Faith's Hall of Fame

I celebrate your abundant goodness

Good morning, church family. How are you this morning? You guys look good. Hey, listen, if you didn’t already know, this morning kicks off the first day of community. We are celebrating our 45th birthday as a church. Yes. So I just want to share some scripture with you this morning from the book of Psalms. And we’re gonna do this this morning. We’re gonna do what this scripture says. It says, I celebrate your abundant goodness. I’m overflowing with praise for all you’ve done. I jump for joy and burst forth with ecstatic, passionate praise. I will sing songs of what you’ve done for me this morning as we celebrate God. Sorry, my voice is going. As we celebrate God, hey, don’t be quiet. Don’t be reserved. Go home back. You are going to celebrate with ecstatic, passionate praise, and thank God for all that he’s done for you. Are you ready? Let’s go!

Your faithfulness is a reflection of Jesus

Church, happy birthday. Forty five years ago, today. And to be going strong. To be moving forward with our best face in front of us. It’s worth celebrating in every way. And we are so glad you’re here. And if this is your first time here, we are so glad you’re here. And you picked a really good Sunday to come. Because we have so much to celebrate. We have so much that we want to honor. But we are a church who loves God. And you are welcome here, and we want you to know that part of our history. That we love God and we want you to love him the way we all do. And so, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. We hope you feel welcome. And if you didn’t on your way in, on your way out, there’s a tent that says new here, and we would just love to get to know you. We just want to learn your name, maybe answer some questions you have, but we have a gift for you also. But we are just so glad you’re here. We hope you feel at home here. And we hope you’ll celebrate along with us this morning. Church, can you welcome our guests one more time? Can you all take your seats as we receive our tithes and offerings?

You know, I don’t think it’ll come as a surprise to many of you, but I’ve been raised in this church. For those of you that don’t know, Pastor Marshall and Cindy are my parents, and so this is the only church I’ve ever known. But can I tell you what a privilege that is? It’s a privilege that I get to look out week in and week out and see people that I’ve known from the time that I can remember. Some of them remember me before I can remember them. And that’s a privilege. And I’m just so grateful that that’s the history that I have. But what I think some of you may not realize is that you all have been an example to me of faithfulness. You have been that example for me.

And you know, this weekend we went to the mall. I wanted a soft pretzel for my birthday, so we had to go to the mall. But we were sitting there and we were eating it, and how many of you like people watching? I love people watching. I think it’s really fun. And the mall, it’s a really good place for it. There’s a lot passing by. But it got me thinking, you know, we people watch all over the place all the time, and we just wonder about these people, who they are, what their story is, and we’ll probably never know that. But here, I people watch. I watch you, just so you know, not in a creepy way, but I’m watching. I’m watching. I love people watching. But for many of you, when I notice when you’re here, I notice when you’re not here. And I do wonder sometimes about your story. And I think a lot of times we come in, we come out, we do all those things, and we think nobody notices. But we notice. We do notice you’re an important part here. And so, even though we may not always talk, even though we may not always say hello to each other, just know you’re noticed, and that people do see you when you come in and out.

And you know, when you walked in today out in our foyer, we’ve got a bunch of stuff set up. And if you’re new here, you have no idea what all that stuff is, and if you’ve been here a long time, you remembered a lot of it. But this over the last few weeks, our church staff has dug into the archives of this house. We have dug deep and checked every corner that we could to find pieces of our church history. And I was reminded of so many wonderful things, so many beautiful things, sad things. But one thing that struck me going through photos and things like that is how many of your faces are in those photos. So many faces that have been faithful for decades. For decades and decades. And it struck me that our faithfulness, sometimes we think it’s boring. We think it’s monotonous. Coming to church, giving, doing all of those things. But do you know that your faithfulness is a reflection of Jesus? He is faithful to us. He has been, he currently is, and he continues to be in the future. And when we walk with God for decades, for decades, we are actually a reflection, maybe one of the best reflections of Christ Himself. Because He is always faithful to us.

You know, a church doesn’t last 45 years because of the pastors, because of the building, because of all the great things that we get to do in technology. A church lasts 45 years because of Jesus. Because we introduce people to Jesus. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we will continue to be here. But you continuing to be here faithfully, week in, week out, year after year, is actually a part of that legacy. It’s a part of the legacy because it shows that your relationship with God is so strong that even when people miss the mark, you know the reason you are here being the church is not because of people, but it’s because of the Father. And so never lose sight of the fact that your faithfulness is truly a reflection of Jesus.

Like I said, I’ve watched many of you show up week after week, year after year, some of you decade after decade. I’ve watched you serve when it really wasn’t convenient for you. You sacrifice something. I’ve watched you give. And I know that it wasn’t always easy. That sometimes it was tight, but you were faithful in it. I’ve watched many of you choose to worship when I’ve known how hard it is for you to truly surrender what’s going on in your life and worship the Father. And I have just witnessed it for my entire life. And so my encouragement this morning for you is don’t discount the showing up. Don’t discount the giving. Don’t think that it’s not seen because it is. It’s seen by people in this building, but it’s seen by God. Your faithfulness will probably be one of your greatest witnesses. For people to know that Jesus is a part of your life. Because you do it every day, every week, every month, and every year. People will notice that something is different because you follow God faithfully. So your faithfulness matters, your consistency matters, your giving matters, and your choice to show up every week truly matters. And so I want to say a thank you for being that. And let’s continue to be that for years and years to come so that the generations coming up get to see the God who is faithful, who is true, and who is never changing. Can we do that, church?

Father, we just come before you and we thank you for your faithfulness. We just thank you for your faithfulness to us. And help us keep that so rooted inside of us, deep down, that we become a reflection to the world of your faithfulness. Let us never discount it. Let us never forget how good, how truly good you have been to us. And Father, this morning, as we give, we know it matters. We know it matters to you because we are being obedient and showing you how grateful we are that we know you will be faithful to take care of us. And so this morning, we just lay it down at your feet. We thank you, God, for your faithfulness now and for your faithfulness to come. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Do not despise these small beginnings

What a great journey it has been to date. Whether you’ve been here for a week or you’ve been here for four decades, like some of you have been with us. Someone once said to me that success is not a destination, but it’s a journey. And so we’re always pointing ourselves forward and expecting as believers for God to be leading us to a new place, and that place is always a higher place. And it’s a place of greater fullness. And so as we celebrate some of what we have experienced, we again we continue to look forward to what God will do. We, you know, it’s one of those unique situations where the church was begun 45 years ago on September the 7th on a Sunday morning, and that’s where we’re getting to celebrate that unique place today. But we started off, you know, there’s a verse that we just love from Zechariah 4. Verse 10 from the New Living Translation. It says,

Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.

And I know on that first Sunday, I can still see a picture in my head that we pull up to the American Savings and Loan Building, a borrowed building loan to us. Can you imagine a bank let us meet for free in their basement? Yeah. And we pull out of the van, an amplifier and the piece on top, and Hannah is two years old, and she sits on top of that while we wheel that your guitar and every piece of equipment we had in, which was a guitar and a tape recorder. A tape recorder. Auto reverse tape recorder. Auto reverse. It was big, it was big, it was a big deal. Big technology junk. Yeah, you know, we again this was brand new to us. We had no intention when we came to Albuquerque. We visited Albuquerque for the first time in 1976, just one year short of it being 50 years now. And then we moved here in 1977. We the church we thought we would join up with a new upstart church. They were meeting in the basement of a chiropractic clinic on Manal and Wantabo, that area. And we had a week’s meeting with them. It was on the way back. We we felt impressed that we had already sensed a change of direction that this was likely it. So we began to make plans to pray more and just look to what it would cost and cost our lives to move from West Texas to Albuquerque. And we decided it was the will of God. We came when we got here, that group had suffered a three-way split. With 25 people that are going to be able to do that. With 25 people. That’s pretty thin. Thin slices. But they were no longer meeting together. And so, you know, we we thought, well, briefly we did think, did we make a mistake? But each time we prayed about it, we really felt as though that God had ordered our steps to the city. So we just, you know, we dug in and began to pray that much more. Some doors began to open to us. And in 1979-ish, we began to sense that God wanted us to start pioneer a new church work. And again, that was not in our history, so all of this was going to take be a step of faith for us. I’m glad we took it. And I really am glad we took it, of course.

But there were so many obstacles in our way, and so many things that we just had to overcome by personal faith in God, and we didn’t have a place to meet, and again, this door opened to us, and the bank was offered to us free of charge, which was the only way it was gonna happen, it was the only way it was gonna happen, and so we the basement is where we the space was that we were given, and it would seat about 70 people, and there were elevators down to that floor and stairwells down to that floor, and it was me, my guitar, leading worship for a while, and and then I would teach and I would receive the offering. You weren’t even doing that then, were you? No, we had we had a baby. Well, thanks for all the help. You see, you still weren’t sure women could speak in church. Well, that’s right. That’s not true. I figured, well, you speak all the time anyway, so you’re bound to be able to speak in church. Be nice. You started it.

So anyway, September 7th, we’re meeting, and just Spirit of God is so precious. And we’re just caught up in worship. And I happened just to glance up during worship, and literally not only was were those 70 seats filled that first week, but people were sitting on the stairs up to the first floor, and they couldn’t do anything but hear, they couldn’t see anything, but they could hear what was going on and they wanted to be a part of it. And how encouraging was that? And so we continued to meet there in the basement for some time. Really we needed a new space right away. We again found favor with a man who was not a Christian man, but he had properties that he owned, storefront properties in the city, and so we moved to Fidelity Square at Candelleria in Wyoming. We were there for a little while, outgrew it. He had another property that would seat four or five hundred chairs, people. Maybe maybe, maybe three hundred. Maybe three hundred. Three hundred. And we weren’t in there very long until every seat was filled, and people would stand up for the entire service along the walls. And again, we’re just encouraged with what we’re experiencing, what we’re seeing in the people. There was such an incredible hunger.

That’s what I was going to say. When we first came here, we really had come out of the tail end of the Jesus movement, and had seen that kind of hunger and desire for God and to know God and to and for his word to understand the word of God, the Bible. We had grown up in church, but didn’t know hardly anything of the Bible, and there was so much hunger. And then when we came here, we saw that same desire for God and hunger for God and worship, just just worshiping God from people that were total strangers to us. It was all that hunger and desire for God that we know He put it within us, and what He did then, He still does. He still does that, and that’s what I think of with that verse that don’t despise your small beginnings. It was so small. You can’t we can’t even describe it to you how how small it is. We weren’t living from paycheck to paycheck, we were living from dying to dying. It everything was just small, but with great faith in God, and that’s what people we the people we were meeting with also had. And it’s still, you know, God still does that today.

They had such a desire to be taught, yes, you know, they very few would come without something to write with, something to write on. Big old Bible. Big old Bibles. Still remember the face of Terry. She found her way, God had changed her life. We met her in a restaurant in town, I think it was the Pelican restaurant at the time, and she was single, I believe, or newly married, but was really struggling to get her life back on track. And she waited our table and we got to know her and invited her to church. She ended up on the front row. You know, how hard is that for a newcomer to just come and plant themselves on the front row, and that’s what she did. But Terry would she just was so engaged. I still see her face, and she would lean forward and with her notebook and something to write with, and just would shake her head and yes, and then close her eyes, and just she’s very very grateful for what she was hearing. It was just a really special time. Do I believe that the Lord had brought her out of a completely drug-addicted, all kinds of crazy stuff, lifestyle? Her life was totally changed by God. And since then, she’s she’s continues to be a firehouse for God and pulls people in towards God. And that’s how the church grew, honestly, is those 70 people that first Sunday, their lives were changing. They were being changed by the word of God. You know, Acts chapter 19, it says the word of God grew mightily and prevailed. And that honestly is what we were witnesses to. We were seeing it happen in our own lives, but in the lives of other people. And then of course they would go home and tell their family and their friends and bring them, and that’s really how the church grew.

Well, and if you want to know, if you really want to dig in to what the greatest church growth strategy is in all the world, it’s tell someone what Jesus has done for you. That’s right. You know, we didn’t have the money to do billboards or you remember when there were phone books and we had a phone book ad and phone. Yes, yes, and because we were believer center, we were in the bees. And so what that meant is we got every call from every person in the city needing financial assistance. First, yes. Little did they know there was no financial assistance. But that’s how the church grew, and that’s you know, can I lean on you a little bit? That’s how it’s gonna grow again. You know, we’ve got all this technology, but really it’s just so oversaturated. We’ll use it and we’ll benefit some from it. But people want to see that Jesus is real and know that he’s real, and they do that when they they watch how you live. They’re listening to what you say. You profess to be a Christian. That that’s going to double us, that’s going to triple us. That’s what’s going to again cause us to multiply campuses if we needed to do that in the future, etc.

But anyway, it was a wonderful time. We ended up at 4800 loneless for a number of years, went into multiple services there, had great success, ended up buying that property and buying the 16 acres that we’re on this morning. All of that, thank thank God for you and people like you through the year, all of that was paid for before we even had to borrow a dime to build the building. All those properties were paid for. And then we paid off everything here early. So we’ve been without debt, without a mortgage for years and years and years because of good stewardship and a wonderful board of directors who helped us know where to put our money and what the best way was to spend it. Louise Cox was huge. She was with us in a Bible study before we started the church. She’s here this morning celebrating with us. She was my first assistant, really the first voice that you heard on the the phone when you call Believers Center in those really early, early from the phone book. From the phone book, yeah. Early in those days. So yeah.

He shall be like a tree, firmly planted

So, you know, so so God began to to sort of cement some things into helping us shape our life and our mission, the mission of the church. And some of those verses of scripture came from Psalm 1, the Amplified Bible in particular. I wrote a worship song using those words. We used to sing that almost every worship service, but it also was responsible. Early days, our logo was a growing tree. And some people wondered why we didn’t have a cross and we had a tree. I still get mad when I think about that. Those people asking me that. Should I get over it by now? Yeah. You should let that go. 45 years is long enough holding on to. I mean, because the cross was a tree. But Psalm 1 was what really impacted us, and that had to do with people growing, really growing in God, and preferring God over everybody else and everything else. Do we have those verses on the screen? They’re gonna come. Do you want me to read them? Would you? That’d be awesome. Psalm 1 through 3, amplified, it says,

blessed, happy, fortunate, prosperous, and enviable is the man who walks and lives not in the counsel of the ungodly, following their advice, their plans, and their purposes, nor stands submissive and inactive in the path where sinners walk, nor sits down to relax and rest for the scornful and the mockers gather. But his delight and desire are in the law of the Lord, and on his law, the precepts, the instructions, the teachings of God. And he shall be like a tree, firmly planted and tended by the streams of water, ready to bring forth its fruit in its season. Its leaf also shall not fade or wither, and everything he does shall prosper and come to maturity.

Amen. That’s was and still is at the heart of who we are and our our mission again. There God has gifted us with people who lead us, have led us, lead us today into wonderful places of worship. Let’s thank God right now for those people that you better. They’re just they’re they’re a treasure. And again, the majority of them are giving their time and volunteering their talents and gifts. They worship God with them, they help us worship God. Worship has been a huge part of who we are for all these decades and what we plan to to be.

But God’s word, God’s word became a lie to us at some place in our Christian walk. Like probably many of you as raised up in church culture where you know the word was was preached, but that was about it. We’d open our Bibles and close it. There wasn’t a whole lot of expounding on it or teaching on it. It was more fiery preaching, it was more evangelistic in nature, and still thank God for that. Don’t misunderstand me, but there wasn’t a culture of growth built. And so when Cindy and I felt the call of God on our life, both of us felt called to teach, primarily to teach, and we were teaching before we were pastoring. And so again, it remains strong in the culture that has been built. And as we as much as we see that going forward, David and Jordan both are incredible communicators of this the scripture. I know you agree with that. Do more than nod your head. They’re just really, you know, they come on. They really pay the price. They pay the price. They take they they they use their time, steward their time in such a way that they have something of real value to give to you when it’s their time. Of course, we’ve been blessed with a great teaching team anyway. People like Shirley and Gail contribute as well. And they’re just come on. And they really just phenomenal stuff. And and you know, the word is we view it again as not just a sermon or sermon material. The scripture is not just for sermon material. It has God’s voice print on it. It’s God breathed. We want him to deliver it through us that way, alive and helpful to you, and with power, God works us over his word to performance. So don’t ever anticipate or ask us to practice anything that’s outside the parameters of what we now know as to be God’s God’s word. We just won’t go there with you. We can’t with conscience go to practicing something that’s outside the scripture. So it became a big part of our life. It still is.

You have a quote from Charles. He recently, Pastor Charles Neiman, our pastor, he recently taught on that. And it’s it’s Charles was teaching from Psalm 1, the verses we just read, and he made the statement. He said, Blessed is the man, describe someone who is spiritually stable, emotionally steady, directed and aligned with God’s work. Being blessed is not only about having God’s good fortune, it’s about a life that is anchored in truth and moving forward in God’s purpose and moving forward.

We’ve talked about it, we talk about it all the time. Every September we bring this back up because what we discovered from the scripture, which is still powerful, still active, still alive. It doesn’t need a revision. It’s full of the life of God. And that word is what keeps us all on our feet and moving forward in life. And so we learn things from the past. We are applying those in the present, but we’re looking forward to what that is always bringing to fruit in our lives in the future. And we’ve always tried to live that way and to help others live that way with that expectation, faith towards God. And we’ve witnessed the faithfulness of God. And you’ve always said that that you said that on that first Sunday, everything was in the future. Absolutely everything that we were trusting God for and believing God for was in the future. And there’s still much in the future. God’s word comes alive in every generation. That’s his desire, that it gets passed to every generation, but it’s alive and it’s powerful and it’s effective and it’s still working in every generation. And that’s still his plan. And it and it bursts his word brings us to play places and points of faith. And that’s what we found ourselves being led towards by God, and then trying to lead others into those same places. Is lamp’s a word? It’s a lamp unto our feet. Yes. A light unto our path. You never cut back where God’s word is concerned. I can remember praying this, still do, that we will get to pastor people who absolutely love the sound of God’s voice. They love it and they cry for it, they call out for it. And we’re still growing into that area. Amen.

Faith’s Hall of Fame

And again, one of the great things we’ve we’ve gotten to enjoy over the years, Cindy, is getting to do life with people who we think their names should be recorded in the hall of faith. Hebrews 11 talks about all of these people who believed God, trusted God, Moses, Abraham, Sarah. The list goes on and on and on. And we feel like that we have gotten to do life. And many of you are in this room. Some of you, some have moved on, and some are in heaven right now. But many of you are in this room with us today. We couldn’t be more excited for what God has done in your life and what he is going to do yet to do in your life as as well. Yes.

You know, I again we could go on and on and on, but let’s go on some and talk about that. We I encourage you to read Hebrews chapter 11, the whole chapter, it’s Faith’s Hall of Fame, and we believe God is still writing that. We believe that we have this in the Holy Scripture, but in heaven there’s still a record being kept of all those men and women who have trusted in God. And Hebrews 11 6 became a foundation scripture for us for many, many years, still is. It says,

but without faith, it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to him. For whoever would come near to God must necessarily believe that God exists and that he is a rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek him out.

And so in 45 years, we’ve seen a lot of people come to trust in God. We’ve seen God do miraculous things because they expected.

Yeah, just looking at here at Officer Jesse. We’re not going to take the time to call a lot of names, but you know, the guy is he’s grown up really in the church here. He used to work for us on staff. I think he really wanted to be on the road playing his music. He’s an incredible and and he was. And he was for a while, yeah. Not just drums as he played this morning, incredible guitarist. What else do you play? You play that’s pretty much it. All you take credit for. And here he is serving our city as a in law enforcement. Wow. What a great and great, great story. And God bless you, Jesse, for staying faithful. And Christine, of course, grew up with Geordie, and here you are sitting behind her today and kind of been best buddies for forever. And it’s just these are just great stories that we’ve gotten to be a part of.

And I’m looking at, in fact, just I think it was not, it could have been last week or week before. A young man shows up, young man, he’s a little younger than me, young man, very young man. But he shows up. I haven’t seen him in forever. He shows up and we’re embracing. He used to be our drummer for years on platform. His dad was actually my one of our first board members at Believers Center and was a mechanic in the city, and we we just came together around God and his word and served God together for the longest of time until he and his wife moved out of town. But his son played drums, and I can remember being in a church service over on Lomas, and we either got word or it was after the fact. Help me with that. Was he there testifying to it or had it just happened? It just happened. He was down at Elephant Butte, they were in a boat, down boat enjoying a boat, skiing, doing stuff, and somehow he was in the water. I don’t know if he fell in the water, he was just in the water. He was skiing and he got tangled up in the skin. That’s right. Yeah. And the motor started, and it cut deep into his thigh. And it was very, very serious, and he began to lose just a ton of blood. And it just so happened that another family from our our church that we’re very close to had a place down there. Had a mobile home at Elephant Butte Lake. They happened to be there that weekend with them. And they were able to reach out and get their help and help came and and Keith’s life was was spared because of the connection, the divine connection that was made in church. You know, you can say all day long if you want to, that that kind of stuff is just circumstantial, but I’m sorry. And there’s so much that happens that again they look small or look sort of circumstantial or this, but God has seen a need before it it before a supply was needed, and he went out beforehand, and he made the supply, and then the connection needed to be made. Some of you, a lot of you are shaking your head, yes, you know what I’m talking about. It’s happened to you perhaps in coming to this church, church too, pre-special.

I think we’ve we’ve talked about this for the last few days. We just wanted to share stories of faith from Faith’s Hall of Fame at Believer Center, but to we’re trying to not use people’s names because we don’t want anybody to feel left out, and we also don’t want to share a story that we don’t have permission to share. But I think I I have a list of things just running through my mind. Even last Sunday at baptism, beautiful lady, she’s been here with us for a very long time through different moves and all of that, which takes faith for people to keep moving with you through different places in the city. And she turned to me and she said, I was baptized in this church 39 years ago this year in someone’s swimming pool. She said, I don’t even remember whose pool it was, but I was baptized. She shared a little bit, reminded me of her story, how she came to be with us, and she said, Here it is 39 years later, and God is still good, and it just keeps getting better. Amen.

You know, we learned, we we came together, we were such a great variety of people, different kinds of people, different ages, different ethnic backgrounds, different educational backgrounds. But it was God that just in his word, love for God and a hunger. I just we can’t emphasize that enough. John Tyson, a pastor in New York City, he just recently coined this phrase, and I so love it. He says, God goes where he’s wanted, God comes where he’s wanted. And when you get hungry for God, God’s showing up. He’s here all the time, but he’s showing up when we’re really hungry for him. And we’ve witnessed that in the lives of so many people over the years.

We saw people whose marriages were falling apart, and because of infidelity and all just it seemed to be broken in a place that was impossible to be repaired, and yet they came to the Lord, God began to heal things within them. Repentance began to happen, marriages got put back together. I still see this one family, and there that had been their story. It looked like death of a marriage, death of a family. The family got put back together and they began to advance and to begin to follow after God hard, seek his word. They became givers and serving in the church. They got promoted in their jobs. They were able to buy their first home. They were so excited because it was something that seemed out of reach. And yet God brought it within their reach. And then a years later, they came back and showed us the deed and said, We paid off our house because of the faithfulness of God.

We’re just seeing it in so many different ways. I remember distinctly this this happened when we were on Lomas, our nursery director at the time. I don’t know how this happened, but she came across a new family, new parents with a new baby. The baby was born with extremely severe, debilitating health issues. Part of their intestines were born when this baby girl was born on the outside of her body. And in that day in time, the medical system and care was not even as advanced as it is today. But our nursery director, she said, we’re going to pray for your baby. We’re going to ask God to do a miracle. We’re going to ask God to give her life when it seems that nothing but death can happen. And we I want you to know that we’re praying. That young couple, they came to the church. We prayed over them. They continued to take care. They had to take shifts taking care of that baby. Somebody had to be awake, watching over that baby girl all the time. Eventually, she began to thrive. She began to she got strong enough that surgery could happen. They did multiple surgeries. Today that baby girl is a grown, healthy young woman. Yes, she is. And he was an incredible point guard basketball player. So we got to get him on the church team, too. Yeah, that was really the whole thing, right?

That does happen. You know, friendships are born. We we meet people that we would have never met. We would have never known one another. We would have never become friends with one another. We would have never learned how to stand in faith one with another had it not been for God. It’s Jesus that’s the common denominator, not our age or our ethnicity or our political background, God forbid, or any of that. But it’s Jesus that that brings us together. And and I think Marshall and I just want you to know that what God has done in the past, what you read in your Bibles and what you hear this morning, He’s still doing. He’s still doing it. He’s still doing.

But it did happen. There was a morning in the nursery that a woman working in the nursery. You know, we have all kinds of policies and procedures to follow that parents want because we want parents, we’ve always wanted our parents to know that your babies and your children they’re safe in our care. We care about your kids like they’ve always held to that standard. And so, you know, don’t put anything on a baby that the parent didn’t bring. But that morning, the person in the nursery told Gail after she said, I just was changing this baby’s diaper, and I just was so impressed to rub this cream on the baby’s legs, and Gail comes after church. He’s like, I’m so sorry to tell you this, but blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, well, let’s just pray that there’s no allergy, and we’ll talk to the parents later. Well, that afternoon, the parents called Gail that evening and said, after church, they went somewhere. I don’t know how this happened, but somehow boiling hot liquid got poured over that baby’s legs. And because that cream had been put on that baby’s legs, it rolled right off. Not one burn on that baby’s leg.

Just story after story. Can I keep going? You have some. Okay. Well, I know we’re gonna run out of time, and I just we’re gonna run out of time. I I there’s a gentleman that was with us, he was with us for decades, and he’s in heaven now. But he would he would tell share little bits of his story with me through the years, and he would he told me this that as a younger man that he he blew up his family. He said, I was an alcoholic, I blew my family apart. We divorced, my I had no relationship with my children at all. It was all my fault. I did it, it was all on me. But he his children grew up without him in their lives, and then he got born again, got delivered from alcohol, became a great, great husband of another woman. And but his prayer, he would tell me every Father’s Day, my prayer is that there will be some measure of restoration with my children who are now grown-ups. He said, I don’t deserve it, I know it, it. It was all my fault, but God is good. And so that was his prayer. And before he went to heaven, that prayer was answered. And there was restoration with that family.

There’s God is God cares about his people. We are the called out people of God. Amen. We’re called by His name. Doesn’t make us any better than anybody else. It makes us more grateful than anybody else. That we are called by His name. We can’t just live like we don’t have a Father God that cares about us. Or family. Or family. Or family. Happened because people of faith pulled together. Yeah. Yes. That we were, you know, there was no hesitation to reach out and ask for help that we felt like we belonged, that we had a place, you know, and none of us are perfect, but but we could all pull together and love each other. That you gotta know. I mean, just on that point alone, why Satan fights us so hard to keep us at it at one another instead of pulling together with the help of God’s Spirit, because so many of the miraculous things answers to prayer happen as we as we connect, you know.

We got a phone call, 28-year-old young woman, serious, serious issues pretty much throughout her life, but they’d gotten really bad. Heart, lung issues connected. She needed help. She needed a special surgery, and arrangements were were made to get her out to San Diego. One of the few places this particular type of surgery was being performed. And she had made a special request, just a quiet kind of request that we, you know, sometimes we just breathe these things out to God. It’s a desire of the heart, but God says that if we delight ourselves in Him, He will do what? He will give us the desires of our heart. So even if other people don’t hear those little prayers we breathe sometime, God does. And she had just breathed this prayer. She wished that Marshall and Cindy, her pastors, could be with her out in San Diego. And we had just come back from a weeks-long meeting up in the Northwest, you know, had been gone all week, needed to be back, you know, to pick up things here. And that request came into our office on Monday, and we just thought, oh my, how are we going to do this? And then we didn’t think long about it. You know, family, dear, dear, dear, dear friends. This young woman, Satan robbing her of life and trying to cut her life short, and her request was that we join. Well, guess what happened? We got an invitation from a major corporation in town where mom was working at. So all arrangements were made for us to travel out to San Diego. We had great times of prayer together and waiting together as she went into surgery and then came out of surgery. Thanks be unto God. She is doing so good today. She’s doing she’s alive, she’s well. God just does great things.

God sets the members in the body as it pleases him

And then as we as we conclude, let me just quickly just say beyond these campus and beyond the families here. You know, we were just with some of our pastor friends up in Gunnison, Colorado. And I reread his, we did a 25-year celebration book. He had four-year. And he had signed it with his wife. And they talked about how they first came in 1981. The church was one year old, how they just came to church, and how he just didn’t realize when he came to church what church life could be like. Kind of a loner in his faith. Maybe you you are, maybe you’ve been that way. But he was, and you know, wasn’t sure that organized religion could do anything for him. And but he was so impacted by the church service that Sunday morning that he started just coming back, and he kept coming back, and he kept coming back. And his wife was a worshiper, worshipper and a musician, and so they just fit right in. He ended up coming to work for us as well, spent a few years with us, ended up running our Bible college when we had it. And then God moved on their heart to move to Gunnison, Colorado, and to plant a church there, and it’s very hard to do a church in Gunnison, Colorado. It’s such a transitory college town, people coming and going all the time. It’s hard to build something. But we were with them just as it would be. We were visiting your sister and her husband up in Ridgway and decided to just drop in and see John and Karen while they invited us to speak on Sunday morning. We did that, had a great service with them, but we were reminded while we were with them that they are celebrating next year, 30 years of having church in Gunnison, Colorado. We were part of that. We planted that seed, we planted them, we supported them, we stayed with them, and God is so good.

And then what’s happened, and I’ll stop and out from the congregation. Many of you have heard us mention Romania, but you never met the people like we have from Romania. They’re still our friends, we’re still in touch with them. We helped them establish over a hundred what we call free churches because they were under communist rule, and even the church was controlled by communist governments. And uh, you know, to even approach a public profession of Christianity, you put your life on the line. They lived in that kind of culture. And then the revolution came there, and we stepped in the year after that. Believer Center did. God made divine connections with a man by the name of Daniel Mate. And he had been here, escaped all of that, had been here in the United States, gained his citizenship here, had his own construction business, was in Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, when Pastor Osteen Sr. was alive and building the church. And God called him back to Romania to open these free churches and to pioneer them. And of all things, God opened a door for me to sit at his feet on a footstool and share with him that we were there to help him. God had put it on us our hardest to serve him, and he just wept. He wept. This great man of God wept. When he said, I’ve got to go talk to my wife, which shows how wise he was. And so he talked to his wife, and Doyna is her name, and she said to him, She said, I’ve got to meet this man. He’s come from the West, not demanding anything, but coming to give and to help. I’ve got to meet this man face to face. So she we got together that night. Long story short, we’ve had a lifelong, decades-long relationship with them. We still support them, the church family. We still support them. They support many of these pastors in these churches that can’t pay them a salary, but we take care of them. We take care of them.

And so the list goes on and on of people that need to be in this hall of faith, fame. And we’re thankful for you, every single one of you this morning, as we bring to close our part today. I want to share this last story because it happened during conference, which we’re kicking off this morning. This happened decades back. We also, on 9-11, when 9-11 happened, we were in conference, and the church gathered together, banded together that night just after the horrific things that occurred in New York, and went into prayer immediately for our nation and for those that we hoped would yet be survivors. So many things happen week to week. But even as Pastor Marshall said at the beginning, something spiritually, some spiritual momentum is gained in all of our lives when we make this point to put string together three days in a row, gathering with his church, coming into worship, coming with an expectant heart for what God will do. And this is something that happened years back during conference. Mario Morillo was ministering on this night. This young family was expecting their expecting a baby, and the baby was diagnosed, still yet unborn, with kidney issues. The ultrasound showed only one kidney, and that kidney was in trouble. They immediately put mom on medication and monitoring, and at Believers Center conference that fall, he mom was prayed for, the baby was prayed for, and he was six months in unero. The next scheduled ultrasound revealed two kidneys. At his one-year visit, a test showed two full, functioning, healthy kidneys. Thank you. Glory to God. All glory to God.

I just think the last verse that we had to share with you this morning was from 1 Corinthians chapter 12. It’s verse 18. It says this,

that God sets the members in the body as it pleases him.

We’ve kind of been raised to make up our own minds and find our own way and find our own place based on our preferences. But really, it’s when we follow the leading of God Himself and band ourselves together with the church that Jesus is building that miraculous things begin to occur, yes, in our own lives personally, but also in the cities that he is setting his people in and in the places all around the world.

So let’s pray. We’re going to stand up to our feet this morning. We’ll end with prayer today. And we’ll pray over this particular thing that we just mentioned. We’ll just pray that we are bathed afresh and anew, that we become day to day more saturated with a celebration not only of God and all that He’s doing, He’s doing amazing things still. Amen, church. But we’re life can be celebrated with ease together. Again, I I know we’re human, and I know we’re gonna have our low moments and bad days. We have plenty of those. But there is something greater for all of us to reach to, and God has made certain of that. There are things we don’t know about Him that we still want to discover. Can I have a hearty amen to that? God show us more and more about who you are. But there’s more and more about this challenge, this shoulder-to-shoulder challenge that is the family of God. It is the body of Christ. It is God’s military force on the planet where spiritual things are concerned. We are the bride of Christ. And God wants us to really press in to learn that and learn how to do it better, just like we want to learn how to pray more effectively, and we want to be a greater witness to our community and to the world and all of these other issues that we’re confronted with. This may be our greatest with with greatest the greatest reward if we accomplish it, that we really can do life together and celebrate it more and more together, that we bring ourselves what we have, you know, and our desires and our dreams and all of those things that that we call life, all the different stations in life that we face, and we’re counting on God, but when I read Philippians 4 19 and where it says our needs are met according to the riches that are in glory by Christ Jesus. I know there are things up there that we don’t see, but that God helps us with. Amen. And so we’re gonna just release that into the house, and we’re gonna believe that’s gonna gain momentum in conference, it’s gonna gain momentum in what’s left of 2025, and will take us into 2026 together. How about that, church family? Can you agree with that? Amen. No, I knew he was gonna do that. No, no, no. I could not resist it was a temptation I just couldn’t say. We are his body. Oh no, no, no. Some of you don’t know what we’re talking about. It’s probably better you don’t. Just pray.