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Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. It may be that more than the day is awaking When sunlight through darkness and shadow is waking That Jesus will come in the fullness of glory To receive the world His own Oh, Lord Jesus, how long, how long To share the last song Christ returneth, Alleluia, Alleluia, Amen Alleluia, Amen It may be that if it may be that twilight It may be purchased that the blackness of midnight Will burst into light in the blaze of His glory When Jesus receives His own Oh, Lord Jesus, how long, how long When we share the last song Christ returneth, Alleluia, Alleluia, Amen Alleluia, Amen All right, church, let's sing this last verse as if Christ is actually returning. On the third. Oh, joy, oh, delight, should we go without dying No sickness, no sadness, no dread, and no crying Caught up through the clouds with our glory to glory When Jesus receives His own Oh, Lord Jesus, how long, how long To share the last song Christ returneth, Alleluia, Alleluia, Amen Alleluia, Amen Christ, please. Dear Lord, thank you for this great Lord's day. Thank you for the ordination service this morning. Thank you Lord for the priesthood and the priesthood that you are here. I thank you for this soul and for a safe day, Lord. I ask that you bless the service and go faster with your spirit. Give the Lord's day and give His mercy here. You know the life of our lives. And we pray that you do this, God, for this week. In peace, name, and praise. Amen. Amen. Turn to Psalm 75. Psalm 75, on Jordan's story banks. Psalm 75, on the first. On Jordan's story banks, I stand and cast a wishful eye When pain is there in that feeling where my possessions lie I am bound for the Promised Land I am bound for the Promised Land Oh, who will come and come with me? I am bound for the Promised Land Oh, Lord, those wide extended plain shines one eternal day There God the Son forever reigns and scatters right away I am bound for the Promised Land I am bound for the Promised Land Oh, who will come and come with me? I am bound for the Promised Land No chilling wings or voices breath can reach that helpful shore Sickness and sorrow, pain and death are felt and feared no more I am bound for the Promised Land I am bound for the Promised Land Oh, who will come and come with me? I am bound for the Promised Land When shall I reach that happy place and be forever blessed? When shall I see my Father's face when in his words of rest? I am bound for the Promised Land I am bound for the Promised Land Oh, who will come and come with me? I am bound for the Promised Land Amen. Welcome back to Strong Old Baptist Church this evening. Glad to have you all here with us tonight. This time we'll go through announcements. Once again, if you don't have a bulletin, slip your hand up real high and we will make sure that we get one out to you. If you open up to the first page, you can see our service items listed there as always Sunday morning at 10 30 Sunday evening again at 5 p.m. Wednesday night seven is our Bible study. We'll be closing the book of Habakkuk this week going through chapter three last chapter of that book. We're at the soul winning opportunities listed there as well as the salvations and the baptisms for the month of June as well as for the year. So let's count up the salvations for today. If you went out soul winning and had salvation, slip your hand up real quick. We got one over here, one over here. One and one. So that's four. And we had two. I did not get a report. You think it's another four? Five altogether with who? OK, so I've already counted what you had your fingers up for. So OK. OK, so add another four. Cool. That's great. Another one. Amen. Anyone else I missed? Great. So that's eight, 10, 11 for today. It's awesome. Praise the Lord. Appreciate everyone going out there in the heat and and preaching the gospel. All right. Continuing on, we've got the offering total received through the month of June down there at the bottom of the page. Prayer request. Just as another note, in case you didn't get a chance to write this down, Rivers Middleton is a two year old with leukemia. So pray for Rivers as well as the parents and. Of course, everyone else that's on this list, we got a negative report for Miss Lonnie at the cancer is spreading. So please pray. Continue to pray for her as we've been praying anyways, but pray that God will heal her. And then is there any other updates now to add this afternoon? All right. Yes. Oh, I didn't see that. It's in the prayer group. Thank you for. Yeah, that's another thing, too. I usually look at the at the WhatsApp group that we have for the prayer stuff. But if you put something in there and it doesn't make its way to the prayer list, just reach out to me in case, because I silence all my WhatsApp notifications. I don't always go back and check them. So I. Oh, well, thanks. Thanks. There's a good reason why I didn't check that one. But just in general, though, if if if I don't if I don't add something that people have added to that group, go ahead and submit it or just send me a message directly or something if you want to get it added to the list. I usually do try to add things from there. I have in the past. I will look at that. But just in general, if you if there's ever someone that that doesn't make its way on the list, even though you might have submitted something, please just let me know. But Naomi Johnson. Her her immune problems, immune issues. OK. Sorry to hear that. So please pray for Naomi Johnson. Immune issues. And then anyone else have any updates? All right. Very good. Please, please pray for the people on our list. Take these home with you. Take a picture with your phone so you have it with you. Be a reminder to pray on the next page. June challenge. Last day of June. So if you haven't attempted to give the gospel is one person today, you got a few more hours left to try to do that. Focusing for the rest of next month now starting tomorrow is a July challenge visitor challenge. We're going to try to focus on bringing people to church, inviting your friends, coworkers, family, anyone. You know, people you could say about someone, especially encourage them to come to church. And we will have some small prizes for the visitors and as well as for any church members who are able to bring a guest during the month of July. So and this is, you know, all these challenges are all ages. Right. Kids bring other kids to church, get prizes. Adults bring people to church, get prizes. So just keep that in mind. We got the Greenville church plant details there. July 5th. Pastor Anderson's preaching seven o'clock at that new church plant. The addresses is there the last two lines or the second to last line is the address and then the regular service times are listed there. Moving forward, we've got the stolen marathon on Saturday the sixth and the grand opening on the seventh. So hopefully we can see you there. Bible memory passage. You've got one more full week to get Hebrews 11 verses 21 through 40 quoted. So deadlines next Sunday by midnight. Upcoming birthdays and anniversaries are listed there. And I did get some updates that we will be adding to that. And I don't have them in front of me right now, but we will get those added to the list. And I think that's it for announcements this evening. So with that being said, I'm going to turn the service back over to brother Devin, who will lead us in our next song. Take your binder. Song 11 now. It should be front and back, so go ahead and take it out and check. If it's not front and back, raise your hands. Make sure you got the front and the back. Sing the whole song. Follow along there. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. You know that you were Gentiles carried away under these dumb idols, even as you were led. Therefore, I give you to understand that no man speaketh by the spirit of God, called Jesus Christ accursed, and that no man can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit, and there are differences of admissions, but the same Lord, and there are diversities of operations, but it is all of the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit with all, for to one is given by the spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge by the same spirit, to another faith by the same spirit, to another the gifts of healing by the same spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another diverse kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But all these worketh that one and the selfsame spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have all been made to drink into the one spirit, for the body is not but one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? The whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were the hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members, every one of them, into the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more these members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor. And our uncommonly parts have more abundant comeliness. For our commonly parts have no need. But God has tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked. That there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it. Or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. And God has set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles and gifts of healing, helps, governments, diversities of tongues, are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers, are all workers of miracles, have all the gifts of healing, do all speak with tongues, do all interpret, but covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet shew I unto you a more exceeding way. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you for letting us all come together to hear your word. I just pray that you may bless Pastor Birdsons, that you may give him the spirit, that you may speak with boldness. And Lord, I just pray that you may open all of our hearts to hear the word and receive any teaching we may need. Lord, I thank you for letting us come together and let us all get home safely. Love you, Jesus, and I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. All right, so this evening, I'm kind of just following a theme with this morning a little bit. Not exactly a normal sermon, but not too weird. Well, I preach on serving here at Starnold Baptist Church, so this literally is for you. It's for you members here, specifically for people who are here, other members of our church that have any interest in serving here. And I kind of like to set expectations for those that want to serve and just make sure that everyone understands what it means. And also just to bring it up, because, you know, especially if you consider yourself a member of our church, we don't have membership roles here, but if you're born again, you're baptized, and you consider this to be your home church, you come here regularly, then this is your home church, and you are a member here. And we love when we have visitors, and we love when we have people come in and join us for a little while, and they want to check out the church, and maybe hopefully they become, to get to the point where they feel like, yes, this is my home church, I love this church, I want to stay here and make this my home church. But I am speaking to the people who have already decided that, no, I do love this church, and I want to be plugged in here, and I want to come. And our church, inherently, is the type of church that's going to push you to serve. So while we do want to serve, especially, like I said, the visitors and people who, you know, you're not really quite sure, this is my church, and even if you are just, this is my church, and you're not serving, hey, we want you to keep coming back. I want people learning, growing, and receiving of all of the service that you will receive in this church, all the edification, all the good stuff that's going to come with being here, but I will also be pushing people to help, to work, to minister, to serve, because that is the mindset that we all ought to have. Right? And I understand, everyone has their own limitations, everyone has their own things they can and can't do, everyone's in a different situation, great. And also, I just want to make it clear, too, that I'm not looking down on people that, oh, like, this person's doing this much, and this person's not doing this much, and holding people on some kind of a weird, you know, comparison against each other. That never happens, and that never crosses my mind, and I hope it never crosses your mind, either. Honestly, I mean, I'm dead serious right now. There's some people who do a lot of help, and some people, and I'm grateful for all the help, and all the people who pitch in and do whatever it is that you do to help this church. And I do not, and I don't want people looking down on others, oh, this person doesn't do this, or this person. Look, everyone's free to decide what level of participation you want to have, but I am going to bring it up just in general for people to serve. I think we ought to be having the mindset of, you know, the famous, like, the JFK quote, right, but instead of the country, it's not what can church do for you, but what can you do for church? What can you do for the people? What can you do for all the congregation, for the people here, right? And I'm not talking about me. I'm not saying, well, what can you do for passive versions? No, what can you do for the church, for the glory of God? How can you serve? How can you make this better for everybody? This is who our church is. This is what we want. I want to have more people that are really interested in that and maybe stir you up a little bit to be more involved if you're not or whatever, right, like, to just at least consider it and think about it. And, you know, for the longest time, and I think most people are just like this, if you don't get involved in anything, you don't really realize everything that is involved in it, right? So for the longest time, for years and years and years and years that I went to church, it was just a place I go like, well, of course the pastor is going to preach. Of course this is going to happen. Of course that's going to happen. It's kind of like all these things are happening around you, and I just walk in and I expect all those things to be done. I expect it to be clean. I expect it to be this, you know, whatever the expectations are, and for the longest time I did nothing, right? But, you know, when you go to businesses, you're going to have expectations, but you're the customer, right? And when we have people who come in and people who aren't really part of our family, part of our organization here, we are serving, for sure, serving, right? But the difference here is that, you know, you're part of the group. You're part of the church. You're part of our organization. You're part of our company, right? I'm using that real loosely. Obviously I don't think that we're like a business in that sense, but that's the key difference. Hey, you're part of this, right? This is your church, and as I preach in the past, I think maybe one or two years ago, hey, let's make this the best church. Now, don't you want to be part of the best church in the world? Well, that doesn't happen by accident, right? Now, look, are we ever going to be the best church in the world? I don't know. I mean, like, but we should be striving to say, hey, I want God to look down on the earth and be like, you're part of the best church on earth. Wouldn't you like that? I would like that. Like I said, I don't know who will ever achieve that, but, you know, that would be pretty cool to have that value in God's eyes of looking down and seeing the work and seeing the hearts and seeing the effort and seeing what's being done here and God going like, wow, this is just a great church. So the only way that can happen is to have the church have everybody involved, right? So we started off reading in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, which does a great job, and I'm not going to go back through all these verses, but it really does a great job of explaining how the church is a body and comparing it to a physical body. So you're like, well, we're the body of Christ, and just as a physical body, has eyes and ears and a nose and hands and fingers and legs and all the different body parts that the body has, and they all serve all these various different functions and they all have value and add value to the whole body. And when everything is in order and everything's there and we're not missing any limbs and we're not missing any digits and we don't have any sore muscles and we don't have any, you know, arthritis and we don't have all these other things going on that could maybe hamper how much we can do when everything is in the right place, when everything is functioning, when everything is working, we can get the most done. And we have lots of different people here who bring lots of different ways that they could add value to church. We have people here who are really good with music. Musicians, right? That's one aspect. Is everybody really good at music? No, of course not. We have people here that are good with plenty of other things. Look, I could go on and just list all the various things that different people are good at, and thank God for that, but what the church needs is for everyone to get involved to some degree or another. And I preach this now especially because we are having this plant open up where we're going to have people who have been very helpful and very instrumental in our ministry here becoming a success that will now be working somewhere else and helping somewhere else. And there's a lot more opportunity now to where, hey, if we want to at least maintain the level that we've attained as a church, whatever that may be, we need to step it up. We need to have more involvement, right? And that goes on all fronts, right? That's going to be from what I consider to be the menial and the cleaning, but you know what? The menial is important. So just because I say menial, I don't want to use that disparagingly because even little things that no one wants to do, no one really desires, to my understanding at least, and correct me if I'm wrong, to be scrubbing toilets or mopping floors, doing that. Maybe there are people who like that, and you know what? God bless you if you are that person and you really enjoy it. It's not who I am, but you know what? I also see the importance of that. Like, yeah, we need to have a place that is clean and being run decent and in order, and we even have scripture to back that up. You know, God instructed the children of Israel to have a paddle on the end of their weapon because if God was going to be walking around them and being in their camp, He didn't want to be stepping in garbage, is what we'll call it. Okay? Filthiness that comes out of a body, He wanted that buried and He wanted the place to be clean. He wanted it kept up. So we have at least some level that we need to kind of keep things. Now look, we're not going to go overboard and extreme and we're not going to get super crazy on the building and beautifying the building with like super ornate whatever. It's not about the building, but it is still a space that we need to use to work and we need to keep things up and keep it clean, right? That's just one little thing. But it's one way that almost everybody can help in. And as I was, you know, preaching earlier this morning, in order for this body to function to its fullest, you want the people who are good at and the best at specific functions doing those functions. So you don't want the eye being responsible for smelling. You don't want the ear responsible for seeing, right? But if we have this body, but there's only like three or four functioning members of that body, they're going to have to try to pick up the slack for all the rest of the members that are just paralyzed, right? We don't want to be a body of Christ that's like, and again, I'm not trying to be offensive anyone, like had a stroke and has lost the use of like half of its body, right? Because that's what happens when people have a stroke, they lose half their body, they can't see, they can't use their arm, can't use their leg. But it is the kind of illustration of a church that has half of its members that's really not doing anything for the body, for the church, right? We don't want to have that. We want to be at full strength. Because then when you have that, you've got to have people doing a lot of other functions and not excelling in the one where God would probably really want them excelling at. So, you know, I bring this up from time to time, this type of sermon, because I want you thinking, I want you thinking about, now, again, it's all voluntary, and I won't think any less or look down on anyone that chooses not, you know, whatever level of involvement you have is totally up to you, and that won't change how I think or feel about you or anything like that. And like I said, it shouldn't for anyone else either. But I do want to provoke you unto love and to good works. I think the Bible says something about that in Hebrews 10, about not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together because that's what we do, right? That's what you'll find in church, provoke you to love and to good works. It's good works. Let's do some good things. And while soul winning is the primary thing and the most important thing, it's not the only thing. For us to function effectively and getting a lot of things done and reaching a lot of people, yes, soul winning is the most important, but it's not the only thing. We have many areas and many ways in which we can operate much more efficiently and ultimately get more soul winning done if we have everything in order and being done properly. I mean, for example, our maps. We're going to reach the most amount of people and the most amount of new people instead of, you know, going over and over and over again, maybe with the same people, if we could stay organized and keep everything going in a way that makes sense, right? Like, it's just one small thing, but there's so many different ways in which this matters. So many ways. Now turn over to 1 Timothy chapter 3. I've got a lot of, my mind's kind of all over the place with this, so I apologize for that. I haven't spent very much time meditating on the sermon tonight. But 1 Corinthians 12, like I said, it illustrates perfectly, there's all different types of people, part of this body that all can do various things, various ways in which you can help. And just a few, I could even list off right now, you know, we have people who are actively, officially doing things specifically in this church beyond all the people who do actually help in other ways that aren't set forward as say, like, a job, is all the people who do all the cleaning, we have people who are doing sound, which by the way, if anyone's interested in helping, and you know what, teenagers, you might be really interested in this, I'm willing to accept help from anyone who wants to help, we've got this really large piece of electronic equipment on my desk right now that we've all been gawking over today that we think is going to be great, we think it's going to really up our quality of the live streams, of the videos, even internally to make it better so people weigh in the back and hear everything that the preacher's saying, that the person who's reading the Bible is saying, all these various aspects of church that, hey, if you just come into church, you expect all that stuff to be done, you know how it gets done, we have to do it. And if you're waiting on me to do everything, as many of you know, you'll be waiting a really long time, ask my wife. My list never gets shorter, it just gets longer. Yes, sometimes things get removed, but it just seems to get eternally longer. So all of the things that I want to get done in this church, at home, and elsewhere, it just takes too long. We can't have one person doing everything, right? So we need to chip in. But that's an area where, hey, you're interested in it? Guess what? I'm not going to hold you back. You're interested in something? Let's talk about it, let's see what you can do. Sure, come on out, I want you to help. Music? Absolutely. And here's another thing I don't want you thinking. Well, we already have brother Peter, okay, where's brother Peter today? Is he going to be here next week? I hope he is, I'm not planning on going anywhere. But you see what I'm saying, right? We don't just have to have one person doing a job. And from the very beginning, you know, one of the things I really wanted to make sure we had in this church from the very beginning was men who could preach. Men who could run a service. Even if they're never going to be a pastor, well guess what, there's going to be some times where I'm not going to be able to physically stand up behind this pulpit and preach or whatever. Like something might come up and happen and I want church to keep going. There's opportunities. And don't ever think that like, oh, this person's doing this or this person's doing that, so I can't do that. If you want to help and you think you're going to be good in that area and you want to be able to volunteer your time, amen. Let me know. This is me asking you right now. If you have something that you want to help the church with, you let me know. I want to hear how you can help and what you want to do. And if you need training or if you think you're maybe not good enough but it's something you want to do, let's work on it. How do you turn to 1 Timothy chapter 3? It is important though, also while everything is volunteer, that it is also being operated and run under my guidance and supervision because ultimately I'm responsible if things are being done responsibly and decently and in order. And that's the job that this role comes with of being the bishop, being the overseer of the church. So not only do you have to do things biblically, but you're going to have to deal with me. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know. You can figure it out for yourself. I try not to be too unreasonable, but I am very serious about church and about doing things right and I care a lot about it. So I like to hold standards for everybody who wants to help and volunteer. And going down to what I consider again to be maybe one of the lowest levels, if you want to help and volunteer, great, but just as an example, say like you say, well, I want to mop the floor or something, right? But then you mop the floor and you're leaving just a bunch of dirt all over the place. Thank you for helping. I'm going to tell you how you could improve, but I'm not going to just accept and just say, well, that's just the way it is, right? Because we want to hold standards, right? That's just something that's real easy to see. But that goes for ushers, that goes for people reading the Bible, that goes for people playing instruments, that goes for any level of help that you want to give and any volunteer service you're going to do. We want to keep good standards because we want this to be the best church ever. Right? So we want it running really smooth. In 1 Timothy 3, and we're not going to read the whole chapter, but I do want you just to be aware of this, is that 1 Timothy 3 gives all the qualifications of a bishop, right, of a pastor of a church. It also gives qualifications for the deacons, okay? And these are, I mean, this is biblical. This is, we don't compromise on what the Bible says here. It is what it is, it says what it says, and that's what we're going to do. Now I might have some other standards of cleanliness or something, of, you know, no streaks on the mirrors or something to that effect. That's not in the Bible. But I am under the authority to be able to make those little types of rules or whatever. But this stuff especially, there is no wiggle room. There's no compromise on whether or not we're going to follow these rules for positions that God has rules for. Right? So like, you know, being the husband of one wife, yeah, sorry, there's no wiggle room there. Having a children's objection, yeah, got to be done. All the things. Again, you could read through it. I'm not going to read through all the rules, but it's something that needs to be done. But for certain jobs, and pastor is one of them, deacon is another one of them, I just want to point this out, is that you have to have the qualifications before you will ever become a bishop or a deacon. Now there's some jobs that may not have the requirements in advance. And I would put cleaning the building as one of those jobs that you don't have to prove yourself to be, have all of these skills before you can be accepted to do some things. There's some jobs that can, you know, for example, on the job training and will get you where you need to be. But there's other jobs, especially more spiritual jobs, where you won't even be considered if you don't meet this criteria and know we're not going to work into that. You need to have this already. And I say this for those who are interested in these positions. If you're interested in being a deacon one day, if you're interested in being a pastor one day, that you, of all people, better make sure that you are acting faithfully and that you are setting yourself up to meet these requirements and even if you're not getting recognition even if you're not serving or whatever, yet you are going to do this and put yourself in that position to be used. The Bible says there in verse number 10, and let these also first be proved, then let them use the office of a deacon being found blameless. So the Bible is literally saying, first you prove the person with all of these criteria. Oh, now you can have that office. You don't get the office and then work on it, right? A lot of churches are getting people, they're getting kids out of Bible college and they got their pastorate degree or whatever and now they're going, oh, okay, yeah. Oh, you just got married? Great. Well, you got your degree, so now we're going to put you behind the pulpit and we're going to have you pastor a church. And you'll have kids eventually and you'll be able to run your house. No. No, first you're going to be proved. First you're going to, we're going to compare you against what God says you need to do, what needs to be there, and then you get that opportunity. And whether you're interested in a job that requires on-the-job training or not, every job is going to require faithfulness and integrity. Turn, if you would, to Colossians chapter number three. Every job should be done with a spirit of willingness to serve and humility, right? It's all service-related positions. All of them require humility and all of them require the willingness, the wanting to serve. And especially under my leadership, if you're offering services to help and you're good at a job, but I hear a bunch of complaining, I don't want your help. And look, I'm saying things that I'm not saying there's this problem in our church. I just want to be clear when I'm asking, because I am. I'm asking people to help in church, okay? And I think it's best to have all the expectations laid out and say, okay, here's what it is. Here's what it's like to work for Pastor Burzins. Here's what it's like under my leadership. You can be the best person at a job, and if I hear you complaining about stuff, or you're going to be more of a hassle and a pain in my neck than a help, I don't want your help. So consider that when, you know, if you're offering to help and you want to do stuff, if you end up being more bothersome than you are helpful, not worth it. You know, but you want to serve and you want to help, then just do it. And here's the thing. With a lot of stuff, with a lot of the housekeeping stuff, you don't have to ask. You definitely don't need my permission. You don't need my permission to mop or vacuum or take out the trash. You can go ahead and do that stuff. And you don't need my permission to take stolen supplies and go out and preach the gospel or do anything to serve Jesus outside of our church either, by the way. Now, if you do want to do some type of ministry or some type of service that's going to be tied to Stronghold Baptist Church and endorsed and promoted and be like an arm of Stronghold Baptist Church, then we may need to talk about that. But if you want to serve the Lord, and preach the gospel, and help people and minister to people in any way that you want to, whether that be through charitable things, prison, ministries, you know, retirement home, nursing home, any type of stuff like that, and you want to go out and you want to do things like that, by all means, go for it. Okay? And I'll be supportive of your efforts to do good things. But if you want to do things under Stronghold Baptist, and this has come up recently, and this has come up recently, it's why I'm even bringing it up, because people have asked about some of these things. If it's a Stronghold Baptist Church, you know, endorsed, then it does need to be, at least under my supervision, to make sure things are being done the way that it ought to be done as part of our church. I do turn to Colossians chapter 3, look at verse number 17, the Bible says, And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Look at that, a thankful heart, giving thanks, and doing all in the name of the Lord Jesus. This is how we ought to be serving. Ultimately, it's all for Jesus' sake. So not ever let this get wrapped around to being about any one of us in whatever work you do. And that could be hard if you're really striving to be the best at something, because we have pride that might try to get in the way when you're trying to be really good and trying to be the best at something, just remember, When you take a back seat, we're really doing all for the glory of God and for Jesus. And then he goes on on this list on these various ways that people should be doing all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Verse 18, Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents and all things, as is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger lest they be discouraged. But look at verse number 22, where I really wanted to hone in on servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God, and then especially verse number 23, and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men. So when it says servants, you're serving, right? And we have a service here and we're serving and we may be serving one another, we may be serving other people, but we're servants and we ought to obey, you know, in this case, you know, the master according to the flesh was what he was talking about. Obviously, I'm applying this to church, this is applied more out in the world, but you ought to be able to work, like it says, not with eye service as men pleasers in the sense of you don't just do the job when the boss is watching. You don't just work when other people see you working as if it's just about you being able to be shown, oh, look, oh, wait, where's the boss? There he is. Yeah, this was really dusty, I just got that taken care of for you, and then they're gone and you're just like, let's get back on my throne, which don't get me started on the phone thing because that drives me nuts. Digital detox, like we need like a year of digital detox in the United States of America at work. You can't go anywhere with especially younger people, they just are all on the phone. Even going to, you know, everyone knows that we go to Costco, okay, so every message is like practically brought to you by Costco because we pay a salary at Costco with how much we go there. But they have these sales people that are supposed to be selling things as you walk out the door, whether it's air conditioners or vacations or whatever it is they sell, tires, and usually there's a person standing there and, you know, years ago, they used to try to strike up a conversation, hey, how's it going, you know, whatever. Nowadays, I walk by, and see, I love it because I don't like being bothered if I see something I want to buy, I'll go buy it, right, like I'm the no soliciting guy that everybody loves out soul winning. But now I have compassion on those that come to my door and I'll actually talk to them because I know what it's like. But, seriously, the phone stuff, right? But if the boss walks around, they're going to be like, wait, let me find someone to talk to real quick so I could look like I'm doing my job. That's not how we're supposed to serve. That's not how Christians are supposed to serve. And when you serve here, if you're doing it to be seen of me, you don't understand me at all. Hey, I might give you an attaboy or whatever, and I am really appreciative of everyone, like honestly, sincerely appreciative, but it really isn't going to mean anything at the end of the day if you're just serving to be seen of me. You're not getting paid. You're volunteering and you're serving, so what is it really going to do? I don't know. But honestly, it's our heart. Have the right attitude. Have the right heart because that's also going to help you do the job that should be done the right way anyways, right? When you're doing it for the right reasons, when you're working, it says what you ever do heartily as to the Lord and not unto men. When you're literally working and any service that you do, especially in church, you could think, hey, I'm serving the Lord. I'm serving the Lord Jesus in any capacity, in any of the work that needs to be done here, whether that's winning souls, whether that's helping in any aspect of the service, whatever it is that you're doing, it's all for the cause of Christ here. It is all for the cause of Christ, for the cause of helping others with the Word of God, with the power of the Holy Ghost. That's what we're trying to do here, so we ought to do things heartily. Now, since I've gone a little bit back and forth on my requirements versus what the Bible says and things like that, I actually have here printed out what you would receive if you were interested in doing anything that I consider to be a leadership role in church. This one specifically that's printed out applies to the ushers. You say ushers in leadership? What do you mean? They are. I consider ushers to be a leadership role in this church. The porters, right? That would be the biblical word. They're the porters, they're the doorkeepers, right? And I'll tell you this much, it may seem like not a very comely part of the body, right? People might not think that highly of the servants that are opening the door for you or showing you to a seat, but in my view, it is one of the most important jobs right now in our church. It really genuinely is. And as such, there are requirements that I have for people who want to be part of this. And I'm going to go through these requirements with you to give you an understanding, again, understanding the expectations and just so that you're aware of what's going on here and kind of what is expected just in general, even if you're never going to be an usher. Again, it speaks to the mindset. Now, when I talk about having the best church, you know, one of the ways for me to try to help that to happen for my role is I like to bring in various pieces when I go and visit other churches that I really like. And when there's things that are happening somewhere and they're doing an excellent job at what they're doing, I go, oh, what can I learn from them? I want to emulate people who are already exceeding, excelling, and just doing an excellent job at whatever it is. And I pay attention to those things when I go to churches. And I love going and visiting other churches. So this is one way. So what I'm going to read to you is actually modified or mostly copied from what Verity Baptist Church does with their ushers. And the reason why I copied this is because I love the service that they provide at that church. It is the best service that I've ever been to specifically regarding how the ushers work and how they treat people and how they do everything that they do, how they treat their job. I would like to emulate that here because I think it's excellent. And if you've never visited there, it's a great church. I encourage you to go and visit them sometime in Sacramento, California, Verity Baptist Church, awesome church. But because of that, it prompted me to speak to Pastor Jimenez and just be like, hey, what do you guys do? Right? I want to know. I want to learn. I don't know everything. I don't know how to manage it. I can see the result. But getting to that end is, it's work. There's work involved there. So how do we do this? Well, part of it is having the rules and having these things in place that people are just going to understand. Hey, there's how you do it. Because if we're going to, we got to hold standards. When you don't have any standards, a lot of times people will kind of sink to the lowest common denominator. It's just the way it is. So here are some of the leadership requirements for anyone who wants to be in leadership. I'll just read these out to you. Most of them should make sense to you. I'll do my best at explaining why we have that. You must be a born-again baptized member of this church. I think that should not require a whole lot of explanation. If you want to be in a leadership position, it kind of makes sense, right? Number one requirement, be saved and be baptized as a member of our church. Number two, you must have a personal walk with the Lord. It's real to you. You have your own faith. It's something that's part of your life, not just some show that you put on at church, right? You have your own personal walk with the Lord. You must be faithful to all the church services. And in parentheses here, there are some exceptions that are, of course, considered. There are situations, people, you know, with some job or work thing, you know, some distance, whatever. But generally speaking, you need to be faithful. You need to be coming to church regular, like this needs to be that important to you. If you're going to be in leadership, show that church is important to you by coming to all the services, right? And if you come once a week, fine. But don't expect me to have you in a leadership role. I want you to come once a week. I want you to come twice a week. I want you to come three times, you know, great. Choose what you want to do. But if you're looking for certain jobs especially, then this is what we're looking for. You must be a faithful weekly soul winner. Yeah, we're talking about leadership. What are things that are important to our church? Soul winning, right? Salvation, church attendance, like these are all important things. Well, if you're in leadership, you're going to emulate these things. You're going to show these that you actually hold these things to be true. So you're going to show that by participating in these things. It just makes sense. And if you have a heart to want to serve and a heart to want to be in leadership, and even if you still can't understand why I think about the ushers, we might get to that, we might not. But either way, I'd view it that way and this is the standard we're going to hold. And then number five is having a separated life, which means specifically not all encompassing but abstaining from alcohol, smoking, gambling, you know, the worldly music, and just that type of worldly activities, right? Those are the types of things we say, no, if you're in leadership, you're going to have to be abstaining from those things because you are someone that's looked to, that's someone that's in a position that people will look to as being an example. We have Psalm 84, 10 on this leadership requirements. It says, for a day in thy courts is better than a thousand, I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. So again, we're talking about ushers, which would be like a doorkeeper in the house of a God, but I'd rather do that than dwell in the tents of wickedness, which is why having wickedness in your life isn't something that we're going to want you not to be part of your life, right? When you're being a doorkeeper in the house of God. We have dress requirements, dress shirts, ties, dress slacks, and, you know, ultimately it's wearing your best for the service in God's house. It's not to show a fashion statement. It's to show respect in the house of God and to just treat it as important. This is something that's even done out in the world. You know, at my work, there's one day in the week, we have Fridays that are casual Fridays, where you're allowed to wear jeans and a T-shirt. Every other day, it's business attire. I mean, that's the job that I work at. Button-up shirts, slacks. If I'm dressing up that way for my secular job, and I don't even deal with customers, but that's the standard. And if I want to work there, that's the standard. You know, I think it's a good standard because everyone treats each other professionally. And you could argue with me about, well, you shouldn't have to, you know, it shouldn't matter what someone wears or anything like that. It's the world we live in, okay? It's human nature. Anywhere I go, when I'm dressed nice, people don't even know me, will address me, yes sir, no sir, or whatever, or sometimes they'll even think I work at places. I don't know how many times I've been stopped thinking, excuse me, sir, can you tell me this? And then I realize, oh, you think I work? No, no, I'm sorry, I don't work here. I can't help you. But people will, you know, look to you differently, so why not dress nice? And especially in God's house. Let's treat it as important, treat it as professional, let's do this. And look, I'm not gonna, I'll restate it again, hopefully the obvious, I don't look down on people for how you dress in church. I love the fact that you're here. We're talking about leadership positions and what's expected, okay? And, you know, you can take, however you view these things and that's great. But the standard that we're gonna hold is one of, look, there's a dress requirement for holding these positions, right? It is what it is. And we have a note here, too, that while we do take the service of God seriously, you know, we still want you to enjoy yourself and have fun. The service to the Lord should still be with love and joy, right? And not so, it's not so militant that we're like, you know, where everyone's on this, I don't know, military mindset that is just kind of out of control and you're worried about someone raining down on you or something and your shoelace is untied. I'll read through some of this and I know, look, this isn't Scripture but it's based on Scripture, the mindset is. And I'm trying to impart by sharing this with you all what is being looked for at various levels of service, right? So not all of this applies to everyone who's doing every single task, but just keep it in mind for service in general. Number one here on the usher ministry commitment, you must hold your place of service in high regard. Realize that you serve Christ and his church in this place of service and will hold it as a privilege and responsibility that is not to be treated lightly. The ushers of Strong Old Baptist Church should provide the most professional service in the city. Let it never be said that there is a restaurant, hotel, or theater that serves people better than this church. It's a standard we want to hold. I think it's a good standard. I hope you do too. But realize that when you want to get involved in something that you take, I take this seriously, this is my expectation and I want you to take that seriously too. You must fill your place of service faithfully. Commit to being in your place for all church services. So you want to commit to serving, then commit to serving. Show your commitment. I'm going to skip some of these. It's not as relevant for me to talk about now and I'm running out of time. You must avoid the they'll never miss me mentality. This is important too. Everyone that is not going to be regularly attending here anymore is going to be dearly missed. I mean, really. Understand that you are part of a team of people who work together for a common cause. The team needs you to be in position. And this specifically is about the ushers, but this goes for every member of our team here at Strong Old Baptist Church. No matter what part you play. You must structure your schedule to not interfere with your commitment. And again, I'm going to apply this to just general commitments anyways. If you're going to make a commitment to me or to a ministry here on doing something and you're going to make that commitment, then structure your schedule to not interfere with the commitment here. Understand that you will have a valid reason to miss church services every week. Right? There's always a way to find a valid reason to miss church. You could always do it. Please structure your schedule so your position is faithfully filled. Now look, there are of course going to be reasons why people can't make it to church. We get that. But you don't want to have the mindset of the more reasons you can have and will actually get you out of church, the less you'll just be in church overall. It's going to start taking over. Like, well, here's a reason, here's a reason, here's a reason. And you start allowing that to happen in your life, it's going to continue. Yeah, there's more stuff here. I'm not going to, some of it's a little redundant. If you want to see this after service to you, I'm happy to share that with you of what we're looking for. I want to make sure everyone understands that. Did I have you turn anywhere? No. Turn to Proverbs 25, 19. It's the last place we're going to turn. We're almost done here. And if there's an area or an element of this church, some aspect of this church that you think would improve the church, if we have and we don't have it right now, let me know. For the past year and a half, I've been wanting to have a security team that has been on my agenda to form a security team because it would be nice to have someone who could monitor the parking lot and just kind of ensure some level of safety, especially as it gets dark in the wintertime more than ever, because it gets real dark out there and we have some questionable people, sometimes that come through the parking lot, so that is something I still would like to have, but we need the resources, too, to fill all the different jobs and things that we want to have done. But by all means, you could bring your suggestions to me and would love to hear you out on that. But I want to emphasize, of all of these things, my final point I just want to emphasize is faithfulness, right? If you're going to commit to something or agree to something, stick with it and do it, okay? And nothing's worse than thinking, for me at least, you know, I have a lot of responsibilities and the way I work is if something's not, if the ball's not in my court, I usually don't even think about it, right? If someone, oh yeah, I'll take care of this, I'll take care of that, hey, great, thank you, that's very helpful, but it's only really helpful if you actually do it and you're faithful on it and it actually gets done because, yeah, it sounds real great if you say something, but then if you don't actually follow through, it's worse than if you just didn't say anything at all and didn't offer your help. I'd rather you not offer than offer it and not get it done, right? Because now it's way worse because I thought it was going to be done so I didn't worry about asking anyone else. I didn't have to fill that position. I didn't plan to have that done because it's already being done Oh, now all of a sudden, this comes up, right? And here's how the Bible describes that in Proverbs 25, verse number 19. The Bible says, confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth and a foot out of joint, amen. A foot out of joint is not very pleasant to walk on. Having a broken tooth, even breathing hurts, right? You got that nerve exposed. It's just like, man, that is not pleasant at all and that's what it's like when you put your confidence in someone who's unfaithful in a time of trouble. So like when you really need them, what's it saying? When you really need the unfaithful person, they're not faithful so it's not going to work out for you. In any, whatever capacity you have to offer, any type of service you want, you would like to do, that you would like to dedicate your time, you'd like to spend, you'd like to help make this church better, whatever that is, please stay faithful at whatever it is and don't overextend yourself. Be real. If you can offer to help on one thing, one time a month, great, thank you. And if you could do something every week or every service, great, thank you. But whatever it is that you can commit to or say that you'll do, stay faithful with that, please. Because like I said, that's more, it does more damage than good to agree for something and then not do it and not stay faithful. But I mean, I hope this isn't a downer. I'm really honestly just trying to, now people are going like, I might have shot myself in the foot here, people going like, man, I don't really feel like, if I got to deal with Pastor Berzins, I might not want to do anything. I hope I didn't ruin it, but seriously, I am being serious, but hopefully people still do want to help. There are a lot of ways you could help. Brother Josh has been helpful just recently with our website. So again, kids, teenagers, anyone that wants to help with any type of technology stuff, obviously we have professionals, we have men that can help do things, but there's lots of ways. We have social media that we can do a better job on. I am terrible at it because I don't really like it, so I'm being truthful. We have it because I know we need it, but I really spend no time on it, so if someone wants to help with a church service, If someone wants to help with the church social media and get some more things out there and take pictures and do stuff that would be really cool to have and to share what's going on here and do all that type of work, that would be great. And someone who wants to learn and do more with the sound equipment, I was talking about that. It's a big deal for me. I want to really improve in that area. We're going to be mounting some surveillance cameras to keep everybody safe and to make sure everything is on the up and up because that's another thing that we value here is no weird things going on in church, so we're going to try to do our best to just make sure everything is going to be proper and done decently here and however tools we can do to get that, we're going to do that then. Music, obviously we could have more room for more musicians. And my mind is failing me for the 20 other things that I've had that I know we can do that we're not doing right now. I've expressed interest in prison ministries. I've expressed interest in other nursing homes besides the retirement home that we're going to. There's so many ways that we can improve and serve God, but we need the manpower to do it. We need people. We need people to fill in because no one person can do everything. So we need faithful people who are wanting to serve. Hey, what's your vision for the church? What would you like to see improved? And I'll tell you this. I'm going to close on this one thought. The reason why I'm standing here right now and pastoring a church, the whole reason is because I visited other states and went to other churches and I didn't really like what I saw because I felt like there really wasn't anybody that was preaching the way they ought to, that was sowing the way they ought to, because I already got a taste of what a really good church is like. And then after going all over the place, I could sit there and complain about it or I could work to do something about it. And I chose to do something about it. I'm not just going to complain, oh, man, there's no good churches here. Oh, there's no good churches here. Do something about it. And if there's something you don't like about our church, don't just sit there and complain about it, like, oh, I wish we didn't do this or I wish we didn't do that. Do something about it. Try to help. Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem. I am trying to instill this in my children all the time. Don't bring me problems. Bring me solutions. And seriously, we need to have that mindset. Don't just come and bring problems. Okay, there could be a problem, but how should we fix it? Show me you've thought about it because usually if people think about the problem, they could think about a way that they could fix it and then they don't have to come to me. And I'm specifically talking about, like, my kids at home, but, you know, sometimes work feels like I have kids, too. All right, I better, I got to put my foot in my mouth at this point because I'm really going to ensure I don't get any more volunteers if I keep talking and the multitude of words are wanted, not, sinned. So, I'm calling it. I appreciate all the help. I really do. You guys are awesome, but let's continue to work to improve this church, the church plant in Greenville, and serve the Lord heartily and do all for the glory of God. Let's borrow that word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for bringing this church together, for adding the members here. There is so much ability here that you've brought together. I pray that you please help us all to find it in our own hearts to see how we could serve you best. I pray that you please lead all the various members to the places that they would be best fit and best used. And, Lord, help us have the humility to serve and do all for the glory of your name. We love you. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. There's one last thing that I forgot to mention, too, as me being a leader in a leadership role, and while I was praying, it came to my mind, but I did want to make note of this. For people offering to serve, sometimes I may see things about you that you don't see things about you, and I may want or ask you that are offering help to help in a certain area. If you have aspirations of doing a lot of service in our church or here, then I suggest you take my guidance and counsel on how you can best serve this church, because if your goal is really and truly to help serve this church, there are areas that I know this church needs the most help at or where I think people might be the best suited for. And take that to heart, and, you know, again, you're free to choose how you would like to help, but I'm really interested in people that are willing to help in any capacity that they can, and just take that guidance. All right, we'll sing one more song, and then we're dismissed. So, Brother Devin, would you please lead us in our last song? Let our joys be known Join in a song with sweet accord Join in a song with sweet accord And thus surround the throne And thus surround the throne We're marching to Zion Beautiful, beautiful Zion We're marching upwards in Zion The beautiful city of God Let those we refuse to see Who never knew are God The children of the heavenly King The children of the heavenly King They speak their joys abroad They speak their joys abroad We're marching to Zion Beautiful, beautiful Zion We're marching upwards in Zion The beautiful city of God The hill of Zion yields A thousand sacred streets Before we reach the heavenly fields Before we reach the heavenly fields Or walk the golden streets Or walk the golden streets We're marching to Zion Beautiful, beautiful Zion We're marching upwards in Zion The beautiful city of God And let our songs amount And every tear we try We're marching through Emmanuel's ground We're marching through Emmanuel's ground To never world on high To never world on high We're marching to Zion Beautiful, beautiful Zion We're marching upwards in Zion The beautiful city of God Thank you for watching!