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MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC Hello and welcome to Shur Foundation Baptist Church. Our Sunday morning service, if you'll take a seat and grab a hymnal, turn to song number 55 in your red or green hymnals. Welcome to Shur Foundation Baptist Church. Our red and green hymnals this morning, 55 when the roll is called up yonder. MUSIC When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more and the morning breaks eternal bright and fair. When the saved of earth shall gather over on the other shore and the roll is called up yonder I'll be there. When the roll is called up yonder, when the roll is called up yonder, when the roll is called up yonder I'll be there. On that bright and cloudless morning when the dead in Christ shall rise and the glory of his resurrection share. When his chosen ones shall gather to their home beyond the skies and the roll is called up yonder I'll be there. When the roll is called up yonder, when the roll is called up yonder, when the roll is called up yonder I'll be there. Let us labor for the master from the dawn till setting sun, let us talk of all his wondrous love and care. Then when all of life is over and our work on earth is done and the roll is called up yonder I'll be there. When the roll is called up yonder, when the roll is called up yonder, when the roll is called up yonder, when the roll is called up yonder I'll be there. Great singing brother Ramon will you open us in a word of prayer? Amen. Our next song is song number 413. Stand up, stand up for Jesus, 413. Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross. Lift high his royal banner, it must not suffer loss. From victory unto victory, his army shall he lead, till every foe is vanquished and Christ is Lord indeed. Stand up, stand up for Jesus, the trumpet call obey, forth to the mighty conflict in this his glorious day. Ye that are men now serve him against unnumbered foes. Let courage rise with danger and strength to strength oppose. Stand up, stand up for Jesus, stand in his strength alone. The arm of flesh will fail you, ye dare not trust your own. Put on that gospel armor and watching unto prayer. Where duty calls for danger, be never wanting there. Great singing. Good morning everybody. Welcome to Shur Foundation Baptist Church. Let's take our bulletins and go through some announcements. If you need a bulletin would you just lift up your hand one of the ushers will bring you a bulletin. Anybody need one? All right. On our front cover we have there our verse of the week. It says let everything that hath breath praise the Lord, praise ye the Lord. Psalm chapter 150 verse number six. And that's a great scripture there, great psalm. And on our inside page there we have just a short message about what kind of church we are. And if you have any questions feel free to come talk to me after church about it. If you're not 100% sure you're saved of course we'd like to make sure that anybody that comes and visits our church is saved. So if you have any questions about that please come see one of the ushers. The guys with the pins on their jacket says usher on there or you can come talk to me of course after the service. Pretty much anybody that regularly attends our church could probably show you how to be saved but definitely make sure if you're not 100% sure. And also if you've never been scripturally baptized that means submerged underwater after you're saved is what the Bible teaches. And so if you've never been baptized we'd love to do that for you. Below there we have our different social media where you can find our sermons online. And you can subscribe on YouTube or as long as we still have it anyway. And our Facebook channel Rumble and X formerly known as Twitter. I always kind of feel like that always reminds me of Prince who's you know the artist formerly known as or whatever. And then we have that British flag there and I'm wearing a British tie here just in honor of our guest here from England. And so you won't see that happen very often. This is like one of those things. It's like the blood moon at the tribulation time. Me wearing a British tie. No, I'm just kidding. But I put that there. Anyway, I'll mention everything else here in just a minute. But our service times are 1030 a.m. for our preaching service. Sunday evening is our other service on Sunday, 3.30 p.m. And Thursday Bible studies at 6.30 p.m. And our sewing times are listed there below. Hello. And we do have soul winning today at 1 p.m. We are broken up into two groups today if we have enough soul winners. And so plan on going soul winning. See brother Sean Conlon. And he is our soul winning captain on Saturdays. If you're just planning on meeting on site and you're in the WhatsApp group you can just meet. But just make sure you know which team you're on. Team one or team two. And that doesn't mean you're if you're on team two doesn't mean you're lesser than team one. Okay. It's just how we divide things. If you're not in the soul winning group and you're planning on going soul winning just talk to brother Sean. Brother Sean is back there. He's sitting in the back seat there. So if you don't know who he is that's who he is. So we also have many other soul winning times to choose from. And you're welcome to choose one of those times to get involved. And the respective captains that lead those times. So we had a really fruitful month last month. And we're already beginning a very fruitful month this month. We've already had 20 salvations. We had 11 last week after Easter service. About an hour's worth of soul winning time. Had about 11 salvations. And then we had 11 on Friday. And well we had 13 on Friday. We had 11 in Longview or Kelso. And then we had two out in Gresham. And then we had some during the week. So that makes 20. But last month we had 103 salvations. So that's really good. So praise the Lord for that. And you can see the comparison. We're already halfway to our last year totals. And so the baptism is we need to start coming in here and forcing people to be baptized or something. Because we're behind on those. But no I'm just kidding. Anyway so our last week's attendance totals. We had 103 in church on Sunday morning for our Easter morning service. We had a nice potluck. We enjoyed a nice ham dinner. So thanks everybody for bringing food for that. And making it a nice meal. And let's see we had a good service on Thursday where we had 77 in church. And so today we have Pastor Ian Tavner from Strong Tower Baptist Church. And he's the first pastor I've ordained. And he is from the UK or the United Kingdom or Great Britain. Whatever you want to call it. And he's preaching for us for both services. I ordained him last September. Was it August? Was it August? Okay yeah I was wondering. We were there in August, September. So yeah it was last August. And so they're doing a great work over there. And you know what people would think is a place who's going to start a church over in Great Britain. But you know the light shines the most in a dark place. So but the church there is doing really well. And really glad that we decided to do that. And so the church has thrived over there. It's thriving now. And we're very happy to have Pastor Tavner. His daughter Ella. We have Miss Amy. And well what's his name over there? Adam. Brother Adam from their church. So we're all going to the youth conference. We're going to fly out tonight. Later on tonight after the church services are done. But yeah really excited about having to preach here today. And we got to do some good old fashioned American gun shooting yesterday. So and that was really fun. So I just figured I'd take them to do something they can never do in England. So that was one of those things. And yeah it was pretty fun watching them shoot AR15s and M16s and all kinds of different things. I think that you can only just like skeet shoot like clay pigeons is all they can do there. So and it costs a lot of money too doesn't it? Yeah it's pretty expensive just to shoot clay pigeons. So yeah we had a lot of fun. And I just want to say thank you to all the ladies that helped with the shower for Miss Stacy yesterday. The baby shower. So yeah we had a lot of fun. Thank you Brother Sean for putting on the shooting range yesterday. It was a great time. So anyway yeah after so this week I think we have people from our churches traveling down to the Next Generation Youth Conference. And if you're not going there's still going to be some great preaching that's going on there. Pastor Pizarnsky is preaching on I think Tuesday morning. And then I'll be preaching Tuesday evening. And then Pastor Tavern will be preaching on Wednesday morning and Pastor Jimenez on Wednesday night. So you're not going to want to miss those sermons. And they are kind of geared towards the age 13 to 19. But I'm sure you can probably pick up some stuff that might help you in your life also. So and then April 21st we're going to have evangelist Jim Wiebe here from SFBC in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Also another place where you think a church wouldn't do well. But Brother Jim after being ordained he's just kind of really doing a lot of great things. And he started a work over in Calgary which is in Alberta, Canada. And they had they're kind of I think meeting in a house at this point right now. But they're running between 17 and 20 right now. So he's kind of picked up another big group of people. And they're running about 30 right now. So he's already kind of running you know if you combine the Sunday. It's kind of like I don't know a Bible study group at this point. But we're hoping and praying it's going to become a church plant here real soon. But he'll be preaching for us on Sunday evening April 21st. So and I'm planning on ordaining Brother Jim on June 9th. So that's going to be a great time. Pastor Burgess will be preaching Friday night up there. So and then April 28th we're going to have our first anniversary for Sure Foundation Baptist Church in Seattle. We're going to have some soul winning happening on Saturday the 27th right across the street from where the church building is located. So if you're planning on going up there and spending a night there. I would recommend that you probably stay in a hotel that's fairly close to the church just because you never know what the traffic is going to be like up there. You have all kinds of people and all kinds of traffic and the wind can blow and traffic is backed up bumper to bumper. So anyway and then Pastor Bruce Mahiel will be preaching both services on Sunday. So we have our service times a little different down there or up there and we have a 9 a.m. service. So that might as well be a sunrise service for our church members but if you're planning on going 9 a.m. is the service time. And then we do have soul winning in between but you can kind of maybe you can take that time to maybe just go around and see the sites and stuff. Hopefully it'll be a nice day outside and then 5 30 p.m. will be the evening service and we'll probably have some sort of meal afterwards. So then we're a family integrated church so make sure that we're well as a family integrated church we're we're not separating children infants from the from their parents for any reason. So we do have a mother baby room in the back there. That baby room back there and we just have those rooms for your convenience during all the services. Please take your children if they're being super distracting to other people and also just for your your needs maybe changing them we have changing tables we have the sermons can still be heard back there is comfortable seating so please utilize those for your convenience and make sure that you're not allowing children to be anywhere unattended and not letting them run in church. And I do allow the ushers to tell children to stop running but that wasn't like a go between two for the it's the ushers job to parent your children. Okay so just because I've allowed the ushers to do that doesn't mean that you have no responsibility to tell your children to quit running because there's still children running in church and it's like you're the parents you should know to tell them to stop. So you shouldn't be like well the ushers supposed to be telling them now so I'm not going to say anything that's just not what I meant by that. So just keep that in mind. All right. And let's see the offerings that came in so far down at the bottom for the whole month of March and then the April birthdays we have Alina Ritchie and Mikey. Mikey and I got the 12th and the 11th and OK. That's my fault there. But Mikey's birthday is this week. And then we also have Jesse's birthday. So they're all like forty nine. Right. Mikey and Jesse are forty nine. Now they're there in the early 20s. Right. So Mikey how old are you where you are. How old are you going to be. Twenty two. Oh man it'd be nice to be that age again. Jesse brother Jesse where are you at. Brother Jesse. Oh hey brother Jesse how are you doing. How old are you going to be. Man he's an old man now he's past his prime. No I'm just kidding. Let's go ahead and sing happy birthday to all the birthday people. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. God bless you. Happy birthday to you. All right. That's all I have for announcements. Go ahead sing another song and we'll receive the offering. Third song is song number one hundred and forty three blessed assurance. One forty three blessed assurance. On the first blessed assurance Jesus is mine. Oh what a foretaste of glory divine. Air of salvation purchase of God. Born of his spirit washed in his blood. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my savior all the day long. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my savior all the day long. Perfect submission. Perfect delight. Visions of rapture now burst on my side. Angels descending ring from above. Echoes of mercy. Whispers of love. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my savior all the day long. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my savior all the day long. Perfect submission. All is at rest. I am my savior and happy and blessed. Watching and waiting. Looking above. Filled with his goodness. Lost in his love. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my savior all the day long. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my savior all the day long. Great singing. We'll have our ushers come forth to receive the offering. Brother Alex, we pray for the offering. Dear Father God, we thank you for our church here. We thank you for the opportunity you deserve. May we ask you to bless the gift and the giver and put this money to work to further your achievement. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, go ahead and open your Bibles to First Corinthians 15. First Corinthians 15, if you don't have a Bible, there should be a Bible under the seat in front of you. First Corinthians 15. First Corinthians 15, the Bible reads, Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures, and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles, and last of all he was seen of me also, as one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles that am not meet to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God, but by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore, whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed. Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen? And if Christ not be risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ, whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, you are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that he is accepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead not rise at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead? And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? I protest by your rejoicing, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageeth it me if the dead rise not? Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Be not deceived, evil communications corrupt good manners. Awake to righteousness, and sin not. For some have not the knowledge of God, I speak this to your shame. But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be but bare grain. It may chance of wheat, or of some other grain, but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him. And every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh. But there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial. But the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars. For one star differth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul. The last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which was spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthly. The second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthly, such are they also that are earthly. And as in the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Brother Drew, will you pray for us? Dear God, thank you so much for this day of church. Thank you for the blessing and the services. Amen. Okay, so yeah, I'm pastor Ian Taverner from the UK. For those of you that haven't met me before, I was first, well, I first met Pastor Thompson, I spoke to Pastor Thompson, in fact, probably three and a half plus years ago now, probably four years, and it was back in September of 2020, and then over those sort of next few years, Pastor Thompson was training me up. A lot of the time from afar, he came over to the UK a few times, and he ordained me first as an evangelist, and eventually I got ordained as a pastor. We became independent back in, like he said, August the 27th of the year just gone. And before I get going with this sermon, I'd like to also just, thank you, just thank everyone here, especially Pastor Thompson, Ms Sherry, the hospitality is amazing. The bar's been raised up here, next time he comes over I've really got to up my game a little bit, because this has been great so far. Thanks everyone, thanks guys for the shooting as well yesterday, that was an experience that we don't get to have, so that was great. And the food's been great, the time's been great, and we've got a little bit of time to go as well, so I'm sure we're going to enjoy every minute of it. I'd like to get going with this sermon then, so if you look down in your Bibles at 1 Corinthians 15, and we're going to start from verse 58 there, 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 58, I just want to look at before we get going, the Bible reads, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. The title of my sermon this morning is, Your Labour is Not in Vain. Your labour is not in vain. I'd like to pray before we get going. Father, thank you for your Word, thank you for this Church, Lord, and all the work this Church is doing, everyone here, Lord, today. Please just help me to just preach this sermon that you've laid on my heart, just in the right way, in an accurate way, in a clear way, in a bold way, Lord. Help everyone to just be edified by the message that I'm preaching today, filled with your Spirit please, Lord, in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. So I was thinking about what to preach, my first time out here, first time preaching to you guys, what just kept going through my head is to try and get across to you guys just how far reaching the work that you do here goes, how far it goes, and I'm not just talking about to the UK, just all over, just the lasting effects that the work, every single one of you here does, and I'm sure some here maybe have a fair idea, but some maybe don't, and maybe some just forget from time to time just how far that work goes across the world and in terms of, you know, in eternal ways as well. The labour that's been done in this small church up somewhere, you know, in the northwest of Great Britain's colonies, or were they, was it even, I don't even think it was here, was it? I don't know, I'm going to have to find out about that. I don't think you were, but a lot of you guys were part of that, or at least you came from something that was part of that. Might not have been British territory, but the work that you do up here, the labour has resulted, as you know, in churches all over Washington State, which I found out was, apparently, is the most unchurched state in the US, and you've got, what, three? Three? Four? Four in Washington? Yeah, it is four, sorry, four in Washington State. You have, obviously, as well as that, you've got a church down in Indianapolis, you've got two in Canada. It's resulted in you supporting missionaries in the Philippines, I think in Kenya maybe, am I right as well, and now Poland as well. And it's your labour that resulted in our church being planted in England, and we're now reaching out to Switzerland, we're reaching out to Africa and various places as well, and hopefully further filled with time to come as well. And in case anyone here is thinking, well, some of those people are already soul winning, what's the difference? Because sometimes people can think that, well, they're already soul winning, they're already doing stuff. Let me tell you, just from our experience, okay, having a proper church in England made a massive difference, a huge difference to our nation, a huge difference to those that really wanted to soul win, to wanted to come and hear hard preaching, to just want to get involved with the things of God in our nation. The church just was completely different, because the soul winning increased from just sort of now and again a marathon where some would turn up, some wouldn't, some would get involved, high five each other, they'd listen to some good preaching on YouTube, and then go back home and get back to their normal lives. That just completely changed. Suddenly we're soul winning week in, week out. Those that were at church, they're pretty up with churches and trying their best and kind of wondering, am I wrong, am I right here, I don't know. I mean, they don't say repent of your sins, but now they're kind of hinting repent of your sins, I don't even know what to do. It just kind of wiped away all of that. Now we had a church, we had a church which was preaching the truth, standing on the Word of God, standing on the Gospel, and it was amazing. What a difference it made. It sorted out the wheat from the chaff, those genuinely wanting to serve God from the fanboy fakes, and I'm sure you guys have had a lot of experience with the fanboy fakes, right, they're everywhere. Suddenly we were just, wow, this is sorting it out now. We can see who really wanted to get involved, really wanted to do things with God. We've added now over time and trained countless others to go out and win souls, and we've had people coming in from not just the local area, we've had people moving down to our church from all over the UK, we've had people coming in from Europe and others, and they're getting trained up the whole time, and people are just going out and preaching the Gospel more and more. And I'm sure it's a similar story for you guys with most of your other church plants as well. There's just so much going on because of it being a proper church, right. As every year goes by, our productivity increases at our church. We hit a thousand salvations last year, which was amazing for us, including our groups. That was as well with our South Africa Soul Winning Group and our Switzerland Soul Winning Group as well. And all of that started because of the labour done here. None of that would have been possible, very little of that would have been possible without the labour that is being done here in this church here. And you might think, well, I've never met you before, you know, Pastor Tavener, and it was Pastor Thompson that put the work in, and admittedly you do have a hard working pastor, all right. You've got a grafting pastor and he's just non-stop. I don't know how he does, the amount that he does, I'm constantly questioning, how does he even do all this? But he does a lot, he gets a lot done. But he's only able to do that because of everyone here as well, because it is a team effort. So Pastor Thompson wouldn't be able to do everything he does without this team of people here. Okay, and that's the truth. We have a slogan on the front of our church sign, in fact, Ms Sherry mentioned it last night, it says a strong tower built upon Pastor Aaron Thompson. No, it doesn't, it doesn't, okay. It says a strong tower built upon a shore foundation. It's a strong tower built upon a shore foundation because it's everyone here. It's Shore Foundation Baptist Church which has made our church strong tower, in case you're wondering what's the strong tower bit about, strong tower Baptist Church even possible. Because we're very aware that our independent church in England is only there because of Shore Foundation Baptist Church in Vancouver, Washington. And we wanted to make that clear on the front of our church from going from Shore Foundation to a strong tower. No, we're built upon Shore Foundation and that will never change. And I'm not trying to take anything away from Pastor Thompson just to make that clear, okay, because Pastor Thompson, like I said, he does so much work, he does so many great things. But again, it is only possible because of everyone here. He couldn't do half of what he does without you guys here. Look at 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 58 where Paul said, Therefore, my beloved brethren, so he didn't say my beloved elder, he didn't say my beloved bishop, he was talking to the whole lot of them. Okay, he said, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye, that's a plural there, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as ye, plural, know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. What was the therefore, therefore? You might have heard that term used before with many preachers over the years. Those are therefore, therefore, well, if you back up a bit, Paul has just been correcting some false doctrine being put about that there is no resurrection. So he gives them this long lesson which finishes with this in verse 51. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed. So the dead in Christ will be raised with an incorruptible glorified body and those that are alive is coming will receive the same. He then says in verse 53, for this corruptible must put on incorruption, this mortal must put on immortality, so when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass a saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. That's from Isaiah 25-8, but he's saying that when that rapture happens, when we receive that incorruptible immortal body and if you died in Christ, you're going to receive the same at that point, it's victory. And think about how this really applies. When you're not trying to shoehorn in a sort of pre-trib, false Jew worship sort of rapture thing and all that nonsense that they come out with, when you get that out of there, think about how this applies. When this happens, there's going to be a lot of death happening. There's going to have been a lot of death happening. Death happening everywhere, right? Believers getting hunted down, persecuted, killed en masse, right? And when believers are fleeing for their lives and they look up and see the Son of Man come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, that will be a real victory, won't it? That will be an amazing victory, to be gathered by his angels and receive an immortal body from the brink of death. It said in verse 55, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. The sting of death is due to sin takest to hell. And the reason for that is because as 1 John 3, 4 says, Whosoever comitteth sin, transgresseth also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. But thanks be to God, verse 57, which giveth us a victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. So that victory is only possible through faith, obviously in the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's a sure thing, isn't it? That's a sure foundation. Therefore, or you could say, because of the fact that we should give thanks to God, or you could say because we're victorious, or you could say because others can freely be victorious, or you could say because of all three of these, because of the certainty of that resurrection to come, therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord, because whatever we do in the Lord is not vain. It has eternal consequences for us in rewards, and for those that we reach with the Gospel. Because when it comes to things of God, when it comes to spiritual things, your labour is not in vain. Your labour is not in vain. Everything you do is not in vain when it comes to those things. The title is Your Labour is Not in Vain, and number one, so be steadfast. Your labour is not in vain, so point number one is so be steadfast. Look at verse 58 again. It said, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast. Now, I know we hear that word a lot, and obviously there's a famous church called Steadfast Baptist Church, but what does it mean to be steadfast? Now, I like this dictionary definition from Webster's 1828, where it says, Steadfast is, number one, fast-fixed, firm, firmly fixed or established, and number two is constant, firm, resolute, not fickle, nor wavering. Now, it's often used in the context of faith when it comes to being steadfast, when we look at it in the Word of God. Turn to 1 Peter 5 for an example. Well, I read to you Colossians 2.5. You're turning to 1 Peter 5, but Colossians 2.5 says, For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the Spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. So, again, used there in the context of faith being steadfast, the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. He's talking about a constant, a firm, a resolute, and not fickle, nor wavering faith. And in 1 Peter 5, we see it used in the same context, but we also see how important it is. Look at 1 Peter 5 and verse 8, it says, Be sober, be vigilant, because you adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Sorry, translation there, adversary. The faster talks to the light, the way we say that. But we like to say adversary, okay? It's an adversary. Amen. Thank you, brother Adam there. Whom resists steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. He said to resist steadfast in the faith. He said be sober, didn't he? And you've heard those people that say, oh, this isn't about alcohol, this is about being serious, being collected. You've heard these guys who are trying, you know, boozing Baptists that try and justify drinking. Well, it is serious and collected as well, but if someone's going to tell me how you can be seriously collected when you're boozing, I don't know. It's funny how these guys try any which way, don't they? But sober obviously counts for the whole lot of that, doesn't it? How are you sober if you're boozing or on any other sort of mind-altering drugs? He said be vigilant. And by the way, that does mean with our kids too, doesn't it? We need to be vigilant with our children, right? In many ways, in many areas, it's an important thing, isn't it? Our kids are such a massive part of not just us, but they're part of the future of this church and many other churches. We need to be vigilant around them. Why? Because our adversary is walking about looking for some fresh Christian to devour. That's what he wants. He's looking for anyone he can devour. He's walking about looking for Christian to devour. How do we resist him? By being steadfast in the faith, by being constant, firm, resolute, not fickle or wavering in the faith. Because you know what people do, okay? Look at the end of verse 9. It says, first in verse 8, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. He's reminding us that life and affliction go hand in hand. And we need that reminder sometimes, don't we? Whether you're in church or out of church, whether you're serving God or not, there's just going to be affliction. Peter's saying don't start doubting God. Don't start doubting whether it's all worth it. Don't get tempted by the pleasures of sin for a season. Well, I'm going through some affliction, so I might as well just give up. I might as well just kind of backslide a bit. He's saying resist him by being steadfast in the faith because it's faith that will defend you against the wiles of the devil. That's what that faith does. It defends you against all that false doctrine, all those little whispers, all those ways that the devil wants to turn your head, pull you out of the things of God. Keep a finger here and turn to Ephesians 6, where Paul gives us the tools for our spiritual battle. So Ephesians chapter 6, Ephesians 6 and verse 10, where Paul says this. He said, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Famous passage of scripture. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. And I don't believe it's just government devils. Many people have preached these passages and understandably, and for good reason, talking about the wickedness high up in the world, right? But I believe that the high-level devils are likely to be focused on sure foundation Baptist churches anywhere else. Sure foundation Baptist church planting churches left, right, and center all over the place. There are high-level devils trying to destroy this church. Not just up there in the government and in the mainstream media and in the banking industry and all these other things. They're trying to attack this church in various ways. He said, wherefore, wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand, stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace above all, notice that, above all. Most importantly, top thing here, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all. That's all the fiery darts that we can, not just some of the fiery darts, all the fiery darts with that shield of faith. What's the most important part? The shield of faith, you could say, being steadfast in the faith. Being steadfast in the faith, the shield of faith. Why is it above all? The picture here, to the Ephesian church, in what was around now the 200th year, I believe, of Roman occupation, was the Roman soldier. That was the classic soldier that everyone was obviously very aware of, that they would see very often, who at this point in history were using the very large forefoot-long rectangular scutum shield. And I think many people could probably imagine it, having seen old movies and things like that, where they have this long foot, and forefoot's quite tall. That's a shield about this high, somewhere around here. And it was a long rectangular shield that they used to use. And they basically, what they did, is they changed their military tactics, I think it was a few hundred years before this point, to the Manipular Legion. I don't know if anyone's heard of this before, with the famous defensive testudo, or the translation of the tortoise formation. And what it basically was, and you might have seen the movies of this, and maybe seen re-enactments, and battle re-enactments, in England they loved this stuff. There's so much Roman history there, there's all these weird guys that kind of all meet up, with replica shields and swords and stuff. You guys go shooting, these guys just go and stand on the battlefield and pretend they're fighting, but they don't actually do anything, yeah? I think some of them like wearing the miniskirts, because they've all got to be carried away, and not realise that they wore stuff underneath those tunics and those things. Anyway, these guys, what they do is they have these long shields, and what they do is they re-enact the formation. The formation was that you'd have the shield on the front in a solid line, and sometimes these are like big solid lines as well, you're talking about thousands and thousands of fighting men there, and then they'd have a shield over the top as well, and they'd be looking through the gap between the top of this shield as they crouched down, and the one going over the top, and this was a very tight defensive line. You know when you see in the Bible it says, well the battle was in array. It's like they're lined up in formation, it's very hard to break down. You know, it's very hard to break that down, and if you think about back with David and Goliath, Goliath's calling out, you know, why doesn't someone come and fight me? It's very hard to break down that defensive formation. Okay, so they have this testudo formation, the shield, without the shield that whole formation breaks down. Without that shield they can't survive. In fact, it's a team effort as well. If one guy is putting a shield over the top, then they're going to start, you know, some of the artillery is going to come through there, and then you're going to start spreading, people are going to start dying in the middle of that formation, it's going to start to break up, and then they're going to start getting destroyed. So that was the most important part. Why they had those short swords, is not because they run out of, you know, money for steel or something. The short swords were really effective in those formations, because as people got close then to try and break down that shield, the sword didn't need a lot of wielding, it could just be stabbed through gaps, through cracks, etc. And they're very sharp swords as well, hence talks about that sharp, two-edged sword, and the word of God being sharper than any of that, right? Okay, so Paul wasn't saying above all because of physical warfare though. So I find that stuff interesting, but he equated the faith to that shield because of the importance of faith. Like that shield was so important to those fighting, those military units, faith is so important to all of us. It's so important in the spiritual battle. And just to make it clear, this isn't talking about just saving faith. Obviously you need saving faith to start with, but after salvation there are levels of faith, as I'm sure many here are aware of. Stephen was described, for example, in Acts 6-5, as a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. He was full of faith. He had a high level of faith. Okay, and not everyone has that. They might be saved, but they have a low level of faith. He was full of faith. Now turn to Proverbs 30. How do we take the shield of faith or be like we've just seen, steadfast in the faith? How are we steadfast in the faith? How do we take the shield of faith? How do we quench all the fiery dots, the wicked? How do we defend against the false doctrine in its various forms, in its various ways? The attempts to weaken us, the attempts to tempt us, the attempts to demoralize us? Well, Proverbs 30 in verse 5 says it like this. Every word of God is pure. He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him. He's a shield unto them. It's by trusting the Word of God. It's by trusting your King James Bible. Put your trust, put your faith in your King James Bible, but you can't do that, obviously, if you don't read it. You can't trust the Word of God if you don't know the Word of God. If you don't read the Word of God, you can't trust someone that you don't know. Or you're a fool to trust someone that you don't know. You get to know someone, you start to trust them, and how can you trust the Word of God if you don't even know the Word of God? But everything that you need to know is here, isn't it? Everything is in this Word of God. That's how you defend against the false doctrine. That's how you recognize the slander. Because there's so much warning. I've been going through a study on the book of Proverbs, and you know what it's like in the Word of God. You can read through it countless times, but it's when you just sit down and break down verses, you look at them. It's just warning. It's time and time again about wicked people, about really the contrast between wicked people and the righteous serving God, because we're constantly being warned of the different ways that the enemy tries to attack us. The Word of God is there to warn us. It's there to give us caution. And how do we do that if we're not reading the Word of God? How can we have that shield of faith? How can we have that trust in what God tells us and warns us about if we don't read it? The wickedness. You otherwise just can't get your head around without the Word of God, because we just want to kind of justify and explain it away and kind of look at it from a point of view that we would have. But without the Word of God teaching us about these psychopaths, about this sort of stuff, you just can't really understand it, can you? You can't get your head around it. And like with that testudo, tortoise formation, like I said, it's a collective defense as well. So you need a whole group to have that strong faith, because when the line starts getting weaker in different areas, that's when the enemy manages to break through. And the more you read it, you know it. And the more you know it and you read it, the more you see it playing out in your life, the more steadfast you become. And back in 1 Peter 5, I hope you kept your finger there, we see steadfastness resulting in more steadfastness. It said in verse 8, 1 Peter 5, Be sober, be vigilant, because you're adversary. The devil is a roaring lion. Walketh about, see I'm a linguist, I can do both ways here. Walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you. That sounds like more steadfastness to me. Perfect or complete, establish, strengthen, settled. The more afflictions, the more tribulations that we make it through, the more steadfast we become. That's how it works. The more you go through, the stronger you get, the more stronger your faith gets, the more you go through things and keep seeing God coming through, keep seeing the solution, keep seeing things working out. But we've got to make it through them in the first place, because if you don't make it through the trial and the tribulation and you drop out, you won't get stronger, and we do that by having our trust in the word of God. And for that, we need to labor in it. You need to labor in it. Psalm chapter one and verse two, you don't have to turn the scissors of the blessed man, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law that he meditate day and night. It's graft, you've got to graft with the word of God. You've got to put time, you've got to put effort in. For me, I always just say to people, just set an alarm, set an alarm. I have on my phone, I have times a day where I have on my calendar just comes up, read Bible, read Bible, pray, read Bible, just because when it's there and it's telling me as well, I've got less excuse to then just, oh, well, I will in a bit to put it off. It's like, right, it's time to do that. Set an alarm, set an alarm. Get a routine, right? Routine's important. Get a routine, read your Bible, read your Bible, read your Bible, and I'm sure you've got many people here that read their Bible, but in a group like this, you're always going to have those that don't. Read it, read it, read it. Just get a routine, get it structured, put God first, right? Put God first for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. It's not in vain. Go back to 1 Corinthians 15, title is your labor is not in vain. And point number one is so be steadfast. So be steadfast. Point number two is so be unmovable. Be unmovable. Verse 58 said, therefore, my beloved brethren, be you steadfast, unmovable. Unmovable. Unmovable or we would probably say nowadays more immovable. It's talking about someone that can't be moved, okay? And where do our enemies, where do God's enemies, where does our own flesh want to move us from? The house of God. It's the house of God, isn't it? That's where we need to be, that's where we most need to be immovable because this is where the labor is happening. This is where it's going on. It's not happening down at Back Slap Baptist. It's not, is it? Back Slap Baptist, they ain't laboring down at Back Slap Baptist. They just slap each other on the back. Maybe that's a bit labor. I don't know how hard the slaps are, but it's not happening down at non-denom with the preacher mom. You know? It's not, is it? Non-denom with the preacher mom. There isn't really any labor going on there. It's kind of feel-good stuff, isn't it? It's just going down and community and everyone's chatting and going, we're so holy, we're so spiritual because we go to church on a Sunday. But it's not labor, is it? The enemies and the flesh would love you to be there, though, wouldn't they? They would love you to be down at Back Slap Baptist and the non-denom church that can't even stand on anything, just sits on the fence on pretty much everything. They'd love you down there. But when it comes to a proper church, you need to be unmovable. You need to be unmovable because you've got the flesh that doesn't want to be there sometimes. And that's the truth, right? You've got even just your own personal enemies. You've got people that claim to be your friends, your family, your friends, and everyone else that doesn't really want you there. And then you've got the enemies of God that don't want you there as well. So you're fighting it on a few different fronts. And that's what so often the attacks are about. That's why your pastor gets slandered so often, in case you're wondering. It's not because they just don't like his personality. He's got a nice personality, isn't he? It's not because of that. It's because they don't want you here. Because they want to turn your head. They want to put doubt in your mind. They want you to think, well, maybe he is whatever the latest slander is. And they love to just try and just turn heads. It's all about pulling you out of church. That's what it's all about, really. It's to pull you out of church, pull you out of the things of God. And it's funny, isn't it, that even with false prophets everywhere, I mean, you've got false prophets literally everywhere. Who do they attack? The people that are right on the Gospel. The people that are standing on the Word of God. The people that are sending out soul winners. The people that are planting churches all over the place. So why don't these people who seem to care so much go and actually deal with some real false prophets somewhere and go and spend their time with that? You know why? Because that's not what it's about. Really, it's about pulling you lot out of church. Out of a church which, like I said, is doing so much because your labor is definitely not in vain at this church. I mean, you can't look at it and go, oh, I don't know, you know, they seem to be doing a bit, they seem to be getting some people saved. I mean, look at the effect you're having. That's why they don't want you here. They want you pulled out. They want to destroy this place. That's why those oh-so-caring family members are so concerned about you being in this church. They preached the Word of God there. Can you believe it? I mean, you know, how outlandish it is. I mean, how radical is this church? Because they stand on the Word of God. Because they preached the Word, and they want you out, don't they? Let's be honest. Most of your unsaved family, even some of your saved family and friends who are down at Backstab Baptist and others, they would love you out of here. They'd love you out of here so they could just say, oh, you're back in the fold. That was such an extreme place. It was terrible. They even went soul-winning. That's what it's like, isn't it? Those ex-church members, they just care so much. They're so caring because they just love you so much. They love you so much they want to pull you out of the soul-winning church. They love you so much they just need to show you somehow that it's wrong to be in a church, preaching the Word of God, standing on the Word of God, planting churches, soul-winning. It's unbelievable, isn't it? But people still get their heads done by it. It's like, well, maybe, yeah, maybe there must be some truth to whatever the latest slander is or something else. But that's why the House of Bael appeals to the flesh so much, doesn't it? That's why these false churches with their worldly music, with their feel-good preaching, with their ear tickling, with the smiling devils when you come in, you know, with the fake smile, and they just smile with them. You come in and it's like this. The eyes are just like boring into your soul, but the mouth's like, you've seen these types of people in these false churches. Oh, they're just so nice, always telling you how much they love you and how much they pray for you and everything else. Oh, they want you there. And it does appeal to the flesh. Don't worry, we'll take your kids off you. We'll take your kids and put them in the basement somewhere with who knows who. And the flesh sometimes sings. Oh, that seems a bit easier, doesn't it? And the attempts to move you from the house of God come from every angle because it's where the labor's happening. It's happening in the house of God. You know that your labor is not in vain, the Lord. Turn to Acts 27. Now, in case anyone was wondering, okay, if you're sitting there thinking, is this a real sermon? Don't worry, it's time for a sports analogy, okay? In case you're wondering, although Pastor Thompson likes a sports analogy, we need a sports analogy now and again, so it's time for a sports analogy with this sort of thing, with being immovable, okay? Now, in fight sports, and we're on real sports here, just to make it clear. Not rugby with pads on, okay, and helmets. Okay, love that. Call yourself football where you don't even kick it, really. Okay, not that sort of thing. I'm talking about real sports now, right? Fight sports, yeah. Okay, so in fight sports, often the crowd favorite is the flashy fighter. Yeah, he's the guy who does like the spinning moves and he's so skillful and he does all this cool stuff and everyone's like, what's he gonna do next? And it's exciting stuff. And the crowd love it, don't they? And there are people, I even had a guy that I used to coach recently message me and said, I just wanna be like a crowd favorite. I don't even care if I lose, I just wanna give everyone a show. Thinking a bit strange, but you know, whatever. He lost a couple of fights, he's thinking, now I'm gonna impress people instead, right? But they're often the favorite, but the toughest guys for me are the unmovable ones. And if you've ever done any fight sports and whatever type of fight sports, even if you just trained, even in like sparring or maybe some of your guys, probably a lot of you will have like wrestling backgrounds and things like that. Those guys that just don't move, those guys that you hit them, maybe if it's a striking sport and they just stare you straight in the eyes afterwards and you've given them your best shot, they're the worst ones. The unmovable ones, the ones that they just march you down and they might not have the power. A lot of the time they don't have that power, they might not have that skill and that technique and that speed to really worry you in round one, in round two, but when it comes to round three, round four, round five and they're doing exactly what they're doing in round one and you're like this, they're tough, right? These are tough people to face. Pretty soon you realize they're not going anywhere. Pretty soon you realize they're standing there, they're facing me down, they're walking me down, they're just gonna keep coming forward and it starts to demoralize you as well. And if you've ever been in anything like that, those sort of, and then it can be in any sport in a way, maybe in a team sport even, that team that just keeps coming, keeps coming, keeps coming. It's hard, it's the endurance that's harder. And you know, we talk about it myself and brother Adam a lot because we both used to coach, fight sports and Adam still does. And there's all these guys that just want the latest, greatest technique and they want the trick and they want the secret to getting there. And you know what the secret is, what the truth is, is that they just need to graft. And they need to graft in the old stuff, they need to stop all this newfangled technique and they need to just put the miles in on the road with the running. They need to put the rounds in on the bag, they need to put the rounds in in the sparring, they need to put the rounds in on the pads, they need to put the rounds in shadow box, they just need to do the simple bread and butter stuff, put the graft in and be immovable. And those guys, when they get in the ring, they can last. And they don't suddenly fade when they get hit with a big shot, they just keep coming, they keep coming, they keep coming. They've got it in the, my old coach used to call it money in the bank. Every training session is money in the bank, he used to call it. Because then when you get in and you fight, it's just, it's there, it's like this little bit of extra edge you've got, that little bit of extra fitness you've got because you've put it in in the training. Well, now some, some are, they'll say like, is that a natural genetics thing with those people that do just, aren't, aren't movable? But the reality of it is it's the training. Like I said, it's all about the training. Now there are some people that may be a bit more natural to be training hard, but I've noticed there are people that maybe did have that skill and power and the speed and then they're training hard, training hard, maybe they lose that little touch of that because they're just training endurance, training endurance, but you can't move them and they're a nightmare. They're a nightmare to compete against. And the spiritual warriors, the hardest for the enemy to beat are the durable, the solid, the immovable objects. That's what it, that's what you want to be. You want to be that solid, immovable object, that, that free to thrive. You read your Bible, nothing changes. In the morning you get up, you read your Bible. At night you read your Bible. You pray three times a day. Nothing's changing that. You're in church unless, you know, unless there's emergency, right? You're soul winning and you say you're going to go soul winning, you're just, you're just immovable. You just put the graft, you put the graft, you know what? You're so much harder to budge than the Roman candle Christian. So much harder to budge than the one that comes in and suddenly it's like, you know, it's all or nothing with many people, sadly, isn't it? You just got to put the time, put the effort in. The spiritual warriors that are hardest to beat are the ones that are immovable, that are putting the time in, putting the graft in and that's putting the shifts in. That's turning up on the off days as well. That's putting in the routine, that's making it a routine. It's being immovable, or unmovable we see here, because, why? Because your labour's not in vain. Because it's not in vain. It's not vain in fight sports to do that stuff. It will have a result and it's not vain in the spiritual fight either. If you put the graft in, you put the work in, you just keep going, you will last in the long run. Now there's another place where we see the word unmovable used in Scripture and it's here in Acts chapter 27. Acts 27, Paul is on that voyage to Rome and they get battered by a storm called Euro-Clyden. You know it's a real storm when it's got a name like Euro-Clyden. I don't know, do they do it here where they just name a little bit of strong wind and they just give it a silly name and it's like, what even happened? A flag blew a little bit or something. Well, this is different, because when the word of God is called Euro-Clyden, you know this is a real storm. Paul rumbles the ship men trying to leg it. He's like, I've caught you out there, they just want to leg it. It dissuades everyone who eats something. They've been struggling for 14 days without food, it seems, so this is some long fast as well. They must be getting weak at this point. They've been really battling. It says in verse 38 here, Acts 27 and verse 38, And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship and cast out the wheat into the sea. And when it was day, they knew not the lamb, but they discovered a certain creek with a shore into which they were minded if it were possible to thrust in the ship. And when they had taken up the anchors, they committed themselves unto the sea and loosed the rudder bands and mixed up the mainsail to the wind and made towards shore. And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground, and the fore part stuck fast and remained unmovable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves. So basically they found a shallow spot and drove the ship into it. So it was stuck and unmovable. And sometimes it's not just some guy with cushions on his hands trying to bruise us, okay? It's not like the fight sports I was talking about. Sometimes it's storms. Sometimes it's a Euro-Kleiden. Sometimes you're getting moved by something a lot worse than some guy, you know, kind of throwing a few haymakers at you. Sometimes it's something like this. You're getting battered in a storm where these guys are fasting for 14 days to get through this, right? It's something, it's like a storm in your life, a storm that, you know, other people can't even understand sometimes what you're going through. How do we survive by being unmovable? How do we survive by being ground That's how we survive. And that's so often the time when people come out of the house of God, isn't it? When the hard things are happening in life, when they're going through the stresses of being, oh, that's the time I need a break from the house of God. That's the time you need to be in the house of God. That's the time you need to drive yourself down into the house of God, into that ground, into that pillar and ground of the truth, and not let yourself just get blown about, just get blown out of church. And so often they don't come back. So often those people that go through a storm, that go through a problem, come out of church, think that's the solution, they don't come back. We've had that in our short time already, people that have gone through something hard and you don't see them again. By being grounded in the house of God, that's the answer, isn't it? By lightening the ship as well as Paul did here in verse 38, where it said, And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship and cast out the wheat into the sea. And I think there's a spiritual message there by laying aside every weight, by laying aside the burdens, by laying aside the sin which doth so easily beset us. Laying that to one side and you're more likely to get through that storm. It's hard to get through the storm because what do so many people do when they're in a storm? They reach for the old sin, whether it's the bottle of booze, whether it's the drugs, whether it's whatever it is. Whatever that sin is, so many people in the storm they reach for the sin, but that's the time. You need to make sure you get rid of all that stuff and you're more likely to get through and grind yourself into that ground. By being stuck fast, verse 41 said, Instead of falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground and the four parts stuck fast and remained unmovable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves. So by letting those things behind us get smashed away by the waves of reaching forth unto those things which are before, by remaining unmovable, that's how we survive the spiritual storms in life. Of being unmovable, grounded in the word of God, grounded in the house of God, grounded in your prayer life, and you get rid of all that weight, all that excess baggage, all that weight. That's how you get through the storms in life. Verse 44 said, And the rest some on boards and some on broke a piece of the ship. This is pretty rough. And so it came to pass that they escaped. Some of them know all safe to land. All safe to land. That labor wasn't in vain, was it? That labor wasn't in vain. Go back to 1 Corinthians 15, Therefore, my beloved brother, it said in verse 58, 1 Corinthians 15, Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. What does abounding mean? Well, one definition is having in great plenty, being in great plenty, being very prevalent, generally prevailing. Paul said to be always doing plenty of the work of the Lord, to always be prevailing in the work of the Lord, because your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Turn to Proverbs chapter 10. Everything that you do for God has eternal value. And what's the most important thing? I think a church like this, everyone knows what the most important thing is. It's soul winning, isn't it? It's soul winning. It's preaching the gospel. It's pulling people out of the fire. Proverbs 10 and verse 11 says this, Proverbs 10 and 11 says, The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life, but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked. Now, notice that it didn't say the hand of a righteous man handing out tracts is a well of life, did it? The hand of a righteous man is a well of life. No, it didn't say that, did it? Not the actions of a righteous man who never opens his mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. It's not about, now don't get me wrong, yeah, look, we want to be a shining light, but that's not a replacement for preaching the gospel, is it? It's the mouth of a righteous man because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. That's why. And whilst we're still able to speak, we're still able to preach the gospel to others, aren't we? If you're able to speak, you're able to open your mouth. You can articulate words, you're able to preach the gospel. And whilst we're still able to speak, well, we know then that our labor with that speaking is not in vain in the Lord. Now, some say things like this, I'll let you probably get this sort of stuff as well, but they don't all turn up to church. I once said to a church, could you imagine everyone you got saved turn up to church? Not only would it be something, it'd be a problem though. That'd be a big problem. Can you imagine it? There'd be no room for anyone, firstly. Can you imagine? I mean, the false prophets coming in would have a field day. I mean, it'd be all over. It'd be hard to keep control of it all because God builds the church really. God builds the church. Some people get confused by this going, oh, well, I don't know. Didn't they get saved because they didn't turn up a church but they're two separate things? To those that were saved, to those that believed. And it's not about, you know, our goal when we go out and preach the gospel isn't getting people to church today. It's great if they do. We want them to get to church. We want to build them up and get them out of poverty. Our goal is to pull them out of the fire. That's goal number one, isn't it? Pull them out of the fire. If we can get them along, great. If we can get them baptized, great. But don't ever be demoralized because they're not all flooding the church because if they all flooded the church, they won't. Some say, but I don't get many people saved. Because some people, look, they don't always get the salvation numbers. Other people do. But my Bible says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, I shall be saved. My Bible says to preach the gospel to every creature. So, look, if you get one person saved in a year, in two years, isn't that a great result anyway? How amazing is that? Five years, you've got one person saved, that's one person not going to hell. Can you imagine how really eternally grateful that person will be? And not that that's what we do it for, but it's about going out and preaching the gospel. It says to preach the gospel to every creature and not get every creature saved. Because we can't get every creature saved. But we go out and we preach the gospel. And it is a team game as well, okay? Your labor is not in vain because it's a team game. Because sometimes, look, you might have gone somewhere which is like we did on Friday, you know? Me and Pastor Thompson knocked the dog doors and we knocked the doors and the doors and I think it was someone going to tell me about the Bible, it was slam, you know? He was telling me this is a really receptive spot and they didn't like me. However, there was like 11 other salvations, weren't there? And that's a team game, right? Because those 11 people didn't knock on those doors at least. Or at least they didn't have to be paired with the Englishman. They still managed to get some salvations. It is a team game, you know? Every time we go out, every time you go out as a church, it's a team game. You're all part of that result. All winning isn't the only labour that goes on in this church. And it's the most important labour but it's not the only labour. But it all has eternal consequences. Everything done in this church has eternal consequences. Your labour's not in vain. Proverbs 10 16 says, The labour of the righteous tendeth to life, the fruit of the wicked to sin. So it said the labour of the righteous tendeth to life. Every job done in this church goes toward a fully functioning church, doesn't it? Everything done here does. And that results eventually in more salvations. So everything you do here eventually results in more salvations because you have a functioning church. You have a church where things are getting done. You have a church where people walk in and it's not just covered in filth. It's not like rubbish everywhere. You have a place where people walk in and they're not like, is this the church? It's not because you've got ushers on the door. All those things. And sometimes those ushers will stop and it's different here as we were talking about the other day. People are talking about their church guns and stuff. We're not even allowed a weapon in our church. We have to cleverly... Anyway, I won't go into that. Okay, but every job. So, for example, the men stepping up when Pastor Thompson is touring church plants. And that's a full-time job in itself, right? When he's going to those church plants, there are men stepping up, stepping up here, stepping up into church plants, getting up and preaching. Okay, because there aren't church plants without preaching going on there. I mean, that all eventually aids towards more salvation. Every job taken off Pastor Thompson's hand so he can pastor those churches too is all part of it, all results in more salvation. The live stream that, by the way, myself and others were getting trained from, I mean, I was listening to three sermons a week every week for that three years while I was training in the ministry. And on top of that, sometimes your men's preaching classes and everything else as well, that was all part of us, myself, and it'll be for others as well. Everyone who's part of that live stream, everyone that's part of getting this, being a fully functioning church to be able to even preach online as well, that all results ultimately in more salvations. Without that, without that, it would have taken us so much longer to have got to the point where we were, we would have had so much less salvations over that time. It all makes a difference. The soul winning captaining, the ushering, the offering, the cleaning, the organising, the fellowship events, which keeps people motivated, keeps people in things, stops people going out and fellowshipping with the world so much, etc. It all makes a difference. It all results in salvations. Every single bit does. It all tendeth to life. The labour of the righteous tendeth to life. Everything you're doing for the Lord, everything you do ultimately is tending to life. Even you going out to your secular jobs to be able to afford to still be in church and still just be living your life and getting involved in the events and everything else, it all tends to life, doesn't it? If you're the righteous. And now it's not just talking about the saved in Proverbs. Often it's talking about people saved and then living for God as well, who are trying to live for God, who are trying to do the things of God. I turn to Hebrews chapter 10. Now some will say, but I don't have a job in the church. But you do. You do have a job because your job is to turn up and be a part of to be one of those lively stones. You know, there isn't a church without the people here who make it. And you just being here, do you know that? If you're here and you're like, well I'm maybe new to this church, or maybe I'm not new to this church, I don't have a job, maybe I haven't been so regular, or maybe I'm not able to, or maybe I'm just, for whatever reason, I'm not doing a job in this church right now. Just you being here does more than you might think. Just turning up to church does more than you might ever realise. Hebrews 10.24 says, Let us consider one another. And now we often go to these verses because they're just clear verses about assembling in church, right? And many preachers will go, they're going, look, the Bible's clear you shouldn't be forsaken or dissembling. But the real point of these verses, the clear point, is about the effect it has on the others. About you being in church. It's not just thou shalt go to church. No, it's let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. You coming to church, you being in church considers other people in church. It provokes them to do more. It provokes your pastor to go on to more. If your pastor is here preaching to five, six, seven people, it's going to be hard for him, isn't it? But it's not just your pastor, it's everyone. And when you go and there's more and more people, it makes you want to be there more, it makes you want to not miss those services, whereas the more and more people are dropping out, not coming in, you're not provoking those unto love and to good works. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves in a manner of summits but exhorting one another. And so much the more as you see the day approaching, just you being here is encouraging others. Just being here, just turning up at church and going, oh look, brother so-and-so is here again. Sister so-and-so, oh, they've come back after having visited. They've come back having been here at Wictor, it encourages others. Every time, how great is it when someone that you have got saved turns up at church? It's great, isn't it? Yes, you know, maybe we can encourage this person to go on to live for God. Maybe we won't, but at least they got it encourages you, doesn't it? And you sitting here in this church will encourage people, you don't even realise that it's doing that. You're like, well, they probably don't even notice me so much, I'm only new to this church. No, it encourages others. It encourages others, it encourages them, it exhorts one another and all of that tendeth to life. Every single bit of that tends to life. He said, and so much the more as you see the day approaching, we should be gathering more, we should be doing more, we should be, we should be fellowshipping together more and more Turn to Psalm 92, your labour is not in vain in the Lord so be always abounding and that works in two ways, okay? So one, one way that that works, so be always abounding is to keep doing the work of the Lord week in, week out. Week in, week out, doing the work of the Lord, always abounding. But number two, the second way that works is to keep doing the work of the Lord for the rest of your life. For the rest of your life. Psalm 92, Psalm 92 is a great, great Psalm for this and we're just going to read it from verse 12 though. Psalm 92 in verse 12 says, The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree, he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord, that's those that unmovable people shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age, they should be fat and flourishing. To show that the Lord is upright, he is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him. They should still bring forth fruit in old age. Those that are planted in the house of God, and there's no reason to stop bringing forth fruit, is there? And you know, our movement, it's a fairly young movement, isn't it? You know the truth of it, even people that are saved, they can get a bit set in their ways, can't they? And it's hard for them to really start changing. You know, they've spent years just giving out tracks, for example. They've spent years just kind of talking about the blessed hope he could come any minute. They hear it sort of every sermon. Every week they're in church. It's hard for them to kind of get used to the truth, right? But this is a young movement, really, ultimately, but it's a young movement that will eventually, hopefully, just have a wide variety of ages and we need to make sure that we're just going to be planted in the house of the Lord. We want to be always abounding for the rest of our lives. Always abounding in the work of the Lord because our labour's not in vain. And that will be an encouragement to others as well, isn't it? Because when you go there's people that are just living it out into their senior years. That encourages people, doesn't it? It's like, look at brother so-and-so out just pounding the streets, preaching the Gospel still. Even if they get to a situation or sister so-and-so gets to a situation where, you know, they're finding it hard maybe to get out so much they can still do stuff, can't they? Even if they can't really get out on the streets so often, they can still be in prayer. They can still, even as they get into their twilight years, they can still be just turning up at church, getting into church, getting encouragement and trying to open their mouth and declare the Gospel when they do get the chance. Like Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the prophetess, who was into some ripe old years, and she was preaching the Gospel to everyone that looked for the hope in Jerusalem, right? And we want to take a leaf out of that book, don't we? We want to be always abounding into our later years. It's not, well, I'm going to do my most now. Just look forward. We're just going to be abounding all the way through. The title is Your Labour is Not in Vain. Tip number one is so be steadfast. Your labour, you know, the reason I preach this sermon to you guys is because, look, I don't know, maybe you do, maybe you guys are just constantly talking about all these different church plants and everything that's going on, but it's easy to just get a little bit jaded sometimes. It's easy to forget how far that work goes. Our church, especially those that were in our church from the beginning and those that joined during those years, not so much maybe the brand new people that wouldn't know, you guys are our heroes. You're the reason that we have a church. You're the reason that we have a solid church in the UK going out and reaching others. You're the reason that we have a French-speaking group in Switzerland that are part of our church and hopefully will go on to reach many parts. I mean, you know, we need some French-speaking churches. I mean, that is a massive language all over Africa and there's some receptive places. We need some French-speakers. You're the reason that we have a group in South Africa. I mean, are we in June and we're hoping to do some great work out there. You're the reason for so much. It's because of this church here. It's because of even those people just turning up here week in, week out has affected not just the UK, not just Africa, not just Switzerland, but all those other places, Canada and beyond. And it's because of everything you do here because your labor is not in vain. And next time you kind of get those doubts, you have those problems, you have the heads getting turned and far the work that you do here goes. Next time you're thinking, oh, well, it's a bit tough because it can be tough for the Christian life sometimes. And sometimes you're juggling work, you're juggling family, you're juggling the things of God. It can be tough sometimes. Sometimes you get a bit tired, you get a bit fatigued. But just remember that labor is not in vain. That labor that you do, every single thing that every single one of you does here is having an effect all over the world. And knowing your pastor I don't think he suddenly stopped planting churches either. I'm sure there will be next. But where there's a need, right, where there's a need. And there's a need all over the world, isn't there? But he's only able to do any of that because of you guys here. The title is Your Labor is Not in Vain, so be steadfast, so be unmovable, so be always abounding. And on that we're going to finish in a word of prayer. Father, thank you for this church. Lord, thank you for your foundation Baptist Church. Thank you for just all the work that's done here, Lord, in this church and just how far reaching that goes. To just really take that into their hearts, Lord, and to just know that their labor is not in vain, that their labor has just eternal consequences, not just here, not just those. They're reaching in maybe the state of Washington, but just all over the world, Lord, and help everyone here to just really appreciate that, to think about that as they go through the struggles, through the storms, through the tribulations of life, Lord, and help them to just be steadfast, to be unmovable, Lord, and bless the evening service in Jesus' name for all of this. Amen. I have decided to follow Jesus on the first. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. No turning back. Though none go with me, still I will follow. Though none go with me, still I will follow. Though none go with me, still I will follow. No turning back. No turning back. The world behind me, the cross before me. The world behind me, the cross before me. The world behind me, the cross before me. No turning back. No turning back. Great singing. Brother Bill, will you end us in a word of prayer? Men, you are dismissed. Amen.