There are two words in the New Testament that I use to refer to the people of God. One is ekklesia, meaning "the called-out ones." We are in this world but not of this world. The other is the Greek word koinonia, meaning "fellowship." "And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship" (Acts 2:42).

Something is unique about the people of God. Someone has said: "When in Heaven above with the saints we love, well, that will be glory; but to live here below with some Christians we know, well, that’s another story."

I praise God for the people of the church. What kind of people were they? What made them unique?

The Book is the sole authority of our Faith, God’s direction for us. The people of God all these years have had His authoritative leadership.

Some folks may be down-and-out on the church because they have the mulligrubs and are discouraged; but I’ve never been more encouraged about the people of God than I am at this moment. The church is alive and well!

The folks who say the church is dying haven’t been running in the same circles that I’ve been running in. God is blessing, and His church is alive and well upon this earth.

God has always had people who did not flinch in the hour of conflict, people who did not bow to the pagan gods, people who would not alter their path of righteousness just to avoid confrontation with opposition.

The people of God have been used and abused, yet they have continued to march on toward the finish line. They cannot be bought with Satan’s bribes. The people of God are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. They stand in the gap in the raging storms of conflict. The people of God were, and still are, serious about the heavenly mandate of carrying out the Great Commission. They are sensitive to the need of the world and endeavor to preach the Gospel to every creature.

When He said, "I will build my church," He was talking about people. Praise the Lord for the people of the church!

People have the authoritative leadership of the Bible as their light. Praise God for the Bible and its inerrancy!

With the Bible as their light and with Jesus as their Lord, His people are unique.

In every meeting we have, we must make sure Jesus has the preeminence in all things because He is Lord!

He is Lord for two reasons: One, He is Lord positionally. Whether or not you believe in the lordship of Jesus does not alter the truth that Jesus is Lord! Two, He is Lord practically as we make Him the Lord of our lives.

The people also had their pastor as their leader. They were the sheep of the pastor. Praise the Lord for authoritative leadership!

We believe in a saved membership. In all probability, not everyone on our church roll is saved. When God mentioned His people, He was talking about saved people. I’m not talking about coming down the aisle and signing on the dotted line; I’m talking about a heavenly transaction that takes place in the human heart that will change the inside and work its way to the outside—God’s work of changing and redeeming man-kind and saving their souls from sin.

I got saved many years ago at a little country church in Altoona, Alabama. Today, when one gets saved, it seems not many get excited about it. But I got saved in a church where it was exciting. It was top billing when one came down to the altar to get saved.

I got saved at a mourners’ bench. When someone came down the aisle, the men and women knelt and prayed. One lady said, "Turn loose," and another said, "Hold on." One lady was beating me on the back. If I hadn’t gotten saved, I do believe she would have beat the Devil out of me!

That night, February 18, 1961, as a twelve-year-old boy, my life was changed because I was S-A-V-E-D!

The people of God are a regenerated membership.

We need a koinonia, a dynamic fellowship. That is what the Southwide Baptist Fellowship is. When we talk about people of God, we are talking about fellowship.

In the book of I Peter, we find certain things about the people of the church. This is the same Peter of whom Jesus said, "Upon this rock I will build my church." Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, was there when He said, "I will build my church," and if there is anyone who can teach us about the people of the church, it is Peter.

Peter uses several words to describe who we (the church) are. We are strangers in this world. This world is not our home. We are just passing through. We don’t feel at home in this world. We go to a restaurant to eat, and come out smelling like a cigarette. We go to a motel room and pay good money to smell someone else’s smoke from the night before. We go to a ball game, and we have to sit like a statue or pass the beer on down the line of seats. (I refuse to pass the beer!)

Peter calls the people of God "strangers," pilgrims passing through. The book of I Peter is written to people who understand they are on a journey. They are not yet there, and they must learn how to live until they get there.

Peter says to these people while they are traveling through this world of hard knocks and affliction: "Remember, you are the elect."

The Bible tells us that we are somebody. I’m not talking about pills, positive thinking or Schuller’s possibility thinking—we are somebody because we belong to God. We have been chosen from the foundation of the world, washed in His blood.

People of God, lift up your heads and give God the glory. We are who we are because of the grace of Almighty God.

Elect means that we are somebody.

When a cantankerous deacon gets after you (the preacher), you are still somebody. When the church is having problems and the people are blaming you for them, you are still somebody—the elect, the chosen one, the special one.

Sometimes you feel like the boy who put an ad in the paper for his dog:

My dog has one eye out, clawed out in a fight with a cat. One ear is missing because he got in a fight with another dog, and the dog bit it off. He has the mange because he was running around with some dogs that had some things they shouldn’t have. His tail is cut off because he got run over by a train. If you see a dog with this description, he’ll answer to the name Lucky.

No matter what hardship we have nor what heartache we are feeling, we are still the chosen, elect of Almighty God, the people of the church. We are hidden in Christ Jesus by a divine transaction that we had nothing to do with except to say, "Yes, Lord, I believe," and were born again.

We are saved because of the plan of the Father in Heaven.

Notice what Peter says: "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father." God planned for our salvation from the foundation of the world. We must be somebody because of all God has done to redeem us.

We are saved by the plan of the Father in Heaven.

We are "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father…unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." We are the blood-washed multitude of God. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. 

There are a lot of beautiful pictures of the blood in the Old Testament. One of the most beautiful is when a leper had been healed from his leprosy and he was to go to the priest and the priest was to offer up some blood and declare him clean.

The priest would take two birds. He would kill one bird and sprinkle the blood on the wings of the second bird and turn that bird loose. The blood of the first bird dripped from that second bird as it was sent out. That was to remind the leper that it is in the blood that we are clean. It is the blood that makes us whole. The blood-bought multitude make up the people of God.

We are saved because the Father in Heaven planned it. We are saved because Jesus the Son provided it.

Praise the Lord for the Father and for the Son and for the Holy Spirit! All Three are important when we think about our salvation.

We are somebody because of our position.

All the people of God have problems. One preacher said, "Bless God, we’ve all been appointed to tribulation, so we just have to tribulate!" But with all our problems, we can’t give up.

These people had personal problems. "Ye are in heaviness." So are we. Brokenhearted Christians, pilgrims on our way to a better land, but now we are living in heaviness. But never forget that we are people of God in spite of our problems, our heaviness.

Peter talks about the problems of the people of God. "Though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations."

Isn’t it wonderful that our problems come to teach us, and then our problems go. When our problems go, we then praise God for them. When we look back, we can see our problems were the greatest things that ever happened to us.

My position is that I am a child of the King, and my problems allow me to see God focusing all of His special attention on me. In moments of deep heaviness, manifold temptations and trials of my faith, I can look to God and see that He is looking at me.

Whether you like it or not, there is the reality of problems. "Ye are in heaviness."

First Peter 4:10 uses that same word, manifold. It is not talking about something that goes on your automobile engine. The word actually means "many-colored"—the many-colored grace of God. In other words, for every one of the manifold temptations, God has manifold grace to meet that temptation.

Our church was one of the fastest growing churches in the Gadsden, Alabama area. Two members were nurses who worked at a Southern Baptist hospital, and they had to do abortions (this was in 1972, before it became "popular" to oppose abortion). When those two nurses came to me and said, "Brother Barton, we can’t sleep," I took my stand.

I opposed it before the Southern Baptist meeting. When you start opposing the powers that be, you are headed for problems. I had to give up my church. There is no greater misery for a preacher who is called to preach than for something to happen so that he can’t preach. Oh, what a misery! What dark days were mine! I never doubted I was called to preach, but for the next eighteen long months I had no permanent place to preach. Oh, what misery!

I would pray on Saturday night, "God, if I can’t preach tomorrow, I pray I won’t be living tomorrow."

Everywhere I went, the Associational missionary had beat me there. He would say to the folks, "Don’t call him as your pastor. He is a rabble-rouser. He is a troublemaker."

Nevertheless, I stood upon the Word of God.

Preachers would come by, pat me on the back, and say, "Brother, just hang in there. You’re going through a desert, and the Lord will bless." I didn’t want to be consoled while I was going through the desert; and to be honest with you, I sometimes wanted to give them a knuckle sandwich. I had the greatest problem in all the world, and I didn’t think anyone had so great a problem as this one.

I went to a little country church where nothing was happening. The people were discouraged. They said, "We want you to preach." I was looking for a place to preach, so I preached. They never called me as their pastor, but I stayed there four years.

For the first six months, not one soul walked down the aisle. I prayed and fasted and cried for those six months: "O God, why don’t You bless me now as You once did?"

After six months the sun started to shine, and souls started getting saved. It seemed as though God had said, "I just wanted to see if you would keep going in the midst of that problem."

Listen to me, dear people of God: When you are in great heaviness, just keep running the race! The reason for our problems is to make us more of what we are that maybe we would not be had we not had the problems. It is necessary for us to have some problems.

I’ve been preaching twenty-six years. A long time ago when I had problems, I said, "Well, someday I’ll get to the place where there will be no more problems." But every new day there is a new lesson to learn. So I’ve learned more at the University of Adversity than I have anywhere else. The result is that you "might be found unto praise and honour and glory."

Sometimes preachers will pat you on the back. Then when they have to take a stand, they will turn their backs on you. I had some like that when I was not pastoring a church. I wanted to preach, but I had to give up my church. I started driving a dump truck for a few dollars an hour. On Monday mornings, some of them would get together, go out for lunch, and then go play golf. I would pull up to the red light in my dump truck, and those preachers would wave at me. My heart was broken, and I grew bitter. Thank God He never leaves you in such a problem. The result of those problems was "honour and glory."

In verse 5, Peter writes about the protection of the people of God "who are kept by the power of God."

As the people of God, we have our problems, but we are assured of His protection.

Isaiah 43:1–3 says:

God will never send you out to do anything but that He will protect you as you do it! Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego are prime examples of the protection that God offers His people. Three men were persecuted, preserved and promoted out of a burning, fiery furnace; Daniel was promoted out of that lions’ den.

I heard his message that night: "Now Is the Time, This Is the Place, and We Are the People."

I was a little country boy running about fifty in Sunday school, but I had high hopes. My hopes have never been brighter. I don’t yet have ten thousand in attendance, but I still hope to get a bunch more. You ought to hope too.

Now is the time! This is the place! We are the people!

Several years ago God gave me a message entitled "Glory in the Church," and that verse (vs. 21) reminded me of the particular thing called "glory."

I believe we live in the days of apostasy, but that is not going to keep me from preaching the truth. That is not going to keep me from going on. I’m not going to sit on the side and let the world go to Hell. I’m going to fight for the truth as long as there is any fight in me!

I had some folks in my church who believed that Jesus was coming on Thursday, September 24, the Day of the Trumpets for the Jewish Feast. On Wednesday night I said, "Okay, if He is coming, I’m not going to wash out the bathtub or carry out the garbage until after Thursday. (These are the two things I most despise.) If I’m here Sunday morning, I will preach on ‘Why Jesus Did Not Come Back Last Thursday.’" And I did.

When some of those folks who were looking for Him to come on Thursday didn’t come to church on Sunday morning, I was a bit worried that maybe the rapture had taken place! But I found that they were just embarrassed to show up.

This is the best day, the day when there are grudges and gizmos in the church, and we still need the glory! And we can have the glory.

I know there is a discouraged preacher sitting here somewhere this morning in this audience. He needs to leave here knowing that the same God who was Spurgeon’s God is on the throne today. The same God who blessed D. L. Moody is still on the throne today.

People of God, no matter who you are, there is a great prospect for us now! There is a great prospect for us in the future because someday He who said, "I will come," will come, and we will go up with Him.

Everywhere I go I find some discouraged people. Since I’ve been discouraged so many times, I believe God has given me a ministry to discouraged people. As people of God, we are somebody, because we have God working through us and with us and for us to bring glory upon the church.

I am a child of God. I need problems because He is teaching me through them. I have protection because He said He would never leave me nor forsake me. I have the prospect that someday He will say, "Come up hither!" For the church of God, there is now the prospect of a glorious future.