I didn't want to begin John chapter three, just begin reading in verse one. It says, Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you're a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. The elders are allowing me to share my testimony this morning, but a testimony to me is just telling you what God has done in my life. I'm not proud of my life. I am humbled that God would save such a wicked, self-centered person. I tell this story to say that God is a great God. I was born in 1956 in Miami to a Frank and Thelma Scambri, and I would come to have a total of three siblings. Well, my childhood was fairly normal. I like to do things that other kids did. I got in trouble from my parents when I did bad things, but I generally remember a happy childhood. I didn't have perfect parents, but I was loved and cared for properly, in particular by my mother. My father was normally busy for most of my life, although there were a number of occasions where he'd give me advice when we were alone, even at an early age, and tell me that you had to be a man and stand up to bullies. A lot of different things he said. As I got into my early teens, I got into challenging others in fights, and it became fairly common with me. I started school a year earlier than most kids. I graduated from high school when I was 17, so I was a year younger than most of my classmates. And beginning in my early teens, my growing process seemed to slow down drastically. And I ended up being one of the smaller young men in my class. My first encounter was in the sixth grade. I happen to have the best grades in the class, as a matter of fact. I know you find that hard to believe, but I was awarded a scholarship in the sixth grade. And it kind of became routine to be made fun of. But my answer was to pick the largest fellow in the class and to jump on him and perceived to beat him viciously about the face and head until I was pulled off. And you might think that's silly, but seeing Bobby Farr crying and hearing the praise that I received from the other young men around me would follow me and haunt me for years. My modus operandi was to be someone from whom there would be unexpected consequences. Later on in school, I would receive a lot more undue attention for my actions with other fellows. Nothing seemed to fill my heart with pride as much as seeing someone's face scarred or a black eye or something because of something that I did. I wanted to teach through this. So, young men, the scripture says in Proverbs 8, 13, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Pride and arrogancy and the evil way in the froward mouth do I hate. And Proverbs 29 says a man's pride shall bring him low. But honor shall uphold the humble in spirit. It is far more honorable to walk away from a meaningless fight than to act on your pride when you really don't know what the outcome is going to be. You think you do but you don't and it will accomplish nothing. As the next few years rolled by I also became interested in girls. I was absolutely fascinated. These young friends of mine were changing all around me and I was caught up in the way that they looked. I did want to mention at this point young ladies Proverbs 8 13 says the fear of the Lord is hatred of evil and again pride and arrogance. and the way of evil and perverted speech. I hate also Proverbs eleven two says when pride comes then comes disgrace but with the humblest wisdom. The Scriptures say don't let your adorning be merely external in the way that you fix yourself up and the way that you dress but let it be that hidden man of the heart a meek and quiet spirit which in the sight of God is of great value. So I want to encourage you young men and women to walk humbly before God and you will be the most happy. Well from around ninth grade on my grades would would never rise as high because of my preoccupation with attracting the attention of girls. They tell me at that time that I was a handsome young man and I believed it. There didn't seem to be any way that They would not like to go out with me. They weren't as keen on the fighting with boys thing. They like you to be nice. You had to be cool. So cool I became. And I always tried to make sure that I looked good. I tried to dress well. And I know you're laughing because of how I look now. So you're not fooling me. But this attitude brought attention from the boys who couldn't get girls and so more challenges came. And I continually found myself challenging or being challenged. Well, at the age of 14, I began to drink. I began drinking at every opportunity, which I'm not proud of, but I would often steal into my parents' liquor cabinet and just knowing that it'd bring me a little buzz, besides that it was forbidden. Anything that's forbidden is always fun or for the sinner to try to obtain. And so kind of going through that, there were there being a lot of late nights over at friends houses or camping or whatever we could arrange to be sure that we weren't caught doing our drinking or whatever. When I was 15, I was kicked out of school for fighting one day and As I walked out the door, a few guys that were into the drug scene told me that they saw the face of the young man that I fought and they complimented me. I'm not proud. I'm ashamed of the way that I grew up. But I'm trying to tell you how I became what I became and what God had to rescue me from. These young men invited me over to their car and asked if I wanted to try some pot. And so I tried for some of the older folks, that's marijuana, weed. But they pulled out a cigarette lighter and put some on it and let me inhale. And I liked it. And this began a five year journey that would take me close to death and almost in prison on several occasions. And the only reason that I'm not dead or in prison right now is the grace of God. Although I was good at hiding my drunkenness and getting high, and of course I reaped that, and my son, my older son, became very good at hiding the same things, but I myself knew that it was displeasing to my mother, so I continued to hide it, and I was gone a lot. Finally, it came time to graduate from high school, and I figured I was done with all the ridiculousness of classes and could party forever. Or anyway, that's what was in my mind. I really didn't know what I was looking for. I was searching for something. And I know that everything I tried just couldn't feel the emptiness in my soul. I had a job and I could buy virtually anything that I wanted to get. So I often take drugs and drink myself into oblivion. And a lot of times in these times, I would just hope kind of that my father would challenge me so that I could just face him and cuss him out for never being there for me. But I said I was smart and I knew that it was more than I could handle and I would probably be hurt. But the pain part never seemed to phase me if it was from fighting. But he was my father. So soon after graduating from high school, I decided that the quickest route out of that situation to get away from my parents and to into complete freedom and partying was to join the service. I was 17 years old and not much was going on at home. And my father although he loved me as we developed a wonderful relationship after he got saved and after I grew up he rarely seemed to care where I was. So I left to freedom and full time partying. I'll never forget several weeks later in my journey into freedom. It was 98 degrees in Orlando, Florida. I was in boot camp. They had just cut my hair. I was pouring sweat and I had hair all over my face and gnats were lighting on my face and we were told, don't move a muscle. And I went to the breaking point and I moved my hands up to wipe away all the sweat and the hair and the gnats. And this gentleman began running in my direction. screaming obscenities until he was just inches from my face. And I if I remember correctly, it was at that time that I thought that this wasn't exactly the freedom that I had in mind. And I also realized that the four plus two extra years that I just signed up for were going to last for a really long time. But I believe that it was of God. He allowed me to go that way. My solution to what I faced was just to start doing more of what I knew to do. Immediately after a brief visit home when boot camp was done and I got on a drunken binge, I began seeking for better and better thrills. Off the ship, whether in the States or overseas, I would seek my happiness in alcohol and drugs and women and fighting. I loved fighting so much that I boxed in intramurals in the Navy. I always had boxing gloves in my bunk and later on in my apartment and would challenge visitors to matches in the apartment. And many of the ends of our drinking was simply to fight. And there's just really too much to go into for these first three years in the service. I spent thousands of dollars on drugs like pot and speed and reds and heroin. And I just say that to say that I don't know if somebody is headed that way. I'm one that's been that way and I'm shouting and screaming. Don't go this way because the end or other the ways of death. And it's a dead end. It came to the point where I lost interest in women except for brief encounters because of my love of the escapism and drugs. I became the subject of a naval investigative unit drug search on several occasions. I would look down the barrel of a shotgun. I drove down the highways of California well over 100 miles an hour while on LSD. I'd be dragged from a police parking lot out of a car where we possessed a butcher knife and a pistol and drugs that were all my possession. Yet, for some reason, through all this, God let me live and I was never prosecuted. I should have been. God should have let me die, and I should be in hell right now. I was completely self-centered, a pleasure-loving, angry-at-the-world young man. Who, by the way, handled nuclear weapons for the United States Navy? Go figure, I don't know. But many nights during all this time, I would think that there surely has to be something more than this. I mean, I tried all that the world had to offer and there seemed to be nothing that I didn't want to try. And yes, I have to admit, it was fun. But at the end of the night or the next morning, I would simply wake up from my stupor and feel bad and plan to do it again as soon as possible so I could escape just from a regular life. I remember there were times I'd sit on the cliffs out in San Diego smoke pot and watch the sun set and wonder what's out there. God was speaking the whole time, but I never seemed to hear a word. I want to go back just a second, because this kind of has to do with mental frame of mind. But on one occasion, my younger days, I was walking home through the cemetery and I looked up at the stars and I thought that there has to be somebody up there. You know, I thought that surely this is not all there is. But other than that, I never thought much about God. I didn't care about God. I mean, I cursed God, and I had a bad feeling when I used that word, but I used it anyway. Well, one evening out in California, we were doing various things, and my friend Rocky came home after being gone a few days, and he was smiling, and I asked him, where he'd been and what he was doing. And he said that he was up at his aunts and uncles in Northern California, and he had given his life to Christ. That shocked me. I mean, here was a tough guy. And here was a guy who I saw one time walk up to a car at a stoplight. They had called us swabbies. And that was a denigrating term to us sailors, because that meant that you were just a mop handler. And they knew that it aggravated us. And Rocky went up and just punched through the window of the car. I mean, he was a mean young man. I told him, I said, well, that's great. And I proceeded to try to talk him into going out with us that night. He didn't go out with us. But after several days of trying, one evening he conceded and we got hold of some PCP, a drug that causes intoxication, hallucinations, and brain damage. which I think some of that has, I use that as an excuse of my mental condition right now. Of course, we got some beer. And I'm being serious, young people, from doing PCP and LSD, but through the years, seriously, you know, sometimes my wife says, you know, like a lot of you, you got Alzheimer's. I said, no, I just got burnt out when I was young, and brain cells just don't come back like that. And so I still reap the results of those few years of while living before God saved me. But after a night at the beach, which was terrible with Rocky, who is supposed to be just just gotten saved. I found myself threatening a young couple just if they didn't respect and honor me. But my friends dragged me away and we we decided to go home. It was about this time that the sun was coming up. And I recall looking at the picture window of the apartment and I look back and saw Rocky saying something to Dan and Rocky told him that Jesus was coming back. And even being saved right now strikes me as funny, although it didn't seem funny right then, but he told him that Jesus was coming back and Dan, who was not saved, thought he meant right now. He was still trying to recover from the night before and he began to weep uncontrollably. And it ended up with both of them just sobbing and weeping because they thought that the sun coming up and the rays of sun coming in through the window meant that Jesus was coming back right then. So I went to Rocky's room and got a couple of Bibles and gave them to them and told them everything's going to be fine. I put my arms around their shoulders. I said, don't worry. I knew it wasn't going to be all right. I just wanted them to think it was. Rocky left and said he had to get out on his own and out of this mess and figure things out. Rocky later on went on a missions trip to Russia and was never heard from again. And to this day I still search for him on the internet hoping that maybe the information I got was wrong and he didn't die or whatever happened in Russia. But I continued to party. Dan went AWOL and decided to go full time at selling drugs. You know, I feel almost bad just saying anything about my past life, but it's who I was. And I'm trying to tell you, you know, what God has done because I'm proud of it. But we got involved in selling a lot of drugs and we did make some money. We almost lost our lives on several occasions. I was afraid of death and I didn't want to die. And so I just avoided thinking about it as much as possible. I was busy occupying myself pursuing the God of pleasure and little did I know that God had a plan just for me. One day we were supposed to visit an acquaintance with the intention of making a purchase after we had partied a bit. I rode my bike over to this house and I saw Dan there and I saw the person who we were supposed to buy the drugs from. And I saw others there. And of course, we begin to do what we always did and do drugs and just ignore God. But I remember that the large chair in the living room where normally he sat was was empty. And so I sat there. I never sat there before, but I decided to sit there and I did a couple of various drugs, but It didn't seem like they did much. All I recall was that I was sitting in the chair, people and drugs everywhere, and all of a sudden everyone left the room to go into the back part of the house where the stash was kept. And at that time, God opened my eyes. As I sat there, God gave me life. It was an act of divine grace. I didn't know exactly what had happened. I remember when I was young, hearing Billy Graham preach the gospel, and I remembered him saying the words that I read as I begin, you must be born again. But at that time. I just knew that I believed you see what I'm trying to say is I wasn't seeking for God. I was seeking another God. And God found me. And as I sat there, God opened my eyes. And salvation is not the result of something you do. I think it's dangerous for us to compare experiences. But in my case, you know, I've seen so much of whether it's people going forward or making a decision or praying a prayer or repenting or believe in the gospel. So many people are under the impression that the sinner himself somehow brings about his regeneration. And you see the results all around us. I mean, I became good at getting men to do things for salvation for years because I was trained that way. People pray prayers and join the church and get baptized. But deep down in their hearts, they know that nothing has happened to them. God did not do anything. And that is why so many of these kind of people show no real zeal for God. And many you never see after a day or a week or a month or a year. In order for man to be saved, there first of all has to be regeneration. God must give life. When Jesus said you must be born again, he was not telling Nicodemus to do anything. In fact, he later on said that which is born of the flesh is flesh. And all that the flesh can produce, whether whatever the flesh initiates, whether it is to pray a prayer, or to believe in Christ, or to join a church, or to walk down the aisle. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. Flesh is all that flesh can produce. And if a salvation was not begun by God, with God giving life, the result is flesh. I'm trying to say that Regeneration is a miraculous work of God whereby the Holy Spirit actually imparts life to the sinner who is dead in his sins so that he will be able to repent and believe. Without God giving life, he can only pretend to repent and pretend to believe. It's called giving mental assent to the facts which seem good and beneficial in being sorry in some way for your sins, but the result is not salvation. We have twisted that around in modern days. The result is flesh, religion and damnation. If the result of making decisions and praying prayers is salvation, then we would have to agree that there's some goodness in man after all. But the Scriptures are clear. It says there is none righteous. No, not one. There is none that does good. There's none that seeks after God. There is no goodness in man. He is dead to God, dead in sins, blinded by Satan, blinded by his sin. He can't even understand the gospel. He can't hear God. He can't see. He is dead. God must first give life to the sinner. That's why when somebody is genuinely converted, we praise God and not man. God initiates it. God first raises them from the dead. God gives the gift of faith. God gives the gift of repentance. And God gets all the glory. You can do nothing to save yourself. Just like a drowning man can do nothing to save himself, he must be rescued. But a dead man doesn't even know that he's dead. He's just dead. Now, you can be religious, but dead. And the results of flesh have filled our church and even our nation. And much to our sadness, much of the world, with nothing but flesh. Different types of flesh to be sure. Religious flesh, worldly flesh, bitter flesh, grumbled, discontented flesh, licentious flesh. You're shocked at the world today and the condition of the world. I'm shocked at the church. I'm shocked since the time that I went into Bible school I lost count at the literally hundreds of Christian leaders and evangelists and pastors who have committed unpardonable sins. I'm talking about adultery, child molestation. There's a church within arm's length of this church that I counseled a young lady who was molested by her youth minister for over 10 years. And these people are supposed to be saved. And his testimony is that he walked an aisle and prayed a prayer and he was saved and he was safe. You might say, Brother Bob, you sound as if you think that the main problem in our churches today is that most people aren't saved. No. I do think that in spite of us, God uses his means of grace to save some. And every experience does not have to be the same, but I do fear that many, many will never see the face of God because they've never been awakened from the dead and they never knew the real God. They know a God according to their own minds. Their God is too small. They simply did what some evangelist or preacher told them to do. And they told them and they read That this is what they should do. And so they did this and then preacher told them if they would do this, they would be saved. So they believe that they're saved. And the problem is God's word does not mean what they say that it means. John one verse 12 says, but to all who did receive him who believed on his name, he gave the right to become the children of God who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. In times like these, I was sharing with Scott that I'm afraid that sometimes that. People who are doubting would be shaken by this sort of testimony and and telling of the plain truth, I think that some need to be shaken. I think there are others who who are evidently believers and whose fruit is the fruit of a believer and who truly trust in Christ as as their savior and who have truly repented of their sins. And hey, a real zeal for God. And we need to pray that they just get assurance, which I think assurance has been taken away by easy beliefism today. But I do think that there are a multitude who have been deceived into thinking that because of something they did, they're safe and saved. So we ought to preach the gospel of Christ. It's our responsibility as Christians. It is God, though, that must bring the sinner to life. God must first raise a man from the dead. We can preach the truth persuasively and passionately, but we don't need to manipulate sinners into doing anything. And I know all about that because I was good at it. I could stick my foot in your door because you before you closed it and after you do it over and over and over. I personally witnessed to over two thirds of my shipmates and many of them, many of them said the sinner's prayer. Some of them, they really didn't want to. Just to just to get rid of me, they'd say it or because if that's all you have to do not to go to hell, sure, I'll say why should not say many of them were baptized. There's one. One that I know that right now is serving the Lord as a worship leader up in Connecticut. The vast majority of them turn back to their wallowing in the mire like a dog returns to its vomit. They were simply never born again. They did something. But God did nothing. And if we happen to convince somebody to do something, they're probably going to depend upon that something and then end up in hell. So what do we do? We pour out our hearts to a sovereign God who alone can give life because he alone deserves the credit and the glory and the honor for all that he's done. I didn't know what had happened at that time. All I know is that I was not seeking God. But all of a sudden, I believed in God. I believe that Christ had died on the cross for my sins. God, sitting in that chair in that room, God emptied the room of people, and as I sat there, I seemed to come to life and God seemed to call me to himself. He seemed to say, Bob, it's now or never. There seemed to be a gap between me and God. All I saw was terror and hopelessness behind me in my former life, and God calling me to Himself. I didn't turn around to those in the back room. I simply said to God, if You'll keep me alive, back to my apartment, I'll follow You. And I got up and left. And I never went back. My mind was going a thousand miles an hour as I rode my bike back to the apartment. Death seemed to follow me all the way. When I entered the apartment, I got close to the bed and I just simply fell on my knees and I began crying out to God. I remember crying out about my sins. Oh, my sins, you've only just heard me scratch the surface. They seem to pile up so high. I wrote a song a number of years later, it said, though my sins seem to pile up so high, The grace of God looms beyond the blue sky. I believe that Christ had died for me and I begin confessing my sins, I would name them and call them out to God. My meanness. My fighting, my drugs, my abuse of women, the cursing of God, the list was endless and I felt that I would never finish. And when I ended, I still felt as if I weren't finished. But I got up on my bed and I laid down my head, and God seemed to say, they're all gone. Gone. Gone, gone, gone. And you have me. And I felt I belonged to God. Christ had died for my sins. He was my Savior. He was my Lord. Everything was okay now. I had peace with God and that's what I've been searching for all my life. Peace, peace, wonderful peace flowing down in the depths of my soul. I fell asleep with those thoughts in my mind. The next morning as I woke up, when I went outside, I'm telling you, the sky looked bluer. The birds sang sweeter. It was a new day and I was a new man and I knew that I was done with sin and God had just started with me. I was leaving California that day for Virginia. I had already sent my stuff off and I jumped off, jumped on my bike, a happy man. As I left, I passed Rocky and I stopped by him and I said, guess what? This is the last time I've seen. He said, what? I said, I got saved last night." And he said, get out of here. I said, seriously, God saved me. And off I rode, never to see him again. It seemed as though I rode ten feet off the ground. I sang some of the most beautiful songs that my ears had ever heard, that were given to me from God because I was a new creature. And as a bathing Christ, he just gave me these beautiful... and I just rode along. with that bike rumbling and me just singing out as loud as I could. And cars would just go by and I'd just be singing and tears streaming down my face and bugs hitting me in the face and I didn't care. I was saved. I was a worshipper. You couldn't hear me with the roar of the bike, but it was beautiful to God. He was pleased with what With what he had done? Well, the rest of the journey has been exciting. I went home and I told everybody I knew what happened to me. Many of them didn't believe it. Two weeks prior to this, God had saved my mother. And she had begun to pray for me. And God was so gracious to us. He saved my sister that year, my younger brother in the end of that year in December. He saved my father and we were all baptized together. I went on to Virginia to try to live this new life, but I soon found out I didn't have the strength to do it. I couldn't do it. I mean, I would I would try to do it, you know, as hard as I could. I would labor. And read little tracks and built a dumb theology on these little tracks. And I'd be excited at how many people would just say this prayer if you just told them that's all they had to do. I always enjoyed challenges. I would almost drown one day after a challenge to swim a race across the channel. Matter of fact, there was a couple of times that I thought I was going to die. One was racing my brother. across the lake, and I would continue to box in an intership contest. I would get knocked out twice, and this brought opportunities to talk with these young men. There's something about, I don't know, beating one another over the head for a while, and after you're done, I don't know, it's crazy. Even before I was saved, we would get in fights, and before the night was over, we'd be good talking to each other and drinking a beer. Nowadays, people are supposed to be converted. They get a little bit mad at you and they're your enemies for life. I just find it odd. But I would get to the heart of a matter with people and I mean, I don't suggest you try it. I was never good enough to advance to any of the Golden Gloves competitions. But I did very good at my job in the Navy, trying to maintain testimony. I would eventually be awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal for sustained professional achievement. I don't even know what they're talking about. I mean, I think they wanted me to come back and relive. So they sent me this, oh, you were so great. Please come back. And I never saw it. And all that I did, by the grace of God, I did what I did. It didn't seem like a burden to perform my duties well, to work out, minister. It seemed natural, and that's what I like to do. After a couple of tours of the Mediterranean, we would print tracts in other languages and preach on the street in Italy and Spain, and my ship would pull into New York City for some repair work. And I heard about a church in Brooklyn, so one... I'm sorry, God, this is so good to me, I can't stand it. So somewhere, I visited that church, and between the time I walked in the door and the time I was sitting in the pew, I saw this angelic figure walk into the pulpit and sing about the love of God. And I was thunderstruck. I wanted to go out with this girl, so I asked the pastor, and he granted my request, except we had to take the school principal out with us. And I wasn't used to that, and all night long, I tried to hold her hand. But she refused because that was not that was not allowed. But she agreed to go because she said that when I walked in the door, she knew that that was the man she wanted to marry. She had a beautiful little girl named Tamika, which she had born when she was 15. And God has given us three more wonderful children, all of whom love the Lord today. It's not always been easy for any of us, either of us, we were made for each other by God and God has used each other to shape one another's life. And God has been very gracious. She's been my faithful wife in the ministry for over 28 years. Actually, she was saved after being a pastor's wife for nine years because she had prayed a little prayer and she just knew that she didn't have assurance and one day We went to a meeting down in Kentucky and she was. It's a long story. That's her testimony. She began seeking God and asked me if she was saved. And I would tell I can't tell you were saved. And she said, well, I pray this prayer and everything. I said, I just I can't tell you. But one day God saved her. We were at a meeting down in Kentucky and God opened her eyes and. Then what a shouting time we had that day. It was funny that we went back to the church and the deacons were upset. because they didn't think they should have a pastor whose wife had just recently gotten saved. This is the first time that somebody got saved and the deacons are mad about it. I couldn't figure it out. But like Brother Scott says, people are crazy. Not in the church, other people. But I labored under the burden of legalism for years. trying to get men to conform to Christ who had never been converted. I was well-trained in Bible college to get men to perform. In fact, I jumped on the treadmill of a performance-based relationship with Jesus where I stayed for years. If I worked hard, did all the right things, did well in ministry, had converts, read my Bible, did not sin as much, prayed, if I worked hard, I would feel good about my relationship with God. If not, I felt bad. It was a performance based relationship, a feelings based relationship with Jesus. One day, God revealed to me that my relationship with him was based on Jesus and not on my performance. It was based on his performance 2000 years ago, and I began trusting in his finished work for my joy. I felt like I knew Pilgrim and pilgrims progress when the burden roll off for a second time. After having been saved and I begin to take on the burden of legalism. And I kind of have to fast forward because of time now, but I begin to preach the grace of God in Christ and people didn't like it. And I resented people who became my enemies for me preaching the truth, and this went on for years. As I begin to learn more and more, and I went from the cage stage, knowing grace and being so excited about grace to wanting to be patient with the people, I was stuck in fundamental Baptist circles preaching a grace that was largely not wanted. And it was frustrating. And it was sometime in there that I just I quit the ministry, at least in my mind, I had had enough. It's kind of like the old boy who woke up one morning and his mom was telling him to go to church. And he said, I don't want to go to church. He said, I don't feel like it. I don't like those people. They don't like me. And he's like, son, you're 40 years old and you're the pastor. You've got to go to church. I always did like that story. But in my mind, I told God I was going to be totally and absolutely honest with him about me. I was going to do whatever he wanted me to do, whether it was ministry or not. And I kind of always thrive on being a bivocational pastor. I don't mind working outside the church. As a matter of fact, I kind of like the mixture. But I've never been one to settle down and take an easy ride. You can ask my wife. She always gets nervous. You know, I feel maybe I haven't been preaching the truth or maybe I've been getting cold on God. But through the years, God moved me from ministry to ministry, and I always felt bad because it seemed like the person who needed the most work and the person that God worked on the most when I left was me. I said, Lord, that's not right to put all them churches through that just to teach me. Am I so bad that you need a whole church to grind and shape and torment and test? I mean, it's got to be like a desert, like the Apostle Paul or something. It seemed like God said, it was a desert. It was the first Baptist desert church of such and such, and first Baptist, there's just no life there. Frustrating. And so eventually I resigned here and there, and I resigned with my last church, having really understood what God had done in my life and what the truth was. And I said, well, that's it, you know. And faith didn't want to go anywhere else. I was looking on the Internet one time, and I signed up for a place called Founders Ministries. And I looked at Founders, I looked down the list, and there's a guy called S. Scott Lee at Rockport Baptist Church. And I found out about Scott and Aaron, and I came up here and visited, and I said, I don't want to go there, they're weird. And Scott looked at me like, who are you? I was just visiting, and he was like, what do you want? What kind of a pastor is that? I want to come to church. So finally, I did come and I heard Scott preach and I said, well, that's the same thing, I believe. I believe we'll just start going there. And, you know, the rest of the story. We've been here causing trouble for the last four years. Recently, our last son left the house and we've been empty nesters for over a year. Brother, again, I appreciate the elders allowing me this opportunity. And so I'll tell you all about it when I'm back in January. So let's pray. Lord God, I just thank you for our church. Lord, what a precious family we have, and we're going to enjoy fellowship all day. Lord, I want to pour out my heart for my brother John and sister Joyce. God, I'm excited for them. I'm excited for what you're doing in your life, and Lord, they've been such a sweet fragrance in the midst of our fellowship. There's been such an aroma of service and love for the brethren, and we pray that the grace of God in Christ would just richly be poured upon them. You would supply every need according to your riches in glory by Christ Jesus, in whose name we pray.