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. Revelation two. You always want to know what the preacher is going to be talking about, and at the end of the service, you don't want to wonder where I'm going.
And I'll be a hundred percent honest with each of you. I don't know where I'm going this evening with my message. I know where I'm supposed to be going. I've got a message written down, and wrote it last night. Sent it to Sarah.
She printed it out for me. Thank you, Sarah. I got it here. I think I know. I got what the Lord wants me to say.
But Revelation two, I trust it's a blessing to your hearts. And I want to be a blessing, and I thank God for the opportunity. I know your pastor loves to pastor you and preach to you and teach you, and I am honored to have this opportunity to speak this evening. And I trust that God will do something special in each of your hearts, and I trust that He'll use this message as He's used it in my life, and as God has been showing me something. I trust it'll be a blessing to you.
The Bible says unto the angel, angels minister. Don't think of a heavenly angelic Gabriel or Michael the archangel. If God wants to talk to one of His angels in heaven, He's not going to have the apostle John write a letter. This is the minister at the church of Ephesus, the pastor, the light, the example. Unto the angel, the church at Ephesus, write these things.
Saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand. Who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks? Those candlesticks are the churches. That's not mine. That's the last verse in chapter one, verse two.
I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil, and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not, and hast found them liars. Nothing but compliments here. Love it. Verse three. And has borne and has had patience, and has patience.
I mean, and for my name's sake has labored and has not fainted. Nothing but compliments. That special? You imagine God showing up to the church this evening in the flesh, and giving your pastor a compliment like this? Yeah.
Sweet, isn't it? Verse four. Nevertheless, now in a moment, I'll kind of spoiler alert, spoiler alert here. Fornications is sin. That is, sexual relationships before marriage is a sin.
Amen. I mean, it used to be. Drunkenness is a sin. Revelings, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, immolation, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, embezzlings, murders, and such like. You think that God is going to rebuke this pastor for a wickedness, some desperate evil that he's done in secret?
Verse four. Nevertheless, pastor, I am somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first love. What is the greatest sin? What is the greatest command? I would ask you.
If the greatest command is to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul, all thy mind, all thy strength, then the greatest sin would be not to love Him. Remember your first love, He says, verse five. He says, or else remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, fallen out of love, and repent, and do the first works. Or else, I will come unto thee, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. Heavenly Father, I know the thoughts that are in my heart, and in the directions that I just cannot nail down in my heart.
And I'm asking you as I as I bring the message this evening. As I prayed so many times, I'm asking you again, God, guide me, lead me, help me, help me be a blessing to a soul this evening that may need this message, and may you use this word, your word, to encourage their hearts. In Jesus' name, Amen. Raise your hand if you remember me standing in this pulpit a few months ago and wanting tears. Remember that message, and had some people come up to me, and and I'm grateful.
Say, brother, I know this thing you're struggling with, and I'm praying for you. Seems like it's you know desperate, and and the mind goes to the imagination of what could possibly be wrong with Patrick. Raise your hand if you thought that. Be honest. Yeah, okay, I got you.
There you go. The first love. I'll tell you a story. It'll be revealing, but I begged my dad to go swimming when I just turned 15. I begged him, "Please, dad, is go swimming," and he drowns.
It's a true story. We went swimming together. Hypothermia set in, and he drowned. I love my dad.
Now, my dad wasn't a believer, as far as I know. His mother told me later, and when I witnessed to her, that he made a profession in church, but I never knew it. But he did fly me to bed. Like an airplane, you know. Parents do time to go to bed, son.
And I'd love that. I'd spread my arms and look down at my daddy, and he'd fly me, and he'd crash me into the bed. And he took me fishing, taught me how to fish and hunt. Took me hunting for the first time. I might get on a rabbit trail here, but I love my dad.
And first time I went hunting, I had a I had a big old you know rack sitting there right up the road, and I had a thirty thirty single shot. I lined up, pulled the trigger, click. Forgot to load the gun. He took he brought me back into the camp. All the men were laughing.
He says next year we'll get we'll let we'll let my son load the gun, and just you know it was those are the memories you cherish for a long time. I loved my dad, and. I know now what happened in my life. I did not know what happened then because I just turned fifteen and I did not get any counseling. I did not have a church.
I didn't have any Christian rooting. But when my dad died, I shut everybody out of my life.
Now I know why.
Now hurts. It hurts to to lose someone you love. And I did not, you know, sit down and look in the mirror and say, "Pat, I will never love somebody again." But in my heart. That was something that I did as a fifteen-year-old boy. I did not care for anybody—not my mother, not anybody.
Um, I would definitely say that I was in a very dark place. Fast forward, I get saved, and I had to shut everybody out. And then, some of you know my testimony, Glenn Smith, and worked with him for three years. And he wiggled his way into my heart. A deacon of a Baptist church, never went to church with him, but boy, he really endeared himself to me, and I cared for that person.
He was the only person on planet Earth that I truly cared about since the death of my dad. And he invested in my life and ministered the word of God to me again. I didn't get saved under his ministry, but boy, he sure did live Christ's testimony before me. And then he got cancer, and he passes away. Another person, and I felt that hurt again.
And I did the shutting out again. I was like, "This hurts to love people; it's painful." And then, fast forward, I get join the military. Fast forward a few years, I get saved, and I am reading in the Bible. He that loveth not knoweth not God, and I did get saved. I know I got saved.
I know I trust to Christ as my Savior. But I had a hard time caring for people and allowing people into my life because people hurt, and I struggled with this thing of loving people. I would go to that church, I would hang around, talk with them, but. Letting someone into my life, trusting people, caring about people, was not something I was really subconsciously willing to do, and I struggled with that. And then I, reading through the scriptures, First John hit me, chapter four.
He didn't love with not knowing my God, and I refused to have that part of my life. And I remember praying. I said, God, I, I confess, I know you. I know I know you. You know I know you, but I don't love, like I should.
Circumstances came around back in the VHS days when you got VHS preaching tapes, and my pastor just passed off a bunch of VHSes to me, and I plugged it in, and it was David Ring. He he was born with some difficulties, physical ailments, and handicaps. Anybody know him? No, David Ring. Wow, he preached a message on love.
I plugged it in in my barracks, and he and he just shared his testimony and all the things he went through, and he talked about you're afraid to love because it hurts. He said those words. You're afraid to love because it hurts, man. That spoke into my heart, and I made in that barracks. It was a place where they played pool and all this stuff going on.
And I, and I had it to myself that day. But I got down on my hands and knees, made an altar where I was at, and I said, I said, God, I'm going to love if it hurts. I'm going to love. I'm going to care about people. He loved me.
I hurt him.
So I mean, that was the example that came through. And I said, I said, here I am, Lord. I love you, and I give my life to you, and I'm going to love your people. And I tell you, man, a whole new world opened up to me. Then, I mean, it was just exciting to step out and serve.
And then, and then God grew me, and I got you know grown a Lord, and went to Bible college, and grew more. And and then God put this thing called Iceland in my heart. And man, alive, I was broken for the people of Iceland. I wanted them to be saved. I could see nothing but a lost people without Christ.
And the only thing that drove me, because I loved him for what he did for me, and I loved the people that he loves, I determined to love this world as he loves it. And I stepped out, and if you heard me on Deputation talking about God's calling in my life, you would hear a passionate man say, "Get me to this land so I can reach them." And so I preached a few months back, and I said, "Pray for me." See, I know what God says about the first love. See, ministry is not just something you learn a sermon, you preach a sermon, and you and you go through the motions. It's a spiritual ministry, and if your heart is not engaged. It's in vain, and there's a whole chapter, First Corinthians thirteen.
If you are absent of this thing called love, no matter what you do, it is a zero. And my heart was broken because you get hurt enough, you get betrayed enough, rejected enough.
So I wrote down: How do you keep your heart engaged in ministry after rejection, betrayal, or other depths of relationships?
So I guess that's the heartbeat of my message this evening: is that maybe if I struggle with something, somebody else has disengaged their heart as well. And we are in danger of losing everything if we cannot get this thing fixed to be real in ministry, to minister out of a heart of love.
Well, I did have a bunch of things here. Turn to Isaiah chapter twenty-eight. Turn to Isaiah twenty-eight in your Bibles. Isaiah twenty-eight, verse number nine. I asked some pastors recently, and if you were in Sunday school class this morning, Brother Jacobs' class, this is a this is not the same message, but this passage and this thought I shared.
They were talking about things, and they said you can be transparent, Pastor Hotry. You know, Pastor. Oh, nobody will judge you around here. Ask anything. Talk about anything.
And they were talking about different things that mattered to them. And I sat there with a burning heart of, here's an elder man, and in the ministry 20 plus years longer than I have. I'm dying to ask him a question. What do you do? What exercises?
What things do you do to keep your heart engaged in ministry so that you're not just going through the motions? After obviously in ministry, you've been hurt. I won't judge the answers, but buddy, I didn't get a good answer that day. And he tried, bless his heart. They weren't ready for a question like that.
They wanted to talk about other things. But what was on my heart was, "What have you done in life?" And they mentioned Southside Fellowship and pastor fellowships and getting together and hanging around, encouraging one another. But there was a question, you know, repeating in my mind: "Of this is what I've been wanting and struggling and praying about." Is God? I want my heart engaged, or I'm just going to go sell cars and be an honest man. Did you hear that?
Because if I don't remember my first love, I'm fired. Doesn't matter if people support me. It doesn't matter if people go in the church. The candlesticks gone. And so I have to find a way, Vicky, to engage my heart, or it's over.
That's revealing, isn't it? Hope you're not embarrassed for me. It's it's something that. That I think is a struggle in every Sunday school teacher's heart, every minister's heart, every person who's been in church for more than twelve seconds and had been hurt by somebody else in the church. Isaiah chapter twenty, verse number nine.
The things that I'll share with you for the next twenty minutes is that clock right five forty.
Next twenty minutes, I'll share with you some things. That God is showing me of how to help me to re-engage my heart or keep my heart engaged in ministry with love. The Bible says in Isaiah twenty-eight verse number nine, "Whom shall he teach knowledge? And whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts, for precept must be upon precept." Precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line.
Precept is going to be an established ruler law. You just pile them on top, one on top of the other, and compare them one to another. Line upon line, line by definition is just a simple, short statement. You can call it a verse.
So, verse upon verse, precept upon precept, meaning an established ruler law. Upon another one, you show them side by side, then they compare them. And line upon line is a verse next to a verse.
So you show that it's not just one place, but it's replete. That's what the next phrase is. If you keep on reading, hear a little, there a little. Whether it's in Genesis or whether it's in Malachi or the Psalms or in Matthew or Paul, the books of Peter. Wherever you look in the Bible, hear a little, there a little.
It can't just be one place. You'd never find.
Something that God wants to tell you only in one place in the Bible—it's going to be mentioned in other places in the Scriptures. And if you're scratching your head thinking, "How is He going to connect this to what He started with?" I hope you catch it, because it's the only thing that has kept me in the ministry. The verse says in verse 11, "For with stammering lips and another tongue." Will he speak to this people? To whom he said, "This is the rest. Say that with me.
This is the rest, wherewith he may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing. Yet they would not hear. You say, 'Well, what does that have to do with what you're talking about?' This is the rest. Jesus said, 'Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden.'" Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. How does the verse end?
Ye shall find rest unto your souls. You want to find a place where you can come to rest, something that will help you to continue in the face of adversity, in the midst of a storm, or even in a broken heart. You want to find a place of comfort and rest. The passage started. We just read it.
Knowledge. Who is God going to teach knowledge to? Who is he? To whom will he cause understanding to happen to? Those that determine.
I'm going to grow on and go on. And he says, "This is that rest that I want you to enter into. Learn of me. Get to know me. Get to know me.
Keep getting to know me. Keep loving me. As I reveal, God says, 'As I reveal myself to you, and as I teach you, do you want to learn more?'" Are you truly interested? He wants to know that. Are you hungering and thirsting after Him?
Because in life, in ministry, you're going to be hurt. You're going to be discouraged. You're going to have all kinds of things happen that make you wonder and want. And God says, "This is what I want for you. Learn of Me." Number two would be Jeremiah nine and verse number twenty-four.
If you can turn to your Bibles, I love that you're turning in your Bibles this evening. And as you're looking at John nine twenty-four, I want you to know the results of sitting at the Master's feet to be taught, because He asked the question in Isaiah twenty-eight: "Whom shall He teach? Whom shall He cause to understand doctrine?" Do you want to sit at the feet of Jesus? I mentioned this morning. It frustrates me when I go to a hardware store and I I went to go get spackle.
And the lady that was doing the paint didn't even know what spackle was. And after about fifteen minutes, some some other person came in and said, "You mean joint compound?" I was like, "Yeah, but call it spackle, right?" I mean, frustrating when the people don't know what they're doing, and they're the ones employed. They're telling they're supposed to be the the the you know the brains in that group, right? And you go for advice, and there's nothing more frustrating than listening to somebody who has no clue what they're talking about. Jesus knows what he's talking about.
And God wants to teach you, but He doesn't have very many students that are willing to sit at His feet, because His teachings are very hard. His initial teaching to His disciples is, "You have to forsake everything, or you can't be My disciple." Sitting at the feet of Jesus is a very hard thing to do, but it's worth it. And I say a thousand times over, I would gladly walk through every valley of the shadow of death. He's led me through every single one of them to experience His holding my hand and leading me and guiding me through it. And I would have never experienced that unless He led me into it.
You say, "How do you stay faithful in that valley and that discouragement?" Learn of Him. And when he does something you don't expect him to do, or you think he shouldn't have done, love him more. When you when you find yourself tempted to say it's unfair, I shouldn't have had this happen to me. Love him more and trust him more. Hold on twice as hard.
He knows what he's doing. He makes all things beautiful. Jeremiah nine and verse number twenty four. But let him that gloryeth. Glory in this, Jeremiah nine twenty four.
Let him that glorieth, glory in this. Did he say it with me? Understandeth, and are you there? He understandeth. I said Jeremiah nine twenty four.
But let him that glorieth glory in this. Did he understandeth and knoweth? You see, that's where you're going to find the encouragement to love Him more, to do more, to continue more. If you understand Him, you see, you can't understand God. What you're supposed to pursue to understand Him?
His, He's beyond searching, but you need to continue to pursue Him, understand and know Him. I'll quote this one for your sake, and you can turn to Isaiah 26, John 17:3 says, "And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God." And Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. Do you know the only thing that helps me and encourages me is to my passion. I want to know the Lord. Can I tell you the truth, Pastor Hotry?
God is not who I thought He was. When I got saved, I wasn't raised in church. I was saved at twenty-one. I studied the Bible very hard, and I was passionate about getting to know the Lord. Through the years, I have discovered he's not who I thought he was.
I've said this maybe here. I've said, I did not think that God would let me experience the hurts that I've experienced. I just didn't see that. I don't know why I missed it. Because I mean, I have a Bible in front of me, and I mean, He didn't spare His own Son, and I look at all the people who followed Christ, followed the Lord and His teachings, and they had a rough road.
I don't know why I missed it. And Jesus Himself said, "You know, you follow Me. They did this to Me. They they hated Me, rejected Me, they beat Me, they crucified Me. And if you follow Me, hey, they're going to do the same.
What do you think they're going to do to you?" Apparently, I was just blind to all of that. And then the valleys come, and I wonder why is this happening to me? What I would say that the first experience Vicky and I went through was her hardest trial in life. She slept through my hardest trial when she was in a coma, but her hardest trial was when we buried our our child Sarah. She was born stillborn, and we buried her a few days later, and that was her dark hour, first darkest hour of her life.
And may I. She said the words I didn't think. She said, "I'm. I gave up my whole life, all my dreams, everything. I'm reading my Bible to get to know the Lord.
I'm praying. I'm having my quiet time. I'm serving Him. We're reaching souls for Christ." She said the words I didn't think God would let this happen. If you want to glory in something, glory in understanding and knowing Him, and recognize the truth.
The truth is, He does not save you to take away all of your problems. He saves you to conform you into an image, and it's going to take a lot of pain, but it's a worthwhile journey. But it's going to be a painful journey, but it's worthwhile. And on the other side, he'll be more like he wants you to be. Isn't that a sweet thought?
So don't fall out of love when he does things that you didn't think he should do. Don't fall out of love. Fall more in love. The verse you're looking at is Isaiah 26 and verse number three. The Bible says, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee." You want that perfect peace, that constant awareness that God is with you.
He is not against you. He does love you. It hurts right now. Don't fall out of love. Hold and cleave more to Him when your heart is hurting the most, and when you're screaming from your soul, why?
Why I don't understand. Hold on tighter, love him more. You will regret letting go. God wants to hold you close. Keep your mind stayed upon him.
How can you keep your mind stayed upon him? Listen to these verses, Joshua one eight. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth. That means it's in your heart, so it comes out of your mouth. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night.
You got to get His Word in you and meditate upon it. I started out with Isaiah. Whom is God going to teach? Do you want God to teach you? Because if you'll seek Him to be teach, to be taught, to know and understand Him, He will bring you to a place of rest, of solid confidence, and you won't fall out of love.
You'll fall more in love in those trials, but you'll never be able to find that peace unless your mind is meditating upon Him all the time, and it's not just standing around saying, "Okay, I'm thinking of You, God." His word has to be in your heart. Meditate therein day and night. Psalm one and verse number two is another one. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law do they meditate day and night. Say you start finding yourself falling out of love or falling out of a relationship in any area, you have to refocus on what is the primary thing, the one thing that is absolutely necessary in life.
You got to sit at the feet of God. And learn from him. Not on Sundays and Wednesdays only, but in your quiet time, you must be seeking the Lord. Young people, teenagers—if you're younger than I am—just kidding—you gotta know the Bible. I am sick and tired of talking to young people and making inferences to the Bible, and they have no clue what you're talking about.
And they shouldn't know. If you've been saved more than a year, you should have at least plowed through the Bible half a time. If you've been saved for two years, you you you should have been reading through the Bible at least from Genesis Revelation one time. You'll never stay true to God, with all life throws at you, unless you know Him. And you'll never know him unless you're in his word day and night, meditating upon his words—not what the preacher said in his sermon notes, but every day of your life, getting in the scriptures.
You'll never stick to the stuff because you have no stuff. By the way, if you're my age, we are the most Bible illiterate age, because we had the best preachers, I guess. We listen to the best sermons. We don't find ourselves studying the Bibles as if our lives depend upon it, and that's why faithfulness falls aside because we fall out of love because our passionate private life with the Lord is dead, and we go through the motions. We get the messages, we sit in the services, we do the things, but love has been removed, and God knows when we're not where we're supposed to be.
Hebrews chapter five, verse number eleven. Hebrews five and eleven. If you want to turn there, you can. Hebrews chapter five, verse number eleven. The Bible says, "Of whom we have many things to say and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing." You know, it was almost like the Lord was screaming from heaven when I asked that question.
You know, He's like, "Hey, have you asked me that question, Patrick?" I mean, come on, Pat. I can't expect a man to know what I'm going through, and you look up to heaven.
Sometimes I'm dull of hearing when it comes to the Lord. Verse number twelve of the Bible says, "For when the for when the time, for when for the time you ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God." Don't forget first principles, and are become such as the need of milk and not strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness; free as a babe. But strong meat belongeth unto them that are of full age. Even those who, by reason of use, have their senses exercised, to discern both good and evil.
You know why we can't tell what's good and evil because we don't know God's word. Let me give you an illustration. Your minds might be thinking, "Where is he going with this?" And I really wish he would get to the point so we can go home. Just kidding. When Vicky and I were first dating, I shocked her and I said, "I'm not looking to waste your time.
I'm not looking to date and waste your time or play with your emotions." I'm looking for a wife. True, true statement. Yeah, we were in Bible college and in the cafeteria, and sat down across from her. And I said those words, and she was like, "Oh, okay." And she said, "Are you going to be a missionary?" And I said, "Absolutely, just surrendered." Because she said, "I surrendered to be a missionary, and I won't marry anybody. It's going to be a missionary." And it was a beautiful time.
We would sit. Would it be an exaggeration to say that we sat sometimes eight to ten hours? On those Saturdays, and then we would later. Every we skipped classes a few times, I think, just to sit in that cafeteria and talk or whatever. And and and she would be mesmerized just listening to me, and I would be mesmerized looking into her eyes and listening to her.
And man, I was head over heels. I'm telling you what, I was head over heels. I was begging God every day. I want this lady. I mean, she shared her testimony with me, being raised in church, and her.
She she got her. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Curtwood Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at three three six nine nine three five one nine two, or via the web at KerwinBaptistChurch dot 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.
