A Journey in Reformation: A Church at the Crossroads

She already noticed we're only saying two this morning, things a little bit different this morning. We just wanna share with you my heart from all that the

Lord has been doing this summer. And so I hope that you're able to listen and be encouraged and challenged and think about the things that the word of God has to say to us today.

I'm part of the last generation, I think, that can remember what it was like to go on a trip without a

GPS. You remember that when you were younger or whatever, you used to go places and just take a map.

I'm not even talking about MapQuest. I'm talking about you just had to take a map. Now, this didn't happen too often, but I do remember dad growing up on trips to going to another rodeo.

There was a couple times that he had to pull over and actually pull out the map and decide, okay, we're here, which way is it that we need to go?

Which way is the right way? You ever been walking and you come to a crossroads?

You stop, you look, you consider, which way do I need to go? Turning your

Bibles to Jeremiah six. It's been a while since I've said turning your Bibles to anywhere else besides Ephesians.

Turn your Bibles to Jeremiah six. Life has crossroads. You might say our nation is at a crossroads.

You might say the Southern Baptist Convention is at a crossroads. This morning,

I wanna hit closer to home. Our church is at a crossroads. We have options before us on which way we could go, but I wanna encourage us this morning that only one of them is the good way, the right way, the good path of rest.

So we take a break from Ephesians. And the subject from our text is this, a church at the crossroads.

So Jeremiah chapter six, and I want to read this morning verses 16 and 17.

I invite you to stand and honor the reading of God's word. Jeremiah chapter six, verse 16 and 17.

Thus says Yahweh, Let's pray. Stand by the roads and look and ask the ancient paths where the good way is and walk in it and find rest for your souls.

But they said, we will not walk in it. I sent watchmen over you saying, pay attention to the sound of the trumpet, but they said, we will not pay attention.

Let's pray. Father, we pray that Christ is exalted today. We pray for a spirit of humility and grace from the pulpit and spirit of humility and eagerness and hunger for your word from the pew.

Lord, we pray that we would hear what your word has to say and adjust our lives in every way. Lord, if there are some here who need

Christ, as there's Lord and savior, Lord, I pray even today they would bow the knee to Christ.

Thank you for your word. I pray that we would be a people of the book. You'd bless our church as we go forward in the days ahead.

We pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. A church at the crossroads. Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet.

He wrote an entire book called Lamentations, right? So of just lament.

He began his ministry under the last good king, Josiah. He was the last good king of Judah.

You remember the kingdom split. The last good king of Judah, Josiah. God called

Jeremiah at a young age. And Jeremiah spent decades preaching

God's blessing for those who would follow him and God's judgment for those who disobeyed.

He foretold of the new covenant in Jeremiah 33. How those in the new covenant will have the law of God written on their hearts.

They will have their sins forgiven in Christ. How they will all know God. But Jeremiah preached and preached and preached and no one listened.

He even preached after Jerusalem had fallen. But he never saw the revival that he hoped for.

His warnings were repeatedly ignored. In fact, one king, Jehoiakim, actually took, you probably remember this story, took

Jeremiah's writings and when they were read to the king, he cut them up and he threw them in the fireplace.

But these things did not stop Jeremiah from preaching the truth, including telling Judah the right way.

And if they would follow God's way, listen to this, they would find rest. Look at verse 16. Stand by the roads, thus says the

Lord. Stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient path where the good way is and walk in it and you will find rest for your souls.

There's actually five commands there in the text. Just look at them real quick with me. Five commands there in verse 16.

Stand, look, ask, walk, find. These are all commands in the text.

Stand, look, ask, walk, find. If Judah would just do this, they would see mercy.

Stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient path where the good way is and walk in it and find rest for your souls.

If they do this, they find mercy, but the text says they would not listen. But they said we will not walk in it.

They were stubborn and hard -hearted. A quick application I might give to the church is this. When we come to any kind of crossroads in our life, we're to stop and consider.

Some of you, listen, young people, some of you in just a few weeks, you'll be going back to school.

You will have choices before you. You listening? You'll have choices before you at school.

Which group should I walk around with? Which thing should I be interested in? How should

I handle this or that decision? Well, when you come to a crossroads, you ought to stop and consider.

You ought to observe the options that are before you and then you ought to seek the Lord's way. You ought to seek the

Bible. You ought to seek the Scriptures and then you ought to walk in it and in so doing, find rest and peace.

This is true of all of us. Anytime we come to a decision, a new job, a new situation, we ought to consider the path before us and we ought to ask for the ancient paths.

Now, the Hebrew word for both roads and way in our text is direct. Stand by the road, stand by the direct and look and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is, the direct.

The word is used all over the Old Testament. It's used in Psalm 1.

Consider Psalm 1 .1 and 1 .6. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of scoffers.

Or Psalm 1 .6. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked will perish.

Or turn to Proverbs real quick. Go back to your left. Turn to Proverbs 14. In Proverbs 14, this word for way or roads or path is used.

Proverbs 14 .12 says this. There is a way, there is a path, there is a road that seems right to a man but its end is the way of death.

That is Proverbs 14 .12. There is a way that seems right to a man but its end is the way to death.

Or in Proverbs chapter one, flip over, since you're already in Proverbs 14, flip over to Proverbs chapter one.

In Proverbs chapter one, verse 11. This is the father instructing his son, saying don't go this way.

Proverbs chapter one, verse 11. If they say come with us, let us lie in wait for blood.

Let us ambush the innocent without reason. Like Sheol, let us swallow them alive and whole like those who go down to the pit.

We shall find all precious goods. We shall fill our houses with plunder.

Throw in your lot among us. We will all have one purse. My son, do not walk in the way.

That's the same word. Do not walk in the way with them. Hold back your foot from their path. That is, don't go down this road.

This road is dangerous. The Scripture is full of warnings that there are roads or paths or ways that we can choose to follow and some of them may seem so enticing.

Some of them may seem so harmless but ultimately they are deceptive and destructive.

So many paths that are enticing or may even seem right, but their end is the way of death.

So Jeremiah says then, stand, stand at the roads and look which path will you trod?

Which way will you go? The way of sinners or the way of the righteous?

The way that seems right to a man or God's way. So we come to a crossroads.

I want to say crossword. We come to a crossroads. We stop, we look, we consider, but here's the way that we should pick.

Ask, the text says back in Jeremiah 6 .16, ask for the ancient paths.

Look, the way that a church should go, the way that a believer should go is that we should seek to walk the ancient path.

Now that doesn't mean that old is automatically right. And it doesn't mean that change is always bad.

In fact, in today's message, I'm calling upon us for some changes, but I'm not calling us to go back to like the 1950s or whatever.

It's deeper than that. God is calling His people to the ancient path. Stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is and walk in it and find rest for your souls.

God is calling His people to the ancient paths. One neat thing about the Hebrew word for ancient in our text is that in Hebrew, it can mean a long time back or it can mean a long time in the future.

That is, these ancient paths are also simultaneously the everlasting paths.

Friends, the ancient paths are the Scriptures. This is God's authoritative, sufficient, and Christ -saturated

Word. This is the ancient path. Which way should we go? I don't know which way to go, right? Well, we should look to the

Scriptures and we should walk that way. The ancient paths are the eternal paths. The road

God would have us to walk is the road of unchanging truth.

They are the way God's people have always trod. Think about Enoch. Enoch walked with God on what path?

On these ancient paths. Genesis 5, trusting His revealed Word. Noah walked these ancient paths.

Abraham walked these ancient paths. David walked these ancient paths. Paul, Peter walked these ancient paths.

This is where the good way is. Look at verse 16. Ask for the ancient paths where the good way is.

Oh, if I could just believe this and you could just believe this, that walking in biblical truth, that walking the biblical way is where the good way is.

One commentator says this, it is the path which leads to the enjoyment of covenant blessing from the

Lord. You're tempted every day. You say, well, I know that's the way I ought to go, but this way's easier, right?

But this is the way that is good. This is the way that is blessed by God. This is the road that believers must walk.

The Word of God is the way of God's people, not just theoretically, but practically.

I'm convinced today that I could preach in almost any Southern Baptist church and just get on fire and say, we have to obey the book.

We have to walk by the book. We have to go the ancient paths. And I'm convinced that probably 100 % of churches would say amen.

But I'm saying not just theoretically, practically. I think in the six years that I've been here, we've stood and we've looked and we've asked.

We've stood by the road. We've looked, we've asked. I think we've done that a lot. But what I'm saying is now we have to walk.

Now we have to walk more intentionally. We can't just be right in theory about sound doctrine, but we must apply that sound doctrine to the life of the church tangibly, intentionally, and practically.

And so this is where we are today. Now, what I wanna do is I wanna talk for a moment about the past, the present, and the future.

When I talk about the past, the first thing I wanna talk about is the past. I'm not giving you an excuse for my ministry.

Rather, I want you to have some context about where I'm at. So let me talk first about the past.

I need you to know some things that have spilled over into how I've pastored here the last six years at Second Baptist.

I've written about this some, but to my knowledge, this is the first time I've ever publicly in a place like this spoken about it.

So I'm gonna say some things that are pretty raw to me, but you need to hear them. You need to know where I came from about some things.

Many of you probably already know this. On October 10th, 2010, easy to remember, 10, 10, 10.

October 10th, 2010, I was 24 years old and I became the pastor at First Baptist Church of DeWitt.

I don't remember how many people voted for me, but I do remember 12 voted no. And I just remember that because it was kind of funny when

I came on as youth pastor, 11 voted no and one voted undecided. So the joke was, well, by the time they voted on me as pastor, the undecided had become decided and he voted no.

So on the day that I was voted in, the music minister's wife shook

Stephanie's hand. And Stephanie said something along the lines of, oh, we're just so excited to be here. We're so excited about what the

Lord is doing. And the lady said, sinisterly, we'll see. And so that kind of set a trajectory,

I guess. That Christmas we had a choir cantata on Sunday morning. After it was over, we had a choir cantata and then

I preached and I had a deacon's wife come up to me and she told me, I better not ever do that again.

And I was like, I was confused. Like, well, what's she talking about? So I asked her to clarify.

And she said, you better not ever preach after a cantata. Of all books of the

Bible to preach through, I began preaching through Philippians. I believe we called the series the joy of the gospel and the life of the local church.

I began preaching about what it really means to be born again, that it's not just say a prayer, right?

You can't just say a prayer and say that you're a Christian if your life doesn't match up. And so what it looks like in the local church to be a

Christian. And there was a deacon who told me, these are all different deacons, by the way, not just the same guy circling around. This other deacon, he said to me, you're just preaching pie -in -the -sky stuff.

You're preaching utopian stuff, as though the Bible is not real. On Sunday nights,

I began going through Mark Devers, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. We began talking in those meetings about church discipline and we began talking about healthy church membership.

Through all that, another deacon and his wife came to my office and they said that I was saying that their 25 -year -old son was not a

Christian. Now, I had never met this man. I had never even, I didn't know his name. I never even talked about him.

But me saying that a Christian loved the church and lived holy made them upset at me, accusing me of saying things about their son.

One Sunday night, we did similar like we do here on Sunday night. One Sunday night, a man confronted me.

He interrupted me. In the middle of my, I was talking. In the middle of my lesson, he just interrupted me. And he just basically yelled at me and said,

I was being judgmental. It was really tense. Braden at that time, thankfully, he doesn't even remember this.

He was only three. He looks up at Stephanie and he was like, why is that man being mean to daddy? Now, you think that did not help the tension in the room.

Now, it wasn't all bad. We started a prayer meeting. I got to pray weekly with the youth pastor. And then there was two older ladies,

Miss Yvonne and Miss Prissy from our church, basically, who always showed up. Those were sweet times of prayer.

I remain good friends with one of those ladies, Miss Prissy Wallace. Some of you know that. Such a godly woman and encourager to my life and ministry.

I encourage the church toward evangelism. We did evangelistic visitations on Sunday afternoon, but it was very, very small, poorly attended.

Anyway, things continued overall there to get back. One man asked me in a meeting, if I really believe,

Brother Quatro, he held his Bible like this. Do you really believe that God is gonna hold us accountable for everything that is in this book?

I was shocked, right? I'm a Baptist, so I don't have a poker face. So I was like, what? Right, like, you're really asking me if God is going to hold us accountable for everything that's in the book?

Yes. One Sunday, the music minister resigned in dramatic fashion. I didn't know it was happening.

All of a sudden, he was just like, hey, I got an announcement. I was like, okay, what is it? And he told the church, I'm resigning.

It's because I talked to him and his wife about his wife's attitude. One Sunday night, two deacons and their wives got up and walked out.

I'm teaching, they got up and walked out because I said, not everything in the last 50 years that the churches have done has been good.

They got up and they walked out. Now, this church had a good relationship with the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.

So they took folks duck hunting and things like that. Well, I found out that people would go to the state convention.

They would talk bad about me at the state convention, but nobody would ever reach out to me. Emil Turner, who was the executive director of the

ABSC then, he told my friend Gene Tanner, he said, Quatro has really just messed up because he quit giving invitations.

Well, the problem was, that's not true. I never did that. That was a falsehood, but people would go tell him things and they wouldn't check with me.

Anyway, it was rough and so much more I could say, but I'm gonna fast forward to August 2011. And that month,

August of 2011, our church held a solemn assembly. Now, this was based on an

SPC resolution that called upon churches to pray and to fast and to hold a solemn assembly and repent.

So I was trying to be a good Southern Baptist. I led our church in that, but more, people just got upset that I would even insinuate that our church had anything to repent of.

And then people in the church began calling me a Calvinist. This is something they picked up from actually one of my good buddies,

Kalem, at church camp. He said, well, Quatro's just a Calvinist. Well, at that point, I'd been a

Calvinist about three years. I'd never denied it, but when people call me that, I like to define what it means, because not what some people think it means is not what it means.

But they began saying, I didn't care about prayer and evangelism, right? Wait a second, I started these things, prayer and evangelistic meetings at our church.

So I began to ask them, what is it that I'm teaching and preaching that you don't agree with? This was in a deacon's meeting, and I think there was like 13 deacons.

About seven or eight of them were against me, and they said that it wasn't what I preached that was a problem, it's just what

I believe. Well, I asked them to explain that. They never could. I tried to teach them the Scriptures. I tried to teach them

Southern Baptist history. I tried to teach them the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of men.

I tried to teach them lordship salvation. I tried to teach them that Christ is king of the

Christian's life. The sad reality is that this is in line with a lot of SBC churches.

They have no idea what salvation is. They have no idea what the church is, and I'm afraid they have no idea who

God is. Now, back to DeWitt. There was a deacon's meeting in September of 2011 where one deacon looked across the room at another deacon.

I promise you I'm not making any of this up. One deacon looks across the room at another deacon, and he says,

Tommy, you know that we have to make a decision. You know what it's gonna be like if we get home, and we haven't made a decision yet.

Now, I was 25 at that point, because it was 2011, and 12 of the deacons were like 30 years older than me, but I just had enough.

I was upset. I called this guy out. I said that his home was being ran by his wife, right?

And that wasn't okay. He just stared down at the ground. I didn't know what to do. I prayed. I fasted.

I sought godly counsel. My wife and I cried. We cried until I didn't know we had any more tears to cry.

We cried a lot. Friends in the church began deserting us. They stopped talking to us. We would go out in town.

We'd go to the Piggly Wiggly or Kroger there in DeWitt, and they would just walk the other way.

They would go down the other aisle. People began saying untrue things about us. People began leaving the church.

Sundays, we lived right across the street from the church. They were so hard. They were so hard.

We had to go in and worship with these people that we felt like hated us. I didn't know what to do.

I just kept preaching. I was hurting and hurting and hurting, and Stephanie was six months pregnant with Ella.

At the end of the September, one of the deacons said they needed, they said in the meeting, well, we just need a clean house, meaning they need to get rid of me and the youth pastor.

So the next week, I decided I'd write a letter to the deacons, which by the way, these deacons were not the authority of the church, but they acted like they were, and this is just kind of a wonky ecclesiology

Southern Baptist churches operate under, confusing elders and deacons, but I asked them for a four month severance.

I don't mind pushing carts at Walmart, that's what I told them, but pushing carts at Walmart is not gonna pay me what the church has been paying.

So they agreed and I resigned. Now it was my decision to resign from the church, but I felt backed into a corner.

So I'll read you a quick section from the resignation letter. I said this, I must stress this is not something

I want to do, but after meeting with the deacons on several occasions and feeling that the majority of them and their wives and maybe even the majority of the church want me gone,

I feel my only option is to resign my duties as pastor. That was on October 16th, 2011.

So if you're keeping track in your mind, I made it basically one year. So we are now living the dream.

We left DeWitt and we moved into a tiny bedroom in my parents, two kids, one on the way.

We had been married at that point, basically almost five years. And now we're in this tiny little bedroom suffering for Jesus, I guess, but we were just confident

God's fixing to open up something big, right? Like we've gone through this and God's gonna open up something big, but he didn't.

Month after month after month, he didn't. And Ella was born there. That's a funny story in and of itself.

I'll tell you that another time. But I just knew the Lord was gonna open up something, but it never happened.

Every door seemed closed. Now I'm thankful to First Baptist Church of Apollo. They were extremely gracious.

We went back there, we were serving there, but they said, come on, as a part -time discipleship pastor. So I was making some income there and being in part -time ministry.

And then in April of 2012, I had to get a job at a secular counseling center. And so many mornings, so many,

I drove with just tears in my eye, like I didn't understand. Sometimes I was mad, sometimes

I was hurt, sometimes I felt alone. But thankfully God did bring fruit at Apollo while I was there, and I'm so grateful for that.

In 2013, I started at Emmanuel in Clinton. I was grateful again to be a full -time pastor, but I was afraid and I held back.

After about two and a half years, I brought up church discipline, the church box. Like, no way, we don't do it, no, we're not, no.

Around this time, it was 2016 by then, and around this time, Travis emailed me. He said, would

I be interested in pastoring at Prairieville Second Baptist Church? Well, Ms.

Steph and I talked about it, we're like, absolutely, but I need to lay out who I am. So I sent a search committee my position on the doctrine of election.

It's controversial, it shouldn't be, but it is to some. I said, this is what I think about biblical church membership, this is what

I think about elders, this is what I think about training men. And I told Steph, I said, because I laid all this out there, the church knows me enough that they're probably just gonna say in a kind way, thank you, but no thank you.

Well, here's a spoiler, they didn't. We met a couple times, I preached a few times, the church voted,

I became the pastor, and over six years later, here I am. Now, why do

I tell this about my past? Because, and I'm confessing some things to you this morning, my past experiences as a pastor have bred within me timidity and caution.

Yes, I think I've learned over the years Christian prudence and patience and forbearance.

I think I've learned all that. I am not the same pastor I was when I was 24, praise God. But when it comes to leading strong in certain areas,

I've allowed myself to be too cautious, too slow, too timid, and perhaps in some ways even too cowardly.

And for these things, I'm confessing to you, church, I'm repenting, I'm repenting of them to you right now.

I'm sorry for not being a stronger pastor in taking the church where we should be.

And I would add, since I'm repenting, there have been times over the six years I've gotten too involved with youth sports,

I've been too distracted by the things of the world, I've been too distracted by the shenanigans of the

SBC. I'm repenting of these things before you this morning. And I ask for your forgiveness, because this brings us to the present and where I am now, and then we'll get to the future.

Well, that's the past, now the present. Now, 2020 was a crazy year for all of us.

And we might say that some of the things that happened in 2020 began the ball rolling on things in my heart, or really probably 2019, but into 2020, and then

COVID and just all that. So many things I could mention, but it's gonna be long anyway. So I'm gonna narrow this down to two things from 2022 that you need to hear happened to me.

The first is the SBC meeting in Anaheim. I have given my life to the

SBC in many ways. And particularly the last two and a half years, I've written tons of blogs.

By the way, I was saved at a Southern Baptist camp when I was 10, I was baptized at a Southern Baptist church when

I was 15, first Baptist. I've only ever known the SBC. But the last two and a half years, encouragement from this church has been part of it, but I've given my life to taking the ship, to bringing reformation.

I've written tons of blogs. I've done tons of interviews on podcasts. I've been invited to speak at places about it.

In the year 2012, I bought my dad tickets to go see Alabama and Arkansas play football because I thought 2012 would be the year that Arkansas finally, since me and Steph has been married,

Arkansas has not beat Alabama. So we've been married almost 16 years.

We have five children. Arkansas has not beat Alabama in all that span. But I thought 2012 was the year.

So I bought my dad tickets for his birthday. It's in September. We went up there and we got shellacked 52 to nothing.

Anaheim was worse than that. Anaheim was a greater defeat than that. I was dejected.

Tuesday at the convention, I was hurt. Wednesday, I was angry. I was like, this is foolishness. We were made fun of.

We were laughed at. You asked questions. You're disregarded. You just sold country bumpkins from Arkansas. We don't care.

As a convention, we refused to own real sins. We mocked conservative Baptists. We embraced worldliness.

It was a tough trip. Now, I'm so grateful. Kids, I'm so grateful for the time with my family. That was amazing.

But the SBC part drug us over the coast. Now, this leads me to my second event. The present.

I'm talking about the present. The SBC. Secondly, Mexico. Now, here is me on my high horse.

I went to Mexico to train pastors and to help churches see the beauty and wonder and glory of the local church.

Here I am coming from Arkansas to help you grow in your appreciation and love for the local church.

I was naive. Yeah, I do think I helped them. I ministered faithfully. I preached the word.

I fellowshiped with these brothers in these churches, but I didn't realize how much they would minister to me.

Here in Southern Mexico, God is doing a mighty work. Without the SBC, with pastors being bold and courageous,

Christ is building his church. If the SBC emptied my heart, Mexico filled it back up again.

Strong, theologically conservative, faithful Baptist churches. Churches in love with Christ.

Churches in love with evangelism mission. Churches in love with sound doctrine. What God was doing,

I believe, in Anaheim was plowing my heart. Plowing it, plowing it, and plowing it.

And what he did in Mexico is he began to plant seeds. Some guys in Mexico were new who had just come to embrace

Reformed Baptist doctrine. It was amazing to see the hunger. I can't tell you how many times

I was just bawling. I wasn't even planning on it. I was like, I'm okay, I'm okay. And then we start singing, and then

I start here preaching. I'm just bawling, right? Just melt. Just hearing and seeing all that Christ was doing there rocked my heart in a powerful way.

I was reminded how much Christ loves the local church. I was reminded how much that I love the church and desire a healthy church in every area.

So these two big events together, Anaheim and Mexico, and several things over the last couple years have pushed me where I am today.

My heart this morning, church, I want you to hear this from me. You may disagree about some of the things I'm gonna say here in a minute, but I hope that we can come together on this.

My heart this morning is so full of Christ and Christ's love for His church that the only way

I know how to take us is Christ's way. And I want your hearts there too. Even if you don't see the big picture, you say, this is what we want.

We want Christ's way. We want the ancient paths. Listen, I'm resolved this morning not just to preach about this ancient path before us.

I'm resolved to walk it. I'm resolved against ultimatity and slothfulness.

I'm resolved to lead our church down this path no matter the cost. This leads me to my third point then.

The past, the present, and now the future. So back to the text. We did begin with a text.

Thus says the Lord, stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is and walk in it and find rest for your souls.

But they said, we will not walk in. I sent watchmen over you saying, pay attention to the sound of the trumpet.

But they said, we will not pay attention. Now this morning,

I have five points of reform for our church. Reformation that I think in some ways

I've already begun implementing. But in other ways that I want to lead strongly and that I am going to lead strongly in as we seek to walk these ancient paths.

Nothing you're gonna hear this morning, I don't think there'll be one thing that you hear this morning that you're like, oh, I've never heard that before.

I'm not talking about, oh, I have failed to lay the groundwork. No, no, I'm talking about I failed to put these things into practice.

And I'm just telling you this morning, I don't care what the SBC says. I don't care what Lifeway says. I don't care what other churches even in our area say or what new studies say or whatever.

The road that we must walk is God's road. When we lived in Kentucky in 2008.

In 2008, this before iPhone, there was a world that existed before iPhone.

I think it was before iPhone. Anyway, it was close. And so I bought Stephanie and I will make no comment about her sense of direction.

I would just say, I bought her a GPS. Okay, we moved to a big city, moved to Louisville. I bought her a

GPS. One night we're riding around with this GPS. And I guess I had a weird setting, like instead of quickest way home,

I must've had shortest way home. And this GPS, no joke, took us through a cow pasture and a low water bridge.

And we're in a Mazda six. It's like a little green car. What I'm saying to us is that not all the voices out there are reliable for where to go.

They may sound reliable. They may sound knowledgeable, but they'll land you in a cow pasture.

What I'm saying is I refuse to travel there. Thus says the Lord, stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient past where the good way is and walk in it and find a rest for your souls.

What I'm saying is this morning, we stand at the crossroads and we look, we see the ancient past. We see that God's word is the compass we can trust.

We see that God's way is the right way. It's the only way forward. The world and even professing

Christians, that's what makes it so hard. It's not just the world. It's a lot of people who profess to be believers. Mock those who trust

God's word in this way. I don't care. Let them mock. Let me give you an example.

Just this week, July 19th, a few days ago, Jonathan Merritt wrote this.

Christians must accept that the only way to take the Bible seriously is to stop taking every word literally.

Christians must accept that the only way to take the Bible seriously is to stop taking every word literally.

He's making a jab at the Bible. No. Jonathan Merritt is the son of James Merritt.

James Merritt, who has been a president of the SBC, who just last year in Nashville was the president or the chairperson of the resolutions committee, who less than a year ago,

James Merritt has endorsed his son's preaching. No, no. I will not accept that mentality.

I will seek to adjust my life and the life of this church by every word of God's book because I believe that every word of God's book is inerrant, infallible, and authoritative and sufficient.

This is God's word. We have no other path that we can walk. I don't care what

SBC leaders say. I don't care about people on the internet telling me there's no drift. The local church is too important.

Christ's work in the local church is too important. The glory of the local church is too important.

The beauty of the church is too important. Christ loves His church. And we will too.

If I want to lead this way, no, I am going to lead this way. Stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient past where the good way is and walk in it and find rest for your souls.

Now, we're going to get to these five points. Before I do, I want to issue a warning.

And the warning is from my own past experiences and from the

Bible. Not everyone is going to be willing to walk this road.

Now, it's my great hope that I don't lose a single friend, that we don't lose a single visitor, that we don't lose a single member, that the community doesn't begin calling us a cult, that people don't call me a

Pharisee or a hypocrite. I genuinely hope that none of these things happen.

But there have been many people outwardly associated with the things of God who have said the same things as the

Jews here in verse 16. But they said, we will not walk in it.

We've got our way. We've got it figured out. We know what's going on. We don't have to walk that way.

This is nothing new. This has been going on for thousands of years. The cost is too great for some.

Giving up friends and killing idols and looking and living differently, it is too much.

The community will think that I'm weird. I'll be different. If I'm consumed with Christ and His mission, that's just going to be, that's just,

I'm going to be an outcast and I won't be able to be friends with certain people. And it's just too much. The cost is too great.

That's reality. Maybe even some of you, maybe even some of you in this room, the ancient path, beloved, is not the crowded path.

There's no traffic jam on the ancient path. Jesus says it this way, enter by the narrow gate.

For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. And those who enter by are many.

For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life. And those who find it are few.

Again, I want to reiterate. I want everyone to go with us.

I want us to link arms and I want us to walk this ancient path together.

But I know that for some it's going to be too hard and this breaks my heart. But here's what you need to know from your pastor today.

I am resolved. I am going to go this way. I'm resolved to listen to the head of the church.

I'm resolved to walk the ancient path. I've been scared in my past. I've been timid. I've been cowardly.

I have not pulled the trigger in areas that I should have. I've not stood up and said no to things that I should have.

I've been too slow. Yes, in some ways I understand patience and pastoral care and all that's important.

But I'm confessing to you this morning that I've been too timid, but not anymore. I'm resolved to walk this path no matter the cost.

If there's departure, I don't desire it. But we cannot alter our course.

If they call me names, so be it. I've been called names before and God has proven faithful even in the hard times.

We are at a crossroads. We must choose the right way forward. So here are five points of reform for our local church.

I'm convinced that God will use a local church willing to submit to His Word, even if it's small.

I'd much rather be part of a small church totally committed to Christ's way than any size church that's not totally committed.

I believe that God will bring glory to His name through a group of people willing to follow

Him no matter the cost. So here we go, number one. Five areas of reform for our church.

The first is theology. Our text in verse 16 says this.

Thus, the King James, love, thus saith the

Lord, thus says Yahweh. This is

God's Word. And we have to have a more biblical picture of God. We must see

Him as holy and sovereign. We must really consider what it is to fear God and to live in awe of Him.

If we get God wrong, nothing else matters. You say, yes, we know this. You've been preaching on this for six years.

We remember, we know, we've heard, we agree. This is true. I've preached on this for six years.

In fact, again, nothing I preach in these five points is going to be new to you, but the implementation of these things is going to be new in some ways.

So here is the implementation. This isn't tomorrow. This isn't like, boom, happening right now.

This is where I'm leading you. We're going to drop the Baptist faith and message and embrace the 1689

Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. Here's why. You know, I never minded the

Baptist faith and message. It's good. It's helpful in many ways. But what

Anaheim reminded me is it's a worthless document. People just going to make it mean whatever they want.

So we need a more robust confession of faith for these days of compromise. We need to adopt something deeper about the ways of God, about His Word, about His truth.

We need to walk the ancient path of Richard theology. The SBC, by the way, began with the 1689

London Baptist Confession. But it's been distilled down all the way to what we have now. I'm saying we need to move on from a 22 -year -old document to a nearly 400 -year -old document.

Our theology must be right not just in position, but in practice. I'm not changing this overnight.

I'm going to walk through this with us together. I'm going to walk us through it this fall with the goal of adopting this as our church's confession of faith.

We have to know who God is. We have to fear Him. We have to fear Him above all.

And we have to be honest with ourselves. At times in the life of this church, we feared COVID more than we feared

God. It's just the truth. And we have to repent. We have to repent and walk in His ways.

Second point, ecclesiology. First point, theology. Second point, ecclesiology. Ecclesiology is the doctrine of the church.

And I'm grateful for our work here. I'm so grateful, church, for our work. We've worked to make membership more meaningful.

We've worked to guard the entrance of the church, if you will. And we've given out packets and we've walked through membership.

No one just comes one day like, I was at a church one time, people got really mad. I was at the, that seems to be a theme for my ministry sometimes, but I was at the front and someone had visited for the second time, had no clue who they were.

They walked out at the end of the service. They said, hey, we wanna join the church. What am

I supposed to do? Well, great, I have no clue who you are. Wonderful, we'll vote you in. No, I said, hey, let's meet, let's talk about this.

They never came back. And people in the church got mad at me for doing it that way. So we've moved positively in this area.

But these victories are not enough in our need to grow in biblical

Baptist ecclesiology. Yes, we've removed some people from the role. That's been good.

But a couple of things that I need to focus on that I haven't focused on that I came with the intent to focus on, and I backed off.

One, we need elders. 1 Timothy 5 .17 says, 1 Timothy 5 .17,

let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.

So elders and pastors, I've taught you this, are synonymous. And we see from 1 Timothy 5 .17

that elders are plural because all of them are leading, but some of them are especially labor in preaching and teaching.

So I think this does warrant having an elder or pastor who's the main preacher and teacher in the church and other elders helping to lead and teach and those things when necessary.

Elders are the overseers of the church, the Bible says. They are the ones who set the direction according to God's Word.

Not their direction, Christ's direction. Again, this isn't new. We've gone over this kind of stuff before, but I'm saying, no, no,

I've held back. We need to implement these things. I actually think even in our congregation today that there are a handful of qualified men to be elders, godly men, gifted in teaching.

But we're never gonna move in that direction if I don't lead us. And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm leading us in that direction.

We're gonna follow the ancient path. We're just gonna take God's book and we're gonna say, this is the way that we're gonna do.

Another thing about ecclesiology is church discipline. Now, church discipline is a twofold ministry.

We've taught on this a lot. There is formative and corrective church discipline. Formative church discipline is the teaching and preaching.

Our classes and all these things, our preaching, all these things are formative discipline. We're building up, we're instructing.

But there's also corrective church discipline. Now, I have confronted members in sin.

There were members who were going through a divorce and I showed up at one of these person's work. I took another pastor along with me just so it wouldn't be me and a woman.

And I went and I confronted this person and I talked to them and I said, this is not the right way. I've gone to members one -on -one.

I've talked to them about their sin. But as a church, we've never moved to the point of removing a person from our roles for being in continued unrepentant sin.

Continued forsaking of the assembly. Living together outside of marriage. Divorce.

The list goes on and on. If we forsake corrective church discipline, this isn't about removing people off the roles.

It can get to that and it needs to get to that in some ways. But this is about caring enough about the holiness of the church.

I told this story Wednesday night. It's a horrible story, but you need to hear it to hear the gravity.

So in the 1800s, there was a missionary doctor. He traveled on boats and he did doctor work and he shared the gospel.

But in his writings, there's a story of this young girl. She was three years old and she got frostbite in her feet.

The frostbite turned into gangrene. The father wisely chopped her feet off.

What? He chopped his daughter's feet off. Why? Because he understood if he did not address the gangrene, it would spread through her whole body and kill her.

This is what's happening in too many Southern Baptist churches. We are satisfied with sin.

We're okay with sin. We won't address it because it's hard, because the world says it's unloving, because professing

Christians say it's judgmental and we won't address it. But I'm saying to us, we must address it.

We must address it. If we forsake corrective church discipline, ultimately we're not a church. Paul says in 1

Corinthians 5, 12 and 13, for what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?

Now this is the Bible. I guarantee you 90 % of people who claim to be Christians, if you say, is there anywhere in the

Bible that says for us to judge? They'd say, no, no, no, Matthew 7, 1 says don't judge. But Paul says, is it not those inside the church whom you're to judge?

God judges those outside, purge the evil person from among you. In other words, Paul is saying that those within the church, we ought to hold one another accountable for our lives.

Again, we've taught on this, but it cannot just be theoretical. It must be practical. So we move to implement this in our church, theology, ecclesiology, thirdly, worship.

Now here I'm referring to corporate worship. We'll focus on singing more deeply and richly.

We'll instruct in the service and in catechism and teaching. We'll continue to focus on preaching of the word.

We're going to guard our worship as a sacred duty and a gracious privilege. We'll seek to align all that we do as a church with the word of God.

We'll examine every detail. We'll not seek to be trivial or flippant. We'll be hungry for feeding on God's word.

We'll be hungry to worship with God's people. We won't spend the worship service playing on our phones.

We won't mumble through the songs or give half -hearted effort. We won't neglect responding in worship to God in tithes and offerings.

We'll see Sunday as a gift to the church from our gracious God, a day in which we honor

Him in private and corporate worship. We'll sing, we'll pray, we'll give. We'll do all these things because it's what the

Bible says. Isn't Christ worthy? Isn't Christ worthy of a church that would worship

Him not only as a duty, but also a delight? Hebrews 12, 28, 29 says, "'Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom "'that cannot be shaken, "'and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship "'with reverence and awe, "'for our

God is a consuming fire.'" We will desire acceptable worship according to God's word in every way.

Theology, ecclesiology, worship. Fourthly, the home, the home.

I've said this before, but we swim in a society of feminism.

It's just a reality. Our society hates men, just does.

We hate especially biblical masculinity.

So this has affected our homes. But we will seek here to have homes that follow the ancient paths.

Paths like Ephesians 6, 4, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the

Lord. We will prize family worship. We'll hold fathers and husbands accountable for leading their wives and children in the faith, for leading in the

Scriptures, for leading in their homes in prayer. Friends, men must be leaders of our home.

We must reject today's idea that gender is fluid. It doesn't matter, right?

And sometimes our homes can be like, well, yeah, everyone acts like the man is the leader, but really when it comes down to it, the woman takes over control.

She throws her way around or whatever. It's not right. We need godly men to lead.

Gender isn't fluid. God has assigned gender roles in the home and in the church. Of course, it flows into the church.

But if we get it right in the home, it's gonna be easier to get it right in the church. We want godly husbands loving their wives as Christ loved the church.

Serving their wives, helping their wives. We want submissive wives, willing to follow their husband's godly leadership, even if there are times they may not fully agree.

We want to order the home the way Christ would have us because Christ is King, not just of the nations, not just of the church.

Christ is King of our homes. We want to prioritize making disciples in the home. We want men who prize reading the

Bible, who prize learning theology, who prize growing in the faith, who prize leading their families to do the same.

We want women who prize reading the Bible, who prioritize their children even over their jobs.

Now, I'm not saying that a woman cannot ever work outside the home, but listen to this. We must refuse to accept the stigma that's in our society today that says a woman has to work outside the home or that a woman who isn't working outside the home is just lazy.

No, we won't accept that because Christ is King. We'll be the church.

We'll follow the Scriptures. Even if people think we're weird. Even if they mock us, so be it.

Because at the end of the day, we must have this resolve. I'm going to see Jesus. When I get to heaven, who

I'm going to answer to is no one else, no other church, no other system, no other government, no other president.

I'm going to answer to King Jesus. No one else. We'll strive for hospitable homes, homes that are warm and loving and gracious and full of gratitude.

And let's just be honest. Some of you need to repent for these things.

Some of you need to repent. It's the only way forward, right? We'll not heal. We'll not move in the way that God would have us without being honest about the areas that we failed.

If you think that one of these things has landed on you, don't see it as like, well, the preacher's just attacking me today.

That's not what I'm doing. If one of these things have landed on you, take it to God. Remember again the mercies of Christ.

Know that He is ready and willing to forgive. Why would we be stubborn? Why would we not be humble?

And know that God is willing to help us learn. Taste again of Christ's mercies.

Fifthly, theology, ecclesiology, worship, the home. This isn't everything, but these are the things that are just front and center on my heart.

Fifthly, missions. We have to move away from just sending, and this is what's back there in the foyer.

I hope you'll pick up one of these papers. We have to move away from just sending a blank check to the cooperative program.

The North American Mission Board is currently partnering with the church right now that accepts LGBTQ lifestyles.

We just have to say no. We have to say, I'm going to stop sending my money to a place that endorses the things that God hates.

I'm going to stop sending my money to a place that laughs at me for being a

Bible -believing Baptist living on the outskirts of Toadstool. We'll set our own missions agenda.

We'll give to the things that God's providence have brought into our lives. We'll be hands -on in these mission endeavors.

Our missions will be about helping others walk these ancient paths and reaching others to walk these ancient paths with us.

In fact, think about this. You can't read our text this morning without thinking about Christ.

Did Jesus not just come front and center to your mind when you read this? Stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is and walk in it.

Did this not come to your mind this morning that in John 14, six, Jesus says to his followers,

I am the way, right? I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life.

Christ is the way. He's the good way, right? Here we have the gospel. Christ, the eternal

Son of God took on human flesh. He was born of the Virgin Mary. He fulfilled the law and prophet.

He was righteous in every way. He went to the cross for sinners. God's wrath was poured upon Christ for us.

Every sin, every thought, every evil deed, every sinister motivation, Christ, the righteous one, friends, was judged for our sins.

All these things I've talked about today, all my own timidity and lack of courage and areas that you fell in and I've taken to Christ because on Christ, God bruised the

Son. He was delighted to crush the Son so that he could have fellowship with us for his glory.

Christ became a curse as the wrath of God was propitiated in him. Christ is the way and it is this way that we are called to trust in the scriptures by faith.

Christ's life and death and burial and resurrection has made it where we can now walk.

We can now walk because of the gospel. We can now walk these ancient paths full of joy.

He has written his law upon the hearts of his people. I was talking about this passage the other day.

I'm gonna call out, I won't say which one, one of my daughters, but it's an encouragement.

We're talking about this passage in our family worship. And I said, when you have a decision to be made, what should you do according to this passage?

And one of my daughters said, you should listen to your heart. Now, if you know me at all,

I flipped out of the back of my chair. I fell faint for 15 minutes. Staff resuscitated me.

I was like, no, you know, hyperbole there. No, she said, no, no, no, dad, no, dad, no.

I didn't mean it. I meant as Christians, God's law is written in our hearts. And so when we come to decision, we should think about what

God's law written on our hearts, what that looks like. Well, that took me from a pit of despair to a mountain of joy.

That's right, that's right. We shouldn't listen to the fleshly heart. We should remember that God's law is written on our hearts.

And so now because of the gospel, we see this ancient path before us. And not only do we say, that's where I have to go.

We say, that's where I want to go. This is the way that we must walk. And this is the way that we must preach to the nations.

The believer's heart desires the ancient paths.

There is no other way. I remind you this morning that hell is a real place, a real place of eternal torment and judgment.

Listen, if something doesn't change, some of our own children, hell is the place that they will spend in eternity.

It is a real place where maybe even some in this room, not just children, maybe even adults in this room, this is the way that you're going because you have prized safety and conformity to the world over Christ and His ways.

And I'm pleading with us this morning from the pulpit, will you consider this reality? Will you embrace

Christ who is the way and repent? We seek to reach Perry County and the nations with this message.

And we will endeavor to be a good steward of every penny, not giving to things that are going against our mission of knowing

Christ and making Him known. Friends, we are a theologically conservative Baptist church.

We love the truth and we're not ashamed. We're not ashamed, right? You can't use

Baptist as a pejorative on me. I'm not ashamed to be a theologically conservative reformed

Baptist. I'm not ashamed. And our missions will reflect these realities. We won't give to people who are just gonna use our money to make fun of us and then embrace values that are inconsistent with the ancient past.

It's our mission here to make Christ known. And listen, don't we live among a pagan people who need

Christ? Don't we? Then we should all be more zealous for this mission.

And we should remember too that in 1 Timothy 3, Paul calls the church the household of God, church of the living

God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. A pillar and buttress of the truth.

Friends, if we really care about missions, then we will care all the more about the local church.

If we don't care about the local church, we don't care about missions. The local church must be the priority in our missions.

Not merely organizations, but local churches. These are five points of reform for our church.

Theology, ecclesiology, worship, home, mission.

Thus says the Lord, stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient past where the good way is and walk in it and find rest for your souls.

But they said, we will not walk in it. Will we walk in these ways?

No matter the cost. Now, I know that there's a fine line between a long sermon and a hostage situation.

But we gotta look at verse 17. Verse 17,

I sent watchmen over you, saying pay attention to the sound of the trumpet, but they said, we will not pay attention.

Now God was very kind to Judah. He sent them watchmen. He sent the prophets to preach the way of truth.

God's ministers told the people, pay attention. Pay attention. It's all over.

In fact, several places this word is used. Look, for example, back in verse 10 of Jeremiah 6. Jeremiah 6, verse 10.

To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised. They cannot listen.

Behold, the word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn. They take no pleasure in it.

Jeremiah was to speak. Jeremiah was to call them to pay attention. They wouldn't listen. Well, there's other places in the

Old Testament where people are told to pay attention. Proverbs 4 .1 says, hear, O sons, a father's instruction and be attentive that you may gain insight.

Zechariah 7 .11, but they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear.

Hosea 5 .1, hear this, O priest. Pay attention, O house of Israel. Give ear,

O house of the king, for the judgment is for you, for you have been a snare at Mitzvah and a net spread upon Tabor.

Isaiah 58 .1 says, cry aloud. Do not hold back. Lift up your voice like a trumpet.

Declare to my people their transgression. To the house of Jacob, their sins. So back all this back to verse 17.

God says, I set watchmen over you, saying, pay attention to the sound of the trumpet. In other words, listen to the warning.

When you hear the trumpet, respond. Don't harden your heart. Listen to what the watchmen are saying.

And then adjust your life. God had sent the prophets to the people to warn them. If you forsake

God's way, if you do not walk in these ancient paths, if you refuse to heed God's precious word, then all that awaits you is death and destruction and judgment.

Listen, listen, listen, hear. But they said, no.

Play the trumpet. We will not pay attention.

Remember verse 16, thus saith the Lord. How could people who claim to know and love

God not listen to His word? But this is what you have in these verses.

Now in the New Testament, watchmen, I think can be likened to pastors. Matthew Henry says this.

God's ministers are watchmen. And it is a great mercy to have them set over us in the

Lord. So here's what I'd like to say to you this morning. Boy, I know I've thrown a lot at you, unprepared.

I've thrown a lot at us. A lot that God has burdened my heart with. You haven't experienced the same things

I've experienced. You haven't been burdened maybe in the same ways I've been burdened. So I've thrown a lot at you and I've given you a lot to process.

And I understand that maybe we might even say, maybe even most of you in this room do not see the big picture like I'm seeing right now.

And some of you might not even agree with everything that I've said. I do hope that some of the things

I've said have led you even this morning to repentance. But perhaps there are other things that you're not sure about.

But here's what I'm asking. It's been a long message.

So tune in right here and hear the heart of your pastor. Here's what I'm asking. I'm asking you to follow.

I am saying that if I am your pastor at all, follow me.

I'm 36, some of you have known me basically 30 years or more, if you're not my family.

I haven't been pastor here for one month or six months or two years or five years, but over six years now.

I'm asking you to follow me down the ancient path. I'm asking us to walk this road together, to follow me as I follow

Christ. I'm not telling you I'm a perfect pastor. I sin.

When I do, I seek to hand it over to Christ and repent and to walk in His ways.

So here's what I want to say. Do you have a charge against me? Has there been some way that I've wronged you and have failed to repent?

Has there been something in my life that you have seen, that you believe needs to be addressed?

If I've wronged you in some way, or if I've done something that you think that I haven't addressed sufficiently, then

I ask you this morning, bring it before me, lay it before me, and let us deal with it. But if not, but if not, follow me.

Search the Scriptures. I'm not saying follow me because of my great intellect. I'm saying look at the Bible.

Examine the Scriptures. Be willing to learn and grow. If I've said anything that's not biblical, let me know.

If there's been one thing that I've said that doesn't come from the Bible, then you call me out on it and you say, that didn't come from the

Bible, then let's deal with it. But if not, follow me. Trust the Bible.

Trust God's appointment of the shepherd over you. I'm not asking you to trust me for my sake. I'm asking you to look to the ancient past with me.

Let us grow in the Word and follow God's way. If Baal is God, so be it.

Serve him. But if Yahweh is God, let us abandon everything else and serve him alone with all that we have.

For six years plus now, I've pastored you. I've wept with you. I've buried members in deep hurt and pain in funerals that I've preached.

I've prayed with you. I've prayed for you. I've visited you. I've taught you. I've preached to you.

I've eaten in your home. You've eaten in my home. Now, let me lead you in these ways.

Not just positionally. Not just boxes to check. Not just doctrine that we affirm, but doctrine applied.

Let us implement these things and see the Lord reform His church for His glory.

I sent watchmen over you saying, pay attention to the sound of the trumpet. I'm saying listen to the trumpet today.

Judgment's coming. I'm saying this to myself as a sober warning too.

Christ will take with the utmost seriousness how we have treated

His church. Suppose that a man leaves his lovely bride under your care.

He goes off on a long trip. You decide to rob from her.

You decide not to take care of her. You don't mow her lawn.

You don't provide her food. Her pipes break. You don't help. What is that man gonna do when he comes back?

He's going to hold you accountable. Friends, Christ loves the church and He will take with utmost seriousness how we have treated the local church.

In fact, the only ones who will be saved is Christ's church. So I wonder this morning, are we taking these warnings seriously?

So much that we're chasing this morning and you know, you know, I don't have to say, you know so much that you're chasing this morning outside of the church is frivolous or sinful or irrelevant.

In the words of my great theologian, five -year -old Haddon Ridley, no one cares.

That's his new little saying he likes to say to his kids, to his siblings. Oh, I did this at practice.

No one cares. Maybe we need to listen to that about life outside the local church.

No one cares. Let it go. Hear the trumpet.

Hear your pastor who stands in need of grace every single day, but who loves you and seeks to have us walk these ancient paths together.

Let us go forward, beloved, in this grace and in total and complete surrender to the head of the church,

Christ our King. Christ is head of the church. Not me, not you, not him, not us. It's Christ and we must submit to Him and His Word.

So repent this morning where you must repent. As we stand, as we stand at these crossroads, as we look today, and as we think about which way, oh

Lord, should we go? Let us ask for the ancient paths where the good way is and find rest for yourselves.

Father, I'm wrung out.

I feel like I've emptied my heart this morning and I pray, Lord, that it would be received the way

I intended to give it. Lord, I pray that we would want to go forward and see areas in our church that have been deficient and seek to correct those and grow and be the healthiest church we can be.

That we would show others in our community, others in the convention, others around the globe, what it looks like to love

Christ, to submit to Him in all things. Lord, we're gonna need grace.

We're gonna need perseverance. We're gonna need patience with one another. We're gonna need love. We're gonna need understanding.

All these things, Lord, that we've felt that You've been building here, we pray that You would continue to bring those and bless us.

Elisha prayed for a double portion of the Spirit. We pray for that here. We need that. We need more of the

Spirit. Help us in the days ahead.

Lord, I pray for that mother or father here this morning who is not committed to Christ, who's put on a facade, break their hearts.

May they bow the knee to Christ in repentance and faith. I pray for the child or the grandfather or grandmother or the aunt or uncle, anyone here who doesn't know

Christ. They've been playing pretend. Lord, I pray even now, even now they would see the mercy of Christ.

They would know that judgment is real and that our time is short. They would believe that Christ is the way.

And they would trust Him and to seek to walk His paths. We pray it all in Jesus' name, amen.