First Baptist Church of Vineland, NJ

Welcoming, Witnessing & Winning for the Kingdom of God

GREG

I'll try to keep this brief.  When Lou first asked me to come and do this today, I kept thinking of more and more things I could talk about and I figured we would be out by 5:00 PM or so.  So, I decided not to prepare anything, note cards or anything like that and let the Lord lead me.  So if it's good, give the praises to God, if it's bad, blame me.

I want to talk about praising the Lord and why we should praise Him. I'm going to give you a little bit of my life and why I praise God. One thing is, His unconditional love.  God loves everybody the same. There is not a person in here that He loves less than He loves me or a person anywhere in this world He loves less than me. 

Let me tell you my background now.  I grew up in a Catholic household.  I came to know the Lord back when I was 12 years old and after coming to know the Lord, I kind of got disillusioned with church, the Catholic church, and I felt that most of the people in my church were hypocrites.  They would go and listen to the message and then go out and do whatever they wanted.  So I got away from the Lord. 

Everybody here should know, or most of you know, remember how it was in the late '60's and early '70's with drugs and alcohol.  I grew up in an area where drug abuse and alcohol abuse was very prevalent and I was heading down that path. But, the Lord loved me so much He spoke to me and said "You gotta get outta there" and at the time I didn't know how I was going to get out of there.   Back in 1978 in April a blizzard hit - a lot of people remember that one - it was a very big blizzard.  I was working in it.  I was building houses up in New Hampshire and it kept on snowing and snowing and I am up on this 2x4 wall, it's about 30 feet up in the air, and I am trying to nail down these rafters. It's snowing and snowing and I was thinking "This is crazy!"  My boss calls up the next day and says "Hey, you guys gotta come to work today."  I said "Wait a minute, the governor closed the State, it's a state of emergency." and he said "You gotta go to work."  Well, the Lord told me right there that's not the job for me. 

So I was looking for a job and lo and behold, in the newspaper there was an ad that looked like the greatest thing since sliced bread for me.  It was for a nuclear power operator and I thought "Well that must pay real well."  So I called the number and it happened to be the Navy.  Two weeks later I was in the Navy in Illinois.  Okay?  So the Lord got me out of that situation and put me in the Navy.  The Navy taught me quite a bit.  It taught me responsibility and to do everything I do to the best of my ability.  And that is what the Lord wants.  Do everything you do to the best of your ability. No more, no less. Things go wrong, that happens. Just do the best you can.

There's a lot of people out in the street that are on drugs, addicted to alcohol and they are doing the best that they can. They are no worse than we are, they are the same as we are. We should love them as much as we love everybody in this room, as much as we love God. We are supposed to love everybody the same because we are all the same in God's eyes.

Now, I want to tell you a little bit about prayer and why we should praise God for answering our prayers. When I was about 16 years old I was in love with this girl, she was the best thing since sliced bread to me then. But, she wasn't in love with me. She really broke my heart. That night I went home and I prayed to God and I said "Lord, let me meet the girl that's going to love me as much as I love her." I was down on my hands and knees and I was crying. I kind of forgot about that prayer. I never prayed it again afterward. Well, about 7 years later, I was in the Navy and I was home just for 2 weeks on recruiting duty in the middle of January so I wasn't going to go out and have much fun any my future wife, Bonnie, comes into my office to join the Navy. I fell in love with her when I saw her. The Lord brought her into my life because I was still straying away from God, I was still going the wrong ways and she kept on slapping me back, saying "Hey, God's up there. Follow him." We met in the end of January and in the middle of August we were married. That was 19 years ago. Now we have 5 beautiful children. So that was one answer to prayer that I had forgotten about but God didn't.

Now let me tell you another answer to prayer most recently. Earlier this year we were having financial problems and I didn't know how we were going to make ends meet. I swallowed my pride and told everybody here that I need prayer. Everybody here prayed. I prayed, my wife prayed. What happened? It was in early May that I asked for your prayers. My income tax refund came in right at the right time so I could mail out my bills the next day. The college girls that came to work during the summer, they came in the next week to our church looking for a place to stay. Well, we had the room so they stayed with us. That provided more money to us to pay our bills and do some repairs to our house. Money just kept on flowing in. Why? God was answering our prayers. My prayers and your prayers. I thank everyone here for praying for me. I just want you to know that it's important to pray for everybody in here as well as the people that you work with, and the guy that you see on the street with his bottle of alcohol. It is just as important to pray for them as anybody in here.

Last thing I want to leave you with is we're here for a reason. I don't think it is just to get together with ourselves. We're here to bring other non-Christians in to our church and get them to know God and that Jesus Christ is their Savior. That is what we need to work on. I don't mean you have to get up and preach, you don't have to quote Scripture. You can do it by the way you live, by giving glory to God in front of people. I think that is why I am here in Vineland. The Lord opened up the doors. I was retiring from the Navy. The Lord opened up the door, the job was there and they kept on bugging me "You've got to come now. You've got to come now." But you can't just walk away from Uncle Sam. I had 2 months left in the Navy and the job is going "You've got to come now. You've got to come now." I came here. Bonnie and I came down with the kids, looking for a place to live. Bonnie went back home and I kind of stayed here by myself. I was driving by this church, trying to figure out where I was going to go to church. I saw this church and I thought "Well, that's a nice looking place. It looks kind of small. Doesn't look like there was many people. I don't know if that is the right place." But God kept on saying "Go there. Go there." So I came in and the love that you people have shown myself and my family has been incredible. So there is another answer to prayer because I didn't know where to go. I asked God where to go and He brought me here.

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