(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Friday Friday Come in. Is there anyone else that I missed? Yes, sir. Saturday Group at 3. Excellent. Very good. Anyone else? Alright. Very good. Keep up the good work out. Soul winning. Of course, that is ultimately what it's all about. We're trying to lead people to Christ. That's the purpose of our ministry here. That's why we gather together in church here ultimately is to become soul winners and to be used by the Lord for His purpose. That's the whole point. Right? That's the point of our lives is to serve Christ. He saved us so now we intend on serving Him. Very good. Continuing on here, prayer requests. I have a prayer request card that I don't know. Somehow this got misplaced so I apologize for that. You submitted this and if I ever if this ever happens please if you don't see the name in the bulletin the next week if you happen to notice it let me know occasionally I misplace things not intentional of course but just let me know this is for Rivers Middleton and I don't know if this was maybe when I was out of town maybe not it's been kind of a hectic month for me either way Rivers was diagnosed with leukemia and is only two years old so have you heard any more news since the diagnosis okay so obviously it's a you know if they're doing treatments it's not easy treatments it's a very difficult disease to deal with especially with a child so young so we'll pray for the family and pray for that little child as well does anyone have any other updates to reports for people yes sir it's spreading and she's been dealing with that for a long time now I mean years right about two years we've been praying for Lonnie for a long time it's Logan's neighbor and yeah the last update we had spread to the lungs but now it's spreading further okay sorry to hear that we'll continue to pray for Lonnie so Lonnie's not doing as well the cancer is reported as spreading and getting worse so please please remember to keep she's been battling for for a while for a couple years with this so so please pray for her overall health and and God's blessing there so anyone else have any other updates to the prayer list alright very good moving on this is the last day of June June 30th so it's the last day of the challenge if you have been keeping up who has kept up with this challenge real quick a show of hands amen one two three four five six seven eight excellent don't forget today you'll want to get all the way to the finish line and then and then stumble just come out to holding with us this afternoon and it's all good so the challenge for this month is my favorite challenge is the attempt to give the gospel to at least one person every single day of the month so we're being focused on giving the gospel giving the gospel giving the gospel I gotta share the gospel with someone I gotta share the gospel with someone so and this is also the month we usually have the most salvations because of that because we have a lot of people participate in this even if you know there's there's not as many people raise their hands but I know a lot more people did do more and and participate in the challenge even if they might not have hit every single day so that's usually the way it goes with these things so good job there and we want to just keep moving forward having that mind I hope I hope this past 30 days is helping you to recognize opportunities that you might have passed up on previously because we're going to continue to want to think about hey this is a great opportunity to try to give the gospel to this person or this person or this person or you know you're busy doing something else and someone's walking by hey why not just try to give them the gospel right that's the goal that's the focus of this so good job there and then July challenge is visitors so great commission is what we're called to do we want to lead people to Christ of course preach the gospel to every creature but we also want to see them get baptized and get discipled and the best place for discipleship is right here we got teaching three times a week teaching and training and fellowship and discipleship happens right here it doesn't mean you can't individually try to help people out of course do that as well but there is less doctrine things being prepared things being taught to help out believers right here so the goal is to try to encourage people to come to church to get plugged in and to see what it's all about here so be mindful of that especially when you're going out and evangelizing talking to people remind you know invite them by the church and follow up you know get a gift if they're willing to give your phone number they seem really interested give them a ring give them a call pray for them and of course anyone that's that anyone who brings visitors will give a little a little prize for the visitor as well as for the church member so just keep that in mind through the month of July Greenville church plant details are all listed there so thank you to everyone who helped there's people who showed up here helped load there's people who showed up in Greenville helped unload this is the most exciting news that's been going on now I've been talking about it for a while is this church plant everything looks great we got everything set up real nice always waiting on the piano to come on Tuesday and we're good to go so we've got Pastor Anderson who will be in town preaching for us on Friday night in Greenville so if you can make it up there I encourage you to try to get up there 7 o'clock is the service time for that that's kind of kick everything off and then Saturday we've got the soul winning marathon it's going to be meeting up at that church building at 915 the goal is to be hitting the streets by 10 ok so we'll have some little snacks some food in the morning to get you going some coffee and then we'll send everybody out to knock on some doors and preach the gospel we'll have lunch provided for you we'll have dinner provided for you and then of course Sunday is the grand opening service brother Carter is going to be preaching for us in the morning over there and then he's going to be preaching in the evening service here and I'm going to be preaching the morning service here and I'm going to be preaching the afternoon service over there on Sunday so that's the schedule for this weekend and I know many of you have been looking for we've got invites at the church plan we've got a whole bunch of them here I've got them on order so I'm waiting for them to be delivered I also have bibles we've been on back order for a while so I just decided to order from another source and those should be delivered by the end of this week so apologize for being out of stock but always keep in mind when it comes to bibles you are welcome to go out and pick up bibles too just make sure it's a King James Bible right dollar stores are a great place you spend a few bucks have a few bibles to distribute when you go out soul winning you're totally welcome to do that obviously we love to provide all the resources for you to do this stuff that's why we do this we want church will cover all these expenses but if you really want to give someone a Bible spend a few bucks and get one we can totally do that as well but I appreciate everyone letting me know because I do want to know when we're out of that stuff just like everything else but those are all that's what's happening those are I know I know about it they're coming in and hopefully they'll be here by the end of the week so let's see is there anything else on that front I think we're good there continuing on here Bible memory passage I told you I was gonna give you a review week so uh Hebrews chapter 11 the last half of this chapter you got the rest of this week to get that nailed down and to quote that passage if you've been memorizing that with us as a church so next Sunday night midnight will be the deadline to have that uh passage quoted and then um if you're able to do the whole chapter from verse 1 to 40 you get an extra for being able to do that okay um which obviously if you could quote the whole passage you don't need to only quote 21 through 40 you could just go ahead and quote the whole thing and then we know that you've also memorized 21 to 40 makes sense you don't have to quote two different the same passage twice so um upcoming birthdays and anniversaries are listed there through the month of July did I miss am I missing anyone for the month of July any birthdays or anniversaries in July that's not listed in our bullets in there that you're willing to raise your hand and tell me about all right very good and I think that's about it for our announcement so with that I'm going to turn the service back over to brother Will who will lead us in our next song oh turn to song number 370 song 370 throw the lifeline song 370 on the first throw the lifeline on the last on the there is a brother someone should say somebody fell through a hole and will dare to throw out the lifeline his barrel to shed throw out the lifeline throw out the lifeline someone is drifting away throw out the lifeline throw out the lifeline throw out the lifeline someone is singing today throw out the lifeline if they think it's wrong why do you tarry my fingers so long TV is seeking today throw out the lifeline throw out the lifeline throw out the lifeline someone is drinking away throw out the lifeline throw out the lifeline someone is singing today Danger from man, sinking in a wish where you've never been. When the temptation and willows of hope will soon come to laughter, the dark waters flow. Go out the lifeline. Go out the lifeline. Someone is drifting away. Go out the lifeline. Go out the lifeline. Someone is singing today. Someone is singing today. Something in a wish for your target and shame. This light comes with strength and level of warmth. Go out the lifeline. Go out the lifeline. Someone is singing away. Go out the lifeline. Go out the lifeline. Someone is singing today. Someone on the season of rescue beyond. Someone is singing today. Soon the lake winds will be turned into shore. They say, my brother, no time for delay. But go out the lifeline and say things today. Go out the lifeline. Go out the lifeline. Someone is drifting away. Go out the lifeline. Go out the lifeline. Someone is singing today. The ushers, please take up the offering while the rest of the church returns soon. At these who shall report. Please repeat the chapter 4. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you for this day and let us all be gathered here together. Thank you for this passage and I pray that you would be with Pastor Burson as he preaches. Fill in with your spirit and help us to apply the message to our lives. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Sorry. I'm just looking for my backup audio recorder. Oh, well. Can't find it. Set it down somewhere. So that's also my timer by the way that I use to determine how long I preach for. Sorry. I'll look at the clock. Morning's easy. All right. Alright, so this morning, I don't intend on ripping face, so I don't know if it's either a good thing or a bad thing for you. If you like that kind of preaching, then sorry. But it's a really happy for me. I love preaching sermons like this, and I'm going to be preaching on the ordination that we're going to do this morning for Brother John Carter to lead and be the evangelist for the new church plant in Greenville. And this is a big deal, and what I'm going to do this morning, first of all, is I'm just going to teach on why are we ordaining someone? Why is he an evangelist? What is the biblical reason for doing what we're doing, because everything that we strive to do here is going to be done in order. It's going to be done according to good doctrine, according to what the Word of God teaches, and maybe you have or maybe you haven't heard very much taught on this from the Bible, so I want to make sure that we're clear on what's happening. Brother Carter's not being ordained as the pastor of the church over there. This new church plant is still going to be under the authority of Strong Old Baptist Church, okay, which has me as the pastor, and I'm still going to be the pastor now ultimately over this church here, of course, is my primary focus, but I'm also going to be responsible for what is going on at our church plant as well, but it's too much work for one person to do. Obviously, there's distance. There's everything else involved, so we need someone who's going to be faithful. We need someone who's going to be able to help run everything over there, that's able to preach, that's able to preach the gospel, that's able to organize and kind of help things run over there, and Brother John Carter is going to be that person that's going to do that, but I want to just go through some scripture and first of all show you, you know, this isn't just something you just make up or just like, oh, we've got to make something sound good and, oh, we're just going to make them, oh, yeah, that's a good idea. Let's just make them an evangelist. So, that's not how this works, okay? That's not how we work, at least, and I don't know what people think, but I want to show you that this is scriptural, it's biblical, and why we do the things that we do because ultimately we want to try to do everything the way that the Bible outlines. So there's three main points that I'm going to be covering here. The ordination, just being an evangelist, and laying on of hands. All three things are happening today, and I want to explain just briefly on all of them. I'm going to start with the evangelist being a role within the church. Evangelism just by itself generically is what we all should be doing as far as going out and preaching the gospel, right? That's often known as evangelism, we go and evangelize, and we want to convert people and women to Christ, so that's something that we do, as everybody does. But beyond that, there is a role for specifically an evangelist within the church. And we started off in Ephesians chapter four because it's listed in Ephesians chapter four, and if you want to specifically just jump down there to verse number 11, in fact right before verse 11, verse seven says, but unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ, and wherefore he saith when he ascended up on high, he led captive, he captive, and gave gifts unto men. And then it just makes a brief parenthetical statement here about ascending, now they ascended, but what is it but that he also descended first into lower parts of the earth, he that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. So just bypassing the parenthetical, because that's just giving extra information on something that's not really as relevant to what I'm talking about this morning, it says when he ascended up on high, he led captive, he captive, and gave gifts unto men. And then after the parenthetical statement, it says and he gave some, so what is he giving? These are the gifts that he's giving for people to fill these roles, and he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers, and then he goes on to explain what is the purpose of the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, it's for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, and the body of Christ is the church, it's a local church. So these are roles that God has given gifts to the church, to the people, to have other people that are given gifts to be able to help, to teach, to be pastors, to be prophets, and of course apostles, we don't have the apostles anymore, that's a different sermon for a different day, but evangelists is listed in there as well, as something that God has given people who are gifted to help in these areas, and to help the saints, the perfecting, meaning, you know, when we come to church, hopefully you're being perfected, you're learning more, you're growing more, you're growing in your knowledge, you're growing in understanding, you're being encouraged and edified to be strengthened in your faith and to keep moving forward. For the work of the ministry, of course, this is a ministry that we're doing, we serve others, we serve Christ, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto 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, we may grow up, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. Now I'm gonna stop there, bringing up the fact that God doesn't want us to be children that's just tossed to and fro, he wants us to grow, he wants us to learn, which is part of the purpose of coming to church, right? When we go out and preach the gospel to people, when people get saved, right, and whether we're out on the door at their house preaching the gospel or whether they hear it, you know, no matter where anyone hears the gospel, when they get saved, they become a new creature. Old things pass away, all things become new. They're a new creation. They're a spiritual babe in Christ, right? That's just the way things work. Every person who's born again becomes a spiritual babe in Christ. That spiritual babe needs to grow. And because you're a babe, when you first get saved, you have to start learning good doctrine, you have to start learning the truth, you have to be able to get grounded in your faith and get settled in the Word of God and to be able to grow and to be strengthened in your spirit and to walk the way that God would have you to walk. So God doesn't just leave you without any resources as a spiritual babe in Christ after you're saved, but he has provided a system and a way for you to learn, for you to grow, and God has ordained the local church to fill that role for all the spiritual babes. And obviously that's not the only purpose of the church, but specifically we're seeing right here that God has given gifts unto men so that they could be pastors, they could be teachers, they could be evangelists to help lead people, to help the babes grow up so that they could have good doctrine, they could be sound in their faith, and they could grow the way that God would have them to grow. These are spiritual gifts, okay? It's not, you know, you can believe that or not, I hope you do because the Bible's really clear about spiritual gifts, we live in a spiritual world, we're spiritually born again, and God has given gifts unto men. Not everybody is meant to fill specific roles, but God gives gifts to people to be able to fill those roles. But everyone does have their own purpose in this church. I'm going to be preaching a little bit more about that tonight. The body of Christ is made up of different members, different people, you know, you're all a member of the body of this church, right? The body of Christ here and everybody has different jobs to be able to do. And God has given different people different skills and abilities to fill the different roles at the end of the day. Even going back to the Old Testament, you could see when they were building the tabernacle, right? God gifted, was it Barzillai, you know, the workmen in the gold and the workmanship so that they would make everything just right. He gave them the extra skill. They're already good at what they did, but he gave them that skill and that ability and the knowledge to be able to make things properly for the tabernacle so that it was done according to the way that God would have it to be done. They had a specific job to do and God gave them the gift to be able to do that job. And part of the ordination of what we're doing here is to help equip Brother Carter to be, to receive the gifts and to be fully equipped to do the job and fill the role that he needs to fill for a new church plant that's starting up that's just forming in Greenville. So we see here the reason, the purpose of these specific roles too is for the work of the ministry. It's for the edifying of the body of Christ and an evangelist is someone here specifically just like a pastor or a teacher to help in that role. Now we're gonna look at one example of an evangelist in scripture and God give, you know, we get, we get one really good example and that's Philip who's known as Philip the Evangelist. So turn if you want to Acts chapter 21. And just, just to be clear too, one of the reasons why we're, we're, we're ordaining an evangelist is because the mission and the goal with this church plant is to start reaching people of this, of the area in Greenville and get people saved and start discipling them and bring them and start, you know, working so that God can build a church there. So that God can, could gather the members and gather the people and we need laborers and we need people to go forth into that whole area and preach the gospel but someone needs to be in charge, someone needs to be running things over there. And that's part, that's, that's the job that the evangelist is going to be doing. It's not just one person who's gonna be doing all the soul winning themselves personally but he's gonna be heading up all of the efforts, all the soul winning and all the things that are going on there, obviously additionally doing the work himself as well. And then when we get the church established we'll be looking to ordain an elder in that church so that it's not lacking. Obviously there's, it will have me as the pastor remotely but that's not ideal and we were gonna want to, to try to get this independent and fully functioning on its own, this new church, as soon as we can. That's the, that's the goal, right? That's kind of the endgame. But in order to take on such a big task, and it is, it's a big deal, like, like starting up a brand new church, it's a big work and we need to have the right people in place to do this. We don't just go willy-nilly on stuff, we don't just go rogue and just start, you know, people going all over the place and just starting their own churches and whatever. That's, that's not how we do things and that's not how I believe the Bible shows us how to do things either. The church, the churches that were started, the churches that were planted, you read through the entire book of Acts and you'll see it's the apostles and you've got Paul, you've got Barnabas, right? You've got, you've got these men of God, you've got Peter, you have people going out and preaching the gospel and evangelizing, going into foreign countries, spending a bunch of time out there preaching the gospel every creature, helping churches get started, right? By these apostles, by these men who have already been trained, they're already well-equipped, they're already qualified to go out and do this work to help get things off the ground but their mission was to continue moving from place to place but then they didn't stop there, they ended up ordaining elders in every city where they had started churches. That was the the full picture of what was going on there and right now we're at a phase of just trying to get a church started. We already know there's a group of people that live in the area that are going to start attending this church. There's a need for it. There's people who are already saved but we need to reach a lot more in that area and I'll tell you what, from the looks of it, it looks, the fields look white on the harvest and I know there's been multiple people who've already gone soul winning in that area, people who live in South Carolina. I know the Millers and the Rogers and Henry's have been soul winning kind of in that area in general and they know very well that this is a great place to to have a church and to reach people with the gospel of Christ. But let's look at Philip as an example of an evangelist. Look at verse number seven in Acts 21. The Bible says, And when we had finished our course from Tyre, we came to Ptolemais and saluted the brethren and abode with them one day. And the next day we that were of Paul's company departed and came unto Caesarea and we entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven and abode with him and the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy. And just that verse nine there just kind of shows the type of man he was because he had virgin daughters, right? He's raising him right, he's looking out for him, he's caring for him and they prophesied. They preached the gospel. They were also involved in the work of the ministry and the work of the Lord. And Philip was the type of guy that that's how he ran his house. Now I'd also mention he's one of the seven. Turn if you would back to Acts chapter six because we're going to see where seven men were chosen and we're going to see what the requirements were for these seven men to be chosen because they weren't chosen to be elders of a church. We have other passages in Titus and 1st Timothy that talk about the requirements for a bishop or for an elder. But here we're going to see people who were chosen for this other business in Acts chapter six and Philip the evangelist was one of the seven. Verse number one of chapter six about reason in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said it is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Wherefore brethren look ye out among you seven men of honest report full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business. So just just briefly what's happening here is the church is growing. It's growing tremendously and there's a lot of people that are attending and the work that's involved with the operation of the church has just grown to be a lot of work. And what the apostles are saying is like okay there's a lot of work to be done here but it doesn't make sense for an apostle to take on a task that doesn't require as much skill that doesn't require maybe as much knowledge right as the work that they can be doing which this just this makes perfect sense no matter how you slice it makes sense in the world it makes it makes sense in church that you have people performing the tasks that they're best at and trying to do that as much as possible and not doing as much other tasks that maybe there's a whole bunch more people that can do the same thing why not get other people to do that job and leave the job that the apostles have to doing things that are a little bit higher spiritually minded to to focus on that primarily you know it's it I brought this up in the past we ought to be willing to do any job but if you want to know what makes sense it makes sense to do things this way you know I was I have a job I had a job as a computer programmer and I'm willing to do anything right I work for a company I like hey I'll take out the trash I'll clean the bathrooms I'll do whatever it is that you want me to do right I'm working for a boss they tell me what my job is but it would make a lot more sense to have someone else do those other jobs since I have the knowledge and education to be able to do this other work that's going to provide this benefit that no one else is going to be able to do in that business you see I'm saying so similarly you want the apostles doing the work that the apostles can do the best and let some of these other tasks be done by other men however let's look at what the Bible's outlining of who they want to choose to fill this job of what they call serving tables because it's not just who cares let's just get anybody to take on this task to take on this duty to be part of this ministry not at all not even close so in in verse number three the Bible says so here's after the apostles were like hey look we shouldn't be called from what we're doing to serve tables so here's what we need to do we need to find people that are going to be able to do this work wherefore brethren look ye out among you seven men of honest report so they got to be honest full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom now that's just not anybody first of all that's not just your guy someone just gets saved cuz hey man I want to help you you're like that's not the guy you're gonna choose they're not gonna be full of wisdom right away right people need to be established you need to be growing and being full of the Holy Ghost obviously you've got some sanctification in your life you're walking in the spirit whom we may appoint over this business but we will give ourselves continually to prayer into the ministry of the word and the saying please the whole multitude and they chose Stephen a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost and of course in the next chapter we read about the martyrdom of Stephen and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicholas a proselyte of Antioch and of course Philip is mentioned in here he's one of the seven that they chose that was found to be full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom and honest to do the work that they had called him to do verse six whom they set before the apostles look at this and when they had prayed they laid their hands on them and I don't have time to just I can preach an entire sermon just on the laying on of hands but the Bible says in Hebrew 6 that this the laying on of hands is a basic fundamental doctrine okay and I've covered this and I actually have preached on this in the past if you want to know more than what I'm gonna preach this morning you could you could look it up you could ask me I'll try to direct you in the right place but the laying on of hands of people who are ordained to receive the you know the the Commission and the work to do what they need to do is important it's very biblical it's actually how things ought to be done even jobs that kid is that the Apostles consider to be serving tables no we need to have good standards we need to find the right people we want to make sure that things get done right so they're gonna choose these people they lay they pray they lay their hands on them and look at the result of of their choosing to add more people to the work of the ministry to do more of this job it says in the Word of God increased well isn't that what we want we want the Word of God to increase we want more people to come to the knowledge of the Word of God and we need more servants we need more ministers we need to reach more people in order to for the Word of God to increase well here's how we do it we try to find more faithful people who are going to be able to step in and fill these roles to broaden and expand our reach it says in the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly so as a result of this decision for the apostles to do the apostles job and to add more people to do this work the disciples so the people now who are getting plugged in and are actually following Christ and actually doing something with their life it says that multiplied greatly well isn't that what we want to we want to have more people disciples more people following Christ more people getting involved in doing the work amen and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith amen all good things are coming out of this decision to ordain these seven men to do this extra work and just to make sure we got the right people make sure the works getting done it's good and Philip was one of those people let's turn to Acts chapter 8 we're gonna see now a couple stories with Philip because if you just look up evangelists in the Bible you're not gonna find a whole lot of references this is why we're looking at the example that the Bible gives us there's a reason why the Bible tells us Philip hey it's Philip the evangelist with that title right it's so we can look at him and look at at what he did for this especially when Ephesians 4 tells us that God gave gifts and one of them is evangelist acts 8 verse number 5 the Bible reads then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them so there we see him obviously preaching the gospel and the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake hearing and seeing the miracles which he did all right brother Carter you got some big shoes to fill here I hope you got your miracles ready to go sorry another sermon for another day and how the the now we do believe miracles are still possible I do a hundred percent God is able to do as much as he did however during the time of the book of Acts there's a confirmation going on of all the changes that had taken place between the Old Covenant and New Covenant and establishing the New Testament churches that God poured out of his spirit and there were special miracles being done by the Apostles and by certain individuals that was confirming the Word of God because there's a lot of new revelation given through the Apostle Paul through Peter through the other instruments that were used to write the to give us the New Testament and that was a confirmation of all that work again kind of another side topic for another day but nonetheless we see someone we see a man here with the boldness with the Spirit of God going forth preaching Christ and people listening to what he has to say verse 7 for unclean spirits crying with loud boys came out of many that were possessed with them and many taken with palsies and that were lame were healed and there was great joy in that city but there was a certain man called Simon which before time in the same city used sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria giving out that himself was some great one to whom they all gave heed from the least to the greatest saying this man is a great power of God and to him they had regard because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries but when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ they were baptized both men and women and we see here Philip having the boldness to go into a place that regardless of what they previously believed no matter who they were following before no matter who they had set in their mind as being someone as holy of God he came and preached Christ he came and preached the gospel and he was able to convince them and show them the truth of the kingdom of God the truth of Christ as Savior and they believed and you know we need more people to be able to go out and do that to be in order to do that look you have to be filled with the spirit to powerfully go forth with the gospel you have to be filled with the spirit that's how you're going to see the great conversions that's how you're going to see this now look it's always the power of God always that saves everyone needs to get started evangelizing and preaching the gospel in general right but if you really want to be effective at soul winning you have to make your vessel meet for the Masters use you have to start living a more sanctified life you have to really get spiritually minded and putting the things of God first in your life and not last right when you start off maybe their last hey but at least have it it's have it going there right but you need to start building and growing but ultimately to have the real power of wow this person speaks and people listen it's because they're filled with the Spirit of God jump down to verse number 26 we see one more story here involving Philip that I want to just bring to your attention again verse number 26 about reads an angel of the Lord spake unto Philip saying arise and go toward the south under the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza which is desert and he arose and went and behold a man of Ethiopia and eunuch of great authority under candidacy queen of the Ethiopians who had the charge of all her treasure and had come to Jerusalem for the worship was returning and sitting in his chariot read is is the prophet then the spirit said unto Philip go near and join thyself to this chariot and Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet is is and said understandest thou what thou readest now before I even continue any further you got to be sensitive to the Spirit's calling just in general which is one of the reasons why we're finishing up a challenge of being mindful of preaching the gospel to people and to not even you know like like the spirit might be trying to lead you to preach a gospel to someone and you might just be oblivious to that you're not even thinking about anything like that but God might be leading you hey no like you need to go talk to this person and don't expect to hear some audible voice in your ear saying go preach the gospel to that man sitting over there in the back chair okay that's not gonna happen has anyone had that happen coverage curious that's not gonna happen okay you but but there is a prompting when you're sensitive to the thing you know being spiritually minded and walking the spirit that's when you're gonna be able to take advantage of these opportunities that God's putting there for you and Philip is just the man that's able to be spiritually minded he's already someone who has been found faithful and is strong in the spirit right so now God's able to use this man to do these works and specifically here to get this one person saved like there's there's one guy who wants to know the truth he's reading the Bible he's not understanding what he's reading but he wants to and God says hey I like what I see here but he needs to hear the truth and there's plenty of people out there that genuinely want to know what's true they want to know who God is they want to know what's right they want to know how to be saved even if they can't really articulate that very well they just want to know more this Ethiopian eunuch was a man that wanted to know more which is why we need soul winners why we need people walking in the Spirit of God to go out boldly and to preach the gospel these people and lead them and show them and say hey here's how you get saved this is how you do it God gives ministers to all men by whom we believe and Philip is this minister for this person right here in this story so the spirits leading Philip to go and join himself to cheer and Philip and look at this and Philip ran thither to him that's another quality it's another attribute he didn't drag his feet he didn't go well I guess if I have to well it's another week I got to put in another hour attitude means a lot and when we're looking and when God is looking for people to help build things to do great works and three he's not looking for the people who are just really grudgingly doing the things that they need to do he's looking for the people who are gladly willing to serve and put in extra because it's the right thing because they love God because they love people because they want to do it and that's a hard thing okay and everyone we all should be working on our heart and make sure our heart is right and we get excited about the things of God it's something we really want to do and it's not a chore it's not just oh man I don't want to oh wait he's out in the desert wait he's he's in a chariot over there you mean I like that's pretty far away what like okay I'm going oh oh he's gone he's out of sight sorry I guess I missed it how many times have you missed opportunities oh oh oh I guess I can't now when when Philip was prompted to go join yourself to the chariot Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah and said understandest thou what thou readest hey do you understand we were reading there and he said how can I accept some some man should guide me and that's true an unsaved person a natural man can't receive the things of God they're not gonna just know how to get saved they're not gonna the Bible's not opened up to them it's a spiritual book the Word of God they're not gonna really understand what it's saying I mean yeah on some level you have some understanding I mean you understand English or whatever language you're reading the Bible in you have that level of grammar understanding and things like that but you're not really getting the point you're not really understanding the spiritual truths of the Bible because it's a spiritual book and if you don't have the Spirit of God then you can't understand them natural man receiveth not the things of God so and even this man knows he's like look I need someone to I don't know what this is talking about how can I accept some man should guide me and he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him the place of the scripture which he read was this he was led as a sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb dumb before his shearer so opened he not his mouth in his humiliation his judgment was taken away and who shall declare his generation for his life is taken from the earth and the eunuch answered Philip and said I pray thee of whom speak at the Prophet this of himself or of some other man so he's trying to understand make sense of this passage and what a great passage this just shows you God was leading someone at just the right time to the right person in the right place Philip was there heating the call well this is perfect you want to know what this means let me tell you what this means right then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus and as they went on their way they came under certain water and eunuch said see here is water what does hinder me to be baptized and if you don't have a King James Bible in your hand you don't know the answer to that or you're gonna have a very doubtful answer with a footnote saying well this isn't really found in the manuscripts in the most reliable new most modern current manuscripts which is why we're King James only for the especially if you're visiting today and you're not knowing that you're wondering why we read a Bible with these and the dows because it is the Word of God and because it's it hasn't been tampered with like the modern versions have and when the eunuch asked the question Philip actually answered him and Philip said if thou believeth with all thine heart thou mayest and he answered and said I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God Amen because that is what you need to believe that is what you need to confess in order to get baptized that is the requirement you need to believe you need to put your trust in Jesus Christ you have to believe he's the Son of God you have to put your faith in him oh you do you believe that okay well let's get baptized then verse 38 he commanded the chariot to stand still and they went down both into the water both Philip and the eunuch and he baptized him and when they were come up out of the water the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip that the eunuch saw him no more and he went on his way rejoicing turning to Acts chapter 13 so that's that gives us a little bit of insight into who Philip is right these stories we see his actions we see that he was someone that was found to be faithful found to be honest right full of the Holy Ghost full of wisdom now we're gonna cover a little bit about the laying on of hands Acts chapter 13 verse number one the Bible reads now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Manan which had been brought up with Herod the teatronic and Saul and notice what does it say there's prophets and teachers and isn't that some of the men that were given as gifts for the church right and that and that's what we see happening here in Acts chapter 13 that there were these men that that were in the church for these purpose that God has blessed in order to fill these roles verse 2 as they ministered to the Lord and fasted the Holy Ghost said separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work one two I have called them again for this church for our ministry to grow and to do things properly we need to be in tune with the Holy Ghost what is it that God wants us to do where is it that God wants us to go now obviously we're to preach the gospel every creature and God wants everyone to be saved but you know what there is a plan and there is organization and God knows where it's gonna be the best places so even when it comes to starting a church anywhere there's a lot of prayer involved there's a lot of seeking the Lord and seeking his guidance and look I don't get some audible answer saying this is where you need to go but you try to be sensitive to just understanding hey where would where would the will of God be and look at all of the all of the information that we have and and say well I know he's gonna God wants churches everywhere right is anyone gonna disagree with that you think God doesn't want church you know of course he wants people he wants believers he wants disciples he wants children of God he wants people out there sir I mean would the God the whole wall could get saved right that's that would be great the Lord's not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance we know that for a fact so it's not like we could really go wrong trying to start a church somewhere but we really want to know hey where where's the best place God lead us lead us into battle lead us in the right way lead where is gonna be the place where you would have the people ready right now and where we can go and build and grow and do the work for you Lord Lord we're here to serve you show us the way and the leadership here at the church in Antioch was was in tune with the spirit to be able to to know the will for the Holy Ghost that called Barnabas and Saul to the work and when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them they sent them away the Holy Ghost does the calling God does the calling but things are still done people don't and look I want to stress this because people do the sending within the churches you don't really see these people going off on their own and just kind of doing their own thing and say oh well the Holy Ghost called me to do this because there's a lot of people out there that'll do that they'll say well the Holy Ghost is just is just calling me I just need to go here and I just need to do this and they kind of take this honor on themselves and they just go and and and do whatever work whatever they want to do and usually it's people who want to be a pastor or whatever that just will go off and start their own church I say well the Holy Ghost has called me and it's kind of like well how does anyone even argue with that right it's it's like arguing with a Mormon when they say I felt this burning sensation inside my heart when I asked God if the Book of Mormon was was legit every Mormon will tell you that story anyone who's brought up brought up in Mormonism at least all the younger the young elders the 18 year old elders that you run into which we don't run into that whole lot here but in Arizona ran into him a lot okay I could tell you a lot of stories about that the elders that were 17 18 years old you talk to them and you say well how do you even know because because we know we know the Book of Mormon isn't the Word of God we know it's contradictory scripture we say well how do you know that's that's true how you have to work well I actually I questioned it I asked God if this is true and I prayed about it and I just I felt the warmth and I felt this burning in my bosom that I knew is confirmed that this is the Word of God they all have the same story because they're all being taught the same thing and it's kind of like the people who go these churches where everyone's speaking in tongues you learn to do and you learn to go along with whatever it's being going being taught they're going along with it it's not of God it's something that's just taught where was I going with that being sent yeah yeah so thank you so what we see here obviously the Holy Ghost is involved and has to be involved right but in every instance where we see this happening there are others in but even with Saul the road the Damascus he didn't just do everything on his own he received his sight and was baptized at the hand of someone else and also received further certain now he received instructions directly from Christ of course right but he also there was also other people involved and even then when he was at the church in Jerusalem and at the church in Antioch there were there were other people in charge and other people that were that were making these plans and sending people out to do work okay as we see here specifically he's being sent God's calling but we have leadership in Antioch sending Saul this is before he's even known as the Apostle Paul to go out and do this work so what was done leadership facet they prayed they laid their hands on them and they sent them away okay you've got this work to do God has this work for you to do so they commissioned them to go forth and they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost departed under solution because that's ultimately what matters is after following the will of the Holy Ghost right the men still perform the sending but God needs to be in it for it to be successful for it to work and from then they sailed to Cyprus and when they were at Salamis they preached the Word of God in the synagogues of the Jews and they had also John to their minister now turn if you would to 1st Timothy chapter 4 and I also just recently preached a little bit more in depth on the laying on of hands when I preached in Winnipeg a few weeks ago so you can catch that sermon it's on our on our channel if you want to hear a little bit more about that as well that's very relevant to what I'm teaching this morning I'm just I'm covering a few different topics here so I'm not going super in-depth on any one of them but we remember in Ephesians 4 what we started reading the gifts that were given to men and it listed off the apostles and the prophets and the pastors and teachers and evangelists look at 1st Timothy chapter 4 verse 11 these things command and teach let no man despise thy youth but be thou an example of the believers in word in conversation in charity in spirit in faith in purity and the people who are selected and commissioned to do these jobs look at look at this list right they're supposed to be an example of the believers and when people are chosen to do these missions missionary work or whatever I mean we send off a missionary right to some foreign country somewhere hopefully got Lord willing that'll happen too you'll have people who are willing to go and and and preach a gospel to a whole new nation or a whole group of people just somewhere else where maybe it's not as easy to hear the Word of God because God wants those people being saved too so we hear that we still are gonna need to find someone that can be an example to those believers because someone taking on the role of a missionary someone taking on the role of an evangelist someone taking on the role of a pastor all need to be examples of the believers you need to already be someone who's grounded someone who's settled someone who's faithful someone who you could already look to as being an example and you know what men ladies strive to be someone that can be an example to people right now even if you're not in any position live your life in such a way that you can be an example to believers that's the only way we can even have a pool of people to pull from because if no one's an example already then no one's qualified you have to already be to that point and it we want God to lead and we want to grow we want to reach more people and we don't want to grow because oh we just want to grow and have more things and more you know like we want to grow because we're trying to serve God and if we could reach more people with the truth and get more people discipled and get more people serving God than amen that's what that's what it's all about that's the growth we want to see the growth is for the glory of God and isn't it glorifying to the Lord that that a group of people like this no offense seriously no offense can do anything for God and that God can work and that lives can be changed and I know personally if so many lives have been changed as a result of this ministry and it's not because of me and it's not because of any one individual but because God is working here because the Lord is working to bring us together to serve him and he wants to use all of us to serve him and to reach more people with the gospel glory be to God but look at this verse number 12 again let no man despise thy youth but be thou an example of the believers in word in conversation in charity in spirit and faith and purity till I come give attendance to reading to exhortation to doctrine and then look at verse 14 neglect not the gift that is in thee you have a gift but look which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery so you have this gift Timothy and don't neglect it but how did he receive that gift through the laying on of the hands of the presbytery that gift was given and this you see this with the Holy Ghost being given you see this when people were able to even in Acts chapter 8 and we saw this with with with elements he's like oh when he saw that when the Apostles laid hands on people they received the Holy Ghost and then they were able to speak with other tongues and they were able to do these other miracles and stuff like wow the power of God the gift of God is being given on whoever these people are laying their hands on I want to be able to do that I want to have that power you know he's like he's willing to buy it and he's like no no no no you got this all wrong you know you're in you're in very serious sin right now and you better just pray to God that that he's gonna forgive you for that the wickedness of your heart you think that the that the power of God can be purchased with money you know you've got a lot to learn but granted this is some guy that just got saved too right he didn't he really didn't know him and he was someone who had influence and thought you know thought he could just immediately jump to the top and be able to be like the Apostles no you got a lot to learn buddy but nonetheless the point is we see all throughout Scripture especially in New Testament the gift that's given through the laying on hand through the prayer and the gift specifically is for the job God gives the gift he gives you what you need to perform the work that he wants you to do whatever that work is God will supply you with what you need and that goes for everybody any work that God would have for you to do God will give you what you need to do that work oh I'm shy I'm an introvert I can't talk to people God will give you the strength and the boldness that you need but you have to yield yourself to the will of God you have to put forth your effort right but God will work with you and God will help change you into who he wants you to be we are continually supposed to be more conformed to the image of Christ now of course we're far from that image but we want to or you should want to change so that we could be in a little bit more conformity every day to the image of Christ I want to be my own person and I'm gonna color my hair and get tattoos and be just completely different and be just like everyone else who's stubborn and rebellious there's nothing wrong with wanting to be an image of Christ and try to be a little bit more Christlike that's the goal verse 15 he says meditate on upon these things give thyself wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine continue in them for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee and that's not talking about spiritual salvation it's talking about more like a physical salvation like hey you pay attention to this stuff because it's good for you last place we're going to turn is John chapter 15 so we looked at what an evangelist is we looked at the biblical role of an evangelist we look at how the Bible talks about an evangelist okay and we need an evangelist to go lead the soul winning efforts lead the the church help teach and help the church there to grow we saw laying out of hands looks pretty important for people who are commissioned and chosen to do these jobs and being sent off to do a task so we're going to in just a minute do that here and then just finally the ordination itself or being ordained is like being selected being chosen okay it's the ordination is just the choosing of somebody okay and and we're establishing today and we're setting forth the task at hand and as a church hey we want to have this other church started and we had there's a big job there's a lot of work to do and we're going to be given the instructions on what's to be done with this new endeavor and there's an ordination and we're just there's there's multiple ordinations in Scripture people chosen to do different things different tasks different jobs we're just gonna look at one because I think it's very applicable this is Jesus talking to his disciples but it also applies to what we're doing here look at John 15 verse 16 well says you have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name he may give it you and of course this is in the context of John 15 he's the vine where the branches right and I preached just recently again glorifying the Father he's glorified by his bringing forth much fruit well as a church we want to bring forth even more fruit by planting a new church with the has the the mission in the objective of bringing forth fruit and bringing forth more people in sowing the seed of the gospel and reaching a whole new area we want to glorify God we want to bring forth fruit we are commissioning a man this morning to head up that important task in that important role in that job and to be again clear with the church in general he's gonna be reporting to me but everything else you know if there's anything going on with that church plant he's the man to go to okay brother Carter's been found faithful as far as long as I've been here and for those of you don't know he's been coming to this church brother Carter when did you when was the first time you started coming to our church do you remember was it the second week the second week okay and brother Carter like a few others in this church we're already faithfully attending a different church a soul winning Church okay so he wasn't brand-new even to church and church life and being saved and and in preaching the gospel with our church already been doing it somewhere else changed churches I believe very with integrity and appropriately and and consulted counsel on how he can do this in the right way to not cause problems with the church he was leaving and everything else and and you know from the very beginning had the right mindset had the right heart has shown himself and proven himself faithful has come to the preaching classes has has come even when he's worked overnight and and showed up and helped and at any time I've asked brother Carter to do anything he was right there to help and right there to be able to work and look there's many other people that also help similarly but this is why we're choosing brother Carter to lead up this church he's been well established and it's gonna do a great job and I believe this is the man who the Holy Ghost would want to have leading the efforts in South Carolina so with that I'm gonna ask brother Carter to come up here please all right brother Carter we've got an important job important mission for you to do you've been commissioned by Strong Old Baptist Church to go forward and to preach the gospel to the Greenville area and to help that church get established and founded for the cause of Christ we pray that you would please just keep in mind the the importance of the work and that you would serve the Lord faithfully and that he would strengthen you and strengthen your family and bless you and and and help you to get all the work done that that needs to be done there with leading people to Christ with teaching and admonishing and and just leading the group of people in the Greenville area and that God equips you with being blessed with the spirit and all that you need to be able to get that task done and may the Lord bless you brother Carter it's in Jesus name we pray amen all right and as I mentioned if there's any if there's any other questions to regarding how things operate you could come and talk to me but brother Carter is commissioned now to do this work he's already been doing tons of tons of work on the back end getting everything ready and set to go as it is but moving forward now hey praise the Lord there's there's a new plant that's starting up really excited about I hope you are to be in prayer for that work be in prayer for this work we're gonna be sacrificing a little bit but all for the greater good we want more people added to the kingdom of God that's what it's all about so let's put forth our best effort in support of both ministries right it's one ultimately but but all the work that's going on and you know this reminds me just popped in my head just like Joab was going out to battle and then he finds hey there's a front on this side there's a front on this side and he says hey if they're too strong for you we'll come over and we'll help you and if they're too strong for us you come over and help us right and that's the mindset we're gonna have here so if there's anything lacking or anything wanting at either our ministries hey we're gonna be leaning on each other and helping it's only a couple hours away to get the work done and I'm looking forward to all the great efforts that's gonna be going on there please spread the word about this church plant I hope you're excited about it too let's close with a word of prayer dear Heavenly Father Lord we thank you so much for this opportunity and bringing us to a place where we're capable of being able to start a new church Lord I pray that this is the first of many I pray that you would please have this church plant grounded and rooted down dear Lord and established and that it will grow correctly but grow quickly and that you will just build that church build this church Lord add the members as you see fit help us to be fully functioning bodies of Christ to bring more honor and glory to your name God we love you please help us and make us better it's in Jesus name we pray amen all right we're gonna sing one last song before dismissed brother will would you please lead us in the last song take my life Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh