Hey, so I heard an illustration recently that I think will be helpful as we jump into Titus chapter 2. So turn to Titus chapter 2. Titus chapter 2 is on page 1,100 if you got a Bible from an usher. Page 1,100. While you're turning there, I want to ask you, what is the mission of Redeemer Bible Church? Do you know what it is? Our mission as a church is to help as many people as possible know, love, and serve Jesus. Now Jesus left us his own mission statement. It's Matthew 28, 19 and 20. He said, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. So these were his last words before ascending back into heaven. This is the job description that he's given to every church. I believe it'll be one of the main verses that he will use to evaluate every Christian on our judgment day. What was your part in my mission statement, he will say. How did you contribute to its fulfillment with your time and your talent and your treasure? Now without going a little too Greek nerdy on you, the command in bold here up on the screen is make disciples. These are learners, adherents, advocates, people who are trusting in him to save them, people who've given their lives to him and who follow him. Now the Greek is also clear that how we make disciples are these three words now in bold yellow. So you and I make disciples by going, baptizing, and teaching. What we did is we just reworded go, baptize, and teaching with the words know, love, and serve. So when someone comes to know Jesus, that means they're saved. John 17 3 says this is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you've sent. And so when they know Jesus, that's eternal life, and then after that, they get baptized. Then they grow to love Jesus, and that corresponds to obeying what he said. John 14 15, Jesus said, if you love me, you will what? Do you know? you'll keep my commandments. And then when someone is serving Jesus, they're going to people wherever they are, even on the other side of the world to help them know, love and serve Jesus. So we exist to help people know, love and serve Jesus. And by doing that, we're being obedient to our King. We're experiencing his presence as we make disciples. Now I say all that to say, everybody here has a relationship to that mission. You either buy into that mission or you don't. And you either have involvement in accomplishing that mission, or you don't. Make sense so far? Now here's the illustration. Let's think about Redeemer like a cruise ship. And the mission statement, helping people know, love, and serve Jesus, that's our destination. That's where we're headed. So what do you call people on a boat who are bought into the destination and who are involved in helping people get to that destination? On a boat, you would call them the crew. They're the most important people on the ship. There wouldn't be a ship without them. They wouldn't be going anywhere without them in a church. These are the ones who are here, who give, who serve, who are involved, who are making the ministries that we all enjoy, are making them possible. That's part of the covenant that members sign when they say we want to be members. They sign a covenant to say we're going to contribute our time, our talent, our treasure. We're going to be crew members here. Now, what do you call people who are fully bought into the destination on the ship, but they're really not involved all that much in what's going on in the ship? Well, you would call them passengers, right? Passengers are great in some respects. There's no ship without passengers. You want passengers. But in a church, they're here, but they don't help out much. They consume. They don't contribute. Now, what do pastors know that would be best and be a blessing for the passengers? Pastors know what's best for them is to go from being a passenger to what? Being a crew member, being a crew member. Now, what do you call people who aren't bought into the destination and aren't really involved either? They just jumped on board. They're kind of trying to stay anonymous. In boating terms, you would call this person a stowaway. In a church, they don't care where we're headed. They're probably here because someone else is making them be here. They're just along for the ride until some other ride comes along, and then they're going to jump on that one. The hope for stowaways is at least they'll become passengers, right, who will have some kind of buy-in to where we're going, then hopefully they'll become crew members who get involved. Now pastors tend to think stowaways, they're the bad people at church, but listen, they're not. They're okay. They're typically not engaged in doing harm to anybody, and that's a good thing. No, the bad people on the boat are the people who are highly involved in the activity taking place on the boat, but they haven't bought into the destination. They don't like where they're headed. They kind of think they should be in charge and directing where it should be going. They don't like how we're getting there, who's driving. They see themselves as on board, think they should be in charge, they're not, so they cause problems with other people on board. What do you call someone who's involved but is actually hindering the work of getting to the next destination because they have a different destination, they have a different mission in mind, what would you call them? You would call them pirates. They're the hardest people to deal with on the boat, or in this case, in the church. Those are involved in ministry, leading small groups, leading ministry, serving people, but they don't agree with the mission. And they use their position, they use their influence to cause mutinies. They talk about being warriors for truth and justice, but they gossip, they lie, they slander, they disobey countless scriptures and help other people disobey countless more scriptures. Pirates. These are the most dangerous people. So what's the best thing for a pirate to do? Best thing for a pirate to do is either surrender or walk the plank. Right? There can't be people involved in the work of ministry but aren't bought into the mission that God has given that particular church and given the leaders that God has called to that particular church. Now why do I say all of that with a much longer introduction than I normally have? To say this one thing. Paul left Titus on the island of Crete to deal with pirates. Pirates had filled the churches on that island. They were against the mission. They were against the ministry. They were against the teaching. They were against everything. And they didn't just leave. They didn't walk the plank and get out of there. No, they were intricately involved in all of these churches all over the island. And that's why Paul left in there. Chapter 1, verse 5 says, I'm leaving you there to straighten these things out. I'm leaving you there because there are people, chapter 1, verse 10, who are insubordinate, who don't submit to the Bible, who are deceivers. Verse 12, they're liars, beasts, lazy, gluttons. Verse 15, they're defiled. Verse 16, they deny Christ by their actions. In addition to living lives like pirates, they're false teachers. So they'd taken in spiritual poison and then they were injecting that poison into the churches so that chapter 1 verse 13, they stopped being sound in the faith. Instead of the Bible, they devoted themselves to myths and commands from heretics. And notice verse 5, chapter 1 verse 5, this isn't just a problem in a couple isolated churches on the island. No, this was a problem, quote, in every town where there was a church already established. The churches of this island had become these wretched hives of just awful false teaching and just the scum that it produces. And just in case you haven't noticed, our culture is quickly becoming the same thing. A culture that is calling evil good and good evil. A culture that's becoming more and more insane with every passing day. A culture, just as easily as the pirates on Crete, could be described in the words of chapter 1, verse 16, as detestable, disobedient, and unable to do good. So the question for all of us as we set that context is how do we respond to that? What do you do with that? What do I do with that? How do we respond to all of that? How do we live in that kind of culture and not just get overwhelmed by the avalanche, overwhelmed by the tidal wave? of evil that has come our way. Well, let me tell you this. The first thing that you don't do as a Christian is you don't see yourself as above the culture, right? Because the reason that we're not, we're looking at the culture instead of submerged in the culture is only by God's grace. That's it. That's the only reason your eyes are open. You quote unquote figured it out because God in his grace opens your eyes. Second, we don't become like the culture, which is what was happening on the island of Crete, which is why Paul left Titus there. It's also why we need the book of Titus is because that's where Christianity in our day seems to be going, embracing the culture, becoming like it. Third, we don't disengage from our culture either. We don't run away and hide. We don't sit in fear. No, we're just as much a part of this culture as anybody else. And so we engage. The question for us is how? How do we survive? No, better, how do we thrive as a church in a dying culture? That's the question that Paul is answering for Titus in this book. How do we flourish while the culture around us is decaying? How do we live godly lives in an ungodly world? That's the rest of Titus. See, Titus chapter 1 is about criteria for Christian leadership. Titus chapters 2 and 3 are about the conduct of the Christian life. So what that life should look like begins in chapter 2 verse 1. Chapter 2 verse 1 should be read like the heading over the rest of chapter 2 all the way to chapter 3 verse 11. It's the heading over everything. Everything in the rest of chapter 2 all the way down to 311 points back to chapter 2 verse 1. So let's take a look at it. Paul says to Titus, as for you, Titus, teach what accords with sound doctrine. This verse begins with four words, as for you, which means, compared to the false teachers that I've been describing, Paul says, at the end of chapter 1, Titus, you be the exact opposite. 180 degree different. Don't take anything they say, don't take anything they do as an example for how you should live. Be the exact opposite of that. The words, as for you, but as for you, are front-loaded in the sentence, which for the Greek nerds means that Paul is stressing the contrast. He's making sure Titus knows, do this, do not do that. And he was supposed to be the opposite in two ways. In his life, and in his theology and his thinking. He's saying, Paul is saying, be nothing like those false teachers. Don't imitate them. Don't teach what they teach. So what is that for us? How will we as a church thrive in a dying culture? We will do so when point number one, we reject life theology and ministry direction from non-Christians. reject life theology and ministry direction from non-Christians. Remember, Paul is saying, Titus, those non-Christians in verses, chapter one, verses 10 to 16, those non-Christians live like this, you do the opposite. Those non-Christians teach these things, you do the opposite. These heretics, these false teachers, these pirates who are undermining the truth and undermining the ministry on the island there, Titus, you are to be opposed to them. You are not to learn from them. you are to teach what accords with sound doctrine. Now, if we take a step back and say, okay, what is sound doctrine? Okay, what does that phrase mean? Sound doctrine, you can look at chapter one, verse nine. Sound doctrine is what the apostles taught. Those who follow Jesus or close to Jesus, who learned from Jesus, it's what they taught. So where do we have what the apostles taught? Well, today we have it right here in the New Testament, based on the Old Testament. So what we're seeing here is Titus, devote yourself to what accords with the Bible. In other words, these four little words, but as for you, are a line in the sand, they're a spear, they're just a gauntlet being thrown down on this efficiency of Scripture. Titus, you don't take your cues, you don't need anything from false teachers when it comes to their life, their theology, or their ministry, nothing at all. Reject all of it Titus you be the exact opposite of them for your life your theology your ministry and Christians listen We need to do the same thing Would you mix poison with water and give it to someone who needs help? Of course, he wouldn't then why are we so quick to mix chapter one, verse 14, the myths and commands of people who turn away from the truth with God's pure word? Why are we so quick to do that? We saw this in Titus 1, 9. As Christians, we must hold, all of us must hold firm to the faithful word. In other words, our allegiance to the Bible must be, has to be uncompromising. Now, why are commands and advice and counsel and insights from people who reject Christ? Why is it so valued and admired and obeyed and propagated, especially by pastors in our day? Why do we run everywhere else for help and go to the Bible last? Why is giving someone in need? Why is it when we give someone in need a Bible verse that's called bashing, but when we give them worldly shallow false ologies or ossiphies, that's called real help? Do you ever wonder that? Why do we think the hardest personal and interpersonal problems cannot be fixed by the one who shared his personhood with us when he knows what makes us tick and whose word, it says, makes us adequate, equips us for every good work? Why do we think the key to ministry success, whatever that means, is found in the business world and not the biblical world? Why are pastors taking their cues from political theory, not biblical truth? Why are they following advice from biased God haters while mocking, rejecting, and shunning true Christian pastors and teachers? Now, can non-Christians teach truth? Of course. I learned two plus two equals four from a non-Christian. If my leg is broken, if my car breaks down, I don't care if the person, the doctor, or the mechanic is a Christian. I want them to be honest and do a good job. However, in the areas where the Bible speaks, namely salvation, the Christian life, theology, ministry, listen, non-Christians have nothing that we have to hear. Nothing at all. At best, it may be interesting, mildly insightful, but the vast majority of their advice should be, in the words of Titus 1.13, rebuked sharply by the truth, not imbibed and propagated. Oh, pastor, that is so, you know, first century. That is so close-minded, bigotous, fundamentalist of you. Now listen, what's embarrassing is Christians, even pastors, being closed-minded to the Bible and open-minded to every form of error. That's embarrassing. All while considering themselves enlightened, nuanced, and discerning. There's absolutely no nuance in chapter two, verse one, those first four words, but as for you. There's wrong, here's right, go there, reject that. And there's absolutely no discernment in thinking you're smarter than but as for you. Well, I can just kind of mix truth and error and have my own truthful thing. No, you can't. So where are we going for advice? Where are you running for the secrets to success and truth and self-help and wholeness and happiness and peace? But as for you, stay away from those who are insubordinate to the one that you call Savior and Lord. What they're saying is empty, chapter 1, verse 10. They're deceivers, not truth tellers. The source is defiled. The source is insubordinate. So what comes out of them is going to be rebellious. And then when you imbibe that, you take that, you embrace that and seek to live in light of it, it will pull you farther from Christ, not draw you closer to him. In your heart, in the words of chapter one, verse 11, you should silence their advice for your life. You should silence their idea of God and the Bible and truth and human personhood and eternity. You should silence what they say if you're a ministry leader about here's what church should be like and here's what pastors should do. You don't need that from a non-Christian. Reject it. All of it. Why should there be no mixture? Why should Christians, why should the non-Christian advice be rejected? Look back at chapter two, verse one. Look at those two little, those three little words in verse two, what accords with. He says, Titus, teach what accords with sound doctrine. That phrase, what accords with, is going to set the tone for chapters two and three. What accords with speaks of choice, actions, behaviors that fit, that are in line with sound doctrine. So here's the teaching, here's the living, and they match. That's the idea. The teaching of the apostles is the standard, and the behavior that's going to be outlined in chapters two and three, it is to conform to that standard. So when the culture is dying, teaching is the antidote. When the culture is crumbling on the island of Crete, Paul says to Titus, hey, he doesn't say, hey, try to prop that up with a bunch of programs. Try to make it better on the island of Crete. He says, no, teach. Teach what accords with sound doctrine. That word teach is a command. That means the substance that Titus and all pastors are to constantly be putting before their people, notice, it is to be in accordance with sound doctrine. There's sound doctrine, there's sound living, that alignment must be one. Teach that. So you are thriving. I'm thriving in a dying culture when point number two, you make sure your life doesn't discredit your savior. Make sure your life is in accord with sound doctrine, not out of accord with sound doctrine. In other words, how we live and what we believe should match. We should not say one thing about our theology and live a different way in our life. Our behavior must correspond with our beliefs. Right living comes from right teaching. That word sound in chapter 2 verse 1 means healthy. So healthy doctrine, healthy teaching, healthy theology produces healthy living. You see, doctrine apart from life, that's arrogance and hypocrisy. Life without doctrine, that's relativism. That's kind of choose your own adventure, live however you want to live. And that's arrogance too. The solid, the sound, the healthy teaching of the Bible produces solid, sound, healthy lives. When? When we think and say and do what the Bible says. When we don't read the Bible and go, it's about 20 centuries past all this stuff and we're a lot smarter now than they used to be. No, these words are the words of God, who we just sang earlier is omniscient, knows everything, is far smarter than we will ever be. May the words of Romans 2 never be said of you, never be said of me. Quote, you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You say that one must not commit adultery. Do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, dishonor God by breaking the law. For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. Listen, we must not, in the words of Titus 1.16, profess to know Christ, but deny him with our works. No, for us, it must be Philippians 127. Our lives are to be, quote, worthy of the gospel. You know what that means? It means that if you're a Christian, you are a dual citizen of earth and heaven, and that in the conflict between those two worlds, heaven must win. That's what it means to live a life worthy of the gospel. We should never live in ways that are inconsistent with our commitment to Christ. Or look at chapter two, verse seven. Paul writes to Titus, show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works. He wants to be a role model for young men, especially for those young men on the island to follow. That word show in verse seven has the force of a command. The word yourself is emphatic. It isn't let somebody else show you, it's hey, the responsibility is on your shoulders to be an example, to be a model to other people. And so he's saying, Titus, embrace the responsibility and actually be a model. As a pastor to all of these churches, his life, notice verse 7, in all respects, in all that he did, he said, you are to be a model because his life was going to be like a, I don't know, like a hammer. And as his life and ministry is working on the people in the room, it's creating dents in their lives that look just like him, that he is to be a mirror of the doctrine that he teaches. that people look at him and go, if I follow that I'm gonna be healthy, I'm gonna be strong as a Christian. They were to pattern their lives after him, not the culture around them. Which sadly, this whole book we're gonna see, is what they were doing. Looking at the culture instead of looking at Christ and going, that looks like a lot better thing to follow. Not Christ. No. Paul said, look, Titus, your life will have little impact if it is not a mirror for your doctrine, that your life is an apologetic, your life is a defense for what you teach. Like all pastors, he was to be a preacher of truth and a pattern of good works. But listen, it's not just pastors. We've seen it in previous messages. It's all of us. We should all be concerned that our lives are not hypocritical, that we're not unsaying with our lives what we're saying with our lips when we tell people that we're followers of Jesus. We slit the throat of our commitment to Christ with unholy, ungodly lives. To put it differently, Paul wants Christians on Crete in 63 AD and God wants Christians in Gilbert in 2019 AD to love the truth and live the truth, not either or, both and. It is unbiblical to think lightly about the ethical commands in the New Testament. Jesus did not teach as so many pastors do today, and neither did Paul. Neither of them assumed the gospel and just taught on the Christian life, nor did they just assume the Christian life and only teach the gospel. They taught the truth, they taught the gospel, they taught grace, and they knew that as they taught grace, they needed to talk about the Christian life because it was grace that would produce a godly Christian life. And how do I know that? Drop down to chapter two, verse 12. Let's start in 2.11, chapter 2, verse 11. It says, the grace of God has appeared. And now the grace of God does some things. It's bringing salvation for all people. That's the first thing. God's grace brings salvation to people. But second, God's grace, verse 12, is training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. And it's training us to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. So the more you understand grace, the more that you are overwhelmed by God's grace, the more that you take His grace into your heart, the more that you're amazed at the cross, and you look at that, and you meditate on it like we did before, and we think, that's not just a historical event, but He died for me. The more that you embrace His grace, you know what's gonna happen? You will say no to ungodliness. You will say yes, you will be trained to be self-controlled. You're out of control. How do you become controlled? Grace. Verse 12 again. How do you go from just being awful to being upright, following God's word? Grace. How do you live a godly life, a life committed to Christ? Grace. The tree of truth in the soul produces the fruit of holiness in the life. In other words, you have to, I have to embrace the fact that we are all billboards. We're all billboards for Christ, whether we like it or not. And we are constantly advertising that this is what a follower of Jesus looks like. This is what it looks like when Jesus saves you and takes control. This is how a Christian thinks. This is how a Christian talks. This is how a Christian acts. And pastors, or those of you who want to be pastors, you are to think of yourself as the player coach. You're not just in front of people telling them, hey, this is what God says, but you actually have to do what God says. Constantly modeling the healthy life that healthy doctrine produces may be the most important part of what it means to be a spiritual leader. And that's not just true for pastors. Husbands, fathers, you are the spiritual leaders of your home. This is the main reason why kids, when they get freedom, leave Christianity, because they watched parents on Sundays be one way and the rest of the week be something else. We must be consistent. You must live consistent lives. So to your coworkers, your friends, your kids, your grandkids, your family, the people on your softball team, you are saying Jesus will do this in your life too. So we're to live godly lives as you see up on the screen there. It's living godly lives for the ungodly world we live in. This is how we thrive in a dying culture. This is how this church, this is how you as a Christian can be healthy while the culture is weak and sick and dying. This is how we flourish while it decays. We live lives that show Jesus is alive and well in front of the people who we get to interact with. They see our lives, think He's great, hear the truth, give their lives to Him and are saved. And then they leave from that, go into their world, live lives, hear the gospel, other people hear the gospel because they watch their lives and they get saved too. And it just keeps going and going and going since the first century. This is how we flourish in a dying culture. Now, look back at chapter two, verse one. I wanna dig a little more into this idea of sound doctrine. As I said before, the word sound means healthy or whole. It's a word used of people's bodies after Jesus healed them. But when it comes to ideas, this word means free from error, free from corruption. It means correct or accurate. In chapter 1, verse 9, sound doctrine is what corresponds to what Paul taught Titus. So sound doctrine is the teachings of the apostles, which we have right here. So sound doctrine is the Old and New Testament. Sound doctrine is the Bible. It's free from error, it's correct, it's accurate, it produces health, spiritually speaking. God uses it to bring spiritual health to those who are dead in their sins. And God uses the Bible to continue to give spiritual health to those after he's saved them. So by the power of the Spirit, using valid rules of contextual interpretation, the Bible will make a person spiritually healthy. It'll keep them spiritually healthy, but Not by osmosis. Only as we learn it and then we live it. That's how. That's how we are healthy spiritually. That's how we remain healthy spiritually. We're learning it and we're living it. We're believing what it says and we're doing what it says. And that is why Titus is commanded in verse 1 to be a teacher of one book. To be a teacher of only one book. In the face of all the myths and all the commands that come from unbelieving minds, he is to focus on the book, the only book that came from a perfect mind, the mind of God. And he is to persist in teaching the Bible, regardless of anyone else does or thinks. He's to preach the word in season and out of season, 2 Timothy 4.2. You know what that means? Whether it is the coolest thing in the world to be a preacher of the Bible, or whether it gets him killed, is to just keep preaching. In the shifting sands of a dying culture where one day something is right and the very next day it's wrong. In the shifting sands of our lives where one morning everything looks great and then by the afternoon the whole world is falling apart. Where, how can you thrive in the midst of that when your life or when our culture is just burning itself down? Point number three, you do that when you anchor your life theology and ministry to the Bible. Anchor your life in ministry and theology to the Bible. Not to tradition, not to a man, not to an organization, not to your feelings, not to psychology, not to some philosophy, not to some critical theory. Anchor it to the Bible. Don't deviate, don't intermingle, don't forsake. Just stay there anchored, cemented, firm in the Bible. Listen to Malachi 2.7. Quotes, the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth. Why? Because he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. A pastor does not have his own words, nor does he take words from other people. He's not a messenger for other people. He is a messenger for one person, and that person is the Lord. He just simply says what he's been told, and what he's been told is in his word. If you put God's truth before Christians in your teachings, 1 Timothy 4, 6, quote, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus. You take your teachings and it's God's word and you give that to the people that you get to lead. You will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. No pastor wants to be a bad servant of Jesus. Yet that's what they are when their lives, their theology, and their ministries aren't anchored to the Bible. Notice in the middle of chapter two, verse seven, in your teaching, show integrity, dignity. When a pastor who is anchored to the Bible, when he teaches, he will show integrity. That's a life that is pure. That's a life that's not motivated by, it's a life that is, whose motives are uncorrupted by sin. So power must not motivate him. Applause must not motivate him. Money must not motivate him. Influence must not motivate him. Also, when teaching, a pastor anchored to the Bible will show dignity, verse 7, which means a seriousness, a gravitas, that inspires respect. Listen, people won't take the Bible seriously if the person teaching the Bible is coming across like he doesn't take it seriously. In other words, he's not smiling about hell and cracking jokes about forgiveness of sin and fearing God. He's not crude, he's not flippant. He's sobered by the reality of his calling and he acts and teaches appropriately. Now look at verse eight. Titus is to show sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. Those words, sound speech, that word is literally sound word, a sound message. The sound message, the message that causes health and causes growth, that message is the gospel. And I think that's what he's saying here. that when you teach, the content of your message must be the gospel, it must be sound, healthy, able to be built up, or, look at the text, so much so that it can't be condemned. Now look, people are gonna condemn the truth all the time, especially those in rebellion against it. The point here is there'll be no statement about the truth or about a ministry or about a person's life that will stick, because what he says, the gospel that he says, is sound, can't be condemned. It's not open to rebuke because it's correct, it's healthy, it's true. And all he's doing is simply just regurgitating what the Bible says. When he does that, look back at the text, anyone who opposes him will be put to shame. That's a word that Paul uses to say that they will be shown their error with the hopes that they will turn from their error, turn from their opposition and be saved. So when a pastor's life is in accord with sound doctrine, and when what he's teaching is a sound word, even false teachers, end of verse eight, will have nothing evil to say about us. They won't have any accusation that can stick because whether it's their life, or their teaching, or their ministry, it's anchored in the Bible, which is sound, correct, and true. As soon as a pastor moves away from the Bible and starts to advance his own ideas or the ideas of other sinful men, he stops being a messenger, which means he stops being a good and solid pastor. In other words, his life is theology and the ministry that comes out of his life in theology stops being biblical. And all of that, all of it, must watch what Jesus said, what the apostles wrote down, or he's going to open himself up to being condemned. Instead of biblical life, biblical theology, biblical ministry produces a healthy life, produces a healthy family, produces a healthy church. Most churches in America, listen, stopped anchoring people's lives in theology and ministries to the Bible a long time ago. Most churches this morning, If you were there, you would not have heard the Bible at all. You would not have heard the gospel. You would not have heard how to be forgiven of all your sins, no matter what you've done. You would not hear that. You would not hear about a God whose arms are open, willing to receive you when you turn from your sins and give your life to Christ. You would hear about social causes, human philosophy, therapy, self-esteem, relativism. You'd hear about a deism that neuters God, turns him into some doting, half senile old man. turns Jesus into a live and let live hippie. And many people, pastors, churches, denominations that started out as Bible believing, listen, are currently following that trend. New form of apostasy sweeping our churches, but it's really the old form of apostasy that says, you know what? That Bible stuff, that's just so old fashioned and dumb. This is a modern age and we need modern answers for modern people. What agreement does Christ have with Satan? Any? Is there any? Is there like a little mixture? Do they high five on anything? Hey, we're both fans of the Cardinals. We high five on that? Is there anything that they agree on? Then why do we take the satanic substitutes that are just being pumped out there and go, oh, that sounds so good. We should take that and mix it with the Bible and help people. We're not gonna help anybody. Why are we afraid of anchoring our lives and our theology and our ministries to the Bible? I'll tell you why. Because we're afraid of what the world is going to think about us. We want the world to like us and admire us. The thinking is if they like us, they'll like Jesus. Listen, when you separate yourself from the Bible to win the world, you lose the world and you lose the favor of God. It's like flirting with someone other than your spouse and expecting your spouse to be OK with it. Who would do that? God is not okay with anything less than a life, a theology, and a ministry that is anchored to the word that he inspired and has preserved to this day. And it is appropriate we're talking about this today, because I don't know if you know it, on this day in 1536, William Tyndale was burned at the stake. Do you know what his crime was? His crime was taking the Greek and the Hebrew and translating it into English. About 70%, I've been told, of our English Bibles is just a copy of William Tyndale. You have a Bible in your hands, not to mix it. Not to mix your life, to mix what you think about this world, not to mix it with a bunch of error and lies. You have this book, so you will anchor your soul, your life, your thinking, your theology, and if you have the privilege and your ministry to what this book says and only what this book says. Amen. This is just the beginning of what it looks like for us to thrive as individual Christians and for us to thrive as a church when the culture is dying all around us. We'll see more next time. Let's pray.