Share the Treasure

I can't believe I'm getting up here after last Sunday. I told the Lord, I said, I'm not getting up anymore. And I found out a long time ago when I say something like that, it ain't going to happen. And I don't mean just getting up here, but whenever you tell the Lord you're not going to do something, you'll end up having to do it. But I did want to get up because after all the songs that we've sung this morning about the Lord, I just wanted to kind of share. I was reading something, I read something in Psalms this morning as part of my reading. And as I was reading it, I got to thinking, you know, when the Lord saved me, I was so happy. I had such joy, such peace. I mean, everything was just wonderful. And then all of a sudden I found out that I was still flesh and I failed. And it just crushed me. And I fasted. I don't know how many times I fasted. I mean, you know, I would get victory. I would get peace. And then it would happen again. I'd fail. And so I fasted again. I fasted longer, 21 days one time. God, you got to deliver me from this. But time went on and the Word would keep coming forth and it would encourage me. It would strengthen me. It would bring me back to the foundation. And so I kept going. But this thing just kept bothering me. For my whole life, my whole Christian life, this has bothered me. And I knew what the Word said. I knew God's covenant, what He promised. I knew that when God promised something, He didn't go back on it. But it still bothered me. I mean, the enemy just used it. It just beat me and beat me. And I could never really get peace. And it was like I knew the Word, but I was waiting for something to click. You know, so that I'd know that I knew that I knew. And I thought of a Wyatt Earp movie that I watched. And Wyatt was talking to, I can't remember the guy that, he was an outlaw too, but he was with Wyatt and helped him with a lot of stuff. And Wyatt had done something. And he said, I'm just on the hook for that. And anyways, Buddy looked at him and said, Wyatt, you need to know there is no hook. And you know what? Jesus took away the hook. Beloved, when he went to that cross, it was finished.

I mean, it was done. There's nothing we can add. There's nothing that we can take away from what he did. But I want to read Psalm 32. This is the one we read this morning. It says, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silent, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. My moisture turned into drought of summer. I acknowledge my sin to you and mine iniquity. Have I not hid, I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord. And thou forgave us the iniquity of my sin. For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto you in a time when you may be found. Surely in the floods of great waters, they shall not come unto him. Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye. But ye, not as the horse or the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held by bit and bridle, lest they come near to you. Many sorrows shall be for the wicked, but he that trusts in the Lord, mercy shall compass him round about. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous, and shout for joy, all you that are upright in heart. And while I was reading that, I thought of what Paul said over in Romans, and I'll just read this right quick. But Paul was talking about faith. He was talking about Abraham. And he said, he said this, now to him that works is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt.

We can't make, we can't, we're not going to be perfect. We can't. And it says, but to him that works not, believes on him, believes on him, believes, believes that covenant, believes that promise. Who that believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. But even as David also described the blessedness of man whom God imputes righteousness without work saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. He's probably taken that from Psalm 32. But he said, blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. When we come to that place, it's done. And then I thought of another Psalm, Psalm 103. I just want to read part of that. You know, the word is there. God writes his word in our heart and in our mind. And it's amazing how he can use it. If you write that in your heart, if God writes that in your heart and in your mind, you can draw from that. When the enemy comes to condemn you, to beat you down or to do anything that would direct you away from the Lord. The Lord can use this word to keep you and to hold you on that foundation. And in Psalm 103, he says this, I'll start with verse 8. He said, the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. And I'm a witness to that this morning. He has been so merciful, so patient with me. And he said, he will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. He has not dealt with us after our sin, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. Now picture this, for as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy to them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. You can't, there is no end.

It's, it's, it's infinite. Does that mean we just, oh, well, we can go on and sin and no. You know, at best, if, when we fail, if we're grieved in our heart, when we do something that we know we shouldn't be doing or have done something, grieve not the Holy Spirit. That's what Paul said. You are grieved in your heart, but you don't have to be beat, you don't have to be beat down and condemned. God has handled all that. He knows what we need. And I thought of Paul, you know, when he said, you know, he prayed three times that that thorn in the flesh would be taken from him. I don't know how long that time was. It could have been a day. It could have been years, but he kept praying, God, take this from me, take this from me. It bothers me. And God said, nope, I ain't taking it, Paul, because my grace is sufficient for you because my grace is made perfect in your weakness. So instead of being beat down, I've just come to the conclusion that the only way I'm going to, I'm going to be able to go forward and do what the Lord wants me to do is by faith. Gee, isn't that a revelation? I mean, I mean, it's there, it's been there all the time. But you know, we've got to come to the place where we realize there isn't going to be no, there isn't going to be no click. There ain't going to be something that clicks. You're going to have to believe God and you're going to have to stand on his word and go forward. And when you do that, God is going to take you from here to there, to there, to there. You don't know what you're going to go through. I don't know what I'm going to go through, but I know God has promised to get me through. He said, he said he would complete the work that he started and he will complete it.

And I'm just looking forward to that day. Like that song we said, what a day that will be when my Jesus, I shall see. When I look upon his face, the one that saved me by his grace, it's not going to be by anything that I've done or anything that I've conquered. It's going to be what he's conquered. And I'm just so thankful for that. had to share that. If I messed up, I'm sorry, but somebody can clean it up. Praise the Lord. I was just thinking when Ron was up here, maybe most of y'all know this word, but I didn't learn it until I was in cop school, expungement. If you have a felony, if you have a felony, say you did something you weren't supposed to when you were 20 and you had a felony on your record, you can't do certain things. You can't buy a pistol. There's a lot of things you can't do. Oh, I don't have one. Some people do, but you can get expunged. That means it completely goes away. Everything we've ever seen, Jesus, that's expunged, that's gone. If you ask him to forgive you. I was just, I thought I was having, and we might walk around for 40 years having that thing hanging over us and you're limited to the things you can do

because you knew that thing's there. You don't have to be. There's people walking around carrying stuff and you've been carrying it 40, 50 years. You've been carrying it for three days. You don't have to carry it at all. I just thought I had to ask the Lord to forgive you for that and it's gone. That's it, it's very simple. But we make it hard. I do. But the other thing I wanted to just share is part of our men's meeting this morning. I want to encourage anybody, everybody, if you feel like the Lord wants you to share something, to share it, whether from your seat or to come up here. I mentioned this morning about that spiritual warfare class we had. That was awesome to me. We broke up into the smaller groups and we talked and then we got back together and we talked and everybody that was there, I think will agree, that was a blessing. We heard from people that don't normally have the liberty to speak, but what is that? That's God's church. This is Christ's body. It's how it's supposed to work. That blessing was big. And then we just kind of, well, that was fun.

Let's not do that. Share with your family, did you lose your keys? I'm talking about anything and God helped you find them. Share, God, there's a blessing. It helps me when y'all share something, especially people that don't normally share. Just for me, if somebody gets up here that don't normally get up here, I'm paying. I'm like, they got something to say. And God, every person here has a testimony. God has helped you through something or you wouldn't be sitting here probably. Or you just stay home. God loves us and we're a family and we're a body and that's how it works. With just coming in, say, I'm just gonna sit there and see who has something that probably feels gonna say something. I'm guilty of doing that. But I've also gotten up in the morning before and prayed and seek the Lord. I said, Lord, if you want me to share something today, help me to share it, because I can't do it. I'm not a good speaker, but help me to be able to do it. Now, what would happen if every person in this church got up on Sunday morning and said, Lord, if you want me to share something, what would happen if we read the word throughout the week and seek the Lord and say, Lord, and get into the word? And then what would happen on Sunday?

Instead of relying on one man, say, all we gotta do is just show up. What if, I've said it before, but Chip got up here when I was younger, Chip King, and we were sitting right there, and he said, next service, I wanna hear from you boys. And we were, I was stressed about it. And then I was like, I'm gonna go first because everybody else is gonna say the good stuff. But we shouldn't be. We should be able to share. But if we are seeking the Lord and spending time with him, you're gonna have something to share. If there's something coming in, something's gonna be able to go out. I've said that before too, a pond to work right for the fish and all the animals that live, there's some water coming in and there's some going out. If it's not, it goes stagnant and it dies. So if you're, we need to be seeking the Lord, spending time with him, and then there's enough to share, to bubble out the other side, and life happens. Good afternoon. While we're waiting, I just wanna share, how many of y'all believe the Lord answers prayer? Amen. Amen. I do too. How many of you believe that we're walking in a prayer that God's answered right now? Right? I think he's opened the door and is right before us here and I'm talking about Mercy Tree. How many of y'all thought a year ago

right now we'd be part of a Bible training center over in what's that area called over there? Vass. How many of you would just say, yeah, you're crazy. I'll tell you, God works in mysterious ways, but there's a light that's shining right over there in an area that needs it and God's made us a part of it. My thought is this, you know, we were having services there. I want to, and Steve, I don't want to jump the gun here, but Friday night is the night we're going out there and we're singing together and we're worshiping and we're fellowship and we're having some of that break in the bread that Michael was talking about. And I invite every one of you to come out there and be a part of it. Whether you sing or whether you just say amen, I tell you, that's how we can be a part of that group. God didn't answer that prayer for us to sit back and say, wow, God answered our prayer. It's time to get up off our haunches and it's time to be a part of it and do our part. Amen? Support it with prayer, because I tell you what, when they start getting residents over there, there's going to need to be a battle and prayer going on every day. We can be a part of that. Amen? So that was my two cents. I just wanted to share that, make sure that everybody knew that you're welcome. You know, they sing, we sing, we all sing, but we're worshiping God together. And I tell you, there's a spirit of praise over there in that building, and I believe the Lord wants it to grow. Amen? Thank you. Amen. Just a side note on what Kenny was just sharing there, AJ had texted me, I guess it was Friday mid-morning, he said, hey, we really want to open this thing up and make Friday night an official time of worship and gathering together, you know, for the church. And I said, yeah, we'll talk about it, and we didn't really talk about it in detail, you know, Friday night when we were over there, but anybody that's going over there, you know the Lord's presence is there. And it's a direct correlation of what Ron shared at the very beginning. You know, Ron, were you in our men's meeting this morning? You were there by the Spirit, that's all right. What Ron shared is so much a mirror image of what I've experienced a lot of my Christian life, honestly. And the way those men down there, we were talking about it down there in our men's meeting, and there's definitely a connection.

Those men were pulled out of such a pit, they know that their rescue came through Jesus Christ alone. And, you know, there was that time where, I think it was the lady that was washing the Lord's feet with her hair, and always the Pharisees found fault with what Jesus was doing. And he found fault with the people the Lord was helping. But it was their religion and their tradition that helped them fast, and they couldn't even see the Son of God when he was sitting right in front of them. And in essence, he is a rescuer, he is a Savior. He fulfilled all the law and then came here and took us out of the miry clay and set our feet on a rock. He is the rock. But I want to go back to what Ron said, compared to what those guys will tell you, those men have been pulled from such a terrible place that it's like the lady that was washing the Lord's feet with her hair, and they were finding fault. And Jesus said, he who has been forgiven much loves much. And the problem with us, even when we experience the love of God in our heart like Ron was talking about, he sheds his love. When you experience his love, it's like no other love. You really understand in a measure what love really is, because contrasted against your undeserving, your sin, your shame, God loves you. That's a huge contrast. And when the Lord tells you, I love you, that's when it means something. But, you know, some people, they are dragged from such a pit, they're just, they're overflowing with the Lord and it doesn't seem to give out. They just keep expressing, they have a passion to share that with others. But many of us, even after we were saved, particularly if you go to church or you're staying in church, you were raised in church, how much of that self-effort is still there? there. Some form of legalism or some, I've got to do it. I have found how much I had, I've got to do it was still in there. And the greatest lesson sometimes is total failure. Falling down on your face and realizing I need the same savior that guy did. But as we go through this life and this Christian journey, even if we were kind of not the bad person, we find out that we kind of are. And the more long-suffering and his long-suffering we experience in our own lives, the more we realize I've been forgiven much. How could he love me that much to put up with me? And the more and more, like Ron said, that we see that we love him more. He doesn't love us any less, but he wants us to experience

the love. So we have the love to give others. And it's a very practical thing. And even the guy that was, or let's say a woman that's in the house of prostitution, Lord saves her. You know what? She probably doesn't have to look back and say, what does the Lord save me from? She knows, but she knows it so much. She's like the lady that ran back into town and said, he told me everything that I ever did. Jesus gets exalted when we're saved. And it seems like the worse shape we're in, the easier he is to be exalted, you know, that he's in the process of preparing each one of us to participate in that same kind of gospel. And you know what? If you're having to go through it for 30 or 40 years to realize, you know what? The Lord has made real to me more than how much of a savior he really is. And when he does that, it's the same Jesus. It's the same sharing, though we come from different backgrounds. And I'll just say, praise God that he's shaping each one of us into his image to where we can be a vessel for his glory and to proclaim Jesus Christ is a savior. And there's no sin or no pit too deep he can't pull you out of. He is a risen Lord. He is a savior and he is alive. And I'll just follow up on the request for people to come out. Though we did not officially talk about it, we got home. It was like 1030 before we got home. I was like, man, what in the world is going on? You know, drove all the way back from Lobelia. But we were so blessed and so strengthened. I know people that have gone out there and met and others, they can speak to it. But it's just the presence of the Lord and his goodness is being shared at a very organic level. And it's so rich and free. You see why people get help when they go in there. There's a complete freedom and liberty to say, Jesus is this and he's that and he's real to me. And anyway, we got back and I think it was maybe it was Rob that had posted on Facebook already. And he said, you'd have to go back and see it. But he said, Friday night is officially worship night with the Bible tabernacle. He said the Lord's presence was heavy in this place. Thank God for his unfailing love. And it's pretty much saying, look, I can say it from here. You guys are absolutely welcome. We wanted as many people to be involved as felt led. And I feel like the Lord is organically leading that direction. I think it was Amanda. Amanda texted me and said they wanted to be out there this Friday or next Friday. And I want everybody to know that we're not coordinating. I thank God that he's coordinating it. And I look back and how this thing started, the Lord's the one that did the coordination. He's the one that's building it. He's the one that's sharing it. And it's so much deeper than I thought it would ever be already. And it's made

an impact on me. And so I will communicate more with AJ. Usually they have, you know, I'll say what time, you know, we may not be able to have food every time because then you got to feed the church of the churches there. Then we got to clean it up. And so there's a balance. And sometimes people just go there for devotion, you know, and just spend that time with them praying and worshiping and reading the Bible. But I am so glad in so many ways that the Lord is getting us out of our box. Jesus is not in a box. He's not in religion. He never was, but he is in righteousness and he's the only one who is. He gives that, I think Mike said, you know, that is put to our account. That's why we can't, sin cannot be imputed to us because he's taking care of it. We are his children. We have his life and he wants his life given to others. The Lord, he's in the process of working on our church and our assembly. And, you know, we we've talked about it from time to time. Our last deacon elders meeting, which was last Tuesday, we realized, hey, the Lord is getting us out of a rut. Has anybody here been in a rut? Oh yeah. That's the easiest thing to do. But as the Lord stimulates our faith and we exercise ourself, we're going to see more of him and praise. God that he's faithful. He's gonna finish the work he started in this church. Every church, the gates of hell will not prevail against what the Lord's plan is. He's here right now, as big as ever. Nobody like Jesus. Praise God. So it's kind of funny because my son said, Mom, how about you get up there? When Michael was talking. I said, Son, Jesus has to give you something if you need to get up there. And then of course he did, so I'm gonna stay a step of faith. I just want to say that, you know, a lot of the times the body of Christ is behind the scenes. And I've learned that more going to ladies' prayer meeting because a lot of you know that we're expecting and it's been a battle sometimes to just get through the day. But there's just a reality of the Lord causing people to be on people's hearts. And Cathy shared with me this morning, she said,

I believe the Lord gave me a word for you. And she had a scripture and it was just what I needed. So sometimes the body of Christ isn't just where we can see. It's just these little tiny things behind the scenes that you don't know how. Just seeing a little scripture to somebody or say that you're praying for somebody can literally be God speaking through you to somebody. Amen. All of my nerves don't kill me up here now. Lord have mercy. Anyway, I appreciate what you said about God can speak to you through other people. I had an inmate come up to me this past week. I fired him. Funny enough, I fired him because he was strung out. I told him to come back to me when he gets all his stuff taken care of, gets back on track, and he did. Had people come to me telling him like, you know, he's saved now. He's been baptized and hearing that in prison is kind of, sometimes it's an excuse. I ain't gonna lie. Come to me and be like, I've been saved man. He shot me back. It's like, is it real? Are you sure? I kind of went on that. I'll take it with a grain of salt. And it was true. He surprised me. I mean, he's got a long time, but he surprised me. He came to me and said, listen, man, I see all these religions. I'm new to it.

What's the truth? I said, man, I'll be honest. I don't know myself. But I can tell you it's not about religion. It's about a relationship. And if you ain't got that, then you ain't got nothing. Because you got to trust, have faith that whatever you go through, it's going to get you through it. You can't see that door on the other side unless you trust and have faith. And he sat there and he was listening. I said, I could do a better job about trying to preach or trying to help people. I said, but I don't, man. That's something I don't do. He said, but you are now because I asked you a question. And you brought me closer than I could have ever been close before. For all these chapels and stuff, he said, you brought me closer because you helped me along the way. And you just kept telling me little by little by little. And it helped me get saved. Brought me to some place. After that, we were talking about all kinds of other stuff, ways he can get closer and closer. And I could just see a big change in him. It really blessed me. I just had to get up and say that because, yeah, I guess I got to speak to him. You know? And God spoke to me. It blessed me in a sense. So that's what I had to say. Praise God that he's the one leading the way.

I'll tell you, I wasn't planning on getting up here, but one of the kids got a Bible verse from Sunday school and it just felt like it flows. It's in Jeremiah 31, verse 3. And it says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Praise God that it's everlasting, no matter how much we fall short. Everlasting love that he has for us. And it says, I have drawn you. And I thought right there, it's true that he draws us when we're first coming to him. But when we get off the path and we mess up. The Father is always drawing us closer to Him, back to Him. And then it says here, I've drawn you with unfailing kindness. Praise God that the kindness and love of God, our Savior appeared and He rescued us and He's redeeming us. The other thought I had was that song that I requested this morning. It's been on my heart all week. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. And my thought that I had was that is every day when we wake up, that fountain is there with us. It's not a one-time event at an altar that we experienced that cleansing. That cleansing flow is constant. Christ, it's constantly, we're under the blood. If you are, if you do have that relationship with Him, you're under that blood. I tell you, I made mistakes this week, every day just about, but I thank God for the blood and then I'm covered under that blood. I praise His name this morning. Just had one kind of small thought come back to me from something we had talked about during our meeting Tuesday night, but just thought about it again as we were sharing this morning. You know, it was thinking back, I didn't look up where it was, but it's thinking back to an account.

It was one of the times where a big army, you know, was coming against God's people and they'd kind of surrounded the city there and they were shut up in the city and couldn't get in and out. And of course, after a while, you start to starve them out. You know, it's part of the military strategy they would use and people were getting hungry. Food was getting scarce. The situation was getting bad, but you know, there came a point where there were these three lepers that were saying, well, you know, we're starving to death here. Why don't we just go ask the other army? Maybe they've got food. And he's like, what's the worst that's going to happen? They'll just kill us. Well, we're going to die here anyway. We're starving here anyway. We're lepers anyway. We're outcasts of this society itself anyway. So what do we got to lose? Well, in the meantime, God had already dealt with the army. He had caused them to think they were under attack and had gotten paranoid and they ended up fleeing and they fled in such a hurry. They left everything behind. So here they are, a city full of starving people. These three lepers went over there to the camp and found it abandoned. And their reaction was, well, no, praise God. This is like the jackpot. You know, all this food's here, everything. This is perfect. They began feasting and eating and man, this is great. But then one of them had the thought, you know, this is wrong that we're just sitting here enjoying this for ourselves.

We know there's a whole city full of starving people over there. We got to go tell them about it so they can come share in this too because they need that. It's wrong for us to just sit here and enjoy this. But how easy is it for us to do that with the things of God? You know, if we've experienced his love, we've felt that love and felt him call us and experience what it is to be forgiven and to know what it is to walk with him and his mercy and his goodness and his faithfulness. And yet how easy is it to just enjoy that and not have that burden to want to share that with others? Because, and sometimes the very barrier to that is, well, who am I? I'm just a leper. I'm a nobody. But the reason why we can share Christ no matter who and what we are is because our message is not ourselves. What we have to share is not us. That's why you can take people who have just come to Christ out of a pit and they can be lights and be ministers for him because what they have to share is not themselves. They have a testimony, but the testimony is what God did for them. That's what they have to share, not themselves. Because that's why, like what Ron was talking about, that's why we can be, you know, you think most things you think about manufacturing something, be it a car or whatever you think, well, that thing's got to be finished before you can use it, right? You can't pull a car off the assembly line and it doesn't have the wheels yet or doesn't have the steering wheel or the headlights. It doesn't work unless the whole thing is ready to go, right? Well, in the kingdom of God, it's not like that. He can use tools that are still in process of being fashioned because the message is not us. It's him. If we have him in any measure, we've got something to share.

Are we still works in progress? Yeah. Are we? But if we're going to wait until everything is done, guess when everything gets done? That's when we're on the other side and we don't have this nature anymore. Well, nobody over there needs the gospel in that sense. The people that need the gospel, they're here. It's like those people starving in that city and it's easy to just say, I'm going to enjoy this. This is great. It's fantastic. Hallelujah. Thank God. And all that's proper to do. But with that, we've got to have that sense to that. You know what? They're starving people that need this. And though I'm a, you think you're a leper, you think you're a nobody, you think I'm not even anybody in that society, you know, at all. I'm nobody. What do I have? What we have to share is the, the riches and the, of Jesus Christ, the abundant supply for starving people. And we can share it because it's not about us and who we are. It's, it's our testimony of what he's done, who he is. And that means even though we're works in progress, we can share Christ. We can be used of him. And all it takes is that availability. Just that message that, you know what? I've got something that's awesome.

And I want to share that, not me. I want to share that. Praise God. That's a blessing, isn't it? To be able to be a part of that. God help us to just have the simple faith to say, we've got something worth sharing. We've got something people need to hear. And it's not dependent on us or who we think we are. We don't even know who we are anyway. We don't see ourselves the way God does. Only he knows that, but it's not about that. It is about who our Lord is. So let's keep our eyes on that and let's share the riches, share the food with a starving city. I believe we've got the privilege to do that. Praise God. I appreciate the Lord here this morning, don't you? Tell you what, Steve John can get up fast. When he got in front of me, when he got up earlier, I was like, man, he was flying up there here. Anyway, I just had a scripture over in Isaiah 60. I'll share it. It says, arise, shine for your light has come. Don't y'all feel like that's what Lord's on our midst right now? The light has come and we're moving towards the Lord. And it says, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. Praise God. See, darkness covers the earth

and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Praise God for that. Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look about you. All assemble and come to you. Your sons come from afar and your daughters are carried on their hip. Then you will look and be radiant. Your heart will throb and swill with joy. Tell you what, that's what matters, isn't it? The Lord starts using us. I don't know about y'all, I have a joy this morning about this service. It's just been really refreshing and just thankful how God's moved this morning. I'll tell you what, as we seek the Lord, just encourage everybody, just seek the Lord. You're not here, none of us are here as benchwarmers. We're here to be an example and a light to those that were around. And I just encourage everybody just to be seeking the Lord. We wanna be led by the spirit of Lord here in this church. I know y'all do, and that's what I want. And guess what? He's here to lead us. Praise God. He's the head, is he not? And we're the body.

Praise God. Thank you. Man, that was a long walk. Lord, have mercy. I just sitting there and my heart pounding and everything. I said, I told the Lord, I said, I don't need to get up here this morning. I said, I don't wanna get up here this morning. I just don't need to, Lord. But God said, I just felt the Lord telling me to get up there and give glory to me. Because I just feel like the Lord's doing something in this church. And I just feel like it, that, you know, for me, I felt like for a long time, I was restless to my wife. I said, I felt like there was something in me that just wanted to bust out. And I felt, I felt in prison. I felt, I felt in bondage. I felt in bondage. And the Lord set me free. And I feel like when all this has come about, when these brothers went up there to, where was it, Norman? And when this storm that came through up in the mountains, everything that's happened, God is allowing all this stuff to come together to help this church and not only this church, but other churches. He's moving in the earth today

and he's setting people free. He's setting me free. And he's using all these circumstances to bring us to where we are today. And I feel challenged this morning, if you will, if I can say that. I feel challenged and I feel like the Lord is on the move. And I don't know what it means for me, but I'll tell you one thing, I want to serve God. And I felt like my vision has been renewed. And I remember Brother Thomas came back up here, went down to church on number one down there. And one thing he preached, I was sharing this with my wife there, last several days, because the Lord is really helping me here lately. These past several Sundays, I'm gonna tell you, he's helping me. He's helping, he's moving in this church. But he came up here and one scripture he brought out, he said, it was over there in Isaiah 45, 22, I believe, it says, where there's no vision, the people perish. I don't want to perish. There's something for us to do here. There's more than just me. God didn't put me down. here to live my own life selfishly. But what comes in, what the Lord's given us, has to, it goes out or it just becomes spiritual dry rot. And I don't want to rot. I don't want to die in my sins. I want the Lord to be magnified in this place, in this county. And what it looks like for me and for this church, I can't say, but I feel like the Lord is already showing me. I was here Wednesday night

and I talked to some of the brothers there. I talked to Aaron there, wonderful brother, precious brother. He's got life in him. These men, they have, they've been down in the gutter. The Lord has saved them and pulled them out. And the Lord saved me. And I feel like, you know, the Lord, he brought me to this church and he helped me. I was commuting back and forth to church in South Carolina, Columbia there. And, you know, it was a blessing. They really, they really brought, they welcomed me. I came there, I felt I was being nurtured, you know. And then I moved back up here and Brother Thomas was up here. And the church has been through a lot, but the Lord's been with us. And he's moved and he's delivering us. He's delivering me. But I don't know how much more I'll say, but I'm just, I'm just thankful for what God's doing and got this outreach out here, Mercy Tree. And I just feel really encouraged. I feel, I feel like the Lord is, just like we're singing this morning, he's on the move. And I just want to move with him because I want to follow the Lord. You know, Jesus told the disciples, he says, follow me. I just want to follow him. And I tell you what, praise God, we're going to be okay. Amen. Praise the Lord.