If we're going to enlarge our tent, we have to drive our stakes down deeper and lengthen the cords. We've got to get spiritually strong if we're going to enlarge the amount of people that we work to and minister to. I remember Southern Baptist group over in York County had a camp meeting one time. They got one of these gigantic tents and it had truck axles that they drove down in the ground and tied off with ropes and it would seat 750 people under that tent. And a storm came up before the first night and a little whirlwind got that tent and it jerked those axles out of the ground and threw them over the top and into some of the cars that were parked over on the other side of the people there early. And I thought about that passage of scripture where if you're going to enlarge your tent you've got to drive your stakes down deeper and you've got to lengthen the cords in order to do that. And it's important that we continue to do that throughout our ministry. I don't get to quit studying. I don't get to take it easy. I don't get to just sit back and say, well, I've been doing this all this time. I can handle it with no problem. No, I've got to have something fresh for people or they're going to real easily get tired of listening to me three times a week preach to the same people. The same will happen with you. We enlighten believers. We enroll new members. We establish order and peace in the church. We esteem godly leaders. We rejoice to have the the ensemble, the big ensemble and brother Alton came and we really enjoyed the music and enjoyed the testimonies, enjoyed brother Alton singing and preaching and I'm gonna tell people this morning now, I'm gonna call Steve Triplett when I leave here and I'm gonna say I sang a duet with Alton this morning. I stood beside him up here on the platform while we were singing and I tried to sing tenor when we got on those high notes. I didn't do too good but I sang low enough that y'all couldn't hear me. We esteem godly leaders in our church. We honor evangelists who come with us. We honor missionaries who we support. We honor the professors of this college and the president of this college. They are people of God and they should be honored. And because they labor in the Word and ministry, they ought to receive double honor. We always should show them respect and sit at their feet and gain all that we can gain from them in the teaching of the Word of God. We examine ourselves in the faith. We excel for Christ. We exalt the Bible and the Lord to people. Because that's what it's all about. It's not about us. It's about God. It's about the Word. It's about salvation for sinners and the church. We ought to be expecting Christ's return. We ought to long for it, look for it, expect it, live expectantly that we could go stand before Christ at any time. And that's the greatest motivation that I know of to keep me close to the Lord. and doing what I ought to be doing, believing that Jesus could come at any time. We eye the needs of others in order to reach them. Jesus said to his disciples, look out on the fields. They're white already unto harvest. There's a greatness in the church's history and a greatness in the church's purpose. There's a greatness in the church's task. We are to herald the message of good news We are to give them the Word of God. Read again yourself Luke 4.18 where Jesus opened the book, the Bible in the synagogue in Nazareth and read from Isaiah 61 the reading of the Word of God for that day. about the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor and to set the captives free and to heal those that are bruised and bound. He said this is what my ministry is and my purpose is. Anytime you see the Lord say I must do this or this purpose is why I'm here. Those are things you ought to pay special attention to because whatever was his purpose is now our purpose. He has entrusted us with the work of the ministry. There's a greatness in the people of God. I'm not talking about numbers. I'm not talking about buildings. I'm not talking about offerings. I'm talking about the character of the people of God in the church. Those who love God and love one another will be known by their love as the disciples of Jesus Christ. There's a greatness in our founder. And if we love Him as we should and love others, we'll fulfill all the things that the Lord would have us to do. If you get people in your church who love the Lord, you won't have to plead with them to get them to come to church. You won't have to figure out gimmicks and campaigns and all that kind of thing to try to get them to be faithful. If they love the Lord, they're going to do that because they love the Lord. They'll give, they'll witness, they'll study. The church is a pillar and ground of the truth. I've passed one point, the meaning of the church. I have 14. But I won't go over chapel, I promise. There's the message of the church, the preaching of the gospel. There's the marks of the church. I want to spend a minute there because some of you are going to have marks by the time you graduate Bible college. And many of you are going to have marks in the ministry. I'm talking about scars. I'm talking about what you're going to go through in order to serve the Lord. I believe some of the people God has used the most. He has allowed them to be hurt the most. And you will get your heart broken on a regular basis. You'll wet your pillow with tears. The carpet in your office will be soaked. You'll find places where you go get along with God and you pour your heart out and you weep your eyes out because things don't always work out the way you wanted them to and people will let you down and disappoint you. People will fail you but God will never fail you. In Galatians 6, 17 the Apostle Paul said, let no man trouble me. the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ, I bear those. I got a lot of scars in my life, but it's not all because of serving the Lord. I went roller skating with a church group, and before I became a pastor, and broke my ankle, and they had to put a plate in it and pins in it and put it back together, and I got a good bit of arthritis in it now. It's a lot bigger on the right ankle than it is the left ankle. That's some scars, nasty looking. They cut me on both sides of the ankle, you know, to fix that thing. I've got scars under both arms where I had chest tubes inserted when I got wounded in the chest in Vietnam. My right leg was almost severed. And they sewed it back together after a couple of months with stainless steel wire. So it left some pretty nasty stitches. I saw a Hollywood movie about the war and doctors were sewing up young men who were wounded and the doctor said, hey, this guy's a private, let's give him a real big scar so he'll have something to talk about. I think that's what happened to me. I wrecked a motorcycle and broke my shoulder bone out of the socket. Had 18 staples holding it together where they screwed it back together with screws. Cracked my shoulder blade and my collarbone and had six breaks in my ribs. I've got a lot of scars. But I've got some scars from the ministry also. Paul said he bore scars and we know Paul. We read about him. Three times he was beaten with rods. Five times he received 39 stripes. He was in prison and beaten. Shackled and stoned. Stoned and left dead. But the Lord raised him up. He was shipwrecked. He spent a night and a day in the deep He hungered and thirst and was weary all to preach the gospel and proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ for others to be saved. The Judaizers were those that were troubling him at that time. And he said, let no man trouble me. What marks are you going to bear in the ministry? Are you willing to bear marks? The ministry can have a lot of hardship. That's why Paul said endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. You have to endure a certain hardness now. It's not going to get easier because you get in the ministry that you get up early in the morning and you study late in the night and you go to the classes and you do something at your church and you do something in your job. That's not going to just stop because you graduate from Bible college. Matter of fact it might get elevated. There may be more work to do. There's the ministry of the church that we have to do. There's the maturity of the church. Thank God for those maturing in the faith. They are better equipped to do the work that God has for us. There's the memorial of the church which is the Lord's Supper. And if the Lord's Supper is done right in a church it can literally bring about revival. Because people ought to repent of their sins and draw close to God before they partake. And if we get everybody in the church to do that, it can make a real difference afterwards in how they live. Pray up and clean up and forgive others and all those kinds of things. I remember I got in my car and took off out of Rock Hill one day to go to Dunn, North Carolina to preach a revival meeting for a church there. And that was several hours of drive. And it was right after Hurricane Hugo. So there was a lot of roads that still had detours and things like that. And I remember saying, you know, I really want my life to be clean and right with the Lord. I want to have the power of God. I'm gonna pray and just confess to God anything I can think of that I've said or done or anything like that, you know, to make sure there's nothing on my heart. And I prayed for two solid hours just continually thinking of things I've said and things I've done and things that I've been offensive to someone about or things of that nature. Well, if we'd spent a little more time judging ourself, we wouldn't experience the chastening of the Lord. There's the music of the church which sets the spirituality of the church. You can gauge the spirituality of the church by the music that they use. There's the ministers of the church. Seven metaphors Paul used. Teachers, soldiers, athletes, workmen, farmers, a vessel, and a slave. Characteristics of all these you have and will have in the ministry. The missions of the church. We've been very pleased to last, I don't know, five, six years or more and send $100,000 a year to missions. And we're thankful for that. We'd like to do more. Right now we're supporting all of the missionaries that we have funds coming in to support. It doesn't do God any good to sit in the bank. Put it in the ministry. And don't forget about the menace of the church. I got about four more, but it's time for me to quit. The menace of the church is Satan. Until he's chained in the bottomless pit during the kingdom, he's going to be a problem. He's going to be a problem in your life. He's going to be a problem in your ministry. The more you do for God, the more you stand up for Jesus Christ, the greater target you become for the enemy. Be careful of pride. Peter said, Lord, all of these will deny you, but I'll never deny you. Jesus said, Peter, you have no idea what you've just said. Peter said, we're not going to let you go to the cross. Jesus said, get thee behind me, Satan. Some of the people in the church that can be used the most can also become a tool that Satan can use to hurt the church, cause trouble. I don't have all the answers of how to avoid any of that sort of thing. I don't have all the answers of the best way to handle dealing with all those things. A lot of it is trial and error. A lot of it you can call brother out and back and say hey you didn't teach me this in Bible college you know. You learn how to study and what to study and the basics of theology and the basics of the doctrines of the Bible and the rest of that when you get out is going to be up to you to continue to grow. and to put into practice in your daily life. You listen to these professors, every once in a while they'll get off their subject and they'll share personal testimony of something they've been through. Remember that. It'll be valuable to you down the road. You're going to face some of the same things they faced. God help you. Thank you for being faithful in college and learning so that you can serve the Lord in a greater way. I pray God will use you greatly. Father, bless this assembly, we pray. Thank you for allowing us to be a part. We pray you'll use it for your own honor and glory. And be a help and a blessing to these, your people, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.