The Church and Her Expansion

There's an epidemic in our culture, an epidemic of broken marriages, and that epidemic of broken marriages has at its root a number of causes, but one of the main causes is the fact that we don't understand what marriage is for. And if you don't know what a thing is for, you will eventually abuse it. This is why we don't let our children play with our expensive things, because they don't know what they're for, and they have no choice but to abuse those things if they don't know what they're for. We live in a culture that doesn't know what marriage is for until we abuse marriage. There are a number of things that we think about marriage that are completely erroneous, and they lead us to bad places. One of the things, for example, that we've become convinced of is the idea that marriage exists so that we can have fulfillment. We look to our spouse for fulfillment, not realizing that since we are made to be fulfilled by and find our fulfillment in Christ, that looking to another human being, whether that's your spouse or not, for fulfillment is actually an act of idolatry. Your spouse is not there to fulfill you in fact, your marriage is not about you. Your marriage is bigger than you. Your marriage is actually about the Gospel. It is a picture of the relationship between Christ and his bride, the church. And so, because of this warped view that we have about marriage and that marriage is supposed to be about our fulfillment and about our enjoyment, we have people who walk into marriage and they're completely selfish when they walk into marriage. And we want to put off children as long as we possibly can. Why because children will interfere with our enjoyment. That's selfish. We don't understand the purpose of the thing, and so we're abusing the thing. And then so maybe we get around to having kids or having a child, but even then it's for fulfillment. We've been married for a while and seems like we ought to have a child, you know, because there maybe there's something missing, and maybe that will make us more whole, and maybe that will fulfill us. But again, if you find your fulfilling in something other than God, that is idolatry. And then we're tired and we're worn out and we're frustrated because there are children now and children are so demanding and parenting is so tedious, and it's so heartbreaking and heartrending at times, and because we're selfish and don't understand what marriage is for, we look at our children as an intrusion. Then ironically that are on our children are ready to get up and they're ready to leave, and we freak out because we don't know what we're gonna do, and now we want to hold on to them at the end all of this, because we think wrongly about marriage and we don't understand what it's for. Therefore, the idea that we would see our children go out and enter into marriages themselves, so that the glory of Christ and the relationship between him and his bride might be magnified and manifest in multiple other relationships coming out of our relationship as it bears fruit doesn't cross our mind. I miss them, I want them with me, I want them close to me. What does this have to do with mission? I just have been thinking about the irony of the way we think about marriage and abuse it, and how similar that is to the way we think about the church and abuse it. Because just like people don't understand what marriage is for and turn inwardly and abuse marriage, we don't know what the church is for, and so we turn inwardly and we abuse the church. We look at marriage and we say, well, marriage is for me, and it's from my fulfillment. We look at the church and we say, the church for me, and it's for my fulfillment. We don't want kids coming because there will be intrusions in our marriage. We don't want the church extending herself to too many different kinds of people because that will be an intrusion on our enjoyment. We don't want the church to grow, We don't want the church to change, want church to expand. Why Because we want what we want the way we want it, because it's about me and my enjoyment. And all of a sudden, people in the church grow up and leave go plant other churches, and we get uncomfortable and we get upset. Why because those people could be useful here. Why do they have to go somewhere else? Did you hear how familiar this sounds. It's the same way that we think abusively about marriage. We want to hoard for ourselves and for our own blessing and for our own nourishment and for our own enjoyment, not understanding that God is bigger than that, and that what God is about is bigger than that until we miss it well. Over the next two nights, I want to address both of those issues. Tonight, I want us to look at this issue of the church and the church and its expansion and what that means to the way we think about the church. And then on tomorrow night, I want us to look at the family. I want us to look at the forgotten mission field of the family. For example, I think it's quite ironic that there is a there is a conflict between missions and family, and that there are some mission agencies that won't even think about working with you if you have a certain number of children because of this conflict between mission and family, because of us not understanding that the family is our primary mission field. Amen, somebody so, But that's tomorrow tonight. Let's look at this idea of the church and its multiplication. This has many implications if we understand that the church, that a healthy church multiplies just like a healthy couple, if a healthy couple comes comes together. One of the things I pray for when I when I do weddings is I pray that God would crown the union with the gift of many, many children, And I love to see people's heads up. I'm gonna go do he? Just yeah? He did? Sometimes sometimes I see lots just oodles and oodles of children. Then the bride and groom kind of go do he. But again, healthy couples, it's always been understood until recent times, the healthy couple marries, then children should issue forth relatively quickly, you know, within nine months or a year or something like that. Okay, that children should issue forth, And throughout history it's been understood that if that's not happening, then there's probably something wrong. Now we don't think about that anymore. We don't think like that anymore. Ironically, we also understood that a healthy church should be a multiplying church, but now we don't think about that anymore. Now we just think about a healthy church being a growing church. We think about it healthy church being a bloated church, a church that consumes for itself and never looks outward and multiplies. From a biblical perspective, is that that's just it's unheard of. If a church is healthy, it multiplies. If a church is healthy, it raises up individuals who will then go elsewhere in order to help others. Enjoy what they've experienced. It's a difficult thing, it's a painful thing, but it's a biblical thing. And we need churches to multiply. If you have your Bibles, open them to the Book of Second Timothy. Second Timothy in nor do I mean that we just sort of neet churches to multiply overseas. One of the things that we've done at at GFBC is we've really kind of backed off on using the term missionary. And number one, because you don't find it in the text. You don't find the term missionary in the text. And secondly, because it sort of brings confusion to people. And sometimes we look at things and call the mission that don't have anything to do with the mission. And so it's quite interesting. You know, eight years ago we started Grace Family Baptist Church there in Houston, Texas. And so we started Grace Family there in Houston. And so because we planted the church, that would make those of us who planted the church church planners, right with church planners, because we planning the church. Now, if I go to Brazil and plant a church, I gotta be called a missionary. I'm doing the same thing. Why do I get a different title if I cross a border, or we don't even have across a we just have to work with a different ethnic group, and all of a sudden we get a title. We get a different title. Right, how come a church planner is not a church planner is not a church planner? And I think one of the things that we've done is we've clouded the issue so that now we think that only certain individuals are part of the mission and other individuals are not. Nothing could be further from the truth. The term Christian missionary is actually a redundancy amen. It's a redundant term as a Christian, that's part of what you are, is a missionary. In fact, a Christian who's not a missionary is not a healthy Christian. If you can't say a man, you ought to say ouch, okay. But through our you know, adopting this terminology, we've come to believe that there are certain Christians who are missionaries and then other Christians who are not. That there are certain Christians who are oblos gated to give their lives to the Lord, to his service and the proclamation of the Gospel among those who don't know, and other people who are called to root them on. This is not true. And if we change the way we think about this, we'll change the way we think about the church as it multiplies, because it's a difficult thing. It's a painful thing. Our church is right now about to multiply for the third time, and it's difficult. It's difficult. It's painful. It's painful to raise up and train and disciple men who are gifted and strong, and then look at how useful they are and the body, and then watch them leave and watch the load multiply on the rest of us again because somebody left. It would be so much easier for us if they didn't leave. But it's healthy for them to leave. It's God honoring for them to leave. It's a blessing for them to leave. We don't see it that way unless we change our perspective. Some people don't think that missions something that's significant here in the United States because we don't understand a few facts. May I share a few things with you. There are over two hundred million unchurched Americans. The United States of America is the third largest mission field on planet Earth. In my hometown, they're about three and a half million unchurched people. No US county has a greater church population today than it did ten years ago. Not one county in the United States of America has a larger church population today than it did a decade ago. In the last decade, church membership declined nine and a half percent, while the US population increased eleven and a half percent. Each year, between thirty five hundred and five thousand churches die while only fifteen hundred are planted. In the decade of the nineties, one hundred thousand churches in America died one hundred thousand. We have not yet planted enough churches just to make up for the ones that died in the decade of the nineties. We now have sixty percent fewer churches per ten thousand persons than there were in nineteen twenty, and even less than the ward nineteen fifty. Eighty to eighty five percent of churches in the United States are plateaued or declining, and the majority of church growth in the United States happens in churches that are two years old or younger. Listen to this from Phil Newton. With projected population growth in the next twenty years, at least twenty nine thousand new churches would need to be started in the deep Southern States that's the Bible Belt, just to keep up with population growth. And that does not consider the existing population and existing communities that lack adequate gospel centered churches. That's the Bible Belt. We need almost thirty thousand churches to be planted in the Bible Belt over the next two decades just to keep up with population and growth. And that's not even talking about places that are underrepresented right now with gospel outposts. It's mind boggling, mind boggling. And yet there's work to be done all over the world. So if this is the case again, and that's just that's here in the United States, and we're we're in the best position of anyone in the world you travel anywherese in the world. When we're here in America, we complain, amen, you know, we do. We complain in America, you know. And the church it's so hard to find a church, so hard to find good teaching, so hard to find d D D D D. You know, we're on the internet and we're on sermon audio, and we're on this and you know, we got John MacArthur that and John Piper this, and there, so and so and so and so, complain and complain and complaining when there are places you go and they don't have the Bible in their language. We got one in every room of our house, and we're complaining. Churches, multiple churches in every neighborhood, and we're complaining because we just can't find a church. We complain until you go elsewhere, and then you recognize that we're actually operating from a position of strength. Nobody in the world has it as good as we do. Nobody does. And by the way, remember what I just read. We don't have it all at good, but nobody in the world has it as good as we do. So if we need that kind of work in planting churches here in the United States, by the way, the US is the number three missionary receiving country in the world. There's only two other countries in the world that receive more missionaries, that have more missionaries sent to them than the United States. Okay, just a little tidbit for you. So if that's the case, if there's that much work needed, then how's it going to get done. The only way it's gonna get done is if local churches, because that's God's plan. God's plan is the local church. God blessed parachurch ministries. They're outside of the God's plan. And now I didn't say listen to me. I didn't say that they're you know, in sin that they're da da da. But when you look at the Bible and you see God's plan to reach the world, he has a plan A and there's no plan B. His plan A is the church, the local church. So all the rest of those ministries had better be partnering with undergirding the local church. Otherwise go home, because that's God's plan. God's plan is the local church. God's plan is healthy churches. Therefore, our number one goal is to plant healthy churches. That's our number one go Everything else that we do is to support that number one goal of planting healthy churches. Because if we're doing anything other than planting healthy churches, and if planting healthy churches is not at the foundation of all of the other ministry that we do, then ultimately here's what's going to happen. We're gonna, let's say we do campus ministry. Okay, great, We're gonna go to parts of the world where there's campuses and there're gonna be these campuses, and we go on these campuses, and we witness the people on these campuses, and people get saved on these campuses, Then where do they go If our ministry is not undergirded by planting healthy churches. Are you smelling one of Steven a business? You know? Now, there's a big thing where we want to go and we want to impact the business world. We want to go and we want to do this, we want to do that. Great, all those things are wonderful. But if we don't have healthy local churches where people are going to sit under the ordinary means of grace on a week by week basis, then ultimately whatever else we're doing is going to fall flat on its face. We must plant churches, which you can't plant churches without church planters. So how do you do that? Well, the seminary is better. Get busy. Yeah, find one of those in your Bible. Again, just like parachurch ministries. I didn't say they're all insane. I didn't say That's not what I said. Not what I said. But the biblical pattern is that healthy churches reproduce healthy churches. How do they do that? I'm glad you asked tewod Timothy. Look at chapter two we read you, then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me, in the presence of many witnesses, and trust to faithful men who will be able to teach others. Also, there's the answer. There's the answer in a nutshell. There's the pattern that Paul has. In fact, this entire letter, the letter that he writes to Timothy, both of them, and the letter that he writes to Titus. These are known as the pastoral epistles. Here's Paul reproducing himself and the life in the lives of young men who have been called to pastor and plant churches. And he does this because he understands that this is the way that the Gospel is going to be sustained. There's a pattern in the book two Timothy. In every chapter you see two things. One there is a call for Timothy to Timothy to preserve and proclaim the Gospel as given to him by the apostles. That's number one, preserve and proclaim the Gospel as preached by the apostles. And number two, endure the hardship that will follow inevitably as a result of doing so. In every chapter you see these two things, both of them in every chapter. Why is this so important to Paul? Well, turn with me to the right and look at chapter four, and here's where he sort of summarizes it. And again this pattern exists in every chapter of this short letter. But he writes, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and by his kingdom, preach the word. There's the proclaiming the gospel be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and teaching. Why for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves, teach to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and will wander off into myths. That's why it's important for him to make commitment to sound doctrine, as for you always be sober minded, endure suffering. Okay, there's the second half remembered. First half is preserved and proclaimed the gospel as it was presented by the apostles and the second half endure the suffering that will follow inevitably. As for you, always keep sober minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelists, fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crowd of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. Paul's in prison, and he knows that it might be his last time. He's going to die. He's going to be put to death. Why for proclaiming the gospel. He has this young protege named Timothy. Now he mentions Timothy, Timothy's mother in Timothy's Grandmother in the Shaping of his Faith, but he does not mention Timothy's father. The only conclusion is that Timothy's father was either not a believer or that his father was simply not present. Another thing that we know is that Timothy struggled with being timid, with being fearful, and Paul reminded him that God did not give us the spirit of fear. So this is the here's this amazing letter that's being written, and basically it can be summed up like this. Paul says, they're about to kill me for preaching the gospel, and when they do, I want you to preach the gospel. Why because people are going to wander off into myths. If we don't preserve and proclaim the gospel as it was proclaimed by the apostles, then people are going to pervert the gospel. If we do proclaim this gospel, then the people who don't want to adhere to this gospel are going to persecute us for this gospel. So we have to make a commitment to this. We're going to be pulled in two different directions. And here's the problem. And this is what we see even in our culture, we're pulled in two different directions. On the one hand, we're pulled by individuals who want to accumulate teachers in accordance with their own desires. And so we put a wet finger in the air and find out which way the wind is blowing, and we go to conferences and find out, you know what's happening, what's working over here, what's working over there? What do people want? And then we go and we try to give the people what they want so that they'll come, and we say, please come, because here we are. We're giving you all the things that you want so that you'll please come. We're going to scratch your itching ears. That's the first temptation. And Paul is calling Timothy away from that first temptation. No, no, no, no no. People are not going to like it. They're going to want something else. But you must hold firm. You got to make a commitment ahead of time that you're going to hold firm because people are going to want something else. And if your commitment is to what people want, then eventually you will not hold on to sound doctrine because that's not what people want. Then there is the pressure from the other side, the other side, This is the side where my flesh wants people to be here. Amen. I feel better when there's more people this Sunday than there were last Sunday. Let me just gone and put it out there. My flesh is just happier. My flesh says, that's good. It was more people here this week than they were last week. Good for you. That's how my flesh feels. That's what my flesh wants. And if I'm not careful, I'll begin to do things just so that my flesh will feel better. How many if you know, some people need to leave. Wesley called it blessed subtractions. But then on the other side, they're the people who are not voting with their feet. They're voting with their fists, and they're saying, it will kill you if you keep preaching this. So on the one hand, my flesh wants people to be pleased with me. On the other hand, my flesh wants people not to kill me. And on both hands, I'm being drawn away from the Gospel. I'm being drawn away from sound doctrine. So because of this, Paul was urgent about telling young Timothy and his other proteges that they had to be committed to this. Also, remember remember that there's another pressure that they have that we don't have. They didn't have a written New Testament. Now think about that for a minute. Paul's preaching the Gospel and planning churches, and there is no written New Testament, so all you have is the people that he trains. That's it. And so he's writing letters and he's training people, and he's trying to leave this u Truly, that is the New Testament for us, and we praise God for that. But think about the urgency. People are being killed. The apostles are dropping like flies. They're being beheaded, they're being burned, they're being crucified, run through with spears, beaten to death, with the branches of an olive tree boiled in oil. This is what's happening to the apostles. And there's no written New Testament. So Paul sitting here in prison waiting for his head to be chopped off, and he says, we gotta get this to somebody. We gotta get this to faithful men who can get it to faithful men, who can get it to faithful men so that they can survive. That's his sense of urgency. And I want to tell you we need to have the same sense of urgency, because just because we have a written New Testament doesn't mean that people aren't wandering away from it. We live in a country where people will love equally John Owen and Joel Ostein and not be able to tell the difference. Amen somebody. That's the culture we live in. We live in a culture where a guy can actually make it to the top of the New York Times Bestsellers list selling a book to Christians saying have your best life now. And Christians don't sit up there and read the title and go, hey, wait a minute. Only way I can have my best life now is if I go to hell. You know what's sad. There are more people who get offended by be calling joel Ostein's name than they do by him butchering the gospel. It is urgent. People are accumulating for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires. They are not enduring sound doctrine. They are wandering off into myths. And so we must have this commitment, first of all, to the content what you heard from me. We must have a commitment to apostolic teaching. We must have a commitment to apostolic teaching. Notice what he says, look back in chapter one and go back up to it. Let's start at verse nine. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share and suffering for the gospel by the power of God. Who saved I love that share and suffering for the Gospel by the power of God. It's an amazing thing because the press, barity teachers have us thinking that when we're suffering, that somehow the power of God is not with us, because if it was with us, then we wouldn't be suffering. Paul says, we're suffering by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, well because of His own purpose and grace which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the age began, before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our savior, Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher. Which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that He is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. Now listen to this verse thirteen. Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit and trusted to you. So follow the pattern of sound words. Folks, you can teach using the Bible, but not be following the pattern of sound words. Chapter two and verse fifteen. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved a worker who has no need to be ashamed rightly handling the word of truth, which means you can wrongly handle the word of truth. You see, the dangerous thing that Paul is talking about in chapter four is not individuals who come out and proclaim outright lies. People don't fall for outright lies. What they fall for is the meat of a lie in the skin of the truth. So the most Jewish teachers in the world today are not the ones who openly and blatantly deny orthodox Christian doctrine. They're the ones who use Christian terms but pour different meanings into them. They're the ones who open the Bible and actually read Bible verses when they're teaching, but they're ripping those verses, kicking and screaming out of context. Those are the most dangerous individuals. And this is why we have to have a commitment to Apostolic doctrine. This is a common Pauline theme second Thessalonians two fifteen. So, then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. Titus one nine, talking about elders. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. It's my job to name the names of those who contradict sound doctrine and endanger the sheep. That's what a shepherd does. This is a pattern in the New Testament. Hold on firmly to the Apostolic teaching and at the same time warn people about false teachers. Paul names false teachers by name by name. This is why it's very important for us to make commitments to that which we believe, and why confessions are even important. This is what is meant by that pattern of sound words in Chapter two, verses eleven and thirteen. The saying is trustworthy, for if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him he will also deny us if we are faithless. He remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. This is one of the earliest confessions in the Christian Church. It became an early hymn and an early confession and part of early catechisms. The second thing we look at is the context, not only the content. With the context, this is a corporate proclamation. He says, in the presence of many witnesses, what you've heard from me, in the presence of many witnesses. Here's what we've come to believe. You need doctrine for people who are training for ministry, but you need practical teaching for regular Christian people. So if you're interested in ministry stuff, then you need to know doctrine. Then you need to have preaching with theological words and so on and so forth. But everybody else just needs ten ways to have a happy life and five ways to reduce stress, and you know, four ways to be a better neighbor, and so on and so forth. You can't say, man, you ought to say ouch, okay, But this is what we think. Here's the selfishness. Here's us turning in on ourselves. We don't want to work hard, we don't want to be responsible for and accountable for sound doctrine. Just give me some practical, pragmatic tools that I can go home and have a better night tonight than I did last night. Just teach me, just teach me, Just teach me how to get my kids under control. That's all I want. I just want my kids under control. That's it. So just tell me a few steps to make my children behave. What's the problem with that. The problem with that is your children misbehave because they're sinners and their problem is not behavioral, their problem is spiritual. How do they overcome that spiritual problem through the gospel, which is doctrine? Amen. So if we because we've done this, because we've done this, because we've sort of taken this same approach to church as we've taken the marriage, and because it's just all about how I feel, and it's all about you know, me just getting revved up every week so so I can feel better throughout my week. I just want practical stuff, you know. I just want, you know, stuff that I can use. I just want. Don't give me all that doctrine stuff. Don't give me those big, you know, ten dollars words I don't need any of that stuff, not trying to go to seminary, not trying to be a theologian, not trying to don't give me any of that stuff. Well, here's what happens. A sound teacher gives you something that you have to chew on and digest, and you go, I really don't like that. One of the prosperity preachers gives you something really practical but theologically bankrupt, and you go, see, that's what I need. And because you haven't built your theological understanding, you don't even know that you're going off into a myth. You have no idea. See, people who live with clearly marked borders don't wander off and to where they're not supposed to go. Doctrinally and theologically, we must have clearly marked borders. So one of the ways that this changes the way we think about church is that we don't think of the church as something that just sort of exists for me to sit here and just you know, get my feel and get things that are not theological, and get things that don't make me stretch and get things. We don't think about church that way. Why, because one of the jobs of the church is to preserve and proclaim sound doctrine, to observe the pattern of sound words, and to teach you those ten dollars words, and to teach you what they mean because they're important. And so we actually hinder the church when our attitude is don't give me no doctrine, give me no theology, just give me practical. Again, that's when you're in danger. The Muslims can give you practical. The Mormons can give you practical. The Jehovah's witnesses can give you practical. Buddhists can give you practical. Hindus can give you practical if all you want is practical. But they're practical is based on a worldview and a theological system that is antithetical to biblical truth. And if you continue down that practical road, ultimately you end up in ruin and don't even know how you got there. Thirdly, there is the commission to entrust it to faithful men and trust to faithful men. This must be intentional and purposeful. We teach it to all men, but we only entrust it to faithful men. What does that mean? Well, that means not everybody gets to be a teacher, Amen, lights Not everybody gets to be a teacher. We must be selective, gifted men, called men, qualified men, tested men. It's because in the pastoral epistles, this is what we're told. We're told to look for gifts and men. We're told to look for men who have a sense of call, and we are told to look for men who have a sense of qualification and look for men who are tested. We short circuit this. Why do we short circuit this because basically we have come to a place in the mintern American Church because we've been carried off into myths. And one of the myths that we've been carried off into mysticism, and so we believe anyone who thinks they've heard the voice of God has a calling that we can't question. Well, I know it's what God called me to do. Really, huh, that's interesting because God gives specific directions in the New Testament for the church to identify individuals who've been called. There are certain qualifications that you have to meet. Funny how you say God called you, but you don't meet the qualifications, And I'm supposed to take your word over God's word. Funny how you say God called you but we don't see the gifts, and we're supposed to take your word over God's word. Funny how you say God's called you, but you haven't been tested, You haven't done anything. Beware of the man who loves to stand up and teach but won't pick up a broom because he doesn't love the bride. He loves the sound of his own voice. Men must be tested, Man must be tested. Why Because this is a huge responsibility. This is why we're told not to lay hands on hastily because it's a huge responsibility. And this means that we, as members of the Body of Christ, all have a role to play in this process, in encouraging and evaluating. All of us have a role to pandon process. No man has the right to live on a spiritual island as it relates to his calling, because ultimately his calling is to the bride. A man saying God's called me and ignoring what the church says is like a man saying she's gonna be my wife and ignoring what she says. Amen, it's just as ridiculous. Ultimately, unless the bride calls you, you're not called. This is a heavy responsibility, it's huge. This means we need to be praying for people, supporting people, encouraging people, testing people, denying people. It's different, isn't it. It's different than I just want to go to get I want to go to church, I want to wat spiritual shot in the arm. I just want to get through another week. Don't mess with me with all. I don't want no doctrine. I don't want to know what's going on. I don't want to know where. You say that, Okay, fine, you say they called a whatever. I'm not a part of that. This is way different, isn't it. It changes the way we think about the charge. And then there's continuity. Who will be able to teach others? Also, that's our goal. That's why the rest of these steps are important, because the goal is that these individuals will be able to teach others. Also because what we're about is that continuity and multiplication. Why is that important? I gave you the numbers related to the United States, and we're in the best shape of anybody else in the world. We need thousands, thousands to answer the call. Around the world, we need millions to answer the call. Let me connect this to the point before so that you make sure that I make sure you understand what I'm saying. Commissioning and looking for gifted men, called men, qualified men, and tested men has to do with making sure that they're able to teach others. Also, what we've come to is a place where we believe that we're supposed to look for credentials instead of qualifications. And there's a difference between a person who has credentials and a person who has qualifications. You can have credentials and not be qualified. So that's not the point. That's not the point. And I know a lot of individuals who are gifted and called and qualified and they've been tested, but they won't go and serve, mainly because they're hypocrites. What do you mean by that? Okay, fine, watch this. So you take the person the person who says, well, you know, I just don't I don't have much book learning, and I don't know. They've been in the church their whole life. They got five Bibles in their home. They can read it, you know, they can stand up and teach the Bible and handle the Bible. They have leader of leadership positions in church, so on and so forth, godly men, godly families, but they just don't want to. They just don't. They just don't want to do that. They're not qualified to do that. You take that same man and you take him outn't I don't know. You take him wherever, take him, take him, take him, Take him to Mozambique, Tanzania, wherever. Now, all of a sudden he's on the field there. Take him to South America, taken to Brazil, take him to Peru. And all of a sudden, when he's on the mission field, he sees a burgeoning church. And when he sees the burgeoning church, he sees men in that virgeining church who step up, men who are just leaders. They love the Lord, and they serve, men who read their Bibles and pray, and men who can stand and teach in simple terms to God's people. And in Mozambique, Tanzania, Peru, or Brazil, that person will look at an individual who doesn't have as much Bible knowledge as he does and say that person needs to be a pastor. Huh, you've had the Bible longer, you know the Bible better, and you're satisfied with them leading a church for those people. But you think you're not qualified to lead here. You're a hypocrite. Do you think less of those people than you do of these who not. And that's usually not the case. It's usually not the case that these people are just racist or they're just not whatever, you know, and they think, yeah, whatever, those people are just you know, give them anybody. Usually that's not what they think. They're godly people who, when they're not thinking about themselves, can actually be objective and analyze gifts, calling nobilities. But when you're thinking about themselves, there's always the hurdle that I haven't jumped over yet. Are you able to teach others the faithful word, the trustworthy word because you know it and because you're committed to it. Do you serve the bride because you love the bride? If that's the case, take a weapon, man a post, and stop sitting and soaking while other men do the work that you're obligated to do yourself. For some of us, it's just time to man up. Continuity is important. Listen to Calvin. He again shows how earnestly desirous he is to transmit sound doctrine to posterity, and he exhorts Timothy not only to preserve its shape and features as he formerly did, but likewise to hand it down to godly teachers, that being widely spread, it may take root in the hearts of many. For he saw that it would quickly perish if it were not soon scattered by the ministry of many persons. And indeed we see what Satan did not long after the death of the Apostles. For just as if preaching had been buried for some centuries, brought in in numerous reveries, which, by their monstrous absurdity, surpassed the superstitions of all the Heathens, we need not wonder therefore, if Paul, in order to guard against an evil of such a nature and of such a magnitude, earnestly desires that his doctrines shall be committed to all godly ministers who shall be qualified to teach it. There are people in peril all around us. There are people who are being carried off by every wind of doctrine. Those, as Paul says in chapter three, we're deceiving and being deceived. There are people who just won't endure sound doctrine. And yet we have this mandate, this mandate that we would take the faithful words that we have heard in the presence of many witnesses and entrust them to faithful men who will be able to teach others. Also, if we take that perspective as it relates to the church, it changes things. You know. One of the things that changes it changes what I'm willing to endure. I don't just get up and leave somewhere because of personal preferences. I don't notice that when there is a place where God is at work, where there is a commitment to raising and training and sending godly leaders and preachers, when there is an emphasis on multiplying gospel impact at home and around the world, there is a lot less bickering about the color of the carpet and what song we sang last, because there's so much more to get done, and so much more that is of weightier importance than those other things. My prayer for you, as it is for me, as that we would love the church and that we would serve the church, but that we would do so from a mindset that recognizes that the church exists to multiply. That we would hold even our most favorite ministers and teachers and leaders with open hands, always being ready and willing to celebrate should God see fit to take them. Somewhere where people need them more than we do, And there's always somewhere where people need them more than we do. We are so incredibly blessed. I mean, we're overly blessed. We're abundantly blessed. It's not even funny how blessed we are. My wife and I were in Australia last month for a couple of weeks, preaching all across the country on the West Coast and the East Coast, and it was amazing to be in a place there's roughly two thirds the size of the United States. Again, their population is not that large, much smaller than ours, but it was amazing to be in a place where I would go to you know, you go to the West Coast and you're preaching there, and you know tell them, you know, yeah, we're going to be on the East Coast, and they knew within five or ten people who we were going to be with, because there was only that many people on the East Coast of Australia who were actually Orthodox. And when we then go to the East Coast and they found out that we were on the West Coast, they knew within two or three churches who we've been working with because there were only two or three orthodox sound churches in the western part of all of Australia. We have such an over abundance. It's incredible. It's incredible. We need to praise God for it. But in addition to prising God for it, we need to release it, and we need to release it gladly, and we need to have a posture that says we're always ready to release it gladly, and we're always ready to be released gladly. It's always tough to lose people, it really is. I mean, as a pastor, I mean it's just tough when people go, but when they're going to something, it's something tough that you celebrate, it's hard and it hurts. It's like, wow, it would be so much easier if we had that extra elder right now, if we had those extra leaders right now. You know, there's a church being planted and you know you got you know, she got this rising star preacher dude that you're going to send out and you know, forty to fifty people with him. By the way, among the forty or fifty people who go with him, you want first stringers, right, you want first stringers. So what does that mean. That means the next week you get to come stand up in church with one less leader and minus forty or fifty of your strongest people. Ouch. Ouch. And after you say ouch, you say, what a blessing that that can happen and we can still go on. God is so good because now the ministry and the impact is being multiplied somewhere else. Praise the Lord. Let's train up some more. But that doesn't happen automatically, and it doesn't happen if you just think about the church in selfish terms. I need, I want, I wish, I hate, I love. We have got to love the Bride of Christ with an open hand, and we have got to have as a priority for all of us, for all of us, because it can't just be a priority in the pulpit, but it's got to be a priority for all of us that we are a place that proclaims and preserves sound doctrine and is willing to endure anything that we have to in order to do that. Because if it's if it's just a commitment in the pulpit and not within the culture of the church, then here's what happens. Back to what I said before, there's a commitment to teaching sound doctrine. There's a commitment to equipping the saints and sound doctrine up here, and then out there it's just yeah, more big words, more theology. Can you just give me something practical, folks, There's nothing more practical than theology, because how you live is determined by what you believe. Let's pray, Dear God, our Father, we bow before you, recognizing that we are a selfish people, recognizing our own sinful tendency to view everything through the lens of our desires and our wants, and it just like children who would eat cereal and candy and ice cream every night if they were allowed, we would soak up cotton candy Christianity. But just like those children who have a desperate need for a balanced diet, your children need the whole counsel of God, because your church exists to proclaim and preserve the whole counsel of God, and our lives are built on the whole council of God. Grant by your grace that we would embrace this reality and be willing to endure the suffering that will follow inevitably as a result, Father, I pray that you would protect your people from wolves who would devour them with almost truths, who would devour them with practical realities based on aberate theology, who would devour them with how to's based on heresy. Grant that your people would know your word, so that we might that we might not be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. And God, would you raise up faithful who will adhere to sound doctrine, who will embrace sound doctrine, and who will instruct in sound doctrine, and who will pour their lives into other faithful men who will do the same, to the end that the world may know, and that Christ might have the fullness of the reward for which he died. This is our prayer, this is our hope, this is our desire, and we ask it in Christ's name, Amen. Pat