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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.
The Greatness of the Church
Series Spring Semester 2018
| Sermon ID | 8172163019703 |
| Duration | 37:46 |
| Date | |
| Category | Chapel Service |
| Bible Text | Matthew 16:17-18 |
| Language | English |
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