Man of God - Part 1 - Act Like Men Weekend

Well good evening. Let's try that one more time. Good evening. I'm gonna step up here a little bit closer. It's so good to be with you tonight. I am excited about tonight. I'm excited about this entire weekend. I'm humbled that Brother Chris would ask me to do this and at the same time I'm grateful that he asked me to do this. I'm just pumped up about the weekend and I ask you, and I know you've already been doing this on Tuesday mornings, to just pray and pray that God would use me as servant to bring honor and glory to himself. That's the only reason I'm here.

I want to just bring honor and glory to him and be obedient and pray that God would move the hearts and lives of those who he brings to these meetings. I'm just excited and I'm thankful to be here and I'm praying. I'm praying for you. I know you've been praying for me. I'm thankful for your pastor. As he said, just a dear friend. I would say even a mentor in a way that over a short period of time I've got to know him. He's helped me a lot and encouraged me in many different ways and I thank God the way he brought us together through Brother Patrick, who's a member of our church, is his brother-in-law.

That's just God's providence putting his pieces together and I just thank God for that. Amen. And so Brother Chris, I thank you brother and I'm thankful for the meal tonight. Amen. Did y'all enjoy that? Ooh, golly. I could have taken that whole pan of steak and just set it over here on my table and just pigged out on it. But it was so good so I appreciate everybody who made that possible. And I've already thanked the ladies and it's just been good. It's going to be good. I know it'll be good tomorrow as well.

I'm going to just share some things with you tonight and I know that the series or the theme of the men's meeting, the men's conference is "Act Like Men" out of 1 Corinthians 16-13. We're not going to be there tonight. But I want to ask you if you have your Bible to take it and turn to 1 Timothy 6. And then in just a moment I'm going to have you turn back to 1 Timothy chapter 1. But just wanted just to look at a few words in 1 Timothy chapter number 6 and then I want to share my testimony with you and then tomorrow we'll get into the thick of what the actual study is going to be like. I'll be about tomorrow and Sunday. Listen to this quote.

In study I came across this quote and it's by A.W. Tozier and here's what he said. He said, "The most critical need of the church at this moment is men." He said, "Bold men free men, but it's the most critical need." He said, "The church must seek in prayer and much humility, the coming again of men, made of the stuff which prophets and martyrs are made." I think that's a pretty strong statement when you think about that. I thought about this quote being a quote that would just lead off the night because that's what we need.

I don't know about you, but that's my heart's desire to be that kind of man, to be a bold man, to be a free man, to be a man of God, a man that is able to stand and endure in the hard times in the world in which we live. Just be men as your theme is. As I thought about it, when Brother Chris asked me this, I was kind of all over the place. I didn't really know where to go. The Lord, just through study, led me to 1 Timothy 6. Tonight I want to just look at the first part of verse 11. I'll go ahead and tell you this weekend we'll be in this text in 11 and 12. We'll focus on verse 11 and 12 and verse 14 primarily over the next couple of days.

Tonight I want you to look at just a few words. Verse 11 says, "But thou, O man of God," and I'm reading from the King James. I told Brother Chris I'm a dinosaur, so you just got to hang with me. But "thou, O man of God." I've kind of taken the liberty to title what I'm going to be sharing with you just "Man of God." Being a man of God. A man of God. I know it's acting like men, but we need to make sure when we're acting like men that we're acting like men, men of God. So I want you to think about this word, "man of God," this title. Brother Keith, thank you for leading in the music. And Brother Keith introduced me as this man of God.

I thought that was just almost confirmation, but consider the title. Consider that title, "Man of God." It's used 78 times in 73 verses in your Bible. 78 times in 73 verses in your Bible. 76 of those uses are found in the Old Testament. 76, out of the 78 times, is found in the Old Testament, and only two times is it used in the New Testament. The first time it's ever used is in Deuteronomy 33.1, and it's in reference to Moses. It's used in other times to identify several prophets. Some of those prophets are named. Some of those prophets are not named. It's used in other occasions to identify a messenger of God or an angel of God.

And in a very narrow sense, the words "men of God" are primarily used to identify those men who are the messengers of God, who are the proclaimers of truth of God, who are, you could say, the prophets or even the preachers of God. And in that small, narrow sense, it identifies those men that way in the Old Testament. And also, Timothy, a young man in the New Testament. But tonight I want you to consider this. In a more broad sense, it could be used to encompass every man that is a believer in Jesus Christ. It could include every man that is a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But we, thinking about that title, we must ask ourselves, what does it mean? What does it mean to be a man of God? And I've thought about that. I've thought about it much. And as I said, I believe simply it's this. I believe it simply talks about a man who belongs to God. I think it's a man who not only belongs to God, but it's a man who lives their life in total submission to God. A man who has been birthed by God, a man who surrenders daily to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in his life in total submission, yielding his life to the Lord Jesus Christ would be a good definition of what that means. I think next, I love the title, Child of God.

I thank God tonight that I'm a child of God. Amen. But I think next to that title, probably one of the greatest titles you could have as a man tonight would be a man of God. I want you to think about that. And then this weekend, you think about the fact that you could be identified. The word "of" there kind of gives you origin. You can say, "Hey, I'm a man from..." Who's talking to her? "I'm a man of Louisiana. I'm a man of Mississippi. I'm a man of Brookhaven. I'm a man of sports. I'm a man of the woods. I'm a man of all these things that kind of identifies you.

I don't think there's any greater title that can be given to any man that's greater than a man of God. Because God is the greatest. Amen. He's the most important part of our life. He is life. Paul said in Colossians chapter 3-4, "He is our life." And so I believe with that being said, a man of God, origin, that to be a man of God, and this is what's important, this is what's key. And this is what leads up to the testimony is this. To be a man of God, you have to be a man who has been born of God. You've got to be. If you've never been born of God, it's completely impossible for you to be a man of God.

To be a man of God, you've got to be a man that has repented of your sin. Realize you're a wretched sinner. Realize you're a lost man. A lost sinner separated from a holy and righteous God. And you've got to be a man who, acknowledging that and through the work of God in your life, you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he is, you have been converted to Christ. You've been born again. That is primary. It's paramount that in order to be a man of God, you must be a man that's born of God. A man that's born again. A man who has placed faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's my heart's desire tonight to just tell you and my heart's desire this whole weekend to be to tell you that if you've never trusted Jesus Christ, as your Lord and Savior, if you've never repented, realized you're a lost sinner and repented of your sin, then the only way you'll ever be a man of God is to do that. Amen. That's the only way that you can be a man of God is to be born of God. So let's flip back now to First Timothy Chapter 1 as Paul is writing to Timothy. He identified him in Chapter 6 as a man of God. But I want you to just see something about Paul.

Paul gives us, to me, it's not a very in-depth testimony, but I've always looked at this as kind of being my testimony here in this text. And something I want to say tonight is this. I know a lot of times when people give their testimony, I hear people all the time say things like this. They'll say, "My testimony is not as exciting as so-and-so's testimony. My testimony is not as dramatic as so-and-so's testimony." I want you to know something tonight. Every person who has a testimony of being born again by Jesus Christ has a dramatic, dynamic, miraculous testimony.

We're all saved the same way by grace through faith, but every...I heard Alistair Begg say this today. He said this. He said, "To be a Christian is one of the greatest miracles of all because it is absolutely God who does the change in our life." He said, "It is a great miracle." And so every single testimony, regardless of what your past life looked like and all this sort of stuff, every testimony is dynamic because of who made the change in our life. Amen. Because of the work that God has done in our life through His Son, the Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit of God.

And so tonight when I share my testimony, and I just share basically what my life has looked like over the past 26 years, I want you to please understand that this is not about me. It's not about me trying to make it exciting or trying to make it dynamic or anything of that nature because in and of itself, that's what it is because of the work that God has done in my life. And so it may sound a little bit different from your past life, but those of us who know the Lord as our Savior, we've all come to Him the same way. So listen to what Paul says in 1 Timothy 12, chapter 1, verse 12 through 17.

He said, "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for He hath counted me faithful, putting me in the ministry, who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor, an injurious or a maltreater, an insulter." He said, "But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly and unbelief." And I love this, "And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love," which is in Christ Jesus. This is my favorite verse right here in verse 15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners whom I am chief.

"Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy that in me Christ Jesus might be bring forth, show forth all long suffering. For a pattern to them we should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever." Amen. In this passage here, and I'm not going to go through and unpack it all, but I just want to share some things with you, and I want to share my testimony. Paul basically in the first verse gives you, in verse 12, gives you his current position. In writing the Timothy, he says, "I thank Christ Jesus." He gives glory to Him right off the bat.

All the praise goes to Christ Jesus. He's kind of being faithful. He's enabled me. He's put me in the ministry. He's put me in the ministry to be one of the greatest missionaries, the greatest preachers to ever live, to be an awesome apostle, an awesome preacher of God's Word. He not only talks about his current position, but he goes on and he talks about his past life. I think in many testimonies people dwell too much in their past life, give their past life all the glory, and give little to the Lord Jesus, right? But Paul gives a little bit, and he said, "You know, before I was a blasphemer. I was a blasphemer.

I was wicked." He said, "I was injurious. I was an insult, or I was a maltreater." I don't have to go into detail. You know the story of Paul. You know how he made havoc, the Bible says, of the church. He persecuted the church severely. But he said this, he said, "I obtained mercy." Mercy. He obtained mercy. God did not give him what he deserved. He deserved hell, as Brother Keith said a few moments ago. He deserved death. He deserved hell. And he did it ignorantly in unbelief. But not only does he tell his position in his past life, but he talks about that pardon for that mercy that he got.

And he talks about the grace of God there, and he talks about the grace of the Lord being exceedingly abundant. Isn't it awesome that God's grace is exceedingly abundant? Overabundant, superabundant. It's abundant grace upon our life, and it's all about grace. His mercy. His mercy is more, Brother Keith. His grace is amazing. Paul experienced that grace, and God saved him. God pardoned his life. God gave him a brand new life.

And then he tells us this, not only was he saved, but then he tells us that he said, "I became a pattern." "I became a pattern." And what he means by that, literally, he says, "I'm an example of what God can do in a life." "I'm an example of where God can bring a man." "I'm an example of where God can say it from the gutter to the uttermost." "I'm an example of God taking the chief of sinners, the worst of sinners, one who persecuted him personally through persecuting his church, and radically saving him." Paul said, "I am a pattern for those who will believe." And I want you to know this tonight, if I fail to mention it in my testimony, if you're here tonight and you're saved, you are also a pattern.

You're a pattern. You ought to be that example. You ought to be that type. You ought to be that example that people can look at and that pattern and say, "Man, if God can save him, he can save me." But then also we see that he talked about that pattern, but then he gave praise again. And I'm big on just giving the Lord praise because it's all about him. Now unto the king. Now unto the king, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, the honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. He gave praise to God. You know, I think about Paul's testimony here.

I want to kind of use the same format, not word for word, but just a little format of his outline there. You could say to tell you about me, about my salvation. Brother Chris just asked me to share my testimony with you and with that being the backdrop of Paul looking at his past life and his current position, his past life, the pardon he received through Christ and the praise he gave to Christ, the pattern that he is. I want you to just think about my life. I didn't even tell you all who I was. I know Brother Chris did a while ago. I guess I just got the card above the horse, but it'll be all right.

I want you to know that first off, I'm a 48 year old guy, right? 48 years old. I know I look a lot younger than that, but anyway, but my past life before Christ, and that's what, and I like what he says here in verse 12. He says, "Who was before?" Listen to this guys. Every Christian has a before and after. Every one of us has a before and after. And the after is so much more important than the before. But the before life for me, I want you to know that I was raised by a godly dad. My mom was recently converted probably, I would say within the past five, six years. I can't remember the exact date.

But my mom was very involved in church, all those sorts of things. And my dad wasn't saved until I was four years old. It was my mom who was taking me to church as a kid, those types of things. I lived right across from the church where I grew up at. But we were involved in church, very involved in church, raised in church. I mean, there every Sunday, especially when my dad was saved, when I was four, very involved in church. And at the age of 10, like you, and you hear this testimony so often. So this is not going to be something you've never heard. But at the age of 10, I joined the church. I joined the church.

Brother Chris, I didn't go through a new membership class. I didn't do anything like that. I wasn't really counseled. It was more like just walking out and you joined the church. I was baptized, became a member of the church. And what I want you to know from that age, I was a morally good guy. Morally good guy. I don't have the testimony where I can stand up and tell you how I used to drink people on the table. I don't have the testimony where I stand and tell you how much wickedness I got involved in and how much dope I smoked or how immoral I was in all these areas. I don't have that testimony. I was morally good. I was involved in church.

I was involved in a youth group. And, you know, I didn't smoke. I didn't chew. I didn't hang out with girls that do. Right? Y'all know what I mean? I was just morally good. As a matter of fact, let me just say it like this. If I would have died, been in an accident, whatever it may have been. If I would have died before I actually was converted, everybody in my family, my mom, my dad, my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, all my immediate family, all of my friends would have just preached me straight into heaven. My pastor would have preached me straight into heaven. But I want you to know something. I would have busted hell wide open.

You got to know that. I would have been straight in hell. I would have been burning in hell one millisecond after I died. The reason for that is I was morally good on the outside, but I was a wretch on the inside. I was, my heart was defiled. I was depraved. I was wicked in thought. I might not have acted on a lot of things, but my thought life was just so impure. I was like what Jesus referred to. A whitewashed tomb. That's a picture of me. I was clean on the outside. But if you were, and that's what's amazing.

You go to these cemeteries and you see these beautiful marble stones that people erect for their, the sief's loved ones that are so beautiful. They put all these designs on the back of them. Even, I know a lot of y'all are deer hunters, but you've seen some of these now. You can go behind them. And man, there's a guy on a stand that looks just like the dude that passed. There's deer out there and he's hunting on the back of the tombstone. But here's the truth about it is if you were to go dig that casket up and open it up, it's rotten. It's bones. It's death. It's decay. And that's a picture of who I was.

On the outside, everything looks spic and span. On the inside, it was filth. On the inside, it was depravity. On the inside, it was just wickedness. And I was like Nicodemus. I often refer to Nicodemus in John 3. Nicodemus had it all together. Nicodemus had it all together as a man. He was so involved in everything, being a member of the Sanhedrin, a Pharisee, all this sort of thing. And like Nicodemus, here's the deal. I had been starched and ironed, but I had never been washed. And here's the sad truth. I know Brother Patrick hears me say this a lot. I know Brother Chris knows this and I know he preaches this.

That's the problem in a lot of churches. It may be the problem here tonight in your life. That you got everything together on the outside, but on the inside you're a mess. On the inside you're a wretch. On the inside you're wicked. You're starched and ironed. You're dotting every I, you're crossing every T. But on the inside you're lost. And that's where I was at. That was at the supposedly quote, "saved." I joined a church at age 10. Now fast forward, fast forward to about when I was about 21 years old. When I was about 21 years old, in December of 1996 is when it actually was, I was approached by the deacon body about being a deacon.

And like most Southern Baptist churches, if you're a good guy, if you don't do all those things, if you run a business good, or if you got plenty of money and all this sorts of stuff, they'll make anybody a deacon. And at 21 years of age, they asked me to be a deacon. And they never, Patrick knows this, they never should have done that. I look back on that now and I say, how immature were those leaders and those other men? And they never should have done that. And I want you to know this, brother, you was talking about that would you be free from passion and pride? When I was asked to be a deacon, son, I felt like a strutting peacock.

I want you to know, I felt like I could strut my way into heaven. I felt like I was third heaven material. Me and my cousin, he's talking about now, we're not first heaven, second, we're third heaven. I mean, I thought that I had done arrived. Are y'all with me? I thought I had made it. Because I was asked to be a deacon. I mean, a deacon, I had no idea it meant table waiter, had no idea it meant servant. I had no idea that it meant one to not serve self but serve us. I had no idea of all those things. However, I did know that my dad, who was truly converted in '79, my dad was also a deacon.

And I knew, and to me, even today, I've always told people, if you can look up the definition of what one should be, my dad's picture should be there. Not that he's perfect, but he just serves that office very well. And here's what I knew about that. I knew that in order to be an effective deacon, to be a good deacon, I need to be in the Word, right? Now, I knew the Word. I could play Bible trivia. I knew a lot about it. I could answer the questions. I was very well, good in Sunday school, well-versed in the stories of the Bible, that sort of stuff. But here's the awesome thing. The awesome thing is this.

I wasn't married yet, but when I got into the Word of God, when I started getting in it, and I mean getting in and reading it, trying to learn, when I got in the Word of God, what I like to tell people is this. When I got in the Word of God, he got into me. And probably about six months after I began to study the Word, I was ordained in December of '96, probably that next summer of '97, I started getting convicted. I started having doubts. I started really questioning. I was just fixing to get married in the summer of June of '97. I started having these doubts as to whether or not what happened at "10 years old" was real. Was that real?

And every time I would, I don't know if you've ever been to where I'm at right now telling this story, but every time I start having doubts, I start trying to justify myself. I don't know if I'm saying, "But I do this. I do that. I'm a deacon. I read my Bible. I may sing a little bit. I give money. I'm tired. I do these things." And I would try to justify it. And I know specifically what started happening not only then was in August of that same year of '97, we had a guy come to our church and preach a revival. Please understand what I'm fixing to say. And I know you're mature in these things. You understand this.

I had heard preaching all my life. But when this man stepped behind the pulpit, I had never seen a preacher that God, I had never seen God give a man liberty like he gave this preacher to preach. And when I tell you I began to be Holy Spirit convicted, I mean it. I mean, I'm talking about I couldn't sit in the puke. My eyebrows were sweating. I'd get up and I'd get up and believe God, you've got to give me a peace. God, you've got to give me assurance. I don't know if I'm saved. I don't know if I'm lost.

And it's one of those deals you want to start reading more, start serving more, start doing more to try to fill in that void and that emptiness. And that guy, a priest, meant a whole week and there was about five people saved. And I was so miserable. And I can remember going with some of our church to a visitation program and we'd go visit these people and they'd start talking about their testimony. It'd be like they'd get together, maybe like Brother Keith and Brother Chris, and start talking about when God saved them. And I'd be over there on the side and I'd be like, I've never experienced that. I didn't have what they had.

I mean, I had a story of walking out an aisle and those types of things, but I had never experienced that. And I mean, I was a miserable soul. I want you to know it. I was miserable. I had absolutely no peace in my life. I was scared to drive the work. I was scared that I was going to get I tell I started wearing my seat belt because of it because I didn't want to die. I was scared to die. I'd get to work and I would be thinking about it. I'd wake up thinking about it, get to work thinking about it. I'd go home thinking about it. I'd go to sleep thinking about it. And there'd be times I'd lay in bed. God just please save me.

But it just wasn't what happened, man. It wasn't right. And the reason was really old because I hadn't got lost yet. I'm just going to be honest. I had I couldn't admit that. That's the product that meant I was I knew the right things to the things that I could say to myself. But I just couldn't really shake that pride. And for 18 months, man, I struggled. I struggled bad. I was miserable. I had no peace and just a tough time, really. But in a year later, 18 months later, from when God initially started convicting me or whenever I started getting in the word, we had a revival service at our church.

And I had invited people from my work because I knew they need to be saved. Isn't that funny? I wanted people from my work to come to hear the gospel in hopes that they'd be saved. But guess who it was that needed to be saved? The very one inviting them to church. The very one wanting them to be there. And they're not they're not revival service. The Lord just made it clear to me that I that the problem with me is that I was lost. I was lost. I was that I was separated from God. I was a sinner. And during that service, I just begged God to save me. I confess my sin, ask him to save me, sought his forgiveness, confessed him as Lord of my life.

And here's something I want to say to you. Not only that confess him as Lord of my life, then I'm still confessing him as Lord of my life. It's not something I just look back on a past experience. It's a past experience that still has a effect on my life to where I'm still confessing my sin. I'm still repenting of my sin. And I still confess him as Lord of my life. He is the Lord of my life. And he saved me graciously. And in this coming December, I'll be saved 26 years. And here's one of the greatest things. Brother Chris knows this. The Lord's been dealing with me several different ways through Scripture.

And man, over the past four years, what's been so amazing to me about this is what has come to light now. That wasn't really a reality then is that this is all a work of the Lord. I mean, this is all of his grace. You know, even at times after I got saved, I wanted to be a little bit boastful about that. You know, I got saved and I was a dick and it got saved. But what I failed to realize is what God was doing the whole time of my life, drawing me to his self, how he was putting the pieces together, how he brought the man of God to bring the Word of God, how he was convicting me, how he was long suffering.

Paul talks about that long suffering and how he was drawing me to himself and how ultimately he granted me the ability to repent and how he granted me faith to be able to trust him. And so like Paul, I say in verse 17, now unto the King and mortal invisible, the only wise God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. Amen. Amen. So I mean, that night I was saved. And I'll be honest with you. I wish I'd have just went ahead and died right then. I had so much peace. We stayed up late, man, talking about it. My wife was saved the same night. Didn't know that until after the service. And here's what I want to say about that.

You know, we were saved. But you know, after you're saved, then the struggle starts. I saw a little meme the other day. I don't know if you've ever seen this before, but you know who Leonardo DiCaprio is, right? Titanic and several other movies. I saw a picture of a little meme deal and it shows a picture of Leonardo DiCaprio on the front of the Titanic. And then you all know that part was at the very front of it. He's got his arms first out. He's just smiling at him and Kate. And it says above that, it says salvation. Then the next picture shows him hanging on to a plank and it says sanctification. It's just the struggle now, right?

And so for the past 26 years of my life, what I'm learning is, is God is busy making me more like his son. And boy, it's a struggle in the guys. It's a struggle to be me. We're going to talk about some of those things tomorrow. It's just a struggle to be me. And there's things that we're faced with, things that we have to deal with in our life. And what I'm learning is that everything that happens in my life, he's using it to make me more like his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Even in my failures, his mercy is more. He's so gracious, still forgiving. Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. And he's making me more like his son.

And what I'm thankful for tonight is that the work of salvation and the work of sanctification, the work of sanctification is a work that he's promised to complete and fulfill in me. Philippians 1, 6 said he's going to complete the good work that he started in me. Some of you may be here tonight and you know you're saved, but yet it almost seems like you're in a stagnant position. You don't know if you've ever floated the river to fish or anything like that, but you ever floated a river or canoeing or something like that. You ever notice how it's always the trash that piles up in the stagnant water?

You never see trash or anything going through the rapids. Going when it's growing. What you see is whenever you get over there, you get past the rapids, past exciting stuff. You find an old puddle over there. There's the old driftwood. There's the paper. There's the cans. That's the junk. And what happens in our life is we get stagnant and we start allowing things just to accumulate in our life and it's trash. And what I want to encourage you tonight is if you're saved and if you know for sure you're saved tonight and you're at that place in sanctification, you're wondering where am I at in my walk with the Lord.

I want you to know that he's not finished with you. And as men, you have an important role to play. God has left you here as salt in his life to be a vital part of your home, a vital part of your church, a vital part of your community, a vital part in this world. And I don't want you to quit. And I'm going to say more, but I'm almost getting into the sermons I'm fixing to get into. But I don't want you to do that. I want you to understand that he's going to complete it. And I say that to you, but I'm also reminding myself of that.

Because I told Brother Chris today, I said, "Brother, I feel like I'm so unworthy and incapable of this." And Brother Chris said, "That's right, you are." Right? So encouraging. But so truthful because it's just a reminder that we can do none of this on our own. It's all a work of grace in our life. And I want you to know that God has a purpose for you. And in your sanctification, in your walk with the Lord, daily he's making you more like his son, the Lord Jesus. Just suck it up and just say, "Yes, Lord, and what do I need to do to be more like your son?" Then I want to just speak just quickly and we'll be done.

But how God worked in my life in preaching, in my service, and where I'm at right now in ministry, I wasn't... I hear guys talk about I was saved on a Sunday night and I surrendered a preaching on a Tuesday night. That didn't happen with me. Right? It didn't happen with me like that. It was some nine years later before I realized God was calling me to preach. And here's the deal. I will tell you this. The moment God saved me, he immediately put a desire in my heart to tell other people about it. He immediately put a desire in my heart that whatever I learned in the scripture, that I was to share it. I mean, I'd go to work, I'd show...

I'd learn something new or in the scripture, just in personal study, and I'd go share it. I want to tell people. I would teach a Sunday school class or those types of things. And I just have always had a desire to tell people about the Lord Jesus and his work. Right? But I remember in probably 2008, leading up to 2009, I'd have one of my best friends as a preacher. I consider him to be my pastor. I mean, if I have issues, I can go to him and talk with him. He would ask me to come fill in at his church. He'd be out. I mean, he had deacons and things that people could do that, but he'd ask me to do it. He saw something in me that I didn't see.

He saw something that I didn't see. And I wouldn't even call it preaching, Brother Chris. I said, "I'm going there to speak." I wasn't even going to get near that P word. Right? That's not me. I'm going to go speak. And one of the awesome things about it is that I would tell my wife, "Man, I'd go stand before the people of God." I'd go preach his word or speak his word. I couldn't tell you. I can't even tell you. I guess until you're there, you just don't know it, but the joy that that brought to my heart.

Even tonight, standing here doing this, the joy that it brings to my heart and the fulfillment that's in my heart to be able to do what I'm doing. Right? And I'll tell my wife, she said, "Well, you get to teach Sunday school." And I said, "Yeah, that's great." I said, "There's something different. There's something different about that." I said, "It's almost like eating a baloney sandwich in a ribeye state. Both will fill you up, but I sure enjoy that ribeye steak a whole lot more than that baloney sandwich." And it was God working the whole time preparing me.

And he called me to a little church, and just in the way things worked out, church needed somebody to just come fill in. A little church right outside of McGee, Mississippi, my hometown. And they just said, "Get us through the month of May." And it was five years later when I left. "Get us through the month of May." And it was during that time that God revealed to me in my heart that what my purpose in this life was, was to preach his word. And they called me to pastor, stayed there five years. Probably one of the most gut-wrenching things I ever did was to leave. But I knew it was time.

I know Brother Chris has been there, but gut-wrenching, I love the people there, but now he's brought me to a place that I love the people at Trinity, Baptist, and Laurel. And it's just a joy to be able to serve the Lord. And I say that to say this, as men of God, we need to be men serving. You need to be serving. Every man that God saves, every woman that God saves, every person that God saves, he gifts. Not only with the person of the Holy Spirit, but with gifts of the Holy Spirit to use to edify the body and exalt the Lord Jesus. And you know these things. And I challenge you tonight as men of God, where is your gift?

What is it that you are supposed to be doing? You know, it's not enough to sit on a pew and hold that pew down. There is an area of service that you are called to carry out in the church, to exercise your gift. It may just be encouragement. It may be whatever. There are several other things that could be. It could be tonight that God may be calling you to preach. You know, I don't know. But all I'm telling you is whenever you know you're saved, figure out after that point, what is it that God wants me to do with my life? I realized one day I was driving up the hill, leaving my work. I retired from the state of Mississippi three years ago.

But I was driving home one day and I asked the Lord this, just driving. I said, "Is this it?" I was driving up the hill and I thought, "Is this going to be my life?" Go to work, you know, go to church just on Sundays and just go through the routines. Or is this really it for me? Little did I know that he was going to call me to preach his word. Little do you know what he may be calling you to do tonight. What he may be preparing you for. You don't know that. It's scary at times. It can be scary. Some of you are thinking, "Lord, I hope he's not calling me to preach." And you just ought to go and put your earplugs in.

But now just listen to him. Listen to the Word of God. And what is he calling you to do tonight? So let me just ask you this, and I'm through. I'm done. I'm going to turn it over to Brother Chris. I want to know this though, and this is not a... Brother Beale's not... This is not an invitation or anything in that nature, but according to Scripture, I just want you to know you saved tonight. That you're converted. That you've been born again. And I would just ask you tonight, whether it's in this building, whether it's in your car on the way home, whether it's as you lay your head down on your pillow tonight, that you...

The Bible says that, "Let a man examine himself to see whether he's in the faith." 2 Corinthians 13, 5. "Examine your heart and in your life and ask yourself, 'Is it real? Is this real? Am I truly converted? Has God wrought a work in my life to where I'm a new creature? Or am I just going through the motions? Am I checking the boxes? Am I just going through things? Am I just stuck on myself?" And Brother Patrick, when I was talking about his testimony, "Are you trusting in yourself or are you trusting in Christ?" An only way you can act like a man, the only way you can be a man of God is you must.

You must, Jesus told Nicodemus, be born again. You must. You will not see. You will not understand. You cannot fathom the things of God. And then he also said this, "Neither will you enter it." So I challenge you tonight to examine your heart. You are at a church where you are so blessed and fortunate to hear the Word of God sing and hear the Word of God preach, but examine your heart to see if you've trusted the Lord Jesus. Repent and believe the gospel. Amen. Would you pray with me, Father? We love you. We thank you for loving us.