Consider Your Ways

We hope we hope that you like our temporary sanctuary. We hope that you like all of the colors that have been picked out. We hope that you like all of the decor that you see. We hope that you like parking that's uh easy to get into. And when we arrive on Sunday, we can actually enter the building to through two entrances. We just did the one tonight because of the ribbon cutting. But the main thing is not whether you like the building or I like the building. I like the carpet or you like the carpet. The main thing is our behavior in this house. So come on, let's just go ahead and give the Lord some behavior. Could you lift up a shout of praise? Oh, could you lift up a shout of praise? Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. I praise you. Give him praise tonight. Go ahead. Break your house of God in with pray. Praise. I praise you, Jesus. before you're seated. First Apostolic Church family, we made it. We made it. Our our dream, our determination has now become our destination. We made it. We're here. And I'm excited about being here. to our friends and family that have fought so much of the First Apostolic Church family. Many of you have traveled from out of state. Many of you are local here and just wanted to be a part of this. Thank you so very much for coming and being a part of this our first service here in this new church. Would you just give all of our guests a great big thank you? Thank you so much. You may be seated. We come to dedicate phase one, phase one of the Mir Mville miracle. Hasn't it been a wonderful journey? Hasn't it been just a miraculous journey? We have come tonight to dedicate phase one. There's no debt, so there is no note burning. And if we wanted to get technical, you could only give God something that you own. If the bank owned this, really, it would be the bank that would need to dedicate it. But tonight, we are truly blessed to be able to give God something that we truly own. There's no note burning. We decided to take the money to buy the matches and buy material. I do not know the year, but I do know that it was either on December the 30th or December the 31st that we were about I was preparing for a watch night service just as this. I had put all the figures together. We needed to add on to our present facility or our past facility. We needed to add on and we needed a million dollars. I wanted a million dollars to start that project. I had got some people to put it to paper. We were going to raise a million dollars in five years. We knew down to the week how much that we had to have at the end of the first week, the first month, the first year. We factored in a low uh a low interest that that would be coming to the money. And we saw the possibility if everyone would sacrifice that we could we could raise $1 million in five years and we could start our building program at the old church. I had it on paper. I was going to present it to the church on December the 31st. And in a prayer meeting, God spoke to my heart. And I don't say that lightly because it's a serious thing for a man to say, "God said it." But I know that it was God. And God spoke to my heart and God said, "My son, my coming is nigh. I want you to begin to give to world missions as never before." and I will take care of the new auditorium. I tore up my plans that afternoon and I accepted God's plans. We became intentional missions givers. We became people, business owners begin to set aside money every month from missions. We begin to uh give to missions around the world. And oh my, did God ever start blessing this church. Within six weeks time, within six weeks time, we baptized over 60 people in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Without an evangelist, without a revival service schedule, God be to pour out his spirit upon First Apostolic Church. The spirit began to move freely. People begin to receive the Holy Ghost during song service. God's blessings begin falling upon the church. I told the people that after you have tithed, if you only have one offering to give, I told them to give that offering to missions. The blessings of God begin to fall. We began to notice something was happening. Not only was our church attendance on the increase, giving was on the increase. We were giving more to missions than we'd ever given before. It was a h 100,000 that we reached one year, then 150,000 that we reached. And then that Sunday afternoon when we had all the plans, even preliminary plans to put to put an 800 seat auditorium on the back of our old building. Brother Lee asked me to take a ride with him and um we got in the car and we drove down to this piece of property, 46 acres. I explained to brother Lee, I explained to him that I already knew how much they wanted for that. And I said, "Brother Lee, they want over a million dollars for that property." And I said, "If we would buy that property," I said, "That would tie our hands up." I said, "It would be years before we could receive we we would even have the property paid for." and he began to tell me about um if you needed 20 acres and you could get 20 acres, I'd buy the rest and you could buy this. And um at that time, at that time, an acre of real estate on this road was going for somewhere around $100,000 an acre. And brother Lee showed where we could get it for $30,000. Well, 20 acres. 20 acres. Um, however that figures up. And I began, I thought, well, that's interesting. He said, not only that, pastor, he said, now, of course, he had a scripture to go with that we were building on to the old church. He said, you ever thought about that scripture that the Lord said, no man puts a new piece of cloth on an old piece of cloth. And he said, uh, brother Carpenter, he said, u whether you buy this property or not, he said, I'm already going to give $50,000 toward it. And I I thought, well, that would you begin to subtract a little bit. And then he said, "No, I've not went behind your back, but said Penton would be the real estate lady and said she's already said she's going to deduct her commission off of that." and that was $75,000. And uh still yet, I wasn't interested. Went back to the office because I had to prepare for the Sunday night sermon and all of a sudden something started turning me upside down and God started saying, "This is it. This is where you need to go." We signed a contract and um we took them a cashier's check and paid for this property. Never has there been one dime owed on this property that we have right now. Then we started building. It's been a miracle journey. God has provided all of our needs. God has opened up the windows of heaven. Heii chapter 1 and verse number two. Thus saith or thus speaketh the Lord of hosts. Hei 1 and2. Listen closely to this verse. Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts say this. People say the time is not come the time that the house the Lord's house should be built. Then came the word of the Lord by Hegi the prophet, saying, "Is it time for you, oh ye, to dwell in your sealed houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore, thus sayaeth the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Ye have so much and bring in little. Ye eat and ye have not enough. Ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink. Ye clothe you, but there is none warm. And he that earneth wages, and he that earneth wages earnneth wages to put into bags with holes. The next verse, please. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider, would you repeat these words with me? Consider your ways. Verse eight, go up to the mountain, bring wood, build the house, and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord. You see, building the house of the Lord is not for the faint-hearted. Not just any congregation can build God a house. It takes a strong church to build God a house. He said, "Consider your own ways." Now, this is just how I believe it from from the bottom of my heart tonight. God's house ought to be better than our house. God's house ought to be better than our house. God's house ought to have finer than our houses because this is God's house. God God's house ought to have good things on the floor. God's house ought to have, listen, if Disney can have the latest technology to push their agenda, a little mouse, we ought to have the latest technology to push Jesus Christ. If Hollywood and Nashville can have the finest lights and the finest sound system and the finest music, Jesus Christ ought to have the finest lights and the finest sound system. You see, to those of you listening in tonight, those of you watching by way of the internet, and those of you that have come to be a part of this tonight, I got news for you. First Apostolic Church of Mville is a strong church. Because he said, "I don't want the wood in the valley. I want the wood up on the mountain." Climbing mountain is not for the weak-hearted. You're going to break a sweat if you climb a mountain. If you're going to climb a mountain, it's difficult to climb a mountain. You don't build a church like this easy. If this was easy, first apostolic, everybody would be doing it. But we climbed the mountain. And not only did we climb the mountain, we cut some wood while we got there. And you think it's hard to climb the mountain? Try cutting wood while you're tired. And if you think climbing the mountain's difficult and you're tired when you get on top of the mountain, you cut wood, try having to take the wood back down the side of the mountain. But what motivates you to do this? What motivates people to build this house in Marville? That scripture said, "And I will take pleasure in it." You know why we've been giving for the last several years? Because God has been looking down saying, "I like that. I like what those people are doing. I like what they're doing down there. I like that they're building me a house. I I want to get the word out in the community that they're building by faith. That they've got confidence in God. That they've got confidence in my name. I I I Now, I'm not slamming anybody in the financial industry tonight, but I don't know how many calls we got for free lunches. You see, I have here tonight Brother James Rwood. He just happened to be going by when they were tearing down the old Mcinley Street Church. They were bulldozing the old Mcinley Street church down. and uh he was driving by and he got out of his car and he went over to the camera if they can get a good picture of this. He picked up a cornerstone from the old church. And not only did he pick up a cornerstone, some of you that were on Mcinley Street, you remember this, don't you? This was the mirrors that was in the pastor's office. Some of you were in there quite often. You know what I'm talking about. Back in them days, we didn't have any bankers calling saying we want, and I'm not slamming anybody. If you're in the financial industry, I'm not slamming you tonight. I'm just telling you how it is. It's kind of like going into a nice dress store, nice suit store in your clothes that you mow the yard in, and it's hard to get a salesman to talk to you. But go in there with a suit on and everybody wants to walk. Well, in the in in those days right there, bankers wasn't calling wanting to know, "Can we take you to lunch? Can we go buy you? Can can do you golf, Reverend? We'd like to take you down and golf a little while." But I I lost track of how many people had called saying, "Man, now you we we couldn't loan you that money." And especially in the early time because they'd say, "Preacher, don't get started very far on that because it's going to be hard to loan you money after we get down the road now. You better be real careful." Well, you see what they didn't know is there's a God up in heaven that wanted to talk to their hearts. Don't you know that some people shook their heads? Don't you know when we started off building this, some shook their head and said they'll never do it? Who knows? It may even be some of the members here tonight. But you see, God takes pleasure in blowing our minds. I said God takes pleasure in blowing our minds. Hallelujah. God takes pleasure. He said, "Go to the mountain." And he said, "Build it and I will take pleasure in it." And then he said this, "And I will be glorified." Now, not only the last few weeks, there's been people here working almost around the clock. There's been a lot of contractors here. And I and I promise you that there's going to come a time that we're going to be given personal recognition. But there's been people down here work from daylight to dark, not being paid one dime. There's been people that have been getting off work. There's been people that have been taking vacations and it's just been looking like just people busy all over this place trying to do this and that. You know, if pastor looks out at that and and it it joys pastor's heart, how much more does God look down from heaven and say, "Look at that. Look at what they're doing for my name." And then people in the community are beginning to talk about it a cornerstone. And I want to talk about this just for a moment. A cornerstone determines, the length of a building, the width of a building, the height of the building. The most important stone in the building was the cornerstone. We know what we're going to preach. We know what the Bible tells us to teach. We know what foundation that we're on. But when brother James Rwood told me that he not only had the cornerstone, but he had a mirror, that got a hold of my heart. What are we going to look like to our community? I'm going to tell you what I want to look like to this community. I want to look like Jesus. I want to look like Jesus. I want to work on being more forgiving than I ever have in all of my life because that's what Jesus looked like. I want this building and these phase one and then phase two. I want this to be a place that Mville can look and Marville can see Jesus. I want the world to be able to see Jesus in this church. So tonight, if you would stand with me, we want to dedicate phase one to the work of God. Um, I probably need a couple men to come and put their hand on the altar and dedicate the altar. Make sure all the instruments get hands laid. Maybe over here, you folks over here on this wall over here. Just right behind that beautiful backdrop is a block wall. Don't don't pull on that, but just put your hand and food through to that block wall. Maybe a chair. You just reach down and take a chair. And maybe maybe some of you brothers can come over here. Let's just let's just take a few moments and dedicate this place. Now you see it changes. Let me tell you this. Early this morning there were contractors. They were painters. They were framing. And this place was a workplace. But as 7:30 tonight, this church has ceased to be a workplace. We are going to dedicate it to God. Father, I lay my hand upon this pull pit. This pullpit, God, that'll be used to hold the Bible. I pray, God, that your word will go forth from this place. I pray that the unadulterated word of God will go forth from this house, God. Lord, I pray God phase one Lord that houses this school and daycare God I dedicate this place to you. I dedicate this house to you right now. I dedicate phase one. God, may the sin sick of Blunt County find their way through these doors. God, may people who are demonp possessed and demon tormented find their way into this place. God, may the sick find their way into this place. God, may those Lord that have been diagnosed with incurable diseases find themselves in this place. Lord, may husbands and wives who are about to go and end their marriage, may they find themselves healed and made whole in this place. God, I pray for the teenagers. Lord, may they find their meaning in life in this place. Lord, I pray God that wholeness will come in this place. I pray Lord in the name of Jesus that your eye be upon this place and that your ear be upon this place. I pray oh holy God of heaven that you would look down from heaven upon this place for we dedicate the floor, we dedicate the platform. We dedicate every chair. We dedicate the sound system and the cameras. Uh we dedicate the choir robes. God, we dedicate every piece of equipment. Lord, we dedicate it to your great wisdom and your great calling. God, may the strongholds of Satan be pulled down. May the adversary be pushed back. May this place be a placeh where war tactics against the enemy is played out in this place. May hell be pushed back in this place. And may heaven be presented in this place. May your angels spill this place. Oh God Jesus in in the name In the name In the name that is above all others. In the name that's the highest revealed name of God. In the only saving name, in the only name where there is salvation. For there is salvation in no other. There's salvation in no other. In the name of Jesus, we dedicate this house.