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0:45And then I want to talk to you about Emmanuel the church. If we understand Emmanuel the person, we'll have a better idea of what Emmanuel the Church is all about and why we are here. Emmanuel the person. Luke tells us that he came to set captives free. You remember that day he came into Nazareth and he went into the synagogues and he had been teaching. And he stood up and he read from the scroll and he turned to the prophet Isaiah, or prophet Isaiah was handed to him, and he opened the book and found the place where it was written. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set those who are oppressed, to set free those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.

1:56He came to free captives. And so those who are called by his name are to walk in the freedom that he gives. And what is that freedom that he gives? What is freedom? We're celebrating it all around. But as you come to Scripture, you realize that freedom is not a set of political values or a set of political policies. And contrary to popular opinion, freedom is not the ability to do what you want to do. In fact, Scripture refers to that as sin. When you are incarcerated into the small, little world of doing what your flesh and what your flesh desires, that is what the Bible refers to as sin. No, freedom is not the ability to do what you want. What you want to do. It's the freedom to think and act as you ought to think. That's what freedom is. And he came to set captives free.

3:14Where did the name Emmanuel come from, anyway? Remember in Matthew chapter 1, Joseph is ready to put Mary his wife away, or his bride to be betrothed. He's going to put her away secretly. And he had a dream. Angel said, Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. The child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Now, all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.

4:09He came to save his people from their sins, both the penalty of their sins and their disposition to sin. That was the small, little world that has incarcerated humanity. And he came to set them free. His very name is associated with his presence. He came personally to set his people free. God with us. And when you summarize the life of Jesus, you really can summarize it under three realities or three duties that he came to carry out. First of all, he came to manifest his unique God-human person, Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus came to manifest his deity, his godness, to let us know God is among us. That was first reality he came to manifest. The second reality that he came to manifest was God's great love for us. That God Himself has walked among us, that God Himself loves us to the highest degree imaginable.

5:42He goes to the cross. He displays God's love. Jesus came to manifest a third reality, and that is our moral duty to one another, to love in truth. As he loved. So he came to manifest his God-human person, his deity. He came to manifest his great love for us. And he came to manifest our moral duty to each other. And he came looking for those who would believe in him, who would entrust themselves to him. And there were indeed those who believed in him.

6:31I call these some of the high points in human history. And I want to walk you through a couple of them, a few of them. Remember 1 John 5:4, we looked at it this morning and last week. There is a faith that has overcome the world. There are those who are overcoming the world because they have embraced the faith that has overcome the world. Faith has overcome the world. This is the victory. What is faith? Well, it's really where you can find freedom.

7:13What is faith? Well, in a theological sense, we talked about the idea of conversion. Conversion is when biblical term talking about turning to God, the idea of a change, a turn to God, conversion, and there's a It's like a coin. There's two sides on that coin: there's repentance and there's faith. Conversion involves turning away from what you ought to turn away from and turning to that which you ought to turn to. So you repent and you believe. It's the concept of conversion to turn.

7:59Faith is the positive side of conversion, where one understands and assents and trusts in the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the highest points in human history are those moments when people really begin to believe that Jesus is indeed the Christ. The highest points in human history on a global scale, on a national scale, but also on a personal scale. It's when you come to understand that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. That's the greatest change. That's the greatest moment of transformation in a person's life or in a society's life.

8:50And I want to walk you through a few of these. You remember in Mark chapter 2? You remember the paralytic? I know. Know we have talked about this before, but I want you to get in your mind what faith is and how faith frees a person. Mark chapter 2. You remember he had come back to Capernaum. Verse 2, and many were gathered together so that there was no longer room, not even near the door. And he was speaking the word to them, and they came bringing to him a paralytic. Carried by four men, being unable to get to him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above, and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying.

9:44These men had heard something about Christ, and they believed what they had heard, that he is able to heal and that he is willing to heal, and they took their friend. And when they got to the house, it was crowded. So what do you do? Give up? That's not what faith does. Faith pushes forward. And they kept going. They found a way in through the roof. Look what Jesus says in verse 5. And Jesus seeing their faith.

10:26Jesus stops the whole scene. It's interesting. That when John talks about faith that has overcome the world, there's only one place in all of John's writing that he uses faith as a noun. One place, John 5:4. Mark uses it three places as a noun. Most of the time, it's used as a verb. Faith is something that you do with the truth. That's the way John wrote throughout all of his writings: faith is something that you do with the truth. But here, he describes it as a noun. It's something that one has a faith that has overcome the world. And we see it. And three times in Mark's gospel, the whole narrative stops, and Jesus says, There it is. Stop. As if everybody, as if you're going to miss it, there it is. You see, when the roof was opened and they let down their friend on the pallet, Jesus stops everything and says, There it is. There is faith right there. And he says, Son, your sins are forgiven. And then you know what happens after that. Who can forgive but God alone? And what is easier? Say to get up and walk or say your sins are forgiven, but so that you know that I can forgive sins, get up. And walk.

12:03Mark chapter 5. Mark chapter 5. You remember the woman, the woman. She has an issue, a blood issue. And so she, a woman who had a hemorrhage for 12 years and had endured much at the hands of many physicians in Mark 5, 26, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but had rather grown worse. After hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind him and touched his cloak. For she thought, if I just touch his garment, I will get well. Immediately the blood, the flow of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed.

12:49Immediately, Jesus, perceiving in himself that power proceeded from him, had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, Who touched my garments? Now, here's a woman that has got a blood issue. And she sees Jesus. She has heard about Jesus. She knows something about Jesus. And if she gets to Jesus and touches him, she will be healed. And then Jesus, perceiving what had happened. Now, keep in mind, every person she touches is going to become ceremonially unclean. That's her situation. She's going to put, and if you see the crowd, you might be tempted to go home. That's not what faith does, it pursues. And Jesus then says, Who touched me? And he looked around at the woman. He's like, There it is. Stop. There it is again. There it is, right there.

13:54But the woman, fearing, trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole story. And he said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go, go in peace and be healed of your affliction. It's faith. Mark chapter 10. Mark chapter 10. There's a blind man named Bartimaeus as they came to Jericho. As Jesus is going up to Jerusalem, he's sitting by the road, and when he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Many were sternly telling him to be quiet, but he kept crying out all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped and said, Call him here.

14:47Interesting. Here comes Jesus walking through. There's a big crowd around him. There's a guy that starts crying out. Shh, be quiet, be quiet, shh, be quiet. All the more, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on. Mercy upon me. At a time like that, it might be the polite thing to do. Just say, okay, never mind, I'll catch you next time around, right? That's not what faith does. And so Jesus again stops, stops the scene and says, Come here, call him here. So they called the blind man, saying to him, Take courage, stand up. He is calling for you. Throwing aside his cloak, he jumped up and came to Jesus, and answering him, Jesus said, What do you want me to do for you? And he said, Rabboni, I want to regain my sight. And Jesus said, Go, your faith has made you well. There it is again. Stop the procession. There it is. Faith.

15:53Now, these individuals, the paralytic, the woman, and Bartimaeus, they had heard something about Jesus. They knew. They had put their trust in. They knew something about Jesus and they latched on to it. John 666. You want to know what 666 in the Bible reads? As a result of this, many of his disciples withdrew and were not walking with him anymore. This is after that great, that great. Great event of Jesus, the huge crowds, crowds were following him, excited. They're ready to go to Passover. They're ready to proclaim him king. They're excited. Jesus says, unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, you have no life in yourself. And at this, as a result of this, many of his disciples withdrew and were not walking with him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, You do not want to go away also, do you? Simon Peter answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have believed and come to know that you are the holy one of God. There it is.

17:20Faith. Faith. And this is what the disciples are like, we believe in you. We believe you are the holy one of God. Our soul has lodged on to that. We cannot go anywhere else. Even in the face of all this mass defection, we cannot leave because we have faith in you. That's where all the paralytic, the woman, and Bartimaeus, they understood a lot, but the disciples came to a clearer understanding of exactly what our faith is to be in. You have the words of eternal life. Our heart is gripped by the words that you speak. We know you are from God. We know you are the Holy One of God. We cannot go anywhere else. Our hearts will not let us go out because we are tied to you forever.

18:15We believe that's what faith is. Striking words that Jesus prays in John 17, 6. John 17:6. This is the Son of God praying to Father God. This is the Holy of Holies. This is communication within the triune God. And he says this: Now, Father, in verse 5, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was. I have manifested your name to the men you gave me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

19:11They have kept your word. John 17, 6. This is the Son praying to the Father. Not, I think they're going to get it one day. They have kept it. And this is a remarkable statement in light of what is taking place. They're about to defect, right? They're defective. About to deny. And yet, here's the Son of God, in all truthfulness, standing before the Father, saying, They have kept your word. What's going on there? The word for kept involves the idea of treasuring. And to understand the treasure that Christ was to these disciples, we cannot compare their faith to the standards of perfection or even the post-resurrection or Pentecostal revelation. Think about where these men are in history. The world has forsaken Christ. The Jewish nation has forsaken Christ.

20:15The Gentiles, the Romans have handed him over. And here they are. Here they are. We must compare the faith of these men to the faith of their generation. And boy, when you start comparing these disciples then to the faith of their generation, they shine like stars. They have not just kept your words, they have kept the sum total of what your message is about: Christ. That is what they got. We know you are the Holy One of God. We know, and we cannot go anywhere else.

21:06These men kept that which they treasured. They kept, they treasured God's incarnation of Himself. That's what they treasured. That's what they kept. That's what they couldn't let go, even when the whole world was letting go of it. No matter the degree of their immaturity or their lack of perfection, they truly loved Jesus and they treasured him, and they stood in stark contrast to the world of their day. This is what it means to have faith in Jesus.

21:50They were able to do what they should do. They were freed to do what they ought to do. Just as the paralytic, just as the woman, just as Bartimaeus. This is what it means to have faith in Jesus. That's Emmanuel the person. Let me talk to you a little bit about Emmanuel the church. What are the objectives of the church? What are the objectives of any church? Well, any church that truly has faith in Jesus will allow his basic objectives to drive their basic objectives.

22:30He came to manifest his deity, his God-human person. And so we believe him to be such. We relate to him with all esteem and honor as we would God himself, because that is who he is. And we proclaim him as such. Immanuel, God's presence is with us. Second objective of the church lines up with the objectives of Christ. He came to manifest God's great love for us. And we accept his testimony of God's love. We believe God's testimony of his love for us that is in Christ Jesus, displayed on the cross.

23:26We know the depth of it. We know the highest in heaven. We know that he loves us to the highest degree. And that's the he came to manifest God's great love for us. And so we believe that. That's how we see ourselves loved, treasured by God. That's how we see each other loved and treasured by God. That is what we proclaim. That is the good news. And third, he came to manifest our moral duty to each other, to love one another as he loved us.

23:58And that is what. We purpose to do to love one another in truth to the very same degree that God loved us. That's what the church is about. To understand that God has walked among us. We know His name. To understand that God demonstrated His great love for us. We let that shape our thinking. We let that satisfy our soul. And then we let God, and then He manifested our duty to one another, to love one another with that same kind of love. He came looking for those who would believe in Him.

24:45And we believe Him to have the words of life. After all these years, great moments in history, it was there. It was there when the disciples said, We believe, you have the words of life. Therein, that's the group that's going to form the church. That's literally going to transform planet Earth as it moves and call people out of their darkness, bringing them face to face with the reality that God has walked among us, that God has declared His great love for us and invite. People into that relationship with him.

25:36Yes, the church is a living witness to Jesus, and our presence here at this location serves as an ongoing witness to the God who has walked among us. Our name is Emmanuel, named after the person Emmanuel. And I hope every time you drive by the sign and you see the word Emmanuel, that your mind is raptured into heaven and you are thinking about the person Emmanuel. And I hope that our conduct, and every time you come through these doors and you brush shoulders with the member of Emmanuel, that your mind is raptured into heaven because you get a glimpse of the God who walked among us.

26:22But I've got to tell you something. As I will wrap tonight up, we are not the first expression of faith on this property, are we? There's actually a pretty significant history here on this property, and I want to just read a little bit of that to you. You know, there's the Saints' Rest Church. This was called Saints' Rest here, right, for many years. And then it was called Steep Hollow later in some debate on the dates there. But let me just read to you, reading from a centennial of Steep Hollow Baptist Church. Church. Let me just read to you, get an idea of what's taking place here. Saints Rest Baptist Church in the Steep Hollow community was established in 1873 after a revival led by the Reverend Hollis.

27:17Among the first 33 members were Reverend and Mrs. S. C. Martin, Miss Nanny Martin, T. B. Martin, Mr. and Mrs. Matthias Peters, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Peters, Mr. and Mrs. S. B. Buchanan, Amos Peters, Mr. and Mrs. Ben Simons, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Bullock, Mr. and Mrs. Sam Bullock Sr., Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Cook, another Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan, and their children. Reverend S. C. Martin told the group that he was an old man. Sounds like something an old man would say. He was an old man and asked the younger men to go out to the woods and cut blocks so boards could be placed across them to be used for seats.

28:08The first meeting was under the same trees that surround the present church. By the way, that tree right over there I know is at least a couple of hundred years old. The one that fell over here, we had a tree expert come and cut it. It was easily, it was well over 200, maybe 250 years. So around some of these trees, these trees go back to the very time of this, and church was. Had its first meeting under the same trees. After they organized, they met in the schoolhouse, which was built in 1870 adjacent to the church grounds. The men of the community brought their axes, cross-cut saws, and other necessary tools to make the beginning. And when it was completed, it was 24 by 36 feet in size. Land for the first church was given by Harvey Mitchell. Three other buildings have been constructed on the same site. The present one, present chapel now, was built in 1962. Charles Peters was the first and only deacon. James, probably identify, right?

29:14The Saints Rest Baptist Church petitioned for membership in this Trinity River Baptist Association November 1873. The 25th session of the association was postponed from October until November on account of the yellow fever prevailing at different points along the railroad. And so the association met with Cottonwood Baptist Church. I heard another piece of trivia when I was down at the courthouse by somebody who apparently knows the area. That part of the land over there was originally added to Richardson Perry. I don't know if that's a descendant of Rick Perry or ancestor of Rick Perry or not, but he went to the Alamo and never came back.

30:00Of that's over there, what I understand. So there's the Saints' Rest Church. There's the Steep Hollow Church. These little Baptist churches are not so isolated. They blend, they mesh. Then there's Emmanuel. Emmanuel. I'll read to you a little bit about Emmanuel's history. We grew up downtown, right? It's not that far of a drive now, but back in the horse and buggy days, you know, it was a little bit more of a stretch. But here's the church history of Emmanuel. The prayers of many reached fruition on October 3rd, 1950, when a group of 40 men and women of like faith and order met together in the chapel of McDonald's funeral home to plan and organize a church large enough to serve you and small enough to need you. The time had come for the people to become a church, and October 22nd, 1950 became the official date that the church would be organized. The Reverend M. A. Gary, missionary for the Kreth Brazos Baptist Association, was moderator of the service. The church was named in a called meeting. Knowing that all things are possible when God is with us, the name Emmanuel was chosen.

31:17The Dock Lodge served as a place of worship until property, including a frame apartment house, was purchased by the church at 24th and Houston Street in Bryan. May 6, 1951. Work was begun at once to improve the structure so that it would be suitable for worship and teaching purposes. The present auditorium, that's our downtown, old historic downtown place, with a seating capacity of 325, they must have been a lot smaller back then. I couldn't figure out how to get more than 200 in there. But anyway, the present auditorium, our downtown campus, with seating capacity of 3, was completed and occupied in May 1954. Cost them $31,000 to do it. We have had a history of five pastors. I am the sixth. It's Emmanuel.

32:20Then we have another church. July 4th, last year, Southern Oaks. Their building burned to the ground, and now they're meeting at this location. Just to give you a sense of just how these communities kind of blend and interact, these little Baptist churches in the area, if you have been a regular attender of both Emmanuel and Steep Hollow, would you stand? If you were one time a member of both Steep Hollow, Steep Hollow Fellowship, I know there's More that, yeah, there's quite a few. I know there's some more somewhere. I don't know if they're not here. But thank you, your whole family, and there's quite a few. And if you are in Southern Oaks, would Southern Oaks please stand? Just the Southern Oaks body that's meeting here among us. Welcome. Glad you're here. Thank you. And there's been many of us at Emmanuel that have blended in at Southern Oaks and likewise. But just all to give you a sense that there is church life on this property.

33:40And so, what is this church called Emmanuel all about? Well, we are a living testimony to Emmanuel the person. Who do we admire? Jesus Christ, Son of God. How do we think about ourselves? Loved by the highest to the highest degree. What do we see as our duty to those around us? Love one another in the truth and sacrificially give ourselves for the well-being of others as Christ sacrificially gave Himself. That's why we're here. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we give you thanks. We give thanks You thanks for the truths that we find in Scripture, Father, that our hearts are gripped by your words. We cannot go anywhere else, and yet it's in your words we find great freedom. Father, we thank you for these disciples who did not bow down to the pressures of society, but stood in the truth of who you are. That truth has set so many people free.

35:16Father, we no longer fear death. We no longer fear what's to come because we know you. We no longer fear what even happens in our world. You have freed us to love and to give ourselves completely to your work, joyful work. And so, Father, we thank you for these great, great privileges. May you bless your church body here at this location and throughout the Brazos Valley and beyond, till all the world knows Emmanuel. It's in his name we pray. Amen.