Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church, located in Kernersville, North Carolina. Hey, Jimmy. Kimmy.
Can you uh do my song? It's my anniversary, so. Yeah. You all know this is a song I just will not sing, so I make Jimmy do it. Um It's just kind of become something that hits my mind.
It's the one that'll hit your mind when you're in your car. Uh trying to make sense of some things. And um But it all comes down to life is not about. Making me happy.
Okay. And life is not about trying to make others happy. And life is not about you. The bottom line is when we've been saved, life is about us becoming like Christ. And that's going to be a very difficult, tough.
process. And it's not always fun or easy. But we show up on Sundays to be reminded of that. to be encouraged to hang tough and stick with it. While God continues to mold us and make us into what He wants us to be so we can make it to next Sunday.
And be reminded that this is really all about Christ. and about us showing the world his image. By the work he's done in us. And Jim, if you don't mind, thank you. I didn't mean to do it to your last minute.
Yeah. I'm honored to sing this for the preacher. I will preface this though. I'm going to sing the second verse, but you know, I've been instructed my whole life never to preach a lie or don't even sing a lie. It's not that I'm going to sing a lie, but it's a difficult verse, and I don't know if I can fully sing it and be honest.
I'm just being transparent. It tears me up to get through it, but um Mm-hmm. There's a voice calling me From an old rugged tree. And it whispers. Draw closer.
To me. Leave this world for Yeah. There are new heights to climb. Amen a new place in me. You will find Lord, whatever.
It takes. To draw closer To you, Lord. That's what I'll be willing. To do For whatever it takes to be more like you. Lord, that's what I'll be willing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take the dearest things. From me. If that's how it must be. To draw me ever closer To thee.
and left. The disappoint must come. Lord. Lonely days without the sun. If through sorrow More like you You I'll become Lord to hate my house.
Take my lens. Change my dreams and my plans. For I'm placing my whole Life in your hands. You call me today to a place far away, Lord. I'll go and your will I'll obey and I'll trade sunshine for rain.
I'll trade my comfort for pain, Lord. That's what I'll be willing to do, Lord. Whatever it takes for my will to break, Lord, that's what that's what. Lord, that's what I'll be willing to do I want to do. Your will, oh Lord.
I want to do your will, oh Lord. Take me and break me, Lord. Use me and make me your servant. I want to do your will, Lord all to Jesus. I surrender.
All to him. Ah, freeze. The gift. And I will Never love. And I'll trust him.
In his presence daily. Can we sing that together? I surrender. Lord, I surrender all to thee, my blessed Savior. I surrender all sing this with me.
Yeah. Bless me not. To save your Yeah. Mm Hear my humble cry While thou art holy Do not pess me. Do not pass me by Save your Save Hear my While on others thou art calling.
Do not pass me by I did. I had it halfway bumped it somehow. Ashley, if you can. Help us Jimmy Philip remember the key that we did it in. Isaiah 53.
Um gives a number of names for our God. One of them. And just think about this. Jesus had not come yet. But one of the names given is man.
of sorrows. And just think about that. Here's Um prophesied someone who would be the man of sorrows. before the man ever came. before Jesus ever came.
and to understand our sorrows. It would have to be a man. But to be able to understand, he would have to be God. But to be able to feel it, he would have to be man. And it's not the God of sorrows, which he certainly is, but we're.
Told he's the man of sorrows. And A while back, I shared this here, probably been a couple years ago. And um I was driving the church truck running to some errands and like many of you, one of those days and I had um Christian radio on. And It was an interview with this Joni Erickson Tata. Many of you know this lady in the wheelchair, and you all know some of you know the story, some of you haven't.
But she was kind of giving a little bit of her testimony. And you know, she had an accident. She was really a five-star athlete, was a swimmer and different things. Um Was playing in the woods. with a bunch of friends in high school and dove into a lake and didn't realize That the bottom was two feet.
She thought she had room. She dove in headfirst and. Was laying under the water, paralyzed, couldn't do anything, and one of her friends happened to see it and kind of. Pulled her out. And um She's been Uh quadriplegic ever since.
And she said that in those few years of rehab therapy, trying to adjust to life. She had a friend visit her in her hospital room one night and was just kind of late at night. Just one light on in the room. And She said, I just had one of those nights, nothing but complaining, mad at God, mad at everybody. how bad I was hurting and Um She said, my friend just sat there and listened.
She said, I just laid there for a while and just assumed my friend was asleep. And she said, I just lay there in bed looking up. at God. Couldn't raise my hands, couldn't raise my feet, couldn't lift up. Couldn't do anything.
She said, I thought, you know, God, I might would. Shake my fist at you. If I could shake my fist. She said that Later that evening, her friend Left for chair and Just kind of crawled over to her bed and Crawled up. In that hospital bed, the side of her, lifted up her head and kind of put her arm.
It lay there. And began to sing this song. I was in the car and I was driving. And she started singing that song. And I just want you to know, as a pastor, I know some of what some of you are going through.
I probably know just a fraction of what most of you are going through, obviously. But. We do serve a God that can change circumstances. He can do anything. He can remove mountains.
He can part the Red Sea. But I think the most wonderful thing about our God. is that because he was willing to become man, He knows. how you feel. Many times your husband, your wife, Your mom, your dad.
Your closest family and friends don't really know. how you feel. But God does because he's the man of sorrows. He's acquainted with our grief. And um I was driving that day.
She began to sing on um The radio, and this is what she began to sing: Man of Sorrows, what un Name for the Son of God who came sinners to reclaim Hallelujah What a save your well by this time. I can barely keep it on the road. Tears. And she continued. to that second Verse.
And it's an old song, and if you know it, you can sing it along with us. She got to bearing shame and scarfing. Root in. my place. Condemned, he sued sealed my part with his blood.
Hallelujah, what a savior lifted up was he to die. It is finished, was his cry now in heaven, exalted high, hallelujah. What a savior When he comes our glorious king when his kingdom us to bring then a new this song we'll sing Hallelujah Sing it with us Hallelujah Hallelujah What a sauce after she sang it on the radio she said That night. She said, my friend... reacquainted me.
With the Man of Sorrows. And if nothing else could happen today. I hope that those of you who need it the most We'll be reacquainted. Not just with the God who you think hates you and is mad at you and judges you and can't wait to cast blame at you. It's just not the God that I read about in my Bible.
I want to reintroduce you to Our God who became the man of sorrows. And knows how you feel. Let's pray before we dig into God's word briefly this morning. Lord, I love you. I thank you for all that you've done.
Um Lord, we um Probably don't know how to thank you, how to praise you enough. I just thank you for a church family that Is willing to allow each of us to be ourselves and to hurt. And to be empty some Sundays, and to be weary some Sundays, and to maybe not be in the best mood sometimes. But still loved. Still cared about, still prayed for.
and still here. And so, Lord, I pray that you would bless all these precious people that have made this effort to be here today. Thank you, Lord, in my perspective personally for 14 years. as the pastor here. As We recently celebrated Caden's 14th birthday.
I'm reminded of what those first months were like.
Son in the hospital. My mom dying with cancer. trying to take over this church and lead it. all in the same month.
Some days at the hospital, some days sitting with moms, some days trying to visit, trying to rebuild, trying to revitalize. And Lord, um I thank you for all that you've done. Just hearing the music this morning. Vastly different. From when we first came.
And so, Lord. I just praise you. This is the day to thank you. to show what you can do despite Frail failing people like me. And I thank you for your goodness.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Psalm 126, and I know our service is a little different, and I'm going to be mindful of that. And um You know I always have been. I think after 14 years, I'm deserved every once in a while to have one where I just go on and preach a long time.
I've got to be honest with you, I think I've earned that. But we're not going to do it today. I do want to remind you that Lord William Brother Kenny Baldwin will be here tonight. His church is there in the Washington, D.C. area.
It was one of those things we just texted yesterday about some things and we're both speaking at a conference in Florida this week. And um Anyway, I found out it was my anniversary, church, whatever, and he was congratulating me. And he's heading to Pensacola, leaving today after their service was going to stop somewhere. uh probably in North Carolina or South Carolina heading to Pensacola, so I said, well, why don't you stop in Kernersville at 5 o'clock? And um We'll get you a room and you stay here, and our people will be thrilled to have you.
And he's going to leave, and Lord willing, unless there's wrecks. We all know how 95 can be if you've ever spent time. But Lord willing, he's going to be here at five o'clock.
Now, here's the deal. Um please. Come if you can. Um Listen, if it's worked out, God just worked this out for Him to be here. I have a feeling the state of our church right now, I hope that you've already been a full week into praising.
every day. We've done it as a family every night. And it's been interesting to hear. And So the book, I don't know if you know, those of you that have the praise book, can anybody have you noticed the cover? of the book enough to know what the book is called.
It's called a blaze. And So yesterday I'm going to get this elephant out of the room. I had a fire at my house yesterday. and it burned all my outbuildings. And um I had everything of my mom and dad's, letters, my dad's sermons, my pictures.
I had my grandma's hope chest, all of her quilts, all these things, golf clubs, all my fishing equipment. Um I had a four mountain bikes. A couple of them are very expensive, and I could give you the list on and on and on. And I wasn't even out there. Um I was in the house and my son, thank God Hudson came and said, Dad, the building's on fire.
And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, kind of a thing. And when I went out, I mean, you talk about It had engulfed and it burned part of my neighbor's fence and some of my family, Julie's family's farm equipment. You know, not a lot.
Some of it needed to be burnt. But other than that, you know, there were some things that didn't need to be burnt. And, you know, it was nothing I could do at that point. I went quickly, got a water hose. And you'd have to have seen the fire at that point.
To realize how ridiculous that was, and I got it all hooked up, and I just looked, I said, bad, that's a waste of time. And I pulled up a chair and just sat and watched.
Somehow, I, of course, I told my wife to call the fire department, and apparently, somebody on the other side of the road. Saw it and they called the fire department. And so, lucky Daniel, I had Greensboro show up, I had Kernersville show up, I had fire departments coming from everywhere just to see my embarrassing moment somehow and just watch the whole thing go down. And so, last night we did our praise. book and I had not seen the title.
You know, when you've had all these things, all my mom's antique lamps and hurricane lamps and stuff that were very special to me, all these things. And the name of the book was A Blaze, and we all just started laughing at praise time. It was great. And you know what you got to do? You got to praise when.
The building's up and things are in it, and you got to praise when it's all burned down to the ground. I had my wife and my boys. And that's really all I need. And God's been really, really good in the middle of all that. And so it was an interesting evening.
And I wanted to mention, I don't want to embarrass them, but Joanna and Anna, I'm not going to make you stand because I know, I just want you to wave.
Now, a lot of you know them, but some of you don't. This is Brother Joe that you saw in the video. This is Brother Joe's daughter, Joanna, and his granddaughter, Anna. And they were kind enough, stopped by their place in Dunn, North Carolina, earlier this past fall. And they come today and stayed last night just to be here for anniversary.
And, you know, this is their dad and grandpa's legacy to this church. And nothing else that we can do of all the failures, the doors are open and the building's full. Praise be to the Lord. And it just shows what God can do. And when you downgrade from a Joe Myers to what you got.
It is going to have to be the grace of God. And God's grace has been very, very evident. And so let me show you real quickly some things God laid on my heart and we'll let you go today in Psalm 126. You know, I've shared this with you that it's a song of degrees, which is really a song that they would sing. It's one of 15 chapters that are such.
They had Babylonian captivity for 70 years. And as God freed them, um they Would sing these psalms as they would return to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a higher altitude, and as they would ascend, they would sing these songs, and so it's called a song of ascents, a song of degrees. And one thing I would love for today is when you leave this church, is for you to have ascended. to be higher than where you were when you came in.
Church ought to do that, by the way. The Word of God can do that, by the way. The Word of God loves to take you from where you are. And the Word of God doesn't beat you down. The Word of God takes you higher.
And as we think about anniversary, this verse three is the central theme. What's interesting. In verse 1, There's a theme: God delivered. In verse 2 to 3, God failed, and then verse 5 to 6, God promised. And in verse 1, God delivered from captivity.
Verse 2 and 3, God filled them with joy. Verse 5 and 6, God promises a reward, a future harvest. And the central theme of it all is verse 3: that the Lord hath done great things. Yeah. So if I can, instead of maybe preaching it, For time, I want to share it.
Number one, I want you to see the captivity that God reversed. Verse 1, it says, when the Lord turned again. The captivity of Zion. Israel had experienced bondage, sorrow, loss. for 70 years.
And this all points to one thing. Notice first. The power of God to change circumstances. The captivity, the captivity that God reversed. Notice this: when the Lord turned again the captivity, the power of God to change.
Circumstances. What is going on here is Israel thought that they would always be in bondage. They never saw it. They had been in it for 70 years. They had started to get to the point that they just thought this is how things would always be, that they would always be stuck.
This is a situation that would never be reversed. But may I remind you today, our God specializes in reversing things that seem irreversible. And you and I serve a God who specializes in changing circumstances. He turns captivities. Psalm 30 verse 5 says, His anger endureth but for a moment.
In his favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Every church is gonna have their nights of difficulty. Every Christian is gonna have their nights of difficulty. Every dad, every mom, every marriage is gonna have nights of darkness, but God has a way of bringing light out of midnight, of bringing light out of darkness.
God can change your circumstance. And you need to know that today. Of all the things I'm going to say quickly, you need to know that today. And I want you to understand something: God can reverse seasons of discouragement. God can reverse seasons of difficulty.
God can reverse seasons of decline. I'm here to tell you that God can turn your captivity. And I'm here to tell you today, nobody alive. should have the power to keep you under their captivity. I don't care what they did to you.
I don't care what they said about you. I don't care how they attacked you. I don't care what they're saying about you behind your back. You do not have to live in captivity to people because you and I serve a God who can turn our captivity. This reminds me that No sickness, no disease.
in your body. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kerwin Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web.
at Kerwin Baptist Church.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin Broadcast today. God bless you.
