Sunday Morning Worship Service

Well, Lord bless you. You may move to your seats. Greetings on this Sunday morning. We welcome each and every one of you to First Apostolic Church. We're so honored to have you worshiping with us. We welcome all those who are joining us on the multimedia platforms that God has blessed us with the opportunity of carrying the gospel. Uh thank you for joining us as well and I hope that you can very soon be in a service with us. I do join with the voices that have spoken before me in saying welcome uh to each and every one of you. Uh we do uh say a special welcome to brother uh Ashton Johnson. Uh I call him apostolic royalty. Simple as that. Uh Bishop uh Don Johnson, his grandfather, his father, and another bloodline of apostolic believers. We're so honored to have you with us. And then I want to welcome a new member to First Apostolic Church. Uh, Brother Luke and Sister Maddie, would you stand up, please? Could we welcome Calvin Moore to his first Sunday at First Apostolic Church? Welcome. Welcome. Lord bless you. So good to see on that. If you if you know notice a glow coming uh from that that area right there. Uh brother Moore is sitting with them and brother Moore is doubly blessed. Uh he he he really didn't injure his arm patting himself on the back. I promise you he he's recently had surgery but he's had two grandbabies born within the past two weeks. uh uh Sister Alyssa and Matt down in Houston uh got him a a new grandbaby girl and now a new grandbaby boy. So uh Brother Moore is doubly blessed beyond measure. So we're so thankful and we're uh we're excited for a new member at First Apostolic Church. Lord bless y'all. I also want to uh uh say uh welcome uh to uh brother Milan Mcool. this is family and he's interning with us uh this summer uh while school is out at Indiana Bible College. He's uh there working on his degree, but during this uh uh summertime we have him here working in the kingdom of the Lord uh wherever we need him. And so uh I will join with Pastor Anthony and say when you see him, welcome him uh to the First Apostolic Church family. And then I want to reiterate week after next well it's a couple of weeks beginning on July the 16th July 16 17 and 18 uh we will be hosting tri-state district camp meeting. This is camp meeting season. We've had the general ministry conference. We've had youth uh camp meeting last week and now it will be our family camp time. and First Apostolic Church. As hosts, I implore every one of you uh uh clear your calendar for that Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Going to be a very special time in the Lord. Uh we've uh uh had the privilege of being in service many times uh with uh brother Jerry Dean, and I promise you uh you will be uh blessed again and again by his ministry. Uh, and uh, going to be a special time. And now, let me tell all of our church family, all of our helpers, all of our volunteers. I need all hands on deck. You know, when somebody's coming to your house, uh, you want to make them welcome, and we want everybody to be here. Uh, we need all, uh, ushers, greeters, technicians, musicians, singers, workers. I need all hands on deck. In fact, if you're here at First Apostolic Church and you're wanting to get involved in ministry, uh we have need for uh camera operators. We have need for ushers and greeters. And if you would find the team leaders, I know brother Sean Deusk uh as our uh executive producer, I call him over all of our uh video ministries. if you would see him, if you'd like to get involved. And we we need help. So, no one is on a camera all the time. They can rotate and no one is having to do service production all the time and lighting and uh sound, all those technicians. We also have folks that are over the sound. if you see brother Moore and see all of our uh uh our staff. uh if you would like to get involved in ushering, if you would see uh brother Harvey and there are jobs to do and there are ministries to do and this is uh one and the same because when the house of the Lord is organized and we we greet each other uh we have the opportunity uh to let everyone have uh a chance to be in the house of the Lord. We need uh we'll need uh workers that work in the uh I'll say nursery and I'm not going to use some of those antiquated terms in the outreach to our kids as well. So please remember all of those things. Make yourself available. There is a ministry for you to do here at First Apostolic Church. I want to take us to the word of the Lord on this wonderful Sunday morning. Oh, but before I do, I do need to do one more thing. I want to say happy 44th wedding anniversary to the love of my life, Sister Jamie. Baby, I love you. Happy anniversary. Thank you for putting up with me that long. Uh we uh spend our anniversary on uh Thursday uh traveling back home getting here for a homegoing celebration for our dear brother Crabtree. But that's what we do. And I I love my wife and I'm thankful uh for her uh putting up with me and being that as they say wind beneath your wings. I love you dearly. Uh the book of Ecclesiastes the 7th chapter. I want to read a few verses. Uh begin with verse 27. Ecclesiastes 7:27. Behold this I have found saith the preacher. Now, I'm going to give you some preachers words today. Counting one by one to find out the account which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not. One man among a thousand have I found, but a woman among all these have I not found. Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright. Everybody say upright. God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. For a few moments this morning, I would speak to you on this subject, and I'm just quoting the words of the preacher and putting my spin to it. Stand up straight and quit slouching. Stand up straight and quit slouching. Let's talk about our spiritual posture this morning. Let's pray. Savior, I love you. I'm grateful and thankful for this wonderful audience of believers who've joined today. Now, God, I pray once again that your anointed word would be spoken and divided rightly by my voice. Lord, not of anything I can say or do, but Lord, by the power of the Holy Ghost and the anointing and uncction of your power. God, let everything that we do give you praise, honor, and glory. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. And amen. Stand up straight and quit slouching. In our title slide, uh you see a representation of a drawing that was done in 1965. uh that was supposed to illustrate the supposed evolution of man. It was to give a representation of 25 as the evolutionist said million years of evolution. And I need not comment to ask you to see where evolutionists say we started from and to where we are now. But I have a passage of scripture that I feel tells us a little more about being upright. For Genesis 1:27 simply states this. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. As far as I'm concerned that's period end of the story. You may see in that picture your ancestors, but I don't see mine. I want to be known as one who was created in the image of God. I did not evolve from some lower creature that evolutionists have tried to create. But I'm not here today to defend creation for it needs no defense. It is evident. But I would give you a few words of what some of the studies recently has found in December of this past year, December 17, 2024, published in of all places, Mechanics Illustrated, Darren Orf wrote an article that said life can evolve and mult multiple directions, even backwards study says. And he writes, "Evolution is often depicted as a steady march toward increasingly better things, but this common narrative overlooks the litany of evolutionary quirks throughout the plant throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. A new study analyzes how chain ferns have remarkably the ability to evolve backwards, ditching a demorphism strategy for a monomorphism one. This provides more evidence that organisms organisms with less specialization in one particular reproductive strategy are more capable to adapt, even if that means reverting to previous evolutionary versions. Everyone's familiar with Zallinger's famous 1965 illustration often referred to as the March of Progress. The illustration we showed you on the left, hunched over crotch quadriple drycus pulls up the rear of the steady march of millions of years of evolution as the ape slowly improves its posture, gains long limbs, molds into the recognizable form of homo sapiens. It's nice to think that our species is the perfect product of millions of years of evolution, but life doesn't really work that way. And evolution can take many unexpected twists and turns. Now, a new study by scientists at the University of Tennessee that what did you say the Harvard of the South and Cornell University shows that some plants specifically chain ferns can actually evolve backwards taking on traits of previous generations for advantageous purposes. This is another piece of evidence that goes against the standard narrative that life moves inextricably forward. The results of the study were published earlier this year in the journal of na natural communications. Now even science is admitting that sometimes mankind backs up and goes the wrong way. You see, Romans 1:21 said this, "Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagination, and their foolish hearts were darkened. professing themselves to be wise. They became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made to an uncorruptable man and to birds and for-footed beasts and creeping things. If you folks have it, I have a revised version of the March of Progress. I Looks kind of familiar, doesn't it? I'm not sure we hadn't started backing up without God. I'm not sure that our posture, not the physical posture, but our spiritual posture has taken a turn for the slump. So, I'm going to say we need to get upright. That's what the preacher said. He said, "God's looking for some upright people." I'm here to tell you as a preacher spiritually, we need to stand up straight and quit slouching. God's called for an upright people. God's not called for a bunch of folks slumped over spiritually not doing what they've been called to do. Now, mama and daddy used to tell me even as a kid, "Sit up straight. Stand up straight. Quit slumping. Don't slouch. Square your shoulders. I read an article that was entitled, "What causes poor posture?" And this was physical reasons, but I find some great spiritual applications. The first thing that the article said that can cause poor posture is an injury. Now, our scripture that we read talked about uprightness. 2 Samuel 22:26 said, "With the merciful, thou will show thyself merciful. And with the upright man, thou will show thyself upright. With the pure, thou will show thyself pure. And with the forward, thou will show thyself unsavory." You see, when the Lord himself told Satan to consider my servant Job, the one thing that the Lord said about Job was he was perfect and upright. Spiritually, he wasn't slumped over. Spiritually, he had his head up. He was one that feared God and issued evil. He had held fast to his integrity. Although that the Lord had been moved against him without cause to destroy him, that was Job's spiritual posture. You see, I sometimes wonder when many who have been spiritled suddenly find themselves spiritually bent, bowed, stooped, and slumped over. In their spirit, they just do not seem to be able to look up, sit up, stand up, let alone get up. Maybe it's time that one's one examines our own spiritual posture. For you see, many physical injuries as well as spiritual injuries are because of things we invented ourselves. Now again, our text said, "Lo, I found that God hath made man upright." He created man upright. He didn't create spiritually slumped over people but he said but they have sought out many inventions. We invent things spiritually that sometimes create such a weight that we lose our uprightness before God. Now stay with me. I'd give you a physical example. One of the greatest inventions for carrying more things than you can in your arms is something called a wheelbarrow. Some of you may have actually used one of those from a time to time. A wheelbarrow, you can carry a whole lot more with a wheelbarrow than you can just in your arms. But if you overload it, you can hurt your back. It's a great invention when used properly, but when used improperly, it will injure you. It's the same in our spiritual life. Many times there are things that we want to do in the kingdom of God and we have the opportunity to do but if we aren't careful, we will overload ourselves and injure ourselves spiritually. Would you be more specific, pastor? I'll try. We have a zeal to do work for God. From time to time, I deal with folks with such great zeal to do special things in the kingdom of God, but many times they either pick up a weight that they weren't called to do or they had unreal expectations of short-term success. Oh, I I'm so excited. I I went to camp meeting. I went to youth camp. I went to general ministry conference and I feel like God's called me to be an evangelist and God's called me to be a missionary and God still calls people to do all those things. Well, I don't have to worry about anybody running today getting all excited. I can see that. But I've seen those who become impatient with the call of God and they think if something doesn't happen immediately that God has forgotten them and they will get spiritually stooped because of their own invention that they created and they'll find themselves in spiritual injury and mlly grubs. Oh, I've hurt my spiritual back. I can't lift my head up. Let me tell you, if God calls you, he'll equip you and he'll make you ready in his own time. He still calls some people to be saints in the church and work in the kingdom of God. Don't you ever quit yelling, Mark. Let me just let me get pastoral. Don't ever think that you're not doing a work for God just because you're working in the confines of the ministry of a church. Did you know all firemen don't get to drive the fire truck, but it takes all of them working together to put out the fire? Sometimes we're going to have to work in the confines of the ministry and quit worrying about who's in charge and who gets the credit because God's the one that's in charge after all. Work where you've been called. Work where you are. Let God use you where you are. And then if he chooses to put you in another place, he will give you an unmistakable direction. Don't injure yourself and destroy your uprightness. Sadly, I've seen too many that have sat down and quit in discouragement because their expectations were unreal in the time frame they had set rather than doing God's will. But let me continue to move. You see, not only is it injuries of offense, you know, the scripture said, "Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them." Don't try to carry something that's too heavy for you if you're not called to do it. It'll destroy your spiritual posture. In fact, Hebrews said it this way. Wherefore, seeing we also accomplish about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Find comfort, find contentment in what you're doing right now in the kingdom of God, and let God's call and his direction come to you in his time, not yours. But the article I read also said that poor posture can be as the result of disease. It said that disease brought on by dehydration and malute and malnutrition can cause conditions that directly affect the bones and the muscles and negatively affect posture. Hebrews 5:1 12 said, "For when the time ye ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk and not strong meat. For everyone that useth milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But the strong meat belongth to them that are full of age, even those by reason of use have their senses exercised to to discern both good and evil. Now, please do not take offense nor misunderstand what the pastor is saying today. The altar is for everyone. The altar is for any time. The altar is open to all. But there is a time that maturing saints of God ought to be able to let the meat of the word, strong word, strong teaching, nourish them and get out of the way so babes can come and get the milk of repentance sometimes. Listen, I believe with praying with everybody and anybody who has an issue. But sometimes firsttime sinners can't get to repentance because there's too many saints having to pray back through at the altar. Sometimes we need to grow up and start enjoying the meat of the word and let it direct our lives and our paths and mature in Christ. Woo! Have mercy. You can be seated again. and settle down. You see, we must understand that there is a time of maturing, a time of growing. We should not have to take seasoned saints and season multi-generation apostolics and re-educate them and reconvince them of the salvation plan of Acts 2:38. We should not have to constantly go to those who are seasoned and re redefine what a spiritual standard of appearance and holiness is. There comes a time, mamas and daddies, grandmas and granddaddies, great grandmas and great granddaddies that you shouldn't have to be convinced again. You ought to be an example to your grandbabies and new to new babies in the world. Can I tell somebody in the house? Don't let your posture get bent over. We shouldn't be having to recon convert saints of God who's been in the house of God for many, many years and they know the truth. Yes, we're going to teach it. Yes, we're going to preach it. We're going to teaching and preach and love. But the greatest teachers there are are those who are examples of faithfulness in the kingdom of God. Those who fought the battles and won the wars. What am I saying? Some of us need to get off the bottle. I'm just quoting the words of the preacher. The reason some can never get spiritually fed is because they don't come around the table enough to get anything to eat. Bible studies, camp meetings, revival, midweek service Sunday morning and Sunday night. You go to church twice on Sunday. Yeah, you pay extra to go to a double header in baseball, don't you? Let me give you some barnyard wisdom. Is that all right? There's some barnyard wisdom that says a steel s gets the slop. Now, if you don't know what that means, look, I'm not claiming to be from the country. I'm a city boy. Closest thing we ever had to agriculture when I was growing up, we had a cowbell on the drums. You know, I'm I'm I'm I'm a city boy. But I have been to the country a few times. I I've been to some of my families and I remember in particular going out to Aunt Debby's out in Missouri and out in the back they had a great big farm lot and they had a a uh a whole pin of pigs and it Debbie. Now I know some of y'all are used to uh the finities of uh great cuisine. So something being called slop may uh uh give you a little shiver. So just just be But what slop really was? Slop was all the refues, all the leftovers that that nobody else was going to eat. They had all put it all together. And at the end of the day, Uncle Bud or Aunt Debbie, they'd walk out and there's a great big trough out there and they'd bang on the side of that bucket. Sy pig, s pig. And I'm telling you, there would be pigs coming from everywhere. I didn't know there were that many out there. And here they'd come and you could see some of the the younger pigs that that they would have poured that slop out in that trough and they'd run they'd stick their nose in and they didn't feel like they were getting enough. They jump and they'd run to the other side then and somebody nose them out. They then run to the other and but the more mature the s she would get right in the middle of that trough and stick her nose in and stayed in one place and she ate till she was full. The still s got the slop. Now, as earthy as that example is, hear me. The some folks, the reason they never get fed and they never get spiritual grounded, they can't stay in one place long enough to hear the word speak into their life. They're here that there, I I've heard about prophecy. I want to hear this prophecy preaching. That was good, but I heard there's going to be a healing service over there. I'm going to go to that healing service. Oh, there's a great big singing going. Get in the house of God. Be consistent. Get your family rooted in the house of God. Settle down. Let the Holy Ghost minister through them. He'll He'll feed them. The Holy Ghost in the word will feed them. They'll grow if you'll keep them in the house of God. Don't be undernourished and cause your uprightness to bend you over. Still another reason for poor posture listed was habits and addictions. Do you remember what Daniel's habit was? We talked about it here just a few messages back in Daniel 6:10. It said, "Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed and he went into his house and his windows being open, his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneelled upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks to his God as he did a four time." In other words, that was his habit. Yes, God answers the prayer of the sincere, but God sure likes to talk to his regular customers, too. God likes to commune with those that meet with him every day. It's a habit of praying. You know, Bishop injured his knee working over here at the church. had to have treatment on his knee and had some pain in it. And as he was having that treatment, the the doctor said, "Now, as this rehabs and as you go through recovery," he said, "be careful not to develop a habitual limp." He said some folks they start recovering and even after the recovery they get used to limping. He said don't develop a habitual limp. So you know what Bishop did? He took it to heart. Next time we heard him preach he said this ain't a limp. It's a swagger. Let me tell you, I refuse to let some habit of being downtrodden, some habit of negativity, some habit of bad news to take over my life and start limping around and lose my posture and be out of balance. I may go through a battle. I may be hurt for a while. Brother O'Brien, I saw you when you were having to be home with your leg up. But you know what I saw him doing? Even when he couldn't get out, the doctor said you can't move. He had pins in his leg. He had the service on. He was watching and the other foot was patting. You know what that said? I can't wait to get back in the house of the Lord. I may be down a little while, but it's not going to be forever. Listen, you may go through some things. You may get hurt you, but don't let hurt cause you to habitually not serve God. God's got too many things. Get upright. Get straight. Don't get bowed over and bit spiritually. Hallelujah. Let it develop into a swagger. Let me show you, devil. You're not going to keep me down. I might have lived a while, but it's my swagger now. I'm proud of it. When Jesus went to Nazareth in the book of Luke, it says that was where he had been brought up. He went back home and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, stood up for to read. Jesus was in the habit of going to church on the Sabbath. Man, let your habit be to be in the house of God. Let your habit be to keep yourself. But now, not only habits can affect your posture, but addictions. The article said 1 Corinthians 16:15 said, "I beseech you, brethren, you know the house of Stephanus, and it's the first fruits of Araya, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints. I just can't stay away. I got to be in the house of God. I got to be doing something in the kingdom of God. This is no brag, just fact. You can rarely come by this place that the saints of God aren't here doing something. Now, we may not always be having church right in here and everybody dancing, shouting, we're going to do plenty of that, but just the fellowship, the camaraderie, the kindness of you the it's never become more apparent to me than just the past month or so. I'll mention Brother O'Brien again. We got together. He and his crew was getting ready to resurface our parking lot. Oh, by the way, doesn't it just look wonderful? My Lord have mercy. Give the Lord a big hand. But with that said, we could hardly find a time even on Saturdays, even in the evenings when there wasn't something going on around here that there weren't need to be vehicles in the parking lot. I, in fact, I had to move the buses one night during general ministry conference. I was out here moving buses at 1:00 a.m. because that was the first break we' had because something was going on always. And even then, I had to inter intercept some of these young bucks that after church and decided they was going to shoot a little basketball. I had to keep y'all stay around front. We're working in the back. Are you gripping? Absolutely not. I'm saying that we are addicted to being around the house of the Lord. We are addicted to the activities of the Lord. We're man have a camp meeting, have a conference, have a special interest group, whatever you want to call it. have a Christian school, have a Christian child care center, whatever we do. I'm addicted to being around the house of God and in the kingdom of God. Well, let me hasten quickly. Poor posture can also be due to one's mental attitude and stress. If one develops a negative attitude, it will destroy the spiritual posture of the uprightness that God created us. In Acts 25 and 26, Paul stood before a grippa accused unjustly by the Jews facing prison or death. It would be easy or would have been easy for Paul to have taken a defensive, vindictive, guarded posture. But I want you to notice when Paul finally got a chance to speak his attitude in Acts 26:1, he said this. Then Agria said unto Paul, "Thou art permitted to speak for thyself." Then Paul stretched forth his hand and answered for himself. Here was his first word. He said, "I think myself happy." I think myself happy. Now, you can interpret that any way you want to. In fact, if you disagree with me, you have a right to be wrong. But you know what he was really saying? I'm facing accusations of heresy. I'm faking facing ac accusations that's going to land me in prison or maybe even put to death. And all he could say is, "I think myself happy." Why did he think himself happy? Because I shall answer for myself this day before thee, touching all the things. Therefore, I am accused of. He be to testify, give his testimony of what God had done for him, his miraculous conversion when he was tricken down on the road to Damascus and how God had changed his direction. I think myself happy when I have an opportunity to testify. No matter my circumstances, no matter how the enemy may appear to have the upper hand. Philippians 4:8 said this. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. We need to get rid of some of our think our stinking thinking and think on some good things. Get the right frame of mind that'll make us stand up straight, square our shoulders, and say, "I'm a child of God. I'm a child of the king. I've been bloodbought." Some of us watch too many things and feast our minds on too many things that stupid us spiritually. The psalmist said, "I will sit no wicked thing before my eyes. I hate the works of them that turn aside. It shall not cleave to me. A forward heart shall depart from me. I will not know a wicked person." You need to quit hanging around with negative folks and letting negative voice speak into your ear. David in the midst of distress. Bible said David was greatly distressed. In 1st Samuel 30 and6, there was a whispering campaign going on behind his back. People said, "Man, we ought to stone David. His leadership's got us in trouble." And they were speaking out of grief. It said the souls of the people were grieved. because their daughters, their sons, wives had been taken. But you know what David did? Oh, David got in a corner and cried. You know, it said David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. I've got news for you. There's going to be times in your life that the positive voice of the church won't be readily available. But if you've got the power of the Holy Ghost in you, you can encourage yourself in the Lord. There's times you don't have time to even have a prayer partner join with you. Sometimes you just you and the Lord. You got to say, "Lord, I need some encouragement right now." The psalmist said, "Delight thyself in the Lord, and he'll give you the desires of your heart." Caleb when he was a a voice among the negative said, "Let's go up at once and possess the land." James said, "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations." Don't pray that prayer, Lord, why me? Instead, when you go through a trial, say, Lord, why not me? I want to be counted worthy. I want to be one that you can depend on. Acts 5:40 said and to him they agreed. And when they had called the apostles and beaten them, they commanded they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. Sound like that beating did them a lot of good, didn't it? Said they beat him. Said, "Don't you speak of Jesus?" And then let him go. two verses later said, "Daily they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. I want my spiritual posture to be straight." Praise team musicians, get ready. I'm going to take us to the end. The final reason that was given the article I read about poor posture was that poor posture can be caused by heredity. Let me tell you, quit blaming your past. Quit blaming your mama and your daddy. Quit blaming your environment. Quit blaming your surroundings for spo for poor spiritual posture. God wants to give you deliverance. And if if you're the first generation, if you've come from a generations of horongers, drunks, addicts, God wants you to stand up straight. You have an opportunity to change the cycle in your bloodline. If you've come from doubters and dependence on the enemy, it's time to stand up and change your bloodline. Break the cycle. know that Satan will try to create counterfeits. Counterfeits can't make you spiritually upright. Stand with me. In Isaiah, Isaiah speaking of false god said, "Ba hath ba boweth down. Nebo stupth. Their idols were upon the beasts and upon the cattle. Your carriages were heavy laden. They are burdens to the weary beast. These idol gods aren't making you upright. They're bowing you. They're stooping you. Verse two, they stoop. They b they bow down together. They could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity. Hearken unto me, oh house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are born by me, from the belly which are which carried from which carried from the womb. And even to your old age, I am he. And even to the horrors will I carry you. Listen, instead of us carrying loads, we need to let God carry us. He said, "I have made, I will bear, even I will carry and will deliver you." Isaiah said, "These idol gods will do nothing but bow you, but I will carry you." If you're in this house today and you feel like you've been spiritually bowed, beaten, that your spiritual posture is not where it should be. I'm here to tell you that God has encouragement and strength to help you stand upright again. Ephesians said, "When you've done all to stand, stand ye therefore. It's time to spiritually square your shoulders. Get your spiritual posture back." Timothy said, "I would that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without about wrath and doubting. There's a posture before God we can take of surrender. For you see, in the flesh, this posture means I lost. But when you're before God, this posture means I won. I surrender to you, Lord. There's some under the sound of my voice today, you're needing to surrender to the Lord and get your posture, your spiritual posture back. He said, "When you stand, pray, forgive." Some maybe under the sound of my voice, there's something you're needing to forgive someone of. So, you quit carrying that load of vengeance, that load of unforgiveness. The best posture you can have is either to lift your hands, stand up in forgiveness, or as the psalmist said, "Let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker." Sometimes the best posture you can have is to be on your knees worshiping before the Lord. I close with a few verses of uprightness before I open the altar. Psalm said, "The righteous Lord loveth the righteous, his countenance doth uphold the upright." Proverbs said, "The integrity of the upright shall guide them. The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them. The blessing of the upright will exalt the city. The way of the just is uprightness." Today I call on everybody in this house to examine your spiritual posture. Am I walking upright before the Lord? If you would like to make sure that you're standing strong in him, I would take a moment and invite everybody in this house to step out from your seats and gather around the altar for a season of prayer. If you need to repent of your sins, you can come. If you want to reaffirm your walk with Christ, this is a good time just to cry out to him and say, "Lord, would you order my steps? Would you guide my path? Let me be upright before you in everything I say and do. Worship with us as they say.