"Liberty Baptist Temple" | September 17, 2025

Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.

The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist

Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us

or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look

us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this

message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.

As I was saying, you know what, I wasn't sure exactly how to

proceed because we were in the middle.

We hadn't quite gotten to the middle of a message last week,

but then had to stop the message where it was.

And so I was just trying to seek the Lord's wisdom on what to do.

And really, I feel the best way for us to proceed this evening

is to go ahead and, well, start back from the beginning.

Because I don't know really how much anyone remembers from the

sermon last week or where we were.

And so I've gone over it again and kind of made some changes

here or there. But at the same time, I think

that we need to start back from where were if you were, if you

were here rather last week. And you say some of this sounds

familiar. Well, praise the Lord, you

remember some of it from last week.

But at the same time, I do think it's best for us to just start

right back from where we were, which is in First Corinthians

chapter #3 and in saying that for first Timothy chapter 3,

1 Timothy 3:15

verse 15 says, But if I tarry long that thou mayest know how

thou oughtest to behave thyself in the House of God, which is

the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the

truth. And there are many places in the

Bible where church is called the House of God, isn't it?

In fact, we are reminded that this is not our house.

This is not Rivero's house. This is not your house.

This is God's house. And it's good for us to remember

that once in a while because it helps us to know how to behave

ourselves within the house. And well, we know that in life,

when you're in someone's house, you follow those people's rules,

don't you? If the the kind of family that

wants you to take your shoes off when you go in the house, you

make sure you have the socks on that don't have holes and you

take your shoes off when you go to their house.

You know, if you go to someone's house and you know they want to

serve you a meal and you say, well, can we bring something and

say, no, please don't bring anything.

We have everything provided, you know, well, this is their house.

And so I'm going to follow their rules because this is what they

desire. Well, here in God's house, we

can't do anything but what well, God wants us to do.

We behave ourselves in a way that God would desire us to

behave ourselves. And that's one of the reasons we

call this God's house. Well, in our text tonight, we

see something that is a reminder that in some ways is even more

powerful than simply calling this the House of God.

And certainly, again, that is a biblical term to call this

church the House of God. But we're given a reminder of

what's really at stake when we come to church.

We're given a reminder of why church is really so important

when we look at our text because we're going to find that not

only could we literally call the church the House of God, but we

can also call it this as well, the temple of God.

Now we don't often call our church a temple, do we?

In fact, that we don't say that we're going to temple on Sunday.

We say we're going to church. We there are churches that used

to be called Baptist Temple. We mentioned last week that

there was Holbrook Baptist Temple that is now Lighthouse

Baptist Church. I interned in Missouri years ago

at a church called Holden Baptist Temple, a town, 2000

people. But we could call this tonight

Liberty Baptist Temple and still be biblical.

And there's a reason why that term is so important.

There's a reason why that term is good for us to understand and

use. And there's a reason that it

shows us why what we do here is so vitally important and why

being in the temple of God, why being in the House of God, why

being in church is so important. It really all comes from 2

verses. So as we continue our study of

First Corinthians chapter 3, we're to read verses 16 and 17.

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

And it says this, Know ye not that ye are the temple of God,

God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.

If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.

For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

Now as we get into our message this evening, and we'll see

first of all, tonight as we if you have your prayer bulletin,

you can write this down on the back of your prayer bulletin.

First of all, we see the privilege of church, the

privilege of church. Now, just to go back and

reiterate something that we talked about last week.

You might have a little bit of confusion here.

You say, pastor, I thought when we talk about the temple of God

is specifically in First Corinthians, isn't that talking

about our bodies being the temple of God?

But you're saying that in this verse, it's actually talking

about the church being the temple of God.

And my answer to you is that's absolutely correct, that the

Word of God does refer to our bodies as being the temple of

God. But at the same time, I believe

the context here in First Corinthians chapter #3 very

clearly is talking about us assembling together, us being a

local church, that in this assembly that we comprise the

very temple of God. And the way that I want to kind

of show you that is keep your space there, but go just a

couple pages over to 1st Corinthians chapter #6.

So turn to 1st Corinthians chapter #6 and verse #19.

Now you may very likely be familiar with these verses.

These are great verse. I can't wait to get to these.

You're in our study several months from now.

I think this will be good, but look at what it says First

Corinthians 619 What know ye not that your body is the temple of

the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God, and ye

are not your own, for ye are bought with the price.

Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which

are gods. I believe right here in this

text, it is showing us that yes, your body is the temple of the

Holy Ghost. Now, why is that important?

Well, it's important because when we use the word temple, the

word temple literally means a dwelling place.

That's what it means. That's why when you were to go

to the Old Testament, you found that the temple that was built

by Solomon, that temple was a location where God had dwelled,

not that God didn't dwell other places.

We know God is omnipresent. We know He's everywhere, but God

had deemed himself to be able to be there in front of the people

of Israel. There in that temple.

It was called the temple. It was the dwelling place of

God. The ark of the Covenant was

there, the physical representation of God.

It was the temple. It's where God dwelled.

If you just want to put it in his most basic terms, the temple

is where God dwelt. Well, let me ask you, are you

saved this evening? All right, So make sure you're

awake. All right, that's good.

If you're saved this evening, guess what the Holy Spirit we

just covered this Sunday morning, He dwells within you

The moment you got saved. I mean, the second you got

saved, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of God.

He's the earnest of your inheritance.

He's the down payment of eternity in heaven that lives

within you this day. If you know Jesus Christ your

Savior, meaning what? That you are a temple of God in

the sense that your body is the temple of which God resides,

that you have God himself living in you.

And again, I mentioned on Sunday, I'll mention again

tonight, we can't get over that. We can't allow ourselves to get

to the place where it's commonplace that the Holy Spirit

lives within us, that the God of all creation lives within us.

So we are the temple of the living God.

But yet I would also submit to you that in First Corinthians

chapter #3 we also see that it calls the body of the church the

temple as well. Now I gave you a little bit of a

tutorial last week, but I actually have a visual for this

week. When we look at our King James

bottle. You ever hear people say this?

You know, you can't read that old King James bottle.

There's these and thou's and ye yees and all these things.

And, and listen, I understand that that can sometimes be a

little bit of a hardship, but it's not quite as difficult as

often times people make it out to be.

And understanding what thee and thou and ye and you are in the

word of God helps you to make sure that you're reading the

Bible, you're reading it in context.

You're making sure you're understanding who certain things

are written to. Well, what we see is the word

the and thou is singular. You know where you find a lot of

these and thous in epistles like first and Second Timothy and

Titus. Now, why would that be?

Because Paul is talking to one man.

He's talking to one man specifically.

And that one man, Timothy, or that one man Titus, he is going

to tell them the things that they need to do.

There's going to be a lot of these and now's there.

Now, how do you remember this? And we saw this last week.

We saw that at that letter T, What's there's one line on top,

isn't there? That one line on the top of the

letter T reminds you that it is a singular word.

It is a singular in the sense that it's talking to one person.

The word ye and you is plural. And we see that because, well,

look, there's two lines on top, isn't remember I remember I said

this last week that we could do this, but we can't do this, this

or this, right? OK, but this, there's two lines,

right? Those two lines remind us that

it is plural. Now go back to verse #19 it says

what? Know ye not that your body is

the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have

of God, and ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price.

Therefore God glorify God in your body, in your spirit, which

are gods. Those words, those ye words.

There are telling us that he is talking in the plural and he

said, well pastor, I thought you said this was talking about our

body, right. He is giving a command to the

church plural that they are to take care of their bodies in a

way that is honoring to God in the singular.

It would be as if me saying you as a church, you ought to pray

you as a church you ought to, I'm talking corporately to

everybody, but I'm talking to you singularly.

And so he's saying, hey, you church, listen up, take care of

your bodies. By the way, we're not just

talking about bodies like hey, make sure you eat right.

Make sure you exercise. Remember, bodily exercise

profits little. We love that Bible verse, don't

we? But we do know this, listen,

that you got to take care of yourself spiritually because

therefore glorify God in your body, in your spirit, which are

gods, meaning this you don't belong to yourself.

That you have been bought with a price.

And so he is telling all of them, listen, glorify God in

your body. Now go back to first Corinthians

chapter #3 and we'll stay here. The context of that is, hey, you

all, you take care of yourself spiritually because God dwells

within you. Now, all chapter of chapter #3

and I know not everyone was here for all of chapter 3.

He's talking to the church corporately.

He says this, you are carnal. He says this, you are weak.

He says you are fleshly. You're doing the things that you

want to do instead of doing the things that you ought to do.

He says, I want to talk to you like you're mature Christians,

but I can't. I want to give you strong meat.

I want to give you a porterhouse steak, but all I can give you is

milk because that's all you spiritually can handle.

And so he talks about them constantly, constantly as a

group all throughout the chapter.

And then we get to verse #16 and he says, know ye not that ye are

the temple of God? In the context here, don't you

know you all are the temple of God?

And there's no mention about a body.

There's no mention about an individual.

It's all corporate. You all are the temple of God

and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.

So what does that mean to us tonight?

Well, the privilege of the church for us this evening is

this, that we as a body of believers are the temple of God

and that the Spirit of God dwells within us tonight.

Yes, the Spirit dwells within each of us as believers, yes,

but also he dwells within us corporately.

Listen, whatever the count is for the attendance tonight,

Dave, I know made the count. I'm not asking you for it right

now, I'll check it later. But I do know this.

We could rightly count one more. Why?

Because the Lords amongst us tonight.

Then that ought to make us excited, that ought to make us

thrilled that when we come here this evening that the Lord is

amongst us. And this idea isn't just

something that's supported here, it's support in other Bible

texts as well. Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom all

the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy

temple in the Lord, in whom you have builded together for

inhabitation of God through the Spirit. 1st Corinthians 2 or

rather first Peter chapter 2 verse 5, ye also as lively

1 Peter 2:5

stones are built up into a spiritual house, a holy

priesthood to OfferUp sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus

Christ. You know, this is not an Old

Testament temple. We don't have to offer

sacrifices in the Old Testament way anymore.

Why? Because Jesus Christ is our

sacrifice. He is the one perfect sacrifice

for our sin. And thank God for that.

But I will tell you this, this evening in the New Testament

time that we live in here, First Corinthians chapter #3 we see

this, that when we come together, listen, it says that

we are the temple of God and the Spirit dwells with us.

And it's interesting that Paul says this, know ye not?

And he starts that phrase kind of like saying, don't you know

this already? Shouldn't you know that the

Lord's already amongst you? Shouldn't you know that He wants

to work within your midst? And again, He's pointing out

their spiritual immaturity that it talks about in verse #1 But

he says you are the temple of God, the temple meaning the

dwelling place. And you could even go back to

the Tabernacle, which was different in form but not in

function. In the Tabernacle, that movable

temple, if you will, that move from place to place throughout

the wilderness, and then from place to place in the promised

land until the temple was built. But that's where the presence of

God was. It was the dwelling place.

Again, not that God only existed in that place, He's omnipresent,

but God chose this as his dwelling place for man to

recognize and for man to honor. The Tabernacle, the temple, it

was the place where God dwelt. It was a place that was special.

It was a place that was different.

Listen, you didn't act in the temple like you did in your

home. You didn't act in the temple

like you did in the market. No, no, you understood that the

temple was special. You understood that the temple

was different. And again, I'm not drawing

drawing an equivalent to our church and the Old Testament

temple. But I will tell you this, that

the Lord dwells amongst us here tonight, and that makes this

church a special place. And that makes God's churches

that preach the word of God a special place because the Lord

dwells among them and dwells among us as well.

And the fact that this is the God's temple reminds us that

God's presence is literally with us.

The Spirit of God dwells in you. Now listen, I've already alluded

to this, but does God dwell everywhere?

Yeah. Could I even put it this way?

Does God's is God within? Let me make sure I make sure I'm

reading this to make sure I'm saying this the way that I want

to say it. Is God at an Islamic mosque in

the sense that can they keep him out from being everywhere?

No. Is he in it?

He is not. Is there anywhere where God is

not allowed to be? If he is not allowed to be a

certain place, then, well, he's not God.

But is he working in the Islamic mosque?

No. Is he at work in the Hindu

temple? Is he at work in the false

practitioners or the false gospel?

No. What it says here is that He is

in US, He's dwelleth in you, meaning this, that He is

promising us and empowering an intimate relationship, that He

wants to work with us. You know he's at the Islamic

mosque. You know what he's doing?

He's working against them and they're false gospel.

Oh, he's at the Hindu temple, but he's working against them.

Why? Because He wants to draw all men

unto him, the only true God, not the false gods that are out

there. No, I know some of you get

worried for a second or thought I was trying to trick you.

No, no, I'm not trying to trick you.

I'm not sure, but I'm saying this.

Listen, you think the Muslims can kick God out of any space?

I don't give them that much power and neither should you.

Do you think any false religion can kick God out?

Or any atheist that says God's not welcome here?

Do you think God says, well, I guess, I guess I better leave

this space. Not my God, not the God of the

Bible, but is God working in them and through them?

No, no, God's working in opposition to them.

Why? To try to bring them to him.

But God is with us tonight, and he's not just here in the sense

that he's everywhere. He's in this room to intimately

work in this space. This is why this is so

important. When the Bible is opened, people

can get saved. And if it was up to me and my

bumbling ways, nobody would come here.

Nothing would work, nothing would grow.

In fact, I probably could push people away from the gospel.

But listen, it's the Spirit that changes lives and it's the

Spirit that's amongst us. And we have the privilege of

being in a place where, where God wants to work.

And listen, I think sometimes we get down on ourselves like,

well, you know, we're, this is a metal building.

It's a rented facility. Well, we're a small church and

all the things that that maybe you've said before, and I've

said them before too, and times of discouragement or times of

not think, well, well, what can we do around here?

Well, we don't have much. We can't even park people around

here the way we want to park people.

We can't even fit people in here.

Sometimes the way we want to fit people.

There are churches, they have hundreds and hundreds that are

preaching false gospels and look at us and you can get a little

bit discouraged about it. But listen, do you realize that

when you walk into this building that the Spirit of God dwells

amongst us, that we don't have to hold our heads down and say,

well, what could happen around here?

Somebody's life could change. What could happen around here

the the next great revival could take place.

That comes from what happens here.

We think, well, that really can't happen.

Well, listen, we were just talking about this before

service. I don't know that there is a

worldwide revival left in us anymore.

I don't know this, but I know this.

There can be revivals for individuals and lives and that

people can get saved and the Lord's hand hasn't.

Listen, as long as the Lord hasn't returned yet, there's

time and God can work in this building and people can raise

their hands and people can get saved and things can change.

Why? Because of us?

No, I mean, in spite of us, but because of him and he's here.

Well, you know, I go to a small church and maybe you've said

that to somebody for that. You're already apologizing

before they come. Like the guy that said once,

well, that's the colt in the trailer.

You know, it's, it's like, listen, it's not a trailer, all

right? And it's funny that I took

offense to that part and not the cult part because we're not a

cult either. But you know what I'm saying?

But it's like the, this is not a trailer.

You can't pick it up and hitch it and go anywhere.

Listen, the Spirit of God's with us and the power that is

available to us is unbelievable. Listen, whatever you think the

big churches have, unless I'm not against big churches, as

long as they preach, right? Thank the Lord when churches

grow and they preach right? But there are some that aren't

preaching, right? And that's why they grow.

Listen, we don't have to look sorry for ourselves.

We don't, you know, what do you have to offer in your church?

Well, we got singing. We have preaching.

Well, tell me about your programs.

We have kids programs on Sunday morning.

What else? We have singing.

Did I mention the same part? And we have preaching and we

kind of get down on ourselves a little bit, kind of like, well,

who are we or what do we have? We are the temple of God, and

there's power. There's power not because of us,

but because of Him. And the early Church understood

this. They expected things to happen.

And listen, I understand that that there were miracles that

took place during that time because God was still was still

in the process of authenticating the speakers who were preaching

because there was no completed word of God.

The 66 books that we have here, like there was there wasn't that

in the book of Acts. And so God was authenticating

some of those preachers through miracles.

I understand that. But listen, although God may not

work in that same visible way that we would see during those

times, God still very much at work today.

You say, pastor, did miracle cease?

I didn't say miracle ceased. God's doing miracles today.

Look at this, someone gets saved.

That's a miracle. If someone we pray for here on

Wednesday night comes and walks down the aisle on Sunday or

catches me at the door and says I need to get saved, they bow

their head and trust Christ, that's a miracle.

When a marriage is restored because of what happens in the

House of God, that's a miracle. When a family comes and heals,

that's a miracle. When when, when people drop

awful sinful lifestyles and end up following Christ, that's a

miracle. That's a miracle.

And that happens in this building.

That happens in this room. Listen, you can't afford to miss

it. You can't afford to not be a

part of what God's doing. Well, yes, you're saying that

because you're the pastor. You're saying that because you

think, you know that everything revolves around your church.

No, no, I'm saying that because everything revolves around him.

And if we want to see change in our lives and we want to see

change in our cities and we want to see change in our nation,

listen, it's got to start in the House of God.

It has to start with us believing that God can do

something in the temple of God. That's not just the House of

God, but He is with us. Man, it's awesome that God put

us here. He placed us here.

We first Corinthians 12, we'll get there like in a couple years

or so, I don't know. But First Corinthians 12, he

fitly framed us together. He put us together to do the

work. He's called us a bunch of

nobodies, but in Jesus Christ that we're somebody because of

who he is. That's a privilege.

And that's the privilege that we have.

Oh yeah, right there. The privilege of the church.

But in saying that, with that privilege comes a lot of

responsibility. We love the privilege, but the

privilege does bring responsibility upon us.

And that's the next verse. And so as we look at that, we

see the protection of the church as well.

Look at verse #17 if God is a holy God, then his temple is to

be holy as well. Be holy because I am holy.

Well, pastor, I just don't believe.

You know, once you get saved, it's important that you live a

holy life. You know, I could see how you

could arrive at that conclusion if you discarded the whole

Bible. But there's no way by reading

the Bible you can come to that conclusion.

Because if we're the temple of the Holy Ghost, well then we

need to be clean, not perfect. But when we do sin, you know,

faithful and justice, He forgive us our sins that cleanse us from

all righteous. We confess it before the Lord.

We get it right. But look at what it says in

verse #17 if any man defile the temple of God, him shall God

destroy. For the temple of God is holy.

Which temple you are. He says this.

I want to remind you who you are.

You're the temple of God. You need to be holy.

And God takes that holiness seriously.

Listen, if I could put it this way, we're not to drag mud into

his house. Say, oh, pastor, so you just

expect everybody that goes to church should be perfect.

And if I expected that, then we'd all have to leave,

including your pastor. Listen, this is not a museum for

Saints. It's a hospital for sinners.

You need to be able to come here when you're running low.

You need to be able to come here when you're running on empty.

You need to be able to come here when you're not right with God.

But why do you come? So that you have the purpose of

getting right with God. You know, we want everyone to

come because we want them to get right with God.

But we do realize that once we are, once we know Jesus Christ

as our Savior, listen, church works a lot better when we're

all right with God. It would do us a lot of good,

myself included. Instead of wait until the

invitation to confess what's not right with the Lord, maybe we

should confess it before we get to church to make sure we're

right. And if we're not?

So you say, well, pastor, if I'm not right, I should stay home.

No, we want you to be here. But we love you enough to tell

you we want you to be right with God.

We're not going to sugarcoat the word of God to try to make you

feel better. We're also not going to kick you

when you're down, but we will tell you this, We'll tell you

this, that getting right with God is the best thing that you

can do for your life, whatever your situation is.

Why? Because this is a holy place.

And again, I want to be so careful in how I present this

because I want people to know that whatever situation you're

in, in life, if you're down, you're discouraged, you're

hurting, you're in sin, you need to be in the House of God

because this is where change happens.

God wants you to be here. Please don't mistake what I'm

saying, but I'm also saying this, maybe we shouldn't be so

casual with that which God is called holy, that maybe we

shouldn't be so casual within ourselves of that which God

calls holy, and that this is a special and a sacred place.

This Church of Corinth, listen, they were a mess.

We've only seen a little bit of it so far.

We know the fractions. We know fighting.

It's only going to get worse. We're going to find out in

chapter 5 some of the lewd and despicable things that are

happening. And it just keeps going on and

getting worse as the chapter as the book goes along.

But you know what's interesting to me, as bad as this church

was, he didn't say that you should be the temple of God.

He said you are the temple of God.

He reminded them of their calling.

He reminded them of who they were in him.

And so please don't misunderstand me.

You know, we want to make sure that everyone comes to the House

of God and gets what they need from the Lord.

We want to make sure that we don't ever give off the

impression that if someone's struggling with their faith, if

someone's struggling with sin, that they are not welcome in the

House of God. Man, we want you to be here and

we want you to get right with God.

But I also want to say this, that there is a thought process

today of you know what, let's just be like the world so more

people can come to church. And I believe this text shows us

that is the exactly wrong way to reach the World.

Well, listen, you want to reach the World, you got to be like

them. I would submit to you, the Word

of God says that if you want to reach the World, you have to be

different, not like the world. Even as a church, I want to be

careful that we say, well, you know, we just want to make

people feel comfortable. And so we don't really want to

talk about these things and we don't want to cover these

subjects and we don't want to, you know, listen, just whatever,

it's just, you know, whatever. We're just glad people come and

we are glad people come. But I will say this.

Do you know what ought to mark a true New Testament church?

You know, what ought to be the difference?

What really ought to make us to stand out as that?

When people come in these doors, they're more loved here than

they are any other place on earth.

They ought to be more loved with the love of Christ than they are

anywhere. That doesn't mean we don't

preach on sin. That doesn't mean we don't

preach on righteousness. That doesn't mean we conceal the

gospel. No, we do all those things.

But the minute they walk through those doors, they should say,

wow, this is different. This isn't like going to the

gym. This isn't like going to the bar

room. This isn't like going to the

social club. This isn't like going somewhere

else. This, this is different.

What makes it different? The Lord's here and the Lord's

working in these people. If we want to be different,

that's the way we need to be different.

That when someone walks through these doors, they feel the

Spirit of Christ and they feel the Spirit of Christ working

through us to be able to show them Jesus Christ.

The Lord protects his church. I think of the temple, really

the Tabernacle. Nadab and Abaihu offered what

the Bible called strange fire. I believe they were drunken.

There could be many explanations for what it was.

I know this. What they were doing in the

Tabernacle was exactly opposite of what they were called to do

as priests. That is unarguable.

They died. I think of the early Church.

I think of Ananias and Sapphira. They gave an offering and the

fact of the matter was that they did not have trouble because

they withheld part of the offering.

I don't believe they were required to give the entire

amount of the sale of the land to the church.

But what they did in front of the whole church is they lied

about it not just once, but twice.

And the Bible says he lied to the Holy Ghost and what

happened? They died.

Now, I certainly, I'm not saying that any type of consequences

are going to take place in our church or any other church

today. That's not for me to say.

But I will say this, the word of God says this.

There are grave consequences when someone does something to

harm God's church. And I'm not trying to be

cultish. I'm not trying to be weird here.

I'm not saying that that I am some kind of leader that can

never be questioned or can never be talked to.

I certainly hope that you all have been around me enough to

know that I want to have dialogue and I do want to talk

with people and I'm willing to talk with people to disagree

with me. I'm very glad to have all those

things. But I will say this, that God

makes it clear that He protects His church.

Why? Because it's His church.

We don't bring in bad doctrine. We don't bring in our own ideas.

We don't bring in our own thought process.

That includes the pastor. I've said before, if I end up

coming and changing my doctrine from this church, you all have a

responsibility to fire me. Some of you a little excited

about that. Now think about it was expecting

that many amends at that part necessarily, but no, if my

doctrine changes and listen, there are churches where this

happens. I can give you example after

example where the pastor just gets older and he's tired of

fighting. He's tired of of contending for

the faith and just wants to go with the flow because he's just

tired of the whole thing. And just, well, maybe if I just

preach a few flowery messages, everybody will be happy.

You know, listen, we all have a responsibility to say this.

This is God's church and we have to protect it.

And if we don't, God does and he says so right here.

But that brings us to the thought that I really, I want to

mention to you tonight, I really don't want to leave with you

tonight, which is this. And I mentioned a few moments

ago that we should be serious about what God calls sacred man.

I love having fun at church. I do.

If you can't, if you can't smile or laugh at church, I mean, you

got a problem. You know, we ought to be able to

be joyful here, right? I mean, if you can't be joyful

in church, where can you be joyful?

But I will say this, it's a serious place in the sense that

lives change here, your life can change here, my life can change

here. And anytime those doors open,

and anytime the Word of God is open and the Spirit of God moves

amongst us, there's the potential that someone or

someone's life could change, not just for this life, but for

eternity. And that ought to excite us.

They ought to excite us that we're not just here just patting

ourselves on the back and having a good time, but that.

But no, what happens here has real eternal consequences

because the Lord's amongst us. So we should be serious about

the fact that his power makes this place unlike anywhere else

on the planet. There's no place like God's

church. There's no place like it.

We should be serious about our attendance.

Why? Because God's with us, the Bible

says even more so as we see the day approaching.

There's some wonderful articles in the Baptist Times, if you had

an opportunity to grab them, about why it's important that we

have the services that we have because it's so helpful for us

to be able to be here and to grow and to learn.

It's so much more that, listen, we don't need less Bible now.

We need more with what's going on in this world.

You think we need to retreat from where we are as believing.

No, we need more of the Bible, not less.

Be serious about holiness in God's church.

Again, not looking for people to be perfect, not telling you that

if you don't have the unless you have everything figured out, not

to come to church because if that was the case, nobody ever

go to church. But saying this Lord, is my

heart tender enough when I come in the House of God that if you

point out anything to me that's not right that I'll confess it.

That's a good place to start or show me the wicked way within

me. Psalm 51, Just show me the

wicked way. I'll be glad to confess it.

We ought to be serious about supporting His church.

It needs support. The Bible calls on us and our

tithes and offerings. If you're a member of Liberty

Baptist Church, again, not to harp on this, I've mentioned it

before, but God's called us to support this effort so that we

can go and do the things that God has called us to do.

We ought to be serious about bringing other people to it.

I've loved the visitors that we've had now for months.

I would was counting it up in the the book, the record book

that the the guys keep out of the last 16 or 17 weeks, we've

had visitors every week. But I think two or three.

That's great. Let's keep bringing people to

church. Why?

Because it's unlike any other place on earth.

Is the church perfect? Yes.

No, no, wait, no. That wasn't in there.

You know why this church isn't perfect?

One reason I know the pastor. This church isn't perfect.

In fact, if the church was to be perfect, we'd all have to

evacuate. It's not.

I would tell you this. It's special.

And why is it special? The Lord's with us.

Doesn't matter if there's metal. It doesn't matter if it's

rented. It doesn't matter if it's big or

small. Is the Lord here?

Then, man, we're in good shape. I'll leave you with this

presidential airplane, Air Force One.

You know, when we think of Air Force One, we think of that

Boeing jet with the white and the blue, that that's what we

think of when we think of Air Force One.

But technically, that in and of itself is not the only Air Force

One. I don't know if you're aware of

this, but Air Force One is the call sign for whatever airplane

the president happens to be on. So it could be that jet, which

typically it is nowadays, but I was doing a little bit of

research and I saw that back in the 60s, Lyndon Johnson, LBJ, at

times would fly on a prop plane from Austin to his cattle ranch

in Texas. And every time he was in that

little tiny plane, it was called Air Force One.

And I think Air Force One. I don't think of a prop plane.

I think of that jumbo jet where basically everything can take

place in just that one little place in the middle of the sky.

But what makes the place, what makes the plane special, if you

will, is not what the plane was made of, but who was inside the

plane. I look at 800 Washington St.

You know what I see? I see cracks in the concrete.

I see weeds that I can't kill no matter how hard I try.

The entire summer. I see places where water seeps

in at every rainstorm, just about.

I see carpet that probably should have been replaced about

12 years ago. I see classrooms that aren't

everything that I've wanted them to be.

I see a kitchen that has a breaker that goes off every

single time we use the microwave.

But I also see this a special place where God is.

Why? Because of this, because of him,

listen, don't, don't discount the importance of church.

He's here with us. This is not just the House of

God. It is the temple of God, which

is a derivative of the title House of God.

But He dwells in us. He's not just here like he's

everywhere. He's here and he's intimately

and actively working among us. And that ought to thrill every

single one of us and cause us to serve Him.

Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of

Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing

to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us

know by contacting us at [email protected].

Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,

MA. May the Lord bless you as you

grow in His Word.