He hadn't preached in that place before. I love your place. I love coming here. I've been in your services a time or two. And I love it because I'm excited about what's going on here. Every time I come, it's like, there's more people. Pretty soon you're going to need shoehorn and a can of Crisco for every usher to get people in the pews, you know, to get them in here. That's a good thing. But I heard about a fellow who went to a place like that, like what you guys are having, where things are tight. People are squeezing in because they just don't run out of room, you know. And he got to preaching along, and he realizes he's preaching, he's on the first point, and he realized his shirt tail came out. And so, you know, he's wearing his suit and everything, and he reached back and tucked his shirt tail in real good, and he got along on that second point, and he's really going at it. And he's preaching and pounding, and pretty soon he felt the breeze again, and he said, man, my shirt tail's out again. And so he reached down again and tucked it in. And the third time, he got rolling on it. He's on that last point. He's really going after it. And that shirt tail came out again. And you know, he said, you know, I've got to do something about that. And he reached in and he, with one mighty tug, shoved that thing as far down as he could. And about that time, something hit him right in the back of the head. And to his absolute, absolute embarrassment, he realized he had just tucked the American flag down his pants. Yeah, I know. I've already located both of them. I'm good. I'm really good. I'm really good. Well, I am so excited. I have been here for a couple of days. I was here in July. I came out just, my wife and I, my son and his daughter, we were here to see Brother Wendell Correll and Greg and Sherry and we just needed a break, you know, just needed to get away a little bit. And Greg would not stop talking about this church. And he drove me crazy. He just kept talking, and he wanted, we wanted to go do things. Greg said, come, let's go by the church. I want you to see what's going on at church. Came over to church, and who was here? Brother Steve. And he's out in the parking lot, and he's telling me. And Scotch was out there in the parking lot too. And I mean, I just kept hearing about all the things that are going on here. And it gets me excited. I love being at a place where things are going on, where people are being saved. You know, it's not every church that's having people saved on a Wednesday night. You know what? A lot of churches are way more interested in swapping sheep than they are birthing lambs. And I'm telling you, I love the fact that you guys are trying to reach people for the Lord Jesus Christ. We live in an area that's similar to this area in that there's a lot of churches around us. A lot of churches. And there are people that are familiar with Springfield, Missouri. And the Bible College is there. There's Assembly of God College. There's an independent Baptist college 30 minutes away. There's a Southern Baptist school. And there's all kinds of churches all over the place. And people who really don't know much about the area will say to me, what's it like there in Springfield? Everybody's saved there. You're just kind of taking it easy, huh? And I'm telling you what. It's like here, all these church buildings were built by folks a generation or two ago, and this generation's got to be reached. And there's people whose mamas and daddies may have been believers, but they're not. And there's people just like in Springfield, there's people all around you. There's people in the shadow of this church building and who live within a stone's throw of where many of you live who do not know Jesus Christ as their Savior. And the only hope that they've got to hear Him is if somebody will get under the burden and do what they can do to reach Him. I'm so glad to know that the Lord does not require results from me when it comes to that. Aren't you? What does the Lord require of us? He wants us to be faithful. He wants us to be faithful in every area of our life. And one of those areas that He requires us to be faithful in is in the area of sharing the Gospel. of reaching people. You know, one of the things that I appreciate about what I'm seeing here is that the people that the Lord sent in your way, you're taking seriously the fact that every one of those people is an eternal soul. Every one of them. Every one of those folks that walk in this door, that's an eternal soul. That person is going to spend eternity in either heaven or hell. Isn't that right? And we can get involved in so many wonderful, wonderful things. And we ought to be. But we should never, ever miss the point that God sends folks to us and as soon as they come under the umbrella of our influence, we have a responsibility to make sure that we know where they are spiritually. Isn't that right? Isn't that what the Lord requires of us? If not, and I've often wanted to ask, Brother Steve, I've often wanted to ask the Lord why He didn't do it this way. Because He could have got some angels or some orators and it sure would have been easy on the rest of us. Wouldn't it be good for somebody to preach and give the invitation? Somebody gets saved and then... I call it the individual rapture theory. I mean, wouldn't that be cool? You just get saved and boom, you're out of here. Go on to heaven. But that's not how the Lord did it. In fact, if you'll look in the book of Ephesians, I want you to see that God put a plan together, and the plan to reach this world is through local churches, just like this one. Look in Ephesians 4. Now, I want to make sure you understand the context. I like it because the name of this church right here, Unity Baptist, that's really what this chapter starts with. He begins to talk about it, and he says, therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. Now who is he talking to? That's the first question. This book was written to whom? Anybody know? That's exactly right. It was written to a local church just like this one right here. It was written to the church at Ephesus. And Paul is writing and he is saying to this church, I, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you. He said, I am begging you that you will walk worthy of the vocation. Vocation. What's a vocation? Okay. What would you say a vocation is of the believer? Okay. What else? Winning souls is something we as believers do. What's our vocation? What's that? Discipleship. I heard somebody else say serving the Lord. Yeah, that's it. Salvation. Discipleship. Service. Isn't that something, Brother Steve? We've been talking about that all day, haven't we? Salvation, discipleship, service. Reach, teach, and minister. That's what God has called us to do. And not only has He called us to do it, He's not talking to the preacher here. He's talking to the local church. He says, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called with all loneliness and meekness, with longsuffering, than forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. So he is saying as we do this, this is not something that we're going to do by ourselves. Look at what he's talking about. There's a one another there, isn't there? With all lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another in love. That one another tells me that I can't do it without you and you can't do it without me. There's a one another there. And God has called us to a vocation as a local church, right? God has put this church in this place to do a particular job for Him. So you know what some folks have the idea? Some folks have the idea that when they hire a pastor, and that's the way they talk, we're going to hire us a pastor. Just for the fun of it, hold your finger here and I want you to look over at Acts 13. And I want you to see what God does. when God calls somebody and sends them to a place. Look at Acts 13. In Acts 13, I know that we're talking about a missionary journey here. That church at Antioch, a lot of folks say, well, that model church at Jerusalem. No, the model church was here at Antioch. That's what I believe. That model church was at Antioch. And what did they do at Antioch? At Antioch, there were people that were there being faithful. And I'm not going to take the time to read the verses, but they were being faithful. They were doing what God called them to do. And among them was Saul and Barnabas. And the Holy Spirit of God spoke to that church and said, separate unto me Barnabas and Saul for the work I have called them. And look at verse 3, "...and when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away." Alright? So, who sent them in verse 3? But look at verse 4, "...so they being sent forth by..." Hmm. Is that a contradiction? No. The Holy Spirit of God led the church, and the Holy Spirit of God led that man, And God put those two together. Isn't that right? Some folks have the idea that when they, quote, hire a pastor, that they're hiring a spiritual butler. He's the one that we call to do the spiritual things that we need done. We have a little bell, ding-a-ling-a-ling. We call the cell phone. And we have our little bell and we ding-a-ling-a-ling our spiritual butler because we need somebody to come and do something spiritual for us. Now, here's what I know about this church. Y'all are a working bunch. You don't operate that way, I don't think. And I'm telling you right now, that's not a biblical model, is it? Look back at Ephesians and I want you to see what the Bible says about this. If you slip on down, he begins to talk about some things that happened. Basically, he's saying that it's the Lord that put these folks together. If you look down at verse 7, don't miss this, but unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore, he says, when He ascended upon high, He laid captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Alright? So stay with me. He's talking about this church This local church, he said, I want you to walk worthy of the vocation where you're called and what you're going to do, you're going to do together with all lowliness of mind, humbleness, meekness, forbearing one another. Together, we're going to bear this thing along and we're going to do it together because we need the help, right? Are you with me on that? Then look what he says. Remember that he says in verse 7 and 8 that he's given gifts to every person. Alright? And then when he comes down to verse 11, notice what he says about those gifts. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. Now, we can argue and fuss about what all those things mean. I don't think you need to. I think they're pretty well clear. But the ones we recognize Apostles, prophets, He gave those to the church in those initial days. Right? And now evangelists, some folks say, well, I don't have the gift of evangelism. Listen, we don't need a gift. We have a command to evangelize. And I believe the gift here, and you and I may not agree on this, and that's alright. I'm not going to fuss about it, but I believe the gift of evangelism is somebody who personally has a passion to reach lost people for Christ, and who has not only the passion, but the ability to provoke others to do the same thing, to train others, to bring people on, to remind people that there are lost people everywhere. But notice what he says. He gave the apostle prophets evangelists, and then this last one, pastors and teachers. Okay? For the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry. Alright? And for the perfecting. Anybody know what that word perfect is? When you read about it in the Bible, and he's writing and talking to believers, and he talks about, I want you to be perfect. Is he talking about sinless? That's not possible, is it? What's he talking about? What's that? Maturity. He's talking about how we grow in the Lord, right? He's talking about starting here. We all start at the beginning places. We all get saved. We all get baptized. Right? Those are those beginning steps. And then we begin to grow in the Lord. We begin to grow in the Lord. Now let me ask you something. Once in a while you have a discipleship class, you told me, right? Yeah, we do too. In Springfield, we have a lot of individual discipleship that goes on. Sometimes one of our disciples will disciple a couple of people. Shane was, that was kind of Shane's baby for the last couple of years. Richie's done it before, he's doing it again. But in our church, we are very intentional about this whole issue of discipleship in a similar way that you are. But let me ask you, what is the goal of discipleship? What is the goal of the Turing and the Faith? I'm with you, Scott. Stay with it. Here's the way I say it to the group I used to teach from time to time. We're in the neighborhood. In fact, we may even be in the right street. Let's pull up in front of the house and get the car in the garage on this thing. The goal of discipleship is service. It's not just knowledge. Maturity in the faith is not somebody who knows their Bible. That's going to scare people to death. I want you to understand. Now, you will know your Bible if you're growing. Otherwise, how do you know to grow? It's the Word of God that the Holy Spirit of God uses to do the work of God in the heart and lives of the people of God. Isn't that right? It's the Word of God. We have to know the Word in order to know what we're supposed to do. But it's not for informational purposes. It's not even for educational purposes. The goal of discipleship is not a fat Christian. Now look at me. I've got liposuction scheduled next week. I've invented a home liposuction kit. It's an eight foot piece of one inch clear plastic tubing, a roll of duct tape, and a Stanley razor knife. Only as good as your shop vac? Yeah, be real careful though, because trying to get a kidney back in after it goes through that filter is really a hard thing. You don't want to do that, do you? No, seriously. It's not about us getting fat in our knowledge of who the Lord is. We have to exercise those spiritual muscles. We are to put to work what we know. It's not enough, as my wife says, to come in and sit, soak, and sour. What we take in, we need to be giving out all the time. We have that responsibility. You say, what are you talking about? That every believer has been given gifts to edify, to build up the church. We will see that in just a second. Every believer. Every believer in the body has a part and a place. And the body, this church body that has been so laid out clearly in Scripture. I know your pastors taught you this stuff. But that body has to function. And every member, every part has a function. And when there's a part that's not functioning, the whole body suffers. You're not moving along if your toe's hurting. You're not moving along as quick as you would if your toes were in pretty good shape. Anybody ever had an ingrown toenail? Oh man, that toe's not very big compared to some of the rest of us, you know. But I'm telling you that if your toe is hurting, it's going to hinder you. You're going to spend a whole lot of time. You know, sometimes when the church is hurting, one member is hurting. You know what the Bible says about all that. We have that responsibility. I am telling you that when one of us is not doing what we can do, then the whole church is hindered to some degree or another. You believe that? Getting awful quiet in here. Really? All right. Well, let's look. I want you to look at what it says here. It says, He gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, some pastors, teachers, for the perfecting of the saints. So we talked about this maturing of the saints. And then He says, for the work of the... What is it? Verse 12. For the work of the ministry. The root word is minister. What does that word mean? We talk about it in religious terms, but what does it mean? Serve. Yeah, absolutely. Meet and eat. Serve. Somebody that ministers is one who serves. Did you know that this particular word, if we all read Greek, this is exactly the same Greek word that describes a deacon. A deacon is a servant. It literally comes from a word that means to wait on tables. That's literally what it means. And the idea is that he's sent pastor-teachers for the maturing of the saints so that they can do the work of serving. You see that? That's what he's saying here. And then the next part, for the edifying of the body of Christ. The word edify, what does it mean? Build up. That's right. So catch what's going on. There's a pastor-teacher that's given to the church, right? And that pastor-teacher's job is for the perfecting or the maturing of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Who is it that is to be doing the work of the ministry? All of us. All of us. Isn't that right? Every single one of us. to be involved in the work of the ministry. Now, I want to show you, by way of illustration, I want to show you a picture that happens in a lot of places. It's not happening here. Maybe it is happening here to some degree. It happens in our place, I can tell you that. Really, it happens in virtually every church to some degree or another. You've heard it said, probably, That 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. Right? In any church. And that's a pretty good anecdotal thing. I don't know that that's necessarily true in a healthy church. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not. I doubt if that's true here. from everything I hear and everything I see going on, all the things that you all are doing to bring people here all the time. I mean, you stack people in here, and then this guy says, yeah, we're going to have a friend day too. We don't have enough room for everybody who's coming now, but we're going to have a friend day. You know what that is? That's faith. And he says that you all... He tells me that he's bragging on you. He says, yep, these folks right here, they believe that God will do something with them if they come. And so they're willing to make adjustments. Man, I wish it was so easy at our place. It takes us a while, doesn't it? You all are amazing. You all are amazing. But the reality is that even in a church like this one, though, there are some folks that do more than others and who have to take on where others aren't taking up their part of the responsibility. So when the whole body's not functioning the way that it should, then somebody's got to pick up the slack to keep it moving. Isn't that right? Well, Steve, will you stand up right here for a second? Now, remember me telling you about those churches that hire themselves a spiritual butler? Alright? Here's our spiritual butler right here. Now, you all don't treat him that way. I know. He doesn't feel like you treat him that way, at least as far as I know. And but here's the thing. These are the people that Bro. Steve can minister to. All right. So Bro. Steve, how you doing with that? Look it over. What color is it? It's green. Is it not tied pretty good? You think the air is going to hold? You do, really? All right. So you're taking good care of that one. Don't lose it. God's given you that. Actually, I'm not God. But this is one of your congregations. You've got to take good care of them. All right? Here's another one. We've got racial diversity here. OK? We like all colors. Yes, we do. And inspect that one. Look it over. What is it? It's a blue balloon. It's a blue balloon. Good balloon. Hold it there. Squeeze it a little bit. Yeah, put a little pressure on it. Think it's a good one? I think so. How you doing with it? You're hanging on, no problems? You're doing good, all right. Well, they had twins. All right, now you need to look these over and make sure these, these both came the same Sunday. And so look them over pretty good. Can you check the knots real good? Put a little pressure on them. Don't let the green one fall. All right, all right. Yeah. Well, guess what? Your bus workers, they brought you another one. Alright. Alright. There's another one. Folks, I mean, folks are doing good. You all are doing the job. You're bringing people. Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh. Richie, help it. That's just one. That's just one. Come on. Hang on. Hang on. Let me see. Let me see this one here. You got this one? Alright, now. We don't want to lose any. If these are people, are they important? How important are they? Oh my! How important are they? If these are people, how important are they? Huh? Very important. Alright. You got a better grip this time. Alright. Bring them on. Okay. Alright. Get that nose right up against that one, Brother Steve. Alright, hang on a second. That's not going to work. Alright, need a few more. No, don't have any duct tape, but let me tell you what you do have. You got Scott. It's about time to call Scott to help you. Scott, can you come and help us Steve? I think he's already got one down. Alright, you got one. Alright, now brother Steve is going to need some help. Alright, now brother Steve, I think he's reached capacity, right? Scott took, he just took one off the floor that had fallen and he took one off the top. That means brother Steve ought to be able to handle one more here, right? That one needs a little more. You got him there brother Steve? Don't let him fall. Alright, hang in there. All right. All right. Now, here's the thing. Sister, I'm going to do that. Preacher, I need you bad. Preacher, I need you bad. I understand. Preacher, I need you real bad. I'm here for you. Preacher. All right. All right. You got her? Scott, you're doing good, man. Scott's doing good. You got all these people. Uh-oh. Yeah, you just said you had her. You had her. Here's a smaller one. Let's see if you can handle this one. You got that one there? Alright. Now, look. Here's the thing. Sorry, Richard. Here's the thing. Every person in this room, including your pastor, has a capacity for the ministry that they can do. Isn't that right? Now, he's a vocational minister. Isn't that right? He walks worthy of the vocation to which he's been called. He's the pastor. And as the pastor, he's got everything he can get his arms around. Isn't that right? And it's not enough because sister, I need you now is on the phone. Right? And so at this point, if the only one that is doing, remember, the work of the ministry? Do you understand that if he's the only one doing the work of the ministry, then in order for him to deal with sister so-and-so, then what's got to happen? He's got to let some of these things go. Now let me tell you how a pastor feels. Kids, you can have these after services over if you want. But here's the point. Let me tell you how a pastor feels when a balloon hits the ground. In other words, when there's more of him that's needed than there is of him to go around. What he feels like is that the ministry is at a complete bottleneck. And what he needs to do is he needs to recognize his position is not so much to be the spiritual butler when people ring the bell, but rather, as Ephesians 4 says, the equipper of the saints for the work of the ministry. For the edifying or the building up of the body of Christ. Till we all come. What does it say? In what? Unity? Unity of what? The faith? Knowledge of the Son of God? So, knowledge of the Son of God, that's salvation. Unity of the faith, discipleship. I mean, it's all right there. It's all right there. Every one of us have responsibility. This church, I believe, you guys, this is what I really believe, I'm so excited. You can't be around Him. Every time I turn around, He's talking about this person that got saved, that person that got saved. We baptized this many. We do this. And these folks out here, they're winning their friends. They're bringing their friends. I mean, He won't shut up. He just talks about that stuff all the time and He's excited about it. You all, I believe, are on a launching pad, absolutely on a launching pad, to reach this area for Christ. Let everybody else have their programs and swap the sheep and do whatever they're doing. Thank God when you see them and they're reaching people, celebrate with them. They are not our enemy. Anybody that's winning people with Jesus is our friend, aren't they? And we want to treat them that way. But we don't want to look as if we're satisfied that because there's a church down here, well, we'll let them reach those down there, and there's one down here, we'll let them reach those. No! All of us have to work together in order to do what God has called us to do to reach as many folks as we can until He calls us home. That's what He's left us here to do. So if God has given this church a purpose, And I believe he has, Matthew 28, 19, 20. Jesus, when he left this earth, after he rose from the grave, he said, look, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore, teach all nations. And he, at that point, laid out the great commission of salvation, discipleship, and service. He said, I'm not going to leave you without the Holy Spirit in Acts 1.8. You'll go, you'll be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, under the uttermost parts of the earth. And we see over and over again, Paul started these churches, people were one to Christ, Paul moved on. What happened with the churches? They hired him a spiritual butler. No they didn't. They never hired them a spiritual butler. Those people took on the responsibility of ministering to the saints and reaching those that are outside. Isn't that right? That's the New Testament pattern. I'm telling you that this guy right here needs your help. He's already got it. He feels the support and the love and the encouragement. He didn't pay me to say this. He's excited about it. But I'm telling you, I know what it's like. I've lived it. I've walked it. And I know what it is to have people who are encouraging me, strengthening me along the way, and people who will come and pick up a balloon that falls. Somebody that will say, you know what, preacher? Third graders? How many third graders in this town? Anybody know? We've got a couple of them in the church. You know what we're likely to do? We're likely to think we'll get 12 or 13 or 15 third graders. And man, we're killing a big one. Until we figure out how many elementary schools there are in this town. and how many classes of third graders there are in each elementary school, and how many kids in each one of those classes. And we get to thinking, you know what, who's going to reach those third graders if we don't do it? Preacher, I'll be one that'll reach third graders. I'll be one that'll reach third graders. You know what, Preacher, how many people in this church do we have that are 80 years old? What's the demographic of the 80-year-olds in Danville and the environs of Danville? Well, those people, I mean, humanly speaking, those people are closer to the end than we are. Some of us, right? Who's reaching them? Who's going after them? Who's taking the gospel to them? You might say, well, preacher, I'll do that. I'll be one. You say, well, we've got 30. We've got 20. We've got 10. That's great. But how many of them are there out there? Preacher, I can't do everything, but I can do something. Preacher, I'm willing to do what I can do to come alongside you and together, if you'll equip me the way Ephesians 4 says, how to do it, I'll come alongside you and we'll do the work of the ministry together to do what God has called us to do to reach this area for Jesus Christ. You know what it's all about? It's all about the difference between commitment and surrender. Many years ago, Adrian Rogers, and I'll finish with this, Adrian Rogers told the story of meeting and having dinner with a missionary that hadn't been in this country at that point for 10 or 15 years. The person had been overseas, hadn't been back. And Adrian Rogers asked him, said, tell me what you see different about our churches. And they talked a little while, and the missionary said, Brother Rogers, I'll tell you one thing. He said, our language has changed. Adrian said, what do you mean? He said, our language has changed. He said, we used to ask people to surrender their lives to Christ, and now we ask them to commit their lives to Christ. Adrian says, well, that's the same thing. And he said, not really. He said, if a person surrenders, that means they throw their hands up and they say, I am completely at the will of another. I'm no longer my own. I don't make my own decisions. I move completely at the will of another. A person who makes a commitment says, I'm in charge of what I do, when I'll do it, how much I'll do it, how long I'll do it. And that missionary said, Brother Rogers, we used to ask people to surrender their lives to the Lord, Now we ask people to commit their lives to the Lord. The idea is really giving ourselves to the Lord and giving a piece of ourselves to the Lord. I think some of us have to ask the question, am I committed? You're here on Wednesday night. You've committed some time on Wednesday night. But are you surrendered to do the work of the ministry that God has called you to as a part of the body called Unity Baptist Church in Danville, Kentucky? Lord Jesus, we do love you tonight and we ask you to help us to consider every person here to consider the place that they would have in this body, the place that they would serve in this body, how they would live for you in this body. Lord, I pray tonight there would be some who would come alongside their preacher tonight and they would say, Pastor, I've surrendered my life, my heart to Jesus and I'm willing to do whatever I need to do to be a help to you, to this church, to the cause of Christ in winning people to the Lord in this area. Father, I pray that there will be some folks tonight, maybe who are here, but their heart's not really even been in tune with the whole idea of church. Lord, tonight they might consider their response to this church that You left here in this place. Maybe there's some who need to become members of this church here tonight. the heart of every person here. Maybe there's some folks, Lord, who need to become a member of Your family tonight who don't know You as their Savior. I pray, Lord, if there's somebody here tonight who's not sure that their sins are forgiven and that heaven will be their eternal home, that even before they leave this place this evening, that that issue will be settled in their heart and life. They'll come at the invitation the preacher's going to give in just a second and let one of the workers take a Bible and show them how they can be sure. Thank You, Lord, for this church, for their testimony, their love for You. I pray every person here tonight would respond to the truth that they've heard In a way that will be honoring and pleasing to the Holy Spirit. And we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen.