Baptist Distinctives: The Role of the Church

If you wouldn't, your Bibles tonight turn to the Book of Colossians,

Colossians 1:18

chapter 1, verse 18. In fact, our purpose in life is to bring glory

to God and to give him glory. A great message in this song. Well,

I had the opportunity yesterday or Monday to drive the

bus with the juniors campers to Lake Texoma. I on the shuttle

bus that I drove was all the girls. No comment. Yeah, let us pray.

But I know Ms. Bercy kept saying, I'm sorry we're so loud.

I said, I. I get it. I mean, number one, they're junior campers.

I mean, that's just part of the deal. And then just the girls.

It was awesome. I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed hearing them

back there just having a good time. And then the boys were on the

van. We got up to Lake Texoma there to the Texoma Baptist Youth

Camp, and we had to sit in the bus for a while because they certain

rules about filling out forms and all sorts of stuff. So anyway,

we're just kind of sitting there, but right after we finally

got off the bus and got him inside and I saw Archer come around.

Archer, everybody know Jantz's boy? He came around the side of that

bus and I went to the back of the bus. And as he came out from

behind the bus, I just flattened him and him and I just

rolled on the ground a little bit. It was awesome. Classic tackle

technique, you know, the small little boy. Anyway, he's not small

anymore, but I'm so thankful we have a little fun and pray for

them and pray they have a good week, that God protects them, that

God would speak to their hearts and that they have a great

time. They have a great time. So. And pray for our counselors.

Amen. Colossians, chapter 1, verse 18. Paul says here, and he

Colossians 1:18

that is talking about Christ is the head of the body, the church,

who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in

all things he might have the preeminence. And it hasn't been too

long ago, we preached on the book of Colossians, and we preached

this verse reminding you that Christ is the head of the church.

And for us, as we've been studying this, understand that Christ

is the head of every church. That the body of Christ is the church,

is each individual church is the body of Christ. Because we know

the Bible teaches a local, visible church only. No universal,

invisible church, no universal, visible church. The Bible

implicitly teaches a local church only. And so Christ is to

be the head of the church. Look at Philippians. You just Turn

back a couple of pages. Philippians 1:1. A couple of pages

Philippians 1:1

back. Philippians 1:1 says Paul and Timotheus, the servants

Philippians 1:1

of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are

at Philippi. So again Paul is writing to Philippi. He's again addressing

those that are there. He says, with the bishops and deacons just

showing that there was some structure. There's again officers

of the church and those who lead the church, the bishops, again

a bishop, elder, pastor, are the same office, the same office

in the Bible. Now turn with me to first Peter, chapter five and

we'll one Peter chapter five. Let's look at verse one, First Peter,

chapter five and verse one through three. Peter says, the elders

which are among you. So he's talking to pastors, the pastors that

are among you, the bishops that are among you, I exhort, who

am also an elder and a witness of the suffering of Christ, and also

a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed, feed the flock

of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not

by constraint, not because you have to, but willingly, not for filthy

lucre, not for money, but of a ready mind, neither as being lords

over God's heritage, you shouldn't be a dictator, but being

examples or ensamples to the flock. And that's what a pastor should

do. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word

and Lord, we thank you for the doctrines that are taught. And I

pray tonight that these would be very clear. Help me, give me wisdom

as I teach them. And we'll thank you in Jesus name. Amen. The

Baptist distinctives. This is our. I don't know how many messages,

but we're coming down to the end. We're on number nine and 10

tonight and there'll be 11 and 12. There'll be one more, one more

message. And so tonight is on the Baptist distinctive of self supporting,

self governing, self propagating. The church is to be

self supporting, self governing and self propagating. Some

of those are the last one's a little big of a word and we'll cover

that in a moment. But the Baptist distinctives are a collection

of biblical truths unique to Baptists. And again I have to clarify

because I've already had some who have questioned. Well, preacher,

other denominations, other groups teach these. They teach some

of them. But what makes this list unique is that Baptists teach

all of them and believe all of them. Historic Baptists believe all

of these. It's unique to Baptists to believe this particular

list of doctrines by the way. It's a Bible list. It's what the

Bible teaches. I said to someone actually twice today, I said

if I didn't believe Baptists were as close doctrinally to what

the Bible teaches, I would be something else. Whether that be a

Lutheran or Methodist or whatever it may be or a non denominational.

I said somebody tonight, non denominational. There really is no

such thing, their non denominational denomination anyway.

That's a whole other discourse we can have together. But understand

that Baptists have historically believed these doctrines,

these teachings, and they are, that's because they're found in the

word of God. And so Baptists are a little unique. We're a little

bit unique. That's a good thing. Our theme verse for the study

is again 2 Timothy 2:2 the things that thou has heard of me

2 Timothy 2:2

among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men who shall

be able to teach others also. And I've told you you ought to circle

the word in second Timothy 2, 2 the things that thou has heard

and you ought to circle the word same. The things that we have

heard and we have learned and we've been taught the same we teach

to others. And the greatest illustration of that, and I should

have really emphasized this last Wednesday, the greatest illustration

of that is baptism. Because because there are so many who teach

contrary to the Bible concerning baptism. Baptism does

not save you. Baptism does not. Baptism is a picture of the

life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so there are

the majority even of beliefs around the world is that baptism

saves you. If you're not baptized, you're not going to heaven.

And sometimes it's a belief that baptism in a certain church

or a certain that you have to be baptized in their church in order

to go to heaven. And so understand that it's important that

we take what the Bible teaches, Bible doctrine and we teach

the listen again, the same commit thou to faithful men. And

that we don't deviate from what the Bible teaches and what the

Bible says. No matter what, you know, tradition may have or no

matter what some man may say. We teach the Bible, we preach the

Bible and accurately and we interpret the Bible according to

Scripture and the context of the scripture and so forth and so

on. I can't be adamant about that enough. And I had that question

last week. Again, baptism is probably the best example of a doctrine

that has not been the thing that was committed to them, has not

been taught the same on down through the generations and generations.

And so we have to hold the line. We have to teach the next Generation.

All right, so tonight we have again, 9 and 10. Really, these go

together. Self supporting. The church is to be self supporting.

In other words, it ought to be self supporting by the resources

of its own membership. All right, so a church, to be self supporting.

A church is to be self governing. We've talked about this

one a little bit. We won't cover this as much as some of the

other points. Self governing, it means controlled, directed by

its own membership. Its own membership. And not outside authority.

Not outside authority. I've lived a very, very sheltered life.

I was raised in an independent Baptist church. Been in an independent

Baptist church all my life. A couple of times I have been in a

service of another denomination and I probably not been

in another church that was not of, like faith. No less than five

times. It just, just. I don't have any want to, to do that, number

one. So I just looked up today, what did Methodists, how does

the hierarchy of the Methodist churches, how does that work? And

it's pretty intricate the way the Methodist Church works and how

they, you know, the congregations don't choose their

pastors. You know, the hierarchy chooses the pastors and

they send them to churches and the hierarchy decides when that pastor

leaves. And by the way, it could, in the Methodist Church, it

could be a man or a woman pastor. And so it's really, to me,

that's just a foreign thought because nowhere in the Bible does

it teach that. Nowhere. It doesn't teach it anywhere. And so

that is a tradition that they have that they have installed within

the hierarchy. And so again, when we say self governing, we're

saying that Heritage Baptist Church, its membership makes the

decisions. Now somebody has said, well, then the church is a

democracy. That's not true either. The church is really not

a democracy. It's a limited democracy. And by that I mean we

have some rules to go by. I make the comparison to the United

States. The United States is not a democracy. And I just love.

I read an article today about a liberal who was saying he rewrote

the. Y' all saw that? Probably the, the filmmaker rewrote the Pledge

of Allegiance and he put in there a democracy. America is not

a democracy. America is a republic. It's really a limited democracy.

Why? Because we have the Constitution. We have rules that

we go by that don't change, doesn't matter what you think or

I think. Here are the rules that, you know, unless you can get

all the states, four of them, 35 of them, to make the change, and

that's difficult add to or take Away from the Constitution.

So the Church is the same way. It is a democracy, yes, but it's

limited in its scope because we follow the head of the church,

which is Jesus Christ. And how does Jesus Christ lead the church?

He leads the church through his word. And so we have Paul especially

writing in his epistles, and others writing Peter and others writing

epistles that help us know how the church should function and help

us know how the church should be led. And so we follow the head

of the church, which is Jesus Christ. And the pastor is the under

shepherd. And that's why I read First Peter, chapter five. I

just want you to see that, that the pastor is there. He is exhorted

to lead the flock. He is exhorted to do so willingly and not

for money. And to be of a ready mind. He's there to not be

lord over the, the heritage. In other words, he's not to be a

dictator, but he's to be a shepherd and lead the flock. Lead

the flock. And we'll cover that some more in a moment. But again,

self governing, self supporting. So again, the membership

supplying the resources that the church needs. Self governing,

controlled directly from the congregation according to the Bible.

And no council of bishops, no general conference, no judicial council

outside the church. It's all inside the church. And then lastly,

self propagating, propagating, propagating. It's a big word. Reproducing,

reproducing, replicating. It's the church's purpose to propagate

the gospel. We are to spread the gospel. And we ought to that,

and that is our primary purpose. Churches birth churches.

And we see this in College Station with Brother Jonathan Moore.

As we birth that church, our church is birthing that church. Again,

the word church means called out assembly of baptized believers

carrying out the Great Commission. Again, carrying out the

commands of Christ. That's the purpose of the church. The purpose

of the church. We have it up, you know, we have our purposes up

on the, on the wall here again, loving God. We ought to love

the Lord with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind.

We ought to worship him as a congregation. We ought to worship

him individually. We ought to love him. He ought to be supreme

in our life. You know, he is the one we focus on. Number two is

growing together. We ought to grow together through discipleship,

through the ministries of the church. And then we are to serve

each other and we're to serve our community. But if you put anything,

you put above all of that, we know, number one, the purpose of

the Church is to spread the gospel, the church governance. There

are various ways in which churches in America and around the

world govern the churches. One is Episcopal. It means it's run by

officials and has a headquarters. In other words, it's

through hierarchy. That's kind of like the Methodists and the Episcopalians

and many of the others who have hierarchies. The Catholic Church

especially is the best example of that one where the local assemblies

make some decisions, but are very limited in what they can do.

The bishops and the cardinals and everybody above them make the

decisions. Then there's a presbytery. And this really kind

of goes back to a convention. In other words, some churches are

a part of a convention where the convention does have some say.

And those pastors, those presbytery, those pastors of that

convention will have some say. And that would be the Southern Baptist

Convention and some others, American Baptists. There's many different

conventions in America, and all of them have their place. But

I would say to you, it's not found in the Bible either. You say,

well, we're part of fellowship. There's a difference.

Sometimes guys in fellowships forget that. Me and Brother Stone

could have a conversation about that. But we're independent.

We're independent. I love Worth Baptist Church. I do. I love

brother Dr. Barber and brother Weaver. Now Brother Gillett. That's

a great, wonderful sister church. But we're independent of

them. I'm thankful that I can go to and get some advice from Brother

Gillett and some of the members that I've known over there

for years and years. Victory Baptist Church in Weatherford. I

love that church, but we're not a part of a convention. And we're

not everybody. Good. We'll describe this some more in a minute.

And then again, what we just described was a limited democracy

led by the pastor of the churches of the church's own choosing.

So led by a pastor of the church's own choosing that you, as

the congregation, get to choose the pastor. You've had one

for a while. So sorry. Maybe we ought to put it. No. Every church

is to be independent and autonomous, functioning as a limited

democracy following one head. That's Jesus Christ under the leadership

of a pastor and under shepherd, directed by the Holy Spirit.

That is the biblical church. Somebody say amen. Help me out. Okay,

good. Thank you. Let me say that again, then. Every church biblically

is to be independent. That means autonomous, functioning as

a limited democracy following one head. That's Jesus Christ, through

the word of God, under the leadership of a pastor who is an

under shepherd directed by the Holy Spirit. That's it. That is a

biblical. Thank you. Appreciate that. Biblical governance

of the church. Of the church. It is to operate by freewill offerings

of its members. That's why over the years we haven't. We will

use fundraisers for. We'll do anything for the youth department.

I mean, that's like we'll do weird stuff for the. I mean, we're

going to raise money. We're going to do it for the youth department.

But I've had people ask over the years, well, why don't we have

this sale or do something like some of the other churches do? Like

if we have a yard sale, it's for the youth or if we have a car

wash, it's for the youth. We're not going to raise building

funds and general expense funds by having garage sales. That's

not what the Lord intended. The Lord intended for us as members

to support the church in order for it to function as it needs to

function. And God's been so good to Heritage Baptist Church over

the years and you have been so faithful to give it is to. Again,

it's to operate under the freewill offerings of its membership.

It is to fulfill its purpose to evangelize, baptize and disciple.

All right, so number one, it's to be self supporting. Self supporting?

The church is to be self supporting how? By way of the tithes

and offerings of its membership. Of its membership. It's

not the world's responsibility to finance the church. I've been

very reluctant over the years. I have yet to go outside of the church

and try to raise money from, you know, local businesses and so

forth. Unless we're again, for the youth department would do anything.

I don't know why that's true. Maybe what's good for the youth to

get out and work for their money, you know, and bake sales,

whatever we do. But been reluctant over the years. I think

there is, there is a time and place for that. If we ever did the

community building over here, that's on the master plan. That community

building, I believe could be under that kind of designation where

if the community is going to be using it and there's many different

various ways in which we could use it, that we might raise money

outside the church. But I'm telling you, the Bible makes it very

clear. The church is to function and operate with the offerings

of its membership. It's God's people who are financially obligated

to carry out the work of God and to do so through their giving.

Well, I don't know how many times I've had this. Somebody say

to me, well, preacher, you know, the tithe was Old Testament.

That was Old Testament law. And because it's Old Testament law,

the New Testament tells us that that's been done away with wrong.

The tithe was before the law. The Mosaic Law was, of course, given

to God, to Moses, to the children of Israel when they came

out of Egypt. And before that, we had Abraham, who gave tithes to

Melchizedek. And you can go throughout and see that the tithe

has always been around, even back to the Garden of Eden, where

where they made sacrifices and so forth. And so the tithe is the

Lord's. That is a new test, Old and New Testament principle.

The tithe, again, is the Lord's. The tithe was before the

Mosaic Law. I love again. And we got to attend Dr. House's birthday

party here a few weeks ago, and I miss him. I do. He taught our

Story Stewardship conference every year. He really did educate

our church family and the core of our church family on giving. And

we're going to miss that. And so from time to time, we're going

to. We have different speakers now. Brother Weatherby or Brother

Knickerbocker, maybe others. But I just remember Dr. House saying

over and over and over again, I ain't got no stuff. I just love

that. I love the way it's worded. It's eloquent, very eloquent.

Dr. House was always eloquent. He was never to the point. I ain't

got no stuff. It's not mine. It never was mine. My stuff ain't

my stuff. It all belongs to the Lord. Psalm 24, verse 1 says,

Psalms 24:1

the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and

they that dwell therein. I am simply to be a steward of the resources

God has given me. And again, it's God's stuff. I'm not going to

turn over there. But one of the greatest scriptures in the Old

Testament in regards to understanding that we don't have

no stuff is actually King David. It's found if you want to

look it up later. First Chronicles 29 and read verses 2 through

14. And there David is raising some funds and doing some things,

and he makes this statement. He says, of thine own have we given

thee. In other words, all we are doing, David's saying, is giving

back what you gave to us. Even King David understood that. King

David understood he ain't got no stuff. He probably didn't say

it just like that, but he ain't got no stuff. I'm thankful

God's blessed us with stuff. I enjoy the stuff. All the great gifts

the Bible says comes down from above, from the Father of lights.

And we, and we are to enjoy the stuff God's given us, but understand

it's not ours. We only give back what he first, what he first

had. We understand and know that the tithe belongs to the Lord.

And if you are a growing Christian, if you're a new Christian

and you're a growing Christian, encourage you to step

out by faith and start tithing 10% before the government gets their

hands in it. And I promise you, based upon the scripture and

the promises of the Bible and that if you will do that, God will

bless you. My dad taught me and I believe it 100% because the

Bible teaches the principle that God, if you are a Christian,

a born again child of God, that you can do more with the 90

than you will the hundred, you just will. Because in giving and

tithing and giving as God has commanded you and in obedience to

him, then God will bless you. God will bless that. God will bless

it. I've heard preachers say, you know, step out by faith, start

tithing and if it doesn't work for you, we'll give your money back.

Maybe. But I promise you it will work. Every time I've had people

come to my office and say, preacher, we, you know, we're broke

and we do the Dave Ramsey thing around here. And if you are

broke, you don't have your act together, encourage you to sign up.

They're fixing to get started here in a week or two. Sign up for

the Dave Ramsey course. It's a biblical based on biblical principles,

how to manage your money. But if you're in a. Most people are in

a bind as Christians, notice I'm saying as Christians, a lost

person, it ain't going to affect them either way. It's still

God's stuff. But now I'm a Christian, now I'm a child of God,

I want to obey the Lord, I delight in his law. Amen. And so

I'm going to give and God will bless that. Every time I've had people

come to my office and say, preacher, I'm broke and if I was

to tithe, I couldn't pay my water bill. What should I do? Tithe.

First thing. That's the first check you write. Since we don't write

checks anymore, it's the first thing that comes electronically out

of your bank. Account. And it ought to be the first thing number

one on the list. Before my car payment, before my house payment,

everything. It's number one. It's just to me, it's a no brainer.

I never even give it a thought. Just going to obey the Lord

because I know, I've experienced it, I've witnessed it,

the blessings of God. Now, is he going to TV evangelist you? If

you give a thousand, God's going to give you 10,000. No, that's,

that's, that's malarkey. Bible doesn't promise that. That's just,

that's Joel Osteen and the guy out here about the lake, Mr. Copeland,

you know, he ought to just come on. He ought to come on TV and

say, you know what? You give a thousand, God will give you 10,000.

If God doesn't, I'll give you 10,000. Wouldn't that fix it? That

would, that would be awesome. He wouldn't do that because he knows

it's not true. He ought to get people's money. All right, I feel

better about the whole thing. Oh, and I know we have some visitors

and things here, so let me clarify. Jesus Christ pointed out

people. He called the Pharisees and Sadducees, vipers and

snakes. And I think as a pastor, I have. I have no problem

calling names when it's, when it's the right thing. When it's called

upon to be a shepherd. Watch out for those wolves in sheep clothing.

Amen. And I again encourage you, if you're going to listen to

people on TV or podcasts or whatever, make sure it's a pastor

most of the time. These evangelists who are on TV and radio,

man, they're messed up. And some others are too. All right, I

got distracted. Distracted. Tithing again belongs to the Lord.

Abraham paid tithe to Melchizedek. Again. The New Testament

never addressed the setting aside of the tithe. In fact, it infers

and it. Jesus Christ watched them tithe and he never said, no,

no, they shouldn't be doing that. No, he endorsed it. And so

we are to tithe and give an offering. The tithe belongs to the

Lord. The offering is my love gift, my freewill offering. That's

my mission given. That's other areas in which I can be a blessing

to pay for a child to go to junior camp. I appreciate some of

you doing that. What a blessing. The temple in the Old Testament

was the center of Jewish life. Church, our church. The church is

our spiritual temple and ought to be the center of our Life. And

by that I mean your family's life. It's where your friends ought

to be. It's where life happens. Amen. It's where I get to

give. It's where I can serve. It's where I can worship. It's where

I can have life. I was reminded this week again of what

the blessings of heritage that literally your child can come to

our school, meet and have friends there. The same friends for

the most part that they're going to have on Wednesday night

and Sunday, I promise you. And I can look back on 30 something years

now and I can tell you that is a wonderful benefit. That is not

a detriment. I know some people have said, well we're just

up at the church all the time. All the time. Hallelujah. And as

long as you as a mom and dad are leading the way and serving with

your kids and not just pushing them out there, but you're alongside

and working with them and doing and singing. No, no, no. They're

going to look back on it like I do. I'm thankful my dad drug us

to church and I'm thankful he we served and we went soul winning

and all the things that we did as kids and it was amazing. Life

was church and church was life. Good stuff. I need to move

on. Number two, self governing churches. I'll spend two seconds

on this. Christ again is the head of the church through his word

and again under the earthly leadership of a pastor. The under

shepherd directed by the Holy Spirit. And we've spent time on that

on another section a few weeks ago and so I'm going to go on past

it. Number three, self propagating church. And we got about

five minutes here. So I just wanted to tell you I'm so burdened

about church planting and about missions and the need to spread

the gospel. I'm telling you it's amazing. Number one, it's amazing

the opportunities out there and that people for the most part

will respond if we get out there in love and kindness and give

them the gospel. And there's so many areas now that the population

has exploded and that need a church, need a church so badly. I

could not believe that College Station and Brian down there had,

did not have an independent Baptist church anymore. I'm like

how does 200,000 people in population and 80,000 students and

there's not an independent Baptist church. And what a blessing

it is to plant one there. What a blessing it is for us to get to

birth a church there. And Brother Moore's doing a Great job

and Ms. Edith and the kids and just pray for them. But that's it.

We need a revival of church planting. We need revival of church

planting and understanding what that is. Again, we are commanded

to preach the gospel to every creature. That's our purpose as a

church, to spread the gospel. In Acts, we know that we are to spread

the gospel and again in Haslett and in Texas and the United

States and then to the uttermost around the world. We're

to reproduce ourselves as much as possible as we can. Understand

that the early church was given the command to spread the gospel.

And for the most part, early on, they did not do so. They did

not spread out past Jerusalem. And guess what happened? Persecution.

And because of the persecution, they got spread all

over the place and churches started popping up, Churches were

planted. Then you had Paul come on board as Paul was persecuting

the church and of course the Lord slapped him around and he got

saved and he began to, you know, serve the Lord and he began

to plant churches, him and Barnabas, out of the Church of Antioch.

So remember this too. If you go back and you read Acts, chapter

eight, you'll see where Barnabas and Paul were called out

of the Church of Antioch to go and to plant churches. They made

their first missionary journey. They come back and they

report to the Church of Antioch. That's the biblical pattern

and that's what we do here. We support the missionaries that are

in the hallway here and all the letters are up. We support them.

And then from periodically, from time to time, they come back

and they report to us, let us know how things are going. They give

us letters supposed to every two or three months anyway, and you

can go read about it. That makes them accountable. But they're

our representative there. They're planting a church in Honduras.

Brother Parade has planted many churches in Honduras and we

had a part in that. Around the world. We're planting churches right

now in America, we're planting churches right now. Brother Martinez

up in Colorado and again, Matthew Gage and there's so many

other church planters. We support the church plant that we

supported in Georgia, McLaren, what's his anyway, McElreath. They're

this close, this close to buying a beautiful building. And

they've been around three years now. We supported them three

years. And a investment banker, a real estate man who became.

He's going around and if you're inner city churches, he's

buying inner city churches for independent Baptist churches. If

you'll plant a church in the inner city, he'll buy a building

for you. And that's fixing to happen to the church there. Isn't

that amazing? And we do need to reseed the inner cities, man.

A lot of the inner cities, man, the church has left. And so

there is a revival of people going back into the inner cities

and reaching the inner cities. So again, planting churches. We are

self propagating again, starting churches and reaching the

gospel around the world. And we preach this all the time. But

I'm just reminding you that the church ought to be planting churches.

Now. In the past, we planted two or three and we've learned a

few things. We're just never going to give up. We keep planting

churches. People getting saved, people getting called to preach.

Josh Herrera, me and Brother Stone just had this conversation.

Josh Herrera wouldn't be in the ministry, humanly speaking, if

the church in Corpus didn't exist. And I believe God's going

to use Joshua in a great way. I'm telling you, there are opportunities

all over America and Texas to plant churches. And we need to be

tenacious about it and never give up, never surrender, don't turn

back, keep planting churches and keep on keeping on. Amen. I believe

that. I do. God's going to bless that. We need a church planting

mentality at Heritage Baptist Church. We've always kind of had

that because we are a church plant and we need to continue that.

We are to plant churches, by the way. Churches plant churches,

not man. So Jonathan Moore is not planting a church. Actually,

we are planting a church. And John Moore, Jonathan Moore is our

representative. Amen. We had that discussion about ordination

too. You know, the Presbyterian, the pastor don't ordain.

The church ordains the power and the authorities in the church.

Churches planting churches. I'll conclude with this. The church

finances are provided by its membership through the tithes and

offerings. I want to encourage you, be faithful, be faithful. Utilities

have to be paid for. Aren't you thankful for air conditioning?

But because we're kind of the core here tonight, we do have a couple

of visitors. But I kind of remind you it's good every once in

a while to be shocked at how much the electric bill is here. You

know, it runs. Our utilities run about 70,000 a year. 70,000.

That's not just electric, that's water and everything. I'm

going to spill the beans here. Our building insurance is $45,000

a year. We just got noticed this week it's going to 60. Yeah,

yeah. I was down in Houston with all those pastors on Friday

with the 30 by 30 Church Planting Conference and each one

of them was talking about their insurance. I'm telling you,

it's crazy. I know one church that they had to drop their insurance.

They have buildings, just. In fact, they have more buildings than

we do. And they had to drop it. They couldn't afford it. I'm

just telling you, there are bills to pay. But more than that,

there's local outreach, man. There's tracks to be bought, you

know, there's new move in bags to be purchased and brochures to

be printed. Amen, man. Opportunities we have around here

to reach our community with the gospel, man. What a worthy investment.

A worthy investment. The school, the daycare, all these hooks

in the water. But they all require and necessitate the giving

of the membership. I want to encourage you again, what better

investment can you make? I believe we at Heritage Baptist have

kept our focus on reaching people. And as long as that's there,

God's going to bless that. By the way, God's got plenty of money

and he's always provided for us. And then number two, church control.

Remember again, that's local. I'm so thankful for our deacons.

I'm thankful for our finance team. I'm thankful for our trustees.

I'm thankful for our pastoral staff. I'm thankful for you. We don't

need somebody outside of here telling us what to do. And that's

not biblical. We under the leadership of the word of God, which

is Jesus Christ. The church functions and then lastly the church

plant planting churches. Our primary, primary purpose, reaching

people with the gospel of Jesus Christ to give them the gospel

to baptize them and then disciple them. That is our purpose,

our primary purpose. I'm thankful we get to minister to others

too, by way of caring for them. And yesterday that was our

Lady's terrific job in feeding the family and all the things that

go on with a funeral. And brother Elliot would testify to that.

What a great church family we have. You guys are amazing. And that

is part of it, but primarily is to give the gospel, tell the good

news of Jesus Christ, to keep going, to keep on. Never surrender,

never give up, keep on, keep on till Jesus comes, right? We're

to work till he comes. Amen. Let's all stand. We have a verse

invitation. Have thine own way, Lord. Maybe tonight you need

to come down and just pray. And maybe you're not tithing and

giving an offering. Maybe you need to come down and pray. Lord,

help me. I want to make that commitment and I believe he will

bless you. Maybe tonight. Again, just thinking about why we're

Baptists and why we're self governing and having that knowledge

and understanding from the Bible. If you need more scriptures,

I encourage you. There's the 12 Baptist distinctives are on the

back, back there by the bookstore. Just a paper. And it gives

you a lot of references you can go through and you can look up

a lot of these biblical references on your own. And then

again, given the gospel. Heavenly Father, we thank you again,

Lord, for our church family and what a blessing it is to be a

part of this wonderful church. And I pray God that you would continue

to have us focus on the main thing of reaching people with the

gospel of Jesus Christ. Lord, if there's someone here tonight who

does not know you as their Savior, Lord, I pray they get saved

tonight. In Jesus name, Amen. As we sing have Thine Own way, Lord.