Called to Christ

Thank you for joining us on the CCW podcast.

Make sure you connect with us on social media to stay up to date on ministries and events happening at CCW.

We hope you're encouraged, inspired, and motivated by today's message.

To find out how to connect with us, keep listening after the message ends.

Good morning, CCW.

So glad that you're here today.

This is a momentous day for us.

If you're visiting with us, thank you for being here.

And uh I know that you may not totally understand what we're doing, but we will try our best to walk you through that.

The ordination process for Southern Baptist Churches has a rich and steep heritage.

As I was studying and looking through this week, hundreds of years, uh, this process, just let that hit you.

This process is going on for men and women and pastors.

Uh and we got to sit with Pastor Dave yesterday and just review what does he believe about God?

What does he believe about Jesus?

What does he believe about the Bible, the Holy Spirit, and just walk step by step and just as solid as he could be, unflinchingly answered questions.

It went as we thought it would go.

I'm gonna share a little bit more in a moment.

I did not know today that we would have somebody vying for Dave's ministry moment position.

So, Amanda, you guys may have to duke it out on Sunday mornings.

I sometimes do cry when Dave speaks, but I couldn't stop crying this morning through yours.

So thank you for sharing that.

But uh, in a moment, Pastor Dave is going to come and share his testimony, and that's part of this process to share with the church.

Not not all of you know how God called him first to himself, to salvation, and then to the ministry and what that took.

And when Pastor Dave is finished, I'm gonna come with just a charge to him and the church in that.

And so uh before Pastor Dave comes, we have one more little secret.

His daughter Ella is gonna play something very special that'll mean a lot to Dave.

Ella.

That's the last song that I heard on April the nineteenth, twenty fifteen.

And I gripped a pew and I said no.

And I went home and I got one of the lowest places I've ever been in my life, because I refused to surrender off.

And the next morning, finally, on April the 20th, 2015, I did a surrender off.

And I'm gonna tell you some about that story, but before I do, I want to make sure that nobody grips the back of one of these chairs today at the end of this service, if you hear that word to go.

Thank you so much to Rick, everyone here, the council, the church, Rick Camp over here for um telling me a lot of good things that it's great to hear that you believe about me and giving me the privilege to be ordained as a pastor.

There are people not very far from here who are shaking their head in disbelief that this is happening.

I'm not one to count my chickens before they hatch, so I kind of waited till Pastor Rick sent the email out Thursday morning to know that this was really gonna happen.

I thought that would be hard to recant.

And so when he did that, I went and talked to him and said, uh, what is this gonna look like?

And he said, Well, I have about 10 minutes, and then I figure with what you're gonna say, that will be the service.

And I said, Oh, so I'm preaching.

And Thursday I sat down and in just a little bit I wrote out my story and my testimony.

And I want to tell you guys that I've told some of it before, I want to try to fill in a few gaps, and over the next few minutes, let you know kind of how I got to be here today.

But before we do that, let's pray.

Father God, you are amazing and wonderful, and you speak and do things and send people places to experience you and see what you can do in ways that we can't even imagine.

I'm living proof of that right here, right now, and I thank you for how good you are and how you surround us with people to lift us up and just to do your work and your will here through your church on earth.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

Genesis chapter 12, verse 1.

Genesis 12:1

There aren't many verses today, but that is a verse that is very important to me, and it's interesting when you read that verse.

The Lord said to Abram before he was Abraham, get out of your country, away from your family and your father's house, and go to the land I will show you.

The ESV and the NIV says, go.

So Abram got a call from God to go to a place.

And if you read verse 4, I think it says Abram went, and I've spent lots of time trying to figure out how he knew which direction to take the first step.

Because he didn't know where he was going.

He was going to go to the place that God showed him.

And when God tells you to do something like that and doesn't give you directions, the only way that it makes sense is that he's going to be there as your traveling companion.

And I listened to that verse and I read that verse for years and years, and I pondered how I could honestly teach that while I was sitting around not going anywhere.

See, I've been a follower for a long time, and we sang a song called Let My Life Be a Testimony.

And when I thought about testimony, I've always thought about conversion testimony.

And my conversion testimony, I told the council yesterday, it didn't seem that cool.

Like I wasn't saved from drugs or out of prison or out of the streets.

I grew up in church.

I had faithful grandparents who took me to church all the time at a place called Fairview Baptist Church in Five Points West, named because it overlooks the old fairgrounds.

My granddaddy was a deacon and he sang in the choir and he ran the food pantry on Tuesday and Thursday, and we went and did that.

And we went Sunday morning and Sunday night and Wednesday night for prayer meeting.

And Saturdays he coached the softball team.

And my parents divorced when I was three years old after they had been married for 20 years.

And I spent a ton of time with my grandparents going to church.

That's just what we did.

One Sunday night when I was about seven, the preacher was preaching on hell, and we didn't go to children's church then.

All the kids just went to church.

You slept on the pew if you had to or whatever, and he was preaching on hell, and I felt something that I didn't want to go to hell, and I went down and told him that I wanted Jesus, and I got baptized, and I was still as mischievous as ever.

But I kept going, and in high school, when I was 15, I came to this decision that I hadn't really understood what I was doing when I was seven.

And I read the Bible and I listened to different people speak, and I decided that I wanted to really make Jesus Lord and Savior and not just be saved from hell, understanding what Lord was.

And I got saved then when I was 15.

And I moved on with my life, and I knew that I was saved, and for a long time I really didn't care.

I still told people about Jesus.

I would read the Bible, I would do a lot of things, but I graduated high school, I went to college, and my day-to-day living just wasn't consistent with the things that I was saying.

I knew my actions weren't pleasing to God, but I chose to keep living under this burden of conviction instead of doing what I needed to do to change and try to be pleasing to God.

And that lasted a long time.

I chased the American dream.

I met Amanda, I went to law school, I set up a business, we had kids, we did all the things you're supposed to do, and we served at church.

We were interim youth directors at once.

She ran this thing called the shower committee, which basically means any event that happens at the church went through her.

We drafted bylaws, taught Sunday school, and I was 29 years old.

Somehow I was on a pastor search committee.

And they voted me chairman.

It's because they didn't know that the guy they saw at church wasn't the guy that was at home.

And the guy that was at home was a different guy than the guy who was running around Bessemer defending people accused of crimes and trying child custody cases.

By 35 years old, the money was good, the business was strong, we were debt-free.

I did just about what I wanted to do every day, and I was completely miserable because something was missing.

And God didn't give up on me.

Every time I showed up, he did too.

And the message always seemed to be the same.

Genesis 12, 1.

Go.

But when you get told to go, the first thing is to ask where you're gonna go.

And so we played with where we would go, and in December of 2014, we got it in our mind clearly that we were supposed to go to Dakar Senegal to be house parents for missionary kids.

And we talked to our pastor, and he told us to go through open doors, and that door on Senegal got slammed shut pretty quick after.

I don't know why I did this, but in March of 2015, I sent an email to King's Home on a whim, never dreaming that they would have me come and work there as a house parent.

I mean, the third world had said no.

How am I gonna get that job right here in Shelby County?

And it didn't seem all that exotic, if I'm honest.

And it seemed a lot harder to move across the county than to pick up and go to Africa.

But that email opened a door, and before I knew it, I was at an interview, and I told the people at the interview that I didn't want to go, but I was committed to going through open doors, and if they just had to hire me, that I might have to come work with them.

And during that interview process, we kept going on, and next thing you know, I'm looking at the house they wanted me to live in and filling out a background check, and I stood and talked to a lady who's to my left named Miss Riggins, and she said, Okay, sir, you being called.

The Lord's working on you, and you just need to let go.

She said a lot of things to me in the years that followed.

She said that Ella was anointed and was gonna play the piano, and she told me something crazy that I would preach to thousands before I ever prepared a sermon.

People say weird things when you go in ministry.

But even with her saying that, I still did not go.

And we went back for another interview room full of people, and I told them the same thing.

I'm committed to going through open doors, and I need you guys to shut this door for me, or I might have to come here.

And as I told you when I started on April the 19th, after a month-long process, I sat at my church and I held the pew while the music team played I Surrender All, and I sang and I did not surrender.

And later that night, horrible fight with Amanda, and the next morning, April the 20th, I want to give you all of the details.

I accepted a call to ministry to go and be a house parent at King's Home, leaving my house and my family and my job and my father who moved from Baldwin County five miles away from us on April the 15th, five days before.

And we came here to work at King's Home.

Now, after we made that decision, we had to start making plans, and the first plan was easy.

We knew exactly where we were going to go to church.

There was a great big church just about a mile and a half away from where we're going to live, and we were going to go to church there.

But God wasn't done showing me what he had for me.

Two weeks after I said I would come work at King's Home, there was a fellow that I went to church with named David Birdsong, who is not the David Birdsong seated to my left.

There are two of them in Shelby County, if you can believe that.

And they've met.

So this fellow, David Birdsong, was always inviting me to the Brotherhood breakfast at our church.

And I had been to this brotherhood breakfast a few years before, and I had sworn it off because they had like lukewarm pancakes and sausage, and the guest speaker was telling about cemetery lots at the National Cemetery.

And I was like 32, and I'm not even, I don't have a military record, and I said, I'm not going back to this.

But David kept calling me, and we did this thing where he would say, Hey, we're having brotherhood breakfast, and then he would see me at church and he would say, We missed you at Brotherhood breakfast, and I would say, Well, I'd lie and say, I forgot.

On May the 2nd, we have the April 20th date.

On May the 2nd, it was a Saturday night, and David got wise, and he texted me that we were having Brotherhood breakfast.

And I just did what I've now learned is called ghosting.

I didn't respond.

I was getting ready to go out and work for the Lord.

And before I did, I had a charmed life that I wanted to play out till the very end.

My life included a golf cart and a membership at the little Montevala golf course.

And we lived close enough that I could drive over there Sunday morning, play 18 holes, and get back in time to teach Sunday school and go to church.

And when I woke up the morning of May the 3rd, 2015, that was my plan.

And I was standing in the kitchen, as I recall, about 5:40 in the morning, and the sun was just coming up, and I was almost free when I heard the pitter patter of little feet coming down the hallway, and Luke was four years old, and he was up at 5:40 in the morning.

And so I crafted a plan very quickly, and I said, Luke, hey buddy, do you want to go play golf with daddy?

In a very chipper voice.

And he looked up at me with his big brown eyes, and for reasons that I can only attribute as the work of the Lord Himself, I gave him another option.

I said, Or would you want to go to the brotherhood breakfast at church?

Now Luke knew about golf and he knew about breakfast, but he had no idea what brotherhood was.

And if he just wanted breakfast, I was sure that we could handle that and get on to the golf course.

But he asked me this question, he said this, he said, Will Papa be at church?

Now, Papa is a saintly man who is at church every time the doors are open, and he cuts the grass during the week and he stops by periodically to see if they need anything.

And for me to tell my son anything other than Papa would be at church would just be lying to my four-year-old.

So I said, Yeah, I imagine he probably will be at church.

And I gritted my teeth and we got ready to go.

About an hour later, at 7 o'clock, we pulled into the parking lot, and there was no joy in the house of the Lord for me right then.

I'm just gonna be honest.

And it only got worse when I saw a little green truck with an orange rooftop in the parking lot.

And I said, Oh my goodness, I've been back one time since cemetery lots, and they're gonna tell me about fire restoration.

And I went in to the church for this brotherhood breakfast very begrudgingly, only because I had my kid with me.

And there were two bald guys who I didn't recognize, and one's name was Carrie Welch.

Carrie used to go to church here, and what happened that I had no idea about, Carrie had a son who played basketball with David Birdsong, son, and during the season they talked about church.

And Carrie was telling David all about what a great church it was here at CCW, and David invited him to come speak.

Now the other guy that was in that room was not Pastor Danny, it was David Wilson, Christy's husband, Benji's dad, the founder of CCW, the owner of ServePro, who got up at I don't know what time that Sunday morning and drove 25 miles across the county to talk to 12 or 13 good old boys and me.

And he told us about CCW and all that the Lord was doing, and I just about wanted to jump up and interrupt him to tell him, hey, I'm about to move to Chelsea the end of this month.

And I did when he got finished, and we talked, and he invited me.

And four weeks later, we moved away from everything.

And on June the 14th, we visited CCW for the first time.

And the next week, on June the 21st of 2015, we asked our teenage foster kids who never agreed on the color of the sky, what they wanted to do for church.

And the vote was unanimous to come to CCW.

Father's Day of 2015.

That's when this became my church.

While we were there that day, we had an opportunity to serve.

It seems that just a week later, the last week of June, they were going to have VBS.

And they needed extra help to help this bunch that was coming down from Connorsville, Indiana, to lead the VBS under the direction of Rick Wright.

And we came and we met Pastor Rick and we helped serve VBS the week of June 29th.

And Pastor Rick preached about John chapter 9, Jesus healing the blind man, and I was mesmerized.

John 9 · chapter mention

I had never heard anybody open the scripture and break it down like that before.

It was amazing.

He finished up the VBS week.

They went back to Indiana, and man, I thought he was pretty special.

So I did what you do with special people.

Facebook stalked him a little.

And I finally decided that he was just a flash in the pan who was put in my life for just a season, and then he had gone back to regularly scheduled programming.

Hundreds of miles away.

Well, as things happened, about a month later, Pastor Danny comes up and catches me and says, Hey, what do you think about that guy who did VBS?

And I said, Man, he was great.

And he said, What if I told you he's coming to be our youth pastor?

Now, knowing that we already had a youth pastor, I was a little thrown off.

And he said, Yeah, we've given him a job and he's coming.

First part of September.

I was stoked.

The first Wednesday in September, I called all of my neighbors, and we got all the King's Home kids that I could find to come here, Pastor Rick.

I think there was about 70 kids.

They had been running about 10.

When he gave the invitation, over 20 raised their hand for salvation.

And we were off and running.

And we started working closely together.

It wasn't long after that that Derek and Jamie Randolph moved.

Moved in next door to me and became my great friends.

They brought their group to church.

Erica and Tim, who were there before me.

Miss Erica's gone on to be with the Lord, but they brought their kids.

We were all at the church, and I don't know what Wednesdays are like now, but it used to be crump.

There was one night that a girl got mad at me and decided she was gonna walk home.

And we caught her at the railroad trap by Chelsea City Hall, and it was the middle of January.

In August of 2016, after I had been here about a year, David Wilson decided it was time to start adult Sunday school class.

And he asked me if I would co-teach it with him.

And I said, sure, I've done this before.

I can work and study and do that.

And so we co-taught.

And the way this worked was we all met in his office, and when he would get done with the lesson on Sunday, we only had one book.

I don't know why.

But he would give me the book, and then I would get ready with the book, and then I would give it back to him, and we'd pass the book back and forth.

And we did that for a few months, and the end of March 2017, we were finishing up one series, and David handed me a book, and he said, I'm gonna need you to take care of this for me for a little while.

See, he was sick, and I didn't know how sick he was, but I think he did.

And he said, You're gonna need to take care of this for me for a little while.

And so I started teaching from the book he handed me, and he went out to Houston to try to get some treatments, and in June of that year he passed away.

And the last thing I remember him saying was that take care of this for me for a little while.

And so I have, we have Sunday school, and I will fight for Sunday school.

Ugly fight sometimes.

Whether there's three in there or twenty, we're gonna have Sunday school.

Rick eventually started letting me preach some to the youth on Wednesday night.

Every now and then he let me run the youth group.

Sometimes when he wasn't there, that was a little weird, and I got this wild idea how cool it might be to work with Pastor Rick and how exciting it might be to be here at the church.

And at the same time, I knew that our time at King's Home was gonna end when Ella got into middle school.

She was seven almost when we got here, and we knew how to navigate the foster kids at high school and middle school and navigate our kids over at the elementary school, but we weren't going to jump off and try to figure out how to maintain their relationships when they were all in the same school outside of our presence.

So we knew by the time she finished fifth grade, our time at King's Home would be up.

And in the spring of 2018, I'm giving a lot of dates here, but it's amazing to me.

She was finishing fourth grade, and Amanda started doing this thing she calls mapping her prayers, which means you write down the circumstances and the situations, and it was like a week after we started mapping prayers that I get an email from a school in Tegusagapa, Honduras, from a resume that I had posted in 2014, four years before, way back in the Africa days.

And so we chased it down and we interviewed on Skype and we flew to Honduras and we interviewed with them there, and they just so happened to have an open position for history and social studies, which I studied in college, and another position for English, which Amanda studied in college.

And we decided that we were gonna at least be on American soil before we signed to that contract.

We came back to the U.S.

and we prayed and we talked and we had people pray over us.

And here's a testimony for you.

Finally, Amanda said, It's your decision as the leader of the family.

I don't care either way.

There's a lot of freedom in submitting to your husband and a lot of pressure on a man when a wife does.

A long headache for a long time.

And finally, I came to the conclusion that I still believe is right that while coming to King's home was a requirement that required obedience, going to Honduras was an option that we might get to explore.

May have that wrong, I don't know, but I do know this.

We went back to work.

Ella had two months left before she was gonna start the fifth grade, and that would start our one-year clock on having to leave.

And nothing was happening.

We had just rejected the out.

Ella started fifth grade that summer.

We were still working at King's Home, and the week after school started, Pastor Danny came up to me out of the blue in the lobby on a Wednesday night and said, Hey, do you want to come work at the church?

And I said, Yeah.

And he said, When?

He's a man of action, he likes it fast.

And I said, In August, I can certainly be here by the end of the year.

But if Amanda gets a job, then we can make it work before then.

And what we did after that, Amanda called a friend of hers who she had worked with before, and he said, Dust off your resume and send it to me.

And the next Monday she sent him her resume.

He told her, Look, this company's very thorough.

They go through an intensive process before they hire people.

It might take two or three months to get a job.

That was within my time frame, end of the year.

So on Monday, she sends her resume.

On Tuesday, she gets a call that a fellow who was doing the job that they were considering her for had turned in his two-week notice.

By the end of the week, she was on the telephone with a hiring manager.

And the next Monday, one week after she had sent her resume to start this ball rolling, the fellow who had turned in his two-week notice came in and said, I ain't even gonna work it out, I'm done.

By the end of the week, she had a job offer, and they were begging her to start as soon as she could.

So we turned in our notice at King's Home.

We bought a house.

She started her job October 15th of 2018, and I started here October 29th, just in time for the chunk tree.

God told me to go for a long time.

And I always wondered where.

First, I had to agree to go, and then God started showing me the destination that He had for me.

I believe that my family was sent here by the Lord through an invitation of David Wilson via a stin at the king's home to work under Pastor Rick and go before him as the leader and help him serve the people God sent here.

We had no idea that that's what it was.

But God had so much more planned after we took the first step in faith.

And now I'm getting ordained.

And just to tell you how everything comes full circle, here's what the Lord showed me.

You see, way back in March 2017, when I was teaching that class, and David said, I need you to take care of this for me for a while.

He handed me this book.

It's on earth as it is in heaven.

And this is the book I was teaching when he passed away.

And it's been on my shelf, and I've never picked it up again until I decided for some reason that we're gonna do the Lord's Prayer Bible study just a few months ago.

Right here in the season of my ordination.

So as the church grows and we have so many super talented people, I believe that I'm just supposed to be a good caretaker.

And that's my testimony.

I was 36-year-old with a house, job, business, kids, no idea of what the Lord was doing.

And I got called to come work at a church without even knowing that's what I was getting called to do.

We don't ask this around here often, but I think today I have to.

Is there anybody here who hears that word go?

And I'm not talking about a week.

I'm talking about forever.

Are you too scared, too busy?

Is it not the right time?

Are you gonna get to it later?

Are you waiting on God to show you where?

Listen to him, he may not show you until you decide you'll go.

But if you do, the things he shows you may be exceedingly and abundantly more than you could ever ask or imagine.

Is today the day that someone needs to make a commitment to full-time ministry?

To go?

In a few minutes, there's gonna be an invitation, and I have to wonder if anybody might come down here and do business with the Lord at this altar.

I surrender all.

Let my life be a testimony.

The answer is yes, and I will.

We just sang all that.

Do you mean it?

After I said yes, God did amazing things.

The second thing I want to tell you is this don't reject the small assignment.

Don't think you're above something.

I've told you a story about David Wilson, who I've since learned was a fairly influential, respected, busy man with a lot of responsibilities and not much time.

And on a Sunday morning, he got up early and did a 50-mile round trip across the county to talk to a bunch of old guys he didn't even know, about 10 or 12 of us, and I just happened to be there.

Your small assignment might be really big for somebody else.

Are you being called?

Is it a full upheaval of your basket?

Or is it just some small, insignificant task?

At least in your mind.

If you are, will you answer the call?

Jesus in Matthew chapter 9 looked out and saw the multitudes.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

The Bible tells us he was moved with compassion because he saw they were weary and scattered, like sheep with no shepherd.

You don't have to look far in this world to see that it's still there.

Jesus told his disciples the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

We're gonna charge Dave in a moment and have a little season of scripture, but in the spirit of the moment, maybe there's somebody here this morning and you just need to go whatever that means in your life.

I wouldn't want anybody to leave here wrestling.

And by the way, I'm gonna talk about it in a moment.

We all have a call.

Maybe today is the day where you can get the day in the summer.

Thirty-five years old was wrestling.

What about you?

With every head bow and every eye closed.

Could there be anybody here that say, Pastor, the Holy Spirit is just tugging on me?

I don't know what it looks like.

I don't maybe know what I'm supposed to do, but I know.

Today I've got to surrender all.

I see a hand already.

Anyone else?

Just raise your hand up.

I want to pray for you.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Anybody else?

Six.

Anyone else?

You feel the Holy Spirit.

Don't miss this.

He's real, church.

If he's speaking to you.

Anyone else?

I just want to pray over you.

Listen to me.

When this day is done and this service is over, if you meant that in your heart, and you know it's real right now, I'm sure that Dave Roper would have said to you, start taking steps towards that.

Begin to ask God to uncover what that means in your life.

Ellen's gonna play softly, and I want to invite you, church, to stand.

If you raised your hand this morning and you meant it, there's an altar here.

Would you come and do business with God?

I'm gonna pray.

The altar's gonna be open.

Maybe you've done that before, you've surrendered all, but you're going through a season.

You say, Maybe I just need a new surrender, a resurrender today.

Would you make it today?

Pray with me, church.

Father, we love you.

Lord, this church is here because it's your church, we're your people.

God, we just ask that you would make of us what you want of us.

God, you have stepped well before me and Dave, even.

In the heart of a businessman who is just saying yes to you, I surrender all, and trying to make a church being an owner of a business.

God, you've had this plan well before we have been involved.

God, we just want to continue your vision and your plan, and we want to see people here just totally surrender to you, stepping out.

God, in faith to experience a life, Lord, that the truth of the matter is that culture does not promote.

But God, I believe and I know that Dave believes the greatest life that there can be on this earth is a life surrender to you.

So, God, I pray during this time of invitation that you will work in the hearts of people.

God spoken to you this morning.

Would you step out?

Pastor Dave Myself, we want to pray over you.

Just step out.

God surrender all right now.

I'm done with it.

I'm all his.

100%.

I'm all in.

I surrender all.

All to Jesus.

I do it.

Young people do it.

People do it.

And then the fourth quarter of live to know they've got us around their own.

And whether it be an ordination service, a wedding service, a funeral service, a church service, I'm committed to one thing we are always gonna share: the gospel invitation.

And if you're here today and you haven't truly surrendered in that first phase, that relationship that Dave shared when he was 15, he recognized that he was Lord and Savior.

That's why we exist as a church.

We want people to know the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ died on a cross, that he was buried and rose again for our sins.

Maybe you're here and you don't know him as Savior and Lord.

Today can be that day that you surrender.

So if y'all would bow, Christians be in prayer.

If you're here, you say, Pastor, I have never done that, or I have never meant that.

Today you can pray a prayer like this.

The Holy Spirit's already doing the work.

He's speaking.

He can say this, dear Lord, I know that I'm a sinner.

And I'm sorry for my sins.

I believe that Jesus Christ died upon a cross, that his blood was shed to cover my sins, that he was buried, and that he rose again for me.

Today, I'm surrendering my all to him.

He is with every head bowed.

Would there be anybody that would raise their hand up?

My testimony and say, I prayed that prayer.

I've accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.

I've surrendered all today.

If that was you, would you raise your hand up right now?

Lord, we love you.

We thank you.

God, for the honor that we've had today to hear and see.

God, you're working in a man who's willing to be a vessel.

You're working in his family.

God, I thank you today.

Seeing what happens to a person surrendered to you.

Lord, it may be in their work or in this community, it may be that there are people that are going to be pastors in this church or missionaries in this church.

And God, I pray.

We said it as a council yesterday that this church should be a garden of those things.

God, we want to send.

So let that be so.

Thank you for day.

Thank you for this testimony, and thank you for this time in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen, church.

You can be seated.

Thank you, Pastor Dave and Amanda.

It is tremendously difficult to follow that with a charge.

I think you've charged yourself, and I'll do my best to follow it.

Church, this again, this is a heritage of the Southern Baptist Church that we've done this.

And I just want to share with you, and I'm going to do it as quickly as I can.

And uh, but I want you to know today if you have a Bible, Ephesians chapter 4, they've said it.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

We are called to Christ.

In Ephesians 4, it says this I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.

We're called.

That word is Kaleo, and it means to be so named, to bid, to be commanded.

The first person I have written in my notes here, it says, Abraham was called.

I haven't sat down and convened with Dave.

He was called, I wrote, to get out of his country.

Moses was called to deliver the Israelites.

Esther was called for such a time as this.

Maybe some of you felt that this morning.

Jonah was called and didn't like the calling and went somewhere else.

And the New Testament example that we're reading from Paul was called by God on the Damascus Road, doing absolutely the most opposite thing he could be doing in his time that he ended up doing so differently.

It says, But walk worthy of your calling.

I want to tell you, Pastor Dave, I'm not worthy.

There's no man here worthy to be called, but any man.

Called is called to walk worthy of the call.

So, what is the call?

I'm just gonna give you two things as a charge.

Number one, the call.

If you have notes, if you want to take notes, I'm not gonna be offended.

If you don't, you can just continue to cry through the service.

One is we're called as pastors to evangelize the fallen to Christ.

Upon ordination, there's a certificate that's given to a man, and it says this, and I want anybody, our younger pastors, anybody endeavoring to maybe pastor, it says a man that is ordained, is ordained to the gospel ministry.

He's not ordained to the youth ministry or the children's ministry or the adult ministry or the music ministry.

It's the gospel ministry.

And the answer to that call is anytime, any place, yes, God.

For the gospel.

That's the why.

Letter A this morning is this why?

Why the call to the gospel, while the sinfall of man.

You all know Genesis chapter 3, verse 6.

Genesis 3:6

It is by the fruit, and Romans 8 we see, by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.

And because of that, Romans 8 22 says, All creation continues to groan.

Ever since the weight of sin it began to groan, and it groans, Pastor Dave, for a herald.

One to declare the gospel because of this sin.

And so Paul said, and we'll look at some of it, but Paul said, so some he gave apostles, some prophets, some pastors, some teachers.

2 Timothy 4 5, it says, all pastors are called to do the work of an evangelist.

A man by the last name of Lawson said this, Paul established the timeless standard for pastoral ministry, not only for then or for young Timothy, but in every generation.

And what he was saying was we have to evangelize the lost.

If this church loses the heartbeat that there is lost people heading to a real place called hell, then we have lost the heartbeat of the cross of Jesus Christ.

We have to evangelize the lost.

Leonard Ravenhill said, Christ cared enough for sinners that he died for them.

Will you care enough to reach them?

So it's the sinful of man letter B is it's the salvation plan.

I want you to see in Ephesians 2 what Paul said.

Verse 1 through 7, he said, You he made alive, we who were dead in sin and our trespasses in sin, in which you once walked according to the course of this world.

This was us before Christ, according to the Prince of the power of the air, the Spirit, who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as others.

But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace.

You have been saved and raised up together and made us to sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

That's the salvation plan.

Verse 1 through 3 said, What we were because of sin, we were dead, we were doomed, we were disobedient.

Dave mentioned we were living for the American dream.

The general public that you know is living for that dream.

And it's falling.

I want to tell you right now, we are at the brink of a world full of need of answers.

And they're looking to these so-called Christians.

But God, verse 4, said, I thought about that.

1 Corinthians 10 13 says, No temptation has taken you, but God, who is faithful.

1 Corinthians 3 16 says, I planted Apollos water, but God gave the increase.

Genesis 50, 20 said, Joseph said, What man intended for evil, but God meant for good.

Matthew 19, 26, Pastor Dave, with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

Psalm is said in Psalm 73, 26, My heart and my flesh they fail me, but God.

Isn't your story, Dave, a but God's story?

Mine is when Satan tried to lure me, when disease, you didn't even mention that, tried to take you out, but God.

And Romans 5, 7 says, but God commended his love towards us, even that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

And Romans 6.23 said, The wages of this sin was death, but God gave us this gift of eternal life.

Well, I want to turn you to one other scripture.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about the resurrection so vividly.

Probably the greatest passage in the Bible explaining the resurrection of Christ, the cross, death, and resurrection.

In 1 Corinthians 15, verse 14, it says, And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching, Pastor, is empty, and your faith is empty.

1 Corinthians 15:14

So why do we have to evangelize the fallen?

If Christ had not risen from the dead, then it really doesn't matter.

It goes on at the end of that passage.

It didn't end with just this.

It said in verse 57 and 58.

It said, But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, so that you know that your labor is not in vain.

Because he's risen, we have this evangelistic gospel to share.

And so Paul said, Be steadfast.

Second and last thing I have to say, called not only to evangelize, but to equip, to equip the flock of Christ.

Ephesians 4, 11 and 12.

It says this, and I already mentioned he gave some apostles, prophets, evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.

Why?

Verse 12.

For the equipping of this beautiful thing that God's given us.

For the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry.

Hear me, church.

God didn't call us to pastor so that we would pastor and do all the work of the ministry.

He called us so that we would equip the work of the ministry and edify the body of Christ.

So how do you do that, Dave?

Number one, use your words to equip.

Dave is a teacher.

And so this was shared to us.

Speak the truth.

We're told in scripture, speak the truth in love, speak each one to his neighbor, encourage one another with these words.

Exhort, warn, comfort with words.

We're told all through scripture.

And I've never that I know met a man that has a knack for bringing clarity to confusing scripture by his study, like Dave Roper.

And so, Dave, use your gift.

Every opportunity.

I love what you said.

That when God told you one day or gave you an opportunity that you would take anyone.

And I know this to be a fact because I've seen him go over to the King's Home Chapel, to a chapel at Cornerstone Christian, right here, anywhere the opportunity's been given.

So use your words.

And lastly, with that, use your walk.

Maybe your greatest gift.

Use your walk to equip.

When I thought about this, you all that know Dave know that Dave is a jack of all trades.

When I met Dave, God set, and he shared this, the rights and the ropers on a collision course that led to Chelsea, Alabama.

And Dave, when I met him, was a lawyer, about to be a house parent missionary, something I've never heard of.

And it truly was an unforgettable season of life.

We played softball together.

Dave's a pretty good picture.

All black hair in those days.

Week by week, and he hit this, we melded one-way youth, and I gotta give you a picture.

I came from a church of 10 years, and no church has ever seen what we came into and did.

No church had a manual, a booklet.

There was nothing for, and I started thinking about the times with our group home kids and our other church kids, and there was a season where I taught junior high boys and kings home girls in a church freezer.

And Amanda was my co-teacher.

And they came in with blankets and they were ready for a nap and not to be taught.

We saw fights, we saw drugs, we saw all kinds of things happen during those days.

The ropers on the right sat around many, many meals.

I think just holding each other's arms up, trying to figure out this new phase of ministry.

Dave became the big brother that I never had.

If that wasn't enough and we weren't getting enough time with all that, Dave and I coached our boys through seven or eight seasons of soccer.

There's Wyatt, Malin, and Luke at the YMCA about to do their thing, and they were bad, let me tell you.

We won some championships.

And let me tell you, Amanda's quite a good soccer coach as well.

Because Dave and Amanda have a passion for soccer, I believe it truly birthed the now 12-season upward soccer league that has seen hundreds of people come through this church.

I said Dave was a jack of all trades.

He became a Sunday school teacher, an assistant pastor, a council member.

Dave is by far Westover and Chelsea's greatest game show host.

I think we've got a woo-hoo! If you hadn't played the prices right with Dave Barker, you hadn't had a good time.

For fun, Dave became a realtor.

I believe that.

He opened an LLC, you maybe you don't know this, to help people find homes.

He's put some people who are in down position in the homes.

Dave dabbles in woodworking, building benches and beds.

He's currently the cameraman for Chelsea's football team, and he makes one of the best cheeseburgers I've ever eaten.

Dave, your example has taught me that hard work always finds a way.

Dave is a doer.

I screamed James 122 for a year to teenagers.

Be a doer of the word, be a doer of the word.

Don't be a don't or be a doer.

And Dave is a doer.

So Dave, use your example to equip.

Keep using it.

Letter B and lastly, equipping for maturity.

It said to edify.

It is the call of the pastor to equip, very much like a coach equips the giftedness of the saints to build a unified body.

Our pastors are called to help unify this body of people so that we can continue to see CCW grow wide.

But I want to tell you, as it grows wide, more people, it has to grow deep.

And if it will grow deep because of this book, then it has to grow wide.

And Dave does a fantastic job of leading the charge in that way.

If I could leave you with any pastoral advice, sometimes I feel uh overwhelmed at this.

I've talked to Dave about this.

Um, I didn't become a pastor in my 20s, so my peers, I have an easy time talking to the guys that are in their 20s.

But I look up to Dave, and if I could give you a word of advice, how do you do all those things?

How do you walk worthy?

Well, Paul hit it in Ephesians chapter 4, in verse 2 and 3, he said this.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

He said, You were called, walk worthy of your call with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called, and one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and the Father of all who is above all and through you all and in you all.

It's not about us anyway, Dave.

It's all about him.

And if you'll keep that focus, which I know you will, it is by him and for him and through him, and it will be great.

It will be great.

I'm gonna ask if Dave and our wives would come and join us.

I'm gonna ask if the council would come down, and I'm gonna ask if Rick Camp, we are honored today to have our mission strategist for Shelby County, Rick Camp, who's been busy all over, but he didn't want to miss making this an important priority of ordaining Dave, and so he's gonna come and share Dave's ordination certificate and also share in a prayer.

Before he does, I believe my wife is up here, she's coming.

I'll wait for her just a moment.

Anyhow, our council, any of the family that would like to join, any Dave's family, I'm looking at you, Luke, anybody else?

Um, any of our council prayer leaders, Sunday school teachers that have worked with them, anybody that wants to lay a hand on one of the ropers, you're welcome to join us.

And we just have a small gift that we wanted to present to Amanda and Dave.

Thank you.

Dr.

King.

Isn't God good?

I know what some of you are thinking, this is the third preacher to come up.

We're in trouble.

My task is not to preach, my task is to present and pray.

So, but I do want to say this.

There you are.

Dave, this will kind of tie in with you because you like dates, numbers, and everything.

May 9th and 10th of this year, I was on my prayer and planning retreat.

We were looking at what the association's theme would be doing.

I was looking at it for next year.

God laid on my heart this year in May 9th and 10th that our theme for next year is but God.

But God.

From the passage where Paul says, I planted Apollos water, but God gave the growth.

At the same time, I want you to know that God is working in Shelby County, in the Shelby Baptist Association churches.

I am seeing an amazing thing taking place in this church.

I'm seeing an amazing thing taking place in churches that have been dead and now coming back to life.

We need healthy churches like this, partnering with dying churches in our association, because they need to be vibrant and they need to have the joy of the Lord in their service again.

I will also mention this.

This weekend, we've had the opportunity to be a part of the Ordination Council for Dave Roper.

I also had the opportunity to be a part of a church planting assessment at Shaco where two men who have been called to preach the gospel are planting or replanting in Shelby County right now.

So God's doing some great things.

Let's keep praying for God to do that.

Amen?

Now, Dave, come on up.

Amanda, you come as well.

I want to present to you this certificate of ordination.

And it says Timothy David Roper, not Dave Roper, it's official because it says it in an official way, all right?

But it also says down there from 2 Timothy that you are to preach the gospel both in season and out of season.

That you are to reprove, rebuke, and correct.

And you are to do it according to what God has blessed you.

So I am so excited to present to you this certificate, knowing that God's going to do an amazing work in and through you.

What he began in the path you have taken, use it because every bit of it God wants to use for his glory.

And I want to charge you also with one other passage of Scripture.

What's this year?

What's this year?

2024.

Acts chapter 20, verse 24.

Acts 20:24

It says, I do not count my life of any value, nor as precious to myself.

If only I may finish the ministry, the course, the ministry given to me by the Lord Jesus to testify of the gospel of the grace of God.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you that you are still calling out individuals to serve in your kingdom work.

Lord, it was a process because oftentimes all of us we will argue with you because we feel unworthy.

We will argue with you because we feel inadequate.

We will argue with you because we are just flat out stubborn.

But Father, thank you for your persistence in the call.

Thank you for the restlessness that we go through when we resist.

But Father, I pray today that as we have laid hands on Dave, that you would continue to just affirm in him this call, that you would continue to bless him, and that he would passionately pursue the ministry that you have called him to.

This is your calling.

And he has said yes, Lord.

So Father, now bless he, Amanda, Luke, and Ella as they go forth in your ministry.

In the name of Jesus we pray.

Amen.

Well, church, can we give Jesus a clap offering for that?

Amen.

Amen.

Well, it's been good to be in this house today.

Thank you for making today important.

And uh we're so excited to join with Dave and his family in this special moment in his life and ministry.

And I hope you were blessed.

If your ears were open, I know you were.